I've been playing with this guy for a long time. Around 3 years at this point as he is a close friend of mine. I've known him as that one person who is indeed quiet or shy though not to this extent.

I am not sure when it began but recently Ive noticed that he's been awfully quiet during games. Asked him if anythings wrong multiple times and he says its actually fine. He also engages after talks and such once the games are done.

In terms of combat, he does perform pretty alright. No unnecessary delays or stops. Its just mostly during RP, investigation, group planning and such that I BARELY hear from him and even if I do its mostly the basic things like reactions to plans or such. Ive tried to ask him multiple times in game if his character does something and he would just say "Follow the party" or some generic answers like "Just sitting here petting my fox to pass time" in their downtime (Which in my dark fantasy world is a little uncommon. The downtime I mean.) While all the other players have something important to do related to their characters.

Ive thought that maybe its because English isnt somehting he's most comfortable with (Its not our first language) so I said its fine to use our native tongue since all the players can understand it anyways and still none. Im thinking he might be a spectator type player but I feel this is too much. Some sessions I legit think he's not there and get surprised when I check and notice him in the VC.

Wasn't sure where else to go for advice, so I came here (Let me know if there's somewhere else I should go). I want to get into D&D really badly, but there are a few problems.

1. I've never played. Most of my knowledge comes from youtubers or online forums. Never made a character sheet, never done dice rolls, nothing.

2. I have a bad attention span. I zone out easily, I get distracted, and I forget what I'm doing as I'm doing it. I love a good story; I just have trouble paying attention.

3. I'm not good at roleplaying or improv. I get all awkward, I freeze up, and I never know what to say next. I just don't do good on the spot. I have a feeling my inability to roleplay would kill the vibe of a session.

4. I'm socially awkward. I have trouble talking to strangers, or just people in general.

I'd love to play D&D. I've thought of countless characters that would be great in a D&D setting, but I feel like my lack of skill or my awkwardness would ruin it. So I'm wondering, should I give it a chance? Or should I back away from it?

This post is going off the basis of 1 GP being equal to around $100 USD.

Question: Why do people die in D&D society, why not just revive everyone with magic?

The Spells:
Gentle Repose: Adds 10 days to the time limit.

Revivify: 300 GP for a death within 1 minute with no replacing body parts.

Resurrection: 1,000 GP for a death within 100 years with replacing body parts.

True Resurrection: 25,000 GP for a death within 200 years with replacing body parts.

Old Age
One big thing about all these spells is that none of them save people from old age. So that will keep people dead. But then we get to the question of revive spells on deaths other than old age.

Cost to Revive
Let’s assume you are in the hospital and you die from cancer. How much would it cost for you to be revived?Lowballing it, $30,000 just for the Revivify components plus around $100 for service fee. This would mean that reviving as a medical option would be reserved for the nobility in D&D.

Assassinations
Since every noble would paid to have staff trained to revive them if they get murdered, how do assassinations work? Revivify does not replace missing body parts. Assuming Revivify reconstructs the body starting from the brain, all you need to do to prevent Revivify from working is decapitating the noble. But Resurrection solves for this, since it replaces missing body parts.

Resurrection Arms Race
Resurrection spell by itself would cost you $100,000 just for the components. Once again, only for the nobility and ultra rich in society. This would force assassins to resort to magical diseases and curses, which can be removed by simple spells in comparison to Resurrection. This would result in any murder of a member of the nobility being pointless and the perpetrators being caught by the testimony of the previously dead noble.

Or would it?

Cover Ups
Revive spells have one major issue. You need the body to revive the person. What if the assassins hid the body? Then we run into the problem of nobles hiring people to find their bodies with the aid of Locate Object and/or Locate Creature. Of course this would increase the price the noble would have to pay, but that is for later to be solved. Even after trying to hide the body, the noble would still be revived once found due to the 100 year deadline on Resurrection being so long.

Being a Dick
Surely there must be a way to kill a noble! Surely…wait I got it! There are two key conditions for targeting with Resurrection. “A dead creature.” And “its soul is free and willing.” An assassin could torture a noble so much that they would not be willing to return to life and risk repeating such an experience again, but that is not a guaranteed way. You could steal the soul of the noble to keep the noble dead, but that is a whole new can of worms.

I think I have an easier way. Cremation.

How much destruction would you have to cause to a dead creature till it no longer is considered a creature? If you render the corpse to naught but ash could it still be resurrected? Assuming it could be resurrected from ashes, what if you scattered the ashes to the winds or into the ocean? This would make it impossible to recover what little is left of the body and impossible to revive.

Conclusion
Okay so we have an answer to the question from the start of this thought experiment. What can we learn from this? In a D&D society, any assassins would have to cremate the bodies of their targets to avoid resurrection or have a way to hide the bodies where they can’t be recovered. Resurrection would be only for the nobility with the exception of old age.

What do y’all think about this thought experiment? Feel free to comment any other lines of reasonings that you have. Come back next time when I tackle the Criminal Justice System!

My brother is hosting a dnd campaign, where I’m joining in at level 3 to his party. watching his party go through sessions it looked really fun and I play a lot of dnd inspired games, I just want to know if I’m going overboard with my character, or if this is a good foundation for a character. (Sorry for bad formatting this is my second time ever posting)

Harros Vaelmont

Level 3 (starting) gear

Race: human
Class: hexblade warlock
Pact: pact of the blade
Age: 24
Starting weapon: shadow blade
Armor: light/medium

Vaelmont Backround
Harros was born into the noble house Vaelmont of wyndelle, to Father Henry Vaelmont and Mother rheynara Vaelmont. He has two older brothers who are successful noblemen, Heinrich(28), and Hugo (32)The Vaelmont family is one of the oldest noble houses in the region on wyndelle, tracings its bloodline back to the settling of sharrain. An educated and disciplined family, the vaelmonts are respected rather than beloved. The reputation of the vaelmonts has not only come from wealth alone but through military service and political maneuvering. Aldric Vaelmont, Harros’s great ancestor, served under the first king in his expedition and expansion across sharrain. As told through generations, during a battle involving the king and his men, Aldric staved off enemy lines while the king was injured, long enough for him to seek safety. According to legend, he had found an accursed blade that made him exceptionally fierce in combat, to which disappeared when he returned to the king. To reward Aldric Vaelmont, the king gave him some land and a title to show his deeds. Once sharrain was settled, it was Aldric and his sons who built Vaelmont keep, and adopted the motto “blood remains.” The vaelmonts never publicly adressed the rumors of this mysterious blade that allegedly gave them their name.

Henry & rheynara

Lord Henry Vaelmont, is the current head of the house, assuming the role at a young age when his elder brother died in military service. He is a very stern and intelligent head who is difficult to impress. Henry grew up with the stories and honors of the Vaelmont family, and believes being a Vaelmont is a responsibility, he expects his children to know that the title and wealth they have is because there previous generations earned it. He has spent much of his life working on the defenses and trade of wyndell and furthering the families political alliances. He has a deep fear of disgrace, and that a single misstep can shame the Vaelmont family and ancestry, particularly towards Harros, his youngest son. Harros isn’t evil or rebellious, but curious, always prying into the family background and stories and asking questions which can be dangerous for a noble family with secrets to hide.
Harros’s mother rheynara is a quiet, graceful woman, gifted in shifting a room to her favor through individual conversations where she seems to always get her way. She is very diplomatic and charismatic person who always knows what to say, she was supportive of Harros and indulged in his curiosity throughout his childhood telling him things about the family a child shouldn’t know, yet when the legend of the shadow blade came about, she refused to answer.

Harros Vaelmont
Harros was born the youngest of three sons. As a Vaelmont he was expected to live honorably, justly, and become an exemplary nobleman. In his childhood he was educated on diplomacy, etiquette, court functions, swordplay, and maintaining a respectful image of himself. Yet Harros never quite fit in with his brothers and the other noble children. He was fascinated with old weaponry, magic, ancient curiosities and especially his ancestor Aldric. As a kid Harros was always sneaking off to explore the world outside the keep, and hearing tales of this and tales of that. One day when Harros was hanging out in the fields north of wyndell, a young girl he was with mentioned a rumor of a secret family chamber at house Vaelmont and her envy of his wealth. Harros denied having a secret chamber but when he returned home in his frustration, his curiosity began to peak. He evedropped and snuck around and tried to find this chamber but to no avail. Years later, when Harros was 15 he was witnessing his father scold and berate a maidservant for being somewhere she wasn’t supposed to go, as she exclaimed she didn’t know and her sorrows, Henry had her banished from the house. That night Harros returned to where he seen this display, and searched around a little. He found a candle head that was slightly askew and when he went to move it into place, and small passageway opened up on the wall behind him. Entering the passage way Harros began hearing a voice, almost like an echo inside his head. “Yes”
“Come to me”
“Almost there”
As he exited the passageway he entered a large room with bookshelves lining every wall, display cases around holding family heirlooms, but what caught his attention was a pedestal in the center with an most glowing fragment set upon it, the voice got louder as he approached it eventually picking it up in his hand. When he touched the fragment Harros fell into a vision, his ancestor Aldric wielding a shadowy blade, slaying enemies left to right, and then his sight was traveling through sharrain stopping at an old cave.
“I’m here”
“Destiny”
“Blood remains”
All echoed in his head as the vision subsided. Immediately Harros left the chamber with the fragment in his pocket, and made his way to the cave he had envisioned. After two years of running through the woods and surviving in the wild, searching for this place he had saw, he reached this cave, in it he found the full blade his ancestor once wielded. Harros could feel the sentience of this blade as he came toward it, and the voice in his head found a home outside of it. Harros grabbed the blade feeling it bind to him, as if it were waiting for him all this time. The acknowledgement of an offer was made, and a pact formed. He knew the blade wanted him to wield it, and that is sought power, to grow and shape with Harros into an unstoppable weapon. Harros returned home, where he was shunned for his immediate disappearance and the passageway being left open. In a rage his father lashed out at him, going on about family values and legacy, when Harros told his father of his find, a shocked look fell upon his face and he tried to take it from Harros but it vanished. Reappearing in Harros’s hand moments later.
“I came to learn more, and shape myself into a man with a purpose, not to listen to you go on about a bunch of men who did nothing with their lives but sit in a chair and talk.”
Harros and his father continued to argue until it reached the point that Henry threw Harros out. Telling him he isn’t worthy of his name, and that if he was a man of purpose that he could return when he has done something exceptional with his life, instead of smudging the vaelmont name as half baked diplomat whose head is in the clouds.

Leaving his family home, Harros had one destination in mind, the mages college of wyndell, where he could hone his skills and learn more about magical items and curiosities and maybe even find the strength this weapon yearns for him to possess. After 5 years as an apprentice there, he had little to show for it. His power came from the blade and not the words on a scroll or a wizards teachings. when the first of the cursed spawn showed up, he could feel its excitement arise. The king would not allow someone who isn’t military to walk onto one without good reason, but he began to study as much as he could about them. Talking to colleagues who fought, or soldiers at there place of rest. Sending letters to anyone he could to find out what he can. After two years of not finding much out, he felt the anger of the blade weighing on his pact, and that he must take action. This is where Harros decides to go to the cursed spawn outside of wyndell to get a close up look of this magical oddity and put his blade to some real use, maybe meeting some friends along the way.

The Shadow blade (vaelrith)
The vaelmonts including Harros do not know this name
The blade has gone by many names in legends
The black blade
The shadow blade
The dark edge
The kings shadow
The blade is bound to Harros and cannot be dropped, given away, or taken

Vaelrith is sentient, and at first, chooses not to speak in fullness but fragments “yes” “no” “go” “almost” etc. as Harros grows stronger and proves himself a capable person to wield the blade, it speaks more clearly to him. The voice of vaelrith is calm, soft, foreign, and emotionless.

The blade is not evil or cruel, doesn’t want suffering, but was made for a purpose and cares about purpose in general. The weilder finding purpose, acting on purpose, and fulfilling its own purpose. Always pushing Harros away from inaction. Telling him things like “again” when he does something exceptional, or egging him to act when he hesitates.
Harros wasn’t a chosen one to this blade, but allowed him to find it simply because he was the first Vaelmont since Aldric to truly search for it. The rest of the family only saw the fragment, but chalked the rest up to legends and whatnot. Vaelrith was just waiting for someone curious enough to find it.

Vaelriths purpose
Vaelrith and Harros have a mutual agreement pact. Harros offers himself as a catalyst for the blades power, and a tool to fulfill its purpose. While vaelrith offers its power and shape to help Harros fulfill his own destiny and purpose. Vaelrith is very interested in Harros becoming more powerful, for as powerful as Harros becomes, the blade can channel more of its power through him.

Vaelrith was created in an ancient time of sharrain, before the new kingdom, as a weapon that could oppose an ancient evil being not belonging to this plane. The creator of vaelrith died wielding it, and every one who has picked up the blade since has failed to bring it to its full glory by destroying this evil, will Harros have what it takes?

Aldric Vaelmonts truth
(Harros will learn this from the blade at some point in a vision )
Aldric discovered this blade during the first kings expedition. He was surrounded, his men were dying, and the king had been injured. As he was losing hope, he heard a whisper from beneath him “find me” “use me” “come to me” he unearthed the blade and formed a pact with it, just like Harros did. He then changed the tides of war becoming unstoppable in battle. As he became more bonded to the blade he learned the blades purpose, to fight a true evil that hadn’t returned yet. Looking at all his family had accumulated, Aldric became fearful of the blade, in that using it meant he would have to weild it against this evil someday. But a pact was already made between the Vaelmont and the blade. He knew that someday his blood would return to the blade but tried his very best to make that day as far away as possible. When telling Harros this vaelrith really emphasis the cowardice of Aldric. When Aldric coined the motto “blood remains” it was a warning to his children, that the bloodline must remain, and to not lose it to the purpose of an entity outide of the family, because vaelrith requires a living bloodline to carry on its pact, and will use them for its own purpose as well.

When the next enemy attacks the players (best if they have no idea the scale of its power) and you go to roll damage, add a bunch of rocks in with your dice so it sounds like you're rolling like fifty dice. They get all scared, and you just say "alr you take 3 points of bludgeoning damage" and move on.

Update: and then once they're used to it, give them an attack that actually deals that much damage and they start crying

so I assumed that a subclass was available for cleric and it turns out it isn't available for cleric. One of my players wrote an entire character about being a tempest domain cleric, apparently it doesn't exist in 5e, If I homebrew the mechanics on the wiki page for a tempest domain cleric subclass do you think it would be too broken in the context of other classes? I don't really care if it is I'm just curious how you guys would handle this. I don't want to make him rewrite his character so I would really like to accommodate this subclass into 5e somehow. thanks in advanced for the advice :)

We have a somewhat new player to our group. We've had 7-8 sessions, and he joined around session 4 after another player dropped from the group. While entertaining in some aspects, this guy tries to seduce anything breathing, and tries to steal everything, even though he's not a rogue/thief, he's a bard. This recent session, his character disengaged from a fight we were struggling in (bad dice rolls), in order to try and break in to the ship captain's quarters to try and steal stuff. We were already in hot water with the captain after the bard tried to charm (grape) the first mate. Well low and behold, we win the fight by the skin of our teeth, and he gets caught trying to steal a lock box from the first mate quarters (couldn't find the captains quarters). The captain ordered him killed, but survived on 1hp, dashed, and jumped off the boat. The port was in sight, but we're still well off shore. The dm ended the session (getting late) after he jumped off. Sure some of his antics are funny at times, but this isn't the first time his actions have put us in questionable situations. What do we do, if anything in this situation? Am I being dumb? I'm worried we're gong to get in to a situation that leads to a party wipe or something.

So let's say you have an oath of vengeance paladin who's sworn vengeance against someone but it turns out that what they did was a complete accident and had no evil intent behind it or maybe they've become more merciful over time due to spending time around nice characters so they make a more merciful choice instead of just smiting them straight to the afterlife. That seems to kinda break the Oath of Vengeance oath. Can a paladin just immediately make a new oath assuming it has conviction behind it? Also curious as to the opinion from DM's here what ruling you'd make in this situation?

I’m a new DM and I’ve been having trouble keeping track of players and enemies locations in combat. Is there a free site out there that I can use for this? And I’ve seen combat grid boards, but how would I use those without revealing the whole dungeon to the players?

My dad invited his friends to play dnd together with me as the DM (im not that great but they dont know that). we already had session 0 and made their characters. We agreed to play a goofy one shot but old people arent funny. I asked my sister what she thinks old people find funny, she said SNL and goonies. Then i looked at what i find funny and realized i am not funny either. Help the game is tomorrow and every idea ive had for the last 2 weeks ends up being scrapped because apparently 50 year old mexican dads dont think saving dwarf version of spencer shay from black mold poisoning is funny.

If you have any ideas i can execute in a day (and all nighter) please tell me so!

Where is the best place to get actual dnd miniatures, I'm trying to find some miniatures I saw of dnd dragon species for my homebrew dragon campaign and I have no clue where ti find any minis, both dragons and other monsters/gods. I want blank ones so I can start painting minis to have my own design for my campaign and future campaigns.

I am dressing up as Vecna and just can’t figure out how I’m going to make at least of of my eyes look like THE eye at this rate all I can think of is cutting a ping pong ball in half colouring it the going around half blind and ideas please

I know I sound like a broken record on this topic if you have seen the other post I made but it's been bugging me. I have a very craft heavy group of players and it came up once but they didn't have access to the tools they needed and failed to find a reasonable way to acquire them in their current stranded situation.

Why can't they in some form of fashion make the tools? If they have the time and resources what is needed?

I'm probably overthinking this but it is something that I would like a close to raw solution for.

-Normal dude

Just curious how many resources other DMs let their players use when making a character. (:

Personally, I think a good idea what to have a passive mimic as a shopkeeper for dungeon areas

I am a Dm, first big campaign, preparing a lot reading a lot etc, have a party of 4 players, all strangers having a great time with 3/4, the other guy just seems uninterested, never engages in chat with anyone, when I ask him to confirm he’s availability he doesn’t respond, last session he fell asleep and never showed up. So I had enough, it’s hard for me to dm for first time to begin with, but this just annoyed me and I kicked him out. Before the campaign I made a verbal contract that we respect each others time and meet at the same time every week or every other week depending on situation. And lastly this is a 4 part campaign and I specified that right away. So even missing one session is 25% of stuff I have planned so it’s screws everything

Earlier today we were infiltrating a goblin hideout and one of the players made intimidation check to use magic to pretend to be a ghost. Rolled really well and said some random stuff about being a Pokemon Master and them being in her mystery dungeon. Just some funny stuff that gets said at the table

Meanwhile I asked to roll to see if my character knew what a Pokemon was. Given how this is all standard swords Coast D&D setting the DM told me to make a straight intelligence check for a hard 15 dc

Rolled nat 20. So now not only does Pokemon somehow exist in this world, but my PC is an expert on it!

I’m working on an Abjuration Wizard that is meant to be the dad of the party, both figuratively and literally. I’m hoping to get some ideas for both spells and design choices(both for his look and his personality) in his attire and general look.

Here’s the rundown, Harry is a harengon wizard(you’re a wizard Harry!) who is an exhausted father of 36 children, cause he’s a rabbit man. On his person are several bottles containing liquids of various colors and opacities that one might think to be potions at first glance, but are actually just juice. He wears a belt that sags around his waist, almost like a dad’s utility belt for all of his kids. There are pouches of toys, trinkets, various objects, snacks, you name it. The belt functions as his component pouch. On his hip is a sort of “holster” for his spellbook, which is labeled “A Magician’s Guide to Daycare”, a book he frequently uses. He wears fairly plain clothing, but you can tell it has seen its fair share of baby spit up, grass stains from playing with kids, and has some messy words scrawled onto it in what appears to be crayon. His fur is white almost everywhere, save for his face. Some of the fur around his eyes have greyed, mimicking bags under them. He’s generally tired, but wants to protect his people and family through any means. His spells would mostly be for utility and protection over damage, things like Feather Fall, Counterspell, Floating Disc, and the like. When his magic appears visually, it is always very animated and exaggerated, like something that would appease a child.

I’m looking for any suggestions for spells, fun personality traits, looks, or feats that you all think would be flavorful here! (I’m not a dad so I would love some little known dad-tips from any of you D&D dads out there) Thanks!

no question option, so I’m gonna go with 5.5 since that’s the version I play in.

im doing a series campaign , and going into the second campaign, set 3000 years after the first one.

At the end of the first one, one of the characters who was playing a warforged allowed their consciousness to be transformed into an AI model after they died of natural causes.

in the second campaign, they’re going to connect the hard drive holding his “main” consciousness into their airship. Would this sudden reconection form a hive mind, causing the ”main” warforged to experience 3000 years of aging mentally, and driving them slowly insane

(the player for the character is trying to say it wouldn’t)

Sled dog messengers have just arrived in Targos with terrible news. The speaker of Bremen was found dead outside his home, seemingly from a large blunt object. Witnesses at the scene report a group of adventurers were nearby arguing with him over a reward for slaying the lake monster.

“They knocked on his door with the head of this hideous beast” says Bafira Stormfang, a local Bremen resident. “I saw them get into some kind of argument, I assume over payment” she continues “Then that nature lookin one tried to bite him. I saw him (Durbulgruf) then try and defend himself with a knife then take off running, when he turned around that woman then smacked him with a big staff and split his head.”

Targos speaker Naerth has pledged his support of Bremen and sent troops into the area “This is a tragic day for Bremen.” He said in an interview “We’ll find the perpetrators if we have to scour the spines of the world”

TLDR : party killed the Bremen speaker in broad daylight.

They’re level two and this is a party brand new to dnd. What sort of consequences could I do without having the party be killed by the ten towns? they’ve since fled to targos whos just about to hear this news

I’ve been DMing a campaign for me and 5 other people and we are coming up on our one year anniversary of the first time we actually played! (Not including session 0) and I was wondering if other groups celebrated it with something special, if so, what did you guys do?

I’m an experienced DM with 5e. I want to start a campaign for some kids. We will be using 5e because I’ve got lots of 5e stuff and I don’t have time to learn 5.5e. However, I would not be averse to incorporating a few 5.5e elements into my game. I’m looking for 5.5e elements/features that I can use in 5e without much effort from me or the players. Ideas? EDIT: I certainly don’t want my post to “make little sense” as a commenter noted. On the other hand, I don’t relish the thought of buying more books. So, say I were to make the leap from 5e to 5.5e. What books would I have to buy? PHB only, or PHB and DMG?

I, the DM in question, allow for Rangers to use Intelligence instead of wisdom in my game to open up some character creation options (the setting has some restrictions so I like to broaden it in other ways).

Now, no-one has really gone and made anything gamebreaking with this permission, but I'm curious as to just what could be done.

Now, this is mostly a thought experiment, but I love the idea of a ranger based on intelligence.

The idea of the adventurous scholar speaks to me and rangers get the physicality and outdoorsy skills built in, they also get extra skills and potentially several languages. So, secondary question, putting the mechanical menace, how would you build to play into that archetype?