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I do like resistance rings, they can really make a character feel specialized against a certain damage type without drastically shifting the party's balance
@@twistedpinttavern yeah or give them a wand of a magic spell they will get later that way You Can give them a Lil taste of what they will get at higher lv's i would give them a wand of fire ball that only has 1 charge per Day That way until they unlock it they will have to be VERY Sure they should use it now or later
The Coin Pouch. Once each day one coin of each type appear in it. 1cp, 1sp, 1ep, 1gp, 1pp. The amount of money soon becomes irrelevant but early on it can keep a party that is down on its luck (or in prison, maybe?) some cheap meals and space in the common room to crash for the night. The Pouch of Munchies. At approximately noon each day the possessor can utter the command Lunch and the pouch fills with a wholesome meal. The meal varies some but typically consists of a sandwich, a generous hunk of cheese and a piece of fruit.
The coin pouch sounds cool, I could definitely see it breaking economy heavy games, but in ones with less focus on that it probably wouldn't be a big hindrance. The munchies one is fun, too!
fun items regardless of level :) The biggest challenge is actually finding one of them (or affording one should you happen across it at the local market).
I loved the lowlevel items from 4e. The Restfull Bedroll gives you 1d8 of temp HP if you sleep in it during your Long Rest. The Lucky Coin was a consumable item, blessed by the rhe Goddess of Luck. It always lands with the face you want up. You can however, consume this power, to give yourself a +1 to an Ability Check. Doing this turns the coin into a regular coin.
As my party just reached level 5; I'm going to have to remember a lot of these items for them! Though, they already have a cloak of protection that we re-skinned into a shoulder pad for the barbarian for aesthetic reasons. For me though, a "low level" magic item I always love giving is some kind of weapon with a 1d4 elemental bonus. It adds a little damage to make the players feel like they're doing more, and I love letting them add some RP flavor with it as well. In the current game I'm running, the barbarian mentioned above has a war hammer with added fire damage. He'll constantly talk about how, even on a miss, whatever his hammer slams into; flames burst out from the impact. Great for adding to intimidation, and I even let him light the nightly camp fire with it... As yes; the wizard could say a few words and hand movements to have the logs burst into flames... But having a 7 foot tall angry tabaxi start it by smashing the logs with his hammer is so much cooler~
Elemental weapons like that are always fun! I've personally found that, after a while, my players started to prefer items with a bit more unique function, even if entirely mundane, just because they love those flavor items. But even in that case, elemental enchantments are always great!
One of my favorites - the Bigger Knife. It’s a homebrew item I tripped across and often give it to a first level rogue or hunter. It’s got some use, but it’s more funny than useful. “Bigger Knife, A large dagger that provides +1 to hit and +1 to intimidation. Dagger will grow to be slightly larger than anyone else's dagger in the room. On a failed intimidation check, the knife will turn into a spoon till dawn.”
Another really cool item Is bag of tricks, I basically homebrewed it for a group Iran that as long as you're not outside of combat you can reach in and guarantee the creature you want... low level party gave it to the Druid and they had a constant direwolf that they call fluffy lol
@@twistedpinttavern that thing acted as their early tank and then later down the line they wanted to do awake spell on it and then talked about giving it sidekick rules. Rules as written it would not die from old age but it would only be around if someone pulled it out of the bag
The balance thing, about not being completely DM or player driven, i balance my game out by letting my players do or at least try anything, but I use a ton of random charts, and dice rolls to determine how things go. I can explain better if anyone's curious, but I'll keep it short for now lol
@@Arlesmon okay, so for example, say your players are engaging in some activities in the town, that guards might not look to kindly upon. I don't just have guards show up out of nowhere to ruin things for them, I'll make a roll, or in most cases, flip a coin a player gave me years ago that says "hell yes" on one side and "hell no" on the other (that coin has made more decisions then any one else at my table lol) and if I get a no, then they'll get a little more time with their task, and try again, if I keep getting "no" I'll eventually just be like "guess there's no guards on patrol right now over here", but if I get a "yes, guards are coming" I'll roll to see how many rounds until they're upon the party, then have players roll to see if they hear or notice someone coming, and if all else fails, and guards show up, I'll flip the coin to see how if they're corrupt or not, if they can be paid to look the other way, stuff like that. I typically run open world games, I don't usually have any stories or plot hooks going, until after players get the ball rolling, and even then, I give players full agency on what they do. If they want to be a bunch of heroes, the opportunities will be there, if they want to be a bunch of psychotic douchebags, they can do that too. I'll just use similar reasoning to develop what happens to them, to create their challenges. Heros taking out a goblin threat? Well let's see how smart/well put together they are. I've had goblins using shield walls and hit and run tactics before (they were being trained by a hobgoblin for him to use as a proper fighting force) then players either deal with the problem, or go "eff this!" And bail. So now I got a group of militarized goblins, growing in numbers and power. Got a group of murderous psycho players, threatening and robbing everyone they come across? Let's roll up a group of rival adventures, who's job is to deal with the threat to the town and it's people. and I encourage players to ask questions, about everything, I let them know I have rough existences for the major towns/cities, like local government, things of that sort, but for shops, taverns/inns/craftsman/pawn shops, and the like, they don't really exist, until they want to go there, at which point I start using random generators to get the specifics of said location. This is kinda rambly, and only a bit of how I do things, but I'm coming off of a 13 hour double shift, and I'm now looking after my grandpa who's mind is shot. But I'm all to happy to keep answering questions and clarify things further lol hope some of this helps you in your future endeavors 🙂
Allowing pvp without good reason. One case would be a rouge keeps trying to steal from a player and they’ve said in the game they’ve had enough. Wooden weapons and just training A PC is being controlled against the players choices by something
For me, I don't know if it that bad or things like that but me and other friends chose to do a DnD with our other friend doing the dm, the most part of the thing are in his computer except the sheets, a little thing too we chose our classes and races before we rolled the dice for our stats (I am an artificer with 6 intelligence and 6 dexterity). But the worst thing was he chosen to make my character fight when I didn't kill one small goblin and put us against 2 hobgoblins captains while riding a big dawg (his description of the mount) I did like fire bolt and the hobgoblin just cut it in half like it was nothing and passed through a ring of fire without any damage why he did that? ''to show you how insignificant you are''.
I know a couple of people have already asked about cannon numbers on a ship, but I don't see an actual listed amount of cargo each ship could feasibly carry neither. Even the PHB (both '14 and '24 versions) got this right, but those books don't have the ship types your pdf has. If I want my players to have a ship to hold all their loot, I feel better off using the ships in the PHB than your pdf, which is counter intuitive if you get my point.
That's totally fair, though part of why I didn't include hard details on those things is because it heavily depends on each individual ship. Trading vessels of any size would be built or modified to hold more cargo, war ships of any size would be built for more cannons, and passenger ships would be built for more passengers but far less cargo or cannons. I'll probably update this in the future to include more varieties of ships and breakdowns of cargo stats, cause I definitely agree with you those would be good to have! I just find in my experience, a ship can hold enough cargo that, for a typically party, carry capacity isn't often a concern, and if it's equipped for battle specifically then it's kind of up to the DM to decide how many cannons it makes sense to have (either for space or balance lol). I might come back and reply to this comment again with some quick and easy cargo numbers just so people have something to use until I get version 2 made.
@@twistedpinttavern Much obliged for the reply! I understand the preference of leaving it up the the DM, but that is also what people tend to not like about 5e in general, and why people often complain about the system. Sometimes people NEED established written rules for things rather than just handwaved away by the DM, much like what most of 5e is. It can be a double edge sword sometimes in that regard. That said, I'm not shitting on the content, I love it! I'm just giving my perspective on it from a different view point.
NICE VID. Most youtubers just read from the book. After they post THEN we can "Learn how it really works" from the comments section. GOOD JOB on uploading D&D videos with further research than a reading from the PHB
Okay Genie lock is better with Spike growth. Reverse gravity above enemies why? Allies can force them into depending on the party but most strength characters can do it. Why I've been finding ways to make reverse gravity useful in Time stop. All you gotta do is plan for the reverse gravity. That being said any time stop combo, force cage, faithful hound, delay explo fireball. All insane. But that being said who ever really gets to high level now days. Most campaign end for me at 17 or earlier which discourages full caster form multiclasing if they want 9th level spell. Which sucks but is fair I guess. One your past 6th level your really starting to break the game and past that it's broken. Seeing as you can clone so you literally don't die or having simulacrum or prementslly transforming into a CR 20 monster the same spell basically creating life with a 9CR creature. The games hella busted after 12th level let's be real.
3 points of damage, Spreading midly harmful mischief? *doouble checks commoner stats* It's 4 hp How is that mildy harmful mischief? That could definitely kill a commoner. Thats plain out terrorism. As someone who has been locked outside so many times that I'm not good opening locks, not because I'm skillful but because I learned the basics, the DC for opening any lock in modern time should not be higher than 5. Sadly, D&D lcoks should not be unrealistically high because D&D hates science so technology should not had advance so high to make great locks..
DM: *Session 1* "you're on death's door and appear in a new world-" Me: *Leaves because I, as a character, have absolutely no connections to this Isekai world whatsoever.* Isekai styled games suck man... There's a reason why a character sheet has this thing called "Bonds." It's what ties your character in the world they're adventuring in. Sometimes they can be fine, but more often than not, it completely detaches character motivation to adventure in the world unless the DM forces it on you. "You're adventuring because the BBEG had completely destroyed your spirit, and antagonized you directly, as with the rest of the party." I've known this guy for 5 minutes...
I usually use Prestidigitation to make people's food taste like bland and overcooked rice of they annoy me, one more of those and my party will ban me from using it
One campaign started in a town square then one by one we all ended up in the tavern my kobald little ball of chaos got drunk and joined a battle thst started in the town
I did have a character whos goal was to get the ring of winter however i didn't get it for almost three years of campaign at 14 levels however my dm was great and constantly tieing me chasing clues trying to find it
I co dmed s campaign and had a dmpc but he was a drunk fearless pirate who was a chronic liar. It was very quickly apperent to the party by thr end of session 1 that he should not be consulted with strategy or follow his lead. He sid have a really insane moment but it was all dice luck in a drunken stupper he roped into another ship light the arsenal room ablaze then ropped back to his ship. Nearly died in the process like three times but it was worth it to see the entire party laughing so hard we had to take a short break
I was on an adventure about two and a half years ago, but instead of XP, I got a few weird traits. Some of them are beneficial too, but I still wouldn't want to adventure if I had a choice. (I was through certain dramatic events and ended up with a few quirks; there's more to it, but I'm uncomfortable explaining.) On a more light-hearted note, I determined that I was an artificer/barbarian multiclass after I had to fix a licking sewage pipe with a bottle of hermetic and no instrument to squish it (I didn't know that I needed one of these). I ended up putting one end of a hairbrush against the bottom of the bottle and another against my chest and pressing the bottle with my weight; got a bunch of bruises, but managed to secure the lick for a couple of weeks I needed to arrange the replacement.
Any DM that allows players or they themselves do something for the sole purpose of "fOr ThE mEmEs". I'm surprised I haven't pulled a muscle over the amount of eyerolls that I consist of during session.
Well, doing something for the memes is not necesarily bad if it's something silly and doesn't affect the game in general, some people just want to have dumb fun. The thing is if it does affect an important moment or if it breaks the serious tone
My group always plays with the rules "no unnecessary deaths" we dont care about what the dice "say" we want to have fun and play characters were invested in If a character im emotionally invested in dies to a few evil minions im just leaving that DM Character death feels special in our games because they happen at the right moments when it makes sense Its so unsatisfying to see someone die to a few bad dice rolls Unless you just whip up characters to do funny voices with ZERO care i cant see why people are happy to die to misfortune We tried that in our campaign and the new PC could NEVER join the party because everyone was so traumatised by the death of their friend they were silent canonically for weeks and multiple sessions
Glad it is working for your table. I can attest that this kind of play would ruin my table and my players would just leave. Partly because they basically told me that themselves many times lmao. If they feel death happens only at the right moments when it makes sense, they will know it is manufactured and our campaign has become more cooperative storytelling than an actual game. They like facing the odds, KNOWING they could die. It is quite a tense challenge and often-times bring them closer to their characters because they don't know when they will be gone. This is the thrill of the adventure. No training wheels. With actual risks and rewards. We respect the dice whatever comes our way. Otherwise, there is no reason for us to roll it. That's also why people really enjoy doing Honour runs on BG3. Tactical, tense, resourceful and cutthroat. But it is not for everybody either. I'm just sharing you the other side that works well for me and my friends. I am not trying to kill their characters, but I am also not pulling my punches. Resurection is a thing, too, and can lead to great moments. I am following CR's resurection system so it doesn't feel vapid either.
The worst DMs i think of the many good and bad ive had over the years all share these things in common -belittle a player and humiliate them until they shutdown or cry infront of the entire party over the player asking a minor thing privately like "if its not too much trouble can we have more rp sessions in the campaign?" -take on Roleplay heavy players but force them into a high combat low rp campaign but lie and promise that its high rp low combat. -play favorites and their favorite gets the cool emotional moments, sick ass gear, or is given other special treatment like lesser punishment for their character. -gloat about how awful or difficult they made an encounter then have a fit if the players were miserable and didnt enjoy it or have shut down entirely as a result. And often those encounters are railroaded and forced onto the players when the players did not make any choice with their own angecy that would have lead them to that encounter. (Ex: forcing 5 players of lvl 6 to fight 25 lycanthropes, 15 goons with 2 spellcasters slinging 7th level spells.) And yes counterspelling healing magic. -blame the players if the players arent having fun.
Those are crazy bad. I'll just add my worst ones, which are relatively tame: - DM decides to change item rules on 5e halfway through the campaign. Suddenly, you get extra attunement slots equivalent to your Int modifier. Not a completely stupid take, until you realize that the whole party had negative or neutral int modifiers except for the wizard who has 20 Int... Oh. And the wizard was the DM's wife... Can you believe it! XD - Another DM made the most realistic fights (that is to his credit 100%), but made them too tough every other fight so a DMPC had to save us all the time because, well, we couldn't die. That was his rule. PCs just couldn't die. But he overtuned half the fights. It just ended up being such an unpleasant contrast, man.
"cube of wonders" its a puzzle cube that makes you obsessed with it if you try and solve it, you must succeed 6 increasingly hard investigation checks in a row to open it, if you fail any one of these checks it acts like a wand of wonder, with it as the caster and you as the target, once unlocked the curse is removed and can be used like a normal wand of wonder
Introduce elements of the Horror Genre when it wasn't expected. Players were playing as a military unit and ended up investigating a coal mining village as part of a boarder patrol and found themselves thigh-deep in German Fairytail encounters 😅
I came up with an arm wrestling mini-game. The contestants roll a different die depending on their STR:: 6 to 8 roll d4 9 to 12 roll d6 13 to 15 roll d8 16 and 17 roll d10 18+ roll d12 Goal: Players attempt to reach a score of 6 to their advantage. Starting score is 0 Pre-Game Roll Each player rolls initiative plus DEX modifier The winner is Player A. Loser is Player B Round 1 1) Player A rolls the die in the table associated with their STR, mark this roll as the current score to Player A's advantage 2) Player B rolls their die and subtracts the result from Player A's roll. 3) If the result of Player B's roll goes negative, ignore the negative and mark it as the new score to Player B's advantage. Rounds 2 thru N, repeat until the score AT THE END OF A ROUND is 6 or higher. Whoever has advantage at the end of that round wins.
Ship captain and crew could probably be a nice quick tavern game. I'd imagine it is an ante game. All participating players needs 5 d6 and get to roll 3 times, the object is to roll the highest score, but you have to roll 3 specific numbers in order to be able to score, it is simple i promise. Players must roll a 6,5,4 in that order to be able to score, the last dice are known as the 'cargo' aka your score. How this works is that on a roll you must shoot for a 6 in the beginning if your roll doesn't contain a 6 you need to re-roll, should a roll have a 6 and a 5 and maybe a 4 then you can put them aside and roll the remaining 2 dice if you want to. If ever in doubt just say this little sentence out loud. No ship (6) no captain (5) and no captain no crew (4). Highest scoring player wins the pot, if two or more players tie they split the pot. Any player who didn't manage to roll the requirement for scoring are out.
@twistedpinttavern I have another for you that is similar to Liars Dice called Indian Chief (yes that is what it is called). The game requires a minimum of 3 players and one d6 per player. Everyone rolls their dice and put it to their forehead without looking at their dice, now players takes turn guessing the total among them since they can all dice, but their own, tge next bid must be higher than the previous one and so on. On a turn rather than bidding a player can accuse the previous player for lying if so look at all the dice and add them up, if the total is over what the previous player bid than that player is a liar and is out if the game, if the total is under than the player accusing is out. For a faster game you can rule that once the player count reaches 2 the game is over. As for wagers you could ante that a player that gets thrown out of the game must pay a set amount to the winning player/s.
You could use command spell "flee" on a target next to you. When they flee, you take attack of opportunity and if you have the war caster feat you can use booming blade. They can't stop because they're under the command spell.
I think the tavern only has become something of a meme/cliche aspect of DnD not because they are used often, but because most of the time they are done poorly. I personally do still like a good start in a tavern, or inn, or bar, or whatnot. Usually for me, this is where the party (preferably a pre-established one) would get the campaign starting job. But I also remember having my party meet up at a small tavern as strangers, then get into a fight with rats followed by a zombie and that got them to sync together as a party.
For roulette, give your players 1gp if they roll even or odd correctly. Give your players 4gp if they roll the exact number. Give them 3gp if they roll a number that is sharing boundaries to the number they guessed
So, I wanted to share this and hear people's thoughts. I'm a new DM, having run games for about 4 months now, with two sessions a week. Both feature homebrewed worlds, factions, a deity, demons, and more. Everyone's had a blast, but it's been a lot of work. My advice to new DMs is simply to start with a short, one-off campaign, keeping it small. It'll make story-building much easier. I love homebrewing and crafting my own worlds, but starting small is key. It's not just about ease it's about depth. Invest time in a small area to bring it to life. Even if players miss details, it enriches the world far more when you focus on one area rather than working on a whole world.
