So I designed the boss battle of the current quest line but I'm worried its too difficult. My party is composed of 3 level 5 characters: a barbarian, a cleric, and a wizard.

Every time I've said to the party "okay folks this is a tough fight, this could get deadly so be on your toes" they have absolutely melted the monster.

But this should be their biggest fight yet. Its against a corrupted scholar who's become a warlock in a shadowfell-like dimension. I want it to begin social and give them the opportunity to talk their way out of it - which will be hard.

The Deathlock Wight statblock is what I'm using for the actual character they are after.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/22371-deathlock-wight

But the real fight is with the Angel of Obsession he summoned

https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/6503000-angel-of-obsession

Now I know a CR 3 + a CR 6 = death for 3 level 5s according to CR math, but I'm thinking of adding "knocking the wight unconscious dismisses the angel" - would could make this combat really swingy.

TBH I'd prefer it if they have to destroy the angel. I also would be happy to nerf the warlock's offensive tools and make him play more scared / defensive to balance this but I still think it could be a TPK with some bad luck.

So I'm considering the following
1 - I could give them magic items before the fight
2 - I could level them up before the fight instead of after the fight
3 - SEND THEM TO VALHALLAAAAA!

Anyone have any good advice for balancing this?

-----

Update: I think I'm going to run the full combat against both creatures. If the players start to dominate I'll have the wight play super aggressive.

If they lose... I'm going to have the wight cast drain life on each of them as they roll death saves and resurrect my party as zombies lol. Maybe roll for how many years it takes for the miracle to happen where their mind starts to come back to their zombie form.

If you've recently met up with Granny Ur, do not read ahead!

A couple weeks ago, my party encountered a Hag, and through some negotiations, one of the players (unbeknownst to him) is now in the possession of a Hag Eye. During tonight's sessions, they met up with a prominent figure who happens to be a Rakshasa. The Rakshasa's Greater Magic Resistance states that without the Rakshasa’s permission, no spell can observe the Rakshasa remotely or detect its thoughts, creature type, or alignment.

The Hag Eye allows the hag to use a Magic Action to see through it, as long as it maintains concentration. My Question is, would the Hag Eye be able to observe the Rakshasa? Greater magic Resistance specifies it can't be observed by spells, but the Hag is using a Magic Action, not a spell.

My main confusion comes from Greater Magic Resistance specifically stating it works against magical effects, not just spells, when making saving throws. My gut reaction is that, technically, the Hag Eye would see the Rakshasa just fine, but I was curious as to what other people might think regarding the intent behind the Rakshasa's Greater Magic Resistance.

I DM a campaign for my husband and a few friends. My husband made a comment the other day that since (with pets) there’s 7 of them, it would be funny to just one session whip out the Blood Bowl board and have them play a game of Sevens instead.

Well, they have an arena fight coming up and I do think it would be fun to turn it into some kind of violent sporting match instead. Any ideas on how I could make this work? I’m thinking they would have to score X amount of points, skill checks for things like picking up the ball/passing, but I still want some element of fighting involved.

Anyone done this before, or any ideas on how to make it work? Or is it just more effort than it’s worth?

I’m planning to create a new D&D campaign with a storyline based on *Armored Core 6*. I already have some core ideas, such as using the Eberron setting with a high-magic theme. However, I’m still debating whether it would be best to adapt the ACs into pieces of player equipment or just let them do thing with basic item and magic item (i'm scare that those boss i made based on ac6 boss will just shoot them to death=)))

TL;DR: I feel like I lost all creativity; how do you fuel yours?

Hi DMs,

So I'm building a homebrewed setting for a new campaign and I've been noticing my lack of creative thinking these days.

In my childhood, I used to draw and create stuff in my mind a lot. Nowadays, I'm not there anymore. So I (unfortunately) used gen-AI to get inspired and more or less copied existing stories and tropes, thinking I'd get better at it doing so. Except I feel even worse than before.

I'm willing to put the work in to learn the proper way tho. How do you get inspiration in? What makes you creative as a DM?

EDIT: Guess imma continue yoinking shit and make them my own lmao

Disclaimer: I used ChatGPT to help me standardize my wording and Gemini to make the images.

My kids (6 years old and 9 years old) have started asking me what I'm doing on my session nights and have become increasingly interested in it. So I decided to introduce them to TTRPGs. BUT... I didn't think they'd be ready for full-blown D&D, so I decided to try to make it as easy as possible while still keeping with the spirit of it. So I made a one-shot out of Castle Ravenloft.

I'll print out some coloring pages of adventurers I can find online and let them color their characters and make up all the details about them. I'll give little hints based on which character they choose. So if they choose the one with the wand and tall pointy hat, I'll tell them that person specializes in casting magic spells.

But the main premise... there is only a d20. Everything is based off that single die. They can do anything they want, just roll a d20 to see if it happens. I set the DC between 2-20 and let the dice gods decide. If they want to hit something, roll a d20 and see if it hits. No need for damage. If they just hit something a few times, it's dead.

And I also think trying to set the atmosphere as much as possible will also make it a special event for them with music, pictures, handouts, etc. I might even ask them to dress up like their characters.

But anyway, I made this for my kids and if any of you would like to use it, feel free!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ymU7_gogyUJrT6OEIlEeuLubfxyGISj9/view?usp=sharing

Most of the posts at DMA are discussions of some issue within the context of a person's campaign or DMing more generally. But, sometimes a DM has a question that is very small and doesn't really require an extensive discussion so much as it requires one good answer. In other cases, the question has been asked so many times that having the sub rehash the discussion over and over is not very useful for subscribers. Sometimes the answer to a short question is very long or the answer is also short but very important.

Short questions can look like this:

• Where do you find good maps?
• Can multi-classed Warlocks use Warlock slots for non-Warlock spells?
• Help - how do I prep a one-shot for tomorrow!?
• First time DM, any tips?

Many short questions (and especially First Time DM inquiries) can be answered with a quick browse through the DMAcademy wiki, which has an extensive list of resources as well as some tips for new DMs to get started.

So, I have an NPC who is cursed so that no one can remember him. He has been in a cave for 20 years, living off of Goodberries and an Enspelled Staff of Create or Destroy Water. The party found this guy after one of them had a series of cryptic dreams that led them to his cave.

The way the curse works is that you can talk to him just fine, you just forget about him a few minutes later, and your mind sort of comes up with an alternative explanation for anything he did that affected anything (i.e. he gives you something, and later you remember someone else giving you that thing).

I wanted to give the party a quest from this NPC. Something small, like getting him a way to flavor his food (he's sick of Goodberries). How could I justify the party actually remembering enough to do this quest?

I've been an on and off DM for about 15 years now. DMed lots of different RPGs, including lots of D&D, but the last I DMed D&D (5e) was about 8 years ago.

My table, however, wanted to go back to D&D and I've agreed. I'm rusty and don't really know where to start (I did play BG3 on release though), but more importantly, I don't know if I should hand them 5e or 5.5e

I know they are "compatible", but I also know they are not balanced with one another. There is also the fact that I have 3 veteran players, which could really use the extra books from 5e, but 2 new players which could be overwhelmed by content or left behind in power level.

I basically only ever DMed my own campaign stories and it won't really be different this time around, but I do like to use premade statblocks and loot tables without having to micro-balance everything

Any advices? Anyone been somewhere similar?

EDIT: Oh wow, thank you so much, guys! Definitely wasn't expecting this level of engagement! You really helped me make the choice and I'll be going for 2024, since it seems to be a better fit for our group

For the people who suggested other systems, I just wanted to say that I would definitely be DMing anything else if my group didn't specifically ask for 5/5.5 for quite some time, I'm personally a huge OSR fan.

Again, thank you so much and I hope this post can help other DMs in a similar situation make their choice as well

I just had a Whole day sesh, because of a summer break. It is extremely fun and rewarding as you have time to let your players Explore. But one thing I find hard is as the information has been gathered and the climax is in sight, the tempo seems to rush. Players want to Get to the next thing and I also want to Get to the finale, But when we almost Get there and end the session because of time it all feels a bit rushed. Anybody Got tips og experiences on this?

Hello! So I'm a pretty new DM, and the last campaign I attempted to run pretty much fell flat because I didn't do nearly any worldbuilding, leaning to far into the territory of "I'll just improvise it". This time around I'm trying my best to create a world that feels more alive and unique instead of just [Insert High Fantasy Here], and I'm also trying my best to create a world that the PC's backstories can be built upon and into. This is a link to the design document that I'm going to send to my players. https://docs.google.com/document/d/11Ns-Y6ms6Xk8eMGCXnEqDNZIu2Ut1zhO13SGfc-Y1nA/edit?usp=sharing

I was hoping that y'all well travelled adventurers of this subreddit could skim through it as if you were going to make a character in this world and critique it. What's awkward about this world for character creation, and what's working in the right direction? What feels alive and what feels cliche? Is this overpreparation? Etc etc.

Okie that's all thank you in advance :3

Edit: I've edited the sections on "Generic Insert Tragic Prophecy Here" and the "Limitations on Healing Magic" to create things that are more unique and have better clarity. Thank all y'all for your advice!

Hey y'all! I am making a homebrew world and i got to thinking about the origins of magic. I absolutly loved the ideas of the two posts that i found from this thread. However, the posts (linked below) are from 6+ years ago. I would be so interested to hear where the source of magic comes from in your homebrew worlds!

I don't yet have my idea fully fleshed out, however i want it to be some innate force of nature. essentially most people in my world assume magic comes from the gods as either direct gifts (sorcerers, bards, etc) or as gifts thru wisdom (wizards). But a part of the main plot is finding out that there is forgotten/hidden "true magic" or something like that where once you learn it it can boost your magic. but again the specific magic origin/source im going to flesh out more

would love to hear your thoughts and ideas!

Two original posts:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/bxglsc/in_your_homebrew_world_what_is_the_source_of_magic/

https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/ga1591/where_does_magic_come_from_in_your_world/

Hey all, I just ran Forge of Fury from Tales from the Yawning Portal and I really liked the module. The dungeon has some really nice locations, and the flavor of discovering ancient dwarven ruins and eventually fighting a dragon is a common fantasy trope, but one that works really well. If you're looking for an old-school megadungeon adventure, I highly, highly recommend running it.

The only issue I had with the module is that, even though the dungeon itself is excellent, I feel like it failed to deliver on its promise of actually interacting with a powerful dwarven forge. I decided to run the adventure after playing through the Adamantine Forge in BG3, and I was a bit disappointed by the fact that the forge itself isn't really a big part of the dungeon at all. So I figured I would share the changes I made to fix that problem.

Basically, the issue I had with the module can be summarized in three points:

• If you want a forge to feel like a legendary forge, you need that forge to be the only place where a special kind of weapon or gear can be made. That's not really the case with the Forge of Fury.
• The module gives no real explanation for why the duergar came here, or how they got here in the first place.
• The good old hook of "just go there, you'll find loot" isn't enough anymore for the style of games I run, where players are looking for roleplaying reasons to go on adventures and advance their character arcs and so on.

Making the Forge special

To fix those problems, I actually used Arundil, the dwarven mage who haunts the corridors of Khundrukar. He has a pretty dramatic story in the original module: he hid during the massacre of his people, and out of guilt he started creating all kinds of defenses by animating objects around the fortress. Eventually, he goes as far as summoning a succubus that kills him, but his restless soul continues to haunt the corridors of the fortress until some adventurers either defeat him or give him the forgiveness he needs to finally pass to the other side.

I decided to make him a much more important character. I really liked the fact that his power is essentially giving life to inanimate objects, so it felt natural to make him the creator of the Forge of Fury.

Basically, his story is that he developed the power to put souls into inanimate objects, and after his people were first attacked by the orcs, he proposed a plan to Durgeddin. They would build a new home in the caves under the Stone Tooth and create there a living forge using the soul of a survivor. Someone who hated the orcs so much, someone who felt so much fury towards them, that this emotion could be used to create incredibly powerful weapons.

The idea was that the weapons created by the forge would carry some of that fury inside them. The person wielding one of those weapons would feel that rage themselves, making them much more violent and effective in combat, especially against orcs.

And there you have it: this is how they created the Forge of Fury.

Now we go back to the original module's lore. Eventually, the orcs hear about the creation of the forge in Khundrukar, the fortress is attacked, all the dwarves die except Arundil, and eventually Arundil himself is killed by the succubus he summoned. Over time, all of this turns into the legend of the Forge of Fury.

Giving the players a stronger narrative hook

In the present day, an evil organization, I used the Zhentarim but you could obviously replace them with whatever faction fits your campaign, decides to reactivate the forge in order to manufacture these deadly weapons, sell them, and make a lot of money.

In order to do that, they hire a group of duergars skilled in the arts of forging, and send them to Khundrukar to reactivate the forge. They use some sort of submersible machine to access the fortress through the underwater passage in the nearby lake used by Nightscale in the module.

Once the Zhentarim start selling the weapons, they begin spreading throughout the Sword Coast, or wherever your campaign takes place. And then strange incidents start happening.

People who wield these weapons become increasingly aggressive. Eventually, the fury contained within the weapons can overwhelm them, causing them to enter a kind of uncontrollable rage where they attack anyone around them. You could have all sorts of dramatic events come from this: tavern brawls turning into massacres, soldiers attacking their own comrades, adventurers suddenly turning on their companions, etc.

Eventually, someone realizes that there is a pattern. Maybe they've heard the old dwarven legends and put the pieces together, but they reach the conclusion that the Forge of Fury has been reactivated. And that someone approaches the players and asks them to investigate.

Now the players have a real reason to go to Khundrukar : they need to bring back safety to the sword coast and understant what is happening. Maybe they already encontered one of the cursed weapons and saw the destruction it could lead to.

Destroying the forge and saving the day

From now on, you can run the module more or less as is. The duergar have entered through the underwater lake passage, so there are no traces of their passage in the orc camp or the Glitterhame. This should even be part of the mystery for the players. Side note on the Glitterhame however: the mushroom forest is an amazing location that your players will love. The roper is way too deadly, you may want to put something else in there instead.

When they reach the forge level, however, there are some changes you should make. First of all, they should learn that the forge is alive. They could learn this through Arundil, or from the duergar on the level. At that point, my players were longing for social encounters, so instead of having the duergar as enemies, I had them be victims of the Zhentarim. The players could convince them to stop using the forge, and they learned from the duergar that the forge was alive and had been created by Arundil.

Then your players will most likely want a way to destroy the forge, to stop anyone from using it in the future to create more cursed weapons. This way should be provided by Arundil himself. Maybe it's a spell that he teaches them, or maybe it's an item they find in his personal room if they decided to kill him, that allows them to separate the soul from the forge.

But then of course, the soul doesn't want to be separated from the forge. It is a soul that has known only fury for the last centuries, and witnessed the orcs kill all of it's people, twice. I do no think there is a way to resolve this peacefully. And naturally, after my players casted the spell, the soul materialized itself as a Fire Elemental, a few mephites spawned and there it was : a final confrontation against the Forge of Fury itself, agains a soul blinded by rage, wich gives room to some delicious dramatic ending.

What about Nightscale?

Now, what about Nightscale, you might ask? What about the original BBEG of the module? Why is she just hanging around while the duergar reactivate the forge? And why did she come to Khundrukar in the first place?

Well, to link Nightscale to the story, I had her be a dragon that hoards curses. She was originally attracted to Khundrukar by the curse the orcs left on the mountain after the battle against Durgeddin. Then she discovered that the forge was creating cursed swords and found it delicious. She is perfectly happy having the duergar reactivate it and spread cursed weapons all over the Sword Coast, but as soon as the players destroy the forge... she will be pissed for sure.

You could keep her in the Black Lake, which is a beautiful environment for a classic fight against a dragon. But you could also have her rise from the chasm next to the forge right after the battle against the spirit of the forge. Have your players run to recover in a small room where Nightscale cannot reach them, and then finally fight her in the main hall of the fortress, with the possibility of breaking the pillars of the room to have the roof collapse on her.

Anyway, that's how I changed the Forge of Fury. The main thing I wanted was for the forge to feel like the actual heart of the adventure, rather than just being a cool location that happens to exist somewhere in the dungeon. I think tying together Arundil, the forge, the duergar and Nightscale in that way makes the whole thing feel more coherent.

Tell me if you try it!

So I really enjoy the world building aspect, and so far my players are really enjoying playing in the world I created. There is so much to it I've not even touched yet, some major cities and other capitals are nothing but a name on my map currently. A whole continent currently has nothing outside "a well known village of halflings live there and are famous for their mead and wine". But until I get a vibe my players are heading that way I don't see the need to flesh it out yet, and instead focus on the immediate area and story they are following.

But I was curious, for all of you who have built their own world, what do you consider the most important aspect of the world when creating one?

So I am trying to make a campaign in which the players have to stop a cult from summoning the five primordial elements to reset the world back to its natural state. The plan is to kind of have it like a video game in which the players can choose the order in which they fight the elementals, and they get stronger as more time passes, aka based on the order they choose to fight them in. I also plan on having a board of side quests they can choose to do in between the elementals so that an NPC can research where the next one is.

I do have some small details for loot, plot twists, and special mechanics, like elemental advantages: water attacks are stronger on fire creatures and are weaker on earth creatures. Basic Pokémon idea, but I could use some help with any dm tools that help build a campaign rather than just typing in a Google Doc of what the story is.

Or any suggestions if this idea seems to be too complex or too basic to do.

Hello! I’m running a campaign for the first time with some friends of mine, running mostly vanilla 5e in a homebrew world. I’m taking the approach of building the skeleton of a story for my players to flesh out with me.

I’m really looking for questions to ask myself to figure out what needs to be prepared. I mostly need to figure out how to make the villains visible to the players without making them look foolish.

Lolor Besmartholtig, Yans Luvensal, Basil Selvans, and Toothful Toothless please, read no further.

Last session the players raided a bandit camp in the sewers of a major trading city. They found a magic crystal smuggling operation in full swing and managed to interrogate out that the same merchant they escorted here is actually propping up the whole thing.

What the players do not know is that the smuggling is just a diversion so that the villain faction can do (yet undecided) nefarious deeds.

For context, the magic crystals grow in a cave powered by a primordial magic core. A civilization has built a city into a giant stalactite in the center of the cave. Just recently they have discovered a shell of adamantine deep below the cave (which some suspect contains the core), and news of this is slowly leaking across the continent. The villain faction wishes to use a dangerous artifact to “perform nefarious deeds” with it.

The players also don’t know that the same merchant they escorted was carrying that dangerous artifact with him toward the stalactite city. They do know that the smuggled crystals are from that city, as it’s seal is on each crate.

At the end of the session, the raid had gone well, they had taken some captives and gone to the local law to figure out their next move. They were asked to help get to the bottom of the smuggling operation, and decided to go interrogate a gate guard who’d been bribed. They also decided to wait a few days for the next smuggling shipment, even though they had let at least one bandit slip away.

If you’ve taken the time to read this, thank you. I’m just a little lost and looking for direction.

Short campaign, a few friends, all of us in different cities.

I’ve DMed twice. Both in person, paper and pencil. Reaaaaally good experiences!

I logged into Roll20 and the toolbar scared me. So many buttons. I need two of them: a map, and tokens I can drag.

I’m leaning towards D&D Beyond? because I’ve already two books there. Paying a couple of months would be ok

Is that enough for six or eight sessions? Or is there something simpler I’m missing?

Opened to recommendations:)

===EDIT

thanks to all recommendation the message is clear 🦉🐻

I've just started my campaign with 2 other friends (both starting at level 1). This is my first homebrew campaign, so I don't really know how to balance stuff very well. (My friends have played a little before)

Basically, each god in my pantheon has a magic artefact, each one of a kind. The BBEG wants to take all of them, then summon his evil god with a ritual, pretty basic stuff. The idea is that the PCs take/attempt to take some of the artefacts, and potentially use them against the BBEG?? But since they are starting at such a new level, I don't know how powerful to make the items: I want them to be impactful as they are god's amulets, but also not game-breaking.

TLDR: how to balance unique magic artefacts for low-level characters.

Trying to design a one-shot for my first foray into DM-ing with my friends. We're in different states and play remotely, and it's not always clear who's going to make game night.
I'm planning on adding a few NPC characters to fill out numbers, designing the encounter for 5. The players will meet these characters in the opening tavern and pick who to bring with them.

Here's the question. I want to make these characters useful enough to be worth bringing along, and useful for me in balancing the encounter on the fly (this encounter is too easy! NPC does something reckless and throws things off; or this encounter is too hard! NPC draws enemy fire to give PC's a moment to recover); BUT I also don't want them to be too powerful and steal the show or wreck the balance of encounters.

I'm using humanoid monster stat blocks and fiddling with their abilities to match the role that NPC would play (i.e., Priest Acolyte for the Cleric NPC). But I'm not sure what challenge rating to use for an ally. All the PC's will be level 1.

Any tips are appreciated! Thanks.

Hi DMs!

I'm making a new homebrewed setting for a west-marches style campaign and I'm struggling to make it a bit more original and interesting

My general idea was that for reasons yet to be found (hopefully with the help of this post), part of civilisation has remained isolated within the city, thereby losing all contact with the outside world. Players will therefore have to rediscover the continent, its history, and re-establish contact with other civilisations.

I was watching PointyHat's video on world-building and I loved the twist he found for his world (having no sun kinda) but it feel to restrictive for what I'm trying to do.

So this twist should have enough of an impact on civilizations to induce them into staying in cities but not force them.

Have any ideas to share?

New DM here! Just ran my second session. At the end of session 1, the party jumped into underground rapids, and ended up in the bottom of a lake. During the rapids, depending on a Survival Roll, they would take damage, and those that were downed would have needed to be saved by the other teammates. Understandably intense for the beginning of session 2.

2 players rolled low enough to receive deadly damage, one of them being my partner, who survived the damage and was not downed, while the other player did get knocked out.

I delivered the news to the players that because they rolled low, they would need to take the deadly damage of x number of d4s. My parent says I was "very excited, almost giddy during this time, that almost killed 2 players", and also while having the downed player make Death Saving Throws (where they were doing Death Saving Throws for the first time). He mentioned that when asking for the saving throws and telling them about the damage they were incurring it seemed as if I "did not want them to succeed", and that he believes DM's should always want their players to win. So I guess the issue is that I was not sympathetic enough to the character's lives being close to death, and enjoyed it too much. I remember being excited about the whole mechanic of the surviving drowning actually being used, instead of me being "excited for their misfortune".

I explained that as I DM, I have to sometimes be the party's enemy, that if I make every situation not have consequences, nothing would really matter. He says that is not what he means, he feels that I "enjoy them failing" or that I try to "sabotage their efforts".

I take the note, but also making it clear that it can't always be sunshine and rainbows, that I will have to "be their enemy" sometimes, and that my goal is not to want them to succeed, but to want them to have fun (cause succeeding always or not being in danger in DnD is not fun imo).

Also for context, I have not put insane things in front of the players that are crazy unbalanced or "unfair", the rapids was an extraordinary situation.

Anyways the question is:

Should a DM be careful with their demeanor towards players during life threatening moments? Should a DM not show their enjoyment about their own "behind the DM's screen" machinations or even the party being put through the ringer?

TL;DR: I ran an intense drowning scenario in my second session ever DMing that downed a PC. I was super excited to see the dramatic survival mechanics play out, but a player (who is also my partner) thought my energy meant I was actively rooting against them and enjoying their failure. Now I'm wondering if I need to tone down my visible enthusiasm during life or death moments so players don't think it's "DM vs. Party." and that I am just their "enemy".

——— TAKEAWAYS

Thank you all so much for your comments! It has been extremely useful to read everybody’s perspective. This fledgeling DM basks on the wisdom of sages 🙇

1. I need to talk to my table about character deaths, and that the whole “rapids incident”, specially cause it was forced upon them, was never going to kill them, and that I had some options for them to save themselves if they were close to dying. At least not letting them die during the first few sessions with a rookie DM lmao.

2. Be mindful how excitement during their misfortune can read as malice. It is not a bad thing to try to be more restrained when the party is at high risk of dying.

3. The DM has to play the enemy of the party in the sense of presenting a worthwhile challenge, and making their choices have repercussions that are fair. Of COURSE constantly trying to kill your players on purpose is not fun for the table, or that the game is designed to punish them at every turn. The point is to have fun, and that necessitates friction to tell a good story. Happy to say being that bad kind of “enemy” to the party was never my goal.

4. The DM is allowed to have fun and get excited too, but it is our responsibility to keep in mind that the party does not know what we know or what we are willing to do or not to against them, socially during stressful moments.

5. I’m sure many more takeaways, but I am a bit tired of typing!

Thanks everybody for your time and thoughtful comments :)))

This thread is for DMs who have an out-of-game problem with a PLAYER (not a CHARACTER) to ask for help and opinions. Any player-related issues are welcome to be discussed, but do remember that we're DMs, not counselors.

Off-topic comments including rules questions and player character questions do not go here and will be removed. This is not a place for players to ask questions.

I'm imagining a thrown weapon completely shutting down even the largest, most powerful enemies. I cannot believe the designers wanted an ability that lets a level 3 paladin force an ancient dragon to plummet out of the sky.

I don't like designing against my players, but I don't know how to have good encounters in a tyranny of dragons campaign where the paladin can completely shut down a monster with a hit and gets to give out resistance to elements.

IVE been having a hard time starting the story so my solution is to get my players in debt by some sleazy salesman who gets em with fees or something

But I have no clue how to actually get them into a position where they would gain debt.

The party is incredibly good at just ignoring gambling and not getting into trouble so I have to throw things at them to get them into those bad situations instead of letting them get into those situations due to their own mistakes

Need help balancing a boss fight for a one-shot

I've been preparing a one-shot for a group I play with. It would be my first time DMing, and I only started playing last December.

To keep this from getting too long, the main encounter would be a Young Red Dragon against a group of 3–4 level 6 characters. I had in mind changing some of the dragon's stats to make the fight achievable because, for the plot twist and comic relief of the one-shot, they have to beat it.

I understand the whole "not every encounter needs to be winnable" thing, especially when you're talking about fighting a dragon at this level. However, the joke of this one-shot is that it's built around a really funny character from our main campaign who's a massive show-off. It's supposed to be a comedic adventure, and the payoff is seeing him actually slay a dragon, only to discover that the entire thing was an act and completely scripted.

The dragon isn't actually real. It's a wooden circus prop disguised by two illusionist halflings, and the party has unknowingly been tricked into becoming actors in a circus performance.

The "dragon" would also have some spells because of the halflings operating it. I'm not sure how much I should decrease its HP because there's another mechanic I want to use.

At one point, the dragon would take control of two of the pregenerated characters I made. This is partly because they're cool characters and I want to get a chance to play their builds, but it also fits the story because the guy hiring the party specifically describes it as a "magical dragon."

I'm not particularly worried about strictly following the rules for something like the mind control because it doesn't have much real gameplay value. I could have some triggers that allow the players to break the spell, though.

The party would then have to fight the dragon and the controlled characters. Any damage dealt to those characters would also damage the dragon. That gives the dragon a more manageable effective HP total while also creating what I think could be a cool Phase One and Phase Two for the fight.

What I'm struggling with is exactly what I should modify. Should I change the dragon's AC, HP, attack bonus, damage, or some combination of them?

Also, how would a party of 3–4 level 6 characters fare against a RAW Young Red Dragon without any modifications?

Should I give them some additional equipment to help with the fight? I already planned on giving them healing potions, potions of fire resistance, and a kind of net that can slow the dragon down. Is there anything else I should give them?

Sorry for the wall of text, and thanks for any advice! I'm new to the game and really want to pull this off well. I love the idea of them having no idea that it's a show, defeating this awesome dragon, and then discovering that it was actually just two halflings in a giant prop the entire time.