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Personally, my favorite of all the campaigns was campaign 1. The maps were hand drawn, the rules knowledge by most of the players was spotty at best (Though Mercer was generally spot on) - but it was just brought with such fresh faced and fun energy. There was a blip in the first series of...

Looking at the 2 (Legacy and 2024) stat blocks side by side - the Legacy one says "On a failed save, the creature magically begins to turn to stone and is restrained." The 2024 one says "First Failure: The target has the Restrained condition and repeats the save at the end of its next turn if...

I wonder if conjure minor elementals is involved - the 2024 version is over the top when upcast. For example, if it was up when the fight started (duration is 10 minutes so easily could be) and upcast to say, 7th level - that's 8d8 extra - per attack.

Will have to see how that plays out. That said, if the point of giving the monsters higher initiative was to add some more challenge to fights - having that negated by 1 uncommon magic item (among the whole party), is pretty silly.

Giving every member of the party an effective +5 (what advantage is roughly worth) on initiative is pretty big no matter how you do it! I can think of any number of recent combats where the situation would have changed drastically if that had been present.

Well, the 2014 version made the entire party immune to surprise - which while ridiculous was somewhat niche. The 2024 version makes the party immune to surprise in the 2024 rules (by negating the disadvantage to initiative, the only effect of 2024 surprise) but provides a very non-niche benefit...

Oh I don't know, there were a lot of valuable insights provided by the OP: Viscous weapons punch well above their rarity and the DM needs to think about allowing them. Allowing both purchase and crafting or even either, in the middle of a published adventure can be problematic for the...

Yeah, there are some uncommon items that punch WAY above their level. Such as a weapon of warning - which (2024) gives advantage on initiative to all allies within 30 feet and also essentially acts as a sentry, waking up any allies if there is a fight breaking out. You only need 1 in the party...

No, I said if the module assumes only access to the items in it (or thereabouts) but ALSO allows room for crafting items you're going to have an imbalance. I'm not blaming the DM, I'm saying that it's essentially a hidden rake for the DM to step on - which is possibly bad design.

I went a little crazy and got the 50' cable, you know, in case I need to plug in from 2 rooms away.

The passage is actually quite confusing. It starts off fine "Adventurers sometimes discover large caches of treasure, the accumulated wealth of a large group of creatures or the belongings of a single powerful creature that hoards valuables. The Random Treasure Hoard table can help you create...

Sure, but then the DM needs to think of other downtime money drains like bastions. Or the crafting can quickly escalate. Which is fine, but the DM will then need to adjust. Not advocating the DM be super stingy, just that they come at it eyes open and know what they might be getting themselves...

There ARE some special circumstances in this case. Per @ECMO3 the DM was running the module "as is" as a bit of a 2024 stress test. The whole point there is to not modify the encounters to see how the party does. And if the answer is 5e modules (3rd party and or WoTC) are way too easy "as is"...

Is that true for most modules though? Most modules spell out EXACTLY what each set monster will have as loot. If the module's underlying expectations are that the group will mostly stock with these items, but there is also room/time/money for crafting and purchasing items, your very likely to...

If the DM is running published adventures, there is a point though. If the published adventures encounters are designed with no magic items in mind, but a plethora of magic items are available to skew difficulty? that's the fault of the module (though, in this case, that's not WoTC). I also...

Crafting items takes both time and money, something the DM is usually in full control of. Common and uncommon items don't require much investment, but it cranks up pretty significantly from there. I'd say as big or even bigger, is allowing the purchase (and giving the group the means to do so)...

Probably, one of the things I like is watching 5e used in an enjoyable way. I'll see how much I like Daggerheart. Though at this point, I'm so far behind it's mostly theoretical anyway!

2024 martials got a pretty big boost across the board, especially the fighter and the monk. Casters didn't get as big a boost, but they certainly didn't get nerfed. IMO, I like the changes. But it means you have to buff up the encounters too, or, yeah, running them over seems even more likely.

I know you don't use published adventures, but if you want to yoink a fun beholder scenario, take a look at the final encounter in Turn of the Fortunes Wheel (the 5e Planescape adventure). It's set in the realm of a beholder god, with much of what that implies. The god even taunts the PCs as...

It's actually been nerfed a lot! 2024 surprise just means surprised PCs/foes are likely to to go later in the round. 2014 surprise meant they wouldn't get to go at all the first round, meaning anyone with high initiative would likely go twice before the surprised party could go at all. As...