Question stems from the keelboat with its one ballista

In order to keep this short here is the relevant info I can find; The Keelboat with a crew of one can only take one action on its turn. One of its available actions is "fire ballista" where it fires all ballista (in this case one.) In the DMG (I believe) the ballista states that it takes three separate actions in order to fully operate it and fire one ballista bolt.

So the question is why/how can one man on a keelboat fire a ballista once a turn but a ballista elsewhere would take 3 turns if also manned by one person?

TLDR; I’m new to D&D and my chaotic little goblin rogue character has got herself into a training spar with our dwarven paladin, please help me win!

Hey everyone, I'm pretty new to D&D —this is only my second campaign. The DM and players are super knowledgeable, and I'm still learning the rules and party etiquette sp would love some help and ideas.

I play a Level 7 Arcane Trickster Rogue Goblin, and I’m all about causing a bit of friendly mayhem (in true goblin fashion). I really embrace chaos, sometimes that may look a little evil. For example, I once broke into a suspect’s house to hunt for an item we’d seen him with, but the dice gods were not in my favour and I was forced up setting the house on fire to cover my tracks. (There’s a few other moments, but it’s all in the spirit of goblin fun).

Before I go any further, I'd like to quickly caveat - I spoke to the group alot about my goblins character as I don't want to be inconsiderate of anyone and want everyone to have a good time. I'm good friends with the the player who plays the dwarf and the tension between the two characters has brought out a lot of funny moments (and this duel was suggested by the dwarf). Caveat over!

My goblin shenanigans has caused some friendly tension in the party for our Dwarven Paladin. Our moral compasses clash—he’s still not over the house fire incident, especially since he got in trouble with his god after indirectly giving me the tip that led to it. To add insult to injury, during a moment of chaotic possession (while he was giving me a piggyback), I ended up stabbing him in the neck (Thankfully he has lay on hands so recovered quickly, though our relationship could be better). Recently, we got accepted into a group of do-gooding monks. Our Paladin asked about a training ring, which has now led to me and him doing a “friendly training spar” in the next session. I love the idea of a good fight, but since I’m Chaotic Evil, I’m not about playing fair—though I’d never kill him outright, (we are members of the town watch and it could go poorly at my performance review).

I’d love any suggestions on random, hilarious moves I could do in our “friendly training spar” to thoroughly overpower his strong paladin build. 

Here’s a quick rundown of my character sheet for context:

Level 7 Arcane Tricker - Goblin

Notable Inventory 

• Dual wielding +1 Daggers
• Jewel of 3 prayers (5 Charges, 1 charge to go invisible (invis spell), 1 charge to end one of the following conditions on yourself: grappled, paralyzed, or restrained. 1 charges as a reaction to to reroll a failed the saving throw.)
• 6 x Dust of dryness (that has already absorbed water and can be broken to release 6ft x 6ft cube of water.
• 2 Healing potions
• 1 Lime (yes a citrussy lime)
• Many ballbearings!

Spells!

Cantrips:

• Booming Blade
• Mage Hand
• Light

1st Level Spells:

• Magic Missile
• Mage Armor
• Sleep
• Charm Person

2nd Level Spells:

• Misty Step
• Shadow Blade

Notable Abilities:

• Fury of the small
• Uncanny Dodge
• Nimble Escape
• Sneak Attack

Key Skills:

• Stealth: +10
• Sleight of Hand: +10
• Deception: +5
• Acrobatics: +7

I left my in person table a month ago ish due to conflicts and I was wondering if it's at all common to change your characters appearances or anything afterwards. Not drastically, just subtle changes. Like hairstyles or etc. I use Heroforge for my characters, and am considering switching up a few of my characters i had saved.

Hello there,

I am in the outline process of creating a campaign for my girlfriend. I have very limited experience with dnd and gf has never played. Basically, I want to build a single player campaign, built around dragon riders. Gf loves dragons and is currently reading the “Fourth Wing” series.

My crude outline is village girl takes on evil dragon empire.

Couple ideas:

-Dragons are like Pokémon with different types, abilities, strengths/weaknesses.

-Similar to Fourth wing series where, dragon and rider are “bonded” and manifest a type of power within the rider.

I’m seeking any ideas or help on:

-World building and plot ideas

-Resources to help understand the rules of DnD

-Building characters and using character sheets

Just any tips for a first time DM trying to create an enjoyable experience!

I’m designing a Dwarven city, and as the title says, I could some help coming up with the name. This city would be the capital of this particular Dwarven kingdom. It exists within a gigantic cavern. The center of the city has a large castle/government building/fort. Floating above the castle is a huge crystal that shines with the light of the sun during the daylight hours. Thanks to this the dwarves actually have a terraced farming infrastructure around the cavern. It is still a Dwarven city with buildings, forges, etc.

So anybody ideas for a name?

As the title says, I'm a new DM needing advice, the campaign is a homebrew setting and world with themes of Japanese and Greek myth in it. Do any fellow DMs have any advice?

I'm starting a new homebrew campaign and a friend told me it would easier to use discord to keep everything managed for the party.

I created some channels, like the lore of the continent, regions and cities, the Pantheon, etc. Knowledge I think they'd already have from being there.

I also made a channel for their characters so they'd be able to keep track of things like backstory or arc ideas.

I'm sure there are others out there who use discord for their campaigns, even when playing in person like we will be.

Any advice? I'm not very discord savvy so any advice at all would be helpful. Bots, applications, channels for specific things.

Thanks in advance!

Like I know that they're cancelling for valid and understandable reasons like being sick, homework, or family stuff but every time I get a message that one of the can't make it my heart hurts cause I put a lot of effort and work into making this game as fun as I can for them but I understand why they need to cancel sometimes so I try really hard not to make them feel guilty about it but sometimes it hits harder than other times yk?

So this debate came up at our table tonight. I cast Pass Without a Trace on the party while we were sneaking. The party split before the spell ended, then regrouped. The question that was posed: would the party members who were present when the spell was cast regain the effects of it when they came back into the radius? We are using the 2024 PHB, if that makes a difference.

Does your table actively transition from social, pre-game talk to the game, or does it happen organically?

If you actively transition, do you do anything cool to mark the start of the session?

I’ve seen a lot of stuff about “bad rules”, with some arguing that they don’t matter because you can just change them, and others pointing out the inherent fallacy in that logic.

This is all useful conversation, but for newer DM’s who are wondering about any specific controversial rule and if/how to implement a change to it, I’d like to remind you of two simple but ever-present dialects of DMing: a rule can be both fundamentally poorly designed and still work well at your table, and more importantly a rule can be both fundamentally well designed, and also not be a good fit for your table/playgroup/style of game.

Just keep in mind that just because there’s a consensus opinion online about a rule doesn’t mean that opinion holds true to your table. If something feels awkward or like it’s not panning out the way you want it to in practice, don’t feel like you’re doing something wrong because it works for people on Reddit or on a podcast or something.

Talk with your players, and try to come up with a solution. Even if your solution doesn’t end up working, the process of brainstorming and implementing a fix will make you a better DM.

officially started playing in my first longer running campaign! i wanted to spice up some note-taking, and my character seems to find it strange that the people of the world don't seem to know much about the other islands that inhabit it! he has now made it his mission to create an accessible travel guide and comprehensive history book (hopefully)! i really liked the end result and wanted to share :)

our campaign is going to be traveling from island to island, so i'm excited to learn more about the world and have more silly doodles!

started a travel journal for my first ever campaign!

Some basic info: We are playing online. She is conflict-adverse, she shuts down whenever you bring any sort of criticism to her. She isn’t mute irl.

She has a hot mic problem, eating chips at an ungodly loud level nearly 70% of game time, breathing heavily like she just ran a mile, and talking to people in the same room as her. I usually have no problem with this at a table, but it’s right in my ear. I’ve tried either reducing her audio, but she speaks in a pitch range that is borderline inaudible at lower decibels.

She is playing a mute rogue, she has her character skitter off to steal shit and doesn’t respond nor returns when called for. This ends up wasting 30 minutes each session. Additionally she types up what her character signs, which only half the party is literate in, and she is a slow typer.

How do I present my grievances in a way that’s understanding and polite?

What are some bad Mimic Ideas. Running a one-shot for science!

I'll start. Floor mimic.

I'm creating a campaign for one of my PCs characters story. In said campaign the players end up in the mountains visiting a monks temple. The monks are respectful, allowing the players into their sanctuary but will be verbally distant. The idea is that my players will have to interact with the monks day to day life of things to gain the respect of the monks to progress the story.

So I have events like a tea ceremony, meditation, aiding the community, helping with chores. However I'm struggling to find a way to make meditation or a tea ceremony interesting.

If I tell the players the quest is locked behind them completing a bunch of mundane tasks, their motivation will be to do it to get to the story. I want them to actively want to interact with the events but I'm struggling to make some of them interesting.

Send help.

Fodder Inc #303: Denominalization

Here is a converter, written in python, to convert Space Blasters from War Cosmos to DND:

print("this is a converter")

print("from War Cosmos to DND 5e/5.5e")

print("it's for beta 1.1 and previous versions")

print("and may be compatible with later versions")

print("it can't convert abilities")

name=input(" what is the blasters name?")

damage=input(" what is the blasters damage?")

accuracy=input(" what is the blasters accuracy rating?")

cost=int(input(" what is the blasters cost in silver coins?"))

srange=int(input(" what is the blasters optimal range?"))

lrange=int(input(" what is the blasters maximum range?"))

Lrange=lrange+srange

gpcost=cost/100

print("Blaster: "+ name)

print("Damage: " +damage)

print("Cost: "+str(gpcost)+" Gold Pieces")

print("Range: "+str(srange)+"/"+str(Lrange))

print("Attack Bonus: "+"+"+str(accuracy)+" To Attack Rolls")

#let me know if you find any errors!

Hello Everyone!

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Check out our collection at www.swordandstonehobbies.com and find your next favorite mini and give us a follow on instagram swordandstonehobbies to see what we are constantly adding!

Please let me know if you have any questions.

TL;DR – The D&D campaign I play in is led by a DM that does not plan enough, railroads us, and over-relies on her co-DM boyfriend. Advice and insight on this situation & what to do is greatly appreciated :) 

Hello everyone! First of all, I’d like to state that I’m a relatively new D&D player (if one year of experience counts as new) and new to this subreddit. If this has been posted in the wrong subreddit or incorrectly labelled etc. I apologise. 

So, to briefly introduce this rather complicated situation – myself, and my two friends (who I’ll refer to as Warlock and Fighter) joined the campaign being set up by my other friend, DM. I should add that for the three of us this was our first time playing D&D, and DM’s first time running a game. For the first few months things were really good, and we were having a really enjoyable time. 

Things began to devolve when DM decided to turn a simple dungeon-crawl into a full-blown campaign. It was immediate to us that she was not ready for such an undertaking, but we just wanted to play D&D, so we went along with it. With this, some new changes began to take place. The biggest being her decision to bring in a co-dm (who I’ll refer to as co-DM) that just so happens to be her boyfriend. At the time, we hadn’t considered the implications of her bringing her s/o into our little group as we thought his years of experience with ttrpgs would be an overall positive for the state of the game. 

Since then, many problems have arisen. We’ve tried on many occasions to bring these up with DM but the changes that feedback brings are always short lived. 

These people are all my close friends (aside from co-DM, who I just consider a friend that I met through DM) and I don’t like having to go behind them to talk about this situation; with that being said, I feel like I’m going crazy and would greatly appreciate any insight from an external and more experienced perspective regarding the state of things. I don’t know whether these grievances come from a place of high expectations or are a genuine problem with how things are going. 

I’ll list all of the problems here:

The biggest issue in my opinion is the last minute and lack of general planning for sessions. I completely understand that a work-life balance exists and I don’t expect DM to spend all her free time planning sessions! It would be very unreasonable for me to think that. But, when sessions are consistently being planned the day before, or worse yet, at the start of session (even during!), I feel like my concern is justified – especially since she has co-DM to help her with this! This is one of the reasons she brought him in to help in the first place! She’s openly admitted on countless occasions to her lack of planning, which isn’t a great thing to hear when the session is just about to start.

When it comes to the co-dming, I don’t even know where to begin. Warlock, Fighter and I have said to each other many times how we feel like sometimes in RP we’re just third-wheeling the dms (I haven’t raised this with the dms because it’s an awkward situation and I don’t want to cause any offence). Because of this, I feel less comfortable roleplaying with him. In addition, they tend to laugh at us a lot – specifically, Fighter – due to us maybe not understanding something (that they themselves have failed to explain to us) or making a mistake. Since the ratio of dms to players is 2:3, this very much feels like an unfair imbalance of power and I have expressed this to them before but nevertheless it continues. 

Co-DM is there to help (which he does – we really appreciate the technical advice he’s there to give!) but more often than not it feels like he enables DM’s problematic behaviour, which has led to an over-reliance on her part on his assistance. Sometimes, Co-DM is absent due to work; when this happens, DM has explicitly said that she expects us, the players, to help her with any D&D issues (this wouldn’t be an issue for me, or any of the players, if this was an occasional occurrence. Nobody is perfect, and sometimes we need help!) which distinctly gave the impression that she wanted us to help her do her job – I myself have begun dipping my foot into dming, but the other players do not have the D&D knowledge to be able to help her anyway. When she talks about their co-dming strategy, DM says that she’s the one who focuses on the story, while co-DM focuses on the mechanics of the game. That would be fine if she had a bit more of an idea how to go about dming herself. During the session 0 of my own campaign, she literally said that she “doesn’t put in half the effort I do into researching how to run a game”. I understand that dming does come intuitively and with experience, but a fundamental lack of knowing the detail required to run a long-term campaign is concerning from the perspective of us players. At the start of this campaign we were patient with her, as we knew it took a while to adapt and become confident in dming. However, more than a year has passed and not much has improved – arguably, it’s gotten worse. 

Regarding the campaign itself, it’s seen more changes over this past year than we feel comfortable with. At its core, the overall campaign story has drastically changed, warping with the growing size of the story DM has wanted to tell. With this, changes to our own characters have followed. Countless things have been retconned. DM has directly interfered (and sometimes, without our even knowing) with our pcs. Warlock’s backstory was heavily altered to fit HER vision over his, the player; most notably, DM told Fighter that his character’s name was not actually his “true” name, and told him to come up with his real name. Unlike the other players, though, my character has barely been touched. As in, I feel like a person starving for any crumbs relating to her. It distinctly feels (and the other players have agreed) that my character is the least developed, and numerous times I have told DM that I feel left out by this. She always promised to develop it more, which she has a little, but it feels like too little too late. The other players – particularly Warlock – have to remind her to work on my character with me, as I’m always the least priority when it comes to this. 

Honestly, at this point, our characters don’t feel like our own. DM is telling their story how SHE wants to. Warlock has even said this to me, that following the backstory changes, his character does not feel like his own anymore. Our choices hold no weight; we have no agency. A videogame would give us more choice than this. An example of this is as follows: 

My character is a bard. We happened to enter a store that sold magical musical instruments – you can imagine how excited my character was! – but was told she could not see them, let alone buy them, without a “licence”. Naturally, she asked where she could get one from and was told that there was a bard academy literally next door. We go to this academy but my bard was told that she could not get a licence – I asked why, and was told she had to study for it. That’s fine, she said, and was willing to enrol herself, since all she wanted was a licence so she could get her hands on some instruments. Again, she was told no. No explanation, just a flat out refusal. I rolled every single check I could, and my +9 persuasion did nothing in this situation. We had no choice but to leave once the headmaster threatened to kill her. 

I hope this illustrates the point I was trying to make before. Over time we have really come to understand just how railroaded we are. Our characters have no say in what we do, for we just follow DM like a tired donkey follows a carrot on a string, but instead of a carrot it's unfulfilled promises of lore and story. She never asks us what we want to do or where we want to go. 

We have raised all these aforementioned issues with DM so many times. Arguments have even started because of it. But, no matter how we present our grievances to her, nothing ever really changes. As I said earlier in this post, DM promises that things will change. For a time, they do. But eventually she slips back into these old habits, and co-DM just sits and watches. 

There are other issues, but these are the most significant to me. We have had some good times, but they feel more and more like a distant, idyllic past that we’ll never return to. DM is on a path that she has no intention of changing, and the players and I regularly evaluate whether this is a path we want to stay on. Our enjoyment of the campaign has slowly declined, compounded by these festering, unresolved issues. DM is my friend and the last thing I want to do is hurt her feelings. But I can’t go on like this. Warlock and Fighter can’t go on like this. 

Which is why any observations would be really helpful! Since this was our first time playing in a campaign, I have constantly doubted myself on the validity of these feelings. Was I overreacting? Are my expectations too high? And so on. 

Thank you for reading this :) If anything, just writing this for strangers on the internet to read has already lifted a heavy weight from my shoulders.

Hey everyone!

So I’m a long time player, new DM. I was scared to death my first ever session, but it went FANTASTIC and I really enjoy running the game. My only problem is, my players want the full experience (who could blame them!?) When I played, it was mostly 100% imagination, no props or anything. So I don’t really know what to use. So, if there is any gear that you LOVE, maps, certain books, types of minis, sound effects/music apps, apps in general I would love to know! Money is always tight so economical ideas are preferred but I would totally splurge for something that I find that I can’t DM without.

Thanks everyone in advance!

My players are gonna enter a mountain that reaches way passed the clouds. Inside is meant to be a dungeon that goes all the way to the top. I just don’t know where to start for making something like that. Any ideas?

I have an Idea for a guy but it would work better if I could use performance for spells, so I ask here, is that possible

I’m making a vulpin rogue OC for my upcoming game, he needs a full name but I suck with names. Help!