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theironjef posted:Ahhh gotcha. Yeah after killing ability scores, the next thing on the guillotine has to be this bizarre sense of nobility and superiority in playing with your stats all wrong, along with the belief that the way to inject a quirk into a character is with stats. instead of ignoring the ideals/flaws/bonds section, make them important to how your character plays instead of roleplaying what it would be like to have 8 wisdom
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Oct 30, 2020 19:22
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So I'm running a session with a group tomorrow evening due to timing. Can anyone recommend a horror/halloween themed one-shot? Party is Lv. 5 and is currently sleeping in Leomund's Tiny Hut. I looked up Death House but it's probably too long for what I'm wanting to do.
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Oct 30, 2020 19:43
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Blooming Brilliant posted:So I'm running a session with a group tomorrow evening due to timing. Can anyone recommend a horror/halloween themed one-shot? Party is Lv. 5 and is currently sleeping in Leomund's Tiny Hut.
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Oct 30, 2020 19:49
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Blooming Brilliant posted:So I'm running a session with a group tomorrow evening due to timing. Can anyone recommend a horror/halloween themed one-shot? Party is Lv. 5 and is currently sleeping in Leomund's Tiny Hut. if you really like death house, cut out a few of the floors; having run it, there are a ton of empty rooms that don’t do much besides add flavor. you can also scale down the catacomb pretty easily. your bigger problem is scaling up the encounters in it.
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Oct 30, 2020 20:16
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Blooming Brilliant posted:So I'm running a session with a group tomorrow evening due to timing. Can anyone recommend a horror/halloween themed one-shot? Party is Lv. 5 and is currently sleeping in Leomund's Tiny Hut. If you're up for a little bit of conversion work "A Wizard" is a really good systemless horror module, with notes that kind of expect people to run it in some sort of DnD system. There's a writeup in the Fatal and Friends thread somewhere if you want more detail.
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Oct 30, 2020 21:12
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theironjef posted:Ahhh gotcha. Yeah after killing ability scores, the next thing on the guillotine has to be this bizarre sense of nobility and superiority in playing with your stats all wrong, along with the belief that the way to inject a quirk into a character is with stats. (smugly) yes thats correct 8 int wizard. my character is a wizard whos bad at being a wizard but doesnt give up. im the best loving roleplayer at this table because nobody but me has the genius and never before seen idea of being a liability to the group 
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Oct 30, 2020 21:51
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So i have a new player playing a Colleague of Whispers Bard that is having fun doing spellcasty things and being a more crowd controller in combat than most with all the various flavors of charm spell. But with the way the campaign has gone so far there hasn't been much opportunity for her to use her more social abilities (the make somebody afraid of you with a conversation and the shadow stealing disguise stuff respectively) I feel bad that they haven't gotten to play around with their full toolset yet so i'm currently working on making some kind of high stakes social situation/rescue mission of a currently missing party member for them to go on that won't have nearly much combat to it. I tend to find myself more on the end of making interesting combat encounters but i haven't had much practice at doing the same for non-combat situations. Since most of what i do is just basic exposition/context to what the next batch of combat is for or for moving my elven family drama story along  How can i make talky bits fun? For Context: The group knows that the party member has been kidnapped by a very powerful dwarven merchant family, and that said family is currently funding their army in the ongoing war effort, so the leadership doesn't want to mess with the money and can't help them out in any official way. I'm thinking maybe some fancy dinner party going on is how they get in through the front door and there are probably opportunities for fun shenanigans that way.
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Oct 30, 2020 22:32
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theironjef posted:Ahhh gotcha. Yeah after killing ability scores, the next thing on the guillotine has to be this bizarre sense of nobility and superiority in playing with your stats all wrong, along with the belief that the way to inject a quirk into a character is with stats. Splicer fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Oct 30, 2020 |
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Oct 30, 2020 22:49
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The Shame Boy posted:I tend to find myself more on the end of making interesting combat encounters but i haven't had much practice at doing the same for non-combat situations. Since most of what i do is just basic exposition/context to what the next batch of combat is for or for moving my elven family drama story along 1) voice acting, improv, etc etc. 2) give npcs distinct motivations, and make sure they are not always forthcoming or knowledgeable. the insight skill becomes way better when it isnt just "is this guy obviously lying to me lying to me", but rather "do i think this random stablehand is giving an accurate account or are they playing this up" 3) find ways to introduce character background stuff as relevant information. if the barbarian worked in a forge, have him notice that this random butler has an extremely well forged blade, far better than anything you have seen. 4) callbacks - if you talk to one person, and get on her good side, later on have her come back with more information or otherwise being helpful. it introduces a reliable ally for the party. see also 2 -- they may be trying to mislead them! 5) introduce deliberate logical holes in people lying so the party can catch people slipping. use knowledge checks, insight, etc.
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Oct 30, 2020 22:54
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It's definitely good and okay to play character who are not Optimal but it's not okay to play characters who are just bad because you wanted to meme and pretend like this is somehow good. You're just being a pain in the rear end to everyone around you. Like, if everyone is down for someone playing Jimmy Fuckwit the Worst Wizard with 8 int who does nothing but cast knock, I'm not gonna come slap the dice out of your hand but seriously consider whether or not people wanted to like, play the game where you're heroes who stab monsters and not your tight five about what if gandalf was a dipshit. I've played a dwarf wizard before in medium armor. This is not Optimal, but it's fine. He did his job well enough and you know what it was a fun change of pace and was definitely a different sort of wizard.
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Oct 30, 2020 22:58
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I make the character and then align the stats to fit, it's really not that hard. Unless you're rolling, I guess, which you shouldn't
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Oct 30, 2020 22:59
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Blooming Brilliant posted:So I'm running a session with a group tomorrow evening due to timing. Can anyone recommend a horror/halloween themed one-shot? Party is Lv. 5 and is currently sleeping in Leomund's Tiny Hut. Undead Hippo posted:If you're up for a little bit of conversion work "A Wizard" is a really good systemless horror module, with notes that kind of expect people to run it in some sort of DnD system. Seconding this with the addendum that you shouldn't do this with characters your players are going to want to hold onto. A Wizard is pretty cool especially if players don't know what they're getting in to. (Like, specifically what the actual scenario is, let them in on the fact that they're going to be playing a dark horror game you shouldn't sneak that poo poo up on people.) It's real fuckin lethal though so probably only do that if your players don't mind possibly getting eaten by something.
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Oct 30, 2020 23:01
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The Shame Boy posted:
I have a simple thought game for making NPCs that I call PIMP so I can remember it P is for party. What does an NPC think of the party? Do they look up to them as heroes? Are they distrustful of this heavily armed group of randos? Are they a nobleman who looks down their nose at the party? Are they poor and looking at the party with a bit of resentment about all the fancy stuff they own? Are they someone with beef against the party? The first, and I think most important thing about an NPC, is what do they make of the people in front of them and how is that going to flavour their interaction with them. I is for information. What do they know? Is there something the party can get out of this person, or their surroundings, or their manner of dress. My current game has a piracy problem going on as a piece of background, so when my party went to a store to buy potions, the guy apologised for not having the best selection at the moment as the merchants are having issues right now. One thing to consider is whether the person's information is correct. The townsfolk could have all kinds of red herrings and superstitions. For example I had two characters in my campaign give theories for why the records of the evil wizard they're chasing have so many incompatible accounts: one as him being human, another as a vampire, another as a demon. One character gave the ludicrous idea that every boogeyman who wants to scare people is assuming the name of this wizard. One character made the more believable idea that the wizard is tampering with the history books to create false records that throw off any leads. The truth is that this particular wizard can copy their mind into anyone's body, Agent Smith style: there is a vampire, and a demon, and a human all with the copied mind and they'll eventually meet them all in the Wizard's lair. M is motivation. What does the NPC want? A town guard just wants to get home tonight. An Innkeeper just wants there to be no trouble. More interesting characters may have more interesting drives, but I mentioned these two because even the most mundane and relatable motives can be interesting in a social situation. P is for personality. For this I don't write out a whole backstory or try to make a complex psychological deal, because people generally don't care. What I mean is just the most surface level personal details: do they have an accent? are they short tempered? Are they nervous and softly spoken? Do they enunciate and use long words? Are they sweary? So on and so forth. I'm not saying every character needs to have each of these things, just that it's four questions to ask as you're making an NPC: What do they make of the party? Is there any knowledge can be gained here? What is their main drive? Do they have any outward personality traits? Some characters aren't going to have any exposition. Some won't be around long enough to really reveal their motive. Also, there are some tricks to shoot many birds with few stones. For example, in my campaign the city of Luskan (which is a scummy pirate hellhole) has a scouse accent (an accent from the UK city of Liverpool). So now I've got a personality trait that applies to some characters which also gives a little bit of information about them. Azza Bamboo fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Oct 30, 2020 |
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Oct 30, 2020 23:41
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Glagha posted:It's definitely good and okay to play character who are not Optimal but it's not okay to play characters who are just bad because you wanted to meme and pretend like this is somehow good. You're just being a pain in the rear end to everyone around you. Like, if everyone is down for someone playing Jimmy Fuckwit the Worst Wizard with 8 int who does nothing but cast knock, I'm not gonna come slap the dice out of your hand but seriously consider whether or not people wanted to like, play the game where you're heroes who stab monsters and not your tight five about what if gandalf was a dipshit. I've played a dwarf wizard before in medium armor. This is not Optimal, but it's fine. He did his job well enough and you know what it was a fun change of pace and was definitely a different sort of wizard. Splicer fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Oct 30, 2020 |
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Oct 30, 2020 23:46
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Splicer posted:One of the big issues with these discussions is that nobody agrees on what the word "optimal" means. I think everyone agrees that some optimized build of something 2/something else 18 that results in all your stuff keying off a single stat and shutting down encounters in one round is "optimal". But is playing a full caster with all their ASIs put into their primary stats and appropriate feats with a carefully curated spell selection "optimal"? Is playing a full caster with their casting stat maxed and a spell list based around fun considered optimal? Does your martial need to go into feat combos to be "optimal" or just pump their to-hit? "You can have fun with a non-optimal character" is a completely meaningless statement if you're picturing a "non-optimal" 18 wis cleric who shock horror didn't take guidance and I'm picturing Shitpants McGrath the 8 cha Sorceror Two options: Optimal is anyone who has appended "lock" to their character's class in some way, or anyone that is perceived as at least slightly more thought out than what your character is.
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Oct 30, 2020 23:55
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theironjef posted:Optimal is anyone who has appended "lock" to their character's class in some way Warlock 
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Oct 31, 2020 00:07
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I think when people roll their eyes at optimizers they mean like the AL dude who was horrified that my zealot barbarian did necrotic instead of radiant damage because I made an RP choice. Yes, an eldritch abomination associated with slime and filth is going to give its followers holy damage. OK. Edit: Or the AL dudes who scoff at anyone who doesn't dump INT on a non-wizard. It's only obnoxious when you're a shithead about it. DressCodeBlue fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Oct 31, 2020 |
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Oct 31, 2020 00:08
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AnEdgelord posted:Warlock Exactly. Half warlord, half warlock? That rear end in a top hat is up to something fishy. At least he's playing a better game though.
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Oct 31, 2020 00:11
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i think players can, should, and do make suboptimal choices all the time; otherwise you'd see nothing but pam/gwm fighters, sharpshooter/xbow fighters, sorlocks, padlocks, that wacky paladin/warlock/sorcerer multiclass, and bards i think people have a fear of powergaming, but given that dnd's focus has always been (for me) on collaborative storytelling, that person's either going to have to cobble together one hell of an interesting backstory to justify their character choices or they're going to be locked out of the main part of the game in favor of killing stuff better, i guess in the hopes of Winning Dungeons and Dragons i also don't think people should create characters who are huge burdens on the party by being bad at their designated skills (rogue that dumps dex and only uses a greataxe or whatever hypothetical meme build you can shake out) i also also believe that these situations aren't really all that common (they haven't been at the tables i play at). i think most of the people posting about "optimizers" or people who are intentionally handicapping themselves with bad builds are mostly worried about a hypothetical scenario that can be cleared up with some communication about expectations. i know we're all huge goon dorkuses but most of this stuff never seems to come up in the groups i play with/dm for because we're all clear on the type of campaign we want to play in and what kind of characters we want to play. theironjef posted:Exactly. Half warlord, half warlock? That rear end in a top hat is up to something fishy. At least he's playing a better game though. i wish 5e had a class like the commander from 13a but that's probably a little more complex than wotc wanted the mechanics to be
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Oct 31, 2020 03:15
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Declan MacManus posted:i also also believe that these situations aren't really all that common (they haven't been at the tables i play at). i think most of the people posting about "optimizers" or people who are intentionally handicapping themselves with bad builds are mostly worried about a hypothetical scenario that can be cleared up with some communication about expectations. i know we're all huge goon dorkuses but most of this stuff never seems to come up in the groups i play with/dm for because we're all clear on the type of campaign we want to play in and what kind of characters we want to play. Yeah it's about as common as actually meeting a little brother who needs a simple class.
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Oct 31, 2020 03:26
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I had a lot of fun with a long range eldritch blast sorlock build. Had the longest confirmed blast in the civil war and constantly lied about his service. Would recommend.
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Oct 31, 2020 03:51
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Azza Bamboo posted:I have a simple thought game for making NPCs that I call PIMP so I can remember it Thanks for this! I try to stick to the Lazy DM guidelines as much as possible just to reduce the amount of cluttering up of NPCs that I can do. My go to accent is some hillbilly or Gus Chiggins from SNL, which my players think is funny but I do want to expand out with voices/NPC depth for the important ones.
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Oct 31, 2020 05:20
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How do people feel about the Circle of the Shepherd Druid? My group is starting Rime of the Frost Maiden soon and the other players are going Barbarian/Bloodhunter/Monk, so we're obviously covered on melee damage. I want to play a caster, but I know that RotFM deals a lot with the elements and thought a druid would be fun in that campaign. I don't want to go Circle of Moon because we've got that sort of stuff covered, but I'm not quite as excited by Circle of Land. Anyone have any experience with Shepherd?
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Oct 31, 2020 05:27
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theironjef posted:Yeah it's about as common as actually meeting a little brother who needs a simple class. Oh is someone in the thread going to admit that they're the 8 int wizard then? Cause last time this conversation came up I shared how I was the hypothetical little brother when I first played.
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Oct 31, 2020 05:28
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Lazy like a Fox posted:How do people feel about the Circle of the Shepherd Druid? My group is starting Rime of the Frost Maiden soon and the other players are going Barbarian/Bloodhunter/Monk, so we're obviously covered on melee damage. I want to play a caster, but I know that RotFM deals a lot with the elements and thought a druid would be fun in that campaign. I don't want to go Circle of Moon because we've got that sort of stuff covered, but I'm not quite as excited by Circle of Land. Anyone have any experience with Shepherd? Seems like a lot of summoned creature management. See if your GM would allow the Wildfire circle. Mine refused... the bastard.
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Oct 31, 2020 05:35
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Shes Not Impressed posted:Thanks for this! I've been rocking a delightfully awful french accent for a tiefling bard named "Maurice Champagne". I find it's useful to have a touchstone phrase when you think you're dropping the accent, so Maurice says "How do you say..." so much that it's become the other player's go to means of impersonating him when he's not around.
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Oct 31, 2020 05:44
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Taciturn Tactician posted:Oh is someone in the thread going to admit that they're the 8 int wizard then? Cause last time this conversation came up I shared how I was the hypothetical little brother when I first played. Ooh interesting! Okay, real talk. Genuine question: Did you need a basic class with only one repeatably thing to do every turn to understand what was going on? How little of a brother were you?
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Oct 31, 2020 07:55
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Declan MacManus posted:i wish 5e had a class like the commander from 13a but that's probably a little more complex than wotc wanted the mechanics to be
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Oct 31, 2020 10:21
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Taciturn Tactician posted:Oh is someone in the thread going to admit that they're the 8 int wizard then? Cause last time this conversation came up I shared how I was the hypothetical little brother when I first played. Devorum posted:In one of my games, I'm playing a Fighter who came to it late in life (he's almost 70) after a raid on his village. Low-Mid physical stats, high Wis and Int. He's not optimized and it's been a blast.
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Oct 31, 2020 10:22
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Nah. None of my stats are 8. Lowest is Dex at 10. I just don't have 18 Str or Con. But, hey, I'll keep letting the people saying that having a character without perfectly optimized stats is a liability to the party pretend they're not as toxic as the "ugghh, optimizers" crew. I lean into my background and ideals, as well, and let them inform my roleplaying. I just also set my stats to align with my background. Devorum fucked around with this message at 10:44 on Oct 31, 2020 |
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Oct 31, 2020 10:41
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Devorum posted:Nah. None of my stats are 8. Lowest is Dex at 10. I just don't have 18 Str or Con.
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Oct 31, 2020 10:48
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Devorum posted:Nah. None of my stats are 8. Lowest is Dex at 10. I just don't have 18 Str or Con. Why do you play DnD if the characters you want to play are incompetent at combat? 95% of everything on your character's sheet is related to combat. If you're more interested in narrative character building, play something better suited. There's a million games out there where your concept isn't running counter to the core of the game. You might end up having more fun than jamming the square peg into the round hole, then getting annoyed at people saying you'd have an easier time if you rounded off the edges.
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Oct 31, 2020 13:32
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Undead Hippo posted:Why do you play DnD if the characters you want to play are incompetent at combat? 95% of everything on your character's sheet is related to combat. If you're more interested in narrative character building, play something better suited. There's a million games out there where your concept isn't running counter to the core of the game. You might end up having more fun than jamming the square peg into the round hole, then getting annoyed at people saying you'd have an easier time if you rounded off the edges. "Not #1 Best 24/7" does not equal "incompetent". Hope that helps. I play plenty of things better suited to narrative roleplay, but this particular group likes D&D. I've been gaming for 33 years, I don't need square pegs explained to me, not do I need to be told if I'm having fun or not. My character is one of the party's favorites, the group loves his backstory and the care that goes into playing him as a reluctant folk hero forced into the role by the expectations of his "fans". I'm not annoyed by optimizers or optimizing. I optimized pretty often, especially in games based on system mastery like Pathfinder. I'm not even really annoyed by the BadWrongFun Crew. I just roll my eyes and keep doing what I'm doing unless my actual group has a problem with it. I'm not even sure who has said I should "round off the edges"? At most, someone misunderstood my "flawed" description as meaning I dumped my primary stats.
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Oct 31, 2020 14:13
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Devorum posted:"Not #1 Best 24/7"
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Oct 31, 2020 14:26
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Astarion in BG3 is making me hope we get vampire PCs at some point.
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Oct 31, 2020 14:35
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Devorum posted:"Not #1 Best 24/7" does not equal "incompetent". Hope that helps. If you run "Mid-Low" physical stats on a fighter, you've made a character who is incompetent at doing attacks. Sorry. That's just how the system works.
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Oct 31, 2020 15:24
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There’s a line between “not playing the most optimal build” and “pointlessly mis-built”, and I think it’s somewhere around not having at least a +2 mod in your class’s primary stat(s). Acting like “you gotta be the #1 best most optimal ever” and “you should be good at the core competencies of your class” are the same thing is really boring and dumb.
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Oct 31, 2020 16:08
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I'd say that the line depends a lot on the rest of the party, and the overall structure of the group. You are probably good if your rate of success/failure is +/- 15% of the rest of the party when they do similar moves. So, if you are a low strength/dex fighter with a high INT, and chose to skip an ASI to get a feat for expertise in History, you'd probably be way below the expected rate of success and impact in a dungeon-crawl campaign full of combat, but if you are playing a roleplay heavy campaign with a lot of political intrigue then your choice will probably help keep your low-damage fighter in the expected range for competency.
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Oct 31, 2020 16:33
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Sorry, if you're putting you limited number of "do better at thing" points in categories that don't help your class do their thing you're being a detriment. You're making the deliberate choice of "I want to be worse at the one thing I'm expected to be able to do". You don't gotta take great weapon fighter feats just because they're mathematically the best, but put your limited points in the thing that makes you not miss when you're the class that swings swords.
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Oct 31, 2020 17:54
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it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day; if everyone at the table is cool with it and the player is having fun with their pc, then any build is appropriate you can’t really tell someone how to have fun, and you especially can’t quantify fun with opportunity cost models
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Oct 31, 2020 17:58
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