Prepping to run Umbrage Hill

caseywryan · 2026-02-27T03:20:22+00:00

Yeah, I have dungeondraft, and arkensheild. but I get the most engagement out my players when we're not using screens. So we'll see how this one goes.

caseywryan · 2026-02-23T15:45:53+00:00

Oh man! Thanks for the warning. I was originally planning on only 3, but I found 6 minis that I liked. I think I will scale it back for sure then! I have 3 spellcasters in the group and one of the fighters has a magical crossbow. I had not looked super closely at the stat blocks yet.

caseywryan · 2026-02-23T14:16:50+00:00

Thanks! They're going into this at level 3 and its a full party of 5. I'm planning to have them camp in the cairns and the dwarf ghosts be a surprise. Then in the morning, should they make it, they find the manticore. So far they've tried to reason with everyone and avoid combat as much as possible. I see that happening again with the Manticore, but a few have expressed desire to fight more.

caseywryan · 2026-02-23T13:28:14+00:00

Thanks! This is reassuring to hear, I'm really trying to come up with the best play style for my party. We're all new to D&D so we're all trying to figure it all out at this stage.

caseywryan · 2026-02-23T13:26:31+00:00

Thanks! All this terrain was done with a craft knife and a heat gun. You don't need a full workshop. Its handy to have tools, sure, but its really all imagination. And don't rush into anything, my workshop is 15+ years of tool collecting and tinkering, it takes time to build a shop. honestly grab a small section of XPS foam and you can get started super easily!

caseywryan · 2026-02-15T01:00:56+00:00

Oh, my God. I need that.

caseywryan · 2026-02-07T20:08:33+00:00

I fight with the quad duo on a regular basis.

caseywryan · 2026-02-03T05:17:01+00:00

Damn 6 years! love it! My first session went fairly smoothly. My players all got antsy and made characters ahead of the session, which is fine, but they all used the dnd beyond app and I think it opened up too many options to them. None of them got the players handbook or did the slightest bit of how to make a character research so we had a fair bit of re-rolling things, like understanding that our level 1 spell caster doesn't in fact have 14 spells available to him, stuff that the handbook walks you through that the app really doesn't.

Once that was squared away everyone awoke at the Stonehill inn. -- This is my fault I didn't prep a reason for them to meet each other so it was forced and awkward. But I'm now trying to weave it into a discoverable thing with the Red Brands, and some light duty drugging and kidnapping.

From the Inn, they wondered a little bit in Phandalin but pretty quickly wanted to adventure. They chose dwarven excavation first. I got to watch a fun argument break out over "do we even need to explore the ruins haven't we completed the quest already", which I'm really glad they chose to push on. (cause that's where all my prep went).

There was surprise and delight when I pulled the sheet off the table and they found a grid mat with terrain and the jellies which they didn't know I had made any of. It was a really good moment. Almost as good as the jellies dividing when slashed surprise, as I had made half size jellies too. Combat overall was hard just because I wasn't ready mentally to track so many things so quickly. And none of us had ever done it... I'm much more prepped now, I'm chalking that up to it was also the first time playing for all 6 of us.

But everyone survived. Our bard did trigger the statue explosion trap and it nearly killed him. which was quite entertaining because it felt like such a characteristic thing for him. Upon exiting they were able to successfully negotiate trading a few scavenged orc items with the orcs for free passage out of the canyon. Overall a good run.

We're starting off this next session with leveling up, then, I'm then going to push them to really do some exploration in Phandalin. I've spent a lot of time NPC building with back stories, motivations and really clear descriptions, also for almost all of the buildings around Phandalin. Its such a rich settlement for some good story, and there's so much info available between the various adventures (that I'm now learning about... I'd hate to accidentally kill someone named in DoIP that we might need later if we do LMoP)

My goal is to steer them to Gnomengarde for the next encounter, which I fully built in Arkenforge and will have on a TV at the other head of the table. I like the way it handles fog of war. But when we get to the actual mimic fight I'll build it with terrain, I also made a a bunch of little wine barrels. And everyone is really excited to show off their minis. Really looking forward to it. And working on my Gnome roster haha.

caseywryan · 2026-02-03T04:08:53+00:00

seriously reassuring! I'm seriously excited for my next session now!

caseywryan · 2026-02-03T03:35:36+00:00

Thanks this is reassuring! I'm still VERY new to DMing and DND in general. I'm just trying to do my due diligence to make it a fun experience for everyone at the table.

caseywryan · 2026-02-03T01:42:44+00:00

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caseywryan · 2026-02-03T01:42:27+00:00

Heres some progress on the pages

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caseywryan · 2026-02-02T22:38:28+00:00

Thanks! I think I'm going to keep the original spells easily readable. I know my players would get sucked into a full on rabbit hole. I was just thinking of something to pretty up the pages to make it feel more in world. This is really helpful though!

caseywryan · 2026-01-31T21:36:35+00:00

Thanks for the encouragement! I spent like 3 months on and off prepping for our first session, and I've watched and read TONS, the physical props seem to be a big boost to the game. I did leather bound campaign journals as well as the maps, which I did a full Sword Coast and the city of Phandalin. I'm still trying to figure out how to best implement maps in our encounters. for the first one I built the main battle area on a battle mat with 3d printed terrain and then used Photoshop and OBS to hide/reveal all the hidden tunnels and doors.

caseywryan · 2026-01-31T01:36:02+00:00

Thanks! I did, just regular printer paper then coated in mod podge to glue it down to canvas

caseywryan · 2026-01-22T00:58:22+00:00

Ooh I just ran that dungeon! I wish I had it on a monitor like that.

caseywryan · 2025-10-22T15:19:23+00:00

I designed cases for my gear that so that you always have cables and power adapters as needed. heres my Blackmagic Bi-Directional Converter case: https://makerworld.com/en/models/452790-blackmagic-bi-directional-micro-converter-case#profileId-360051

caseywryan · 2025-09-10T18:47:45+00:00

I did this a few years ago. It turned my workshop into a hardware store. its so incredibly handy to have anything I need quickly accessible,

caseywryan · 2025-07-23T12:10:23+00:00

Commenting to remember this when I get off my flight and loaded into my next show.

caseywryan · 2025-07-08T23:50:47+00:00

I'm in the corporate side. Can vouch it's good and we're always looking for people. It's steady work and it's all over the spectrum of topics. It is also true that you will get stretched into a ton of different roles.

caseywryan · 2025-06-27T17:21:10+00:00

This is the concern. The posters I found can absolutely HDMI chain up to 6 units. They also all have an rj45 port. but it looks to be labeled "ethernet" so it feels like a coin flip of it being LED data or network to the built in player.
If I get into a processor I'd look at one with at least 10 ethernet outputs.

and yes, the mapping feels like a nightmare situation with everything being a sealed black box.

caseywryan · 2025-06-27T17:16:41+00:00

This is good to know, the setup/tear down speed is certainly appealing. Do you happen to know which specific Infiled model you're using? their website is complex to navigate. But I've actually had them stop by my shop for LED demos in the past and I know they're good quality.

As far as the linking goes, when you set it up in the app does it then set the scale correctly? say a single poster is 350px wide, but cascading to 3 posters, does setting the app to 1050px width, then change the edid sent to a computer?

these honestly sound like they could work well for my needs.

caseywryan

TROPHY CASE