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Fuligin posted:y'all remember the name of this blog that i think gets posted here sometimes, a smart designer who's done 'rebuilds' on vault of dragons and descent into avernus and such? my googling is weak today https://thealexandrian.net/dungeons-dragons This one?
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Oct 13, 2020 19:45
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yess much obliged
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Oct 13, 2020 19:59
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There's also Power Score which has some good rebuilds, I like their Curse of Strahd one.
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Oct 13, 2020 22:53
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Undead Hippo posted:Monstrosities are weird, because some of them are just big beasts with weird powers, but some of them are intelligent creatures. Letting a Druid turn into a Yuan-Ti Warlock with spellcasting and its own shapeshift powers isn't really fair. Yeah I decided right away that choosing a choldrith or a yuan-ti or whatever would be weird and against the spirit of the thing. I was also politely asked to not pick a basilisk. As one-off it was a fun concept to play around with and I liked the character, personality-wise, but it felt like it had the potential to go off the rails.
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Oct 14, 2020 17:51
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you had the perfect opportunity to turn into a mimic and didn't take it, shameful
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Oct 14, 2020 23:19
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cowboy
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Rime of the Frostmaiden: yea or nay? It seems to fit the bill for a spooky winter-themed game to start with a small group soon, and I've heard some good things.
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Oct 14, 2020 23:46
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I would say yea. I haven't bought many of the other campaigns, but I like the omnibuses like Yawning Portal and Saltmarsh. I bought Rime of the Frostmaiden because I'd heard it was packed full of content you could also split out into smaller quests or transplant to other locations. I'm about halfway through reading it and so far so good. If I ever get to use it with a group, I think I would try to ramp up the horror a bit. I had heard it was a bit like The Thing and I don't really get much sense of that except that it's set in a cold location. Overall though, I like it a lot. As a cohesive campaign, it seems good although I think it would need to be massaged a bit. As a book full of ideas I think it's great.
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Oct 15, 2020 09:26
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Esposito posted:I like the omnibuses like Yawning Portal and Saltmarsh. Absolutely with you on this one. I've started collecting Modules like Yawning Portal and some third party things, and I love the ability to have all these adventures without any of the rails attached, ready to reflavour and reinvent as needed. If you're into this style of play, I want to pimp Storm King's Thunder, which I've been a player in and since skimmed. Here's everyone's spoiler warning: things below may spoil SKT. As a whole campaign it takes a lot of effort to have this coherently tie together, but as a collection of setpieces it's amazing. It'd take a little bit of laundering to clear out the parts where the wider story normally attaches, but here's what you get: A really awesome first level opener (which I'll talk about below) Maps, towns, villages and named NPCs, Including a political scenario in Yartar. It's intended for North Faerun but most of these towns could be repurposed. A handful of different ancient tribal sites. These are intended to be Uthgardt tribe sites, but things can be reflavoured (I'll stop saying this now). A lair/castle for a lord/leader of each of the major types of Giant (Hill, Stone, Fire, Cloud, Storm). A dope fight with a psychic kraken boss in the ocean! A lair for a blue dragon who has taken over a Yuan Ti temple in a desert. A crazy powerful ancient red dragon fight. The ancient site of an all seeing giant oracle in the mountains, and the dangers that lie within. In the opener, you head to a town that has been damaged (in this case by cloud giants, but they make no appearance here - they've been and gone). The township has fled to a citadel in its innermost wall. There's a number of available reasons as to why the party are headed to this town, but ultimately they're to end up clearing out the goblins who have taken the opportunity to plunder the lower town now that everyone's holed up in the castle. The end result of this is a grateful township, and an opportunity to either fight back (or work with) some greedy racketeers who have taken this opportunity to attempt a protection racket on the whole town. An orc invasion follows, making this decision a significant one. Also, the lady of this town died in the event and that's an open hook. I really like this as an opener because it makes the characters mean something to the community where they start their adventure, whether that community is the nice one of the town lordship or the not so nice one of the criminal organisation they might put themselves in cahoots with. Azza Bamboo fucked around with this message at 10:12 on Oct 15, 2020 |
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Oct 15, 2020 10:07
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That's great to know, that sort of thing is exactly what I'm looking for. Storm Kings Thunder and Curse of Strahd were the only other campaigns I was a little interested in, so I'll consider picking up SKT if I get the chance.
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Oct 15, 2020 10:46
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Declan MacManus posted:i helped a first time player build a rogue who listened to dnd podcasts but had never played before last night, and it took about an hour and a half This seems like a crazy long time time to spend rolling a character, even for a player completely new to the idea of fantasy and roleplaying. For new players who already have an idea of what class and/or an idea of a character they want to play, I'll step them through their important stats (i.e. DEX for a Rogue), let them choose their non-important stats based on how they imagine their character (are they smart? perceptive? charismatic?), and give them a run-down of what the D&D races are and which are best suited to being a rogue (because everyone knows what an elf or dwarf is, but not everyone knows that elves get a DEX bonus). Then the rest of the character sheet (proficiencies, background etc) are pretty much just chosen on how they imagine their character to be, because taking a sub-optimal proficiency etc makes a negligible difference to actual gameplay. I ran a party of 6 through character creation for the first time in about an hour and a half, because the only real important things to note are making sure they don't accidentally dump their important stats for their class, and then showing them which options best describe how they imagine their character to be. Admittedly, that's with a full party of first/second time players, so there was plenty of time for the entire group to spend level 1 and 2 fleshing out who their characters were before they even started thinking about subclasses. It'd be a very different experience for a new player to try and roll a character that's of equivalent power to an experienced player's character, but with a full party of non-optimized characters it really hasn't mattered at all.
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Oct 16, 2020 02:19
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 Kelvan, the jovial young wizard the party met in the tavern. (I draw these little sketches when there's no character art in the book, because I like to show the face of the character when we're in a dialogue/roleplay part.)  King Keraptis: Kelvan's final form.
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Oct 16, 2020 14:50
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Bogan Krkic posted:This seems like a crazy long time time to spend rolling a character, even for a player completely new to the idea of fantasy and roleplaying. For new players who already have an idea of what class and/or an idea of a character they want to play, I'll step them through their important stats (i.e. DEX for a Rogue), let them choose their non-important stats based on how they imagine their character (are they smart? perceptive? charismatic?), and give them a run-down of what the D&D races are and which are best suited to being a rogue (because everyone knows what an elf or dwarf is, but not everyone knows that elves get a DEX bonus). Then the rest of the character sheet (proficiencies, background etc) are pretty much just chosen on how they imagine their character to be, because taking a sub-optimal proficiency etc makes a negligible difference to actual gameplay. Yeah, I helped my partner make her first character ever (a Bard... a BUGBEAR Valor Bard) last month and it took like 30 minutes and she had fun making choices apart from spells, which were sort of overwhelming for a new person, but still not bad or difficult (I gave her a couple of suggestions). She's never played a tabletop RPG or a D&D CRPG before. Every time this thread has a conversation about how making a character is overwhelming and difficult for new players, I'm a little mystified. It feels as/more condescending than the "little brother class" bullshit; it's really not that hard.
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Oct 16, 2020 19:50
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Baku posted:Yeah, I helped my partner make her first character ever (a Bard... a BUGBEAR Valor Bard) last month and it took like 30 minutes and she had fun making choices apart from spells, which were sort of overwhelming for a new person, but still not bad or difficult (I gave her a couple of suggestions). She's never played a tabletop RPG or a D&D CRPG before. There’s a guy in my group who has made at least 6 characters over the last couple of years and still needs at an hour of back and forth help putting his level 1 sheet together and asks at least every other encounter what he’s supposed to add to his attack rolls. Some people just don’t Get It.
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Oct 16, 2020 19:53
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History Comes Inside! posted:There’s a guy in my group who has made at least 6 characters over the last couple of years and still needs at an hour of back and forth help putting his level 1 sheet together and asks at least every other encounter what he’s supposed to add to his attack rolls. Yeah, I suppose that's true. And I think that some people "Get It" intuitively and others never do is another reason that the process of teaching the game should be done on a one-to-one basis; that's a default for me with any RPG design question, though. I always think going to the individual players/your own individual group with the inside knowledge you have about them is the best approach. What's the best class for a new player? I dunno, what do they want to play? I definitely take your point, though. I have one guy I've been playing with intermittently since high school - at least a few sessions of every D&D edition from 2E to 5E - for whom it's a running joke among our other high school group players that he doesn't understand dual-wielding. Because he's made at least one dual-wielding character in every edition, and has never not had to ask the other players/DM how his character works and how many attacks he gets multiple times. Admittedly the rules are confusing sometimes and the specifics change, but they always boil down to "one extra attack" in 2E and 3E, "read your power" in 4E, and "you can attack as a bonus action" in 5E even if the specific hit/damage modifiers get fiddly.
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Oct 16, 2020 20:34
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Best roleplayer in my group is our Bard and a year in & at fifth level he still consistently has trouble telling a skill check and a saving throw apart from each other, or remembering to apply his attack roll bonuses in situations where Beyond doesn't calculate it for him.
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Oct 16, 2020 20:39
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"Making a character for someone" means different things to different people. Trying to make a character that both matches what the player wants to play and is also mechanically decent will take more time than saying "pick a race and a class and a background, assign your ability scores and skills wherever feels best, aaaand we're done!" Similarly if you actually try to explain where all the numbers come from it will take twice as long as scribbling over the raw attribute scores with black marker until level 4. That said, since the whole race/class ability score matchup minigame is finally dead and gone you can easily go "pick a race and pick two of strong, agile, smart, street smart, or chatty. Do you want spells? OK here's your class" so yeah 30 minutes would seem about right there (45-60 without the black marker) Splicer fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Oct 16, 2020 |
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Oct 16, 2020 21:24
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when i helped my friend build her character, i was also explaining the starting equipment and answering questions and helping her decide on a background, how to allocate stats, etc. i also had to explain some more basic stuff like what rolling 4d6 meant, modifiers, etc. because she also didn’t have any sort of background in d&d style video games or what would be optimal for her character she did some research on lore but not necessarily game mechanics because i don’t think that’s especially interesting for someone looking to come at it from a rp perspective. some people have the brain to fill in all the numbers and get it right away and some people get the acting part right away and struggle to learn the math parts. if i were to have brute forced it (“what race do you want to play? okay, what class do you want to play? okay, roll your stats, put your two best scores in these and your two worst in these. what background? cool. done.”) i could’ve knocked it out in 30 minutes but i don’t think she would’ve been as engaged. 5e does a really good job of stripping things back to their essentials and is way more welcoming than any other edition of d&d, but if you don’t Get It, as someone said, you don’t get it. i came into d&d playing 3.5 after playing kotor as a kid, so i took to it like a duck to water, but that’s not everyone’s experience and that’s not everyone’s brain i think there used to be a self-selecting process to d&d where you looked into it and you either got intimidated by all the numbers or you thought it was cool, but now that people can see other ways to approach tabletop gaming where maybe knowing every ability score and what proficiency does isn’t the hugest deal but having a longform group improv is a really fun idea. these people can get left behind by character building (which, again, i find painless but i’ve been doing this on and off for 15ish years) so i think going slow and not overwhelming people with a bunch of information all at once is the way to go.i mentioned in another post i made that i was slowly falling out of love with d20 systems; that’s not necessarily true, reflecting on it. i just get tired of the onboarding and sometimes tedious math that gets in the way of people having fun.
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Oct 16, 2020 21:44
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Declan MacManus posted:i just get tired of the onboarding and sometimes tedious math that gets in the way of people having fun. I'm in full agreement with this, I think that's why I was so surprised that it took so long to build a character sheet. In my experience, people who are new to D&D (or TTRPGs in general) will get intimidated pretty quickly if you try and run them through why every modifier is whatever number, and how it all fits together, which is why my technique tends to be to try and simplify it as much as possible. I tend to get them picking if they want to be a sword, bow or magic user, big/small/weird race, and strong/agile/smart/perceptive/chatty, and then offering them the suitable choices from those categories rather than bothering them with why an elf might be more suited to being a ranger than a cleric. But again, my games I play in with new players tend to be far less focused on making a mechanically optimal character than games with experienced players, I can imagine if I were trying to blend a new player into an experienced group it'd be a lot more involved a process.
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Oct 17, 2020 02:19
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We ended our last Curse of Strahd session in the Death House at level 1 and the rogue just disturbed the crib in the nursery, causing a spectre to attack us, so anyway I guess I'm looking forward to rolling a new character. I don't really understand how it's a CR 1 monster (CR is useless, I know) because unless we drop it in one round it seems like it's more or less guaranteed that someone's going to just straight up die.
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Oct 17, 2020 06:09
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Edit:Nevermind.
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Oct 17, 2020 08:27
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It’s also hostile and can’t be talked with if the adventure is run as written, because the adventure was written by incompetents
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Oct 17, 2020 12:10
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i’m doing prep for death house and made it so you can just talk to it because 1. that’s scarier and 2. it’s stupid to give a monster characterization and a backstory and not let you try to reason with it
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Oct 17, 2020 12:39
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GHOST_BUTT posted:We ended our last Curse of Strahd session in the Death House at level 1 and the rogue just disturbed the crib in the nursery, causing a spectre to attack us, so anyway I guess I'm looking forward to rolling a new character. I don't really understand how it's a CR 1 monster (CR is useless, I know) because unless we drop it in one round it seems like it's more or less guaranteed that someone's going to just straight up die. It’s not called You’ll Probably Be Fine House! It’s kind of notorious for stuff like that. Lvl 1 can be rough in most modules but Death House is a very weird intro for a campaign because as written it’ll probably kill a few PCs.
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Oct 17, 2020 13:06
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Best roleplayer in my group is our Bard and a year in & at fifth level he still consistently has trouble telling a skill check and a saving throw apart from each other, or remembering to apply his attack roll bonuses in situations where Beyond doesn't calculate it for him. fifth level a year on!? it's no wonder he's not keeping track well if it's nearly a month between sessions
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Oct 17, 2020 13:12
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that said i got pulled into a weekly group by someone that never actually showed up to it and they stopped bothering to invite that guy eventually and we just tonight hit level 7 (now i, the moon circle druid, can [attempt once to] force others into beasts ho ho ho) and i joined in the vicinity of June at level 3, the beginning was in May. also the only person that's joined after me had to start at a lower level, but for better or worse i've come to notice that i simply will not stand for joining at a lesser level than the party median and it's never been an issue. but that makes two months-long-running DMs in 5e that have made other joining people start at a lower level for some reason sure they get accelerated XP but dammit do not stand for it! for yourself, for others! even if they need the time to get used to their things, that's a big disadvantage while they're trying to get used to their things! like at least let them have the hit dice, dang /e i haven't gotten called out for being a rules lawyer yet, so maybe i just have advantage on charisma checks vs. DMs stringless fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Oct 17, 2020 |
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Oct 17, 2020 13:25
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I average about an hour when setting my completely fresh friends up with their first few characters but a lot of that is like, offering them scenarios where they can use their abilities and like, how their turns will likely look in common situations. It can go a little longer if we want to get into like, actually understanding conditions? Of course we usually have to go over things again as a refresher ingame but a refresher with a familiar concept while the game's in progress >>> trying to introduce a completely new concept. My friends are very RP focused but I can see the progress happening as the previously completely fresh among them start to like, come to innately understand things. These must be the warm fuzzies of a proud parent. In other news I got an invite to a new game on a new character, and on the first app I sent out too! Gonna play an eldritch knight based off an npc from the game I DM--as he was crushed against a wall and brought back from the brink of death by the party I caught myself thinking 'wow this would be a really fun origin story for an adventurer!' and that brainworm grew at alarming speeds.
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Oct 17, 2020 13:28
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FFT posted:fifth level a year on!? We're all pretty busy attorneys, and we spend a lot of time just chatting each session. edit: also it's just been since January not a full year Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Oct 18, 2020 |
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Oct 17, 2020 14:20
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please knock Mom! posted:It’s also hostile and can’t be talked with if the adventure is run as written, because the adventure was written by incompetents Kaysette posted:It’s not called You’ll Probably Be Fine House! Yeah, I read it when I was planning to run the module a few months ago (before someone else volunteered) and, while I understand that they're trying to set the tone of the campaign early on, it feels like they overcorrected from power-fantasy-DnD straight into ten-foot-pole-DnD. GHOST_BUTT fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Oct 17, 2020 |
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Oct 17, 2020 15:27
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Been a while since I looked at dnd stuff but ive got the itch again and have some questions: -Is Dungeon of the Mad Mage any good? -Is Descent into Avernus any good? -Is it worth it to pick up the Eberron setting guide? -Did they ever figure out Psionics?
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Oct 18, 2020 14:58
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AnEdgelord posted:Been a while since I looked at dnd stuff but ive got the itch again and have some questions: No.
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Oct 18, 2020 15:23
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Kaysette posted:No. Bruh, the Eberron book is fine.
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Oct 18, 2020 15:24
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I actually haven’t looked at that one but I maintain the other 3/4.
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Oct 18, 2020 15:27
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AnEdgelord posted:Been a while since I looked at dnd stuff but ive got the itch again and have some questions: - don't know - your mileage will vary - Eberron is always good - lolnope Splicer fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Oct 18, 2020 |
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Oct 18, 2020 15:44
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Im looking to get back into d&d because I own all the physical books aside from the setting books and the adventure books and its what my friends play or have played in the past. Plus I played through some of the BG3 early access and that renewed my interest in playing some tabletop games. I have experience with other rpgs but they're both a harder sell for my potential playgroup and I'm more interested in the class based dungeon crawler thing dnd has going on than say World of Darkness or Call of Cthulu political or investigative gameplay. AnEdgelord fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Oct 18, 2020 |
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Oct 18, 2020 15:53
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Psionics are fine, too; make a Sorcerer and take whatever spells you think should represent your psionic powers. Extra-special mind mages are lame and every single edition's attempt to write rules for it has sucked somehow.
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Oct 18, 2020 15:53
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Some of the new psionic subclasses coming in Tasha's next month seem interesting (I thought soul knife was underwhelming before realizing rogues mainly deal damage through sneak attack)
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Oct 18, 2020 17:12
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AnEdgelord posted:-Is it worth it to pick up the Eberron setting guide? Yes, it's really good. Also if you intend to run the setting, definitely pick up Exploring Eberron (unofficial but by Keith Baker), it's an absolutely fantastic supplement. It's mostly lore, but really good lore and the mechanical stuff in there is pretty cool as well. Guildencrantz fucked around with this message at 18:10 on Oct 18, 2020 |
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Oct 18, 2020 18:06
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beating a dead horse here but i'm helping someone build a ranger and god rangers are built really poorly
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Oct 18, 2020 22:41
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I'm reading through some forgotten realms lore to see if I can find any neat little nuggets for the campaign I'm DMing and I don't understand what the writers were going for with Yartar. The city elects its leader, and the winner is in office for life. I was figuring this was a set up for constant populist assassination plots, and the current leader getting really paranoid whenever someone charismatic and popular starts appearing in the city. I mean, the more likely it is your faction could lose an election the more likely it is people will seek to trigger one. But nah it's just a place some illythids attacked this one time and now there's Cthulhu esque cult things going on too. Azza Bamboo fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Oct 18, 2020 |
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Oct 18, 2020 22:43
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| # ? Jun 6, 2024 07:23 |
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I had been running Out of the Abyss for about a month with a fairly large party (7) and it has been pretty successful. They are mostly still getting used to their characters and learning the game (they are mostly completely newbies). I'd say all in all, it has been pretty successful. But this weekend, two folks couldn't make it so we decided to keep our D&D night anyway and everyone would roll new characters and we'd try Curse of Strahd for Halloween season. We started with a combination of "You're working for a Duchess and are returning from a mission when the fog sets in...." and off we went. They all *loved* the gothic horror, really got into the whole vibe of it and were all genuinely worried about every corner hiding a terrifying thing. We started the Death House mini-adventure. Just when they got used to the truth being the kids were actually living, but weird, kids, they all turned around for a second and engaged in conversation and when they looked back, I said the kids were gone. A few threw up their pencils and were all like "OH GOD HERE WE GO." And the tension really ratcheted up, but in an engaging and good way. At the end of the 2.5 hour session, they finally made it to the third floor and some animated armor came alive and launched a punch at the monk's face and I said "And we're going to stop there until next week." They all went "OHHHHHHHHHH" and then proceeded to talk about how it was the most fun they've had playing D&D. I was still getting texts this morning about it. There was no combat, just conversation and exploring and finding secret areas and trying to piece together clues. I'm not sure what exactly did it. We were all treating it pretty casually since it wasn't our "MAIN ADVENTURE" and the characters were all pretty fun. Even though some of them were a little silly, it made a great counterpoint for the seriousness of the content. Anyway, now everyone wants to make this one our main campaign. Sounds good to me.
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Oct 18, 2020 22:51
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