Inspired by How was your last session? Are you looking forward to your next session, or dreading it? Maybe you have a fun combat starting, or maybe you're stuck in a sticky situation. Maybe you're a DM with a big twist to reveal, or maybe there are too many NPCs to memorize the details of and practice voices for.
I'm a DM. My next session is a pretty open-ended one in a city, which makes me nervous. It's very non-linear, and I have to try to plan for everything I think they might try. But it will be an exciting one, since what they do here might lead down one of several plot lines they could branch onto now. I will be hopeful that I can get them to the inflection point this session so I can begin developing that plot line, but realistically it might take a couple of sessions given how long of a to-do list they have for this city.
Next session is an irregular session outside of my reg games. Doing a one shot for a birthday. Still putting it together but I'm using some of the dream races presented in a recent issue of Arcadia along with the same issue's aerial combat rules to do some sort of skyjacking heist, I only got three hours, so it's basically going to be one big set piece for heisting and then an escape/chase in the sky. It'll be fun for me because I've never actually used these aerial rules in an actual scenario, just sort of theory played through some stuff.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I'm DMing a CoS campaign and next session theyre going to the village of Barovia. One of the party members is a tiefling and another is a reborn and I'm wondering how to rp the villagers reactions to them
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my name is not Bryce
Actor
Certified Dark Sun enjoyer
usually on forum games and not contributing to conversations ¯\_ (ツ)_/
For every user who writes 5 paragraph essays as each of their posts: Remember to touch grass occasionally
My next session will probably consist of my players fighting their way back out of a dungeon, and then deciding whether to follow orders or charge off after an artifact they just heard about.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
I'm hopefully soon gonna run for a new group of players soon. I plan to have them fight some raiders who attack them, and then do some traveling to a town which will require some survival aspects, and then once they get to the town they are introduced to the plot.
I'm hopefully soon gonna run for a new group of players soon. I plan to have them fight some raiders who attack them, and then do some traveling to a town which will require some survival aspects, and then once they get to the town they are introduced to the plot.
I'm hopefully soon gonna run for a new group of players soon. I plan to have them fight some raiders who attack them, and then do some traveling to a town which will require some survival aspects, and then once they get to the town they are introduced to the plot.
Bandit raids are a great way to develop party unity without having to worry if your PCs alignments are at all compatible. Once you've laid your lives on the line for each other, considerations like "good" and "evil" become secondary.
We're traveling to the entrance to a drow raider tunnel, where we think our paladin's father figure has been held for the past two months. We've got three (NPC) Silverhair Knights helping us out, but our team isn't great in battle yet, so here's hoping our accidentally-melee-range-again wizard doesn't die (and, as a result, unleash the ancient evil they're sealing away).
Also, with the aforementioned father figure having been held captive for so long, we're terrified about what state he's gonna be in. We're pretty sure he's still alive and we'll be able to rescue him, since we're banking on Eilistraee giving our paladin a prophecy only if there's a chance we can fulfill it, but "alive" is a very broad umbrella.
Got an exciting one coming up. Onboard an airship on a mission to explore some mysterious drow tunnels, they are going to pass a strange smoke ring rising from the forest.
It could go a lot of ways from there, but I've provided some fun combats for each path.
My party knows they need to find several powerful artifacts, each one granting the BBEG a different power or protection. They have leads on WHERE the items might be, but absolutely nothing on WHAT they are or what sort of buffs they're giving him. It's mostly going to be a research episode, but I'm planning a few different combat or social encounters, just to keep things interesting. Also if they ask the wrong questions in the wrong place, people are going to get veeeeeery suspicious of this group.
I always look forward to the next session. If you play in the Isentaan campaign, don't read any further.
My players are headed to the warrior-monk monastery of Cruul, unsure what their reception will be, but they freed a monk prisoner several sessions ago whilst raiding a Duergar fortress inside a mountain and are hoping to see him (they will actually arrive ahead of him, because they went to a besieged wizard, helped him out and earned the use of his Teleportation Circle to arrive inside a desert tomb much closer to the monastery).
They know the monastery is due to be attacked within 3 days by a force sent from the BBEG's citadel. When they arrive, the monastery is celebrating a hedonistic festival, and the monks require their 4 abbots (one is a traitor, which the PCs didn't pick up the clues for) to silently discuss everything at length. They'll need to try to get the warrior monks to take the threat seriously. Two of the abbots are helpful, one is a bad guy, and one is a blind seer who has an important prophecy for them that counteracts another prophecy that the BBEG made, and which they discovered around level 4 (they are level 8 now).
A further reason for going there is that one of the PCs has had a book in his possession since level 1 that teaches him secret swordsmanship techniques (battlemaster stuff) that is slowly eating his soul, and is filled with all the souls of the swordsmen who've owned the book over the past thousand years. The book is indestructible (last session they burned it, and it reappeared in his pack) and the blind seer has information that can lead him to the other side of the country where there's a shrine where he can enter a trance to confront the demon inside the book. He needs to figure out that he can't face the book's demon alone, and that he needs to rely on his allies. Whenever the demon invades his dreams it keeps saying things like "I alone am the greatest swordsman," and "I stand alone as the master" and he needs to figure this out or he's probably gonna die facing it in the dream realm. Unlikely we'll get to any of that next session though.
If the attack starts during the next session, it comes by airship and there are 3 phases and 4 locations that they can go to during it and they'll have to choose which to do: defend the cannons, which are the only means to down an airship, protect the civilians from a gunship, protect the blind seer, or hold the gates to the legendary Hall of Swords (which the BBEG is trying to take control of). Depending on which they go to, different things will be happening in different phases (e.g. don't stop the giants in phase 1, there are no cannons left by phase 3). They cannot achieve all 4 objectives and have to sacrifice something.
My players are currently on a ship in a demiplane called the Circle Sea, where they are looking for the charts which have been stolen from the captain by strange creatures in the mist.
It's hopefully going to see them enter the first actual dungeon of the campaign! But for now, Scheduling is the issue!
My players are currently split up. 2 are talking to a revenant. 1 is wandering halls nearby and the 4th went exploring and just opened the door to find 5 undead sitting around a table.
It could be anywhere from a TPK to them having a boozefest with some undead. Whatever happens, I know my players will surprise me and whatever they come up with will be pretty funny.
My next session is the spin-off game when too few players play the "Main" campaign but still want to play D&D.
This is the summary from the last game and where we will pick up:
The Warehouse 432 Crew discovered that Dretches were the creatures going through people’s trash throughout the Slaughter Docks. Taking this information to Junie Smith to help settle a loan taken out by Warehouse 432 previous owner Oswald Buttons. Junie accepted the party explanation and felt the matter was closed with much appreciation for a job well done she reduced the amount on the loan to pay back and indicated she would look into some more work for them to continue to lower the debt for the warehouse.
Not satisfied their job has been completed the Crew felt there may be a connection between the trash tossing Dretches and the mutilated bodies that have start popping up with various parts of their anatomy expertly removed.
Taking the initiative to this new mystery the Crew visited the White Warf to see if others have been brought in with similar mutilations to the recently discovered. To their surprise, several bodies over the past few weeks have come to the White Warf with similar mutilations. With this discovery, and the number of bodies mounting the members of Warehouse 432 continues to piece together the clues to discover who or what is causing these grisly murders.
While searching the burn pits in the 400 plot, where Railey Farring was found, the crew meets Lavinia Clockwork, a local gossip, who was very aware of the murder from a few weeks ago as well as Dramen Tymber murder in the 410’s plot. Lavinia pointed out that Tigerlily Catts and Sienna Lacework who found the bodies may be able to provide more information about these two murders To gather more information the Crew left off going to visit Sienna Lacework.
Late addition: a beholder will attack the airship while in flight. It should be easy for them to outrun it if they so choose, but if it gets a Telekinesis Ray off: oops, dropped ya.
Late addition: a beholder will attack the airship while in flight. It should be easy for them to outrun it if they so choose, but if it gets a Telekinesis Ray off: oops, dropped ya.
How are you planning to run the "chase" for this situation? I have not found a good mechanic for chases (not a fan of the DMG version) that I've been happy with.
Late addition: a beholder will attack the airship while in flight. It should be easy for them to outrun it if they so choose, but if it gets a Telekinesis Ray off: oops, dropped ya.
How are you planning to run the "chase" for this situation? I have not found a good mechanic for chases (not a fan of the DMG version) that I've been happy with.
I shouldn't need to use any special chase rules in this case. The Beholder has a move speed of 20', whereas the airship has a move speed of 60', and can dash for 120' if the helmsman spends his action. If they choose not to fight they'll be in the Beholder's eye ray range for two rounds as the Beholder pops up in front of them, they pass, and move on. (The airship has limited maneuverability, so they can't just turn on a dime and run back the way they came.)
My party will be returning to their home base and will learn more about the BBEGs. They might end up starting their first real boss fight.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
I'm actually really looking to my next session, we have just invited a new player. The previous session ended with a timed encounter where they were on a boat and saw a grey storm cloud appear above them, they focussed on that and hadn't noticed the Sahuagin board the ship, kill the navigator and steer the ship straight towards the storm where they can see a kraken in the distance (they are level 5). They had to take out the Sahuagin before being sunk and TPK'd by the sea monster, they did it on the final round (I was prepared to have them sunk and killed if they didn't do it!).
And this week is going to start with them finding a naked dwarf in the water, floating on his shield. He was from a boat just sunk by that very kraken, that's how we will introduce him to the party! I haven't figured out how I'm going to get him a weapon yet, but the other guys hae spare armour in their stash.
I'm actually really looking to my next session, we have just invited a new player. The previous session ended with a timed encounter where they were on a boat and saw a grey storm cloud appear above them, they focussed on that and hadn't noticed the Sahuagin board the ship, kill the navigator and steer the ship straight towards the storm where they can see a kraken in the distance (they are level 5). They had to take out the Sahuagin before being sunk and TPK'd by the sea monster, they did it on the final round (I was prepared to have them sunk and killed if they didn't do it!).
And this week is going to start with them finding a naked dwarf in the water, floating on his shield. He was from a boat just sunk by that very kraken, that's how we will introduce him to the party! I haven't figured out how I'm going to get him a weapon yet, but the other guys hae spare armour in their stash.
Could have a dagger or short sword sheathed on the inside of the shield?
His shield is a keg lid, he's a drunken dwarf, hence the nakedness. As he's a fighter he can grab any spare weapon from the other players for now until he finds something, I'm sure there will be a conveniently placed warhammer at some point
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Inspired by How was your last session? Are you looking forward to your next session, or dreading it? Maybe you have a fun combat starting, or maybe you're stuck in a sticky situation. Maybe you're a DM with a big twist to reveal, or maybe there are too many NPCs to memorize the details of and practice voices for.
I'm a DM. My next session is a pretty open-ended one in a city, which makes me nervous. It's very non-linear, and I have to try to plan for everything I think they might try. But it will be an exciting one, since what they do here might lead down one of several plot lines they could branch onto now. I will be hopeful that I can get them to the inflection point this session so I can begin developing that plot line, but realistically it might take a couple of sessions given how long of a to-do list they have for this city.
Next session is an irregular session outside of my reg games. Doing a one shot for a birthday. Still putting it together but I'm using some of the dream races presented in a recent issue of Arcadia along with the same issue's aerial combat rules to do some sort of skyjacking heist, I only got three hours, so it's basically going to be one big set piece for heisting and then an escape/chase in the sky. It'll be fun for me because I've never actually used these aerial rules in an actual scenario, just sort of theory played through some stuff.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I'm DMing a CoS campaign and next session theyre going to the village of Barovia. One of the party members is a tiefling and another is a reborn and I'm wondering how to rp the villagers reactions to them
my name is not Bryce
Actor
Certified Dark Sun enjoyer
usually on forum games and not contributing to conversations ¯\_ (ツ)_/
For every user who writes 5 paragraph essays as each of their posts: Remember to touch grass occasionally
My next session will probably consist of my players fighting their way back out of a dungeon, and then deciding whether to follow orders or charge off after an artifact they just heard about.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
I'm hopefully soon gonna run for a new group of players soon. I plan to have them fight some raiders who attack them, and then do some traveling to a town which will require some survival aspects, and then once they get to the town they are introduced to the plot.
Bandit raids are a great way to develop party unity without having to worry if your PCs alignments are at all compatible. Once you've laid your lives on the line for each other, considerations like "good" and "evil" become secondary.
We're traveling to the entrance to a drow raider tunnel, where we think our paladin's father figure has been held for the past two months. We've got three (NPC) Silverhair Knights helping us out, but our team isn't great in battle yet, so here's hoping our accidentally-melee-range-again wizard doesn't die (and, as a result, unleash the ancient evil they're sealing away).
Also, with the aforementioned father figure having been held captive for so long, we're terrified about what state he's gonna be in. We're pretty sure he's still alive and we'll be able to rescue him, since we're banking on Eilistraee giving our paladin a prophecy only if there's a chance we can fulfill it, but "alive" is a very broad umbrella.
Got an exciting one coming up. Onboard an airship on a mission to explore some mysterious drow tunnels, they are going to pass a strange smoke ring rising from the forest.
It could go a lot of ways from there, but I've provided some fun combats for each path.
My party knows they need to find several powerful artifacts, each one granting the BBEG a different power or protection. They have leads on WHERE the items might be, but absolutely nothing on WHAT they are or what sort of buffs they're giving him. It's mostly going to be a research episode, but I'm planning a few different combat or social encounters, just to keep things interesting. Also if they ask the wrong questions in the wrong place, people are going to get veeeeeery suspicious of this group.
I always look forward to the next session. If you play in the Isentaan campaign, don't read any further.
My players are headed to the warrior-monk monastery of Cruul, unsure what their reception will be, but they freed a monk prisoner several sessions ago whilst raiding a Duergar fortress inside a mountain and are hoping to see him (they will actually arrive ahead of him, because they went to a besieged wizard, helped him out and earned the use of his Teleportation Circle to arrive inside a desert tomb much closer to the monastery).
They know the monastery is due to be attacked within 3 days by a force sent from the BBEG's citadel. When they arrive, the monastery is celebrating a hedonistic festival, and the monks require their 4 abbots (one is a traitor, which the PCs didn't pick up the clues for) to silently discuss everything at length. They'll need to try to get the warrior monks to take the threat seriously. Two of the abbots are helpful, one is a bad guy, and one is a blind seer who has an important prophecy for them that counteracts another prophecy that the BBEG made, and which they discovered around level 4 (they are level 8 now).
A further reason for going there is that one of the PCs has had a book in his possession since level 1 that teaches him secret swordsmanship techniques (battlemaster stuff) that is slowly eating his soul, and is filled with all the souls of the swordsmen who've owned the book over the past thousand years. The book is indestructible (last session they burned it, and it reappeared in his pack) and the blind seer has information that can lead him to the other side of the country where there's a shrine where he can enter a trance to confront the demon inside the book. He needs to figure out that he can't face the book's demon alone, and that he needs to rely on his allies. Whenever the demon invades his dreams it keeps saying things like "I alone am the greatest swordsman," and "I stand alone as the master" and he needs to figure this out or he's probably gonna die facing it in the dream realm. Unlikely we'll get to any of that next session though.
If the attack starts during the next session, it comes by airship and there are 3 phases and 4 locations that they can go to during it and they'll have to choose which to do: defend the cannons, which are the only means to down an airship, protect the civilians from a gunship, protect the blind seer, or hold the gates to the legendary Hall of Swords (which the BBEG is trying to take control of). Depending on which they go to, different things will be happening in different phases (e.g. don't stop the giants in phase 1, there are no cannons left by phase 3). They cannot achieve all 4 objectives and have to sacrifice something.
My players are currently on a ship in a demiplane called the Circle Sea, where they are looking for the charts which have been stolen from the captain by strange creatures in the mist.
It's hopefully going to see them enter the first actual dungeon of the campaign! But for now, Scheduling is the issue!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
My players are currently split up. 2 are talking to a revenant. 1 is wandering halls nearby and the 4th went exploring and just opened the door to find 5 undead sitting around a table.
It could be anywhere from a TPK to them having a boozefest with some undead. Whatever happens, I know my players will surprise me and whatever they come up with will be pretty funny.
My next session is the spin-off game when too few players play the "Main" campaign but still want to play D&D.
This is the summary from the last game and where we will pick up:
The Warehouse 432 Crew discovered that Dretches were the creatures going through people’s trash throughout the Slaughter Docks. Taking this information to Junie Smith to help settle a loan taken out by Warehouse 432 previous owner Oswald Buttons. Junie accepted the party explanation and felt the matter was closed with much appreciation for a job well done she reduced the amount on the loan to pay back and indicated she would look into some more work for them to continue to lower the debt for the warehouse.
Not satisfied their job has been completed the Crew felt there may be a connection between the trash tossing Dretches and the mutilated bodies that have start popping up with various parts of their anatomy expertly removed.
Taking the initiative to this new mystery the Crew visited the White Warf to see if others have been brought in with similar mutilations to the recently discovered. To their surprise, several bodies over the past few weeks have come to the White Warf with similar mutilations. With this discovery, and the number of bodies mounting the members of Warehouse 432 continues to piece together the clues to discover who or what is causing these grisly murders.
While searching the burn pits in the 400 plot, where Railey Farring was found, the crew meets Lavinia Clockwork, a local gossip, who was very aware of the murder from a few weeks ago as well as Dramen Tymber murder in the 410’s plot. Lavinia pointed out that Tigerlily Catts and Sienna Lacework who found the bodies may be able to provide more information about these two murders To gather more information the Crew left off going to visit Sienna Lacework.
Late addition: a beholder will attack the airship while in flight. It should be easy for them to outrun it if they so choose, but if it gets a Telekinesis Ray off: oops, dropped ya.
How are you planning to run the "chase" for this situation? I have not found a good mechanic for chases (not a fan of the DMG version) that I've been happy with.
I shouldn't need to use any special chase rules in this case. The Beholder has a move speed of 20', whereas the airship has a move speed of 60', and can dash for 120' if the helmsman spends his action. If they choose not to fight they'll be in the Beholder's eye ray range for two rounds as the Beholder pops up in front of them, they pass, and move on. (The airship has limited maneuverability, so they can't just turn on a dime and run back the way they came.)
My party will be returning to their home base and will learn more about the BBEGs. They might end up starting their first real boss fight.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
I'm actually really looking to my next session, we have just invited a new player. The previous session ended with a timed encounter where they were on a boat and saw a grey storm cloud appear above them, they focussed on that and hadn't noticed the Sahuagin board the ship, kill the navigator and steer the ship straight towards the storm where they can see a kraken in the distance (they are level 5). They had to take out the Sahuagin before being sunk and TPK'd by the sea monster, they did it on the final round (I was prepared to have them sunk and killed if they didn't do it!).
And this week is going to start with them finding a naked dwarf in the water, floating on his shield. He was from a boat just sunk by that very kraken, that's how we will introduce him to the party! I haven't figured out how I'm going to get him a weapon yet, but the other guys hae spare armour in their stash.
Could have a dagger or short sword sheathed on the inside of the shield?
His shield is a keg lid, he's a drunken dwarf, hence the nakedness. As he's a fighter he can grab any spare weapon from the other players for now until he finds something, I'm sure there will be a conveniently placed warhammer at some point