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Name Change
Oct 9, 2005


Splicer posted:

Just lol at playing D&D over almost any system for low monsters low magic.

Reign would make a good GoT base tbh

Yeah, D&D is only good at being what it is. It is not a multitool that can plug into just anything without a lot being shorn off or clamped onto the sides that probably won't gel nicely.

It's 2019, we're now a couple of decades into a digital revolution. People should try other games, or at least go shop for one that meets their needs.

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Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


How is she gonna drink that beer with those tusks? The real reason not to play monster races.

Glagha
Oct 13, 2008

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAaaAAAaaAAaAA
AAAAAAAaAAAAAaaAAA
AAAA
AaAAaaA
AAaaAAAAaaaAAAAAAA
AaaAaaAAAaaaaaAA

For sure there monstrous races are gonna get some poo poo. Hell, the block about Tieflings even say that people are superstitious about devil people with horns n poo poo walking around town. I feel like an orc coming into town be the kind of thing that might cause some drama because people know what orcs are and what they do usually but if they've got someone to vouch for them it should be fine.

change my name
Aug 27, 2007

Legends die but anime is forever.

RIP The Lost Otakus.

Glagha posted:

For sure there monstrous races are gonna get some poo poo. Hell, the block about Tieflings even say that people are superstitious about devil people with horns n poo poo walking around town. I feel like an orc coming into town be the kind of thing that might cause some drama because people know what orcs are and what they do usually but if they've got someone to vouch for them it should be fine.

Our party consists of a drow, tiefling, dragonborn, and a high elf. The campaign is really metropolitan so it’s not a big issue apart from getting eggs thrown at them one time, but I guess it also depends on how much your DM wants to roleplay racism? That doesn’t super seem like something I want to do every few weeks.

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Glagha posted:

For sure there monstrous races are gonna get some poo poo. Hell, the block about Tieflings even say that people are superstitious about devil people with horns n poo poo walking around town. I feel like an orc coming into town be the kind of thing that might cause some drama because people know what orcs are and what they do usually
Drink beer and call people "my tiny companion" but not in a derogatory way?

Transmogrifier
Dec 10, 2004


Systems at max!

Lipstick Apathy

Azhais posted:

If you're making a lot of maps and plan on paying money for a tool, wonderdraft is also amazing:

https://www.wonderdraft.net/

/r/wonderdraft has tons of extra map elements people have created for free as well

I just got this a few weeks ago, and yes, it is really awesome and nice. It has a lot of great features that Inkarnate doesn't, and it's a one time payment versus a subscription. Plus it's an actual application and you're not restricted to using a browser. It's worth the $30. You can get a lot of assets for it from Cartography Assets.

Kung Food posted:

I wish there was something like this for battle maps (He says in the hopes of someone coming in with a 'well actually.')

Well actually, Arkenforge might be what you're looking for. I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. It's more of a Dungeon Master toolkit but battle maps is one of the features.

kingcom
Jun 23, 2012

juggalo baby coffin posted:

i was replying to the thing that said 'in most d&d settings'. so eberron, faerun, greyhawk, etc

I mean in eberron a weird mix of crazy adventurer races isn't much of an unusual sight. I mean with Droam being a thing people are way more worried about having the medusa diplomat showing up to a negotiation than the gnoll trying to swill booze at the bar.

Glagha
Oct 13, 2008

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAaaAAAaaAAaAA
AAAAAAAaAAAAAaaAAA
AAAA
AaAAaaA
AAaaAAAAaaaAAAAAAA
AaaAaaAAAaaaaaAA

Eberron is definitely the exception where no one's gonna look twice regardless of how many eyes, tusks, and horns you have. And yeah, bringing up prejudice towards someone's character all the time would get exhausting and awful, but I feel like adventure type people are just going to be often weirdos and maybe people are used to that. When a group of 4 to 6 armed strangers roll into town looking for questworthy mountains, you get used to when one of them is a bird person or something.

What I'm saying is I like it when people play weird creatures in RPGs and make it a thing. Lean into it a little. "Yeah I'm a cat that of it?"

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe
I always generally assumed that people were too scared of the heavily-armed freaks (and the suspiciously unarmed one in the bathrobe) to make a big deal out of it. Maybe they're adventurers, maybe they're heroes...maybe they're bandits. A smart farmer keeps their mouth shut unless they're being asked for directions.

Dienes
Nov 4, 2009

dee
doot doot dee
doot doot doot
doot doot dee
dee doot doot
doot doot dee
dee doot doot


College Slice

Glagha posted:

Eberron is definitely the exception where no one's gonna look twice regardless of how many eyes, tusks, and horns you have. And yeah, bringing up prejudice towards someone's character all the time would get exhausting and awful, but I feel like adventure type people are just going to be often weirdos and maybe people are used to that. When a group of 4 to 6 armed strangers roll into town looking for questworthy mountains, you get used to when one of them is a bird person or something.

What I'm saying is I like it when people play weird creatures in RPGs and make it a thing. Lean into it a little. "Yeah I'm a cat that of it?"

Ravnica would be another good setting choice if you want a monster party.

Narsham
Jun 5, 2008
I mentioned drafting a modular class system for 5E a while ago (as a reminder, one of my players kept bugging me to do it, I didn't one day wake up and say 5E was a good system for something like this). I've added what I think is enough explanatory text to release the system to the thread for tearing apart, if anyone has an interest in doing so. Characters built under this system will be somewhat more powerful than usual 5E characters but it's also possible to design something that is virtually unplayable in a bad way, so it's as much an experimental toolbox or a thought experiment as anything. For example, you could build a character with 8+ feats pretty easily. I only used PHB/DMG/Xanatar's as the baseline rules, so something else might break the system. And archetypes still stand outside of it, although without classes you can pick one archetype and match it with any mix of abilities you want, theoretically including dumb things like Master of the Five Elements plus not having any Ki points. This does mean that good archetypes remain better than bad ones, although there's a bit of balancing across archetypes. (Some of these values are probably off: cleric archetypes should cost more because you can get them at L1 with weapon and armor proficiencies bundled into them, but bard archetypes are a mix of terrible and good so giving a one build point discount for taking one might not balance as well.)

Character design rules and L1 abilities (.docx file):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kf1dc0t8etiif8w/modular5Edraftrules.docx?dl=0

Spreadsheet with all purchasable abilities post-character creation (.xlsx file):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sgp25x9hfl7538i/modularabilities.xlsx?dl=0

The spreadsheet has some notes on abilities I suspect need cost adjustments. I expect there's some broken builds to create with this system.

The process of creating it may be more interesting than the result: It will surprise few in the thread that when I tried to reverse-engineer the classes in terms of abilities, I was unable to see much reasoning beyond trying to throw the non-casting classes a few new things every level regardless of how useful they are. When I instead gave largely arbitrary values to class abilities and then tried constructing the actual classes, I found a few interesting imbalances: clerics, in particular, get lots of abilities on top of their full spellcasting, and fighters are far behind all the other classes (8 build points in a system that starts you with 14 + 2/level, so 52 BP over 20 levels, translating to fighters being 15% less powerful). That was with Extra Attack costing too much, and with a surcharge for the expanded ASIs. The draft system makes it very hard for full casters to do much more than have some starting abilities or feats and keep up with their spell progression; if you want almost anything else, you either give up the vital stat boosts or you delay your casting advancement. Conversely, half casters and martials have lots of choices. It's quite viable to just play a fighter-like martial but you'll have a bunch of extra feats, or sneak attack, or something else adding to what you can do.

There's several choices I made that could be good or really really dumb, like allowing several spellcasting types to pick between casting stats (so paladin casters can pick either Wisdom or Charisma, sorcerers can cast out of Intelligence instead of Charisma), or allowing Unarmored Defense with Dex and any other stat. The former choice was just to create a little more caster stat diversity; the latter was mainly to avoid having lots of spellcasters walking around in heavy armor, and I'm thinking it should be based on the Monk version (can't use shields) instead of the Barbarian version if it sticks around at all.

Helpful feedback welcome, especially if someone wants to break the system with something ridiculously overpowered. I will say that I'm liking this system better than the 1-2 level multiclass dipping option 5E offers, but we're only to Level 9 right now and things may yet break down.

And just to get the joke out of the way, you can combine this system with rolled stats if you want to. I wouldn't recommend it, though, unless you put a cap on starting stats, because purchasable feats makes it pretty easy to get to 20 ahead of the expected curve if you're willing to stack a few feats that aren't too great otherwise.

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe
Gut reaction from reading the rules:
* Archetype cost should probably depend on the specific archetype chosen (e.g. some wizard archetypes are awful), but I guess that would require a gigantic table of costs.
* Class features -- if I purchase, say, Bardic Inspiration when I'm L5, do I immediately get a die increase and can I still get Superior Inspiration at L20? I.e. does when you buy the trait matter for built-in increases?
* I'm curious why you built Channel Divinity into the cleric spellcasting feature. Shouldn't it be part of choosing a cleric archetype instead?
* The example given for purchasing multiple levels in a class is confusing. "the player spends 2 build points to gain level 5 Ranger spellcasting and can also spend 0 additional points to go to level 6 Ranger spellcasting." Why do they spend 0 additional points? Shouldn't it be 1 additional point?

Otherwise, seems OK to me, in the sense that I'm pretty sure I understand the rules. I'm no good at theorycrafting though, so I can't tell you how badly busted it is. I will say that this seems like it could lead to a ton of analysis paralysis every levelup.

OgreNoah
Nov 18, 2003

My group is two Aasimars, a Tiefling, a Minotaur and Half-Orc. We're in Eberron. We haven't encountered any racism really, but there's kinda a feel that people still aren't super happy about Tieflings. However, we keep on having to kill were-people (rats and a baboon so far, probably more to come).

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you

OgreNoah posted:

My group is two Aasimars, a Tiefling, a Minotaur and Half-Orc. We're in Eberron. We haven't encountered any racism really, but there's kinda a feel that people still aren't super happy about Tieflings. However, we keep on having to kill were-people (rats and a baboon so far, probably more to come).

Oh yeah in Eberron there will be much less Racism. Tons of different humanoids hang around the bigger cities. Like the thing most people would think about an Ogre there is that they make good bouncers.

Gharbad the Weak
Feb 23, 2008

This too good for you.
Something that immediately annoys me, somewhat in line with "ok, dragons exist, people shouldn't panic over a dude with green skin"

In every roleplaying game, but especially video games, that features some kind of telepathy or some spirit that only one person can see, they immediately immediately assume hallucinations, instead of "eh, probably magic".

Maybe make fun of the dude for only having one-way telepathy

Kung Food
Dec 11, 2006

PORN WIZARD

Kaiser Schnitzel posted:

How is she gonna drink that beer with those tusks? The real reason not to play monster races.

Jonas Albrecht
Jun 7, 2012


Glagha posted:

What I'm saying is I like it when people play weird creatures in RPGs and make it a thing. Lean into it a little. "Yeah I'm a cat that of it?"

My girlfriend is playing a warforged in our Tomb of Annihilation game and it has been great source of in game moments. My favorite so far has been the Batiri mistaking her for Vorn and following her around as worshippers.

The Dregs
Dec 29, 2005

MY TREEEEEEEE!

Kung Food posted:

This website has a whole bunch of random generators, from character names to town descriptions.
https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/dnd-human-names.php

NPC generator
http://www.npcgenerator.com/

Kobold fight club to for help with encounter difficulty.
http://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder

Free* browser based map maker
https://inkarnate.com/

Free* General world building tools.
https://www.worldanvil.com/

*Lowest levels are free, but unlocking more and better tools is paid.

Been playing around with Inkarnate and I am enjoying it. Thank you.

Mr. Lobe
Feb 23, 2007

... Dry bones...


Jonas Albrecht posted:

My girlfriend is playing a warforged in our Tomb of Annihilation game and it has been great source of in game moments. My favorite so far has been the Batiri mistaking her for Vorn and following her around as worshippers.

Sounds like she knows how to answer when someone asks if you are a god.

Kaysette
Jan 5, 2009

~*Boston makes me*~
~*feel good*~

:wrongcity:

Jonas Albrecht posted:

My girlfriend is playing a warforged in our Tomb of Annihilation game and it has been great source of in game moments. My favorite so far has been the Batiri mistaking her for Vorn and following her around as worshippers.

I think I saw a Star War like that.

kingcom
Jun 23, 2012

MonsterEnvy posted:

Oh yeah in Eberron there will be much less Racism. Tons of different humanoids hang around the bigger cities. Like the thing most people would think about an Ogre there is that they make good bouncers.

Eberron, as a post war setting, is far more concerned about nationalism as its discrimination of the day, they don't care if you're an ogre, they more care if your one of their ogres.

clusterfuck
Feb 6, 2004


Narsham posted:

And archetypes still stand outside of it, although without classes you can pick one archetype and match it with any mix of abilities you want, theoretically including dumb things like Master of the Five Elements plus not having any Ki points. This does mean that good archetypes remain better than bad ones, although there's a bit of balancing across archetypes. (Some of these values are probably off: cleric archetypes should cost more because you can get them at L1 with weapon and armor proficiencies bundled into them, but bard archetypes are a mix of terrible and good so giving a one build point discount for taking one might not balance as well.)

Character design rules and L1 abilities (.docx file):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kf1dc0t8etiif8w/modular5Edraftrules.docx?dl=0

Spreadsheet with all purchasable abilities post-character creation (.xlsx file):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sgp25x9hfl7538i/modularabilities.xlsx?dl=0

I like this, it's a good framework but could you be explicit on why archetypes are not also mix and matchable? The examples I'm thinking of are Shadow Monk / Gloom Stalker & Beastmaster Ranger looking to pick up other 3rd level Ranger archetypal abilities at level 7 and 11 instead of the useless BM abilities(Gloom Stalker & Monster Hunter respectively). Is archetype mixing in the works? Is it just too OP any way you look at it?

I do like that my Shadow Monk can drop Deflect Missiles and pick up Cunning Action & Sneak Attack / Thieves Cant. However by level 6 I find I'm really paying for taking on Sneak Attack as I can't afford Slow Fall. Uncanny Dodge and choosing between Sneak Attack 2d6 or Stunning Strike is a fair trade though. Pushing Shadow Monk towards Rogue without losing Ki progression is a very good thing.

I think Saves should be as per first archetype choice or cost 1BP for each change. Too much DEX and WIS otherwise.
Maybe a dumb question but what are Simple+ weapons?
Can you explain the justification for Bards getting +2 BP for their archetype? Maybe expand on those BP choices for archetypes?

I agree that Extra Attack might be overpriced.

Lurdiak
Feb 26, 2006

I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people that do.


Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:

RAISED BY GHOSTS is one of those beautiful phrases that I'd never have written myself but drat. TFW your parents never teach you about doors.

KingKalamari
Aug 24, 2007

Fuzzy dice, bongos in the back
My ship of love is ready to attack
Just got through running a session 0 for Tomb of Annihilation and am super pleased with how things turned out!

I deliberately left the overall setting vague and described things in broad strokes to give the players a lot of free reign to fill in the blanks of the worldbuilding with their character backstories and I got some absolutely wonderful ideas to work with from everyone! We also tied the relationships of all the party members together quite nicely and, by swapping out Syndra Silwinter and getting the players to collaborate on creating a replacement NPC they all had a connection to, I think I've set the stage pretty well to have them invested in stopping the Death Curse.

I'm perplexed why the module thought it was a good idea to have Syldra just teleport the party directly to Port Nyanzaru at the start of the module since it means the party might never encounter the rad-rear end Turtle Dragon guardian in the harbor. The entire schtick of "A more powerful, high level NPC does part of the adventure for you and never explains why they can't just do the rest of it themselves" has the terrible stink of The Forgotten Realms all over it. I made sure to rectify that by having the questgiver ask the party to meet her in Port Nyanzaru.

mango sentinel
Jan 5, 2001

by sebmojo

kingcom posted:

Eberron, as a post war setting, is far more concerned about nationalism as its discrimination of the day, they don't care if you're an ogre, they more care if your one of their ogres.

While there's more diversity among humanoid races, most monstrous humanoids and intelligent monstrous races are still mostly relegated to Droaam and are isolated socially, geographically, and politically.

Saxophone
Sep 19, 2006


World Anvil looks really neat and like something I could get lost in.

Does anyone have any experience with it?

Ceros_X
Aug 6, 2006

U.S. Marine

Narsham posted:

I mentioned drafting a modular class system for 5E a while ago (as a reminder, one of my players kept bugging me to do it, I didn't one day wake up and say 5E was a good system for something like this). I've added what I think is enough explanatory text to release the system to the thread for tearing apart, if anyone has an interest in doing so. Characters built under this system will be somewhat more powerful than usual 5E characters but it's also possible to design something that is virtually unplayable in a bad way, so it's as much an experimental toolbox or a thought experiment as anything. For example, you could build a character with 8+ feats pretty easily. I only used PHB/DMG/Xanatar's as the baseline rules, so something else might break the system. And archetypes still stand outside of it, although without classes you can pick one archetype and match it with any mix of abilities you want, theoretically including dumb things like Master of the Five Elements plus not having any Ki points. This does mean that good archetypes remain better than bad ones, although there's a bit of balancing across archetypes. (Some of these values are probably off: cleric archetypes should cost more because you can get them at L1 with weapon and armor proficiencies bundled into them, but bard archetypes are a mix of terrible and good so giving a one build point discount for taking one might not balance as well.)

Character design rules and L1 abilities (.docx file):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kf1dc0t8etiif8w/modular5Edraftrules.docx?dl=0

Spreadsheet with all purchasable abilities post-character creation (.xlsx file):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sgp25x9hfl7538i/modularabilities.xlsx?dl=0

The spreadsheet has some notes on abilities I suspect need cost adjustments. I expect there's some broken builds to create with this system.

The process of creating it may be more interesting than the result: It will surprise few in the thread that when I tried to reverse-engineer the classes in terms of abilities, I was unable to see much reasoning beyond trying to throw the non-casting classes a few new things every level regardless of how useful they are. When I instead gave largely arbitrary values to class abilities and then tried constructing the actual classes, I found a few interesting imbalances: clerics, in particular, get lots of abilities on top of their full spellcasting, and fighters are far behind all the other classes (8 build points in a system that starts you with 14 + 2/level, so 52 BP over 20 levels, translating to fighters being 15% less powerful). That was with Extra Attack costing too much, and with a surcharge for the expanded ASIs. The draft system makes it very hard for full casters to do much more than have some starting abilities or feats and keep up with their spell progression; if you want almost anything else, you either give up the vital stat boosts or you delay your casting advancement. Conversely, half casters and martials have lots of choices. It's quite viable to just play a fighter-like martial but you'll have a bunch of extra feats, or sneak attack, or something else adding to what you can do.

There's several choices I made that could be good or really really dumb, like allowing several spellcasting types to pick between casting stats (so paladin casters can pick either Wisdom or Charisma, sorcerers can cast out of Intelligence instead of Charisma), or allowing Unarmored Defense with Dex and any other stat. The former choice was just to create a little more caster stat diversity; the latter was mainly to avoid having lots of spellcasters walking around in heavy armor, and I'm thinking it should be based on the Monk version (can't use shields) instead of the Barbarian version if it sticks around at all.

Helpful feedback welcome, especially if someone wants to break the system with something ridiculously overpowered. I will say that I'm liking this system better than the 1-2 level multiclass dipping option 5E offers, but we're only to Level 9 right now and things may yet break down.

And just to get the joke out of the way, you can combine this system with rolled stats if you want to. I wouldn't recommend it, though, unless you put a cap on starting stats, because purchasable feats makes it pretty easy to get to 20 ahead of the expected curve if you're willing to stack a few feats that aren't too great otherwise.

I think it'd be cool if magic could be broken down a bit more - what if I'm a sorcerer who wants to pick up the ability to learn spells from scrolls? Wizard who wants metamagic? Etc. Other than that I really like the concept but would like to mess around a bit before giving more feedback. I like the GURPs-like flexibility though!

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you
Keith Baker is making a new Eberron Book on the DM's Guild. It sounds like it's Planer Focused as Eberron's Planes never got super detailed.
http://keith-baker.com/announcing-project-raptor/

Cephas
May 11, 2009

Humanity's real enemy is me!
Hya hya foowah!
I want my puzzle pyramid dungeon to have a big scary orc mummy that the party has to try to avoid, or at least plan around facing. They are 6 level 4 characters with 2 familiars.

I was thinking of giving the mummy multiple turns per round to help balance the action economy. Would 2 turns per round or 3 would be better? Should he get to multi-attack on each of those turns? He'd be wielding a normal greataxe.

The idea would be that they could temporarily stun the mummy and continue solving the puzzles while trying to avoid him. Like a pyramid head or nemesis sort of enemy. Later on in the dungeon they would face an actual boss encounter.

siggy2021
Mar 8, 2010

Saxophone posted:

World Anvil looks really neat and like something I could get lost in.

Does anyone have any experience with it?

I like World Anvil enough that I bought the mid-tier year long subscription and backed their upcoming mapmaker, Project Deios. It's really just a fancy cloud hosted Wiki catered towards building Role-Playing/Fantasy novel worlds, but it was worth the cost over setting up something like Dokuwiki since it has a bunch of options pre-built out of the box, and they continue to improve things. Sometimes things get a little wonky, but I think that's partly me not using enough yet to grasp how things work and not putting together a decent workflow for myself.

Narsham
Jun 5, 2008

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

Gut reaction from reading the rules:
* Archetype cost should probably depend on the specific archetype chosen (e.g. some wizard archetypes are awful), but I guess that would require a gigantic table of costs.
* Class features -- if I purchase, say, Bardic Inspiration when I'm L5, do I immediately get a die increase and can I still get Superior Inspiration at L20? I.e. does when you buy the trait matter for built-in increases?
* I'm curious why you built Channel Divinity into the cleric spellcasting feature. Shouldn't it be part of choosing a cleric archetype instead?
* The example given for purchasing multiple levels in a class is confusing. "the player spends 2 build points to gain level 5 Ranger spellcasting and can also spend 0 additional points to go to level 6 Ranger spellcasting." Why do they spend 0 additional points? Shouldn't it be 1 additional point?

Otherwise, seems OK to me, in the sense that I'm pretty sure I understand the rules. I'm no good at theorycrafting though, so I can't tell you how badly busted it is. I will say that this seems like it could lead to a ton of analysis paralysis every levelup.

Yeah, I considered doing more with archetypes but the complexity level leapt considerably and I didn't want to try to cost out every single archetype or ability. It's unclear to me whether some bad archetypes could get better if you're free to pick your abilities outside of them. Assassin probably isn't much better if you can easily have spells for invisibility while also having sneak attack, but if everyone in the party can buy expertise in Stealth and cast invisibility you might start seeing a use for the archetype.

Class features: I briefly thought about staggering advancement based on when you purchased something, so if you buy Bardic Inspiration at L5 you have to wait several levels to improve it. But that means tracking not just every class ability, but its level of purchase, and doing lots of subtraction to figure out when you can advance an ability (for free or at a cost). The added complexity didn't seem worth it, so if you buy Bardic Inspiration at L20 you get L20 Bardic Inspiration.

Multiple caster levels: The confusing part is that half-casters spend 0 BP to purchase even levels. That's because they get nothing beyond an increase in their caster level. Level 2 is an exception because you started with 0 slots at L1, but you've already purchased the spellcasting ability and getting to actually use it doesn't seem like it should cost extra.

clusterfuck posted:

I like this, it's a good framework but could you be explicit on why archetypes are not also mix and matchable? The examples I'm thinking of are Shadow Monk / Gloom Stalker & Beastmaster Ranger looking to pick up other 3rd level Ranger archetypal abilities at level 7 and 11 instead of the useless BM abilities(Gloom Stalker & Monster Hunter respectively). Is archetype mixing in the works? Is it just too OP any way you look at it?

I do like that my Shadow Monk can drop Deflect Missiles and pick up Cunning Action & Sneak Attack / Thieves Cant. However by level 6 I find I'm really paying for taking on Sneak Attack as I can't afford Slow Fall. Uncanny Dodge and choosing between Sneak Attack 2d6 or Stunning Strike is a fair trade though. Pushing Shadow Monk towards Rogue without losing Ki progression is a very good thing.

I think Saves should be as per first archetype choice or cost 1BP for each change. Too much DEX and WIS otherwise.
Maybe a dumb question but what are Simple+ weapons?
Can you explain the justification for Bards getting +2 BP for their archetype? Maybe expand on those BP choices for archetypes?

I agree that Extra Attack might be overpriced.

Building the system in part meant making the 1-2 level class multiclass meaningless. I made a few restrictions (Eldrich Invocations, for instance, are limited to Warlock spellcasters with Warlock archetypes) in recognition that a few powers are too easy to cherrypick in the present system. Opening archetypes to mixing and matching worsens that problem, especially after I opted not to price any of those abilities. Given that archetypes don't even grant new abilities at the same level but are instead class dependent, I opted again for simplicity.

I assure you that eating the useless Gloom Stalker ability doesn't make the archetype any less amazing when you can have full rogue sneak attack and purchase supportive feats or Extra Attack. Shadow Monk I'm less familiar with, but you're probably only delaying certain pick-ups or you're doing the thing full casters have to do in choosing between a delayed progression of what you really want in order to get more utility.

You may be right about saves, though casters may want Con. You can actually build more casters who want to be in melee and War Caster plus Con specialization means you almost never fail concentration checks. Everyone taking Dex plus purchasing Evasion is a risk, I admit. I could see having tiers and charging BP for certain saves or combinations. Pegging starting saves to archetype makes certain archetypes more attractive, so they'd need to be repriced at the very least.

Simple+ refers to an expanded proficiency set like what rogues get (simple plus hand crossbow, longsword, rapier, and shortsword). Bards get the same set. Monks get simple plus shortsword, but it didn't seem worth splitting that out from the other options and the definition of monk weapons hasn't changed.

Why do Bards get a 2 BP discount for their archetype? Two reasons, really: first, their archetype powers come on at the late end of things (L3), and they get fewer things speaking numerically. Second, almost everything you get from bard archetypes rely upon both having spellcasting and having bardic inspiration. If you don't want the archetype to be useless, you have to buy up other stuff. Compare to something like Battlemaster, which is good for anyone using weapons, or Warlock archetypes, which lose a bit of utility without spellcasting but are still OK to good. I could see an argument for making Ranger archetypes -1 cost, but the XG archetypes are actually good and Gloom Stalker may be too cheap at -1 BP, even if Beast Master isn't.

Moose King
Nov 5, 2009

Cephas posted:

I want my puzzle pyramid dungeon to have a big scary orc mummy that the party has to try to avoid, or at least plan around facing. They are 6 level 4 characters with 2 familiars.

I was thinking of giving the mummy multiple turns per round to help balance the action economy. Would 2 turns per round or 3 would be better? Should he get to multi-attack on each of those turns? He'd be wielding a normal greataxe.

The idea would be that they could temporarily stun the mummy and continue solving the puzzles while trying to avoid him. Like a pyramid head or nemesis sort of enemy. Later on in the dungeon they would face an actual boss encounter.

Whenever I have a big solo monster boss fight, I always give it a couple Legendary Actions, and maybe a Lair Action on Initiative count 20. It helps even out the action economy without having to worry about tracking multiple initiatives for the creature.

In this case, you could give Orchotep three Legendary Actions that he can spend to make a greataxe attack or barf up a swarm of scarab beetles or some other Mummy-rear end thing immediately after a PC's turn.

Zorro KingOfEngland
May 7, 2008

I've used this before. It worked pretty well, felt like a challenge for the players without being "gently caress you" hard:

Ceros_X
Aug 6, 2006

U.S. Marine

Cephas posted:

I want my puzzle pyramid dungeon to have a big scary orc mummy that the party has to try to avoid, or at least plan around facing. They are 6 level 4 characters with 2 familiars.

I was thinking of giving the mummy multiple turns per round to help balance the action economy. Would 2 turns per round or 3 would be better? Should he get to multi-attack on each of those turns? He'd be wielding a normal greataxe.

The idea would be that they could temporarily stun the mummy and continue solving the puzzles while trying to avoid him. Like a pyramid head or nemesis sort of enemy. Later on in the dungeon they would face an actual boss encounter.

Would be cool to animate part of the mummy's shroud ala tentacles - they beat them back and sever then and when the boss fight comes you can see where his wrappings have become threadbare etc. Maybe he can't leave a central chamber but he can send his shroud out bast the restraining glyphs or whatever, try and drag a PC/familiar inside the crumbling ward ring that contains him.

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe

Ceros_X posted:

Would be cool to animate part of the mummy's shroud ala tentacles - they beat them back and sever then and when the boss fight comes you can see where his wrappings have become threadbare etc. Maybe he can't leave a central chamber but he can send his shroud out bast the restraining glyphs or whatever, try and drag a PC/familiar inside the crumbling ward ring that contains him.

This is reminding me of an article I read that was basically gushing about the Prismatic Wall spell and how you could use it in parts over the course of a campaign (e.g. have the party encounter just the blue wall in isolation, then just the indigo, etc.). Then at the climax of the campaign you have the big bad's flunky cast the full version, to protect the big bad while they do some long-running ritual. So the players have to quickly bring down the wall, deal with the enemies behind it, and get to the big bad to cancel the ritual before it goes off.

Anyway, basically what I'm saying here is that you can have a set of designated zones throughout your dungeon, where the mummy might appear. Each is ringed by some kind of barrier which the mummy can only weakly attack across (I like the idea of it projecting an image of itself, using the shroud or otherwise) and the players can't attack across at all. If you bring down the barrier then you can fight properly, or you can just try to take care of business in the vicinity ASAP and get out without taking too much damage.

Willie Tomg
Feb 2, 2006
I'm trying to brainstorm ways to make familiars that are not Owl familiars (or Chain Pact familiars in edge scouting and RP instances) good, at all. Owls "suffer" from that tyrannically good flyby characteristic and I can't figure out how to even things out without taking flyby away, or giving it to all the flying familiar types.

Conspiratiorist
Nov 12, 2015

17th Separate Kryvyi Rih Tank Brigade named after Konstantin Pestushko
Look to my coming on the first light of the fifth sixth some day
Give all flying familiars the Owl statline.

Non-flying familiars BTFO.

Nehru the Damaja
May 20, 2005

You control abuse of Find Familiar by making people actually buy the materials and attacking the familiar when it gets involved in combat. You don't have to immediately single it out and bring it down at every opportunity, but make it clear that the familiar is a fair target and you have X uses left of your incense before you gotta hope another store has some. There's also plenty of circumstances where 70 minutes unbothered shouldn't come freely.

Conspiratiorist
Nov 12, 2015

17th Separate Kryvyi Rih Tank Brigade named after Konstantin Pestushko
Look to my coming on the first light of the fifth sixth some day
lmao yes let's control wizard abilities by making them scavenge for bat guano, that's always worked.

How do you even "abuse" find familiar?

What makes it so scary?

Show me on the character sheet where the owl touched you.

Conspiratiorist fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Jul 24, 2019

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juggalo baby coffin
Dec 2, 2007

How would the dog wear goggles and even more than that, who makes the goggles?


drat... theyre using their ability.. better put a lid on that before the other classes get ideas

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