r/DMAcademy

Had a player watch a video from Treantmonk's Temple about True Polymorph. In the video, Treantmonk said the caster could simply end the spell, as you can end any spell you cast. Within the spell itself it states after the first hour where concentration is needed, the spell ends on death or being dispelled. Does anyone know where Treantmonk is getting that you can simpily end your own spell?

Can anyone help with where this is stated?

Does anyone have any good beginner-friendly, family-friendly one shot recommendations? I play with my family every now and then, but my uncle and cousin will be visiting in a few months and my grandma suggested we play a game with them. Everyone has prior experience (how much varies) except maybe uncle, and definitely cousin. He is 8 years old.

One of my players became a father a few months ago. Next week will be the first session where he returns to the table.

To surprise him I want to give his character an item that is themed to his new baby!

My ideas so far:

A magical rattle that if shaken summons an ethereal baby. The baby lasts for 10 minutes before falling asleep and returning to the rattle. The baby has 10HP. If it reaches 0, the baby will return to it's rattle. Can be summoned once every short rest

Initial Baby abilities

- Cry: A high pitched cry. Target takes 1d6 damage

- Giggle: The giggle will charm the target (making it want to play with the baby)

- Dirty diaper: A poisonous gas surrounds the baby. Everyone standing in the gas will take 1d4 poison damage every turn. Lasts 1 minute.

Passive:

- Nap: Every other turn the baby will take a nap, skipping its turn.

The baby has it's own turn in the combat order with 1 main action.

Hit me with your best suggestions for abilities or other fun additions to this magical item.

Do you think it would be fun if the baby can "level up" (i.e. if the baby is summoned during long rests you can raise the baby and can be taught things)? For example, initially the baby will just crawl around doing semi-random abilities at random targets. It can be raised to follow orders. Although it might make it to complex an item

Thoughts?

Hey friends, love reading all your wisdom on other posts!

My party in their next session will be facing off against their BBEG for this arc. I expect they will start the session with a long rest and then a short journey to the fight.

Some have no spell slots at all, others missed a session so are pretty fully stocked, so it would feel unfair to just not let them rest - I want players to feel evenly equipped for the fight.

Normally I would throw a smaller encounter or two along their way, but since this is the last session before one of my players move away, I don't want to spend time on other things that might delay them and result in that player missing the climax.

Is there any other way people have to 'artificially' drain some resources?

e.g. a montage of encounters on the journey with some brief rolls that determine how much they lose? How to fairly manage loss of HP and spell slots amongst different classes?
They're level 5. I was thinking of including something like rolling 2d3 and they lose that many of that spell slot, e.g. a 1 and a 3 would be either 1 level 3 slot or 3 level 1 slots.

Keen for better ideas than mine that are fair, hopefully a little fun, and quick!

Or is it just better to let them be at full power and crank up the difficulty of that final combat.

Thanks everyone!

Hi everyone! I am trying to create a campaign for my group of friends who dont play D&D and dont really do games as much as I do, but they have been wanting me to write and DM a campaign.

For me, starting out as a player, roleplaying was the most difficult thing since I created a character completely opposite of how I act and would end up doing things I would do but not what the character would.

So I had a thought of creating an Isekai type campaign where they just play themselves instead of trying to RP someone they are not, but Im not quite sure if thats a great idea or not. Please send some wise DM advice my way!

In my last session the question cane up when i cast the spell hullinatory terrain. Now yes that is d&d spell but the question does apply to any ttrpg.

I have long notice that illusion spells are a real sticking point and that part of just how they are written. What exactly is a minor effect? Would a warlock sharing senses with a bat hear the echo of a silent image? Etc etc.

I made the point what's the difference between magical darkness and the illusion of magical darkness. The illusion is made of magic so I, a warlock with devil sight, should see through it. One other said he hated how dg3 did illusion magic because most spells are treat like holographic projections.

We came up with 3 way that illusions work. 1 holographic projections, 2 a program in someone's mind, 3 cast on reality it's self.

That 3rd one is weird but it does why that player often makes illusions op af. My view is this. If someone walks into the room after the spell is cast and has to deal with it then it is a projection. If they don't then it is a program in someone's mind.

Now i know some games make this clearer. Has open as the magic in mage the awakening was it was clear mind magic is internal to someone's mind. In Storm light archives illusions are all protections.

I personally think games should make very how illusions work, and if they did it would clear up what they can and cannot do.

How do you all run illusions? How common is this problem with illusion magic at your table? What games make it clear how illusion work?

For context, in a game I'm running the players will likely meet a character from the Russian equivalent in the world, I'm wondering if learning to do the accent is a good idea or not, or if I will just sound like an asshole

plus, depending on the players choices, this character could end up being an important benefactor, so I'm wondering if it would get old and just annoy my players

any opinions are welcome, just want some advice since it's the first time I've tried something like this

I've started a list of generic plots for a campaign built off of one shots. I thought it could be helpful for others ( and I'm looking to add some ). In this campaign there's always three options on the quest board, and I roll on this chart to develop them.

**Updated for typos

1. A civilian has fallen in love with a monster
2. A monster has fallen in love with a civilian
3. Charlatan has monster(s) that steal through a scheme
4. Civilians are hiding from a monster and need to be moved to a new hiding spot
5. An entire village has been turned into monsters and needs to be turned back.
6. Intelligent monster is trying to be a hero
7. Villain is trying to reform
8. Intelligent creatures are being consumed as exotic food and kept in cruel environments
9. Intelligent creatures are being farmed for food. don’t realize it, and need to be rescued
10. Intelligent monster has hidden themselves within a civilian population to fit in and be left alone
11. Intelligent monster is trying to get rich
12. Intelligent monster is trying to become mayor
13. Intelligent monsters enslave civilians
14. Intelligent monsters enslaving other monsters
15. Intelligent monsters enslaved
16. Dungeon has been discovered and someone needs something inside or someone needs something inside neutralized
17. Monster has captured a leader
18. Monster hunt as a competition
19. Monster hunt for its use in medicine
20. Monster protecting its family from encroaching development by civilians
21. Monster protecting its family from encroaching development by villains
22. Monsters are being bred for weapons in war
23. Monsters are actively destroying a towns by being used as siege weapons
24. Monsters are controlled by a villain competitor to the businessperson who hires the party
25. Monsters are eating a prized crop
26. Monsters are eating civilian travelers
27. Monsters are environmentally destructive to a mine
28. Monsters are environmentally destructive to a waterway is becoming unable to be traveled
29. Monsters are environmentally destructive to drinking water
30. Monsters are environmentally destructive to farmland
31. Monsters are now living in an area containing a resource that is coveted for greed. Get the resource.
32. Monsters are now living in an area containing a resource that is coveted for greed. Protect the resource
33. Monsters are now living in an area containing a resource that is necessary for survival
34. Monsters are used as enforcers for villains
35. Monsters being used as farm animals (don't want to be)
36. Monsters being used as farm animals have been stolen by competitors
37. Monsters beneficial to the area are under threat and the civilians that care for them ask for help
38. Monsters fighting other monsters is harming civilians
39. Move monster from where it is to somewhere beneficial to civilization
40. Move monster from where it is to somewhere beneficial to the environment
41. Rare harmless monsters beneficial to the environment are hunted for magic ingredients. Party has to stop the hunters.
42. Smuggling people due to the BBEG
43. Smuggling supplies due to the BBEG
44. Someone wants to keep a monster as a pet but it's eating something it shouldn't
45. Unintelligent monsters enslaved
46. Villain is training / has trained monsters to harass
47. Villain is training / has trained monsters to steal
48. Someone is collecting monsters for fun or greed and it goes wrong
49. Someone is breeding monsters for survival or profit and it goes wrong

Hey all, I'm looking to run a little quest for my players I worry might be a little out of my skill range, so I'm looking for any and all suggestions/contributions.

For context in my game, the players have been hunting down relics from the gods that are too powerful and overwhelm anyone who try to wield them. Naturally in this case, the players are sent to find a temple with one inside. They don't know it yet, but the temple has a relic from the god of time; every time the day ends, someone grabs it, gets overwhelmed, more or less starts the entire day again, giving the players a single repeating day to try and find out where the temple is/how to get inside it/stop the loop from happening again.

Suppose I'm mostly trying to figure out how to do this, how to include daily puzzles that repeat with a good end point that doesn't feel annoying. I feel like putting a time limit on it and giving them info about how long getting to each spot/place they can go to takes, or how long certain actions take before whittling down the hours to reset.

Hi fellow DMs,

I have a player who wants to play a Hexblade Warlock. I'm a bit lost there, and so I have a few questions about this, answers to any of them will be very appreciated!

1. Isn't a warlock really OP ? Between the EB cantrip, the Pact, the eldritch invocations (he can have detect magic permanently on ?), the spells (back with short rests), the pact boon ?

Subquestion 1a. Should the pact be detailed (like we actually write a contract or something or is that juste for Fiends ?) ?

Subquestion 1b. Should the pact include drawbacks to balance if it's indeed OP ?

2. The Hexblade patron : is it a magical sentient weapon or its maker ? The PHB/Xanathar makes me think it's the weapon but.. how ? And online I see stuff about Dread domain monarchs/Shadowfell lords who could fit the Hexblade ? And the Raven Queen ..?

2a. Even more so with the Pact of the Blade, should he wield (or aim to wield?) the aforementioned magical sentient blade ?

2b. We're going in Prismeer and running Witchlight, could I >!make the Patron the blade wielded by Isolde in the Shadowfell Carnival, Nepenthe ? Then the sword (or its maker if that's the answer to 2.) might want the sword freed from his dread domain/Carnival or something? And that'd be the warlock's goal in the campaign, revealed to him whenever ?!<

Any help appreciated, thank you very much !

*they are technically size medium.

As the title says, I am trying to create a race that acts as if you are large sized. Though I am starting with an idea for a half-giant, the goal is that this feature can balance effectively within itself. I will immediately acknowledge this feels too much for beginner and even experienced DM's and is borderline discriminatory against in person DMs but I am planning this for online play on roll20.

My question is can anyone notice anything that will be broken or make it considerably difficult to use this in an actual campaign. What changes do you think I should make if any or what would you try instead. This is for a primarily 5e campaign but I would also be interested in how this would affect a 5.5e game as well.

I added powerful build as it has the other features that make one feel as if they are size large and the actual acting as a large size creature will be one a player can opt-in to whilst playing as a half-giant.

Love to see what I missed or answer any questions.

• Powerful Build. You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.
• (Optional) Cramped Living. Some half-giants generally don’t easily fit in spaces meant for medium sized creatures and when possible, prefer to take up a larger space.
  •  If you are present within a space that can fit a size large creature at the start of your turn, you can take reactions, actions, and bonus actions as if you were occupying any individual space until you move or are moved into a different space that no longer can fit a size large creature.
    • For effects such as auras that give a radius, to emerge from, the effect emerges from the place you are actually on and/or end in your turn in. 
    • One must also specify the 2x2 square they take up, this square moves with them and also triggers attacks of opportunity as if the player was present in such a square.
  • You may make any pushing or grappling checks as if you were a large sized creature. 
  • Your walking speed becomes 40 feet but any terrain that cannot fit a large sized creature requires double the movement to move through. 
  • Gear made for such a creature may require being resized. You can with no considerable difficulty wear gear meant for large sized creatures. Armour requires an additional 5gp x (10 - base armour AC) in materials and work to fit your bulk. 
  • Attacks made with weapons made for creatures size large still are made at disadvantage but receive a bonus equal to half your proficiency bonus rounded down. This bonus can only be used while you are occupying the 2x2 square.
  • Receive a -1 to Dexterity checks and saves made whilst not occupying the 2x2 square.

Hello!

My player joindes an adventurer's guild ans chose their first quest! Upon the choices, I added a wild card ''confidential - to be discussed with the guild master".

And of course, that is the one they chose!
I now need to chose what quest it is!
The guild has rules and would not accept any quest that asks something illegal (theft, even for a stolen object - the city guard should handle that) and they will not accept quests with political influence (they will not chose a side in a war between two kingdom, exept if one of them is clearly evil) maybe). The guild master choses if the quest is too political to be done.

Because this quest is confidential, it also needs a good reason to be so.

Here is my idea, but feel free to give any other idea you have or twist or addition on this one.

I tend to care a lot about if thing make sense, and the tone of the campaign is mostly serious.

An elderly noble is dying (old age? sickness or maybe poison?), he has no current heir, as his son disapeared? was kidnapped? ran away? a long time ago. But he now want to try and find his heir again before his death...

I feel like it could make a great quest, but i lack on the details and anything you could bring would be appreiciated!

I think it could be nice to have them trace the reasons of the diseaperance of the the heir, and I think it could be fun to add a red hearring that lead to the truth.

They easylly find a heir, turns out he was kidnapped by bandits and could not escape for years... But is strange and the PC uncover the truth : it was a scheme from the bandits to acces the noble man's wealth. They poisonned him and paid witnesses to place one of them as the new head of the House.

But now, they have to search - again- for the true heir and what happened to him...

Do you have any idea to improve this? Do not wory if your idea is a bit far from what I had, I do not mind changing the story for a better plot!

I plan to write it into a ready to play adventure and shere it here once I have something good enough for my game!

Thank you for anything you can think of!

So, as the title says, I have a player in a game of mine that brings the vibe down, as he is so terrified of consequences that he is mostly unwilling to do anything. It has gotten to the point where he has begun berating the other party members, both in and out of character, for doing things that he deems to be mistakes. Regardless of whether or not they are. He also complains constantly in combat. So I want some advice on how to handle this problem without having to dismiss him from the table. He is a good person, and I enjoy being around him. This problem is basically just when we play. I hope you guys can help me. Feel free to ask for more details if needed.

My party has a quest that will involve about 2 days of travel to a ranch that was taken over by Orcs. I'm going to use it to introduce the exhaustion mechanic, saying they have to skip their long rest in order to make it in time to save the farm hands that were captured.

I also want to have them run into things on the way there, or maybe roll for an encounter (this was originally a hex-based open-world adventure but I'm kind of cutting that because it isn't working for us). But I don't want to take the time to run full combats, just some opportunities to maybe RPing a bit and using some resources. How would you go about doing something like this?

My party is level 4, an AT Rogue, Armor Artificer, Lands Druid, and GOO Warlock. 2024 rules but a 2014 module, so every combat is being reworked for both balance and to fit the story I'm trying to build as I go. This one includes a fight in a farmhouse but I'm also trying to figure out how to make that more interesting as well.

I was running a game and had a home brew creature that got to have multiple turns in a round. This is something I saw a YouTuber use, basically they just roll 2 initiative dice and go a full turn on each one. I used this to shake up an otherwise boring encounter and it was exciting. The monster was hard for them to predict and it could dish out consistent damage. I knew they were worried when my border player started using their precious consumables!

One of the players landed a Command spell and used Halt as the command. I wasn’t sure if the monster should lose both its turns or just one. Before I had to decide, the rouge landed a dice tower full of sneak attack damage and we moved on. My question is what do you all think? I was leaning toward the monster does the command with one of its turns and not the other. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Hello all, I'm looking for some advice.

One of my players has been afflicted with vampirism as part of her backstory. She broke away from the control of her sire sometime before the joined the party and that has led to him being a prominent figure in her woes as he works to bring her back into his clutches.

I'm running a homebrew campaign I've established that this particular vampire lord is a Progenitor (a class of vampire nigh invincible above that of regular lords). Progenitors are like the super sires of vampires and were the first to be afflicted with it when an evil god created the curse, if one is ever killed, those they've turned would be freed of the vampirism curse.

Here's the sticky part, my player wants to kill her original sire but wants to retain her curse as its so woven into her identity as a character, she's asked that regardless if she kills him can she remain a vampire.

I'd love to be able to accommodate her request but I don't want it to feel like a case of DM hand wavery: "Oh you're the exception" type of situation. Considering she's asked it should be a deeply personal choice and I honestly think could be an incredible bit of roleplaying and story telling.

I'd love some advice on how I could make this happen that feels narratively satisfying, thank you!

Edit: spelling errors and better grammatical flow

Hi all.

I am currently running my favorite Adventure. Tomb of Annihilation. I am working on some diseases meant to be hinderances rather than straight up lethal. The lore for Chult makes it sound like the enviroment itself is dealy. Diseases, undead, dinosaurs, and more are out for your life. If those don't get you, the heat will. In practice the jungle is trivialized by goodberry, create water, and lesser restoration. I want these spells to be useful, but not to the point of making the jungle a non-threat.

The idea is that the dc to avoid catching them scales with the players, so they remain relevant. However, the cures don't scale, thereby allowing more powerful characters to deal with these easier. I also wanted to have local remedies be useful. None of these are likely to kill you on their own, but they will make you wish they did. I have plans for a disease that makes hydration a problem too, but that is still very much a concept with no mechanics.

Chult is supposed to be a dangerous place.

Blood Drought

A wasting disease that leaves many it infects living a life of extreme care and pain. On it's own it does little. The danger becomes apparent upon injury. Bruises take months to heal, cuts barely scab over before reopening and oozing again, and puncture wounds almost never fully close. Rare outside of the Chultan peninsula, it is carried by parasites native to the Aldani basin.

Gained from parasites in chultan rivers.

Con save is 10 proficiency bonus. Symptoms start at first damage after a long rest. Vulnerable to physical damage. Greater restoration allows a reroll. Can be treated by consuming a paste made of Dropcap frogs (palm sized brown and green frogs) found at high altitudes and Aldani claw flowers. (Cure allows a new save with dc of 11)

Spell Atrophy

A disease common in magical circles. Often caused by magically created plants that have been tampered with by powerful forces. Many a mage has lost their lives to this disease because they simply did not know before casting a powerful spell. Many wizard schools have clerics on hand to take the disease from their students with lesser restoration.

Gained from Plant type creatures in Chult, by the horn of an infected lambeosaurus (rare), or by having a non-damaging spell cast on you by an infected creature. INT save of 10+casting stat modifier. Symptoms appear at first spell cast after 24 hours. When casting a spell the creature takes force damage qual to the spell's level multiplied by their casting stat modifier (cantrips do not trigger this). Lesser restoration can cure a target, but the disease will spread to the healer with no save. Greater restoration is a safe cure. The afflicted creature may attempt a save again if they cast no spells for 24 hours. The horn of a living lambeosarus can absord the disease from a creature, however this will infect the beast in turn.

Noxious Lather

This virus is also known as the Thayan Plume. Commonly spread by particularly old zombies or other rotting undead. This turns the body's sweat and other excretions into a noxious poison. This scent attracts mindless undead and weakens the creature during exertion. Creatures that do not sweat may go entirely without symptoms, or mistake what few symptoms they experience as poor hygiene.

Gained by being crit on by an undead, swallowed by an undead, or by being surrounded by 4 or more zombies (or similar rotting undead) for a whole round. Requires a con save dc 12. DC increases by 2 for every triggering instance before a long rest to a maximum of 22.

Afflicted creatures experience symptoms after 2d4 days. They begin to emit an odor that gives undead advantage on perceiving them. When an afflicted creature exerts itself, it must make a con save equal to 10 + their proficiency bonus or suffer the poisoned condition. Failing with a 10 or lower results in an aura that spreads the disease to those within 10 feet (making a con save equal 10+proficiency bonus). While suffering from the poisoned condition from this the creature is vulnerable to poison and necrotic damage. A creature immune to the poisoned condition has advantage on the save and will only be vulnerable to necrotic (no poisoned condition.) This effect can be ended by a short rest.

Holy water can subdue the disease for 2 hours. Lesser restoration cures the target but causes all the poison to burst forth in a 30 foot radius centered on the creature, causing all within range to save against the disease.

The disease may be cured by burning dried Stinkhorn mushrooms in an enclosed space (IE a tent or shed)

Hi, I'd like your hivemind-ish input:

I am running a homebrew campaign and one of my players is running a low CHA Barb, but their character is lore-wise an intimidating one. Now I thought about giving them a magical item, a ring or an amulet maybe?, that makes them do Intimidation checks with STR rather than CHA.

Now I thought about generally increasing their CHA through that item to their STR, but I think that might be too OP...

What do you think would be a nice item slot for it and what would be too much

PS: The party is at lv3 at the moment and I am running sort of a westmarchers-style-ish campaign, meaning we have 7+ players, but in a session only a few are present, so I am always running with the players that are present that day

Thanks in advance! <3

Howdy Fellow Adventures!

I've DM'd for the same grp for about 3-4 years and recently started our next campaign about 2 months ago. We just finished our first encounter and it went well enough but looking for advice on how to do a few things when it comes to running the baddies!

I'm going to list my struggles so it makes it easier for anyone who does want to give me advice but also I can process this post out loud.

1 - when im prepping combat I typically write down in my note pad the monsters in grps based on types/creatures/casters vs melee. I write down simple things like AC, HP, & initiatives but struggle with other things like resistances, immunities, and even different types of attacks (such as multi attacks or abilities they can use). Any tips?

2 - I'm not the best at always knowing how to move enemies in combat to avoid just standing and hitting each other until someone dies. I've tried holding necks hostage but the grp typically fails to care, or even adding terrain issues like fire to move things around but doesn’t always feel organic.

3 - do you ever have npc's use potions, poisons, or other items in combat to make your PC players think more than just fight? I thought about making them get stabbed by a poison that would require antidote but when i read the DM/PHB most of it states that poison is more temporary unless stated otherwise.

4 - i forgot to add it originally above, but also do you keep the 6 main stats of enemies written down with their saving throw stats?

These are just a few things I want to get better with any help you can give me.

Let me start by saying I am running a campaign explicitly for the purpose of resolving my PCs backstories. I’ve been running one shots for my mom, my sister, their spouses, and my husband. We’re a party of 5 & me as the DM

During character creation, they all had really elaborate ideas of who they were as characters and left things open ended to be answered. I really love this idea and love being able to fulfill their fantasies in this way for them. I would go more into detail about other characters if anyone was interested but for right now I’ll tell you the problem I’ve run into:

My sister plays a tiefling. She asked if she could be from Avernus and I told her that’s fine with me. She was somehow someway sent out through a portal at the age of 1, she doesn’t know if she was kidnapped or if they sent her out. She was found in the woods as a baby by her adopted family but they were human and she never felt like she fit in. She left them at 12 and started living off of the land and in the woods (outlander background). She hopes to figure out what happened and find her family again

Now, im a little stuck trying to figure out how we take everyone else’s backstories that are taking place in the material world and moving them at the end of the campaign into Avernus. Also trying to figure out possible motives of why she was pushed out when her siblings weren’t. I would like for her family to be “good”ish devils and not have malicious intent because everyone else has a happy ending and I want that for her too

Ideas ive played around with:

-my mom’s character is a draconic bloodline sorcerer. I was thinking about having an evil wizard conducting experiments on her mom to figure out what makes their blood so special. So maybe somehow also tying that into being my sisters kidnapper?

-BBEG being some other devil/fiend who took her for malicious reasons and they come back at the end to finish their quest

-her mom being a fallen angel who lives in Avernus and that’s the reason she was taken

This is my first campaign I’ve ever run and only done 6/7 one shots. I’m just drawing a blank and would love to hear some ideas to play around with :)