I ran The Black Cabin encounter from Icewind Dale:Rime of the Frostmaiden last night and my players and I had a blast. It's a very well designed encounter with an interesting premise that works just as well as a standalone one-shot as it does in the context of the full campaign. It made me wonder what other encounters from full campaigns might make great one-shots. The Goldenfields attack from Storm King's Thunder and Chapter 1 of Waterdeep Dragon Heist come to mind as possibilities, can you guys think of any others?

Summaries of the upcoming subclasses with their new artworks

I used a straightforward yes/no question system to give the lesser used spells a chance to shine in their very specific circumstances (looking at you Sticks to Snakes). This pushed the evergreen bless/spirit guardian spells further afield but I think thats fine.

I’m planning a new campaign with friends who have never played before; it’s been over four years since I last DM’d D&D. I switched to Pathfinder 2e, but I find it too heavy for beginners. The setting will likely be homebrew. I’m just torn between giving the new system a shot or sticking with the old one. I’d like to know what the new version does differently and if there’s anything that justifies making the switch.

Sometimes you just wanna play a big strong character, but the game doesn't really let you do that, other than being a Goliath.

However, you get more than a few ways to increase your speed, or otherwise emulate a quick or agile character.

So I made this feat for all my muscle mommies, strongmen, and other physically imposing adventurers:

Mighty

Increase Strength or Constitution by +1 to a maximum of 20

Powerful Build: Your carrying capacity is doubled

Effortless: Your can add your proficiency bonus to Strength checks that don't already use it.

Inescapable: Creatures have disadvantage on saving throws to resist or escape your Grapple attempts.

I am just having a proud moment of finishing a 1-20 campaign so AMA and criticize my terrible decisions!

When the last 2024 core book was released (the MM), I embarked on a difficult quest. Grab randoms from LFG reddit and try the 2024 rules. I pitched a shorter 10 session adventure, with options to go longer and tonight we finished the campaign making it fully to level 20. This was in a homebrew world

Notable for my experience:

I will note that I did choose to use the Gritty Realism 2014 optional rule ( 8 hour short rest, 7 day long rest ). I had to sell this to the players as these were not players familiar with me as a DM, I knew none of them in any capacity before this. Using these rules we were able to cover over 6 years of time in the world allowing many events to unfold.

There was no plot armour and in the end, 17 player characters perished. The first character death was at level 3, and the last 4 character deaths were level 20, including 2 that died in the final battle.

What did the players accomplish?

• They saved a town from an Oni
• Found a hidden Giant Monastery near revolt
• Interrupt an invading force to the homeland
• Travel half the world
• Stop an assassination attempt (well failed but ressurected) of a high lord
• Influenced the crowning of a queen to unite a nation
• Hunt a dracolich raising an army
• Learn of a plot to create a god and the world is dying
• Learn how to do the ritual themselves
• Complete the Ritual to use the power to save the world

What classes did my party NOT play?

• Barbarian and Druid

The campaign had druid themes, my players just didn't have that desire. As for Barbarian, probably just what classes died and when, no one disliked the 2024 Barbarian options.

What died?

• Full Caster: Sorcerer, Cleric x2, Warlock x4, Bard
• Martial: Monk x2, Rogue x2, Fighter x2
• Half Caster: Ranger, Paladin, Artificer

The Wizard (evoker) is the only player that never lost a character (though very close at times). In reality the Wizard played the most conservatively and took defense feats. Additionally after they survived so long when difficult decisions needed to be made, players started prioritizing the Wizard over others, just because he had lived so long.

Standout Player options? (even though they clearly died)?

Origin feat: Healer. Short Rests were not given easily throughout the entirety of the campaign and the Healer Origin feat was so efficient with time it prevented many more deaths.

General Feats: Resilient X, Mageslayer and Shield Master. This is a little bit boring, but as much as there were certain fights where a feat was able to shine, passing saves in challenging campaigns is simply the best.

Epic Boons: Boon of Looming Shadows bonus action dodge just adds up, it is such an absurdly efficient bonus action for classes with it available.

Core Classes: Monk the monk can just combine a fantastic level of defense, utility and offense on demand in a variety of encounters with very efficient resources. Grappling allies for strategic repositions was always the highlight of the Monks tactical play

Spell: Teleport it is just a great ability to run away

Subclass: Banneret this was the 2nd longest surviving character in the campaign. Some features can seem underwhelming in a vacuum, but really it is the support you add to a Fighter which has a really powerful toolkit. But it really is going to be a T3/T4 campaign where you see its power. Expending your indomitable to give an ally a reroll +15(to 20) +mods will save players. It is the only reason the Wizard didn't die, and the Banneret died to old age, not combat.

T3/T4 Monsters and my trick:

They all worked out of the box with the appropriate EXP but there is one thing you should do. RENAME THE MONSTER AND ABILITIES!!!!! You can look at a Tarrasque and go "oh you can beat this by x" but when you do not know the monster is a Tarrasque you may open with a Ranged Spell Attack that ruins your own day. Or you try to escape the swallow with a teleport only to have it fail. I did no homebrew to the higher monsters but I did rename them and that uncertainty is all I needed. In the end I really enjoyed having monster effects trigger on hits and not also need a failed save. Fights were faster which is very important at the higher tiers and monsters stayed unique

Adventuring Day:

Adventuring days where usually 3-6 encounters + traps + skill checks with consequences + environmental hazards.

Martial/Caster Divide:

In short I never had an issue with this in the 2024 rules, nor from the feedback of players. Now when Circle Casting came out, I asked if they wanted to use it but the group as a whole declined. Ultimately with a broad set of challenges combined with an uncertainty of when the "adventuring day" is going to end, and making sure Skill Checks had consequences for failure everyone had a role. I could add a lot here, but it will drag on and I can just answer specific questions.

How to keep up story tension:

There was always too much to do, meaning that trying to rest more would cause plot points to "fail" and create bigger problems. In the end it was raining meteors from the sky randomly and every rest meant more towns were destroyed

Did my players have fun, getting murdered and playing Gritty Realism?

As we realized the campaign was coming to a close I asked if they wanted to join my new campaign, they all are (one with more limited time constrains). I asked them if they wanted to go to normal rest rules or continue with Gritty Realism: though there was some friction points of Gritty Realism, they all agreed the benefits outweighed the cons. Now the campaign finished with 3 players (same three from the start), because at the end of T3 I did have to remove my 4th player due to drama.

Good luck with your campaigns!

As the title says!

The spell text for "Regenerate" does not mention the creature to have to be willing, and there also is no saving throw. Yes the casting time is 1 minute which might make this difficult to do in combat, but maybe you could hold the unwilling creature in place for that amount of time.

If a player wanted to cast regenerate in a hostile way to regrow a body part the enemy does not want regrown, would you impose a saving throw/a series of saving throws as homebrew?

So, after a fruitful discussion over here about the good, the bad and the ugly of using Templates for Wild Shape forms, I have jumped the shark and taken it upon myself to do just that.

I present to you a draft of 4 different options to do a Template-Wild shape Druid, with different degrees of separation from the OG Druid in 5.5e. EDIT: here is a pdf version.

• Option A: Just the Templates. I introduce 6 Templates and tweak the Wild Shape feature to work with them. You still pick a few at level 2 and get one more at level 6, unlocking the Flying Form at level 8. Each Template has some options when you transform, but it's linked to your Druid level. The progression is a bit clunky as you get stuff at level 1, 2, 6, 8, but also 7 and 15 with your class features.
• Option B: 4 basic Templates, but a 1st level feature called Natural Facets, that unlock abilities for your Wild Shape, "invocation style". You still get most of your OG Druid features, which makes the progression still a bit wonky.
• Option C: 4 basic Templates, but all the class features are integrated in the Natural Facets system. It makes for a cleaner progression, with clear power jumps at levels 7 and 15.
• Option D: 6 Templates with more options within them, and still a Natural Facets system to support the class progression, and some ribbons at level 7 and 15. Slightly less clean progression, but as much flexible as the prior one if not more when it comes to Wild Shape forms.

This is meant to be a jumping board to further develop a working Template-based Druid minimising the flavor loss and reducing the book keeping needed for the class.

Where I'm coming from: 

I started playing D&D during the 3.0 and 3.5 era, and I loved it. When 4th edition came around, I wanted to keep playing 3.5 type stuff so I migrated to Pathfinder. I'm a huge sci-fi nerd so I stayed there because of Starfinder, and then Pathfinder/Starfinder 2nd edition really hooked me. I used to play a lot of Pathfinder Society, too. I've even been a GM for about a dozen sessions of PF2/SF2.

Where I'm going:

Pathfinder Society is changing in ways that I'm really not happy with, and I've heard that Legends of Greyhawk will be starting up later this year for D&D and might have that spark that made me really enjoy organized play in the past...but I've never even played a single game session of D&D 5e before.

So before I start picking up books, I'm wondering: how hard is it to learn 5e for someone who hasn't touched D&D since 3.5? I've heard that it's very friendly for people who have never played RPGs before, but how is it for folks who are coming over from crunchier systems? Is there anything I should look out for?

Thanks!

I'm sure many could use significant changes

Hi all,

I recently completed the DM-less adventure, The Dark Moon Rises to play three new subclasses. The adventure is made for 4 PCs and can be played individually or in a group without a DM. I played the Spirits Bard, the Undead Warlock, and the Hollow Warden Ranger. The 4th subclass, for simplicity, was the Zealot Barbarian.

This adventure heavily emphasized combat. There was some exploration and skill checks and very minimal social interactions (they boiled down to persuasion or deception checks). Obviously, if the flavor and roleplay opportunities are what draw you to a particular subclass, this will not be helpful. However, I hope to report on the mechanics of the subclasses in case others are interested in playing them. I was managing a lot between 4 PCs and enemies, so this undoubtedly misses some great synergies and opportunities, and there is surely stuff I missed.

Spirits Bard

Human, genie-touched (MI Wizard), Alert

Level 4 Warcaster

Level 8 +2 Cha

Spirits From Beyond is such a flavorful and cool feature that I really want to like it, and in the right campaign, it will be fun. Unfortunately, the feature was not particularly helpful in my campaign, which featured 1-2 combats per long rest at lower levels, and 2-4 at higher levels. The problem is that it requires an ACTION to unleash a previously summoned spirit. So, even if you pass out all your inspiration before combat, which I did, you cannot release a spirit and cast an action spell in the same turn. There were some instances at low levels where this helped conserve slots, but since we had so few combats per rest, it was not consistently helpful. If I needed to cast healing word, it was nice to have something better than a cantrip of my action. There are some spirits that can be given out before or after combat, so I was happiest when I rolled those on the table.

Power from Beyond: I have to be honest, managing as many PCs as I was, I usually just forgot about this feature.

Spiritual Manifestation is great, and the AC bump merely makes you almost as good as a cleric with this. It also works with allies though, which I sometimes forgot (again, managing all the PCs and enemies is tough). If you make this your main tactic, consider a Paladin dip.

Overall this feels like a good subclass if you know your campaign features many encounters per long rest or features a lot of dungeon crawls. The spirits are more powerful than cantrips, and spirit guardians can last for two combat encounters. I think it is helpful to compare this to the Glamor Bard. The Glamor Bard has an incredibly efficient action economy: it can cast two-leveled spells per turn and get an additional charm or frighten effect if it expends an inspiration. Thus, the Glamor Bard is resource intensive but has an efficient action economy. The Spirits Bard is the opposite: it can use resources efficiently but has an intensive action economy.

Hollow Warden Ranger

Hill Goliath Wayfarer (Lucky)

Two Weapon Fighting Style, Short sword, Scimitar

Level 4 Warcaster

Level 8 +2 Dex

First a note on the build: I would not take hill giant again. I had advantage from lucky and vex and was playing with a barbarian and a ranged character. Plus, it has yet another BA ability, which was mostly forgotten about.

This subclass had a lot of hype, so I want to provide an honest report. It is good, but not S tier for a couple reasons. For one, you have to choose between hunter's mark OR Wrath of the Wild on round one. More choices is good for the ranger, but it does make it so that the damage bump from the reaction attack is partially offset. Second, Unnerving Aura is a bit clunky since it only frightens enemies within 10 feet at the start of your turn. On your first turn, you can run up to enemies, activate WOTW, and reliably force a save. The problems are threefold. Enemies can simply run up to you and attack without being frightened. Second, enemies would often die, and I would start my turn without anyone around me, losing the benefit of the feature for an entire round. Finally a major benefit of the fear effect is that enemies can't approach you. If you are within 5 feet to attack, then they don't have to approach. If the fear effect kicked in on enemy turns, it would be very powerful. In my game, it was more of a "nice when it worked" kind of feature.

The AC bump, extra HP, and Con save proficiencies are all obviously great for survivability and concentration.

I have also played a level 6 STRanger in a couple of online one-shots, and that might be more fun if you can make it work. I was granted one magic item to start, and took gauntlets of ogre power to boost strength to 19. I fought with a pike, and pushed frightened enemies away (through spike growth sometimes) and they couldn't approach to attack, so I had more control than the TWF ranger. Obviously, that character is only viable with a specific magic item, but you could play a tortle or roll for stats and roll well.

Undead Warlock

Human Wayfarer (Lucky), Alert

Lessons of the First Ones (Tough), Eldritch Mind, Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast, Pact of the Chain, Devil's Sight, One with the Shadows

Level 4 Fairy Trickster

Level 8 +2 Cha

This was my favorite of the three subclasses to play. Frightful Avatar was great for preventing enemies from approaching with the fear effect. Additionally, between that feature and repelling blast, this warlock is one of the best at keeping enemies within Hunger of Hadar.

I took fairy trickster to make them less likely to make the save and be frightened, but I am not sure this is worth it. Creatures with high wisdom were likely to pass both saves and those with low were likely to fail anyway. The damage bump at level 6 and extra HP from Form of Dread go in the "always helpful" category. I only got to use the level 10 feature in the final battle, and that was when I cast a necrotic cloud kill on myself and as many enemies as possible.

Perhaps the only downside was that the extra spells were good but not great. Bane was not as effective as I thought it would be at lower levels; the tier 1 combats featured more enemies than average, often without true "bosses." Summon undead was useful for a single target DPR boost. I only used cloudkill once, and mostly the enemies just ran out of it, but a mage NPC did trap an enemy with the cloud in a wall of force. It could have paired well with spike growth though.

This is not related to the subclass reports, but there were some fun synergies throughout the campaign. At one point, I had spike growth, plant growth, and hunger of Hadar running at the same time and started blasting away with my warlock.

Overall, I would recommend the Undead Warlock the most. If your fantasy is a fright-knight that can keep enemies away with fear and deal damage, an Undead bladelock with a pike is mechanically better than the Hollow Warden if you take a fighter or paladin dip for armor. The spirits Bard is fun but, in my opinion, only strong in certain campaigns.

I know that everyone says that bladesingers are best as wizards with better defenses but if you specifically build a bladesinger to focus on weapon attacks and use all your spells for that purpose will you be able to keep up with let's say an eldritch knight fighter or will you always be behind?

I have never been asked so often about my experience with a particular build as I have with the Shillelagh Hollow Warden. I have not played it extensively, but I have now had enough encounters against a variety of monster types to have a clear picture of the experience: I love it. More than that, it completely changed my view of the ranger class in Tier 3.

The concern: bonus action clog

I was concerned about the bonus action clog and about being too suboptimal in combat. I already knew that Shillelagh would rarely be cast before combat, so activating Unnerving Aura and Shillelagh would cost me at least 2 rounds. As a result, species features, feats, and other class features with useful bonus action options would need to wait until the third turn, unless I decided to change priorities.

Build

Briefly, my current build is a level 14 human with the following feats: Magic Initiate (Druid), Gathered Whispers, War Caster, Resilient (Wisdom), and Fey Touched (Command, although sometimes I wish I had taken Bless instead). I use a +1 shield and a +2 quarterstaff.

Encounter experience - bonus action clog was never an issue

In reality, the build was very smooth to play. My typical hard encounter looked like this:

Turn 1: Bonus action Unnerving Aura, action cast a strong action spell.

Turn 2: Bonus action Shillelagh, action attack. Sometimes another spells was used like Cure Wounds or Conjure Barrage.

For turn 1, Conjure Woodland Beings and Conjure Animals were my go to spells. At lower levels, those could easily have been Spike Growth, Summon Beast, Entangle, and so on.

If the encounter was easy, I simply conserved resources, cast Shillelagh, and attacked.

So far, I have cast Hunter's Mark only once and using a spell slot. That time, my concentration had been broken (a DC 36 CON save... lol), and there was only a single enemy left.

It felt different from most other rangers and martials I played before

What made this experience so transformative was that, by focusing on Wisdom and consistently casting spells other than Hunter's Mark, every combat felt different. There was more action, more meaningful decisions, and a greater sense of reward. Skipping a round of attacks to set up the battlefield was not only tactically effective, but, more importantly, fun.

Another cool thing is that I have used every single feature of the subclass so far, and there are quite a few of them. Between healing myself while attacking, removing a Cyclops Oracle's reaction, succeeding on important Constitution saves, and avoiding hits thanks to 1 or 2 extra AC, I felt really satisfied with the overall package the subclass provides.

Finally, my main role was to function as a sort of tank, and that worked very well. I absorbed a huge amount of damage and survived. At the same time, the PC still dealt respectable damage, even though that was never the focus of this build. So far, it has been the highest damage dealer in two hard encounters and never far behind the top damage dealers in the others, usually the sorcerer or the paladin.

Do I recommend it?

If you are the kind of player who wants to attack as effectively as possible every single turn, this build (or even the class as a whole) is probably not for you, unless your DM allows Shillelagh to always be active. If, instead, you enjoy playing a tactically sound frontline character who uses a wide variety of spells in combat while enduring all sorts of challenges, I can definitely recommend it.

Edit: in this build, my DM ruled that it was possible to cast Shillelagh with a Shield and a Quarterstaff in hand if I took Warcaster. This is a homebrew, but you don't have to do it. You can take the Druidic Fighting style instead. Observe that no point made by me in this text conflicts with this part of the build that is not even mentioned. However, I think it's important to mention for clarity. Thanks for those that pointed it out.

Edit2: a public copy of the character can be viewed here: https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/168697178

So my party is going to become demigods sooner rather than later. Looking at the Vecna stats available and they are underwhelming? Has anyone found or made a souped up Vecna? Links or anything would be great but I'm really hoping for a discussion about it.

I mean, an immortal lich pseudo god not having wish or pwk? :/

After seeing the positive reception of the Circle of the Titan Druid in the latest UA, I was wondering what is the sentiment on Templates for the main class's Wild Shape feature.

It would probably need a class rework to allow optional features to be selected for the Beast Form (Pack Tactics, Spider Climb, etc.). How would you go about it?

To the exclusion of Dex, I mean.

We already have all the moving parts and it looks reasonably good, so I was thinking up a build of the Cold Caster variant I posted about already and I’m just wondering.

One thing about Monk in AL is that you can kinda control what magic items you have by trading so you can get tier appropriate boosts to unarmed strike to hit and damage that all conveniently stack so you can have +4 to hit and damage in T2 and +5 in T3, which should offset Dex a bit, but at the same time, could you just go 17 Dex 16 Wis like a typical monk and rush to 20 Dex with grappler et al.

Which makes for the more satisfying playstyle?

Our goal will be to planar bind as many creatures in the monster manual as possible.

To start we need a level 9 divination wizard with the spells nystuls magic aura, tongues, and planar binding. We also want a high portent roll (preferably >15) and need a low portent roll (preferably <5).

We may also need a sorcerer friend (likely our same level) with the extended spell metamagic and the polymorph spell, but this is not always necessary.

Finally we need another caster who can cast suggestion.

Once we have the target alone the process goes as follows:
First the sorcerer casts extended polymorph on our chosen target which can be of any type. This step is to remove and charmed immunity the target may have allowing us to target them with suggestion. If the target doesn’t have the charmed immunity this step can be skipped as can having a sorcerer friend. We need extended spell metamagic so the polymorph lasts for the duration of the setup as well as the planar binding. We can use our low portent roll nowWe can planar bind a polymorphed form and the spell effect will carry over to the reverted form unless stated otherwise (it’s not) as per the rules of shape-shifting. My recommendation for this step would be a crab because they are a very weak beast with 20 movement speed.

Now we need this crab to understand us so we can target it with suggestion. This is where the divination wizard touches the crab and casts tongues on the target. The crab can now understand any signed or spoken language it can hear or see.

We now need our other caster to target the crab with suggestion. Because polymorph has replaced the creatures statistics with a crabs they have a -1 to their wisdom saves. If you haven’t used your low portent roll on polymorph then use it now. Our suggestion will be “Stand completely still and don’t make a sound. Succumb to any unharmful spell effects you are targeted with.” This command is 18 words long and doesn’t obviously harm our target following the restrictions of suggestion while making our target choose to fail its saving throw on any unharmful spell it is targeted by as now allowed by the 2024 rules.

Now that our crab who is still the same creature type as the original target has been essentially stuck in place with horrible stats and forced to fail its saves we are going to change its creature type to celestial. Now that the celestial crab is stuck in place for 8 hours willingly being targeted by any unharmful spell effects it is targeted with it is the perfect target for the divination wizard to cast planar binding on. I advise getting a level 8 scroll of planar binding if it is available to buy. It is a very rare magic item and the dmg gives a recommended price of 40,000 GP for very rare items. I would assume you’re more likely to get 40,000 gold quicker than you can get a level 8 spell slot. If this is not the case you are much more limited on the effectiveness of the binding but everything still works you will now need a jewel worth at least 1000 gold that the spell will consume. At level nine you can cast it at base level of 5 and the binding will last 24 hours. At level 8 using a scroll it will last 180 days. The scroll will require a spell casting ability check DC18 which is where we will use our high portent roll to ensure the 40,000 gold scroll isn’t wasted. The celestial crab will fail its save and as planar binding isn’t a charm once the polymorph ends the binding will carry over to the targets original form.

We will need to continue castings of nystuls magic aura for the next 30 days to ensure the target remains viable for the binding but once we have cast the spell 30 days in a row it permanently becomes a celestial.

This combo allows us to target nearly any creature in the monster manual. The only restriction to this combo would be legendary creatures with legendary resistance. It is still possible to bind these creatures but you will first need to burn through their legendary resistances with save spells so the spells that we need to land do. After that the planar binding is essentially ensured by removing immunity to charmed for 2 hours with extended polymorph, holding them in place and making them fail saves for 8 hours with suggestion, and changing the creatures type with nystuls magic aura.

If there are any flaws in the celestial crab or questions about it let me know.

Title, I'm curious as to what people think about changing the feat, but instead of buffing damage I thought what if you weakened the enemies defence with your mastery instead?

We're supposed to get a martial focused book during the season of champions, in the end of the year. Do you guys see fighting initiate getting an update? Would it be busted or ok? Would it be a general feat (so a half feat, most likely bumping str or dex) or an origin feat?

Essentially, my character is eventually going to be bound to a cursed sword that acts as both their Warlock Patron for the Multiclass and also as their new weapon.

Since she won't be changing weapons, is there any notable homebrew for weapons leveling with the character? Maybe unlocking new effects at certain levels too, as she grows stronger as a Warlock and more attuned to the sword. Or if not an existing homebrew, any ideas for how to potentially do it?

Don't want it to be absurdly overpowered but I do want it to be good, since it's taking one of her magic items.

For further context, she is a Divine Soul Sorcerer Multiclassing into Hexblade Warlock. Trying to focus on control.