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>Previously on /5eg/:

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What are your favorite D&D monsters /5eg/?

[Reposted from the end of the last thread]

What's the least bullshitty way to have a powerful enemy take an item away from my players?

It's a plot item that allows them to open a portal to the source code of the plane they're on, and it has towers which support the structure of the main plane. Each tower culminates in a powerful weapon, but when they take it away, they damage the structure of the plane, and once they're all taken, the whole plane falls apart (and the "main" quest of the sandbox goes into the endgame).

So far they've done 1 tower and we stopped the session halfway through the next one, and there are five in total. Once they get back to the main plane after this one, I want a dragon (in human form) who guards the plane to take the item away, and prompt a questline where they have to track him down to get it back, but I don't want them to feel cheated out of the item mechanically.

Any ideas?

Have you played a Chaotic Evil character before?

Humanoids

>Have you played a Chaotic Evil character before?
No, but I went full retard once and almost killed two party members, which is almost the same thing

yes, it became the most beloved character of the party

It was an slavic bard that was cowardly, treacherous, alcoholic, misogynist, racist, overconfident, honorless and basically a Saturday morning cartoon villain with bad russian accent.
He didn't give a shit about anyone else but because he was a boisterous douche he felt pretty comfortable being the center of attention and wanting everyone to own him favors. He did things like kill by himself the entire crew of a mumakil because he wanted to steal it for himself and, upon realising too late that he was too stupid to know how to ride it, he proceeded to kill the giant beast claiming "if I can't have it, no one can", thus being considered the hero of the kingdom for preventing the destruction of the wall during the siege with the act.

monster girls, of course

if you were that dragon, how would you take the item from the party?

Not sure to be honest.

I once had a plothook made for the Rogue Thief in the party. Basically an old flame of his who wanted his help, but didn't eant to ask for it, so she stole something, with the intent of tricking him into helping her. Basically just using the character as I invisioned her based on the background story he gave me.

The entire group got super mad when they didn't spot her with their bullshit passive perception. He had said she was a thief similar to him, and that they started their Roguish training together. So I assumed she would be his level (setting it up as a potential useful ally or a foil/rival of some kind), and with expertise in sneaking, and a random roll of 18, she was just significantly better at sneaking, than they were at spotting her.

I haven't dared to do that kind of thing again, because everyone, including the Rogue, was super pissed about not spotting her. No idea how they want this done then.

Or maybe they just dont. The worst part is, I had perfect plans for all scenarios (stealing it without getting noticed, or spotted and getting away, or just getting caught.), so I didn't need her to be super sneaky about it. The dice just determined that she was able to avoid their detection, which was apparently not allowed to happen.

>if you were that dragon, how would you take the item from the party?

Beat the shit out of them (but leave them alive because they spared one of his kobold servants and its eggs who put in a good word for them). But doesn't giving them a battle they can't win come across as bad DMing?

How would you guys run a festival type event? I want some downtime for my players and I want them to interact with some NPCs and maybe participate in some events like weight lifting, archery and so on. I'm guessing doing some rolls for the events and giving out gold rewards or maybe trinkets would be fine?
My main issue is length, I don't want it all to be over quickly. This has been a problem for me as a DM, I always rely too much on combat so the content ends up being too fight-heavy.

Consider offering interesting non-cash prizes as well. Winning at archery might grant you a trained pet falcon, for example.

I would play some sort of modified dice poker instead of doing standard rolls for the competition. That way players can even play against each other with the chance to beat each other even if their stats might not support it.

I ran something similar as a one-shot, and had them arrive the night before (allowing them to mingle with competitors, find out about the competition, or just have the PC's go find some alcohol and kick back) and then have the tournament/festival the next day.

no if you put in paper beforehand what the stats of the dragon are and you act logically (the dragon waited for an opportunity to get them by surprise and without spells to fuck them up)

If by miracles the party manages to beat the creature you have no choice but to concede defeat to your players and throw into the trash that campaign, because they have legitimately won with all the odds against them.

Putting the players in bullshit situations isn't bad GMing, bad GMing is denying the players to act and not giving them choices. Railroading is not making a linear dungeon, it's not letting the players act

>the dragon is fucking pissed, roll initiative
>cue 20 minutes of the party trying their hardest but still getting defeated because he has shown to be powerful as fuck
vs
>the dragon is ducking pissed
>in a narration the party is defeated, not because the dragon was powerful as fuck but because the GM said so
in a summary, always let the players play, never control their characters, control only the environment and NPCs in logical manners

>Be Dragon
>Walk up to party
>Introduce myself as MAGNIFICENT DRAGON-LORD KING BIGGUS DICKUS, and I am here to- HOLY SHIT WHAT'S THAT (Point in the other direction)
>When they turn around to look grab the item and dash away
>Play youtube.com/watch?v=MK6TXMsvgQg

The dragon must know these guys are tough. Why would he risk direct conflict?

10/10

Rust monsters. Enjoy your lower AC, faggots.

It's his job. The entire demiplane is a prison built to hold what is essentially an Eldrazi out of the MtG universe, and he was assigned there in order to prevent it from falling apart.

He succeeded for a long time, until an accident with a kraken destroyed one of the towers and allowed normal people to break into the leylines of the place and sneak themselves into the source code.

If he doesn't stop the party from robbing the towers, something approximating Tarrasque stats is going to be let loose on the real world.

Plus, all he knows of them is that they've managed to break into the towers, and they're competent enough to have dealt with a nest of kobolds. Beyond that, they haven't made much of a name for themselves.

Have a kobold nail "massive mounds of gold for artifact!" up on some town boards or something.

Humans

Ha! I actually kind of like that. Or something approximating it.

Maybe I'll overwhelm them with people suddenly looking for them. Bounty hunters, thieves, assassins, and then build up to the dragon.

Do you allow the Skywrite spell to create images in the sky? What are your favourite emoji's to skywrite?

So I just started my first ever campaign and was told that arrows, rations and torches are busywork and won't be counted in the campaign. What the hell gives? What's the point of my darkvision and wanderer background? I feel like my character is gimped from the start.

Is this normal?

Depends on the DM. I told my players to manage their ammo, but I can tell they're not - that's alright with me, if they're not enjoying something, there's no sense in enforcing it.

Torches is a bit shifty, because darkness can be a real problem for some characters and it nerfs characters like Drow who get Dancing Lights and Darkvision.

Rations is a salt to taste. My previous DM didn't bother, but she was awful anyway. I make the players reduce their rations by one each long rest or take a health reduction.

Players without darkvision will still need torches; you just don't need to keep track of how many you have. Not lighting a torch can still have a definite strategic advantage.

As for the rations, talk to your DM and see if you can switch your background a bit.

thanks, I'll try that

>party saves up their cumulative gold for 6 levels to buy plate armor for the fighter
>next encounter is ten rust monsters out of nowhere
>maintain that this is just a medium encounter for the party and that they just need to find a way around it

I am the law, motherfuckers.

>the sky around local mage's college is filled with Veeky Forums-style shitposts written in the clouds

Has there been any teasers, previews or leaks about the new Chult book?

>One of them reads "STOP RECLOUDING REEEEEE"

Would a coven of 3 Green Hags be too much for a party of 6 4th level players? Planning for my campaign's first boss fight and I want it to be hard but manageable for the players with the possibility of one or two players dying

I know this is the wrong place to ask, but it's still DnD so whatever.

I'm starting an ADnD campaign soon but some of my players are new and would get fucked and annoyed with millions of sheets since this group is mainly using laptops and digital shit to for character sheets.
Is there a good character generator, excell character sheet or something like PCgen for ADnD?

>allowing electronics at the table

Electronics make shit a lot faster in modern games, just got to turn off wifi, that's it.

That's fucking kawaii.

>death effects nerfed
>basilisk doesn't do shit
>everything is damage damage damage
>game is pretty much a matter of who has the highest hp
>char op is a dps contest

All in the name of (((((((((fun)))))))))

?

It can be permissable for the DM to keep copies of maps and campaign notes on a tablet or something. Otherwise, use pens and paper or fuck off.

Is this bait?

I'm using Roll20 for games where everyone is in the same room and there's nothing you can do to stop me

yes

>bitching at electronics
>not bitching at people who willingly go to RPG to cheat

I generally do it binary which is very similar. So you have torches, rations, arrows etc. and don't need to keep track of exact amounts. But if a beast comes in the night and steals someone's food, they don't have rations anymore, if they have to swim across a lake they could be at risk of making their torches useless, and if they get captured those arrows are gone.


While they should have more than enough gold for it by that level, it probably wasn't the best decision anyway to invest so much in plate when splint is almost as good and real cheap.

How well do the chase mechanics from the DMG work?

And what's the best way for a bounty hunter to capture party members other than just a straight up fight?

Ok so normally I play pathfinder, but I recently got invited to a 5e game. What would be the best way to build a rapier/foil wielding musketeer type character? I'm thinking Rogue Swashbuckler or Fighter Duelist, but I can't decide which one. Any suggestions?

>save or die spells either toned down or removed
>this is bad
kys yourself

Is the half-elf the objectively and mechanically best race?

Unlike in Pathfinder, what you build in 5e actually plays well and you actually have something else to do apart from full attacking.

Miscegenation is a sin.

Mechanically it's half-elf or variant human. In terms of fluff it's lizardfolk

No, it isn't

Sad

Electronics are cheating

It IS bad because SoDs are a perfectly fair and fun part of the game but wizards decided to pussify the game to attract the normies and roasties who watch shit like critical roll and would cry if their precious skyrim ripoff character dies.

How do you handle travelling along the Sword Coast, Veeky Forums? Or similar large maps in general.

I have DM'd a couple of homebrew campaigns on smaller, self contained islands or landmasses, where I had an intimate knowledge of most of everything, having placed it myself.

Through sheer luck, there was no logical reason I could keep my current party from "heading ashore" to the Sword Coast after my first story arc ended. It allowed us to look at things like travel and food more seriously, which is neat, but I am overwhelmed with the number of cities, areas, etc. And naturally the first thing they do is try to get a map of the area from a trading caravan, as they themselves are used to smaller regions to work with and want to explore.

How do I flesh out the regions and cities enough so that they don't feel like everything is the same? I was able to stall a bit by rolling some encounters while they headed to daggerford and end the session, but they're already talking about doing a trading road trip and hitting up some settlements while trying to complete the main goal of the campaign.

Any advice on how to handle travelling on a larger scale like this as well? Obviously there is the DMG which I'll read through today, but any suggestions you guys have I'll naturally take at a higher face value.

Pathfinder and 5e need to have a unholy love child so I can have my perfect d&d game.

>save or die is fair and fun
>normies and roasties
>skyrim
Not even trying lmao

This is why my campaign is called "Abduction: Isle of Mystery" and is set in a demiplane prison.

Best suggestion, take two-line notes on every city in the nearby area, just things like:

>Mining town, run by a local duke, subject to Waterdeep authorities, quite poor
>Port city, has trade links with overseas pirate coves, local guards are corrupt

I'd say if you have that for most places they come across, you should be able to wing it relatively effectively.

If you want to slow them down, put together hordes of caves, fellow travellers, and small towns unmarked on the map to divert their attention.

>months of playing with a single character
>built rapport with the party, in-jokes, have history together
>go up against a fairly unimportant monster as part of a side quest
>roll a 1
>level 10 from full health to death

>the same people who faked election polls can now be trusted for approval polls

That's essentially what I did before, it made everything much more believable and I enjoyed making my own geography and similar.

Sparknotes of the towns is probably the best way to do it, out of curiosity how do you handle travel and resting? They want to plan a month long voyage hitting up a few settlements along the way, but I'm worried when they can just technically long rest after every encounter they will have no issue using every resource to end anything I throw at them relatively easily. In addition, my autism prevents me from throwing a deadly encounter at them while they're on established trade routes and are already of a moderate level.

Go back to /pol/ ya cucks

>Fighter Duelist
?

I do this although I do track ammo.

>Light sources
I don't track how long torches and lanterns have left, but if you've got Darkvision you're certainly getting to see things the players can't notice, and if e.g. water puts the light out you get to save the day.

>Rations
No clue, definitely ask your DM for a way to compensate.

I'm not the one posting political images in /5eg/

/r9k/ go home

>faked election polls
Confirmed for knowing nothing about how polling works. Daily reminder that Clinton won the popular vote, by about the margin the polls predicted.

I want to make money at dms guild but I have no idea what would sell and be fun to produce

All political posters FUCK OFF.

Well you're not going to make any money.

Look up the adventure "tournament at scornubel" its a murder-case set during a tournament

I'll be swimming in cents, you'll see

Whale fishin'

Sounds like you're about to get tetanus.

>baiting this hard

As long as you hire your nephew for 10 cents a day.

Is there a way to swim in money in 5e?

>depends on your DM
But really, after some levels money doesnt mean shit anymore, so you might as well use it to build a giant safe and swim there with your party bros.

>prevents me from throwing a deadly encounter at them while they're on established trade routes and are already of a moderate level

If it's a trade route, bandits make sense to start with. But you can use bandits to divert them off the road - they'll go and check out bandit camps if you leave a trail leading to them (because loot), and if the bandits have a mine, they'll check out the mine, and if the mine happens to have a deadly monster infestation...

As for travelling and resting, I always say they can only long rest once per day, because otherwise they can't fall asleep. Elves can obviously trance, but unless the whole party doesn't need to sleep, they'll usually force the elves to roll with the rest of them.

I also reduce my party's rations by one every time they long rest, with the option to expend 10cp instead if they're in a non-hostile city. They'll have to stop in settlements to buy food, which will slow them down, which is where you can throw more hooks at them to keep them down.

>we stop in a settlement to buy food
>you find the local populace ravaged by plague of some sort, or so you think. Their eyes are bulging and their lips bulbous. No one is willing to talk to you, save for an old beggar, who talks of fish-like creatures from the deep, and how everything changed when they came...

>we stop in a settlement to pick up rations
>you find the town empty, but it looks like people were there only moments prior. You hear footsteps and laughter in the distance, but when you turn, you see nobody there...

And so on.

You can always put something in their path, wherever they go. And when they stop to rest, wild animals, thieves, bounty hunters, assassins, anything could cause problems for them if they're getting too much rest.

Be that guy from critical roll and sell his overhyped bullshit... you will make a lot of money.
If you are not him, well, good luck.

No i meant like physically swim in a non liquid

Oh, sure its considered Dificult terrain, half walking speed.

The dragon hires a thief of appropriate Challenge Rating who steals it. Give the thief Expertise in Sleight of Hand or whatever.

yeah, unless your dm is a beagle boy, that would be it.

Ha, I actually have the perfect character for this. The party's favourite NPC, who is an amoral, no-attachments Master Thief.

Alright, so two of my friends and I are planning on starting up a campaign in which we will be rotating DMs. Each player makes a character, and each player always plays their character, even while DMing. We have decided on this as our playspace. I get the Eastern Highlands, one friend gets the Ashlands, and the other gets the southern area. Of course, we'll allow each other to enter each other's lands, with permission. Our characters will be natives from the lands we will DM, so they'll work well as guides to those areas. Gonna end each mini-campaign with a hook for the next DM's campaign. The DM's character will basically be a support character; unless the other players are completely lost or stuck, they won't be affecting the actual story at all. Just combat, and support. It lets us keep a consistent party and make sure everyone is still developing and enjoying their character.
That's all our "rules" and ideas so far. Anything we should know or watch out for? Anyone done this before? What should we be careful about with rotating DMs?

There we go. Then the thief just picks the right time to try and steal it. If the party can't make the Perception checks, well, that's not your fault.

Just make sure the thief isn't, like, impossibly good. So if your party is, say, an average level of 10, then the thief should probably have a Sleight of Hand modifier of +13 - (4x2) + 5, accounting for a Dexterity of 20 and Expertise.

+13 is nothing to laugh at, but it's conceivable that the party might make good enough Perception checks.

So, not really a campaign, but a series of one shots?

Nothics and demons/devils.

Never really "got" yugoloths; I guess neutral evil is just boring to me compared to devils and demons.

>the light created by the Daylight spell doesn't count as sunlight
What's the point?

Maybe one shot low-level adventures?

Kind of. But with the same characters each time, and world building and such. We won't be swapping DMs every week, it'll be at the end of each person's story arch for that part. So it could be two weeks, three, maybe four. It depends on how much they wanna make for that time. And if someone loves DMing, we might make them the main DM and slow down the rotations.

To be honest, half the party would probably let him take it. Two of them slept with him already. They love him, because I made him maximum ham. They went after him because he'd already stolen their stuff previously.

This is a great idea.

>then the thief should probably have a Sleight of Hand modifier of +13 - (4x2) + 5, accounting for a Dexterity of 20 and Expertise.

Christ I formatted this poorly.

+13, from (4x2) + 5, accounting for a Dexterity of 20 and Expertise.

There we go.

Hey, if he charms it away that's cool to. Just have him make up some kind of story. Expertise works just as fine with Bluff checks.

>Day 69

nice

Goliaths are banned from my games so I was thinking of giving their Stone's Endurance ability to dwarves. Was also thinking of buffing Stone's Endurance to 2d12 at 8th level and 3d12 at 16th level.

Thoughts? Too OP?

So I ran LMoP for randoms on roll20, it wasn't half bad.
The story of one of my players is that he's searching for his father, a powerful warrior who disappeared a couple of years ago, and Gundren, the story's Damsel in Distress, told him he knew someone who had info on his father's whereabouts.
Now, the first part is easy. I just have to say his father and his team passed through Phandalin a couple of years ago and they were the ones who cleared Wyvern Tor, so the party just have to go there, kill the Orcs inhabiting it now and find some clues. But from then on, I'm at a loss. Anybody has some ideas?

A battle they can't win isn't bad dm'ing if it's simply a battle they can't win head on

A way I'd do it is the ol' Simulacrum switcheroo. Have them Role-play as usual, then one day, after the party splits up, they run across the bound and gagged body of one of the pcs back at camp, at which point you reveal that he's the actual PC who last thing he remembers is getting boinked in the head while the PC they have been playing with all session was actually Dracodax shapechanged into one of their forms, and he hasn't in fact just gone down to town to buy some cigarettes but in fact, absconded with the magical item

Dwarfs are too loaded already.

I feel like dwarves have too many racial traits as it is. They're all good and are mostly fluff but Stone's Endurance might be too much.

What if I pruned Dwarven Resilience, Tool Proficiency, and Dwarven Combat Training?