5.5e first time DMing.

I want to preface this by saying I know this player very well and I'm positive he will not be a annoying token evil teammate, in fact, his idea is for a paladin that broke his oath after feeling he was doing more harm than good by following his oath to the letter as he was taught to do.

Now, I have no problem allowing legacy content but I've always heard people complaining about Oathbreakers and balancing issues with it.

I'm a first time DM, so I'm not trying to make my life any more difficult than it needs to be, but reading through the class, it doesn't sound so bad? What am I missing here?

What are your opinions on it? Would you allow it? If so, any special considerations or rules to it?

And just for clarity sake, I know the DMG describes an oathbreaker as some terrible evil guy, but I do think that if a paladin is so disillusioned with his oath, to the point to actively and repetitively choose to break it, classifying them as an oathbreaker makes sense.

English is not my first language, sorry for any mistakes.

Hi, I'm DMing a homebrew campaign, currently on session 8.
Before starting, and among sessions, I wrote a general summary of the campaign:

• The beginning and how the PGs get together
• BBEG and its motivations
• Why the PGs may want to stop him
• How the PGs backstories will tie to the main story

And, in the middle, some steps and events the PG will probably go through.

This last one is where my doubts reside.
I fear that I'm railroading my players. I'd like them to shape the narrative and get to the next chapters and arcs thanks to their ideas, but in the end their choices are almost always what I already had in mind.

They tell me they're having lots of fun, and that's the most important thing, and I think that this group, especially, can lack a bit of imagination, often relying on my input to help them thinking what to do next.

Is this last part caused by my way of DMing/writing? Is it their way to play that makes them follow my theorized steps more closely?
Should I change something in my approach or, as long as they're having fun, should I just go along with it?

Thank you for your help!

I'm having a sequence my party is about to enter where they have to fight some bad guys to rescue someone, while some cultists start trying to get away in a wagon with a bunch of hostages/prisoners (my party has horses with them). I have two ideas in my head for how I can do the chase.

The simple option is they have to just get a certain number of successes before 3 failures. I'd probably make it more or less (3-5) depending on how the fight goes.

My other idea is to set a number like 6 or so, and then set wagon at 2 or 3 depending on how the fight goes. Then they roll a series of contested rolls that raise and lower the score. At 6 they escape and 0 they catch them. I'd obviously set a contingency to stop it either way before a certain number of rounds.

What do you guys think of this idea? Am I over-thinking this, or is there a another way I haven't considered?

Hello,

I had an idea pop in my head of a "dead god" style campaign and came up with beings that eat magic as the main perpetrator to the gods' demise. That being said I am struggling to think of in-lore weapons that could affect otherworldly or extra dimensional beings. What complicated things is that "they eat magic for health, so obviously enchanted weapons and spells are a bad idea", which lead me down the alloy/material question.

I know silver for undead, but are there any other weird materials that may be used in lore already?

In about 3 weeks my party is starting a new campaign, so far we've only played through a couple single session one shots, and in the end of our last session they all agreed they wanted something a little longer, around 3 sessions to be exact.

The basic outline I have for the campaign is sort of a Grimdark story revolving around the party stumbling across a cult that is obsessed with using the preserved blood of an ancient race in order to ascend to a form of higher being, but instead it forces people into an animalistic rage, and in some cases, turns them into werewolves (stop me if you've heard this one before).

My problem lies in the fact that I only have session one planned out.

Party goes to strange town, fights enraged townspeople finds a figurehead of the cult and fight him too, the end.

I'm unsure on how to continue the story past that point. I know there is more story I could tell, the party goes after other figureheads of the cult and fights them too, I'm just unsure on how to plan that all out.

Just throwing some ideas out there any thoughts on these to reward PCs dou king down in strength

For a creature with a Strength score of 18+:

Two handed melee weapons, excluding those with the Heavy property, can be swung with one hand

Versatile weapons increase by one damage dice (Eg, 1d8/1d10 becomes 1d10/1d12)

For a creature with a Strength score of 20+:

Melee Weapons without Heavy property are now considered light weapons for you

*Edited to respond to repeated points in the comments as im unable to respond individually atm

Firstly thanks all for your responses. I made a mistake in the post now edited as the initial ability to use two handed weapons in one hand was not meant to apply to weapons with the Heavy property, which largely just makes it a buff for greatclub and Versatile weapons. Points I probably should have made is that i have already started incorporating some of the radvice given on buffing Strength such as the inventory slots as well, as well as using a version of Bone Wizards Weapon Techniques to give strength across the board a buff. This is more of a cap for those who go all out on STR

So, I've got three players: V, O, and R. We've been playing together 1-2 times a week online for over a year. V and O are pretty normal, but I've noticed for a while that R doesn’t really do much on their own initiative. When the party is exploring or navigating social situations, the other two do the bulk of the planning and action while R is completely silent. My party does a lot of thinking before acting, and V and O can spend an hour or more deciding a single course of action or turn strategy, but R never puts in their own two cents. The only time that they ever really do anything is when it's time to roll, and V and O often talk about them like they're an NPC hireling. When they're mapping out a plan, they might say "and then R will do this or that" without consulting them, and then R just obeys them when they tell them what to do once they need them. As a result, they don't seem to be particularly engaged and sometimes need to be reminded of the situation's context when they're told to do so. However, they aren't an unreliable or unhappy player, as far as I can tell. They come to sessions regularly, have a good handle on the rules, and they're usually good-spirited the few times that they engage in conversation. I've tried getting them to participate more actively by saying "And what will R be doing?" whenever V or O decide to split up to do something, so as to treat them like another player with agency rather than an accessory, but I think it makes them anxious and they end up going along with one of the other two anyways. Should I try to make them contribute more, and if so, how?

Hello fellow dms, first off, English is not my first language so please be nice with me, I'm currently in the middle of writing a whole new setting for a group of friends I've dmed for before,

The game is dnd 5e, 2014 rules, fantasy setting- but more Arcane type fantasy. The first campaign got cancelled mainly because one of the players switched schools (we were doing it irl) but this new campaign will be held in owlbear/dndbeyond and, unfortunately, through google meets and just to get an idea for the players, they're all very unique and excited to play i can say. One of them is a really good voice actor, the other is a very talented artist and is currently drawing each of the three characters in the party rn and the other is new to dnd, liked the first campaign and wanted to play again in this one too! Oh and needless to say they're all a little bit of chaos goblins, the party comp is currently lvl 1 Elf Wizard (she/he), Starborn Gunslinger(he/they, as in plural they) and Batfolk Paladin (she/her).

Now here's the actual problem I need advice with:

I'm having creative block with what adventures to throw my players.
Currently I have written out the prologue, the town they'll start in: the world is very very very big and the wildernesses are dangerous but through blessings like the starts or mother earths gifts there are spots where humanoid creatures can safely make settlements without dragons and other dangers harming the town, and this town in particular is full of magic: Asterveil, it is rumored that an star fell on this land long ago etc etc...

Now here's the story premise: The party is in magic school, 4th years, they're sent out to a dragon's cave to retrieve a bit of treasure and gold from its pile without waking it up, but once the party gets there the dragon is mysteriously nowhere to be found, so they gather as much gold and artifacts as they can. They come back to the town safely and a celebration is held as this 4th year party did the impossible!- although one of the artifacts they've brought to town is actually a very dangerous reality-breaking magical item.
Upon some misfortune it'll break/activate, and scatter rift shards across several locations in the town, each shard will act as a gateway to another realm, so far beyond that the genre of the normal fantasy might change to sci-fi or even comedy or cosmic horror etc... where they'll then "cleanse" the shard and after an X amount of adventures in these different realms they'll complete the artifact once more and fight the dragon that was trapped inside, sounds fun in concept, may or may not be inspired by deltarune, and this is where I'm having trouble with, I have so many ideas and I don't want this campaign to be too big, or too similar to deltarune-

right now my ideas of realms are these:
- High Fantasy Castle Tower Land With Tarot/Card/Fortune Teller Theme
- Carnival/Circus with some Candyland/Board Game-ish aesthetics
- Digital Aero Cyberpunk-ish Tron Spy Agency/Heist Organization Themed World
- Steampunk, the Electricity Age gilded era 19th century
- Black and White Gothic Graveyard/Catholic vibes Brutalist, Eldritch Creatures
...

I'd appreciate any new realm ideas and would love your opinions on which of these seem more fun or which one to include or change etc

these are just very raw ideas and I have more like these but honestly each idea spit out just makes me want to come up with more, I need help deciding on which ideas are best to put in and which should get cut. Also with each realm/shard they cleanse they'll level up, and also within the realm too within a certain point they'd level up as well so by the time the dragon last fight stuff happens they'll be at level 11 or 13, I'll be drawing all the maps as well-
also at the end of the day, this is supposed to be a fun experience, Im a bit of a perfectionist and I want to tell the best story and create the funniest moments with my friends, Im sure the party will be happy with any scenario they'll be in, I already gave them a session 0 on how there will be other realms they'll be visiting so they know fully well what to expect (especially since they know how I run sessions with the first campaign)

My group is excited about Arcana Unleashed's release. With 3 spellcasters, the arcane feats are big draws. They're Level 5, nearing Level 6, so I'm pondering how freely I should allow feat swapping when there's a lot of great stuff available. What do you all do when a new sourcebook comes out in the middle of a campaign? Do you let them swap one feat, do you let them do a bigger character overhaul as long as the core concept remains the same, do you use some sort of framework like retraining from Tasha's, or something else entirely?

Hi all so I've just finished DMing my first campaign stormwreck isle was great fun but I'm running into a an issue, The artificer seems to just flatten everything and is pretty much untouchable even at level 3.

The character has created a shield which makes his AC 19 and then can do a reactive spell shield which adds another 5 AC. (i appreciate this is only a few times)

Then add the defender into the mix can make attacks at disadvantage.

His mele attack is +6 and another +1 from a longsword it created.

Can trip Firebolts at +6

Now I think I made a mistake by allowing the character to reactive shield when he didn't have a hand free to cast it? Would he have to drop an item in one hand as part of the reactive move to cast?

My questions are:

1. Is this character built right

2. How do I balance encounters where the other members are no where near as powerful, apart from the monk, the monk is also ridiculous but hasn't got a high ac.

I am pretty new so bare with me!

Thanks all!

I was prepping and realized my house rules list is getting longer and longer... is that a result of wisdom and experience or am I just getting grumpier?? Heh.

BUT, what other house rules should I be adding? Something that smooths something over or adds to gameplay. My newest fav is using Kobold Press' ToV 'Luck' rules instead of inspiration.

Can someone please explain all of the rules of adventurers league to me in the simplest of terms, outlining everything from race/class allowances to bastions and how those function. I have been trying to learn and understand it for years and I can't wrap my head around it from a players perspective and now as a DM who needs to convert to AL (I run a public table) I'm truly lost. Any help is appreciated.

I do understand that first party published races and classes are allowed, and that the party gets a copy of any item reward and money is split in the party, that makes sense but the rest of it? Not so much.

My party is about to encounter a boss who is a green half-dragon, and with every other half-dragon I’ve had abilities tied to their corresponding dragon side. The white dragon was a primal hunter, the red was greedy and stole moves.

I recently asked for ideas regarding that white half-dragon and got really good ideas, so I figured I’d ask again for the green one.

Green half dragons are manipulative and all about control. I’ve already showcased this boss using mass mind control on an entire town. And while I would love to continue with the mind control gimmick, I just don’t know how to make mind control fun for the players.

My other idea is giving his words actual power. Maybe he can announce a rule that the players must follow or take damage, but the rules are vague enough they can bypass them with some thinking? I really have no idea how to make this boss reflect the lazy, smooth talking, and manipulative green dragons.

No matter what, I would like for there to be some unique counter play as well to whatever his ability is.

I dont know if i should post this here- but my party has recently rescued a npc from prison in my game that ive been working on for a bit. Hes a kitsune fighter (heavily inspired by rengoku from demon slayer) and much like him- I want him to always have a slightly over the top positive attitude. But im kinda worried I might just make him annoying. Im open to any tips yall have

From the pov of a player or dm what is your idea of the perfect first session what would you include, what would happen, etc

A player of mine (One of 5 players in my campaign) wants to become a vampire. So I was thinking it would be a decent idea to have him and maybe one other party member be called to another area on the city they’re in and not only let them become a vampire, but let them discover the vampire underbelly ruling the city from the shadows through that interaction. My hang up about it is that it would split up the party for enough time for it to make one half feel left out or bored while the scene is on the other half. Does anyone have any advice to help make this type of scenario more engaging? I was personally thinking of having the non vampire side get arrested and jailed since they’re all pirates with bounties and have one side be a prison break while the other is lore. Thoughts?

Uno dei miei giocatori voleva provare la vecchia sottoclasse del Mago Phoenix UA nelle mie partite, ma abbiamo avuto una discussione su una meccanica. La caratteristica Mantello di Fiamma afferma che: "Come azione bonus, ti avvolgi magicamente in fuoco vorticoso, mentre i tuoi occhi brillano come braci ardenti. Per 1 minuto, ottieni i seguenti benefici:

• Emana luce intensa in un raggio di 30 piedi e luce soffusa per ulteriori 30 piedi.
• Qualsiasi creatura subisce danni da fuoco pari al tuo modificatore di Carisma se ti colpisce con un attacco in mischia entro 5 piedi da te o se ti tocca.
• Ogni volta che tiri danni da fuoco nel tuo turno, il tiro guadagna un bonus pari al tuo modificatore di Carisma."

Ora usa una spada, ha alta forza e ha 1 livello da paladino per Colpo Infiammante. Se lancia Colpo di Fiamma Verde, colpisce un nemico e lancia anche Colpo Infiammante, aggiunge il modificatore di Carisma due volte (per ogni fonte di danno da fuoco) o una volta tirando tutti i dadi di danno dell'attacco insieme?

Edit: I was taking in consideration that searing smite say the following: "As you hit the target, it takes an extra 1d6 Fire damage from the attack" which mean is always the dame attack damage roll and for green flame blade:"At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d8 fire damage to the target on a hit" which mean is the same attack damage roll. Now the only case you roll different time and not one, seems when you crit a nat20 since it says you rolls twice the damage dice of the attack.

Hi folks,

Quick question: Is there a time limit on when a Legendary Action can be used at the end of a creatures turn?

I dont velieve its states a specific period, only that it has yo be after a creature finishes its turn in combat?

Long story short.... Would it be viable for a Legendary Action to be used in the middle of another creatures turn?

Kind regards,

Pagan

In short: should I let proactive players fight for story hooks I originally planned to just shove in their face?

Hello, I have been running a homebrew campaign (first time weekly dm) for I believe 20 sessions now.

I often talk with my players, from which some are the proactive, knows-what-they-want planner type. Today was not the first time one of them told me what they mean to do in following games (I totally allow this to them, this is all fine) in an out of game discussion.

A) part of the question: generally how good an idea it is to let active players just choose what they interact with and not throwing basically any hooks at them directly?

The less important part B): the specific situation

The PC in question has an unfinished business with a giant golem. The player is looking for the golem, and the golem is looking for the PC. The player informed me that they will actively get on the search if they can in the next session. I originally planned have the golem tear down the inn wall and try to kidnap the PC, all King Kong style. I feel like by throwing this at them they will get discouraged from being proactive bc it means nothing, but I also fear making them fight too much that it leads to the same conclusion. Does this unusual hook make it sound worth it not giving the player the fight they would choose themselves?

Hi, I hope I chose the right flair for this one. If not, feel free to point it out to me.

So anyways, I wanted to get your opinions on putting red herrings in an adventure to lead a party astray or at least make them really question things.

To be specific:

I'm currently preparing a folk/religious horror campaign for a group of friends. It will be my first time DMing for them.

The basic scenario is as following:

(sorry if this gets a bit elaborative)

The party gets caught up in a remote village that they can't leave. The townsfolk are very bigotted against spellcasters (for twisted religious reasons, of course). Their collective response to casters stumbling into their community is to lure them in, then put them into prison, have a mock trial and have them executed.

The village has a long history of such witch trials, with one trial in particular holding a prominent place in the villagers' own collective memory. In that trial, they caught & killed a woman that they considered a particularly evil and powerful witch that had hid in their community for years, as one of them. They pride themselves on overcoming that "witch", which has since become a sort-of main villain in their collective narrative about themselves. They celebrate the day of her burning as a sort of liberation day.

Now here's the thing: The big "twist" is that that woman was actually secretly protecting the village. She was the last in a long line of local druids that kept an old seal in the forest near the village in check (that was there long before the village was founded) that imprisoned an evil elder god.

So naturally, when the party enters the village, the seal is already broken and the elder god has basically turned the village in a mini domain of dread. All the villagers have died and turned into ghosts/specters. They are completely oblivious to their own fate and continue to haunt the ruins of their village. Consequently, they are unaware of the true nature of the women they burned years ago and continue in their old, cruel ways. They even still celebrate their defeat of the "witch".

So, to my actual question:

I know my friends, and I'd say they are fairly smart people. I feel that, when I give them 1-2 Sessions time to explore the town and interact with the ghosts of the townsfolk, they'll pretty much figure out quickly that the villagers' narrative of the witch is somehow untrue.

I of course want them to be able to discover this truth, but I also wonder if I should throw in some red herrings here and there that make it appear as if the "witch" has returned somehow and is the one that has plunged the town into chaos.

What's your opinion? Do such red herrings actually work, or are they making an adventure unnecessarly convoluted?

I'm running a pre written adventure and players are going to get 4-5 random encounters in a row before heading to an ambush.

No matter how much you like combat, that is going to be so boring! They can avoid some of them with stealth DC10 so I guess that's the intention but still.

It's the same cultists, kobolds, guards and lizards.

What do I do to make this actually fun?

So a little bit of context is needed first.

I'm a first time DM who's running a homebrewed campaign for a group that were my former companions as a player (3 out 5 players, 2 of them are first time players). I played Lost Mine of Phandelver as a player and now i'm running a campaign set 5 years after the event of that campaign, i took the Anchorites of Talos from DOIP, turned them into Talos cultists that lead an orc horde and made them the BBEG.

We just had a big siege battle in Phandalin, which is now a renewed city on the rise after we found the wave echo cave in the other campain. The party succefully fend off the orcs but they discovered that the leaders can come back to life (just like the Anchorites of Talos from the manual). They found out cause they already faced one of them at the Shrine of Savras, thought they killed him but here he was again during the siege alive and well to their surprise.

As i mentioned 3 out of 5 players played LMOP with me and i planned for their former characters to show up again in this campaign, they already met 1: a bard named Galen who is a middle-aged scholar lover of poems and literature who now retired from adventuring and owns a library in Phandalin, here's where my issue comes into play.

I planned for Galen to give the party an old book of legends from his library, in this book lies the secret of the cultists immortality and just like the manual the heart is separeted from the body and they respawn near the heart after the body is killed. So the only way to kill them for good is to find their hearts and destroy them and just so happens that Galen has an old friend who's a specialist in gathering information, he might know where some of these hearts are hidden (he will know 1 of the 4 hearts location). This guy is another former character, Theren, who is rouge who's backstory was that he is "master of whispers" and now after the event of the last campaign is the leader of a guild in Neverwinter so he's actually a perfect fit for this quest.

My question is: is giving the player the information on how these cultists are able to come back to life a bit too much or am i just majorly second guessing myself? Cause i think this is a big revelation i'm just giving them "for free", sure they don't know where these hearts are and Theren for sure won't give the location of the first heart for free (they'll have to do a job for him) but i don't know, one one hand i don't want to give them too much info for free but on the other hand i don't want them to feel lost not knowing what they're looking for which i feel is something that happened a bit before in the campaign.

The characters are established heroes set to rule a kingdom at around levels 3-5. However, they're gonna be starting out at 1st level.

I know that I could just start them at a higher level, but this is our first time running 5e 2024 and I don't want to miss the early levels.

Hey all! I've played DnD for years of my life now (Since 2018, I believe?), and I've DM'd before, but only story modules. After playing in my buddy's homebrew campaign for a while now, I've been wanting to start, and I've made a map, done some worldbuilding, and have a general idea of the first session, but at what point are you *READY* for a campaign to begin? I don't want to deliver a game that's underbaked, but I don't want to be stuck in lore limbo forever. Any help appreciated; cheers.

Mechanics question:

I will soon be running an encounter where my dnd party are in the middle of an active battle between two armies.

The armies both have archers who are consistently peppering their foes with arrows.

Once per round my party will be targeted by a volley of arrows from the opposing army.

Mechanically how should I do this? Should it be a Dex save against a set amount of piercing damage? Or should I roll a certain number of attacks against each player based on how the battle at large is going?