D&D 5e: Treasure Averages

I revisited and expanded my treasure counts from this post. This is basically a way to determine whether you’re giving out treasure in line with what the DMG assumes (I suspect most people are not; all totaled like this, it feels like more than I’ve seen in most campaigns I’ve played in). Obviously, you can give more or less for your table, but I suspect with the way it’s locked behind random tables, incidental loot, and variable numbers of hoard per tier, most DMs don’t even know what is anticipated.

Overview

Based on DMG suggestions, a party of four PCs should acquire the following values across the tiers of play:

Tier	Levels	Total GP Value	Magic Items	Hoard Value	Individual Value	Magic Value
1	1-4	10,203	72%	2,630	180	7,393
2	5-10	142,034	36%	81,797	8,835	51,402
3	11-16	852,533	42%	434,550	55,873	362,110
4	17-20	3,824,977	23%	2,688,200	254,100	882,677

	Items
Tier	Common	Uncommon	Rare	Very Rare	Legendary
1	5.4	5.7	1.9
2	9	16.2	6.8	1
3	3.6	7.9	10.9	8.3	1.3
4		0.2	5.2	14.2	6.4

For example, across the entirety of tier 1 (levels 1-4), the party should find 10,203 gp value of treasure, 72% of it in magic items (or 2,630 gp value in hoards, 180 gp value in individual treasure, and 7,393 gp value in magic items). That magic item value is on average made up of about 5 common items, 6 uncommon, and 2 rare.

Increase the GP Value (and items awarded) proportionately for parties larger or smaller than four.

When awarding magical items, this table assumes that the GP Value of the item is in the middle of its range, or:

• Common: 75 gp
• Uncommon: 300 gp
• Rare: 2,750 gp
• Very Rare: 27,500 gp
• Legendary: 75,000 gp

For example, if you award a Rare item, remove 2,750 gp from the budget for that tier.

Mathematical Figuring

Hoard Wealth

Page 133 of the DMG suggests that a typical party has seven hoards at Tier 1, eighteen at Tier 2, twelve at Tier 3, and eight at Tier 4.

The average of the cash treasure (including gems and art) on these treasure tables are as follows:

	Hoard gp value
CR 0-4	375.70
CR 5-10	4,544.30
CR 11-16	36,212.50
CR 17+	336,025.00

Thus, the number of hoards expected per tier indicate that the total average value is:

	Hoard Value
1-4	2,630
5-10	81,797
11-16	434,550
17+	2,688,200

Individual Encounters

The averages of the individual cash awards on page 136 of the DMG break down as follows:

	Individual gp value
CR 0-4	4.97
CR 5-10	92.50
CR 11-16	946.75
CR 17+	8,470.00

Assuming this is awarded as the “pocket change” for a medium encounter, the following are the expected total number of encounters if you only had medium encounters of the correct level:

Level	Encounters	GP/Encounter	Total GP
1	6	5	30
2	6	5	30
3	12	5	60
4	12	5	60
5	17	93	1,581
6	15	93	1,395
7	15	93	1,395
8	16	93	1,488
9	14	93	1,302
10	18	93	1,674
11	9	947	8,523
12	10	947	9,470
13	9	947	8,523
14	10	947	9,470
15	11	947	10,417
16	10	947	9,470
17	10	8470	84,700
18	10	8470	84,700
19	10	8470	84,700

Thus, for the following tiers, this is the total GP accumulated from individual encounters:

1. 180
2. 8,835
3. 55,873
4. 254,100

Magic Items

The hoard tables also include rolls on magic item tables. Averaging the chances for each table, each tier has the following average number of rolls per table:

	Mix of Magic Items
1-4	A x 6, B x 3, C x 2, F x 2
5-10	A x 10, B x 9, C x 5, D x 1, F x 6, G x 2
11-16	A x 4, B x 6, C x 9, D x 5, E x 1, F x 1, G x 2, H x 3, I x 1
17+	C x 4, D x 9, E x 6, G x 1, H x 2, I x 4

The rarity of items on each table breaks down as follows:

	C	U	R	VR	L	Value
A	90	10				98
B		100				300
C		4	96			2,652
D			1	99		27,253
E				50	50	51,250
F		100				300
G		2	98			2,701
H		2	6	92		25,471
I			4	12	84	66,410

Taking the average value of items at each rarity (as discussed above), you can give an approximate value to each table, on the right of above table.

Finally, combining that average value with the number of rolls for each table per tier, you get the following total values for magic items:

	Magic
1-4	7,393
5-10	51,402
11-16	362,110
17+	882,677

D&D 5e Warlock Patron: The King of Dreams

On some worlds, an entity deep within the ethereal or feywild gains oversight of the concepts of dreams and nightmares. When such a being is in play, sleeping creatures are, in a real sense, casting their minds into the realm of the King of Dreams. In such places, dreams and nightmares might become coherent, thinking entities in their own right, and gain enough power to threaten the waking world.

Far from omniscient or omnipotent, the King of Dreams often must rely upon servants to attempt to police the vast realm of dreams and the recalcitrant denizens therein. While tending to favor relying on other dreams and nightmares forged by their own hand, sometimes they will speak to a gifted dreamer and offer powers in exchange for service in maintaining the dream realm.

Warlocks of the King of Dreams are often tasked with hunting down rogue dreams and nightmares. These may take the form of fey or aberrations when they escape to the waking world, or may simply hide in the recurring dreams of certain mortals for a Sleepwalker to find. The warlocks may also be sent on more whimsical quests: some religious philosophers struggle to cleanly explain the difference between the King of Dreams and any other Archfey.

Pacts

• Blade: Pact weapons of the King of Dreams seem altogether too fanciful to be real; the idea of the weapon, but not the reality. They tend to be overly large and have adornments that no waking smith would include. And yet, they strike as effectively as any mundane weapon.
• Chain: Devotees of the King of Dreams often have a raven tasked to their aid, a protector and a spy for their patron. It has the statistics of the Psychopomp, though instead of being able to transport incorporeal undead, it can transport dream and nightmare fey and aberrations.
• Tome: A classic dream journal, a dream-pact warlock’s book of shadows is often fanciful, with multicolored ribbon bookmarks, an intricate cover, and beautiful images that spontaneously accompany the spells inscribed within.
• Blood: Blood-pact warlocks of the King of Dreams are generally descended from those that procreated while stuck in a coma, deeply linked to the realm of dreams while bringing a child into the world.

Features

Warlock Level	Feature
1st	Expanded Spell List, Lucidity
6th	Sleepwalker
10th	Sandman
14th	Dreamworld

Expanded Spell List

The King of Dreams lets you choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a warlock spell. The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you.

Spell Level	Spells
1st	silent image, sleep
2nd	calm emotions, phantasmal force
3rd	catnap (xge), phantom steed
4th	confusion, phantasmal killer
5th	modify memory, seeming

Lucidity

At 1st level, magic can’t put you to sleep unless you choose to let it affect you. Additionally, when sleeping (naturally or through voluntary acceptance of magical sleep), you retain a rudimentary awareness of the world around you. You do not have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks made while sleeping, and may wake and act immediately on your initiative when danger occurs while you are sleeping. You may, similarly, choose to wake immediately if subjected to danger that affects you in your dreams. These abilities do not apply when your patron puts you to sleep.

If you are normally incapable of sleep you may choose to sleep and dream. If you would normally rest fewer hours (e.g., four hours for trance), you only need to sleep this long to complete a long rest.

You have advantage on saving throws against illusion and enchantment spells, and on ability checks to recognize an illusion. You may use your action to grant a target you can touch a new saving throw to end an illusion or enchantment spell. At the DM’s discretion, these abilities also apply to effects that are similar to illusion or enchantment spells, but not technically spells.

You have advantage on Wisdom (Insight) rolls against creatures that dream.

Sleepwalker

Starting at 6th level, you gain the ability to walk through dreams. While sleeping, you may enter the dreams of any other sleeping creature within ten feet per point of proficiency bonus. The DM can describe the creature’s dreams to greater or lesser extent. You may encounter creatures of the dream realm within these visions, interacting with them as if you were in a waking encounter with them and the dreamer. Regardless of the outcome, you gain advantage on Charisma checks against the dreamer for 12 hours after they wake, due to your insight into their mind.

You may also use this ability to visit the realm of your patron while you sleep, and converse with them. At your patron’s whim, you may be led to other dreams or dream realms, and interact with them as if you were in a waking encounter.

Additionally, you gain resistance to Psychic damage.

Sandman

Starting at 10th level, you gain the ability to send other creatures directly to sleep, regardless of hit points. As a bonus action when you hit a target you can see with a weapon attack or spell (or the target fails a save against one of your spells), you may force the target to make a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC or fall asleep as if affected by the sleep spell. Undead and creatures immune to charm have advantage on this saving throw. If you affected multiple targets with the triggering attack or spell, you must choose one creature affected to be subject to this effect. You may use this ability a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Additionally, you add the dream spell to your spell list (and may choose another spell if you had already learned this spell).

Dreamworld

You gain conjure fey (6th), mirage arcane (7th), demiplane (8th), and weird (9th) as additional uses of your Mystic Arcanum for the listed level (you may cast the spell instead of the spell you have chosen at that level).

After you take damage, you may use your reaction to enter the Ethereal plane, making it more difficult to affect you with subsequent attacks. You return to your original plane at the start of your turn.

Invocations

Warlocks of the King of Dreams count as warlocks of the Archfey to qualify for invocations.

Dream Vortex

Prerequisite: King of Dreams patron, 5th level warlock, Pact of the Blood feature

You add summon fey (tce) as a known warlock spell (and may choose another spell if you had already learned this spell).

When you cast summon fey or conjure fey, the fey spirit takes the form of a dream or nightmare of a creature within 60 feet of you when you cast the spell; that target has disadvantage on saving throws against the summoned creature’s abilities, and the summoned creature has advantage on attack rolls against that target.

Reconceptualizing D&D 5e as Supers

I’ve been thinking about this since watching Unsleeping City (which is more modern occult than supers, but a lot of the concepts carry over). The idea is basically to just use D&D 5e with as little conversion as possible to run a modern-day supers game. D&D characters are already fairly superheroic, especially at high level.

My initial inclination was to do a ton of work with custom classes and abilities to fully turn it into a supers game, but, honestly, I think you can get most of the way there changing very little. You just have to reimagine a lot of the mechanics from medieval fantasy to modern pulp. And, this way, it’s probably a lot easier of a sell to your players who are familiar with D&D.

Note that this isn’t really meant to model existing supers franchises, though the examples indicate that it can get closer than you’d think. You probably can’t use it to model any given hero’s powers closely enough to replicate them as a PC (though you can get a lot closer as the DM making an arbitrary NPC stat block).

Ability Scores

• 10 is the true human level of basic competence. Most individuals have all of their scores at 10 or lower.
• 12 is well above average. Many people that excel at their careers and pursuits have no scores higher than a 12.
• 14 is exceptional competence. Few people have a 14, and extremely few have more than one ability score at a 14 or higher. Assume that IQ/10 basically equals Intelligence, so Int 14 is a genius IQ, and other scores are similar outliers.
• 16 is the practical maximum for most humans. Paragons of various disciplines might have a 16. These are olympic athletes (Str, Dex, or Con), top-of-field geniuses (Int or Wis), or enduring global celebrities (Cha).
• 18 is the technical maximum for true outliers. The strongest unaugmented powerlifter in the world has an 18 strength. Stephen Hawking likely had an 18 intelligence.
• 20 is beyond human. Scores this high and above are only available to those that are augmented.

Player characters generate their ability scores normally for D&D, just use these as guidelines for how omnicompetent they are compared to baseline humans. And when creating unaugmented human NPCs, try to keep their ability scores within this frame.

It is up to the DM to decide whether to create a dramatic ramp on the lifting chart for strength to treat 20 as much more superhuman than normal. At the very least, you should allow more dramatic lifting stunts than you otherwise would, even if the practical carrying capacity isn’t increased that much from the normal chart (it’s not like supers tend to carry a ton of gear like fantasy characters anyway). At the very least, as noted in the Equipment and Improvised Weapons section, I think Str 18 can probably throw a motorcycle and Str 20 can hit an enemy with a car (though they might not be able to carry them around indefinitely).

Races

In general, most players should use the Custom Lineage rules (from Tasha’s), or just play Variant Humans. If you want some minor superpowers that don’t make sense with your class, work with the DM to make a custom race that seems balanced.

For example, rather than build Superman as a high-level Eldritch Knight to get flight, heat vision, and cold breath, Kryptonians may simply be built as a race with a fly speed, the fire bolt cantrip, and a 1/day burning hands (which does cold instead of fire). See Classes and Spells, below.

Equipment and Improvised Weapons

The armor from your starting equipment and either one weapon or one weapon and shield from this package become “phantom gear.” Unless you are suffering some kind of power suppression, you are always considered to be wielding them. Unless it makes sense for your power set, these don’t actually manifest as spectral arms and armor, but simply represent your basic enhanced toughess (armor), punching ability (melee weapon), or reusable energy blast (ranged weapon). Feats and abilities affect the phantom weapon as they would a normal weapon of the type (e.g., great weapon master works if you’re wielding a phantom greatsword).

For example, a fighter with the basic gear might have AC 18 and a 1d8 punch (as if using a longsword and shield) or AC 16 and a 2d6 punch (as if using a greatsword).

Phantom gear may improve at story moments where your powers are enhanced (at roughly the same schedule the DM would dole out better gear in a regular campaign). For example, the fighter’s AC may improve by +2 when they go from phantom chain to phantom plate in some event that increases their durability.

Since you can only choose one weapon, you will need to use improvised weapons for whichever of melee or ranged your phantom weapon doesn’t cover. In general, at Str up to 14, you can lift things that count as d6 damage weapons (and might have finesse), at Str 16 you can lift 2d6 weapons (objects up to a couple hundred pounds), at Str 18 you can lift 3d6 weapons (objects up to half a ton), and at Str 20 you can lift 4d6 weapons (objects up to a ton or more). It’s up to the DM whether cars to throw at people are readily available and/or reusable, so even high-strength characters may be limited to lesser improvised weapons depending on the environment. And picking up such a weapon uses up your bonus action in most cases (possibly also your move to get to it). Finally, improvised weapons don’t count for feats and abilities that affect specific weapons.

Tech-based characters (or your modern fantasy characters that actually wear armor and wield swords) may choose to forego phantom equipment, and represent their capabilities with physical gear. In this case, they should probably treat all their equipment as +1 enhancement higher than it would otherwise be, as a bonus for being able to disarm them without power suppression.

In general, replace physical weapons with their closest modern equivalent. This mostly means that guns just swap in for bows without any practical changes. Yes, a modern firearm should be way more deadly than a shortbow in a true simulation, but for pulp games, it doesn’t really matter that much.

Classes and Spells

Think of classes as your main powerset, and do your best to make the concept for your powers fit. A speedster might be a barbarian or monk (or rogue that just uses cunning action to dash). Most strength-based characters represent various types of brick, dexterity-based characters are your ninjas and acrobats, and casters are blasters.

If the character concept really doesn’t support a particular class ability, the DM should allow the player to swap to something equivalently powerful that makes more sense. But try to do this as little as possible, since the whole draw of this is to avoid having to make a ton of houseruled classes.

While prepared casters usually represent your true Dr. Strange types, and warlocks may be witches, spontaneous casters and most half-casters use spells to represent various energy projection powers and miscellaneous utility powers. At minimum, allow spells that represent powers to switch to the character’s primary energy type (e.g., for a sorcerer that’s a fire blaster, all of their damage spells should be switched to do fire damage). Most “spells” also don’t really have components, though you can still impose a monetary cost on the ones with expensive material components as part of their balance. In general, try to limit your character to spells that make sense, and the DM should be generous in allowing you to describe the effects of a spell in a way that makes more sense for your concept (e.g., the charm and suggestion spells as mind-control or super-Charisma).

For some characters, the wide raft of spells don’t make a lot of sense, because they’re really just trying to pick up a particular power (e.g., flight). As noted above, this might work better as a custom race. But if you really just want to have one trick, the DM can experiment with giving you more spell slots but fewer known spells (though try this gradually and be careful of balance; there are probably certain spells that could make this too good).

Also think heavily about spells per day as having some level of narrative implication. Maybe your Cypher-esque omniglot can’t technically run tongues all day for 100% linguistic comprehension as you conceived, but should be able to get it running most of the time when it matters. If there are still aliens to interpret for after running out of spell slots, maybe you just have a stress headache or need to do something else for a while.

Skills, Tools, and Languages

Not all of the standard skills make sense for a modern supers campaign. However, standard sheets don’t make it easy to remove and add skills, so I’ve endeavored to make the transfer below as simple as possible. You may just have to make a note somewhere to remember that Arcana is actually Science.

• Science replaces Arcana, and represents most hard sciences (biology is still Medicine and Nature).
• Academics replaces History, expanding it to a broad knowledge of liberal arts education topics.
• Nature remains the same, but takes on more of Survival’s ability to forage in the wilderness.
• Occult replaces Religion, and covers Religion, Arcana, and other esoteric, mystical concepts.
• Streetwise replaces Survival, and focuses more on navigation and tracking in an urban environment (allowing Nature to carry more of the rare out-of-city adventure tropes).

Computers are a new tool proficiency. You may also want to create separate tool proficiencies for things like Electronics. Driving a car is Land Vehicles. You might also add Air Vehicles for planes. PCs should have a broad ability to swap out existing tool proficiencies for the modern technology ones.

Common is replaced by the dominant language of the country in which you’re setting your game. Allow players to swap other fantasy languages for Earth languages. If you want to play a true polyglot, consider getting the tongues spell, as mentioned above, rather than chasing down adding every possible language to your sheet.

Knockback

This is an optional rule to have more cinematic fights like in the comics.

Whenever you take damage from a kinetic or explosive source that could presumably send you flying, you may reduce the damage to half and move away a number of feet equal to the damage ultimately taken (e.g., if you take 20 damage and halve it for knockback, you suffer 10 damage and fly back 10 feet). This is a free action that stacks with reactions such as Uncanny Dodge; it’s fair for characters in supers fights to be twice as durable if they’re willing to get smashed through walls.

If this knocks you off a ledge, you suffer falling damage normally. If you would hit a wall, you go through the wall if the damage you took would also be enough to break it. This does not generally do additional damage to you, but is just cinematic.

If the damage you took is higher than your Dexterity score, you fall prone at the end of the knockback. If it is equal or lower, you can keep your feet (unless you are also knocked off a ledge).

Enemies

In general, it’s pretty easy to convert standard monsters to supers threats. Swapping their type to Construct for robots or Monstrosity for science mutants goes a long way. Tweak resistances and immunities to make sense, and change how you describe the creature and you can get away with reusing stats.

For human threats, keep the rules about ability scores in mind, if only for verisimilitude. In general, unaugmented humans should probably be limited to CR 1 or less. Anything higher, and you’re looking at standard-issue power armor and laser weapons, or explaining why they have low-level powers.

In general, you have the same problem as in regular D&D justifying why high-CR intelligent NPCs are working as mooks for an even bigger villain rather than setting up their own enterprise in another town where they’re less likely to get punched.

DMing 101: Your First One-Shot

A friend was telling me her teenager recently ran her first D&D one-shot for friends, and stressed herself out mightily trying to figure out what to prep. That got me thinking about my advice for an introductory session of D&D, particularly for others that have never really played before that you’re trying to convince that the hobby is an entertaining one.

Best Practice: Don’t beat yourself up. You are your own worst critic. The session didn’t go as badly as you think it did, and, even if it did, you’ll get a chance to try again. People willing to DM are few, so just being willing to try gives you an audience. It’s a skill that takes a long time to get good at, but any DM is better than no DM. Give yourself room to fail, and use those failures to improve. You’ll get better, and as long as you’re honest about improving, everyone is going to be pulling for you to do so.

Character Generation

If this is a true one-shot, I’d advise you to pregenerate characters. And I’d advise starting them at third level for D&D 5e. The pregeneration allows you to skip a lot of confusion at the table, particularly if you have players that are new. Starting at third level makes the PCs a lot tougher (so you don’t accidentally kill them with a few lucky monster rolls) and gives them access to more of their fun class abilities (particularly, that’s the level where everyone has gotten access to their subclass features).

When pregenerating, definitely get input from everyone as to what they want to play. Some people might be very specific (and veteran players might want to make the character themselves, and feel free to let them within the same guidelines as everyone else). Some might be very vague, and you’ll have to prompt them with suggestions for races, classes, and backgrounds they might find fun. The goal here is to get enough buy-in that the players feel they have ownership of the characters without forcing those with no experience to go through character generation.

If this is a “one-shot” only in the sense that you definitely want to run a whole campaign with these same characters, and you’re just trying to get buy-in, then you’re more limited. In this case, you’ll probably want to start at first level (so everyone feels like the levels past that are “earned”). And you’ll likely want to sit people down to make their characters themselves (with a lot of input from you for those that haven’t played before). Ideally, get everyone together for a Session 0 (character generation and planning session) to have time to work through the process and bounce character ideas off of each other. This process always takes more time than you’ve budgeted, so you don’t want to try to do it and then run a whole adventure in the same time block.

Don’t Meet in a Tavern

It’s a sacred D&D trope and it usually sucks. I may be an outlier on this advice, but I think this trope should die in a fire. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a D&D game where we met in a tavern that didn’t take forever to get going and lead to character problems for many sessions on. The core problem is just, why would you trust your life to a handful of strangers you just met at a bar? It’s hard to bend your roleplaying around the idea that you’re adventuring with these people, but your character doesn’t trust or even like most of them.

My advice is to have the PCs all be companions before the game starts. There are a number of ways to do this:

• Big City Adventurers: The PCs are from an adventuring guild in the big city (or some equivalent that makes sense for your world, like deputies of some adventuring government agency). They already know each other from the guildhall, and chose to band together to go out looking for problems to solve. This is a great option if you foresee your campaign going back to the big city if it continues.
• Local Heroes: The PCs are the few classed adventurers in this town. For whatever reason, they’re not actually on the sheriff’s payroll, but everyone knows that they’re the plucky heroes the town can call on when something weird happens. They’ve known each other for years, and are probably all friends that hang out (depending on ages). This is a great option if you foresee the campaign being focused on this region of the world, using this town as a home base.
• Far-Flung Connections: The PCs are all relatives or all have the same patron. While they have been adventuring in other places, they’ve probably met one another at least in passing and have their mutual contacts to say they’re trustworthy. Their relative/patron in the town has called them in for this mission (or maybe their patron has recently died and they’re all here investigating the suspicious circumstances). The trick with this one is to make it clear that the patron/relative is/was really nice, so they’ll all feel good about adventuring together under the NPC’s banner.
• Already Met in a Tavern: Particularly if you’re starting at higher level, you can say that the PCs have already had a meet cute, gone on an adventurer or two, and gotten over any initial distrust they might have had. Have the players give you some vague ideas for the adventure where they met, and workshop it into something that makes sense for your campaign world until everyone’s happy with the summary of their “first adventure together.” This can give you an immediate hook for the next one-shot (“Remember that town you saved from zombies in your first adventure? Now they have a new problem and are calling you back…”).

Best Practice: Don’t have high-level NPCs around unless it’s very clear why they can’t help. Particularly in the patron scenario, the players are going to be like, “If they’re so interested in this, why don’t they come along and help?” This is a special problem with the classic high-level wizard distributing quests: in the time they waited around for adventurers to provide the quest to, they could have just popped over and handled the crisis. It’s easier if the patron is wealthy, but low-level (e.g., the mayor or a local landowner), so needs the combat skills the PCs possess.

Corollary: Don’t have a bunch of high-level guards in town. If the players are having to handle all of the town’s serious problems themselves, but then have a tough fight if they ever run afoul of the guards, they’re going to immediately want to know why the guards haven’t been handling the town’s weird problems, if they’re so competent. This means that the PCs are going to get away with crimes. I’ll discuss that a little bit down below.

The Town Scene

At this point, you know why the players are adventuring together and why they’re in this town looking for adventure. You could skip straight to the adventure. But you should run a town scene first.

The difference between tabletop RPGs and video games is the unscripted freedom to interact with whatever and whoever you want. You’re going to build some of that into the first dungeon as well, but it’s really apparent in town. The players can interact with whatever they want. They can talk to whoever they want. They can say and do whatever inane things they want, and the NPCs will respond.

Your first-time players in particular are going to want to pick a fight. They’re going to want to steal stuff. They’re going to push things in the environment just to see that they fall over. Some of this is that they’re seeing how much freedom they have. Some of it is that we don’t really get to act out in our lives in the real world, and D&D provides a no-consequence way to get it our of our systems.

You obviously don’t want your players to murder the town guard, scoop up all the money, and run off into the sunset, dungeon unplumbed. If nothing else, it’s not actually as much fun as it seems, even for the players doing it. But you don’t want to clamp down on bad behavior like an angry assistant principal either. What do you do?

Best Practice: Let the players seem to barely get away with bad behavior. If they try to steal something, don’t tell them the DC. If they rolled well, act like bystanders almost spotted them and might if they try again. If they rolled poorly, play the failure as them giving up on the attempt because there are too many eyes on them (rather than obviously stealing in the open and leading to a big arrest scene). If they start a fight, have the other side give up quickly, with bystanders muttering about “heroes” that pick fights rather than helping the town. What you want is for the players to get that they’re allowed to act out, but they should be getting on to the crisis out of town that they all came here for. What you don’t want is the session to devolve into a brawl with the town guards trying to arrest the PCs (especially since you’ve set the town guard up as not very competent, which is why they need the PCs in the first place).

Assuming things don’t devolve instantly into a crime spree, what you’re trying to get out of the town scene is some freeform roleplay. You’re getting the players used to speaking in character and treating the world as a real thing. You’re dropping some campaign lore, if you’ve developed it. You’re getting the players to make decisions in character, even if they’re minor ones. You’re showing off that D&D is more than just killing goblins in a dungeon.

Ask the players what they’re up to in town before meeting up with their contact for the quest briefing. Try to split them up, if you feel comfortable running separate scenes for different PCs (it helps to have a town map, so you can move their minis around it to make it obvious who can interject into which conversations; “You’re over at the blacksmith, you aren’t part of the conversation with the barkeep.”). If they don’t have anything in particular they want to do, suggest that they can go try to buy gear that didn’t come with their default equipment packages, which should send them to roleplay with a shopkeep.

Best Practice: Don’t overprep, particularly for NPCs. You don’t actually need to have every significant NPC in town fully described and statted. Lean into tropes and stereotypes. The blacksmith is a gruff dwarf. The barkeep is loud and large. Do a funny voice, if you feel up to it. If they for some reason need to roll against the NPC, pull a low-level stat block from the back of the Monster Manual. Or just give the NPC a +0 through a +3, depending on how good it seems like they should be at the skill. If the players revisit the NPC, you can develop them further then. The biggest trick to DMing is that work your players don’t see is wasted: you’re way better off spending your prep cycles on NPCs, locations, and plots the players have already demonstrated they’re interested in.

You might want to throw some foils in. Make most of the NPCs supportive and nice (after all, these are heroes here solving their problems), but throw in one or two that don’t like them. This gives them someone to prove wrong, and get an apology from later. It’s probably best that this is someone they won’t immediately want to throw down with for the insult (someone connected, like the mayor’s kid, or an actual child, rather than a town tough).

Best Practice: It’s easy to get players to hate NPCs. It sometimes seems that your players are primed to hate any NPC that acts like they have a life and opinion of their own that doesn’t revolve around the PCs getting their own way. After all, they’re the protagonists. You don’t have to work very hard to get players to decide an NPCs is their enemy. It’s honestly a lot harder to get players to like NPCs without having them be total pushovers to whatever the PCs are selling. This is trending into advanced GMing tips, so just be aware of it. NPCs you thought your characters would love, they’ll hate because they disagreed at the wrong time. NPCs you thought they’d hate or at least not care about will be adopted as the team mascot. You just have to roll with it.

Eventually, you’re going to corral them into the actual quest hook. If they’re locals, word can just come through during their normal day that the mayor/sheriff/patron needs to talk to them. If they came here looking for adventure, you can just remind them that their meeting with their contact starts soon.

If you’re being fancy, you can make the adventure come to them. Someone screams that their kid has been carried off by goblins. Skeletons are suddenly shambling into town, coming from the old crypt. The old diabolist everyone thought was long-dead shouts down from the local hill that they’ll all rue the day they exiled him (rue!) before running back to his sanctum. You know, action stuff.

Either way, you’re basically trying to provide two things:

• Directions to the dungeon
• A little bit of context about what they’re going to fight there so they can make limited preparations

This is a first-time one-shot. You’re not trying to be tricky this time. You want a clear call to action and a dungeon to be called to. Save the more complicated scenarios for when everyone is more seasoned.

Dungeon Crawling

Most of what I’d want to say about how to build an early dungeon, Matt Colville has already covered in great detail. You basically want:

• A short enough dungeon that they’ll get through it in your available time
• More than one type of encounter: different kinds of fights, traps, chances for social interaction, etc.
• Some opportunities to make real choices
• A satisfying final room where the players feel like they won a victory

If you’re trying to sell people on an extended campaign in a world of your devising, this is a great place to build in subtle connections to your lore. You’re not trying to hit them over the head with it, but interesting decorations in your room or character descriptions can go a long way. Text props unrelated to the current problem can hint at issues going on elsewhere. Maybe the little big bad they defeat in the dungeon was clearly working for—or at least incited by—some greater and more mysterious force.

Best Practice: Leave room in your encounters for clever solutions or roleplaying. Not every room has to be a combat. The players might scare off the bad guys. They might convince them to help. In particular, it’s useful to have an optional room that contains an NPC that isn’t directly in league with the main enemies, that the players can fight or befriend. It could be a mistreated guardian. It could be a creature the main enemies are afraid of but leave alone as long as it stays in its area. It could be a spirit the PCs might convince to fight with them or even possess one of their weapons to turn it into a temporary magic item. The players are going to remember the time they did something clever and unexpected to change an encounter for much longer than the time they won a combat.

And that’s it. The PCs run the dungeon. They return to town triumphant. NPCs that told them they wouldn’t do it apologize. NPCs that believed in them all along give a hearty thanks and a modest quest reward.

All that’s left is to ask the players whether they had a good time and might want to try it again.

D&D 5e: Additional Chain Pact Warlock Options

It’s weird that only Fiendlocks get Pact of the Chain familiar options that are decent, right? Imp and Quasit are significantly better familiar options than Sprite, and while Pseudodragon at least gets Magic Resistance, it’s only CR 1/4 vs. the CR 1 of the fiendish options. This post offers some options for comparable CR 1 familiars that better fit some of the other patrons, and also a new invocation.

I feel like you should offer the youngest version of the Faerie Dragon as a familiar for Archfey warlocks, so that creates a better option than Sprite for them. Argonine is meant for Great Old One, Lantern Archon is meant for Celestial, and Psychopomp is meant for Hexblade (does anyone make a Hexblade patron warlock that isn’t a bladelock?). For Fathomless and Genie, I feel like a reskin of the Imp or Quasit as a stronger Mephit is probably fine: just make it an elemental and reskin the resistances and powers for the appropriate element.

New Invocation: Empowering Chains

Prerequisite: 5th level, Pact of the Chain feature

Your investment in your familiar improves its capabilities. Whenever you summon your familiar using the find familiar spell, it gains the following benefits:

• The to hit for its attacks, its trained skills, and any saving throws DCs for its actions increase by +1 for every point your proficiency bonus is higher than 2 (essentially replacing its proficiency bonus with your own).
• Its AC increases by half your proficiency bonus.
• It gains additional HP equal to twice your Warlock level.
• It gains the Multiattack action, allowing it to make two attacks with its main attack.
• It gains the Evasion ability, as per the Rogue feature of the same name.

New Monsters

Argonine

A strange “cat” from beyond the known planes, the Argonine is a shadowy mass of eyes and sharp tentacles that can disguise itself as a mortal feline to those that don’t look too closely.

Argonine
Tiny aberration, unaligned

Armor Class 13
Hit Points 10 (3d4 + 3)
Speed 30 ft., climb 30 ft.

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
6 (-2)	17 (+3)	13 (+1)	7 (-2)	12 (+1)	12 (+1)

Skills Acrobatics +5, Insight +5, Perception +5, Stealth +5
Damage Resistances bludgeoning, necrotic
Damage Immunities psychic
Condition Immunities charmed, grappled
Senses blindsight 60 ft., truesight 20 ft. passive Perception 11
Languages Deep Speech
Challenge 1 (200 XP)

Death Sense. The argonine can sense the exact location of any humanoid or beast within 120 feet with current hit points less than half its maximum hit points.

False Appearance. Unless it is using its Claw Barrage ability, the argonine is indistiguishable from a normal housecat to those without truesight, blindsense, or a link to a Great Old One.

Keen Senses. The argonine has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight or smell.

Light Sensitivity. While in sunlight or equivalent bright light, the argonine has disadvantage on attack rolls. The argonine has disadvantage on saving throws against effects that would cause the blinded condition.

Magic Resistance. The argonine has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.

Actions

Claw Barrage. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., all creatures within reach. Hit: 5 (1d4+3) slashing damage.

Shadowmeld. The argonine magically turns invisible until it attacks or until its concentration ends (as if concentrating on a spell). Any items carried by the argonine become invisible with it. It may only use this power when in dim light or darkness, and it becomes visible again if it enters an area of normal or bright light.

Lantern Archon

The least of the celestial host, lantern archons are little more than ephemeral balls of light, assigned to lead mortals on the path of virtue by giving good advice and faint aid.

Lantern Archon
Small celestial, neutral good

Armor Class 17
Hit Points 11 (2d6 + 4)
Speed fly 60 ft.

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
1 (-5)	18 (+4)	14 (+2)	6 (-2)	12 (+1)	12 (+1)

Skills Perception +3, Religion +0
Damage Resistances radiant; bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage from nonmagical weapons
Condition Immunities charmed, exhaustion, frightened, grappled, prone, restrained
Senses darkvision 120 ft. passive Perception 13
Languages all, telepathy 120 ft.
Challenge 1 (200 XP)

Innate Spellcasting. The lantern archon’s spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 11). The lantern archon can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:
        At will: light, detect evil and good
        1/day: aid

Magic Resistance. The lantern archon has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.

Actions

Healing Touch (1/Day). The lantern archon touches another creature. The target magically regains 9 (2d8) hit points and is freed from any curse, disease, poison, blindness, or deafness.

Light Ray. Ranged Spell Attack: +6 to hit, range 30/60 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d4+4) radiant damage.

Psychopomp

Easy to mistake for a particularly large and clever raven, psychopomps are minions of the Raven Queen that can be sent to aid her followers or to force the dead to move on.

Psychopomp
Tiny beast, unaligned

Armor Class 14
Hit Points 10 (3d4 + 3)
Speed 10 ft., fly 60 ft.

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
2 (-4)	18 (+4)	12 (+1)	6 (-2)	12 (+1)	14 (+2)

Skills Perception +3, Stealth +6
Damage Resistances necrotic, psychic; bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage from nonmagical weapons
Condition Immunities frightened, life drained
Senses darkvision 60 ft. passive Perception 13
Languages all (can’t speak except Raven Speech and Mimicry)
Challenge 1 (200 XP)

Death Sense. The psychopomp can sense the exact location of any humanoid or beast within 120 feet with current hit points less than half its maximum hit points.

Magic Resistance. The psychopomp has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.

Mimicry. The psychopomp can mimic simple sounds it has heard, such a person whispering, a baby crying, or an animal chittering. A creature that hears the sounds can tell they are imitations with a DC 10 Wisdom (Insights) check.

Raven Speech. The psychopomp can learn to croak a number of words equal to its Intelligence score.

Actions

Beak. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit:6 (1d4+4) piercing damage. This attack counts as radiant damage if it targets an Undead creature.

Blink. The psychopomp vanishes from its current plane of existence and appears in the Ethereal Plane, or, if already on the Ethereal Plane, appears in the nearest corresponding unoccupied space on the Material Plane (or the plane adjacent to the Ethereal that it most recently exited from). The psychopomp cannot carry any other living creatures or items with it, but may carry incorporeal undead or other souls. For unwilling incorporeal undead, the psychopomp must be adjacent before using this action, and the undead target receives a Charisma saving throw (DC 12) to avoid being brought along.

DMing 201: Avoiding Black Box Combats

I think I’ve finally realized the thing that bugs me about D&D combat and has led to various ideas to skip combats: most adventuring days are a black box. Particularly with 5e restoring nearly all PC resources on a long rest, there’s no way to tell by just looking at the players’ sheets whether yesterday they fought a series of hard battles that they scraped through nearly wiped or had an easy day of it. I know many players enjoy the simple act of playing out tactical combat, but it’s very easy to make fights where player cleverness, strategy, and luck don’t really have an ongoing effect on the narrative. Especially if your DM runs a character-story-heavy game and is very reticent to kill off PCs (or the game is 5th level+ and your healer is willing to pay the tax of preparing revivify every day), it’s not like anyone’s really even worried about dying. For players like myself (i.e., total buzzkills too aware of the rules framework that goes into encounter design), combats can feel like a waste of time when the DM could have ultimately narrated a hard-fought victory and nothing would actually change other than that the players didn’t get to roll dice and quote special abilities they have.

But this isn’t another post about skipping combat.

Instead, this is a simple suggestion for all DMs designing combat encounters: make sure your fights have multiple possible story branches based on how “well” the players/PCs do in the fight. If there are variable outcomes to a fight other than simply how many resources the players expended (that will be completely refreshed in the morning), then they make it a lot easier for fights to feel meaningful within the overall narrative.

Some basic suggestions:

• Bad guys may get away (to pass information the PCs don’t want shared, to escape with information/resources the PCs want, or simply to fortify subsequent encounters and make them a little harder)
• Good guys may not get away (this is your classic “keep the monsters from killing the bystanders” fight), hopefully with long-term ramifications for how many were saved
• Optional resources may be lost (this could be either of the previous options if the resource is a person/information in a person’s brain, but could also include loot that could be destroyed if the fight goes badly/the bad guys might not use up limited-use items if stopped quickly enough; this also includes if the PCs may need to expend a limited-use item/boon, but only if doing so isn’t planned as basically essential for the encounter)
• A world-counter may progress (this is the standard “stop the evil ritual” fight, but only if, as the DM, you’ve set it up so the ritual being stopped or succeeding isn’t a foregone conclusion; you need to plan for both results being interesting)
• The fight may alter the scenery (for a location that the PCs will visit again; e.g., stop the goblins from burning down the village barn, maneuver the umber hulk into smashing open a corridor to make a new path for later exploration, etc.)
• Something about the fight can generate additional lore (this is all your skill challenges to read books/hack computers/investigate containers that for whatever reason can only happen as part of a fight)

Some fights (“trash encounters”) can clearly be designed only to expend resources so they’re not available later in the day for fights that are more important. But be extra careful that you’ve designed a scenario that doesn’t let the players just constantly rest after those fights (the 15-minute adventuring day).

For the important fights, having two possible outcomes should be a primary goal, and if you can think of three or more different ways that might spin off, that’s really great. Keep in mind that these should be legitimate things that you think might happen. The overall goal is for the players, in hindsight, to realize that if they’d played the encounter differently, the story would also have changed.

D&D 5e: Humanoid Swarms as Mobs/Mooks

I’ve been watching through Dimension 20 (and it ate basically my whole winter vacation), and in the tenth episode of the second season, I noticed that the DM had made trays of several bystander NPCs trying to escape environmental hazards and bad guys. He seemed to be treating them as individual low-HP commoners, but I got to thinking that such a situation might be an ideal opportunity to treat the NPCs as one swarm. When you’re trying to save bystanders, this makes them a little bit more practically durable vs. random attacks (which makes the players happy). When you’re using them as opponents, you don’t have to track a ton of minor attacks and individual HP, and get to essentially use mook rules (where player attacks can damage multiple weaker enemies, rather than “wasting” a high roll).

I’m obviously not the first person to think of this. But have some examples anyway. The key ideas for building these were:

• Try to capture the essence of the individual creatures (in the examples, commoners, bandits, and goblins) and target them against a similar type of creature with 9-12 times the XP and HP (in the examples, the thug, gladiator, and orog) rather than trying to use the creature math from zero. In the examples, the mobs tend to have a little higher HP and damage than the targeted block, but lower AC and attack, so it should more or less even out. Attacks generally represent multiple individual hits all grouped together, and should be described as such.
• Standardize the humanoid swarm rules. Specifically, they’re not resistant to attacks (but are vulnerable to AoEs and this can overcome their condition immunities), and get a standardized advantage when they’re over half HP (to represent the back part of the swarm using the Help action until you’ve killed half of them).

The following are the example stats for humanoid swarms:

The Angry Mob is also useful as bystanders that are trying escape a combat that broke out in a crowd.

The Band of Rioters are meant more for when the thieves’ guild is coming for higher-level PCs in a huge mass, or otherwise causing havoc: these are statted as Bandits, not Commoners.

The Goblin Warband is probably just easier to run than a ton of individual goblins once you have a few levels.

Incidentally, to represent all of these, I’d just make a 3″ x 3″ tray and cram 9-12 individual minis onto it, but if you wanted to use these regularly it might make sense to actually glue up the minis without individual bases onto a 3″ diameter round base. When they’re working as a group, they don’t necessarily all need their own 5′ square!

D&D 5e: Sorcerer Bonus Spells

So I’ve finally played a sorcerer in 5e up to mid-levels, and am discovering the spells-known crunch is real. I have a larger rant about how the way prepared spells were changed in 5e ruined the balance between the Wizard and Sorcerer from 3e, which I won’t go into here. Suffice it to say that it’s not a ton of fun to agonize over your spell choices each level up, knowing that you’ll never really be able to cast more than two spells of each level (and even fewer at higher level, when you have 15 spells known for 9 spell levels). In particular, constantly chasing variety at your highest spell level leaves no room for lower-level utility spells. Meanwhile, Wizards, Clerics, and Druids can prepare up to 25 spells, from their giant list of resources.

Suffice it to say, I think WotC agrees, given that the new Sorcerer bloodlines in Tasha’s get 10 extra spells. This article simply suggests the same arrangement for the bloodlines from the PHB and XGE.

(As an aside, you could also easily give Warlocks their patron expanded spells as bonus spells known, rather than forcing them to purchase them from their limited spells known, without breaking anything at all.)

Draconic

At the level listed, learn the spell listed under Draconic Spells as a bonus spell known. Additionally, at each listed level, learn the spell listed under your breath weapon’s energy type as a bonus spell known.

	Draconic Spells	Acid	Cold	Fire	Lighting	Poison
1st	absorb elements	tasha’s caustic brew	ice knife	burning hands	witch bolt	fog cloud
3rd	dragon’s breath	melf’s acid arrow	snilloc’s snowball swarm	scorching ray	shatter	protection from poison
5th	fly	water breathing	sleet storm	fireball	lightning bolt	stinking cloud
7th	polymorph	vitriolic sphere	ice storm	wall of fire	storm sphere	blight
9th	wall of stone	maelstrom	cone of cold	immolation	destructive wave	cloudkill

Wild Magic

At the level listed, learn the spell listed under Wild Spells as a bonus spell known. Additionally, at each listed level, roll 1d8 and learn the spell listed for the number rolled.

	Wild Spells	Roll 1d8
1st	chaos bolt	absorb elements burning hands chromatic orb color spray detect magic disguise self silent image thunderwave
3rd	shatter	alter self blur crown of madness dust devil mirror image phantasmal force pyrotechnics web
5th	blink	counterspell dispel magic enemies abound fireball hypnotic pattern major image slow thunder step
7th	confusion	banishment dimension door greater invisibility ice storm polymorph storm sphere vitriolic sphere wall of fire
9th	synaptic static	animate objects control winds creation far step immolation insect plague seeming telekinesis

Divine Soul

At the level listed, learn the spell listed under Divine Spells as a bonus spell known. Additionally, at each listed level, learn the spell listed under your alignment Affinity as a bonus spell known. (At 1st level, this incorporates the bonus spell from your original Divine Magic feature.)

	Divine Spells	Good	Evil	Law	Chaos	Neutrality
1st	guiding bolt	cure wounds	inflict wounds	bless	bane	protection from evil and good
3rd	spiritual weapon	lesser restoration	blindness/ deafness	zone of truth	silence	augury
5th	revivify	mass healing word	animate dead	magic circle	dispel magic	glyph of warding
7th	banishment	death ward	shadow of moil	guardian of faith	freedom of movement	divination
9th	raise dead	greater restoration	contagion	geas	insect plague	hallow

Shadow Magic

At the level listed, learn the spells listed as bonus spells known.

1st	disguise self, false life
3rd	invisibility, shadow blade
5th	fear, spirit shroud
7th	greater invisibility, shadow of moil
9th	creation, enervation

Storm Sorcery

At the level listed, learn the spells listed as bonus spells known.

1st	absorb elements, witch bolt
3rd	gust of wind, warding wind
5th	lightning bolt, wind wall
7th	ice storm, storm sphere
9th	control winds, destructive wave

Planescape in 5e: Protective Items

Solamnic Plate

Armor +1 (Full Plate), rare

Keywords: Krynn, Colorful, Metallic, Mystic, Prophetic, Protective

You have a +1 bonus to AC while wearing this armor.

This suit of shiny steel plate is embossed with images of crowns, swords, and roses, and is quite recognizable to expatriates from Krynn (making it dangerous to wear if one is not a Knight of Solamnia). It seems attuned to tidal forces, making it easy for you to, with some practice, sense the rough time of day and phase of the moon. If the Krynn keyword is matched, non-good wearers suffer a level of exhaustion upon donning it and with each sunrise while wearing it.

If the colorful or metallic keywords are matched, you have advantage on saving throws (or spell attackers have disadvantage) against spells that deal Radiant damage, or which have “color” in their name, as the armor’s mirror sheen reflects these attacks. 

If the mystic, prophetic, or three other keywords are matched, the armor and its wearer are increased in importance for any spells that attempt to divine the future, should they feature in these prophecies.

If the protective keyword or at least four other keywords are matched, once per day, you may spend Inspiration to take no damage from an attack or effect from a spell that could plausibly harmlessly strike the item instead of you.

Efreeti’s Splendor

Armor +1 (Breastplate), rare

Keywords: Elemental Fire, Evil, Colorful, Hot, Invisible, Metallic

You have a +1 bonus to AC while wearing this armor.

This item is made of polished and adorned brass, but is as strong as steel, and, if closely observed, ripples like fire even in steady light. 

It is always slightly warm, which can be helpful in a dangerously cold environment. It cannot be damaged or destroyed by anything less than the most extreme heat or fire. It normally doesn’t pass this immunity on to the bearer, but at least it will survive the firestorm intact. It never becomes uncomfortably warm, including ignoring the effects of heat metal if directed at the item. If the hot keyword or at least two other keywords are matched, you can use your reaction to gain Fire Resistance against a single attack or spell. If all keywords are matched, this Resistance upgrades to Fire Immunity, and you gain Fire Resistance without using a reaction.

If the invisible or colorful keywords are matched, illusions cast upon you by yourself or an ally have doubled duration.

If the metallic or evil keywords are matched, you have advantage on Wisdom (Insight) checks to divine the true desires of a target whose reflection you can view in the breastplate (signifiers of that desire appearing around the target).

Dreamweave Jerkin

Armor +1 (Studded Leather), rare

Keywords: Astral, Cutting, Disjointed, Fluid, Mental, Metallic

You have a +1 bonus to AC while wearing this armor.

This armor seems to be woven of fabric made from fine silver threads with the studs of diamond-hard but lusterless glass. You retain this item even when having an out-of-body experience, but, unfortunately, when you are unconscious the armor always transfers to your dream-self: you lose all AC bonus from wearing the armor in this state (but at least it’s comfortable to sleep in). If it goes unworn for at least a week (by a sapient being), the armor has a 10% chance per week to disappear into the Astral from wherever it is stored.

If the mental keyword or at least three other keywords are matched, you gain Psychic Resistance.

If the metallic or fluid keywords are matched, you can will the armor to appear as some other form of clothing (though it always seems to be made of the same silver cloth). This does allow you to don or remove the armor as a bonus action.

If the disjointed or cutting keywords are matched, you gain Resistance against Psychic, Force, or Necrotic damage when the energy is delivered in the form of a blade (e.g., soulknife, spiritual weapon, shadow blade, etc.).

Token of Vlaakith’s Favor

Brooch of Shielding; Wondrous item, uncommon (requires attunement)

Keywords: Astral, Disjointed, Mental, Mystic, Smashing, Stonelike

While wearing this brooch, you have resistance to force damage, and you have immunity to damage from the magic missile spell.

This simple, disc-shaped brooch appears to be composed of tightly woven fine silver threads with no other adornment save for the faint etching of a crown with five high points. You retain this item even when having an out-of-body experience. The item is likely recognizable to most gith, and may color their impression of the wearer if spotted (particularly if the wearer is not a githyanki).

If the mental keyword is matched, you additionally gain resistance to psychic damage. If the smashing keyword is matched, you additionally gain resistance to bludgeoning damage. If the stonelike keyword is matched, you additionally gain immunity to the petrified condition.

If the disjointed or mystic keywords are matched, this additionally functions as an amulet of proof against detection and location: While wearing this amulet, you are hidden from divination magic. You can’t be targeted by such magic or perceived through magical scrying sensors.

Planescape in 5e: Trickster’s Items

Erato’s Bough

Weapon +1 (Shortbow), uncommon
Keywords: Feywild, Chaotic, Colorful, Disjointed, Toxic, Wooden

You have a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon.

This shortbow was crafted from a fallen bough from one of the elder dryads with a deep role in the histories of the Olympian pantheon. It resembles cypress wood, seemingly grown and shaped more than crafted, and slowly regenerates damage dealt to it. It resists acid damage and other sources of decay.

It changes colors to match the seasons, and plays a musical sound like panpipes when fired rather than the distinctive thrum of a bow. This diffuse noise grants advantage to Dexterity (Stealth) checks to re-Hide when firing from stealth. If the colorful keyword or at least two other keywords are matched, targets struck by the bow have disadvantage on rolls to disbelieve auditory illusions until they complete a short or long rest.

The bow always teleports with its owner if it is close to hand. If it’s within ten feet of you when you are teleported, it appears at your feet wherever you land. It will even travel with you if the mode of transport normally will not include items. If the disjointed keyword or at least three other keywords are matched, you can use the bow to attack a space from which a target teleported since your last turn as if you were attacking the target (even if the target is now out of your range or line of sight), as the arrow forces its way through the momentary portal made.

You can apply poison to the bow and it will automatically transfer this to the arrows. If the toxic keyword or at least four other keywords are matched, attacks from the bow deal an additional 1d4 poison damage.

If the wooden or feywild keywords are matched, on a critical hit with the bow, a dryad appears adjacent to the target and acts as an ally on your turn (it is capable of taking reactions as soon as it appears, but does not receive actions until your next turn). It cannot move more than 30 feet from the spot it appeared, and disappears shortly after combat completes.

Night Flyer’s Goggles

Goggles of Night; Wondrous item, uncommon
Keywords: Khorvaire, Dark, Energetic, Metallic, Tempestuous, Confining

While wearing these dark lenses, you have darkvision out to a range of 40 feet plus 10 feet for each matched keyword. If you already have darkvision, wearing the goggles increases its range by the same distance.

These goggles appear too-well-made, as if mass-produced by purpose-built machinery. It may feature subtle mechanisms beyond the technology level of most worlds. It slowly repairs itself if broken, and attempts to speed the process of mending have advantage.

If the tempestuous keyword is matched, you take half damage from falling.

If the confining keyword is matched, you can remove unlocked restraints from you as a free action (such as a safety belt).

The Earthen Rod (of the Hex Staff)

Immovable Rod; Rod, uncommon

Keywords: Elemental Earth, Corrosive, Cutting, Dark, Stonelike, Toxic

This smooth, cylindrical rod is jointed at the center. You can use an action to rotate the rod a turn around this joint, which causes the rod to become magically fixed in place. Until you or another creature uses an action to rotate the rod back, it doesn’t move, even if it is defying gravity. The rod can hold up to 6,000 pounds of weight, plus 1,000 pounds per matched keyword. More weight causes the rod to deactivate and fall. A creature can use an action to make a DC 26 (+2 per matched keyword) Strength check, moving the fixed rod up to 10 feet on a success.

Made of dense black stone, this rod is slotted at either end as if it can be joined with similar rods to form a staff. If at least part of the rod is touching grounded stone or dense earth, its weight capacity is doubled and the DC to move it is increased by 4.

If the corrosive or toxic keywords are matched, when activated the rod creates an approximately-seven-foot diameter bubble centered on itself that prevents uncontained dangerous fluids from passing (e.g., poisonous or diseased water, sprays of acid, etc.). This sphere of protection provides total cover against acid arrow, poison spray, acid splash, and the like (but does not affect poisons or acids in containers or coating weapons). The sphere doesn’t filter the fluids, but restrains them if they are dangerous.

If the dark, cutting, or stonelike keywords are matched, when the rod is activated anyone touching it gains Necrotic, Slashing, or Bludgeoning Resistance (respectively).

Call of the Void

Ring of Feather Falling; Ring, rare (requires attunement)

Keywords: Baator, Lawful, Evil, Confining, Hot, Stonelike

When you fall while wearing this ring, you descend 60 feet per round and take no damage from falling.

This ring appears to be made of black cast iron shot through with veins of fiery red rust with an almost feather-like motif. It is rough to the touch despite long use, but strong enough to not be in danger of falling apart. As long as you live, you must drop it through true accident or deliberately transfer ownership to lose it.

The ring is always immune to heat and being trapped. It doesn’t normally pass these abilities onto the wearer, but will never overheat and damage the wearer, or become trapped (e.g., pinned beneath stone). It cannot be transmuted into any other substance than its normal form (slightly reshaping itself to fit if the attuned wearer changes form to no longer have normally-sized fingers).

If the hot keyword or two other keywords are matched, you can double your jumping distance when leaping over open flames, lava, or similar sources of great heat. If the stonelike or three other keywords are matched, you can triple your jumping distance when leaping over pits or crevasses of stone or earth. If both effects are available and relevant (e.g., jumping over a stone channel full of lava), you quadruple your jumping distance.

If the confining or four other keywords are matched, when you are grappled or restrained, you can choose to end either condition as your move action on your turn if there is a ledge that is at least 10 feet above the next lower level within five feet of you. Upon doing so, you fall off the ledge.

If the evil keyword is matched, whenever you have the opportunity to shove a creature within five feet of you off of a ledge, you must make a wisdom saving throw to avoid doing so. The DC is 8 for a valued friend or true innocent, 12 for an ally, or 16 for an enemy.

If the lawful keyword is matched, you have advantage on attempts to shove (or opponents have disadvantage on saving throws against magical effects you use to reposition them).