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quote="AlphaDog" post="489130030"] One of the reasons I asked is that when "but the party will definitely have the right stuff" comes up, all I think about is the time i played in a game from levels 1-8 where we openly rolled random treasures, and not one single time did anyone get a magic weapon. We did get more than 1 +1 armour each though. Looks like that's not as horribly unlucky as we all thought it was. I mean, it's obviously unlucky, but it's way more likely to happen than rolling an 18 on 3d6, right? [/quote] I would argue that the entire approach to the game was done incorrectly. If you’re getting a curated narrative experience, then it would be reasonable to expect a curated reward system to go along with it. This pedantry about clay golems and not having magical weapons by level 8 is the result of selecting a random type of play that could provide that result. Was there never a time when your party was at a town or city with a smithy and they had 100gp to silver their weapons? If not, I would say that you’re using a fantastically non-standard anecdote to try to disprove the rule. I’m sympathetic to Splicer’s point that spellcasters get their spell progression through leveling, whereas fighter-types are dependent on equipment and magical items, however that’s always been the case. If your complaint is that the treasure tables are too random or are not generous to your specific needs, then *don’t use them*. AL rules are the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen, but even they “get it” and let people stockpile the treasure tokens they earn to buy the magical item they want. Point being, you do have some agency in these scenarios. If a DM throws a clay golem at the party at level 6 and no one has magical weapons or magical buffs or adamantine weapons, it’s a bad DM and probably not very fun to play with anyways. If you’re playing D&D by rolling random monster dungeon simulator with random loot, then you’re playing the incorrect edition for the toolset for that style of play. 5e is much more narratively focused. It’s okay to complain that your style of play isn’t supported the way you want it to be, but you’re probably a minority opinion.
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Oct 23, 2018 16:54
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koreban posted:Was there never a time when your party was at a town or city with a smithy and they had 100gp to silver their weapons? How are bog-standard AL modules "fantastically non-standard"?
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Oct 23, 2018 16:58
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Oh can anyone help me tweak my backstory a little or is this okay for Tomb of Annihilation (I missed session 1) Jimmy is a simple farmer turned paladin. His mama died saving Jimmy's life from goblins trying to steal from the farm. They used most of the farm's money to bring her back to life, but a plague struck causing anyone who is brought back to life to slowly start rotting from the inside and dying again. Now his mama is wasting away. Jimmy turned to the only power he knew that he could help: prayer. Pelor told him to dig under a tree and he found armor and a sword. Then Pelor sent him to meet up with some other people already looking for the cure.
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Oct 23, 2018 17:04
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Toshimo posted:How are bog-standard AL modules "fantastically non-standard"? I don’t know. You haven’t given any specific examples to go along with your anecdotal claims.
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Oct 23, 2018 17:19
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RC Cola posted:Okay, I'm sticking with my paladin. Any advice on which oath to go with? I've never played a paladin before so this is all pretty new for me. There's a lot of mechanical factors to consider, I'm assuming you don't need advice on flavor-related things. In general I think Devotion's features are underwhelming unless there's something very specific in there you're looking for. Ancients is good against enemies that try to Fireball you, no idea if the campaign features a lot of those, but it also has noted good spells Misty Step and Ice Storm. Ice Storm isn't really all that great of a spell compared to, say, Fireball, but it is aoe damage which is a weakness for martial classes that you get to cover. And Misty Step is always useful but comes with the Vengeance paladin kit too if you're more into that. Crown paladins get Spirit Guardians which is a very nice spell but I have mixed opinions about their other stuff. One area where Ancients paladins falter a bit is that their channel divinity options aren't impressive unless you're facing lots of fey/fiends.
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Oct 23, 2018 17:20
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RC Cola posted:I'm jumping into a tomb of annihilation campaign. I'm deciding between a level 3 oath of devotion or ancients paladin and a level 3 moon druid. Tough since most of the party is inadequate. Druid gives you the sustain you lack with Healing Spirit, and Lesser Restoration to get rid of the jungle diseases, and it'd also give you the near indispensable pick-me-up that is Healing Word but if you're going Moon Druid then most of the time it'll be unavailable. Note that this is an Archetype that functionally exists only to beat unsuspecting mundane melee martials at their one-and-only job on top of being a full caster. Paladin OTOH also gives you pick me ups (albeit as an Action), a different way to get rid of diseases (which they're themselves immune to!), and most importantly you get Aura of Protection to help with all the cancer saves you and the party will run into. Properly built they're also even better at combat than Moon Druid, particularly in the wilderness survival format where you can just blow your full load on the 1-2 random encounters tops you'll run into in a given day. I like Devotion better but both are good; Misty Step is a handy option and you do run into some nasty spellcasters in ToA, but most threats are actually big beatsticks. There's a snowflake NPC with a Holy Avenger longsword you can procure by way of him... heroically falling in combat, if you catch my meaning.
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Oct 23, 2018 17:23
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koreban posted:I don’t know. You haven’t given any specific examples to go along with your anecdotal claims. Are you literally asking for a spoilered listing of T1 AL modules containing werewolves? Have we reached maximum pedantry?
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Oct 23, 2018 17:25
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Proud Rat Mom posted:they roll treasure on the individual encounter table, not hoard treasure table I don't have a 5e DMG handy. Do you still have to roll off weapon type as well? That could significantly reduce the chances of a magic weapon that's any good dropping.
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Oct 23, 2018 17:35
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Liquid Cannibalism posted:I don't have a 5e DMG handy. Do you still have to roll off weapon type as well? "DMG posted:WEAPONS Whether crafted for some fell purpose or forged to serve the highest ideals of chivalry, magic weapons are coveted by many adventurers. Some magic weapons specify the type of weapon they are in their descriptions, such as a longsword or longbow. If a magic weapon doesn't specify its weapon type, you may choose the type or determine it randomly.
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Oct 23, 2018 17:39
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Toshimo posted:Are you literally asking for a spoilered listing of T1 AL modules containing werewolves? Have we reached maximum pedantry? I mean, do what you want, but you’re making claims with no context. More than myself have offered counterpoints that you’ve handwaved and dismissed as if they’re inapplicable to your situation, which, again, was explained without context. If there’s an AL module for levels 1-4 without either magical weapons, or a blacksmith to silver your mundane weapons, then you’ll have a point. But I’d bet there’s an answer to that conundrum in the module. Even if there isn’t, you obviously know the system lore well enough to insert a blacksmith into the town that can silver a sword or two.
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Oct 23, 2018 18:07
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I've played a lot of games with a lot of groups, and maybe this is a weakness of mine, but I'd never think to go out of my way to silver up a weapon unless there were explicitly mentioned threats requiring it. In all fairness, maybe the AL games do.
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Oct 23, 2018 18:20
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why silver up weapons when you can just use pouches of silver coins in your sling
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Oct 23, 2018 18:22
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It's kind of a lovely game balance thing to make silvering cost so much. Just have silver knives be available for 1gp.
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Oct 23, 2018 18:24
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koreban posted:I mean, do what you want, but you’re making claims with no context. More than myself have offered counterpoints that you’ve handwaved and dismissed as if they’re inapplicable to your situation, which, again, was explained without context. DDAL08-01 CCC-MOON-02-01 CCC-MOON-02-02 CCC-MOON-02-03 That's 4 right there I've done in the last 6 months where we've had T1 characters get "oh welp, here's some werewolves". Sometimes it's telegraphed (the CCCs). Sometimes it isn't (the S8 one). So, no, you sometimes just get surprise werewolves where you hit a wall. And, no, T1 characters often cannot "just silver their weapons". Many of them do not, or cannot have 100+gp laying around.
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Oct 23, 2018 18:39
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Also, just gonna toss this in the ring, the possibility of the system not loving up doesn't matter in this discussion. If there's a knowledgeable DM and decent players, yeah, this is most likely not even a problem. Except nothing about the system guarantees that DM or those players. So bringing up a competent table playing at a certain level of system mastery doesn't actually mean anything because an equally possible scenario is a newbie DM with players that just went with what sounded nice. Darwinism fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Oct 23, 2018 |
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Oct 23, 2018 19:13
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koreban posted:I’m sympathetic to Splicer’s point that spellcasters get their spell progression through leveling, whereas fighter-types are dependent on equipment and magical items, however that’s always been the case.
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Oct 23, 2018 19:52
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Splicer posted:D&D didn't start with third edition. I was specifically thinking about castle greyhawk/undermountain style treasure crawls, where they basically *did* have random roll tables for each room’s monster sets and you could run across creatures that the party had zero answer for.
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Oct 23, 2018 20:04
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Toshimo posted:
Any chance you typo’d the CCC ones to MOON instead of TAROT? I can’t find those 3 on DMsG, however there’s a similar series using the second spoiler tag that may be what you’re referring to.
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Oct 23, 2018 20:08
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koreban posted:Any chance you typo’d the CCC ones to MOON instead of TAROT? I can’t find those 3 on DMsG, however there’s a similar series using the second spoiler tag that may be what you’re referring to. No. The ones I listed were all GenCon events: http://baldmangames.com/gen-con/ They may not be on DMG yet.
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Oct 23, 2018 20:13
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Gharbad the Weak posted:I've played a lot of games with a lot of groups, and maybe this is a weakness of mine, but I'd never think to go out of my way to silver up a weapon unless there were explicitly mentioned threats requiring it. My anecdotal experience in the AL games in my area is that everyone learns to silver their weapons as early as possible. We have several aged grogs that play in AL around here that help to define the meta for people. They play ideal characters (not exactly min/maxed, but not RP-first), and they’re advice is always towards party cohesion and synergy over personal glory. That said, they take it upon themselves to teach new players some good basics early on (silver your weapons and arrows, buy a pound of flour and some ball bearings, always have a damage cantrip and a light or utility cantrip, guidance when you see a trap or check coming, assist for advantage, etc.)
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Oct 23, 2018 20:15
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That's all well and good, but players can't buy silvered weapons until level 3 minimum now, and even then it will take everything they own, putting them behind on armor/secondary weapons, potions, and utility items.
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Oct 23, 2018 20:20
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Splicer posted:D&D didn't start with third edition. In 3e, not even magic gear helped Fighters.
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Oct 23, 2018 20:22
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Is the 5e artificer good?
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Oct 23, 2018 20:23
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Toshimo posted:No. The ones I listed were all GenCon events: http://baldmangames.com/gen-con/ They may not be on DMG yet. Ok, then I can’t speak to those because I can’t review the adventure. I’ll assume you’re being honest and there’s neither magical weapons nor any sort of treasure and/or smithy available to silver a weapon to use against magically resistant creatures. My judgement would be that it’s a badly written adventure that requires a good DM who can understand and foresee the need for such things to adjust the adventure as written to accommodate for that. I believe you when you say 5e is poorly written in a lot of ways and I agree, but not giving players a means of dealing with magical creatures isn’t one of them. Slivering weapons is in the PHB, explicitly gives a cost and means of acquiring it, and only requires a competent smithy. It’s not gated behind the DMG or extraneous splat book. Hell, it’s specified in the SRD as well, so you don’t even need to own the PHB to have that information available to you as a player. This isn’t the point to build your case on, just like the CR2 Intellect Devourer thing from a while back. It’s like, yeah, that’s a CR2 creature, but you don’t put that against a level 2 or 3 party because they’re meant to be minions in a mind flayer’s lair that players would see at closer to 14th level. Players not knowing they should silver their weapons when, or even knowing it’s an option that needs to be exercised against poo poo like ghosts, fae, lycanthropes, etc. isn’t a fault of the system. The system gives you explicit options to deal with it. It’s a problem with the adventure writers, or DM, or just plain old novice mistakes. I’ve DM’d a lot. If I was going to put something out there that my players couldn’t hit it would be for one of two reasons: (1) it’s the BBEG and I wanted to introduce him in some dramatic sense and he will not TPK the party for trying to hit him, or (2) the players specifically ignored my warnings and/or recommendations to do X, Y, or Z thing and proceeded to engage the thing without the proper tools. One of those situations is not my fault as a DM, or the fault of the narrative whether I developed it or was reading it from the page. If the MOON campaign didn’t give you the tools or warnings to do the job properly and wasn’t set up to be a non-lethal introduction/learning encounter that is meant to introduce the players to the conditions that they’ll have to overcome later, then I’m on your side that the adventure as written is poo poo.
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Oct 23, 2018 20:29
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koreban posted:I was specifically thinking about castle greyhawk/undermountain style treasure crawls, where they basically *did* have random roll tables for each room’s monster sets and you could run across creatures that the party had zero answer for.
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Oct 23, 2018 20:29
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koreban posted:My anecdotal experience in the AL games in my area is that everyone learns to silver their weapons as early as possible. We have several aged grogs that play in AL around here that help to define the meta for people. They play ideal characters (not exactly min/maxed, but not RP-first), and they’re advice is always towards party cohesion and synergy over personal glory. Honestly, that doesn't make me feel better. I've played games that were built around a monster having a weakness that needed to be discovered, and those ruled. But if the burden of making sure a part of a game works rests on older players laying out "this is why your heroic knight should have a bag of flour handy", then you're asking for trouble. Not that a bag of flour isn't handy, mind you. I just know the experience for a new player is infinitely better for them if you have a situation like that take place in a bakery and get them to figure it out real-time. Then maybe the player who figured it out starts carrying flour everywhere, and 10 levels later you make that extremely relevant, and everyone will think it's super cool. Or you can have this guy over here give a list of newbie instructions. Gharbad the Weak fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Oct 24, 2018 |
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Oct 23, 2018 20:30
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Toshimo posted:That's all well and good, but players can't buy silvered weapons until level 3 minimum now, and even then it will take everything they own, putting them behind on armor/secondary weapons, potions, and utility items. That AL rule and the progression system for it is bullshit. No argument from me there. LMoP gave the party 100gp by level 2 and by level 4 they could practically buy the stupid town. Not to mention the 4 magical weapons that I can think of off the top of my head in the adventure that you could start to get as early as level 2.
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Oct 23, 2018 20:31
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I'm running death frost doom (revised) for friends for Halloween, giving them 4th level characters. Where should I set the dc for the various saves? Is 15 about right?
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Oct 23, 2018 20:35
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Gharbad the Weak posted:Honestly, that doesn't make me feel better. I've played games that were built around a monster having a weakness that needed to be discovered, and those ruled. But if the burden of making sure a part of a game works rests on older players laying out "this is why your heroic knight should have a bag of flour handy", then you're asking for trouble. It’s the only AL anecdote I’ve got from my area. But it sort of works in that whatever field or tradition you get into there’s always going to be that old master that had the simple advice that didn’t make sense as a novice, but was so helpful once you got your poo poo together. That’s not something you can codify in a book, whether it’s a setting or class or college or real life.
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Oct 23, 2018 20:36
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koreban posted:It’s the only AL anecdote I’ve got from my area. But it sort of works in that whatever field or tradition you get into there’s always going to be that old master that had the simple advice that didn’t make sense as a novice, but was so helpful once you got your poo poo together. This very much is something you can put in a book. The problem is that the dmg pretends that magic weapons are optional when they are clearly not. If they state this in the book there is no problem. Yes experienced players and dms can solve problems with games but that doesn't mean there aren't problems. Literally every single problem with any system can be solved with player/dm fiat, are you not allowed to criticize any rule because it could be hand-waved away?
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Oct 23, 2018 20:42
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Toshimo posted:
I couldn't find this module and I wasn't going to drop :5bux: to get it to prove a point that I don't particularly care enough about to die on a hill over. But based on the reviews at DMsG, this module looks like it's poo poo. Poorly written c/p from previous packets. Missing information throughout. I'd place the onus completely on the writer of the adventure and maybe say AL has poo poo for editors. I honestly don't know what the curation for AL looks like or how it's handled.
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Oct 23, 2018 20:45
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Mcmccarthy posted:This very much is something you can put in a book. The problem is that the dmg pretends that magic weapons are optional when they are clearly not. If they state this in the book there is no problem. Yes experienced players and dms can solve problems with games but that doesn't mean there aren't problems. Literally every single problem with any system can be solved with player/dm fiat, are you not allowed to criticize any rule because it could be hand-waved away? Okay there's two different conversations happening here and you're conflating them in an attempt to make an overly broad statement. 1. The very narrowly and specifically defined "to-hit" table does not require the player characters have +1/+2/+3 magical weapons for the purposes of the bound accuracy/creature AC system. In general this holds true throughout the entire 5e system, with very specific exceptions carved out in the case of creatures like Ascerak (e.g. at-will Shield and Counterspell casts). 2. The system has creatures that are immune to attacks from non-magical, or specifically attributed weapons, some of which can appear in low-level encounters. #2 is the conversation that Toshimo and I are having on this page. #1 was the one MonsterEnvy, Gradenko and I were having basically on the last page. Which one are you wanting to contribue to? Because #1 was basically solved and understood as mostly true (whether people are okay with it or not is subjective and basically no one's going to convince the other side of their points). #2 looks like it's coming down to shittily written adventures for AL and Conventions and the terrible treasure token system being terrible.
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Oct 23, 2018 20:53
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koreban posted:Okay there's two different conversations happening here and you're conflating them in an attempt to make an overly broad statement. No one at all in this thread has suggested that 1 isn't true. 2 is also totally true, i don't understand why you are still contesting this? Also they both fit into my point and the overarching argument that seems to be going on? edit: literally this whole thing started with people complaining about were-creatures at low levels i think its you who doesn't understand what the argument is about. edit edit: What monsters appear in low level encounters is up to the dm so some instruction about giving your players magic weapons or an opportunity to get silver before sicking some werewolves on them seems like important info. But its ok it isn't in the book because you have enough system mastery to know better? Mcmccarthy fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Oct 23, 2018 |
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Oct 23, 2018 20:59
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Mcmccarthy posted:No one at all in this thread has suggested that 1 isn't true. 2 is also totally true, i don't understand why you are still contesting this? Also they both fit into my point and the overarching argument that seems to be going on? See: 10 posts back. Thanks for jumping into the conversation late and not following along.
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Oct 23, 2018 21:09
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i like dungeons, and also dragons
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Oct 23, 2018 21:11
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kidkissinger posted:Is the 5e artificer good? What 5e artificer? Do you mean the old one from a few years ago? That hasn't been updated, had some issues particularly with the Alchemist archetype being all or nothing on a save so they could potentially do 0 damage all day long if the DM rolls well, and some other issues that clearly needed ironing out. It wasn't great, but had an interesting concept. There was supposed to be a new UA for Artificer a few months ago, but it kept getting pushed back and as far as I know hasn't been released yet but is supposed to be added to Wayfinders Guide to Eberron when it gets put out. That said there is a great homebrew Revised Artificer here that is better than the old UA Artificer and is likely much better than whatever WotC will eventually put out. koreban posted:My anecdotal experience in the AL games in my area is that everyone learns to silver their weapons as early as possible. We have several aged grogs that play in AL around here that help to define the meta for people. They play ideal characters (not exactly min/maxed, but not RP-first), and they’re advice is always towards party cohesion and synergy over personal glory. My anecdotal experience in AL games in my area is that basically no one has ever silvered their weapon, and far to many of the official adventures, not just the little modules but the full on books, throw things that are immune, or at least resistant, to nonmagical weapons. Sometimes these could have been harmed by silver weapons, but sometimes they could not even if we had them. There are things that are immune to nonmagical weapons that are not adamantine, and until recently non magical adamantine weapons didn't exist at all. I personally have played far too many characters that come across something they can't hurt because they don't have a magic weapon, its why I often try and go toward things like Shillelagh, which gives a caster the ability to bypass this problem for themselves, or Blade Pact Warlock to give a caster a way to bypass this issue, or a Devotion Paladin that gives a partial caster a way to bypass this issue. Notice how I didn't list any non caster options to bypass this problem? The closest you get is Monks at 6th level.
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Oct 23, 2018 21:13
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Ryuujin posted:
This kicks rear end, didn't realize how cool it would be to be D&D Iron Man
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Oct 23, 2018 21:25
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koreban posted:Ok, then I can’t speak to those because I can’t review the adventure. I’ll assume you’re being honest and there’s neither magical weapons nor any sort of treasure and/or smithy available to silver a weapon to use against magically resistant creatures. koreban posted:I believe you when you say 5e is poorly written in a lot of ways and I agree, but not giving players a means of dealing with magical creatures isn’t one of them. Slivering weapons is in the PHB, explicitly gives a cost and means of acquiring it, and only requires a competent smithy. It’s not gated behind the DMG or extraneous splat book. It is however gated behind your dm knowing what to do and they won't cause they've received misleading info from the dmg. koreban posted:Hell, it’s specified in the SRD as well, so you don’t even need to own the PHB to have that information available to you as a player. It shouldnt be up to the players to make sure they can handle the adventure given to them by their dm. It should be clear in the rules. koreban posted:This isn’t the point to build your case on, just like the CR2 Intellect Devourer thing from a while back. It’s like, yeah, that’s a CR2 creature, but you don’t put that against a level 2 or 3 party because they’re meant to be minions in a mind flayer’s lair that players would see at closer to 14th level. This is a super dumb argument because i new dm doesnt know these things and they aren't explained. In the case of weapon resistance on monsters they even give conflicting advice! koreban posted:Players not knowing they should silver their weapons when, or even knowing it’s an option that needs to be exercised against poo poo like ghosts, fae, lycanthropes, etc. isn’t a fault of the system. The system gives you explicit options to deal with it. It’s a problem with the adventure writers, or DM, or just plain old novice mistakes. This is a problem with a system if they don't inform the dm about it! koreban posted:I’ve DM’d a lot. If I was going to put something out there that my players couldn’t hit it would be for one of two reasons: (1) it’s the BBEG and I wanted to introduce him in some dramatic sense and he will not TPK the party for trying to hit him, or (2) the players specifically ignored my warnings and/or recommendations to do X, Y, or Z thing and proceeded to engage the thing without the proper tools. One of those situations is not my fault as a DM, or the fault of the narrative whether I developed it or was reading it from the page. Again this is not about how you solved problems with your own system mastery? koreban posted:If the MOON campaign didn’t give you the tools or warnings to do the job properly and wasn’t set up to be a non-lethal introduction/learning encounter that is meant to introduce the players to the conditions that they’ll have to overcome later, then I’m on your side that the adventure as written is poo poo. So again the problem is that the established system is written like poo poo. Tell me again how i missed your arguments? Ive seen you miss the point on your 1st argument when you ignored the people saying it doesn't matter that they dont factor in the +1,2,3 to hit because there are still monsters immune to nonmagical weapons. And you missed my critique of the second argument in that the newbie dm is responsible for the encounter their players face, and they've received BAD advice from the dmg. edit: i was a little mean Mcmccarthy fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Oct 23, 2018 |
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Oct 23, 2018 21:25
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I came here to ask if anyone has done something like e6 with 5e. How did it work, were there any problems?
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Oct 23, 2018 21:26
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I'm sorry to the poor sods who are stuck with AL and don't have a DM wise enough to ignore the AL rules at every possible opportunity.
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Oct 23, 2018 21:27
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