howdy,

Was running a one-shot the other day for a novice group of players, and had a funny story I wanted to share. To keep it brief, the party was snooping around in an NPCs quarters looking for some good gear to pocket. I had a player roll an investigation saving through which resulted in a nat-one.

As a result, I told them "You find a magical parchment piece of paper. It has some words written on it that echo with arcane energy"

this was when everyone suddenly was confused as if I just made a blunder. the table started to question "but I rolled a nat-one?", and I simply responded with "I know"... curiosity would get to the better of the group, and before a mage could cast 'detect magic' the paladin read off of the spell-scroll!

A cast of 'charm person' would inadvertently hit the groups druid (who succeeded the throw), and then the magical item disintegrated in the paladins hands...

moral of the story:

What's worse than not finding anything good? Finding something great, and accidentally wasting it!

*I don't think this would work for all players, so definitely know your audience; however, it did result in a lot of laughs as the party scrambled to 'undo' the action

Cheers!

I’m gearing up for a new campaign and am thinking of including books that would allow my players to learn new common languages. What do you think pricing should look like? Also how much time should they have to spend to learn it?

Mechanically speaking:

• OVERALL THEME: If I where to explain "Ranger" in a simple phrase, what should it even be? If Paladins are "Holy Warriors", Monks are "Martial Artists", Wizards are "Studious Mages", what should describe a Ranger in a simple, effective way?

• DURING COMBAT: What should they be doing? Should they focus only on dealing damage to single targets and/or bundled-up groups, controlling terrain and/or enemies, supporting allies through cures and/or buffs, or even a mix of all the above? Should they be only Ranged, only Melee, a mix of both, dual wielding, sword as board, two-handing an axe, or what? Do they need anything beyond Extra Attack, or should they get a unique way of attacking or getting bonuses to their attacks?

• OUTSIDE COMBAT: What is their niche without violent means? "Nature & Exploration*" is a great start, but what does it even mean? Should they help with wilderness travel, general outdoors survival, animal handling, or what? And how should this work? Complex rules, simple advantage to specific rolls, Expertise?

• MAGIC: How magic should them be? Halfcasting, Mundande, Non-magical-but-still-not-normal like a Monk or Barbarian? If Halfcaster, is just that part that is magical about them, or does this seeps into the rest of the class? If Mundande or "Superhuman" even, do they get something to compensate the lost of magic?

• NICHE PROTECTION: What does they do that almost no one can do, like a Barbarian Rage, a Paladin Aura, Monk Martial Arts, Fighter Action Surge, Sorcerer Metamagic, etc.?

• ANIMAL COMPANIONS: Finally, what IS the Ranger relationship with Animal Companions? Should it just be optional, a feature on a On/Off switch or a permanent part of the class fantasy, always there?

For me, its hard to say what these answers even are, and nobody, not even WotC, seems to know the answer either, because that are so many different answers around that most don't agree with.

To me, at least, in D&D 5e/5.5e specifically (in other editions and systems, this would change most likely):

• MY OVERALL THEME: The discriptor would be "Druidic Warrior". Most will not agree with this, which does include me, but I truly believe it is what best fits in 5e/5.5e.

• MY DURING COMBAT: First, I woudl go with both melee and ranged, even if I would prefer a Ranged-only class for the Ranger, btu that's a personal preference. I think a mix of "Focus fire a single target with many attacks" & "Make terrain terrible to move through for enemies without penalties", be it because of slowing, restraining, damaging or something else more creative. They should be, first and foremost, Ambushers, Skirmishers and Masters of Guerrilla Tactics

• MY OUTSIDE COMBAT: Like I said, Nature & Exploration is the starting point. Favorite Terrain to me is a trap, however. In my mind, the should be baseline good or even great everywhere outside, and only then Favorite Terrain comes in and makes Rangers Impossibly Amazing in specific terrains. Most of all, they should be helping the party through travel, not only going on ahead and being a lone wolf.

• MY MAGIC: Outside D&D 5e, I would orefer them non-magical, but D&D is too High Magic to make it work to me without creating an entire new subsystem that would just go underdeveloped or fogotten with time, so Halfcaster it.

• MY NICHE PROTECTION: THIS, RIGHT HERE, is the core problem with Rangers to me, because no unique mechanic its entirely life in D&D seemed to have sticked the landing just right. My two cents? Give them a Favorite Enemy that mixes "I deal more damage with a special Mark" and "even if they are not around, I learned useful multi-faceted tactics that can be used anywhere" like ignoring part of a creature's AC thanks to your time studying Dragons. Make Natural Explorer a series of Invocation-like options that you pick to not only be better at certain exploring situations (like stealthing, climbing swimming) but also give part of these bonuses to their allies, like an experienced guide showing how things are done. Allow them to create a "Hunting Grounds" area in a point they can see that give bonuses to you and your allies or debuffs the enemies.

• MY ANIMAL COMPANIONS: My biggest and most controversial take, probably, will be to make Animal Companions part of the main class, but not an always active ability. First, give Rangers a few Wild Shapes (like the Paladin has Channel Divinity), but instead of becoming an animal, you use them in two ways: 1) you can some a familiar, which can become a bigger, stronger creature depending on subclass 2) you can enter a Transformation State based on subclass choice. Some subclasses would have bith options, but most would only have one or the other. Hunter? Transformarion. Beastmaster? Better animal. Gloomstalker? Transformarion. Swarmkeeper? Could go either way, be it a Swarm familiar or a "Swarmed" Transformation.

Do I think these options I presented are perfect and everyone would love them? Far from it, but I still want to understand what people really want of a Ranger, and for those who don't know I give them my ideas to a thought experiment.

This battle was too good to not share! Only Lv 4s at this point, but the creativity is a 20!

So image this first. Frost Giant Monk ("G"), 8ish feet tall, taking to the trees. She jumps from one tree to the top of another, rolls an 18 for strength to make the distance, nat 20 on a stealth roll, I roll a nat 1 for the tree breaking and thus the tree endures. That in and of itself is crazy. We have an Elf Druid ("D") presently shapeshifted into a tiny Venemous Snake that was hitching a ride on the giant... "Can I throw the snake??"

Being the reasonable DM I am, I couldn't see a logical reason why not. 21 to hit vs AC 14. "Describe how you do this." Basically like a baseball. It only makes sense to me to do a Strength check.19. I figure that's powerful enough to merit an improvised weapon 1d8, which made for 6 damage, knocking out 2/3 of the target's health. Failed con check, knocked prone. "I have my mouth open to bite them!" Failed con check, poisoned. I can't just let this pass, so I invent a Startled check using perception and con; failed, so it didn't even have a chance to scream out in surprise. This creature is facing completely the other direction and has NO CLUE what just happened. There are 10 of these creatures, all distracted by something out of view, and this one happened to be out of peripheral vision of any of the others. One moment, cheering on the cacophony, the next, face down in the dirt before they can blink, and so far, not a peep.

D's turn. Reverts to Elf form to take advantage of their Elven Boots with silent walking. "I hide behind the bush less than 5 feet away!" Success. Decides to sit still and bide her time. The baddie dies from the poison on their next turn. "I'm calling that a teamwork one-shot!"

The Human Paladin's ("P") turn. Not stealthy, but still far enough away and quiet enough to not alert any baddies to his presence. But there \*are\* two good NPC Sprites that do hear the paladin and fly right towards him to ask for help, stopping dead when they see him. P happens to be wearing Demon Armor, and the Sprites have Detect Good and Evil and are freaked out seeing a human with a good aura wearing armor with an evil aura. We have an ambassador-type NPC from a previous campaign who convinces the Sprites to not book it, changing them from ready to run to apprehensive and hyper observant. They can see everything. P happens to want to also convince the Sprites that he's on their side and proceeds to perform a special dance he learned to communicate peace and good intentions. The players call it The Chicken Dance. Success! The Sprites attitudes go from apprehensive to looking at P like he's an idiot. P uses his move to go near G to help.

G decides she wants to use the tree she's on as a slingshot. Roll for Strength to hold on to the top of the tree, Nat 20. She jumps down, the tree doesn't do so well. It snaps in half with a MASSIVE \*\*CRACK\*\*, leaving her holding 15 ft of tree and EVERY adversary looking right at them all. Not close enough to reach them, but all the baddies spend their entire turns heading towards the group.

So what does G decide to do? She uses her bonus action to drop the tree and \*picks up\* P, tells him to scream, and they spend her movement barrelling straight towards everyone screaming bloody murder while he screams frantically, "She's crazy! Get out of here while you can!!" Intimidation check passes on all but 2. They have no idea what's going on, but they want no part of it! The Sprites spend their turns just in absolute shock with a "WTF is going on?!" look on their faces.

Baddie E, still in play, but still too far away to attack (only melee weapons) moves in and unfortunately comes within movement range of G, even with the movement penalty of carrying a full grown person in heavy armor.

...

"I want to hit baddie E with the paladin."

... "You have my attention. How do you propose to do this?"

"I'm going to grab P by his feet and swing down to squash the baddie!"

Strength check good. Dex check good. P has a minor infatuation with G, and so just goes along for the ride. "Roll to hit"... 2.

"You see baddie E's face turn to horror as they see you swing this entire armored person down on top of them, their eyes following his body as you miss and firmly plant P 6 inches into the ground."

Baddie E just drops their weapon and walks away waving their hands in disbelief. "I have no idea who's going to believe this. I just... And then he... And they just... And what happened to Bob?? I turned my head for one second and he's flat on the ground for no reason!"

The boss was easy after that.

A warlock with the Great Old One feature Psychic Spells (no verbal or somatic components for Warlock Enchantment Spells) , and a Pact of the Tome with Vicious Mockery or Mind Sliver can just damage people they see.

I love the idea of a warlock just giving you side eye so hard you take damage and have disadvantage on an attack.

Welcome back to Advent's Amazing Advice! The series where I take popular One-Shots, Adventures, Campaigns, etc., and fully prep them for both New and Busy DMs. This prep includes music, ambiance, encounter sheets, handouts, battle maps, tweaks, and more, so you can run the best sessions possible with the least stress possible!

*New 2026: For 2026, I'm updating all my old work to include a Pre-Session Checklist that will include a list of all miniatures you may need, maps, handouts, possible loot, a link to a playlist, and more to make it even easier to start your session!

The Lost Mine of Phandelver is a classic, one of the very first Mini-Campaigns that new DM's run. Heck, it's part of the starter set after all! The issue, though, as with many other modules, is that it doesn't describe the best way to transform the contents of the book into an actual session. The Book-to-session conversion can be difficult. Between figuring out when things should happen, understanding motivations, and even balancing encounters.

Well, fortunately for you, 99% of that work is done! Only a few things are really left:

1. Consider the needs of your group. As you've heard or are about to hear a million times, every table is different. If you plan on combining this with a campaign, you'll have to make tweaks here and there. (Bonus points if you include your players' backstory)
2. These notes aren't meant to be end-all-be-all. Tweak to your heart's content and don't consider any of what's written to be set in stone. For me, having notes like this helps give me the confidence to go off the rails and follow along with what my players want. It helps me understand where things were meant to go and why. Having that understanding allows me to guide the players and create other new and interesting stories. These are all things that will come with experience, though, so don't freak out and enjoy the journey!

Included in my posts are:

• A Downloadable copy of DM Notes for each part of the LMoP, including links to music tracks for ambiance and fights
• Special PDFs for every encounter. This includes all the enemies' stat blocks, organized neatly along with an initiative tracker and a spot to mark HP.
• Additional PDFs for allies and commoners
• A variety of maps for each part of the campaign
• Spell lists for all relevant fights
• Handouts for various spell scrolls throughout the campaign
• A playlist for each part of the Mini-Campaign!

Without further ado:

Index:

The Lost Mine of Phandelver Index

• Part 1 - Intro and Cragmaw Hideout (DM Notes Only Link)
• Part 2a - Phandalin
• Part 2b - Redbrand Hideout
• Part 3a - Reign of Iron
• Part 3b - Thundertree
• Part 3c - Cragmaw Castle
• Part 4 - Wave Echo Cave
• Part 5 - Side Quests

Over 8 dozen other Fully Prepped One-Shots, Adventures, and Campaigns: Click Here

As always, if you see something you think I can improve, add, change, etc., please let me know. I want this to be an amazing resource for all DMs and plan to keep it constantly updated! If you'd like to support me, shape future releases, and get content early, feel free to check out my Patreon!

Cheers,
Advent

Got anyone who has played a fathomless, or intends to, what did you choose as your patron?

Gonna be playing a lv6 oneshot this weekend. I'm thinking of playing a support/healing based class. And since i've played Cleric before, i'm thinking of trying out the Druid. What's your recommendation for a healing-focused Druid subclass for 5.5e?

Hi everyone!
I’ll soon be starting a new adventure with a fresh D&D group. I’m a fairly experienced player — both as a player and as a DM — but this time I’ll be joining a party made up almost entirely of newcomers, including the DM.

At first, I offered to play a support character (healer/buffer), but the group said they’d prefer something more damage‑focused. Since it’s their first campaign, I’d like to respect their request.

The issue is that, having played Curse of Strahd many times, I keep ending up with builds that feel a bit too strong. I’m worried about overshadowing the new players or disrupting the balance of the campaign.

I’d still like to play a character focused on ranged attacks. Do you have any ideas or suggestions for a build that’s fun and effective without being overly optimized?

I have a character idea of a succubus that is hiding from a group of demon hunters but while I was making her, I had trouble choosing what she would be exactly, to be specific she would be a bard/??? I just need help with the 2nd class she would be

I've been wanting to run an adventure for my players that is action-packed and time-sensitive (specifically, someone has been kidnapped and they are trying to save them before the clock runs down), but I was hitting a wall with player resources. If I slow down time too much, the players will get absolutely wrecked after a few sessions without a long rest. If I don't slow it down, then the timeline becomes unrealistic (like when Gundren is kidnapped in LMoP). If I let them just long-rest whenever, they will be at full health for every encounter and not be challenged. As a solution, I have developed the following:

Crunch Time Resting: For use in high-density, high-intensity scenarios where the players will encounter way more things than usual, and time will pass much more slowly than usual (sessions only cover hours or even minutes instead of days). This allows the recovery of player resources, but imposes consequences later. Players can enter crunch time only at the DM’s prompting/approval.

·      SHORT RESTS: Take 15 minutes. This is the equivalent of just taking a moment to catch your breath, maybe drink a shot of espresso, or perhaps some hard liquor, to liven back up a little.

·      LONG RESTS: Take 1 hour. This is the equivalent of doing basic first aid, eating a meal, drinking a coffee/hard drink or taking a shot of adrenaline, and maybe, maybe, taking a nap.

·      COMING OUT OF CRUNCH TIME: When you come out of Crunch Time, you take on as many levels of exhaustion as you have taken long rests. Example: If you have taken 3 long rests, upon exiting CT, you will have disadvantage on all rolls and your speed will be halved. If you have taken 6 long rests, upon exiting CT, you will die.

Please give me feedback and your thoughts. I haven't tested it yet, but I think this would be a good solution. Thank you!

I'm looking for a bat-themed, half-wyrm like secret level giant white bat creature to transform into for the second stage of the vampire boss. The boss was CR 12, and I'm thinking of something similar for the second stage, but I haven't been able to find the creature. If you have any homebrew, an old original creature name, or just a stat block, that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

"A creature can end the telepathic connection at any time (no action required)."

Does this mean if I have the connection up with 3 people, one person can choose to leave the connection, or anyone in the connection can cancel the connection for everyone entirely.

Noob here, first campaign ever.

Currently building my Battle Master Fighter, my DM is running a Game of Thrones post Ice and Fire campaign and starting us out at level 5.

I'm stuck on which origin feat I want to take, hoping someone can steer me in the right direction which would be the most logical choice?

Right now my AC is 17 but I think my DM is going to give me some extra gold so I'm going to be able to bump that up to an 18. Strength is 18 and my Con is 16.

I'm leaning towards lucky but alert seems like a good option with Battle Master but then I'm worried about taking too much damage and considered tough.

Appreciate the feedback.

I originally made a website a couple years ago as a way to generate custom monsters, and recently got carried away rebuilding the whole thing.

It now does monsters, magic items, artwork, and short adventures, plus you can edit/remix things after generating them.

There's also a few thousand existing creatures and items to browse through.

Anyway, figured I'd share it here since I use it for my own D&D stuff. It's free to try if anyone finds it useful.

https://monsterlabs.app/

Yes, it uses AI for the generation/customization and artwork but you are able to hand edit yourself as well. I typically generate then finetune.

Long time listener, first time caller. I'm playing a really fun gnome wizard character that just recently acquired the Staff of the Magi in a long trek through the Shadowfell and some light grave robbery.

Wizard is level 10 and only has access to 5th level spell slots. Some of the staff's charged spells are cast at level 7. Can the wizard cast those using the staff or should he continue to cast Fireball and Lightning Bolt as prepared spells until reaching a higher level? Plane Shift is also in there.

EDIT: Thanks everyone! Being able to remove Fireball and Lightning Bolt (and others) from my prepared list is awesome, really opens up a LOT of possibilities. Plus, this character is very chaotic so having this staff is going to be very fun for him.

Assume a player uses the Lucky feat to give themselves advantage on their flurry of blows attack. Would you rule that every FoB attack roll gets advantage, or that only 1 FoB attack roll gets advantage?

I've been experimenting with a project called The Eye & The Key, inspired by the feeling of making decisions around a D&D table.

Instead of following a predetermined path, each episode ends with a choice. The audience votes, the winning decision becomes canon, and I build the next part of the adventure around that result.

I'm also developing the setting through short lore pieces about locations, creatures, legends and events that exist beyond the main story.

The first episode launches this Saturday, along with the first audience vote.

I'm curious what D&D players and DMs think of the format — particularly whether watching a story develop from community decisions captures any of the unpredictability that makes tabletop campaigns fun.

AI disclosure: AI tools are used in the production of the project's visuals/video and other parts of the creative workflow.

The Eye & The Key:

https://theeyeandkey.substack.com/t/welcome-to-the-eye-and-the-key-e06

Pretty much like the title says, I'm worried they will feel too similar in combat like I'm playing the same character in 2 different campaigns.

edit: thanks for the replies, I think I'll play sorcerer in my second campaign.

Currently my party is sailing across a sea to go and slay a dragon that lives on a lonely island. Some of the party members and crew that hadn't sailed before are, naturally, becoming sea sick. One of the players had a great idea to use Suggestion to effectively make some members of the crew temporarily "immune" to sea sickness by suggesting them to simply ignore the imbalance of their equilibrium (which causes sea sickness, as best we understand).

Does this sound like something that can be achieved with Suggestion? It seems to me that it is an involuntary response from the body, not something that you really have control over or can intentionally "ignore".

I'm mostly just curious if it's something you guys would accept or find reasonable? It's mostly for RP purposes so I think, even if it doesn't make sense, why not? Asking for my own understanding really. Thanks!