How to Level Up Your Hexblade From Level 2 to Level 3, Gary

"I choose Pact of the Soup." - Gary

If you or someone you know is a Gary - sitting on a level 2 warlock, procrastinating leveling her up to level 3 - you have come to the right place.

Right now, unbeknownst to you, because you haven't looked at the Player's Handbook, you are standing at a crossroads. Up until now, you have been playing your Hexblade as a "traditional" spellcaster: hurling hexes and Eldritch Blast from the backlines. Now, you have to make a choice that will define your character for the rest of the campaign.

It's time to choose a Pact.

Just what is a pact? I thought I chose that at level 1.

No, at level 1, you chose your Patron. You selected the Hexblade, a powerful sentient weapon from the Shadowfell. At level 3, your patron will bestow upon you a powerful gift, a symbol of the bargain you struck.

You must choose between the Pact of the Blade, the Pact of the Chain, or the Pact of the Tome.

Thematic/Roleplay Concerns for Garys

The Pact of the Blade will give you a magical weapon from the ether that you can summon any time you like. When it appears in your hand, it will take any form you like. Want to swing a giant shadowy greatsword? Go right ahead! Want to wield a mace? Or a dagger? Or a whip? Take your pick! It's thematic and very cool.

Pact of the Chain gives you a special familiar. This is a powerful little ally that can fight by your side. Want your own demon to sit on your shoulder and cackle at your evil quips? Now you can have one!

Pact of the Tome gives you a demonic spellbook, bound in skin and sinew (or just regular paper, if your warlock is a little more of the tame variety). It's a powerful boon to your spellcasting, and unlike those sucker wizards, if you lose it, you can always get a fresh one for free from your patron.

Mechanical Concerns - Gary of the Blade

"But I'm Gary," you say, "I only care about min maxing for big DPS!" Fair enough, Gary.

Let's talk mechanical. Have you been enjoying playing a ranged character? Do you wish you were back charging into melee like a barbarian? You can have that option! Just choose Pact of the Blade!

Hexblades get a special ability to attack with their Charisma modifier instead of their Strength or Dexterity, so you can instantly transition to being a melee character.

The biggest issue here is that your Eldritch Invocations will become kind of spoken for. You won't get to choose as many "fun" ones because you'll need to take ones for Extra Attack, Eldritch Smite, and other essential "Bladelock" dps options.

That said, it's an extremely fun spec to play and you could be right back in the melee if you don't think the ranged caster playstyle is for you.

Mechanical Concerns - Gary of the Chain

This is in my opinion the most underrated option. Your special familiar is extremely powerful. Many options have the ability to turn themselves invisible, shapeshift, or do other amazing things. You can send them ahead of the party, invisible, to scout out enemy defenses or perform small heists. Many of them fly, as well.

One of the coolest things about them is that several of them also give a special bubble that gives you advantage on saving throws against magic. This is a very powerful effect that can save you from magic that can take you out of the fight or deal massive damage to you.

Mechanical Concerns - Gary of the Tome

Pact of the Tome will push you even further into the true-spellcaster realm. You can choose three cantrips from any caster's spell list, which is an option that NOBODY else gets. You can pick one from the druid list, one from the wizard, and one from the cleric list... and they all become warlock spells for you!

On top of that, there's an invocation you can (and should) take that lets you copy ritual spells you find and cast them from your spellbook. This is an awesome ability that is otherwise only available to the wizard. It will let you greatly expand your otherwise limited spell list and let you cast a lot more spells per day than you normally could, shoring up a critical weakness of the warlock.

So what should a Gary do?

Up to you! But you should definitely decide because we're playing tomorrow!

5e Combat Getting Dull? Try this.

Roll for initiative.

The players burst into a 30x30 room. The barbarian charges straight in, flying into a rage. The rogue uses Hide by the door to gain sneak attack. The wizard stands in the back throwing out spells.

Same tactics as every other battle the party has ever fought. Sound familiar?

The most familiar factor of all.

Your players are creative. They RP with the best of them. They work out unconventional solutions to difficult challenges. The Bard literally convinced the BBEG to turn himself in to the authorities.

And you are a hardworking DM! You give them new and interesting monsters to fight. You have woven a story filled with intrigue and sudden twists and surprises.

So why does every fight feel exactly the same? Maybe it's because every room you fight in is exactly the same.

The objects in the room are as important as the monsters.

When the DM draws out the room on the battlemat, 9 times out of 10 it's an empty square with a door on each side.

Sure, maybe there's a verbal description of a bed and a desk in the corner, or maybe a bookcase. But how often do those elements come into play? How many times has the fighter just hopped right up on the bed in order to get into a flanking position on the next goblin, without thinking anything of it?

Instead, imagine if there were barrels in the corner for the goblins to take cover behind, ensuring the rogue has to move into the room to get a shot on them. Or if the orcs had to charge across a bridge, where they could be knocked off with Repelling Blast. Or if the fighter could kick over a brazier full of coals, spraying the enemies with hot fire.

Terrain will save your game.

Terrain gives your players an opportunity to think tactically. If there's no terrain, then by the time the combat starts, your players will already know exactly how they want to fight. And that's less interesting for everybody.

Terrain is the X factor that keeps everybody on their toes.

Don't feel like you need to solve the puzzle ahead of time.

A lot of DMs worry when they include terrain that they need to fully understand the implications of it. After all, what if they inadvertently build an encounter with a fatal flaw that the players are able to exploit and easily subvert?

To that I say, who cares? If your players are able to find a creative solution that lets them have a crushing victory every now and again, that's great! They'll feel like geniuses! And isn't their jerry-rigged Rube Goldberg solution WAY more interesting and fun than the Paladin swinging his greatsword again?

A stream near the fight could be a place to summon a water elemental. Or an aid in a fight against a vampire. Or a means of escape. Or 10,000 other things that you and your players can figure out in the moment.

So put in random features. Don't stress, just build a room that feels real and alive, and fill it with stuff that belongs there. Let the players figure out how and when to use it, and let your monsters do the same, in the moment.

How to organize a game of D&D while you wait in the queue for WoW Classic

World of Warcraft, the black tar heroin of video games, has decided that the only way to continue to top itself is by playing an encore of its greatest hit: original World of Warcraft.

Laurel Stoutheart is a weird name for a dwarf.

Enter World of Warcraft: Classic, the 2004 smash hit video game, now with a fresh coat of polish and ported to the modern engine.

Featuring all the original mechanics gamers fell in love with, WoW Classic is sure to draw in adventurers from across the globe.

Queue Queue more, noob

Unfortunately, the extreme demand for this game has left frustrated gamers sitting in queues for sometimes 10+ hours.

But where some people see crisis, I see opportunity.

You see, when WoW Classic was announced, it threatened to destroy Dungeons and Dragons nights across the globe. Let's face it, the demographic overlap of WoW players to D&D players is extreme, and WoW is the Great Devourer of Time. D&D nights, which are notoriously hard to organize already, didn't stand a chance.

Now, all that can change.

When a queue becomes an opportunity for an adventure

You get home from work around 6:30 and hop on your computer. You fire up World of Warcraft and you're hit with this nightmare:

Realm is Full

Position in queue: 12605

Estimated time: 423 min

All your guildmates are in the same boat, so you're sitting in Discord talking and hoping for a mass disconnect that will move you up a few thousand places in line.

A bunch of RPG nerds sitting around with 5 hours to kill? This sounds like a perfect opportunity for a D&D night.

And we're going to teach you how to pull it off.

This is a Venn Diagram.

Turn the Department of Motor Vehicles experience into the Six Flags experience

The online D&D industry has exploded in recent years with a wide variety of products and services people can use to run their games online. This list is by no means comprehensive but it should help you get up to speed quickly with some of the most popular options.

Virtual Tabletop Solutions

• Roll20.net - Feature-rich and web-browser enabled. The basic version is also free. Consider upgrading to Pro for additional features or to support the developers.
• Fantasy Grounds - This is a full piece of software that you can purchase on Steam. It's not free, but it's active and popular, with great design. Everyone playing will need a subscription but it's not expensive.
• Theater of the mind - Not a virtual tabletop at all. In fact, the opposite! This is a hugely popular way to play D&D and it works just fine online. There are many dice roller bots you can install on Discord so you don't have to take Steve's word for it that he "totally rolled another nat 20."

Find more players for your group

• reddit.com/r/lfg 
• Dungeons and Dragons Facebook groups

Need the rules?

• Wizards of the Coast provides the basic rules absolutely free on their website.
• If you play often, you should definitely pick up your own copy of the Player's Handbook (currently 44% off on Amazon).

Using some of these options will let you quickly spin up and load in to a game. They don't require everyone to be in the same place at once and they're uniquely well-tailored to people sitting around their computer, talking on Discord.

What about the too-cool-for-school crowd?

Even in a nerd group, there will be people who don't want to try Dungeons and Dragons.

For some reason, even in the D&D renaissance that we are experiencing today, some people believe that completing quests as a paladin in a video game is cool, but doing it with pen and paper is "too nerdy." I know, I don't get it either.

This is where boredom is your friend. If everyone is sitting in Discord for hours, just straight up killing time, and a few people are laughing and RPing and adventuring, it's going to make the people not playing feel left out.

They'll be able to see that everyone else is having a great time and nobody is embarrassed, and they'll want to join in. Invite them, let them feel welcome, but don't pressure them. Let them know you'll show them the ropes, but don't make them feel like they are getting tricked into anything.

They'll come around.

Gaming While-U-Wait

Waiting sucks. No way around it. But the fun of playing these games is more about hanging out with your friends, and this way you can kill time in a way you won't regret.

If you're waiting in a queue night after night, well, hey, that's just a few more nights of D&D with your buddies.

If you have any other ideas on how to spin up some extra D&D sessions or otherwise kill time while waiting to enter Azeroth, let me know in the comments section below. (Seriously, I have like five more hours to kill in this queue, I need all the advice I can get)

Happy adventuring!

The Secret to Creating Great NPCs - DM Tips!

Today's guest column comes from the Wandering Wizard, here to bring you his musings on storytelling to help you run your game better than ever.

A common mistake made by new GMs when creating NPCs is to build the character around a series of if/then statements:

If the player characters do A, then the sheriff will do X
If the player characters do B, then the sheriff will do Y
If the player characters do C, then the sheriff will do Z

While it is valuable to take time before a session to consider possible actions that the player characters could take and how your NPCs might respond, any seasoned GM will tell you that it is impossible to anticipate the sort of crazy and unexpected ideas that your players will come up with in the moment.

But if you can't predict what they'll do, how can you possibly plan for it?

Your NPC's Desire Dictates Their Action

Rather than decide ahead of time what they'll do, it is far more useful to consider what your NPC wants in each scene. This can inform how s/he will act (or react) in any scenario created at the table.

When determining what your NPC wants, try to choose something specific and immediate. While it might be true that your shopkeeper wants to “cultivate a successful and profitable business that ultimately expands into nearby towns”, that is more of a long term goal, and hard to derive concrete actions from.

On the other hand, a shopkeeper who wants to “make a sale” has a compelling reason to engage directly with the PCs across a number of possible scenarios.

Conflict Fuels Story

The best motivations cause conflict, because conflict fuels story (and at its core, D&D is about telling a good story). Do not be afraid to create NPCs whose motivations cause conflict with the player characters.

What if the player characters do not want to buy anything from your shopkeeper? What is the shopkeeper willing to do to secure the sale? To get the PCs to even enter the shop?

A shopkeeper who wants the player characters to leave her shop as soon as possible is much more interesting and fun to engage with than a passive equipment-for-gold dispenser.

And as the GM, you want the table to be as fun and engaging for everyone as possible.

DMs, does this method sound like a better way to prep for your adventures? What methods do you use? Let us know in the comments section below.

DMs - Want to make your life easier while your players have more fun?

Being a DM is tough.

You're the only person at the table with homework. Your job is to encourage fun, but you also have to enforce the rules. The players just need to know how their character works, while ideally you would know how all their characters work, as well as the monsters and hazards they'll face.

With all that on their mind, it's no wonder many DMs get anxious about their performance.

Anxiety - The killer of fun

You spent hours preparing. You know the backstory of every blacksmith, trader, and urchin in the city. You invent a cool plotline and you have a variety of ways the players can stumble into it.

But when presented with the question of what to do next, your players start roleplaying the debate about what to do, and this goes on for a long time.

You're worried that they're lost. You're worried they're not having fun. So you interrupt and give a hint, or you toss in your own two cents, or you add additional information.

No. Stop. Shut up.

It seems counterintuitive when you're sitting on the DM side of the table, but your players ARE having fun. They're getting into character, enjoying their debate, and most importantly...

They are solving a puzzle.

When you give them a few clues about what to do, you have created a puzzle for them to solve. Puzzle solving is fun!

Sure, it may not be a perfectly constructed puzzle. Maybe you expected they would uncover more information before they had this debate. Maybe the clues as given don't entirely add up. But they don't know that. They're trying to decide what their characters would do, given the information at hand.

They WILL come to a decision

You may feel like you've lost control of the situation. You may feel like, as the DM, your role is to lead the party.

Both of those instincts are misguided. Your role isn't to lead, you're one half of the conversation. You throw something out, the players respond, and then you respond to their response. This is the back and forth of the game.

Ultimately, you are one person and you can respond quickly to what they do, but when it comes time for them to make decisions they'll need to confer and debate and reach consensus amongst 2-5 different people.

So what do you guys think? DMs, do you have any other strategies for handling this situation? Players, how do you feel when your DMs do this? Let us know in the comments section below, and happy adventuring!