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They mean literally expending the money, in the middle of a fight, to get some kind of combat advantage. May I propose a wand with a coin slot? The more you spend, the better the effect you get out of it. The player chooses how much to spend, you look up a table, then present them with a list of options and they get to pick one.
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May 25, 2020 20:59
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Stoner Sloth posted:A take on buying spell components - basically do it like an insurance scheme, charge them a level dependent/partially spell informed amount each time they hit town to stock up on spell ingredients. They can however pay more or less than this. What spells are players abusing? What puzzles are they "instasolving" with magic that giving arbitrary component limitations makes better? 4E and 5E D&D specifically neutered these spells and abilities to make anything but the most trivial challenges not circumventable. PC spellcasters don't have enough spell slots to throw them away pointlessly, that's the resource being used.
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May 25, 2020 21:15
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pog boyfriend posted:this is your time for slice of life. the game is really good at depicting how heroes handle conflict, but it is seldom that the game dwells on moments of peace. make the most of it; let this downtime really show the party what they are fighting for. This is a good concept, and letting them use that time to learn a skill, feat, or combination of a few languages/tools is a good mechanic. You can combine the two! Don't let them just handwave "training". Ask them to tell you how they learned this new thing, what they were doing for months, and why. Did they have a teacher? Did they take a non-adventuring job for a few months? Did they go on an astral spirit quest? Maybe the Fighter learned Polearm Master from an old veteran he spent time carousing and talking about the meaning of life with. Maybe the Cleric picked up Persuasion by trying to start his own congregation, and quickly learning that leadership requires more than faith. It's a hook to let them tell you what elements they want introduced into their character's life and story - membership in an organization or guild, a new romance, dangerous personal enemies - which can all be a springboard for coming adventures and will (as pog says) give the players more of a sense of your world. Baku fucked around with this message at 21:24 on May 25, 2020 |
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May 25, 2020 21:21
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I'm about to run my first 5e campaign (done a bunch of TTRPGs, just no 5e), and my take on components was going to be "For anything without a GP cost, I don't care, you can cast it with your focus. If it has a GP cost listed in the material description, you have to obtain the components." Which is actually rules-as-written for 5e:Basic Rules posted:Casting some spells requires particular objects, specified in parentheses in the component entry. A character can use a component pouch or a spellcasting focus (found in “Equipment”) in place of the components specified for a spell. But if a cost is indicated for a component, a character must have that specific component before he or she can cast the spell. Spells with materials that GP costs tend to be things with permanent or very powerful effects, with a couple outliers like Stoneskin that I figure I'll deal with as one-offs. I plan to also let them start with components for any spells they start with.
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May 25, 2020 22:32
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:They mean literally expending the money, in the middle of a fight, to get some kind of combat advantage. I mean, you can do that with loonies and your GM.
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May 25, 2020 22:36
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please don't insult my Cleric of Waukeen's rituals.
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May 25, 2020 23:03
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I'm going to be DMing for a group of players that typically don't like to play classes with a lot of healing power, and aren't optimized around 5e's action economy. Would giving every player this free feature be too much healing for a lighthearted setting? Encouraging Words: As a bonus action, you can say something kind or encouraging to any creature that can hear you. That creature may spend their reaction to regain hit points equal to half of their hit dice +CON. This feature cannot be used by a creature that has been silenced, and will have no effect on a creature that has been deafened or knocked unconscious. Once you use this feature, you must finish a short or long rest before you can use it again. I'm worried that making it require a bonus action and a reaction will affect some classes more than others, and that the amount of healing the party would have access to may require me to make damage spike more. If this is game breaking, what are some alternatives I can use to give players access to reliable mid-combat healing? Would giving them a certain number of healing potions per long rest be a better solution?
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May 25, 2020 23:15
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Tenik posted:I'm going to be DMing for a group of players that typically don't like to play classes with a lot of healing power, and aren't optimized around 5e's action economy. Would giving every player this free feature be too much healing for a lighthearted setting? I don't think it'd be that big of an issue tbh. Just maybe be a bit more liberal with healing potions. And don't throw anything completely hosed at them. Dexo fucked around with this message at 23:49 on May 25, 2020 |
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May 25, 2020 23:44
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Healing generally can't keep up with damage in 5e, so your main uses for healing are a) giving someone enough HP that they'll probably survive an additional hit before being downed, and b) propping someone back up after they've been downed. The former not only requires fairly substantial amounts of healing (comparable to an enemy's attack action), but also requires it to be worth trading one action now (plus resources spent on the healing) for a probable action later. The latter only requires 1HP of healing, but it has to work on someone who is incapacitated. I think you'll see best returns by focusing on propping back up downed characters, and improving non-combat recovery. You could give a character a magic item that imitates the Lay On Hands ability of paladins -- give it 5 charges, it regains 5 charges per day, and you can use an action and spend N charges to restore N hitpoints to a target you can touch. You can also do things like, when you take a long rest you get all of your hit dice back instead of just half of them.
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May 25, 2020 23:46
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Or change up the hit die mechanic. Allow them to spend hit die after a 5-10 minute period to take a breather and catch their breath. and let some-all of the hit die come back on a short rest. And then try and balance the encounters around them always starting at full HP. Edit: Yeah, Short rest = half hit die returns, and long rest = all hit die return. And allow them to use hit die out of combat and only have to burn like 10 minutes instead of an hour.
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May 25, 2020 23:50
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My party (level 10's) fought a CR24 dragon and won!  I finally stunned the Dragon on my last ki point, burnt all of its Legendary Resistances and finally, finally, we killed it. Two of us needed to be rezzed afterwards with the diamonds we found.
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May 26, 2020 00:01
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Tenik posted:I'm going to be DMing for a group of players that typically don't like to play classes with a lot of healing power, and aren't optimized around 5e's action economy. Would giving every player this free feature be too much healing for a lighthearted setting? some ideas: - When rolling hit die on level up let them roll and then choose between taking the die value or average value for HP. That way they will have a reliable HP floor to design encounters around. - Be more forgiving with death rolls. Don't do them every combat round but when it makes sense for dramatic tension. - Let your party start with enhanced healer kits that both stabilize a character and give them 1 hp on a successful medicine roll - Be careful with your CRs. As a rule of thumb you want the CR of an encounter to be at 1/4 of the total party level when they are below level 5 and at 1/2 of the total party level when they are at level 5 or above. Anything more than that and you will have a potentially lethal encounter on your hands.
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May 26, 2020 00:06
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Can I get some recommendations on like...blogs and news sites for DnD stuff? Either official or Homebrew materials? Are those a thing?
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May 26, 2020 01:08
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Toshimo posted:I just used the TV I had around, but honestly, you could get a cheap one like this (https://slickdeals.net/f/14053574-43-sceptre-u435cv-u-4k-uhd-hdr-60hz-led-hdtv-160-free-shipping?src=catpagev2). For the most part, modern TVs are flat on the back to support wall hanging but you can check the pictures on the website.
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May 26, 2020 01:30
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Tenik posted:I'm going to be DMing for a group of players that typically don't like to play classes with a lot of healing power, and aren't optimized around 5e's action economy. Would giving every player this free feature be too much healing for a lighthearted setting? I've run parties like that before. As long as they have a few Emergency Potions, or you make Scrolls able to be used by everybody, then there's a couple different ways to go about spreading damage around enough that people can heal up on rests using their Hit Dice while not feeling like you're taking it easy on them. Besides giving everyone some bonus HP at the start to give yourself a safety cushion, feel free to have monster attacks cleave multiple targets for fractional damage. Instead of a giant hitting someone for like 20 damage, hit two people for 10 by having it swing its axe super wide. Have wild animals go into a wild, animalistic frenzy and leap about doing attacks at like three or four different people (for one third or one fourth of the base damage). One of the biggest problems in "low healing parties" is once one person runs out of hit dice the whole group wants to stop and rest, so the more you can spread your damage out among the party the more they get to feel cool taking hits and keeping going without needing puny clerics. Also feel free to start hitting them with Status Effect attacks. Why be boring and do 8 Slashing Damage when you could get blood in someones eyes and Blind them until they take an action to undo it? Instead of a ghost just dealing some necrotic damage, have it let out an unearthly wail that does a small amount of Sonic damage and Deafens everyone who fails a save. Instead of throwing three giant snakes at a party throw one giant snake and ten little ones who only do 1 point of piercing and 1 point of poison damage but grant the poisoned condition! Then have half the snakes help so you don't have to roll 10 attacks, and that'll up the tension without adding much raw incoming damage that the party needs to stop and spend hit dice or healer's kit charges to heal. Then we start talking about having the party fight Thieves who actually steal from them in the middle of the fight and you'll see that Hit Points are one of the most boring things you can target in a fight.  (edit) and the best part about fighting thieves who steal the parties money, treasure, fancy items, etc.? You get to make them super mad at the NPC for stealing their poo poo and them super happy if/when they beat them up and get their poo poo back! It's all the fun of robbing your party without any of the long-term hurt feelings. Fumbles fucked around with this message at 02:06 on May 26, 2020 |
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May 26, 2020 02:04
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Thanks for the suggestions! I was already planning on having extra-short rests for healing but no other resource recovery, and it's good to get confirmation for that plan. Partial hit die recovery on a normal short rest will help that feel more natural, too. Status effects, multi-target hits, and mobs of minions that help each other are also fantastic ideas, and will help flesh out some of the sub-objectives I was thinking of throwing into combat. Thanks again, everyone!
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May 26, 2020 03:17
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There's a series I watch and none of players play healers. The gm just lets them prepare better with healing potions and other useful consumables. They house rule potions so they heal max and they don't need to roll. Seems like it works fine.
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May 26, 2020 05:42
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I really do feel like D&D should have something like Blood vials/estus flasks. The "Damage always outpaces healing" always seems to result in players in the group I am in, when they get downed they are only ever healed to 1 hp or the minimum because it makes no difference.
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May 26, 2020 05:54
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Didn't 4E solve that particular issue? haha 
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May 26, 2020 06:03
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May 26, 2020 06:14
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Finally had a chance to cast Hypnotic Pattern and wow was it satisfying. it uh sounds kinda bad out of context since we were trying to get information from a bartender and I had just hit him with Vicious Mockery, but then combat started and the orc band on stage was about to start coming after us. None of the four orcs passed their Wisdom save vs Hypnotic Pattern and the Troll bartender did not pass his Constitution save against the Pyrotechnics (Fireworks) cast on the grill by the other bard. The DM had clearly planned for the first combat of the one-shot to last longer than the first two turns of the first round. I had other motivations. i made a little commemorative thing for the one-shot (which was left on the bar for potential plot hooks if we get a chance to return to the characters later): 
stringless fucked around with this message at 07:36 on May 26, 2020 |
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May 26, 2020 07:26
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cowboy
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BigRed0427 posted:Can I get some recommendations on like...blogs and news sites for DnD stuff? Either official or Homebrew materials? Are those a thing? I would also be interested in this.
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May 26, 2020 07:32
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A couple DM focused blogs I follow are https://thealexandrian.net/ and https://slyflourish.com/
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May 26, 2020 09:54
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1) When doing point-buy for stats, what's the best strategy to handle the less important ones? 2) I know you shouldn't dump CON, but where should CON be for non-frontline meat shields? 10, 12, 14? 3) Do you generally want to get DEX and WIS to at least 10 to avoid a penalty to saving throws, or risk it and dump those for more points? 4) In your primary stat, you want to aim for a starting score of at least 16, but is it better to spend the points so that 16 is before, or after racial bonuses? 5) I have an (rough) idea for a Barbarian employed by a repository of knowledge (Background: Sage (Librarian)). Without sacrificing the focus on STR and CON, are there any special Barbarian subclasses which benefit from INT? It's fine if there aren't, it's not critical to the build, just something I thought I'd check.
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May 26, 2020 16:16
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:1) When doing point-buy for stats, what's the best strategy to handle the less important ones? 1) listen to what your heart tells you. generally [this is also the answer to question 3] you want dexterity and wisdom to be decent because those saving throws come up often, but intelligence saving throws can gently caress you up if you fail them so you can make an argument at higher levels on that regard. anyone who has ever been mazed with a minus one knows the true suffering of dumping intelligence 2) highly class dependent. you are loooooooooking into barbarian so you are going to have resistance to physical damage, but leaning on that too much can be a problem if you get hit by a spell or something that you have no resistance to and have been dumping constitution. barbarian also has unarmoured defense so i am thinking crank that to 14 4) before 5) not officially, but you can make an argument arcana would be good for wild soul
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May 26, 2020 17:07
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:1) When doing point-buy for stats, what's the best strategy to handle the less important ones? 1) depends how focused you want to be on skills and saves. If you’re a dex primary or secondary you can safely dump strength, for example. 2) It would be hard for me to go below a 12 to start if I’m not expecting to be on the frontlines. You will get hit by stuff and you want to be able to survive it, especially if you’re something like a wizard or sorcerer working with d6 health dice. 3) I’ve never let Dex fall below a 10 on any character, the penalty to initiative feels bad. Wis is slightly less critical, but it still has a lot of saves that key off it (like, a lot a lot) so I would probably try to keep that 10 or higher as well. There’s a reason Int and Cha end up being most characters’ dump stats. 4) you can’t point buy to 16 without racial bonuses so after by default 5) Nothing I can think of off the top of my head. Int saves are rare but like pog said when they happen you really don’t want to fail them. An intelligent researcher or scientist type letting their anger get the better of them is a strong character, though!
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May 26, 2020 17:33
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FFT posted:<Hedon Beach Observer> This immediately reminded me of those newspaper headlines in the guidebook to "Earthbound"
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May 26, 2020 18:18
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Do y'all have any tips, guidance, and/or resources on encounter building with the presence of friendly NPCs? My players are coming up against a dragon fight that's been built up for months and have expressed interest in directly controlling the allies they've recruited. The dragon is established as having a ton of minions and I want this to be a tough-but-not-impossible battle.
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May 26, 2020 18:41
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DressCodeBlue posted:Do y'all have any tips, guidance, and/or resources on encounter building with the presence of friendly NPCs? My players are coming up against a dragon fight that's been built up for months and have expressed interest in directly controlling the allies they've recruited. The dragon is established as having a ton of minions and I want this to be a tough-but-not-impossible battle. You're much better off trying to make the allies fighting the minions into the distraction that lets the PCs fight the dragon (plus the select minions you want the PCs to face unaided) in their own bubble within the bigger battle. The minions or allies don't even have to be physically kept out of the fight, just the narrative understanding that the little cluster of minions to the right are being kept busy by the little cluster of allies they're fighting, as long as the heroes don't actively interfere. It also creates a way to get enemy reinforcements in an organic way. If the players really are invested in their allies, maybe give them a little strategic minigame where they can place the allies in different roles that provide different advantages for the PCs, but also endanger the allies in different ways. Or have the actions the PCs take in the lead-up to their fight with the dragon determine consequences for the allies. If the allies are going to be a direct part of the fight, abstract it - catapults or arrow volleys fire (from offscreen) on initiative 0 and do XdY damage at Z position. If there are spellcasters, maybe the PCs can start the fight with extra buffs, or spellcasters can have an extra "concentration slot" to represent allied casters contributing.
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May 26, 2020 19:06
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DressCodeBlue posted:Do y'all have any tips, guidance, and/or resources on encounter building with the presence of friendly NPCs? My players are coming up against a dragon fight that's been built up for months and have expressed interest in directly controlling the allies they've recruited. The dragon is established as having a ton of minions and I want this to be a tough-but-not-impossible battle. rather than having npcs join in the fight add them as window dressing. have the dragon use lair actions, but then have allied lair actions as well - hordes of archers shooting down enemy minions, clerics healing and retreating, stuff like that. use it to make the cinematics of an epic fight stronger but keep the minions and allied soldiers in the background as the pcs are the star of the show and the villain is this dragon
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May 26, 2020 19:45
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I've had to juggle a menagerie of allies my group keeps collecting in my Avernus campaign and I generally only involve them in a fight if we're down some players and I have a tough fight ahead, at which point someone else takes control. It seems to work well for my group. They get the feeling like they did cool things if the NPCs roll well, and I don't have to do any more bookkeeping than usual. Otherwise, I usually just describe them as fighting other minor enemies in the vicinity that aren't represented by tokens.
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May 26, 2020 21:11
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NoNotTheMindProbe posted:some ideas: Is this in regard to their own situation? Because in general, this will let your party stomp all over everything. To be fair I'm not entirely sure what you mean as the CR of an encounter, taking the CR of everything in the encounter and averaging it out? My own players tend to plough right through some deadly encounters.
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May 26, 2020 21:26
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5E CRs are notoriously non-mathematical so it's hard to give a solid recommendation. Like even the rule of thumb NoNotTheMindProbe is giving is not exactly simple.
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May 26, 2020 21:32
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CR infamously assumes no magic items and since we all know nobody is doing that CR just becomes a handy guideline that can safely be ignored. i find it is best to give players more tools and make encounters too difficult and let them figure it out but finding that sweet spot is something that took me over a decade of experience to get to
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May 26, 2020 22:33
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It's also important to have some encounters they just absolutely destroy. Give them a easy win that makes them feel powerful as hell sometimes. Not every fight has to be some perfectly balanced and tense.
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May 26, 2020 22:44
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Athanatos posted:It's also important to have some encounters they just absolutely destroy. Give them a easy win that makes them feel powerful as hell sometimes. Not every fight has to be some perfectly balanced and tense. Yeah, this is an important point I agree with. I think ideal design over the course of an adventure or campaign isn't some kind of "perfectly balanced" even keel on every encounter, but rather, variety. Breezy encounters that make the party feel badass have a place, as do massive ballbusters that drain all your consumable items and resources and incapacitate people frequently. At the opposite end, very hard encounters can be camaraderie building, or allow one person's abilities or spells or lucky rolls that meant the difference between life and an imminent TPK to make them the hero for the day. Nor is it especially a problem if you accidentally overtune or undertune an encounter, the PCs slaughter a major boss in two rounds due to chance and good choices and a mistake on your part, etc. That stuff is only bad if it's an ongoing, consistent problem in your campaign; when it happens once, it's a fun anomaly and a good story. GMs tend to beat themselves up too much.
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May 26, 2020 23:10
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Our avernus group just met lulu and my loxodon druid is super uncomfortable
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May 27, 2020 03:15
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Okay, those answers pretty much confirm what my instincts were saying. The idea of a Wild Soul Barbarian sounds pretty neat. Its casting seems to be Con-based, and I could work with that without needing to ask if it could be based on Int or Arcana, as my CON would be higher than my INT anyway. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 20:26 on May 27, 2020 |
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May 27, 2020 05:03
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Arthil posted:Is this in regard to their own situation? Because in general, this will let your party stomp all over everything. To be fair I'm not entirely sure what you mean as the CR of an encounter, taking the CR of everything in the encounter and averaging it out? My own players tend to plough right through some deadly encounters. The party level is the level of all the characters added together and the encounter CR is the CR of all the monsters added together. This count comes from here https://slyflourish.com/the_lazy_encounter_benchmark.html quote:A Simple Example: Orcs e. I think the calc assumes multiple encounters between rests as well e2. You can always make monsters run away or do something unexpected if it looks like a TPK. The other week my players nearly got TPK by a manticore until one player threw some food at it that distracted it and let them run away. NoNotTheMindProbe fucked around with this message at 08:21 on May 27, 2020 |
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May 27, 2020 08:17
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Also probably worth noting is that you probably SHOULD let your monsters run away at a certain point, if the fight is not particularly important. When it becomes scut work that isn't costing resources, just call the fight.
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May 27, 2020 16:37
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