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This isn't even a debate: The SRD literally states outright that Scorching Ray doesn't work with Twinned Spell. They call it out specifically: Here's the Roll20 page on it.

Don't force multiclass levels on him. Give him something like a boon or a charm, balance it as if it is a level appropriate magic (but also probably cursed) item.

Maybe something like the Berserker Axe - so he gets the benefits and drawbacks of the item, but instead of it being a physical item it's the magic of the "patron" affecting him directly. Can be removed later on down the line with Remove Curse or other similalr magic if needs be.

I assume by your post that you play online.

I use Foundry VTT, which has journal entries and roll tables. You can share the journal entries with flavor text and pictures to the players, which works if normal communication is difficult. In addition the roll tables can be rolled into the chat window.

I am partially deaf and often find voice communication difficult. Between Foundry VTT and Discord, I have been enjoying RPGs.

Foundry VTT

You're basically taking part of the University from The Name of the Wind which is awesome and totally works.

You should be prepared for your players to want to enroll in the Academy and turn that into a cool arc where they learn to craft their own low-level magic items.

Well you’re going to need something that can protect you from the entire party because eventually they will turn on you. I hear it happens to all DM’s given a long enough dungeon, obnoxious puzzle or invincible BBEG. And once they roll that 8th Critical Fail of the session they start looking for someone to blame.

It’s going to need to be small enough to hide under the table, but large enough to protect you from the barrage of minis and PHB’s. I recommend This Buckler if you’re able to quickly get to the door and flee. Or This one if you think you’re going to have a more extended battle between you and escape.

Of course in keeping with the spirit of D&D I encourage you to look into some foam crafting options as well. Don’t be afraid to set traps around the house a-la Home Alone to entangle and mislead the players as they ignite their torches and grab their pitchforks.

Good luck brave Dungeon Master!!

Did you consider doing the tiein prequel campaign that takes characters from levels 1-5? If you did, is there a reason you chose not to do it?

Would you recommend the module to other groups? I've always wanted to run a campaign that completes the whole stretch of 1-20, but it hasn't happened yet (and I've been playing since 3rd edition)

Due to the campaign's "looter shooter" design, did you get to do much roleplay or was it pretty much exclusively a dungeon crawler?

You may use my Fantasy Map Generator.

It is still in beta, but already usable. See a quick start tutorial here.

Do I need to know every rule? I just found a link on Amazon to buy a starter set, but would that be enough?

https://www.amazon.de/Wizards-Coast-WTCA92160000-Dungeons-Roleplaying/dp/0786965592

Is this the right one?

I don't use many apps in my game because I've been running LMoP and haven't had the need to keep track of many things other than with pen and paper. However, 5e Campaign Lab for Android has been pretty useful now that I'm starting to Homebrew some encounters. I've also used 5e Treasure Generator (also Android and also by the same company, Fortuity) to generate treasures for my encounters. They both will become used more and more as we finish up the campaign.

I just bought a Were-Armadillo miniature. I didn't have any intention of including it in any games until I saw one for sale. I immediately purchased it as any sane man would.

I bought it at my local gamestore but here is the exact same one on Amazon

EDIT: Surprisingly hard to find on Reapers own site, but here it is

VOIP is so good now there is little-to-no reason to have a low quality microphone. Y'all should pitch in and get her one: https://www.amazon.com/Zalman-Zm-Mic1-Sensitivity-Headphone-Microphone/dp/B00029MTMQ

Return of the Lazy DM. It's easy for DMs to get overwhelmed. This really helps cut down DM anxiety. It's totally changed how I handle session prep. The accompanying Workbook is good, too.

Bronan's family heirloom is a Decanter of Endless water, except it's in the shape of a racing trophy and only produces Mountain Dew. The three command words are "Dude", "Dude", and "Dude". Since the decanter can't tell the difference between these, it just provides one of the three effects at random.

Besides knowing the basics of how combat works, how ability scores and modifiers work, and stuff like that, you don't need to memorize all the minor rules. If something comes up in your game and you don't know the exact ruling, it's perfectly fine to make it up on the fly and look it up in the book later so you don't slow things down. I've been DMing for 6 months now and I still find things in the DMG that I didn't know about.

Here's an online DM screen with a lot of quick info that's useful. Again, you have the freedom to just make stuff up. https://trello.com/b/D4PCtl95/dm-screen-5e-public

As far as things you may have to help your characters with, definitely understand the concept of Spell Slots for spellcasters, and what constitutes an Action in combat. Everything else is pretty straightforward.

Here are the official rules. https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Objects#content

My Alternative Suggestion

>Each 5x5 cube of of a building has its own hp. Never roll to attack a building, simple deal your normal unmodified damage. If you deal enough damage in a single attack to reduce it to 0 then its destroyed (becomes difficult terrain rubble). Otherwise, the structure is totally unharmed and no damage is dealt.

>Furniture: 5hp

>Wood: 10hp

>Bricks: 15hp

>Reinforced Stone (castle): 20hp

Thus, an Earth Elemental could reliably punch a hole in a castle, while even the strongest PC would struggle with smashing through a brick wall.

I recommend looking for The Illithiad from 2e. It's an amazing book, and it really fleshes out the Illithids, their biology, empire, and goals.

Spoiler: they want to put out the suns. All of them.

Buy some indexing tabs and slap them all over your core rulebooks with relevant labels written on them. This cuts down on bloat (tech or paper) at the table and is easily adjustable.

Give each race and class a tab in the PHB, along with a tab for the equipment tables and spell list. Put tabs in the DMG for tables you find yourself referencing frequently, and the various rules chapters and subsections. If I find myself looking at something in a book during a session more often than once, it gets a tab.

You should focus on learning where things are in the rulebooks, not what everything is, and once you get more familiar with the overall balance of the game and intent of the mechanics, making rulings on the fly will be easier, as well.

As for your players, you may just need to guide them through the PHB and have them read through the combat and spell-casting chapters one night before playing.

5e Campaign Lab

Far and away the best D&D app i've ever used.

The initiative Tracker is also good, and lets you prebuild campaigns and encounters.

I especially love how when you tap a combatant in combat, it pops up a stat block. Any spells a combatant can cast have links, which pop up a spell description.

Given that their entire app is programmed in Java, I really wish they'd try to build a web app version.

But the devs have a Facebook Group and they're VERY VERY communicative with the community.

Also, it's really easy to build custom monsters in that app, and my favorite part is that you can import json files for non-SRD content, which you do at your own peril. However, the app has links to json files with that content, so you can add it with one click. That includes items as well.

The interface isn't perfect, but the functional parts of it are better and more useful than any D&D app I've ever used.

They're working on a character builder, and if that's remotely as functional as their other modules have been, it'll be great.

But more than anything, their initiative tracker has made running combat so much easier, mainly because of the easy access to stat blocks and spell descriptions.

I am somewhat confused regarding the question only because of the $$ involved. Is your intent to have the vivid detailed maps you get from printing them out from Photoshop, or just to have a battle map with a grid?

Amazon has several normal Chessex Battle Maps that are worth less than the sum of those components and are all wet-erase. I think the most affordable would be to just get one and a set of pens, but that assumes you aren't specifically intent on colorful maps.

Battle Mat 34 x 28 $33.70

Battle Mat 26 x 23 $19.18

Have you tried Foundry Virtual Tabletop? I switched to it from Roll20 about a year ago and it's been way better in terms of reliability, in-built features, and the fact that it supports mods.

If you’re DM screen is portrait orientation (long edge goes up and down), make or buy a DM screen that uses landscape orientation (long edge goes side to side). Savage Worlds DM Screen on Amazon is specifically what I use: Savage Worlds Customizable GM Screen (S2P10002) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1930855591/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_64FW6K9C8HAVBJF00N60?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

This works great for me. Same real estate but lower.

There is an up and coming generator that I've been really impressed with so far:

Fantasy Map Generator

The have a sub:

r/FantasyMapGenerator/

Whatever they respond to or wherever they go turns into exactly where they need to be. The trick is to be flexible, moderately improvisational, observant to what they seem to enjoy, and not stringent about any rule that gets in the way (e.g., if my 5yo is using a spellcaster, he's not limited to spell slots because that's just too much for him to handle).

For my kids (5, 7, 8), I've taken largely to just making stuff up as I go along. These are all things that have happened recently:

• Something nearby catches fire and they help put it out, then go find the culprit and help them see the error of their ways.
• A man wants help at his farm with farm work. One of the kids tries to poison the farmer, and the session turns into a one-man heist trying to steal back the poison while the others find out the farmer's cows have stolen a typewriter and want to ask for electric blankets.
• They explore a cellar to *flips quickly through XGtE* find a new tunnel that looked like it was made by claws, meeting and befriending a Chitine who directs them to a *flips through XGtE again* Cave Fisher that's been collapsing tunnels.
• They follow a treasure map that takes them across the path of another group of adventurers who have gotten caught by a trap on the way to sail across the sea. They join them on their trek only to have *hands 5yo the MM* a Hell Hound suddenly appear on the boat behind them while *5yo picks another page* Magmin start burning things below deck.

But if you want something pre-written to get you started, I have used the Treasure of the Broken Hoard Adventurer's League module with my kids with a little modification. It consists of five stand-alone mini treasure-hunting adventures that tie together.

You could look into the Innistrad lore from Magic the Gathering. Similar concept except instead of the God of Death it was their patron deity Avacyn who kept all the baddies away but had disappeared. The plane was overrun with zombies, ghouls, vampires and werewolves. The original Innistrad block is probably more in line with what you’re looking for than the return block Shadows Over Innistrad/Eldritch Moon

Innistrad Lore

Shadows Over Innistrad

>The PHB states that any sudden involuntary movement breaks a grapple. To me that sounds like something a shove would fall under. So wouldn't he have to Grapple >Shove > Grapple (which makes the first grapple unnecessary).

I don't have the PHB on me, so this could be a case of specific rulings getting lost in translation but the roll20 compendium has this wording:

>The condition also ends if an effect removes the grappled creature from the reach of the Grappler or Grappling effect, such as when a creature is hurled away by the Thunderwave spell.

Your goliath could then knock someone prone while grappling, because when a shove knocks someone prone it doesn't push the target out of the grappler's reach. It's almost like the goliath is just tripping his target. The target isn't moving anywhere but down.

Also, consider that grappling won't work on all targets. See what he does when you throw a spectre at him.

There’s a really cool website:

https://tabletopaudio.com

That I use to find ambient noise to put in the back of my tracks, and it recently got a new sound pad feature. Could be what you’re looking for.

I picked up 2 of these and they have been great. Dry Erase, fairly large (39x22, 1 inch grid) -- square grid on 1 side, hex on the other. Absolutely worth it. Very Sturdy.

If you're introducing this new NPC specifically to stop them from doing the thing they're trying to do, then that seems like railroading to me. If you don't want them to actually catch up to your villain yet, there are other non-railroady ways of doing it: maybe this person they're tracking turns out to be a simulacrum (or something similar) mean to distract the PCs off and the real villain is safe in their lair?

And in the future: don't let the PCs come in contact with your BBEG (or any other important NPCs) if you're not ready for the possibility that they'll end up fighting each other.

Continual Flame would work.

But honestly, you're the GM. You can make stuff up. Let's see. Ways to light up a cave.

• Magic crystals that glow on command (or constantly)
• Bioluminescent Moss/mushrooms.
• Thousands of enslaved pixies in jars strung up like Christmas lights.
• Free-floating light-emitting spores. They tend to grow on people who stay there long and make them look fabulous.
• Mechanical lizards with flashlights in their mouths that scuttle along ahead of anyone in the cave, positioning themselves to light things up to best effect.
• It's actually pitch black, but the entire cave is enchanted to grant darkvision to anyone who enters.
• Tiny parasites that invade the eyes, granting darkvision but also light sensitivity.
• The rocks themselves glow when touched -- a footfall leaves a glowing footprint, and the well-trod paths leave the rooms lit up.

I haven’t read these, but that’s a really cool dungeon idea. If anyone else is interested, the book series is $30 for all 5 on Kindle.

Kobold Press has a book, Tome of Beasts that features a lot of fey creatures. It is a 3rd party book, but is pretty balanced (although HP is a bit high on some monsters, IMO).

Amazon link

Otherwise I would recommend just reflavoring monsters from the MM to be more winter themed with resistance to cold or changing damage types.

Dragon Scale Mail exists in the 5th edition SRD, here's a link. You might like to use that as inspiration for the stats of the armour. It's Scale Mail, but with an extra +1 AC and some extra situational resistances.

To make this, I guess the players have to find someone capable of forging it. And I guess that's only complicated by the Druid preferring the finished armour not to use a lot of metal.

• Find a master smith
• Convince them to make it, using leather instead of metal where appropriate
• Leave them to come up with a design
• Fetch materials
• Skill challenge to assist the build

I'd suggest that some magical expertise might be needed, since Dragons are magical creatures and the finished SRD item is a magic item. The scales may be magical, but unless they're treated, the magic may dissipate now that the dragon's dead, leaving you with just ordinary scale mail.

>Why are you even making them roll? If there's no consequences (trap, time-pressing issue), don't make them roll at all, or make them roll just to see how long it takes them to succeed (a few seconds? a minute? 10?).

This is what passive checks are for. The lock could be beyond the rogues general ability, but with enough luck, they could get past it. If there is no time constraint and no negative consequences, the rogue still may never get it. I would allow for a single roll for the general attempts. If their passive lockpicking/thieves tools (ability score plus proficiency bonus) exceeds the lock, they will get it without any time constraint. If it doesn't, they need to roll to see if they are are lucky enough. (Passive check details: https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Ability%20Scores#h-Passive%20Checks)

There are modules that help you transfer over content from D&D beyond to your foundry games. Check out https://foundryvtt.com/packages/ddb-importer I'm not sure what the current state is and how good the adventure importers work, but I'd assume LMoP will be completed. (Adventure import may still be behind a Patreon wall not sure). So it isn't perfect but there are options out there.

If the players agree to the challenge, then yeah go for it.

Though, maybe you could come up with a small subsystem by which the environment and player preparation modify the DC, rather than just applying advantage/disadvantage. Because, if all they can ever get is advantage, they going to try to get it and then that's it. But if they can stack small bonuses to their saves via a multitude of ways, then they are hopefully going to get creative with it.

As a disconnected example of save modification, look at the spell Scrying. But unlike the spell, don't make an exhaustive list of ways to modify the save, but let the players offer possible ways their characters can modify the DC and judge them in the moment.

A mild form of Sunlight sensitivity could work. Maybe part of the Oni myth is that after they have their shadow stolen they are turned into a monster. This would give the towns folk a reason to not trust them. And a drive for them to fix it.

The reason why they think it could be a monster could be something similar to madness. Don't let them know what it is but roll for them on the madness table. Just tell them they feel wrong but can't place why. Avoid indefinite madness unless they just ignore it.

A quote from the matrix describing what I mean

>"What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.

Another thing is now that their shadows are gone maybe randomly start throwing them in the Shadowfell.

The 5th edition starter set can be found on Amazon for less than 20$.

Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set https://www.amazon.com/dp/0786965592/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_uc2FBbZ7GS0XD

Has everything you need to play a short campaign, including pregen characters, dice, and an adventure and a short version of the rules.

If your starting out and not sure how, it's a good investment.

I have a book that may help you out! Google Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master. In it I offer an eight-step guide for preparing for a game. You can see the free preview with the eight steps here:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/slyflourish_content/return_of_the_lazy_dungeon_master_sample.pdf

As for what notes look like, I have a Notion notebook you can check out with all of the session notes for my Eberron campaign:

https://www.notion.so/Session-Notes-40b3ceee833d424ba3ba7d47f69186a6

That can give you an idea of what I went into the session with.

As others mentioned, the key for many is to have what you need to have on hand so you can move freely as the game goes in whatever direction it goes when you run it. This is less about preparing a plot or preparing for every possible action of the players and instead preparing what you need to "cook at the table".

Hope that helps!

Honestly, get this going: https://mynoise.net/noiseMachines.php

You can adjust each track using faders, save customised tracks to URLs to open later, and there's some absolutely amazing sound gens in there. The poltergeist one is fucking creepy, and the forest ones are spot on!

Here's the full description in the SRD.

When a PC falls to 0hp, they fall unconcious. On their turn they have to start making Death Saving Throws. There are no modifiers to these rolls (with very few exceptions). It's a flat d20. A 10 or higher is a success, 9 or lower is a failure. Have the PCs track these successes and failures. At three successes, the character stabilizes themselves (but does not wake up, they're still unconcious for 1d4 hours) and at three failures the character dies. These successes and failures do not have to be consecutive.

Taking damage while unconscious will worsen your condition (obviously). Any damage taken immediately counts as 1 failed death save. Any crits taken immediately count as 2. Importantly, since any melee weapon attack made against an unconscious target is a crit, this means anytime your downed character is hit by a melee attack they take two failed death saving throws.

If you roll a 1 for your death save, it's two failures. If you roll a 20, it's automatic self-resuscitation and you wake up with 1 hit point.

If you receive magical healing, you wake up.

Any character can make a DC10 medicine check to stabilize (but not wake) you.

These don't usually apply to NPCs and bad guys, who just die at 0 hit points unless you decide they're important enough to keep around.

For a political world map, I've been really loving https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/ There's a tiny bit of a learning curve, but it really only took a few minutes of poking around before I was making really cool maps. I've tried Inkarnate but it's garbage for political maps. I'll be looking into Wonderdraft because of this thread, but azgaar was a miracle tool to me.

If you have an android device, I strongly recommend GM Toolbox. It's one of the few apps I've paid for and it's great. The best thing is the level of customisation you can add to the various generators, and how they link together.

For example, you can generate an NPC, then generate a tavern and that NPC will be selected as the bartender. Then you can generate a bandit gang and their favourite tavern will be the one you've generated.

For anything using weapons or armor you're in luck. Lets take a guard for example.

https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Guard#content

11 Health avg (2d8+2)

16 ac (13 chain shirt/2 shield/1 dex)

+3 to hit spear that does 1d6+1.

As you see, his ac is set by armor. Health is variable. Weapon mods come from +1 from str, and the extra 2 to hit we can assume comes from being proficient with a spear.

​

A guard "Captain" could be something like the following.

18 Health (max dice) Hes survived his share of battles)

18 ac (half plate) As a captain, his gear is a cut above a common foot soldier.

For the weapon, even more options. You can boost stats, add a +1 if you like the weapon, change to a "better" weapon.

This was an old campaign that I was part of. I was a Dragonborne Draconic Sorcerer and my DM had just given me a staff that when used as my arcane focus double the effects of illusion magic. This meant that my illusion magic had twice the duration, range and all effects it had.

So I got to scheming and took mirror image as a spell. Whenever we got into combat I would cast Mirror image so instead of the spell creating 3 identical copies of myself it created 6 off them. Meaning there was a 1/7 chance that an enemy would actually hit me. This combined with Shield, misty step or blink meant that he could never get any NPC to actually hit me because the rolls always went in my favour and when they didn’t shield would bring my Draconic AC above 20 making it impossible to hit. So he had to spend his time killing of each one of my mirror images until I was the only one left, by this time all the other party members and I had already killed the enemy NPCs because it wasted all their turns killing my mirror images.

I offered for him to nerf the staff because it was obviously giving us too much advantage over the fights but he declined saying “Nah I gave you the staff, I over looked how powerful a sorcerer can be, so I’ll just scale your encounters to match. “

So he created a BBEG that had a weapon that cancelled out all magic, solving the problem of fights being too easy. For that Arc at least.

I do this way too often in my campaigns, because I love and support Min/Maxers, and here's what I've learned.

1) Downtime activities shouldn't simply increase stats. If you say "working out for 6 months improves your strength", the campaign could derail as the players spend years buffing up. However, you could say "if you spend 3 months studying, you can increase your intelligence stat, but you'll equally decrease another stat." For example, a character that increases charisma by partying all the time may experience a drop in constitution. If they workout all day, other stats may drop because they ignore their social life or studies. This would allow characters to Min/Max, while keeping the game pretty balanced.

2) There are magical items like the Manual of Bodily Health that can increase stats. Instead of other magical items, consider giving the player one of these, maybe in a magical cypher only they can understand.

3) If you DO offer stat increases as rewards in-game, know that it can seriously unbalance the game. You can accidentally end up with crazy-powerful PCs, so if you do it, do it very carefully.

I would suggest mixing up your enemy classes. Not every goblin has to wield a scimitar and shield or a bow. They can be casters. And there are plenty of native casting enemies in the MM. You'll likely want to figure out what your rangers saving throws are in and work around that. The ranger likely strength and dex but I'm unfamiliar with UA Ranger, So fireball might not be a good choice but thunderwave would be a good attack because thunderwave requires a con save as opposed to fireball's dex save; which your ranger is more likely to succeed. Though Fireball is pretty dope either way. Not only will this make combat more interesting and diverse for your players. It will also help land hits on your ranger who likely has a high AC as a result of his high dex.

You can also choose enemies that require special weaponry or have resistances to physical damage or have other special requirements to defeat. Take a look at ghosts for example. An enemy like this will require your steamroller of a ranger and the other players to step out of their bash everything repeatedly with my painstick comfort zone and they'll need to take a different approach. Again adding variety and difficulty to an encounter that isn't just... give enemies more health make them do more damage.

I consider it the future of VTTs.

It's $50 one time purchase from the DM. You do have to have a way to host it, however.

You can do that at home if you know how to manage a router/server, but if not, you can pay like $10 a year to a hosting company to do so.

The $50 purchase is for the license.

There are modules you can install to add functionality, but I recommend starting with the base system first and enjoying it's modern conveniences.

The baseline module you should install is probably the Beyond character importer to import PCs just to make your players' lives easier for the transition.

It gets pretty big updates regularly, so be wary of using esoteric modules as they might not always be supported due to the speed of development.

Magmin are fantastic for this, assuming the party is still relatively low level. Touch attack to ignite someone, requiring an action to put out or suffer damage each turn, and a 10ft explosion on death, which would force the ranger to reconsider hitting ones too close to their friends even if he no longer has the penalty via sharpshooter.

https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Clone#content

But instead of having it work as a safeguard against death, he wants to put the souls of his dead former henchmen / allies / friends / family into the Clones to give them real bodies, and the capabilities of the PC's.

This could lead to an event where they have to fight "Themselves"

People probably will find it weird the first time around. But most players should enjoy it once they get used to the thought, and it takes some pressure of you. I posted an additional post about preping to improvise, if you want to get a bit deeper into the subject I recommmend the book *Sly Flourish's Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master*.

I read it on audible:
https://www.audible.com/pd/Sly-Flourishs-Return-of-the-Lazy-Dungeon-Master-Audiobook/B07HBBG6R7?qid=1545059930&sr=sr_1_1&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&pf_rd_p=e81b7c27-6880-467a-b5a7-13cef5d729fe&pf_rd_r=BQ70WZFQPGMVWDC970GG&

A full list of monster stats is available free here. I recommend goblins or kobolds.

Stick them in a dungeon, start the players in a tavern and give them a hook.

Maybe goblins kidnapped the blacksmith's daughter and he comes running to the tavern seeking help.

Maybe a local wizard seeks a particular scroll guarded by an ancient draconic order but lacks the cojones to get it himself, so he has left a poster up in the tavern seeking services

> Instead of using a weapon to make a melee weapon attack, you can use an unarmed strike: a punch, kick, head--butt, or similar forceful blow (none of which count as weapons). On a hit, an unarmed strike deals bludgeoning damage equal to 1 + your Strength modifier. You are proficient with your unarmed strikes.

This one is from https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Combat#content

> Flurry of Blows Immediately after you take the Attack action on Your Turn, you can spend 1 ki point to make two unarmed strikes as a Bonus Action.

This one is from https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Monk#toc_7 or PHB page 78

If you're going for the ''screw it'' option, also do consider Wonderdraft. I use it a lot and think that I belong to the group that would prefer Wonderdraft over Incarnate.

​

The base assets are alright, but with some effort, you can add a ton of custom assets created by the Wonderdraft community. From there you can use it for world mapping, dungeon mapping, local towns and villages, whatever you need really.

​

It costs $20 at the moment iirc. And i'd say its definitly worth it. One time purchase, and you're set for life.

These are great:

https://www.amazon.com/Post-Sticky-560-Premium-Sticking/dp/B00006I9V8

If you have multiple battlemats in a single session, you can literally just turn pages in a book. I have also done what others have said in this thread, using cut pieces of cardboard to obscure rooms that have not been explored.

themonstersknow.com is the link for his blog. The same author has also published a player's version, Live to Tell the Tale. He also has a supplement that discusses the Beast Master subclass that actually makes it playable. You can download it from his blog.

I think the problem with plagiarism is that it can get a new player too attached to a particular concept, with no room to adapt the character to the world or the story.

I'm actually dealing with this with my 10 year old nephew. His character is based on Nath Dragon, from this book series:

https://www.amazon.com/Odyssey-Nath-Dragon-Collection-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B07H8GHRY6

He's having a hard time taking the parts that work and leaving the parts that don't. For example, he really wants his dad to be the King of Dragons, like in the book. that doesn't work for me for several reasons:

1) Leads to main character syndrome. He wants his dad to be an important ally of their main quest giver NPC, and he keeps trying to steer the story towards stuff to do with his dad.

2) No King of Dragons in D&D in general and in my world. Just doesn't make sense.

3) he keeps interjecting lore from his story into my game, such as he has to "earn his scales" through doing noble deeds. Which as a dragon borne doesn't really make sense. I'm letting him have b/c it's flavor text. But I haven't read the books so I can't really anticipate when he's going to to shoe-horn something in.

So much of this depends on the character itself. Main characters are very often problematic. Like...Edward Elric would be really really hard to build in D&D. So somebody who really wants to BE Edward Elric is going to be disappointed. But you could actually do pretty well with Roy Mustang - his whole thing is flame alchemy.

Harry Potter would be pretty hard to do...but a Hermione Granger character who loves books would be easy. Because Hermione isn't the main character. She doesn't have special powers (Parseltongue, immune to Unforgivables), tragic past (dead parents, main villain chasing her) and a Destiny. She's really smart and works hard and is loyal.

So, this is actually the normal in my current campaign so I can give some basics and some resources if you can get your hands on them.

Resources: 3.5 Sandstorm and pretty much any edition of the Dark Sun campaign setting.

Suggestions:

• Sand/dust storms
  • these are brutal, think blizzard but with dust and heat, it kills visibility and will physically damage PCs since they are literally being sandblasted
  • Suffocation is a concern as it's difficult to keep sand out of your mouth and lungs
• Ravagers/Reavers/Bandits
  • The people who make the wastelands of the desert their homes have a lot of ticks up their sleeves and they are brutal since every encounter could be the difference between survival and death by starvation
  • Ambushes make use of terrain and weather, but also traps (especially along well traveled routes)
  • Your party can CREATE water and food. This would make them excellent targets as slaves for these types of raiders.
  • Be tricky with these, ambushes don't have to be all out assaults. What about one posing as a lost and helpless caravaner? Maybe as a "guide" who just can't survive on their own? Easy to lead the party into danger this way.
• Weather extremes
  • This doesn't just mean the heat in the day, but the cold at night. Deserts are capable of reaching freezing temperatures nightly.
  • If your adventurers wear metal, think about how the heat might affect them. They may be burnt by their own armor or weapons, or slowly COOKED inside their armor without realizing it.
  • Less clothing is not necessarily the answer. Exposed skin is liable to burn in the sun or be buffed raw by dust storms.
• Creatures
  • Giant scorpions
  • Blue dragons
  • Sand Sharks (bulettes)
  • Pretty much any giant insect (mantis, centipede, worm)

15 sets for $25 on Amazon: Easy Roller Dice Polyhedral Dice for Dungeons and Dragons and Math Dice Games, 105 Pieces, 15 Complete Sets with Dice Bag, Color may vary https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00L2N1OVI/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_ncOlyb6MQXP3V

Additionally, I've seen high school clubs will get a module and make copies for all their DMs and then see how each team handles the same situations. You could find an easy one or just make one up from a game you've already played.

Cheapest $0

I'll do my best. 100% the cheapest route is playing Roll20 online. Basic package is free and they have free tokens that come with it, plus you can find lots of other resources for free online and upload them.

Since you are playing in person, that probably won't work (although it could if you have a large TV, I know some group do use it for their in person games).

Roughly $40 Over the long run, instead of printing out battle maps (this will get expensive real quick over time), a fantastic investment our gaming group made several years ago was a dry erase battlemap. I haven't looked for the cheapest one but here is one on Amazon for $27+.

We have pogs and miniatures, but honestly mostly what we use in combat are foam colored blocks ($5). WTF? Foam colored blocks, that's lame right? Each color represents one of the PCs or the monsters. On the table next to the map, one player (not DM) is responsible for stacking the blocks up in order of initiative. This is a simple time saving tactic that has proven awesome. We started doing this a couple years ago and it really helps streamline combat.

$1.50 + printing

If you want to go cheap without roll 20, buy ~~some graph paper or print out your battle maps~~ wrapping paper at the dollar store and use the squared side. For check out /r/mapmaking and /r/battlemaps for help with that. Cut 1 inch squares out of cardboard and ask each player to print out a 1 inch image of their PC. Glue pics onto the cardboard. We used to do this back in college.

Edit: Cheap paper method got even cheaper by using wrapping paper thanks to /u/Butter_Buttered!

Good luck, OP

I bought the decks of cards listing every single CR 1/8 to CR 15 monster in the Monster Manual (excluding the appendix). To prepare for dungeons, I will out the cards for every monster that can appear in the dungeon and leave them within easy reach behind the DM screen.

Here are the decks on Amazon: D&D Monster Cards 5e Bundle Including Monster Cards - Challenge 0-5 Deck and Challenge 6- 16 Deck

Crit cards! You may have to convert some Pathfinder lingo to D&D but it adds extra fun on a crit.

Players roll a d20 and the person who rolled highest has to recap the previous session. If they give a thorough recap, they get inspiration.

There's a 50 percent chance that a bad pun gets you psychic damage from a pun-hating god. One of my players is masochistic and tries to knock himself unconscious with bad puns.

By utilizing the exhaustion mechanics. Have a way of informing them that the place they are traveling will have adverse conditions, then if they set out unprepared narrate how the weather negatively effects them before dishing out levels of exhaustion. Then hit them with an encounter while they are under the environmental stresses. They will learn. Use local NPCs to convey warnings about the terrain around them so they know about the importance of being prepared ahead of time. If they don't act on the advice, that's on them. Part of your task as DM is to challenge the players. They aren't going to actually hate you unless you totally blindside them with it.

I like to socially distribute the effort of GMing.

You need to make a statement that you're interested in telling stories and that sometimes you'll make a call and review it later and sometimes you'll ask Alex to look up the wording as resident rules librarian.

Oathbow has a short range btw:

https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Oathbow#content

The 150 means that Jess gets to roll normally. Anything over 150 ft is at disadvantage. If anything 140 ft is perfect.

The only time they'd be at disadvantage is using the bow in close combat.

I think the easiest way to do it would be to set up an Otter.AI account (it's a transcription software). You get 600 minutes free each month, so having 2 accounts should cover your 12-16 hours each month, or split the cost for a monthly premium account. It'll break up the audio by speaker and you can add words to your dictionary so it'll pick up names and locations and other d&d content. Searching through text feels easy, and if your ultimate goal is a best hits adventure book, that maybe makes the most sense.

Having raw audio feels like a chore, so I'd avoid just hitting the record button on an audio notes app.

A nice middle ground would be to use something like Glean. It'll allow you to capture notes with the audio, making review and organization a bit simpler.

Some Q's I have used: What was your favorite legend as a child?
What was your favorite childhood game?
A dedicated pursuit of truth characterizes the good detective." -Simon W. Blackburn. What does truth mean to you? How important is it?
Investigators must be able to control their emotions. Have you had to control your emotions to achieve a goal? What happened?
We all have nightmares, what is the worst one your character can remember?
Does your character fear (a faction from my game)?
How does your character feel about this (faction from my game)?
Observation is an essential characteristic of an investigator. What is something you have seen that you will never forget?
Two of my players run a PI company - I dig through this: https://www.slideshare.net/jaredplata/fundamentals-of-investigation to find inspiration. It is dry, but it gives me ideas!

Hope these help!

edit: formatting, which still kinda sucks -sorry!

It's just an overall better application. It's hard to list off individual features just because it's more of a generally better experience; like going from a $200 junk car from 1990 to a brand new 2020 model, the core functionality is the same but you'll just have a WAY better experience in the newer one along with a few thousand minor, but awesome, improvements along the way.

So biggest difference to be aware of is that Roll20 you go to their site to do stuff, Foundry you host yourself (either from your own PC or from a hosting service) so people connect directly to you instead of Roll20. If you have some tech knowledge, it's very simple to set up either way, if not there's guides for both that make it very do-able.

Beyond that, Foundry just has a ton more features overall and is improving at an amazing pace. It's only been officially released for a few months now, was in development beta for a little over a year, during which it's already blown past Roll20's decade or so of development and doesn't seem to be slowing in pace. There's community plugins that add even more functionality. You can try out their web demo at the top of the Foundryvtt website (https://foundryvtt.com/) if you want to try it out a bit yourself.

And even ignoring all of that, Roll20 has some controversial history due to having some really shitty people as owners, so if that part matters to you as well, just something to keep in mind when deciding where your money goes.

For comparison, my DM who's spent literally $750+ on Roll20 has just finished moving everything over to Foundry simply because of 1 month (3 sessions) using it. That much was enough for him to say fuck it to 4 years of Roll20 usage, lol.

First: for monster stats, you can use the Roll20 5e Compendium until you get hold of a MM.

Second: you say you have zero experience writing fiction. Well, be careful, because you are still not writing a novel. The difference being that the true agents of "what happens next" is the players. You get to present the consequences of their actions and to advance the clockwork of the threats posed against them, but ultimately they decide what they are going to do. ^^Bonus ^^points ^^to ^^anyone ^^who ^^catches ^^the ^^AW ^^reference

The NPC cast and their motives are good, and I can see how you imagine their actions to transpire. However the language you've used reveals that you've imagined that the players are going to do most of what you've planned for them to do, while in the back of the head you have kept in mind that they may do certain things differently. You need to switch that around. They are definitely going to do a lot of things differently if their beautiful sense of agency is intact. By the time you would have reached chapter 4, the adventure could quite probably have gone in a totally awesome but unimagined direction. And that is the best part of roleplaying games, so that's what you need to be ready for. Don't plan what is going to happen, but play to find out what happens.

Just as fun exercise, try to rewrite what you've written here into Dungeon World fronts, and see how it allows the players to have a better say in what happens.

You are making 'Grappled' a hint too powerful. For reference here's an easy reference of conditions and what they do.

Grappling:

• A grappled creature’s speed becomes 0, and it can’t benefit from any bonus to its speed.

• The condition ends if the Grappler is incapacitated (see the condition).

• The condition also ends if an effect removes the grappled creature from the reach of the Grappler or Grappling effect, such as when a creature is hurled away by the Thunderwave spell.

All the grapple (contested roll) does is lock the enemy down regarding movement. The attack is not at advantage, does not get sneak attack bonus damage (from being grappled at least), and does not instant-critical, etc.

i.e. You may surprise me and grab me before I can react and run away, but I get to try to avoid that blade coming for my neck - violently.

You may house rule differently (ala your system as described for instance), but the RAW is pretty cut and dry here - the throat slitting is an attack that requires an attack roll and does normal weapon damage unless some other condition or environmental factor creates a sneak attack option!

Edited to fix formatting.

Ambient sounds and music. Some people treat them as if they are interchangeable but they aren't.

​

Ambient sounds are what you'd expect from an open world videogame. Sounds of a forest, rain, wind, etc. These are fire and forget. They fade into the background. If your party is in a graveyard, you can fire up some graveyard sounds from https://tabletopaudio.com/ and never touch it. Let it run at a low volume while they traverse the dungeon.

​

"Epic" music should be shorter and begin to play when a significant event happens. These tend to be less than 3 minutes and serves to punctuate a moment. The BBEG appears to taunt the party? Play his scary theme. The contrast between atmospheric sounds and full on music will add an extra layer of importance to what is happening.

​

Some people let orchestra music run on repeat during combat and that becomes exhausting to listen to after about 10 minutes of combat. Play the epic orchestra music as you describe the horrible monster and then let it end as you transition into the encounter.

Hmm I wonder about the stats on that with rolling really low dice versus high/multiple dice. For example, 1d4 damage has a 25% of doing 2d4, 6.25% of doing 3d4... while a 1d10 warhammer has a 10% chance of 2d10, 1% of 3d10. And it's probably a lot worse if you have 2d for damage, since both have to max.

Screw it, ran a simulation

average of d4: 3.335922 average of d10: 6.106647 average of 2d6: 7.197241

Wow, so a d4 has an average of ~3.336 over a million rolls. That's pretty damn high considering you'd expect it to be around ~2.5.

A d10 should be around ~5.5, but it gains just a little bit. A 2d6 should be ~7, but just a tiny bit over now. In the end, d4 gets a huge bonus. And interestingly enough with this max damage rule, you will never see hits that are a multiplication factor of the max damage. On a 1d4 you will never see 4 damage, only 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, ... because you re-roll the others of course.

For the DM: dry erase hex tiles

https://www.amazon.com/Role-Initiative-Erase-Hexagon-Dungeon/dp/B01MR1B2UF

​

for the player - a miniature that resembles your character.

Honestly, you're good my man. You don't really NEED anything more, just some things to help a tiny bit...

Make sure you read the module from front to back before beginning (if you can't, then do the most you can as quick as you can).

Getting a dry erase grid map will be a godsend for you. Figurines will be good. For monsters, I really like what smiling GM has made, they're cheap and distinctive looking. You can find them on amazon.

Here is a link to one of them... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CV3LTNB/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_T1iMFbPV1RRD2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Edit: oh shoot! Get a white board and dry erase markers. They're useful for tracking monster HP and initiative.

Our DM uses tiles from 3 of those boardgames a lot. I started making a set of interlinking tiles with walls too, as I like things that block line of sight to block real life line of sight. I think we've come to realize that while prettier, it's far more limiting than it's worth.

The smaller 24X30 mats with wet wipe markers and a ton of 1" wooden craft blocks are much better. We also have a giant 32x46 mat for outdoor battles. We've been using these blocks from amazon. I bought 2 sets of them, but so far we've only ever used the one set.

I highly recommend this app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spellsdd5 its one of the better ones I've come across, rarely found mistakes, and so much easier and quicker to just search for the spell :)

Edit: its also free :D

Yo, Mariah Carey is a level 11 Bard, College of Glamour. Make her using a player character sheet (DND Beyond can do it for you in like two minutes!).

She has an enchanted microphone for her musical element and spells designed for controlling or messing with the party, plus a bunch of minions to do the punching. Her main spell is Irresistible Dance (https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Irresistible%20Dance#content), and she make copious use of Vicious Mockery (maybe let her target multiple at a time with it?). She'll use Suggest to force people to sing (taking out magic users who need somatic components). It'll be wild.

One thing I would caution is with the Illusion one, playing with geometry always sounds very fun, but does not translate well into a tabletop board game. For players, it is usually just confusing, not because of the puzzle, but because they can't imagine what their characters imagine.

In addition, try to avoid tricks that are solely there waste time. They do not make too much sense from an in game perspective (I mean really, would the creator really think that having a couple endless hallways and false walls stop a party that already went through all THAT?) and are just tedious to players. Instead, remember that a lot of Illusion magic involves nightmares and hiding things from detection. For nightmares, you may want to subject them to indescribable horrors that force them to make Wis or Cha saving throws or receive Psychic damage or Madness (https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Madness#content) I like the longterm more because it forces roleplaying and the rest is just battle mechanics. Think Hall of Horrors. And nondetection is usually complimented more by other magics (I usually just try to prevent anyone from using detect magic perpetually), but you can still have some fun by hiding real treasure among illusions that give them madness. Make sure some of it is items that they really want and actually give them some of it (if theyre willing to risk it), because beyond the first trick, they're probably going to stop going for just any mountain of gold, but that Belt of Giant's Strength? Probably going to risk it for that one.

> Briefly surrounded by silvery mist, you Teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space that you can see.

You could say physical mist is created, but I would not allow it to have any significant use outside of its visual appearance. It then says you teleport, so I would say the mist only appears where you cast the spell.

​

Yup. Drow would be sneaky like that. They don't even need the power of Lolth if they've got someone who can seal it off with Stoneshape. Boom, entrance gone. Or maybe it's a higher level version of Passwall that creates the long tunnels the Drow are using.

As far as why the people don't know:

1) Maybe the entrance is only open when the right magic is used, and the players got through because someone messed up. (That person is likely being flayed now, knowing the Drow.) If it's not always there unless the Drow need it, someone would have to be there at the right time, but then there'd also be Drow there at that time too so....

2) The Drow might have someone on the surface they're controlling with magic, like with dominate person, to get them to convince people that every disappearance is the work of a serial killer or something else.

3) Maybe the ruler of the city is in on it. That is, they allow the Drow to take so many people as slaves per year and in return the Drow don't destroy enslave all of them--but this gives them a constant stream of new slaves. Then the ruler would be involved in the cover-up, which would explain why the average citizen certainly wouldn't know. Then, once he realizes what they players are up to (rescuing people), he starts to work against them while trying not to give himself away.

4) All of the above.

A medicine check can be used to stabilize a dying character who's at zero HP and dying, and ~~bring them back up to 1 HP~~ stabilize them so they don't have to keep making death saving throws. It can be used in combat, but it doesn't heal HP. Your method is very silly because it can just be used over and over for free infinite healing after every fight.

Normally there are two main ways to heal HP. Either you use magic, or you rest. Resting in 5e has some complicated rules about spending hit dice to heal that you should definitely read up on, and they're different for short rests versus long rests.

A big part of D&D in editions other than 5e is that healing back to full health after getting injured, especially at low levels, can take days or weeks. It's not like a video game where any novice level 1 adventurer can instantly heal from any injury. It's more realistic. Without magic, injuries take a realistic amount of time to recover from via bed rest. If you get taken down almost to zero HP, that is the equivalent of having several broken bones and it might take you a few weeks to be in shape to go back to fighting.

That said, in 5e, you can heal to full health every time you sleep without any magic whatsoever, which is absolute nonsense IMO, but if that's the edition you're playing then that's what the rules say, so you'd have to house rule something else if you wanted to change it. And generally I don't recommend house ruling anything until you understand the game well enough to know why all the standard rules exist and how they work together.

Either way, obviously magic is the only method that can be used in combat. But really combat healing is only for absolute emergencies - it's almost always better to kill the enemy first, and then use healing afterward. You can't outheal an enemy's damage. It's just not feasible. And combat is designed that way on purpose, to keep it fast.

Like this.

Oh, I didn't expect the body of the text to be different from the title. A cave room usually needs a distinctive object so you can refer to that. This map shows different kinds of rubble, different crossings, corridors, icy floors, lakes, streams, and winding paths. So you could say "You're at the mossy hallway.", "You're at the cavern lake.", or "You're at the brimstone walls."

Well, the spell description says no. Most of the times, objects that mimic a spell effect are based on the spell. So not RAW but your DM might roll with it if you ask.

No, an action surge can only be used for an Action, not an action (note the capitals). I know it sounds weird but it’s pretty intuitive once you get a handle on it. You can read up on Actions here:

https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Combat#toc_20

There are a few example diseases in the SRD that you could use as inspiration. Or you could also do a search on /r/DnDBehindTheScreen for diseases.

But you should be careful with this. Is the player planning on coming back any time soon? If the fighter's player returns, is he going to have to play a different character or just try and power through this considerable downside? Neither option is very appealing and is really just punishing the player for not showing up, which isn't very diplomatic. It's generally best to avoid punishing a player for character actions and vice versa.

When a player is absent in my campaign their character is pretty much a ghost. Their inventory is untouchable, the character is unkillable, and I'll roleplay them for the shortest period necessary to reasonably disengage them from the session.

I always used level 1 characters for stuff like this and it works because the rules are at their simplest at level 1. The one issue i ran into was that one player asked for a monk, and monks are really boring at level 1 (she wanted to do flips and stuff and didnt really understand me saying ' yea just describe it' rather than having a set 'Move').

That said you can always rework a werewolf for low levels (Matt Colville just did an episode on it), Though looking at the stats here https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Werewolf#content I wouldn't even bother. I pitted 6 blooded level 1s against an Ettin and they won (with 1 casualty). Worked well.

Honestly, I try to stay away from music playlists from movies and videogames. My main issue being it will hop suddenly to epic music in the middle of mundane RPing.

I like to use Tabletop Audio: https://tabletopaudio.com/

and ask for feedback from the team. I like to encourage a lot of communication from my players, and so they often will chime in when they want music.

My best arrangement was back with my previous DnD group I DMed for; My friend who was into theatre managed the music using operatic playlists from spotify while I DMed so I could focus on storytelling.

To quote Samwise Gamgee:

"Share the load"

I use Tabletop Audio website for my RPG music, ambience and sounds.

[Before I would use instrumental soundtracks from movies or video games for background music on low volume settings during a game session.]

What you have here reminds me of an old children's book I read in elementary school. https://www.amazon.com/Vampire-Bunny-Bunnicula-Friends/dp/0689857497

The existing family pets witness a new pet, a bunny, sneaking through the house at night and sinking fangs into vegetables, sucking them dry and turning them white. Later, the family cat makes an attempt to slay the vampire bunny with a steak through the heart(instead of a stake).

I like a lot of the recommendations that others have on this thread, but I'd say for fun, have a one-shot tension-breaker game some day when everything is just feeling far too much and weighing on the players by having them playing animals within the zoo trying to protect the rest of the zoo from the vampire seals.

Read "From Where You Dream" by fiction Pulizter Prize winner Robert Olen Butler. His entire technique or philosphy on writing/storytelling is to write/tell a story moment by moment through the senses. Of course Butler is writing novels, but he's an underappreciated master and his advice works for DMing. Describe what the characters see, hear, taste, smell and sense overall, but do it by ways that tie back to who they are, their flaws, bonds and ideals.

Was one of your PC's villages burned as a child? When they're standing around a campfire, describe that fire in a way that would make them relive part of that drama without saying, "The fire reminds you of your burning village." Instead say something like, "The coals pop and the flames shoot up, licking at the tree limbs above, threatening the homes of the wildlife above." Be subtle but intentional. Matt Mercer does a great job of describing scenery, but you can go a step beyond by tying it to the souls of the adventurers.

I think you're using the 4th Ed PHB to try and run 5th Ed.

Here's 5th Ed on Amazon.

And here's 4th Ed.

You need to make sure that all of the books are of a single style, regardless of which style that is. If you only have the pdfs, you should be able to tell based on the formatting and templating - especially the description of spells and abilities - they're laid out in a table or card style in 4th Ed, and in paragraphs in 5th Ed.

In 5th Ed, characters will get skills based on their background (typically 2, specifically defined), class (typically 2 from a list of 5 or 6), and race (0-2, depending on race & subrace).

There are npc generators that will give decent NPCs on the fly. Here's mine if you're interested.

Just to clarify: You're describing a pvp situation, right? If so, the rogue stands no chance. Rogues are not good fighters if they're on their own and can't surprise their opponents. She might deal some damage the first round, if she surprises the party but after that she gets no sneak attack bonus. Rogues also don't have high AC and HP. So the group is probably gonna rip her apart.

If it's a pve situation i'd suggest to pick a bandit captain as base. Change strength to 10 and dex to 18. Saving throws should be dex and int, skills acrobatics +5, stealth +5 and deception +4.

Instead of him having multiattack, he attacks once with the scimitar and once with a dagger. Every time a player is hit, he makes a DC 12 con save. The player takes 1d6 additional poison damage on a fail and half of it if he makes it. Parry should be changed to uncanny dodge.

I think this would be very rogue like and a little bit stronger than the captain, so it would be a good match for a group of 5 lvl 2s.

Maybe a couple shambling mounds as lair guards. Kinda like how tarantulas use frogs., the shambling mounds can wander the territory/nest and devour pests and disease-causing organisms that might threaten the chimera or its young.

I once ran a wilderness trek through a magically deformed forest. One encounter was around large strange structures within the surrounding tree crowns (something like this, that were rumbling deeply, shaking everybody's bones when the party came closer, and ultimately released swarms of weirdly misshapen insects that attacked them. I like swarms cause you can describe them really threateningly and alien in their coordination and they have weird ways of attacking.

Another favourite was a section of forest where every tree lined up in perfect symmetry - something you tell the party they only slowly realize once they're a good distance into the area. In general, depending on how magically influenced you want the forest to be, encounters really benefit from being set around weird, unnatural shapes and occurrences, like a section where the season just suddenly shifts and all the leaves have turned red. Fitting enemies are any unnatural plants or weird hunting animals, for example the Fungi or Blights group.

There's a few details for elephants as mounts in the PHB. See here.

RAW, they cost 200gp for the elephant alone (not including a saddle, barding, feed, etc).

Feeding the animal costs 5cp per day, though I'd wager that's intended for horses. I'd triple it for an elephant.

Barding for a horse costs 4x the normal amount, I'd go with 8x for an elephant, so elephant chainmail costs 400gp and elephant plate costs 12,000gp.

Personally, I think I'd let the players use it as an untrained mount immediately, but make them train it for a few sessions (no more than 6, in my opinion) before it's properly trained for mounted combat.

I'd also damage the armor (infrequently) using rust monsters, oozes or old fashioned brute force and thus requiring the party to pay to have the armor repaired. This allows you to use the mount as a bit of a gold sink.

I wouldn't make them wait until the end of the campaign before they can use it to it's full efficacy.

I've used roll20 for my games for the past year, I play entirely virtually though as my players are spread out. I don't believe there is an innate way to have a GM view and a player view, but i haven't specifically looked so there might be. However you are completely able to make 2 free accounts one as your GM and the other as your Players, and just have them logged into 2 different browser tabs for you different displays.

You might want to check out the podcast We Speak Common. They have a few episodes that may be of interest at this stage but this one is particularly relevant(Ep2).

Anchor link if you don’t have an iOS compatible device.

Hallucinatory Terrain, my friend. Cast many times by many people to cover the whole area until made permanent. Or hide it through a portal/teleportation circle that is hidden away somewhere and that is the only way to access it

He might have some arrows of dragon slaying: maybe lots of archers in towers, looking out for the dragons. The arrows are very rare, so perhaps some traps to restrain the dragons so that the archers could take their shots carefully.

This is a bit of a tangent, but a single level 1 spellcaster can ritual cast floating disk and keep 6 of them up at one time. That's 3000 pounds of material that will float effortlessly behind the caster. If they jump on a horse, their horse can gallop for an hour up to 8 miles. Carts require flatter terrain, require maintenance, and would move much slower. In anything but a super low magic setting, this might be the standard way to transport materials like this as lvl 1 casters should be pretty common.

As for your question, the floating disc standard would make a refinery within 8 miles tenable.

*Edit due to bad maths

That was my first thought. The spell literally says "The new form can be any beast whose Challenge rating is equal to or less than the target's " A giant ape is fun though.