It’s my first time DMing so I don’t want it to get too overly complicated in terms of spells and abilities etc so I’m thinking 3. But I know people also sometimes start with 5. Any suggestions + reason would be appreciated!

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.

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.

Hi, I will be a first time DM soon and preparing a lot at the Moment.

I know it's sounds trite, but iam a little bit anxious when it comes to the first session. I fear that I can't keep my Players motivated. I know all of them since years. But being a good DM will be hard.

Any advises how to deal with this?

I have a player who benched their old character and brought in a monk with a +2 halberd. The weapon is sentient and has a name, but can only communicate non-verbally - gets heated up when it's angry, shivers with anticipation before a fight, droops with disappointment if the fight is resolved with diplomatic means etc. All of this is just for flavor, the only mechanical differences is that Monk can use it as a monk weapon, since they have been fighting together for a while and the halberd has adapted to the monk's fighting style. Overall, using the halberd is a slight nerf since it still uses the monk's strength modifier (they have 10 in strength) so on a hit they make 1d10+2 in damage. The group is level 10 so the monk usually makes two halberd attacks and then makes an unarmed strike as a bonus action (or uses flurry of blows).

The halberd was once a person, but the player left it quite open to me who it once was and what happened to make them into a halberd. Since the halberd's got such a temper I've decided that they were once a barbarian, I have a short background in mind and knows who it was who turned them into a halberd but that's not relevant here. I am thinking of ways to power up the halberd, and thought that if Monk attunes to it (currently they aren't attuned) the halberd could go into a rage and share that rage with Monk.

It would be twice a day (up to DM to decide when since the halberd is technically an NPC), last for 1 minute or until the halberd isn't used to make an attack during a round or is stowed/knocked out of Monks hands. The monk could partake in this rage for:

• Advantage on strength saves/checks
• +2 damage bonus to attacks made with the halberd

Monk would not be resistant to bludgeoning/piercing/slashing damage, since that feels too overpowered without taking barbarian levels, and I feel like the partaking in the halberd's rage would improve their physical offence but not their defence. Monk would still be able to cast spells and concentrate on spells while the halberd is in a rage.

Do you think this sounds broken? Anything else you would change/add to this homebrew?

2024 edition simplifies a few things, but it mostly expands on what is there and adds new elements. When it last happened, people called it "Advanced DnD" so I see no reason why shouldn't we do it here. It'd also make it easier for the new players - rather than deciding between two systems they do not know and possibly choosing the more complex one, they'd just choose the original 5e, as it is (in my opinion) much noob friendlier

Many adventures start in an inn and for a good reason: it provides a timeframe to introduce PCs and dive into the game before an "actual" deal starts.

Instead, I plan to start my adventure in the barn with the same role, where I can start moving pieces and properly set up an actual beginning before anyone can notice. So I would like you to take a look at my notes and say if I plan to manipulate the players too much. I'll welcome any suggestions as to how can I improve this plan.

ANNOUNCED REULES: you are not allowed to take any light equipment. You will be told what your character sees and feels, but you won’t be explained what is actually going on until it’s too late — that is for you to figure out.

INTRODUCTION:

Our story happens in the small town of Willowwoods, on the Night of Lost Souls. It is celebrated on the Autumn Equinox when the other worlds subtly sneak into the world of Men and the dead wander the earth.

To prevent anything bad from happening during the night one must follow five simple rules:

1.    Don’t talk to the strangers

2.    Don’t answer to anyone who knock on the door less than three times

3.    Don’t call dead by their name.

4.    Don’t leave your home after dark

5.    And above everything else ALWAYS have a lit candle

On that night, a group of travelers was allowed to stay in the barn for the night — the Protagonists.

The barn stands on the hill away from the house of its owners and down below you can see the cemetery on the edge of the town. On the other side, there is a meandering river running into the forest.

In front of the barn, there is a tiny animal grave with “Oliver” written on the tombstone.

Inside, over the door of the barn, there are nailed 5 horseshoes — for good luck. Further, stalls host two pigs and a cow.

Hospitable people allowed you to stay here for free and provided you with a single short candle.

DM NOTES & PLANS:

Protagonists will be given a chance to follow the rules. But they will break them by their own choice. And they will pay.

Each time the Protagonist breaks one of the rules one of the horseshoes falls — seemingly from rusty nails and rotten wood, though Detect magic with the Perception DC 15 allows you to spot the faint traces of Abjuration — the school of both defensive magic and its undoing.

 The candle is enough to last them through the night as it sits deep in the candleholder. But the “above” part seems too short and burns too fast.

 Here is the plan to make Protagonists break the rules:

1.    Protagonists ARE strangers to each other. If they talk with each other, they are already breaking the rules.

2.    After some time, the owner of the barn comes to check on the group and cries to them from the outside to open the door… without knocking at all. He also brought them a few roasted potatoes as a dinner and wanted to dump them as fast as possible, because they turned out to be hotter than he expected, and he couldn’t hold them any longer. He seems like a nice man, though the Protagonists agreed to take the barn with his wife and never saw him before.

3.    Immediately after, a mute & lame street vendor with lively eyes and curly hair, after a triple knock will try to sell them anything of the below. If anyone decides to examine the vendor Perception DC 13 allows them to notice that he has a hoof instead of a foot inside his shoe. After the trade happens or not, the vendor leaves.

He sells roasted chestnuts, a clay bottle of ale, and a creepy little doll with button eyes, that somewhat resembles one of the Protagonists (the first one who asks how it looks) He also agrees to exchange his hooded lantern with the magical glowing stone inside for a candle and 5 silver coins.

4.    Some more time passes and the dirty, but playful cat sneaks into the barn — their collar reads “Oliver”. It purrs, engages, and worst of all is very fluffy. But Oliver casts no shadow behind (Perception DC 10) and scares the shit from the cow and the pigs. Yes, saying his name counts for breaking the rules.

5. Finally Protagonists hear some drunk voices outside and people who barrage and curse "everyone stinkhole who sits inside the barn", calling them to get out and solve the problems with fists or else "they are so scared that they can only cry under their mother's dress". Of course, two drunkards are no challenge for an adventurer if someone decides to prove them wrong. But when they stroll into the darkness the protagonists could notice as two drunkards merge into one.

Immediately after things finally start to get interesting: the wife of the barn owner knocks on the door three times and cries for help. She came with her husband to check if their son was there — one minor note is that the barn owner looked nothing like the man who brought them potatoes. And potatoes if checked turned into dirt clumps, wine, and chestnuts (if bought) — into the puddle of mud and living snails, the hooded lantern dissolves into the swarm of fireflies. 

The son is not in the barn and nowhere to be found. The dark corners start giggling and the barn walls — shake. The cow starts talking and mocks the woman into a breakdown saying that his son is in cemetery grounds, inside an old willow tree — and that she will never see him again.

In the event that the cow is beheaded over its words, its head won't stop talking and laugh.

As a backup version, Oliver the Cat will try to lead the Protagonists towards the Cemetery.

The moment they crossed the threshold of the cemetery grounds, the Protagonists who broke all five rules found themselves in the "same but wrong" cemetery in the Feywild. They are trapped there, thus beginning our adventure.

Those protagonists, who followed most would be left behind. However, the hangman on the old willow tree will come to life and give them a choice to follow the rest.

For context, they have a shared backstory. The Artificer is an old man who found the Warforged completely destroyed washed up on the beach. He rebuilt it himself and now they’ve gone out adventuring together.

My player says because his character is an old man, he doesn’t care about getting stronger and would rather sacrifice some of his perks to make the fighter much stronger. He said he wanted to sacrifice his own levels or something like that. I'm not going to do this but I’d rather come up with a more elegant solution.

Now, to address a few things:

1. I offered for him to just use his downtime to execute projects to buff him, but he said narratively the idea of sacrificing his own power is just as important.
2. Just giving the Fighter all his infusions or something of the sort is also too limited.

I’m usually a total stickler for game balance, but imo when a player is this excited about something I’m absolutely gonna enable that fantasy. The Artificer player is also an experienced player (like myself) so I trust him to handle this well.

And before anyone asks, we’re all mature adults so of course I’d check in with the party, push back when necessary etc etc. I just need ideas on how to PRACTICALLY implement the mechanics of this. Would love to hear your ideas, thanks!!

Edit: Edited to clarify that a level imbalance is not, and was never on the table. Looking for advice non related to that thank you.

Hi,

So I enjoy the anime very much and would love to make a DnD/tabletop version of it. However, I would love some help. The idea I have is the following: Players are reincarnated as a low level monster. This is determined at random (can be by rolling a table or by drawing playing cards) Aside from the skills that monster already has, they also gain a number of extra skills based on the player's personality (I believe Rimuru has like 2 skills that aren't immediately linked to his slime form, Great Sage and Predator). I think it would be fun if fellow players could think of them. But I am a little lost on how to streamline that.

Once players all have their monster characters, they awaken in a cave where they get a monster mentor and names them (which is the names the players chose ofc).

But I would love the help with character creation, if you guys can? Doesn't necessarily have to be with the dnd rules, but I am well known with them hence my preference for them.

Hello. My party is currently traveling on a riverboat and are about to be attacked by a bunch of monsters. Other than the party there's also fifteen crew members, who will participate in the fight. I'm looking for some tips on making the encounter go smoothly and not take two IRL sessions, as well as some ideas on making it more memorable.

Some details of the situation:

• The boat is traveling upstream and is being pulled by a group of oxen from the shore. Half of the crew will be defending them, while the rest will remain on the boat to support with bows/crossbows.
• The point of attack will be in a narrow part of the river, blocked by some trees cut by the bad guys.
• The enemies will consist of Black Spider the Dreider, some Ettercaps, wolves and giant spiders.
• The only two people on the crew who can be an actual asset in a fight are the first and second officers: one is an ex-pirate officer, who will be commanding the boat team, the other is a Half-Ork who really doesn't like anyone hurting his animals and will be technically in charge of the ground team, though will likely be too busy raging to do any actual commanding. The dwarven captain kind of sort of knows his way around the axe, but is not really of a warrior. The rest of the crew are hired sailors with experience in bar brawls and fending off the occasional river pirate, but not a full on assault by monsters. There's also a dwarven merchant, who really doesn't want to be there and will most likely be a liability, but his pride doesn't allow him to hide under the deck.
• The players believe that Black Spider wants to kill them for humiliating him in the eyes of Lolth and being turned into a Dreider in consequence. In truth he just wants his staff back, but is more than willing to murder anyone in his way. Once he has it in his posession he will retreat and leave with the giant spiders, leaving the wolves and Ettercaps behind.

I'm planning on not rolling for individual NPCs, save for the two officers, but rather group them together and use mob combat rules with them, same with the enemies. Should the players focus on one group rather than splitting their attention I won't even roll the other one - without the players aid they're doomed to fall after a few rounds. My players are not the fastest decision makers, so anything that speeds up the NPCs turns will be most useful.

I already have a map, but I want to put some fitting symbols and text on it, are there any free, uncomplicated map tools for that floating around?

So I'm trying to create a homebrew setting, but I have a hard time coming up with ideas when nothing specifically transitions/prompts an idea, and so I'm looking around for tools to sort of help build/flesh out a world. I saw a post about a game called "The Quiet Year" which is a game about creating a map of a community that gets built from the ground up over the course of a year. This sounds like a super helpful tool, except it only really works for like one singular town, and I'm looking for something larger in scale. Is there anything similar to this that would work more for like a continent rather than a city?

So, if you don't know what this is, she is basically completely unable to see ANY Pictures in her head. She just learned recently, that she has it and most others can imagine pictures in their heads. She can't and therefore had some troubles in the past already because when I describe something, she know what I mean, but can't really "see" it. So with more abstract things she has problems with following what I'm trying to describe.

So, turns out that this isn't that big of a problem overall, but the only thing that really stopping her is, when I describe things she doesn't know (For example, we're in the underdark currently and she has no idea what this is) and also, when the group is getting in an encounter, she feels completely lost, when I don't provide a battle map.

So... I map pretty often already but I just can't cover everything. Its just way too much work. I need ideas how I can help her. I already try to find reference pictures etc but sometimes its hard to find something. :/

So as a DM, I used chokepoints in one of the combats that held four of my five players unable to effectively attack the two enemies while they honed down on the frontline. One of the players didn’t enjoy the fact that the four PCs couldn’t do much, and that this dragged the combat longer than it should have.

Eventually, I hinted them that they could retreat to a larger space and induce the enemies to come out of the chokepoint. (in this case, the enemies had motivation to follow the PCs out.) We are pretty early on in a campaign with low levels, so I wanted to show them how they can think of tactics to overcome certain situations, rather than just trying to hit.

What other methods can be used to overcome chokepoints? Or is there not really any, so is it a bad encounter to run if I want all players to feel included in combat?

Hi there! In the campaign that I run, the players are heading to a high security library where they are trying to find out more about a magic book. I thought it would be a fun and unusual encounter to make them all grapple with a bureaucratic nightmare of having to go around getting different paperwork, stamps etc to get into the right room. Does anyone have any suggestions for how this could be done, puzzles that could be included etc?

I know this may sound like an unusual thing for a game, but I think it's the kind of weirdness my party would vibe with!

I’m a first-time DM running a campaign with a group of complete newbies to D&D, and I planned what I thought would be a relatively simple encounter... But, wow, things did not go as expected. Let me set the scene for you:

The players had just finished in Orestes Tomb (Theros, no silent secret), and outside, I had placed some bandits—hoplites, they are a Cr 1/4 from Mythological creatures supplement—guarding the area. I figured there were plenty of ways they could handle this: sneak past, negotiate, or fight. I thought it was a well-balanced setup:

• Two bored and distracted hoplites guarding the door (easy stealth kill opportunities).
• Two more hoplites a bit further away, ready for a fight if things got loud.
• On top of a nearby hill, three hoplites and their captain, Xanagas, were camped out. (hoplite captain, cr 3)

I had several outcomes in mind:

1. The players could try to talk to the bandits, realize they’re outnumbered, and maybe surrender their loot.
2. If they fought, I expected them to easily take out the first two guards, then deal with the others in a manageable fight. If the players proved too strong, Xanagas would retreat with a promise of revenge.
3. They could avoid the bandits altogether by sneaking around.

Simple enough, right?

Here’s what actually happened: The party spent 10 minutes discussing what to do about the hoplites. Meanwhile, I rolled to see if the bandits noticed them—turns out they did. The hoplites started shouting, giving the players a chance to make a move. Instead, they kept talking.

Finally, the barbarian decided to attack. Combat began with a surprise round in the players' favor, but due to bad dice rolls, they couldn’t kill any of the hoplites in the first two rounds. The paladin, plagued by dice misfortune, didn’t land a single hit during the entire fight.

To make matters worse, I rolled three natural 20s for the bandits. One of the hoplites managed to run up the hill to alert Xanagas and his squad. Things spiraled from there:

• The barbarian went down first.
• The druid unshifted to cast a weak spell and ended up getting knocked out as well.
• The paladin and rogue decided to flee, with the paladin barely surviving due to terrible luck.

The whole fight I roleplayed the hoplites very defensively, dashing around and taking defensive stances. Not always attacking, even if they could.

I roleplayed Xanagas ordering the looting of the unconscious players, and he sent a hoplite after the fleeing duo. The rogue managed to kill this one, but the paladin—still suffering from bad rolls—couldn’t land a hit.

After looting everything they could, the bandits left, and the two survivors revived their unconscious teammates. The adventure continues, but I'm left wondering...

What do you think? Was I too harsh for their level (all level 2)? Was the encounter poorly balanced? Or was it just a combination of bad luck and newbie decision-making? I'd love to hear some feedback from more experienced DMs.

Party Composition (All Level 2):

• Angmar, Minotaur Barbarian
• Elengwen, Wood Elf Druid
• Pentesilea, Half-Elf Paladin
• Thespios, Halfling Rogue

I'm having a lot of fun running my 5e game with minions from 4e and random encounters in the hex crawl style. I love taking things from other games / media and repurposing them. What have you borrowed for your game?

I'm half new to DMing and want to add in training to get feats in my new campaign was thinking like if the PCs train once a day (long rest) they gain a point per day (long rest) and once they have like say 10 points they gain a feat and the next time they need 15,20,25 ect. The only thing I'm worried about is making feel to grindy. I know there's actual rules for this but I feel they take too much time. Any advice on adjustments or a different system?

We're almost 2 years into an amazing campaign (I'm dm) that started with all intents being the journey of an expedition to find a lost temple. Somehow we discovered our home nation's government is ran by a religious zealot cult and is borderline nazi like in their disregard for any non-humans. Us being a party of not humans have openly rebelled, led the port town we met into open rebellion and burning. Then helped a cursed pirate with a deal with said government to never sail again, set sail. Sailed to another port town, killed a prince of another nation, got framed for killing an important knight of another nation, started a major 3 way war with our nation and those two nations. At some point during that found out the elf who is the only non human, head of government is also a vampire and the high priest of our national state religion. Ran away, found out our nation was conducting bad experiments on people for super soliders in the back country, our wizard got half the party killed. Then we ran through the realm between realms and used a hidden gods only access tunnel to get to another forest. Ended up in the fey wild where we found a pirate hoard and got a cool star map. Met our current pirate friend's old navigator who has beef with him, made a deal to get her elemental wheel. Now we're rushing to stop some evil druids who worship a giantess from doing an evil ritual to unbind her from the fey wild. Oh and we think the original people from our world that all disappeared ages ago are also trying to find their way back to our world. Only because the new party wizard got his spelljammer munched by a space shark/ship and his crew driven mad by a witch/wizard lady who needs a hairbrush stat.

So I as the dm have to ask... obviously my players are having fun because they show up. But is it important for the journey there to make sense if the destination is, "worth it" ? Also as DM, Should I be this bothered that I'm not really sure what's going on any more? Or should I just focus on making sure I know what my bad guys are up to and let the players continue to steer this ship down the wrong end of the one way stream? My players watch a lot of live play dnd, and while I love CR and D20 + others... I 100% am not that tier of dm. So I worry I'm not doing a good job or the campaign isn't good because it's definitely not as strict with it's plot or direction.

Surprisingly we don't have any murder hobos, it's just a group of good hearted but often misguided thrill Seekers.

My group has been in a bit of a DnD break and have been talking about starting up again but I have yet to have a setting or module that really stands out. We’ve done most of your usual suspects from Wizards of the Coast stuff on DnD Beyond (Strahd, Saltmarsh, etc.) and I’d love to start checking out some more 3rd party creations.

So, if you were starting up a new campaign, and wanted to use a setting that’s a bit more unique, what would you go for?

I’m looking to expand my collection of books and items. Outside of the core rule books, dice tower and screen etc. what’re the coolest or most useful random things to buy?

Hey guys,

I had the gollowing idea , to add to our new campaign. I titled it "Heroic Actions". This base idea is to give youre PC more opportunity to have badass character moments , like last stands finishers etc.. it woud obvs. be a very very sparse currency something you gain at lvl 1 and then at ebery 4th or 5th level.

I woudnt wanna nessesarly keep it at just a "auto-succeed one roll" ,, my first Idea was to let every PC have to possibillity of one "epic action" best example beeing a PC making their last stand to buy time for the rest. Rules wise they might be just oneshooted or swarmed to death until they have their turn , while i wnat them to have the possibilty so say ill go out with a bang giving them some agency. Its not nessearly meant a bonus stat in a video game more like a cool scene in a show or panel in a comic.

Any ideas how i coud realistically introduce a system like that? The most easy awnser probably beeing a Legendary Action just for players.

Hey vetetan DM's! Curious if anyone has some earlier edition (pre 5e) spells I could give my lich. Kinda think it could be fun to flavour that it's been around a long time with earlier edition spells. Suggestions welcome!

I want my players to be able to harvest magical cores from the bodies of slain monsters to be able to sell them for extra cash or use themselves if they want to get creative. Though I'm not sure if the prices I set are good or not given that my world has an adventurers guild with quests in it.

My current rules are as follows:

Fraction star monsters don’t always have a core in them, chance passed on dice roll depending on fraction: 1/4 star = 4 side dice roll for called number by harvester

Core prices can vary to some extent depending on the monster such as dragon cores being more valuable than other cores of the same rating

1/8 = 5 cp

1/4 = 8 cp

1/2 = 2 sp

1 = 5 sp

2 = 1 gp

3 = 5 gp

4 = 10 gp

5 = 25 gp

6 = 50 gp

7 = 75 gp

8 = 100 gp

9 = 150 gp

10 = 200 gp

Any and all thoughts and advice is welcome and thank you for your time.

What are some spells and items that would be good for a twist villain puppeteer. I want him to be the jester for the king on the outside while in reality he’s the one who is magically manipulating the king.

The DMG lists prices for courtier's clothes (30gp + 50gp jewellry) and noble's outfit (75gp + 100gp signet ring), but how much would armor fit to impress the nobility cost? A set of plate armor costs 1.500 gp, so I would expect at least 2000gp for a gilded / heavily embellished set.

I ask because my players are a party of thieves in a major city, and I expect that they will want to move among the nobility at some point. I want to emphasize the historical importance of dressing to fit in with the upper class, and also give the players a good money sink (fancy clothes to impress the nobles).

Reasonably, wearing armor in public would not be allowed in the city and especially not among the nobility. For realism, I should force my players to forgo their armor and just wear class-appropriate clothes. But that would be no fun!

How would you go about "dressing for nobility" while allowing amor? Maybe the armor itself can be fancy, or maybe there are accessories that would allow them to pass for nobility. Any ideas would be very appreciated!

The title basically says it all, but my DnD homebrew world is having a god change from one domain to another and I want that change to also be reflected in what kind of creature or monster, they are. Currently, they are a gold dragon. What would be fitting for a god of avarice and want?

My party may be entering into the more shallow layers of the Underdark soon to hunt down a lycanthrope. What are some encounters/creatures that could challenge them and really show how dangerous the Underdark can be?

The party is all level 6 and consists of a Barbarian, Paladin, Druid, and Monk. Everyone has a +1 weapon of some kind.

Hi y'all, back again for the 1,000th time to pick your brains :)

My players are planning to intercept a skycoach in Sharn (Eberron) in the next session to break out two prisoners who have crucial information on the whereabouts of a criminal gang's keep. I've been trying to approach our worldbuilding a little more collaboratively with my players so instead of laying out a map or giving too much information off the bat in the last session when they were coming up with a plan, I said "think about the action you are taking - you are planning to intercept a skycoach full of sharn watch guarding two high value prisoners as it transits from the lower to middle ward of Sharn. Your objective is to break the prisoners out. Tell me what you think the scenario would look like - what kind of equipment and pre-planning would you need to do, where would you plan the hijacking, and what are the steps you'd need to take?". The only concrete direction I gave them was that 1) a larger skycoach could only fit 5-6 Sharn Watch if it had two prisoners on it, but given the small size and high value they could expect more proficient sharn watch than usual, and 2) in a standard skycoach, the cockpit is in a walled off section in front, and they use civilian pilots who can be hired throughout the city.

The party are all level 3 right now and is made up of a Kenku Artillerist Artificer, A Shifter Gloomstalker Ranger, a Human Pact of the Fiend Warlock, and a Changeling College of Creation Bard. Here is what they came up with (which I love, for the record):

• They have bought a bunch of grappling hooks, ropes etc.
• Disguise themselves as nobles and rent a skycoach for a day (~250-~350gp)
• The Ranger (who has enough water vehicle proficiency, and who used to ride on his mom's airship) will pilot the the skycoach.
• They are going to get out ahead of the prisoner movement and hide the airship on the underside of one of the bridges between Terminus and the Citadel (lower and middle wards of Sharn, respectively)
• As the prisoner transport skycoach passes over the bridge, they will use a fog cloud to conceal their approach and come up behind it, getting the Artificer within 30 feet of the cockpit.
• Once the Artificer is 30 feet away and can see the cockpit, they will misty step inside, incapacitate the pilot and open all doors of the skycoach.
• While the Artificer is doing this, the Ranger will reposition the skycoach with the party on it so that it is a short jump/easy to board the prisoner skycoach.
• The rest of the party will board the ship, free the prisoners and escape, either by getting back on the original skycoach or using their feather fall tokens to jump out. It will be up to them to decide if they are killing all the guards or trying to go straight for the prisoners.

So a few things I now need to figure out:

• What is the composition and individual features of the Sharn Watch who are guarding the prisoner. I'm thinking one captain who is a heavy with commander's strike and rally, one wandslinger with a few cantrips and 1st level spells, and 3-4 standard sword/hand crossbow guards. But they should have guard-esque features that put them at a slight advantage on their home turf.

• What are the appropriate mechanics for maneuvering both sky coaches as they are planning to (I think I can figure this out from some online research easily)?

• What are the encounter obstacles and how to deal with them mechanically (what happens when the pilot is incapacitated, what happens physically when all doors are opened on a flying vehicle, what the combat arena looks like in a tight space with likely a lot of swerving movement)?

• How are the prisoners being held in the skycoach to make it a bit complicated to break them out?

• What are the complications? Can the guards get backup in there after 3-4 rounds of combat if it starts to drag? In the characters' escape, what are the complications on successes/failures in terms of disappearing back into the city? What are the checks needed for the PCs to fully execute their plan and board, and what are some good consequences for failing checks, that aren't just splattering them against the city floor? Is there a way to make it so that the ranger flying the attack skycoach can join the fight in some way?

Any tips/tricks would be super helpful!!

If you're with the Myran County Sheriff's Department, leave.

Our paladin was infected by a Wererat awhile ago, I made a whole homebrew system that basically ported some of VtMs systems into 5e to make the curse more inconvient and told him he needed to eat a good creatures heart every new moon to remain in control.

Last session he made a deal with a hag (not knowing she was a hag, of course) to be able to control his lycanthropy. He was given the option to cure it, but he specifically wanted to keep and control it.

I was thinking of giving him access to the Order of the Lycan's limited transformation feature, with the crimson rite stuff removed, and the added caveat that he still has to at least eat a creatures heart every moon cycle to suppress his hunger.

Would this be a good way to handle the situation? Should I add more limitations or caveats?