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Judgement posted:Boy, I wish. I wasn't kidding about that "lots of inns" comment. I'm pretty sure we have stopped in a tavern once, on average, for every session we've played. That in itself has been super frustrating for me at least because there are few things that bore me more than tavern roleplay; lists of the various foods on the menu! oh man I'm going to chat up that waitress! haggling over the price of rooms! Inns aside, our game has mostly been a sequence of super chatty NPCs talking at us for hours about things that have no relevance to us as characters or players. Descriptions of the various gods, long talks about royal lineages and the histories of various kingdoms, all this stuff that should be background information just being dumped on us at every turn. And travelling. In-game months of travel time where nothing actually happens. Guys, guys, lore is important. Original setting do not steal™
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Sep 5, 2016 04:14
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Jack B Nimble posted:I want to see this game in person; what is it leading towards? I mean all this exposition, can you feel it moving towards anything? We do have an ultimate goal, of sorts. Somebody got kidnapped by somebody else and we, as outsiders (literally. we started in the forgotten realms and ended up in another plane) were obviously the best choice to find and rescue this person because Politics. It just..when the travel times are so outrageously long and we have no personal connection to any of it, for me at least I've been finding it hard to get invested beyond "Okay we'll do this for you if you can find a way to get us home, I've got family and a business to get back to". Can't speak for the other players. Two of them are completely new to the hobby and now they probably just think this is how it's supposed to go. Are there many premades like that out by now? I haven't looked into it much, but I sometimes use premades as reference when making my own campaigns (the hope is that if we finish this leg of the adventure I can convince them to let me run something. hope you suckers are ready to get quantum leaped into The Skelebone Zone) and I haven't really liked much of what I've seen from the official ones. P.d0t posted:Guys, guys, lore is important. Original setting do not steal™ I originally thought it was exactly this sort of situation, which I've run into before. But then it turned out that it's actually a setting based on a book series I had never heard of, Kushiel's Legacy and after the briefest investigation into the series I now wish I had never found that out.
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Sep 5, 2016 04:45
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Jack B Nimble posted:I want to see this game in person; what is it leading towards? I mean all this exposition, can you feel it moving towards anything? I can't speak for their 5e stuff, but I just finished a short level 1 to 5 minicampaign of 3rd Edition using Goodman Games' modules and it was almost completely plug-and-play.
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Sep 5, 2016 04:53
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Even in The Lord of the Rings, a novel about hobbits walking east, in which the reader can visibly trace a half-elf's lineage down to individual elf kings and is happy to tell it to everyone who asks about his sword, had a poo poo ton of great encounters. I'm bored to death just imagining being in this game.
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Sep 5, 2016 04:55
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Give the GM until halfway through the session to make things interesting, then go full murderhobo if he hasn't.
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Sep 5, 2016 05:26
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gradenko_2000 posted:This was also a way of distinguish some monsters from others, because if you were fighting kobolds, goblins or other intelligent humanoids, you could possibly take on much larger groups as long as you engineered a first-turn kill, triggered an early morale check and sent a number of them fleeing right away.
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Sep 5, 2016 05:56
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Judgement posted:Because this was the one game where I decided I wanted to try playing a nice, friendly, good guy character. Never making that mistake again. Back to nothing but rowdy, violent assholes from now on! Nice, friendly guys get in fights, it's just that much harder. Pour a beer on someone, or talk to the biggest guys partner. Or ask the dm if this is the kind of game he wants to play becuase it sounds boring as batshit.
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Sep 5, 2016 06:29
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For new DM's, I definitely suggest doing a module. I was very apprehensive of running "Out of the Abyss" when I was looking into it because it's a huge mess of a campaign. However, as you go and let the players choose where they wanna go it really straightens itself out. Most of my players are completely new to DnD and we all had the foreknowledge that this is a module so it would be a bit "rail roady" but we're all gamers so they don't mind. They have been more than happy to go along with their options and just try to survive the Underdark. A great thing is that as a burgeoning DM with my own stories that I'm writing (Original story-lines do not steal™) I've been adding in tons of things, also doing tons of crazy magic loot. This is a very high magic campaign, however I have an end-game mini campaign that will be breaking magic and a future campaign will have very little magic in it, and my players will be part of it. There's a thing called the "Society of Brilliance," a small group barely mentioned in the game and doesn't really exist in larger "lore." Well, I have a character who loved it and wants to start a "surface chapter" so I've added a whole side thing for him as an initiate and they've met all the society in their travels (one left to go). As he finishes their task a metal orb will unlock until it reveals an acceptance letter and a very powerful magic item as a reward. Moral of the post: New DMs should use a module and adjust it for personal/future plans and pacing!
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Sep 5, 2016 07:22
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Judgement posted:We do have an ultimate goal, of sorts. Somebody got kidnapped by somebody else and we, as outsiders (literally. we started in the forgotten realms and ended up in another plane) were obviously the best choice to find and rescue this person because Politics. It just..when the travel times are so outrageously long and we have no personal connection to any of it, for me at least I've been finding it hard to get invested beyond "Okay we'll do this for you if you can find a way to get us home, I've got family and a business to get back to". Can't speak for the other players. Two of them are completely new to the hobby and now they probably just think this is how it's supposed to go. So uh... why are you still playing? Seriously. It sounds like you show up weekly just to have someone explain her favorite smutty novels to you. Did you sign up for magical tea party book club? Or did you sign up for a game of action-adventure, where protagonists can do poo poo, have personal stakes, and aren't literally left passive-aggressive post-it notes?
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Sep 5, 2016 07:29
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If you want to be really passive-aggressive, get the other players to agree that you're the new gm ahead of time, then partway through the boring poo poo start narrating your own version of events. Then watch him get an aneurysm as the consensus reality no longer takes any notice of him.
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Sep 5, 2016 09:55
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Judgement posted:I originally thought it was exactly this sort of situation, which I've run into before. But then it turned out that it's actually a setting based on a book series I had never heard of, Kushiel's Legacy and after the briefest investigation into the series I now wish I had never found that out. Can we get more details in the cat piss thread? *Well outside of FR 
Splicer fucked around with this message at 10:06 on Sep 5, 2016 |
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Sep 5, 2016 10:03
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I'm was guilty of the "let's RP my novel" style back in high school until I got told to knock it off after 2 or 3 sessions. Don't know what started it, because I'd never done it before and it's not a good idea. Splicer posted:"Let's RP my fan wiki". 
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Sep 5, 2016 10:59
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Judgement posted:I originally thought it was exactly this sort of situation, which I've run into before. But then it turned out that it's actually a setting based on a book series I had never heard of, Kushiel's Legacy and after the briefest investigation into the series I now wish I had never found that out. Haha. The books are written well enough, but yeah that is 110% not something a tabletop nerd is going to run well in the slightest.
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Sep 5, 2016 23:31
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So, I'm thinking about some potential house rules for 5E, and I'm looking for feedback. The first is to make Short Rests only take 5 minutes, but also institute a rule that you can only take a Short Rest after every second encounter. That should mean Short Rests happen at the expected frequency without taking an hour out of the adventuring day. The second it to let Fighters use the optional marking rules from the DMG and let them have the Sentinel feat for free. I'm also thinking rogues should get access to the tumble action and maybe all martial character should be able to cleave (with the possible modification that the creature reduced to 0 HP doesn't have to have been undamaged). edit: Would it break anything to make a Shove an attack against AC? thefakenews fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Sep 7, 2016 |
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Sep 7, 2016 15:51
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thefakenews posted:edit: Would it break anything to make a Shove an attack against AC? Wouldn't this make Shove potentially weaker? As it is, it's basically a kind of attack that ignores AC.
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Sep 7, 2016 16:16
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DrSunshine posted:Wouldn't this make Shove potentially weaker? As it is, it's basically a kind of attack that ignores AC. Depends who is shoving and what they are shoving, it makes it more viable for lower strength characters or those not proficient in athletics. I'm assuming you would use your weapon attack stat+proficiency bonus. It makes some creatures harder to shove and some easier. A goblin would be harder, an ogre would be easier. thefakenews fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Sep 7, 2016 |
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Sep 7, 2016 16:32
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thefakenews posted:So, I'm thinking about some potential house rules for 5E, and I'm looking for feedback. Instead of using the Marking rules, just give everyone you want to be able to act as a defender an unlimited number of Opportunity Attacks.
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Sep 7, 2016 16:58
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thefakenews posted:The second it to let Fighters use the optional marking rules from the DMG and let them have the Sentinel feat for free. I'm also thinking rogues should get access to the tumble action and maybe all martial character should be able to cleave (with the possible modification that the creature reduced to 0 HP doesn't have to have been undamaged). If you do any/all of these, strongly consider not allowing multiclassing.
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Sep 7, 2016 18:57
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Honestly just disabling multiclassing and moving some of the later capstone abilities earlier in their trees would do a lot to balance the early game, Not sure what to do about late game but most games never get there anyway.
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Sep 7, 2016 19:05
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So, the Middle Earth Player's Guide is out now in PDF http://drivethrurpg.com/product/192261/Adventures-in-Middleearth-Players-Guide Have any goons picked it up? I'm not very into 5e, but I'm crazy into Middle Earth, so I'm probably snagging it before too long.
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Sep 7, 2016 19:18
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Why not just play The One Ring instead?
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Sep 7, 2016 19:27
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Drone posted:Why not just play The One Ring instead? Gaming realpolitik
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Sep 7, 2016 20:14
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Drone posted:Why not just play The One Ring instead? I'm also wondering how good the 5e translation is, the setting material within, etc.
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Sep 7, 2016 20:35
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thefakenews posted:The first is to make Short Rests only take 5 minutes, but also institute a rule that you can only take a Short Rest after every second encounter. That should mean Short Rests happen at the expected frequency without taking an hour out of the adventuring day. What if you just said "you guys have the opportunity to take a short rest now" whenever you, as the DM, feel like it would be a good time for them to take a short rest? This is what I do. No one in my play group even knows short rests are supposed to be an hour because we've literally never used that rule.
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Sep 7, 2016 20:36
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Just read the foreword in the preview and laughed at this: "If your take on Middle-earth includes a spell-slinging wizard’s apprentice, no problem – add in a magic-using class from the core OGL products. If you look hard enough, I’m sure there’s even a feat for shield-surfing somewhere!"
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Sep 7, 2016 20:40
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thefakenews posted:
Consider letting Sentinel stay as a feat choice, but giving them the Tunnel Fighter style for free at, like, level 3.
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Sep 8, 2016 00:35
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I picked up Storm King's Thunder. Looks nice. The intro adventure I was provided by the regional Adventurer's League rep is literally just the first chapter in PDF form. Haven't seen any other adventures like CoS has. We'll see how this goes once I'm the DM. Edit: Instead of handing out XP, the characters all level when they accomplish certain tasks. This will be good for league. Admiral Joeslop fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Sep 8, 2016 |
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Sep 8, 2016 03:10
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Admiral Joeslop posted:I picked up Storm King's Thunder. Looks nice. The intro adventure I was provided by the regional Adventurer's League rep is literally just the first chapter in PDF form. Haven't seen any other adventures like CoS has. We'll see how this goes once I'm the DM. Didn't Curse of Strahd heavily encourage milestone-based XP too? Has that been an official recommendation from Wizards for awhile, or is that a relatively new thing for them? It's definitely the better way of doing XP in my opinion, which leads me to believe WotC has probably been sticking to their guns about fixed-amount monster-kill-XP-only for awhile.
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Sep 8, 2016 08:53
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Drone posted:It's definitely the better way of doing XP in my opinion, which leads me to believe WotC has probably been sticking to their guns about fixed-amount monster-kill-XP-only for awhile. This is correct.
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Sep 8, 2016 12:32
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Ah. I haven't read CoS and my DM hands out XP instead of milestones. I much prefer this method. This book needed another pass by an editor, I've noticed several errors in the first couple chapters.
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Sep 8, 2016 13:12
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XP is pretty tedious and leads to bad incentives. I ran a Castlevania game in 4e once and actually awarded XP after every encounter but that was a very specific kind of game, which included mid-game leveling.
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Sep 8, 2016 13:21
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I like to just give XP at the end of every session, but that might just be a habit I picked up from EotE. It's by far the easiest method for everyone involved -- the GM and players don't have to do any bullshit tracking, and you don't end up with a party that has level imbalance among the players. Unless you deny session XP to people who miss the session, which I don't care to do unless there is chronic absenteeism. Drone fucked around with this message at 13:56 on Sep 8, 2016 |
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Sep 8, 2016 13:54
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Mendrian posted:XP is pretty tedious and leads to bad incentives. For an AD&D 1e treasure-stealing game, it works pretty great as a reward mechanism. For an epic adventure path ... well, not so much.
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Sep 8, 2016 13:57
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Drone posted:I like to just give XP at the end of every session, but that might just be a habit I picked up from EotE. It's by far the easiest method for everyone involved -- the GM and players don't have to do any bullshit tracking, and you don't end up with a party that has level imbalance among the players. Why not just level the party at appropriate moments and keep everyone at the same level all the time? There is no tracking or work involved for anyone.
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Sep 8, 2016 13:58
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Granting XP gives players the illusion that the battles they fight are giving something meaningful as a reward. In reality, I've decided well in advance when in the campaign the PCs are going to level and chopped up the required XP among encounters accordingly. With milestones we're simply cutting to the chase.
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Sep 8, 2016 14:02
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Andrast posted:Why not just level the party at appropriate moments and keep everyone at the same level all the time? There is no tracking or work involved for anyone. Specific to EotE, which I mentioned, because that game doesn't have levels. Otherwise yeah, I totally agree, and when I've run 5e in the past I always just kinda pick a time and say "okay, you've all just leveled up."
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Sep 8, 2016 14:12
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I use milestones because when we used XP I would have to fudge things to fit leveling up at a good rate, it was basically milestones anyway. Also, my group of 3 players just hit level 7 and they just dumpstered all the encounters I had ready for our last session of CoS. I am currently going through one of the later dungeons and giving it a second pass, everything needs to be waaayed buffed up to be any challenge.... gently caress. This is what I hate about DMing
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Sep 8, 2016 14:23
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Dre2Dee2 posted:I use milestones because when we used XP I would have to fudge things to fit leveling up at a good rate, it was basically milestones anyway. What was making the current encounters so easy? Did your PCs lock down the enemies with CC? Kill them before they could act? That could give some insight into what you can do to improve future encounters.
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Sep 8, 2016 14:35
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I think I just need to buff all their stats. More attacks, more damage, more AC. Also we were playing with Warlock Hex wrong, giving the bonus damage to EVERYONE in the party. It was loving absurd. One encounter involved a caster, and the players in my party countered all her spells. It was the first time it happened, so it did catch me by surprise.
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Sep 8, 2016 14:48
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Counterspell is itself a 3rd level spell, so it costs the user a spell slot to counter, so they can't do it forever. You can fix this easily by adding more casters and/or casters who cast spells of 4th level or higher, who can succeed anyway with a check. In fact, you can turn the tide of battle almost always by adding more creatures to your side.
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Sep 8, 2016 15:17
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