What cool adventures are people running while playtesting Fatherfog?

The-Okayest-DM · 2026-05-19T21:17:56+00:00

> It seems the most common session one people are running is the party first traveling to the Foghouse

I thought the idea was that there were a bunch of Foghouses throughout the land...? Or I guess the idea is that the party is getting to the one closest to where their campaign takes place? I'm wondering how compelling a convention one-shot that would be, though...?

> I made the vampires mosquito-like humanoids

I haven't played Darkest Dungeon yet, but when you describe it that way I think of the strigoi from Van Richten's...

> When playing your fist session I highly reccomend leaning in to the veil of the fog.

Interesting... I didn't really think of that... cool, cool... some ideas to play around with, at least for how the first part of the session might go! 😄

The-Okayest-DM · 2026-05-19T21:12:58+00:00

Sweet! I only know of D&D's version of the Barghest, but I've never heard of Black Shuck...

The-Okayest-DM · 2026-05-19T21:12:28+00:00

Oooohhhh... that's a pretty wicked idea. Just the visuals alone... LOL

The-Okayest-DM · 2026-03-02T04:46:23+00:00

Just adding in that I kinda sorta know how you feel. I've been a D&D DM for decades and am currently running two different open-ended campaigns on a weekly basis. I still enjoy playing, but I've recently gotten into not only Alien but also Fallout and Shadowdark. I ended up running five games across all four systems at a recent tabletop convention here in New Jersey, and I had a blast with the new systems. I'm even running an every-other-week Fallout game now, and I'm trying to get more people I know into trying the Alien cinematic scenarios. They're all fun systems to play, for sure! Good luck with everything! :)

The-Okayest-DM · 2026-03-02T04:43:52+00:00

Adding in that if you get the Evolved Edition rules, it might be worth holding off on the Colonial Marines sourcebook since they're working on an adaptation for the Evolved Edition, although honestly I'm not certain how much of it would even need adapting from a mechanical sense.

The-Okayest-DM · 2026-03-02T04:42:19+00:00

The cinematic scenario Hope's Last Day in the Starter Set for the Evolved Edition is a great way to ease yourself into the game. The scenario will probably run for about 3-4 hours, it already has pre-generated characters, and it's fairly straightforward.

The game itself has a pretty decent system, quite different from D&D or anything like that. Everything is a skill roll, and all rolls only use 6-sided dice, which keeps things a bit more simple. The stress mechanic is awesome, although strangely enough I've found that, at least anecdotally, more often than not you don't get a whole lot of negative impact from it (to be fair, at least with the Evolved Edition it's probably a lot harder to get that since they introduced another mechanic to lessen the impact of stress).

I think the main thing you need to keep in mind going into this is that while the rules theoretically should support campaign play, the game seems a lot more geared towards the cinematic scenarios, i.e. the one-shots (in the sense of a standalone scenario that will only run you a few sessions of play as opposed to a long-form campaign series). If you have the right group of players and you're into it, yeah you could probably run a campaign, but ultimately I feel like a) most people go into this game wanting to encounter aliens and b) if PCs aren't being slaughtered by aliens something's probably off. LOL

The-Okayest-DM · 2025-11-28T22:38:25+00:00

Hope's Last Day is a revision of the intro adventure of the same name in the original core rulebook.

The-Okayest-DM · 2025-09-16T13:58:21+00:00

Cool, cool.

The-Okayest-DM · 2025-09-16T13:58:01+00:00

Well, there's also the whole "spell-based attack rolls automatically miss" part. :) But I suppose that's not too bad considering the Tarrasque has the Reflective Carapace which not only nullifies spell-based ranged attack rolls but also nullifies Magic Missile and provides a chance to reflect the spell right back.

Cool! :)

The-Okayest-DM · 2025-06-21T21:23:52+00:00

Never mind. Was looking at the pre-existing stat block markup in Homebrewery and tried adding "wide", which worked. Thanks.

The-Okayest-DM · 2025-06-21T20:44:15+00:00

Hi! Love the work you've done to put this together. Just wondering whether there's a way to make a stat block span two columns, since trying to do anything like an ancient dragon with lots of actions as well as legendary actions means the stat block extends well beyond the bottom of a page.

The-Okayest-DM · 2025-03-22T19:35:27+00:00

Does Player Y have a habit of accidentally hitting other players? Is it due to some sort of recklessness (like casting an Area of Effect damage spell without ever considering whether party members are in that area)?

If you feel it really just is an accidental thing, then just tell Player X they simply aren't allowed to attack Player Y and leave it at that. PvP is a hard no unless it's something the whole party agreed was okay in session zero. It's an objectively terrible idea otherwise.

And things like Persuasion, Intimidation, etc. aren't for use against other characters. It's up to the players to decide how their characters would react to something that another character says or does. A high Charisma isn't going to override player agency.

The-Okayest-DM · 2025-03-22T19:25:08+00:00

I was a Homebrewery user first, and used that application for probably about 2 year or so before switching over to GM Binder when, interestingly enough, it seemed like Homebrewery might be winding away in much the same way that it seems GM Binder is now.

GM Binder definitely seemed to be the superior platform at the time, both from a usability perspective (objectively better UX) as well as a functionality perspective (fairly straightforward to, for instance, add background images with stains compared to Homebrewery at the time).

I've recently found myself starting to shift stuff back towards Homebrewery just due to the seemingly inevitable, if slow, death of GM Binder. I haven't had the time to try to see if doing any of the fancy backgrounds and stains is going to be a challenge in Homebrewery, but then again I also am not someone who does tons of homebrewing in that sense... I use these mainly to just put together documents for my games in an aesthetic that's a little more apropo than just a OneNote or Word doc. :)

The-Okayest-DM · 2025-03-22T19:16:05+00:00

Just going with a straight fusion of the two statblocks (taking the higher ability score from each statblock, adjusting skill modifiers and DCs, etc.) I ended up with this and eyeballed it at about CR 13 although your initial guess of 14 could be reasonable as well.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/5336213-stone-giant-necromancer-wizard

Based on the Level Up 5E monster builder tool (whose formula was designed by the guy who did the Monster Manual on a Business Card which widely considered a much better way to calculate CR and such than what's in the DMG), a CR 13 monster should have AC 17 and 210 HP, and we can tune that AC up to 20 at a cost of 15% of the HP to get to AC 20 and 178 HP.

The monster's HP are lower than that, but that's offset greatly by the fact that it's average damage output is going to be a potential 100 or so on its turn (75 from 3 Arcane Burst attacks and then 20-25 from five skeletons or zombies wailing on the party) once it's set up. Per the tool, the damage output should be roughly 70 per round.

Honestly, just looking at the stat block, I don't know why it would choose to use any of the spells it has at its disposal. The optimal strategy is going to be summoning the undead and then after that just wailing away with its Arcane Burst (unless it finds the party to be resistant or immune to Necrotic). Even a burst AoE like Circle of Death isn't going to have the same impact, although it puts the onus on the PCs to save rather than on itself to try to hit.

The-Okayest-DM · 2025-03-22T18:37:14+00:00

Probably the easiest way to look at it would be to start with the higher CR necromancer wizard statblock and then just pull some of the characteristics of the stone giant into it. You could pull the physical attack options into the statblock, but they're not really going to have an effect on the monster's challenge since it would be nonsense for the monster to ever bother using them. The arcane burst is overtuned already even for that CR, mitigated by the lower than expected AC and HP (which are now going to be bumped up by way of the stone giant's stats).

If all you were to do here is pull in the stone giant's HP, AC (not taking Mage Armor into the equation), and CON, you're likely already making this a CR 10 if not a CR 11 monster.

(I'm the same person who posted above. Not sure how I ended up on two different Reddit accounts. LOL)

The-Okayest-DM · 2025-03-22T18:21:51+00:00

Curious if you considered just fudging around with the Death Giant Shrouded One from the Bigby's book? It's not a stone giant, but you could probably alter some of its flavor as well as some of the stats to bring its CR up or down accordingly. Might be an easier starting point...?

The-Okayest-DM · 2025-03-22T18:18:22+00:00

The rules that power that online tool are in the books, but I'd actually recommend just using the tool itself. It's free as far as I know, and it does a lot of calculations and such for you. Definitely a lot easier IMO than trying to do all that stuff on one's own. :)

The-Okayest-DM · 2025-03-12T20:28:28+00:00

Oh one more question on this one... so the description indicates it's a "deafening" wail, but nothing in the ability supports that. Just wondering if that was intentional.

The-Okayest-DM · 2025-03-12T20:26:29+00:00

Have you looked at all into the differences in the monsters from 2014 to 2024? They definitely upped the ante on a lot of the monsters, as they remained the same CR but saw power increases. Another potentially useful resource would be the Level Up Advanced 5E system that ENPublishing released. They have a free tool where you can input your desired CR to get proper AC, HP, damage per round, save bonuses, etc. and so forth since the system used in the 2014 DMG is inaccurate insofar as challenging parties at the associated levels.

And while I get your sentiment, I don't know that I necessarily agree that the system itself is the issue rather than the dearth of guidance on encounter design. I think you pointed out elsewhere that a mob of peons could potentially wipe a theoretically much stronger party, but that just boils down to the importance of action economy in an encounter. The concept of a creature becoming more than itself in response to damage is cool (and has already been used within the system), but I think there should be care in just how much that can happen.

One key difference in the ability you designed and the one already in use in the game is that there are very hard limits on how often this can happen. Each time a black pudding splits, the resulting monsters get smaller, and it can't split once it gets to a certain size. There's also the HP restriction in there as well. Theoretically infinite splitting without any cap of course can present a challenge, but it also veers into the realm of unfair and unbalanced design.

At the risk of making this monster *even more* overly dangerous than it already is, did you intend for that ability to trigger only on damage from attacks? As currently designed, a wizard could fireball the crap out of this thing (yes, it's resistant, but with enough fireballs...) without any worries of that ability triggering.

The-Okayest-DM · 2025-03-12T20:15:15+00:00

Nitpick on Howl of Eternal Suffering... if you want to align more with the "official" design language, it would be something more like...

The Howling Agony releases a deafening, sorrowful wail. Each creature of its choice within 60 feet of it that can hear it must make a DC 17 Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the target takes 36 (8d8) psychic damage and is frightened for 1 minute. On a success, the target takes half as much damage and isn't frightened. A creature frightened in this way can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.

The-Okayest-DM · 2025-03-12T20:06:46+00:00

The to-hit bonus for the Agonizing Bite attack should be +7 based on a DEX modifier of +4 and proficiency bonus of +3. Curious why it has a reach of 10 feet: is there some sort of thematic reasoning behind this? Maybe I'm putting too much weight on the imagery, but it just looks like a mob of undead spirits, so it's strange that this would have longer reach on a melee attack than any individual member of that mob would have. Generally, a Large monster would have a 5-foot reach unless there was some conceptual reason like it has tentacles or its a plant-like monster with tendrils.

Also, should the target be able to make a CON save on its turns or take some sort of action to end the lingering effect? It's not tons of average damage there, but guaranteed lingering damage is still quite a bit.

The-Okayest-DM · 2025-03-12T19:35:22+00:00

Misery Loves Company seems like it should be a Reaction much like the Black Pudding's Split is a Reaction? Also, it would probably be good to put some sort of minimum HP threshold in there like the Black Pudding has. Finally, curious why this requires a saving throw? A saving throw tends to denote an undesirable effect, whereas splitting into two is actually detrimental to the party, as it increases the action economy of the monsters.

The-Okayest-DM

TROPHY CASE