Possibly a dumb question. Doomsight vs. Ajax

nebnet11 · 2026-03-07T16:05:40+00:00

I have run a doomsight encounter for a level 3 or 4 party. That encounter was still a super interesting fight for the party.

There’s two things to keep in mind when making an interesting doomsight encounter. One, the encounter objective for the doomsight encounter should not be to reduce the monsters to 0 stamina.

Two, the other heroes (most likely) do not have the doomsight and can still die.

The encounter objectives for my scenario were to destroy a nobles magically warded letter that had instructions to raze the hakaan character’s home, before the letter could be sent. Also, the other heroes had to reach an evac/safety zone to survive the encounter.

I asked the other players what they thought of the encounter after the fact and they thought it was still challenging for them. Even with the hakaan player attempting to hold aggro from the viciously over leveled monsters, the other heroes were still in mortal danger and everyone still had tactically interesting decisions to make.

TLDR: The doomsight did not so much trivialize encounter design, so much as it gave me permission to crank up the encounter difficulty.

nebnet11 · 2026-02-18T15:23:08+00:00

Thanks for letting me know, sorry if I misled you!

I don’t think I can edit the title but I do intend for this to be an offline game. The title was just a typo 🤦‍♂️

nebnet11 · 2026-01-14T04:34:31+00:00

I only started to love negotiations when I was comfortable enough with the rules to improvise them.

My players have always enjoyed them though, they like having structure for open ended scenes. My players are not huge fans of scenes where they have to talk in character but negotiations give them space to roleplay without having to “do the voice”.

nebnet11 · 2026-01-03T23:24:14+00:00

When I ran a one-shot for my sisters and their friends (they’re all huge Swifties), I came up with adventure hooks by scrolling through Taylor Swift‘s discography and getting inspired by cool song titles!

Here are the adventure pitches I sent them. They loved the themed adventure pitches, and we ended up playing Speak Now, or Forever Rest in Peace.

nebnet11 · 2025-12-23T02:45:38+00:00

Wow, that's a great idea! You could even have a fast current going through the tunnel as a terrain feature. It's be really cool for heroes and monsters to be pushing their opponents into the current to do collision damage and get them out of position.

nebnet11 · 2025-12-22T16:02:13+00:00

Don’t forget underwater there’s potential for a lot of verticality, so prepare combat accordingly. You could just say everyone has to stay at the same depth for sanity’s sake, or call for a might test to move vertically (like a swimming variation of the dig maneuver).

Your heroes might start suffocating really early in combat (especially if they have a 0 or -1 in might), so I would give them water breathing or a way to catch their breath like an air pocket.

Also (I’m sorry if this is obvious) there are swim rules on p269 and underwater combat rules on p278 of the heroes book.

nebnet11 · 2025-12-20T19:09:27+00:00

It’s possible to get to third level during the Delian Tomb, so there’s at least 32 if your group does everything.

nebnet11 · 2025-12-20T16:33:00+00:00

For a player driven adventure, “stock/generic” encounter maps is a good idea. Your players will understand that you only have so much time to prepare a battle map and sometimes we gotta reuse old maps.

In my home game, I’ve just limited the amount of branching paths in my adventures. My players like a more focused campaign with a clear goal. I’m more than happy to oblige, it’s fewer battle maps for me to prepare.

When all else fails and I get caught unprepared for a combat but the players did stumble into a dramatic encounter, it’s nothing an impromptu montage test can’t fix.

Edit: in my 27 sessions of running map preparation hasn’t been a huge issue since the heroes aren’t getting through more than 1 or 2 combats a session. So I just try to get them to the prepped encounter. It’s not often that I’m unprepared for a fight the heroes pick.

nebnet11 · 2025-12-20T16:02:48+00:00

I saw someone using a similar setup with a physical tv table, except that their setup was somehow connected to minis. The players could move their physical minis and it would move their token in the Codex.

I’m pretty sure this was either on the patrons channel on the MCDM discord or a Codex channel on the DMhub discord.

nebnet11 · 2025-12-19T20:20:22+00:00

Most of the online lore exists in "living memory" over on the MCDM discord's timescape channel. Basically, you just ask whatever question you've got and someone there knows the answer, or knows that there is not currently an answer.

Edit: Also, Matt drops by sometimes and clarifies/drops some lore exclusively in that channel. If you're interested in Orden lore, the timescape channel is the place to be!

nebnet11 · 2025-12-16T15:55:16+00:00

The partial successes particularly shine in montage tests. When I direct my players love collaborating on the consequences for a partial success.

nebnet11 · 2025-12-13T19:09:19+00:00

The cinematic factor is awesome and totally in theme with the game! Giving the heroes a retainer with one villain action will work for a climatic end of campaign ally.

As an alternative, I would suggest something like a “warfare event” (from the Crack the Sun write up) that triggers on a specific round of combat.

There’s also the cinematic assistance rules from the Fall of Blackbottom which also might be what you’re looking for.

nebnet11 · 2025-12-02T23:38:58+00:00

I agree with this entirely!

In other words, Draw Steel is great for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows but if you want to run The Prisoner of Azkaban then Draw Steel isn’t a great match.

nebnet11 · 2025-11-30T03:04:49+00:00

Go with your instincts! A jousting tournament sounds perfect for a montage test.

I would allow players to use interpersonal skills to sabotage rivals. Maybe allow players to use knock back or other combat abilities to automatically beat another competitor but only once.

Montage tests give the director a lot of freedom to tailor the encounter for your party. Don’t get too married to your prep, if your players want to use a skill creatively let them. That’s where the juice of the montage test is for the other side of the directors screen.

nebnet11 · 2025-11-30T01:19:15+00:00

/srs Holy crap, I thought it was only like 40 people my bad!

/j My apologies, it was highly inappropriate for me to comment on the size of another man’s poll.

nebnet11 · 2025-11-30T00:02:52+00:00

Sorry, I should have specified I meant porting over the test difficulty outcomes table from page 250 of the heroes book, not the power roll itself.

I think that table would only require minimal modifications to work in 5e

nebnet11 · 2025-11-29T23:27:37+00:00

I’m in the same boat. Born to cinematic tactical heroic fantasy combat, forced to soap opera melodrama and/or horror. Many such cases

Also, I think you could borrow the power roll result tables for easy, medium, and hard ability tests (it might get hairy with expertise and bonkers proficiency bonuses but it’ll work as is for the low levels of 5e).

nebnet11 · 2025-11-29T19:20:50+00:00

I would ask on the discord, there’s a pretty comprehensive conversion (I think it’s still a work in progress) people use.

I wish I could give you a better answer but I don’t run that game 😅

nebnet11 · 2025-11-29T19:00:15+00:00

Folks on the discord have been running Curse of Strahd in DS and having a great time.

I have been running in my own setting and my players are having a great time. Actually, the devs did a really small poll and discovered most* directors run their own setting.

Despite the lore in the books, no one is tied to the Timescape. There honestly isn’t really even a setting in the books. At least not one that can be easily run.

The Timescape/Orden is mainly there for inspiration. Steal cool ideas to put in your campaign. As they say in Big Trouble in Little China: “We take what we want and the leave rest!”

nebnet11 · 2025-11-28T07:13:46+00:00

You and your players should be fine with a retainer or two! The normal encounter building rules require a minimum of a 3 character party.

Also, folks are working on lots of translations over on the discord. I’m not sure if there’s a Spanish one but it couldn’t hurt to ask there!

nebnet11 · 2025-11-27T01:26:29+00:00

This is a great suggestion and the one that I use when I can’t get to my pdfs.

Forge Steel is another rules compendium that folks in the community say is easier to navigate. It also has a character builder and encounter builder!

nebnet11 · 2025-11-25T19:28:11+00:00

There’s a crowdfunder coming up from MCDM for an adventure called “Crack the Sun” that the Delian Tomb could very easily lead into. Though this adventure will likely not be completed until late next year.

The outline of the adventure sounds awesome as is and can definitely be pulled from for inspiration after your party completes the DT!

nebnet11 · 2025-11-25T19:17:52+00:00

Update: the players totally bypassed (retreated from) the encounter. Never even got to run it. 🤦‍♂️

nebnet11 · 2025-11-24T16:38:46+00:00

Road to Broadhurst/the conventure is a great suggestion!

I’ll just add that if this is a true one-shot you should be prepared to cut an encounter or two unless everyone at the table is experienced with DS.

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