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Conspiratiorist posted:Stat rolling is an idiotic cultural artifact from an era whose style is neither encouraged nor supported by most modern systems. This is about where I fall. If a DM is making people roll stats, they probably have other bad ideas about this elfgame. It’s a decent litmus test to see if a game is worth my time. Point buy is just so much better in every way.
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May 18, 2019 14:12
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Again, not a huge thing against rolling for stats specifically, although, having played a character where I got really really high rolls, I do disagree with rolling for stats. I talked about it before; my experience is that more mechanically powerful characters tend to be pushed into more important story roles. But, whenever I see rolling for stats, it's really really common to also see things like: Critical failures: Roll a 1, something extremely bad happens. Fighters can roll more attacks, so as they level, they are more likely to critically fail. Wizards cause OTHER people to roll, so they are unlikely to critically fail anything. Additional limits on situational martial abilities, like sneak attack. Critical Hit Tables (yeah, it's cool when you decapitate a bad guy in one strike. But goblin #4 is really temporary, but when you lose half your limbs on a character you've worked a year on, stings a bit more). Individual XP amounts (get stunned in a combat round? You get less XP, because you didn't contribute as much). If you say "I wish" at any time, it is taken as the spell Wish and is immediately twisted to be the worst possible outcomes. All players start at level 1, even if the rest of the party are much higher. Additional stat adjustments for male/female characters (lower strength for women was most common, though I did see one case where women had +2 charisma, -2 intelligence). Natural 20 means you succeed in spectacular fashion for whatever you are doing, even if it's dumb as hell. Plenty of paladin "You can choose law OR good, and whichever one you pick, you're going to be punished for it". Not a houserule, but a strong tendency towards having monsters kill downed players, instead of continuing to fight the threats. Not a houserule, but if you played the "wrong" race/class/sex, the DM would go out of their way to punish you repeatedly. Wildly unbalanced homebrews, usually paired with a really bad grasp of numbers. Nerfs that affect one class way more than the other (weapon/armor degradation, for example). Kaysette posted:This is about where I fall. If a DM is making people roll stats, they probably have other bad ideas about this elfgame. It’s a decent litmus test to see if a game is worth my time. Point buy is just so much better in every way. Hey this is what I'm saying except much more succinctly. I don't like rolling for stats, but it's a great red flag for "There are things that will be way worse than that incoming."
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May 18, 2019 14:31
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Over the life of your character, you'll likely roll thousands of dice. Having every one of those rolls be rewarded/punished because you just HAD TO roll 6 more rolls at the start to get that hit of endorphins is nonsensical, doubly so if you aren't doing it willingly, but as a proscribed action by your DM.
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May 18, 2019 14:45
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Wow yeah, a lot of those sound really nasty and dumb. My group still uses critical failures, but they're usually more comic relief sorts of things or storytelling accessories than anything else, and we don't usually seek to unreasonably penalize the players (not trying to take away fun, but rather trying to capture the fact that sometimes things just go sideways at inopportune times). They apply both to PCs and to enemies equally - sometimes they can be leveraged to give the party a break if a fight isn't going well when an enemy rolls one. Sorts of things like: - you swung your greatsword, but missed, so it got stuck in a curio and you have to wrench it out next turn (forfeit an attack) or leave it there and draw a new weapon. - you missed with an arrow so it might hit someone else in close proximity (enemy or friendly). - you drop something you need (arcane focus or component pouch) We also try to integrate them into the fight, so if someone just got hit, for instance, we tend to say that's what caused them to be off balance, etc.. I'm going to watch for it today and if it seems like it's just not fun, I might bring up getting rid of them. You make good points about them unreasonably affecting some sorts of characters.
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May 18, 2019 14:47
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Rolling for stats just causes bad feelings and encourages players to see their characters as being disposable. People recognize this and try to mitigate it with increasingly elaborate systems to make the rolls less random, but really the best solution is just to remove the random element entirely.
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May 18, 2019 14:47
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Marathanes posted:Wow yeah, a lot of those sound really nasty and dumb. "You try to disarm the trap, but accidentally set it off, damaging yourself and making a huge racket, attracting the attention of any nearby enemies" as opposed to "you fall into the pitfall trap and land wonky, breaking your neck".
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May 18, 2019 15:01
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Gharbad the Weak posted:Again, not a huge thing against rolling for stats specifically, although, having played a character where I got really really high rolls, I do disagree with rolling for stats. I talked about it before; my experience is that more mechanically powerful characters tend to be pushed into more important story roles. It sounds like you've got worse problems with that DM than their stance on rules. Stuff like critical rolls or hit tables can be fun if they're done well, but that kind of adversarial gameplay is not that fun and turns D&D into a Sisphyean competition. DMs should be empowering players, and it doesn't seem like they are very focused on that.
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May 18, 2019 15:09
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Marathanes posted:I most certainly am an artifact of the era of when stat rolling was the only way (I started playing D&D right around when AD&D 2nd edition was coming out). That said, I've played many other systems (White Wolf, especially) where everything is just point buy, and I have no issue with that. I hope I just fall into the misguided area here, but I feel like giving players a choice (between rolling or not) and a chance to roll their stats is better than binding everyone to the same drat statline. For instance, in the campaign my table just started, we were required to roll, but anyone that rolled a total below the standard array was able to swap to the standard array if they so desired. Out of 6 people, nobody did (I think 2 people had lower totals, but they both had 17/18s as well). Again, making sure everyone is having fun is the most important thing. While it is true that stat rolling was the default, over half the campaigns I played in going back to 1st edition had a point-buy system. Before 3e, stat variation meant less except at the extremes: 8 to 12 made little difference in a tertiary stat, for example. And while 1e Unearthed Arcana introduced a "buckets of dice" system for playing specific classes (9d6 take the 3 highest for your prime requisite , 8d6 for a second stat, etc), the point of most die rolling for stats is (or ought to be) to provide you with an unexpected character. Ideally (for this value of ideal), you find out your stats and THEN pick a class; you can end up with something unexpected like a wise rogue, a strong wizard, or a smart barbarian. Instead of having an optimal character, you optimize around the stats you're given. Allowing players to shuffle their stats around after rolling defeats the purpose; forcing a player who gets miserable rolls to play alongside players with multiple 18s is a bad sign. Some people love having a detailed character backstory, developed personality, and L1-20 roadmap before the first session, and would hate having that messed with via random rolling; others want to develop a character over time and have more of the shape provided by external and random factors, and hate being forced to choose a class or personality. These are the players rolling on all those personality tables in the PHB. There's nothing about finding that enjoyable that is innately stupid. Since 5e cares a great deal about small variations in stats, the crucial bit is whether the DM makes sure PC arrays are all relatively similar, although honestly several classes only care about one stat (plus Dex and Con). The important thing is to make sure the DM has a rationale for rolling stats beyond tradition, in the same way that you can judge a DM who uses stat rolling but has that one friend who doesn't have to roll in front of everyone and always plays characters with an 18 and several 16s. Unlike some of the items on Gharbad's list, stat rolling isn't always an indicator of a bad DM. For race bonuses talk: if stat bonuses were standardized, and the other trappings retained, I wonder if the proper balancing factor would be to have all races grant a free feat, but at different levels. If variant humans got a free feat at L1 and yuan-ti got a free feat at L5, is that enough to make the human viable? I guess if you're doing something like that, it'd be better to start over from scratch design-wise. (Why not infuriate everyone by having all characters receive a randomly determined feat at L1?)
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May 18, 2019 15:13
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Edit: Most of the stuff I'm covering here isn't as bad as it may sound like I'm trying to argue, but in the same way you guys are coming up with examples on the fly, I'm coming up with potential problems.Kaal posted:It sounds like you've got worse problems with that DM than their stance on rules. This isn't a single game with a single DM, it's many, many games over about 20 years, in different locations including different countries. Kaal posted:Stuff like critical rolls or hit tables can be fun if they're done well, but that kind of adversarial gameplay is not that fun and turns D&D into a Sisphyean competition. Everyone who does this kind of stuff thinks it's fun, whether it's "better" balance, "more realistic" gameplay, "more exciting" situations. I don't think I've ever been in a game with a critical failure rule where the DM was going "Sorry guys, I hate this, but we're going to do this anyway." Though, your way of doing it might really be fun! I've not been in a game where it was fun, but I could also be extremely unlucky. As I mention later, when you take a lot of swings, you roll a lot of 1s, and maybe when it comes to finding games, I'm just rolling critical failures everywhere. Marathanes posted:I'm going to watch for it today and if it seems like it's just not fun, I might bring up getting rid of them. You make good points about them unreasonably affecting some sorts of characters. I'm glad you'll look over it. It's entirely possible that, for your table, this really is the best thing, and people straight up enjoy it (DARK SOULS). It's just never been that way in my experience. Marathanes posted:- you swung your greatsword, but missed, so it got stuck in a curio and you have to wrench it out next turn (forfeit an attack) or leave it there and draw a new weapon. -Fighters do more weapon attacks than most, and gain more attacks as they level. While it may seem rare, rolling a 1 isn't that uncommon when you're rolling four times. A level 20 fighter is much more likely to critically fail than a level 1 wizard in melee. -Anytime you force a character to potentially hit an ally when they don't intend to, you can build resentment. This goes double for things like "Ok, well, you missed, so you hit your ally, and he's in melee, so you have advantage, so with your sneak attack damage...", which is surprisingly common, though I'd suspect you don't do that one. It's a dick move, I very much doubt you are a full on dick. -"Drop things you need" is actually ok, I'm behind that one. It's usually more fun when you drop something that's plot related, to make everyone panic, rather than have someone go "Well, I guess I don't do anything cool right now." As a side note: If you have a failure which requires an action to fix, like forfeiting an attack to grab that greatsword or pick up that arcane focus, that means that every time they roll a 1, they lose two actions. They've now spent two actions doing basically nothing interesting. Nephzinho posted:"You try to disarm the trap, but accidentally set it off, damaging yourself and making a huge racket, attracting the attention of any nearby enemies" as opposed to "you fall into the pitfall trap and land wonky, breaking your neck". -"You failed and took damage and also made things worse in other ways" is a pretty big deal, and encourages declarative actions, which is mainly in spellcasting. It's part of the problem with D&D that there aren't partial failures or partial successes. "Take the trap damage OR make enough noise that the guys next door hear you" would be a great partial failure, with just immediate trap damage on a full failure. That's a weakness of the system. Automatic failure is usually bad enough, especially if the consequences of failure are "we lose resources and take damage" or "I proceed to do absolutely nothing with this action." Gharbad the Weak fucked around with this message at 15:49 on May 18, 2019 |
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May 18, 2019 15:47
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MonsterEnvy posted:Do you like Keep on the Borderlands. And lots of talking about gaming history. If so you will probably enjoy it. 
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May 18, 2019 15:48
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Gharbad the Weak posted:-"You failed and took damage and also made things worse in other ways" is a pretty big deal, and encourages declarative actions, which is mainly in spellcasting. It's part of the problem with D&D that there aren't partial failures or partial successes. "Take the trap damage OR make enough noise that the guys next door hear you" would be a great partial failure, with just immediate trap damage on a full failure. That's a weakness of the system. I tend to only use crit fails when someone is trying something particularly ambitious, and use sliding success/failure scale almost always.
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May 18, 2019 15:52
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I like critical failures because they’re fun and even when people have never played before they can tell that rolling a 1 is bad. Yesterday I was running a first game for newbs. Sunless Citadel, and they were making their way to the room the dragon was being kept in. They discovered the trap in the hallway, and at this point had collected a bunch of kobolds along the way who were eager to help rescue the wyrmling. A firbolg decided to pick up the four kobolds and jump the trap. The kobolds were cheering him on and incredibly excited to save their dragon, so they were all in. The firbolg rolled a 1. He and the kobolds fell into the pit trap and took falling damage. The firbolg was knocked unconscious, and each kobold died as they were crushed under the firbolg’s weight. Immediately everyone started laughing. Critical failures are great potential for memorable moments in games. Honestly I have to question any DM who doesn’t at least humor the notion.
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May 18, 2019 16:04
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Gharbad the Weak posted:-Fighters do more weapon attacks than most, and gain more attacks as they level. While it may seem rare, rolling a 1 isn't that uncommon when you're rolling four times. A level 20 fighter is much more likely to critically fail than a level 1 wizard in melee. This isn't quite treating the same issue, but in my group it was pointed out that spellcasters who focus on saving throws would not suffer from critical failures. Instead of cutting out critical failures, my DM instituted that opposing critical successes from enemies in these cases count as 'critical failures' for the caster. For instance, a goblin rolling a critical success on a fireball's DEX save would take no damage and also be able to dive out of the way with a nearby goblin. Other times, especially if the enemy is a spellcaster in its own right, the spell gets partially deflected back at the caster, usually for minimal damage or effect but heightened inconvenience or humor. Like a critical success on the save against charm person causes the CASTER to be charmed by his target for a turn. Not for everyone, but it is pretty amusing and no one seems to mind critical failures anymore.
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May 18, 2019 16:22
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Rolling for stats works in 3.5e and Pathfinder because it is literally the artifact that lead to MAD classes like the monk or paladin existing. In 2e, to be a paladin required rolled stats that were incredibly good in multiple ways. 3.5 did away with the requirement to roll stats, but left these broken, nonfunctional classes that required higher stats than everyone else to function. In 5e, Paladins and Monks are still slightly more MAD than fighters, warlocks, wizards, etc, but not to the point of requiring good rolls to be worth using. Edit: However, rolling for stats can also be fun for people. It adds in a game to chargen, and honestly, 5e has enough classes that dont need stats at all that low rolls are not super crippling. A buff/heal focused caster never needs to worry about stats. a moon druids main feature replaces all their stats. KittyEmpress fucked around with this message at 16:34 on May 18, 2019 |
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May 18, 2019 16:31
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Verisimilidude posted:I like critical failures because they’re fun and even when people have never played before they can tell that rolling a 1 is bad. It's a real riot to completely break verisimilitude and consistency within the rules 1 out of 20 times someone rolls a dice, yes. So many wacky stories.
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May 18, 2019 16:41
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Wacky Stories > Verisimilitude and Consistency IMHO, anyways.
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May 18, 2019 16:45
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Gharbad the Weak posted:-Fighters do more weapon attacks than most, and gain more attacks as they level. While it may seem rare, rolling a 1 isn't that uncommon when you're rolling four times. A level 20 fighter is much more likely to critically fail than a level 1 wizard in melee This is my biggest beef with the critical failure house rule. Physical characters roll a d20 more often and the consequences of their critical fails are more obvious. Most GMs arent quick enough on the fly to come up with equivalent catastrophes for non-physical check failures (ie. You rolled a 1 on history? Most critical failure gms I've played with would say "ehhhh you dont remember anything relevant" instead of "Here's some false intel that your character acts on") and plenty of spells don't require a d20 roll. 1 on attack, acrobatics, athletics, stealth, etc are a lot more obvious to come up with on the spot. A martial character under critical failure rules feels like if casters had to put up with wild magic rules every time they did anything I did play a one-shot with a gm who would let you opt-in on whether each 1 you rolled was a critical failure, and if you went along with it you got an inspiration token to be applied to the type of roll you failed on. that was kind of neat and at least let you choose to deal with wacky consequences in exchange for redemption later, or just fail in a mundane manner that wont screw everything up pretty soft girl fucked around with this message at 16:56 on May 18, 2019 |
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May 18, 2019 16:48
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Noticed a fair bit of things I do being called out as bad DM behavior and feel compelled to reply to it. Some of these things were requested by my players, others are my own personal preferences, so maybe explaining them a bit can help show the mindset behind certain choices as behavior that isn't inherently bad but depends on the table and the reason it's used. Apologies for chopping up your post a bit for readability of response.Gharbad the Weak posted:Critical failures: Roll a 1, something extremely bad happens. Fighters can roll more attacks, so as they level, they are more likely to critically fail. Wizards cause OTHER people to roll, so they are unlikely to critically fail anything. Gharbad the Weak posted:Additional limits on situational martial abilities, like sneak attack. Gharbad the Weak posted:Individual XP amounts (get stunned in a combat round? You get less XP, because you didn't contribute as much). Gharbad the Weak posted:Natural 20 means you succeed in spectacular fashion for whatever you are doing, even if it's dumb as hell. Gharbad the Weak posted:If you say "I wish" at any time, it is taken as the spell Wish and is immediately twisted to be the worst possible outcomes.  these all sound absolutely loving horrible on multiple levels. Gharbad the Weak posted:Plenty of paladin "You can choose law OR good, and whichever one you pick, you're going to be punished for it". these all sound really horrible too! Paladins are supposed to be cool fantasy hero-cops and why would you go out of your way to kill your players and I'm not even gonna touch the  in that last one. Gharbad the Weak posted:Wildly unbalanced homebrews, usually paired with a really bad grasp of numbers.  Gharbad the Weak posted:Nerfs that affect one class way more than the other (weapon/armor degradation, for example). Having stuff like the critical hits and critical fumbles allowed for a lot of really fun moments in my most recent adventure including Mortal Kombat-ing a kobold onto their own spike trap and a rogue who'd never fought a real fight to the death in her life before discovering she's shockingly good at murdering monsters. Stuff like the weapon/armor degradation actually meant when my fighter chipped his greatsword on a fumble (reducing the damage die from 2d6 to 1d12) he decided to do something I've never seen in 5e and scavenge an opponents weapon with intent to use it so he doesn't hurt his favorite sword any more. I feel like a lot of that stuff isn't indicative of "Bad DMing" (except the biotruths poo poo and player antagonism YIKES) it just depends on why you're including it and whether your players want/like it.
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May 18, 2019 16:54
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Sometimes I will exaggerate the effects of a crit or crit miss a bit for the flair, but it's on a case by case basis and flavor first and foremost. I certainly won't make a player lose a limb without some setup (we do have a coup de grace system, as well), but a mook can lose a limb they aren't currently using. The rules aren't the same for PCs and mooks.
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May 18, 2019 16:56
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Narsham posted:While it is true that stat rolling was the default, over half the campaigns I played in going back to 1st edition had a point-buy system. Before 3e, stat variation meant less except at the extremes: 8 to 12 made little difference in a tertiary stat, for example. And while 1e Unearthed Arcana introduced a "buckets of dice" system for playing specific classes (9d6 take the 3 highest for your prime requisite , 8d6 for a second stat, etc), the point of most die rolling for stats is (or ought to be) to provide you with an unexpected character. Ideally (for this value of ideal), you find out your stats and THEN pick a class; you can end up with something unexpected like a wise rogue, a strong wizard, or a smart barbarian. Instead of having an optimal character, you optimize around the stats you're given. Allowing players to shuffle their stats around after rolling defeats the purpose; forcing a player who gets miserable rolls to play alongside players with multiple 18s is a bad sign. Some people love having a detailed character backstory, developed personality, and L1-20 roadmap before the first session, and would hate having that messed with via random rolling; others want to develop a character over time and have more of the shape provided by external and random factors, and hate being forced to choose a class or personality. These are the players rolling on all those personality tables in the PHB. There's nothing about finding that enjoyable that is innately stupid. I just wanted to thank you for posting this. I realise that 2nd edition, which I played extensively, was a different beast than later editions since only extreme scores had an impact. My group used a ludicrously complicated stat-rolling system that I've long since forgotten, but we enjoyed having characters with high or low scores in unusual places. As an example, we once had a Transmuter character with very high Int but also Cha. He was a typical "focus on the magic" academic-type wizard, but he was also incredibly hansom and charming and popular with women without trying, so for giggles in game female NPCs would flirt with his oblivious self or give him information and such. There are some people in the world who are strong and/or tough and/or quick but also learned and/or insightful and/or magnetic, and it was nice to have those types of situations happen in aid of the story.
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May 18, 2019 17:00
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Gharbad the Weak posted:Critical failures: Roll a 1, something extremely bad happens. Fighters can roll more attacks, so as they level, they are more likely to critically fail. Wizards cause OTHER people to roll, so they are unlikely to critically fail anything. Man, 100x this. I had the misfortune of playing a monk in a campaign with a DM who had this, along with a special critical failure table and everything (which was thankfully not horribly punitive when it could have been much much worse). I was rolling twice as many d20s as everyone else so I rolled on that table WAY more often than anyone else. It happened. A lot.
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May 18, 2019 17:08
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Last time I played a ranger, I would either fall on my rear end, lose the grip of my sword and send it flying, or bury it in a door frame and miss an attack, etc if I rolled a 1. It was actually kind of hilarious, but if were making 6 attacks as a fighter and kept loving up, I could see how it would be more annoying.
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May 18, 2019 17:12
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I love all the discussion of the new book in this DnD thread
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May 18, 2019 17:14
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RC Cola posted:I love all the discussion of the new book in this DnD thread Well, all of us are talking about things involving 5e, but was there something about the new book you wanted to add?
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May 18, 2019 17:21
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Trojan Kaiju posted:Sometimes I will exaggerate the effects of a crit or crit miss a bit for the flair, but it's on a case by case basis and flavor first and foremost. I certainly won't make a player lose a limb without some setup (we do have a coup de grace system, as well), but a mook can lose a limb they aren't currently using. The rules aren't the same for PCs and mooks. This is exactly how to do it. Critical successes and failures are good opportunities for narrative, but that narrative shouldn't be seizing agency from players or heavily penalizing them. The idea of DM saying "critical fail, you cut your buddies arm off lol" is just hosed up, and it's precisely the kind of adversarial behavior that should be avoided. The DM should be the lead storyteller, not the king of the hill.
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May 18, 2019 17:23
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Marathanes posted:Wow yeah, a lot of those sound really nasty and dumb. The point I always think with crit fails is that the 1/20 chance of a complete whiff against even an unconscious dude you're stabbing to death... IS the penalty for missing. DESCRIBE that miss in interesting ways - I missed because (or and) my sword got stuck in a curio and I had to spend the attack wrenching it out - but THAT attack was the one I spent loving about, not the next one. Crit fails bother the hell out of me because if my character is good enough at swording to successfully sword greater demons of hell who are actively trying to kill them right now... they shouldn't have a 5% chance of stabbing themself in the thigh every time they attack. And it also penalises multiple attacks much mroe heavily, so it gets WORSE, not better, as characters improve in 5e. DOn't do crit fails. Rolled stats bug me, but if the DM is flexible and willing to work with point buy or array instead if the player wants, or just arbitrarily undo poo poo rolls, then that's fine. If it were me running it and I rteally wanted to be Full Random, I'd just use and array and roll for the order of assignment of the numbers.
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May 18, 2019 17:29
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RC Cola posted:I love all the discussion of the new book in this DnD thread We don't know too much about it. Though the D&D Beyond Youtube page has some interviews about some of it's details. A couple of details I saw that are fairly interesting. -If the characters want it's possible for them to become warlords and take over their own chunk of Avernus. -The characters will be able to get their own Infernal tank, the issue is that it is powered by soul coins, and while these souls are likely evil, the machine burns the soul out and destroys it over time. (One coin does power the tank for a while.) So that might be a bit of a moral dilemma. -A Hollyphant can become a companion to the characters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollyphant - The Demon Lord Kostchtchie is leading a demon assault on Avernus at roughly the same time. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 18:03 on May 18, 2019 |
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May 18, 2019 17:52
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I've played D&D with close to 100 people over the years. I've found that people really like stat rolling seem to be the ones that 'miraculously' roll well. Honestly the worst part of rolling stats isn't that you'll get a 'bad' character, it's that you'll get a thoroughly mediocre character in a team of people who can reliably set out to do what they say they can do. I'm not saying everyone who rolls cheats. I'm saying if you like rolling you haven't experienced the lovely part of rolling for stats, and the lovely part is not nessecarily just rolling bad stats.
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May 18, 2019 18:13
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So the new book. I am unclear what you would even be fighting between levels 1-3 while in not-Hell. It just feels like to me you shouldn't be going to Avernus or Abyss without first being level 13 or so, not going in at 1st or so and then ending the game at level 13.
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May 18, 2019 18:17
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Ryuujin posted:So the new book. I am unclear what you would even be fighting between levels 1-3 while in not-Hell. It just feels like to me you shouldn't be going to Avernus or Abyss without first being level 13 or so, not going in at 1st or so and then ending the game at level 13. It sounds like things start in Baldur's Gate, then goes to Elturel, then to Hell. They have you in Hell from level 4 or so onwards. There are things to kill (lemures are CR0, imps CR1, redcap minions of a nighthag are mentioned, demons like CR1/8th manes will probably invade, etc). But it doesn't sound like fighting is the focus. A lot of the interviews focus on how devils don't want to actually kill you, they want to talk (and bargain for your soul). You can make pacts with them for increased gear/levels/help/whatever, with consequences. If you are on 2 failed death saves, an archdevil telepathically offers to let you crit the last one (so you heal), with consequences. Everything about this sounds amazing.
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May 18, 2019 18:24
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I'm jazzed for the book. One of my players made a pact with Asmodeus to get two years of life after being killed by a falling full chamber pot in exchange for serving in the devil army and this will line up really well with either trying to get out of it or, if the clock runs out before then, having a rescue mission to hell.
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May 18, 2019 18:32
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Conspiratiorist posted:It's a real riot to completely break verisimilitude and consistency within the rules 1 out of 20 times someone rolls a dice, yes. So many wacky stories. You sound like a real riot and enjoyable person to play this game with
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May 18, 2019 18:41
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Speaking of losing a limb, this happened at my game last week: A Monk was making a Medicine check on himself at 1HP. He crit-failed it. He rolled 1d4 for damage, which put him at negative, and he had to roll on the death & dismemberment chart (I use this instead of death saves, and rolling the same result twice or crit-failing this roll kills you). He rolled "you lose your right arm at the elbow". Made him make a Wisdom Save to see if he had the balls to go through with it. This happened:  Rolling stats is also fun. Do 4d6 drop the lowest, and offer Standard Array if they aren't happy with it. Another hilarious time, D&D chart, my player is scared of the result. He rolls an entry that asks him to roll a d6. He lands on 4. "You lose 4 fingers on your left hand". He shrieks, "What if I rolled a 6?!" ... "Well, that's just your thumb". D&D charts are fun, man. Firstborn fucked around with this message at 18:52 on May 18, 2019 |
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May 18, 2019 18:47
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Firstborn posted:Speaking of losing a limb, this happened at my game last week: That's hilarious. Do you also make them start over at level 1 if they want to play something other than their now-crippled characters?
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May 18, 2019 18:55
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Conspiratiorist posted:It's a real riot to completely break verisimilitude and consistency within the rules 1 out of 20 times someone rolls a dice, yes. So many wacky stories. Verisimilitude is boring. Consistency is somewhat important but the point of the game is to produce fun, not consistency. E.g who cares if there's no way you could reach the chandelier with your base jumping distance? Swinging off chandeliers is cool!
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May 18, 2019 19:13
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I don't like randomness in character generation so I prefer point buy or the standard array (which is a valid point buy choice anyway) but I'll let players roll if they really want. And not to be a jerk about it, but I prefer players to roll in front of me because I've seen many people show up with several 18s that they totally rolled.
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May 18, 2019 19:22
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Conspiratiorist posted:That's hilarious. Do you also make them start over at level 1 if they want to play something other than their now-crippled characters? Nah. They all have back-up characters made, and I'm toying with the idea of either coming in with like 3/4ths of their current char's experience points or just party level. Nobody has actually died yet, and even the guy with one arm now wants to find a magic arm. We're playing Curse of Strahd, so I'm already stewing a couple of options. Considering having the character bitten by a werewolf to regenerate, then a quest to cure him. BattleMaster posted:I don't like randomness in character generation so I prefer point buy or the standard array (which is a valid point buy choice anyway) but I'll let players roll if they really want. And not to be a jerk about it, but I prefer players to roll in front of me because I've seen many people show up with several 18s that they totally rolled. Get some loaded d6s Weird I got 18 in every stat.. weird. Oh well I'll put these dice away now Firstborn fucked around with this message at 19:39 on May 18, 2019 |
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May 18, 2019 19:35
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Mendrian posted:I've played D&D with close to 100 people over the years. I've never had anyone cheat at rolling stats in my time, and I've definitely gotten bad rolls many times. It's why if a game says it's going to have rolled stats, I will wait until I roll to pick a class. Getting amazing stat rolls and 4 rolls of 16-18 and being able to make a MAD build awesome is a really cool feeling. And if I roll bad and get a single 14 and everything else 8-12, I can still play a wizard and be the most important party member by having access to magic and using spells. I played in a 5e gsme from 1 to 11 where my stats were 6 str, 12 dex, 12 con, 9 wis, 15 int, 7 charisma at level 1, after racial bonuses Meanwhile our barbarian rolled two 18s and a 16. And started with 20 strength, 20 con, 16 dex (as well as 9 int, 13 wis, and 10 charisma. He was a mountain dwarf). Our paladin had an 18, a 17, and two 15s. Etc etc. I still got told more times 'thanks for getting us our of that' despite my thoroughly mediocre stat rolls, by having things like haste, feather fall, teleportation stuff, alarm, the rituals for making houses, my flyby familiar, etc. Yeah, you cant play an effective fighter with a stat roll of 6/11/12/9/13/7. So dont play a fighter. Stating that random stats are the worst thing and the end of the world is weird.
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May 18, 2019 19:41
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What if you don't like playing wizards? I mean besides going the 'oopsie' route with your poo poo chars until you get a good attribute spread.
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May 18, 2019 19:44
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Conspiratiorist posted:What if you don't like playing wizards? I get what you're saying. I really want to like DCC because of it's old-school approach, but I never get the character I want. 3d6 in order is classic but also kind of trash if you end up with a character completely different than what you want to play. DCC also makes you roll a random race and beginning class combo which sucks. At least let your players arrange their stats, or even cop out and tell them they can have like a 16~ in whatever they want their prime attribute to be to avoid this. I've rolled completely terrible characters with no good stories to come out of them, but most rolls seem to be right around the standard array where it counts. I've also seen plenty of people with 18s who still have boring poo poo characters or still die just as easily as the others. I still say let your players 4d6 (drop lowest), arrange to taste. If they aren't happy with that either let them reroll once and take the better of the two sets, or offer standard array. It's just fun to roll. Unless it's not, then don't do that.
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May 18, 2019 19:49
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