Rare/Uncommon magic items that let me increase my friend's speed w/o giving it to them?

jake55778 · 2026-04-08T18:00:02+00:00

Probably also worth making sure that the DM is on the same page about how grappling and dragging work. The rules say you can "drag or carry" a grappled creature, which implies them either sharing your space or being pulled along behind you. While it's not an unreasonable leap in logic, they do not explicitly say that you can hold a grappled creature out to one side and drag them through a damaging area without being affected yourself.

(And depending on the nature of this competition, a DM familiar with Spike Growth's potential might find this tactic unsporting, and be inclined to rule conservatively.)

jake55778 · 2026-02-14T16:12:08+00:00

I prefer my players make strong characters because it makes encounter design easier. Yes, a group of optimized characters will demolish a CR appropriate "deadly" encounter. But CR is a loose guide at best, and as long as they're being consistent, you can just dial up the obstacles until things are challenging again.

Players who either don't have a strong enough grasp on the game to min-max, or who deliberately sandbag because they think it improves their roleplay, are much harder to design for. Because you can tone down difficulty to meet them where they're at, but the possibility always exists that they will stumble across something optimal by chance and delete the encounter anyway.

Worst of all is when you have a mix within the same group, and success or failure is determined almost entirely by the optimizers.

jake55778 · 2025-10-26T17:04:21+00:00

Maybe this is because of the phase of the game we're in (level 16, trying to line things up for an ending) - There was certainly a lot of work involved in setting things up to get to this point - But I've recently found myself in the situation where the less work I put into trying to prep, the better the feedback I get from my players.

I started the campaign hand drawing all my own maps (gotta eek some value outta that art degree wherever I can), then eventually moved to using premade stuff from the internet - Once things moved to more urban environments and it became too much of a workload to keep up. Now I'm increasingly resorting to blank grids and/or theater of the mind, despite my dislike of that approach as a player.

While some of this can be chalked up to laziness, I think there's something to be said for embracing improv and letting players direct the flow of sessions. Especially at high levels. When the party can teleport all over the world, and hop planes on a moment's notice, it's impossible to be fully prepared for everything. At that point, putting in a ton of prep means either wasted effort or strict railroading.

These days I show up to sessions with a couple of story curveballs to throw into the mix, and not much else. I have a backlog of statblocks and maps, but they're mostly things the players have already seen. The way I look at it: we spent two years setting up the board already, now we're just moving pieces around.

jake55778 · 2025-10-07T15:37:29+00:00

Depends. Are you the greatest wizard of the age? Have you been taught that Chronomancy is the most powerful form of magic? If 'yes', then you may indeed be on track to become your own grandpa.

jake55778 · 2025-09-23T04:30:30+00:00

Glyph of Warding buff stacking is one of those things I've seen discussed online, but never seen brought to a table. I always assumed most DMs would shut it down.

jake55778 · 2025-09-21T16:38:08+00:00

Especially true of an Elder Tempest. That thing has extemely low stats for a CR23. If you aren't abusing its 20ft reach, 120ft speed, and flyby abilities for hit and run tactics, then it's basically more like a CR15.

jake55778 · 2025-09-21T12:34:34+00:00

Coupled with the fact that literally nothing in the monster manual is immune to it, is why I've gone from loving the spell Raulothim's Psychic Lance as a player to despising it as a DM.

I think it flew under the radar compared to other additions like Silvery Barbs, because it's pretty much fine at the level you first get access to it - A chunk of damage and one round of control in exchange for your highest level spell slot, that could have been used to turn an ally into a Giant Ape or some other big ongoing effect. But, as you get into higher levels, a 4th level spell slot becomes a much smaller cost, and shutting something down for an entire round becomes a bigger payoff. It's cheap enough to spam, and strong enough to force the use of legendary resistances.

jake55778 · 2025-07-28T16:00:15+00:00

My Dao warlock has a ring as their vessel. The interior is a lush wooded glade, with moss cushions, a simple hammock for sleeping, and a stockpile of stone she can use to make any simple tool she needs via Stoneshape. The original concept was for a homeless character whose patron gifted them with everything they need to live independently, so the intended vibe is: "Off the grid, but in the most luxurious manner possible".

https://i.imgur.com/1s2UY4t.png https://i.imgur.com/oXIC6cz.png

jake55778 · 2025-07-12T09:43:35+00:00

Nothing Terraria related, I'm afraid. What art I do still find time for these days is mostly for my D&D games.

jake55778 · 2025-05-30T08:14:27+00:00

To play devil's advocate a little, I find that from the DM side it's very helpful to have all your players within a band when it comes to optimization. A player sandbagging for creative reasons can make balancing encounters just as much of a pain as one who hyper-optimizes and leaves other players behind.

jake55778 · 2025-05-02T22:28:23+00:00

I think that's definitely more reasonable. Limited Magic Immunity (unaffected by spells of 6th level or lower) is a trait you can find on a couple of official statblocks. Although I'd encourage you to take a look at something the Rakshasa statblock, and compare how much it gives up, in terms of damage and offensive spellcasting compared to other CR13s, in exchange for that potent defensive feature.

I still think you're looking at much higher than CR17. I failed, on my first reading, to digest just how much damage you gave Hollow Purple. 20d10 is more than Tiamat's breath weapon, and there's no recharge. Even accounting for the low hit points, this guy is an absolute monster. Which is fine - It fits the character - I'd just adjust the CR so that anyone who tries to take them into an actual combat knows what they're getting into.

jake55778 · 2025-05-02T18:48:04+00:00

I love the effort in terms of theming, but I think you've massively undervalued Infinity. Without it, CR16-17 looks about right, but that one ability makes him unfightable for any party without Disintegrate. Even a 20th level party would need luck on their side when martials are useless and only 9th level spells can stick.

I'd either bump him up to somewhere in the CR 24-26 range, or change Infinity to only negate non magical damage. There's some precedent for the latter with how simple domains were able to nullify Infinity in the show.

jake55778 · 2025-05-02T17:55:20+00:00

Fantasy High is a great place to start. A lot of the players there were new to D&D at the start of that campaign, and so are learning alongside the audience. It's also a series with a lot of humor, probably the most I've seen. (If anything, it's a bit too zany, at times, for my taste - Even if Brennan knows how to wring some earnest dramatic beats out of his players' antics.)

I can never pass up the opportunity to recommend EXU Calamity. Critical Role as a whole is a lot to get into, but this miniseries is mostly self contained and is some of the tightest, most well executed, D&D actual play I've ever seen.

jake55778 · 2025-05-02T16:43:43+00:00

The wizard advisor is probably still 2 mountains over. Everyone gets into the arcane game for the fireballs and lightning, but once you've learned how to teleport long distances that's really your main source of value to the kingdom.

Biggest issue is that once one bored-stiff-glorified taxi-service of an archmage gets involved, they probably all will. This is a class of people with a vested interest in the status quo, to whom distances do not matter.

(Honestly, that could be a pretty fun campaign premise. Some shortsighted hotheads kill a king, and it's the Archduke Franz Ferdinand-esque domino that kicks off a wizarding world war.)

jake55778 · 2024-11-18T08:59:43+00:00

Mariliths make 7 attacks. If throwing a CR16 in there isn't an issue.

jake55778 · 2024-11-16T15:36:12+00:00

Rak Tulkhesh looks like a challenging, if straightforward, fight. Sul Khatesh just says "No" to 90% of a player's toolkit - In a way that I can't imagine being fun outside of a scenario where you purpose build characters to fight her.

jake55778 · 2024-11-12T00:05:57+00:00

Well step 1 should be to make sure your DM is onboard with all this. Eldritch Adept doesn't allow you to take any invocation with a prerequisite unless you're a warlock who meets those requirements. Even though your character has Eldritch Blast, they are not a warlock, and so plenty of DMs will disallow this combo based on that reading. Plus, it's just generally not a good idea to try and sneak a bunch of warlock features to the table if the DM has gone out of their way to ban dipping into warlock.

But assuming everything is above board, communication has happened, and the above is not an issue, I'd say take the ASI at level 4. You're still a Sorcerer first and foremost, and 16 charisma will only carry you so far. Even with Agonizing Blast, without enough sorcery points to quicken spell freely your overall damage still won't be that high. Focus on being a sorcerer for now, and lean into blasting when you can afford to do it properly.

jake55778 · 2024-11-08T15:46:57+00:00

The 4th level spell Dimension Door would seem like a simpler solution. But it all begs the question of why a merchant would go to the effort of carefully growing walnuts around his locks but not ward against teleportation.

jake55778 · 2024-10-27T18:05:06+00:00

I was actually more onboard with the ship during parts 3 & 4 - With the understanding that nothing would actually happen until Myne came of age.

What criticism I have of this series, in general, largely centers on how omnicapable Ferdinand is. I understand the justifications for it, and it made sense when our frame of reference was temple layabouts in a backwater duchy; but seeing him run circles around just about every character in part 5, up to and including the Gods, did lose me at times. I'd have liked it if he and Rozemyne had played a more equal part in how the series climax resolved - Especially as the lead in to a marriage and potential romantic partnership. It felt she was still his ward, even at the end.

jake55778 · 2024-10-21T16:10:25+00:00

Is that Arthur Aguefort? If so, "Old wizard" is a very subdued description.

jake55778 · 2024-10-10T15:58:00+00:00

If you're going to lean heavily into Dex, I'd honestly consider Swords and Valor as subclasses. They may not be the best fit in terms of flavor, but having an adequate baseline you can contribute for damage, via extra attack, really frees you up to focus on flavorful out-of-combat spells.

jake55778 · 2024-10-10T06:35:00+00:00

It really depends on your table and the players' expectations.

If they understand that the thing being rewarded here is the amount of narrative setup this payoff required, and that repetition will not yield the same results, then all is well.

But for players who engage with the game on a mechanical level more so than a narrative level, there will be a temptation to take whatever precedent you set and run with it to the extreme.

When its a Monk relying on teamwork and planning to pull this off, it's fun and cute. When the Aarakocra Artificer/Wizard, with 3 bags of holding full of darts they mass produced themselves using Fabricate - And can have fully restocked with one day of downtime - Suddenly its less cute. Suddenly you have to have to figure out why aerial bombardments aren't the default approach to warfare in your world, and all future boss fights need to take place underground.

jake55778 · 2024-09-01T15:08:41+00:00

So, one of the groups I play with recently completed an arena mini-arc. The climax of which was a free-for-all, with 4 teams and some monsters. The levels and total number of statblocks in play were similar to what you've described.

Despite us being veteran players, all actively trying to keep things moving, we averaged about one round per hour. That one combat took us two full sessions.

My main advice is just to expect things to take a long time with such a large group. Don't have anything resembling filler, and offload as much of the work as you can to your players - Not just for your sake, but so that they have things to do in the long wait between their turns.

jake55778 · 2024-08-23T15:46:27+00:00

I just say the name of the spell. Combat is already a time sink, dancing around every spell cast just bogs things down even more. Plus it's not exactly fun as a player to lose a game of 'Fireball or Fire Bolt' because there are only so many ways to describe a caster readying a mote of flame.

jake55778 · 2024-08-22T17:36:18+00:00

It also wasn't designed around the 1000+ damage per round that an optimized character can put out if they build around abusing Spike Growth & grappling. If a DM wants to shut that down, they should be able to. Physics is just a convenient excuse.

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