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I'll start things off by sharing a moment I had in a campaign I'm currently part of. My character, Olim Tabassum (inspired from the Uzbek translation for 'Death Smile' hehe), is a lvl 5 warlock. As a consequence of his pact with Baalzebul, necrotic scarring forms on Olim's chest, arms, and...

SHORT VERSION Were there any instances you had real, gut-wrenching emotions while playing D&D? What happened? What were some contributing factors to why you felt as strongly as you did? LONG VERSION One of the things I like about D&D (and similar games) is how much agency we the players get...

Adding that PHB p. 204 says the following: Unless a spell has a perceptible effect, a creature might not know it was targeted by a spell at all. An effect like crackling lightning is obvious, but a more subtle effect, such as an attempt to read a creature’s thoughts, typically goes unnoticed...

Hey folks! What are your experiences with PCs is trying to discreetly cast spells like Hex and Hunter's Mark? My group typically does DEX (Sleight of Hand) checks to determine whether or not the caster was subtle enough to not be detected, but I'm curious how other tables have ruled. Cheers!

Ah, I see -- this brings up something I've always been curious about, which is why people calculate damage as averages instead of as ranges as I'd done. Are averages more indicative of 'experimental data'? Meanwhile, why are averages of d6s and d8s expressed as 3.5 and 4.5, respectively? I...

My bad! Can you break down how you got those numbers?

Thanks for the solid input folks! I think I see your points. Adding this is how I break it down now: (EDIT: the following assumes lvl 11 paladin with Improved Divine Smite) Two-handed Pali (two greatsword attacks) 4d6 + 2d8 + 6 = 12,46 Two weapon Pali (two handaxe attacks) 2d6 + 2d8 + 6 =...

I'm stoked to play a paladin or ranger someday, but I looove spellcasting and I'm concerned how I'll feel about their spell slot array. (Example: four 1st lvl spellslots and two 2nd lvl spellslots at level 5 sounds pretty limiting) As such, I'm wondering what your experiences are with these...

Hi folks. New DM here. The DMG has some info on how to configure an encounter by difficulty depending on the party size and party level, but I'm wondering what your experiences are following these parameters. Advice on what made for better/worse CR calculation is also welcome. Tangential...

Variant human is a solid choice. If it's most important that your character handle two weapons as effecitvely as possible, Dual Wielder (feat) + Two-Weapon Fighting (fighting style) are must-haves. If you can hold off on the feat until lvl 4, a Wood Elf is another great choice (hard to say...

I should've asked earlier, what specific choices are you on the fence with at lvl 1?

Yo! Welcome. I think others will offer plenty of advice on "THE BEST" TWF Dex Beastmaster Ranger*, but I'll just put out there no matter how mechanically accurate the character looks on paper, you'll still have a lot to learn about how they function in practice. This, to me, is part of the...

I don't make a distinction between min/maxing and optimizing and at the same time my group doesn't consider those terms derogatory. We end up focusing equally on character development and getting the most mileage out of the rules since both parts are an important part of our D&D experience...

Hey y'all. New DM here. I like when DM's use vivid color words to describe shade/tone and found a site which organizes color words in a cool way. Hope it's useful to the community (I plan to have this up while running the game to quickly reference, hope it works out well)...

Hey folks! I'm a first-time DM prepping for his game early next month. I was considering adding the following mechanic to one of the encounters. Let me know if it sounds fun/gimmicky/tedious. Context/setup: the players meet a wiry, old soldier--Don Raul--in their travels who's looking for...

In practice, I've been casting Darkness on my Shillelagh'ed club so it stays centered on me

You know, choosing based on AC makes a lot of sense. I do have a question about this, though: Mechanically speaking/RAW, my understanding is two blind enemies fighting each other conduct combat normally given how advantage and disadvantage cancel out. The only difference is AoO don't happen...

Hi folks, I'm unclear which does more damage in the long run: a) Casting Agonizing Blast with Hex to do 1d6 extra damage per hit b) Casting Agonizing Blast with Darkness* to shoot each beam at advantage *I confirm my warlock has Devil's Sight I understand there's a mathematical way to...

Fear spell: If I read it literally, "must take the Dash action" means they use Dash and move away 0 feet from you. And even if they do get a chance to escape, they're still doing the STR (Athletics) or DEX (Acrobatics) check at disadvantage. ("A frightened creature has disadvantage on...

I was wondering about this, actually. The 'Blinded' creature only 'fails any ability check that requires sight'; our group doesn't assume opportunity attacks are an ability check, but I was wondering if that's how they defined it somewhere. Also in general, my group agrees that RAW two blinded...