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The bandits were working for the horse all along.
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Jun 20, 2014 11:28
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Bandits were horses all along
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Jun 20, 2014 11:35
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The horse is a doppelganger working for the bandits. The doppelganger is also the PC's love interest, so it has conflicted motivations and will eventually free the PCs from imprisonment, but the bandits will curse it to remain a horse forever. ...yes, this is basically a silver age Supergirl plot, why do you ask?
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Jun 20, 2014 12:45
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It's not a horse, it's two more bandits in a cheaply-made costume who aced their disguise check. In any case, I'm planning on a similar event in my campaign, but I've decided to start the thing after the fact. The players- a group of post-apocalyptic professional scavengers- come to with absolutely no context for anything, in the wreckage that used to be their transport, halfway up a partially collapsed skyscraper. The giant flying thing that took them down is half-dead nearby, still very hostile, but unable to move due to being pinned by flaming wreckage. They've all got severe head injuries that wiped their memories. Their operator is still alive, trying to find something with a motor that he can jerry-rig into a workable way home. The first voice they hear is him checking on their channel to see if anyone survived the crash. E: If you start it after the fact, then there's no point at which the party hosed up or couldn't handle the situation. Something obviously went wrong, but it could have been anyone else's fault.
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Jun 20, 2014 13:09
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Everyone was horses the whole time. DMing 101 by M. Night Shyamalan
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Jun 21, 2014 22:17
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Bad Munki posted:Everyone was horses the whole time. This would be an incredible way to spring some sort of horrendous brony trap. DM: The creature masterfully disarms you, and the sword flies out of your grip, taking a tooth with it. Ouch. PC: What? Why would I be holding my sword in my mouth? GM: Well, I don't recall any of you explicitly defining your species on these character sheets, and you definitely haven't mentioned specifically that you are using your human hands to do stuff this whole time. So, yeah. At this point, the GM slides a new Setting Aspect onto the table: "Friendship is Magic", and everybody goes home in a huff.
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Jun 27, 2014 19:04
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I haven't really been following what will be in the new D&D starter kit or what has changed from 4E. I tend to have poor scope-creep whenever I DM a game. Are the new rules in "5E" going to give DMs better tools to whip up a quick, manageable campaign? I am hoping the rules in the starter kit are fool-proof and allow for noobies to get a grip on how to play their characters. I'm always a GM who reads up on a lot of the rules, but my friends are never ready to play because they don't take the time to understand what all they can do. If the new box is easy enough for the most inexperienced person to play, and contains tools for the DM to whip up a fun series of encounters in ~30 minutes, then I'll be really excited.
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Jun 27, 2014 19:47
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Just a follow-up on those critical hit/miss cards I made - the GM loved 'em, and surprisingly in a two-hour session we used about 15 of them. At one point our strongest hitter (fighter with a glaive) critically miss, went prone and attacked self, got a critical hit on that, got a +4 critical multiplier and knocked himself out within 3 hp of death. From full health. Good laughs were had.
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Jun 27, 2014 20:24
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zfleeman posted:I haven't really been following what will be in the new D&D starter kit or what has changed from 4E. I tend to have poor scope-creep whenever I DM a game. Are the new rules in "5E" going to give DMs better tools to whip up a quick, manageable campaign?
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Jun 27, 2014 21:00
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zfleeman posted:I haven't really been following what will be in the new D&D starter kit or what has changed from 4E. I tend to have poor scope-creep whenever I DM a game. Are the new rules in "5E" going to give DMs better tools to whip up a quick, manageable campaign? My understanding of it is that 5e will be a lot closer to 3.x/pathfinder. This is the wizard, and the sheet pretty much sums up the game. Oh, and it'll be $150 for the complete set of 5e books.    Don't play D&D.
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Jun 28, 2014 05:11
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Morpheus posted:Just a follow-up on those critical hit/miss cards I made - the GM loved 'em, and surprisingly in a two-hour session we used about 15 of them. At one point our strongest hitter (fighter with a glaive) critically miss, went prone and attacked self, got a critical hit on that, got a +4 critical multiplier and knocked himself out within 3 hp of death. From full health. Good laughs were had. Are these available for sale? If not they should be, they sound like an instant Rolemaster conversion kit.
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Jun 28, 2014 11:28
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Incidentally, has anyone been talking about making a Pathfinder-equivalent for 4e? That is, making a 3rd party 4.5e, hopefully with some re-balancing and offering continued support?
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Jun 30, 2014 14:47
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4e completely changed everything and a lot of people weren't happy with it so Pathfinder picked up where 3.5 left off. Do people actually care enough about 4e? I haven't played it, but from everything I've read it seems that Pathfinder was born out of backlash from the broad changes 4e introduced.
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Jun 30, 2014 15:10
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Yeah the Pathfinder thing was born much more out of some spite-related ideological thing than actual game balance concerns. I think most people who enjoyed what 4E brought to the table either continue to just play 4E or have moved on to 13th Age and Dungeon World.
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Jun 30, 2014 15:16
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HatfulOfHollow posted:4e completely changed everything and a lot of people weren't happy with it so Pathfinder picked up where 3.5 left off. Do people actually care enough about 4e? I haven't played it, but from everything I've read it seems that Pathfinder was born out of backlash from the broad changes 4e introduced. One of the big reasons for the backlash is 4e was clear on what it did - and what it did wasn't what they wanted to do. 4e works and has no real rivals doing what it does. It's an excellent game - that got rid of a lot of the cruft people liked. Yes, there is a market - but no one with the distribution channels of Paizo and no one willing to chance their arm against Wizards.
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Jun 30, 2014 15:57
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Also Paizo had a literal licence to reprint 3E. No one can do the same with 4E. Not to mention that DDI is such a big thing among 4E customers that any "4thfinder" would have to offer an equivalent service from launch if they wanted people to move.
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Jun 30, 2014 16:00
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neonchameleon posted:4e works and has no real rivals doing what it does. 13th Age is pretty much that, IMO.
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Jun 30, 2014 16:29
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Yeah, I love 4e, just hoping for "4e, but with the bug fixes (like feat taxes) built in from the getgo, maybe a few other things rearranged or rebalanced, and all the monsters re-statted to be consistent with MM3 (or even better balanced, if the math is worked out)." Also, "people continuing to make 4e splatbooks with new items, monsters, classes, abilities, feats, spells, etc".
Iunnrais fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Jun 30, 2014 |
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Jun 30, 2014 16:34
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Lichtenstein posted:13th Age is pretty much that, IMO. 13th Age is great, but I just don't think this is true. 4e's greatest strength is its exception-based design, and the centerpiece of this design is characters' actions in gridded combat. This is also a weakness of the game (and a reason to play 13th Age) -- because the combat is so rich and involved and balanced, it takes a long time and almost always requires the party to stay together -- but I don't feel 13th Age does anything close to what 4e does in that regard.
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Jun 30, 2014 16:39
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Lichtenstein posted:13th Age is pretty much that, IMO. 13th Age takes about half of what 4E does and does it pretty well. It does not do the other half of 4E at all.
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Jun 30, 2014 17:56
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homullus posted:13th Age is great, but I just don't think this is true. 4e's greatest strength is its exception-based design, and the centerpiece of this design is characters' actions in gridded combat. This is also a weakness of the game (and a reason to play 13th Age) -- because the combat is so rich and involved and balanced, it takes a long time and almost always requires the party to stay together -- but I don't feel 13th Age does anything close to what 4e does in that regard.
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Jun 30, 2014 20:09
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MadScientistWorking posted:I don't really think you need the gridded combat to approximate 4e more than you need tactical options which is for the most part completely missing from the 13th Age. You don't need gridded combat to have tactical options, that's true. I think it would take somebody reskinning an entire block of MtG as different D&D combat moves to rival what 4e provides, though.
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Jun 30, 2014 20:34
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I've got a Fantasy adventure I'm working on, and could use some help brain-storming. It's basically a prison-break: the adventurers have come across a powerful magic artifact, and learned that it would be very valuable to a somewhat unhinged dislanded noble sworn to vengeance against his family's foes (enemies of the State) who has been imprisoned by said enemy's allies (who are respectable enough to put him under house arrest rather than kill him outright). The party has just arrived in a city where they know their target's captors are operating, but they don't yet know the details of his incarceration. Does anyone have any ideas for what would make a good "jail break" type event? I'm kind of imagining it as the opportunity for a sort of Heist-style "lets do some recon, then put together a plan, then execute it and see what goes hilariously wrong". Current ideas: The noble is being held in a fort on a small island, used as a stopover for their captor's ships. There is a small fishing village at the only easy harbor. Are the players able to get information about the island beforehand? How? Are the players able to communicate with the noble? How? How do they get on the island? - Stow away onboard a ship - Charter a ship and sail in covertly - If they learn about the geography, they know that a narrow land-bridge connects to a nearby island at the lowest tide The island is storm-swept, and largely abandoned outside the aforementioned settlement. What dangers do the adventurers face while there? - It has become the nesting ground of a pack of basilisk - The fortress itself is a quasi-abandoned ruin. overlooking a sea-side cliff. How do they get into the fortress? - There's a hidden sally port at the base of the rocks leading into the dungeons - The wall is collapsed in a few places, but reaching those locations could be tricky <why?> - The guards themselves are fairly sparse, so going through the front gate might work if they can secure entry without setting off any alarms. There are a few guards scattered around, but for the most part the fortress is abandoned -- some inherent factor is preventing the noble's escape aside from the force of his captors <what?> What dangers might the adventurers run into inside the fortress? - Various slims, molds, and reptiles inhabit the waterlogged caverns around the sally port - More Basilisks. Maybe a Medusa? - Ghosts of former prisoners haunt the dungeons - Gargoyles animated from petrified men by some fell magic guard the courtyard What is keeping the noble from simply escaping? Once they've secured their target, what is going to make escape more challenging than simply leaving the way they came in? homullus posted:13th Age is great, but I just don't think this is true. 4e's greatest strength is its exception-based design, and the centerpiece of this design is characters' actions in gridded combat. This is also a weakness of the game (and a reason to play 13th Age) -- because the combat is so rich and involved and balanced, it takes a long time and almost always requires the party to stay together -- but I don't feel 13th Age does anything close to what 4e does in that regard. One thing 4e did that was a tremendous service to the franchise was a rigorous glossary of terms which could then be used to extend into power descriptions with minimal vagueness. The terms "Move", "Shift", "Slide", "Push", "Pull", etc. all have very clear definitions, which lets you craft powers using a minimum of text which have clear effects, and in turn which can interact with other abilities in a clear manner. Even if you don't go the massive game-of-exception, everyone-is-a-wizard WWF-with-Dragons style of 4e as written, the system sets a good standard for clarity and consistency (although that standard makes some blatant failings all the more egregious by comparison). But yeah, the problem with all that rigor is that it requires a good deal of system knowledge up front to understand how it all interacts (although a lot of it is fairly intuitive) and I think that their early stuff got way too bogged down in the basic mechanics and forgot about adding hooks and flavor for the parts of the game that didn't fall into the combat system. If you ever get a chance, look at some of the items in Mordenkeinen's Magic Emporium -- it really shows what 4e could have been if they knew at the beginning what they'd figured out by the end.
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Jun 30, 2014 20:42
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Hubis posted:One thing 4e did that was a tremendous service to the franchise was a rigorous glossary of terms which could then be used to extend into power descriptions with minimal vagueness. The terms "Move", "Shift", "Slide", "Push", "Pull", etc. all have very clear definitions, which lets you craft powers using a minimum of text which have clear effects, and in turn which can interact with other abilities in a clear manner. Even if you don't go the massive game-of-exception, everyone-is-a-wizard WWF-with-Dragons style of 4e as written, the system sets a good standard for clarity and consistency (although that standard makes some blatant failings all the more egregious by comparison). This is what makes it so loving disappointing that 5e isn't continuing where 4e left off - a remake of 4e KEEPING those design principles and actually doing it right, right from the start, could have been so good. Ah well, a man can dream.
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Jun 30, 2014 21:37
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My party has killed two corrupt town guards in the night and made a deal with their gangster buddy, but then had a divine revelation that he's untrustworthy, so they want to skip town in the morning and explore the nearby swamps. What they don't know, but I thought up, is that the gangster has ratted them out to the rest of the guard and pinned them as guard murderers ("I was right there, guv"). I'd like to move on to the swamp as soon as possible and not get too sidetracked making them sneak out through the town gates, evading patrols on the road etc., and we all agree the swamp is to be the focus for the next session or two; at the same time I don't think they're entirely aware that the guard is an immediate threat and I'd at least like to make them aware of that. Y'all think that's worth potential sidetracking or should I just start off the next session with "you're entering the swamplands, describe briefly how you got out of town" and not beat them over the head with it? Almost feel like I'm answering my own question here.
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Jul 2, 2014 20:58
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My Lovely Horse posted:My party has killed two corrupt town guards in the night and made a deal with their gangster buddy, but then had a divine revelation that he's untrustworthy, so they want to skip town in the morning and explore the nearby swamps. What they don't know, but I thought up, is that the gangster has ratted them out to the rest of the guard and pinned them as guard murderers ("I was right there, guv"). Way more interesting to have them find out later that they're the prime suspects, and that their absence in the meantime made them even more suspicious. Whether they find out when they return to the town or see wanted posters or hear some other way, I don't know what would be the biggest surprise, but I think the surprise is more valuable than postponing the place they want to go now anyway.
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Jul 2, 2014 21:07
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I'd definitely hold off on revealing that killing the guard was an issue just yet. Let them leave town and adventure in the swamp. Then have them discover that they're being actively hunted by the guard (guards don't like guard killers) when they return. You could either have them be ambushed by a hunting party, or see wanted signs, or return to town and hear from other people on the street how the guards are going insane looking for these murderers, doing house-by-house searching even.
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Jul 2, 2014 21:23
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Somehow doing it that way never occurred to me even though I've had that town pegged as a potential showdown location for their current arc for a while. If nothing else it makes for a very good reason why the town is hostile territory when/if they return. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!
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Jul 2, 2014 21:55
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My Lovely Horse posted:Somehow doing it that way never occurred to me even though I've had that town pegged as a potential showdown location for their current arc for a while. If nothing else it makes for a very good reason why the town is hostile territory when/if they return. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction! It even gives you a potential hook if you need a wandering encounter in the swamps for some reason -- maybe the party discovers the town guard have come hunting them
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Jul 2, 2014 21:57
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sebmojo posted:Are these available for sale? If not they should be, they sound like an instant Rolemaster conversion kit. A good idea, but something like that already exists (Game Mastery Critical Hit Deck), though I definitely think my design is better. They have some creative results though. The reason I wanted to make these is because my GM already had his own deck of his creation made out of index cards and pencil - I figured I'd do him a solid and make it look official, using his results. Still, if I didn't live in a different country from the printers I might consider it, you're the fourth person who has said I should do that.
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Jul 3, 2014 21:10
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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. Easy peasy. Look up actual buildings and steal their layouts. A police department. http://www.pelhampolice.com/PEL_Police_Plan.jpg The Museum of Delphi. http://www.planetware.com/i/map/GR/delphi-museum-map.jpg H.H. Holmes' Murder Castle in Chicago. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Pw56JQ_VShw/Ti86Td37mcI/AAAAAAAAABE/6u7x6truqhY/s1600/Second+Floor.jpg Doom 1 Level "Slough Of Despair." - http://doomwiki.org/w/images/thumb/b/b3/E3M2_map.png/256px-E3M2_map.png King Tut's Tomb - http://tutankkhamun.weebly.com/uploads/7/5/7/8/7578407/2050595_orig.png For outdoor battles, try to put a little off the cuff effort into it. What would be there, wherever the players are? Draw out the rocks, the water, the trees, tents, buildings, roads, mountain sides. Notate the increases and decreases in elevation. If there is a higher ground, or a building interior draw that out to the side or on a separate battle map in case one PC goes inside or on-top. Doesn't have to be perfect or pretty, but put some effort into it. Make it look like an actual poorly drawn map at least, and not just little squares or squigly lines that the players could not translate.
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Jul 4, 2014 12:30
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God Of Paradise posted:Easy peasy. Look up actual buildings and steal their layouts. Actually that's more encounter building, which I have no problem with. I thought more of set dressing/flavour stuff. For example, in my last game, I let them dungeon crawl through a wizard academy that floated in the sky with large bridges in between the faculty offices and so on. That worked out well, but I have trouble coming up with stuff like that on my own.
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Jul 4, 2014 23:07
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Hey guys, long time no post! It's been a while since I've run anything. The last thing I ran was a really wonderful irc campaign with some amazing people that lasted almost a year and a half. It was awesome, we were all similar sort of players (all about role playing, gently caress stats or minmaxing or power-gaming or what ever). It's the sort of poo poo I'm used to playing and running. No real system, just sort of home-brew. Well now I have a couple friends who want me to run a game. They want to play 3.5. God drat 3.5. I'm VERY familiar with it but so loving sick of it. But them and their friends reaaaaly want to do 3.5. Ok, what ever, I can work with that. I spent 10 years working around that awful system and it's vast library of lovely unbalanced supplements. First thing I learn is that they REALLY want to play and play right now because they just made characters and want to play. That's a bit of a red flag, to me anyways. Who makes a character before they know the setting? Second red flag is that one of them wants to play a powerful and mysterious possibly evil drow with a dark angsty past. The third red flag is that they don't really care about what "kind" of game I run. I asked them all about their characters, why they are together, and what sort of game they like to play (exploration, dungeon-crawl, open-world, detailed narrative?). They also are all using crazy cross-classes and non-standard this and extra feats that, ie min-maxed twinked out bullshit. So far the 2 characters I know are: A neutral good assimar. His background is that he has memory loss (uhg) and all he can remember is that he's looking for his missing daughter. A SECRET ALIGNMENT (you're secretly evil, I get it, everyone gets it) drow of some magic using class I've never heard of. His deal is that the assimar sold his soul to him to help him find his daughter. I don't know what to do with this poo poo. The assimar I could work with, looking for your daughter, ok that's a good excuse to be out traveling and adventuring and I can weave a personal plot about his daughter into things. But the whole SECRET ALIGNMENT drow and soul-selling? What? Is there even a mechanic about selling souls? How would they even do this? How do two level 1 poo poo heads sell or collect souls? Anyways, they want to play RIGHT AWAY (as in tonight) so I'd love some ideas about all this and/or some possible soul-selling mechanics or rationale.
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Jul 4, 2014 23:31
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 (then proceed to the catpiss thread and tell us about it.)
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Jul 5, 2014 00:31
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While the drow's almost certainly evil, the player doesn't get to keep secrets from you. Dude has to tell you their alignment. Of course this all sounds awful anyway, so it would be better to just not run it, or ask them to make new characters rather than these weird ones they clearly have too much investment in.
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Jul 5, 2014 00:44
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Hey, they already gave you a hook, they are looking for a girl. Someone knows a guy who might now what happened to her, but he wants a favor. Trail of breadcrumbs to the evil dudes that hold her hostage. Final showdown in burning castle during sacrificial ceremony. Go full cheese. Don't prepare anything for more than one session ahead, the drow player will gently caress it up eventually. Don't give a gently caress about soul-selling mechanics. Assuming you absolutely have nothing better to do with your time.
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Jul 5, 2014 00:49
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So I talked to them and gently suggested some things and things seem way better. They've scrapped the whole soul-deal thing and the drow dude decided to be a simple neutral good rogue. They're both actually good! The assimar's family has a sort of understanding with some less evil drow who were outcasts for not being evil enough because they helped them survive back in the day and now the two groups will come to each other's aid in times of need. It sounds like they let sperging out on making characters in a vacuum consume them, and now that they're actually realizing they'll be playing a game they've scrapped them in the name of having characters that actually fit a campaign. I've still never played with these guys before but it's promising! So now I've got two good-aligned buddies (no drama) off on a very simple daughter-finding mission and they've told me just to do some good world-building and they'll adapt their characters to fit in rather than have rigid pre-planned pet characters. Now to remember how 3.5 works.
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Jul 5, 2014 01:04
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Baronjutter posted:Now to remember how 3.5 works. Badly.
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Jul 5, 2014 04:13
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Down With People posted:Badly. Run the monsters 4e style, a few evocative powers, and have them die when the combat starts to drag.
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Jul 5, 2014 08:01
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Session was a gong show. Even after a decade of running or playing 3.5 poo poo I had seriously forgotten what a god drat chore it was. Arrived at 7, didn't start playing till 9 because we had to sort out exactly how their classes worked and remember how exactly ECL works because of course no one is a standard race or class. Then once we start playing, every rule or ability that comes up results in 5-10 min of looking poo poo up, reading, cross referencing other poo poo. No, no no no. At the end I just flat out said that I'm totally willing to run a game but it won't be 3.5 or any system that needs a library of books. I told them the basics of my super simple home-brew system and everyone's down. Going to "convert" their characters and keep playing. Then again I'm also horribly sick of the D&D setting and generic-fantasy land. Part of me just wants to totally start over fresh but I've got some serious sunk-cost fallacy going on after the 5 hours we put in. Also they have some other friends wanting to play that want to play D&D. I'm thinking a change of systems but not theme/setting they could handle, but maybe not a change of both.
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Jul 5, 2014 21:30
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