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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: I got it early in the pandemic to play something with my gaming group that didn't take too much prep time. It is a megadungeon, not too much plot but each layer has a dungeon map. Still not too logical (why does the thieves guild watch-post ignore the trapped corridor to the south?) but each level has groups to peacefully interact with. Good to play with a group that is up for a big dungeon. Has some embarrassing stuff with Drow but that is true with almost all Dungeons and Dragons products.
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Oct 19, 2020 23:28
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KingKalamari posted:A little late to the conversation, but I wanted to draw attention to this seemingly innocuous point on the house rules document that I think is telling. In most of the games I've played, the idea of characters sleeping in their armor during long rests never comes up, it's always handwaved away as a matter of "Of course your character removes their armor to sleep, we gloss over that fact because it's not relevant to the game". The only time sleeping in armor would come up is if the party is ambushed by baddies in the middle of a long rest, potentially catching some party members out of their armor. I am getting flashbacks to a DM who had us attacked while sleeping in a tower and enforced the armor donning in 3.5. The warriors spent 10 rounds trying to get into full plate and got half xp for the fight. Later that DM's players mutinied to the laughter of our college gaming club.
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Oct 19, 2020 23:30
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Arcsech posted:I would normally agree with you, but to be fair, Barovia is supposed to feel incredibly hostile, to the point that being outside of your town walls after dark is effectively a death sentence for the average commoner. I would absolutely have something attack if a party tries to take a long rest in the middle of nowhere without some serious preparations like Tiny Hut or at least explicitly trying to camouflage their campsite. That said, I would definitely have NPCs make it clear that being outside of town after dark is incredibly dangerous, and camping should generally not be necessary as Barovia is not a huge place, and takes less than a day to travel between towns. That's actually one of the other reasons I think that house rule in particular is kinda sus: I've played through a campaign of CoS and I think we only had to camp out in the wilderness maybe twice. The fact that this DM is making a house rule at the start of the game for a situation that might only come up once or twice in the campaign at best suggests to me it's going to be a much bigger thing than it would be in the module by default. quote:The bigger issue to me is all the secrecy - secret HP rolls by the DM, not expanding on how to resolve lingering injuries (that one sounds like he took /r/CurseOfStrahd a little too seriously, that place loves poo poo like that), unexplained "alternative death rules". Those are no good - I go out of my way to be super clear about any house rules. I also agree with your point about a lot of house rules seem to make things more punishing - that's weird, all the ones I default to are in favor of the players - and if I did feel it was necessary to have something that was detrimental to the players, I'd try to balance it out with some benefit as well. Yeah, the very few times I've introduced house rules that might hinder the players (I've considered having characters gain a level of exhaustion until their next long rest when they're stabilized after dropping to 0 HP as a super simple wound system) I always discuss the idea with my players to see if they're onboard with it before implementing it. Really I feel like so many bad GM habits can be countered by the GM realizing it's a game and everyone in the group is there to have fun.
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Oct 19, 2020 23:35
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curse of strahd is really small so i dont see this coming up often - but if players are trying to sleep in a dangerous area, throw them some sort of a common sense check with a low DC to tell them "maybe you shouldnt sleep in the dungeon, where the enemies are, in an area that you just cleaned out but havent explored the whole dungeon and know there are more enemies deeper in". if they want to sleep anyway, well, they made an educated choice.
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Oct 19, 2020 23:39
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Smart DMs know to scale down ambush encounters, because 1) the assumption that the bad guys will be getting the jump on you is a huge tempo swing in their favor and 2) the party getting caught with their pants down is only fun if they have a way to make sure it doesn't happen again. From the aggregate it looks like that particular DM is fond of random bullshit for the sake of random bullshit, so be prepared to die horribly over and over again. If that's not your speed of game, I'd bail.
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Oct 19, 2020 23:39
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KingKalamari posted:As someone who has accumulated a bunch of random house rules I tend to use when I run 5e to make the game more fun, it never ceases to amaze me how many of the common house rules I see thrown around for the game are to make things MORE punishing for the players. Like, I'm amazed at how many people think making short rests take 8 hours is a good idea. What are your common house rules? I always love seeing what people have cooked up and stuck with over the years.
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Oct 20, 2020 00:11
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Vahtooch posted:What are your common house rules? I always love seeing what people have cooked up and stuck with over the years. Flanking provides a +2 to bonus to hit, not advantage. Short rests take ten minutes. If I am playing with a group of optimizers, Vhuman is banned but all races start with a bonus feat. (encounters will have to be a bit tougher to compensate...but that just means they level faster) Oh and if I am running a campaign where I do want ambushes and the like to be a thing, I just ban Leomund's Tiny Hut, but that depends on the campaign . Madmarker fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Oct 20, 2020 |
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Oct 20, 2020 00:16
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Vahtooch posted:What are your common house rules? I always love seeing what people have cooked up and stuck with over the years. - Add your CON score to starting HP instead of your modifier. - Shorts rests take 15 minutes instead of 1 hour - Berserker Barbarians take 1d10 damage after Frenzy ends rather than taking a level of exhaustion - Casters can choose to use either CHA, WIS or INT as their main casting stat at character creation rather than being bound to the one imposed by their class. - Everybody gets a free feat at first level, and sometimes another at seventh level. - Characters can use either a bonus action or reaction to make a non-physical skill check in combat (ie, if they wanted to make a Nature check to see what they know about a monster they're fighting) - I tend to treat "magic" items that just grant mechanical bonuses to hit or damage as being well-made, non-magical weapons from a fluff perspective (Though they still count as magical for overcoming resistances) - Player ignore the ability score bonuses associated with races and just distribute an additional 3 points between their ability scores, but can place no more than two of those points into a single state. - I tend to go crazy with custom race options and have come up with several homebrew systems that allow more choices and customization. - The setting I typically use for my games doesn't have vanilla humans as an option: They were the super-advanced, ancient precursors that died off eons ago and most of the near-human fantasy races the players can choose from are their genetically-modified descendants. - Campaigns or adventures I run usually cap out at 12th level. That's not really uncommon, I just like to let my players know I don't plan for the game to go higher than that beforehand.
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Oct 20, 2020 00:48
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KingKalamari posted:- Casters can choose to use either CHA, WIS or INT as their main casting stat at character creation rather than being bound to the one imposed by their class. huh. not sure how CHA-based wizards would work but the other combinations can make sense. might play with this outside of the Beyond ecosystem
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Oct 20, 2020 01:27
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cowboy
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i rotate house rules based off what it does to the game but the one you guys have got to start doing is give high intelligence players background lore based off their skills(and background) so their character feels smart since their character exists in the world and is a genius in that context, and give high wisdom characters common sense rolls so that their highly wise character doesnt make some huge tactical gaffe that they immediately recognize as a blunder and feel like a clown afterwards int warlocks kick rear end btw. i made an int warlock archetype and it slaps. as for other caster substitutions, i earnestly recommend against all of them except int warlock. please do int warlock
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Oct 20, 2020 01:33
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KingKalamari posted:As someone who has accumulated a bunch of random house rules I tend to use when I run 5e to make the game more fun, it never ceases to amaze me how many of the common house rules I see thrown around for the game are to make things MORE punishing for the players. Like, I'm amazed at how many people think making short rests take 8 hours is a good idea. As someone who uses this house rule, the point isn't to punish the players, it's so I don't have to. It's 8 hours for a short rest, a long lazy weekend for a long one and I only have to throw half a dozen encounters in a normal week rather than in a day. For dungeon crawling I tend to put some sort of temple at the start of the dungeon which lets the players rest at a default timescale. And my other major house rule is anti-hammerspace encumbrance if I bother with any encumbrance tracking at all.
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Oct 20, 2020 01:55
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I can see cha wizard working for the snooty child of a noble family that was sent to wizard school. They had all the best tutors for learning spell casting, but didn't study history, arcane theory, or other non-practical skills. I can see cha rangers and int paladins being a fun twist on the class archetype.
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Oct 20, 2020 02:00
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I just used "I am using my background and character in-universe knowledge to credibly bargain a proposed 1,000,000 platinum promissory note from a bank on the reciprocation of monopolistic trade rights in an entire universe which is actually a prison established by Obyriths ages ago", into "i will literally pay you 150,000 gold cash to get out of my office with this poo poo right now" on a failed roll. looking forward to absolutely zero comeuppance from this. i am a Smart Person. E; pog boyfriend posted:i rotate house rules based off what it does to the game but the one you guys have got to start doing is give high intelligence players background lore based off their skills(and background) so their character feels smart since their character exists in the world and is a genius in that context, and give high wisdom characters common sense rolls so that their highly wise character doesnt make some huge tactical gaffe that they immediately recognize as a blunder and feel like a clown afterwards i didn't read the thread because only marks read threads, but the above situation is because of this exact approach and it is DELIGHTFUL because even if it gets into the worst possible situation (the one i created) it creates the best possible situation (you have a lot of blood money from, and are regarded as insane criminals by, a fantasy hedge fund: NOW WHAT) Willie Tomg fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Oct 20, 2020 |
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Oct 20, 2020 02:52
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Tenik posted:I can see cha wizard working for the snooty child of a noble family that was sent to wizard school. They had all the best tutors for learning spell casting, but didn't study history, arcane theory, or other non-practical skills. charanger has the advance of having a really good portmanteau name going for it, to be fair.
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Oct 20, 2020 02:55
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KingKalamari posted:As someone who has accumulated a bunch of random house rules I tend to use when I run 5e to make the game more fun, it never ceases to amaze me how many of the common house rules I see thrown around for the game are to make things MORE punishing for the players. Like, I'm amazed at how many people think making short rests take 8 hours is a good idea. Ehhh, I mean. My group usually does a 1 encounter adventuring day, just because we can't stop waxing dramatic at every opportunity and never get to combat. But when we do, I'm playing the only full caster, and everyone else is short rest powered, which doesn't really end up feeling fair to me since I have a lot more stuff to throw out per encounter. Me and the GM suggested 8 hour short rests as a kind of buff to the rest of the group, so our "adventuring day" had something closer to a number of encounters that would make the short rest crew feel more powerful. But they didn't go for it, didn't feel right to them. Even though in this case I actually think it would be the less punishing option.
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Oct 20, 2020 05:32
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 I made this just as a resource for myself but thought others may find it useful.
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Oct 20, 2020 13:13
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The intellect devourers in BG3 are gnarly as gently caress and I'm absolutely going to steal the idea that they're all just like, helpful naive children who are friendly with the thralls/mind flayers
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Oct 20, 2020 14:30
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Whats up with these Acquisitions Inc. and Rick & Morty books? Are they actual supplements with decent extra stuff or are they mostly full of bad memes like im expecting?
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Oct 20, 2020 15:13
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I'm running Avernus and my group has really taken a liking to Slobberchops, the Vanthampur family tressym. It got me wondering. Is there any reason I couldn't/shouldn't replace Lulu with it? Perhaps Slobberchops has been hanging out with the Vanthampurs so long she's become an authority on the hells?
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Oct 20, 2020 15:32
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Nehru the Damaja posted:I'm running Avernus and my group has really taken a liking to Slobberchops, the Vanthampur family tressym. It got me wondering. Is there any reason I couldn't/shouldn't replace Lulu with it? Perhaps Slobberchops has been hanging out with the Vanthampurs so long she's become an authority on the hells? Kind of depends on how you envision the resolution. If your party intends to redeem Zariel Lulu is pretty critical to that. Also you would have to rewrite a bit of the quest to find the Bleeding Citadel, but that would probably be for the best as it is pretty weak as written.
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Oct 20, 2020 15:49
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AnEdgelord posted:Whats up with these Acquisitions Inc. and Rick & Morty books? Are they actual supplements with decent extra stuff or are they mostly full of bad memes like im expecting? the acquisitions inc book at least has some decent stuff in there... there is a lot of fiddly rules that power creep the game and are weird but i am sure some people like them, and the "corporate barbarian" thing was kind of funny to me. the rick and morty book is for 12 year olds or people with the maturity of 12 year olds
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Oct 20, 2020 15:52
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The Rick and Morty book is literally a bog standard basic rule book (I think it might actually be the rules from the starter set, there’s nothing special about them) but with a bunch of ‘humourous’ annotations on most pages, and a terrible beginners adventure in the back. There’s no new material of any kind except the adventure if you desperately want to RP an especially bad R&M episode.
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Oct 20, 2020 15:57
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Hey Morty we're going to Avernus, Morty. aweaareargeargh, Mordy We're going to *buuurp* Avernus. Get in the car. Holy poo poo Rick this car looks huge is it even legal to drive? Goddamnit Morty you're so loving dumb I am *this* close to casting silence. Casting Silence, what do you mean? I mean, where we're going this thing doesn't need a licence plate, okay? I mean I've taken you to all kinds of worlds, Morty, and it didn't even cross your mind that maybe perhaps one of the billions of places in the infinite multiverse doesn't actually require you to register your loving car? O o o kay I'm sorry. S, s so, what are we doing in this "Avernus"? We're staying there forever, Morty. It's where we belong, *burp* Morty. It's where we beloooooooooong.
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Oct 20, 2020 16:14
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The Penny Arcade book has some spells and other things. I know because I bought the books package on Beyond and our bard ended up taking a bunch of the Penny Arcade spells because they were rherefore on his list and sounded fun. Nobody else in the group had any idea what he was talking about when he mentioned his spells. They were less than optimal choices.
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Oct 20, 2020 16:22
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The archetype concept of "warlocks" was always Dr. Faustus or Alhazred for me, so they seemed like they should have been an INT class anyway. Got another rules question for the thread. My ranger (hunter) player just got Volley, and as written it seems pretty straightforward: he can use his Action to make an area of effect instead of doing an Attack. But, he dug up a Sage Advice where Mearles says you can still take your Extra Attack after the Volley, to which the player argued, "but if my Extra Attack is another ranged attack, can't it be another Volley?" The wording "use your action" kind of kills that, I think, but then logically Mearles is wrong (a shocker, I know) because he didn't take an "Attack" action, he did a "Volley" action. Either way, I let him have it, because doing a 2d6 Area attack seems small potatoes at level 12 and the group is lacking in AoE in general, but I was curious if others ran into this confusion.
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Oct 20, 2020 18:15
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Azza Bamboo posted:
This is really cool. But a question, who's Telbor Zazrek. I don't recall Luskan having a High Lord or anything like that. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Oct 20, 2020 18:23
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Imo, the way volley is written implies that it is a potential replacement for your standard attack + extra attack, so you only volley once per action. The impression it gives is that the ranger can get three or more attacks if enemies are grouped up, and all of the attacks would be split across all of the available targets. Otherwise the ranger would be volleying for every attack, even when there is only one viable target, because the outcome is identical. Giving the ranger more attacks probably won't be a big deal, unless they have a ton of magic arrows, and they want to quickly spend their resources. Tenik fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Oct 20, 2020 |
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Oct 20, 2020 18:37
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Celebrity Ghost posted:The archetype concept of "warlocks" was always Dr. Faustus or Alhazred for me, so they seemed like they should have been an INT class anyway. Agree whole-heartedly with this. IMO the fictional archetype of the Warlock is a character with high INT and low WIS/CHA, and it would also have rounded out the usage of casting stats more (there are three 9th level casters that use Cha and one that uses Int, the stat most people with experience in other games but not modern D&D would assume is used for "magic", which seems ridiculous)
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Oct 20, 2020 18:41
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If a warlock was smart, they'd be a wizard
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Oct 20, 2020 18:42
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Celebrity Ghost posted:The archetype concept of "warlocks" was always Dr. Faustus or Alhazred for me, so they seemed like they should have been an INT class anyway. That was actually where I first got the idea from: I came up with an idea for a Warlock character whose deal was she made a deal with a demon for magical powers, but drafted up such an ironclad contract that she not only didn't suffer any negative repercussions, but also basically made the demon her personal manservant for eternity (The demon took the form of her hat and all of her spells were cast through him). The way I wanted to play her (Very demure, reserved and bookish) didn't really lend itself well to a Charisma-based caster and her backstory made me realize making her intelligence focused made way more sense for her, and that just got the gears in my head turning until I realized all the stats casters in this game use for magic are kinda arbitrary to begin with and could easily be swapped around without changing anything! Celebrity Ghost posted:Got another rules question for the thread. My ranger (hunter) player just got Volley, and as written it seems pretty straightforward: he can use his Action to make an area of effect instead of doing an Attack. But, he dug up a Sage Advice where Mearles says you can still take your Extra Attack after the Volley, to which the player argued, "but if my Extra Attack is another ranged attack, can't it be another Volley?" The wording "use your action" kind of kills that, I think, but then logically Mearles is wrong (a shocker, I know) because he didn't take an "Attack" action, he did a "Volley" action. It's a very vaguely written rule, but I think the logic behind a double volley is that you're using your action to make an attack rather than taking the attack action (Which is a distinction in this game, for some reason). Extra Attack, as written, just lets you make an additional attack roll when you take the Attack Action on your turn, it doesn't grant you an additional action when attacking. So I think what Mearls was intending to say with his rules clarification is that you can make an additional basic attack after taking the volley action.
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Oct 20, 2020 18:50
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Baku posted:Agree whole-heartedly with this. IMO the fictional archetype of the Warlock is a character with high INT and low WIS/CHA, and it would also have rounded out the usage of casting stats more (there are three 9th level casters that use Cha and one that uses Int, the stat most people with experience in other games but not modern D&D would assume is used for "magic", which seems ridiculous) warlock was supposed to be intelligence. i actually dont remember why they changed it though
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Oct 20, 2020 19:51
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pog boyfriend posted:warlock was supposed to be intelligence. i actually dont remember why they changed it though
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Oct 20, 2020 19:54
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Charisma seems to make sense to me. They wheel and deal with otherworldly beings. I always thought Sorcerers should be Wis. I can see charisma being "natural ability" type stuff, but it feels more like magic through force of will, and just having a feel as to how to use it.
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Oct 20, 2020 20:00
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Warlock being Intelligence-based made sense to me. Charisma is okay I guess, but there's already a saturation of Charisma-based spellcasters with bards and sorcerers, and Intelligence is only valued by a single PHB class and some niche subclasses. I'm also of the mind of sorcerers being Constitution-based, because right now they just feel like a worse wizard/bard.
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Oct 20, 2020 20:09
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Malpais Legate posted:Warlock being Intelligence-based made sense to me. Charisma is okay I guess, but there's already a saturation of Charisma-based spellcasters with bards and sorcerers, and Intelligence is only valued by a single PHB class and some niche subclasses. con sorcerer is very dangerous because constitution is the best possible stat to make SAD casters of. max constitution sorcerers get lots of hp, better spells, and better concentration saves. you can probably try it, i think it would simply be too much because you could dump strength and charisma and basically be unstoppable
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Oct 20, 2020 20:12
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CHA sorcerers and paladins makes sense to me because that's "force of will," not always necessarily social skills, whereas constitution is more bodily imo.
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Oct 20, 2020 20:15
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Eh, remember that ability scores don't actually make especially good RP measuring sticks. If you want your warlock to be a smart old crusty robe guy with a bunch of dusty books, he can do that with a 10 Int. DTAS and so on.
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Oct 20, 2020 20:31
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theironjef posted:Eh, remember that ability scores don't actually make especially good RP measuring sticks. If you want your warlock to be a smart old crusty robe guy with a bunch of dusty books, he can do that with a 10 Int. DTAS and so on. While that's true, it's always nice, and easier on our brains, when the rules align with the RP. And I'm having trouble coming up with good reasons for why you shouldn't be allowed to use whichever caster stat you want out of the three "mental" stats. About all I can think of is everyone would choose to be a WIS caster because of perception checks and the saving throw.
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Oct 20, 2020 20:42
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theironjef posted:Eh, remember that ability scores don't actually make especially good RP measuring sticks. If you want your warlock to be a smart old crusty robe guy with a bunch of dusty books, he can do that with a 10 Int. DTAS and so on. Well, no, because then you're going to be mediocre at knowledge skills, the most concrete measure of a character's intellect in the game, thereby creating a scenario where your smart crusty bookish mage isn't really any better at knowing things than anyone else when it comes time to make knowing-things rolls. There are of course solutions to this - removing ability scores per DTAS, allowing people to use their high casting stat for knowledge skills, etc - but those are also house rules, and if you're instituting a bunch of house rules anyway what's the problem with allowing Warlocks to be Int casters?
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Oct 20, 2020 20:46
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Splicer posted:Made wizards less special. dang all they would have to set them apart is built in ritual casting for almost any ritual spell in the game, the biggest spell list, i think nine archetypes, and at will spellcasting at high levels thank goodness wizards took care of wizards change my name posted:If a warlock was smart, they'd be a wizard i like the idea of some spellcasters doing so much research that they accidentally make contact and are Changed Forever; int druids made contact with the fae who then cursed them, int warlocks drew summoning circles or studied a possessed sword a little too closely, poo poo like that it also helps bake in an academic background, and the more stuff about your character that you can integrate into your abilities, the better
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Oct 20, 2020 22:08
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