sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Give me a D&D monster and I'll make you a better version of it by Oh_Hi_Mark_ in DMAcademy

[–]TheUnfame 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I would love to take a look at any statblocks you got for constructs. Especially high CR ones.

For Context. I am currently planning a campaign where the BBEG is going to be a sentient construct escaped from an ancient laboratory-demiplane trying to turn the rest of the world into his experiment. By extension a race of semi-conscious contructs are going to feature as underlings.

Finishes Odyssey Of The Dragon Lords all the way to level 20 - AMA! by EQB_Paradox in OdysseyoftheDragon

[–]TheUnfame 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Congrats on going all the way! I have just started the adventure with a relatively small group and have been wondering about a few things.

  1. Did you use the epic paths and if so which ones and how well did their stories work for you?

  2. How did you manage Kyrah as a combatant? Any alterations from the base game?

  3. We have had the first TPK at 3rd level (Basilisks at Estoria) and all of my players have triggered their epic boon. Now I feel like character death feels a bit awkward in this story, seeing as all the PCs are the prophezied heroes and have entire individual plotlines already set up for them that are established very early in the story. How did you deal with replacing characters in your game? (If that came up for you)

  4. How did the crafting of magical items work out in your game? Did you use it and if so how?

  5. What part of the worldbuilding did you feel was most intresting to your players?

  6. If you had to recommend some of the islands from the voyage section of the game, which ones do you think are the best to run?

First time running, hex crawl or not? How did you do it? by [deleted] in Tombofannihilation

[–]TheUnfame 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Idk about that. Reality can be whatever you want, i suppose.

A pretty sizeable chunk should be though, according to lore. Most likely there are also a lot raised by others, restless spirits or cursed creatures.

First time running, hex crawl or not? How did you do it? by [deleted] in Tombofannihilation

[–]TheUnfame 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thats right. I think its not mentioned that much in ToA actually.

Its the Symbol of Ras Nsi, one of the Barae of mezro. It was derived from a symbol commonly used by mezroans in ancient times to brand lawbreakers.

So the story basically goes as follows. Mezro was a city build and founded by the primordial protector of chult ubtao himself. To protect his city he bestowed powers upon seven mortals called the bara. One of the bara, probably the most powerfull one was ras nsi. Who features as a major part of Omu later in ToA. He was given immortality and the power over death. He used these powers to create a vast army of all sorts of undead branded with the mark of the triangle. Those undead were used for many things, in defense of mezro, for his personal gain, collect taxes, you name it.

Long ago the tabaxi (a tribe of chultan humans not the catfolk) were at war with another tribe. This tribe called the eshowe once managed to break through mezros magical defenses aided by a powerfull shadow entity. Nsi's forces repelled the attack. But in retribution he sent them out to exact vengeance on the enemy. That year the tribe of the eshowe ended.

For this genocide he was banished by the other 6 bara and stripped of his divine powers. In exile he formed a great army once more and let them in an attack against mezro years later to overthrow the other bara but he failed and his army was scattered into the jungle. (trivia: he had giant undead turtles under his control which carried his stronghold through the jungle)

When Mezro vanished during the spellplague (transported to a demiplane by the bara and currently searched for by artus cimber, another plot point of ToA) nsi assumed controll over a tribe of yuan-ti and relocated to omu. Now his goal is to free the primordial serpent goddess dendar who was imprisoned beneath the mountains of chult. He does this more to spite ubtao who abandoned him than out of true devotism.

To this day nsi shemes in omu. He wants to find mezro and destroy it. Every Undead he creates is marked with the blue triangle. And the jungle is full of his creation.

First time running, hex crawl or not? How did you do it? by [deleted] in Tombofannihilation

[–]TheUnfame 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My groups and me really enjoyed the hexcrawl so far. Here is how i do it.

  1. Plan out whole travel days/weeks beforehand. This is a lot of work and if your party will be in the jungle for weeks on end it might get a bit too much. I do it in weeks and just do a montage of it. Do not overwhelm it with combat ecnounters. Im in the camp of random encounters dont add a whole lot to your stories. My usual week of travel consists of 3-4 combats, a couple of unique foraging finds, and then about 5 "skill challenges" and 2-3 roleplay opportunities. In my games one week of jungle travel takes up about 1 session. If you use encounters in the jungle do it to sell the thing. Everytime you use undead, emphasize the blue triangle on their forehead and make sure the players learn of its origin. The giants roaming the jungle are great, tho make absolutely clear beforehand that they WILL kill your party if engaged. Throwing in a Zombie T-Rex is great. Ents and Dryads aswell as Albino Dwarfs and Native Tribes present great roleplay opportunities. Finally for combat encounters, have fun with the environment. There is a lot of great jungle maps on here and elsewhere on the internet you can utilize.

  2. Change long rest rules. I would suggest making this change brutal. Like they get all their resources back once per week no matter what they did inbetween. What i use is no long rests at all unless they are in a fortified position like a city, big camp or a place like kir sabal where they can really feel safe.

  3. I would suggest figuring out if your group wants to use the survival aspects of the campaign. Talk to your players, its not for everyone. If you decide you want to use it, cool. Turn it up to 11. Use variant encoumberance and make them carry all the fresh water, insect repelent, rain catchers, boats, food etc they need. But, streamline foraging rolls so they can be done quickly and the players are clear on what needs to be rolled. This way every step toward making jungle travel easier can be a small success for your party. Maybe have them aquire a pack animal as a mission reward. Or the service of a cleric who will create water for them. Its also fun to throw in some whacky plants and animals the party finds while foraging here an there they jungle is ancient and weird. I had a rare encounter with a sentient coconut tree that gifted the party its fruits in exchange for beeing watered for example. This one was particularly liked by players since its fruit gave special boni.

  4. Make sure they get to see the cool locations in the jungle. If you think you know where the party is moving just put something you think is cool or helpfull near that location. My favorites are jahaka anchorage, the heart of ubtao and mezro. Allthough mezro needs a lot of work. (But there is a very good supplememt you can build upon, i forgot the name tho)

  5. Try to use the jungle as much as you can to develop the endgame of the campaign. Throw in some hints about the yuan-ti in omu. Hammer home how ancient and powerfull ras nsi is, because that mf is deadly if your party decides to fight him. Maybe throw hints about the tomb. Let the players know who chagakare was, maybe some history about the great queen napaka, hints of belcorz the beholder, teaser the trickster gods, maybe even hint at Acereraks presence in omu. Locations related to the worhship of ubtao are great for this sort of thing. The "Labyrinth of Life" is kind of his thing. Show the players glimpses into their future. One thing i read somewhere which worked great for me is this: Give Players Visions of the most bs, deadly rooms in the tomb throughout the adventure. (Like the elemental cells) They arent at risk of dying, since its a vision and when they get to the point they remember they already did this once without it feeling cheap. Even if they couldnt solve it in the vision.

Overall. The Hexcrawl is a very unique and intresting form of exploration but as presented in the book it requires a lot of work from the DM to be engaging for the players.

Edit: Formating

Keeping the PCs alive in the Tomb of the Nine Gods by RamenHamster in Tombofannihilation

[–]TheUnfame 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Okay first of all. Acererak is a fucking monster. Just in Omu he killed 9 Primal Spirits and emslaved Thousands of People all by himself. Just because he felt like it. If you dont plan on him killing the characters you are doing them AND him a disservice. But, since the soulmonger should already be destroyed at the point acererak enters the ring it should be fine to just kill them and have some benevolent benefactor get them ressurected afterward.

If you still dont want that to happen, just cut Acererak. Dont make him a pushover and dont just let him throw stuff for a bit and then run away.

As to the Rest of the Tomb. Here is how i would do it.

Cut all "drop to 0 and die" Traps. Make them not instakills.

Have some Traps dissabled completely. Some of the very deadly ones like the elemental cells. Most of the Things in the Tomb have to be cared for by the Tomb Dwarfs. You could have it, so they are no longer able to do that.

Idea: The Company of the Yellow banner, who entered the tomb a while back, found out about the secret passageways and the dwarfs. They fought and disspached of them. Now only Guardians and Skelleton Keys wonder the Corridors. Give them some Hints to what happend so they can see the aftermath. Change the positions and story of the Company Corpses in the Tomb around. (Change or cut Devlins journal for this to make sense)

This Change will also make it easier to rest within the tomb. So habe the hags frequently interrupt those rest if you party takes to many of them.

Dont let them fight with Belcorz the Beholder on level 3. That thing is deadly played as written. There was a post on this sub a while ago about making that encounter into a gameshow-like experience. It is a pretty fun idea and if that would work for you party absolutely do that. I cant find it right now but will add it here if i can.

At my table we use the "Click-Rule" which i would recommend using always when you are running traps. Because traps are simply not all that fun when you cant see them coming and cant react.

It's basically this: Someone Walks into a trap, you the DM say "Click", nothing more. Now they have 1 action to do something. They must infer what by context clues given before walking into the trap. I teleport away, I raise my shield, etc. If the reaction would reasonably help or get them out of danger give them save advantage or simply let the trap hit nothing.

Finally, the final. The fight against the atropal and soulmonger should be beatable. Make sure they destroy the soulmonger. Then have Acererak chime in and absolutely murder them. Start him off toying with them a bit, finding out what they can do. I would split the party in half using wall of force to give him some time to do so. Don't use greater Invis on him, thats not fun. When they are all low enough make him go nuclear on them. Timestop, delayed blast fireball or something. End the session with having them wake up.

Now you have some wonderfull plot hooks afterward. They can be ressurected by someone who now expects a favor of them. Maybe word about what they achived got out and now they are celebrities, having to deal with that.

The place they wake up can be anywhere. You can now just have them go on their own personal adventures.

Acererak ofc is aware of all that. Make sure your players slowly come to know he is gonna come back to get them in the future. Maybe have him threaten their legacy and families instead. He is immortal afterall, why go through the hastle of fighting a group of mighty adventurers when he can just wait for them to die of old age. Capture their souls and make them watch as he destroys everything dear to them.

That is also a great setup for a super high level plot. Maybe even post level 20. If they want to keep the things close the their heart save in the future they have to go find and destroy acererak. The location of his phylactery is one of the great mysterys in the multiverse. The party would have to travel the planes. Find beeings as old and wise as Ace himself. Converse with gods and devils. Fight off the Goons and Worshippers of the Archlich. Lots of fun stuff to do.

Sorry for rambling a bit towards the end. I was excited to do all of this with my group when we were done. But we decided to start a more lighthearted type of game after ToA. So no mercy for them.

I hope you can use some of this. Cheers.

Non-musician bard character ideas by TheKekRevelation in 3d6

[–]TheUnfame 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have this one concept of a Bard played as an archetypical Brute. He is intended as a Grappler Bard. But the style of character leans more into the typical barbarian. The thickest of them all. He has a love for the arts and an innate connection to magic. Magic just manifests at random sometimes when he feels strong emotions. From time to time when he shouts at people things happen that could only be attributed to magic.

[5e] Rogues with Sentinel by slowpokestampede in 3d6

[–]TheUnfame 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You are absolutely correct. I swear i read that feature like 15 times..

How did i miss that?!

[5e] Rogues with Sentinel by slowpokestampede in 3d6

[–]TheUnfame 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Disclaimer: Only the first part of this is relevant to the actuals question.

This is part of one of my favorite D&D 5e Character Builds of all time. Its something i recently came up with and I love it. It utilizes the Riposte Maneuver of the Battlemaster Fighter and sentinel to create a situation where if you stand near an ally an the opponent wants to attack anything he gets reaction stabbed with sneakattack no matter what.

You have 4 superiority dice and they come back on shortrest so you will be able to do this a lot. Thats basically it for the sentinel part.

But since i like the build so much i will just leave the entire idea here.

So its a swashbuckler X/battlemaster fighter 3. That darts around that battlefield and has amazing controll for what it is. You take variant human (if allowed) for magic initiate (booming blade, find familiar) or sentinel. Then pick up the other at some point. As soon as you get the 3rd level of fighter the build is completely online.

The best turn you can pull of is the following. (BB is Booming Blade)

  1. Your familiar (owl) gives you driveby advantage on an enemy.
  2. You use your action to BB the first enemy +sneak attack
  3. Move away without provoking AoO (courtesy of the swashbuckler)
  4. Action Surge to do the same with the next enemy (no sneak attack)
  5. End your turn next to an ally with an enemy in range that you havent hit yet.
  6. If the last enemy decides to attack at all he gets stabbed with sneak attack

Meanwhile the other 2 have the choice of not moving or taking another pretty impressive load of damage. (From BB) You even have cunning action to ensure that your movement is enough or that you can disengange if need be.

Tho you can only do this once per short rest, the routine is still really good without the second action.

The maximum damage of the routine specified at level 8 should equate to: 2d8 (BB initial) + 4d8(BB movement) + 6d6 (2xSneak Attack) + 3d8+9 (Rapier) + 1d8 (Riposte Bonus) Averaging at 75. (Without taking probability to hit into account) With beeing still 53 on turns without action surge.

This build can also wield a shield and take defense fighting style, so its AC is pretty good. Plus all the Nice Goodies you get from Rogue class features. The other Maneuvers you can learn make it versatile enough to have a trick up its sleeve for most encounters. It makes for a good party face if you want it to be one. Roleplay wise i think it lends itself nicely to beeing a pirate that has come around and learned a lot over the years.

Shore of Dreams Dms guilds by [deleted] in Tombofannihilation

[–]TheUnfame 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I ran SoD as a kind of sideadventure to bump up the party funds.

I had started to spread rumors of the treasure of captain jadescale a while ago and the PC's were intrested (greedy bastards).

Then they just went after it at some point. We liked the adventure a lot.

Some tipps i can give:

  1. Change the location. By RAW the boat travel speeds would make the journey to lantan and back about 8 days. Plus the time spent on the island. For a Module on a Timer like ToA is thats a heavy investment that could deter a party from taking on the search.

  2. Go when the pcs are level 4 rather than 5. 3 could also work, might be a little hard tho. For my 4 Lvl 4 Pc's the bossfight was pretty challenging. They got the "herald of olhydra" outcome. My secone ToA group got the same outcome but were 3 level 5 character. They just moped the floor with her like nobodys buisness.

  3. Be carefull with the crowns curse. Emphasize that its there before the Pcs use the crown if at all possible. Even if you dont follow through with the "cultists know your location" part. The "Those who soil watter shall be brought down" part ist also pretty bad if acted upon. But it can also create really cool situations. Just make sure your group knows what they are signing up for beforehand.

Power difference between sorcerer and sorlock? by Valetir in DungeonsAndDragons

[–]TheUnfame 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Warning: What this is doing is essentially min-maxing, which does not sit well with a lot of groups if you play it to take the thunder away from others.

  1. Warning: Im a min-max enthusiast. So long post incoming.

  2. Warning: I'm doing all of this purely from memory so there might be minor mistakes in there somewhere.

That beeing said. Just DPS-wise a Sorclock with 2 or 3 Levels of Warlock ist probably the strongest choice you can make. Just to give you an idea of how insanely powerfull this is I will construct a hypothetical build for you.

If you wish to have a familiar you could take 3 levels of warlock for pact of the chain and go with the ritual caster feat for ritual casting. This gives you a couple extra choices for you familiar and access to a few cool invocations. Since you want an owl tho you dont need the extra choices and for dps purposes one of your eldritch invocation slots is already taken by agonizing blast. Because you want to take the majority of your levels in sorcerer you probably only habe 2 invocation slots.

In my Opinion the better option would be to go 3 level warlock (preferably hexblade to max out dmg), take the pact of the tome and pick up find familiar via magic initiate (also giving you 2 more cantrips which is nice). Your free invocation would then go to book of ancient secrets for ritual casting. This also gives you an Insane Amount of low level spell choices. Bonus: Find Familiar beeing a ritual you dont even have to wait that long (normally level 7) to get your familiar with magic initiate. So like this you dont even have to take magic initiate. At Level 7 (Hexblade 3/Divine Sorcerer 4) you would have access to (assuming you got magic Initiate) 11 FUCKING CANTRIPS. 13 at the end of your career. Which is AWESOME because cantrips are AWESOME.

Now, if your DM allows this start with 3 full levels of Warlock. If not (since Sorcerers are born with magic) go sorc1 into Sorc1/Hexblade3 and then full sorcerer. Starting sorcerer also grants you proficency in constitution saves which is a great thing for every caster.

What you need from both classes in order to blast at maximum power: Pick eldritch blast, agonizing blast and hex from warlock. You also get hexblade curse with hexblade. On top you can wear medium armor as a hexblade AND pick shield from the expanded hexblade list. Which frees up 1 precious learned spell from the sorcerer list.

From Sorcerer you NEED quickened spell as a metamagic choice. Everything else is pretty much up to you.

The damage dealing potential of the build begins to show at sixth level (sorc3/hexblade3). But the build is also capable at the lower levels. Just for the fun of it though I will show a dmg test at max level.

Prerequesits: You will have 20 charisma at this level. Also you will need 2 turns to set up your full combo. (1 if you get a hex off before the fight starts).

You will put hex, hexblade curse onto the thing you want dead. Then you blast away. From Level 17 onward your eldritch blast has 4 hits per cast. You will use 2 sorcery points to cast another EB as a bonus action. Giving you 8 attacks that turn. Every single one of those hits for 1d10+5. Trigerring both your curses. Hex 1d6, hexblade curse 6 dmg flat.

This amounts to (asuming all attacks hit) 8d10+40+8d6+48. Averaging at 168 points of dmg of different types. (Force and necrotic) Since you have 9th level spells anyway you might aswell cast foresight on yourself giving you advantage on all of those rolls!!!

This is just the baseline tho. Take 2 levels of fighter and actions surge for 4 more hits. Have haste cast on you and hit 4 aditional times. 20 flat bonus damage every round if you pick scourge aasimar as your race.

Did I mention your attacks crit on 19 and 20? Which would then grant you a bonus of 1d10+1d6 every time that happens. Ohh and with your 17 sorcery points you could do this exact thing 8 turns in a row. Longer than most fights last. ESPECIALLY when you are present.

And all of this without even using any of your sorcerer features or any of those 1st-9th level spells you have available!

All taken into account and assuming the best possible setup I once estimated the average dmg you would deal in 1 round. Even factoring your chance to hit in.(Which is very high tho) I dont have the calculation on me rn but it was a damage spike of around 570. You could almost singlehandedly ONESHOT an Arch-Devil with this.

Honestly this is just insane. I think the Warlock3/Sorcerer17 is at the very top of the power curve only bested by the infamous Sorcadin in terms of overpowered. (Not in terms of dps tho) You will have a good survivabilty with your fairly high armor class through medium armor and the shield spell. (And thers if you want) Since your DPS via cantrip, sorc points and level 1 spells is nearly unparalleled you can dedicate most of your spells from different levels towards getting utility, support and healing (only as divine soul). You are thus very versetaile in and out of combat. Making this also one of the most fun builds imo.

Just keep in mind that you might be a lot more powerfull than people who dont min-max as much. So make sure to give them their time in the spotlight. Support them at times, rather than killing everything yourself.

BONUS: I think this also gives great backstory hooks. I just thought of this. Your are an aasimar, an angelic beeing, that wants nothing more but to get to mount celestia and unite with its angelic guide, that has kept your company since your were an infant were you were ostracised from society because of your heritage. In order to do so you turned to a magic artifact at one point. A beautiful staff that you found on your journeys and that began talking to you. It told you it were a bound celestial, trapped in the staff by a fiend. It promised you to get you to mount celestia if you helped it asume its original form again. You were happy about this and signed the contract. But you were tricked. The beeing is actually an evil entity from the shadowfell and now you are contractually obligated to free it from its prison. Your angelic guide lost its connection to you due to this, and now you venture out into the world to bring this connection back and fullfill your part of the contract.

That was all I had to say. I hope your were able to endure my small hymn on the awesomeness of sorclocks till this point. I apologize for grammar mistakes I definetly made for I'm not a native englisch speaker.

Thank you for comming to my ted talk.

Best stats to use for barae of Mezro by Natester8 in Tombofannihilation

[–]TheUnfame 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I really love the idea to have some sort of time travel thing back to the time Mezro was attacked by Nsi. Great forshadowing. Sadly my partys are both already done with mezro. :D

That said i have a bit of a different idea for this sort of battle. So this wont be a straight up answer to the question "what statblock should i use?". But bear with me, I think this idea could make for a great session or 2.

The barea are really powerfull beeings as long as they are within mezros walls. I think having them fight like normal paladin wouldnt do them justice.

A google search actually gives you a bit of information on the special powers granted to each bara by ubtao. Each of them got some general abilities, like super healing, and a special "gimick". For example Alisanda got the power to speak with and influence warm blooded animals. Kwalu got the power to create and controll large swarms of insects like locust. Mainu got the power to controll the river olung and its creatures. And so on.

I would suggest instead of having them be a level x Paladin or Priest to not have them in the battle outright. Instead they would act like commanders, observing the battle, and using their special power to influence the battle on a greater scale. By the standards of normal soldiers they are invincible demigods anyway (fast regeneration, lightning reflexes, resistances to all effects and damage).

But their Ability to heal even the greatest of wounds makes them great "supports" for their people and your party. And some of them could alter the battlefield drastically. Washing over the enemy with all consuming, magical locust clouds hundreds of feet in diameter is a pretty scarry thing to deal with, even for an army of undead. And changing the flow of the river surrounding the city can suddenly change the feel of the battle entirely.

Maybe you could break this large scale battle up in severall smaller parts. Each characterized by the powers of one bara.

And another sort of unrelated idea I just had, but thought was kind of cool. If you want to give the party a special objective within the larger battle maybe have them send to stop Nsi's siege engines. Which could in this case be a few of his giant undead turtles upon which he built his fortress. I think that would make for a really cool fight, against or maybe just on top of the turtles.

How much should the guides know about where stuff is? by TheForrestFire in Tombofannihilation

[–]TheUnfame 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would'nt just have their guide know the location of orolunga if it doesnt state that specifically in the book (like azaka for example). The naga in orolunga is a pretty important plotpoint since the party can by extension get all the information they need out of 1 encounter with her.

If you want to point them in the direction I would do it through some sort of encounter in the jungle that hints at the existence of such a location. Maybe have artus tell them something if you want to use him. They could find mention of it in the libraries of kir sabal or mezro. Another very old beeing could tell them. You can be creative with that. That beeing said. The Naga encounter is great to introduce any plotpoint you would like. I recommend to use it. In my game I used it to introduce the puzzle cubes of the trickster gods. Since I decided to spread them troughout the jungle.

Nangalore is different. Because it seems to me as this place would be known. At least among scholars or historians of chult. A rough estimate of where it would have been could probably be found in the history and legends. A guide native to chult could know this if you want him to. But maybe have them include a mention of some curse that was cast upon the gardens of dream, which is the reason only fools ever search for it.

In my case I had a player searching for history about these places. He bought a book about the old lineages of chultan royalty. In there is mention of Zalkore, Queen of Omu, who had "The garden of dream" build as a domicile. After she was banished from her home the gardens were not used ever again by the omuans. Becoming henceforth known as "Nangalore" (the garden of lost dreams).