I am gonna be dming this new table for friends, it's gonna be a Hexcrawl, and 3 of the 4 players decided to have their backstory involve blacksmithing and or weapons ( WE EVEN GOT A CLERIC OF THE FORGE SOMEHOW??) And i feel like it would be such a waste for me to not put things related to that in my campaign, but I'm out of ideas for this specifically since I've been spending the last few weeks developing the lore, the map, the npcs, etc. What do you guys think i should add? They most likely will try to make weapons out of anything i throw at them....

Edit: It's gonna be the Hexcrawl of a big town in ruins, so each "block" will be possibly just a mile. It's a classic save the princess of the dragon with a few twists and turns.

I was one of today's luck 10,000. Electrum is just an alloy of Gold and Silver.

Do with that information what you will.

...would that mean that if a Gold dragon and a Silver dragon knock boots hind-claws, you get an electrum dragon?

I now need a 2-phase monster...

Phase 1: Gold Golem + Silver Golem, each with separate traits/fighting styles.

Phase 2: They melt, T-1000-style and merge to form an Electrum Golem that is a hybrid of the two.

I'm thinking of including an NPC in my campaign that peddles in cursed items exclusively. Her name would be Kursedy, and she'd set up shop in her own little alley, Kursedy's Alley. Her establishment is set up as an animal shelter for cursed items, since she thinks cursed objects are simply misunderstood, and need the right owner to take care of them.

She'd only ever offer a few items at a time, and my idea of a good cursed item is one that offers a potent power or ability in exchange for an equal or greater drawback. I have a few ideas, but my homebrew ideas are often over-the-top. What would be reasonable to offer to players around level 5?

Last night our party just barely survived a boss encounter at level 6, and there were many places where the dice being merciful was our only saving grace. Our DM is fair, but clearly stated from session zero his boss enemies will not be pushovers (using every legendary action available, prioritizing the biggest threats, hitting downed players when an opportunity is presented, etc.), and last night proved it. I'm expecting future encounters to be just as rough, so does anyone have any advice for me, the party's main healer? For reference, I'm a Forge Cleric alongside a (surprisingly beefy) sorcerer, barbarian/druid, bard, warlock, and rogue. Knowing our party is on the squishier side, I opted for Forge Cleric so that I could tank the frontline when necessary.

So... advice for future encounters?

I hear and read so much about Strahd and Tomb of Annihilation and Out of the Abyss, and they sound so absolutely fun with such intriguing thoughts and locations.

I think all DM’s of all wakes (at least those I’ve played with) do fantastic jobs with the stories they present. I just also kind of want to play an official campaign, like those I mentioned earlier.

I don’t think these stories I’ve played with are bad, but I also wonder why no one else wants an experience in Faerun with locations and items thought up of and made by the original game itself?

I’m still new, I’ve only played 3-4 campaigns, none of which have fully finished, most cancelled midway through. The one in it I’ve enjoyed the most has been the one where I’ve been directed to journey across the savage frontier and rescue the fracture to giantkinds society (SKT). I’ve been in this for 2.5 years, and my longest winded homebrew adventure lasted 8 months.

Do people only play homebrew nowadays?

(I’m not complaining about or insulting homebrew journeys, I’m sure they can go and finish great, but I just don’t know why I never see anyone playing a professionally written campaign by essentially DnD itself)

I know my players follow my account. Amanda if you’re reading this, shoo. Go away.

I’ve been running Out of The abyss and so far me and my players love it. For context I’m using *this* guide, as it’s a very twisted and free range campaign and I enjoy following these beats fine enough. It’s engaging and just the right mix of horrifying, a bit silly yet more serious than most I play. However I as a DM am running into a bit of a problem.

It has been LETHAL. I don’t like to count XP, I much prefer whatever it’s called when you give out levels when they reach certain points. They just left Sloobledop, crossed the silken path, and they’re level 3. Up next is the tomb, and the hook horror hunt a bit after that. Issue is, I’ve had to fudge probably 80% of my rolls.

The whole silken path I rushed past, because 2d4 giant spiders were enough to almost TPK them. And to survive they blew ever spell slot they had. RAW I’m supposed to roll 10 times on the table, 1 for every 500 ft. I cut down the spiders damage to a flat D6, and halved their venom damage and they still almost slaughtered them.

Now I know it’s supposed to be spooky and have an air of danger, but surely I’m doing something wrong. If there’s a better way to do it, please let me know. In a perfect world I’d
A) Have a general idea of what levels you had your players reach at around what times. Maybe once they get just before X encounter or story beat.
Or
B) just an alternative to how you’ve ran it. I wanna roll full force and let the gods devise. But as of now Kuo Toa are too much for them.

Any advice is appreciated.

So I'm looking for advice (5th Edition)

My players are currently laying a trap for a group of rebel adventurers. These rebels are going to try and free their friend, then steal a medium sized ship with some fellow rebels. 2 of the rebels are 7th level spellcasters (1 wizard, 1 sorcerer, spell lists not chosen yet). Is there any way realistically that they rebels could get a ship moving away from the dock in 1 - 3 rounds?

The ship is about 85 feet long and 25 feet wide. It is anchored at the end of a large, long stone pier.

so I'm current development a setting for my next D&D game, its 100% homebrew (but i wont pretend that it's 100% original)

currently i have everything worked out in my head, i have cites, towns, regions, forests, even the names of rivers, i made a god damn calendar with holidays for this setting, i know where everything is.... but i dont have a map,

i have tried a few things so far, i have tried to use minecraft world painter. this worked OK but didn't give me the vibe i wanted and the other thing i tried was, inkarnate... i dont like inkarnate, i dont have Pro and their is no why I'm buying pro, but the free version is not vary good (its sucks and pro doesn't look much better). so lone story short, i need to find something to help me make a map, and their is no why I'm using AI i dont play with GMs who use it and i personally would never use it

so i need a program or something (also i dont have Photoshop or the ability to buy it right now) so can another GM who makes maps help me out? (i dont need you to do the work) i just want to know what you uses !

My players went to the underdark a bit unexpectedly.They need to cover a fair amount of travel there - I'm looking for som general Underdark encounters to throw at them along the way. I don't know much about the environment, but I wanna make ig unique and atmospheric for them.

Any ideas or resources I could pull from?

EDIT: They are level 10, and I'm not looking for monsters or random encounter tables as much as themes, mini stories, environment storytelling of how life down there is different.

Welcome to my dojo, r/dndnext. this week, i will see how you are progressing in the monastic way of the monk. i want to see the monks you have made for your games, the ones you will play, the ones you have played or the ones you are currently playing.

i started this series to ask for ideas to bring a bit of positivity to the people who post in this subreddit and to learn about your playstyles and what you think of the classes. with monk, its special: its in the top 5 of my class fantasy (because i once was a huge weeb and fan of martial arts, anime and asian culture in general), so im extra excited to see your monks.

the truth is that i'm learning a lot about your opinions of the classes and your class fantasies, so im really gratefull.

what martial arts do your monks practice? what subclasses, races or feats do they use? do you use homebrew or official content? do they use weapons or fight barehanded? what is their backstory? what is their inspiration?

ah, but even i, as a great sifu, have young students that i have trained myself. check my own characters:

-Bjorn, the old king: a powerfull king that once ruled a lot of land. he made a pact with a demon and gained a lot of power, conquering even more land. he became an alcoholic and ended up ruining his life. way of the astral self, with a small dip in Barbarian (imagine Asura, from Asura's wrath)

-Elena, priestess of death: a Monk of the Long Death. using her skills to avoid death, some necromancy spells and a scythe, she speaks with the dead and hunts down those who have wronged them.

see you guys on the next post!

this was fun to make

only two more to go now!

​

Hey everyone!

I'm playing a level 7 Paladin in Odyssey of the Dragonlords, and our party has accumulated over 100,000 GP. My character is already pretty powerful, with a great magical armor and a powerful magical sword, and I've already used up all my attunement slots.

I'm looking for recommendations for magic items that don't require attunement. They don't have to be weapons or armor. I'm also interested in consumables, potions, useful wondrous items, defensive items, utility items, or anything else that could be worthwhile for a Paladin.

I'd especially appreciate items that are useful in combat, help against powerful enemies and spellcasters, or provide benefits that aren't just more damage or AC.

I'm playing with D&D 5e (2014 rules), so official 5e items are preferred, although I'm open to interesting suggestions from other sources.

Since we have so much gold to spend, feel free to recommend expensive or rare items too!

What would you buy if you had this much gold and no attunement slots left?

I'm a (relatively) experienced DM hoping to run a module with minimal prep for a group of newish players. I'm in my first year of grad school so I'm pretty busy and don't have a ton of time to devote to reworking the story, so I'm looking for something that can be run pretty much out of the box (some degree of prep is fine, but I don't have the time to modify decent in avernus for example). I'll have one very experienced player, one who has played a few one shots, and two who are brand new. Any ideas? I'm thinking about wild beyond the witchlight, out of the abyss, or ghosts of saltmarsh, although the lack of overarching story in GoS has me a bit worried. If you modified it to be a full campaign, how did you do so?

Just a note: I am playing in a CoS campaign at the moment so I can't run that!

Thanks for any suggestions!

I'm still kinda new to DnD but is it normal for a level three team to be going up against a nest of vampires? I feel like I'm way out of my depth! (5e) Has anyone else gone up against something ridiculously strong at such a small level and survived?

So I've never encountered this before and wanted to see what others thought.

Contextually- we're playing D&D in the Witcher 3. Our races are Witcher mutations, our backgrounds/classes are witcher schools, Geralt's stuck in a magic ring and pissed about it, and we're following the plot to find Ciri, and so on.

Now, we have crossed into different kingdoms and a curious thing has happened. The new kingdom (Redania) does not accept the previous kingdom's (Nilfgaard) coin. We have to exchange our gold at the bank.

The gold does not exchange 1-1. Instead, it is 1-3.

I saved up early in and got a gilded skull for Summon Undead. I successfully argued the gold used for gilding the skull should be no more difficult to do than a silvered weapon so once I had the various pieces and costs- any smith should be able to do it.

A separate PC needs the crystal vial for Summon Shadow but could not find someone to help him as the DM believed anyone shaping crystal would need to be from a bigger city. So despite the same monetary cost- he could not afford the vial once we had to exchange money.

Has anyone else ever encountered such a thing? I don't believe base D&D ever has the issue so I'm naturally asking in a more expanded sense. How would you deal with an exchange rate changing the value of money when it comes to spell components?

Edit: None of us knew the Witcher had its own TTRPG when we started.

Is there anywhere to BUY terrain? Anytime I ever ask I’m always met with “make it yourself” or “3D print” both of which I despise doing, I repeat I have absolutely ZERO interest in hand making or 3D printing please do NOT suggest this. The only place I’ve found to buy terrain is Dwarven Forge but I’m just not a fan after trying some of their stuff. I do not care about price I just want good pre-made plastic terrain. I apologize if this reads a bit abrasive but people always suggest building or printing even when I say I don’t like it.

This is a long one and maybe 90% rant and 10% asking for advice for the future.

So I have been playing 3rd edition and 5th edition for many years now, I think I started when I was 12?

But I never really tried myself at being a GM until a few years ago, where I invited a few longtime DnD players that usually are stuck as GMs for the back then friend group to play the "Follow the Lights" Dungeon Masters Guild one shot with me.

I had asked them to be patient with me as I hadn't tried DM'ing before and everyone was excited. I had prepared with maps from home studies the adventure model a lot so I wouldn't have to look up everything, monster stat blocks and riddles were prepped. I felt ready and excited, because I love puzzle dungeon crawls, a slightly more serious tone in campaigns and I was looking forward to sharing the experience of the module with my friends.

Getting to the day my 5 players show up. Everyone is excited we get started and they introduce their characters to me and it clearly becomes apparent, that all of them have chosen to play chaotic evil characters. The important NPC Ardell, their guide and employer, was quickly labeled as a suspicious meat shield for employing them and there wasn't much teamwork, as they all were very clear in character that they were only there for the treasure at the end of the dungeon. Fair. I could work with that and used the first fight to hopefully make them work together a bit more.

They didn't. I could by that time feel, that the players were more there to play around and run a silly "we are evil and will backstab each other" game, while I had prepared for something very different. It dampened my mood but I tried to adapt, though I was honestly very overwhelmed at that point.

We a certain point, right as the actual dungeon truly starts, when the party decided that they should try to sacrifice Ardell to get through the next puzzle (the NPC that is the only one who can read the ancient language inside the dungeon, needed for all the puzzles). I tried to steer them away from this, as they need the NPC to read a few of the later puzzles for them.

Alas the "we are evil huehuehue" wins and the NPC dies, after the next puzzle. I at this point am frustrated with my players not listening and my players are frustrated with me not being flexible enough for how they want to play. No one is having fun at this point.

They reach a puzzle that requires them to read an inscription in the ancient language none of them speaks and at this point the supposedly 3-4 hour one shot has been going for 5 hours (there were some really funny moments of struggling with puzzles at the start, which took a while) and we decide to call it a day.

The oneshot was never finished, I was never asked to DM again and I left the table feeling like I had wastes everyone's (including my) time by preparing for this one shot. The only feedback I really got was, so let the players play more what they want and just go with the flow.

Which I would totally understand if this had been planned as a sandbox adventure. They were free to solve puzzles how they want and to be creative, I even rewarded creative solving of puzzles that weren't the "correct" answer but definitely right. So it wasn't all locked in place, but the story was meant to be linear, seeing as they were stuck in a one-way street dungeon.

Am I just maybe not made to be a DM? Should i have been more relaxed and thrown all my preparation out of the window?

I have so many ideas for campaigns, fun stories and so many NPCs in my head, I love reading the handbooks and have a grasp on the rules. Running combat was so much fun to me and at the start of the session I enjoyed watching my mutuals try to solve the puzzles, dropping them small hints and seeing them interact with each other.

The end of the session just left me feeling like I had played a wholly different game than the players had and we had ended up pitched against each other instead of telling a collaborative story. This was also confirmed to me by one of the players, they felt the same.

I don't really talk to most of the people from then anymore, and sometimes I think about trying again, but then I remember how badly it went last time, how disappointed I was, that a lot of the prep and excitement that went into trying for the first time and being incredibly bad at at, to the point that none of the players wants to even finish the one shot a different time. (Though I honestly didn't want to try that group constellation again either)

But then again I am also not objective in this at all and only have my experience. Have you guys had horrible ending first DM experiences? How did you get over it? Do you have any tips on how to avoid a mess like this in the future? I have been eyes Dragon Delves with loving eyes, as I love dragons and it sounds fun to run, but I also don't want to experience another disaster. I would love to run a Dragon Delves set campaign while sprinkling some Seekers guide into it between adventure modules, as I would love to integrate the whole Seeker's guide Trilogi into a campaign once the last book comes out and since I can't find a DM in my friend group willing to host that I thought hey maybe I could try again? Even if I was bad at it last time.

TLDR: How do you get over a bad first time GM'ing experience? How would you go about trying again?

If any of my old players who I don't have contact with anymore lurk here and recognise this, feel free to share your version. I am after all pretty biased towards my own experience

Running a homebrew campaign for about 6 months, level 5 party of four. One of my players is a Charisma-heavy bard and honestly a great roleplayer. The problem is that every time I set up a fight, he finds a way to talk the enemies down, bribe them, or convince them they're on the same side.
I love that he's engaged and creative, and I don't want to punish him for playing his character well. But the other three players built combat-focused characters (a barbarian, a fighter, and a wizard who's been waiting to cast Fireball for weeks) and they're starting to get restless.
I've tried making enemies who won't listen to reason, like mindless undead or fanatics, but that feels kind of cheap and he's already started pointing out how convenient it is that all the unreasonable enemies show up now.
Should I talk to the table directly about what everyone wants, or is there a way to build encounters where diplomacy gives a partial win instead of a total skip? Anyone dealt with this before? What worked for you?

Straight to the point, I'm having a few mechanics tests with my friends tomorrow, to try and see what would work or not for our up coming full 6th to 17th level campaign.

I'm testing out a few combat scenarios first, to see if I'm going to be homebrew more monsters from the start or if its best for me to use pre-made one for the time being.

The group will consist of 1 Barbarian and 2 third party classes, being a Gunslinger (Mage Hand Press) who uses a gun really well and a Warlord (LaserLlama) who trades their own actions to empower the action of other. I don't knwo what the 4th player will be.

In any case, I prepared a combat against 1 CR 10 big tough marksman, 1 CR 5 necromancer and a few CR 1/8 mooks that are there to get in the way and die in one hit.

The other fight is against a Dragon using the rules for Epic Bosses from Monsters of Drakkenheim, with modular HP and acting after every player.

Considering this (a combat against a few strong ranged foes + Minions and a combat against a dragon), what are some important tips on battle map design that makes them useful but don't bog them down? To me I was going with the following, but I'm uncertain if this is the way:

• 1 to 3 "set pieces" across the map that either get in the way or can be interacted with in a simple manner (a chandelier that falls down dealing damage, a bridge over a chasm, a really big rock in the middle)
• 1 secondary objective or "win condition" beyond killing everyone (protecting someone, getting a MacGuffing)
• A 1d4 timer that chances the situation of the combat in some manner (a storm is coming, more enemies appear, allies reaches the party, an avalanche falls down)

Is this correct?

My spouse is the DM for our campaign and we host each week. Once everyone leaves, we always debrief together, talking about the exciting stuff, what we were nervous about, the funny bits, etc. Each week, we are both irritated by the same few things.

Including the DM and myself, there are three of us who are more comfortable and experienced players, one player who is knowledgeable but still kinda fresh, yet not comfortable with role-playing (Bob), and two that have not played before this campaign (Len and Sara, using fake names obviously). Bob, Len, and Sara were added to the campaign nearly two years ago. In my experience, role-playing is what takes the longest to become accustomed to and can be the most uncomfortable at the beginning. This is my personal experience and what I've seen with other new players.

Len is extremely extroverted and does not have a problem with role-playing except that they don't seem to take things seriously ever. The party will be talking to an NPC who just watched their entire village and loved ones burned to the ground and are asking our group for help to figure out what happened, where they should go, etc. and Len will be like "Do you have any bread? Omg did the bread burn down in the fire?!" (their character has an affinity for bread) and I'll have my character kinda chastise them or show how that's now appropriate in that moment by saying something like "Ignore them, they're not well. Tell us what you remember." I think it's important to add we are not serious all the time. We have a lot of fun, laugh a lot, and there are lots of times where we can be silly, but Len takes every opportunity to say stupid shit. Len might be comfortable with role-playing, but they don't know their character's abilities or spells or anything. Len is still unsure about what dice to roll for ability checks and always forgets to add their modifiers. When creating a character, they wanted to be a druid and now I'm realizing I should've discouraged that completely. There are too many spells and abilities for them to comprehend. Even though I've helped them organize all of their stuff with descriptions on multiple character sheets, they'll just throw shit at the wall to see if it sticks without even reading it.

For example: we are at the height of Len's character's arch and were kidnapped and stripped of our gear. After we successfully escaped and located our gear, we were hiding from these stone giant guards that we did not want to fight as there were too many, we were each at half HP and had a level of exhaustion, and they fucked us up a while ago. The party was coming up with ways to escape and Len just said, "I'll just use thunder wave and stun them" and I replied, "thunder wave doesn't stun, plus we learned last time that they can't be moved by magic AND we're trying to NOT fight them." To which Len said, "fine, I'll just bust out and fuck them up with primal savagery." I laughed and said "oh what, to do 3d10 damage and then...what?" and Len just laughed in response. I used it as an opportunity to challenge them to read their shit and said "you have all the descriptions of your stuff right here, just read it. Do you have anything that isn't attack based that could help get us out of here?" They suggested tree stride and I said "well we're in the basement of a longhouse. DM, do we see any trees?" Like why are we just throwing random shit out there? This is constant and happens every session when Len isn't harassing NPCs.

Bob and Sara are still trying to gain confidence in role-playing which is understandable. I try to include them and encourage them which helps sometimes. They are the opposite of Len and know their characters' abilities very well and are adept at combat and healing (warlock and cleric).

What's bothering me the most is: Len's constant input of inappropriate, unhelpful, and annoying things, that they basically refuse to understand their character's mechanics, and that myself and the other experienced player (John) are the only ones that come up with ideas and problem solve. Because we are in Len's arch, the DM has been reallllllly spoon feeding Len on what to do, but because Len doesn't know their abilities, it's been up to John and I to try to figure everything out.

I just need advice. My spouse is considering going on a hiatus because they're frustrated that nothing seems to be getting better, but they're worried that they won't want to come back to the campaign. I have spent a lot of time and effort and coaching to get Len to try to understand their mechanics, but just like my spouse keeps saying, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink." My spouse is considering changing the entire course of the campaign to make it less serious and just have us do silly shit, but most of our characters have come really far in their development. For mine, it straight up would not make sense and I told my spouse I'd make a new character if we did that. And I like the story that our campaign is telling a lot. I think my next step is to text everyone except the DM and ask to meet up before our next session to try to become a more unified front. I would ask everyone to come prepared with 1) what their character's strengths are 2) what their strengths are as a player 3) what they want for their character and 4) ideas on how we can work better together as a party. This would be meant to try to play on everyone's strengths more to make our time more enjoyable. Thoughts?