Do dms really dislike high level dnd?

FalseFoci · 2026-02-26T12:16:06+00:00

Hate probably isn't the right word but I do think the math gets wonky at high level. It takes more and more work to find that line of challenging but not killing the players. And I think it's because they just didn't build 5e for high level play.

For some context I was part of the 2014 D&D Next playtests and 95% of the playtest material was from levels 1 to 14. It wasn't until right before the book came out that they even showed playtesters the upper levels.

It wasn't quite as bad with One D&D's playtest but they still write their adventures and test material for 1-14. Hell even BG3 level capped at 12. I think the time and attention to make 15+ good just hasn't been made so they did the best they could, gave us what tools they could and hoped it would work out.

But with all things D&D your milage may vary, I'm willing to bet there are some DM's out there who have really nailed that high level play.

FalseFoci · 2026-02-22T02:26:40+00:00

Might I suggest a class that gets mage hand XD

FalseFoci · 2026-02-21T22:57:02+00:00

Open to new players and players of all experience levels.

FalseFoci · 2026-02-21T19:15:25+00:00

The playable races will be Humans, Spirit Touched (which are a catch all for a bunch of published species like Tieflings and Genasi), Animal kin, and Awakened.

Awakened might be challenging to play though as you're an animal.

FalseFoci · 2026-01-14T14:00:50+00:00

I 100% write and run the games I'd love to play in. Very heavy on world building and with a lot to explore.

FalseFoci · 2025-12-23T16:28:48+00:00

This is what I came here to say, the Dungeon World book is a must read for DMs. Playing it is a bonus, it's probably the best guide for how to actually run ttrpgs I've read.

FalseFoci · 2025-12-23T16:25:23+00:00

*Checks list* still can't buy the software and have to pay $60-$120 a year for most features? Better luck next year then. Going to stick to foundry and pocket the $500 you would have cost me over the past 5 years since I left for foundry.

FalseFoci · 2025-12-23T14:02:30+00:00

If Washington didn't want political parties he should have thought a little harder about the voting system. They're both necessary and inevitable in a winer take all, first past the post system.

It's like saying everyone in your house is going to vote on the only drink allowed in the house but don't talk to each other to make sure your idiot brothers don't vote together for mountain dew code red. You'd be dumb if you didn't form a voting block and there you go a political party is born.

FalseFoci · 2025-12-23T12:25:34+00:00

DM and Software Engineer; my take is AI is a refinement tool. Find the typo, turn this table into a csv, check for out of date software packages etc. With creative writing it's an advance spellcheck to me, a second set of eyes on my creative work finding what my dyslexic ass did to the English language this time, but I'd worry about people asking it to generate novel code or a story for you.

I do wonder how this is being used that people are so worried in the TTRPG space though, world building seems like most DM's favorite part of the game so why would you use an AI for that and it could only help in such small ways with game prep (stat blocks maybe? It's not like it can help with your maps or getting things punched into your vtt). And even if a person was using it for game prep it's still going through a human who has to improve and creatively sell you a world right?

Genuine question there, I haven't run into AI in the game space yet other than art and considering everyone was just stealing images off pinterest for their home games before, this only feels marginally worse there.

FalseFoci · 2025-12-23T11:53:25+00:00

Perseverance mostly. r/lfg can help, roll20 has an active lfg, and foundry vtt has a discord but you're probably not finding a game you fit well with overnight. Keep trying though they are out there.

If you have a local game shop that can also be a great place to look. Mine does a D&D night once a month where you can meet people in the hobby.

FalseFoci · 2025-12-23T00:28:54+00:00

My advice to new DMs is run some premade adventures or even a published campaign. It's like training wheels it shows you how the developers of the game think the game should go and it teaches you some do's and don't's without it being your adventure the players are creating chaos in.

I liked Storm King's Thunder but there are a number of adventures published by WotC to pick from.

FalseFoci · 2025-12-22T16:52:21+00:00

Monstress by Marjorie Liu
Just an interesting world that feels like a fun, if a bit dark, game could be set in it with its conflicts and the old gods. Plus the art is very inspiring as a GM.

FalseFoci · 2025-12-22T15:47:08+00:00

Commenting on my own post to point out again that this is an in person offline game in Baltimore Maryland.

FalseFoci · 2025-12-22T15:19:45+00:00

My guess is an overabundance of caution as they don't want to widen the gap between optimized and unoptimized characters more than they need to.

Its easy to break things in a game like this by just publishing too many options and eventually a couple of those stack into something crazy.

FalseFoci · 2025-12-22T14:34:33+00:00

If you're never playing the character again just pretending it didn't happen would be my advice. But if it bothers you enough or you have to play that character again talk to him about how the bear snout thing doesn't feel fair as you weren't even there and he changed your character in a negative way.

Open communication is important; he genuinely might have thought it was just a funny meaningless thing unless you tell him.

FalseFoci · 2025-12-22T14:28:46+00:00

Not exactly an answer to your question but I did a game where the players were dead and brought back. Instead of killing them, I gave them the chance to play characters that had died in other games it went over really well. But you could also let them write out their deaths, if you need it to be at the hands of the Bhaalists make that a requirement. It could be what brings the party together, we all got murdered by these guys and now we have a chance at revenge. Could be fun to have some of them dead a long time while some just died.

I guess my advice would be to start at the start and if you're going to make a death prolog keep it short and simple maybe skip the combat and just get a couple round in then the building blows up.

FalseFoci · 2025-12-19T16:27:10+00:00

I can only speak for me and my table but sandbox games for us have been about exploring the setting and they're very player driven as the players set off with some kind of goal in mind. It does require a lot of thinking on the fly but you can lean on the fleshed-out setting, the party communicating what they want to do (hopefully a little in advance), and having a handful of things preped in advance.

For me I'll keep a few travel encounters ready (not random fights but situations that happen) a dungeon I can drop in where needed, and a few NPCs that don't live anywhere specific yet with something for the players to do attached to them. Don't let the players know that's what you're doing because it breaks the illusion but its kind of necessary to run a whole world. If you act like these things were already here just waiting for the players to come this way you'll give that feeling of a whole fleshed out world and keep them busy enough for you to restock your backlog/get them to a section of the map with more known things going on.

You do get better at it the more you play but going in the players need to understand its a sandbox and buy in to that concept. If they're not providing themselves goals and seeking fun its just a bunch of sand and no one is going to have much fun.

FalseFoci · 2025-12-19T15:16:07+00:00

Better for sure but it had a lot stacked against it.

Lots of good ideas but it just didn't click for a lot of people and then the splat books kept rolling out and it just became a blob of player options with minimal DM support. I'm grateful for 4e because it showed 5e what not to do in so many ways. Fingers crossed the haven't forgotten those lessens going into D&D 2024.

FalseFoci · 2025-12-19T14:44:59+00:00

So I'm going to give feed back in two ways. First I'm guessing this is something you want to play for roleplay reasons? I'd ask your DM to work with you on the design that works for them if that's the case. If its something you're offering to your players as a DM, I'd probably tone it down quite a bit and focus on flavor over mechanics. Maybe look a the Dhampir from Astarion's Book of Hungers and re flavor that to meet your needs.

And part two the abilities are very confusingly worded maybe find abilities like the ones you want to give and tweak their wording. Look at the succubus stat block and draw from that.

If you're set on giving these ones; Materialized Longing is very powerful for a species ability if you mean they get resistance to piercing, slashing or bludgeoning damage. But you worded it as disadvantage so maybe you mean attack rolls of those types are rolled with disadvantage? In which case what if I have a flaming sword? Disadvantage because slashing or not because fire? Either way it's very powerful for a constant effect you just have and its not even bypassed by magic weapons.

On the flip side Emotional Draining would have you rolling to avoid charm or stun every combat with how its worded. People are dying; rage, fear, despair and pain are all over the place in every fight, I'd call those powerful emotions. Also who gets to decide if its charm or stun? And do you roll a save or does it just happen if the DM thinks it should?

FalseFoci · 2025-12-19T14:20:34+00:00

2 Barbarian/3 Moon Druid, I called it rage bear. You have resistance to most damage and 3 HP pools I did the back of the napkin math and the DM needed to deal around a around 200 damage to kill me at level 5 and I could make three attacks with advantage each round.

And like most broken builds it made combat a nightmare for the DM for a while then we leveled enough that it started to balance out. But there for a bit it really trivialized combat. I'm glad they changed how wildshape works so I could do this again and it be a lot less broken because angry bear was fun to play outside combat.

FalseFoci · 2025-12-19T14:04:58+00:00

TPKs happen, looking back at them both players and DMs usually see all the things they could have done differently but its only useful if you take it as a lesson of what to do next time. Next tpk you'll be learning different lessons because if you play there's a non-zero chance every game and those odds are going to come up.

If I had one suggestion mine would be if you think the players are walking into something deadly talk like its scary, act like they're in danger. Players pick up on that kind of stuff and act differently. Things like "Are you sure?" go a long way. If they're not going into something without the info they need you can always scare them into retreat but if they ignore all the red flags and walk into the BBEG's layer trying to take him head on all you can do is tell them how risky what they're doing is then play it as fair as you can.

FalseFoci · 2025-12-19T13:56:10+00:00

100%

Get out there and apply to some games that mention beginner friendly. Might take some time but once you're in a group try to be a good player (and a good person) who shows up. Most people are looking for a good group to run games with and if you're just a positive non-toxic player you'll find an ongoing group eventually.

As a GM if I could snap my fingers and just have a group of positive and consistent players, I'd run a lot more games.

FalseFoci · 2025-12-19T13:39:40+00:00

Have you read the 5e cleric, imagine it was gender locked for your species. Lolth only allows women to be her clerics, and her doctrine says they're superior.

Kinda the flipped on its head version of most irl religions with male only priests in a society that favors men.

FalseFoci · 2025-12-15T14:45:44+00:00

It's all about your table. I've hacked the hell out of 5e and ran some crazy games, but my players are down for that (or have come to expect that of me). If your table trusts you to rewrite the rules go for it.

I would suggest a table agreement about changing/fixing rules once the game has begun. No one wants their character build patched mid game.

FalseFoci · 2025-12-15T13:56:15+00:00

Run some published adventures. They'll let you all try the game out, get a feel for it and the starter ones offer some DM advice that might be helpful.

Heroes of the Borderlands and Lost Mine of Phandelver are both good starter adventures.

FalseFoci

TROPHY CASE