We set up a full physical dungeon crawl in the backyard, complete with traps, athletic skill checks, and boss encounters. Here is the gauntlet:

The Shipwreck & The Ascent: The adventure begins on the deck of a ship running aground! The party must abandon ship, stepping down onto the slick, rocky shore next to the churning blue ocean. From there, the coastal path crumbles away into a sky-bridge. Players must balance across narrow wooden planks suspended high in the clouds, where the forest below looks like nothing more than scattered autumn leaves.

Shattering the Ward: A shimmering magical barrier blocks the path. Players have to channel their focus and throw a magic missile directly through the glowing ring's weak point to break the force field.

The Spider-Fire Dungeon: A deadly puzzle grid blocks the ruins. The plain stone tiles are the only safe havens. The magical fire runes burn too hot and high to jump over, so they must be avoided entirely. The sticky spider webs will trap you, but an agile player can leap completely over them to the next safe tile!

The Gatekeeper's Challenge: After surviving the grid, a goblin brute demands a short athletic trial: kicking a heavy stone sphere directly into the cavern mouth to open the gate.

The Sleeping Leviathan: The only bridge through the swamp is a massive sleeping beast. Players have to move fast—running across the crocodile's snout, stepping up onto its head, bounding across its ridged back, and sliding down its tail before it wakes up!

The Mountain Climb: The outpost alarm is sounding! The party must throw themselves down the twisting fire escape slide to evade capture. Hitting the ground at the mountain's base, they have to hike up the steep grassy slope to the summit. Near the peak, they must drop down and squeeze through a narrow, dark crack in the mountain wall to slip into the secret valley unnoticed.

The Monkey King’s Hoard: The final boss room. Players leap across floating stone pillars to reach the high altar. The legendary Monkey King lounges beside the treasure chest, barely looking up. "Oh, no," he yawns, his voice dripping with heavy sarcasm. "You've reached my secret lair. Please, whatever you do, don't take my precious treasure." It's a brilliant ruse! Players must call his bluff, claim the chest, and jump back instantly before the venomous spider trap springs from inside!

Hello, fellow adventurers! Today, I'm excited to share a preview of the Tome of Summoning v2.0! The compendium features over 60 pages on the theme of summoning and planar magic, offering new options for players who want to command powerful entities in battle. At its core is the Summoner, a unique class built around a lasting bond with a Summon - a companion that grows stronger alongside its master. Unlike temporary conjurations, a Summon is a permanent ally, highly customizable through a list of almost 145 Enhancements, allowing players to shape its abilities and role to fit their playstyle. The class also comes with a 8 subclasses, each proficient at summoning a specific type of creatures. Some forge pacts with celestial or fiendish entities, while others call forth spirits, elemental forces, or creatures born of pure magic. Each subclass grants a unique Summon, further expanding the possibilities for customization.

Beyond the Summoner, the manual includes over 35 spells, 15 feats, and 4 subclasses, all designed to enhance summoning magic for spellcasters. Whether you seek a loyal companion, a strategic battlefield presence, or the means to command otherworldly forces, the Tome of Summoning is the right tool for the job.

This manual just received a v2.0 update, including updated layout, illustrations, rules, balance adjustments, a brand-new subclass, and much more. For the occasion, you can find it discounted either on DriveThruRPG or my Patreon, alongside a vast collection of previews for this and all my other titles! I'm currently working on updated version of all my older manuals, so there's a lot to uncover :)

You can also find this manual (and many more) discounted on my 300+ Mythological Items for 5E and 5.5E Kickstarter! This project brings weapons, treasures, and relics from Greek, Norse, Egyptian, Asian, Mesoamerican, and many other mythologies to 5E and 5.5E, including scaling items that grow alongside your characters. If you’d like to bring a piece of these legends to your table, check out the campaign!

I'm putting together a campaign for some old and a couple new players to my group and I ended up with the idea that they all start off dead. I'm having trouble thinking of how to start them off like that and how to turn their adventure into a way to regain physical bodies. I have time to come up with something but they're wanting to do session 0 this upcoming Sunday and I still haven't fully figured out their journey. I just want something that doesn't leave me waiting until that session 0 to get everyone's background and stuff and then coming up with a start from there

Okay, background first:

5e game playing Tyranny of Dragons. I am using parts of ToD Reloaded and adding in extras along the way. The plan is to allow the characters to reach lvl 20 before facing the Queen of Chromatic Dragons.

The party has just completed clearing out the dragon hatchery. For those unfamiliar, there was a cave system controlled by the cult of the dragon, who are working to bring Tiamat back from her prison in the nine hells.

Inside the cave were 3 black dragon eggs. The wizard decided that it was going to be a good idea to try and fry up one of the eggs. Well as it turns out, the eggs were close to hatching. So when they were cracked open and the unborn dragons gasped for air and died in agony, the fucking wizard decided it was a good idea to CUT OUT A HEART AND TAKE A FUCKING BITE.

So even though the black dragons are considered evil, he has still been deemed "The Baby Eater" which is still kinda evil. I want to take the draconic gift idea from Fizban, but put a darker twist on it and I want to make sure this is balanced. Here's the framework:

Benefit: Can now read/write/speak draconic

Detriment: He is haunted by the spirit of the unborn dragon he ate. Every long rest, he must make a DC12 con save. Failure by less than 5: Hit die don't recharge. Failure by more than 5: previous plus one level of exhaustion, only one spell slot is recharged. Critical fail: all previous plus 1d4 psychic damage.

First question: Does this seem too detrimental? I want him to regret killing a baby.

Second question: What would be a good side quest premise for atonement? I plan on bringing in the seelie market from the book of many things soon. Maybe the fey could help? Could be cool tying it into a halloween theme!

Third question: What could be some other detriments in place of what I have? I want to keep the <5, >5, and crit fail categories.

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

What do I do if I have a player who refuses to learn? I know a lot about dnd cus I love dnd. And I have a friend who I play with who makes really gud backstories and does gud RP.

Theres just 2 issues, first he keeps saying “I’m a dnd larper” yet refuses to try and learn the game, he either says “I’m high, I’m not gonna remember this” or “I’m an R-word, wut did u expect?”.

The other issue is very small in the grand scheme of things, it just annoys me. He asks me wut skills he can choose from in the beginning and then when I tell him he laughs and says “Dino……I have those already” and then lists off everything I just said. I have no evidence he’s just writing his sheet as we go, I just have a hunch. He also sends in AI made character sheets and character art and seems to hope I don’t notice or sum.

I’m thinking about kicking him but he’s always eager 2 play dnd 1-shots or campaigns and I like that about him cus that meant I could get 3 players consistently. I’m not sure if this is the right place 2 ask this, if it’s not lmk where to ask.

edit: images of his sheet and art. (I think this adds all of the context to this situation If it was needed.

I need suggestions from my ideas please 🥲

I'm a relatively new DM with this being my third campaign. My first went level 1-10, and my second 1-6. I've been warned against having games that go to to higher levels because combat becomes a slog, but I feel like it would work for this specific game.

Without going into extreme detail, it is focused on kingdom building set in a patch of inhabitable land on the back of a incomprehensibly large monster in the Far Realm (though the players won't be aware of this early on.) Past level 13-15, there will be no more threats that the players could fight in standard combat, as it shifts more towards politics with other factions to control the monster they're on to bring them to an exit to the far realm in a plane their faction can survive in long term.

From my previous games I've realized I like roleplay and worldbuilding over combat and math. I believe this would work with the setting, but if you have thoughts on it, let me know. Thanks

Here's the rundown. My party is close to finishing LMOP, and they'll end at Level 5. From Level 5-10, I wanna do DOIP with a bunch of quests around Phandalin/the general area of Sword Coast with lots of other homebrew from DMsGuild online.

My question would be, how many quests is too many for the party before each level? I have so much homebrew for Tier 2, but I worry if they'll complain if they do 5-8 quests before levelling up.

EDIT: I am the DM, and we use Milestone instead of XP.