r/AskDND

So I have a party of a Wizard, a Druid, a Bard, a Sorcerer, and an Artificer.

I refuse to ask them to remake their character I'd rather adapt to them and make it fun and not frustrating since their Str/Dex/Con be kinda low...

I am a first time DM, so I am trying out the encounters but since its an odd party I cant tell if the 3 octupus for the first session is too much.

DnDBeyond says its just hard, but are they gonna kill the squids so fast its too boring or are they gonna get TKO'd in their first encounter

I'm thinking of starting a side gig since my job is cutting hours and money is needed. I love working with my hands which includes painting, cutting, gluing, ect.. I also absolutely love D&D, so I figured why not combine the two and came across custom D&D terrain.

I have most of the equipment already since I also play W40k, so it wouldn't be a major investment aside from safety gear and the xps foam that would be needed.

What I'm actually questioning is, is there a large enough customer base for this specific thing? And what prices are people willing to pay?

I’ve never played that class and I wanted to ask what do you need as your highest ability score? (They wanna be a vengeful paladin path thing )

I almost forgot I had account lol.

I am a new DM and I am wanting to do this already made campaign, Wild Beyond the Witchlight. On D&D Beyond I have to choice to buy just the physical book($49.95), just the digital version,($29.99) or both($59.95).

I can’t decide whether I should get just the digital version or if I should get both.

What are your thoughts? 🤔

Also if you know where I can get it cheaper feel free to share.

Before I begin, I just want to clarify that I am not making this post to throw shade on the server ill be mentioning, while I will mention bad things about this server, I do think that its a good server even if I have some negative views about it.

Firstly, to explain the title, I am a fan of Ace Combat that I began looking for a discord rp server that scratch that itch. Eventually, I found an Ace Combat rp server thats the most active to this date. While I would like to share the name, I dont want to for the sake the privacy with the post that im writing, but what I can tell you that it has a pretty neat Combat system as well as an original story that takes places after AC7 in which a terrorist organisation forced every military faction to join.

I made an Erusian pilot who was an orphan and made a dream with her friend that she would be the best pilot while her friend became good with making planes (unfortunately the friend died). While she's certainty skilled, she does need some improvement in order to be an Ace.

Alright, simple story you may ask yourself. What went wrong that caused you to get banned then?

Well, lets just say that the combat system was pretty cruel. In the server's Combat system, there are different types of airplanes to choose from. I chose the Fighter because of its high EVA (armor points) and the description said that its meant to fight other planes. However, i feel like they kinda forget to mention that the planes have low Accuracy (hit bonus) in contrast to the planes Evasion as the 3 sorties that I've been in, I havent hit jack shit as my rolls barely reached the Evasion mark. And since I cant do anything beneficial after firing my missiles, I have to wait and do it all over again, only to miss my shot somehow.

The last sortie I was in broke me as on the surface, it was a simple Easy mission. However, we were up against 20 EVA planes while we were low accuracy. Heck, even with the AWACS giving me and the teammate buffs, I still didnt hit anything. The fact that I couldn't hit anything in an easy mission broke me so much that I started doomposting about me being so useless in a sortie and how it was restricting me from playing my character that the mods got tired of me and banned me for a year with an appeal.

PS: Feel free to ask me anything about the system and the server as how I got banned in the server is another story that'll take another post to explain.

I was thinking about doing a skeleton character, I found out about the Reborn race/lineage but I dunno, I read all buffs and no downsides.

I'm aware that my DM is cool enough to do cool interactions like me losing parts in fight or weird interactions with NPCs but I still feel the race is too much.

My ideas where a pirate, a monk or a rogue. All of them being quite exotic from the area we playing, we usually doing average fantasy so let's say asian or african for example and exotic weapons like shotel or naginata.

The past life wouldn't be a legendary warrior or the chosen one, the most would be an around lvl 9 john with enough rank in the faction/group he belonged.

One thing I keep coming back to with 5.5e is that a lot of balance still seems to depend on something that is not always easy to control: how often the party gets to rest.

On paper, a lot of the 2024 rules feel cleaner. Encounter building seems better, monsters feel more dynamic, and classes generally feel smoother. But in actual play, rest pacing can still completely change how the game feels.

In my experience, this is one of those things that can make the same party feel balanced or wildly overpowered depending on the adventure structure. If the party gets a Long Rest after one or two meaningful fights, casters can unload their strongest resources almost every encounter, and even dangerous fights can get flattened quickly.

But if I push too hard in the other direction, it can start to feel like I am forcing artificial time pressure just to make the math work.

Short Rests are also weirdly table-dependent. Some groups naturally take them, while others almost never do unless the DM creates a very obvious pause. And in some official-style adventures, the story feels urgent enough that stopping for rests can feel strange, but the mechanics still assume some kind of resource attrition.

So I’m curious how people are handling it in 5.5e.

Do you feel like rest pacing is still one of the biggest balance levers in the game?

Do your players actually take Short Rests regularly?

Are you using any house rules, safe havens, gritty realism, time pressure, or narrative limits on Long Rests?

Or do you think 5.5e works fine without worrying too much about the adventuring day?

So in my last session i got in possesion of a very rare magic item of my choice, seen that i alr have a bloodwell vial +3 in my possession i was thinking of either the book for +2 char (my char is 20, we are at lv9), or the barrier tattoo (my current ac its 13) with a small consideration for staff of power.
What do you guys think i should take or if you have a cooler item in mind?

Ok, context: I'm a first time DM running my very first campaign in about a week. Everything is going smoothly so far with planning and scheduling, but I've run into one major issue. My girlfriend, through sheer dumb luck, has created the strongest 1st-level character I've ever seen. She's playing a Kalashtar cleric, and her stats are as follows:

STR: 16

DEX: 15

CON: 14

INT: 18

WIS: 20

CHA: 16

Along with these stats she has an AC of 16, the features Dual Mind, Mental Discipline, Mind Link, and Severed from Dreams. She also doesn't require components as her holy symbol can be used as a focus, and she has a spell save dc of 15 and a spell attack bonus of +7. Maybe I'm overreacting because of my own lack of experience, but I'm worried about a few things. How do I give her realistic challenges while also keeping the campaign fair for my other (admittedly weaker) PCs? I could always go the route of free equipment and bonuses for the other players, but this feels like bullying her for accidentally making a powerful character because she "went based off what looked and sounded coolest" for her first ever character. Sorry if this post is too long or badly formatted, it's my first ever reddit post and I'm on mobile.

TLDR: One of my PCs accidentally created an overly powerful character and I'm not sure how to keep my campaign fair, challenging, and fun.

In the campaign that I'm writing I'm creating this sort of evil company that's focused on fiendish experiments. The idea is that a human wizard wants to exert control over devils but I'm not really sure if its possible for a devil to make a pact with a human where the human is the one in control. or if a devil can make a pact with another devil

So I'm making a homebrew campaign atm and an idea I had was to have a npc join my party from the beginning, the npc will get "kidnapped and killed" and at the end turns out he was alive and omg they're the BBEG. Pretty normal imo, if I roleplay it subtle enough I think it could be a fun twist.

But when i was browsing through some books I came across a Rakshasa which I find a pretty cool concept as a villain, only thing is they're a challenge level 13 and pretty overpowered considering we're starting from lvl1 characters.

Is it still a viable option if I just explain him as a veteran while they're "allies" and just don't directly attack with them on the frontline when enemies. Or is there a way I can scale them down to fit better for some lower levels can actually do something?

So I'm still fairly new to dnd and was looking over classes and really fell in love with the Genie Warlock feature of having a personal Genie vessel which you can pull your party into as well. However, warlock as a whole kind of puts me off due to its seemingly lackluster spell slots. I've played a wizard before to lvl 8 and was burning through spell slots in encounters...I just can't see myself being able to deal with that on warlock. Are there alternatives like items or spells to achieve a similar effect to getting a personal realm you can store stuff, decorate and vibe with others in? Or is that a genie exclusive thing? Have mostly dabbled in westmarch servers so not a campaign where I can work with a DM

I'm a first time player, closest I've done is baulders gate 3. I'm about to start campaign with some friends. My chemo treatments have me stuck at home alot so some friends are using DnD to get me up and interacting.

We are using Ravenloft and dnd 5e (guess how you say that) all of us players are basically doing Marvel charcters. Need help with my character, I'm doing Moon Knight (one of my favorite Marvel characters besides Spider-Man, Ghost Rider and Cap.)

Every search I've done doesn't give me much info other than using stuff like a fighter/undead Hex warlock with a reborn race which makes since with who Moon Knight is.

The DM has no clue how to create him either other than having me do 2 stats (we rolled for those last weekend, same numbers just in different slots) to change personalities and using the phase of the current Moon to give an advantage if it's over a half Moon.

I need help filling this character sheet out. Supposed to be a lvl 5. It's confusing the heck out of me. My rolled numbers are; 16, 12, 17, 13, 17, and 9. And the DM not having me use a Moon touch weapon (we sre using the moon phases instead)

Is there anyone that can help me out?

I want to play a Satyr Bard character, and I am struggling to choose a subclass for her.

My character will be a carefree Satyr girl, and the setting will be a travelling circus. Due to the flavor I am going for, I am choosing between College of Dance and College of Glamour.

An important detail: the DM ruled that Magic Resistance of Satyrs was too OP, so we nerfed it and settled on Fey Ancestry instead.

I am not very experienced with Bards, and never played a Satyr, so I am not sure which subclass provides best synergy, roleplay and efficiency.

Any insight would be appreciated.

Hey all!

I'm planning to have a conversation with an older player who hasn't played since 2e and I have only played 5/5.5e and thought there could be a decent bit of conversation about what's changed, what's stayed the same, campaign themes/settings, dynamic of players and DR'S, etc.

I plan on transcribing the conversation and doing a blog post of the conversation so I would like it to be engaging to a the player base at large rather than just me indulging my own curiosity.

What are some questions or topics you think we should dive into?

Hi, I’m a dm with 3ish years of experience and I’m just wondering: how much do you reward players for being creative in combat? And, on that note, do you add flavor on certain attacks?

As an example, whenever my party is fighting large, brutish creatures, I often move the players 15-30 feet back if they take major damage, or let the boss pick one of them up (grapple check) and throw them 60 feet into a wall or smthn.

As another example, I had a player riding a warhorse charge at an enemy who had their back to a cliff wall. I had the enemy (a weak minion btw) make a con save against being stunned from, y’know, being slammed into a rock by a 600 lb animal.

A final example, to really show you what I mean, is that I had a boss, a dragon-golem. The players had the boss surrounded and a couple of them climbing on it - a good rhythm. I saw it was at half hp and gave had it freak out and grab one of them and charge through the whole group, forcing them to make Dex saves to avoid its mass. So basically I replaced its normal attacks that round with a massive AOE that wasn’t on its statblock, but was fairly balanced for what the thing could actually do. At the end of the round, the party lost sight of it and now one of the players was forced into a one-on-one for a single round as the rest dashed to catch up through the wreckage of a couple buildings the boss crashed through.

I use things like this to 1) encourage and reward my players to use their environment and be clever in combat, and 2) switch up the pace of a fight to keep them on their toes and add motion and environmental consequences.

So DM’s does anyone else do things similar to this and/or what’s your thoughts?

Goblin’s AC is 15, which means that my level one players have at best 50% chance to hit ( they can have +5 to hit so they have to roll a 10 or more ) which means that they miss half of the Time.
I find this a bit to difficult.

On top of that I find this a bit weird that goblin have the same AC as fore exemple ice giants and even strong creatures like wyvern or howlbear have only 13 AC. I don’t understand why.

The fact is that my players are more concerned with the plot and the fun roleplayplay than the fighting optimisation, so I am thinking about giving my goblins only 10 AC and play with the environnement to give them an davantage at first, then if the players are smart enough they can find a way to revers the situation and ez win rather than having to roll again and again until they finally hit.

Waiting for your wise knowledge!

Hello, fellow adventurers!

With my players approaching level 5 in a couple of sessions. I wanted to give them a "bastion."

I wanted to ask both players and DMs about your bastion experience. Was it good? Was it bad?

Were there any homebrew rules to alleviate some of the problems? Did you have your own ruleset, separate from the DMG?

If of any importance, the campaign is set in Eberron, in Quickstone now.