Category Archives: D&D

Update on Campaign Planning #11: It’s a dangerous world out there!

D&D, RPG, session planning

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

With our session 1 of the In the Wake Of Pytheas campaign imminent. Apart from some final prep such as printing stuff out, and a minor hiccup getting my hands on the GF9 Of Ships and Sea DM Screen (Amazon delivery guy delivered it to wrong place). I’m ready as I can be.

In the meantime thoughts are now turning towards session 2 and session 3. Well to be more accurate they have been for a little while now.

The latest thing I’ve been mulling over is what creatures/monsters inhabit the islands. Particularly the 9 islands that make up the Mintarn archipelago.

The reason this is an “issue” is because the adventurers will be wandering over these islands. Naturally there will be random encounters as they explore whichever island they happen to be on. But what creatures will they stumble upon?

The Ghosts of Salt Marsh appendix A has a useful encounter table for Wild Island encounters. It’s a good starting point. And truth be told may be used as is. Along side my own creation. I’ll be lazy and use the encounter tables as is from the book for random encounters at sea.

Why would I want to use my own encounter table? If we look at the list of reasons in the DM’s Guide for using random encounters the relevant ones for me are to “reinforce campaign themes“, “establish atmosphere” and “add interest“.

I also want to create unique encounter tables for each of the archipelagos. Naturally they will have variance and some over lap. I think this will aid in establishing atmosphere, make the archipelagos feel unique and reinforce any theme for the archipelago.

So between the Ghosts of Saltmarsh tables I mentioned above, I’ll also use the appropriate random encounter table for the coastal, forest, hills and mountains encounter tables from Xanathar’s Guide to Everything. Plus the appropriate monsters by environment lists from the DM’s Guide. I’ve not compared the tables and lists to see what over lap exists. There is bound to be some. Probably a lot. But from those tables and lists I’ll come up with my custom encounter table for each island.

I’ve also based on sources like the Sword Coast source book divided the islands into areas and the cultural influences on them.

As you can see the Mintarn Archipelago is a melting pot, where the different cultural influences mingle.

Racially and ecologically the Moonshae Isles have already been populated and gone into with the source material that I have. Such as the official Sword Coast book and the Rising Shadows book from the Adventurers League.

Which means Mintarn hasn’t been populated. Assumptions can be made based on a variety of sources and throw away paragraphs. Such as humans are the dominant species and most prevalent. Especially when we are talking about the capital Mintarn. But based on the adventure hook about the Ironstar Dwarves I came across for the main island. We can also assume there have been and possibly still Dwarves on the island.

Naturally the capital Mintarn will have enclaves of various races. So adventurers will bump into elves, halflings etc. But when they come across remote communities the racial diversity will be a lot less diverse, almost single race.

Pirates will be made up from humans, elves, orcs, minotaurs and dwarves mainly. And we know that other races will from time to time be found amongst them. Like for example Vraska who is a medusa/gorgan.

I like how the world is fleshing out. Without even getting to the Moonshae Isles there are so many options and things to do. This is such a rich area of Faerûn to explore.

Taking free #DnD to the next level!

D&D, RPG

With the Essentials kit now out in the US of A, on a limited basis as a Target exclusive until 3rd September.

I think it was a good time to remind people interested in getting into the game that they don’t have to wait.

In a previous post I talked about using free resources from WotC and Matthew Colville to run a D&D night with a bunch of friends.

However with the emphasis of the Essentials kit being to take players the next step and play using characters they created. I thought it would be appropriate after there was a reminder shared on Twitter that there is a great free official resource that gives you some extra races you can use, to write this post linking to some sources of free adventures you can use for this next step.

Here is the link from the tweet Elemental Evil Player’s Companion.

So with that pdf and the free basic rules, you go from 4 races to 8. Plus more spells for druids and wizards to choose from.

But what are the players going to do with these new characters they have created? I’m assuming that you and your friends have already done the Colville adventure mentioned in the previous post. Now after spending time creating a character personal to them your players will want to spend more than a one shot with them. They will want a campaign!,

You can create your own but I’m going to assume that is something you want to do down the road. Well you could look on the DM’s Guild, and do a search for free adventures there. There are plenty to choose from.

This post links to some free Adventurers Guild adventures many suited to first level characters that are hosted on the WotC servers.

Another great source of encounters that could be turned into a mini campaign are the Encounters of the Week over on D&D Beyond. The post I’m linking to here is the 8th in a series of encounters that lead into the upcoming storyline adventure book Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus. At the bottom of the post are links to the other 7 posts and the order they are experienced. But there are many others there that can be strung together. I particularly like the 2 they did for Ghosts of Saltmarsh (here and here).

But the above just scratches the surface of what’s on offer out there. After my first session has run, my notes for that will be here. If you are desperate enough you could use them as well.

If an adventure mentions a monster and you don’t have the stats for it, google is your friend. It will usually give you a D&D Beyond result, so maybe look there first. Also on a side note you can access the basic rules on D&D Beyond for free that does give you access to more than the free pdf when it comes to classes and races. Well more in general. Add in the free Elemental Evil pdf above and you have a lot of choices for your players.

I hope this post was of use. I’m off to finish prepping for my first session.

Update on planning session 1 #10

D&D, RPG, session planning


SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

You know when you get something like an ear worm or an idea that you just can’t stop thinking about?

That’s how it’s been for me the last couple of days over the distances my players will be travelling in session 1. Just how long will it take for them to sail from Saltmarsh and the Angrath’s pirate island base?

I kept thinking that it would take about 14 days or more. Once I remembered that the map had a scale on it. Yeah I know I’m slow and old. I dug out my physical copy of the Sword Coast Adventurers Guide turned to the area map and roughly measured the distance. They were closer than I thought. I estimated 350 – 400 miles.

Referring to the Ghosts of Saltmarsh appendix A the stats block for a keelboat says it travels at 3mph or 72 miles per day.

With some quick simple maths I put the travel time to 5-6 days. Considerably quicker than I had initially thought.

I then looked at Mintarn and the islands around it, which is where session 2 and potentially session 3 are taking place. It looks like a days travel at most from Mintarn to any of the islands (that isn’t the northern 2 islands the players ended up on, they are about a day and a half away).

The upshot now is that when I look at the map I can make a rough estimate of the distance between places.

I started listening to Rising Tide by Mel Odom, which is the first volume in the The Threat From the Sea trilogy. It’s got me thinking that the party will be bumping in to sahuagin early on.

I have one or two options or adventure ideas. The first is a D&D Beyond Encounter Of The Week. Which is “a combat encounter in which the characters must prove themselves as worthy gladiators to escape the clutches of a ruthless sahuagin baron.” This encounter acts as a follow up to the encounter I’m borrowing for my session 1, the group skill challenge. However this could be dropped anywhere in the campaign.

I also like the idea of the sahuagin attacking the party while at sea. Similar to the attack described in Rising Tide. This would see the sahuagin using a manta. Which is an oblong barge made up from wood salvaged from shipwrecks. This would be a ship to ship combat. In fact this idea could lead into that encounter of the week.

I also like the idea of malenti. Which are mutated sahuagin that look like sea elves. The malenti are often used to spy on said sea elves. I want the party to have dealings with sea elves, and having them stumble upon a malenti spy, and a sahuagin plot of some sort would be a cool thing to explore.

The idea of having the sahuagin, or a group of them terrorising towns and communities along a stretch of coast line, and having the party sort it out also seems a good idea.

Also inspired by Rising Tide and the attack on Waterdeep the party might feel the wrath of a dragon turtle.

Which once again could lead into the encounter of the week. Or have different repercussions for the party. Seeing the party shipwrecked and leading into another adventure idea, say The Jurassic Park/Ixalan based island.

In the photo above I decided to recreate the opening of the campaign and session 1. Naturally the miniatures will be different. But it gives an idea.

I pre-calculated the passive perception for my players, and with the exception of one, the values are either 11 or 12. I just have the image of the party wandering around oblivious to what’s going on around them. While that one player with a value of 16 is saying “did you see that?” Or “how did you miss that?”

I’m so glad I brain dump in these posts. It might be boring for everyone else. Plus maybe some-one might find it interesting.

Update on planning session 1 #9

D&D, RPG, session planning

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

So I have painted the well that was printed off for me. I had run out of primer which put a stop on doing the boat tiles themselves.

But once finished I decided to knock up another part of the dungeon. Which is the photo below.

I did eventually get my hands on more primer (probably not nearly enough) and have sprayed an initial batch of boat tiles.

It was annoying me that I had enough pirate figures, or ones that can be used as pirates, but they needed trimming and gluing. So I finally caved and ordered a cheap model builders kit off Amazon that got me the needed clippers. It also got me a mini self healing mat for cutting stuff on, a scalpel with spare blades and a file.

So Saturday evening I spent clipping and gluing to make the pirates/vikings. This really is my least favourite part of the hobby. How anyone gets enjoyment from this I don’t know.

However Sunday was spent painting the miniatures. I only finished 2 completely because they were the least complicated. The others are in various stages of painting.

I had decided early on whilst I was painting I would concentrate on the models I needed for the first session, and leave the ones that appear much later to last. However as I painted the models in the stages, ie applied the Viking blue to all those that were going to have that colour, or apply the barbarian flesh colour to the models all of a sudden apart from some hair Angrath is almost complete and just needs washes and dry brushing.

It appears that the players have a date for our first session now. Boy has that been like extracting teeth. I’m glad I put the onus on them to make the decision. It was painful to watch them discussing it. I would have been infuriated if I had been trying to arrange it. The whole “I’m thinking of a number, can you guess it?” part of the process I find so frustrating.

I have shared a copy of an excel spreadsheet with the players that summarises the players characters stats.

I have asked them to check the information and let me know of any corrections. One or two of them the hand writing is hard to decipher.

While I was in excel I decided to start to populate the encounters with creatures. I just need to copy the stats across, pre-roll the initiative (to speed combat up a little) and work out the passive perception.

I’ve also been doing minor updates to the other planning notes, like finally setting a DC level for the locked doors. I added a couple of items to the treasure room, one of which is cursed!

I’m also getting inspiration for one or two of the adventure hooks. There was a recent Encounter of the Week on D&D Beyond that uses a skill challenge to navigate successfully through a wilderness. This would be a great way for the party to navigate through the wood covered part (which is most of it) of Mintarn to locate the secret cave of the Ironstar Dwarves.

On the model front I will try and get some viking villagers, put an order in with my guy for the 3D stuff for some 3D trees, and some viking huts. I might try and get some generic figures that can be used as ship crew and townsfolk.

That’s the thing about this part of the Forgotten Realm. There is two real distinct groups of humans. One is viking influenced, whilst the other is more medieval European. There are definitely elven and dwarven communities as well in the area. And they will break down into at least a couple of sub races, like sea elves for example.

Other races will be present but as enclaves within the major settlements.

So when it comes to models to get, I know that I have a focus on the prominent races of the area.

That’s the progress I’ve made on planning and prep since the last update.

Update on planning session 1 #8 Boat Tiles

D&D, RPG, session planning

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

Last night I picked up the tiles that will allow me to recreate the decks of boats.

Once I was home I immediately primed the well ready for painting in the near future. I need to research painting stone walls first. Which I’ve started to do.

Naturally this morning I quickly knocked up a couple of boat layouts that I will use in the opening sessions.

The first to be put together is a small row boat (bottom boat in the photo above). Which scale wise is 10ft wide by 25ft long! So slightly bigger than a regular row boat!Assuming each square is 5ft. But I suppose I could say that the squares are 2ft.

The next boat to be put together was a version of the keelboat. I use the door to imply a wall at the end of the boat where the cabin is. The beds are a little on the large side. 10ft in length, nice roomy beds! But I’m really happy with the way it works.

Naturally I will use the inter locking clips to put these together before hand. It will make using them a lot easier.

I will need to get more tiles when I move away from single deck boats like long ships, row boats and keelboats. But that’s way down the line (for now).

One thing I would like to find are some small model boats of the ones mentioned above, plus say pirate ships that can go on a battle map to show at a larger scale the positions of boats in relation to each other. Kind of like a sea version of x-wing.

While picking up the tiles the news about our regular gaming haunt for the club and it’s ongoing refit wasn’t good. It looks like the seated area will not be completed until after the summer. Which means we will have to look at a plan b for a place to play. Which we have now. So I’ve put it back into the hands of the players to work out a date and time for our first session. I hate the whole guessing game of trying to find a date and time that works for everyone. It’s a real headache. So I’ve put the onus on them to work it out and come back to me. I’m usually free most of the time. I have no life.

On the planning front I now also have some hooks for session 2. I’ve come up with four, one I hope is sign posted enough that if they go for it will result in a tpk most likely. But you’d expect that if they took on a red dragon! One of the hooks even ties in with a couple of the players back stories. I’m feeling proud of that one.

But it does mean I can’t really plan session 3 until I know which hook the players want to follow. So once session 2 has finished I have a bit of work ahead of me before session 3 starts.

In the meantime I have a lot of brown paint to slap on some tiles.

Update on planning session 1 #7

D&D, RPG, session planning

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

Spent the morning researching Mintarn for the campaign. As you can see from the scribbled on map below my party will be ending up on a couple of the islands that make up a nine island archipelago that Mintarn is also part of.

Initial thoughts had been free the adventures had somehow got a “lift” from the fisherman they would be taken to Kythyss. Where they would take part in the big festival etc.

But after some pondering and looking at the map. It seemed more logical that the fisherman would want rid of the adventurers as quick as possible, and they would more likely also to be heading for Mintarn anyway.

So the fisherman are going to be dropping the party off at the smaller of the two settlements on Mintarn, Queen’s Cove.

There is a great Dungeon magazine supplement I found that although not Forgotten Realms specific, had a section in it that allows you to set it in the realm. As luck would have it the guidance given puts it straight on Mintarn. That’s where I got the info about the two settlements on the island. And that there is a single road connecting the two. Also the island is covered in trees. Picking up the town map for Mintarn should be easy as the above supplement mentions that the map used for the adventure in Dungeon 131 is for a town called Alhaster and is used for the city map for Mintarn. I’ve just to come up with a small basic town map for Queen’s Cove. And that is going to be much quicker and easier than doing Mintarn itself.

Over on the Forgotten Realms wiki for Mintarn there is a nice legend that can be used whilst the adventurers are on Mintarn.

So I’m going to use that as an adventure hook, along with planting ones for the 3 other islands in the archipelago. I’m not sure what those hooks are at the moment. There will be a fifth hook as well. That hook will be for the island Skadaurak, and it’s occupant Hoondarrh the red dragon. Although that hook will be very well sign posted that taking on Hoondarrh is way beyond them at the moment.

As you can see I’ve also given Vraska and her pirates an island base now. Although it’s a while before the adventurers will meet her.

I look at the map for that area of the Forgotten Realms which is basically the Moonshae Isles, and there is sooo much to do, explore etc. That’s not taking into account any of my ideas.

A good source of background info and ideas is the Adventurers League Rising Shadows : Moonshae Isles Regional Guide. There are also 3 adventures that go along with this that you can also buy.

With all those islands there are plenty of homes for my ideas. Such as a Jurassic Park/Ixalan inspired island, lost/forgotten tribes/races, Greek myth inspired. Plus under sea adventures on top of that.

I’m hoping that overtime we will get to scratch more than just the surface of the possibilities this part of the Forgotten Realms offers. It’s such a rich part of the world to explore.

As the above new comic book series by IDW Comics A Darkened Wish will show. The bottom half of the cover is how I imagine our party to be at the start of their adventure. Except that jetty is in Saltmarsh, and they are about to get onto a keelboat and head off into the unknown.

Trying out the level with tiles

D&D, RPG

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

Decided yesterday to build the first level of my dungeon to see how it looks. Or could look.

Level 2 is a bit more complicated.

The plan is not to have the the whole level out on the table. But only show the relevant bit (read as little as possible).

You will notice I’m not using pieces with walls. I’m implying they are there, and the mind will do the rest!

Doing it this way avoids one of the criticisms of 3D tiles that the players view of the room gets obstructed and they can’t see what’s going on. It’s also cheaper for me.

I keep saying this, but I can’t wait to see the players reaction when they see all this on the table.

In the meantime I have some boat tiles being printed. My friend sent me a photo of the stuff in progress.

I’ve got enough ordered to make a long boat or keelboat plus row boat. The photo below off the thingiverse page shows the sort of thing that can be done with them.

The draw back of this method over say battle maps is that the benches for rowing aren’t present/shown. But that’s something I can live with, given the flexibility of the system.

Next on the to do list, brown primer and oak brown paint, and a wash. Not sure what wash to use. I have a brown, or do I use a light or medium tone?

Can’t remember where I got this next photo from, it’s somewhere off the Internet. But this is the sort of thing I want to be able to achieve eventually.

I’m not sure where they got some of the tiles (the straight triangle ends) but I’ll get there.

RPG Adventures for Kids

D&D, RPG

The other day I came across the post I snapped a photo of below on a board game Facebook group (can’t remember which one). I then shared it on another Facebook group because a day or two before in that group a member had asked about RPGs for kids. They had wanted to run an RPG for their kids who where now becoming old enough to play them.

A day or two later it occurred to me (I know I’m slow sometimes, old age and all that) that my small but exclusive readership might also find the information useful.

Also, because I’m a kind soul, I’ve included clickable links to the files.


“The Floating Library of Pelduin”

http://bit.ly/2IzzM3H

“The Monster Hunter Guild of Havale”

http://bit.ly/31v8Jzp

“The Sleeping Sickness of Bear Claw Village”

http://bit.ly/2MJhl1X

“Dragon’s Fortune”

http://bit.ly/2wLhLtQ

“Wizard Bonbon and the Castle of Sucre”

http://bit.ly/2I9K9vY

There are a couple of “official” adventures aimed at 6+ on the D&D website, Monster Slayers: Champions of the Elements and the original Monster Slayers: The Heroes Of Hesiod.

It might also be worth looking at the No Thank You, Evil! by Monte Cook Games. Plus there is Amazing Tales on DriveThruRPG. Not my cup of tea, but there is a My Little Pony: Tails Of Equestria RPG. And those aren’t even scratching the surface of what’s available. Google is your friend here.

I hope some people have found this post useful. Or at least started those with kids thinking.

Adjusting monsters in D&D

D&D, RPG

This post was nearly titled “shit they don’t tell you in the D&D rulebooks”. Like other posts it’s based on a Matt Colville video.

In the DMG they tell you how to reskin/reuse an existing monster (I’ve done that for two major characters in my campaign). They tell you how to create a new monster from scratch using a couple of methods. But what they don’t tell you is how to take an existing monster and adjust it so that it is suitable to go up against your party.

The example given in the video (link above) is adjusting a medusa so it can be used against a third level party. But you might want to go the opposite direction also.

Why would you want to do this? Why not? Ok that’s not an answer. It opens up more options for you the DM for starters. More variety. It allows you to surprise players, especially those that “know it all”. I’ll expand on that. If a player knows the Monster Manual, and the CR rating stuff, they might be expecting only certain creatures will be used for the level the group is at for encounters. Imagine their surprise when all of a sudden a monster that has a much higher CR rating suddenly appears. Something they would only expect once their party reaches an appropriate level.

Admittedly you could still do that without adjusting the stats of the creature. But only if you wanted to murder the whole party. It’d be a bit unfair and one sided.

So in the rest of this post I’m going to summarise what Colville says in his video. Now I hope people don’t mind me doing this. This is basically me making notes for myself to refer back to, and sharing them with you. Hopefully others will find this useful as well.

Adjusting Down

In the mentioned video the medusa was used as an example. But it’s the process that is important not the creature. (I think that sums up Colville’s main reason for the video.)

So below in bullet points I present my understanding of what to look at.

  • AC – This could be adjusted down to make easier to hit based on player modifiers to hit. This all falls in with a previous post about being outnumbered and in more danger than you think.
  • HP – Naturally this can be reduced. Couple of ways to achieve this. Either on the fly or the old hit die times const formula based on the level you want the creature at.
  • Saving throws – adjust the saving throw. In the Medusa example the target number to avoid being petrified was lowered. But you also may want to adjust the saving throws that the monster does as well.
  • Attack modifiers – give it the same/similar attack modifiers to those of your party.
  • Provide good intel! Make sure that you sign post, drop clues that they are about to face a nasty monster. Using the example Colville gives maybe have a garden of life like statues leading to the Medusa’s lair. This means that the players are not going in blind, can prepare, make tactics or run away.
  • Possibly adjust the amount of damage an attack does if successful.

I think that sums up what to look at from the video. If I’ve missed something out, or not explained it properly, or totally missed the point let me know please.

Adjusting Up

This one is the easier to do, taking a lower level monster and making things more challenging for a party that is a higher level.

  • Increase the AC of the creature! Give it armour, or better armour.
  • Give the creature allies
  • Add +1 or +2 to its constitution modifier
  • More hit dice
  • Maybe increase the DC saving throw (17 maximum)
  • Make the creature legendary and all that entails

And that’s it. See you in the next post.

Campaign Prep Workflow

D&D, RPG

In this post I’m going to look at the apps I’m using to prep for the D&D campaign.

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

My main device for anything is my iPad Pro. I can’t remember when I last fired up a desktop or laptop at home. The nearest I’ve come is using a Raspberry Pi a couple of times. Apart from coding and some fringe cases I can do everything I need to on an iPad.

When it comes to preparing for the campaign I’m using three main apps. Well I say three but in reality you could argue that it is really two.

I’m including the rather good WordPress app in this workflow because I’m including this post, and my other posts about my progress and such as part of my prep for the campaign.

Yes this blog is a diary. It’s not incite full, it doesn’t look deep into the human condition. It fails as a boardgaming blog. There are not reviews on here, when I play a new game I talk about what I liked and didn’t like about it. But what I say is no way as in-depth as the reviews others put out. These days I talk about Magic the Gathering, D&D and other RPGs, and gaming sessions. Stuff that interests me.

I use the prep posts particularly as notes, reminders, even just thinking aloud, milling over ideas. Which I think is an important thing to do. Hopefully some-one will find my sharing, seeing my thought process helpful. It is for me.

Ok onto the next app in my workflow.

That app is Scrivener.

Scrivener is aimed at people who write a lot of manuscripts, particularly screen writes, authors, etc. It has none of the bells and whistles of like Word. It aims to help writers focus on the writing without the distractions.

I’m using Scrivener to write the session notes. Stuff like room and character descriptions, encounters notes, etc.

I particularly like the cork board view. It allows me to play around with the structure of a session. It has some other nice features too, like keeping research notes with the project.

The nice thing for me also is I can control what gets generated as the final version of the adventure for the session.

The final app in the workflow is Good Notes.

Good Notes is a note taking app. A digital note book.

There are a lot of notebook apps for the iPad. It’s a natural thing for it to be used for. Especially with an Apple Pencil.

I particularly like this app. It has a presentation mode (useful for my day job). Plus I like being able to have custom page templates. So my notebooks in the app can be made up from several different page types. For example graph paper for some, plain for others, A3 pages instead of A4, landscape and even character sheets.

I’m using Good Notes as a digital DM’s folder. Which will be holding more than my actual DM’s folder. The physical version will have some of the pages printed, like maps, encounter stats. Basically stuff I need for the session.

In previous posts about the campaign pitch and the player sheet that introduces the campaign I did use a couple of other apps that fall under the honourable mention section if I were to have one. For the two documents just mentioned I used Word on the iPad. Word I don’t think needs any explanation. Plus the images used in those documents I edited in my go to image editor on the iPad Pixelmator.

I do intend to at the end of each session write a reflective blog post about how I thought the session went. And with those posts include the current version of the DM’s folder, and the adventure session notes.