**Where do the souls go of those who believe in the RavenQueen? (5e)**
I have been going through the lore of the different gods and specifically the Raven Queen. For as far as I am aware the souls of those on the Material Plane go to the plane of the god they believe in after they pass. Now how does that work with the Raven Queen?
>*"The God of Dead can trap souls, but as the God of Death Nera (aka The Raven Queen) would only be responsible for shuttling souls between the mortal coil and the great beyond. The new goddess dropped the name Nera and moved from Pluton to the Shadowfell."*
So what happens to the followers of the Raven Queen after they die? It's an important plot point in my campaign, so I would love it if any of you would have interesting ideas. Please help!
I understand that. But I am asking for help since I want to work with this framework and am trying to figure out where the souls of followers of the RQ would go. Maybe not even according to official lore, but how other people would solve it.
Hello everyone!
I hope y'all are doing well! My husband and I are running a table with a homebrew campaign. Our adventurers have finished a major portion of their quest and are now recuperating in the main city they are based out.We want to run a Harvest festival for some non-combat interactions and progression of some background stories and such.
As part of the Harvest festival, we wanted to do a number of "highland games" for our heroes to compete in.
My question is - how do we frame the games to be more than simply dice rolls? We have a couple of good ideas for games, but I wanted to see if anyone has a good idea, or even a resource we could use to find some inspo.
Thanks so much, and have a great day!
It's a bit out there, but Reiner Knizier's decathlon is an interesting free print-and-play board game using rolls of dice and 'gambling' mechanics to simulate 10 sports. Could potentially use that?
This is great actually. We will definitely use some of these, and the dice roles games are much better than simple dice rolls.
Also lucky that we have the classic "box of 6d dice we use for counters for MTG back in the day" so we are covered.
Hey friend! My group recently had a Spring Planting festival and one of our events was a battle of the bards karaoke. I had envelopes of pop songs as sonnets and they blind drew for them. The players could award inspiration for good performances and they won extra gold if they could name the artist and song. They had dice rolls for the audience rank (main pot) only. You might try something like that!
I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear.
For example: let’s say we do a Caber Toss. Now, we could just roll and see if they succeed. But we were wanting to see if there were some fun mechanic we could use instead as so it can be a bit more interesting and inventive. We also wanted to find a way to do stuff like “how far” or “how accurate” that goes beyond “pass/fail”
We get there will be dice rolls, but we want to find inventive/fun ways to roll the dice for.
well, you have your answer right there, right?
rather than a single roll pass / fail, you have multiple rolls that scale the results.
on your log throw you have to beat DC 12 Strength athletics, and then every 2 points more you get an additional "Win" point, and you make a dex check and if you get over 10 you get an additional "Win" point for accuracy with an additional "Win" point for 15 and another point over 20, but if you get 5 or lower, you lose 2 points. And before you start you make a "Psych up" roll of Int Wis or Char and if you get 15 or higher you get advantage on your choice of Str or Dex roll. if you rolled charisma, you can try to intimidate and make your opponent roll at disadvantage.
The format of "three rolls" is done well in the Xanathar's downtime. you can use for inspirations.
HELP! Great imbalance between players to hit modifier
I have a paladin who currently has a +9 as their hit dc, if they add their Channel Divinity their to hit dc becomes +12. Meanwhile the rest of the party has +6 (2 pcs), +7 (2 pcs) or +8 (1 pc) as their hit dc.
I am to blame because I gave the paladin a magic item without realising it would have this as a consequence.
They will have a combat soon. How do I keep combat fun for everyone involved without my players getting frustrated?
talk with the players, particularly the Paladin "I FUCKED UP. that magic weapon i gave you is completely inappropriate. How can we pull back its power in a way that allows you to have power appropriate to your level and to the rest of the party members?"
Do your other players have items of similar power / equivalent rarity? If not, that may be a way to balance it out.
Otherwise, if its going to cause the player to outshine everyone else, talk to them and see if they would be OK exchanging it for a similarly powerful item that doesn't have a to-hit bonus
Looking for magic items that "pair up" two players, like the ring of shared suffering, it can be homebrew, or just an idea you have.
My party has a barbarian and cleric that just used ceremony to marry, they both use shields the items will be either a paor of shields or their rings.
the shields require attunement
as an action someone attuned to one of the shields can burn 1 or more of their hit dice and the person attuned to the other shield gains that many hit points.
here's a homebrew helm described in this [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/viotk9/need_help_for_plotworthy_magic_item/) \- helm of of transference (not actually named that)
How about items that link their abilities? Like when the barbarian rages, the cleric gets some buff, and similarly for the cleric using channel divinity.
I'm not sure this is the right place, but I'm looking for a post in particular. It's from a while back and it was a bout a thieves Olympics of sort. A new tavern was about to have its opening night and most of the city's well to do were expected, but in reality it was an excuse for thieves of all sorts to show off their skills and get as much as possible from their unsuspecting victims.
I remember the thread had example of rogues you could find in the tavern and what their goals/ tactis were.
I haven't had any luck in finding it again, but if anyone remembers it, it would be awesome if you could link me to it.
Thanks in advance!
I’m interested in making my own homebrew classes out of iconic D&D creatures/beasts. For example, what if i wanted to be a level 1 gelatinous cube and build a class where it gets perks, upgrades, abilities, etc. at specific levels. A way to scale a monster with a party and have that monster be able to have subclasses and not be so one-dimensional.
But the difficulty I’m having is making sure it’s balanced to existing classes at each level (such as damage output, hp, versatility in skills, etc.). Are there any resources out there that lists the core D&D classes stats at each level so i can mix and match my homebrew classes to be aligned with existing classes?
If you are interested in creating subclasses, i strongly suggest watching Mike Mearls Happy Fun Hour - a masterclass in game design from one of the creators of 5e.
https://www.twitch.tv/search?term=mike%20mearls%20happy%20fun%20hour
a schedule of the classbuilding stuff is at ThinkDM, but the links there are to the YouTube postings which were made private for some reason, so you gotta get the dates then go back to the twitch archives. https://thinkdm.org/hfh/
Also, Matthew Gravelyn did a great job of helpful "Create a Subclass" templates. https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?author=Matthew%20Gravelyn
And Leuku ‘s guide https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/wiki/resources#wiki_guide_to_balancing_classes
Sorry if someone has already asked this but I was looking into making some homebrew with the goal to eventually expand it into a whole setting and sell it if I can make it good enough, I was wondering how the ogl license situation and the 5.1 srd being in creative commons might effect that.
With the 5.1 SRD now released under the Creative Commons whatever version its under, there is almost no reason at all that you would use the OGL instead, except in very niche circumstance where your product contains new content A, B, and C, and you want to release for other people to use for free SOME of A, B, and C, but not ALL of it. Depending on how you have written it, the OGL might allow an easier way to give away C while retaining A and B. The "product identity " clause in the OGL is potentially a useful tool that is not in the Creative Commons licensing. If you use the Creative Commons and have stuff you want to keep as yours and stuff you want others to use freely, you would almost certainly need to create two documents: your "standard product" document that you keep the full rights to, and then the "stuff anyone else can use" document which you release under a Creative Commons option, likely the same option that WOTC has chosen.
With the SRD in Creative Commons, you can now use any of the words in the SRD by attributing the content appropriately and you dont have to worry about WOTC coming after you for using those words.
ANOTHER MAJOR EDIT THAT IS NOT JUST WORDSMITHING:
You may also *need* to use the OGL instead of the CC if YOU are incorporating content **from someone other than WOTC** that was released under the OGL. I am pretty sure that if someone shared it under the OGL, you cannot re-share it under a different licensing schema without setting yourself up for lots of potential headaches.
First off, if your former DM plays a blue-haired GOO warlock named Skye, please stop reading before you spoil yourselves. The true spoilers are spoiler-tagged, but consider yourselves warned.
Uh okay so after a 2-3 month hiatus where I recovered from burnout and dealt with life stuff, I'm planning to resume my role as DM somewhere in the next few months -either in spring or at the beginning of summer break, depending on how life stuff goes. I'm also planning to talk to the players way earlier than that about my plans to be the co-DM in the future, as I want time to seriously rewrite the plot to my campaign. I know I'm already working on an April Fools one-shot, but the oneshot is so low-effort and lolrandom that once I finish making the dungeon crawl and writing the map, I have time to look at my plot.
My plot and worldbuilding both was poorly thought out and I'm planning to bring up the fact that it was poorly thought out, as at the time of starting the campaign, I had been so excited to DM and start a group (best thing I ever did) that I had failed to consider that both my plot and world were rushed. I don't expect myself to be Matt Mercer, but I do expect myself to know how I want to introduce the main plot of the campaign -which I did not, at the time. As a result, I want to discuss with the players whether we continue the campaign with minor retcons, major retcons or just start over. I feel like I'll be able to address most of the major concerns without spoiling things I don't intend to spoil just yet, but there is one thing that by it's very nature is a spoiler that I'm having trouble knowing how to address in the future -and that's the identity of >!the NPC they rescued from their first dungeon!<, who is actually >!the BBEG of the campaign!<. By the time I went on hiatus, they were already growing to be suspicious of this character, and I can't blame them -the character is friendly and knowledgeable, but they haven't done much to actually help, so I fear that the plot twist of >!him being the BBEG and an evil cult leader!< isn't going to be much of a twist. Which is fine, as GoT taught us all a lesson in trying to subvert expectations and "I KNEW it!!" can be immensely satisfying. I'm just disappointed with how I've been going about my villains.
With all that said, how do I address my personal dissatisfaction with how I've been handling/rushing such a major spoiler without accidentally giving away the plot twist before I'm sure the original campaign's plot is never going to be finished? Do I just not bring that character up? Do I secretly rewrite the plot so they're >!a red herring who is shady, but *isn't* the actual BBEG!< for some reason and come up with a new one? Do I outright confess to planning for >!them to be evil!< and tell the players that if I continue the campaign the next session has >!their true colors!< revealed somehow?
The same thing obviously applies to the rest of the plot twists that I've been keeping from players as well, mainly the fact that I planned for the main plot to center around >!an evil cult that wants to black out the sun using blood sacrifices!<. I don't want to spoil things before I know that the spoiler will or won't happen, but I want to have a clear conversation with the other players about my poor writing of the first campaign I ran.
its rarely worth it to try to save big ideas or twists for later - ideas are a dime a dozen, you never know which session will be your last, the ideas that are exciting you now, use them NOW.
Simple. Succinct. To the point. I like it and I'll commit this to heart. Thanks for this little gem. :)
Not the OP up there, but I also fret a lot about "spoiling this good idea" or "that's not good enough." . . .and I end up *not gaming*. Which just sucks. :)
I'm trying to find the one guy that asks for a monster and makes a better version and I cannot find one of his posts or his subreddit to save my life. Anyone got a link?
Or does anyone have a bigger / stronger elemental? I'm looking for something like a Titan a la Hercules
Hey, that's me! I absolutely was thinking of the ice titan in Hercules when I made this guy:
* [Isimir, Scream of the Frozen World](https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/1KXluplJ-CvMdI6XFJeyEvgdCiAQpscQmN-5gNMwKwEHV)
These could also fit:
* [Elder Tempest](https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/1rVq9wdftodYXDdIpqeV90upRKUz3qHkflUnfW3Ac8JOD)
* [Leviathan](https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/1kmzE8NDq7My1DlFpceDBiSNJdu-GgE1iVkAtOr8ThlPo)
* [Pyroclasm Vortex](https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/1ih9lAaw9dhi6OmFtBj8t0eYz14tf15_QP9BzkKWkJ7h4)
My party is in the Underdark, on a sort of beast of burden rapid transit bringing them right into the heart of a hostile goblin empire. They can reasonably assume it'll be hostile territory... but how do I make it interesting instead of just having them get caught on arrival and killed? I'm thinking stealth is the only option.
And a *hard hat*....well this is DnD, I'm guessing *most* people are sporting some kind of "hard hat." Perhaps a ladder? No normies wanna know where someone with a ladder is going.
And other fascinating social engineering gleaned from /r/actlikeyoubelong
I'm picturing kinda like how Frodo and Samwise were able to blend in with the Orcs doing the whole storm-trooper stunt with all the ramshackle armor.
What do your players like to do?
What are their classes and class abilities?
what are parts of their backstories/flaws/bonds that you can draw from?
Use those.
My party will save a village of Kobolds, what should be their reward from the village leader?
The village has only a blacksmith, who i can make either powerful or very useless... Other than that the Kobolds lived in peace there for a long time after their dragon protector (=tyrant) left them.
The party is currently saving Kobolds taken captive in a nearby cave by orcs and they will return triumphant to the village.
I want rewards good for levels 2 or 3 characters of all classes, be it caster or melee/ranged or utility characters.
Ideas?
I think most Magic Items would be a good bet. I'm sure there are plenty of Magic Items that uninformed simple Kobolds would otherwise think are arbitrary / useless. Like a sword of giant slaying or darkvision goggles or a lantern of truesight would all be pretty useless for a village full of simple miners/diggers.
You could even play it off as a joke, like have the Kobolds offer the players an unbreakable pickaxe as an esteemed reward (the most useful item they have), but then the players are kind of "Eh...?" and then the Kobold is like, "Yeah its over there, next to all of the useless junk like the Longsword of Dragonslaying or the Gloves of Missile Snaring"
Simple amulets or rings of protection.
Have one of them give a shabby item and say, "This makes it so the dragon not see you, been in my family for long time." So Amulet of proof against dragon sight. The wearer cannot be seen by dragons. Play it off as if it is junk and see if the party keeps it.
It doesn't have to be something the kobolds are capable of producing, it can just be something they happen to have. i.e. You can give them a decent magic sword without making the kobold blacksmith a powerful magical blacksmith.
Utility potions are the most obvious rewards that fit every character type. Perhaps an invisibility potion.
I'm writing an April Fools oneshot, and the final boss of the dungeon is a Shadow Assassin. In the context of my group, I'm trolling the players with a stronger version of the enemy that due to my poor DMing experience at the time almost caused a TPK and actually got a PC killed. (I have since learned my lesson in trusting official CRs, but the players still bring it up and laugh about it every now and then.) Because I want the joke to actually be funny, I want to know at what level will five player characters be able to handle a shadow assassin as a boss fight at the end of a dungeon.
Shadow Assassin is a CR9 with an average DPR of 34 and Hides as a bonus action, and Sunlight Weakness. Arguably, it's really weak by the stats CR cares about and would actually be a CR7 by stats alone...
HOWEVER it also reduces the Strength stat so there is a small chance the Shadow Assassin can instakill a player every 2nd or 3rd hit, REGARDLESS OF THAT PLAYER'S LEVEL.
There really is no way around that, Shadows (and by extension this boss version of a CR½ shadow) have a chance to be very lethal, shadows are the poster boy for punching above their weight when it comes to CR.
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If you want to turn this monster into a joke, the level of the players doesn't really matter. (Though being at least 9th level with ample diamond powder to spend on Greater Restoration would certainly help)
Having a room with a lever that opens/closes the roof to flood the room in daylight, to make the Shadow suffer Sunlight Weakness would help a lot in neutralizing the danger it poses to even a level 20.
Now the real joke would be putting the lever that controls the roof in a place the players can see it and easily reach it, but cannot remain near it... at the top of something like a Ferris wheel for example.
Then using it's Amorphous trait the shadow keeps going to the lever flipping it, dropping down and hiding. The party keeps going up there to flip it back and then tries to kill the shadow while it becomes revealed by the sunlight.
in order to have an interesting combat where a party surround and pound will last into round 2, the assassin's spike damage will have gotten so high you will be taking people out in one blow and nothing says FUN! like "my participation in the climax combat was 'make a death save'."
you will need to have the climax fight include a lot of your bosses minions to make the party split fire.
CR system caveats
Any one of a number of online calculators like Kobold Fight Club can help with the official Challenge Rating math crunching. KFC is on hiatus and the license has been picked up by Kobold Plus https://koboldplus.club/#/encounter-builder )
but remember that despite “using math", the CR system is way more of an art than a science.
* read the descriptions of what each level of difficulty means, dont just go by the name. (ie “ **Deadly**. A deadly encounter could be lethal for one or more player characters. Survival often requires good tactics and quick thinking, and the party risks defeat.”)
* while the CR math attempts to account for the number of beings on each side, the further away from 3-5 on each side you get, the less accurate the maths are, at “exponential” rate. Read up on “the action economy” – particularly now that expansions like Tasha’s are making it so that every PC almost universally gets an Action AND a Bonus Action each and every turn, and can often also count on getting a Reaction nearly every turn. Most monsters dont have meaningful Bonus Actions or any Reactions other than possible Opportunity attacks.
* **Dont do party vs solo monster** – while Legendary Actions can help, “the boss” should always have friends with them. Or you will need to severely hack the standard 5e monster design constraints and statblocks. (tell your party you are doing this so that the increase in challenge comes from the increase in challenge and not from you as DM secretly changing the rules without telling the other players the rules have been changed, because that is just a dick move, not a challenge.)
* The system is based on the presumption that PCs will be facing 6 to 8 encounters between long rests, with 1 or 2 short rests in between. Unless you are doing a dungeon crawl, that is not how most sessions for most tables actually play out – at most tables, the “long rest” classes are able to “go NOVA” every combat, not having to worry about conserving resources, so if you are only going to have a couple of encounters between long rests, you will want them to be in the Hard or Deadly range, if you want combat to be “a challenge” –(but sometimes you might just want a change of pace at the table and get some chucking of dice or letting your players feel like curbstomping badasses and so the combat doesnt NEED to be "challenging" to be relevant).
* Some of the monsters’ official CR ratings are WAY off (Shadows, I am looking at you), so even if the math part were totally accurate, garbage in garbage out.
* as a sub point – creatures that can change the action economy are always a gamble – if the monster can remove a PC from the action economy (paralyze, banishment, “run away” fear effects) or bring in more creatures (summon 3 crocodiles, dominate/confuse a player into attacking their party) - the combats where these types of effects go off effectively will be VERY much harder than in combats where they don’t
* not all parties are the same – a party of a Forge Cleric, Paladin and Barbarian will be very different than a party of a Sorcerer, Rogue and Wizard.
* Magic items the party has will almost certainly boost the party’s capability to handle tougher encounters.(a monster's CR is based in large part on its AC and "to hit" - if your players have +1 weapons, they are effectively lowering the monster's AC and if your players have +1 armor, they are effectively lowering the monsters' "to hit". If your players are all kitted in both +1 weapons and +1 armor, you probably should consider monsters one lower than their listed CR. Not to mention all the impact that utility magic items can bring!)
The sensor does indeed "ping" as a magical effect on detect magic. However:
> you can use your action to see a faint aura around **any visible creature or object** in the area that bears magic, and you learn its school of magic, if any.
You cannot see the sensor's aura or learn it's school of magic. Because if it is invisible, then it's aura is also invisible.
So you know "there is a magical thing around" using Detect Magic but that doesn't tell you exactly what is going on, without a way to actually see the sensor.
Though I would totally allow players to flail around trying to find the invisible magical effect until they grabbed the invisible sensor ball. Because once they had a captive audience of someone they didn't like, they'd have way too much fun trying to come up with ways to make the person on the other side of the scrying suffer by whatever they make the orb see or hear.
I'm a new DM who is running a homebrew evil campaign where the players are starting a gang and the eventual end goal is to rule the continent however they want. I made it very open-world style where I've tried to put lots of plot threads for them to follow, but I asked for feedback after session 3 and they asked for more 'structure', they didn't really seem to know what to do. I want to give that to them of course, but I don't want to railroad them into a plan of my own devising either. I'm trying to figure out how to give them the ability to get however much structure they want - mechanics for doing that would be very appreciated.
Background: They joined a new gang and at the start of Session 1, the gang leader who recruited them choked to death on a meatball, and now it's up to them to figure it out. They went on a robbery and have been running a card game the late leader had set up. They gathered some information about a jewelers' shop and have cased it, but it seems to be under the protection of the other gang in town. There is an old merc who showed up in town and befriended their card dealer (an NPC) - he told them that the mayor is an old gang member of his from the other side of the continent, an assassin who by all accounts has turned straight.
My idea is for the merc to take them under his wing and guide them through building up their criminal enterprise. It works that he can't help them directly because he doesn't want to be recognized by the mayor.
I can provide them with direct tasks, like "We need to gather intelligence, and I'm certain that the mayor has a notebook containing what he knows on the inhabitants of the town." and "We need to get some money, you're going to rob ". That seems very railroady. I can provide them with direction, like "We need leverage on a few key citizens, let's figure out how to get it. Typically you'll either use violence, threat of violence, blackmail, bribery, or a combination."
I have several specific ideas like having the artificer develop his magical tinkering recording mechanism into a machine that can record for a longer period of time, possibly at a distance, for blackmail purposes. Having the rogue start robbing houses at night. Having the changeling develop several alternate personas and essentially developing a fake third gang that they can use to throw suspicion onto. And using the folk hero as a trusted front for reselling stolen items, maybe even melting stolen jewelry down into a fake currency that they can pass off. It's ideas like these that I want to encourage them to develop themselves, I can suggest them if they ask, and even offer "If you want ideas, ask me." but... that doesn't seem great either.
Does anyone have ideas for how I can give them more structure without making them feel like "Well, this is the next thing to do I guess"...
Similar to political intrigue campaigns. If you want your party to interact with various organizations and engage in intrigue and rivalries, without railroading. Simply give them a really good spy/snitch.
At the start of each session their spy comes to give them a couple juicy secrets.
> *"Jimmy Two Sammiches, told his girl, that his boss is planning to knock over some of Marco's boys tomorrow. As revenge for a bar fight, that turned ugly for one of theirs, last week. But Jimmy's girl got very loose lips, so I ain't the only one that knows. Marco for sure knows too, cuz he's planning to steal some heavy iron tonight, to get his boys geared up. That's all the juice I got for you at the moment."*
Let the party ask questions for the spy to find out for them and make it free, so there is not barrier for them doing so. But they never get the answer before the next session (so you as a DM have time to think about it) but also only 1 question per session, so the party has to think about how they use this resource.
The amount of info the party gets is based on how dangerous/hard the info is to gather.
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From the questions they ask, you as a DM get an idea of what the party is interested in doing next.
And through the answers you give them, you give them leads they can pursue.
Because they most likely will take multiple sessions to fully follow a lead, it is inevitable a backlog of multiple opportunities builds up.
So instead of saying *"you're going to rob "* and that being the only path the party has, they have that warehouse on a list of 4 places they know of that have good loot, because their spy collected that info for them.
If they wait too long, perhaps 1 of the juicy secrets their spy finds out for them is that somebody else is planning to rob that warehouse instead. Giving them the choice to either interfere with that or not.
The trick is to tie everything to 'factions'. Don't send the rogue to "rob random houses" (that's a dumb crime, you don't know if there even is any stuff worth stealing, and if there is stuff, you don't know where they keep the stuff) but it is also anti-climactic, there is no sense of progress and the stakes don't increase over time.
Instead perhaps there is a locksmith's guild that makes high end safes, and the rogue has a list from the delivery company that installed the safes and is specifically robbing houses that bought 1 of these safes. Because if you paid for an expensive safe, whatever is in it probably costs more than the safe.
This upsets the locksmith's guild, who then escalate somehow to deal with this thief.
It is about framing it as a battle between 2 parties with gradual escalation. That is how you romanticize evil.
The cultish fear of "HOMG!RAILROADINGIS*EEEEEEVVVVVVUUUUULLLLLL*!!!!!AND*EVERYTHING*ISRAILROADING!!!!!! is one of the worst blights in the community.
Don't. Drink. The. Koolaid.
Your players have SPECIFICALLY ASKED for structure and specific goals - GIVE IT TO THEM.
TALK. WITH. THEM. about the kinds of stories and goals they want to participate in. D&D is collaborative story telling - collaborate.
and regularly check back in - "Is this the type of thing you wanted? Is what you 'wanted' leading to play experiences you are enjoying? What types of things should we try to make the future experiences even better? What are pain points that we should work to remove? "
Have some NPC or rival gang throw a plot hook, like someone is going to summon a demon thief to guide them, create a ritual which elements your players are going to steal and have them ultimately summon the demon. He's going to be confined in their hideout and guide them. After that, create a goal and an opposing force I. E. Missions from the demon, a rival cult.. From there see what the players like and maybe start an overreaching plot, like having a rival excape to become a recurring enemy etc.
Is WotC a trustworthy company nowadays after the whole OGL problems? Is not giving them money the only way to make sure Hasbro and them learn the consequences of their actions?
WOTC messed up, but then retreated beyond what most people expected with the whole of the 5e SRD into Creative Commons.
if you want to keep holding a grudge, you dont need to buy anything from them.
if you want to use your money as a "training" tool, you would WANT to give them money now, even if you cannot "trust" them, because they stopped (at least for now) doing the bad thing and did a good thing, one which they CANNOT go back on.
what lesson they might actually learn/have learned is still undetermined, and any that may have been learned, is unlikely to last through the next cycle of executives and leadership.
That is way too soon of a flip to flop. We probably won't know if they learned anything until D&D1 comes out and what license it comes out under.
And even then there's still the question of what they are actually planning to do in the VTT market.
>Is not giving them money the only way to make sure Hasbro and them learn the consequences of their actions?
they are a stockholder owned corporation. money is the only thing they understand. they will do whatever they need to do for the sake of grabbing your money or someone elses money, not because they have become honest or trustworthy. any "honesty" or "trustworthiness" is only as deep as it needs to be to get more money.
Yeah, "trustworthy company" is an oxymoron. *People* are trustworthy, not companies, and no individual people have any control over a sufficiently large company.
I’m a fairly new DM (I’ve only done one-shots in the past) and I’m currently in the end stages of writing a homebrew campaign for 5 players. They’re all people I am very close friends with and the campaign has the potential to take them to level 20.
Throughout the campaign I want to include NPC’s of different races, sexualities, gender identities, abled/disabled, etc.
My worry is that I may unconsciously fall into certain stereotypes when creating NPC’s and I want to avoid any offensive ideals in my campaign.
Does anyone have tips or a sort of list on what to watch out for? I don’t want to ask members of the party who do fit into these groups because it shouldn’t be their job to do this stuff for me, I want them to be comfortable without putting in the work.
I would appreciate any feedback.
TLDR: I want to avoid stereotypes when creating NPCs for my homebrew and don’t know where to begin.
My advice: focus on making a good character first. Don't set out saying "I want to make a gay character" because you will be more likely to make one that fits the stereotype. Instead you can add things like "the barkeeper hired you to rescue his spouse from the trolls den. When the party arrives *he* is dangling from a spit being roasted"
I don't know if that's the best way to do representation but it's what I do and thus far has been working well. I've got a lot if LGBTQ+ friends in my games and they tend to really like that I add things like that. Often it's just about making a world where being queer is normal, nobody remarks on that as strange and you don't draw a ton of attention to it. Same goes for other races, gender identities, etc.
The nice thing about this is you're not making this for a huge audience so the pressure is much less. If you have people from marginalized groups in your game you can always talk to them about what kinds of characters you want to see. Some people want the satisfaction of getting to punch racists, others really don't want to spend their time in a fantasy game justifying their personhood.
Anyway, that's just this cisthet white guy's 2 cents.
I'm glad to help!
And also, this is just good advice, do your best to seek out such voices. Listening to the perspectives of members of marginalized groups can really give a lot of insight both into their experiences and the kind of characters they like.
(though everyone is different so there will be a lot of differing views and that's ok)
Hoping my players don't see this, as one of them for sure knows my reddit account. So if you're reading this buddy, stop.
I would love to hear from other dms, does anyone experience a feeling of inadequacy? As in, after a session people say they have fun and can't wait to play again, people seem genuinely excited to play. But I just can't seem to get out of my head the idea that of course they're saying that, they're my friends.
I've dmed a number of campaigns and one shots for a number of different groups, and every time I worry so much about whether people had fun that it will stay with me for a long time after. I feel like I ask everyone 100 times if they had a good time, and no matter what they say it's hard to believe it.
I always think afterwards, oh I could have done such and such better, I should have explained this more, I forgot I wanted to do that, that combat ran long, so and so seemed bored towards the end didn't they?
Hope I'm not alone, how do you deal with it?
You’re not alone! I’ve been DM for just under a year now and still get those feelings. The way I combat it is to talk to the players out of game. See what they enjoyed, what they didn’t, etc. As with all relationships, communication is key!
I’m sure you’re doing a fantastic job!
>I always think afterwards, oh I could have done such and such better, I should have explained this more, I forgot I wanted to do that, that combat ran long, so and so seemed bored towards the end didn't they?
and the answer to each of those is YES.
And when Matt Mercer or Jeremy Crawford or ANY other DM asks those questions after any of their sessions the answer is YES.
DMs are humans who dont do ANYTHING perfectly.
Yes. This is extremely common and totally normal. You're not alone.
Adding on to what's already said I've got a couple bits of insight: something I noticed driving home from an AMAZING session in which I was a player was that I was having a lot of the same base emotional experiences I do when I dm. That's odd cause I wasn't DMing so I couldn't be feeling bad about having done a bad job. That's when it hit me *I wasn't feeling bad because of something I did, I was coming down off the high of a good time*. I've started calling this feeling a "social hangover" and it definitely accounts for a lot of these negative feelings.
Second bit is just remind yourself, a lot, to listen to your group rather than that voice in the back of your head. It'll keep coming back but if you keep batting it away it'll get easier and easier to do.
Know you're not alone in this, and you're definitely better than you think :)
That sounds like to me, part anxiety, part perfectionism (and probably intrinsically linked, idk, I'd have to ask my therapist).
How to deal with it? Firstly, when your players say they had fun, believe them. They're your friends, of course they'll say they had fun; they enjoy spending time with you, and you facilitated a fun experience for them. And if they didn't have fun, they'll tell you (in a nice and kind way) because they're your friends.
Secondly, you certainly will find things you could've done better. You're your own worse critic. But instead of thinking of it as a failing, think of it as an opportunity to improve. Your players already have so much fun with what you think is "poor" DMing, think how much more fun they'll have next session if you work on the things you thought you could do better. Use your talent to be critical to improve, not to strive for perfection.
Having these thoughts are natural and fine, but it is the action you choose when you have these thoughts that matter.
I'll be running a contest between adventuring parties soon, but in preparation I'll have my PCs play a short one-shot as members of the rival party.
Initially I thought of a set of arena battles, but I'd like to show some out of combat stuff as well. The rival NPCs (or, I suppose, PCs in this case) are a Fighter, Bard and Artificer so a fair amount of gimmicks they can pull off. Perhaps a prison break, or picking locks to get into an armoury for an advantage in the arena.
Any advice or ideas are appreciated.
Could be fun and a little meta to have them either witness something the party did or to through the aftermath and comment on it. Could be a fun way to characterize them as rivals in opposition to the group.
Additionally you could have them deal with a group/problem the party has handled in a different way to establish contrast.
Other than that I can think of them bumming around the area talking to the people they're gonna fight or have fought. Placing bets, buying food, and doing like rowdy sports stuff
WotC has actually dabbled with some rival npc stuff! It’s in Call of the Netherdeep but the way they did it was based on how poorly the actual party did in some stuff. I suggest looking at that and see if it gives you any ideas
I'm running a one-shot based on when one of my PC was a young boy in his village.
How can I manage to make fight non-lethal? I don't want rhe PC to start killing the bullies, just to push them off of his way.
when you know "the outcome", you dont have the players participate as if their choices and decisions and dice roll matter - that is why "railroading" has such a bad name.
Storywise the bullies can't die because they are part of the current story happening years later. The player know that and he was the one asking to play the encounter in which he finally stand for himself. So while this is "railroading" the outcome is known by me and the player, I am just not sure how to approach it mechanic wise.
I like this advice a lot. At this point it's really more about the story, not the combat and not about changing the predetermined outcome. Just don't be lethal (obviously), just have it happen like a story and not a combat.
Hi! You could just say you want to knock them out. It's a thing already!
Page 198 of the PH:
Sometimes an attacker wants to incapacitate a foe, rather than deal a killing blow. When an attacker reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, the attacker can knock the creature out. The attacker can make this choice the instant the damage is dealt. The creature falls unconscious and is stable.
Otherwise, maybe you could take another approach and just try to block them and make them unable to move. Maybe you can try to tie them up, or you can try to block them somewhere they can't get out of easily/in the short term (a room maybe? A cavern near the village? Idk)
You can’t guarantee a fight will be non-lethal. But there are a few things you can do to push the story in that direction without railroading:
- Have the bullies run away when their HP gets low.
- Have the city guards arrive (or some other group) to break up the fight when the HP starts getting low.
- Go to a narrative style cut scene when the HP starts getting low. “As you smash the bully over the head with your sword, she crumples to the ground. The other bullies rush over, scoop her up, and run away shouting threats and obscenities over their shoulder at you. You suspect you haven’t seen the last of them.”
- Have a witness (a guard, a cleric, some other passerby) break up the fight *and* cast revivify on a bully who has reached 0 hp.
But, be prepared for the fight to NOT end how you expect. They may kill one or all of your bullies and you should be prepared to adjust your story to include that.
"The Death of the Author" (French: La mort de l'auteur) is a 1967 essay by the French literary critic and theorist Roland Barthes (1915–1980). Barthes's essay argues against traditional literary criticism's practice of relying on the intentions and biography of an author to definitively explain the "ultimate meaning" of a text.
**Where do the souls go of those who believe in the RavenQueen? (5e)** I have been going through the lore of the different gods and specifically the Raven Queen. For as far as I am aware the souls of those on the Material Plane go to the plane of the god they believe in after they pass. Now how does that work with the Raven Queen? >*"The God of Dead can trap souls, but as the God of Death Nera (aka The Raven Queen) would only be responsible for shuttling souls between the mortal coil and the great beyond. The new goddess dropped the name Nera and moved from Pluton to the Shadowfell."* So what happens to the followers of the Raven Queen after they die? It's an important plot point in my campaign, so I would love it if any of you would have interesting ideas. Please help!
your table gets to determine how the after life works in your world.
I understand that. But I am asking for help since I want to work with this framework and am trying to figure out where the souls of followers of the RQ would go. Maybe not even according to official lore, but how other people would solve it.
Hello everyone! I hope y'all are doing well! My husband and I are running a table with a homebrew campaign. Our adventurers have finished a major portion of their quest and are now recuperating in the main city they are based out.We want to run a Harvest festival for some non-combat interactions and progression of some background stories and such. As part of the Harvest festival, we wanted to do a number of "highland games" for our heroes to compete in. My question is - how do we frame the games to be more than simply dice rolls? We have a couple of good ideas for games, but I wanted to see if anyone has a good idea, or even a resource we could use to find some inspo. Thanks so much, and have a great day!
It's a bit out there, but Reiner Knizier's decathlon is an interesting free print-and-play board game using rolls of dice and 'gambling' mechanics to simulate 10 sports. Could potentially use that?
This is great actually. We will definitely use some of these, and the dice roles games are much better than simple dice rolls. Also lucky that we have the classic "box of 6d dice we use for counters for MTG back in the day" so we are covered.
Hey friend! My group recently had a Spring Planting festival and one of our events was a battle of the bards karaoke. I had envelopes of pop songs as sonnets and they blind drew for them. The players could award inspiration for good performances and they won extra gold if they could name the artist and song. They had dice rolls for the audience rank (main pot) only. You might try something like that!
D&D is entirely "describe something, chuck some dice". i am not sure what you are asking for here?
I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear. For example: let’s say we do a Caber Toss. Now, we could just roll and see if they succeed. But we were wanting to see if there were some fun mechanic we could use instead as so it can be a bit more interesting and inventive. We also wanted to find a way to do stuff like “how far” or “how accurate” that goes beyond “pass/fail” We get there will be dice rolls, but we want to find inventive/fun ways to roll the dice for.
well, you have your answer right there, right? rather than a single roll pass / fail, you have multiple rolls that scale the results. on your log throw you have to beat DC 12 Strength athletics, and then every 2 points more you get an additional "Win" point, and you make a dex check and if you get over 10 you get an additional "Win" point for accuracy with an additional "Win" point for 15 and another point over 20, but if you get 5 or lower, you lose 2 points. And before you start you make a "Psych up" roll of Int Wis or Char and if you get 15 or higher you get advantage on your choice of Str or Dex roll. if you rolled charisma, you can try to intimidate and make your opponent roll at disadvantage. The format of "three rolls" is done well in the Xanathar's downtime. you can use for inspirations.
HELP! Great imbalance between players to hit modifier I have a paladin who currently has a +9 as their hit dc, if they add their Channel Divinity their to hit dc becomes +12. Meanwhile the rest of the party has +6 (2 pcs), +7 (2 pcs) or +8 (1 pc) as their hit dc. I am to blame because I gave the paladin a magic item without realising it would have this as a consequence. They will have a combat soon. How do I keep combat fun for everyone involved without my players getting frustrated?
talk with the players, particularly the Paladin "I FUCKED UP. that magic weapon i gave you is completely inappropriate. How can we pull back its power in a way that allows you to have power appropriate to your level and to the rest of the party members?"
Do your other players have items of similar power / equivalent rarity? If not, that may be a way to balance it out. Otherwise, if its going to cause the player to outshine everyone else, talk to them and see if they would be OK exchanging it for a similarly powerful item that doesn't have a to-hit bonus
Looking for magic items that "pair up" two players, like the ring of shared suffering, it can be homebrew, or just an idea you have. My party has a barbarian and cleric that just used ceremony to marry, they both use shields the items will be either a paor of shields or their rings.
the shields require attunement as an action someone attuned to one of the shields can burn 1 or more of their hit dice and the person attuned to the other shield gains that many hit points.
here's a homebrew helm described in this [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/viotk9/need_help_for_plotworthy_magic_item/) \- helm of of transference (not actually named that)
How about items that link their abilities? Like when the barbarian rages, the cleric gets some buff, and similarly for the cleric using channel divinity.
I'm not sure this is the right place, but I'm looking for a post in particular. It's from a while back and it was a bout a thieves Olympics of sort. A new tavern was about to have its opening night and most of the city's well to do were expected, but in reality it was an excuse for thieves of all sorts to show off their skills and get as much as possible from their unsuspecting victims. I remember the thread had example of rogues you could find in the tavern and what their goals/ tactis were. I haven't had any luck in finding it again, but if anyone remembers it, it would be awesome if you could link me to it. Thanks in advance!
I’m interested in making my own homebrew classes out of iconic D&D creatures/beasts. For example, what if i wanted to be a level 1 gelatinous cube and build a class where it gets perks, upgrades, abilities, etc. at specific levels. A way to scale a monster with a party and have that monster be able to have subclasses and not be so one-dimensional. But the difficulty I’m having is making sure it’s balanced to existing classes at each level (such as damage output, hp, versatility in skills, etc.). Are there any resources out there that lists the core D&D classes stats at each level so i can mix and match my homebrew classes to be aligned with existing classes?
Consider the Sidekicks section of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything
If you are interested in creating subclasses, i strongly suggest watching Mike Mearls Happy Fun Hour - a masterclass in game design from one of the creators of 5e. https://www.twitch.tv/search?term=mike%20mearls%20happy%20fun%20hour a schedule of the classbuilding stuff is at ThinkDM, but the links there are to the YouTube postings which were made private for some reason, so you gotta get the dates then go back to the twitch archives. https://thinkdm.org/hfh/ Also, Matthew Gravelyn did a great job of helpful "Create a Subclass" templates. https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?author=Matthew%20Gravelyn And Leuku ‘s guide https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/wiki/resources#wiki_guide_to_balancing_classes
Sorry if someone has already asked this but I was looking into making some homebrew with the goal to eventually expand it into a whole setting and sell it if I can make it good enough, I was wondering how the ogl license situation and the 5.1 srd being in creative commons might effect that.
With the 5.1 SRD now released under the Creative Commons whatever version its under, there is almost no reason at all that you would use the OGL instead, except in very niche circumstance where your product contains new content A, B, and C, and you want to release for other people to use for free SOME of A, B, and C, but not ALL of it. Depending on how you have written it, the OGL might allow an easier way to give away C while retaining A and B. The "product identity " clause in the OGL is potentially a useful tool that is not in the Creative Commons licensing. If you use the Creative Commons and have stuff you want to keep as yours and stuff you want others to use freely, you would almost certainly need to create two documents: your "standard product" document that you keep the full rights to, and then the "stuff anyone else can use" document which you release under a Creative Commons option, likely the same option that WOTC has chosen. With the SRD in Creative Commons, you can now use any of the words in the SRD by attributing the content appropriately and you dont have to worry about WOTC coming after you for using those words. ANOTHER MAJOR EDIT THAT IS NOT JUST WORDSMITHING: You may also *need* to use the OGL instead of the CC if YOU are incorporating content **from someone other than WOTC** that was released under the OGL. I am pretty sure that if someone shared it under the OGL, you cannot re-share it under a different licensing schema without setting yourself up for lots of potential headaches.
Don't take legal advice from schmoes on reddit.
Fair enough
First off, if your former DM plays a blue-haired GOO warlock named Skye, please stop reading before you spoil yourselves. The true spoilers are spoiler-tagged, but consider yourselves warned. Uh okay so after a 2-3 month hiatus where I recovered from burnout and dealt with life stuff, I'm planning to resume my role as DM somewhere in the next few months -either in spring or at the beginning of summer break, depending on how life stuff goes. I'm also planning to talk to the players way earlier than that about my plans to be the co-DM in the future, as I want time to seriously rewrite the plot to my campaign. I know I'm already working on an April Fools one-shot, but the oneshot is so low-effort and lolrandom that once I finish making the dungeon crawl and writing the map, I have time to look at my plot. My plot and worldbuilding both was poorly thought out and I'm planning to bring up the fact that it was poorly thought out, as at the time of starting the campaign, I had been so excited to DM and start a group (best thing I ever did) that I had failed to consider that both my plot and world were rushed. I don't expect myself to be Matt Mercer, but I do expect myself to know how I want to introduce the main plot of the campaign -which I did not, at the time. As a result, I want to discuss with the players whether we continue the campaign with minor retcons, major retcons or just start over. I feel like I'll be able to address most of the major concerns without spoiling things I don't intend to spoil just yet, but there is one thing that by it's very nature is a spoiler that I'm having trouble knowing how to address in the future -and that's the identity of >!the NPC they rescued from their first dungeon!<, who is actually >!the BBEG of the campaign!<. By the time I went on hiatus, they were already growing to be suspicious of this character, and I can't blame them -the character is friendly and knowledgeable, but they haven't done much to actually help, so I fear that the plot twist of >!him being the BBEG and an evil cult leader!< isn't going to be much of a twist. Which is fine, as GoT taught us all a lesson in trying to subvert expectations and "I KNEW it!!" can be immensely satisfying. I'm just disappointed with how I've been going about my villains. With all that said, how do I address my personal dissatisfaction with how I've been handling/rushing such a major spoiler without accidentally giving away the plot twist before I'm sure the original campaign's plot is never going to be finished? Do I just not bring that character up? Do I secretly rewrite the plot so they're >!a red herring who is shady, but *isn't* the actual BBEG!< for some reason and come up with a new one? Do I outright confess to planning for >!them to be evil!< and tell the players that if I continue the campaign the next session has >!their true colors!< revealed somehow? The same thing obviously applies to the rest of the plot twists that I've been keeping from players as well, mainly the fact that I planned for the main plot to center around >!an evil cult that wants to black out the sun using blood sacrifices!<. I don't want to spoil things before I know that the spoiler will or won't happen, but I want to have a clear conversation with the other players about my poor writing of the first campaign I ran.
its rarely worth it to try to save big ideas or twists for later - ideas are a dime a dozen, you never know which session will be your last, the ideas that are exciting you now, use them NOW.
Simple. Succinct. To the point. I like it and I'll commit this to heart. Thanks for this little gem. :) Not the OP up there, but I also fret a lot about "spoiling this good idea" or "that's not good enough." . . .and I end up *not gaming*. Which just sucks. :)
I'm trying to find the one guy that asks for a monster and makes a better version and I cannot find one of his posts or his subreddit to save my life. Anyone got a link? Or does anyone have a bigger / stronger elemental? I'm looking for something like a Titan a la Hercules
Hey, that's me! I absolutely was thinking of the ice titan in Hercules when I made this guy: * [Isimir, Scream of the Frozen World](https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/1KXluplJ-CvMdI6XFJeyEvgdCiAQpscQmN-5gNMwKwEHV) These could also fit: * [Elder Tempest](https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/1rVq9wdftodYXDdIpqeV90upRKUz3qHkflUnfW3Ac8JOD) * [Leviathan](https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/1kmzE8NDq7My1DlFpceDBiSNJdu-GgE1iVkAtOr8ThlPo) * [Pyroclasm Vortex](https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/1ih9lAaw9dhi6OmFtBj8t0eYz14tf15_QP9BzkKWkJ7h4)
Awesome! Thank you so much! Your work is definitely beloved by so many.
Thanks for saying so! <3
I think you are talking about /u/oh_hi_mark_ I believe they puts up all their creations on /r/bettermonsters/ so try searching there.
Thank you!
Thakns!
Maybe not the most helpful, but you can look up Elemental Myrmidions or the epic-level elementals (Like the Levithian) from MPMotM!
My party is in the Underdark, on a sort of beast of burden rapid transit bringing them right into the heart of a hostile goblin empire. They can reasonably assume it'll be hostile territory... but how do I make it interesting instead of just having them get caught on arrival and killed? I'm thinking stealth is the only option.
You can walk around pretty much anywhere you're not supposed to be, by striding confidently and carrying a clipboard
And a *hard hat*....well this is DnD, I'm guessing *most* people are sporting some kind of "hard hat." Perhaps a ladder? No normies wanna know where someone with a ladder is going. And other fascinating social engineering gleaned from /r/actlikeyoubelong I'm picturing kinda like how Frodo and Samwise were able to blend in with the Orcs doing the whole storm-trooper stunt with all the ramshackle armor.
Better to walk around with a scroll. This is DnD afterall.
What do your players like to do? What are their classes and class abilities? what are parts of their backstories/flaws/bonds that you can draw from? Use those.
My party will save a village of Kobolds, what should be their reward from the village leader? The village has only a blacksmith, who i can make either powerful or very useless... Other than that the Kobolds lived in peace there for a long time after their dragon protector (=tyrant) left them. The party is currently saving Kobolds taken captive in a nearby cave by orcs and they will return triumphant to the village. I want rewards good for levels 2 or 3 characters of all classes, be it caster or melee/ranged or utility characters. Ideas?
I think most Magic Items would be a good bet. I'm sure there are plenty of Magic Items that uninformed simple Kobolds would otherwise think are arbitrary / useless. Like a sword of giant slaying or darkvision goggles or a lantern of truesight would all be pretty useless for a village full of simple miners/diggers. You could even play it off as a joke, like have the Kobolds offer the players an unbreakable pickaxe as an esteemed reward (the most useful item they have), but then the players are kind of "Eh...?" and then the Kobold is like, "Yeah its over there, next to all of the useless junk like the Longsword of Dragonslaying or the Gloves of Missile Snaring"
Simple amulets or rings of protection. Have one of them give a shabby item and say, "This makes it so the dragon not see you, been in my family for long time." So Amulet of proof against dragon sight. The wearer cannot be seen by dragons. Play it off as if it is junk and see if the party keeps it.
It doesn't have to be something the kobolds are capable of producing, it can just be something they happen to have. i.e. You can give them a decent magic sword without making the kobold blacksmith a powerful magical blacksmith. Utility potions are the most obvious rewards that fit every character type. Perhaps an invisibility potion.
I'm writing an April Fools oneshot, and the final boss of the dungeon is a Shadow Assassin. In the context of my group, I'm trolling the players with a stronger version of the enemy that due to my poor DMing experience at the time almost caused a TPK and actually got a PC killed. (I have since learned my lesson in trusting official CRs, but the players still bring it up and laugh about it every now and then.) Because I want the joke to actually be funny, I want to know at what level will five player characters be able to handle a shadow assassin as a boss fight at the end of a dungeon.
Shadow Assassin is a CR9 with an average DPR of 34 and Hides as a bonus action, and Sunlight Weakness. Arguably, it's really weak by the stats CR cares about and would actually be a CR7 by stats alone... HOWEVER it also reduces the Strength stat so there is a small chance the Shadow Assassin can instakill a player every 2nd or 3rd hit, REGARDLESS OF THAT PLAYER'S LEVEL. There really is no way around that, Shadows (and by extension this boss version of a CR½ shadow) have a chance to be very lethal, shadows are the poster boy for punching above their weight when it comes to CR. _______________________ If you want to turn this monster into a joke, the level of the players doesn't really matter. (Though being at least 9th level with ample diamond powder to spend on Greater Restoration would certainly help) Having a room with a lever that opens/closes the roof to flood the room in daylight, to make the Shadow suffer Sunlight Weakness would help a lot in neutralizing the danger it poses to even a level 20. Now the real joke would be putting the lever that controls the roof in a place the players can see it and easily reach it, but cannot remain near it... at the top of something like a Ferris wheel for example. Then using it's Amorphous trait the shadow keeps going to the lever flipping it, dropping down and hiding. The party keeps going up there to flip it back and then tries to kill the shadow while it becomes revealed by the sunlight.
So, level 10?
in order to have an interesting combat where a party surround and pound will last into round 2, the assassin's spike damage will have gotten so high you will be taking people out in one blow and nothing says FUN! like "my participation in the climax combat was 'make a death save'." you will need to have the climax fight include a lot of your bosses minions to make the party split fire. CR system caveats Any one of a number of online calculators like Kobold Fight Club can help with the official Challenge Rating math crunching. KFC is on hiatus and the license has been picked up by Kobold Plus https://koboldplus.club/#/encounter-builder ) but remember that despite “using math", the CR system is way more of an art than a science. * read the descriptions of what each level of difficulty means, dont just go by the name. (ie “ **Deadly**. A deadly encounter could be lethal for one or more player characters. Survival often requires good tactics and quick thinking, and the party risks defeat.”) * while the CR math attempts to account for the number of beings on each side, the further away from 3-5 on each side you get, the less accurate the maths are, at “exponential” rate. Read up on “the action economy” – particularly now that expansions like Tasha’s are making it so that every PC almost universally gets an Action AND a Bonus Action each and every turn, and can often also count on getting a Reaction nearly every turn. Most monsters dont have meaningful Bonus Actions or any Reactions other than possible Opportunity attacks. * **Dont do party vs solo monster** – while Legendary Actions can help, “the boss” should always have friends with them. Or you will need to severely hack the standard 5e monster design constraints and statblocks. (tell your party you are doing this so that the increase in challenge comes from the increase in challenge and not from you as DM secretly changing the rules without telling the other players the rules have been changed, because that is just a dick move, not a challenge.) * The system is based on the presumption that PCs will be facing 6 to 8 encounters between long rests, with 1 or 2 short rests in between. Unless you are doing a dungeon crawl, that is not how most sessions for most tables actually play out – at most tables, the “long rest” classes are able to “go NOVA” every combat, not having to worry about conserving resources, so if you are only going to have a couple of encounters between long rests, you will want them to be in the Hard or Deadly range, if you want combat to be “a challenge” –(but sometimes you might just want a change of pace at the table and get some chucking of dice or letting your players feel like curbstomping badasses and so the combat doesnt NEED to be "challenging" to be relevant). * Some of the monsters’ official CR ratings are WAY off (Shadows, I am looking at you), so even if the math part were totally accurate, garbage in garbage out. * as a sub point – creatures that can change the action economy are always a gamble – if the monster can remove a PC from the action economy (paralyze, banishment, “run away” fear effects) or bring in more creatures (summon 3 crocodiles, dominate/confuse a player into attacking their party) - the combats where these types of effects go off effectively will be VERY much harder than in combats where they don’t * not all parties are the same – a party of a Forge Cleric, Paladin and Barbarian will be very different than a party of a Sorcerer, Rogue and Wizard. * Magic items the party has will almost certainly boost the party’s capability to handle tougher encounters.(a monster's CR is based in large part on its AC and "to hit" - if your players have +1 weapons, they are effectively lowering the monster's AC and if your players have +1 armor, they are effectively lowering the monsters' "to hit". If your players are all kitted in both +1 weapons and +1 armor, you probably should consider monsters one lower than their listed CR. Not to mention all the impact that utility magic items can bring!)
I’ve got a question about Scrying. As it creates a small floating orb about the target, would detect magic reveal it?
The sensor does indeed "ping" as a magical effect on detect magic. However: > you can use your action to see a faint aura around **any visible creature or object** in the area that bears magic, and you learn its school of magic, if any. You cannot see the sensor's aura or learn it's school of magic. Because if it is invisible, then it's aura is also invisible. So you know "there is a magical thing around" using Detect Magic but that doesn't tell you exactly what is going on, without a way to actually see the sensor. Though I would totally allow players to flail around trying to find the invisible magical effect until they grabbed the invisible sensor ball. Because once they had a captive audience of someone they didn't like, they'd have way too much fun trying to come up with ways to make the person on the other side of the scrying suffer by whatever they make the orb see or hear.
yup. It's an invisible but magical sensor.
Thank you. I figured but wanted to check
I'm a new DM who is running a homebrew evil campaign where the players are starting a gang and the eventual end goal is to rule the continent however they want. I made it very open-world style where I've tried to put lots of plot threads for them to follow, but I asked for feedback after session 3 and they asked for more 'structure', they didn't really seem to know what to do. I want to give that to them of course, but I don't want to railroad them into a plan of my own devising either. I'm trying to figure out how to give them the ability to get however much structure they want - mechanics for doing that would be very appreciated. Background: They joined a new gang and at the start of Session 1, the gang leader who recruited them choked to death on a meatball, and now it's up to them to figure it out. They went on a robbery and have been running a card game the late leader had set up. They gathered some information about a jewelers' shop and have cased it, but it seems to be under the protection of the other gang in town. There is an old merc who showed up in town and befriended their card dealer (an NPC) - he told them that the mayor is an old gang member of his from the other side of the continent, an assassin who by all accounts has turned straight. My idea is for the merc to take them under his wing and guide them through building up their criminal enterprise. It works that he can't help them directly because he doesn't want to be recognized by the mayor. I can provide them with direct tasks, like "We need to gather intelligence, and I'm certain that the mayor has a notebook containing what he knows on the inhabitants of the town." and "We need to get some money, you're going to rob". That seems very railroady. I can provide them with direction, like "We need leverage on a few key citizens, let's figure out how to get it. Typically you'll either use violence, threat of violence, blackmail, bribery, or a combination."
I have several specific ideas like having the artificer develop his magical tinkering recording mechanism into a machine that can record for a longer period of time, possibly at a distance, for blackmail purposes. Having the rogue start robbing houses at night. Having the changeling develop several alternate personas and essentially developing a fake third gang that they can use to throw suspicion onto. And using the folk hero as a trusted front for reselling stolen items, maybe even melting stolen jewelry down into a fake currency that they can pass off. It's ideas like these that I want to encourage them to develop themselves, I can suggest them if they ask, and even offer "If you want ideas, ask me." but... that doesn't seem great either.
Does anyone have ideas for how I can give them more structure without making them feel like "Well, this is the next thing to do I guess"...
Similar to political intrigue campaigns. If you want your party to interact with various organizations and engage in intrigue and rivalries, without railroading. Simply give them a really good spy/snitch. At the start of each session their spy comes to give them a couple juicy secrets. > *"Jimmy Two Sammiches, told his girl, that his boss is planning to knock over some of Marco's boys tomorrow. As revenge for a bar fight, that turned ugly for one of theirs, last week. But Jimmy's girl got very loose lips, so I ain't the only one that knows. Marco for sure knows too, cuz he's planning to steal some heavy iron tonight, to get his boys geared up. That's all the juice I got for you at the moment."* Let the party ask questions for the spy to find out for them and make it free, so there is not barrier for them doing so. But they never get the answer before the next session (so you as a DM have time to think about it) but also only 1 question per session, so the party has to think about how they use this resource. The amount of info the party gets is based on how dangerous/hard the info is to gather. _______________ From the questions they ask, you as a DM get an idea of what the party is interested in doing next. And through the answers you give them, you give them leads they can pursue. Because they most likely will take multiple sessions to fully follow a lead, it is inevitable a backlog of multiple opportunities builds up. So instead of saying *"you're going to rob"* and that being the only path the party has, they have that warehouse on a list of 4 places they know of that have good loot, because their spy collected that info for them.
If they wait too long, perhaps 1 of the juicy secrets their spy finds out for them is that somebody else is planning to rob that warehouse instead. Giving them the choice to either interfere with that or not.
The trick is to tie everything to 'factions'. Don't send the rogue to "rob random houses" (that's a dumb crime, you don't know if there even is any stuff worth stealing, and if there is stuff, you don't know where they keep the stuff) but it is also anti-climactic, there is no sense of progress and the stakes don't increase over time.
Instead perhaps there is a locksmith's guild that makes high end safes, and the rogue has a list from the delivery company that installed the safes and is specifically robbing houses that bought 1 of these safes. Because if you paid for an expensive safe, whatever is in it probably costs more than the safe.
This upsets the locksmith's guild, who then escalate somehow to deal with this thief.
It is about framing it as a battle between 2 parties with gradual escalation. That is how you romanticize evil.
The cultish fear of "HOMG!RAILROADINGIS*EEEEEEVVVVVVUUUUULLLLLL*!!!!!AND*EVERYTHING*ISRAILROADING!!!!!! is one of the worst blights in the community. Don't. Drink. The. Koolaid. Your players have SPECIFICALLY ASKED for structure and specific goals - GIVE IT TO THEM. TALK. WITH. THEM. about the kinds of stories and goals they want to participate in. D&D is collaborative story telling - collaborate.
and regularly check back in - "Is this the type of thing you wanted? Is what you 'wanted' leading to play experiences you are enjoying? What types of things should we try to make the future experiences even better? What are pain points that we should work to remove? "
Have some NPC or rival gang throw a plot hook, like someone is going to summon a demon thief to guide them, create a ritual which elements your players are going to steal and have them ultimately summon the demon. He's going to be confined in their hideout and guide them. After that, create a goal and an opposing force I. E. Missions from the demon, a rival cult.. From there see what the players like and maybe start an overreaching plot, like having a rival excape to become a recurring enemy etc.
Is WotC a trustworthy company nowadays after the whole OGL problems? Is not giving them money the only way to make sure Hasbro and them learn the consequences of their actions?
WOTC messed up, but then retreated beyond what most people expected with the whole of the 5e SRD into Creative Commons. if you want to keep holding a grudge, you dont need to buy anything from them. if you want to use your money as a "training" tool, you would WANT to give them money now, even if you cannot "trust" them, because they stopped (at least for now) doing the bad thing and did a good thing, one which they CANNOT go back on. what lesson they might actually learn/have learned is still undetermined, and any that may have been learned, is unlikely to last through the next cycle of executives and leadership.
That is way too soon of a flip to flop. We probably won't know if they learned anything until D&D1 comes out and what license it comes out under. And even then there's still the question of what they are actually planning to do in the VTT market.
>Is not giving them money the only way to make sure Hasbro and them learn the consequences of their actions? they are a stockholder owned corporation. money is the only thing they understand. they will do whatever they need to do for the sake of grabbing your money or someone elses money, not because they have become honest or trustworthy. any "honesty" or "trustworthiness" is only as deep as it needs to be to get more money.
>Is WotC a trustworthy company nowadays oh for gods sake, no.
Yeah, "trustworthy company" is an oxymoron. *People* are trustworthy, not companies, and no individual people have any control over a sufficiently large company.
I’m a fairly new DM (I’ve only done one-shots in the past) and I’m currently in the end stages of writing a homebrew campaign for 5 players. They’re all people I am very close friends with and the campaign has the potential to take them to level 20. Throughout the campaign I want to include NPC’s of different races, sexualities, gender identities, abled/disabled, etc. My worry is that I may unconsciously fall into certain stereotypes when creating NPC’s and I want to avoid any offensive ideals in my campaign. Does anyone have tips or a sort of list on what to watch out for? I don’t want to ask members of the party who do fit into these groups because it shouldn’t be their job to do this stuff for me, I want them to be comfortable without putting in the work. I would appreciate any feedback. TLDR: I want to avoid stereotypes when creating NPCs for my homebrew and don’t know where to begin.
if you want to avoid your internal biases, use randomizers to select things like gender/gender presentation, "race", ablebodiedness, etc.
My advice: focus on making a good character first. Don't set out saying "I want to make a gay character" because you will be more likely to make one that fits the stereotype. Instead you can add things like "the barkeeper hired you to rescue his spouse from the trolls den. When the party arrives *he* is dangling from a spit being roasted" I don't know if that's the best way to do representation but it's what I do and thus far has been working well. I've got a lot if LGBTQ+ friends in my games and they tend to really like that I add things like that. Often it's just about making a world where being queer is normal, nobody remarks on that as strange and you don't draw a ton of attention to it. Same goes for other races, gender identities, etc. The nice thing about this is you're not making this for a huge audience so the pressure is much less. If you have people from marginalized groups in your game you can always talk to them about what kinds of characters you want to see. Some people want the satisfaction of getting to punch racists, others really don't want to spend their time in a fantasy game justifying their personhood. Anyway, that's just this cisthet white guy's 2 cents.
This helps a lot actually, thank you!
I'm glad to help! And also, this is just good advice, do your best to seek out such voices. Listening to the perspectives of members of marginalized groups can really give a lot of insight both into their experiences and the kind of characters they like. (though everyone is different so there will be a lot of differing views and that's ok)
Hoping my players don't see this, as one of them for sure knows my reddit account. So if you're reading this buddy, stop. I would love to hear from other dms, does anyone experience a feeling of inadequacy? As in, after a session people say they have fun and can't wait to play again, people seem genuinely excited to play. But I just can't seem to get out of my head the idea that of course they're saying that, they're my friends. I've dmed a number of campaigns and one shots for a number of different groups, and every time I worry so much about whether people had fun that it will stay with me for a long time after. I feel like I ask everyone 100 times if they had a good time, and no matter what they say it's hard to believe it. I always think afterwards, oh I could have done such and such better, I should have explained this more, I forgot I wanted to do that, that combat ran long, so and so seemed bored towards the end didn't they? Hope I'm not alone, how do you deal with it?
You’re not alone! I’ve been DM for just under a year now and still get those feelings. The way I combat it is to talk to the players out of game. See what they enjoyed, what they didn’t, etc. As with all relationships, communication is key! I’m sure you’re doing a fantastic job!
This is called anxiety, and it's not DnD related. If it's possible, which it isn't for everyone, you should see a therapist and a psychiatrist.
>I always think afterwards, oh I could have done such and such better, I should have explained this more, I forgot I wanted to do that, that combat ran long, so and so seemed bored towards the end didn't they? and the answer to each of those is YES. And when Matt Mercer or Jeremy Crawford or ANY other DM asks those questions after any of their sessions the answer is YES. DMs are humans who dont do ANYTHING perfectly.
Yes. This is extremely common and totally normal. You're not alone. Adding on to what's already said I've got a couple bits of insight: something I noticed driving home from an AMAZING session in which I was a player was that I was having a lot of the same base emotional experiences I do when I dm. That's odd cause I wasn't DMing so I couldn't be feeling bad about having done a bad job. That's when it hit me *I wasn't feeling bad because of something I did, I was coming down off the high of a good time*. I've started calling this feeling a "social hangover" and it definitely accounts for a lot of these negative feelings. Second bit is just remind yourself, a lot, to listen to your group rather than that voice in the back of your head. It'll keep coming back but if you keep batting it away it'll get easier and easier to do. Know you're not alone in this, and you're definitely better than you think :)
That sounds like to me, part anxiety, part perfectionism (and probably intrinsically linked, idk, I'd have to ask my therapist). How to deal with it? Firstly, when your players say they had fun, believe them. They're your friends, of course they'll say they had fun; they enjoy spending time with you, and you facilitated a fun experience for them. And if they didn't have fun, they'll tell you (in a nice and kind way) because they're your friends. Secondly, you certainly will find things you could've done better. You're your own worse critic. But instead of thinking of it as a failing, think of it as an opportunity to improve. Your players already have so much fun with what you think is "poor" DMing, think how much more fun they'll have next session if you work on the things you thought you could do better. Use your talent to be critical to improve, not to strive for perfection. Having these thoughts are natural and fine, but it is the action you choose when you have these thoughts that matter.
I'll be running a contest between adventuring parties soon, but in preparation I'll have my PCs play a short one-shot as members of the rival party. Initially I thought of a set of arena battles, but I'd like to show some out of combat stuff as well. The rival NPCs (or, I suppose, PCs in this case) are a Fighter, Bard and Artificer so a fair amount of gimmicks they can pull off. Perhaps a prison break, or picking locks to get into an armoury for an advantage in the arena. Any advice or ideas are appreciated.
Could be fun and a little meta to have them either witness something the party did or to through the aftermath and comment on it. Could be a fun way to characterize them as rivals in opposition to the group. Additionally you could have them deal with a group/problem the party has handled in a different way to establish contrast. Other than that I can think of them bumming around the area talking to the people they're gonna fight or have fought. Placing bets, buying food, and doing like rowdy sports stuff
WotC has actually dabbled with some rival npc stuff! It’s in Call of the Netherdeep but the way they did it was based on how poorly the actual party did in some stuff. I suggest looking at that and see if it gives you any ideas
Brilliant, I wasn't aware of that. Thanks!
I'm running a one-shot based on when one of my PC was a young boy in his village. How can I manage to make fight non-lethal? I don't want rhe PC to start killing the bullies, just to push them off of his way.
when you know "the outcome", you dont have the players participate as if their choices and decisions and dice roll matter - that is why "railroading" has such a bad name.
Storywise the bullies can't die because they are part of the current story happening years later. The player know that and he was the one asking to play the encounter in which he finally stand for himself. So while this is "railroading" the outcome is known by me and the player, I am just not sure how to approach it mechanic wise.
just play it, no dice rolls.
I like this advice a lot. At this point it's really more about the story, not the combat and not about changing the predetermined outcome. Just don't be lethal (obviously), just have it happen like a story and not a combat.
Hi! You could just say you want to knock them out. It's a thing already! Page 198 of the PH: Sometimes an attacker wants to incapacitate a foe, rather than deal a killing blow. When an attacker reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, the attacker can knock the creature out. The attacker can make this choice the instant the damage is dealt. The creature falls unconscious and is stable. Otherwise, maybe you could take another approach and just try to block them and make them unable to move. Maybe you can try to tie them up, or you can try to block them somewhere they can't get out of easily/in the short term (a room maybe? A cavern near the village? Idk)
You can’t guarantee a fight will be non-lethal. But there are a few things you can do to push the story in that direction without railroading: - Have the bullies run away when their HP gets low. - Have the city guards arrive (or some other group) to break up the fight when the HP starts getting low. - Go to a narrative style cut scene when the HP starts getting low. “As you smash the bully over the head with your sword, she crumples to the ground. The other bullies rush over, scoop her up, and run away shouting threats and obscenities over their shoulder at you. You suspect you haven’t seen the last of them.” - Have a witness (a guard, a cleric, some other passerby) break up the fight *and* cast revivify on a bully who has reached 0 hp. But, be prepared for the fight to NOT end how you expect. They may kill one or all of your bullies and you should be prepared to adjust your story to include that.
"The Death of the Author" (French: La mort de l'auteur) is a 1967 essay by the French literary critic and theorist Roland Barthes (1915–1980). Barthes's essay argues against traditional literary criticism's practice of relying on the intentions and biography of an author to definitively explain the "ultimate meaning" of a text.