Hello DMs,

So, imagine this situation. The players are level 10 when they see a Tarrasque pop up out of the ground in the distance. Alarmed, they run to the nearest king and explain "Dude, a motherf*cking Tarrasque popped up in your kingdom and it's headed this way! We need your army to stop it!" and the king is like "Holy crap! A Tarrasque!? Ok, yeah, take my army of 21.000 shitty archers."

The players meet the Tarrasque with the army and initiative is rolled. The Tarrasque goes first and kills 1.000 shitty archers. Then the archers go and shoot. Let's say these archers don't have high enough dex+prof to hit this thing with any roll, by rules they would still hit on a nat 20. With these numbers it's safe to assume that about 5% of these 20.000, so 1.000, will he 20s. Let's say our shitty archers have +0 dex, so their damage is 1d8 + 1d8 from the crit. Average of 1000 * 2d8 = 9000 damage, comfortably killing the Tarrasque almost 15 times over. Ok, Terrasques have res to physical, so they would only be able to kill about 7 Tarrasques in one round. Even if all the archers rolled minimal damage the total damage would still be 1.000 after resistances, still killing the thing.

How do I make this and interesting fight? I want the archers to help, but I don't want it to trivialize the fight. In fact, I want the players to still be doing most of the damage while the archers do some non-zero amount of damage each round.

Now, I know many of you are going to comment "Lol, just don't allow this to happen." Not the answer I'm looking for, assume this will happen. In fact, if possible, assume that it's going to be much more than just 20.000 shitty archers.

Any cool ideas?

EDIT: Hello DMs, I read your comments, thanks for all the advice. Yeah, the 20.000 was exaggerated I wanted a solution to a big number as contingency rather than using a more realistic number like 2.000 and than later finding the players still cheesing it by drastically increasing the number.

For anyone interested what I went with was:

- Added mundane physical immunity. So now only those with magic bows actually have a chance at all. This should cut whatever relevant army size they can get by a good 90% to 95%.

- Auto-frightened on everyone who sees the Terrasque, no saves for anyone under level 5 or 7, haven't decided yet.

This cuts the damage from 20.000 archers -> 1.000 crits -> ~9.000 damage, 4500 after resist to 20.000 frightened archers -> 2.000 with magical bows -> 5 crits -> ~50 damage, 25 after resist.

Perfect, just what I'm looking for. I think the players will have to find a better way of killing this thing.

I'm dm-ing my first campaign soon and have been considering putting in subtle hints in real life, at the table on what arc we are in in the story.

I was thinking to wear a specific, quite obvious ring whenever a quest/whatever connects to the bbeg or something along those lines.

Eventually one can make the ring (in this example) part of the home stretch of the game, when they have to actually confront the bbeg, maybe it's an artifact or something.

My intent would be to have the ring stand in as a kind of foreshadowing, which they might catch during the game but also maybe only connect in retrospect.

The questions towards that would be, do you think the players would even notice? We all know players don't see the subtleties, on average. Does it even make sense to put hints into real life? If you only realise something is part of the campaign after it's already (nearly) over, would that still be cool for the players?

Thanks for your thoughts

Can anyone recommend any good one shots for a group of four Lv. 3 characters? The players are all newbies apart from one who has played in two other one shots. So something that gives them a good taste of what D&D is all about would be good. Something like the 3rd party one shot ‘A Most Potent Brew’ but for 3rd level would be great!

Thanks in advance!

Hey all, I was recently asked if I wanted to DM for a group of friends. On a whim, I said yes since I've done it before and had a good time. Problem is, I haven't played D&D in a while so I have no idea what has changed since I last played in mid 2022. I know there's a new edition but I don't know what it changes and would appreciate a summary (and a recommendation on whether I should use it or 5e). Similarly, since this will be my first time running a 1 shot, are there any good premade 1 shot campaigns that I can at least look over to have some guidance if I decide to write my own?

Really, I'm just looking for advice and help with both running a 1 shot and the new system. Thanks in advance! :)

My party has been lost on a strange outer plane for some time, marooned there with a large group of politicians, bureaucrats, and workers. They've found the way back, a site that can generate a gate back home, but they also know that the other side of the gate will be in the depths of an old magic-tech compound now commandeered by the bbeg.

I dropped hints about this a long time ago, and my party is certainly on guard on their approach to the site. They know the bbeg isn't necessarily aware of their return, but has taken the compound for their own use, so site they're heading to won't be guarded, just the destination. They've talked strategy a little bit, especially regarding protecting the large group they're traveling with (only about 20% of them would be able to fight for themselves). This is all great, but I'm concerned about designing an encounter that's actually fun, and not just a nerve wracking slog:

I could certainly draw up the map of the entire compound, think up how the compound functions, plop every guard mini in every logical spot, prep some special abilities/twists/surprise appearances of the bbeg. And then just run it like any other large scale encounter. And let my party's reward for their journey home be 3 sessions of "Are there any guards ahead? We killed those? Ok, I Dash and tell the group I'm guarding to follow" over and over......

On the flipside, I don't want the compound to be wholly abandoned or something either- no encounter at all. Part of the plot of the campaign they've been anticipating is that their emergence from the portal back to their home plane will be an "out of the frying pan, into the fire" situation, and I want to let them ride that momentum.

Any advice on an in-between solution for this? Also, for context, the party will be lvl 12 by then.

Looking for ideas for riddles for the core stats. Ex: “I am learned but can not be taught, I am earned but can not be bought.” Answer: Wisdom

I need ideas for what abillities/attributes I should give him, for reference, he is a Level 6 Goliath Samurai Fighter Multiclass Barbarian, he killed a Young Red Dragon.

I was thinking to make him Half-Dragonborn with a Fire Breath Ability and Fire Resistance, but I felt like that was too little reward for killing a Dragon (piles upon piles of treasure granted).

We both sort of treated it like Dragon Communion from Elden Ring, where eating the heart of said Dragon gives you a piece of their soul, thus making them a part of you, So I was thinking (since they were a Red Dragon) to give a couple points to their CON and STR while subtracting the equivalent from their CHA and WIS.

Maybe something like Dragon Incantations that can be used a limited time per Short or Long Rest like Dragonmaw and Dragonclaw? Idk, I need some ideas.

So there’s a general consensus about the phrase “are you sure about this?” in response to people doing something in D&D as a full-stop “this is a bad idea” phrase. Which is both not true at this point and also just not helpful to your player’s about to make decisions. If “are you sure about this?” is always a bad thing, your players are always going to think they’re wrong when they might not be.

There’s a ton of different reasons to ask a player if they’re sure of their actions. It could be a bad thing, or it could be locking in a decision between a few choices. It could be something serious or it could be your DM fucking with you (see so many posts about how DMs do this to stress their players out.) But because it can be so many things, we need to stop acting like just the phrase itself is actually helpful to anyone.

Expand on “are you sure about this?” with your players so they actually know what you’re asking about. You can’t read their mind and they can’t read your mind, open communication is just going to make things better for everyone.

Hello!

My players are going to be visiting a town that has a festival every year. The festival involves two people from the town doing 1v1 combat. Depending which representative wins, it determines how the entire city is expected to act. It's based off of Kindred Eve from league of legends.

Basically, one person represents lamb and one person represents wolf. The city is Bilgewater, a pirate city full of thieves, pirates, etc.

If Lamb wins, the city is not "allowed" to kill, cheat, or Lie for an entire year. Because of this, the town always tries to rig the fight in favor of the Wolf. They pick a small, weak, cowardly warrior to represent Lamb, and a strong capable warrior to attempt to represent Wolf.

That's all the "base" lore, so I'm expanding on it a bit.

The Lamb warrior is obviously somebody with no innate magical ability, the city intentionally avoids letting him rest the days before the holiday, weaponsmiths intentionally give him weaker weapons, etc. Meanwhile the Wolfkin Warrior is given the best weapons/armor, is treated like a king, etc.

Basically, the players want to try to even the odds, or outright rig it in favor of the Lamb Warrior. Importantly, they cannot participate in the fight themselves, so no casting spells during the fight (at least, not spells that they couldn't "sneak".) The Lamb Fool WANTS to fight, and geniunely believes he should try to win, but knows he has the disadvantage. He is not willing to allow somebody else to fight in his place.

Right now I have the Wolfkin Warrior as a Gladiator (CR 5), the Lamb Fool is a CR 1/8 Bandit. Obviously that's a pretty big gap. My players are level 12, so they have some pretty potent spells they could use to help, as well as gold to potentially get him some gear.

What are some things players could do to try to even the fight out. I'll probably increase the Fool's health a bit so it's not over instantly, but I'm curious what you think might even the odds or flip the odds in their favor. They have a Cleric, Sorc, Warlock, Fighter, and Barbarian.

Hi I'm building the setting for my groups next campaign and I wanted to know how casters would work in a relatively low magic world. In my world magic was discovered about 400-500 years before the campaign. The campaign is supposed to be in the magical version of the industrial revolution. Magic is being decentralized from wealthy elite and magic-heavy countries. Magic has progressed to a maximum of 5th-level spells. So how can I handle my players getting 6th and higher level spells. Also if you have any suggestions for the lore that would be appricated

I have a setting cooking where magic is omnipresent enough that I allow everyone, regardless of their class, to take one sorcerer cantrip they can cast at will. Part of this setting as well is that anyone can use scrolls to cast magic as well but obviously it's easier for practiced casters rather than those with just the baseline knack that everyone has, so I started putting together some mechanics to cover this and I want some more opinions on if they sound good or not, or if I'm overlooking something crucial.

• If a spell scroll is on a character's class spell list they can cast it as per normal rules.
• If a spell scroll is not on a character's class spell list, they can still attempt to cast it by attempting a DC10+Spell Level (SL) Arcana or Religion check if it's arcane or divine respectively.
• Compounding with the above, if the spell scroll is also higher level than your current caster level, the DC increases by another 1 for every step past your highest level. (e.g. Wiz 10 trying to cast Fire Storm from a Sorc scroll is looking at a DC19 Arcana check.)
• If a character without a spellcasting class attempts to use a spell scroll, they must either make an Intelligence or Wisdom check respective to arcane or divine magics, following the same rules for using spell scrolls higher than your level as a caster and casting spells above your caster level. If such a character has proficiency in Arcana or Religion, they may use those checks instead.
• Non-caster classes will have a 'pseudo caster level' similar to half-caster progression for determining the DCs of spells they attempt to cast. If a character gets access to the spellcasting feature through a class, they will instead default to that caster level for their checks regardless of their overall character level.

I am running a campaign with a group of level 5 characters. One of them, the fighter, typically far out damages the others in combat. I think this is because I'm misinterpreting the rules, or maybe they've changed in the new update (we're using DnD beyond and haven't played in a while, so I don't know if things are different now than before).

They have the Two Weapon fighting style, which I understand to mean if they take the attack action USING A LIGHT WEAPON, they can make a second attack with another light weapon, and they get to add their ability modifier to the damage roll.

But if they also have the Dual Wielder feat, the weapon they use for the initial attack does NOT have to be a light weapon.

So a round of their combat would go something like this:

Takes the attack action:

First attack with main long sword: +7 to attack role for long sword. 1 d8 +4 damage on success

Second attack with other dual wielded long sword: +7 to attack role for long sword. 1 d8 +4 damage on success

Bonus action:

Two weapon fighting attack with second long sword: +7 to attack role for long sword. 1 d8 +4 damage on success

The +7 for the attack roll comes from their +4 strength and +3 proficiency bonus from martial weapons. The d8 damage is a property of the long sword when used one handed. The +4 on damage stumps me somewhat. For the bonus action attack, it makes sense the +4 on damage comes from the ability modifier, as that's what the two weapon fighting style allows. Should the main attacks also be +4?

Its a little disappointing for the rest of the group (level 5 druid, cleric, sorcerer) to feel like they just can't contribute to combat in the same way. So I'm looking to make sure I'm applying rules correctly, and advice in general.

Are the other players just not using their classes correctly? Is the fighter overpowered? Would there be a way to nerf the fighter that doesn't feel like I'm punishing them or ruining their build?

Appreciate any advice!

Both I and my party have gotten fairly burned out on our current campaign, which I've been running as a very hands-off sandbox type of campaign. It essentially ended up with the party being in loops of being exploited by villains and not feeling like they have the time or ability available to take any kind of initiative for doing the things they want.

Thus, I am putting the game on a reasonable hiatus and planning ahead for what I want to run going forward, and the current plan is something akin to "The Boys", a small team of misfits that are designated with missions to complete and given free liberty to do whatever must be done to do the job. I figure that giving the party more direction and resources will help a lot. I'm generally planning around the concept that each mission will be more "heist" than "quest", with them being uphill situations wherein planning and preparation are not optional factors. The players are on board with the concept and agree it sounds fun, so I'm generally looking for any tips in terms of how to run something like this in the best way possible.

first of im dyslexic so sorry for the speling

so I'm dming for the first time and curent campaign is gowing for about half a year and my players just don't get that they can pick the quests they go on

they just pick what they think I want them to pick and then complain about the lack of choice I've given them 4 quests that are totally difrent in terms of content and they pick what they think I want I've expressed multipile times that it's a sandbox so if they want they can join the bbeg or just leave the continent or anything

I’ve always been baffled by how different other DMs seem to be compared to me, and this is one of the examples of this. I fudge at least 50% of the dice rolls in any given session I’m DMing and usually more. I’ve found that fudging rolls gives me a better ability to make the game more fun for everyone, whether it’s being able to make fight from levels 1-4 less swingy than they are normally, being able to more effectively play into any given character’s power fantasy/gimmick, and making a world with consistency where epic creatures don’t just get stomped due to bad luck and where common road bandits basically can’t scratch high level adventurers. My only exception is natural 1s or 20s on a d20, but that’s just because I don’t want to break the illusion of me actually rolling for things by making these too common or not common enough. But, I know that I’m a minority in this sense and most DMs don’t fudge often, and to the I ask, why?

Harnick, Ripley, Lulu and Mandor, don't read.

So they just went to an ancient temple, and in that temple on a terrace was a sundial.

The sundial had symbols of life around it, a seed, a small plant, a grown plant, and a wilting plant. in each cardinal direction.

The goal of the puzzle was that if they rotate the sundial, it clicks when they hit the proper order, which is seed, small plant, grown plant, wilted plant indicating the cycle of life.

What ended up happening, was they didn't touch the sundial, and decided to long rest multiple times thinking that it had something to do with the shadow.

It's on me for not putting any visual indicators or anything that the sundial could be moved, but the WORST part was the fact that I actually don't know how sundials work. I had to look up a picture of a sundial. They started asking questions and I had no answers. Was a ROUGH session lmao.

The world tree is growing malignant and cancerous, and must be destroyed before its rot infects the rest of the world, so that a new sapling can be born anew. The only way to do this is with the Hollow Flame, an artifact/spell invented millennia ago by the ancient elves who encountered a similar problem.

Due to their connection with the god who created the world trees, those elves considered the Hollow Flame a blasphemy, albeit a necessary one. So it could never be misused, they sealed the Hollow Flame away in a place they called the Vault of Memory, far in the uninhabitable, inhospitable north.

The players now need the Hollow Flame, which will send them in search of the Vault of Memory. As we are moving into endgame, this is one of the final dungeons in the campaign, and as a result... there's gotta be cool loot in it, right? It would feel very anticlimactic to not have that!

But why would it be there? The entire purpose of this dungeon is to protect anyone from obtaining the Hollow Flame, there wouldn't be any treasure or other incentives in there, logically.

"Items from the corpses of the adventurers who tried and failed before you" would make sense, but I've also said that this is basically in the equivalent of Antarctica, and has only been settled/inhabited within the past 50 years within the game world, so ancient epic items being there don't make much sense.

So... help me out. Where's the loot coming from?

Bonus: I suck at traps and puzzles. What sort of shit would be cool in a climactic dungeon like this?

So I’ve been working on trying to make a homebrew world while still sticking to RAW as much as possible for rules. I’m currently trying to flesh out the pantheons that would be present on the continent and establish what deities would be present and active within them. This is where it lead to my confusion. So in 5e the deities are divided into 3-4 power levels. There are overdeities, greater deities, lesser deities and quasi-deities. The first 3 categories make sense but I’m having issues with quasi-deities. According to the DMG pg 11 a quasi-deity is “A category of weaker divine beings who don't grant spells to mortal clerics, but could advance to lesser deity if they had enough worshipers. This category is divided into three main subcategories” titans, demigods, and vestiges. Now on the surface that seems to make sense you aren’t able to get cleric spells from a tarrasque, an empyrean, or a demigod like Hercules. However you are able to get cleric spells from a kraken, the Dead Three (Bane, Bhaal, Myrkul), or Jergal; even though they all fall under the quasi-deities subcategories (titan, demigod, and vestige respectively). I guess my question is how do you make the distinction in divine power levels within 5e or do you use a different divine power level system? Edit to add: I know this isn’t something my players will really see but I’m trying to figure out the divine levels to influence what god would that players see commonly worshipped, if they raid a tyrannical cult of Bane would the leader be able to have Cleric spells of Bane, or what gods medallion might they find on a fallen ranger body.

TL:DR I’m trying to figure out how to set up divine ranks so I can see the amount of influence a deity would have in a world with physical gods

Hello!

Im running a campaign for 6 lvl3 characters currently, and im looking for some reviews of what i think my chapter one ending should be, before the story takes them somewhere new

Basically, my party is currently in a fae city, being overrun by a mob of a enemy faction. This faction is able to co-exist with common folk due to some populist agenda, where they blame the leader of the city for something he had no control. I somewhat drew inspiration from Avatar, legend of korra chapter 1, and the fight vs amon and the equalists.

this faction is now setting up their master plan, where they want to use a magical nuke on the city, but in a way protecting the leader, so they can pin the attack on him. the idea is to trap him in a magical bubble next to the center of the explosion, so that it seems that he used a magical nova to blow half the city around him, destroying the defenses, while making the rest of the city punish the leader.

my party objective will be to find this plan out, despite some of the enemies working along side them, to further their goals under the guise of being the "good guys. there will be hints and clues for them to find, in order to realize the deception, but im prepared to move the plot along if they dont

on the fight itself, a number of the most devout "ready to die" members will try to delay the party while this "nuke" countdowns. if shit hits the fan, the leader will be able to use some magic to protect them from the blast, but given some countermeasures, he wont be able to stop the blast himself.

Im looking for some feedback on how would you guys feels about this, if this was your ending for the first part of the campaign. looking to make things a bit extra, cause my party deserves it, and i did promise them loads of deception and intrigue with some real consequences

I’ve been a DM for 10 years, primarily 5e. I like to think I do a pretty good job. I also have direct experience in jobs that require group dynamic management, aka I was a camp counselor and a school teacher.

But I have found that both of my tables (which have been playing for 5-7 years each) have developed the same problem - I’m thinking I need to probably change something in my style to smooth this out.

In both groups, I have 1-3 players with social or generalized anxiety.

In both groups, I have a more experienced player who could be considered “power” gamers, like to succeed, make the best plan, etc.

In both groups, the experienced player is overbearing / commanding / controlling of the other players. A quieter player might suggest a plan or idea but is told no, it’s not a good idea or safe idea because of X Y or Z reasons.

Sometimes they are correct, sometimes not. The issue here is the quieter players seem to accept the veteran player’s guidance or rejection of plans as law.

This creates a bad cycle where the quieter players don’t speak up to voice against a plan, because they don’t feel confident to do so and don’t want their plans or thoughts shut down. The veteran players see no one else is offering a plan or ideas, so they do.

To add to this, these veteran players are far more cautious than the others. At both tables there’s at least one player who loves to push the big red button and see what happens. They enjoy that risk-consequence element of DnD. Naturally, this player clashes with the veterans as well. So I sort of lump these issues together.

My Problem: trying to strive a balance between caution and chaos.

On one hand, the veterans are valid. They are often correct on what makes sense in-world, what would be safe, etc. They are also correct in that they feel every player has the right AND responsibility to speak up and speak their minds. They “shouldn’t have to coach & babysit the other players, should be able to just play the game and engage in it”.

On the flip side, the veterans are controlling. They often shut down or reject plans, they only “allow” risks that they deem worthy.

The frustration for me is these veteran players have no extra authority to be the plan makers. Sometimes it doesn’t even make sense for who their character is. But the rest of the party just goes with what they say, accept their ideas and thoughts as law. The other players give them so much power without realizing they have the same power

What’s the best way to balance this? Yea, I’ve talked to them and we’re going to keep talking about it. But where is the line drawn here? I’ve tried to prompt the others for their ideas in-game, I’ve tried to encourage them out of game to speak up and give their ideas. But when time comes around for deciding what to do next, it’s always the same.

I should state: overall everyone is having a great time. All of the players in both groups are friends. We generally have a good time playing, it’s just these are the obvious road bumps sticking out. It’s time to smooth it out.

EDIT: I should be more clear. I call some of the players “Veterans” in the above because they are the most experienced as players, and the most “entrenched” in DnD. None of the players at these tables are “new”, both groups have been playing together for over 5 years lol.

For context: The country that the party is currently in is made up of a bunch of different Holds. Currently, the party (6 lvl. 4s) has only visited one Hold - this territory is led by a pretty pompous ruler that spends money on things that make his life and general surroundings comfortable, but doesn’t really care about much else (not necessarily malicious). Because of this, they don’t have the strongest military force/presence.

The party could be adventuring East, which would take them to another hold where things are a bit more buttoned up militarily. They don’t have a ton of resources because of the terrain and are a bit isolated from the rest of the country because they sit in the north most corner without much accessibility to the shoreline. Because of this, they pride themselves on military strength and serve somewhat as the backbone of the country’s overall forces.

The border between the two holds is a river that is only crossable this far north by using a bridge that has twin forts on either side of the bridge. In their heyday, they functioned as one, well oiled unit. In more recent days, the Western side has fallen into disrepair because of mismanagement of resources, while the Eastern side is still humming along.

Now to my question: I would like the two sides of the fort to be in a sort of standoff with one another. They aren’t at the point of outright conflict, but the Eastern half doesn’t want anything to do with the shitshow to the west. They aren’t letting in travelers easily from that side of the river, and this will present an obstacle for the party to overcome so they can get into the next territory.

My question: what should I have as the main sticking point for the conflict? I want there to be a problem that the party can help solve, and I’d prefer to not have it be as boring as “you need to get your fort in order.” Ideally it would be something tangible that the party can accomplish and help resolve the conflict.

The title basically, I'm wondering if there's any way that dispell magic wouldn't work on magical items, more specifically if I have a puzzle set up that has magical components required in being solved or once solved has a magical effect, and essentially if the players were to dispel all the magic involved in the puzzle elements then it would be rendered inert and be unsolvable. Obviously I could just say that the enchantments on the puzzle are of a higher level but that still runs the risk of players succeeding on the check, technically DC19 being the max on account of 9th level spells being the max in 5e. Then there's also just saying no because "dm said so" but that's not a great solution.

Any thoughts on the matter would be appreciated

The idea for this is born out of a strong set of likes and dislikes regarding the latter two and a desire to make a fiend type that has the best imaginable traits and powers.

I will start with likes and dislikes.

Likes:

- Both can assume human form, freely traverse civilized lands and install themselves in political power structures, factions and temples. They are good for intrigue plots.

- Both are beautiful and darkly alluring.

- Their telepathic connection to their own kind makes them fountains of knowledge. They basically have a fantasy version of the Internet.

- Erinyes try to lure you into a pact, which makes for great roleplay.

- Succubi are less tied to abyssal hierarchy than the lawful Erinyes are to their infernal hierarchy. There is more room for a Succubus to pursue unique personal goals.

- Having charmed thralls can impose difficult choices on players.

- They can be used as a monster encounter or an ongoing NPC antagonist, whatever your campaign needs.

Dislikes:

- For succubi, the draining kiss means a character losing their soul forever is reduced to a die roll completely outside player control (or DM control in the case of an NPC the DM fairly applies the same rules to).

- The soul generally isn't kept by the seducer fiend, but turned into a cheap commodity with an actual gp value. It would be more interesting if the seducer kept the mortal's soul and did something with it besides converting it to larva or soul coins.

- The faction goals of "Impose perfect order" vs "We hate existence, End the multiverse" are a bit cartoonish for my tastes (more the second).

It might seem counter-intuitive to come up with a Yugoloth that assumes actual illusion-free human form, because almost all existing ones resemble some kind of animal. They do stand upright. Neutral Evil has to be the best of the three evil alignments, because it is the most flexible.

If Yugoloths had a seducer type, what unique powers might they have? How would they go about getting souls, if at all? What would they do with souls? Would they also have wings? How would their form differ? What goals would they share? What would they covet? Maybe they want land on the Prime that must be desecrated. How would you build this creature?

I have bitten off significantly more than I can chew after returning to DMing following a long break and unfortunately suffering brain damage. I have players with that are eager to challenge me and I had essentially asked them to, and created an ambitious campaign that is open ended, requiring significant quick thinking and improv - the things I used to enjoy most, and do the best at.

Everything I could have feasibly screwed up, I did. Once I made a few small mistakes, they snowballed and I completely went blank - forgetting character motivations leading to bad roleplay, losing track of basic elements and rules that I typically know well and had prepared for, making poor decisions and allowing the table to run away with irrelevant meta-talk as I was getting myself confused. The session ended with the players in conflict with each other and frustrated.

I'm trying to determine if this is just a one-off that simply just happened and can be recovered from, or if I am no longer able to do something I used to love. I want to give myself the best chances of pulling this back before deciding to step back entirely.

Have any of you experienced circumstances like this, then proceeded to pull it back afterwards? If so, what aspects of your preparation do you think enabled this and did you address it with your players outside of the game?

So I've been enjoying a game called Noita where you play an Alchemist, and it's possible, though difficult, to create a liquid called "Draught of Midas" that turns anything it touches into gold (except for the player and living enemies. The game kills you in plenty of other ways, just not this way).

After getting a lot one game, I realized it was actually kinda tedious to use it to farm for the really expensive costs, but it was still fun to mess with.

That got me thinking, could you give an actual flask of a liquid like this to a somewhat high level party without actually breaking anything? There's usually some threshold in a game where you can easily afford all the mundane gear you want, and everyone's got moderate magical gear.

Past that point, it's hard to really break the system with gold. The exotic magic items I can gatekeep by just limiting their availability for purchase, but then provide other uses for gold, and allowing players to offer more. Stuff like bribes, property, social reform, weaponized economic collapse, and/or a bar where anyone can get a free drink every night for saying how cool the player characters are.

I figure it would look something like this:

Flask of Draught of Midas

This flask, made of a strange transparent crystal material, contains 4oz of a shimmering gold liquid. When the liquid touches any solid non-living material other than it's flask, the outer layer of that object is transformed to pure gold.

If the players try to pour it or splash it on objects, it will work, but it will be hard to recover the liquid.

An obvious gimmick I think would be to pour it (carefully) into a bowl, then one at a time you dip in a copper coin, pull out a gold coin, let it drip a second, and then add it to the pile. Coins mostly because they are thin and easy to collect in quantity, but small stones or shavings of dead wood could work too. With some envelope math I figure a careful player could generate about 720 gold coins an hour once they had a pile of material to convert. I could tweak that number by saying the liquid is more viscous and it takes longer for the dipped object to drip clean if the players are being careful.

Then there's the potential for adding in new conflict depending on how careful the party is being. If they show up with a ton of gold plated rocks and gold leaves, or copper coins that are gold now, it'll be obvious something is up, and people can make a fuss, and trouble can brew. If the party is careful and smelts all the gold into ingots or coins before trading it, then that adds another bottleneck to their gold-flow.

In addition to all of this, careful use should allow them to break through durable materials like chains, though they risk leaving behind golden evidence.

Do any of you think an item like this could be a good idea?

If so, what do you think is an acceptable minimum level party to provide something like that for?

Can you think of any spells, magic items, or techniques I haven't that would allow them to get a lot more use out of it than I'm anticipating?

And do you think this would risk derailing the player's motive to ever leave town again? (In theory I'm okay pivoting to a town simulator if the players are enjoying it, though I'd probably need to look up another game system to fill in the details.)