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That totally happened to me the other day! The party (and a legion of allied soldiers) was fighting an army of undead directed by two dragons, watching the battle from above and preparing to intercede in a critical moment. They (and I) thought they'd be reasonably safe at a ~250 ft altitude. But...

Not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, but I wrote a series of blog posts talking through the process of running the starter set for a new Dungeon Master. Here's a link to the first one.

Point taken, but I have no problem with optimization here. I'm just worried that my players will have to choose between an optimal path and a path that they would otherwise prefer. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I like it! That's a pretty elegant way to keep things balanced. I might start doing this. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That is something I already try to do, although it's possible I could be doing a better job. I certainly have had my fair share of players saying (for example) "crap, my Intelligence sucks!" when I ask for a History check to recall information about something that is important to them. But...

One thing that's pretty noticeable about D&D in general, and 5E in particular, is that it's often better to improve the things that you're already the best at than to shore up your weaknesses. Thus, when increasing their ability scores you'll often see your players boosting their 18 Strength to...

That's a great list! Is there any chance anyone has the Challenges of those various characters?

I got that - it's just a pain to have my players go through their spells, figure out which ones need material components, and figure out where to get them (in my world it's not super common to have stores that sell 100 gp pearls and whatnot). And the 50 GP cost to cast chromatic orb basically...

All, generally. I can see how for some games it could be a nice secondary goal to gain components for chromatic orb et al., but in mine I'd rather the Wizard not have to bother. It doesn't seem like a spell that needs a component to balance it, either - magic missil is perfectly serviceable in...

While reading a thread that mentioned the Athlete feat today, I realized that my group doesn't use the rules for jumping distances at all. That led me to wonder - what are some rules your group ignores completely? Here are some of mine: Jump distances - Usually I will either allow a...

Exactly what I was thinking! A Warlock Fiddler could take inspiration from The Devil Went Down to Georgia

@Elfcrusher: Yeah, I try to make the most of it when I can! @evilbob: Thanks, that's exactly what I was working for. I figured there was a way to cut Curse of Strahd down to the original Ravenloft, but I haven't read either so your suggestion really helps. What levels would the cut version cover?

You might consider a look at some of the Adventurers League modules, which are built for a single 4-hour session. In my experience, they vary in quality, but some are pretty strong adventures. They are set in the Moonsea region of the Forgotten Realms, so that's a plus. Here are a few...

Hi all, My college group has a tradition of, on breaks, getting together and playing through one of the published D&D games in 24 hours straight. We were actually able to make it through Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat each in 24 hours (if you're curious, here's an account of our...

That's awesome! I love the dramatic flair of Rezmir punishing her for failure, and of the villain's humanizing - and dramatic reveal upon death.

I have been running a game set in the Nentir Vale for the past 2.5 years, and I've noticed that there is a definite imbalance of skills in terms of their regular use. Here are some of the "best" skills in our game: Athletics. This one comes up a lot. The PCs will inevitably have to do a lot of...

Yeah, the climbing part in particular is insane. Pretty close to the Monk ability to run up walls, but at level 3!

Noted! How's this for a final writeup? I added Wisdom save proficiency and removed the Duelist feature to compensate; this makes the Blademaster more of a defensive foe than an offensive one (Challenge 11 offensive, 13 defensive). If you wanted to keep it balanced, you could change Constitution...

How's this for a Challenge 12 martial enemy? Bang on target. I am valuing Indominatable as worth roughly a third of Legendary Resistance, as it's not nearly as powerful. I also took the liberty of increasing both Strength and Constitution to 20 - fighters get more ASIs anyway! This could...

Hi everyone! I just posted an article on class design in Fifth Edition on my blog. It's pretty long and analytical, but folks around here seem to enjoy that stuff. I'd be curious to see what you all think of my analysis. Critique is welcome! Thanks! Koga305