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I was thinking about this recently because of Crawford's discussion on D&D Beyond about Eladrin and Shadar-kai. AL is starting to feel too constrained with the PHB +1 rule with regards to race and class selection. Zanathar's Guide was nice enough to collect spells from PotA, so I felt that a...

I like this in concept, but in practice I've found it doesn't work in my game. Usually, in a subtle social interaction, the PCs are trying to persuade a creature to let them pass without harm or convince a creature that they are not a threat. As an example a PC bard dressed in cult clothing...

With respect to 4 times per short or long rest the group I have doesn't take short rests but maybe once per 8 hour day. This depends on how comfortable they feel in the dungeon and what benefits are gained by the classes in play. In addition, the combats I've been running usually last between...

I've had one assassin in my home game and one in my AL game. The one in my AL game talked with players at the table to setup a few assassinate attempts. The player has worked to have the highest initiative, and thus can utilize the assassinate feature. The player at my home game was not...

I'll be experimenting with some ideas to help with this concern, and a concern I have that forces combat at high levels to last several rounds and hours of real time. In my experience, I've run a variety of encounters per day ranging from 4 to 6. One of my players likes to try to get full...

If I consider the following: 1. Rise of Tiamat introduced a strong dragon presence; 2. Storm Kings Thunder introduced a strong giant presence, a battle between giants and dragons, and the ring of winter; 3. The ring of winter shows up again in Tomb of Annihilation; 4. There was a lot of...

It's worth noting that unarmed strikes are weapon attacks, but not attacks with weapons. However, the hand crossbow is a one handed weapon in which the character did make an attack with. Thus to trigger the crossbow expert bonus action the hand crossbow attack will suffice. I believe the...

I do not run into characters going to zero HP. However, a mechanic I see used in the MM is the reduction of maximum HP value. Instead of adding exhaustion, would a reduction in max HP give you what you are looking for? The recovery of max HP values tends to be directly tied to a long rest...

You present some interesting ideas. With respect to moving disadvantage to wisdom, charisma, and intelligence checks I tried to think of how exhaustion feels in reality. The best example I could think of was bailing hay mid-summer. It's been several years since I've bailed hay and I didn't...

I have used a few monsters from the Tomb of Beasts in a Southlands game. The next game should use the venomous mummy, which will be interesting to see in play. After the players finish the Tomb of Tiberesh, they'll start on Gramelkin where I get to use a sand elemental creature. I also have...

I agree with much of what has been indicated. I'll add that when the orcs stop to look for the elves they may spend a few minutes (DMs judgment) looking for the elves and help each other. If that is the case an argument can be made for the orcs to use their passive perception at advantage...

As Oofta said, there are several factors that influence the effective level of a party, so a system that says "Y XP is a decent fight for a level N party" may not hold true either. My home game has one barbarian and one paladin. In calculating the encounter difficulty I consider the barbarian...

Another idea is to tie the cat and mice into a story. The first idea that came to mind was that the cat is really a were-cat from a small peninsula that has a larger population of were-cats. This particular one committed some crime and thus was permanently, until dispelled, forced into cat...

I let magic items light up darkness regardless of magic item rarity. This irritates my warlock player a decent amount, but I feel like he's come to understand Darkness is not that powerful of a spell. We did add a house rule that indicates a Daylight spell cast at a higher level than 3rd would...

As Oofta indicated the octopus can move and when it does it can move the creature that is has grappled. Depending on how interesting you want to make the encounter the octopus can grapple a creature at the extent of its reach (15-ft) and then "move" 0 or more feet pulling the character it...

I have about 37 house rules, but a few come into play regularly. Critical hits deal max die damage plus one roll of damage dice (ie. 1d6+2 critical is 8 +1d6). Rolling a 1 on the attack roll allows the player an option to miss or miss, receive 1 inspiration plus a bonus inspiration to a...

Interesting. After reading through the above ideas an additional one came to mind. If you have an idea what the next story or plot is then consider providing some foreshadowing with this fight. Some of the above responses suggested starting off with a hoard but then reducing that number in some...

In my home game I let my sorc charscter use a fireball equivalent for cold damage. We named it cryoball. I also allowed Immolation to be changed to cold damage. I don't recall the name offhand. Sent from my VS988 using EN World mobile app

Did you add a resource cost to frenzy or are you letting the barbarian increase DPR at no cost? Sent from my VS988 using EN World mobile app

I like Iserith's idea. Some key components are that you need to make the PCs aware that the alarm has been raised and then give them a few options and a few rounds or minutes to work out a plan. My players would attempt to take leadership of the kobolds through intimidation after killing the...