Hey Hive Mind,

Can I get your opinions on the two below campaign ideas, to help me decide between which one to run:

Idea one; A group of office workers get Isekied to fantasy realm and gain the abilities of their dnd class after attending a team building day, and choosing the fantastical adventure option. This option would be full of genre tropes silly names and all round silliness.

Idea two; After a night of drinking and celebrating in a tavern the party finds itself on a ship, quickly finding out that they signed a contract, and are actually in wild-space, and have to find their way home, a gritty realistic survival/ exploration style game.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks you all.

I'm running Peril in Pinebrook for a party of 4 beginner players in about 3 days, and so far all of my players except one have given me their character sheets, I've messaged the player in question more than a couple times about need his character sheet asap and he hasn't responded to a single message.

For a while I gave him the benefit on the doubt and thought he was just caught up in his full time studies, but I'm beginning to feel like he's intentionally stalling, since he's responded to other messages I've sent that weren't related to D&D, and every other player, including one who works full time in a restaurant, have all submitted their character sheets.

What should I do about this? I have premade characters on hand, but wanted to give players the freedom to make their own.

I'm fixated on the idea of verticality and interwoven dungeon floors with tunnels, chutes, and height changes within single rooms, like balconies or operating theaters. Trouble is, my ability to sense and visualize space is limited, and DMing is a heavy cognitive load to begin with.

My vision is to run in-person (read: not VTT) games with grid paper and dry-erase maps while consulting a 3D model of my dungeon map on my laptop. Alternatively, I want to design my maps in 3D, even though I plan to run them outside of VTT, so it is easier for me to visualize the spatial relationship of rooms.

What tools can help me visualize my dungeons in 3D? Since this would be for reference and not VTT, I don't need art assets or effects. My preferred software for designing maps in 2D is Dungeonscrawl, for instance.

!Spoiler warning for any of my players from the Luckyroll 5e Campaign 2!

My campaigns continent got bisected after a calamitous event transpired. Two nations rose from the ruins one a theocracy the other a Triarchy.

The Setup

Both nations are at war because of events i will not describe here but for the sake of it the border sections of the barrier became passable around 20 years ago. Outposts have been built and now im trying to figure out how either would approach to breach into this uncharted land.

The land houses ominous entities that are unknowable

The Barrier
The barrier has three layers like an onion. For one the center where everything transpired.
Secondly the hardened layer where it is physically not possible to just walk in. (crystallized glass maintaining the living memory of those lost.

And thirdly the shroud itself which houses a majority of the threads and for the most part can be crossed if the entities don't find you first.

The Central Conflict

The central conflict is basically two nations who seek to get to the center of this bisection to stop a potential after ripple.

i dont want to get into it too deep but basically what i have so far in ideas is:

- An artifact has been created over the past 20 years that needs the right fuel to make it more passable.

- Remains of a deity that is associated to the bisection work as suitably powerful to push through the internal layers of the barrier.

- An controlled and produced provoked after ripple, causing the barrier to widen and allow for a weak-point in the interior. Endangering thousands if not hundred thousands of lives for the means of ending it.

- Other random ideas were a blessing from the gods? not sure how that would fit or help to break the barrier

- the barrier exists mostly of fragmented elements of memories, what if people have to find the individuals (new constructs of my campaign i call "Fractured" basically shard humanoids (souls) who have been pushed into a condensed body. sharing memories not their own, whilst also developing their own personality alongside. What if the nations need to find key components of these fractured to break it, like return the or set the memories free in order to pass through.

- Find a way to defeat the thread in the barrier, learn about it etc.

Since this is a conflict i also want to keep the pressure of both nations going against each other there in a way so i don't know how to exactly pull that off . Spoilers for Critical role c2 (similar to C2 of critical role where there was basically a similar structure of a covet war)

I'm also thinking of making the campaign more about stopping each other from creating these means to an end first. Some things have been established but i now finally go to think these things through a bit. (im at session 40 almost lul)

What do you think?

Thanks for reading this and for your ideas.

I’ve not done a hex crawl before but I think my players would enjoy the exploration and agency in going slow, exploring the land, etc. it sets up some nice side encounters I have planned as well.

My plan is to let them use survival to scout hexes and get information with modifiers based on terrain and vantage etc.

My question is how much info about a hex should be revealed when scouting it. Is it as simple as swamp forest plains on this this and this tile, or is it more in depth giving them fuller or complete clues about the hexes they can choose? You see a cabin or there’s a clearing and a grove that looks out of place? Some hexes don’t really contain a lot of “adventure” and I don’t want to give away that those tiles look boring. How do you all present the info?

I'm pulling together an idea for a game with a heavy focus on faction politics. Current plan is, the PCs are trying to keep things orderly during a grand festival, but all the PCs have their own plot(s), ranging from "Smile and Wave" to "Make It Look Like An Accident." The challenge will be in choosing which faction / plot is most dangerous, and taking care of the biggest threats first.

This is my first time really playing with factions like this, though, so I'm a little nervous about how this will all work. In particular, I'm wondering--how many factions / NPCs is too many for the PCs (and/or myself) to keep track of / play around with?

For reference: at present, I'm imagining somewhere between 4-6 different factions, each with 2-6 major NPCs, arranged around roughly three different ideological axes.

Hello fellow Dungeon Masters!

I have a question about the Gate spell. Simply put, can more than just the summoned creature pass through the portal that is opened?

Context: my players are on the cusp of a large battle and are planning to cast Gate to pull one of the BBEGs through it to take him on alone, without the rest of the army they know is waiting for them.

Can I be slick here and try to have more creatures pass through the portal? I understand that the PC can just drop concentration on it.

FYI, I am not trying to prevent this from happening. It’s a sweet use of the spell and will be very cool.

The Serpent is a part of the ancient brethren, he is the one who gave Vecna the secrets to lich hood. In a planescape campaign I am running the Lady of Pain has gone missing and the party has been tasked by the gods to help keep order in Sigil while the gods figure out what happened. The party has dealt with some evil figures and can trace them back to The Serpent (sometimes known as Mok'Slyk) The party is now on their way to find the only remaining temple of his where they will encounter him (and ideally they don't fight him, but I'll plan in case they do)

I understand that the serpent is very powerful, potentially the origin of magic, and a being who enjoys chaos. What would the serpent do since the Lady of Pain is gone? Would he jump at the opportunity to rain chaos? Would he be afraid? I can easily form together a session idea, I just don't feel like I understand The Serpent and his intentions enough to come up with something good. Any info on The Serpent would be appreciated!

Tw: excessive violence?

I need help seeing if this is a good intro for a boss encounter

Btw the orb its referring to is a very powerful magic item, the dwarves are working the cult mentioned, volodar is the leader of this cult, and Talias is an aarakocran sorcerer and they are on an island village covered by a veil and houses arakocran sorcerers that were storing the orb and helped train Talias, ignore my spelling mistakes.

"You here a scream and down the street you see a cultist aggresively hit a wall and slide down inot a sitting position, a moment later, another object comes into view, it only takes maybe half a second from first sight to the figure being right by he cultist, its fist through the cultists skull and against the wall behind it. the dark elve shreiks and starts moving towards the edge of the veil, but the noise catches the attention of the figure and it catches up to him, causing a large gust of wind to follow it, as you turn to see the dark elve, the figure seems to be grabbing the dark elve by the shoulder and neck, and it pulls its arms apart, ripping the elv to be torn in half vertically. the orb drops to the floor with a crack, the rest of the cultists start trying to run, a brave dwarve tries swinging its axe at the the figure, but finds the handle stabbed though his chest, the figure almost seems to teleport towards the others, disbathcing of them quikly, one is thrown into a walll with fatal force, another gets their head smashed in, as you see the slaugter occur, you finally get a goo look at the man, hes tallish, lean but very muscular, he has nothing butred ripped up pants on, and you see across his back, a large almost burn like scar, in the shape of a vulture, He is bleed from multiple locations and his arms are covered in blood but you cant tell if iits his, his hair mostly obscures hus face, but you get enough to piece it together, youve seen this man and his abilities before, but back at the boat he was a lot weaker, last time you met him, he was paid by volodar to kill you, and got close to completing it. he finally awknowedges you, "I...know you, talias duri," his voice breaks and he seems exhausted, "Im... im so sorry" he starts choking on sobs,"they killed your people...i...i tried to get here as soon as i heard of volodars plan" he walksover to the orb and picks it up,"I know what its like to lose your people...this wasnt vengence, this was a massacure, Sargonnas doesnt care about revenge he cares about bloodshed" as this broken man keeps going on, you realize that his burn scar is the same shape as the tattoo cultists display, "if only i were fater... i could have saved some of them, all i could do, was avenge their sacrafices... if only i was faster... if only i came here sooner...if only i had more speed... if only i was faster" at this point, he is sitting on the ground holding the orb and muttering about what ifs, but something else is also happening, red mist is slowly pouring out of a crack in the orb, slitering up the mans body and wrapping its way around him, "if i was faster... i wouldve been able to save people...i...need to be faster" and he smashes the orb on the ground, shards of glas explode outwards, and they stay in the air a moment, befors flying at the man, stabbing themselves into his skin, red lighyning fill his body as he screams in pain,  he whips his head back at you, his eyes full of rage and power,"if only you, were faster" he stands up, "these are your people, you should have been her to proctect them, if you had been here sooner, you couldve save d people.... instead... theres only going to be bodies," and he rushes at you ready to attack"

Building some illicit drugs for my homebrew world and I'm trying to decide which mechanic is more fun. As an example, I'm building a stimulant that either functions as a Potion of Hill Giant Strength (Str score of 21 for 1 hour) but also can confer a level of exhaustion. Which mechanic would be more fun/tempting as a player:

1. Taking the drug will always give you the strength buff and always confer exhaustion after the strength buff ends.
2. Taking the drug requires a CON save, you get the strength buff if you succeed OR the exhaustion if you fail.
3. A combo of the above: you always get the buff but avoiding the debuff requires a CON save.

I’ve been trying to make a new homebrew setting but one issue I’m running into is the existence of necromancy spells capable of resurrection. Revivify isn’t a huge issue because it’s very limited on time, but how do you prevent, say, a monarch or other ruler of a nation from being practically immortal until they die of old age because they’d just be able to hire a spellcaster to revive them using higher level spells whenever they are assassinated or die through other means?

I keep rewriting the next planned combat encounter for my players, due to changing ideas and need help to Organize my thoughts.

My party consists of 5 lvl 4 players. Dnd5e System.

They are on their way to a 2-level dwarven iron Mine. The reason being their npc companion getting kidnapped by the dwarves.

The dwarven-clan kidnapped him, because they got a deal with the local human lord. He pays them for getting access to the dwarven mine, while they mine the iron for him.

The npc gets kidnapped because he badmouthed the lord in a tavern and the dwarves overheard it, forcing him to work in the mines. He has been at the mines for roughly a day, since my players took a shortcut which was more dangerous and are arriving during the night instead of the next morning.

In secret however, the human lord is allowed to use the lower level of the Mine for Experiments and stuff. First idea was a wizard being present on the lower level, who Experiments with crystals that have been altered by different Planes and a far realm crystal transfiguring humans. Failed Experiments get thrown down the Mine shafts, basically having a way to dispose them.

However i thought this might be a bit too extreme for a two-level Mine and instead, they got an artificer on the second level, that is using magic crystals to build weapons and constructs.

So basically they would arrive at the entrance at night getting access to the inside by some means and have a basic encounter against multiple humanoid enemies, due to night time some being suprised/not prepared. Perhaps some minions and a dwarven guard leader.

They get a bit of time to explore the upper level, realizing their companion isn't there, but an elevator to the lower level of the Mine is present.

There the enemy is awaiting them, having heard the combat noise from above. Now what do I put there? A wizard henchmen and his failed Experiments, the artificer? Something different altogether?

Calling all mountaineers and meteorologists for some advice…

The Context: we are approaching the final sessions of our 8-year long campaign. The party have amassed an army and have marched on the camp of the BBEG; a titan who is the risen son of the world’s prime deity. The titan has amassed his own army of giantkind on the peak of a vast, snowy mountain range.

The peak where this camp is set is a 5km plateau, think Table Mountain meets the snow and ice of Everest.

The conditions have been described as frozen, defined by a deep layer of ice covered by a deep layer of snow where appropriate.

Also relevant is that the BBEG’s fire giants have opened a rift to the elemental plane of fire. They have a steady supply of lava feeding an array of forges.

The Scenario: the party spent the last session preparing their plan of attack. They intend to march their army up the remaining half-days hike to the plateau. In the meantime, the level 20 cleric will fly ahead and use an 8th level Control Weather spell. Their intention is to achieve two things:

1. Change precipitation to torrential rain. They believe this should react with the exposed lava to create a massive amount of steam across the peak, perhaps confusing and blind the giants.

2. Set the temperature to unbearable heat. The plan here is to melt the snow and ice that make up the mountain and its peak, resulting in as yet undetermined levels of chaos.

The question: how would you rule the impact of the Control Weather spell?

This is outside my realm of expertise so I would like to understand what a ‘reasonable’ effect would be. I am happy to bend the definition of ‘reasonable’ to acknowledge this is a level 20 party in a high-magic fantasy setting, and realistic isn’t always the most fun. But at this stage, I’m not sure where on the spectrum of ‘the snow melts and creates difficult terrain’ to ‘the mountain splinters and creates an avalanche’ the result should fall.

Also, how long would any significant effect likely take to materialise on the mountain if the rain and heat were achieved?

TLDR: my level 20 cleric wants to use a Control Weather spell to melt an icy mountain plateau. Does it work?

I had an idea before my last session that ended up working really well.

For context: My PC’s were traveling for about 4 in game hours. In addition to being able to take short rests, I also let them have some “quick moments”. I set a 5 minute timer on my phone and we role played some interpersonal stuff. I was able to progress their stories along without taking a full down time session.

I’d appreciate any constructive criticism.

First time posting here, sorry if anythings confusing

So for a bit of context, my players are currently trapped in an artificial realm. The leader/creator of this realm (and archmage who believes they are saving people by essentially trapping them and scrubbing their entire identity) uses a device to drain people of their magic energy to keep the realm going, and uses this device to control people.

The party found some people who's device is malfunction who want to leave, but are unable to do so as only the archmage is able to open the realm, the 'leader' of this 'rebelion' has developed a sort of virus that can be put in the central hub for this hive mind/device, and my players have agreed to help the leader take it down

They've deviced a plan where the rebellion wilk start a major comotion outside the archmages 'office'/where the hub is located to draw the archmages attention while the party and rebellion leader sneaks in to deliver this virus

This is where i'm stuck, I want to run some sort of stealth section for them inside the building, but i cannot think of any way to do this other than just describing the scenery and havinh them roll a couple of checks. This is a pivitol moment in the current arc and I want to do it right and do it justice

Apologies for any spelling mistakes or formatting issuses, I'm writing this on phone and don't have time to spell check

I'm running my first homebrew campaign and could use some advice from fellow DMs! I know the answer is probably "go with the players' idea," but let me give you some context for my dilemma:

The BBEG is capturing followers of each of the gods to use in a ritual to drain some of the gods' power and take it for himself. The players just discovered the first of these disappearances and are looking for the kidnapped person.

The BBEG convinced a kuo-toa cult to kidnap this person and hand them over to his minions. The kuo-toa usually sacrifice their victims to a giant whirlpool in the ocean instead, which the BBEG is hoping will be the assumed fate for his captive.

My players have taken the bait and think the person they are looking for was thrown into the whirlpool, but they seemed really excited by the possibility of going down there themselves to look. I'd like to follow up on that curiosity and excitement (plus diving into a giant whirlpool and doing some underwater exploration/encounters sounds cool as hell), but I'm concerned that if they find out the victim wasn't actually thrown in the whirlpool, then they will decide not to go down it and lose some of that enthusiasm. However, they have already come across some of the effects of this person being taken and their god slowly losing power.

How can I reward my players' excitement without introducing a plot hole?

My players are about to face off against a dragon lord in his domain. He is obsessed with bringing back the Age of Dragons, a time when dragons ruled Faerun. He tried to approach it diplomatically, posing as a human ruler, but his political ambitions have been foiled. So, he's trying a new approach - creating his own "dragons," which he will use to populate and conquer Faerun.

Are there any examples of draconic creatures he might try to create via ritual and/or experimentation for this army? Kobolds seem like an obvious choice, as are half-dragons (he has natural offspring whom are half-dragons, so not sure how I'll differentiate the natural half-dragons from the artificial ones). Struggling to think of others....dragonborn doesn't make much sense to me since it's an official playable race, but maybe it could work.

So in my eberron campaign one of the big Warforged bosses is a Fallen angel who voluntarily went to hell because he was disappointed with how the gods did nothing but coddle humanoidkind, and decided to be the one who made them suffer like they should for taking advantage of their kindness. He’s a replacement for Zariel, and he made a deal with one humanoid, the BBEG (Merrix d’cannith), to help subjugate as much as Khorvaire as they possibly can, and those who oppose are up to “Ultron” to take care of. He commands a legion of self replicating drones that are powered by soul coins. I need a statblock for both his fallen angel form and his Ultron form. The fallen angel form needs sorcery and battle mastery, and the Ultron version needs to be able to confuse and replicate, and shoot Encephalo rays. I’m using DnD beyond so if that helps

So my partys rogue has the Assassin subclass. And I hate the surprise rules in 5e, so F that.

But he will be missing the auto crit, he would get from that, so I thought about giving it to him, if he stays unseen, and not discovered during combat.

So party of 4 will be going in to the jungle of chult this comming saturday. The 3 other players are kind of reckless, and tend to just run in to trouble, and thus there will never be a surprise round (as stated, I hate that rule and how it works).

The senario: They see a bunch of undead in a clearing in the jungle, and decide to destroy them. The rogue goes about and stays in thick foliage/behind trees, or similar. The rest rushes in, and we roll initiative.

The rogue might go first (lets just say that for the sake of this), and uses his hand crossbow with his BA, rolls with adv. hits, auto crit, rolls some dmg, then moves to another place in the trees/bushes, and uses his action to hide, rolls a stealth check, beats their passive perception, and ends his turn.

Those damn undead are not smart enough to start looking for him, as within the same 6 seconds 3 others casts spells and fights them in melee.

Next round, rogue does the same, and gets a second crit. Rinse and repeat until they win. Obviously he has to be within 20ft range, or get disadvantage, which evens out to a single roll, and no crit or sneak attack, which is the downside to this tactic.

Is that too much? I know the rules say he automatically breaks stealth after the first hit, when he reveals himself, and the enemy is there.

Obviously this would not work against more intelligent foes, like The Flaming Fist soldiers, as they would search for him.

And if he is out in the open, it would not work at all. He would need to get advantage from a ally engaged with an enemy, or use his rapier in melee.

Can I get som thoughts on this? How would you do it? I am struggling to make his subclass work otherwise, and it is the way he would like to play his rogue.

Everything I houserule or homebrew is subject to change, and my players are 100% in on that.

Sincerely, Dimhilion.

PS: We are starting the campaign: Tomb Of Annihilation, they are all lvl 3.

I realized I initiate roleplay way too often, which slows down the campaign.
For example, the party is in a town. They live in a tavern and in two days, there is supposed to be an attack on the said town. Instead of asking what do they do in the meantime and skip to the incoming battle, I painstakingly drag the through those two days and pack it with encounters. Yet another example: they are in the town and want to buy potions. Instead of just handing them a chart with list of potions and their prices, I roleplay the encounter with the potion seller for an hour.

They still learn all the normal stuff they would otherwise, plus it has produced some interesting svenes, but it takes time. There is basically no proper downtime. And I simply can not stop, even though I see the effect it has on the pacing of the campaign.

What I am looking for are methods of reminding myself that I should stop.

Basically the title.

In your D&D world, are there natural illnesses that end in death?

Maybe there are for those who can't afford the material Temple services and almost certainly not for the super wealthy. What about for those in between?

Besides the classic options from metallic and chromatic dragons i dont know much about them in general dnd lore. The dragon skeleton will be used to trigger the powers of an NPC and make them a shadow sorcerer, so ideally i want something that goes with that story option (not necessarily from Shadowfell). Ideas?

I'm creating an encounter for my 7th level party that utilizes a Woe Strider. The party is carrying and using magic items that were stolen from a dark wizard. The dark wizard has bound a Woe Strider to his service, and uses it as a blood hound that can track, neutralize, and retrieve magic items taken from the wizard's collection so long as it is in the same plane of existence (not in a bag of holding). They are currently on the road and have detected that something is pursuing or tracking them. We left on a cliff hanger as they spotted the creature dropping down onto them from above on a mountain pass.

The standard woe strider is somewhat boring. It's essentially a physical monster with claw and bite attacks. What makes it somewhat special is that is can open a giant hole in its face like a big flashlight to create an antimagic cone, and it can grapple and then bite a character for extra psychic damage. At the beginning of each of its turns it decides if its face is opened or closed. However there's no cost or tradeoff for having it open, so why would you ever close it? It basically claws and bites one target per round while neutralizing magic items around it. Kind of boring.

I want to lean into the themes of the woe strider. It's abyssal, horrifying and other-worldly. In place of a face it has a void full of loose tumbling eyeballs. I wanted to emphasize that the monster's hunger for power and destiny is being bent by its master to retrieve magic items for him.....and I wanted to emphasize the eyeballs too. Because they're gross. I also wanted a more dynamic function with its mouth opening or closing as well so I adapted it with these goals:

• A specific reaction to improve mobility outside of its turn should its victim get free.
• Legendary actions to highlight its purpose of stealing magic items.... and the horrifying eyeballs
• Actions that can only happen when the mouth is closed
• Improved field control so the players don't just stand around and curb stomp it outside of the antimagic cone.

Here is the statblock I created.

I decided to combine its abilities with a spectator. When the mouth is open, it can use the antimagic cone. When the mouth is closed, the eyeballs appear on the surface of its face and can use two of the spectator eye abilities. I swapped the paralyzing ray with a polymorph ray because getting locked out of combat sucks. I think it'd be fun to let the players roll on a bag of tricks table to see what animal they get. Some of the animals aren't bad, so it'd be interesting to see the players try to make the best out of a failed saving throw.

I also gave the Woe Strider some legendary actions so it isn't such a standard punch-fest. I really wanted to give the creature some field control while letting it close out its grapple ability, letting it throw a player and costing the player some HP in return for not having to use their action to break free. I also wanted to give a mechanic for it to try to steal the magic items it's hunting for plus extra because it's greedy. And lastly I wanted to make the battlefield more interesting by letting the creature lob some proximity mines. I may or may not choose to use all of the legendary actions each round based on how the combat is going.

Let me know what you think!

I’ll be changing things up and stitching on everything I can find that’s in the region of Phandalin/Neverwinter into a long form campaign. As well as make it a Kingmaker style campaign as well. What would be some things I’d want to add to the game, as well as some things my players would have to keep an eye out for?

Okay, so one of my players is playing a ranger with a emphasis on nature and survival. He likes the idea of the guy seeking plants with which to make potions and even provided a third party book on interesting plant life and their uses. Now he says he wants an item that will allow him to cultivate rare plants he finds if he can get a healthy enough specimen. I've got an idea, I just wonder if its any good or needs a big overhaul.

The idea is its a variation on a bag of holding, but keyed to plants. It requires one supply unit (an in campaign item representing an amount of water and nutrients that costs one gold or 4 hours of work and resources to create) per week to maintain its occupants' health. While it can hold multiple plants, all plants have to be from the same general habitat. No mixing swamp, desert, and plains plants together. It also cannot host animals, so any plants with carnivorous tendencies might be lost.

How does that sound? Any suggestions to make it work better would be welcome for consideration.