|
Serf posted:Removing Insanity and Corruption would go a long way. Rewriting all the ancestry tables to have less dark/comedic results. Altering some of the Paths and spells that use Insanity and Corruption too, I reckon. At least those are the things I've been plugging away at with my normie and Eberron hacks. Yeah, it's literally just Insanity/Corruption, which are mechanics that work great for what SotDL is about (a gritty low fantasy WFRP-adjacent game) but get in the way of more traditional heroic fantasy stuff. I suspect the generic fantasy game will end up ditching those, repurpose the level 0 stuff into rules for a "you play the smith/priest/baker's apprentice and don't die a horrible death" style prologue, and then just shuffle the core races around so it has the "classic" D&D races in the book.
|
#
?
May 17, 2018 15:48
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 11:37 |
|
|
I'll be running SOTDL for three of my friends this weekend, using the Tales of the Demon Lord campaign. It's the first time any of us will be trying the system, though we are familiar with the current and previous two editions of DnD, as well as some of the other DnD adjacent games like 13th age. Any tips regarding running that campaign or this system in general? Planning to run it RAW starting out, but with lot's of willingness to fudge and adjust as we go. Already told them to be prepared to create a backup character in case of unexpected death, especially at lvl 0.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2018 16:39
|
|
|
glitchwraith posted:I'll be running SOTDL for three of my friends this weekend, using the Tales of the Demon Lord campaign. It's the first time any of us will be trying the system, though we are familiar with the current and previous two editions of DnD, as well as some of the other DnD adjacent games like 13th age. Any tips regarding running that campaign or this system in general? Planning to run it RAW starting out, but with lot's of willingness to fudge and adjust as we go. Already told them to be prepared to create a backup character in case of unexpected death, especially at lvl 0. The level 0 adventure for Tales is super lethal several times over. PCs will most likely die in both of the big combats. Consider busting the Rude Boys down to just bandits instead of hired killers. Also you may want to remove the ghoul entirely, as it will easily destroy a party of level 0 PCs. The organ filch alone will be more than enough and could still kill off the group, but handling it alone would be an appropriate SotDL encounter.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2018 17:13
|
|
|
ZorajitZorajit posted:Personally, I also find Changelings and Clockworks don't really jive with the sort of fantasy I want to tell stories about; frankly I think tolkien would have put a robot buddy in moria if he thought of it 
Jeffrey of YOSPOS fucked around with this message at 19:13 on May 17, 2018 |
|
#
?
May 17, 2018 19:09
|
|
|
Oh, yeah, mate I don't want to be combative about it. Those two races just don't really gel with the setting I've been putting fantasy games in for years. I'm down with gonzo characters. Dryads and Merfolk are in my regular options, and I've had undead, and ifrits too. At the risk of jerking off about my it, one nation is equal parts intelligent Elephants and the humans they keep as companions / pets. Don't want to rag on nobody's jam
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2018 21:25
|
|
|
I don't want to be combative either but I think it's extremely carbon-centric to leave behind the robots with souls 
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2018 21:52
|
|
|
Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:Man run whatever you want but I gotta at least state my disagreement here - I don't think there's any issue with standard high fantasy that has races outside the tolkien standard. I'm running this as weird but mostly thematically standard high fantasy and the robot fits in great - he vaguely distrusts creatures made of flesh unless they seem like authority figures, in which case he's inclined to obey. So a bit stuffy like the paladin stereotype but nothing outside the norm. It makes more sense to me, I dunno, firbolgs or whatever you have in d&d these days. If Tolkien had included robots or automata in Lord of the Rings they 100% would have been evil. Grond is halfway there anyways.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2018 21:52
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:If Tolkien had included robots or automata he did, they're called dwarves and eru iluvatar gave them the gift of free will
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2018 21:53
|
|
|
Serf posted:The level 0 adventure for Tales is super lethal several times over. PCs will most likely die in both of the big combats. Consider busting the Rude Boys down to just bandits instead of hired killers. Also you may want to remove the ghoul entirely, as it will easily destroy a party of level 0 PCs. The organ filch alone will be more than enough and could still kill off the group, but handling it alone would be an appropriate SotDL encounter. Thanks for the advice. I think I will implement the changes, unless my players just insist on keeping the lethality high. The ghoul seems especially difficult and unnecessary, considering it isn't even the focus of the adventure, and takes attention away from the big bad.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2018 17:15
|
|
|
I've been trying to find time to read up on this game and after several months of waiting, I finally found it (thanks unemployment!). Coincidentally, my GM for my normal weekly game is going to be absent this week, so I was thinking about running a one-shot of this. I was looking at the Dead by Dawn starting adventure and I was wondering if anyone had some advice on it. For those not familiar with it, it's a level 0 adventure in which the PCs find themselves in a tavern owned by a lovely dwarven couple who have retired from adventuring. In the nearby woods there's a tree possessed by a malevolent nature spirit what summons hordes of the undead. A priest of the New God is set to perform an annual ritual to pacify the spirit, but is found dead in one of the suites. The PCs have to defend the inn from an onslaught of the undead. I have 3 players and was thinking about giving them 6 character sheets so they can pick a PC and a secondary character to aid in the defense. That should allow me to avoid pulling punches. The only concern I have is that I don't think the players are going to be especially interested in running 0 level characters, even in a one shot. I could throw together a set of level 3 characters for them, does anyone have any recommendations on beginning Expert adventures that could be easily handled in one night? They have experience in Pathfinder and 5e so the system shouldn't have any major hurdles for learning.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2018 17:55
|
|
|
The Changeling posted:I've been trying to find time to read up on this game and after several months of waiting, I finally found it (thanks unemployment!). Having the players control 2 characters who are level 0 is a good idea. That adventure can be brutal in terms of combat stuff, but it depends on how lucky they get with rolls. Another compromise to consider is letting their main characters be level 1 and their support characters be level 0. If you just want to run an Expert adventure, I can recommend "Feast of the Father." I ran it a while back and it went really well. Took about 3 hours to get through, and if any of your players are fans of Lovecraft they'll love discovering which story it is based on.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2018 18:03
|
|
|
Serf posted:Having the players control 2 characters who are level 0 is a good idea. That adventure can be brutal in terms of combat stuff, but it depends on how lucky they get with rolls. Another compromise to consider is letting their main characters be level 1 and their support characters be level 0. They are! I will look into this as well, I'll have to be prepped by Friday but I think these adventures do a pretty good job of giving you the most important information without getting lost in detail. What attracted me to Dead by Dawn is the fact that it has this structured element to it and a bit of randomness from the Unexpected Events or whatever it's called. My main concern will just be time (the third player will get there later and tends to get easily distracted before we start sessions) for creating characters. I'll check out Feast of the Father and weigh my options. Thanks!
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2018 19:26
|
|
|
So, my game last weekend went pretty well. Thanks again, Serf, for your advice. The lvl 0 adventure ended up being just the right difficulty. That said, I wish I had done the same for the lvl 1 adventure. The cultists ended up making it to the island and fighting the Rude Boys. Add in the gremlins and demon possession/arrival, and the whole thing became a cluster gently caress. The Rude Boys still seemed too strong, especially given their numbers. I was able to keep my group alive by fudging a few rolls and having the gang focus more on the cultists and demon. That said, it was a pain to keep up with everything in a way that got back to the players quickly. I abstracted where I thought appropriate, but probably should have planned it out better.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2018 20:34
|
|
|
Dead By Dawn stands out as one of the most fun adventures we've done but everyone we played with was very much into the night of the living dead vibe and I spent a lot of time fleshing it out. It's absolutely perfect for dipping people into the setting. As the DM I found it really easy to scale the adventure on the fly to how the party was performing. We've also done feast of the father. I didn't like that one as much but that was mostly because I didn't run it as well.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2018 21:09
|
|
|
Are Curse / Forbidden / Necromancy significantly stronger than other spell schools? I'm curious if the Corruption drawback associated with them is there to mechanically balance them or if it's just for flavor; if it's the latter, I'm thinking of doing a thing where Water magic causes Corruption because the Demon Lord is winter-themed and causing a premature ice age. (And maybe de-Corrupting one of the schools that's currently Corrupt to compensate.)
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 14:28
|
|
|
The corruption is partially a flavor thing because forbidden spells include things like tearing people's flesh apart or implanting worms in them. I think it might also be a balance consideration because Part Flesh From Bone does like 6d6 damage and Soul Exchange can create a permanent affliction with a decent roll.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 14:37
|
|
|
Fair enough. In that case I'll probably just make it a purely narrative thing where using ice magic makes you kind of unpopular. 
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 14:43
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:Fair enough. In that case I'll probably just make it a purely narrative thing where using ice magic makes you kind of unpopular. I would go ahead and make Ice corrupted because it's better thematically. You can either de-corrupt a corrupted tradition in exchange (just keep an eye out for numbers that are too big if you really want to make sure nothing bad happens), or just leave them corrupted - it's not like there's a shortage of traditions in the game to pick from. While we're on the topic of corrupted traditions, boo-hiss that SotDL makes Necromancy corrupted, it's a lazy cop-out.
Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 14:58 on May 22, 2018 |
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 14:55
|
|
|
Lemon-Lime posted:While we're on the topic of corrupted traditions, boo-hiss that SotDL makes Necromancy corrupted, it's a lazy cop-out. makes sense to me the setting hinges on cyclical reincarnation, with interludes in hell for those who were lovely or cursed in life. necromancy is the act of using magic to interrupt or break that cycle. if i were father death, one of the first things i'd have done when mortals first developed necromancy was make using it a hell-worthy spiritual offense
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 15:09
|
|
|
Lemon-Lime posted:While we're on the topic of corrupted traditions, boo-hiss that SotDL makes Necromancy corrupted, it's a lazy cop-out. This was exactly what I was thinking of, heh. Using ice magic is draining the warmth of the entire world and contributing to the oncoming eternal winter. Reanimating corpses on the other hand is just being efficient and sensible; reduce, re-use, recycle!
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 15:10
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:Reanimating corpses on the other hand is just being efficient and sensible; reduce, re-use, recycle! the magic that does the reanimating physically rips a not-yet-reincarnated soul from the halls of the underworld to provide the motive force and control mechanism for those corpses
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 15:13
|
|
|
zeal posted:the magic that does the reanimating physically rips a not-yet-reincarnated soul from the halls of the underworld to provide the motive force and control mechanism for those corpses When you say "physically", do you mean that something travels through space from the location of the underworld and lodges itself in a location inside the body?
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 15:14
|
|
|
I mean that's how Clockworks...work, right?
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 15:20
|
|
|
zeal posted:the magic that does the reanimating physically rips a not-yet-reincarnated soul from the halls of the underworld to provide the motive force and control mechanism for those corpses so what you're telling me is you get to tell the Reaper to go pound sand and you get to be a kickin' rad skeltal
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 15:22
|
|
|
Springfield Fatts posted:I mean that's how Clockworks...work, right? I assumed that the acquisition of the soul was more, like, astral than physical.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 15:26
|
|
|
Subjunctive posted:When you say "physically", do you mean that something travels through space from the location of the underworld and lodges itself in a location inside the body? yes. i mean there are souls physically wandering the halls of Father Death's palace in the Underworld, in the process of having the memories and accumulated baggage of their previous life stripped away until they're ready to be reaped by the scythe of one of the several Grim Reapers who do most of the unquiet soul management in the Underworld. reaping sends the soul back into the world, to inhabit newborn babies and newly wakened clockworks. what necromancy does is pluck ghosts in that interstitial period, between entering the Underworld and their final reaping, out of the Underworld and drags them back to Urth to be used as the power source and guidance system for necromantic magical effects Tuxedo Catfish posted:so what you're telling me is you get to tell the Reaper to go pound sand and you get to be a kickin' rad skeltal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jtpf8N5IDE
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 15:27
|
|
|
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u94yWGkoA6o
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 15:29
|
|
|
Has anyone made a resource that has all the various Paths available as a single index? Not the full text like the not-SDL page used to provide, but a basic list for all of the tiers across the books so that a GM can show the full shopping list to their players?
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 16:45
|
|
|
I think this is going to raise more questions than it answers for your players but here you go!! http://schwalbentertainment.com/shadow-of-the-demon-lord-tables/paths/
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 17:06
|
|
|
Man, that's... functional but the formatting is an eyesore.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 17:07
|
|
|
Memnaelar posted:Man, that's... functional but the formatting is an eyesore. - The Demon Lord
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 17:09
|
|
|
I made google docs for my players with all the Paths and a one-line description, then they picked 2-4 that they were interested in and I added the full text for those.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 17:19
|
|
|
zeal posted:necromancy is the act of using magic to interrupt or break that cycle. In SotDL, yes. That's the lazy cop-out I mentioned, because necromancy and the death tradition don't have to be about making zombies and rotting people's souls. It's far more interesting when they're just a completely natural part of the balance, especially since the setting is so heavy on cycles. e; the death tradition is actually way worse as an offender since it should be the tradition about enforcing the cycle, and instead it's the tradition about Conjuring Clouds Of Poison To Murder Everything. Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 20:54 on May 22, 2018 |
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 20:44
|
|
|
I always get irrationally annoyed at people who try to make necromancy friendly and nice. Just let it be evil!
|
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 21:31
|
|
|
In games that aren't SotDL the defining Necromancy spell is Speak With Dead, which is pleasant and neutral for the most part. There's no equivalent in SotDL (probably because it has been the bane of many a murder mystery in too many D&D games) and to me that colors the rest of the tradition.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 21:35
|
|
|
Serf posted:In games that aren't SotDL the defining Necromancy spell is Speak With Dead, which is pleasant and neutral for the most part. There's no equivalent in SotDL (probably because it has been the bane of many a murder mystery in too many D&D games) and to me that colors the rest of the tradition.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 21:39
|
|
|
Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:On the other hand, witcher 3 goes all-in on a legit-evil speak with dead. I dunno if it'd work at a tabletop but it was quite good imo! Can you enlighten me on how this worked?
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 21:41
|
|
Serf posted:Can you enlighten me on how this worked? There’s a guy who has critical information on where Geralt’s daughter is but he’s dead. Geralt’s girlfriend (or ex if you dump her) Yennifer basically taps the power of an ancient and magical grove sacred to the locals to force the dead man’s spirit to come back. During this brief resurrection he is in terrible agony and casting the spell destroys the grove, causing it to rot away.
|
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 21:49
|
|
|
SunAndSpring posted:There’s a guy who has critical information on where Geralt’s daughter is but he’s dead. Geralt’s girlfriend (or ex if you dump her) Yennifer basically taps the power of an ancient and magical grove sacred to the locals to force the dead man’s spirit to come back. During this brief resurrection he is in terrible agony and casting the spell destroys the grove, causing it to rot away.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 21:54
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 11:37 |
|
|
Sounds rad and more flavorful than Speak With Dead, which even specifies that you don't contact the soul, but the "residual memories" left behind in the corpse.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2018 21:56
|
|