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Ah, travelers! We don't get many such as you in these parts, not since the Marquis' men took control of the pass. I suppose you're wondering why you can't post images or links on this Fifthday?

Thursdays are Text-post Only Days on /r/DnD. We're disabling picture and link posts for 24 hours to encourage discussion posts.

We originally began this trial about six months ago and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I've personally enjoyed a lot of the conversations that have sprung up on these days (and a smarter mod would have bookmarked some of them to use as examples* in this post).

As of now we're planning on keeping the experiment running indefinitely. We're always looking for feedback, so please let us know of your experience. Have you been enamored with a discussion post that arose one Thursday? Have you mourned having to wait one more day to see your comic update? We welcome all takes.

The switch is still happening manually, so it will happen around about midnight Eastern US time. If anyone is aware of a way to automate the process, please message the mods.

Perhaps you could discuss this...we've heard tale of a path through the eastern ridge. If such a trail exists we could circumvent the Marquis' blockade and supply this rebellion. Won't you help us, strangers!?

* The first Thursday after making this post, someone posts the most classic question imaginable. This is what it's all about.

We just had our first session in a homebrew starting at level 3. I am playing a barbarian with the totem warrior path (I'm fairly new and it's my first time playing a barbarian.) The rest of the party is an assassin rogue, a monster hunter ranger, and a draconic sorcerer.

We were investigating sitings of suspicious cloaked figures in the starting town, and we traced them back to a hideout in an abandoned building. We fought a few low level wizards there and were handling it OK. We tried to interrogate them, but none of them would tell us anything.

Then the DM described a mage emerging from the shadows in a red and gold cloak and saying we would pay for what we did to his men. So we thought obviously this will be a little boss battle with the leader, right?

Well he went first in initiative and he cast a spell that made us all make an Intelligence saving throw. Everyone failed their saves except me, even the rogue got a 17 and that still failed. I don't even have a bonus on my intelligence, just by pure luck I got a 19 which passed.

Well then the DM said the spell did 42 points of damage. I have the most HP of the group with 29, and even with half damage I almost went down. So the other 3 all went down, and I thought oh shit I have to talk my way out of this. Well then the DM starting narrating graphically the other 3 characters' heads exploding, to which we were all like what the hell? Just instant death? He said that's what the spell does and we would've seen it coming if we'd explored more for clues.

So then I say I'm going to beg for my life, and the DM says I can barely speak after this spell. So all my friends just died, I'm low on HP and I can't even speak. Then he just said we're ending the session there.

Am I crazy for thinking that this was not a fair encounter? I get that not every encounter should be perfectly at our level but this feels way above and beyond, even if we missed some clues.

This is a small dispute at our table. When it comes to any skill check, our DM will ask which player will be making the check and only take that players role, instead of having all the players roll and allowing multiple people to succeed.

For example, an NPC mentions some lore that hasn't been brought up yet, the DM asks someone to make a history check to see if they have insight on the topic. The one player who volunteered to roll fails, so now no one knows any of the history on this subject.

Or during the rare instance we all roll, like perception, he will only let the person who rolled the highest succeed and he will use modifier bonus as a tie breaker if two players rolled the same.

This was brought up because myself and another player both got 17 for a perception roll and he asked about our modifier bonuses and because my teammate had a +3 and I had a +2, he perceived something and I didn't.

This annoyed me and I asked why our characters couldn't just both see the thing?? What's the value of always having a winner? I've played for 17 years and I've never seen the game played this way at any other table, and these guys were acting like I was the crazy one lol.

Am I crazy? Is this actually how everyone is playing? This isn't THAT big of a thing, I just wanted some validation lol.

Edit: I just want to quickly clarify that I'm fully aware that many checks should only have one player rolling, but my issue is pretty specific to perception, investigation, or history type checks that have little consequence to the progression of the story. I still think my DM is doing a great job and I wouldn't push this issue.

Hey everyone, looking for some quick opinions on an encounter that nearly wiped our Level 6 party last session (3 out of 5 players died). This is Arc #2 for the rest of the party, but only session #4 for me (we have all played together for years).

We are playing a campaign using the 2014 rules for our characters. However, our DM has started using monster stat blocks from the new 2024 rules. During travel, we were ambushed in a bottleneck environment with zero cover by an Adult Blue Dragon.

Here is how the mechanics played out:

The monster's passive senses were so high that respectable Tier-2 stealth rolls (like a 14~18) were failures. Hiding was mechanically off the table.

It used a new 2024 legendary action to turn invisible at will at the end of most player turns, doing it constantly throughout the fight. Opportunity attacks and spells requiring seeing the creature were off the table.

Battlefield control spells like hypnotic pattern with a spell save DC 14 was easily defeated by the dragon’s +7 wisdom save.

Dragon was dealing 35~50+ damage in a single shot, which is enough to instantly drop our characters from full health.

One single escape route across a river and in a cave. Two players made it. The other remaining 2 were at 0 and 1 HP, the 1 HP pulled the other under the ice in the river to hide.

Failed stealth roll (15) and the lightning breath weapon acted as an AOE because they were under water. 50 points of damage, both died instantly, dragon ate the remains.

During a private chat with the DM, he completely defends the encounter. His argument is that because we had the "Action Economy" advantage (5 players vs. 1 monster), the fight was totally winnable and we just made tactical mistakes.

From my perspective, action economy means nothing when your actions have a near-0% success rate due to invisibility, high AC, high saves, and impossible stealth DCs. It felt less like a game and more like a mathematical prison where we were railroaded into a cutscene.

Worse, it completely stifled roleplay. My character is explicitly written as noble and selfless, loyal to a fault. Because the math was so overtuned, the only way to mechanically survive was to abandon the rest of the party and run. The game forced me to choose between playing my character authentically or meta-gaming to survive.

I put an immense amount of effort into this character's story and lore, and losing them after only four sessions to an un-winnable math equation has left me incredibly frustrated. Am I overreacting here, or is the DM completely miscalculating the math of his own encounter?

TL;DR: DM threw a 2024 Adult Blue Dragon (CR 16) at our 2014 Level 6 party, killing 3 out of 5 players in an open bottleneck. The dragon had a 22 Passive Perception, at-will invisibility, and a 50+ damage breath weapon. The DM claims our 5-v-1 "action economy" made it winnable and blames our tactical mistakes. I feel it was a rigged mathematical prison that forced me to choose between meta-gaming to survive or dying to stay in character. Thoughts?

I’ve never played a character that had a central romance plotline, but I’m not against it either.

Meet Bella Evenbrand! The wife of my character from this post. She is an enlisted guard of the Hellriders, a common rank and file soldier, and a Blade Breaker Fighter.

Her greatest feat is somehow getting an officer to fall for her. She has since died, during the fall of Elturel. Her spirit refused to move on though, attaching itself to her wife and replacing her echo. She now fights alongside her; silent but always there.

Happy Pride Month!

Amazing art by Kristina David! u/Specialist-Drink6014

Your victim screams as you raise your sword, cut short like his life. a gasp resonates through the bystanders, punctuated by a few shrill cries of panic and confusion. several people drop their groceries for the day and flee, a mother picking up her toddler and sprinting away. "MURDERER." bellows a man "GUARDS!!" yells another "TO THE BLOCK!", "THERES BEEN A MURDER!", "HANG HIM!", "CUT HIS BALLS OFF!", "SEIZE HIM" the crowd roars in overlapping jeers, somebody hits you in the head with a tomato, splattering you with another shade of crimson. above the crowd you catch a glimpse of a pair of halberds, adorned with the symbol of the guard, likely a pair on patrol, the clanking of their metal approaching is barely audible above din of the mob, and is cut through by a shrill whistle that sends a chill down your spine. a call for reinforcements from the oncoming guard. you spin around looking this way and that, you are in a void, your only companion a corpse (improvise that line as needed based of party position/participation), a wall of angry citizens screaming at you encircles you, they are armed with personal weapons, or whatever is at hand, a woodaxe, a dagger, a hairpin, a cane, a plank. a greataxe. a greataxe? you look up standing stone cold unmoving in the crowds is a Duergar, magically enlarged, his scarred face peering down on you with a look of disgust, unmoving. "FUCK YOU" your head snaps right, a teenager wearing an oversized, well loved, and vintage wizard hat, raises his staff with tears in his rage red face and casts Hold Person (DC 14)

In my experience, they usually just crave consequence free chaos, remember to actually have consequences for their actions.

i've been wanting to get into dnd recently, but i only know 2 people who would play with me. sources have been saying the minimum is 1 dm and 3-4 players. so i'm worried about spending money only to find out i can't play

This was my contribution to a set of Tarot inspired cards that a regular of mine is having made. Each one is meant to depict one of the player characters from their campaign as a card relating to the character. I got the death card featuring Vincent, a soldier and blacksmith inspired by Roman styles and themes. There are a lot of little easter eggs incorperated in the card based on things from the character backstory and campaign lore. I tried to tie the theme of death into it quite heavily with the background/foreground elements. I really enjoyed making this!

Hope you all like it!

I have a quick question in regards to what can and can't be said in a Zone of Truth spell.

I'm setting up a future event for my players where they will be asked to step into a Zone of Truth spell willingly. There will be consequences if they don't, but nothing major or hindering. It is being presented by someone who is their boss within the guild they work for and he needs them to answer honestly - for the record.

The guild master will start off by creating a "base-line" and ask everyone in the circle to give their name. Everyone in the spell will not have a problem with giving this answer...except potentially two players.

This is where my question comes in. The two players learned what their actual birth names are - both were adopted into different families for different reasons - they aren't related in any fashion. They didn't know their birth names until very recently, and I'm wondering if this could affect a Zone of Truth spell.

My question is: can the players give the names that they have been living with most of their lives, or will the Zone of Truth compel them to give their actual birth names? Can the players state their given names, but the paladin who cast the spell notices that there is a "half-truth" or something like that? I haven't dealt with Zone of Truth all that much in my time playing D&D.

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

EDIT: Thank you all so much for the insight and info. This really helped me out and I understand ZoT a lot better now.