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You pry open the heavy earthen door that has been keeping you from the tomb's inner-most sanctum. You are buffeted by a thick cloud of dust that is almost as bad as the stench of fresh corpses that rushes out to greet you. Wait, why would the corpses be fresh? Supposedly none have entered the tomb of the praetors in generations. A shadow moves, defend yourself!

Greetings adventurers! We are excited to announce that the /r/DnD mod team is looking to expand. Moderating a community as robust and complex as ours takes a lot of work, and requires a diversity of thought in its management. Do you think you're up to the task?

We are looking to fill several key gaps in our mod team. We are interested in users who can help with the regex that governs automod, users who can moderate outside of US time zones, users with experience identifying AI content, and users who can advocate for communities that are under-represented on /r/DnD. That being said, ALL INTERESTED PARTIES are encouraged to apply! We need mods who are willing to just do the monotonous busy work of moderating, which is most of the work.

Do you think you would be a good fit for our mod team? Apply today! If you have any questions please let us know in the comments.

2026 /r/DnD Mod Recruitment Form

The application will stay open for at least 1 week, though we may keep it open longer. After applications close we will work to review and reach out to those selected within a week, and then make a public announcement after onboarding.

With the final nothic slain, you are finally able to take in your surroundings. Piles of bodies, some of whom you recognize as the missing clergy, are in various states of decay. You doubt the bishop of Tyr is going to be willing to hand over that bonus now...

There's a secret balancing equation for melee weapons in DnD that makes a lot of sense if you think about it for a second. All Simple Weapons are based around a d6 damage die, and all Martial Weapons are based around a d8 damage die. The damage die increases when given negative properties and decreases when given positive* properties.
^\Excepting Versatile, which acts as a neutral property, allowing you to choose to give the Two-Handed property and increase the damage die at will.)

The Pike/Glaive/Halberd is a great illustration of this. Start with a d8 Hit die for a martial weapon base, then increase to d10 for the negative Heavy property, increase to d12 for the negative Two-Handed property, then decrease to d10 for the positive Reach property.

You can run this equation for almost every melee weapon in the game and it balances out to that d6/d8 base, with a few exceptions. Spears are simple, but have a d6 damage die and a positive property, putting them on par with a martial weapon; which is why the Trident is exactly the same but a little fancier. Lances are a d12 with a positive Reach property making it like a d14, but the "Special" property puts it in a weird position that breaks standard conventions in the first place (though I do think Lances are deeply underrated).

But there's one exception to this equation that blows every other weapon out of the water: the humble dagger.

The dagger is on every single class's Proficient Weapons list, and it's straight up better than any sword or axe in the game. People often overlook it because of it's puny d4 damage die, but with three positive traits and zero negative traits, the simple dagger outclasses even martial weapons with the equivalent of a d10 damage die with no properties at all. Now you may think, "Sure, but those properties aren't really important for my character." You may think that, but you are wrong. Let's look at how good these properties actually are.

• Finesse: Is your character Strength based? Why? Dexterity is amazing. Not only do you get the same damage as you do with a Strength build, but building around Dex gives you additional AC, access to the most important saving throw in the game, and 3x as many skills as Strength. Even if you're playing as a Fighter or Paladin, building around Dex is incredibly viable. (And psst, hey, if you really really want Strength for RP purposes, pretend this article is about the Handaxe instead, which is actually just as good as the dagger but uses STR instead.)
• Light: "Oh I don't have the two-weapon fighting style or the Dual Wielder feat, there's no point in me dual wielding." Well what else are you using your bonus action for? Two d4 attacks is just as good--arguably better, actually--as one d8 attack, even if you don't get to add any bonuses. Sure this doesn't scale with multiattacks, but once you're at the point where you have three attacks per action, you're probably using Demugulg's Blade of Ruinous Pain or whatever, so talking about minor differences in base weapons doesn't matter by then. If you don't want both of your hands to be occupied, just draw the dagger as an object interaction, then drop it as a free action after your attack. I mean it's one dagger, what could it cost, $10? (And psst, hey, it's the handaxe guy again. If you can use a handaxe and are STR based, you're basically doing a 2d6 attack with a simple weapon. Crazy, right?)
• Thrown: Okay this is the biggest one. Thrown weapons are incredibly strong and astoundingly underutilized. You know how Reach weapons are super strong because they give you an extra 5 feet of range? Daggers basically have the Reach property times 4. Sure you don't get that extra range on opportunity attacks, but cest la vie. Being able to hit creatures with a melee weapon at a range of 20 feet (or 60 at disadvantage) is so incredibly powerful. You can hit and run, throwing a dagger at some shmuck and then moving 40 feet outside of the enemy's range so they can't get you on their turn. You can chase down enemies that are fleeing from you even if you can't get there with your full movement. You can hit flying monsters or annoying archers on high walls. Even if you lose the weapon in the process, all it costs is 2 gold and an object interaction on your next turn to draw a new dagger. Combine this with the Light property and you don't even have to fully disarm yourself in the process.

Now you may be thinking "Ok, sure, but at the end of the day, a d4 just isn't big enough." Ok size queen, think of it this way. The average damage on a dagger is 2.5 (3.5 for a handaxe), whereas the average damage on a greataxe is only 6.5. You would throw away all of those benefits for an extra 3 or 4 damage per attack? If so, consider that with two daggers, that average damage gets doubled to 5 (and two handaxes actually beat out the greataxe with an average of 7!). Once you get multiattack these damage differences start mattering, but again, you'll have Demugulg to worry about by that point so don't even get me started.

Not to mention all the little niche benefits of daggers that depend on your setting and DM. Lizardfolk can craft them out of bones or metal. You can find new ones in almost any town, or off of nearly any goblin corpse. You can hide a dagger as a holdout weapon for your secret ballroom infiltration mission. If you ever fall prey to a mind control or misdirection spell that makes you attack an ally with your action, it won't hurt them that bad. Plus, they're just kinda neat.

So if you find yourself as a non-martial class in need of a reliable last resort, or if you're a martial class feeling inspired to build around a powerful sleeper pick, skip the fancy stuff and just get a knife. Proven effective since literal caveman times.

Edit: To address a common argument in the comments, let me make my stance very clear.

Bows and magic are for nerds. This is not a safe space for your kind. This conversation is for melee weapon enjoyers only.

Got a Druid in my game who has the Create or Destroy Water spell. The spell says you can create up to 10 gallons of water in an open container.

The issue is that the player wants to use the spell to create 10 gallons of water inside a foe’s bladder, effectively exploding it. I ruled no on that, because I don’t think a bladder counts as an “open container.”

They then suggested creating 10 gallons of water in someone’s mouth to drown them. I also ruled no on that.

Am I making the right call as a DM, or am I stifling player creativity?

Here's a commissioned piece i made for a client and wanted to share him here! He’s an old adventurer who has seen far too many roads, wars, and mistakes, but somehow keeps going.

Despite his old age, he has an intimidating look worn down by time and sharpened by experience his skin is faded and weathered, his large horns are chipped and scratched from decades of travel but his eyes still glow with gold.

my portfolio

I know almost nothing about D&D, but my son recently started playing it.

Is it useful to have more than one set of dice? He just bought a really nice set of amethyst dice and I was thinking of surprising him with another set but not if they won't get used.

Appreciate the help in advance.

Hi everyone, I’m looking for recommendations for affordable art packs, asset bundles, or Patreon tiers from real artists (no AI-generated content). If you know of any independent artists, small studios, or hidden gems that fit this description, please share links or names below. Thanks!

Hi!

I’m a Korean mom & wife. who got introduced to D&D thanks to my husband (he writes the Critical Failures novels). What started as “What is this dice game?” turned into me slowly learning about RPG culture. 😆

I’m here to learn more about D&D, the community, and the chaos that comes with it. If by any chance you’ve read his books, I’d love to say hi! If not, I’m still happy to just hang out and learn from everyone here.

As a hobby, I also draw cute D&D-inspired characters on my iPad. If there’s interest, I’d love to share some of my artwork sometime in the future. 😊

Remembering one of the few times I got my DM to actually leave the table to take a momentary breather. This was a couple years ago now, and we were playing the 2014 5th Edition ruleset.

Our party of four plus a DMPC were in between major story beats and received news of a possible vampire problem in a small mountain town. Going to investigate, we had dinner with the mayor, who had sent word out, and fought some oddly "rabid" vampire spawn. Soon enough, we discover that the mayor himself is the vampire lord and we decide to root out the source of this problem. A back and forth battle starts where he ambushes us in his basement, and we eventually force him into the second floor which is shrouded in a magical darkness.

After nearly killing my character's partner, I pulled a scroll of forcecage that she had been holding onto for many irl months and trapped him in a clear force cube. With him trapped, I cast daylight as I approached, allowing him no escape. My DM stood and then simply crouched in his living room, staring at the wall as all of us howled with laughter. "You... you microwaved my vampire," he kept muttering to himself. He eventually returned and described how the vampire went through all the stages of grief, especially bargaining, before being left as nothing more than a pile of bones in the forcecage.

Of course, it wasn't until about a week later that we realized that daylight doesn't actually count as sunlight, but we kept with it for that moment. Still one of my group's favorite moments to recall.

This is Mildred, my Order of Scribes wizard!

When she’s not taking care of her 12 younger siblings and helping her parents out with the family business; a combination of a magic bookstore, a potion cafe and a cat cafe, Mildred practices spells and writes romance novels. They’re certainly… an acquired taste, to say the least (a bit too flowery for most people). Mildred’s busy home life would be exhausting for most, but she loves it more than anything.

Not in a, " I want to stay in the shire, but the group is going on a grand adventure" kind of way, but a "I want to hunt down bandits that killed my parents, and the group is headed south to find a lost kitten that is actually someone's combat tiger" kind of thing. Why would I go with the group the wrong way for the wrong prize?
I'm sure this has happened to some of you.

Hi Reddit!

We're the founders of Beadle & Grimm's, the authors and producers behind the book and TV show, Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! In celebration of Everybody Dies, Vol. 1 launching on D&D Beyond this week, we wanted to come here answer any questions you have about writing the book, making the TV show, how to make TPKs fun for everyone, and/or anything else Faster, Purple Worm! related!

Joing the AMA will be:

• Bill Rehor at u/Grimmthegiantslayer, Founder of Beadle & Grimm's, Host of Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! and author of several adventures in Everybody Dies, Vol. 1
• jon Ciccolini at u/Jon_BandG, Founder of Beadle & Grimm's, DM on Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! and author of several adventures in Everybody Dies, Vol. 1
• Charlie Rehor at u/RareMathematician674, Founder of Beadle & Grimm's, DM and player on Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! and author of several adventures in Everybody Dies, Vol. 1
• Paul Shapiro at u/BeadleandGrimms, Founder of Beadle & Grimm's, player and producer on Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill!

We’ll do our best to answer all your questions within the next two hours, but we’ll also leave this post open for a while so you can come back and answer or comment on things! And please check out our recent feature on D&D Beyond

Beadle & Grimm’s

Thanks!