D&D Next - 5e Discussion

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WoTC is partnering with FoundryVTT to enhance it's 5e game system. They will also be selling the revamped books later this year.

There is no overlap with DND beyond, unfortunately. More info at FAQ below:

https://foundryvtt.com/article/dungeons-dragons-arrives/#faq

First off, I really don’t care for the default 5E character sheets. I feel like there is never enough space to convey what you want and things aren’t where I would personally prefer them.

I generally enjoy making my own custom character sheets, but I am about to join an in-person game as a player and I was thinking of being a bit extra about my sheet. I’ve seen some advertisements for notebooks or folios that are relatively small/lightweight but have multiple pages so there’s room for all your features and gear. When I saw these ads I didn’t pay them too much attention because I almost never play as a character and when I do, it’s never usually in person. Because of that, I do t recall what they were called or where to get them.

Anyone got any suggestions for cool stuff you being to in-person games to keep track of your character? I’m not really just looking for a simple pdf of an alternative sheet, but more like physical books, notepads, dice towers/holders, or clipboards that I can bring to game night.

Thanks in advance

Welcome back to Advent's Amazing Advice! The series where I take popular One-Shots, Adventures, Campaigns, etc. and fully prep them for both New and Busy DMs. This prep includes music, ambiance, encounter sheets, handouts, battle maps, tweaks, and more so you can run the best sessions possible with the least stress possible!

The results are in and I'm excited to announce that Nyx and Alanna (AJ) are the 1st and 2nd place winners of Advent's One-Shot Challenge! The goal was simple, to find people who could prep in a style similar to mine so that I could work with them and expand Advent's Amazing Advice! I was blown away with the results and I'm proud to show you what they've come up with!

The Delian Tomb is a Level 1 Introductory One-Shot based on Matt Colville's first episode of his Running the Game series on YouTube.

This adventure begins in the backwaters of a small kingdom, it's a quiet place...most of the time. Recently, there has been an influx of goblins in the region and some of the foul creatures have even begun attacking the farms in the outskirts of the village. Your players are all friends, just traveling through, in search of adventure. It isn't long before they find themselves mixed up in the business of Goblins and pursuing a kidnapped child into the depths of a long-forgotten tomb. This is their opportunity to prove themselves, and to rescue someone in need...if they can survive the perils of The Delian Tomb!

Below you'll find the winner's notes updated by me with all the tweaks and formatting you've come to know and love.

Without further ado:

• Google Docs Notes for The Delian Tomb (Nyx): DM Notes
• Link to: The Delian Tomb Playlist (Nyx)
• Link to The Delian Tomb PDF: Version 1
• Link to: The AAA Collection + Original and Second place versions

Included in The AAA Collection is:

• A Word document with all my notes, including links to music tracks for ambiance and fights
• Special PDF for all encounters. This includes the enemy stat blocks organized neatly, along with an initiative tracker and a spot to mark HP
• Spellsheet Handout for the Goblin Shaman
• Custom Maps (Credits: u/sladank, uchideshi34 (Jon), grant1derlin, CragtheLAD)

Index:

Other One Shots, Adventures, and Campaigns:

• The Lost Mine of Phandelver - Click Here
• Dragons of Stormwreck Isle - Click Here
• The Wild Sheep Chase - Click Here
• The Haunt - Click Here
• We Be Goblins - Click Here
• Scarab of Death - Click Here
• Don't Say Vecna - Click Here
• The Egg of Estyr - Click Here
• Into Ivy Mansion - Click Here
• Wolves of Welton - Click Here
• To the End of Time - Click Here
• A Most Potent Brew - Click Here
• Moon over Graymoor - Click Here
• The Drunken Treasure - Click Here
• Curse of Strahd - Click Here (W.I.P)
• A Grimdark Adventure - Click Here
• A Wild West One-Shot - Click Here
• The Wizards Treehouse - Click Here
• D&D vs Rick and Morty - Click Here
• A Prison Break One-Shot - Click Here
• A Holiday One-Shot (2023) - Click Here
• The Barber of Silverymoon - Click Here
• The Tavern at Death's Door - Click Here
• The Night Before Wintermas - Click Here
• L'Arsène's Ludicrous Larceny - Click Here
• Shadow of the Broodmother - Click Here
• Grammy's Country Apple Pie - Click Here
• A Deep and Creeping Darkness - Click Here
• The Secret of Skyhorn Lighthouse - Click Here

It was such a fantastic experience working with others on this! You'll see plenty more of Nyx and Alanna in the future!

As always, if you see something you think I can improve, add, change, etc. please let me know. I want this to be an amazing resource for all DMs and plan to keep it constantly updated! If you'd like to support me, shape future releases, and get content early feel free to check out my Patreon!

Cheers, Advent

Discussion with crawford concerning the playtest feedback from the most recent playtest

• Everything scored really well (in the 80s for most things, monk was the highest rated, most features in the 90s, might be considered "most improved class")

• revised version of the healing spells scored high

• Tasha's summoning spells will be imported into the PHB

• 2014 conjuration/summoning spells rework scored really well and will be kept

• They are deep in internal development for the upcoming PHB

• May is not the release date as was purported before

• "We will still be working on the PHB in may"

• Dwarf art from pax is not the cover for the PHB. That's from the fighter section

• This was the last unearthed arcana for the upcoming revisions

• New encounter building rules are going through a lot of rework and playtesting

• Revised DMG will have a significantly streamlined encounter building system

Here is a collection of 50 free battlemaps for the holidays.

These maps represent hundreds of hours of work which I am able to do thanks to every single one of my supporters. I never thought that I would be able to support myself by making maps and I am extremely grateful for all of this!!

If you enjoy my work then please consider supporting me on Patreon. Supporters will get access to all of my watermark-free maps, gridded variants, and other map variations in a VTT-friendly file format.

If you want to see the entirety of maps I've ever made, check out my map archive.

Enjoy your holidays and I hope these maps serve useful in your games!

Hey, everyone my name is Advent, and I run a Patreon called Advent's Amazing Advice! I take popular One-Shots, Adventures, Campaigns, etc., and fully prep them for New and Busy DMs. My prep includes detailed notes, music, ambiance, maps, encounter sheets, handouts, and tweaks so you can run the best sessions with the least stress possible!

I've been working on Advent's Amazing Advice for well over a year now! Thanks to all the support of my Patrons, I'm finally in the position where I can add someone to the team to lighten the load of prepping! With their assistance, I'll be able to expand the ways I can help everyone!

In order to find the perfect person, I'm creating a contest. The rules are simple. The person who can prep a One-Shot in a style most similar to mine will be the winner. I'll be judging this based on the following:

Main Criteria

• Formatting

(ie. How close you can match my style)

• Improvements

(includes additions; as well as flow, ease of use, etc.)

• Music Selection

(Picking the perfect tracks to match each scene) (*Create a YouTube playlist)

• Including additional resources

(ie. maps, handouts, encounters sheets, etc.)(Be sure to properly credit)

• Packaging

(Delivering the Prep the same way I would (ie. Folder Organization))

The One-Shot that contestants will be working on will be The Delian Tomb. I've chosen this one because it's short, has multiple versions, and is made for beginners to D&D. How you choose to prep will allow me to see how well you can get into the mind of a new DM; ensuring they have all the tools at their disposal to run an Amazing session!!!

Not only will the winner be joining the team*, but there will be prizes! Additionally, if 2nd and 3rd place impress me enough with their quality, they might just find themselves being called up to collaborate in the future!

Prizes

• 1st - $100 and have your prep featured on Advent's Amazing Advice
• 2nd - $50
• 3rd - $25

Deadline - 1/15/24

If this sounds like something you're interested in, you can get started by downloading the Contest Resources by Clicking Here or Here. Once you've finished, you can upload your files to Google Docs and send an email with the link, as well as to the YouTube playlist that you created!

Email - [email protected]

For those of you who haven't seen my work before, you'll find an example of my Into Ivy Mansion prep in the Contest Resources Pack. I've also included additional examples of my prep below.

• Dragons of Stormwreck Isle - Click Here
• A Most Potent Brew - Click Here
• Index of over 4 dozen sessions with previews - Click Here

Position Info

• Pay: I’m offering the same amount that I charge for commissions, so $100 for each One-Shot Prepped; with up to a bonus $100 for each completed project based on how closely the person can match my style. If the person is good enough, then they’ll eventually be able to switch over to receiving a percentage of all profits from Advent’s Amazing Advice instead! Payment is via Venmo, but other ways can be worked out if needed!
• Content Production/Hours: - I’m looking for someone who can fully prep between 1-2 One-Shots a month, you can choose when, where, and how to complete the work! I’ll be guiding the person to match my style and be there to help with anything that pops up along the way.

I can't wait to see how this turns out and I'm so excited to have the chance to be able to do something like this. Thank you all so much, without you, I could never have imagined coming this far! If you have any questions at all, please don't hesitate to ask!

Cheers,

Advent

* Joining the team is contingent on producing high-quality content and being a person others would want to work with!

I hope everyone is having a Fantastic December! With the Holidays in full swing, I wanted to give everyone here a present, by doing all the prep work for a fantastic Holiday One-Shot for you! Then, in turn, you can gift that experience to your players! And what better gift is there for players who have been so good, than an opportunity to let loose and be evil for a change! Yes, that's right, The Night before Wintermas is specifically designed for Level 5 Evil/Neutral aligned players.

Thanks to the creative mind of jmanc, you'll bring your players to The Town of Frosthold and join a morally bankrupt Toy and Tabacco company to put an end to Santa's charitable operations by Infiltrating his workshop and dealing with the problem for good!

Experience holiday music to fit every scene, face your favorite Christmas Characters...in a battle to the death, earn unique magic items to help you take on the fat man, and live vicariously through your newly evil characters! This is a One-Shot you won't want to miss!

Without further ado:

• Google Docs Notes for The Night Before Wintermas: DM Notes (Preview)
• Google Docs Notes for The Town of Frosthold: DM Notes
• Link to: The Night Before Wintermas PDF
• Link to: The Night Before Wintermas Playlist
• Link to: The AAA Collection

Included in The AAA Collection is:

• A Word document with all my notes including links to music tracks for ambiance and fights
• Special PDF for the encounter. This includes the enemy stat block organized neatly along with an initiative tracker and a spot to mark HP
• An Alternate encounter PDF for Frosty and The Snowmen *(Updated 2023)
• Custom Maps for Santa's Grotto
• Custom Boss Fight Music
• Handouts for the Scrolls of Haste and Invisibility
• A Preview PDF of Flee Mortals

Other One Shots, Adventures, and Campaigns:

• Dragons of Stormwreck Isle - Click Here
• The Wild Sheep Chase - Click Here
• The Haunt - Click Here
• We Be Goblins - Click Here
• Scarab of Death - Click Here
• Don't Say Vecna - Click Here
• The Egg of Estyr - Click Here
• Into Ivy Mansion - Click Here
• Wolves of Welton - Click Here
• To the End of Time - Click Here
• A Most Potent Brew - Click Here
• Moon over Graymoor - Click Here
• The Drunken Treasure - Click Here
• Curse of Strahd - Click Here (W.I.P)
• A Grimdark Adventure - Click Here
• A Wild West One-Shot - Click Here
• The Wizards Treehouse - Click Here
• D&D vs Rick and Morty - Click Here
• A Prison Break One-Shot - Click Here
• A Holiday One-Shot (2023) - Click Here
• The Barber of Silverymoon - Click Here
• The Tavern at Death's Door - Click Here
• The Night Before Wintermas - Click Here
• L'Arsène's Ludicrous Larceny - Click Here
• Shadow of the Broodmother - Click Here
• Grammy's Country Apple Pie - Click Here
• The Secret of Skyhorn Lighthouse - Click Here

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did! If you have any advice on how I can improve my notes further, please let me know either here or leave a comment on the Google doc itself! If you'd like to support me, shape future releases, and get content early, feel free to check out my Patreon!

Cheers,

Advent

Booming Blade:

You brandish the weapon used in the spell’s casting and make a melee attack with it against one creature within 5 feet of you.

Extra attack:

Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.

I think we can agree that Booming Blade is casting a spell (a cantrip). Obviously I can't use Booming Blade twice.

But does the fact that it's a spell that makes a melee weapon attack count as "taking the attack action"?

In other words - if I cast Booming Blade, am I locked out of Extra Attack because I took a "Cast a Spell" action instead of an "Attack" action? Or do I still get an extra attack because casting the spell made me take the Attack action?

A video review of an alternative system to succeed 5e.

The primary advantage to 5e is that everyone knows it and you can always get players. Getting a table convinced to play an alternate system is always hard. But it's fun to explore those alternates nevertheless

Hey there everyone, I am back with v1.1 of my Latex Template for making D&D Item Cards. I received one major point of feedback from multiple people in the fediverse: make an option for fixing the card dimensions for easier printing and distribution/storage at the table. So that is exactly what I did!

Now you can choose the (admitedly more user-friendly) option of letting the card length vary for digital distribution, or you can fix the card aspect ratio. The item art background and text backgrounds can also now be changed, and a number of options have been included for item art backgrounds, but you can use whatever images you want.

Example Cards

The fixed-size cards are 5:7 by default, the same as playing cards. They include a front and back side for longer item descriptions, but you will have to edit the text more carefully and decide where to split between front/back content.

For the printable card item art, I highly recommend using a PNG with a transparent background and modifying tcolorbox interior style to set your background. Ensure your backgound art is close to 7:5 for best results. You can also load your image as the background art if you'd like instead, again, making sure it is in 7:5.

Hi folks, hit me with your best wizard shenanigans. I'm playing a near-zero-damage chronugist control wizaard and just hit level 7. Starting to thing about picking up the right spells for level 10 when Arcane Abeyance kicks in.

Hello!

I need some insight about who to include in a rogues-gallery-type meeting of villains who my new group will overhear coordinating the downfall of a small kingdom. They are one session into surviving an attack on the capital, but I haven't decided who they will overhear in a secret meeting beneath the castle. It will be the royal court magician having a conversation with projected images of a group of villains who all coordinated to bring about the attack. Any ideas of characters to include in this group? I'm thinking about Asmodeus, a neighboring king/queen (specific recommendations welcome), maybe a modified Nilbog, and a God of vengeance or something. These ideas are all pretty loose, so recommendations welcome!

After starting some earnest homebrewing efforts for magic items in my campaign, I was getting frustrated with the limited options for item cards I could give to my players. I am not great with illustrator/photoshop, have terrible handwriting, didn't particularly like the form-fillable cards I found online, and the homebrewery/GMbinder templates I found are better as pages out of a book than single cards imo. So I decided to make my own item card generator using LaTeX.

This template gives a (semi) form-fillable base that should work for any magic item. All the fields included are toggle-able, so you can select what fields you want to populate, it accepts item art so you can include a visual cue for your players (but still works without it!), and will auto adjust the length of the card so that you don't have to worry about dimensions.

It outputs both a PDF (for printing) and a PNG (with transparent background for digital sharing) so you can choose the format you prefer. It also allows multiple cards of different sizes on a single document in case you want to print out all your items at once. Attached is an example of the png from one of my items (all my item art is ai generated, I can't draw worth a lick).

I am not sure how big the intersection is between fediverse users, DND nerds, and people who use LaTeX is, but I am squarely in that camp. I hope that people find this useful, and would love feedback if anyone has suggestions!

https://imgur.com/a/QIgFZ6n

Copying this from a comment I made a few months ago, I'd like to try having an "adventuring week" rather than an "adventuring day", i.e. have X encounters per in-game week(ish) rather than the same number per in-game day. The Gritty Realism variant rules basically provide this though I think the name really puts people off; I'm not trying to add realism, just make it so you can have actual meaningful resource-draining encounters as part of something like a week-long travel (currently I'd need to throw in so many encounters that it becomes tedious, or have one-encounter days which we all know the problems with!)

Has anyone tried Gritty Realism before, and if so how did you implement it and how did you find it? My main question would be:

• How many days did you have per long rest?
  • I'm thinking probably three (so two short rests per long rest) but that's more a guideline for me the DM when planning rather than mandating a minimum time between long rests.
• How long were your long rests and did they need to be in a "safe haven"?
  • I think something like at least 24 hours of downtime in a safe-ish place (including two sleeps), though again it's on me the DM to make sure safe havens are common enough.
• How did you adjust spell times?
  • 1 minute stays as 1 minute, it's meant to last a single combat
  • 1 hour up to several hours, could last multiple combats but doesn't persist after a short rest
  • 8 hours up to several days, lasts most of the adventuring week (e.g. mage armour)
  • 24 hours up to several days, at least as long as the adventuring week

Welcome back to Advent's Amazing Advice! The series where I take popular One-Shots, Adventures, Campaigns, etc. and fully prep them for both New and Busy DMs. This prep includes fully fleshed-out notes, music, ambiance, encounter sheets, handouts, battle maps, tweaks, and more so you can run the best sessions possible with the least stress possible!

We're back at it again with another Level 1+ One-Shot, this time by the amazing Jennifer Adcock! Grammy's Country Apple Pie is the perfect One-Shot to run for a group of kids who are looking to just have some fun. They can go in the hard way and try to fight everything or they can try to practice those bard-like skills and converse their way through the challenges!

In Grammy's Country Apple Pie, a wizard named Tyndareus develops a craving for a special treat from his childhood, he will stop at nothing to get his hands on the best apple pie in the whole world. He hires your group to seek out the bakery that once produced the wonderful dessert – unfortunately for them, the bakery has long since been overrun by goblins. But all is not as it seems at Grammy’s Bakery, and Tyndareus isn’t the only one who’d do anything for those pies.

Parents and Teachers can oftentimes be even busier than the rest of us and with this Fully Prepped One-Shot I hope I can help get families together and bring new generations of players to the table!

Without further ado:

• Google Docs Notes for Grammy's Country Apple Pie: DM Notes (Preview)
• Link to Adventure: Grammy's Country Apple Pie
• Link to: Grammy's Country Apple Pie Playlist
• Link to: The AAA Collection

Included in The AAA Collection is:

• A Word document with all my notes including links to music tracks for ambiance and fights
• Special PDF for all encounters. This includes the enemy stat blocks organized neatly along with an initiative tracker and a spot to mark HP
• Custom Maps of Grammy's Bakery

Other One Shots, Adventures, and Campaigns:

• The Lost Mine of Phandelver - Click Here
• Dragons of Stormwreck Isle - Click Here
• The Wild Sheep Chase - Click Here
• The Haunt - Click Here
• We Be Goblins - Click Here
• Don't Say Vecna - Click Here
• The Egg of Estyr - Click Here
• Into Ivy Mansion - Click Here
• Wolves of Welton - Click Here
• To the End of Time - Click Here
• A Most Potent Brew - Click Here
• Moon over Graymoor - Click Here
• A Wild West One-Shot - Click Here
• The Drunken Treasure - Click Here
• A Grimdark Adventure - Click Here
• D&D vs Rick and Morty - Click Here
• The Wizards Treehouse - Click Here
• A Prison Break One-Shot - Click Here
• The Barber of Silverymoon - Click Here
• The Tavern at Death's Door - Click Here
• The Night Before Wintermas - Click Here
• L'Arsène's Ludicrous Larceny - Click Here
• Shadow of the Broodmother - Click Here
• Grammy's Country Apple Pie - Click Here
• The Secret of Skyhorn Lighthouse - Click Here
• Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk - Click Here (W.I.P)

If you see something you think I can improve, add, change, etc. please let me know. I want this to be an amazing resource for all DMs and plan to keep it constantly updated! If you'd like to support me, shape future releases, and get content early feel free to check out my Patreon!

Cheers,

Advent

Ive Not followed the scene and Releases closely since a long time, but i remember the newer WotC releases being rather unsatisfying for the community. This Was due to a variety of reasons.

In vacuum Planescape should be my favorite DnD book but the quality of recent releaes aswell as the OGL disaster has disuaded me from purchasing any New books. How is your experience with the book and its contents?

Update video about the upcoming revision for 2024 Some highlights:

• Fully backwards compatible with 2014+ D&D books
• Can have a 2014 character next to a 2024 character at the same table/game
• Most of the classes/changes theyre keeping have high approval ratings
• Fey warlock has something like 89% approval rate
• All major class changes/revisions have been/will be in UA before release
• There will still be minor changes (spells, other class changes, etc.) outside of that which won't be
• Probably will be previews next year
• The three new books will the largest version the game has ever had (close to 1000 pages combined)
• treasure is different (and will be noted in the MM)
• There will be more common magic items
• "there should be more ways to engage with high level play, and we can address that" - not sure what this will mean, but noteworthy statement
• world tree barbarian is in, brawler is out
• 9 of the 12 classes are moving forward, with just the druid, monk, and barbarian needing revisions

Made a beholder for Hallowe'en this year. I used offcuts from other pumpkins for the eye-stalks.

Hello! It is my first post here so I wanted to share something that I've made for the community!

The standalone character sheet is free, and you can find the links to the free PDF on my Patreon, Ko-Fi or my Gumroad store, which ever you prefer! ^^ I also have a few other free goodies if you follow the same links so don't hesitate to check them out.

If you really like the character sheet or would like to support me, consider buying the 3 page set, or even joining my patreon for any new creations I make. I post TTRPG related stuff there, from maps, to character art of my OC, character sheets, spell cards, etc. It's the thought that counts, so even just sharing this would make my day. ^w^

I hope the character sheets serve y'all well! ^^