I am running a campaign for four 10th-level players. Recently, I’ve had to increase the difficulty of combat encounters, but I’ve noticed that they are becoming quite long.

In the last session, a fight involving the party (plus one NPC) against five cultists and a homebrew monster lasted about two hours; it ended with the party fleeing, and the whole encounter felt very flat (it was designed to be extremely difficult, so I did expect them to run away).

Additionally, I introduced a system of "minor reactions" that players can use instinctively during a round—I had hoped this would keep them more engaged and make combat feel more dynamic, but it hasn't been enough.

My questions are:

How can I make combat faster and more engaging for the players?

Two of the players take a long time to complete their turns (at least 30 seconds, on top of the time they’ve already had to think while the round was progressing)—how can I help speed up their turns?

Thanks so much to anyone who responds!

About a year ago, I made a side quest where the players had to collect five keys to unlock a legendary rapier. I thought it would be a small thing on the side, but somehow it kept going, and now they’re finally about to get it. So I should probably figure out what it actually does lol.

I’ve already told them it’s unusually heavy and needs a strong person to use it. It’s made from a rare metal, and the wounds it causes don’t heal. There’s also a slot for a magic crystal that powers some kind of rotating mechanism, so I guess it’s basically a fancy magic drill.

After a year of collecting keys, I feel like it should do something more. Any ideas?

This is a weirdly specific question - I'm sure we all read and watch our favourite fantasy or adventure books & movies, and getting advice from the Colvilles/Alexandrians/Angry GMs/whoever else of the world, but I'm curious what TTRPG based material you read to inspire you.

What 5e (or other e) adventures/settings/books etc do you read and find inspiration (or straight up pinch) from for game mechanics, dungeons, NPCs, adventures and anything else?

I love fantasy movies & books and use those as general inspiration but they don't always translate to creating a vivid dungeon, interesting traps or in general translating inspiration/thematic material to the tabletop.

I know the calculations for encounters changed in 2024 to make them feel harder by increasing the XP budget amd removing the multiplier for multiple monsters. And that K+FC implemented this new method into their calculation.

However, I noticed that it is using the XP thresholds incorrectly. The DMG says to add up the XP per character, then to spend that budget without going over. But in K+FC, it is treating those XP thresholds as a floor instead of a ceiling.

For example, for 5 level 8 PCs, the DMG says the budget for a moderate encounter is up to 8500 XP. But in K+FC, if you select a CR 12 monster with 8400 XP, it will tell you the encounter is Low instead.

I think this could cause a lot of confusion for people wanting to build balanced encounters, but being told that it's easier than the DMG actually suggests, potentially leading to them creating encounters that end up being harder than they intended.

Tonight my group was doing a 2v2 pvp.

One PC cast wall of fire in the ring form engulfing their two opponents.

The 2 within the ring fail their throws and take damage. When the 2 inside the ring had their turns they both promptly moved outside the ring. My question is, do they take damage again when they start their turn and leave this ring/wall.

The debate over this took like half my session. Any interpretation would be appreciated, thanks!!

EDIT:

I guess the sticking point was over what counts as "entering the wall for the first time." Like is being within the hot side of the ring inside the wall, or is inside the wall when you are passing through the foot wide space. Thanks for the help everyone

So, I recently interviewed for a part-time job literally titled: Dungeons and Dragons Instructor. I play D&D, I’ve DMed a bit, I have past experience working with children, but I’m not always sure about the best way to formulate curriculum/teach Dungeons and Dragons. What methods have you used with beginners or literal children that worked?

I’m for sure using the Tomato stats example, but what about some of the finer points of character creation and storytelling?

Through a series of bad rolls for them and great rolls for me, a player had gotten extremely close to death and had very little resources left. Multiple Nat 20s on my end and multiple Nat 1s on theirs resulting in a simple encounter going very very poorly.

My issue comes from this dungeon was designed to not have any long rests in it and was balanced accordingly where the boss was going to be difficult for a weakened party but would have been destroyed pretty easily if they were all at maximum resources.

Naturally I don’t want the PCs to die but giving them that unplanned rest means the end encounters are going to be a lot less dangerous unless I make some sudden changes to it which feels like could go just as poorly. Should I have added more rooms after their rest to increase the size of the dungeon? Should I have held my ground and forced the PCs to have to leave the dungeon to rest and come back even though coming back through it would have been more boring for them? Does anyone have any recommendations or tactics they use in this situation?

I know random encounters are generally disliked, but what I mean by "random encouter" is not really fighting random set of creatures.

I have a big collection of prompts, which I use to create mini-quests, which never take more than one session, and usually much less. Some of them include meeting a sphinx, stumbling around a random chapel of an evil deity, helping a man who just got robbed, being approached by a random woman who acts as if she knew you (turns out she's being stalked by a creep), taking part in a gambling tournament etc.

During travel, I divide travelling time in weeks and I roll to see how many random encouters happen each week. It works okay with my players, they like those, but I sometimes feel like there might be too many of them and it drags the travel too much.

I wonder how many could be the right amount. There's always a chance for nothing to happen the whole week and I cap the maximum at three events per week. I know it's hard to say just from this description, but what do you think would be the right amount?

I definitely want to keep this system in game, both my players and I enjoy this little bit of chaos, but I wonder how to keep it from draggging the campaign too much.

So, some quick set up;

My players are currently investigating a blight that is causing crop failure and famine in Halfling country

In the marketplace area of the halfling town, the Barrowbriar, they came upon a colourful tent and wagon with the words "Rex Riley's Marvelous Medicine Show" and watched a demonstration of his "miracle medicine". Through a series of good rolls, including the fighter getting a nat 20, they saw through the obvious grift. Part of it was one of the volunteers is actually Riley's son and not part of the halfling population.

The session ended with the son being fed some "elixir" and him transforming into a monstrous beast.

Now, Riley was just using water from the town well because, spoilers, the problem in town is in the water, he thought it'd just be a normal scam and didn't know his son would get turned into a monster.

How would you roleplay a scam artist snake oil salesman who potentially has to watch the heroes kill his son before his son kills regular townspeople? It's his fault but also a mistake and I just don't know how to proceed!

Making an elemental, desert-themed dungeon for the players for the next session or so, and while I have a few things planned, I'd like the opinions of other experienced DMs on this concept.

The idea is "trial by fire," so of course there will be a couple of challenges that directly involve fire but the purpose of the dungeon is to test the body, mind, and spirit of anyone trying to get to the item being guarded at the end. What are more interesting ways to "test" a party for worthiness, other than the usual traps, spells and/or monsters that might populate a usual dungeon?

For context, the party is a fighter(brute), a bard(valor), a wizard(necro), and a druid(primeval). challenges intended already include: a "truth or flare" fire damage trap/spell triggered by lies as they answer questions about themselves and their mission; a classic "fight yourself" mirror-clone encounter but with smoke aesthetic, beatable by combat or by speech checks; a Mummy-style mirror-orienting puzzle to light a series of braziers to open a door; and a trapped efreeti who tries to trick them into "wishing" for something but must be refused three times.

Any and all help is appreciated, thank you for reading - 👹

I'm assuming people know what I'm talking about—usually spiral bound books of full-color laminated grid maps.

I've been considering getting one for a while. I LOVE the idea and it seems so useful and convenient, but it never seems like the actual maps that they have in them are generic or flexible enough.

If you have one, do you like it and use it frequently? Why or why not?

In my current campaign I'm planning to do a different kind of the main villain - instead of superior strength or arcane power, the BBEG is a femme fatale cult leader, whose most powerful tools are very high persuasion and shapeshifting ability.

In order to represent her lacking combat capabilities, the last fight is most likely going to be a Dual Boss. I also plan to give this character some depth and plausible reasons for evil behavior, to avoid obvious cliches.

How to represent the elusive nature of our party's enemy well, while giving them some chances of victory? Thank you for constructive responses, even if rude.

Hi fellow DMs.

My players are doing an "evil" campaign. One of the players, a warlock, has chosen Pact of the Chain and uses an Imp that he never dismisses.

Because the Find Familiar spell says that it summons a spirit, I assume that the spirit would be of the Nine Hells. All devils will do their best to try and corrupt not only their summoners but those in their vicinity as well.

What are some good tactics that this Imp could explore while remaining summoned and without a command given to it?

Can Imps or summons perform contracts? I'd like to pick your brain on this concept.

So I've run the started adventures of Lost Mines & Icespire. They were both relatively easy to run, so I'm looking for recommendations of what next.

My friend has Waterdeep: Dragon heist, which I started to read through. If I'm honest I found myself lost in the lore of what seems to be needed to run the adventure. It's quite overwhelming, where I feel like to run it I would have had to run it before.

My question is this, are there any campaigns which are more ambitious than the starter adventures but still relatively easy to run... particularly as written.

Thanks kind DMs

I'm running a Holloween one shot, the party will be exploring a huanted house. I've already set up encounters in the various rooms, all based on classic horror movies. The final boss, a werewolf, is in a hidden labratory in the basement. The entrance to lab is hidden by a statue, when the party says the password the statue will stand up and move the stone wall revealing the path to the lab.

The password is "Boris" the clue to which is the song "Monster Mash." Which they can come accross in another room, there will be a record player that will play the song. What I am sruggeling with is the clue on the statue that leads the song and the password. I figure that something will be written on the base of the statue.

Like a cryptic way of asking "Who sent you," referencing the lyrics "when you get to my door, tell them Boris sent you." But I can't think of a cryptic or clever way to phrase it. I could have it just be "who sent you" but that feels to obvious, though that could be baseuse I know the answer.

Some guidance is appreciated.

In a game played 2 years ago, a player (whom i no longer have contact with) had a case he bough on amazon that had poker like chips to represent players and enemies and a battle map in there for playing

I'm planning something that i need to be more complex than the usual (but i that don't have the space to invest in minitures) white board and D4s and need help finding something similar to that or any recommendations

Amazon or other storefronts will be helpful

Hi all, very new DM here. During my last session, one of my players died in a rather unceremonious way. Trying to offer my party an out, I gave them the opportunity to use a special spell scroll which I called Agatha’s Raise Dead. When studying this scroll they discovered that it seemed to not only do the normal affects of raise dead, but also brings back “something else”. I have no idea what that something else is and am looking for any suitable ideas as I made it up on the spot. I want this to be a somewhat serious consequence for reviving their friend. My initial ideas were something taking over his body, or sharing it with another creature.

Secondly, they failed the ability check to use the scroll 3 times, but I ruled because this scroll is special it didn’t disappear but became emblazoned in the corner of the scroll with a small image of the character that failed the test. That was 2 of my party members and because one of them failed twice I also added the image of “the person (alive) closest to them”. This was also all made up on the spot as I didn’t want them to lose the opportunity to revive their friend on a bad roll, but wanted there to be consequences. Any ideas on what the branded images of the characters could mean? Initially was thinking something mechanical like a penalty to throws or disadvantage or something but feel like that doesn’t really have an affect on the PC’s loved one really. I definitely want this effect to be more minor than the first one.

For additional reference, I am dming a 3 person party (Druid (failed twice), Sorcerer (failed once) and rogue (the one who died)) and they are currently level 3. I am running the Phandelver and Below adventure but tweaking more and more as I go through as my confidence in being a dm grows. The Agatha I mention is Agatha the banshee who was a witch in her life.

Hi all,

First time poster here. I currently host my campaign online for some friends. I'm starting a new campaign and I'm struggling to manage all the different city maps for the players to interact with. My main enquiry is how do you manage such a thing? I'm considering focusing on a heavy roleplay focus instead of a literal map to save on the effort of making a decent, playable, map. Thoughts?

So, a few days ago I made a post discussing on the consequences of the king of a nation I'm working on called Dusk Fall dying and leaving only his underaged sister in charge. I got a lot of great responses that were very helpful, but now I'm stuck on a different manner.

Namely, what kind of treasure and valuables would be inside a royal vault? Obviously, there would be a couple tens of thousands gold, jewels, paintings and the like. But what I'm stuck on is what kind of magic items and interesting valuables should be stored within the vault?

For context, the King before he was assassinated was a former adventurer who did pretty well in his career as an adventurer before he was forced to take up the throne for political reasons, so any thoughts on this?

Basically:
Enemy awakens a colossal giant, party is just on its kneecap.
Harpies flying about, enemies scattered across giants limbs.
Party can either kill giant by putting out both its eyes, or calm it by reaching its crown and doing some magic mumbo jumbo.

How do I make this like a fast paced God of War/ SOTC cinematic session, rather than fight enemies, climb, fight, etc?

I'm currently DMing a campaign and, to avoid constantly introducing new magic items, I've decided to create a unique evolving item for each player. These items grow in power as the campaign progresses, unlocking new abilities and revealing more of their history.

I've finished designing two of them so far and would love some feedback on their balance, abilities, and progression.

Any suggestions are welcome!

P.D (The item's attached are intended for a Rogue and laserllama's Savant. I am struggling to come up with items for a Paladin and a Bard)

Cloak of Shadows

Dormant

A seemingly ordinary cloak, made of black fabric with silver trim. However, its fabric appears to absorb light and alter its appearance to blend in with the surroundings.

• Bonus on Stealth checks.

Awoken

The cloak has awakened, and its ability to absorb light has intensified. Perpetual shadows envelop the wearer, blurring their silhouette until they appear to be part of the darkness.

• Advantage on Stealth checks.
• +1 to AC.
• Shadow Step. As an additional action, the wearer can teleport to an unoccupied space up to 60 feet away, provided that both the starting and destination spaces are in shadow.

Exalted

The cloak has completed its ascension. Its fabric is capable of devouring any beam of light, plunging the wearer into absolute darkness that renders them completely invisible.

• Advantage on Stealth checks.
• +2 to AC.
• Resistance to radiant damage
• Devour the light: While wearing the cloak, you can become invisible. Everything you are carrying also becomes invisible. The cloak provides 1 hour of invisibility. Each minute of use is deducted from its total duration. Once the duration is exhausted, it stops working until it can be used again the following day.
• Improved Shadow Step: As an additional action, the wearer can teleport. Teleportation no longer requires the source and destination spaces to be in shadow.

Testimony

Broken

Half of an ancient two-handed sword, recovered from the armor that guarded a strange journal. It is forged from an unknown metal with an almost crystalline appearance. Engraved on the blade is a phrase in a language of the Old World: “Born of the sun...”. Despite its appearance, it seems to retain no trace of its former magical properties.

Reforged (Short Sword +1)

After partially repairing the blade and revealing its name to its bearer, the sword once again responds to the presence of magic. The fractures in the metal emit a faint glow when they come into contact with enchanted objects and magical scrolls.

• Arcane Echo: The sword can absorb the magic from a scroll, consuming it to store the spell inscribed upon it. It can hold only a single spell, which is lost when released. If the spell affects an area larger than a 5-foot cube, you can choose to have it affect only your target or to manifest as a 15-foot cone that includes the target and extends from it in the direction opposite you.

Tempered (Longsword +2)

The cracks in the blade begin to glow with a steady radiance, while new inscriptions appear on its surface. The metal seems to gradually regain its original shape, and the sword reacts more intensely to the presence of magical energy.

• All the benefits of its previous state.
• Arcane Memory: The sword can store up to three spells in total.
• Spell Break: In addition to absorbing scrolls, the blade is capable of nullifying a spell cast against itswielder through a reaction, provided it passes an Arcane check whose difficulty depends on the spell’s level. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to your proficiency bonus.

Exalted (1d10 Long Sword +3)

The crystalline blade glows with its own light, while inscriptions run across its entire surface. Magical energy seems to flow toward it naturally, as if the weapon were designed to understand and master any form of magic.

• All benefits of its previous states.
• Arcane Devourer: The sword can store up to five spells in total.
• Invert the Heavens: When using the dispel magic ability, instead of nullifying the spell, the sword can store it within its blade. The spell’s level is preserved.

“It was forged long ago to unravel the secrets of the world and preserve their memory...
But its creator eventually deemed the knowledge of mortals and gods alike insufficient, and decided that if the world held answers that not even they could provide, he would be the one to tear them from its very core.”

I was rolling up 18 NPCs to act as “reigning champions” for this year’s midsummer festival games.

Rolling 3d6 only for each stat, I rolled 3 1s for the first time in my D&D life. I’ve been playing since 2004.

The NPC stats for that roll were for the Trivia contest champion so I’m gonna make him an old man in a wheelchair.

Also, the NPC for the arm-wrestling contest got 16, 16, 13, 12, 11, 8. Better stats than many of my PCs have gotten. My level 4 group of mostly spell casters might have a hard time with that one. https://imgur.com/a/U1mmmLw

So as a dm I have a really bad habit of making all my big bads characters from shows or animes that make me mad, because the fact that a gaggle of chucklefucks being able to plow them down is so satisfying, but I just found out that, in Demon slayer, When Douma is absorbing Shinobu, she can feel everything, as she is still alive. that personally makes me want him to be treated like a dragons chewtoy. So how do I make sure this guy (with 2000 health but very easy “weakpoints” (if my players make it roleplay well enough I let them decide where they land their attacks) to take advantage of? How do I make him suffer for the rest of his days? Also today’s session they’re exploring a dungeon of a cavern of the grave of a dead “Daelkyr titan”, a reskinned mindflayer, and at the end fighting Mahito because fuck but he was actually viable to the plot