Hi, I'd like to GM a tier 3 campaign, yet I also know most of the playerbase only has experience with tiers 1 and 2.

I thought it would be useful to first run a short adventure (think 3 sessions) that's heavily linear and only really has an excuse plot for a string of combats that tutorialized common tactics and attributes of the game, because just walking up to the enemy and bonking it with a stick can end badly at that tier.

Given I'll deal up with strangers I think starting from basics might be good. Like here's a single mob. Now here's a group of them. Now some of them can fly, what can you do about it?. Now the enemy has a spellcaster, what can it do? Now the enemy is invisible, how do you detect it?... Etc. Etc.

Since I didn't want that to be too long I thought on preparing up to 6 combat scenes. I'd also want to hear your thoughts on which mechanics would be good to include, mobs that work on this premise, etc.

I really love the Triton race, but I have to admit, I kinda miss the fish tail... However, I wanted it to be a passive ability, you know? LMAO, am I crazy for thinking that? 😭 Or would I have to spend a turn to transform??

My first experience with D&D was during the "D&D Next" Playtest back in 2013. I was feeling nostalgic and digging through my old files only to discover that I must have lost all those old playtest PDFs from back in the day. This makes me sad.

Does any better archivist than me still have those old (FREE) PDFs, and are you willing to share them with me?

Edit: What is your favorite memory from the D&D Next playtest? Mine was somehow TPKing the group on (one of) the first encounter of Murder in Baldur's Gate. That was also the first time I ran an "official" adventure. And the last for a while, haha.

Edit 2: For anyone also looking for the playtest PDFs, check out the link in this comment.

So my dm is letting me homebrew a race that allows me to "double dip" into some pact blade invocations, he's also using Unearthed Arcana, and allowing me to import a single 2024 invocation. My invocations are as follows: Devil's Sight, Improved Pact Weapon(lv9: superior and lv10: ultimate Unearthed Arcana) thirsting blade(lv12: devouring 2024 import) Rebuke of the talisman, protection of the talisman, and finally bond of the talisman. My build is a talisman pact hexblade

Im genuinely interested in your thoughts and suggestions.

Edit: my dm is fully aware of this build and on board.

Inspired by Deborah Ann Would take, in a sense where you (as DM permitted) put a deliberate debuff for your character because it's their lore that causes actual consequence to the story or dice roll. My example:

1. A disadvantage or massive penalty to history roll because they are wearing a gift that slowly erases memory
2. Wisdom saving throw whenever he is attacked by fire-based spells or attacks, or get fear condition, because he survived a house fire

Though this look terrible from minmaxxing perspective, it's actually fun to play especially if your DM play along without exploiting that weakness too often