D&D Next - 5e Discussion

Hey today we bring you the first monster from our series D&D Monster Manifest, the Bandits. The small zine includes 10 bandit stat blocks you can use in your game. All Monster are compatible with the D&D 2014 rule set and can just be put into your game. We are working on more monsters, if you want to keep up follow us on patreon!

On the free patreon post you will also find a higher version of all the bandits present in the post. Additionally tokens and a json file including all their stats.

If you don’t know the Monster Manifest you will probably a bit confused but that is quickly resolved. You can either read the original post (which is quite long and goes very in depth) or check this quick explanation out.

In short we divide all D&D stat blocks into three categories, representing one type of fight you can run at your table: Action Stat Blocks, Tactical Stat Blocks, and Hybrid Stat Blocks.

• Tactical Stat Blocks are perfect if you’re running a fight on a grid with miniatures. Monsters have distinct roles, multiple abilities, and varied actions, giving players and DMs plenty of tactical decisions to make each round.
• Hybrid Stat Blocks work best when you want cinematic encounters with or without a grid, such as a spellcasting boss with minions or a battle that blends combat with diplomacy. They’re versatile, closer to the official style of stat blocks (natural stat blocks), and flexible enough for mixed encounter types.
• Action Stat Blocks are designed for fast-paced, theater-of-the-mind play. Ideal for hyper-escalating showdowns (like a lone bandit boss against a party of four), their numbered actions make them easy to run while keeping the focus on dynamic, cinematic action.

If you have any questions go to r/DnDMonsterManifest and make a post there. You can also join our discord server to pitch us ideas or just talk with us.

Thats that, go to the original post if you are interested in a pdf, some tokens or a 5etools compatible json that includes all of the above.

*Internal Rock studio boulders away*

Direct link to the PDF

Includes:

• Circle Of Preservation (Druid)
• Gladiator (Fighter)
• Defiled Sorcery (Sorcerer)

My mom is learning English and what she really needs is practice, thought it would me fun for her to join a campaign where her character has a broken understanding of common. so she's always on character when she asks for help.

plus, hopefully a place for her to talk to people away from whatever Facebook brain rot is giving her.

would anyone be interested in playing like that?

Hi folks, DM here.

So my party is going through Goodman Games 5e conversion of The Lost City. They are level 5.

I had them encounter a random wayward rock gnome merchant, who was seeking gems. He sold the party a Ring of Mind Shielding.

One of the effects is that, if you die while wearing it, your soul becomes embedded in the ring. If there is a soul in the ring, it can communicate telepathically with its wearer.

I decided, on a lark, after they looted it, that there would already be a soul in the ring, making it a sentient item of sorts. However, when they asked me who, I stuttered for a second and named one of the "dead gods" of the campaign, Usamagarus. Who is the missing god of magic, wisdom, knowledge, etc. And, I decided to roleplay him as a senile, forgetful wizard, also on a lark when they tried to communicate with him. He claims he committed suicide voluntarily after he stopped being worshipped.

Okay, now I need ideas. You're a senile wizardry God type character that's been trapped in a ring for 700 years. I won't goals, quirks, etc. assuming he has real no interest in being reincorporated.

So far I've mostly been pondering mannerisms, playing grampa Simpson "back in my day" stuff.

Anyway, should be fun 😊

This map pack features 120 total map tiles that are split into two themes - Forgotten Caves and Ancient Temple. There are transition tiles included to connect both themes.

Each map is aligned to the center of the x-axis, y-axis, or both, which you can use to mix and match the maps. The tunnels match in size and placement, allowing for easy connection!

Download the first 5 tiles for free here.

Welcome to the Black Briar Orphanage, a solemn home for lost and unwanted children. It features a two-story manor surrounded by tall pine trees and briars. To visitors, however, something seems off about this place-- the light never reached the corners of the rooms, dolls moved, toys disappeared. Let your players uncover the mysteries of this orphanage.

This map includes two floors. The first floor features a large dining hall, classroom, library, an office, and much more. The second floor includes bedrooms, play rooms, a large classroom and more!

This pack also features nighttime, ruined, winter, city, and drow variations.

Download the map for free here.

A few weeks ago, we received the first printed copies of Eberron: Forge of the Artificer. At first, everything looked great and met our production standards. But as time passed, a serious issue emerged: the covers began to warp. This was a defect that developed after production and wasn’t visible during initial inspection.

After reviewing the full scope of the problem, we made the tough decision to recall and reprint the entire physical run. No copies with this defect will be shipped to customers. This is a complete reprint, not a patch job—and we believe that’s the right call.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/2019-an-important-update-on-eberron-forge-of-the

Not entirely sure what this means other than sounds like they're looking to farm out all the work to 3rd parties rather than developing in house. So I guess we'll see....

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/30353842

Hi everyone, just wanted to announce our upcoming Modular Map Tiles—a solution to the limitations of static, one-size-fits-all battlemaps.

We’ve created a collection of over 50 high-quality, modular tiles that can be mixed and matched to create endless dungeon layouts. Each tile is designed with a wide variety of features, including corridors, rooms, traps, treasure vaults, and more—giving you the tools to customize the dungeon as you see fit.

What You Get:

• 50+ Modular Tiles: A diverse collection of over gridded and gridless 50 tiles with more to come, designed to fit together seamlessly.
• 2 Unique Themes: Featuring an Ancient Temple and Forgotten Caves
• High-Resolution 4K Tiles: Print-ready and digital-use friendly, all tiles are available in 4K resolution.

Sign up now to be notified when we launch!--

With GF9 no longer having the license, and Wizards having nothing on the market for 2024, does anyone know of any printable Spellbook cards?

Apparently chris perkins announced his retirement from WotC today.

Deep in the dense woods stands an elegant mansion, its windows gleaming in the moonlight like eyes filled with secrets. From the outside, it looks uninhabited, drawing many travelers and wanderers to its abode. As night falls, this mansion reveals its true form as a hungry, ravenous mimic, and devours those who sought refuge within its walls.

Welcome to another mimic map, this time featuring a grand mansion with furnished rooms and walls, made to seem like a typical house of that sort. When night falls, the mimic reveals itself and a terrifying race to escape ensues.

Warning: This map will terrorize and haunt your players with trust issues for months, use at your own caution!

These maps come with day/night versions, three variants, and PNG tokens to give you full flexibility with how you want to use this map.

You can download these maps for free here.

Want to see more maps? Check out my entire map archive here.

I posted a rumor link on this last night, and removed it because I wasn't sure of the source; looks like we have a firm source about it now, though, guess project sigil is effectively dead.

The PCs will soon be entering their first "Megadungeon". And I want to emphasize how dangerous this environment is - not by throwing them into meatgrinder fights, but by having them come across the remains of earlier adventurers who died horribly. And I could use some suggestions from others!

Here are the rules:

First, describe the scene - whatever the PCs are seeing.

Second, describe what actually happened in case the PCs investigate and make some successful skill rolls, use divinatory magic, and so forth. Here is an example:

1. The PCs come across a chain mail which has seen some battle damage but is largely intact, as well as the blade of a handaxe. Both are covered by a thin green-white residue. Searching further, they come across a belt buckle and a small number of coins, all of which are likewise covered in residue.

(A gelatinous cube came across the body of an adventurer, digested everything organic, and left the metal parts behind.)

Thee Dungeon Master's Guide (2014) is full of little tidbits of wildly varying quality. Amongst these oft forgotten rules is a little section called Handling Mobs. Now we have all been there, when our players have levelled up and we want to run an encounter against a horde of low levels mooks to really show off how much more powerful they are now. Running such an encounter with the standard rules would be slow and tedious, having to resolve rolls for potentially dozens of enemies. And that is where the DMG advice comes from.

To put it simply, the DMG solves this problem by removing rolling entirely. Obviously I as a dungeon master love to roll dice just as much as the players, but these sorts of combats, rare as they are, are a happy exception. What the DMG instead suggests is to use a lookup table which links the minimum die roll needed for an enemy to hit (effectively the targets AC minus the attackers' attack bonus) with the number of attackers required to make a single hit. Confused? Yes I was too at first. The example provided clears it up though:

For example, eight orcs surround a fighter. The orcs’ attack bonus is +5, and the fighter’s AC is 19. The orcs need a 14 or higher to hit the fighter. According to the table, for every three orcs that attack the fighter, one of them hits. There are enough orcs for two groups of three. The remaining two orcs fail to hit the fighter.

Running a combat of level 12 players against dozens of skeletons with these rules was shockingly smooth, with the hardest part being coordinating which mooks to move where. The players similarly had a great time here, we used the DMG optional cleave rule to boost melee attacks and of course, as expected, in this encounter AoE spells are king.

I don't think it is a perfect solution though. It does not provide any advice for handling mob HP, which would get tedious very quickly. I was fortunate in that I was using a VTT so tracking the odd skeleton that somehow survives wasn't too bad. If I were running it with pen and paper then I would probably use a combined HP pool, similar to how MCDM's Draw Steel game does for its minions.

Additionally Advantage/Disadvantage isn't touched on here. I defaulted to +/- 5 on the target number if all the creatures making the attack would have (dis)advantage, but I was tempted to just ignore it as the cases of it applying uniformly are few and far between. I don't love doing that since the advantage system is a core gameplay mechanic, and many player abilities work around getting advantage or giving disadvantage. But I fail to see a simple way to handle it without splitting individuals from the mob to be resolved separately, which is exactly what not to do.

But overall I think this is a great ruling that I don't think many people discuss when handling mass combat. What are everyone else's thoughts on it? Are there homebrew systems you like more? And does 5e2024 do anything different?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/26179718

• Artificer class
• Cartographer subclass
• Dragonmark feats, including origin feats, level 4+ feats and epic boons.

I've been thinking on some changes for counterspell, for dnd and any other rpg that has counterspell.

My thought is moving counterspell from a spell into a game mechanic.

If a creature casts a spell that you also have the ability to cast that day, you can expend an appropriate spell slot to unravel their spell and counter it.

So just about anyone can counterspell but does limit it to creature that have spell slots. It makes casters think more about encounters that might come up that day and also push them to choose more obscure spells that are less likely to be countered.

Any thoughts? Arguments for or against? Other ideas you've tried?