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Real UK Grime posted:I didn't think the Booming Blade effect would work with effects like this? As I understood it, only when the target uses their movement does it count as willing (even when it's 'forced' through something like Dissonant Whispers). The word willingly is one of those subjective natural language traps in 5e that can be interpreted in multiple ways. In a home table game, this sort of thing often goes to DM discretion, and I've seen it go either way, from DMs that will trigger the proc on Booming Blade for any movement - even an attack without using actual movement 'He willingly attacked' - to those that go willing use of actual movement only (which is much closer to RAW imo). In AL, I think this sage advice post would probably be the guidepost: https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/725170510569467904
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Dec 10, 2020 12:49
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Staltran posted:Did he seek out the bracers in character, or did he just find them? Or are you complaining about the player wanting them out of character for out of character reasons? This really seems like a weird metagame grudge on the sorcerer's part tbh.
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Dec 10, 2020 12:51
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Marathanes posted:The word willingly is one of those subjective natural language traps in 5e that can be interpreted in multiple ways. In a home table game, this sort of thing often goes to DM discretion, and I've seen it go either way, from DMs that will trigger the proc on Booming Blade for any movement - even an attack without using actual movement 'He willingly attacked' - to those that go willing use of actual movement only (which is much closer to RAW imo). ..... Ah thanks, I think I was confusing it with opportunity attacks, which doesn't specify the willingness of the target. Agree it's not very clear, especially when interpretations can have you Booming Blade as an attack of opportunity, do the weapon damage but not trigger the extra effect.
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Dec 10, 2020 13:16
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Yep. Note that using Booming Blade as an opportunity attack requires the War Caster feat (unless that was recently errata'd with Tasha's), and as you said, the initial damage would always stick, but the proc damage would be contingent on if the movement was willing or not.
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Dec 10, 2020 13:24
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Splicer posted:It sounds like he replaced his old character with a level 14 rogue/fighter hybrid with a gimmick armour strat based around the sorcerer using a staff of defence to chain cast mage armour on him. If he really just wanted a new character to get new, specific magic items then that's bad. But it's still something he did, not something his character did, and should be addressed out of character. Refusing to cast mage armor might just lead to him trying to find a wizard hireling to cast mage armor on him every day or something.
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Dec 10, 2020 13:24
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Sure, but new players don't know that, just like new dms don't know the random magic item tables are a trap. What's the usual way to do items? Item tables are definitely something I've kind of hated. Random seems to have too many useless items, cherry-picking seems to make everyone too strong, and it rarity flags don't seem to make much sense compared to what the item does. That's what I've been struggling with.
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Dec 10, 2020 14:00
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Meow Tse-tung posted:What's the usual way to do items? Item tables are definitely something I've kind of hated. Random seems to have too many useless items, cherry-picking seems to make everyone too strong, and it rarity flags don't seem to make much sense compared to what the item does. That's what I've been struggling with. I'd recommend cherry-picking and advise you to fight the intuition that it makes players too strong. The nice thing about cherry-picking is it makes all your players stronger, which means all you need to do to maintain challenge is make your fights harder. Using some sort of procedural or random method to generate treasure has the inherent risk of giving just one or two players really good items which is both less fun for the players who got nothing, and much harder for you to balance against, since now anything which challenges your magically-endowed players could be deadly for your weaker characters. The other nice thing about cherry picking is you can place the cool non-combat items in, and then create situations where they might be useful.
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Dec 10, 2020 14:22
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That's pretty much the route I've been trying to go. I'm using a premade module because I haven't wanted to have to deal with customizing encounters until I'm more comfortable with GMing. It seems kind of hard to find a balance between the party getting completely murdered or them just stomping the encounters outright.
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Dec 10, 2020 14:26
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Marathanes posted:The word willingly is one of those subjective natural language traps in 5e that can be interpreted in multiple ways. In a home table game, this sort of thing often goes to DM discretion, and I've seen it go either way, from DMs that will trigger the proc on Booming Blade for any movement - even an attack without using actual movement 'He willingly attacked' - to those that go willing use of actual movement only (which is much closer to RAW imo). In AL, I think this sage advice post would probably be the guidepost: And yet https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/725158592559517701?s=19 I would personally interpret DW or any fear type effect as willing movement. Unwilling movement is something that physically shoves or pulls a character around, like Telekinesis or Repelling Blast.
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Dec 10, 2020 14:38
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I randomly generate loot, then manually curate the results and toss in some custom items.
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Dec 10, 2020 14:38
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Meow Tse-tung posted:That's pretty much the route I've been trying to go. I'm using a premade module because I haven't wanted to have to deal with customizing encounters until I'm more comfortable with GMing. It seems kind of hard to find a balance between the party getting completely murdered or them just stomping the encounters outright.
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Dec 10, 2020 15:05
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Meow Tse-tung posted:That's pretty much the route I've been trying to go. I'm using a premade module because I haven't wanted to have to deal with customizing encounters until I'm more comfortable with GMing. It seems kind of hard to find a balance between the party getting completely murdered or them just stomping the encounters outright. the thing is about 5es CR system is you have to. it is probably balanced if you never use feats, flanking, magic items, and have exactly a generic 4 person party using vanilla classes, but nobody plays that way. the best way to balance is to give more and make enemies harder. also, if you are concerned you are adding too much wealth, you can put magic items on the backburner and start giving out non material rewards like training or unlimited access to airship flights or something.
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Dec 10, 2020 15:13
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Meow Tse-tung posted:That's pretty much the route I've been trying to go. I'm using a premade module because I haven't wanted to have to deal with customizing encounters until I'm more comfortable with GMing. It seems kind of hard to find a balance between the party getting completely murdered or them just stomping the encounters outright. Here's some rules of thumb for adjusting encounters. Any encounter where the number of enemies is less than the number of players is almost always going to be easier in practice than it looks on paper, and vice versa, so if the difficulty feels wildly wrong, look at adjusting the number of enemies. This is especially important if you do not have exactly four players in your group, a six player group will stomp everything in an official module flat with ease, a three player group will struggle much more than you might at first expect in some scenarios. Every enemy in the monster manual or a published adventure has two figures for their HP: the default total, and the hit die roll. So you might see an enemy's HP listed as 85 (10d10+30). For convenience I think most DMs will use the default for an enemy, but you don't have to. In principle that enemy could have anything from 40 HP to 130 HP. You could absolutely set that in advance, but you can also just decide on the night that the players need a break or a challenge and adjust the HP up or down within that range. And that applies to every stat in the monster manual, honestly. These for me pull on the two biggest levers in combat: how dangerous the fight is, and how long the fight is. There's a lot more you can do when making up encounters, (minions! action-oriented abilities! etc) but I think the first step is getting the hang of when to say to yourself "actually, there's five orcs in this room, not three".
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Dec 10, 2020 16:51
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Real UK Grime posted:I didn't think the Booming Blade effect would work with effects like this? As I understood it, only when the target uses their movement does it count as willing (even when it's 'forced' through something like Dissonant Whispers). I mean, the push won't trigger the boom, but if your opponent gets pushed and opts not to use their movement on their next turn to avoid blowing up, I'd say Booming Blade "worked" anyway.
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Dec 10, 2020 17:13
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"Guys I've been hit by Booming Blade! I need you to dom me for the rest of combat, the safe word is turnip!" "Move over and engage that wizard." "Oh dang, I sure hate being forced to move in such a manner, but I guess I have no choice!"
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Dec 10, 2020 17:44
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I hate the natural wording because in my last D&D session one of our other players wanted to capture this major villain we've been after for a while and teleport him to someplace where we could imprison him or something. Then he launched into this long argument/discussion that stretched long after we finished the actual session about what counts as "willing" for teleport until I wanted to scream. Does he count as an unwilling subject if he's unconscious, or an object? What if I polymorph him into a goldfish? Does he need to be willing if I'm teleporting him in a fishbowl that I'm holding? What if I dominate person him and tell him to teleport with us? What if what if what if, trying to work out the universal truth behind the intent and wording of this spell. It was the single most exhausting rules dialogue I've ever listened to because I definitely wasn't going to participate, and I was so close to "oh my god shut up who cares make a ruling and move on". Edit: for the after the session portion the DM wasn't even present it was just him and another player discussing the implications of "willing" forever. Glagha fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Dec 10, 2020 |
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Dec 10, 2020 17:58
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I much prefer 'always require a save, but you're allowed to fail the save intentionally'
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Dec 10, 2020 18:04
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Real UK Grime posted:I didn't think the Booming Blade effect would work with effects like this? As I understood it, only when the target uses their movement does it count as willing (even when it's 'forced' through something like Dissonant Whispers). Yeah, you can't force BB to go off, but you can hit your target with it, and then bonus action TK them back. They have a choice at that point, take a bunch of damage to re-engage you, or waste their turn standing still, or resort to a less powerful ranged attack.
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Dec 10, 2020 18:38
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Jonas Albrecht posted:Yeah, you can't force BB to go off, but you can hit your target with it, and then bonus action TK them back. They have a choice at that point, take a bunch of damage to re-engage you, or waste their turn standing still, or resort to a less powerful ranged attack. Ahh I see thanks. The obvious DM response here is that the monster is trapped in a system of oppression, coercing it into attacking again, thus cannot be said to move truly willingly.
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Dec 10, 2020 19:32
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Real UK Grime posted:Ahh I see thanks. The obvious DM response here is that the monster is trapped in a system of oppression, coercing it into attacking again, thus cannot be said to move truly willingly. This sounds like the kind of DM that asks for a roll and then decides the DC once they get the results.
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Dec 10, 2020 20:15
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I have random magic item tables tailored for each character, as well as a generally useful-to-the-party table. I roll for marshal loot more often. I also randomly generate store inventories because for some reason my players love to shop (and then rarely actually buy anything).
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Dec 11, 2020 00:17
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How do y'all handle shopping? My DM uses the "you spend a week of downtime plus money just searching for people selling magic items, then you find out what they're selling and how much they're selling it for" thing. It just feels overcomplicated to me. I'm 100% OK with showing up at Fantasy Costco and buying a +1 shortsword off the shelf.
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Dec 11, 2020 00:52
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:How do y'all handle shopping? My DM uses the "you spend a week of downtime plus money just searching for people selling magic items, then you find out what they're selling and how much they're selling it for" thing. It just feels overcomplicated to me. I'm 100% OK with showing up at Fantasy Costco and buying a +1 shortsword off the shelf. Those are Xanathar's rules, and they work just fine for me as a DM or a player. But then again, if my players don't like dealing with a downtime economy then I'm also totally fine with them doing that sort of stuff in-game (with the caveat that I'll probably turn it into some sort of mini-quest). I'd suggest searching for a "quality arms" weaponsmith that can offer you the +1 Shortsword that you're looking for, ideally by leveraging some sort of character contacts (like from your background, or allies you've made), and I'd expect either performing a minor task or paying at the higher end of the cost range to do so. If all that sounds like too much to do, maybe just ask an NPC for one as a quest reward at the end of your next session. If you're looking for something rarer than a +1 Shortsword, then perhaps your character should announce their intention to go find the fabled whatever, and turn it into a character arc (particularly if you can't afford the nominal price for the item - if you're swimming in gold, I'd have no problem with you buying your Staff of the Magi or whatever). For what it's worth, XGE also has Fantasy Costco rules where you accrue Treasure Points that you can spend on whatever (which has been adopted by Adventurers League), so you can also look into that if you want. That approach has never appealed to me, so I don't know much about it. Kaal fucked around with this message at 01:42 on Dec 11, 2020 |
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Dec 11, 2020 01:15
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I make my shopkeepers different levels of irritating to deal with, in direct accordance with how silly the thing my players are trying to buy is. Wanna buy a sword? This guy has a big box of surplus swords and he's willing to bargain. Wanna buy 35 kilos of fine sand to make some sort of rube goldberg breathing apparatus with? Good luck talking to the confused elderly tortle who just wants to tell you about his grandkids instead of selling anything.
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Dec 11, 2020 01:22
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:How do y'all handle shopping? My DM uses the "you spend a week of downtime plus money just searching for people selling magic items, then you find out what they're selling and how much they're selling it for" thing. It just feels overcomplicated to me. I'm 100% OK with showing up at Fantasy Costco and buying a +1 shortsword off the shelf. i get my players a working relationship with their magic item guy in every single campaign. downtime you can look around to find poo poo but you are limited to what i get off dice rolls. on the other hand, there is a merchant they personally know who can work with them to get specific magic items either imported or made for them. for other shops i just use shops, with a roll of investigation or history charisma or intelligence(investigation for new town, history for town they have a reasonable cause for history with) to find good shops. i make potions more common than the book says because i am not bound by the laws of paper
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Dec 11, 2020 01:35
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Campaign's looking to have potentially 8 PCs. How do you streamline combat to make it not take 3 hours? And relatedly, how do you keep players engaged during combat?
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Dec 11, 2020 02:24
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Perry Mason Jar posted:Campaign's looking to have potentially 8 PCs. How do you streamline combat to make it not take 3 hours? And relatedly, how do you keep players engaged during combat? By splitting into 2 groups because 8 is way way to many
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Dec 11, 2020 02:26
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Perry Mason Jar posted:Campaign's looking to have potentially 8 PCs. How do you streamline combat to make it not take 3 hours? And relatedly, how do you keep players engaged during combat? There are countless ways to streamline combat, none of which will help in the slightest when you are trying to run two groups at once while pretending it's one group. No, really: If everyone is always super attentive and goes really fast and takes 2 minutes per turn (and only double that for the GM) and there are no questions or problems ever, which is hilariously optimistic, you're looking at twenty minute rounds. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Dec 11, 2020 |
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Dec 11, 2020 02:49
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I'm in a group with six players, and it's a blessing when one or two people miss sessions. I don't think I'd be willing to play in an 8 player game.
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Dec 11, 2020 02:59
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I ran a group of mostly newbies through 5e for more than a year. 8 people. Short answer: Don't. Longer answer: 5e combat sucks. De-emphasize it. End it when people get bored. Try and focus on the stories. Ask specifically for rolls, because when you ask "give me a perception check from the table", you are really just letting everyone roll for information they will inevitably get. But please, don't do it
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Dec 11, 2020 03:00
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I wonder if there's some way to rig up simultaneous rounds somehow, where everyone decides what to do simultaneously and submits their actions, then they're executed by the DM in initiative order. Having played games like Robo Rally, there'll definitely be cases of "No! That's not what I meant to do!" but if the campaign tone is right then that can be more of a "whoops ha ha" than genuine distress. You'd probably need to do theater of the mind for combat, or some semi-abstracted system where the only positioning is adjacent (5') / near (< 30') / far (< 120') / uninvolved. So actions could be things like "cast fireball on X" (hitting X and everything near it), "move up to Y and attack it" (putting you adjacent to Y), etc. I do think the simplest solution here is to run two groups though.
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Dec 11, 2020 03:05
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The absolute maximum at any table should be a total of 6 people, 1 DM and 5 players.
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Dec 11, 2020 03:05
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I really don’t like the urge some people have for keeping a combat going until every last minion is mashed to paste Honestly a few rounds in it should be clear who’s winning and why don’t enemies try to flee more often
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Dec 11, 2020 03:21
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I'm running a campaign with 2 PC's, a Lore Bard and Arcane Trickster Rogue, that will be mostly focused on non-combat encounters/scenes. Any specific tips for those two builds to help them in those roles? Also, for balancing combat for only 2 pcs should I grant them additional hit points or anything (especially since they're light on healing and squishy)?
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Dec 11, 2020 03:37
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Perry Mason Jar posted:Campaign's looking to have potentially 8 PCs. How do you streamline combat to make it not take 3 hours? And relatedly, how do you keep players engaged during combat? its not impossible to do if every one of your players is a seasoned veteran and you as a DM are world class. otherwise basically good luck. my recommendation is to start doing groups for initiative since you are going to have to run like 20 creatures in combats bare minimum Bottom Liner posted:I'm running a campaign with 2 PC's, a Lore Bard and Arcane Trickster Rogue, that will be mostly focused on non-combat encounters/scenes. Any specific tips for those two builds to help them in those roles? Also, for balancing combat for only 2 pcs should I grant them additional hit points or anything (especially since they're light on healing and squishy)? combat(my forte):
as for non combat encounters and scenes, what you have right there is actually the perfect duo because lore bards are amazingly versatile and arcane tricksters are amazingly versatile. the two of them together will have no problem doing any general utility stuff. lean in on the lore bards book smarts and the arcane trickster street smarts and let them use their charisma and versatility to swiss army knife their way through problems. i dont know what tone you are going for but as far as duos go for non combat encounters you have it made in the shade.
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Dec 11, 2020 03:54
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Perry Mason Jar posted:Campaign's looking to have potentially 8 PCs. How do you streamline combat to make it not take 3 hours? And relatedly, how do you keep players engaged during combat? It does sound like a lot, but I'd wager that the group will slim down over time. When I started my last D&D campaign there were seven of us but it was very rare for more than five to attend any particular session. Anyway, keep all combat to the theater of the mind and fudge results so combat is as evocative as possible. It's a lot better to have a fireball "take down four bad guys and scatters the rest" than for the fireball to leave some 4hp dudes that now need to make their mathematically impossible last stand. Trying to do combat balance the way you would a typical 4 PC party will be impossible, so don't worry too much about doing that. Make sure that every party member does something worth doing each round - there shouldn't be any worry that an enemy is slightly out of range, or that an ability might have no effect. If everyone feels like they're contributing, and that the narrative is engaging and moving forward, then you're doing good. Keep party planning to a minimum since they eat up lots of time - either get the party to commit to a course of action, or interrupt an overlong deliberation with the rapid pace of events. Kaal fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Dec 11, 2020 |
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Dec 11, 2020 04:04
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Kaal posted:It does sound like a lot, but I'd wager that the group will slim down over time. When I started my last D&D campaign there were seven of us but it was very rare for more than five to attend any particular session. Anyway, keep all combat to the theater of the mind and fudge results so combat is as evocative as possible. It's a lot better to have a fireball "take down four bad guys and scatters the rest" than for the fireball to leave some 4hp dudes that now need to make their mathematically impossible last stand. Trying to do combat balance the way you would a typical 4 PC party will be impossible, so don't worry too much about doing that. Make sure that every party member does something worth doing each round - there shouldn't be any worry that an enemy is slightly out of range, or that an ability might have no effect. If everyone feels like they're contributing, and that the narrative is engaging and moving forward, then you're doing good. Keep party planning to a minimum since they eat up lots of time - either get the party to commit to a course of action, or interrupt an overlong deliberation with the rapid pace of events. This is all great advice. I've been running a campaign for a while now with 11 players, although it's normally 5 or 6 that can make it to any given session. The rest just fade into the background as needed and mysteriously stop chewing that very sticky toffee that was stopping them from talking when the players can make it again. Trimming down combat by making sure that people always have the opportunity to do something each round is pretty essential, and playing theatre of the mind makes it infinitely easier to do so. I'd wager it'd wear pretty thin on a party of experienced players that love the wargaming aspect of D&D, but for a casual group that just wanna drink some beers and kill some orcs it's easy enough to just fudge it. That said, even simple combat with a group of 6 takes most of a full session if it's any sort of challenging encounter. I try and counter that by only having big combats once every 4 sessions or so, but obviously that's not ideal for every party either. Just wing it and check in with your players to make sure they're still having fun, that's the best advice I can give for DMing anything
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Dec 11, 2020 05:23
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I'm confused by Warforged. Wayfinder's guide was apparently released before Rising From The Last War, does that mean the Rising version is the only one currently "valid" by RAW? It seems weird that they took out all of the interesting variations, although I can kind of see how the special armor calculations were kind of OP until you got up to where you could expect heavily enchanted armor.
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Dec 11, 2020 05:44
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Is there any general accepted method of making creatures tougher? I want to scale up a Medusa to CR10 or so since my players are going to be tasked with hunting down the leader of a clandestine assassin’s guild that’s been operating in the shadows for 200 years... and not likely to be led by someone who’s only CR6
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Dec 11, 2020 05:45
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22 Eargesplitten posted:I'm confused by Warforged. Wayfinder's guide was apparently released before Rising From The Last War, does that mean the Rising version is the only one currently "valid" by RAW? It seems weird that they took out all of the interesting variations, although I can kind of see how the special armor calculations were kind of OP until you got up to where you could expect heavily enchanted armor. Wayfinder's Guide was playtest material. For all intents and purposes, Rising of the Last War is the only RAW printing. Do what you want with that information.
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Dec 11, 2020 05:54
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