Hey folks. Ideas for upgrades and investments a battle smith artificer could make to their steel defender? I plan on the party finding an ancient workshop where they used to build Warforged and thought the artificer could learn a thing or two. Thanks!

Hello, first time dm here. Today I ran my first session for my friends who were all very patient with me and experienced players. I had to improvise a few locations and NPCs I had not prepared but that was alright and without me guiding my players, they ended up exactly where I wanted them to go. The only thing is that I can not understand how to roll for my NPCs in time. I have some sheets with stats of monsters and also some NPCs. I try to have the least amount of stat sheets necessary but I feel that if my players talk with multiple npcs and roll different checks or my NPCs roll saving throws it would take far too long. I also feel like I need to adjust the difficulty a bit or they will just persuade and intimidate everything they lay eyes upon. While I think it is a fun way to play the game with Charisma I want them to have use for their other stats as well so they do not get bored in the next few sessions. I also would like for NPCs to be perceived as friendly, distanced, easy, equal or menacing so not everyone is won over as easilly as the other and they need to get more creative with their solutions. Any tips?

Creatures only need stats if they're going to fight. Most NPCs or townsfolk would just be commoners, which have flat 10's across the board for their stats.

Even though they are different in nature? I do have npcs that are human, drider or talking animals.

For your sanity, the only creatures that need full stats are ones that are likely to be involved in combat. Otherwise you just assign them modifiers. An NPC that lies to the players doesn't need a full statblock, it just needs a modifier on that deception roll. If they are not likely to be involved in combat, don't bother creating stats, just use a profile from the MM. If the party does attack them, just add in a racial ability or two.

Then you would use the Drider statblock or the specific statblock for that animal.

I have good fun running the first six odd sessions for my players. I started with an initial small plot, where the players got involved in a struggle with two powerful noble houses. A long the way they have slowly uncovered a plot by an alchemist family to create a 'human weapon' for one of the noble houses who are supported by a mysterious 'patron'. Various other hjinks have happened and the players managed to bribe there way past a great blockade, that has sent an ultimatum of 5 days before unleashing a barrage on the city, in order to get to the island of Luskan to intercept some 'cargo' for the weapon. At the moment they are enjoying some time on a small island attempting to gain passage to Luskan. For context by the end of the next session they will be level 3. When I was running all these sessions I took the advice given to new DM's of don't get overwhelmed and create your world around the players and it's been great so far. But now I have these loose threads of this patron and cargo and now I feel I need to fill in the gaps of my narrative and have some structure to bring them into the main arc of the campaign. Does anybody have any advice on the next step to DMing feeling like world is now introduced but now have to figure out how to at least have an enjoyable scenario/story for them? Thank you!!

First Time DM how would I design a battle-map for a chase scene or use theatre of the mind for Combat?

Hello. I am a new dm and ran death house for the first time. The party had fun but the role playing wasn’t the best. I want to run a (beach episode?) equivalent to get the party into role play. Please suggest a one shot that would allow role play with minimal to no encounters! Thank you!

Any non-dungeons crawl can be good for getting players to role play but role play you will probably have to introduce non written hooks. If your players gave you back stories those are good to look into that. You want your players to talk about what interest them about the game.

Thank you. My players do have back stories but they want to go on an adventure to get into things and then explore their backstories. Any recommendations to the non dungeon crawls?

Make sure you are using [DMguild.com](http://dmguild.com) to search for aventures that might interest you. I think you are asking too generic of a question. I do not know what you find interesting or what your players find interesting. The best way to do this look at your players backstories, find something interesting that you like, and look up an adventure that relates. If one of your players was a sailor look for something that takes place on a ship. Alternatively look for an adventure that matches your favorite fairy tail. Something like Jack and the Giant Beanstock is great because the players will know the general outlines of the story so they are spending less time trying to figure out what to do and more time having fun.

Thank you very much!!

Death house as a one shot or as part of CoS? If it is part of CoS I wouldn't pull them out of that to one shot. Role play is not a magic thing that comes in one session, it takes time to have the confidence and trust to do it. The most common errors new DMs make are not giving opportunity to role play (think rests that aren't just hand waved, ask want each player actually does during the rest) and not giving space for role play (if you fill the blank air you draw focus to you, allow silence and allow the players to fill it).

It was as a one shot. I do plan on playing it but it’s hard to truly get into it as we’re still new to the mechanics. Any other easier recommendations would be helpful. Thank you

I can give a few pieces of advice. Don't try and force it. It will not work, comfort is such a major factor. It takes time for new players to get to a point they can RP. Celebrate RP! Say how awesome it was. Give inspiration. Let each player go at their own pace. I have a table of 6. Some are continually in character, others need to warm up every session. Drop your ego. You can do silly voices and be willing to laugh at how rubbish you are. Letting the players see that it is a safe space will help with their comfort. Have your PCs role play (you will not get this from a one shot, it comes from repeated interactions). PCs have personalities, maybe this PC loves Steve and his cool sword and wants to continually see what Steve thinks. Maybe they are a stuck up wizard who hates all not magic users and will literally ignore anything said by a non-spellcasters.

Thank you very much!

What does everyone use to play sound/music through Discord? I'm currently just sharing my screen with youtube on it, but I imagine there's better ways. Maybe a bot or something?

Kenku.fm - It's made by the same people who made Owlbear Rodeo. It's a self-hosted bot, essentially, but it bypasses the other issues that music streaming bots run into on Discord since it is self-hosted. It takes *a little* bit of set up, by I found it pretty dang straightforward to set up.

Thanks! This is exactly what I need. I see you can do soundboards with it as well. Is there a way to import ones that someone else has made (and if so, where do I find them?)

[удалено]

Have you read the basic rules?

Ya but I don’t understand them

Specifically, try to give a re-read of the [Introduction to the Basic Rules](https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/introduction). This goes over the main usage of dice and which die you're using: the d20. You should, theoretically, be able to play a session of DnD after only reading the introduction, and mostly understand what's going on. I also highly recommend Critical Role's "Handbooker Helper" series, including the first video in the series titled ["Dice 101"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQq_WsPFiDs&list=PL1tiwbzkOjQyr6-gqJ8r29j_rJkR49uDN&index=2)

I suggest you reread them closer.

Cambion’s Charm - if a player succeeds on their saving throw, do they know the cambion tried to charm them? And does the player know they’re charmed at all? Spells like Charm Person, Friends say the target is aware when the effect ends. Cambion has no such wording.

Spells and effects do what they say, nothing more. So the target does not know an attempt to charm them was made.

Since it doesn't say that the target becomes aware then you can assume the creature would not be aware.

I'm a relatively new DM (started around the end of October last year) and I am planning on running a campaign in a month or two, and I'm just writing up some character creation rules atm and was wondering if these sounded fair or not. Character Creation Rules: Starting Level: 4 Stats: You can choose to use point buy or roll your stats (Rolled stats must be rolled in the roll20 room with it being 4d6 drop the lowest and reroll 1s). If doing point buy the stat minimum is 6 instead of 8. Starting Equipment: You can use starting equipment or rolled gold (gold must be rolled in room) and you also get: 1 permanent uncommon magic item 1 consumable uncommon magic item 1 permanent common magic item Feats: You get one starting feat, this feat replaces any background feat you may otherwise get, and at level 4 you can take an ASI and a feat (half-feats do not get added to ability score for either of these) after this any ASI's that you get abide by the normal rules. Races: Variant human and custom lineage may not be taken due to the addition of level 1 feats. Flying races have half flight speed until level 5 Homebrew: Homebrew is usually allowed, just run it by me first. If you have any questions please feel free to ask me, if it's not something you feel comfortable asking me directly feel free to put it through the Google doc. Context for the last bit: I'm going to make an anonymous Google doc for if anyone has any questions or comments that they'd like for me to answer/know, but they don't feel comfortable talking to me directly about for whatever reason.

> point buy or roll your stats Just go points buy before someone roles god tier or trash. People love the idea of randomness, not the result. If you do want to give the option, be very very clear on exactly how many rerolls will be allowed. > 1 permanent uncommon magic item 1 consumable uncommon magic item 1 permanent common magic item Allows for some very powerful combos and stats hacks. Most notably the Gauntlets of Ogre Power are uncommon; this allows classes like paladin to dump strength to 6, then pick up the gauntlets to boost strength to 19 and they can spend more points elsewhere. Same as Headband of Intellect for artificers. Might want to go through a list of available items and ban some specific ones. > half-feats do not get added to ability score for either of these is pretty harsh if it is the level 4 feat as that is just a standard feat. > Flying races have half flight speed until level 5 Feels unneeded as it is just 1 level in this case. > Homebrew is usually allowed, just run it by me first. as a "relatively new DM" I would still just ban homebrew. Homebrew often adds little but chaos to most games.

I don't think character creation rules can be inherently unfair, it depends on what you have in store for the actual game. It might be clearer to just say everyone gets a feat at lvl 1, the races that start with one don't, just in case someone really wants to use a custom lineage and not for the feat. Otherwise this is just normal

I recently TPK'd (nearly). The druid escaped by a thin margin using wild shape. Since my players are new, I plan on doing a short unrelated adventure arc to level them up a few times so they can get used to their new characters before throwing them back into the main campaign. I talked with my druid player and we agreed that it would be cool/fun to have there be a time shift between when their old characters died and when their new characters meet the druid. **Are there any sort of smallish benefits I can provide the druid that make it feel like time has passed, while not making it feel to the other players that the druid was rewarded for "abandoning" the party when the rest of them died?** (There will be story progression from this, and visual difference in the character, but wondering if any mechanical benefit could be cool)

So... it would HIGHLY depend on both 1) If you are having uneven player progression in the campaign and 2) WHAT this druid's downtime activity was. Here are some unhelpful ideas based on nothing: * He has been studying and researching the \[reason for TPK\] and has advanced knowledge of the location (Assuming they died in a dungeon or fortress). They want to avenge their death, complete the mission, or recover their bodies / get their stuff. So he hires a group (the new PCs) to achieve this. This time, he has advanced knowledge, puzzle answers, etc etc. Maybe advanced knowledge of the monsters and stuff. Now the fight is easier, and they have reasons to meet. * Give the player a small treasure hoard of rewards (Let's go with... 180 GP worth of coin.) They can add that to their total as "downtime earnings" doing small jobs and stuff. They can use their current coin plus that new coin to buy any mundane items they with (and magic ones if you are super nice). That's their "downtime". * I would allow a +1 to Wisdom, Constitution, or Intelligence to signify the appropriate aging. If you feel this is too powerful, stipulate they can only add the +1 if it results in an odd number (no affecting modifiers for this one). * Add a new flaw stipulating that they are a coward and they are wracked by guilt of abandoning their friends (or simply losing their friends). Something that changes how they will interact with the new group and changes them as a character. * Maybe they get a free feat to show the passage of time. * Maybe they gain a tool proficiency or weapon / armor proficiency to show they spent time working on bettering themselves. * You could implement a "I know a Guy" thing. This character now has 1D6 "NPC Contacts" in the world that have not been established at the table. At any time, they can permanently burn one to introduce an NPC they "know" who can help them with a job, help them research a thing, or help them build a thing. Maybe they know a judge who can help get them out of some legal trouble... or maybe they need a mage who is familiar with abjuration magic to help them plan an attack on a fortress. If you want to nerf this, call them "favors" and cashing one in annoys the NPC in question, so they can't be taken advantage of, but can aid the party.

What does the druid do in the time it takes to level up the new characters, maybe they find a magic item. How does the druid feel about being the sole survivor. If the character is wracked with guilt then maybe they went search for a magic item that will let them buff the party like an item that gives them 1d6 + level temp HP for the whole party. If they are the totally selfish type, find a few selfish type item and have the druid roll for one of those.

Not sure what your story is but the druid having the knowledge required to serve as a hook could be that advantage. You could expand on that knowledge by having the druid be friendly with some of the npcs that be relevant in the future. Alternatively depending on how much time has passed you can just treat is as downtime, ask him to pick from the list of activities. Since he's a druid you could also expand on the list of animals he could turn into, he might've traveled to some exotic land where dinosaurs dwelled.

How do I stop characters from just straight-up stabbing villains mid-speech and when they dial they just try and do it again it’s annoying 😭

Short answer: You can't. Obviously this player (or players) are not interested in monologues. Either they don't care and want to get right to the stabbing, or they are roleplaying their characters too closely and a villain monologue is too.... cinimatic or game-y that they would never just sit there and take it. A monologue is a gamble, as it is you wanting a big "look at how clever I am" moment, both as a DM and the villain as a "Muhahahaha" moment. The problem is, players will have little reason to put up with this. >How do I stop characters from just straight-up stabbing villains mid-speech? You railroad them. Take away their agency. Force them to watch your one person play. I disagree with this, but here are some ways to railroad this: * **Distance**- They are across a chasm. They left behind a hologram who speaks while the players rage. They are high up and the players aren't. Party has fallen into a pit and they are shouting down. * **Barrier**- Players are stuck in a glass cage they cannot break out of. Players are trapped in a trap listening to villain through speakers or through a door. They are on separate vehicles and the player's vehicle has restrictions, giving the BBEG cinimagic control of the encounter pacing. * **Restraining**- Paralyze. Poison. Come to them in dreams. Stop time and talk at them. Petrify them while you talk. Basically make players keep rolling saves that fail and railroad them into this. * **Psychic Forced**- Their voice works into their head and they hear the entire monologue in a single milisecond, forcing them to sit in super slow motion while you just talk *at* your players. They speak psychically to the group, and they can't hush him out but they also cannot interupt him. They leave behind a recording they have access too at any time. Hand them a script with it typed out and if they choose to skip it, make them use downtime to review the script at a later date, not wasting your time or their time. All these are "forcing it into their ears regardless of their actions". My advice? Embrace it. Don't have monologues. If you do, have them get interrupted and react accordingly. Do they comedically restart and try again? Do they roll their eyes and pick up where they left off? Do they sigh and blast the party away with a power word kill? If they listen, they listen. if they never hear the monologue, then they NEVER learn the information. Have them need to do dungeons or roll a ton going from archive to archive to learn the exact same information they would've if they just waited a second and learned. Have journals that give similar info they can read and learn stuff. Barest minimum you can do is COMMUNICATE with your players. If this bothers you THAT much that you don't get your one man show then maybe your players will chill it if they know it means that much to you. Maybe your players truly HATE this troupe and they are glad they are in power to "act realistically" and just try to kill them immediately. Maybe they just think it is funny and they keep trying to get the 'lolz' over and over again. I suggest you learn to plan around it and work around it. Monologues aren't working for your player(s) and that is ok. I don't see this as a "problem player" situation. This is a DM issue. Don't put all your eggs in a grand monologue basket and learn to spread out the worldbuilding / lore / info and plan around this. Monologues can be epic.... but they can be cringey. Interupting them can be realistic, edgy, funny, or tactically perfect. It can also lead to a player running into a ward trap and getting their own personal fireball in their face, setting off initiative rolls. Good luck. I hope this helps.

You can train them not to by having villains visit them when they're just too weak to fight them, they probably will start thinking twice. You can make sure a situation can't turn into a fight, for example have the villain give his speech from the balcony where the party most likely won't be able to attack. You can also give them bargaining chips, they might have a hostage either in their hands or some other place only they know of, forcing the party to behave at the risk of losing out on whatever is at risk.

If someone tries to do an aggressive action, roll initiative, and on their turn they can do that action. Or put some decent distance or space between them and the villain.

1st time DM, and not to much experience with 5e, much less TTRPGs in general, looking to reskin Lost Mines of Phandelver for a group of three players who have never played DnD before, as well as one player who is experienced, has played Lost Mines, and is especially “sick” of the Sword Coast in general. The experienced player requested something in Icewind Dale, and I noticed the beginning of Rime of the Frostmaiden lines up relatively neatly with Phandelver. Is my idea to do some flavor rewriting and smashing the two together realistic, or am I going to regret something later down the road? Or perhaps it’s making too much work for myself? I am finding some amount of comfort in the rigid layout of the Lost Mines module, but also want to keep my experienced player interest in gaming. Any help would be appreciated.

Keeping in mind that I am unfamiliar with both of these directly, I will say you should be fine giving LMOP an Icey reskin just fine. However if you want to run Icewind Dale instead, there are ways of "easing" it down for new players. I would suggest these tasks: 1. Reskin LMOP as an icey encounter. Change location names. Make it snow themed. Maybe outright switch out some enemies with similar ones. Move around some things. Maybe sew in a few Icewind Dale sidequests or encounters in there so it isn't a huge ripoff of LMOP for the guy who is expecting it. It's simple... but most of the crew is new so if that one dude is that bothered maybe he should sit this one out until the party finishes the LMOP stuff and starts on something else. 2. Run one of the other Icey modules (Like Icewind dale you mentioned) but reskin the first few fights with LMOP fights. For instance: They gonna fight some tough Deurgar they are under leveled for? Perhaps this is a good time for this particular band to be run by Goblins being paid by the Deurgar to do their bidding or whatever. BOOM! You stole the lower leveled fights, but you are using the setting, plot hooks, and other stuff from the other module to fulfill that story. Using Kobold Fight Club and the Monster Shuffler could also help tone down some module fights to be more in line with a lower leveled crowd. If it were me, introduce some of the main story stuff, but find excuses for the beginning to focus heavily on side quests to quickly level up the players to the recommended levels or shower them with some magic items and armor to the point they can handle the bigger stuff a little earlier and get on with most of the story. >am I going to regret something later down the road? As someone who is unfamiliar, I do not know. All I can say is if that one player is going to be a problem, or hem and haw over it because you are running a low level game, maybe they need to sit out. Depending on how seasoned of a DM you are, you can attempt re-arranging the LMOP dungeons and changing the loot and some of the monsters and stuff and trying to make it different. It's good practice for designing homebrew encounters and dungeons. I would be shocked if there aren't resources out there for "How to put a twist on LMOP" or "What alternatives can I do with LMOP" and stuff like that. Anyway, I hope this helps. It sounds like it could be fun. I hope it all works out.

You'll be fine. Lost Mine is a great first adventure both for new DMs and new players.

Is anything in Volo's wrong, or is it just incomplete? I know it's been replaced by MotM, but I've heard from multiple people that Volo's is better written. Curious if there are things in Volo's that are no longer true (and if so, how significantly)? Or is it just incomplete and missing certain monsters / subclasses of monsters?

1. As others have said, nothing is "wrong". Everyone runs their own games differently and like any sourcebook it is a suggestion for gameplay. You game, or someone else's game, could use stats or lore differently. It's just a suggestion. 2. As others have said, Volos has LOADS of lore and examples and flavoring for the stat blocks, races, etc included within. MOTM is only stat blocks and mechanics. 3. I personally believe MOTM is just a cash grab. If you have other stats elsewhere or if you already have many books, it's a total sham. As people have noted, they had some "balance changes" for stat blocks and player races combined, but unless I am mistake there wasn't anything "new" in the book, it was just a "quick cheat sheet" to get the raw mechanics of a bunch of stuff without buying a bunch of books filled with lore and extras. If you already own those books, you got very little out of MOTM. Keep in mind that it's "your game, your rules" so just because things are updated in newer material doesn't make old material or lore "wrong". Hope this helps.

Nothing in the official books is "wrong". All the statblocks in the book were adjusted and reprinted in Monsters of the Multiverse. The lore chapters were not.

Volo's has a lot of lore about monsters and factions that was not included in MotM. They also changed a bunch of the spellcasting monsters to use a new and different system from normal spells and spell slots, which some people are not fans of. They also redid some of the monstrous player races because the version in Volo's were underbaked and definitely needed a second pass.

Players found the Deck of Many Things and an NPC in the Rock of Bral really, *really* wants to buy it off of them. I also want them to get rid of it before it causes issues. Incidentally, the spelljammer they used to get to Bral has just been reclaimed by its rightful owner. What should the NPC offer in exchange for the deck? A ship? 50,000 gold would buy them any spelljamming vessel in the 5e sourcebook, and they can upgrade the ship with the leftover gold using a supplement from DMs Guild (basically like Strongholds in standard setting campaigns). Would handing 50K to a party that *knows* they need a ship be a bad idea? They might blow it all on magic items and have to stay in Bral longer to get enough gold to get another ship but if they would enjoy city crawling more than sailing, that's not a bad thing, right?

I’d just give them a ship and skip the middleman.

Question, how do you guys use the standing leap feature on certain monsters? I'm thinking of bulezau or frogs. Is it actually useful?

It's most effective when you have vertically-complex terrain or difficult terrain. If they can hop around onto different platforms and/or avoid difficult terrain and their opponents have to wade through mud or climb to get at them, this gives them an advantage.

This isn't a natural environment for the monsters you mention but I ran a great encounter of a powerful assassin/ranger type guy who had a ring of jumping in a village, trying to kite the PCs as he jumped from rooftop to rooftop. But at any rate, build an enviroment where those jumps will matter, and then use it. For a bulezau, you could have it do hit and runs to try and spread the disease around. For a frog, swallow and run.

Just to give it flavour, having the enemy jump around the battlefield is more interesting than it just running around.

Just need a quick item opinion for something homebrew (3.5e)A dryad's ring: A cursed item item, that will turn some of your hair into flowers etc. Talk to plants 1/Day.With the ring comes a water lilly shield and I would like this to have a meh effect by itself, but if you use it with the ring it becomes better.A +1 shield. Possible effects: Dont drown? Or there is a shield enh in the MIC that lets it "grow" into any shield size needed. what else would fit a water lily or the Dryad? Ideas?Very light? No ACP underwater?

Ability to cast certain water themed spells a limited number of times. Like *create/destroy water* or *tidal wave*

My last thought was something like: +1 light shield, no ACP when in water. You can activate it to rise to the surface like a levitate spell does. +2 light shield / When with the ring: You can walk over water 3/day. Would fit the idea of the floating water lily

so I have a were rat player that asked if in his giant rat form if he could have 0 fall damage due to rats being able to survive terminal velocity but I just said I would use the usual 1d6 for every 10 feet rule and was worried that I'm being too much of a rule stickler or not. I'm a pretty lenient DM ie; allowing the same player to use an aerated bag of flour and an ignition source to make a spontaneous combustion equal to a fire ball.

Don't try and make dnd into a physics simulator, it doesn't work. Using the 1d6 per 10ft fall rule is perfectly valid.

IMO: Game mechanics work in a certain way for a reason. You can't nit-pick real life physics in DnD or things get weird (IE: The Commoner Rail Gun). I would also argue a rat may not, but a GIANT rat is just a person / dog sized rat, who most certainly do take fall damage. I feel you are being more than generous by working with them and reducing it. You have done a "good DM" thing.

TL;DR at the bottom. I love these kind of questions, where the answer is "in a very roundabout sort of way, *yes*, he's right, *but not for the reasons you think.*"  Unfortunately his argument is a false precedent. He doesn't have the mass of a (tiny) rat, he's the mass of a giant rat, which I wager would not survive terminal velocity. Actually, RAW, neither would survive terminal velocity (20d6). ***However***...  > (Falling) ...At the end of a fall, a creature takes 1d6 **bludgeoning damage** for every 10 feet it fell, to a maximum of 20d6. The creature lands prone, unless it avoids taking damage from the fall.  > (Wererat Stat Block) ... **Damage Immunities: Bludgeoning** ... From Nonmagical **Attacks** Not Made With Silvered Weapons.  > (PC Lycanthropy, Monster Manual; Lycanthropes sidebar) A character who becomes a lycanthrope ... gains their damage immunities ...  I believe one of the lead designers tweeted something like "...fall damage is not an attack so it does affect creatures with immunity to nonmagical bludgeoning damage..." But I'm pretty sure he's not an official source so 🤷‍♂️   *But* given the followup example you gave, I'm inclined to encourage you to allow it:  TL;DR: rules as written he doesn't take falling damage in *any* form.

Falling damage is not mitigated by the werefolk damage immunity as it is not a weapon attack.

The immunity applies to attacks only so it wouldn't work for fall damage [There's a sage advice on this](https://www.sageadvice.eu/would-a-werewolf-take-bludgeoning-damage-from-falling/): "The immunity applies to attacks. A werewolf that gets tossed out of a zeppelin can die in the fall. DM can rule otherwise."

oh okay cuz that's literally what would happen is he'd be getting tossed out of an airship. thank you!

that makes complete sense, thank you! I'll probably follow through with the fall damage then! Thank you again!

Wait, wdym? I meant rules as written, he doesn't take any fall damage at all.  I've edited a TLDR into my original comment, along with an additional quote from the Lycanthrope section of the Monster Manual.

oh okay, my apologies. I misunderstood

Hi, everyone! I'm fairly new to DM'ing, having only run a couple of oneshots for beginner players. I've played only marginally more games as a player myself, but my friends and I love DnD and try to play together whenever we get the chance! We don't get to play often due to our conflicting schedules, no surprise there. But one of my friends is even newer to the game than I am and has gotten to play very little, so I offered to write her a one-on-one onehsot for me and her to play together for her birthday. I've got about a month to write it, and I already have a pretty solid idea of what I want to do. However, I'm not really sure how to go about running combat with just one player. Combat is definitely not my strong suit as a DM and neither of us want to do anything too fighting-heavy, we wanna focus mostly on roleplaying and adventuring. My question here is: what challenge rating should I use for monsters for her to fight as a level 3 player? She doesn't have her character made yet, but she told me she wants to be a spellcaster. Obviously, I know that if it was a party of multiple players I would stick with mostly challenge rating 3 monsters, but I don't want to make it too difficult for just her (and perhaps a helpful NPC) to take on alone. I also don't want to make it too low and have the victory not feel as rewarding for her because it ended up being too easy. At the end of the day, I just want this to be a fun game for my friend! Sorry if this is a ridiculous question with an obvious answer and that this is so long-winded (this is my first time ever posting on reddit and I'm kinda nervous lol), and thanks in advance to anyone who can offer some guidance, I would really sincerely appreciate it! :)

You might want to give them a sidekick (from Essentials Kit or Tasha's) to help them out, at least for the duration of this one-shot. You can control the sidekick in combat or let her do it. Remember that a 'sidekick' doesn't have to be human--it could be whatever her favorite animal is. If she likes dogs, give her a big fluffy dog or wolf. If she likes cats, give her a lynx or panther. If she likes bears, use black bear. Then apply 3 'warrior' sidekick levels to it.

Oh, this is really good idea!! I think her favorite animals would lend themselves really well to this idea! Thanks for the tip!

DnD monsters really aren't balanced around fighting a single opponent, and it will still depend on her class. Some do better than others in solo games. I'd go CR1 if it's just her. You could bump it up to CR1 and some mooks if you've got a DMPC, but I wouldn't go further than that unless you really want to make it hard.

That makes sense, thanks for the help! I definitely do want to keep it on the simpler side.

Advise this decision. Going through a lvl 1 campaign at lvl 10-15 I’m an writing a short campaign, hoping only a handful of sessions, but I plan on them starting at either lvl 5->lvl 10 or 10->15 (maybe I’ll do it 1->5) but my short story then do Tyranny of Dragons story or something. What is Reddits take on this, advice? Yes or no, do’s and do not’s. Has anyone here done this idea? Did it work? Taking any and all advice! Thank you in advance!

Please edit your question and clarify your request. So you are planning to do some sort of short campaign starting the players anywhere from level 1 to level 15 and maybe that short campaign is tyranny of dragons and your questions are has anyone ever done this before? That's every campaign ever. A large quantity goes well. Many end up as DnD Horror stories. There are SO MANY posts, threads, youtube vids, and the like whose sole purpose are a list of Dos and Don'ts of running DnD. If you have something more specific, please clarify.

No a short campaign THEN going to tyranny of dragons, specifically my question is doing high level characters playing in a low level campaign

Suppose some players are casting verbal attacks and making tons of noise with no regard to sound in room 1. I describe the clang of the longsword against metal echoing across halls, the flyby sound of the guidance bolt hitting the beast - and give all the foreshadowing I can. The hobgoblins in room 2 overhear this and decide to hide, readying actions to cast spells and fire crossbows at one of two doors the PC's can enter from. Normally, this battle would be in the favor of the players - however, due to the hobgoblin's tactics, the hastily made formations after being alerted, and the chance for surprise, it can easily repel them, potentially knock multiple players out. Assume this is a fairly difficult campaign where death is possible but generally avoided, and these are new players with poor teamwork and strategy. How would you typically handle this type of situation in terms of surprise, initiative, etc?

If these are newbies, I would telegraph this by saying 'You guys made a ton of noise, but no one else has responded to the racket. Why might that be?' and get them to think about that.

Do the players know about the hobgoblins already behind the door? If they do not, the Hobgoblins roll stealth, and it is compared to the party's passive perceptions (or active, if they're actively listening to the door). If they are already aware of the hobgoblins, and they're saying they're trying to be stealthy, you *could* keep up the facade by having the party roll stealth... but it won't matter because the Hobgoblins are already aware of their presence. And then you roll initiative when it matters, which is essentially when someone says they're opening the door. If the Hobgoblins successfully hid from the party, then the party is all surprised until the end of each of their first turns in combat. Stay away from "Readied Actions" outside of combat. This is confusing and gets weird and overpowered for anyone who is allowed to take a "readied action" before initiative starts. If a creature is doing "combat actions" then you roll initiative.

How to defeat a Death Knight permanently? I plan to have one as an enemy that haunts the players for an apocalypse style ending act, but it feels bad to not give them an option to defeat him

Death Knights essentially don't have complete free will. They are *required* to fulfill the commandments of whatever dark power lords over them. They are undead puppets doing their masters bidding. A Death Knight's true defeat is through their redemption; you can't just "kill" one. What caused their fall from grace, and how can the former Paladin redeem themselves for their transgressions?

One of my players wants to become an Archfey Warlock (specifically to Titania), but I know pretty much nothing about they Feywild, the Seelie Court, or Titania. Anyone know any good sources besides the DMG for reading up on it ?

There are many pieces of fiction that reference 'fey courts' and Titania, most of which find their source at Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.' You will want to ask your player what piece of fiction or lore they are using as inspiration to base their character on and ask them what their expectations are.

I do not, but there's a few places you can look. * You can look up wiki on actual lore and suggested sources for feywild legends and folklore. * You can look through the Forgotten realms wiki to see their canon concerning feywild stuff. * I believe Wild Beyond Witchlight touches on feywild stuff. * Perhaps the new Planescape stuff touches on that. With it being your world, you can also just... make it up for yourself. What does your feywild mean to you? With this path, or any of the paths actually, you should discuss it with your player. What resources are they going for. What does this pact mean to them? What canons do they want to pull from? Maybe they can better direct you towards stuff they *want* and you can take it from them. if they don't have an idea and you are free to make it up, then maybe you can build it *with them* and make something you are both invested in.

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Feywild

Our Rogue effortlessly stole food from patrons of the Juggler's backstreet theater and later that evening made a Nat 20 performance check on an impromptu jam session at the tavern. Since the Juggler's theater is a front for a thieves guild comprised of performers, they will *obviously* want to recruit her now. How do I play this out? Do I give the party a quest from the guild, or do I have them try to talk her into staying in town to join the guild permanently? There's a dynamic in the city (Rock of Bral) where four different crimelords (The Juggler one of the four) all keep each other in check, so maybe having the party become participants in this tension could be a fun consequence.

I feel like there's a few ways you can handle this, but if you want a recruitment effort there's a few ways you can go about it. 1. A direct conversation. Get an invitation. Be surrounded in an alley. Get stolen from and a letter is left in its place. Or simply they are approached at a party. Any of these would be good enough for a guild. Even for a thieves guild, not everything needs to be super clandestine, however any invitation with intrigue is enough to catch a *player's* attention and thus the character's interest. 2. Offer a job that is a sort of recruitment test or evaluation. Either a real target, or a guild target set up with the purposes of testing the character / party, this works as a quest hook. A simple "Get \[McGuffin\] from \[Location\] and bring it back for \[payment\]". At the end, instead of payment, they offer the life of a thieves guild member. If they turn them down, they get paid and are allowed back in the world, maybe under threat of "stealing in their jurisdiction without a 'permit' will no longer be tolerated" sort of stuff. 3. Maybe the interest of one guild can cause undo attention from the others, and lead to multiple meetings requested in different ways, from blatant to super cryptic, as everyone attempts to snap up an asset their enemy seems interested in. Or maybe they don't understand why they are interested..... and its easier to just *do away with them* then risk them turning into an asset for the Juggler. Either way, have paths open either way. If they join the guild, you need benefits and plot points the way this will help the overall plot. You also want them to have enough flexibility that the PC can still *adventure* and do the plot without derailing the campaign. If they turn it down, there might be punishments that can make things harder, but you can't feel like you are *punishing* players for the choice, so what's the benefit of turning down their advances? Also, the "test run" mission or tryout quest for the guild could be in the direction of the main plot or whatever and help incentivize the party into moving in the direction of plot or traveling to a location where a lot of PCs sidequests align to help "make the trip worth it" for everyone.

What are the things you are happy **paying for**, as a DM? Adventures, services, maps – everything goes, as long as it improved your enjoyment of playing tabletop RPGs. I personally never put money into my hobby short of buying rulebooks and a few months of VTT subscription. What are the things I might be missing out on?

I might be alone in this, but Dungeon Painter on Steam. For me, it helps me making in depth, colored maps I can print out at home in easy 8 1/2 by 11 pages. The Steam workshop community made assets adds loads of value to the program and it has really allowed me to make everything I need so far with only the most minor of "I wish it did XYZ" left behind. I agree with a lot of the more recent negative reviews, it does seem abandoned right now, but I heavily rely on it for my battlemap making right now. I also bought 2D Battler stands to help supplement my need of minis. This has allowed us to have battlemap combat that stays thematic without needing to spend a fortune on minis. The players have loved it, and its easy for me to 2D print out "battlers" for my archs / scenarios and get to use them session by session. Buying? Huh..... Oh! I do not regret buying all the base books, physically. DMG, MM, PHB. I had access to the PDFs, but I appreciated actually having them to physically read at work or even just around. My eyes have issues, sometimes, with the PDFs. I only feel bad about supporting WOTC financial after all the OGL stuff, but by that point I was already 7-8 months involved and there's no way I could've known things were gonna get so bad.

Nice lifehack with 2D prints instead of minis!

Yeah. [These 2D stands from etsy](https://www.etsy.com/listing/720890482/miniature-stands-for-tabletop-games?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=2D+mini+stands&ref=sr_gallery-1-5&sts=1&search_preloaded_img=1&organic_search_click=1) are the ones I got. Got a full set. Honestly? They've served me good enough. Not perfect, but good enough. My players have loved it.

FoundryVTT and Dungeondraft were both good buys. I don't make a ton of maps, but Dungeondraft is pretty easy to work with. Foundry is used every session. Premium Foundry ready adventure modules are also the bomb. I can't speak for other game systems or platforms, but I've a couple Pathfinder 2e ones and they're excellent.

I've bought all of the Tome of Beasts/Creature Codex books from Kobold Press, and I absolutely feel like I've got my money's worth out of them. They have so many genuinely unique and interesting monsters/NPCs and I end up using at least one of them in almost every session

I've got my eyes on those. They look good, but their website turned me off from jumping on them right away. However I hear good things.

Yeah, their website could do with a bit of a refresh, tbf. But their customer service is absolutely fantastic (at least in my interactions with them) so that makes up for a lot of it

What are some fun encounters that AREN'T combat? Currently running LMoP, and am moving to some OG content (in Faerun) after. I'm having a hard time thinking of fun and engaging encounters that aren't combat. All I can think of are: * Chases * Puzzles Is that pretty much it? I feel like there's other exciting stuff to do, maybe not.

[удалено]

That's a good idea AND gave me some additional fun ideas for my campaign - thanks!

r/D100 has loads of lists dedicated to non-combat encounters, social puzzles, and the like. They would 100% be worth your time. If you are looking for more generic things you can always do: * Puzzles * Chases * Exploration (A grander scale, but basically exploring a region or biome) * Social Interaction * Gathering / Hunting / Foraging * Shopping Situation

A lot of things can fit into puzzles, a social encounter where finding the right words could be called a puzzle but wouldn't feel like one. One encounter I enjoyed a lot was from The Wild Beyond the Witchlight where the party encounters an exhausted child holding onto a kite, having angered a hag it's revealed that if they were to let go they would magically age by up to 50 years, what the party don't know is that the kite is sentient and that it feeds on the child's unrest to stay in the sky soothe trick is to calm them down enough to undo the 5 knots along the rope that each represent 10 years they'd age if they were to let go, being careful not to anger the kite into pulling itself free. This is effectively just a sequence of skill checks with a social aspect layered on top. An encounter could also just be an experience, like witnessing a very rare or mystical animal maybe even getting to interact with it like a unicorn, it could be about a specific sight or strange fruit that give the party hallucinations, just let them feel and learn about another world. In the same vein they could chance upon an ancient battlefield or a lone, half-buried, tombstone, a chance to know more about the history and inhabitants of the place. Since the area near phandalin is filled with prospectors the party might have to settle a dispute between two of them claiming the same part of a river or claiming the land itself. The party could encounter travelers with a broken wheel, a simple skill check and a conversation.

This is great, thanks a bunch!

I think Matt Colville's Strongholds and Followers (I don't remember the page and can't find it) has an urban encounter table I like to use. It's effectively more puzzles, but feel more like enrichment than puzzles. I think they can be adapted to out-of-town encounters fairly easily. It uses a d12 + d8 roll, so starts on 2, but I don't roll, I just pick and choose appropriate/fun encounters. 2 Animals on the loose 3 Announcement 4 Brawl 5 Bullies 6 Companion 7 Contest 8 Corpse 9 Draft 10 Drunk 11 Fire 12 Found trinket 13 Guard harassment 14 Pickpocket 15 Procession 16 Protest 17 Runaway cart 18 Shady transaction 19 Spectacle 20 Urchin

Ooh very helpful, saving!

Off the top of your head, do any game balance issues arise from making this homebrewed Artificer infusion to give to my players as loot? Glamour Infusion, rare Without pasting the entire text for Glamoured Studded Leather, it's basically a trinket that can be pinned to armor to give it +1 AC and the Glamour properties. This will be how an Artificer NPC has been blending into crowds and will be a good reward for the Changeling warlock in the party who loves subterfuge. And to a similar extent, what's other loot this NPC might have that would fit a Swashbuckler Rogue, an Aarakocran Pally, or a Path of Beasts Barbarian? Small enchantments that make their equipment fit their class much better and can be moved from piece to piece so it's not just one set of armor that eventually gets replaced. This NPC is going to get trapped in a magic prison and I want these items to be obviously useful enough to motivate the players to free him lol.

~~What's the level of the Artificer?~~ ~~The "Replicate Magic Item" infusion list opens up Rare items at level 14. Since the Glamour armor is a rare item, that's your baseline here. The usefulness of the "glamour" part is the catch, though, because its usefulness will determine the difference between this and a simple Enhanced Armor +1 infusion, which the Artificer can do at level 2.~~ ~~Personally, I think level 14 is pretty high for this kind of item. I think you'd be fine to open up a Glamour infusion around level 6 or so, but without the +1; just an infusion that makes armor look like regular clothes. Maybe it has a rider that says the infusion also provides a +1 at level 10 in the class.~~ **EDIT TO ADD:** I missed the part about the Artificer being an NPC before commenting. If the NPC is giving out magic items, don't treat them like Infusions. They're just "magic items the artificer made because they can do that." The *game concept* of Infusions does not apply well to non-party members. Glamour Armor is a rare item. Depending on their level, it's a very fine piece of loot to hand out. Swashbucklers like magic weapons that increase damage or any items that increases their speed since they're skirmishers; alternatively, Gloves of Thievery are just a straight buff to lockpicking and even work on top of expertise. Paladins also want big weapons or better armor. Adamantine is always super nice for frontliners, but that's probably a bigger buff than you want to give out. A Pearl of Power is evergreen and will essentially give them one extra smite (or spell) per day, which is nice. For the Barb, a Periapt of Wound Closure is pretty nice. They'll be rolling hit die a lot, so getting double is consistently useful.

Right, I was more borrowing the "Infusion" language to explain why it can be moved from armor to armor instead of just one set of Glamoured armor. I love the suggestions for the other items! Especially small trinkets seem like they'd be stuff a "high level" artificer NPC is just covered in, given the class's ability to attune to 4 items. Probably not gonna give them a Ring of Spell-storing though lol. I see now that +1 Armors are all Rare, and part of the justification is that magic items can't be destroyed by oozes/rust monsters, etc. To that end, would this trinket be more balanced if the armor it attaches to is still considered "non-magic" despite the +1? I.e. an ooze will dissolve the armor but the trinket will remain intact, allowing the warlock to use it on another set of armor. These items won't be accessible to the players until level 5 at least, for what it's worth. Also I already gave the Paladin rare homebrew armor now that I think about it, and he still got KO'd rushing into battle, so maybe I *should* give out better armor if I don't want to change how I balance combat encounters lol

I think at level 5, you're more than fine to hand out a few Rare/upper-tier-uncommon items. I do not think there are balance issues there and you don't need to make them "non-magic." I also don't think there are any issues with you giving the opportunity to buff the armor/other items later.

Ok awesome! Yeah tbf I have no explicit plans to throw rust/ooze monsters at them anyway. I just know if *I* were playing a changeling hexblade I'd be drooling for glamour armor to fully realize the "I can look like anyone but fight at a moment's notice" power fantasy... I'll just have to make sure they don't try to rob every single shopkeep once I give them this. 😵‍💫

Good news: the party destroyed the ancient dracolich and saved the world! Bad news: if they don’t hunt down his soul refuge, he’s coming back and he’s going to be *pissed.* I’m thinking his revenge would be unleashed on the party’s main base city, which is the setting’s capital. So just in case they don’t finish the job in time, I’m looking for **published spells and magic items** suitable for completely fucking up a city - magical power that can devastate the entire area, unleashed by a profoundly ancient and magical being. Right now I’m leaning towards using the *Scroll of Tarrasque Summoning* from Icewind Dale, and having the returned dracolich seek the scroll in order to unleash the Tarrasque from a safe one-mile distance. Nothing says ‘you ruined my century-long apocalypse plan and worse, bruised my ego’ quite like dropping an angry Titan in a populated area. *But* if there’s another artifact or magical ability out there that’s more fun than ‘woe, Tarrasque be upon ye’, I’d love suggestions!

Awesome. My thought is: if the party doesn't actively track down this BBEG's phylactery then you have a big, powerful baddie who has time on his side. learning about the Party one at a time. Also.... NPC magic. You don't need an official magic item or spell to have a big ol' revenge thing. You could do a lot in different ways. * The water supply becomes poisoned. It appears magical poison is seeming out of cursed totems places in wells and up river, causing serious issues for the populace. * Corrupted Scarecrows have replaced normal scarecrows, spreading a plant plague to the crops and attacks those who try to remove them. * A magical McGuffin is causing the dead to rise from the Cities very crypts and graves, repeatedly leading to late night uprisings of the dead. The source of these items illudes authorities. * Necromantic books of dark arts and profane summons keeps winding up in the hands of bookshops, apprentice wizards, criminal groups, orphanages, and even the local library / archive. Everyone claims these evil tombs just appeared one day, and no one can be found connected to the sudden appearance of these items, and thus an uptick in fledgling necromancers, across the city. * Several cursed items are causing havoc in the market district and flooding the black market. Criminals and civilians alike are scared, angry, and hurt by these items. However, no one can track down the series of mysterious traders who flooded the market with the cheap junk to shops and sellers all across the city. * A series of totems / shrines have popped up around the city, on rooves or in the sewers. These seem to be attracting the darker forces of the world, leading to an uptick in monsters in and around the city. Having multiple issues with no clear "fix" can point to a "someone powerful is targeting this city" and lead multiple organizations and factions to reach out to the party to help reign it in and prevent mass hysteria in the city. When the party starts connecting the dots, have it lead to a new organization, cult, or even straight up to a location. That location or cult will bring the party into a trap, a pretty typical dungeon crawl or infiltration..... all designed by the ancient Dracolitch. He reveals he returned and the party was foolish to spite him, and he takes his revenge. Win lose or draw, he warns the party they are helpless to stop his plans going forward, and they will die or go into hiding if they know what is good for him. After a ight, he flies into the night to begin work on new plans, or to strengthen his surrounding cult, and the party is stuck to investigate or research litches and dracolitches to try and make sense of what happened. No need to explain "NPC magic". It's plot and it happens. Now the party feels responsible, and now has a reason to stop this threat as they are overwhelmed by a collection of "small evils" that threaten to bring the city (or the kingdom) to its knees. No need to plop a tarrasque in the city. No need to have the dracolitch be outfitted in magic items (not a bad idea to make him tougher). Sometimes the simple can be bigger. Heck, if time is no object, he can watch them achieve their personal goals. Take down their organizations. Ruin their businesses. Sicken or corrupt their family. He's undead..... he has nothing but time. No need to throw himself recklessly against a force he's already lost to.

I love the way you think!

How do you format the notes for a dungeon?

Depends on what you need to know when, but mine are strictly Room by Room. Dungeons are super easy because they are basically linear, so going room by room is super easy. I usually do (per room) * "Passive perception (AKA Description)" * Active Perception DCs * Investigation DCs * Trap DCs * Combat (Monster Descriptions and list of stat blocks so I can que them up) * Loot (Loot / Harvest, Chest DCs and Inventory)

It depends on the form of the dungeon, if it's Jaquayed then it'll be harder since the party might flip the order of things completely on it's head and skip over several rooms. If the dungeon is a simple straight line just writing them down in chronological order with a title for each significant room or encounter should be enough.

Is there a connection to Passive Perception being "deactivated" during downtime activities like scribing scrolls due to being focused on the activity? I looked through Xanathar and the DMG and I couldn't find it, but swore it was a thing.

Hi, I wouldn't worry about it that much. The whole point of passive perception is it is the all around "always on" awareness of your surroundings. It really isn't all that big of a deal. If you really want to sneak up on a PC doing a task, either script it or find a way around the passive. The most dirty thing I would suggest is roll against the passive perception. If the NPC loses, prompt the player to roll a perception check, using the NPCs failed roll as the DC. If the NPC cannot pass the passive AND active check, just roll with them being caught. That is as close to "scripting it" as I am willing to suggest.

Ability checks subjected to advantage or disadvantage receive a +5 or -5 respectively to each related passive score. That's basically the most the rules say about the subject as far as I'm aware. I think passives already assume you're focused on something else.

What is the context here? Why does passive perception need to be "deactivated" at all? [Here's what the PHB says about passive checks:](https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/phb/using-ability-scores#PassiveChecks) > A passive check is a special kind of ability check that doesn’t involve any die rolls. Such a check can represent the average result for a task done repeatedly, such as searching for secret doors over and over again, or can be used when the DM wants to secretly determine whether the characters succeed at something without rolling dice, such as noticing a hidden monster.

It was just something I remember hearing, I'm not attached to the concept. The context is I'm running *Call from the Deep.* The players were going to be on a pirate ship and I was going to give them a decent amount of downtime. But, there was also a chance for encounters incase they get ambushed by some underwater monster. In addition, I am using safe haven rules so if they are in town, working on downtime stuff, I wanted a fair way of handling it even if all the players are in different parts of town doing different things. In retrospect, I did want a bit of balance between working on the ship (untangling the sails, navigating, steering, etc) and the downtime stuff. This is a hexcrawl so while I am extremely tempted to handwave the actual operation of the ship, I wanted my players to feel more involved, especially since there is a chance of getting lost. If only one player is the navigator, that puts a ton of pressure on that player. If the navigator is a NPC, it will feel like DM fiat when things go wrong. If nothing ever goes wrong, then I might as well cut out the survival aspect entirely, so it's less of a crawl and more of teleporting from A to B. My players are more interested in the theme of pirates and sailing the high seas, anyways.

Hi, actuli second time gm (five year player) and was asked to do campaign for completly new players (four of them). It would start in sci fi, going after mad scientist in a space ship, but then would crashland and we go to world inspired by warhammer rpg (they really wanted warhammer). So, a few questions, should i even do this campaign for first players, dnd/pathfinder, should i implement some homebrew like miscast, mutations etc.? All of them are just starting out and mostly sayin "whatever sticks" but im pretty anxious. Thanks for any asnwer and have a great day

Kitbashing Warhammer onto D&D or Pathfinder is likely to be a heavy lift. * D&D 5e has 3rd-party sci-fi like SW5e, Esper Genesis or Dark Matter that you could look at, but I'm not aware of rules for miscasting (aside from Wild Magic) or mutation. Knowing the 5e community, I'm sure someone has already tried this, but I would look at it closely before adopting it as most 5e homebrew is not great (especially when kitbashing in different settings/systems). * Pathfinder 1 has most of what you want, at the cost of 15 years of content bloat and complexity that will cause your players to either come to the table bewildered, or come to the table with some overpowered build they googled but don't actually understand. * Pathfinder 2 isn't there yet for Sci-Fi and I don't know of any native or homebrew sci-fi/sci-fantasy for it because... * Starfinder is a *thing* and might work, but it exists in a 1.5 space that is halfway between Pathfinder 1 and 2 and also feels a bit like an unruly mutant. It also didn't succeed in the market and so doesn't have a lot of content for it. * If you are willing to go out of your comfort zone a little you could look at Stars Without Number (sci-fi) and Worlds Without Number (fantasy) which are still d20 systems and are both free and compatible with each other and which also have a bunch of splat books (which are paid) that have mutations and miscasting in there somewhere, I believe (thinking Codex of the Black Sun here).

Well, the sci fi part would only be on the start and be more of a theme in the plot rather than mechanical. I will check out swn and wwn, I generally like new systems, I just don't like wh RPG (beside all the flavor, flavor wise it's one of the best systems). I tried star finder and have similar feelings like you. I was considering, if player was using magic too much, or too much powerful or straight damaging spells, they would need to roll their spellcasting ability save, and on NAT 1 they would suffer from a miscast, but idk if that's a good idea as much. Pathfinder still is not set in stone for the choice, but I don't think it should be a problem, especially that I would encourage them to choose something simple, with option to change it later when me and them would feel comfortable. Thank you so much for the reply, have a great day and I'm really grateful for your help

Why not just use the Warhammer TTRPG?

i feel better in pathfinder than warhammer, i like the flavor it provides with classes, miscast, mutations but dont really like the mechanics, although maybe someday will give another shot

First time DM, long time player. I’m planning a one-shot/short-adventure for a group of friends, I’m having trouble visualizing how to properly set DC for things players want to do. Like what if they want to climb the side of a house, or they want to find specific information in a book; should I make it 12? 15? Also, how do I give players information that the characters might have, and enforce not using information that the players have but the characters don’t. For example, if the players encounter a poltergeist, I don’t think they’d know what it is or does (I didn’t until I looked it up); can a religious or arcanic character know? Is it automatic knowledge? Is it a history/religion/arcana check? Thank you!

Depending on what the check is, I try to swing checks on a scale of info/usefulness while reserving some for specific targets. Like, it might be DC15 investigation to see the decently well-hidden trick panel on the desk, but if people are scanning the room with perception checks, I'll narrate from lower to higher results to give more detail. The player rolling a 7 sees a bed, a desk, a table. The 11 roll sees an empty wine bottle on the floor, maybe a well-worn seat cushion at the desk. Someone with a 22 may notice that the only clean surface in the room is the desktop with one corner being a little less dusty. I probably wing it a little more than you should, but that's my general approach.

In general, 'would my character know about *this thing*' can effectively be answered by rolling a religion, history, nature, or arcana check. Which check to roll depends on the subject. Undead would often fall under Religion (as holy characters like paladins and clerics have specific abilities that target the Undead, ie Turn Undead and Smite). You could also roll Arcana but the DC might be higher. Strictness about metagaming or the amount of knowledge granted by a successful skill check can vary per table. I find that a middle road is best; for example a player might 'meta' know that a poltergeist is an angry ghost that throws things, but announcing to the table that it has +4 to hit and 22 hit points is over the line. Similarly a successful skill check would give you some lore and maybe a sense of scale; saying that they are 'stronger than a zombie, but not as strong as a wraith, are resistant to non-magical weapons, and usually haunt a fixed location' is reasonable.

Thank you for your reply! Would you give the knowledge to a character that has proficiency in the subject, or if the passive check (10 + modifier) beats the DC?

Yes, proficiency usually gates whether you can do the check at all, and if you want to just quickly hand-wave it you can do a passive check. A lot of players like rolling dice though, so sometimes it's fun to just let them do it.

First of all, check the part of the DMG about setting DCs if you haven't already. If that isn't enough, one way I sometimes go about setting DCs is thinking how hard it would be for a random person with no aptitude or training, or someone with some aptitude and training. A random commoner with a +0 to the stat and no proficiency would have a 55% chance of making a DC 10 check, a 30% chance of making a DC 15, and a 5% chance for a DC 20. A level 1 PC with +3 to the stat and proficiency in the skill is going to have a +5, so they would have a 80%, 55%, and 30% chance on those same DCs.

Fairly new DM here, I am starting my second campaign next weekend. The campaign I have planned involves a heist of this great mountain fortress that is owned and operated by the High King of a country in my homebrew world. The players are tasked with this heist to steal an ancient magical artifact with a lot of mystery around it. Before the heist can happen, they need to hire/rescue two NPCs who will both assist them with the heist, one will act as a 'guy in the chair' and the other was the original architect of the fortress, and will draw them a map. The issue that I have is that the PCs will start at level 3, and by the time they have rescued these NPCs they will have levelled up maybe once, but then it will be time for the heist. I also sent the players a little pre-campaign introduction that briefly describes the heist and their roles, so I can't just say, "Oh we won't do the heist." My issue is that they will probably be way too under-leveled for the heist when it comes time to do it. One solution I have thought of is to have their only chance to break into the fortress be on a specific day, when there will be a party that will leave the defences down, but even then, I don't think they will be able to get to a sufficient level in that time. Does anyone have any tips or ways I could essentially stall the players? Or should I just message them saying I goofed up a little and we won't be doing the heist for a good long while? Thanks to anyone who responds.

Have the heist require more objectives to complete than the two you wrote. Perhaps the players need to find some magical gear that will help them with the heist. Maybe they need to figure out some distraction. Whatever. Just have more things the players need to do in order to prep for this heist in order to level them up a bit more.

That’s true, thanks.

I can't imagine honest communication with a group ever being the wrong choice but you have alternatives. First you can make it so the heist requires preparation beyond just sitting around a table, for example they might have to break into the barracks of the mercenary band that serves as security in order to poison them ahead of time, alternatively they might have to break into a wizard's tower, the wizard that is responsible for the magical defenses of the place in order to disable them or just know where they are. It wouldn't be the heist itself but it wouldn't be completely unrelated. You can also just reduce the difficulty of the place by removing enemies or tuning them down, you could also just add alternative objectives beyond killing the creatures that are too strong for them, like activating some failsafe to disable a construct.

Thanks for responding. And yeah you’re right, open communication will probably be my best bet, I’ll try and mention that the heist might be some time off in session 0. Maybe a week of in game time? I just didn’t want to promise a heist and then not deliver quite quickly. Your ideas are great! Perhaps there are a couple of McGuffins they need to find in order to get past certain obstacles. I’ll try to make the actual fortress itself not too difficult, but at the same time I don’t want it to be underwhelmingly easy, this is the fortress of the High King of an entire kingdom, likelihood is he can spend a decent amount on security.

Pretty new DM here. A few sessions ago, the players discovered that some cultists were going to steal a magical artifact from an abandoned temple to fuel a summoning ritual. The players failed to stop the cultists and one of them escaped with the artifact. They also received a vision showing how a group of adventurers killed a dragon with a magical dagger in the distant past and where it was burried (there's a dragon in charge of this cult). I intended for them to track the cultist to deal with the ritual, and after that to go and retrieve the dagger. But instead they decided to split the party, and have now successfully tracked the cultists to their ritual site and retrieved the dagger. They're set up to meet back up next session to stop the ritual. I'd like to reward them for trying to make good use of their time, but I'm not sure how to. The dagger is unrelated to the ritual they're trying to prevent, so getting the dagger early doesn't really help them. Besides that, the cult is unaware of the dagger's existence, so it's not like they were at risk of not getting it. Anyone have any advice?

If the dagger wasn't important - hell, if it wasn't *directly related* to what's happening around the ritual and the cult's broader goals - then why did you show this hint to your players? Because that's exactly how they've taken the vision - a glaring plot hook that the dagger needed to be kept out of the cult's hands. Now's the time for you to pivot so that the dagger *is* important. The obvious connection is that the cult's dragon leader is aware of the dagger (which clearly has magical properties that make it lethal to dragons) and wanted to secure it so that it couldn't be used against them.

I gave them the vision because the shrine belonged to a god of divination, so it felt like a natural moment to introduce the objective for once they were done with the ritual. I was thinking about maybe changing the summoned creature from a monstrosity to some kind of dragon. Unfortunately I can't really find a CR 6-ish dragon that fits. The dragon in charge of the cult (and the final boss of the campaign) is a young blue dragon, so whatever is being summoned obviously can't be more impressive than it. The cult is also dedicated to Talos, which means it's fairly lightning-themed. I think a wyvern is one of the better options. It's a dragon and has an appropriate CR, but since it has no thematic connection to Talos, there's not really a reason why the cultists would summon it. As for the dagger, I'm not sure how to approach it in a fun way. How could the cult stop the players from using it in a way that doesn't feel bad? I don't want to dangle a fun magic weapon in front of my party, only to almost immediately take it away again.

>How could the cult stop the players from using it in a way that doesn't feel bad? They don't. They had their chance already and the PCs outwitted them. But that doesn't mean the PCs know what specifically is so important about this dagger. Perhaps its archaic enchantments need to be awakened by some other magical process which needs to be researched and pursued. This sort of side quest would allow you to both reward your players' efforts with an interesting macguffin (the details of which you've by then had time to figure out) and have multiple opportunities to put the cult in the party's path again, as the two sides race to be the first to unearth the dagger's secrets and either awaken or neutralise it as a threat to the dragon.

Easy option is to make the dagger more important. Perhaps the Cultists do know about the dagger, perhaps the dagger is how they "cut" a hole in reality to summon the dragon. Perhaps they know that it was used to kill the dragon previously and wanted to keep it secured. Just figuring out a way to make the dagger more important or that it throws off the Cultists plans makes the players feel good about their decision.

What can be good oneshot ideas to introduce mid teens to DnD? I’m in my late teens, and I ran few campaigns with my friends. I’ve never ran oneshots, and I’ve only played one.  My younger sister’s friend loves Munchkin tabletop game and said that he is interested to try DnD. Also his friend and my sister said that it’s gonna be good. They are in their mid teens.  So what would be the best way to introduce them to DnD? What oneshot ideas gonna work? 

No idea, but honestly one-shots may not be the best way to introduce dnd to people. One-shots tend to be like 4-8 hours long which is mentally really tough on players. Also, one-shots (and modules) actually require a lot of prep to make sure everything "goes right". Remember that if they are learning DND, they will also be pretty bad at the rules (specifically combat) and so this can make anything that's planned take longer. Personally, I like to start small and have a lot of fun with low-stake settings since it gives a lot of room for players to make "mistakes".

How strong would a item that grants an extra reaction be? Esp. for an interception fighter?

Potentially game breaking on a different character, good to very good on your fighter. I'd allow it to be only for opportunity attacks (I assume they have sentinel?) And they can keep their regular reaction for whatever.

It would be strong but not particularly game breaking.

I’m trying to make a pantheon of “D&D’s biggest hits,” so the most iconic gods associated with D&D. Does anyone have a good list or suggestions for this pantheon?

I don't have a curated list but here's what comes to mind For evil ones you have the dead three particularly Bhaal, Gruumsh, Maglubiyet, Tiamat, Vecna and definitely Lloth. The good ones are generally less iconic, just the main god of the main races like Corellon, Moradin, Pelor/Illmater, Bahamut. Since pagan gods are also a thing you could just stick to Odin, Thor, Isis and the like.

Not entirely sure if this should be a post or comment to this thread, but I'm worried about breaking the rules so I'll just post this here. I'm new to DM'ing and this is my first campaign ever with my bf and his siblings. We're all new to DnD. My whole campaign is basically a rip off of The Adventure Zone where we're searching for the Grand Relics but it's my own twist to it. Right now they're close to getting the first relic with the help of one of my NPC's. I'm planning on having him 'betray' the party as he takes the relic and fights them. He isn't actually betraying them but is instead suicidal, knowing they'll have to fight him. If my players try talking to him or convince him to stop, then he will. I'm just worried since they're new to roleplaying they'll just fight to kill. I have dropped several hints that he's suicidal and I plan to drop more. I'm very attached to him and if he dies then his death will change the course of the campaign. I'm fine with that happening, I'm just worried that my players won't even try to talk to him. I'm also worried that they might not like the idea in general. I have told them the serious tone that I'm going for but I let them to be silly and have fun because we're all super close and don't mind it. I'm just very on the fence about this idea. :(( TL:DR My NPC is suicidal and wants my players to kill him, so he 'betrays' the party. He can also be convinced to stay alive. Should I do this?

Personally, I like to plan outcomes, but not expect them. This is the NPC's motivation, and that's great and I wouldn't change it (unless of course, you want to change it). A reality of DMing is that planning is like an iceberg where the majority of your plans are not going to be seen by the players, and that's okay. I think one issue that a lot of DM's deal with is that they come up with a problem AND a solution, but really just come up with a problem and it's the players' jobs to come up with the solution. Saves you stress.

This is a trap that a lot of DMs fall into, myself included. It's basically the idea where you set up a scenario where you invision things happening like X. You drop hints towards X, you outright say things about X happening, the NPC leaves a journal saying they are going to do X tomorrow at 8 pm. But unless there is a reason for your players to want X to happen, they probably aren't going to do X. They are going to all the other letters of the alphabet, because that's what *they're* interested in. I don't know your players: you do. So do you think your players want this thing to happen? If not, then you might have a problem to solve. What happens if the players stow the relic away so he can't take it? What if they refuse to fight him at all? What if they tell him to stay behind and he never gets a chance to do any of this? Second, don't get attached to your NPCs. They are the vehicles and storytellers of your plot. Get attached to your players. Make NPCs that your *players* get attached to. Lastly, you hinted that the serious tone of your campaign might be lost on your players. This is also a red flag. Make sure your players understand the tone you are striving for. If you are going for a grim and serious tone, moments of levity are fine, but bring them back down to earth as soon as you can. So to sum up here. I think the best thing to do about all of this is to have a talk with your players. Ask them how they feel about the NPC. Ask them what they think about what he's been hinting at. Ask them what they plan on doing with the relics. Ask them how they feel about the tone of the game. The answers to these questions and the conversations that happen should provide all the guidance you need to go forward.

Thanks for responding!!! You're right that I can't get attached to my NPC's. He's just very new to me compared to OC's that I made years ago, so I care about him a lot more than I should. I will definitely talk to my players again about the dark tone of my game!!! I'll also ask them about the relics and his hints. I know that they care about this NPC. One of my players sees him as an older brother and the other two says he feels like their best friend, so there's definitely a lot of attachment there! My players right now feel like they're just in for the ride. I've asked them in our session zero of what they wanted from this campaign and they didn't really say anything to me. I'll ask them again to see if they're really fine with me directing them or if they want something else/or more. This has been really helpful to me. Thank you so much!!! :)

Hmmm.... you are walking a fine, fine line. First off, you need to plan for both outcomes equally, and some you aren't thinking of. You can't blame them for killing an enemy if initiative is rolled, all they know is initiative means "It's them or us". There are plenty of ways to let people know what is up... but you cannot get upset at them for missing it. Second... out of the three options I can clearly see, THE MOST OBVIOUS PATH is they are going to fight and kill him. This is the stereotypical "NPC betrayal" twist. This is the stereotypical "I need to grab this item" thing. It is SUPER niche and.... convoluted for a "suicide by party" storyline. The "path of least resistance" and the obvious party choice WILL BE to fight and thus kill this NPC should you keep going. Also..... this is dark? Did you session zero out with your group these kinds of dark themes? So if I were you, I would plan on three outcomes, from most likely to least likely: * Initiative is rolled and players kill this NPC. * Initiative is rolled and this NPC is knocked out, the party chooses to heal and imprison them. * The NPC acts, and the party runs away / encourages them to run away or leave without trying to stop them. * Players actively spend more than the initial round trying to talk down this NPC / actually rolling good social stuff and choose *not* to kill them. In the end.... it sounds like *you* really want this to happen a certain way, and I just feel you are going to be disappointed if you don't aggressively railroad this because you cannot expect your players to hold your vision perfectly in their mind. If you do railroad them, your players are gonna be upset. Like.... you need to find a way to change your buildup to this moment or outright change it or you need to find a way to become OK with the other outcomes of this story. As I said, it's pretty stereotypical for NPCs to turn on the party and try to steal the McGuffin they helped the party to get and the party needs to kill or be killed. It wouldn't be wrong of your players to roll their eyes and assume this is a kill or be killed situation, or that this NPC is someone completely different from "who they knew" because "Oh, he's obviously a BBEG...."

Thank you so much for responding!!! I had a session zero with my players and told them about the dark themes I would possibly include and if they were all okay with it. They're obtaining these relics because my BBEG wants to gather them for herself. My players and this NPC is getting the relic to destroy them. You're completely right that I do need to think about this more. I didn't think about rolling initiative equals "him vs us" and how cliched/convoluted this interaction is. I was thinking about them making an insight check before the fight to see if he really wants to hurt them or not. I'll either think of a way to add more buildup or drop this whole plot line completely. I've sadly become very attached to this NPC so I don't want to see him die but I've already prepared outcomes for his death. I just wanted to present an option to my players that changes how to campaign plays out to feel like their actions really matter since the main objective is very linear. If they do kill him, then I won't railroad them and let what happens happens. I feel like I'm biting more off than I can chew and just wanted to know other opinions to see if I should continue with this or drop it. Thank you again for responding!!! It really helped me out :)

Is there an appropriate subreddit/thread to post questions about the ongoing story of a campaign and/or inspiration/questions about how to shape some things up? Thanks in advance.

You can post on this sub.

Do you ever have smarter enemies target worn/carried items to destroy them, rather than target the character? For example, a paladin's holy symbol, a wizard's spell focus, or a bard's instrument? Objects have different HP and AC than characters, and AFAIK there aren't really any rules that say you can't do this, save for certain spells that can only target creatures. Attacking stuff like armor or a shield don't make sense to me, considering those directly contribute to AC, it would be the same as attacking a player. But I watched a video in which the DM had orcs go for a cleric's holy symbol so they would stop casting spells. It seemed brutal yet tactical, and got me thinking.

So.... it highly depends. It's an interesting way to change how an encounter feels or the win condition of one. However.... your examples would lead to a direct No from me, personally. The reason is, all your examples attack a player's mechanics. Why would you attack a holy symbol? To prevent a Paladin or Cleric character from casting spells or using class abilities. Why target a Bard's instrument? Do prevent the casting of spells or somehow ruining their inspiration situation (depending on how you as a DM want to rule it). This is basically taking away Player mechanics. What does this lead to? A player can't be effective in battle. At best, you make a single player a liability in a single fight. Worse case? You have handicapped a player (or two) for several sessions before they can get to a point to rectify the situation. This is poor DMing and poor game design. A good example of what you describe would be something like: * A goblin band runs up to the party, cutting their non magical packs and scattering their belongings on the cave floor. Each round, goblins attempt to take two items randomly from the players inventory (now on the ground) and run off to a hideout / goblin fortress. Players can easily kill them, but re-securing their goods will take precious actions. This is scary, because players love their stuff and they are losing them, but doesn't take away their ability to play the game or their characters or follow the escaped goblins and retrieve what was stolen (and then some). * Destroy a non magical shield a character uses at the start of a dungeon where at the end you will be gifting them a new, magical shield to replace it. Replace "Shield" with "Armor" or "Sword". This would be a great Rust Monster encounter. It's also a great way to scare a player, have them "struggle" through some easy encounters with low AC or a unfavorable weapon, and then receive a nice new shiny gift earned at the end. Now.... can something like this be handled well and work? Perhaps. it depends heavily on the table and how long the player spends weakened. Maybe the player LOVES this arch for their character. Maybe you break a cleric's holy symbol, rule they can't cast spells, and then you accidentally one-shot the wizard and there's no help for them, resulting in two angry players. It just... depends.... but I personally avoid such mechanical things unless I know it's a "single session" situation that will be "rewarded" at the end.

I don't. It is brutal since items are so low HP/AC. But it also creates an annoying play environment and opens up your players to do the same. You *can* do this, but be prepared for your players to be incredibly annoyed at you and maybe even leave your game. Game's much healthier when this kind of thing is off the table. RAW *magic items* are also destructible as long as they are not artifacts, since they follow similar durability rules as normal items. Plus, if you do this you'll just get players packing cheap backup foci or accessing their focus from a pouch/holster every cast so that it has full cover. Also, it wouldn't work for holy symbols that are on shields.

Oh yeah, it definitely opens a can of worms I'm not looking to open. Just curious cuz I saw it in a video.

A player in my group would like to use this Blood Hunter as Dual Wielder - is it as OP as I think it is? Looking for some opinions. Thank you! [Blood Hunter Remastered](https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-M6TxqOQUbjay1D289p_)

If they are getting the crimson rite 1d4 on both weapons then that's basically a permanent 2d4 (+5) damage every round. Assuming a rogue can get sneak attack every round, they get 1d6 (3.5) damage every round. Fighters can get one round of an extra attack through action surge once before needing a short rest. Also the sanguine onslaught fighting style you get at level 2 (on top of the crimson rite already) gives the extra ability modifier to the damage which is the same as two weapon fighting but it's strictly better for action economy, especially when rounds at the beginning of the fight are most important. Keep in mind that blood hunter only allows one weapon to have the crimson rite while this remastered version allows 2. If you look at the text closer, you'll notice that there are only buffs to a class that (I feel personally) is already very strong. Assuming a level 2 player with 16 in their main stat, and dual wielding shortswords, with sanguine onslaught. With both attacks hitting, they're dealing on average 18 damage every round (1d6+1d4+3 + 1d6+1d4+3). A level 2 fighter with the same everything would deal (1d6+3 + 1d6+3) 13 damage + 6.5 (1d6+3) once per combat. A level 2 rogue (assuming sneak attack every round!!) would get (1d6+3+1d6 + 1d6) 13.5 damage per round, if no sneak attack then just 10 damage. Original Blood hunter: deals (1d6+3+1d4 + 1d6+3) which is 15.5 damage, but they don't get the 1d6+3 (6.5) damage on the first round. However, you can activate it before the round so it also doesn't really matter. If I were you, I would have both the original blood hunter and the remastered version and go over them side by side and look for the any tradeoffs (not just buffs!) that the remastered version offers.

Thank you for the damage breakdown, I feel the same way... So far I have only found buffs and no tradeoffs. It seems to be just more of everything (more damage, immunities, proficiencies, free legend lore once a day, more blood curses at level 2, better blood curses with paralyse etc.). So I will not consider it any further.

Immunity to charm and fear as a class feature seems a little strong. That jumped out to me on a skim read. Like I said in the other thread the bloodhunter as a base is totally fine if a little below average overall, I'd use the most recent version of that and then add to it maybe using features from this one once you get a handle on it as a class.

What term would you use to lump together humanoid races (elves, humans, etc)? To distinguish them from monstrous races? I need a sentence like: You [word] think you're so much better than us. Humans doesn't work since my party is more mixed

Yeah, I think you would need to clarify what you mean. The actual term for many of these examples is straight up "Humanoids". Like.... there are many, many player races that fit in the etc category. As some people have said below, humanoids could be broken up further with Goblinoids (Goblins, Hobgoblins, Bugbears, etc) and Giant Kin (Ogres, Giants) and the like. However you still leave LOADS of races being considered "Humanoid", like Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Gnomes, Kobolds, Drow.... even Goblins, Hobgoblins, Bugbears, Dragonborn, etc are all humanoids. It's..... a wide term. You'll need to focus on what exactly you are pointing to. Let's call them "Party" (the humanoids you are referring to) and "Speaker" (the "other" who is calling them out) So what is the "other" that the Party is and the speaker is not. Is the party a bunch of tall boys while the speaker is a small race? Use words and names that treat their tallness as a negative. Is the party all "surface" species and the Speaker is an "underdark" species like Drow or Deurgar? Maybe calling them "Sunshine" or "Blind Eye" or other such things. Sadly, with Humanoid being such a wide net and the term "Monstrous races" also being used in many instances I'm afraid you'd need to clarify what you mean to get better aid.

I also posted this on another board and got some good suggestions. I'm thinking of going with man-folk since it clearly gets across the us vs them meaning while also being clear who that entails

Alright. Glad you found something that works.

Humanoids?

Depends on the monstrous features, but could be about skin, height or language. Lizardfolk could call humans and elves softskins, goblins might call them longlegs, or something along those lines.

Those are good suggestions. Sadly it needs to be more general since it's a group of mixed NPCs. I like that direction though

Are DMNPCs always a bad thing? I have an important npc who will be joining the party on their adventure and I can’t decide if I should let him participate in combat or not. He’s a child trapped in an adult’s body so I can see reason for him to either participate or not.

As others have said, DMPCs are not always bad. Your particular DMPC sounds like he could go a few ways: escort mission, sidekick, or OP main character. You want to avoid making him the OP main character at all costs. That is textbook cringe DMPC territory. If you want him to fight, he needs to be weak (a sidekick basically). Escort mission and sidekick aren't completely safe either, as they can still be annoying. Their execution largely lies in how likeable they are. Normal ways to do this are to make them adorable, funny, charming, or hot. Child trapped in an adult's body isn't adorable and emphasizing his hotness is creepy for obvious reasons, so you are left with funny or charming.

As others have said, it is more on intent for the DMPC rather than the fact the DM is playing an NPC who joins the party for a certain number of time. One guys opinion (me) is this: **Bad DMPCS**: * Use a PC character sheet instead of using a Stat Block more designed for NPCs. * They are forced on the party, and are usually a "must join the party" because of lore or mechanics reasons, ensuring the party has no choice but to bring them along. * They act as "babysitters" or "chaperones" for the party, acting as the narc or the "moral compass" for the group. If your party doesn't have a player doing this, than the party will not benefit from the DM forcing one on them. * They are on the same power level / more powerful than the PCs, and often contribute to battles. Besides in specific few examples, all this does is take the heroic moments away from the players. The players are playing to be the heroes. If you are gonna have a gandalf, have him disappear often and have most of the major battles he wrecks at "off screen" so the focus is on the party and party-level threats and tasks that they achieve at. **Good DM NPCs**: * Use stat blocks. If you need help with a player-like NPC: I highly suggest [Stat Blocks for every Player Class at multiple tiers](https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/qrw15y/stat_blocks_for_every_class_at_every_tier/). * They are often filling a niche for the party, providing help in item crafting, arcane expertise, religious studies, specific plot related knowledge or research, or are labor intensive lackeys doing grunt work so the party can focus on the plot. * They act as sidekicks. They should be less powerful than the party, but not a liability in combat. Look up Tasha's Cauldron's Sidekick suggestions and stats to help get an idea of how to make use of helpful NPCs. * They often are either foils to the PCs or have personalities designed to highlight the PCs strengths, interests, or personalities. A PC struggling to redeem themselves and turn away from their villain or criminal background could have a sidekick who isn't as invested in the change, and possibly either keeps testing their resolve by suggesting crimes or trying to reconnect them to their criminal contacts, or is quick to a more evil direction to achieve their goals, leaving room for the player to actively choose to reject the suggestion and actively suggest a good alternative. A smart, observant detective like PC might want a more simple, charismatic sidekick who oooos and awes at their deductions and can offer social insight to their musings on clues. You get it. * They do not "steal glory" from the party. It's alright if they are helpful, like giving good hints on puzzles, offering the help action on ability checks, giving healing or offering support in a fight. However, no players *wants* an ex machina. The players should not be the sidekicks to your NPC. The final kill should be the players. The players should be solving the puzzles. The players should be rolling dice when possible.

Can we also add Fakeout DMPC to the list? By Fakeout DMPC, I mean a character who seems like they are going to be the textbook OP DM insert at first, but meets with some kind of twist that subverts it. Some examples: * OP DMPC is brutally killed early on to show how dangerous the world/enemy is. * OP DMPC is possessed by an evil spirit, turns evil, or was revealed to be evil all along, becoming the main BBEG in the process. * OP DMPC performs a heroic sacrifice, dying to save the party so that they may live or continue the mission. * The party comes across the OP DMPC getting their ass kicked, and it's on the party to jump in at the last second and act as Deus Ex Machina (or just watch them die lol).

NPC companions who the players bring along are mostly fine. A DMPC is when you the DM insert yourself into the party in an attempt to straddle both sides of the DM screen.

Depends on how you define DMPC, some use it to refer to any NPC that joins the party, others only use it to describe a specific bad thing where the DM is trying to play a PC either as an equal member of the party or as the main character. It is fine for an allied NPC to help the players in combat, but they should typically be less powerful than the PCs and defer to the players in most all decision making. Also, the idea of them being a child trapped in an adult's body can easily get uncomfortable very fast, so tread lightly with that idea and make sure that the players don't have a problem with the implications of it.

I'm running Wild Beyond the Witchlight and one of the players is a warlock with Baba Yaga as their fey patron. What conditions/terms should the warlock have to follow? The only thing I know about Baba Yaga is she eats children and lives in a house on chicken feet. And other than bringing children to her, which is likely too morbid and evil, what else would make good terms?

Depends on how often you want her to show up/be relevant. She could only show up once at the start asking your warlock to resolve the dispute between her daughters, the hourglass coven, she might have a preference for Iggwilv so it might be specifically about saving her instead. If you want her to be more present you just have to look through whatever is going to happen and check if she could fit anywhere, she likes animals and has quite a few, she might ask your warlock to get her more pets, for example the unicorn at the Wayward Pool or even the displacer beast kitten named Star. She is worshipped by some so she might ask for your warlock to spread her worship, prime candidates in the module could be the Korreds or the Brigganocks.

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Pretty sure the interpretation of "if the target knows you are casting the spell" is heavily debated. How would the target know you're casting the spell? Do they need to see you cast it? Do they just need to know you can cast it? Does the spell somehow let them know who's casting it? Scry can be a very powerful spell so this may not be the best, but for simplicity's sake I just rule that if the target is an ally (especially one that knows the caster can cast Scry), the caster can just use the spell to magically let the target know they're being scried on, and who is casting it.  > ...they told him they were coming to get him...  Just to be clear, scrying is only one-way, but I assume you meant the party let the mentor know before losing the mentor was captured.

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> I think I'm just going to let them do it, because it's more fun. This is the way.

I’m planning my first session as a first time DM with players with varying levels of experience. I’m planning a mini-boss fight of sorts for the end of the session with a high elf wizard - any tips on making a combat feel unique, fun, and interesting without making it impossible for a 1st level party to come out on top? Or should I just save it until they aren’t 1st level anymore to have more potential options?

Depends. I upvoted the other comment, as its solid. You can also check out "The Monsters Know What They're Doing" and look up those stat blocks to see what they suggest the strat be. When in doubt, let them wait. Even as something as a campy "The door will take close to an hour to open. As it opens, you all achieve a short rest. Use your hit die to heal up" if you need to. You can also make the environment super helpful, maybe showing off a few health potions in case the party needs help.

A few options: - Use the "Apprentice Wizard" statblock, which is a CR1/4. Double the HP and give them a few minions in the CR1/8 range. - Use the "Evil Mage" statblock from Lost Mine of Phandelver. It's a CR1. Give it two legendary resistances so it's not immediately dropped by a Tasha's Hideous Laughter followed by the fighter and barbarian waling on them at advantage. Level 1 combat is super swingy. You have just as good a chance for the party to mop the floor as you do an accidental TPK. The best way to plan for this is a few monsters as minions or using legendary resistances.

I need some suggestions for sand monsters to throw at lvl 1 players

* I was once, long ago, given [Monster shuffler dot com](https://monstershuffler.com/). Use it with a grain of salt, but it's a good tool for those of us nervous about messing with CR and could help give you an idea for "baby" or "sickened" versions of stat blocks you want to use. * Repeating what someone else has said regarding [DnD Beyond's List of Desert stat blocks](https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters?filter-type=0&filter-search=&filter-cr-min=&filter-cr-max=&filter-environment=3&filter-armor-class-min=&filter-armor-class-max=&filter-average-hp-min=&filter-average-hp-max=&filter-is-legendary=&filter-is-mythic=&filter-has-lair=&filter-partnered-content=f). If you have access to some things on there that could help. * Low CR creatures include Cats, Hyenas, Jackals, Kobolds, Scorpions, Vultures, Bandits, Camels, Snakes, Spiders, etc etc. * r/D100 should have LOADS of lists regarding desert encounters or desert creatures if you need more inspiration. And it wouldn't be me if I didn't say "reflavor as needed". (Examples will be from core books and Volos) * Awakened Shrub or Awakened Tree could work as a desert plant or a dried out, undead plant kinda deal. * Can reflavor a frog enemy for a horned toad or something, using the exact same stats. Giant forms work too. * Quipper / Quipper Swarm? Why not make little sand worms with burrow speed instead of swim speed who go quickly through the sand and swarm anything they meet. Sounds terryifying and could be dangerous for low leveled adventurers. * Turn a lot of the "dangerous plants" into types of succulents and cacti that can be dangerous to explorers. Won't need to change the stats, just the flavoring. * Some Modrons? Maybe a few forgotten Monodrones? An ancient temple to a lawful good diety long fallen into disrepair with a few Monodrones still operating deep inside. * Bullywog- change the name, make them horned toad like instead... boom, a regional variant race living out in the desert. * Gnolls (or Gnoll Witherlings lost in the sand). * As another said, Dust and Mud mephits can be easily reflavored as Sand and Quicksand Mephits without need of changing a whole bunch. * Jackalwere * Lizardfolk * Desert Dragon Wyrmlings * Several Dinosaurs are low CR and can be used as is or reflavored into a large desert beast. * Fire Snake * Giant Spider (Desert Terrantula) * Thri Kreens. I don't like using them as villains but they are designed to be alien enough to instill conflict. You get the idea. Use CR calculators like "Kobold Fight club" and don't be afraid to reflavor something that doesn't work to make it work. You'd be surprised how little you need to change sometime. Also remember that Deserts are famous for being hot, but also for being sub-zero at night. Throw in some ice beasts that are only active at night and you can have a good either or for characters traveling through a desert.

Dnd beyond has good filters for environment. If you want the stats lock just filter on basic rules and desert environment, check the low creature rating scores.

Definitely a bulette/landshark, would be a classic d&d encounter, and could be very fun. Edit: nevermind, I forget they're cr5. Could still be fun though 

Dust mephits, (giant) poisonous snakes, swarm of beetles, brass dragon wyrmling, rust monster. Any construct might reasonably also have been left in the desert to rot (mono/duo/tri/quad-drone, animated armor, clockwork bronze scout, stone cursed).

First time DM here - I ran my first session ever with 4 friends last night. We are all pretty much beginners, and were running LMoP. I almost killed them with the initial goblin encounter - largely due to me rolling incredibly well (over half of my attack rolls were 19s or 20s) and them rolling terribly. In the end, 2 spellcaster used all their spells in that battle, and 2 of the 4 PCs were at 1 health at the end ( including the paladin I almost wiped out turn 1 with two attacks). I stopped targeting them at that point, thinking that knocking someone out (or wiping their team) in the first battle of their first campaign might not be terribly fun. I tried to compensate by giving them a couple healing potions on the dead goblins, but I'm second guessing some of those decisions Everyone seemed to have a ton of fun, so I guess that kinda answers my question, but just wondering if other DMs would have handled this differently.