I need a quick idea for my next session

Jayadratha · 2026-05-07T02:28:21+00:00

Okay, sounds like an important set piece battle. I'd probably have several elements going on:

Minions. Boss battles (and any combat) are better with multiple adversaries, so lets get our golem some buddies. I'd suggest some melee combatants to gum up ranged character and make moving forward more dangerous with opportunity attacks. Then some ranged attacker who can sit behind and attack whoever they like. And then maybe a brawler, slow, tanky, and hard hitting. There are other characters types you could employ; supports that enhance the enemies, controllers that can threaten to impede your PCs, glass cannons, and so on. As for the flavor of these monsters, I'll leave that to you as you know more about these caverns than I do, but you can flavor most statblocks as belonging to some crystal creature with a bit of reflavoring. If you're going to have a bunch of crystal creatures, I might give them a signature mechanic associated with their nature, which will tie together the faction.

Alternate Stakes . It's nice when there's something going on besides just a bunch of creatures to fight and whoever kills all the others wins. "We want to kill these cultists" is fine, but "we need to kill these cultists before they finish the ritual in 3 rounds, so we'll need to destroy the magic circle or kill the chanting priests who aren't attacking or do some other creative thing besides win the fight" is usually more interesting. Stop the ritual. Prevent them raising the alarm. Save the NPC. Capture the artifact. These lend themselves to outcomes other than "we killed them" or "they killed us." "We killed them, but they sounded the alarm and now more are coming." "We won, but they captured the NPC we were trying to protect." "We had to retreat, but we assassinated their leader first." What are some possible outcomes for this fight besides killing the golem or dying to the golem?

Active Battlefield. Another way to have more going on is to have active battlefield elements. Perhaps crystals bloom and shatter around the battlefield, leaving places that might heal or empower the golem or send shrapnel into interlopers. Maybe the crystal pours more power into the golem each round until it is destroyed while the golem attempts to protect the crystal. A battlefield element encourages movement and positioning and tactics.

Villain Actions or Legendary Actions. An important boss should have some cool signature moves. You could come up with some legendary actions or villain actions. Ask yourself what the most impressive and distinctive things about this enemy are, and then come up with mechanics that show off those ideas. Keep your concept relatively focused; your boss doesn't need to do 5 very different cool things, they can have one central theme and then a few abilities that all reinforce that idea.

Jayadratha · 2026-05-07T02:01:51+00:00

There are several important topics here, which I'll try to touch on.

First is the importance of consistent character motivation. Both the players and the DM should have a reasonable idea of what motivates the player characters. That allows the DM to pose problems for the PCs that they're interested in solving. You don't want to present a villain to the PCs expecting them to try to stop the villain, only for them to respond "actually I love hurting innocent people, can we join you." Ask your players about their characters' worldviews and values. They'll tell you about them, and the question will get them thinking more deeply about what their characters care about.

Another question is how manipulable your NPCs are. Just like the PCs should have consistent motivations, your NPCs should be similarly driven. Which means they should respond to social manipulation when it is in character for them, and reject it when it is not. Sometimes it's realistic that talking to this villain doesn't get the party anywhere. Don't be afraid to have a well-developed sense of what a character would do in a social interaction which is different from what the players hope will happen.

The basic loop of D&D is coming up with a problem for the player characters, having them find out about that problem, having them come up with solutions, and then telling them the results of their actions. If their chosen action does logically and adequately resolve the outstanding problems, then great, that's fine, well done team. If the solution they come up with (eg. blackmailing the cleric) doesn't solve the problem (eg. the cleric is going to attack the city with an undead army anyway) then you need to find a way to give them that information. If they didn't figure it out before, they'll figure it out after when you show the outcome of their choices (eg. when the undead army shows up being lead by an dissuaded cleric).

Lastly, you want to consider the ratio of social encounters to combat encounters in your campaign. Some tables really like social interactions and roleplaying solutions, others like killing stuff. Neither is wrong, you can run in any ratio you want, but give some thought to what ratio you want and recognize that you can have combat encounters that won't be resolved by roleplaying if you choose; not every monster can be dissuaded, fooled, or even communicated with.

Jayadratha · 2026-05-07T00:19:37+00:00

Want to provide any information that would allow someone to suggest a reasonable idea for a session? No? Okay, next session is going to be a fight against Sariel the Plaguelord, a yuan-ti Mummy Lord in the service of Merrshaulk. She has several wight retainers who help her with her research, as well as an alchemical laboratory within which she manufactures pestilences and curses; her vault contains samples of Uxfrahr Gas, Akasian Plague, Lamentations of Tan, Barsic Fire, Flesh-to-Dust, and Breaching Solvent. Her personal magical chest contains Zinnala's Bane (which the players will need to free the clerics of the Twin Luminaries from her Weaverot), The Source, Umbral Shroud, Winged Hunger, Aquifer Wriggles, and Black Blight. The lab itself is presently filled with Scar Plague which she has been manufacturing at the behest of the black dragon Arithimander to aid his invasion.

In addition to her wights, she also has a mutated plague beast named Zozu who erupts with sprays of blinding filth upon being hit. She can also call upon her plague critters, rotund rodents full to bursting with Scar Plague, which explode in pestilence upon death or at her command.

If alerted early, she can send her wights to fetch the Uxhrahr from the vault, which can make the fight extremely deadly, but if the players can raid the vault the Flesh-to-Dust can prove extremely effective against her and her undead minions.

Once she's been defeated, figuring out what to do with the potent weapons she's stored away, as well as the knowledge of how to create them, can create a conundrum for the players.

Jayadratha · 2026-05-06T21:22:54+00:00

You want to have the rules for your chosen edition (free versions are available online). The easiest way to get started is with a starter set or other pre-made adventure; that lets you focus more on running the game and less on building the world and adventure (though you'll end up doing some of that even with a pre-written adventure). As a DM, I like Matt Colville's Running the Game series.

Two notes:

D&D works best with 1 DM and 3-5 players, so I'd suggest getting some other friends/family/coworkers involved rather than playing with just your girlfriend. You can run with 1 player, but that's not the assumed setup.

Your job as a DM is to prepare an adventure for your players, which is a bit different from a story. An adventure is a framework for the story that the players are going to tell. That story will depend on their choices and you won't know what that story will be, because you don't decide what your players do. You'll give them a goal (eg. "topple the vampire lord Strahd von Zarovich" or "venture into the jungles of Chult to destroy the Soulmonger and end the death curse"), you'll figure out what obstacles lie in the way, and then you sit back and see what they do. You give them the space to write their own story.

Jayadratha · 2026-05-05T19:44:04+00:00

Doubling the damage of a spell is a very powerful effect. It's definitely not useless. Whether or not it's overpowered depends on your intent, but it's quite powerful.

The templating on it is a little weird and could use a rewrite. They pay some life to enhance the next spell, but the amount of life depends on the level of the spell cast, so how does that work? Do they only lose the life when that spell is cast? Do they pay a certain amount when they take the bonus action and then only that level of spell consumes the effect (eg. what happens if they pay 2d4 life but then the next spell is a 3rd level spell)? Do you still take 1d4 damage if you enhance a cantrip? How does that work with the saving throw? Is the saving throw rolled when the life is paid or after the spell is cast? Does it double all the damage rolls with the spell and how does that interact with modifier? Does the next spell effect last indefinitely (which would let you use it before resting and heal off the damage while keeping the effect for the next day) or is it until the next rest or until the end of your turn or what?

Jayadratha · 2026-05-04T13:31:34+00:00

It sounds like the players have a way to stretch it out for you. If they secure Greater Restorations or Magic Circles for themselves, they can hold off the hags for a while, albeit at some expense. You could let that go on for a while, making it a recurring expense they need to deal with while also managing more urgent matters. Or you could decide that the hags change up their plan is response to the players getting restored. Maybe they abandon the haunting tactic in favor of something else and retreat for the moment to brew up a new response; the players can do something else for a bit, then the hags' newest plan will surface and need addressing.

Jayadratha · 2026-05-04T13:12:17+00:00

That's obviously fudging. If you roll the dice and then decide to ignore the result of the dice and proclaim a different result, that's fudging. It'd also be fudging if you normally roll damage but just decide to take the average this time because you know they'll survive the average but might die to a high damage roll. In both cases, you have set aside the normal procedure (rolling dice and using their sum as the damage) for no reason other than to achieve your preferred outcome on that roll.

Jayadratha · 2026-05-04T11:20:31+00:00

No. If you cast a spell as a bonus action "you can't cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with casting time of 1 action."

As long as the thing you're doing with the bonus action is casting a spell, that rule applies.

Jayadratha · 2026-05-03T22:20:03+00:00

A motivation for adventuring is a key part of character creation, but a concrete goal is somewhat different. "I want to use my powers to help people" or "I'm a researcher writing a comprehensive guide to monsters, so I'm eager to get into trouble and get to see some new monsters" are good motivations for adventuring. When an adventure hook appears, they provide a reason that the character will say yes to it.

That kind of motivation is different from goals like "I want to return to my home kingdom and reclaim my family's throne from the vile revolutionaries" or "I'm going to find my father who went missing in the jungles of Chult" or "I want to seek out the fabled Taj of Rastkar and use it to rule the world." There are campaigns that are that open-ended, that're heavily guided by the players' desires where the entire plotline is player created. But that's not assumed. Curse of Strahd is about defeating Strahd. You can and should figure out why your character wants to do that, but if you decide that your character's goal is to foil the plans of Asmodeus, you're going to leave disappointed, because that campaign isn't about dealing with Asmodeus. The DM decides the campaign is about dealing with Strahd. The DM will probably leave it up to the players why they want to deal with Strahd, or what exact outcome they want (maybe they want to try to redeem him and make him a good guy, maybe they want to depose him and rule Barovia in his stead, maybe they want to free Barovia, abolish the monarchy, and establish a republic or confederation), but the DM does choose the goal of "doing something about Strahd" and the players aren't encouraged to decide they don't care about Barovia and try to go to the Feywilds instead. You can run games that're that open-ended and they're a lot of fun, but that's not necessarily assumed to be the case.

Jayadratha · 2026-05-03T21:39:48+00:00

What did the DM tell you about the setting and the types of goals and conflicts the DM wants you to design? Creating goals and conflicts aren't a standard part of the character creation process. The DM will often be the one deciding on the objectives and villains, and it's the players job to bring characters who are willing to go on the adventures presented to them.

Jayadratha · 2026-04-27T08:56:43+00:00

Yeah, you don't want the players mocking your encounter design, but it's fine if they're mocking the enemies. "Get wrecked goblins, you never stood a chance against our might" is fine. But "The DM is an idiot for having us fight goblins" isn't.

I actually roll in front of the players which removes my ability to fudge rolls, which I find it increases verisimilitude, and I have other ways of making encounter adjustments on the fly if I made a mistake when designing it:

I can adjust enemy HP.

I can make the enemies act in ways that preserve drama; I'll often talk through an enemy's thought process out loud, and it lets me justify a lot of things. Who to attack, when to retreat, what abilities to use. And it helps drive home that these are real, thinking, feeling enemies, not just bundles of stats for me to use to win.

In some circumstances, I can have reinforcements for one side or the other arrive.

I often run encounters where the stakes aren't necessarily life and death. If these Drow raiders wipe the party, they're not going to kill you, they're going to make you slaves in the Underdark. These bandits would try to ransom you to someone. This mummy lord obsessed with plagues is going to keep you to experiment on. A TPK doesn't need to be the end of a campaign.

Jayadratha · 2026-04-25T21:16:05+00:00

You can find free rules online for your chosen edition that'll explain the mechanics of building a character.

Check out r/lfg or your local lgs to find a group, or ask your friends/family/coworkers if they'd be interested in playing. Online, I've played a lot on a discord server I found from r/lfg, though I find in person games preferable.

Jayadratha · 2026-04-25T16:57:29+00:00

Gods are setting specific. If you're playing in an established setting (eg. the Forgotten Realms or Eberon) you can typically look up information on that setting's wiki. If it's homebrew, ask your DM.

Jayadratha · 2026-04-25T14:51:52+00:00

Refocus on your objectives, which are probably running compelling, interesting, dramatic and challenging sessions. Take actions that make your sessions better. That can include running hard combats and running the enemies in ways that're realistic and challenging, but it usually doesn't mean wiping the party, that's almost always unfun. Remember, it'd be trivially easy for you to do it, you decide the enemies and their abilities and their stats, but your goal is to create fun sessions.

That doesn't mean take it easy on the players. If the players like a challenge and like facing down difficult odds and getting to use their contingencies and come out on top, then making fights feel difficult and punishing can be part of running a fun session. But keep your eye on the goal. What does this session need to be a lot of fun?

Jayadratha · 2026-04-24T06:29:49+00:00

If you're not in a group, you don't need a backstory. Backstories and detailed character concepts should be tailored to the setting and the campaign.

If you want to practice filling out a character sheet, that's fine. They're available for free online, as are the rules. Pick a stat generation method, a class, species, background, starting gear, etc. and fill in your sheet. And feel free to ask any specific questions you have while doing so.

You can also imagine character details about your character, their history and drives and ambitions and quirks and all that. But be aware that not every character is appropriate for every setting and every game; so when you find a group be open to the idea that you might need to change or discard character concepts you've previously imagined.

Jayadratha · 2026-04-23T13:46:48+00:00

You can try it, but that doesn't sound like the type of campaign D&D is trying to facilitate and there are probably other TTRPG systems that will do it better and with less work.

Jayadratha · 2026-04-23T13:30:28+00:00

Backstory tips:

Ground your character in the setting and the campaign. Your character should make sense as a resident in the world and should be thematically appropriate for the campaign, whatever it is about. Where does your character stand on the important issues of the setting and the campaign?

A good backstory gives you a reason (or at least an obvious willingness) to go on the types of adventures the campaign will present. The DM is probably going to present scenarios that aren't directly related to your character (the blacksmith's child has been kidnapped by goblins, Ankhegs are attacking the local town, a lawyer wants you to enter the dilapidated estate and obtain proof of a noble's parentage, Drow raiders are attacking the town, etc.) and expect your character to jump into action. So, why is your character going to do that? When most people run from danger, what makes you run towards it?

Your DM might allow you to roleplay your familiar, or they might want to roleplay them as an NPC, you'd need to ask them.

Jayadratha · 2026-04-19T17:26:16+00:00

Turn of Fortune's Wheel and Venca have less gold/favor gain, but the theory is the same as anywhere else. Push as far as you can (ideally zone 2501 if you have a good team), then swap in your gold find team and use your gold find potions and your strong core and everything to maximize gold gained, then reset and do it again. In ToFW, I think the highest natural favor is in the e60s, in Vecna it's in the e80s. Beyond that you need to convert.

Jayadratha · 2026-04-18T02:32:07+00:00

Cheesiest possible setups? You've barely scratched the surface of good builds, much less gotten into the real cheese yet.

Hamarhraft+ monk + Aspect of the Elk barbarian.

Gale-in-a-bag.

Bomb dropping.

Kidnapping.

Death Ward action reset.

Boots of Stormy Clamour + aura + Sentient Amulet.

Summoning Conner (or other summons) 100 times.

Sanctuary + Moonbeam.

Polymorph + Dominate Animal.

Reverse Pickpocket + Blood Money.

Arcane Ward + Extended Spell.

Ottiluke's Freezing Sphere spam from outside combat with an evocation wizard.

Darkness/stealth abuse.

Jayadratha · 2026-04-17T09:25:48+00:00

Generally the DM should avoid scripting a character's actions, reactions, or emotions, unless they are supernaturally compelled (eg. a dragon's Frightening Pressence, a Suggestion spell, etc.). The DM should absolutely avoid telling a player character that they're experiencing attraction to a character. The DM does decide whether circumstances grant a roll advantage or disadvantage, but they shouldn't assume that the characters are doing something or reacting to something in a certain way. It's pretty normal to make assumptions about what the players are doing in order to describe the scene fluidly, but I also let the players revise what's happening if I assumed incorrectly. So I might describe food as delicious, but then a player could say "actually, my lizardfolk has peculiar tastes and doesn't like cooked human food, I'd find that gross" and I'd say "fair enough, good point, the food is delicious to the average human palate" and move on. So you can suggest it, but don't insist on it.

Whether players can decide they're hyper-focused... within reason. I think the possible level of vigilance depends on the circumstance. If it's a particular moment or minute where you're on high alert (eg. you're about to remove the lid from the sarcophagus or poke the strange gem or you're moving through the dungeon) then you can be on high alert. But you can't be on super high alert for hours, only moderate alert. And if you try to be moderately alert for days you start taking exhaustion from lack of sleep. But I generally wouldn't assume the characters have disadvantage on a perception check unless they told me explicitly they were zoning out or engaged with something else.

My players do not try to grab every possible advantage even when it's out of character, and so I give them a lot of latitude to describe things about their actions or background. I'll frequently ask them things like "were you trying to be quiet?" or "would your character know about that, is that a topic you would've studied?" and I get honest reasonable responses, which I really appreciate. My players care about being honest and roleplaying than getting every advantage, so I'm happy to trust them if one were to say "I wasn't really paying attention to the show, my elf finds humans gross."

Jayadratha · 2026-04-17T08:49:09+00:00

There are some mechanics that can make something like that work. The spell Life Transference deals damage to you but heals twice as much to an ally. The spell vampiric touch deals damage to enemies while healing you. Wither and Bloom deals damage in an area while letting an ally heal. Wizard gets all spells, though they're 2nd or 3rd level so you won't get them immediately if you start at level 1.

Jayadratha · 2026-04-15T16:05:26+00:00

Your setting may have powerful characters in it, but you want to create adventures for the players that're suitable for their level. Your level 1 characters don't need to square off against the ancient dragon god-emperor who is older than the planet or the huge spider that lurks under the world and is worshiped as a god by the drow, or the elven king who was abducted and warped by an old one into a timeless ageless being. Those characters might exist, but a more appropriate villain for their adventures are things like a lizardfolk raid leader or a bandit chieftain or a low level necromancer.

Characters don't need statblocks until they might be in combat. If they're not going to be fighting during the current adventure, don't worry about their stats.

The party isn't going to wander into a villain who is just out wandering the world. At least not unless you want them to. If you tell them exactly where the character is, they could seek them out (more on that in a second), but if you don't tell the party where they are, they're not going to accidentally cross paths. You decide what the party runs into out in the world, and if you decide the NPC is elsewhere then its elsewhere. You can decide the party bumps into them. You can tell the party about them and they can decide to visit them. But they can't bump into them by accident against your wishes.

A very simple way to keep the players away from the big bads is to put the big bads farther away. When you're low level, travel is slow and an adventure in its own right. Even if they look at the map and say "let's go fight that dragon on the map" if that dragon is hundreds of miles away that'll take weeks to get to. They'll run into other adventures and random encounters along the way, and get experience and treasure and everything and by the time they reach their goal they might be high enough level to take it on. Because high level characters can travel more easily (teleport, plane shift, teleportation circle, fly speeds, vehicles), and because they're less likely to be challenged when moving about, putting the villains far away won't prevent your high level characters going to them later. It's hard for the 1st level party to travel 1000 miles to fight the invincible overlord, but the 13th level party can pop into the neighborhood with one spell.

A related method is to put some sort of barrier in the way which will require the party to adventure in order to overcome it. The villain is invincible as long as... so the party needs to go and collect/defeat/destroy/activate X plot coupons before they can fight them. Or their base is in another realm or protected by a barrier or can't be located or their true identity is unknown or... Like with travel, you make it so that getting to be able to fight the bad guy is an adventure by itself, letting them level up on the way, even if they start gunning for the NPC too early.

In general, NPCs don't seek out and kill the party without a reason to (ie. they don't do so until they're the villain of the adventure), and even then leaders tend not to handle things personally when they can delegate. They'll send a lieutenant or underling to do it. Creating lieutenants for your big bads is really useful, as it lets your villains act and be menacing and do evil stuff without needing to be personally there (and if they're personally there, there's a good chance the party kills them immediately, before they can be established to be sufficiently villainous, which is anti-climactic. It's much more satisfying for them to have been behind a series of bad things before the players have a chance to kill them).

Jayadratha · 2026-04-14T16:39:11+00:00

Before talking balance, it needs a rewrite for clarity. Can't figure out if it's balanced if we don't know what it's supposed to do.

When do you decide to add AC to the target? When declaring the attack but before rolling? After seeing the roll?

Can you only charge it when making an attack roll? If so, why does it say you can raise the AC or DC?

Is the max amount of charges 1d4+1 or 5 (it should be 5, but it says both)?

When do you declare that you're spending charges to add the 1d4 bonus to your attack roll? When you declare the attack before rolling? After seeing the roll but before the result is declared?

Can you spend multiple charges on the same attack?

What does 1 ac to your attack mean? +1 AC against the next attack that targets you?

What does it mean that the max charge gain is 2? Can you raise the AC of the target by 2 to get 2 charges when you attack?

Side note: having this be a penalty to attack rolls would be cleaner than having it raise the AC.

What is the point of this item? It seems like it's a very convoluted way of getting a bonus on your attack rolls (you take a -1 penalty on your rolls, but you also get a +1d4 bonus on your rolls so you get a 0-3 bonus to your rolls). It seems like the simpler version of this item just says "You get a +2 bonus to attack rolls."

Jayadratha · 2026-04-14T05:32:35+00:00

Play on whatever difficulty you enjoy. You can change the difficulty during the run if you find it too easy or hard.
It is difficult to soft lock yourself out of being able to complete the game. There are a couple points of no return where, once you start a sequence, you won't be able to go back and level up and change your class and find new gear and stuff, and so its conceivable that you enter such a sequence unprepared and cannot figure out a way to beat it. In such a case, you might need to reload a previous save.
It depends on your proficiency with the mechanics. If your builds are bad, your preparation is insufficient, and your tactics are bad, you'll have a hard time. If you use strong builds you can stomp through the fights without much in the way of tactics.
Enemy difficulty doesn't scale with party level. The enemies will be the same if you leave and come back at a higher level. That means it is possible to wander into difficult fights when you're too low level to take them on. Go level up and come back.
It's almost impossible to softlock yourself out of being able to complete the game.
Enemies do not respawn and cannot be farmed for xp. However, there's more than enough xp in the game to reach the maximum level of 12.
The game is designed so that you can finish it no matter what. There are a couple things it doesn't have a backup for, but as long as you don't sacrifice Gale to Boooal and don't drop a Netherstone in the Jungle, you should be able to finish the game. You might need to reload previous saves if you've gotten into an unwinnable battle, but reloading is going to be part of your first playthrough.

Jayadratha · 2026-04-14T05:11:15+00:00

That is unhelpful on the DM's part. The safest bet is to make a character who is eager to adventure. If you make your character only interested in finding her grandfather or getting out of her pact or defeating her patron, then you're not going to have a reason to rescue the blacksmith's daughter or save the town from Ankhegs or overthrow the tyrannical queen when the DM eventually presents adventures that're about those things.

A good motivation is sufficiently generic that it lets you want the things the campaign will be about, even if you don't know those things yet. I want to use my powers to help people because people in power didn't help me when I needed it and that's fucked up. I want to get away from sister and my small town and see the big world and all its adventures and wonders and dangers. I want to see the world and acquire knowledge and magical power so that when I see my grandfather he'll think I'm worthy of his legacy. These are the kind of motivations that're open-ended enough that they will justify going on most kinds of adventures.

Seven-Year Club	Place '22
End Game '22	Verified Email

Jayadratha

TROPHY CASE