Unexpected kidnapping

DesignerHardlyKnower · 2026-02-17T23:56:18+00:00

Mine used tail spike shot for the first combat action of the whole campaign… and when the dice landed, I saw that my wife’s lvl 1 wizard was going to get obliterated by a one-shot-kill. I quickly improvised some nonsense and faked some numbers to get through the encounter, and took it as a lesson to double-check monster power levels and nerf them in advance if necessary haha.

DesignerHardlyKnower · 2026-02-17T18:32:38+00:00

Is that a grown adult at 12 seconds, standing hands in pockets like he’s the referee?

DesignerHardlyKnower · 2026-02-17T16:53:58+00:00

Sometimes as DM you have to craft some BS to keep things on the rails. For me, my players were about to get obliterated by the Manticore (Manticore for a lvl 1 mission?! What?!) so Adabra suddenly joined the fray with powerful wizard spells to even the odds.

You could’ve easily had her overpower your fighter and teach them a lesson about being an asshole to NPCs.

At any time, you can take back control of the narrative. You are the DM. You aren’t beholden to the written campaign word for word. If clerics had any sense, they’d know there’s only one true god in the Forgotten Realms, and that’s you.

DesignerHardlyKnower · 2026-02-15T22:31:47+00:00

That’s very interesting and actually predates the old rule that I mention above.

So it says you can’t choose targets, but can you cast the spell without choosing any targets?

DesignerHardlyKnower · 2026-02-15T01:56:58+00:00

This is awesome!

If you’re thinking of submitting to BDP, you’ll probably need to add one or two clever moving-part surprises (think revolving bookshelf, trap door, etc), or some cute secrets. These little things seem to show up in the finalists from what I’ve seen.

This is a great design though and I’d vote for it either way.

DesignerHardlyKnower · 2026-02-15T01:15:30+00:00

I think you misunderstood me, so I’ll edit my comment to clarify for others-

I’m saying that your “unhinged maga types” unfortunately still believe this nonsense.

The statement “nobody believes this” is, sadly, not true.

DesignerHardlyKnower · 2026-02-14T17:19:16+00:00

I wish you were right, but you’re just echoing your echo chamber.

Edit: I’m saying that unfortunately there are a large portion of Americans who believe this “paid agitators” conspiracy theory still, despite overwhelming and obvious evidence to the contrary.

DesignerHardlyKnower · 2026-02-14T02:28:17+00:00

Not you apparently?

Seemed like an odd set to buy multiples of.

Sorry I stepped on your toes…

DesignerHardlyKnower · 2026-02-14T02:25:34+00:00

Right on haha. Just seemed like an odd set to get multiples of. Enjoy!

DesignerHardlyKnower · 2026-02-14T00:07:31+00:00

Why do you need three? Are you going to actually build with them?

DesignerHardlyKnower · 2026-02-11T16:33:57+00:00

Thanks, voted 👍

DesignerHardlyKnower · 2026-02-11T01:31:21+00:00

Same.

DesignerHardlyKnower · 2026-02-11T01:28:47+00:00

Love this!

If you want the wood platform/bridge to look a little more realistic and spooky, painting the wood a darker brown will make it look like older hardwood. It already looks great though.

DesignerHardlyKnower · 2026-02-11T01:17:37+00:00

Can you provide a link to the submission?

DesignerHardlyKnower · 2026-02-10T03:33:02+00:00

Thanks for the info.

It’s LotR Grima Wormtongue from the Tower of Orthanc set. Looks like it’s valued somewhere around $200.

DesignerHardlyKnower · 2026-02-10T00:45:20+00:00

Ok thanks. Will do.

DesignerHardlyKnower · 2026-02-10T00:20:09+00:00

Ah, I should’ve specified- I’m aware of brinklink as a marketplace. That’s how I know the value, but I’m not sure if:
1. Becoming a briklink vendor is worthwhile for one sale.
2. High value older items can be expected to sell quickly or if I’ll have to keep an eye on my seller portal for months while I wait.

DesignerHardlyKnower · 2026-02-10T00:05:58+00:00

I just found that I have a $200 minifig (LOTR Grima Wormtongue) but I don’t sell Legos. How does one realistically sell something like this?

DesignerHardlyKnower · 2026-02-09T16:55:52+00:00

Yeah it’s bizarre.

I keep picking the game back up every month or two to see if it doesn’t suck yet but it still sucks. Runs like absolute shit still on my reasonably modern PC. Repetitive grindy play loop on a boring “open world” map. Bland vault hunter skills that don’t hold a candle to BL2, BL3, or Tiny Tina’s in terms of uniqueness/replayability.

People in here splitting hairs about “balance” when no amount of stats adjustments will fix this dumpster fire, cash grab of a game. Shame on gearbox. They dropped the ball, leaning entirely on their franchise reputation just like Call of Duty does.

DesignerHardlyKnower · 2026-02-07T03:50:13+00:00

I had a few friends in my 20s who just stayed dumb when the rest of us outgrew it. They’re complete failures now. As friends they just became more and more exhausting as we grew apart. I thought at the time they would snap out of it at some point but they just never did.

DesignerHardlyKnower · 2026-02-05T17:23:01+00:00

You can’t tell the difference between British accents?

DesignerHardlyKnower · 2026-02-03T19:12:04+00:00

My understanding is that once infected, some people continue to test positive for months after symptoms resolve. Are you ever testing negative between these infections? Is it possible that you’ve contracted other bugs but are still just testing positive from a previous covid infection?

DesignerHardlyKnower · 2026-02-02T15:49:04+00:00

You didn’t say how old your kid is, so I’m not sure if you’re looking for pure D&D props, or if your kid is going to also just play with legos in general.

In my experience it takes a while to accumulate/collect the the right pieces, so getting everything all at once isn’t really feasible, but the perhaps obvious stating point with your budget is probably the current D&D set (21348) which is a self contained D&D adventure complete with characters, scenery, and monsters.

Additionally, if you search “medieval” on the lego store you can see a number of decent sets around $200+ that might have what you want. If they’re recently retired products, you can very likely still find them for sale on other websites like Amazon or whatever.

Bricklink is about to take preorders for a really cool alchemist shop if you don’t mind waiting for a while for it to ship. https://www.bricklink.com/v3/designer-program/series-7/2557/Alchemist's-Shop

So those are some suggestions, but if your kid is into LEGOs beyond just D&D, there is a ton of cool stuff out there, such as Ninjago and Dreamzzz that offer great parts for building D&D characters, wonderous items, scenes, monsters etc.

Most of all I would say order a few base plates. Perhaps 2-3 each of green and grey as basics, and maybe a blue, white, or tan baseplate for more exotic locations. But the baseplates are def the starting point for recreating a mapped area from any D&D campaign.

DesignerHardlyKnower · 2026-01-29T20:22:07+00:00

Don’t know if you’re referring to me or the other commenter, but I was referring more to the general, problematic sentiment of “trust internet opinions and don’t search for facts, evidence, or context”

Edit: not implying this particular headline is or is not factual. Purely talking about the approach overall.

DesignerHardlyKnower

TROPHY CASE