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xiw posted:There are a stack of magic items in the book. Magic items are always supposed to have those quirks because all 13th Age magic items are intelligent (though most have only rudimentary intelligence or are generally helpful and docile). Those quirks only affect the character when you reach the level limit, and it's meant to be an intentional handicap to stop a party dumping all their magic items on one person to turn them into Iron Man. So you're not supposed to reach that point.
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Feb 25, 2016 12:32
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bewilderment posted:Magic items are always supposed to have those quirks because all 13th Age magic items are intelligent (though most have only rudimentary intelligence or are generally helpful and docile). Is that an actual issue, though? I mean, surely the disadvantage of putting all your magic items on one person is that nobody else has any magic items.
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Feb 25, 2016 12:40
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To be honest 13a does suffer from a lack of interesting classes on the martial side (though the Glorantha stuff will hopefully fix that and looks like it should fix it at least a little), and most of the core magic items need some fluffing up to be interesting. I largely traded away the quirks because they weren't going to come up, and instead gave items fun backgrounds, custom powers, and added the occasional intelligent item that isn't a quirk, it has an actual agenda. There are a few good items in the Book of Loot supplement or w/e it's called. Overall I think 13a mostly just needs more content. I'm toying here and there with a few homebrew classes myself, but it'd be nice to get more content without having to make it myself.
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Feb 25, 2016 15:42
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Can anyone recommend good 5E adventures? Something on the shorter side would be best, but I'd take any suggestions.
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Feb 25, 2016 21:22
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morestuff posted:Can anyone recommend good 5E adventures? Something on the shorter side would be best, but I'd take any suggestions. How much work are you willing to invest in fixing and adjusting the module to be good/playable/logical? If the answer is "little to none," my answer is "probably none of the extant modules." If you don't mind a little elbow grease on the DM side, Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat have a lot of problems as written and are probably longer than what you're looking for, but they can be sculpted and gutted into a fun and concise story.
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Feb 25, 2016 21:26
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Yeah, I started Dragon Queen with my group and got 4-5 chapters in before losing steam — people enjoyed it and want to give it another go, but something that can be knocked out in two or three sessions would probably work better. I see that there's third-party stuff out there, I just don't know who/what's good.
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Feb 25, 2016 21:28
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Bluedeanie posted:How much work are you willing to invest in fixing and adjusting the module to be good/playable/logical?
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Feb 25, 2016 21:30
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morestuff posted:Can anyone recommend good 5E adventures? Something on the shorter side would be best, but I'd take any suggestions. My group just hit lvl 11 in Out of the Abyss and we're having fun. I'm playing not DMing but it seems to have less of the crazy balance issues the earlier books had. I did get one-shot by a beholder death ray at level 8 or 9, but that was an outlier in an otherwise smooth campaign. I'm enjoying the transition from "oh poo poo run" survival mode at the beginning to now leading a major force through the Underdark to gently caress poo poo up. It also has some fun NPCs to roleplay and flesh out if that's a thing you're into. You can probably find the .pdf version of the first four chapters that were released for Adventurer's League play.
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Feb 25, 2016 22:00
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Out of the Abyss was the best and most interesting of the published campaigns I've read/played/GM'd. It's a little frustrating if you run it precisely by the book in that dying means dying in the undervault, unless you have a high level cleric in the party. Other than that, it didn't seem to have the disjointed bullshit of PotA and wasn't boring as gently caress like Hoard.
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Feb 26, 2016 01:07
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Bluedeanie posted:How much work are you willing to invest in fixing and adjusting the module to be good/playable/logical? The store I go to and started DMing at is doing the Rage of Demon modules. We've found them be fun. The low level stuff has some interesting encounters like an expanded rules mounted chase scene and a herd of demon possessed goats.
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Feb 26, 2016 02:39
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Running the individual adventures/missions might be better than running the big story adventures. Each is smaller. supposedly take around 6 hours or so though group speed will vary, and can have some tenuous connection. While the big adventure is slow going, though it covers a long level range.
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Feb 26, 2016 02:52
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For the love of all that is decent, don't play drums in the marsh without changing the ending. That is to say, read through every module you plan to play and be prepared to do some headscratching and rewriting, some of them are totally awful (as mentioned).
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Feb 26, 2016 03:09
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:I have frankly become disenchanted with 13A's boring classes, really boring magic items, and just general expectation that you will breathe life into all of its sagging, hackneyed parts. That's probably not a real popular opinion here, but my group has had a lot of problems getting into it. Nah, that lines up with my experiences. I was hype about 13A but ultimately disappointed with how it panned out for a number of the above reasons, and also because the combat is fairly dull imo, not tactical enough to scratch that itch and not freewheeling enough to scratch THAT itch. I wasn't really sold on Strike! to begin with but more and more I feel like it's the 13A I actually wanted.
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Feb 26, 2016 03:42
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Echoing everyone else re: DW as a good intro to RPGs. Here's a question, just for my own curiosity: what kind of meta-knowledge have your players surprised you by either knowing or not knowing? My players are pretty good about not letting their metagame knowledge affect their characters, and generally if they do know something specific (e.g. fire stops a troll from regenerating) I let it slide as in-character setting knowledge anyway. Sometimes though I throw in a little something as foreshadowing/an Easter egg for the more experienced players, and even when I worry it's too obvious they don't seem to catch on. My players have been walking through a heavily modified version of the first chapter of HotDQ to get them comfortable with the system and their characters and flesh the world out a bit. I've told them from the beginning that they will probably spend a lot of time in the Underdark (because I wanted everyone on board - as much as I like Out of the Abyss I could see a player get pissed if you ran the intro as written at level 1 and they were expecting a more traditional setting). The home brew city I've been using as a stand-in for Greenest has some weird poo poo going on that the characters haven't really had time to investigate due to the cultist raid, but now the dust has settled and they're off to check out a nearby keep that may or may not be tied to a mysterious door deep underground beneath the city temple. On the way to the keep the players happened across an old worked stone off the side of the path almost like a pillar. When they cleared away the overgrowth they saw what appeared to be four vertical parallel lines, almost like a powerful monster had clawed down the front - if not for the strange places where the lines are temporarily broken or change depths. I was worried it might be too obvious to one of my players (who has been playing D&D for ages and has read most of the novels as well) that the stone was marked with the language of the mind flayers (qualloth or something?) who have been sloooowly harvesting people from the city for centuries. He had no idea, though, which is going to make it a lot better when all the clues DO come together.
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Feb 26, 2016 19:18
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Ryoshi posted:Echoing everyone else re: DW as a good intro to RPGs. Or they can be like people I know and it fly over there heads until after everything is done and dead because they just embraced the inner murderhobo and purged the monsters.
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Feb 27, 2016 05:34
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I was really afraid of the murderhobo mentality since I have a couple of new players but I've been really blown away by how into RPing they've gotten. We had a week off after a minor arc concluded and I told the players they could let me know what they did in town before the next session. The experienced players did some research and gained some minor gold + bonuses for it - the newest guy though wrote up a little essay of what he was doing and his motivations, and when I told him he gained a few solid contacts through his actions he came up with names and small back stories for them all. I'm spoiled. 
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Feb 27, 2016 07:21
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Personally, I just love how quickly the word "murderhobo" has spread around gaming circles.
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Feb 27, 2016 11:06
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Huh I always read that as "more powerful than the character" so the cleric's Sword can talk anytime, but it literally makes you go demon hunting in the middle of the night until you're level 3. So you get the sword handled, then you get a Ring at level 3, It's not as good as the sword, but it's pulling against the sword a bit, so if we need a plot hook, the Ring will say "hey there are sick people, we should go help" and the sword will go "Don't you want to go Demon KILLING!?" If you listen to both they'll help out a little more, if you help out one and not the other you'll get a bonus from the one you help. If you help neither, That's ok because they have a base bonus. Everyone's got 1 magic item and it's basically a little single minded NPC that compels them to do things. The Cleric has a Fullblade Sword that gives her the Strength Domain when wielded. It does Extra damage when it's been sated. It'll tell her to kill Demons / Demon related evils. There is a tiefling, and it constantly wants to strike the Tiefling. If the Tiefling is engaged with the same enemy her attacks will hit both targets. This is made clear as soon as she grabbed. The Necromancer Tiefling just got a Ring that gives her a +1 to her 1d4 Creature summons. It tells her to "collect power," "be more assertive" "Go and do something with yourself jeeze." If she does that, she gets another +1 CHA. She has +1 CHA so it's situational. The Skeleton Minions will occasionally stop and give her motivational talks when she's not assertive enough. Again made super clear to her. The Rogue Human has -2 Intelligence, but wants to learn sign language. She gets an Amulet that has almost encyclopedic knowledge, and an help her with intelligence, remember stuff, and similar checks. It's a constant know-it-all though, and will chime in at random times to tell everyone in the room how dumb they are. Ontop of that he compels her to study in her "off time." If he follows them and instead of long resting he gets a book to study, he'll get an extra power slot or keep momentum even though he's hit, or something similar in battle. Those are all things that are super good until Level 3, then it's terrible.
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Feb 27, 2016 13:29
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I might be playing in a 5e game soon and my friend who told me about it said they need a cleric, because they need someone who can heal. Setting aside the fact that they have a bard and a ranger already, can paladin or druid do some healing reasonably well? It seems like cleric is just far and away better but it also seems pretty boring.
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Feb 27, 2016 14:56
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Just bought the pathfinder humble bundle, and a bunch of friends want to try out a game. A few of them have played D&D before, most of them haven't, and I've been playing pbps here for a couple months. I may be DMing. Is there a fun, easy, single-session pathfinder module that would be good for us to cut our teeth onto as we learn the system? Also, any advice on which materials to print and which to leave as pdfs (or which things are available on the SRD)? The current plan is to just use pregens for the first module or two before adding some of the other book content for custom characters and a longer campaign if we enjoy the group dynamic.
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Feb 27, 2016 15:36
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Zarick posted:I might be playing in a 5e game soon and my friend who told me about it said they need a cleric, because they need someone who can heal. Setting aside the fact that they have a bard and a ranger already, can paladin or druid do some healing reasonably well? It seems like cleric is just far and away better but it also seems pretty boring. Both the Paladin and Druid do have the healing spells necessary to act as a healer. The problem with healing, in that you have to explicitly devote in-combat actions to doing it, is something you can't really avoid no matter which class you play.
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Feb 27, 2016 15:41
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Zarick posted:I might be playing in a 5e game soon and my friend who told me about it said they need a cleric, because they need someone who can heal. Setting aside the fact that they have a bard and a ranger already, can paladin or druid do some healing reasonably well? It seems like cleric is just far and away better but it also seems pretty boring. Just play a wizard and prevent them from taking damage by neutralizing encounters. Or play a light cleric and nuke everything with holy fire. Or go paladin like you said. Don't be a healbot.
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Feb 27, 2016 15:42
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gradenko_2000 posted:Both the Paladin and Druid do have the healing spells necessary to act as a healer. The problem with healing, in that you have to explicitly devote in-combat actions to doing it, is something you can't really avoid no matter which class you play. Really though, unless someone goes down there's usually no need to in combat heal. Unless you think someone's going to take a bunch of damage and go way into the negatives or something. Otherwise, just toss out healing word of they drop to pop them back up, and save the main healing for after combat.
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Feb 27, 2016 15:51
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Healing is for chumps. Full spellcasters have way better things to spend their spell slots on, like ending encounters. Also I fully endorse the light cleric. Their channel divinity explode thing is amazing. It's party-friendly and it comes online before you get fireball (which is also fun). If the DM wants someone to heal, tell him to give the party a recharging staff with healing spells in it. Or just buy lots of potions. It's not like there's much else to spend your money on unless the DM actually lets you buy magic items.
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Feb 27, 2016 16:36
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What if you turned all healing spells into reaction spells, would healers then magically become fun to play?
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Feb 27, 2016 17:54
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No, not unless you also removed the limit of one slot-spell per turn. Even then you're reducing your access to the more powerful spells in exchange for dragging a fight out a bit.
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Feb 27, 2016 18:00
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Pass out some Goodberries for emergency use, then turn into a bear and eat faces.
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Feb 27, 2016 18:27
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e: ^^^ yeah do thisBoing posted:What if you turned all healing spells into reaction spells, would healers then magically become fun to play? My main turn-off from being a healer in any RPG I've played is that they usually feel too reactive. Wait for a monster to hurt someone, then give them some of those hit points back. Burning my spell slots as reactions like that would just leave me less to play with on my turn. In my ideal version of healing, clerics and paladins would be all about proactively inspiring/buffing/warding other PCs and debuffing monsters while in combat and then doing their healing out of combat. This could be partly through daily rituals and as bonuses to the existing short rest hit die healing mechanic as well as straight out-of-combat spells. Keep combat active and engaging and let the meatshields pound back potions if they really need more HP during combat.
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Feb 27, 2016 18:34
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ritorix posted:Pass out some Goodberries for emergency use, then turn into a bear and eat faces. This, except the land druid version: cast Conjure Animals, summon 1-8 bears to eat faces, and then do your normal actions on top of that. Edit: Someone please math out the bear equivalent of the skeleton economy for me.
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Feb 27, 2016 19:46
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I tried playing a healbot cleric once. Then I remembered I was a tempest cleric and preemptively healed the party by blasting enemies with lightning before they could damage my allies.
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Feb 27, 2016 19:56
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Tarandis posted:This, except the land druid version: cast Conjure Animals, summon 1-8 bears to eat faces, and then do your normal actions on top of that. I thought he said feces and was bringing up some random power from a supplement that lets bear Druids eat poo to heal
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Feb 27, 2016 20:01
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Soylent Pudding posted:I tried playing a healbot cleric once. Then I remembered I was a tempest cleric and preemptively healed the party by blasting enemies with lightning before they could damage my allies. Shatter was my Tempest Cleric and Valor Bard's best friend. Blow poo poo up with thunder all day every day. It basically ended any encounter it was used in. Why heal when you can break the game over your knee with a level 2 spell?
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Feb 27, 2016 20:15
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Lost Mines of Phandelver is good and a short adventure. It's the starter set one. I do also have quite a bit of love for Princes of the Apocalypse and what I have played so far of Out of the Abyss. So I am looking forward to Curse of a Strahd next week.
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Feb 28, 2016 02:55
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Forever_Peace posted:Just bought the pathfinder humble bundle, and a bunch of friends want to try out a game. PF isn't really on topic for this thread, but I've heard good things about We Be Goblins! If you want a more "traditional" D&D experience, try Hollow's Last Hope. Paizo is pretty good at including stuff on the SRD. I don't think you need to worry about printing too much.
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Feb 28, 2016 14:42
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Selachian posted:Paizo is pretty good at including stuff on the SRD. I don't think you need to worry about printing too much. 99% of all Pathfinder material is available on PFSRD for free.
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Feb 28, 2016 15:04
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So here's a rules question. (And yes, "ask your DM" is probably the punchline.) When do you leave a creature's reach? In other words, when does a monster get to make an opportunity attack? Now the answer seems simple but let's say we're talking about an ancient red dragon, which has three physical attacks and they each have their own separate reach: 10 feet (claw), 15 feet (bite), and 20 feet (tail). In order to provoke an opportunity attack you must "move out of their reach". So... which reach? If I move 10' away, I left the reach of its claw attack. So I moved out of its reach and it gets to make an opportunity attack? Or, since I am still comfortably inside the dragon's reach with other melee attacks, did I not trigger an opportunity attack? The rule says you must leave the reach of the creature, but what is that? Is it determined by the longest available reach or is it determined by individual attack modes? As far as I can tell, 5e's natural language can't even properly define how opportunity attacks work.
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Feb 28, 2016 16:40
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Now imagine if the dragon was holding a polearm.
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Feb 28, 2016 16:45
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Sage Genesis posted:So here's a rules question. (And yes, "ask your DM" is probably the punchline.) Bolded the answer hth
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Feb 28, 2016 16:58
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It's got spells and flight. Why would it bother with melee?
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Feb 28, 2016 17:00
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Really Pants posted:It's got spells Actually, I think you'll find that dragons as spellcasters is a variant rule 
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Feb 28, 2016 17:17
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