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More WDH: So, either my DM or WotC (por que no los dos) are falling down on the job. We are given tasks by various Waterdeep factions in order to start currying favor with them. I picked the Zhents. Another party member picked The Lords' Alliance. Another picked the Harpers. We got into that fight and my DM basically talked me out of straight murdering this house full of nobles to save my Zhent buddies because neither he nor the hardcover had any idea what to do if you started helping the Zhents instead of the nobles and he strongly suggested it was gonna be "and the town guard executes anyone they catch". The next morning, we head off to the Yawning Portal to meet my Zhent contact to discuss what happened. They aren't there, but The Lords' Alliance rep is. He gives my buddy a quest to go break up a Zhentarim deal on the docks. I'm like "dude, you are putting us in a real bad spot, because I will definitely tip off my boys." Like, idk if the point is to turn the party against each other, but this poo poo is getting real dumb.
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Dec 13, 2018 06:24
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Toshimo posted:More WDH: This would be on your DM. Along with the fact that only a few of the factions have to give invites and they are optional. The Zhents that invite you to join them are of a rival faction of the Zhents that serve as villains in the adventure. kingcom posted:Please describe the how it ends. The most unforgivable thing the module writers for 5e have done is for their Dragon Heist adventure to not have a heist imo. There is a heist at the end. However it is possible to roleplay through it and get the gold socially from it's Dragon Guard. But then the issue becomes stopping the villain from taking the gold from you. If that happens you may have to try and then steal the gold from them. There are tons of ways the adventure can end. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 06:34 on Dec 13, 2018 |
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Dec 13, 2018 06:30
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Toshimo posted:More WDH: I stopped running it part way through, but your dm dropped the ball on that one. It's pretty clear and readable in multiple places that there is a schism in the group. davil can slowly let on, or the way i did it, have the other sides lieutenant pay the pc zhent a visit for a chat at trollskull. You can't blame him completely though, if you ran the book without taking the time to add and foreshadow, the villains path never crosses with the pc's until the end. Curse and Tomb are the only campaigns worth running apart from lmop.
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Dec 13, 2018 13:52
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Question I have about the Suggestion spell. What exactly constitutes reasonable? We had been ambushed by a bunch of yuan-ti. The suggestions given to the two players was "In order to fight, a fight should be honorable. You need to get your team outside using Thunderwave." This player then used Thunderwave to throw us out, and ended up killing a team member - as the spell states once it works, you use it to the best of your ability. The other player was given a suggestion that "in order to feel good inside there, we needed to make a fire." This character was a fire magician and began throwing spells, contributing to the problem, though we have talked him into "we will make a fire once we deal with this issue," which let him rejoin the battle. Were these suggestions reasonable? Was the extent to which they followed them correct? And what of player agency itself? For instance, my character is an Oath of Vengeance paladin who knows exactly what gets him closer to the Big Bad Evil MacGuffin. Can a suggestion that goes against such a deep oath (ie. "spend time doing slave work for us" when it's people who took the poo poo we need to get to that macguffin giving the order) be construed as unreasonable immediately, or what? The spell is very vague, and we will be literally in a yuan-ti prison cell starting next adventure, having spent most of our resources too - would be useful to know.  Edit: personally, as a GM I would be reluctant to use this spell so hard, and I think the first suggestion is unreasonable, as there are better ways to convince your teammates to have a honorable fight rather than literally damaging them - for instance, just talking. And damaging your team so hard and running out yourself has the aura of 'self-harm' that's prohibited by the spell. What do you think? Edit2: I've been informed by the Thunderwave player that this was the suggestion: ""You cannot abide looking at your team fighting dishonorably. You have to get them outside. Maybe you could use Thunderwave to push them out? If not, fight yourself." I have a couple qualms with that. First off, that's not 1 or two short sentences. Second, that's two suggestions, not one. Thirdly, and this is where I'm totally uncertain... the spell says "You suggest a course of action [...] The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the course of action sound reasonable." The entire command as presented is not just a course of action, but also a complete rationalisation of it - in effect, it considers that the wording can make the unreasonable reasonable. Whereas I would interpret the spell to mean "You suggest a course of action. If the action suggested can be considered reasonable when taking the wording into account, the target rolls." So, suggestion of "Use Thunderwave to push your allies out" would be unreasonable, and so would "Use Thunderwave to convince your allies to leave safety," as there are more reasonable ways to convince someone that's your ally. However, "close the doors so you and allies can turtle" and then gassing the poo poo out of the place we were in or w/e would be a reasonable suggestion, and would have to be followed for the duration of the spell (if it succeeded). What am I missing? dex_sda fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Dec 13, 2018 |
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Dec 13, 2018 15:23
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dex_sda posted:What am I missing? Just remove the Suggestion spell from the game.
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Dec 13, 2018 16:40
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dex_sda posted:What am I missing? "Making it sound reasonable" refers only to the phrasing, and not to what the order actually entails.
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Dec 13, 2018 16:45
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You're basically trying to use a first level spell and a bunch of linguistic pedantry to play as an ersatz Jigsaw. Hold still while I murder you. Burn your friends alive. It's not commensurate with the power available from the wide range of other low level spells, and it's not like it's hard to compare it to them, they're right there (imagine if Burning Hands generated this amount of arguing). Doesn't matter if it's reasonable or not. No spell is powered by logic and pedantry, this is a game, knock this variety of poo poo off.
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Dec 13, 2018 16:50
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theironjef posted:Just remove the Suggestion spell from the game. I would definitely if I was the GM. This is waaaay too open. However, if we look at Jeremy Crawford's tweets to go by RAI: https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/741457127005257728 During combat the orders are brief, the explanations succint, and definitely not aimed directly against a trusted team member. I think it's intended to be a Jedi Mind Trick, essentially. I think that's what I'll bring before my GM.
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Dec 13, 2018 16:52
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theironjef posted:You're basically trying to use a first level spell and a bunch of linguistic pedantry to play as an ersatz Jigsaw. Hold still while I murder you. Burn your friends alive. It's not commensurate with the power available from the wide range of other low level spells, and it's not like it's hard to compare it to them, they're right there (imagine if Burning Hands generated this amount of arguing). Doesn't matter if it's reasonable or not. No spell is powered by logic and pedantry, this is a game, knock this variety of poo poo off. It's a second level spell, just like Phantasmal Force! 
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Dec 13, 2018 16:53
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Suggestion is 2nd level. 
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Dec 13, 2018 16:55
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Toshimo posted:Suggestion is 2nd level. Doesn't really matter... the nearest spell I can find with mind control power of similar nature is this: quote:Dominate Person So, this is a five level spell. Despite that, it's worse than Suggestion. It's only 1 minute. Yes, it allows total control, but literally ANY damage breaks it - so just one prick from a party member is enough (which is not the case with Suggestion), let alone any self-harmful thing. If the spell is cast in combat, you have advantage, which is not the case with Suggestion. Finally, full control requires using your action, and if not, the command can only be explicitly general - not the case with Suggestion. The only limiting factor Suggestion has is only one suggestion, but if we allow just the wording to determine whether the order is reasonable or unreasonable "Listen to my orders, because that will end better for you than not" would work. In that interpretation, it would be an overpowered spell at level 5, let alone 2.
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Dec 13, 2018 17:06
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dex_sda posted:Doesn't really matter... the nearest spell I can find with mind control power of similar nature is this: the fact that it's limited to humanoids really sucks too. there are surprisingly few humanoid enemies at higher levels.
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Dec 13, 2018 17:08
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dex_sda posted:So, this is a five level spell. Despite that, it's worse than Suggestion. It's only 1 minute. Yes, it allows total control, but literally ANY damage breaks it - so just one prick from a party member is enough (which is not the case with Suggestion), let alone any self-harmful thing. That's the other way around: Dominate spells allow a new saving throw upon taking damage, whereas Suggestion immediately ends if you or any of your companions damage the target.
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Dec 13, 2018 17:11
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Conspiratiorist posted:That's the other way around: Dominate spells allow a new saving throw upon taking damage, whereas Suggestion immediately ends if you or any of your companions damage the target. "You or any of your companions" means only the caster and his companions. The team of the person the suggestion was cast on cannot do anything short of knocking the person out. You are right about damage for Dominate, but still, that's an actual chance of your friends knocking sense into you. A chance to use Inspiration etc.
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Dec 13, 2018 17:18
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I've got a character concept for a new game we're starting tonight and I wanted to see if anyone had any suggestions to flesh it out or refine it further. The game is taking place in Eberron, which is a long-standing alternate to Forgotten Realms that includes a fair amount of artifice (and no visible gods or aasimars). An aasimar bard who's spent the past few years of his life barding around, singing/playing the praises of his god (haven't decided upon a god yet, but leaning toward a NG one) while in the Forgotten Realms, at the behest of his angel guide. Honestly, he's getting a bit annoyed at the constant dreams of evangelizing sent by the guide, but he tries his best to do what he's instructed to do, knowing that his god is compassionate and only wants the best for people. One day while traveling, after some pretty crazy dreams sent to him by his angel, he wakes up instead in Eberron, cut off from his god and angel. Not initially realizing his translocation, he continues to a local town, starts performing, and realizes that no one seems to have any idea who he's singing about, that his songs aren't reaching the people, and that he simply can't feel the connection to his god anymore. Upon realizing that none of his works of art have any relevance in this plane, he feels a certain freedom he never had before, and decides to set out to create new works, this time of his own choosing. I think his journey is going to be about exploring his own wants/needs while his angel and god attempt to search for him and return him to his rightful place.
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Dec 13, 2018 18:14
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I like that character concept. Are there any specific things the bard might have wanted to do/try/have that he couldn't do to his gods restrictions? Moral codes or vows he took that he's happy to be rid of? Significant people in his life he misses, or is glad to be rid of?
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Dec 13, 2018 19:10
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Farg posted:I like that character concept. All good questions I should consider, thanks!
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Dec 13, 2018 20:23
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I'm in a campaign that's sort of joining some modules together and we've wound up in Dragon Heist. I'm satisfied with the game, the dm, the group, and my character. But I'm struggling to justify to myself that this rural hedge wizard of mine belongs in cosmopolitan Waterdeep. And I'm not sure there's a lot of fish-out-of-water potential in a dirty old swamp curmudgeon. Other than just harumphing at things. I'm considering having him gently caress off to the nearest swamp in favor of a new character but if it's just a failure of my own imagination to find ways for him to plug into the world, I'm not against keeping him. Any ideas or feelings about this one way or the other? We've already done a big city makeover and growing accustomed to luxuries but there's only so much an oddball hermit can do before leaving or slowly becoming a fundamentally different person. Nehru the Damaja fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Dec 13, 2018 |
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Dec 13, 2018 22:36
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Conspiratiorist posted:It's a second level spell, just like Phantasmal Force! Oh well gently caress me I guess. Spell is still bad and the easiest way to fix it is to just remove it from the list. dex_sda posted:I would definitely if I was the GM. This is waaaay too open. Yeah, but we have like several years of evidence that this guy is a complete tool. He has no idea what his own game does, and he's released video evidence that he's a poo poo DM for no good reason. I mean, he's just the second worst.
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Dec 13, 2018 22:58
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Few games into a friend's 5e campaign. Got three solid members and floaters in and out. We have a super holy conquer Aasimar, danny devito halfling bard an me as homless dwarf druid. Most stand out moments are our paladin criting a boss encounter out with an attack of opportunity then getting mauled by a pack of ghosts immedietly. An finding a skeleton covered in slime. He is now our plot central carry on npc. He has been named "Goop King".
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Dec 13, 2018 23:12
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Nehru the Damaja posted:I'm in a campaign that's sort of joining some modules together and we've wound up in Dragon Heist. I'm satisfied with the game, the dm, the group, and my character. But I'm struggling to justify to myself that this rural hedge wizard of mine belongs in cosmopolitan Waterdeep. And I'm not sure there's a lot of fish-out-of-water potential in a dirty old swamp curmudgeon. Other than just harumphing at things. Have him slowly become a fundamentally different person, recognize this, and be very conflicted about it
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Dec 13, 2018 23:14
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Farg posted:Have him slowly become a fundamentally different person, recognize this, and be very conflicted about it Yeah, think about how being in the city creates an arc for him? What will he be at the end of the adventure?
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Dec 13, 2018 23:21
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I had him drifting to becoming a proper sophisticated wizard but I think he's gonna reject it and dig deeper into being an oddball.
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Dec 13, 2018 23:50
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If you were to reduce Suggestion to like 4 or 5 options that cover most scenarios, it'd still be redundant and stupid. Consider that Suggestion ("flee"!) exists in the same spell table as Fear.
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Dec 14, 2018 00:02
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Nehru the Damaja posted:I had him drifting to becoming a proper sophisticated wizard but I think he's gonna reject it and dig deeper into being an oddball. maybe the doubling down on being a weirdo is in response to fearing losing touch with his roots? like deep down, he likes the city life and would do good there, but he fears a loss of identity which is now driving him to somewhat self-destructive actions in order to reinforce being 'odd'.
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Dec 14, 2018 00:37
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theironjef posted:Oh well gently caress me I guess. Spell is still bad and the easiest way to fix it is to just remove it from the list. I think you're completely right honestly... another spell I realised exists since I'm a Paladin is 'Banishment', a 4 level spell. For most enemies, all it does is remove the character for up to 10 rounds from combat, otherwise being completely harmless. If the concentration is broken, spell ends. A simple "Flee, because it's dangerous here!" (as clearly allowed and intended from that tweet) would replicate this spell, except that not only does it now last up to 8 hours, you don't instantly return if Concentration is broken. Even that single use is more powerful than a 4 lvl spell dedicated to that one thing. Granted, you can use banishment on creatures that don't understand you, but it still shouldn't be better for 50% of foes you face and have nearly limitless utility otherwise. And poo poo, the other use for banishment can also be somewhat replicated too ("Return to whence you came, as it's dangerous here!"), since it works on all creatures! The mind boggles how this spell was considered appropriate at all in the book. And I was so happy with how reasonable and relatively balanced stuff was in 5e until this debacle... The rest of the players fully agree that we should houserule this either completely out, or make it so it only allows you to give suggestions that would be a valid 'Persuasion' check - a similar amount of utility to 2nd level Knock which replaces lockpicking with some disadvantages (the disadvantage would still have to be thought about to not make persuasion useless, but that's another manner). No amount of persuasion will do anything to stop you from fighting a foe attacking you and that way, it's nerfed to being a trick for some social situations. "These aren't the droids you're looking for" yes, "Completely turn the tide of an encounter with a single spell" nope. We'll just ask the GM after bringing him those spells for comparison, and telling him that the game shouldn't be a language pedantry contest. He's quite reasonable, so I think this will go pretty smoothly. Thanks, guys. dex_sda fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Dec 14, 2018 |
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Dec 14, 2018 00:59
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In fairness, charisma save is weaker on most enemies, you can cast it on enemies immune to charm, and extraplanar guys stay gone. I agree with your central point about Suggestion but it's a *bit* muddier than it seems.
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Dec 14, 2018 01:32
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theironjef posted:You're basically trying to use a first level spell and a bunch of linguistic pedantry to play as an ersatz Jigsaw. Most people are so ungrateful to have free will, but not you, not any more.
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Dec 14, 2018 01:40
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Nehru the Damaja posted:In fairness, charisma save is weaker on most enemies, you can cast it on enemies immune to charm, and extraplanar guys stay gone. That's fair but I'm just saying, it is a 2nd level spell that's a solid alternative to a 4 lvl spell dedicated to a purpose; arguably better than a mind control spell from 5lvl cast from an 8lvl slot (I'd take Suggestion over Dominate Person every time unless I was literally infiltrating some place for info as someone and required control); all that in addition to god knows how many spells while also making Intimidation, Persuasion and Deception pointless... and even if we accept these problems, the fact that you can twist the meaning so hard and within the rules basically deprive a PC of nearly any agency - it's crazy. And PCs are always creatures that can understand things so even if the PCs take it to even out the field it's skewed against them. This crap be more broken than Time Stop; poo poo, it's more broken than 3.5s Prestidigitation and that was basically a mini wish following you for an hour. dex_sda fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Dec 14, 2018 |
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Dec 14, 2018 01:41
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Matt Colville just released the PDF for Strongholds & Followers today. It was a pretty big KickStarter when it first launched in February of this year, I hope that it's content lives up to expectations. Anyone here have it?
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Dec 14, 2018 01:42
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So here's a question that came up in my game NOT related to buffoonery. If someone's trying to persuade an npc you'd just set an appropriate DC, but what happens should one player try to persuade another? Like with lies you'd just roll deception vs insight, what's the equivalent for when you're telling the truth? The obvious is "roleplay it out" but a backup option would be nice since these are all rookies who aren't necessarily comfortable with that yet.
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Dec 14, 2018 01:55
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Fender Anarchist posted:So here's a question that came up in my game NOT related to buffoonery. If someone's trying to persuade an npc you'd just set an appropriate DC, but what happens should one player try to persuade another? Like with lies you'd just roll deception vs insight, what's the equivalent for when you're telling the truth? Back in my 3.5 GMing days I used to have a rule: PCs cannot be deprived of their agency unless by magic. If intimidate/persuade was rolled (usually as a between-party thing), the players could react according to the rolls and I always rewarded them with a few points of roleplay XP if they did; but if they felt uncomfortable with doing something according to the rolls, they could just ignore them. 95% of the time they would go with it, the other 5% I was so glad they had that 'ignore' option left on the table. In 5e terms, just give inspiration if they follow through with a persuade vs insight roll is what I'd do. dex_sda fucked around with this message at 02:02 on Dec 14, 2018 |
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Dec 14, 2018 01:59
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my two cents is that "mind control" as an effect is something that's either better handled by: 1. escalating the effect to more targets as a function of target type (i.e. Hold Person vs Hold Monster) 2. escalating the effect to more targets as a function of their level/CR 3. starting from a different, less debilitating effect (no-move, then no-action, then complete stun, whatever), and moving to mind control later if it were a video game, strict restrictions on what a mind control effect would be able to do might work (and that's really just a variant of #3), but in an RPG you're just tempting the players to try and create loopholes around however you want to word it
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Dec 14, 2018 02:02
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Alternatively anything in the game thats an agency thief, should be, by its nature, something that rewards the player for playing along with it. Especially if they are being restricted from participating in the game as a result (the worst possible agency thief).
kingcom fucked around with this message at 02:13 on Dec 14, 2018 |
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Dec 14, 2018 02:09
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kingcom posted:Alternatively anything in the game thats an agency thief, should be its nature be something that rewards the player for playing along with it. Especially if they are being restricted from participating in the game as a result (the worst possible agency thief). I mean that's a given but also, the effect should be graded. The PC having to go along with something insane should be a result of something insanely powerful, not a 2nd level spell - even if roleplaying of a sporadic, sensible loss of control can be fun, it should be just that, sporadic and sensible.
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Dec 14, 2018 02:11
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dex_sda posted:I mean that's a given but also, the effect should be graded. The PC having to go along with something insane should be a result of something insanely powerful, not a 2nd level spell - even if roleplaying of a sporadic, sensible loss of control can be fun, it should be just that, sporadic and sensible. I mean yeah absolutely, this is all couched in the idea of a game that follow some levels of design principle rather than complete nonsense wacko all over the place scaling like D&D does.
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Dec 14, 2018 02:14
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Fender Anarchist posted:So here's a question that came up in my game NOT related to buffoonery. If someone's trying to persuade an npc you'd just set an appropriate DC, but what happens should one player try to persuade another? Like with lies you'd just roll deception vs insight, what's the equivalent for when you're telling the truth? My Saturday table tends to lump this right in along with the concept of PvP. Both players need to agree to it. Just reinforce a concept of someone going "Hey, I'm gonna do [thing] is that alright?" And it should work out fine.
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Dec 14, 2018 02:37
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kingcom posted:Alternatively anything in the game thats an agency thief, should be, by its nature, something that rewards the player for playing along with it. Especially if they are being restricted from participating in the game as a result (the worst possible agency thief). to be clear, my post was referring to the Suggestion / Dominate spell discussion, not to the "lying to another player" post
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Dec 14, 2018 02:40
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Libertad! posted:Matt Colville just released the PDF for Strongholds & Followers today. It was a pretty big KickStarter when it first launched in February of this year, I hope that it's content lives up to expectations. I backed it, have not yet gotten to look over it in full cause I'm super busy today/this week. But one thing I can say. The PDF is slick. Like it wasn't an afterthought kind of slick. The art in the book leans heavy towards the new creatures, although chapters have good thematic artwork and there is also some really good stuff for class-specific buildings. It overall has a lot more than just rules for a Stronghold/Home base. There's outright examples for using this stuff for a ship, there are warfare rules and how you'll use units. Also a lot of stuff for dealing with people you can hire on to work for you or create things.
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Dec 14, 2018 02:55
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gradenko_2000 posted:to be clear, my post was referring to the Suggestion / Dominate spell discussion, not to the "lying to another player" post Yeah I was talking about he same thing, I'm saying with abilities that explicitly take away a player's agency like those two do, a key part of having them function at all is that the player who plays along and accepts a loss of agency gets rewarded with extra agency later as a result. Its the FATE principle, do something and i give you a bennie to spend to get your way later.
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Dec 14, 2018 03:11
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