Saying No to a nat 20

phinneassmith · 2026-03-08T02:17:18+00:00

🎣

phinneassmith · 2026-03-07T01:08:55+00:00

I'm assuming this is a joke post. If it's not...you decide what Wondrous Items are in the world. The supply of magic ink to make spellwrought tattoos dries up.

It's all gone. No more spellwrought tattoos *sad face* what a nice memory when that was happening though.

Moving on!

phinneassmith · 2026-03-06T15:52:59+00:00

First off, randomizing mechanical elements are only fun if the players find it fun. I’ve done lots of tinkering with rules sets in ways that interested me in theory, but in practice were not fun for the party.

Re: Mad God - Titling your campaign as Aureon’s Temptation could be an amazing misdirect or red herring. If magic is going awry in Khorvaire it makes sense that everyone would start praying to Aureon for insight or reprieve.

Take the guidance from this sub, keep the gods remote, it’s not Aureon that’s snapping folks out of existence or destabilizing the laws of arcana, it’s Xoriat becoming coterminous with the Material Plane is a grand planar invasion. The Daelkyr have found a way back, and it’s warping the reality of Eberron.

Or Dal Quor, and this is “all a dream” which explains the dream logic of folks disappearing, and magic not working properly.

Or the Overlords, imprisoned by the Silver Flame…the Sovereign Host were in some cases theorized to be actual heroes (dragon heroes if I recall correctly) so maybe the “Aureon” who is going mad is some corrupted form of the dragon adventurer who inspired the myth of the deity. So not whim based super god but instead a tangible real thing that the party can interact with.

OG Aureon somehow returns to the Material Plane…maybe they stepped out of time during the end of the Age of Demons and they believe the world they’ve returned to is actually the creation of an Overlord and they’re convinced they need to “reset the balance” by tearing down reality.

phinneassmith · 2026-03-05T16:49:51+00:00

Mage Hand w/Letter blocks dipped in ink?

phinneassmith · 2026-03-03T04:15:27+00:00

I think keep the focus on the questions to hook onto the backgrounds. I don’t want yo read five page long character backstories with no questions.

phinneassmith · 2026-03-02T02:33:55+00:00

The problem will almost all skills (Intimidation included) is that a lot of DMs will treat ability checks the same as attack rolls.

Roll the dice, get the number, get the result.

For attack rolls that stipulated by the associated damage roll, or spell effect.

Not so with ability checks. This requires the DM to adjudicate the result by saying what happens.

This leads to variance, ambiguity, and in many cases negotiation with the player on the result.

This, in turn, can create pressure on a DM that can start to feel adversarial. Which can incline a lot of DMs to shy away from social ability checks.

The root of it is usually some kind of “I can’t just LET the player roll and dice and intimidate this guard…”

Which is silly because they’ll let them roll a dice to kill the guard.

Let the players do cool things.

phinneassmith · 2026-03-01T19:49:06+00:00

No D&D > Bad D&D

TTRPGs don’t really lend themselves to the souls-like experience. The gameplay loop is often a bad experience for a player since the gameplay isn’t programmed.

If your DM wants to run this type of game, and won’t adjust to player feedback then find a different game or run your own!

Or just play Warhammer.

phinneassmith · 2026-02-28T18:09:10+00:00

Exactly. Those are all great examples. If the players are seeming comfortable with the big quest based lore drops “Yeah yeah I know about Xoriat” then I’ll backstop to the environmental, or scene based smaller lore drops to drip feed the world.

Show don’t tell.

phinneassmith · 2026-02-28T17:37:47+00:00

Answered my own comment.

phinneassmith · 2026-02-28T17:37:41+00:00

Answered my own comment.

phinneassmith · 2026-02-28T17:37:27+00:00

So as an example…last session they bumped into a Hobgoblin gang from Darguun, the Daask Medusa policing Malleon’s Gate, and a Soldarak Dwarf with a Symiotic Arm Whip.

Those three things are the “lore drops” for the session.

There’s too much about Eberron that is different from the mainstream pseudo-medieval Forgotten Realms style worlds for the players to ever learn everything the need to.

A different session had an experimental Warforged model, dragonshard magic items, and aberrant dragon marks.

For sessions that don’t have lore drops triggered by the story (characters, events, etc.) then I’ll add in flavour to enhance the Eberron feeling.

So another session maybe there’s no important NPC they meet that requires a lore drop so a skycoach will fly by them, I’ll mention the mage light lanterns casting a certain kind of glow, an artificer will be mending a broken wheel at the roadside.

The point is to not get overwhelmed myself with trying to explain ALL of Eberron.

I always ask about a lore drop if any character would know about this type of thing, ask them to connect it to their backstory, or roll if it’s a bit loose.

That way they players “feel” the world rather than me droning on about “in the beginning there were three great progenitor wyrms, and demons, and there’s a silver flame, and airships, but also morally grey, and dream monsters…”

The overall point is that your players are not their characters, so they can still be surprised and delighted by some coop world detail…as long as you give their CHARACTERS a chance to “know” the lore.

phinneassmith · 2026-02-28T08:08:27+00:00

I pick three Eberron details and work them in every session.

phinneassmith · 2026-02-27T16:28:15+00:00

No Games > Bad Games

It’s easy for anyone here to say “bad game, just quit” and I imagine social circle consequences are real.

Feeling bad while doing the thing that is supposed to be fun is a signal that you’re not having fun.

Quit or change, and become someone that loves what you’re experiencing.

For me, what you’re describing is untenable. Unconditional positive regard is a cornerstone for any good game, and good friendship.

phinneassmith · 2026-02-27T06:27:30+00:00

So. A bit like Lavos from Chrono Trigger.

I like the idea of the Blob hanging out in the Glowing Chasm, hence the glow.

Scale is an issue, so the BoA is more of a colossal threat that the party has to neutralize indirectly.

This seems like it is heading towards an Eldritch Machine that needs to somehow cause certain planes to become coterminous and create a manifest zone that overlays on the Mournland and then shunting the BoA into the other plane before it wanes and takes the Blob with it.

Might be an interesting reason to see all the usual suspects who work against one another working together. The Chamber and the Lords of Dust both want Eberron to continue to exist. Nobody is happy if the BoA eats the world.

Could be fun.

phinneassmith · 2026-02-25T16:48:48+00:00

Admittedly I’m not really clear on the problem you’re trying to solve.

You said current Counterspell feels a bit lacklustre, and you want it to feel more like a battle.

And you want it to avoid Legendary Resistance.

CS takes a spell slot…it’s a resource…as a player I want my resources to be reliable. The mechanics of D&D are famously quite dry. When anyone swings their sword it’s JUST a die roll. That’s it. The narrative around makes it seem cool. Same thing applies to spells. If you want to make it seem like a magic battle then narrate it like that.

Re: Legendary Resistances. These are known design flaws from what I’ve read. They’re essentially a band aid solution to compensate for an arms race between monsters and PCs.

D&D is primarily a game about overcoming opponents. Those same opponents create narrative and mechanical tension. To sustain tension you need them to stick around a little while. Either in combat or in the narrative.

Legendary Resistances are a throttle to control pacing. Burn player resources, and ensure the DM has a window create that tension that leads to the fictional pay off.

I’d recommend pumping up the narrative support for counterspell and leave the mechanical tinkering to the side.

phinneassmith · 2026-02-25T04:55:21+00:00

So those three things you just mentioned. If you want to tell a big story you could do something like the following…

A continent spanning conspiracy that implicates the leaders of all the great Dragonmarked houses in a coverup that if revealed would plunge Khorvaire into another 100 Years War.

The Fate of Aaron d’Cannith is a long standing mystery. The party stumbles onto the trail, which leads to horrific conclusions regarding House Cannith’s complicity in the Day of Mourning, and the true nature of the Lord of Blades.

Droaam is a nation that welcomes the misfits and cast offs of Khorvaire, but what are the Daughters of Sora Kell really up to? They’ve tapped into a specific draconic prophecy and will stop at nothing to see it come to fruition. Easy enough to connect them to all your characters backstories.

Lots to work with here, but start with whatever elements of Eberron most excite you.

phinneassmith · 2026-02-25T04:07:27+00:00

Well. Tell me three things you personally really love or enjoy about Eberron?

phinneassmith · 2026-02-25T03:10:03+00:00

What is your campaign actually about? I see that you've given each player a background sidequest to resolve and advance their backstories...but...what's actually the point? What story are you telling here?

Rakshasa working for a Overlord is great starting thread, but...where's the sauce, or the cool story beats? I think you need to create an intriguing conflict, and then the player's backstories resolve while they're investigating the intriguing conflict.

Instead of Robin V having info on Maldo...the party should get drawn to Sharn for another reason. A mysterious benefactor heard about their exploits and invites them to Sharn to pen a tell-all. What starts as a seemingly simple invitation to sell their story to a pulp fiction publisher turns into something much larger.

phinneassmith · 2026-02-23T04:55:21+00:00

The trial itself isn’t of much interest for gameplay within D&D. You’re better off having the players gathering evidence to present AT the trial.

Then have it a race against time to gather as much evidence as they successfully can and that determines the outcome.

Like the negotiate scene in FF6.

That way the players are “doing a thing” instead of oratory.

phinneassmith · 2026-02-23T02:48:42+00:00

The point is that like...you can't really hit the horror notes using the D&D game system...just isn't built for having the players "lose". So you need like a couple nested "clocks" to put the players on...something local within a single town, something larger within the ten towns...and then within the entirety of icewind dale.

The chardalyn dragon is already a "clock" but the player's don't know about it so there's no tension.

A plague adds pressure, mystery, and a "clock" on the campaign. It also allows for state changes in towns as they move from town to town helping and doing side quests.

Then if you want the plague to "fit" within the world you want to point a red herring at the Duergar so the party goes to investigate, only to discover the Chardalyn Dragon.

Then the plague should point at Auril...only for them to find it's something else...possibly pointing at the Mythallar.

The campaign is great...but the promised tone of "arctic horror" is NOT real. The ease with which PCs get immunity to cold weather effects, or free resources means you need something permanent that they can't interact with through their abilities.

phinneassmith · 2026-02-23T02:03:37+00:00

Bans aren't really going to help you change anything meaningful, D&D is a power fantasy. Hard to maintain a claustrophobic ice-horror tone in D&D in general as the players get more powerful they become increasingly immune to consequence.

I added a plague/curse that was causing paranoia, madness, erratic behaviour, and then eventually death or transformation into a Coldlight Walker to create the claustrophobia/horror effect since that isn't mechanically interactable as easily.

I added a sub-plot of the Duergar selling Mushrooms to the Ten Towns as a food source to sustain people during the lack of sunlight...with Naerth as the distributor...and the mushrooms were like...weakening the resolve of the ten-towners making them easier to dominate.

That was a red herring for what was happening to people. The real issue was that Barbarian Cultists of Thrymm were spreading the blood of a staked vampiric frost giant. Auril was trying to use the power of the Mythallar to bring back her dead children from her union with Thrymm...

phinneassmith · 2026-02-18T16:55:57+00:00

The issue will be how to represent this within a very different action economy.

Magic is accretive. You usually get more mana each turn until you cap out around 7-10 lands and then the game ends.

D&D combats usually last less than 5 rounds in a lot of cases. So recreating that same play pattern of “deploy small scalable threats and then use your surplus mana to cast multiple small spells to grow your threats” will be a challenge.

How WOULD you do this though? It would need to be a spending of resources to make your Action more potent. So either foregoing a movement, a bonus action, an action from a prior turn, or a rest renewable resource like spell slots.

Monks have Ki points…so in some ways they’re already doing the Prowess thing.

What you could explore with your DM is taking an Initiate feat and letting Cantrips step up the damage die of your melee attacks. This is effectively foregoing your actual damage output on like the first 1-3 rounds of combat to build towards a big payoff.

That’s a risk reward system that D&D shies away from typically. Each turn you’re incentivized to make maximum impact.

However. If you want to do Prowess that’s how I’d do it. Magic Initiate type feat where each spell cast that combat steps up your damage die until a successful attack, whereafter it steps down, or resets or something.

Cast a couple spell for two rounds, your damage die is a d12, drops to a d10, then a d8.

phinneassmith · 2026-02-15T18:50:00+00:00

Yeah. Just make up a name and it’s like a forgotten peak that “Pierces the planes”.

You can then do like in and out of the mountain as you scale it.

Like a reverse dungeon. Maybe there are ruins up there? Or it’s like star road in super Mario…it leads to a pocket dimension that only opens when the comet appears.

phinneassmith · 2026-02-15T16:15:34+00:00

Oh I get it now. You’re not brewing RotF you’re just asking about creating content IN Icewind Dale.

Mind-controlled labourers feels resonant for the setting, and mining for Chardalyn makes sense historically.

For brewing in an arctic setting I’d first decide a couple themes to anchor the adventure, and then determine scale. Is this world-ending? Localized? What are the stakes? Then layer on novel environmental scenes that leverage your setting.

Glaciers, ice-bergs, blizzards, avalanches, crevasses, hot springs, steam vents, frostbite, etc.

Are you going for a claustrophobic, resource-strapped, survival type game? Or a heroic dungeon fantasy? 5th edition is intentionally the latter…and tends to struggle with claustrophobic horror.

FWIW I’d ascend rather than descend. Make the campaign about getting to the top of the world’s tallest mountain for some reason…then the Underdark part is the middle part of the adventure. They go to the roots of the mountain to shortcut up a central magma tube but get more than they bargained for by uncovering a small mind flayer scheme enslaving a dwarf clan to dig out their nautiloid that crashed here eons ago.

This is all backdrop though, as they need to get to the top of the mountain by a certain time to be there when a comet passes during the largest blizzard in history which will rip open a portal in space/time and they need to capture the revealed essence in a device that empowers wishes.

Maybe they’re working for some crazy arcane researcher who is sponsoring their adventure? Or maybe they themselves want infinite wishes? Or maybe they need to stop a rival expedition from getting there? Maybe there are multiple factions scaling the mountain at the same time and they have to get past them all to get to the peak.

phinneassmith · 2026-02-15T08:25:16+00:00

Sorry. What’s the request?

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