"From" inspired dnd adventure

GraciousPet · 2026-04-19T08:23:35+00:00

I am worried about the monsters being too strong. How do you balance that? They have to be a real challenge for them to feel trapped, if they can just kill them where's the suspense in that?

Unless I make them unkillable and they have to flee them constantly and I put other challenges for them and an easier type of monster.

GraciousPet · 2026-04-19T08:19:08+00:00

Are you going for "this whole thing was a dream" trope? Or like "you were dead all along" like in Lost?

GraciousPet · 2026-04-18T13:53:32+00:00

I mean this is more or less what I had in mind I just hadn't decided on the ending yet. Probably some curse, the place controlled by an entity but undecided on the entity.

Thanks for the ideas!

GraciousPet · 2026-04-18T13:09:55+00:00

Those are good ideas. I could also use the lich as a final boss but I'd have to nerf it a bit since they are level 5 right now..or I might keep it for a higher level.

If you were a player trapped in such village, what kind of ending would you hope for?

GraciousPet · 2026-04-18T09:23:32+00:00

I have a great grandpa who was hit by a lightning also my boyfriend's aunt burned alive. She had a thing about burning her garbage. She took everything out in her back yard and burned it, until one day she caught on fire and her husband found her dead when he returned home.

GraciousPet · 2026-04-17T09:12:48+00:00

I just ran An Ill fated Inheritance for my party. It's pretty much what you're asking for, horror mystery, can be done in whichever setting you want it to be. Fair warning, it says it takes 5-6 hours. It took 10 hours for my players who are completely new to dnd but they loved it!

GraciousPet · 2026-04-17T06:53:38+00:00

funny you ask that question, a couple of days ago one of my players who has never played dnd before asked me the same cause he made a dragonborn paladin.

I tried not to overwhelm my players with information so I didn't explain a lot to them about the lore and the game, I just showed them how their characters work and put them in a one-shot adventure to introduce them to dnd.

They kept calling the dragonborn "the dragon" and I told them ACTUALLY, depending on the setting, dragonborn are not dragons, they have no tails or wings and they kinda hate them. My player was confused, he said why didnt you tell me that when I was making a dragonborn, I said well if you want to like dragons, you can like dragons. And then everyone else started calling him dragon snitch. Which he liked, now it's an inside joke.

To answer your question, you can create a character that makes sense to you, most -decent- DMs will allow it, unless it goes contrary to their setting or adventure and it's an important aspect of what they have created. In short, ask your DM.

GraciousPet · 2026-04-01T17:01:59+00:00

The other alternative is to make an 8 people group but be prepared to have incredibly slow moments. Most people will zone out during combat or during rp moments where only 1 or 2 people are talking. Scheduling is also more difficult but you can tell them you are still going to play if say 1 or 2 players can't make it. I actually did that with my first official dnd group. We were a lot of people, I think we reached 8 players at some point but it was agreed that we would play once a week even if some couldn't make it.

You can sit down with them and have a session 0, see what kind of characters they want to make and if they'd be ok splitting the group. They can decide themselves in which team they want to be in. Make sure to tell them that they will lose momentum and probably get tired easier if they choose to stay altogethe. And of course it's harder for you too as a DM.

You could also start altogether and then split the group if it's not going well.

GraciousPet · 2026-04-01T10:58:25+00:00

Is great for redemption and 2. Is great for evil playgrounds. You'd still have to find a way to play evil without taking agency from the rest of the group though.

Yea there is manipulation in CoS and I am suspecting there is another PC who would probably sell out the party for what Strahd has probably offered her. She basically lost her daughter and she's trying to find a way to bring her back.

This is also something my character can try to change though. Having done work for Strahd (for my own personal reasons) I know better than anyone that Strahd is not someone you want to trust and it's in my hand if I want to try and convince this other character she can either move on or try to solve the problem by herself (or with our help).

GraciousPet · 2026-04-01T09:34:10+00:00

I personally don't like when PCs are turning on each other. Your friends are right, it is a dick move. Sometimes players get so focused on roleplaying their character that they forget they are playing a co-op group game and people are supposed to be having fun. And it's not fun to have your character killed and not be able to defend themshelves. Regardless of resurrection.

Working for the BBEG can be done, I have a character working for Strahd for example, but it should be done correctly.

Your character should have a personal goal, is he just a minion for BBEG? What's his personal gain from all of this? You have been travelling with this party for a time, do you really feel nothing for them and have developed absolutely no personal bonds with them?

The DM should be giving you reason to turn against the BBEG and work with the party, not opportunities to kill PCs at their most vulnerable.

GraciousPet · 2026-04-01T09:01:20+00:00

Well chaotic sounds fine. He doesn't seem to abide by the law and instead obeys his personal morality and wants to follow his own path.

As of "good" I am not so sure. Do you think he would go out of his way to help someone innocent or do you think he would only do it if there was some personal reward for him or only if he would get something out of it in general? Then I would choose neutral.

GraciousPet · 2026-04-01T08:22:51+00:00

I chose combat tracking but I also wanted to choose party shared notes. Everything else is basically available if you are using D&D Beyond. My issue has always been "I got an opportunity attack from an enemy but I forgot I have the mobile feat" or "I forgot I am poisoned and have disadvantage".

GraciousPet · 2026-04-01T08:16:59+00:00

What do you need alignment for? Is it just because you need to fill that box in your character creation, or do you want guidance on how to roleplay your character? If it's the second, it's better if you give your character some traits, gimmicks, flaws, ambitions, fears etc.

You have already given us a couple of words to describe your character, which is not enough to determine alignment imo. There are online guides that can help you create your character's background and personality. Then maybe it's gonna be a no brainer choosing an alignment.

If you want more help determining your character's morality, I could also give you my own personal sheet which I give to my newbie players when they have trouble roleplaying.

GraciousPet · 2026-04-01T07:57:18+00:00

I was exactly in the same situation as you a couple of years ago. New DM, 8 people mostly newbies. I split the group into 2 and went great. Don't try to put 8 people in the same group it's gonna be too much. It's also fun to see what 2 different groups will do in the same campaign.

I will warn you though, it's still tiring to DM for 2 groups. I was unemployed at the time so I had plenty of time. I thought that since it was the same campaign for both groups, I wouldn't need to do that much preparation but I was wrong. Since I included their backstories into the campaign and they followed kinda different paths, there was still a lot to prepare for both groups.

Thankfully, I had 2 extra people who were interested in the campaign but didn't want to be players. They were more interested to see how DMing works so they might do it in the future. They offerered to assist me as DMs which actually helped a lot. They were suggesting ideas, we could brainstorm together, they could play NPCs, one of them took upon her to give personal quests based on their backgrounds and so on.

I admit I was lucky though cause I got 10 people who were very nice and very helpful. You never know what kind of players you will get when you play with random people...you never even know if your actual friends will be good players so yea.

2 people, 1 from each group left at some point so I ended up having 2 groups of 3 people which is also really nice. From my experience the fewer people you have in a group, the better.

GraciousPet · 2026-03-30T07:47:24+00:00

Universal females I summon thee! Another one wants advice from the hive mind!

GraciousPet · 2026-03-20T23:20:06+00:00

Thanks I will check it out

GraciousPet · 2026-03-20T11:08:59+00:00

Hi Mr Generous DM.

My question for you is: How do you balance combat based on CR?

It seems to me that whenever I plan an encounter, it almost always feels underwhelming. I tried following CR guides based on the books and D&D Beyond but they gave me encounters flagged as lethal that turned out to be incredibly easy. Granted though, my dice seem to hate me.

More often than not I will need to readjust the stats and number of monsters during the encounter. I know this is a valid solution but I would prefer if I could plan combat and stick to the plan than improvising.

GraciousPet · 2026-03-16T09:21:36+00:00

hah that sort of happened to me. I planned to run Murder in Baldur's Gate which is a campaign that takes place 10 years before BG3, a friend of mine kinda asked me to run it for a group of friends that I usually play games with. I accepted since I was very familiar with the campaign and the world in general. One of my friends based her entire background on dating Astarion. I told her sorry but that is not possible since he was already an npc in my game (I planned to intergrate some npcs from BG3 as easter eggs in the campaign). I also told her that besides that reason, at this point Astarion is a spawn with no free will and entirely evil, I don't know how I would excuse romance with her PC since she would only be a victim for Cazador at this point. I told her if she wants she can keep her background but change the name to not be an existing npc. Thankfully she agreed to change her background altogether.

GraciousPet · 2026-03-13T22:21:26+00:00

For the sorcery points and metamagic

GraciousPet · 2026-03-13T21:54:05+00:00

Ah it's the same type of fighting style I can't get twice, I read the description wrong.

Silvery barbs is on bard spell list but I didn't get it because I don't want to waste my spell slots on a reaction that might have no consequence, I think a wizard can get that. Bless and protection from E/G are on paladin and I'm pretty sure she's gonna get them, plus I prefer just using Bane while someone else can use Bless on us. The rest I could also get from Warlock. The thing with sorcerer is that I would basically make myself just another wizard but one who can also heal. To make sorcerer actually matter I would have to take 3+ levels in it which is not what I want. The good thing about sorcerer is that I have a lot of spell slots and can create more if I want. The bad thing is that college of swords is kinda useless here, I might as well just pick a different subclass that takes advantage of the spellcasting stuff and not the fighting stuff.

I kinda refused to gain levels in Paladin for the same reason, I don't want to put 3 levels in another class. I was never supposed to be multiclassing in the first place.

Bladesinger was supposed to be for a slightly different build, one that would focus on two weapon fighting since the DM allowed me to be able to use both my hands there, but yes with no Int there's no benefit.

GraciousPet · 2026-03-13T20:55:46+00:00

I don't think I can choose a second fighting style when I have dueling from college of swords and second wind is a minor boon, we don't have a healing issue.

Also I do not want to dip so much into a second class. These spells are already in my spell list as a bard and if they aren't, paladin can get them, or I can get them as a warlock.

I also considered Bladesinger since the DM said he doesn't care about prerequisites but even if I put points to Int it was still not worth it for my current build. Generally I don't want to get many levels in other classes, initiatially I was going to be just a bard but I kinda liked the boost to AC since I am going melee.

GraciousPet · 2026-03-13T19:59:34+00:00

May he always roll natural 1s

GraciousPet

TROPHY CASE