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OneTwentySix posted:I recently started playing DnD with some friends as a wizard, and in our second encounter managed to obtain a pseudodragon that I'm going to be able to make my familiar. The problem with this is that as a living creature, once it dies it's gone, which leaves me in a bit of a bind - it's a better familiar than an owl, but since it's not expendable there's a lot less I can do with it (can't risk it for scouting or delivering touch spells), and even if it just stays on me it's going to get killed the first time I take moderate AoE damage. Are there any ways I can keep it alive and use it like I would a typical familiar, or is it not really worth the trouble? I don't have the find familiar spell at the moment, but I leveled up at the end of our last session and was originally planning on picking FF, but now I'm not really sure what to do. I can think of a ton of things I can do with the familiar - spell resistance, milking its poison for some minor usefulness, limited telepathy in stealth situations, blindsight in a pinch, and it's really neat for RP reasons, but I feel like I either lose a lot of utility from trying to keep it alive or else it's just going to die really, really quickly. Any suggestions, and is it worth losing use of an expendable familiar? Or would I possibly be able to convince my DM to let me use a normal familiar and have this one as well? So, D&D5 is kind of light on Familiar rules, they seem to all exist within the spell. They're meant to be disposable, as they can be recast for 10g if you screw up and get it killed. I'd talk to your DM, but seems like taking Find Familiar and handwave modifying it to bind this particular pseudodragon to you as a regular familiar would be the best way to handle it.
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Aug 5, 2017 19:35
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| # ? May 31, 2024 01:25 |
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Are there any really broken things you can do if you could concentrate on two things at once?
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Aug 5, 2017 20:05
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You could watch TV while your significant other talks to you and not get in trouble.
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Aug 5, 2017 20:08
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Tir McDohl posted:Are there any really broken things you can do if you could concentrate on two things at once? Cast Hypnotic Pattern. Then Quicken Hypnotic Pattern to catch those that passed their save.
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Aug 5, 2017 20:10
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Conspiratiorist posted:Cast Hypnotic Pattern. Yeah, any combination of control spells would effectively double the power of any high level caster. Concentration and number of slots are the only things holding them back. You could also dominate a monster for 8 hours and still be able to hypnotize/paralyze encounters for it to destroy.
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Aug 5, 2017 20:15
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OneTwentySix posted:I recently started playing DnD with some friends as a wizard, and in our second encounter managed to obtain a pseudodragon that I'm going to be able to make my familiar. The problem with this is that as a living creature, once it dies it's gone, which leaves me in a bit of a bind - it's a better familiar than an owl, but since it's not expendable there's a lot less I can do with it (can't risk it for scouting or delivering touch spells), and even if it just stays on me it's going to get killed the first time I take moderate AoE damage. Are there any ways I can keep it alive and use it like I would a typical familiar, or is it not really worth the trouble? I don't have the find familiar spell at the moment, but I leveled up at the end of our last session and was originally planning on picking FF, but now I'm not really sure what to do. I can think of a ton of things I can do with the familiar - spell resistance, milking its poison for some minor usefulness, limited telepathy in stealth situations, blindsight in a pinch, and it's really neat for RP reasons, but I feel like I either lose a lot of utility from trying to keep it alive or else it's just going to die really, really quickly. Any suggestions, and is it worth losing use of an expendable familiar? Or would I possibly be able to convince my DM to let me use a normal familiar and have this one as well? Also for the sake of your co-players dont use a ridiculous amount of table time doing the "Cuteface the pseudodragon does this, and then he does that. Cuteface has an opinion about this. Cuteface is doing something everyone notices!" all game long.
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Aug 5, 2017 20:25
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ritorix posted:Good stuff here. Thanks for this! Seems like I was on the right track; I used my level 4 Feat on Mobility, and so far all I've done is bounce around and try to Stunning Strike mobs while doing a little damage. It wasn't too effective, which is partially what got me to ask this question on the first place. Going all-in on Wisdom sounds like a cool idea. I'm already a lizardfolk, so it's better than my Dex, and seems to fit the support role better.
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Aug 5, 2017 20:51
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It's an AC13 creature with 7 HP, which seems pretty fragile to me. The main dangerous things I wanted to use a familiar for would be things like giving a party member advantage on an attack, dumping oil on a monster, scouting (pretty much dead if it hits a trap), delivering touch spells, as a targeting aid for invisible creatures (fly above the creature using blindsight), etc. Basically, an expendable, shape-changing familiar has a ton of great uses that a living one that you want to keep alive doesn't, even if a pseudodragon makes for a better familiar. They can't cast spells in 5e, and if we use the chain pact rules it can only attack as a replacement for my turn. Yeah, that's not really my style, and we already have eight players - it takes long enough for anything to happen as it is. All around it's just an odd situation, which is weird since you'd normally probably have to convince your DM to let you find a pseudodragon to begin with. I've brought up some issues with my DM, but he wasn't sure how he wanted to do it, either, so I was curious what you guys thought. Another player found a fairy dragon in the same event, but she's a paladin and I'm not sure what's going to happen with it - we ended the session before addressing the creatures (and won't get to play again until next Sunday).
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Aug 5, 2017 21:00
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Will they allow its HD/hp to advance with age (or your level)? edit - there was an old Dragon mag issue that had advancement charts for drake and faux-dragon familiars.
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Aug 5, 2017 21:11
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Take find familiar, turn the F into a B, and up the rerez gold cost to represent its betterness over the standard options.
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Aug 5, 2017 21:46
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Tir McDohl posted:Are there any really broken things you can do if you could concentrate on two things at once? "Breaking" concentration would let you be more of a 3rd Edition Wizard than you already are, basically.
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Aug 6, 2017 01:42
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Splicer posted:Take find familiar, turn the F into a B... Find Bamiliar???
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Aug 6, 2017 02:55
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I bought monsters of the orient from dmsguild, I was curious. It's a very good bestiary. They're is a section on gremlins (yeah, those ones) - I laughed reading it. I'm putting gizmo in a game at some point.
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Aug 6, 2017 03:27
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There are, thankfully, no races, feats, or class abilities that easily get you around the concentration limit. So far the only real way I've found to get more concentration slots is to have an intelligent familiar with a Ring of Spell Storing. (You can use a simulacrum too if you have 7th-level spells, but that takes much longer to kick in and is an expensive habit to maintain.)
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Aug 6, 2017 06:55
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blastron posted:There are, thankfully, no races, feats, or class abilities that easily get you around the concentration limit. So far the only real way I've found to get more concentration slots is to have an intelligent familiar with a Ring of Spell Storing. (You can use a simulacrum too if you have 7th-level spells, but that takes much longer to kick in and is an expensive habit to maintain.) I'm not sure that 'thankfully' really comes into play. Losing Concentration as a mechanic wouldn't really fundamentally change casters, it'd just make them better. Solidly better, for sure, but many Concentration spells you'll be choosing as a full caster are already going to be things that drastically alter or even end encounters, so doing that twice as well inside of single encounters isn't precisely a game changer. And direct damage spells, which are actually sometimes a really good choice in 5E compared to 3E, aren't Concentration.
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Aug 6, 2017 08:06
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hypothetically, if you used gnome skeletons, how many animated skeletons could you fit into a bag of holding asking for myself
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Aug 6, 2017 08:16
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Reene posted:hypothetically, if you used gnome skeletons, how many animated skeletons could you fit into a bag of holding So, bag of holdings says 500lbs not to exceed 64 cubic feet. A gnome, alive, is 40lbs, and between 3 and 4 feet high. Volumewise, we assume a gnome is mostly made of water, and 40lbs of water is 4.8 gallons, or .64 cubic feet. So, assuming you liquified them, like 100 whole dead gnomes. Unfortunately, skeletons are not liquid and waste a lot of space. 64 cubic feet is 4 feet by 4 feet by 4 feet. So, assuming you can put 4 gnomes to a layer, and they're 6 inches thick, stacked like wood, 32 whole gnomes. Now, for weight, your skeleton is 30-40% of your weight, BUT a dried out skeleton, no longer full of wet marrow and poo poo, is only 15-20% of your total weight. So if they're freshy butchered and averaging 35% of the gnome's total weight, you're going to break the weight limit if you go over 35 gnomes, but if you've properly dried them then you cap out at around 71 gnome skeletons. For ease of gameplay, I'd say 32 without issue. If you really need more dead gnomes than that, it'd probably easier to get a second bag of holding than to properly dry and arrange them to fit more. 
Relentless fucked around with this message at 09:29 on Aug 6, 2017 |
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Aug 6, 2017 09:26
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Sometimes something reminds me of why I paid for these forums.
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Aug 6, 2017 14:45
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Money well loving spent.
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Aug 6, 2017 16:18
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 fake e: I actually came into the thread to get a sanity/balance check on these Eberron races I wrote up. The kalashtar is from scratch, the shifter is somewhat modified from the February 2015 UA article, and the changeling and warforged are basically the same. Any critiques?
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Aug 6, 2017 16:50
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Relentless posted:If you really need more dead gnomes than that, it'd probably easier to get a second bag of holding than to properly dry and arrange them to fit more. So how long til someone goes into the gnome buying, drying, and bagging business?
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Aug 6, 2017 20:48
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I would assume its a minor specialty already. Some random online game said quote:Most gnome slaves are rock gnomes. Svirfneblin are generally hated and killed on sight. Few forest gnomes find their way so far beneath the surface, and even fewer drow raiding parties happen upon the reclusive subrace's settlements. It matters little to the drow, as most can't (or don't care to) distinguish any difference between rock and forest gnomes. As rock and forest gnomes lack darkvision, they're easily controlled by denying them the ability to see, but they are often weak laborers.
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Aug 6, 2017 22:40
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New Unearthed Arcana is up. Two pages about a new XP system based around getting XP for exploration and social interaction instead of just killing poo poo. It's bare bones and quite disappointing. I've felt like getting XP for avoiding combat should be addressed and this just feels like a napkin scribble rather than a legitimate thought out process. Admittedly the Guide to Everything is coming out soon so I dunno what I expected. That said at least it indicates that they're thinking about this sort of thing.
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Aug 8, 2017 00:20
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I think at that point you might as well just wing it, as far as xp goes. Which is really what you should do anyways for the sort of game where this would make sense.
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Aug 8, 2017 00:50
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Its not perfect but I kind of like it? It doesn't have the huge variance of xp in the current system, and still calls upon CRs to a degree. Though obviously if you are going to throw something more than 2 times your level in CR then it breaks down as everything more than 2 times your level in CR is worth the same amount of xp, then again I think there was some diminishing returns thing already. Also it falls apart if the party is different levels since they will more or less level at the same rate instead of needing less xp for lower levels. But going off a 100 xp per level, empty out when you level, makes it simpler to know right off the bat how close you are to leveling. I could see at least trying to use it.
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Aug 8, 2017 00:52
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Ryuujin posted:Its not perfect but I kind of like it? It doesn't have the huge variance of xp in the current system, and still calls upon CRs to a degree. Though obviously if you are going to throw something more than 2 times your level in CR then it breaks down as everything more than 2 times your level in CR is worth the same amount of xp, then again I think there was some diminishing returns thing already. Also it falls apart if the party is different levels since they will more or less level at the same rate instead of needing less xp for lower levels. Yeah it's really not very well thought out in my view, so you still have to "home brew" it to make it work. I view this more as "OK a monster of my level is worth 1/20th of a level up according to this while a social interaction or exploration is worth 1/10th". So you can look up how much XP a monster is worth in the codex for your level and double that and give it to the party as shared XP. Keeps the spirit of the UA but also complies with the current XP system.
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Aug 8, 2017 00:59
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After each session, I send an email with the game title and session number in the subject. Then I have a short summary, a loot section, and at the end the experience totals: Experience: 1,250 Per Player 6,265/6,500 (Level 4) This is mostly arbitrary because I try to level after the party has had a good chance to get into their current abilities. This goes fairly quick early on. Even if they level when I want them to, they love seeing the progression.
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Aug 8, 2017 04:29
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Totally Revolutionary Idea For Non Combat XP: just grant XP based on difficulty for non-combat encounters the same as combat encounters and grant full XP for noncombat solutions to nominal combat encounters. There. It's done. The UA article has a sorta nice premise that D&D hasn't approached much but it grants really non-meaningful amounts of XP to the point that it's insulting. If you somehow convince a god to side with you at level 1 that's 13% of a level for an amazing Herculean task and it only gets worse from there. I really dislike things like this and the initiative system they proposed that are supposed to be neat additions to the game but are actually worthless because of how little thought is put into them. edit: Oh streamlined levels, neat, still a terrible system - killing eight goblins is the same as finding a portal to hell at level 1 Darwinism fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Aug 8, 2017 |
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Aug 8, 2017 04:53
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When I run games, I just don't give XP and have the party level up at appropriate story beats. How does 5e handle xp? Is it on a per character (3.5) or per party (4e) basis?
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Aug 8, 2017 05:05
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Mordiceius posted:When I run games, I just don't give XP and have the party level up at appropriate story beats. How does 5e handle xp? Is it on a per character (3.5) or per party (4e) basis? Technically per character, but honestly just doing milestone levelups is a superior idea and it works just fine.
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Aug 8, 2017 05:11
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Per character XP sure is fun. I love when the rest of the party gets to level up before me! 
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Aug 8, 2017 05:28
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Who's actually using Beyond Damage Dice? The ranged weapon abilities seem poorly thought out, patient shot and trick shot in particular. Has anyone hit a WTF is this cheese moment with Beyond Damage Dice?
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Aug 8, 2017 05:41
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Mordiceius posted:Per character XP sure is fun. I love when the rest of the party gets to level up before me! It's one of those things where back in AD&D 2e you still had different classes needing different amounts of xp to level up so you specifically had to track it. In 3.5 you had to spend xp to create magic items and you lost levels if you died/got drained etc plus there was xp catchup mechanics. Ever since then there has been literally no reason to track individually.
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Aug 8, 2017 05:48
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kingcom posted:It's one of those things where back in AD&D 2e you still had different classes needing different amounts of xp to level up so you specifically had to track it. In 3.5 you had to spend xp to create magic items and you lost levels if you died/got drained etc plus there was xp catchup mechanics. Ever since then there has been literally no reason to track individually. There is literally no reason to have XP at all. D&D is a game about weaving story. The DM should have a general plan for the adventure and just award level ups when appropriate. When I would run 4e adventure modules, if it said "players should start at level 5 and end at level 8" I would just award level ups for every third completed.
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Aug 8, 2017 05:52
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I was going to just do milestone levels but my players specifically asked to see it. Feels more like progress is being made for them. So I just add appropriate amount of xp at the end, and just make it line up with where I want them to be. It also gets people excited, because now they know they are most likely going to hit level 5 next time and think more about their character development. I also do it so everyone has the same xp. Even if they miss a game. I figure missing a session is punishment enough. We're all fairly lax and new. Mostly just lookin to have some fun. The few people that have played before are surprised that I let them get away with so much, but as long as something sounds reasonable (very low bar) then I'd rather have players trying crazy things than asking me what they can do.
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Aug 8, 2017 06:00
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clusterfuck posted:Who's actually using Beyond Damage Dice? It's bad. Specifically, it's bad because you really only get a couple of new things and you usually want to be doing those things all the time (unless those things suck, like Short Draw or Bloody Wound or Trip, in which case you want to be doing them never). It doesn't really introduce any new decision points, just marginal buffs to some weapons and significant buffs to some others.
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Aug 8, 2017 06:07
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Darwinism posted:Totally Revolutionary Idea For Non Combat XP: just grant XP based on difficulty for non-combat encounters the same as combat encounters and grant full XP for noncombat solutions to nominal combat encounters. There. It's done. In a way, GP = XP cut to the core of this idea because it didn't care how you got the gold, just that you got it - whether you killed everyone in the room and took it afterwards, or the Thief stole it, or you lured everyone away and took it afterwards, or you parleyed with the occupants and convinced them to give it to you, all of that counted.
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Aug 8, 2017 06:14
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gradenko_2000 posted:In a way, GP = XP cut to the core of this idea because it didn't care how you got the gold, just that you got it - whether you killed everyone in the room and took it afterwards, or the Thief stole it, or you lured everyone away and took it afterwards, or you parleyed with the occupants and convinced them to give it to you, all of that counted. Literally the original games had players cheerfully abusing this, too, by e.g. handing the new level 1 player/character all their gold for a second so that they'd shoot up to level 6 or whatever before you took it back and carried on with the adventure. "GP spent = XP gained" is probably the more interesting variant on this rule, to explain why these heroic figures are always in search of more - they spent their previous gains partying to level up.
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Aug 8, 2017 06:36
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In pre-WOTC D&D, XP per level was different across different classes, and this was (ostensibly) used as a balancing mechanic, wherein some classes would level faster than others. In AD&D 2e specifically, gaining XP for doing certain class-related things was used as a "carrot": it encouraged players to do these things to push their gameplay and their mindset in a certain way. The whole GP=XP paradigm in general was also a way to do this. In 3e, you then had XP as both a consumable resource in the form of crafting, and also as a balancing mechanic in the form of Level Adjustments. All of these aspects may not have always worked as well as they were intended to, but the reason why it "doesn't make sense" to track XP in 5e anymore is because 5e does none of these things. When you use milestone leveling, you're still in a way using a carrot: accomplish this goal, and you gain a level. The difference is that the reward is an entire level, period, compared to "this much closer to a level" that XP lets you work with. But if you were to reintroduce any of these concepts into a game: XP as a reward for certain behaviors, XP as a consumable resource, XP as a tangible measure of progress to the next level, then XP has a reason-for-being again.
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Aug 8, 2017 08:38
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I get why milestone leveling is popular, but it always makes me laugh that the the same folks who support it are the same one who make fun of all the "ask your GM" stuff in 5e. To me the milestone leveling feels like the ultimate "ask your GM" situation because you can't look at your xp and see you're making progress.
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Aug 8, 2017 08:55
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