u/Myedicius

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Hi all! Some of you may remember my post from last week about potentially scrapping my campaign after my brother's wife joined the group. I really appreciated all the advice and different perspectives people offered.

Ultimately, I decided that the best option is to run one final session, get the party safely to Neverwinter, and leave the campaign there. I've been getting a little burnt out anyway, and honestly, this seems like a good opportunity to hand the DM reins over to my brother for a while. He can deal with his wife as the DM.

What I'm actually looking for help with today is putting together that final session.

The party is currently traveling toward Neverwinter. They were originally heading there having dealt with some bandits then collecting their reward in the city. I've already been considering bringing back Cryovain, the white dragon they've encountered once before. The first time they fought him, they absolutely demolished him, and he barely managed to escape. So naturally, I think some revenge is in order.

The important part is that I need this to be a SINGLE session, probably around 4 hours. There won't be much social interaction, so I'm thinking I can make it fairly combat-heavy and essentially give them a full adventuring day's worth of encounters.

My rough idea is:

Fight 1: Something relatively straightforward to start draining some resources.

Fight 2: A more substantial encounter that further wears them down.

Finale: Cryovain returns for revenge and serves as the big final boss fight.

For Cryovain, I'm thinking about using the white dragon boss from Flee, Mortals! and scaling it down to around CR 7 or 8. I really like the action-oriented boss design from that book, and I think it would make for a much more memorable final fight than just using a standard dragon stat block.

What I'm struggling with is the two encounters leading up to him. I'd love suggestions for two fights that would be challenging and interesting without overshadowing the dragon finale. Ice-themed encounters would be great, but they don't necessarily have to be related to Cryovain. I'm also perfectly happy with one or both being more generic enemies.

The party is 3 level 6(paladin,monk,wizard), and they tend to punch above their weight, so I'm not particularly worried about making the encounters a little dangerous.

If you were designing this as a one-session mini-finale, what would you put in those two encounters? Would you do a full adventuring day beforehand, or would you keep the first two fights relatively short so that Cryovain gets most of the spotlight? Any help with scaling down the stat block would also be appreciated.

Thanks!

Hi there. I'm looking for some advice, although I'm pretty sure the answer is just going to be "let the campaign die." I'm hoping someone can give me an alternative perspective that changes my mind.

For the last eight months or so, I've been DMing a group of three players. We're all very close: one is my best friend of more than twenty years, and the other two are my brother and sister. My brother is also very good friends with my best friend.

The group has been fantastic. Nobody gets worked up about things, nobody gets jealous, everyone shares loot, etc. It's basically just four adults hanging out and having fun once a week. One of the biggest strengths of the campaign is how chill everyone is.

Here's the wrinkle.

My brother's wife also plays TTRPGs. I've played with her a few times in the past, and last week they asked point-blank if she could join our campaign. I said, "Of course!"

I had to. But. . .

She is...not my favorite style of player.

For starters, she tends to be very flirty with her characters. It's awkward when she's flirting with her husband, and really awkward when she's flirting with someone else's character. She's also a pretty obvious dice fudger. And she's someone who gets upset pretty easily if she feels like she's "losing" at something.

Last night I was on a video call with my brother when she joined, and the conversation turned into her asking how she would be integrated into the campaign.

She asked about character creation, and I explained that we'd be using point buy. This is because her characters in the past have consistently ended up with absolutely ridiculous starting stats when she's rolling for them. She got pretty worked up about that.

Then came the questions about magic items. The existing PCs are level 6, and we've been pretty generous with magic items. There are honestly several sitting unused in people's packs because everyone has basically just taken what they needed or wanted. I hadn't actually thought through exactly how I would handle magic items for a new level-6 character.

She was very concerned about how many she would start with and seemed particularly concerned about being "behind" the existing characters.

Then came the backstory.Our approach in this campaign has been that the characters' interesting histories are things we discover and develop during play. They don't need five pages of backstory. A few interesting details that I can potentially tie into the campaign are enough. Basically, "knives" if you're familiar with that term.

She wanted to know how long her backstory should be, and how much detail she should include about where all her magic items came from.

At this point, we're still just talking about the character. We haven't even played together yet, and I'm already getting a very whiny tone about not starting "behind" the established PCs and a desire to over-engineer her character's backstory.

Based on my previous experience with her, I expect a lot of sexual innuendo and inappropriate flirting, constant attention to how much damage she's doing each round, arguing about rules, and potentially getting upset whenever something doesn't go her way.

I don't want to turn the campaign into something stressful just because I feel obligated to include someone.

There's another complication, though. If I tell her she can't join, I'm pretty sure it will cause a major problem for my brother. She has a history of being extremely jealous when she feels excluded from things and throwing pretty significant tantrums over it. Honestly, it's something of a miracle that my brother has been able to play in this campaign for eight months without her being involved.

So...what would you do?

TL;DR: I've been running a very chill level-6 campaign for eight months with my brother, sister, and best friend. My brother's wife wants to join. Based on previous experience, I'm worried she'll bring dice fudging, sexual/flirty RP, rules arguments, competitiveness, and drama into a campaign that has otherwise been extremely low-drama. Saying no may also cause serious problems for my brother at home.

Maybe I'm crazy, but it seems like edge wear and scuffing just puts a card into heavily played category for everyone?

What's the use of categories like lightly played and moderately played if anything less than near mint is just heavily played??

I say this as someone selling some cards on marketplace (did one sale on tcgplayer and then realized shipping cost makes it pretty insane to try to sell that way). My cards were definitely played, no doubt about that, but I had them sleeved and boxed most of the time, in my mind, and from looking at the conditioning guide on tcgplayer most fall in the moderately played category.

But jeebus, I have had a few people get so mad at me for putting an asking price at the moderately played price on tcgplayer.

I also just don't understand why people get mad at me for asking too much? just like . .. ignore the post and look somewhere else for that card? Why do people feel the need to tell me my prices are too high?

I guess this is mostly a rant, but also, am I crazy for thinking this way? Maybe if people are interested I can post some examples from my collection.

Hi all,

My party has a few options in front of them tonight:

Help a halfling woman find her lost pig.

Deal with some bandits at Burnock's Crossing (from MCDM). This is secretly the one I'd like them to pick, but I have a feeling they'll pass on it.

Go on a diplomatic mission to Cragmaw Castle. This is the one I really need help with.

A little background: We finished Lost Mine of Phandelver. The party captured King Grol at Cragmaw Castle and imprisoned him in Phandalin. While the PCs were in Wave Echo Cave dealing with the Black Spider, Phandalin came under siege. During the chaos, Grol escaped and made it back to Cragmaw Castle.

Now, months later, Phandalin receives a message: the leader of Cragmaw Castle wishes to discuss terms of peace.

I'd really like to play this completely straight. Grol has realized that endless raiding isn't a sustainable future for his tribe and genuinely wants to establish peaceful relations with Phandalin. I think that's a more interesting direction than the obvious "it's a trap."

My concern is that the session could end up feeling a little light on action. I suspect my players will be expecting at least one memorable combat encounter.

I'm considering introducing a complication during the negotiations—maybe an outside force attacks because they don't want peace between the Cragmaws and Phandalin. That way Grol isn't secretly betraying them, but the diplomacy is still put to the test.

So I'm looking for ideas on that,but also help building an encounter that would put them to the test, maybe waves of combaTt

the party is three PCs at levels 6, 6, and 5. I'm looking for something that would be a very challenging but fair fight.

I'd love to hear any ideas. Thanks!

Last night was our weekly session, and I was about 95% sure the party was finally heading toward a heist I'd been setting up. Instead, they went in a different direction, and now I'm wondering whether I should salvage all the prep I've done or just let it go.

For context, we finished LMoP about a month ago. Afterward, I put together a job board with several quest hooks to help the party choose their next adventure. One thing a couple of the players had mentioned was that they'd really enjoy doing a heist, so one of the notices was from Halia Thornton asking for help recovering a valuable painting.

Instead, they chose to tie up a loose end by helping Sister Garaele with her banshee problem. Since a painting theft isn't the sort of job that would sit around indefinitely while the party was off adventuring, I removed Halia's notice from the board when they left town.

That storyline turned into a pretty substantial adventure. Garaele had disappeared after pursuing the banshee on her own, the party rescued her, dealt with the banshee, encountered a child afflicted with lycanthropy, and ultimately traveled deep into Neverwinter Wood to find a unicorn glade capable of curing her. Eventually they made their way back to Phandalin.

Here's where the two plots connect.

As part of the banshee investigation, Garaele learned that the ancient spellbook she was seeking had been traded to a necromancer named Tsernoth. The banshee also mentioned that clues to its whereabouts might be found in a famous painting called Constantori's Portrait, which happened to be in the same necromancer's collection. That painting is actually the sentient portrait from Masterpiece Imbroglio in Keys from the Golden Vault, which I'd already converted into a custom heist for my campaign.

So when the party returned to town, Garaele told them the painting had recently resurfaced. It was being displayed at a noble's exhibition in Neverwinter... but before anyone could properly study it, it was stolen. She explained that she had a Harper contact in Neverwinter who had more information, but stressed that they needed to move quickly because the painting wouldn't stay in one place for long.

I thought this was a pretty natural way to reintroduce the heist while also giving the party a reason to head toward Neverwinter, which one of the players had already said they wanted to visit.

The problem is that I'd already put quite a bit of work into adapting Masterpiece Imbroglio for my group. I rewrote much of the investigation, customized NPC motivations, and spent a fair amount of time preparing maps for Owlbear.

Instead of following Garaele's lead, though, the party remembered another quest board notice about traveling to Gnomengarde to recruit aid against the white dragon threatening the region. They decided that was the higher priority.

At that point I reminded them that Garaele had specifically said time was critical and the painting wouldn't remain in one place for long. They acknowledged that... and left for Gnomengarde anyway.

So now I'm torn.

From my perspective, they've effectively passed on this heist twice. The first time was when they ignored Halia's original request to recover the painting. The second was when Garaele handed them a fresh lead immediately after it was stolen. I even warned them that this opportunity was time-sensitive. It feels like giving them a third chance would cheapen that warning and make the world feel less responsive to their choices.

On the other hand, I know the players genuinely want to play a heist, and I already have this one almost completely prepared.

Would you let this opportunity disappear and save the material for a different heist later? Or would you find a believable way to give them one more shot at this one?

Sorry for the wall of text. I tried to include only the details that seemed relevant to the decision.

I’ve been looking for battle maps that go beyond static terrain and actually drive gameplay decisions during combat, and I’m curious if this niche even really exists in a usable form.

A lot of encounters get talked about in terms of “dynamic combat” or “interactive environments,” and occasionally you’ll see maps with obvious features like elevation, bridges, lava flows, moving platforms, etc. But what I rarely find is something more complete: maps that come with actual mechanical scaffolding for those features.

What I’m thinking of are maps where environmental elements are not just decorative or left for the DM to improvise, but come with clear, plug-and-play rules. For example, a conveyor belt map that specifies movement per round, how creatures interact with it, how (or if) it can be altered during combat, and what hazards or decision points exist along the way. Or something like acid channels with defined effects for entry, forced movement, and environmental interaction that are already balanced for encounter use.

As a DM, this seems especially useful for random encounters or “filler” fights where pacing often suffers. These are the moments where I either skip encounters entirely or end up running something flat because I don’t have time to design layered terrain mechanics from scratch.

So I’m wondering: does a resource like this actually exist anywhere in a structured way? Or is this mostly something DMs are expected to homebrew on the fly? And if it does exist, is it just buried in paid map packs or specific systems I haven’t come across yet?

Any recommendations or pointers would be appreciated.

I’ve been looking for battle maps that go beyond static terrain and actually drive gameplay decisions during combat, and I’m curious if this niche even really exists in a usable form.

A lot of encounters get talked about in terms of “dynamic combat” or “interactive environments,” and occasionally you’ll see maps with obvious features like elevation, bridges, lava flows, moving platforms, etc. But what I rarely find is something more complete: maps that come with actual mechanical scaffolding for those features.

What I’m thinking of are maps where environmental elements are not just decorative or left for the DM to improvise, but come with clear, plug-and-play rules. For example, a conveyor belt map that specifies movement per round, how creatures interact with it, how (or if) it can be altered during combat, and what hazards or decision points exist along the way. Or something like acid channels with defined effects for entry, forced movement, and environmental interaction that are ready for encounter use.

As a DM, this seems especially useful for random encounters or “filler” fights where pacing often suffers. These are the moments where I either skip encounters entirely or end up running something flat because I don’t have time to design layered terrain mechanics from scratch.

So I’m wondering: does a resource like this actually exist anywhere in a structured way? Or is this mostly something DMs are expected to homebrew on the fly? And if it does exist, is it just buried in paid map packs or specific systems I haven’t come across yet?

Any recommendations or pointers would be appreciated.

Hey everyone, I need some narrative advice and brainstorming help for my campaign. My party just finished clearing out Wave Echo Cave and reclaiming the Forge of Spells.

However, during their single-minded pursuit of the main mission, they completely ignored the quest hook to go deal with Agatha the Banshee on behalf of Sister Garaele. To make the world feel alive and consequential, I put up a bulletin board notice in Phandalin stating that Sister Garaele has gone missing because she eventually went out to the woods to handle it herself. The party intends to investigate her disappearance next session.

Once they resolve Garaele's missing person plot, I want to transition them into the heist module Masterpiece Imbroglio from Keys to the Golden Vault.

For those unfamiliar with the hiest, the party is hired by an academic society (the Cognoscenti Esoterica) to infiltrate a thieves' guild called the Agile Hand. The goal is to steal back Constantori's Portrait which is a sentient, Lawful Evil magic painting that loves to eavesdrop and collect dangerous secrets.

My Initial Idea:

I want to tie the painting into something where the Harpers are trying to find the location of a Lich's phylactery but I am having trouble connecting all the dots. My thought is that Constantori’s Portrait isn’t just a sentient magic item, but a cleverly disguised phylactery. But the module explicitly mentions the portrait eavesdrops especially on political conversations,so maybe it is just the only source of Avery valuable piece of information to the Harpers?

I am trying to figure out:

What does Agatha know about this portrait/phylactery?

Why did Garaele going out to see Agatha cause her to go missing or end up in a possession/stasis situation?

How can I use Garaele's current situation to give the party a incentive to go pull off this art heist?

I’m highly open to other ideas or variations if the lich angle is not a good one. How would you stitch these elements together?

Thanks in advance for the help!

Here’s a clearer, tighter version of your post with cleaner structure and flow:

My party just defeated the Black Spider and reclaimed the Forge of Spells, which was a great payoff for the campaign.

Now I am trying to figure out what to do next and how to present it. At the end of our last session, I asked the players if they wanted to switch to something new or keep going with these characters. Everyone was pretty set on continuing with their current PCs. I also floated the idea of doing a heist or mystery-style arc, and they were very interested in that.

Here is where I am at. I had some tentative plans to transition into a modified Dragon of Icespire Peak. I like the structure of having quests available on a town board, and it would also let me revisit some loose threads. My players skipped most of the side quests in Lost Mine of Phandelver, even though they were offered, so there is still material there I could bring back.

What I am unsure about is how to present all these options. It seems like the group is most excited about doing a heist or mystery, so I was considering running Masterpiece Imbroglio from Keys from the Golden Vault. At the same time, I want to introduce a Venomfang vs Cryovain thread as they travel back down from Wave Echo Cave. I modified the cave location so they had to trek up a mountain, so I was thinking Venomfang could approach them in disguise and offer a reward for dealing with Cryovain.

So my main question is: what is the best way to surface all of these hooks without overwhelming the players? Should I lean on something like a town job board with prompts such as “sensitive matter, inquire with Halia Thornton at the Miner’s Exchange”? Or should I trust the players to remember previous unfinished quests and just give light reminders through NPCs or rumors?

Any advice on structuring this so it feels natural and not like a pile of disconnected options would be appreciated.