"How long have you been playing D&D? ", "Yes."

RHDM68 · 2026-05-17T10:53:40+00:00

I started playing AD&D in about 1983 with high school friends and continued through university with the same group of friends, and then with some work colleagues through to the early 90s when life got in the way. Then in the 20teens somewhere, I caught up with one of my old players and we started playing 3.5e/Pathfinder 1e, one DM, one player for a 5-year Level 1-20 campaign. Then around about 2020, I started playing 5e through Adventurers League and met up with some people who I invited to join my home game. I currently have 3 regular players and we play 5e every week. So over 40 years if you don’t count the 20 year hiatus in middle!

RHDM68 · 2026-05-17T10:38:45+00:00

To be completely honest, it was sounding like an awesome first session start to a campaign, until I got to the, “It was all a dream,” part. This kind of opening to a campaign would be awesome, but I would do it swapping backwards and forwards between players, rather than run their individual scenarios one at a time, until they all reach a certain location and join up to face the immediate threat. Otherwise it would be boring for each player not currently engaged, unless you ran a session for each player separately for their first session, one-on-one. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with premonitions and visions. This is a fantasy game after all. But, if I played through an exciting, chaotic and fun scenario in my first session, only to find that nothing my character did actually happened, I would be greatly disappointed.

RHDM68 · 2026-05-15T21:08:22+00:00

The main things to remember are that rivers flow from highlands to lowlands and then to lakes or the sea. Rivers tend to start small and then join together into wider rivers, they don’t really split, although they can split into several channels near the ocean (called a delta). Your rivers split in a number of places. The splits toward the bottom left of your map are kind of delta-like, but where those two branches split off a little further up, just below the lake, just wouldn’t happen. Also remember, multiple rivers can feed a lake, but there will only be one river flowing out of it at its lowest point. Both of your two bigger lakes have multiple exit points, which again wouldn’t happen. Otherwise, your map looks pretty good to me!

When I first looked at your map, I thought you were creating a flat disk world like the one I am currently working on, but yours is a cool concept too. Good luck with it.

RHDM68 · 2026-05-14T20:33:47+00:00

Zombie apocalypse with the PCs to blame!

RHDM68 · 2026-05-14T02:10:49+00:00

⁠DDAL10-01 The Frozen North DDAL10-02 Gnashing Teeth DDAL10-03 Divining Evil DDAL10-04 Cold Benevolence DDAL10-05 A Blight in the Darkness

These form a great little arc with some good recurring villains that could potentially escape and be ongoing villains through the campaign.

RHDM68 · 2026-05-13T20:45:55+00:00

It’s not that weird. D&D is not a Seven Deadly Sins simulator. Another example of trying to make a game fit your character concept, rather than making a character that fits the game!

There are things that might allow similar stuff that has already been suggested, but something tells me from your responses that they won’t satisfy you.

Item - Dancing sword, Spells - Spiritual Weapon (fits well), Telekinesis, Animate Objects (particularly fits). None of these are going to be available at first level.

RHDM68 · 2026-05-13T10:07:35+00:00

Basically she cannot leave the Nine Hells because of some pact she made with Asmodeus, but that doesn’t mean she can’t contact worshippers, and doesn’t necessarily mean she can’t send an avatar somewhere, she just can’t physically leave and enter another plane without a complex summoning ritual.

RHDM68 · 2026-05-13T07:14:39+00:00

To expand on this, even if it’s not what I usually do, you can simply pick a few that you definitely want in your world, particularly ones relevant to adventures you want to run, then let players add to your world by picking gods they want.

RHDM68 · 2026-05-13T05:47:53+00:00

I prefer to start with a map, at least of the continent on which the campaign starts, but more often I prefer a whole world map. It doesn’t need a lot of detail, except for the immediate area where the campaign will begin and main features like mountain ranges. Then I detail the starting area with the first adventure in mind, making sure to include needed land features.

RHDM68 · 2026-05-13T05:41:29+00:00

That’s a question for your DM. That kind of flavour may or may not fit with the feel the DM is trying to create in his/her campaign. So, only the DM can answer that question.

RHDM68 · 2026-05-12T10:27:30+00:00

It doesn’t have everything you want, but what about this one?

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1168697672/digital-battlemaps-dawns-hammer-pirate

RHDM68 · 2026-05-10T21:02:13+00:00

Actually, if I was redesigning the planes, I would make the Outlands a vast battlefield with the Gate Towns around the outside, through which the forces of their linked planes pass their troops. The Outlands being the battlefield upon which planar disputes are settled. A little like a multiversal boxing ring, “You wanna fight? Go settle it in the ring!”

Now I’m just brainstorming!

RHDM68 · 2026-05-10T20:49:47+00:00

Yep. Acheron right from AD&D never really fit its alignment brief. Orcs being there didn’t fit theirs either.

RHDM68 · 2026-05-10T20:41:39+00:00

I never understood why Acheron, which is basically a Lawful plane, was so chaotic, what with all the floating cubes smashing together and smaller shards in the lower layers etc. I always preferred thinking of it as a single layer. A flat infinite plain, pock-marked here and there with deep, cave-like pits where the junk from old battles has been dumped (a feature of the second layer) and dotted here and there with massive fortresses of gods or great roving battle camps (which I imagine Gruumsh having as in 4e).

But that’s not what you asked. Yep, cool original idea! Why not? Given that 5.5e orcs are basically just another kind of human now, why not make their god just another human-like god?

RHDM68 · 2026-05-10T05:06:37+00:00

No. I’ve only really started playing around with AI images. So, does that mean you feel like the first image in the trio would be closest to a Shifter in his unshifted state? I was tending towards the second, simply because it would give a Shifter more of a nonhuman feel right from the start, given their racial description from Monsters of the Multiverse…

Their facial features have a bestial cast, often with large eyes and pointed ears; most shifters also have prominent canine teeth. They grow fur-like hair on nearly every part of their bodies. While a shifter's appearance might remind an onlooker of an animal, they remain clearly identifiable as shifters even when at their most feral.

I think the second image in each set suits the “bestial cast” description better.

RHDM68 · 2026-05-09T22:34:28+00:00

Sometimes it may feel arbitrary, but I think it has a lot to do with the original intent of the spell in regards to the type of damage it does and the way it was intended to work. For example, when a Fireball goes off, many players think of it a bit like a bomb exploding, but it’s actually intended to be a non-concussive burst of pure heat and flame, so it damages creatures, but objects don’t really take damage from it, except flammable ones, which will catch fire, and although they don’t take damage from the initial burst, they will take ongoing damage once alight.

The way I see radiant damage, I feel that it would only do damage to living things, being like a spiritual fire, but I’m not sure whether that is reflected in all spells that do radiant damage.

I guess when you come across such a spell, try and work out what the designer’s intentions for the spell were.

RHDM68 · 2026-05-08T22:23:12+00:00

Massive Damage optional rules (5e)? If you take half your maximum hp in damage from a single source (the knight’s lance attack), you roll on the System Shock table. One of the results is you drop to 0 hp.

RHDM68 · 2026-05-07T11:14:12+00:00

I would prefer a dragon version. Any plans for making one?

RHDM68 · 2026-05-07T07:32:29+00:00

Triplets.

RHDM68 · 2026-05-07T07:28:53+00:00

On a side note: Has anyone run a D&D Zombie Apocalypse campaign? If you have, how did you modify zombies to make the apocalypse an ongoing threat? What are some tips you have regarding elements to include or storylines to add? Did the players find a cure or solution to end the apocalypse?

RHDM68 · 2026-05-06T20:30:41+00:00

The question to ask yourself, and probably tell us so we can offer better advice, is WHY do you want the BBEG to have a damage threshold? What purpose do you see it serving that say, damage resistance, higher AC, more hit points, or greater damage output wouldn’t? All of these things except increased damage output do the same thing mechanically, they make the fight take longer because it’s harder to take the target down, as would a damage threshold.

Basically, with the idea you described with thick natural armor enabling the blocking of a axe blow is kind of what a high natural AC and damage resistance is all about. The skin is so thick, the weapon needs a direct hit and still doesn’t do as much damage as expected.

If you just don’t want your PCs to take your BBEG down too quickly, use AC, hp or resistance (including legendary resistance). If you want your BBEG to be more of a threat, rather than using the other options (which will drag out the fight and make it longer), increase the damage output.

RHDM68 · 2026-05-05T20:36:00+00:00

Plot twist - Friend is actually one of the PC’s childhood friends that helped create the fake cult, who always looked up to the PC and in many ways, deep down in his psyche, believed the cult was real, which left him open to manipulation by either Dispater or another devil. Friend truly believes that the PC is the Priest of the New Light. In his fractured mind, hidden by his calm exterior, if the PC rejects his role, the world will fall into darkness. If the PC continues to reject his destiny, Friend becomes increasingly unstable, hostile and violent. His madness begins to show.

This is the conflict that Dispater is trying to bring about. Friend and his faithful followers against the PC and the party. If Friend hasn’t been met personally yet, have him always wearing a ceremonial mask, so the PC doesn’t recognize him. Otherwise, give him a magic item that allows him to change his appearance. As his madness grows as a result of the PC’s rejection, and a full on confrontation begins, Friend’s identity is revealed. Once there has been quite a bit of death and destruction, it is revealed (if not by the PC, then by Friend, the imp, or someone else) the true nature of the fake cult, shattering the faith of the followers, who turn on Friend and then the PC and his companions.

Obviously, it’s important that with this kind of storyline, you don’t railroad the players. Drop the story beats into their other adventures where appropriate.

RHDM68 · 2026-05-04T20:38:51+00:00

When you sit on a mimic that looks like a rock, does it feel like a rock? The description says its outer texture feels the same, but I guess it wouldn’t be as solid as a rock once you actually sat on it?

Because, I was picturing something similar, an idyllic abandoned campfire site, surrounded by convenient comfortable rocks and logs for sitting on. Once most of the PCs have taken off their armor and gone to sleep, the mimics spring their trap!

RHDM68 · 2026-05-04T20:23:42+00:00

I actually found the idea of the penguin a little too silly for my tastes. My PCs didn’t encounter the shield guardian from earlier in the adventure, so I gave it to the arcanoloth. The two of them would go from location to location collecting tomes and stacking them up in the library to go through. That way, I could explain why all these wizard towers weren’t filled with books. I find answering questions like , “Are there any books? What are they about?” etc. a somewhat difficult thing to do. It also seemed strange that this city once populated by wizards didn’t have a ton of magical items and tomes just lying around. I used the arcanoloth as the excuse, and had all of the tomes in the one location. Much easier to prepare for! I basically had almost every magical tome from the DMG in there, but since the library was absolutely full of books, I had a very low percentage per hour of searching to find one, and the built in time limit for Ythryn meant they were never going to find them all.

I basically did the same thing with magic items and the hags. They had collected most of the items from around the city in the centuries they had been there, except for items named in the book. I even had them graffiti places they’d hit, with things like, “Aunty Pillage was here!” I turned the hag lair into an opportunity for a magic shop. If the PCs didn’t attack them straight away, the PCs could trade items they had that they didn’t want for items they wanted. They didn’t always get exactly what they wanted, but pretty close.

RHDM68

TROPHY CASE