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Quidthulhu posted:The 5e handbook is pretty explicit about the different between Investigation and Perception in it's description of each (PHB p. 178): The game can't really make up its mind about it:  If I want to find something hidden from me, I think based on RAW it could go either way. If you use Investigation, you're "deducing" where the item would be. If you use Perception, you're just looking really hard and thoroughly. In practice, both find a hidden object.
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May 9, 2018 05:26
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Yeah I noticed that text box after I posted. 
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May 9, 2018 05:31
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Ran my first hex crawl survival session tonight, it went really well. I just completely homebrewed the rules for it and they're pretty light, people seemed to enjoy it.
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May 9, 2018 06:07
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CubeTheory posted:Ran my first hex crawl survival session tonight, it went really well. I just completely homebrewed the rules for it and they're pretty light, people seemed to enjoy it. Keeping it rules light is the best way to do it so good job! Quidthulhu posted:Yeah I noticed that text box after I posted. Don't worry I feel like my brain is imploding every time I start trying to work this out. Quick Video Guide to whether you should use Investigation or Perception to find something: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH0hikcwjIA kingcom fucked around with this message at 07:16 on May 9, 2018 |
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May 9, 2018 06:43
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kingcom posted:Keeping it rules light is the best way to do it so good job! So far for a party of 4 it's: Every day they consume 4 total food. They choose a pace to travel. Slow is one hex a day, normal is two day, fast is three a day. Each player can take one action a day, as follows: Scavenge - Search for food, a simple survival check that yields a food amount based on the roll and the biome they are in. Scout - Choose an adjacent tile and roll for an encounter there before deciding to move there. The wizard has been doing this with this familiar, so it's just been perception checks. Search - Search the area for oddities and supplies. An investigation contest vs a D20 + a number based on the biome. Generally results in an oddity or event that can yield goods or information. And that's it. They seem really into it, so I need to generate a ton of events and encounters before next week.
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May 9, 2018 07:03
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I wanna try my hand at homebrewing a barbarian subclass that has the kind of depth of options and choice and interesting uses of action economy that I wish it had. From a fluff perspective, I'm thinking something that more fully realizes modern action movie fighting, like if John Woo directed Conan. Rapidly picking up and leaving behind weapons, throwing them, improvising others, using smaller grapples (like pinning a sword arm beneath your armpit), etc. But since I'm trying to make a class that makes me want to play barbarian, it's probably not a surprise I haven't played a whole lot of it. So I'm curious for any of you who've played it a good bit: what kind of broad-level complaints do you have about the class? Mine have just been "it's boring and I don't have enough to do," but do you find yourself in certain combat scenarios and grumble that you don't have a good tool to handle something or that a thing you'd like to do is too demanding on action economy RAW, etc?
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May 9, 2018 17:17
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Are the grapple rules for moving a grappled creature vertically? Can I: - jump off something with it? - take it with during a 10' climb? - fall prone with it? - lift it up? - jump with it? - orient it beneath me while falling? Also, can I swivel around which adjacent square it takes?
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May 9, 2018 17:46
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Forever_Peace posted:Are the grapple rules for moving a grappled creature vertically? 
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May 9, 2018 19:07
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I miss 4e.
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May 9, 2018 19:36
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Forever_Peace posted:Are the grapple rules for moving a grappled creature vertically? Yes to all. But I would have swiveling them cost movement.
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May 9, 2018 20:23
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To me there are two ways to make playing fighters interesting: letting them do cool poo poo like redirect rivers like characters in mythology, or let them easily throw around suplexes and Stone Cold Stunners on anything and everything.
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May 9, 2018 20:35
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Nehru the Damaja posted:But since I'm trying to make a class that makes me want to play barbarian, it's probably not a surprise I haven't played a whole lot of it. So I'm curious for any of you who've played it a good bit: what kind of broad-level complaints do you have about the class? Mine have just been "it's boring and I don't have enough to do," but do you find yourself in certain combat scenarios and grumble that you don't have a good tool to handle something or that a thing you'd like to do is too demanding on action economy RAW, etc? My main complaint with the class is that you do exactly one thing every round of every fight forever. You're drat good at that one thing, but "roll to hit, then roll damage" gets real boring after twenty-plus hours of play.
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May 9, 2018 21:10
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If you play your martial as "i hit it, i rolled 17 and i did 12 damage" then you are missing a fun part of being able to describe your various headbutts or suplexes. I've let my fighter roll his two attacks, and rather than arbitrate two distinct hits, instead he does some crazy stunt for the combined damage. Much cooler to give a kobold a back breaker like it's Final Fight
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May 9, 2018 22:48
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Firstborn posted:If you play your martial as "i hit it, i rolled 17 and i did 12 damage" then you are missing a fun part of being able to describe your various headbutts or suplexes. I've let my fighter roll his two attacks, and rather than arbitrate two distinct hits, instead he does some crazy stunt for the combined damage. Much cooler to give a kobold a back breaker like it's Final Fight
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May 9, 2018 22:51
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Maybe. I've let him blind stuff and that sort of thing. I wouldn't be opposed to a request like that, but at the same time I don't want a backbreaker every round. Luckily my fighter player understand what I'm trying to do (give him more agency) and knows not to overstep the unwritten boundaries of what would be feasible in any given combat or whatever. I think a seasoned DM will know that they can spice up "i roll, i hit for x damage" in a narrative way that makes a martial class feel good.
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May 9, 2018 22:54
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But, as you said, it's not agency unless it's mechanical agency. That system works fine if you also remove non-cantrips - then your wizard plays in the same sandbox where they describe something cool they do with magic. Like it's pretty lame if he back-breaks a guy but he can still walk because, uhh, the attack section says nothing about broken backs while the wizard gets to erase memories and force retreats and turn people into plankton.
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May 9, 2018 22:56
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Listening to the Adventure Zone and I'm a few episodes into the Suffering Game and as a DM I am getting unreasonably angry at Griffin. He's railroaded before, something I give him because he's trying to create a consumer product that keeps moving and has a consistent story, but it feels like he's just stomping all over player agency in this arc.
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May 9, 2018 22:56
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:But, as you said, it's not agency unless it's mechanical agency. That system works fine if you also remove non-cantrips - then your wizard plays in the same sandbox where tehy describe something cool they do with magic. I mean, you're absolutely right to call that. I'm trying to put a band-aid on fighters, it's true. I can be inconsistent on the way things work for dramatic purposes, mainly. I try to give every character what I'd call a "pop", like try to engineer a potential moment of coolness, and sometimes that's a Fighter crushing some wizard's windpipe so he's silenced. I don't have a hard and fast rule for it, really. I play mostly martial classes or half-casters, so I just like to imagine what my DM would let me do that's cool. E: Thinking on it, I've never had a caster call "this is bullshit!" when the fighter gets to break the monotony of hitting things to sparta kick some guy off a cliff or describe that particular attack as a fatality from Mortal Kombat instead of a vanilla swing of a scimitar. My players tend to describe their intent, "i'm trying to break this guy's arm", then based on the result and other circumstances, maybe I'm "you twist the gently caress out of his arm, but the thick bones of the goliath don't snap". Sometimes the arm does break! This still isn't as cool as the declarative powers of a wizard, but again, I've never had them care that the fighter gets to do something while they are planning their next insane turn of combat. Firstborn fucked around with this message at 23:03 on May 9, 2018 |
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May 9, 2018 22:57
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CubeTheory posted:Listening to the Adventure Zone and I'm a few episodes into the Suffering Game and as a DM I am getting unreasonably angry at Griffin. He's railroaded before, something I give him because he's trying to create a consumer product that keeps moving and has a consistent story, but it feels like he's just stomping all over player agency in this arc.
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May 9, 2018 23:04
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CubeTheory posted:Listening to the Adventure Zone and I'm a few episodes into the Suffering Game and as a DM I am getting unreasonably angry at Griffin. He's railroaded before, something I give him because he's trying to create a consumer product that keeps moving and has a consistent story, but it feels like he's just stomping all over player agency in this arc. Yup and it gets even worse with his arcs after Balance.
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May 9, 2018 23:06
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Elysiume posted:Is that the one with Wonderland? I just got past the point where they fought the chimera. Yeah Kaysette posted:Yup and it gets even worse with his arcs after Balance. Boy howdy. You can tell he gets more and more invested in his own story and cares less about the mechanics of the game or in anyway respecting the abilities or choices of his players.
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May 9, 2018 23:09
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Firstborn posted:I mean, you're absolutely right to call that. I'm trying to put a band-aid on fighters, it's true. I can be inconsistent on the way things work for dramatic purposes, mainly. I try to give every character what I'd call a "pop", like try to engineer a potential moment of coolness, and sometimes that's a Fighter crushing some wizard's windpipe so he's silenced. I don't have a hard and fast rule for it, really. I play mostly martial classes or half-casters, so I just like to imagine what my DM would let me do that's cool.
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May 9, 2018 23:12
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/\/\/\ Fair enough. How's this? I'd argue that Barbarian can be fun to play outside of combat using different tropes, and when you do get to do the one thing they do.. you have advantage, rage, crazy criticals, etc. that diminish the feeling of "i'm just hitting" when you are frequently turning stuff into mush. Yes, boiled down, Barbarians try to hit every round of combat. You can't change that, I guess. I was just trying to curb that boredom by adding some narrative fluff to the whole thing. It's a slippery slope. I'd say the guy's original idea of a John Woo guy throwing around improvised weapons would probably be a cool idea for the Tavern Brawler feat to be able to mechanically hit some of the notes he wants. RE Adventure Zone: I'm pretty sure they switched from 5E to a more ... uhh... like group collab story focused system, didn't they? Firstborn fucked around with this message at 23:17 on May 9, 2018 |
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May 9, 2018 23:12
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CubeTheory posted:and cares less about the mechanics of the game Firstborn posted:RE Adventure Zone: I'm pretty sure they switched from 5E to a more ... uhh... like group collab story focused system, didn't they?
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May 9, 2018 23:17
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Elysiume posted:Cannot imagine how this is possible at this point short of just ditching the rules altogether. It's not like I listen to TAZ to get some nice rules-heavy D&D, but it's weird how one episode he's letting Geas and Phantom Steed get cast as one action, then forcing Insect Plague to include Magnus even though he easily could've just let it be cast on the top half of the chimera. Yeah, I don't listen to it for a hard, rule enforced experience, but I feel bad when the players try and do something and he tries to hand wave it away or gloss over it. You're coming up on a part where he tries to do exactly that and Justin just kind of calls him out.
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May 9, 2018 23:20
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Splicer posted:You see what's happened here is, one poster asked what people don't like about the barbarian class. Another poster said it was how the class has only one thing to do in combat. You have stated that having only thing to do is fine as long as you replace it with lots of things to do. Without any attempt to make this fit 5e's design ethos(*snicker*), here's a version as described by that guy written, uhh, "formally": Conan poo poo The Barbarian 2.0 gets action dice equal to their strength mod. They start as d6s and come back on a short rest. During your turn, you may use one of these dice to do some badass wwe poo poo. Describe the badass thing you do. It must invoke specifics of the enemies you are fighting and/or the environment you are in - nothing that would be generalizable to any fight. Determine what consequences this has based on your action and dice roll. You may change 1d6 enemies positions, affect 1d6 extra enemies, add 1d6 to damage, or whatever other effect fits the action you described. Any imaginable consequences of your badass poo poo occurs. Jeffrey of YOSPOS fucked around with this message at 23:25 on May 9, 2018 |
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May 9, 2018 23:23
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It makes perfect sense because the second option directly fucks over the fighter, Griffin’s favorite pastime as DM.
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May 9, 2018 23:29
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Justin got weirdly defensive about losing spell shaping (he respecced out of evocation into transmutation and multiple times forgot he lost spell shaping), but Griffin made it weirder/worse than it had to be by not letting him just cast spells where he wanted to. Travis really should've rolled a paladin or something; he expressed frustration over being locked into boring fighter stuff a lot.
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May 9, 2018 23:33
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CubeTheory posted:Listening to the Adventure Zone and I'm a few episodes into the Suffering Game and as a DM I am getting unreasonably angry at Griffin. He's railroaded before, something I give him because he's trying to create a consumer product that keeps moving and has a consistent story, but it feels like he's just stomping all over player agency in this arc. He definitely is over the top during The Suffering Game, and it's definitely intentional; he's setting up for the climax, so it has more weight when the players' agency is back in full force. Your mileage will vary on how much it's worth it, but it's pretty widely considered the most frustrating part of TAZ to get through. But to his credit, the boys then stomp all over his intended end to the arc to such a degree that he had to throw away his plans for the next arc, and he lets it happen even though he'd be able to shut it down based on it not working by RAW.
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May 9, 2018 23:35
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tzirean posted:Your mileage will vary on how much it's worth it, but it's pretty widely considered the most frustrating part of TAZ to get through. There's a weird shift from being something akin to an actual play podcast to becoming an audiobook, and I thought it paid off in the end. But I'm glad they went with a more Collaborative Storytelling system moving forward. Fits their style more.
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May 10, 2018 00:30
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Firstborn posted:If you play your martial as "i hit it, i rolled 17 and i did 12 damage" then you are missing a fun part of being able to describe your various headbutts or suplexes. I've let my fighter roll his two attacks, and rather than arbitrate two distinct hits, instead he does some crazy stunt for the combined damage. Much cooler to give a kobold a back breaker like it's Final Fight if youre going to do this, import the rules from 2.5e where all this stuff was laid out 30 years ago before being deleted
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May 10, 2018 00:30
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Relentless posted:There's a weird shift from being something akin to an actual play podcast to becoming an audiobook, and I thought it paid off in the end. But I'm glad they went with a more Collaborative Storytelling system moving forward. Fits their style more. All the popular podcasts/streams realize the need to defenestrate the rules (while keeping a popular system label on, of course) in order to maintain a style that will grow an actual audience. RAW DnD/PF play sucks to watch for the normies.
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May 10, 2018 00:40
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You can watch CR at 2.0 speed or something during battles, or just plainly skip them. I don't though. I like the crunch there.
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May 10, 2018 00:41
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CubeTheory posted:Boy howdy. You can tell he gets more and more invested in his own story and cares less about the mechanics of the game or in anyway respecting the abilities or choices of his players. I was ranting about this recently and its legit reassuring to hear other people having this same issue with it.
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May 10, 2018 01:15
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It's ok for a podcast to be railroad-y for the sake of entertainment I think, but I personally couldn't keep listening to Adventure Zone near the end because the constant effort to add emotional impact to a narrative and group that was ultimately pretty god drat stupid and comedy-focused was really embarrassing.
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May 10, 2018 02:04
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Gumdrop Larry posted:It's ok for a podcast to be railroad-y for the sake of entertainment I think, but I personally couldn't keep listening to Adventure Zone near the end because the constant effort to add emotional impact to a narrative and group that was ultimately pretty god drat stupid and comedy-focused was really embarrassing. Trying to build emotional weigh when your key plot twist character is a guy named 'barry blue jeans' was probably the moment i just threw my hands up at TAZ. kingcom fucked around with this message at 03:15 on May 10, 2018 |
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May 10, 2018 02:10
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I'm super new to DnD. I recently started Lost Mines of Phandelver with a bunch or other newbies (including the DM) and have been enjoying it a fair bit. One thing The Adventure Zone does right is implant the IDEA of DnD. I had a very slight interest in DnD before listening but after seeing how much fun they were having we decided to take the plunge. The acknowledge that they gently caress with the rules a lot so it wasn't surprising when stuff turned out to be different. They at least give you a very gooey understanding which you can clarify by just reading the rules. Honestly my big problem with TAZ is that it became more about the story than just playing DnD and making goofs. I dropped it when they started The Longest Year chapter but really I should have stopped before then. If you want a serious story that's cool but it wasn't what I was looking for. Side Note: This thread has actually been pretty helpful so i'm glad I read it the whole way through.
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May 10, 2018 02:13
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Robiben posted:I'm super new to DnD. I recently started Lost Mines of Phandelver with a bunch or other newbies (including the DM) and have been enjoying it a fair bit. Good luck! Yeah I tried to barrel through the Longest Year but man is that a complete slog to try and listen to. The real issue has always been that people listening to something like TAZ and wanting to do that would be better served with system X, Y or Z but again go into rpgs looking for D&D because thats what TAZ say they are playing but if you've been reading this thread you know thats an old argument at this point. On the other hand people who really do want to play D&D learn some incredibly bad habits listening to Griffin so idk which is better to be honest. Hearing Griffin's instinct to just gently caress the fighter over 'realism' while Taco is a giant dinosaur shooting disintegration rays out of his dick is just too real for me. kingcom fucked around with this message at 03:16 on May 10, 2018 |
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May 10, 2018 02:30
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Gumdrop Larry posted:It's ok for a podcast to be railroad-y for the sake of entertainment I think, but I personally couldn't keep listening to Adventure Zone near the end because the constant effort to add emotional impact to a narrative and group that was ultimately pretty god drat stupid and comedy-focused was really embarrassing. It wouldn't be so bad if he just set up a serious situation and then let them goof through it, but he sets up and then kind of talks over them and ignores their impact on the situation. (See everything at the end of Petal to the Metal) kingcom posted:Trying to build emotional weigh when your key plot twist character is a guy named 'barry blue jeans' was probably the moment i just threw my hands up at TAZ. ... I started this conversation saying I was a few episodes away from this, I just got there, so, uh, thanks for taking the wind outta that one. CubeTheory fucked around with this message at 03:26 on May 10, 2018 |
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May 10, 2018 02:30
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Oof, yeah let’s be careful about spoilers. I enjoy TAZ and am still listening to it but there’s a moment in the first Amnesty arc where someone’s equivalent of a critical success results in their livelihood burning to the ground. That was the moment it became clear to me that the horny boys were just characters in a plot the baby brother already had written down.
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May 10, 2018 03:14
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