fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons

My Dad’s Monster Manual – Hook Horror

Uncategorized / D&D, D&D fifth edition, D&D5e, DnD 5e, Fifth Edition D&D, fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons, Monster, monster creation, My Dad's Monster Manual, world building, worldbuilding / 0 comments

April 30, 2020

My latest DMs Guild product, The Iron Titan, is now available!

The work on My Dad’s Monster Manual continues. You can check out all the previews on this blog here. There are also a few on my Patreon!

Today I wanted to show off my father’s version of the hook horror, which he calls the leghorn! It is a very different take on this classic D&D creature.

Leghorn (Hook Horror)

Are you familiar with that cartoon character? You know, the big rooster?
Lucian J. Introcaso

Large, strong, and gullible, leghorns are featherless, muscular avian humans that stand about eight feet tall. Though they lack wings, their long arms end in fearsome hooks that belie their typically gentle personalities.

Loners Seeking Friendship. Leghorns spend much of their time alone in forests hunting game with their powerful hooks. A leghorn’s predatory appearance drives most other humanoids away or causes them to lash out at the creature. A leghorn stays isolated for its own safety, though most feel a desire to connect with others. When this yearning becomes too great, the leghorn leaves its forest and searches for friends. Some leghorns are lucky enough to find humanoids that see beyond the hooks and accept them as friends, but many are driven back into the wild by fearful mobs.

Trusting and Loyal. When a leghorn does make a friend, the avian humanoid treats the bond as sacred. Most leghorns are willing to do anything for their friends and take what their allies say as gospel truth. The avian humanoids lay their lives on the line to defend their friends and venture into dangerous lands to perform important favors for allies.

Gullible Lackeys. Because they rarely interact with other people, leghorns tend to be gullible and believe anything they are told. Bandits, cultists, and evil creatures looking for a strong minion convince leghorns they are friends. It often takes a lot of convincing to get a leghorn to see that its so-called friends are just evildoers willing to abuse the avian humanoid’s trust.

Leghorn

Medium humanoid (leghorn), neutral good

Armor Class 13 (natural armor)

Hit Points 45 (6d8 + 18)

Speed 40 ft.

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
19 (+4)	10 (+0)	17 (+3)	9 (-1)	7 (-2)	12 (+1)

Skills Nature +1, Perception +0, Survival +0

Senses passive Perception 10

Languages Common

Challenge 2 (450 XP)

Bolstered by Friends. When the leghorn can see an ally within 30 feet of it, the leghorn has advantage on all saving throws.

Actions

Hook. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d8 + 4) piercing damage.

Reactions

Riposting Ally. When a creature the leghorn can see attacks the leghorn’s ally, the leghorn can make a melee weapon attack against the creature that made the attack as a reaction.

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The Iron Titan

General / Adventurers League, DnD, DnD5e, DnDBlog, dungeons and dragons, Eberron, Fifth Edition D&D, fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons / 0 comments

April 9, 2020

I have some exciting news! I worked on another new Eberron adventure that’s on the DMs Guild! Check out The Iron Titan!

The Iron Titan is the first D&D Adventurers League Epic to go on sale at the DMs Guild, and by all counts it looks like a success! It hit number one overall on the DMs Guild sales chart the day it came out and with only two full days of sales it’s already a Silver Best Seller! I got to work on this adventure with some of the best people working in the business today: Will Doyle, Shawn Merwin, Ashley Micaela “Navigator” Lawson, and Stacey Allan as well as the Adventurers League team and some great playtesters. It’s part of the Oracle of War Storyline that is being masterfully shepherded by Will and Shawn.

So you might be asking yourself, “What is a D&D Adventurers League Epic adventure?” Off the bat, let me be clear about a couple things. You do not need to be playing in the Adventurers League to play the adventure, and you can run it as a normal, one-table-of-players D&D experience.

D&D Epic adventures were previously only available to conventions, and those were the only places you could play or run one. An Epic is a single-session adventure designed for play across multiple tables. Essentially you have several tables working together to accomplish the adventure’s goal. This is why they were convention exclusive, they could only really be played in places with lots of people. In The Iron Titan the idea is to defeat a warforged colossus attacking a settlement! The attack is coordinated. One group takes the head, another might take a leg, and a third might take a leg. Sometimes epics span more than one tier of play. (Tiers are PC level ranges, T1 = 1–4, T2 = 5–10, T3 = 11–16, T4 = 17–20). The Iron Titan is T1 only.

Will, Shawn, and Micaela cracked the code and have included rules and advice for running the Epic at one table, which means everyone can be happy and have a blast running the adventure at home, online, at a convention, or wherever!

Here’s the product description:

In this Epic event for D&D Adventurers League play, Cultists of the Emerald Claw reanimate a warforged colossus from the battlefields outside Salvation and turn it against the outpost. The scavengers in town must work together to disable the titan limb-by-limb and save the outpost from annihilation. They are aided throughout by the Oracle of War, which provides vital tactical advice alongside cryptic verses from the Draconic Prophecy. This Three-Hour Multitable Adventure is for Tier 1 characters and optimized for APL 3. Notes in the adventure allow for it to be used as a single-table event as well.

Welcome to the Oracle of War campaign, a new 20-part standalone story for the D&D Adventurers League! You can play this adventure as part of your own Eberron: Rising from the Last War campaign, or as part of the Oracle of War organized play campaign. While this campaign runs under the umbrella of the Adventurers League, it utilizes different rules. You can familiarize yourself with these unique campaign rules by checking out the Oracle of War Player’s Guide and Oracle of War DM’s Guide, found in the D&D Adventurers League Players Pack.
From the DMs Guild

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Hagmalgams for Valentine’s Day

General / D&D, DMs Guild, DnD, DnD 5e, DnD5e, Fifth Edition D&D, fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons, Hag, Monster, monster design, pdf / 0 comments

February 13, 2020

You can order The Demonplague, my level 1 – 20 fifth edition adventure, right now!

Do you like the valentine of the hagicorn above? What about the hagbear below?

Half bheur hag. Half angelic polar bear.

Or the hag-rin?

If you like these Valentines, you can get more at printable quality from Kayla Cline’s Patreon!

What the Heck are Hagmalgams?

Hagmalgams is the title of a product I wrote and Kayla Cline illustrated that is now available on DMs Guild.

The product was inspired by this tweet from Jeremy Crawford, the lead rules designer for D&D.

More stories should feature hags riding unicorns. That is all.
— Jeremy Crawford (@JeremyECrawford) October 26, 2019

This tweet also inspired an upcoming collaboration called Unbridled that does not involve me, but I will be buying.

Jeremy Crawford isn’t wrong. When he first shared this thought on Twitter, my mind raced with ideas. Hags riding unicorns was such a fun, out-there idea. Could it go further? What if a hag was a unicorn? What would this horned witchy centaur look like? How did this hagicorn come to be? How would the monster act? Where would it live? Is such a creature good or evil?

As these questions bounced in my brain, I was working on another project called Abyssal Incursion with Kayla Cline, who just happens to be the single greatest hag artist ever. When our project wrapped, I pitched this idea: Would she like to work on a series of hagmalgams, creatures that were half-hag, half-celestial. The hagicorn was the first idea we kicked around, but that quickly grew into the hag-rin, hagasus, hagyphant, hagbear, and, Kayla’s personal favorite, the hagtopus. Kayla’s art floored me. I was expecting a lot. She overdelivered. Her unique style and interpretation of the hagmalgams will inspire Dungeon Masters and players everywhere.

While the idea of hagmalgams started out as silly fun, these creatures took a turn for the serious and sympathetic in large part due to Kayla’s art. The hagmalgams had character, pain, and a story to tell written in their faces. Inspired by Kayla’s images, I crafted story and mechanics to make what I believe are sympathetic creatures. Two souls that abhor one another twisted together in a gross paradox.

Did it work? Playtesters were amused, terrified, and pitying the creatures all at once. That’s exactly what a designer wants to happen. I hope these creatures inspire great stories at your table.

Here’s a link to the product!

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My Dad’s Monster Manual – Ankheg

Inspiration / D&D, D&D5e, DnD, dungeons and dragons, Fifth Edition D&D, fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons, Monster, monster creation, monster design, monsters, My Dad's Monster Manual, world building, worldbuilding / 1 comment

January 23, 2020

You can order The Demonplague, my level 1 – 20 fifth edition adventure, right now!

Curious about My Dad’s Monster Manual? Check out my first post on the subject.

Time to show off another critter created by my father and I created! This time he totally rewrote the story of the ankheg. He saw them as wise, amphibious critters. Take a look!

Lobsteronian (Ankheg)

Oh! This creature is a wise creature.
Lucian J. Introcaso

Standing between five and eight feet tall, lobsteronians live in isolated swamp communities reminiscent of their home planet. They can live more than five hundred years, achieving adulthood around age twenty.

Interstellar Wise Folk. Lobsteronians seek enlightenment by teleporting to different planets in the Material Plane and learning about the world’s inhabitants. If well received, they may stay on a planet for a decade or more.

When lobsteronians come to a new planet, they make themselves comfortable in a remote swamp. Then they send out messengers to seek nearby communities and offer words of peace.

Lobsteronians never reveal the name of their planet to others for fear that they might lead enemies back to their people.

Gentle Advisors. All are welcome in a lobsteronian community. Intelligent, empathetic, and patient, loberstonians make excellent councilors, negotiators, and even interrogators. They enjoy learning and are happy to share the lore they’ve picked up over the years. Outsiders seeking lobsteronian skills or knowledge often find the aliens willing to trade for a service, such as a guided tour of nearby town, the procurement of an obscure tome, or the defeat of a monster harassing the colony.

Specialized Jobs. Every lobsteronian in a community is assigned a specialized job by a council of planners. All jobs are held in equal regard including the council. Cooks, warriors, and farmers are all important in the eyes of the community.

Lobsteronian

Medium humanoid, lawful good

Armor Class 13 (natural armor)

Hit Points 27 (5d8 + 5)

Speed 30 ft., swim 30 ft.

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
14 (+2)	8 (-1)	12 (+1)	15 (+2)	17 (+3)	16 (+3)

Skills History +4, Insight +5, Persuasion +5

Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive perception 13

Languages Common

Challenge 1 (200 XP)

Amphibious. The lobsteronian can breathe air and water.

Innate Spellcasting. The lobsteronian’s spellcasting ability is Wisdom (spell save DC 13). The lobsteronian can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:

1/day each: augury, teleport, zone of truth

Actions

Multiattack. The lobsteronian makes one attack with its bite and one attack with its claws.

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d10 + 2) piercing damage. If the target is a Medium or smaller creature, it is grappled (escape DC 12). Until this grapple ends, the lobsteronian can bite only the grappled creature and has advantage on attack rolls to do so.

Claws. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d8 + 2) slashing damage.

What Do You Think?

So how did Pop do? Let me know in the comments below.

Help Me Playtest

Want to playtest the lobesteronian and any other critters my father creates? Sign up here. If you playtest these monsters, you’ll get a free PDF of the product and your name in the credits.

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4c0c04bb-a97d-45f7-b505-18b2cf69c002_1.92a39818d70409bbba3a6285d448f414

My Dad’s Monster Manual – Beholder

Brass Tacks / DnD, DnD 5e, dungeons and dragons, Fifth Edition D&D, fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons, Monster, monster creation, monster design, Monster Manual, My Dad's Monster Manual / 28 comments

January 9, 2020

You can order The Demonplague, my level 1 – 20 fifth edition adventure, right now!

A couple weeks back I tweeted this:

#DMsGuild Product Idea: "My Dad's Monster Manual." I show my father art from the MM, ask him what he thinks each creature's name and lore is, then I restat them based on his responses. #DnD— James Introcaso (@JamesIntrocaso) December 23, 2019

I got such a great response from the tweet, that I decided to ask my father if he would do it. Great news! He’s on board. Today I’m going to tell you what he thinks of the beholder in a little preview for My Dad’s Monster Manual.

Idea of My Dad’s Monster Manual

I know it seems like My Dad’s Monster Manual is an excuse to make some weird dad jokes (and on some level, it totally will be), but the idea behind the book is a little deeper. D&D is filled with art of original creatures that make even the most seasoned fantasy nerds unfamiliar with the game scratch their head and think “What is that?” Sure they likely recognize the art of dragons and vampires, but show a Lord of the Rings fanatic unfamiliar with D&D lore a beholder or a bulette and watch as they ponder the possibilities of the unkown.

One creature image could evoke three different stories if shown to three different people who knew nothing about the monster depicted. Suddenly you would have three new uses for your aboleth miniature and a zillion ideas for new adventures! Much of the art in the Monster Manual shows only the creature with nothing to compare for size, so you could end up with baseball-sized beholders (as my father described them). You could rewrite many creatures in the Monster Manual just by chatting with someone unfamiliar. I really wanted to explore this idea with one of the best storytellers I have ever known.

A Bit About My Dad

My father, while not a D&D aficionado like me, does enjoy fantasy. He’s the one who introduced me to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings as a kid. This is the person who, along with my mother, sister, and brother, instilled a love of storytelling in me. Pop (as I call my dad) was always ready to give a fantastic made-up answer about what’s happening in an illustration or with a toy when I was a kid. He’s still great at it today with his grandchildren.

All this is to say, my dad is pretty great at making crap up. His answers about what a creature’s lore and abilities are deep, fun, and imaginative. There won’t be many creatures simply named “Bear Guy” or “Squid Face McGee” in My Dad’s Monster Manual.

It’s also important you know my dad’s background because he does know what some things in the Monster Manual are based on his experiences with genre fiction. Dragons, orcs, goblins, and a few other obvious creatures like mummies and vampires, are out based on the fact that he knows what those are. Similarly, if he happens to get a creature’s lore and abilities mostly correct, I’ll likely leave that on the cutting room floor too. Nobody needs a death dog simply renamed to be a killer canine.

So without further ado, I present to you my father’s version of a beholder.

Cryon (Beholder)

Their locomotion is that they roll. They pull with their eye arms, and they roll.
-Lucian J. Introcaso

Cryons pull their round, lumpy bodies with their eyestalks into areas of cover to search for small prey like insects and rodents. The grapefruit-sized aberrations also like to hide in wait to see if passersby fall for their latest pranks.

The skin of a cryon might be black, blue, brown, green, pink, purple, or any combination of these colors. Male cryons, called cryptos, have four eyestalks, while females, called cryptions, have ten.

Asteroid Riders. The planet cryons inhabited was torn asunder by an unknown phenomenon, but the aberrations endured on the pieces of that celestial body that now float through space. When one of these meteorites crashes on a new world, the cryons roll out and claim the surrounding land as their territory.

Cryons make their homes in the craters where their meteorites landed and can survive in any environment provided they have enough prey. The only reason cryons move out of their craters is because they have no nearby food sources or another creature removes what’s left of their meteorite from the crater. The aberrations are naturally drawn to their meteorites and willing to risk their lives to get back this piece of their old planet.

Dense Pranksters. Nothing amuses a cryon like a good prank, though they lack intelligence, so what seems like a hilarious goof to them is often at best uninspired and at worst deadly for the tricked creature. The aberrations are not smart enough to perform elaborate pranks or set complex traps. A joke that is immature or simple can make a cryon roll with laughter for minutes. Jumping out of hiding to scare someone else, hiding excrement in a place where another creature might step in it, biting a creature that least suspects it, creating a hidden tripping or falling hazard, or leading another creature into the den of a more powerful predator are all classic examples of a cryon prank.

The little aberrations have a psionically infectious laugh. When a cryon laughs, it often causes nearby creatures, including other cryons, to collapse with giggles.

Cryons do not prank each other. They watch the area around their craters carefully for unsuspecting victims. Most cryons cannot take what they dish out and react violently to being the butt of another creature’s joke.

Little Carnivores. Cryons take true pleasure in hunting and eating food. Many hunt and eat as a pleasurable pastime, even if they have already consumed their fill. Their prey generally consists of birds, insects, and rodents, but if it is starving, a pack of cryons hunt any creature they can find no matter the size. There is one exception: cryons never willingly harm another cryon.

Loyal to Other Cryons. Cryons have an innate loyalty toward one another even if they have never met. The little creatures often hunt and pull pranks together in packs. Their communities have no leaders as cryons always get along with and respect one another. Woe to adventurers who capture or harm one of these aberrations as nearby cryons always retaliate with swift ferocity.

Space Survivor. Cryons do not need air to breathe and can survive in outer space without any special equipment.

Cryon

Tiny aberration, chaotic neutral

Armor Class 14 (natural armor)

Hit Points 4 (1d4 + 2)

Speed 30 ft.

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
6 (-2)	15 (+2)	14 (+2)	5 (-3)	12 (+1)	8 (-1)

Skills Perception +3, Stealth +6, Survival +3

Condition Immunities prone

Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive perception 13

Languages Deep Speech

Challenge 1/8 (25 XP)

Pack Tactics. The cryon has advantage on an attack roll against a creature if at least one of the cryon’s allies is within 5 feet of the creature and the ally isn’t incapacitated.

Actions

Multiattack. The cryon makes one eyestalk attack and one bite attack.

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 4 (1d4 + 2) piercing damage.

Eyestalk. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 4 (1d4 + 2) bludgeoning damage.

Infectious Laugh. The cryon laughs wildly and wiggles its body in a hilarious manner. Each creature within 5 feet of the cryon that can see and hear it must succeed on a DC 9 Wisdom saving throw or fall into fits of laughter, falling prone and unable to stand up until the end of the cryon’s next turn.

What Do You Think?

So how did Pop do? Let me know in the comments below. If this is popular, there might be sequels in the works like My Niece’s Guide to Monsters and My Nephew’s Tome of Foes.

Help Me Playtest

Want to playtest the cryon and any other critters my father creates? Sign up here. If you playtest these monsters, you’ll get a free PDF of the product and your name in the credits.

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Abyssal Incursion and Infernal Machine Rebuild

General / Baldur's Gate, D&D, D&D fifth edition, D&D5e, Descent into Avernus, DMs Guild, DMs Guild Adepts, DnD, DnDBlog, Fifth Edition D&D, fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons, pdf / 0 comments

November 14, 2019

You can order The Demonplague, my level 1 – 20 fifth edition adventure, right now!

I have two new products on the DMs Guild this week!

Abyssal Incursion

The first is a demon-tastic expansion for your Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus campaign called Abyssal Incursion. I previewed two artifact weapons from it in last week’s post. Here’s the product description:

Note: Light spoilers for Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus in this description!

Expand your Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus game with three new adventure locations, complete with plot hooks and NPCs, plus two new artifacts: Baphomet’s glaive, Heartcleaver, and Yeenoghu’s flail, Butcher! This supplement adds more challenges for characters of levels 8 and above who dare face Demon Lords on the River Styx.

Face Baphomet aboard his war barge!

Go inside the belly of Yeenoghu’s beast, Crokek’toeck (literally)!

Get a little Eberron in your Forgotten Realms by acquiring an elemental galleon made to sail the River Styx… if you can deal with the yugoloths defending it!

Maps and a printer friendly version included as separate files!

The Blood War rages in Avernus. Will you sieze opportunity, fight back the hordes, or perish?

This product is meant to be a companion to Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus and requires the adventure.

The incredible maps for this adventure were done by Kayla Cline. Check out her depiction of the inside of Crokek’toeck! She’s a genius!

Infernal Machine Rebuild

I am also pleased to say I got to contribute to Infernal Machine Rebuild, a special adventure led by Bart Carroll with all proceeds going to Extra Life! Here’s the description:

A fallen clock tower holds components from an ancient artifact. Upon discovery of the components, competing agents look to launch expeditions to uncover additional components scattered across distant places—and times. The now-lost Temple of Moloch and the construction site of the legendary Tomb of Horrors are two of those locations. However great the risks, finding the components demands the effort, for whoever does so can reassemble the fabled Infernal Machine of Lum the Mad!

For characters 5^th-10^th level.

This adventure explores two dungeon locations and includes new monsters, magic items, plus new artifact powers submitted by the player community!

Further featuring new art, maps (from Claudio Pozas), cartoon (from Jason Thompson), even an Adventurers League cert for a new trinket—and all monies that Wizards of the Coast receives from sales of this PDF are donated to Extra Life.

Your purchase of this adventure goes to a truly great cause!

About Extra Life:

Extra Life unites thousands of gamers around the world to play games in support of their local Children’s Miracle Network Hospital. Since its inception in 2008, Extra Life has raised more than $30 million for sick and injured kids. Sign up today and dedicate a day of play for kids in your community!

This was so much fun to be a part of! Plus you can see Chris Perkins running the adventure in video below!

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Ode to Will Doyle

General / Avernus, Baldur's Gate, D&D, D&D 5e, D&D fifth edition, dungeons and dragons, fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons / 0 comments

September 19, 2019

You can order The Demonplague, my level 1 – 20 fifth edition adventure, right now!

This week Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus was released. I got to help contribute to the story for the book and wrote several thousand words for it (more on that in later posts), and I contributed to two DMs Guild products for it, Encounters in Avernus and Hellturel (more on those below). However, I did not work on these projects alone, especially when it comes to the hard cover adventure, which had a massive team to support it.

My friend and fellow designer, Will Doyle, was unfortunately left out of the credits for Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus. It was an innocent mistake, and Wizards of the Coast is working hard to correct the error in the next printing of the book and get Will’s name out on digital platforms. These things happen in publishing. Will has been super cool about it as has the entire D&D team. I wanted to take a quick moment to recognize Will’s work in the book and how awesome he is.

We’re all celebrating the release of this massive adventure that represents hours upon hours of labor. Will was a big part of that! He wrote a lot of chapter 3, including parts of the adventure that will be your favorite and most memorable not just of this adventure, but of any D&D adventure. I won’t get too spoilery here, but if something in chapter 3 makes you say, “Holy shit!” odds are Will contributed to it in a big way.

You may also know Will from his work on Storm King’s Thunder, Tomb of Annihilation, Beyond the Dragon of Icespire Peak, many DMs Guild Adepts products (including being the lead designer of our only Adamantine Best Seller, Waterdeep: City Encounters), his Adventurers League adventures (including many truly epic Epics), and/or his articles in Dungeon and Dragon magazines back in the 4e days. Will was also recently announced as one of the new Adventurers League admins (along with the incredible Shawn Merwin). He’s got a lot of other credits in a career dedicated to game design and our community. Will has made a lot of memories for people with his incredible products.

Most importantly Will is a great, brilliant human. I’ve worked with him on countless projects at this point, and every time he’s been collaborative, communicative, honest, organized, artistic, and straight-up genius. I learn something new from him on every single project. He challenges his fellow designers to innovate, while leading the charge to do so himself. He doesn’t rest on his laurels. Will sticks up for what’s right, makes incredible jokes, and hasn’t punched me in the face for making the same joke about throwing tea into the harbor every July 4th. This dude has spent many late nights to get the job done, revising and tweaking until a project is perfect. Working with Will is the definition of enthusiasm, mutual respect, and creativity. If you get the chance to work with him, do it.

If it were possible to bleed ampersands, Will Doyle would do it. He’s given hours to this community, far beyond the pay check he made on Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus. So when you’re sending out tweets, posts, and more thanking people for Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus, don’t forget Will. He crushed it on this one.

DMs Guild Products

I also want to tell you about the two DMs Guild products I helped create for Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus: Encounters in Avernus and Hellturel.

Hellturel

I wrote Hellturel on my own, but the maps for the product were created by Meshon Cantrill, a master cartographer! I don’t want to say too much because of spoilers. Here’s the description:

Note: Light spoilers for Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus in this description!

Expand your Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus game with four new adventure locations, complete with plot hooks and NPCs, plus five new magic items all found in the holy city of Elturel! This supplement adds more challenges for characters of levels 5 to 6 who enter Avernus through the city.

Elturel is in Hell. It’s up to you to save it.

Encounters in Avernus

Encounters in Avernus is a great supplement from many DMs Guild Adepts that continues the trend of offering many encounters you can drop into you Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus campaign. Who worked on it?

M.T. Black
James Haeck
James Introcaso
Rich Lescouflair
Shawn Merwin
Ashley Warren

Here’s the description from the site:

Bring your Hell to life with this companion supplement for Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus!

Encounters in Avernus presents more than 60 short encounters for the wasteland of Avernus, the River Styx, and the city of Elturel. Keep characters busy with these story-rich encounters that help flesh out the first layer of Hell. The supplement is great for Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus or any infernal adventure!

Two longer encounter chains are included to help you craft an amazing story with Tiamat or Zariel!

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D&D Flanking and Inspiration Variants

Brass Tacks / D&D, D&D fifth edition, DnD, fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons, Flanking, Inspiration, rules module, variant rules / 8 comments

September 12, 2019

You can order The Demonplague, my level 1 – 20 fifth edition adventure, right now!

Variant rules for Dungeons & Dragons! You love ’em. I love ’em. Let’s talk about two I am thinking of implementing at my table.

Flanking Variant

The Dungeon Master’s Guide already has optional rules for flanking in chapter 8. This version of flanking is very powerful in play and sometimes results in a bunch of miniatures doing a line dance as they all line up to battle each other. If characters can use flanking to gain advantage on every attack, it negates some of their other class features that allow them to gain advantage. Why use your bonus action to use Insightful Fighting as a inquisitive rogue (or take the Help action as anyone) when flanking can get there as part of your move action?

In third and fourth edition, flanking gave a numerical bonus to attack rolls. This made it typically less powerful than the power curve of fifth edition’s advantage mechanic and useful to use with other class features, since it often stacked with other bonuses, but it was also part of the never-ending bonus problem that slowed the game way down. Fifth edition improved combat speed and simplicity with advantage and disadvantage taking the place of most circumstantial bonuses and penalties from older editions.

Also, the flanking variant as written in the Dungeon Master’s Guide is hard to parse without a grid.

Nerdin' out to the max! — Chart provided by Andrew Timmes!

I want to use flanking in my games because it gives adds a fun layer of tactical teamwork for my players. While I often have combat on a grid, I don’t always, so I would like flanking to work with theater of the mind encounters. Also, I don’t want flanking to become the main game during combat because it is so powerful. With that in mind, here’s my variant rule for flanking.

When two allied creatures are within 5 feet of an enemy creature and one of the allied creatures makes a melee attack against that enemy, the other allied creature can use its reaction to grant advantage on the attack roll (before the roll is made).

This limits the amount of advantage being thrown around since a creature must use its reaction to grant it and because the advantage applies only to the one attack roll and not to all the attacks a creature makes against the target that turn. It adds a good gambling element. (Will you use your reaction to help your friend or save it for something else like a possible opportunity attack or casting counterspell?) The fact that there are no flanking positions in the rule also helps mitigate the line dance effect and makes the rule easier to use for theater of the mind combats.

Best of all this adds a neat roleplaying element to combat for those who prefer it. Players can describe their characters distracting enemies with feints, growls, wet-willies, and more as they use their reactions to help their friends (which is less likely to happen when flanking grants a static bonus).

What do you think? Sound off in the comments below!

Inspiration Variant

I really like the concept of inspiration in D&D, but I in practice many groups forget to use it. In theory it should work best when people use it all the time to gain the benefit as written.

If you have inspiration, you can expend it when you make an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check. Spending your inspiration gives you advantage on that roll.

However, many people use inspiration to reroll a failed attack, check, or save. With a reroll you only use inspiration when you fail. When it grants advantage, you use it before the roll and might be more likely to use it since you spend it before you know the result of a failure, but in order for this idea to take hold, you have to get it frequently, which is the other problem the inspiration. DMs often forget to give inspiration, so when they do have it, players either forget to use it (because it isn’t being mentioned often) or hoard it because it is rare, which creates a cycle of no one using inspiration. (Also inspiration and the bard class feature Bardic Inspiration have similar names and are slightly, but different, mechanics, which often confuses even veteran players when a bard is in the party, but that can’t be solved without renaming one of the mechanics, which would further confuse things at this point.)

Chapter 8 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide has great advice and variants for inspiration and even touches on the one I am about to suggest. Like most inspiration rules the one I am proposing works best if you award inspiration as some sort of token the players can see and hand back to you when they spend it (e.g. poker chips, twenty-sided dice of a specific color, coins, stones, etc.).

Inspiration is a group resource. When a player earns inspiration as described in chapter 4 of the Player’s Handbook (or using the variant rules in chapter 8 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide), an inspiration point goes into an inspiration pot. (If using tokens to represent inspiration, keep this pile near the center of the table so all players take notice.) The inspiration pot can hold a maximum number of points equal to the number of player characters in the party, and cannot exceed this maximum. Any player character can expend a point of inspiration from the pot when they make an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check. Spending an inspiration point gives advantage on that roll.

Players are encouraged to ask the DM to award inspiration for another player’s character’s actions or roleplaying and should encourage other players to spend inspiration points on their turn.

By making inspiration a group resource (and putting a pile of tokens in front of their faces instead of awarding them individually) it increases the chance that at least one person at the table is thinking about gaining or using inspiration at any given time. The more reserved roleplayers, who maybe do not earn inspiration as often as others, can still benefit and participate in this part of the game, and those actor types who you always want to give more than a single shot of inspiration can now earn more for the group. Increasing the teamwork value of inspiration makes it more visible, more valuable, and more likely to be used at the table.

What do you think of this variant? Sound off in the comments!

#VotePipyap

By the way I am headed to #VotePipyap! If you see me there, say hi!

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Air and Sea Chase Complication Tables

Brass Tacks / air, Chase, chase complication tables, chases, D&D, D&D 5e, D&D Next, DnD, dungeons and dragons, fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons, flying, pdf, sea, swimming / 4 comments

October 13, 2015

I’m fond of chase sequences. The fifth edition Dungeon Master’s Guide has introduced some great chase mechanics for DMs to use in their Dungeons and Dragons games. I’ve had an article published about running chase sequences in EN World EN5ider Magazine which you can read if you pledge a single dollar a month to the Patreon campaign (though I recommend you contribute another buck or two to get their sweet adventures and more). On this very blog I’ve posted the sewers and treetop city chase complication tables. Today I want to add a few new complication tables to the mix, but they’re beyond the usual foot race. I’m talking about chases up in the sky and through water. Below are chase complication tables for a flying chase and saltwater chase.

Flying Chase Complications

d20	Complication
1	A massive gust of wind blows against you. Make a DC 15 Strength saving throw. On a failure, the wind pushes you back 10 feet at the start of your turn.
2	A flock of birds blocks your path. Make a DC 15 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. On a failure, the birds count as 15 feet of difficult terrain and you take 1d10 piercing damage.
3	Suddenly the air around you becomes very thin. Make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw. On a failure you suffer one level of exhaustion which lasts until the end of the chase.
4	You pass by a giant eagle. Make a DC 15 Wisdom (Animal Handling) check. On a failure the eagle joins the chase and chases after you with hostile intentions.
5	A random atmospheric disturbance occurs around you. Make a DC 15 Dexterity saving. On a failure you are hit by a small jolt of lightning and take 4d6 lightning damage.
6	A cloud is in your path. Make a DC 10 Strength (Athletics) check or use 10 feet of movement to move around the cloud. On a failure the cloud counts as 10 feet of difficult terrain and you are vulnerable to lightning damage until the end of the chase or until you take fire damage.
7	A passing peryton decides to make a meal out of you and joins the chase.
8	You fly into a weak magic zone. If you are using magic to fly, make a DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) check. On a failure you hover in the air and cannot move by means of magical flight until the start of your next turn.
9	A random atmospheric disturbance occurs around you. Make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw. On a failure you take 1d6 thunder damage and are pushed 10 feet in a random direction determined by the DM.
10	Violent winds assault you. Make a DC 10 Strength (Athletics) check. On a failure you are moved 15 feet in a random direction (determined by the DM).
11 – 20	No complication.

Saltwater Chase Complications*

d20	Complication
1	A giant octopus joins the chase and chases after you.
2	You run into a patch of seaweed. Make a DC 10 Strength (Athletics) check. On a failure the seaweed counts as 10 feet of difficult terrain.
3	A sudden riptide grabs you. Make a DC 15 Strength (Athletics) check. On a failure you are pulled 15 feet in a random direction determined by the DM and suffer one level of exhaustion which lasts until the end of the chase.
4	A large piece of jagged drift wood pulled by a fast current speeds toward you. The wood makes an attack against you with a +5 bonus to the attack roll. On a hit you take 1d8 piercing damage.
5	A coral reef lies in your path. Make a DC 10 Dexterity (Athletics) check. On a failure you are hooked my the coral and take 1d4 piercing damage and lose 10 feet of movement.
6	A large swell or wave is headed your way. Make a DC 15 Strength (Athletics) check. On a failure you are pushed back 15 feet at the start of your turn.
7	A reef shark approaches you. Make a DC 15 Wisdom (Animal Handling) check. You make this check at disadvantage of you are not at maximum hit points. On a failure the shark chases after you.
8	A school of jelly fish is in your path. You can spend 10 feet of movement to move around the jellyfish or make a DC 15 Dexterity (Athletics) check. On a failure you take 2d6 poison damage and lose 15 feet of movement.
9	A rock lies in your path. Make a DC 10 Strength (Athletics) check. On a failure you lose 5 feet of movement and take 1d10 bludgeoning damage.
10	A you are assaulted by currents in all directions and a small whirlpool forms beneath you. Make a DC 15 Strength (Athletics) check. On a failure you lose 10 feet of movement and suffer one level of exhaustion.
11 – 20	No complication.

*Note you may make a vehicles (water) check with the appropriate ability in place of an Athletics check if riding in a water vehicle during the chase.

PDF

Would you like these chase complication tables in a PDF along with all the other fifth edition D&D chase complications I’ve designed for this blog? Grab them below.

Chase Complication Tables

Saltwater Chase Complications Table

Flying Chase Complications Table

If you don’t want to grab them now, but decide you want the PDFs at a future date, head on over to the Free Game Resources section of this site where the documents will live along with monsters, magic items, backgrounds, D&D fifth edition rules modules, spells, adventures, and more created by yours truly.

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