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Level 7 group managed to win a fight with six wyrmlings and a boss monster with zero casualties, in the amber temple
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Mar 27, 2018 13:39
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I've been running Lost Mine for some friends and been trying to gauge how much the group can take since I'm a new DM. I've combined a couple encounters early on (twin pools, ignored wolves, and a trickling of boss room in the goblin hideout; bugbears and bandit common room in the redbrand hideout) and I'm impressed with how well they've managed, and they've been enjoying the fighting. However this is all primarily just making use of what the adventure book gives me and taking a little liberty. Since I know the CR rules are kinda busted, what's some good advice for managing the difficulty on encounters?
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Mar 27, 2018 15:07
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mastershakeman posted:oh come on you gotta elaborate on this Joining an existing/established group. Person who greets me is playing a trans woman. Okay that seems a little outside this really male-presenting person's wheelhouse, but whatever. Then refers to her as a "trap." (4chan slur for trans women built around the idea that they're all gay panic kelpies designed to trick straight men into sexual encounters with dick-havers.) Insists I have to make a Bard so she has someone to flirt with. Spams a bunch of macros about special traits including "Dat rear end" and "Daddy Issues." Then starts sending me unsolicited youtube memelord videos about how feminism is bad.
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Mar 27, 2018 15:18
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Trojan Kaiju posted:I've been running Lost Mine for some friends and been trying to gauge how much the group can take since I'm a new DM. I've combined a couple encounters early on (twin pools, ignored wolves, and a trickling of boss room in the goblin hideout; bugbears and bandit common room in the redbrand hideout) and I'm impressed with how well they've managed, and they've been enjoying the fighting. However this is all primarily just making use of what the adventure book gives me and taking a little liberty. Since I know the CR rules are kinda busted, what's some good advice for managing the difficulty on encounters? You should check out gradenko_2000's blog, it has a ton of good stuff for running fights in 5e. This one provides a balanced stat block for enemies: https://songoftheblade.wordpress.com/2018/03/11/dd-5th-edition-monster-stats-on-a-business-card/ This one talks about making fights more interesting than having baddies attack against AC constantly: https://songoftheblade.wordpress.com/2018/01/19/encounter-design-have-ways-of-attacking-different-player-defenses/ And this one is super helpful for running boss-style fights: https://songoftheblade.wordpress.com/2017/07/12/telegraph-your-monsters-attacks/
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Mar 27, 2018 15:50
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How viable is Bard/Cleric? With Half-elf you can get 16s in Con/Wis/Cha but from then on you have to choose which attack stat to increase. Getting Shillelagh would also be pretty important, with having an 8 Str.
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Mar 27, 2018 16:06
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You dip one level of Life Cleric on Lore Bard for armor/shield proficiency and Disciple of Life. That's it. There's no compelling reason to take Bard levels if you're primarily a Cleric.
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Mar 27, 2018 16:14
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Admiral Joeslop posted:How viable is Bard/Cleric? With Half-elf you can get 16s in Con/Wis/Cha but from then on you have to choose which attack stat to increase. Getting Shillelagh would also be pretty important, with having an 8 Str. You're going to miss out on the benefit of special casting focuses like bard instruments if you want to also benefit from a shield. You're also gonna delay the progression of one casting stat or the other and your spell acquisition. I mean if having fifth level slots to cast level 2 spells sounds like what you need, this'll do it but both classes have great higher level spells you're putting off by doing this. Healing Word and Spiritual Weapon also compete for the bonus action slot you'll want for handing out inspiration. I don't think a level 1 cleric dip for armor, a much wider spell choice and class features would be bad at all, but trying to commit to both will be underwhelming.
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Mar 27, 2018 16:16
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How is the Curse of Strahd book? Is there a good review of it anywhere/here? It's gonna be my turn to DM for my group soon and I'm looking at premades for 5e or Pathfinder to do. I'm not a novice DM but I haven't done it in a long time so how difficult is Strahd to DM?
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Mar 27, 2018 16:37
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Nehru the Damaja posted:Joining an existing/established group. Person who greets me is playing a trans woman. Okay that seems a little outside this really male-presenting person's wheelhouse, but whatever. Then refers to her as a "trap." (4chan slur for trans women built around the idea that they're all gay panic kelpies designed to trick straight men into sexual encounters with dick-havers.) holy moly
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Mar 27, 2018 16:55
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Nehru the Damaja posted:Joining an existing/established group. Person who greets me is playing a trans woman. Okay that seems a little outside this really male-presenting person's wheelhouse, but whatever. Then refers to her as a "trap." (4chan slur for trans women built around the idea that they're all gay panic kelpies designed to trick straight men into sexual encounters with dick-havers.) What in the sweet gently caress
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Mar 27, 2018 17:23
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Mar 27, 2018 17:27
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I kinda figured it wouldn't be all that useful. One level dip does sound useful but we already have a primary Bard, so into the pile it goes.
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Mar 27, 2018 17:28
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I've been in worse games tbqh
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Mar 27, 2018 17:42
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I once was in a demo game at Gencon playing a dude's own personal setting with (poorly) modified Savage Worlds rules. He opened by telling us how good and also weird the sex was between one of the pregen characters and some alien girl NPC that I think had vagina-tentacles? There were some kinda tentacles involved, I dunno. I found an excuse to leave as soon as I could.
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Mar 27, 2018 17:51
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Conspiratiorist posted:I've been in worse games tbqh Yeah, the Catpiss thread is named that because the thread used to be about guys that smelled of cat pee and tried to Erotic Role Play at the table. You still get those posts here and there but its more of a Replay thread now.
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Mar 27, 2018 18:51
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I'm writing riddles for my campaign tonight and wanted to test their difficulty. Here is the first one, let me know if you get it and how easy you thought it was: Hidden we lay, in watch by day, til over the horizon our king doth stray our multitude his absence will betray
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Mar 27, 2018 18:55
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Stars. I think it was fairly simple, but the language you used makes it seem trickier than it is.
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Mar 27, 2018 18:58
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Guessing stars? I am loving awful at riddles.
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Mar 27, 2018 18:59
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I feel like the word horizon makes it too easy :/
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Mar 27, 2018 19:00
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Also I don’t think you mean “betray”.
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Mar 27, 2018 19:01
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Subjunctive posted:Also I don’t think you mean “betray”.
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Mar 27, 2018 19:13
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Right but it exposes something that was trying to hide. E: this was a ridiculous thing to argue about. Apologies to the thread! Subjunctive fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Mar 27, 2018 |
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Mar 27, 2018 19:14
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I'm scared, but going into Adventurer's League in public for the first time since 4E Dark Sun was a season. Going to be playing a creepy bastard of a Halfling Warlock of the Great Old Ones. Kind of a Broken/Woken Matt Hardy vibe. I let a friend joining me at whatever table we're at in on this, but I doubt he turns it up as weird as I'm going to.
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Mar 27, 2018 19:31
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Razorwired posted:Yeah, the Catpiss thread is named that because the thread used to be about guys that smelled of cat pee and tried to Erotic Role Play at the table. You still get those posts here and there but its more of a Replay thread now. I miss the real cat pee thread. I like reading about good games once in a while but where am I supposed to get my bad-game fix?
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Mar 27, 2018 19:43
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Pearl of the sky Gold coins to buy Cure a bucket dry Scrumptious apple pie What binds us?
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Mar 27, 2018 19:43
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The Force, duh.
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Mar 27, 2018 19:58
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What are some good sources of beast stat blocks? I’m coming up on level 6 with my moon Druid, amd there aren’t many CR2 beasts in PHB/DMG/MM. Are there more in the supplements?
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Mar 27, 2018 20:11
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What are some good spells for a Hexblade Warlock? I've been playing one for aaaages in a really slow campaign that recently let me rebuild to use Xanathar's and so I'm currently a Fighter1/Warlock10. I realised that I've been neglecting to swap out my spells as often as I could so it's an opportunity to properly re-set my spells. I get to know a whole 10 spells, but only 2 get to be used per short rest until next level. Current spells I actually somewhat use: Fly is kind of mandatory in a dragon-fighting campaign. Suggestion is our party's all-purpose "I win the social encounter and still have time to rest before the next fight" button. Destructive Wave got grandfathered in with the old UA-Hexblade and my GM let me keep it instead of asking me to swap it out for Cone of Cold or Banishing Smite. Shadow of Moil is (as long as I can keep concentration up for a minute) a compact version of the old Darkness trick - disadvantage to all non-truesight enemies, and advantage to attack them all. Staggering Smite is for punching really hard. Stuff I still have on my list but haven't used for ages: Armor of Agathys is ok but just hasn't seen as much use as you'd think! It normally only lasts for one or two attacks. And I have the Tomb of Levistus invocation now. Hellish Rebuke is just getting hard to justify keeping - a spell slot just for pure damage. Unless something is weak to fire there's usually a better use for a limited spell slot. Hunger of Hadar theoretically is a great area spell but I suppose at this point maybe I should swap it out for something like Synaptic Strike? Darkness is a bit less useful for the wombo combo now that I have Shadow of Moil. Hex stays on the list despite not always getting used so I can somewhat alternate between it and Hexblade's Curse. The party is almost full casters at this point anyway - Lore Bard, War Cleric, Shadow Monk - so I've intentionally picked mostly combat spells and not gone too far into utility things like Polymorph that they're better suited to, and am instead serving as the party's major consistent beatstick.
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Mar 27, 2018 20:12
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Yeah Roll20 is a great set of tools and a trashfire community. I still don't know how I got a good group with my first try on there and we're still running a year later.
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Mar 27, 2018 20:25
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CDW posted:I'm scared, but going into Adventurer's League in public for the first time since 4E Dark Sun was a season. You absolute madman. There drat well better be stories from this. As for Hexblade spells, Synaptic Static is pretty nice, basically being a psychic Fireball with extras. However, it does kinda suck when they make their saves. If no one else in your party has it, Banishment is a great spell to just straight delete something from the encounter. Investiture of Wind is a straight upgrade to Fly, but I don't think you'll get that until your next level. If someone else has any sort of pushing/pulling capabilities, Cloud of Daggers is nice to have as long as you and your party can keep tossing people into and out of it (or just keeping someone in the cloud, like with Hold Person).
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Mar 27, 2018 20:31
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Aniodia posted:As for Hexblade spells, Synaptic Static is pretty nice, basically being a psychic Fireball with extras. However, it does kinda suck when they make their saves. If no one else in your party has it, Banishment is a great spell to just straight delete something from the encounter. Investiture of Wind is a straight upgrade to Fly, but I don't think you'll get that until your next level. If someone else has any sort of pushing/pulling capabilities, Cloud of Daggers is nice to have as long as you and your party can keep tossing people into and out of it (or just keeping someone in the cloud, like with Hold Person). Investiture of Wind isn't quite a direct fly upgrade for Warlock because it's a 6th-level spell - that means it counts as a 1/day mystic arcanum for them, instead of being usable per short rest.
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Mar 27, 2018 20:48
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Subjunctive posted:What are some good sources of beast stat blocks? I’m coming up on level 6 with my moon Druid, amd there aren’t many CR2 beasts in PHB/DMG/MM. Are there more in the supplements? Volo's guide has a bunch more Dinosaurs which are beasts.
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Mar 27, 2018 22:03
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MonsterEnvy posted:Volo's guide has a bunch more Dinosaurs which are beasts. Hmm. I’m not sure that my DM will feel that they fit the setting, but I’ll see what he says. Thanks!
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Mar 27, 2018 22:05
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Subjunctive posted:Hmm. I’m not sure that my DM will feel that they fit the setting, but I’ll see what he says. Thanks! Also it has a couple more normal beasts. Namely for your CR 2 needs the Aurochs. Here is a quick list of all the CR 2 Beasts (That I think you can view) https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters?...ilter-has-lair= MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Mar 27, 2018 |
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Mar 27, 2018 22:11
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CubeTheory posted:Pearl of the sky They are all circles?
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Mar 27, 2018 22:51
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Nehru the Damaja posted:Yeah Roll20 is a great set of tools and a trashfire community. I still don't know how I got a good group with my first try on there and we're still running a year later. I also lucked into two good groups on Roll20 that I used to have a decent time with. One fell apart after the GM had to quit and the other went for a year or two through multiple games before I had to leave. I also found a pretty great group on the maptools forum of all places that I played for about half a year and unfortunately had to leave when the schedule no longer worked for me. The GM was an insane session prep maniac who knew maptools inside and out and would do things like ask for a new player's character sheet and then when they showed up to their first session he'd have macroed every single ability on a 4e paragon-level sheet for them, or preparing full maps of every single location the party could ever go to. I wondered how he managed, but wasn't going to complain because the experience was slick as heck, even if the game was plagued by connection issues and a rotating door roster. He also had a fantastic grip of 4e difficulty and that was pretty much the only game I played where we regularly got owned and had to flee. I think my catpiss detector is fairly good though because there have been several times I've been scared off by descriptions / posts before even contacting a group. I think the community has gotten worse on Roll20 the last few years too. My best groups have all been from SA or IRL though.
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Mar 27, 2018 22:57
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MonsterEnvy posted:Also it has a couple more normal beasts. Namely for your CR 2 needs the Aurochs. That link is helpful, and you are helpful. Thank you!
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Mar 27, 2018 23:39
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Kadath posted:They are all circles? Yes
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Mar 27, 2018 23:45
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Got a shadow monk going level 6, then thinking rogue 3 swashbuckler then ranger 3 gloom stalker. Swashbuckler for the opportunity attack denial + monk teleport / movement and gloom stalker for the invisibility to darkvision and hunters mark. Thinking beyond this to keep leveling rogue for the sneak damage or to go mystic if it works in the campaign. Is the monk / rogue / ranger poo poo in some way or a good idea? Would this character be somehow too weak at higher levels?
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Mar 28, 2018 13:34
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I'm looking to run a 5e game and one of my prospective players wants to play a gunslinger (I don't watch CR or anything, but I think it came from there?). I know there are quite a few gunslinger homebrews kicking around, but I'm wondering if anyone has used/playtested them or has any advice about it?
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Mar 28, 2018 14:21
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