u/hotstickywaffle

After watching Fantasy High on Dimension 20, I love the idea of a divination Wizard. I have an idea for a reroll focused character that using portents, the Lucky feat, and make them a Halfling for those rerolls on 1s. The only thing is I also really like the idea of them also have melee for primary attacking with using True Strike. Is this viable as a plan going in? It's mostly borne from how much I like portent dice, but also loving the idea of a small folk stabbing a dude with a sword

2 of my 4 PCs are going to miss the next session, but rather than cancel I'd like to run a fun little 2-3 hour side-shot for my remaining players. I had an idea to just say they were pulled into another place or plane by a wizard or something while they were traveling, and just need them safely placed back there at the end. Any ideas or specific things like this you guys have run? It's on Saturday, so ideally very low prep, but I'm not a greatimprovise. (Though, maybe a good time to practice).

My wife and I watch Dropout content on 2 TVs in our house, plus each of our phones. But even when we're only watching on 1 device we get errors that we can't watch on more than 3 devices at once. We'll make sure all the devices and apps are properly off and it still does it, so I just end up logging off on my phone. Does anyone have a reliable fix for this?

I have a Druid in my party and I wanted to give them something to do during travel or between missions, so I'm giving them a simple gathering mechanic. Initially, I was going to keep it to just rolling a nature check every day, and getting a certain amount of the 25GP of crafting materials to make a health potion. I was going to use this curve.

1–5 = 0gp

6–10 = 2 gp

11–15 = 5 gp

16–20 = 8 gp

21–25 = 12gp

26+ = 15 gp

Plus some modifiers for environment

Lush forest, swamp, Fey-touched area = +2 to +5

Mountains, coastline = -2

Desert, tundra, dungeon, urban area = Disadvantage or impossible

First off, I'm curious what you guys think of the balance of that amount. I also thought if it should come up per hex traveled on the big map, but then I'd definitely need to rebalance the amount. Stuff like this, trying to balance numbers, is where I definitely struggle as a new DM

And should I add some more depth to it? I thought I could break the ingredients into 4 categories (healing, elemental, magical, toxins) and they roll a D4 to see which they found. Then instead of making just healing potions, they can make anything from a table (maybe that grows as they level up?), obviously going above the 25GP in some places, or perhaps more advanced ones requiring combinations. I assume I would need to increase what's dolled out to balance that out, but is it getting too complicated at that point?

I'm currently putting together a simple gathering mechanic for my Druid, so he can gather resources to use towards his potion making. Basically, they roll nature/survival and get a certain amount of the 25GP of crafting materials they need to craft a potion.

I have a Rogue, Artificer, and Warlock in the party and would like to come up with something similar for them. Does anyone have anything they've seen work? Notably, I'm not talking about long term "downtime" mechanics, just stuff players would work on while traveling or maybe as part of their short/long rests.

I'm only on my 4th or so combat encounter with my party (5.5E). It's gone ok, but I'm always a bit surprised by how difficult the combat ends up being, in both directions. From what I've read, CR isn't very reliable, but it's all I really have (I honestly also don't have as much prep time as I'd like). I've heard "action economy" is a far more important thing to consider, but how do you do that? I have a rough understanding of what the term means, but how do you use that to figure out if a combat is going to be balanced or not and how much HP a Bandit Captain, a Thug, and 2 bandits should have (and if I should add more bandits)?

I have zero experience making music, but I'm currently playing DnD. I have a character that has some Disney princess influences, included having singing and performing skills. For some flavor, I want to make some short songs about our party's adventures so far. Can anyone recommend some free tools I can use to make these, and any other advice when working with it?

I've been watching some of Matt Coville's videos on YouTube and came across his video on using Skill Challenges for making these sort of cinematic, but still interactive, challenges. I actually had an encounter I built into the opening of my first adventure and I realized this was basically what I was trying to do, I just didn't realize it was a thing at the time. I know he mentions it was a 4E thing, but are you guys still using these at all, or are there better ways to accomplish something similar? Any other tips for running them?

I'm a first time DM running my first time players through a premade campaign (Dragon of Icespire Peak). One of them is a Warlock with an Eldritch/Lovecraft vibe, who's powers first manifested when he killed a bunch of cult members. We have a gnome artificer with one hand because he chopped it off to escape being held as a slave by a cult. We have a rogue who is with now shamed aristocrat for an enemy back home and a druid who above all values the balance of nature.

I also, in one of their first big combats, altered a Mimic so that it could turn in to gnomes in a gnomish village. I wanted to tie the characters backstory in to this premade adventure, so I though I might add a cult as a secondary main villain to the dragon terrorizing the area. I figured thag cult could be altering monsters and enslaving people to honor their god, who is in opposition to my warlock's god. And if it's not too clunky, they could be working with the aristocrat to try and take control of the town that is the hub of the game, Phandalin.

Any suggestions for doing something like this?

I'm running a bunch of first time players through DoIP and I wanted to give them each something fun for leveling up to their subclasses. I ran 3 of them through theirs last session (everyone seem to really enjoy it), but our Druid had to miss so I have his coming up, and it's the one I'm struggling with the most.

Each sequence was meant to only be <5 minutes with a few skill checks to give and tied their subclass decision into some backstory points I have about them.

My Aasimar Soulknife Rogue was jumping through the city rooftops after a successful mission, when she was stopped by a knight. After blocking their attacks, a voice she recognized reached out to her and awakened her celestial abilities (we flavored soulknife coming from being an Aasimar).

The Old Ones Warlock suddenly found himself isolated on a boat when a massive Eldritch horror picked him up and forced a tentacle down his throat. He heard a bunch of maddening noises (failed the wisdom save to understand it), and then was flung through space and time before waking up and vomiting up and eye of the monster that fit into his tome.

The Armorer Artificer who is going for a Power Rangers vibe woke up inside a red dimension and was attacked by a robot. After defeating it with some skill checks, he was flung back into his room and realized he was in the red gem of the belt that is his arcane focus and the source of his powers.

So, now I have this circle of the land Druid Wood Elf. He has given me by far the least to work with in terms of backstory, but is still very enthusiastic and is having a great time. All I really have is that he values the balance of nature, and seems very driven by the prospect of helping people. I have a vague idea of tying this into a cult that is corrupting monsters for the larger story, but I don't think that fits here (and that part hasn't been revealed yet, as I just thought of it). If it helps as a jumping off point, instead of staying in the inn in Phandalin with the rest of the party, he's choosing to stay in a wooded area on the outskirts of town. Really grateful for any help!

I recently finished Fantasy High, and I'm a few episodes in to Starstruck Odyssey and I'm in love. But as I've recently started playing actual DnD from pre-made adventures (I'm a PC in Return to Phandelver and I'm DMing Dragon of Icespire Peak), I would love to see them play something a little closer to the traditional game. What would you guys suggest for that?

So, I don't have a ton of experience playing, but how is it that the parry has some wildly different ability score totals? I know they've gotten a few for free, but somehow Fabian has two 20s and nothing under 13 I believe. Meanwhile others have much lower totals, like Kristen who has one 20, a few in the low teens, and that silly 4. I know there are a few chances you get to increase your stats, but that doesnt seem to account for the large disparity.

So I'm playing an Aasimar Celestial Warlock. I like a lot of it so far, but I feel like I'm very limited in my spell casting at level 3, and it doesn't seem like it'll get less restrictive. I have to blow 1 every fight for my Hex, so that just leaves me one other spell slot to cast Agathys' Armor, Cure Wounds, or an attack spell. I know I get them back on short rests, but any sort of longer fight seems like I'm going to be very limited. Any notes or tips?

I'm watching the season of Dimension 20 where they're in an adventurers high school. I try not to take too much from D20, just because I think a lot of it requires either the massive improv skills or knowledge that only someone like BLeeM has. But the downtime mechanic has looked really fun. It obviously doesn't work with every type of campaign, but has anyone ran anything similar? What kind of adventures have you found this worked in?

Edit: Just to be clearer, they used it sporadically throughout the adventure to cover the week's in-between certain key moments. They had a collection of responsibilities (their separate classes, social life, job, extracurricular, etc.), and they had to prioritize them and make roles to check their success. Things prioritized later had higher DCs, and you could reroll at the cost of a stress token, which forced players to choose certain rolls or checks to take disadvantage on. In between rolls, they would RP things as they came up. It obviously works perfectly in a school setting.