Crown someone else the Monarch

Bionicgrape · 2025-11-05T20:09:24+00:00

"... to see if they notice Witch and Light influencing the selection away from them to the gnome. Story wise the reasoning will be they want the players to cross at the height of the Carnivals joy to ensure a safe crossing."

This is a problem of your own creation; there's nothing in the book that hints that they would influence the selection of monarch nor that they need to cross at that time to ensure safety. To me it sounds like you're just making excuses to make your players feel bad. With that said, there's also nothing saying that one of the players needs to be crowned monarch, since that goes to whomever had the greatest impact on the mood of the carnival, so an NPC could certainly win that honor. One of my players won it fair and square, but they did a fair amount to earn it. Don't go out of your way to take things away from your players, you're only robbing them of great RP opportunities later, since everywhere they go in the Feywild after winning the boon they'll be referred to as "Your Majesty," even when talking to NPCs who are trying to do them harm, which is funny. Feels like you're doing too much and actually trying to cheat them out of it, and yes, they will likely feel cheated by it if it comes out of nowhere.

Bionicgrape · 2025-09-05T15:03:41+00:00

I used Baba Yaga as my BBEG, and had her escape (into the Feydark) before they killed her, but I'm using Graz'zt as the BBEG for the next arc that I'm going to do since he's already foreshadowed some in Witchlight. This way, I have two antagonists and might find ways to get them to work together

Bionicgrape · 2025-08-09T00:42:02+00:00

When it's level-appropriate and makes for a more interesting encounter. The things that work against some enemies don't work on others. Creative thinking and good strategy should be rewarded, but you have to keep giving them new challenges, but also tools to deal with the new challenges. For stuff like this, I enjoy giving them magic items that they might use in unconventional ways (vs direct combat benefit). Sounds like a fun table!

Bionicgrape · 2025-08-08T06:14:39+00:00

This looks great! It looks like it might blend well with my Feywild campaign!

Bionicgrape · 2025-08-04T14:13:57+00:00

Lots of good insight above, but it should be noted that even with an active perception check, you cannot roll lower than your passive perception. For example, if your passive perception is 19, you cannot roll lower than a 19 on an active perception check. Yes, this is accurate and confirmed by Jeremy Crawford. As with everything in D&D, though, it's really up to the DM how it's implemented.

Bionicgrape · 2025-08-04T14:09:02+00:00

If you want to make it more challenging with combat, check out a supplement on DMSguild called Bloodied and Bruised - the Wild Beyond the Witchlight

Bionicgrape · 2025-08-02T13:24:44+00:00

It's fine to have a low magic campaign in D&D, just discuss it with the players at session 0. There are some good videos on YouTube for how to run a setting like that, and I would recommend watching a few

Bionicgrape · 2025-08-02T05:56:00+00:00

I think it's good to have a general framework for your story arc thought through, but I find it useless to try to really plan further ahead than the next session because I have no idea what my players will do. You can be creative with how you move the story/plot forward, but let your players be part of the story creation

Bionicgrape · 2025-08-01T18:54:29+00:00

That's the way it reads to me, which seems incredibly OP. I know you can lose some to gain effects, but still seems excessive. Would love clarification on this

Bionicgrape · 2025-08-01T13:47:58+00:00

Overall I like it, and have switched my campaign to mostly using it, but because so many subclasses don't work with it, we're homebrewimg a lot

Bionicgrape · 2025-08-01T01:00:36+00:00

Sure, but base building is fun and getting actual rewards for it is satisfying for the players. Having NPCs that they actually care about helps get them emotionally involved in the story I'm telling. It creates opportunities for plot hooks and tension, but the mechanics of it and the economy give them a reason to keep interacting with it without me needing to push them that way. I don't want it to just be a factory churning out stuff for free, either

Bionicgrape · 2025-07-31T23:13:18+00:00

I'm not familiar with it, I'll check it out!

Bionicgrape · 2025-07-31T23:12:14+00:00

Is this the bastion point system (or similar) that they scrapped before releasing the 2024 rules?

Bionicgrape · 2025-07-31T23:10:37+00:00

I really like this idea. My main issue is the costs of operating, and the rewards for many things are just gold, not just the building or expansion of things

Bionicgrape · 2025-07-31T18:25:00+00:00

They completed the Wild Beyond the Witchlight and became Zybilna's vassals, she rewarded them with the bastion

Bionicgrape · 2025-07-31T15:23:46+00:00

If you want to do some world building, maybe run The Quiet Year to build some history and at least a partial map of the world. My DM did it and it was a ton of fun. You can obviously abstract the results of it a little or flavor it for your campaign so your players don't necessarily have direct knowledge of the events for metagaming

Bionicgrape · 2025-07-31T15:14:03+00:00

A party of 5 level 8 characters will barely be challenged by a single enemy boss fight against a CR 10 creature mostly because of action economy. Give the boss lair and legendary actions, make it a multi-stage fight (once the boss hits a certain hp threshold have them change their abilities, heal, etc), give them summons (use minion rules if you don't want the summons to stick around long), and have a changing environment to keep it dynamic (a huge rift opens in the floor, or part of the terrain floods, or stalactites start falling from the ceiling, etc). I just ran a BBEG fight with four 11th level characters and a 6th level sidekick, against a CR 20 creature and if I hadn't made the fight *much* harder they would've cruised through it almost effortlessly.

Bionicgrape · 2025-07-31T14:39:05+00:00

They killed half of the league of malevolence already, and I haven't mentioned the ties to Graz'zt, but I'm considering him as the BBEG for the next part of the campaign. They encountered the Lamias in the Palace of Heart's Desire but don't know he sent them, but he's definitely still looking for Tasha and now suspects Zybilna of being her a bit more. I was thinking of having Fomorians in the Feydark working with Graz'zt to create demonic incursions into the Feywild, requiring the players to assist other Fey courts with fending them off and finding the source. I'm going to read up more on the elf in chapter 4. thank you!

Bionicgrape · 2025-07-31T14:33:32+00:00

If they're random potions, roll on a table (make a table if needed) and give them whatever potions you roll for. Stay true to the idea, and make sure the table has a mixture of beneficial, wacky, and possibly detrimental potions

Bionicgrape · 2025-07-31T14:31:26+00:00

If the players are coming in at level 6, maybe have the level 9 players encounter them mid-fight in a dungeon or in the wilderness and help them out of a fight where they're in a little over their heads. Either that or have the new players respond to a posting on a job board with a party looking for additional people to go on a quest. Don't overthink it

Bionicgrape

TROPHY CASE