New Player’s Guide is going on hiatus, giving us some space to return to beloved series like Class 101, Spell Spotlight, How to Play Monsters, and to explore new ideas. In the meantime, however, we want to know what D&D questions are burning in your mind, so that we can answer them once we come back. Reply to the comments of this post with ONE question for D&D Beyond’s Lead Writer James Haeck.
We’re looking for questions about Dungeon Master skills, player tips, dungeon design, encounter design, magic item design, monster design, and anything else that will help you be the best DM or player you can be!
When New Player’s Guide returns from hiatus, we’ll have combed through your questions with a particular eye for ones that will benefit the entire D&D Beyond community. We can’t wait to read your questions!
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James Haeck is the lead writer for D&D Beyond, the co-author of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus, and the Critical Role Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, a member of the Guild Adepts, and a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurers League, and other RPG companies. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his fiancée Hannah and their animal companions Mei and Marzipan. You can find him wasting time on Twitter at @jamesjhaeck.
I had a problem a lot like this, where the players decided to steal two barrels of ale from a tavern's cellar in the middle of the day just for fun. It took the whole session to get back on track, and in the process they killed four guards and destroyed the tavern wall. Players are unpredictable and there's nothing you can say to stop them being so, as that would take the freedom out of the game, so the best thing to do is to accept that this is the route the players have taken and try and keep the fun going as best you can through improvisation and logic. If you have good reason to tell the players to change their style, talk to them, if not, then you'll just have to make do.
Well, from what the books say, a person can infact be born with lycanthropy as long as at least one parent was a lycan. Wether they were infected or also born with it.
A Guide to Mounted Combat
I'm in interested in how to optimize role-playing as a player and as a DM. I'm also looking for how to sell a player, NPC, or even the setting's cool factor as a player. By selling, think of it like wrestling. I'm not just talking about during combat, but during social role-playing and problem solving.
PER DM's Guide page 140 Magic Staffs:
"Unless otherwise noted in the description a staff can be used as a Quarterstaff."
My only concern is that a magic staff may have an ornamental top with might be damaged when used as a quarterstaff.
But... it's magic.
So I want to make a barbarian subclass like Arcane Trickster or Eldritch Knight, but can’t figure out how to do it. The adding spellcasting part I can’t figure out.
I'm interesting in learning how going to a wizzard school would work. Is there a online campaign for it or something or do you do it yourself and make it up?
In a recent UA, fighters were given the ability to fight unarmed. Could we possibly get a revised version of Unarmed fighting in general? Like adding bonuses for having certain stats, like with 16 Str with Unarmed Fighting, they are treated like one-handed light weapons for the purpose of off-hand attacking for example? Even with that bonus they'd still be a diet monk with tank stats, without it just doesn't make much sense to me. Edit: Added the last sentence
I’ve always been interested in the cleric, but I’ve noticed when making my first cleric that although they’re mostly known as healers, they’re more of religious people. How should my cleric act, anyway? Should he just act super religious and pompous?
I mean, in the players handbook there’s a list of gods and stuff so you could read about that, but a lot of the time the gods are made up for the campaign
Can you provide som tips on how to scale encounters for larger groups other than just giving monster more hp?
I DM a group og 5-6 players, and often experience my monsters getting super nuked (too little xp) and they prove no real challenge because their +hit is not high enough.
Do I add higher lvl monster and nerf them, or do I add more low lvl monster at buff them?
thank you :)
Why does it clear out the information that you put in fields when you leave a page and go to another one? You should put a SAVE button at the bottom of each page to remind people to save. DO you have anyone doing UI testing or evaluation of this website? For the amount of money you charge it should be better designed.
I would like to see some optional systems for magic, especially a decent Mana option that has different suggestions for heavy, moderate, and light magic and encounter campaigns. If these could then be integrated into the online character builder, that would be especially useful.
is there a way to make a new actual class?
Not on DDB (that I know of).
Using the homebrew thingy
An entry on advance studies of Stealth and Hiding and application of determining Surprise at rolling for initiative.
How exactly we play this game?
I concur. Also there are some bugs in the homebrew creator as I used it