The D and D Adventurers League is an official organized play program for Dungeons and Dragons, where players can create and advance characters. Spell scrolls can be scribed as presented in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, and a “workweek” is defined as 5 downtime days for the purposes of this campaign. The +1 rule allows for the copying of spells from any source, but it is not possible for a Wizard with +1 to copy spells from Xanathar’s. Xanathar’s Guide offers many of the best spells in the game, not just in terms of power but also in terms of color, flavor, and diversity.
Players can sell and buy equipment and spell components using the rules in the Player’s Handbook, and spell scrolls and potions can be purchased for prices listed under Appendix. AL characters must start at level 1 and must use either book. Magic items are obtained during adventures, and non-optional rules found in the Player’s Handbook, Basic Rules, and all books listed below can be used.
Wizards have put out an official ruling on how to use Xanathar’s, and spells and spells gained by advancement are subject to PHB+1. Players can still make a Yuan Ti Paladin of Ancients / Shadow Sorcerer with Shadow Blade and a bonus feat and all Xanathar spells. However, they miss out on the Yuan Ti Paladin of Ancients / Shadow Sorcerer with Shadow Blade and a bonus feat and all Xanathar spells.
If the DM doesn’t like these restrictions, they shouldn’t run the League. Players must have access to the exact same resources that any other player in the AL has if they want to create and advance characters.
📹 Adventure League S11 how to play
A step-by-step description of how you can make your character for adventure league for the upcoming organized play at Howayte …
What is the difference between Xanathars guide and Tasha’s?
Tasha’s and Xanathar’s guides offer a variety of new subclasses, spells, and mechanics, but each guide has its own unique features. Tasha’s includes new magic items, while Xanathar’s has 30 new subclasses and access to the Artificer class. Tasha’s focuses on exploration and offers new locales and puzzle options. Tasha’s is the newer book, offering rules for customizing racial traits and character backgrounds.
Xanathar’s introduces the Hexblade subclass to Warlocks, similar to Dante from Devil May Cry. Hexblades gain powerful options at their first level, including Hex Warrior, Hex Warrior, and Charisma as a damage modifier. The Hexblade’s signature ability grants players the ability to curse targets, damage bonuses, expanded critical range, and health recovery. The Hexblade is also a tempting multiclass option, benefiting almost any class that scales off of Charisma.
Is Xanathar’s Guide to Everything official?
Xanathar’s Guide to Everything was the first book in “Hardcover Nonfiction” sold by Publishers Weekly, with nearly 45, 000 copies sold as of December 4, 2017. The high sales numbers were attributed to two main reasons: the untapped market for D and D player-oriented books by Wizards of the Coast (WotC) and Amazon sale discounts. Scott Thorne, for ICv2, highlighted that WotC has a huge untapped market for D and D player-oriented books and Xanathar’s Guide is the first official book released by WotC in almost two years.
In Polygon’s review, Charlie Hall wrote that Xanathar’s voice sounds more like a cranky Redditor than a fantastical crime boss. However, the bulk of the content in the book is outstanding, making it the first must-have new book from Wizards of the Coast since the latest edition of the Dungeon Master’s Guide.
The book features over 30 new subclasses for players to choose from, including popular builds from previous editions of the game, like the Cavalier and the Samurai, as well as brand new versions of classic character classes. WotC has instilled these new subclasses with strong role-playing hooks, inspiring storytelling in and of themselves. However, most players will have no need for the remainder of the book, as chapters two and three are mostly for Dungeon Masters and include a host of new tools and tables.
Rob Wieland for Geek and Sundry noted that Xanathar’s Guide has class-specific elements that can help with character backstory creation, such as tables for a bard’s worst performance or the vice a rogue likes to indulge in between adventures. Additionally, a section full of tables determines important character details like siblings, upbringing, and other points that can help sketch a character backstory during play.
Can bards use spells from other classes?
The sixth level of the Bardic College of Valour allows players to learn two spells from any class, allowing them to shape their character in a stronger direction. This feature allows bards to inspire themselves during ability checks, making it an appealing prospect for choosing the College of Lore for their bard character. The College of Valour, on the other hand, is known for its boisterous feast celebrating the deeds of the mighty and victorious.
Bards of the College of Valour are seen as cheerleaders of the brave, imbuing their teammates with power and even mucking in themselves. This allows for a more diverse and engaging experience for players.
What are the best bard spells from other classes?
The most frequently referenced spells for inflicting damage, providing healing, and offering defensive capabilities are, respectively, Fireball, Swift Quiver, Aura of Vitality, and Counterspell.
Can all wizards do wandless magic?
Wandless magic is the practice of performing magic without a wand, which can be challenging for beginners and can have unpredictable results. Witches and wizards accustomed to using wands can only reliably perform wandless magic if they possess great skill. However, in regions where wands were not used, wandless magic was considered the norm and using one was optional. Wands were used by witches and wizards to channel their magic, making their spells more accurate and potent.
Only the most powerful and disciplined wizards could perform wandless magic reliably. The wand was a European invention, and some cultures did not traditionally rely on such tools for magic. Native Americans had pre-European practices that did not require a wand, and African witches and wizards only adopted the wand in the 20th century.
Is Xanathar’s Guide to Everything Unearthed Arcana?
Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, a role-playing game supplement, was developed through the “Unearthed Arcana” playtest and several character subclasses were previously published in the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide. Free excerpts were released as PDFs during the Extra Life 2017 fundraiser in November 2017. The book was released on November 21, 2017, with an exclusive edition with an alternate art cover by Hydro74.
The Dungeons and Dragons Rules Expansion Gift Set, a boxed set containing Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse and new printings of Xanathar’s Guide to Everything and Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, was released on January 25, 2022, with an exclusive edition with white foil alternate art covers by Joy Ang. Xanathar’s Guide to Everything won the 2017 Origins Awards for Best Role-Playing Game Supplement and Fan Favorite Role-Playing Game Supplement.
Can any wizard use Dunamancy spells?
The objective of dunamancy spells is to facilitate accessibility to two specific wizard subclasses in the immediate future. However, there is also the possibility of implementing these spells for other spellcasting classes, with the intention of earning or rewarding them.
Is Xanathar’s guide to everything balanced?
The original fifth edition handbook was deficient in the number of spells included. However, the latest additions to the druid, sorcerer, and wizard spell lists have augmented the available variety for combat play. Xanathar underscores the significance of maintaining vigilance, and while not all elements are perfectly balanced, the sourcebook can facilitate the development of a campaign and is recommended for both players and Dungeon Masters.
Can you use unearthed arcana in adventurers league?
Unearthed Arcana is currently in beta testing and cannot be used in official tournaments or events like Wizards of the Coast’s Adventurers League. However, materials from the playtesting phase have been released as official licensed game materials, such as Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. The primary goal with Unreal Arcana (UA) is to allow players to test and provide feedback before they are officially published. The Wizards of the Coast game design team has released several DnD races for playtesting via UA, including Travelers of the Multiverse: Astral elf, Autognome, Giff, Hadozee, Plasmoid, and Thri-kreen.
Is Unearthed Arcana legal?
Unearthed Arcana is a draft of game mechanics designed for playtesting and the stimulation of creative thought. It should be noted that this resource is not officially part of the game and is therefore not permitted for use in D&D Adventurers League events. The resource comprises Fantasy Grounds automation, updated with new articles, and a comprehensive reference manual. The resource is scheduled for release in January 2018 and will continue to expand with the addition of new articles.
Why is it called dunamancy?
Dunamis, derived from the Greek word dynamis, means “power”, “potential”, or “ability” and is central to the Aristotelian concept of potentiality and actuality. Dunamancy is the ancient study of magic based on potentiality and probability, discovered independently by several nations. Dunamis is the primal magical energy of potentiality and actuality, an anticipatory arcane force that shapes the multiverse and may be what holds its elements together.
Those who study Dunamancy can subtly bend the flow of time and space by controlling localized gravity, peering into possible timelines to shift fate in their favor, and scattering potential energy of enemies to rob them of their potency.
📹 D&D Story: The Xanathar Guild (Dragon Heist Spoilers)
This video is from when I ran Waterdeep Dragon Heist and my players trying to take down the Xanathar Guild. They ended up …
You thought this went bad? Once my party split in a game, leaving several of their friends trying to secure a magical object, while the rest tried to fight an army of 18,000 Drow. (They were level 4, to be clear) Never in my absolute wildest dreams did I ever even conceive my players would try to fight the marching army they passed. Needless to say, 18K d20 attacks later (I used an online generator here, and just ran down the list until a player died) it was a near total party kill (2 survivors out of 6 players) the two survivors were the ones not there, then one of them strapped two barrels of gunpowder to themselves, ran forward, and blew up trying to take out the general. He failed too. The last survivor made the smart decision to run away as fast as his Dragonborn legs could carry him. But he got the artifact. The party considered it a crushing success.
“You see a humanoid creature with tentacles coming down from his chin-” SLAM DM: Wait, I-I wasn’t finished describing him. Rouge: Doesn’t matter! We’re not going in there! DM: But I-there’s the block text that I gotta read. Rouge: You can take your block text and shove it! DM: But th-there’s a sce- Rouge: No! DM: You- Rouge: No! DM: Bu- Rouge: No! No, no, no, no, no! No to all of that. No! Other person: Hey is the door unlocked? Rouge: Doesn’t matter! That door is staying closed!
Plot twist: Xanathar ate a Ring of Animal Speaking years ago and is fully aware of Sylgar’s many doppelgangers, but A. He just loves all goldfish, not any one in particular B. He loves perusal his minions scramble about in sitcom shenanigans every time he (secretly) kills a goldfish that disagreed with him
I have one of those early villain killed stories. I was running a 1st Edition game with a fairly large group. This meant I needed to increase encounter difficulties, as well as make sure my tailored adventure would engage each of the players. At one point in the story, they encounter the master evil wizard’s Imp. In the story, he was supposed to call out the adventurers and hint as to where the bosses evil lair would be. On paper, this looked fine. Each player got a chance to shine. The Theif could run down contacts in the local guild to verify the Imps info. The Wizard could cast their new Clairvoyance scroll to good effect. The fighter could best one of the bosses warrior lieutenants in a dual in the middle of town. Finally, the ranger in the party could tract the evil wizard’s horseshoe prints half way into a cursed woods. “Good stuff” I though. At this point, I should mention that I have been rolling ALL dice rolls openly for the players. Ya know, to be fair? So during the encounter with the imp, the entire party suddenly decides to kill the evil wizard’s familiar. And they do. Killed him good. Half the tavern was on fire, but hell, the evl imp was dead, and they even paid for the damages and helped fix the tavern up good as new. That’s when the questions started… “So, the evil Wizard has to roll a system shock, right?” “Hey, doesn’t that mean we could have potentially killed the leader of the liches?” So. I rolled. Now my boss here, had a Constitution of 16. Not bad for a wizard.
Your stone had an aboleth inside? Ours had a shoggoth, and we had to fight it after accidentally releasing it. Now that I think about it, our Dragon Heist had a lot of creative liberties. *We turned Trollskull Manor into a casino and hired Bonnie the barmaid and her “family” as our manager *Renaer Neverember was JFK *We actually learned Vincent Trench’s secret, good thing he’s our buddy *Inspector Poirot, Nick and Nora Charles, and Miss Marple all made cameos as reskins of important NPCs in the book *You know that nimblewright that throws fireballs at Trollskull Manor? Our fighter actually managed to defeat it, which we’re apparently not supposed to do *We bought a nimblewright, which we also weren’t supposed to do *Jarlaxle was our villain, and he had us framed for money laundering and insurance fraud *Then we went to court, which is where we fought the shoggoth in the stone I think we were the talk of the store, based on how our DM the next season said “Oh, you’re from the casino table…”
In the last session of DnD I’ve played, I ate a Twig Blight. Okay so my character chugged two gallons of beer the night prior of the encounter. So my player got hella waisted, but I didn’t vomit, and I didn’t wake up with a hangover, so I decided that my character lost a few brain cells due to the rapid consumption of alcohol. Which then leads to the fight, which I rolled a one for encounters… which yeah. Anyways the battle was against twelve of these bush things (Twig Blights) and I decided to be mice to them. When one went up to attack me (and failing to land a hit) I gave it a hug. It tried attacking me again, and still failed to hit me. (Basically I was terrorizing the damn thing) My friend took it out of my arms because I refused to let go, and that took her whole turn. My turn was right after that. I decided that keeping it as a pet would be hopeless, but I didn’t want to kill it in a normal fashion. That’s just lame. So I eat it out of my friends hands. The DM just kinda looked at me funnily, then he said he needed to do some research. Idk what’s going to happen to my character.
Players do what the DM wants? pfft who ever heard of that? My step-dad ran a game that he literally planned 1 month of adventure (real time) for each road out of town, he had 4 folders for 4 roads, we by some damn miracle decided to go chase the 5th road, a Death Knight, because apparently hero’s rising from the grave and walking off was unheard of and we simply HAD to go investigate and make sure this well known hero rested in peace; he told us the rest of the session he had to wing it cause he had absolutely nothing planned, he even tried to suggest in game we not deviate from the 4 roads out of town… nope! off we go! 3 full sessions went by he had to keep winging it because we apparently were too dumb to take the main roads, so he had to build his game around our dumb luck and insistence on taking this really bad idea path.
So beholders are racist mofos and will enslave their own kind over tiny ‘imperfections’, but I think it’s kind of cute one has a goldfish for a pet. My issue is, as observant as Beholders are, it must be really difficult to trick one into thinking he has only one goldfish by finding one that looks EXACTLY the same.
I watched this on the 11th when it cam out and its taken a couple of days of processing to come up with the following; the campaigns you run are nothing less than the Monty Python of D&D. Fumbling forward with ever increasing insanity! This is nothing less than awesome and I hope you enjoy the aftermath as much I i enjoy hearing about it.
Ben gives long-winded excuse “You were using the wrong stat block” “I was using the wrong stat block” (Don’t worry Ben we’ve all been there. Especially me, too many times I misread something because the page split and started introducing another one only for me to look to the next page and see two stat blocks with eerily similar names. BUT WAY TOUGHER THAN I WANTED) GOD DAMN ABBOLITHS!!! SCREECH
I love these, they bring back so many memories. Also makes me wish I wasn’t in the middle of E.M. Hell, making recording impossible. I had a regular group that met every weekend and we played custom 3-ish hour campaigns… that always lasted over 10 hours and never went anywhere near where I expected them to. To give an example of how off-the-rails things would get, one campaign got sidetracked completely while they dealt with having bumped, nudged, and otherwise interfered in things (centered around a determined would-be romantic interest in the wizard) to the point that a Golem was created. A Cookie Golem. And it wasn’t a Humor theme. > and it only Became a cookie golem, because someone thought Fire was a great idea to use against a lumbering mound of wet sweetened flour.
This is an example of how railroad modules can go very wrong, when you have players with agency and creative mind. Things they’re not supposed to do? NPCs they’re not supposed to kill? Clues they’re not supposed to miss? The supposed order of scenes and encounters? Be prepared to throw all of that in the gutter!
I love these animations and storys; i dont really get to play much so this helps fill that gap. I’ll be the crazy fish guy though, two quick items: 1) Goldfish actually have very long lifespans when properly kept (well over a decade) and 2) Bowls are 100% inappropriate for them- given an appropriate home they can get very large- nearly the size of a dinner plate!
Yeah, DMing is fun. Laughed pretty hard at 4:38 Remember when I had to fudge a dice roll once in the Mines of Phendelver because my players almost got K.O.’d by a bunch of goblins and only 1 warlock stood conscious because of warlocks last-hitting vampirism trait (the temporary hit points one). Also turns out Eldritch Blast is pretty OP early on.
The bit about the Correct way to respond to seeing a Mind Flayer, reminds me of a bit from my game where the party was going down a tower into an ancient abandoned subterranean city that was riddled with gazers, and they found a room that can best be described as total carange, as they continued down the stairs they found a mind flayer… pasted to the wall with its own entrails, and a quick medicine check determined that their was too much blood for it to be just one corpse, and promptly turned right the hell around. They’d found an old attemptt to bridge from the one tower to the next, and decided that was safer than dealing with whatever that was. Unfortunately I never got to use my Glabrezu encounter
Bad Cop: “I got a riddle, what has two arms, but-” Good Cop: “Ooh, Ooh, I’m good at riddles, let me, let me! Hmm, ‘what has two arms’, I don’t get it.” Bad Cop: “The question is for him.” :point’s-at-prisoner: Good Cop: “Oh, it’s just a question, never mind, I like riddles, not just plain old questions… go on.” Bad Cop: “Ugh. Ok, where was I. Oh yeah, right.” :clears-throat: Bad Cop: “What has two arms-” Good Cop: “Oh, I get it, it’s him, right? I know it’s gonna be him. Am I right? Am I right?” Bad Cop: “You are ruining my moment. This, here, this isn’t working. Go over there, eat a donut or something.” Good Cop: :munching-on-a-donut: Bad Cop: “What has-” Good Cop: :cough-cough-wheeze-cough: Bad Cop: :looks-down: :shakes-head: Good Cop: “Sorry, I choked on the donut. Keep going.” Bad Cop: :silence: Bad Cop: :looks-back-at-prisoner: Bad Cop: :talking-really-fast: “Whathastwoarmsbutonlyneedsone?” Prisoner: “What? That was too fast, I didn’t catch all of that” Good Cop: “Me neither.” Bad Cop: :scowls-at-good-cop: Good Cop: :eyes-get-big: :takes-a-step-back: Bad Cop: “What has two arms but only needs one?” :silence: Prisoner: “I don’t know, a river or something, I don’t really get the-” Bad Cop: “YOU! I mean you!” :mumbles: “idiot” Prisoner: “Oh. I thought it was a metaphor or something. I thought a riddle was usually non-literal. You know, like an analogy, or-” Bad Cop: “Gahh!! I’m leaving!” Good Cop: “Okay, now that he’s gone, who wants a donut? Well maybe if I had some work to go do I wouldn’t need these donuts and I could go do my job.
My most. chaotic session was an AL session. Only one of the players showed up, so we merged two tables, with me as a DM. The other usual DM apparently took this as an okay to do whatever they wanted without consequences, resulting in a grand total of four deaths. After all the crap the other DM pulled (casting Darkness in an already hard encounter, initiating several encounters at once) I can’t tell you how immensely satisfying it was to fireball his first level character. Which collapsed the ceiling, burying him under a hundret ton of stone.
So I’m literally running Waterdeep Dragon Heist tonight, and I just wanna point out that the Barkeep of the Yawning Portal Tavern is supposed to take on the Troll from the beginning while the party takes on the rest of the enemies. Edit: Games over, and nearly had a TPK from 2 person party refusing to even take a short rest, and the boss of the first part is a half orc who got back up after the fighter killed him. He cast burning hands but luckily he also killed the other enemy in the room that would have actually killed the party.
In Ben’s defence, the stat block for the Nimblewright is right next to, and on the same page as, the (legitimately awesome) illustration of Nihiloor, with the illustration of the Nimblewright (basically a type of swashbuckler Golem) appearing on the opposite page. Nihiloor doesn’t even have a stat block in Dragon Heist, as he’s “just” a normal Mind Flayer. That said, it’s pretty hard to mistake those stats for those of an Illithid. Even if it didn’t have “the nimblewright” written repeatedly throughout the stat block. Which it does. I should also point out that there is actually a secret passage in the same wall Ben describes the PCs blasting through. Circumventing the majority of the hideout not only doesn’t “break” the adventure, it’s a possibility explicitly allowed for.
You need to DM in a more old-school (1st edition) style. If the players make dumb decisions, let them die. Each death will be a new lesson in being more careful with the next character. I mean, it’s one thing to fudge some rolls if the characters are doing everything right and just having some bad luck with the dice, but it’s entirely another to save the players from their own dumb decisions.
Goldfish can live up to 15 years in captivity, sometimes wayyy longer in the wild. They also have a pretty good memory for their size; can memorise puzzles, keep an accurate internal clock, recognise multiple different faces and be trained to perform tricks, among other quite amazing abilities. Goldfish are nothing like popular myth would have us believe. 😉
You really need to be more fluid man. Expecting players to follow a module will frequently result in failure. For example, with the first group, instead of encountering the mindflayer way too early, he could have simply not been there. You should just treat the module as a setting for the characters to experience, not a script they have to follow.
My craziest dnd session happened the other night. Me and two friends where playing a gnome, a shadar kai, and the most important… A tortle cleric pirate. We had just tamed a shadow dragon (yes that happened) and thw tortle and gnome wanted to gove the dragon food via a herd of centaurs. The tortle thought it be fun to bring his oliphant with them via mage hand… A few bad rolla on the dms part and the wind pressure from the oliphant stopping next to the centaurs killed the whole herd. The dm ruled that because of that the tortle used up all his spell slots for the day… Fricking. Crazy.
Me and my group of 6 people at around level 10 (we had just leveled up) were feeling pretty good about ourselves, as we had unlocked a few extra abilities by leveling up, got a bit cocky when we saw a motorcade come down the road, and decided to TAKE ON THE WHOLE THING. There were, like 10 cars and a few motorcycles and we just decided that us 7 could take on the whole thing. We decided to split up, as 5 of us would stop the motorcade and hold off the enemies, 2 of us would head to the lead car and take whatever was important or kill whoever was famous, just cause. This motorcade actually wasn’t part of the story, it was just decoration to show that many famous people lived in this town, so when we attacked, the DM didn’t know what to do. In the end, he just got a bunch of human wizards/fighters to attack us, and we had an intense battle. I was part of the team holding enemies off, and I saw 2 of our guys get knocked out before we got what we came for. It turned out that us killing that famous politician(it was a politician apparently) had made us fugitives and wanted for murder. We were supposed to meet the mayor in the town. Needless to say, when we tried, guards tried to stop us, so we kidnapped him instead and ran. It was insane. To that town, we were probably seen as hired killers or stuff. In the end, we were able to get the information from the mayor and leave the region to continue our quests elsewhere. It was a pretty memorable time, and probably the most fun I’ve ever had in DnD.
I just played through dragon heist. We had a party of 5. 2 artificers, a sorcerer, a paladin, and a rogue. So we snatched the stone from his xanathars lair but also stole sylgar. Xanathar goes on a killing spree and some days later we find Xanathar at the vault as we were killing time and perusal the vault encase the guild decided to try and open it while we prepared for the dragon. They had some of the items needed to open the vault but we’re missing an automaton, which we had 3 of as there were 2 artificers in the party. So us knowing about the dragon, and hoping that Xanthar and the dragon would fight decide to just casually send one of the automatons down so they can open the vault, and the obviously do. Our rogue then follows the Xanathar through the vault until Xanathar and his goons make it to the dragon. Xanathar and the dragon fight. The dragon kills all of his henchman and busts up Xanathar pretty badly, so Xanathar retreats, but we were all waiting and had Sylgar as a hostage and proceed to get lucky AF and consistently high roll our attack rolls dealing half his health in one turn right before he could turn invisible with up a natural 20 paladin crit smite dump as well as some other spells. Xanthar couldn’t use his antimagic eye because I was continuously trying to boil Slygar, so he had to focus on me or let Slygar die. Keep in mind this party was level 4. It was one of the wildest moments in DnD I’ve ever seen
I have a story about running this campaign, too, if anyone wants to hear it. My players found a gas line in the secret hideout in the sewers and blew up the entire town. They also found crack cocaine and gave to everyone inside of the base so that they didn’t have to fight anyone. They even put the guard beholder in a bag, tied them to the gas line and stretched the rope between the gas line and the beholder so that they had a small fuse, and the fire wouldn’t be put out by the water on the ground, since the beholder floats. This fuse gave them just enough time to get out before the gas line blew up. Or at least, that’s what they had set up. Then, they left it alone for a session, because they wanted to tell the captain of the guard about this place first. However, they had encountered The Xanathar and Nihiloor while making their way there, and the two of them decided to follow the players and the captain to the hideout and kill them there. However, the players decided that the best plan of action was to enter the teleporter to XANATHAR’S MAIN FREAKING BASE and try to lose them there. The first place they went was down the stairs to… a bunch of people. I had decided to take pity on them, since they were so low-level, and said that they were intoxicated. the players managed to get one of them to tell them how to get out, and they ended up evading The Xanathar and Nihiloor, and getting back to the teleporter they had just gone through. The captain decided to call in all units and make the bust of the century, and called them in on a sending stone that functioned as a walkie-talkie.
This takes me back to one my groups water deep campaign, I’d been in the group and was there for the first Season but had to skip a couple even though I realllly wanted to play. When I come back, I notice that the DM seems a little off, and my PC follows a path of violence and blood shed throw Xanathar’s layers. as it turns out, one of my fellow PCs freaking ONE SHOT the mid flare boi who was second in command or something. and Xanathar loved this so much that he HIRED THE GROUP ON THE SPOT. so there we are for the rest of water deep, having to follow a special line because during the first break in, we one shot the mini boss. Yes, this happened. if you’re wondering, the pc that merked the mind flare was a level 3 dragon born who just got lucky with a breath attack, Not truly sure how the encounter went down but that’s what I got from the summery I was given. Love seeing Puffins articles though, and probably going to try and return water deep cuz it was SUPER Fun. + guns my guys so you know 😀
Played my first campaign yesterday, and it was Waterdeep. I was a Kobold sorcerer named Gibby, and stole a bunch of items from the npcs after rolling really good. The rest of the party start fighting some mysterious figures attacking a half orc lady, and the Goblin in the group throws a makeshift molotov at the enemies. Misses, killing only 1 bad guy, and 3 innocent civilians. Oh and set my kobold on fire. After all the enemies are dealt with, a troll comes out the the big hole in the tavern, and bites off my Kobold’s leg. The party is losing, pretty bad, but the bartender pulls out a blunderbuss and shoots the troll point blank range in the face, killing it. Our session ended shortly after getting taken in my guards for questioning.
I might have rolled with the mistake and made the mindflayer an arrogant showman who preferred to be more “sporting” and best his enemies in a style more akin to their own. It sounds like it would be fairly easy to get that guild to implode, and then finish off whoever’s left, though only if you have a kind GM who’s willing to play out the whole scenario and patient party members. I think it could be interesting to see that play out. These guys sound like they’ve played a fair few stealth games.
Sounds like a situation we had in a Scion game once, we started the session looking into a bunch of rumors and such that we’d picked up. In at least one case (mine) rumors that we hadn’t shared with the rest of the Band for reasons that seemed good at the time. It ended up we all encountered things that the GM had planned to face the entire Band. So, my scion of Loki (Delilah Samson) goes off to a small town in California to go talk to a woman by the name of Nephele, an immortal who had been created by Zeus in order to expose a plot some time ago but then was denied a place with the gods. She was currently working as a waitress in the small town. My character goes there with her follower, an actress who had been changed into a lesser Medusa by the irresponsible actions of an NPC scion of Apollo. By virtue of my character’s powers, we’d altered the curse a bit so she didn’t have to eat eyes of beautiful people to stay pretty. We get there and find that Nephele has an Amazon bodyguard and we’re talking about what’s up, I forget the precise details of the case, when suddenly a train comes by dowsing the whole town in this gas that turns normals into zombies. Oh, and the train is a sort of terrifying flesh and steel transforming conglomeration, and now there are also cyborg bikers running around. The scion of Brigid (Moira, I forget the surname, it was based on Brigid though) goes to investigate rumors of disappearances in the sewers, remembering that we had seen baby Nemean alligators down there a while back ago, as well as minotaurs, and hadn’t really done anything about it.
In Xanathar’s guide for 5e, he leaves all of these notes and I find them very nice, like one of them under the monster slayer ranger says basically “I’m the monster, but you won’t try to kill me will you? Of course not, you’ll just go kill some goblins. Goblins aren’t monsters though, they’re people. Maybe you should call yourselves people killers.” Maybe Xanathar is the true hero
I… I was expecting a bob the killer goldfish moment(for those who don’t know, Bob TKG was a “Boss” battle in earth worm jim one there’s a huge build up for him to be a boss battle and then Jim(your character in the game) just picks him up and gets eats him then the level ends) when you brought up the beholder’s fish, or if not that I figured at least the fish was gonna get maimed or killed by the PC’s actions and the Beholder would find out and flip out.
Goldfish can actually live up to 10 years long if they’re properly taken care of, it’s just that most tanks don’t have things such as filters, or plants that can get rid of the ammonia that the fish’s waste produces. Also tiny tanks are especially bad for goldfish. You also can’t use tap water, you have to clean that at least 24 hours before putting a fish in there.
If my players either steal or kill Sylgar…. Here’s how that scene may play out: DM: You’re in a grand chamber and you see no sign of guards or Xanathar, only a pedestal with a goldfish in a glass bowl decorated in gold and je- Rogue: I steal the goldfish and the bowl. DM: …. What? Rogue: I. Steal. The Goldfish. And. The. Bowl DM: Um…. Sure….? Barbarian: Oh and I wanna eat the fish DM: Internally screaming and trying to stay calm
Puffin: Goldfish have a very short life expectancy! Me, An Actual Goldfish keeper…. ACTUALLY goldfish have been confirmed to live up to three decades… assuming you care for them well…. And given that this is a beholder who assumedly has tons of magic available to him…. He could prob make the thing nigh immortal and living in pristine conditions
I like the goldfish bit. I love when enemies and players have quirks. Like a secret Achilles heel, even better if it factors into their backstory. Kinda dark, but I thought about Ellen’s fear of the color yellow in “I have no mouth and I must scream”. Adds an extra element to the puzzles, and the reason she hates yellow is heartbreaking.
Lol, so I was in a game running this book and it’s So funny thinking of how we handled it instead. My character had a gambling problem as there flaw, and I Really wanted to play into it. She bet on the fight with the gang and won, so then bet again when fighting the stirges. She lost, and the troll started making fun of her. At this point, one of the party members was Really having an issue with one of the stirges, so the barkeep has to come out and save him first. Meanwhile, I bet the troll double or nothing I can beat her (the DM made it a girl), and just about everyone else in the bar throws some in the pot, including other players. The DM flat out told me I didn’t have much chance, but I ended up getting a nat 20 crit and, as I was the one running the bet, got the whole pot. Basically I turned the entire first scene into a money making scheme and loaded up on coin before we even truly started. 🤣
If you let your players split the party in literally the first scene of the module, you are about as good of a DM as those parents who let their kids throw sand in the faces of toddlers because you’re worried that they won’t grow up to be able to express themselves. If you don’t stop the game and say “look guys, I don’t have the bandwidth to run two games simultaneously, You all need to come to a consensus as to what the party’s course of action is.” then you’re doing them a terrible disservice.
I have question I’m working a campain that is mixtern of 3.5 and 5 and still working on the the story could you give me some ideas (this would my first time being the GM and still working on the maps and dungeons, and some random in encounters and them meeting an ancient gold dragon, what kind of advice could you give me)
6:00 Goldfish actually have a relatively long life expectancy. They can live for 25 years in the wild and the oldest ever captive goldfish lived to be 43. Usually, however, in captivity, goldfish only live from 5 to 10 years. This is often because of the poor conditions people keep them in. Goldfish can reach a size of 30 cm and sometimes get even better. When kept in a bowl, they’re not given room to grow, which can cause health issues. Bowls are also really terrible at oxygen exchange; they don’t have a filter (and goldfish produce a lot of waste). There’s no heating equipment for bowls and often very little stimulation or enrichment for the fish. (The 3 second memory is a myth, by the way. Goldfish can be trained to jump or swim through hoops and other interesting tricks) Recommended tank size is 20 gallons to start and +10 gallons per fish (according to Google) So, yeah. Xanathar sucks.
The whole bit with the rogue unlocking the door and saying nope – I feel that one, we did a Halloween one-shot where our task was to find out who was releasing what out of a portal. Find the guy, he goes into the portal with a spell, we follow, guy gets eaten by a boneyard, we say the spell that got us in there, nope out of there, and destroy the portal frame. We did our job, the guy was dead and the portal won’t open any more
As a player, one of the things i hate the most is when players make wrong decisions and the DM has to think of a way to keep them alive. Sincerely, I’d hate being kept alive after that. Ok, that encounter was not well thought, but still, the fighter thing pissed me. They don’t need to be kept alive, when someone dies he just makes another character and it’s all.
I started Dragon Heist with only a couple players, and those same players had different characters for Mad Mage because I got that book before Dragon Heist since a few ppl send it wasn’t rlly entertaining. I handled the initial Yawning Portal fight with the troll by implementing a ‘bar fight’ mechanic I had read an article about a little while back. I mean, it’s a tavern FULL of adventurers, they’re all gonna pitch in to fight this guy. Essentially, I rolled a a couple d10’s to decide how many people hit then did half 1d4 and half 1d6’s of that amount. It was a little weird and not what the article exactly described (probably not very rule-centric in any way but our games rarely ever are). It was the only way they could’ve won that fight as a party of two lvl1 characters. Plus, it was fun to narrate the different random adventurers pitching in.
Honestly, if FIVE of your players are missing from a session, maybe consider cancelling the session and play at a time where more of them are available? That and pinning level 1 characters into a level 4 group seems like a bad idea in any situation, they’ll pretty much always be either useless, or DEAD
I just played a game of DND a couple weeks ago. We had our party of four. Then, a new guy joined our party. He played… a cleric… that wanted to have sex with corpses. Super loud, obnoxious and proud of his… sex with corpses. Didn’t try to integrate with the party at all. He also throws my halfling character around because he can. (A bully.) At one point there’s a vampire ripping him to shreds and we all, as a party, lock eyes, and just walk away. Later he kept saying, out-of-character, “I was commited to my character choice. I couldn’t change midway through.” as if role-playing an a-hole that nobody likes to play with is defendable because “that’s the character!”
Yeah it’s funny that Sylgar keeps getting replaced, but how does he even die? If Xanathar doesn’t believe he’s dead, then he’s sill alive. Also, if he thought that Sylgar was talking to him, the he actually would be talking to him. So what I’m saying is that Sylgar us an undead psionicist who’s been controlling Xanathar the whole time.
I honestly, ok, this is funny, it is, don’t get me wrong. But I would’ve genuinely been nervous, up until the players literally sealed their own fate, and that point I would have just said “ok guys, you’re about to learn about scouting ahead, thinking tactically and not being dead” One-Shot all the players “Ok, so do you guys have any ideas for your new characters?”