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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.

Progressive Congressional Candidate Kat Abughazaleh is streaming a campaign with her staff tonight. She's running in the 9th District of Illinois. Stop by if you've got some time. This was a goal reward from her previous stream with BLeeM.

Info"https://bsky.app/profile/katmabu.bsky.social/post/3mczsbok64k26

Twitch: https://twitch.tv/katabughazaleh

YouTube: https://youtube.com/@katmabu

Any donation of $10 or more through katforillinois.com/stream (after the stream starts) will receive an awesome sticker of her cat Heater as a wizard!

Note that I am not affiliated with her campaign, just someone that thinks we need young progressives in government and leadership.

Hope some of you stop by.

What are some of your favorite changes to "Flavour" a spell or ability? I had never been a big fan of "Bigbys Hand" and thus never really read the spell description fully. Why would I want a giant floating pink hand slapping and grabbing people? Didn't appeal to me in the slightest as it just looked "weird" to me.

But then I had an epiphany, what if it wasn't a big purple hand? What if I kept all of the exact same mechanics, but just made it look different? So for my Bladesinger, it could appear to be a clone of himself that "fights" along side him?

Now I'm well aware that this isn't a novel concept at all. Though it did make me wonder what other spells I could be over looking because I haven't liked their "look".

Another I've had since then is flavouring "Spiritual Weapon" to be my Twilight Cleric's Shadow, detached from her body and going around bonking enemies for a few d8 each turn. Again, I wasn't ever a fan of a floating glowing weapon, but the image of my Cleric's Shadow raising up from the ground and running around independently made me love the spell again.

Obviously this was all discussed with the DM beforehand to make sure that the mechanics stayed the same and the new look didn't upset the general tone and feel of the campaign as a whole.

For me, I cast fear and command simultaneously when interrogating someone. Sounds pretty basic until you know what word I used. I cast command word: repent. The guy was talking like a brain-damaged orc from Shadow of War right up until my other party member incinerated him.

I've planned to have a character from a royal family or other higher in hierarchy. A teenager with attitude problems and they have had problems with law and stuff. Spoiled brat. They could have ended going to jail but instead their family send them going with adventurers to "learn something about life".

But I have a problem to fit a class to that character. I like the idea a lot, but no class feels right.

Help??

This was my fit for the court case one shot in which I was playing the DM and the "Lawyer Lord," who was a Horned Devil (and the prosecution's Lawyer) (Hence, why I am wearing some Spirit Halloween horns we had).

I asked 10 people to come be Jury members and 8 of them actually showed up. So these were mostly people who had no context for what was going on in our campaign. I made an activity packet to summarize the events and made a Court Case Bingo based on predictions I had on what my players would do, so they would have something to engage them other than our poorly designed legal one shot.

One PC was the defendant. Two PCs were witnesses. One PC was their lawyer. And my last PC was the Judge.

For the players I designed a minigame around correctly identifying objectionable statements. I limited the types down to 5 as to not become too unmanageable.

Objection: Relevance

Objection: Hearsay!

Objection: Speculative

Objection: Argumentative

Objection: Leading the Witness

Overall, I learned that I used way more objectionable statements than I thought. Luckily the court was rigged (Devil shenanigans).

In the end, the Jury delivered 7 guilty and 1 not guilty (We did this survivor style because it was more fun that way) (Yes, it probably compromised their decision).

I may include more details about how we designed this and the proceedings if anyone is interested!

In the Lands of Rust and Rhyme the Gear watch hold as the last sentries against the Lands of Rust. The Gear Watch remains the last remnant of the high makers True War, built as a force to last until the end of the ages. Reliard, the Gear watch Count, stands the ever vigilant leader of the brave Watch. "The Lands of Rust encroach on a world swallowed by gold, we are the last to wage the war our high makers entrusted to us." (I hope you enjoy my art and the big world these small warriors reside in!)

I am studying to become a DM (that’s neither here nor there) and I can’t think of ways for my players to meet for the first time. What are some ideas? I greatly appreciate it!

Basically, our DM told me that changelings tend to name themselves and usually do so after the first words they hear - usually leading to changelings being named things like 'specter' or something (yknow, typical horrified peasant screams) but eventually change their name to something along the lines of a more proper name, like 'specter' -> 'spencer'

I'm trying to think of interesting name ideas based on this concept but am kinda struggling lol, any suggestions?

To get the point, when my group completed our first campaign and started our second, we instituted "No PC death (mostly)" house rule and it has been absolutely amazing! Maybe it will be for you as well.

Basically the house rule is:

In general, 3 failed death saves = you have a serious wound that is beyond normal healing magic. You are totally knocked out, can't be brought up except for revivify or other (formerly) raise dead spell or else a full long rest worth of intensive care. You will have a lingering injury debuff related to what knocked you down, it might be permanent or might be able to be mitigated via future sidequests.

Death can still happen though: at any point, a character may initiate a "heroic sacrifice", a more narrative segment where they will die to have some incredibly impactful action. E.g. BBEG getting away with a macguffin? Hero charges them, dying but letting the party get it back. Also, certain big boss fights will be very clearly labeled as "lethal", and death rules occur as normal.

Why I have been loving it:

It's no secret that 5e is pretty low lethality. And that's not a bad thing - I as the DM also didn't want my PCs to die, especially in random low-plot fights. But because the risk was theoretically there, especially at lower levels, I personally felt nervous throwing difficult fights at my PCs. Now I can consistently throw challenges that demand that they think strategically or suffer the lingering injuries.

On the flip side, in 5e at high levels the general ease of resurrection can remove the gravitas of death and sacrificial moments. Now death is still impactful - actual resurrection is only available through very powerful magic like Wish.

It's also had the bonus effect that players have gotten to play "guest characters" while their main PC is knocked out, which has been super fun!

We basically fully committed to 5e's low lethality rather than trying to have it both ways, and it feels like a bunch of things sort of fell into place for us as a result.

I know it's not for everybody, but what do you think? Would you try this in a campaign?