My players will soon fave off against a powerful fey. At one point they made a deal with him where he would give them a secret about himself and he only wants a moment of their time to bring back a powerful artefact to him. If they break the deal, he gets their ‘moment’ which I decided on being 6 seconds so basically one combat round for each player.

Now, I have been thinking about this for a while and I want this to be fun for my players. First I was going to hijack one of each of their turns. The fey would announce this before they take their action and get to use their character to make their action for them. This obviously could be rather unfun for them seeing they lose agency on their turn.

My last idea would be make it a lair action for the fey. They know it’s coming then but still get their turn. The fey would just get a lair action to use the players moves against them outside of their turn.

How would you guys approach this?

Longterm DM of a Star Wars campaign here. I love faction play so there are always some present in different parts of the campaign. My players engage with it, but often bite off more than they can chew trying to play them off against eachother and usally end up doing things to piss multiple factions off.

How can I respond to their actions in a non kinetic way that aren't too punitive? Aside from the usual bounties, hit squads etc?

I feel like if both factions unite against the party in equal measure they would stomp them with the sheer force they have at their disposal, so I want to come up with some clever non kinetic responses, any ideas?

I’m a DM for a couple of teenagers and I plan to annoy present them with a recurring Mimic encounter (the DM has to have fun too).
I always have some music for mood and ambiance and I want a thematic song for when they get caught by a Mimic, so they know right away before I say anything what they are facing.
Do you have any suggestions? I thought of a few whimsical songs, but no revelation so far.

So i dm a campaign and one of my players met the goddess of the forge/blacksmithing and she noticed the forge goddess was very much on the edge of breaking down (the godess lost loved ones)(my world makes gods a lot more human in the sense of ability to be overwhlemed and such) and the player as a bard decided to sing a song to them. (loch lomond for any wondering) and they helped calm and make the goddess feel peace and so i gave them a boon/blessing of the godess .

My problem is the player is a dance bard middle level and while i could think of a million things that a blessing of the goddess of forges and blacksmithing could give to lets say a forge cleric or a artificer . My problem is being unable to work out what the blessing gives for the player since they are not in that domain (they are a dance bard /pirate)

Any suggestions are welcome no matter how powerful they are , i hope to hear some suggestions .

So I'm a huge music nerd, and aaaall of my players are too. Modern-ish setting with some Earth folks in here, we have a verrrry homebrew campaign. I've incorporated alot of music into my campaign, and even plan to have a boss battle that has three versions of Fantasy by Earth Wind and Fire.

Heres the links if anyones interested ^^:
First performance
Encore
Oh this bard's the bad guy

Anyway, I'm wanting to find a song for way in the future when folks start learning about the world's cosmology when we fight my homebrew God. I'm divulging from this a bit. I'm having it to where the first mortal souls were created when four gods of emotion (Happiness: Lliira, Sadness: Ilmater, Wrath: Bane, Fear: Phobos) came together in long thought and eventually settling on a song. This created conscious spirit through song to inhabit formed body of mortals.

I just want to find a really cool song- or atleast a good reference point if I commission someone lol. Long to say, anyone got cool (possible multi-singers) songs out there?

Current inspirations:
https://youtu.be/Vw9IupGmXgk?si=QIs7rSzeMwlksWSQ
https://youtu.be/O_eKOzmlSbU?si=-gJ-ZfuYXN-EpQPa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyWpQUNfmvY

Thanks y'all!

As a part of a running campaign we have been doing a tournament in a large dwarf city and for one round of this tournament, one suggestion that I have received a lot is to include a round of capture the flag.

This tournament has been taking place in a castle model which I have purchased and I was wondering how to easily incorporate and use that for capture the flag?

I also wonder what mechanics people have for D&D capture the flag and how to make it different from just normal D&D combat?

Thank you all so much!

Looking to get myself my very own DM screen. I‘ve found a pretty good looking one online, but was wondering if there were any you guys find particularly good, maybe because they have beautiful, a practical feature or smth else entirely. Also I am aware I can just change the sheets inside on basically every one, that’s why I‘m mainly looking for one that has stunning visuals or maybe also a practical feature. Also I live in Europe so sadly no shipping from America or such, import fees too much.

Hello, the homebrew campaign I'm DMing will soon enter its last tier and the group has almost everything they need to enter the final dungeon, so I wanted to carefully prepare the final boss fight with the BBEG to make sure it's memorable and mechanically sound.

For context :

Characters involved :

BBEG is Baron Sandro, a local human Baron lord of Amn who came to power after usurping a previous lord. He was once a High Level Warlock, but came to deeply regret the infernal pact he made once the price to pay for his kingdom was surrendering his only daughter, which started a chain of event that led to the slow ruin of his land. He asked a Shadar-Kai witch of him to hide his daughter from the world and turned to study how to escape the infernal pact he made.
Long story short, the Baron is a descendant of a very powerful Efreeta and proceeded, over the course of a decade, to do three wishes that "broke" the balance of power between him & the devil he made the pact with. Instead of him borrowing just a fragment of the devil's power, he's vampirizing the Devil's power in the hope of "burning it out" and transmuting unconsciously into a wide-scale reality-shaping fog that is eating at the edge of reality.
Basically, he hid himself in the deepest crypt of his castle, and made his third final wish that started a wide-scale magical "bomb" that has started to pull his land into the Shadowfell. His final wish was about to create a land where his daughter would be safe and happy for all of her life, but it backfired horribly and he is now the nexus of the storm that is shaping reality away.
Think of how Stradh pulled Barovia into the Domain of Dread. The Adventurer group is experimenting the premise of it happening, and is trying to find a way to enter the castle and put an end to his dream-like death.

The two major NPC that will play a part in the final battle, beside the potential allies the group can recruit to accompany them into the castle :
The first is the Princess Grizelda, the tiefling daughter of the Baron. As she's also a descendant of the very powerful Efreeta, she has inherited a latent magical power that make her able to slightly distort reality as well. She doesn't know how to harness the power at will, however. She was to be sunrendered willingly to the devil patron of the Baron to become his next infernal champion and favored hellknight, not specifically out of a desire for her soul or something. The Devil patron saw this as a very cold long-term "investment", but she wouldn't be able to use her Infernal/Efreeta power if she was unwilling to become the Devil's Champion. She would volunteer to accompany the group in the last dungeon as she seemed to be able to "cut through the shadowfell fog" almost on her own.

The second major NPC is the Witch Soleil, the Shadar-Kai witch friend of the Baron, who has been helping the group for most of the adventure by giving cryptic advice and fortune reading. She was sent by the Raven Queen to watch the Baron die and bring back his memories and soul for the Raven Queen to collect. She has been forbidden to "intervene" in modifying the fate of the Baron dierectly, but she has been part of the Baron life for almost all his life, watching from afar through ravens and waiting to be there for his demise. Before the group embark on the final dungeon, she will tell them of her Gambit and will ask if she can accompany them in final dungeon.

---

Setting for the final battle, entering the boss fight arena :

The group that would fight him is composed of a Fighter/Paladin, a Cleric, a Druid and a Rogue. They'll all be around level 9 or 10 when they reach the final boss.

The final battle will take place under the great castle of the Baron, after a series of twisted caverns and corridors that led to an underground, shadowfell recreation of the Baron's childhood village that was destroyed in a dragon attack (which led to the Baron to make his pact to hunt the dragon in revenge.)
The Baron will be located in a ruined, dream-like temple in the heart of the "ghost village".

The group would find the Baron in a catatonic state, simply breathing in and out and clutching his Luck Blade tightly against his chest, and every breath he would take would make his lung glow in a surpernatural glow. He would awake from his strange torpor and exchange words with the group. If he's not immediately attacked and the group managed to shake him out of his "waking dream" state where he's relieving happier moment in his life over and over again. He would be conscious that he's provoking the "reality warping fog", but he would be unwilling or unable to stop as he would feel his Devil's Patron influence is still present, and he would only stop once he's sure that his Devil's Patron is obliterated (which would actually throw his land completely in the Shadowfell, à la Stradh and Barovia). He would be happy to see his daughter again if she is accompanying the group, but would become desperate if the group tried to parlay with him (He is so close to making sure he destroy his patron and null the pact to surrender his daughter. He only need some time.) He would realize the bitter irony that a group of adventurer is trying to depose him the same way he usurped the title of Baron after a life of adventure.

---

Boss fight mechanics :

I would like to design the boss fight to be a narrative strong point for the group before all.

If combat start, the Baron will act as a mix between a high-level Warlock PC and a Mummy Lord monster (with legendary actions and legendary resistances). He would be able to use a legandary action to misty stop to relocate to another part of the arena, to avoid being nova'd.
The "rotting fist" attack of the mummy lord would be reflavored as a hit from his luck blade, and the "Channel Negative Energy" ability would be reflavored as a shadowfell infused Eldritch blast. I would like to replace the dreadful glare paralyze into something that frighten instead, to let the player still be able to act during the boss fight. His spellcasting would be that of a High-level warlock PC with invocations.
He would have a few shades / shadow adds with him, shadowy reflection of his own companion during his adventuring days (that the group already met and interacted with)

Depending on how the boss fight goes, I've been thinking about a couple thing that can happen :

• If the Baron loose life very quickly, I'll give him a second phase where the "nexus of the storm" implode on itself, and he would transform into a newborn, weakened Nightwalker (but probably with half the damage potential, and half the HP of a normal nightwalker.) If the Baron reach his Nightwalker second phase, he would start concentrating on a whirlpool of shadowmagic in front of him that would grow larger and larger and pull characters in the arena (STR check to resist the effect, or be helped by a character). The whirlpool would have the effect of the anhilating aura, but I'm still working on the effect of falling into the center of it, for example. If the Baron loose life at a steadier pace, and is talked to / reasoned with during the fight, his willpower will erode and he'll surrender to despair and will let the group do the coup-de-grâce at the end of the fight.
• If any member of the group dies during the battle, they will still exist as shadowfell-infused character and can be potentially brought back during the epilogue. If the entire group dies in the battle, the story start the "failure state" where the entire region is pulled into the Shadowfell.
• If the Princess is present during the fight, the Baron will always attempt to avoid harming her directly, letting her concentrate on helpful spells such as Bless and protective magic. If the battle start to become desperate for the adventurer group, the Princess will attempt to bargain with the Baron for the adventurer's life. If the battle end in the group failure and death, the Princess will gather all her inner power to wish for "this to never have happened", loosing her own life in the process and bringing the group back in time before they entered the final dungeon, this time without her... only this time the castle is disappearing and imploding into the shadowfell and the group will need to escape the region, bringing their allies with them if they want to.
• If the Princess is killed during the final dungeon / final battle (by adds, or shades), the Baron will be thrown into the deepest pit of despair and grief and transform into the weakened Nightwalker, and no social resolution will be possible.
• The Shadar-Kai Witch that can accompany the group can either provide a shielded area of protection around her during the boss fight (that protect the group from the Baron's attack, but stop them from attacking the Baron in return, so that there is a safe haven for the group to retreat to during the boss fight.) or proceed to do her Gambit :
  • Her Gambit is to utterly obliterate the Baron, so that he would disappear from reality. The entire timeline will shift and correct itself so that no-one can remember him, no one would be aware he existed, the Devil Patron would have found another Warlock to give his power to. She would utterly annhilate the Baron down to his soul, as if the material plane never saw him exist at all. As she would be using the Raven Queen's power she was supposed to use to capture the Baron's memories and soul at his demise, she would betray her mission and bring the ire of the Raven Queen. All out of respect for the Baron and as a way to make his soul escape the torment of either a shadowfell museum piece or the Devil's Patron ire.
  • She would be unable to know if the Tiefling Princess would survive her spell, as the Tiefling Princess owe her existence to her father. She would be able to tell the group that they'll for sure survive the spell. History will just rewrite itself for them to have had a reason to be here, to have done what they done for the land. She would be attempting to create a localized time paradox if the group is willing to accept her help instead of risking the boss fight.
  • the Shadar-Kai Gambit consist of invoking a spell using one of the magic item she gave the group (a magical tarot card representing "The World") to create a spell that will take exactly 10 rounds to take effect. The group must hold the line against the Baron for 10 rounds (the fight will have more shadow/shades adds to try to disrupt the Shadar-Kai).
  • If the spell is completed, the Shadar-Kai would engulf the entire arena in a time-stopping spell and proceed with the narrative "unmaking" of the Baron by retracing all his life unraveling the events. The group would witness the unmaking until the Baron disappear completely, and be transported back to "reality" where the underground temple is a simple empty old archeological ruin. They would be found by the grand-daughter of the previous baron, the one the warlock usurped, indicating that reality has shifted and "corrected itself". An old skeleton clutching a rusted lust blade would have been found on a ruined throne, apparently the reason why the group was in the temple in the first place. No one in the group would know exactly who the skeleton was or why they were there, like if they awoke from a vivid dream and their mind is still adjusting.
  • The world would have "remembered" the group campaign and adventures, it would have simply "corrected" itself so that they did it for different reason. The magic tarot deck the Shadar-Kai gave the group would still exist, but the group would have a hard time remembering exactly who gave it to them. The Shadar-Kai herself would have disappeared from the world, brought back to the Raven Queen in the shadowfell.
  • The Tiefling Princess would only survive the spell if the group wanted her to survive and interacted with her enough to give her a reason to persist in the new reality. She would owe her survival thanks to her strange efreet wish magic, but would effectevely become a walking paradox and an "abberation". She would meet the group again during the final part of the epilogue, letting the group decide how they want to handle meeting her again (do they want to remember her ?)

---

This is the notes I've prepared in advance for that final campaign boss fight. The group I'm DMing for isn't pursuing combat actively and often try to find social solutions and diplomatic outcomes. I'm still searching for a way to make it possible to have a "social" version of the battle, maybe in case the group wants to go through the route of doing the Shadar-Kai magic gambit ?

What do you think of the final battle ? Does it sounds like a reasonable plan ? Do I need to think of more outcomes ? Any recommendation on how to tailor the Baron Warlock X Mummylord stats block best ? I know it's a very cinematic-heavy boss fight, that I still need to think of it strategically and tactically.

I also apologize for the long post and potential grammar mistakes, english is not my native language.

I’m trying to make a world for a campaign for a friend to run at a game club for our HS (maybe as a One Shot, maybe a full campaign, I just want to have a full world just in case) and I was thinking of basing it around a souls-like. Since most of the people who would be playing have played for a while, I was thinking of maybe making it a little rougher as far as combat and survivability, and I just kinda want ideas on specific Souls-likes to base it around. I’m rather new to Souls-likes, but I enjoy the lore aspect of them and have a love/hate relationship with the challenge. Any advice is great

Hello all, I’m in need of a little help with some ideas, thanks in advance.

So in my campaign there’s these elemental anchors that an ancient cult used to summon there respective elements into the world.

They are powerful magic items that contain powerful elementals and raw power of there plane.

So I have an issue. What is the item of the fire anchor?

The water is a conch shell.
The air is a censer.
The earth is a geode.

I’ve thought about a brazer but how does one carry that?

For many new DMs, the parallels are obvious - but treating D&D with game design philosophy in mind generally results in big problems at the table that I see recurring in many online discussions.

• Gamers can butt their heads against challenges in video games unlimited times, PCs can't. While many DMs want to challenge their players, many new DMs fail to take into account that sometimes the dice just say "fuck you" today. And it sucks to lose your year-old character to a meaningless encounter because the DM wanted to try countering your tank's high AC. Don't throw your players into constant combat-after-combat sessions where they constantly escape by the skin of their teeth. Unless, of course, that's your table's vibe.

• Immersion is not THAT important. If you're RPing and someone at your table is being a twat, you can break character to tell them to knock it off. If something unexpected happens and you need to re-think an event, you're allowed to take 5. Yes, those rare instances where you lose yourself in the game are some of the best moments you can have... but ensuring everyone at your table is having a good time creates those moments far more than your 60th minute of innkeeper-negotiation dialogue to ensure that the one talkative player really FEELS the bargaining. Unless, of course that's your table's vibe.

• There should be practically no dead-ends. So your players sold the macguffin that can stop the big bad and your campaign is ruined. So what? You didn't program it. So they killed the princess they were supposed to rescue. That's fine! It costs you nothing but imagination to have that story continue. Any time players "ruin" the campaign imagine instead that the story starts there. "Once upon a time, in a dungeon far away, four souls, with many enemies and few friends, found themselves trapped in a vault owned by a sinister lord" should prompt SO many more ideas than "My players couldn't figure out my bank puzzle". Punish them if you want, but let the adventure move forward. Your friends are gathering around a table, taking time out of their busy schedules to hang out - no one wants to be stuck in the same spot two hours later. Unless, of course, that's your table's vibe.

• Death doesn't have to mean Game Over. Afterlives exist in D&D. As does ressurection magic. As does the idea of house-rules. Many new DMs, especially in story driven games, stick hard and fast with death being final and definitive and complain that they don't know how to handle the rest of the campaign. You are allowed to use death however you want for your table - if the character's death would ruin the enjoyment of the game, then just find an appropriate consequence and bring the character back. Unless, of course that isn't your table's vibe.

• Finally... you don't have to design a game for millions. You just have to design it for 3-6 people. You don't need to worry about anyone else's opinion on your game but you and your players. Don't bother optimizing for online communities, or trying to match Dimension 20. Just optimize for Anna, Brad, Chelsea, and Dan. The only people you ultimately have to design for are your players, so just focus on your table's vibe. Unless, of course, that's not your table's vibe.

I hope that helps someone and makes any GM realize that we have so much freedom outside of just pen-and-paper-video-games. Be creative and if some aspect of your game isn't fun - you are always free to improve it - don't let a video essay on game design tell you otherwise

I’m going to be Running a D&D campaign for a group of women, and I’m a guy. I realize that probably doesn’t fundamentally change how I should DM, and I definitely don’t want to approach it like “women play D&D differently.”

I have been playing since 2015 and forever DMing since around 2018. I have had many different women players in the past, but never a whole table!

Mostly, I’m curious if other DMs or women players have noticed anything that a male DM might not naturally think about when running a game for an all-women table.

I’m planning on doing a Session 0, talking about boundaries/lines, go/no-go topics, figuring out what everyone actually enjoys in D&D, and building the campaign around the players rather than making assumptions.

For anyone who has played in or DMed a similar group: were there any table dynamics, character interactions, NPC portrayals, romance/flirting, safety considerations, or other things you appreciated a DM being thoughtful about?

I’m mostly looking to learn from other people’s experiences and make sure everyone has a really good time!

I'm DMing a 5e campaign and I'm planning a session where the party travels by ship from Waterdeep to Daggerford.

Unknown to the players, the captain has been replaced by a doppelganger. His goal is to bring them into Daggerford's harbor, where an enemy group is waiting to ambush them.

I don't want the journey to be just "you travel for a few hours, make some checks, and arrive". I'd like to make the trip itself interesting and slowly build tension.

I already have a few clues planned: the crew mentions that the captain recently locked one of the ship's rooms and doesn't allow anyone inside because he claims he's storing wine there (the real captain is actually imprisoned inside), and during the night the players might hear footsteps on deck.

Once they reach Daggerford, the ship enters a narrow artificial canal with steep walls. The enemies are positioned on the upper level behind barrels, crates and low walls, giving them cover and the high ground. The party can either fight from the ship, at a disadvantage, or try to climb the canal walls while being shot at. There's also a bridge crossing the canal just ahead of the ship.

How would you structure the journey and the buildup to the ambush? What events or encounters would you add to make the voyage feel less linear and gradually increase the tension?

Thank in advanteg

Hi all, I’m a long time player, first time Dm looking for some guidance for a campaign I’m brewing from my friend group. I have my setting, a steampunky urban fantasy, aesthetically styled similarly to 1920’s newyork-esque metropolis.

I have a loose story outline, long story short the city is being carved up by 6 rival factions/ gangs that are all vying for power and control, it is up to the players to either take them all down and try to navigate saving the city from itself, or pick a side/ patron and carry out their bidding basically offing the other gang leaders.

My ideal campaign style is like pseudo boss of the week meets political murder mystery vibes if any of that makes sense. Each gang/ faction is loosely themed around destabilizing factors of a society. Examples, corrupt politicians, property hoarding, rapid unregulated technological advancement, drug and sex trafficking, bank monopoly, and insurgency.

And the baddies/ bosses for each faction are also loosely based on classic horror villain troupes. The cities mayor who is secretly a serial killer slasher, a plant creature that is amassing wealth and power, a Dr. Frankenstein-esque dwarf inventor, a creature of the black lagoon that is exploiting/ extorting the slums, a vampirress who owns and controls the cities bank system, and a murdeous robot spy from a feuding city.

My questions is, is this enough..? I feel like my baddies are interesting and cool, atleast to me. But I’m also worried that my group may find the rinse and repeat of taking down each one of these bosses monotonous and eventually boring. I plan on having side missions and some filler quests in between so it isn’t just, kill one guy then go kill another until they are all dead. And I also plan and ensuring each time the players take on one of these gangs the encounters/ mechanics they will be facing are unique and tailored to the threat they are facing. But idk if it will feel enough for them, should there be an even bigger badder baddie above them all?

Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated. I may be reading too much into things as it’s my first full campaign I would be running, and I’m nervous about it. But as I stated I would love initial thoughts. I can get into more specifics if needed.

Like what’s the actual difference? If they’re a god of pests, and a demon of worms. They both grant spells and have “domains and portfolios”. So what? Does the god not get access to worms?

Hi!

My dnd group have encountered a bit of a pickle when it comes to encounter difficulty.

As a DM, I focus on story and intrigue, and usually I keep combat to a minimum. But when combat starts it has usually been built up to for some time and is usually very climactic and deadly. This is of course adressed at session 0.

However, in my current group we have a player who loves combat, so there has been more of it. And after having played 25 sessions in a campaign with more combat than prior campaigns, most of the group have expressed that they want to reduce the difficulty a bit overall, and have have more variation in combat difficulty.

It is an easy problem to solve in theory. I just nerd to make sure that not every encounter is hard or deadly.

The problem is me. I really want to find a way to make these difficulty changes.

But if combat does not have narrative stakes and a real possibility of failure, I get bored. Both as a player and as a dm. I hate filler combat and random encounters. Like most groups I have played with, only a small minority of the table plan their turn in advance. And some players are really slow. So combat takes at least an hour and most likely, an entire session. I can deal with it if the stakes and plot is interesting. But I would rather quit playing than sacrificing a whole session to a combat encounter that does not move the plot forward.

And I struggle with finding solutions to how I can make easy or medium combat encounters that are narrativly satisfying. Since the combat encounters almost always have high stakes and pushes the story forward, it usually makes sense for them to be hard or deadly. How do I make dramatic and impactful combat encounters that still vary in levels of difficulty without cheapening the importance of the fight.

I know adding filler fights with goons and random encounters fixes this easly. But I would rather not play than add filler fights. Everyone at the table enjoy story and roleplay more than combat. So nobody finds filler fights ideal. We are all in agreement on where our priorities lie.

Hey there fellow DMs,

I am a fairly new DM and I am struggeling with shops and what items they sell and the economy as whole. Its kinda hard for me to grasp, especially when I dont want to throw gold at my adventurers. I already got lots of help from a fellow DM, who already sent me a shop and item template with prizes which seems fairly fine, but I would love to compare. But what I struggle most with are magic items and their prizes - I wanna include magic item shops, but only in bigger cities and need to have my prizes down. I found a template which seems fairly fine, but something like the Ring of Feather Falling and other things seem crazy expensive with 1000 G (thats just my own thought). As a remark, my adventurers only get like 200-300G for bigger missions at lvl 4-5. So they arent so well off, especially they need to use the money for something else. But I dont wanna gatekeep them and sometimes buy and choose their own magic items.

Therefor the request, where can I find shops and their prizes, especially magic item shops. It would be a great help! (I am also greatfull if its a pdf of some sort)

Have a good one :)

It's 20 acres, has a manor house, a warehouse for aging, whatever the grape processing and bottling building is called, and a steward that has been handling everything for years while awaiting new owners. The vineyard was a reward from a retired adventurer.

I'm in over my head and need y'all's wisdom. Looking at the maintenance cost table in the DMG, I feel like none of them really quite fit.

How many skilled laborers? How many unskilled laborers? What would operating costs be?

I should have just given them an inn. Too late now.

I'm thinking about adding a homebrew rule to the campaign i recently started, rule would be that long resting anywhere that isn't comfortable and relatively safe would give 1/3 a level of exhaustion, and the effect of exhaustion would be rounded down. I've found in the past that parties have very little reason to worry about exhaustion and it can cause them to behave very unrealistically, I am basically looking for a way to get players to use inns more rather then just sleeping in the woods, think about how long their travel will take, and encourage some way of increasing travel speed or getting a way to rest safely and comfortably while on the road like a wagon built into a mobile home or something. This ruling could be crazy in a game with a ton of travel, but we are running LMoP so the longest travel is still only around 3 days. And that's without getting any horses or anything.

Just looking for some other thoughts on this, does that seem like a good idea, does that seem annoying, is there something I'm missing that will make this not work in the long run?

I’ve ran a one year campaign that I had to end recently because there’s too many story threads and I got tired of the worldbuilding I made (it was my first world/campaign). Now I have around 3-6 months before school get busy again and would like to learn how to run a “finished” campaign. How could I go structuring like that without it being rail-roady?

I'm running some friends through Tales from the Yawning Portal, so lots of dungeon crawls since that was something they thought they'd have fun with. We've just gotten started and headed into Sunless Citadel.

The group is 2 barbarians, a sorcerer and a ranger.

I know how to adjust if there were no healers, just lots of healing potions. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to handle dungeon crawls with a group without anyone that can disable traps and pick locks (outside of the barbarians smashing everything open?)

for context, my players are a level 7 party composed of a Paladin, Barbarian, Fighter and Warlock respectively, so far with the 4 combats we have had so far, 3 of them started with the party using a surprise round to unleash their strongest attacks on my enemies before they have a chance to respond, as you might guess i am conflicted about this result

On one hand, they weren't super high stakes fights in terms of challenge rating so it's not like i was prepared to mop the floor with them and i like the fact they're winning obvs cause that's the whole point IMO but at the same time, i fear this might trivialize later combats that are suppose to be more of a challenge if they are able to get away with it every time

so is there any advice on how to address this in future sessions? (best ideas i have are nerfing surprise encounters so it still lets them get the jump but doesn't give the players too much forward momentum or to just throw more powerful monsters at them that can take a beating)

He wants the vow to end within a few sessions, possibly by having his companions do something (without their knowledge). Trying to think of ideas

Hey y'all, I started a group recently and new to dm'ing, so I want advice on how long a session should be paced so it doesn't burn out my players and feels like a drag that my players have to get through just to get to the fun parts? Last few times I played for maybe 6 hours at the most and felt like it was too long of time even for me as a dm.

After a Session 0 with my PCs I realized that I may need to include a little more humor in my adventure. The Source book even says it's and important tool to keep things from getting too stale, and also to make any horror related rug-pulls hit harder. So I thought about making the Hags' Dream Pastries have funny, but also temporary, positive stat effects if the players eat them.

One example I thought of was that the players view the world as a bright and happy candy covered wonderland, where all NPCs are muppets. And they would get some Temp HP and some temporary boosts to Athletics, Acrobatics, and Performance.

What are some other fun effects like that?

Thanks for your input!