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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. My understanding is that Rising From the Last War was intended to entirely replace the character options from Guide to Eberron. It's too bad, because the new version of Warforged is extremely safe and boring.
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Dec 11, 2020 06:01
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Madmarker posted:The absolute maximum at any table should be a total of 6 people, 1 DM and 5 players. I’m currently in a 7 person group and I absolutely agree. It’s nice when someone can’t make it.
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Dec 11, 2020 06:46
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change my name posted: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 Give her class levels, maybe? I'm not really sure how that works in 5e but if she's the head of an assassin's guild I'd expect her to be a fairly high level rogue with the assassin subclass.
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Dec 11, 2020 06:50
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Kaal posted:My understanding is that Rising From the Last War was intended to entirely replace the character options from Guide to Eberron. It's too bad, because the new version of Warforged is extremely safe and boring. Yeah, agreed. I like the Warforged flavor but the mechanics are bland as hell.
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Dec 11, 2020 07:02
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Taciturn Tactician posted:Give her class levels, maybe? I'm not really sure how that works in 5e but if she's the head of an assassin's guild I'd expect her to be a fairly high level rogue with the assassin subclass. Do not do this. Monsters and even named important npcs do not have enough screen time to justify the paperwork for giving them class levels and none of the class abilities are really intended to be used against players and you'll run into trouble when you realize some class ability is completely useless or utterly backbreaking on the other side of the table. Instead look at other monsters, probably around the power level you want, and try to shift their stats and abilities to look like something from there. That, or reskin a different, appropriate monster and call it a medusa with assassin skills.
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Dec 11, 2020 07:11
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A friend of mine ran an online drop-in group that had upwards of 20 players, though typical attendance was 5-8. Mostly he just kept people prompted when initiative came up, was willing to skip and return to people, and railroaded them hard out of combat. I personally didn't enjoy it the one session I played, but it was a huge hit with the group at large. I think it helped that it was an MMO guild and they were used to running raids.
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Dec 11, 2020 07:19
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change my name posted: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 There are some rough guides in the DMG, but honestly I prefer just searching for similar monsters at the right CR level on Kobold Fight Club. If nothing quite works, I expand my search and see what else people have already come up with. This CR14 Greater Medusa looks like it would fit the bill for you. Maybe tone down the hitpoints a bit if you want to aim for a CR10. https://www.5esrd.com/gamemastering/monsters-foes/monsters-by-type/monstrosities/medusa/medusa-greater/
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Dec 11, 2020 07:36
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If I want to make a particular creature scarier without adding in minions/summons, a combination of extra actions per round, and abilities which target weaker defences in the party, seem to work well. If the monster is an assassin, consider allowing it to spy on the party and learn how they work. It could disguise itself and interact with them, planting misinformation or cursed/tracking items. Then when it strikes, it should be prepared for the party's usual tricks in some way, so they are forced to adapt. If you have a party of martials, then maybe magical traps or poisons targeting Int, Wis or Cha saves instead of Dex or AC would be highly effective. I would also give it an escape plan, which it would employ if things were going either too poorly, or perhaps too well in some cases. Having it initiate multiple encounters over time can build tension, but also give the party an opportunity to adapt. For example, I recently built a monster who specialised in invisibility and solid illusions made of shadowstuff. The party had zero detection or special sight, so the first encounter was tough, the party spending a lot of fine figuring out what was an illusion, and the monster successfully abducted a key NPC. On the rescue mission, they managed to load up with faerie fire and detection spells and hunted it down. As long as it doesn't have an answer for everything and it ultimately gets what's coming to it, you can break a lot of the rules PCs follow. Enough HP to not be immediately deleted, multiple actions/reactions per round, attacking weak saves, and particular defences such as flying/invis/whatever are the most effective buffs if I want a single monster to be scarier.
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Dec 11, 2020 09:56
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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? for the second part because everyone’s already raked you over the coals for 8 PCs, it’s incumbent on you as the dm to remind everyone when their turn is coming up, and have them think about what they want to do. ideally, they’ll pay attention to the flow of combat so that they can adjust their plan on the fly, but that might be a bit much to ask if you have new players (“well, what i WANTED to do was cast fireball, but now everybody’s scattered, so let me sit and pout while i think for five minutes before i just cast a cantrip on the enemy closest to me”) you’re also gonna have a really hard time balancing encounters for 8 PCs because things can swing in their favor extremely rapidly but good luck buddy!
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Dec 11, 2020 14:09
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theironjef posted:"Guys I've been hit by Booming Blade! I need you to dom me for the rest of combat, the safe word is turnip!"
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Dec 12, 2020 02:46
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cowboy
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FFT posted:Booming Blade only lasts until the start of the caster's next turn, it's really not that huge of a deal. Let me have my kink fights. It's a lifestyle choice.
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Dec 12, 2020 03:47
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theironjef posted:Let me have my kink fights. It's a lifestyle choice. Boning Blade
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Dec 12, 2020 05:59
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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? As someone running an 8 man campaign, do not run an 8 man campaign. As has already been mentioned the time between PC turns is excruciating, which means people go AFK thinking they have time, and then discover they don't have time, and now you have to figure out whether to put a pin in someones turn and loop back or to wait for them to come back. Any sort of social encounter where the 1-3 people who like playing party face do so means 5-7 people are just sitting around waiting, any sort of scenario where people want to split and do different things turns into hellworld, and this is all just on the player experience, none of this is on the DM side of things. Good luck building combat encounters (esp at low levels) that pose a threat but aren't just rocket tag, good luck prepping things interesting for 8 different character arcs, it's all bad, do not do this, you and all your players will hate you and it. So of course I've been doing this for a year now and no one has complained about any of the things I've said above, but I can hear it in their voices. RE shopping discourse: It depends on the scenario. Right now my 8 man game (I am an incredibly stupid man and DM multiple games) is playing over a region of a whole country with one Big City, and in any of the reasonably sized towns you can get anything off the general equipment list, but if you want magic items of any level you need to buy them in the Big City, and they're 1 - expensive, 2- time consuming (the crafter doesn't just have a magic sword sitting around, these are bespoke items), and 3 - may require quest reagents (you want a ring of protection? get me the skin of a Gorgon and I'll knock a few hundred off the cost). I also have an "auction house" which is a list of ~5 items that are sold on an in game schedule for a limited time that aren't quite randomly rolled, but are really just whatever I think looks interesting to dangle in front of the players that week. It also allows me to present items that are way more powerful than they should have, but also well outside their range of affordability, which allows them to figure out alternative methods of acquisition : currently they're planning a heist to rob the noble that bought the super crossbow that one player wanted but couldn't afford.
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Dec 12, 2020 11:36
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If I were going to try to adapt The Great Modron March to 5e, any suggestions on other Sigil or Outer Planes adventures that could tie into it?
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Dec 12, 2020 11:48
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Does anybody have some good variant rules for underwater combat? My players are going diving with a water breathing spell cast on them and there will be a sea snake waiting for them in the depths of the ocean... I find it boring if the way to model the increased difficulty of fighting in water is just a penalty to hit since nobody likes rounds of combat where you achieve nothing but rolling and missing.
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Dec 12, 2020 13:44
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theironjef posted:Let me have my kink fights. It's a lifestyle choice.
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Dec 12, 2020 14:03
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A simple underwater variant to speed things up would be to say if you don't have a swimming speed you can't get advantage on an attack, and anything with a swimming speed has advantage against you. Keeps the maths roughly the same, and makes things faster and deadlier.
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Dec 12, 2020 14:48
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I'm planning on running a one shot for my three friends. Does anyone have recommendations for a good module?
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Dec 13, 2020 02:15
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Maigius posted:I'm planning on running a one shot for my three friends. Does anyone have recommendations for a good module? Wild Sheep Chase is free and pretty good for a one-shot.
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Dec 13, 2020 02:27
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I'm starting up my first 5e campaign (as a player) soon. I'm starting at level 1 but my plan is an eventually Conquest Warforged paladin. I was planning on going with Dueling as it's going to be more support focused with as much crowd control as possible, but I saw the Blessed Warrior fighting style in Tasha's and I'm wondering if that would be better. Going with something like guidance and Toll the Dead for cantrips would help our skillmonkey rogue and also give me a bit better of an initiative roll since my dexterity is likely to be terrible. Not sure since we're rolling our stats at the first session. Toll the Dead seems like a better ranged option than anything else I could practically use, especially once I hit level 5 and could dump 2D12 on a caster/archer that our rogue/monk/druid/caster softened up. Anyone have an opinion/experience? I'm likely going sword and board since my fear spells are likely to make me a primary target, but Warforged has built in defensive style so by the time I get full plate I'll have 21AC. I'll probably be the tankiest out there, and most of this party is pretty inexperienced. I played a shitload of 3.5 a decade ago, and that gives me more experience than most in this group.
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Dec 14, 2020 02:11
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Am I crazy or is Fey Reinforcements on the Fey Wanderer Ranger archetype really good? The summon doesn't take any actions to command, not even the bonus action, and you can have more than one at a time since it unhooks it from concentration. You can't completely break the action economy because of the low number of spell slots for ranger and the ability being too late level for a ranger dip, but it seems unusually powerful.
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Dec 14, 2020 02:22
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Guidance is a great cantrip to have in the party. Depending on your DM using it for initiative rolls would be tricky as I think RAW you'd either have to pre-cast it before ambushing, or walk around all day casting it every minute in case you get into a fight. This is assuming they even allow this. Either Toll or Sacred Flame sounds fine as a backup when you can't melee. If you're taking a high Cha for aura/Fear DC/Spiritual Weapon attacks then even better.
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Dec 14, 2020 02:42
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Remember that Guidance has a range of touch. My druid player is constantly going "I give him Guidance" and it's like you are 30 feet away! Even if that somehow made sense in the timeline of this roll that is not a possibility!
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Dec 14, 2020 03:08
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Yeah, I'm seeing guidance as more of an out of combat thing for skills and such. I could argue "He's a Warforged, he doesn't get bored" but the DM could say that after a couple hours the rest of the party threatens to murder me if I don't stop audibly casting the spell  I'm just not sure whether it's worth taking over the +2 to one-handed damage or the +1 AC to be nearly unhittable while simultaneously every enemy wants to break my concentration on crowd control spells.
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Dec 14, 2020 03:24
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as a dm, it is kind of annoying hearing people blurt out "icastguidance" every time anyone tries to make a skill check but honestly as long as people are engaged in what other people are doing i can live with it
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Dec 14, 2020 03:26
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Guidance also has a Verbal and Somatic component. So, it would be a dead giveaway that you are casting it to anyone within visual or earshot, so you'd be inviting ambushes.
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Dec 14, 2020 03:40
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22 Eargesplitten posted:Yeah, I'm seeing guidance as more of an out of combat thing for skills and such. I could argue "He's a Warforged, he doesn't get bored" but the DM could say that after a couple hours the rest of the party threatens to murder me if I don't stop audibly casting the spell Both are fine options but if I was going Conquest I’d probably take the AC. Sure it’s boring, but because of bounded accuracy it’s actually a significant boost.
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Dec 14, 2020 04:51
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22 Eargesplitten posted:Toll the Dead seems like a better ranged option than anything else I could practically use, especially once I hit level 5 and could dump 2D12 on a caster/archer that our rogue/monk/druid/caster softened up. It all depends on what you're fighting but imo Sacred Flame is a better attack cantrip because radiant damage is a less resisted type than necrotic, which it feels like every undead monster and their mother resists. E that said, if you're trying to focus on support and you're already going sword and board, I'd go protection or interception probably. You'll likely keep your squishier party members alive longer that way. Conquest paladins don't have a ton else to do with their reaction anyway unless you're trying to take sentinel or something. GHOST_BUTT fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Dec 14, 2020 |
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Dec 14, 2020 05:35
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GHOST_BUTT posted:It all depends on what you're fighting but imo Sacred Flame is a better attack cantrip because radiant damage is a less resisted type than necrotic, which it feels like every undead monster and their mother resists. Honestly, with Dex being a higher average stat than Wisdom, especially for Undead, I think you're still better off with Toll, even with Resistance.
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Dec 14, 2020 05:46
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I took Sacred Flame on my cleric, and I was pretty unhappy with it overall. It's not so bad now, since I'm rocking +4 Wis and Prf, but at low levels basically everything had a 50% or more to no-sell the thing because of the Dex save. Granted we were fighting mostly humanoids and animals - stuff with dexterity. I could hit with attack rolls and wisdom-based saves much more reliably.
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Dec 14, 2020 18:03
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Toll is just a better spell across the board, resistances be dammed. Toll / Guidance / Mending is the baseline
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Dec 14, 2020 18:49
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Is it too much of a copout to judiciously use Nystul's Magic Aura to throw off PCs in my wizard's university murder mystery? For instance, the groundskeeper is actually a sentient flesh golem with one of those Disguise Self at-will hats and has been killing students, but using detect magic would immediately recognize that. His partner, a mindflayer arcanist, could easily use Nystul's to make him appear non-magical, and likely would. But the thinking is that this is a university for leaning magic, they're pretty well versed in it, and any logical wizard would do the same to protect their valuables etc
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Dec 14, 2020 18:55
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Toshimo posted:Guidance also has a Verbal and Somatic component. So, it would be a dead giveaway that you are casting it to anyone within visual or earshot, so you'd be inviting ambushes. I've never played a caster, is there a reason you can't just whisper the verbal part?
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Dec 14, 2020 19:18
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22 Eargesplitten posted:I've never played a caster, is there a reason you can't just whisper the verbal part? The whole point on the VSMs was originally supposed to be "These are the types of hindrances that make this spell difficult/obvious/cumbersome in some important way." Obviously this has been long forgotten so yeah, probably.
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Dec 14, 2020 19:41
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22 Eargesplitten posted:I've never played a caster, is there a reason you can't just whisper the verbal part? "Most Spells require the chanting of mystic words. The words themselves aren’t the source of the spell’s power; rather, the particular combination of Sounds, with specific pitch and resonance, sets the threads of magic in motion. Thus, a character who is gagged or in an area of Silence, such as one created by the Silence spell, can’t Cast a Spell with a verbal component." I suspect you'd have a hard time arguing that you are "chanting" a spell "with specific pitch and resonance" at a whisper.
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Dec 14, 2020 19:46
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Ah, okay. I hadn't read that before, specific resonance does imply there needs to be a volume to it. I've always played archers or melee classes or at most those late 3.5 classes with maneuvers that were like testing the waters for 4e.
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Dec 14, 2020 19:57
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denimgorilla posted:I’m currently in a 7 person group and I absolutely agree. It’s nice when someone can’t make it. She made a ghostwise circle of the moon druid that had a mercenary background so she could drop in and out of games as necessary. Unfortunately we switched DMs halfway through, and the new DM started trying to rearrange games around her shifts, despite her saying repeatedly that she didn't want to hold anyone up, and eventually we just stopped arranging games and the campaign stopped dead. It was my first non-teenage experience of DMing, and I kinda liked it. A murder mystery in a little farming village complete with a locked room mystery. A group of bandits were shaking down the village for protection money using baby mimics. One of my players said he felt genuinely uncomfortable about my description of a tankard sprouting teeth and the handle unfurling into little tentacles, which it used to launch itself up his arm. The final tavern fight was hilarious because I had a list behind the screen of which objects were mimics, and I specifically did it to gently caress with the bard who I know has a penchant for improvised weapons. At one point a player put his sword down and when he turned around, there were two swords. It ended with a lot of fire.
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Dec 14, 2020 19:58
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Bobby Deluxe posted:The final tavern fight was hilarious because I had a list behind the screen of which objects were mimics, and I specifically did it to gently caress with the bard who I know has a penchant for improvised weapons. At one point a player put his sword down and when he turned around, there were two swords. It's not often you end up with a good reason as to why the party burned down a tavern, but here we are.
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Dec 14, 2020 20:20
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I always likened verbal components to what Gandalf does in lotr when he speaks in mordor’s language. Everyone in the room knows something’s up. And it stops people from trying to use suggestion in the middle of a conversation like nothing’s going on.
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Dec 14, 2020 20:24
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Guidance would have worked a lot better as an x/day class ability or a more powerful version as an alternate use of channel divinity. As it stands its effectively a passive numerical bonus with mainly narrative restrictions, which is always an awful idea.
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Dec 14, 2020 21:03
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