I am planning a set piece that involves some NPCs deceiving my players. The short version is that my players will meet some simple farmers trying to bring their crops to market, only to find that they're actually smugglers in a Hatfields and McCoy's type feud, which the party then gets messily swept up into. I generally don't trick my players; I don't think there's anything wrong with it but I imagine some tables would take to it more than others. Do you trick your players? Are there some tricks you find acceptable and others that are unacceptable? For me, I have no qualm getting my players swept up into the seedy underworld of drug or artifacts smuggling, but I don't think I would run a plotline on human trafficking. That I think would be difficult in an unpleasant way for everyone involved.

StatblockWizard can now be installed as an app ("PWA") on systems that support this.

If installed as an app on a desktop type computer from Chrome, Edge, or Opera, StatblockWizard can also be set as the default handler for files having the .statblockwizard extension. This means that such a file can be launched to automatically open StatblockWizard and show the selected stat block.

On supported systems, the default filename of saved stat blocks is changed from .statblockwizard.json to .statblockwizard - but there is no difference in the inner structure of created files. Using the UI to load/upload a file now accepts both the old and the new naming convention.

cross-posted from: https://ttrpg.network/post/33813206

On the dndbeyond website you can filter the content you are looking for. In these filters, they will now use 5.5e instead of "2024"

In a world where there are alot of other campaign settings, you could check out this ones kickstater (very funded already) and learn of a new world of dragons lords and ancient dungens. With 8+ new sub-classes and neet twists on ancestries/races. I may not play a lot, but I like the setting, its ideas and twists, and the people making it. At least checkout the trailer on the kickstarter page or on youtube

I used to use Fight Club 5e to track my character, but that hasn't been updated in a long time. I recently found another app that's in active development, and I'm becoming a big fan!

It's called Character Craft and it has a version for Android, iOS as well as a web version(!).

And where on DnD Beyond you have to pay for any other sources, here you can just load in a set of XML files that you get here: https://github.com/vidalvanbergen/FightClub5eXML

And that should get you all you need. Of course, the downside is that this is not FOSS. But at least the developer is very active and responds very quickly to bug reports and feature requests.

#dnd #DungeonsAndDragons #ttrpg #rpg #apps #Android #software

With the rise in popularity of Anime like "Delicious in Dungeon" and "Campfire Cooking in Another World", I wouldn't be surprised if people are honestly giving a "cooking bard" character a shot. I'm intrigued myself, but am curious if the RaW for this bard college works in practice. Is anyone out there playing one of these?

Everyone has bad dice days. Everyone has that one time you get a Nat 1 at a critical moment.

But guys, my party is in trouble.

They're consistently rolling terribly in combat across multiple sessions, classes, and dice types. And I mean terribly. Over time, you'd think their d20 rolls would average out to about unmodified 10, right? Plus or minus a bit. Hah. No. They're averaging about 7. Other rolls (damage, healing, etc) also often suffer from this. It's turning combat into a slog; anything with an AC of above 12-14 or so is proving awful to fight, and when attacks do hit they often do little damage.

We're all experienced players, and it's a digital platform - so I can both know they're not missing modifications to the raw d20 roll, and know it's not "bad dice". Unfortunately, they're also experienced enough to figure out ACs from misses/hits, so it's not like I can even give them "free passes" on attacks as anti-frustration measures.

It's at the point where I'm thinking the honest only way to "fix" this is to artificially nerf NPCs or vastly reduce the CR I'm used to them being able to handle. Is that really it, folks?

“In total, the Company spent an aggregate amount of approximately $125 million to repurchase approximately 1.4 million shares of its own common stock at artificially inflated prices from April 2022 to July 2022,” according to the plaintiffs, who are being represented by Sarah Maneval and Saadia Hashmi of The Brown Law Firm in New York City. Affiliated local counsel is Higgins, Cavanagh, and Cooney.

“In total, this caused the Company to overpay for repurchases of its own stock by approximately $55.9 million," the lawsuit maintains.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/41760506

https://media.dndbeyond.com/compendium-images/ua/mystic-subclasses/mrF6k4xf0yYFJL2m/UA2026-MysticSubclasses.pdf

Four subclasses:

• Monk: Way of the Mystic Arts
• Paladin: Oath of the Spellguard
• Rogue: Magic Stealer
• Warlock: Vestige Patron

As a kid and teenager in the 80's and 90's, my brother and friends used to play dungeons and dragons (Mostly adnd 2e, and my forever dm brothers homebrew rules). I got back into it again as an adult a good 35 years later, and everything sure has changed.

I originally got introduced to this kind of world when my cousin got Heroes Quest for Christmas. I remember how we would huddle around that board all that Christmas day. It kind of evolved into D&D rules, good old attributes Roll Style, 3d6 for each stat, no rerolls, and you'd better play what you get. We had this one friend who would always roll his character at home, and for some odd reason his main stat and constitution would always be 18.

I remember when I got my hands on the monstrous manual. Reading the pages, glossing over the pictures, it was magical. I used to walk to school imagining scenarios with lawful good silver dragons, and whatever campaign setting my brother had cooked up. He'd make up stories walking to school during the freezing cold winter, how the glimmers on the ice pavement were actually armies of hobgoblins, and being the naive kids we were the best wizard of the party was named Merlin and the thief was called Bilbo. This was a time before the internet, before mass media, we had three channels on our TV and to us it was pretty much all we knew.

It was impossible to talk to others about this world. We'd play through the evenings exactly like the kids in Stranger Things, huddled over a table in the basement, in an autocamper at night, sometimes only in candlelight because we didn't want our parents to know how long we were up for. We'd draw our own maps, repurpose painted Warhammer figurines, and our campaign setting built its own lore and cast of characters through the years. Occasionally normal people would come in, ask "Who's winning?", to the point that it became an in-joke to us explaining how it was not a game you could win.

Like most others around the table I was an awkward kid. I couldn't relate to the kids at school, I was bullied because I was a nerd, so I sure as hell couldn't talk to anyone about it. It felt like we were actually the only people in the world who had this interest. I think this is one of the defining differences between DND now, and back in the day. You truly felt like you were completely alone, that no one knew about it, and no one really understood. 5 years ago I got an autism diagnosis, I've been able to mask my autism really well. I think DND taught me that. The ability to roleplay, have a sandbox for different ways of expressing myself, having a friend group where obsessing over arcane rules and trying out different personalities for fun was encouraged and loved.

Today I've become a part of a DND group in my city. It's fittingly still in a basement. The people are largely the same, tolerant, welcoming, nerdy, and passionate. But the younger ones don't really hide it like we used to. The fact that I can go online, and find millions of posts and videos is still a bit surreal. The rules have changed, there are more classes, more settings, but the people are by and large the same. Same wonderful oddballs I used to roll dice with in the basement, as I listened to the DM's descriptions while fiddling with the wax in our burning candles. It feels like coming home.

Hello fellow nerds.

I'm planning the 2026 campaign for my group, and one of the drivers of the plot will be a turn war between various guilds involved in the Waterdeep docks, and the Red Sashes involved as well.

Does anyone know of any good source material or campaign books featuring warring rogue factions?

Stranger Things 5 has offended me by referencing the sorcerer class, introduced in the 3rd edition of D&D in the year 2000, while the characters would have been playing either 1st or 2nd edition in the 1980s. Having them split hairs that Will is not a wizard but more of a sorcerer feels lazy and is a further indicator that the 1980s aesthetic and the overall quality of the writing have fallen off.

Egregious.

I also don't have actual problems right now, so I guess this is what I'm doing. So, you know, bear that in mind.

Steam page

Also they can't do birds in flight, makes them too dizzy.

Follow the artist for easy access to these and future playlist;, this artist too:

The Tyranny of Dragons

Icespire Peak

Avernus the Dark

The Rise of Tiamat

Icewind Dale

Waterdeep Cults

Im trying to create a DMPC who used to be a 10th level fighter in his youth but hasn't adventured in decades. I want to weaken him in a semi-realistic way, while keeping his skills.

I was thinking of lowering his base str, dex, and con scores by 2 and increasing int, wis and, cha scores by 1 or 2. On top of this, I thought on successful attack or physical ability checks id roll a d20 dc 10 check and on a fail he would gain a point of exhaustion. Possibly increasing that dc on fails. On failed attacks or physical ability checks he'd take 1d4 damage

Obviously this is going to be weird to balance but I have a sneaking suspicion my players are going to ask this former adventurer to come on one last adventure. Relive his glory days so to speak.

They are level 5, im willing to drop his level but I want him to have been a higher level adventurer when he was in his prime. I went with the battlemaster sub class and focused all my maneuvers on assisting. Specifically:

1 Commanders strike 2 Maneuvering attack 3 rally 4 tactical assessment 5 commanding presence 6 bait and switch 7 distracting strike

Any thoughts, suggestions, criticism, or anecdotes are welcome and appreciated.

Thank you for your time

Is there any source material or canon info detailing how elves in the Forgotten Realms setting handle crime and punishment?

Hello peeps. I’m part of a small DnD 5e group that plays through Roll20 and Discord every Sunday at the mentioned time (8 to 13 GMT). It’s only 4 players and the DM, so quite tight-knit. However, one of our players has begun to attend less frequently due to life doing what life does. So, we’ve decided to try bringing in an additional person.

The person we’re looking for is an adult (our current age range is 34 to 50), that enjoys working as a team. They should enjoy a decent mix of combat and RP, with combat being a little more common than RP. They can give and take good-natured jokes, and don’t have any hard triggers.

While the campaign does not focus on any taboo or uncouth topics (Our DM is a father of 3, often playing with a newborn in his lap) we did genuinely consider slavery as a viable business choice. At the beginning of the campaign, the group found themselves caught by slavers. The rogue managed to free the group, and we quickly took ownership of the vessel. Although we did finally agree to free the captives, played with the idea of becoming slavers ourselves. Recently, we have begun developing a ring of Dwarven smugglers, spies, and thieves. The group is very much morally grey, at best.

The current characters are:

A necromancer Elf, quite dry and academic.

A paladin Half-Orc, the friendly giant of the group, illiterate, heart of gold, rarely understands what’s going on.

An illusionist wizard Human, in his 70’s or 80’s, the character owned by the player that shows up less frequently. We have canonically decided this is because he has become addicted to pixie dust (DND Meth) and wanders off for days at a time before finding his way back.

A rogue Half-Orc, military raised and very curt and direct.

If this sounds like a group you’d like to be a part of then either reply to this post, or shoot me a DM. No experience necessary. All races, creeds, genders, and beliefs welcome. We’re more interested in being able to have a laugh and play some fantasy absurdities. Most official 5e content is available for use, with Artificers being the only hard-banned class.

As a DM, my biggest complaint about the magic item shop generators online is the lack of exact price. Most come with a rarity, but I personally feel like the vast range in prices is too great for me to just plug and play. For example: I feel like a cloak of displacement is much more valuable than say a Berserker's Axe, even though they're both "Rare". So I felt like when players asked for a shop, I had to take time and read up on the item and then assign a price.

Would you use an online tool that was free (with like Google ads on side panels or something) that had associated exact prices (randomized between 75% and 125% and assigned value) that had a sliding scale based on something everyone probably has figured out for their world, like the price of a potion of Healing?

I've made a python script for my own personal use, and I'm thinking about turning it into a full web application. But I wanted to get your opinions on if this a tool you would like?

I was thinking recently that intellect devours, are a pretty easy for if you have good intelligence. On the other hand they are absolutely deadly if you have a bad intelligence score. It got me thinking, as an exercise, what other monsters are like that for the other stats?