Dungeons and Dragons

Like adventures that are just laid back traveling and doing easy quest for NPCs?

Come join us on our adventure!

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

I finally ran my party through Tomb of Horrors. I’m going to give my overall thoughts first, then some room specific things. The main thing, setting expectations was critical for running this dungeon.

• I told them that it was a “puzzle” dungeon and that combat would be minimal, so they brought characters that were good at investigating.
• Telling the party that it was unfair and to expect to die, made it easy to keep the game moving and they had backups ready. I included a narrative hand wave to explain how new characters could catch up so fast.
• Putting the mcguffin in the final room absolutely worked to drive the party to reach the end.
• The time limit worked an absolute treat for preventing the party from long resting at all really.
• I used the 1e elf/thief ability to auto detect hidden doors, and altered it to use passive perception instead. It really worked great for keeping the party from getting stuck everywhere.

The monsters were absolutely no challenge for a party of level 12 characters. Even tuning them up to as deadly as their 1e versions didn’t take into account the power increase of the party. You should definitely wholesale replace them with much more challenging encounters.

I had said that they couldn’t use mage hand to open doors, but then let a PC later use a rope tied to a handle, which was effectively the same thing. You should pick one or the other. Standing in front of the door to open it is dangerous, so it’s just if you want to force that or not.

Poison didn’t really feel right. In my game if you were poisoned, you immediately fell to death saves. In every instance the party was able to quickly heal the downed PC. So they were as deadly in theory as the 1e traps, but also effectively not.

One PC had detect magic up near constantly, but it didn’t really adversely affect the adventure in any way. The one place I fudged it was the dungeon collapse illusion at the first false ending. I waited until the PC stopped running and said they stop to look at something before I revealed that they were seeing illusion magic.

Entrance to the Tomb of Horrors
One of the PCs was a divination wizard and used a high level spell to determine the exact location to the entrance. Not a thing in 1e, but I felt it was fair to trade a spell slot resource to skip the two false entrances.

The Face of the Great Green Devil
One of the PCs sent their familiar into the mouth of the devil while looking through their eyes. I had them make a Wisdom save or they would have taken psychic damage. They succeed, so instead I described an ineffable eldrich abyss.

Chapel of Evil
The chapel was the first place they got stuck, which is what I expected. One PC kept walking back and forth to the corner with the secret exit, but also kept failing the passive perception roll. After about an hour and at the end of the session, I allowed them to spend some resources to get a big hint where to look.

Magical Secret Door
They found the door and investigated it enough to know what needed to be done, but none of them had the right spell prepared to unlock it. We did a little horse trading and I let them use a different spell of the same level to open the door.

Adamantine Door
Another door the party didn’t have the right setup for; they didn’t have three swords between them. Unless explicitly stated, I assumed all traps and doors were mundane things. So after they investigated enough I hinted there were switches in the sword slots that needed to be pressed. They carved up a quarter staff to make it work.

Cursed Gem and Bronze Urn
These two played off each other very well. In my game, one PC scooped up the cursed gem on the way out of the pillared throne room. The party did not accost the bronze urn and opened it gently. All I had to do was wait for the cursed PC to suggest a Wish from the efreeti, and boom.

Statues
I was worried the party would get stuck here, but for whatever reason they took an affront to the statues and used their first wish to send them away. Lucky break on them.

The Crypt of Acererak the Demilich
This scene also didn’t play out like I expected. The party was so distracted by the ghost that one PC thought they were going to grab the skull and run out of the crypt. I had them roll initiative and they were still focused on the ghost until Acerera’s turn which caught them off guard. It was a fun fight but still not a challenge for them.

I hope some of this helps some future DM.

This has probably come up somewhere but I am keen to hear your guys creative or interesting items you gave your players. I think there is a lot you can do but sometimes I get stuck in my head when thinking of cool items that are not just overpowered.

I go first: a magic music sheet that when played has a certain effect (in my case a "sonata of the forgotten", effect is pretty campaign specific) unslippable shoes, glowing chalk you can use to mark smth for example in a labyrinth and a mirror that makes invisible things visible

I recently started posting all our stream highlights over on Loops and I'm super excited about migrating all our content over to the Fediverse! I hope these are a welcome addition!

During each stream, our viewers can spend points to ask our characters anything, and the players (or the DM) have to answer in-character. It's been a lot of fun and this was one of the first few AMAs we did.

Enjoy! :)

Gestern kam die neue Folge der Pen & Paper News Online!

► https://youtu.be/pFdcS81nBq4

Mit dabei unter anderem @kritischerfehlschlag.de bzw. das Werk von @Seba und viele andere spannende Themen von @dnd und @wizards_magic !

Donnerstag (morgen) kommt die nächste Folge, ab nächste Woche wenn ich es schaffe bis dahin eine fertig zu stellen, heißt die News auch etwas anders, wartet ab! <3

Liebe Grüße und Hugs für alle
euer Martin

#penandPaper #news

A saving throw—also called a save—represents an attempt to avoid or resist a threat. You normally make a saving throw only when a rule requires you to do so, but you can decide to fail the save without rolling. The result of a save is detailed in the effect that allowed it. If a target is forced to make a save and lacks the ability score used by it, the target automatically fails.

Page 373 of PHB 2024

Bolded section is what I am concerned with. Does this mean that if I am a Barbarian with Strength/Constitution saving throw proficiency, that I automatically fail when needing to perform a Dexterity saving throw (because I do not have the ability score used by it)? Example here would be the Fireball spell cast by an enemy.

The good ol' fashioned "You all meet in a tavern, answering a poster offering gold for help..."? The action-scene, "You're all engaged in mutual mundane task, when suddenly a band of thugs/goblins/whatever bust in looking for the plot coupon and chaos breaks out"? The "Elder Scrolls classic" - all being prisoners thrown in together? Tie it in to a character's backstory and let them lead the other party members in?

What have you found interesting or successful, and why?

My favorite quote

Finally, "The dark elves are English posh people what have taken drugs."

Hello

Wanted to share that I have made this website where you can print out your dnd e5 spell cards.

The colour of the spell cards can be customized and you can filter out the spells based on class, subclass, level or individual spells.

https://dnd.akvila.dev/

The cards are printed out on at A4, and are 2.5x3.5 inch which also fit in magic the gathering sleeves.

So im in a almost weekly dnd 5e group but i feel like i need something more to do in my personal time. Im considering trying solo but im used to being in a group and not by myself, and i feel like i cant get creative enough to play solo.

I recently found a book (as seen in image above) and im not sure if i should try it or if there are better solutions?

What would you advise?

Does anyone roll random treasure and/or magic items for their games? If so, what resources do you use for this? This was a regular thing in 1st edition that I loved.

I was making some unique loot for a low-level party I'm running a quest for this week, and my roller derby brain intruded upon my D&D brain.

Hello. I plan to run a campaign with three of my friends. I will be the DM. I have been the DM before and I have been a Player before (in DnD 5e and also other systems). For my three friends it will be the first time they play a tabletop RPG. So which of the offical campaign moduls do you think is best suited for my friends?

Basically the title. They sent me the photos, they found them when clearing out parents house. Said books are used but the game is unused

I DM a campaign on a Neverwinter Nights server weekly, and last week, we had a character get drunk and vomit in the common room of an inn in an elven village.

So the proprietor not only acquired an emergency bucket, but a one that is suitably elven and fey-touched.

I thought you all might get a chuckle out of this.

Sorry I don't have a source or I would share

Next week, I'm going camping with my wife, my brother and his wife, and my 9-year-old niece.. My brother asked if I'd prep a DnD game to play. My niece knows the basics and I'm modifying rules to make it easier for her, and I'm making a bunch of characters for them to choose from based on Gravity Falls characters.

I'm prepping A Wild Sheep Chase for playing out in the fresh air, but we have a chance of rain I'd like suggestions for another short adventure i can prep. The sillier the better!

Cross-posted from "What kinds of toxic masculinity have you encountered?" by @lukstru@lemmy.world in !asklemmy@lemmy.world

You can just vent if you want, but here’s more context: We're playing a DnD oneshot soon, and the theme is toxic masculinity (particularly in a gym). We’re all playing dudes who visited the gym for a long time already. I already have some ideas for my character, but I want to collect some more stories of toxic masculinity, as I’m quite lucky that my bubble doesn’t have much of it.