[Deck Of Many Things Dmg
Everardo Laboy
The Deck of Many Things is the rare Dungeons & Dragons artifact that has lore both within and without the game. Using it was something of an all-in proposition. Draw the right card and a character can become the most powerful being in the world, but draw the wrong card and a fate worse than death awaits.
Outside of the game. the deck gained a reputation as a campaign altering moment. A simgle draw could take the storyline in a completely wild direction far from what the Dungeon Master could ever concieve. Many considered it to be used in emergencies only or to shake complacent players out of bad behavior.
Truth be told, Wizards of the Coast sent multiple review copies to me. The physical release of this product was delayed until after the holidays because of defects in the cards. The original copies I recieved did have production defects while the most recent one did not.
The cards come in a display box with a thin cardboard sleeve. The cards themselves are nice with a smooth matte finish and golf foil highlights on the artwork. While the new set weren;t bent and distorted like the original, some cards still stuck together a bit as I sorted them out of the books.
I liked the look of the deck and the feel of the cards. The packaging was a bit baffling, featuring a cardboard wraparound box that seems disposable and a few other throwaway bits as well. I wonder if they could have just shrnkwrapped the box and the game book together and spent the money on extra packaging on the contents instead.
Players can do reading for their characters which should give Dungeon Masters plenty of ideas to use in upcoming games. My favorite use of the deck is the adventure spread which turns the deck into a series of writing prompts for the next story. Dungeon Masters can use the draws literally or interpret them as needed to fit the story.
Nearly anything with game mechanics in this release comes in this book. Each card has a small chapter devoted to it with a discussion of things related to the card to be used in the game. There are also a lot of magical items that come from decks of cards.
Before you draw a card, you must declare how many cards you intend to draw and then draw them randomly (you can use an altered deck of playing cards to simulate the deck). Any cards drawn in excess of this number have no effect. Otherwise, as soon as you draw a card from the deck, its magic takes effect. You must draw each card no more than 1 hour after the previous draw. If you fail to draw the chosen number, the remaining number of cards fly from the deck on their own and take effect all at once.
Balance: Your mind suffers a wrenching alteration, causing your alignment to change. Lawful becomes chaotic, good becomes evil, and vice versa. If you are true neutral or unaligned, this card has no effect on you.
Comet: If you single-handedly defeat the next hostile monster or group of monsters you encounter, you gain experience points enough to gain one level. Otherwise, this card has no effect.
Donjon: You disappear and become entombed in a state of suspended animation in an extradimensional sphere. Everything you were wearing and carrying stays behind in the space you occupied when you disappeared. You remain imprisoned until you are found and removed from the sphere. You can't be located by any divination magic, but a wish spell can reveal the location of your prison. You draw no more cards.
The Fates: Reality's fabric unravels and spins anew, allowing you to avoid or erase one event as if it never happened. You can use the card's magic as soon as you draw the card or at any other time before you die.
Flames: A powerful devil becomes your enemy. The devil seeks your ruin and plagues your life, savoring your suffering before attempting to slay you. This enmity lasts until either you or the devil dies.
Fool: You lose 10,000 XP, discard this card, and draw from the deck again, counting both draws as one of your declared draws. If losing that much XP would cause you to lose a level, you instead lose an amount that leaves you with just enough XP to keep your level.
Knight: You gain the service of a 4th-level fighter who appears in a space you choose within 30 feet of you. The fighter is of the same race as you and serves you loyally until death, believing the fates have drawn him or her to you. You control this character.
Rogue: A nonplayer character of the DM's choice becomes hostile toward you. The identity of your new enemy isn't known until the NPC or someone else reveals it. Nothing less than a wish spell or divine intervention can end the NPC's hostility toward you.
Ruin: All forms of wealth that you carry or own, other than magic items, are lost to you. Portable property vanishes. Businesses, buildings, and land you own are lost in a way that alters reality the least. Any documentation that proves you should own something lost to this card also disappears.
Skull: You summon an avatar of death-a ghostly humanoid skeleton clad in a tattered black robe and carrying a spectral scythe. It appears in a space of the DM's choice within 10 feet of you and attacks you, warning all others that you must win the battle alone. The avatar fights until you die or it drops to 0 hit points, whereupon it disappears. If anyone tries to help you, the helper summons its own avatar of death. A creature slain by an avatar of death can't be restored to life.
Throne: You gain proficiency in the Persuasion skill, and you double your proficiency bonus on checks made with that skill. In addition, you gain rightful ownership of a small keep somewhere in the world. However, the keep is currently in the hands of monsters, which you must clear out before you can claim the keep as yours.
Vizier: At any time you choose within one year of drawing this card, you can ask a question in meditation and mentally receive a truthful answer to that question. Besides information, the answer helps you solve a puzzling problem or other dilemma. In other words, the knowledge comes with wisdom on how to apply it.
The Void: This black card spells disaster. Your soul is drawn from your body and contained in an object in a place of the DM's choice. One or more powerful beings guard the place. While your soul is trapped in this way, your body is incapacitated. A wish spell can't restore your soul, but the spell reveals the location of the object that holds it. You draw no more cards.
At the end of the last story arc, I gave my players the chance to let their characters draw from a Deck of Many Things. I told them beforehand that this could mess up their characters and the whole campaign. They knew the risks and their characters knew too. Nonetheless, one character decided to draw a card, alongside with two NPCs.
And just as expected, the results were horrible and messed up the whole campaign. So the next story arc will focus on how the rest of the group deals with the problems. And they have a lot of problems now. But I found a way to link all those problems together, so they can go on an epic quest to fix everything.
If you have at least a level 10 Cleric in your group, they can use Divine Intervention everyday until it works. Up until level 19, they only have at best a 19% chance to pull it off. However, a Level 20 Cleric can use it with 100% certainty.
This answer lists the three ways you can do this by the book. The first two (magic items, planes) are things you have already discounted. The third involves a potential quest about looking for Slaadi. If a Blue Slaad knocks the NPC to 0 HP, they become Chaotic Neutral (and also a Red Slaad, but they don't need to know that).
Only the Joker cards poof out of existence permanently after they're drawn. All the other cards reappear in the deck. This means they can keep drawing from the one they already have until they find the same card again.
Do not reverse the effects of the card. They encouraged their NPC friend to pull from a deck that could have killed him, sent him to a prison where only a Wish spell could have brought him back, earned him the enmity of powerful devils, etc.
Make the party face the consequences of their actions. Allow them a "what have I done?" moment. They might hate the NPC now, but they made him that way. There is no Epic Quest to go and undo their mistakes: the real Epic Quest is in learning how to live with their decision of willingly putting a friend in harm's way for their amusement.
The reincarnated creature recalls its former life and experiences. It retains the capabilities it had in its original form, except it exchanges its original race for the new one and changes its racial traits accordingly.
Imploring your deity's aid requires you to use your action. Describe the assistance you seek, and roll percentile dice. If you roll a number equal to or lower than your cleric level, your deity intervenes. The DM chooses the nature of the intervention; the effect of any cleric spell or cleric domain spell would be appropriate. If your deity intervenes, you can't use this feature again for 7 days. Otherwise, you can use it again after you finish a Long Rest.
5e3eDeck of Many ThingsBasic InformationOther namesDeck of Hazards[1]TypeMagical set of cardsAvailable fromFaern
Zhentil Keep, Moonsea[2]Rules Information3rd Edition Statistics[3]AuraStrong transmutationCaster level20th4th Edition Statistics[4]Level11+5th Edition Statistics[5]RarityLegendaryAttunementNoneA deck of many things, also known as deck of hazards,[1] was an assortment of magical cards or metallic plates that were arranged in a set deck. They were enchanted with great magic that was never to be used lightly.[6][5]
While each deck of many things was different,[6] they held some common properties. The majority of decks found contained 13 cards, while approximately 1/4 of them held 22. They were typically made of vellum or ivory, but could also be cast from thin sheets of metal. They were often kept in a small pouch or ornate box.[5]
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