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Ryuujin
Sep 26, 2007
Dragon God

Quidthulhu posted:

You can probably get away with that if you just did PHB+Xanthar’s, unless you wanted some of the races from Volos. Xanthar’s has the current extra meat of stuff.

Would the Eberron stuff even be ok for AL use? How official is it?

At the moment probably not, in a week ask again. Basically it is playtest material, the DnD Beyond Marketplace didn't originally say this until people complained after buying the pdf. It is a living document that will be edited and updated as new stuff comes out, the Artificer is supposed to be put into a UA in August and get automatically updated to the Wayfinder of Eberron. Adventurer's League has left a cryptic message about Eberron talking about how Adventurer's League is going to be changing that suggests soonish we may be able to use it.

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Piell
Sep 3, 2006

Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer


Young Orc
PHB+1 is the dumbest loving rule

Squidtentacle
Jul 25, 2016

I've been using roll20 in our group for over a year now between Tomb of Tamaotchan and Tomb of Annihilation, and I've been planning an Out of the Abyss campaign for when we're done, and I don't really see how it's that problematic? You can log into the roll20 session your DM made and look at your character sheet whenever you want, unless he deleted the game he set up entirely for some reason. If your DM has the books on roll20, you also have access to all the content from them just by logging into the game he's made, and if he's subscribed then you also get all his perks in his game.

The only difficulty is if you want to GM your own game; THEN you need your own subscription and such. That said, if your group changes hands frequently enough and you trust each other, you could always have a shared account.

You're right that it doesn't have anything hard-coded to allow for PHB+1 or the like, but if you have the books it's not that hard to keep up with that yourself, I'd think. My group hasn't bothered with that at all, though, since we're pretty solidly in casual-have-fun mode.

I don't mean to sound confrontational at all, but are you sure your GM is super familiar with how to manage stuff in roll20?

Squidtentacle
Jul 25, 2016

Novum posted:

Putting together a one shot for saturday and I'm thinking snorkeling and treasure hunt. Will need cool water monsters to Deep Blue Sea someone at some point and some regular sea or cave stuff to fight the party. Sweet ideas welcome.

When I played my Underdark druid, I reskinned a bunch of creatures into deep sea monsters and prehistoric fish. For example, you can make a good dunkleosteus by taking an orca and increasing the AC and removing the Hold Breath thing. I made a giant gulper eel by (I think) taking the biggest available shark and using the giant toad's swallow trait. The hunter shark can make a stoplight loosejaw by increasing the range of its bite and adding a restrained effect.

Also, underwater mimics. Coral, sunken chests, maybe even whole shipwrecks.

Nehru the Damaja
May 20, 2005

DM can save a lot of grunt work on roll20 by having subscriptions but DM doesn't have to pay one thin dime either. It mostly just saves the time of entering monsters by hand and such, but once that work is done, it's done until the day you make the foolish mistake of deleting that game.

Section Z
Oct 1, 2008

Wait, this is the Moon.
How did I even get here?

Pillbug

Enourmo posted:

My group plays over Discord (two separate campaigns, even) with nothing but drawn maps and item descriptions which are just copy/pasted in the chat, things work fine for us :shrug:

I guess if you really don't trust your other players to be honest on dice rolls or whatever? There's ways to play for cheap that don't involve huge subscription investments. All of us just have the physical books, no problem.
It's true, my friends and I even go so far as to say "gently caress it, everyone is a GM" to speed the process along. Everyone being allowed to read and use the "GM notes" section on tokens all on it's own is surprisingly handy for cheat sheets on ourselves and enemies.

A large aspect is that we all trust eachother not to just make poo poo up, but my friends and I don't use any paid content on roll20 to play 5th edition. gently caress, I don't even use any of the automated character sheet options myself. But all of us have typed up to our personal tastes text file sheets we can all reference elsewhere, while roll20 usage of auto sheets is down to if any of us are too lazy to track stuff and want to just hammer a button to shoot a magic crossbow or cast a particular spell. But all our HP tracking is just on the tokens.

Though it does make for more effort on the GM when a convenient map isn't handy to just drag n drop onto the map, creating enemy tokens by hand, etc.

Again, this is very much a case of "There is no GM screen, everyone just agrees to not be a shitlord" scenario. That said, being able to see not only the health and stats of your party members, but of enemies is something that is fair to find offputting even for a casual group of friends who finds that a little too gamey even without abusing it.

All the paid stuff is a lot more tempting if you have a large concern with keeping numbers things under the hood, not just speeding up the prepwork.

Section Z fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Jul 25, 2018

Finster Dexter
Oct 20, 2014

Beyond is Finster's mad vision of Earth transformed.

MonsterEnvy posted:

Lastly D&D beyond is actually not 1st party. It's owned by another company called Curse which just got the licence to build the tool.

Near as I can tell, Curse did the development and maintains the platform (including authentication through Twitch, which owns Curse, which are all owned by Amazon lmao). The content on the site is provided by WotC employees, I think, and the forum mods are Community Managers, etc. from WotC. This sort of arrangement is pretty normal for web development.

xilni
Feb 26, 2014




So I can play on roll20 without buying the books again? I’m confused as to what buying a digital book does if I’ve already got a hard copy with me? Does it unlock features on the roll20 platform?

Section Z
Oct 1, 2008

Wait, this is the Moon.
How did I even get here?

Pillbug

xilni posted:

So I can play on roll20 without buying the books again? I’m confused as to what buying a digital book does if I’ve already got a hard copy with me? Does it unlock features on the roll20 platform?
Basically, no digital roll20 book means the GM and Players slumming it with typing and penciling in stuff by hand (Be it text file, or free made Roll20 macro sheets, etc) and sourcing map images or MSpainting it up themselves. Which is also much more awkward for everyone involved to accomplish with only one person set as GM, rather than embracing chaos and setting every single player as a GM to smooth out the freeplay process.

Oh the subject of drag/dropping images. 1: Need to have a GM tag in any given game to do it. 2: First time you do so, use the in roll20 image library to reuse that image from then on. Otherwise you result in "Oh I've got 5 copies of the image I use for my PC/the encounter map/this goblin archer, and deleting any will delete any objects created by that version of the image" in cleanup.

Not a single shred of paid Roll20 content is used by any of my friends though. It can be done, it's just a matter of time and effort. Though a lot of that effort smoothed over by just saying "gently caress it, I trust you guys. Everyone has GM tags" to make up for any skipped automation or macro typos. It can be done with the usual single GM method if you are willing to put in more effort.

We essentially use tokens with cheat sheets in the GM notes (Hey everyone is a GM, now we can all read those!) for like, 90% of our character/enemy effort and tracking. Our major permanent sheets aren't even on Roll20. Even when we use free made Roll20 macro sheets we don't use those to track anything, just for "I'm loving lazy, *Boop* there that's my Scorching ray roll results" usage. Though we do all have to manually edit HP changes by hand with our setup, all of us being able to do so speeds that along.

EDIT: The most important thing though, is "Whatever works for your group". Our fast and loose mentality has origins with play by post threads for In character content while "Everyone is a GM" access was so we could handle combat turns ourselves when nobody else was around. Nowadays we game in realtime when we can manage, but kept all the shortcuts. But taking the time to set up a more traditional experience can be well worth it, if that's what you all enjoy,

Section Z fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Jul 25, 2018

Major Isoor
Mar 23, 2011
Hey all, at this stage it looks like I'm going to be joining a 5E campaign quite soon, and for better or for worse I'm thinking about doing something a little risky/sub-optimal, which is going as a monk+wizard multiclass. Or possibly a fighter+wizard (or something similar) multiclass I suppose, if you think that's better.
Or, worst-case scenario, my backup idea is monk+barbarian, however the group doesn't have much magic, so I wouldn't mind having some (yep, lotta monk in my current ideas, haha)

But yeah, aside from the fact that I of course haven't don't my attribute rolls and therefore don't know how feasible it'll be to have more than 1-2 good stats, (I'm notorious for always having terrible attribute rolls) I'm just wondering how feasible it would be, to be a monk (or fighter/similar) with a side of wizard? At this point I definitely think I'll need to focus more on the melee class and only use whatever utility/non-save based spells as a wizard, but any and all input would be greatly appreciated. (Especially as I've only played 5E once, when it was first released)

Thanks

Gharbad the Weak
Feb 23, 2008

This too good for you.

Major Isoor posted:

(I'm notorious for always having terrible attribute rolls)

Unfortunately, if you're rolling for attributes, there's only so much advice to give. If you roll 10 10 10 10 10 18, then that's the end of that.

But, one thing to ask: For something like monk/barbarian, are you attached to the character idea, or are you attached to the actual mechanics? Because there's nothing saying you can't have monk 20, and that monk 20 is a dude wearing furs who totally isn't using Ki he's using ANGER

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you

Toshimo posted:

PHB@ Amazon: $28
PHB@ DnDB: $30
PHB@ Roll20: $30

You are correct, though, that some of the other supplemental stuff is full retail on R20 ($50) while still being just above Amazon on DnDB.


This was not evident from the way the official wizards stream presents it.

The PHB on roll20 actually just came out and is being discounted for the first few weeks. After which it's going to be the same price as all the other Roll20 D&D books.

Major Isoor
Mar 23, 2011

Gharbad the Weak posted:

Unfortunately, if you're rolling for attributes, there's only so much advice to give. If you roll 10 10 10 10 10 18, then that's the end of that.

But, one thing to ask: For something like monk/barbarian, are you attached to the character idea, or are you attached to the actual mechanics? Because there's nothing saying you can't have monk 20, and that monk 20 is a dude wearing furs who totally isn't using Ki he's using ANGER

Hmm, yeah true, that's a fair point. Also, I just noticed that they don't seem to have any healers - so maybe monk+cleric is the way to go?
With me only taking like, 1-2 levels in cleric that is, so that I can get some healing spells. (Early on, at least) Would that allow me to focus much more heavily on having my attributes, etc. geared towards the monk side of the character, or?

And as for your other question, well, a bit of both, I guess. I do like the mechanics for both classes quite a bit, but I must say the character idea/side of things is also a fairly interesting/important aspect. So yeah, that's probably not very helpful for you, I know! :v:

Farg
Nov 19, 2013
I didn't know you bought the books until recently, when I started I just googled it and the rules were onljne, I thought they made money from selling the dice

Slab Squatthrust
Jun 3, 2008

This is mutiny!

Major Isoor posted:

With me only taking like, 1-2 levels in cleric that is, so that I can get some healing spells.

You won't really be able to do any healing besides occasionally getting someone who's on the floor back standing. Too few spells and low level spell healing isn't that great. Monk is generally a very poor class to use in a multiclass because it really, really wants as many ki points as it can get to be useful, and multiclassing kills that. Sorry this isn't really helpful, but better you know what's up before you're a few levels in and realize your character can't really do much of anything.

Lurdiak
Feb 26, 2006

I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people that do.


The red dragon wyrmling's breath power is ridiculously unbalanced.

Major Isoor
Mar 23, 2011

The Gate posted:

You won't really be able to do any healing besides occasionally getting someone who's on the floor back standing. Too few spells and low level spell healing isn't that great. Monk is generally a very poor class to use in a multiclass because it really, really wants as many ki points as it can get to be useful, and multiclassing kills that. Sorry this isn't really helpful, but better you know what's up before you're a few levels in and realize your character can't really do much of anything.

No, that is very helpful/beneficial to know, thanks! Hmm, well what about fighter+cleric or barb+cleric, or something? (or substitute wizard/sorcerer/etc for cleric) I haven't played enough melee striker-y classes in general (let alone 5E) which is why I'm leaning towards using something along those lines, while also hopefully being able to pick something that offers a little utility for the rest of the group.

Thumbtacks
Apr 3, 2013
How does spider climb interact with moving creatures? Could I use it to like crawl up a dragon’s neck or something?

BetterWeirdthanDead
Mar 7, 2006

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
The right Cleric build will out-fighting person a Fighter.

Infinite Karma
Oct 23, 2004
Good as dead





BetterWeirdthanDead posted:

The right Cleric build will out-fighting person a Fighter.

A Tempest or War Cleric is basically a fighter with also spells even if you don't make an effort to optimize your build.

Arthil
Feb 17, 2012

A Beard of Constant Sorrow

xilni posted:

What a wonderful time to be alive poo poo posting to an ever grander audience.

What about tablet based character sheets or online play? How is that panning out?

If you are jumping into 5E fresh out the gate, DnDBeyond is actually really damned good. A lot of the bias against it is from people who, understandably, don't want to buy the book again. But they never seem to get it that DnDBeyond isn't owned by WoTC. Let's be perfectly honest, after a certain point and especially if you plan to DM the books are just more weight than they're worth dealing with.

So far you must have an internet connection to actually use your character sheet. The App for DnDBeyond currently is only for the Compendium version of the books you own through it, but that's honestly no worse than having the book and between the way they lay out the information and being able to very quickly search through things I sometimes find stuff faster than people who pull out the book. They have plans to work in an offline character sheet via the App.

Yes, there is a subscription built into DnDBeyond, two different ones in fact. No it isn't really required, unless you're like me and have fully dragged your altitis over from MMORPGs and like making characters.

Getting down to how it feels to have your character sheet on a tablet. I've recently switched over. It's different, especially since I had a setup with a binder+plastic inserts using wet erase markers. But I think I like it better overall. Might still keep to a notepad for note taking though. Now I will say that there are some pretty good 100% free options, especially now that Fight Club 5 is now on both Android and the Apple Store.

OmanyteJackson
Mar 18, 2012

by Nyc_Tattoo
Anyone have any idea's what'll be in the new Yugioh D&D book? like new races or classes? I have no idea what makes it special compared to the 4 other generic RPG settings

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

OmanyteJackson posted:

Anyone have any idea's what'll be in the new Yugioh D&D book? like new races or classes? I have no idea what makes it special compared to the 4 other generic RPG settings

Definitely new races, probably no new classes, but almost definitely new archetypes. Also the setting is a giant planet encompassing magitech city ruled by 10 guilds who's interaction is "terse" on the best of days. And one of the more recent expansions revealed that the whole thing was basically a science project by a bored demigod who hosed off once he saw it wasn't doing what he wanted to do.

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you

OmanyteJackson posted:

Anyone have any idea's what'll be in the new Yugioh D&D book? like new races or classes? I have no idea what makes it special compared to the 4 other generic RPG settings

Appearntly the Spore druid and Order cleric are options that were being tested for the new book.

bewilderment
Nov 22, 2007
man what



Major Isoor posted:

Hey all, at this stage it looks like I'm going to be joining a 5E campaign quite soon, and for better or for worse I'm thinking about doing something a little risky/sub-optimal, which is going as a monk+wizard multiclass. Or possibly a fighter+wizard (or something similar) multiclass I suppose, if you think that's better.
Or, worst-case scenario, my backup idea is monk+barbarian, however the group doesn't have much magic, so I wouldn't mind having some (yep, lotta monk in my current ideas, haha)


You don't need to multiclass at all in 5e unless you have a very particular goal in mind (which as a newbie I'm guessing you don't).

If you have a story idea for a mixed character, that's what backgrounds are for. For example, does a character need to be a monk barbarian, or can they just have the monk class with the outlander background?
Does a character need to a rogue? Or can they just have the Criminal background, or whatever custom background you want?

If you want to be an interesting healer... then bard is fine, honestly. Bard is great, they do everything.

And if you want to be a fighty sort... well, that's what subclasses are for, too. No need to multiclass fighter/bard, for example, if you can just be a Bard in the College of Valor or College of Swords.

Likewise with a cleric - there's no need to be a fighter/cleric. Just be a Tempest Cleric or a War Cleric.

FRINGE
May 23, 2003
title stolen for lf posting

OmanyteJackson posted:

Anyone have any idea's what'll be in the new Yugioh D&D book? like new races or classes? I have no idea what makes it special compared to the 4 other generic RPG settings
It will probably be special by being the most juvenile dnd setting ever, but it will have COOL poo poo BRO and a lot of art that will make some people like it.

MTG is not known for setting depth.*

On the upside maybe they will decide that "all players have magic" or something. Or less likely but more interesting, it could have a land-resource kingdom management sub-game that lets you gather energy to fuel your spells with, and some kind of mana-point-vs-available-slot system for casting.

There is a chance that they will eventually recruit some real setting writers to make it something better, but based on 5e's disinterest in expanding poo poo too far/deep probably not.



*As was said: "bored god made a city then ran away" So edgy!

OmanyteJackson
Mar 18, 2012

by Nyc_Tattoo

Kurieg posted:

Definitely new races, probably no new classes, but almost definitely new archetypes. Also the setting is a giant planet encompassing magitech city ruled by 10 guilds who's interaction is "terse" on the best of days. And one of the more recent expansions revealed that the whole thing was basically a science project by a bored demigod who hosed off once he saw it wasn't doing what he wanted to do.

So steampunk, factions, and uncaring gods? So Eberron, ok got it.

I haven't seen a decent pitch for this setting anyware which is no surprise really.


FRINGE posted:

It will probably be special by being the most juvenile dnd setting ever, but it will have COOL poo poo BRO and a lot of art that will make some people like it.

MTG is not known for setting depth.*

On the upside maybe they will decide that "all players have magic" or something. Or less likely but more interesting, it could have a land-resource kingdom management sub-game that lets you gather energy to fuel your spells with, and some kind of mana-point-vs-available-slot system for casting.

There is a chance that they will eventually recruit some real setting writers to make it something better, but based on 5e's disinterest in expanding poo poo too far/deep probably not.



*As was said: "bored god made a city then ran away" So edgy!

Yeah, the most I heard is YO! THIS SETTING HAS FACTIONS!!!! without explaining who they are or what makes them different or worth caring about. I love giving players 10 different groups to care about and watching them forget/ignore/mix them up.

mango sentinel
Jan 5, 2001

by sebmojo
I sure did make a post about the setting and the factions. I am mystified at the number of folks making GBS threads on the mere concept of a campaign setting book just to try and get points for hating on MtG or whatever.

Conspiratiorist
Nov 12, 2015

17th Separate Kryvyi Rih Tank Brigade named after Konstantin Pestushko
Look to my coming on the first light of the fifth sixth some day

Major Isoor posted:

Hey all, at this stage it looks like I'm going to be joining a 5E campaign quite soon, and for better or for worse I'm thinking about doing something a little risky/sub-optimal, which is going as a monk+wizard multiclass. Or possibly a fighter+wizard (or something similar) multiclass I suppose, if you think that's better.
Or, worst-case scenario, my backup idea is monk+barbarian, however the group doesn't have much magic, so I wouldn't mind having some (yep, lotta monk in my current ideas, haha)

But yeah, aside from the fact that I of course haven't don't my attribute rolls and therefore don't know how feasible it'll be to have more than 1-2 good stats, (I'm notorious for always having terrible attribute rolls) I'm just wondering how feasible it would be, to be a monk (or fighter/similar) with a side of wizard? At this point I definitely think I'll need to focus more on the melee class and only use whatever utility/non-save based spells as a wizard, but any and all input would be greatly appreciated. (Especially as I've only played 5E once, when it was first released)

Thanks

1st level Fighter (or up to 2nd for Action Surge) rest Wizard is cool and good, since it gives you Constitution save proficiency and armor+shield proficiency.
1st level Cleric rest Wizard works in a similar fashion, giving you armor+shield proficiency and access to basic and good Cleric spells (Healing Word, Bless) without sacrificing spell slot progression (though actual access to higher level spells is still delayed by a level). Obviously you don't get Constitution save proficiency this way, but some domain abilities are nice, like Knowledge giving you expertise in Arcana so you're the Arcane skill check master.

Monk/Barbarian just doesn't work unless you're playing the Tortle race. You need to attack using STR to get Rage bonuses and Reckless Attack, but Monk relies on DEX as a way to get Armor Class. Tortle gets around this by way of having a fixed AC 17, but it's still rather iffy even then since Monk is *really* dependent on its continued class progression for more Ki, and the inverse, Barbarian with a Monk dip, has no synergy whatsoever.

Monk/Wizard just doesn't work like, at all - you're better off taking the Ritual Caster or Magic Initiate feats than dipping Wizard.

IMO if you want magic, and healing, and melee, you should play an Arcana Cleric. You get Medium Armor, shield, and by grabbing Booming Blade and/or Green-Flame Blade from the Wizard cantrip list you can pretty effectively whack people over the head in melee. Further, taking Magic Initiate: Druid will let you steal Shillelagh off that list, allowing you to whack people over the head using your Wisdom attribute, so you have better synergy with your spellcasting. Alternatively Nature and Tempest Clerics also work.

Eldritch Knight is another acceptable melee combatant with utility spellcasting on the side.

And lastly, if your preferred favor is some kind of naked melee combatant, then there's Shadow Monk: they get Minor Illusion and a few other spells, later the ability to teleport, and monk abilities are all a bunch of supernatural poo poo as it is.

OmanyteJackson
Mar 18, 2012

by Nyc_Tattoo

mango sentinel posted:

I sure did make a post about the setting and the factions. I am mystified at the number of folks making GBS threads on the mere concept of a campaign setting book just to try and get points for hating on MtG or whatever.

I missed that post. Is there something more interesting about the setting than the number of guilds it has? If not that's fine, but if the book is basically only about these organizations and their relationships, why should I drop $50 on a book when I could just read a wiki?

I mean I get that it's a matter of taste, but to me this goes into the category of greyhawk, forgotten realms, and that pathfinder setting where you only care if it's something you've been into for 20 years and read all the books.

Anti-Citizen
Oct 24, 2007
As You're Playing Chess, I'm Playing Russian Roulette

OmanyteJackson posted:

I missed that post. Is there something more interesting about the setting than the number of guilds it has? If not that's fine, but if the book is basically only about these organizations and their relationships, why should I drop $50 on a book when I could just read a wiki?

I mean I get that it's a matter of taste, but to me this goes into the category of greyhawk, forgotten realms, and that pathfinder setting where you only care if it's something you've been into for 20 years and read all the books.

So the faction are kinda built around lines of magic that each manifestations of philosophical concepts, then picking 2 and blending them. It's very Sigil with a fresh coat of paint, which as good as Planescape is, it's kinda bad at being D&D and really should have it's own game that functions more like Exalted attached to it. They feud but have set monopolies so they can't ever really lead to a hot war. X-crawl style challenges happen every now and then where each guild sends in a champion an it's a big deal. The plane was also cut off from the rest of the multiverse for a good while which lead to a buildup of a bunch of ghosts hanging out pretty much everywhere.

If setting books aren't you thing setting books aren't you thing. A lot of people eat them whole though.

mango sentinel
Jan 5, 2001

by sebmojo
The factions themselves are pretty interesting with specific aesthetics, quirks, and ideals. Some of them, notably Golgari, Simic, and Orzhov don't really have strong analogues that I'm aware of in FR lore. The thrust of Ravnica as a campaign setting is navigating all of these guilds as a person on the ground. The rot farming sewer medusa is looking for a crew to steal this new prototype alchemical lightning gun so she can give it to the ghost bank to wipe her debt. That's not the best example, but it's illustrative of a grab bag setting that's got radically different social structure than the traditional elves n orcs fantasy setting.

As for why do you need the book over a wiki article, how is that different than any other campaign book? Presumably the book will have a lot of ideas and smaller scale stuff for plot hooks and story ideas and we'll all be waiting on reviews to see if they deliver on that, but the setting has the capacity for that level of engagement.

Also I'm incredibly doubtful the book will actually try to co-opt any MtG mechanics. I believe rumors about spore druid and order cleric, maybe Artificer if they're satisfied with the version in the Eberron stuff. I'd also assume Vedalken as a race and maybe Loxodon, less likely Medusas or some more humanoid Simic hybrids.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Thumbtacks posted:

How does spider climb interact with moving creatures? Could I use it to like crawl up a dragon’s neck or something?

I'd allow the poo poo out of that

OmanyteJackson
Mar 18, 2012

by Nyc_Tattoo

Anti-Citizen posted:

So the faction are kinda built around lines of magic that each manifestations of philosophical concepts, then picking 2 and blending them. It's very Sigil with a fresh coat of paint, which as good as Planescape is, it's kinda bad at being D&D and really should have it's own game that functions more like Exalted attached to it. They feud but have set monopolies so they can't ever really lead to a hot war. X-crawl style challenges happen every now and then where each guild sends in a champion an it's a big deal. The plane was also cut off from the rest of the multiverse for a good while which lead to a buildup of a bunch of ghosts hanging out pretty much everywhere.

If setting books aren't you thing setting books aren't you thing. A lot of people eat them whole though.

Nah, Planescape, Spelljammer, Eberron, Gamma world and Darksun especially have some really evocative settings and have a lot of tools in their respective toybox. Each setting introduces new rules to expand on what each setting does best. Each one also has a good elevator pitch, for example:

Dark Sun, a setting where magic has polluted and destroyed the world and the most powerful sorcerers rule as kings in totalitarian city-states.

And that's not even getting into the weird psychic monsters, cannibal halflings, the bug people, and of course, the factions.

Sorry if I sound like I'm making GBS threads on the lore of Ravnica, but it's just one big magic city with a lot of politics. You can already do that in pretty much any existing setting for DnD.

OmanyteJackson fucked around with this message at 08:57 on Jul 25, 2018

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Major Isoor posted:

No, that is very helpful/beneficial to know, thanks! Hmm, well what about fighter+cleric or barb+cleric, or something? (or substitute wizard/sorcerer/etc for cleric) I haven't played enough melee striker-y classes in general (let alone 5E) which is why I'm leaning towards using something along those lines, while also hopefully being able to pick something that offers a little utility for the rest of the group.
What do you want to do? You seem to be wanting to multiclass for multiclassing's sake. What do you want to be able to do as a character? Do you have a backstory in mind? Particular abilities you like?

Autism Sneaks
Nov 21, 2016
The Guildpact that organizes the guilds is actually part of the metaphysical underpinning of the plane, where violating any of the laws established with it leaves an individual susceptible to unviolable magic. Even if one of the leaders of the guilds or "paruns", powerful entities all, broke a Guildpact edict, they could be arrested and compelled by any law enforcement on the plane. More than that, it actually altered the laws of probability--manipulated fate, in other words, to keep the guilds more or less equally positioned against one another. As a side affect, it also prevented all planeswalking to the plane, exiling the architect of the Guildpact, Azor I.

The Guildpact buckled under the stress of containing the increasingly depraved and powerful guilds, until the revelation of the hidden 10th guild established in the Pact to manipulate the other nine manifested in the arrest of its parun by a beat cop completely broke it. The guildless revolted and led to the dissolution of the old guilds, though by the time the setting is revisited they had reformed. The failsafe to re-establish the Guildpact was the Implicit Maze, a puzzle built into the city itself by Azor to determine what new form the Guildpact would take, and required the participation of representatives from all ten guilds. It's hidden purpose was to determine if the guilds were actually capable of cooperating following the dissolution of the magical law that had held their society together for ten thousand years, and if they failed (which they did), each of the guilds were given the means to wipe out the other guilds via magical tactical nuke in the hope that their mutual destruction would spare the guildless a civilization-destroying war. Luckily (or was it?) Jace Beleren, a telepathic emigrant to the plane who had helped find the Maze, was there to psychically link all of the maze runners and keep them from wiping one another out, almost going insane from the effort. The Maze decided that the mage who would selflessly sacrifice themselves to keep all these batshit guilds for murdering each other and had the huge advantage of being able to read minds to boot was the perfect candidate for mediator between the guilds, and made Jace the new Guildpact.

Jace and another planeswalker angling for control of the Golgari guild met Azor on the dinosaur knights vs. vampire conquistadors plane, and sentenced him to exile on a lovely island in the middle of the ocean for loving up the development of countless worlds, especially Ravnica. They also figured out that Ravnica is the target of an invasion of super-zombies (retain all the skills they had in life, encased in magic rock) lead by a planeswalking dragon.

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Autism Sneaks posted:

Jace and another planeswalker angling for control of the Golgari guild met Azor on the dinosaur knights vs. vampire conquistadors plane
Now call me crazy but if we're picking planes for D&D...

Autism Sneaks
Nov 21, 2016
if this books sells well I don't doubt that one for Ixalan may be in the cards when the set is revisited (the dinosaur knights got a bunch of ancient super-dinos and are planning to counter-invade the vampires, who were all ready to abandon their imperialistic ways after finding their vampire Messiah). however it may have to wait in line behind many of the other more established planes like Dominaria or Mirrodin, that were around when they still wrote tie-in novels for their trading card game

FRINGE
May 23, 2003
title stolen for lf posting

Autism Sneaks posted:

lead by a planeswalking dragon.

Which one was that?

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Autism Sneaks
Nov 21, 2016
this dude



err I mean this dude

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