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🖌️ Rick Hershey

Gahhop are spry, horned Humanoids of the Frontier, resembling jackalopes. They are often drifters, going from town to town as they please. Folk welcome this, with many believing a Gahhop visit is good luck.

Bards of the College of Card Sharp channel the Words of Creation through the cards they draw and the flourishes with which they play them. From these bards, a card trick can be as magical as any song or dance.

This is a preview of two of the 20+ Species and Subclasses that will be included in High Moon: A Gothic Western Sourcebook for D&D 5.5e. Check out the BackerKit Page if you want to see more!

[mod approved]

Hello everyone! Zozoqui here, Zozo, for the friends. Since i started playing D&D 5e a few months ago i got obsessed with the Dragons of D&D. I remember when i first saw the Chromatic and Metallic Dragons on the Monster Manual and they had this amazing and unique designs made by Alexander Ostrowski and inmediately got amazed by them

Then i saw the dragonborns and my brain instantly shut at me "i can be like one of this cool af Dragons" so i investigated about them and i got really upset when i read that Dragonborns have a more uniform apareance because of interbreeding. I was really really upset about it UNTIL i had an idea! Making a Pure Blood Dragonborn design! It can totally happen in theory, right? And even if not, what is stoping me of doing it?

So here it is the first of probably 10 Dragonborn Designs based on the amazing art of Ostrowski: The Black Dragonborn! I don't think it needs new stats or traits, it'll probably be just a cosmetic choice, but feel free on commenting your opinions!

I'm a newbie and the DM is my best friend, so I might be biased and would like an outside perspective.

We've had a one-shot in a pirate setting as a first simplified taste of DnD for me (29F) and one other player, I've onle played a couple of times before and she has never played at all, so the DM, my best friend (21F) has created a one-shot specifically for it to be more entertaining than serious. The premise was that a half-elf aristocrat inherited a treasure map from his grandfather and goes on a quest with his valet (human) and two mercenaries: a muscle-fella (barbarian shifter, that was me) and a cartographer (dwarf monk, played by the Guy in question, M21). As a fun detail we all had personal secrets that might or might not come up during the campaign, mine was that I'm secretely a pirate, the aristocrat's - that he's actually broke and on the run from collectors, the valet's is still a secret and the dwarf's was that he's actually an undercover agent of the royal guard and is searching for pirates to put them to justice.

Here's why this is important: the Guy started off with speaking to the ship's captain (NPC) for about 15 minutes without addressing any of us, then made some racist in-character remarks towards our aristocrat, then when we arrived on the island he spent the entirety of the first battle hiding in the bushes and immediately after that just refused to take the same path as us and left the group in an opposite direction. The DM tried her best to get him back together with us (like, "you take a straight path through the jungle while the group follows the brick road, you way is shorter, but they move faster, so at this intersection you just run right into them"), but he straight-up ignored that and left again.

So we just continued on without him (at some point he just LEFT THE TABLE to go chat with my sister and didn't even listen to what was going on with us), we had a blast, but then when it was time to actually role-play what he was doing on his own this whole time, the DM asked if we're okay with knowing secret stuff or not, I can't recall the exact details but us three ended up just going to another room for half an hour to discus our strategy while she was left with him one-on-one.

In the final battle he ONCE AGAIN was hiding in the bushes doing nothing for a couple of rounds, then just left the fight alltogether, and the finale was him calling the guards on us.

After finishing we started discussing how it went, and he said that the problems he faced were as followed (rough translation of his mesages in the chat and a bit of irl talk I personally had with him the day of):

1. He has three types of characters: when he wants to win a.k.a. the cool guy, when he's just chill a.k.a. the kind guy, and when he just wants to be a menace a.k.a. the annoying guy, and while writing his character he planned to be the kind and fun guy, but since he was forced into a position of direct confrontation of interests (him not needing the treasure, having a whole different goal, with which us, other characters, were interfering with (I still can't get what interference specifically he meant)) he just turned on his "winning" game
2. He dosen't like A SINGLE RACE from the DnD universe, so his role-playing was a mess because he was forced to be something he doesn't like (in-person he said that 1. the half-elves are ew, 2. the orcs are dumb, 3. the humans are basic, 4. he loves dwarves, but the DnD dwarves are stupid so he just wrote his character as a Warhammer dwarf, which is completely different and apparently cool(er) and he also knows how to play them and doesn't know how to play anybody else - at this point I decided against even hinting at other races like halflings, goblins, cobolds etc etc)
3. He blamed the DM for pushing this mission onto him, for trying to mess his playstyle and for making his character not fit the narrative at all, and in the end said that if we wanted to continue the campaign with him he's toss the character completely and create a new one from scratch.

From my perspective he just created a ton of rules and guides for himself, shoved his character in them and then got disappointed because nothing was enjoyable. Firstly, I don't think the simple secret of being on the hunt for pirates means you just HAVE TO separate from the treasure-seeking party, secondly, even IF that was such a gruesome job for him - I can't see why couldn't he just ignore the secret completely? Or discuss it with the DM beforehand, tell her it seems uncomfortable? She has put an incredible amount of effort to create this one-shot to tend to everyone to make it fun, surely if he said something this wouldn't have to be a problem? Thirdly, I cannot wrap my head around this "play-to-win" that he kept going on about - the whole point of TTRPG is to roleplay and interact with each other, is in not? Also the Warhammer thing makes me confused af, like, if you hate the DnD universe with such a passion, why even agree to play it just to try and bring a different universe in and nag everyone about it?

He also did some other questionable things, like he came up with a thing when his character would speak to the NPCs in dwarfish, he'd speak to DM in a different language irl, he discussed it with her beforehand, and as this language is in the same group as our native, she agreed because she would understand him, but then when he actually did that at the table and she replied in our native language (because she doesn't speak this second language herself and she NEVER told him otherwise) he got annoyed and showed how upset he is and how it destroyes the whole point. He also leaned heavily into some very specific lore stuff while talking to the captain NPC, like the geography, clan names, history etc, which nobody at the table knew about, and it felt like he was playing with the DM one-on-one even when we were all together.

What irks me the most is that he blames it all on the DM and how she created a bad mission for him nad how she's the one who shoudn't have accepted his character since he was so out of context for the setting, when in actuality (from my personal point of view) he just made the campain uncomfortable for us, for the DM and for himself as well.

I'd like to know if anyone could give some more input on a situation like this, as I'm not familiar on the general DnD etiquette. For now we're leaning on continuing the campaign (because the other three players actually had lots and lots of fun), but we really don't want to keep playing with him.

(Edit) We didn't have a session zero, BUT the DM went over every person's character sheets over and over again, she helped the newbies create our characters every step of the way, as for the experienced - she monitored how their characters were made, she put effort into everyone's classes and background so that all that would be in balance, and the Guy's background was quite interesting and promising, the secret itself was ment as a tiny detail to the character in general, and he decided to turn it into a whole mission. He also said that he meant his character to be fun and jolly, but then decided this doesn't fit with the mission so his character displayed exactly no joy or cheer during the playthrough.

(Another edit) He and the aristocrat guy aren't newbies, they are both very familiar with TTRPGs, it's me and the valet girl who have no experience.

(One more edit) The campaign wasn't meant to be a long-play from the beginning, it was meant and introduces to the players as strictly a one-shot, the possibility to continue it onward existed IN CASE everything goes really well, everyone enjoyed themselves and agreed that we want more of the setting. Nobody knew beforehand if it could be potentially continued.

I'm currently DMing an original homebrew campaign with three players. Two sessions ago they met an incredibly powerful villain they think is the BBEG. They barely survived the encounter.

This session I wanted to be lower stakes. They had reached a new town and I planned for it to basically be a thieves guild type town that's a dangerous place where outsiders are robbed, extorted, etc. They get hired by a merchant to guard his cart while they're in town. The towns guard warned them not to start trouble.

A lot transpires but basically: some thieves try to rob them, one player tries to subdue one of the thieves but fails and accidentally kills them which triggers a full fight and it just cascaded from there. In the fight one of my players gets outted as a vampire, which causes the thieves to start yelling about vampires, which triggers the townsguard to start heading their way.

They kill the thieves and use some Home Alone shenanigans with some ball bearings to stall the townsguard while they do some fuckery to make it look like one of the thieves was the vampire, which succeeds and they avoid a fight with the townsguard but still get arrested.

Then while they're locked up and scheming on how to escape, one townsguard gets curious and starts rummaging through their belongs and finds a Deck of Many Things that the players didn't even know they had and pulls a card and ends up killing everyone in the town except for the players who were in prison and couldn't see the giant apparition that caused the entire town to grow ill and die.

Everything that transpired was the results of the perfect fails and successes of the dice rolls and it was glorious.

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.

The Party

The characters chosen for this endeavor were intend 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 1

Encounter 1: Four Goblins

Everybody was surprised. Goblins fucked up the Wizard. Rogue went down on round two. Cleric was able to Healing Word the Wizard who opted to cast Sleep as soon as he got up. We immediately realized this was going to be hard as fuck. We won, no deaths, but the Rogue wakes up "1d4 hours later" with 1 HP. Onto the next fight.

Encounter 2: Two Gnolls

This one was a little more reasonable. The gnolls were a lot stronger but not taking 4 attacks with advantage and not being able to react really helped. Rogue still goes down on round 1 because the gnolls had longbows. Fighter and Cleric run up to to them to impose disadvantage on ranged attacks, then they had enough AC to just tank the spear hits. Or so we thought. Cleric goes down. Rogue dies from failed death saves. For whatever fucking reason the second gnoll we just could not hit. Miss after miss after miss. Wizard goes down. Fighter is now in a 1v1. Miss, miss, miss. Wizard dies from failed death saving throws. Gnoll finally dies.

With half the party dead, we decided it was time for our first short rest. The DM allows the Rogue and Wizard to come back with 1 hp, but they don't benefit from the rest. We can officially confirm the challenge rating system and the adventuring day do not work at level 1, but we decided to finish it up anyway.

Encounter 3: Two Black Bears

Probably the only reasonable fight so far. Nobody went down, just traded damage for damage.

Encounter 4: Four Boars

Rogue and Wizard go down again. Cleric lasts a round then goes down. Fighter is now 1v3ing these boars. Fighter is actually doing really well. Cleric dies from failed death saving throws. Fighter gets down to 1 boar left before he hits zero himself. TPK.

At this point we just accept this isn't gonna work. So we decided to pivot and see what would work. What we figured was Challenge Rating at level 1 only makes sense if you treat every enemy as double its CR.

Take 2

Encounter 1: Two Goblins

Surprise, motherfucker. Surprisingly, the Fighter goes down with the goblins focusing him first. Cleric picks him up. Rogue takes a goblin out. Fighter and Wizard get the other. Huh, that was actually a quick, fun, and deadly encounter.

Encounter 2: One Gnoll

Mostly quick and easy. Rogue took some damage, otherwise pretty fast fight. Nobody went to 0.

Since the Rogue and Fighter were missing some HP, we decided to take our short rest now. It felt nice to choose to take a short rest and not feel like we were going to die if we didn't.

Encounter 3: One Black Bear

Poor guy got a bad initiative roll and only got one attack, which missed. Otherwise we steamrolled.

Encounter 4: Two Boars

Similar to the goblin fight, though nobody went to 0. Fast, fun, and pretty deadly.

Encounter 5: Two Zombies

Wizard got downed, but otherwise the Undead Fortitude was a fun mechanic. The zombies doing just enough damage to be dangerous without one-shotting you was fun.

Encounter 6: Two Skeletons

Another simple fight. Cleric had a Mace so dealing double damage made this easier than it otherwise would have been.

At this point we decided to take our last short rest because we were saving the "Pack Tactics" enemies for last.

Encounter 7: Four Kobolds

Wizard won initiative and cast Sleep, and turned this into a non-encounter.

Encounter 8: Two Wolves

Wizard won initiative but was surprised. Wolves did some damage to the Fighter, but then the Wizard cast Sleep on round 2. It put the Fighter to sleep too but obviously that wasn't really an issue if all the enemies were asleep too.

Conclusion

Challenge rating and adventuring days just do not work at level 1. We couldn't even get to six encounters, let alone eight. You can treat enemies as double their CR, and none of the encounters will be deadly, but if anything it then made some fights a little too easy.

Stating the obvious, action economy is a much more important factor than what a calculator says about encounter balance. Even if the "math" checks out, your average 1st level party is gonna get a run for their money in a 4 on 4. Technically though we didn't die against those goblins, so maybe CR works in a vacuum at level 1, but not for an "adventuring day." I think 1st level characters can handle maybe 2 fights at most before they need to take a long rest. I think if anything it feels like level 1 characters are better off fighting CR 0 stuff like Crawling Claws that only deal 1d4+1 damage on a hit. It feels weird to say but I genuinely believe a goat is a better challenge for a level 1 character than a goblin or kobold is.

So maybe some combination of pitifully easy fights and then a "boss" fight (being the only CR-appropriate fight) could work, but we were so done with level 1 at that point that we didn't want to find out.

I'm going to be posting the rest of the results over the next few days. The stuff we figured out in this experiment was really interesting.

Edit: As some of you have pointed out, we neglected the "Modify Total XP for Multiple Monsters" section of the DMG but then we accidentally did it anyway when we tried to halve the monster CR and it ended up working out.

So perhaps we can consider the Challenge Rating 1 Adventuring Day a success after all!

Hello I'm Lucas, 5+ years as a professional realistic character designer and illustrator, the image I attached is from my Ancient Empire project, a world where humans and super dinosaurs hunt each other!

This is how I imaged a templar warrior would be in a dinosaur like world!

Would you like to have your characters designed or illustrated by me? Let's chat about your project!
DM me for quotes!