A paladin is defined by her oath. She practices its tenets even before swearing to them formally at 3rd level. Tension between a paladin and her oath can create dramatic moments for the game, moments that are lost when the consequence of oathbreaking lacks nuance. The paladin’s sacred vows therefore deserve greater attention than they get in the official rules. This PDF f... 2022-01-25 00:11:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Open-world sandboxes can feel overwhelming to run. This supplement explains how to condense sprawling sandbox segments into an abstract structure called the Montage Dungeon. If you’re a hard-line stickler for story fidelity, rules-as-written and preserving the pace of the official module, you will absolutely hate this. But for those of you brave enough t... 2021-12-13 14:32:24 +0000 UTC View Post
Kobolds are masters of their environment. They are renowned for defending their lairs with deadly traps of improbable design. Their knack for traps helps them catch a variety of dangerous vermin which they build into their deadliest inventions, traps for larger creatures like adventurers.
As a player of a kobold, you’re probably excited to bring th... 2021-11-22 21:30:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Players love harvesting monster guts... It's gross, but true! So when they encounter a floating mass of tentacles and eyeballs, each with their own special power, you can imagine the grisly trophies they'll collect. This supplement provides rules for crafting special eyeballs into a range of wands, all balanced for players, while exploring the broader dimensions of floaty e... 2021-11-08 21:46:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey everyone!
Here are five A4-sized versions of this river in the Feywild with the central log in different positions, each with a full-inch, half-inch or no grid. I had a play with some watercolours last night on my Twitch channel and ended up with something I'm kind of happy with.
I want to try doing this more often, but I'd love some feedback on whether this kind of thing is useful to you at a...
2021-09-25 05:25:33 +0000 UTC View PostEvery six months I try to share some insight and updates into how your support helps me run the YouTube channel and its overall financial position. I actually love writing these breakdowns and reflecting on the business, because I believe being introspective in always worthwhile. I made this YouTube channel in April 2018 to promote my DriveThruRPG products, then launched this Patreon in May 2020 – it's come a long way, but there's still a lot further to go.
Some changes compared to pr...
2021-09-13 22:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Hi everyone!
This is the companion piece to this video which I just released on my friend Anto's channel. This video was prerecorded ages ago – I promise I'm not working during my break from YouTube!
These are silly little cards for assigning roles to players at the tables. Get THIS player to track initiative and get THAT player to take notes. If you have any suggestions for other roles we could outsource, let ...
2021-08-13 19:30:59 +0000 UTC View Post
Inspired by Critical Role... When the Mighty Nein faced off against a friend-turned-foe, Matt Mercer let the players use their Persuasion skills to leverage their former friendship and sap their opponent's Legendary Actions. This ruleset provides a more robust framework for social interactions in combat between former friends and bitter rivals, so the players' words have th... 2021-08-04 16:44:55 +0000 UTC View Post
Gnolls deserve love too! This supplement aims to provide some extra tools to help you flavour gnolls, turning them from malicious hyena people to malicious hyena people with even more deadly options! These are options you can swap out with a gnoll to alter how they operate in battle.
Now, even though these gnarly options are flavoured for those spott... 2021-07-05 22:46:57 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey friends!
Here are the generic stats I'm suggesting you use for your assault on the starting town in Chapter 2 of Storm King's Thunder. This is a combat against the Giant Commander and a number of minions equal to the number of players in your party.
The reason I've done this via Patreon rather than embedding it in the video or the Giant Attack PDF is because I expect these stats to change. As a flippant DM, I find I have a lot of freedom in the way I tell stories, but the trad...
2021-06-29 05:52:01 +0000 UTC View Post
One unlucky town in Storm King's Thunder is about to get wrecked by giants – that's just a fact. But this campaign doesn't have to be difficult to run! This PDF explains how to run an opening session where the players defend a town under siege by breaking the story into five simple scenes.
Scene 1: Cold Open. In this scene, you wil... 2021-06-22 11:15:36 +0000 UTC View Post
The official stat blocks are too cramped! These are A4 D&D 5E stat blocks expanded to include tick boxes for spell slots and legendary abilities. Expanded to include all skill scores and resistances — not just the ones the creature's proficient with. Expanded, so every eleme... 2021-06-07 04:31:03 +0000 UTC View Post
If your villain dies early, replace her! Iarno has written to the Black Spider, indicating he's betrayed her and set her in opposition against the players to get her out of the picture. King Grol has written to the players, threatening them and commanding them to leave the region because they want the Wave Echo Cave. Harbin has written a note to himself, indicating his madn... 2021-05-25 11:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Here are six magic items for your water-world adventure! The fun of an underwater campaign relies on the authenticity of the setting. While the rules are easy to adapt to the new environment, imaginations are not so easily transported beneath the waves. The players’ features and spells play out mostly as they did before. However, for having a third dimension in combat, on... 2021-05-10 22:31:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Your villain is important!
Think of it this way: the story is happening because of the villain, so you might as well know who they are. Any energy you can put into deepening your understanding of your villain is worthwhile.
In Storm King’s Thunder, the villain is an ancient blue dragon disguised in the storm giant court as the royal advisor.... 2021-05-04 11:33:32 +0000 UTC View Post
This is an index of every MPDM Patreon post relating to the Perkins Patreon Podcast, lovingly known as the Pea Pod.
All episodes in reverse-release order
This is an index of every MPDM Patreon post relating to the Lost Mines of Phandelver. You can find all the videos about LMoP here. Even though the video series is finished, I'm still developing and updating resources for the Starter Set.
All posts in release order
Compan...
This is a checklist of every piece of information in Storm King's Thunder, incremented by level of detail. The idea is to print this out and cross off items once you're sure your players have discovered that information.
At the moment, this list is far from complete. It turns out boiling an entire book into its core components is a lot more difficult than I would have thought, so I'm going to have to read the module again and take more notes to get this to where I want. But this is a li...
2021-05-01 18:30:29 +0000 UTC View PostThis is an index of every MPDM Patreon post relating to Storm King's Thunder. You can find all the videos about SKT here. I will add and edit this post with resources as they're posted.
All posts in release order
Battle Companions [full patron version]
2021-04-27 13:29:26 +0000 UTC
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Every combat encounter can be its own story—a tale with its own heroes and villains, its own tension and plot. And like any good story, a good combat can be ruined by poor pacing. When combat has too many combatants taking too many turns, it can slow the whole session down into a slog, and allied nonplayer characters (NPCs) can exacerbate that problem.
The rules here model a new, faster way to include such NPC allies. These battle companions’ abstract mechanics keep the...
2021-04-26 02:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Every combat encounter can be its own story—a tale with its own heroes and villains, its own tension and plot. And like any good story, a good combat can be ruined by poor pacing. When combat has too many combatants taking too many turns, it can slow the whole session down into a slog, and allied nonplayer characters (NPCs) can exacerbate that problem.
The rules he... 2021-04-24 03:42:59 +0000 UTC View Post
I try to put every dollar the channel earns back into covering costs, improving production, filling a Perkins-shaped hole in the internet. I made this YouTube channel in April 2018 to promote my DriveThruRPG products, then launched this Patreon in May 2020. In the last six months, things have gone gangbusters. It's going so well, revenue briefly overtook my ambition, so we're going through a period of rapid change as I try to spend this money effectively.
Goal results from Share...
2021-04-01 23:42:13 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey everyone!
I got bit by some crazy bug last night which compelled me to change everything. It's been on my to-do list for MONTHS to revamp how Patreon PDFs look and my general aesthetic across every platform. I'm really just playing around without locking anything in yet, but there are a few things I'm happy with here — namely the fonts and this awful lime green highlight.
I think the general direction is to go less black-and-white, messy ink splotch style, and...
2021-03-20 01:20:30 +0000 UTC View PostHi everyone!
This is something which I was planning to release on the 19th, but it's relevant to the video coming out soon so here it is early. The idea is to use this wheel to break down how your character is feeling so you can describe it better. I'd recommend you print this wheel, laminate it, cut it out and keep it with your at the table for when you're feeling spicy.
This is based off this wheel I found on Reddit: 2021-02-15 11:43:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey everyone!
Last week I posted this video all about Thundertree: https://youtu.be/agzZOagEaQQ
So here is the map I made for the video! It's broken into encounter-by-encounter sections so you can reveal as you play. It's not the most beautiful, but it was fun to make — I think I drew this one live on Twitch?
Next week I'll post a special Patron-suggested video, then the week after I'm making a Val...
2021-01-24 03:06:19 +0000 UTC View Post
When the party succeeds in lighting the brazier, whichever spirit was used to kindle the Everflame sheds its personality into a weapons of the party's choosing.
These sentient weapons are custom rewards I've designed for this one-shot adventure written by Aviad from Beyond the Screen. You can find my one-shot guide here: https://youtu.be/cWrDbrOsXfk
In the PDF version, I've included multiple versions with differe...
2021-01-11 02:09:24 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey everyone!
Rather than wait till this Friday, I'm putting this one out now to coincide with today's Xmas one-shot video. In the video, I suggest playing a battle where Santa's Sleigh has been stolen and represents a battle hazard in combat. While the players are fending off a hoarde of enemies and blasting the sleigh with fantasy AA guns, the sleigh is causing random effects on the battlefield.
Merry Christmas!
2020-12-21 22:01:57 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey everyone!
I thought some people might get some use out of these battlemaps for the Wave Echo Cave video. These are half-inch grids, so if you blow them up to 2x, you'll have a 1-inch grid. Attached is a PDF of the whole dungeon and individual image files.
What's next for Patreon?
We just crossed 100 Patrons — good grief! Thank you everyone for your support.
Next week I'll be releasing some Christmas statblocks alongside my Christmas video early ...
2020-12-18 04:08:44 +0000 UTC View Post
Hi everyone!
This is a little bit silly, but at the start of Christmas week I'll be releasing a video about how to turn Among Us into a holiday one-shot. So while I'm stuck without a computer still, I figured I'd draw a dungeon map while watching cartoons. I'm not much of an artist, but it's fun to practise this stuff. I'm planning on spending January following some tutorials and learning to draw properly, but I'm happy enough with this for now.
Schedule-wise, there's a little col...
2020-12-11 10:50:58 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey everyone!
This is simultaneously late from last week and early from this week, because both items are thematically tied to this week's video.
These location cards are different than usual, because you can use these to map out the whole Wave Echo Cave. Just place them number-side up for your players as they explore, then flip them when they enter the room.
The lore loot is a bunch of notes, meant to be little bits of lore you can sprinkle...
2020-11-30 09:15:35 +0000 UTC View Post