I’m by no means an amazing DM but I’m the designated person for our group and came up with a pretty sweet werewolf encounter as they pass through a town they’ll have to stay the night in.

Some backstory because the fun part is giving everything a reason for me!

“Conrad Clayton is a werewolf. His pack was hunting a traveling group, where he and one lady were the last left standing. The lady, Camilla, convinced him to live as a man with her. They fell in love, married, settled in Autumn Hill, and started a family. Conrad lived in the town of Autumn Hill with her for 20 years, hiding his true nature. He lost Camilla to childbirth and raised their three young children alone. One day an old member of Camilla's traveling party returned alive, telling the truth about Conrad being a werewolf to the town leader. Conrad snuck his kids out into the wild, grouping with a pack of lone wolves to take care of them. He returned to his former home to grab the last memento he had of Camilla, a necklace she was making for him as an anniversary present. That's when they caught him. Though a rough battle, the town leader's warriors eventually killed Conrad and the town leader took his skull himself as a trophy. What Conrad didn't know is that his eldest child, Jon, had sneakily followed him and saw his slaughter. 15 years later, the children have grown. All but the youngest, Bree, remember the day their father never returned. Only Jon remembers the sight of his father's death. All have sworn vengeance on the town that took their last parent away.”

My plan is to have the three siblings attack while the players are there and start picking off townspeople. My hope is that when the players encounter the werewolves themselves and learn their story, it makes them pause and decide who’s right or wrong here. At the very least, one of my players always said he wanted to fight a werewolf so there’s that

I'm a new dm and I have a couple martials at my table how do u make them feel more engaged and feel more like their turn matters instead of "I stab him" "ok roll"

If a sea hag in 5e was to commit a murder, what would be some of the clues left behind?

Today I was having having coffee and doing some work stuff with a friend. After we got the bulk of the business out of the way, I learned that she has an interest in acting, and mentioned embodying a character and fully diving into their their mind and actions as one of the things that drew her to it. Naturally, my mind immediately went to D&D, as the roleplay aspects of it seem right up her alley.

She's expressed passing interest in D&D before, but I feel like if she could see/listen to part of a campaign before doing a one-shot or something would help make it more comfortable and solidify that interest.

Do yall have any podcasts (preferable), or other media that you would recommend for someone who has never played before?

I was reading the forgotten realms wiki and I was looking at elf subraces, and it weirdly says that dark elves are actually the ancestors to Drow? And the had dark brown skin instead of ebony. It said most of them have white hair like Drow, but some have black hair

The Psi-Warrior subclass has the Telekinetic Thrust feature, which essentially reads “when you use your Psionic Strike, force a Strength save or either knock the target prone or move it up to 10 feet horizontally.” Then also this has possible interaction with the Crusher feat, which reads “when you hit with an attack dealing bludgeoning damage, you can move the target 5 feet to an unoccupied space.”

Here are some questions for you other DM’s about how these might interact: Can Crusher apply its move effect in tandem with with Telekinetic (TK) Thrust for a total forced move of 15 feet? Can Crusher cause 5 foot vertical movement, while TK Thrust causes 10 foot horizontal movement, to launch the target away? Can Crusher move the target one direction, then TK Thrust move the target a second direction (moving the enemy like a Knight in chess)?

We’re looking for feedback from other DMs as to whether to limit these effects. We’re operating RAW with them, saying yes to all three questions, at this time. What do you think?

Hey y’all! Im new to DnD, and I’ve been trying to get into DMing with friends. I have the Dragons of Stormwreck Isle adventure book, and have been studying up on that as well as the DM Guide trying to solidify the rules. A lot of my friends seem nervous about jumping into a campaign that might take a few days, since they’re not all that established with the rules yet.

Are there any resources out there for some one shot adventures that I can look into getting for an introductory campaign that might be one nights worth of fun and adventure? I’m super into it, and my friends are too; but I’m definitely taking the charge on our campaigns. Any advice is helpful, I’m pretty new to DND!

Not sure where I am going with this but tonight is my first time DMing for my friends that I have been playing with for a few years now! We are going to be playing through the Tyranny of Dragons book and I am both anxious and also super pumped!! Anyone have any fun twists I may be able to add in since 3 of them are seasoned DnDers??

As the title says, I want to make a Undead or Undying patron for a warlock back up character for my Strahd game! (Our last session felt pretty grim and I am fearing a TPK next time lol)

I already ran my concept by the DM and he is cool with it, but I just need a patron and I don't think the suggested ones stick out to me! The character concept is: A reborn, who in their previous life was executed for something awful that they will not remember and went to *hell/the underworld/whatever the evil people afterlife is*! They spent however long atoning for their sins and ya know... being in Hell and were revived in Barovia! They want to leave because they just cheated death and Barovia seems like death is always so close to catching up to them. Their goal is to defeat Strahd with this party and follow one of them back home to their realm so they won't have to face the consequences of returning to their home.

Obviously there is room to grow and change goals as they find out more about their past, but yeah! I thought about the Raven Queen because I just love her and think she is so cool, but she despises undead who have cheated death... so my character doesn't exactly mesh with her ideals lol. The patron can all be homebrewed as our home realms are pretty much all dependent on us as players making our own stuff!

Any suggestions/vibes would be appreciated! <3

So of all the core player races found in the PHB, the one I've personally found the most polarizing opinions on have been elves. It's weird, because just about everyone agrees that elves are a good race from a stat block point of view (especially so if you're using the race customization rules from Tasha's Cauldron), but it seems like no one can agree on a good way to *roleplay* an elf. Part of this is obviously down to the fact that D&D players are humans and the only race we'll all innately *know* how to roleplay is humans. It's also down to the fact that elves have fifteen million and one different depictions across all of fantasy media - hell, even in D&D lore proper it seems like WotC can't decide on a single racial history for them, no matter the setting. It also doesn't help that there's over a dozen different elf subraces, all with supposedly distinct cultures and lifestyles, further complicating the matter.

Even so, I'm curious about how one would go about roleplaying a character that is, for lack of a better word, timeless. A character from a race for which a full human lifetime is the equivalent of roughly a decade of life, that can live to see an entire kingdom or nation rise and fall over the course of centuries. When I try to imagine the perspective and mindset of someone like that, I'm fascinated, but I also find myself a bit stumped. So I'd like for anyone on the sub who's interested to share their stories about their Elf PCs - or the Elf PC of a party member they played with - and how the character was roleplayed.

Not much expansion on this, but do you prefer written lore (like documents sent out to players) or do you prefer told lore (lore told or discovered within the game)?

Whether it be your PC or another member of your party, what’s your favorite story from one of your adventures. Either you pulled off an incredible heist, or you became the Lord/Lady of a new kingdom. Or maybe you even became a traveling salesman for sentient pants.

Albeit a somewhat new 5e player along with a party consisting of 3 newcomers, and 2 vets I have had the lucky opportunity to already have a story.

My party consisting of my own Dwarven Fighter, a Goliath Fighter, a Dwarven Barbarian, a human artificer, and an Elf druid, were in a dungeon doing exploring and treasure hunting. When during one of the encounters I had asked if I could persuade some of the skeletons to join us instead of fighting us like normal skeletons would.

And even with my abysmal 10 charisma I was able to convince some to join if I was able to win against one of them in a rock paper scissors tournament(I’ll still very new to the RPing aspect of 5e and this is all that came to mind. DM never had this happen before and has been wanting the new players to kind of branch out of playing like a videogame) single elimination rules. I won a round, the skeleton won a round, I won a round, he won a round, and then we tied over and over probably a good 4-5 times. Eventually the skeleton broke the tie and won, which caused him to raise his arms triumphantly and turn around to celebrate with his fellow boney brothers. And that was his first mistake.

I asked if I could make an unarmed attack on him so it would kinda be like a friend punching your shoulder kind of thing when they tease or you beat you at something. They allowed it and I rolled a nat 20 and I would like to think that by saying I punched him was an understatement. In a sort of poor sportsmanship manner my Fighter not only punched his skull clean off but into the chest of the skeleton behind him, leaving only a pile of bones from the chest down with his winning hand of scissors ontop of it all.

After beating the rest of the skeletons I claimed my trophy of a permanently stuck skeleton hand in the scissors position. Hopefully a reminder to be a better sport about losing and maybe to let other skeletons know that their next rock paper scissors game may be their last.

Hello I am just curious about people's thoughts in building a character bred to fight most types of spell casters (player or monster spellcasters). Thank you for your time

Saw the other post and was inspired. I'll start:

• Made a player cry (in a good way)

• Killed a PC

• Finished a campaign

• Ran a session with more than 10 players

• Used the Tarrasque in a combat

Howdy, I am going to be running a magic college game and wanted to know, how Strixhaven handled the academic portion? If it's recommended I will be swapping out names and mascots for the school to fit my setting. Thank you in advance.

What school of magic/subclass are the spells mentioned in this thread in? I wanted to make a subclass based on this idea, but if there's a class that can cover this, great.

No spell sculpting or metamagic to protect him.

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Alright, need those brains!

I want to run a one shot for 5-6 high level characters. My thoughts for them were to be somewhere from 15-20 and each start with some magic items. Maybe one of each- legendary, very rare, rare, uncommon, common?

Anybody got any adventures floating around there for this type of thing? Also, any tips for running something like this?? (I'm currently DMing lower levels in a homebrew/Theros campaign) Let me know if you need any more info. Thanks!

How would you do it?

There are levels to the world, the first and top level is where the gods reside ‘a colorless void that only godlike senses detect, the second level is where the elves and other forest things reside this is your typical elf country, home of the mother goddess ‘not actually a god just a very powerful tree’, the third level is futuristic ‘think I just gave all these dwarves and gnomes and other ‘underground thinkers’ unlimited metals and rare ores and left them for several million years, the fourth level is the realm of the humans, they are the first realm that is devised into kingdoms and is your typical medium fantasy, magic is rare, but not something to go home to tell mom about, most people would see someone that casts magic outside of themselves maybe seven times in their life, the fifth level is the level of outcasts, people banished from their home realm for various reasons, the sixth level has been barren since it’s creation but is filled with the souls and corpses of wanderers that got trapped there and died, cursed to wander forever longer as undead, the seventh level is a realm of punishment, for those that have wronged the gods it is a place of fear and pain, for those that have done nothing wrong you should be able to pass through unharmed but do not hinder the punishers in any way lest you be trapped in eternal torture, the eighth level is just a home for all the various demons and devils that are contracted by evil warlocks, they don’t know that the warlocks do evil with their power and think that they just made a deal with a mortal for some cool junk, nice people really, the ninth level is a stop gap for the tenth that is filled to the brim with treasures that increase the magic density ‘make spells cost one spell slot cheaper when on hand’, and the tenth level is where all the banished gods reside sealed forever never able to escape because of the seal that is mane from the ninth level. It is seen as a grave sin by all the gods if you take something from the ninth level, if they take anything they are going to have a fun time in the seventh level.

Levels with specific details

First

Second Woodrow Wildson Druidic politician

Third K’barr the blade smith

Fourth

Fifth

Sixth

Seventh

Eighth

Ninth

Tenth

Outside

Wandering city of Saitz: city that has inhabitants from most layers of the world; the city appears randomly places, sometimes you can enter the city and exit in another layer, the city comes and goes at undetermined times, it can be in multiple places at once, usually leaves when a large number of people know where it is, will leave residents behind leading to some diversity in race in every layer, never in the tenth layer, let’s any being regardless of intent come and go, buildings being destroyed is not tolerated

Adult Black Dragon - 1st the party has fought in this campaign. This is against Thoss Fyurnen on the sword coast. He has 5 of his children in this fight, they are black sludgy things, not dragons unfortunately for him. Using the water weird stat block for them, minus the bound to water condition.

Hoping that its not a TPK. Going to stream it as well if anyone wants to watch. going live at 8:30 p.m. est. twitch.tv/van6k

I'm a 3rd level Artificer with a homunculus servant in the form of a tressym named Hermes. I've given him a collar with three bells on it he can ring that will say set words or phrases to help him communicate via magical tinkering. So far, I've come up with,

Word 1: Danger

Word 2: Follow

Word 3: ??????

I'm open to suggestions on all 3 words/6 sec phrases. Thanks in advance. Also, I'll be upping my Int next level so i could do 4 if it makes sense.

Players, was there ever a place in-game that you wanted to check out but never did? What made you excited about it? What did you hope to encounter there?

Dm's, have you ever presented several points of interest for your players to choose their own adventure? We're there any destinations that you prepped and were excited about, but never got to use? What was going to happen if they went there?

Mines all on one google doc and it feels so cluttered

There are a bunch of sites and apps that let you make your characters (heroforge, portrait workshop, etc...), but I haven't seen anything that would allow you to make a homunculus servant or steel defender. Honestly, even the stuff that's out there for characters doesn't seem to offer a lot for warforged options.

I know that there's some aspect of a lack of demand as it could really only be used for one class, but it would still be really cool.

Hi guys,

I have been running an online DnD group (5 players, all around 25-30) as a DM for the last 2 years, on the same long-running homemade campaign. Met some of the in IRL before but not all.

This summer for the first time we'll all meet together at the house of one of the members that has enough space for all us.

The plan is to play DnD for a couple days there in person.

I have some experience with DMing IRL so I'm not too worried about running the campaign itself, but I would like to include something that can make use of us being all there in person.

Hopefully you guys can give some suggestions and share some of your experiences.

Thank you.

I'm a monk and I just leveled up to level 6, the group was all at level 5 when I joined so I was automatically level 5 starting out. I still have yet to understand ki and learn how to use it and I don't know exactly what I've gained reaching this level. I've been to 3 sessions and I've got a good idea of how to play and I'm learning all that. Also my race is myconid if that helps. Thank you for your time!

From what I can tell, it’s normal to have a set, or a few sets, of “favorite dice”. A lot of times this could be because it’s pretty, it rolls well, it fits the character, or maybe even it was a gift.

I’ve got to thinking, and I’ve noticed I’ve put a lot of wear on one of my D20’s more than any other dice. It was my first metal dice set, and I do legitimately think it’s one of my prettiest dice, but my problem is that I think I use it so often because it rolls well. I think it’s natural to gravitate towards dice that seem to do well, but some part of me worries that I’m giving myself an unfair advantage.

Is this normal? Am I overthinking this table top role playing game? Is there anything I can do to test my dice? Any and all suggestions would be great, thanks! :)

In my campaign we just reached level 2. I created this character a while ago with the plan for Scribes Wizard but I realized that I overplay that class. I have had 3 or 4 Scribes Wizards, so I am avoiding playing another. (Dispite it being my favorite subclass) I can't find a good book oriented wizard whether it be homebrew or kobold press. I just cannot find the right subclass. Does anyone have any advice or subclasses they recommend that have the book theme?

[Edit]

I should clarify. By "Book Wizard" I mean a wizard that isn't focused on one type of magic. It doesn't fit my character for a single magic archetype to be his focus.