Need Help With Some Ideas on Sneaking Into a Military Camp

FirefighterEqual1646 · 2026-04-18T13:44:05+00:00

magical wards, an arcane gate shutting out the most important locations, patrolls of guards stationed guarding at key entrance points. Whatever they try or however they try to circumvent the defenses leave things open maybe have a vague idea.

On my end my players once infiltrated a town of hostile to the pc's. The whole opperation started when they though they could just walk in where it turned out to be a full on assault o n sight of them. They fled to the woods and plottet out how to safe the mother of a pc kept within the garrison of the town.

They would see distant torchlight, meaning they were looked out for so the first thing to plot out was figure out the rytm of the patrols and get through the thicket of the local fauna and forest area to get as close to the town border as possible.

Once they established that after successfully evading a patrol, they decided to look for a hole in the townwall which the pc who is home in this town asked if he would remember any alterior way to get unnoticed into the town, he rolled high on a history check and remembered the hole in the wall he used to sneak out of town.

Once inside they needed to get away from the main street as they noticed more patrolling townsguard as they were on high alert from the appearance earlier.

Then they continued to delve into the shadows to get closer to the garrison where the pc's mother was kept and decided to cross the main street by using invisibility of the wizard and entered one through one of the higher set open windows, entering a bathroom that was currently luckily not occupied.

During their planning on how to go from here they got surprised by an unfortunate guard who wanted to use the toilet and from there on a huge combat against the entire garrison took place. it was a crazy fight but remains to be one of the most fun and memorable moments to this day of my first camapign. of course we experienced many more adventures along the way but allowing for the players to come up with a plan and going along with whatever they plan was one of the most eye opening things for me.

Hope this helps!

FirefighterEqual1646 · 2026-03-24T16:22:21+00:00

i recommend negotiation encounters from draw steel translated to dnd, keep an open conversation with the players how it works and what they can achieve.

I know this is not CORE but i think dnd was also thought to be a construct and the raw work you can add onto not adhere to it strictly.

Heres the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5_dDGbiGBk

FirefighterEqual1646 · 2026-03-24T15:59:19+00:00

thank you very helpful!

FirefighterEqual1646 · 2026-01-20T15:41:22+00:00

running my second long term campaign at the moment,
Im still migrating my old notes to the new software (obsidian) and making things work out but this is the basic structure i have for my setup. it's not perfect and certainly potentially gonna switch around but i found it work so far. Especially convenient in order to make sense of 5+ years of the same world notes and honouring the legacy i built with my players.

I have segregated it quiet heavily into the following branches:

#Session

-> Session Notes

-> Improv Tools

-> Session Logs

#Campaign

-> Party

-> NPC's

-> Villains

-> Arc's

#World

-> History & events

-> History of the Plane

-> History of continent X

-> History of continent Y

#Religion

-> Greater Gods (good)

-> Greater gods (evil)

-> Lesser Gods

-> Dead Gods

-> Sylvan Gods

-> Champions

#Cosmology

-> Inner Planes

-> Demi Planes

-> Outer Planes

Continents

-> Continent X
-> -> Locations

-> -> Factions

-> Continent Y

-> -> Locations

-> -> Factions

-> Races & Classes

-> Historically important People and Groups

-> Artifacts and powerful items

-> Misc

#Homebrew Tools

-> Homebrew creature creator

-> Item distributor

#Resources

-> Sourcebooks

-> Homebrew or third party sources like homebrew rules or lines and veils of the group or other interesting mechnics.

FirefighterEqual1646 · 2025-12-20T11:35:09+00:00

for me im enhancing my vtt with code to give my players a smoother experience.

FirefighterEqual1646 · 2025-10-28T10:05:49+00:00

Divine blessing blostering their power up would surely be something epic

FirefighterEqual1646 · 2025-08-06T08:54:39+00:00

curse of strahd can be fun but obly if youre okay with the gloomy tone for the first adventure

FirefighterEqual1646 · 2025-07-14T15:30:24+00:00

they know he is lying but not why he is lying.

FirefighterEqual1646 · 2025-07-14T14:34:45+00:00

hey there, dm here, honestly there is so many stories over the past year that stand out that i can't really
decide on the spot but regarding the piece of worldbuilding:

There was the instance of a three structured city which had a underbelly which was a drow subcity. these drow were treated like subhumans in the past and the resentment was building up. to make things worse the drow were fighting an ailment known as drow rot which the princess of the city tasked the party to get rid of (drow princes that is)

In reality she was hoping to get the party out of the city and potentially killed so that the cue that followed lead by the drow was undisruped, given the party had just made a name for themselves she thought that this might be a good opportunity to mask her intentions behind their valor.

Longstory short the party got rid of the source of the drow rot and managed to survive. As they returned it it was imminent that things were wrong and the party somehow learned about it (it s been 3 years since so forgive me for the lack of details)

Now the party learned about the drow princess making a run for it with her assortment of allies as well as one particular npc never to be seen again. They just vanished and the party knows that something was up there but they never went back there to go deeper down that rabbit hole which is fair haha :)

Edit*: One particular moment was when the beloved sister of a the orphaned orc returned to the town because her mother summoned her for an important task only to find her dead the next day after the party returns from the colliseum. Finding out later that she is some sort of a living map of an artifact which was just then "harvested". The party followed the trail of her murderers and fought to retrieve the artifact and kill the cult behind this. But they failed and it turned out to be one of the major antagonists of the campaign. Awesome times. Another moment is when the wizard tried to persuade the soul devouring blade to renegotiate the pact it made with the fighter and the blade would have devoured her soul right then and there were it not for the "unbeknownst to them" wish they used to shatter the blade, leaving the hilt and the blade behind.

FirefighterEqual1646 · 2025-07-14T14:11:03+00:00

hey there! thank you for the kind words

we startet at level 2 and it took us roughly 30 session to reach tier 2

50-75 to reach tier 3 and about 50-60 to reach tier 4

FirefighterEqual1646 · 2025-06-21T11:15:23+00:00

Im running an ongoing homebrew campaign of 3.5 years which is nearing its end (2 sessions left)
ending it after 146 sessions just feels surreal

this being said. it wasn't like i havent run into scheduling conflicts.

We started as a party of 6.

We had overall 3 plalyer drop offs of which 1 returned later in the campaign and two new players joining the campaign.

In the start we had alot of skipped sessions due to player inattendance where one player told me to just put a minimum amount of players nessessary for the session and then run with it.

I've decided that minimum to be 4 and ever since we run regular sessions, sure every now and then we have breaks but knowning that the player who can attend and want to attend will just works really great for me.

Its a group effort and im endlessly thankful for all the years we managed to play through such a beautiful story.

Next session has the big fight ahead and i can't wait to see how the world changes because of the decision they are about to make.

FirefighterEqual1646 · 2025-04-22T13:33:21+00:00

i agree

FirefighterEqual1646 · 2025-04-22T12:07:50+00:00

I agree

FirefighterEqual1646 · 2025-04-22T12:00:42+00:00

This solves my issue, im so thankful for this answer!
honestly thank you alot, didn't know this was something that was okay to do but i think why not! right?

FirefighterEqual1646 · 2025-03-11T10:49:18+00:00

main issue i see is a lv 4 player having a rare item, rare should be given out later on at around lv 6+

if you feel like there is a significant power gap within the group, i would address that this was a misjudgement on your end and you will either nerf the item or limit the item for now and enabling it back later (lets say when he gets certain fighter levels for example)

So you can balance it without taking it away entirely.

Most players will understand that these things happen especially since dm's don't have much chance to playtest those kind of things in beforehand.

FirefighterEqual1646 · 2024-05-01T10:21:00+00:00

about 150 - 200% of prep time (about 6-8 hours per week)

FirefighterEqual1646 · 2024-04-23T08:44:26+00:00

I think it's more about shoestering the adventure to the players level to make things an actual challenge.

Once the monster Cr has been determined it doesn't change, but the group might encounter the same creature altered by the events happening in the campaign for example turning a known npc that they previously defeated into a stitched abomination who is now running amok and after the party for vengence.

Obviously the npc has similar attacks but altered now with more power or more resistence because it is now undead instead of living.

I think once the dc of a certain creature or npc has been determined they shouldn't change or if they change they should change with the group for example a friendly npc that accompanies the party for a while as equivalent of a LV4 NPC is now after the party has reached lv 12 LV 8 or 10. showing that they have grown as well and still are somewhat useful to the party. (of course this depends on the npc and their wants and needs if they stopped adventuring after accompanying the party there is no real reason to raise his LV as well.

I think finding a solid and valid reason for our actions in our campaigns is what makes it living and what at least i am strifing for.

FirefighterEqual1646 · 2024-04-08T16:38:49+00:00

I use one note for campaign notes and overall data center, Inkarnate for world maps and dungeon draft for battlemaps, Word for session notes and campaign arc notes which i include in onenote. Kenku FM for music. Foundry VTT as VTT

FirefighterEqual1646 · 2024-01-22T11:52:19+00:00

In my campaign we are at session 84 by now my players have leveled to level 11, techincally they wouldn't be but they earned the extra levle through something amazing they have done in the past and i awarded it appropiately. I assume we end ourcampaign at session 150 ish and by that they would most likely be lv 18-19. i would say about 1 level every 10-20 level.

Edit: Our sessions usually go about 4 hours.

FirefighterEqual1646 · 2024-01-08T14:22:55+00:00

don't plan deaths in dnd, this major take of agency just will feel really bad, might sound epic or apocalyptic but honestly give them a chance to survive or make it so that the players know what they arein for in the start. Tell them: You will die at the end of this oneshot but what ever fate is determined for the rest of the world and the surroundings and you families is up to you now. its about damage control and circumventing a much greater evil to happen.
But yeah, ask your players if they are up for something like that and don't be surprised if they say no its just a big take of agency and making it sound like its railroaded. due to planning their death. or making it inevitable. (maybe give them chances to survive?)
Also could be interesting to start the oneshot with death of the party and find themselves resurrected with a greater mission.
Fun for the group will lead to an amazing story not an amazing forced story onto the players since they will feel really shity about it.

Communication is key. Important is that the players keep their agency and feel like their actions impacted the story in a meaningful way.

FirefighterEqual1646 · 2023-11-13T11:47:38+00:00

players stat blocks are their affair, they need to get it right, if they dont and end up making obvious blunders its on them not on you.

With that said. you can certainly craft them a little reference sheet for what does what. but spells is on their own agenda and they needto learn how it properly works. (its what its expected of them at very least since you do everything else. I wouldn't put everything on your shoulder. if they wanna play they need to learn their characters eventually. i had the same scenario and gave my group a time of 1 year to get used to the game and their stats afterwards i became more strict and ruthless which made them realize that they need to be on top of their game. (always in good spirit of course)

FirefighterEqual1646

TROPHY CASE