As any Dungeon Master will attest, but particularly any who write and publish their own adventures, coming up with vaguely credible names you don’t hate for all your NPCs is a major pain in the @&$€. Something I’ve found myself leaning into recently is the classic ‘epithet + noun’ formula for NPC surnames. Names such […]
Category: Tips for DMs (Page 1 of 3)
It’s a core feature of any action movie… the moment(s) when the hero has to jump across the river, rooftop, lava, chasm, pile of bad guys they just sent flying, viper pit, vat of acid, or whatever other obstacle stands in between them and their goal. Often the consequence of failing these jumps would be […]
So I was thinking about falling damage recently, and specifically about how little danger falling represents to characters of a certain level, no matter how high the drop. The rules given on p.183 of the Player’s Handbook simply state that a character 1d6 bludgeoning damage for every 10 feet it falls, to a maximum of […]
Few players at my table ever remember to use the Disengage and Dodge actions, which is probably why it’s taken me about four years to realise they are way too powerful. Or, at the very least, they are immersion breaking. I can get on board with someone managing to extricate themselves from a fight by […]
On page 174 of the Player’s Handbook there’s a table of Difficulty Classes for ability checks that goes a little something like this… DIFFICULTY CLASSES (PLAYER’S HANDBOOK) As you can see, to succeed on a Medium difficulty skill check you need to roll a 15. What’s my problem with that? It’s way too difficult, that’s […]
I was watching this video, by the excellent Dungeon Dudes, when I realised there is an issue on my table that hasn’t been resolved satisfactorily to my mind. That of drinking a healing potion in combat. The official rules state that drinking a healing potion requires an action. But when you consider that this means […]
One thing I like about 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons, as opposed to the 1st and 2nd edition D&D of my youth, is how the designers have broadened the depiction of classic classes to make them far more interesting. A paladin is longer bound to be a pompous holy warrior, clerics can be much more […]
Is it just me, or do chases not really work in 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons? Mapping a chase out as an extension of combat quickly turns into a farce, as either the fleeing party is faster and the pursuer has zero chance of catching up, or the pursuer is the same speed or faster, […]
It’s arguably Dungeon & Dragon’s biggest cliché… a group of misfits who had never before laid eyes on one another are suddenly galvanised by a tavern encounter to go forth and save the world together. And while most D&D players are more than happy to humour this convention as a means of facilitating gameplay, “you […]
My second ever 5e character was a tempest cleric called Jaxx Storm. Safely floating to shore in a barrel as a baby, after his boat was shipwrecked, he believed himself to be the son of Shaundakul, and had an attitude to match his (self-declared) demi-god status. I had a lot of fun playing him, as […]
