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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:I think it's 3? You get two spells back each one so 8 total vs a cleric's 6? If you count channel divinity, the warlock never catches up, but so be it. I wasn't counting the two the warlock started with cause I'm a dummo.
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Jun 22, 2017 21:23
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Gonna go out on a limb here and guess that you're trying to outheal damage as it happens, which is both boring as hell and monumentally wasteful. You pretty much only want to heal in battle if it picks someone up from being KO'd or if you know you can push someone past an important damage threshold (e.g. the dragon might get their breath weapon back and you know the numbers on your heal work out to make the difference between staying up or falling). You'll have more things to do with cleric if you're not wasting your spells trying to heal like it's WoW and instead focus on controlling spacing, debuffing people, buffing friends, etc. It's super powerful and imo a lot of fun.
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Jun 22, 2017 21:43
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LMAO I almost convinced everyone to roll paladins for our Tomb of Horrors game. Completely failed to get everyone to name their characters after Skynyrd songs though. Freebird stands alone... 
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Jun 22, 2017 22:08
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Nehru the Damaja posted:Gonna go out on a limb here and guess that you're trying to outheal damage as it happens, which is both boring as hell and monumentally wasteful. You pretty much only want to heal in battle if it picks someone up from being KO'd or if you know you can push someone past an important damage threshold (e.g. the dragon might get their breath weapon back and you know the numbers on your heal work out to make the difference between staying up or falling). In battle healing is a fool's errand. My Bard has Healing Word as his only healing spell because it's a Bonus Action and can just get someone up. A Paladin's Lay on Hands is the same; never spend more than the minimum (usually 1) to get someone back up. Healing Potions are also important; everyone should have at least one on their person, preferably more, to get a downed person up. My group has slowly caught on to this, though there is still some active healing going on. They used to worry a lot about not having a Cleric. Pretty sure active healing sucked I'm 3.5 as well, since you mostly had to prepare specific spells into specific slots bar a few "free" spells.
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Jun 22, 2017 23:03
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Admiral Joeslop posted:Pretty sure active healing sucked I'm 3.5 as well, since you mostly had to prepare specific spells into specific slots bar a few "free" spells. Well actually 3.5 clerics got to spontaneously cast cure spells (unless you were an evil cleric, neutral cleric of an evil god, or neutral cleric of a neutral god that chose to channel negative energy)
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Jun 22, 2017 23:13
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3.5 healing was also just using the busted wand of Cure Light Wounds economy after your first dungeon or two anyway. 4e Leaders like Pacifist Clerics were the only fun use of a healbot archetype in D&D. And even that was boring compared to Lazylord for the "never attacks" gimmick.
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Jun 22, 2017 23:18
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hangedman1984 posted:Well actually 3.5 clerics got to spontaneously cast cure spells (unless you were an evil cleric, neutral cleric of an evil god, or neutral cleric of a neutral god that chose to channel negative energy) Yeah that. I couldn't remember the term they used. Druids got it also, and maybe Paladins?
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Jun 22, 2017 23:45
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Admiral Joeslop posted:Yeah that. I couldn't remember the term they used. Druids got it also, and maybe Paladins? Close, they get to summon things. More useful, IMO.
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Jun 22, 2017 23:49
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So, in an effort to have some more interesting items for my level 5 party, I'm hoping to toss these out as "not super overpowered, but interesting and possibly useful long-term" toys. Just doing an idiot check that they aren't stupid overpowered or underpowered since I'm positive someone in this thread will kindly tell me I'm loving insane for even considering these. BELT OF BLURRED TIME - must be attuned - once per short rest, you may choose one of the effects below: 1) during your turn, use your bonus action and reaction to take a second action. This action cannot be used to attack or cast a spell. 2) during someone else's turn, gain an extra reaction. On your next turn you have no action, but can take two bonus actions. - meaningless fluff description CHAUNCEY's CLARION BELL - must be attuned - once per long rest, as a bonus action, you may wield the Bell in a free hand and ring it. A pure tone will sound, which increases your ability to concentrate for 1 minute. For the duration, you may maintain two concentration spells of a level equal to or lower than half your INT modifier (rounded up, at minimum cantrips). All concentration checks are made with disadvantage while you maintain two spells. The following conditions end the tone and any spells you were concentrating on: charmed, deafened, grappled, incapacitated, paralyzed, petrified, prone, restrained, stunned, unconscious, and the "Silence" spell. - while you hold the ringing bell, your speed is halved and you have disadvantage on DEX saving throws. - meaningless fluff description And, as a bonus, a cursed artifact that is hopefully powerful, but not game-breaking, and "acceptably risky". TELESCOPE OF THE VOID - must be attuned; the process involves permanently disfiguring one of the user's eyes (the Telescope is a hollow needle you have to stick into your eye to empty it out and fill it with weirdness) - cursed; once attuned, cannot be removed via normal means. May have other (i.e. story) effects. - gain Truesight up to 10 feet, Darkvision up to 90 feet, and immunity to blindness. - any spell attack roll of 1 critically fails by being absorbed into the Void; when this occurs, increase the Void Counter (VC) by 1. The VC is zero when first attuned. - the Void allows you to cast one of the following spells as a bonus action per long rest, with a DC of 11 + proficiency: 1) Bane (as a second level spell) 2) Compulsion (requires VC > 5) 3) Eyebite (requires VC > 10) - after casting a spell from the Void, roll percentage dice versus VC + spell level - proficiency. If your roll is equal to or above that value, subtract 1 from VC if VC > 1. Otherwise, panic. - DM knows, but players don't, that failing the Void check causes a 1d4 roll on the following table: 1) Lose all VC, and take twice that amount of damage as psychic damage. 2) All creatures in a 30 foot cone in front of the caster must make a DEX save (DC 11 + spell level). On a failure, they take xd6 necrotic damage (where x is the spell level). On a success, they take half damage. Set VC to 10. 3) The user is knocked prone and stunned until the end of their next turn. VC is unaffected. 4) Lose all VC, and the Void summons aberrations from the Void that are hostile to all at random locations in a 30 foot radius of the user. Their number and composition are DM-adjusted to equal the user's level plus two. Good luck! 4th and 6th level spells are super hefty for a level 5 party, I know, but they're not damage-dealers or spells that I expect to just "end" most encounters. orangelex44 fucked around with this message at 02:00 on Jun 23, 2017 |
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Jun 23, 2017 01:58
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Time Belt: Sounds pretty cool. What are you thinking that no action but two bonus actions might be useful for? I can't think of a way to even do it. I'd probably drop that restriciton - I wouldn't think an extra reaction once per short rest is so great it needs an extra penalty. Spell Bell: I dunno, I'd think very carefully about what might start stacking up if you let casters do two concentration things at once. Does the ringing persist for the full minute? Is it loud as hell? If so, then the level restriction and the fact that you can't do it quietly might be enough to miss any big problems - you might not even need the disadvantage on concentration checks. Evil Telescope: I don't have time to go right through it, but I think you're on the right track with "It's useful, but the more you use it the more dangerous it gets". edit: It's a bit unfair if it kills someone who has no way to avoid it and didn't even know it could happen, and even worse if that person isn't even the person who activated it. I'd at least make it explicit that it has the possibility of hurting the user and allies and that it's more likely to happen the more it is used. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Jun 23, 2017 |
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Jun 23, 2017 02:28
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I took a look at the spell list, and for cantrips, 1st and 2nd level spells in the PHB I don't see anything game-breaking. Not as sure about 3rd level concentration spells, but my party's casters are Warlocks that mostly dumped Int. Even then, most of the really powerful concentration poo poo seems to mostly pop up at spell level 4 or higher. edit: and as far as two bonus actions, I honestly don't really know. The bigger part is getting two reactions, I think. I'm debating over adding more bonus actions for items later on. edit to above edit: oh, of course. They're gonna get the whole "don't underestimate this thing" talk. orangelex44 fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Jun 23, 2017 |
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Jun 23, 2017 02:36
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orangelex44 posted:edit: and as far as two bonus actions, I honestly don't really know. The bigger part is getting two reactions, I think. I'm debating over adding more bonus actions for items later on. Maybe I'm reading what you wrote wrong. I understood it to mean "Activate the ability, you get an extra reaction. On your next turn, you can't take an action but can take two bonus actions". I don't have the books in front of me so I could be dead wrong but I'm pretty sure that most bonus actions are triggered by actions. I can't think of a situation where you could take two bonus actions without using an action.
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Jun 23, 2017 02:59
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I love Haste (level 3 buff that requires con), easily consider it my #1 choice in a fight, and would love to have 2 up at once, and would love to have that bell, but even then I wouldn't call the Bell OP, it has plenty of drawbacks, not least of which that it must be attuned.
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Jun 23, 2017 03:03
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You should definitely be afflicted with deafness while under the effect of the bell. It's basically allowing you to concentrate harder by reducing that distraction. Think noise canceling headphones. Multitasking is a lot easier when communication is not a concern.
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Jun 23, 2017 03:29
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1. You probably don't need to throw in a "no Action, but two Bonus Actions" clause for the Time Belt's second use. They get a second Reaction ... that they only get to use once per Short Rest. That's pretty limited in and of itself. 2. The Spell Bell feels like you're engaging in the arms race of trying to chip away at a design that was very deliberately intended to limit something. 3. I would definitely be careful with that Void Counter thing killing someone outright sight-unseen. AlphaDog posted:I don't have the books in front of me so I could be dead wrong but I'm pretty sure that most bonus actions are triggered by actions. I can't think of a situation where you could take two bonus actions without using an action. With the advent of some of the Unearthed Arcana stuff there are definitely abilities that require just Bonus Actions in and of themselves, but otherwise you're right: the vast majority of Bonus Actions are "follow-ups" to Actions. ===== On a different note, something I always struggled with when running previous campaigns was handing out items, and then prodding the players to actually use them. The item's power has to be at least as strong as their standard attack/spell, or else they might as well do the thing that they were always going to do anyway. I was thinking of implementing something like an "Item-Swift Action". It's an action type that you can use to activate items that the DM hands out to you, that they specifically designate as using that Action, and nothing else. That way, if you have something like a Flame Projector Gauntlet that shoots out 1d6 Fire damage, you can use it without it being in competition with just hitting a dude with your sword, which is almost always going to be more powerful.
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Jun 23, 2017 04:02
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AlphaDog posted:Maybe I'm reading what you wrote wrong. I understood it to mean "Activate the ability, you get an extra reaction. On your next turn, you can't take an action but can take two bonus actions". No, you're reading it correctly. I liked the symmetry of "give up bonus and reaction for an action, or give up an action for a reaction and a bonus". I mostly figured having the extra reaction would be the main draw (for an opportunity attack, evasion proc, or other generally Good Things) and threw in the extra bonus more for flavor than actually being good. Still, off the top of my head, getting two Healing Words out isn't a terrible turn, and a rogue could dash, and hide. Most of the punchy bonus actions do usually require an attack action, although I'm going to hopefully alleviate that a bit with more items or houserules (mostly to feats). Jack B Nimble posted:I love Haste (level 3 buff that requires con), easily consider it my #1 choice in a fight, and would love to have 2 up at once, and would love to have that bell, but even then I wouldn't call the Bell OP, it has plenty of drawbacks, not least of which that it must be attuned. Yeah, I purposefully stacked quite a few drawbacks, but made it a bonus action to activate in exchange. Plus, the noise of the bell is a great excuse story-wise to make the caster an Obvious Target. Some of the effects seem like they should end concentration anyway (I don't think stun or petrify do, for example). Neon Knight posted:You should definitely be afflicted with deafness while under the effect of the bell. It's basically allowing you to concentrate harder by reducing that distraction. Think noise canceling headphones. Multitasking is a lot easier when communication is not a concern. My thinking was that you need to hear the sound to make it work, and any contact with the bell would disrupt the tone. It originally was a tuning fork, but a bell seemed less... dopey. AlphaDog posted:Evil Telescope: I don't have time to go right through it, but I think you're on the right track with "It's useful, but the more you use it the more dangerous it gets". edit: It's a bit unfair if it kills someone who has no way to avoid it and didn't even know it could happen, and even worse if that person isn't even the person who activated it. I'd at least make it explicit that it has the possibility of hurting the user and allies and that it's more likely to happen the more it is used. As it stands now, I have every successful cast of the item make it a little less dangerous, but the higher spells both are tougher to succeed with and require more danger/time in the first place. I'm debating about forcing the Void Counter to only reset from failing (and reset from each failure type). It seems harsh - the effects are pretty drat nasty - but on the other hand it only increments after a natural 1 on a spell attack roll. I'm expecting this to end up with a Warlock, so there will be quite a few Eldritch Blast rolls, but even so it could take multiple days of playing just to get the counter high enough to cast the second-tier spell.
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Jun 23, 2017 04:12
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gradenko_2000 posted:The item's power has to be at least as strong as their standard attack/spell, or else they might as well do the thing that they were always going to do anyway. Make the item enhance their standard attack instead, by adding limited-use riders. Eg: A bracelet that lets you add 1d6 fire damage to a successful attack once per turn. Two charges, recharge on short rest. A ring that lets you knock an opponent prone when you hit them with an attack, once per short rest. orangelex44 posted:No, you're reading it correctly. I liked the symmetry of "give up bonus and reaction for an action, or give up an action for a reaction and a bonus". I mostly figured having the extra reaction would be the main draw (for an opportunity attack, evasion proc, or other generally Good Things) and threw in the extra bonus more for flavor than actually being good. Still, off the top of my head, getting two Healing Words out isn't a terrible turn, and a rogue could dash, and hide. Most of the punchy bonus actions do usually require an attack action, although I'm going to hopefully alleviate that a bit with more items or houserules (mostly to feats). Ok, I get where you're coming from. You could also make it more universally useful with "get an extra reaction now, next turn you can't take an action but you get either two bonus actions or two reactions" so it still does something for PCs that don't have anything to do with two bonus actions. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Jun 23, 2017 |
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Jun 23, 2017 04:16
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gradenko_2000 posted:1. You probably don't need to throw in a "no Action, but two Bonus Actions" clause for the Time Belt's second use. They get a second Reaction ... that they only get to use once per Short Rest. That's pretty limited in and of itself. I'm expecting the "take a second non-attack, non-spell Action" to be the better choice in most cases, and as mentioned in my reply I was typing above when you posted, I like the symmetry of the two choices. gradenko_2000 posted:2. The Spell Bell feels like you're engaging in the arms race of trying to chip away at a design that was very deliberately intended to limit something. I mean... yeah. That's mostly the point, the goal with these two items was to push the rules and have a toy more interesting than "+1 poking stick". The rules pretty deliberately limit everyone to "action - bonus - reaction" too. If you look through the DMG items, a lot of the uncommon rarity stuff is pretty meh and basically none of it scales in usefulness with the party. Tweaking the ruleset allows for interesting decision-making no matter the party's level. gradenko_2000 posted:3. I would definitely be careful with that Void Counter thing killing someone outright sight-unseen. I'm not totally sold on my numbers, but in most situations I don't think this would instantly cause the user to bite it. The first option (double the VC count as psychic) does seem to be too much after more consideration, I think I'll drop that to just "VC count as psychic", but the others are either pretty low damage or not immediately going to kill anyone. gradenko_2000 posted:On a different note, something I always struggled with when running previous campaigns was handing out items, and then prodding the players to actually use them. Why not make them bonus actions? I agree that, in many cases, "I hit them" is often better than most item uses, but most PCs don't have a ton of bonus actions. Duel-wielding punchy types are the most likely to always have a use for their bonus, and even then I feel like I could come up with something that would seem a decent alternative to a single extra attack. From your given example, I'm not super sold on the fun and interactivity of "I also roll one more d6 like always just because" - it turns an active choice into a passive bonus.
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Jun 23, 2017 04:36
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So my play group is about to wrap up our current campaign as we break for the Summer until school starts again (we're all classmates). The PCs are crossing the site of an ancient battle, where a coven of warlocks is trying to tap into the psychic and magical residue of that battle. I wanted to reward each of my players with some neat magical item, and I came up with an idea to reward our vengeance paladin. It's a sentient great sword, but with two personalities trapped inside of it. The ancient battle was ended when a nameless foot soldier managed to slay a powerful fiend, and the sword the peasant used has the souls of both the fiend and the peasant trapped in it. I was thinking of having the paladin roll each day to see which personality took control, so to speak. The user's alignment would decide which personality was dominant that day, but since she's lawful neutral (think of a Judge Dredd kind of character) the chances would be even. What I'm wondering, is if that idea would be obnoxious for her to play with. I'm not sure if the weapon's stats would change, but I think the unpredictable nature of a dual-personality sentient weapon might be annoying. The nameless soldier's soul would try and have them defend the weak and defenseless, while the fiend's personality would try and convince the paladin to be more selfish and wroth.
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Jun 23, 2017 04:54
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It's crying out for a +2/-2 preferred alignment bonus. Like doing what the dominant personality says gets you the bonus. Doing the exact opposite gets you the whoopsie. I'm watching critical role and they spent ten episodes in a row rolling with bated breath to see if someone magically grew a beard every single day. Go nuts with flavor everyone loves it.
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Jun 23, 2017 05:06
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orangelex44 posted:Why not make them bonus actions? I agree that, in many cases, "I hit them" is often better than most item uses, but most PCs don't have a ton of bonus actions. Duel-wielding punchy types are the most likely to always have a use for their bonus, and even then I feel like I could come up with something that would seem a decent alternative to a single extra attack. From your given example, I'm not super sold on the fun and interactivity of "I also roll one more d6 like always just because" - it turns an active choice into a passive bonus. This runs into much the same issue in that now the item has to be at least as good as whatever the user usually does with their bonus action. It's probably harder to figure out exactly where it should sit too, because some classes/builds don't use bonus actions often and others rely heavily on them. If that doesn't sound like it'd be an issue for you, then items using bonus actions will probably work really well.
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Jun 23, 2017 05:20
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If we're posting some custom magic items, here's one I tried to make, somewhat modeled after Runic Blade from Final Fantasy VI: Spellsink Blade (Requires attunement) Once per day, you may cast Counterspell as a reaction. If you are required to make an ability check as part of casting the spell, you roll with advantage. You may only add a bonus equal to your spellcasting modifier if you are otherwise able to cast spells. Whenever you become subject to the effects of a spell, the blade of this weapon becomes infused with magical energy and gains an attack and damage bonus equal to the spell's level (maximum +4) for one minute or the duration of the spell, which is longer. If you took damage from the spell, the bonus damage will be of the same damage type. If you become subject to the effects of another spell (even if the first spell has not ended), the blade is infused with energy and gains an attack and damage bonus from the newer spell instead, and the effect's duration is reset. Edit: Hmm, maybe the blade should just have an effect based on the spell you cast counterspell on. I figured I'd go with something that would be useful all day. 
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Jun 23, 2017 05:20
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Nothing I have ever done could ever convince STR people to take advantage of Hex for some easier grapple/prone combos. Clearly the only way I can make this happen is to run a bladelock. Downside: It's a bladelock.
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Jun 23, 2017 10:45
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orangelex44 posted:Why not make them bonus actions? I agree that, in many cases, "I hit them" is often better than most item uses, but most PCs don't have a ton of bonus actions. Duel-wielding punchy types are the most likely to always have a use for their bonus, and even then I feel like I could come up with something that would seem a decent alternative to a single extra attack. From your given example, I'm not super sold on the fun and interactivity of "I also roll one more d6 like always just because" - it turns an active choice into a passive bonus. To be clear, I wasn't saying that this Flame Projector doohickey was a passive effect. It'd be triggered, probably even charged. 10 shots, either just for more raw damage, or for when you really want to set something on fire. As AlphaDog said, even using Bonus Actions means putting them in competition with Bonus Actions, and while this example is simple, which makes the comparison simple, sometimes it isn't. Like, there was an item I handed out that allowed the player to increase their reach to 15 feet until the end of their turn. Or another item that was a Death Ray: on the first failed save, the target took a -2 to all rolls. On a second failed save, the target died, period. Or another item that was just dumping a bunch of bees on a target. It's a lot harder to calculate the relative value of such things against "normal" class abilities and actions unless you go out of your way to overcost them. And this is not, by the way, at all a commentary on your own ideas. I think they're fine. I was just tossing out a separate idea of putting "DM-handed-out items" on their own tier of existence to encourage regular use.
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Jun 23, 2017 10:57
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Re. Worst adventure, isn't The Forest Oracle considered universally bad? Also The Sanctuary of Elwyn the Ardent from In search of Adventure/Castle Caldwell is truly dire. The dungeon is a spiral, and the NPC's big bad thing that she's done is try to learn other class abilities as well as her cleric stuff.
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Jun 23, 2017 11:29
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food court bailiff posted:Fun question - what is, in everyone's opinion, the worst official module of D&D throughout history? This is way more subjective than even edition-warring so please don't turn it into a slapfight defending your favorite adventure or whatever, some groups and players like different types of games. I have a ton of stuff from 4th and 5th and some scattered AD&D stuff but I don't run published adventures nearly often enough to have an educated opinion here. Keep on the Shadowfell was a completely soulless parade of combats. I ran it in full knowledge of its infamous reputation as launching 4th Edition with a wet fart, but I think the only reason the party had any fun with it was because I pitched the game as "this is going to be lots of combat with little roleplaying, be warned", and because I managed to insert a bunch of roleplaying opportunities anyway based on seat-of-the-pants DMing.
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Jun 23, 2017 11:52
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Shadowfell was so boring
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Jun 23, 2017 11:58
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food court bailiff posted:Fun question - what is, in everyone's opinion, the worst official module of D&D throughout history? This is way more subjective than even edition-warring so please don't turn it into a slapfight defending your favorite adventure or whatever, some groups and players like different types of games. I have a ton of stuff from 4th and 5th and some scattered AD&D stuff but I don't run published adventures nearly often enough to have an educated opinion here. There are vast amounts of trash modules out there, especially from, but by no means limited to, the later years of TSR, and it is hard to fix on a worst one: X1 and X2 were just awful, shallow, gimmicky drearfests; If forced to choose, though, then for me it would be the DL series, and not just to be contrarian. They were so limiting, so railroading, because certain characters just had to survive, to behave in particular ways and so on. I admit that I am only speaking about the first three because we stopped running them as a group, and the eleventy-million later in the series may have been just ace. UK1 (Beyond the Crystal Cave) and N2 (The Forest Oracle) were awful. N6 was a disappointment to me because of N5 but looking at it again now, I can see that it might just be saveable. And I really don't get why people played Tomb of Horrors after July 28th, 1975, but I get that there is a market for that sort of death puzzle thing. By contrast, I really enjoyed N4 - Treasure Hunt. Yes, the players don't have much in the way of extraordinary ability or power (that's level zero for you, at least at first) and there's a bit of a deus ex machina element to the ending, but it's fun and challenging and at least encourages players to think outside class preconceptions.
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Jun 23, 2017 13:50
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Endie posted:And I really don't get why people played Tomb of Horrors after July 28th, 1975, but I get that there is a market for that sort of death puzzle thing. Also yes sharing the hate for N2 - The Forest Oracle. Linear? Check. Badly Written? Check. Nothing happens? Check. Then Nothing happens? Check. The only good thing about it is the nice art. Toplowtech fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Jun 23, 2017 |
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Jun 23, 2017 14:26
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The TSR Dragonlance modules are infamous for being railroads that are entirely spoiled by the novels but couldn't possibly appeal to anyone else. Disliking them isn't contrarian.
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Jun 23, 2017 16:12
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Tomb of Horrors is good, actually. I fell (heh) for the illusionary pit trap corridor and it was fantastic. Our rogue can fly though, so disarming the traps is pretty easy.
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Jun 23, 2017 17:08
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I enjoyed running Tomb of Horrors but would only ever run it with disposables for the "lol" factor or as a one-off, never with characters people put effort into or cared about. We haven't finished it, there was an effective TPW at a certain point and I decided that I'd rather have them start again fresh in the future than have it just be "okay new party takes over here" because I learned a good bit about DMing from that. I ran Black Marsh on my table recently also, it is a hilarious railroad, just good as heck. In retrospect I should've done a lot of things differently, I for some reason blanked on initiative counts for actions and such for such as sand traps so they weren't nearly as deadly as they ought've been. Mostly Dark Sun is always a railroad, I guess it's like Dragonlance (didn't know Dragonlance was like that) but the PCs basically do the bitchwork while the real powerful people do the actual stuff. Freedom! the "main" Dark Sun campaign is absolutely like that, you go do the things so that the actually powerful people can do the work, and you're nowhere near the level needed to compete with sorcerer kings so welp get hosed if you try.
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Jun 23, 2017 18:17
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Paramemetic posted:Mostly Dark Sun is always a railroad, I guess it's like Dragonlance (didn't know Dragonlance was like that) but the PCs basically do the bitchwork while the real powerful people do the actual stuff. The DL series is unusual in that you actually play as the canon characters. They come with player-facing character sheets for Tanis, Caramon, Tasslehoff, etc. Only the ones that aren't a PC - either because you don't have eight players or because someone wanted to play their own original character - are NPCs. The adventures are straightforward retellings of things that happened in the novels, so if you've read the novels you already know what's going to happen.
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Jun 23, 2017 18:31
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Krinkle posted:It's crying out for a +2/-2 preferred alignment bonus. Like doing what the dominant personality says gets you the bonus. Doing the exact opposite gets you the whoopsie. That's a good idea. I think, if the changing personality starts to annoy my players, I may either give the paladin a chance to exorcise them or make one of the personalities permanent.
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Jun 23, 2017 20:33
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Panderfringe posted:That's a good idea. I think, if the changing personality starts to annoy my players, I may either give the paladin a chance to exorcise them or make one of the personalities permanent. Worst case you can allow banishment to work like with sword of vengeance
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Jun 23, 2017 22:30
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gradenko_2000 posted:To be clear, I wasn't saying that this Flame Projector doohickey was a passive effect. It'd be triggered, probably even charged. 10 shots, either just for more raw damage, or for when you really want to set something on fire. I'm still not sold on the concept. Is it easier to try and balance adding an entire new interaction to every PC in a battle, or to take a look at a few bonus actions and say "this needs to be roughly equivalent to one attack"? As a player, I'd consider going for a lower-damage (or, situationally, a no-damage) alternative that potentially adds a condition over taking a second or third standard attack. It's not too hard to math out the average damage from an xth level character's attack for comparison. Now, a single item that could be used "actionless" would feel unique, regardless of it's actual effects - I'm all for that. After sleeping on it and doing some math, I've tweaked the TotV slightly. I concluded that it was too easy to make the item be a no-risk way to cast Bane as a bonus action, and that the higher-level spells were too tough to access since VC would likely stay below their thresholds. Accordingly, VC no longer lowers on a successful cast. Spell VC requirements were lowered and Bane now has a VC requirement of 1. Passing the check is slightly harder, all failure modes now reset VC, and all failure modes have been rebalanced in the player's favor. As a special incentive for stupid decision-making, I also added Dispel Magic at eighth level to the available list. It seemed thematic and powerful, but not necessarily game-breaking for my PC's current level. In case anyone's curious, if you only cast Bane the number of casts before you're more likely than not to have failed a check is in the 15-20 range. The number of casts is, somewhat surprisingly, pretty independent of what the VC will be at failure - but VC will almost certainly be less than 10 assuming the item is used at least twice between VC increments. TELESCOPE OF THE VOID - must be attuned; the process involves permanently disfiguring one of the user's eyes (the Telescope is a hollow needle you have to stick into your eye to empty it out and fill it with weirdness) - cursed; once attuned, cannot be removed via normal means. May have other (i.e. story) effects. - gain Truesight up to 10 feet, Darkvision up to 90 feet, and immunity to blindness. - any spell attack roll of 1 critically fails by being absorbed into the Void; when this occurs, increase the Void Counter (VC) by 1. VC is zero when first attuned. - the Void allows you to cast one of the following spells as a bonus action per long rest, with a DC of 11 + proficiency: 1) Bane (requires VC > 1, cast at second level ) 2) Compulsion (requires VC > 3, cast at fourth level) 3) Eyebite (requires VC > 5, cast at sixth level) 4) Dispel Magic (requires VC > 7, cast at eighth level) - after casting a spell from the Void, roll percentage dice versus VC + (spell level)/2. If your roll is equal to or above that value, no additional effects occur. Otherwise, panic. - DM knows, but players don't, that failing the Void check causes a 1d4 roll on the following table: 1) Lose all VC, and take twice that amount of damage as psychic damage. This damage cannot kill the user, only render them unconscious. 2) Lose all VC, and all creatures in a 30 foot cone in front of the caster (not including the caster) must make a DEX save (DC 11 + spell level). On a failure, they take xd6 necrotic damage (where x is [spell level]/2). On a success, they take half damage. 3) Lose all VC, and the user is knocked prone then stunned until the start of their next turn. 4) Lose all VC, and the Void summons aberrations from the Void that are hostile to all at random locations in a 30 foot radius of the user. Their number and composition are DM-adjusted so that their CR is equal to the user's level plus one. Good luck! orangelex44 fucked around with this message at 05:03 on Jun 24, 2017 |
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Jun 24, 2017 00:31
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Nehru the Damaja posted:Gonna go out on a limb here and guess that you're trying to outheal damage as it happens, which is both boring as hell and monumentally wasteful. You pretty much only want to heal in battle if it picks someone up from being KO'd or if you know you can push someone past an important damage threshold (e.g. the dragon might get their breath weapon back and you know the numbers on your heal work out to make the difference between staying up or falling). I went tempest cleric and didn't take any healing spells. I have mostly tried to use bless and bane for buffing and debuffing, but so far every use of bane has been resisted, and since I'm usually fighting bless never lasts long. So I have switched to the damage dealing spells to do some damage. My guy believes he is the living embodiment of his thunder god that is totally not just off brand Thor. Since we are doing an Underdark campaign he is trying to spread his religion to people that have no concept of what the sky, thunder, and lightning are.  I did have a lot of fun starting a 3 way holy war in the last town we were in even though it almost caused a party wipe.What are the good cantrips? And I am coming from games like dungeon world and fate where characters are generally bad rear end all the time, so I figured I was more chaffing under being a low level d&d character. UP AND ADAM posted:Two sweet clerics I've had were this effete evangelist of Sune, goddess of beauty, who went around avoiding the dirty parts of dungeon and giving everyone fashion tips. This is loving amazing! I wonder if the DM will let me give my guy an overhaul to be less D&D cliche and something more off the wall. Demon_Corsair fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Jun 24, 2017 |
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Jun 24, 2017 02:23
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Our 5 man level 6 party with 4 npcs is about to fight an adult black dragon. loving RIP.
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Jun 24, 2017 04:16
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RC Cola posted:Our 5 man level 6 party with 4 npcs is about to fight an adult black dragon. loving RIP. My seven to eight person 10th level party is in a fight with an Ancient Blue Dragon. Even with four Storm Giants helping, I'm very worried.
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Jun 24, 2017 04:26
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Demon_Corsair posted:This is loving amazing! I wonder if the DM will let me give my guy an overhaul to be less D&D cliche and something more off the wall. I've never understood the concept of Sune as this and only this - it seems like a weird cliche. She's a goddess of Beauty, for sure, but everyone always seems to prescribe a very, very specific and weird type of beauty to her that is the ONE AND ONLY ONE that matters - and this goes for official stuff, too. Why is Sune portrayed as so shallow and one-dimensional? I mean we know why, but it's boring as hell that 'beauty' translates to 'clean traditionally attractive white people' in much of Sune's stuff. Isn't beauty in adversity a more admirable thing, if you actually admire beauty on that level? Like, still being beautiful while covered in the grime of a ten-day adventure where no bathing was possible? Isn't finding beauty in horrible surroundings something you would think a goddess of Beauty would prize above shallow displays of sterile beauty? Why would sheltering yourself from the world to preserve such shallow beauty be a positive for her?
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Jun 24, 2017 04:56
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