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Just start everyone at level 2. Level 1 in D&D sucks
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Jun 13, 2020 22:21
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One of the first games I played in, my cleric got killed in the first encounter by a bugbear who rolled a 20.
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Jun 13, 2020 22:22
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Look it's not a real Baldur's Gate experience if you don't die to an assassin during the tutorial area.
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Jun 13, 2020 22:49
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Tosk posted:Me again. I saw a recommendation to give level 1 characters +10 hp because the early game is super lethal. Is that a common house rule? It's entirely possible for a level 1 character to get downed in a single hit, almost certainly in two. Giving an extra bit of health isn't outrageous, though 10 is definitely on the higher side.
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Jun 13, 2020 22:52
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the main problem in Avernus isn't level 1. It's when you are level 2. That Dungeon in the bathhouse is loving absurd. lol creatures with an aura that give you vulnerability to piercing damage. when they all use daggers and shortswords
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Jun 13, 2020 22:56
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Inkspot posted:
Am I misreading this, or did you just reinvent the Help action? True Strike only give you advantage, you can’t give it to someone else. Or really just define an action for the cannons like “spotter: you help aim the thing and give advantage on its next attack roll” which is just the help action with a different name, but themed for firing cannons off of airships, and specifically called out as an option so your players are more likely to use it. Amperor fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Jun 13, 2020 |
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Jun 13, 2020 23:01
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Inkspot posted:Designing an airship, and instead of having the cannons rotate, I was thinking of giving True Strike to the party members who can learn it. An action to cast/load, and advantage on their attack next turn to act as a kind of magical homing shot. Id suggest putting enchanted true strike sights on the guns, but they take an action to use. Keep in mind it's a huge bonus so if you take away the downside it us very powerful.
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Jun 13, 2020 23:39
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Amperor posted:Am I misreading this, or did you just reinvent the Help action? If you're going to give something special, let the spotter spot multiple cannons simultaneously so more players can actually do something if they're using the airship for combat. You're also going to get frustrated if the cannons are significantly more effective than the players' normal abilities. They're going to want to fly their airship through the middle of every adventure and blast the hell out of stuff with siege weapons instead of using their piddly cantrips and longswords.
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Jun 13, 2020 23:58
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Or just steal the rogues aim feature from that IA class variants Make them burn a bonus action or something.
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Jun 14, 2020 02:13
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Amperor posted:Am I misreading this, or did you just reinvent the Help action? Yeah... I completely misread it. Just retheming the "Help" action's not a bad idea, though. Infinite Karma posted:You're also going to get frustrated if the cannons are significantly more effective than the players' normal abilities. They're going to want to fly their airship through the middle of every adventure and blast the hell out of stuff with siege weapons instead of using their piddly cantrips and longswords. Totally. A downside would be good. Incorporating misfire mechanics? Dexo posted:Or just steal the rogues aim feature from that IA class variants Something like that was my first idea, but it didn't feel like enough. Okay. Let's try this... Cannons require TWO PCs to operate. The SPOTTER rolls a Perception check. If it hits DC 12 (or so), the CANNONEER gets Advantage on their attack roll. If not, the attack plays out as normal. If the SPOTTER rolls a 20 on Perception, add an extra (d8) to the damage roll for identifying a weak point. The CANNONEER rolls a ranged attack (for 2d8 damage). If they roll below a 5 (or so) on a regular attack, or 10 on an attack with advantage, the canon misfires and will take a full Action from both SPOTTER and CANNONEER to unload, repack, and reload before it's ready to fire again. The damage is on the low side, especially for cannons, but they'll be at 3rd level fighting goblin-piloted autogyro to start. Looking for ways to improve their weapons should make for a few decent sidequests.
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Jun 14, 2020 02:51
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Don't have the below ten for advantage imo, keep it at 5
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Jun 14, 2020 03:32
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Yeah, never punish someone for doing well on a previous roll. I'm also thinking that the spotter might feel like they're not contributing much, since they aren't themselves dealing damage. How about this rules tweak? The SPOTTER rolls a Perception check. If the SPOTTER rolls under the target's AC (or the DC difficulty, DM's choice), then the CANNONEER may not use the attack action on their next turn. The CANNONEER rolls a ranged attack (for 1d8 damage). For every point by which the SPOTTER's check exceeded the target's AC, add 1 to this damage roll. If the CANNONEER scores a critical hit, double both sources of damage. Reducing the base damage of the cannon in exchange for granting an accuracy-based damage bonus; the numbers should be a wash though you might consider making the bonus be for every 2 points by which the check exceeds the target's AC, minimum of 1 point of bonus damage. Ultimately you're still looking at passing 2 d20 rolls to deal any damage to the target. You may also consider adding a "glancing blow" or other rules for near misses to soften that blow.
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Jun 14, 2020 03:50
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Cannons require TWO PCs to operate: The SPOTTER and The CANNONEER. The SPOTTER rolls a DC 15 Perception check. If the SPOTTER rolls under, the CANNONEER makes an attack roll as normal. If the SPOTTER succeeds, the CANNONEER adds +1 damage for every point the SPOTTER exceeded their check. If the SPOTTER rolls a critical fail, the CANNONEER gets -1d4 on their attack roll. The CANNONEER rolls a ranged attack (for 2d8 damage). If the CANNONEER rolls below a 5, the canon misfires and will take a full Action from both SPOTTER and CANNONEER to unload, repack, and reload before it's ready to fire again. On a critical hit, the CANNONEER doubles both damage rolled and damage added by the SPOTTER, but not damage added by any modifiers. On a critical miss, both the CANNONEER and the SPOTTER must make a DC 15 CON save or take 1d4 concussive damage. Inkspot fucked around with this message at 05:13 on Jun 14, 2020 |
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Jun 14, 2020 04:44
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It seems a little underpowered. Even if you're going to be updating it later, I would start with a higher base damage now. Unless this is going to be a constantly used weapon, make it big and cool. Have it deal 4d8, or like 6d6. Then just scale the health of the enemy up accordingly.
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Jun 14, 2020 04:53
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And then when they argue they should be able to go get in the airship and just shoot at every encounter, you can also just tell them they can't for story and balance reasons, thus enabling you to give them a cool thing without inventing weird in-game ways to solve a common balance problem!
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Jun 14, 2020 05:19
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Or give them a set amount of cannonballs? There's another sidequest. Or, more likely, them piling random poo poo into the cannons like it's Pirates of the Caribbean...
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Jun 14, 2020 05:25
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Random poo poo would definitely do less damage than a cannonball.
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Jun 14, 2020 05:27
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PeterWeller posted:There are surprisingly few published Icewind Dale adventures. Aside from the two Infinity Engine games, there's Legacy of the Crystal Shard, which was one of the transition modules released between 4E and 5E, and that's it. To be fair, Drizzt really doesn't do a lot of adventuring in Icewind Dale. The Icewind Dale trilogy only spends its first book there, and across thirty something novels, he only returns maybe half a dozen times. Icewind Dale was so insignificant that Salvatore's contribution to the FR series of sourcebooks wasn't even about it. Instead, he covered the Bloodstone Lands. I wish they'd post a new source book for the Blood stone Lands. My campaign has taken place in Vassa, The Ride, Thar, and Damara. There aren't very many resources for those countries
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Jun 14, 2020 06:28
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Cannons require TWO PCs to operate: The SPOTTER and The CANNONEER. If the SPOTTER rolls a DC 15 perception check, the attack will hit. The CANNONEER may then choose to gently caress up a ship pretty bad by removing 3d6 M.D.C., or remove some dudes off the map that are relatively close together because they were HIT WITH A loving CANNON
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Jun 14, 2020 06:57
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sebmojo posted:Don't have the below ten for advantage imo, keep it at 5 Yeah on average having advantage roughly works out to having a +4, right? It's strictly worse to have advantage in that situation and doesn't add anything except an extra penalty for rolling kinda low on two dice instead of very low on one die. Gharbad the Weak posted:or remove some dudes off the map that are relatively close together because they were HIT WITH A loving CANNON 
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Jun 14, 2020 08:14
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cowboy
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Tosk posted:Me again. I saw a recommendation to give level 1 characters +10 hp because the early game is super lethal. Is that a common house rule? I've heard from this thread about a house rule where level 1 characters get their total Constitution added to their health, instead of just the mod. So If you had 14 CON, that would add + 14 health instead of + 2. I don't know how common it is compared to just having characters start at a higher level, though.
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Jun 14, 2020 13:49
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I'm playing a session of D&D soon with a group where some people who have never ever played any kind of video game, tabletop rpg or anything like it. They are very skeptical, but they want to give it a go because they're curious. What's a good short module to play with a group like that? Something that would work in one or two sessions of 2-3 hours. And is not Lost mine of Phandelver because I'm a bit tired of it.
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Jun 14, 2020 14:48
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kanonvandekempen posted:I'm playing a session of D&D soon with a group where some people who have never ever played any kind of video game, tabletop rpg or anything like it. They are very skeptical, but they want to give it a go because they're curious. Why don't you play Dragon of Icespire Peak instead? It's the other intro adventure. https://slyflourish.com/running_icespire_peak.html
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Jun 14, 2020 14:54
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Not personally a big fan of modules because they feel a bit too video-gamey so a different, probably obvious suggestion: Make sure you've got a good assortment of pregenerated characters for them to choose from, or even ask each of them in advance what they'd like to be able to do in a fantasy world and go from there.
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Jun 14, 2020 15:16
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RE: Avernus, I found a story point in Chapter 3 that seems pretty much guaranteed to result in a big gently caress you to your party. I bitched about it, a lot, on the tradgames discord but I'll do so here as well since other people are running this thing. There are two paths the party can take. Both are an extended series of cascading fetch quests, but in one of them you need the blood of Tiamat to fix a guy so you can get his blood to fix something else and so on. The only two sources of Tiamat's blood are Tiamat, and Arkhan the Cruel. He has a vial of it in a reliquary he wears around his neck. The book goes into excruciating detail about how powerful Arkhan is. How many magic items he has (including the Hand of Vecna), how many abishai he has, how many dragons live in his house (5), and so on. There is one paragraph about negotiating with him, presented here in full. "Arkhan believes he can use the Hand of Vecna to unlock the means of freeing Tiamat from her prison in the Nine Hells, but only if the hand doesn't kill him first. The hand is slowly corrupting Arkhan's flesh and decomposing his body on one side. To stave off this decline, Arkhan needs to use the Hand of Vecna to snuff the life out of good-aligned creatures. If the characters try to cut a deal with Arkhan—for a vial of Tiamat's blood or help contacting the dragon queen herself—Arkhan demands the sacrifice of a good-aligned creature in exchange. Lulu is an ideal candidate, as is the unicorn Mooncolor (see "Demon Zapper"). Sacrificing such a creature to Arkhan is an evil act." Lulu, if you don't know, is your companion throughout the Avernus portion of the adventure. She is a story-critical NPC and has by this point hopefully become fairly important to the party. Either that, or you ditched her and wrote her out of the story so she's not there anyway. Mooncolor is a unicorn that is clearly intended to be sacrificed here. If you are a good party, you probably rescued her and she is travelling with you. If you are an evil party, she explicitly won't be following you and won't be with you, and also why are you here again? You could probably backtrack and get her from the place she's imprisoned, I suppose. The module does not give any real input on what's expected here. It seems like you're supposed to both be a good party and sacrifice this unicorn, but there is no chance the players will do that. Odds are, they'll fight this guy. So let's look at how that will go. The party is, at this point, level 9. Let's assume there are six of them. That gives an XP budget for this encounter of 14400 XP; Beyond that this becomes a deadly encounter. Arkhan the Cruel is CR16, worth 15000 XP all by himself. His bodyguard is present, and is CR 11. He also has a Manticore (CR3), 12 white Abishai (CR6 each), and can summon a chimera as a bonus action (CR6). It is likely that his priest friend, Krull, is here as well (CR6). That gives you 54400XP worth of enemies, for a budget of 14400XP. There's also this line, regarding the colossal dragon skull/monument to Tiamat where you are told Arkhan is when the party meets him. "It would be madness to assault this location without an army. Abishai of all colors nest in the sulfurous caves behind the skull, and scores of white abishai pour forth to counter any assault or invasion." If you set this up as written, your party is going to die here. If your party is the sort that will sacrifice unicorns to evil guys, they have to backtrack to get the unicorn if it's still imprisoned, and somehow restrain it long enough to travel for days back to where Arkhan is. If not, and if they realize how outmatched they are and don't try to fight, they have to basically leave with their tail between their legs and backtrack by at least a few sessions to take the other of the two starting paths, because this one is no longer viable. Of course there's always the creativity of players and GMs to rely on to get past all of this nonsense, but why is any of this here in the first place? Is it because the character is from Critical Role and they HAD to work that poo poo in? What did the author intend you to do here? Why were there no alternatives presented? It's just garbage writing and it pisses me off.
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Jun 14, 2020 19:18
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Enola Gay-For-Pay posted:RE: Avernus, I found a story point in Chapter 3 that seems pretty much guaranteed to result in a big gently caress you to your party. I bitched about it, a lot, on the tradgames discord but I'll do so here as well since other people are running this thing. Huh, of all the problems that Avernus has that isn't one of them. Avernus spoilers You are given the item to barter with from the previous spot on the track. If you don't want to sacrifice the celestial, you can give up the Orb of Dragonkind. The other stuff there is incase your party wants to keep the Orb, or doesn't have the orb, or needs to come back to ask for another favor(Final Battle getting Tiamat's help in the fight/breaking the chains) One of the like 3 remaining Orbs of Dragonkind is a rare enough object that Arkhan would be willing to part with Tiamat's vial of Blood. And it's probably less critical role, and more just that Joe Manganiello is friends with Perkins and Crawford. Dexo fucked around with this message at 19:40 on Jun 14, 2020 |
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Jun 14, 2020 19:33
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Dexo posted:Avernus spoilers Yeah, that’s what we did. It could be written a bit clearer but those bad choices are clearly marked as for an evil party and it explicitly tells you not to fight him in his lair.
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Jun 14, 2020 19:44
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Enola Gay-For-Pay posted:
Point of order, here: Arkhan isn't really a Critical Role character so much as a weird guest character played by Joe Manganiello (True Blood, Justice League). He's apparently appeared in a bunch of other stuff so I assume Joe likes being a Dick Character. Apparently Joe asked Adam Lee to add him to the Avernus book shortly after Lee revealed the Avernus book. It's still loving stupid and Arkhan is an incredibly stupid "OP Edgelord" character at its finest. e: f;b Dexo posted:And it's probably less critical role, and more just that Joe Manganiello is friends with Perkins and Crawford.
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Jun 14, 2020 19:45
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change my name posted:I like the flavor of the depths barbarian because there's no qualifier for how deep the water has to be, so even if you're in the middle of a dungeon or desert you can just splash a puddle on the ground and jump in It's based on Pyke's ghostwater dive, which can be used on land. I guess the "burst into water" is supposed to be cool flavor text, but it is very easy to read as requiring water nearby. Still, depth barbarian is the first barbarian subclass that I've been interested in playing, tossing people around with an anchor sounds like a lot of fun
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Jun 14, 2020 20:50
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I'm like 90% sure the "vanish into water" is meant to be flavor, yeah. It's pretty much meant to be Misty Step.
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Jun 14, 2020 21:03
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Psychedelicatessen posted:It's based on Pyke's ghostwater dive, which can be used on land. I guess the "burst into water" is supposed to be cool flavor text, but it is very easy to read as requiring water nearby. It makes me think of Warhammer chaos mutants or vampire coast monsters, and that's kind of a fun and cool idea for playing it I think.
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Jun 14, 2020 23:54
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:I've heard from this thread about a house rule where level 1 characters get their total Constitution added to their health, instead of just the mod. So If you had 14 CON, that would add + 14 health instead of + 2. I don't know how common it is compared to just having characters start at a higher level, though. I do both. It lets me throw people with Greatswords and Greataxes or actual combat spells at the party without having to worry about someone going down in one swing. I usually start games around level 3, but having a little extra padding on everyone liberates you to raise stakes without having as much chance of accidentally pasting a squishy.
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Jun 15, 2020 00:34
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I've never really felt the need to boost level 1 characters as a DM, since I'm already in control of everything they're going to face. But I've seen recommendations of casting Aid on the party that seem good. Having an NPC bless a party would be a good way of creating a connection while also ensuring that they aren't going to get blown out of the water from a bad roll. And the fact that it only lasts eight hours could add some needed urgency to an introductory quest.
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Jun 15, 2020 04:00
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Dexo posted:Huh, of all the problems that Avernus has that isn't one of them. Huh, I was wrong on the internet. The presentation is kind of lacking but you're absolutely right.
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Jun 15, 2020 07:35
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I am not enjoying the Avernus campaign that I'm playing in. We are still in the first act I believe, and nobody in our party really has any idea what we're doing or why, except that apparently we are raiding the mansion of one of the most powerful families in the city. Our attempts to get in without combat didn't go anywhere, and it's not clear to me what kind of peaceful conversation we'd even have. . I'm all for heeding the call of adventure, but this seems way beyond our 100gp contract to investigate some disturbances and I'm really struggling with roleplaying why I would be doing this.
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Jun 15, 2020 18:00
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Giodo! posted:I am not enjoying the Avernus campaign that I'm playing in. We are still in the first act I believe, and nobody in our party really has any idea what we're doing or why, except that apparently we are raiding the mansion of one of the most powerful families in the city. Our attempts to get in without combat didn't go anywhere, and it's not clear to me what kind of peaceful conversation we'd even have. . I'm all for heeding the call of adventure, but this seems way beyond our 100gp contract to investigate some disturbances and I'm really struggling with roleplaying why I would be doing this. avernus suffers a lot from something a lot of the adventure paths i am reading these days have been doing, which is really doubling down on assuming the reader is very familiar with forgotten realms lore and grew up with infinity engine games, ra salvatore, and ed greenwood, which may not be the case for everyone. a lot of the adventure paths include canon fanservice that you know the writers thought people would go buckwild for but if you dont know who these characters are it is just some random poo poo
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Jun 15, 2020 18:11
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pog boyfriend posted:avernus suffers a lot from something a lot of the adventure paths i am reading these days have been doing, which is really doubling down on assuming the reader is very familiar with forgotten realms lore and grew up with infinity engine games, ra salvatore, and ed greenwood, which may not be the case for everyone. a lot of the adventure paths include canon fanservice that you know the writers thought people would go buckwild for but if you dont know who these characters are it is just some random poo poo no, they don't trust me, as the kind of fan that would appeal to, it's just name dropping, and no actual fan service or anything it's not even half-baked or remotely well done in anyway we are all just as confused if not more so about most of these APs as you are
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Jun 15, 2020 20:00
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Arivia posted:no, they don't yeah i could see how my post might not have got it across that i grew up with that stuff and never really found any of these namedrops interesting, just random insertion of characters or locations you might know to play off nostalgia, but written in such a way that the writers think people would go buckwild for. i really wish they would knock it off because as far as i am aware, it just confuses new players(the people they are trying to get into the hobby) and it is too stilted and badly done for veterans to care.
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Jun 15, 2020 20:11
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Arivia posted:no, they don't Yeah, even Heroes of Baldur's Gate was just "meet or fight the companions from BG1 depending on their alignment." And that was written by a guy who worked on BG1.
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Jun 15, 2020 20:12
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pog boyfriend posted:yeah i could see how my post might not have got it across that i grew up with that stuff and never really found any of these namedrops interesting, just random insertion of characters or locations you might know to play off nostalgia, but written in such a way that the writers think people would go buckwild for. i really wish they would knock it off because as far as i am aware, it just confuses new players(the people they are trying to get into the hobby) and it is too stilted and badly done for veterans to care. knowing the background lore sometimes helps a bit (ordning, knights of the shield) and sometimes it actively hurts (literally the entirety of the two waterdeep books, everything about elturel). they're messes from beginning to end.
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Jun 15, 2020 20:15
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