This isn’t for anything serious, unless someone is inspired to run it in a Halloween one-shot.

Description: in a multiverse of endless horrors, not every one of them is going to be a winner. Warlocks who engage in a pact with David S. Pumpkins will find themselves frequently on the receiving end of questions like “who?” or “ok but why is HE your patron.” the answer is simple, he’s David S. Pumpkins, and he’s doing his own thing.

David S. Pumpkins warlock patron

Lvl 3: I’m gonna scare the hell out of you. As a bonus action choose one creature that can see and hear you within 60ft. Make a performance check contested by target’s Insight. On a success against them the target can either move, take an action, or take a BA on their next turn, not all three. Use this feature CHA times/long rest.

Lvl 3: Pumpkin Spells (not sure what to put here besides “Raise dead”)

Lvl 3: MY OWN THANG! You gain expertise in the performance skill. You learn one Druid cantrip of your choice and add it to your list of cantrips known.

Lvl 6: The Skeletons are part of it. When you cast “Raise Dead” you do not need to target pre-existing bones or corpses. You can instead summon two Skeletons from the DMG. They spawn with extra temp HP equal to your Warlock level and proficiency in Performance. If one or both of these skeletons are within 10ft of you, you gain advantage on performance checks.

You can also confer this benefit on up to two skeletons you summon by targeting existing bones.

Lvl 10: IM CRAAAAZY…for David S Pumpkins! You can cast Otto’s irresistible dance. You can modify the spell to not require concentration. The spell lasts until the end of the creature’s next turn unless it ends its turn within 10 ft of you or one of your “Part of It” skeletons, in which case the spell can last until its full duration. You can cast the spell this way once per long rest, you can also cast it again by expending any uses of your Mystic Arcanum to cast this spell instead.

Lvl 14: Any QUESTIONS?!? 

When you roll initiative and have no uses of “Scare the Hell out of you” remaining, you regain one use.

As a magic action when a creature fails the check versus your “Scare the hell out of you” ability, you can magically teleport behind them and utter an inane question. The creature must make a Wisdom saving throw. An a failed save they become frightened of you for 1 min (repeat the save if out of line of sight with you at the end of their turn) and take 6d6 psychic damage.

I bought the obijima book and was really enjoying the subclasses there. I'm particularly enamoured by the circle of petals Druid. I also bought crooked moon and was loving the idea of playing a sinner rogue.

I like the Trap the Soul spell, and really want to use it, but I'm not sure how to translate it into 5e. If any of you guys have experience translating 3.5e spells into 5e, what changes should I make, and where should I start?

Hello everyone!

I wanted to share some spells ive homebrewed with my new Dota 2 x D&D project

I'm hoping to hear your thoughts to let me know if this is a bit underwhelming or OP and where I could balance

Spell name - Acorn Shot

Conjuration Cantrip - Used by Artificers, Druids and Rangers

Casting Time - Action

Range - 60 Feet

Components - Verbal, Somatic and Material (An Acorn)

Duration - Instantaneous

Flick an Acorn at a target within range​. Making a Ranged Spell Attack, on hit you deal 1d8 Bludgeoning Damage and slow the target's movespeed by 10 feet. The Acorn ricochets to another target within 10 feet of the first. You deal 1 damage and their movement speed is also slowed by 10 feet, if failing on a Dexterity Saving throw

The Cantrip upgrades at level 5 (2d8) , level 11 (3d8) and level 17( 4d8)

Let me know your thoughts!

Final member of the party. Cohle Blight. A grizzled detective (Quaestor in the setting) with a shady past. Part of a task force geared to solve crimes of an arcane persuasion. Blight’s natural predisposition for undercover work gives him endless opportunities to feed his vices. Drugs, alcohol, gambling. The evidence locker is always a little light when he’s not undercover.

Unnaturally charismatic and with a preternatural understanding of the arcane, Blight is adrift on the tides of fate. Unsure of his ultimate mooring.

Mechanically he’s a wild magic sorcerer. Aesthetically I took obvious inspiration from True Detective and John Constantine.

im currently working as a mentor/teacher for jr. High and Highschool students and were looking to expand the program by bringing In dungeons and dragons. lots of the kids in the program have some form of high functioning special needs or experience a little bit of social anxiety. im hoping to create a child friendly expierience that also aligns with the mission of my program of helping these kids come out of their shells but as well give them experience that helps them with real world problem solving skills. I want to give them encounters that push them to think a little outside the box of thier normal lives and help these kids long term. any ideas on encounters or just advice in general? thank you so much!

So I have played DnD for years happily and went to the GIAG sessions for this society and enjoyed them but I absolutely cannot do it anymore.
Ive been multiple times since actual sessions started and I really cannot communicate with the people there. I genuinely do not get their humour at all, they say something that is so mind-bogglingly boring or just irrelevent and they all laugh their heads off I really don't get it.

I keep trying to just smile and continue but it's just making me shut down mute like I really have no understanding of them at all.

I'm also really struggling because everyone there keeps bringing violence and graphic descriptions in which I really struggle with so I always only go to the ones without any violent trigger warnings but then everyone just approaches every encounter with either violence or the same "humour" that seems to just get us absolutely nowhere. They're also all quite insulty like every single encounter seems to be some sort of aggression with every group I've been to, is that normal, I've literally never had that in any other campaigns or with other players?

I'm really confused because I seem to just have to leave halfway through because I cannot speak or do anything with them, I feel like I'm crazy. I know I'm autistic but it's a DnD group like surely everyone else here is too?? (edit This is a joke bc of how popular and usually accommodating dnd is for autistic people, I dont *actually believe all dnd players are autistic that would be a ridiculous generalisation, this ia justa. common joke I've found in dnd communities when tlaking abt autistic struggles) Plus I've hosted DnD myself every week for the past 4 years and never had a problem in those groups even when it's included different or new players.

Someone please tell me how on Earth to communicate or play like this, I've even been googling how to understand humour I need desperate help. I don't even think I can be refunded for the membership.

Anytime we do a session the DM really really reaaaalllyyyy likes to pad out anything and now theyre asking for another campaign.

we have yet to finish the previous campaign, its over 3 years in run time now.

I’m a big fan of world-building and lore, and I know that there’s countless people have made settings with stories and details that they’re genuinely proud of and could talk about them for hours.

So I’d love to hear about your homebrew,what’s the history behind it, what is it about, and what makes it different from other settings ?

Edit: I am not a bot 😭

Basically the title. I’m playing in a high level Halloween themed one shot soon and was asked to play a twist villain character. Normally I’m good at writing twist villains, and making a high level character off the bat is always fun, but for some reason combining the two is messing with me. The premise of the one shot is that everyone has been kidnapped by a chaos god and is being forced to go through trails (aka do his errands) to earn freedom. My evil/villainous character will have been in disguise for an unrelated reason when kidnapped, and the god reveals me at the end and I have to fight everyone at once. If anyone has any good ideas or even just something to get my brain moving on it, I would greatly appreciate it!

I’ve been DMing for a while, and I have been trying to improve my storytelling and DMing skills over time. I currently feel as though I do a good job, especially with creating Homebrew content. However, something I feel like I don’t do a great job at is giving players a situation where they have to come up with a plan before moving forward. I have done it before, but I find it hard to do consistently, and my players love to run it down in a blaze of glory. So my question to fellow DMs is how do you do it? How do you create situations forcing players to come up with a plan before tackling the problem?

Theophilus first joined forces with Amira back at level 1 in a quest to save Phandalin from the terrible Black Spider. Later, Amira fully converted to the faith of Cyric and master and apprentice moved to the city of Neverwinter and joined the Zhentarim there. After being backstabbed by the very agents who had recruited them, Sargon and his party undertake a jailbreak mission that ends up with the defeat of all three Zhentarim agents who looked over Neverwinter. The party took over their business and were eventually invited to visit the headquarters in Darkhold, where they met the higher ups and received a suicide mission as the ultimate test: venture into the Outer Plane of Arcadia, assault the Marble Tower and kill its guardians at the top: a Planetar and an Adult Gold Dragon.
Recently, Sargon disposed of the disguise of Theophilus by creating a series of well crafted illusions that lead the people of Neverwinter to believe he died as martyr in a recent battle, and assumed a new identity that is yet to be revealed in a new character board...

Ignoring mounts, what's your campaign's expectations for a party member acquiring at will, long duration (lets say, one hour) flight. Maybe by species, or magical items, or othewise.

I ask, because the draconic sorcerer's 14th level ability seems lackluster.

Had a idea for the party to save a band of new adventurers and eventually that party begins to emulate them/impersonate them. How would I go about this ? I already picked out some races that are similar but not the same as the party. Any advice is appreciated.

As promised, I am sharing volume two of the library of new magical items I have been working on. The linked PDF contains twenty new items; some are combat-oriented, some are utility items, others are more for roleplay or world building.

All of these items are designed for my own campaign setting of Audalis, but can be easily dropped into any world or game.

This document includes three Anathari devices - the Anathari are an ancient lost empire in my world. Their magic works differently than contemporary magic, and may include elements of lost technology, as well. Generally speaking, these are more "quality of life" items as opposed to flaming swords or wands of power, although there are exceptions.

I hope that you enjoy!

https://www.rdinn.net/downloads/Audalis_Magical_Treasures_Volume_II.pdf

I will share volume three sometime soon.

Hey everybody! I made a Necronomicon for an Evil-Dead-inspired one shot!

This contains useful spells, deadite powers, exorcisms, etc, all of which were helpful to my players for defeating deadites.

It also contained easter eggs for my previous campaign that only my players would understand, as well as easter eggs and hints for my future campaign.

The key was also a big part of the session, I hid it under my shirt for the whole session until my players got to the boss, which with a prepared action from a player, using Ray of Enfeeblement, the player was able to take the key fairly easily.

I had homebrew deathsave system using a d6. Immediately upon reaching 0 HP the players would roll and if they get a 1 they would die.

Upon death, their body would be possessed by a Kandarian daemon and their goal became killing their fellow players.

Flesh-merging was one of their powers, and so by the end all dead players became one giant flesh monster with 10 attacks per turn.

With one player left, (our final girl was my sister playing a Human Warlock, pact of the Fiend) they managed to get Nazkrul, the sword of death, kill a hag, enchant the sword with incantation, “Accede et accipe!” Roughly translated: “Come get some!”

(I had also brought my real sword as a prop and gave it to the player.)

They killed the giant flesh limb deadite, raising it above them as they showered in gallons of blood in true Evil Dead fashion.

Shoutout to u/OPLemonz for the Deadite statblock.

The session itself was chaotic, stressful, very unbalanced and I had to make up a lot of shit on the fly and the flesh merging became so confusing in regards to initiative that I fucked up the order several times lol.

Regardless my players had a very good time.

Happy Halloween everybody!

Now heres some info about my world so I can fill the word count lol:

Everscape:

Vingard
Known as the Land of the Warriors,  towering mountains encompass a frozen landscape. A cold, harsh climate ruled over by several warring jarls. Vingard breeds a culture of strong fighters to protect the cities from threats such as the Frost Giants that live in the northern glaciers. Generally, magic is distrusted as most Vingardians prefer to settle their disagreements with weapons. Some of the most renowned blacksmiths hail from this province, as such, Vingardian weapons are highly sought after.
Mostly home to humans, snow elves, goliaths, dwarves and firbolgs.

Fargrove
The birthplace of Godrick, the capital country of Everscape.
Fargrove was once a monarchy ruled by the dragon king, Virideus who was slain by the Funky Thugs. A landscape with abundant forests, rolling hills of grass and towering mountains, The Grove is known as the most magical and beautiful province of Everscape. The capital city of Viridian is governed by The Imperium.
Mostly home to humans, wood elves, fairies, satyrs, centaurs, gnomes, halflings and firbolgs.

olympia
Known as the Land of the Scholars. 
A mountainous and grassy tundra region home to The Imperium, a rising empire born from the Capital Vasilais, one of the most technologically advanced cities in Everscape. The city has a complex water system that allows for renewable water filtered and purified by magic. Unlike Fargrove, Olympia is democratic republic with city-states, each with their own government. No two Olympian cities are alike. Within Olympia resides a wizarding school known as Mystica University.
Mostly home to humans, high elves, dwarves, orcs and goliaths.

Solcara
The Face of the Sun. A rainforest to the south and a desert to the north. Solcara is one of the most diverse regions in Everscape, as well as the largest province. Solcara has a lucrative merchant population because of the resource-abundant jungle. The people of Solcara have adapted to its hostile environment - whether that’s the city built atop towering trees to avoid the monsters below or riding large geckos across the dunes of the desert.
Mostly home to tabaxi, wood elves, sun elves, humans, dragonborn and orcs.
Gods & Pantheon
The main gods are depicted as dragons, with corresponding chromatic color or type, although gods can appear in humanoid and other various forms.

Gods
1. Godrick - King God of Life, Nature and Health - Green Dragon
2. Eave - Goddess of Infinity, Space and Stars - Astral Dragon
3. Nethron - God of Death - Black Dragon
4. Ozan - God of War - Red Dragon
5. Vincall - God of Frost - White Dragon
6. Smithe - God of Storms & Lightning - Blue Dragon
7. Kronos - God of Time - Golden Dragon

Quasigods - Lesser gods that are tied to a specific domain, location or landmark. Generally, these are not depicted as dragons.
1. Vern - Goddess of Springtime
2. Froth - God of Wintertime
3. Sol - Goddess of Summertime 
4. Dus - God of Fall 
5. Loki - God of Trickery, Mischief, Thievery, Stealth
6. Aara - Fairy goddess whose dominion is Lake Aara, she also essentially rules Fiefgarden.
7. Boitata - Fire serpent that protects the rainforests and deserts of Solcara

Dæmonlords are Monarchs of kingdoms in Helscape, another realm where the dead and souls are forced to fight in an eternal war. If you’re playing a warlock, you can choose from here!
1. Bal - King of the Dæmonlords and Helscape
2. Ashgoth - Dæmonlord of Fire and Destruction
3. Ogrebile - Dæmonlord of Acid and Plague
4.  The Abyss - Dæmonlord of the Oceans, Madness, Darkness
5. Slugcoin - Dæmonlord of Greed and Gluttony
6. Hornlech - Dæmonlord of Lust, Rape and Domination
7. Hathblood - Dæmonlord of Hatred and Bigotry
8. Agonon -  Dæmonlord of Grief and Despair

I haven't played DnD in a very long time, and only played a little (long story, would rather not get into it), but I've been wanting to give it another try. I've drafted out a few characters, or at least their designs and basic concepts, and figured I'd show them off because why not.

From left to right:

• Miyashita Hikaru (homebrewed Kitsune race) from DnD wiki with accompanying Fox Spirit) class): Cowardly chaotic neutral who would rather run and save his own hide than fight, goes day-by-day morphing into fox form to steal whatever fits in his mouth. His spell list is fire-based or spells that can assist with survival.
• Ewan Delmyra (human Feylost sorcerer who uses a small lyre as an arcane focus): Playful trickster wanderer who was marked by a fey as a child (the glowing mark on his cheek), granting him incredible powers. Poses as a wandering minstrel and looks like a bard...right until he uses Fireball.
• Kara (homebrewed Sunscorched Startouched bandit): Abandoned son of a Startouched noble who was born under a solar eclipse, he was cast down a river in a basket and found by a bandit group called the Vulfang, composed of outsiders and the dregs of society who were cast out for being born "wrong".
• Sardar Amakiir (centaur Fey Wanderer ranger): A forest spirit in the form of a centaur who protects the forests he calls home from encroaching danger while guiding lost travelers to safety.

The Premise

Me and a few others decided to hold this game's feet to the fire and see if this stuff really works: the "challenge rating" guidelines from the Monster Manual and the "adventuring day" guidelines from the Dungeon Master's Guide.

For those unaware, Challenge Rating is defined the Monster Manual as:

An appropriately equipped and well-rested party of four adventurers should be able to defeat a monster that has a challenge rating equal to its level without suffering any deaths. For example, a party of four 3rd-level characters should find a monster with a challenge rating of 3 to be a worthy challenge, but not a deadly one.

And the adventuring day guidelines from the Dungeon Master's Guide:

Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. If the adventure has more easy encounters, the adventurers can get through more. If it has more deadly encounters, they can handle fewer.

and

In general, over the course of a full adventuring day, the party will likely need to take two short rests, about one-third and two-thirds of the way through the day.

We also keep in mind the “Adjusting XP for multiple monsters” guidelines from the DMG.

The Party

The characters chosen for this endeavor were intended to be the most classic characters, and ones that will perform the most consistently in each encounter.

Hill Dwarf Fighter: Champion

Lightfoot Halfling Rogue: Thief

High Elf Wizard: School of Evocation

Human Cleric: Life Domain

Not going to go into too much detail about the classes but you can assume we picked the most "basic" and strongest spells and options. I.e., Wizard had Magic Missile, Shield, Sleep, Misty Step, Fireball, etc. and Cleric had Bless, Healing Word, Spiritual Weapon, Spirit Guardians, etc.

No feats, no multiclassing, and no magic items outside of basic +X weapons and armor and potions of healing. We gave ourselves little treasure "hoards" using the Tiers of Play as a guideline from the Dungeon Master's Guide. 500 gp plus 1d10 × 25 gp, one uncommon magic item, normal starting equipment at 5th level; 5,000 gp plus 1d10 × 250 gp, three uncommon magic items, one rare item, normal starting equipment at 11th level; and 20,000 gp plus 1d10 × 250 gp, three uncommon magic items, two rare items, one very rare item, normal starting equipment at 17th level.

The fights all took place in a vacuum 20x20 (or 100 ft by 100 ft) room with both parties rolling initiative about 40 ft apart from the other. We let our characters be surprised if an enemy's "passive" Stealth was higher than our individual characters' passive Perceptions. We just assumed our party wouldn't really surprise anyone because of our two heavy armor wearers and the Cleric always having Light up.

Challenge Rating 4

Encounter 1: One Flameskull

Wizard loudly announces he casts Mage Armor as soon as wakes up and before we enter the theoretical dungeon to fight this thing. DM says “okay, now make a Dexterity saving throw” as the party takes their first Fireball. Fighter and Cleric fail but both stay up, even after taking 33 fire damage to the face. Flameskull is low so the Wizard casts Magic Missile. Flameskull Shields. Flameskull throws a Magic Missile back at the Wizard who now goes to 0. Cleric picks him up, and Rogue finishes the Flameskull off.

Encounter 2: One Lamia

Honestly kind of underwhelming? The Fighter and Cleric had too much AC for this thing to hit them with much. Fight only lasted 3 rounds so it never really got to do anything with the Intoxicating Touch. Party opts to short rest just because they’re missing hit points but otherwise nobody feels like they’re dying.

Encounter 3: Gnoll Fang of Yeenoughu

Cleric got downed, then used its Rampage to go after the Wizard, but was otherwise dealt with without much worry. Cleric starts next fight at 1 hp.

Encounter 4: Three Specters

Specters win initiative and fuck up the Wizard and Rogue. Cleric dodges the hit. Cleric tries to Turn Undead knowing these fuckers can suck our max HP. They all fail so the party starts preparing and then the Rogue takes a shot, which the Specter resists the non-magical attack, then it immediately attacks the Wizard again. Wizard Shields. Other two Specters fly away and we ready up for their return. Basically everyone avoids getting hit or casts Shield because we don’t want to risk the max HP reduction. Surprisingly not too hard but we do take our last short rest.

Encounter 5: Two Mimics

We are surprised, except for the Rogue. Wizard casts Web, they both get stuck. They break out, but we are far enough away it’s a sad fight and they both just get kited until they die.

Encounter 6: Two Lizardfolk, One Lizardfolk Shaman

Wizard casts Web, they all succeed the first roll. One gets grabbed when he starts his turn, the other only has enough movement to get to the Fighter, much to the Fighter’s delight. Everyone is expecting an easy win now. Shaman is restrained by Web, but casts Conjure Animals and summons eight velociraptors, which roll initiative at the top of the round. This fight has just changed dramatically.

Fighter decides to Dash with his action, and takes seven opportunity attacks in the process. Runs to the Shaman, and Action Surges, and kills the Shaman, and the raptors disappear. We clean up the remaining lizardfolk and we all agree Fighter was the hero of that fight. Wizard and Cleric say they have enough spell slots they could probably do one more fight so we press on.

Encounter 7: 10 Blink Dogs

Dogs surprise everyone but the Rogue, again. They teleport to us and start biting. By some miracle they miss most of their attacks. This was probably the most boring fight we’ve had. It was like 11 rounds of just attack, miss, magic missile, sneak attack, repeat. Fighter went down once but after one healing word he never did again.

Conclusion

Nobody died, and almost nobody went down despite the party getting our first fireball to the face. Wizard started doing a lot more. I really don’t have much to say about this except every encounter was either “holy shit, it’s go time” or just a slog. The Flameskull and the Lizardfolk were scary but almost everything else it was like routine to deal with them. Web seems a bit too good, much like back when we did CR 1 and Sleep was too good. What I can say though is everyone was so fucking important. The Rogue’s consistent damage, the Fighter’s AC and action surge, the Cleric’s healing, the Wizard’s area control. Everyone was doing their part so fucking well this time. Like the necessary teamwork was really starting to show at this point. Otherwise I think we can confirm that Challenge Rating and Adventuring Days works up to 4th level.

For context; this is a 3.5 game.

My original PC was killed with a save or die (even though they were under a Death Ward spell 😑😑). I LOVED her. She was a Ranger/ BHA (Beast Heart Adept) at 10th level. I wanted to say something about the situation but another player said "well dm has final say".. so I just said fuck it and scrapped the PC.

When I was looking for PrC's for the new PC I came across one I really liked. It was the Dragon Rider PrC from the DragonLance setting. Now when I showed my DM, they initially approved of it. But when I talked to them the next day it was "oh that PrC is from 3.0, it's over/under powered" and some other reason I can't remember off the top of my head. Then they suggested to me to use the Dragon Rider from Dracononicon. But it wasn't what I wanted, I see it as a... Less useful class than the one from DragonLance. It's only 5 levels, while the one I wanted to use was 10. The capstone of the Dracononicon was to Spur the Dragon while the capstone of the other one is a defensive teamwork skill that provided a +2 to both of our AC and a +1 to Reflex saves. This PC was going to be Warblade 10 / Dragon Rider 10 and utilizing the White Raven stances and maneuvers for utility with teammates.

Was still told no.

So I thought maybe I'll find something later. Then a few games later the DM mentions a dragon PrC called Ascended Dragon. (Granted I wouldn't be able to get into it until Epic Levels) And thought, fuck it, I'll work towards that. Made the mention to my DM and was told that wouldn't be something I wanted to do because Ascended Dragons apparently are bound to the area they ascended from (and I might have missed the line that states that, but I've read through the description and nowhere does it say that; I could be wrong though)

So that idea was scrapped. THEN I thought, why not go with Kensei. I wasn't Lawful, but had a plan to swear an oath to Io (hopefully in turn that I BECOME lawful) but it was shot down too.

Now last night this PC was taken out. Like -18 hp dead. The party has many means of Resurrection and is fully intended on resing her. Now my party does know that I'm not the biggest fan of resurrection, especially if I view them as a Spartan (like I did with this PC). BUT the entire party AND THE DM are hell bent on bringing her back. And I REALLY don't want to play her anymore because she's NOT WANT I ENVISIONED.

TL;DR: Ive lost interest in my current PC and loathe that my party is dead set on bringing her back.