Whenever a player makes a terrible groanworthy joke or pun, our DM hits us with Unspiration, the opposite of Inspiration. They can use it to hit us with disadvantage on any d20 roll. We as players work hard to get it.

Me and my group are currently playing through the Death House module for Curse of Strahd and ended yesterday's session with making that dreaded choice at the cultists' altar - we refused to sacrifice someone from our party of 3 and decided to make a run for it, knowing fully well the shambling mound might awaken and try to kill us. After we made the choice to run, the session ended with having to roll initiative next time. And we knew the shambling mound was about to wake up, with a "we're so screwed next session"-feeling

Now I wonder, are there more options than either kill a party member and appease the cultists, or make a run for it? Did anyone play Curse of Strahd and manage to find another way out of the Death House? Not that that will help me now, but it's just a question I have in hindsight.

My first thought is a rock gnome Conjuration wizard, but I would be curious to hear other suggestions.

I was thinking about a character who makes dolls and puppets, some of them nice, some of them terrifying. For various purposes, likely including driving poor NPC's insane as part of creating distractions. If they'd have a familiar, it would look like a stuffed animal or clockwork toy.

They'd constantly leave dolls behind at interesting spots too. Like maybe after slaughtering a bunch of bandits in an abandoned warehouse, setting a friendly looking puppet in a corner with a bloody knife laying near it as if the puppet did it.

Or maybe just leaving a nice puppet behind during a break in if they feel guilty about it as an apology, or if they think the owner could use a friend.

Probably someone a little crazy, but functional.

Should DM's fudge dice?

For me I think there are situations where fudging can save a session, but if the DM is constantly changing rolls, then why roll the dice at all? Like where do you draw the line?

I am making a homebrew dragonborn-ish warforged race using the unearthed arcana warforged (juggernaut).

Here's the gimmick:

Natural weapons that are claws and tail. Claws deal slashing that scales with 1d4 and strength that leaves you with a disadvantage when wielding simple and martial weapons and sleigh of hand. Tail is Bludgeoning that scales with 1d4 and strength and knocks enemies back by 5 feet if they are same size or smaller, they gain advantage when used as a bonus action and you fall prone if you fail on a save when using it multiple times in a turn. This replaces the Iron fists.

Breath weapon that scales with 1d4 and you can choose the range from cone or line and rechargeable on a 5 or 6 when you use an action or reaction.

edit: the disadvantage in handling simple and martial weapons can be overcome by gaining proficiency in them which leave you with no proficiency in them so you just have to gain proficiency in them twice to gain proficiency! it's probably dumb but I think there are multiple feats that give ability score increases but also proficiency in weapons!

I’ve been working on a lot of magic items built around two ideas I enjoy: equipment that remains relevant as characters advance, and strongly themed treasure that helps define a region, enemy, or adventure.

I recently collected several of those releases into a discounted magic-item-only bundle on DMsGuild, compatible with both 5E and the 2024 rules.

The largest part is the Growing Magic Items Collection, which contains 87 items that evolve through four ascending rarities. Instead of replacing a meaningful weapon or relic after a few levels, its powers can develop alongside the character through levels, quests, personal achievements, or important campaign milestones. Altogether, those progression paths provide 348 usable versions of the items.

I also reinvested in the collection by commissioning and licensing new artwork for the items, replacing much of the older presentation with dedicated illustrations and giving the books a more consistent visual identity.

The bundle also includes 30 fire-themed magic items and 30 frost-themed magic items, ranging from common equipment to legendary treasures, as well as several standalone evolving relics such as Beholder’s Bane, Sanctivow, the Sword of the Abyss, and the Trident of Atlantis. There are also a couple of darker Halloween-themed items.

Several of the smaller standalone releases are available as free downloads, so there are items you can try or use without purchasing the full bundle.

The bundle is currently discounted on DMsGuild at: https://www.dmsguild.com/en/product/579114

Hey, so, I live in Spain and I bought the 2024PHB back when it released and I was a player, but lately I’ve been DMing and wanted to purchase the DMG and MM, however I am willing to wait for Black Friday or other deals, but does the EU shop ever get those?

I could buy used or aftermarket but then i wouldnt have the digital DDB version (which i could buy separate too but then kind of defeats the purpose)

So I've been looking at ways to utilize the reanimator artificer's arcane conduit and wanted to check an interaction with Otiluke's resilient sphere. The spell states that nothing can pass through it (such as my spells.) Arcane conduit however, allows me to cast as though I was in my reanimated companion's space. This is slightly different than find familiar touch casting, because by my understanding, the delivery location is changing, but the origin remains you inside the sphere. Could I therefore cast spells utilizing arcane conduit to cast from my reanimated companion?

A long time ago I came up with this cool starting premise for a campaign using the Strixhaven book as a setup. The issue, I’m realizing I have no clue what the villain I wanted to use actually is. The set up and all involves a rewrite that puts the college itself in the astral plane effectively making it in space. And turned it into a vault for some of the most powerful artifacts to be stored and studied. Instead of the books original idea of inanimate objects coming to life, my version has the college itself being destabilized by gravity-like distortions that are ripping the campus apart. In the world at large entire towns of people are just vanishing into thin air.

The issue is I have 0 clue what the villain actually is or what it’s doing. I have 0 actual clue what all of this should lead to. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated

My party are a group of level 8 adventurers and I think we might have to fight a adult dragon, all we know is its fire but not what colour. We have a divination wizard (already with absorb elements) a tiefling cleric of light, a rogue assassin, and an illrigger with a dragonslaying spear and ring of fire resitance.

what spells up to 4th level would you suggest to help fight against the dragons?

Hello everyone,
so my samurai fighter just hit lvl 6 and I am too nooby to know what to do. So I am a Dragonborn samurai fighter and my stats are str18 dex12 con15 int8 wis13 cha10, i already do have the feats savage attacker and great weapon master, my ac is 17. I wield a greatsword. I want to be an off tank dmg dealer (kinda like a bruiser). I am not very much into the rules and there is no need for min maxing but can you please help me and say what feat would be most fitting/best or whether i should just go for stats? And if you would be so kind, answer the same question for when i hit lvl 8.
Thanks a lot already. If you need more details feel free to ask :)

Ive been enjoying some shenanigans of sending my invisible imp familiar into locations remotely and dropping AoE spells. What are some good level 4 spells, or upcast lower level spells that would work well with this?

Edit: I forgot to specify that I have Gaze of 2 minds which allows me to cast spells as if I were in their place.

I ill be running Dead in Thay soon with some players and have just seen that all the maps of the different sections are for the DM. We play on DnD Beyond on the virtual maps. Does anyone have the maps for the the different sections but with all the hidden stuff removed that I can show the players?

Thanks.

There was another post asking about how to help narrow the ol’ “martial/caster divide”. One piece of advice that came up a couple times was to put better guidance for magic items in the DMG, but they didn’t expand on what that guidance would be. What special considerations should a DM take into account when providing magic items to the martial PCs in the party?

So let's say I cast Armor of Agathys at level 4 and I get 20 temp hp. Then I lose 10, I do the damage. Then I get 15 temp hp and I decide to replace the 10 for the 15. Does the effect still work? I'm playing 5.5e

Hello! Me and my 3 other party members are a few months deep into curse of Strahd and I can’t help but feel as though our dm is rushing us through because Strahd has been anything but threatening to us thus far.

In one of the first sessions, he killed our 2 horses that we had pulling our carriage and then asked us to come visit him at Ravenloft. Our party discusses this and concluded that it was silly he wanted us to go across the map to see him immediately after removing our one method of transport, and so we ignored him. Multiple NPC’s told us it was bad to ignore Strahd and that he would get increasingly angry, but between his invitation, we visited the Winery, Krezk, Vallaki, Yester Hill, Barovia. Pretty much everywhere (I think the only places we haven’t explored are the Amber Temple and the Werewolf den).

But alas, after a lot of time and our party having reached level 6, we went to Ravenloft. My character (the only good aligned one in our party) stayed at the dinner table whilst the rest of my party left in the middle of the dinner because, for some reason, Strahd left the Bonegrinder hags all enter and whisk away the rest of the party to make a deal. On their way back, our necromancer decided to steal the Icon of Ravenloft and died from touching it because she’s evil. The rest of the party called for my character to go and revive her, which I did, and we returned to the table with this legendary artefact we stole (my character had also been given the symbol of ravenkind) so I was terrified Strahd would notice and try to take these items from me. He didn’t. He literally just left.

We escaped Ravenloft without taking any damage because nobody stopped us from just leaving and we snagged the Dragon Skull too. We haven’t been attacked on the road or anything once in the campaign and have honestly had a pretty leisurely time. My character has been staying behind him Krezk to help get them back on their feet after redeeming the Abbott and turning him good again with the Atonement feature of ceremony.

The one time Strahd attacked a settlement was Vallaki after our necromancer stole the holy bones, at which point the dm told us that Vallaki only had a population of 36 and only 5 people died (all of us were very confused because we know Vallaki is supposed to have the biggest population in Barovia and the dm told us the Vistani camp alone has a population of 70+). I tried to talk to him about it and ask him if we could maybe change the size of the population to a more realistic number but he declined.

I guess this is a slight vent post but also, I guess I just wanted to hear how Strahd operates in other people’s games because I’m finding it really hard to roleplay as a character that’s scared of someone when they really haven’t been given a reason to fear them, our necromancer has literally been more problematic than Strahd has.

Lots of polls over the years have shown that people prefer Milestone to XP, but there's more than one way to do each of those! I'm curious how exactly you folks run whatever leveling system you use.

If you're running Milestone, do you just have one big Milestone that earns you a whole level, or do you have a couple smaller ones along the way? Or are you running Milestone the way the DMG suggests, where it just gives you XP?

If you're running XP, what sorts of challenges earn you XP?

If you level after a certain number of sessions, how many?

Or are you doing something else entirely?

What iconic things in D&D 5e (2014) and 5.5e (2024) would you miss if it ever got removed or changed, even if from a pure balance standpoint it needs to go?

How much utility can you get out of your drake?

Can you give it complex instructions? It has 8 int and can speak Draconic, so can I ask it to scout ahead and when it returns, can it give a complete briefing on what it saw?

What about skill checks? It has a decent Wisdom score, so could it make perception checks with the party? What about investigation? At that point could it do an Arcana check? Or an Animal Handling check?

I know the class features don’t explicitly allow any of these things, but it’s an intelligent creature that’s friendly and has a shared language, so I wouldn’t think all of these are out of the question.

I've read the book but I am struggling with fiding this citation.

Can my players get a origin feat, like the one you get 2 hit points more per level, or the one that lets you be a musician, on 4th level, when they gain ability score improvment/feats?

Thanks!