/5eg/ D&D Fifth Edition General: Environment Edition

What's the PDF filesize limit here?

Rate my new cantrips:

Rock spear , evocation cantrip, range 60 ft

Creates a stone stone spear that deals 1d10 piercing damage to a target within range.
You create additional spears as your character level goes up and can target multiple creatures with it.
(2 spears at lvl 5, 3 at lvl 10 and 4 at lvl 15)

Water veil , conjuration cantrip , range self/touch

Conjure up a watery veil around your body or the body of a creature you touch.
While under the effect of this spell have advantage on saving throws against fire based attacks but gain disadvantage against lightning based attacks.

Ok, so here's where I've found issues(actual mechanical issues and not personal and mentals issues like that DW troll has) with 5e, and my potential fixes for them:

> The encounter formula doesn't work.
It's approximately accurate up until 5th level, but after that you start to find that players are stronger than the table would suggest. It's so laughable that EVEN THE ADVENTURE MODULES DON'T USE IT. Also, it's far too complicated to make accessible to the DM for on the fly combat. The most readily available and usable fix I have found is available here: enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?367697-Encounter-difficulty-how-to-fix-it

> Giving out Magic items as a whole
Their issue lies within the inherent fact that they're designed to be completely optional for players in 5e and there's no writtten method to take them into account when building encounters. This in turn means that there's no way to account for how to give them out other than to play it by ear. Using the above system for Encounter Building, I've worked in a method of taking Magic items into account. Quite simply, you apply a level modifier to the Player before converting it to PEL, raising it according to the item's rarity as shown:

Common - 0
Uncommon - 1/4
Rare - 1/2
Very Rare - 1
Legendary - 2
Artifact - 3

Overall this makes encounters a hell of a lot easier to throw together, and makes it so the DM doesn't have to be too careful about giving out items. This overall, means that high-magic settings like Eberron are much easier to play to faithfully without making into a complex broken mess like 3.5 was

eldritch blast/10
both are missing shit anyway. duration, concentration, how they hit. water veil seems just as specific (and useless) as blade ward depending on what you add

What's the duration of Water Veil? This could be broken if it doesn't have a duration of something like until the beginning/end of the Caster's next turn. Any longer than that(even a minute) and you'd have a cantrip you could spam indefinitely against Fire attacks. Also, as written there's no limit on how many people you can cast it on. Entire party has fire resistance? Yes please sir, I can abuse that.

Alright, cool. That helps.

Thanks family.

Rock Spear is just Eldritch Blast but without all the extra shit that makes Eldritch Blast good.

Water Veil is either useless or too strong to be a Cantrip depending on additional details (how long does it last? is it concentration? etc)

So thinking of DMing CoS for a few friends.

I'm considering having Strahd send out Vampire Spawn to attack the party while they are still a low lvl like 4 or under. Basically he will just send out one vampire for each party member, the party obviously would be overwhelmed with no chance of winning. Idea will be the vampires all knock them down but do not kill them, it's then Strahd will reveal himself clapping and laughing as he thanks the adventurers for the entertainment. He then leaves stating how he expects more in the coming weeks then turns into mist.

Think this would be fun or just dickish on the DM's part? Mostly I think he would just give a clear indication of Strahds character to the party early on.

>evocation
>rocks
That doesn't sound right. I'd make it conjuration. Maybe add a bit about working on targets otherwise immune to magic.

My is party of 5 level 5s is about to stumble into the lair of an adult black dragon. They're supposed to try and sneak through to find something powerful on the other side. but I'm afraid they might try to fight it. Should I make it a young black instead so they actually have a chance of victory?

Make it a badly wounded adult, lower it's hp.

Too direct desu, just cartoonishly evil

Depends user. I find some times the party needs to learn they can't beat everything. Either you keep him but paint a better picture stating it would be retarded to fight it or you just nerf him enough that the party could take it but not without getting hurt first. But 5 lvl5s should be able to take out a young dragon with ease if they are not stupid enough to stand together for his breath.

When they're out travelling after the first village, it is VERY likely they'd have Ireena with them.. So Strahd would be tempted to take her.

What you could do is have Strahd approach them on the road and attempt to woo Ireena. She'll obviously reject his advances, and the party will probably tell him to fuck off. He'll act wounded and leave, but with a sly grin on his face because the party has now piqued his interest.
That night while camping, perhaps the party are attacked by a pack of wolves or a bunch of bat swarms. Just enough to make them sweat but nothing that would realistically result in a TPK. After the party defeats them, have them hear an evil laugh, and the sound of a bat flying away.

Also, consider having him be around 1 or 2 times before that, but not interact with the party.
For example, when they're in the first village of Barovia, after they clear out the Death House, have Strahd's carriage roll through town (maybe leaving the Burgomasters after his latest succ adventure with Ireena?), and have them see him (they would recognise him as the man from the statue in the shrine of the cult quarters in the Death House).

It's a good way to spook them.

Yeah, that does sound pretty Cartoonish. I really enjoyed the way my DM played him. Strahd never even recognized our prescience unless we fought close to him where he would then watch on being entertained by it all. Outside of that he literally ignored us at every moment until our bard rolled a high persuasion attempt and got an invitation to his castle.

How do you deal with a player that doesn't really seem to give a shit about keeping their character alive because they know they can just re-roll anyway, outside of telling them they can't re-roll and kicking them from the game?

This user has it.
It's up to you as GM of course, but Strahd is a bit more subtle then that, at least usually. Generally if he's nearby he'll get personally involved (guy was a warrior-king remember), take a few hits and deal out a few himself, and then retreat.
He might send out Spawn like you said, but if he does it he won't let them do the JRPG boss thing where they loose and he lets them live until later; instead he'll send the spawn after them with maybe some werewolves or other backup with the spawn having full orders to try and kill them, leaving them JUST able to defeat the spawn. If the spawn wins and they die then clearly they weren't worth his time and nothing is really lost on his part.
He LOVES to work through proxies (what with Barovia being filled with an effectively infinite number of them), but when the confrontation matters enough to him he'll get personally involved. He should always sort of fight the party half-distractedly unless they've REALLY pissed him off; he's not really there to kill them, he's there to do something else and they just happen to be there.

If you really need something to help them figure out Strahd's character, run Death House and have them find the letter Strahd wrote to the owners; it can be summed up as "everything here is your own fault and while I appreciate you worshiping me and all, I don't really plan on saving you from your problems. Besides, it's a lot funnier watching you writhe in your personal pit of misery."

I actually like that a lot more. I think I might change how Strahd goes after Ireena. Like in the beginning chapters if Strahd sees her out of the village I think I will just have him curious with the party while still keeping an eye on Ireena to make sure she doesn't die (or try to escape him.) But as time goes on his urge to take her will grow more and more. What's stopping me from doing this is I do not want the party to be spied on 24/7 because he would totally have the Sun Sword taken away from the party if they got their hands on it.

One of the things I did was I personally played Strahd as my own character as GM, one I had to discipline myself enough to NOT try and kill the party with, instead focusing on his personality and objectives that he had.
Instead I needed to keep in mind Strahd's goals and objectives at all times, and ESPECIALLY remember where he was and what he was doing at any given time.
I never had him randomly teleport across Barovia just because I needed him to, and instead I would have him shadow the party if he wanted to be close or elsewhere if he was doing something else, and always I would be mentally keeping track of how he acted and reacted to what the players did in his domain.

Thanks, I might actually do what this user said and have Strahd ride by the Death House as the party leaves. They can have a good look of him through his carriage as he looks at them then at the house and give a subtle grin, him knowing how dangerous that place was and that the party surviving might be something worth while.

Remember, Strahd has other things going on too. He's searching for Van Richten who's in hiding, and so will be off doing that sometimes, and he'll be creating proxies that the party can later eliminate while doing that search.
At first Ireena is just a hot chick he wants, and his obsession shouldn't grow until much later on when the party is capable of at least fending him off a little bit.

The moment the party starts gathering artifacts, if Strahd finds out about it, all bets are off.
The group of pissant adventurers that he found amusing at first have managed to find the one weapon in his entire realm capable of posing him a tangible threat. He's done playing with his food, and now will actively seek to kill them.

That's when they get the invite to Ravenloft.
For a nice dinner.

That's how I played him too.
They managed to get two (lucky placement on the Fate Draw) before he realized what was actually going on (he didn't know what they were at first), but at that point the party was more powerful and was cagey as shit.

They worked at objectives and were basically doing some crazy undercover spy-shit, always hunting down Strahd's proxies and avoiding anyone who could be a spy to stop him from narrowing their position, moving around a lot to stop from getting pinned down.

Okay, so I am correct in thinking that. Bit worried though, I loved the campaign but I knew of a few tables that raged quite hard because they had party wiped too many times and they blamed it on the game being too hard. So I guess I am going to have to explain that this game does not have much room for stupid decisions.

Anyone tried the phandelver shit on roll20? Is it any good? I am interested in it, but I would feel better about it if someone who has played/looked over it posted their throughts.

My players learned this the hard way in our previous session. A fighter got separated in the Death House basement, chasing down a turned ghoul. Rather than regroup, he started poking around on his own, triggering an encounter which ended up making the encounter the rest of the party had started quite a bit harder.

If it weren't for the party having a cleric and paladin, a silvered shortsword and some very lucky rolls, it could've been a TPK right there.

I am finishing it up now as a DM. It's fun and a good intro to the game but can have some slow moments. I find that the Campaign book is a little hard to read as information on NPC's and their goals are all over. If you use the PDF version you should also get the jpg maps. Use those for Roll20 but you may need to resize them. Try to line up the maps to the grid for the site.

I meant the 20 dollaridoos set up roll20 version though. I am lazy, and have disposable income.

How's the Mastermind Rogue archetype?

I fucked up and told my friends interested in playing my entire run through of Death House. Gonna need to change up shit so it's different for them.

Oh. Well I didn't use that but it looks alright.

I'm thinking about killing off my dragonborn sorcerer. The character itself has become a bit of a husk and I realize now that in my pursuit of damage spells the class has become less and less effective, especially now that everyone is a partial or full caster.

We have a tanky eldritch knight, a rogue/monk, a warlock and a bard of valor. It seems like even though my damage is sort of handy for fireballing crowds or throwing away blights and leveled chromatic orbs at big bads, I feel like the tank's heroics and everyone else's inputs make me less and less effective with each campaign.

However, the real question now is what would I even do now? I'm not sure if I'm experienced or creative enough to go full wizard, other caster classes seem sort of petty and nonsensical, but martials seem too narrow and uninteresting. We already have a party face, a skill jockey (I hope, he never pulls his fuckin weight) and some sort of support. I mean, I know that this isn't 4th edition and we don't have to think in terms of strategic roles anymore and we have so much freedom and da-di-da but in the end a character that is ineffective or redundant just seems like a drag. I'm just at a loss of what to do.

Considered Multiclassing?

multiclass paladin and start smiting fools upclose

it might not be the best suggestion, but im going to suggest a tempest cleric in this scenario
they're pretty much a full martial, and use their spells (when not buffing) for massive aoes

that, or some form of smiteadin, which depending on your level could be pretty cheese

Smiting is pretty choice. The rogue/monk was an oath of vengeance paladin and rocked pretty hard up until he got PWK'd. We actually just finished a dual between the tank and his resurrected corpse.

Tempest cleric would kick ass if I had gone with lightning instead of cold. It was a bad gimmick choice, I know.

Not bad choices, though, considering I have 17STR. Just hit level 9 too, so I need to decide what to do with that.

ah yeah, i was suggesting tempest if you killed the sorc
smiteadin obviously goes right into sorc levels, so if you dont kill yourself thats the obvious choice

What level are you all, and how is your sorc built?

Everyone is around level 9 now, I believe I might have been the last one to reach it but I'm not entirely sure.

Dragonborn Sorcerer 8 (Sailor BG)
17St, 15De, 16Co, 14In, 14Wi, 20Ch
Athlet. +5, Intim +5, Insight +4, Percept +4
AC 16, 55HP

Resistant to cold, poison, force, shock; cold affinity (+cha to damage), weakness to acid, immune to magic missile.

Spells include chromatic orb, magic missile, levitate, enhance ability, fireball, fear, blink, blight and stoneskin.

Also have a wand of magic missile and a lightning based javelin weapon

yeah m8, just throw a level of paladin on that, and you're smitin with the best of em. if you do end up killing it, you could just make a "better" one instead, or try tempest. but as it is, thems some pretty nice smite stats. only hurtin part is the ac

yeah, i've been playing in nothing but a pair of parachute pants since day one, only thing that's changed is a ring of protection. i'd like armor already

Nothing wrong with playing it old school. If you really want to stop them from not even attempting to keep themselves out of danger simply give them something worth keeping that character alive for, such as some cool loot that would be lost to them upon death.

So one of my players wanted to play a brawler, a strength-based monk kind of guy. I've had heard great things about the Pugilist homebrewed class so I'm taking a look at it.
There are some neat ideas in here (Dug Deep, Haymaker) and I like the idea of a "variant class" mirroring another class' features with another flavor.

But,
> When an enemy creature deals damage to you that causes you to lose hit points equal to half your level or higher (not temporary hit points) you gain 1 moxie point, up to your maximum.
I don't think this can stay as is, especially with
> Brace Up. You can use a bonus action and spend 1 moxie point to brace for attacks. Roll your fisticuffs die + your proficiency modifier + your Constitution modifier and gain that many temporary hit points.

So there are multiple ways I can go.
I'm choosing to keep the idea of Moxie points being less plentiful than Ki points, but with a regen mechanism. It just needs to be tuned down, which can be accomplished thus:
> You gain 1 moxie point when you or any ally that you can see in 30ft is damaged by a critical hit.
OR
> You gain 1 moxie point when you reduce a dangerous hostile creature to 0 hit points.

I prefer the first one thematically, but it's definitely going to be less common. Depending on which I choose, Brace Up's power level and/or formula needs to be changed accordingly.
I thought this would be decent:
> Brace Up. You can use a bonus action and spend 1 moxie point to brace for the next attack. You gain your fisticuffs die + your Constitution modifier temporary hit points for 1 minute or until the next damage you receive.

The idea is: it stacks with the Dodge action making, works on Saving Throw effects (AoEs from friends and foes alike), and will always "do" something since it lasts for a long time (but will only prevent part of next attack's damage).

Any thoughts or help on this?

So my group is playing through a homebrew setting of mine, and we're just doing a brief 6 week campaign since we all go back to university in September and aren't sure how our schedule will look for weekly sessions.

I have them defeating one of the BBEG's main henchmen (the guy they're fighting isn't actually aware of the BBEG) as the ending of the campaign. The boss, I guess you could say, is a giant Orc riding a wyvern.

I have a question though.Should I do the fight like this
>Phase 1, they have to fight the wyvern while the Orc is riding it and casting spells from its back
>Phase 2, the wyvern crashes down and the Orc switches to his melee weapons

Or something else?

If his whole deal is that he rides a wyvern, obviously have them fight him on the wyvern.

Don't be so strict with the 'phases' though, your players might surprise you and find a way to kill him while he's still on the wyvern. Or they might just polymorph the wyvern into a rabbit while its in the air causing the orc to plummet to the floor.

While a 2 phased fight like that is ideal for coolness, try to think of weird ways your players might tackle it other than treating it like a giant lump of hit points that gets another health bar when you empty the first.

Good point.

Their first encounter with him was when they accidentally came across his warband in the desert. He watched as they were overwhelmed by his orcs (and killed about 30 of them before they had to retreat) and now he WANTS to fight them.

Now that you mention it, the barbarian lost his eye to the Orc in his backstory, so I don't imagine he'll just let the guy sit there on his mount.

I'll definitely have to adjust to what they try to do to him and not just treat the wyvern as extra HP.

Honestly the reason it gets such high praise is, from what I've seen, because the author shills it goddamn everywhere.

But if you need a way for moxie to fill up again, use the "on a kill/crit" rules other martial abilities rely on.

> use the "on a kill/crit" rules other martial abilities rely on.

Uuh... Which ones?

Great weapon mastery does it primarily, but there are a few others in other homebrews, and probably a few others out there.

>tfw Half Elf Paladin with

str 16
dex 10
con 12
int 8
wis 14
cha 16

Jesus fucking christ why are Half Elves so fucking stacked?

Revenant race, Gothic Heroes UA

That's one way to take Rictavio, but there are others. In my campaign Rictavio abandoned his mission against Strahd entirely and needs the party to bring him back into the business. So he wouldn't even go to his tower or release his pet on purpose, he mostly is frozen in time in Vallaki debating whether he should just let Ezmerelda take over entirely. Many things bring him back, but if the players figure him out he's now an NPC that can point them somewhere for a quest - I'm thinking he will say they need to find a magical item in the castle and return alive to prove they are capable enough.

youtu.be/hIUHLe1uwIE?t=586

Friendly reminder to put thought into WHY your players chose their class.

For session zero would it be a bad idea to straight up just ask the players why they chose their class as the DM?

Vampire Killer
Legendary +1 Flail, Reach

A crucifix shaped hilt that can be extended into a shining length of silvered chain when the wielder (or the flail itself) wills it.
The flails chain seems to burn with holy power. Blood and ichor boils off of its surface.

Sentience
The Vampire Killer is a sentient chaotic good weapon with an Intelligence of 11, a Wisdom of 17, and a Charisma of 16.
The weapon communicates by transmitting emotions to the creature carrying or wielding it.
If a Neutral-aligned creature attempts to wield this weapon, it will refuse to extend its chain.
If an Evil-aligned creature attempts to wield this weapon, they immediately take 1d6 radiant damage as purifying magic flows into them. As long as they hold the flail, they take an additional 1d6 radiant damage at the beginning of their turn.

Personality
Imparts a strong desire to smite undead creatures to the wielder.
Its purpose is simply to purify evil, particularly undead.

Holy Water
The 3-pronged head of the flail is tipped with 3 vials of holy water.
When you hit with this weapon, you can expend 1 of the vials to cause it to shatter, releasing its contents onto your target. If the target is a Fiend or Undead, it takes 2d6 radiant damage.
The vials magically recover each day at dawn.

Righteous Will
The sentient will of the Vampire Killer protects the wielder against the mind altering effects of a vampires Charm ability. While holding this weapon, the wielder gains advantage on saving throws to resist Charm effects, and the DC is lowered by 2.
I'm running Curse of Strahd and wanted to add a Vampire Killer flail into the game, since one of my players is a paladin who wields a flail, and.. it seems a fairly obvious inclusion. Probably going to have this be on the corpse of an adventurer in the Amber Temple.
Thoughts on balance/flavor/etc?

>cha 16
that's why

I was thinking about making it so in my game general ideas or rumors become true so as an example if enough people believe a huge ogre is going to burn down the town then a huge ogre will burn down the town.

The idea is that magic is everywhere and the energy a group of people give off can manifest into existence.

Is that cool or am I fucking retarded? Also can you think of something I can add to make it better?

Water veil is supposed to have a 1 minute duration and requires concentration.
It can be applied up to 2 creatures.

It's usefully if you have a lightning blaster in your party.

Rock spear is mostly for flavour as the only offensive "earth" based spells are magic stone (which someone else needs to throw) and melfs minute meteors which is a lvl 3 spell.
It's a inferior eldritch blast yeah.

Also did I misunderstand evocation as "creation" instead of manipulating dangerous energies?

It's an idea with merit but you would need to figure out its limits.

How many people believing in something does it take to change reality?
Does the amount of people required increase with how big the change is?
If so, does that mean a relatively small change only needs a handful of people?
If a particularly charismatic liar goes around telling everyone in town he has the biggest dick in the universe, does it become true?
What's stopping a large cult from forming where purely by believing the world will end, the world ends? How do you stop it? Do you need to change the cults beliefs, or just make an equal amount of people believe it won't?

Mass thought causing changes is a fairly common thing, but is usually used as a basis for like, how strong a god is. Allowing everyone with a brain the potential to alter reality is pretty nuts, so you'd have to get a handle on how it actually works pretty quickly.

My parties level 4. I'm kicking off part 2 of our campaign by having The Brightwood faction of The Sons of Alagondar hire the party ,who are essentially a suicide squad style group of misfits( Drow Rogue, Half orc Barbarian, Wood Elf ranger, Dragonborn Sorcerer, Tiefling Bard and a power hungry Wizard) to assasinate Dagult NeverEmber in order to put the lost heir Ammon Hornraven on the throne. While their motivation is to end his tyranny over the city I figure they're actually the pawns of the Lords of Water Deep and or the Aboleth / a Demonic mastermind. This will be set in NeverWinter around 1479 DR when the city fully went to shit with the chasm spilling out aberrations and Orcs in the city.

I'm being fairly liberal with the setting using the bits that work for the story I want to tell. I figure their actions cause the city to descend into chaos and ill play it from there.

Any thoughts on how to play out a cool assassination /heist mission? I was thinking of going full detail sandbox and giving Dagult a daily hour by hour routine that they can work out, as well as detailing all his defences and so on and having the party tackle it how they like. I ideally want them to succeed but I want chance of failure to be real and have interesting consequences beyond everybody dies.

I wouldn't. You still get long and short rests, and the undead abilities you do get (like not needing to sleep, eat or breathe) should make up for it. Besides that, its just some of the healing spells that don't work. Potions work just fine, same with goodberries and other random things.

Besides, an undead guy in a party of almost any of 5es healers doesn't really work that well to begin with. Clerics that turn undead are essentially short a class feature (same with paladins) and thats not even counting the roleplay elements making such a partnership unlikely.

Druids and bards can still heal them with their spells and abilities (goodberries, song of rest) and later on if you really need healing you can afford all the potions you want since there is no real money sink in 5e.

You probably aren't technically wrong in how evocation is defined, but in practice you evoke energies not objects.

I'm playing a half-Orc barbarian who's father was a Uthgardt barbarian and mother an Orc chieftainess who was taken as a prize. I don't want to play the standard "Orc smash" simple-minded barbarian. What are some ways I can do that with the backstory I have?

Take Rome

Civilized barbarian. Tribe broke up for reasons while young, he adapted to city life in a limited matter but still holds on to his roots. Has learned to be chill. Until he isn't.

>acrobat
>reader
>suave roguish type
>soft spot for short people
>exotic performer
>nice guy
>bar fighter
>wrestler
>a really good chef (likes cooking more than fighting)
>doesn't know own strength
>drunkard
>killed people but only in self defense
>sense of polite justice

pick some

You are a historian of both of your heritages rich cultures. You adventure to find more cultural artifacts and clues to old legends.

No it wouldn't as a DM I always try to figure out what they player wanted to get out of their character, and I try my best to give it to them, within reason of course

Honestly I try to work with players to create their characters from the start.

I second this. Dream of conquest, of rallying the barbarian hordes and falling upon civilization in what could be the last and greatest battle of their lives. Make such an end, as to be worthy of remembrance.

Alright, I think I've got it.

PROS: Immunity to poisoned and poison damage, immunity to exhaustion, advantage on being turned (and controlled in other ways), and can heal naturally like a living being. Also doesn't need air, food, drink, or sleep, and doesn't age.

CONS: Can be turned, can't be healed by most magic, most people assume you're evil.

This is a shit goal for D&D unless you throw in some mass combat rules. Why the fuck is that character wasting their time in an adventuring party instead of creating political contacts and rallying disparate tribes

>mass combat rules
I forget, did we have any of those? Alternatively, ones that aren't shit?

Typically people say steal them from another system. I think the most popular for that were Savage Worlds and GURPS.

A 1 minute concentration cantrip that targets 2 creatures seems rather out of place. Being able to double the lightning damage to two enemies or halve it to two allies is incredibly useful in the right situation.

A weaker version of Eldritch blast sounds fine, though it still seems better than fire bolt.

Trying to come up with a non-traditional dungeon; specifically, I'd like to turn a nearby jungle into one instead of the party just walking through to the ruins at the end. What would be the best way to go about it? Would it be sufficient to have a small-scale hexcrawl?

Heart of Darkness, bro. They have to travel by river boat and the natives and wildlife are hostile. They have to scare them off or try to withstand their harassing attacks. If they leave the boat all paths are narrow and have insects and creatures that cause diseases.

You don't even have to map all of this out. If anything, have the map based on a fog of war, because there is legit fog.

Speaking of mass combat, I've been wanting to run a one-shot/short campaign based around invading hobgoblins. The party would be decently high level and in charge of defending a fortress. How can I run this situation (lots of enemies and people under the party's command) in a way that's efficient and fun?

I'll be playing for the first time soon and I just made my first character. How did I do?

Seems fine to me. But a 19 STR would make you heavier than 200 lbs

Just do it Monkey Island style: it is a jungle themed dungeon with impenetrable jungle between "rooms"

Unless I'm misreading things, your 'weaker Eldritch Blast' will be just as potent as Eldritch Blast if available to the subclasses that give bonuses to cantrip damage.

This list would comprise of, at least, the Arcana Cleric, and (as long as it is an Evocation) the Evocation Wizard.

Have a deck of cards with random encounters. Success or failure on these encounters move them forward or backward by a given number of points. Attain X points to complete the area. Complete Y areas to reach the end of the jungle.

>Attain X points to complete the area
That defeats the purpose of the random encounter deck though, doesn't it? Some of the most fun my group has had with random encounters is from an area we utterly feared (cathedral belonging to the CN religion we accidentally declared war on) being defended by two level two warriors and a small dog, at level 8, and from an area we didn't really fear all that much (we were going to a tavern we had rooms at, and passing through some back alleys to save time) being the site of a dumbass warlock getting destroyed by the massive demon he'd summoned.

The idea was the make it such that, while it's possible for you to pass through an area finding three different lootable corpses and a fruit tree, it isn't extremely likely.

Having a large hex of laid-out Tarot cards, with each card corresponding to a different encounter, works too, I suppose. The World has you fight magical vampires.

>Having a large hex of laid-out Tarot cards, with each card corresponding to a different encounter, works too, I suppose.
I would roll my eyes through the back of my skull if I saw this.

Good thing I'm not DMing for you, then.

What would you prefer?

A combo of both of these will probably suit me best. I was also thinking along the line of having environmental hazards/puzzles in the vein of Golden Sun and the like, especially after the DMG mentioned a dungeon could be the top of a plateau or the branches of a huge tree.

While this is interesting, I do have more "set" encounters. Namely, some standard jungle creatures and a cell of Yuan-ti who recently arrived to the island. I'm toying with the idea of having the enemies move about as the party does; the creatures would just move in a small set area, while the yuan-ti have pre-determined patrol/scouting routes.

Mostly it's fine. You don't add proficiency to damage rolls, so it should be 1dX+4 damage, and daggers have a 20/60 range too, but that's the only actual issue I can see.

So in the end of the last session, my character died. I was the group's main damage dealer, playing a sneak attack archer rogue.
For my next character, I want to be more of a tank. How much would you roll your eyes at me if I were to make an Abjuration Wizard?

I've actually toyed with the idea of a dwarf abjurer. Moutain dwarf, while giving you a fairly useless +2 Str, does give you good armor to combine with wards and such.