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I used moonbeam wrong. I calculated damage on cast and then double dipped when the creature's turn happened. I found the discrepancy and backtracked the extra damage but I have a different question. On a persistent effect like moonbeam do you roll for new damage every turn? Or if you get a sad moonbeam on casting is it going to do 5 damage forever?
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Mar 22, 2017 08:04
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The difference between being a sorcerer and an archer in Dark Souls is how many arrows you're allowed to carry, how much damage each individual arrow does, and whether or not your arrows can be blocked.Krinkle posted:On a persistent effect like moonbeam do you roll for new damage every turn? Or if you get a sad moonbeam on casting is it going to do 5 damage forever?
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Mar 22, 2017 08:07
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Lol it's really not hard to understand what it means to have a setting feel like dark souls without having inane fluff lifted verbatim like "intersecting timelines" and bonfires, abstracting shouldn't be that hard. I don't know how to make a tabletop version of all those mechanics or if such a setting makes for good d&d, but that doesn't matter. The feelings you feel when you play a game are the most important thing to making one feel like another, they're not superficial at all. I'm with you casual encountess - it's hard to convey how frustrating I found that post. Jeffrey of YOSPOS fucked around with this message at 08:16 on Mar 22, 2017 |
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Mar 22, 2017 08:14
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If "playing D&D but described a bit like Dark Souls" is the goal and that's what the players are enjoying, then it's being done right. On the other hand, I was enjoying hearing how people would do Dark Souls in D&D without it just being D&D but described a bit like Dark Souls. Someone should do Dragon's Dogma in D&D.
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Mar 22, 2017 08:28
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Same, but Monster Hunter
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Mar 22, 2017 08:30
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gradenko_2000 posted:Same, but Monster Hunter I've thrown a few monsters from Monster Hunter into DnD5e, and tried to run them as dangerous as possible. Ended up giving them a turn after every player's turn to try ramp up the intensity, but with telegraphed actions (and not attacks every time, mostly movement stuff throughout rounds).
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Mar 22, 2017 08:32
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Spiteski posted:I've thrown a few monsters from Monster Hunter into DnD5e, and tried to run them as dangerous as possible. Ended up giving them a turn after every player's turn to try ramp up the intensity, but with telegraphed actions (and not attacks every time, mostly movement stuff throughout rounds). The whole "do the players know the monster stats" question is one that I'm mostly willing to leave up to personal and table taste, but I am a huge fan of telegraphing monster attacks as often as possible to increase interactivity with combat and would wholeheartedly recommend it as a normal way of doing things.
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Mar 22, 2017 08:37
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I remember you mentioning that before, and I've been meaning to try it, but I have a question: do monster's telegraph their next attack at the end of their turn, or at the bottom/start of the round? Cause I could see it working both ways, technically, but I'm sure you have one specific way in mind.
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Mar 22, 2017 08:40
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I usually say it at the top of the round. "The goblin is going to do x, and the shaman is going to do y" (probably not that bluntly/directly, but you get the point). Anyone who goes before them can try to preempt those actions, and anyone who goes before knows what to expect.
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Mar 22, 2017 08:42
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Bad Seafood posted:I remember you mentioning that before, and I've been meaning to try it, but I have a question: do monster's telegraph their next attack at the end of their turn, or at the bottom/start of the round? Cause I could see it working both ways, technically, but I'm sure you have one specific way in mind. Yea I got this from gradenko_2000 and others in this thread too. I tend to do it at the end of the creatures turn, but also reiterate throughout the round what it's doing. People will lose track, and dynamics can change. It only works though, if you actually stay truthful to your creatures stated action. Obviously the dynamic can change before it has a turn again, but if you say "The Shoveltusk is obviously preparing to charge towards Barry, with its head low, and steam spouting from its nostrils" and then when it comes to the turns, Barry takes full defense and everyone gets out of the way, it's super lovely to go "Oh, it changed it's mind and is going to attack now-undefended squishy mage cause you dealt the most damage".
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Mar 22, 2017 08:45
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Cool, I'll try it out sometime. Though probably not during my next session since we just had a big action climax last time and now we're firmly in downtime land with a smattering of plot. Spiteski posted:Yea I got this from gradenko_2000 and others in this thread too. I tend to do it at the end of the creatures turn, but also reiterate throughout the round what it's doing. People will lose track, and dynamics can change. It only works though, if you actually stay truthful to your creatures stated action. Obviously the dynamic can change before it has a turn again, but if you say "The Shoveltusk is obviously preparing to charge towards Barry, with its head low, and steam spouting from its nostrils" and then when it comes to the turns, Barry takes full defense and everyone gets out of the way, it's super lovely to go "Oh, it changed it's mind and is going to attack now-undefended squishy mage cause you dealt the most damage". That said, might do to experiment: build an encounter with one large enemy and several smaller enemies where the larger enemy always telegraphs his next move but the smaller guys are free radicals. Bad Seafood fucked around with this message at 08:56 on Mar 22, 2017 |
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Mar 22, 2017 08:45
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Put in several NPCs, all called Ser Mansplain. They occasionally offer useful advice re boss abilities or weaknesses when they're not running headlong off cliffs, turning the whole map into a firestorm because they saw a bunny, saying "Beware... Goblins!" long after it's obvious that you're being attacked by goblins, or pointing out that chests may contain aught of use while you're already opening one. So... Dragon's Dogma.
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Mar 22, 2017 09:08
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I just ran a session with a custom beastie that was a earth elemental spider that only ate mithril, and used said mithril to armor it self up. The players first had to find a way to remove it's armor, and then they could deal damage. The "mithrak" (creative I know) had two turns in combat. It would use its first turn to ready it's action to go off at the next turn. One action I described, "the mithrak hunches low to the ground, it's legs going tense" which was a leap attack. The 2nd was it would burrow it self half under the earth, described as such, and the next turn it would send a shock wave 10ft wide by 50 feet out that dealt damage and had a chance to knock prone. Lastly the mithrak could leave a mithril web tether that acted as a safety line and as a reaction to instantly pull itself back to the location it left the line. The players could cut them down so it couldn't do that. The players seemed to really enjoy beating that thing to bits. Edit: the best part was my fighter who decided to ignore all their tools they had, adamantium pick axe and a giant mining laser, to instead jump on the things back and just tear the armor off piece by piece. Great fun. Huckabee Sting fucked around with this message at 09:20 on Mar 22, 2017 |
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Mar 22, 2017 09:17
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I'd actually go so far as to say that, on top of needing an absence of randomness, Dark Souls can't really translate to tabletop because, well, D&D is a social game. And Dark Souls, for me at least, is to a large extent built around how lonely it is. Friendlies are VERY few and far between, and, outside of 3, you can maybe at best summon a random guy every once in awhile to help you with a boss - and of course, doing so opens you up to potentially getting ganked by those same random people. A lot of Dark Souls works because you DON'T have a full group watching your back. And again, a lot of the flavor and feeling is lost when it becomes way more social. Really, at least for my tastes, I don't think Dark Souls can be done in tabletop. There's so much there that just does not translate over, and I don't mean just the mechanics.
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Mar 22, 2017 09:20
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Huckabee Sting posted:ignore all their tools they had, adamantium pick axe and a giant mining laser, to instead jump on the things back and just tear the armor off piece by piece. This is great. Brute-force-and-ignorance solutions are usually great because they're usually the most cinematic / action-packed way to do the thing. Also usually great is the expression on the player's face later on when you explain the much easier/safer thing you thought they'd do. "I didn't think to tip the huge precariously-balanced water tank onto the fire cultists because I thought that was just scenery. I guess I did wonder why you kept mentioning it". Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 09:37 on Mar 22, 2017 |
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Mar 22, 2017 09:32
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The game I'm planning to use to run a Dark Souls-inspired campaign is Wraith: the Great War. You're dead, souls are used as currency, there's these huge horrible monsters that used to be people...
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Mar 22, 2017 09:43
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:Lol it's really not hard to understand what it means to have a setting feel like dark souls without having inane fluff lifted verbatim like "intersecting timelines" and bonfires, abstracting shouldn't be that hard. I don't know how to make a tabletop version of all those mechanics or if such a setting makes for good d&d, but that doesn't matter. The feelings you feel when you play a game are the most important thing to making one feel like another, they're not superficial at all. The point is, for me, it doesn't feel like Dark Souls if you only lift some of the flavour. Its superficial to me because the "feelings I feel" when playing Dark Souls come from a lot more than some of the thematic and flavour elements - Dark Souls theme and flavour isn't all that unique on its own. The gameplay, the mechanics, the level design, the learning curve, the sense of lonliness etc are all part of the "feelings I feel" when playing Dark Souls that don't translate well to the tabletop. I mean, I know you can lift thematically and flavour—I own Cold Ruins of Last Life—but D&D with some Dark Souls flavour is a very different thing, for me, than Dark Souls. Doesn't make D&D with Dark Souls trappings bad, just not all the interesting on its own.
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Mar 22, 2017 10:44
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Casual Encountess posted:ok but like use your head here and think about how dark souls as a video game is an abstraction of a ton mechanics that no, you can't 1:1 replicate so do what you can to make it fit. I'm not going to go nuts about poise or any of the crunchy mechanics because that's not something that makes sense in 5e If the puzzle aspect is important to what you and your players like about Dark Souls, and it's just the story style and scaryness you're looking for, 5E will be fine (until your casters start picking up 3rd level spells and either the scary or the story style goes out the window). 5E is no better not worse for it than any other randomly selected game of equivalent craftsmanship. If the puzzle part is important to what you and your players consider the tone of Dark Souls then you want to go elsewhere. A *world hack might work better than 5E due to *world's emphasis on, and mechanical support for, the fiction influencing the mechanics. Going in the other direction, a highly tactical resource based game could work (though be vulnerable to quarterbacking). If the puzzle aspect is important to you and your players but none of you know this because, like all people, you're really bad at identifying what you find fun about the things you find fun, you'll have a lot of fun fighting skeletons while ignoring the little voices saying "Yeah this is fun but it's not really dark soulsy" and/or blaming it not being quite right on increasingly extraneous factors. Again, this is normal human behaviour and not a personal criticism. We're a badly built species. Splicer fucked around with this message at 11:36 on Mar 22, 2017 |
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Mar 22, 2017 11:24
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If you're just looking for thematic Dark Souls, a guy did a bunch of homebrew (monsters, spells, etc.) awhile back, but his site has gone away. I have a copy. I've used stone of it myself, seems well balanced. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8kVRNcLOnTtcC1yenFNNUZmekU Edit: fixed link. Gerdalti fucked around with this message at 13:54 on Mar 22, 2017 |
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Mar 22, 2017 12:03
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reading my posts is the dark souls of posting
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Mar 22, 2017 12:06
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Cease to Hope posted:reading my posts is the dark souls of posting the real dark souls starts here
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Mar 22, 2017 14:11
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Curse of Strahd seems pretty Dark Souls
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Mar 22, 2017 14:16
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Splicer posted:Words ok so I did deep thinking about this when setting up and that's exactly why I only lifted elements instead of creating mechanics because it's not worth the effort of trying to force 5e into the mold. The mechanics influence tone and you're right it doesn't fit so you know what I did? I didn't use the mechanics. Like I'm trying to be cool about this because I know it's trad games but y'all are doing some autistic screeching about this. I say that specifically because I'm running a game based on feelings and tone rather than mechanics and y'all don't seem to get that. My players are not looking to recreate the world. What they are looking for is the feeling of danger around every corner, the feeling of safety bonfires provide, the fear of what lies ahead, and the rush of defeating a very tough boss. They're not looking for me to literally recreate Anor Londo. I may steal the illusion thing though because that's cool. I'm not that mad but you people are trying to force one media into another and the stuff you propose is like the gaming equivalent of Wing Commander the movie. thanks, god bless, and namaste
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Mar 22, 2017 15:27
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Casual Encountess posted:ok so I did deep thinking about this when setting up and that's exactly why I only lifted elements instead of creating mechanics because it's not worth the effort of trying to force 5e into the mold. e: which might or might not matter for what you're going for or what your players want. Not trying to convince you not to use 5E here, just wanting you to understand what's being said Splicer fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Mar 22, 2017 |
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Mar 22, 2017 16:05
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Splicer posted:I think you've slightly misunderstood something. Nobody's trying to say 5E's a bad fit because you can't duplicate the exact bosses, or that you need to duplicate the exact mechanics to capture the same feel or tone. That would be a dumb argument. The point being made is you can't duplicate the same or similar post-boss feeling, because D&D boss fights don't really have that "I worked it out!" component. Why not? Start with all bosses telegraphing moves and let the players get used to sequences of attack, figure out how to make some puzzle boss arenas that players will be able to understand. It's not the same feeling of accomplishment but again, the "I did it!" thing is a video game mechanic about dying until you make it which is not really a thing in a party based d&d game. I made a poor choice to argue about feelings here.
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Mar 22, 2017 16:12
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it's not really an argument unless you want it to be. if you've got ideas other posters didn't think of that work for you, go ahead and share. worst thing that happens is some nerds you don't know don't like them.
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Mar 22, 2017 16:19
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AlphaDog posted:This is great. As a new DM, I'm having a hard time encouraging my players to do the sort of thing you describe here. Are there any tried-and-true ways to encourage player creativity in encounters so that they're doing something besides "I try to hit it with my sword"? I litter the arena with some interactive objects but they seem to take the path of least mental resistance every time. e : to be fair, they are also new players, not morons Lisztless fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Mar 22, 2017 |
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Mar 22, 2017 16:20
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Lisztless posted:As a new DM, I'm having a hard time encouraging my players to do the sort of thing you describe here. Are there any tried-and-true ways to encourage player creativity in encounters so that they're doing something besides "I try to hit it with my sword"? I litter the arena with some interactive objects but they seem to take the path of least mental resistance every time. Maybe have the enemies start using them against the players?
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Mar 22, 2017 16:27
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Lisztless posted:As a new DM, I'm having a hard time encouraging my players to do the sort of thing you describe here. Are there any tried-and-true ways to encourage player creativity in encounters so that they're doing something besides "I try to hit it with my sword"? I litter the arena with some interactive objects but they seem to take the path of least mental resistance every time. If you want to encourage something other than "I attack" or "I cast a cantrip", give creatures resistances to certain types of damage your players commonly use. Then, when your players damage the creature, explain it as "your blow rings off of the monster's hide/carapace/skeleton. You've struck it a mighty blow, however it seems less effective than you would expect, and the monster hardly reacts to the stimuli." That should lead your players to conclude that the monster has resistance and that they can start exploring alternatives. If it doesn't and they turn the fight into a drawn out slog, let them kill the thing off before it gets boring, and post-game maybe mention that you're working on building encounters that have key tactics to them that aren't just "attack, cast, repeat." See if they want those types of encounters, or if they just want mindless murderhobo fights.
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Mar 22, 2017 16:28
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Have hitting it with their swords/magic not work. Something like a giant armored golem that you have to knock down and pull its animating scroll out. You have to make this pretty obvious and not too hard (at least at first) - my DM has a habit of making alternate win conditions but making them vastly more complicated or dangerous than just hammering through a block of HP. Then make sure you mention stuff like environmental hazards or enemy weaknesses on future fights, too, and your players will hopefully pick up on it.
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Mar 22, 2017 16:29
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just ask them to describe how they do whatever action and encourage the people who get really into it
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Mar 22, 2017 16:32
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Curse of Strahd has some really Dark Souls-esque flavor.
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Mar 22, 2017 16:39
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Lisztless posted:As a new DM, I'm having a hard time encouraging my players to do the sort of thing you describe here. Are there any tried-and-true ways to encourage player creativity in encounters so that they're doing something besides "I try to hit it with my sword"? I litter the arena with some interactive objects but they seem to take the path of least mental resistance every time. Kibner posted:Maybe have the enemies start using them against the players? 2) Play a one shot of a game that requires making up stuff. I suggest Danger Patrol, PM me if you want any advice running it. 3) If they try something, let it work. If they come up with something cool and you shoot it down directly or indirectly, they'll stop trying. Indirectly means saying they can do it but making it worse than just swinging the old axe. NEVER EVER EVER require two rolls to succeed for the one action. 4) Encourage them to say "I do this" over "can I do this". Often players just don't realise they're allowed to go outside the sheet, or have been taught not to by bad GMs. Once they realise it's both allowed and mechanically worthwhile the floodgates will open. After everyone's gotten the habit and confidence you can start being a bit stricter about things if you feel you need to, including saying a flat "no" sometimes. Still NEVER EVER EVER require two rolls to succeed for the one action I really cannot emphasise this enough. Splicer fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Mar 22, 2017 |
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Mar 22, 2017 16:41
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Draxion posted:Have hitting it with their swords/magic not work. Something like a giant armored golem that you have to knock down and pull its animating scroll out. You have to make this pretty obvious and not too hard (at least at first) - my DM has a habit of making alternate win conditions but making them vastly more complicated or dangerous than just hammering through a block of HP. Alternate win conditions is probably the smartest solution, yeah. I mean yes, there are a lot of problems with the 'Like Dark Souls but..." thing and I was just looking for any practical advice I could give my friend because my brain broke at, 'there's not really an RNG in Dark Souls the way there is in D&D.' There's some decent stuff here so thanks for the input.
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Mar 22, 2017 16:51
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Oh, also, sit down and say to your players "BTW you can use environmental objects to attack monsters and you can jump on dragons or what have you. If you want to swing on a chandelier or something and it makes sense for there to be one just say even if I haven't explicitly mentioned one".
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Mar 22, 2017 16:52
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My buddy ordered me a mini with his for a campaign we joined and his wife hand-painted it. I feel so loved.
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Mar 22, 2017 16:56
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Nehru the Damaja posted:My buddy ordered me a mini with his for a campaign we joined and his wife hand-painted it. I feel so loved. Anytime someone paints a figure for you, be sure to thank them a lot. Even badly painted figures can take hours. e: also, I'm very jealous
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Mar 22, 2017 16:57
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Splicer posted:Still NEVER EVER EVER require two rolls to succeed for the one action I really cannot emphasise this enough. This is really key. If the barbarian wants to draw his sword and jump off a roof to attack a dude, just give him advantage, don't make him roll acrobatics first.
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Mar 22, 2017 17:14
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What's an acceptably polite way to give advice on tactics in a bigger picture? I don't want to be that guy who bosses everyone around but holy moly this group I'm in makes some bad choices. I feel like the bardly poo poo I'm doing is getting way less value when people are focus-firing the guy who has disadvantage on attacks while the faerie fired target next to him gets to keep making attacks because nobody focus fires the guy. (I know there are situations where that's called for but just assume they're roughly equal value mooks.) So we're prolonging fights by splashing damage around, not focusing down lit up targets, we're negating the value of some of our (my) effects by beating down the enemies least likely to hit us, and the lack of focus also means I'm holding concentration a lot longer, which lowers my spell throughput. I'm pretty sure "spell throughput" is the last thing any of these guys cares about, but if I can get them on board with a little more tactical focus, our lives would probably get a lot easier.
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Mar 22, 2017 17:24
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Lisztless posted:As a new DM, I'm having a hard time encouraging my players to do the sort of thing you describe here. Are there any tried-and-true ways to encourage player creativity in encounters so that they're doing something besides "I try to hit it with my sword"? I litter the arena with some interactive objects but they seem to take the path of least mental resistance every time. Start your combats with examples of interacting with the environmental effects, hazards, and traps. Is there a carnivorous plant? Have it snap at small wildlife that wanders too close. A big open pit? Two of the enemies accidentally drop a barrel they're carrying, which proceeds to roll into it. A pressure-sensitive plate that triggers a bunch of arrows? Have the foe reloading the mechanism grumbling about careless people walking near it.
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