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My party met Ezmeralda briefly in an encounter that I had set up to foreshadow that she could be an important ally. A few sessions later, they accepted Strahd's initial dinner invitation... which I played out as a courteous-but-ominous event, rather than a trap. They loudly proclaimed their...

SPOILERS, obviously... although I've tried to obfuscate them a bit. Yep, total meat grinder for my party. We "finished" the campaign some time back, with a TPK against Rahadin. By that time, however, they'd visited every major adventure site and most of Castle Ravenloft itself. The group had...

I only allow Long Rests in safe settlements for balance reasons, not for verisimilitude. Let's take an example: the classic module X4 Master of the Desert Nomads. Although it could be a whole bunch of other modules; most of the Dragonlance saga, many Mystara or Dark Sun modules, really anything...

I do a similar thing. My players have an expectation to manage their resources appropriately (i.e. they cannot rely on a short rest after every fight). To paraphrase: if they won't go to the next room, the next room will go to them. Reinforcements will arrive, wandering monsters will show up...

As with Quickleaf above, I use Medicine frequently for knowledge and investigation checks. How did that corpse die? The DC varies based on the age and state of the body, but this can provide critical information about the sorts of creatures that might be found nearby. Outside stabilizing a...

There are a variety of realms and pantheons based in the Outlands. I'd suggest a short arc (2-4 sessions) based in one of these locations, to give them a feel for the incredible variety available in the multiverse. My personal choice would be Tir Na Og, the realm of the Celtic pantheon. Here...

6d4+4 (if you house-ruled mass healing word so that it could target the same creature 6 times) vs 3d8+4 (for cure wounds) is, on average, only a 2 hp improvement... but I think you may be forgetting the key benefits of healing word and mass healing word. They're ranged healing spells, instead of...

I was wildly enthusiastic about it as a DM and reader. Huge sandbox! Underdark! Non-linear storyline! Demon lords! Interesting and whimsical NPCs! It seemed a huge improvement after grinding through endless dungeons in Princes of the Apocalypse. The first few sessions bore out my enthusiasm. The...

Volo's Guide to Monsters adds new giant variants for the six above. These include a new hill giant (CR6), stone giant (CR10), cloud giant (CR11), frost giant (CR12), fire giant (CR14) and storm giant (CR16). The toughest of them, the Storm Giant Quintessent, is a nightmare in its own lair. It...

Terrific article as always. Quick correction: the picture for the Sohmien and the Neverwinter Nightmare near the end of the article are reversed. Also, one additional early appearance of the nightmare is in the Official Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Coloring Album (1979), written by Gary Gygax...

I've DM'ed all of them. Amusingly, my groups TPK'ed in the "final encounter" of three of these (Curse of Strahd, Princes of the Apocalypse, Hoard of the Dragon Queen). They finished 80% of Phandelver, and we're still early days in Storm King's Thunder. Of all the campaigns, only Out of the...

Death is "just right" in 5e for my group's tastes. Here are some stats... We play every Thursday night for 5 hours, and once every two weeks on a Saturday for 6 hours. That means we play, on average, 8 hours a week. Every week; since the release date of 5e. We have seven regular players (six in...

I've had good success with firearms just using the rules in the 5e DMG (pages 267-268). The stats there are basically similar to what you're proposing above. A renaissance era pistol is 1d10 piercing (average 5.5; 0.5 more than average of 2d4), loading, range 30/90. A musket is 1d12 piercing...

It's an optional rule. If you think it's broken, either house-rule it (as the DM) or talk to your DM about it. I house-rule it in my games (as the DM). I require a successful attack roll... and then an opposed Athletics/Acrobatics roll, with the suggested modifiers for size and two-handedness...

Oh, I totally agree. :-) Played optimally, Old Bonegrinder is a TPK for any group of 3rd level characters, virtually guaranteed. Heck, I think it's a TPK for 4th and 5th level characters (played truly optimally). If the party doesn't have magic or silvered weapons, they have to chew through...

I really like this approach as well. It couldn't work in my campaign, because my players witnessed Morganthe actually snatching a kid. They knew what she was up to. The party fighter is basically a paladin, the cleric is a devout fellow, the rest are all good-aligned. There could be no deals...

SPOILERS ... So, firstly, the party was 6x 3rd level PCs, and they had a good balance of classes. Barbarian, fighter, monk, druid, cleric, warlock. All experienced gamers with competent builds (not optimized, but still pretty good). No magic items at all. Not even a potion of healing. I tend...

In the Dragonlance setting, Takhisis (Queen of Darkness) is usually identified with Tiamat. They both have a five-headed chromatic dragon form, and they're both considered the Queen of Evil Dragonkind. In the Dragonlance series of novels, the home of Takhisis is repeatedly identified as the...

2e literature (e.g. Planescape) had some of the non-evil lawful gods actively aiding the baatezu (i.e. devils) in the Blood War. 3e literature (e.g. Fiendish Codex II) broadened this into a discussion of Asmodeus' role in divine politics. 4e promptly changed a lot of this lore, and now 5e seems...

To get this thread back on the track of "any ideas about the listed vestiges?"... Shalx (listed on one of the tombs) could be a variant of Shax, who was one of the vestiges listed in Tome of Magic. Also, some of the names could be variants for other vestiges or entities from D&D lore. Look at...