rpg

I'm about to play a gnome illusion wizard and I'm researching (high INT!) creative uses for illusions.

A classic is an illusory wall to hide behind as enemies run past or cannot aim to you. Or make the pit seem to be somewhere else so they fall in as they charge you. Or fake allies for distraction.

We're playing Pathfinder 2e as 1st level characters. So technically that means the wizard has Figment (Ghost Sound), Illusory Object, and Prestidigitation at his disposal.

There are probably some cool illusion stories in this community?

Do you have a preferred play style?

Welcome back to Advent's Amazing Advice! The series where I take popular One-Shots, Adventures, Campaigns, etc., and fully prep them for both New and Busy DMs. This prep includes music, ambiance, encounter sheets, handouts, battle maps, tweaks, and more, so you can run the best sessions possible with the least stress possible!

Inspired by Stranger Things and written by Mike Wheeler himself, this adventure drops your players into a monster hunt like no other. Summoned by Sir Tristan, ruler of a remote mountain realm, your party is tasked with tracking down a fearsome creature known as the Thessalhydra, which has attacked his castle and terrorized the land.

In Part 1, your players will explore a mysterious forest, encounter travelers, priests, and farmers, until they uncover the entrance to the troglodyte caverns. There, they can fight or negotiate their way deeper until they reach the ever-shifting Cursed Labyrinth. Should they solve the riddles of the mysterious Lost Knight, they will be greeted with a portal...to the Upside Down.

Without further ado:

• Google Docs Notes for Stranger Things (Part 1): DM Notes
• Link to: Stranger Things Adventure
• Link to: Stranger Things The Hunt for the Thessalhydra Playlist
• Link to: The AAA Collection

Included in The AAA Collection is:

• Downloadable copy of DM Notes, including links to music tracks for ambiance and fights
• Special PDF for all encounters. This includes the enemy stat blocks organized neatly, along with an initiative tracker and spots to mark HP
• Custom Maps of Troglodyte Cavern

Over 7 dozen other Fully Prepped One-Shots, Adventures, and Campaigns: Click Here

As always, if you see something you think I can improve, add, change, etc., please let me know. I want this to be an amazing resource for all DMs and plan to keep it constantly updated! If you'd like to support me, shape future releases, and get content early, feel free to check out my Patreon!

Cheers,
Advent

I haven't played dnd since the 3-3.5 transition and I just found a new group to play with. I have a few ideas for characters and was hoping for some advice on one of them. The dm says that the group is story/rp driven and not to min-max. I'm supposed to use 2024 content if it's been reprinted but can use 5th edition content that hasn't been updated to 2024.

The character is a kobold genie warlock. He was born into a cult and was physically small and weak so he was mostly relegated to menial tasks and overlooked. He is charismatic and crafty so he survived in the cult by playing into the perception that he was unimportant and harmless. Because he was so nonthreatening he was trusted and the leader chose him to do things like cleaning the inner sanctuary. While cleaning the master's quarters he met a djinni that the master had bound to a vessel and enslaved for a long time. The djinni saw him as an opportunity. He befriended my character, telling him stories of life outside of the cult and teaching him new skills and magic. Over time my character came to trust the dijinni and the dijinni offered him a deal. If my character would help the dijinni escape then the dijinni would give my character what he most desired, the power to decide his own destiny. My character helped the dijinni escape and in return the dijinni altered his appearance and bound him to the dijinni as a warlock.

I would prioritize the character's abilities as charisma-wisdom-dex-intelligence-con-strength. For his background I was thinking acolyte and taking druid spells for the magic initiate feat. I would do the pact of the book for the first level invocation. This gives me a lot of cantrips and a few free first level spells and I would eldritch blast probably one other offensive cantrip but I would try to focus on utility spells. I would take goodberry for the free first level druid spell because I think that it fits well with the minimalist survival concept from the backstory.

I'm trying to leave things open to try to give the DM as much opportunity as possible to work what she wants to into the game. It's probably a dragon cult since the character is a kobold but it doesn't have to be. The size of the cult could be whatever it needs to be, it could be stand-alone or part of a larger organization. Why did the dijinni bind the character instead of just giving him power? Does he want the character to do something specific? Does he just like him? What's the djinni's plans? Does he want revenge on the cult? Does he want to build his own cult?

To those unfamiliar, Sam attempted to create a real-time play-by-post wargame set on Mothership’s best module, but he accidentally created an enormous text-only LARP instead.

I think this blog post is among the better ones if you never heard of this before.

Welcome to the Star Fort! This historically-inspired fort was designed to be held by a small number of soldiers against a much larger army. Small ruined buildings inside the fort include a stable, smithy, dining area, and bedrooms.

This map pack features 8 unique variants including Night, Ruined, Siege, Winter, Rain, and Moat. Foundry VTT modules with pre-built walls and lighting are available to Gamemaster patrons.

Download the original map for free here.

Summary of my plot so far:

Started as the party meeting up in a hospital, which suddenly got attacked by a CULT. The hospital had a enchantment on it powered by a big fucking crystal that made everyone unable to do violence unless holding a specific charm (which all staff had.) The Hospital Director allowed this cult in and also gave them the charm, with the goal of Inverting the Enchantment - causing everyone to go into a bloodthirsty rage and want to murder each other. Party stopped them. Also they killed the Director.

The party went to the Cult headquarters, based in a ancient underground disused Royal catacombs murdered the fuck out of the leadership, but in the process, accidentally woke up a Lich. The lich didn't notice them and they noped the fuck out of there.

Found out about the lich, a hack of PointyHat's Hierarch Lich - instead of a physical phylactery they use a bloodline, only way to permakill it's to kill the bloodline or a difficult and risky ritual to cleanse the bloodline. They would have probably been fine with option A, but then find out that one of the bloodline is the adoptive father of a party member, so don't want to kill him.

They cleanse the bloodline, turning the Lich into a ghost bound to an object, then they kill the ghost.

Whilst investigating the Lich they find out he'd been gifted his powers by a Patron, once only found mention of in a few texts and never by name, only by a Title - The Deceiver.

Find out that the Deceiver was giving undead powers to basically the entirety of the Lords and Ladies of the Kingdom they live in, but the party know they can't go around killing Lords and Ladies indiscriminately, some of them are genuinely good people.

To throw another spanner in the works, an entity known only as Fox, a demigod that can hijack the bodies of all foxes on the planet and can shapeshift into a human form (man with a fox pelt scarf) contacts them. He's pretty pissed, because he was assigned a job by the gods to keep things in a stalemate, to make sure no major wars break out, and the party broke that stalemate by killing the Hierarch, and so he just goes "FUCKING YOUR PROBLEM NOW MATE"

D I'm trying to plot as the BIGGER BAD, the endgame problem (like, who they'll fight at level 15-20). And he's a Fae that tried and failed to reach Godhood and was punished for it, and now he's trapped by Archons of Order, Fate and Truth in a Antimagic Bubble in the Astral Plane

D He's been making these deals with a clause that when the people who make them die, all their accrued power goes back to him, with the goal of weakening his prison. And he's been manipulating the party intentionally, to make them kill people for him.

Which the party now knows. And they're stuck in that if they don't kill these bastards, they cause untold misery to innocents. But if they do kill them all, D will escape (and continue to try and achieve Godhood, probably killing millions doing it.)

They're currently looking for loopholes. And deciding that it's still best to kill the bastards, but having a plan brewing in the background for stopping D from escaping.

They have leads on some of the undead Lords, and they know one person managed to break their contract with D, by overwriting it with a contract with an Archfey (autumn court), only issue is that Archfey is unwilling to exit the Fae realms, they'd have to come to her

Interested in using Curseborne underlying systems, maybe lore and world, and powers, but want to incorporate the Clans from Vampire: the Requiem?

I'm also interested in this, since I adore VtR and consider it the best Vampire game around.

Looking over the spells in Curseborne, if i were going to do this, I would assign one Practice per Clan as their "unique" Practice/Discipline.

I'd have them start with a Spell from their Unique Practice, their Secret Spell, and then whatever they like from the Commons.

Since I'd be focusing very heavily on Vampires to the exclusion of other Lineages, I will be pilfering their powers. 😆

Ventrue / Heir

• Iron Edict

  Secret Spell: Incorporeality>Shared Senses

Mekhet

• Smoke & Shadow

  Secret Spell: Illusion>Overload

Nosferatu

• The Stranger

  Secret Spell: Metaphysics>Haunted Ground

Gangrel

• Mutable Form

  Secret Spell: Mayhem>Implacable Pursuer

Daeva / House Bathory

• Emotional Manipulation

  Secret Spell: Mayhem>Archonic Voice

COMMON

• Physical Perfection
• Vital Force
• Depthless Fury
• Consuming Siphon
• Metaphysics>As Smoke
• Incorporeality>Soul Scry

Let me know if this interests you! What would YOU do?---

The spiritual descendant of the World / Chronicles of Darkness!

Utilizing the newly revised Storypath Ultra system.

A nice blend of crunchy and narrative rules.

Check it out!

Hey all! I've been working for the past year-and-a-half-ish on a TTRPG game in my spare time. I've finally decided to put it out there in the wild. The main reason for creating this is to flex creative and design muscles more than anything.

For a short synopsis, the game is inspired by 16-bit era video games and tries to pull off similar aesthetic choices. It's also inspired by things like warhammer 40k, D&D, space-themed movies and TV shows.

The Pendragon Nebula is a hot-spot for weird, psionic activity. The Mad King Artur attempts to clamp down on all the inhabitants of the solar system and enforce his will upon all his subjects, but his hold has been slipping in recent decades. Baronies, Cities, and even whole planets are in rebellion.

Play as a psionic wielding psi-knight, space adventurer, or ship's engineer, among other options!

It features heavy use of psionic powers, as well as a reasonably rich character progression system.

The entire system uses only D6's, which was a design constraint i wanted to put on myself.

It's completely free in a "pay what you want" fashion, and i would love to hear any thoughts and feedback, as well as your experience playing it!

DrivethruRPG - https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/546281/stellar-knights-of-pendragon

itch.io - https://eerongal.itch.io/stellar-knights-of-pendragon

I'm interested in table top games that have a strong focus on power and politics, or possibly social change or intrigue that intersects with power and politics.

Not hung up on format or system, open to anything.

Any suggestions?

Howdy folks.

A friend of mine has been itching to play some DnD and I drew the short straw to run it. I don't think we have time for more than a one shot so I come for ideas.

Normally I'm good with coming up with stuff but she wants to do something where they get to play as evil instead of your typical heroes. My problem is everything I come up with just feels like typical hero quest but called evil. Like "kidnap the princess" just feels like a re-skin of "rescue the princess". Hoping y'all have something more to get me thinking.

I am aware of the Critical Role Mordor one shot that I'll take some inspiration from.

Thanks in advance y'all

i just Kickstarted this!

it looks really interesting!

as someone that loves FATE, i'm intrigued by their approach here!

a beautiful VTT that has a focus on presentation.

many popular games are supported, with more on the way, and the custom system builder is fairly robust and continuing to grow!

i'm excited to see it continue to develop.

free to use. subscription is to support the product and get extra voting rights and input into the development future.

The upheaval of the manasphere following the the Disian Shadow War has brought significant changes to magic, changes that aren’t quite yet understood but already being seen and felt. Magic is both familiar and different.

This has just dropped in my notifications. It just so happens I recently read some part of Astral Ways and while I haven't followed Disian plot too closely, now I'm curious what they've cooked up. Their vision of metaplanes has some potential IMO
A bit too pricy for a curiosity purchase, though

Anyone had a chance to peek inside?

Just discovered this but really cool to see people playing in the High Republic era of Star Wars!

Also interesting that they are using the Avatar Legends system. I hope to learn more about why they made that choice and how they adapt it.