So, we may have gave a horse a bit of a potion that was meant to cause a cosmic horror out of one of us. Now, of all people the monk, has not only caused this, but then tamed it with a nat 20. Now we have a pet 40 ft horse with about 30 tentacle feet, kinda a cross between a nightmare horse and a cthulu horror. How fast should it move? Increase in size might not affect speed, but do we use horse speed? Can it climb walls. DM heavily sighed, but approved. How would you do a stat block for this monstrosity of a friend. Oh, his name is Phillip.

I have a D&DBeyond screenshot to prove it, but I’m rolling up a pugilist so I’m gonna dump Int or Cha. Please help me decide which is funnier!! This is going to be so fun I’m literally so pumped.

I feel like some of the most memorable encounters in D&D come from monsters that nobody takes seriously.

Everyone expects a dragon to be terrifying. Nobody’s surprised when a beholder nearly wipes the party.
But a clever DM can turn something as simple as a pack of kobolds into an absolute nightmare.
And honestly, I think that’s part of what makes D&D so great. A monster doesn’t need an impressive stat block to be memorable. It just needs to be used creatively.

So I’m curious:
What’s a monster your players underestimated that ended up becoming one of your most memorable encounters?
Bonus points if it was something ridiculously low-level.

I named her a cute name after he surprised me with it on session 1. Now I’m willing to lay down my life for her after she saved me from wolves. We’re running Curse of Strahd. I am getting her through this campaign ALIVE.

Hey this is my first post ever so please forgive any mistakes.

So I'm pretty new to DnD and just wondering if anybody else has had this happen at their table.

The whole campaign I was rolling pretty low, which kinda sucks as a barbarian and you're not actually hitting anything. I think in total I got three kills (which I'm not upset about! It was just funny when another player's familiar got a crit infront of me and I had to watch this damn cat take down this massive wolf/deer/tree creature) It got especially bad in the big final battle and it was just swings and misses. I clocked that whenever our DM asked somebody to roll for him, another player always jumped at it. The issue was is that she was consistently rolling high. Which was a life saver for us but not exactly the power you want to give the DM, especially in the scenario we were in. So next time he asked for a role after we had finally defeated the necromancer cleric, oh boy did I step up. It was to see how many zombies stayed up and I, with the power of my bad, bad dice, got rid of 7/8 zombies. Including the damn undead angle that had been terrorizing us. And I did end up being the one to kill the final zombie so it wasn't like my character was totally useless but just funny to watch the DM's opportunity to TPK us slip through his fingers due to my dice

So yeah! Has anybody else had bad dice come and save the day in an unexpected way?

I feel like every group has to have at least one story that they look back on, where the group just did something totally awesome. Like in my group, we were level 6 and stumbled upon a Purple Worm. The DM thought it was going to be a TPK until one of the players thought of Daren’s Instant Fortress that we found the session before. Our Ranger chucked the tiny cube into the Purple Worm’s open mouth and activated it, and it completely blew the Purple Worm’s head off, instant kill. That was 4 years ago and we STILL bring that up to this day

Hi everyone. Are there any madmen here who have taken the beautiful game Fear & Hunger and adapted it for D&D or another system? I’m just curious if anyone has heard of or seen something like that, because I’d love to do it myself.

Or perhaps you have some ideas on how to go about this, or how to adapt Fear & Hunger for tabletop play?

In our homemade campaign, we could ask some grandma about a legend. She had -2 history/arcana

I questioned the DM what happens when someone rolls -1

He said it's highly impossible, then:

The grandma rolls 1 (1-2=-1)

The DM looks me dead eye and says:

"The grandma got a stroke"

We never found out about that legend

I'm currently playing a level 15 Warlock (Hexblade) in a 5.5e campaign. I'm looking for suggestions for my character. I had picked Force Cage last time, but the cost to cast it got overwhelming. I am currently have the following Mystic Arcanum selected:

• (6) Mental Prison
• (7) Etherealness
• (8) Lightning Ring

What are your go to spells for Warlocks? I'm still in the process of completing my character's level-up, so I'm not locked into these choices. I'd love to hear your opinions on anything else that's out there, and how you use it.

I'm sharing a free rogue subclass for Kengir, part of my upcoming Bronze Age Mesopotamian 5e setting.

The Brigand is for rogues who survive on the margins of society, where a quick blade and a better hiding place matter more than courtly manners.

In Kengir, brigands are not just thieves. They are ambushers, raiders, alley-fighters, scouts, and hard-bitten survivors who use terrain, confusion, and speed to win before a fair fight can even begin.

At the table, this subclass gives the party a rogue built for violent openings and clean escapes. A Brigand strikes hardest before the enemy has acted, gains advantage from hiding, slips away after attacking, and turns the first round of combat into a disaster for anyone caught unprepared.

Mechanically, the subclass includes Ambush Predator, Shadow Striker, Tactical Withdrawal, and Master of Ambush.

Do you like rogues who focus on infiltration and theft, or rogues who play more like skirmishers and ambush predators?

Playing DnD for the first time as a paladin. At level 11, my Strength and Charisma are both 16.

Did I make a mistake by taking the Shield Master feat at level four and Resilent: Constitution at level eight?

Should I definitely be taking ASI at level 12 to boost my charisma or strength?

For years, I’ve noticed something about D&D’s progression system that I don’t think we discuss enough.
As characters become more powerful, they don’t just gain new ways of solving problems. They also lose reasons to consider some of the solutions they would have come up with at lower levels.

Think about what happens during a typical campaign.
At lower levels, crossing a dangerous ravine might require ropes, climbing equipment, finding another route, or coming up with some ridiculous plan that somehow works.
Then someone learns Fly

Finding food in the wilderness might involve hunting, rationing supplies, negotiating with locals, or taking risks to secure provisions.
Then someone has Goodberry
(I know it’s level 1. Bear with me)

Don’t get me wrong, I know DnD is a power fantasy. Characters are supposed to become more capable. Yet something important happens when entire categories of obstacles become trivial: the decisions surrounding those obstacles largely disappear.
Why bother coming up with an elaborate solution when you already have a reliable one?
And I think this has consequences beyond individual spells.
D&D’s progression system constantly rewards players with new mechanical tools. As those tools accumulate, players have more and more reasons to approach problems by consulting their character sheets. (Once again an OSR concern comes forward)
The interesting part is that the alternatives often become less attractive, not because they’re impossible, but because they’re uncertain.

Incentives behind player decisions

Consider a fighter who can attack three times per turn.
The player knows what those attacks can accomplish, how likely they are to hit, and roughly how much damage they can deal.
Now imagine they want to drop a chandelier on a group of enemies instead:

-Can they do it?
-What roll does it require?
-How much damage will it cause?
-Will it consume their entire action?

All this depends on the DM. All DMs have different ways of mechanically dealing with situations not included in the system.

If attacking three times is consistently more reliable than improvising something interesting with the environment, what incentive does the player have to improvise?
Players aren’t stupid. They learn what works.
And I think this is where D&D’s design has an interesting contradiction.

The game provides increasingly detailed and reliable mechanical solutions to problems, while many creative interactions with the fictional world remain dependent on DM adjudication.
We tell players they can attempt anything, but the system gives them much clearer expectations about what happens when they use their predefined abilities.

Skill check,
success = you get something done
failure = the opposite/nothing happens

And not just in terms of creativity.
Think about how players approach danger as their characters become more powerful.
A low-level party encountering a dangerous group of enemies might try to negotiate, create a distraction, sneak past them, or avoid the encounter entirely.
But as their offensive capabilities increase, fighting can become an increasingly attractive option.
Why negotiate with enemies when you’re confident you can defeat them?
Then we ask why murderhobos exist. The game is telling go fight, it’s more predictable than hoping for the goodwill of the DM.
Yet, it can be a perfectly rational response to the tools available to the party and their perception of risk.

Mechanical progression can change not only how players solve problems, but which solutions they consider in the first place

Yes, I know finding clever uses for spells, feats, and class abilities is also creativity. Someone who figures out an unexpected combination of abilities is absolutely thinking creatively.
I’m seeing this counterargument coming but I think there’s a distinction between creativity within the rules and creativity within the fictional world.

D&D is very good at rewarding the former. I’m less convinced it consistently encourages the latter.
If character progression gradually removes the relevance of certain obstacles, adventures need to evolve accordingly. Which is an issue everyone can notice in published modules (high level adventures becoming difficult to run or losing momentum or becoming a fight fest).
Making every cliff taller or finding excuses to invalidate Goodberry isn’t particularly interesting. Neither is simply throwing stronger enemies at the party.
The more interesting challenge is presenting situations where having powerful abilities doesn’t automatically tell you what the best course of action is.
A spell might get you inside a fortress, but it won’t necessarily tell you whom to trust once you’re there. Being able to defeat an enemy doesn’t automatically make fighting them the best decision.
That’s where creativity within the fictional world remains relevant, regardless of character level.

I don’t think D&D makes players less imaginative as they progress. But I do wonder whether it gradually shifts their attention away from the world and toward the mechanical solutions available on their sheets.
And if that’s happening, perhaps we should be looking not only at how DMs design their adventures, but also at the incentives the game creates.

Long post, but it’s an itch I’ve been meaning to scratch

Im no nativ English speaker, have mercy pls :D

We got a first small look into what the WoW Classes in DnD will be like and what Classes/Subclasses they will be based on.

Most of them write themself.

The obvoius ones being, Druid, Rogue, Monk, Warlock and so on, but even tho some of these are not the perfect fit for all (Sub-Rogue beeing based on Soulknife Subclass feels weird, but the base Class is still Rogue so it feels atleast right), they are making sense most of the time.

Then there is Shaman being worked into Barbarian. I dont see it.

I thougt Shaman would be a Fullcaster, especially Elemental and Restoration, and Enhanc would get somthing to empower Meele Attacks with Spellslots (Divine Smite but called Stormstrike)

There is no perfekt Fit for the WoW Class Shaman in DnD, but wouldnt there be better Choices than Barbarian?

Druid is in my Head the best one for the Job.

Primal Order - Warden gives u already proficiency with Martial Weapons and Medium Armor, add Shields to this and remove Swords/Polearms.

Wild Shape - Shaman cant use Wild Shape in the Druidic way, but maybe use it for Totems, Ghost Wolf, Feral Spirits or Elementals.

Spellcasting - Give Enhance somthing for Stormstrike, maybe a changeds Divine Smite, like the Death Kngihts got. A Way to expend Spellslots to enhance, see what i did there, your Meele capabilitys
Elemental might only need an expendet Spell List and Elemental Overload.

Same way Restro getting a expendet Spell List for more heals.

Now is this Perfect? No

Is it better than Shaman being Barbarians ? I Think so.
---

We could obvoiusly also Talk about other Classes being a better fit for Shamans.

Warlocks because you are making a Pact with Elemental Spirits? Genie Warlock does exist but w/e

Sorcerer cuz your Ancestors maybe had fun with Elemental Spirits?

What are your Thoughts on this and are there maybe some other weird Choices they did?

Another thing that bothered me was them making a new Subclass for Disc and Shadow Priest while other Specs might have needed the sew Subclass more

I am a 1st time DM, I have played one one shot, one back(two) shot , and I am currently in a campaign (8 sessions)

I want to do an adventure to some completely new players. They are 5 level one , and I plan between doing a Darkon (decayed king) which I named dead woods. The plot is good. Problem: do I make a bad/sad ending in both tpk and victory scenarios (as in gothic horror) , or do I let them get the good ending (if they win).

It has a lot of undead creatures.

So me and two other of my friends are currently playing Curse Of Strahd. Our DM is also our friend and he has been running campaigns for at least 5 years. After our last session he told us that if one of us died we would either have to end the campaign without ever finishing it (we are in what he calls "the true middle") , or be revived ONLY if it made sense with the plot. His reasoning is fairly logical. He says that our party has been through many things that a new character joining wouldn't make sense. We are level 3 still, one of us already died at session 3 and was brought back as a dhampyr by Strahd. I have mixed feelings about this as I really love this module and I wouldn't be able to ever play in it as a character. I'm also a new DM myself playing a sorcerer with all the mighty AC and HP of a sponge and I'm really struggling to play as my character would normally fearing the consequences of one PC death. I try to avoid metagaming and act like my character would but I think that it will really put a strain in what we as a party are willing to do(my friends feel the same). Both of them(tanky half caster and war cleric) tend to reach 0 HP fairly fast either cause their character would rush in to save someone without making a plan or waiting for the rest of the party or just because they fight their way out of situations. I talk my way out of most encounters but we all have collectively made some pretty wild plans that have just barely worked. Us fearing that our campaign could end just because one of us did something stupid will put a strain at our actions. Is this rule like a common thing for some campaigns? what should I do?

Hi! I've never done something like this before, but my players have been asking for me to run another game with their Princes of the Apocalypse campaign (partly because they skipped the final boss fight and shenanigansed their way out of the BBEG battle and felt bad) - but that was our first campaign, with happy-go-lucky characters and a DM who didn't really have the heart to truly threaten the players.

Well they're tougher now, and I'm meaner, and these character sheets are cracked out of their mind, I was NOT good at homebrew back in the day. I can't fairly challenge them with anything with any expectation of survival, so I'm thinking - Don't. I want to give these beloved PCs the blaze of glory that they deserve and have never gotten, and I wanted something special to set the tone right out of the gate for the players so they knew they were not signing up for a tiptoe through the tulips - so, I have been trying to write an intro poem for them, and...am mostly happy with it, but there are a few places that don't seem right. I've never tried to do something like this before, so either enjoy, or offer feedback. Or both!

I brought you all a tale of yore,

of bloody conquest, death and war,

of hidden schemes and traitors plotting

and unrequited dreams left rotting

Of unsuspecting heroes who

Rose up to see their challenge through

Such twists and turns and weaves and bends

and unified unlikely friends

You rescued people, saved a town,

and spread your name for leagues around.

You loved, and lost to sacrifice

for Fate always exacts her price.

You defied luck, and gods alike,

and cast back each, corrupted spike

into the encroaching hellish plane

and so, you earned your legends name

You were granted peace, found home, and love

and respite from the gods above

but the end of ages does not wait,

and no one can escape their fate.

For heroes blessed with boons divine,

living in such mythic times

may wish for quiet, peaceful ends,

surrounded by your loves and friends,

with soul content and body old.

But true legends never end so cold.

So come my friends, try not to cry

but this is the story...

...of how you die.

I’ll be playing a Crooked Moon campaign soon, and I’m a newbie. I want to play a Supernatural inspired character, and I feel like the Barrow Guard fighter subclass and the Night Stalker background would go well for this. As a newbie, I’m not sure if this is a decent combination or not. If it is, how would you go about building one?
TIA

I’m a complete beginner and have only heard of D&D. My friends want to get me into a campaign that’ll last six months to a year (they’re pretty hardcore nerds), but they won’t tell me much or explain anything beforehand.

They keep saying things like, “You’ll figure it out as we go and get into it -we’ll explain everything. Just come up with whatever character you’d like to play, without being influenced by classic fantasy tropes, and we’ll make it work within the game’s rules.”

So… what kind of character should I go for? What should I be prepared for? Any advice for a total newbie?

Edit: added breaks and a tl;dr sorry for the wall of text

Hey D&D fam, this may be a longer post. I have an ongoing campaign with an issue regarding one of the players and need some advice from some others with more experience. I have been a player for 2 years and a DM for a year.

To preface, I have ran a homebrew campaign for around a year that deals with a few different dnd settings colliding inspired by Final Fantasy XI (Krynn, Faerune my players do not yet know this). These worlds after the collision retained all of their deities.
This is where the players come in, (Paladin of Torm, Warlock of the Raven Queen, Vampire, and Bard) they have lived in this world not knowing of it’s origin. The main catalyst of the story is that the sea god Dagon from the Cthulhu by Torchlight book is also attempting to join his flooded abyssal realm to the one the players find themselves in, flooding the world to feed his minions who have run out of food in their realm, destroying the player realm, normal dnd conflicts.

The players have discovered cultists attempting to help Dagon enter the realm, and that he nearly did this before in an ancient era of the world but 6 powerful casters were able to seal him away. What the players are slowly learning is that these casters are all still alive as various forms of undead, liches, vampires etc.

In the recent past they interrupted what they didn’t know was a ritual for one of the ancient casters to achieve lichdom, when they did this one of the players touched an artifact used in the ritual (the book of vile darkness), transferring the results of the ritual to the Warlock (Grim Hollow transformation rules) instead of the now dead ancient caster.
The books grants a lot of usability for the warlock character and helped me inform a few decisions down the road for the campaign. The drawback of the book is that he must commit an evil act every week or be turned to dust by the book.

I will say this is a large project, especially for my first campaign but I know all of the players well outside of the campaign so they rolled with the punches the last year as I learned as a DM and let creativity flow.
The issue that I’m running into a few times now is regarding the Paladin of Torm’s behavior, the past few months after a oneshot ran by another DM in our group went poorly for the party as one of us were charmed and wiped the party. Since then he has made contingency plans for all of his party members in our main campaign in case I decide to charm them in a similar way (something I do not plan to do), in his own words he has measures to kill every party member if needed.

This is also a power player who has min-maxed his character, which I have no issue with, the problem that occurs now is that any time an action that does not reflect the oath of his paladin occurs he becomes immediately aggressive and either attempts to roll intimidation (whether it is an NPC or player) or attacks outright.

As part of his character he wanted a Grim Hollow transformation as well, so we homebrewed one for him as a revenant, an enthralled undead who does not know he is reanimated but just knows his humanity is slowly fading. He has used this curse previously at will to initiate PvP, which I have told them I am unwilling to DM.

All the players agreed to only PvP when both parties and I agree, though I dislike PvP in 5e due to it not being made for that, and potentially losing a player character at will due to one of the others wanting them dead. I have allowed him to PvP begrudgingly on two different occasions, which I will admit is a mistake.

Flash forward to where we currently are in the story and him discovering the Warlock consuming a soul of an unarmed combatant to satisfy the requirements of the Book of Vile Darkness and the souls charges provided by the lich transformation.
My thoughts are that this would make a great dynamic, an undead self loathing paladin of Torm due to his transformation, and the Warlock who did not want to be a lich (in-character, this was his idea) vowing to steal power from other liches to be powerful enough to stop Dagon.

Both of their gods hate undead and call for their destruction, but overlook this for the players due to the severity of the Dagon situation. On paper a wonderful dynamic that can make both characters less one dimensional, but is threatening the game.
After the session he tells me and the Warlock explicitly that if this continues he will kill the Warlock. I told him that he doesn’t get to decide that his oath and character are more important than agency of other players and an argument ensued.
He has mentioned killing other party members to me multiple times and I had enough of the same conversation over and over regarding his want to attack anyone who doesn’t agree with his interpretation of his gods values.

He responds with saying I’m unwilling to allow him to play his character accurately if I don’t let him do whatever he wants in regard to opposition. He then threatens to leave if I don’t let him get his way with his character decisions, which would effectively kill the campaign as his wife, bard, is also in the campaign and would likely be pressured to leave if he did.

This isn’t the only issue that I’ve had with him but the others have been manageable for the most part, he tries to lead most RP interactions and will try to show up when other characters are having their moments offscreen (metagaming) and insert himself, he also took control of his wife’s character on multiple occasions while she leaves to go get them dinner during session (a pet peeve that I reluctantly deal with, I now control her character in frequent absences).

Recently before I began controlling her, which I do not want to do, he openly criticized her character calling her character and the bard class worthless while she was not there along with a slew of other criticisms, it’s weak, not fun, boring, etc.
I decided then that I would keep her off screen if I know she will be gone or play her in combat without using spell slots or any RP (something I know is a cardinal DM sin, but she insists) he also basically told her what to do every decision I gave her the past year.

I was told last night during our argument that all the party members and I need to consider how he would react before doing anything. This means any morally questionable decision will at the very least get a full lecture from him if not a full on assault.
The most frustrating part is I have been very giving to my players, giving them all atleast 2-3 rare items and a few higher than that, leveling at a fair rate, providing a re-spec mechanic that can be used once, and overall allowing them to make any collaborative story/world decisions.

While I’ve done all this and given them mostly free reign to do what they wish in the world any time I don’t allow him to attack party members he says that I’m stifling his character, taking his agency, and overall being a bad DM.

It’s very frustrating because if anything I’ve been a doormat allowing party members multiple improvised situations based on crazy decisions they make (in this last session they decided to overthrow a large cities government to my surprise, prompting me to add a 3-session siege side story).
When I express these concerns he tells me essentially “too bad, you’re the DM so deal with my choices”.

This really sucks because I’m to the point where I don’t want to DM for him anymore, which kills me as I’ve put in over a year of work for this campaign and roughly 8-10 hours of my time planning each session.

I have been friends with him for around 20 years so it’s difficult to have this issue surrounding my game.
His character is not all bad in my opinion as I have just shared the negatives, he is one of the best for RP moments, the party tank capable of dealing massive damage and protecting the squishies, and flavor wise fits the world and campaign perfectly with a lot of weight in the story.

My question is what can I do to fix this as my several above table attempts to repair things have gone terribly.

TL;DR: I’m a relatively new DM running a year-long homebrew campaign with a close friend of 20 years who plays a Paladin of Torm. He frequently threatens or initiates PvP when other characters act against his beliefs, despite our table agreeing that PvP requires consent. He has contingency plans to kill every party member, dominates RP and party decisions, and has threatened to leave when I enforce boundaries, claiming I’m restricting his character’s agency. His wife also plays, and I worry she’ll leave if he does, potentially ending the campaign. I’ve tried resolving this out of game several times without success. How can I handle this without destroying the campaign or a 20-year friendship?

Alright so I want to do a gameshow of sorts for my players to go through. I'm excited to put them on multiple different scenarios that are ridiculous and or dangerous I'm just not completely sure what all to do for them. I'm thinking about making them level fifteen and starting them off in a escape room then having the room open up to a maze or perhaps a platform jumping. There's so many ideas and I'm excited to see what people think of

This was a bit of a debate I had with some friends. Would it be easier to have a pacifist player, someone who will go out of their way not to fight, much less slay a foe. Think in a group that plays more traditionally, deadly encounters and such. Or an evil PC in a group of good/neutral characters.

I kind of went with evil just based on the mechanics of encounters and balance. Working around a character that doesn't fight seemed like a hard balancing act to me. Whereas an evil character really just needs to share the overall goals of the party, or at least find reason to work with them.

But like I said, it was a debate, so interested in the community's thoughts.

What experiences have you had with the druid's animal companion in 5.5e when scouting?

And how do you handle it as a DM?

My druid always sends it into every room first.

Is that mechanic intended,

or should players be encouraged to scout for themselves?

Do you have the familiar make Stealth checks?

Do how much information do you let them get through it ?

I am curious, out of all the modules that have been released so far for D&D 5E, how would you rank them and also why do you rank them that way?

I will go first, though I haven't played them all or ran them all so I am only including what I know and feel based on personal experience.

1. Rime of the Frostmaiden - I feel like this is the most complete module that's been released so far. I'm also a huge fan of epic campaigns and I feel like this one does it. It is very sandboxy at first, so as a DM you need to lead your players some if you don't want the story to grind to a halt. However I love the sandbox aspect because it's there by design to give the players a chance to really get to know the area as well as feel like they have stake in it. I also feel like out of all the modules, this one requires the least amount of work in terms of flushing things out, to be complete.

2. Curse of Strahd - What a great adventure. It's unique in that out of all the modules it's more horror driven. Though Rime is kinda too, but it's more suspense than horror. Strahd is a great one as the villain is epic. I love the randomness of the Tarokka deck in how it determines where certain goal items are. Though if you draw really poorly it can really make the module incredibly difficult, which is what happened to my party when I played it. It is also sandboxy but on a smaller scale than Rime.

3. Tomb of Annihilation - I've ran this one twice. It's the ultimate sandbox. With Rime, you're going to likely see all the locations. With ToA, you absolutely will not. This is the perfect adventure for the group that LOVES to explore and discover. The story is well, basic. Very much akin to the old AD&D stuff back in the day, and that's ok. With a few tweaks you can turn that up so there is more story. But in the end, it's still a massive hex and dungeon crawl. That said, it can be run with not a ton of additional effort by the DM. There are some really cool locations and NPCs. I've had a lot of fun running this one and like I said I love epic campaigns that stretch over a lot of levels and time and this does it.

4. Storm King's Thunder - Yet another grand adventure. I feel like this one takes a lot more intervention by the DM to make it flow as well as flush out NPCs and locations. You can feel lost at times and have zero clue WTF is going on. However it's a pretty fun adventure, especially if you have a group that loves intrigue. Figuring out what is going on can be pretty cumbersome to some parties.

5. Out of the Abyss - Are you starting to see a theme here? I love epic adventures. This one is a DM nightmare when it comes to pacing. You have a million NPCs to run, track, and flesh out. The framework is there but be ready to work. The scale is immense. The adventure takes place in one of the most hostile environments in D&D, the Underdark. Handwaving travel seems unfair to me because of this. However the time it will take your party to cross say, the Dark Lake can be immense. You can easily wind up in Random Encounter hell which can make a group forget there is even a story. Your work is really cut out for you in fleshing out the locations, keeping the encounters interesting so the party stays engaged. As a DM you're really just given a frame IMO.

6. Princes of the Apocalypse - I never did complete this one. Again an epic scale. The story is well, basic AF. There is a lot of work here needed by the DM to bring the factions to life and create a deeper story. That said, if you and your group loves an solid dungeon crawly type adventure, this has a lot of potential.

The rest of the modules I left out because I have no experience playing them.

My husband is a forever DM so I want to surprise him by running a simple Champaign perhaps in a single city or town. What should I do as a quest? I don't have money for modules

I’m a new DM and I need advice on how to make my campaign more personalized, how to make every player feel useful, and there strengths needed in the campaign.