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I also use a crit deck in Pathfinder. My players were lukewarm on the idea at first, but after a couple of loving descriptions of exactly what it sounds like when you puncture a goblin's lung, they warmed up to the idea. Now they remind me to use it when I forget.
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Jun 17, 2014 04:35
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Xelkelvos posted:I'm in quite a predicament with my Dungeon World campaign 1. Do both - set up the dungeon quest with the arrested player, and then have the players do a jailbreak as cover (the guard captain can't just let the PC's go, after all, he has to make it look good for the higher-ups!) 2. Talk to the player, see how dead set they are on the Captain. If they're fine with switching to another Class, then fine! If they don't really want to change, well now your setting has rare airships.
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Jun 17, 2014 05:09
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Morpheus posted:drat that's brutal. I think the harshest critical hit we have for melee is one that adds +4 to the critical multiplier, most cards add conditions, knock the target prone, or do temporary ability score damage. Yeah, it kind of varies. It's awesome when the enemy necromancer's hands get mangled or the ogre's wracked with pain after a shot to the eye but then there was the time where our fighter lost his hand and our wizard was killed outright at full health. A lot of it depends on how your DM plays it off. I personally really don't like many of the more permanent ones and I'd recommend if you use them you don't actively try to screw over players since it's not much fun sometimes.
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Jun 17, 2014 05:15
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I'm running a Dungeon World session tomorrow and it looks like we'll usually have 2-3 players. I'm a pretty green GM so I was wondering if there's a big difference between 2 player and 3 player sessions and how to deal with that. I guess I'm more worried about making 2-player sessions interesting, especially if the third player misses without warning. Any tips? Also, I am trying to think of a cool name for a resource which is a physical manifestation of magic. So far I have "Arcanium" but that seems a little on the nose.
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Jun 17, 2014 05:20
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Pete Zah posted:I'm running a Dungeon World session tomorrow and it looks like we'll usually have 2-3 players. I'm a pretty green GM so I was wondering if there's a big difference between 2 player and 3 player sessions and how to deal with that. I guess I'm more worried about making 2-player sessions interesting, especially if the third player misses without warning. Any tips? Arcanite. Magickum. Wyrdstone. Astralite. Manastone. Mysticum. Is it a rock or metal or more of an ooze? What are the properties of this resource?
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Jun 17, 2014 05:28
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Glukeose posted:Arcanite. Magickum. Wyrdstone. Astralite. Manastone. Mysticum. Is it a rock or metal or more of an ooze? What are the properties of this resource? Was thinking it'd be some crystalline structure or possibly a rock. I wanted it to be a very remote and newly discovered material which is spawning new civilizations and whose properties are not entirely known. I'm liking Arcanite though, I might run with that.
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Jun 17, 2014 05:34
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Piell posted:1. Do both - set up the dungeon quest with the arrested player, and then have the players do a jailbreak as cover (the guard captain can't just let the PC's go, after all, he has to make it look good for the higher-ups!) 2. I'll definitely talk it over with the player and see if they have any alternatives in mind. 1. The plan was for the arrested player to be tested with the "dungeon" (it's actually a library that's been converted into a sort of deathtrap) with the party alongside due to being accomplices. The uproar was caused due to the need for a distraction to get the the head of a line for a job that was looking for Adventurers and the person doing the arresting is involved in the hiring process. However, I could just have them get tricked into entering with some pretense like telling the party that the building is where they'll be booked or something. Pete Zah posted:Was thinking it'd be some crystalline structure or possibly a rock. I wanted it to be a very remote and newly discovered material which is spawning new civilizations and whose properties are not entirely known. I'm liking Arcanite though, I might run with that. Just try thinking of any word that's related to or pertaining to magic and add -ite to the end of it.
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Jun 17, 2014 07:42
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Xelkelvos posted:2. I'll definitely talk it over with the player and see if they have any alternatives in mind. Remember that the whole point of a 'dungeon' is that it's a modular organism. You can throw five teams of players at the same dungeon with completely different explanations as to why, and all you'll need to do is rewrite some of the dialogue and possibly put an exit in the boss/treasure chamber. If they want a jailbreak, could well be that the only way out is through that dungeon. Or, they could have a pretty normal jailbreak, but they get picked up outside and put through the dungeon anyway- turns out that jailbreaking was part of the test to see if they could hack it in the dungeon. Could be that the guy helping them out in the jailbreak wants them to help him with a little favour afterward, and that little favour is recovering something from that same fuckin' dungeon. E: They're only gonna run that thing once, so the way they end up running it is the only way that they could end up running it, as far as they know. Somfin fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Jun 17, 2014 |
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Jun 17, 2014 07:52
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Xelkelvos posted:2. I have two new players joining the party next session and one comes with their own ship (The Captain from Inverse World). I hadn't planned for there to be airships in the setting, nor did I plan on there being much naval interaction. I don't want to reject the Class pick purely because they have a large means of transportation that I'm not sure how to account for, but I've been sort of sidelined with this. So I'm not sure how to handle this as well. If having an airship is a problem, you can ask him if he's rather have some other vehicle. I don't know how well the captain of inverse world would fit with a trading caravan, or a small landship or some thing like that? It's worth discussing it with him.  
Deltasquid fucked around with this message at 08:39 on Jun 17, 2014 |
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Jun 17, 2014 08:37
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Piell posted:1. Do both - set up the dungeon quest with the arrested player, and then have the players do a jailbreak as cover (the guard captain can't just let the PC's go, after all, he has to make it look good for the higher-ups!) Twist: right before the jailbreak is scheduled to go down, the guard captain is arrested on an unrelated corruption charge and is replaced by an honest man. Now the jailbreak's for real! (Full disclosure: I stole this idea from a Conan story called "Rogues in the House." It's a fun read.)
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Jun 17, 2014 09:06
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Pete Zah posted:Was thinking it'd be some crystalline structure or possibly a rock. I wanted it to be a very remote and newly discovered material which is spawning new civilizations and whose properties are not entirely known. I'm liking Arcanite though, I might run with that. I called mine Etherite when I had to come up with one. Think about what it physically looks like. Then think about what you'd end up calling it if you had to work with it each day and were sick to the sight of it. Think of all the different names addicts have for drugs, miners have for coal, sailors have for water. People tend not to use scientific-sounding names unless they absolutely have to.
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Jun 17, 2014 09:09
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Whybird posted:I called mine Etherite when I had to come up with one. Formal name: Arcanite Casual names: blue coal, blue rust, rock magic, crag magic, dragon gum, the shine, glitter, deep shine. Use: "We've hauled up about half a ton of dragon gum in the last three weeks. This is a good mine. It's just blue rust on the surface, but the shine goes deep here. We might even hit glitter if we get the dwarves in."
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Jun 17, 2014 11:31
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Somfin posted:"We've hauled up about half a ton of dragon gum in the last three weeks. This is a good mine. It's just blue rust on the surface, but the shine goes deep here. We might even hit glitter if we get the dwarves in." "Oi, Korgoth! Grab us a few chunks of wizard poo poo when you hit the shops?"
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Jun 17, 2014 17:32
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Whybird posted:I called mine Etherite when I had to come up with one. So "Etherite" is officially the dusted/compressed bones of wizards from x,xxx years ago and our party wizard knows this because he fought in "Wizard War 2" and was teleported forward in time due to a magic-on-magic interaction. 
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Jun 18, 2014 04:26
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Does anyone have a list or generator of interesting dungeons or gimmicks? I'm afraid making my players run into abandoned temples/crypts/dungeons/towers is going to bore them eventually, and I'd like to shake things up a bit.
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Jun 18, 2014 18:40
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Deltasquid posted:Does anyone have a list or generator of interesting dungeons or gimmicks? I'm afraid making my players run into abandoned temples/crypts/dungeons/towers is going to bore them eventually, and I'd like to shake things up a bit. You just missed it. And yes, the end result was fantastic. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/314825490/100-deluxe-dungeons Looks like you can buy it on DTRPG though. http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/129216/100-Dungeons-Deluxe
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Jun 18, 2014 21:51
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Bad Munki posted:You just missed it. And yes, the end result was fantastic. So I've been reading through this and... Is this Lee a guy who just makes money off making massive lists of stuff? 
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Jun 18, 2014 22:37
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I'm gonna be running a Borderlands Powered By The Apocalypse game for 3-4 people on Friday. I've talked to everyone and they're down with the little quirks of the system, but I'm not quite sure they grasp the entire idea of 'player interaction', and on the same leaf, I'm not sure I'll be able to handle the near-complete freedom I'll be giving them after the intro. What are some good ways to ease in my players into actually having a part in the game world, and what are some ways to control the group without having them in an iron grip? On another note, we'll be having another friend over who isn't into Borderlands and won't be playing, but it's pretty obvious that he really wants to join. How can I keep him from just being a spectator/allow him to help us play?
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Jun 18, 2014 22:53
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Kumaton posted:I'm gonna be running a Borderlands Powered By The Apocalypse game for 3-4 people on Friday. I've talked to everyone and they're down with the little quirks of the system, but I'm not quite sure they grasp the entire idea of 'player interaction', and on the same leaf, I'm not sure I'll be able to handle the near-complete freedom I'll be giving them after the intro. What are some good ways to ease in my players into actually having a part in the game world, and what are some ways to control the group without having them in an iron grip? Most players seem to have decision paralysis brought on by complete freedom. One memorable group decided they would sit in the tavern while the city burnt down around them instead of doing anything about the city they were resting in being under attack, then start burning down around them. Then I decided the tavern started burning down too and they finally did something. The sheer frustration I felt during that session made me stop GMing for the better part of two years.
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Jun 18, 2014 22:59
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Kumaton posted:I'm gonna be running a Borderlands Powered By The Apocalypse game for 3-4 people on Friday. I've talked to everyone and they're down with the little quirks of the system, but I'm not quite sure they grasp the entire idea of 'player interaction', and on the same leaf, I'm not sure I'll be able to handle the near-complete freedom I'll be giving them after the intro. What are some good ways to ease in my players into actually having a part in the game world, and what are some ways to control the group without having them in an iron grip? Start by giving them rails. Give them a structured scenario to start with, with some clearly presented combination of threats/motivations/opportunities. Or have an NPC show up with a request (or a demand) and some leverage. Have a whole session's worth of railroad ready, in case they are uncomfortable breaking away from it, but do not stop or even discourage them from going off of those rails as soon as anyone gets another idea. If an NPC is laying down some exposition and a player asks you, "Can I just shoot him?" then you just tell him to roll+hard. If they're riding on the mag-lev train and someone asks, "What would happen if I jumped off?" you tell him to roll+cool to stick the landing. If they follow the rails most of the way and then ask, "Can we join the bad guy?" Then hell yes, that's the new home base for session 2. I'm not clear on why the other guy can't just join. If he's going to be transient or something, then you can occasionally pause and ask him, "If you were NPC X in this situation, and his character just pulled that poo poo, what would you do about it?" then go with the answer. StringOfLetters fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Jun 18, 2014 23:10
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Kumaton posted:I'm gonna be running a Borderlands Powered By The Apocalypse game for 3-4 people on Friday. I've talked to everyone and they're down with the little quirks of the system, but I'm not quite sure they grasp the entire idea of 'player interaction', and on the same leaf, I'm not sure I'll be able to handle the near-complete freedom I'll be giving them after the intro. What are some good ways to ease in my players into actually having a part in the game world, and what are some ways to control the group without having them in an iron grip? Unless you know that you have pro-active players who set their own goals, don't just hand them an open world and say "do something." Give the PCs some common thing to do, then ask them how they want to go about it. Whatever the first thing they say is, it works and you can go from there. The intro to Borderlands 2 is a decent example of giving a group a common motivation: Four strangers on a train survive an ambush by the person they thought they'd be working for, now they want revenge in addition to guns and money.
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Jun 18, 2014 23:15
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Lynx Winters posted:Unless you know that you have pro-active players who set their own goals, don't just hand them an open world and say "do something." Give the PCs some common thing to do, then ask them how they want to go about it. Whatever the first thing they say is, it works and you can go from there. The intro to Borderlands 2 is a decent example of giving a group a common motivation: Four strangers on a train survive an ambush by the person they thought they'd be working for, now they want revenge in addition to guns and money. Yeah, start simple and allow the complexities to happen.
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Jun 19, 2014 00:00
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Lynx Winters posted:Unless you know that you have pro-active players who set their own goals, don't just hand them an open world and say "do something." Give the PCs some common thing to do, then ask them how they want to go about it. Whatever the first thing they say is, it works and you can go from there. The intro to Borderlands 2 is a decent example of giving a group a common motivation: Four strangers on a train survive an ambush by the person they thought they'd be working for, now they want revenge in addition to guns and money. StringOfLetters posted:Start by giving them rails. Give them a structured scenario to start with, with some clearly presented combination of threats/motivations/opportunities. Or have an NPC show up with a request (or a demand) and some leverage. Have a whole session's worth of railroad ready, in case they are uncomfortable breaking away from it, but do not stop or even discourage them from going off of those rails as soon as anyone gets another idea. What I'm afraid of is that they'll want to go join the Crimson Raiders. Going after Handsome Jack and Hyperion is fine, but I'm not sure how much I can do with the Crimson Raiders before it devolves into reskinning/retellings of Story missions from 2. There's really no way I can think of to make that kinda stuff interesting, especially since 3/4ths of the party have already played Borderlands 2 to death. StringOfLetters posted:I'm not clear on why the other guy can't just join. If he's going to be transient or something, then you can occasionally pause and ask him, "If you were NPC X in this situation, and his character just pulled that poo poo, what would you do about it?" then go with the answer.
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Jun 19, 2014 00:39
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I have a player with a nice heavy warhorse, and the upcoming adventure requires that the party be captured in transit between two cities. They will eventually have a "stealth or fight" for freedom adventure and get back all their gear, and I really don't want to kill the mount. Is there a relatively simple way in 3.5 that I can disable the mount? I'm thinking maybe a combination of slow, some kind of net, and non-lethal damage. The thing is kind of hard to hit though so I would prefer magical options. The encounter is basically an overpowering bandit raid against their caravan, so lots of things are viable.
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Jun 19, 2014 03:18
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Deltasquid posted:So I've been reading through this and... Is this Lee a guy who just makes money off making massive lists of stuff? My understanding is that it started off as a joke, and then it became popular so he's like, "Uhh, okay," and then maybe some stuff happened and one of the rewards for a ridiculous amount of money on this KS was that he wouldn't make any lists at all for a year. In any event, I've been perusing the thing for a while and there's some good stuff in there. 
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Jun 19, 2014 04:11
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armorer posted:I have a player with a nice heavy warhorse, and the upcoming adventure requires that the party be captured in transit between two cities. They will eventually have a "stealth or fight" for freedom adventure and get back all their gear, and I really don't want to kill the mount. Is there a relatively simple way in 3.5 that I can disable the mount? I'm thinking maybe a combination of slow, some kind of net, and non-lethal damage. The thing is kind of hard to hit though so I would prefer magical options. Horses are pretty dumb and have super lovely will saves. 'Charm animal,' 'sleep,' 'hold horseon,' 'hypnotic something,' an illusion of being securely in a stable somewhere, or just a guy with a lasso. I would also strongly recommend against planning an encounter that the party has to lose. Those are very nearly never enjoyable to play through, and they set off everybody's bullshit alarm. If the party knows they can't win, it's a waste of time. If they don't know that they can't win, but they actually can't win, then it's very frustrating to have no clever plan work. If it's obviously an overpowering encounter, then they feel helpless and frustrated, if they even still care. "You're captured and lose all your poo poo" is maybe good as a second-chance adventure if they gently caress something up horribly.
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Jun 19, 2014 04:48
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I'm gonna second the suggestion to rethink the encounter. I've experienced a whole campaign crash and burn because the GM put in a scene where we were horribly outnumbered and captured. Think of it from the player's point of view: you are having fun because you get all kinds of special abilities and equipment to solve problems with. You know what's the opposite of fun? Losing all of that stuff because one dude said so. Not because of anything you did, not because you legitimately lost a fight where you had a chance of winning, just because the GM wrote down "all these motivated rear end-kickers are helpless now."
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Jun 19, 2014 05:02
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StringOfLetters posted:Horses are pretty dumb and have super lovely will saves. 'Charm animal,' 'sleep,' 'hold horseon,' 'hypnotic something,' an illusion of being securely in a stable somewhere, or just a guy with a lasso. Holy hell thiiiiis. At most have a hard fight where if they lose they get captured (and that's clear to the party) but if they win they get to track down and solve the mystery of why the dudes were after them. Don't bank on capturing them.
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Jun 19, 2014 06:31
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If you absolutely have to do it, my advice is to do an opening in media res: just tell your PCs 'You have been captured and taken prisoner by bandits, how and why did it happen?'. A much better way is just to save the 'captured and taken prisoner' plot for when the PCs happen to lose a fight of their own accord.
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Jun 19, 2014 08:30
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armorer posted:I have a player with a nice heavy warhorse, and the upcoming adventure requires that the party be captured in transit between two cities.  Don't do it! Seriously. PCs will fight to the death to avoid capture. Taking away their agency is quite literally worse than killing their PCs. Find another adventure! If you can't do that then speak to the players out of game and tell them straight out "The adventure planned requires me to start with you captured. Is that OK? If so we're going to skip the bullshit railroading fight in which I'd probably have to cheat because you're a bunch of slippery bastards who are good at escaping, and start off with you in the jail of [whatever]. But there needs to be a cutscene that lead to you getting captured. How did it happen? Overwhelming force? An agent poisoning your food? If so whom? A dagger to someone's throat? You let yourselves be captured because you're that confident and are on a lead about [whatever]? You tell me what works."
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Jun 19, 2014 11:26
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I know this is one of the "anti-fun" encounters. I have known this group for 20 years or so though, and they will be fine with it. It is a "set the tone of the world" encounter at the start of the campaign, and they can potentially be both captured and escape in the same session (unless they dick around for 5 or 6 hours, which is entirely possible with them). They are going to be repeatedly attacked by bandits over the course of a journey, winning several times but being worn down over time. When the large attack happens, it will be obvious enough that they can't win that I suspect most of them will surrender. The guy with the horse though will probably charge, and take out a dozen bandits by himself before being disabled. I think it will be a rather fun moment for that player actually. I just don't want to kill his mount! So while I appreciate the warnings, it really isn't an issue in this case. Good point on the low Will save. I will give the bandits a few back-rank wizards to take it down. I'll probably also give a few of them horses and throwing nets too, because it gives me more options. This is a short, three game "filler" series that I am running while a guy in our group is away. Our normal campaign is run by one of the other guys, and we agreed to pause it rather than run on ahead down one player. So they are open to a bit of railroading to provide a fun diversion. When the other campaign ends though, we will switch over to this one. This series sets up some "fronts" ala Dungeon World, and whenever we return to this campaign the players will have a number of different directions to run off in as they see fit. Edit: Also if they do somehow manage to beat these attackers, things will work out anyway. They just won't get a stealth escape adventure (which they would enjoy). armorer fucked around with this message at 11:32 on Jun 19, 2014 |
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Jun 19, 2014 11:27
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If you don't call the spell that captures the warhorse "Hold Horseon", it could also be called "Hold Your Horses."
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Jun 19, 2014 14:31
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homullus posted:If you don't call the spell that captures the warhorse "Hold Horseon", it could also be called "Hold Your Horses." Please let this statement be a required verbal component to casting it.
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Jun 19, 2014 14:56
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Also the material components are two empty halves of coconuts.
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Jun 19, 2014 16:25
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As a side note, it looks like a cleric with the Animal domain is my best bet here. They can get Hold Animal and Dominate Animal, either of which should be sufficient to stop the mount for a few rounds if fails the saves. That plus a net or two should let him get surrounded and subdued.
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Jun 19, 2014 20:08
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Or, 
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Jun 19, 2014 20:12
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homerlaw posted:Or, Thisssss Get an Ogre or a super jacked-up barbarian out there to just cold-cock the horse. See if anybody gets the reference.
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Jun 19, 2014 20:23
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deadly_pudding posted:Thisssss I'd prefer to have the horse run away and ultimately sneak into the enemy camp and pick the lock to their cell Brisco County Jr style
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Jun 19, 2014 21:01
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Two more ideas: Have the horse bring them the keys like "Road to El Dorado". The bandit leader takes the horse for his own because it's an awesome horse.
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Jun 19, 2014 21:07
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The horse was working for the bandits all along 
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Jun 19, 2014 22:58
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