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BinaryDoubts
Jun 6, 2013

Looking at it now, it really is disgusting. The flesh is transparent. From the start, I had no idea if it would even make a clapping sound. So I diligently reproduced everything about human hands, the bones, joints, and muscles, and then made them slap each other pretty hard.
Here's a few booze-themed enemies from a dungeon I'm working on, feel free to appropriate for your pub crawl! (stats are for OSR, but I also don't play much OSR so they're probably wrong somehow anyway)

Wine Greblins
The wood of the bilgum tree is prized amongst winemakers for its incredible porousness – perfect for making corks. Unfortunately, bilgum is also highly sensitive to magic (a flaw that was only discovered a decade after bilgum corks became popular). Some corks, when exposed to long-term arcane radiation, will begin to grow into a horrid little creature known as a greblin. Greblins will extrude themselves into the bottle, drinking the wine and pressing their awful faces up against the bottle. Eventually, they grow too large, shatter the bottle, and escape. They are short-lived but extremely unpleasant – they attack anyone they see, chitter ceaselessly about “tannins”, and generally raise hell in the most annoying way possible.

HD 1, AC pathetic. 1d2 tiny little teeth or 1d4 over-chilled wine-spray (White and Sparkling only).
Red: A red greblin who makes a successful attack roll can choose to sink their fangs into their target, hanging on for dear life. At the start of the target’s turn, they take 1d4 + X damage, where X is the number of greblins currently hanging onto them.
White: White greblins are more sophisticated. Anyone they attack (usually from range, with a jet of over-chilled wine) must successfully make a save or else choose to either forget a memorized spell or take 1d6 damage.
Sparkling: Sparkling greblins can float, inflating their gross corky little bodies to take to the skies. Once they’re aloft, they can spend an action (1/day) to fill the area around them (30’ or so) with a bubbly haze, giving -2 to all attacks aimed at greblins hiding in the mist. The mist persists until the greblin gets bored (or dies).

Drunken Monks
The Drunken Monks believe in achieving communion with their god, Bacchus, through heavy drinking of rare and mystical spirits. Usually a friendly lot, but they can turn belligerent and bloodthirsty if offended (turning down a drink is the surest way to piss ‘em off).

HD 2, AC leather. 1d6 knife/bottle opener.
Hammered: Attacks made by a Drunken Monk will never hit their intended target (although this doesn’t stop them from trying). Whenever they succeed on an attack roll, instead deal damage to a random nearby target.
Smashed: Drunken Monks can ignore the damage from any one attack (1/day)
Drunken Magic: One Drunken Monk in any given group will be a Senior Priest, who’s able to take a swig of arcane spirits to cast any 1st or 2nd level spell of his choice (3/day). Whatever he casts, 50% chance that it affects him too.

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bewilderment
Nov 22, 2007
man what



KittyEmpress posted:

It turns out Flaming Sphere is basically Moonbeam but fire, and is a spell I get from being Undying Light :v: Who would have thought. It even has the added bonus of affecting creatures on the end of their turn, AND being able to explicitly ram it into their faces.

Is there any way to trade out spells as a warlock? I know in 3.5 I could ditch a spell that was useful at low levels, at least.

Each level as a warlock you can trade out one spell.

Although a lot of good warlock spells scale and are at the level 1 and 2 mark. When we got to level 4 spells with my warlock I was just kinda like "eh... I dunno i I actually want any of these".
I guess Phantasmal Killer can be funny if you want to kill someone without anyone else noticing it's your fault, assuming you can conceal the spellcasting action?

Slippery42
Nov 10, 2011

KittyEmpress posted:

Is there any way to trade out spells as a warlock? I know in 3.5 I could ditch a spell that was useful at low levels, at least.

Yep! Here's a copy/paste from the SRD:

"Additionally, when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the warlock Spells you know and replace it with another spell from the warlock spell list, which also must be of a level for which you have Spell Slots."

You can do the same thing with invocations, so you don't have to worry about being stuck with one that has limited use after level 5 or whatever.

Ever Disappointing
May 4, 2004

Turtlicious posted:

You could do what my players do with 5e, put it on their character sheet to see if I, uh I mean your DM, notices. Apparently, silence implies consent on rule breaking.

The more I hear about your players...holy poo poo they sound like they suck :psyduck:

kingcom
Jun 23, 2012

Tir McDohl posted:

The more I hear about your players...holy poo poo they sound like they suck :psyduck:

I missed this one and holy poo poo they suck lol. I'm going to cheat in this magic adventure game springing forth from our imaginations. My imagination is winning though :smuggo:

Ever Disappointing
May 4, 2004

Back to the Critical Role discussion earlier, it was said it is heavily edited/scripted. How much is this the case? I have just started watching it recently and it is okay enough and is giving me ideas for improving my GM game, but it has always seemed crazy how productive they are over the course of 3 hours so I can believe the players are just being told what would happen in advance.

Wrestlepig
Feb 25, 2011

my mum says im cool

Toilet Rascal
Have the drunkards and dragons players set up drinking game rules to go with the booze monsters?

Turtlicious
Sep 17, 2012

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Tir McDohl posted:

Back to the Critical Role discussion earlier, it was said it is heavily edited/scripted. How much is this the case? I have just started watching it recently and it is okay enough and is giving me ideas for improving my GM game, but it has always seemed crazy how productive they are over the course of 3 hours so I can believe the players are just being told what would happen in advance.

No-one knows it's a secret, but it gets more obvious as you go on.

SettingSun
Aug 10, 2013

Critical Role isn't scripted any further than their DM has planned out well in advance how he intends the adventure to go, just like a real DM. It'd be real hard to edit too since every session is livestreamed on Twitch. That's not to say they don't play loosey-goosey with the rules, since everyone involved definitely plays in a way that's entertaining to watch more than it'd be fun to actually play.

Nehru the Damaja
May 20, 2005

Presumably a lot of them are encouraged to sort of improvise splashy sounding things despite them having no mechanical backing because it's more exciting than "I roll attack." Like, sure, Telekinesis was never intended to become the more powerful cousin of Cloud of Knives, but fudging some math for it keeps the show going rather than dialing everything backward and being a spoilsport like "for gently caress's sake just roll something that actually has a damage listed on it."

Or like okay, Witch Bolt actually doesn't work that way, but it's probably better for the show as a whole if the guest star who's new to D&D doesn't get reviled by fans for permakilling half the team just because she didn't know spamming Eldritch Blast is superior DPR.

Big Black Brony
Jul 11, 2008

Congratulations on Graduation Shnookums.
Love, Mom & Dad

Paramemetic posted:

I will let players try non-combat in combat "intimidate" actions but I also will let them roll it if it makes narrative and fun-having sense in the middle of a combat. For example attacking a guy viciously while trying to tell the rest of the group that it's a good idea to run away. Okay, roll the attack, roll the intimidate. If the attack lands, and the intimidate is good, maybe the the other dudes decide, yeah, no, this fight ain't worth it. Maybe they roll disadvantage on their next attack because they are rattled. Maybe the other members roll with advantage.

On the other hand, if they roll that intimidate and it's just terrible, just a horrible roll, maybe the bad guys are encouraged. If you roll the attack and miss, maybe they all have a laugh at you and you take disadvantage.

I wouldn't probably do that with strangers at the table though in case they were going to be real "rules as written-y," it's why I like playing with my group who enjoy that kind of thing because Technical Rules Lawyers saying "actually there's nothing in the mechanics that allow this, furthermore," just drive me nuts.

Then again those kinds of players wouldn't be attempting it in the first place.

That's clever too

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

Nehru the Damaja posted:

Presumably a lot of them are encouraged to sort of improvise splashy sounding things despite them having no mechanical backing because it's more exciting than "I roll attack." Like, sure, Telekinesis was never intended to become the more powerful cousin of Cloud of Knives, but fudging some math for it keeps the show going rather than dialing everything backward and being a spoilsport like "for gently caress's sake just roll something that actually has a damage listed on it."

Or like okay, Witch Bolt actually doesn't work that way, but it's probably better for the show as a whole if the guest star who's new to D&D doesn't get reviled by fans for permakilling half the team just because she didn't know spamming Eldritch Blast is superior DPR.

Doesn't that teach bad habits though? You're basically getting people to assume rules that aren't there, or are teaching them that ignoring the rules is fine as long as it's "more fun".

Nehru the Damaja
May 20, 2005

I mean I wouldn't run a home session like Mercer does but he's got to balance the needs of the game against the needs of the show. There's very much a "yes and" thing going on with them.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
I mean, yeah okay he's doing it for an audience so I understand if he "skips out" on rules for the sake of being more entertaining, I just don't think that that's a good way to demonstrate the actual act of playing D&D, and simply more as a "TV ad" for the idea of playing D&D.

I guess this is also why I could never get into HarmonQuest - they say they use Pathfinder, but there's so much of it that's either edited out or not actually extant in the rules that I could barely recognize it for what it was.

Neon Knight
Jan 14, 2009

BinaryDoubts posted:

Here's a few booze-themed enemies from a dungeon I'm working on, feel free to appropriate for your pub crawl! (stats are for OSR, but I also don't play much OSR so they're probably wrong somehow anyway)

Wine Greblins
The wood of the bilgum tree is prized amongst winemakers for its incredible porousness – perfect for making corks. Unfortunately, bilgum is also highly sensitive to magic (a flaw that was only discovered a decade after bilgum corks became popular). Some corks, when exposed to long-term arcane radiation, will begin to grow into a horrid little creature known as a greblin. Greblins will extrude themselves into the bottle, drinking the wine and pressing their awful faces up against the bottle. Eventually, they grow too large, shatter the bottle, and escape. They are short-lived but extremely unpleasant – they attack anyone they see, chitter ceaselessly about “tannins”, and generally raise hell in the most annoying way possible.

HD 1, AC pathetic. 1d2 tiny little teeth or 1d4 over-chilled wine-spray (White and Sparkling only).
Red: A red greblin who makes a successful attack roll can choose to sink their fangs into their target, hanging on for dear life. At the start of the target’s turn, they take 1d4 + X damage, where X is the number of greblins currently hanging onto them.
White: White greblins are more sophisticated. Anyone they attack (usually from range, with a jet of over-chilled wine) must successfully make a save or else choose to either forget a memorized spell or take 1d6 damage.
Sparkling: Sparkling greblins can float, inflating their gross corky little bodies to take to the skies. Once they’re aloft, they can spend an action (1/day) to fill the area around them (30’ or so) with a bubbly haze, giving -2 to all attacks aimed at greblins hiding in the mist. The mist persists until the greblin gets bored (or dies).

Drunken Monks
The Drunken Monks believe in achieving communion with their god, Bacchus, through heavy drinking of rare and mystical spirits. Usually a friendly lot, but they can turn belligerent and bloodthirsty if offended (turning down a drink is the surest way to piss ‘em off).

HD 2, AC leather. 1d6 knife/bottle opener.
Hammered: Attacks made by a Drunken Monk will never hit their intended target (although this doesn’t stop them from trying). Whenever they succeed on an attack roll, instead deal damage to a random nearby target.
Smashed: Drunken Monks can ignore the damage from any one attack (1/day)
Drunken Magic: One Drunken Monk in any given group will be a Senior Priest, who’s able to take a swig of arcane spirits to cast any 1st or 2nd level spell of his choice (3/day). Whatever he casts, 50% chance that it affects him too.

I may steal some of these. I have been kicking around some ideas for a journey into a derelict Dwarven brewery. Was considering some sort of Yeast Beast(though a quick google and maybe I will find a better name, but likely some sort of Ooze) boss. Maybe a puzzle involving an actual mystery tasting. All to discover the Brewmaster had entombed himself in a wine cask in stasis and it has preserved him perfectly so he can replace whatever poor local bartender and/or apothecary I have the farm animal uprising kill off.

TheFireMagi
Nov 6, 2011

...She's behind me, isn't she?
As someone who regularly watches Critical Role, a lot of the rule mistakes tend to come from the players misreading how their spells work (at least towards the earlier sessions anyways), and Matt Mercer just assuming they know what they're doing. The Witch Bolt example in particular was I believe Mary Elizabeth McGlynn's first time playing D&D at all, so it's understandable she'd make a mistake or two, in my opinion.

Turtlicious posted:

They don't want to play that either, because it's not 5e. "5e is the best system ever," my group says. "If 4e was so good, why did Critical Role go straight from 3.5 to 5e? Why did they skip 4e??"

Also this was from two pages ago, but I seem to remember them mentioning they did try out 4e at one point, but the group wasn't enjoying it or something. Maybe not for the Critical Role game in particular, but I kind of recall Marisha talking about how weird it was to play a 4e Druid or somesuch.

Edit:

Tir McDohl posted:

Back to the Critical Role discussion earlier, it was said it is heavily edited/scripted. How much is this the case? I have just started watching it recently and it is okay enough and is giving me ideas for improving my GM game, but it has always seemed crazy how productive they are over the course of 3 hours so I can believe the players are just being told what would happen in advance.

As SettingSun mentioned, there's really no editing done since it's all livestreamed on Twitch, which is really apparent when there's all these audio fuckups that are somehow still happening even after 80+ episodes. As for scripted, while there are moments where players clearly think about something they want to talk about in-game between sessions, I never got the impression that it was literally them figuring out what the conversation would be like. Also, believe me when I say there are plenty of episodes where they're not productive at all, like a lot of the shopping episodes, to the point that there are times when Mercer just basically goes "All right, enough you guys, let's keep moving."

TheFireMagi fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Feb 22, 2017

Spiteski
Aug 27, 2013



TheFireMagi posted:

Also this was from two pages ago, but I seem to remember them mentioning they did try out 4e at one point, but the group wasn't enjoying it or something. Maybe not for the Critical Role game in particular, but I kind of recall Marisha talking about how weird it was to play a 4e Druid or somesuch.


This is the link to where they mention they were playing 4e, it was before Vox Machina by the sounds of things.

kingcom
Jun 23, 2012

gradenko_2000 posted:

I mean, yeah okay he's doing it for an audience so I understand if he "skips out" on rules for the sake of being more entertaining, I just don't think that that's a good way to demonstrate the actual act of playing D&D, and simply more as a "TV ad" for the idea of playing D&D.

I guess this is also why I could never get into HarmonQuest - they say they use Pathfinder, but there's so much of it that's either edited out or not actually extant in the rules that I could barely recognize it for what it was.

Yeah I completely get why hes doing it, like playing an RPG is probably the worst poo poo to experience as a 3rd party if you are playing it as it is and by its rules. Especially for something rules heavy like dnd or pathfinder. You need to do a bunch of stuff to skip out on the rules or minimise it so it becomes more about a bunch of charismatic people trying to improv or be silly or whatever to be entertaining. Skipping out on the rules of dnd is a good idea to facilitate this.

Spiteski posted:

This is the link to where they mention they were playing 4e, it was before Vox Machina by the sounds of things.

Given what people say about how they play and what their audience likes im absolutely sure 4e would be a terrible fit for their group. Its a game with some pretty tight mechanical rules and gets players to sit down and actually use them when they're playing. Its not an all or nothing thing but thats kinda the goal of the system is to get the player to engage with the mechanics. Since they enjoy playing a rules light game, dnd 5e at least allows them to fake a rules light game and keep things flowing naturally.


EDIT:

Nehru the Damaja posted:

I mean I wouldn't run a home session like Mercer does but he's got to balance the needs of the game against the needs of the show. There's very much a "yes and" thing going on with them.

Yeah I think thats more the idea is that I would assume many people watch the show and want to experience that same kind of game themselves right? That same kind of playstyle and tone that those players run? I would hope the people who watch that game and go looking for that kind of experience go and find it to be honest rather than get fixated on a brand name.

kingcom fucked around with this message at 05:08 on Feb 22, 2017

lifg
Dec 4, 2000
<this tag left blank>
Muldoon

kingcom posted:

Given what people say about how they play and what their audience likes im absolutely sure 4e would be a terrible fit for their group. Its a game with some pretty tight mechanical rules and gets players to sit down and actually use them when they're playing. Its not an all or nothing thing but thats kinda the goal of the system is to get the player to engage with the mechanics. Since they enjoy playing a rules light game, dnd 5e at least allows them to fake a rules light game and keep things flowing naturally.

On the other hand I think they'd do great with Gamma World. And I want to see a professional voice actor do the voice of a sentient pile of rats.

kingcom
Jun 23, 2012

lifg posted:

On the other hand I think they'd do great with Gamma World. And I want to see a professional voice actor do the voice of a sentient pile of rats.

Yeah, going off purely the descriptions people are giving here, Gamma World or Dungeon World seems like a game they'd all enjoy and work really well with a tv show format.

EDIT: Sorry I'm doing that thing of recommending other games.

I got more questions to Critical Roll watchers. Would people prefer they were a little more tight with the rules than they are or do you think abandon anything that gets in the flow of the game at all costs? Where on that spectrum would you lie? (I've seen nothing but pictures of it so if you need to explain stuff assume I know nothing).

kingcom fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Feb 22, 2017

KittyEmpress
Dec 30, 2012

Jam Buddies

bewilderment posted:

Each level as a warlock you can trade out one spell.

Although a lot of good warlock spells scale and are at the level 1 and 2 mark. When we got to level 4 spells with my warlock I was just kinda like "eh... I dunno i I actually want any of these".
I guess Phantasmal Killer can be funny if you want to kill someone without anyone else noticing it's your fault, assuming you can conceal the spellcasting action?

I plan to grab flaming hands or whatever it's called as a first level spell. If I then take fiery sphere, I have basically completely replaced my need for flamehands. So that's why I wanted to ask.

Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Dec 22, 2005

GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

kingcom posted:

Yeah, going off purely the descriptions people are giving here, Gamma World or Dungeon World seems like a game they'd all enjoy and work really well with a tv show format.

EDIT: Sorry I'm doing that thing of recommending other games.

I got more questions to Critical Roll watchers. Would people prefer they were a little more tight with the rules than they are or do you think abandon anything that gets in the flow of the game at all costs? Where on that spectrum would you lie? (I've seen nothing but pictures of it so if you need to explain stuff assume I know nothing).
I'm not really a watcher, I've seen a little but I think abandoning anything that disrupts the flow is the way to go. The creative/improv part is what's most interesting and, in my mind, the rules mostly serve to ground things a little bit. D&D as a computer game that happens to be manually implemented by a hardworking dude is much less interesting to me than the opportunity for engaging with the oft-neglected creative part of one's brain.

Two Headed Calf
Feb 22, 2005

Better than One

Neon Knight posted:

I may steal some of these. I have been kicking around some ideas for a journey into a derelict Dwarven brewery. Was considering some sort of Yeast Beast(though a quick google and maybe I will find a better name, but likely some sort of Ooze) boss. Maybe a puzzle involving an actual mystery tasting. All to discover the Brewmaster had entombed himself in a wine cask in stasis and it has preserved him perfectly so he can replace whatever poor local bartender and/or apothecary I have the farm animal uprising kill off.

I've had a brewery dungeon sitting in my slush pile for a while now (which is where I pulled Alementals from). Hop vine ropers, wart shambling mounds, mother yeast oozes, large open pools of skunked beer and slippery sections to spice up combats, the big bad at the end would be a preserved brain in a jar. But would the players really want to kill the greatest Alcomancer know to man?

You know what, imma do this for my first 5e adventure.

TheFireMagi
Nov 6, 2011

...She's behind me, isn't she?

kingcom posted:

Yeah, going off purely the descriptions people are giving here, Gamma World or Dungeon World seems like a game they'd all enjoy and work really well with a tv show format.

EDIT: Sorry I'm doing that thing of recommending other games.

I got more questions to Critical Roll watchers. Would people prefer they were a little more tight with the rules than they are or do you think abandon anything that gets in the flow of the game at all costs? Where on that spectrum would you lie? (I've seen nothing but pictures of it so if you need to explain stuff assume I know nothing).

I mean, for the most part, the group pretty consistently sticks to the rules so long as they understand them. It's more that for the early parts of Critical Role (and still occasionally now), they were very much unfamiliar with what the rules were, as they'd been playing Pathfinder for the better part of two or three years before they started streaming the game, which was about when they switched over to 5e for the first time since Mercer stated he wanted a less rule-heavy game to make the sessions work smoother for the stream. As for actually answering your question though, I agree that the improv and narrative bits are what make me enjoy the show as much as I do, so I'm fine when they do with whatever works better for the flow of the game. Personally speaking, I tend to be a fairly "If it's fun, go for it," type of player/DM, so that probably has something to do with it as well.

mastershakeman
Oct 28, 2008

by vyelkin

SettingSun posted:

Critical Role isn't scripted any further than their DM has planned out well in advance how he intends the adventure to go, just like a real DM. It'd be real hard to edit too since every session is livestreamed on Twitch. That's not to say they don't play loosey-goosey with the rules, since everyone involved definitely plays in a way that's entertaining to watch more than it'd be fun to actually play.

I watched a tiny bit and saw a guy announce he was going to telekinesis an ogre and throw it into another ogre and the dm didn't even check the rules to see if that would work or roll a save and I'm like oh. OK.

I really don't get why they play 5e other than the name brand

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

mastershakeman posted:

I really don't get why they play 5e other than the name brand

That's pretty much exactly it. We could argue that "if they want to play a rules-light game, why not literally play a rules-light game instead of ignoring enough of 5e that it retroactively becomes rules-light if you squint hard enough?"

But the answer is basically going to come down to Dungeons & Dragons, as a name, has a far greater cultural cache with people than "let's play a (tabletop) roleplaying game"

Wil Wheaton was able to pull off his Ashes of Valkana schtick because he already had an existing fanbase with his tabletop boardgame series, and because Wil Wheaton is an independently popular name by himself, on top of being able to invite B/C-list stars to play an otherwise unrecognizable RPG with him.

And Mercer isn't going to do the ITMEJP thing either of playing AD&D 2.5 when 5e is the version that's on store shelves and is currently being marketed and developed.

kingcom
Jun 23, 2012

gradenko_2000 posted:

That's pretty much exactly it. We could argue that "if they want to play a rules-light game, why not literally play a rules-light game instead of ignoring enough of 5e that it retroactively becomes rules-light if you squint hard enough?"

But the answer is basically going to come down to Dungeons & Dragons, as a name, has a far greater cultural cache with people than "let's play a (tabletop) roleplaying game"

Wil Wheaton was able to pull off his Ashes of Valkana schtick because he already had an existing fanbase with his tabletop boardgame series, and because Wil Wheaton is an independently popular name by himself, on top of being able to invite B/C-list stars to play an otherwise unrecognizable RPG with him.

And Mercer isn't going to do the ITMEJP thing either of playing AD&D 2.5 when 5e is the version that's on store shelves and is currently being marketed and developed.

I watched a bunch of ITMEJP's rpg stuff lately because they play a lot of different games, systems and tones so I ultimately get to do a lot of window shopping about lots of ideas and concepts. Additionally he always plays colossal rear end in a top hat characters which is a pretty key to a functional rpg group imo.

It makes me wonder if every time im interested in trying out a new rpg system I should just say gently caress it and tell people I'm playing the new Dungeons and Dragons source book, its about 'insert setting here'. I'm not really sure if the average person is going to know the difference.

kingcom fucked around with this message at 06:37 on Feb 22, 2017

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

kingcom posted:

It makes me wonder if every time im interested in trying out a new rpg system I should just say gently caress it and tell people I'm playing the new Dungeons and Dragons source book, its about 'insert setting here'. I'm not really sure if the average person is going to know the difference.

"Okay, get this guys, it's Dungeons & Dragons, but you're all thieves!"

*whips out Blades in the Dark*

(I'm making a joke this isn't a "play this thing instead" argument oh god please don't hurt me)

VVVVV To be clear I'm not advocating that either. I was making a joke.

gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 06:37 on Feb 22, 2017

Kaysette
Jan 5, 2009

~*Boston makes me*~
~*feel good*~

:wrongcity:
We're now at the point of the thread cycle where we advocate lying to players about what game we're playing.

Turtlicious
Sep 17, 2012

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

kingcom posted:

I watched a bunch of ITMEJP in rpg stuff lately because they play a lot of different games, systems and tones so I ultimately get to do a lot of window shopping about lots of ideas and concepts. Additionally he always plays colossal rear end in a top hat characters which is a pretty key to a functional rpg group imo.

It makes me wonder if every time im interested in trying out a new rpg system I should just say gently caress it and tell people I'm playing the new Dungeons and Dragons source book, its about 'insert setting here'. I'm not really sure if the average person is going to know the difference.
That's how I got my group to play 13th Age, Shadowrun, Warhammer, and Call of Cthulu.

Kaysette posted:

We're now at the point of the thread cycle where we advocate lying to players about what game we're playing.

It works though?

kingcom
Jun 23, 2012

Kaysette posted:

We're now at the point of the thread cycle where we advocate lying to players about what game we're playing.

Oh poo poo, I've always bailed out before its hit this point, give me the highlights of last time so I can skip this discussion tia.

Also as pointed out, we are making light of brand connection people have. I've been trying to ask serious questions about a popular thing that gets people into this game.

kingcom fucked around with this message at 06:45 on Feb 22, 2017

Kaysette
Jan 5, 2009

~*Boston makes me*~
~*feel good*~

:wrongcity:
It was me, Dungeon Worlds! It was me all along!

kingcom
Jun 23, 2012

Kaysette posted:

It was me, Dungeon Worlds! It was me AUSTIN!

"Okay, get this guys, it's Dungeons & Dragons, but you're in a star war!"

kingcom
Jun 23, 2012

Okay I've got another question. Whats like the common official used rules (TM) that people go with. I found in 3.5/PF it was pretty common for people to go 'all core stuff only' as the most used format or 'everything ever anywhere'. With all the stuff for 5e kind of squirreled away on their site and in specific articles. What do people actually go with and use as their accepted stuff?

Kaysette
Jan 5, 2009

~*Boston makes me*~
~*feel good*~

:wrongcity:
We don't use Unearthed Arcana but everything legit published is good in the hood. It's not like 3.5 with massive amounts of bloat and none of the new material is obviously broken or OP. Some of the monster races give a lot more starting features than the PHB races but that's pretty negligible after a few levels.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

kingcom posted:

Okay I've got another question. Whats like the common official used rules (TM) that people go with. I found in 3.5/PF it was pretty common for people to go 'all core stuff only' as the most used format or 'everything ever anywhere'. With all the stuff for 5e kind of squirreled away on their site and in specific articles. What do people actually go with and use as their accepted stuff?

Outside of Unearthed Arcana, there aren't really a lot of things to pick from: PHB, SCAG, the handful of player options from the adventure paths, and then Volo's.

And the features and design of all of those additional player options are so homogenized and mealy-mouthed that I don't think there's anything that would even come close deserving to be locked-out for the sake of "balance".

For Unearthed Arcana itself, I'd be comfortable with anything that adds new archetypes but I'd specifically recommend the use of the Underdark options (primary for the availability of the Tunnel Fighter fighting style), the revised Ranger, and anything that adds options for the martial classes.

For official variant rules:
* allow separating the ability modifier from the skill proficiency, or use the Background Proficiency rule
* use Hero Points
* use Healing Surges
* use Initiative Score or Side Initiative
* use all of the available Action Options - Climb on larger creatures, Disarm, Mark, Overrun, Shove Aside, Tumble
* use Cleaving
* consider using Morale

Agent355
Jul 26, 2011


So 2 weeks after having a character unfairly treated we picked up that game again and everything went much better. Without going into too much boring detail the session started w/ me taking a big ole vampire bite to the neck before narrowly escaping with a small amount of gm fiat. Another siege fight in the manor as we take a long rest, and reattempting the same plan that almsot got me killed the last time, slightly modified to be a squidge safer.

Then the fun part.

Through pure unadulterated dice fuckery on my part, an improbably amount if 18+ rolls, we ended up executing the plan flawlessly, getting the vampire stuck in the sunlight and fleeing to the safety of his castle. Due to the way the area was laid out I was the only one between the vampire and the caslte and I managed to ~wrestle a vampire to the ground~ for 6 entire turns without dying or having him escape the mighty pull of my 10 strength +0 athletics rolls. And the best part is all of it was completely within the rules without any dm fuckery going on. Vampires are weakened by sunlight and don't get legendary actions so just through luck of the dice a tiny 34 lb kobold wrassled a vampire to the floor and kept him there for 6 rounds until he burned up in the sunlight. He was attacking me in the beginning and I had to chug some healing pots to get by, towards the end he just kept failing opposed skill checks and my teammates caught up with me and we beat him to death.

Arivia
Mar 17, 2011
Nice! That sounds like a pretty solid resolution to that whole thing and a lot of fun. Kobold wrestling a burning vampire to the ground is a great image.

I guess to uphold the stereotype I'm supposed to call you dumb or something, so you're dumb and that was totally only cool just because of celestial alignment or something.

Turtlicious
Sep 17, 2012

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Agent355 posted:

So 2 weeks after having a character unfairly treated we picked up that game again and everything went much better. Without going into too much boring detail the session started w/ me taking a big ole vampire bite to the neck before narrowly escaping with a small amount of gm fiat. Another siege fight in the manor as we take a long rest, and reattempting the same plan that almsot got me killed the last time, slightly modified to be a squidge safer.

Then the fun part.

Through pure unadulterated dice fuckery on my part, an improbably amount if 18+ rolls, we ended up executing the plan flawlessly, getting the vampire stuck in the sunlight and fleeing to the safety of his castle. Due to the way the area was laid out I was the only one between the vampire and the caslte and I managed to ~wrestle a vampire to the ground~ for 6 entire turns without dying or having him escape the mighty pull of my 10 strength +0 athletics rolls. And the best part is all of it was completely within the rules without any dm fuckery going on. Vampires are weakened by sunlight and don't get legendary actions so just through luck of the dice a tiny 34 lb kobold wrassled a vampire to the floor and kept him there for 6 rounds until he burned up in the sunlight. He was attacking me in the beginning and I had to chug some healing pots to get by, towards the end he just kept failing opposed skill checks and my teammates caught up with me and we beat him to death.

Actually...

Sunlight Hypersensitivity: The vampire takes 20 radiant damage when it starts its turn in sunlight. While in sunlight, it has disadvantage on Attack rolls and Ability Checks.

The vampire can, and does have access to all of it's Legendary actions

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FRINGE
May 23, 2003
title stolen for lf posting

Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:

The creative/improv part is what's most interesting and, in my mind, the rules mostly serve to ground things a little bit. D&D as a computer game that happens to be manually implemented by a hardworking dude is much less interesting to me than the opportunity for engaging with the oft-neglected creative part of one's brain.

Same.

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