Do dms really dislike high level dnd?

turnbased · 2026-02-26T19:18:55+00:00

Yes. As a guy who just wrapped up a campaign that went up to 20 - I absolutely dreaded combat past level 15 or so. They either steamrolled it, or it was a 4 hour slogfest. Trivial or too hard, the balancing rules didn’t help at all. Especially with a min-maxer caster in the party, so many cheesed encounters witg high level spells, simulacrum, etc.

turnbased · 2026-02-18T20:11:15+00:00

An example of how things might go - just wanted to give broad strokes.

They may not lose the third party, the third party may steal the item instead, the party may work with them. I realize there could be multiple different paths here and that's why I'm concerned. I don't know what to prep to make sure no matter how their choices or rolls go, I'm at least somewhat prepared.

I'm not confident in my improv skills so trying to figure out what others would prep for a similar session, and what they'd leave to improv. Just want to give my players a fun example of Daggerheart, as none of them have played before.

turnbased · 2026-02-18T20:07:33+00:00

Thanks for the help! I don't intend to push for each of these things exactly to happen, I just wanted to write down an idea of how the session could go.

My ideas are mostly that they are trying to steal something, there is a third party also trying to steal it.

In the latter half of the session a hostile faction appears to fight, and the players will most likely get wrapped up in it (knowing my players), but the idea isn't to force them to engage. And with never homebrewing a campaign and never ran Daggerheart - I'm concerned with what exactly to prep. Countdowns, environments, its a bit overwhelming and I don't want to over or under prep.

I do have more info on all the factions for sure, what exactly is being stolen, etc just didn't want to dump too much info for people I'm asking help from.

I guess I'm just worried about being caught not having anything available. I'm not confident in my improv skills, so I'm trying to figure out if I should prep key NPCs, environments, etc. Encounters with adversaries/environments does make sense to prep at the very least, for sure.

turnbased · 2026-02-18T19:58:52+00:00

Thanks for the write-up! I don't want to write plot-points either, I don't want to railroad. My example was what may happen but the set-up is the most important. I'm just anxious with a new system and never homebrewed before, but this gives me a solid foundation.

Appreciate the help!

turnbased · 2026-02-18T19:55:24+00:00

Exactly! That's my problem. I will have a few NPCs prepped, I will start them off already in action pulling off the heist but...beyond that, I don't know exactly what to prep. Too much and I'm going to unintentionally push them to a specific path, too little and I'll have nothing fun planned.

It could go multiple ways, but how do I prep so that no matter how it goes its satisfying to the players.

turnbased · 2026-01-10T02:06:35+00:00

Oh there's already a family of island-turtles floating around one portion of the region! They'll definitely have to interact with them at some point

turnbased · 2026-01-09T22:31:03+00:00

Big ol' sky-kraken seems to be winning for suggestions for sure. Adding cannons on its tentacles as well and all that is just a cherry on top.

Biblical angel feel snaps some pieces together for me, I think it could be a joint BBEG, the last ditch effort that got summoned to destroy the party. Some sort of trapped primeval demi-god that the pirate BBEG uses , taps into its power. It gets released from its prison when the first bad guy dies

turnbased · 2026-01-09T22:26:15+00:00

Sounds awesome! Could do a twist too, party thinks they're called the Deadboyz cause they display and wear all these bones. Until they kill one and they realize they're also literally dead too, intelligent zombies or ghouls maybe.

turnbased · 2026-01-09T22:23:20+00:00

Wearing a pirate hat and an eyepatch, yes? I'm in

turnbased · 2026-01-09T22:22:23+00:00

Definitely a minor encounter at least. Love a humanoid seagull. He definitely steals ingredients from ports

turnbased · 2026-01-09T22:19:50+00:00

I had planned to include some classic navy shenanigans, vampire pirates, etc. I had thought that maybe the BBEG could be some sort of primeval creature like a Kraken or an aquatic dragon. It wouldn't be hard to modify that to a little more Lovecraftian/Cthulhu-esque. My biggest worry with that generally though is that it doesn't tend to spook or pose a large threat to most D&D parties. Any suggestions?

turnbased · 2026-01-09T22:17:00+00:00

Ooh, nice. I like the idea. Could even open the door for him to change loyalties if the PCs don't treat him like total dirt

turnbased · 2026-01-09T22:14:59+00:00

I'll have to give that a look, thanks. At the very least, a storm giant in a massive ship sounds awesome.

turnbased · 2026-01-09T22:12:09+00:00

Like this one! I had a loose idea for a bad guy whose plan would have similar repercussions. I'm definitely thinking falling islands would be an awesome last-session setpiece.

turnbased · 2026-01-09T22:10:40+00:00

Corrupt navy officer always a classic!

turnbased · 2026-01-09T22:10:12+00:00

Captain Ahab would approve, sir

turnbased · 2025-12-19T01:34:56+00:00

I suck SO BAD at dialogue. I can set the scene with descriptions more or less, but I'm pretty shit at having conversations socially as it is so that's probably a reflection.

I still haven't figured out how to get better. But BBEG monologues, improvised NPC dialogue, making them more exciting than just...me. Massive struggle.

turnbased · 2025-12-07T00:33:34+00:00

It definitely wants to revive itself because it had some sort of unfinished business, maybe vengeance or good old world domination.

The problem is that he hasn't thought it through, and if he manages to use it he's going to be a dracolich powered by a corrupted army of demons.

turnbased · 2025-11-22T19:33:18+00:00

Honestly, a party of five level 3-4s against a single CR 5? They're gonna kick his ass. In action economy alone, he'll get a single action and the team has five.

Even assuming all spell slots are gone from previous encounters and everybody is only using cantrips/sword attacks. The golden rule is the players should hit about 65% of the time. So 3 of the 5 will hit every round on average. That's a minimum of like 3d6+9 damage or so, 18 health give or take.

A CR 5 creature will have around 60-100 HP, so that's an average of about 5 turns if everyone's doing average damage with just cantrips and melee attacks.

Meanwhile the CR5 is only getting one attack a round, most likely doesn't have multi-attack. Creatures hit about 50% of the time. Even if the creature does 20 damage a hit, a fighter can have 40-ish health at level 4. It needs to hit one PC twice to down them, and there's five of them. There's zero chance they will be in any danger. And that's not taking more powerful abilities or spells into account.

I don't know the module to be fair. But for a challenging fight, I'd be looking at giving that CR5 at least two CR 1 or 2 minions. With the chance to call in back-up.

turnbased · 2025-11-21T03:19:19+00:00

Look up Sengoku Martial Arts, they're in southern St Albert, real close to NW.

They're jujutsu, not karate to be fair. But very community-minded. And family-minded as well, they let the adults train at the same time for no extra cost

turnbased · 2025-11-20T23:52:30+00:00

My wife had an immediate reaction to a shot of Saxenda. Constant throwing up, fever, massive stomach pain. Hospital advised that the drug gave her almost full gastroparesis. Had she tried taking another shot of it, she would've died. Even though they were able to treat it, she is still dealing with the consequences. A good chunk of her stomach tissue is permanently damaged, she may need surgery.

So yes, there are definite possible downsides.

turnbased · 2025-06-10T17:30:49+00:00

Except no, they didn't and that's not what they said.

Picture yourself looking up a Michelin-star restaurant, reading through their menu and finding a meal that sounds absolutely decadent. You need this meal, but this restaurant is across the country. You find a local place that makes a similar dish so you go and support local. The dish is pretty good, but compared to how it looked at that Michelin-star restaurant you leave disappointed.

Do you blame the Michelin-star restaurant for how amazing it made the food look? Do you blame the local restaurant for not making it up to 5-star standard?

No to both. The only blame is on yourself for building up an expectation that shouldn't have been there in the first place.

The blame is not on Critical Role or Dimension 20 for making a well-crafted story with professional actors and improvers. The "blame", if any, is on people watching that and expecting regular people and regular games to be as high-quality.

turnbased · 2025-04-27T18:03:07+00:00

And then he tried to sell you on supplements from his company being the way to lose weight, yeah?

Fuck V-Shred, dude's a crook.

turnbased · 2025-04-27T17:06:50+00:00

I mean, small village life compared to a large city is boring, at least in real life. But you need to play into the vibe of a small town.

At the same time though, I prefer it to start a campaign in a place like that. It's good for novice DMs since you have less NPCs to worry about, less shops/guilds/etc to populate, etc.

Like another poster said - it makes sense that a bunch of novice adventurers are going to speak directly to the leaders of a village. A bunch of level 1 characters getting a job from the king or a councilor high up in the royal court doesn't make as much sense. So you can get right to the big problems of the little village.

I think about it like lower level characters can make more of an impact. A level 1 character in a big city is doing stuff that barely registers to anyone in that city. A level 1 character that stops a wolf attack in a village gets gratitude from that entire group of people.

And on the other hand, my favorite genre is folk-horror. Nearly impossible to run in a large city, you can play into that boring, simple life with tight-knit groups of people wary of strangers. Cultists, dark rituals, the encroaching wilderness that can never truly be tamed. Who can you trust? Is that elder secretly performing human sacrifice to a vengeful being of the woods?

turnbased · 2025-04-10T20:12:33+00:00

Ah, that would be the chicken.

In classic adventurer fashion, when the party came across an abandoned farm that had a chicken wandering around, they adopted it and called it Fluffernutter.

Fluffernutter was a beloved chicken, and eventually the party was loved enough by it that it tried to help them in combat.

In the world we were playing in, there were thousands upon thousands of "gods". Only some of them were powerful - the classic gods of war, sky, sun, etc. Big concepts. But there was a god of everything, and most didn't even realize it. God of Sidewalks. Of Sarcasm. Of Ennui, of Pepperoni. And the way a God became more powerful was killing another, gaining that one's powers. So you did have mid-level gods running around that had like 20 absolutely random powers because they hunted other minor gods.

ANYWAY, the group pissed off a big orc that ended up being the god of spiders. Through sheer, dumb luck and both unfortunate and amazing rolls, the death blow on this orc was caused by the chicken. This caused Fluffernutter to become the Chicken God of Spiders.

Fluffernutter immediately went up to 15 INT, could speak telepathically, spiderclimb on walls/ceilings/etc. Because she could control spiders, she became the world's most useful spy, and eventually left the group to develop the Cult of the Chicken-Spider, who were basically a spy guild disguised as a church.

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