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Arthil posted:There's a lot of contention over the broom, and even the boots. That they should be Rare items for example. Something I personally agree on. Might go for the boots instead then, thanks! I already have 2 attunement slots full up so that's probably a good compromise.
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May 15, 2020 23:20
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I'm definitely not giving my players items that'llallow them to fly. Way too many options for shenanigans that break the game in unforseen ways, which isn't too big of problem generally but does mess with the flow of a session too much. At least for me as a beginner DM.
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May 15, 2020 23:27
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Taeke posted:I'm definitely not giving my players items that'llallow them to fly. Way too many options for shenanigans that break the game in unforseen ways, which isn't too big of problem generally but does mess with the flow of a session too much. At least for me as a beginner DM. I think that's a pretty fair take. The perennial issue with flying (as well as with super stealth abilities, though they're less controversial) is that it's pretty easy for the party to basically skip over a lot of prepared content. And even worse, often it's just one player skipping over the content, so the DM has to decide whether to just throw all that content at one player while the rest of the party twiddles their thumbs, or just handwave everything. As a result, you either routinely speed-run sessions or basically have to start designing encounters specifically catering to those players. It ends up being a lot of work for the DM.
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May 15, 2020 23:31
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I mean, to be fair I'm a level 5 wizard and can already cast fly. My AC is still only 13 so I thought it would be a decent tradeoff, especially since this is a setting with guns
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May 15, 2020 23:43
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change my name posted:I mean, to be fair I'm a level 5 wizard and can already cast fly. My AC is still only 13 so I thought it would be a decent tradeoff, especially since this is a setting with guns Oh the Fly spell is fine because the 10 minute duration and slot cost make it a lot more manageable than unlimited flight. And honestly I'm pretty laissez-faire when it comes to this sort of thing anyway. It's really not the combat stuff that causes problems, it's the, "Ok I get on my broom and fly above all the enemies to scout ahead, grab the captured princess and fly away."
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May 15, 2020 23:56
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change my name posted:I mean, to be fair I'm a level 5 wizard and can already cast fly. My AC is still only 13 so I thought it would be a decent tradeoff, especially since this is a setting with guns I'm fine with a wizard having the fly spell, because it feels more limited and requires concentration, so it requires more planning on their side. Either the wizard himself flies somewhere (and they're squishy, like you say, and no good at sneaking) or they put someone else in harms way, which I can mess with by having something threaten to break their concentration. Also the Broom of Flying being uncommon is weird to me, it really feels like a rare item. It's just too many unforeseen possibilities coming into play that I don't want to deal with yet. I'm weary of invisibility potions/spells for the same reason, even though those won't let them do things they normally couldn't do. I always get this flashback of playing Baldurs Gate 2 and using Jan Jansen to cheese the Lich encounter in the Gate District to get the Daystar weapon early. I'm glad the warlock and bard in my party didn't take any such spells and I don't have full arcane casters, so for now it's all good. I'm okay with them picking it up later, when I'm a bit more experienced with thinking outside my prepared content and better at improvising that kind of stuff.
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May 16, 2020 08:13
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figured I'd ask here before SAmart, did anyone happen to have Dwarven Forge (or like) environment set pieces they were looking to sell?
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May 16, 2020 11:03
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tgacon posted:(optional) Dilemma 7: If no wounded/ill are left by the time they are 1 day from BG, someone is bit by a snake or grievously injured (having someone in the refugee train who critically needs medical attention will be Captain Zodge's leverage to coerce PCs to work for him). How to proof this against a PC Paladin Laying Hands to get rid of poison/disease? Just to add on to what Disaster Pastor said, I'd strongly recommend making sure that the paladin has used their Lay on Hands ability as intended at least a few times before pulling the "this disease is special" thing off. You generally don't want to tell a player using their cool ability for the first time that it doesn't work, it just feels cheap. As a DM if I'm directly negating a player ability like this I'd also want to make sure they get something that they at least feel they wouldn't have gotten without it. So maybe Lay on Hands tells the group something about the disease. You mentioned there will be injured/ill PCs to begin with, so I'd say if there is a Paladin, they definitely need to be able to cure some or even most of them so their ability feels cool and useful. If you have a paladin (if they're not Oath of the rear end in a top hat, anyway), chances are they're going to want to cure or heal those starting refugees. Maybe there's more than the Paladin can reasonably do in one day, so it's something they're doing periodically over the course of several days, and you can narrate how it's a struggle because even as they cure the diseases of everyone they can, those they can't do today seem to be infecting others (topical!). Explain how, unchecked, the disease would likely rip through the entire refugee population, but gradually the Paladin is fighting back the infection as more and more people are cured and immune. And then. one day out from BG, someone who should be immune falls ill again. And now Lay on Hands only stabilises, but doesn't cure. The disease has taken on a new characteristic, it feels...unnatural, not of this plane. Maybe your paladin (or someone else in the group) has heard of diseases created in the Nine Hells. Is there a devil among the refugees, spreading this sickness?
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May 16, 2020 11:25
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Question for you more experienced DMs: My party will be arriving in Saltmarsh next session, but are already level 5. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing is I can offer them several adventures to go on, so they won't feel as railroaded as they have up 'till now. Bad thing is some of those adventures are obviously lower level, like the first two adventures. How much should I scale those up? Obviously I'll have to scale it up somewhat, offer some kind of challenge, otherwise it will be boring, but after facing down the equivalent of a young black dragon, bunches of orcs, etc. a group of smugglers shouldn't be too much a challenge, realistically. How do I balance it being fun, and keeping the encounters somewhat challenging, while also giving them the feeling that they're no newbies anymore and can easily handle a couple of bandits now?
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May 16, 2020 13:01
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Taeke posted:Question for you more experienced DMs: My party will be arriving in Saltmarsh next session, but are already level 5. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing is I can offer them several adventures to go on, so they won't feel as railroaded as they have up 'till now. Bad thing is some of those adventures are obviously lower level, like the first two adventures. bandits are the easiest to expand to higher levels(do not go too hog wild with it or you will have oblivion bandits) by giving them cool abilities. what if one bandit could catch arrows? make one bandit a bard and have him give inspiration to others in the form of crude raps, etc. just throw on random class features, up damage and hp slightly, and you are good. maybe add a single ogre to the bandit camp - an ogre wearing rusty, poorly fitting plate mail. alternatively, scale the encounter up to be more, rather than stronger. did the book say 3 smugglers? it actually meant 8. each is individually less of a challenge, but roll for groups of two and have them use the buddy system. maybe even give them some cool combo ability they can do with their partner if you want to expand them a lot.
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May 16, 2020 14:55
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Remember that quantity is its own quality if you don’t want to bother with different stat blocks.
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May 16, 2020 15:09
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Is the Battle Smith actually good? The steel defender seems pretty mediocre on its own, but I guess the smites+extra attack are useful
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May 16, 2020 16:56
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change my name posted:Is the Battle Smith actually good? The steel defender seems pretty mediocre on its own, but I guess the smites+extra attack are useful I played the playtest version in a Dragon Heist game and the character was really good. I could outdamage pretty much anyone with my heavy x-bow and an infusion meant I had an infinite ammo, +1 one without the reloading property (undoing the Crossbow Expert feat tax) at like, level 2. Apart from everything I could do with spells and infusions to bolster myself and my party in other ways. That said, the release version changed some stuff, including removing the Arcane Weapon spell (which was a fluffy source of an extra 1d6 damage per shot)
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May 16, 2020 17:16
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change my name posted:Is the Battle Smith actually good? The steel defender seems pretty mediocre on its own, but I guess the smites+extra attack are useful Artillerist looks good at first glance, but it's just pure damage (and not an overwhelming amount of it). Alchemist is some decent buffs and passable damage also, but very support-ish and doesn't get a bonus action ability.
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May 16, 2020 17:23
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Has anyone used Foundry VTT? Any major (or just nice) benefits over Roll20?
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May 16, 2020 19:59
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Filboid Studge posted:Has anyone used Foundry VTT? Any major (or just nice) benefits over Roll20? I've been messing around with it. It's really loving good It requires a bit more from the GM than Roll20 does wrt hosting, setup and learning the application. But I plan to switch over from R20 to Foundry when the current arc of my game ends.
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May 16, 2020 20:02
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Thanks for the tips guys, but I guess I should've worded my question better. Let me phrase it differently: is it a good idea to scale up the haunted house adventure for saltmarsh, but only in a limited way, so it's still somewhat below their level. That way they'll get to blaze through it without any danger and actually feel empowered for a change. That'll also give them a sense of living in a real world, I think, where some adventures are just a quick, easy job for them way below their powerlevel, but something that still needs to be done. Like, just because you're a high level party, but because you're all goody-two-shoes, you're not gonna turn away those in need even if it's a 'just' family of farmers whose lives are threathened by mere goblins, right? And it's not like those low level problems stop existing just because you leveled up. They're also not in a place like Waterderp (or even on the mainland) where they could expect those problems to be solved by a different, lower level party. They're basically the only group of adventurers on the island, and they know that. The way I see it, just like you sometimes design an encounter for them to run away from and return to later, there could also be encounters/adventures they'll blast through no problem. There's plenty of ways on the story and roleplay side of things to keep those sessions interesting. Good idea or bad idea? E: I'm not fixing that typo.
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May 16, 2020 22:00
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If Dragonmarked houses are banned from owning land, what does "land" mean? House Ghallanda owns all their inns and House Canith has their workshops, that seems like they own land to me. Tharashk certainly owns a lot of stuff in the Shadow Marches, even before the War
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May 16, 2020 22:04
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:If Dragonmarked houses are banned from owning land, what does "land" mean? House Ghallanda owns all their inns and House Canith has their workshops, that seems like they own land to me. Tharashk certainly owns a lot of stuff in the Shadow Marches, even before the War Apparently the Korth Edicts say they pay rent to the crown rather than actually owning the land.
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May 16, 2020 22:12
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Dexo posted:I've been messing around with it. I really, really like Foundry but yeah, be ready to set up practically everything from scratch unless it's in the SRD, and even then you might have to fiddle to get it working right. Once you set things up though, it's really powerful and for the most part runs really well. I'm hosting it as a dedicated server on an Amazon ec2 instance at the free level and it works great. If you look around there are chrome plugins that can backup your content from roll20 and import it into Foundry. This still requires some effort to get working, like most stuff with Foundry. The big pros are a ridiculously powerful macro system that uses json scripting, add on modules that offer a lot of extra features, and very active development. There's a discord with a pretty big community that I've found very helpful when trying to figure stuff out. It's also got a much faster, more responsive core than roll20, can handle backgrounds bigger than 10MB, has built in dynamic lighting and vision, music playlists, and just a generally more polished feel despite meeting incredibly beta software. It's supposed to officially release on Wednesday but I really doubt it will be up to release software standards by then. If you take the plunge I'll be happy to help where I can to get it set up.
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May 17, 2020 02:19
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change my name posted:Is the Battle Smith actually good? The steel defender seems pretty mediocre on its own, but I guess the smites+extra attack are useful I love it. Might be my favorite class/subclass. Came for the robo dog, stayed for it actually being a fun melee class.
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May 17, 2020 03:37
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Re: Broom of Flying. A lot of people, GM and Player alike, forget that it's a broom of flying. Not only is it a bit awkward to actually ride, especially if you're a guy, it's real easy to get knocked off of/lose your balance in unusual situations and it's not exactly designed for multiple occupancy. I would never go near the drat thing if I didn't have Feather Fall prepared or at least a parachute on, and relying on it as my main source of flight would really want me to not want to do anything remotely dangerous. At least with a carpet you're seated and have something to grab onto. It is nice it can come back to you if you go rear end over teakettle with it but this thing is not exactly an aerial dogfighter or a cargo plane.
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May 17, 2020 08:24
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Enola Gay-For-Pay posted:I really, really like Foundry but yeah, be ready to set up practically everything from scratch unless it's in the SRD, and even then you might have to fiddle to get it working right. Once you set things up though, it's really powerful and for the most part runs really well. I'm hosting it as a dedicated server on an Amazon ec2 instance at the free level and it works great. Thank you, that’s really kind. I’ll likely be back in the DM seat towards the end of the year. Is it system-agnostic?
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May 17, 2020 11:09
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:If Dragonmarked houses are banned from owning land, what does "land" mean? House Ghallanda owns all their inns and House Canith has their workshops, that seems like they own land to me. Tharashk certainly owns a lot of stuff in the Shadow Marches, even before the War They're banned from owning land but can rent from the crown or any other landowning noble. The Shadow Marches weren't really a part of Galifar at the time of the Korth Edicts and are so out of the way it's hard for any crown law to have any influence there anyway. The edicts were established 1000 years before the established setting at a time when owning land meant political power and the two were inextricably linked. It was a way to enforce political subservience of the houses to the crown. As magitek has come on leaps and bounds over the intervening years, the absence of land ownership is no longer a barrier to influence for the houses as they can exert political power in other, more modern ways.
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May 17, 2020 12:04
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Thanks for the advice on magic items! Of course I forgot to actually make any for the game I have in 2 hours, so here's what I have for the intro dungeon. Feedback/suggestions are appreciated. This is session one, so the items are a bit generic on purpose. Party- Whispers punk rock flutist bard Tiefling assassin Half-elf drunken master warlock of zargon pretending to be a sorceror, wants to be "corrupted" by zargon through his arcane focus (i already had a talk with him about the party killing/kicking out his character if he gets too evil) dungeon- a mine that tunneled into a seaside tomb of a wealthy baron who played at being a sea captain in life, guarded by constructs. the items- Fishcharmer's pendant +1 animal handling checks 10 min waterbreathing/day 1 cast of animal friendship/day Mug of Grog Can create 5 drinks worth of grog per day (roll a d20 for quality) while inebriated or disoriented, +1 to acrobatics,+1 to persuade checks Magic Clam a clam that has mysteriously stayed alive in the tomb for the hundreds of years it has been sealed (actually a spawn of zargon, don't know what effects that will have yet. the warlocks patron will whisper for them to take this.) +1 arcana checks +3 persuasion/intimidation checks on devils (only warlock will know this) Runed eyeglass +2 perception and truesight while looking through the eyeglass and a fifth one that I still need to come up with  If anyone has quick, gut-reaction level feedback...it is in two hours 
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May 17, 2020 18:15
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Grey Face posted:
What level are they? This is really, really good
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May 17, 2020 18:17
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change my name posted:What level are they? This is really, really good It's the truesight that's tricky, right? You might make it darkvision+see invisible instead, and/or make the truesight time-limited. Just giving a character permanent passive truesight means you can't do a lot of things that rely on magical distortion of perception (illusions, invisibility, etc.). +2 to perception, especially if it's only for active perception checks, isn't a big deal IMO. As for another item, how about a scimitar with a human skull on its handle. It has 7 charges, represented as teeth on the skull. When you deal at least 1 damage to an enemy with it, you can expend a charge to force the enemy to make a DC13 WIS save or be frightened of you until the end of your next turn. Or as an action, you can expend 1-4 charges to force 1 target per charge within 20' of you to make that same save. It regains d6+1 charges each day, the teeth appearing back in the skull overnight. TooMuchAbstraction fucked around with this message at 18:32 on May 17, 2020 |
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May 17, 2020 18:28
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Since this is the first session for many, or at least several, to come (I assume) you could take more time to come up with magic items, depending on how magical your setting is. My party didn't get their first (very minor, basically useless/situational flavour stuff) magic items and some basic potions until the second session and their first actually useful (across the board) magic items in the 4th (I think) session. Maybe even the 5th. Don't feel like you have to hand out cool magic poo poo every session, is what I'm saying.
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May 17, 2020 19:01
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Alright, probably bringing the eyeglass down the just darkvision. They're level 3 so it seemed like a nice idea to start with some simple items.
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May 17, 2020 19:41
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Is Theros going to have a campaign in the book or is it just a sourcebook? Any hint of an Adventurer's League series for it? I'm just trying to find any reason to buy it since I already have Odyssey
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May 17, 2020 21:40
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Syrinxx posted:Is Theros going to have a campaign in the book or is it just a sourcebook? Any hint of an Adventurer's League series for it? I assume the Theros book is going to be very much like the Ravnica book: Setting book with maybe 1 subclass, a few race blocks, a few magic items, and a spell or two. I think the Ravnica book is quite good, and I'm excited about the Theros book. However, MtG settings aren't a part of Adventurer's League, that's FR/Eberron only.
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May 17, 2020 21:45
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Syrinxx posted:Is Theros going to have a campaign in the book or is it just a sourcebook? Any hint of an Adventurer's League series for it? It's probably going to have a short level 1-3 adventure. Like almost of the more recent campaign source books have. Well Wildemount has 4, but that's probably just more from Mercer... And other than that just some plot hooks.
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May 17, 2020 21:55
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I really liked the Ravnica book, so I’m looking forward to Theros, even if the setting doesn’t sound as exciting.
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May 18, 2020 00:51
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Filboid Studge posted:Thank you, that’s really kind. I’ll likely be back in the DM seat towards the end of the year. Is it system-agnostic? Not really, no. It has support for a few things. Here's a list. I haven't used it for anything but 5e, so I don't know how good the support for other games is. Note that there's a different username there under each system, so those are community made for the most part. Atropos at least is one of the Foundry developers, some of the others might be too. If you're not planning to DM for a while, I'd check in on it in a few months. By then it will be officially released and the features and modules will be a lot more mature, I hope. As an example of the beta-ness of the software, Foundry has great support for automating a lot of things. You can target an enemy, click your weapon on your character sheet, and it will roll, compare the roll to the target's AC, and deal damage if appropriate including rolling extra dice on crits. Except the most recent update broke all my modules and now that isn't working and I don't know why. Cool Dad fucked around with this message at 01:27 on May 18, 2020 |
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May 18, 2020 01:23
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Here's my big weekend update wrt my anxiety over running LMoP with two totally new groups of people, while being fairly new and not the DM. Group 1: The person who wanted to be a fairy, to have wings, and to be cute. Rolled a nice normal Kalashtar bard because that content was shared on dnbeyond and they liked the art for the race. I grabbed a cleric because it seemed more fun than a druid and we rounded the group off with a Warforged fighter. We had a great time and completely bluffed our way through a lot of encounters with tons of shenanigans. Of course we had to speak with animals and take a wolf along with us at the end. Who wouldn't want a dog friend. Made it to Phandalin after doing the cave. Group 2: So the DM and I discussed things and he decided he wanted to try not having war wolves being trained by goblins in the cave because he doesn't want to see dogs dying/attacking/being injured. Also so many people just want to talk to them. Opted to do giant wolf spiders instead, somehow being trained by goblins (described as being large enough to ride, with enchanted harnesses). Comp was rogue, cleric, deep gnome bard (again the content was all unlocked so sure, be from the Underdark), and warlock. 1 more player, so when I took the lead it seemed more noticeable from my perspective. Rogue only wanted to loot everything. Bard decided to speak with the spiders and later on cast animal friendship on a spider. I guess people just like talking to animals in general when they exist in the world, seems fair. Also ended in Phandalin after doing the cave. As far as I know, there's a nice friendly giant wolf spider waiting for us in the forest outside town. Overall, we had a good time. I pulled a lot more weight in Group 2, but it wasn't exhausting. I just feel like I have a lot more ideas for things and am more comfortable voicing my ideas. I did sometimes refer to abilities that other people had in order to highlight what classes could do, potentially, since these people haven't had the same experiences I have with watching way too many D&D actual plays. The constant looting in Group 2 was tedious, but that's on the DM to address. Both groups had some nice goofs and highlighted individual player character strengths well.
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May 18, 2020 01:35
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I've got a concept for a Warlock which disguises their magic as the effects of (non-functional) firearms. The details of the campaign setting will determine whether or not firearms exist and are known, or if it'll just be a strange "new invention". I would of course, consult with the DM to see if this character would be a good fit with the setting. Either way, the character won't be shooting actual bullets/balls with the weapons, and if pinch comes to shove, they could use the magic without having the firearms; they're just a disguise for the actual source of the power. (I know, I know, that might seem stupid in a setting where people fling around all sorts of magic, but I find this concept interesting.) Basically, this character would largely be using a lever-action rifle to fire Eldritch Blasts, or drawing a revolver, spinning the chamber to the right slot to "fire" off a spell. Area effect stuff would be "grenades" which - like the guns - don't actually function. I've determined that my Patron will be an Archfey (because the spell list and Otherworldly Patron features match up best with the character I want to play), but I don't have any idea what subclass of Warlock fits. Neither Pact of the Chain, Blade, or Tome seem to match and neither does Hexblade. I would default to Pact of the Tome if there aren't any better ideas, although a custom-tweaked Hexblade (Hexgun?) might be an idea if the guns actually fire real bullets... but at that point you might as well just chuck it all and go Gunslinger. What kind of Warlock seems to fit the best? Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 00:46 on May 19, 2020 |
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May 18, 2020 05:14
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I'm gonna run LMoP on Roll20 with a couple friends and some randos (hopefully including two to three new players.) I've got a handful of web sites to look at but is there anything you folks can suggest to either spice it up or just make it more my own, especially without alienating anyone new? My DM experience before this has been with homebrew stuff and leaning on improvisation.
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May 18, 2020 06:38
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Nehru the Damaja posted:I'm gonna run LMoP on Roll20 with a couple friends and some randos (hopefully including two to three new players.) I've got a handful of web sites to look at but is there anything you folks can suggest to either spice it up or just make it more my own, especially without alienating anyone new? IME the players may need more motivation to go to Thundertree than the module provides.
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May 18, 2020 07:13
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Toshimo posted:I assume the Theros book is going to be very much like the Ravnica book: Setting book with maybe 1 subclass, a few race blocks, a few magic items, and a spell or two. College of eloquence Bard Oath of glory Paladin Races are Leonin and Satyrs
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May 18, 2020 08:35
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kanonvandekempen posted:From their website: Personally if I had the budget to buy one book of pseudo-Greek D&D stuff I'd get Odyssey of the Dragonlords. Even if you're just in it for character stuff and not the campaign it has more races and subclasses.
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May 18, 2020 13:26
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