Hilda, the "one-horned Devil"

Hilda is a fighter Tiefling that I designed recently. She was a dragon hunter, part of a larger crew, and sold dragon skin, teeth, bones, etc., to the black market. She started hunting dragons at a very young age, following her elder brother. Her burn scars and lack of a horn are a mystery; people speculate they are the injury she sustained while hunting Zeroth, the dragon that occupied the abandoned Tiril castle, 10 years ago.

Now, she earns a living as a mercenary, hunting down anyone and anything. She is currently in the Kasafri kingdom.

If you'd like to see more of my art, check out my profiles, thank you!:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adithya.saji/

Cara: https://cara.app/adithyasaji

TL;DW is that according to their own research, it was too complicated for the average player. People were not reading the rulebooks or their character sheets. I know here we're all pro-gamers but if I'm being honest most players I encounter offline fit the bill he describes.

Hey all, I'll be chatting with our DM later this week, so I'd appreciate any insight here!

Our combat is strictly theatre of the mind. Basically, I took Eldritch Spear (knowing it's not the most useful invocation, I know — but I liked the idea of sniping people for fun) and every time I've used it, our DM has asked me to roll perception before I roll for attack.

• Example: An enemy was 200 feet away, nothing blocking my sight. I cast Eldritch Blast, and our DM said, "Roll Perception to see if you can aim that first." But...isn't that literally the point of me taking that invocation?

He's an otherwise great DM, but I don't know where to begin on how to address it besides, "Hey, I know it's already an unpopular Invocation, but I chose it for the fun distance. The RAW didn't state precursor roll, so now that I know you require it, can I at least pick a different invocation?"

NOTE: I'm not looking for advice on why Eldritch Spear isn't a good invocation to take; just some help from the community on how to defend the rationale of keeping it. Thank you! <3

Working on the dragonborns! The rendering takes a while and i'm working while studying for College so be patient you guys, i'm not procrastinating

As you can see, i went for a more bulkier build for the red Dragonborn, this can apply for both male and female, but of course, there is room for variation. Also i imagine younger specimens being more Slim, like a Red Dragon Wyrmling. Be free to leave your thoughs and ideas

Howdy folks!

Here's a wee lore snippet about the Deepguard, which is a Dwarven military order based in Guldland, which is a Dwarven realm set in the world of No'Adea, which is the world where The Weekly Roll, Sellswords & Sorcery and Undercover Lich take place, which are the comics and writing projects I make!

I make lore posts on my socials in the form of excerpts from an in-universe guide to the world by the illustrious author Abraham Newbie. Got quite a few of the done now, hoping to one day make enough to print a wee book!

Anyway, the idea for the Deepguard is essentially a group of tunnelfighters, which got me thinking of what kinda weaponry they'd have. I respect and love the classic axe/hammer visuals that Dwarves have in fantasy settings, but quite frankly it doesnt always make sense to me, atleast not for a baseline unified fighting force. As with most historical armies and troops, the Dwarves would prefer to be able to stab their enemies as far away as reasonable, hence I went with the tried and true classic of board and spear combo. Added a little flange on the spear a la boar spear, lotsa weird shit down below that wouldnt let a pesky little impalement stop them from getting into biting range. Also, needed a sidearm so added a mattock for when shit hit the fan properly and CQC mode kicks in, a sword would also make sense but ya gotta respect the classics a little bit!

Really dig the armor design I've come up with so far! Little bit of homages to other dwarf armor designs but still managed to make it my own thing! The beard armor ornamentation denoting veteran status (longbeards eh?) is highly customizable and varies greatly. Female soldiers sometimes go with beard armor too but are also known to add armor plates to long and prominent braids. The rank armor is on top of the helmet and fairly uniform. My idea for the distinction is that rank is important to quickly see and pick out in a formation, thus on top of the helmet. Veteran status is mostly (mostly) an honor and prestige status and doesnt necessarily denote a higher spot in the chain of command, so it's featured lower in a place where you might not be able to see in a melee with a bunch of shields. And since it's less visible and important, it's more open to individual customization.

Stay excellent out there!

Peace and carrots!

Here's a druid I illustrated: an Archfey-touched wanderer whose arm has been replaced by living wood. The robin on her shoulder is her scout, bringing news from the forest. I wanted her to look like a creature the woods themselves had mended, rather than someone just wearing a costume; as a result, her gear is a seamless, organic fusion of bone, cord, leather, and bark. Created with Photoshop.

How would you play her? Tell me what you think overall :D

Want your own character drawn in this style? Commissions are open for a flat rate of €60!
Single character only but i would allow if character has familiar with it (it will count as one)

Currently i am working with few clients but i have enough room to produce these since they are fairly easy to make.
In case you want something more painterly, you can check all pricing and more works on my profile
(only few of them but there links where you can find more stuff and commission page)

If you are interested, you can contact me here.

I don't post much but wanted to hear some other experienced people's opinions on an issue that I've been having with one of my players.

I've been DM'ing for about 18 years now and have seen my fair share of issues with players. Generally I find that talking things out is the way to go for just about everything, and only rarely removing serious problems if they can't go away; But recently I have encountered a unique situation with one of my players.

I recently started running an online 'The Curse of Strahd' for a few people that I have known for a while. We started with 6 players, but it quickly dropped to 4 before session 1 due to scheduling challenges. However, one of those 4 players I hadn't actually invited to the game. That person is my good friend's wife. While I like her plenty and we get along as friends I generally understood that she wasn't really into tabletop RPGs, but seeing as she wanted to be included, kind of just invited herself. I didn't have an issue with her joining as long as that's what she wanted to do, I was merely surprised. And it worked out because that left us with 4 players.

Quick background that's valuable. 2 players are veterans of D&D including her husband, and one player is still somewhat new but eager to play more. So we have a mixed table of experience. She has played thousands of hours of Baldur's gate and a little Pathfinder so I figured it was a good enough starting point to at least know the rules (decently).

Jump to session 1. We have had this start time set for 2 weeks in advance that everyone agreed on. Her work closes at variable times so it was a possibility that she would get home a bit later. Though, when she did get home she sat in the car for another 30 minutes and then fumbled around the house for another bit. While the rest of us waited to start, and we knew she might be late we weren't expecting to be 1.5 hours late to starting. We all had limited time due to work in the morning, so we valued not wasting time. Unfortunate but this was only the start.

So we start late, and while I'm setting the scene jumping right into it, she immediately starts complaining to another girl in the party that everything is "soooooo slooooow". Which I don't mind critiques, but in a horror setting pacing is everything so taking things slow was very intentional, and continued complaining about pacing despite it not being slow for D&D but perhaps slow compared to a single player game. All the while being minorly disruptive. Again, none of this being overwhelmingly problematic by themselves but it was starting to add up. Then before too long she just left only an hour into gameplay. No explanation, no excuse or reasoning. Just left. I later found out her reasoning was that she was tired and decided to just go to bed.

Now as a DM who spent hours of my time preparing by reading, researching, making maps etc I kind of just felt disrespected at this point like she just didn't care about the game or anyone else playing it. I too have to get up at 5 AM for work so I understand being tired but I still show up because it's a group project. I asked each of the players their feelings on it and they too felt very frustrated by the proceedings. Including her husband. She even passive aggressively complained later that I didn't play her character right in her stead.

So being part of the job as a DM I intend to bring it up in the following session to discuss. I imagine it's just an issue where she doesn't understand that this is a social obligation that you sign up for. Other people rely on you and expect you to do your part. It's fine to miss when things don't line up, but this wasn't "something coming up". So at the very least I wanted to give her some perspective and give her a bit of a picture of how others felt.

Jump to session 2. Same problem. We move the session back to accommodate her schedule a bit more and we still start an hour later than that. She dips almost immediately without an explanation. Later sending me a private message with a half baked excuse of how I should be handling her just "popping in and out" because I guess she just wants to come and go randomly joining at her discretion. Which she did. Despite me attempting to tell her that's now how it works in our game.

Well it all falls pretty much flat. Almost no communication is happening, despite the efforts. Nothing is getting through, and she just doesn't seem to understand that this isn't some single player game where she can do as she likes with no regards for others.

At this point I would usually just cut the line and tell her that she won't be joining at all. But this is the first time that Ive had a player like this so closely linked with another player. And I can't remove them both because that both feels unfair and leaves the game with too few people. It really feels like she just doesn't comprehend what tabletop gaming is, and doesn't want to engage with it, but still needs to be included. I'm trying to be nice and work with her as much as possible both because of our closeness but also because I know she has a lot going on in life separately and I'm not trying to add drama to that.

Any suggestions or thoughts would be greatly appreciated. And I apologize for such a long story. Thanks!

TLDR: New player who is very close to everyone personally doesn't understand how tabletop games work from a social aspect and doesn't seem to respect others time/effort won't listen to requests but can't easily be removed from the game either. Help!

Our current DM is really good. But also very intense and hardcore about reliable players and timely communication. One of my pals has been too sketchy for him, for months, with same day cancelation game attendance.

I told him I’d break the news, since he’s my friend. It didn’t go well. He’s pissed and not sure if he’ll remain my friend. I wish we could have found a middle ground of making more of an occasional extra player spot for him, knowing he wouldn’t be there every session.

Just venting to people who get it.

It's impossible to find anything in the minature department for the Crooked Moon races, but we have a player in our group who 3d printed minis for everyone!

I wanted to show off my Stoneborn Paladin I painted. I'm new to miniature painting and I'm using acrylic markers with tips bigger than I thought, IDK why I thought they would be fine, but I can't reach someplaces. Not to mention this 3d printed mini is filament based, not resin based like I'm used to.

That being said, I thought this turned out all right. I'm actually more proud of the terrain. Usually I just do all grey/all brown for stone/rocks and call it good.

I didn't realize how fun and relaxing painting minis could be tbh

Here's a character I illustrated: He was born with two marks on his body, one on each hand. During a stormy night, he accidentally killed his father after losing control of the power he was born with. Since then, consumed by guilt, he has worn his father's gloves to conceal his marks and remind himself of what happened. I designed the character to represent someone who is always on the move, exhausted yet constantly aware of his surroundings. With his worn-out clothes and hidden marks, he tries to escape his past, but he can never truly leave it behind. In the end, he will have to embrace the very power he was born with. Created with Photoshop.

How would you play her? Tell me what you think overall :D

Want your own character in my art style? Full-body character commissions are only $25!

If you are interested, you can contact me here.

Hello everyone! I just wanted to share this lovely custom character design I made. I was commissioned by a client to design their character for an upcoming DND campaign!

A construct formed from the memories and soul fragments of an occultist who blew themselves into little magic bits trying to escape the apocalypse. Their appearance is based on the first thing they saw when they were “born”; a painting of their original self, but with the face ripped from the canvas, thus leaving them without a face.

I had a lot of fun designing them, and I just wanted to share them here! :))

Two game sessions ago, my players discovered a DoMT in the Feywild. As a long-time DM, I should have known better but I wanted to experience it first hand, especially with my current group whom I trust implicitly. But, I was hoping to hear any positive stories where the deck made things better, or more fun!

I wanted to share what happened during our last D&D session because I'd been preparing it for quite a while, and we finally got to play it. I'm running a homebrew campaign set in a kingdom called Vardesia, and my players had been getting increasingly suspicious of me over the last few sessions. They'd been finding magical items, making quite a bit of gold, and generally doing pretty well, so they kept joking, "Guys, we're screwed. The DM is giving us way too much stuff. Something terrible is definitely coming." I wasn't helping either, because I kept telling them I was working on something big and that they should be excited for our marathon session. They were convinced I was preparing some ridiculous boss fight or a TPK. Well, they were right about something terrible coming, just not in the way they expected. For context, the party consists of an Aasimar Fighter, a Moon Druid, a Drow Ranger, and a Barbarian with 5 Intelligence who has a habit of touching things he probably shouldn't. They even spent ages arguing about their party name when registering with the Adventurers' Guild, eventually settling on "The Lunatics" because of all the ridiculous things they'd done.

The whole situation started when the Barbarian used an ancient artifact containing a fragment of the First God's primordial creation energy. In my setting, the First God created the universe from his own essence, so the energy inside this thing was far beyond anything a mortal could reasonably control. Naturally, the Barbarian saw a glowing magical object and decided to use it. He gained access to a tiny fraction of its power, but it slowly began destroying his sanity. At one point, he hallucinated that his father was sitting in a tavern with them and told the Druid to get up and give his father a seat. That was when the others realized things were getting serious. Eventually, they traveled to Arakan and met with Lord Edric and his court wizard. The wizard examined the Barbarian and warned them that he might not even make it to the end of the month with his mind intact. He couldn't find a solution, so he recommended going to the Royal Magic Academy in Rodonlin, the capital. Edric pointed out that Rodonlin was almost twenty days away, which was a serious problem considering the Barbarian's condition. He initially ordered his wizard to teleport them, only to learn that he wasn't powerful enough to cast Teleportation Circle. So instead, Edric gave them permission to use the royal horse relay system, allowing them to change horses at stations along the road and reach the capital much faster.

The journey was pretty entertaining. The Drow experienced some racism, they passed crossroads with signs pointing toward Zendar and Starhaven, and a group of bandits tried to stop them but quickly changed their minds when the party confronted them. They also met a merchant whose daughter and merchandise had been taken by goblins. Despite knowing that every day mattered, the party decided to help and rescued his daughter. Eventually, they reached Rodonlin, and I spent some time describing the capital. It was a massive, wealthy, crowded city, completely different from the settlements they'd visited before. They genuinely seemed impressed. The Druid's response to the crowds was to Wild Shape into an Elk and basically force his way through the streets, which was hilarious. At the Magic Academy, they met two important NPCs: Orin, an ancient bronze dragon and extraordinarily powerful wizard, and Athelred, an eccentric old elven mage. They spent almost an hour talking to them. Orin recognized the First God's energy because he'd encountered it before, and he had developed a theoretical ritual to remove it from a living creature. However, the ritual had never actually been performed, so he couldn't guarantee the outcome. He explicitly warned them that things could go very wrong, even though he couldn't predict exactly what might happen. During the conversation, they discovered that Athelred was an old friend of the Druid's mentor, Aunt Emeril, and the founder of Starhaven. All three were elves, each around 600–700 years old, and had known one another for centuries. The party also handed over the Book of Vile Darkness to Orin for safekeeping. At the end of the conversation, Athelred casually announced that he'd come along to help.

Athelred ended up being one of my favorite parts of the session. He suggested using an ancient temple designed to contain magical energy for the ritual, and Orin agreed that it might work. First, they needed special crystals, so Orin teleported them to a crystal cave. There was a Water Elemental inside, and while the party fought it, Athelred literally sat down, watched the fight, and occasionally cheered them on. He kept saying things like, "Bravo! Well done, lads!" My players were getting annoyed because this supposedly powerful wizard had promised to help them and was now just sitting there enjoying the show. The funniest part was that Orin had already told them Athelred would need all his spell slots for the ritual, so he couldn't afford to waste them in combat. They knew that but were still annoyed. After collecting the crystals, Athelred used Teleportation Circle to take them to the temple, where they fought an Earth Elemental. During the fight, the elemental damaged part of a wall, and the Druid decided to check the magical runes. Some were damaged, so he repaired them. Later, they entered the main chamber and encountered a Shield Guardian. They debated attacking it, but the Druid started explaining that they weren't there with hostile intentions. The guardian just stood there doing absolutely nothing until Athelred laughed and said, "Don't worry, I built that thing." By this point, my players were simultaneously irritated by Athelred and genuinely enjoying his ridiculous personality.

Then came the ritual. They prepared the crystals, activated the ancient containment system, and Athelred began channeling the energy out of the Barbarian. And here's the important part: the ritual actually worked. The Barbarian was cured. They'd achieved exactly what they'd spent the entire adventure trying to do. Unfortunately, the containment system couldn't handle that amount of primordial creation energy. The crystals began to fail, and the energy started escaping. Athelred stayed behind, desperately trying to contain it long enough for the party to escape. He bought them the time they needed, but he was too close to the energy when the system collapsed and burned to death. The party escaped the temple, but the catastrophe had already begun. The energy released from the temple resonated with other fragments scattered throughout the world, triggering enormous explosions and unleashing creation energy on a scale nobody had anticipated. The kingdom was being torn apart, and reality itself was being reshaped. Eventually, the players were caught by the effects of the catastrophe and lost consciousness.

When they woke up, they weren't in the temple or Rodonlin. They were in a house inside a Kenku village. I started describing their surroundings: trees reaching 200–250 meters into the sky, wooden houses connected by bridges high among their branches, enormous chunks of rock floating in the air like mountains, and strange creatures they'd never encountered before. They started talking to the Kenku villagers, trying to understand what had happened. Eventually, they learned that Arakan had been devastated, the Kingdom of Vardesia no longer existed, and approximately 70 years had passed since the catastrophe. The world had completely changed. New kingdoms had risen from the ruins of the old one, the geography was radically different, magic was far more widespread, and enormous regions had become incredibly dangerous. This was the moment I'd been waiting for. I'd spent a lot of time designing the new world's history, geography, kingdoms, political conflicts, and the consequences of the catastrophe. My players had spent the session traveling through a living, prosperous kingdom, visiting its magnificent capital, and meeting people who'd existed in that world for centuries. Now the world they knew was (almost) gone. The Druid was particularly overwhelmed and said something like, "What the hell are we supposed to do now? We don't know anything about this world!" The others had similar reactions, while our Drow player was quieter, which is pretty normal for him.

One of the funniest moments came afterward when the Druid started blaming the Barbarian for everything. He was basically saying, "Look what you've done to us! You're the one who absorbed that energy! This is your fault!" And the Barbarian, with his glorious 5 Intelligence, defended himself by saying, "How is this my fault? The wizard picked the wrong place! The rock was glowing, so I used it! If I hadn't used it, you would've!" I was trying not to laugh because the whole discussion happened completely in character. What I liked most was that they were genuinely arguing about who was responsible for the catastrophe rather than simply accepting it and moving on. They knew I'd been planning something big, and Orin had warned them about the risks, but they still hadn't expected anything like this. Now they've successfully saved their Barbarian, lost a wizard they'd grown attached to, and found themselves stranded 70 years in the future without understanding the world around them. The Kenku villagers advised them to avoid Veridion and suggested heading toward Zendar instead, so we'll see what they decide.

I was a little nervous about making such a massive change to the setting, especially since we'd already spent quite a bit of time establishing the original kingdom, but the session turned out to be a lot of fun. The players seemed to enjoy the NPCs, the ridiculous moments with Athelred, and especially discovering how different the world had become. One of the main reasons I decided to make such a drastic change was that the campaign had originally started as a relatively low-fantasy setting. Most of my players were completely new to D&D when we started, so I wanted to introduce them to the game gradually without overwhelming them with too many unfamiliar things. But now they've gotten comfortable with their characters, learned the mechanics, and started getting into roleplaying, I felt it was the perfect time to take the world from low fantasy to full-on high fantasy. And rather than just introducing more magical elements over time, I thought it would be much more interesting to let them actually experience the event that transformed the world.

I'm really excited because they now have an entirely new world to explore while still carrying their memories and connections from the old one. Some of the cities they saw on road signs are now capitals of independent kingdoms, and places they visited before the catastrophe have become dangerous ruins. I'm planning to let them explore the new world at their own pace rather than immediately pushing another main quest on them. I genuinely can't wait to see what they do next.

There are actually a few more things I'd love to share, especially about what I've planned for the upcoming sessions, but I've already written way too much, and unfortunately my players know my Reddit account, so I can't really talk about those without spoiling things for them. And if any of you guys are reading this, please leave my Reddit account alone!

My Imp Neeka I played for a one shot. She was a natural born Imp from the love of a warlock and her partner. She was really fun to play. I wish the imp race I used had more imp abilities tho. It was the Ashborn Imp from Avantris so I guess it wasn't built to be a true imp. I also gave her more of a spiked tail instead of a scorpion. I like the design a lot better. Since I made her a half imp it made more sense and worked with why she couldn't do everything an imp from hell could do.

Her backstory basically has her escape from her parents warlock tower after their Devil patron finds out about the love between her parents. She doesn't know if her parents survived that night, but she's been traveling ever since her parents smuggled her out before being attacked.

She ends up joining an adventures guild to see how she can help others.

I hope you guys like her!

Using a freshly-made alt account for this post because I can already feel r/dndcirclejerk having fun with it

So for context, I'm a paid DM that works at a community center. Most of my players are first-timers, which means that I've been their first DM, their introduction to D&D and the one who taugh them the rules.

Side-note: I really don't mind it, this is the coolest job ever.

At the start of tonight's game, one of my players (M, somewhere in his 20's) told me that he joined another campaign recently with friends of his. I was really happy for him, until he told me that he hated his other DM's way of DMing. When I asked how it went, he kept pointing out everything this other DM did differently than me (stuff like calling for checks less often, narration being more railroady and player agency that felt like he was "kept on a leash", to quote him).

I totally get what he was trying to say: he tried someone else's DMing, and he vastly prefers mine. And I accept that compliment, really. But I can't help but to think that maybe I've accidentally set an unreal expectation for him: as I said, I'm litterally paid to run this game, of course I'll go the extra mile on all front for it to be worth the money. That other DM was (likely) running it for free, so expecting the same quality from this DM is unfair.

Now, maybe this DM was actually bad, I'll never know. But judging from what my player told me, they seemed... fine? I guess? No DM is running the same way, and this one was definitelly doing it differently than me. It really feels like I've brewed my own micro-version of the "Mercer effect", and I don't want it to ruin future games for him...how should I approach this situation? Like, obviously I'll talk to him about it, but I'm just unsure on how I'll explain it so it doesn't sound like a lecture.

I’m currently working on Magna Urbis v2, my procedural fantasy city generator.

While v2 is in active development, you can check out the new renders and features in the preview gallery, or try the original v1 in your browser:

• v2 Preview Gallery: https://dunkean.github.io/magna-urbis/gallery/v2/
• v1 :https://dunkean.github.io/magna-urbis/

Feedback appreciated !

Yo, after doing a session 0 how many sessions do you prepare for in like advance? Also how much do yall prepare, since things always can go off the rails and thus improv will always happen. I know that it can depend and generally heard that its like 1 or 2 sessions in advance, but wanted to hear from others.

I have been a DM before but the last and first time I DMed was 5 years ago when my friends and I were still fresh into DnD. This my 2nd time now and I've been preparing A LOT more and better than those years ago, but still wanted others' opinions.

I love making dnd characters and seeing what fun wacky things i can come up with, so recently i decided to try out what can I make for a cold-based spellcaster. Ive searched far and wide, especially since I own nearly every sourcebook on DnD beyond, Frost sorcery... thats it, the 2 closest was winter walker ranger and everything else that did cold damage was water based. And I wish frost sorcery was good at least, your level 3 lets you make 5 difficult terrain ice squares as a bonus action for free, sounds pretty good. Until you realize it has to start from a point of contact (so you cant use it to block enemies from afar), you can move twice as fast on it (which wouldve been nice if u had more than 5 squares at a time to move on, and they disappear after 1 singular round??? Whats the point then? They do let you expend sorcery points at 5 more squares per point, but thats often such a bad investment for 5 squares of difficult terrain that lasts a single turn. The only point I can give it is since its free you can skate to your hearts content outside of combat which is pretty cool tbh. At level 6 you get 3 whole abilities, 2 nothing burgers and another way to waste away your sorcery points! This time its 15ft of speed per point, and if you make their speed 0 you get a whole 2d6 damage! Thats totally not near nothing at this level when that same 2-3sp can make a hypnotic pattern have disadvantage on its save, nearly shutting down a whole fight rather than a single melee enemy. Level 14 and onwards is decent I guess but nearly nobody ever plays that high so why bother.

TL;DR

Theres no good cryomancy in dnd currently, even in partnered content, where can I find some good ones? Maybe in roll20 idm making a character there

Edit: No I dont care about having enough Ice spells I just want the class/subclass to be ice themed and to actually be good/fun to play

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.

We also keep in mind the “Adjusting XP for multiple monsters” guidelines from the DMG.

The Party

The characters chosen for this endeavor were intended 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 3

Encounter 1: One Owlbear

Not too exciting. Fighter took about 30 damage but nobody went down.

Encounter 2: One Manticore

Holy fuck. Manticore flies in the air. 3 tail spikes to down the Wizard in one turn. Shield wouldn’t have helped, and he didn’t cast Mage Armor yet “just in case.” Fighter is trying to use his bow for the first time. Manticore downs the Rogue next. Cleric is spending every turn healing and stabilizing. The manticore has twenty-four tail spikes with a 100-ft range so the manticore is flying around 70 feet off the ground out of the range of most spells. The Cleric can’t keep up and both Rogue and Wizard are down again. We all collectively acknowledge if this were a real fight, we would just pick up their bodies and fucking run.

You’re supposed to fight this thing at level 1 in Dragon of Icespire Peak?? Are the developers literally stupid? This combined with the 4 goblins you fight in Lost Mine of Phandelver and then the cave full of about a dozen more, I don’t think these people had any idea what they were doing.

Eventually Cleric heals the Wizard who then uses Mage Armor and Shield to actually survive and starts throwing out Magic Missile. Collectively we spent seven 1st-level spell slots and two 2nd-level spell slots just on this fucking thing. Fight lasted 7 rounds so the manticore never even ran out of tail spikes. Rogue survived his death saving throws. Party opts to short rest, which the Rogue can’t take because he is unconscious.

Encounter 3: Three Thugs

Wizard opens up with Shatter, which they all fail, but he only rolls 7 damage. Thugs surround the Fighter who lasts a few rounds but inevitably hits zero. Wizard and Cleric get surrounded and take some hits but the Rogue takes out the rest. No deaths. Not as scary as the manticore—somehow—but still a tough fight. We opt to save our last short rest since we don’t really have the spell slots to make up for not having one later. Fighter wakes up with 1 HP uses his Second Wind, and then hopes for the best.

Encounter 4: One Giant Scorpion

Turns out 3 attacks is a lot at this level. Fighter goes down in the first round and we all realize 3 is the magic number to turn any monster into a death machine. Initiative makes it hard to want to heal the Fighter because the Fighter goes before the Cleric, but after the Scorpion. So healing him would mean he just lies there and hopes the scorpion doesn't down him before his next turn. We opt to just push for damage because we know it has bad Wisdom saves.

Wizard took a risk and used a cantrip instead of a leveled spell to kill it, but it survived. He ends up using the spell slot anyway to cast Shield and keep himself alive. Rogue finishes it off next turn.

We can’t take any risks now so we heal the fighter and then take the short rest.

We are not looking great. Wizard has full health but one 1st-level spell slot. Cleric is near full and has one 2nd-level spell slot. Rogue is at about half HP. Fighter is about ¾.

Encounter 5: Two Dire Wolves

Party pushes hard to down one wolf ASAP to avoid the Pack Tactics, but it doesn’t work out well. Wolves jump on the Cleric and down him. Fighter action surges to take out the first wolf. Non-serious IRL drama is forming because the Wizard is refusing to cast anything but cantrips because “I might need the spell slot later.” Whether or not he’s right, it is causing people to get a little spicy.

Rogue is having a hard time getting advantage on his attacks because the wolf’s keen senses, but the Fighter still gives him sneak attack. Against all odds, Cleric jumps up with 1 hp on a critical success death save. Heroically jumps up to hit the wolf, which it tanks, then bites him back and the Cleric goes back down immediately. Wizard finishes off the wolf and proudly announces he didn’t need to use a spell slot to do so. Cleric survives and starts the next fight with 1 HP. Honestly everyone is looking fine except the Cleric.

Encounter 6: Six Goblins

“DM, please. There is no reason for this,” the party cries. Everyone is surprised. Fighter tanks the hits with 3 HP left. Rogue gets a natural 20 and deals 34 damage, killing a goblin so terribly that his reincarnated form dies too. Wizard casts Magic Missile, killing another. Cleric kills another. Damage swapping ensues. Fighter rolls a climactic natural 19 on the last goblin, then deals minimum damage, so it survives. Rogue gets the killing blow. Again.

Conclusion

Okay so the difficulty seemed to spike dramatically here. The manticore and giant scorpion were especially scary and the big clincher here seems to be certain enemies having three attacks instead of two. That third attack just really pushes enemies over the edge to being absolute monsters that will fuck you up. Even the six goblins seemed easier to deal with than the one manticore.

I also now unfortunately have to agree with people who say “you need a tank” though. Even if there is no way to “draw aggro” or anything like that, just having someone with 19 AC who was just bullrushing into enemies was incredibly important here. The Fighter was invaluable.

The Cleric was also invaluable although was mostly relegated to a heal bot who hit things with a mace sometimes.

The Rogue was basically god tier. Never dealt less than 10 damage a turn. Basically had at-will advantage from hiding as a bonus action behind the Wizard, with a +7 bonus to Stealth. I’m not saying I agree, but I at least understand why brand new DMs want to nerf Rogues. They are very powerful at this level.

I don’t know what happened but the Wizard was just a worse version of a Warlock here. The most important thing he did was allow the Rogue Halfling to hide behind him. Enemies usually had too much HP to cast Sleep on. Shatter was good, but never felt like a pivotal move in a fight. It seems like half his spell slots went to keeping himself alive. Eldritch Blast would have been better than Fire Bolt and having six 2nd-level spells would have been so fucking useful here. So we’ll see how he starts to feel at higher levels. The pendulum will probably swing back at 5th level for obvious reasons.

Although I also have to say that at these lower levels, it is apparent spellcasters are sort of self-regulating and kept in check by the number of encounters. If we threw in a few traps and puzzles, I don’t think the Wizard would have been able to cast anything except Detect Magic to help with those. He would absolutely not have used a spell slot to just Misty Step past a trap to turn it off. The party probably would have literally thrown the Rogue across the room since the Rogue is almost always avoiding problems in combat, except from the manticore. Otherwise the Fighter and Rogue were almost always fine and ready to keep going. Cleric was better off than the Wizard because even at 0 spell slots, he still had 18 AC and more HP.

I would consider this a success, though. A lot of close calls, but nobody died. Even though no one died in this part, it just felt much more deadly for some reason. The back and forth and ups and downs and the game resource attrition all seem to be working pretty smoothly. If anything it felt a little harsh on the Wizard, even with Arcane Recovery, but for the overall party it was solid.

Starting another campaign soon. I’ve been tinkering with two builds that I think I’d enjoy playing but wanted to hear from folks who’ve been there done that. We’re starting at level 1 expecting to go 10+

Human Trickery Cleric: A renegade, gambler type who tried to cheat a god and got a dagger through his hand and blessed for his hubris. I want to lean into the illusion/deception/controller route with this character.

Eladrin (Spring prob) Archfey Warlock: basically a nightcrawler character, but charming and a flirt. Really want to spam the bamf, teleport around and blast folks. Also like the idea of telekinetic/thorn whip/repelling blast for some forced movement

I don’t plan of using a weapon for either. Any and all feedback would be helpful and appreciated, homies

EDIT: I lied, I’m probably gonna reflavor darts as throwing cards for the Trickery Cleric bc why not