u/Karlahn

My players are about to go on a long journey and they is a monster that preys on travellers taking the road. They'll be with merchants and I want some kind of table I can roll with results that range from:

In the morning you see tracks of a large beast, to food missing or an NPC missing etc.

Are there any tables like that?

The big bad wolf, little riding hood. Humanity has so many myths about wolves being predetory beasts who will eat you and your loved ones.

Some of these myths portray them as smart, some as stupid violent brutes (especially when contrasted to foxes) but ultimately evil violent and bloodthirsty.

But there's plenty of recorded footage of wolves generally being pretty... Normal animals? Some show then even being curious or friendly!

They're still predators but it's not like we read about wolf attacks in the news. Contrast this with movies like beauty and the beast where a pack of wolves is out to devour the protagonist.

Why is this? Have wolves become tame through the aggressive ones being hunted down by us? Were agricultural societies demonising them since loss of livestock could genuinely lead to a loss of livelyhood and death via starvation?

Hi everyone,

Been running the campaign with bits from COS reloaded and it's been a blast but!

When the Cleric failed the DC10 saving throw to go into the final stage of Norgana's corruption, turning into a Wraith NPC the clutch battle they were in became totally unwinnable (hence the tpk.)

Me and the player were both shocked that he failed the DC and I didn't do a fantastic job of narrating the transformation. But yeah the player who was at full health and spell slots a moment ago was suddenly out of combat and I didn't know what to do with him!

Has anyone else had this happen? Reflecting on the design they're all combat spells players will use in desperate situations so I'm guessing I'm not the only one this happened to.

How did other DMs narrate the transformation and the fall out from a player just getting taken completely out of the game at a pivotal moment?

I'm nearing the end of my Ravenloft campaign.

This has been my first major campaign where my players have extensively role-played and it's been great!

I'm struggling to shift gears for running Hoard of the Dragon Queen.

With Ravenloft it's quite easy in that you have Strahd, who is a super compelling villain who has so much presence since he can and does just show up, frequently to mess with players. This drives the RP and the narrative players build and it keeps things engaging, tense and exciting.

I can't do that in HotDQ. There's no real central present villain, just a bunch of "nobodies" whose relevance to the story really isn't clear to the players. The players are also nobodies in that they're not the "players of Strahd's game" so to speak. There's no push and pull.

Now I like the idea of running a more open grand classical adventure. Running city adventures and travel will be fun and compelling on their own I think.

But I think I'll struggle without an obvious continuous focal point to engage the players.

I mean maybe, RP wise all I need to do is take a step back and players with good backstories will motivate themselves, but that feels like I'm perhaps asking too much of my players

I'd really appreciate anyone who had run both these giving their insight. My players really love to hate Strahd and I'm worried they won't find the adventure as fun without that.

I feel like the backstories will be key, but the characters may just die in chapter 1!

I'm soo stuck on how to run this. My players may not know Elturel but they've all played Baldur's Gate 3

I'm really worried if when I mention "you're at Baldur's Gate" they will want to stop and explore. This goes completely against the flow of the adventure.

But I totally understand as a player wanting to do that, and check out places they've seen in the video game.

I feel totally unequipped to run any part of the city though and don't want to shell out cash for supplements that are not part of the adventure anyway.

What am I to do?

I don't want to rail road them straight into the meetings but I totally expect them to want to explore! Which I don't have the first clue how to handle.

Please help!

Hi all,

My party are soon going to be able to fight Strahd and have a fair chance of winning.

I think it would be interesting for the party to fight (or have a skirmish Strahd while they're still unable to win) so they get a sense of how strong he actually is and, you know, that bit of horror of being unable to win the fight.

I have had my Strahd try to provoke them which I will step up to see if I can get a reaction but they have been remarkably level headed (in character) and passed the wisdom saves for his charm so I wanted to see what other DMs have done in this situation?

For those who didn't try and provoke a fight, what made the party preemptively enter combat with him?

Hey everyone. As per the title. When do you stop repeating a set random encounter?

Some random encounter entries are clearly one off boss battles, once they occur I replace them with some lot related roleplay encounter or another easier encounter. But what about generic encounters?

On a specific floor how many times should the players defeat 1d6+1 goblins before the goblins in that floor are gone, what should replace them? Is there a standard answer across the osr space?

I'm having a hard time seeing how Strahd just does not win. The symbol and Sword are in the Castle. They're not well hidden so the players will find them.

The players are locked in the castle so they cannot escape. When it comes to the final showdown Strahd will lead them through as many combat encounters/traps as possible.

Sure the players can avoid *some* combats but given enough time they'll run out of resources and cannot rest. I mean maybe they can short rest but no way Strahd let's them get away with a long rest. Even if they literally defeat every enemy in the castle random encounters will still stop them long resting. I feel it's inevitable that they will use up their abilities and then Strahd will take them out one by one.

The holy symbol of Ravenkind is a real weakness but Strahd has legendary resistance so after the first time they use it on him and he resists it I don't think he's going to let them fight him unless he's evened the odds out by choosing the encounter location. Equally he or any humanoid enemy fighting the players can just disarm them of the symbol to remove the threat.

Thoughts?

He all,

My first session went off really well. Through roleplay Father Donavich's wife became lore relevant, but she's not even a named character!

To those of you who had her as an important character in your games, what was she called, what did she do/what role did she play?

I'm running I6 Ravenloft and will be having the players use pregens (statted appropriately) for Ireena, Ismark, Donavich and Doru/Dorina (reimagined as a pre-vampirism PC)

I want to give the players, especially Ireena's player, fair warning about the potential triggers that might arise from Strahd's pursuit of Ireena, but I'm not sure how to do that without spoiling the plot.

-Does anyone have any experience with this? How did you handle it?

-What would you do differently next time?

Hi all,

I'm planning to run I6 Ravenloft in 5e!

My main queries are:

1)How would you level them up?

2)What level should my PCs be?

1. I don't plan to use gold as exp, for those who have played the adventure in 5e, did you use milestone? What did you use as the milestones for leveling up? Or did you just use monster exp?

Also, I'm planning to run the adventure for 3 players + Ireena statted as a fighter same level as the PCs.

The original module recommended starting at level 5-7, so I'm thinking of starting at level 7. However the original adventure was for 6-8 characters. I'm not sure on the conversion, would a party of 4 level 7 characters be too weak for the adventure? 5e Characters are stronger, but so are 5e monsters...

EDIT: Forgot to ask, would you make Ireena and Ismark PCs for this? I think it would work as a good hook for the short adventure.

Hi all,

I DM'd quite a bit of 5e and had a good chunk of the rules memorised.

Is there a set of "balance patch notes" official or fan made that lays out the changes between editions? WotC released something like this for the shift from 3e to 3.5e.

Has anyone developed two or more distinct writing "hands"

As a lefty I learnt initially in school a round hand derived script (very loopy) as an overwriter. I've not switched to being an underhand writer and to help me navigate this switch I looked at the Palmer method, there are some lefties teaching it on YouTube.

It took a lot of work to get to a long where I'm fairly happy with my writing.

But!

I keep seeing absolutely gorgeous examples of italic hand on this sub and I'd love to learn how to do it! Are there any other lefties here who already had to adapt their writing to be an underwriter and then made the switch to another style? Id love to hear how you navigated the switch.

Hi all.

In the first form of Hung Gar one of the moves in the beginning is "Piercing Lance hands". You explosively drive both arms out either side of you with hands flat in line with your arms.

Is this move merely training force generation and muscle/shoulder awareness or does it have some type of application?

Once the British Monarchy settled on the precedent of the Heir Apparent becoming the Prince of Wales, was it a significant shift in the powers associated with that title?

How did this version of the Prince of Wales powers differ from Welsh princes of Wales?

How did the powers of the position change over time, when did it become a ceremonial title with no power associated with it?

Additionally given the apparent success of this model for providing a sense of legitimate authority over Wales (and as traing wheels for the Heir). Was there any attempt to why exportation this model to the colonies?

Were there any considerations of having for example a Prince of America or a Grand Prince of India? What were the historical factors which meant this was not considered/pursued?

I still don't get it...

Why wasn't (in DND 2014) hunters mark just scrapped and favoured foe made non-concentration so the rlanger can actually make use of its spell list?

I get that dipping for multi classing is an issue, but couldn't you just make it like the barbarian's rage where if you cast a non-ranger/druid spell favoured foe ends? Or even becomes concentration RP wise I kinda like that, when the ranger tries to do magic outside of their class they need to concentrate to keep focus on their favoured foe.

If that wouldn't work (and I am willing to hear why it's a bad idea) I'd still think the ranger would be more fun and not overpowered if you keep hunters mark and just make it non-concentration once you reach level 6 or something to stop people dipping one or 2 levels?

Like if you're going 6 into Ranger you kinda earned the free concentration given most campaigns end around level 10 so you only get 4 in another class.

Just sucks you can't easily play a melee Aragorn style ranger...

Scotch whisky are generally considered "less than" If grain whisky is introduced into the blend. It's said it lacks flavours, and is just to create a smooth entry level blend. All of this blame is placed squarely at the foot of the grain.

This makes no sense to me as bourbon and rye whiskey from American and other places are very well received, have a good reputation and are not criticised for being made with these grains.

Why then is grain bad when it's in Scotch and perfectly acceptable in other whiskeys?

Various gothic tribes set up kingdoms in Italy, Spain and as far as North Africa. These nations fell to the Romans or later Arab/Muslim conquests. Why then, was the Frankish kingdom, uniquely able to survive and thrive and eventually give rise to the modern nation state of France while the other gothic, vandalic, ostrogothic, Visigothic kingdoms were not able to?

I'm confused.

In UK supermarkets you can buy a 250g bag of Lavazza for £6.50. Specialty coffee starts at £6.98 in the UK. There are of course more expensive bags of specialty coffee but there's also more expensive bags of Lavazza...

I simply do not understand, why is a bag of carefully sourced, blended and freshly roasted coffee is only a fraction more expensive that commodity coffee that's sat on shelves for ages.

I get there were/are supply chain issues but the gap should not be that small, commodity coffee is far cheaper to produce!

Is this a UK only thing? Or are you all experiencing this in other countries too?