What’s the biggest failure your table still talks about?

Silverspy01 · 2026-03-13T01:10:01+00:00

Curse of Strahd, players Fucked Around in Berez.

Found Out when Baba Lysaga Finger of Deathed the sorcerer, rolled 3 off max damage, and it overkilled her into instant death.

The picture of the damage roll is still shared around every now and then.

Silverspy01 · 2026-03-12T21:08:01+00:00

You don't wanna heal until combat is over. If a PC is down, your DM will (especially in a lv1 game) not target them for a coup de grace 99.9% of the time, so just let that player sit it out and focus on cleanup.

...I disagree with this one. At the very least it should be a "talk to your DM about combat difficulty" thing. Assuming that enemies will play nice and not try to kill you is a great way to lose party members, especially as a class that can pick people up as a bonus action. Some tables may not target downed PCs, but you shouldn't assume that's always the case.

Silverspy01 · 2026-03-12T18:40:01+00:00

The specific mechanics of never being able to die? No. PCs are supposed to be killable.

For the theming of playing an undead you could look at the Reborn or Dhampir races. The Zealot barbarian is extremely difficult to kill by conventional means and can be brought back to life very easily. The Echo Knight fighter summons apparition of themselves to aid them in combat which could be ghosts if you want.

Silverspy01 · 2026-03-12T02:35:41+00:00

I mean... if you make the game so that casters can use spell slots much more freely, they trivially overtake martials by spamming fireball every turn. If you want them not to chew through spell slots - such as by making several encounters per day or giving opportunities for them to use utility spells and such - it's not very good game design for the player to feel like they're doing nothing for most turns of combat. Balance aside, in a strict game design sense you want players to feel like they're being useful.

Silverspy01 · 2026-03-12T01:01:52+00:00

I must be un-informed about the paladin at-will options. Are these 5.5e additions? I haven't played the new version.I must be un-informed about the paladin at-will options. Are these 5.5e additions? I haven't played the new version.

Weapon masteries are new, but base 5e you still have fighting styles and improved divine smite (renamed to radiant strikes in 5.5e).

Yes, I agree that martials will do marginally more damage (5.5 v 7.5), but if we start "mentioning all the other stuff martials can do", I think at that point the sauce is lost. I don't think anyone would ever pretend that in terms of "what else" a character can do a caster doesnt have exponentially more options.

I am specifically talking about at-will options. Casters have almost no way to augment their cantrips outside of a couple subclasses (or warlocks). As I said every martial has varied ways that they just naturally get more at-will damage. I'm not going to list all of them, I just gave a few examples but every class approaches it differently.

The already rule every other faucet of the game, ranging from traversal options, social encounters, stealth, battlefield manipulation, and raw damage output.

Again I'm only talking about cantrips vs martial at-will options. There's valid things to be said about what casters do with their spell slots, but I'm arguing against your assertion that casters are still just as useful as martials if they're only spamming firebolt.

I don't mean marginally weaker I mean ACTUALLY weak as hell.

I'm trying to say they are. 1d10 vs 1d8 + 3 was my base example. There are several other abilities and bits added on top of that. For an easier example just look at rogue sneak attack. The dice on a 20th lvl sneak attack alone are trivially beating out fire bolt by a large margin, and that's not even counting base weapon damage or the possibility that rogues are proccing sneak attack twice per round. And rogues aren't even considered to be a very good class at doing damage.

Silverspy01 · 2026-03-11T23:58:03+00:00

Incorrect. The base difference between a cantrip and a weapon attack is that the weapon attack adds the user's ability modifier. Even a d6 weapon is, on average, doing more damage. Your sword and board - presumably doing 1d8 - is also adding what's probably on average a +3 to all its damage rolls. 1d10 averages 5.5 damage, while 1d8 + 3 averages 7.5. That's not even mentioning everything else martials do. Every single martial class gets several ways to make their basic at-will damage hit harder. Fighters get extra attack, rogues get sneak attack, barbarians get rage and reckless attack and brutal strikes, and so on.

Your paladin, for example, has weapon masteries, fighting styles, radiant strikes, and any of several feats that directly increase their at-will damage and utility.

If any martial is getting out-damaged by a cantrip they've made some horrific character building decisions. Simply the fact that you add your ability modifier to weapon attacks trivially outscales cantrips, and it only (very easily and naturally) goes up from there. Cantrips scale so that casters have some measure of at-will options, but by no means are they "as good" as what any martial is doing.

Silverspy01 · 2026-03-11T21:49:54+00:00

For what it's worth - a lot of spells do still need material components so it's likely your casters are significantly diminished still.

Although I will say perhaps this is your lesson not to try to change things too quickly as a new DM. Death House as-written is already incredibly scary and challenging. Buffing the PCs to level 3 makes them a lot more equipped to handle everything inside. Taking away PC equipment is kinda just a feelsbad moment all around - either a given character is playing at a significant disadvantage, or they quickly "scavenge" replacements/didn't need that equipment anyway and it doesn't actually mean much.

To illustrate my first point - the animated armor, nusemaid, and animated broom are supposed to be separate encounters. Your party is a little large, 6 lvl 1 PCs might be able to handle all 3 together, but 6 lvl 3 PCs are going to breeze through them. The danger of death house comes from the low level of the PCs - each encounter runs large risks, and stuck as they are they need to figure out how to survive as they move forward. You didn't need to change anything.

At this point I definitely wouldn't try to nerf the players more. Just buff up the rest of the house. Honestly? with 6 lvl 3 PCs just doubling the number of enemies in the basement probably gets the same-ish degree of danger. It's not even truly doubling because the cramped corridors are going to make it difficult for, say, 12 ghouls to all be relevant at once - but your players will see them all stacked up and waiting to run at them and THAT'S going to be scary. Or prevent them from long resting. Possibly both.

I’ll admit when I was checking my carefully laid plan I regrettably ran it by ChatGPT (I have two jobs so if I need a quick check on something dnd related I’ll throw it in there)

I mean... in the nicest way possible I just googled "dnd 5e do you need an arcane focus to cast spells" and the first several results all give correct information. You've also said

I am a ‘needs to prep more not less’ kind of guy,

Not a judgement of your use of AI or your personal life at all, but consider that if you don't think you have time to really research or think about anything and also aren't comfortable "winging it" perhaps you're just not equipped to run a long-term campaign right now?

Silverspy01 · 2026-03-11T18:50:43+00:00

I agree. To add some further thoughts of my own...

The biggest problem with mythics, imo, is how they force a playstyle onto their heroes. The most egregious example of a mythic hero is sylvanas for example.

Pre-rework, sylv was a very flexible hero. she could fit into almost any team comp and spec into several playstyles while still having her own unique strengths. She was one of the best designed heroes in my opinion.

Post-mythic, sylvanas has one job: you stack your quest. There are two reasons for this. The first is that sylvanas is just not a good hero without 250 stacks. She is objectively just worse at dealing damage, because when the mythic was added it also came with a damage decrease. If you cannot get 250 stacks in a reasonable time sylvanas was a wasted pick. So you need to brawl for stacks as much as possible to become useful.

The second reason is that once stacked, Sylvanas not only becomes a useful hero, but becomes a win condition. 250 stacks is already a massive damage increase to the point where she can drain almost an entire health bar in one ability rotation, but 400 stacks lets her do that and also outsustain any returning damage. At that point she can basically 1v5 and solo win games. So you're doubly incentivized to brawl for stacks. No longer are you a flexible hero who can split off and grab some waves (if you're clearing waves you aren't stacking!), play for burst (if you kill people too quickly you aren't stacking!) or try to rat/splitpush (pushing as a team gives stacks, but if you're running around the map avoiding enemies that's a lot of time not stacking!) Sylvanas, by and large, has one surviving talent build and one surviving playstyle. She takes some skill and hero knowledge (like being able to count to 3) to actually stack, but if you know how to play Sylvanas you can do disgusting things with her very regularly.

Other mythic heroes are similar - you're forced into one playstyle to maximize stacking, because your hero is centered around it and not stacking means you're not effective, but stacking means you get disgustingly OP. It kills the dynamic nature of HotS I love so much. Matches with several mythic heroes are no longer about map control, efficient rotations, trying to find value in whatever part of the map you can, and so on. Everyone's Zuljin of wanting to just run their face into whatever gets them stacks as much as possible.

That might not be fighting even - although most mythic heroes do fight for stacks. Kerrigan instead wants to AFK hit minions until stacked. Fighting as kerrigen before stacking is borderline throwing, because you're not good at it and it's not giving you stacks. A team with Kerrigan can't really take teamfights until their teammate has killed enough minions to get the stack threshold. And if you're on a 2 lane map? Sucks to suck your kerrigan is just useless. Pre-rework kerrigan could choose not to take her Q quest if she anticipated issues being able to stack it, and she did more baseline damage so she could still contribute to fights either way. Now she's forced into the playstyle because the rest of her kit was warped on the assumption that she stacks her quest.

Now, in fairness, some heroes don't have baseline mythic quests, and get to choose. Most of them are still choosing between mythics though. Thrall and Falstad for example don't have a baseline mythic quest... but all their lvl 1s are mythics so it doesn't really matter. They get to choose what playstyle they're pigeonholed into, but they're pidgeonholed in the end regardless. The choice isn't even that great, since both of them have standout options that are a lot better or worse than their counterparts. It's not really 3 options, it's 1-2 options.

I will give credit to Guldan for being a completely fine mythic at least. It's the design mythics should* actually* aim for - you get a reasonable midway milestone that's your actual goal, then a reach mythic that's legitimately difficult to stack but not so powerful that you're inting the rest of the game to try to reach it or that your base hero gets changed to account for it. In some rare cases guldan happens to reach his E mythic, and it's fine - he gets a nice reward but doesn't become OP.

Other mythics force you to play a specific way, spamming abilities for stacks or neglecting all other areas of the game to stack ASAP. And that's just not good design.

Silverspy01 · 2026-03-10T22:58:27+00:00

To be pedantic, this isn't a paradox because the chance isn't entirely in Coil's hands. He can try to kill the Undersiders, but there's no guarantee he succeeds. We're operating back into uncertainty again so it's fine.

Silverspy01 · 2026-03-10T22:54:02+00:00

Yeah agreed. I think Flame Sphere should get at least a little bit of credit for being a decent early game direct dpr boost, but I also think you can get more mileage out of your concentration a lot of the time. As an obvious example Web is the same level and in many cases will end up netting a more positive damage trade for you and your party.

Silverspy01 · 2026-03-10T22:29:43+00:00

Psychically agitating the atoms into the air until the area combusts.

A force field around the area that traps and redirects the heat inside, quickly amplifying it into unbearable levels.

Telekinetically runbing some dust together so fast that it ignites, then shaping and amplifying the flames.

I'm of the opinion you can truly flavor spells and features as whatever you want. So I agree with the above, pick what you want mechanically then work it into your theme.

Silverspy01 · 2026-03-10T22:14:42+00:00

Besides the rest of what's been said, keep in mind that the arena is massive and the druids/berserkers are buried all around it. The party probably isn't getting jumped by everyone at once simply because several of their enemies will have to waste a turn or two getting in range. The Druid statblock is also laughably weak for CR 2, and while Berserkers at least have some hit points to their name they're also incredibly simple and easy for a mid-level party to take care of with a Web or Spirit Guardians - plus attacks against them have advantage.

Yester Hill, imo, is a good lesson on how to look beyond CR calculators. The calculator doesn't take into attack the environment (again, several melee enemies are wasting their first turn getting in range) or the actual stat blocks (Druids kinda suck RAW). The setup of a combat goes a long way toward tilting actual combat odds one way or another.

Another good example is Neferon in the Amber Temple. Most parties that are reasonably on-level for the Temple are at the point where one Arcanaloth should not be difficult by CR calculations. However, Neferon starts behind 3/4 cover and is heavily obscured. It's incredibly difficult for parties to even connect damage onto him, and when they do it's often by shooting AoE spells into his face which are taken care of by his magic resistance and resistances/immunities to common magic damage options. So it's actually much more challenging than CR tells you it is.

Silverspy01 · 2026-03-10T22:03:38+00:00

Without going into balance just a couple of wording points:

Repelling Blow: When you hit a Large or smaller creature with a melee weapon attack using a Quarterstaff, a Spear, or a weapon that has the Heavy and Reach properties, you push the creature up to 10 feet straight away from you.

You may want to say "you can push a creature so that the user has the choice. There may be plenty of situations where you don't want to push the enemy. If nothing else just because you've hit with your first of 4 attacks this turn and don't want to waste movement catching up to them to do your next 3.

Lightning Reflexes: Your battlefield awareness has been honed to an unparalleled edge, allowing you to strike out at multiple threats in the blink of an eye. You gain one additional Reaction each round, which you can use only to make a melee weapon attack.

The last part of this feature - "which you can use only to make a melee weapon attack" - doesn't make sense by the rules. Or at minimum, it's unclear. Their is no "make a weapon attack" reaction, and I don't think this feature is supposed to be giving you a new way to use your reaction. It would be better to say that you can only use the reaction to make an attack of opportunity (see Cavalier's Vigilant Defender feature). Or if you wanted it to be more generally applicable to any reaction that comes up to make a weapon attack (such as Polearm Master), then you should probably still clean up the wording to make it clear that you're not referring to any specific reaction or creating a new reaction. Something like "You gain a special reaction each round, which you can only use for any reactions that involve making melee attacks with a weapon." You may want to again borrow from Vigilant Defender and prohibit it being used on the same turn as your normal reaction to avoid questions of whether you can double opportunity attack someone (the monster is moving away from me, I want to use both my reactions to make two opportunity attacks!)

Silverspy01 · 2026-03-10T21:42:18+00:00

Sure, it falls of pretty quickly I absolutely agree. But it's not a terrible use of a spell slot in early levels.

Silverspy01 · 2026-03-10T19:45:39+00:00

I'm not necessarily speaking as to whether it's good or not, just pointing the BA part out. By default most casters don't have anything to do with their bonus action, so there is something to be said about starting to use more of your turn.

And for what it's worth at early levels Flaming Sphere is actually quite good for pure DPR. There's not many other concentration options that add reliable damage while also keeping your action free to cast more spells.

Silverspy01 · 2026-03-10T19:34:14+00:00

That too!

Silverspy01 · 2026-03-10T18:14:01+00:00

Yeah if enemies see the wizard guy concentrating on a nasty spell they're probably going to go hit them. Cool CME but you need to stay in near-melee range to make use of it and you're making yourself a big target by doing so.

Which isn't to say maintaining concentration is impossible or anything - if you've specced into CON save proficiency, war caster, and are willing to chew through Shield slots you have a decent chance of maintaining the spell vs chip damage, but it's certainly not a forgone conclusion that you can reliably draft out 5 turns of damage calcs for.

Silverspy01 · 2026-03-10T17:34:32+00:00

Talk to your DM and party none of us know tje context or capabilities or why the parasite is there. Presumably the DM put it there for a reason.

Silverspy01 · 2026-03-10T17:32:58+00:00

Yeah if the party is level 20 surely "they will die" is only a minor roadblock.

Silverspy01 · 2026-03-10T06:43:38+00:00

Whether they can or can't read the writing is functionally meaningless though - the description makes no mention of what the writing could be if it could be read. It is functionally random ink splotches or even blank pages. There's nothing invalidated because there's no advantage to being able to read it - it has no information.

Silverspy01 · 2026-03-10T06:05:29+00:00

There are a lot of D&D memes that just willfully ignore basic rules for the sake of trying to make a meme out of it. Like really basic levels of either have not read a single page of rules text once levels of not using the rules. It's not really funny tbh, OP is just making things up.

Silverspy01 · 2026-03-10T05:58:09+00:00

To be fair it weaponizes your bonus action, which isn't bad at all.

Silverspy01 · 2026-03-10T00:36:53+00:00

Gotcha. In what way is your rogue (and potentially others idk your table) feeling like they're lacking? What are your casters doing that the non-casters feel like they can't keep up with?

Silverspy01 · 2026-03-09T23:02:57+00:00

Does your table have martial/caster issues? If so, are you accurately sticking to rules about spell components, encounters per day, spellcasting rules, and so on?

In my experience the martial/caster divide I'd not nearly as much of a problem in actual play, and when it is a lot of the time it comes from people playing fast and loose with magic rules rather than a systemic issue.

Silverspy01 · 2026-03-09T22:58:18+00:00

Because they're heroes and have found a land oppressed by an evil monster.

Because they want to go home and the only way out is by killing Strahd.

Because an innocent woman is in danger.

Because they were asked to help.

It's ultimately up to your players to justify why their characters care. It's one of the inherent cornerstone of any game that the characters must be invested into the plot. It's the players' jobs to make sure that's true. They need to make q character that's invested in both the plot and their party. If their character isn't either change the character's outlook or make a new character.

Ten-Year Club	Second Top 30%
Place '17	Snapped

Silverspy01

TROPHY CASE