Our Group Was Riding Through A Pretty Heavy Storm.

It’s 2 am. Ideas that might make your combat encounters spicier.

1. Damage control. Force your players between choosing to fighting and keeping their environment intact. Make them fight in a crowded area and make them chose between putting out fires, rescuing people, or keeping peace versus attacking or following enemies.

2. Shooting the messenger. Make your initiative a chase scene. Have one or a few enemies high-tail it for backup, and if the messengers succeed, the tables turn hard against the players. Make them race through crowds, through difficult terrain, across rooftops, through other enemy forces, to get to the messenger.

3. Silence. Put both the enemy force and the players into a spot where they have to stay quiet or they both get hurt. Ex, sleeping monster nearby, avalanche, alerting guards, ect. bonus points if you enforce no talking even OOC.

4. Hide and Seek. Make the players hide from or fight a creature, monster, or enemy that relies on hearing alone. Bonus points if it’s incredibly dark or the player’s perception senses are also significantly hindered in some way. EXTRA bonus points if they’re already weakened or injured so they can’t fight directly or through brute force.

5. Creative workaround. Take away usual player resources (spells, weapons, usual playstyle, ect) and put them somewhere they have to try something new. Ex, melee fighters without their weapons at a fancy gathering. Casters in an anti-magic zone or magic immune / magic eating enemies. players who like to use movement in tight quarters. the min-max player gets outnumbered. the shy player gets the focus. ect.

6. Enemies to friends. Have the enemy force and the player party work together so they don’t all perish- but for how long? ex. sinking ship, burning or collapsing building, common enemy, ect.

7. Air combat. If you don’t already have griffins, birds, Pegasuses, dragons, airships or other sky mounts / vehicles in you game, wtf are you doing?? Take the fight to the sky.

8. Delivery. Similar to shooting the messenger, but the player party has to reach their destination before they get caught or downed. Useful if they’re escaping with valuable information, person / hostage, item, ect.

9. Switcharoo. Body-swap your players and have them switch their sheets, or polymorph them into other creatures. Preferably impose a time-constraint so that they’re pressured to move faster rather than read and entirely understand new sheets. Maximum chaos.

It’s his hat now

Want to play some cool underwater adventures in D&D? Check out Beneath the Waves on DMs Guild!

This book I've been working on with a bunch of amazing creators has a load of rules, player options, and new monsters plus a level 1-5 mini campaign!

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D&D Ambient Spotify Playlist

Ideas for the druid!

it’s easy to forget, so I’ll remind y’all: you can make fantasy versions of anything. yes even things you might not think about. like soil types. I am thinking of fantasy soil types right now

Random Faction Builder

How many pies do they have their proverbial fingers in? (1d10)

1-4. They are tightly focused on their singular area of influence. Roll once on the following table. 5-6. Roll twice on the following table. The first result is the field they openly deal in, or what those who know them mostly know them for. The second result is the field they are secretly trying to infiltrate or influence. 7. They serve as a mediary between two spheres, or between certain groups within two spheres. Roll twice on the following table. 8. Roll three times on the following table. The first two results are the fields they openly deal in, or what those who know them mostly know them for. The third result is the field they are secretly trying to infiltrate or influence. 9. They’re jugglers, jacks of all trades. Roll three times on the following table for areas they regularly deal in, plus one time for a field they have their sights on breaking into. 10. They’re everywhere. Roll once on the following table for the one circle they can’t show their faces in anymore.

1d6 Circles of Influence:

1. Government/Politics/Law Enforcement 2. Religion/Faith/Cults 3. Crime/Black Market/Underworld 4. Guilds/Trades/Organized Labor 5. Business/Merchants/Corporations 6. Knowledge/Information/Research

Now, roll 4d6 and assign one die to each of the following attributes, then look at the total on the last table:

Group Size

1. Just a few people devoted to a cause. 2. Enough people that it’s hard to get them all in a meeting together, but not enough people to really split into multiple sub-groups. 3. Enough people to crew a large vessel 4. A pretty big group, church congregation sized. 5. Enough people to populate a neighborhood. 6. If this entire group mobilized it would be a full-scale army.

Financial Power

1. Broke. It’d be a dream just to break even. 2. Surviving. They can get what they need, but can’t afford to expand or to have a large unforeseen expense. 3. Middling. Can use money to further their agenda but must be selective about doing so. 4. Comfortable. This group can afford to make investments. 5. Well-off. Their investments are paying off. 6. Rolling in it. They can solve most problems by throwing money at them.

Age of Faction

1. Brand new. This faction hasn’t existed long enough to have done anything of note. 2. Recent. This faction is probably still made up mostly of founding members, but has had time to make a name for itself. 3. Established. People remember this faction being founded. It may have some original members, but if it does they are old. 4. Pretty Old. This group was established before the oldest currently living generation was born, but in the lifetime of their parents or grandparents. 5. Old. This group was founded hundreds of years ago and has played a roll in many historical events. 6. Ancient. This group may predate the current civilization, and is seen all throughout history books.

Expertise

1. Bumbling. This group is incompetent and lacks basic knowledge. 2. Shoddy. They know just enough to get themselves into trouble. 3. Mediocre. There are no experts in this group but they have meaningful skills. 4. Competent. This group employs some actual experts but still has real gaps in their abilities. 5. Highly skilled. They may not be the absolute best in the business but this group can use skill to address most challenges. 6. Only the Best. This group has a reputation for their expertise.

Total - Overall Faction Influence

4-8  Nobodies. Who even are these losers? 9-12  Small fish in a big pond. This faction has an impact on certain individuals or niches, but are still unimportant enough that none of the big players pay them any mind 13-16  Up and Coming. Enough influence that they need to be careful not to upset the highest tier factions lest they get squashed. 17-20  The big leagues. This faction has a great deal of power but is not infallible. 21-24  Powerhouses. If there is only one faction at this level, they are functionally in charge of the society. If there are multiple factions at this level, their conflicts and machinations can have devastating fallout for ordinary people.

Some fun ideas for warlock pacts. You can see the rest of this series on my Kofi! I appreciate all tips.

A pair of French chestnut crushing clogs used in the 19th century. These shoes were worn by farmers to trample on chestnuts and acorns to separate the nutmeats from the shells so it could be ground into flour.