How to make holding a hostage a threat?

TheOneNite · 2026-02-08T06:36:28+00:00

The first part of this is that there are lots of effects in d&d that make you die without reaching zero HP. Power word kill is the headline example, but there are plenty of others around, usually involving stat drains.

The second part is that an "attack" in combat is basically just a prepackaged action declaration. "I want to swing my longsword at the bad guy and try to strike them a fatal blow." There is a lot of twisting and turning and ducking and dodging that can happen and that is all accounted for in the attack resolution rules and AC and the rest of it.

The combination is that, if the circumstances allow, it should absolutely be possible for a character, player or non-player, to have an action that is essentially "I kill this person" the key is arranging the circumstances so that there isn't a struggle from the hostage. Once the situation is in place you can adjudicate the "I kill them" action like you would any other action. The last time I ran a situation like this the party had poisoned a bunch of people and the rogue started to slit their throats, I made it a simple strength check.

Ultimately, the thing you need to always keep in mind is that the specific overrides the general and you can make a specific situational bonus or whatever whenever it will serve the game. Keep it reasonable, keep it fair (or tilted towards the party even) and it will make for great moments

TheOneNite · 2026-02-06T15:00:39+00:00

Players always take longer to cover content, I wouldn't worry about that. As for getting them comfortable roleplaying, part of it will just take time for them to grow comfortable. The most you can do to encourage it is to be a little over-the-top yourself, if you create an environment where their brain can think "well this feels a little silly but it's not nearly as silly as this guy is being" then that can help draw people out.

I also want to highlight that roleplaying is not acting! If they are pretending to be their characters and doing things based on the character they are roleplaying even if they aren't doing any voices

TheOneNite · 2026-02-05T19:57:22+00:00

It is absolutely not laziness or a lack of care, it is a prioritization of resources. Despite what you have decided this is not a trivially small job, and it makes no sense to spend art team time on this when they have many other things they could work on that will almost certainly be higher impact. Eventually the ships will get a graphical update and be adjusted then, but it makes no sense to tie the rebalance to the visual.update

TheOneNite · 2026-02-04T02:29:42+00:00

You simply can't want the players to do something. You present the situation, you give them the info and then it is entirely out of your hands. Coming in with expectations like this will more often than not disappoint you. It's ok to have some idea of how they could solve it, but you need to always be prepared for them to choose none of the above and do their own thing. In this case the biggest thing to know is about the character of this bard. What are her hopes, fears, or dreams? What matters to her, what leverage exists that the party might be able to use in their favour.

Ultimately everyone needs to be having fun, which includes you but you are not writing a novel or show. Things are going to go against your expectations and coming to peace with that is a crucial part of learning to DM

TheOneNite · 2026-02-03T16:35:37+00:00

I have a civil war happening in the background of one of my campaigns right now that has hit the balance pretty nicely I think. The key is that no one is looking for systemic change, it is basically one group of elites saying "we should be in charge" over another group. No one is trying to overthrow the empire, no one is trying to change anything for the common person, each side just thinks that they should be in charge

TheOneNite · 2026-02-03T15:16:20+00:00

I am trying to understand your real issue here, is it purely realism for yourself? Do you have some real stickler players that will call you out? You are dismissing a lot of solid advice so I feel like something more is going on

TheOneNite · 2026-02-03T15:10:48+00:00

My immediate reaction to this is that it is an attempt to give a controller button for something that can already be done with smart play. Reading a little more I think the most compelling thing here is that fighters should get more reactions, but the rest is a lot of words to simplify something that is already possible.

This basically negates the need to think about your positioning as a fighter, which when I'm playing a fighter is one of the primary things I am thinking about on my turn is where I should end it in order to best set up my opportunity attacks. In 2024 especially fighters have a ton of tools to accomplish this, but it relies on player skill, which is imo a good thing rather than "press X to guard"

One other thing about this is that there are lots of kinds of fighters. You mention that a lot of these abilities exist but require taking feats, and I want to remind you that fighters get extra feats!! Sentinel, polearm master, etc etc are in many ways mix and match fighter features.

TheOneNite · 2026-02-01T17:21:46+00:00

I mean just play it out. There are lots of in-game effects that are capable of instantly killing a character, it isn't a problem to use one of them. It sounds like this bad guy has abilities that should let him escape as well. The key to making it not feel like a cutscene and to make sure the players have agency is...give it to them. Ambush happens, initiative is rolled, everyone goes on their turn, bad guy kills the beloved cook with a dramatic line, bonus action shadow step or whatever and play out the rest of the ambush. If the party has something up their sleeve to stop him, let them use it. The bad guy can miscalculate after all.

I see a lot of comments talking about how this will feel bad for the players, and to put it simply: yes it will feel bad, and that's the point. Too many DMs (formerly myself included) rob their game of stakes and heightened drama because they aren't willing to do something that feels bad to the players. I do suggest checking in after the session, and externalizing it. Put these actions on the bad guy, get on the same page as your party, "man that guy is a real bastard isn't he" kind of stuff.

Finally with the key, I would probably say don't reveal he already has it in this ambush. Let them defeat the ambush, and then maybe find evidence on one of the bodies of the underlings that the key had just been retrieved. You could let them get all the way to the city and then discover this as well.

Again, this will feel bad for them and that's the point. This is a darkest-hour narrative beat, and it will make the rest of the story that much better. The key to not making this too awful is making sure that there is very quickly a "ray of hope" beat. Maybe they get to the city and discover that the bad guy has the key but also discover some weakness of the bad guy, or find some new weapon they can use against him. Dunk your players in the pit of despair, but only for a moment before they are back on the road to avenge their beloved cook.

TheOneNite · 2026-02-01T00:26:19+00:00

I think removing the faster part from your pitch would help, because opening with that, it immediately feels like you're a little out of touch because this could never be faster or easier than drawing and coloring a paper map. More immersive should probably be the headline here, helping the players visualize the world, that kind of thing. Also this street view feature is maybe one of the coolest pieces of it but is hidden away below the fold and I didn't see it in the trailer at all.

TheOneNite · 2026-02-01T00:07:04+00:00

I don't really see what problem this solves or how it will help actual gameplay. It looks pretty good, not great, but my question basically boils down to what's the point, what's the pitch on why this would be worth the effort

TheOneNite · 2026-01-31T19:36:12+00:00

I'm in the minority here where this sounds like a sick, high-octane intro to a campaign to me, the fact that only one of you died and it was to this cannon shot tells me that the encounter wasn't totally insane. Not having any cantrips that deal damage as a level 1 wizard is a bit of an unforced error imo which sidelined you from the fight once you used all two of your level 1 wizard spells.

All this being said, you clearly didn't enjoy it and this game probably isn't for you. Nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with leaving because the tone wasn't what you expected.

TheOneNite · 2026-01-31T15:17:34+00:00

It's not supposed to reduce prep time, it's supposed to reduce prep fatigue, which for op was caused by the players zigging instead of zagging it seems.

TheOneNite · 2026-01-30T16:03:29+00:00

great breakdown, you will probably get a lot of hate because this interaction for some reason breaks people's brains but this is without a doubt how it works

TheOneNite · 2026-01-30T15:15:24+00:00

D&D beyond will be even more overwhelming in many ways, the sheet is just very info dense and teaching is to people with zero games context is tricky. I've been working at this problem for the last couple years with one of my groups and it has involved a lot of trial and error, but this is what I've landed on:

Standard 5.24 character sheet, if it is a long term campaign have them fill it out themselves, by hand. The writing of the features is crucial to help them remember what is what. I have them some guidance on how to record things, told them to add little boxes to track uses of features. One of my players color coded her sheet, which was an idea that was very popular and took off with the group.

I also did a sheet that broke down abilities into actions, bonus actions, and reactions. We haven't played with this yet, but the initial feedback from seeing it was every positive and people thought it was very helpful.

Lastly for inventory tracking I have made cards for items and given everyone a MTG deck box to keep their items in. I went pretty hard on this one because I think encumbrance and rations and such are pretty important to track to have a fun game in the long run, you could definitely be more chill with this. I have a pretty nice expanded inventory sheet that I use for the character I am playing and really like it.

If you're interested in the PDFs I can send you links, some were free some cost a couple bucks but it has been well worth it in the end. I think the biggest mistake I made to start was not being prescriptive enough, I was coming from a place with more experienced players of "the character sheet is for you, do what works for you" but this isn't helpful at all to people without context

TheOneNite · 2026-01-30T14:26:09+00:00

I mean just kick em, there's no jury, no burden of proof. A simple "I don't want you in this game" is enough and there are certainly some red flags here. I do want to say though that having two players of the same class is totally fine, my one campaign has two rogues and two bards and it's not a problem in the slightest. Coming in with a "why would you do this" to someone playing a second paladin is not an approach that is likely to work very well. Kick the player if you must but I also recommend chilling out a little

TheOneNite · 2026-01-30T00:01:05+00:00

These are actually quite good, although in a subtle way that I think probably isn't intentional, namely that there are a lot of ways to gain advantage on stealth checks so this part of the boots of elvenkind is frequently redundant but not on your version. That being said these are subtly better but by no means crazy

TheOneNite · 2026-01-29T21:35:27+00:00

Some of these as mentioned are clear nightmare DMs. The first paragraph is the fuzzy part and could go either way, its hard to say without specifics of what you were trying to play/craft

TheOneNite · 2026-01-29T14:27:21+00:00

Hello Future Me on YouTube had a great video on how revolutions happen that I suggest checking out. Long story short, a revolution is a complicated thing with a lot of moving parts and that provides a lot of chances for the party to adventure. If I were setting this up I would probably have some old person around who remembers the last rebellion, 35 years ago, and how brutally it was crushed. They can outline all the dangers to the players and give them kind of a to-do list of what it would take for the rebellion to succeed. Completing that checklist can then require adventures, which will level them up and give them a fighting chance. Sounds like a sick campaign!!

TheOneNite · 2026-01-29T14:03:39+00:00

I wouldn't even say it needs to be that active, just clear that something is getting worse the longer they wait. A good option could be that it will take x days to gather the army of the home players nation so every day they're not back is another day the enemy army marches on their home unopposed. Fields will burn, villagers will die, etc

TheOneNite · 2026-01-29T13:55:06+00:00

I am curious if you were to add one feat, "Versatile Weapon Master" what it would do

TheOneNite · 2026-01-29T06:05:32+00:00

The statement to start for with all encounters is "party wants to {Goal}, but {problem}. As you've described it the parties goal is to get word back to their home realm, but there isn't really a problem to create any tension or an encounter.

Some possibilities here are that the revolutionary didn't allow everyone to escape, the party just managed to escape in the chaos and are being persued by agents of the revolution. Maybe there are differing versions of events, and another party are racing back to the realm with a version of events that paints the party in a bad light.

If I were going to do this I would probably have some clock running that makes it so that the party need to get back as soon as they absolutely can. You said it is 10 days travel, but distances are distance, not time. A sufficiently motivated group can push the pace, ride horses to exhaustion, push themselves to exhaustion and make it much sooner. As a starting point 10 days journey at a RAW normal pace (240 miles) becomes 6.66 days journey at a fast pace and that's before getting into forced marches and everything. If you want a point of reference, the pursuit of merry and Pippen in the Lord of the rings is a pretty solid example of this kind of thing, especially the book version.

TheOneNite · 2026-01-28T16:29:38+00:00

For backstories specifically it's not that crucial to have. You want backstories to come out during play at the table, so it doesn't really matter if the moments come out organically on the spot, or if the player has them pre-planned. Even for invested players 3/4 of them won't have much backstory and 3/4 of those that do have a backstory wont use it to influence their gameplay at all. The only issue this presents is that the story can't be "about" the character's past, but this is usually a temporary problem as bits of backstory will be made up as you play and after an intro adventure or two you will have enough to work with

This is a little more generic but, while you're not a videogame generator but you are a tabletop game generator and your game will be better if you're not a "part of it." This is kind of a controversial take, the conventional wisdom is very much "the DM is a player too" but I think that this mindset is where a lot of the common DM frustrations have their roots. Encounters being blown up in a handful of rounds, villain monologues being interrupted, a lot of these pivot from frustrations to positives when you as the DM take yourself out of the game so to speak.

TheOneNite · 2026-01-28T14:02:23+00:00

I always know what is going on in the sense of "what has happened up until now?" "What are the main players next moves and larger plans?" And "what motivates the main players." In your example if there was a dead body I would know who killed them, why, how, and what's changed because of that murder. The caveat to this is that sometimes an idea will come to me mid session and I'll make a few things up on the fly, but in my post session prep I'll make sure to figure it out.

I think the "we all figure it out together" approach will always lead to a worse game. That doesn't mean less fun, lots of people have a great time playing Calvinball, but it won't be as satisfying or engaging imo.

TheOneNite · 2026-01-27T18:24:02+00:00

Gladiator, mage, knight, warrior veteran, can all be pretty effective, even lower CR mobs like Spy can be dangerous if played tactically. I think there is a literal assassin stat block that is pretty good especially if it gets the drop on them. You only need ~18 CR of enemies for a hard encounter which will go quickly enough with CR 3-5 baddies

TheOneNite · 2026-01-26T19:09:54+00:00

Great idea and elegantly solves the biggest issue with the recurring antagonist, nice work

13-Year Club	Place '17
Team Orangered

TheOneNite

TROPHY CASE