Running the Game

Rules enable you and your players to have fun at the table. The rules serve you, not vice versa. There are the rules of the game, and there are table rules for how the game is played. For instance, players need to know what happens when one of them misses a session. They need to know whether to bring miniatures, any special rules you’ve decided to use, and how to treat a cocked die (a die that lands so that its face can’t be clearly read). These topics and more are covered in this chapter.

Table Rules

Ideally, players come to the gaming table with the same goal: to have a fun time together. This section gives recommendations for table rules you can establish to help meet that goal. Here are some fundamentals:

• Foster respect Don’t bring personal conflicts to the table or let disagreements escalate into bad feelings. Don’t touch others' dice if they’re sensitive about it.
• Avoid distractions Turn off the television and video games. If you have young children, hire a babysitter. Reducing distractions helps players stay in character and enjoy the story. It might be fine to have players wandering away from the table and back, but some players prefer planned breaks.
• Have snacks Decide before a session who will bring food and drink. This is often something the players can handle.

Table Talk

Set expectations about how players talk at the table:

• Make it clear who’s speaking: the character or the player (out of character).
• Decide how you feel about a player sharing information that his or her character wouldn’t know or that the character is incapable of sharing as a result of being unconscious, dead, or far away.
• Are you all right with players retracting what they just said their characters did?

Dice Rolling

Establish expectations about rolling dice. Rolling in full view of everyone is a good starting point. If you see a player rolling and scooping the dice up before anyone else can see, encourage that player to be less secretive.

When a die falls on the floor, do you count it or reroll it? When it lands cocked against a book, do you pull the book away and see where it lands, or reroll it?

What about you, the DM? Do you make your rolls in the open or hide them behind a DM screen? Consider the following:

• If you roll dice where the players can see, they know you’re playing impartially and not fudging rolls.
• Rolling behind a screen keeps the players guessing about the strength of their opposition. When a monster hits all the time, is it of a much higher level than the characters, or are you rolling high numbers?
• Rolling behind a screen lets you fudge the results if you want to. If two critical hits in a row would kill a character, you could change the second critical hit into a normal hit, or even a miss. Don’t distort die rolls too often, though, and don’t let on that you’re doing it. Otherwise, your players might think they don’t face any real risks-or worse, that you’re playing favorites.
• A roll behind a screen can help preserve mystery. For example, if a player thinks there might be someone invisible nearby and makes a Wisdom (Perception) check, consider rolling a die behind the screen even if no one is there, making the player think someone is, indeed, hiding. Try not to overuse this trick.
• You might choose to make a roll for a player because you don’t want the player to know how good the check total is. For example, if a player suspects a baroness might be charmed and wants to make a Wisdom (Insight) check, you could make the roll in secret for the player. If the player rolled and got a high number but didn’t sense anything amiss, the player would be confident that the baroness wasn’t charmed. With a low roll, a negative answer wouldn’t mean much. A hidden roll allows uncertainty.

Rolling Attacks and Damage

Players are accustomed to rolling an attack roll first and then a damage roll. If players make attack rolls and damage rolls at the same time, the action moves a little faster around the table.

Rules Discussions

You might need to set a policy on rules discussions at the table. Some groups don’t mind putting the game on hold while they hash out different interpretations of a rule. Others prefer to let the DM make a call and continue with the action. If you gloss over a rules issue in play, make a note of it (a good task to delegate to a player) and return to the issue later.

Metagame Thinking

Metagame thinking means thinking about the game as a game. It’s like when a character in a movie knows it’s a movie and acts accordingly. For example, a player might say, “The DM wouldn’t throw such a powerful monster at us!” or you might hear, “The read-aloud text spent a lot of time describing that door-let’s search it again!” Discourage metagame thinking by giving players a gentle reminder: “What do your characters think?” You can curb metagame thinking by setting up situations that will be difficult for the characters and that might require negotiation or retreat to survive.

Missing Players

How should you deal with the characters of missing players? Consider these options:

• Have another player run the missing player’s character. The player running the extra character should strive to keep the character alive and use resources wisely.
• Run the character yourself. It’s an extra burden for you, but it can work.
• Decide the character isn’t there. Invent a good reason for the character to miss the adventure, perhaps by having him or her linger in town or continue a downtime activity. Leave a way for the character to rejoin the party when the player returns.
• Have the character fade into the background. This solution requires everyone to step out of the game world a bit and suspend disbelief, but might be the easiest solution. You act as if the character’s not there, but don’t try to come up with any in-game explanation for this absence. Monsters don’t attack the character, who returns the favor. On returning, the player resumes playing as if he or she was never gone.

Small Groups

Most of the time, each player runs one character. The game plays best that way, without overwhelming anyone. But if your group is small, players can control more than one character. Or you can fill out the group with NPC followers, using the guidelines in chapter 4, “Creating Nonplayer Characters.” You can also make the characters more resilient by using the healing surge option in chapter 9, “Dungeon Master’s Workshop.” Don’t force a reluctant player to take on multiple characters, and don’t show favoritism by allowing only one player to do so. If one character is the mentor of the other, the player can focus on roleplaying just one character. Otherwise, players can end up awkwardly talking to themselves in character, or avoiding roleplaying altogether.

Multiple characters can be a good idea in a game that features nonstop peril and a high rate of character death. If your group agrees to the premise, have each player keep one or two additional characters on hand, ready to jump in whenever the current character dies. Each time the main character gains a level, the backup characters do as well.

New Players

When a new player joins the group, allow the new player to create a character of a level equal to the lowest-level member of the party. The only exception to this guideline is when the new player is completely unfamiliar with the D&D game. In that case, have that player start with a 1st-level character. If the rest of the party is significantly higher in level, consider taking a short break from the campaign and having everyone play a 1st-level character for a few sessions while the new player learns the ropes.

Integrating a new character into the group can be difficult if the party is in the middle of an adventure. The following approaches can help make it easier:

• The new character is a friend or relative of one of the adventurers who has been searching for the group.
• The new character is a prisoner of the foes the other characters are fighting. When rescued, this character joins their group.
• The new character is the sole survivor of another adventuring group.

The Role of Dice

Dice are neutral arbiters. They can determine the outcome of an action without assigning any motivation to the DM and without playing favorites. The extent to which you use them is entirely up to you.

Rolling with It

Some DMs rely on die rolls for almost everything. When a character attempts a task, the DM calls for a check and picks a DC. As a DM using this style, you can’t rely on the characters succeeding or failing on any one check to move the action in a specific direction. You must be ready to improvise and react to a changing situation.

Relying on dice also gives the players the sense that anything is possible. Sure, it might seem unlikely that the party’s halfling can leap on the ogre’s back, pull a sack over its head, and then dive to safety, but with a lucky enough roll it just might work.

A drawback of this approach is that roleplaying can diminish if players feel that their die rolls, rather than their decisions and characterizations, always determine success.

Ignoring the Dice

One approach is to use dice as rarely as possible. Some DMs use them only during combat, and determine success or failure as they like in other situations.

With this approach, the DM decides whether an action or a plan succeeds or fails based on how well the players make their case, how thorough or creative they are, or other factors. For example, the players might describe how they search for a secret door, detailing how they tap on a wall or twist a torch sconce to find its trigger. That could be enough to convince the DM that they find the secret door without having to make an ability check to do so.

This approach rewards creativity by encouraging players to look to the situation you’ve described for an answer, rather than looking to their character sheet or their character’s special abilities. A downside is that no DM is completely neutral. A DM might come to favor certain players or approaches, or even work against good ideas if they send the game in a direction he or she doesn’t like. This approach can also slow the game if the DM focuses on one “correct” action that the characters must describe to overcome an obstacle.

The Middle Path

Many DMs find that using a combination of the two approaches works best. By balancing the use of dice against deciding on success, you can encourage your players to strike a balance between relying on their bonuses and abilities and paying attention to the game and immersing themselves in its world.

Remember that dice don’t run your game-you do. Dice are like rules. They’re tools to help keep the action moving. At any time, you can decide that a player’s action is automatically successful. You can also grant the player advantage on any ability check, reducing the chance of a bad die roll foiling the character’s plans. By the same token, a bad plan or unfortunate circumstances can transform the easiest task into an impossibility, or at least impose disadvantage.

Using Ability Scores

When a player wants to do something, it’s often appropriate to let the attempt succeed without a roll or a reference to the character’s ability scores. For example, a character doesn’t normally need to make a Dexterity check to walk across an empty room or a Charisma check to order a mug of ale. Only call for a roll if there is a meaningful consequence for failure. When deciding whether to use a roll, ask yourself two questions:

• Is a task so easy and so free of conflict and stress that there should be no chance of failure?
• Is a task so inappropriate or impossible-such as hitting the moon with an arrow-that it can’t work?

If the answer to both of these questions is no, some kind of roll is appropriate. The following sections provide guidance on determining whether to call for an ability check, attack roll, or saving throw; how to assign DCs; when to use advantage and disadvantage; and other related topics.

Ability Checks

An ability check is a test to see whether a character succeeds at a task that he or she has decided to attempt. The Player’s Handbook includes examples of what each ability score is used for. The Ability Checks table summarizes that material for easy reference.

Multiple Ability Checks

Sometimes a character fails an ability check and wants to try again. In some cases, a character is free to do so; the only real cost is the time it takes. With enough attempts and enough time, a character should eventually succeed at the task. To speed things up, assume that a character spending ten times the normal amount of time needed to complete a task automatically succeeds at that task. However, no amount of repeating the check allows a character to turn an impossible task into a successful one.

In other cases, failing an ability check makes it impossible to make the same check to do the same thing again. For example, a rogue might try to trick a town guard into thinking the adventurers are undercover agents of the king. If the rogue loses a contest of Charisma (Deception) against the guard’s Wisdom (Insight), the same lie told again won’t work. The characters can come up with a different way to get past the guard or try the check again against another guard at a different gate. But you might decide that the initial failure makes those checks more difficult to pull off.

Ability Checks

Contests

A contest is a kind of ability check that matches two creatures against each other. Use a contest if a character attempts something that either directly foils or is directly opposed by another creature’s efforts. In a contest, the ability checks are compared to each other, rather than to a target number.

When you call for a contest, you pick the ability that each side must use, deciding whether both sides use the same ability or whether different abilities should counter each other. For example, when a creature tries to hide, it engages in a contest of Dexterity against Wisdom. But if two creatures arm wrestle, or if one creature is holding a door closed against another’s attempt to push it open, both use Strength.

Intelligence Check vs. Wisdom Check

If you have trouble deciding whether to call for an Intelligence or a Wisdom check to determine whether a character notices something, think of it in terms of what a very high or low score in those two abilities might mean.

A character with a high Wisdom but low Intelligence is aware of the surroundings but is bad at interpreting what things mean. The character might spot that one section of a wall is clean and dusty compared to the others, but he or she wouldn’t necessarily make the deduction that a secret door is there.

In contrast, a character with high Intelligence and low Wisdom is probably oblivious but clever. The character might not spot the clean section of wall but, if asked about it, could immediately deduce why it’s clean.

Wisdom checks allow characters to perceive what is around them (the wall is clean here), while Intelligence checks answer why things are that way (there’s probably a secret door).

Attack Rolls

Call for an attack roll when a character tries to hit a creature or an object with an attack, especially when the attack could be foiled by the target’s armor or shield or by another object providing cover. You can also use attack rolls to resolve noncombat activities such as archery contests or a game of darts.

Saving Throws

A saving throw is an instant response to a harmful effect and is almost never done by choice. A save makes the most sense when something bad happens to a character and the character has a chance to avoid that effect. An ability check is something a character actively attempts to accomplish, whereas a saving throw is a split-second response to the activity of someone or something else.

Most of the time, a saving throw comes into play when an effect-such as a spell, monster ability, or trap-calls for it, telling you what kind of saving throw is involved and providing a DC for it.

Other times, a situation arises that clearly calls for a saving throw, especially when a character is subjected to a harmful effect that can’t be hedged out by armor or a shield. It’s up to you to decide which ability score is involved. The Saving Throws table offers suggestions.

Saving Throws

Difficulty Class

It’s your job to establish the Difficulty Class for an ability check or a saving throw when a rule or an adventure doesn’t give you one. Sometimes you’ll even want to change such established DCs. When you do so, think of how difficult a task is and then pick the associated DC from the Typical DCs table.

Typical DCs

The numbers associated with these categories of difficulty are meant to be easy to keep in your head, so that you don’t have to refer to this book every time you decide on a DC. Here are some tips for using DC categories at the gaming table.

If you’ve decided that an ability check is called for, then most likely the task at hand isn’t a very easy one. Most people can accomplish a DC 5 task with little chance of failure. Unless circumstances are unusual, let characters succeed at such a task without making a check.

Then ask yourself, “Is this task’s difficulty easy, moderate, or hard?” If the only DCs you ever use are 10, 15, and 20, your game will run just fine. Keep in mind that a character with a 10 in the associated ability and no proficiency will succeed at an easy task around 50 percent of the time. A moderate task requires a higher score or proficiency for success, whereas a hard task typically requires both. A big dose of luck with the d20 also doesn’t hurt.

If you find yourself thinking, “This task is especially hard,” you can use a higher DC, but do so with caution and consider the level of the characters. A DC 25 task is very hard for low-level characters to accomplish, but it becomes more reasonable after 10th level or so. A DC 30 check is nearly impossible for most low-level characters. A 20th-level character with proficiency and a relevant ability score of 20 still needs a 19 or 20 on the die roll to succeed at a task of this difficulty.

Variant: Automatic Success

Sometimes the randomness of a d20 roll leads to ludicrous results. Let’s say a door requires a DC 15 Strength check to batter down. A fighter with Strength 20 might helplessly flail against the door due to bad die rolls. Meanwhile, the rogue with a 10 Strength rolls a natural 20 on her first check and knocks the door from its hinges.

If such results bother you, allow automatic success on checks for characters with high ability scores. Under this optional rule, a character automatically succeeds on any ability check with a DC less than or equal to the relevant ability score minus 5. So in the above example, the fighter would automatically kick in the door. This rule doesn’t apply to contests, saving throws, or attack rolls.

The downside of this approach is its predictability. Once a character’s ability score reaches 20, checks of DC 15 and lower using that ability become automatic successes. Smart players will then always try to match the character with the highest ability score against any given check. If you want some risk of failure, you need to set higher DCs. Doing this, though, can merely aggravate the problem you’re trying to solve: higher DCs require higher die rolls, and thus rely even more on luck.

You can modify this rule to account for proficiencies using an additional option. If a character can apply a proficiency bonus to the check, he or she automatically succeeds if its DC is less than or equal to the relevant ability score. If you don’t mind predictability, and you can resist the temptation to increase DCs, you might find that this variant speeds up play and focuses attention on truly difficult, tense situations.

Proficiency

When you ask a player to make an ability check, consider whether a skill or tool proficiency might apply to the check. The player might also ask you if a particular proficiency applies.

One way to think about this is to consider whether a character could become better at a particular task through training and practice. If the answer is no, it’s fine to say that no proficiency applies. But if the answer is yes, then find an appropriate skill or tool proficiency to reflect that training and practice.

Skills

As described in the Player’s Handbook, a skill proficiency represents a character’s focus on one aspect of an ability. Among all the things a character’s Dexterity score describes, the character might be particularly skilled at sneaking around, reflected in proficiency in the Stealth skill. When that skill is used for an ability check, it is usually used with Dexterity.

Under certain circumstances, you can decide a character’s proficiency in a skill can be applied to a different ability check. For example, you might decide that a character forced to swim from an island to the mainland must succeed on a Constitution check (as opposed to a Strength check) because of the distance involved. The character is proficient in the Athletics skill, which covers swimming, so you allow the character’s proficiency bonus to apply to this ability check. In effect, you’re asking for a Constitution (Athletics) check, instead of a Strength (Athletics) check.

Often, players ask whether they can apply a skill proficiency to an ability check. If a player can provide a good justification for why a character’s training and aptitude in a skill should apply to the check, go ahead and allow it, rewarding the player’s creative thinking.

Tools

Having proficiency with a tool allows you to apply your proficiency bonus to an ability check you make using that tool. For example, a character proficient with carpenter’s tools can apply his or her proficiency bonus to a Dexterity check to craft a wooden flute, an Intelligence check to craft a wooden secret door, or a Strength check to build a working trebuchet. However, the proficiency bonus wouldn’t apply to an ability check made to identify unsafe wooden construction or to discern the origin of a crafted item, since neither check requires tool use.

Saving Throws and Attack Rolls

Characters are either proficient with a saving throw or attack, or they aren’t. The bonus always applies if a character is proficient. Otherwise, it doesn’t.

Advantage and Disadvantage

Advantage and disadvantage are among the most useful tools in your DM’s toolbox. They reflect temporary circumstances that might affect the chances of a character succeeding or failing at a task. Advantage is also a great way to reward a player who shows exceptional creativity in play.

Characters often gain advantage or disadvantage through the use of special abilities, actions, spells, or other features of their classes or backgrounds. In other cases, you decide whether a circumstance influences a roll in one direction or another, and you grant advantage or impose disadvantage as a result.

Consider granting advantage when…

• Circumstances not related to a creature’s inherent capabilities provide it with an edge.
• Some aspect of the environment contributes to the character’s chance of success.
• A player shows exceptional creativity or cunning in attempting or describing a task.
• Previous actions (whether taken by the character making the attempt or some other creature) improve the chances of success.

Consider imposing disadvantage when…

• Circumstances hinder success in some way.
• Some aspect of the environment makes success less likely (assuming that aspect doesn’t already impose a penalty to the roll being made).
• An element of the plan or description of an action makes success less likely.

Because advantage and disadvantage cancel each other out, there’s no need to keep track of how many circumstances weigh on both sides.

For example, imagine a wizard is running down a dungeon corridor to escape from a beholder. Around the corner ahead, two ogres lie in wait. Does the wizard hear the ogres readying their ambush? You look at the wizard’s passive Wisdom (Perception) score and consider all the factors weighing on it.

The wizard is running, not paying attention to what’s ahead of him. This imposes disadvantage on the wizard’s ability check. However, the ogres are readying a portcullis trap and making a lot of noise with a winch, which could grant the wizard advantage on the check. As a result, the character has neither advantage nor disadvantage on the Wisdom check, and you don’t need to consider any additional factors. Past encounters with an ogre ambush, the fact that the wizard’s ears are still ringing from the thunderwave spell he cast at the beholder, the overall noise level of the dungeon-none of that matters any more. They all cancel out.

Inspiration

Awarding inspiration is an effective way to encourage roleplaying and risk-taking. As explained in the Player’s Handbook, having inspiration gives a character an obvious benefit: being able to gain advantage on one ability check, attack roll, or saving throw. Remember that a character can have no more than one inspiration at a time.

Awarding Inspiration

Think of inspiration as a spice that you can use to enhance your campaign. Some DMs forgo using inspiration, while others embrace it as a key part of the game. If you take away anything from this section, remember this golden rule: inspiration should make the game more enjoyable for everyone. Award inspiration when players take actions that make the game more exciting, amusing, or memorable.

As a rule of thumb, aim to award inspiration to each character about once per session of play. Over time, you might want to award inspiration more or less often, at a rate that works best for your table. You might use the same rate for your entire DMing career, or you might change it with each campaign.

Offering inspiration as a reward encourages certain types of behavior in your players. Think of your style as a DM and your group’s preferences. What helps make the game more fun for your group? What type of actions fit in with your campaign’s style or genre? Your answers to those questions help determine when you award inspiration.

Roleplaying

Using inspiration to reward roleplaying is a good place to start for most groups. Reward a player with inspiration when that player causes his or her character to do something that is consistent with the character’s personality trait, flaw, or bond. The character’s action should be notable in some way. It might drive the story forward, push the adventurers into danger, or make everyone at the table laugh. In essence, you reward the player for roleplaying in a way that makes the game more enjoyable for everyone else.

Take into account each player’s roleplaying style, and try not to favor one style over another. For example, Allison might be comfortable speaking in an accent and adopting her character’s mannerisms, but Paul feels self-conscious when trying to act and prefers to describe his character’s attitude and actions. Neither style is better than the other. Inspiration encourages players to take part and make a good effort, and awarding it fairly makes the game better for everyone.

Heroism

You can use inspiration to encourage player characters to take risks. A fighter might not normally hurl himself over a balcony to land in the midst of a pack of hungry ghouls, but you can reward the character’s daring maneuver with inspiration. Such a reward tells the players that you want them to embrace swashbuckling action.

This approach is great for campaigns that emphasize action-packed heroics. For such campaigns, consider allowing inspiration to be spent after a d20 roll, rather than before. This approach turns inspiration into a cushion against failure-and a guarantee that it comes into play only when a player is faced directly by failure. Such an assurance makes risky tactics less daunting.

A Reward for Victory

Some DMs prefer to play an impartial role in their campaigns. Inspiration normally requires a DM’s judgment to award, which might run against your style if you like a campaign where you let dice determine most outcomes. If that’s your style, consider using inspiration as a reward when the characters achieve an important goal or victory, representing a surge of confidence and energy.

Under this model, give everyone in the party inspiration if the characters manage to defeat a powerful foe, execute a cunning plan to achieve a goal, or otherwise overcome a daunting obstacle in the campaign.

Genre Emulation

Inspiration is a handy tool for reinforcing the conventions of a particular genre. Under this approach, think of the motifs of a genre as personality traits, flaws, and bonds that can apply to any of the adventurers. For example, in a campaign inspired by film noir, characters could have an additional flaw:

“I can’t resist helping a person I find alluring despite warnings that he or she is nothing but trouble.” If the characters agree to help a suspicious but seductive noble and thereby become entangled in a web of intrigue and betrayal, reward them with inspiration.

Similarly, characters in a horror story typically can’t help but spend a night in a haunted house to learn its secrets. They probably also go off alone when they shouldn’t. If the party splits up, consider giving each character inspiration.

A sensible person would avoid the noble’s intrigues and the haunted house, but in film noir or horror, we’re not dealing with sensible people; we’re dealing with protagonists in a particular type of story. For this approach to work, create a list of your genre’s main conventions and share it with your players. Before the campaign begins, talk about the list to make sure your group is on board for embracing those conventions.

Players and Inspiration

Remember that a player with inspiration can award it to another player. Some groups even like to treat inspiration as a group resource, deciding collectively when to spend it on a roll. It’s best to let players award their inspiration as they see fit, but feel free to talk to them about following certain guidelines, particularly if you’re trying to reinforce conventions of a certain genre.

When Do You Award Inspiration?

Consider the timing of your inspiration rewards. Some DMs like to award inspiration in response to an action. Other DMs like to encourage specific actions by offering inspiration while a player is considering options. Both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses.

Waiting until after an action preserves the flow of play, but it also means players don’t know whether their decisions will earn them inspiration. It also means the player can’t spend the inspiration on the act that earned it, unless you allow a player to retroactively spend it or are quick enough to award it before any rolls. This approach works best for groups that want to focus on immersion and player agency, where the DM steps back and gives the players more freedom to do what they want.

Telling a player that an action will earn inspiration provides clarity, but it can make it feel like you are manipulating the players or making choices for them. Offering inspiration before an action works great with groups that are comfortable with an emphasis on genre emulation and group storytelling, where character freedom isn’t as important as weaving a compelling tale together.

Start with awarding inspiration after an action, especially for your first campaign or when playing with a new group. That approach is the least disruptive to the flow of play and avoids making the players feel as if you are being manipulative.

Tracking Inspiration

A player typically notes on a character sheet whether he or she has inspiration, or you can use poker chips or some other token Alternatively, you can hand out special d20s to represent inspiration. When a player spends inspiration, he or she rolls the die and then hands it back to you. If the player instead gives the inspiration to someone else, the d20 can go to that other person.

Ignoring Inspiration

Inspiration might not work for your campaign. Some DMs feel it adds a layer of metagame thinking, and others feel that heroism, roleplaying, and other parts of the game are their own rewards that don’t need incentives like inspiration.

If you choose to ignore inspiration, you’re telling the players that your campaign is one where you let the dice fall where they may. It’s a good option for gritty campaigns or ones where the DM focuses on playing an impartial role as a rules arbiter.

Variant: Only Players Award Inspiration

As a DM, you have a lot to track during the game. Sometimes you can lose track of inspiration and forget to award it. As a variant rule, you can allow the players to handle awarding inspiration entirely. During every session, each player can award inspiration to another player. A player follows whatever guidelines the group has agreed on for awarding inspiration.

This approach makes your life easier and also gives players the chance to recognize each other for good play. You still need to make sure that inspiration is being awarded fairly.

This approach works best with groups that are focused on the story. It falls flat if the players merely manipulate it to gain advantage in key situations, without earning inspiration by way of good roleplaying or whatever other criteria the group has established.

In this variant, you can allow each player to award inspiration more than once per session. If you do so, the first time that a player awards inspiration in a session is free. Whenever that player awards it later in the same session, you gain inspiration that you can spend to give advantage to any foe of the player characters. There’s no limit to the number of inspirations you can gain in this way, and unspent inspiration carries over from one session to the next.

Resolution and Consequences

You determine the consequences of attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws. In most cases, doing so is straightforward. When an attack hits, it deals damage.

When a creature fails a saving throw, the creature suffers a harmful effect. When an ability check equals or exceeds the DC, the check succeeds.

As a DM, you have a variety of flourishes and approaches you can take when adjudicating success and failure to make things a little less black-and-white.

Success at a Cost

Failure can be tough, but the agony is compounded when a character fails by the barest margin. When a character fails a roll by only 1 or 2, you can allow the character to succeed at the cost of a complication or hindrance. Such complications can run along any of the following lines:

• A character manages to get her sword past a hobgoblin’s defenses and turn a near miss into a hit, but the hobgoblin twists its shield and disarms her.
• A character narrowly escapes the full brunt of a fireball but ends up prone.
• A character fails to intimidate a kobold prisoner, but the kobold reveals its secrets anyway while shrieking at the top of its lungs, alerting other nearby monsters.
• A character manages to finish an arduous climb to the top of a cliff despite slipping, only to realize that the rope on which his companions dangle below him is close to breaking.

When you introduce costs such as these, try to make them obstacles and setbacks that change the nature of the adventuring situation. In exchange for success, players must consider new ways of facing the challenge.

You can also use this technique when a character succeeds on a roll by hitting the DC exactly, complicating marginal success in interesting ways.

Degrees of Failure

Sometimes a failed ability check has different consequences depending on the degree of failure. For example, a character who fails to disarm a trapped chest might accidentally spring the trap if the check fails by 5 or more, whereas a lesser failure means that the trap wasn’t triggered during the botched disarm attempt.

Consider adding similar distinctions to other checks. Perhaps a failed Charisma (Persuasion) check means a queen won’t help, whereas a failure of 5 or more means she throws you in the dungeon for your impudence.

Critical Success or Failure

Rolling a 20 or a 1 on an ability check or a saving throw doesn’t normally have any special effect. However, you can choose to take such an exceptional roll into account when adjudicating the outcome. It’s up to you to determine how this manifests in the game. An easy approach is to increase the impact of the success or failure. For example, rolling a 1 on a failed attempt to pick a lock might break the thieves' tools being used, and rolling a 20 on a successful Intelligence (Investigation) check might reveal an extra clue.

Exploration

This section provides guidance for running exploration, especially travel, tracking, and visibility.

Using a Map

Whatever environment the adventurers are exploring, you can use a map to follow their progress as you relate the details of their travels. In a dungeon, tracking movement on a map lets you describe the branching passages, doors, chambers, and other features the adventurers encounter as they go, and gives the players the opportunity to choose their own path. Similarly, a wilderness map can show roads, rivers, terrain, and other features that might guide the characters on their travels-or lead them astray.

The Map Travel Pace table helps you track travel on maps of different scales. The table shows how much distance on a map the adventurers can cover on foot in minutes, hours, or days. The table uses the travel paces-slow, normal, and fast-described in the Player’s Handbook. Characters moving at a normal pace can walk about 24 miles in a day.

Map Travel Pace

Special Travel Pace

The rules on travel pace in the Player’s Handbook assume that a group of travelers adopts a pace that, over time, is unaffected by the individual members' walking speeds. The difference between walking speeds can be significant during combat, but during an overland journey, the difference vanishes as travelers pause to catch their breath, the faster ones wait for the slower ones, and one traveler’s quickness is matched by another traveler’s endurance.

A character bestride a phantom steed, soaring through the air on a carpet of flying, or riding a sailboat or a steam-powered gnomish contraption doesn’t travel at a normal rate, since the magic, engine, or wind doesn’t tire the way a creature does and the air doesn’t contain the types of obstructions found on land. When a creature is traveling with a flying speed or with a speed granted by magic, an engine, or a natural force (such as wind or a water current), translate that speed into travel rates using the following rules:

• In 1 minute, you can move a number of feet equal to your speed times 10.
• In 1 hour, you can move a number of miles equal to your speed divided by 10.
• For daily travel, multiply your hourly rate of travel by the number of hours traveled (typically 8 hours).
• For a fast pace, increase the rate of travel by one-third.
• For a slow pace, multiply the rate by two-thirds.

For example, a character under the effect of a wind walk spell gains a flying speed of 300 feet. In 1 minute, the character can move 3,000 feet at a normal pace, 4,000 feet at a fast pace, or 2,000 feet at a slow pace.

The character can also cover 20, 30, or 40 miles in an hour. The spell lasts for 8 hours, allowing the character to travel 160, 240, or 320 miles in a day.

Similarly, a phantom steed spell creates a magical mount with a speed of 100 feet that doesn’t tire like a real horse. A character on a phantom steed can cover 1,000 feet in 1 minute at a normal pace, 1,333 feet at a fast pace, or 666 feet at a slow pace. In 1 hour, the character can travel 7, 10, or 13 miles.

Visibility Outdoors

When traveling outdoors, characters can see about 2 miles in any direction on a clear day, or until the point where trees, hills, or other obstructions block their view. Rain normally cuts maximum visibility down to 1 mile, and fog can cut it down to between 100 and 300 feet. On a clear day, the characters can see 40 miles if they are atop a mountain or a tall hill, or are otherwise able to look down on the area around them from a height.

Noticing Other Creatures

While exploring, characters might encounter other creatures. An important question in such a situation is who notices whom.

Indoors, whether the sides can see one another usually depends on the configuration of rooms and passageways. Vision might also be limited by light sources. Outdoor visibility can be hampered by terrain, weather, and time of day. Creatures can be more likely to hear one another before they see anything.

If neither side is being stealthy, creatures automatically notice each other once they are within sight or hearing range of one another. Otherwise, compare the Dexterity (Stealth) check results of the creatures in the group that is hiding with the passive Wisdom (Perception) scores of the other group, as explained in the Player’s Handbook.

Tracking

Adventurers sometimes choose their path by following the tracks of other creatures-or other creatures might track the adventurers! To track, one or more creatures must succeed on a Wisdom (Survival) check. You might require trackers to make a new check in any of the following circumstances:

• They stop tracking and resume after finishing a short or long rest.
• The trail crosses an obstacle, such as a river, that shows no tracks.
• The weather conditions or terrain changes in a way that makes tracking harder.

The DC for the check depends on how well the ground shows signs of a creature’s passage. No roll is necessary in situations where the tracks are obvious. For example, no check is needed to track an army advancing along a muddy road. Spotting tracks on a bare stone floor is more challenging, unless the creature being tracked leaves a distinct trail. Additionally, the passage of time often makes tracks harder to follow. In a situation where there is no trail to follow, you can rule that tracking is impossible. The Tracking DCs table offers guidelines for setting the DC or, if you prefer, you can choose a DC based on your assessment of the difficulty. You can also grant advantage on the check if there’s more than one set of tracks to follow, or disadvantage if the trail being followed passes through a well-trafficked area.

On a failed check, the character loses the trail but can attempt to find it again by making a careful search of the area. It takes 10 minutes to find a trail in a confined area such as a dungeon, or 1 hour outdoors.

Tracking DCs

Social Interaction

During a social interaction, the adventurers usually have a goal. They want to extract information, secure aid, win someone’s trust, escape punishment, avoid combat, negotiate a treaty, or achieve whatever other objective led to the interaction in the first place. The creatures they interact with also have agendas.

Some DMs prefer to run a social interaction as a free-form roleplaying exercise, where dice rarely come into play. Other DMs prefer to resolve the outcome of an interaction by having characters make Charisma checks. Either approach works, and most games fall somewhere in between, balancing player skill(roleplaying and persuading) with character skill (reflected by ability checks).

Resolving Interactions

The Player’s Handbook provides guidelines for balancing roleplaying and ability checks in a social interaction (see chapter 8, “Adventuring,” in that book). This section adds to that material by providing a structured way to resolve a social interaction. Much of this structure will be invisible to your players in play and isn’t meant to be a substitute for roleplaying.

1. Starting Attitude

Choose the starting attitude of a creature the adventurers are interacting with: friendly, indifferent, or hostile.

A friendly creature wants to help the adventurers and wishes for them to succeed. For tasks or actions that require no particular risk, effort, or cost, friendly creatures usually help without question. If an element of personal risk is involved, a successful Charisma check might be required to convince a friendly creature to take that risk.

An indifferent creature might help or hinder the party, depending on what the creature sees as most beneficial. A creature’s indifference doesn’t necessarily make it standoffish or disinterested. Indifferent creatures might be polite and genial, surly and irritable, or anything in between. A successful Charisma check is necessary when the adventurers try to persuade an indifferent creature to do something.

A hostile creature opposes the adventurers and their goals but doesn’t necessarily attack them on sight. For example, a condescending noble might wish to see a group of upstart adventurers fail so as to keep them from becoming rivals for the king’s attention, thwarting them with slander and scheming rather than direct threats and violence. The adventurers need to succeed on one or more challenging Charisma checks to convince a hostile creature to do anything on their behalf. That said, a hostile creature might be so ill-disposed toward the party that no Charisma check can improve its attitude, in which case any attempt to sway it through diplomacy fails automatically.

2. Conversation

Play out the conversation. Let the adventurers make their points, trying to frame their statements in terms that are meaningful to the creature they are interacting with.

Changing Attitude

The attitude of a creature might change over the course of a conversation. If the adventurers say or do the right things during an interaction (perhaps by touching on a creature’s ideal, bond, or flaw), they can make a hostile creature temporarily indifferent, or make an indifferent creature temporarily friendly. Likewise, a gaffe, insult, or harmful deed might make a friendly creature temporarily indifferent or turn an indifferent creature hostile.

Whether the adventurers can shift a creature’s attitude is up to you. You decide whether the adventurers have successfully couched their statements in terms that matter to the creature. Typically, a creature’s attitude can’t shift more than one step during a single interaction, whether temporarily or permanently.

Determining Characteristics

The adventurers don’t necessarily enter into a social interaction with a full understanding of a creature’s ideal, bond, or flaw. If they want to shift a creature’s attitude by playing on these characteristics, they first need to determine what the creature cares about. They can guess, but doing so runs the risk of shifting the creature’s attitude in the wrong direction if they guess badly.

After interacting with a creature long enough to get a sense of its personality traits and characteristics through conversation, an adventurer can attempt a Wisdom (Insight) check to uncover one of the creature’s characteristics. You set the DC. A check that fails by 10 or more might misidentify a characteristic, so you should provide a false characteristic or invert one of the creature’s existing characteristics. For example, if an old sage’s flaw is that he is prejudiced against the uneducated, an adventurer who badly fails the check might be told that the sage enjoys personally seeing to the education of the downtrodden.

Given time, adventurers can also learn about a creature’s characteristics from other sources, including its friends and allies, personal letters, and publicly told stories. Acquiring such information might be the basis of an entirely different set of social interactions.

3. Charisma Check

When the adventurers get to the point of their request, demand, or suggestion-or if you decide the conversation has run its course-call for a Charisma check. Any character who has actively participated in the conversation can make the check. Depending on how the adventurers handled the conversation, the Persuasion, Deception, or Intimidation skill might apply to the check. The creature’s current attitude determines the DC required to achieve a specific reaction, as shown in the Conversation Reaction table.

Conversation Reaction

Conversation Reaction

Aiding the Check

Other characters who make substantial contributions to the conversation can help the character making the check. If a helping character says or does something that would influence the interaction in a positive way, the character making the Charisma check can do so with advantage. If the other character inadvertently says something counter productive or offensive, the character making the Charisma check has disadvantage on that check.

Multiple Checks

Certain situations might call for more than one check, particularly if the adventurers come into the interaction with multiple goals.

4. Repeat?

Once a Charisma check has been made, further attempts to influence the target of the interaction might be fruitless or run the risk of upsetting or angering the subject creature, potentially shifting its attitude toward hostility. Use your best judgment. For example, if the party’s rogue says something that pushes a noble’s attitude toward the party from indifferent to hostile, another character might be able to diffuse the noble’s hostility with clever roleplaying and a successful Charisma (Persuasion) check.

Roleplaying

For some DMs, roleplaying comes naturally. If it doesn’t come naturally for you, don’t worry. The main thing is for you to have fun portraying your NPCs and monsters and to amuse your players in the process. You don’t need to be a practiced thespian or comedian to create drama or humor. The key is to pay attention to the story elements and characterizations that make your players laugh or feel emotionally engaged and to incorporate those things into your roleplaying.

Being the NPC

Imagine how a character or monster you bring to life would react to the adventurers. Consider what it cares about. Does it have any ideals, flaws, or bonds? By working such things into your portrayal, you not only make the character or monster more believable, but you also enhance the sense that the adventurers are in a living world.

Strive for responses and actions that introduce twists into the game. For example, an old woman whose family was killed at the hands of an evil wizard might regard the party’s wizard with grave suspicion.

However you roleplay a character or monster, the classic advice for writers holds true: show, don’t tell. For example, rather than describe an NPC as shallow and self-centered, have the individual act the way you would expect a shallow, self-centered person to behave. The NPC might have off-the-cuff answers for everything, an over-willingness to share personal anecdotes, and a desperate need to make himself or herself the subject of every conversation.

Using Your Voice

Most of what you say during a session will be at a consistent level. For dramatic effect, be ready to shout out a battle cry or speak in a conspiratorial whisper.

Also, characters and monsters with distinctive voices are memorable. If you’re not a natural mimic or actor, borrowing distinctive speech patterns from real life, the movies, or television is a good place to start. Practice different voices and impersonations of famous people, then use those voices to bring your NPCs to life.

Experiment with different speech patterns. For instance, a barmaid and a city magistrate probably use their words differently. Similarly, peasants could speak in earthy dialects, while rich folk talk in haughty drawls.

Let a pirate NPC say, “Arrrr, maties!” in your best Long John Silver voice. Let intelligent monsters unfamiliar with Common stumble along with awkward grammar.

Let drunkards and monsters mutter with slurred speech, while lizardfolk hiss their threats. In any interaction with multiple NPCs, make sure the adventurers remain the focus. Have the NPCs talk to them, not so much to each other. If possible, let one NPC do most of the talking, but if multiple NPCs need to talk, give them distinct voices so the players know who’s who.

Using Your Face and Arms

Use your facial expressions to help show a character’s emotions. Scowl, smile, grin, snarl, pout, cross your eyes-do whatever it takes to make the character or monster memorable to the players. When you combine facial expressions with an unusual voice, a character truly comes to life.

Though you don’t need to stand up out of your chair, you can use your arms to bring even more life to an NPC. A noble could chop the air with one hand while speaking in a deadpan monotone, while an archmage might express her displeasure by silently rolling her eyes and massaging her temples with her fingers.

Engaging the Players

Some players enjoy roleplaying and interaction more than others. Whatever your players' tastes, your lively portrayal of NPCs and monsters can inspire players to make just as much investment in portraying their characters. This makes social interactions an opportunity for everyone to become more immersed in the game, creating a story whose protagonists have depth.

To make sure everyone has something to do during a roleplaying-heavy game session, consider one or more of the following approaches.

Appeal to Player Preferences

There are in-game activities that players enjoy more than others, as discussed in this book’s introduction. Players who like acting thrive in interaction situations, and it’s fine to let those players take the spotlight. They often inspire other players by their example, but make sure those other players have an opportunity to join in the fun.

Players who like exploring and storytelling are usually amenable to roleplaying, as long as it moves the campaign forward and reveals more about the world. Players who like problem-solving often enjoy figuring out the right thing to say to shift an NPC’s attitude. Players who are instigators like provoking reactions from NPCs, so they’re often easily engaged-though not always productively.

Players who like to optimize their characters and slay monsters also like to argue, and having conflict within an interaction can help those players embrace roleplaying. Still, creating combat connections to an extended interaction (such as a corrupt vizier sending assassins to kill the adventurers) is often the best way to keep action-focused players engaged.

Target Specific Characters

Create situations where characters who might not otherwise be engaged with a social interaction have to do at least some of the talking. Perhaps the NPC in question is a family member or a contact of a particular adventurer and talks only to that character. An NPC of a certain race or class might listen only to characters he or she feels a kinship with. Creating a sense of importance can be a great way to get specific players engaged, but don’t shut out players who are already roleplaying.

If a couple of players are dominating the conversation, take a moment now and then to involve the others. You can do this in character if you like: “And what about your hulking friend? Speak, barbarian! What will you pledge in exchange for my favor?” Or just ask the player what his or her character is doing while the conversation is going on. The first approach is better for players who are already comfortable speaking in their characters' voices. The second approach works better for players who need encouragement to engage in a roleplaying scenario.

Objects

When characters need to saw through ropes, shatter a window, or smash a vampire’s coffin, the only hard and fast rule is this: given enough time and the right tools, characters can destroy any destructible object. Use common sense when determining a character’s success at damaging an object. Can a fighter cut through a section of a stone wall with a sword? No, the sword is likely to break before the wall does.

For the purpose of these rules, an object is a discrete, inanimate item like a window, door, sword, book, table, chair, or stone, not a building or a vehicle that is composed of many other objects.

Statistics for Objects

When time is a factor, you can assign an Armor Class and hit points to a destructible object. You can also give it immunities, resistances, and vulnerabilities to specific types of damage.

Armor Class

An object’s Armor Class is a measure of how difficult it is to deal damage to the object when striking it (because the object has no chance of dodging out of the way). The Object Armor Class table provides suggested AC values for various substances.

Object Armor Class

Hit Points

An object’s hit points measure how much damage it can take before losing its structural integrity. Resilient objects have more hit points than fragile ones. Large objects also tend to have more hit points than small ones, unless breaking a small part of the object is just as effective as breaking the whole thing. The Object Hit Points table provides suggested hit points for fragile and resilient objects that are Large or smaller.

Object Hit Points

Huge and Gargantuan Objects

Normal weapons are of little use against many Huge and Gargantuan objects, such as a colossal statue, towering column of stone, or massive boulder. That said, one torch can burn a Huge tapestry, and an earthquake spell can reduce a colossus to rubble. You can track a Huge or Gargantuan object’s hit points if you like, or you can simply decide how long the object can withstand whatever weapon or force is acting against it. If you track hit points for the object, divide it into Large or smaller sections, and track each section’s hit points separately. Destroying one of those sections could ruin the entire object. For example, a Gargantuan statue of a human might topple over when one of its Large legs is reduced to 0 hit points.

Objects and Damage Types

Objects are immune to poison and psychic damage. You might decide that some damage types are more effective against a particular object or substance than others. For example, bludgeoning damage works well for smashing things but not for cutting through rope or leather. Paper or cloth objects might be vulnerable to fire and lightning damage. A pick can chip away stone but can’t effectively cut down a tree. As always, use your best judgment.

Damage Threshold

Big objects such as castle walls often have extra resilience represented by a damage threshold. An object with a damage threshold has immunity to all damage unless it takes an amount of damage from a single attack or effect equal to or greater than its damage threshold, in which case it takes damage as normal. Any damage that fails to meet or exceed the object’s damage threshold is considered superficial and doesn’t reduce the object’s hit points.

Combat

This section builds on the combat rules in the Player’s Handbook and offers tips for keeping the game running smoothly when a fight breaks out.

Tracking Initiative

You can use several different methods for keeping track of who goes when in combat.

Hidden List

Many DMs keep track of initiative on a list the players can’t see: usually a piece of paper behind a DM screen or a spreadsheet on a tablet computer. This method allows you to keep track of combatants who haven’t been revealed yet, and you can use the initiative list as a place to record the current hit points of monsters, as well as other useful notes.

A downside of this approach is that you have to remind the players round after round when their turns come up.

Visible List

You can use a whiteboard to track initiative. As the players tell you their initiative numbers, write them on the whiteboard in order from highest to lowest, leaving space between each name. Either write the monsters' initiatives on the list at the same time or add them to the list on each monster’s first turn.

As a further improvement, use magnets that you can attach to a metal-based whiteboard with characters' and monsters' names written on them, or write those names on cards held in place by magnets.

A visible list lets everyone see the order of play. Players know when their turns are coming up, and they can start planning their actions in advance. A visible list also removes any uncertainty about when the monsters will act in the fight.

A variation on the visible list is to give one player responsibility for keeping track of initiative, either on a whiteboard or on a piece of paper the other players can see. This method reduces the number of things you need to keep track of yourself.

Index Cards

In this approach, each character gets an index card, as does each group of identical monsters. When the players tell you their initiative numbers, write the numbers on their characters' index cards. Do the same when you roll the monsters' initiative. Then arrange the cards in order from highest to lowest. Starting at the top, you move down through the stack. When you call out the name of the character whose turn it is, also mention who’s next, prompting that player to start thinking ahead. After each character or group of monsters acts, the top card is moved to the bottom of the stack.

At first, players don’t know the order of play when you use combat cards, and they don’t know where the monsters fall into the order until the monsters act.

Tracking Monster Hit Points

During a combat encounter, you need to track how much damage each monster takes. Most DMs track damage in secret so that their players don’t know how many hit points a monster has remaining. Whether you choose to be secretive or not is up to you. What’s important is that every monster’s hit points be tracked individually.

Tracking damage for one or two monsters isn’t onerous, but it helps to have a system for larger groups of monsters. If you aren’t using miniatures or other visual aids, the easiest way to keep track of your monsters is to assign them unique features.

Descriptions such as “the ogre with the nasty scar” and “the ogre with the horned helm” help you and your players track which monster is which. For example, imagine that you’re running an encounter with three ogres, each of which has 59 hit points. Once initiative is rolled, jot down each ogre’s hit points and add notes (and even a name, if you like) to differentiate each one:

• Krag (ogre w/ scar): 59
• Thod (ogre w/ helm): 59
• Mur (ogre who smells like poo): 59

If you use miniatures to represent monsters, one easy way to differentiate them is to give each one a unique miniature. If you use identical miniatures to represent multiple monsters, you can tag the miniatures with small stickers of different colors or stickers with different letters or numbers on them.

For example, in a combat encounter with three ogres, you could use three identical ogre miniatures tagged with stickers marked A, B, and C, respectively. To track the ogres' hit points, you can sort them by letter, then subtract damage from their hit points as they take it.

Your records might look something like this after a few rounds of combat:

• Ogre A: 59 53 45 24 14 9 dead
• Ogre B: 59 51 30
• Ogre C: 59

Players often ask how hurt a monster looks. Don’t ever feel as though you need to reveal exact hit points, but if a monster is below half its hit point maximum, it’s fair to say that it has visible wounds and appears beaten down.

You can describe a monster taken to half its hit points as bloodied, giving the players a sense of progress in a fight against a tough opponent, and helping them judge when to use their most powerful spells and abilities.

Using and Tracking Conditions

Various rules and features in the game are clear about when they apply a condition to a creature. You can also apply conditions on the fly. They’re meant to be intuitive for you to do so. For example, if a character is in a state, such as sleep, that lacks consciousness, you can say the character is unconscious. Or did a character just stumble onto the ground? He or she is now prone.

Keeping track of conditions can become tricky. For monsters, it’s often easiest to track conditions on combat cards or wherever you track initiative. Players should remember any conditions affecting their characters. Because players have incentive to forget or overlook hampering conditions, character conditions can also be marked on combat cards or a whiteboard.

You might also try keeping a supply of index cards on hand, marked with conditions and their effects. Then hand the cards to players as the conditions come up. Having a bright pink index card on top of a character sheet can help even the most absentminded player remember the effects of being charmed or frightened.

Monsters and Critical Hits

A monster follows the same rule for critical hits as a player character. That said, if you use a monster’s average damage, rather than rolling, you might wonder how to handle a critical hit. When the monster scores a critical hit, roll all the damage dice associated with the hit and add them to the average damage. For example, if a goblin normally deals 5 (1d6 + 2) slashing damage on a hit and scores a critical hit, it deals 1d6 + 5 slashing damage.

Improvising Damage

A monster or effect typically specifies the amount of damage it deals. In some cases, though, you need to determine damage on the fly. The Improvising Damage table gives you suggestions for when you do so.

Improvising Damage

The Damage Severity and Level table is a guide to how deadly these damage numbers are for characters of various levels. Cross-reference a character’s level with the damage being dealt to gauge the severity of the damage.

Damage Severity and Level

Damage sufficient to cause a setback rarely poses a risk of death to characters of the level shown, but a severely weakened character might be laid low by this damage.

In contrast, dangerous damage values pose a significant threat to weaker characters and could potentially kill a character of the level shown if that character is missing many hit points.

As the name suggests, deadly damage is enough to drop a character of the level shown to 0 hit points. This level of damage can kill even powerful characters outright if they are already wounded.

Adjudicating Areas of Effect

Many spells and other game features create areas of effect, such as the cone and the sphere. If you’re not using miniatures or another visual aid, it can sometimes be difficult to determine who’s in an area of effect and who isn’t. The easiest way to address such uncertainty is to go with your gut and make a call.

If you would like more guidance, consider using the Targets in Areas of Effect table. To use the table, imagine which combatants are near one another, and let the table guide you in determining the number of those combatants that are caught in an area of effect.

Add or subtract targets based on how bunched up the potential targets are. Consider rolling 1d3 to determine the amount to add or subtract.

Targets in Areas of Effect

For example, if a wizard directs burning hands (a 15-foot cone) at a nearby group of orcs, you could use the table and say that two orcs are targeted (15 ÷ 10 = 1.5, rounded up to 2). Similarly, a sorcerer could launch a lightning bolt (100-foot line) at some ogres and hobgoblins, and you could use the table to say four of the monsters are targeted (100 ÷ 30 = 3.33, rounded up to 4).

This approach aims at simplicity instead of spatial precision. If you prefer more tactical nuance, consider using miniatures.

Handling Mobs

Keeping combat moving along at a brisk pace can be difficult when there are dozens of monsters involved in a battle. When handling a crowded battlefield, you can speed up play by forgoing attack rolls in favor of approximating the average number of hits a large group of monsters can inflict on a target.

Instead of rolling an attack roll, determine the minimum d20 roll a creature needs in order to hit a target by subtracting its attack bonus from the target’s AC. You’ll need to refer to the result throughout the battle, so it’s best to write it down.

Look up the minimum d20 roll needed on the Mob Attacks table. The table shows you how many creatures that need that die roll or higher must attack a target in order for one of them to hit. If that many creatures attack the target, their combined efforts result in one of them hitting the target.

For example, eight orcs surround a fighter. The orcs' attack bonus is +5, and the fighter’s AC is 19. The orcs need a 14 or higher to hit the fighter. According to the table, for every three orcs that attack the fighter, one of them hits. There are enough orcs for two groups of three. The remaining two orcs fail to hit the fighter.

If the attacking creatures deal different amounts of damage, assume that the creature that deals the most damage is the one that hits. If the creature that hits has multiple attacks with the same attack bonus, assume that it hits once with each of those attacks. If a creature’s attacks have different attack bonuses, resolve each attack separately.

This attack resolution system ignores critical hits in favor of reducing the number of die rolls. As the number of combatants dwindles, switch back to using individual die rolls to avoid situations where one side can’t possibly hit the other.

Mob Attacks

Using Miniatures

In combat, players can often rely on your descriptions to visualize where their characters are in relation to their surroundings and their enemies. Some complex battles, however, are easier to run with visual aids, the most common of which are miniatures and a grid. If you like to construct model terrain, build three-dimensional dungeons, or draw maps on large vinyl mats, you should also consider using miniatures.

The Player’s Handbook offers simple rules for depicting combat using miniature figures on a grid. This section expands on that material.

Tactical Maps

You can draw tactical maps with colored markers on a wet-erase vinyl mat with 1-inch squares, on a large sheet of paper, or on a similar flat surface. Preprinted poster-sized maps, maps assembled from cardboard tiles, and terrain made of sculpted plaster or resin are also fun.

The most common unit for tactical maps is the 5-foot square, and maps with grids are readily available and easy to create. However, you don’t have to use a grid at all. You can track distances with a tape measure, string, craft sticks, or pipe cleaners cut to specific lengths. Another option is a play surface covered by 1-inch hexagons (often called hexes), which combines the easy counting of a grid with the more flexible movement of using no grid. Dungeon corridors with straight walls and right angles don’t map easily onto hexes, though.

Creature Size on Squares and Hexes

A creature’s size determines how much space it occupies on squares or hexes, as shown in the Creature Size and Space table. If the miniature you use for a monster takes up an amount of space different from what’s on the table, that’s fine, but treat the monster as its official size for all other rules. For example, you might use a miniature that has a Large base to represent a Huge giant. The giant takes up less space on the battlefield than its size suggests, but it is still Huge for the purposes of rules like grappling.

Creature Size and Space

Areas of Effect

The area of effect of a spell, monster ability, or other feature must be translated onto squares or hexes to determine which potential targets are in the area and which aren’t.

Choose an intersection of squares or hexes as the point of origin of an area of effect, then follow its rules as normal. If an area of effect is circular and covers at least half a square, it affects that square.

Line of Sight

To determine whether there is line of sight between two spaces, pick a corner of one space and trace an imaginary line from that corner to any part of another space. If at least one such line doesn’t pass through or touch an object or effect that blocks vision-such as a stone wall, a thick curtain, or a dense cloud of fog-then there is line of sight.

This degree of precision is rarely necessary. You can determine line of sight as you do when playing without miniatures: make a call, and keep the game moving.

Cover

To determine whether a target has cover against an attack or other effect on a grid, choose a corner of the square the attacker occupies or the point of origin of an area of effect. Then trace imaginary lines from that corner to every corner of any one square the target occupies. If one or two of those lines are blocked by an obstacle (including another creature), the target has half cover. If three or four of those lines are blocked but the attack can still physically reach the target (such as when the target is behind an arrow slit), the target has three-quarters cover.

On hexes, use the same procedure as a grid, drawing lines between the corners of the hexagons. The target has half cover if up to three lines are blocked by an obstacle, and three-quarters cover if four or more lines are blocked but the attack can still physically reach the target.

Optional Rule: Flanking

If you regularly use miniatures, flanking gives combatants a simple way to gain advantage on attack rolls against a common enemy.

A creature can’t flank an enemy that it can’t see. A creature also can’t flank while it is incapacitated. A Large or larger creature is flanking as long as at least one square or hex of its space qualifies for flanking.

Flanking on Squares

When a creature and at least one of its allies are adjacent to an enemy and on opposite sides or corners of the enemy’s space, they flank that enemy, and each of them has advantage on melee attack rolls against that enemy.

When in doubt about whether two creatures flank an enemy on a grid, trace an imaginary line between the centers of the creatures' spaces. If the line passes through opposite sides or corners of the enemy’s space, the enemy is flanked.

Flanking on Hexes

When a creature and at least one of its allies are adjacent to an enemy and on opposite sides of the enemy’s space, they flank that enemy, and each of them has advantage on attack rolls against that enemy. On hexes, count around the enemy from one creature to its ally. Against a Medium or smaller creature, the allies flank if there are 2 hexes between them. Against a Large creature, the allies flank if there are 4 hexes between them. Against a Huge creature, they must have 5 hexes between them. Against a Gargantuan creature, they must have at least 6 hexes between them.

Optional Rule: Diagonals

The Player’s Handbook presents a simple method for counting movement and measuring range on a grid: count every square as 5 feet, even if you’re moving diagonally. Though this is fast in play, it breaks the laws of geometry and is inaccurate over long distances. This optional rule provides more realism, but it requires more effort during combat.

When measuring range or moving diagonally on a grid, the first diagonal square counts as 5 feet, but the second diagonal square counts as 10 feet. This pattern of 5 feet and then 10 feet continues whenever you’re counting diagonally, even if you move horizontally or vertically between different bits of diagonal movement.

For example, a character might move one square diagonally (5 feet), then three squares straight (15 feet), and then another square diagonally (10 feet) for a total movement of 30 feet.

Optional Rule: Facing

If you want the precision of knowing which way a creature is facing, consider using this optional rule. Whenever a creature ends its move, it can change its facing. Each creature has a front arc (the direction it faces), left and right side arcs, and a rear arc. A creature can also change its facing as a reaction when any other creature moves.

A creature can normally target only creatures in its front or side arcs. It can’t see into its rear arc. This means an attacker in the creature’s rear arc makes attack rolls against it with advantage.

Shields apply their bonus to AC only against attacks from the front arc or the same side arc as the shield. For example, a fighter with a shield on the left arm can use it only against attacks from the front and left arcs.

Feel free to determine that not all creatures have every type of arc. For example, an amorphous ochre jelly could treat all of its arcs as front ones, while a hydra might have three front arcs and one rear one. On squares, you pick one side of a creature’s space as the direction it is facing. Draw a diagonal line outward from each corner of this side to determine the squares in its front arc. The opposite side of the space determines its rear arc in the same way. The remaining spaces to either side of the creature form its side arcs.

On hexes, determining the front, rear, and side arcs requires more judgment. Pick one side of the creature’s space and create a wedge shape expanding out from there for the front arc, and another on the opposite side of the creature for the rear arc. The remaining spaces to either side of the creature are its side arcs.

A square or hex might be in more than one arc, depending on how you draw the lines from a creature’s space. If more than half of a square or hex lies in one arc, it is in that arc. If it is split exactly down the middle, use this rule: if half of it lies in the front arc, it’s in that arc. If half of it is in a side arc and the rear arc, it’s in the side arc.

Adjudicating Reaction Timing

Typical combatants rely on the opportunity attack and the Ready action for most of their reactions in a fight. Various spells and features give a creature more reaction options, and sometimes the timing of a reaction can be difficult to adjudicate. Use this rule of thumb: follow whatever timing is specified in the reaction’s description. For example, the opportunity attack and the shield spell are clear about the fact that they can interrupt their triggers. If a reaction has no timing specified, or the timing is unclear, the reaction occurs after its trigger finishes, as in the Ready action.

Combining Game Effects

Different game features can affect a target at the same time. But when two or more game features have the same name, only the effects of one of them-the most potent one-apply while the durations of the effects overlap. For example, if a target is ignited by a fire elemental’s Fire Form trait, the ongoing fire damage doesn’t increase if the burning target is subjected to that trait again. Game features include spells, class features, feats, racial traits, monster abilities, and magic items. See the related rule in the ‘Combining Magical Effects’ section of chapter 10 in the Player’s Handbook.

Chases

Strict application of the movement rules can turn a potentially exciting chase into a dull, predictable affair.

Faster creatures always catch up to slower ones, while creatures with the same speed never close the distance between each other. This set of rules can make chases more exciting by introducing random elements.

Beginning a Chase

A chase requires a quarry and at least one pursuer. Any participants not already in initiative order must roll initiative. As in combat, each participant in the chase can take one action and move on its turn. The chase ends when one side drops out or the quarry escapes.

When a chase begins, determine the starting distance between the quarry and the pursuers. Track the distance between them, and designate the pursuer closest to the quarry as the lead. The lead pursuer might change from round to round.

Running the Chase

Participants in the chase are strongly motivated to use the Dash action every round. Pursuers who stop to cast spells and make attacks run the risk of losing their quarry, and a quarry that does so is likely to be caught.

Dashing

During the chase, a participant can freely use the Dash action a number of times equal to 3 + its Constitution modifier. Each additional Dash action it takes during the chase requires the creature to succeed on a DC 10 Constitution check at the end of its turn or gain one level of exhaustion.

A participant drops out of the chase if its exhaustion reaches level 5, since its speed becomes 0. A creature can remove the levels of exhaustion it gained during the chase by finishing a short or long rest.

Spells and Attacks

A chase participant can make attacks and cast spells against other creatures within range. Apply the normal rules for cover, terrain, and so on to the attacks and spells.

Chase participants can’t normally make opportunity attacks against each other, since they are all assumed to be moving in the same direction at the same time.

However, participants can still be the targets of opportunity attacks from creatures not participating in the chase. For example, adventurers who chase a thief past a gang of thugs in an alley might provoke opportunity attacks from the thugs.

Ending a Chase

A chase ends when one side or the other stops, when the quarry escapes, or when the pursuers are close enough to their quarry to catch it.

If neither side gives up the chase, the quarry makes a Dexterity (Stealth) check at the end of each round, after every participant in the chase has taken its turn. The result is compared to the passive Wisdom (Perception) scores of the pursuers. If the quarry consists of multiple creatures, they all make the check.

If the quarry is never out of the lead pursuer’s sight, the check fails automatically. Otherwise, if the result of the quarry’s check is greater than the highest passive score, that quarry escapes. If not, the chase continues for another round.

The quarry gains advantage or disadvantage on its check based on prevailing circumstances, as shown in the Escape Factors table. If one or more factors give the quarry both advantage and disadvantage on its check, the quarry has neither, as usual.

Escape Factors

Other factors might help or hinder the quarry’s ability to escape, at your discretion. For example, a quarry with a faerie fire spell cast on it might have disadvantage on checks made to escape because it’s much easier to spot.

Escape doesn’t necessarily mean the quarry has outpaced its pursuers. For example, in an urban setting, escape might mean the quarry ducked into a crowd or slipped around a corner, leaving no clue as to where it went.

Chase Complications

As with any good chase scene, complications can arise to make a chase more pulse-pounding. The Urban Chase Complications table and the Wilderness Chase Complications table provide several examples. Complications occur randomly. Each participant in the chase rolls a d20 at the end of its turn. Consult the appropriate table to determine whether a complication occurs. If it does, it affects the next chase participant in the initiative order, not the participant who rolled the die. The participant who rolled the die or the participant affected by the complication can spend inspiration to negate the complication.

Characters can create their own complications to shake off pursuers (for example, casting the web spell in a narrow alleyway). Adjudicate these as you see fit.

Urban Chase Complications

Wilderness Chase Complications

Designing Your Own Chase Tables

The tables presented here don’t work for all possible environments. A chase through the sewers of Baldur’s Gate or through the spiderweb-filled alleys of Menzoberranzan might inspire you to create your own table.

Splitting Up

Creatures being chased can split up into smaller groups. This tactic forces pursuers to either divide their forces or allow some of the quarry to escape. If a pursuit splits into several smaller chases, resolve each chase separately. Run a round of one chase, then a round of the next, and so on, tracking the distances for each separate group.

Mapping the Chase

If you have the opportunity to plan out a chase, take the time to draw a rough map that shows the route. Insert obstacles at specific points, especially ones that require the characters to make ability checks or saving throws to avoid slowing or stopping, or use a random table of complications similar to the ones in this section. Otherwise, improvise as you play.

Complications can be barriers to progress or opportunities for mayhem. Characters being chased through a forest by bugbears might spot a wasp nest and slow down long enough to attack the nest or throw rocks at it, thus creating an obstacle for their pursuers.

A map of a chase can be linear or have many branches, depending on the nature of the chase. For example, a mine cart chase might have few (if any) branches, while a sewer chase might have several.

Role Reversal

During a chase, it’s possible for the pursuers to become the quarry. For example, characters chasing a thief through a marketplace might draw unwanted attention from other members of the thieves' guild. As they pursue the fleeing thief, they must also evade the thieves pursuing them. Roll initiative for the new arrivals, and run both chases simultaneously. In another scenario, the fleeing thief might run into the waiting arms of his accomplices. The outnumbered characters might decide to flee with the thieves in pursuit.

Siege Equipment

Siege weapons are designed to assail castles and other walled fortifications. They see much use in campaigns that feature war. Most siege weapons don’t move around a battlefield on their own; they require creatures to move them, as well as to load, aim, and fire them.

• Ballista
• Cannon
• Suspended Cauldron
• Mangonel
• Ram
• Siege Tower
• Trebuchet

Diseases

A plague ravages the kingdom, setting the adventurers on a quest to find a cure. An adventurer emerges from an ancient tomb, unopened for centuries, and soon finds herself suffering from a wasting illness. A warlock offends some dark power and contracts a strange affliction that spreads whenever he casts spells.

A simple outbreak might amount to little more than a small drain on party resources, curable by a casting of lesser restoration. A more complicated outbreak can form the basis of one or more adventures as characters search for a cure, stop the spread of the disease, and deal with the consequences.

A disease that does more than infect a few party members is primarily a plot device. The rules help describe the effects of the disease and how it can be cured, but the specifics of how a disease works aren’t bound by a common set of rules. Diseases can affect any creature, and a given illness might or might not pass from one race or kind of creature to another. A plague might affect only constructs or undead, or sweep through a halfling neighborhood but leave other races untouched. What matters is the story you want to tell.

Sample Diseases

The diseases here illustrate the variety of ways disease can work in the game. Feel free to alter the saving throw DCs, incubation times, symptoms, and other characteristics of these diseases to suit your campaign.

• Cackle Fever
• Sewer Plague
• Sight Rot

Poisons

Given their insidious and deadly nature, poisons are illegal in most societies but are a favorite tool among assassins, drow, and other evil creatures.

Poisons come in the following four types.

Contact

Contact poison can be smeared on an object and remains potent until it is touched or washed off. A creature that touches contact poison with exposed skin suffers its effects.

Ingested

A creature must swallow an entire dose of ingested poison to suffer its effects. You might decide that a partial dose has a reduced effect, such as allowing advantage on the saving throw or dealing only half damage on a failed save. The dose can be delivered in food or a liquid.

Inhaled

These poisons are powders or gases that take effect when inhaled. Blowing the powder or releasing the gas subjects creatures in a 5-foot cube to its effect. The resulting cloud dissipates immediately afterward. Holding one’s breath is ineffective against inhaled poisons, as they affect nasal membranes, tear ducts, and other parts of the body.

Injury

Injury poison can be applied to weapons, ammunition, trap components, and other objects that deal piercing or slashing damage and remains potent until delivered through a wound or washed off. A creature that takes piercing or slashing damage from an object coated with the poison is exposed to its effects.

Poisons

Sample Poisons

Each type of poison has its own debilitating effects.

• Assassin’s blood
• Burnt othur fumes
• Carrion crawler mucus
• Drow poison
• Essence of ether
• Malice
• Midnight tears
• Oil of taggit
• Pale tincture
• Purple worm poison
• Serpent venom
• Torpor
• Truth serum
• Wyvern poison

Purchasing Poison

In some settings, strict laws prohibit the possession and use of poison, but a black-market dealer or unscrupulous apothecary might keep a hidden stash. Characters with criminal contacts might be able to acquire poison relatively easily. Other characters might have to make extensive inquiries and pay bribes before they track down the poison they seek.

The Poisons table gives suggested prices for single doses of various poisons.

Crafting and Harvesting Poison

During downtime between adventures, a character can use the crafting rules in the Player’s Handbook to create basic poison if the character has proficiency with a poisoner’s kit. At your discretion, the character can craft other kinds of poison. Not all poison ingredients are available for purchase, and tracking down certain ingredients might form the basis of an entire adventure.

A character can instead attempt to harvest poison from a poisonous creature, such as a snake, wyvern, or carrion crawler. The creature must be incapacitated or dead, and the harvesting requires 1d6 minutes followed by a DC 20 Intelligence (Nature) check. (Proficiency with the poisoner’s kit applies to this check if the character doesn’t have proficiency in Nature.) On a successful check, the character harvests enough poison for a single dose. On a failed check, the character is unable to extract any poison. If the character fails the check by 5 or more, the character is subjected to the creature’s poison.

Madness

In a typical campaign, characters aren’t driven mad by the horrors they face and the carnage they inflict day after day, but sometimes the stress of being an adventurer can be too much to bear. If your campaign has a strong horror theme, you might want to use madness as a way to reinforce that theme, emphasizing the extraordinarily horrific nature of the threats the adventurers face.

Going Mad

Various magical effects can inflict madness on an otherwise stable mind. Certain spells, such as contact other plane and symbol, can cause insanity, and you can use the madness rules here instead of the spell effects in the Player’s Handbook. Diseases, poisons, and planar effects such as psychic wind or the howling winds of Pandemonium can all inflict madness. Some artifacts can also break the psyche of a character who uses or becomes attuned to them.

Resisting a madness-inducing effect usually requires a Wisdom or Charisma saving throw. If your game includes the Sanity score (see chapter 9, “Dungeon Master’s Workshop”), a creature makes a Sanity saving throw instead.

Madness Effects

Madness can be short-term, long-term, or indefinite. Most relatively mundane effects impose short-term madness, which lasts for just a few minutes. More horrific effects or cumulative effects can result in long-term or indefinite madness.

A character afflicted with short-term madness is subjected to an effect from the Short-Term Madness table for 1d10 minutes.

A character afflicted with long-term madness is subjected to an effect from the Long-Term Madness table for 1d10 × 10 hours.

A character afflicted with indefinite madness gains a new character flaw from the Indefinite Madness table that lasts until cured.

Short-Term Madness

Long-Term Madness

Indefinite Madness

Curing Madness

A calm emotions spell can suppress the effects of madness, while a lesser restoration spell can rid a character of a short-term or long-term madness. Depending on the source of the madness, remove curse or dispel evil and good might also prove effective. A greater restoration spell or more powerful magic is required to rid a character of indefinite madness.

Experience Points

Experience points (XP) fuel level advancement for player characters and are most often the reward for completing combat encounters.

Each monster has an XP value based on its challenge rating. When adventurers defeat one or more monsters-typically by killing, routing, or capturing them-they divide the total XP value of the monsters evenly among themselves. If the party received substantial assistance from one or more NPCs, count those NPCs as party members when dividing up the XP. (Because the NPCs made the fight easier, individual characters receive fewer XP.)

Chapter 3, “Creating Adventures,” provides guidelines for designing combat encounters using experience points.

Absent Characters

Typically, adventurers earn experience only for encounters they participate in. If a player is absent for a session, the player’s character misses out on the experience points.

Over time, you might end up with a level gap between the characters of players who never miss a session and characters belonging to players who are more sporadic in their attendance. Nothing is wrong with that. A gap of two or three levels between different characters in the same party isn’t going to ruin the game for anyone.

Some DMs treat XP as a reward for participating in the game, and keeping up with the rest of the party is good incentive for players to attend as many sessions as possible.

As an alternative, give absent characters the same XP that the other characters earned each session, keeping the group at the same level. Few players will intentionally miss out on the fun of gaming just because they know they’ll receive XP for it even if they don’t show up.

Noncombat Challenges

You decide whether to award experience to characters for overcoming challenges outside combat. If the adventurers complete a tense negotiation with a baron, forge a trade agreement with a clan of surly dwarves, or successfully navigate the Chasm of Doom, you might decide that they deserve an XP reward.

As a starting point, use the rules for building combat encounters in chapter 3 to gauge the difficulty of the challenge. Then award the characters XP as if it had been a combat encounter of the same difficulty, but only if the encounter involved a meaningful risk of failure.

Milestones

You can also award XP when characters complete significant milestones. When preparing your adventure, designate certain events or challenges as milestones, as with the following examples:

• Accomplishing one in a series of goals necessary to complete the adventure.
• Discovering a hidden location or piece of information relevant to the adventure.
• Reaching an important destination.

When awarding XP, treat a major milestone as a hard encounter and a minor milestone as an easy encounter.

If you want to reward your players for their progress through an adventure with something more than XPand treasure, give them additional small rewards at milestone points. Here are some examples:

• The adventurers gain the benefit of a short rest.
• Characters can recover a Hit Die or a low-level spell slot.
• Characters can regain the use of magic items that have had their limited uses expended.

Level Advancement without XP

You can do away with experience points entirely and control the rate of character advancement. Advance characters based on how many sessions they play, or when they accomplish significant story goals in the campaign. In either case, you tell the players when their characters gain a level.

This method of level advancement can be particularly helpful if your campaign doesn’t include much combat, or includes so much combat that tracking XP becomes tiresome.

Session-Based Advancement

A good rate of session-based advancement is to have characters reach 2nd level after the first session of play, 3rd level after another session, and 4th level after two more sessions. Then spend two or three sessions for each subsequent level. This rate mirrors the standard rate of advancement, assuming sessions are about four hours long.

Story-Based Advancement

When you let the story of the campaign drive advancement, you award levels when adventurers accomplish significant goals in the campaign.