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Kaal
May 22, 2002

through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

W.T. Fits posted:

That means there's an infinite range of interpretations, right?

The answer is undefined.

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Syrinxx
Mar 28, 2002

Death is whimsical today

Toshimo posted:

Isn't this basically the entirety of Drive-Thru RPG's business model?
I guess I thought that was mostly for other game systems, and I thought their D&D stuff was rulebooks - new races/classes/spells and other untested and probably unbalanced stuff. Adventure or module aren't even options you can pick in the "Content Type" menu :confused: Now that I think about it I still don't understand the difference between DMsguild and DTRPG

I'll check it out but if anyone's got a favorite series of classic-feeling modules I'd love to hear about it!

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸
Incidentally, to shut everyone up:

5E PHB page 195 posted:

You can make Ranged Attacks only against Targets within a specified range. If a ranged Attack, such as one made with a spell, has a single range, you can’t Attack a target beyond this range.

Arcsech
Aug 5, 2008

Syrinxx posted:

I find myself missing the old style of coded adventure module - a 16 or 32 page book with a quick setting/hook, and a map. Now all the official products are like 400 page campaign tomes that take a year to run. I'm wanting more stuff like was reprinted in Tales from the Yawning Portal and AD&D days.

Anyone have a series of these they like that aren't AL modules?

Yeah, have a poke around DM's Guild or Drive Thru RPG. AFAICT single modules typically aren't considered worth printing on dead trees these days and are only sold as PDFs (aside from maybe POD or Kickstarter rewards). The good news is, you can get an enormous amount of great old adventures for cheap if you're willing to do a little legwork converting them.

Goodman Games has a series of 5e adventures along these lines if you don't want to convert, I haven't actually run any of them tho.

Declan MacManus
Sep 1, 2011

damn i'm really in this bitch

Splicer posted:

Incidentally, to shut everyone up:

incidentally if they had just written “a range of 60 feet” it would’ve been pretty clear what they meant but i guess they wanted to specify that it had a longer range without disadvantage than a normal thrown dagger

i guess they could have written that “this dagger can be thrown up to 60 feet without penalty and no farther” but i don’t get paid the big fantasy bucks

Kaal
May 22, 2002

through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

Declan MacManus posted:

i guess they could have written that “this dagger can be thrown up to 60 feet without penalty and no farther” but i don’t get paid the big fantasy bucks

It's all just an example of the limitations of natural language rules. What one person thinks is obvious, another sees as vague, and a third believes there's room for a loophole. It really can't get too much clearer than "It has a nor­mal range of 60 feet and no long range", but there's always going to be contrarians. Setting up everything in a defined format like a magic card would certainly clarify this sort of thing, but a limited range of possibilities might diminish the feel of D&D.

Madmarker
Jan 7, 2007

Kaal posted:

It's all just an example of the limitations of natural language rules. What one person thinks is obvious, another sees as vague, and a third believes there's room for a loophole. It really can't get too much clearer than "It has a nor­mal range of 60 feet and no long range", but there's always going to be contrarians. Setting up everything in a defined format like a magic card would certainly clarify this sort of thing, but a limited range of possibilities might diminish the feel of D&D.

Thats the thing. Honestly, I wish they had the natural language explanations for ease of use but had like a citation that referenced a more exhaustive definition for what exactly the ability does in a concise (and keyworded) fashion, preferably in an index at the end of the book. The natural language is good enough for most use cases and wont scare off players but whenever this sort of thing pops up you could reference what the ability/spell "technically" does in the back in all of its exhaustive glory.


One thing I really wish they clarified is how the level 2 ability of the Twilight Domain works. Does the "sphere of twilight" create a zone of dim light, regardless of lighting conditions or if you were already in bright light is the zone around you also bright light. This is super important for things like the level 6 ability of the Twilight Domain, or if they are some sort of multiclass the Shadow Blade spell. As it is, the ability seems likely to create a huge feel bad for a player who reads it one way and a DM who reads it another.

Madmarker fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Dec 21, 2020

Staltran
Jan 3, 2013

Fallen Rib

Bobby Deluxe posted:

It says 60', the way it would for an ability. Which is what it is.



You can't attack a target beyond the weapon's long range, but there is no long range, so you can attack a target at any distance.
That's some powerful 'behold, a man' poo poo. The key thing I would take into account there is 'beyond normal range.' Normal range is something you absolutely have to factor in, even if you're RAWdogging the phb.

What? No, you're compartmentalising the two ranges and then entirely discarding normal range. Zero long range, when a normal range has been declared, means you cannot attack at disadvantage beyond normal range.

It doesn't mean you can only hit yourself, unless you entirely disregard the clearly stated normal range of 60'.

E: Also it says the blade has a range of 60ft, and disappears on a miss, so I would be inclined to rule that you can only manifest the knife up to 60', and beyond that it disappears same as on a miss.
[/quote]

It literally says it's a weapon. (And Diogenes was 100% correct that definition was poo poo.)

Of course you have to take normal range into account, but you can interpret that you can make attacks with disadvantage beyond it. The point with "can only attack yourself" was that, interpreting it literally, interpreting "no long range" as zero long range ends up with a nonsensical result.

Splicer posted:

Incidentally, to shut everyone up:
This does seem pretty conclusive though. Impressively unclear, still.

Toshimo
Aug 23, 2012

He's outta line...

But he's right!
"Beholder, a man!" -Mordenkainen, probably

Kaal
May 22, 2002

through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

Madmarker posted:

One thing I really wish they clarified is how the level 2 ability of the Twilight Domain works. Does the "sphere of twilight" create a zone of dim light, regardless of lighting conditions or if you were already in bright light is the zone around you also bright light. This is super important for things like the level 6 ability of the Twilight Domain, or if they are some sort of multiclass the Shadow Blade spell. As it is, the ability seems likely to create a huge feel bad for a player who reads it one way and a DM who reads it another.

It seems pretty straightforward to me at least. It works like any other visual effect field. Presumably in bright areas it darkens and obscures the area, whereas in dark areas it brightens and clarifies. The only thing unique about it is that since it's an ability it likely would have atypical interactions with the Darkness spell.

Raenir Salazar
Nov 5, 2010

College Slice
The DM takes me aside to give me a stern talking to because apparently people are also upset that I keep inadvertently keep derailing their plans by acting like a curious kender tripping over encounters and traps because I like to poke and pull at everything.

Like, we killed some spiders with paralysis poison, I've been gathering poisons so I can add poison to the swords that I catapult at people to increase their bite, I even got a snake familiar to milk it for poison, and I figure sweet, lets get their poison glands, but the party is down like half its members who all got paralyzed by the spiders so we don't have time to do it, so a friend in the party offers to drag two of the spider corpses with us to extract after our long rest.

During the long rest a lair event thing happens and any slain enemies revive. "Oh there's no dead enemies in the room huh... Oh wait, there's the two spider corpses!" which revive into phase spiders, breaking the long rest for two of us, (our cleric stays out of the encounter to finish her long rest).

Apparently this made them upset after the session along with calling in the werewolf to the boss fight.

change my name
Aug 27, 2007

Legends die but anime is forever.

RIP The Lost Otakus.

Raenir Salazar posted:

The DM takes me aside to give me a stern talking to because apparently people are also upset that I keep inadvertently keep derailing their plans by acting like a curious kender tripping over encounters and traps because I like to poke and pull at everything.

Like, we killed some spiders with paralysis poison, I've been gathering poisons so I can add poison to the swords that I catapult at people to increase their bite, I even got a snake familiar to milk it for poison, and I figure sweet, lets get their poison glands, but the party is down like half its members who all got paralyzed by the spiders so we don't have time to do it, so a friend in the party offers to drag two of the spider corpses with us to extract after our long rest.

During the long rest a lair event thing happens and any slain enemies revive. "Oh there's no dead enemies in the room huh... Oh wait, there's the two spider corpses!" which revive into phase spiders, breaking the long rest for two of us, (our cleric stays out of the encounter to finish her long rest).

Apparently this made them upset after the session along with calling in the werewolf to the boss fight.

Seriously just leave

pog boyfriend
Jul 2, 2011

dm sitting you down to have a serious 1 on 1 chat: listen. you are having fun and getting invested in the world - and we dont like it. cut that poo poo out immediately. you keep doing things which force me to gently caress over the party. by the way i refuse to not gently caress over the party but you have to stop doing stuff. okay, chat over. see you next week

Staltran
Jan 3, 2013

Fallen Rib
Taking the spiders with you to harvest later seems 100% reasonable, how could you possibly have known that they would resurrect? That's 100% on the DM.

KingKalamari
Aug 24, 2007

Fuzzy dice, bongos in the back
My ship of love is ready to attack

Staltran posted:


It literally says it's a weapon. (And Diogenes was 100% correct that definition was poo poo.)

Of course you have to take normal range into account, but you can interpret that you can make attacks with disadvantage beyond it. The point with "can only attack yourself" was that, interpreting it literally, interpreting "no long range" as zero long range ends up with a nonsensical result.

This does seem pretty conclusive though. Impressively unclear, still.

While the description could be better listed, I think the fact that 60' is the maximum range for the psychic daggers is pretty obvious from context: Every ranged spell attack doesn't list a long range for the attack and it's understood that represents the maximum range for that spell.

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

KingKalamari posted:

While the description could be better listed, I think the fact that 60' is the maximum range for the psychic daggers is pretty obvious from context: Every ranged spell attack doesn't list a long range for the attack and it's understood that represents the maximum range for that spell.
I think I'm firmly on record regarding my opinions about natural language in general and in 5e specifically, but yeah this specific instance is only ambiguous if you want it to be.

e: Eagerly awaiting a tweeted rules clarification explaining no of course we meant infinite range why would we mean anything else?

Raenir Salazar
Nov 5, 2010

College Slice
The DM also switched us to using the new Tasha's which the players voted in favor of, but seems just so much worse in everyway.

-Can no longer switch out spells at a long rest as a Sorcerer (hits both me and the warlock).
-Can no longer spend sorcery points to take advantage on a check (hits me hard).
-Can't spend sorc points to make a mundane weapon magical which is more situational but hurts me since my build is surrounding catapult.

In exchange got...?????

-Change spells known on level up?
-At 6th level whenever I gain an ASI, swap a metamagic/cantrip!?!?
-At 5th level I can spend 1 sorc point to reroll an ability check. Which I guess is slightly better? But its at 5th level instead of 3rd?

While I was grandfathered in to keep my Psionic Soul subclass, I lose the ability to roll the psionic talent die for the Telekinetic feat, so now its just a 5' shove/pull instead of 5 * talent die roll. A little annoying that the DM only partially grandfathers in my build/abilities but the alternative was switching to Aberrent Mind which doesn't really fit my build. Fits my character who is basically a very curious scholar about the hidden truths and secrets of the world like a Bloodborne character but doesn't fit the way I want to do combat or most interactions which is closer to "jedi" than "Mind Flayer".

Also the psychic spells in Aberrent Mind involve horrible things which is hard to get away with their use in a party that puts down werewolves on sight.

Other issues with Aberrent Mind vs Psionic Soul:
-Telepathic Speech is now *minutes* instead of hours, also no psionic talent die, so no more fun dice rolling!?
-No more psychic strike, which is important for my yeeting swords build.
-no more psionic discovery. Instead is something that while pretty good (costs less sorc points to cast a psychic spell list spell), I lose the ability to attempt to cast a spell stilled/silently whenever I want to. Which is useful when I'm as a squishy caster trying to avoid being a target.

Why is Tasha's so bad.

e: As a side note, the DM either is giving me a bone or is being a little lazy straight up lets my catapult go through every enemy that fails their save instead of stopping at the first enemy that fails. So that's nice. I just cleave through hordes of adds and contributes to my encounter tactics to focus on trying to get a bunch of enemies in a row/clutter. So its not all bad.

Raenir Salazar fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Dec 21, 2020

Madmarker
Jan 7, 2007

Splicer posted:

e: Eagerly awaiting a tweeted rules clarification explaining no of course we meant infinite range why would we mean anything else?

Nah, it'll be something even dumber like "Of course the long range is 60ft, so you would always have disadvantage when using your soul knife at range, how else could you interpret it?"

Raenir Salazar posted:

Why is Tasha's so bad.

Here's the thing, Tasha's is not bad...it is probably the second best book after Xanathar's when it comes to 5E publications. The problem is 5e relies on shouty reactions on how "unbalanced" things are from the unearthed arcana playtesters to determine the final version of stuff. I'll be frank, if you use unearthed arcana you are generally just setting yourself up for disappointment when the official version comes out. The problem isn't Tasha's...it is 5E in general.

Madmarker fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Dec 21, 2020

KingKalamari
Aug 24, 2007

Fuzzy dice, bongos in the back
My ship of love is ready to attack

Madmarker posted:

Nah, it'll be something even dumber like "Of course the long range is 60ft, so you would always have disadvantage when using your soul knife at range, how else could you interpret it?"

Followed by a Tweet two weeks later that gives the exact opposite interpretation!

Kaal
May 22, 2002

through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.
For what it's worth, I'd rather grandfather in a whole character than just part of one. Balancing seems a lot easier that way.

Bottom Liner
Feb 15, 2006


a specific vein of lasagna

Raenir Salazar posted:

The DM takes me aside to give me a stern talking to because apparently people are also upset that I keep inadvertently keep derailing their plans by acting like a curious kender tripping over encounters and traps because I like to poke and pull at everything.

Like, we killed some spiders with paralysis poison, I've been gathering poisons so I can add poison to the swords that I catapult at people to increase their bite, I even got a snake familiar to milk it for poison, and I figure sweet, lets get their poison glands, but the party is down like half its members who all got paralyzed by the spiders so we don't have time to do it, so a friend in the party offers to drag two of the spider corpses with us to extract after our long rest.

During the long rest a lair event thing happens and any slain enemies revive. "Oh there's no dead enemies in the room huh... Oh wait, there's the two spider corpses!" which revive into phase spiders, breaking the long rest for two of us, (our cleric stays out of the encounter to finish her long rest).

Apparently this made them upset after the session along with calling in the werewolf to the boss fight.
link us to the thread

Kaal
May 22, 2002

through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

KingKalamari posted:

Followed by a Tweet two weeks later that gives the exact opposite interpretation!

Or one that is mystifyingly vague, arrogant, and doesn't answer anything. "To answer your question, weapons gain disadvantage at long range. Read the rules!"

pog boyfriend
Jul 2, 2011

Staltran posted:

Taking the spiders with you to harvest later seems 100% reasonable, how could you possibly have known that they would resurrect? That's 100% on the DM.

i love how there are still dms like this in homebrew games acting like their hands are tied because the sheet they themselves wrote 2 hours ago says "if you touch the blue rock you instantly die"

Nyyen
Jun 26, 2005

MACHINE MEN
with MACHINE MINDS
and MACHINE HEARTS
Need some thoughts. Going to be doing a one shot that ends with an eldritch summoning ritual. We were thinking that it would have tentacles blocking progress through a rectangular room. As the players killer cultists or some other mechanic they could advance, and there would be danger zones and map wide attacks/hazards they would have to deal with.

Any sage advice on making that interesting or pitfalls to avoid?

Declan MacManus
Sep 1, 2011

damn i'm really in this bitch

Staltran posted:

Taking the spiders with you to harvest later seems 100% reasonable, how could you possibly have known that they would resurrect? That's 100% on the DM.

yeah your dm sucks and your game seems like it sucks too but it just might be that i'm not into my party getting mad at me for doing things besides treating anything non-humanoid as disposable and trying to interact with the game world beyond leveling up and plundering magic items

pog boyfriend
Jul 2, 2011

Nyyen posted:

Need some thoughts. Going to be doing a one shot that ends with an eldritch summoning ritual. We were thinking that it would have tentacles blocking progress through a rectangular room. As the players killer cultists or some other mechanic they could advance, and there would be danger zones and map wide attacks/hazards they would have to deal with.

Any sage advice on making that interesting or pitfalls to avoid?

1) dont make bed of chaos

2) have the room drastically change multiple times as the ritual continues, etc so the party feels like they have to stop this asap. tie the changes to 20 on initiative. if you are feeling saucy make multiple battlemaps but just adding hazards is fine too

3) let people fail forward. the obstacles dont block progress if you fail, give a choice to either have their progress blocked or take damage to carry on to end the ritual faster

4) make the resulting fight against the partially summoned creature harder the longer they took

5) see 1

Raenir Salazar
Nov 5, 2010

College Slice

Staltran posted:

Taking the spiders with you to harvest later seems 100% reasonable, how could you possibly have known that they would resurrect? That's 100% on the DM.

To be precise, and to give more of the other side of the story, the others were upset because allegedly maybe someone might have half-heartedly indicated they didn't want me to drag the spider corpses into the other room (because half the party was knocked out of action and paralyzed and we needed to get to a relatively safer room to long rest in); the problem of course is that the intent was "we don't have time to be dragging corpses", not "the spider bodies pose some yet unspecified threat that we shouldn't have any means of knowing about in advance".

The other aspect is that I telepathically messaged the werewolf to come after the boss, but because I didn't hear the party discuss attempting a peaceful option first (I was probably fiddling with my character sheet and restoring my spells during the long rest prior to the encounter which shut my attention off), and because we were sort've rushing because one of the others had to leave "really soon", as soon as we were at the stairs to the final floor I called in the werewolf. But I called in said werewolf by speaking outloud to the GM, no one was like "wait wait no stop don't do that yet!" they just... Went with it and then got angry at me about after the fact.

There's also maybe some element that the DM gave me an ability which gives me a random boon (or corruption+boon if evil energy) if I absorb magical energy, and because I had zero instructions as to what the ability does and that I will, "find out with use" well, scientific method time! I of course use it on everything trying to figure out how it works, which also annoys them. One of them I'm pretty sure has no way of knowing in character that I have this ability or how it works but somehow they know when I'm using it and tried to stop me from doing so. All I know is sometimes it restores spell slots and sorcery points and when I'm down to 1 spell slot and the party refuses to long rest I kinda need to start sticking my fingers into electrical sockets to charge my magic iphone!


Bottom Liner posted:

link us to the thread

We use discord so no thread, its mostly via voice chat.


Declan MacManus posted:

yeah your dm sucks and your game seems like it sucks too but it just might be that i'm not into my party getting mad at me for doing things besides treating anything non-humanoid as disposable and trying to interact with the game world beyond leveling up and plundering magic items

We don't even gain XP from encounters, it's on completing story chapters.

Bottom Liner
Feb 15, 2006


a specific vein of lasagna
Invite me to the discord I have a werewolf character sheet with jars of spiders ready to go

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Raenir Salazar posted:

-Can't spend sorc points to make a mundane weapon magical which is more situational but hurts me since my build is surrounding catapult.

What?

Raenir Salazar
Nov 5, 2010

College Slice

It was a UA thing we were using previously. Spend two sorcery points and for 10 minutes it makes a mundane weapon into a magic weapon.

Unless you're confused about catapult. My build is all around shooting things (usually swords) at people, making them magic was important when facing things that resist or won't go down from mundane weapons.

It was pretty funny as at the boss fight against a revenant, I was asking "is it a bonus action to pour holy water on a sword before I shoot the sword?" and the DM reminds me that "You can just shoot the holy water!" and I'm like oooooh yeah that's a thing!

e to add: One thing I like at the moment is while most things I do unfortunately require a save, I always having something different to try, most things have poor int saves, which is good because most of my psychic damage spells target int, but if they have good int, okay then comes catapult which targets dex, or burning hands or Aggronazar's Scorcher (these are spells I got as a quest reward); do they also have good dex? Okay try shoving them down a whole by pushing them 5' away from me which targets strength. It's nice to have options.

Raenir Salazar fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Dec 22, 2020

Dr. Krieger
Apr 9, 2010

I just started a homebrew campaign as a divine soul/dao genie sorlock and really struggling what to pick with my ASIs. I have 17 CON and Crusher looks like it would be interesting with genies wrath allowing me to add bludgeoning but being a charisma caster probably want to get to 20 CHA asap? I've never play a warlock or sorcerer before so not really sure what to prioritize. I've got 1 level in each so far and its very fun with utility from my sorcerer slots and eldritch blasting everything else :blastu:

Zonko_T.M.
Jul 1, 2007

I'm not here to fuck spiders!

If you're a sorc or a warlock, and you're just trying to be better with your ASIs, chariso all the way. You'll get a lot more mileage out of it since all your spellcasting uses it.

I would only bump up strength on a caster if I had some story reason to do so. You just won't use it much.

Madmarker
Jan 7, 2007

Quick really random question. On roll20 you can pop out a log of every roll and chat interaction you have made and every roll and chat interaction that has been made available to you by the gm and other players. Is there a program or browser extension that can go in and break down data like number of critical hits, number of critical failures, amount of times you rolled maximum damage on a die roll, etc?

I got curious because I realized I had never smited with my paladin in the entire time I played them, mostly because I was saving my smites for crits. I went through and manually searched the document for every incident of my characters name and checked to see if I made an attack, and recorded if I scored a critical hit. Out of the 230 attacks I have made since I started the campaign at level 1, I have scored a total of 2 critical hits and seven critical misses.

Toshimo
Aug 23, 2012

He's outta line...

But he's right!

Madmarker posted:

Quick really random question. On roll20 you can pop out a log of every roll and chat interaction you have made and every roll and chat interaction that has been made available to you by the gm and other players. Is there a program or browser extension that can go in and break down data like number of critical hits, number of critical failures, amount of times you rolled maximum damage on a die roll, etc?

I got curious because I realized I had never smited with my paladin in the entire time I played them, mostly because I was saving my smites for crits. I went through and manually searched the document for every incident of my characters name and checked to see if I made an attack, and recorded if I scored a critical hit. Out of the 230 attacks I have made since I started the campaign at level 1, I have scored a total of 2 critical hits and seven critical misses.

You could save yourself the time you spend agonizing over this to start researching ways to generate advantage more frequently.

Madmarker
Jan 7, 2007

Toshimo posted:

You could save yourself the time you spend agonizing over this to start researching ways to generate advantage more frequently.

We play with flanking rules and inspiration. It is a true outlier.

And my character is effective and generally hits and deals damage and kills stuff, while absorbing the brunt of the damage, but I was bored post game today waiting for my laundry to dry and was just wondering why I hadn't really smited anything. But honestly I just think it would be cool to be able to see that, heck maybe even make cool little graphs out of the data like at the end of a CIV game or something.

KingKalamari
Aug 24, 2007

Fuzzy dice, bongos in the back
My ship of love is ready to attack
Alright, I'm gearing up to start running a reskinned version Rime of the Frost Maiden for one of my usual groups and wanted to share the tweaks and changes I have with the thread because...I have some sort of brain thing that compels me to share this kind of poo poo I guess?

(Spoilered in case my players stumble in here because I use the same username with them)


So the adventure itself is set in the post-human, science fantasy homebrew setting I've been using for my 5e games and, as a result, I've made some alterations to the module to fit it into the vibe I'm going for. The biggest change is that, rather than the Endless Rime being the work of the mortal incarnation of a pissed off god, it's instead the work of a malfunctioning terraforming system left behind by the technologically advanced precursors that some worshippers of a local ice spirit accidentally activated. Similarly, Ythryn is no longer the ruins of a floating city of mages, but the ruins a floating precursor city that the party will ultimately have to explore in order to shut down the terraforming system.

I've also kind of reskinned the Duergr of Sunblight and the Chardalyne dragon they're building a bit to instead be the forces of a disgraced former Ten-Towns noble who stumbled on another cache of precursor technology and is collecting Chardlyne to use as a power source to reactivate an ancient superweapon. Since I'm not super keen on the forced alignment shift mechanics of Chardylne I plan to treat it more like fantasy uranium: A substance that gives off immense power, but also immense psionic energy nonsense that messes up peoples' minds a bit when they come into contact with it, with prolonged exposure causing these symptoms to worsen, eventually become permanent and in particularly severe cases leads to weird physical mutations. This at least gives players some forewarning about Chardlyne being dangerous to handle, and means I can have some fun coming up with weird mutations for the reskinned Duergr.

The one bit I've had trouble fitting into my reskinning efforts is the stuff from chapter 5: Auril's Abode. Anyone have any suggestions for winter-themed dungeons/adventures with a mild science fantasy bent I could possibly use as a replacement. I am not afraid to reskin and adjust!

Beelerzebub
May 28, 2016

I came here to laugh at you.
Warning that this isn't necessarily 5e, more 5e-adjacent (We are playing Carbon 2185, which is basically Cyberpunk 2020 using 5e OGL), but I DM'd for the 4th or 5th time tonight (with it being the first time it won't be a one-shot) and I just want to say that it was really comforting and exciting when my players said they couldn't wait to play next week, especially when I think we were all hitting a point of burnout. It also made me a lot less anxious about DMing, and for the first time ever, I can't wait to DM again.

Madmarker
Jan 7, 2007

Beelerzebub posted:

Warning that this isn't necessarily 5e, more 5e-adjacent (We are playing Carbon 2185, which is basically Cyberpunk 2020 using 5e OGL), but I DM'd for the 4th or 5th time tonight (with it being the first time it won't be a one-shot) and I just want to say that it was really comforting and exciting when my players said they couldn't wait to play next week, especially when I think we were all hitting a point of burnout. It also made me a lot less anxious about DMing, and for the first time ever, I can't wait to DM again.

Good on you, it is super rewarding, especially when the players let you know they are having fun.

Bobby Deluxe
May 9, 2004

Raenir Salazar posted:

There's also maybe some element that the DM gave me an ability which gives me a random boon (or corruption+boon if evil energy) if I absorb magical energy, and because I had zero instructions as to what the ability does and that I will, "find out with use" well, scientific method time! I of course use it on everything trying to figure out how it works, which also annoys them.
This kind of sounds like a cascade of failures to be honest. Are these people friends or members of a local club you need to stay in contact with?

I hate to be the guy bringing up :allears: Matt Mercer :allears: but his DM advice is to talk one on one to each player before you start, find out what each one wants from the campaign, and then organise a pre campaign group meeting to make sure everyone is ok with the compromise the DM has found between those positions.

Someone might passionately hate roleplaying in character and just wants to give 'i attack the orc' instructions. That sort of player is going to fundamentally have a hard time in a group that wants to spend four hours of soft improv in town shopping and exchanging backstory.

Or like getting a raid group together for an MMO. A player who wants to stop and admire the scenery and read all the lore is going to have a bad time with a group trying to speedrun it for the third time that week, and vice versa.

In an ideal world if you have one player who really doesn't fit, they should agree to play with another group. But in reality (especially now), that's not really possible, so part of the DM's role is to carefully mediate that middle ground and make sure everyone agrees to be on the same page.

It sounds like your DM has not squared that circle, because you have at least one party member who wants to go full lawful good, and your DM has not made sure everyone is ok with that out of character. Conflict between lawful/chaotic and good/evil characters can be great, but only if the players are into it ooc, which it sounds like you two aren't.

Also he doesn't seem to have made it clear what pace people want, if the rest of the group are annoyed at you experimenting and talking to werewolves and dragging spiders along with you. If it was an issue of ooc time, the DM should have quickly let you roll to investigate for poison sacs. If the time pressure came from in game events, the dm should be making that clearer to you so that you agree with the rest of the group and left the spiders.

Like to a certain extent there is an overview here where the rest of the group seem to be getting annoyed with you slowing things down, and you're not picking up / acting on that. You also seem to have chosen a very particular build that requires you doing stuff like this.

But if there are disagreements in playstyle at the table, the DM really needs to step in and moderate that as well if they want everyone to be having as much fun as possible.

Throwing that recharge thing at you but not telling you how it works, and leaving it for you to experiment with it - in a group that apparently hates experimentation - is kind of a dick move on his part as well.


Nyyen posted:

We were thinking that it would have tentacles blocking progress through a rectangular room.

Any sage advice on making that interesting or pitfalls to avoid?
5) Get the "I've seen enough hentai" jokes out of the way up front.

Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Dec 22, 2020

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Declan MacManus
Sep 1, 2011

damn i'm really in this bitch

i don’t think you have to be like matt mercer to have a session zero

on the contrary, i think that’s the bare minimum for a competent dm who’s looking to navigate and manage 3-6 disparate personalities who might all expect different campaigns; this hobby is a big ole time sink so if you can’t sit around for a few hours with some friends or potential friends and talk about what kind of role playing experience you want, you might not have enough time to play dnd (or it just might not be a priority for you)

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