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CottonWolf posted:My colleages are very set on D&D unfortunately and they're heavy boardgamers, so if they'd wanted munchkin, I'd imagine they'd just have suggested that. So I guess I'll play it by ear regarding the rules, we'll see how it goes. Dragon of Icespire Peak sounds like it could be a good option, and I can ask what kind of character they want to play and role them all up some reasonable characters beforehand. Well if they're heavy boardgamers then that will probably be just fine. For a one-off like this the key is just to avoid offering too many choices and causing decision paralysis. Just keep the game moving and remember that if you're not sure of something then just make a call that seems reasonable and let the table know that you'll take a look at the rulebooks after the game.
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Jul 13, 2019 19:53
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We're about 3 sessions into our campaign, all level 2. We get surrounded in a house and might, just maybe, be able to use chokepoints to not get a complete TPK. The "chaotic neutral" character decides to back into a small room and do nothing the entire time. Except for when I (sorcerer) has to fall back into the room. Then he proceeds to stab me in the back and attempt to knock me out over a few turns while all hell breaks loose and the others escape from the house. He eventually knocks me out. When the bad guys get to the room, they knock him out. DM rolls the dice, the bad guys stating "we only need to capture one." Mr. "Chaotic Neutral" gets his throat slit, and I get captured. Every party has to have one, I guess. 
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Jul 13, 2019 22:25
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Internet Explorer posted:We're about 3 sessions into our campaign, all level 2. We get surrounded in a house and might, just maybe, be able to use chokepoints to not get a complete TPK. Haha awesome
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Jul 13, 2019 22:51
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Internet Explorer posted:We're about 3 sessions into our campaign, all level 2. We get surrounded in a house and might, just maybe, be able to use chokepoints to not get a complete TPK. How in the gently caress do people play D&D like this...
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Jul 13, 2019 23:19
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Internet Explorer posted:We're about 3 sessions into our campaign, all level 2. We get surrounded in a house and might, just maybe, be able to use chokepoints to not get a complete TPK.
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Jul 13, 2019 23:30
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Well, you see, they were chaotic neutral and that's what chaotic neutral is. I assumed the play was to somehow side with the cultists? It's like, guy, the DM isn't going to roll a whole separate campaign just for you.
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Jul 13, 2019 23:33
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I'm guessing it was a "save your own skin" type of move. Thing is, you pull those at the end of a fight, not the start. Also I'm sure the DM "rolled" those dice, heh.
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Jul 13, 2019 23:42
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Nehru the Damaja posted:We're level 4 and we had a delightful dinner with Strahd and got hosed up. Rest of party is two-hander Eldritch Knight, dreams druid who struggles with mechanics, wild magic sorcerer with apocalyptically bad stat rolls, and divine soul sorcerer. You got hosed up on a dinner he invited you to? Edit: ah, I just read that wild sorc hosed you up somehow. rip. Still, try to get out of the castle dex_sda fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Jul 14, 2019 |
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Jul 14, 2019 01:10
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You know what you guys? I always thought I'd have fun playing dnd and at the ripe old age of 30, I had a lot of fun
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Jul 14, 2019 02:32
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Narsham posted:Not interested in having the "here's why a campaign might want to roll stats" conversation over again, but here's a few observations: not every campaign is designed and run expecting PCs will be of equivalent power and effectiveness. Not every player wants to play a character who is balanced at the same power level as the rest of the group. (I know of several 2E campaigns where new PCs came in at 1st level, even though established PCs were in the 9th-12th level range. 5E is considerably more forgiving in that regard than 2E was.) You're describing power imbalances and level disparities in the party as if they can somehow create fun unexpected chaotic options, but the reality of this system is that all it means is the players playing the weaker or lower level characters won't get to do as many things as the others whenever they actually engage with the ruleset. Any interesting situations created by power imbalances would almost entirely be narrative-based, with the only possible exception being if you consider everyone having to form a perimeter around the weaker characters in every fight "interesting". "You missed, again" isn't chaotic, it's loving boring.
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Jul 14, 2019 04:55
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on the flip having less than optimal stats is only really going to hurt you by making your rolls 1-2 less then the prime stuff you're not wrong, but 5e is also a game where, say, a dwarf wizard and be side by side with a fighter and still be about as effective on the frontlines until the fighter as a class starts picking up their traits, stats aren't going to break the balance of things
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Jul 14, 2019 06:13
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Splicer posted:Please relate their lolwacky justification for this I actually played something very similar. Because the DM passed me a note that my character had been murdered in his sleep by a doppelganger and i was now playing the killer. This was before BG btw, but I assume there was some novel or something, because that same DM had a thing for Kaz the Minotaur
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Jul 14, 2019 09:46
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Gamerofthegame posted:on the flip having less than optimal stats is only really going to hurt you by making your rolls 1-2 less then the prime stuff That’s a big deal in a system based around bounded accuracy and binary success / failure.
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Jul 14, 2019 10:12
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We do roll 4d6, reroll 1’s and drop the lowest dice, for each stat. It makes our characters a little bit beefier than average, but the DM does a fine job of compensating for it.
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Jul 14, 2019 11:03
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We roll 4d6 drop the lowest and 4d6 drop the highest in pairs, and then average the pairs alternately rounding up and down, 8 times, then drop the highest and lowest number, enough to make the number of characters the group will require, five times. Then we pool those scores on individual paper chits and place those into a covered bowl, and each player draws out 32 chits and is allowed to keep certain chits according to the following system. If at any point you can't follow the system below, replace and redraw all your chits. Once you have your scores, return all your chits to the covered bowl. Retain: One chit with a score that's equal to one less than half of the maximum number of chits you can draw at once. One chit that contains a number that's equal to exactly half of the number on the previous chit, rounded up. One chit with a value equal to half the value displayed on the previous chit, multiplied by three, plus the number of chits retained previous to this chit but not including this chit. One chit displaying a figure that's equal to the figure on the previous chit minus the number of steps you will have performed at the end of this step. One chit with the value of the previous chit if the value of the previous chit was higher by the number of steps you had performed at the end of the step prior to the step that first uses the word "value". One chit showing the number that's equal to exactly thirteen with no modifiers. It creates characters that are extremely bad and wrong, but our exceptionally good DM cancels that out so the game is the average amount of fun. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 12:59 on Jul 14, 2019 |
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Jul 14, 2019 12:49
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Just give everyone 26 in every stat for optimal fun.
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Jul 14, 2019 14:34
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I'm just happy to see the word "chit" a whole lot
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Jul 14, 2019 14:59
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Gharbad the Weak posted:I'm just happy to see the word "chit" a whole lot Yeah it's good chit.
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Jul 14, 2019 15:00
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Lurdiak posted:You're describing power imbalances and level disparities in the party as if they can somehow create fun unexpected chaotic options, but the reality of this system is that all it means is the players playing the weaker or lower level characters won't get to do as many things as the others whenever they actually engage with the ruleset. Any interesting situations created by power imbalances would almost entirely be narrative-based, with the only possible exception being if you consider everyone having to form a perimeter around the weaker characters in every fight "interesting". But surely the potential of rolling an "18" and starting with a "20" in a stat makes the game more fun by that logic, for the people who now start out with a +7 to hit instead of a +5. It assumes a bunch of other things, too, but it really illustrates that you're playing the wrong system. You want something diceless. Because your stats can be whatever you want but your d20 rolls can go cold and suddenly you're "bored." I suspect that really, you haven't played in enough different kinds of campaigns to have a sense of what is possible within the system. There's been conversations in-thread about playing an effective caster with a low casting stat. The assumption that a game system only supports actions for which rules exist is fairly widespread here, but untrue: 5e has an inconsistent philosophy for such things, but the original system erred in favor of detailed combat rules and "figure it out yourself" otherwise. Was it more fun when diplomacy involved interactions in-character with the DM deciding what happens based on what is said, or when the game created a skill requiring you to roll "Diplomacy" to determine the outcome? Wasn't it less fun when my Cha 8 dwarf fighter made a compelling in-character argument but missed his untrained Diplomacy DC (which he always did)? By your reasoning, not having a system or a roll involved is more fun because you can actually play the game, and I'd largely agree, but disagree that failure is necessarily boring. The level-based differences? That campaign was actually sensible in that the evil overlord had flunkies with him. It may not be as heroic for your L2 cleric to engage the Hobgoblin servants while the main group attacks the evil high priest, but it is still fun. And every so often you get to do something insanely dangerous like run up and provide a flank/aid another for the EHP, forcing him to decide between wasting an action on you or ignoring you. I wouldn't generally run such a game myself, but "fun" and rolling higher numbers need not be related. (The most fun I've ever seen someone have in-game involved playing the high-level wizard's familiar!) To return to your broader point, which is that doing nothing in combat sucks and combat takes up most of the playtime, so being 5-10% less likely to hit sucks: do you advocate banning magic weapons? Or expect that a whole party gets +1 or +2 weapons at the same time? Because otherwise giving one character a +2 sword has a similar effect systemically to stat rolling. What about the inherent fun advantage spellcasters get in the combat system as they level? Why is stat rolling the single "bridge too far?" If your fun relies on minimum stat scores, just set them as a floor and allow for a fighter who is strong and charismatic without having a low Con or dumping his Int score. I've seen lots of inexperienced players make suboptimal stat decisions which could be avoided that way, too.
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Jul 14, 2019 15:17
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If character balance doesn't matter and disparity introduces fun situations then is it fine if a player wants to start at level 10 while the rest of the party is at 1? Or play a dragon?
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Jul 14, 2019 15:39
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Narsham posted:Not interested in having the "here's why a campaign might want to roll stats" conversation over again. Narsham posted:But surely the potential of rolling an "18" and starting with a "20" in a stat makes the game more fun by that logic, for the people who now start out with a +7 to hit instead of a +5. It assumes a bunch of other things, too, but it really illustrates that you're playing the wrong system. You want something diceless. Because your stats can be whatever you want but your d20 rolls can go cold and suddenly you're "bored." You're wrong on every level.
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Jul 14, 2019 16:12
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Kaysette posted:How in the gently caress do people play D&D like this... Nerd social fallacies. If we accept gatekeeping is a thing than crushing anyones creativity is gatekeeping.
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Jul 14, 2019 16:58
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Open Marriage Night posted:We do roll 4d6, reroll 1’s and drop the lowest dice, for each stat. It makes our characters a little bit beefier than average, but the DM does a fine job of compensating for it. My suggestion for rolling stats is basically, generate them however you want, but have each player roll two arrays. Then total up the ability modifiers for each array. Since the point buy adds up to a +5 mod (and you probably want higher than that, but not too high) don't use any array that adds up to less than +6 or more than +10 -- but otherwise they're free to choose between the two arrays they generate. If both arrays fall outside of that range, then reroll both -- but most of the time, one of the two arrays should be suitable. If you get a +6 total but consisted entirely of +1s, you should allow that to be rerolled. As for actual rolling method, my preference is "roll 3d6, count 1s as 6" aka "add +5 for each 1 rolled" Fun Bonus Mechanics: If you roll "three of a kind" on any stat, treat that as an 18 (unless that bumps you above the +10 cutoff) If both arrays result in +6 or less, increase all stats by 1.
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Jul 14, 2019 17:20
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Elector_Nerdlingen posted:We roll 4d6 drop the lowest and 4d6 drop the highest in pairs, and then average the pairs alternately rounding up and down, 8 times, then drop the highest and lowest number, enough to make the number of characters the group will require, five times. Then we pool those scores on individual paper chits and place those into a covered bowl, and each player draws out 32 chits and is allowed to keep certain chits according to the following system. If at any point you can't follow the system below, replace and redraw all your chits. Once you have your scores, return all your chits to the covered bowl. Same.
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Jul 14, 2019 17:40
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Guy A. Person posted:If character balance doesn't matter and disparity introduces fun situations then is it fine if a player wants to start at level 10 while the rest of the party is at 1? Or play a dragon? 1000% agreed. Also if someone thinks it's fun to play a weak character, they're welcome to just spread out their stats or refuse to level up or whatever. No one is forcing them to be the center of attention. But it should be a choice, not a permanent outcome from a handful of dice rolls.
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Jul 14, 2019 17:46
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Reading and playing a bunch of PbtA games over the past few years opened my eyes to a bunch of dumb things D&D does or things the system doesn’t support well. The Mundane playbook in Monster of the Week is a great example of a “weak” character that has roughly equal narrative and gameplay power as the other playbooks. If you want weak PCs to be a part of your system, you need to design a way for them to still have an impact. D&D doesn’t do this but people love trying it anyway.
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Jul 14, 2019 18:07
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Kaysette posted:Reading and playing a bunch of PbtA games over the past few years opened my eyes to a bunch of dumb things D&D does or things the system doesn’t support well. The Mundane playbook in Monster of the Week is a great example of a “weak” character that has roughly equal narrative and gameplay power as the other playbooks. If you want weak PCs to be a part of your system, you need to design a way for them to still have an impact. D&D doesn’t do this but people love trying it anyway. The Mundane in my Monster of the Week game is possibly/probably the most powerful person in the party. He doesn't fight well, but he cracks mysteries wide open by literally stumbling over things. Then he found God and now can instantly teleport out of whatever danger he gets himself into for free XP. And yeah, you could do a weak PC but it would need to be significantly different. Something like three halflings in a trenchcoat, break the game in a bunch of unusual rules ways. The thing is that D&D is a wargame, not a roleplaying game, so roleplaying-based solutions poorly fit the rest of the system.
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Jul 14, 2019 18:10
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sweet thursday posted:You know what you guys? I always thought I'd have fun playing dnd and at the ripe old age of 30, I had a lot of fun This is the good poo poo I like to hear.
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Jul 14, 2019 19:35
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Narsham posted:But surely the potential of rolling an "18" and starting with a "20" in a stat makes the game more fun by that logic, for the people who now start out with a +7 to hit instead of a +5. It assumes a bunch of other things, too, but it really illustrates that you're playing the wrong system. You want something diceless. Because your stats can be whatever you want but your d20 rolls can go cold and suddenly you're "bored." I don't think the argument against rolling for stats is that it's not an optimal decision, it's that it makes individual members within the group less mechanically effective than others. Ultimately I don't like rolling for stats because I prefer to have control over as many aspects of my character as I can and if I wanted to play a character less powerful than the rest of the party that would be a choice I'd consciously make in character creation, not one I'd want imposed on me by a random roll of the dice. If the entire party is a bunch of chucklefucks who miss all the time that's one thing, but if everyone in the party is mechanically competent except for Dave, that game isn't going to be a lot of fun for Dave...
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Jul 14, 2019 21:35
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A lot of the tricks for increasing the probability of rolling good numbers with a small sample just make me think you may as well forget that and use point buy or a standard array to get the average you want. When you add so many conditions for rerolling and dropping it's sort of like you just are selecting for desired values to begin with edit: cool grammar BattleMaster fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Jul 14, 2019 |
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Jul 14, 2019 21:58
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Yeah. Like I've seen people make the case that they don't like point buy because they think it's too low and it's fun to be able to roll higher, but uh... just raise the number of points you get and make the cap 16 or 17 instead of 15?
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Jul 14, 2019 21:59
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I like rolling less for main stats and more for the average higher usually non-taken stats. It's nice to be able to slot 14 into charisma on a fighter because you already had a 18 in strength and a good roll in con. Point buy bonuses doesnt work for this. My experience with 30 point buy is everyone puts their two main stats to 18 post racial, and then still has 8-12 in tertiary and beyond.
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Jul 14, 2019 22:06
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I have some kind of brain block where no matter how many points I have I won't put Con above 14 on anything It's so boring - but it helps me save points to have weird tertiary stat bonuses
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Jul 14, 2019 22:17
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KittyEmpress posted:I like rolling less for main stats and more for the average higher usually non-taken stats. It's nice to be able to slot 14 into charisma on a fighter because you already had a 18 in strength and a good roll in con. Use an array with like, a 16, a 15, and a 14. Problem solved.
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Jul 14, 2019 22:53
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I do feel like every character ought to suck at something stats-wise, just like every character ought to have some way to get spotlight time. You just don't want everyone in your party to be dumping STR, or treating low CHA as an excuse to murderhobo.
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Jul 14, 2019 23:05
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Mendrian posted:Use an array with like, a 16, a 15, and a 14. Problem solved. yeah, my basic recommendation for 5e is to take the standard array and then raise all the numbers by 1.
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Jul 15, 2019 00:45
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arrays are the way to go. nobody feels like they got hosed over by luck, no tiresome point buy business.
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Jul 15, 2019 00:48
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I do feel like every character ought to suck at something stats-wise, just like every character ought to have some way to get spotlight time. You just don't want everyone in your party to be dumping STR, or treating low CHA as an excuse to murderhobo. Yeah same. One of the less known improvements about point buy is that it gives lower stats than rolling does - which is an improvement because it ensures that characters have both strengths and weaknesses. If the whole party is good at several main stats then no one is special, and there's no real opportunity for failure.
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Jul 15, 2019 01:45
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Guy A. Person posted:If character balance doesn't matter and disparity introduces fun situations then is it fine if a player wants to start at level 10 while the rest of the party is at 1? Or play a dragon? Disparity, imbalance, and randomisation aren't inherently fun. They're fun for some people when they think they might get an advantage out of it. Randomisation isn't inherently fun. You'll get no takers if the best possible random result is the nonrandom result. Nobody's rolling for hit points because random is cool if the other option is the maximum result. Offer the choice of starting at level 4, or rolling 1d4 for their starting level, and nobody's gonna be rolling. Imbalance isn't inherently fun. Say "everyone take a standard array and lower any stat you want, however far you like, no you don't get to raise anything, just lower", nobody's gonna lower anything. Offer a choice of 3 arrays. 18, 16, 14, 14, 12, 10 // 12, 12, 10, 10, 8, 6 // 10, 10, 9, 8, 6, 4. If imbalance is fun just because it's imbalanced, you should get an even spread of those arrays. Disparity isn't inherently fun. When a new player joins the group, tell the other players that the new character will start at half their level because that's the house rule. Watch their faces. Then tell them that oops, you hosed up, the house rule is really that the new player will start at double their level. Did their faces change? juggalo baby coffin posted:arrays are the way to go. nobody feels like they got hosed over by luck, no tiresome point buy business. Make up four fair arrays, let people choose one or roll for which one they get. Everyone should be happy with that - there's an option to select if having a specific set is important to you, and there's an option to randomise if you feel that's more fun. It's probably not complicated enough to hide the fact that it's fair though. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 02:19 on Jul 15, 2019 |
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Jul 15, 2019 02:09
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juggalo baby coffin posted:arrays are the way to go. nobody feels like they got hosed over by luck, no tiresome point buy business. I have everyone roll arrays, then the table picks one from the results, and my addition is the standard array. Rolling dice is fun, and this lets everyone have fun, plus keeps things even among the players.
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Jul 15, 2019 02:10
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