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This is in large part why I am concerned... I don't want to punish my party for taking these guys head-on. Our game up till now has been pretty forgiving in that sense, so I don't want them to feel blindsided by my suddenly penalizing them for not making big plans in advance. Ultimately, I want...

Hey all, So my party FINALLY reached the Elder Brain lair, and we left on the reveal of the Brain as our cliff hanger. I now have a week and a half left to fine-tune this encounter and... it's definitely looking rough for them atm. They've gone through a few encounters to get here (including a...

This is what I think I needed to hear. Thanks everyone. I keep looking at all the ways this will disrupt my party's "regular" tactics without considering the various other tricks they all have to recover. This tendency is probably why I have yet to really challenge my party with a Deadly...

Hey all, I'm finally putting together the details for a big boss fight as the end to a murder mystery my players have been sorting out. Part of the "twist" is that a tiny group of mind flayers are responsible for murder as well as several other mysterious happenings in the local town. The...

Thanks everyone for so much awesome feedback. I've been caught up in work since posting this, but I'm revisiting it now and wow y'all have some great ideas and advice. I'm loving this conceptually and mechanically. Just outright banning flying or handwaving reasons it doesn't work feels bad...

Hey all, My heroes are making their way towards my latest dungeon, and boy do I have a fun concept for this one. The dungeon is fairly run down, and initially involves a series of seemingly simple challenges, all of which feel pretty underwhelming. The heroes arrive at the McGuffin they're...

Here we are! I've drafted up a version of what I'm currently playtesting to see if this rule set accomplishes my desire to make the threat of drowning in combat present without being overwhelming. After rewatching the Critical Role episode linked above, I realized there were some things Matt...

No, I think the suggestions here offer a variety of approaches to get what I'm hoping for which is, as you said, making the drowning an actual concern in combat. I think it will take some playtesting to find the right balance between it being inconsequential or it being too punishing. I'll...

I like your approach for making RAW more exciting, and think that it's a great example of good DMing in 5e. It does highlight one of my problems with the rules as they stand though - as a DM you really have to tailor your encounters to make holding your breath even relevant. My ultimate goal is...

Everyone hates the underwater level.

This is actually what really got me thinking about this recently. I'm making my way through CR for the first time, and watched this a few weeks ago, and really liked how Mercer made underwater encounters feel more dynamic. I should give it a rewatch though and see if I can't codify his approach.

Hey folks, My party has begun a island-hopping nautical chapter in our adventures, and in prep I've been planning additional/circumstantial rules that I may not have regularly used before. One such rule/rule set is Underwater Combat. I've reread the relevant sections in the PHB, and done some...

Thanks @Stormonu and @Quartz for the advice as well. This is definitely the next step in my planning - creating a list of Details Players can Learn and Clues to Explain the Details. For clues, I'm thinking some classic things like: Murder weapon found, tracks in the surrounding area, missing...

First of all, thank you @toucanbuzz for actually reading the whole thing! 1) I think I'll plan to have some helpful PC's in place who are open to help, but the general population will be a bit suspicious of these outsiders. This can give me some control over what kind of external help is...

Hey readers, I'd love some thoughts/reactions/insight to this plot I'm creating as the next adventure for my long-form campaign. It's a bit long, so thank you in advance for anyone who's interested enough to read the whole thing! Now that I'm writing it all out, it sounds like... a lot of things...

This is likely what I'll do, yeah.

For those who are interested, here are my updated boon abilities based on advice I received here (and on Reddit where I posted similar questions) Black Dragon "The Watcher" "Watcher's Will." As an action you may invoke this boon to sharpen the minds of those around you. Choose 2 friendly...

Ooh fantastic, I hadn't thought of tweaking Turn Undead but that's perfect for this kind of boon. Our current cleric is Tempest domain, so this won't step on his toes (as his other Channel Divinity is damaging, not crowd control.) Thanks for the idea!

This is really fantastic - thanks for the idea! Luckily my party is already 10th level, so no unintentional TPK's here. As such I may use a higher level dragon "spirit" to attack them if they fail. Best part of this is they don't even need to fully defeat it to show their might, only make a...

Good question, and I apologize for not asking a more specific question originally. I'm curious if these feel fairly balanced and suitable (in your opinions) for powerful dragon-related boons. As for how the shrines work, here's a little in-world description, followed by a more mechanical one...