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the_steve posted:More of this please. Most definitely. More, please!
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Sep 5, 2016 05:26
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the_steve posted:More of this please. Grog! Grog! Grog junior grog grog junior.
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Sep 5, 2016 07:32
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Admittedly, as a DM, I'm kind of stingy with magical items. One of my players is really experienced and he pointed this out. Mostly as a joke, I gave the Dwarven cleric a bottomless stein and the Elven Paladin got this: He accepts the item with a modicum of fuss and promptly forgets about it. Several sessions later, they come upon a prison... except it appears to be a single story log cabin with no guards around it. The door is unlocked and when they open it, they realize that the cabin is in fact a Colossal Mimic. During the course of the battle, the Paladin gets grappled and swallowed and for the life of him, he can't seem to make any of his saves. One of other players looks up at him. "Wait a minute. Do you still have that magical spice shaker?" He manages to grab the spice shaker and conjures up the most insanely hot spice known to fantasy roleplaying games and the mimic spits him out. I've never, ever let him live it down.
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Sep 5, 2016 19:29
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Writer Cath posted:Admittedly, as a DM, I'm kind of stingy with magical items. One of my players is really experienced and he pointed this out. Mostly as a joke, I gave the Dwarven cleric a bottomless stein and the Elven Paladin got this: Now, the responsible thing is to be weaponizing this spice. Or monetizing it. Or both.
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Sep 5, 2016 22:11
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the_steve posted:Now, the responsible thing is to be weaponizing this spice. Or monetizing it. Or both.
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Sep 5, 2016 23:20
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Writer Cath posted:Admittedly, as a DM, I'm kind of stingy with magical items. One of my players is really experienced and he pointed this out. Mostly as a joke, I gave the Dwarven cleric a bottomless stein and the Elven Paladin got this: Good; you should. Ungrateful bastard doesn't even realise that he's been blessed; he'll never run short of cumin again.
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Sep 6, 2016 00:56
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loving players A magic spice-grinder is the best, I'd literally rather have that than a +numbers sword or w/e
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Sep 6, 2016 03:21
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Motherfucker posted:loving players +magic swords come and go, but a magic knick-knack with a niche use is forever.
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Sep 6, 2016 06:50
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Next they need to fight a giant slug.
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Sep 6, 2016 07:41
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Was it the Reaper pepper that made those girls cry?
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Sep 6, 2016 07:41
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I have run multiple characters who would have immediately hauled the party off on the most extreme tangent imaginable if they even heard a rumor of that item's existence. Well, to be honest, they were all iterations of the same basic concept. But yes, the more niche and esoteric a magic item, the more interesting a use players will find for it.
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Sep 6, 2016 16:05
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These are a few of the random/fun items I gave the party in my last campaign: Ring of Floating - The user becomes weightless, translucent, and turns a random color. They float off the ground but due to their weightlessness have no way to actually propel themselves. They just bob in the air like a balloon and will float away unless tethered. No activation needed. Just put the ring and start floating. It became a favorite item of the party's full-plated cavalier. Or should I say it became a favorite of the party to put on the cavalier. He hated it because he felt so... useless wearing it and was subject to the whim of whoever was holding his string. Aerdy’s Flask - Produces a gallon of a different random liquid every day. 1 - fresh cool water 2 - fresh hot, near boiling water 3 - muddy water that tastes slightly metallic but is otherwise harmless 4 - wine 5 - goat's milk 6 - chamomile tea 7 - apple cider 8 - banana custard You've never seen excitement like the excitement that overtakes a party of road-weary adventurers like when they roll that daily d8 and end up getting a heaping helping of banana custard. They found all sorts of uses for this thing. The party had way more fun finding creative uses for these things than they did with a bigger number on their weapon.
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Sep 6, 2016 16:20
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HatfulOfHollow posted:These are a few of the random/fun items I gave the party in my last campaign: I love stuff like this. As effective a tool as it is, the Pathfinder equipment book lacks a lot of fun, dumb stuff. I found myself making up more and more stuff on my own for our comic Pathfinder game. I would still use the equipment guide to generate combat poo poo, and to chase that ever-elusive "Vorpal Sword of Mercy." (I could have just handed one out to the group without randomly generating it, but that takes all the fun out of it. I felt like I had to earn it.) But the fun stuff always comes from home-brewed items.
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Sep 6, 2016 18:21
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Writer Cath posted:Admittedly, as a DM, I'm kind of stingy with magical items. One of my players is really experienced and he pointed this out. Mostly as a joke, I gave the Dwarven cleric a bottomless stein and the Elven Paladin got this: So, when do you send the platoon of covetous, bloodthirsty chefs after the party?
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Sep 6, 2016 19:10
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Phy posted:So, when do you send the platoon of covetous, bloodthirsty chefs after the party?
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Sep 6, 2016 19:19
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Lorak posted:Only when you want to spice up the combat encounters. Sounds like a good way to make your players salty.
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Sep 6, 2016 20:41
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At the very least you'll know which ones make the cut.
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Sep 6, 2016 21:03
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It'd be good way to make the transition from fledgling adventurers to seasoned heroes.
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Sep 7, 2016 04:21
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An old DM had a thing for containers of endless foo for a while. Water. Urine. Oranges. Decanters. At one point, near the end of this huge dungeon we were crawling, he described us opening a door on a naked man who immediately shoved his junk in a canteen and died because of the hungry otyugh in an extradimensional space inside. Dude had some issues.
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Sep 7, 2016 05:13
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the_steve posted:It'd be good way to make the transition from fledgling adventurers to seasoned heroes. If I could offer some sage advice my Pap rikammended once: peppering your dialogue with too many spicy puns in too short a thyme will only earn you a chili reception, and if you don't cut the mustard, or even only succeed parshley, you may find yourself thrown in the river, where the crocodiles snap at your fingers and the gar lick your toes Herbs au Provence
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Sep 7, 2016 05:42
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Doodmons posted:On the topic of character death: Yeah, but then you get the refs that decided that "drat it, Imma kill someone and that someone is... YOU!" We were playing a game of Dark Conspiracy, which is loosely based on the Twilight 2000 rules (Think that everything in the supermarket SERIOUSLY out there tabloids are true, kinda). Which, if you know them, have some serious issues. For example, a .50 cal bullet can not pierce cinderblock, and, in fact, leaves it undamaged (which led to endless jokes about strapping cinderblocks to EVERYTHING. I had a lot of experience in the system and some seriously hot dice during the career rolls, which led to Carmen Esposito, the GIANT Hispanic that was nigh-invulnerable to physical damage. So, we end up running into something called Bhutta (spelling?), Devourer of Souls. Okay, so Carmen's psychic defenses were weak. I am okay with that. What I was NOT okay with was the creatures quasi-zombie minions not attacking any of the party, just basically holding them in place, while the thing psychically drags Carmen into it's maw. Yeah, so the character was twinked a bit, but the ref had approved then. The minions only start fighting once the Devourer of Souls completed and irrevocably consumed Carmen (and, referring to Twilight 2000 rules, chargen takes a LONG time). On the plus(ish) side, it only had 25% of it's hit points left, as it took several rounds consuming my character while he battled for his life the entire time. I say, WTF. I will give him another shot. I roll up a psychic powerhouse. While roleplaying the urban, ZERO combat experience young woman, she fails to exit a car in time during a militia attack and the car gets a direct strike from a mortar. My opinion is that character deaths DO happen sometimes. But, primarily, they should be used to advance the plot or punish players that are loving around. And, if possible, there should be SOME small chance for them to come back, especially as ALL of this is a BLOODY loving GAME. You know, for fun. Edit: Yeah, that was my last game with that group, which sucked as that town SUCKED for RPG action. So, I did  ...
Samizdata fucked around with this message at 08:58 on Sep 7, 2016 |
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Sep 7, 2016 08:55
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EDIT: You know, forums, showing me my post once I make it prevents double posting. Just sayin'...
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Sep 7, 2016 08:56
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No Luck Needed posted:side note -- the guy who ran Sahdowrun, Jordan, would make fun of you if you referred to him as the Dungeon Master. "I am not here to excite you sexual, I am not the dungeon master, I am the game master or narrator." And this is why I call the person running the game the referee.
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Sep 7, 2016 09:15
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the_steve posted:+magic swords come and go, but a magic knick-knack with a niche use is forever. Especially when your players give that cauldron that endlessly makes nutritious gruel to the local charitable cleric by slipping it unto the wagon he brought to collect some smoked giant elk the ranger trapped to feed the poor, then play completely dumb when he asks about it later (and the party cleric suggests it might be a divine gift for all his good works, so he needed to keep it up, but, you know, that's just between us holy types, so keep it quiet). Also, druids with plant growth make for good winery owners. (A one-night adventure that spun wonderfully off the tracks into the opposite of murderhobodom.)
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Sep 7, 2016 09:23
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Samizdata posted:Especially when your players give that cauldron that endlessly makes nutritious gruel to the local charitable cleric by slipping it unto the wagon he brought to collect some smoked giant elk the ranger trapped to feed the poor, then play completely dumb when he asks about it later (and the party cleric suggests it might be a divine gift for all his good works, so he needed to keep it up, but, you know, that's just between us holy types, so keep it quiet). Also, druids with plant growth make for good winery owners. I always liked the idea of magic adhering to the principles of the conservation of matter and energy. Like, if you conjure anything, it has to come from somewhere, and the DM can consider it for comedic purposes. One of my players years ago had a gag about a dog summoned via Summon Nature's Ally I would pull some poor pooch from a frizbee game in Central Park to whatever hellish combat the PC dropped it into. When the spell's duration ended, alive or dead, the dog was deposited right back where it started. The owner would see his dog disappear, and then reappear about a minute later, bloodied and snarling and insane. This also meant that the dog you summoned could be a Pomeranian or the like, which didn't affect the mechanics if the DM was nice but was a lot of fun to literally throw into a pitched battle. This also led to the idea of the Elemental Plane of Horse, which was the source of the Mount Spell. The idea was that it was way easier to learn or buy a Mount spell than to actually own a horse, so economically there had to be more horses out there to summon than there were in existence. So there had to be some repository of horses from which the spell summoned horses. We played from 8 PM to like 3 AM back in college. This kind of poo poo happens. Railing Kill fucked around with this message at 12:19 on Sep 7, 2016 |
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Sep 7, 2016 12:09
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Bieeardo posted:An old DM had a thing for containers of endless foo for a while. Water. Urine. Oranges. Decanters. Need more posts of terrible players/dms plz Unfortunately my two games have been going pretty well. The previous DM that railroaded (he got better at the end) is now a player in our shadow run game. He is playing his typical violence loving brute. He also tends to think his characters are more clever than is true. In this case his character kidnapped a belhop in order to scope out the surroundings. Our characters had not met yet and ran into each other when we were both copping the place. Perception let me know the clothes were ill-fitting and also that he had cybernetics, as a bellhop. So, I approached him about getting some towels and when I left I told him I wanted to tell management that he did a great job, whats his name. "Joshua" Whats his uniform tag say? "Jean Paul"
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Sep 7, 2016 13:26
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I've just started DMing a campaign (my first time) and just to keep things interesting, I've included a magic vendor, Pitnick, who is either an extremely ugly gnome or a pretty standard goblin. He travels around with a large animated construct consisting of what looks like a pile of Detritus centered around a large chest, which acts as his extradimensional storage and muscle when necessary. Pitnick only trades in magical or unique items and trinkets, not money, and is part of a network of similar vendors who roam the world seeking to collect the unusual, but no-one knows at whose behest. Of course, I don't want to give them anything that's just a straight up advantage in combat, but I want them to have extra tools in their arsenal to tackle unusual challenges in the game. They won't be able to trade for all of these items, of course, so they'll get to choose what to invest in after a bit of experimentation. Codex of Akke - A small worn leather hardcover book, bound with iron around the edges. When opened to a blank page and held in front of the user's face, it captures an image of what the user would be looking at (that is otherwise obscured by the book) when they blink. The image appears as though it were etched in ink, including rough shading. The first third of the book is full of miscellaneous scenes, but the book itself has only 5 charges left. A user must attune the book and expend a 1st level spell slot in order to give a book a single additional charge. There are approximately 100 pages remaining. Linkstones - A small pouch containing 5 smooth, semiprecious stones of various hues (Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Pink). While holding a stone in your hand, you can see the location of each of the other stones as a point of colored light. The point of light dims with distance, and will be invisible at 10km. Stone - A small, unassuming pebble, with a crude carving of two birds. Will inerrantly hit whatever you want to throw it at, within the limits of an incredibly lucky throw, including ricochets but limited to what you can see and the laws of physics (ie, no wishing to hit something you cannot see). Does about as much damage as you would expect a pebble to. Ink Quill - A magical quill that never runs out of ink, however, the color is tied to the current user's disposition, much like a mood ring. Warpstone -A pair of softly glowing crystalline shards in a elongated hexagonal shape. Shattering a warpstone will create a dimensional door lasting 5 seconds to wherever it's pair is, but the cost of using one of Pitnick's (the vendor who sells them) is giving him first choice of one of your magical items. Their intended use is communication. When tapped, the stones glow and emit a brief tone. Tapping one thrice will inform Pitnick that you've got something for him, and a three tone reply informs the user the he is making his way towards you in the near future. As for weapons, I tried to make something unique but not overpowered for my party, which they should manage to find by the end of next session. Here's a sketch I made of the characters. Malo the grognard monk, Kurgan the Cleric, Esmerelda the rock-obsessed barbarian, and Tanner the bard.  For the monk, The Staff of Khi'Laf - A 5 foot wooden staff about 2 inches in diameter. It's wood is stained a deep red, set with Bronze on either end. When attuned, the staff can extend itself up to 20” almost instantaneously, and remain that length for 3 minutes, after which it will revert to it's original size at a rate of 1ft/second. User can choose to revert it to it's original size at any time. It cannot extend again until the user has taken a short rest. For the Bard, Tell-a-tale - An enchanted lute of rich brown wood with a gentle green inlaid design. Once a day, for 5 minutes, The user may choose to project the Lute's sound anywhere within 100ft, or make it much louder. For the Barbarian - Snapback - Dual Axes - A pair of battleaxes (1d8) which may be interlocked with a minor action into a double-headed Greataxe (1d12) For the Cleric, The Disciplinarian - A smooth, round mace that confers a +2 bonus to intimidation checks. McKilligan fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Sep 7, 2016 |
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Sep 7, 2016 14:43
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I like the items, but I'd suggest not requiring spell slots to recharge the picture book. That effectively cuts the number of people who can use it in your group in half, and spellcasters are the people in a group least likely to need extra utility stuff like that.
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Sep 7, 2016 15:38
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I like that codex. Actually I like it so much that I'm going to steal it and build an adventure around it. Party finds the book and figures out how it works. It's about half full of pictures. Some of which will provide clues to some bigger adventure. And it turns out that there's a Bad Man hunting for the book because someone used it to take a picture that will be useful in his Big Evil Plan. Thanks!
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Sep 7, 2016 15:42
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Dirk the Average posted:I like the items, but I'd suggest not requiring spell slots to recharge the picture book. That effectively cuts the number of people who can use it in your group in half, and spellcasters are the people in a group least likely to need extra utility stuff like that. Anyone can use the codex, but if you want to recharge it you've got to get a caster to spend time to do so.
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Sep 7, 2016 15:58
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McKilligan posted:Anyone can use the codex, but if you want to recharge it you've got to get a caster to spend time to do so. That's kind of my point - you're asking them to make other characters recharge the item for them. Why not have the recharging ritual be something that's nonmagical and requires something like raw materials or some time focusing or preparing the book without the use of magic? Is there a specific reason that it must be recharged with spell slots instead of something more exotic or available to non spellcasters as well? What is the purpose of the recharging? If you want to limit the number of pictures that can be taken, why not just limit it to a number of pictures per day or something similar?
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Sep 7, 2016 17:04
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What if the book didn't have charges like you described, and rather, the number of remaining uses is however many pages are left? BUT, you can spend downtime doing magic item crafting of some sort to add more pages, which will in turn add more charges to it. Or if you don't use downtime, find some NPC willing to give them a sidequest and they will add more pages to the book to prolong its functionality?
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Sep 7, 2016 18:49
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Have a little wheel embedded in the back that you need to turn for a while to get a new charge.
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Sep 7, 2016 19:18
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If you hold the Codex by one corner and shake it, does it make the engraving form faster?
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Sep 7, 2016 19:20
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That or it blanks 1d6 etched pages.
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Sep 7, 2016 20:16
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Dirk the Average posted:That's kind of my point - you're asking them to make other characters recharge the item for them. Why not have the recharging ritual be something that's nonmagical and requires something like raw materials or some time focusing or preparing the book without the use of magic? Is there a specific reason that it must be recharged with spell slots instead of something more exotic or available to non spellcasters as well? What is the purpose of the recharging? If you want to limit the number of pictures that can be taken, why not just limit it to a number of pictures per day or something similar? You're right, I just want to limit the use of the camera so my players will use it sparingly, but a 1st level spell does seem like a steep cost. I think I'll limit it to once a day use rather than recharging.
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Sep 7, 2016 23:50
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McKilligan posted:You're right, I just want to limit the use of the camera so my players will use it sparingly, but a 1st level spell does seem like a steep cost. I think I'll limit it to once a day use rather than recharging. Then, make something interesting related to it happen when an eclipse does.
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Sep 8, 2016 00:11
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:If you hold the Codex by one corner and shake it, does it make the engraving form faster? I think you're confusing the Codex of Akke with the Pole of Royd, which isa different artifact entirely.
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Sep 8, 2016 05:08
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The infinitely reusable nature of Ecche's Ketch makes it the superior artifact, in my opinion.
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Sep 8, 2016 07:59
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Railing Kill posted:This also led to the idea of the Elemental Plane of Horse, which was the source of the Mount Spell. The idea was that it was way easier to learn or buy a Mount spell than to actually own a horse, so economically there had to be more horses out there to summon than there were in existence. So there had to be some repository of horses from which the spell summoned horses. I had a sort of eldritch-horror sorcerer who could use Mount to summon a horse-shaped mount. It looked a lot like a horse but it was more like a giant amoeba I guess.
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Sep 8, 2016 13:00
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