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Toshimo posted:Use folded index cards to represent the players/monsters for turn order. Put critical stats on the back so you can see them (AC/DC/PP). Seconding this, a visual reference for initiative order is key and having their commonly used stats for you role as GM saves a ton of time when you have that many players. The shot clock is a good idea to force people to pay attention. You want to avoid people getting bored waiting for their turn and zoning out. I always have a no phones policy at my table. I'm not a dick about it, if someone has kids I'm not going to give them grief about checking the number when they get a call, but I will shame someone clearly surfing the web. Another way to keep people engaged on off-turns is to let them describe some of the action that I would have otherwise narrated. If a new enemy shows up in the middle of a fight I might announce what kind of monster it is but then let the most bored looking player describe what its wearing/ wielding (within reason) / what's it look like. Or someone will get in a good hit and drop an enemy and I'll let another character describe how it dies. Nothing campaign breaking but a little added flavor that keeps people more interested and occasionally even gives me some ideas for future events.
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Jan 21, 2019 22:27
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Any reviews/recommendations on the Yawning Portal adventure(s)? (preferably without spoiling anything) A couple DMs that I know are looking at running something that starts at level 5+, but they're hesitant about doing Mad Mage.
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Jan 22, 2019 00:54
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Do you think Perception, is over-emphasised compared to Investigation? I don't really feel satisfied with how 5e handles this. The DMG talks a bit about what the difference is, something like "A high-wis low-int character could recognise that a patch of the wall was cleaner than the rest but not deduce there was a secret door there, while a low-wis high-int character might fail to spot that the patch of wall was cleaner, but once pointed out, would instantly deduce that it must be due to a secret door". My issue is that this distinction pretty much never comes through in actual dungeon exploration. There's almost never a "players must succeed a DC:10 perception check to find signs of the secret door, then a DC:15 investigation check to confirm its existence and its manner of operation", it's usually just "players can find the secret door with a DC:15 perception check". Now, I can see immediately why making the player do two rolls to find a secret door would be tedious and dumb, but given that perception-only is how things almost always work, it just doesn't match up with what's stated in the DMG, I feel. I know a lot of DMs work by a rule of "you can use either" but I don't feel very keen on that, because in that case there doesn't feel like there's a good reason to have two skills at all. I know in some groups' campaigns stuff like research will make Investigation useful in its own right, but that's not how my own campaigns have generally gone. What I'm thinking of trying in my upcoming campaign is taking the view that investigation is used to find things like secret doors, and instead just dropping hints about hidden stuff in the room descriptions based on passive perception. My logic here is two-fold in that in the general case it gives non-wizards a reason not to just dump int as it now has a use other than making the DM paraphrase their campaign materials or the monster manual, and in the specific case that I've got a high-wisdom party of two clerics and a ranger and I feel like the party's rogue is going to get outshone at his core niche. I'm mixing this with a rule of "if the player is about to trigger a trap, they get to make a perception check to avoid it at the last second", so what it boils down to I guess is "DM asks for perception checks, Players ask for investigation checks." I'll report back if anything interesting come of it but I'm curious to hear any thoughts from people who've maybe thought about this before.
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Jan 22, 2019 01:33
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Yeah, it's dumb and bad because most official mods assume everything is Perception, and most DMs (in my experience) make everything Investigation, but virtually everyone dumps INT, so everyone is just real bad at it.
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Jan 22, 2019 01:37
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It's silly, also personal peeve I dislike 5E dropping Streetwise as a skill.
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Jan 22, 2019 01:42
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Trap discussion was gone into detail pretty well a cools pages back, but consider using passive perception instead of requiring people to actively checking for things if you're short on time and using fed to dodge things they miss. You miss out on the "you forgot to check for/roll-to-find traps in this room" that some players like. I use perception to "sense" things and investigation to "study" things, for whatever that's worth. If you're in a room and need to look around, investigation. If you're trying to spidey sense or detect an incoming trap or encounter, perception. It is arguably fuzzy and trying to meta around people's attributes is probably bad. Insight can go into this confusing pool too.
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Jan 22, 2019 02:15
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Glory to Italia!
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Toshimo posted:Use folded index cards to represent the players/monsters for turn order. Put critical stats on the back so you can see them (AC/DC/PP). I use a Google sheet and sort by initiative, made things way easier for me. I considered the cards but it gets messy with lots of creatures. I also recommend not revealing the monster order until after the first round. You could use smaller tabs for mobs, though.
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Jan 22, 2019 02:18
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Blooming Brilliant posted:It's silly, also personal peeve I dislike 5E dropping Streetwise as a skill. I give it as a swap for survival if players want it/suits the campaign
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Jan 22, 2019 02:25
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The bit where DMs run all trap and secret finding as Investigation without thinking is currently loving my 5E group over. We don't have a Rogue or a Wizard (the only Intelligence class in the game), so nobody is good at Investigation or any knowledge skills. Aside from the DM not being appropriately fluid with skill use, it's also an example of other design flaws in 5E; the distribution of primary stats is really weird and uneven across ability scores, for example. Constitution gets a pass because it's an important rider for everyone, but Intelligence is much less frequently called for spellcasters than Charisma, and there's no reason for anyone but 2H weapon users (and I guess people who want to pass saves against certain maneuvers) to care about Strength. Even if they want to keep the six ability score system, they could do a better job of designing classes around it. Sorcerer and Warlock, for example, are incredibly conceptually redundant and would just be one class in almost any other game.
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Jan 22, 2019 02:41
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The ability score distribution between classes is really dumb, but it does mean that most adventuring parties will have below average intelligence which is a wonderful bit of unintentional world-building. Smart people don't go adventuring unless they made the correct life choice to be a wizard and stand in the back. It's like some poo poo out of Discworld.
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Jan 22, 2019 02:48
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Death to ability scores. Until then, perception to find poo poo and investigation to figure out what it is and how it works.
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Jan 22, 2019 03:02
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Traps play a very different role in groups that are good at finding them vs groups that aren't. It's not like your DM doesn't know you don't have a trap guy. In the former group, they serve to make you feel strong and crafty and all that but have little mechanical effect. In the latter group they're a tax on resources because you're probably gonna blunder into them. I'm not a big fan of traps in general but it's not like the DM isn't choosing to put one in, knowing whether you're likely to set it off or not in advance. Putting your low-int group in a dungeon full of traps was a conscious choice that the DM probably wouldn't have made if instead your group was likely to disarm them all on the way in - why spend game time on "yep, you find another one" ad nauseum? Passive perception for traps is also pretty meaningless. The DM knows what your passive perception is and chooses the DC of the trap, whether they choose a DC above or below that passive perception is completely arbitrary. It's impossible good-faith decide trap DCs when you know that some of those DCs will never be triggered, outside of the positive externality that is making your trap guy feel good. "Use passive perception" is code for "DM fiat" for whether you find the trap or not. (Excepting the player using some ability to raise their passive perception at a key moment.)
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Jan 22, 2019 03:30
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Mr. Humalong posted:I'm going to be DMing a game for seven of my friends who have never played any tabletop games and they all really wanted to try Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition. I warned them that seven is a very large party for almost any system, but said I would do my best to make sure they all have a good time. A rule I found invaluable with a large amount of players is when it's a players turn in combat they have about 3 seconds max to declare what they're doing, otherwise their character hesitates and either does nothing or takes the dodge action. Combat is a horrific slog that nobody finds interesting when they're waiting for 20+ minutes for your turn to come around again. This will keep combat moving quick, keep your players engaged, and put a bit of chaos and urgency into their decisions.
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Jan 22, 2019 04:56
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That sounds rough on the players who don’t know the game very well, though. 5e has so many effect interactions to consider on your turn.
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Jan 22, 2019 06:00
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Nickoten posted:That sounds rough on the players who don’t know the game very well, though. 5e has so many effect interactions to consider on your turn. That's why you consider them on other people's turns instead of mentally checking out.
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Jan 22, 2019 06:06
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In general, I don't like putting time limits on peoples's turns - if they're not paying attention, that's an issue with their level of engagement of the game. If they don't know what to do, that's an issue with the objectives of the combat not being obvious. At most, I'd say "have an idea of what you want to do within 30 seconds", even if the mechanical processing of the thing can (and will, for newbies) take much longer. And if they're failing to do that, try to dig down into why. Having another enthusiastic player (or more) keep track of logistics and combat initiative and effects is good.
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Jan 22, 2019 06:10
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Carrots work better than sticks, folks. Find ways to reward players that are engaged and keeping combat moving, not penalizing players who are not system-savvy or who have analysis paralysis. gently caress people on phones though, get them out of my table.
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Jan 22, 2019 06:17
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Good point about the passive perception. I was mostly thinking about the prebuilt adventure dungeons.
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Jan 22, 2019 06:24
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Am I missing something about Summon Lesser Demons or did they just forget to put demons in the sourcebooks? MM has Quasit (CR1), Dretch(CR1/4), and Mane(CR1/8), MToF has Abyssal Wretch(CR1/4) and Volo has Maw Demon (CR1), but there are no CR 1/2 which means a roll on that table is just straight worse than the others?
Toshimo fucked around with this message at 10:51 on Jan 22, 2019 |
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Jan 22, 2019 10:45
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If I were trying to hook an Arcana domain cleric into CoS, without spoiling anything for me, is there some way to work service to Savras in with the whole Vistani deal and their schtick with The Sight? It's a neat domain mechanically but it's hard to conceive of them having a mission and purpose, yknow? Edit: Maybe just some dude investigating a blind spot in Savras's divination created by the presence of Strahd's domain? Nehru the Damaja fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Jan 22, 2019 |
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Jan 22, 2019 16:16
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Toshimo posted:Am I missing something about Summon Lesser Demons or did they just forget to put demons in the sourcebooks? MM has Quasit (CR1), Dretch(CR1/4), and Mane(CR1/8), MToF has Abyssal Wretch(CR1/4) and Volo has Maw Demon (CR1), but there are no CR 1/2 which means a roll on that table is just straight worse than the others? Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica has Cackler at CR 1/2, finally. They probably didn't care, because most people see "the demons are hostile to all creatures, including you" and go "nah, gently caress it, I'll pick a spell with less chance of backfiring on me."
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Jan 22, 2019 16:34
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tzirean posted:Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica has Cackler at CR 1/2, finally. Hrmmm I'll see if my DM lets me use that one. But, really, with proper planning, the Tactical Demon Delivery System is unlikely to harm the party.
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Jan 22, 2019 16:44
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Mr. Humalong posted:I've decided to run them through Lost Mines of Phandelver and we've already had a "session zero" where I walked them through most of the rules of character creation. I decided to use the house rule of giving them their CON ability score to HP on top of the regular HP, so most of them have between 20 and 24 hp and won't get murdered by goblins 15 minutes into the campaign (knock on wood). I cannot possibly overstate how much I like the "Add all of your CON to max HP at level 1". We come up with that back in 2nd edition and it makes the early levels so much less crap. I get quite attached to my characters and I don't want them constantly dying, especially from a single arrow at full health. Mr. Humalong posted:I'm going to be DMing a game for seven of my friends who have never played any tabletop games and they all really wanted to try Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition. I warned them that seven is a very large party for almost any system, but said I would do my best to make sure they all have a good time. Good luck to you. We used to often have parties of eight, but we were all moderately to very experienced players. Even though I don't play any version of D&D anymore, I always like hearing about how people handle game flow and large groups specifically.
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Jan 22, 2019 17:52
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:Traps play a very different role in groups that are good at finding them vs groups that aren't. It's not like your DM doesn't know you don't have a trap guy. In the former group, they serve to make you feel strong and crafty and all that but have little mechanical effect. In the latter group they're a tax on resources because you're probably gonna blunder into them. I'm not a big fan of traps in general but it's not like the DM isn't choosing to put one in, knowing whether you're likely to set it off or not in advance. Putting your low-int group in a dungeon full of traps was a conscious choice that the DM probably wouldn't have made if instead your group was likely to disarm them all on the way in - why spend game time on "yep, you find another one" ad nauseum? Is it bad if, as a DM, I just have people roll dex saves for traps they didn't use Investigation to find? Passive perception seems like the kind of thing that is best used as DC for monster/ambusher stealth checks so I can menacingly roll dice behind my screen without tipping off to the players that an ambush is coming by having them roll perception.
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Jan 22, 2019 18:12
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lol if you don't arbitrarily make your players roll Perception then say "you don't notice anything" just to keep them on their toes
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Jan 22, 2019 19:54
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Mr. Humalong posted:I'm going to be DMing a game for seven of my friends who have never played any tabletop games and they all really wanted to try Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition. I warned them that seven is a very large party for almost any system, but said I would do my best to make sure they all have a good time. make them roll hit and damage dice at the same time. If rolling multi attack you can roll them all at the same time and resolve them top left to bottom right where they land if it matters.
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Jan 22, 2019 19:59
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Conspiratiorist posted:lol if you don't arbitrarily make your players roll Perception then say "you don't notice anything" just to keep them on their toes After 20 years my players have gotten wise to this.
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Jan 22, 2019 20:04
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With Sleep, what happens if one of the targets in the chain is immune? I know the spell says they aren't effected, but do their HP still get detucted from the total for the spell? Or does it just skip over them and go to the next valid target?
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Jan 22, 2019 20:12
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Fender Anarchist posted:With Sleep, what happens if one of the targets in the chain is immune? I know the spell says they aren't effected, but do their HP still get detucted from the total for the spell? Or does it just skip over them and go to the next valid target? It skips over them and goes to the next valid target.
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Jan 22, 2019 20:15
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Any books have info on the Benign Order of the Third Eye? I found a blurb on the wizards site and that's it.
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Jan 22, 2019 22:33
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Nehru the Damaja posted:Any books have info on the Benign Order of the Third Eye? I found a blurb on the wizards site and that's it. Assuming you mean this article http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/frcc/20070509 that’s it. Eytan Bernstein created them for that 3e article, and Savras was dead in 4e/no substantial updates in 5e. Make it your own. (Most search results are for the trash useless Neverwinter MMO.)
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Jan 23, 2019 00:46
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Yeah that's the one. Cool that I've got room to just declare canon. I read a ton about Mystra the last time I was doing arcana domain but it ended at level 4, before the build really popped off. I put together a custom background to drive home the vibe of being a monstrous hypocritical inquisitor.
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Jan 23, 2019 00:57
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Razorwired posted:After 20 years my players have gotten wise to this. That sounds like an appropriate timeline for them to be less scared by null responses.
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Jan 23, 2019 02:56
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Oh, I forgot to ask: this is going to be my first time playing D&D in real life and not through Roll20. Anything I should bring besides dice, some paper and pencils, and myself? We'll have a dry erase board to track initiative. Will theater of the mind work for a group of 7 players? Would I be better served finding a way to have a grid for combat? e: This is still at least a week or two away, so no rush.
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Jan 23, 2019 04:06
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You don't have to go with a full grid if you don't want to, but it's always a good idea to have SOME visual represenation of spatial relationships between characters, even if it's salt shaker PCs versus potato chip orcs.
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Jan 23, 2019 04:18
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Yeah a grid is not need, but it is easier than measuring them by inches or whatever type of distance calculation you want to use. Theater of the mind is fine if you are confident in your ability to make distances and spatial relationship clear, but I have always found visual to be much easier and more efficient.
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Jan 23, 2019 06:45
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Alright, I need some help homebrewing. I'm running a campaign where each player was granted a power. They got to pick the domain and give me general ideas about what they wanted their powers to be, and then I put them together to create the final results. So far they have: Bard - Revelry Domain. Generates otherworldly music that enhances the abilities of the party, but he doesn't have much control over it. This is literally him channeling real world radio stations and gaining buffs based on the song that is playing. He's generated a playlist for this and rolls randomly for the song. Ranger - Space Domain. That's space as in, time and space, and not outer space. His ability is to freeze things in place a la immovable rod. It's limited to small objects and he can only freeze a few items at a time. Rogue - Shadow Domain. Her ability is to quickly weave shadows together to create small objects like daggers, lockpicks, manacles, etc. Also all weapons she crafts out of this deal 1d8 psychic damage as their weapon damage, allowing her to actually use daggers as a rogue and not be garbage. Druid - Disease Domain. The druid is a spore druid and chose disease as his domain. After choosing it his left hand began to rot, though it did not lose any functionality. He can now touch living things, or make a melee attack roll, to attempt to spread blight to them. Those are the four that I have done, and the party seems happy with them. The last party member is a sorcerer and the least inspired and has had trouble separating himself from 'just make bigger numbers'. He floated a couple abilities to me that were way, way too complicated, involving keeping track of spells that he cast, and others cast, and keeping running totals of numbers that were impacted by the weather, and it was, quite frankly, a complete mess. He tried a couple of different iterations but wasn't really happy with any of them. He wants to make his domain Metamagic and just be good at magic, which is kind of not what I was going for with giving people abilities, but also I want him to be happy. So here is my question: can anyone help me come up with a cool ability in the Metamagic domain? I need as many suggestions as possible so I can hopefully get one to stick, and they can be fairly game breaking. These abilities are supposed to be powerful, and as the players complete tasks they will be able to improve their abilities and gain new ones within their domains, so they need to be somewhat scalable.
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Jan 23, 2019 07:36
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Encourage him to be more creative and freeform with metamagic being the ability to twist the effects slightly and add a thematic spin to spells. He can turn fireballs into iceballs or acidballs, he can make his magic missiles into dazzling strobe lights, whatever. These effects never make the numbers bigger, but they can be useful in more creative ways.
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Jan 23, 2019 08:03
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Mr. Humalong posted:Oh, I forgot to ask: this is going to be my first time playing D&D in real life and not through Roll20. Anything I should bring besides dice, some paper and pencils, and myself? We'll have a dry erase board to track initiative. If you’re going to try theater of the mind, use that dry erase board as a crutch to crudely show where everyone is at at the beginning of combat. Things are going to get real messy with 7 players. Nobody is going to be able to remember everyone’s relative positions. So, just keep it simple.
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Jan 23, 2019 11:40
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Toshimo posted:Use folded index cards to represent the players/monsters for turn order. Put critical stats on the back so you can see them (AC/DC/PP). If you have space, go one better and get a magnetic whiteboard, and some cheap magnets you can layer with PC names, then just slap down in order as people roll initiative up. My old GM always kept one of these standing in the corner of the table, and it really helped speed combat along by letting the party know who was going when.
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Jan 23, 2019 12:16
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