DM thoughts topics within the campaign. This folder is mostly full of DM notes for thoughts and philosophies behind types of choices. For a more player-oriented retrospective, see the [wrapup].
Mostly detailed in [house] rules doc. These rulesets weren't always enforced, but served as a good dm's anchor. Also used my [calendar] (which forced the eladrin to learn it), but it was hard to maintain (we don't think in 10 day weeks without practice).
Think the [combat] doc (roles and types of battlefields) was some of the most helpful way to think about designing battles.
Late game factions did get somewhat clarified from the secret societies examples in the [factions] document.
In particular; it helped clarifying the cohesion of [silver-helix] / [undying-soul] / [bregan-daerthe]. Never really fleshed out how piracy or cults would work on a political level though. Cults might work out better earlier on in the game as well (when the stuff that people believe in may or may not be real).
My [npcs] generation methods are probably still my weakest skill. It got a little better once I started associating players more directly with factions, but I think I could have done better with fewer key npcs.
Most bosses in the second half for the campaign were homebrewed quite a bit to create memorable closing points for large story arcs. Exceptions: demon lords. Had clarified they were as written earlier.
- [kiaransalee] in [neverwinter-end-battle] (combo-liches; complicated end of campaign boss)
- [irae] (lich/sorcerer with revenancer plot items and chronomancy, and shield guardian skins)
- [arklem] (lich/wizard with crazy stats from items and chronomancy overcharge burst)
- [felgolos] (at dracolich stage; some things to emulate brass dragon)
- [umnos] (mounted combatant storm giant on an ancient dragon with crazy items)
Neriin [halos-2] (quintessent storm giant with crazy bow and spirits)Serissa+Havilin [halos] (quintessent with contingency, and crazy giant defense)Zoltanin [gilgrin] (re-skinned Zalto with spells and a dreadnaught helper)Matriarchin [66-gilgrinvault] (construct with summons and tensers transformation)Araziain [rimehaze] (void giant with spells and Irae helping)
Dael Kingsmill have some good thoughts on Running Villains.
Most items for the campaign were homebrewed, a lot left at the [loot] ideas stage. There's also an entire spell school: [chronomancy]. Many of these were nerfed or tweaked during the campaign (after discussion).
Successes:
- Conductors Tuning Fork: https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/2011566-conductors-tuning-fork (a bit OP, but could control with LG res)
- Dragonwood (Hanzo bow): https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/2819631-dragonwood
- Grand Obsidian Subscription Ring: https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/3003243-grand-obsidian-basic-subscription-ring
- Somnambulist's Wraps: https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/2011396-somnambulists-wraps (shifted stun use onto Slow which made battles easier to predict)
- Sunwuko's Spirit: https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/2011597-sunwukos-spirit (the AOE heal gave the 3p party some extra tankiness and they were rewarded for clever use)
- Wand of Overwhelming Energy: https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/526752-wand-of-overwhelming-energy (fun to have Mordai risk self-damage with overcharged lightning bolts)
- Belt of Giantkind: https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/2040547-belt-of-giantkind (simple, but very good major boss reward)
- Book of Exalted Deeds: https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/3001386-book-of-exalted-deeds-goatweaver (ended up with good roleplay setup for GW)
- Arklem's Wand of Orcus: https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/3899876-wand-of-orcus-arklem (fun roleplay setup for GW's last fight)
- Iridium Galvanizer - easy way to galvanize weapons or armor (bump armor/weapon) without choosing for them
Needed work:
- Extinction: https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/3105572-extinction (what it could absorp was actually not that much)
- Golden Scourge: https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/2042213-golden-scourge (divine smite arc flail from felgolos, the crit stuff was always going to be better)
- Oathkeeper: https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/3001354-oathkeeper: The CON save ultimately made it not work much vs big enemies, and when they weren't big it wasn't needed.
- Stormbow: https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/2011786-stormbow (wording on the infused Lightning Arrow spell slowed down flow)
- Wave : https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/427041-wave-dormant -> https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/579927-wave-awakened (Cube of Force was a problem that early)
- Celerum's Timepiece: https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/1281558-celerums-timepiece (became a lot for Guy to handle with [chronomancy] extra cast spells on top of multiclass caster)
- Condemn: https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/476387-condemn (was meant to be a surprise thing but Flo found it due to homebrew sharing, also possibly threading too much on wizard domain)
Future goals should be to have smoother flow and optimize for language, not rules take on the game in general.
Levelling can feel very gamey "oh, we're magically better". So trying to weave in reasons for levelling.
Dael Kingsmill wants progression to not be level based at all, and buy feats / items. Hard to do that extreme with D&Dbeyond, but kind of stopped levelling players for a while around 13/14 in favour of giving items / benefits.
Foam worked really well. Easy to organise, paste image extension) helped a lot.
Akward bits:
- graph view cannot hide parts of nodes in
foam.json- wanted to hide recaps/rules from the big tree - no way to rename files without manually updating backlinks