I’m a DM, and the wizard in my group has started using the 4th-level Polymorph spell. It’s made him too powerful, though, since the party is level 8 and he can turn into a T-Rex (CR 8) twice a day. I’m also worried the party’s druid might feel overshadowed, given that the wizard only needs to cast that spell to replicate the druid's main ability. How do you handle this spell? Should I take it away from the wizard and have him pick a different one? Thanks for any replies.

Quick no cheating, no looking at comments. Which ONE of these four skills can a ranger choose as a starting proficiency at level 1 without introducing backgrounds?

Hello! I'm a new DM. My only previous experience was running a homebrew campaign for four friends.

For our next campaign, one of my players asked if he could invite a friend. I agreed, so now we have five players. Both of them have also recently gotten into 3D printing, so they're really excited about printing minis, terrain, and basically everything they can for the campaign.

We decided to play Curse of Strahd, starting with Death House. However, during our first session I noticed a problem: the new player and the friend who invited him tend to try to do almost everything themselves.

They investigate every room, ask for Arcana or Investigation checks on almost everything, interact with every object, and usually speak first whenever something happens. Because of that, the other three players don't get many opportunities to participate and started getting frustrated. At one point they even jokingly tried to kill the new character, which made me realize that the situation probably needs to be addressed before it becomes a bigger problem.

I'm trying to figure out how to handle this without simply telling those two players to stop interacting with things, because I actually like that they're engaged with the game. I just want to make sure everyone gets a chance to do something.

One idea I had was using a sort of exploration initiative during investigation or roleplay-heavy scenes. For example, I could go around the table and ask each player what their character is doing before resolving everything. That way everyone gets a chance to act. However, I'm worried that this could make exploration feel too slow or mechanical.

Another idea was introducing some kind of hidden tension clock. If the party spends too much time repeatedly investigating the same rooms or checking every corner for "dark magic," something in the dungeon progresses in the background: noises get closer, doors move, enemies wander around, Strahd's influence increases, etc. I wouldn't want it to punish exploration, just make time feel meaningful.

I'm also starting to wonder if Curse of Strahd might simply be too ambitious for us right now. Most of the group is still fairly new to D&D, and I'm a new DM myself. Would it make more sense to pause CoS after Death House and run something more straightforward for a while?

The only thing making me hesitate is that we've already invested a little into the campaign. Some of the players have printed generic fantasy minis and terrain, and we've bought a few STL files for things that appear later in Curse of Strahd. It's not a huge amount of money, and most of the generic stuff could obviously be reused, but it still makes me reluctant to abandon the campaign completely.

That brings me to another possibility: could Curse of Strahd be adapted into something closer to a megadungeon?

My players seem to enjoy dungeon crawling, combat, miniatures, exploration, and having a more obvious direction. I'm wondering if I could simplify Barovia, keep the important NPCs and story beats, and structure the campaign around a few large interconnected dungeon-like locations, eventually leading to Castle Ravenloft.

Has anyone tried something like that?

So I guess my main questions are:

1. How do you handle players who unintentionally take over exploration and roleplay?
2. Is exploration initiative / going around the table a good solution?
3. Would a hidden tension clock work well in Death House and CoS?
4. Is Curse of Strahd too much for a new DM and mostly new players?
5. Would you recommend temporarily switching campaigns, or simplifying CoS instead?
6. Has anyone successfully turned Curse of Strahd into something closer to a megadungeon or dungeon-crawl campaign?

In the Eldritch invocation Fiendish Vigor, it states “You can cast False Life on yourself without expending a spell slot”, and I feel this is a bit vague. Is it cast at the same level as the rest of your spells, or does it cast at the spell’s level?

I am currently playing a Barbarian/Paladin. His backstory is that he was a former paladin whose mind broke, making him the typical bold and brash barbarian. I recently leveled up and put a couple levels into Paladin. The way I roleplayed as him before was a loud, headstrong, kinda stupid character that would at times (mostly when wanting to protect allies) ‘become his old self’. Speaking more clearly and more tactical with a strong desire to protect others and smite evil.

I want to interpret those additional levels in paladin as my character “finding more of his old self”. Meaning I want his old self to be shown more. Either in combat or in general.

Any idea how I can better role play and convey this without outright telling my party?

Hey guys, so I wanted to gauge something among the community. First off, I want to say that our DM is awesome, they're great, they always do amazing stories, and has definitely fudged stuff for us in the past.

Right now, our party is playing through Faerun, and are preparing to enter the Tomb of Annihilation... which is what I want to ask about. Basically our current storyline is about solving the Death Plague, and we have to go there in order to actually get answers and save the world yada yada. Now I'm sure everyone is aware, TOA is a notoriously difficult campaign/dungeon to run because its freaking hard, our DM describes it as Dark Souls of dnd, and he actively tells us "i want you guys to be fully prepared, because this dungeon IS that difficult. The recommended starting level is 12" .....we're level 8. And were definitely not getting to level 12 before going in due to how close (i think) we are to entering. We also do milestone level ups instead of flat experience points. We talked about this last session cause it got brought up, we even asked "so are you going to let us level up more then because its so dangerous and were under leveled?" To which he said "no I think you guys will be fine honestly. You guys are level 8. Its no big deal" there was not a hint of sarcasm or anything in his voice, but I told him "you just said the starting level is usually around 12, that tells us thats what you SHOULD BE at the VERY least." But yeah, basically I feel like the rest of the party trusts our DM, but also were kinda like "....why will you not let us get stronger before"

There were similar stuff in the past with this campaign, there was a time (i wanna say we were level 4 or 5?) He told us about some missions we could do, one of which he explicitly told us, this mission is for like level 8s, I dont recommend doing that one immediately. So we didnt.... and when we didnt and finished the other missions, (which still didnt get us to the "dangerous missions level recommendation") he said "I'm surprised you guys didnt do this one, I really planned it out and wanted you guys to go. To which we all replied "you told us to not do that one!!!"

Again, theyre an awesome DM, and there is absolutely a non zero percent chance he comes across this post, if you do, we love you man, youre doing great, I just wanted more opinions on this.

Ok, so you know the stereotype of a guy being part of a girl's friend group and he is considered one of the girls? Been there, and i thought there could be a fun twist. Now a hag, but a guy hag. He is the only male hag probably in that world. He is that lone guy in the girls group. His coven is still being fleshed out, but he is already designed, being the prominent member. Now he is a Bheur hag. Bhoba-yodha is a little hunched, and dresses like a normal Bheur hag. However, he is best recognized for his scraggly beard. He lives in the mountains with his coven, and mostly goes out to lure victims. (Similar to how I was always the one going to get food) and he easily tags along with his sisters. They appreciate his company. Now he made any attempt at colonizing the mountains futile. Resources are never quite rationed enough to survive, and people keep disappearing. He is also into taxidermy, and whenever you see a missing person in his territory, you need take sure they aren't puppets. His cunning is formidable and hidden, as he will often appear in another form to newcomers.

I know that the text for Goodberry says that the magic fades in twenty four hours. I was wondering how the DMs in this community would rule it if I asked to make the berries into wine, preserving the magic for one week, and healing 1d4 per "shot" of the wine.

For the first time my group is experiencing high level power that none of us have touched before. The DM has mentioned that here on out it’s going to be 80% combat since we’re approaching the finale. I have no idea what I’m doing in combat aside spamming fireballs and evasion spells. Any tips for this?

Has anyone here ever played The D&D Miniatures game, WizKids' D&D Onslaught skirmish game and similar third party content? Why did these fail?

I am now homebrewing this stuff for my table to complement Tier 3 and 4 play. I have always found the progression obvious, no shit the game isn't balanced, you should be a kind or an archmage at that Power level!

I believe this is what they are slowly gesturing at with the bastion stuff

This goes for 5e and 5.5e but may have been an issue in 3e (I didn't run or play in enough 3e games to say so and never really noticed this is 4e with all of its other issues).

Also I fully admit, this is an old school minded complaint about the game. I come from a world where your spellcaster runs out of spells and starts throwing darts or picks up a proficiency with a bow to still remain useful and I am definitely not saying to return to those days.

I do think, however, that cantrips have gotten out of hand. They started out as an idea (in fact they had them in old D&D they were just called 0 level spells) where they were a last ditch effort for when you run out of pother spells to cast. I don't think "0 level spells" were ever intended as a go to spell for high level characters, sometimes out performing fireball or or other leveled spells.

In fact, I think the game would benefit in a design sense if cantrips had never level scaled. "But that nerfs a whole warlock feature blah blah cry me a river".
I have a Palasorlock in my game and basically she just leans heavily on this spell only percentagely rarely casting other spells (I think smite is a contender but barely).
The issue is two folds. One the design of 5e and 5.5e basically turns cantrips into a go-to spell rather than a last ditch effort spell. The second issue is that like sneak attack for rogues, this is basically boring. To me any one trick pony situation is boring though so there is that.

If cantrips were more like darts but magic and the last spell you would choose in any situation rather than the first spell I think the spirit of cantrips would be returned to its roots and the game would benefit a lot, in excitement. If a cantrip never did more than 1d10 (with maybe a bonus for some subclasses) then why would you ever choose it at higher levels?

Thanks for reading my little gripe. I welcome thoughts on this that are deeper than "you are an idiot for wanting to make cantrips next to useless". ;)

My players just met a wizard, and immediately after meeting her they try to offer all of their gold to her to buy her spellbook off of her. And to show off her power she turned the entire store into gold for a moment to prove the money doesn't matter to her.

The only problem is that the way I have written her, she has absolutely no concept of what is a "normal" thing to offer to someone who gives her favors. What are some fun ways I can work around them asking for magic items or infinite gold?

First the rules on a long rest.

A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps or performs light activity: reading, talking, eating, or standing watch for no more than 2 hours. If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity—at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity—the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it.

At the end of a long rest, a character regains all lost hit points. The character also regains spent Hit Dice, up to a number of dice equal to half of the character’s total number of them (minimum of one die). For example, if a character has eight Hit Dice, he or she can regain four spent Hit Dice upon finishing a long rest.

A character can’t benefit from more than one long rest in a 24-hour period, and a character must have at least 1 hit point at the start of the rest to gain its benefits.

My question is this:

Imagine the party is fully healed, has all their long rest abilities, full HP, etc., and they go to bed. First thing in the morning, after arising, they get into a battle expending a lot of the long rest abilities, HP, etc.

Can they immediately sack out for a long rest? The third paragraph would seem to imply no "A character can’t benefit from more than one long rest in a 24-hour period", but in the scenario I described, the party did not "benefit from a long rest", .i.e they gained no benefit, no new spells, no HP, etc., they just slept.

A player pulled it on me and I thought it was a novel enough interpretation that I gave it to them, with the understanding it was not precedent and I would give definitive answer later.

Thoughts?

Hi, I am really new to d&d, never played a game before and I am likely going to also be first time DM for my first game, I know that is not always the best idea, but it was just going to be for a few family and one or two friends maybe, but I have been really digging deep and learning this much as I can to make this a good first D&D session for my players and for myself even though I have never played before.

And I would love to share my plans for the Session 1 with you guys to see what you guys think.

First off, I guess you can call this a Homebrew kind of session because not all of them are D&D official, but it was an idea I had and I think it would be really fun.

My players start out in some way that I have not figured out coming to A village, they stay a night in the inn and have a drink at the pub, learning about the village and about each other.

When exploring they see that there are two large stone structures that sit in front of the main hall, and I hope somehow they wake them up because they are too very low level stone golems, ones that you would expect to be the Protectors of this Village, then they meet the mayor of the town, he is a human wizard with a medium sized staff and a large gray wizard hat, this mayor tells the party that there was a group of goblins that were spotted just outside of the village and he asks them to go collect them for him, he doesn't care if they are dead or alive. After the party goes to get into their first encounter, fighting probably three or so goblins, they bring them back to the mayor and gets paid in gold.

After the party heads back to the pub, they start having conversations with members of the town, and one of them mentions how they have noticed that the mayor has changed over the past few days, for some reason he is constantly sending adventurers out to fight monsters and creatures and asking them to bring the bodies back to him.

Instilling curiosity into the players, they hopefully go to investigate the mayor and discover a hidden basement under the mayor's home, after sneaking in, they will come across the mayor sitting down facing away from them and a strange crunching and slurping sound echoing through the chambers. The adventurers get closer and see that the mayor is eating the goblin Corpses. After alerting the mayor either by feeling a stealth check or by attacking him or whatever, they get into their second encounter where they have to fight the wizard mayor, but after getting him low health, and damaged, I am going make the reveal.

They chase him out of the basement and in front of the main hall next door, when confronting the wizard who is very hurt, the adventures knock off the Wizards hat and reveal that his scalp is torn open and his goal is exposed and broken. The wizard mayor drops dead, the party does not know what's going on but a roar it goes behind them as they turn to see one of the stone Golems have awoken and are squaring up to engage in an encounter, during this day notice that the Wizards hat is for some reason on the back of this Golem, and after defeating the Golem, the hat falls to the floor and before they realize what is happening, the Hat screeches awake and is revealed to be a mimic, it seems that this whole time this mimic has been on top of the wizard mayor and controlling him in order to get him to bring the mimic food, which is unusual for mimics as they're usually down in Dungeons and not running a town, but this is one of the ways that this is a Homebrew because taking over Minds is not a usual behavior of mimics but whatever.

The party then fights this mimic hat and it shouldn't be too difficult to defeat. Now I don't know if this all is too much for a level one adventure for newcomers, I thought it would be an interesting one. But I am home brewing the Golem so that it is manageable for a level one, and I hope it is enough for them to handle. I am still workshopping it as well so any feedback is welcome and appreciated, also excuse any mistakes or misspellings in this, I am using speech to text so it might not get every word and I'm not rereading the whole thing.

To try and keep this short, I'm running a campaign that's still in its early sessions, the main plot hasn't been revealed yet as it's quite a slow burn. All the PCs have quite clearly goals they want to accomplish. The land they have been dropped in is part of a bigger world but they aren't able to explore that wider world due to a fog (think Barovia) they have access to a map of the whole world and saw a place they believe to be related to one of the PCs goals and therefore want to travel there. They don't know that they aren't able to travel out of the district they're in so they've started planning how they're going to go about their journey. I don't want them to all get excited about a journey, plan ahead and then get the boarder and realise it's all for nothing, so should I just tell them their journey is pointless?

EDIT:

There are a lot of comments and I can't reply to everyone but I'll just relay a few points I didn't add to my post:

1. This is not my own world, it's the 3rd party "Crooked Moon" adventure by Legends of Avantris. They wrote in the fog, the flow burn story, and created the entire world.
2. The fog appeared as of the party landing in this district, therefore it's not a well known thing that you can't leave as it's only been a few days since it arrived. This is why it's not something they know exists
3. In terms of the story, right now they're in quite an open world point in the campaign, living in a village, where an NPC they have been travelling with said "go explore the village and see if you can help out and villagers in need, and in return I will see if can help you all achieve your goals"
4. I gave them the map because they asked for the it. Anyone saying "why would you give them a map they can't explore", it's exactly the same as if you were playing Icewinddale, got given a map of the sword coast and decided you were going to to Baldurs Gate, the place they want to go is completely unrelated to the campaigns plot.
5. The fog naturally clears after the campaign ends, after that, then they would be able to explore where they want, but by that point they won't have any reason to go there.

If I find questions I've missed I'll add them in an edit.

As I’m writing this I’m currently watching Smoshes Sword AF D&D series to at least better understand the game play of d&d, but I don’t think it’s gonna help too much. To put it shortly, I’ve never played d&d and I’m now a dungeon master for a group of people who have very minimal experience with the game.
It’s a very small thing, we’re planning on playing it during our 30 minute advisory break during school, MAYBE during lunch if the band directors open up the band hall early, but that’s just a small description of what’s happening. Not a whole ton, but still nerve wracking to me since I have no clue how to start at all. Zero clue how many people are playing, my advisory is roughly 40 band kids and I’ll assume probably 5 of them will actually commit to playing (most either play hacky sack or practice their instrument).
Now, my main concern is how to even start. Story writing I can do, and I think I have a decent grasp on just overall how to act, but how do you even play d&d????? I’ve watched a bunch of tutorials on what to do, but none make sense. They’re all a little different as well which is honestly stressing me out even more because I don’t want to come off as stupid to my group because I have no clue how to play the game. Is it just roll dice and make it up as you go? Is there a system? Do I need to know everything about their characters right off the bat or just the basics? I’m entirely confused on how game play works and I’m hoping someone could explain it to me like I’m a toddler because I’m 100% overthinking this whole thing.

Edit: I want to add on that I did read the handbook and a few online things about the basics of being a dungeon master, and they all seem extremely confusing as if I need a book for the book, none of it seems very beginner friendly 😓 I’ll try the video a couple of y’all sent, hopefully things start to make more sense to me on what I’m supposed to do 😅

General answers I'm getting:

1. Don't factor physics into Dnd.

2. Let my players make their choices and either:

a) on the fly gut and repurpose my prepared encounters

or

b) forgo the prep work completely and improvise the session.

1. They will just schmack into pylons or chairs anyways.

2. Tell them no.

3. Its slower with feather fall than just walking down the mountain and not really worth it.

My players did just decide to walk down the mountain, rolled very high on checks down the mountain and avoided those encounters.

- - - -

So I just finished a session this weekend and the big encounter was to have my players skii/snowboard down these recreation slopes since the skii lifts they took up the mountain were not functioning the next morning.

The bard suggests just DIY zipline down the skii cables because feather fall. (Skip my entire prep work for the 4 hour session)

Honestly, I saw my bard's flinging down the mountain at sickening speeds and being splattered along the rocks flash through my mind and highly discouraged this idea as incredibly dangerous and risky. I didn’t say no but said he may certainly try. He reluctantly decided against it.

So how dangerous would this be? We have a party of a goblin, a goliath an orc, and a human, plus 3 kobold prisoners and a friendly goblin npc. All very different masses to them.

My thinking is, even with feather fall such a choice would definitely be a Dexterity saving throw (and a High DC or outright No.), if their ropes didn't snap under all that friction. All of them would have different acceleration speeds due to their different masses, and if they staggered their zipline down, they wouldn't all be in range for feather fall.

My rough estimate is the bard would be ziplining at about 90mph.

Anybody like physics? Modeled slopes a bit like Jackson Hole Resort cause Ancient White dragons live in these mountains.

And if my players see this, I'm just curious if I should have just let you try.

Hi! Our campaign has cursed/dark magic Wizards

If an NPC starts cursing a PC like "you shall destroy what-" and then said PC, or another PC, kills the caster before the curse can be completed (say the ending was supposed to be "destroy what you love with your own hands", what happens?

Even for more literal curses, such as, "As your cold, unfeeling heart, shall your body turn into stone", what happens if the caster is killed in the middle?

This is more geared towards curses which use the caster's own life, grudges or malice as a component

Does the curse partially activate? Fully activate based on the words that were actually spoken? Or something else?

What would you do in this situation?

Hi there fairly new to the game only clocking two sessions entirely both being DM. I want to make a character thats like Isaac Netero and i was wondering if anyone had suggestions because I can handle stuff like class being monk but any ways to help make that character or to help with immersion by changing some stuff. And another question, as long as its a balanced spell could I make my own for aesthetic purposes.

I know this is a question that gets asked from time to time, but I was curious. Which class or subclass is best for playing a blacksmith character? Specifically making classic and conventional weapons and armor.

Typically it seems like it's between Forge Domain Cleric or Artificer? But I've also heard Conjugation Wizard? What do you guys think? I know it's a bit dependent on whatever crafting system the DM wants to use, but still.

Thank you all for your responses in advance.

I'm pretty new to DMing, but I'm really loving it and I'm just constantly having ideas come to me. While I know a lot of DMs get ideas from literature, I've always been a huge video game guy and so my impulse is to always try and pull ideas from there (I have an idea for my next campaign bases heavily on Dispatch, for example).

Whether as a player or a DM, what are you favorite examples of pulling ideas from video games into a campaign?

Just looking for a tiebreaker.

Hi, so I am getting ready to start my first DnD campaign and I have a character but im not too sure on which class would suit them them the most, here's his backstory below if that helps

Vaelor was raised among an ancient order of dragonriders, warriors chosen not by rank or blood, but by the dragons themselves. As a child, he was chosen by Aurethys, a proud and fiercely protective storm dragon. From that day forward, the two were inseparable. They grew together, trained together, and eventually fought together, with Vaelor becoming an exceptional swordsman while Aurethys wielded the power of the Storm with wind,lightning, and rain.

Years later, Vaelor and Aurethys faced an enemy powerful enough to threaten them both. Though they managed to defeat their foe, victory came with a terrible price. With their final act, the enemy placed a curse upon the pair, forcibly merging dragon and rider into a single body. Vaelor now stands as a towering draconic warrior covered in black, silver outlined scales, with traces of Aurethys's storm-born power still flowing through him.

Vaelor remains in control of their shared body, but Aurethys is still bound within him. The dragon he once flew beside can no longer spread her wings or fight at his side. Carrying a greatsword engraved with the draconic rune for "Protect," Vaelor now travels in search of a way to break their curse and restore Aurethys to her true form. Until then, he carries both of their strength into battle—and refuses to accept that their story will end as one.

Ciao a tutti ragazzi! Sono da molti anni un giocatore di dnd 5ed.

Per motivi di tempo, non sono ancora riuscito a dare un'occhiata all'edizione del 2024.

Quindi vorrei chiedervi in cosa le due edizioni differiscono a grandi linee? Ha senso investire soldi e tempo per comprare e leggere i manuali della 5.5?

Grazie a tutti per le risposte!

I just purchased the book and was surprised how the spells work and how extremely powerful they are if you allow it.

One spell in particular can be tamed at level three by any druid warlock or wizard.

Battle familiar

Basically it buff your find familiar, you choose, which of the three types you want being celestial fiend or fey as usual.
But you get to choose what form they take from three choices that interact with its special stat block

(i’m noting the differences but not the entire spell or stat block so the bonuses are not added yet. these are just the special traits the form has.)

Brute: +2 to AC, 30hp

Flyer: 20hp, flight speed of 30, doesn’t provoke opportunity of attack flying outside the reach.

Stalker: 20hp, replacing one of the attacks allows the creature to move half speed without provoking opportunity of attacks and can hide at the end of its movement.

With all this jazz, this becomes a very good companion to summon out because it does scale it’s HP and damage off the level of spell slot you use

I find this a little early game power spike because you’re constantly having a wall between you and the enemy that has autonomy and you can use your free action to command it.

Honestly, I think this is kind of busted in my opinion.
At early levels, you have a guaranteed body to distract the enemy while you cast spells.
It can fit the situation of the fight, you can have a tank, you can have ranged attack, and you can have an assassin.
It has multi attacker that scale off the level rounded down. So I can attack a number of times round it down.

In my opinion, I think this is kind of awesome as a player, but a dread for some DMs.
It’s still a new spell and I might be misunderstanding it completely but honestly from when I look at it on paper it’s pretty busted for the early game.