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Jimbozig posted:Huh? How can you use strategy until you get some information? Strategy is what happens after you notice or find out something. Which is what perception let's you do. By carefully checking each 10'x10' section of the dungeon for traps?
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Oct 7, 2015 22:52
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goatface posted:Passive investigation as social trapfinding. Basically what used to be passive insight in TETSNBN. But for some reason insight wasn't an appreciated name, when it actually DID the right thing - perception was for anything physical you can SEE, insight was for things you have to intuit either from what's subtly WRONG with something (it was used for detecting illusions) or from someone's actions. Investigation is trying to be Sherlock scanning, but that doesn't fit well without also having good perceptive abilities. You can;t intuit poo poo if you can't see more than 6 inches in front of your face.
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Oct 7, 2015 23:01
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Can't you just run Perception as seeing that there are things that are traps (or other) and investigation to see what those traps might do, or how they are set off exactly, figuring out how it works? We usually just run perception as looking at a room or an area, and investigation as looking at something right in front of you/within touching distance for this purpose.
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Oct 7, 2015 23:10
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thespaceinvader posted:Basically what used to be passive insight in TETSNBN. But for some reason insight wasn't an appreciated name, when it actually DID the right thing - perception was for anything physical you can SEE, insight was for things you have to intuit either from what's subtly WRONG with something (it was used for detecting illusions) or from someone's actions. Investigation seems to me to be more noticing details that seem irrelevant, but actually feed into a bigger picture. With Sherlock style stuff it's not just noticing mud on shoes (which isn't exactly hard to spot, but a character with low investigation is likely to gloss over that detail even if they have high perception), it's knowing that mud only really exists in a few parts of the city and that this specific color mud can only be found in two places. Perception is for things that are actually hard to spot or hidden, that one's easy. Combining the two is more powerful since you get more information.
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Oct 7, 2015 23:10
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Anyone have any ideas for how to calculate the value of 'minion' enemies in 5e, more specifically with gradenko's table? I'm skeptical of using the DMG method of dumping the defensive CR hard and averaging things out, which just means two glass cannons for every 'normal' enemy.
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Oct 8, 2015 05:27
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The way I've heard that it's supposed to work in 5e, at least rules-as-written, is that "minions" are just the really low-CR enemies like kobolds that you still throw against the party even when they're level 6+ or whatever. Because the attack/AC numbers never really increase all that much, they should still be able to hit and deal minimal amounts of damage to the players, while at the same time the players should be able to hit and dispose of them easily since they have a high chance-to-hit and the player damage will be much higher than their health pools. I don't really see it coming out that way because damage doesn't always scale up fast enough that you still get the "killed-as-long-as-you-hit" effect that was formalized in 4e's minions. If you want 4e-style minions, just do that: they still have all the stats of an "on-level" enemy, except they deal half damage, and a single hit will always kill them. You could also try mucking around with lower-level enemies, but I wouldn't try to boil it down as precisely as to an equivalency formula. What is it that you're hoping to accomplish, specifically?
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Oct 8, 2015 05:51
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Lot's of zombies whose HP totals I don't have to track, because whenever they take lethal damage (any damage in this case) their feature makes them con save vs damage dealt + 5 or die. It lets me pit the party against lots of creatures, which is narratively fun, without the logistical nightmare that is tracking the individual HP totals for an entire horde of moving figures. The DMG method to account for Undead Fortitude is to add effective HP, and the math for that seems a little fuzzy on something with 1 HP.
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Oct 8, 2015 06:20
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Vanguard Warden posted:Lot's of zombies whose HP totals I don't have to track, because whenever they take lethal damage (any damage in this case) their feature makes them con save vs damage dealt + 5 or die. Just as a heads up, that's going to make you roll a lot of extra dice, which will slow the combat down. Why not just have them drop to a hit that does at least X damage, and allow characters to group up their attacks so that characters with lower damage output can contribute to killing the enemies?
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Oct 8, 2015 06:33
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Rolling a single save per attack is no problem compared to the bookkeeping, but that does make sense. Running 'passive' undead fortitude does actually make it harder for lower-damage characters to take them out, as then the target can't roll low. Along those lines, I suppose creatures that regenerate to full at the start of every round would be easier to track as well.
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Oct 8, 2015 07:24
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You could take a page from Pathfinder's minion: instead of an HP count or a Fort save, minions have a "kill threshold". If you deal as much as or more damage than this number, they die immediately. If you deal less than that, they're "wounded", and getting wounded twice is a kill. So at most, any target is only going to last 2 hits, and you don't need to track HP nor make rolls beyond the player's own attack and damage rolls.
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Oct 8, 2015 07:30
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Vanguard Warden posted:Rolling a single save per attack is no problem compared to the bookkeeping, but that does make sense. Running 'passive' undead fortitude does actually make it harder for lower-damage characters to take them out, as then the target can't roll low. Another option is to run them as a single horde (similar to a swarm - allow them to flow in and around squares, with killed members leaving the square they died in temporarily vacant) with every X damage dealt to the horde killing a zombie (this way you track a single number for the entire horde). Don't tell your players this, and allow them to kill more than one zombie at once (maybe they hit a zombie so hard a limb flies off and knocks out a weak zombie behind the first one or something). That gives you a zombie horde that feels like a horde as it flows into an area and takes up space, while still being easy enough for characters to be heroes and blow big chunks out of them to regain control of the battlefield.
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Oct 8, 2015 07:31
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gradenko_2000 posted:You could take a page from Pathfinder's minion: instead of an HP count or a Fort save, minions have a "kill threshold". If you deal as much as or more damage than this number, they die immediately. If you deal less than that, they're "wounded", and getting wounded twice is a kill. IIRC, Strike! does this, too; two hits or [threshold amount] points of damage and it dies.
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Oct 8, 2015 07:37
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Dirk the Average posted:Another option is to run them as a single horde (similar to a swarm - allow them to flow in and around squares, with killed members leaving the square they died in temporarily vacant) with every X damage dealt to the horde killing a zombie (this way you track a single number for the entire horde). Don't tell your players this, and allow them to kill more than one zombie at once (maybe they hit a zombie so hard a limb flies off and knocks out a weak zombie behind the first one or something). That gives you a zombie horde that feels like a horde as it flows into an area and takes up space, while still being easy enough for characters to be heroes and blow big chunks out of them to regain control of the battlefield.
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Oct 8, 2015 10:05
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Since the DMG method still has you looking up a table in the middle of combat, Bundle of Holding came up with an idea for making multiple attack rolls quickly: 1. Divide the mob into 3 equal parts, so a group of 9 zombies would be divided into 3 groups of 3 zombies each. 2. Make a single d20 attack roll. If that hits, one group hits and deals damage 3. Add 5 to the attack roll from step 2. If that hits, a second group hits and deals damage 4. Subtract 5 from the attack roll from step 2. If that hits, a third group hits and deals damage
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Oct 8, 2015 10:13
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Despite everything wrong with this game I'm still playing it with my group, so I got a little creative and wrote up a new Sorceror archetype. Here's the Blood Mage. The art is by this guy I found on deviantart
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Oct 8, 2015 11:45
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I have another question for people who have run Out of the Abyss... My wife is thinking of playing a Druid, but being aware of the story taking place in The Underdark, she's worried she may have a difficult time if her powers are nature-based and that possible some things she's interested in may never be usable underground. (For example, Call Lightning, which needs 100ft of open space above it to work.) I'm usually more concerned as a DM with the players having fun than I am for being a stickler for the rules, but I wanted to check if anyone else had players in a similar situation and how they handled it.
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Oct 8, 2015 18:13
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just have the zombies go down in one hit with a damage threshold that allows players to off more than one
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Oct 8, 2015 18:41
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Brocktoon posted:I have another question for people who have run Out of the Abyss... ask ur dm
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Oct 8, 2015 18:41
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Boing posted:Despite everything wrong with this game I'm still playing it with my group, so I got a little creative and wrote up a new Sorceror archetype. Here's the Blood Mage. Wound Channeling is fun. It's a really powerful effect, but sorcerors are squishy enough that you don't want to get a lot of mileage out of it, not to mention the damage type restrictions are a good balance. Blood Casting is loving harsh. Sorcs only have a d6 hitdie, so at level 2 with 14 con, you've got about 14 hp. In order to take advantage of the bloodcasting, you need to burn at least 3 points, which would reduce their max hp to...5. Yeah. Here's the other major problem with it. Sorcery points are an extra resource. Blood casting is an extra option for an existing resource. That means that it doesn't actually increase the power of a sorcerer in the same way that points do. This is the same reason that the 4 elements monk is such poo poo, since monks already have a ton of better things to spend ki points on besides overcosted low level spells. In the blood mage's case, hp is precious. If you want to keep it, you should also throw in a hefty bonus to hp. To break even with the sorcerer, they'd need to gain 3 extra hp per level. Since hp introduces a bit of flexibility, letting you tap into your health for an extra kick, plus giving you extra staying power if you aren't expending your magic reserves, you could probably reduce that to 2 extra hp per level. At that point, I'd probably still rather have the sorcery points, but it's competitive. Siphon Blood is prooooobably a bit too good, since it scales with your level so strongly and works out to a ton of extra hp and sorc points that blows the other sorc features out of the water. Works better as a 1/day thing. Sanguine Bond is absolutely chock full of shenanigans that invite the PCs to focus on tricking the BBEGs to eat their tainted chocolate cakes. I'd change it to "willing creature" and nix the part about doubling up the effects. Casting Foresight on the whole party? Really? Come on. really? Come on. Seize Body is a save or die and ridiculously good, but I guess at that level the big threats will have legendary resistances. Plus no one plays at 18th level. Probably okay, though again, really super powerful.
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Oct 8, 2015 18:49
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Brocktoon posted:I have another question for people who have run Out of the Abyss... Why would you want to play a character in a situation where they'd be incredibly out of place, then complain that one out of a hundred spells won't work for you? An urban thief in a jungle , a pirate with nothing but sailing skills a huge city, etc
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Oct 8, 2015 18:54
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mastershakeman posted:Why would you want to play a character in a situation where they'd be incredibly out of place, then complain that one out of a hundred spells won't work for you? An urban thief in a jungle , a pirate with nothing but sailing skills a huge city, etc Heh. I am a pirate. We have yet to go ocean borne (though apparently we're going to go all Errol Flynn pretty soon) being a fish out if water can be fun.
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Oct 8, 2015 19:17
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Brocktoon posted:I have another question for people who have run Out of the Abyss... mastershakeman posted:Why would you want to play a character in a situation where they'd be incredibly out of place, then complain that one out of a hundred spells won't work for you? An urban thief in a jungle , a pirate with nothing but sailing skills a huge city, etc hahaha cool fun time The Underdark isn't just lame normal caves, it's an entire subterranean world suffused with dumb bullshit magic that can allow you to handwave and justify basically anything, including channeling lightning bolts out of, say, crystals, or charged electro mushrooms, if there isn't a 100-foot ceiling to hand. Which there totally will be from time to time, since caverns be huge. There are whole bizarre ecosystems of flora and fauna down there for an enterprising druid to coopt!
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Oct 8, 2015 19:17
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mastershakeman posted:Why would you want to play a character in a situation where they'd be incredibly out of place, then complain that one out of a hundred spells won't work for you? An urban thief in a jungle , a pirate with nothing but sailing skills a huge city, etc Presumably because she thinks druids are rad. However, she is aware of the potential for her character to be out of place, and since her spells are based on natural things, she is worried that many of her spells might not function, using Call Lightning as an example. If there are a lot of spells like that, that could make a druid useless. However, if there aren't too many spells like that, then a druid is still viable and fun. She therefore is asking before making the character. I tend to agree with Ixjuvin, and think it'll be fine, but it's definitely worth asking the DM to make sure he isn't going to be pissy about it not being in a pristine forest. I have met one or two DMs who were really anal about the fluff of druid spells, and you don't want to have to deal with that if you don't have to. DM shouldn't have an issue with letting the spells work, but it's always a good thing to check first.
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Oct 8, 2015 19:36
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^^^I'm the DM, so it's not an issue.Ixjuvin posted:hahaha cool fun time Yeah, that's what I figured and tried to explain to her, but, you know, she's my wife so she won't trust me unless I get backup. I think there's definitely story material that can be mined from a druid being cut of from their normal source of magic and having to adapt, and I'm more than willing to handwave poo poo to enhance a story. Brocktoon fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Oct 8, 2015 |
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Oct 8, 2015 19:36
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Brocktoon posted:Yeah, that's what I figured and tried to explain to her, but, you know, she's my wife so she won't trust me unless I get backup. I think there's definitely story material that can be mined from a druid being cut of from their normal source of magic and having to adapt, and I'm more than willing to handwave poo poo to enhance a story. Just refluff spells to an underground version if that's a problem. Tell her that the basic druid list has spells designed for traditional overland forest stuff, but there's no reason for there not to be natural spells underground as well. Change Call Lightning to Rockslide, for instance, with same properties, but physical damage instead of lightning. If she's worried about how her character would come to know these variations, either nature grants them to her as a matter of course, or encourage her to fluff her character to have studied in mountainous areas with lots of caves so that she would have reason to pick them up.
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Oct 8, 2015 19:57
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Dirk the Average posted:Just refluff spells to an underground version if that's a problem. Tell her that the basic druid list has spells designed for traditional overland forest stuff, but there's no reason for there not to be natural spells underground as well. Change Call Lightning to Rockslide, for instance, with same properties, but physical damage instead of lightning. If she's worried about how her character would come to know these variations, either nature grants them to her as a matter of course, or encourage her to fluff her character to have studied in mountainous areas with lots of caves so that she would have reason to pick them up. Or maybe she has to gradually learn them through her studies underground. Why, to be able to cast powerful undeground druid spells she might even need to get a lot more experience 
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Oct 8, 2015 20:36
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Or just refluff the spell list to let her cast call lightning at will anywhere any time. What's the point of removing a restriction from one of the very few spells with that kind of restriction?
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Oct 8, 2015 20:39
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What's the point of HAVING that restriction?
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Oct 9, 2015 03:17
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Esser-Z posted:What's the point of HAVING that restriction? Wouldn't want to break our suspension of disbelief.
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Oct 9, 2015 03:20
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Restrictions on spells are a pretty severe and unfair limitation.
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Oct 9, 2015 03:22
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Or refluff the spell to have a restriction that isn't going to completely screw you over for the duration of the campaign, but still gives you something to think about. Even if the Underdark's ceiling never went higher than 10 feet (I honestly don't know), you could maybe do something like "needs the Druid to be standing in some fungal growth so they can rub their feet on it and generate static electricity"
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Oct 9, 2015 03:26
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And do the same for other druid spells with similar restrictions. Honestly, I don't think there are that many that are going to be a problem the way Call Lightning is, which seemed to be the big worry (that is, the worry that most of her spells wouldn't work underground vs. a single spell not working).
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Oct 9, 2015 03:33
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This whole scenario is giving me flashbacks to the warnings in the World's Largest Dungeon 3.5 module that you shouldn't play a druid, because the whole thing is underground and there won't be nature poo poo to nature at. I mention this only because I took a tiki-island volcano-themed druid into the dungeon and she did -fine-. Druids are strong and adventure modules are badly written..
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Oct 9, 2015 04:59
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Crasical posted:This whole scenario is giving me flashbacks to the warnings in the World's Largest Dungeon 3.5 module that you shouldn't play a druid, because the whole thing is underground and there won't be nature poo poo to nature at. We tried playing that with an artificer in the party. It starts off with some super powerful equipment that's like, titan-sized or some poo poo, so adventurers normally couldn't use it. To taunt you i guess. guess what class can melt down unusable magic items?
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Oct 9, 2015 06:19
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The Real Foogla posted:passive Sleight of Hand is horrible/hilarious from Level 1 on. Think about all the things you steal (and then get caught!) without wanting to! Kender
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Oct 9, 2015 09:34
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So, is it bad that in my first attempt at DMing Princes of the Apocalypse I got completely lost trying to do the level 1-3 adventure, accidentally found myself about to throw a CR 3 fight at my party, and decided to make poo poo up for 4 hours instead of carrying on with the book's scenario? Also, as a supplemental question, has anyone done that level 1-3 PoTA? Is it just me or is it disjointed/hard to keep within the not-level-3-and-above poo poo?
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Oct 9, 2015 21:44
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Spiteski posted:So, is it bad that in my first attempt at DMing Princes of the Apocalypse I got completely lost trying to do the level 1-3 adventure, accidentally found myself about to throw a CR 3 fight at my party, and decided to make poo poo up for 4 hours instead of carrying on with the book's scenario? There's SA's own Princes of the Apocalypse PbP game, which, yes, the introductory stuff is pretty much bullshit. Also, game's currently in the process of falling apart at the seams.
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Oct 9, 2015 22:11
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Who knew that jacking off an imp for poison cum would have such drastic consequences.
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Oct 9, 2015 22:14
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chaos rhames posted:Who knew that jacking off an imp for poison cum would have such drastic consequences. wow. just...wow...
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Oct 10, 2015 01:17
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That seems like an unfortunate set of events. We didn't even get remotely as far as that before hitting issues.
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Oct 10, 2015 01:18
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