r/DungeonMasters

Does the hag own all their names, or does it only count when someone gives their own name?

There’s a ranger, warlock, artificer, paladin, and a barbarian(2)/sorcerer(1)

So my daughter (about to be 12) has asked me to introduce her 4 friends to D&D for her birthday party.

It’s been a long time since I played so I wanted to see if these loads made sense.

Just at race/class thing right now, just seeing if it all makes sense. I haven’t DM’ed in years and am more of a “rule of cool” DM.

So what do we think for a group of 12ish girls:

1: Tiefling Sorcerer

2: Halfling Cleric

3: Dwarf Barbarian

4: Elf Rogue

5: Dragonborn Paladin.

So, my first time DMing is coming up. I have let my players know that, since it's my first time DMing, we're doing something relatively simple; it's going to take place in a maze-like dungeon. I'm really excited, I've got a poster board with Velcro tape and felt passageways I'll put on to reveal different areas, etc. I let my players create their characters and pick a "crime" since that's why they're being thrown in here, as punishment. One player in particular decided to become a rock eater from a movie. I knew immediately he wanted to try to eat his way out of the maze. I've warned him already the entire campaign is taking place in the maze. That's it. There's no ifs, ands or buts about it. But he has made comments like, "we'll see", etc. Would it be unreasonable if he tries something to literally just say, "nope. It doesn't work, the magic keeping you in prevents it." I don't want to be a bad dm, but I also know this guy. He will do everything in his power to be a problem, but he's the brother of my best friend, so I don't really know what else to do...

Hello all!

I am currently running Phandelver and below. My players have cleared out the red brands and done Agatha’s mission, so we’re still pretty fresh into the campaign. However, I am realizing that I have the beginnings of a really compelling home brew in the feywilds based on my characters backgrounds, and I feel drawn to send them down that path.

My first thought was to send them AFTER completing Phandelver and below. My problem here is that then I have to make a campaign for characters level 10+ and that may be beyond my current abilities. From what I have heard, doing high level campaigns can be really challenging and hard to manage.

My second thought was sending them before starting the second half of t and below, but then I’d be worried about them coming back too powerful for the rest of that campaign.

Then I thought that maybe I could finish Phandelver and below and then send my characters into the feywild homebrew, but with a twist- their characters are scrambled up by the feywild, and then I either give my players the opportunity to start their characters over at level 3-5 as a different class that they choose, or have their classes randomly switched between them.

Has anyone tried anything like this? Looking for advice…

Cheers!

Hello! I'm sorry for the long post, I'm having a situation and need some guidance from DMs greater than myself. I'm a first-time DM and my (online) campaign is nearly 30 sessions in, we've been playing since September. In the first two months we had a few hiccups where party members had to be replaced, but other than that it's been relatively spill-free.

We play a low-fantasy campaign that takes place in a small town in the late 2000s, we lovingly refer to it as our dnd-inspired group story-time. My players are more interested in a pacifist approach, so combat is generally snubbed out and talked through, which I am more than fine with. As you probably know, online combat can become disengaging pretty fast, so if they'd rather do a roleplay-heavy campaign, I'm happy to accommodate. I've been pretty lax, letting them get their drinks and equipment for free and not deal with the less pressing matters of the world.

In February, one of the party members and I were on a weekend trip and I could not set aside time to DM a session because it was my family's trip, that party member was just tagging along, and I was spending the time seeing family who lives otherwise out of state. Session for that week was cancelled. Since then, session attendance has fell through.

In response, in March I put out a big message telling them that this was an issue. I introduced a currency system to incite not only attendance, but participation.

We have missed multiple sessions since then because half of our party didn't show face.

This last session, we played with 4/6 members of our party present. One of the party members who wasn't present, we'll call her Bee, is our main note-taker.

Bee, a good few sessions ago, had a session where her character was the most involved. The party thought she died, she ran off with one of the party's problematic favs, and there was a debacle about her character coming back. In that time, she seemed to become really self-important. In all of our one-to-one out-of-dnd conversations from there on out, she really believed that she was the only one pulling any of the weight. This became a self-fulfilled prophecy, because she went on to take the reigns in virtually every scene, leaving a lot of people feeling unable to participate.

During this session, where Bee and another party member were absent, the present four members flourished. I mean seriously, I was so proud of how this session went. There was in-party conflict, they solved a big mystery that the party has been facing for several sessions, they discovered a plot twist, and they all came together at the end for the greater goal. It was my favorite session out of any of the previous ones.

Toward the end of the session, around the time the plot twist got revealed, Bee joined the call and listened in. At the end of the session, I sang the party's praises. It was the most balanced session we'd had in months and everyone else seemed really proud of themselves, as well.

Bee abruptly left the call and asked for my undivided attention after the debrief concluded.

I had two out-of-session one-on-ones to attend to, one of my players wanted to talk to an NPC he needed to update on the events and another wanted to talk to her found family, just stuff that was important to the players that wouldn't fit into a session. But after that, I went to Bee and offered my attention.

Long story super short, she expressed frustration about the fact that the party "finally locked in" only once she was gone, and said that another one of my players came to her in private and said the session was "boring" without her and that two of the other players were "finally carrying their weight after Bee had been carrying them", and more frustration about the fact that the one time she misses session, important and exciting things happened.

I was honest with her about the self-fulfilling prophecy stuff, and told her that this session was picking up from a cliffhanger so really, why would it NOT be eventful?

And she told me that she would be taking a break from D&D, to see if it really was on her or if it was just the fact that this was a session picking up from the cliffhanger. I was gagged, of course, but she went on to say that if it really was a her issue, that she would leave the campaign for good.

I have never been so appalled in my life man. What The Hell!

So I went to my two buddies who aren't in the campaign, one of which is a DM who I've talked to extensively about issues I've had in my party. He's half-jokingly insisting that I drop the campaign, but we are 3/4 through it and I'm not willing. But I do not know what to do about Bee, or the attendance issue. I want so so badly for this campaign to be so fun for everyone, I put so much work into making a coherent and beautiful story with all the NPCs and references and side-quests my players want. Every 3 months I put out a damn google form to see where everyone is at, and I have a whole anonymous inbox for any concerns that people don't want their name attached to. I don't know how to fix this so late in the game while preserving my friendships outside of the game.

This morning, I received a message from Bee saying that she may have overreacted last night and that it was "whatever", but that doesn't really confirm what she's doing and I have no clue what I WANT her to do.

If anyone could please give me some advice, it would be very much appreciated. I have so much love for the story I'm telling and the people I'm telling it with, I don't want to hurt anyone but I don't want my players, me, or my story to suffer anymore.

I’m not super worried about it but I am wondering if this was a mistake. It’s early into the campaign as well and I think they might Meta and save it for the end. 🤣

Exposure Levels (0–5)

Level     Frost Scar

0               Comfortable

1               Disadvantage on Perception checks (numb senses)

2               Disadvantage on Dexterity checks and saves

3               Speed reduced by 10 ft

4               disadvantage on attack rolls

5               Gain 1 level of exhaustion. Stacks ( player  may evoke the barrowed flame

Borrowed flame- instead of gaining a level of exhaustion you may burn a HD and reduce your total HP by that number. Using this feature decreased your level of Frost Scar by 3.  You may use this feature X your total HD pool.  Only Greater Restoration can remove ½ the decrease in total HP .

🌨️** When Do You Gain Exposure**?

After 4 hours exposed to the harsh cold, make a: Constitution saving throw – Numbers in parentheses are without cold weather gear.  Disadvantage when in wet clothing

Environment

DC

Cold (-15–0°C) No check if in cold weather gear

12

Severe Cold (-25–15°F)

14(16)

Extreme Cold (-26 or below °F)

17(19)

Supernatural Cold (frost magic, cursed lands)

20(22)

On a failure: +1 Exposure Level  On a failure by 5+: +2 Exposure Levels.

On a success by +5: -1 Exposure Level

🔥 Heat Sources           Being near a fire for 1 hour: Reduces Exposure by 1

🏕️ Shelter

Type

Effect

None

Auto fail -unable to take a long rest

Tent/Shallow Cave

Normal

Tent and heater/ Deep Cave

Immune/ Advantage on extreme cold

Magic Shelter/Deep Cave and heater

Immune/ advantage on supernatural cold

My exhaustion rules are -1 to all roll except damage per level of exhaustion and nothing else

i'm a newbie in dm-ing and i don't really have any experience but my friend group decided to choose me as a game master.

I was preparing for month but everything went wrong…

They were stuck on the prologue and factually didn’t even start to play, I blame myself for not playing zero session but the problem was not only that…

I firmly believe that there were too many players who didn’t know how to co-operate with each other AND there were 2 alphas there so other players felt a bit pressured I think.

I’ve decided to separate them and make two groups and play two different campaigns for the next time (they will be in one world but their stories will be different and will happen parallel to each other), what do you think about that and what can you advise me

I have never really had any of my players use or attune to any suspicious items. I was wondering if this is a common thing? I thought some cursed items once a campaing or so might be a cool thing since they can provide interesting stories or rp moments, but any time an item that might be cursed comes along, nobody wants to touch it. I don't know if it's how I discribe them or what.

I haven't of course asked them and they likely haven't seen any examples of curses being fun, so that might be the reason. I feel like as a player if a Dm ever presented a cursed item, I would be at least a little curious, but my players steer clear every time.

This has happend a total of 2 times. I can't be sure if they even thought the items might be cursed one time, but other two times they figured that was the case.

Have you experienced something similar when it comes to suspicious magical items?

So im about to run death house for 7 level 3 pcs we are using 2024 rules, but I'd love to make it more interesting and a slight challenge, would love some recommendations. So far im adding a couple willow-wisps to the shambling mound fight but I'd love to give more story and genuine horror.

Goal: I want a homebrew system for a spell caster without resources.

New DM here. I have a player who strongly dislikes resource management, for fair reason. So that got me thinking is there a system for the realms of written magic? There’s this recent anime/ manga I’ve come across called “Witch Hat Atelier”, and I love the system they use. I also love Minecraft mods Ars Nouvea and Mana and Artifice. Is there something similar? Like a modular system where the exact spell is determined by the player, or at least can be changed slightly. Maybe like a sorcerer/wizard mix? If not what are some ideas to make / come up with a modular system? I’ve also thought about taking debuffs rather than spell slots (stronger ability = more drawback). Any and all ideas would be greatly appreciated and welcomed.

Hi there,

New dungeon master here! I was planning an encounter for two level 3 characters in which they fight a Wight. Looking at the XP budget the fight seems to land in the incredibly challenging territory. The team is a paladin and a barbarian, so there is not a lot in terms of support for those two. Is this way above their pay grade and should I change the encounter to something a little less; or is there a way I can make this doable for them. I think it would be very satisfying for them to overcome a tough opponent. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

I’m a new Dm and I’m running a Pokemon DnD campaign. My PCs are working through a 3 level dungeon to save one of the other PCs (he has a lot of scheduling conflicts compared to the rest of the group and things snowballed, but i digress) I was wanting to drop some knowledge about BBEGs group (the cobra syndicate)

The way I did the pokemon was that people were transforming into these monsters(Pokemon) this lets us play who’s that Pokemon at the start of every new NPC/fight scene. The dungeon is an undead dungeon being used as a base. It has regular skeletons and undead mobs, but also ghastlys, chandalores, and the lich I think will be a Mismagius with a object they have to find/ destroy to actually kill/defeat it (there’s a name for it, but I can’t remember) I would also like to drop some lore if the choose to look for it.

All that to say I’m bad at room descriptions and don’t know how to introduce/hint at they need to look for this object without drawing too much attention to it

From the book, there are four Red Wizards

Dyrax, Thazma, Yamoch and Zagmira. For my own purposes I have added a fifth: Sardinac Von Nordisk: a transmuter

To the others, I am assigning them the respective schools:

Dyrax: Abjurer/Evoker (not decided which yet for defence or damage)

Thazma: Diviner. Mostly to mess with my party's Diviner by holding onto to a Portent to screw with them

Yamoch: Conjurer: I fancy having some summons on my side.

Zagmira: Necromancer and kitting her out with some sweet gear.

The Mage statblock in 2024 MM (CR 6)MM feels a bit feeble for Red Wizards, but the Archmage (CR12) feels rather too powerful to throw against a party of level 8 or 9.

Comparing them to The Evoker, Necromancer and The Diviner from Volo's, where the CRs are all over the place but they do have some very evocative and thematic spells, which I can also suplement from more recent books.

So I'm attempting to build my own Red Wizard stat block for each named NPC probably around CR8 or CR9

So that they actually feel collectively like a threat but against a party of 7 high tier 2 PCs could probably take down when they split up to search for the cubes

I was just wondering if anyone else tried to adapt the Red Wizards into more of a faction and how did you balance them to be a challenge but also give space for them to perhaps negotiate.

I'm exploring my own ideas in my notes but thought I might open this topic up to the Omnibrain and seek some opinions here and elsewhere.