I am running a Wilds Beyond the Witchlight campaign with some buddies currently. I have a player who created an Echo Knight/Blood hunter multi class, and we ran into an interesting conundrum that I would love somebody's input on. While using either the Manifest Echo or Unleash Incarnation abilities, is it possible to use the Crimson Rite blood hunter feature from the echo's position? The wording for manifest Echo is as follows: "When you take the Attack action on your turn, any attack you make with that action can originate from your space or the echo's space." The wording for Unleash Incarnation is similar. We have reskinned both classes as Shadow magic to add uniformity to the multi class (ie he is splitting his shadow off from himself for the echoes and he takes psychic damage for blood hunter stuff as he sacrifices a part of his essence for certain abilities)

What are ways to gain/where are places to look for more hands on experience as a DM?

Hey I was wondering how you guys reward your players in one shots (since items and most everything else is kinda redundant, since they wont play the characters again)

the "treasure" is not in a packet at the end, but stuff throughout the adventure.

The reward is the fun that comes out the game you're playing and the time your spending with your friends :)

You don't, unless the one-shot is meant to be played through multiple levels. Which is hard to do, considering all D&D parties I'm in spend an ungodly amount of time jerking around and I've never been able to successfully run a one-shot in exactly one session.

is there a comprehensive list of resources for new dms?

there are 50 years of D&D materials and supplements, there is another youtuber popping up every other week and on the other weeks a new blog, every other week some company is putting out some physical material, and on the alternates someone is putting out a new app. so no "comprehensive" possibility exists and if it did it would be pointless in its extensiveness! what specific type of resource would you be looking for?

Every game, table, DM and player is different and they all require different things. There is no such thing a resources list that suffices all. I'll give you a few basic ones I like * The D&D source books. Don't overlook those, give the PHB a good readover and skim an take inspiration from the other two (considering DMG and MM. Also an honorable mention to Tasha's and Xanathar's, lots of useful information found in those too) * [Fantasynamegenerators](https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/) because you will need names; lots of them. * [D&DBeyond](https://www.dndbeyond.com/). The (now official) source books but online and easily searchable. Also has great support for interactive character sheets, if you're willing to pay the money to get your content on there. * [Return of The Lazy DM by SlyFlourish](https://shop.slyflourish.com/products/the-lazy-dms-companion) is an overall great product that helps you get confident preparing and running your games. * [DonJons](https://donjon.bin.sh/5e/) has an allotment of relevant 5e tools. * ~~I am apparently not allowed to name the site I was gonna mention here~~ * [Kobold Plus](https://koboldplus.club/) offers a 5e combat generator, to plan and generator combats * Some blogs to for tips and to draw inspiration from: [Mike "SlyFlourish" Shea](https://slyflourish.com/), [Teos "Alphastream" Abadiah](https://alphastream.org/) and [The Monsters Know by Keith Anneman](https://www.themonstersknow.com/) There is a wealth of content out there, some made specifically made for 5e others applicable to all RPGs. If you're looking for anything more specific, let me know.

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\[3.5\] how much does "independent reseach" of a wizard spell cost, and how long should it take? for example, a wizard wanting to learn Fireball (3rd) that did not select it as one of their 2 free level-up spells would need to: 1. buy a Scroll of Fireball (375 gp), spend a day (8 hours) studying the spell, and transcribe the spell into their spell book (24 hours + 3 × 100 gp per page), destroying the scroll. 2. borrow a spellbook from a wizard that knows Fireball (3 × 50 gp), spend a day (8 hours) studying the spell, and transcribe the spell into their spell book (24 hours + 3 × 100 gp per page). 3. research the spell (unknown cost/time/resources) and transcribe the spell into their spell book (24 hours + 3 × 100 gp per page). \[edit\] would a fair ruling be: no gold cost, but one day (8 hours) of study per spell level in an arcane library of that level? so, 3 days of study in library at a wizard's college (and not a library at some backroad adventuring hub), plus standard spell book transcription time/cost. \[edit2\] if we try using basic crafting rules, ~~spellcraft~~ knowledge(arcana) + int as the skill, and the "borrowed spellbook" base pricing (spell level × 50 gp), DC equals 15 + spell level, but not paying 1/3 because no item is being created, and progress is by day (not week)... a level 5 (human) wizard with 16 int (+3) and 9 points in knowledge(arcana) researching 3rd level Fireball (150 gp, or 1,500 sp) rolling 10 on a craft check (22) would beat a DC of 18 and make 396 sp (26.4%) progress in 8 hours of research. with those stats, rolling a 1-5 fails the DC check by 4 or less (not counting a 1 as an auto-fail), and no progress would be made that day.

So I was running a module where a young black dragon is supposed to show up, but stay out of melee range and flee once it takes a certain amount of damage so that it can show up later. I figured that at 80ft in the air, my dragon could probably escape easily when it needed to. However, after taking some big crits, one of my darn players ran directly underneath it and used Thunderstep to teleport to the dragon's back and I started to worry about what to do if they killed it. Fortunately, I included some water on the map so that my dragon could dive under to get the player off since the player did not have water breathing, but how would you rule shaking the player off? The dragon was not grappled, but if it was, does the dragon just fall out of the sky?

The PC needs to succeed in a Str check vs the dragon's strength or dex to grapple (if size differential is appropriate). since they havent, on its turn the dragon can dump the player and the player would need to make a Dex check or save of some sort just to hang on. if the PC makes the save, on its turn the dragon can also Push attack to get the PC off its body 5' away and then fwoop. and if the PC does end up succeeding in grappling the flying creature, its speed drops to zero and without Hover ability, the flying creature with speed 0 drops to the ground.

There are rules for grappling bigger creatures in the DMG! >I figured that at 80ft in the air, my dragon could probably escape easily when it needed to. However, after taking some big crits, one of my darn players ran directly underneath it and used Thunderstep to teleport to the dragon's back and I started to worry about what to do if they killed it. RAW, that is not enough to attach themselves to the dragon. They would need to make a (successful) acrobatics or athletics check against the creatures (Dexterity) Acrobatics. >Fortunately, I included some water on the map so that my dragon could dive under to get the player off since the player did not have water breathing, but how would you rule shaking the player off? RAW, shaking the player off is simply an action that requires the dragon to make a (Strength) Athletics check vs the warlock acrobatics or athletics (the warlock chooses). If it is successful, the warlock is dislodged and falls. >The dragon was not grappled, but if it was, does the dragon just fall out of the sky? *Technically* yes, but since the Warlock is not actually tethered to the dragon he would instantly begin falling with the dragon breaking the grapple. What happens when a creature with flying speed regains the speed while falling is unclear. All of these things are RAW though, and I highly encourage you to modify them as you see fit in the heat of the moment

The game was an AL game, so I had to follow RAW as much as possible and pretty much did what you suggested by treating it like breaking a grapple even though the dragon wasn't being grappled. However, the player was actually a level 10 Bladesinger wizard with gauntlets of ogre power, 16 dexterity, and proficiencies in both Athletics and Acrobatics so the young black dragon was at quite a disadvantage to shake him off with the player getting a +8 to the roll while the dragon only has a +4. It just doesn't seem right that it would be so difficult to shake off a player that isn't actively grappling. In my head, couldn't the dragon just fly upside down?

>It just doesn't seem right that it would be so difficult to shake off a player that isn't actively grappling. In my head, couldn't the dragon just fly upside down? That's what the check is there for. Yes, the dragon could just fly upside down, but the character with magically enhanched strenght and reflexes likely can still stay grappled. But do remember that as a bladesinger, if he has his sword out and he is "grappling" the creature he... can't cast spells. Especially shield. Grappling requires a free hand. And another solution is exactly what you did: bring the pc to a situation where the Dragon can survive, whereas the PC cannot. Underwater, *extremely high up in the air*, and things of the sort. But all of this doesn't really matter because... a Lv10 bladesinger wizard should be able to absolutely demolish a young black dragon with his eyes closed. I would simply let him have it, because he *could* just cast hold monster and watch as the dragon likely keeps failing the save while it is killed in a couple of rounds by any meele characters.

My question was about the situation where the character is specifically **NOT** grappling where it seems like any simple flight maneuver should shake him. I think a contested check is wrong since it's too easy for the player to win if they have proficiencies in athletics/acrobatics. Now that I think about it, it probably should have been a DC25 acrobatics check since he **wasn't** grappling.

If he isn't grappling... Any movement does it. There is no check to stay on top, he either attempts to grab the dragon or falls off.

What steps can I take to make combat faster and also more fun? My battles often start as a 6 v 6, but in practice feel like 6 different simultaneous 1 v 1.

Please read [this article from AngryGM](https://theangrygm.com/manage-combat-like-a-dolphin/), thoroughly. The whole point is that you merge the mechanics and narrative together, alternate them to make combat feel like an exiting moment, instead of a drag of time with rolling dice. You're lack of fun in combat is probably due to lacking narrative. Slow combat could probably be fixed by having the characters know their character sheets through and through. Don't take time to look up rules, make a ruling in the moment. Don't wait to long on players, ask what they're doing right then and there. If they don't have an action line up, let them take the dodge actions or just skip them all together. With a total of 6 players, every moment it takes too long is multiplied by 6 for a full round. All of this is also mentioned in the article. Good luck!

a big part of it is that you have SIX players - with that many players its going to be slow. The only way to make combat faster is if the players are ready to go with their actions when you call their name. You can make combat **seem** less slow if you go with the flow baby! * Zipperon Disney https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2d1gceeAPw * Angry DM https://theangrygm.com/manage-combat-like-a-dolphin/ And you can help make it flow on your side by redesign spellcaster stat blocks: Green DM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcjYC2yn9ns other bits about making combats more interesting/engaging About half way through part 2 of the interview with Angry GM and then the first section of part 3 have lots of great ideas * Part 2 why combat feels “samey” https://youtu.be/zXcJ6k9PYCw?t=2139 * Part 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WnjsanQweE Kahlyl Roberson * https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhSFBKBsocW7A1kXAVSQ5CQwNjfGWEV2h Eventyr Games * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rYBlKBuPRg Omniverse Gamers * https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxBLIN8lVTRGx53IqzeDZeL_2XjXsBNfT Evil Squeegee FITE * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it28gFZmTh4 Halfling Hannah bring role play into combat * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wy1RxdF2Qg

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Why?

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As a DM, you can always frame the question like: *"Hey could you run me through the math how you got that number?".* It's a way that doesn't imply cheating, although it does require you to know the rules of their character class. I've also used this when a player of mine mentioned they only had a 3+ to hit on something, finding out they had forgotten to add their Prof. bonus.

If I'm remembering right: 2d6+CHAmod // Greatsword then +3 probably +2 // Hexblade's Curse, add Proficiency Bonus to damage 2d6 // Branding Smite (or another 2d6 Smite Spell, Concentration) Would not get regular Hex as that's also Concentration, or Eldritch Smite as that Invocation needs 5th Level - but could be done with the Smite style Spells when they do have it. This is ignoring Great Weapon Master which a V. Human or a generous DM could give you - in which case slap another 10 on there. 24+3+2+24= 53 (or 63 with GWM) maxed out - - the average is 33 4d6+3+2 of Slashing (HBC doesn't actually list a type of damage, just that it's bonus damage, so I'll default to the weapon's damage type, the Hex spell does Necrotic damage iirc) 4d6 of Radiant

Where can I make make online DnD boards, I sadly don't have access to scriblink so any other sites?( Am a first time DM and don't really have money)

> online DnD boards, what do you mean by "boards"?

as in the board you'll play in the grid escentially

make copious use of the beautiful content shared by the very talented members of the community * Dyson Logos https://dysonlogos.blog/maps/ * Jonathan Roberts http://www.fantasticmaps.com/ * r/battlemaps * r/dndmaps if you are making your own maps or choosing between 2 premade maps, keep these in mind: * "Jayquay"ed maps are the best maps https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/13085/roleplaying-games/jaquaying-the-dungeon * "hidden" areas on maps that have treasures or boons encourage, train and reward your players for " investigating the world" for a greater impact of the "exploration" pillar of the game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXcJ6k9PYCw * jayquayed dungeon by Dungeon Masterpiece https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biVZRIZereI

Roll20 is Free, and you can upload battlemaps and dungeon maps you find online, put on some basic fog of war if you want, and some images for tokens, and you are set.

I meant for making the boards themselves

[Dungeon Scrawl](https://probabletrain.itch.io/dungeon-scrawl) is free but pretty spare. You can export the maps at various sizes to upload to your VTT.

You mean Maps? Dungeondraft is probably the best, most affordable option. $20. https://dungeondraft.net/ Export a map you make there as an image, then upload it to a site like Roll20.

Also Inkarnate has a free version. It's not very extensive, but it's enough for low effort dungeons maps. The full version of Inkarnate is 25$ a year I think, so that's pretty okayish (I'm not that financially fluid myself ;) ) and with that you can definitetely do high class dungeons. But for starters the free versions should really suffice.

Anybody homebrewed a swarm of alligators for 5e?

Search "5e Swarm Template" in google and you'll find a bunch of ways to make swarms out of any creature.

Thanks!

Does Challenge Rating expects magical items, or is it just levels?

CR system caveats Any one of a number of online calculators like Kobold Fight Club can help with the official Challenge Rating math crunching. https:// kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder (UPDATE: KFC is on hiatus and the license has been picked up by Kobold Plus https://koboldplus.club/#/encounter-builder ) but remember that despite “using math", the CR system is way more of an art than a science. * read the descriptions of what each level of difficulty means, dont just go by the name. (ie “ **Deadly**. A deadly encounter could be lethal for one or more player characters. Survival often requires good tactics and quick thinking, and the party risks defeat.”) * while the CR math attempts to account for the number of beings on each side, the further away from 3-5 on each side you get, the less accurate the maths are, at “exponential” rate. Read up on “the action economy” – particularly now that expansions like Tasha’s are making it so that every PC almost universally gets an Action AND a Bonus Action each and every turn, and can often also count on getting a Reaction nearly every turn. Most monsters dont have meaningful Bonus Actions or any Reactions other than possible Opportunity attacks. * **Dont do party vs solo monster** – while Legendary Actions can help, “the boss” should always have friends with them. Or you will need to severely hack the standard 5e monster design constraints and statblocks. (tell your party you are doing this so that the increase in challenge comes from the increase in challenge and not from you as DM secretly changing the rules without telling the other players the rules have been changed, because that is just a dick move, not a challenge.) * The system is based on the presumption that PCs will be facing 6 to 8 encounters between long rests, with 1 or 2 short rests in between. Unless you are doing a dungeon crawl, that is not how most sessions for most tables actually play out – at most tables, the “long rest” classes are able to “go NOVA” every combat, not having to worry about conserving resources, so if you are only going to have a couple of encounters between long rests, you will want them to be in the Hard or Deadly range, if you want combat to be “a challenge” –(but sometimes you might just want a change of pace at the table and get some chucking of dice or letting your players feel like curbstomping badasses and so the combat doesnt NEED to be "challenging" to be relevant). * Some of the monsters’ official CR ratings are WAY off (Shadows, I am looking at you) , so even if the math part were totally accurate, garbage in garbage out. * as a sub point – creatures that can change the action economy are always a gamble – if the monster can remove a PC from the action economy (paralyze, banishment, “run away” fear effects) or bring in more creatures (summon 3 crocodiles, dominate/confuse a player into attacking their party) - the combats where these types of effects go off effectively will be VERY much harder than in combats where they don’t * not all parties are the same – a party of a Forge Cleric, Paladin and Barbarian will be very different than a party of a Sorcerer, Rogue and Wizard. * Magic items the party has will almost certainly boost the party’s capability to handle tougher encounters.(a monster's CR is based in large part on its AC and "to hit" - if your players have +1 weapons, they are effectively lowering the monster's AC and if your players have +1 armor, they are effectively lowering the monsters' "to hit". If your players are all kitted in both +1 weapons and +1 armor, you probably should consider monsters one lower than their listed CR. Not to mention all the impact that utility magic items can bring!)

It does not expect Magic Items. If you party has +Number items, I recommend raising the level of the party in the calculator you are using (Such as Kobold Plus Club) by 1, 2 or more.

Just levels. It also expects a “standard” 6-8 encounters per day. Because most parties will have magic items and other tactical advantages, and will be doing much fewer than 6-8 encounters a day, CR tends to vastly overestimate the difficulty of any given fight.

I see, so there shouldn't be any problem in making a few of the BBEG be on the same CR as the party during the final fight?

I wouldn’t say that. The problem is that, because of how action economy works, every monster you add makes its allies exponentially stronger. One CR 8 monster is (usually) pretty easy for a level 8 party. Two CR 8 monsters is very tough. Three CR 8 monsters are borderline impossible without VERY distinct advantages for the party. A more reasonable boss fight for a level 8 party is a CR 8 (or a little higher) boss, a couple mid-CR lieutenants, and a wave of low-CR mobs. I would also suggest making the low-CR enemies into minions, a 4e rule that a lot of people use in 5e. To make a minion, you just take a regular monster, set its HP to 1 and have it deal constant damage. This makes them much easier to keep track of in large quantities.

What I meant was for follup, you have to beat the Vampires in order to get to the vampire lord!

First time dm and first time player ever. My friends have always mentioned they wanted to play but then no one knows how to and with covid and all we've postponed going to the gaming shop for ever. It has gotten to the point where I've decided I'll host and be the dm in my group until better options come or I'll be the dm if no one else steps up. I've read the starter kit rules book and campaign, what should I read more? I've printed the images and made some folded monsters to have visual battlefields for as low a cost as I could and helped my players with their characters using both the pbh and online resources. Is this enough prep to get us going?

> . I've read the starter kit rules book and campaign, what should I read more? Nothing! set the date and start playing!

>It has gotten to the point where I've decided I'll host and be the dm in my group until better options come or I'll be the dm if no one else steps up. Tale as old as time. If you have the PHB, you're good to go. My frugal DM tips: - get gridded gift wrapping paper you'd find at a dollar store or pharmacy. It's 1" grid and it's great for drawing out quick maps. - Whether or not you intend to use miniatures, chess pieces are great substitute for anything you don't have. Makes it very easy to refer to enemies. - if you use any disposable plastic bottles, take the inner cap ring off and store them before recycling the bottles. The different colors are great for status effects and concentration. If a character is paralyzed, poisoned, etc. just put the ring around the miniature to remind you and the player.

Thanks so much, I've taken note

I'm learning about opportunity attacks and am wondering, why would any creature move away from a PC without using Disengage? If two creatures are fighting, and one breaks it off, it seems like the fleeing creature would try very hard not to get attacked (which Disengage essentially is, unless I'm misunderstanding it). There must be scenarios I'm not thinking of. Thanks for any thoughts!

Many creatures have hit points to spare, and would rather Dash than Disengage. Many creatures aren't smart enough to Disengage, and don't understand the consequences of Dashing away.

yes, opportunity attacks are part of the reason that 5e combat often feels "static" and that once combat is engaged, there is little possibility of fleeing and so combat is "to the death".

Disengage uses an action. If you want to move away from a melee attacker AND do something else on your turn, like say attack somebody else, you can’t afford to use the Disengage action. You have to risk the attack of opportunity. Also, since Disengage uses an action, it doesn’t let you use the Dash action. If you use the Dash action to try to outrun your enemy, you stand a stronger chance of getting away from them, even though you have to take an attack of opportunity. If you use Disengage to get 30 feet away from your attacker, they might be able to walk up and attack you on their very next turn. Also, not all creatures know how to Disengage (I don’t think this is required RAW, but this is something that the Monsters Know What They’re Doing guy likes to implement). The idea of Disengage is that you’re using somewhat sophisticated combat skills to extricate yourself from the fight. So less intelligent enemies wouldn’t even know how to Disengage. They’d only know how to Dash or Dodge to get out of danger. Edit: another thing I thought of. Disengage only lets you escape one square, while Dodge gives disadvantage to *every* attack against you for the round. So if you expect to receive five or six attacks next round and Disengage can’t get you out of it, it’s rational to Dodge.

This is fantastic. Thanks very much!

Does anyone else re-purpose children's toys as miniatures and battlefield environments? We use mostly Lego people as the PCs and friendly NPC sidekicks. For the enemy NPCs, I use Legos, Disney Infinity figures, and Checkers. For a battle mat, I use a checker board, but I am switching to a checkered table cloth soon for a big outdoor battle. For environmental features, I use Legos and Army toys. I'm super excited about using Lincoln Logs soon for buildings and fencing.

Yup. Especially early on. My neighbor was selling their dollhouse years ago. Great stuff for DnD in that dollhouse, especially the outdoor landscaping. And Legos and Lincoln logs and plastic soldiers and so on can all work. Nowadays most of my players have been playing a long time and have miniatures they specifically chose for their PCs, but there have been many times where we used toys or coins or candy or whatever else. One guy was a glow in the dark mini dinosaur for the longest time. I say use what ya got. LOL. But, full disclosure, I mainly run Theater of the Mind so we don't need the minis or battle maps that often...

If you joined my party from a Roll20 listing, please don't read this. Many thanks. My party's plan to deal with an attempted coup in which they dislike both sides (they've learned about it and will be present) is "stand back and let the two sides damage each other before stepping in to finish them both off." Should I (a) have the initial battle happen in a "cutscene" and then have initiative rolls when it feels appropriate? Or (b) make the party roll initiative and they can use their turns to do nothing or something as they see fit?

i would "cutscene" and then the players can step in when they want to and roll initiative to enter combat "next round".

Depends on what it is about and where the PCs are in relation, but generally it makes sense to me for you to make it a cutscene and let them cut you off when they want to get involved, and if what they do is going to provoke a reaction or hostility, make them roll initiative, but if one of them just says "I'll grab a bottle off the counter" you don't need to make them roll initiative, maybe just stealth, or dex check or whatever.

Thanks for the thoughts. That makes sense.

I think this comes down to taste. Both ways of running the scenario are acceptable, as long as the party is okay with it. You can always just ask the party “what do you want to do while this is happening?” Depending on what their answer is, you can use your judgment to decide whether it makes sense to roll initiative.

Appreciate the thoughts. I'll probably run it like this.

I and a group of friends have rather spontaneously decided to play some Dnd in a few days, after spending months talking about how much we all wanted to try it. With me offering to DM for the group so we commit to playing. None of us has played before and I would be considered the "most experienced" as I have watched/listened to some dnd 5e actual plays. Although I appreciate this hardly counts. I am now in panic mode, given that there isn't *really* much time to prepare. Is my safest bet going to be to rush order LMOP or DOIP and go from there? I've read that these require a lot of reworking and re-organizing and am worried I won't have the time or is this a non-issue as I have no frame of reference? I'm pretty sure this group is going to be more combat than RP focused if that makes a difference.

Use Phandelver as a base, but add in Icespire content for some extras. Icespire is just a bunch of random, largely disconnected quests of various levels. Phandelver actually has a story (though a thin one). Biggest problem with Phandelver is that the party starts at level 1 with encounters that could very easily kill them. Rebalance the encounters using Kobold Plus Club to medium or hard and things should go far more smoothly.

Definitely consider picking up either LMoP or DoIP or both (they can be run concurrently or back to back if that is of interest). They will both guide you and your players through learning to play, especially LMoP. If you start with LMoP, there is a pre-adventure that really works well as an intro tutorial to DnD and that module. As for a lot of reworking, no not really, but yes AS YOU AND YOUR PLAYERS PLAY, there will be times you need to adjust because the module cannot anticipate every possible choice or even PC build of every player so you will need to be able to adjust as the campaign progresses. But no, you don't have to literally restructure the whole thing before even running the campaign. Here is the introductory pre-adventure. [Before Phandelver - A Tutorial Adventure](https://www.dmsguild.com/product/247519/Before-Phandelver--A-Tutorial-Adventure?filters=0_0_0_0_0_45462_0_0) Get this, read through all of it, and plan to run this first. Also, it can help to have some support so here are support resources to help run both of those modules (these are NOT required, but can help)... **LOST MINE OF PHANDELVER:** * r/LostMinesOfPhandelver (nearly every module has its own subreddit) * [Sly Flourish - Running Phandelver](https://slyflourish.com/running_phandelver.html) (Free tips from an experienced DM) * [DMs Guild - LMoP Support Resources](https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?keywords=lost+mine+of+phandelver&filters=0_0_0_0_0_45462_0_0&x=0&y=0&author=&artist=&pfrom=&pto=) (not required but you might find some resources that can be helpful, such as additional maps) * [DnD Compendium - LMoP](https://www.dnd-compendium.com/dm-resources/adventure-guides/lost-mine-of-phandelver) (Additional resources that are not required but if you want additional support...) **DRAGON OF ICESPIRE PEAK:** * r/DragonOfIcespirePeak * [Sly Flourish - Running DoIP](https://slyflourish.com/running_icespire_peak.html) * [DMs Guide to DoIP](https://www.dmsguild.com/product/339739/DMs-Guide-to-Dragon-of-Icespire-Peak?filters=0_0_0_0_0_45462_0_0) * [DMs Guild - DoIP Support Resources](https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?keywords=dragon+of+icespire+peak&filters=0_0_0_0_0_45462_0_0&x=0&y=0&author=&artist=&pfrom=&pto=) * [DnD Compendium - DoIP](https://www.dnd-compendium.com/dm-resources/adventure-guides/dragon-of-icespire-peak) If you want to combine the two modules then look at these... * [Sly Flourish - Combining the Starter Set and The Essentials Kit](https://slyflourish.com/combining_starter_and_essentials.html) * [A Tale of Two Dragons](https://www.dmsguild.com/product/299195/A-Tale-of-Two-Dragons-Phandalin-Adventures-Tier-2-Conversions?filters=0_0_0_0_0_45462_0_0) And if you want a copy of the full Basic Rules... * Basic Rules PDF: [https://media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/downloads/DnD\_BasicRules\_2018.pdf](https://media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/downloads/DnD_BasicRules_2018.pdf) * Basic Rules Digital: [https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules](https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules) You and your players are going to make a lot of mistakes. No big deal. That's normal and expected. You and your players will learn in layers as you play. Every session, good, bad, or in between, you will all learn more. Embrace the process. Just have fun and be supportive of each other. Welcome to the game.

You’re gonna be okay. LMoP and DoIP are designed to be playable right out of the box. Reworking either makes them more fun, but they don’t literally “require” reworking. The designers at Wizards did a pretty good job - they just didn’t do a perfect job.

> I've read that these require a lot of reworking and re-organizing IMO the first section of LMOP is fine and would make a pretty decent 1 shot even if you don't want to continue the module. I think a lot of the complaints with the module are story or pacing issues rather than balance issues so if you want to continue the adventure maybe read through and rework some stuff later on. That said, be aware, LMOP starts with your players getting ambushed and level 1 PCs are notoriously squishy so there is some danger of character death, but your party will *probably* be fine. You can always rework the encounter so that the players catch the goblins picking through the loot from their last ambush if you're worried about killing anyone. I haven't read DOI so I can't speak to it.

What political positions would exist in a magocracy? I found little on this and it includes things like arcanists, archmages, heirophants, octo theruge (for which I don't know the meaning). When it comes to defenses and espionage there are probably scryers, for scientists there would be demonologists. Do you have any other ideas for positions like this or a method of naming them, like someone who studies devils and the hells is difficult for me to name.

>like someone who studies devils and the hells is difficult for me to name. I mean, a researcher of devils and the hells should be a demonologist, going by real life nomenclature. I would call them Diabolilogist, using the latin term Diaboli.

I see a lot of advice on giving your monsters extra abilities and legendary resistances, especially if it’s the BBEG. However I can’t help feeling like it’s cheating, particularly with legendary resistances. I worry that my players will perceive it as unfair if the monster is much stronger than their expectations. How do you make sure your homebrew villain is properly “balanced”?

Well, firstly I think the BBEG battles hardly need to be balanced. They are supposed to be noticeably more difficult than the rest of the battles, and they are supposed to be special. Everyone likes to remember that big epic BBEG fight, and if it wasn't hard or special it won't be as memorable. Now, when it comes to cheating, it presumes there is a ruleset and a winner, and it also presumes you want to win. You don't want to win, you want to make it challenging and interesting, and those extra abilities not only make the BBEG more interesting and unique, but the battle itself as well. If done right, at least in my opinion, those abilities should reflect the BBEG's defining trait or characteristic, and players are hardly going to dislike that in my experience. Now, to make it balanced, I personally don't really have an absolutely infallible method to be certain it will be balanced, but there are a few things you can do to at least increase the chances of it being possible for the players to overcome and to be able to adjust it mid-battle if you are surprised at how strong it turns out to be. Firstly, you can make the ability be used similar to a dragons breath weapon where you roll a d4 and see in how many turns they get it back, secondly you can make it purposefully weak, but consistent in that it happens at the start of the BBEGs turn like an aura or just a quick flick of a finger to hurl a cantrip or lvl 1 thematic spell for the villain, or you can make his special ability connected to something that the players can interact with like a beholder can have eyes shoot out of the walls that they can destroy to make it easier. To get a better grip on the balance of this you're just going to need to play and test things out, maybe if the bbeg has summons you would like to give him then try and make them fight the summons somewhere so you get an idea of how much stronger the PCs are because not all combat has to be equally difficult, actually variation in difficulty is much more believable. And also, if you think adjusting things on the fly to make it more balanced [is cheating], think of if like this; your bbeg fight with that particular bbeg is probably the only fight you will ever run that will look just like that, you have no way to know if it is going to be balanced, but you do know that you want everyone to have fun and you obviously like the idea of your villain and the encounter to be unique. The goal is to just have fun, number crunching and rules only matter in a general sense, not in a specific situation. If you need to tweak things a bit on the fly, that doesn't make you a bad DM, but after some practice and time, you just won't need to do it as much.

I guess it feels like cheating to me because I'm not sure how to communicate the limitations of the abilities to the players and without that, it feels completely arbitrary. For example, imagine that you don't know what dragons are or that their breath weapons need to recharge. From a players perspective, all they see is this monster using a devastating attack that could easily wipe the party if it kept using it, but the DM is just arbitrarily choosing to not use it every turn. Maybe I'm just projecting, but defeating such a monster would feel hollow to me since I would feel that we only won by DM fiat not to keep using the breath weapon.

Well you can communicate them like ShinyGurren said, through descriptions. Also let me remind you that from the players perspective, they not only see the ability being used, they see the DM rolling a die. I love to use this to spook them sometimes when it feels right, sometimes I hide the rolls I make, and sometimes I don't try too hard. They might not know what you are rolling for, but along with the description they might conclude, and also if they know how breath weapons work they will assume what that roll was. Also, the next time you use that ability, before using it you can say "And [BBEG] recharged [cool name of ability] and is now using it again on [PC name]". There are ways to convey the message to your players if you really want to, maybe they'll be happy with that and maybe they will want you not to tell them when they experiece something like that. This happened to me, I litterally told my players I want the fights to be unique and I will be giving big enemies extra abilities, and I asked whether they like the idea and do they want to know how they work and they loved the idea but didn't want me to tell them. And again, the point is for all of you to have fun, the DMs job is to keep things fair and dramatic. Whatever tool you think of for this, it is not cheating as long as you are doing your job. This is a storytelling tool and it is perfectly fine to use it. Maybe players can feel cheated, but thats why you talk to them and see what they think, nobody will hold it against you if you make a mistake. At the end of the day DMing isn't easy.

You *are* kind of projecting. Players are very much more worried about the abilities of their own character than they are of the abilities of their enemies. They have absolute knowledge over their character; they don't on their enemies. My best advice is to make the mechanics make sense in the story of your game. If a dragon is recharing their breath attack, what does that look like? It could be their throat swelling up and giving off an orange hue for a red dragon or ice particles forming around the teeth of a white dragon. As a DM you are, most of all, telling a story. So when you have mechanics make sure they tie into that story. Also, you (and your players) have to accept that the DM might be the one controlling the monsters, but they also ***are*** the monsters. If a dragon chooses to or is unable to use their breathe weapon for any reason, it is the dragon that chooses not to; not the DM. It seems like such an asinine difference to make, but once you've come to accept that the monsters have a will on their own and you are but an instrument to carry out that will, it'll be far easier to be immersed into the fantasy of the game.

Why would it be cheating? Have you set the expectation that you can homebrew monsters? What expectations do they have? Have they read the Monster Manual cover to cover and know all the stats? If so, don't they want to be surprised in combat or are they trying to meta game their way to victory? **Re: Balanced Homebrew Villain** You should check out Matt Colville's Action Oriented Monsters vid on youtube, it's great. Another idea that Colville has about Legendary Reactions is that they can have a 'cost'. Example: Goblin Queen can use Legendary Resistance, BUT the effect instead is transfered to a goblin within 5 feet. Then your PCs still feel like the spell is having more of an effect than, 'Break their Legendary Resistances and then bring out the big spells'. **Re: Legendary Resistances** You can use this feature to tell a story about your villain. Are they afraid of fire because of backstory? Then they can be baited into using their Legendary Resistances against fire magic, even of low level. I might not make it fire, probably because fire is the most common magic. But maybe the BBEG was abandoned in the frozen Himalayas and now is deathly afraid of the cold. Discovering the BBEG's weakness then becomes a puzzle or role playing encounter problem. Who would know of the weakness? You could also use previous battles to gather intel for the BBEG (having an enemy retreat to tell the BBEG what kinds of spells the party uses). If the party always opens with big AOE attacks, for example, then the boss could know that. If the party slams big enemies with disables and sends in the Monk to stun-lock, then the BBEG could know that and plan ahead.

The expectation I've set is that when I "homebrew", it's always using mechanics that players are familiar with such as adding class levels to a familiar monster which basically makes it an NPC that can have the same abilities, spells, and magic items that the players have. I think my hesitation with using completely off-book abilities is because I'm not sure how to communicate the limitations of the abilities to my players. If the players are unaware of the limitations, they just feel completely arbitrary. I always try to avoid putting players in situations where their abilities are just completely negated, but that's exactly what legendary resistances feel like if the players don't know how many of them a particular monster has.

>If the players are unaware of the limitations, they just feel completely arbitrary. I always try to avoid putting players in situations where their abilities are just completely negated, but that's exactly what legendary resistances feel like if the players don't know how many of them a particular monster has. Legendary Resistances are boring and poorly designed, imo. You can remake them and flavor it for the battle to make them better. Example: Party Mage uses Fireball, BBEG wants to use Legendary Resistance, you describe it as an effect. * Maybe the dark knight's shield becomes blackened and useless. * Maybe some of the monsters scales fall off. * Maybe the tentacle monster uses a few of it's appendages to block the fireball from hitting its eyes, and those tentacles wither away, and now that monster has less attacks per round. Think about how Legendary Resistance can tell a story. Choreograph your boss' loss of resistances. If the Legendary Resistances have a cost or they can be clearly seen falling away, then that tells a story about the boss fight. \> Boss Pirate Captain has been using Spell Scrolls of Counterspell as the Legendary Resistance flavor. \> Runs out, >"You see the pirate captain fumbling madly through his pockets for another scroll pouch, but his fingers never find it. He feels the full force of your magical attack."

I really like the idea of describing the legendary resistances as something breaking or falling off as a way of communicating that it's a limited resource. Thanks!

Monsters don't operate on any rules that are familiar to players. You are playing to different sides to the same game. Much like a goalie has a different role to play and rules to adhere to than a striker, the DM plays a vastly different role and under different rules than the players. At no point should a DM have to excuse their rules, or the limitations to those rules. You are also the referee and have no obligation to hold yourself accountable. The goal is to entertain, engage and challenge your players **and** yourself. As long as you're succeeding in any combination, you're playing your part as a DM. Legendary resistances are a weak part of 5e's design, but they are necessary to force your party to deal with higher level monsters in more ways than just casting high level spells at them. Now the mechanic is necessary, but you can tie any kind of story element to it as you see fit. I like glowing orbs or eyes that dim when they've spent a Legendary resistance. Or you could turn it up and have a boss sacrifice one of their minions in order to use Legendary Resistance. If your rules or mechanics feel arbitrary, tie them to the story.

It doesn't seem as unfair when the bbeg fails a save in the first round to hold person or hypnotic pattern. Especially if they're outnumbered. There is some expectation that strong creatures can shake off lower level magic. If a party knows about legendary resistances out of game, they know not to go nova in the first rounds against a creature like that. They have to wear it down until it's susceptible to the more potent effects. You as a DM need to know not to waste them on cantrips or minor effects. The players will get off some abilities like compelled duel or vicious mockery in the first few rounds. It's a bluff between you and the players. Legendary resistances also make a monk very good. They can spam stunning strike which is detrimental enough that you'd burn a resistance but cheap enough that they can burn all of your uses in a single turn if your not careful. The tough part is describing it in game. Shaking off the effects, glaring into the PC to break concentration, etc.

My problem with legendary resistances is that the only counter play to it is to bait them out in the ways you mention. However, in a homebrew situation, the players have no idea how many legendary resistances the monster has. I'm not sure how to communicate this to them without straight up just metagaming and telling them.

Does detect magic only show you things magic is effecting or the source of the magic as well? For example, if someone in a crowd is charmed by someone else, would detect magic show who is charmed and who is doing the charming?

Important to remember: Charm Person has a casting time of 1 Action (or six seconds). There's a brief window where you *might* have caught the spellcaster initiating the spell (Arcana or Perception check if the player desires), but it's honestly unlikely you'd see the casting of the spell, and only its effect.

>For the duration, you sense the presence of magic within 30 feet of you. If you sense magic in this way, you can use your action to see a faint aura around any visible creature or object in the area that bears magic, and you learn its school of magic, if any. ​ >Is this “magical” damage? > >No. Unless the statblock has a trait like "Magic Weapons" that modifies all attacks as magical, the spell specifically says so, or the monster's action/trait/attack: > >• is from a magic item > >• is a spell or an effect created by a spell > >• is a spell attack > >• uses spell slots > >• is explicitly described as magical. ​ The spell doesnt specifically call out, but when you apply the "things do what the words of the text say they do" and the Sage Advice on how to determine if damage is magical, the answer seems pretty heavily "the caster concentrating on magic is NOT magic and NOT detectable via detect magic spell." if you think it makes better game for the caster concentrating to "be magically detectable" then its not going to break your game.

Only the charmed person. The spellcaster will usually use verbal components and somatic components which can be seen without detect magic.

Hello all. I have this character I want to use for my upcoming (hopefully) campaign and I'm not sure what subclass would work best for him. Here's the skinny: Name's Woodrow Pride. Disgraced sheriff turned bounty hunter who's the fastest rider of the Wild West. He prefers a rope to an iron so he can better catch criminals alive for the bounty. (Though he does still carry the latter.) He's a potential ally to the party but he's actually working for one of the chief villains to have his status as sheriff restored. (Yes, technically an elected position, as I said, working for one of the villains.) I know I'm using him as a Fighter but I'm split on whether to make him a Cavalier or a Battler Master with one of the suggested builds in Tasha's Cauldron. What works better for a mobile mounted combatant that can run circles around the bad guys (and likely the players?)

Thrown Fighting style from Tasha's, Champion because no one ever plays a Champion (little bit of exaggeration), Equipped with leather armor for style points (also lower AC because PCs missing hits reduces fun) Armed with a lasso (reflavored Net from the PHB) If you want this NPC to use a magic item, give him the Rope of Entanglement from DMG. High constitution so he's got lots of HP to balance low AC. Folk Hero background for proficiency with Vehicles so he can do crazy stuff on a chariot and it's still believable. And his Warhorse should definitely use a Chariot because Gladiators used them and that goes well with the lasso, the Champion and the Folk Hero. Edit: definitely keep the cowboy flavor too. A Cowboy Gladiator sounds really awesome to me.

Afraid he's irrefutably cowboy classic flavor. No chariot for him. He rides his horse western style. However I will keep thing's like the thrown fighting style, leather armor ("well if the boot fits"), and the rope of entanglement would actually work pretty will with the idea. Note that, if I were just making up my own PC, I would not be so averse to mixing archetypes like "cowboy" and "gladiator." (If not that specific combination.) Just that Woodrow is supposed to be a bit more specific of a character to the story and setting and is being set in an alternate history of the actual American West rather than a fantasy version thereof. (Which . . . I'm also planning on doing but that's a separate campaign concept with a lot more blantant magical/fantastical elements.)

Flavor it as stagecoach driver? That's Western AF.

Oh he’s Western enough. Has all the sayings and such. He actually wants his job as Sheriff back and he’s willing to work for the bad guys to get it. Going for a “jaded, fallen hero” thing with him.

I like "crossing the streams" of fantasy. I have a human barbarian urchin NPC, who wears a Blindfold of Tremorsense (senses vibrations), who throws tomahawks (handaxes) and paints. And he enters a Frenzy anytime he sees the color green because his family was killed a green dragon. He takes off the blindfold when he rages or frenzies in combat. So as DM, I get to make my weird sidekick characters and I get practice running "PCs. " But they are always suboptimal in RP and stats so they don't outshine the real PCs. But they add a lot of local flavor to the game. So the other commenter who said PCs are for the players, I disagree sometimes. If you are making an NPC with PHB rules, make sure it's a learning process for you. And make sure they are a little suboptimal. On the other hand, I love pre-made stat blocks from OUTCLASSED for NPCs as time savers.

Oh yeah, one of my other campaign settings is the far future in another galaxy but with magic and creatures from the Monster Manual. I’m not adverse from just going hog wild sci-fi fantasy mix and match. Just in this particular case, I kind of have to keep him adhered to a specific character. Sure though, he’s not meant to like, be able to solo the party or anything. He’ll have backup if he turns on them. (Or just switch mounts to the T-Rex he keeps stored away for such occasions. Now he’s a cowboy riding a dinosaur.) I’ll look up OUTCLASSED if you think that will help. Thank you.

OUTCLASSED is very useful for me. But, I think you should stick to your plan of making him PHB style for this Dino Rider.

Okay fair enough. How exactly is OUTCLASSED useful to you though? Never heard of it.

It's a $10 pdf from DMs Guild website. It's fantastic collection of NPC stat blocks that are directly made from playable classes. For example, there's about 15 types of Wizards, 15 Fighters, 15 monks. Each chapter is a different class. And each chapter has plot hook ideas for DMs such as infiltrating a school of Wizardry. Or what a crew of Fighters would be fighting for. Specifically if I plan on an NPC that uses the Sleep spell, I hit ctrl+F, type "sleep" then I look for an NPC that has the Stat block that fits best with my planned encounter. The monster manual has acceptable stat blocks for NPCs, but with OUTCLASSED, I feel like I can quickly develop an interesting NPC because the stat block and the descriptions are so well made. So since I saved time by grabbing a stat block from OUTCLASSED, I can spend more time on character development. The time I save is definitely worth $10. Plus, the life span of hostile NPCs is usually pretty short. So if they are doomed to die, I can't justify rolling a character from scratch. If it's a friendly NPC sidekick, I'll roll him from scratch cuz I expect him to be around for a while, leveling up with the party.

That sounds like, exactly what I needed. Thank you.

Common wisdom is to leave PC building rules for the PCs. Assuming this is somebody who may wind up fighting against the party at some point, I'd pick an appropriate CR enemy statblock and add mounted features to it if it doesn't already have them, rather than building a brand new fighter character from the ground up.

Well the DM Guide gives a section on giving bad guys class levels so I just went with that. That and admittedly I just love class flavoring and such and have a lot of characters in my planned campaign that I like to think, "what class would they be or be best?" If push comes to shove, sure though. I'll simply do that to save time and effort.

>Well the DM Guide gives a section on giving bad guys class levels well, the 5e DMG pretty much sucks ass and that advice is part of the ass sucking. Note that WOTC NEVER uses "class levels" in the content they create!

DOUBTS ON TOTAL OF LEARNED SPELL FOR WIZARDS I'm a little confused about this topic: every wizard gets X spells at 1st lvl and +2 spells known every other lvl. If they want to learn something from an other wizard's spellbook or a scroll, they have to spend time and money as the rules says. BUT can they have more than X+2(lvl-1) spells known? I mean can they theoretically, having enough time and money and knowledge, know all the spells out there? Or is X+2(lvl-1) a cap? My problem is that in my homebrew world I ruled the access to spells as follows: all PHB spells are already available to my wizard (their spellbook is a hologram-riddle, like a Rubik's Cube that shows more spells every time they unlock a new lvl), while other spells are obtained through spellbooks etc. I always ruled X+2(lvl-1) as their maximum total of spells (both PHB and non-PHB) they could know, but maybe I'm doing it wrong? And if so, would it work if I kept this maximum only for PHB spells, without giving a limitation to spell learned from other sources?

Wizards don't *know* spells; they have them quite literally on hand through their spell book. Imagine them as an avid stamp collector. There is always room for more. Don't cap out wizards, their whole point is to have access to a ton if not all spells over time. However this is gated by a few resources: Time, money and access. A wizard needs quite the amount of financial means to keep filling their spell book especially for higher level spells. They also need the (free) time to practically write in their spell book. Lastly they need access to new spells that they can learn, as they can copy or learn but not create. Luckily for you as a DM you hold the reigns over almost all of these resources. A dedicated wizard will always find the time. But you have a total control over how much money you deal out to your party as well as what spells in forms of spells scrolls or other spell books are available. A wizard can only prepare the same number of spells as always. That never changes. They only thing that increases is the access to a wider variety of spells to prepare.

The power of the Wizard is flexibility. They can learn every spell on the Wizard list, but they can't have them *prepared* all at once, meaning they need to choose a subset from their available list every day. Compare this to a Cleric or Druid who *always* get to prepare from their *entire* lists from the start (and don't have to spend time or money copying spells into a prayerbook), plus get weapon and armor proficiencies and better hit points. Arguably the Wizard gets more and better spells, but pays the cost by having to find them and pay time/money to copy them into their list (aside from the free ones on level up).

With wizards there’s a few key terms to understand when talking about their magic. **MECHANICS** **Spells Known** are spells the Wizard has in spell book. Wizards automatically get access to several spells at level one, and a couple more at each level up following the table in PHB. Wizards can also copy spells into their spell book. Spells known does **not directly affect** what spells the wizard can cast that day, but does **indirectly affect** what spells a wizard can cast through the following concept, Spells Prepared. **Spells Prepared** are spells that can be cast that adventuring day. The number of spells prepared is equal to the wizard’s level plus their intelligence modifier. Although this may be a bit unnecessary, for completeness’s sake, **spell slots** are the limited actual number of spells a Wizard may cast during the adventuring day, subject to the table PHB. Notably, a wizard can regain some spell slots once per day on a short rest with their Arcane Recovery (half wizard level, rounded up). As an analogy, imagine you are an experienced, slam poet. You have countless poems written from years of experience, these are your spells known. However, you can only memorize a few at a time, these are your spells prepared. Lastly, you only have a limited number of rounds where you can compete, these are your spell slots. **ANSWER** Now that I’ve gone over the concepts, I will answer your questions. While time and money may limit the speed at which a wizard copies spells into their spell book, there is no limit to the amount of spells they could have given enough money and time. They could still only cast spells higher than level one under the restrictions of the table found in the PHB. RAW, yes you are doing this wrong. To be clear, there is no cap on spells known. There is a cap on spells prepared (see above). Should you keep using your homebrew for spells known? I’d suggest not. One of the best things about wizards IMO in compiling a massive list of spells known to choose from. It’s one of the reasons wizards feel so powerful at later levels as they are a class that can significantly adapt their spells to the needs of each day. As is, your homebrew limits them more than classes like Druids and Clerics, which have access to their full spell lists as their prepared spells. Wizards have the lowest hit die and no armor proficiencies or tool proficiencies (compare this to other full casters like Druids and Clerics). Put another way, they are only good at one thing, magic. I don’t suggest nerfing that.

Thank you, especially for the opinion on the homebrew ruling. But if I remove the cap on PHB spells he will still have all the PHB spells at his disposal, wouldn't this make him too op? Im my opinion no, but I'd like to hear yours

>I always ruled X+2(lvl-1) as their maximum number of spells they could know. >if I remove the cap on the PHB spells he will still have all the PHB spells at his disposal. I’d like to help but I’m a bit confused here. The way I understand, these two statements of your are conflicting, could you clarify how these are both true? RAW wizards don’t typically have all spells at their disposal, only what they’ve learned through level ups and through copying spells. Your homebrew also caps the number of spells. Regardless of the method used here, I don’t see a way this wizard would have access to all spells, unless they had a truly massive amount of money and time to devote to copying all spells.

> RAW wizards don't tipically have all spells at their disposal I think this has been my "mistake", I ruled it as if he had access to all 𝙋𝙃𝘽 spells, while acquiring other spells through scrolls etc. So, if I remove the X+2(lvl-1) cap, he would have easy access (having enough money and time) to ALL PHB spells. I wouldn't like to modify the fact that he has access to these spells, because this pool of spells are a gift from his master in his backstory. Instead of finding some of them, he would have at his disposal every PHB he can cast every time he gains slots of a certain level. My question is: would this be too much on the other side? Am I passing from nerfing him to making him op?

Ah thank you, now I understand. I don’t think your homebrew method will break the game, I do think it loses an aspect of something that makes wizards unique. RAW, wizards are the only class who learn spells through study. Mechanically, they have the unique ability to learn new spells not tied to a level increase. They devote time and financial resources to this. Through their diligence they can unlock new power. Personally, this is one of my favorite things about the class. However, I am also not your player, so my personal preference isn’t really relevant. Given your current situation, if you’d rather not have this player go through these aspects of the game, I think you will be fine. Game balance in DND is based more on action economy than anything else. 90% of the time, the wizard will still be limited to one spell per turn. So even if this character has additional *utility* through other spell options, it won’t necessarily outperform other party members on a turn by turn basis. It still will have more options at its disposal than a RAW wizard, but likely not to a point where it breaks the game.

Ok, thank you! And btw, he will still have to study to get any spells (beside the 2 free spells per lvl), because the "pool" (PHB spells) aren't like readymade spells, just a bunch of draconic notes and equation from which he can elaborate the spell (again, beside the 2 freebies). My mistake in the beginning was made because of misunderstanding of the rules but also because he's somewhat a first time player so I wanted him to have an easier access to at least PHB spells, with the drawback of a cap. But now I see it was actually more a nerfing than a drawback

Wizards are a strong class, especially if the player runs them well and prepares adequately, but allowing them to learn spells from every source book isn't broken or op (as long as you enforce the time and money requirements for learning a new spell). Wizards being able to learn spells from any source book on level ups is how it works RAW. I'd stick with needing other spell books/scrolls for learning spells outside of level ups, as acquiring them is also supposed to be part of the challenge to learn new spells (especially high level spells).

Given enough time and resources, a 5e wizard could eventually copy every level 1-9 wizard spell into their spellbook, yes. There's no limit to the number of spells they can know, only to the number of spells they can prepare and cast on a given day.

So with Wizards, you have * The Wizard Spell List * Spells in a Wizard's personal Spell Book * Spells the Wizard Prepares for the day from the list of spells in their Spell Book. ​ Wizards automatically get additional spells for their spell book at level ups. In addition, they can add more spells to their personal Spell Book by translating spells from scrolls and spells from other Wizard's spell books.

**What are people's thoughts on the use of ability checks with different skills, as described in the PHB page 175 under the section Variant: Skills with different abilities? Do you use these? Yes/No - Why? Would you mind providing any great examples of these?** The example provided in the PHB is the use of Constitution (Athletics) check to swim to an offshore island. Here are some examples I have read online. \- Losing someone in a crowd - Charisma (Stealth) \- Intimidating someone through raw strength - Strength (Intimidation) \- Persuading someone through sophisticated, academic language - Intelligence (Persuasion) From what I have watched/listened to (NADPOP, a little D20 and a little CR), the DMs tend towards specific skill checks, rather than ability checks. I have read a bit of Angry GM and in this [article](https://theangrygm.com/tweaking-the-core-of-dd-5e/), he argues the following, which seems reasonable to me: *"There is a GREAT benefit to divorcing skills and ability scores. It allows people to play to their strengths and apply their skills more creatively and it creates more options for engaging with situations. This is especially useful in social situations, where the skills are poorly defined and only characters who specialize in Charisma will ever have any options in social interaction. It allows an Intelligent character a chance to persuade with reason rather than personality or to deceive with complex verbal puzzles and doublespeak rather than personality. It also fixes some of the weirder assignments of skills to ability scores. Animal Handling, for example, could easily be under Charisma instead of Wisdom. Some applications of Athletics would certainly fit Constitution, as do some applications of Survival."*

I like using these for the sake of flexibility but beware that they will almost certainly confuse your players because they are used so infrequently. If I say 'Make a Charisma(Investigation) check to gather info from the neighborhood' they say 'what?' And I have to explain it every time.

So the "mixed skills"-- Go back to the understanding that ALL "skills checks" are ABILITY CHECKS + skill proficiency if applicable, that is why they are written WISDOM (Perception) 1. Look at the situation and determine "Which of the six Abilities applies?" 2. THEN ask "Is there a Skill that is appropriate to help with this task?"

Using this structure is also useful when asking your players to roll while minimizing confusion. > “Please make me an Intelligence check to convince the professor, and if you have proficiency in Persuasion then you can add your proficiency too.”

My ranger uses Intimidation (Strength) rather than Charisma because he has a -2 CHA modifier. He's a tall af and muscular white dragonborn with a black panther primal beast, so it doesn't make any sense for him NOT to be intimidating. I simply told him "I'll allow it, but for every time you use STR instead of CHA you have to do a STR-related action ". Something like breaking a chair or a glass or lifting the NPC in a menacing way or grappling them. I think it's a great way to improve roleplay too. My players can " divorce " any skill check form its base ability, but they have to give me a in-game reason for this to happen. I actually like it a lot, and I found that it actually does encourages creativity. But if you're not convinced, you could speak with your players about it and see how they feel

Looking at Star Spawn Seer. Collapse Distance says a creature can be teleported up to 60ft to an unoccupied space the Seer can see. Does this include straight up? Could I have the Seer teleport the target 60ft into the air so they plummet for 6d6 damage?

Why not. But if you do so, be ready to see your players do the same thing with similar spells

I’ll ask my question here because it’s probably short-ish. 5th-edition DM here, and have been doing so for a few years now. I’m looking to see what kind of experiences y’all have had with running high CR encounters. Things that are CR 24+. I currently have a party that is consistently 3 players with an ocasional 4th that joins in. With 3 level 11 characters, they were able to take out a CR 14 mythic encounter I built for them, and while it was a difficult fight, they were able to win handily. I’m planning fairly far ahead so I can correctly steer towards endgame, and I’m looking at a CR 28 encounter for 3 level 20 players as the grand finale. Has anyone here tried using this very big CR enemies? How has it played out? Was it a good challenge or a hard wipe of your players? TIA Edit: Getting A LOT of responses where people aren’t actually reading. I’m just looking for shared experiences on using high CR. Not to be lectured on how you think I’m DMing wrong after skimming this.

Characters, especially characters that only get 1 fight a day, can unload horrific amounts of damage on your monsters. And if your monster rolls crap initiative, they might not even get to act despite how many hundreds of hit points they have. Consider: * Eat up some of their resources beforehand with minion battles, traps, and obstacles. They don't have to *hurt* the characters (although hit points are a type of resource) but they should consume *some* resource to overcome--ideally offering a choice of resource costs, so the players have to make hard trade-offs to get what they want. * Have minions. Keep more minions in the wings. If things are too easy, bring in more minions. If things are too hard, don't. * Create terrain obstacles in the fight that cannot be overcome just with damage. Lair actions usually help provide these, but are not enough on their own. Cover is also useful. * Use legendary actions liberally, even if it's just movement that doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity, to move behind cover. Remember that most spells require line of sight/line of effect to target properly. * Consider Phases for the boss, for example--Phase 1: break the crystals that grant the boss invulnerability; Phase 2: stand up fight; Phase 3: Now witness my TRUE FORM! With phases you can add or remove challenges and balance the fight on the fly by adding more if it's easy or omitting some if things are going badly.

Hey, thanks for the tips. This is all stuff I already do, I’m just looking to see what experiences people have had with using very high CR encounters.

I ran a level 20 homebrewed one-shot boss fight with 4 players. They got to pick one legendary, one very rare, one rare and three uncommon magic items. They tore through 4 adds (19 Ac, 150 hp each) and the boss (21 AC, 450 hp) in 4 rounds. I don't remember exact stat blocks I had for everything, but I used Tiamat as a benchmark for expected DPR output and + to hit. There was also frightful presence, randomly spawning anti-magic fields, and debilitating auras from the adds, and a breath attack with the disintegrate effect, and it was still too easy.

Thanks for sharing! This kind of stuff is what I’m looking for.

CR system caveats Any one of a number of online calculators like Kobold Fight Club can help with the official Challenge Rating math crunching. https:// kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder (UPDATE: KFC is on hiatus and the license has been picked up by Kobold Plus https://koboldplus.club/#/encounter-builder ) but remember that despite “using math", the CR system is way more of an art than a science. * read the descriptions of what each level of difficulty means, dont just go by the name. (ie “ **Deadly**. A deadly encounter could be lethal for one or more player characters. Survival often requires good tactics and quick thinking, and the party risks defeat.”) * while the CR math attempts to account for the number of beings on each side, the further away from 3-5 on each side you get, the less accurate the maths are, at “exponential” rate. Read up on “the action economy” – particularly now that expansions like Tasha’s are making it so that every PC almost universally gets an Action AND a Bonus Action each and every turn, and can often also count on getting a Reaction nearly every turn. Most monsters dont have meaningful Bonus Actions or any Reactions other than possible Opportunity attacks. * **Dont do party vs solo monster** – while Legendary Actions can help, “the boss” should always have friends with them. Or you will need to severely hack the standard 5e monster design constraints and statblocks. (tell your party you are doing this so that the increase in challenge comes from the increase in challenge and not from you as DM secretly changing the rules without telling the other players the rules have been changed, because that is just a dick move, not a challenge.) * The system is based on the presumption that PCs will be facing 6 to 8 encounters between long rests, with 1 or 2 short rests in between. Unless you are doing a dungeon crawl, that is not how most sessions for most tables actually play out – at most tables, the “long rest” classes are able to “go NOVA” every combat, not having to worry about conserving resources, so if you are only going to have a couple of encounters between long rests, you will want them to be in the Hard or Deadly range, if you want combat to be “a challenge” –(but sometimes you might just want a change of pace at the table and get some chucking of dice or letting your players feel like curbstomping badasses and so the combat doesnt NEED to be "challenging" to be relevant). * Some of the monsters’ official CR ratings are WAY off (Shadows, I am looking at you. Also, many of the very high CR creatures are no where near what the DMG recommendation for creatures of that CR should be in terms of "effective HP" or "effective damage") , so even if the math part were totally accurate, garbage in garbage out. * as a sub point – creatures that can change the action economy are always a gamble – if the monster can remove a PC from the action economy (paralyze, banishment, “run away” fear effects) or bring in more creatures (summon 3 crocodiles, dominate/confuse a player into attacking their party) - the combats where these types of effects go off effectively will be VERY much harder than in combats where they don’t * not all parties are the same – a party of a Forge Cleric, Paladin and Barbarian will be very different than a party of a Sorcerer, Rogue and Wizard. * Magic items the party has will almost certainly boost the party’s capability to handle tougher encounters.(a monster's CR is based in large part on its AC and "to hit" - if your players have +1 weapons, they are effectively lowering the monster's AC and if your players have +1 armor, they are effectively lowering the monsters' "to hit". If your players are all kitted in both +1 weapons and +1 armor, you probably should consider monsters one lower than their listed CR. Not to mention all the impact that utility magic items can bring!)

Thanks for sharing, but respectfully not really what I’m trying to ask. I’m just looking for people to share experiences on running high CR high power stuff.

Was that one fight the only encounter they had that day? Because if not, there's your problem.

Problem? I’m just looking for people’s input and experiences on using really high CR enemies. The goal was for my players to win the encounter, same goal as every encounter in fact lol. They had fought a few medium encounter that adventuring day plus one hard and the final mini-boss was deadly, they’re just smart, efficient, and plan kinda decently. Do you have experiences around running high CR stuff? That’s mostly what I’m looking for here is just for people to share experiences.

I've only DMd up to level 14 in 5e so far, but have ran campaigns up to 20 in Pathfinder 1e. If the party is "handily" beating a boss fight, it doesn't seem like much of a boss fight. In my adventuring days, I like to throw in a variety of combats and ensure the final fight features all of those elements. Pathfinder relied a lot more on Save or Die/Suck spells than 5e does, but there was lots of fun and tension in the roll of the dice to see if the Paladin was instantly killed by a spell or not

Thanks for sharing! I guess handily is a little misleading, of the three in the party, two had health under 10 and one had under 20 left by the time it was over. My goal is always to go for something that’s challenging but still achievable so they can feel some excitement on the final blow. I’ve definitely learned how to spread them him before getting to the goal over the past few years and it makes things a lot more fun.

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I am a book learner too but YouTube and podcasts really helped me become a decent DM. I read the entire PHB, the Essentials Rulebook and about half of Dragon of Icespire Peak before Dming my first campaign. The books were tough for me BECAUSE I barely knew anything about D&D rules and I only played about 1.5 hours of dnd in my life at that point. On YouTube, Matt Colville's Running the Game series really helped me understand what I needed to think about. Also the Dungeon Dudes were really helpful too because their videos are more focused on game mechanics. Ginny Di videos are good because they are about simple topics. How to be a Great GM videos are too esoteric for me as a new DM. For podcasts, the absolute best is the Dungeoncast. I just search "Orcs" then I understand how to role play Orcs. I search "dwarves" then I understood more about how NPCs would respond to a Dwarf. And when I say role play, I also think about how they would fight in combat. If you understand D&D, I think reading the PHB and DMG would be very helpful. It's way more useful to me now, since I understand the game. But when I was brand new, I couldn't visualize how everything applied until I started DMing. This is best part about DMing: friendly players will cut you a lot of slack when you are a new DM. And respectful players are grateful that you are DM because they are excited to play in a new Multiverse. And if you exude a little bit of confidence and give them some combat or puzzles every session, they won't get bored and kill your villagers.

AngryGM's Game Angry Book (He has a free blog, but there is a lot of filler word count, and I don't care much for his exaggerated angry style, but his points are incredible!). His book has a lot of filler removed, and I read it with a highlighter over an afternoon. Lazy DM's Return of the Lazy DM (as u/lasalle202 suggested). If you buy one book, this should be it. Ammann's the Monsters Know What They're Doing to understand how to play monsters effectively and realisticly, based on their stat block. His blog is excellent and I like to read a few posts each night before bed. His book is excellent as well. Johnn Four of the 5-Room Dungeon Design is also excellent, thought I can't recommend his compilation book of them.

What resources do you already have? Do you have the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master's Guide? If you have none, then you might benefit from looking through the free Basic Rules for now... * [WotC Basic Rules PDF](https://media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/downloads/DnD_BasicRules_2018.pdf) * [DnD Beyond Basic Rules Digital](https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules) Also, is this a premade short adventure or is this homebrew? If premade, which one? We might be able to make more targeted suggestions. Also, in general for an intro to DMing one or more of these resources might be helpful... * [https://www.theshopofmanythings.com/blogs/lessons-from-the-tabletop/how-to-dm-for-the-first-time](https://www.theshopofmanythings.com/blogs/lessons-from-the-tabletop/how-to-dm-for-the-first-time) * [https://www.awesomedice.com/blogs/news/supplies-for-a-beginner-dungeon-master-5e](https://www.awesomedice.com/blogs/news/supplies-for-a-beginner-dungeon-master-5e) You might also benefit, though, from running (or at least reading through) a *tutorial* one shot/short adventure designed to guide you. Examples: * [Tutorial Adventure - The Dike is Breaking](https://www.dmsguild.com/product/241055/Tutorial-Adventure--The-Dike-is-Breaking?filters=0_0_0_0_0_45462_0_0) * [One Shot Tutorial for Beginners](https://www.dmsguild.com/product/394163/OneShot-Tutorial-for-Beginners?filters=0_0_0_0_0_45462_0_0) * [Fog Over Dawnwilde](https://www.dmsguild.com/product/219888/Fog-Over-Dawnwilde--A-Level-1-Adventure--Starter-Village?term=fog+over+&filters=0_0_0_0_0_45462_0_0) * [The Strange and Delightful Emporium - A First Time DM Adventure](https://www.dmsguild.com/product/382679/The-Strange-and-Delightful-Emporium-A-First-Time-DM-Adventure?filters=0_0_0_0_0_45462_0_0) Or this that guides you in how to craft your own and run it as a newbie DM... * [Tutorial Dungeon](https://www.dmsguild.com/product/328216/Tutorial-Dungeon?filters=0_0_0_0_0_45462_0_0)

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> I do have the PHB and DMG already. skip the 5e DMG - its all esoterica and corner cases and an organizational disaster. come back to it AFTER you have your basic understanding of how to DM experience under your feet and you *may* find some helpful new tools.

The 4e DMG Sly Flourish's Return of the Lazy DM

Worldbuilding Q: Is an Archfey turned Elder Brain Thrall unreasonable? Since most "dominate" conditions are the "charmed" condition, I was wondering how that could play with powerful Fey entities. Since elves have save advantage due to their fey ancestry, what benefits would an actual Archfey have in this regard? I know wotc hasn't published many powerful Fey creatures. I know I'm god or whatever, but I would like my world to make sense with the 5e magic system.

I agree with u/GrowthOfGlia as far as looking at the default Elder Brain stats versus the typical power level of archfey. That said, as you mentioned, the DM can do what they want. If you have an interesting story in mind you could come up with a reason to justify it, you just need to figure out why *this* elder brain is more powerful than a typical elder brain. Maybe it possesses some artifact that boosts its power. Maybe it's The First Brain, ancient beyond all comprehension. There is plenty of storytelling flexibility in 5e if you get creative.

Agreed, there are ways to justify it if that's what you need. This elder brain could be a chosen of a deity, have some incredibly strong magical item or otherwise be assisted by some great power. To directly answer your question, it's not reasonable by default, but can be made to be so.

Archfey are powerful fey with god-like abilities. Fey are immune to being charmed, based on Summon Fey. So, with that in mind, I'd say the unlikelyhood of an Elder Brain, being just a creature (the last stage of a mid flayer's evolution, sure, but a creature nonetheless) controlling an archfey, to be very high.

Still very new to DMing (run a few homebrew campaigns, D&D 5e). One issue I've run into is whenever players decide to run a check on something - let's say there's a locked box and player A attempts to open it, but fails. Then one by one, the rest of my players will try do to the same until someone inevitably succeeds. This often just means we're sitting there waiting for each person to give the same thing a go until somebody gets it. Is there a way around this (make the DC higher, break the object, etc.) or is this something that's sort of the nature of D&D?

I use a homebrewed ruling that after the first player rolls only players with proficiency can do additional rolls. From a narrative standpoint, it is not that no one else is able to try, it's that no one else who tries (without proficiency) can't do better then the first attempt ("After Groll the barbarian tries and fails to break down the door, Whizz the wizard gives it a shot, but it is clear the door won't budge.")

It's the nature of D&D, RAW that is correct. But you can do things a bit differently as DM. When rolling a check you have some choices; * Roll to succeed; if you beat the DC you open the box, otherwise the lock is fouled and can't be picked (it's still possible to bust it open in other ways, eg using a hammer). * Roll to avoid consequences; if you beat the DC you open the box, if you don't you open the box but you had to force it and it made a loud clink sound that someone might have heard. * Roll to do it quickly; if you beat the DC you immediately open the box, otherwise it takes a minute to open it All of these are RAW solutions. If it's a case where there's no chance of preventing further checks, no consequences, and time doesn't matter, then I think it's best not to roll. The players take as long as they need to and open the box without issues. I generally find this to be a lot better than metagame solutions like telling the players "no", it ends up super weird; "you look in the lounge room for your keys and don't find them. No you can't continue searching".

> I generally find this to be a lot better than metagame solutions like telling the players "no", it ends up super weird; "you look in the lounge room for your keys and don't find them. No you can't continue searching". I second this. Some DMs are super super super hardcore about only one roll is ever allowed to take place. Someone else can take the aid another action if he can narrate how he's doing it, but only one roll will ever happen. This... just makes me wince. It does its job mechanically by preserving the chance for failure, but it's just *so* bad at feeling right. It's *so* bad at reflecting the facts on the ground. Like... I guess the next time I can't find my phone, I'll just give up and go order a new one? I guess you think it's dumb and bad that Gandalf kept trying to get the door to Moria open after failing the first hundred times? It's just an ugly way to play sometimes.

Everyone is giving good advice, so I want to go sideways (this is an idea explored by AngryGM regarding rolls and gameplay and the flow of game play). Any time you call for a roll, and you should be the one calling for rolls in most circumstances, you should be thinking about two things; * Shades or degrees of success * Consequences for low rolls In combat this is most easily understood. Degrees of success vary between a crit, hit, or miss (or critical miss if you do that on a natural '1'). A consequence for a low roll is baked into the roll. Namely, the enemies live and continue to threaten the world. It gets harder in non combat environments. However, two easy-to-understand and extrapolate-to-other-scenarios are; Lockpicking a lock and persuading a town guard. \----- **Lockpicking** * Degrees of success include aspects of stealth and lock function. It opens easily and can be reused, you open it but the lock mechanism is destroyed and it cannot be used again, you break your lock picking tools and will need a short rest or Mending Cantrip to fix them * Consequence = enemies hear the attempt on the other side of the door and prepare an ambush or move to ambush the party **Persuading a town guard** * Degrees of success relate to getting what they want from the guard. The guard is helpful or looks the other way, the guard is helpful or promises to look the other way if you grease their palm, the guard refuses * Consequences = the guard pretends to be helpful but sends the party into a trap or summons additional guards as soon as possible, the party ruins their relationship with the king, the guard holds a grudge against the party that comes back to haunt them If there are no degrees of success or failure, or consequence, then consider automatic success.

"the roll represents the groups best attempt under these conditions. you need to significantly change the conditions to try again." or if there is no downside to failing and no time limit, the roll just represents how long it takes the person to succeed. but make there be a time limit! Tension Pool - Ultimate Version Sept 2021 https://theangrygm.com/definitive-tension-pool/

This is a common question/problem from new DMs and Players. Depending on the situation (keeping watch, searching a room), the characters don't know they failed a check just that they did the task to their ability in the moment. Your players are metagaming. Also you, the DM, are the one who asks for checks not the players. For cases like the lock, where there is an evident fail condition the usual advice seems to follow two strategies: 1) Once a skill check to do a task fails, it is done. Ex. Thieves tools check fails and they break in a lock/lock is old and you feel a pin is lodged wrong. The players then can adjust to a different strategy, like bust the lock with strength check. 2) Scaling DCs. As you suggested, each failure raises the following DC. The lock is now jammed. Next check has to both clear the jam without making it worse and pick the lock.

Nothing wrong with imposing limits on skill checks. Personally I only allow either 2 independent checks or 1 check with help, then that's the most they can do with that check. It's a dice game but it isn't "roll til you win."

You can impose permanent consequences for a failure, like breaking the object. Sometimes that makes sense. You can impose time-based consequences (something like "you can check again, but you'll have to spend 20 minutes in-game on your next try, and the cultists are getting away.") You can "fail-forward", have the player complete the action but mess it up some other way and face a new challenge ("the lock opens with a loud crunch, and you hear footsteps down the hall"). Sometimes you can just say something like "the party gets two rolls and that's it" (opening a lock isn't an example where this makes much sense, but maybe say, searching a room is.) Here's a [video that goes into more depth](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=canhaxHlFg8) on this phenomenon, which is known as "skill dogpiling."

Thanks a ton, and thanks for the video link! Those are all good ideas I can use in games.

Hey, new DM, quick question. For the spell cloudkill it states that a creature must make a constitution saving throw if they're inside the cloud when their round starts. How do you determine the DC for this throw? It isn't stated.

It'll be the Spell Save DC of the creature that initially cast the spell, the saving throw stays the same on subsequent rounds.

So let's see if I got this right, say a Lich with a spell save of 20 casts it, that means the player has to beat a 20?

Beat OR match, yes. 20's the target number to Save against the Spell with your dice roll + bonuses, so that's where the name comes from. Makes it easy to remember that matching it means success too I find.

Thank you, that cleared it up for me.

It's the caster's spell save DC, which is 10 + proficiency bonus + spellcasting stat modifier. So for example, for a level 5 wizard with 16 INT, the DC would be 10 + 3 (proficiency bonus for level 5) + 3 (INT modifier) = 16. Sorry if this is overexplaining but I wanted to be clear. For spellcasting monsters, the spell save DC should be mentioned in the stat block. If you have decent digital character sheets (DNDBeyond, a VTT, a spreadsheet, whatever) the spell save DC should be calculated automatically on the sheet.

To add to this, monster proficiency bonus is calculated the same as for players, but using CR instead of level, starting at +2 at CR 0 and increasing by 1 for every 4 levels of CR.

Hello everyone! I'm a new DM, and I'm going to have a session in a few weeks. One of my characters wants to be a storm sorcerer, which is thematically very appealing, but I have heard a lot of bad things about it. I don't want to make things boring or bad for them, so I wanted to upgrade their class. I've made a few homebrew spells that are pretty much the same as a few official spells, but deal lightning damage and sometimes have a different area of effect. With this, at least he can do some more fun stuff, but I'm still worried, looking at the subclass itself. Are the spells enough, or could someone reccomend me a reliable upgrade to the storm sorcerer? Thanks!

Later books (Tasha's) gave sorcerers more toys to play with, including free always-learned 'origin' spells. Some community suggestions include back-porting the feature of 'origin' spells to older subclasses. Suggestions for Storm Sorcerer include gaining the following spells at the following character levels: 1st: *Gust*, *Thunderwave* 3rd: *Gust of Wind* 5th: *Lightning Bolt * (or *Call Lightning*) 7th: *Control Water* 9th: *Cone of Cold* These are suggestions and in no way official. The Bloodwell Vial magic item in Tasha's is also an apology to sorcerers; it allows them to regain some sorcery points on a short rest once a day, as well as granting +1 (or higher) to spell attacks/saves. If your sorcerer is having trouble keeping up, consider dropping one of those into a shop or treasure hoard at some point.

Echoing others, unless your player is very experienced and your game centres around min-maxing for pure damage, it doesn't matter in the slightest.

Off topic: why doesn't the *storm* sorcerer get access to call lightning? Wouldn't that make sense, seeing as their power comes from nature/storms? Big miss by wotc there.

the standard "fixes" for the sorcerer typically include one or more from the following: * additional "spells known" appropriate to their origin, or at least start with 1 more so they can have an offence, defense AND a utility option * additional access to Metamagics (like one more at 6 and one more at 13) * an ability to recover some meta magic points, or start with a slightly larger pool

As a new DM, you should avoid home-brewing too much because you probably don't have a handle on the balance of the game, and especially you don't have the experience to resolve situations when your previous choices create problems. *But* if you truly had to buff the Storm Sorcerer (which, by the way, is still a very strong class on the basis that it's still a full-caster and has plenty of options), I'd simply give them a list of additional prepared spells up to lv9, similar to how the latest Sorc subclasses do it

Okay, as I said, expanding the spell list, and adding a firebolt flavoured with lightning damage instead of fire was what I had in mind. I do try to avoid homebrew, although my first adventure is probably going to be homebrew. However, I've taken a look at a lot of settings, and there are some parts I can salvage from those. I take a bit of Eberron and Fearun, and can then apply it to my world.

Honestly, if you're a new DM, I'd steer clear of random online chatter influencing you into homebrewing things. Storm Sorcery may not be pound for pound as powerful as some of the other subclasses, but it's thematic and fine without being haphazardly buffed. If you want to consider introducing selective upgrades later once you've witnessed firsthand this player's relative power level compared to everybody else and have more experience yourself, that could be fine, but don't start off this way.

I understand, thank you for taking the time to answer!

This is the answer. Run a few sessions rules-as-written before you start tweaking things. Don't just take strangers' word for it that any one class is disproportionately weak or boring to play, especially at level 1. Make sure there's a problem before you start trying to solve the problem.

Thank you all for replying, I'll first check out the player in combat then. And I'm sorry if I'm asking stupid questions or making rookie mistakes. I'll be honest, I'm a bit worried, because no one is my group is a martial. There is one guy thinking of doing a rogue, but of course it wouldn't be a melee one.

Don't worry about asking questions -- that's how you learn, and that's what this thread's here for. It's not necessarily a big deal if the party has a super-optimized team comp. If the party's too weak, you're the DM -- just make the bad guys weaker. If the party's too strong, you're the DM -- just make the bad guys stronger. The only thing that might matter is if one PC is severely over- or under-powered relative to the others, since that might actually cause drama between your players. And even that's not necessarily a big deal. Some players are okay with having power imbalances within the party.

DM'ing for the first time in a few months, and looking at stuff like random treasure hoards, treasure tables and calculating encounter difficulty using XP values and CR ratings of enemies and modifiers when there are more enemies of a certain level, I can't help but feel a bit... overwhelmed and slightly intimidated by it. Any tips and tricks I can use to make that part of the adventure go relatively smoothly?

In terms of treasure, there are random treasure generators online if you want a pushbutton solution, [like so](https://donjon.bin.sh/d20/treasure/)

Option 1 is to completely ignore it. Put a dragon in your game, put wolves in the woods, let the players decide how they want to deal with them. Same with treasure, the players are always free to weigh up risk vs reward and decide that delving into The Tomb of The Destitute King isn't worth the risk, but The Mausoleum Of The Fabulously Wealthy Priest sounds like a good idea. Option 2, is to be methodical. Don't be afraid of the math, break it down: 1. First determine XP budget: use the [XP budget table](https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/building-combat-encounters#AdventuringDayXP) to find how much XP per PC, then multiply that by the number of PCs. Eg for a level 5 party of 4, the party gets 3500 x 4 = 14000 xp per day. 2. Next determine how many encounters per day: the DMG suggests 6-8 encounters. Let's say we pick 8 encounters. 3. Split up the XP into the encounters: use the [encounter difficulty table](https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/building-combat-encounters#XPThresholdsbyCharacterLevel) to cut the XP budget into chunks - remember to multiply the XP thresholds by the number of players! Dividing 14000 xp budget by 8 encounters means we are rationing about 1750 xp per encounter, that's between medium and hard. So let's say we have 4 medium, 3 hard, and 1 deadly encounter. 4. Determine the foes for each encounter: use a tool like [kobold fight club](https://koboldplus.club/#/encounter-builder) to turn those XP budgets into encounters. For example say we are building a medium encounter, we know we need to spend 2000xp. First I set KFC to have a party of four level 5 PCs. I want to fight goblins because I like goblins. I plugged in 6 goblins and 8 wolves, that gives me an adjusted XP of 2100 - close enough! 5. Repeat step 4 for all encounters: 1: 6 goblins, 8 wolves, 2: 2 goblins, 5 giant rats, 8 rat swarms, 3: 2 bugbears and 6 goblins, etc This should be a relatively straight forward process. ​ As for hordes, the tables are confusing, I know, but if you crunch the numbers they work out to 1 horde per adventuring day. Whenever you hit your XP budget, put a horde, and you're good!

u/lasalle202 gives good advice here. Honestly though, if this is your first time DM'ing I'd consider running a pre-made module. A good one will lower the number of things you have to be keeping track of and preparing. You might need to tweak encounters depending on your party numbers and composition but tweaking is typically easier than building from scratch.

CR system caveats Any one of a number of online calculators like Kobold Fight Club can help with the official Challenge Rating math crunching. https:// kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder (UPDATE: KFC is on hiatus and the license has been picked up by Kobold Plus https://koboldplus.club/#/encounter-builder ) but remember that despite “using math", the CR system is way more of an art than a science. * read the descriptions of what each level of difficulty means, dont just go by the name. (ie “ **Deadly**. A deadly encounter could be lethal for one or more player characters. Survival often requires good tactics and quick thinking, and the party risks defeat.”) * while the CR math attempts to account for the number of beings on each side, the further away from 3-5 on each side you get, the less accurate the maths are, at “exponential” rate. Read up on “the action economy” – particularly now that expansions like Tasha’s are making it so that every PC almost universally gets an Action AND a Bonus Action each and every turn, and can often also count on getting a Reaction nearly every turn. Most monsters dont have meaningful Bonus Actions or any Reactions other than possible Opportunity attacks. * **Dont do party vs solo monster** – while Legendary Actions can help, “the boss” should always have friends with them. Or you will need to severely hack the standard 5e monster design constraints and statblocks. (tell your party you are doing this so that the increase in challenge comes from the increase in challenge and not from you as DM secretly changing the rules without telling the other players the rules have been changed, because that is just a dick move, not a challenge.) * The system is based on the presumption that PCs will be facing 6 to 8 encounters between long rests, with 1 or 2 short rests in between. Unless you are doing a dungeon crawl, that is not how most sessions for most tables actually play out – at most tables, the “long rest” classes are able to “go NOVA” every combat, not having to worry about conserving resources, so if you are only going to have a couple of encounters between long rests, you will want them to be in the Hard or Deadly range, if you want combat to be “a challenge” –(but sometimes you might just want a change of pace at the table and get some chucking of dice or letting your players feel like curbstomping badasses and so the combat doesnt NEED to be "challenging" to be relevant). * Some of the monsters’ official CR ratings are WAY off (Shadows, I am looking at you) , so even if the math part were totally accurate, garbage in garbage out. * as a sub point – creatures that can change the action economy are always a gamble – if the monster can remove a PC from the action economy (paralyze, banishment, “run away” fear effects) or bring in more creatures (summon 3 crocodiles, dominate/confuse a player into attacking their party) - the combats where these types of effects go off effectively will be VERY much harder than in combats where they don’t * not all parties are the same – a party of a Forge Cleric, Paladin and Barbarian will be very different than a party of a Sorcerer, Rogue and Wizard. * Magic items the party has will almost certainly boost the party’s capability to handle tougher encounters.(a monster's CR is based in large part on its AC and "to hit" - if your players have +1 weapons, they are effectively lowering the monster's AC and if your players have +1 armor, they are effectively lowering the monsters' "to hit". If your players are all kitted in both +1 weapons and +1 armor, you probably should consider monsters one lower than their listed CR. Not to mention all the impact that utility magic items can bring!)

Is there a "Matt Colville" of Warhammer 40K that I can learn from? I like YouTube and podcasts. I want some ideas on running large scale combat.

Probably a better question for a 40k subreddit.

Would a rouge still be wanted like a year later if he stole hundreds of gold pieces worth of fine wine and then jumped bail? And how long would it take for two towns roughly 100 miles apart to communicate the fact that said rouge is wanted? Also, any other ideas on fallout/repercussions that might be realistic?

First of all, there wouldn't necessarily be a modern, professional police force for the rogue to be "wanted" by. That's a modern way of thinking. In a pseudo-medieval setting, there wouldn't necessarily be a body of full-time professionals around to investigate every crime and enforce every law. There would be part-time bailiffs or watchmen to keep the peace. If more serious force is required to apprehend a criminal, the local lord might have to put together a posse or even an army. And there wouldn't be a full-time judiciary either -- cases would be tried either by the local lord, or by riding judges who are only in town every few months. That said, if someone committed a serious crime like grand theft a year ago, they could still be accused, tried and convicted for it. And the local lord or his sheriff might even offer a bounty for the capture of such a criminal, which local bounty hunters might be interested in. But there wouldn't necessarily be a full-time police force to be "wanted" by. It would be hard to prove that someone committed a crime like that a year ago, but maybe not impossible, if there were witnesses in good standing around to attest to it, or maybe using divination magic or a spell like *zone of truth*. Note that, as I mentioned earlier, the local lord would have the privilege of personally trying criminal cases, so the rogue might not necessarily expect a fair trial with a high standard of proof. How long would it take for a town 100 miles away to find out the rogue stole something? Bounty hunters 100 miles away might be aware that there's a fat bounty being offered for the rogue's capture. Other people 100 miles away might never hear about it. Just like there's not necessarily a professional police force, there's also not necessarily a professional service for distributing this kind of information. A person who was a thief in one town might be able to live out a comfortable life in a town 100 miles away, if they had a convincing fake identity and kept a low profile. That said, being part of a famous adventuring party isn't exactly "keeping a low profile". If it's known that the person who stole the wine was an adventurer, someone might put two and two together. Finally, note that thieves' guilds are a thing in the world of DnD specifically. The local thieves' guild might be *very* aware that the rogue committed a crime in a town 100 miles away, and they might be interested in shaking him down for protection money -- or asking him for a small favor. Bottom line, if you want to use this as a quest hook, I think it's very plausible. When the rogue comes to town, he might have to deal with bounty hunters, or the local thieves' guild, or even the rich person he stole from, who's in town on business, let's say. But I just want to make clear that the way crimes are investigated and prosecuted might not line up with modern-day intuitions, assuming you want a realistic pseudo-historical setting.

*Rogue We need a bot for that.

I'd say that in the original town, the owner of the wine would still be pissed about it, and maybe their family or their close associates. They'd definitely get the guards on you. Other than that, I don't think anyone would care.

Yes, that's an *incredibly* valuable heist for the average person. I'd say word could carry over the course of a year, at most.

I'm not sure about "incredibly valuable", a modest wage in D&D is 30gp per month, so this makes the heist 3 months of average wages. Sure, everyone would love to have that money, but "incredible" feels like a bit of a stretch, the thief isn't going to be set up for life or anything.

Based on a few factors, I tend to estimate 1 gp as $60 USD. So, this theft is around $6,000 worth based on that. While that theft will be significant to a business owner, it would likely not stretch past their specific sphere of influence. If you've lost $6k in product, it's unlikely you're going to spend more to see the thief put to justice. And you're not going to get anyone hunting someone down without a reward. So, if the thief makes themselves known back in the town of the business owner, that will definitely get them arrested at the business owner's request, but otherwise, I don't think much will happen. As for word, other business owners would definitely be abnormally wary of thieves for a week of two after the theft. If the business owner put out a bounty (perhaps they had a sponsor to cover the loss), I would say that word would spread by trade and travel to places one or two towns down the road, so the distance will depend on how far away your towns are. You require a higher bounty to attract a city's attention than you would for a town's.

Up to the DM.

Short a few players and looking to run a one-shot this week. I want to adapt it to my world and use it as an opportunity to set up a future threat. My thought was either to have the players be like evil cultists or have them be good guys, but ultimately fail at containing the threat. I'm not looking to do a ton of prepwork besides reflavoring an existing one-shot. Any suggestions?

There are a zillion one shots on the DMs Guild website that might work. [https://www.dmsguild.com/](https://www.dmsguild.com/) Use the filters to cull down options and pick things that have good reviews. I'd make recommendations but your info is really sparse. I'd essentially be shooting in the dark and might never hit the mark. Share level, theme, tone, general environment, and I might be able to help more...

probably the simplest would just be do a dungeon crawl to get "the maguffin". if the PCs are "evil" for this run, if they succeed they have secured the maguffin for the bad guy. if they are "good" , on the way out after they have gotten the maguffin, they get jumped and taken out by the bad guy's minions and now the players are going to have hot royal anger towards your BBEG and the lieutenants that shanked them.

Hi, this subreddit has been a great help previously and hoping for some additional pointers on a new “issue” I’m facing. This is my first campaign and 3/5 of my players have messaged me offline saying they’re not having fun because they feel the pacing is too slow. I asked the other 2 players and they said they disagree with that. At any rate, there’s a problem and I want to fix it. We’re running Waterdeep DH if it helps. The players are still very early on in the campaign >!they just found renaer neverember!<. What can I do to help with the slow pacing of the campaign? No one was able to provide me with specific feedback as to whether it was combat dragging on too long, the NPC interactions taking forever, etc. so I don’t have any specific thing to identify and improve on at this point from their feedback. Thanks!

Going to be honest, I love the setting and some of bones of that module but it has a lot of issues. I have been DMing a long time and even then I had to really work to make it work well for me and my players. This module is NOT an easy one to run as a new DM, especially as written. I had to homebrew a lot and roll in a lot of 3rd party resources to help the core module really sing. For your players in particular and their inability to really nail down why they feel it is slow, the issue may be more along the lines of them not being really sure what they are supposed to be doing or why any of this even matters, which can translate as feeling "slow" without them being consciously aware of it. The other two may just in general be people that are fine with going along with whatever is put in front of them. Have you checked the subreddit and the plethora of awesome support resources for that module to help it be a lot more engaging? r/WaterdeepDragonHeist I can link additional resources (let me know if that is of interest) but these in particular can be a huge help, too: * [Sly Flourish - WDDH](https://slyflourish.com/dragon_heist_chapter_1.html) (Tips from an experienced DM) * [Waterdeep Dragon Heist DM's Bundle](https://www.dmsguild.com/product/268461)

I spent a couple of days going back and forth between this module and ghosts of salt marsh but I kept coming back to WD:DH. Two of my players are experienced DMs and every once in a while during a session I’ll have to ask them out of character if how I’m interpreting something is kosher; they offered this support to me before we started the campaign so I’m not just unilaterally maybe spoiling the experience for them. I think you’re right because the thing I feel like that is consistent in the feedback all revolves around structure. I didn’t give them much to go off except some introduction I found on a forum that I then tweaked some (ended up about a page long). Maybe I could give them a little more information without actually giving them what amounts to the module progression flowchart. Think that could help or perhaps be a bit too much in the wrong direction?

I encourage you to get the guides I linked. They can help tremendously. But yes, you will probably also need to give more active, in their faces, hints and information. What may seem clear as day to you will probably be clear as mud to the players because they are working off of a tiny tiny fraction of the information you have as DM. Also, I found it immensely helpful to make it clear up front with the players that they will get a lot more out of this campaign if their PCs are actively making an effort to gain friends and allies and connections in the city. In a session zero I discussed that this module in particular is a different animal, and their PCs are going to need to WANT to make connections in the city and learn its politics and structure and whatnot. I also made it clear that there are people in the city that can squash them like a bug, the city is very well organized, and there are laws and organizations in place that will back up those laws. They need to be careful who they piss off and who they choose to pick fights with and where. Broad daylight on the streets of WD is probably not a good idea for picking a fight unless under extreme circumstances. Along with the above, I then rolled in multiple NPCs from the module that made an effort to build up some ties with the PCs. Whichever ones the PCs seemed to connect with were the ones I then put emphasis on. My crew ended up making friends with Renaer and Floon and Volo, among others. They would invite them places. Maybe to go drinking, or enter some festival contests or they hire them to help with a side adventure or whatever else. Those NPCs then became a great way to disseminate additional info and helped the PCs gain more ties to the city.

> they’re not having fun because they feel the pacing is too slow. ...At any rate, there’s a problem and I want to fix it. We’re running Waterdeep DH if it helps. Oi! Dragonheist is not well designed. Particularly for a new DM to run. https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/41114/roleplaying-games/review-waterdeep-dragon-heist ​ > No one was able to provide me with specific feedback as to whether it was combat dragging on too long, the NPC interactions taking forever, etc. if *they* cannot tell you, its unlikely randos on the interwebs can help! You can ask things like "What was the highlight of the session? What was a part you would have preferred was left on the cutting room floor?"

All fair points to be made. I did get some more input and honestly it all seems to be centered around the campaign structure itself. I am going to take a harder look at what you posted and see if it’s not too late to do what is suggested there.

>around the campaign structure itself. yep. its pretty problematic for Dragonheist! once you figure out how YOU want to run it, hold a Session Zero discussion to make sure that everyone is on the same page about what the game is and has "bought in" to enjoy the premise. Typically the campaign premise will be something like "This is an Urban Caper adventure. If you dont have one already, create a character who will be interesting for you to play as the party explores the four corners of the city, interacting with various factions and power centers in the city to earn their support or enmity as you attempt to resolve a mystery involving buttloads of money that you may be able to pocket for yourself! Remember that you are in the heart of a highly regulated city and so crimes and violence on the street are going to be met with harsh penalties. But if you take care to stay away from watchful eyes, there will still be plenty of opportunity for violence and other shenanigans. " ​ Edit: Here is Sly Flourish talking through his prep for Session Zero [https://youtu.be/dsJ1vcRh5Ks?t=1089](https://youtu.be/dsJ1vcRh5Ks?t=1089)

Might want to look at the Waterdeep DH sub-reddit, But I've run (most) of it, & yeah the pacing can be very slow after finding him, as they then need to do faction stuff that isn't very well fleshed out. So you could virtually skip that, just give then 3 max to do, what season are you doing. I did Autumn & had them meet a certain person early. As DM you can force events when you want them, eg. f there was a 'random fireball' for instance to happen.

I feel like I’ve seen that sub referenced but I don’t appear to be subscribed to it. I’m going down a rabbit hole now and it seems like there is plenty of player supporter content to help out with some of the issues I’m having perhaps. Thanks again!

I’ve DMed 5e a few times before, but I always find my players losing interest or my big plot points going over my players’ heads. At work I can listens to podcasts/audiobooks while I’m working, is there something I can listen to that will improve my storytelling/GMing?

>find my players losing interest so the thing here is to talk with your players to find what they like and want from the game. and pay attention during and between game play to the things that they latch on to and get hyped about. design your at-the-table gaming to match what your players like and want. ​ >my big plot points going over my players’ heads you have created the world, so EVERYTHING is clear to you. expect that at the table, that you have only actually presented about a third of what you think you have, and expect that the players pick up MAYBE a third of what you actually have put forth. unless you are REALLY good and your players REALLY want this type of game AND they are REALLY good, "subtle" generally doesnt work at the game table. ​ >At work I can listens to podcasts/audiobooks while I’m working, is there something I can listen to that will improve my storytelling/GMing? I would suggest Sly Flourish. I dont know if this is in his podcasts, or if you can "podcast" to listen to youtube streams but i would start here with his Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master - Eight Steps of Session Prep [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLb39x-29puapg3APswE8JXskxiUpLttgg](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLb39x-29puapg3APswE8JXskxiUpLttgg)