I'm going to be running a campaign soon that will utilize primarily random encounter rolls (basically I have many encounters planned, but the order and timing will be based on rolls and how the players approach). I have always hated the "roll a d20, monsters show up on 18+" or similar, and so I'm interested in hearing other ideas. My current ideas include:

• Every roll is SOMETHING: This is a system I wrote myself for a previous campaign. Basically, every "period of time" (depending on danger of the area, usually 2 hours of travel, or 10 minutes in a dungeon) you roll 2d10.
  • 2-8 is a complication -- maybe a combat, or an obstacle in the road, or the weather gets worse, etc. 2 is hardest, 3-5 medium, and 6-8 easy
  • 9-14 is a "safe travel" world-building encounter -- no real mechanical effect, just some easter eggs about the world (e.g. they spot a dragon hunting in the distance, or they find a lost love letter in the woods, etc.).
  • 15-20 is a lucky break -- they find a helpful traveler, or a lost magic item, etc. 15 is the most benign, 20 is the best.
  • My problem with this one was that it ended up difficult to create enough unique encounters to keep it interesting, especially with 6-14 coming up so much more often than anything else.
    • I also recently came up with the idea to add in Daggerheart's "Hope" and "Fear" dice to adjust encounters -- for instance if they roll a 6 but the fear die is higher, they might be ambushed, but if the hope die is higher they might spot the enemy in advance -- but I haven't actually tried implementing it yet, so I don't know if it works.
• AngryGM's Tension Pool: Every time the players take a time consuming or reckless action, roll the Time Pool (starts as a d6, adds one more die as more actions happen). If a 1 is rolled, an encounter happens.
  • I really like how this keeps tension building, and allows players to control the rolls by choosing when to take more time consuming actions. My one issue with it is I don't want every random encounter to be a combat/obstacle -- I want some good encounters, like the "15-20" above -- but those feel weird to be adding to building tension.
• Deck of Cards: I heard about this one online a few years ago, basically you have a deck of cards with various encounters (both positive, negative, mixed, and many blank), and whenever "time passes" you draw one card.
  • This one was intriguing because every monster and every treasure was somewhere in the deck. It was up to the party how far to push to find the treasures before needing to leave.

So, what methods do others use? Are there any other cool ideas out there to borrow and share?

As time goes on more spells are added to 5e, and it's great fun getting access to new stuff. But, as someone not familiar with old stuff - is there a spell (or other ability I guess, for the non casters), whether low level or high, that 5e doesn't have and you think was cool?

Hello!! This is just for personal fun, I'd like to play a character based off of a photo of an albino porcupine!! He's a very soft, round, white little guy, and immediately inspired me.

I'm not the biggest fan of bugbears as they're typically portrayed, and a porcupine doesn't much fit a firbolg, but I'd like the character to be about that size. Any input?

porcupine for anyone who would like to see

I’ve only played in one campaign so far (its still ongoing lol) but my character is a Bard, and since bards are a jack of all trades (well most. they don’t usually tank) it’s helped me to figure out what roles I like working with.

I’d really like playing as:

• Scout (best non-combat role ever change my mind /lh) (sneaky stealthy stuff is super fun though)
• Blaster (I do wish my bard had more damage stuff)
• Healer (every party needs one and I like helping people stay alive)

And the role that I would hate to play as is:

• Face (funnily enough my bard is NOT the face. that honor goes to our swashbuckler rogue)

Generally speaking, when it comes to roleplay I like being able to get high rolls on skills (so yeah maybe add Skill Monkey lol), and although the spotlight can be on me occasionally, I don’t want it so much as to become the Face or the Main Character. I want to be useful, but I don’t want the pressure of having everything Depend On Me.

also sorry I dont want to play Paladin that would be the worst possibility for me lol

Also even though there isnt a lot of rush or anything, the reason I made this post is because I always want to be prepared. I don’t know WHEN I’ll be in another campaign, but I want to be able to make the right decision for said campaign.

Also also. Keep in mind I’ve only played D&D once (aka this ongoing first campaign), and have only played a Bard before.

EDIT: I should’ve clarified im ok with only having 2 out of 3 roles lol

I had specifically struggled to choose between Cleric, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer and Warlock because Druid and Wizard seem pretty hard to play for a now-1st timer, someday-to-be-2nd timer lol. I also don’t want to multiclass

I really like being a dumb muscly orc barbarian, literally my favorite flavor of DND character, but I often find myself getting analysis paralysis trying to play them because like... I'm not that dumb. I'm not Einstein or anything, I'd say I'm perfectly average, maybe even a little below, but I just feel like when I go to play my character the only "dumb" things I can think to do would actively be a detriment to the party in a not fun way, so 99% of the time I'm just playing a dude who hits things and that's about it.

What are your strategies for appearing stupid in game when playing a stupid character, without being stupid in ways that get you all killed? So far the way I've been doing this is just having my guy never think to question what's going on, and just take everything at face value, but that just doesn't feel like enough when playing a character who's entire defining characteristic is being dumb.

For reference I'm kinda going for like Patrick Star vibes, only if Patrick occasionally started frothing at the mouth, and giving people cte with a big hammer.

Trying to explain what a Gnome is to a non-dnd player. Turns out they know nothing about gnomes (not even the garden variety!). How do I explain them in a short and relatable way?

Been playing D&D for almost a year now and wanted to try DMing a campaign among close friends based on Assassin's Creed system of having a high-tech modern day character entering a simulation of their ancestors, with the time period of their ancestors being a high fantasy late-Neolithic period (transitioning into the Chalcolithic age).
- Meaning no writing, no mass spread currency, most technology doesn't exist.
- However, the same monsters, dinosaurs, and other prehistorical creatures all exist at the same time.
Wanted some help worldbuilding and deciding how to go about reworking mechanics for DND to match both a high-tech and also primal setting. If there's a better system, I'm somewhat open to running it, though my group is most comfortable with DND 5e.

General lore ideas:

Modern Age:
- Magic in the is dying, Gods are alive but silent, & technology overpowers magic.
- Magic flows through focus points in the world and PCs are tasked with finding a way to bring back magic.
- Most races other than humans are isolationists that hide away.

Prehistoric Age:
- Magic is ancient and an unknown mystery left by a previous fallen higher tech civilization (this civilization will be around the same technology as official DND aka medieval fantasy)
- This ancient civilization built those magic focus points that are fading in the modern setting.
- Humanity are barely starting villages and farming.
- Elves have existed longest, are more civilized, higher tech, and utilize magic better than any other race.
- Dwarves second longest living race, are greedy miners and recently discovered metallurgy.
- Other races will have more defining traits (example: Tritons are basically Atlanteans that guard old submerged ruins)

Gameplay mechanics:
- The players will make two characters and swap between each character when big story beats happen in each world.
- Loot and level ups gained by the ancestor will be learned, replicated and upgraded by the descendant, meaning they'll both gain power.
- The descendant playing the ancestor won't have outside knowledge of the time they're from.
Example: Ancestor gets a wand, the descendant fabricates that same wand and mounts it onto a power-enhancing weapon frame.
- Time spent in the simulation moves slower but still passes. If the ancestor dies, they'll swap to another ancestor in the same family. The descendant will rarely be in life threatening scenarios but if they die, revival means are available (like cloning with long-term consequences).

I have a question about using polymorph on a beast sidekick: would I be able to transform them into another beast based on their stat block CR or based on their sidekick level?

For context, I am a level 7 druid (the whole party is level 7) and have a white rabbit as a sidekick with the warrior sidekick class. The polymorph spell description says

The new form can be any beast whose challenge rating is equal to or less than the target's (or the target's level, if it doesn't have a challenge rating)

The rabbit has both a CR of 0 and level of 7, so which can I use for the transformation? I just got access to polymorph and really want to turn this little rabbit into a CR7 giant ape

Edit: We are using the sidekick rules from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything

For context Vaaz is a lv 3 gnoll Ranger his stats are: Str 8, Dex 18, Con 14, Int 6, Wis 16, Cha 9.

Hp is: 21

AC: 16

The rest of the party consists of: 2 paladins, 1 barbarian, 2 warlocks and a fighter.

Mostly in Combat vaaz uses his 2 cleavers (reflavored shortsword and scimitar) and likes to get in melee. Using nick and vex he gets 2 attacks and has advantage on one of them. All in all i like being in melee. Ive tried the whole long range ranger and I found it effective but slightly boring. So I go out of my way to usually be in melee cleavers out as it were.

Last session we leveled up and im just having trouble deciding what subclass to pick:

Hallowed warden seems like the better choice fkr a tanky in your face type of ranger subclass. With the AC bonus and the frightened status on peeps within 10 feet evey turn seems kind of cool if slightly hit or miss due to it being a save. However the campaign im playing vaaz in is more fae wild pilled and more on the semi comedic side. And I fear that hallow warden might be too edgy for the setting. I feel like I'd have to tone it down a bit.

While beastmaster is appealing to lean more into Vaaz being a gnoll. As most gnoll monsters usually have hyenas that they use akin to hunting hounds or guard dogs. The only problem with this is I played a beastmaster like 6 years ago and absolutely hated it lol. I know the class has gotten a huge overhaul since then especially with 5.5 but still I'd really hate it if like in 5 or so levels my primal companion becomes useless outside of help action farming due to its health and damage not scaling well.

Any help or opinions yall have are welcomed and thanks in advance 🙏

Hi everyone. So, I recently picked up 007: First Light. Absolutely fantastic game, loved it. Playing it, I developed the idea for some sort of medieval spy or assassin that served a kingdom. I was thinking of basing it off of James Bond, and various other characters, like Ethan Hunt from Mission Impossible and Peter/Pietro from Killer Peter/Killer Pietro. A suave charismatic spy that excels at stealth and high stakes situation, while also possessing the ability to fight someone head on. Rogue is ofc a good class for this, but I'm trying to figure out his ability scores, as well as whether to multiclass him into a Battlemaster Fighter for the manuvers (especially precision attack and ambush) or to go for Monk for that h2h feel.

I'm DMing a new game for my friends and I had the beginnings of an idea.

Thought I'd ask here if anyone has done this before (which is likely) or if anyone had their own ideas from this that could help me.

I was thinking it would be cool that if the players are attuned to more than one magical item at a time, the two or three items would interact and create secondary effects.

I'm not sure if all the effects should be good or if there should be some hindering effects as well.

In my setting the weave is having bizzar effects especially at high levels and the characters are going to investigate it, hopefully 🙃

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

Context & Background:

Okay so I'll start this by saying I'm a writer, and do a lot of character work with my dnd characters. Like in depth stuff, and a lot of that goes into how I flavor the damages they deal, espically if those images haunt them afterwards.

I've also always been weirdly intriquied by any games damage types system. I'm the weird one who gets excited in elden ring when an enemy is in water and im able to feel smart by swapping my fire spells for lightning spells lol. Dnd is no exception, but thing about the system of damage types halving or doubling incoming, its understanbly a system used sparingly (resistences and vulnerability outside of say, poison on every other monster lol, is uncommon) and dont get me started on the uselesses of the slashing/piercing/bludgeoning damage types being different is the only thing about them that ever matter is the OCCASIONAL need for bludgeoning specifically.

What I'd like Input on:

Anyhow, what I am hoping to gather insight on is how these damage types litteraly work. The vibes are the main thing I realize. Radiant damage is "light" or "holy" damage, while necrotic is "dark" or "unholy" damage, but wtf does that actually mean for what it physically DOES to you?

I play a lot of healer characters, and like to describe how they go about tending to injured friends/foes, which means explaining how their damage is being treated beyond the boring gameplay numbers of HP.

The Main Offenders:

• necrotic (fungus dissolves via acid, and plenty of other damage types would cause necrosis)
• radiant (radiation is the big techincal excuse, but that also casues necrosis sooooo?)
• force (are we spatial distortions? I tend to think it as like a localized gravity blender)
• thunder (force and thunder are both often described as shockwaves)
• acid (some overlap with necrotic and poison often creep up whenever its not a green liquid)

In Short:

I'm looking to start a deep dive on the in-world effects, healing processes, and methods of how exactly the different dnd damage types actually cause damage to things (organic things especially)!

I've been thinking about how much information a character sheet needs to fit on a couple of pages, and how differently players actually use that information. A spellcaster probably wants quick access to spell slots and concentration, while a martial character might care more about attacks, reactions, and equipment. It makes me wonder whether trying to give every class the same layout is part of the problem.

If you could redesign just one section of the official 5e character sheet, what would you change first? I'm especially curious about the little annoyances that only become obvious after playing the same character for months.

So I'm playing a custom supplement and the creator is unsure so I wanna ask here, but I'm wearing armour that turns crits into normal hits and I'm wondering if that would affect something like a 19 from increased crit range auto hitting regardless of ac.

Hi everyone!

im making a bit of an experiment. this isn't a "what are your ideas for a X class" kind of post, its about the last class i posted about and a weird homebrew i had in mind.

i want to know what characters would you asociate with Sorcerer (the ones who were born with special magic from birth) from fiction: books, movies, videogames, tabletop, comics... and some specific things about them: do they use some kind of armor/ weapons? do they specialize in a specific kind of magic? and lastly, do these characters get to cast the higher level magic (level 8 or 9 spells)?

it's just for a dumb homebrew: i've been seeing this idea of a three fours caster and i wondered if i could make a different Sorcerer, one that get access to weapons and armor proficiency, but at the cost of less powerfull magic. imagine a Storm Sorcerer wielding a hammer and armor like Thor, a Draconic Sorcerer using a spear and armor like a dragoon, or a Celestial Soul Sorcerer with a rapier like a red mage.

Voy a ser DM en enero de una campaña y me gustaría usar una campaña ya hecha para facilitarme las cosas. Busco aventura y acción, pero sobre todo risas. Que campañas recomiendan y que consejos me darían como DM por primera vez

Bonus points if there's a PDF guide that can help me with this.

Help! I'm playing DND online and I got into a bit of a spat with a warlock, long story short I threw a boiling cup of tea in his face (he deserved it) anyway now his creepy master has grabbed my soul!! He wants to make a deal with me, the deal is I serve him, he gives me powers and I have to kill every seven year old child I meet..... What the hell??

How do I get out of this!?

My character is a level 3 Firbolg Monster slayer ranger

Would a Paladin/ Berserker Barbarian be able to use divine smite for it's frenzy attack when it's main attack is used for e.g. dash? I know I can use divine smite when raging but am unsure about with frenzy. Thanks!

I'm a working dad who finally started having time to run monthly D&D games again!

I love creating dungeons and fights but I feel like most of my NPCs are either all "Gene Rick Oldmen" of some flavor or not, or stand out so much that my players immediately latch onto them being important.

So what I'd love from you all (so I can make a database to randomly insert characters into) is your favorite NPC!