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Charisma is more correctly equated to "force of personality", a measure of your sense of self. The ability to "fill the room" simply by being there. That might be physical attractiveness, cunning wit, or an overbearing presence. It's the same reason D&D tieflings get Cha boosts - they know who...

Go figure. The fighter PC in my game just leveled up last month and we decided he could take the fighter Monster Hunter subclass. Not gonna be happy that its a Ranger gig now... :)

There's a ton of useful stuff in there, whether you use Strahd as the plot or not. Villains, creepy locations, check. Monsters - nothing too unusual, it's all gothic horror themed, so werewolves, zombies, vampires, Frankenstein, ghosts, etc - but the story makes VERY good use of them. The...

Hi all, I'm looking for a puzzle or maze that involves portals somehow. My PCs are heading into the domain of a deity of Portals/Doorways/Thresholds/etc, and looking for a dungeon-esque thing they have to solve to basically find their way from the front door of his temple to the "inner...

I disagree with the view that this is powergaming of some sort. The player took that craft to represent the character's previous skills and life before becoming an adventurer. It's completely realistic to expect that having proficiency with jewelry allows him to increase the value of jewelry...

As noted, the "daylight" in Barovia isn't actual "sunlight" because it is perpetually overcast and foggy, that's why it doesn't count in regards to vulnerabilities. However, there are a couple of other sources of "sunlight" within the valley, notably the sunsword, which by-pass this and do...

I don't have a tweet or interview to cite, but as far as "WotC precedent" goes, there's an example from Perkins' DCA game where removing a curse required more than just "cast convenient spell". I'd say spoilers, but the episode is like a year old now, so whatever. One of the characters made a...

Demi-human specialty priests advancement, level caps, etc is all in the "Demihuman Deities" book, which details the FR pantheons for dwarves, elves, gnomes, halflings, and drow. For example, dwarves cap out at level 10 for clerics but 14 for specialty priests. Dwarven specialty priests don't...

Thanks all fort he great input! That's kind of the direction I was leaning, tying it to alignment rather than geography - since the two are connected anyhow, but with alignment the distance is a little more forgiving. That helps play up the alignment theme of the setting as well, with only...

One of the peculiarities of Planescape is how geographical location determined your level in regards to divine spells - an 8th level cleric who was five planes away from their deity's realm (as counted on the Great Wheel) would cast spells as a 3rd level cleric. While there are Fluff Reasons for...

You have to think about who the NPCs are and the consequences of the PCs actions. Izek is not just Random Bad Guy #14, he's the captain of the town guard and the Baron's bodyguard. Good or evil, bad things happen when you kidnap someone like that! In this case, as mentioned above, the Baron...

Since Strahd is technically the only one with the power to let people through the mists, the players can deal with him rather than killing him. The Vistani can spill the beans on that. Maybe the players approach Strahd and ask "What'll it take for you to let us out..." Or maybe Strahd appears...

It's obvious you've put a lot of thought and creativity into this, which is awesome! However, I'm going to echo hastur_nz's comment not to over-plan this. I made that mistake, and wasted hours upon days upon weeks planning out stuff that my players never did anything with. For instance, early...

I am very intrigued by this idea, as a DM who is looking at starting a PS campaign. The plus/minus rules from 2e for spells and magic items are way more bookkeeping than either me or my players are interested in. However, thematic "quirks" is something I'd be totally on board with! Some...

The trouble with trying to total up the XP earned from defeating baddies in one of those adventures is it assumes you actually found them all. I have never run an adventure yet, 5e or otherwise, where the players found every single person/trap/room/situation in the module that awarded XP...

In our campaign they are only going once - for the final showdown. That was the player's choice though, they purposely stayed away, feeling they weren't strong enough to tackle it yet (whether that was true or not). However, I would have been fine if they went multiple times. It's really up...

Any perceived lack of magical items just means they have to find ways of resolving situations besides "kill the bad guy". But, yes, there are magical weapons and potions and whatnot. Like Pukunui said, cash is hard to come by. I solved this by running the economy on a barter system. I don't...

He was our ally as well. I had the players meet him in Vallaki, but he kept his disguise. he DID tell them some lore about the valley, and interpreted some of their other card results, using the guise of a "travelling collector of stories, this is stuff I've picked up along the way and by...

Matt Colville is a guy I recently found on YouTube, who does a number of really great vlogs about DMing and running a game. There's some campaign diary stuff in there as well which has broadened my DM horizons quite a bit. Worth checking out!

@DEFCON - it's funny, I totally did the opposite. I just picked three or four threads that interested ME, and dropped those plot hooks to my players. Of course if they did other things the other stuff was there, but I didn't emphasize it. For instance, I really wanted them to follow up on the...