TRAVEL MONTAGE APPROACH Sometim es the destination is more important than the journey. I f the purpose of a wilderness trek is to get the characters to where the real adventure happens, gloss over the wilderness trek without checking for encounters along the way. Just as movies use travel montages to convey long and arduous journeys in a matter of seconds, you can use a few sentences of descriptive text to paint a picture of a wilderness trek in your players' minds before moving on. Describe the journey as vividly as you like, but keep the forward momentum. You walk for several miles and encounter nothing of interest" is okay, but far less evocative and memorable than , A light rain dampens the rolling plains as you travel north. Around midday, you break for lunch under a lonely tree.

There, the rogue finds a small rock that looks like a grinning face , but otherwise you encounter nothing out of the ordinary. attention to the weather. I f wilderness travel feature prominently in your adventure and isn't something you want to gloss over, you will need more than a descriptiv overview to bring a long and harrowing journey to lif e; you'll need to know the party's marching order and have encounters at the ready. Let your players determine the party 's marching order see the Player s Handbook for mor e information Characters in the front rank are likely to be the first to notice landmarks and terrain features , as well as the ones responsible for navigating. Characters in the back rank are usually responsible for making sure that the party isn't being followed. Encourage characters in the middle ranks to do something other than blindly trudge along behind the front-rank characters.

with or without the aid of spells or interrogation. Others are decided with a trial by ordeal or trial by combat. f the evidence against the accused is overwhelming, a magistrate or local lord can forgo a trial and skip right to the sentencing. For a village, sketch out the roads, including trade routes leading beyond the village and roads that connect outlying farms to the village center. Note the location of the village center. f the adventurers visit specific places in the village, mark those spots on your map. For towns and cities, note major roads and waterways as well as surrounding terrain. Outline the walls and mark the locations of features you know will be important: the lord's keep, significant temples, and the like. For cities, add internal walls and think about the personality of each ward. Give the wards names SENTENC ES A settlement might have a jail to hold accused criminals awaiting trial, but few settlements have prisons to incarcerate convicted criminals.

A person found guilty of a crime is usually fined , condemned to forced labor for a period of severa l months or years, exiled, or executed, depending on the magnitude of the crime. Check for a random encounter at least once per day, and once at night if the characters are out and about. Reroll the result if it doesn't make sense given the time of day. A bully flees as soon as he or she takes any amount of damage. U DERWATER S ee chapter 9 of the Players Handbook for rules on und erwater combat. As a twist, the would-be companion might be a spy sent to gather information on the adventurers. The adventurers are drawn into an impromptu contest-anything from an intellectual test to a drinking competition-or witness a duel. The adventurers find a humanoid corpse.

The characters are drafted by a member of the city or town watch, who needs their help to deal with an immediate problem. As a twist, the member of the watch might be a disguised criminal trying to lure the party into an ambush use the thug statistics in the Monster Manual for the c riminal and his or her cohorts. Drunk A tipsy drunk staggers toward a random party member, mistaking him or her for someone else. A fire breaks out, and the characters have a chance to help put out the flames before it spreads. Found Trinket. The characters find a random trinket. You can determine the trinket by rolling on the Trinkets table in the Players Handbook.

f threatened, the guards call out for help and might attract You can check for random undersea encounters as often as you would check for them on land see chapter 3. T he Random U ndersea Encounters table presents several intriguing opt ions. You can either roll on the table for a random result or choose whichever one works best. Here are a few examples of ways in which an advent ur e seed can be rev ea led: On a villain's corpse, the characters find evidence that the villain was working for someone else. No one's memory is infallible, so it pays to keep records. Jot not es dir ect ly on an adven ture map to keep track of open doors , disarmed traps , and the li k e. Events beyond the scope of a single adventure are be recorded in a notebook dedicated to your campaign. Th e characters are heading to a lo ca l tavern when they spot a wanted poster or a missing person poster complete with the promise of a sizable reward.

Members of the local militia or city watch put out the word that a crime has b ee n co mmitted , and they're looking for potential witnesses and suspects. The characters receive an anonymous letter that sheds light on a plot or imp e nding event of which they were previously unaware. Not all foreshadowing bears fruit, parti cularly if the clues are too subtle or if events conspire to take your campaign in a n ew direc tion. The goal of for es hadowing is to hint at upcoming eve nts and new threats in your campaign without making it obvious to players that you're telling them what the future holds. Here are a few examp l es : An object worn or carried by an enemy has the symbol Yo ur notebook might include any of the following elements.

Campaign Planner. Write down the main story arc your campaign, and k ee p track of things that you hope appear in future adventures. Update it as the campaigr: develops , adding ideas as they come to you. Character Notes. Write down the characters' backgrounds and goals, since these notes can help yo u d es ign adventure content that provid es o p p o r t u n i t i e s character development. Keep a running tally of the adventurers' classes and levels, as well as any quests and downtime activities they're engaged in. I f the characters have a ship or stronghold, record iL name and whereabouts, as well as any hir elings in the characters' employ. Keep a copy of all handouts you make for your players so that you don 't have to rememb er their contents lat er. Adventure Log. Think of this log as an episode guide for your campaign. Summarize each game session or adventure to help you keep track of the unfolding campaign story. The DM chooses the type dete rmines it randomly from the options below.

This blue potion bubbles and steams as if boiling. When you drink it, you become invisible for 1 hour. Anything you wear or carry is invisible with you. The effect ends early if you attack or cast a spell. The potion's syrupy liquid looks like liquified iron. POTION OF LONGEVITY POTION OF SPEED Potion, very rare When you drink this potion, you gain the effect of the haste spell for 1 minute no concentration required. potion's yellow fluid is streaked with black and swirl on its own. POTION OF VITALITY Potion, very rare When you drink this potion, it removes any exhaust ion you are suffering and cures any disease or poison affecting you. For the next 24 hours, you regain the maximum number of hit points for any Hit Die you spend. The potion's crimson liquid regularly pulses wi - dulllight, calling to mind a heartbeat. Every other creature in the area must make a DC 17 Dexterity sa ving throw.

On a failed sa ve. a creature rake an amount of damage based on how far away it is from the point of origin, as shown in the following table. On a uccessful save, a creature takes half as much damage. Distance from Origin 10 ft. away or closer 11 to 20 ft. away 21 to 30ft. away Damage 8 x the number of charges in the staff 6 x the number of charges in the staff 4 x the number of charg es in th e st aff STAFF O F STRIKIN G Staff, very rare requires attunement The snake head can be attacked while it is animate. It has an Armor Class of 15 and 20 hit points. f the h ea d drops to 0 hit points, the staff is destroyed. As long as it's not destroyed, the staff regains all lo st hit points when it reve rts to its inanimate form.

The staff has 50 charges for the following properties. The staff has 10 charges. When you hit with a melee at tack using it, you can expend up to 3 of its charges. For each charge you expend, the target takes an extra ld6 force damage. f you expend the last charge, ro ll a d On a 1, the staff becomes a nonmagical qu arte rstaff. On a 1, a swarm of insects consumes and you expend the last charge, roll a d Spell Absorption While holding the staff, you have advantage on saving throws against spells. In addition, you can use your reaction when another creature casts a spell that targets only you.

f you do, the staff absorbs the magic of the spell, canceling its effect and gaining a number of c harges equal to the absorbed spell's level. However, if doing so brings the staff's total number of charges above 50 , the staff explodes as if you activated its retributive strike see below. f the monster re li es more on effects with saving throws than on atta cks, use the monster's save DC instead of its attack bonus. f your monster uses diffe rent att ack bon uses or save DCs, use the ones that will co me up th e most often. Average Challenge Rating. The monster's final challenge rating is the average of its defensive and offensive challenge ratings. Round the average up or down to the nearest challenge rating to determine your monster's final chall enge rating. For exa mple, if the creature 's defensive challenge rating is 2 and its offensive rating is 3, its final rating is 3.

With the final challenge rating, you can determine the monster's proficiency bonus using the Monster Statistics by Challenge Rating table. Use the Experience Points by Challenge Rating table to dete rmin e how much XP the monster is worth. A monster of challenge rating 0 is worth 0 XP if it poses no threat. Otherwise , it is S TEP 1. N A ME A monster's nam e should be given as much consideration as any other aspect of the monst er, if not more. Your monster might be based on a real-world creature or a monster from myth , in which case its name might be obvious. f you need to invent a name , keep in mind that the best names either reflect the monster's appearance or nature such as the mimic and the owlbear or have a nice ring to them such as the chuul and the thri-kreen. STEP 2. SIZE Mak6 your monster whatever size you want: Tiny, Small , Medium, Large, Huge, or Gargantuan.

A monst er's size determines which die is used to calculate its hit points in step 8. Size also determines how much space the monster occupies , as discussed in the Players Handbook. Creating a monster isn't just a number-crunching exercise. The guidelines in this chapter can help you create monsters, but the only way to know whether a monster is fun is to playtest it. After seeing your monster in action, you might want to adjust the challenge rating up or down based on your experiences. T Y PE A monster 's type provides insight into its origins and nature. The Monster Manual describes each monster type. Choose the type that best fits your concept for the monster. STEP 4. ALIGNMENT f your monster has no concept of morals , it is unaligned.

Otherwise , it has an alignment appropriate to its nature and moral outlook, as discuss ed in the Players Handbook. Increase the effective damage of one attack per round by the amount gained from this trait. Increase the monster's effective AC and effective attack bonus by 4 assuming the monster hides every round. Increase the monster' s effective attack bonus by 1. Featured All Audio This Just In Grateful Dead Netlabels Old Time Radio 78 RPMs and Cylinder Recordings. Metropolitan Museum Cleveland Museum of Art. Featured All Images This Just In Flickr Commons Occupy Wall Street Flickr Cover Art USGS Maps. Top NASA Images Solar System Collection Ames Research Center. Internet Arcade Console Living Room. Featured All Software This Just In Old School Emulation MS-DOS Games Historical Software Classic PC Games Software Library.

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The DM creates a world for the other players to explore, and also creates and runs adventures that drive the story. An adventure typically hinges on the successful completion of a quest, and can be as short as a single game session. Longer adventures might embroil players in great conflicts that require multiple game sessions to resolve. As an actor, the DM plays the roles of the monsters and supporting characters, breathing life into them. And as a referee, the DM interprets the rules and decides when to abide by them and when to change them. Focus on the aspects you enjoy and downplay the rest. You can also lean on the other players to help you with rules mastery and world-building. You Ye the DM, and you are in charge of the game. If you Ye lucky, the events of your campaign will echo in the memories of your players long after the final game session is concluded. This book is organized in three parts.

The second part helps you create the adventures the stories that will compose the campaign and keep the players entertained from one game session to ihe next. The last part helps you adjudicate the rules of the game and modify them to suit the style of your campaign. Every DM is the creator of his or her own campaign world. a vast array of planes and worlds where adventures happen. Even if you re using an established world such as the Forgotten Realms, your campaign takes place in a sort of mirror universe of the official setting where Forgotten Realms novels, game products, and digital games are assumed to take place.

Whether you write your own adventures or use published ones, expect to invest preparation time beyond the hours you spend at the gaming table. craft encounters, and think of clever ways to foreshadow story events yet to come. Part 2 of this book is devoted to helping you create and run great adventures. Chapter 5 presents guidelines and advice for running adventures set in dungeons, the wilderness, and other locales, and chapter 6 covers the time between adventures. Chapter 7 is all about treasure, magic items, and special rewards that help keep the players invested in your campaign. As the player who creates the game world and the adventures that take place within it, the DM is a natural fit to take on the referee role. As a referee, the DM acts as a mediator between the rules and the players.

A player tells the DM what he or she wants to do, and the DM determines whether it is successful or not. in some cases asking rhe player to make a die roll to determine success. For example, if a player wants his or her character to take a swing at an ore. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Table of Contents. Related PDFs. Leave a Comment Cancel Reply Your email address will not be published.

These tables omit monsters that Cat, commoner, hyena, jackal, 0 10 XP don 't customar ily inhabit the environments included scorpion, vulture here, such as angels and demons. It is incredibly streamlined, easy to pick up, and adaptable to the Dungeon Master's discretion. For example, if a player wants his or her character to take a swing at an ore. If you're casting a second level spell, you need 2 sorcery points. f your monster uses diffe rent att ack bon uses or save DCs, use the ones that will co me up th e most often. Spells can only be used by characters in the class you select.

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