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FFT posted:If nothing else it's the sunk cost fallacy: time (learning/playing) and/or money. Whatever they might be labeled, new TTRPG players are probably going to want to start with D&D, and by default they're probably going to stick to their first unless/until peer pressured into trying other systems. i find this to be very true along with the points battlemaster made; it’s been very nice having “normal people” to play d&d with but those same people aren’t really invested in learning multiple systems (even though once you’ve learned d&d you can pick up most d20 systems pretty easily). honestly i dunno if d&d will even retain a ton of these new customers when the switch to 6e happens or if people just end up sticking with 5e and third parties churn out new content for it forever like they did for 3.5 i do think once you get people interested in tabletop gaming as a whole, when they start bumping their heads against the limitations of d&d, they’re more likely to pick up systems that better suit what they want to do (my partner really likes altered carbon and they kept banging their head against 5e until finally they just decided to buy cyberpunk red’s starter kit); i think it’s harder to get people to switch to intragenre systems (like from 5e to pf2e or 13a or dungeon world or symbaroum) because the idea of doing something “better” doesn’t necessarily appeal to people if they’ve already learned the mechanics and are just focused on roleplaying and storytelling
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 14:15 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 18:11 |
Declan MacManus posted:i do think once you get people interested in tabletop gaming as a whole, when they start bumping their heads against the limitations of d&d, they’re more likely to pick up systems that better suit what they want to do (my partner really likes altered carbon and they kept banging their head against 5e until finally they just decided to buy cyberpunk red’s starter kit); i think it’s harder to get people to switch to intragenre systems (like from 5e to pf2e or 13a or dungeon world or symbaroum) because the idea of doing something “better” doesn’t necessarily appeal to people if they’ve already learned the mechanics and are just focused on roleplaying and storytelling Like not counting the no-dice-necessary freeform sci-fi games I ran as a kid after reading a bunch of the Planescape books, the first non-D&D game I played that used an actual TTRPG system was a modern-day-setting game of GURPS right around the 3.0-3.5 transition. Granted, we got transported to a medieval fantasy dimension in the first session, but at the time that was a refreshing change of pace and none of us had ever heard of an "Isekai" (also we'd just finished a short homebrewed 3.0 Dark Sun campaign, soooo) stringless fucked around with this message at 14:36 on Feb 23, 2021 |
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 14:32 |
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Declan MacManus posted:(even though once you’ve learned d&d you can pick up most d20 systems pretty easily). If you’re going through the effort to move to another system at least pick something better than d20.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 14:43 |
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Declan MacManus posted:i find this to be very true along with the points battlemaster made; it’s been very nice having “normal people” to play d&d with but those same people aren’t really invested in learning multiple systems (even though once you’ve learned d&d you can pick up most d20 systems pretty easily). honestly i dunno if d&d will even retain a ton of these new customers when the switch to 6e happens or if people just end up sticking with 5e and third parties churn out new content for it forever like they did for 3.5 Plus, most of these people will have only been playing for a year or two, and it really does take quite a while for D&D to stop seeming fresh, especially if you're only having 1 game a week or less. Additionally, if you have a good DM, that goes a huge way towards papering over the cracks in the system. As a player you're much less likely to want to try out a new system if your DM isn't using the system to gently caress you, and you're much less likely to want to try out a new genre if your DM is making the current setting fun and engaging. So I'd wager a lot of veteran DMs who wish their neophyte players were more interested in trying out new systems are in some ways victims of their own success; you know from years of experience how to make up for D&D's flaws, so your players don't see them, and even when they do, they subconsciously annotate "But my DM will fix that to not suck".
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 14:44 |
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FFT posted:If nothing else it's the sunk cost fallacy: time (learning/playing) and/or money. Whatever they might be labeled, new TTRPG players are probably going to want to start with D&D, and by default they're probably going to stick to their first unless/until peer pressured into trying other systems. Splicer fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Feb 23, 2021 |
# ? Feb 23, 2021 14:54 |
Reveilled posted:Plus, most of these people will have only been playing for a year or two, and it really does take quite a while for D&D to stop seeming fresh, especially if you're only having 1 game a week or less.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 14:57 |
Splicer posted:D&D also sets weird expectations for how long it will take you to learn another RPG. You can learn to play something like Call of Cthulhu in an afternoon but you can play D&D for years and still run into player-facing edge cases fairly frequently. Also something like Call of Cthulhu will be very up front about it being a game for going mad about finding out shoggoths exist and nothing else, while D&D has this weird culture of "OK let's try and shoehorn a noir detective story into this game about hitting goblins until coins fall out". yay i've got answers for fiddly bullshit edge cases and fiddly bullshit common questions, i'm useful! better keep playing this particular system so that time spent learning everything didn't go to waste! stringless fucked around with this message at 15:02 on Feb 23, 2021 |
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 14:59 |
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i have absolutely no trouble getting diehard dnd fans into other systems. it isnt hard at all. the problem is nobody has any awareness that other systems exist or why you would do that, a table full of first time players that got into it from critical role or taz balance or stranger things isnt going to stand up some day and say you know what guys gently caress it lets run ryuutama
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 15:31 |
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The Avatar TTRPG is coming out next year and has several books planned years in advance, that might actually make a dent in things (assuming it's good)
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 16:01 |
change my name posted:The Avatar TTRPG is coming out next year and has several books planned years in advance, that might actually make a dent in things (assuming it's good) Not enough people want to be a blue space furry to make a large dent.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 16:04 |
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change my name posted:The Avatar TTRPG is coming out next year and has several books planned years in advance, that might actually make a dent in things (assuming it's good) Avatar or ATLA?
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 16:16 |
Declan MacManus posted:i find this to be very true along with the points battlemaster made; it’s been very nice having “normal people” to play d&d with but those same people aren’t really invested in learning multiple systems (even though once you’ve learned d&d you can pick up most d20 systems pretty easily). honestly i dunno if d&d will even retain a ton of these new customers when the switch to 6e happens or if people just end up sticking with 5e and third parties churn out new content for it forever like they did for 3.5 Yeah, my all-lawyer playgroup started playing "as a joke" back when Stranger Things came out and got into it (I got recruited in to substitute when the former DM "got weird" and they all decided to go off and play without him). They're great people and great players, the only real downside is that because they're normal people with normal lives they allow their "real lives" and "children" and so forth to take precedence so we only play maybe two out of every three weeks on average and usually shorter sessions (3 hours is more typical than 5). They're all, *in theory* open to playing other systems and games, but in practice, the ease and convenience of D&DBeyond is really the determining factor for them. Learning a new system would take time and effort and there's a sunk cost factor.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 16:16 |
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Lucas Archer posted:Avatar or ATLA? ATLA: https://www.magpiegames.com/2021/02/03/new-rpg-set-in-world-of-avatar-tla-tlok/
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 16:18 |
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Three Characters: Barnes, Human Alchemist; Karn, Dragonborn Fighter; Me/Indirus, Changeling Bard A note: Barnes' character is legendarily weak of body. He has about a third of the health he should for where we are in the game (level 3, and he has... 9 health? We've all agreed to silly dumb things like rolling stats and rolling health, and know the game is unbalanced and silly currently. No one is bothered by this, and it enables goofy storytelling like the following). Our last session began with paying for a resurrection for Barnes after an unfortunate downing by bugbears. He makes it to 2 saves and 2 fails on death saving throws during combat, and failed his last throw. Because we don't have the means yet, our dm decided to help us by enlisting a high priestess we were already en route to. She helped resurrect Barnes, but needed a little extra juice, sacrificing some of Karn and my life force to bring him back, so we lost permanent max health to get our friend back. The next day on the way out of town, our group was sort of investigating a weird dungeon set inside a hilltop and we ended up traipsing through and killing the big bad guy at the end without too much fuss. We decide to backtrack to an unexplored room and Barnes' character falls into a pit, and an animated rug comes to life and begins to smother him by rolling him up in itself - strangling him over time. Because Barnes' character is so weak, the only way he survives is by not getting into situations like these in the first place, by skulking and staying on the outskirts. He gets knocked unconscious immediately, and is forced to roll dice to alive. He immediately rolls a nat 1, critically failing, and dies seconds after falling unconscious. That means that our friend has died twice in like… 48 hours, and probably more realistically died within about 8-16 hours of coming back to life. I also fall unconscious during the fight, Karn manages to finish off the animated rug and pull our bodies out, get me conscious. Karn's examining the rest of the room to make sure nothing crazy happens, finds a basin with some liquid and some script he can’t read on it and drinks some. The DM has Karn roll a charisma saving throw, not telling the rest of us what it's about. Karn proceeds to fail, and then begins packing up everything, tosses Barnes over his shoulder and tells me it'll be fine, we'll just go talk to the priestess again. I look at the basin with the script and *can* read it, and it says “drink and wash away your worries.” Connecting the dots, I whip him around by the shoulder and slap the poo poo out of him, trying to clear his head. DM has him save again, and he fails it worse than before. Karn's basically brainwashed with magic to be whistly and chill, so he tosses Barnes' corpse on his shoulder like nothing’s wrong and marches out of the dungeon thinking everything’ll be fine, no worries, happy-go-lucky. and that’s how the session ends, with me chasing my friend carrying my other dead friend out of a dungeon shouting at him to be more worried about it. DM was like "oh, this one is gonna cost you way more, and I have no idea what that is yet." We talked about going back to the last priestess and asking for a refund on our max hp because the revival didn't take and Barnes is dead again. I never have fun stories to post, but this one was a real rollercoaster. Other high notes: a trap room where you can only advance by moving backwards, causing some fun experimentation including near-failure dropkicks to try and advance someone forward, an attempted fastball-special requiring DM fiat, spontaneous mass-moonwalking performance rolls, and for me a newly-inspired fear of all mimics after a close brush with one, where I now poke and inspect every wooden piece of furniture I find before settling down. I'm even probably gonna carve a walking stick to be a mimic poker.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 16:21 |
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change my name posted:ATLA: https://www.magpiegames.com/2021/02/03/new-rpg-set-in-world-of-avatar-tla-tlok/ I'll def check that out.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 16:23 |
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I'm definitely more into it for D&D than for other RP systems, and actually got annoyed last year when a group of old friends got together to play D&D, and then when the campaign got to wrapping up they all started talking about playing other systems. One player (the 'inventive' bard, if you remember him) just kept going on about how much better than 5e the system he wanted to use was (unisystem I think). I'm not saying he was wrong - hell yeah 5e has faults and there are probably things other systems do much better. But it's like if you met up with your friends to play football in the park and then they start talking about playing tennis instead. I don't know. Maybe it's nostalgia for the settings or the classes but I want to play D&D and keep playing D&D and not get dragged into other systems when people start getting bored of it. If I'm going to play something different I'd want it to be something completely different like Paranoia or old-achool Wraith, and even then I'd want it played alongside the regular D&D game, not instead of it.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 16:43 |
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It's also a branding thing. DnD as a brand is becoming more mainstream, especially with the last year of quarantines. My less nerdy friends have seen Stranger Things and understand that you take turns and that rolling a 20 is a really good thing. When you start throwing around technical specs their eyes are going to glaze over, but that initial interest is piqued. Nothing else has that same safe, comfortable passive knowledge that allows casual players to dip their toes in.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 17:14 |
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I've played a lot of different games, but I always come back to D&D because it's easy to run (for me, at least) and easy to find players for. The latest ad I put up for a game got 117 replies, as an example. One of my big turnoffs of other games, is sometimes someone will talk up an indie/non-D&D game to me, and when I check it out, it opens with an essay about how poo poo D&D is, and how you are personally a bad person for playing it. Or something along the lines, 'Good for you for picking up a REAL game, now you're better than those other loser poo poo nerds'. Buddy, we are all elfgame playing loser poo poo nerds. Get over yourself. You would not believe the number of people who can't even say a single good thing about their own game and who are incapable of even describing what it was designed to do. It's an instant no-go for me, I won't even read the rest, and I definitely won't give the person money.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 17:29 |
Bobby Deluxe posted:I'm definitely more into it for D&D than for other RP systems, and actually got annoyed last year when a group of old friends got together to play D&D, and then when the campaign got to wrapping up they all started talking about playing other systems. One player (the 'inventive' bard, if you remember him) just kept going on about how much better than 5e the system he wanted to use was (unisystem I think). There's some merit to this too. Especially for the newer gen of players, the "draw" seems to not be so much the game itself as "doing a thing together with friends." Which is great! but it means they're less *interested* in the rule mechanics or in particular game systems. They aren't nerdy wargamers, they're just in it to be drunk dwarves with friends or whatever. ANd D&D has a nostalgia factor just due to its age that nothing else can quite match. I was sad they took the guisarme-voulge out of 5e.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 17:48 |
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https://twitter.com/ajitgeorgeSB/status/1364255946168434688 Pretty cool that some of the dread domains will be differently themed than typical gothic horror, apparently. This reminds me of the huge African mythology-focused conversion book I found that had a really interesting setting (you're all souls who have plummeted into the "below lands" either as punishment or death but can't remember your past life) Edit: Found it, I downloaded the book and it totally rules: https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/iyxvda/my_afrofantasy_setting_is_being_turned_into_both/ change my name fucked around with this message at 18:33 on Feb 23, 2021 |
# ? Feb 23, 2021 18:00 |
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Me and my friends play dnd as a mostly social activity. We goof around, get into derails about teal life stuff, etc while we crawl a dungeon or whatever. The roleplay definitely suffers fom it, but that's fine because we're all having fun drinking and unwinding. If we were to start playing a different system, that would get in the way of us having fun. Not because it's better or worse or whatever, but simply because it's unfamiliar. Edge cases aside (like the one I asked about previously), if they want their character to do something, whether that's an attack, spell or some form of interaction, we know what to do without really talking about it. If the DM asks for a roll we know why and how it works. We started a Shadowrun campaign earlier in the year (which broke up for unrelated reasons) and while it was tons of fun it was also a lot more work. How do I do this again? What do I roll? How does this work? That kind of talk took up a lot of time that just doesn't come up in dnd. We know how it works, so 95% of the time is spent having fun and not talking about the system itself. Sure, if we put the time in and learned a new system properly it could become as effortless as dnd, but all of us being adults with jobs and kids and stuff, nobody wants to do that. We just want to have fun roleplaying and going through a narrative and killing things, and dnd is the easiest way to do that.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 18:05 |
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Lucas Archer posted:I'll def check that out. magpie games kicks rear end so this thing is likely going to be quite good Taeke posted:Me and my friends play dnd as a mostly social activity. We goof around, get into derails about teal life stuff, etc while we crawl a dungeon or whatever. The roleplay definitely suffers fom it, but that's fine because we're all having fun drinking and unwinding.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 18:08 |
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change my name posted:Pretty cool that some of the dread domains will be differently themed than typical gothic horror, apparently. This reminds me of the huge African mythology-focused conversion book I found that had a really interesting setting (you're all souls who have plummeted into the "below lands" either as punishment or death but can't remember your past life) oh so 5e rips off 3e again, this time it's ghostwalk
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 18:21 |
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I'm playing a Vengeance paladin/hexblade in a campaign, and after using haste and then shielding the next turn in our last fight, our DM is discussing forbidding anyone from using shield while wearing heavy armor (affecting only my character) and changing hexblade's curse to regen on a long rest instead of a short rest. Does this seem a little heavy-handed, or are these common house rules to tone down the hexblade dip's power? I see that 27 AC breaks bounded accuracy, but they're using a finite resource that only regenerates on a long rest and is needed for smites. The curse change I just don't see; it's single target and, while strong, doesn't feel game breaking. They're open to a counter-offer, any suggestions for how to handle this?
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 18:30 |
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This seems appropriate considering the last couple pages of "other games" chat but the Alien RPG is really top notch and worth a look if you are trying to have D&D buddies try out a new game. https://frialigan.se/en/games/alien/ The other YZ games like Tales From the Loop also have very good reviews. Hieronymous Alloy posted:Ok then, what are the best 3rd party campaigns and one-shots? I still wonder why Wizards doesn't publish more small modules like the ones that comprise Tales From the Yawning Portal. Not every product needs to be a 350 page Perkins tome
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 18:32 |
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pog boyfriend posted:magpie games kicks rear end so this thing is likely going to be quite good That's what meant to say. I didn't mean it's easier or light on rules objectively, I meant it's easier for us because it's familiar and everybody has a clear understanding and feeling of the rules. We all know how it works, so there's no time lost asking how many of what dice to roll, what to add, what a result means, if they can do something and why or why not, etc. Learning a new system would introduce an unfamiliarity and uncertainty that would get in the way for us, even if it's a simpler system. Also, part of the enjoyment is the familiar complexity, the different types of dice, the feats and races that we all know, etc. Most of us grew up playing the Baldurs Gate series, Neverwinter Nights, etc.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 18:36 |
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Taeke posted:That's what meant to say. I didn't mean it's easier or light on rules objectively, I meant it's easier for us because it's familiar and everybody has a clear understanding and feeling of the rules. We all know how it works, so there's no time lost asking how many of what dice to roll, what to add, what a result means, if they can do something and why or why not, etc. yes, agreed with this. i also truly love the one size fits all genericness of the system even if it results in an unfocused muddy game compared to more focused systems, simply because i get to then start pulling genre changes in the same system to keep things fresh. if the game is working for you there is seriously no reason to switch at all... i just like a lot of other systems as well and wish they got the same love dnd is getting
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 18:43 |
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Taeke posted:Me and my friends play dnd as a mostly social activity. We goof around, get into derails about teal life stuff, etc while we crawl a dungeon or whatever. The roleplay definitely suffers fom it, but that's fine because we're all having fun drinking and unwinding. pog boyfriend posted:yes, agreed with this. i also truly love the one size fits all genericness of the system even if it results in an unfocused muddy game compared to more focused systems, simply because i get to then start pulling genre changes in the same system to keep things fresh. if the game is working for you there is seriously no reason to switch at all... i just like a lot of other systems as well and wish they got the same love dnd is getting
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 18:51 |
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Bark! A Vagrant posted:I'm playing a Vengeance paladin/hexblade in a campaign, and after using haste and then shielding the next turn in our last fight, our DM is discussing forbidding anyone from using shield while wearing heavy armor (affecting only my character) and changing hexblade's curse to regen on a long rest instead of a short rest. Does this seem a little heavy-handed, or are these common house rules to tone down the hexblade dip's power? The Shield limitation seems harsh to me. You're spending two rounds, an action for a 3rd level spell with concentration, a reaction for a 1st level spell and giving up your attack of opportunity just to make it very hard for you to be hit for one round. Plus, unless you spent a feat on War Caster you're not casting Shield as a reaction while your hands are full of real shields and weapons, so you're giving up a lot for the "gimmick". Let people be good at what they're spending all their resources to be good at. The hexblade long rest thing would matter less if you had more combat encounters. How many fights do you typically have per short rest? per long rest? How many hex opportunities are you missing on on with this rule?
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 19:18 |
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Syrinxx posted:This seems appropriate considering the last couple pages of "other games" chat but the Alien RPG is really top notch and worth a look if you are trying to have D&D buddies try out a new game. https://frialigan.se/en/games/alien/ The other YZ games like Tales From the Loop also have very good reviews.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 19:22 |
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Nemo posted:The Shield limitation seems harsh to me. You're spending two rounds, an action for a 3rd level spell with concentration, a reaction for a 1st level spell and giving up your attack of opportunity just to make it very hard for you to be hit for one round. Plus, unless you spent a feat on War Caster you're not casting Shield as a reaction while your hands are full of real shields and weapons, so you're giving up a lot for the "gimmick". I agree with this. It's also worth noting that, as a hexadin, every Shield you cast is one less smite you can throw around. If the DM wants to punish you throwing resources around with wild abandon, the way to do that is to set up scenarios where you need to husband those resources more carefully, not to use DM fiat. TooMuchAbstraction fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Feb 23, 2021 |
# ? Feb 23, 2021 19:34 |
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The 3rd level spell is Haste, unless I misread the original post.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 19:43 |
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It sounds like the DM in question is salty about trying to hit a high AC when they should be targeting a weak saving throw instead.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 19:47 |
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Bark! A Vagrant posted:I'm playing a Vengeance paladin/hexblade in a campaign, and after using haste and then shielding the next turn in our last fight, our DM is discussing forbidding anyone from using shield while wearing heavy armor (affecting only my character) and changing hexblade's curse to regen on a long rest instead of a short rest. Does this seem a little heavy-handed, or are these common house rules to tone down the hexblade dip's power? I mean that all sounds like poo poo to me, and the DM needs to do better. 27 AC just means the DM should be targeting alternate saves or other party members to make it challenging. Hexblade's Curse is supposed to be popping regularly, and the DM should be adding more foes if they want to make it challenging. Targeted removal of player abilities is a janky move that is guaranteed to see pushback for good reason. My counter offer would be to keep Hexblade's Curse as it is written, but to just select a different spell than Shield if they don't want you to have it. If you're Hasting your Hexadin, it's probably better to just be reserving those spell slots for triggering Divine Smite on crits anyway. Alternatively, I'd just retire my character and create something new, since I'd always feel unfairly targeted. Also I can't really imagine doing this to any of my players, but if I did I would certainly offer some sort of explanation ("Your patron has made a demand that you must accept") and a reward ("For your service they have provided you with this Rod of the Pact Keeper").
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 20:14 |
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change my name posted:Pretty cool that some of the dread domains will be differently themed than typical gothic horror, apparently. While most of the dread domains are gothic horror, there were always some outliers. I suspect Ajit George updated/rewrote Sri Raji. Arivia posted:oh so 5e rips off 3e again, this time it's ghostwalk Nah, I doubt that. Ravenloft has had scary India, scary Japan, scary madness desert a la Lovecraft, scary voodoo jungle, and a few other outliers since the first boxed set.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 20:15 |
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PeterWeller posted:While most of the dread domains are gothic horror, there were always some outliers. I suspect Ajit George updated/rewrote Sri Raji. There's going to be 30 different ones in the book apparently: https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/945-the-mist-has-lifted-around-d-ds-new-sourcebook-van My next campaign might be a "hopping between them" thing trying to escape the shadowfell, that would be cool
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 20:18 |
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PeterWeller posted:Nah, I doubt that. Ravenloft has had scary India, scary Japan, scary madness desert a la Lovecraft, scary voodoo jungle, and a few other outliers since the first boxed set. I was joking about the African underlife one, pretending to be a turbogrog who insists James Wyatt is the only creator of anything original.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 20:24 |
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Arivia posted:I was joking about the African underlife one, pretending to be a turbogrog who insists James Wyatt is the only creator of anything original. Ahh, my bad. change my name posted:There's going to be 30 different ones in the book apparently: https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/945-the-mist-has-lifted-around-d-ds-new-sourcebook-van Cool. That probably means some new ones because I think there were around 20-25 in the old boxes. Domain hopping RL campaigns can be fun, especially with all the different ways the Dread Lords have to close their borders.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 20:36 |
Dexo posted:It's why I laughed so hard at the notion that they didn't play "real" D&D and it was faked or some nonsense. ok who the gently caress is building Matt Mercer's finely sculpted battle maps because those things look like they're someone's goddam full time job
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 22:46 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 18:11 |
Arivia posted:I was joking about the African underlife one, pretending to be a turbogrog who insists James Wyatt is the only creator of anything original.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 22:52 |