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Declan MacManus posted:you can smite with natural weapons but not your fists Yeah that's loving dumb and so is Crawford but for a crit fishing smite build the bonus action horn attack minotaurs get is GREAT.
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Mar 29, 2021 18:12
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I don't know if The Blackstaff in Dragon Heist is one of the big name players in Forgotten Realms but their appearance in our run through of it led to the GM needing to do some very on the fly changing of how things played out as it turns out when your party has two orphans who became thieves whose whole existence is defined by wanting the rich to be embarrassed and relieved of their fortunes, and a Chaotic Good Paladin who is head of the dockworkers' union and distrusts the authorities you're not going to convince them to be buddies with a fantasy cop who is allegedly a powerful wizard whose defense of not acting on the massive amounts of corruption in the city watch, government and nobility is "but I didn't know."
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Mar 29, 2021 18:14
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I keep coming up with character concepts faster than I can actually play them I made a minotaur glory paladin and it ruled, highly recommend
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Mar 29, 2021 18:15
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(default party in c64 Pool of Radiance)
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Bob Smith posted:I don't know if The Blackstaff in Dragon Heist is one of the big name players in Forgotten Realms but their appearance in our run through of it led to the GM needing to do some very on the fly changing of how things played out as it turns out when your party has two orphans who became thieves whose whole existence is defined by wanting the rich to be embarrassed and relieved of their fortunes, and a Chaotic Good Paladin who is head of the dockworkers' union and distrusts the authorities you're not going to convince them to be buddies with a fantasy cop who is allegedly a powerful wizard whose defense of not acting on the massive amounts of corruption in the city watch, government and nobility is "but I didn't know." The Blackstaff is a title, not a name. IIRC, the one in Waterdeep Heist is just somebody that came from a novel from 2008, not a PC.
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Mar 29, 2021 18:20
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I keep coming up with character concepts faster than I can actually play them I've thinking about a minotaur (or maybe Leonin or satyr) Oath of Glory paladin for my next character. Just a big dude super excited to be in a party, ready to seize on any quest as a springboard to being immortalized in epic poems a songs.
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Mar 29, 2021 18:26
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In terms of what The Blackstaff's role is, they re the Archmage of Waterdeep, which to my recollection, basically puts them in the position of dealing with high-level magical threats since Waterdeep is constructed on top of Some Real Bad poo poo, and is basically a nexus for Bad Things What Happen. It's like how Doctor Strange fights giant fuckoff demons trying to extinguish/enslave all creation and doesn't deal with the NYPD. If you want to be mad at someone for the corruption in Waterdeep, look at Laerel Silverhand before anyone.
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Mar 29, 2021 18:27
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Reveilled posted:Eh, I think it depends a lot on execution. Pretty much all of the major long-standing NPCs in FR and Greyhawk are other people's former characters, and honestly having Mordenkainen show up doesn't strike me particularly different from Percy or Grog, especially if those two characters are in the same sort of position where they're PCs of the table which originated the setting (I'm assuming they are, I don't watch CR). The way those cameos are handled in published WotC adventures is almost universally terrible, and it sounds like it was terrible in the game Blooming Brilliant sat in on, but I don't think such appearances are inherently bad. For me it boils down to whether, if you replaced the character with a non-celebrity NPC with identical traits, would the interaction still be relevant to the game, or at the very least, fun and memorable? If the answer to that is no, then the cameo probably needs reconsidering unless literally everyone at the table is a massive lore nerd. The games weren't exactly terrible, just overall strange. The DM was very green and fell into the new DM trap of attempting this epic-narrative campaign and homebrew setting they've been thinking of for years, but didn't have the experience to pull off (I should know, I did this as well  ).Also the CR appearances were weird because the DM kept pausing to make sure they got their accents right and kept going "... is this what Percy/Grog would say/do?" They got really obsessive over making sure they nailed the characters, which as an outsider I was like "why are you constantly interpreting yourself? Why do you need to do these particular characters justice?" Your last point reminds me of one of the best DM's I've ever played with, and they were also the best at doing lore character cameos. Because they had absolutely zero exposure to any DnD lore prior to running adventure modules (they really took to DM'ing like a duck-to-water). So they didn't account for years of lore baggage whenever a cameo character turned up. They'd be like "I have no loving clue who Elminster is but I'm guessing he's a cool powerful wizard, so I'm going to RP him as a cool powerful wizard who treats us all to magical shots that make us roll on the Wild Magic table."
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Mar 29, 2021 18:28
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Toshimo posted:In terms of what The Blackstaff's role is, they re the Archmage of Waterdeep, which to my recollection, basically puts them in the position of dealing with high-level magical threats since Waterdeep is constructed on top of Some Real Bad poo poo, and is basically a nexus for Bad Things What Happen. It's like how Doctor Strange fights giant fuckoff demons trying to extinguish/enslave all creation and doesn't deal with the NYPD. If you want to be mad at someone for the corruption in Waterdeep, look at Laerel Silverhand before anyone. Given that, it makes me wonder (Waterdeep: Dragon Heist spoilers, I guess?)- why doesn't The Blackstaff put together a high powered adventurer team, lead them in person down underneath Waterdeep, and take care of Xanathar once and for all? It's an evil beholder that runs a crime syndicate that regularly fucks with Waterdeep and it's citizens. To go along with your analogy, it's as if Dr. Strange knew of a demon that lived in the subways of New York, the demon controls a large part of organized crime in the city, but he doesn't go and deal with it because.... why?
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Mar 29, 2021 18:30
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Blooming Brilliant posted:They'd be like "I have no loving clue who Elminster is but I'm guessing he's a cool powerful wizard, so I'm going to RP him as a cool powerful wizard who treats us all to magical shots that make us roll on the Wild Magic table."
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Mar 29, 2021 18:31
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Toshimo posted:In terms of what The Blackstaff's role is, they re the Archmage of Waterdeep, which to my recollection, basically puts them in the position of dealing with high-level magical threats since Waterdeep is constructed on top of Some Real Bad poo poo, and is basically a nexus for Bad Things What Happen. It's like how Doctor Strange fights giant fuckoff demons trying to extinguish/enslave all creation and doesn't deal with the NYPD. If you want to be mad at someone for the corruption in Waterdeep, look at Laerel Silverhand before anyone. I feel there was a slight confusion both on the part of party and GM here as they were introduced as more of the supreme commander of the city's guard/secret police, admittedly focusing on supernatural crimes but still more of a justice-focused role - hence the tension that emerged. That said it did lead to some good in-character moments as the party ended up having some good discussions about power and nobility and so on (my character being the child of a landowner who had run away from their responsibilities as a noble to become a priest had some interesting views on what a "good" noble and a hero could/should be) so while it was born from a misunderstanding it made the game a lot more interesting.
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Mar 29, 2021 18:42
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah that's loving dumb and so is Crawford but for a crit fishing smite build the bonus action horn attack minotaurs get is GREAT. i actually think goring someone with your horn and then making them explode with holy light is phenomenal so by all means do it up i just never realized you were allowed to smite with natural weapons which is just so, so stupid
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Mar 29, 2021 19:20
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah that's loving dumb and so is Crawford but for a crit fishing smite build the bonus action horn attack minotaurs get is GREAT. Isn't the bonus action attack only usable after a dash action? Otherwise it's a bonus action shove, DC 8 + prof + str.
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Mar 29, 2021 19:28
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Bob Smith posted:I feel there was a slight confusion both on the part of party and GM here as they were introduced as more of the supreme commander of the city's guard/secret police, admittedly focusing on supernatural crimes but still more of a justice-focused role - hence the tension that emerged. That said it did lead to some good in-character moments as the party ended up having some good discussions about power and nobility and so on (my character being the child of a landowner who had run away from their responsibilities as a noble to become a priest had some interesting views on what a "good" noble and a hero could/should be) so while it was born from a misunderstanding it made the game a lot more interesting. Ah yes, this is tied into the aforementioned problem of shoehorning in Celebrity NPCs. This Blackstaff (Vajra) also is the leader of Force Grey (a.k.a. The Gray Hands) (no, I didn't misspell that, WotC did), an in-game faction created based on the webisodes of a series by WotC about Actual Celebrities IRL Playing D&D. In order to shoehorn them into this product, they tied them to The Blackstaff, which is, as they say, Dumb and Bad. So, now the Blackstaff has an army, and a legion of apprentices, and yes it makes a lot less sense that they don't go kicking rear end more often, but hypothetically: (1) The Lords of Waterdeep are not friendly with the Blackstaff or Force Gray and don't like them operating unchecked in the city, (2) a significant portion of The Blackstaff's (person) power is derived from their connection to The Blackstaff (tower) and The Blackstaff (staff) is not actually that important, so going down into Undermountain would deprive them of their significant home-field advantage in Waterdeep proper, and (3) the current The Blackstaff (Vajra) is very green and probably would get her poo poo kicked in against The Xanathar (5e does not model well the power level of an organization, but it's not a 1v1 thing, Xanathar has hundreds of mercs).
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Mar 29, 2021 19:54
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Ive played alot of pc rpgs but only one d&d campaign. I played a conquest paladin cos it looked easy and I had alot of fun. I want something a little different for the next campaign. I was looking through Tasha's and was thinking of doing a swarmkeeper who uses guns. The gunner feat seems to make firearms feasible but there's not much on them in the dm manual. Anyone have any tips? I could go crossbow expert but it doesn't have the cowboy flavour. I think our next campaign is acquisitions incorporated, if there's any general char tips for that? If there's alot of dark places, maybe gloomstalker? I don't know much about it apart from the penny arcade link which I haven't read in about 10 years.
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Mar 29, 2021 19:54
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In short, many of the things that don't work in Waterdeep Heist, in specific, and Forgotten Realms, at large, don't work because they exist To Sell
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Mar 29, 2021 19:56
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adamarama posted:Ive played alot of pc rpgs but only one d&d campaign. I played a conquest paladin cos it looked easy and I had alot of fun. I want something a little different for the next campaign. I was looking through Tasha's and was thinking of doing a swarmkeeper who uses guns. The gunner feat seems to make firearms feasible but there's not much on them in the dm manual. Anyone have any tips? I could go crossbow expert but it doesn't have the cowboy flavour. I think our next campaign is acquisitions incorporated, if there's any general char tips for that? If there's alot of dark places, maybe gloomstalker? I don't know much about it apart from the penny arcade link which I haven't read in about 10 years. Be a crossbow expert but just say your crossbow is gun and use the crossbow mechanics. Don't try to use the existing guns, they suck.
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Mar 29, 2021 19:57
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poor life choice posted:Isn't the bonus action attack only usable after a dash action? Otherwise it's a bonus action shove, DC 8 + prof + str. Goddammit you're right I knew it was too good to be true still would be a lot of fun to stomp around
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Mar 29, 2021 20:10
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Blooming Brilliant posted:They'd be like "I have no loving clue who Elminster is but I'm guessing he's a cool powerful wizard, so I'm going to RP him as a cool powerful wizard who treats us all to magical shots that make us roll on the Wild Magic table." I think I've mentioned it in the thread before, but that was pretty much how I ended up treating the suggested cameo for Volo at the start of ToA. I was kind of unimpressed by the lack of direction the book gave beyond "Hey, maybe he gives them a copy of our new sourcebook, Volo's Guide to Monsters", so I replaced with Monster Manuel, a self-described "famous monterologist" with a ridiculous New Jersey accent who gifted the party with a copy of his book, which he described as a veritable "manual" of the various monsters that inhabited the world, which was why he gave it the simple and intuitive name "Monster Manuel's Book What Has All The Monsters In It". I worked out some quick and dirty mechanics for checking the book (The party can consult it when they first meet a new monster and I make a secret roll of 2d6. On a roll of 6 or less the information is useless or blatantly misleading, on a 7-9 the information is cryptic but potentially helpful, on a 10+ there is pertinant, very useful information mixed in with Manuel's writings) and then just had fun coming u8p with weird descriptions for every monster written from the perspective of a weirdo from another reality who has only heard of even the most common of animals through vague descriptions. I'd say it ended up being way more memorable and engaging for my players than just having "The guy whose name is on a sourcebook" show up in Port Nyanzeru. It even got to the point where midway through the adventure the party was tossing around theories Monster Manuel was secretly Acererack the whole time.
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Mar 29, 2021 20:30
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KingKalamari posted:I think I've mentioned it in the thread before, but that was pretty much how I ended up treating the suggested cameo for Volo at the start of ToA. I was kind of unimpressed by the lack of direction the book gave beyond "Hey, maybe he gives them a copy of our new sourcebook, Volo's Guide to Monsters", so I replaced with Monster Manuel, a self-described "famous monterologist" with a ridiculous New Jersey accent who gifted the party with a copy of his book, which he described as a veritable "manual" of the various monsters that inhabited the world, which was why he gave it the simple and intuitive name "Monster Manuel's Book What Has All The Monsters In It". I hope it was also filled with illustrations like those made by medieval monks who had no idea what even common animals like cats looked like and could only go off of five levels of hearsay filtered through monastic sign language because that all took vows of silence
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Mar 29, 2021 20:45
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Toshimo posted:Ah yes, this is tied into the aforementioned problem of shoehorning in Celebrity NPCs. This Blackstaff (Vajra) also is the leader of Force Grey (a.k.a. The Gray Hands) (no, I didn't misspell that, WotC did), an in-game faction created based on the webisodes of a series by WotC about Actual Celebrities IRL Playing D&D. In order to shoehorn them into this product, they tied them to The Blackstaff, which is, as they say, Dumb and Bad. So, now the Blackstaff has an army, and a legion of apprentices, and yes it makes a lot less sense that they don't go kicking rear end more often, but hypothetically: (1) The Lords of Waterdeep are not friendly with the Blackstaff or Force Gray and don't like them operating unchecked in the city, (2) a significant portion of The Blackstaff's (person) power is derived from their connection to The Blackstaff (tower) and The Blackstaff (staff) is not actually that important, so going down into Undermountain would deprive them of their significant home-field advantage in Waterdeep proper, and (3) the current The Blackstaff (Vajra) is very green and probably would get her poo poo kicked in against The Xanathar (5e does not model well the power level of an organization, but it's not a 1v1 thing, Xanathar has hundreds of mercs). This is like completely wrong. The Blackstaff and Force Gray predate 5e and the web series. It's from Ed's first home campaign, with the Company of Crazed Adventurers (this is also why it goes from Gray Hands to Force Grey in official spellings in 5e, it's WotC Americanizing it from Ed's original Canadian use of Gray). The most notable previous Blackstaff to Vajra Safahr, Khelben Arunsun, created the Gray Hands himself in his official capacity as Waterdeep's Lord Mage to protect the city against extreme threats that couldn't be handled by the Guard or the Watch. They are explicitly noted to be a force of last resort, as getting them involved does often lead to a lot of collateral damage. This was backed up by Khelben when he was Lord Mage, but the Gray Hands became a political liability after he revealed himself to be a Lord of Waterdeep and resigned in about 1370. (See 3e's City of Splendors: Waterdeep for the details on all this.) The thing to understand is that Khelben very much did whatever was necessary to do good as he saw it, which meant he often split from and rejoined affiliations and alliances as served his ends, as well as making pacts with evil much more than others would like (explicitly including the Xanathar). He did all of this for very good reasons (rebuilding the elven city of Rhymanthiin), but he killed himself doing it and burnt a lot of bridges. (This is in the novel Blackstaff, I don't recommend you read it because it's super impenetrable unless you're a super lore nerd.) That is to say, Vajra Blackstaff is probably not picking a fight with the Xanathar because they've actually got a long-standing alliance, like Khelben did before her (and the other Blackstaffs in between), and a lot of what becoming Blackstaff helped Vajra do was understanding the pre-existing preparations and powers that the previous Blackstaffs had set up. (This is all in Blackstaff Tower, if you want to read a novel.) Vajra is plenty powerful outside of Blackstaff Tower, it's a defensible redoubt with the advisory power of the previous Blackstaffs, but she's got significant abilities to carry outside of it. Vajra going after the Xanathar isn't politically good for her, isn't personally useful to her, and doesn't actually make anything better. There's always going to be crime lords in Skullport, and the Xanathar is a known quantity - better for the Blackstaff to spend their time on bigger problems. This is the problem with 5e compressing all the intrigue and politics of the Realms down to single axes - you lose how pieces are supposed to interact at multiple levels and really create interesting play. e: oh, and it might not be as strong a tie as it used to be but it is absurd to think that Laeral Silverhand, previous Lady Mage and Mistress of Blackstaff Tower, is not on good terms with the magic tower animated by the soul of her dead husband (Khelben). Laeral was THE ONLY person Khelben EVER completely trusted. Dragon Heist is a mess for these reasons - the other amazing very stupid one is that Laeral and Mirt would somehow be at odds over this, when they've both been Lords of Waterdeep and Harpers for a very long time together as explicit allies. e2: to make it very clear, I don't blame anyone outside of WotC/their contractors for getting this stuff wrong, it's a thicket of very dense lore, but it was their job to keep this all straight and they hosed it up very very badly. Arivia fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Mar 29, 2021 |
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Mar 29, 2021 21:02
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Rutibex posted:I love the old modules for exactly this reason. They have a lot of generic "content" but leave the flavor to the DM, to the point where important NPCs will not even have a name, just "Captain of the Guard". That way you can add it into whatever setting you want really easily. I wonder how well these modern versions of old modules stand up: https://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/borderlands
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Mar 29, 2021 21:15
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Glimm posted:I wonder how well these modern versions of old modules stand up: very well, actually. Keep stands the test of time in and of itself, but Goodman Games did a lot of extra work to make the updates even better, and it shows.
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Mar 29, 2021 21:17
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Wait are we back to fists can't smite? Because last I heard on the subject fists can absolutely smite because melee weapons are different from melee weapon attacks.
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Mar 29, 2021 21:20
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I mean, it's either a god or some burning passion in you that gives you the power to smite, right? I don't see why you'd need to be constrained by a weapon for either of those effects.
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Mar 29, 2021 21:55
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Trojan Kaiju posted:Wait are we back to fists can't smite? Because last I heard on the subject fists can absolutely smite because melee weapons are different from melee weapon attacks. PHB posted:Starting at 2nd level, when you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can expend one spell slot to deal radiant damage to the target, in addition to the weapon’s damage. So you can use divine smite with an unarmed strike, but it won't actually do damage because it's added to the weapon's damage but there is no weapon. This is obviously just an oversight with how the ability is worded, but WOTC is allergic to errata these days, so... Also, improved divine smite explicitly requires a melee weapon.
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Mar 29, 2021 22:41
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My issue with that interpretation is that lots of monsters have attacks that are described as "weapon attacks". In fact I don't know off the top of my head of any monsters that have a melee attack that isn't a melee weapon attack (not counting e.g. touch spell attacks). As far as I'm aware, when you attack something you use either a melee weapon attack, a ranged weapon attack, or a spell attack, and those are the only three categories that exist. A punch is a melee weapon attack using your natural weapons and you should absolutely be able to smite with them.
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Mar 29, 2021 22:45
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I feel like you'd have to be a real fuddy duddy of a DM to oppose it on thematic terms. As for balance terms, i guess the idea is that it would make it harder to render you truly unarmed. I don't think that is too much of an advantage, personally, but I could perhaps see that as being the sticking point.
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Mar 29, 2021 22:56
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Yeah even monsters with unarmed strikes that aren't explicitly monks count their unarmed strikes as melee weapon attacks:
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Mar 29, 2021 22:57
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Look those monk/paladin hybrid builds were just too powerful
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Mar 29, 2021 23:02
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Even sage advice had been consistent on unarmed strikes being "melee weapon attacks" Based on one of their responses I guess they're concerned about a terminology that doesn't apply to thrown melee weapons?
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Mar 29, 2021 23:06
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Fists counts as guns which makes them a ranged weapon
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Mar 29, 2021 23:27
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Speaking of the weirdly ambiguous mechanical wording of 5e's mechanics: Has anyone else noticed how strange the "Target" section of the various attack entries in enemy monster's stat-blocks are? At first glance you'd think this section would be to specify how many targets the attack can be used on, but all of the monster actions that can target more than one thing are described using natural language entries that don't include the stat block. So from there it seems that the real purpose of the "target" entry in the attack stat block is to specify additional conditions the target must meet in order to be targeted by the attack (ie "One creature currently being grappled by the Arklebarkle") or, more interestingly, to specify if the attack is used against one target or one creature. This is the other, bit of weirdness about these stat blocks that a lot of players take for granted: While the majority of them say the attack can be used against "one target", a small handful instead use the term "one creature". The introduction specifies the difference between the two terms (That is, an action that is listed as being used against "one target" means it can be used against either a creature or an object) but that also feels like the sort of dichotomy that is almost never going to matter in actual gameplay. I mean, how often does the situation come up that enemy monsters are going to be attacking objects rather than the players? It doesn't help that a lot of times it doesn't feel like there's any strong reasoning as to why a particular attack can only target a creature, for instance: A Chasme's proboscis attack makes sense because it's supposed to mechanically represent the Chasme sucking blood out of the target, but then you also get instances like the Cloaker, whose bite and tail attacks can both only target creatures. While I'm sure you could come up with a narrative justification of what these attacks are meant to represent and why they would be inappropriate to use on an inanimate object, it just seems like a very weird thing for the rules text to need to specifically codify
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Mar 29, 2021 23:31
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Rutibex posted:Fists counts as guns which makes them a ranged weapon i didn't realize 5e was just a very large expansion pack to Nintendo's ARMS
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Mar 29, 2021 23:32
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Unarmed strikes are indeed weapon attacks, that's not the problem. But it doesn't involve a weapon, and smite adds damage to the weapon's damage specifically. I think some of you guys are underestimating how stupid this all is.
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Mar 29, 2021 23:33
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I think 5e has deliberately sloppy and ambiguous rules at the margins to frustrate rules lawyers. It forces them to ask the DM how things work.
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Mar 29, 2021 23:35
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Maybe it's a typo who knows who cares? Let them smite with their fist
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Mar 29, 2021 23:52
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Rutibex posted:I think 5e has deliberately sloppy and ambiguous rules at the margins to frustrate rules lawyers. It forces them to ask the DM how things work. The problem is it's also frustrating for DMs e: also, ambiguous rules are actually really great for rules lawyers. If the rules were actually clear they couldn't twist them to their advantage
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Mar 30, 2021 00:02
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The clear choice here is to let them punch people with the holy fury of a god regardless of what the rules say. And any weapon because who cares?
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Mar 30, 2021 00:27
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Staltran posted:Unarmed strikes are indeed weapon attacks, that's not the problem. But it doesn't involve a weapon, and smite adds damage to the weapon's damage specifically. I think some of you guys are underestimating how stupid this all is. If you make a weapon attack, then the implement you made the attack with is a weapon. I don't see a conflict here. And fists do deal damage, they just only deal 1+STR damage unless you're a monk (or have some feat whose name I forget).
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Mar 30, 2021 00:35
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:If you make a weapon attack, then the implement you made the attack with is a weapon. I don't see a conflict here. And fists do deal damage, they just only deal 1+STR damage unless you're a monk (or have some feat whose name I forget). Yeah. Trying to rules lawyer that they can’t be used is dumb. It’s not like there’s some kind of game breaking synergy going on here.
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Mar 30, 2021 05:03
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