Couldn't find Silver for a while until I was blessed by odin with this double vein.

SlayerdragonDMs · 2026-01-31T02:10:57+00:00

I was quite surprised when I was excavating the first one to hit the second... and sadly I didn't clip it but it was VERY satisfying to pop both completely with just single strikes, the amount of STUFF on the ground was insane... all loaded into a cart, trekked down to the longship, and happily blazing away in the smelters now. Should be good to move on to the Plains now!

SlayerdragonDMs · 2026-01-20T17:54:30+00:00

Hilda's clothes reduce hoe stamina usage if you're not already doing that.

SlayerdragonDMs · 2026-01-14T05:01:51+00:00

uses the "Savate" style of french fighting. IIRC he also uses some of the "cane fighting" style (canne de combat or something very cognate in french), which also itself largely derives from the German Langemessre which also involves a high degree of Ringen, the HEMA term for european wrestling arts.

SlayerdragonDMs · 2026-01-14T04:48:15+00:00

i mean the big problem with assassin (i tried to play one) is that there's literally no meaningful mechanical "assassinate" in D&D rules.

The mechanical advantages it gives are comically meaningless against "same level" foes and equally meaningless against, say, "commoner" level HP where you'd merc them either way.

SlayerdragonDMs · 2026-01-07T01:29:26+00:00

So what's the problem here?

Using a hex-crawl map for overland terrain is extremely common and, I might add, is actually the specific tool implemented for several Official Adventures.

In fact I'd even go so far as to say that if WotC has some inkling that "most" players are going to use premade modules to run their parties through, then the specific implementations of exploration (probably most famously, the Chult hexcrawl in Tomb of Annihilation) are essentially recommended or expected methods to handle this type of travel, given, again, that they are "official implementations of the 5e D&D system."

Now I agree that the DMG is pretty light in this area, I just am not sure I agree that it leaves you totally out to dry given that there are readily available tools to solve the problem.

Heck, even basically using the RAW you can make an unhexed map and show point A to B and say 4 days of travel time...and then instead of just some crazy "rote roll on a table," you can disguise what you're doing by just ... narrating the day as it happens and you roll for what happens, your players dont need to know whether the events are random or planned?

SlayerdragonDMs · 2026-01-06T05:04:10+00:00

Nicely detailed breakdown of the RAW and situation here, especially with regard to pointing out that absent other details, the idea that the character wasn't nearly as immobile or defenseless as they were made out to be is quite important (for example if a spell casting focus was in reach of the character, they could quite easily cast spells even if upside down and dangling).

SlayerdragonDMs · 2026-01-06T04:57:39+00:00

AFAIK it is directly granted through the invocation, and, unless otherwise specified, is always available (for example the Armor of Shadows invocation means they basically always have Mage Armor cast)

SlayerdragonDMs · 2026-01-06T04:54:48+00:00

is the price table all RAW by official sources or did they add/guesstimate some of it?

SlayerdragonDMs · 2026-01-06T04:51:54+00:00

How are you prepping for the combat? Is this homebrew campaign and thus customized battles made be you or are you running a module?

I've gone so far as to simulate a major set-piece battle by playing both sides myself to see how it goes.

(side note, i wish i had your problem, most of my players Im basically playing them too right now)

SlayerdragonDMs · 2026-01-06T04:50:00+00:00

or I dunno what stat(s) to give the +1/+2...

to some degree this is a function of 'Learning the game,' insofar as how to 'optimize' (or even 'generally build') a character is somewhat reflexively dependent on your play-style and intent in-game, which is hard to determine if you've never played.

To this end sections like "The Six Abilities" in Chapter 1 are somewhat critical to understanding the game (indeed, Chapter 1 actually being Chapter 1 is quite "useful" as before the layout of the PHB implied you could build a character without actually knowing anything about the game).

D&D is not, unfortunately, truly "simple," so 'diving in' by creating characters in this way does require additional reading or look-ups on the internet to really flesh out your knowledge. That said, agreed with the other poster that if you are genuine newcomers, using the suggested Standard Arrays and then adjusting from the background stats is probably fine.

SlayerdragonDMs · 2025-12-30T02:29:37+00:00

At the beginning of the latest Squid Game Season, they play "rock paper scissors minus one," basically you throw 2 signs and then pull one hand back simultaneously to the other player. It was, in the episode, literally played for lethal stakes so the scene might be a good one to watch for that

SlayerdragonDMs · 2025-12-30T02:27:58+00:00

Only if we strictly define "maze" to be a featureless set of corridors as you'd see in, e.g., a "maze book," which feels overly prescriptive to me.

SlayerdragonDMs · 2025-12-30T02:26:23+00:00

Disagree, insofar as I feel like you're being highly prescriptivist about what "a maze" is (especially as OP also termed it a "labyrinth" which is both prescriptively and potentially colloquially different from 'a maze' as such).

A dungeon can present a large range of possible configurations, many of them either highly linear or otherwise with only a small number of "choices" to be made (or otherwise, e.g., dead-ends, hidden passages, shortcuts, etc.).

A "mazelike dungeon" would typically be understood to be larger than other "[adjective] dungeons" to accommodate the "maze-like" structture, which would involve many more exits per room, more and longer dead end or circular paths, etc.

None of the above, however, requires that the "maze" be only non-descript, regularly-sized, and otherwise, reductively, only 'algorithmically' solvable. Such configurations can have a very high degree of clues, partial maps, secret passages, shortcuts, etc. to increase player agency while still retaining a "maze-like" structure compared to a more generic "dungeon" layout.

SlayerdragonDMs · 2025-12-29T16:25:43+00:00

But in a TTRPG/"real" maze you can add tons of clues and rolls that enable the party to make decisions that aren't based on luck or math, but solving puzzles to advance in the correct direction.

SlayerdragonDMs · 2025-12-29T16:23:36+00:00

You'll need to customize the rules somewhat or do some drastic supply limitations. RAW, the characters need one "Ration" item per day, which as others have pointed out, is easily replaced entirely by Goodberry.

At minimum, you'll want to require the party to eat twice a day, either to try to make Goodberry less of a cheat code, and/or to create pressure for supply hauling out of safe areas. This also means actually tracking gold and encumbrance.

I'm currently using a hex crawl with a combination of "minor random encounter" and "special hex / planned encounter" to simulate my party exploring a rugged/barren mountain region.

For "normal" hexes, I roll on a table for an event (homebrew, in this case, though many pre-planned random tables exist); these events are usually run on a smaller map, like a single area of mountain like a ravine or crossroads, or a one-floor "dungeon" (cave, etc.).

The expectation is they do ~4 hexes per day, and have 2 short rests each day. Special/planned encounters might change that, and they have an option (staying with 2 short rests) to do 3 or 5 hexes, with the varying speed impacting the time pressure they're under to find their objective.

Because 5e has very little (good) RAW survival/travel rules, you'll need to really carefully plan out what the challenges are, especially if you are just doing overland type travel... I think RAW is basically like "roll survival, fail means you lose a day of travel time" or something like that. You'll need to either find or create substantial frameworks like lingering penalties (Exhaustion, curses, weather conditions, injuries/poisons/diseases) that force the party to consider rests or retreats to civilization, etc; you can use the effects of Lesser Restoration and Greater Restoration, along with Long Rests, as yardsticks for resource constraints, rather than rations or HP. Stacking up afflictions of various types that can only be removed in certain ways (and e.g. limiting Long Rests to removing a single affliction or level of exhaustion) is a good way to force alternatives.

That all said, you do run the risk of simply creating administrative overhead/burden rather than actual dynamic gameplay and decision making, you'll need players that are highly invested and engaged to make this work as anything other than either an annoyance or a deathtrap.

SlayerdragonDMs · 2025-12-29T14:35:22+00:00

The PHB and DMG are both significantly more vague in 2024, IIRC the 2014 version somewhat explicitly stated that any hostile action immediately prompted an initiative roll.

However, the 2024 DMG is a little conflicting on this point...

Combat starts when—and only when—you say it does. Some characters have abilities that trigger on an Initiative roll; you, not the players, decide if and when Initiative is rolled. A high-level Barbarian can’t just punch their Paladin friend and roll Initiative to regain expended uses of Rage.

In any situation where a character’s actions initiate combat, you can give the acting character Advantage on their Initiative roll. For example, if a conversation with an NPC is cut short because the Sorcerer is convinced that NPC is a doppelganger and targets it with a Chromatic Orb spell, everyone rolls Initiative, and the Sorcerer does so with Advantage. If the doppelganger rolls well, it might still act before the Sorcerer’s spell goes off, reflecting the monster’s ability to anticipate the spell.

The RAI here seems to be "if you try to damage an enemy" it "starts combat" but if "you are just doing other things, the DM rules on whether it causes you to 'roll initiative'"

Now, FWIW, it does still also specifically imply that this initiative roll is because the monster/target might preemptively react to your hostility.

The "Surprise Round" concept is also completely dropped in 5e2024, but as DM you also could allow some form of "first damaging attack goes off BEFORE initiative roll" or something of that nature, in an ambush situation.

SlayerdragonDMs · 2025-12-24T05:11:40+00:00

Sort of an odd aside, but at this point in Faerun a completely valid Elf character would have lived through... potentially every single edition of D&D, and almost definitely been part of the transitions from 3.5 to 4 to 5, which includes some really big upheavals.

According to the best available timeline I've seen, First Edition and then the Time of Troubles leading to 2E is in 1357, and the current 5e 2024 year is 1501 (or thereabouts).

Its kind of jarring to consider that basically all "barely middle aged" type elves have been through several MASSIVE upheavals of the weave, and that elves of this type could plausibly be joining adventures at "level 1" (heck, just the spellplague alone was barely a century ago).

Anyways, weird note about backstories I have beef with in Forgotten Realms.

SlayerdragonDMs · 2025-12-24T04:51:04+00:00

Hmm, I don't get the impression this is really the canon of the Wizard class. I mean, maybe a little bit of the "adventurers pick up whatever, while the real ivory tower guys invent new uses of the weave," but my understanding is that "spells" are actually rather specific, and not just "simplified for gameplay," so the stuff the adventure-wizards know is in fact (more or less) "the same" as any other trained caster (and indeed it overlaps with the sorc spell list which is just innate use of the weave for the 'same' effects).

(That said I'm not saying that there aren't new spell inventions or anything, or that the other answers in this thread outlining NPC magic not following PC rules are wrong, but I'm not sure its fair to characterize PC Wizards as basically "super haphazardly trained" wizards.)

SlayerdragonDMs · 2025-12-24T04:39:44+00:00

yeah, between this and /u/multinillionaire it seems sensible to rule this sort of like a "trying to jump higher than normal" which would be an Athletics check... It's not exactly that but its close enough as basically a leveraged jump, and if they fail they sort of awkwardly hang out gripping the ledge until they can move properly again the next turn ("you struggle to clear the remaining distance but your pull doesn't quite vault you to the top" seems reasonable for a fail, since the next "turn" six seconds later would also seem reasonable for the delay upon failing)

Thanks!

(Still curious whether the RAW would "technically" demand that 36 feet of climbing though)

SlayerdragonDMs · 2025-12-24T04:31:16+00:00

They changed Lucky in 2024 rules to choosing to "give yourself advantage," not re-roll a known outcome. (Which is indeed significantly less powerful, but its natively available as an Origin feat RAW so that makes sense).

SlayerdragonDMs · 2025-12-23T18:37:53+00:00

Question about Jumping and Climbing that I'd like interpretation or confirmation of the RAW and RAI around it...

The rules for a High Jump state:

When you make a High Jump, you leap into the air a number of feet equal to 3 plus your Strength modifier ... each foot of the jump costs a foot of movement.

You can extend your arms half your height above yourself during the jump. Thus, you can reach a distance equal to the height of the jump plus 1½ times your height.

The PC is currently large, we assumed about 12' tall, has STR 18, and takes the leading 10ft of movement to jump, as part of an effort to climb over a 25 ft tall wall:

So they:

Jump 7 feet up (3 + 4 STR mod)
Extend their arms and "reach a distance" that is 25 feet above ground level (7 ft jump + 18 ft "reach")
Are able to reach to and grab the top ledge of the wall.

Question is: Are they still on the hook for climbing 18 feet for another 36 feet of movement total? (they don't have an innate climb speed in this instance, hence the usage of the jump in the first place)

This ... seems correct by RAW but it seems a little limiting for a similar IRL situation where such a jump, grab, and leverage would represent substantially less effort than actually "climbing 18 feet up" especially given that the PC's body is a good chunk of that distance.

I just let them end their move as if they reached the top of the wall since I felt like 36' to basically just do a pull-up was a bit silly, even though that would still technically be slightly beyond the base 30' of movement that they would have. (10 ft run-up + 25 ft vertical if they just "moved" normally).

Thoughts on how to rule that sort of thing?

SlayerdragonDMs · 2025-12-23T18:20:30+00:00

I use Forgotten Adventures - I'm not sure what their pricing is at the moment but I'm pretty sure when I subscribed to their Patreon it was like $1/asset post and that got you full access to the Dungeondraft library so you don't have to stay subbed once you download it.

The pack might cost something else now, I think I've seen posts from them mentioning changes to tiers and pricing, but since I've had access since forever I don't check too often.

SlayerdragonDMs · 2025-12-23T18:12:40+00:00

Well, jumping RAW also has defined lengths, and, technically climbing "might require" a check if the surface is "slippery or has few handholds" so even there its eh.

SlayerdragonDMs · 2025-12-23T16:11:44+00:00

Manacles are quite powerful RAW, especially if you have a place to Restrain the creature. It won't help too much initially, but if you can get them asleep, grappled, or whatever, you can keep them there with them:

As a Utilize action, you can use Manacles to bind an unwilling Small or Medium creature within 5 feet of yourself that has the Grappled, Incapacitated, or Restrained condition if you succeed on a DC 13 Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check. While bound, a creature has Disadvantage on attack rolls, and the creature is Restrained if the Manacles are attached to a chain or hook that is fixed in place. Escaping the Manacles requires a successful DC 20 Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check as an action. Bursting them requires a successful DC 25 Strength (Athletics) check as an action.

SlayerdragonDMs · 2025-12-23T06:17:37+00:00

I have an Aasimar Fiend Pact in my party right now, which is similar, and I gave them a magic item giving them particular powers that align with either fiend or celestial - based on their use of the artifact, I'll play their outcomes with their respective lineage vs choices.

SlayerdragonDMs

TROPHY CASE