DEADFALL | Infiltrate Thay. Stop Szass Tam. | Levels 11–20

Creating your character

Characters begin at level 11. We’ll create characters before the campaign begins and make sure everyone has a reason to actually be part of Operation Deadfall. You don’t need to make a rogue, assassin, or stereotypical spy character. A wizard who specializes in countering enemy magic makes sense. So does a bard who can talk their way through restricted areas. So does the fighter who’s there because sometimes the infiltration team needs somebody capable of kicking a door off its hinges. The important part is that your character has a reason they would have been recruited and can work with the rest of the group. Official character options will be available, including appropriate options from Arcana Unleashed. Optimized characters are completely fine. You’re playing level 11–20 D&D. Your character is supposed to be powerful. Just don’t build something whose entire purpose is making the game miserable for everyone else.

Preparing for the session

Come ready to create a level 11 character. With a working mic, and a basic understanding of what your character can do. You do not need to memorize every rule or ability, but at level 11 you’ll have a lot more options than a low-level character, so please take some time to read through your class features, spells, and important abilities before we start. Make sure you can access Discord, Foundry VTT, and D&D Beyond before the first session. It also helps to think about why your character would have been recruited for Operation Deadfall. What are they especially good at? Why would someone trust them with a mission this dangerous? Most importantly, come ready to work with the group, make decisions, and roll with it when the plan inevitably goes sideways.

What Jason brings to the table

I don’t run adventures exactly as written just because that’s what the book says should happen. The adventure gives us the framework, but what happens at the table depends on what the players actually do. NPCs will react to your choices. Decisions can have consequences later. Clever plans can completely bypass encounters I prepared, and that’s fine. I like a good mix of roleplay, exploration, and tactical combat. I also tend to favour the story and intent of the rules over stopping the game for twenty minutes while we argue over one sentence in a rulebook. If something is unclear, I’ll make a ruling, keep the game moving, and we can look into it afterward if we need to. Deadfall in particular should give players a lot of room to come up with plans, improvise when those plans inevitably fall apart, and solve problems in ways I probably didn’t expect. That’s a feature, not a problem.

Homebrew rules

Table rules: It's a bonus action to take a healing potion or to feed one to a downed creature (like in 2024 rules) but you can also use a full action to take full healing from it. Hidden initiative: until a creature's turn in initiative, it will be hidden from everyone else. Hidden death saves so only the dm (me) knows what you rolled on a death save. Critical hits will be max dice plus the Roll and modifier Inspiration, you can use your inspiration after you have rolled to give yourself advantage on the roll, unless it was a critical fail.

How Jason creates a safe table

Deadfall takes place primarily in Thay, so there are some fairly dark themes involved. These can include authoritarian rule, slavery and exploitation, undead, necromancy, demons, imprisonment, magical coercion, violence, death, betrayal, and some body horror. We’ll establish Lines and Veils before the campaign starts, and I use an X-Card during play. Nobody needs to explain or justify using a safety tool.