|
Elendil004 posted:Yeah the DM will be adapting it to 5e, I get the feeling it's more about puzzles and plot than rote monster stats. What do you mean by gamer manchild, can you elaborate? Zak S is a serial harasser and has some very reactionary views on gaming and its intersectionality with sexuality and LGBT issues. FAT BATMAN posted:I am curious, does the DMG or Monster Manual provide guidance on how to control monsters in combat? "Big brutes pay attention to what's in front of them," "Creatures with pack tactics should group up," "Just do what makes narrative sense," anything? Sometimes it does, more often it doesn't. The Gorgon's description is largely about how it's a bull made of metal, end of story. The Grell's description says something about how they are ambushers that grapple their prey and carry it off with them after they've been paralyzed, but even this still isn't really a "battle tactics" since the target is automatically grappled and automatically paralyzed when they hit with their tentacle melee attack (and the target fails a Con saving throw).
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 03:52
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 22:58 |
|
|
Arivia posted:Zak S is an OSR grognard who picks fights across the internet and considers this forum to be one of his greatest enemies. He also internet stalks and harasses people, including several people here in Trad Games. He's just complete and total trash. Oh, and his claim to fame is that he was in social circles with porn actresses and recorded them playing D&D. A lot of nerds love this, because they think with their dicks. Ok I get that he's a trash human but is the adventure any good? Or is it infested with his brand of grognard?
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 04:00
|
|
|
Ran act one of the level 20 two shot. Players loved it so clearly they are easy to please. Stayed in the room with the magical McGuffin they were sent to get. Floating pretty high in the air, too hard to pull with strength. Sorcerer gets an idea; he flies up on his broom with a bag of holding and pulls the bag over the item, breaking the magical connection. He gets flung back, missing the edge but is able to climb back into his broom before falling into the bottomless hole at the bottom. As they're packing up, one of the scouts with them runs up to tell them the demon army is here. They look outside and the tons of portals that are just gushing out demons for miles around this abandoned city. They decide to book it, and a half made up chase sequence occurs; stealth checks, Athletics/Acrobatics to avoid falling debris and artillery, and a Balor teleporting right in front of the flying Sorcerer. Balor grabs him by the neck and slams him all the way down to the ground, then gets gibbed almost immediately by the rest of the party. The Druid gets the great idea to turn into a mammoth and just plow through things after someone casts enlarge on her. More artillery and checks to not fall off the mammoth, then a pit fiend that dies almost as quickly. They actually cast Tsunami at it in the air, and the Sorcerer did Cone of Cold, turning it into a popsicle getting carried away by a midair tsunami. They make it to the docks where they landed their ship (basically just Gamera with a ship on its back) and find it under attack by a demonic kraken. That thing didn't last terribly long either but now they've used several resources and the flight back will only get them a short rest. Next session will be the Tarrasque (actually a Lavos spawn because I don't want to be creative) rampaging through their city to try and find the McGuffin they stole, going BACK to the ruined city with a prepared spell to stop the creature they knowingly awakened and stop the demon commander from enslaving it. After the commander's enslavement spell is stopped, the creature fully awakens, disintegrates the commander (https://youtu.be/YjnZlBQDgt4) and the party has to figure out how to stop it from destroying the world. Regardless how it happens (maybe Gamera will fly at full speed into its face) they then have to go inside the shell to finish it. This last fight will be two creatures that use the abilities of an aboleth and an elder brain while they try to put the McGuffin in place and cast the spell they were given to set off a chain reaction and destroy it for good. OK cool thanks for not reading Admiral Joeslop fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Jan 19, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 04:38
|
|
|
Kaysette posted:It's almost like the rules are... bad? This pretty much sums up how I feel about it, since trying other systems (I started RPGs <1.5 years ago with 5e). It can still be fun with a fun group, and we're all familiar enough with it that we can make poo poo up on the fly to keep the fun happening.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 05:11
|
|
|
Vengarr posted:The game has a stat called Level. All player characters of the same Level are equally powerful. Admiral Joeslop posted:There IS a precedent! Funny enough, and I'm not going to claim it actually worked out that way, but originally this was not level but rather XP. That is to say, "these characters have the same XP and are intended to broadly be on the same level of power." This is because some characters leveled up way faster then others; the thief was loving garbage, but also leveled up faster then most everyone else. It also meant multiclassing actually wasn't broken as gently caress in EITHER direction; your fighter/mage would always be about a level or two behind a pure class character, meaning they were weaker, but would never be SO far behind that they were then useless in the same way a fighter/mage would be in 3e if they tried to split their levels evenly like the book claimed you should, or the loving horrible mess that is 5e multiclassing. So at 32k XP, a pure class fighter would be entering level 6, paladins and rangers would still be level 5, the wizard would likewise be at level 5, the thief would be at level 6 and almost about to hit level 7, and the fighter/mage would be 5/4 accordingly. Again, it obviously didn't always work - xp got real wonky for wizards for no reason in mid levels leading to them suddenly leaping in power, and thief was literally always terrible regardless of what level they were - but I will claim that it sure as gently caress worked a lot better then 3e's class balance, and likewise against 5e's. And hey, multiclassing that wasn't completely either broken as gently caress or entirely crippling. It also meant there was an actual reason to give a poo poo about experience points, something that hasn't been true since.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 06:09
|
|
|
ProfessorCirno posted:It also meant there was an actual reason to give a poo poo about experience points, something that hasn't been true since. I would argue that crafting costing XP in 3rd Edition was a reason to care about it, insofar as if the Wizard is blowing XP on magical items, they're going to fall behind the Fighter, which actually works out as far as letting the Fighter stay ahead and maintain parity. Obviously that's a blue-sky interpretation, but there you are.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 06:17
|
|
|
Unironically like the idea of uneven thresholds for xp in rpg system. No idea how they go practically playing in game if its just someone being left out constantly but it always came across to me as a fun idea in theory to allow people to get little incremental leaps so that you always felt that someone in the group was levelling up rather than the group just taking a either a) huge spike altogether or b)minor bump nobody cares about together.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 06:20
|
|
|
kingcom posted:it always came across to me as a fun idea in theory to allow people to get little incremental leaps so that you always felt that someone in the group was levelling up rather than the group just taking a either a) huge spike altogether or b)minor bump nobody cares about together.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 06:28
|
|
|
The DM in a game I'm playing in is a hard rear end in that respect, using experience points and not giving your character any if you the player can't make it for some reason as well as setting your new character's XP back to the start of the level your old character was at if your character dies and needs to be replaced. This has led to the guy who practically lives at the game store and has never missed a session having a level 12 character, most of the rest of us at levels 10 or 11, and the guy who misses half the games because he travels a lot for work back at level 9. It does mean we almost never have more than one or two players level up in a single session, but it's still somewhat less than ideal. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 07:00
|
|
|
jng2058 posted:The DM in a game I'm playing in is a hard rear end in that respect, using experience points and not giving your character any if you the player can't make it for some reason as well as setting your new character's XP back to the start of the level your old character was at if your character dies and needs to be replaced. This has led to the guy who practically lives at the game store and has never missed a session having a level 12 character, most of the rest of us at levels 10 or 11, and the guy who misses half the games because he travels a lot for work back at level 9. Your DM is a dumbass
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 07:13
|
|
|
nelson posted:Question for anyone who has Curse of Strahd. My rogue chose investigation and stealth as expertise skills. But so far (Death House) the DM has never let me roll investigation for anything, even when I say "I want to investigate this (something we see in the room)" the response is always "Sure! Roll perception." My DM runs things basically by the book and I'm wondering if I made a serious mistake by taking investigation as an expertise skill (or even a trained skill period) for this adventure. Update: I found a scanned pdf on the internet (after buying a Fantasy Grounds version on Steam so I didn't feel like I was cheating anyone out of money), ran it through OCR, then ran it through a word count for Perception and Investigation. Perception: 71 times Investigation: 7 times
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 07:15
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:I would argue that crafting costing XP in 3rd Edition was a reason to care about it, insofar as if the Wizard is blowing XP on magical items, they're going to fall behind the Fighter, which actually works out as far as letting the Fighter stay ahead and maintain parity. Even then it broke, unless the Wizard was spending all that XP on useless crap. A wizard surfing one level behind the party is a goddamn nightmare, because they're pumping out wands and scrolls that let them address any contingency, and because they're one level behind they get more XP, so by the time the rest of the party has earned 1m total XP the Wizard has actually earned 1.25m XP (numbers pulled from rear end because I don't remember the literal values).
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 07:27
|
|
|
Hm. Do you think a Doomguide cleric of Kelemvor would heal a dying person to try and prevent death, or is that disrupting the natural order of life and death? This seems like a really interesting angle to pursue but I'm curious if there's precedent somewhere, or if that's been discussed. Edit: actually i guess it's probably a lot of making sure people don't go before their time, which i think some kind of traumatic injury would probably do Thumbtacks fucked around with this message at 08:16 on Jan 19, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 07:42
|
|
|
Thumbtacks posted:Hm. Do you think a Doomguide cleric of Kelemvor would heal a dying person to try and prevent death, or is that disrupting the natural order of life and death? This seems like a really interesting angle to pursue but I'm curious if there's precedent somewhere, or if that's been discussed. Sever.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 07:59
|
|
|
jng2058 posted:The DM in a game I'm playing in is a hard rear end in that respect, using experience points and not giving your character any if you the player can't make it for some reason as well as setting your new character's XP back to the start of the level your old character was at if your character dies and needs to be replaced. This has led to the guy who practically lives at the game store and has never missed a session having a level 12 character, most of the rest of us at levels 10 or 11, and the guy who misses half the games because he travels a lot for work back at level 9. That's really not how "uneven XP" is supposed to work. That is, an old-school Thief is going to level faster than an Fighter is going to level faster than a Magic-User, but it happens because their XP leveling thresholds are different. It doesn't mean that they're supposed to have different absolute amounts of XP. In other words, yikes.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 08:30
|
|
|
The uneven XP in AD&D is one of those things that, like a lot of things in AD&D, actually had a kind of smart design logic behind it that 3E advocates who bash AD&D seem unaware of and, like a lot of things in AD&D, the actual numbers are almost entirely arbitrary. Cirno points out the way Mage levels become curiously cheap in the mid-levels, and I'd also suggest that there's no real reason not to multiclass and point to whatever the gently caress is going on with mid-high level Druid advancement. I'm not sorry that 3E tossed it, though. They would've continued to gently caress up the numbers badly, and in the end the uneven XP is a patch on the more fundamental problem that Thieves should be able to compete with Wizards and Clerics on their own terms rather than by getting free HP/defenses/attack bonus to compensate for their poo poo options.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 08:58
|
|
|
Thumbtacks posted:Hm. Do you think a Doomguide cleric of Kelemvor would heal a dying person to try and prevent death, or is that disrupting the natural order of life and death? This seems like a really interesting angle to pursue but I'm curious if there's precedent somewhere, or if that's been discussed. Yeah, you've got it right. Kelemvor is all about dying at the right time (of natural causes), so his clergy do heal people who have been gravely unnaturally injured or hurt. Large plagues, hordes, and all that are called out as things Kelemvor opposes. You won't see a Kelemvorite stop someone of dying from a heart attack, though. This is discussed in some detail in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide and the 2e supplement Faiths and Avatars. The latter goes so far as to say that Kelemvor's clergy perform mercy killings on those dying painfully or unnaturally. The general rule of thumb in terms of FR theology is that actions by other people would be what Kelemvor's faithful try to prevent. Murder is another person bringing death too soon. A plague might be natural, but it can also be something sent by Talona or her faithful, in which case you'd prevent that. Kelemvor is looking to keep death organized and working well (he ascended after the mad god Cyric hosed it all up) so he's trying to make sure other gods don't gently caress with death. (Due to how religion in the Realms works, it's reasonable to work from the basis that anyone's actions are informed by their religion and their deity. Kelemvor in particular has no patience for agnostics or atheists.)
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 09:00
|
|
|
Arivia posted:Kelemvor in particular has no patience for agnostics or atheists. Actually that's worth mentioning: If you run into an atheist or agnostic as an agent of Kelemvor your priority number 1 is to get them to "pick a god, any god, it doesn't matter which just pick one and believe in it look there's this wall and it's always screaming and just trust me find a faith before you die seriously  "
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 09:11
|
|
|
Arivia posted:Kelemvor is looking to keep death organized and working well (he ascended after the mad god Cyric hosed it all up) so he's trying to make sure other gods don't gently caress with death. (Due to how religion in the Realms works, it's reasonable to work from the basis that anyone's actions are informed by their religion and their deity. Kelemvor in particular has no patience for agnostics or atheists.) Is there a source or something I can look into for all this? That's super helpful, all I currently have at my disposal is the PHB. I've never played as a cleric or someone super devout, and I figure I should probably know some stuff if I'm gonna play this properly.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 09:15
|
|
|
Thumbtacks posted:Is there a source or something I can look into for all this? That's super helpful, all I currently have at my disposal is the PHB. I've never played as a cleric or someone super devout, and I figure I should probably know some stuff if I'm gonna play this properly. Like I said, there's information in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide for 5e. Faiths and Avatars for 2e has even more information, but it's for an older version of the game and is of dubious canonicity for 5e depending upon your DM (5e bringing Myrkul back plays a bit of havoc with Kelemvor's duties.) @Splicer: For some reason I thought the Wall of the Faithless didn't exist in 5e, but apparently the SCAG mentions it. Yeah, get the SCAG Thumbtacks, and read the parts on the Afterlife and religion in there. (If you want to get Faiths and Avatars instead, I think there's a PDF version on dndclassics.com now.)
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 09:46
|
|
|
Arivia posted:Like I said, there's information in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide for 5e. Faiths and Avatars for 2e has even more information, but it's for an older version of the game and is of dubious canonicity for 5e depending upon your DM (5e bringing Myrkul back plays a bit of havoc with Kelemvor's duties.) That's super helpful, thanks! I think I can make this work really well. It's going to completely clash with literally every other person in my party, but that's half the fun.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 10:10
|
|
|
Thumbtacks posted:That's super helpful, thanks! I think I can make this work really well. It's going to completely clash with literally every other person in my party, but that's half the fun. Also you can just keep the dysfunctional family thing as a slow burner. Mention it to your GM (plot hook fodder is never unwelcome) but it's fine not front loading all your character quirks into the first session.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 10:31
|
|
|
Splicer posted:Keep in mind that you always heal PCs. That's the difference between RP and being a dick. Yeah, true. Plus I don't see any PCs dying of natural causes, although I'm betting they're going to get the poo poo kicked out of them by several different types of people, and they'll deserve it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 10:37
|
|
|
I feel like, for a cleric of Kelemvor, and given that healing magic is readily available, that any situation in which a cleric is capable of healing a person counts for the arguments about time. So if a cure wound can be used to heal you, it's not your time, while anything above that is clearly the work of Kelemvor taking the soul. Not sure how that meshes with resurrection, but given the costs, I'm assuming divine providence.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 10:47
|
|
|
Torchlighter posted:I feel like, for a cleric of Kelemvor, and given that healing magic is readily available, that any situation in which a cleric is capable of healing a person counts for the arguments about time. So if a cure wound can be used to heal you, it's not your time, while anything above that is clearly the work of Kelemvor taking the soul. The general argument about adventurers and healing magic (anyone who isn't an adventurer in the Realms plays by very different rules than what the D&D core game assumes) is that adventurers are incredible shitkickers. Adventurers gently caress EVERYTHING up. Doesn't matter who or when or how, adventurers are gonna mess with you. So, it's best to be their friend, and to turn them against your enemies instead of you (like so many organizations in the Realms do.) So if you're a follower of Kelemvor in an adventuring party then you can hand out healing no problem. Sure, it's not their natural time. And if you're in an adventuring party it's expected you will be keeping them doing things that help Kelemvor and his church every so often and not doing poo poo Kelemvor wouldn't like. It's basically a contract - you scratch the party's back in general, and they have your back when Kelemvor tells you to kill that undead guy or whatever. Kelemvor doesn't necessarily like resurrections (a lot of gods in the Realms don't), but they're excusable for adventurers. Don't be undead though. Kelemvor hates undead, even the objectively good ones like baelnorns.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 11:21
|
|
|
Arivia posted:So if you're a follower of Kelemvor in an adventuring party then you can hand out healing no problem. Sure, it's not their natural time. And if you're in an adventuring party it's expected you will be keeping them doing things that help Kelemvor and his church every so often and not doing poo poo Kelemvor wouldn't like. It's basically a contract - you scratch the party's back in general, and they have your back when Kelemvor tells you to kill that undead guy or whatever. Kelemvor doesn't necessarily like resurrections (a lot of gods in the Realms don't), but they're excusable for adventurers. Don't be undead though. Kelemvor hates undead, even the objectively good ones like baelnorns. The page for Doomguards on a wiki mentions that they perform resurrections "for ardent services [I presume they mean servants?] with yet more work to do", so it wouldn't be an impossible stretch, especially if the Paladin is who got them on the quest in the first place. Would make for good storytelling at least.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 12:15
|
|
|
Found a group I might be joining. Based on composition (so far two clerics and a druid) and me being new to D&D, it looks like I might wanna be a frontliner. Warlock looks coolest to me, but we can't all be casters and the learning curve looks higher. Fighters look bleh, though. Paladins seem neat but the oaths are a bit dull, flavor-wise. Would it be too much of a stretch to play an Oath of the Ancients paladin who emphasizes the tenets about joy and celebration and camaraderie etc instead of being some goofy green-clad elf? Like a dwarf whose devotion to celebrating and manifesting the light comes from his love of beer and song and good times? Joyless crusaders and edgy platemail batmans don't seem like my bag. In other RPGs I tend to want to be a liar, scumbag, and weasel, and while a Paladin is none of those, at least I'd have a lot of charisma to work with. Nehru the Damaja fucked around with this message at 14:02 on Jan 19, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 13:58
|
|
|
Your idea is awesome and if someone tells you it's not they're an rear end in a top hat.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 14:03
|
|
|
Nehru the Damaja posted:Found a group I might be joining. Based on composition and me being new to D&D, it looks like I might wanna be a frontliner. (Warlock looks coolest to me, but we can't all be casters and the learning curve looks higher.) Fighters look bleh, though. Paladins seem neat but the oaths are a bit dull, flavor-wise. Would it be too much of a stretch to play an Oath of the Ancients paladin who emphasizes the tenets about joy and celebration and camaraderie etc instead of being some goofy green-clad elf? Like a dwarf whose devotion to celebrating and manifesting the light comes from his love of beer and song and good times? Joyless crusaders and edgy platemail batmans don't seem like my bag. The Bard's College of Valor fits what you want nicely. You can still help your allies with inspiration, gain medium armor (making you one feat away from Heavy Armor if you have the right STR)/shield/martial weapons prof., and if inspiration is not your bag they can use your die to add to their damage or AC if attacked. Eventually they can cast + attack in the same turn, making them the true Red Mages. Tie that all up with being able to have all the social skills and backed with a decent pool of spells, the Bard's a tough choice to pass over.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 14:06
|
|
|
See I was worried someone was gonna say Bard. It's not that I'm against it, but thus far it sounds like we need a big slab of beef to be out front. Can a Valor Bard really fill that role? The impression I got was that's sort of a midline guy and that clerics and druids (of which we have 3 total) already do that.
Nehru the Damaja fucked around with this message at 14:16 on Jan 19, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 14:10
|
|
|
I read your concept and my mind immediately thought of a Paladin of Dionysus, with a censer-morningstar that "blesses" people with fine wine, but yeah, that sounds awesome and you should totes go for it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 14:16
|
|
|
Moon Druids are the biggest "slabs of beef" in the game, hands down. Your party won't need more hitpoints.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 15:00
|
|
|
Nehru the Damaja posted:See I was worried someone was gonna say Bard. It's not that I'm against it, but thus far it sounds like we need a big slab of beef to be out front. Can a Valor Bard really fill that role? The impression I got was that's sort of a midline guy and that clerics and druids (of which we have 3 total) already do that. You can't really tank in 5e since you can't force enemies to hit you instead of the other party members. Also, druids and clerics can be pretty durable.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 15:04
|
|
|
Echoing what others said, any or all of those other players could be frontliners depending on their builds. Land druids are pure casters, but as was mentioned moon druids are super tanky. And roughly half of the clerics have a melee focus. If their domain has heavy armor or bonus damage to melee (thunder is the main example off the top of my head), then they'll be perfectly comfortable on the front lines. Something like a light cleric is the example of a more traditional caster. So basically play what sounds fun. Your paladin idea sounds rad. And a warlock isn't really that complicated. Certainly less so than a pure caster. They're probably about even with paladins in complexity actually.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 15:57
|
|
|
CaPensiPraxis posted:Moon Druids are the biggest "slabs of beef" in the game, hands down. Your party won't need more hitpoints. I don't have my book in front of me, but what makes Moon Druids so meaty?
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 16:16
|
|
|
Wild shape mechanics and the ability to turn into very large bears.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 16:18
|
|
|
SettingSun posted:I don't have my book in front of me, but what makes Moon Druids so meaty? Bonus action to transform into a full hp large beast.. and when that hp runs out to turn into the same said beast at full hp again and when that runs out to operate at their own full hp. They effectively have a triple health bar.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 16:31
|
|
|
SettingSun posted:I don't have my book in front of me, but what makes Moon Druids so meaty? Kurieg posted:Wild shape mechanics and the ability to turn into very large bears. CaPensiPraxis posted:Bonus action to transform into a full hp large beast.. and when that hp runs out to turn into the same said beast at full hp again and when that runs out to operate at their own full hp. Also while transformed they can burn spell slots as a BONUS action to heal 1d8 per spell level
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 16:40
|
|
|
Moon druids are so loving dope
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 16:41
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 22:58 |
|
|
Nehru the Damaja posted:Found a group I might be joining. Based on composition (so far two clerics and a druid) and me being new to D&D, it looks like I might wanna be a frontliner. Warlock looks coolest to me, but we can't all be casters and the learning curve looks higher. Fighters look bleh, though. Paladins seem neat but the oaths are a bit dull, flavor-wise. Would it be too much of a stretch to play an Oath of the Ancients paladin who emphasizes the tenets about joy and celebration and camaraderie etc instead of being some goofy green-clad elf? Like a dwarf whose devotion to celebrating and manifesting the light comes from his love of beer and song and good times? Joyless crusaders and edgy platemail batmans don't seem like my bag. My Warden is a dwarf that shifted towards CG after a few levels of hanging with the party Bard. He's a Guild Artisan that customizes weapons and armor during downtime in order to make it more beautiful. He has no patience for utilitarian armor and people who can't appreciate good craft. His "religion" is to blow a bit of his treasure shares on a big party to celebrate his friends' victory after a quest. Becoming a Party Knight is the right way to use Oath of Ancients.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 18:05
|
|
