This is a great question so let's do another D&D thought experiment!
Let's make the stealthiest stealther to ever stealth.
Standard terms and conditions apply:
No Magic Items
Standard Array
Official Race/Class
Feats & Multiclassing Allowed
No help from other Characters
We're going to level 16 for this one because the top tiers deserve some love too. For race I’m going to go with Earth Genasi and for the class we're going to multiclass this time and take the obvious options which of course are Warlock and Artificer (nope not rogue).
I only need one feat for this one which is skill expert so I get expertise in stealth. I can use the other ASI's to get the dexterity to 20 and the intelligence to 18. This will give me a standard +15 to stealth checks. The earth genasi can cast Pass Without A Trace once a day which add +10. The warlock feature Dark One’s Own Luck gives me an extra D10 and the artificer’s Flash Of Genius gives me another +4.
When I add in the D20 and you assume max rolls on everything that's 59 to stealth but wait there's more! Mystic Odyssey’s of Theros has supernatural gifts you can take at character creation but its not super common. But If you are allowed to do it you can take Oracles Insight for an extra D10. This brings the total maximum stealth roll up to 69!
You can see the build on DND beyond and check my math here.
So, what's your build?
Jason
]]>This is a great question so let's do another D&D thought experiment!
Let's make Heal-iest Healer to ever Heal.
Standard terms and conditions apply:
No Magic Items
Standard Array
Official Race/Class
Feats Allowed
1 Turn (not 1 round)
As with all these builds we're trying to get the biggest bang for the lowest level possible. For this one we're going to do level five. I've chosen a fallen Aasimar, and level 5 divine soul sorcerer. If you allow a bit of an indulgence, I’m going to go ahead and assume the necrotic shroud the round before to set up for the turning question.
The secret sauce for this is not cure wounds at third level like you might be thinking. Instead I’m going to do a spell called Life Transference. Life transference does 4d8 of necrotic damage to the caster that can't be reduced in any way and then does double that amount in healing to a target creature. A max roll is going to be 32 points of damage and then add on the +5 for the necrotic shroud bringing the total to 37 points of damage.
This is then turned into 74 points of healing but wait there's more! I never said to one target so I’m going to spend 3 sorcery points, twin this spell (the damage doesn't get done again) and the healing is done to another target for a total of 148 points of healing! You can actually go and look at the build on DND beyond and check my math here.
So, what's your build?
Jason
]]>When you learned how to play dungeons and Dragons someone taught you the rules of combat and probably left it at that. Today we're going to go back to school and learn some battle basics.
There are a lot of rules in dungeons and Dragons especially when it comes to combat. Combat is where the system really shines, is unique and there's a ton of things to remember. The basics are easy, what to do on your turn move you can attack you maybe have a bonus action, but it's not enough to know what you can do in a round of combat. You have to think about it like chess. If someone just thought you would all pieces did and that's where they stopped, you'd never get better at the game. You're never going to become a grandmaster. But if someone stops and teaches you the strategies around these moves, you will get a whole lot better.
(You can also watch the whole Video here:)
The Action Economy
Let me introduce you to a concept called the action economy. In a game like Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition, generally speaking, the side that has the most actions is going to win. This is especially true at lower levels. The more things that you can do to give your side more actions and the other side less actions is going to tip the scales in your favor. Imagine it this way, each side has the same number of people, the same number of actions, and are going to do about the same amount of damage. If you just go back and forth taking turns, who wins is really a roll of the dice. However, if you take away one of these people, now one side has more actions than the other. It's going to be more likely that your side will hit more often, do more damage, and will the day.
The action economy is the big idea that we're going to focus on and everything else in this article will relate back to that idea. If get more actions, you're going to win. So keep that idea in mind “The Action Economy
Stacking Damage
Let me pose a question to you. What does more damage?
Unless there's some weird special ability, the answer is obviously, they do the same amount of damage. The idea here is that you want to stack your damage not spread your damage out. It's really easy in the heat of combat to lose focus and start attacking enemies right in front of you. You need to stay focused and start stacking damage upon damage onto a single foe until they drop. Imagine what would happen if two or three members of your party all attacked one foe in a single round and they dropped. The next turn there's one less person to deal with. One less person to take actions for the opposing side. Then you can rinse and repeat, all the while moving you towards your general goal of tipping the action economy in your favor.
An ancillary idea is to always go for the spellcasters first. Spellcasters are amazing because their magic has the ability to change the tide of battle. They can change the shape of the environment, and can actually bring back another character that you've already killed with a healing spell. KILL THE CASTERS FIRST.
The Environment
Rarely do fights happen just on an empty field (or a plain plane if you will). Usually battles take place someplace interesting, like a forest, tavern, or a dungeon complex. You need to use that environment to your advantage. In D&D 5th edition you want to take advantage of your environment. Say a fight breaks out in the Tavern, go hide behind the bar to shoot arrows and duck down behind it. If a ton of enemies come down the hallway, plug that hallway and make sure they don't get past.
2 sub-points about the environment.
Don't forget to use cover. Cover is great because ½ cover gives you a + 2 to your AC and dexterity saving throws and ¾ cover gives you a + 5 to AC and dexterity saving throws. You can find cover almost anywhere.
Your casters can literally change the shape of the environment. Don’t be afraid to cast things like blade barrier, wall of fire or Plant Growth. You can put your enemies into these little funnels they have to get through or keep them from approaching your range attackers. Buff spells like these help the overall battle (not just fireball as much fun as it is).
Flanking
Advantage is one of the unsung heroes of the 5th edition system. Advantage great because it always feels good to get to roll 2-D20 and take the better one. Mechanically, advantage is interesting because it's like a little extra action hidden inside the real action. You get the chance to see two possible scenarios and pick the best one. Even though it's only one action, it's like you got to take two but pick the best one. It's similar to temporary hit points on top of your real hit point. Think of advantage as temporary actions on top of your real actions. If your table does flanking (it's optional rules so talk to your DM) you have advantage on all your attacks. It works for other people in your party, so get with a buddy and flank a foe. Flanking splits the focus of the bad guy and now have to contend with two different targets on the opposite sides.
An addendum about flanking, if you can flank so can your enemies. So make sure you are careful you're not letting yourself get surrounded unless you have a really good plan for that (like thunderstep).
Push & Prone
Lastly are what I like to call the two big Ps of combat, Prone and Push. When you take the attack action there's actually way more things than you can do other than just attack. There's a huge list including the push or the shove action. You can actually push a foe to either push then back five feet or knock them prone. It's an athletics check versus their athletics (or acrobatics check their choice). The push or shove action is great because you can push the enemy five feet into a hole or burning coals. You can also shove them prone. This is the second big P, prone. The prone condition is excellent because everyone who does a melee attack is going to get advantage. If you have extra attack feature this is especially great because you can choose to replace one of those attacks with a shove or push. It doesn't use it the whole action! You can push a character prone and then hit them with the other attacks.
This strategy is great if you have lots of extra attacks but it's especially good early on when you're doing it with a friend. You now have someone else who can hit them with advantage while they're on the ground.
I hope you enjoy these little tips for battle basics. Please leave a comment. I'd love to hear your thoughts or other strategies you use at your table.
]]>I’ve been thinking about this for a while, so I decided to explore this apparent flaw. I grabbed a few research assistants (my kids) and we made a 1:1 real-world dungeon in my house. I measured out 5x5 foot squares in my living room and hallway and marked them out in masking tape. We grabbed some LARPing weapons from the closet (yes, we are that nerdy) and put the 5ft grid to the test. To make things fun, I even created some dice gauntlets for the kids to wear and placed some stuffed animal enemies, beanbag slimes, and nerf traps around to give them a challenge.
Even though the research team was halfling and dwarf sized, we quickly realized it was very dangerous to swing a sword or mace with anything less than 5 ft. We had a bunch of close calls. We discovered why flanking is totally a thing…it really does help in combat. It also helped us understand why thirty feet of movement is the limit, especially when you consider that a turn takes place in 6 seconds.
So, having explored the idea of 5th in real life, I have realized that the 5ft abstraction on battle maps is actually very accurate useful. My experiment also helped me that realize it’s ok to let characters scrunch up together in non-combat situations. This can lead to some interesting entanglements when they suddenly have to roll for initiative. I guess that famous meme was right all along.
See you next Friday and until then, may the dice be ever in your favor.
Jason
Recommended Article: 10 New Diseases for D&D. (Download)
]]>Some of my favorites are the giant dwarf, stones hunger, and the evil hand. You can download it right here and be sure to let me know which are your favorites!
See you next Friday and until then, may the dice be ever in your favor.
Jason
Recommended Article: A Tale of 3 (Professional) Dungeon Masters
]]>Recently the concept of professional DMs, or paying to play Dungeons & Dragons has become a topic of debate (again). Each time the topic comes up, there are a lot of strong feelings and opinions about it. Some have accused it of being a type of gatekeeping, while others can’t imagine a world where they would charge their friends to run a game. And some think of it as offering help or a service someone can’t easily get any other way.
As a way of exploring this trend, I want to introduce you to three Dungeon Masters. They are all professionals that DM either full-time or part-time…and they all charge for their games.
My friend Adam is @dungeon_dragons_club on Instagram. He is a private-school teacher who also leads a D&D club at his school in Dayton, Ohio. On the weekends, however, he is a DM for hire. Promoting his services mostly via Facebook, he offers 3 hour games at $10 per person (limit 8). His players are people who haven’t been able to find groups and people who don’t know anyone who can teach them. When we talked on Instagram, Adam said “Charging has improved attendance, player engagement, and allows me to produce better games.”
What I love about Adam’s approach is that he is not just making money, but he is also intentionally growing the community in his area. He’s started a DM workshop where he teaches other people how to run their own games. It sounds like it would be bad for business, but at heart Adam is a teacher, and his goal is to help more players become comfortable hosting games for their own families and friends.
Across the world in Tehran, Iran’s capital, @dnd_with_eldrin (on IG) is running 12 paid games a week! He’s been doing it for about a year and has even been able to quit his job to DM full time. He got in touch when he saw a post I had done on pro DMs and agreed to chat with me on Instagram. According to Eldrin, the demand for D&D in Iran is pretty high and people are happy to pay because it can be hard to find others who know how to play the game. “People here are new to D&D and I’ve played for 8 years and been a DM for 4. People are trying to become DMs now.”
Eldrin is committed to providing a quality experience as a DM, and also plans to begin teaching others to play. The demand for his services is so high that he is making more than some programmers or professors in Iran. There is a downside though. Eldrin finds it hard to get materials like dice because of government sanctions, and that can make it hard to run games.
The original article that started the most recent professional DM debate featured a friend of mine named Devon Chulick. You can read the whole article here. Devon has a day job, but on the weekends and evenings runs games for busy professionals in Silicon Valley. Devon is an experienced DM and runs a campaign on Twitch called Total Party Chill. As a DM, he charges between $300-$500 per table (limit 6). That can be an eye-popping amount, but not in his area.
He lives in San Francisco, and his clients often come from places like Nintendo and Google. They have very little free time, or are not part of the D&D community, but are interested in the game and want to learn how to play. Devon offers a quality gaming experience, complete with character sheets, dice, miniatures, customized drinks, soundtracks and himself as a fully-engaged DM. He feels like he is offering a therapeutic, easy to access, immersive experience to people who otherwise wouldn’t have time or ability to be part of the D&D community.
Ok, Professional DMs. Love them or hate them, keep this in mind. I think it’s important to look at the job of professional DM from the perspective of the person who is willing to pay. They love the game and want to learn how to play. They often have high pressure/fast-paced jobs. They don’t know anyone who can teach them. A pro DM has the skills and all the materials and is ready to offer a customized experience.
I want to be clear that being a professional DM is VERY different from demanding to be paid to run a game at YLGS or with friends. That’s a jerk move.
BUT, if I wanted to learn how to cook something specialized like Armenian food, I would look for a class or hire a private teacher for a night. If my kids want to play a specialized game like baseball, I would pay to join a club that offered coaches, games, and trips. And so on.
When I looked up pro DMs, I found articles going back years and years, so I don’t think pro DMs are a new thing, but with the current influx of new players added to the typical disparity between the number of players to the number of DMs, it was bound to happen and since it has, maybe it’s time to look at this game we love from a new perspective. It’s our hobby, but to many people, it’s a specialized experience that they want to learn how to play. They want a teacher. They want help. They want a professional DM. Pro DMs aren’t gatekeepers; they are more like a concierge holding the gate open for people who have no other way in and helping them roll for initiative.
See you next Friday and until then, may the dice be ever in your favor.
Jason
Recommended Article: I Don't Understand Treasure
]]>Player: What do I find?
Me quickly panicking: Um… A gum wrapper and ::rolls random dice:: 1000 gp?
Player: Really?!
Me, now sweating: Why, is that too much, too little? You tell me?!?
I think I’m bad at treasure as I play 5e because I was used to the way treasure distribution was handled in older editions of the game. There was a “treasure type” right there in the monster stat block that directed you to the appropriate chart. For example, a Thri-Kreen had treasure type Q, which meant it would drop 1d4 gems. Simple.
Compared to that, the way 5e handles treasure somehow felt vague and confusing to me. Gemstones and art objects had detailed charts with what felt like no context, there was an overly simplistic item value chart, and the charts for individuals never listed any magic items. Only the hoard table had magic items. So, do they mean my players have to fight an army or a dragon before they can get a health potion?!
I’ve been trying to figure this out for a while, and recently did 2 things that are helping me change my treasure game, and I wanted to share them with you. First of all, I went back to chapter 7 in the DMG on treasure and actually read it! I realized that the 5e tools for treasure aren’t bad, they’re just laid out in a way that wasn’t intuitive to me. The gemstone and art objects are ancillary charts that fill out listings that come later in the chapter (maybe it would have been better if they hadn’t listed them first?). The Magic Item Rarity chart doesn’t just give a vague price point to magic items, but is intended to be used as a guide to explain which rarities your players should encounter at which level…and it’s super helpful.
Now when I look at the treasure charts, I use the Hoard chart to fill the dungeon or adventure for the day. I use the Individual chart to determine how much of the treasure a particular creature has and take cues from the story to show me where items should be.
I’m understanding the treasure tables, and have gotten some treasure set up in my game, but I realized that I still needed a little more help when I’m in the game because there’s still a lot of information to use and process quickly. So, the second thing I did was find some online tools to help. Both Kassoon and Dunjon have some great treasure generation tools. It just takes a few clicks and you’ve got a pile of shiny treasure to reward or tempt your players with. I’m all about making game prep quick and easy, and the tools on these sites absolutely do that.
My treasure game still isn’t perfectly on point, but I’m getting better! If you struggle with treasure, I hope this helps you too.
See you next Friday and until then, may the dice be ever in your favor.
Jason
Recommended Article: D&D Bingo
Ok, that’s it for this week. See you next time and until then, may the dice be ever in your favor.
Jason
Recommended Article: Where Do Ideas Come From?
]]>So, those are my big 3 sources of inspiration. The take away here is that one of the best ways to change up your game is to find things off the beaten path that are old and out of genre. This can really remove DM pressure. You don’t have to be a genius that pulls a brand new idea out of thin air; you just need an fresh idea to help launch your next story.
Ok friends, that’s it for this post. See you next time and until then,
May the dice be ever in your favor,
Jason.
Recommended Article: A New Way To Track Initiative
-----------------------------------------------
The store posted that I would be running an RPG one-shot table. I didn’t know what to expect, but when I showed up, there was a full table of 6 waiting for me. I had recruited my kids to fill in space if needed, but they ended up playing other games and I honestly couldn’t have asked for a better group of players.
When you DM, you plan, and I had planned some battles with multiple monsters. As I prepared, I realized that I was going to have to keep track of 9 or 10 spots in the initiative order and I wouldn’t know anyone’s name (real or character). This could get ugly. So, I did what I always do in a tight spot. I looked deep inside and asked myself the one question that has never steered me wrong: What would MacGyver do?
My kids rooms have a wealth of unique problem-solving items (just imagine what MacGyver could build out of that stuff!).
When you’re in a tight spot, Legos usually have the answer. Not only are they the most common man-made object on earth, but they come in a ton of different colors and sizes. I grabbed 6 differently colored 2x3 baseplates and added a selection of minifigs. The baseplates would keep the minifigs upright and serve as markers for the players.
When I arrived, I had everyone choose a color (even if they brought their own figurine) so during battle I could just call out that color’s turn (and save the embarrassment of admitting I didn’t know anyone’s name). For example, “Blue, it’s your turn.” “Orange, be thinking because you are next.”
The other thing I did to help was create “sliders” that sat across the top of my DM screen. They matched the baseplates. I’ve done this before, and when I use them, I like to keep them on the left until it’s someone’s turn and then slid the color going to the right to signal their turn (kind of like an abacus). I also made sliders of greys and blacks to track the bad guys.
As with all MacGyver tricks, it worked perfectly. I hope you’ll try it out and let me know how it goes.
May the dice be ever in your favor,
Jason
A saltwater balancing test.
]]>Seriously. There’s nothing worse than being unable to get an ability score above a 12 or never rolling higher than a 4 on an attack. When you’re getting terrible rolls, the game can lose a lot of its joy (particularly for kids or first timers). So, have you offended the spirit of Gary Gygax? Is it you’re your bad aura? Do dice hate you? Probably not.
But…it might be time to change your dice. I know that you love your dice, even if they treat you bad, but it’s time for them to go and I’m about to show you why.
Dice aren’t really “good” or “bad.” Rather, they’re balanced or unbalanced. This means that they can have internal flaws that are messing you up. How can you tell?
A saltwater balancing test.
What is a saltwater balancing test? It’s exactly what it sounds like—dropping dice in saltwater and seeing what happens. Golfers have been doing them for years to check for imperfections and weird spin in their golf balls, and if they can do it, we can too. This test reveals unseen imperfections, inclusions, or air bubbles inside a die. Here’s how to do it.
1) Fill a narrow cup or small mason jar with 1/3 of a cup of hot water.
2) Slowly add 6 tablespoons (yes, tablespoons) to the water. Make sure to vigorously stir the salt in while you pour.
3) Your goal is supersaturation. You’ve achieved it once you can’t get any more salt to dissolve.
4) Place your die into the mixture. It should float fairly close to the surface on the saltwater. If it sinks, stir more salt in and try again.
5) With a finger, chopstick, or pencil flick the die so it spins freely. After it comes to a rest, note the number and flick it again. Do this a few times for a d6, d12 and especially a d20.
Balanced
Unbalanced
A die should show a different number on top almost every time. If the same number or two are consistently showing on the top of the die, you have found the imperfections and you know you have a bad die.
This test has some limits. It won’t work with metal or other extra-heavy dice. It also can’t detect external imperfections like slight warping in die faces.
I’ve been selling dice for a while and I’ve noticed that clear or translucent dice are more likely to be balanced. There are 2 reasons for this. 1. It’s easy to see if the die is well-formed internally by looking, so dice manufacturers are more careful with clear products. 2. Clear dice are made from one material all the way through, while solid dice can be filled with a variety of materials which can affect the balance.
Don’t wait! You owe it to yourself and your table to check your dice. Stop being the one who can't roll above a 4 and become a productive member of the party again.
P.S. Dice off balance? Need new dice, but not sure where to buy and not ready to pay high dollars? Check out my True Roll Dice. They are always translucent and I’ve literally seen them change the course of a game.
There are fourteen conditions in 5th edition ; blinded, charmed, deafened, frightened, grappled, incapacitated, invisible, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned, prone, restrained, stunned, and unconscious. I lose game time looking up how restrained is different than grappled. Is it worse or basically the same? I never can remember.
Recently I sat down and read through all the conditions in an effort to remember them, and I started to see a pattern. The reason I found them confusing was that many conditions where worded similarly with only small additions. For example, paralyzed is only different from stunned in two ways.
Here, all the text from stunned is duplicated for paralyzed. The only difference is that when paralyzed "faltering speech" becomes "can’t speak" and attackers within 5 feet get an auto-critical hit. The more I looked at it, the more patterns like this I saw.
I realized that conditions could be simplified, made quicker to read, and reorganized by like kind.
I went to Homebrewery and spent a couple hours creating an easier chart. And I wanted you to get it first. Grab your Conditions Made Easy chart right here.
Ok, that’s it for this week. See you next week and until then, may the dice be ever in your favor,
Jason
Last week on Instagram I ran March Madness brackets for D&D players called Monster Madness. Thousands of D&D fans voted for their favorites all week long. One winner I didn’t expect was the Flumph. Flumph lovers rose up to give it more individual votes than any monster up to that point in the competition, and it took out the Modron. Voters even started a hashtag for #teamflumph to rally around this strange, obscure creature. Unfortunately, its success was short-lived; the humble Flumph lost to the sinister Drow, and it’s fans changed the hashtag to #ripflumph.
So, in the spirit of #teamflumph, I offer four fabulous Flumph facts:
1) Flumphs are aberrations. In D&D terms this means they are alien beings, from a different planet out in the universe. In a fantasy world where most strange threats come from other planes (the 9 hells, elemental planes, the shadowfell…) it’s almost refreshing to encounter something as familiar as aliens from outer space. The Flumph is not unique however. Beholders, Aboleths, and Slaads also come the black ink of space. Flumphs however, are only lawful good aberrations, which is why their appearance is usually a welcome one.
2) They are related to the Grell. While there is some debate about this, most people agree it’s true. There are a lot of similarities: both are aliens, they float around like jellyfish, and they attack with their dangling tentacles.
3) You can trust them. Beyond their lawful good status, there are other reasons for the adventurer to trust a Flumph. They often live in the underdark near communities of Illithids and Aboleths and can be great sources of aid and information. Then there is the legendary advice of X the Mystic. Not much is known about X other than his comprehensive “Rules of Dungeon Survival.” The list of rules is comprised of 24 short, helpful pieces of advice, including rule number one, “Trust a Flumph.”
4) They have color-change emotions. The Flumph wears its heart on its sleeve. Much like a chameleon, it changes its overall color in accordance with its emotions. Soft pink means it is amused, deep blue is sadness, green expresses curiosity, and crimson is anger.
I hope you enjoyed this Flumph-filled post. If you were part of #teamflumph, I post it to ease your pain over its loss in the monster madness competition.
Ok, that’s it for this week. See you next week and until then, may the dice be ever in your favor,
Jason
Perhaps your players love to derail your perfectly crafted story arc by fixating on a complete rando NPC. Or they constantly run off into the waiting arms of danger claiming it’s just them “playing their character.”
I need to tell you something (Don’t skip this part because it may just save your game and your sanity):
The goal of the game is to have fun.
There, I said it. I know what you might be thinking, “Duh, I know that.”
I’m glad you agree, so let me say it a different way: If you’re not having fun, you’re doing something wrong. A mentor of mine used to say that all the time, and it has always helped me evaluate what’s happening when things get hard. After all, maybe with the min/maxing, 1,000 word back stories and carefully drawn dungeons, you have lost sight of the goal. So what do you do?
Try this. At your next gaming session start by saying something like this, especially if you are the DM :
“Our goal today is to have fun. Fun for everyone. We are going to tell this story together. I have an infinite world at my disposal, and you as the players have infinite choice. This game only works if we find a away to mesh them together. I’m not your enemy; I just run them. I will give you epic moments that will make you feel awesome, but you have to make epic choices that make the whole party feel awesome.”
What you say can even be simpler than that, but what you are trying to convey and remind everyone collectively is that we all have to work together to make a great story, and you can’t do that if you don't consider the people at your table.
I hope this helps you push the fun and rock your table this weekend.
May the dice be ever in your favor,
Jason
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]]>
Ok, those are my big 3 sources of inspiration. The take away here is that one of the best ways to change up your game is by finding things off the beaten path that are old and out of genre. This can really remove DM pressure. You don’t have to be a genius that pulls a brand new idea out of thin air; you just need an interesting idea so you can have fun telling this new story while you roll some dice with friends.
Ok friends, that’s it for this week. See you next Friday and until then,
May the dice be ever in your favor,
Jason
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]]>We recently started our new YouTube series called “How We Roll”.
It deals with all things related to D&D and we are very excited about it. It would be huge if you would watch the newest video and liked and subscribed to the channel. We will be publishing these on a regular basis and it should be a lot of fun.
Our goal at Critical Dice has always been to provide resources that help you have more fun around your gaming table and this is just another way for us to do that. I hope you enjoy the new YouTube channel and will share it with your friends!
May the Dice be ever in your favor,
Jason
Having trouble creating your next adventure?
Got writer's block that even a quad shot espresso won’t fix?
This is a table of 100 short adventure ideas called game hooks. You can just pick one that tickles your fancy or roll 2d100 and combine the ideas as the framework of your next campaign.
For the last 6 months we've been creating these hooks on our Instagram page (@criticaldice) and now the list is finally complete. We complied all the posts into an easy reference table sure to grant you inspiration!
I hope you are able to use this in your game soon.
May the Dice be ever in your favor,
Jason
]]>Dice towers are made with various materials, shapes and styles but the construction typically follows the same pattern. Its basically a shaft with a few sloped planes inside that change the direction of the dice as they fall from the top. It’s a simple idea that helps you get a great roll every time.
A few weeks ago my kids and I tried making our very own from Legos we had laying around the house (literally). After a few tweaks we had a design that worked well and where proud of.
We then put it into the Lego digital designer and put up the step by step instructions in our store
Click the link and download the plans. If you want to buy some dice at checkout to support what we do, then that’s fine too.
I hope you are able to use this at your game soon.
May the Dice be ever in your favor,
Jason
]]>But it doesn’t have to be, here are a few items you are probably overlooking.
I wanted to share this great article from Geek and Sundry with you and share a thought of my own. We’ve all looked at the mundane items in PHB and wondered “When am I ever going to use this?”.
For some items this may be true but there are other items that I think are a must, if you use them creatively!
A Bag of Flour: Yep, a bag of flour. It only weights a few pounds, its common and cheap. Its a must for baking bread but it also has some other “off label” uses too!
Blind an enemy- a big handful to the face should do the trick (salt is good too).
Find invisible creatures- Suspect someone is lurking around? Cover the area with a liberal application.
Detect Secret passages- A pinch in the air may reveal air currents flowing behind a concealed passage.
Tracking monsters- Cover the ground at the opening to a passage while you explore the other way. If someone crosses the area during your absence, you’ll know.
Read about 5 more "off label" uses for mundane items over at Geek and Sundry.
I hope you are able to use this at your game soon.
May the Dice be ever in your favor,
Jason
]]>
A 34-year-old Children’s book!
I loved this book as a kid, and if you are not familiar with it here is a sample:
Fortunately, Ned was invited to a surprise party.
Unfortunately, the party was a thousand miles away.
Fortunately, a friend loaned Ned an airplane.
Unfortunately, the motor exploded.
Fortunately, there was a parachute in the airplane.
Unfortunately, there was a hole in the parachute.
What does this have to do with Dungeons & Dragons campaigns? You can use the same kind of back and forth to chart out a free flow of plot points for your story. All you need is a starting point. Let’s us one of our “Game Hooks” (find them here on Instagram) and test this out.
Fortunately, your party has found a nice town to rest in after a long delve in a dungeon.
Unfortunately, a meteor suddenly roars uncomfortably close through the night sky.
Fortunately, It misses the town.
Unfortunately, it flew so close it started several fires throughout town.
Fortunately, almost everyone could get out quickly.
Unfortunately, two kids are trapped in a nearby cottage engulfed in flames…
That’s just a few steps but you can keep this back and forth going until the whole arc of the adventure is done.
You have the first several minutes of the adventure planned. Now its up to the party to take action. Building a story structure like this helps you to ask yourself questions to fill in the gaps. Will they help with the fire brigade? Will they rush in to save the kids? Where did the meteor land? What will they find there?
I hope you are able to use this at your gaming table soon.
May the Dice be ever in your favor,
Jason
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