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    1. D&D session report, 24-11-16

      The game is AD&D 1e. I'm happy to discuss any mechanics behind the report if anyone asks. The party: Iskandar, human Magic-User 7 Jurgen, human Ranger 6 DeBeaux, half-orc Cleric 1 / Fighter 1 /...

      The game is AD&D 1e. I'm happy to discuss any mechanics behind the report if anyone asks.

      The party:

      • Iskandar, human Magic-User 7
      • Jurgen, human Ranger 6
      • DeBeaux, half-orc Cleric 1 / Fighter 1 / Assassin 1
      • Bite, half-orc Fighter 1
      • Rowan, human Magic-User 6
        • Henchman Freya, human Fighter 4
        • Henchman Rikka, human Fighter 4
      • Vortigern, dwarf Fighter 6 / Thief 6
        • Henchman Ingrid, human Ranger 4
        • Henchman Runa, human Magic-User 4

      The location: an underwater facility inhabited by aquatic elves who are currently suffering from a wasting disease of the mind that's been spreading amongst them. Those affected have been forcibly sent to the lower levels. A faerie elf (C6/F6/MU9) named Alfred has enlisted the party's assistance.

      The plan this evening was to delve into the third floor of this facility. They left the safety of the first floor and quickly navigated through the second, back to the lift that would take them down to the third.

      The party wanders through the halls, checking each of the iron doors for traps before attempting to pry them open. During one such attempt, a few dozen elves (and then some), horribly mutated into beings with sightless orbs but exceptional hearing, approaches from behind. The party was not caught unawares, and one fireball from Rowan later, they finish up with the door and loot the bodies of any loose coin. It's noted that many of the coins were destroyed in the blast.

      They make their way through a kitchen and eventually come across a dead-end hallway with seemingly no purpose. Before they can do much with that information, another group of a couple dozen mutant elves shows up, but the party catches them by surprise and manages to shock & awe in a way that led to the mutant elves fleeing.

      A few members of the party spread out to start checking the walls, and Rikka stumbles through one of the walls with a shout. An illusory wall hid a room with an elven corpse in full battle gear and another lift to a fourth floor. Rowan begins unstrapping the armor from the corpse and then he stops, now unresponsive and non-verbal. Seeing his ally struck with a feeblemind curse, Jurgen does the most sensible thing and tries to loot the sword off the corpse, falling prey to the same curse.

      Iskandar borrows some rope and creates a leash for his allies, leading them along. The party decides they should leave and see if Alfred can fix this. He can, and does, for a total sum of 5200 gold. During this, Vortigern's player began feeling unwell and stepped away for the evening.

      The party goes back down and decides to try a different direction, bringing them to a hallway filled with razor wire, thickly enough that passage would be both slow and painful. After some discussion, Iskandar uses levitate on himself and creates a tightrope above the wire, along the wall, utilizing some rope and door spikes.

      They follow the hall to another couple of doors, one straight ahead and one to their left. Their attentions turns to the left one, which has been locked from this side and welded shut. DeBeaux unlatches the door as Bite moves forward to force it open with his exceptionally high strength. The party moves into the room, seeing a number of effigies fashioned from elven flesh placed around a bone ramp that ends at an altar with a large marble bowl resting on it. Iskandar approaches and sees text inscribed in Elvish within the bowl, so he casts comprehend languages and runs his hands along it. 'The rowan wand lies in blood'.

      Unsure of how to proceed with that, he steps away as Rowan approaches, dagger in hand. Rowan cuts across his palm and bleeds into the bowl, at which point an unseen force pulls his hand within, drawing yet more and more of his essence into it, the blood forming and solidifying into a wand. Upon inspection, it has inscribed 'fir-aga' on the bottom.

      The party moves into another room through a stuck iron door and sees a big cylinder of glass holding a mass of slime, vegetation, and refuse. Laid around said cylinder is a small hoard; silver, jewelry, scroll cases. Iskandar rushes forth to the scroll cases, Jurgen and Bite close behind, which angers the shambling mound in its glass container. Breaking forth from its cage, the shambling mound strikes at the lot of them, landing hits on Rikka and Bite. Many attacks fly towards it as Iskandar carefully backs away from the creature, and Bite is struck by one of its limbs, going down with broken ribs. Iskandar follows up with a magic missile, which is sufficient to kill the creature. Jurgen applies healing to Bite via a potion of light healing, the party gathers all the loot they've found, and then they all leave for the first floor.

      Notable magic items found

      • ivory goat trio figurines of wondrous power [sold]
      • scroll of protection from earth elementals [sold]
      • scroll containing three cleric spells [sold]
      • wand of fireballs [kept]
      • scroll containing seven magic-user spells [kept]
      • frostbrand [kept]

      Current player-kept map of the third floor.

      11 votes
    2. D&D session report, 24-11-09

      The game is AD&D 1e. The party: Jurgen, human Ranger 6 Aeliana, elf Fighter 3 / Magic-User 2 / Thief 4 DeBeaux, half-orc Cleric 1 / Fighter 1 / Assassin 1 Iskandar, human Magic-User 7 Henchman...

      The game is AD&D 1e. The party:

      • Jurgen, human Ranger 6
      • Aeliana, elf Fighter 3 / Magic-User 2 / Thief 4
      • DeBeaux, half-orc Cleric 1 / Fighter 1 / Assassin 1
      • Iskandar, human Magic-User 7
        • Henchman Thorgisl, Fighter 1
      • Vortigern, dwarf Fighter 6 / Thief 6
        • Henchman Runa, human Magic-User 4
        • Henchman Ingrid, human Ranger 4
      • 6 crossbowmen and 2 infantrymen

      The location: an underwater facility inhabited by aquatic elves who are currently suffering from a wasting disease of the mind that's been spreading amongst them. Those affected have been forcibly sent to the lower levels. A faerie elf (C6/F6/MU9) named Alfred has enlisted the party's assistance.

      This is not their first foray into the dungeon, but they have their first encounter with the affected elves here. The ten elves are immediately suspicious and eventually attack once they learn the party was sent here by Alfred. One successful sleep and a decent set of rolls later, the remaining three elves flee. The sleeping ones were tied up, and the party attempted an inquiry, but the elves decided a forever-sleep was preferable, though their movements prior to that were oddly jerky.

      They wander the halls of this facility, eventually encountering a gelatinous cube, which two magic missiles from Iskandar & Runa took care of.

      In one chamber, they solved a puzzle and activated a Shrine (from the TSR Diablo supplement for 2e) that opened town portals back to the safe floor. Through trial, they discovered what these do, but only two (Aeliana's and Iskandar's portals) remained.

      The highlight of the evening was the party coming across a set-up they'd seen in another room; two ceremonial masks kept inside a glass case, framed with iron, and watched by nearby metal torches that would loose blasts of arcane energy at any that got too close. Aeliana and Vortigern attempt to disarm the trap. Vortigern succeeds, but Aeliana fails significantly enough to accidentally trigger the trap, forcing a save vs. breath for 15 damage. She fails, and with her maximum HP of 8, she is incinerated on the spot. Luckily, her gear remains. They travel back to the portals activated earlier and send a hobilar in with Aeliana's corpse while the rest of them found their way back up. They petition Alfred for a revival, and he does have a scroll with a couple castings of raise dead on them, and the party can certainly afford the price for it, but he gently reminds them that elves are soulless, requiring more powerful magic to revive than he has access to.

      After some discussion, Runa rests a while before casting invisibility on herself and her horse so that she might make a trip to a town some 35 miles out to grab:

      • Rowan, a human MU 6
        • Henchman Rikka & Freya, both human Fighter 4

      Rowan uses invisibility, 10' radius on everyone relevant and they travel back to the elven city to continue exploring. In doing so, they encounter another set of 15 elves, but dispatch them quickly and decisively due to surprise, though Ingrid took a heavy amount of damage (10 damage to her maximum of 22 HP).

      We stop shortly after the group finds the lift to the lower level, whereupon their crossbowmen and hobilars refuse to go any deeper, indicating a dungeon floor of at least DL 4 difficulty.

      11 votes
    3. Alright, you sly son-of-a-gun, you got me. I'm going to run my first Narrative TTRPG. What do I need to know?

      A while back I asked for some advice about running a haunted Beaver Dam game, and a few people popped up to ask why I wasn't trying out a narrative RPG system instead of using classic DnD. Well,...

      A while back I asked for some advice about running a haunted Beaver Dam game, and a few people popped up to ask why I wasn't trying out a narrative RPG system instead of using classic DnD.

      Well, you got me. After some discussion (particularly about the painful amount of time to conduct a high level fight in 5e), we're going to try out the Dungeon World system instead. I've never run a TTRPG like this, and I'm rapidly working through the rulebook to figure it out. But rules only take you so far, there's a lot of learning that only comes with experience.

      So for those of you with experience, I ask you: What do you wish you would have known before running a narrative TTRPG?

      20 votes
    4. Choosing a TTRPG system

      When I was in elementary school, I found some Advanced Dungeons & Dragons books at a yardsale. I read through them, brought them to school, and played through a basic campaign with some friends....

      When I was in elementary school, I found some Advanced Dungeons & Dragons books at a yardsale. I read through them, brought them to school, and played through a basic campaign with some friends. Since then, I haven't met anyone interested in pen-and-paper RPGs. I still hope that I can one day convince someone to play with me, but I don't even know which system I should try to learn. There are now so many different editions of D&D, in addition to countless alternatives and endless arguments over the merits of each.

      Whatever system I decide to learn, I will need to invest time and energy into learning and teaching the game to others, and I'll most likely be the DM, so I'd like to choose one that won't be too difficult for beginners to get into. While I enjoy exploring interesting game mechanics, I think the idea of creating an interactive adventure story or a world to explore with friends is what attracts me the most. The Fate system sounded interesting, but I had a hard time understanding the core rulebook. I've recently read short summaries of several other systems that seem like they could be fun and not too hard to get into, such as Index Card RPG, Shadowdark, Tiny Dungeon, Five Torches Deep, Fantasy AGE, and Creative Card Chaos; but I can't afford to read through each of them and seven editions of D&D to determine which one is most suitable for me.

      Does anyone have any advice on how to evaluate my options or a suggestion for a good one to start out with?

      21 votes
    5. D&D does dystopian children's fantasy: Looking for some ideas

      Hey ho, so I'm taking over running one of my existing D&D groups. I have a campaign in my pocket that I have run part of before, A dystopian Narnia. If somehow my players meet just the right...

      Hey ho, so I'm taking over running one of my existing D&D groups. I have a campaign in my pocket that I have run part of before, A dystopian Narnia. If somehow my players meet just the right overlaps of nerd and techness to have ended up here. Leave now .

      But it's really a set up for a longer campaign that I hope bridges into more worlds. I have the Narnian World really fleshed out, but if somebody feels particularly passionate and has ideas, please let me know. I can provide any detail folks would like into being asked a tricky question just helps me World build so please go for it.

      The general gist is that our adventurers are pulled by a much weakened aslan from faerun or whatever default world we start from into Narnia. There they find it has been a thousand years of winter and rule by The White Witch. I'm familiar enough with the lore that if they decide to leave the country of Narnia or seek out another witch as an ally I have some options. Hopefully they save the day and free Narnia from Christmas-less winter. (I'm leaning hard into all the broad references to mythology in Narnia, Dionysus and the Maenads, the River God

      If they do, they will receive a set of the magic rings used in The magician's nephew to allow people to pop between Narnia and the wood between the worlds. Allowing them to hop into other stories that have been similarly messed up.

      I am looking for One Big Idea But also some other suggestions

      1. The suggestions I'm looking for are other stories from about the same realm of stories that could be similarly messed up, ideas I had included Dinotopia, Wrinkle in Time, The Rats of NIMH, maybe one of the Discworld stories (I feel like half of those characters would be self aware) particularly thinking middle grade books with a dip towards children's or younger YA stuff, particularly fantasy stories, particularly those with some nostalgia for my fellow millennial PCs. I don't want to touch Harry Potter.

      2. My idea for the reason why the story went wrong is that someone is rewriting it, possibly due to hating children or hating happy endings or something. I wanted a BBEG but I can't think of one. Umbridge is out for the Harry Potter reasons, but who else would go to the trouble? I am planning on the villain having acquired "magical book mcguffin" (that I also need to figure out) that's letting them do this. I like the idea of a villain who gets a lot of power but uses it in such a petty way, to rewrite children's stories

      It'll take a long time to get out of Narnia, we don't play very often, and we may not continue depending on how players feel but as someone who's worked this idea over and over in their head for a while, I would love to get past these things.

      15 votes
    6. How do you design a dungeon with a lot of backtracking for the purposes of puzzle solving?

      Hi DnD friends, I'm tackling a new DM challenge and could use some guidance. I'm designing a dungeon where humanoid beavers are attempting to awaken a sleeping god. Their efforts get derailed when...

      Hi DnD friends,

      I'm tackling a new DM challenge and could use some guidance. I'm designing a dungeon where humanoid beavers are attempting to awaken a sleeping god. Their efforts get derailed when they offer the god a magical plant that overgrows their entire base, warping the rooms and fusing many surviving beavers into half-plant, half-beaver creatures.

      Since our group is relatively new, I've found that combat can be a bit slow. To speed things up and make combat more dynamic, I want to include environmental elements and traps—things like shelves that can be pushed over or a chandelier that can be dropped on enemies. I hope this will make the players feel more impactful when they pull off creative moves.

      I plan to design a large building that encourages investigation, puzzle solving, and backtracking. My goal is for the players to get familiar with the map before combat, allowing them to discover useful items or environmental features they can take advantage of when enemies appear.

      Since I've never done anything like this, I'm seeking advice on how to approach the design. Are there common pitfalls I should avoid to keep the building fun? How large should the maps be if I want to run this over 3 sessions, each about 3 hours long? And what types of puzzles would fit well in this environment?

      Thanks a ton for your ideas! I’m already feeling like I may be reaching too high, but I’m excited to give it a shot!

      17 votes
    7. Is there a digital D&D that is turn-based and go at your own pace?

      I miss playing D&D with a group, but hanging out for 5+ hours at a time every week just doesn't fit into my schedule. However, I was thinking about how some mobile games have handled this - Words...

      I miss playing D&D with a group, but hanging out for 5+ hours at a time every week just doesn't fit into my schedule. However, I was thinking about how some mobile games have handled this - Words with Friends has (had?) a mode where you would get notified when it was your turn, and you could play whenever you had free time. I think there's at least one chess game that operated this way as well.

      I can't imagine many human players would appreciate long waits between moves, when D&D is designed to be very immersive. So I'm being realistic and wondering what options there are as a single player.

      Baulder's Gate 3 is fun, but I don't expect anything with that level of graphical fidelity. And something I could play on my phone would be ideal (but not a dealbreaker if I can't).

      Are there options like this out there, or do I just have to accept that D&D doesn't have a place in my life?

      20 votes
    8. D&D: How do NPCs die?

      DMs, how do you decide if an NPC dies at 0HP (like a monster) or drops unconscious and starts making death saves (like a PC)? I'm a newish DM (been playing off and on for 10 years but never run a...

      DMs, how do you decide if an NPC dies at 0HP (like a monster) or drops unconscious and starts making death saves (like a PC)? I'm a newish DM (been playing off and on for 10 years but never run a campaign that had legs until now), and our last session ended with the death of a recently-introduced barbarian NPC at the hands of another barbarian NPC. I made some other missteps but the big one seems to be this death - some of the players were shocked that barb #2 had done enough damage to kill barb #1 outright. I just had #1 die because she hit 0HP, and it hadn't really occurred to me that she should have gotten death saves.

      Any rules of thumb for how you handle NPC death/dying? Or, if you're a player, how you would expect/like to see it handled? Happy to provide more context if desired.

      Thanks!

      9 votes
    9. Let's hear some Tabletop RPG stories!

      I absolutely LOVE hearing other's stories from their games. Crazy things happen in game land, and these kinds of tales inspire others to play and experiment as well. Some of my favorite moments My...

      I absolutely LOVE hearing other's stories from their games. Crazy things happen in game land, and these kinds of tales inspire others to play and experiment as well.

      Some of my favorite moments
      1. My group had a guy - Thorgrimm - who was extremely impulsive and often did whatever first came to mind. It was often hilarious as the DM to play out, but alarming as a player to deal with. One such time, the group was face-to-face with a large host of Inquisitors (read: super soldiers) from another realm. They were in an anti-magic field, outmatched and outnumbered. Not to be deterred, Thorgrimm decides to parlay in his usual bombastic style, and one of the inquisitors silenced him (there were ways around the anti-magic field which had not been fully explored yet by the party). Thorgrimm took offense to this and attacked, alone, against 30+ inquisitors. The rest of the party distanced themselves from him. Well, Throgrimm got absolutely wrecked but was somehow clinging to life with a handful of HP. He then conveniently remembered his gimmick Wish spell, that I had given the party some time ago (I considered it a funny thing to do, I've been told I create a lot of trap items). With the party screaming at him not to, he used up the Wish spell to get them out of jail free.
      2. Which brings us to my second favorite moment... The group teleported back to their employer, The Wizard Who Did It (TM), known as Nobb. He had contracted them to retrieve an artifact of great power (Dymlingen Dire, a knife so sharp it can cut you if you look at it). The party bard, Jarl, thought this was crazy cool and wanted to keep the knife. Nobb said "Yes, as long as you forfeit all other rewards for this contract." Jarl readily agreed, while the rest of the party was distracted by arguing over Throgrimm's decision earlier. Suddenly, all the amazing items they had found over the last several adventures while in Nobb's employ disappeared. Jarl, in forfeiting the reward, had given up the rights to owning those items. The party was LIVID. Jarl's Player thought it was hilarious and one of the other Player's, a lawyer, began searching for loopholes. In the end, many of the PC's made more bargains with Nobb in order to receive their items back, meaning they had worked for him at great length and somehow become even more indebted to him... Which is totally perfect since Nobb would secretly turn out to be Loki, trying to kick off Ragnarok.
      26 votes
    10. I'm looking for a suggestion on how best to organize my ideas for my weekly RPG

      I implore anyone who can think of a better way to phrase the title, please suggest it. Essentially, I use a self-hosted MediaWiki which is where I write everything, but when I just have an 'idea',...

      I implore anyone who can think of a better way to phrase the title, please suggest it.

      Essentially, I use a self-hosted MediaWiki which is where I write everything, but when I just have an 'idea', I have a private Discord channel that I submit the information to. It can be a picture, or a character idea, or an idea for a scene or a shop or whatever-- I just have a channel where I dump all of my ideas, and then when I have time, I go back through them, iterate, add them to my wiki (making them 'canon'), and then deleting the messages.

      I would really like something else to do this, because Discord is obviously not meant for this. Unfortunately, the caveat is that it needs to be useable on mobile, because I'd say 80%+ of my ideas like this happen when I'm not at my computer.

      My first thought was to set up and self-host a ticketing system-- something like Znuny, but outside of using Zendesk for work, I don't really know that much about them, and it feels like it might be overkill (on top of not working on mobile, I don't think). It has the benefit of being able to immediately have the data organized, so I can double-check to make sure I'm not repeating character names, or ideas, or anything like that.

      So, with that in mind, what all are my options?

      12 votes
    11. Online Scythe gaming group

      This thread is for organizing a group to play Scythe online. Everyone mentioned has either been in my specific thread about Scythe months ago or mentioned it elsewhere. I FINALLY got around to...

      This thread is for organizing a group to play Scythe online. Everyone mentioned has either been in my specific thread about Scythe months ago or mentioned it elsewhere. I FINALLY got around to getting the Steam version in addition to the Invaders from Afar dlc since it was a bundle.
      I'd love to get a Discord group started so we can all finally play together and ultimately shoot the shit and have some fun.
      Also I couldn't figure out how private messaging works which is embarrassing but this is way easier, anyway.
      If this gets enough traction in the next couple of days I'll make us a discord group and we can go from there as far as scheduling goes. I'd also be open to other games if the group wants to do so. 🤘
      @0d_billie
      @guissmo
      @Beowulf
      @Notcoffeetable
      @TreeFiddyFiddy
      @ocdbear
      @AugustusFerdinand
      @TownshipTeleporter
      @clerical_terrors
      @KapteinB
      @Spongey

      11 votes
    12. Any books for a beginner Go player?

      Discovered Go not too long ago, finding it quite enjoyable. I know there's plenty of reading material out there, but I'm unaware of what exactly would be worthwhile, especially for someone who's...

      Discovered Go not too long ago, finding it quite enjoyable.

      I know there's plenty of reading material out there, but I'm unaware of what exactly would be worthwhile, especially for someone who's been dabbling around at it for 3 months at most.

      Grateful for any and all suggestions!

      15 votes
    13. Any Kult players?

      I have never played a tabletop RPG before, but was absolutely fascinated with this Kult playthrough that the YouTube algorithm decided to show me for some reason. I watched the whole thing! The...

      I have never played a tabletop RPG before, but was absolutely fascinated with this Kult playthrough that the YouTube algorithm decided to show me for some reason. I watched the whole thing! The "gnostic" backdrop the lore has is spellbinding.

      It's hard to gauge its popularity just from YouTube videos, but I'm curious to know if anyone on Tildes has played it, and if so, what your experiences have been. And do you know of any TTRPGs that are similar? Vampire the Masquerade, maybe? My friend group isn't into this sort of thing at all, but maybe I can persuade them...

      (In case you manage to miss the copious warnings at the start of that video, Kult's themes are quite graphic. Fair warning!)

      6 votes
    14. How to end a level 20 D&D campaign with a bang

      -----UNDERMOUNTAIN SPOILERS----- -----HALASTER BLACKCLOAK SPOILERS----- I've been playing and DMing D&D since the late 70s. Most of my campaigns have been homebrew worlds with my own rulesets. But...

      -----UNDERMOUNTAIN SPOILERS-----

      -----HALASTER BLACKCLOAK SPOILERS-----

      I've been playing and DMing D&D since the late 70s. Most of my campaigns have been homebrew worlds with my own rulesets. But as with many of us, the pandemic became a personal golden era of online gaming with friends around the world, especially with the old classic modules and Roll20.

      This campaign began simply enough. It was called Thug & Thugger, and it only had two players. I told them they were thieves who stole from other thieves, interrupting the thefts and taking what they wanted for themselves. And it worked fine for the first 7-8 levels. But then we got ambitious and I sent them on a Spelljammer ship into the Phlogiston. There, they found the protection of an elder goddess who had been imprisoned and needed them to rescue her. But in the course of their rescue, things went sideways and instead of being murdered by Nalfeshnee and Hezrou demons, the elder goddess in a last gasp to save her heroes sent them "somewhere random."

      Where they landed was the seventh level of The Dungeon of the Mad Mage in Undermountain. Not only that, but the demons had been compelled to be their familiars and... once they figured out their scale issues... all of them were no more than nine inches tall. The characters discovered that they couldn't go up any floors, only down. If they were going to survive this, they would have to conquer all 23 levels of the dungeon. Now, I'm well aware that this plot sounds like it came out of the diary of a 12 year old, but ultimately what we wanted was a campaign that finally took players all the way to the end and allowed them godhood after level 20.

      With all our play these last few years, the schedules of daily life had defeated nearly every campaign. That was why we only had two players. And that was why we shoe-horned our narrative arc into the only module we could find that would get the players to 20.

      The first five floors or so were an absolute bloody blast. They were immensely overpowered, despite being only nine inches tall, and they went through entire hordes like a buzzsaw. After the near-death challenges of the Phlogiston it felt like a victory lap. And as the DM I was fine with it, knowing their bully ways wouldn't last. At a certain point, one of their foes banished the Nalfeshnee (which was a massive loss--those things are stupidly powerful) and they regained their former physical height.

      Then it was a fight. The two characters were a warlock/bard and a ranger/monk. Both fought well in the magical dark without disadvantage. That was their main strategy: cast darkness and then wade in. It worked for most of the levels and against a wide variety of enemies, especially since the vast majority of spells require you to "see" your target. But then the monk started spamming stunning strike and they got back to running the table on me. Dungeon of the Mad Mage was written before stunning was a thing, so not a single foe had resistance or immunity to it. He would burn through the legendary saves of nearly any bad guy and still have extra ki points left over.

      They leveled and leveled again. They also became clerics to appropriately worship the elder goddess. Their bag of holding filled with gear and each action or attack became as convoluted as a Disney contract. The number of saves, reactions, buffs, etc. that needed to be accounted for on every move was something I won't attempt again without an AI assistant. As they approached the final battle, I realized that I needed help.

      One player had told me that another friend group of ours had tried the year before to take on Undermountain but that campaign had fallen apart. So I secretly texted the DM of that group with a proposal: Since you know this campaign so well, I need some assistance for the end. He happily agreed.

      On the day of the final battle, the players were locked in combat with Halaster's most senior minions. Suddenly, the Mad Mage himself arrived. That's right. On the Zoom channel, someone new joined. Someone named Halaster. He appeared in a wizard robe and fake white beard, wielding a scepter he'd bought on Amazon, with a screen behind him generated by AI to look like Halaster's lair.

      My players lost their minds. They thought I was just going to put on a corny voice and be Halaster myself. No no no. But this wasn't to be just a cameo. I told the new player to legitimately have Halaster kill them. I wasn't looking for a happy ending. And as the DM I wasn't going to be anything but the referee, adjudicating what had now become a PvP situation. Two players against the Mage. My two players finally realized what I had in store for them. This was a serious no-holds-barred fight to the death.

      The Halaster player is also a legendary game designer in his own right, a video game designer turned executive who has worked on many games we all know. He called in several other legends of the industry to help him figure out his moves. I even handed him the gift of cursed gloves I'd tricked the monk into putting on several levels before, which made his stunning strikes against Halaster something he needed to roll on the wild sorcery magic table.

      And they still beat him and won their freedom and the freedom of their elder goddess. But man was it a battle. They withstood his meteor storm and made saves against his most potent spells. At the end, the bard only had 3hp and nearly everyone else was dead.

      But we did it! We finally finished a level 20 campaign. And now we know we never need to do that again, lol. It became so unwieldy and slow after about level 15 that it felt more like work than play.

      We look forward to starting over with simple characters who do simple things. The monk will be the DM this time, leading me and the other player in the Lost Mines of Phandelver. And each of us will try playing two simultaneous classic characters this time: me a dwarven cleric and elven illusionist, he a half-orc fighter and wood elf rogue. At least we know our schedules work.

      24 votes
    15. How to make this a fun djinn fight for relatively new players? (Bryan: Stay out, I know you're out there)

      I'm working on a new boss fight for a 5-person level 8 party of fairly new people. I wanted to give them something completely different, so I figured a fight on a small 20x20 circular rooftop with...

      I'm working on a new boss fight for a 5-person level 8 party of fairly new people. I wanted to give them something completely different, so I figured a fight on a small 20x20 circular rooftop with a stealthy djinn might be fun. I'd love to hear thoughts on how to make this a good time. My main idea is to force the party to figure out creative ways to find the djinn, since they don't have any way to see invisible creatures in their normal set of abilities. Things like throwing sand in the air, or holding ropes between each other to detect the silent wind motion as he moves around. Stuff that is more flavorful than a normal straight fight.

      I'll also be throwing players off the roof, forcing them to make agility saves to grab hold of ropes that are on the edge of the building, then strength checks to pull themselves back up. Have some moderate injuries occur if they roll badly. What suggestions would you have for me to make this a fun fight?



      Izel, Guardian Djinn

      Large Elemental (Air), Lawful Neutral


      • Armor Class 17 (natural armor)
      • Hit Points 152 (16d10 + 64)
      • Speed 30 ft., fly 60 ft.

      STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
      18 (+4) 22 (+6) 18 (+4) 16 (+3) 20 (+5) 18 (+4)

      • Saving Throws Dex +10, Con +8, Wis +9, Cha +8
      • Skills Insight +9, Perception +9, Stealth +10
      • Damage Resistances lightning, thunder; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks
      • Condition Immunities charmed, exhaustion
      • Senses truesight 60 ft., passive Perception 19
      • Languages Auran, Common
      • Challenge 12 (8,400 XP)

      Elemental Demise. If the djinni dies, its body disintegrates into a warm breeze, leaving behind only equipment the djinni was wearing or carrying.

      Innate Spellcasting. The djinni's innate spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 16, +8 to hit with spell attacks). It can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:



      At will:

      Mage Armor: You touch a willing creature who isn’t wearing armor, and a protective magical force surrounds it until the spell ends. The target’s base AC becomes 13 + its Dexterity modifier. The spell ends if the target dons armor or if you dismiss the spell as an action.

      Greater Invisibility: (Concentration) You or a creature you touch becomes invisible until the spell ends. Anything the target is wearing or carrying is invisible as long as it is on the target’s person. The target can attack or cast spells without becoming visible.


      3/day each:
      > Wind Wall: Requires concentration. You create a wall of strong wind on the ground at a point you can see within range. The wall is up to 50 feet long, 15 feet high, and 1 foot thick, or a ringed wall up to 20 feet in diameter, 15 feet high, and 1 foot thick. It lasts for the duration, blocking arrows, smaller creatures, gases, and fog.
      > Lightning Bolt: You release a bolt of lightning that arcs toward a target you can see within range. A line of electricity 100 feet long and 5 feet wide blasts out from you in a direction you choose. Each creature in the line must make a Dexterity saving throw, taking 8d6 lightning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

      Actions

      Multiattack. The djinni makes two scimitar attacks.

      Wind Blade. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 15 (2d8 + 6) slashing damage plus 5 (1d10) lightning damage.

      Windforce Blade (Enhanced Multiattack). If Izel hits a target with both attacks during his Multiattack, the target is pushed 10 feet away from him.

      Whirlwind (1/Day). As an action, Izel transforms into a whirlwind for one turn, moving in a straight line up to 60 feet. Any creature in the path of the whirlwind must make a DC 16 Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, the creature takes 18 (3d12) bludgeoning damage and is thrown 15 feet in a random direction and knocked prone. On a successful save, the creature takes half damage and is not thrown or knocked prone.

      Legendary Actions

      Izel can take legendary actions, choosing from the options below.

      Wind Push. After every enemy's turn, Izel rolls a D20; on a 13 or higher, he uses the wind to move that enemy if they are within 60 feet of him. The target must succeed on a DC 16 Strength saving throw or be pushed 15 feet away from Izel and knocked prone.

      Wind Buffet. Izel creates a small burst of intense wind around himself. Each creature within 10 feet of Izel must succeed on a DC 16 Dexterity saving throw or take 17 (3d10) bludgeoning damage and be pushed 10 feet away from him. Using Wind Buffet breaks Izel’s concentration and ends his turn.

      Lair Actions

      • At the start of each turn, roll a D20. On a 10 or higher, all creatures on the battlefield are pushed 5 feet in a random direction determined by a d8 roll. This unpredictable movement simulates the chaotic nature of the winds that Izel commands.
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