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I've been running Princes of the Apocalypse and one of our players just moved across the country, so we're considering the jump to Roll20. I know that R20 has the PotA module available for purchase, but are there any issues with game setup or anything if you're jumping into the story in the middle? (I've never used R20 before)
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Nov 13, 2018 19:27
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Brocktoon posted:I've been running Princes of the Apocalypse and one of our players just moved across the country, so we're considering the jump to Roll20. I know that R20 has the PotA module available for purchase, but are there any issues with game setup or anything if you're jumping into the story in the middle? (I've never used R20 before)
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Nov 13, 2018 19:31
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What are some good map making tools, preferably on Steam for both overworld and dungeon/town. These can be separate programs, I just would like something for drawing either. There was a really good overworld map making tool I saw earlier that I don't remember the name of, but the only dungeon/town makers I saw that had a good rating were Dungeon Painter Studio and Illwinter's. edit - the overworld map is Inkarnate User0015 fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Nov 13, 2018 |
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Nov 13, 2018 19:48
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Illwinter is easy to use but extremely primitive.
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Nov 13, 2018 21:33
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VaultAggie posted:Apparently the ships aren’t grapple proof? So you could supplex the airship if you wanted. Yeah thats actually the part that owns.
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Nov 13, 2018 23:44
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VaultAggie posted:Apparently the ships aren’t grapple proof? So you could supplex the airship if you wanted.
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Nov 13, 2018 23:49
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User0015 posted:What are some good map making tools, preferably on Steam for both overworld and dungeon/town. These can be separate programs, I just would like something for drawing either. There was a really good overworld map making tool I saw earlier that I don't remember the name of, but the only dungeon/town makers I saw that had a good rating were Dungeon Painter Studio and Illwinter's. Dungeon Painter Studio is pretty decent, particularly with all the texture packs in the steam workshop. Its still not amazing though (none of the ones I have found are though) and can be a bit quirky at times but worth the money I think.
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Nov 13, 2018 23:57
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:This makes sense to me - surely a ship got grappled in 20,000 leagues, you know? On a human scale this is more like, tipping over someone's rowboat, since presumably the "1 size larger" rule still applies. Look if you're not having to deal with a Kraken grappling your boat idk why you even give your players a boat.
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Nov 13, 2018 23:57
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I have a DM Shenanigans/ethics question. Asking in this thread because it's a bit 5e-specific. One of my players is particularly vicious and she's playing a revised ranger, with "monstrosities" as her favored enemy. She's been keeping victims' heads on her belt and just recently dropped them off to be shrunk, so that she might fit more on there. One of them is a doppelganger and I said that, as she dropped it off with the tanner, it was grinning when it hadn't been before. She was unnerved but still left it at the shop. My original thought was that, when she comes back, the tanner will give her the heads but be overtly skeeved out and want her to leave at once, as the head took his face as he shrunk it, and indeed, the belt now includes a head that looks like him and no more doppelganger. In reality, that would be the doppelganger who has regenerated, killed the tanner, and is now (over-) acting in hopes she won't figure it out until it's too late. (He's established as a showman and got really into his previous role.) My issue is - her favored enemy ability gives her the ability to detect monstrosities within 5 miles. (This seems...poorly thought out especially when the category is "misc" and covers everything from monstrous animals to intelligent beings, but I'm going with it and it's led to some cool stuff.) She's used it many times since getting that head. I'm fine with saying doppelgangers regenerate, and that it took awhile so she didn't detect it earlier, but I'm supposed to tell her that there's a doppelganger in town even when she's far underground in the caves below the city. Is there a way to fix this, without specifically breaking her ability but also without giving away what happened? Is it lame if I say doppelgangers aren't detected when they aren't in their natural form? It's bizarre to generalize from an ability themed around tracking monsters in the wilderness to one that acts as doppelganger radar inside a city, but that's magic for you. 
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Nov 14, 2018 00:32
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I'm pretty sure "This feature reveals which of your favored enemies are present" just tells you which of your favored enemy groups it falls under, not the actual species.
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Nov 14, 2018 00:46
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Revised Ranger is way overtuned but players expect their abilities to work as they say on the tin, particularly abilities that they've used previously issue, so it'd be a dick move to pull the rug from under her like that. Just play things out as they are. Splicer posted:I'm pretty sure "This feature reveals which of your favored enemies are present" just tells you which of your favored enemy groups it falls under, not the actual species. Haha, oh no. Additionally, you can attune your senses to determine if any of your favored enemies lurk nearby. By spending 1 uninterrupted minute in concentration (as if you were concentrating on a spell), you can sense whether any of your favored enemies are present within 5 miles of you. This feature reveals which of your favored enemies are present, their numbers, and the creatures' general direction and distance (in miles) from you. If there are multiple groups of your favored enemies within range, you learn this information for each group.
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Nov 14, 2018 00:51
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Splicer posted:I'm pretty sure "This feature reveals which of your favored enemies are present" just tells you which of your favored enemy groups it falls under, not the actual species.  if true, but yeah, I don't want to take that away now, in such a late stage.
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Nov 14, 2018 00:53
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I mean, at worst, she'd know there's a lone monstruosity in the shop.
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Nov 14, 2018 00:54
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If she's been carrying the doppleganger around this whole time, maybe she's too used to it and can't detect that one anymore? Or maybe it's had time to figure out a way around the ability? I would have assumed the ability meant that you could track and identify spoor of monstrosities and such, not "detect monster, 5 mile radius" but I'm sure the rules didn't establish that.
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Nov 14, 2018 00:55
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Conspiratiorist posted:I mean, at worst, she'd know there's a lone monstruosity in the shop. She probably won't use it in town while close enough to know its the shop literally, unless she's suspicious and actively looking for him. In town is enough. Though I treated "which favored enemy" as referring to which specific one, not which category, and we've rolled with that the whole time.
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Nov 14, 2018 00:56
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How many monstruosities are in the typical town? It's also resourceless and only takes a minute, so it's easy to use it to triangulate. That said, changing it to category from species for the next session shouldn't be an issue.
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Nov 14, 2018 00:59
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Conspiratiorist posted:How many monstruosities are in the typical town? It's also resourceless and only takes a minute, so it's easy to use it to triangulate.
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Nov 14, 2018 01:10
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I'm not sure I see the problem. She hunts monsters. It's what she does. She already killed this doppelganger once, it stands to reason that her lifelong experience in hunting monsters might allow her to see through the ruse. I'd say, don't build a story around having to fix one of her powers or hoping she doesn't use it - be prepared for her to use it. I mean, Geralt sees through poo poo like that all the time in the Witcher and he is basically exactly the character you are describing.
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Nov 14, 2018 02:03
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Sounds to me like that doppleganger is overconfident and doesn't know she can detect him and is gonna get owned since he didn't run as far as he could
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Nov 14, 2018 02:12
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Mendrian posted:I'm not sure I see the problem. She hunts monsters. It's what she does. She already killed this doppelganger once, it stands to reason that her lifelong experience in hunting monsters might allow her to see through the ruse. I'd say, don't build a story around having to fix one of her powers or hoping she doesn't use it - be prepared for her to use it. I was hoping someone had some sort of left field solution that both doesn't neuter her cool power while preserving the moment of insight on her (the player's) part. Getting used to the smell is pretty good but might still end up with me calling shenanigans. I think I'll just let her detect it. It might still be a fun encounter if the knows it's coming. Maybe his plan is smarter than waiting for her to come back to the store.
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Nov 14, 2018 02:46
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:To be clear, this was my intention - I just wanted her to have the slightest inkling that something is wrong herself before she confronts him. No doubt this ends with her killing the guy, but I'd prefer to give him the slightest chance of fooling her for now rather than have the dramatic reveal happen when she's a mile underground and not thinking about it. It kinda feels like I should just drop it if she just gets like, the ranger equivalent of a phone notification that a doppelganger has appeared in her radius. I think it's fine to say that her Ranger senses won't penetrate through an indefinite amount of solid material. If we're looking for precedence, Detect Evil from 3.5 specifies that it can't see through a foot of solid stone or metal, three feet of wood or dirt, or half an inch of lead, which I guess also implies that evil is a kind of electromagnetic radiation. At any rate, it's reasonable to rule that she can't sense the Doppelganger from underground due to the stone and dirt, but she can once she surfaces.
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Nov 14, 2018 03:04
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Let the detection just happen. 1) PC gets to feel like the terrifying badass they are when the monster's best trick ain't poo poo. Play up how surprised it is. Drop hints that it's pulled this off several times before. Let the player feel awesome. 2) If the group is into the scenario, let it be foreshadowing. Doppelgangers don't stay dead. Drop hints about the similar problem in X place that was solved years ago and see if the players bite. If not, eh, whatever. If so, great, you've got a hook!
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Nov 14, 2018 03:12
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"I sense monsters" "You immediately sense one, coming from the direction of that creepy smile shrunken head"
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Nov 14, 2018 03:20
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Sounds like it does what it says on the tin. There are spells which specify not working through certain thickness of material, sometimes shockingly thin material even. But that ability has no such restriction, so definitely don't slap on some nonsense downside a year into your game. You're making the right call. Never be afraid to let a player feel powerful, especially when they aren't an actual caster. As the Muscle-Man of my high level group, I sadly have to deal with my characters might not really amounting to much of anything. That Large sized greataxe I once pried out of the cold dead hands of a minotaur? Still can't swing it without disadvantage, even if my strength is almost double what the minotaur's was at the time. Grappling some horrible evil thing? Get it yanked right out of my hand by a DM's more or less DMPC without even so much as a roll. Want to dunk on some fools in an underground, illegal fighting pit in Waterdeep to get word around about him so he'll actually seem scary while acting bodyguard to another player during an espionage mission? Get off-handedly told there's a champion that might actually beat you. That turned into a bit of a rant but so it goes. Oh also the Paladin/Bard/Warlock munchkin got a Gem of Power which upped his Strength to 30 for winning that dumb tournament. Boy that sure makes me feel good.
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Nov 14, 2018 03:32
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User0015 posted:What are some good map making tools, preferably on Steam for both overworld and dungeon/town. These can be separate programs, I just would like something for drawing either. There was a really good overworld map making tool I saw earlier that I don't remember the name of, but the only dungeon/town makers I saw that had a good rating were Dungeon Painter Studio and Illwinter's. I just stumbled across WonderDraft for overworld map making and it is pretty drat sweet for $20. Check out the reddit thread for examples of awesome maps. It took me about 2 hours to figure out how to use the program to make good looking maps. It is not as powerful as campaign cartographer or some other software, but it lets you generate a good looking map quickly, which is a huge boon for prepping sessions. Inkarnate is also pretty good with a low skill curve. I haven't messed with it personally though. For quick and dirty city generation - https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator For quick Town Stat generation - http://www.rdinn.com/calc_town.php I find the last one SUPER useful for giving a rough idea of a towns makeup that I then customize for my story. Webguy20 fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Nov 14, 2018 |
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Nov 14, 2018 04:16
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Arthil posted:Bullshit Find a new group? But yeah OP, let people feel cool and strong, that'll make it more fun for everyone.
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Nov 14, 2018 04:31
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Would it be overpowered if I houseruled that the Horizon Walker's "Planar Warrior" feature (as a bonus action, choose a target--that target takes 1d8 extra damage from your next attack) read as something closer to "Once per turn, you may choose a target..." so that they could still use their bonus action to get a dual wield attack in? I have a player whose character is a dual-wielding ranger, and even when I've tossed some cool longswords or 2-handed swords their way, they've been like "oh well... I kind think that dual-wielding is more my character's style  "so I don't want the horizon walker's defining mechanic to get in the way of their basic character desire to be a ranger who dual-wields. for what it's worth, their character has also been slightly underperforming compared to the group's barbarian and paladin.
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Nov 14, 2018 05:47
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xiw posted:
Welcome aboard the good ship Fatty Dumpington. She's as slow as she is pointless. Like trying to sail a parked car, she is!
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Nov 14, 2018 05:53
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theironjef posted:Welcome aboard the good ship Fatty Dumpington. She's as slow as she is pointless. Like trying to sail a parked car, she is! That isn't a boat, it's a untethered buoy.
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Nov 14, 2018 06:45
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All ships that are not rowboats are exactly 20' wide. This implies things about canals, aqueducts, etc that I'm not sure about, but I bet it's related to how the basic dungeon floorplan unit is either 5x5 or 10x10 depending on whether is was mountain or hill dwarves who mined it out.
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Nov 14, 2018 07:17
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:I have a DM Shenanigans/ethics question. Asking in this thread because it's a bit 5e-specific. One of my players is particularly vicious and she's playing a revised ranger, with "monstrosities" as her favored enemy. She's been keeping victims' heads on her belt and just recently dropped them off to be shrunk, so that she might fit more on there. One of them is a doppelganger and I said that, as she dropped it off with the tanner, it was grinning when it hadn't been before. She was unnerved but still left it at the shop. Use chaff. While they're underground an explicitly NOT evil circus of Drizzt clones show up in town to perform, suddenly there's a small army of every kind of intelligent monster in existence (including a whole bunch of not evil doppelgangers) present and no matter how deep the party digs, they won't find a single shred of evidence of any wrongdoing on the part of the circus. They're just (monster) people that got sick of living with their evil relatives and banded together for protection. If your setting is Realms, you can even have one of the performers be a drow Drizzt impersonator, complete with shoddy stage scimitars prestidigitated to glow the correct colors and partnered with some kind of (non-panther) werecat in animal form and black hair dye. Just to hammer the point home. Since they're a wandering circus, once you have introduced them to the setting, you can also have them show up later any time you need to spoof the ranger's monster sense in a civilized setting. If the party notices the coincidence, surprise, it turns out some evil wizard has cursed the circus to always show up in places where they would be under suspicion. If the party can break the curse, they no longer have to worry about monstrous infiltrators having convenient chaff arriving to divert suspicion just when they need it.
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Nov 14, 2018 08:21
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While I love the idea of bargain bin monster race circus? In practice the fact they were brought into existence to gently caress with the Ranger's monster radar would be apparent pretty drat fast. More so if there's a sidequest of "To stop being inconvenient to you, break this curse" which would imply you'd never see these cool guys again once break the curse. Then you run the risk of watching your players disappointed at such a great idea used for "Chaff". Or worse, Decide "Oh so THAT'S how it is? gently caress it, I start killing them until the actual monster I wanted to kill in the first place can be sense." Though you could get the best of both worlds if it simply made it HARDER, rather than a blanket "I just don't want to deal with your class feature right now." Which means you get to use cool monster circus as much as you want, and the players will be more willing to put up with the side effects to hang out with Not Drizzt. Section Z fucked around with this message at 08:50 on Nov 14, 2018 |
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Nov 14, 2018 08:41
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Is the doppelganger aware of the Ranger's ability? Instead of coming up with a cosmic coincidence, you could have the Doppelganger scramble to try and find a way to hide themselves from the Ranger's magical ability. Generally, I'm wary of invalidating an ability of the player just for the sake of what *you* think is a cool story arc, so try not to plug every possible hole for the sake of pacing and leave the player a way to get ahead of the doppelganger.
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Nov 14, 2018 08:48
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While the Ranger has the ability to detect Monstrosities. It does not tell them what the monster is. So yes the Ranger can detect the Doppleganger, but does not know it is one necessarily.
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Nov 14, 2018 09:06
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:
Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:To be clear, this was my intention - I just wanted her to have the slightest inkling that something is wrong herself before she confronts him. No doubt this ends with her killing the guy, but I'd prefer to give him the slightest chance of fooling her for now rather than have the dramatic reveal happen when she's a mile underground and not thinking about it. It kinda feels like I should just drop it if she just gets like, the ranger equivalent of a phone notification that a doppelganger has appeared in her radius. Also, what about the other heads? Any nasty surprises in them? Are they going to walk into an easily won fight and suddenly the ranger is ground zero of a swarm of <something small enough to fit in a hollowed out skull>? The biggest problem slash opportunity with any of this is coming up with a reason why the head would regenerate that the ranger wouldn't know about. Splicer fucked around with this message at 09:24 on Nov 14, 2018 |
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Nov 14, 2018 09:17
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Make there be multiple doppelgangers in the town, and have her They Live her way through. Or have people defend the guy, not knowing he’s a doppelganger, and just thinking she’s some maniac.
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Nov 14, 2018 09:25
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Also Dopplegangers are not even normally evil creatures. Just selfish and hedonistic for the most part.
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Nov 14, 2018 09:29
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Cephas posted:Would it be overpowered if I houseruled that the Horizon Walker's "Planar Warrior" feature (as a bonus action, choose a target--that target takes 1d8 extra damage from your next attack) read as something closer to "Once per turn, you may choose a target..." so that they could still use their bonus action to get a dual wield attack in? The ranger's design is so borked that making some exceptions should be fine. Just make it work like Sneak Attack, where it's just something you can do once per turn when you hit with an attack, no action required. It still won't be quite as powerful as Sneak Attack, but that makes sense given the added utility of both being able to use it on-command without needing a nearby friend and it turning all of the attack's damage into The Best Damage Type In The Game.
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Nov 14, 2018 09:32
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Clearly it's something way tougher and more badass than a doppelganger, but it's been pretending to be one this whole time in order to <plot hook> for <bad guy faction>.
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Nov 14, 2018 09:48
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Just have the doppl-tanner order a shipment of stirges, gricks, and a baby owlbear for tanning purposes. And have him be super nervous and shady about it.
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Nov 14, 2018 10:12
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