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Yeah, even when I go outside of my comfort zone as a DM and do weird voices or mannerisms, the players might sometimes start by laughing at me and my dumb voices, but very quickly it turns into laughing at the NPC at which point I feel like the mission is accomplished. I've also had a lot of luck with catchphrases for specific NPCs. Don't make them too omnipresent or too silly, but having an NPC repeat one or two key phrases that help define them has worked very well for me. My party were very excited about the guard captain in a city I'd created because he kept repeating a preference for "law and order" even in the face of a hidden child sacrifice ring amongst the nobles of the town, and he became sort of a party favourite because of that. The Mash fucked around with this message at 10:06 on Jul 23, 2020 |
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Jul 23, 2020 10:04
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pog boyfriend posted:whenever someone comes to me for serious dm advice(not like, "how do i make skeleton bad guy kill player good" but "how do i get better as a dm") my number one thing is always going to be improv classes. i never even got really into improv, i just dabbled, but being able to turn some random thing into comedy by rolling with 'yes and' and knowing how to pull in the direction you want without yanking the scene has given me a lot of control over the tone of the sessions, which is paramount. if you can work with player shenanigans without hard shutting them down, the difference in quality is night and day This is good advice, it also kind of teaches you how to shoot for the tone you want without being as sheepish or tentative about it. Like I've found that many new players want to go whole hog with voices and RP and stuff but will default to a more reserved attitude unless somebody else is just going for it.
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Jul 23, 2020 12:01
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The Mash posted:Yeah, even when I go outside of my comfort zone as a DM and do weird voices or mannerisms, the players might sometimes start by laughing at me and my dumb voices, but very quickly it turns into laughing at the NPC at which point I feel like the mission is accomplished. Yeah this has helped me a lot. Catchphrases or physical ticks/mannerisms is how I can easily keep NPCs distinct in my head/notes, otherwise they all devolve into a homogenous fantasy accent.
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Jul 23, 2020 14:55
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Pussy Quipped posted:Yeah this has helped me a lot. Catchphrases or physical ticks/mannerisms is how I can easily keep NPCs distinct in my head/notes, otherwise they all devolve into a homogenous fantasy accent. it is important to also act things out physically as well. it is sort of voice acting 101 but by changing how i physically act out the characters, it helps bring the voice to life even in these online voice over sessions i primarily do these days
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Jul 23, 2020 15:52
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I’ve just started playing in an adventurers league game, Dragons of Icespire Peak, and made my first character ever. Much easier with beyond’s creator. For AL we can only pick phb + 1 source, so while I wanted to be a hobgoblin, I wanted access to good cantrips for eldritch Knight more, so I went with SCAG. I can still change up my character as much as I want before level 5 however , so if anyone has any tips or tricks I can definitely make adjustments. Or even advice about the campaign. Here’s the sheet: https://www.dndbeyond.com/profile/gowby/characters/32502389 I played a single one on one session with the DM last night (the other players had to reschedule to Saturday, but luckily this module is legal to run with only one player). I beat a mimic pretty much single handedly, but my npc buddies had to carry me through Gnomengard’s social hazards. Was pretty fun tho, and it’s neat to be part of an official campaign (though I’m still not really sure what exactly that means)
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Jul 23, 2020 18:48
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a fatguy baldspot posted:I’ve just started playing in an adventurers league game, Dragons of Icespire Peak, and made my first character ever. Much easier with beyond’s creator. For AL we can only pick phb + 1 source, so while I wanted to be a hobgoblin, I wanted access to good cantrips for eldritch Knight more, so I went with SCAG. I can still change up my character as much as I want before level 5 however , so if anyone has any tips or tricks I can definitely make adjustments. Or even advice about the campaign. Looks fine, but you'd be better served by a 16/10/16/14/8 stat line and you may want to consider Athletics over Insight for grapples/shoves/etc.
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Jul 23, 2020 19:56
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pog boyfriend posted:it is important to also act things out physically as well. it is sort of voice acting 101 but by changing how i physically act out the characters, it helps bring the voice to life even in these online voice over sessions i primarily do these days This is huge. I posted earlier in the thread about this too: Athanatos posted:You don't have to be able to do voices. It can be as simple as changing your body language for different characters. How they use their hands. Are they hunched over? Do they look the players in the eye or keep them pointed at the ground. Maybe a character is quieter or loud and boisterous. Those things dont require different voices and accents or to be amazingly on point with changing you voice, but can make a world of difference. Even something super small like slightly hunching over and pretending to hold your robe closed to show fear.
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Jul 23, 2020 21:15
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Yeah just chiming in to underline that stuff like body language or tone is as much if not more important than changing your voice. It also gets people to actually listen, which can be a big deal with certain player types (or people who go "I'm not playing a Charisma guy, whatever") who tend to tune out until the fighting starts. poo poo, if you're playing at an actual table, get up and walk around when you're DMing. Engage with people.
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Jul 23, 2020 22:05
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On those notes, if you've seen the current season of critical role, note that Marisha Ray's entire character, Beau, is portrayed through her posture. Like, when she's in character she's generally slouched. She affects her voice a little, but watching her, it's 95% body language.
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Jul 23, 2020 22:12
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Toshimo posted:Looks fine, but you'd be better served by a 16/10/16/14/8 stat line and you may want to consider Athletics over Insight for grapples/shoves/etc. I was told not to dump dex, why put wisdom so high?. Also are grapples and shoves so common that I'll need it? Insight fits his background better Actually that's more stats than allowed? Are you asking me to cheat?! Wait wait that's only 5 stats what hte heck
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Jul 23, 2020 22:29
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a fatguy baldspot posted:I was told not to dump dex, why put wisdom so high?. Also are grapples and shoves so common that I'll need it? Insight fits his background better Sorry. 16/10/16/14/10/8. Wisdom got eaten by my phone. Grapples/shoves are good (and AL had fairly common Athletics checks), but it's not mandatory. Also, if you are using Heavy Armor (as per your sheet), dex isn't buying you much compared to just having more HP.
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Jul 23, 2020 22:36
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Toshimo posted:Sorry. 16/10/16/14/10/8. Wisdom got eaten by my phone. Gotcha, thanks, I'll make the adjustments - though ill be sad to lose that wisdom. I guess its not a big deal. Was thinking of taking magic initiate and adding some cleric or druid spells
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Jul 23, 2020 22:39
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a fatguy baldspot posted:Gotcha, thanks, I'll make the adjustments - though ill be sad to lose that wisdom. I guess its not a big deal. Was thinking of taking magic initiate and adding some cleric or druid spells It will take 5 ASIs to cap STR/INT and if you are using SCAGtrips, you'll want Warcaster. Idk that you'd ever have space for Magic Initiate.
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Jul 23, 2020 22:50
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Saxophone posted:On those notes, if you've seen the current season of critical role, note that Marisha Ray's entire character, Beau, is portrayed through her posture. Like, when she's in character she's generally slouched. She affects her voice a little, but watching her, it's 95% body language. Chiming in to say that since most of us are probably playing over Discord/Roll20/Zoom/whatever these days, physical acting with your NPCs or characters will translate, even over voice chat. I play a character a lot like Beau (though I didn't see CR until about 2 years into our game) and I don't really consciously change my voice much, but my posture and facial expressions really make me sound different when I'm roleplaying, and we've been playing over Discord for the entire 5-year campaign. The first time I saw Marisha Ray as Beau I was like, "oh poo poo, I know exactly who this character is."
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Jul 23, 2020 22:56
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a fatguy baldspot posted:I’ve just started playing in an adventurers league game, Dragons of Icespire Peak, and made my first character ever. Much easier with beyond’s creator. For AL we can only pick phb + 1 source, so while I wanted to be a hobgoblin, I wanted access to good cantrips for eldritch Knight more, so I went with SCAG. I can still change up my character as much as I want before level 5 however , so if anyone has any tips or tricks I can definitely make adjustments. Or even advice about the campaign. Season 9 Player's Guide posted:Character Creation Unlocks That said I don't really know how the whole seasons things work so I don't know if you're playing Season 9 Splicer fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Jul 23, 2020 |
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Jul 23, 2020 23:00
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Splicer posted:If you're planning to keep bumping Str over Int then you'll not really get much use out of the SCAG cantrips past level 4, so hobgoblin might be the way to go. I also feel honourbound to point out that if you are going SCAG and want a + Int character you can use the variant SCAG Tiefling (+2 Dex/+1 Int), and: Oh hey, that's pretty cool. I am playing season 9 but not really interested in playing tieflings. i did grab myself a common magic item as a consolation prize though, so thanks for that! my plan is to bump both int and str, is that a bad idea?
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Jul 23, 2020 23:22
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Bumping both Str and Int is fine. You'll probably want to prioritize Str because an EK is still more a Fighter than a Wizard, and Int doesn't actually affect many of the things you do with spells (self-buffs, really anything that doesn't require a saving throw or SPELL attack roll).
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Jul 24, 2020 01:01
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Bingo Bango posted:Chiming in to say that since most of us are probably playing over Discord/Roll20/Zoom/whatever these days, physical acting with your NPCs or characters will translate, even over voice chat. I play a character a lot like Beau (though I didn't see CR until about 2 years into our game) and I don't really consciously change my voice much, but my posture and facial expressions really make me sound different when I'm roleplaying, and we've been playing over Discord for the entire 5-year campaign. The first time I saw Marisha Ray as Beau I was like, "oh poo poo, I know exactly who this character is." I'm playing a small-sized character and tilt my camera so I'm barely peeking in from the bottom.
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Jul 24, 2020 01:04
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poor life choice posted:I'm playing a small-sized character and tilt my camera so I'm barely peeking in from the bottom. Now that I'm thinking about it, maybe that's the real reason why I slouch so much when playing a halfling.
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Jul 24, 2020 01:16
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a fatguy baldspot posted:Oh hey, that's pretty cool. I am playing season 9 but not really interested in playing tieflings. i did grab myself a common magic item as a consolation prize though, so thanks for that! Splicer fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Jul 24, 2020 |
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Jul 24, 2020 01:28
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God, I had a fun moment in a curse of strahd campaign... We're in the death house, we kinda went there later than the book would suggest because we had been doing some other content ahead of time... So our party had just met up, had a climactic battle with a ghost and a suit of animate armor. Things were still and quiet and we'd just had a short rest, done some character bonding. But than we hear the noise, the 'schf- schf- schf' We'd been hearing this the entire time we'd been trying to regroup in this empty, pitch dark house. Getting harassed by a poltergeist and generally assailed by spooky ghost poo poo. We'd been hearing it over and over. But just when we'd thought we'd defeated the heart of the haunting we hear it again... 'schf- schf- schf-' Anyway none of the party pass their perception checks but the rogue so he slinks out and opens a door and beyond it there is a hallway, just trailing off into pitch blackness... and down the hallway he hears 'Schf- schf- schf- scHF- SCHF-' And this loving broom, sweeping all on its own comes flying at him from the darkness. Anyway he gets the initiative so he attempts to grapple this broom. Wrapping his hands around it as it struggles and the rest of the party hears the commotion and rushes in just in time to watch the rogue, in a top hat (he stole it earlier!), dancing around the room with a broom in hand. Now of course we're confused by this and laugh about it because obviously he's just in high spirits. Than the drat thing *stabs him in the chest* with its handle and whirls around, trying to rip his face off with its bristles, like some kind've facehugger. See the broom of animate attack does !1d4+3 WITH MULTIATTACK which, just to be clear. My fighter could just about manage that in one round with action surge and a dagger. So we're no longer laughing as the rogue gets nearly dropped... Thinking fast he throws it over the railing down the spiral staircase The entire party runs over to the railing and we all watch to see if its 'dead', as dead as a broom can be... It lies on the floor motionless for a few seconds than, with a perfectly timed stinger no less from the music bot it *SCHIF* slides off into the darkness... Now the party is spooked. We had one player who we fluffed as 'unconscious from ghost shenanigans' to defend as well as some injuries of our own from fighting the poltergeist and animate armor. We're not happy and we're certainly not in any shape for an ambush. So my fighter elects that we have to defeat this broom if we want to rest... But nobody is happy about it. So the party wades down the stairs, shields up... hunting for this, just to be clear... its a broom. We're hunting a broom, we're terrified too... the ghost and poltergeist were one thing but something about this loving broom has us on edge. We notice that the entire place is spic and span... we'd noticed earlier that some rooms are decrepit and others are perfectly dusted but now we know why. Anyway one door is open but the rest are shut tight. So we enter this room and we find... nothing. Not a goddamn thing. The broom had completely slipped us and we could not find a trace of it as we regroup. Thats when I had an idea... Reaching into the fire-place I snag a handfull of soot and just *throw it everywhere* on the clean floor. The broom *HISSES* at us as it drops from the ceiling where it had been waiting to ambush anyone who tried to hang back, a second, smaller broom emerging from its bristles as it descends and spends one attack to sweep up the mess, and the other attack to clean up the MESSMAKER, luckily my fighter has a better AC so I raised my bracer in time to watch its bristles cut across a metal bracer hard enough to leave what appear to be claw marks. Screaming now I attack and ultimately get my hands on the broom, attempting to wrestle it into the fire-place. Unfortunately my trip attack killed it before we could force it into surrender... Since by god, we want that loving broom. See originally the broom was supposed to just sit in a closet and attack you if you open the door but the DM thought that would be lame so he made it wander from room to room. than, when it had given us the slip he'd decided... why not give it high intelligence too? The broom was smarter than me! Hes promised to let us figure out a way to revive it later on since we definitely wanna keep it. Motherfucker fucked around with this message at 09:22 on Jul 24, 2020 |
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Jul 24, 2020 09:18
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Motherfucker posted:broom doom 
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Jul 24, 2020 10:54
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Yeah I'm going to be running Curse of Strahd as my second dive into DM'ing after the folks I'm playing with finish LMOP and I think I'll change the broom to be more active also. I love love love the idea of getting the floors dirty to piss it off.
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Jul 24, 2020 11:08
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Abisteen posted:Yeah I'm going to be running Curse of Strahd as my second dive into DM'ing after the folks I'm playing with finish LMOP and I think I'll change the broom to be more active also. I love love love the idea of getting the floors dirty to piss it off. Well be careful with it because the challenge rating is a loving LIE. That thing will EAT YOU ALIVE
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Jul 24, 2020 11:52
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I mean, you remember the Sorcerer's Apprentice segment from Disney's Fantasia? Brooms are not to be underestimated.
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Jul 24, 2020 13:04
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I think I might have gotten into the phase of DND where you need to tone back your characters because I just asked my DM if I can play a "a sapient rat operating a flesh golem from inside"
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Jul 24, 2020 15:26
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Nitrousoxide posted:I think I might have gotten into the phase of DND where you need to tone back your characters because I just asked my DM if I can play a "a sapient rat operating a flesh golem from inside"
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Jul 24, 2020 15:31
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Nitrousoxide posted:I think I might have gotten into the phase of DND where you need to tone back your characters because I just asked my DM if I can play a "a sapient rat operating a flesh golem from inside" That's actually not too wild of an idea? Maybe you're the familiar of a great wizard/artificer who's gone missing, and you've taken one of their creations out to find them undetected or something?
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Jul 24, 2020 15:39
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Abisteen posted:Yeah I'm going to be running Curse of Strahd as my second dive into DM'ing after the folks I'm playing with finish LMOP and I think I'll change the broom to be more active also. I love love love the idea of getting the floors dirty to piss it off. Lmao that broom almost killed our rogue
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Jul 24, 2020 15:44
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Nitrousoxide posted:I think I might have gotten into the phase of DND where you need to tone back your characters because I just asked my DM if I can play a "a sapient rat operating a flesh golem from inside" I mean, I've played a Warforged as a gnome in power armor before, and a Simic Hybrid as a sentient hive. So have fun.....just don't do it in the DM's serious campaign, save it for the silly one.
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Jul 24, 2020 15:56
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My previous character was a skateboarding maid in this campaign. she was unfortunately chopped in half by an owl bear at level 1.
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Jul 24, 2020 16:07
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Nitrousoxide posted:I think I might have gotten into the phase of DND where you need to tone back your characters because I just asked my DM if I can play a "a sapient rat operating a flesh golem from inside" 
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Jul 24, 2020 16:38
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What was so much better about the 4e fighter? (I’m reading this thread backwards, lots of good info here)
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Jul 24, 2020 16:47
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They just got to do stuff. It was a symptom of how everyone followed the same power rules so fighters basically got to have a list of cool things they could do the same as all the casters. Kinda the reason battle master fighters are easily the best, because they get a bunch of special moves and actions and stuff. Kinda just imagine a battle master fighter with the Sentinel feat baked right into the class and with more maneuvers and you've got a decent idea.
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Jul 24, 2020 16:56
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Glagha posted:They just got to do stuff. It was a symptom of how everyone followed the same power rules so fighters basically got to have a list of cool things they could do the same as all the casters. Kinda the reason battle master fighters are easily the best, because they get a bunch of special moves and actions and stuff. Kinda just imagine a battle master fighter with the Sentinel feat baked right into the class and with more maneuvers and you've got a decent idea. a fatguy baldspot posted:What was so much better about the 4e fighter? (I’m reading this thread backwards, lots of good info here) Imagine a Battlemaster fighter with the Sentinel feat, the unwavering mark feature and tons of customization options. And the joy that was the Come and Get it Power. (It pulled all enemies within 15 feet of you adjacent to you and marked them. It is a awesome power.)
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Jul 24, 2020 17:09
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a fatguy baldspot posted:What was so much better about the 4e fighter? (I’m reading this thread backwards, lots of good info here) Also as a base ability if the person they were actively fighting tried to hit someone else instead the fighter got to wail on them. If they tried to run away then the fighter got to wail on them and a successful wailing pulled the monster back into fighting the fighter, eating their movement.
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Jul 24, 2020 17:11
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Madmarker posted:Imagine a Battlemaster fighter with the Sentinel feat, the unwavering mark feature and tons of customization options. And the joy that was the Come and Get it Power. (It pulled all enemies within 15 feet of you adjacent to you and marked them. It is a awesome power.)
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Jul 24, 2020 17:13
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Splicer posted:They could do things in combat other than make hp go down. You know how most spells do things other than make hp go down so you get to make decisions other than who you get to hit with an axe? 4E Fighters got stuff like that but not magic. 4e’s design choice of making everyone function as “casters” is probably one of the best design choices any d20 system ever made it makes for some decision fatigue i guess but it also allows players to think very tactically about what they want to do without having to rely on the dm allowing them to interact with the environment 13th age walking that aspect back was a mistake imo
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Jul 24, 2020 17:25
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How similar to 4e is Pathfinder 2e? I never played 4e but from what I have heard about it, it seems like PF2E is trying to use some of the good parts of that edition.
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Jul 24, 2020 17:38
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:How similar to 4e is Pathfinder 2e? I never played 4e but from what I have heard about it, it seems like PF2E is trying to use some of the good parts of that edition. A lot. No warlord yet (but non-magical healing is good to great and much more reliable than healing spells out of combat), everyone has cool things to do but they're less exciting than 4e. You still have Vancian spellcasting for wizards, for example, but it's very much been mathed out to be balanced with other party members. Better out of combat support in many, many ways. It's also up as a humble bundle right now if you'd like to check it out for cheap!
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Jul 24, 2020 17:41
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