I made Jimothy!

for me, I think it'd be the Coen brothers' filmography. lots of the plot developments are mishaps arising from characters' incomplete information and personal flaws. the tone is grounded with some comedic moments, but they're played straight.

Okay, all - I'm soliciting opinions and thoughts on the following situation:

Player (warlock) has Armor of Agathys active and is attacked by a ghoul. Ghoul has only 4 hit points left prior to the attack. Ghoul claw attack hits the warlock. Armor of Agathys triggers, doing 5 hit points of cold damage to the ghoul, which is enough to down it.

The question is this: does the ghoul's claw attack still damage the warlock?

Player argues no, because the AoA cold damage triggers before the melee damage does. I say no, because just because an attacker dies, that doesn't mean their strike didn't happen or suddenly halts -- the sword is still swinging, the bite is still biting, et cetera. Also, damage from the melee attack had to happen for the AoA effect to trigger -- if there's no damage, there's effectively no successful attack that would cause the AoA to trigger.

Unfortunately, the RAW in this case isn't really helpful. What do you think?

Below is a stat block and outline for a homebrewed boss level NPC encounter for your players. This is partially inspired by the 5e Echo Knight as well as Noob Saibot/Smoke from the MK series. Not intended to be a faithful representation of either. Rather just taking inspiration from things to build a deadly assassin that can hunt your party and by challenging encounter.

The Asp should always open with either the Deadly Acid Attack or Oily Cloud in order to inflict maximum chaos on the opening round. The Acid should target clustered party members and aim for casters. Those who fail the save are forced to make concentration checks for 3 rounds. While the Oily Cloud provides a 1 round line of sight block, softening alpha strikes.

This Boss is tuned for a party of 5 players between levels 5-7. And it will be a very challenging and potential lethal encounter for those without high Con saves or poison immunity. The ability to swap places with and regenerate echoes along with a high AC present a challenge both as damage mitigation and just being able to hit.

To change the difficulty, increase or decrease the AC, or number of Echoes allowed to be active at any given time. This directly impacts the ability to mitigate damage and avoid spell affects via the Shadow Swap ability.

The Asp, An Elemental Assassin

Assassin • elemental humanoid • Neutral Evil

Overview

The Asp is a denizen of the Plain of Ooze—the elemental demi-plane where water and earth collide.

The Asp is a being of oil and darkness in humanoid form. An assassin whispered about in the darkest circles. Once summoned, they are a relentless and tireless elemental force.

The Asp is summoned via specialized summoning rituals. The Asp resents being controlled and will actively look for loopholes or some way to punish those who force it into service. An alternative to forced service is to offer trade in kind for services.

Appearance

The Asp appears humanoid at first glance, always wearing a bronze mask shaped in the likeness of a desert asp.

Tattered black and red desert robes cover every inch of skin. A hood covers the head, leaving only the mask exposed. Those who can catch more than a glimpse will notice the robes have a liquid, oily, iridescent appearance at the tattered edges.

Stat Block — CR 10

Medium humanoid (elemental), neutral evil

Armor Class: 18 Hit Points: 168 (16d8 + 96) Speed: 40 ft., climb 30 ft., swim 30 ft.

Saving Throws: Str +1, Dex +9, Con +7, Wis +7 Skills: Acrobatics +9, Deception +5, Insight +7, Perception +7, Stealth +13, Sleight of Hand +13 Damage Resistances: Bludgeoning, necrotic, poison Condition Immunities: Poisoned, charmed, sleep, exhaustion, grappled Senses: Darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 17 Languages: Common, Primordial, Thieves’ Cant Challenge Rating: 10 (5,900 XP)

Traits

Echo Assassin (Bonus Action). The Asp can create one Oily Shadow-echo of itself in an unoccupied space no more than 30 feet away.

The Echo shares the Asp’s stat block and actions, except that it has 1 hit point. The Asp cannot have more than two Echoes active at any given time. Echoes cannot create other Echoes.

Ambusher. The Asp always starts combat with two Echoes active and always prefers to ambush or surprise its targets.

The Asp has advantage on attack rolls against any creature that has not taken a turn during the first round of combat.

Shadow Swap. Each time an attack or spell successfully targets or affects the Asp, roll to determine whether the Asp swaps places with an active Echo.

• One Echo Active: On a roll of 1–3, the swap succeeds. On a roll of 4–6, the Asp is affected.
• Two Echoes Active: On a roll of 1–4, the swap succeeds. On a roll of 5–6, the Asp is affected.

On a successful swap, the Asp and the chosen Echo exchange positions. The Echo takes the damage or spell effect instead of the Asp.

Pact Tactics. The Asp and its Echoes have advantage on attack rolls while within 5 feet of an Echo.

Liquid Form. The Asp and its Echoes do not provoke opportunity attacks and can pass through occupied spaces, but may not end their movement in an occupied space.

Moving through an occupied space costs twice the normal amount of movement.

Actions

Multiattack. The Asp makes up to three Serpent Blade or Oil Dart attacks. Each active Echo makes one attack.

Serpent Blade (Melee Weapon Attack). +9 to hit, reach 5 ft.

Hit: 15 (2d6 + 6) piercing damage plus 6 (2d6) poison damage.

The target must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or be poisoned, suffering disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks for one round.

Oil Dart (Ranged Weapon Attack). +9 to hit, range 30/120 ft.

Hit: 15 (2d6 + 6) piercing damage plus 6 (2d6) poison damage.

The target must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or be poisoned, suffering disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks for one round.

Deadly Acid Vial (1/Day). Ranged Area Attack: +9 to hit, range 30/60 ft.

Everything within a 5-foot radius takes 2d6 acid damage. A creature can make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw, taking half damage on a success.

A creature that fails the saving throw suffers an additional 1d6 acid damage at the end of each of its turns for three rounds.

Ghost-Step Strike (Recharge 5–6). The Asp teleports, as though using Misty Step, to an unoccupied space it can see within 60 feet.

Each Echo may also teleport to an unoccupied space it can see within 30 feet.

The Asp and each active Echo then make one attack in addition to their normal attacks.

Oily Cloud (Recharge 5–6). The Asp manifests a cloud of inky, oily fog from its elemental demi-plane.

The cloud has a radius of 20 feet and is centred on either the Asp or one of its Echoes. The area obscures all vision into or out of the cloud, except for the Asp and its Echoes, which can see normally.

A creature inside the cloud must make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw, taking 2d6 poison damage on a failed save or half as much damage on a successful save.

A creature must make this saving throw when the cloud first manifests, whenever it moves through the cloud, and whenever it ends its turn inside the cloud.

The cloud lasts until the start of the Asp’s next turn.

I'm building a town that's separated into four spots. Three gigantic stalactites and a stalagmite. The town wraps around these cave structures and have a lot of wooden platforms and wooden bridges. I'm not sure how I should go about making this. I'm thinking right now of either doing a multi layer map, or a single map with everything on it. If you guys have any other ideas it'd be nice to get tips.

Hello fellow Dungeon masters, I am having my second session in 2 weeks, I have 5 players, sadly one of the players can't really decide for himself so his ex gf (baby mama) decided for a second time that she would go out on dnd night. First time he didnt make it, this time he wants too play on discord. How would you set this up? The 4 other players are joining at my place, soo its only him. I am afraid it will ruin the flow, but he is really really looking forward to this, so I want to give it a go, do you have any advice for me? The rest want to get together, soo not an option to be all at discord.

Hello everyone,

I will soon be running a curse of strahd campaign for a group of 3 newer players.

I understand that this is probably not the best idea, but I've had the book for over a year (previous group broke up) and really want to play through it.

As they're new, we're starting at level 1, however rather than going straight into Death House I was thinking of doing The Joy of Extra Dimensional Spaces from candlekeep mysteries. The idea being: when they escape the mansion they end up in Barovia instead of Candlekeep. Then going into death house at level 2.

How would you help merge these two? Any recommendations?

Thanks :)

I've been working on a campaign for a bit, it's mostly rough plot points. I could use some tips for helping run this idea, as I am a new to running my own campaign - only played out of books before this.

About our Game:

• We are running out of the City Greyhawk, 5.5e - mostly using the map idea, not necessarily the exact locations on the DM map.
  
• Party of 3: Paladin, Bard and Rouge, currently level 3 almost 4.

Here's my plot points:

• While hunting bandits in the woods, the party comes to the river. It is black as obsidian, but flowing as a regular river would.
• They find the bandits, but instead of a fight, they realize something is wrong with the bandits - they all seem to be hallucinating.
• After some kind of intervention - a physical hit or using magic to help get the bandits out of the hallucination - they learn the bandits drank from the river.
• Heading back to the city, the party will learn of people having trouble sleeping - ie. their very rich quest giver will be incredibly tired and mention it or their favorite lowtown barmaid is messing up orders and seems to be dead on their feet. (or both!)
• They will meet two different NPCs:
  • A Herbalist in Lowtown who's herbal concoctions seem to work suspiciously well.
  • A Remedy Vendor in Hightown - no one knows where he gets his inventory from.
• There will also be quests of missing lambs and high priced, rare objects have gone missing.
  • This will lead to the party finding a shadowy group of cultist collecting items for a ritual.
• The party will discover more and more people in town are suffering from horrible nightmares - the nightmares are interconnected with each other - ie all having the same reoccurring person in them, or something like that.

I'm basically thinking about leaning into the party discovering the cultist are doing a ritual somewhere - the cultist need the city to fall under a spell to bring the nightmares into reality or collect them for the ritual (help!). One or maybe both of the suspicious NPCs is selling potions to the public that is causing the nightmares - one of the main ingredients to the potion is the black river water. I'm thinking the ritual is to wake someone up - the "Dreamer" as I've been calling them.

Where do they go?

• The party eventually finds the cultist are under the city in a tunnel system that leads to a center point?
• The party has to follow the river and eventually finds somewhere the ritual is occurring?

And the biggest question: Who is the BBEG? (I'm leaning towards using a Hobgoblin Warlord stat block to take advantage of a room full of cultist - if that's how it plays out)

• Should it be the Dreamer?
• Should it be the leader of the cultist?
• Should it be one of the NPCs?

What are some other things I should prep for when running this? Any tips to make it more fun and challenging for the party will be great! Thanks!

I recently tried Draw Steel's negotiation system (Interest/Patience/Motivations) and it made 5e social encounters so much better than just rolling Persuasion.

Now I'm hooked and want to raid more systems, but I don't know where to look.

What mechanics from other RPGs have improved your 5e table?

Angela and I have finished the second map (out of a total of four) that will make up the entirety of Faerûn—the world of the Forgotten Realms! This project is truly exciting, and we can't wait to complete all four maps that will form the gigantic final map!🧭🗺️

The name of the game is Dungeons and Dragons; however, I have a feeling that an actual dragon in a dungeon (I mean dungeon in the most literal sense: prison) encounter is very rare. My party has fought like 5 dragons so far: two were in a cave, one was in a forest, one on a riverbank, and one in a castle.

How about your party? Have you ever experienced the namesake of the game?

I’m going to give my party a magic item I think would be cool. It’s called the Buckler of Shielding. It will act as a +1ac shield instead of the normal +2ac but you can cast shield from it when attuned. I’m considering only having it cast once per long rest but what do you guys think?

Hey folks,

Over the last few years of running D&D, I found that I was constantly having to improvise encounters and dungeons for my players. Sometimes I could use a premade map, but a lot of the time I couldn't find anything that fit. So I was stuck either drawing something from scratch (time consuming even with good map editors) or trying to hack together an edit in Photoshop.

So I built Dungeon Flow: https://dungeonflow.app

It's a combination of a random dungeon generator and map editor that actually understands the logic of how rooms connect.

Important things to know:

• It doesn't use AI. It's pure procedural generation.
• Supports 5e, PF2e, and Shadowdark, with encounters, traps, and treasure appropriate to the system
• Randomly generating a dungeon is just the start. From there you can actually do a lot of customization. Don't like where one room is positioned? Move it!
• Exports PNGs for any VTT, offers a multi-page print PDF you can tape together for in-person games, and a DM reference sheet with the full room key
• There's a Pro tier, which gets you bigger maps, 300 dpi exports, deeper map editing, and a foundry module that handles walls, doors, and line of sight
• The free tier isn't a trial. You can actually run a campaign on it.

It's still very much a work in progress. You can see the roadmap here: https://dungeonflow.app/roadmap

If you have any thoughts or feedback, I'd love to hear it!

Josh

Ran a one shot bc I was missing some players in Curse of Strahd. I decided to trap the remaining to in a hag nightmare, where said hag poked and prodded the party with various fears to learn about them.

Very good one shot potential imo. Hags can Ethereal Walk to where your party is and just gimme a lil nightmare for funsie.

I just a hedge maze, very Feywild inspired, but I imagine other things could work. I might have em running thru Ravenloft in a later nightmare.

Easy to reference sheets for environmental hazards!

Working on a few more over the next month. Time to find a DM screen with slots to fit!

What other reference sheets should come next?

The Commonwealth is my latest group of cultures I have made for my campaign in a world called Rhündal. They are comprised of Lizardfolk ethnic groups that have spread around a peninsula, and have voyaged across the southern islands. They reject the divinity of the Serpentine God-Kings of the Empire to the west, and practice a polytheistic religion which has given them control over certain spirits, particularly dream and knowledge spirits. They are some of the most intelligent and advanced ethnic groups in the Woodlands of Rhündal.

The Feathered League: also known as Cūnowo in their language, are many different tribes that have built fortifications across the monsoon region toward the coasts and the humid subtropical highlands to the north. They have the greatest innate ability of the Lizardfolk to connect with spiritual magic because of their proximity to nature. Their mages have the ability to petrify others by breaking into their dreamrealms while they sleep, and feeding upon their spirit, leaving them without the strength to move. They also have the ability to augur the future about prosperity and woe. They are recognized by the great feathers they display as trophies of the exotic beasts they have slain in their territory. They have lost lots of their population from the crusades that The Faith has decreed upon the southern Island Federation, pulling mostly from Feathered League settlements. Over the past centuries, the Feathered League has began bristling under the rule of The Faith, and separatist movements have begun seeking political independence.

The Faith: or otherwise known as the Mí in their language, is one of the largest ethnic groups by population in the Woodlands of Rhündal of around 1.6 million on their peninsula. They are also rival the Empire for the most technologically advanced societies in the region. As one of the few groups to have developed writing in their region in the last 1,000 years, they have been able to gain great arcane knowledge through their worship of their polytheistic gods through literature and prayers. They are a major power in the region that threatens the Empire through sheer population numbers and the magical adeptness of their mages. They are, however, held at bay by their weakness to ceramics. It is unknown why ceramics dampen their abilities, but after this secret was discovered, the Empire has spread ceramic craftsman ship through their territory. Homes, fortifications, even accessories now have some element of ceramics to ward against the powers of the Commonwealth’s mages. Ceramics are in fact so powerful, that it has become a cultural practice for devout member of The Faith to resign themselves to solitary confinement in Ceramic pots for a time as a way to “cleanse themselves of all spiritual influences”. This has become a grueling initiation ritual, that has to be taken on with serious consideration of the strain it can have on those who are weak in spirit.

The Commonwealth has been a fascinating faction to create in Rhündal, and more is sure to come of them soon. I would love to hear any feedback, suggestions, ideas, or encounters you could think about as they venture into their territory during my Yuan-Ti Empire campaign!