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!

White Plume Mountain is an absolute classic Adventure for level 8 players; one that has been talked about for years and has been redone time and again. Heck, it was even ranked the 9th greatest Dungeons & Dragons adventure of all time by Dungeon magazine in 2004. This is the perfect Adventure for those of you who are looking for a bit of combat and a whole lot of puzzle!

Three magical weapons have been stolen recently. Clues in the form of a poem lead those in power to believe the weapons have been brought to a volcano which was once the hideout of a powerful wizard named Keraptis. These are no mere magical weapons, but sentient artifacts. Can your players survive the perils of White Plume Mountain and retrieve them!?

Without further ado:

• Google Docs Notes for White Plume Mountain Part 1: DM Notes
• Link to: White Plume Mountain Playlist
• Link to: The AAA Collection

Included in The AAA Collection is:

• A Word document with all my 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 a spot to mark HP
• Spellsheets for all relevant encounters
• Note from Krepatis and Hiring Letter Handouts
• Custom Battle Maps

Over 5 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

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 fully fleshed-out notes, music, ambiance, encounter sheets, handouts, battle maps, tweaks, and more so you can run the best sessions possible with the least stress possible!

Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk stems from The Lost Mine of Phandelver a classic and beloved starter set that many new DMs run. Even with this being the most recent release it still has an issue, the same as with many others...it doesn't describe the best way to transform the book's contents into an actual session. The Book-to-session conversion can be difficult between figuring out when things should happen, understanding motivations, and even organizing encounters.

Well, fortunately for you, 99% of that work is done! Only a few things are really left:

• Read the book, I know surprising, but it can be extremely confusing when you don't know where everything leads to.
• Consider the needs of your group. As you've heard or are about to hear a million times, every table is different. If you plan on combining this with a campaign, you'll have to make tweaks here and there.
• These notes aren't meant to be the end-all-be-all. Tweak to your heart's content, and don't consider any of what's written to be set in stone. For me having notes like this helps give me the confidence to go off the rails and follow along with what my players want. It helps me understand where things were meant to go and why. Having that understanding allows me to guide the players and create other new and interesting stories. These are all things that will come with experience, though, so don't freak out and enjoy the journey!

Without further ado:

Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk Act 1

• Part 1 - Intro and Cragmaw Hideout
• Part 2a - Phandalin
• Part 2b - Redbrand Hideout
• Part 3a - Reign of Iron
• Part 3b - Thundertree
• Part 3c - Cragmaw Castle
• Part 4 - Wave Echo Cave
• Part 5 - Side Quests

Included in my posts are:

• A Word document for each part of Act 1 for Phandelver and Below with detailed notes for running a perfect session including links to music tracks for ambiance and fights
• Special PDFs for every encounter. This includes all the enemies' stat blocks organized neatly along with an initiative tracker and a spot to mark HP.
• Additional PDFs for allies and commoners
• A variety of maps for each part of the campaign
• Spell lists for all relevant fights
• Handouts for various spell scrolls throughout the campaign
• A playlist for each section!

Over 5 dozen other Fully Prepped One-Shots, Adventures, and Campaigns: Click Here

Campaign Info: As of today, I've officially completed Act One of Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk! I've also compiled all of my prep for it in a single easy-to-access post which is available to all my Heroes and Legends. You can find it HERE!

I've discussed this on Discord as well as answered a few questions and thought I would clarify some information here; campaigns are super time intensive, so I have to choose wisely which ones I prep. The first half PaB:TSO is an updated version of The Lost Mine of Phandelver which I had already fully prepped; so, I thought I would go through all my prep and update it to match and help all those who are starting to run the campaign! I may one day prep the second half; however, I'm trying to focus on the more popular Campaigns such as Curse of Strahd, before I work on others.

With what I've released, you'll have a great kickstart through most of the campaign and there are plenty of helpful members both on Reddit and on my Discord that can guide you along the rest of the way! I hope that with what I've prepped so far you can have a truly Amazing campaign!!!

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

cross-posted from: https://ttrpg.network/post/7655321

All premieres at 9am PDT:

• Monday, July 1st - Spells Tuesday
• July 2nd - Crafting Sneak Peek (this is a short video; no premiere)
• Monday, July 8th - Monk
• Tuesday, July 9th - Sorcerer
• Wednesday, July 10th - Cleric Thursday
• July 11th - Bard Friday
• July 12th - New Dragon Designs

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 fully fleshed-out notes, music, ambiance, encounter sheets, handouts, battle maps, tweaks, and more so you can run the best sessions possible with the least stress possible!

We're back at it again with another Fully Prepped Mini-Campaign; Dragon of Icespire Peak, A level 1-6 Adventure that's a bit frosty! This is part of the Essentials Kit; released between Dragon of Stormwreck Isle and The Lost Mine of Phandelver all created by WoTC.

Dragon of Icespire Peak is a bit different from the other two I've prepped; not only is it more of a sandbox, but it also has the ability to be run with just one player which is a huge plus for those of you who can't get larger groups together! I'll be incorporating the recommendations from both Bob the World Builder and Sly Flourish along with my own tweaks to make this one of the best experiences you can have running this Mini-Campaign!

If you've used my previous notes you'll know that I take adventures such as these and do all the difficult and time-consuming book-to-session conversions so you don't have to! I do my best to include ambiance for every scene, custom battle maps, handouts when needed, spell sheets, encounter sheets, and more!

This may all sound familiar, but seeing as this is a Starter/Essentials Kit, I think it's important to reiterate:

• Read the Adventure: I know surprising, but it can be extremely confusing when you don't know where everything leads to.
• Consider the needs of your group: As you've heard or are about to hear a million times, every table is different. If you plan on combining this with a campaign, you'll have to make tweaks here and there.
• These notes aren't meant to be the end-all-be-all: Tweak to your heart's content, and don't consider any of what's written to be set in stone. For me having notes like this helps give me the confidence to go off the rails and follow along with what my players want. It helps me understand where things are meant to go and why. Having that understanding allows me to guide the players and create other new and interesting stories. These are all things that will come with experience, though, so don't freak out and enjoy the journey!

Without further ado:

• Google Docs Notes for Part 1 Phandalin: DM Notes
• Link to: Phandalin Playlist
• Link to: The AAA Collection

Included in The AAA Collection is:

• A Word document with all my notes including links to music tracks for ambiance and fights
• Custom Map of Phandalin

Over 5 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

2024 Player's Handbook Reveals (all premieres at 9am PDT)

Monday, June 24th - The Rogue Tuesday, June 25th - The Warlock Wednesday, June 26th - The Druid Thursday, June 27th - The Wizard Friday, June 28th - The Ranger

Haven't started reading it yet, but its out now!

Have you gotten with Astarion or maybe you were blown up by Gale for the hundredth time? Are your adventures as wild as you had hoped...have you even gotten out of character creation!? Well if you're one of the legendary few who have, why don't you take a step into the real world of D&D so you can go back into an imaginary one!

I get it, DMing for the first time can be scary, you might not even know where to start. The prep alone can seem like a mountain to climb. You find a cool-looking One-Shot open the PDF or book and just think to yourself, how in the heck do I turn this into an actual session?

Well, I've got you covered! I want as many people out there as possible to experience the Amazing world of D&D and most importantly DMing! I've taken the following One-Shots and Mini-Campaigns and fully prepped them so you can run an unforgettable session with ease! The best part, all of it's free for you to use!

Let's dive in:

A Most Potent Brew: This One-Shot brings together a group of rookie adventurers on a classic quest; clearing out a cellar from some rats. Things take an unexpected turn though and lead them to their first dungeon! This level-one One-Shot will take your players into the depths of a brewery, that turns out to be connected to an abandoned mage tower basement. Will your players survive their first adventure slaying giant rats, centipedes, and more?

Coming in at approximately 2-3 hours of play, this is the perfect one shot for both new players and DMs to show what D&D is all about, without being an overwhelming 6hr+ session!

(Credits: Winghorn Press)

The Wild Sheep Chase: This One-Shot is on par with some of the craziness that you can experience in Baldur's Gate 3! Your party will be enjoying a relaxing time at a tavern when a sheep suddenly bursts in and grants them a scroll that allows them to speak with each other. Your players will go on an epic chase, face off against polymorphed guards, and even fight a dragon...made out of a bed!? You can't make this stuff up...oh wait!

(Credits: Winghorn Press)

Dragons of Stormwreck Isle: This Mini-Campaign is for when you're ready to step things up and want a more serious Adventure. You'll go from level 1-3 learn of the history of Stormwreack Isle and face off against...you guessed it a dragon!

(Credits: WoTC)

The Lost Mine of Phandelver: This Mini-Campaign spans from levels 1-5, the only thing past this would be a full-blown campaign, but let's not get ahead of ourselves! This one is a classic, the very first starter set that WotC released and it stands the test of time, Heck, they're making an expansion for it coming out later this month! You'll face not 1 but 2 dragons, explore deadly dungeons, save a town, and live out all of your heroic fantasies! When you've done a one-shot or two I couldn't recommend running this more!

(Credits: WoTC)

If none of those tickle your fancy I've got over 2 dozen more sessions fully prepped and ready to go for you, here's a preview of what else I have to offer!

Index:

Other Fully Prepped One-Shots, Adventures, and Campaigns:

• We Be Goblins - Click Here
• Curse of Strahd - Coming Soon
• The Egg of Estyr - Click Here
• Into Ivy Mansion - Click Here
• Wolves of Welton - Click Here
• To the End of Time - Click Here
• Moon over Graymoor - Click Here
• A Wild West One-Shot - Click Here
• The Drunken Treasure - Click Here
• A Grimdark Adventure - Click Here
• D&D vs Rick and Morty - Click Here
• The Wizards Treehouse - Click Here
• A Prison Break One-Shot - Click Here
• The Barber of Silverymoon - Click Here
• The Tavern at Death's Door - Click Here
• Shadow of the Broodmother - Click Here
• L'Arsène's Ludicrous Larceny - Click Here
• The Night Before Wintermas - Click Here
• The Secret of Skyhorn Lighthouse - Click Here

If you'd like to support me, shape future releases, and get content early feel free to check out my Patreon!

Cheers,

Advent

Sometimes you just don't want to prep. Sometimes you get a last-minute call to run a session. Maybe it's your first time DMing and you don't know where to start.

Whatever the reason, prep may seem like a mountain to climb. Well, allow me to help you! I remember when I was first trying to figure everything out and I stumbled across The Wild Sheep Chase. It's a fantastic One-Shot by Richard Jansen-Parkes that you can get for free over on the DMsguild. The only issue at times can be how do I convert this pdf into an actual session?

Some DMs have a gift, they can read it once and go from there, some are masters at improv, storytelling, and off-the-cuff humor. Well, I unfortunately don't fit that boat and I'm sure many others out there are just like me. I need a ton of notes; because once I've got things organized, then I feel comfortable taking things in new directions.

So welcome 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 fleshed-out notes, music, ambiance, encounter sheets, handouts, battle maps, tweaks, and more so you can run the best sessions possible with the least stress possible! Onboarding new DMs should be easy and I hope with this I can help grease the wheels!

Without further ado:

• Google Docs Notes for The Wild Sheep Chase: DM Notes
• Link to: The Wild Sheep Chase Playlist
• Link to: The Complete Collection

Included in The Complete Collection are:

• A Word document with all my notes including a link to music tracks for ambiance and fights
• Special PDFs for all the encounters. This includes all the enemies' stat blocks organized neatly along with an initiative tracker and a spot to mark HP.
  • A complete spell list for Noke which gives full details so you're not bouncing around for info.
• A map of Shinebrights tower. I use this as a reference when drawing out the map for my players
• A handout for The Scroll of Speak with Animals

Index:

Other Fully Prepped One-Shots, Adventures, and Campaigns:

• The Wild Sheep Chase - Click Here
• A Most Potent Brew - Click Here
• Curse of Strahd - Click Here
• Death House - Click Here
• We Be Goblins - Click Here
• The Egg of Estyr - Click Here
• Wolves of Welton - Click Here
• To the End of Time - Click Here
• Moon over Graymoor - Click Here
• A Wild West One-Shot - Click Here
• The Drunken Treasure - Click Here
• A Grimdark Adventure - Click Here
• D&D vs Rick and Morty - Click Here
• The Wizards Treehouse - Click Here
• A Prison Break One-Shot - Click Here
• The Barber of Silverymoon - Click Here
• The Tavern at Death's Door - Click Here
• Dragons of Stormwreck Isle - Click Here
• Shadow of the Broodmother - Click Here
• L'Arsène's Ludicrous Larceny - Click Here
• The Night Before Wintermas - Click Here
• The Lost Mine of Phandelver - Click Here
• The Secret of Skyhorn Lighthouse - 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

Previously, I hated the constant "Remove Hunter's Mark" posts, or rolled my eyes at the sheer number of people all pointing out the obvious issue of your core feature just being a 1st-level spell, but I've finally switched over to the extreme that the Hunter's Mark spell just shouldn't exist at all.

My only defense for keeping it was that it has the clear thematic identity of "Choose your prey, and hunt them down over time," which I liked for Rangers, (Especially over "Yeah, you're either mediocre under hyper-specific circumstances, or literally invalidate the rules of the very encounters you're supposed to be good at.") but something about it still left me unsatisfied. I've finally realized the solution that should have been obvious: Focus on that identity for a feature, but make it something better than "Could I offer you a d6 in these trying times?"

Favored Foe, or Favored Enemy, or even Hunter's Mark if you really like the name, should take the concept of select a target and apply a personal debuff for a duration, but make it give something other than strictly damage. Have a bonus to hit, or some utility options, or whatever. Make the Ranger's true damage come from some of the amazing spells they have, but updated to be more usable, like the new Paladin's Smite feature.

Please note: this feedback will mostly be focused from my own perspective as a forever GM. I am less concerned with how powerful X is against Y, as I am for the health of the game, and the ease of running encounters.

During my playtests I was given the opportunity to see both a Rogue and a Ranger, and they both feel good and bad in opposite and complementary ways. In short, the Rogue is fun but a breakdown of damage spreadsheets reveal it’s in a bad spot. In contrast, the Ranger has a lot of moments that detract from its fun, but joyless math shows that it’s super-effective.

Rogues are affable & attractive idiots

For the rogue’s part, being able to tactically choose what cunning strike to use at each given moment allowed for ranged rogues to opt into a controller role in combat, making one enemy’s life hell for a turn. When this works, it feels amazing as you are able to severely hamstring or simply exclude opponents from contributing at all on their turns. Unexpectedly, the Trip Attack with the Light Crossbow Weapon mastery allowed the rogue to make enemy melee bruisers get nailed to the ground, with a net -20 to their next movement due to being slowed, and having to use half of their reduced movement to stand up. This forced enemies to default to the party frontliner when able, or to use their action to dash instead of doing anything useful in the turn.

However, their damage is quite low. The player didn’t really notice this at the time, but a look at their output showed that they were not really big contributors to damage, and there were circumstances where their Cunning Strikes really didn’t have any impact on enemies.

The Ranger is a high performance hot mess

As for Rangers, they have so many problems that just amount to their spells all requiring concentration. There are so many toys that a Ranger simply can’t access because it would mess with their attempts at optimal damage output, and the mechanisms of bonus action to cast, concentrate, and then hit to apply the riders feels quite outdated, especially compared to the treatment that the Smite Spells received in this playtest.

However they were the number 1 damage dealer at the table. Honestly I think it’s too much damage for a ranged class, particularly because my Hunter-Ranger optimized around getting 60 movement speed, and getting the ‘Hunter’s Leap’ level 7 subclass feature. I simply couldn’t get them in melee because of how elusive they are, using their reaction the moment an enemy closed to engage them, prior to me being able to put attack actions onto them.

But this puts the dev team in a strange spot. If they fix how mutually exclusive all their damage increasing spells are, their damage output will skyrocket to preposterous levels. The solution is one that will be unpopular: Lower ranger damage quite a bit.

Additionally, a raise to rogue's damage should be performed, particularly in Tier 2-4. Maybe increase the number of die they get starting at level 5, 11, etc, or increase the size of their sneak attack dies at those places.

Finally, people who think that the new Hunter’s Mark is a nerf really need to actually give it a shot, because this feels much better.

As per usual, I have crossposted this to /r/onednd, feel free to upvote it for higher visibility. Cheers!

An issue came up during our playtest, regarding Paladins and mounted combat that I think reveals a fraught issue with making rules more specific. One of my players decided to lean fully into the new Find Steed spell, and to make the most of it. This included pulling a lot of rulings from the following RPGBOT blog post.

https://rpgbot.net/dnd5/characters/mounted_combat/

Before we get into it too far, I feel like purely Rules as Written (RAW) interpretations of the rules are quite silly, and do not make the most fun at the table. To that end, I try to make table rulings that are the best for the fun in the moment, rather than trying to obtain an ideal RAW.

However, these playtest rules have been written with a lot more specificity in mind, taking a queue from PF2e’s conventions in several areas.

With all that in mind, I see the above contents of the blog post as basically RAW in 5e… Until you encounter the specific rules for Find Steed.

Combat. The steed is an ally to you and your companions. In combat, it shares your initiative count, and it functions as a controlled mount while you ride it (as defined in the rules on mounted combat). If you have the Incapacitated condition, the steed takes its turn immediately after yours and acts independently, focusing on protecting you.

In my read, the problem arises in trying to adjudicate what occurs when a rider dismounts their Mount willfully, in order to take advantage of the ‘intelligent mount’ capabilities as laid out in the aforementioned blog article. The spell specifies exactly how it behaves when you are riding it, and what happens when you are incapacitated. But it says precious little about if it is not being ridden, and the rider is not incapacitated. It clears the bar for 6 intelligence on the intelligent mount rules, so does it get to attack on your turn, effectively? Can you just ride up to an enemy, dismount, attack yourself, and have your mount attack? Can you then mount up to ride to the next enemy, and then dismount? I think RAW yes, but that is tremendously silly to a point that I think it's not Rules as Intended.

Additionally during combat, if you are incapacitated until the end of your turn (By say, the breath of a Sapphire Dragon Wyrmling, which I was running) what happens? We’re taking RAW as far as we can go with it to allow for the potential attack of an intelligent mount just because you aren’t riding it. RAW, it will act after your turn if you are incapacitated in order to protect you. But the Incapacitating Breath lasts until the end of your turn. So RAW, does the summoned steed go to take its action, and then the condition required for it to do so directly after your turn (incapacitation) is no longer there, so it now isn’t able to act at all?

I feel like this example reveals a big issue with trying to make rules more specific, in that you have to write a tremendous amount of rules to cover every situation. And even PF2e doesn’t accomplish that (e.g. There’s no RAW way to target an empty square with a splash weapon to hit adjacent enemies. I have gotten a Family Feud number of responses on how that should be ruled).

I maintain that ‘rulings, not rules’ should be the guiding light for DMs in D&D, and that if you don’t like Rulings not Rules and would prefer a game closer to 3.5e, you should find another system that fits your style better. I think the level of specificity here, and in the stealth rules perversely introduce more vagaries that hurt the ‘rulings, not rules’ playstyle more than it helps empower DMs to make rulings.

Oh btw the Paladin is fun and it looks neat having a toolbelt of neat riders on your attacks per turn that isn’t just raw damage is fun.

As with many other posts, this has been crossposted to the /r/onednd subreddit. Please feel free to upvote it there to boost visibility.

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!

It's finally time for our next Fully Prepped Mini-Campaign/Adventure; Dragons of Stormwreck Isle, A level 1-3 Adventure that's sure to make waves! This is the most recent Starter Set and successor to The Lost Mine of Phandelver released by WoTC. In it, your players will sail to the titular Stormwreck Isle, an island shaped by an age of conflict between Chromatic and Metallic Dragons. They'll be able to befriend kobolds, explore fungal grottos, fight those twisted by Orcus, and perhaps save the very island itself!

Have your players create their own characters or jump right in using the Pre-Gens that are built with backstories integrated into the plot!

If you've used my previous notes you'll know that I take Adventures such as these and do all the difficult and time-consuming book-to-session conversions so you don't have to! I do my best to include Ambiance for every scene, custom battle maps, handouts when needed, spell sheets, encounter sheets, and more!

This may all sound familiar, but seeing as this is a Starter Set, I think it's important to reiterate:

• Read the Adventure: I know surprising, but It can be extremely confusing when you don't know where everything leads to.
• Consider the needs of your group: As you've heard or are about to hear a million times, every table is different. If you plan on combining this with a campaign, you'll have to make tweaks here and there.
• These notes aren't meant to be the end-all-be-all: Tweak to your heart's content, and don't consider any of what's written to be set in stone. For me having notes like this helps give me the confidence to go off the rails and follow along with what my players want. It helps me understand where things are meant to go and why. Having that understanding allows me to guide the players and create other new and interesting stories. These are all things that will come with experience, though, so don't freak out and enjoy the journey!

Without further ado:

• Google Docs Notes for Part 1 Dragon's Rest: DM Notes
• Link to: Intro + Dragon's Rest Playlist
• Link to: The AAA Collection (Files at bottom of post)

Included in The AAA Collection is:

• A Word document with all my notes including links to music tracks for ambiance and fights
• Special PDF for the encounter. This includes the enemy stat block organized neatly along with an initiative tracker and a spot to mark HP
• Multiple Custom Maps!

*Important Errata for Pre-Gens

• The Rogue’s Investigation bonus should be +3, not zero.
• The Wizard should have a +2 DEX save, not +3.
• The High Elf should have longbow proficiency

Index & FAQ:

Dragons of Stormwreck Isle:

• Part 1 - Dragon's Rest
• Part 2 - Seagrow Cave (Coming Soon)
• Part 3 - Cursed Shipwreck (Coming Soon)
• Part 4 - Clifftop Observatory (Coming Soon)

Other Fully Prepped One-Shots, Adventures, and More:

• The Wild Sheep Chase - Click Here
• Death House - Click Here
• We Be Goblins - Click Here
• The Egg of Estyr - Click Here
• Wolves of Welton - Click Here
• To the End of Time - Click Here
• A Most Potent Brew - Click Here
• Moon over Graymoor - Click Here
• A Wild West One-Shot - Click Here
• The Drunken Treasure - Click Here
• A Grimdark Adventure - Click Here
• D&D vs Rick and Morty - Click Here
• A Prison Break One-Shot - Click Here
• The Tavern at Death's Door - Click Here
• Dragons of Stormwreck Isle - Click Here
• Shadow of the Broodmother - Click Here
• L'Arsène's Ludicrous Larceny - Click Here
• The Night Before Wintermas - Click Here
• The Lost Mine of Phandelver - 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

What apps do all of you use, aside from pencil and paper?

I've been trying to find a good digital app to keep track of my character and item, but I'm not rebuying all my books on beyond, I have physical copies of all of them.

Also looking if there are any good spellbook apps. Currently I use one just called spellbook that keeps a list of favorites, prepared and known.

Welcome 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!

The Lost Mine of Phandelver is a classic, one of the very first Mini-Campaigns that new DM's run. Hell, it's part of the starter set after all! The issue though, as with many other Campaigns, is that it doesn't describe the best way to transform the contents of the book into an actual session. The Book to session conversion can be difficult. Between figuring out when things should happen, to understanding motivations and even balancing encounters.

Well fortunately for you 99% of that work is done! Only a few things are really left:

1. Consider the needs of your group. As you've heard or are about to hear a million times, every table is different. If you plan on combining this with a campaign you'll have to make tweaks here and there. (Bonus points if you include your players' backstory)
2. These notes aren't meant to be end-all be-all. Tweak to your heart's content and don't consider any of what's written to be set in stone. For me, having notes like this helps give me the confidence to go off the rails and follow along with what my players want. It helps me understand where things were meant to go and why. Having that understanding allows me to guide the players and create other new and interesting stories. These are all things that will come with experience though, so don't freak out and enjoy the journey!

Without further ado:

• Google Docs Notes for The Lost Mine of Phandelver (Part 1 Cragmaw Hideout): DM Notes
• Link to: Intro + Cragmaw Hideout Playlist
• Link to: The Complete Collection

Included in The Complete Collection are:

• A Word document with all my notes including a link to music tracks for ambiance and fights
• Special PDFs for all the encounters. This includes all the enemies' stat blocks organized neatly along with an initiative tracker and a spot to mark HP.
  • An additional PDF with Sildar's stats should he join the party as an ally
• A map of Cragmaw Hideout. I enlarged and printed this out for my players as a battle map!

Index:

The Lost Mine of Phandelver Index

• Part 1 - Intro and Cragmaw Hideout
• Part 2a - Phandalin (Coming Soon)
• Part 2b - Redbrand Hideout (Coming Soon)
• Part 3a - Reign of Iron (Coming Soon)
• Part 3b - Ruins of Thundertree (Coming Soon)
• Part 3c - Cragmaw Castle (Coming Soon)
• Part 4 - Wave Echo Cave (Coming Soon)
• Part 5 - Side Quests (Coming Soon)

Other Fully Prepped One-Shots, Adventures, and More:

• The Wild Sheep Chase - Click Here
• Death House - Click Here
• We Be Goblins - Click Here
• The Egg of Estyr - Click Here
• Wolves of Welton - Click Here
• To the End of Time - Click Here
• A Most Potent Brew - Click Here
• Moon over Graymoor - Click Here
• A Wild West One-Shot - Click Here
• The Drunken Treasure - Click Here
• A Grimdark Adventure - Click Here
• D&D vs Rick and Morty - Click Here
• The Barber of Silverymoon - Click Here
• The Tavern at Death's Door - Click Here
• Dragons of Stormwreck Isle - Click Here
• Shadow of the Broodmother - Click Here
• L'Arsène's Ludicrous Larceny - Click Here
• The Night Before Wintermas - Click Here
• The Lost Mine of Phandelver - Click Here
• The Secret of Skyhorn Lighthouse - 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

As always, I've crossposted this over to the OneD&D subreddit in the link below. Feel free to upvote there to raise visibility.

https://www.reddit.com/r/onednd/comments/14ufvvq/is_the_dance_bard_all_that_good/

As part of preparing player characters on behalf of my less UA invested friends for a one-shot I'm running tomorrow, I made a Dance Bard. The player was excited to hear the concept, and I thought it was a really neat idea when I first read over it.

But the act of actually making it lead to a conclusion that this isn't that great.

Yes, Charisma + Dex armor is neat, but since ~~Shield + Light Armor would get you to the same level of AC, it isn't an upgrade over the baseline Bard starting out.~~ (For some reason I thought Bards got shield proficiency. This is still sub-par AC for anyone going into melee, especially without an on-turn disengage or shove) Later on when you can max out your Dex and Charisma to 20, it would be eventually higher AC, but full casters typically don't want to put a lot of investment outside of their casting stat.

"Okay," I thought to myself, "then let's look at this as not a caster, but as a melee combatant who prioritizes Dexterity." Well that's not great either. You get to use your bonus action to cast a spell to help your attack damage, but that is limited to the 1d6/level Smite spells^1^, or Zephyr Strike. Shadow Blade isn't on any spell list now either, and if it was it doesn't bookend with any of these features anyhow so you can't play it like a Bladesinger who is able to dump spell slots into single-target damage. But even if you did do this, that's in direct competition to your free attack on a Bardic Inspiration.

The fact that this subclass doesn't get a second attack at 5th or 6th level really torpedoes any sense that you'll be getting that much out of their 'bardic-martial-art' die damage. Not even to mention they don't get to pierce Bludgeoning/Piercing/Slashing resistance.

So what's left?

A bard who can get an extra hit in if they're next to an enemy when they inspire an ally, as well as use their reaction to reposition allies and get another hit in.^2^ This is the only reason to close to melee range on your own turn. The bard as a fullcaster would be better off using spellslots that don't require being in melee range with their action, most of the time. What that effectively means is that you can use your attack action in lieu of a cantrip, so you get essentially 1 extra cantrip. In tier 2, they can boost their party's initiative by an impressive amount.

That kit is flavorful, but it will be playing very much like a very normal Bard with some neat features. This feels like a faint shadow of what a Monk can do, not a replacement. Almost every Monk subclass has some way to avoid getting hit while darting in and out of combat^3^, while also having high movement speed. This Bard doesn't do any of that.

Of anything that I mentioned, the repositioning of the ally and the initiative boosts are the best thing about this subclass. Everything else are ribbon abilities. If you think I'm off base, please feel free to let me know how. I'll also be posting a followup after my playtest, but having just playtested a neat session with two monks, conceptually this doesn't feel all that exciting.

edit: I just realized that taking Tavern Brawler at 1st level fixes this subclass's (and Way of Mercy's) problem with engaging in melee, and is actually quite powerful. Each time you hit someone with your unarmed strike, you can push them away. I think that it could be a mandatory feat on anyone who wants to really lean into the dance-fighting vibe of this class.

^1^ Altho Searing smite might be OP since you get two instances of the damage before the target gets to save and negate the burn. Which means its the best scaling Smite in the game, and exceeds what a Paladin with half-caster progression can achieve if the target fails its save once.

^2^ And note that Bardic Inspiration is tied to your Charisma modifier. So as resource hungry as the Monk is, this is worse.

^3^ Way of Mercy is the odd one out.

This post is crossposted to /r/onednd here . Please feel free to upvote it there for higher visibility.

This post is a brief overview of my takeaways from running a playtest game which included the latest 1 Arcane Rogue and 2 Monk(Mercy & Elements).There was also a Frenzy Barbarian, rounding out the group to a solid 4 characters, but since the Barbarian’s playtest came and went, I’ll be only touching on them briefly. All characters were level 6

The game was cut a little short, so we didn’t get too much combat in. However, what little we did had a great set of fascinating moments.

This is written mostly from a GM (my) perspective, but I will be peppering in player takeaways wherever I can.

Elements monk = FUN

The Warrior of Elements Monk was a skirmishing speed demon. With the +15 movement speed from their monk feature and the +10 movement speed from their level 4 feat, this character had 55 feet of movement. There was some theory crafting that the max possible speed could be 70 feet of movement, with Wood Elves +5 movement bonus and Longstrider, but that seems like gilding the lily.

But even with just 55 feet of movement, the ability to have 10 minutes of 15 foot ranged strikes let this Monk contribute fully without needing to put themselves at risk. Additionally the ability to make enemies struck move backwards or forwards by 10 feet on each attack roll means that they were able to punt enemies around the battlefield, sometimes chasing targets down on follow up attacks to send them careening 20-40 feet across the map.

This also translated to being able to take enemies that had closed distance to push them well away, before disengaging beyond their movement. Without ever having to spend a ki point on ‘step of the wind’ this Monk was fairly untouchable, and was only ever in melee range of enemies at the beginning of a surprise combat.

Mercy Monk is situational

The Mercy monk had a bit less of a rip-roaring time. The one notable enemy in the playtest so far had poison immunity, which made their lives a bit harder. However, it was agreed that the ability to simply inflict Poison without a saving throw seems strong. Further playtesting will tell, but it feels like a hold-over from 5e.

This monk took the Charger feat, which let them deal upwards of 5d8+Mod(4) unarmed attack damage on a perfect round of combat. If they use their Way of Mercy 1/turn damage boost, this rises to 6d8+Mod(4), which felt hefty and contributed well at the table.

Ranged Rogue feels solid, but not exciting

While the Ranged Rogue didn’t have much time to shine, the new Cunning Attacks combined with Shortbow Weapon Mastery allowed them to trip enemies while reducing their movement speed. This effectively nailed most enemies down to only having a 10 foot range on their turn, making the loss of 1d6 damage feel more than worthwhile when it worked.

However, this simply resulted in the enemies attacking people who had already closed to melee instead. It hemmed me in as the DM, and did force me to attack the party’s preferred frontliners, so it wasn’t without impact, but the rogue player themselves didn’t really feel too excited by their contribution. This would have been better if the rogue wasn’t at the bottom of the initiative, and the most threatening enemies at the very top of the order in our combats, as the Rogue couldn’t delay their turn to go just after the enemy to make sure they were prone for the rest of our melee damage dealers.

Also to be honest, our table isn’t sure what the utility of Disarm is supposed to be. If there’s a MacGuffin, it’s quite clear that it’s a great way to take it off an enemy. But to take the weapon off an enemy has a few problems.

1. If another player doesn’t use their free object interaction to pick up the weapon, AFAIK the disarmed creature can just pick it up with a free object interaction. This isn’t a new issue, it’s been a problem with Disarm since the beginning of 5e.
2. If you do allow disarming-and-swiping of a weapon, as a DM I don’t know how to feel about that. For verisimilitude, it feels fine, but from a CR balance perspective it means that I have to contrive reasons why the target’s damage output doesn’t immediately crater, thus throwing off the CR fight balance.

It feels like Disarm needs to have a more well defined mechanical consequence if this will be a common effect achieved by any Rogue player.

Otherwise, the rogue felt like they fell far behind in damage, which is a known issue.

Barbarians have toolkit & a high damage floor

The Barbarian in our group was able to swap between Cleave, Graze, and Topple weapon masteries as required. The end result is that they were able to feel like they were making conscious decisions each round of combat. And even on the round of combat where all they could do was throw hand-axes, they were able to deal an impressive amount of damage on what would have otherwise been an unimpressive turn.

Before factoring in damage die, the Barbarian deals 2d6 (avg 7) Frenzy +2 Rage +4 STr Mod damage on a hit. If they use graze, then that’s a guaranteed +4 if they miss once, raising a single-hit damage round’s damage floor to an average of 17 damage. Simply put, our Barbarian did not feel bad about a single round of combat. This player is typically quite loss averse, and gets annoyed when they whiff on their turn, and they felt like they never had a ‘down’ turn.

Musings on Damage Resistance

One notable fight was with a Water Elemental Myrmidon. The Myrmidon deals Force Damage, and it has resistance to Bludgeoning/Slashing/Piercing (BSP). The legacy version of the Myrmidons had magical weapons, which specifically mentioned how they pierce through magical resistance to BSP. Also note that none of my players had magical weapons.

It was rated as a medium encounter, and it felt like a medium fight. It lasted 3 rounds, and everyone was able to contribute to its defeat in a number of ways, each player making conscious tactical decisions. The rogue and Barbarian were dealing half damage, while the Monks were cutting straight through the damage resistance. Even though the Monks would be doing less damage than the damage optimized Barbarian typically, they were the number 1 & 2 contributors to the total damage on the creature, and this served as a GREAT spotlight moment for those players.

This made me wonder: SHOULD every martial character get magic weapons that bypass BSP resistance? I could use more datapoints, but this combat came in solidly at a Medium fight by general eyeballing and feel at the table. It didn’t feel like a token encounter to blast through, and while the Monks weren’t lighting the world on fire with their fight contribution in other combats, this one made them feel rather impactful. Additionally, the Barbarian didn’t feel like they were laughing off the damage, and I was able to make sure everyone felt suitably tested without flirting with rocket-tag like I would otherwise have to do in 5e.

I have a theory that could use more testing, but I believe that Damage Resistance is currently an underutilized tool in 5e, and that we should not expect that all Martials will be able to bypass it. Additionally the ability of some creatures to bypass Barbarian Rage BSP resistance seems like a net positive for the game.

Edit: I had forgotten my other takeaway! Full disclosure for this next section, one Monk player is my spouse, and we really workshopped optimizing their Mercy Monk. We tried finding a way to get Weapon Masteries integrated into their build, but none of the options really seemed like a better choice than simply using the d8 Martial arts die.

Weapon Mastery feels vestigial on Monks

The only weapon that can match the d8 in damage output is the Staff, and the Flex mastery that it possesses is incredibly dubious in terms of potential impact. You cannot use an offhand attack with the Light or Nick properties unless the mainhand is Light. So you will never have a moment where you wouldn’t be able to wield a Staff with two hands.

In fact, the only weapon mastery that seemed to have any purpose at all was a dart’s Vex mastery allowing their monk to have limited ranged options while setting up their next melee attack roll with advantage.

Additionally the other monk saw no need to have any masteries whatsoever. The only masteries that MIGHT fit into their kit are Offhand Nick and Vex from a mainhand light weapon, but by level 5 you are lowering your damage of your mainhand attack (necessary to trigger offhand) in order to unlock a +1d4 nick attack. With an average of 2.5 damage, that is a net increase of 1.5 raw damage, which is so little for a lot of bother.

This discussion has been linked on the r/OneDND subreddit. Please feel free to upvote it there for more visibility over here.

I had made a previous post in this community regarding how I predict that the 2024 revision of D&D5e will be vastly improving CR. In that post, I laid out a lot of ideas on how I think the future playtests will go, and so far I haven't been wrong yet.

If you want to read it all, you can find it here. For everyone else, I will now provide a brief summary.

All the changes so far should not be looked at in terms of individual abilities and their power compared to each other individual ability, because that has not been the focus of the playtests so far. Instead, the focus has been in standardizing how damage output functions, with the purpose of closing loopholes.

This includes making par (or arguably sub-par) spells like 'Spiritual Weapon' now requiring concentration. THis isn't because Spiritual Weapon was doing too much damage, but because it was a persistent spell that dealt damage each turn, and did not require concentration. It doesn't matter that the damage was low, because it functioned in a non standard fashion, so balancing it was needlessly harder to do and it was a potential loophole to place more damage than intended into a Divine spellcaster's round.

Other examples can be found in the previously mentioned post.

However, I'm making this post now to unpack what I see as frustraitingly shallow takes on how the playtest is progressing. I will link the following PackTactics video not as endorsement of the views (altho he has several observations I agree with), but as an example of what I'm talking about.

https://youtu.be/40D0-Ezxlho

This is a rigorous look at Monk in isolation, and in this video he is obsessed with the idea that each ability needs to be assessed in terms of a buff or nerf. I believe that focus immediately stops him from considering further on what the possible motives behind the changes are.

The best example of this tunnel vision, is his assessment of the level 6 feature, Empowered Strikes. This allows the Monk to deal force damage instead of normal damage types with their unarmed strikes. He calls this a nerf, because it is now a damage type that can sometimes be resisted where before it was damage that could go through resistance trivially. He makes this judgement, without acknowledging that this is the new system standard. All features that once would go through magical Bludgeoning/Slashing/Piercing (BSP) resistance, both on Monster statblocks and UA material, now change the damage type away from BSP. So this isn't a nerf, it's the new normal for everyone and a sign of a shift in system design.

I'm writing this post with the hopes that someone who is performing this same reflexive reaction to changes in a strict comparison of higher or lower performance will now take a moment to consider. Why would intelligent game designers who want to do a good job and like the hobby make a bad decision on purpose? Because I don't think it's a rational position to think that the development team at WotC are not earnest.

As a closing thought & followup on my previous post, I believe that what will come next are spell nerfs that will bring their effects and capabilities in line with the current slate of controller abilities we've seen introduced. Most afflicted conditions will become 1 turn in duration, or will end on a repeated save. This will rein in how warping to fight balance controller spellcasters are on the battlefield.

After this is done, numeric balancing will begin, at about the dead-end of the playtest. This is in part because I don't think WotC devs require the internet's opinion on what is essentially a set of Math problems. Additionally, they couldn't know how much to really change the numeric content of abilities and spells until they had standardized how damage and conditions are applied, because the non-standard methods that we have in 5e are rife for optimization abuse (say hello to my Gloomstalker/Fighter build).

Like, I know it’s better that it was, and it’s probably quite strong mathematically. But… just getting to add extra to your attack and damage rolls doesn’t feel very cool flavor-wise or mechanics-wise. I’m a 20th level character; I want a power that makes me feel like some kind of demigod. Not something that just makes number go up.

I think it stems from a lack of class identity in the base ranger: nobody, least of all WotC, can quite decide what it should be. If your idea of the ranger is focused on having a pet, then an ability that helps with fighting monsters isn’t very good. But if you are a monster hunter, then something that boosts companion animals is useless.

So what’s the solution? Given that so much of the ranger’s identity comes from the subclass, I think the ranger should take a page from the paladin’s book (er, chapter) and make the capstone ability a subclass feature.

So Monk is the one class we didn't get a prior UA for, which means all the changes are totally new. I'm still wrapping my head around it. Martial Arts die increase: good. Martial Arts die not affecting weapons: bad. Step of the Wind buff: good. Stunning Strike nerf: bad but reasonable?

I feel like they knew Monks needed help, but it doesn't really seem like they made as much effort to fix that as I think they really needed to. Anything I might be missing that saves the Class here?

I told people that this would happen! But now we just have a precious small amount of time to SPECULATE as to how extensive the revision of the spells in the next UA.

There are spells that I hope they simply remove (or drastically change) without comment or recourse for feedback. Such is my distaste for Shield, Counterspell, and many others.

Shield should just give resistance to damage if it has to stay around. The +5 to AC is a problem.

If Counterspell has to hang around, it should either impose disadvantage on the spell attack, and have saving throws be performed at advantage for the duration of the spell while causing no damage to be taken on a successful save.

Forcecage, Hypnotic Pattern, and other crazy powerful spells need to come down in potency as well. I hope we see it, as this is another big step towards getting a CR system that works.

The next playtest material drops tomorrow, largest one so far!