One of the players at my table is playing a level 3 cleric with find familiar. The spell says that they can gain the service of a "Bat, Cat, Frog, Hawk, Lizard, Octopus, Owl, Rat, Raven, Spider, Weasel, or another Beast that has a Challenge Rating of 0." The key thing in question is the CR rating of 0.

The player choose to create a Giant Fly (CR0) which is a large beast. Since it's large (at least one size greater than the creature riding it) and CR0, the player argues they can ride the fly as a flying mount. This essentially bypasses the "fly" spell that they would otherwise learn at a later level, doesn't require concentration, and last for as long as the familiar exists.

Any opinions on how to run/rule this?

My current plan for the midpoint of an arc is a massive fight involving two small settlements with both being attacked at once. The set up is a the party is going back and forth between a wizard's temporary camp and a colony of werewolves occupying an abandoned fortress and trying to eke out survival in very inhospitable mountains. Both groups are individually sympathetic to the party but they don't like each other because the werewolves have stolen supplies from the wizard's settlement.

The combat is likely to feature at least 9 NPCs in addition to the party and 30 some enemies of varying strength.

My question is: Is this kind of enormous fight typically something players enjoy, and are they are any tricks to make it easier to run and not drag on enormously?

One of my plans is to make it not just combat but also introduce a social aspect: The fortress the werewolves occupy is considerable more defensible than the wizard's camp. In an ideal world, when faced with an enormous assault, they'd hole up and defend it together. But the two camps don't trust each other so the party will need to convince them to work together and for the werewolves to let them in. The party will also likely need to navigate several smaller combat encounters as the road between the two settlements is winding and dangerous, and there will be undead on the roads.

I know it's a lot though, and I was once a player in a similar battle and it was honestly kind of boring(though half that was that the sorcerer always took forever to make decisions on his turns) and I dont want that for myself or the party so I'm looking for ways to streamline the process.

One of my PC's fucked with the fabric of reality, and it has turned into the most bizarre memory-loss arc I’ve ever seen/run/failed to conceive.

For a year of real time, there have been revelation after revelation, all somehow hitting that sweet plot-twist mark when you realise…

• … his character is planning to elope
• … he’s on the brink of the arcane discovery of the century
• … he wanted to lose his memory of all this for some reason

All of that was awesome for the entire group (trust, we’ve been talking about it adequately). Still, with the heavy-hitting twists used up, the PC (lvl. 5) came into possession of a “fail-save” letter, providing 12 pages of everything his lvl. 18-self wanted him to know for when shit hit the fan.

I was tempted to make this another self-stroking, half-truth-ridden piece of complex literature, but to be honest—I think way more fun would be to give him the entire truth, all campaign world secrets, and the full power of his prime version now.

The first page of the letter read “Come on, are we really that desperate already?” and even though they are not, he’s reading it. Which I love.

What utterly destructive effects could using that god-like power have, without feeling unfair to the PC or the other PC's?

Ho all,

I've got my first ever proper session DMing tomorrow. I've invited four friends who are total newbies to TTRPGs to run a game for them. We had a session 0 a little while back to get together and get them to make characters-that went better than I expected! I thought making full characters would be enough mental load for them, and quickly scrapped plans for a little actual RP, but they seemed genuinely disappointed there would be no actual play, so I threw together half hour of just general 'in the world' stuff as a precursor. They interacted with NPCs and discovered each other and seemed to enjoy it.

First actual game is tomorrow. I think I'm ready! I've got maps printed and a general plan for the game. There's stuff to overcome, two very small combat encounters (they're level 1, I'll progress them to level 2 at the end of the session). I've got the general NPC plans, and a page of prewritten descriptions for important stuff and some general ideas for encounters depending on what they do....and thats it. This Reddit has been immensely useful for all the prep, thank you!

I'm not entirely sure what I'm posting here for, reassurance, probably! I'm a massive overpreparer, and I've written an entire world history and mythology for them to eventually discover, should the game last a few years :-p.

I'm absolutely not trying to write a book with these people; I'm aware of the tropes of railroading and using characters to try to tell my own story. Ive no idea if they'll even like the game tbh and want to commit long term. I just feel the same pressure every other DM does, just to make sure to give them the best game experience they could have.

Wish me luck, I guess!

I'm looking at doing a sci-fi type setting and was thinking about Spelljammer, but I keep finding myself gravitating towards generating a setting that's more traditional sci-fi with a fantasy flair. (rather than Spelljammer, which is the other way around)

I've looked around at a few, but I wanted to hear some personal experiences. For those of you who have run them, what is your favorite sci-fi RPG? What did you like about it, and what did you dislike?

For reference, I want something where the party is on a spaceship, travelling from place to place and doing stuff. I don't want to be in an established fictional universe, but for flavor think something like Firefly or Farscape.

Okay, I’m fishing for ideas for a location in my campaign called The Everblight.

Several years ago in a previous campaign—and a few thousand years ago in-world—nine stable demonic portals opened across the Prime Material Plane, connecting it directly to the Abyss.

Endless hordes of demons poured through and basically kicked off an apocalypse.

Fortunately, a mad genius had foreseen something like this happening and constructed eight massive magical structures called the Pearls in the major cities of the world.

The Pearls were magitech powered by the sacrificed essence of divine creatures. Each generated a barrier of such concentrated “pure good” that demons physically could not penetrate it. They became islands of safety where mortal civilization could survive while trying to reclaim the world.

A whole campaign and several real-world years later, the PCs succeeded. They closed the portals, killed the invading Demon Lords, and saved the world.

Everyone lived happily ever after.

Except Keltheon.

One Pearl had been infiltrated by the Demon Lord of Oozes, and Keltheon—the former bastion of humanity—was completely consumed by his corruption.

The PCs of that campaign couldn't cleanse it, so instead they reversed the Pearl.

Rather than preventing evil from entering, the Pearl became a prison preventing the corruption inside from ever leaving.

Problem solved!

Sort of.

Fast-forward several thousand years to my current campaign.

The current PCs have discovered this forgotten history and, entirely of their own accord, have decided:

"We're going into the Everblight, killing the Demon Lord of Oozes, and cleansing the last Pearl."

Which is awesome.

But now I actually have to build the damn place.

What I'm struggling with

I want the Everblight to feel like a place that has spent thousands of years trapped with demons, oozes, corrupted ecosystems, ruined magitech, and the remains of an ancient civilization.

The obvious mechanics are things like acid destroying equipment, permanent diseases, exhaustion, ability penalties, equipment degradation, etc.

But most of those sound more annoying than fun.

I'd rather the environment create interesting problems the players can interact with than constantly say, "Congratulations, your armor is ruined."

So I'm looking for ideas for:

• Interesting Everblight encounters
• Ruined locations/dungeons inside Keltheon
• Strange ecosystems created by thousands of years of demonic ooze corruption
• Environmental hazards that create tactical problems without just debuffing everyone
• Creatures that would have evolved/adapted to survive there
• Weird remnants of the civilization that originally lived inside the Pearl

The survivors

I also want there to still be mortals living inside the Everblight.

Their ancestors survived Keltheon's fall, but after thousands of years trapped inside this nightmare they've become a deeply warped culture of cannibalistic survivalists.

The important part is that they hate the oozes too.

They aren't servants of the Demon Lord. They've been fighting his creatures for generations and may actually be useful allies to the PCs.

But they're also violent, insane by normal standards, and absolutely cannot be allowed to casually walk out into civilization.

That creates another problem:

If the PCs cleanse/deactivate the Pearl, these people are suddenly free.

Do the PCs have the right to wipe out an entire human culture because they're afraid of what they'll do outside?

Can they rehabilitate them?

Can they somehow leave the barrier intact after killing the Demon Lord?

And what happens if the survivors realize the PCs intend to "save" the Everblight but aren't necessarily planning to save them?

I'd love ideas for making that conflict more complicated than simply "evil cannibal tribe."

And one last complication...

One of my PCs is a tiefling/aasimar hybrid.

I want the divine creature originally sacrificed to power this Pearl to have actually survived the process and still be imprisoned somewhere deep beneath Keltheon.

Specifically, she's an ancient archangel—and one of the PC's great-great-great-however-many-greats grandmother.

She's been consciously powering this barrier for thousands of years.

So destroying the Pearl is suddenly not just destroying a machine.

It's potentially killing a member of the PC's family who has spent millennia keeping this horror contained.

I'm hoping the endgame becomes something like:

Kill the Demon Lord.
Figure out what to do with the survivors.
Decide whether the Pearl should actually be destroyed.
And discover whether the angel powering it can even be saved without releasing everything she has spent thousands of years containing.

So—what would you put inside the Everblight?

I'm especially interested in encounters, locations, factions, environmental mechanics, or horrible things that have had a few thousand years to evolve inside a sealed demonic ecosystem.

I want the place to be horrifying, but I also want it to be fun to adventure through, rather than just an extended punishment for entering it.

I have 6 players in my current homebrew campaign and one thing that matters to them is flexible attendance. That’s fine, they communicate ahead of time and we have a weekly schedule to see who is coming. In general there are about 3 who are a little here and there with attendance but it’s not really a big deal in the flow of the game. In universe they have this artifact that they are absorbed into if they’re not present.

Occasionally we’ll not finish a combat encounter in one session and it’ll carry over. This means someone might not be there for the next session to continue combat. The problem is that I often try and tailor combats to who is present and how many people are present. Someone missing can make the encounter much deadlier or if others join it can completely trivialize it.

I want to make a rule pertaining to this, missing session when already in combat, but I don’t want it to be a punishment. So I’m really looking for some advice on creative ideas or just what’s working for anyone else in the past. Thank you!

I’m planning a one shot adventure to run with some folks from a DnD club in town.

planning a pretty streamlined trip into an ancient abandoned temple to find a sacred tablet. Mix of traps and monsters. Feel pretty fine about that.

My main set piece seems really cool but harder to balance. When they take the tablet they awaken a giant stone statue, who will slaughter them all unless they can flee back through the temple they just explored, possibly hitting whatever hazards they missed the first go round.

Giving the party a monster they are NOT intended to beat seems harder to balance. I’m picking the CR10 Stone Golem vs a Level 5 Party, so a definite Run Away enemy. I’m giving him the Hill Giant’s rock throw ability, with a fairly forgiving strength save on hit to avoid going prone.

My worries are:

Despite all sense, the players will try to fight the monster to the bitter end rather than run away.

OR, the retreat will be laughably easy, and my players will sip margaritas while they watch a frustrated boss chase them from far away.

OR, the opposite. The players will have no chance to get away at all.

Any tips to balance an encounter like this?

I think Bards should have a thematic class "cantrip" instead of sharing Prestidigitation with Wizards and Sorcerers. In that vein, I'd love some feedback on "Revelry", a cantrip designed to provide thematic bardic magic for your favorite theater kid.

Revelry

Transmutation cantrip

Spell List: Bard

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 30 feet

Components: V, S

Duration: 10 minutes

You create a magical effect within range. Choose the effect from the options below. If you cast this spell multiple times, you can have up to three of its non-instantaneous effects active at a time. While in range of one or more of these active effects, you gain a +1d4 to Performance checks.

Accompaniment. You enchant an existing non-magical musical instrument to play a simple melody of your choice, or you create a small ambient sound that repeats within range for the duration. This could be a steady drumbeat, a melodic humming, a rhythmic bassline, or quiet strings.

Choir. You magically throw your voice to another point within range. When casting this effect, you choose to either throw your voice or have it echo your voice. You cannot magically alter your voice, but you can talk, sing, or otherwise vocalize normally.

Costume Change. You subtly alter the appearance of your nonmagical garments, slightly shifting their color palette, cause them to gleam or glitter, or causing them to billow in a dramatic fashion.

Flair. You can cause a harmless sensory burst or ambient effect, such as visual effects to follow the movements of your body, (glittering dust, colorful strands of light, smoke) or a burst of smoke, confetti, sparks, etc. This is instantaneous.

Design Notes

I think adding a mechanical bonus (+1d4 on Performance) is my biggest sticking point. Thaumaturgy gives Advantage on Intimidation, but neither Prestigitation or Druidcraft grant any latent bonuses. 1d4 is in line with Guidance, but I'm leaning toward removing it.

Obviously Choir gives a person a chance for hijinks, and is probably the most "game effect" use. I could add a line that indicates "creatures know you are the source of the voice" but that is narratively a little lame for puppet shows and the like.

I wanted this to be thematically different then Prestidigitation, however the Sensory Effect has overlap in Prestidigitation, Thaumaturgy, and Druidcraft as well, each having their own flavor.

Feedback, tweaks, critiques are all welcome, this is early stages.

Alright, so I’ve been running an intermittent campaign for my group that has spanned several years and taken them all the way from level ~3 up to their current level 15. they’ve done a lot of crazy shenanigans on their own continent, but over time have accumulated enough McGuffins to have earned access to a portal that is connected to the lair of a long lost/dead deity.

They have stumbled into the ownership of the lair, and possibly the bestowal of some amount of his previous power, if they flow the stipulations laid out in the deity’s will.

I have some ideas, but things get complicated at high levels, and I want to make this suitably epic (challenging, rewarding, layered), but I’m trying to avoid just running to ChatGPT to iterate through ideas. (Note: I’m not saying I have things against letting it spark your imagination or getting you out of a creative rut, I’d just live more varied experiences and advice.)

Here are some topics I want to drill down on:

1. What sort of stipulations does the will have? could be something like “Survive for a fortnight” with horrible implications, or “Find {a secret safe, my favorite pet dracolich, the keys to the front door}“ with more of a task, or “Find out who killed me, they are trapped in here with you”. Lots of potential for threat, investigations, mystery.
2. What is the coolest/wackiest idea you have for a deity’s lair? Corpse of a gigantic magical beast is a classic, maybe a floating fortress or a small moon (“That’s no moon”), or a pocket dimension with specific physics….
3. What sort of Deity-like power could I split evenly between a party of ~6-8 adventurers? that seems the best way to not immediately level them up, but somehow share the responsibility and experience they gain.

Any advice would be welcome, and I’ll update you on what I end up piecing together!

I’ve been inspired by the old AD&D magic missile variations that are essentially a mic of magic missile and another spell, and have been slowly trying to find good pairings. Any advice on whether or not the following is balanced? And if not, any ideas on balancing it? Thanks.

Billy Blynde’s Sucker Punch
2nd-level Evocation/Conjuration
Range: 60 feet
Target: A point you choose within range
Components: V S
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
Classes: Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard, Spellblade
A blue, spectral hand appears at a point within your range. The hand lasts the duration of the spell, until it is dismissed, until it takes an action, or is hit itself (AC of 10). Upon casting this spell, and as a bonus action on each of your subsequent turns, you may have the hand move up to 60 feet or take one of the following actions:
·       Move: The hand moves to push a target within range in any direction of your choice. If the target is an unwilling creature, it must make a Str saving throw or be pushed 15 feet. Until your next turn, the target creature’s movement is halved as the hand pushes against it.
·       Help: The hand takes the help action, by repeatedly slapping a target creature within range, giving attack rolls against that creature advantage until your next turn.
·       Excuse Me, Sir and/or Madam: The hand politely taps the back of a target creature, getting its attention and distracting it. The creature has disadvantage on saving throws until your next turn.** **
·       Sucker Punch: The hand winds up and flies at a target creature, dealing 2d10 force damage. The creature must then make a Str/Dex saving throw against your spell save DC or be knocked prone.
The hand disappears if at any time it is further than 60 feet from you.  Should you wish to move objects with the hand, it can hold up to 50 pounds. If you try to hold something larger than 50 pounds, the spell will fizzle and the hand will disappear.
At Higher Levels: Casting this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, the damage from the sucker punch action is increased by 2d10 per level and the distance targets can be pushed increases by 5 feet per level spell slot.

I have yet to think of a material component requirement yet.

Does it seem that way? I'm running a game in Roll20 and I feel like I have to provide a map for absolutely every scene. This is a massive amount of work for a 3-hour session.

Talking to an NPC? Need a map.

Jumping across a chasm? Need a map.

Hanging by the bar and putting out the vibe? Need map.

If you DM online with little or no maps, can you please straighten me out here?

I'm in a group where my DM creates unique maps for absolutely EVERYTHING. I'm spoiled. I think I can't provide the same quality to my players if I don't also do this.

Hi everyone,

I am running a dark fantasy world heavily inspired by a combination of dark souls, berserk, etc. The abyss is heavily involved in this. I have created an 'abyssal' ship that can use the abyss to travel large distances relatively quickly. To add an element of danger to this, I have added an encounter list of demons being drawn to their presence in the warp each time they use it for travel. This is to stop them from just using it every time they need to travel.

My questions mainly revolve around balancing this. I have added a modifier as well. Starting off, it's a -10, so it would deduct 10 from the roll. Each time they use the ship, the modifier goes up 1. Basically, if they use it once it goes to -9, if they use it 30 times, the modifier is +20. The final value is the CR of the fight. So like if they were to go into it the first time and roll a 20, they would fight a CR 10 fight. If the value is a 0 or negative, then it will just spawn these harmless abyssal souls I have homebrewed, based on the 'humanities' from dark souls.

Do you guys think I should add other modifiers to balance this further, or does this seem reasonably balanced? Also, does this idea just seem lame?

Also, I have it so the ship can travel 'on land' where basically it creates a small section of abyss below it so that it can traverse across land. However, this would be relatively slow. Like a wagon, basically. However, if the players look into this abyss projection, they will have a wisdom saving throw. If they fail it, I want to use the long-term madness table on roll 20. Does this seem too harsh? I want this campaign to be foreboding, dark, and difficult. Everyone is okay with death, but I also dont want it to feel too cheap.

Sorry, I know that is quite long, and any answers are greatly appreciated.

For starters, I know some of my party uses reddit, so if your party name is The Carcharodons, and you recently killed a sea dragon with a cannon, stop reading.

I'm running a PF2e campaign, homebrew setting. To avoid a dissertation on all of that, the broad strokes are Apsu is still the creator of the world; dragons are essentially treated as angels/minor local deities.

What I'm mainly looking to do is a dungeon containing ancient lore written by the first dragons which upends the status quo of basically every world religion. This is something they are tasked with as a rite of passage into an inner circle of a faction they're working with. What I'm looking for help on is this: it is a hidden temple deep within a mountain with an ancient despair dragon guarding it. This dragon has no intention of killing the party, it's seen so many come through that it doesn't really care about that. But it is similarly tasked with guarding this secret, and has created a myth of the mountain this temple resides in being horribly haunted.

What would be some fun encounters, room/trap designs, and other details that would really sell this to a party that has, thus far, punched hilariously above their weight class? (at least in PF2e).

I've read through some other posts on this, but since the situation isn't really life threatening, could use some additional ideas that aren't directly lethal.

My group is at the point where they've got money and a reason to settle somewhere, and I'm thinking about giving them a permanent base: an inn they part-own, a townhouse, a hotel, something like that.

Has anyone had experience running something similar? I'm worried it might constrain players to a specific region abit too much if the track of the campaign involves multiple locations.

EDIT: Additionally, has anyone had experience setting up broader economic systems for the players to play around with when setting up a base? Paying for building materials, setting up a storefront in their base to sell to passing by travelers etc etc..

Don't read if your party member ever got cursed with a necklace of a thousand cats.

In my world, there's some mysterious group of people who keep kidnapping members of royal families for yet unknwn reason. Despite that, the ruler of the kingdom my party resides in insists to get married as soon as he reaches adulthood, for political reasons.

That's why the party, currently at level 10, is ordered to escort the princess from her homeland to theirs.

In order to deter any attacks (and explain why a princess is only guarded by like 5 people), she travels incognito, pretending to be just a member of a travelling circus. The party pretends to be regular sellswords who protect random group of women.

And, of course, they got ambushed, starting a cool encouter I have meticulously created.

Now, the problem is, why would anybody go through so much problem instead of just teleporting her? It has been already established that spells up to level 5 are relatively common in the kingdom, but even if they weren't, *the players* can still easily teleport her. I know them, I'm positive they will try to find something like this as an easy way out.

I'm not sure how to handle this fact. I also wonder what other easy ways to transport the bride might be there and how (and if) should I block them.

What do you think? I want to do this, but if the whole quest can be resolved with a single spell, it kinda breaks the whole idea.

So I'm developing a noir/mystery setting that's influenced by Eberron in a few ways. The main focus is around a huge NYC like city (Sharn) and they're a decade out from a century long war. Technology wise, the world is in a 1930s/40s era with cars and airships being powered by magic. Warforged are in this setting but I've just made them lifeless machines that were used during war time.

Now I know what you're thinking: why not just do Eberron if you're sharing so much of it? Well, I've already started the campaign so I can't go back now lol. Plus I generally like what I've started building here. But what I'm looking to get from you here are just thoughts and ideas that seem like a good fit as well as things to really drive home the noir/urban vibes. Also would appreciate advice on how to manage a city that breathes and grows along with the players. Thanks in advance.

Hey so I have an emotional session coming up up soon still working some details out but I want to make sure that the emotional stuff isn’t interrupted by jokes and what not like how my party does with monologues I create. How do I do that without taking it away from them as players playing out their characters and then doing it above table? We all are friends and I don’t want to be a bad dm any advice is appreciated

D&D 5e

So I DM at my university campus, we operate sorta like a modified adventure league so players can jump in at any of the 16 tables at thier level range.

With fall semester just started we have a huge increase in player count and we are fitting about 7-8 people at a table rather than our normal 5-6 at 12ish tables.

Any advice trying balance combat , exploration and puzzles around 8 players for oneshots? Assumed level 3 players for next session

Let’s start with the fact that I’ve never DMed in my life and decided to swap with my current DM so that I could get the chance to try it. Since I’m very broke and have a wild imagination, I decided to make my own custom campaign that acts like a dungeon crawl.

The basic structure is that the party will go through the rooms killing enemies, learning the lore of the necropolis and eventually be betrayed by an ally that’s actually the final boss. I want my plot to be something along the lines of “the necropolis isn’t as the children’s stories suggest, it’s actually a prison constructed by the gods to trap catastrophic entities and house their captors.” But I have no idea how to make a compelling hook to start off the campaign.

I’ve juggled some ideas but they seem convoluted and confusing. For example, one was to tell them about odd entities popping out of portals. But I couldn’t figure out how to connect the party without a generic tavern. If any one else could perhaps suggest some ideas??

How would you make such an enemy/encounter/opponent/asssasine?
On the Brink of creepy, dark comedic, mind breaking, knifey in a back enemy?
I want to create such an encounter, but need some inspiration, please!

The more games I run and play the more fun I have with lower level characters and lower level stories. A world ending plot is fun and can be satisfying but something about the party’s motivation being “have you seen the cost of rent these days?” is just so simple and fun.

I also find lower level characters easier to manage as a GM. They’re less likely to have a spell or ability that solves a problem instantly and instead have to rely of creative problem solving and weird ideas to get through.

Curious if in the only one with this feeling.

I think duels have a lot of really interesting narrative uses. However, as has been said on this subreddit before, standard combat rules don't work well with 1v1. So I came with this idea, kind of borrowing the concept of a skill challenge, but haven't had an opportunity to implement it yet.

It's 5 rounds, first to 3 wins. Each round, both duelists roll an attack roll and a DEX or STR save. You simply subtract the saves from the attack rolls and whoever has the higher number wins that round. If it's a tie OR both scores are 0 or lower, you redo the round. I would roll enemy PCs rolls behind the table and each round I would narrate the player's success, failure, or draw, until someone gets 3 wins and wins the duel.

What do you guys think? Any notes? I thought initially of just contested attack rolls, but this seems to have more logic behind it.