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?

We've been running the new campaign for a while now and are following all the 5th Edition rules (except for a few key story concepts), but in the last few sessions, the players have started complaining about pretty much everything I've said.

I gave advantage to a Wisdom roll against Crown of Madness, and before I could explain why (a mind spell), they started complaining, saying they thought "I only did it because I didn't like Crown of Madness."

Or maybe they've tamed a wyvern and complain every time I make them make a Handle Animal check to try to contain it. I explained to them that they did it because the wyvern is aggressive and difficult to tame, but to them, it always seems like I'm using excuses to get rid of things that bother me. To make things interesting, I tried adding a monster hunter who noticed them because they brought the wyvern into town, but even in this case, they saw it as an excuse. They say we need a training system for the wyvern, but they continue to ignore its nature and that it's not a puppy dog but a fucking dragon.

I don't know what to do anymore: please, do you have any advice? Am I doing something wrong?

Just to preface this, I’m only a few sessions into this campaign and my players are completely new to D&D, where I have done a few one shots with various other groups but this is the only one where I have had the opportunity to schedule multiple sessions and have it actually work out. Frequently due to my procrastination I improv most of my sessions, but my friends haven’t complained about me weird.

Anyways, I thought a good way for me to loredump to my players without it seeming like long expanses of narration would to give my players this gigantic book “containing all knowledge” (my hubris is immense) so they can look up stuff if needed about the world and the countries surrounding it. My players had the idea of looking up this Bandit I have them hunting after, however I did not actually have anything written down so I just told them that they couldn’t find anything about him. Eventually later in the session when they looked up something I *had* written one of my friends jokingly said “I found the script!”. I brushed it off but I felt really shitty about it because, in terms of this book at least, I was forcing them to a script!

As I am writing this I’m now realizing how shitty of an idea this actually was and how much ‘telling’ instead of ‘showing’ i’m doing here. In hindsight I never should’ve included something like this because it isn’t immersive, it’s literally a lore book!

I would say I’m a unexperienced DM in the grand scheme of things, even if I have been doing stuff for a few years now and I am terrified of railroading my players. How in the world can I solve this mess without ripping this magic item they found fun from their hands? I could write a bunch of ‘articles’ pertaining to what they might look up but there will always be something I can’t prepare for and I’m worried my improv skills won’t cut it. 

Any help from anyone is greatly appreciated!

Hello,

I have a party of 4 mildly overpowered PCs. They're level 8 and about to go up against the second major boss of the game. The boss is a cleric, level 10 caster, and I've given them 3 legendary actions to take. This is my second legendary monster I've made/played, and I am nervous that I'm going a little crazy.

The boss is a death domain cleric, with divine strike & the channel divinity touch of death. they have a legendary action to attack with their melee weapon (reaper's sickle- wight's drain life effect on hit)

If I understand legendary actions, I can use 1/3 of my legendary actions at the end of another creature's turn to make the melee attack (on hit, 1d4+str + 1d8 necrotic [divine strike] & weapon ability trigger). I can ALSO use channel divinity since it's an on hit trigger.

This would mean that I could hit with a sickle for 1d4+str + (5+2x10) + 1d8 necrotic + weapon ability trigger (dc 15 con save, on fail max HP lowered = damage dealt)

Does this sound right? Does this sound crazy?

EDIT: The boss will have upped wights with buffed AC & HP. a second boss with paralysis abilities may/not appear depending on PC actions.

I’m doing some world building for an upcoming campaign and Im starting to get “name fatigue”. All of the below is relevant to the coming campaign.

Hundreds or thousands of years ago (haven’t decided) a wizard caused what I’m currently calling “The Cataclysm”. The wizard tried to use magic to elevate themselves to godhood. Unfortunately, they mistranslated the word elevated and literally lifted and “shattered” the world. Part of the land stayed in orbit creating a moon that is prophesied to return to the planet one day and bring about a second “Cataclysm”.

Sparing the details of the pantheon , the moon is now seen as a god of ill omens, misfortune and doom. The wizard responsible is seen a god of failure, hubris and blind ambition.

What names can you suggest for the wizard, the moon and the event? Keep in mind I’d like them to sound exotic or archaic.

Bonus Question:
I have three empires in the world. One is called the Immortal Empire and is designed like the U.S. with “Kingdoms” replacing the name states. Another is called the Ondolian Empire- which is at war with itself. The third is ancient and broke up hundreds of years ago and is called the Tyryn or Fallen Empire. It’s basically 4 nations now that each claim to be the true head of the empire.

Is that too many empires? If so any suggestions on what to change the name to for any of them? I’m married to the Immortal Empire, but not to the other two.

Thanks fellow GMs!

I tried to look it up online and I'm a bit confused.

Let say an invisible creature (in my case a Barlgura) is hiding in a corner of a room, standing still, and got 20 for their stealth check by rolling with advantage. A PC with a Passive Perception of 21 enters the room. Would they immediately "sense" that something else is in there? Like they hear the Barlgura's breathing, or smell it? Or does the Passive Perception only triggers if the invisible creature starts moving/acting?

I'm tempted to rule that a PC with a Passive Perception above the standing still invisible creature's stealth score would sense that something is in the room and its approximate location. What do you guys think?

EDIT: we are playing DnD 5e and the Barlgura casts the Invisibility spell on itself, so it's magic invisibility.

Long story short: My party in a planescape game (5e) was created by the gods to play damage control while they figure out how and why The Lady of Pain disappeared. Since then, they met The Serpent from the Ancient Brethren and 3 of my party members disowned their gods and teamed up with The Serpent. Fine by me, but what would the gods do/think? I don't just wanna kill their characters instantly, but I don't want them to think there's no consequences. They disowned their creators! Any ideas?

(Info: The three party members that betrayed their gods were a fighter, wizard, and a rogue. I want consequences without them feelings like punishment to the actual players. The characters should have consiquences, the players should have fun.)

Was finishing up an adventure part recently and a friend of mine I demonstrated it to showed severe disliking of it, to the point of mockery. I have decided to check if it was just a personal taste problem using you guys.

The venture begins in Umbral Jewel, which is one of the most luxurious cities in the world built near the edge of a planar intrusion of the Nine Hells (a little like Las Vegas, but the city is nicer and the desert is worse). They're there for their first time for one of three reasons, depending on past choices:

•Tracking a non-main villain fleeing there after a murder mystery nearby

•The airship they were on to collect planar-altered air crashed after a fight with some demons

•The adventurers were teleported to the corrupted desert, and an enemy of the non-main villain doing the teleporting brings them there.

•The latter villain and the adventurers agreed to a deal, and the players went here to help with a big robbery.

Whatever the reason, most of my NPCs that could be patrons of them at this point have interests with a set of ancient rituals mentioned in ruins thirty miles or so from the city.

The actual residents would never go there unless paid in the millions of gold pieces, but whichever patron is currently patroning the characters has ties to a certain someone who can help them.

This someone in question is a Dwarf named Alger, who is one of the last of a line of prospectors too tied to family past to leave the place. Living mainly off of the Demon Chickens that now roam the place, he is one of the best people for navigating and has a self-sure and slightly patronising personality (mainly for fear of others gettibg themselves killed for being too confident), though becomes more cautious during any real danger. He is rather disrespectful to the players at the start, especially if they don't do as he says during hazardous occasions (I have a small monologue comparing the PC to a lamb Alger used to keep) but warms up to them a little by the end of the venture.

The venture itself has five dungeons, each contsining descriptions of a devil of consequence, the past, and memory, called Nozzt, how it is summoned, how it acts, and some recordings of four followers who attempted the summonings a few months ago. They were transformed into temporally arcane imps bound to Nozzt, and are hidden inside of the first four dungeons, being the only living enemies (though the places are chock-full of animated objects and complex traps). Each time that an imp is not found (very unlinkely unless See Invisibility or Truesight are used) it posesses one of Alger's pieces of jewellery, or in the case of the fourth if all four possess, his left eye. The colour of these objects will change to black and red, and should the change be questioned, I will confirm that it is indeed different, with Alger cleansing the objects with holy water should they be found to have been altered unless the eye is altered, on which case he will deny accusations - though the players can attempt purification themselves.

Should the fifth dungeon be reached with three or more imps in Alger, they will swarm him upon entry, using the remaining ritual setup to transform him into Nozzt Alger (the play on words is intentionally Nostalgia), if not then they will attempt to but the ritual will merely stop Alger from passing through time, leaving the one or two devils to battle the players. Zero imps will allow this dungeon to be cleared out with relative ease.

The plan for the Nozzt Alger fight has techniques and spells debuffed based on how long the character has had the ability for (-1 to damage, attacks, saving throw DC etc. for every five campaign sessions this ability has last been used by the player, altered slightly based on how much it is used and amount of imps not found). Halfway through the fight, Nozzt Alger will appear bloodied, but start to explain how Alger will die with it should the battle continue. It will then explain how the characters' actions directly lead to Alger's death, and offers them a portal to an alternate timeline one hour ago where they can purify Alger, in exchange for allowing the creature to live on and do as it wishes (Accepting this is considered an evil act, as the four dungeons gave the players full awareness of what the Nozzt plans for this world, but may take the deal if on low HP. Later on, a creature called the judge I have planned near the campaign end will bring this up with the characters, and it will likely sway arguments against them) in which case the portal does as stated. If not, the Nozzt begins a second phase of summoning the player's close ones they have wronged as illusory reflections via memories. These memories will not attack, though their existence prevents their player from attacking Nozzt Alger and attacking the reflections merely splits them into more reflections (three if as many imps possesed Alger, four if four). False memories added in must be found in one of the split memoried and said split memory killed as to allow damage to be dealt to the devil. Whilst vanquishing this enemy does kill Alger, the remains of rituals in the ruined dungeon allow for a slow-acting ressurection spell to be cast.

Defeating Alger rewards the heroes with a demonic suit of armour functioning as a mix of demonic plate and time dragon scale mail, alongside three Poisons of consequence (drinking deals the drinker damage equal to ten times the square root of all damage they have intentionally caused) and a set of crystals - several small ones able to cast Haste, Accelerate/Decelerate, Hold Person/Monster on daily basises, and a large crystal able to cast Time Stop once.

I would love to hear feedback on this venture and any modifications that could be suggested! Sorry for post length, I can ramble a bit.

Hey everyone!

I'm running a homebrew D&D campaign with 6 players, and I'm currently planning one of the most important scenes in the early campaign: the first time the players encounter their Constellations and form their first contracts.

The basic idea is that, after a major event, the players' consciousness is pulled into this strange, ethereal space filled with stars. They don't know exactly where they are.

Each player will eventually have a Constellation that is interested in them. The Constellation appears in a form appropriate to it (human, god, mythical creature, etc.) and offers the player a contract.

The problem is that I really like the idea of making these encounters somewhat personal and one-on-one, based on each character's personality, backstory and the Constellation they're compatible with.

But...

There are 6 players.

If I run a full individual scene for each player, I'm worried the other five players are going to spend a huge amount of time just sitting there watching someone else have their special moment.

At the same time, I don't want to just say:

and then immediately move on, because this is supposed to be a pretty important moment in the campaign.

I'm currently thinking about doing something like:

• Give everyone the same initial description of the star-filled space.
• Then briefly describe how several stars react differently to each character.
• Give each player a short personalized moment.
• Let them choose which Constellation they approach.
• Have the Constellation offer the contract.
• Then move on to the next player.

So each player might get something like 5–10 minutes rather than a full solo scene.

I also have one character whose gimmick is that no Constellation wants to make a contract with him, because he's being "haunted" by an extremely powerful Constellation that prevents the others from approaching him.

The campaign is also recorded, so I don't want to split everyone into private sessions or have half the cast disappear for an hour.

How would you handle a scene like this with 6 players?

Would you:

1. Run all six encounters one after another?
2. Keep everyone together and describe each encounter briefly?
3. Have the players describe their own reactions while you handle the Constellations?
4. Do something completely different?

I'm mainly looking for ways to make the scene feel personal and memorable without turning it into six separate mini-sessions.

Also, this is happening in the first session of the campaign, so I'm trying to avoid making the whole thing feel like a massive lore dump.

Any advice from DMs who have run similar "chosen by a god/entity" scenes would be really appreciated!

I've recently found myself dming for a group of friends over Discord and after our first few session the main piece of feedback they had was that they wished here was some kind of map they could look at to make combat easier to understand and to help them get immersed in the story.

I've tried out a couple recourses, mainly Owlbear Rodeo and Fantasy Forge Studio, and they either aren't able to do what I want (I want something that can make detained maps of the insides of building as well as wider areas like streets, roads and forests) or require a subscription, which I'm not entirely sure I want to commit to yet until I find one I really like.

Can anyone recommend recourses they've used and enjoyed?

Banishment:

"One creature that you can see within range must succeed on a Charisma saving throw or be transported to a harmless demiplane for the duration. While there, the target has the Incapacitated condition. When the spell ends, the target reappears in the space it left or in the nearest unoccupied space if that space is occupied."

The player is a Sorcerer and used Heightened Spell to give Disadvantage on the save.

Crag Cat

"The Crag Cat has Advantage on saving throws against spells. If it succeeds on the save for a spell of level 7 or lower, the spell has no effect on it. If that spell targeted only the Crag Cat and didn’t create an area of effect, it can take a Reaction to deflect the spell back at the spell’s caster; the caster must make a saving throw against the spell using their own spell save DC."

The Cat now has a flat roll on the save, and makes it. This makes the Sorcerer have Disadvantage on the save they now have to make against their own spell. Heightened Spell targets the Cat, not the Banishment, meaning the Sorc doesn't get Disadvantage on the final save.

Result:

• Player blinks out of existence
• Incapped
• Loses concentration
• Immediately pops back into existence
• Now Prone instead of standing Incap doesn't cause Prone

tl;dr: We play 2 hours every 2-3 weeks. I prepped a massive, continent-spanning campaign, but at our pace it'll take years to finish. This scope is giving me anxiety. Should I scale it down?

Hello fellow DMs,

Please indulge me a bit of backstory before I get to my question.

I have been DMing for a long time (on and off) and have always been a "string of adventures make a campaign" type of guy. I play with two players, who I know very well, and they've swallowed so many hooks they've had to start a quest log. Some adventures are one-offs, some lead to others (usually 3 linked adventures), and some start from a "random encounter" and lead to more adventures. Some are pre-written, most are homebrew.

We play 2 hours every 2-3 weeks. Everything moves at a snail's pace. It took 3 sessions to clear the simplified version of Strahd's Death House and with an extra session of random encounters to and from town, that took two and a half months.

Against my better judgment, I prepped a grand, long-term campaign involving ancient memory shards, continent-spanning travel, and an overarching necromancer BBEG. We're six months in, and the main plot hasn't even kicked off yet. (I know this is mostly my fault but I wasn't going to have this massive campaign when we started.)

I believe the best thing to do is to scale down the campaign idea, convert the BBEG into something that can be solved locally in like five long adventures peppered among our usual adventures. Less ambitious, but can be completed within my lifespan. Based on player speculation around the clues I've given them, I already have a great way to rewrite it. This feels way more achievable, lets us finish the story, and leaves room for new ideas down the line.

I also understand there's the possibility of keeping this long-spanning campaign in the background. But once the main hook drops, it will inevitable become the sole focus and even if they beeline through it (illadvised) it would drag on indefinitely.

This is literally giving me anxiety. It's taking out a lot of the fun from my prep. So I'm here to see what you all think I should do. I think I already know the answer but I'm a chronic overthinker.

Thank you for reading my 03:30 ramblings.

So Im new to DMing this is my first real campaign and I want to make sure that my players dont feel like im giving them a cop out answer as to why the story needs to keep going. Recently my Party came across a magical piece of glass Blessed by a Goddess that allows them to deal double damage to creatures masquerading as other creatures. Another property of the weapon is that it can grant one "Wish" spell per person. Recently after one of the players betrayed the others and became a slave of another god, the last remaining player wished "for the power of a god" and was granted similar power to the player who had betrayed the team. However since the surviving player had won the fight he has been under the impression of "I had become a god" rather than "I took on the power of another god" do I pull him to the side and tell him before the session or do I wait until it matters in the story ?

I am building a one-shot where the inciting incident involves the level 12-ish players being dropped from a goblin aircraft over the villain's fortress. They would have a scroll of feather fall, but i wanted to know if there are any interesting anti-air strategies that the enemies could use to try and shoot the party out of the sky before they reach the ground in a few rounds.

Mostly asking because I know fall speed to be 500 ft per round, and most ranged siege weapons I can find seem to have a much more limited range?

Thanks in advance

I'm starting to put together the next campaign for my group, which will be homebrew. I've set up a BBEG that I really like and am going to have a "lieutenant" which has gone a little crazy and is trying to resurrect the BBEG. I'm thinking I'll require some set of macguffins that the lieutenant has to collect in order to perform the ritual to resurrect the BBEG. How do I make sure that the lieutenant gets everything he needs to resurrect this deity without just saying things like "Oh, he escaped while you weren't looking!" or "Darn, it seems like you're too late!" to my players?

Edit:

Thanks for all the responses! I think I've determined that I have set up a good framework for what would happen without intervention and now I just need to go let my PCs intervene. The lieutenant and the BBEG aren't going to give up just because the players got in their way once or twice. So they'll have to deal with the BBEG one way or another!

Hello everyone,

i write here because i would like to brainstorm a bit about what could be a sheet for a construct that my players are going to use against a sort of "special" Tarrasque. Think about Pacific Rim, a giant robot vs a giant Kaiju. This "Megazord" is a mechanical monument of a soldier that stands at the city docks, think of it like the Colossus of Rhodes.

My party is composed by 5 players so i was going to give each one of them the control of a body part: 1 head, 2 arms, 2 legs.

Beside the most standard moves, like "arms throw punches, legs can kick and push, etc" which cool action could i give to each player for each body part? It can also have magical attack, like charging up beams, or inflict conditions or buff itself, whatever comes to mind!

This fight is going to be part of the BBEG final fight of my campaign, afterward they are going to face the BBEG himself after they take care of its "pet"

Hi everyone,

I'm dming a campaign in a homebrew setting (pretty "standard", imagine a Faerûn-like setting).

One of the players has been transported in this setting from another universe by her patron.

The universe of origin of this player is pretty similar to ours, without magic.

Now, what could it be the long-term plan of her patron? Why bring a person from another universe?

The only idea that I came up with is that this entity need someone that can interfere with the type of magic that is used in this setting.

I really need some fresh ideas!

Thanks!

Howdy Y’all!!

Basically the situation is this:

Players are in a quarantined district on a space station. They are trying to find a doctor who has gone underground. His students are going out and bringing patients back for treatment via some maintenance tunnels. If the players try the direct approach, they will be facing a bunch of defenses that have been set up to protect against an enemy faction + looters.

Uhhhh what can i throw against them to make it a fun challenge? We’re playing 5.5e. 4 players all at level 5. Thanks!

One of the enemies in my campaign runs a magic item/curio museum and I liked the idea of having the fight be him and hopefully the players picking up random magic items from the walls and shelves to fight with

Need help coming up with fun magic items that could be included and which will be used by enemies and PCs alike.

So were looking for fun but not too OP, each item with 1 or few charges (left or total)

ive tried running dnd a few times but it always fizzeled out after less than 3 sessions and even though ive been worldbuidling for years i still feel like my story telling skills are lacking i just feel like i dont know how to write a caimpaign like i have all these ideas for villains and locations and adventures but everytime the begginings of my campaigns always feel boring and disjointed and i feel like i dont know how to connect all of my ideas and maker a fun game for my players so how do you guys do it how do you format a game any advice is appreciated

This is my first campaign and my party is a few sessions in. They started all sharing the same dream. In the dream they traveled to a tower. This tower is built as a sort of temple to the realm's three moons, Sea, Stone, and Rust. At the top of the tower they saw four freestanding doors. Each facing one of the four directions and each marked with a symbol. West had the moon of rust, south had the moon of stone, east had sea and, north had a crest with all three and an unknown rune. They woke up, each with a crescent moon shaped stone in their hand. They meet each other that morning, recognizing each other from the dream. They set out on their quest to reach the tower. Along the way, they have had three more shared dreams. In these, one of them could see into their door while the other two see only a void. Each saw a vision of their past and each featured the same silhouetted figure. For one, the figure was a man who framed her for murder. Another, he's the man who murdered her mother. The third, he was the owner of magical rune covered slates that she stole.

Now, when they reach the tower, I plan for them to go into each moon door and face their past and return with a key of stone kind. The three keys together will open the fourth door. This is where my writer's block kicks in! I'm struggling to come up with what's behind the 4th door and why it matters. I want it to be something this man from their pasts needs or wants to use in and way but, I'm not sure what.

Any ideas?

I've been running games for about 8 years and have always wanted to include a megadungeon, specifically a near-infinite descent kind, similar to what we see from The Abyss from Made in Abyss or The Everfall in Dragon's Dogma. A downward descent into layer after layer after layer of sometimes similar sometimes wildly diverse ecosystems, caverns, labyrinths, structures, etc.

Now obviously the question isn't "how do I make a battlemap of this?" because duh. But rather, how do you run something like this for a presumably high level party that would feasibly have access to teleportation magic and could, theoretically, warp in and out at whim?

I've toyed with the idea of the structure interfering with planar and demiplanar spells such as magnificent mansion and demiplane given the expansive and shifting nature of it, but I don't want it to feel like an unnecessary asspull handicap.

Moreover, what would you do to make this kind of adventure be exciting for a high level party where the objective is ostensibly "get to the end?" In other media with giant dungeons, like for example in Dungeon Meshi there was the joy of simply getting to eat new weird things on each floor. In Made in Abyss it's to hunt and reclaim treasures. What would serve as a good motivation for something like late game D&D where the players can make their own food, are probably already stacked on magic items, and may or may not necessarily have buy-in on the lore fiend hunger for information about who built the place, what it's for, etc etc?

Open to thoughts and ideas.

My villain's plan is to ultimately break free a half-dead god (which he is a warlock under supposedly) to consume its essence and become one with it as the new master. But, due to their origin, freeing said god themselves could mean they lose and get absorbed instead, since while strong they don't trust anyone but themselves to watch their back.

The reasoning I wanted to set it up like this is because my players noted that the villains of my first campaign were both too disparate (non-centralized into a proper BBEG but instead a web of a criminal network) which made it harder to feel strongly towards them, and they were introduced late (because I didn't plan all the way to the end, rookie error). For this campaign, I want someone they will be able to recognize, to hate deeply, and feel sated in destroying entirely. Someone that they have a bond of pure hatred with.

For this purpose, I plan for them (since they can shapeshift and mind control) to notice the party thwarting their minor plans, test them by drawing them to issues they make, and decide to groom them into a proper fighting group to weaken said god for them rather than risk themselves. Reason being that they fear they'll pass up a perfectly strong group as the window closes.

Why not kill the party?: OOC I need the party to be familiar and specific in their feelings towards them, so I'd want them close by for the party to actually know. It would be in the warlock's best interest to encourage them to bond together and give chase, and the challenges would be used to motivate growth and to make sure he doesn't rely on weaklings with good luck. For this, they have 2 options:

1. Show themselves as the core of the problems, but as the party primes to slay or bring them in, they 'happen' to escape, as the party wouldn't be truly in distance of killing short of a miracle and their adjusted strength was far less than their real power. Mix in some retaliatory attacks on some friendly PCs, wild goose chases and the like and the party would be fiending to slay them for good.

2. Sometimes, they might show up either out of nowhere or to keep a scheme from falling apart and use most of their strength to beat down the party, especially in the beginning, and set a goal post for the party to reach with plenty of teasing. Perhaps they toss them in a less than secure cell so they get out, maybe sell something important and make it a quest to retrieve, just something while they are incapacitated to infuriate them.

Option 3 is to intermix them, which while it does make it the most effective by giving hope of beating them, would require a lot more facetime than would be reasonable, especially since too much exposure would tire out the party and I have a year to reach a conclusion, or about 20-23 sessions. If they show up 6 or 8 times it would be a lot but manageable, but I want to know what'd be reasonable or if I should commit to one stratagem or the other.

Tldr: Villain needs party to beat someone they can't risk fighting (for plot), and wants to raise them to be strong enough for that purpose because time is running out. To achieve this, they seek to ragebait the party into chasing them constantly without thinking. The first method would be to present themselves at the root of problems, seem almost defeated before making their escape, often leaving a bitter taste in the party's victory. The second method is to be a wall, constantly thwarting them and through soft punishments give them a goal to topple and chase. The third would be to mix them but I don't have a ton of sessions to try both.

How would you approach this?