When working on designing traps, there are a lot of instances when the mechanism that activates the trap is pretending to be something it isn’t. Today we’re going to look at some examples of ways to spring traps that would be overlooked, but definitely trigger them in most situations. Hiding Switches A switch or lever …
Every now and then your players might need a bit of a challenge, and the run of the mill monsters are just not cutting it. While it might seem like a great time to introduce dragons, beholders, or other big ticket monsters, your story might not be ready for it. If this sounds all too …
What’s better than one trap? Two traps! Today’s examples will be looking at running traps in parallel to make them more dangerous. Doubling Up on One Trap The concept we’re looking at is simple, but highly effective. Let’s start directly with an example: You have a pit trap, and just after it is another pit …
Skills in Dungeons and Dragons are what players use to overcome challenges they face in the world. This can be as simple as climbing a rope, or as difficult as scaling a mountain. 5e skills are compared to the difficulty of a task using Ability Checks. Anything that the player needs to do in a …
Raw damage from traps is fine and all, but poison and disease traps can be so much more interesting! When filling a tomb, crypt, or other old creepy place, it’s never a bad idea to place some poison and disease traps. In today’s DnD Trap Tuesday, we’ll be looking at how to use poison and …
Every player character has their own background. The Player’s Handbook has a number of easy to use character backgrounds that players can quickly choose. While these are great for getting starting equipment and extra proficiencies, they can be really limiting for your players’ character development in the future. Working with your players, you can modify …
As a Dungeon Master there are few things more enjoyable than tossing your players a few cursed items. While we’ve talked about cursed objects before, the topic of discussion is far from over. The 5e core rule books actually have some fun cursed items built right in, but why stop there? There are so many …
Great DnD loot starts with careful planning. If you’re simply looking for a table to roll on or a treasure generator, check out our resources page for treasure generators. While there is nothing wrong with rolling treasure from a table, really good treasure is more specific and helps tell your story. Great DnD loot makes …
Bard, the class with no specialization. If you’re DMing a new game and someone says they’re going to play a bard, they could want to do anything with that character. The DnD bard spells are incredibly varied and many players will pigeon hole themselves with their spell choices. If you learn the bard spell list, …
One of the best part of D&D is the element of mystery and potential for randomness. But sometimes it can be difficult for a dungeon master to come up with fresh, new encounters off the top of their head. In this post, we’ll go over easy tips to create D&D random encounters for your game …
