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!

D&D - You're probably playing the Sorcerer wrong

Ah, the sorcerer. Depending on who you talk to, they're either the best class in Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition, or one of the worst. Broken, or broken.

But the truth is that a lot of people have a lot of misconceptions about this class and it's actually one of the most powerful classes in 5e.

The Wizard is no longer top dog

Back in older editions of D&D, the Wizard was hands-down the most powerful class.

They were sort of like Batman. You give them a day - or sometimes even a few minutes - to prepare, and they're unbeatable.

The sorcerer was still good, but they always stood in the shadow of wizards. Melee classes, however, were by far the worst. A character whose defining ability is "being really strong" can't really stand up to someone who can literally bend reality.

Everything changed when the 5e nation attacked

When Wizards of the Coast sat down to make 5th Edition, they set out to make things more equitable. After all, the sword-wielder is one of the most iconic fantasy archetypes; shouldn't they be able to keep up?

But how do you balance levels of power between a wizard who can literally grant wishes, and a barbarian with an axe? How could that ever be fair?

The solution they came up with was called Concentration.

Concentration: the great equalizer

The concentration mechanic limits spellcasters' most powerful spells to one at a time. For your most powerful spells, you need to "concentrate" on them in order for them to still work.

If you stop concentrating in order to concentrate on a different spell, the first one goes away.

That way, wizards still have access to their cool abilities, but can't have all of them running at the same time. You can't Fly and have Haste and protection spells all at the same time.

So what does all this have to do with the Sorcerer?

The Sorcerer is the one and only class in 5th edition that can break the Concentration rule.

You see, Sorcerers have metamagic, which lets them do amazing things like quicken a spell to cast it as a bonus action or cast it with greater range or force the target to take disadvantage on a saving throw.

Their most powerful metamagic is known as Twin Spell.

How does Twin Spell work?

Twin spell does just what it sounds like.

When you cast a spell, you can spend some of your sorcery points to cast it on a second target at the same time, and maintain concentration on both targets!

Double Fly, double Hold Person, double Banishment, the choice is yours! Want to give Haste to the Fighter and the Barbarian simultaneously? Go for it!

Want to polymorph the Bard into a T-Rex so he can actually do some damage for once? Why not turn the Cleric into one too?

With Twin spell, you can literally break the rules of the game and no one can stop you!

Good luck and happy adventuring!

D&D - The One Secret to Make Your 5e Rogue a Powerhouse

In this post, we're going to share a secret strategy to turn your rogue into a tough-as-nails, damage-dealing powerhouse.

Try it out in your next game and impress your friends!

What's the deal with rogues?

The D&D rogue is one of the most iconic classes in fantasy.

In fact, they were originally called the Thief , one of the original four pillars of the "classic" adventuring party: fighter, thief, cleric, mage.

Bilbo was a thief. Conan, often called "the Barbarian," actually typically described himself as a thief. Thieves and rogues are as ubiquitous as swords and chainmail.

And the 5e version is a solid class. Pretty good damage, pretty good utility, a number of interesting skills. They're well rounded and fun to play.

So why are people dissatisfied with them?

Short story: they aren't really the best at anything.

A bard has better skills. A fighter does better damage. A wizard has any number of magical means to steal, and the Knock spell to open locked chests. A warlock is more charismatic and charming.

Sure, rogues can do it all, but there's no one thing that they're the best at.

So let's fix it!

The Essential Ingredients

In order for this build to work, we're going to have to take advantage of some lesser-known rules and a wide variety of books, making this not Adventurer's League legal, but great for home games.

First, we're going to combine all the ingredients. Then, we'll see how it tastes!

For our race, we are going to select Dwarf (I know, not the normal choice for a rogue, but bear with me!). For sub-race, we will select the Mark of Warding Dwarf.

We will start the game as a Fighter, picking up all armor and weapon proficiencies, the Dueling fighting style, and the ability to use shields.

Then we will take three levels of rogue, becoming an Arcane Trickster. For your spells, take Booming Blade and Find Familiar. After that, two more levels of fighter, becoming a Battlemaster, where we will take the Precise Attack and Riposte maneuvers.

With our fourth level in rogue, we will take the Sentinel feat.

Just what the heck is going on here??

I know, I know. It all seems crazy. Almost equal levels in two classes? Dwarf rogue??

Here's how it works:

The gist of it is that you're playing a rogue, but with a 3 level dip in Fighter. You start as a Fighter in order to get the Heavy Armor proficiency, and then you stick around to pick up other essential goodies.

The Mark of Warding Dwarf gets bonuses to Dexterity, Constitution, and Intelligence, the three stats most key for an Arcane Trickster. Let's start with 16 in all of those stats.

Next, with your Find Familiar spell, you can get an owl that is capable of moving in and out of enemy threatened squares without provoking attacks of opportunity. This means that the owl is safely able to move in to where you are fighting and use the Help action, giving you advantage on your next attack, which automatically triggers Sneak Attack!

Since you have only one attack, Booming Blade is just an extra 1d8 damage on your attack (at level 5), plus an additional 2d8 if they move. It automatically scales in damage as you level, which helps compensate for the levels lost to multiclassing.

We picked Dwarf because Dwarves have a little-known ability to ignore the strength requirement for Heavy Armor. This means that we can safely dump strength and still sit comfortably at 20AC with full plate and a shield. This is OUTRAGEOUSLY durable for a rogue.

On top of that, Mark of Warding gets a bunch of roguey benefits like free lock-related spells and bonuses to lockpicking.

The Secret Sauce - What is REALLY going on

A rogue's damage primarily comes from Sneak Attack. Not getting to Sneak Attack for any reason is a massive loss in damage.

But what's interesting about Sneak Attack is that it can only trigger once per turn, not once per round.  This means that if you get any attacks of opportunity, they can ALSO get Sneak Attack, essentially DOUBLING your damage for the round.

This build will let you take a reaction attack almost every single turn. If they swing at a buddy of yours, Sentinel procs and you get a sneak attack. If they swing at you and miss (which is common with your 20AC), Riposte procs and you attack them right back. If they swing at you and hit, well, you take the damage, but when you get that 5th level in rogue you can choose to halve the damage as a reaction instead. Nice!

The Inevitable Downsides

Yes, this build is great. It's fun to play, effective, and really unusual. Who doesn't want to roleplay a dwarf rogue?!

There are two downsides you should be aware of: one is that you'll always be slightly behind other rogues in terms of sneak attack die progression. Typically, this means your attacks will do 1d6 less damage than theirs. Of course, you're attacking almost twice as often, so you easily make up for it!

The other downside is that sneaking in heavy armor imposes disadvantage. This is easily mitigated by using your Expertise ability on your Stealth skill. Disadvantage at +9 or +11 is barely disadvantage at all!

Have fun, and happy adventuring!

D&D - Barbarian for Beginners - Learn in 5 minutes!

You're walking into a D&D sesh, totally unprepared. You didn't make a character sheet and you have 5 minutes before the game is starting to figure out a character.

What are you going to play? You're going to play the Barbarian.


Simple and Brutal

The barbarian is a tanky, damage powerhouse who will be easy and fun in combat and roleplay.

You won't need a difficult build or any complex spell choices. All you need is a 2 handed weapon and your INNER RAGE!

Barbarian Basics

Step one, you're going to want at least 16 Strength (STR). If you rolled for stats or you started as some strong race like Mountain Dwarf or Half Orc, get more if you can! But STR 16 is your minimum.

Next, you're going to want to choose the Bear Totem option. Sure, there's many other great barbarian subclasses, but we're trying to learn in five minutes here. Cut us some slack.

The Bear Totem means that when you fly into a Rage (which you should do for EVERY combat that you can!), you will take HALF DAMAGE from ALL SOURCES except Psychic damage (very rare)! This is an AMAZING ability that - combined with the barbarian's good armor and best-in-class hit points means that you will be almost unbeatably durable among melee characters.

Now, you're going to want to grab a heavy, 2-handed weapon like a Greataxe, a Greatsword, or a Maul. The Greatsword or Maul are technically better than a Greataxe until later levels, but the difference is small enough that you should optimize for flavor. Grab whichever of the three you prefer!

Finally, you're going to want to take the Great Weapon Master feat as soon as you can. Some people argue this point, but don't worry, we've got a plan.

Now what do I do with all this stuff?

In combat, the first thing to do is enter a rage. This will make you more durable and give you extra damage on your attacks.

When you attack, you're going to want to take advantage of the Great Weapon Master ability that lets you trade -5 to hit for +10 to damage.

Ordinarily, that -5 to hit can be tough, especially at low levels. Luckily, you are a barbarian!

Barbarians have an ability called Reckless Attack that gives them advantage on all attacks for that round and doesn't cost anything to use! You can use this literally every. Single. Turn. It does come with the penalty that enemies get advantage to attack you back, but remember that while in a rage you are shrugging off damage anyway.

This ability is really good. Adding +10 damage is roughly mathematically equivalent to rolling an extra 1d20 for damage.

But that's not all that Great Weapon Master gives you. When you get a critical hit (common, since you are always attacking with advantage) or kill an enemy (also common, since you are a murder machine), you get to make another attack as a BONUS action for free! And since reckless attack applies to all attacks on your turn, the free attack gets advantage as well!

Pretty good, right?

On an adventure...

You cross the tomb threshold into a musky corridor. As your eyes adjust to the darkness, you spot a goblin sentry, fast asleep in the corridor. Behind you, the clumsy cleric trips on a flagstone and lands on the floor with a loud clang, rousing the goblin.

He sounds the alarm! You're swarmed!

Luckily, you are a barbarian. As a bonus action, you FLY INTO A RAGE! Taking advantage of your extra movement speed from Unarmored Movement, you cross the room in a single turn, brandishing your Greatsword. In one blow you cleave the goblin in two. With your second attack you strike through another one, and you move to engage the rest of them and draw their attacks.

Unfortunately for them, few of their attacks land and those that do barely seem to slow you down. Your skin is like iron and it's more than any shoddy goblin spears can penetrate.

Two more swings and two more goblins fall beneath your rage. Your mastery of your sword is so complete that you are able to get off a third attack that fells the final goblin and ends the encounter.

Now to progress further into the tomb in search of fabulous treasure, but did the sounds of battle alert more goblins? You ready your sword and tread forward into the darkness to find out.

The Number 1 Thing New DMs Get Wrong

It starts with the best of intentions.

You volunteer to run a new game for your friends. You have an amazing story in mind that you can't wait to tell. You spend weeks or months prepping it. You're excited to debut it and you can't wait to see the look on your players' faces as they uncover its twists and turns.

But something goes wrong. The players aren't having fun! Maybe they're even bored, or angry! Maybe they just stop showing up and the whole thing falls apart, before you even get to the dramatic reveal that the town mayor was the villain all along!

How could it have gone so wrong?

This doesn't make any sense! What about your meticulously handcrafted narrative? What about the maps you spent weeks drawing? What about the fun you were supposed to have??

Don't worry. This kind of thing is extremely common. Games fall apart all the time for all kinds of reasons, oftentimes with nobody to blame.

However, sometimes games collapsing is preventable and avoidable. Most problems that occur can be solved with one simple technique, and we're going to teach you how to use it.

So are you ready? Here it is:

Communication

I know, I know. "You need to communicate with your players." The worst advice. I hate it when people tell me that.

But just because it's annoying doesn't mean it's not true. And if you want to keep playing, you need to learn how to communicate.

It can seem daunting. Having a frank conversation could involve hurt feelings or unwanted stress. It feels confrontational.

The good news is, it doesn't have to be. At the end of the day, you're playing D&D because you want to hang out with your friends, go on an adventure, and have fun. Everyone at the table feels the same way, and they all want the same things.

Maybe they like the story, but they felt very railroaded and pushed into making decisions that they didn't think their characters would make. That's a common mistake DMs make when they fall in love with their story, and it's very easily solvable!

Maybe they are enjoying their characters, but are confused about the plot or what they're expected to do next. This can be a major issue when the DM thinks it's "obvious" that the party needs to go find the missing wizard near the abandoned quarry, but the party instead wants to head back to town to gather more clues.

Imagine how much frustration could be solved by talking to your players out of game and giving them an opportunity to say "we're not really sure what we should be doing right now."

Communicate Early and Often

Sometimes problems can fester for a long time and grow out of proportion. If you've played D&D for long enough, I can almost guarantee you've been at a table where somebody got mad. Maybe it was you. Maybe it was a close friend. Maybe it even damaged a friendship.

This is always, always because of a lack of communication. If you think about it, it's incredibly silly, isn't it? D&D is a cooperative game. There's no reason - ever - to get mad... unless you let frustrations fester over weeks, months, years.

So bring up issues when you first experience them. When it's a small thing, it's easy for everyone to address and correct before they become a major problem.

D&D - Learn to play the Warlock in 5 minutes! Beginner's Guide

You're headed to your first ever game of D&D, or maybe just your first game as a warlock. Your friends have spent weeks preparing but you need to bone up quick on how to play. Don't worry, we're going to get you up to speed lickity split.

The warlock is an amazing class that has strong customization options and incredible versatility. But all that is for an in-depth guide, you're trying to learn this class in five minutes! Luckily, we can sum it up for you in two words:

Eldritch. Blast.

You see, the warlock is a pretty limited spellcaster. Unlike a sorcerer or a wizard, who might know a wide variety of spells and have a dozen spells or more they can cast over the course of an adventuring day, the warlock only has TWO spell slots for most of his or her adventuring career. Sure, you get them back after a short rest, but with the hectic life of an adventurer, who knows when that will be?

So you're going to need consistent, round-over-round abilities. Stuff you can do reliably, every time your turn comes up. And for that, you're going to need D&D's handy dandy little at-will abilities: cantrips.

A cantrip is a simple spell that can be cast with no resource expenditure whatsoever. You can do it every turn for as many turns as there are in combat. Typically, they do simple effects like mend an item or create a little cosmetic effect. A number of them do a small amount of damage, nothing to write home about but worth casting when you are trying to save your spells for emergencies.

But the warlock has the best damage cantrip of them all. A cantrip that is unique to the warlock class, that can't be taken by wizards or sorcerers or clerics. Eldritch Blast.

I'll save the deep dive into what makes it so good for another post, but here's how to unlock the power of Eldritch Blast: 

Starting at level 2, warlocks get a special bonus called Eldritch Invocations. These are typically passive buffs of some kind. You are going to take one called Agonizing Blast. This handy dandy ability lets you add your Charisma modifier (as much as +5 damage) to every hit you do.

Why is this so good? Because as you level up, Eldritch Blast gets more and more "beams" that shoot out with every cast, and that bonus damage gets added to every one of them. 

That's right. With a single cast of Eldritch Blast, you're shooting out multiple beams that hit hard, almost never miss, and do devastating damage.

As for the rest of the class, take whatever you like! Choose the spells you think sound like fun, and try to have a good time RPing with your friends.

Best of luck and happy adventuring!

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