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Toshimo posted:One of the things I've been discussing with friends this week is that part of the failing of 5e and some other recent systems is that they don't line up well with the new paradigm of online play. You get that scene in Stranger Things at the beginning where the mother calls down and says it's time for one of the kids to go home and one of the kids yells back up we've only been playing for 14 hours and honestly that was sort of my '80s D&D experience. Nowadays it's tough to wrangle people for more than 3 hours at a time, but honestly a lot of the time I don't know even know if I would want to. We get as much plot/exploration/advancement done in 3 hours on a virtual tabletop as we ever did in 8 hours of sitting around someone's house fiddling with books. This is interesting but it might be in part because you're all pro players having done this now for decades. I kinda miss the 1990s marathon all-weekend sessions too. I'd spend the week planning and then we'd play literally all weekend, and yeah, it took a lot of time, partly because we were chatting half the time and partly because we had to look things up and set things up and wait for people to come back from breaks and so forth. My current group is all adult attorneys but they're much more "casual" in the sense that they would never play at all if it were pure paper and books; our bard is completely incapable of playing without hte support of the Beyond app (as mentioned, this past sunday, when he had to look up his werebear form stats on Beyond instead of just referencing his character sheet, he said, I quote, directly, "I don't think I have an armor class" and I had to help him find the appropriate number (the werebear page lists multiple AC's depending on the current form and it confused him. He's been playing 5e for three years now. Allegedly). That first session this past Sunday was our first in person session. It went from five to about ten pm. That was the standard pre-pandemic session also. On zoom we were playing from 7 to ten or so most nights. Each session is generally one 'major encounter" involving combat or a couple small social encounters -- this week it was one big combat, but we've had three or four sessions in a row go by with just social encounters sometimes (shopping in town or whatever, roleplaying out the encounters with each shopkeep). I don't think this group would have the attention span or the hours in the day to do the marathon sessions; everybody's an adult with responsibilities and a few of them start going a little whacky if they sit in one place too long. What I *have* gotten that Marathon Session energy from is Gloomhaven, though obviously not in the past year. The year before pandemic was our Gloomhaven Year (different friend group entirely) and sometimes there yeah we'd do an all-day throwdown and bust through a couple of missions in sequence bam bam bam. Glorious and really replicated that high school attic adventure weekend feeling. Of course, 1) that's in person and 2) Gloomhaven does all the prep for you, so you can just go.
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Apr 13, 2021 16:43
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:This is interesting but it might be in part because you're all pro players having done this now for decades. Nah, my kid brother and his gf with literal zero ttrpg experience hopped in on the last campaign I started and having all the math autocalculated and being able to say "hey, I do X a lot, can you add a macro for that next session" meant they could focus on the RP and learning tactics instead of bumbling through charts and maths. They were up to speed in no time. VTTs are a huge shift.
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Apr 13, 2021 17:14
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:This is interesting but it might be in part because you're all pro players having done this now for decades. I don't know how much your group is homebrewing about PC werebears, but just going by the MM rules the only effect on AC werebears have is +1 when in hybrid or bear form. Someone should probably help him make separate character sheets for hybrid and bear forms, figuring out all the effects on the fly whenever he transforms doesn't sound super viable for him, especially if he's trying to find his AC on the werebear NPC statblock. Just make sure he only keeps track of HP and other resources on his actual sheet.
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Apr 13, 2021 18:11
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He's going by the d&d beyond werebear monster statblock, that's what the dm told him to do. As per post yesterday, the dm has realized this is a mistake, but none of us want to give up bear puns. We're looking for good alternatives
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Apr 13, 2021 18:40
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Have him transmogrified into a hungry panda with a hand crossbow that eats, shoots, and leaves
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Apr 13, 2021 19:05
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:He's going by the d&d beyond werebear monster statblock, that's what the dm told him to do. do it as a feat. as an action transform into a hybrid or bear. doing so gives +1 AC, changes your speed to 40ft and gives you a climb check, as well as a bonus action bite. being a bear prevents you from speaking or using any magic weapons you have, so being a hybrid is almost always preferred, but there is a very simple desire to want to be an armoured bear. the claw attacks hit hard too(2d8+strength damage). however -- during a full moon, the curse kicks in and the werebear is locked into bear form and can not control themselves and attacks indiscriminately.
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Apr 13, 2021 19:07
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If the party fails to hang their rations from tall enough trees, they also risk losing them.
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Apr 13, 2021 19:22
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Why not just use the MM rules, except probably nerfing the immunity to non-magical, non-silver BSP?quote:PLAYER CHARACTERS AS LYCANTHROPES The strength shouldn't be a huge problem, +1 ac in non-human form shouldn't break the game either, keen smell is a ribbon. The natural weapons are really nice of course, nerfing them to one damage die instead of two might be reasonable. Downgrade the immunity to resistance and maybe get rid of it if not transformed, and it's powerful but should be manageable.
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Apr 13, 2021 19:35
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Heffer posted:Have him transmogrified into a hungry panda with a hand crossbow that eats, shoots, and leaves You magnificent bastard
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Apr 13, 2021 19:37
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Is everyone else not already planning a long weekend with their DnD groups for 40+ hours of RPG goodness like we're teenagers again once everyone in the group is vaccinated? No? Just me?
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Apr 13, 2021 19:54
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Syrinxx posted:As for lighting, just get your GM to turn on the popular and extremely simple module called "Less Fog" which fixes the gripes people have about explored areas being black blobs. See below for my GM view compared to the player view for an AoA game I'm running - they have already explored the areas on to the south and east. I won't bother to otherwise compare Foundry's lighting to the shitshow that is UDL on R20 I wanted to follow-up on this discussion a bit - pre-made maps can be very hit or miss in terms of atmosphere. If you aren't running a module but are pulling maps from online or making them yourself, something I've found that's very helpful is to find maps with fairly 'fat' walls and try to draw your walls very deep into them. This gives a better sense of the space to the players - I've found that the rooms 'seem' more real if you can give some depth to the walls, and make the entrances/exits fuzzy rather than precise. I have some examples from my games below:    
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Apr 13, 2021 19:57
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While we're on Foundry/VTT talk, what does everyone use for rolls? Phyisical dice? DNDBeyond sent to VTT or Discord? Import to VTT and roll from within? We've been using Foundry and rolling directly there, but I feel like the importer is infrequently hit and miss with spell slots etc., so I'm considering just keeping all the math and rolls on DNDBeyond and using Foundry just for the maps and ambience.
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Apr 13, 2021 21:06
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canepazzo posted:While we're on Foundry/VTT talk, what does everyone use for rolls? I use a dice rolling bot on Discord for players, but as DM I roll physical dice the players can't see. I make sure to roll them next to the microphone so my player know I'm not just making numbers up. The internet is my DM screen
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Apr 13, 2021 21:12
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canepazzo posted:While we're on Foundry/VTT talk, what does everyone use for rolls? I use the VTT for the rolls. It mostly works well. But I also nowadays don't even import from DND beyond. I just have players create and add feats and stuff from the compendiums. I know DNDB has that campaign roll thing now, but I haven't seen or tested it.
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Apr 13, 2021 21:13
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Making "deep" walls is good advice - also helps avoid players getting stuck going round corners. I've found dynamic lighting to be pretty fun for allowing my players to explore a large dungeon / forest etc. organically, stumbling upon things themselves without me needing to stop things all the time to uncover the next part of the map. The option to remember previously uncovered fog areas is pretty necessary imo though, if it's somehow not the default - can't remember if its a mod or what at this point. On foundry I also use the "Shared Vision" mod which does what it says on the tin, letting all the players see through each other's eyes & is probably a good option unless you're playing a super-tactical game. My group started in quarantine, so don't have in-person experience to compare against, but I can't imagine not using some sort of program to help DM - being able to roll initiative for everyone & track turns with a button, update HP after attacks, roll things with bonuses etc just seems so much faster than doing things manually would be, even if we were to shift from using maps to theatre of the mind. Also foundry makes it pretty easy for people to look up full descriptions of what their spells / abilities etc do. As a player I've also recently stumbled upon an online west-marches-ish style group of about 20-30 players/DMs that uses foundry, and I think it works really well for that; paired with a discord server where DMs advertise a game session for a particular time & player tier & people sign up (& do out of session RP / trade items / discuss rules / general chat). Once scheduled a session then uses discord for voice chat and log onto the dedicated foundry server that's always up to actually play the game / set up sessions / manage characters.
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Apr 13, 2021 21:43
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canepazzo posted:While we're on Foundry/VTT talk, what does everyone use for rolls? The Beyond20 extension is invaluable. It lets you roll in Foundry/Roll20, but clicking on your character sheet in Beyond. Helps a ton if those are the two technologies you are centering on. It's much smoother than importing, and since it's hooked into the regular Beyond stuff, tracking is good.
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Apr 13, 2021 21:56
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Clean Your Teeth posted:I've found dynamic lighting to be pretty fun for allowing my players to explore a large dungeon / forest etc. organically, stumbling upon things themselves without me needing to stop things all the time to uncover the next part of the map. The option to remember previously uncovered fog areas is pretty necessary imo though, if it's somehow not the default - can't remember if its a mod or what at this point. On foundry I also use the "Shared Vision" mod which does what it says on the tin, letting all the players see through each other's eyes & is probably a good option unless you're playing a super-tactical game. IIRC it's a setting in Roll20, but default in Foundry for prior areas to be remembered. Also, seconding the Shared Vision mod - my group doesn't use it, but I've had great success with it in the past, especially in areas where combat isn't likely.
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Apr 13, 2021 22:03
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canepazzo posted:While we're on Foundry/VTT talk, what does everyone use for rolls? I use the built in rolling in Fantasy Grounds. It's not fancy or anything, but it works well. Being able to have it automatically handle targeting, AC, saving throws, advantage and disadvantage, conditions, and calculate modifiers so when I give a player an upgrade they can literally click a button to equip and it's all set to use in their Actions area immediately is a straight up game changer. Things flow so much nicer when I don't have to explain how to calculate AC or remind people to add their proficiency bonus for the 100th consecutive session.
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Apr 13, 2021 22:05
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Azathoth posted:Things flow so much nicer when I don't have to explain how to calculate AC or remind people to add their proficiency bonus for the 100th consecutive session.
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Apr 13, 2021 22:10
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Infinite Karma posted:As an old school player, this is the weirdest thing that I still don't understand. How do people get invested enough to play for dozens of sessions and spend hundreds of hours on a hobby, but not remember the very simplest of fundamental concepts of the game? Think of it in video game terms, people know how to interact with the game world and select actions from their menu of actions and are largely invested in the narrative and the people they play with, but a small percentage of people who play video games (and this percentage is over represented on these forums) can calculated how much damage a specific attack would do, or what their dodge chance is or what have. With the automaton provided by things like the roll20 charactermancer and vtt, the player doesn't really have to know how the numbers on their sheet were calculated to select them.
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Apr 13, 2021 22:31
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Also there are some stats like AC where you could go months without ever having to think about how it's calculated, just what it is. Makes it very easy to forget what the formula was. I definitely have a player that just can't seem to permanently grok certain things: add your proficiency bonus to attack roll but not damage roll. You don't need to roll a dice for that spell, just tell me the ST difficulty. I think a big part of it is that we are a roleplay heavy group and regularly go 1-2 sessions without any rolls besides skill checks so it just never gets repeated enough to stick.
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Apr 13, 2021 22:47
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Dexo posted:I use the VTT for the rolls. It mostly works well. But I also nowadays don't even import from DND beyond. I just have players create and add feats and stuff from the compendiums. This right here. I've never seen anything bog down a game faster than separating all the parts of VTT/sheet/rolls.
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Apr 13, 2021 22:52
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Infinite Karma posted:As an old school player, this is the weirdest thing that I still don't understand. How do people get invested enough to play for dozens of sessions and spend hundreds of hours on a hobby, but not remember the very simplest of fundamental concepts of the game? In addition to what other people have said, for a lot of people (particularly newer players) this is a social activity. To use an analogy, let's say that a bunch of my close friends are really into cycling and they invite me along one day and I have a good time so I decide to join in regularly. Now, my friends can be super into tricking out their bikes and having all the coolest accessories and tech, know how to really get the most out of their bikes, spend hours on biking forums discussing the best ways to maximize efficiency, spend thousands, etc. but I can just show up in gym shorts and a tshirt with a bike I got off the rack at the sporting goods store and do the same thing as them right along with them and have fun. Granted, I have a harder time of it, I don't really understand how the gears work beyond do this going uphill and do this other thing going downhill, but if it's enjoyable enough to me to keep going, that's perfectly fine. Maybe my more experienced friends point out things that I'm doing that are making life hard and I slowly learn the basics but maybe not. So long as I'm having fun, they're happy to have me along and I'm happy to join them. Now, if not for my friends, I wouldn't find another group to cycle with nor would I have started up if not for them, but that doesn't mean that it can't be enjoyable and that I wouldn't necessarily want to continue. For a lot of people, I think that D&D is the same way. It's really hard nowadays to find an excuse to hang out with friends as we all slowly creep into middle age and our free time gets less and less. D&D provides a convenient framework to get together with friends, can be done online, and doesn't really require any kind of up-front investment. That's a rare combination nowadays
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Apr 13, 2021 23:06
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Also, the game isn't organized in a way that makes connecting all these concepts together. For example, the section on Proficiency Bonus is just a few sentences, and it only refers to other places the bonus might be used, rather than listing them in one place so the player knows to associate them all together. I don't expect someone that isn't a lifelong gamer to understand that the one sentence they read in the middle of Chapter 5 (Tools), one in Chapter 7 (Proficiency Bonus), the two in Chapter 9 (Attack Rolls), and the two at the very end of Chapter 10 (Saving Throws) are all tightly interrelated, and are a singular concept rather than just separate, random numbers.
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Apr 13, 2021 23:37
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It's also such a meaningless number, especially when added to attack rolls. When do you ever pick up a weapon you're not proficient in? I’m pretty sure "proficiency" isn't even a real word.
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Apr 14, 2021 05:14
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:
You call it Barristers and Bugbears, right? Attorneys and Aarakocra doesn't have the same ring to it.
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Apr 14, 2021 06:42
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canepazzo posted:While we're on Foundry/VTT talk, what does everyone use for rolls? For Pathfinder 2e, my players' rolls are 100% from the Foundry sheet because it's just so much better than any alternative. Not that the bar is set very high in that regard
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Apr 14, 2021 06:57
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If you are playing 5e I recommend trying the Tiny sheet module on foundry, allows for adding favorites and a bunch of other stuff.
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Apr 14, 2021 07:59
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Siivola posted:It's also such a meaningless number, especially when added to attack rolls. When do you ever pick up a weapon you're not proficient in? Splicer fucked around with this message at 11:27 on Apr 14, 2021 |
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Apr 14, 2021 11:16
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Guys, I am so excited. Since lockdown last year my 10 year old and I started playing some board games, I mostly play dungeon crawlers so we started off with some Hero Quest, Descent and moved on to Massive Darkness and had a really good time. Last week we were trying to find something new to play so I mentioned Dungeons and Dragons and he said he’d like to try it. So of course I bought the Essential Kit and the 3 core books to get started. I haven’t played in probably 15 years so I’ve got quite a lot to relearn. On top of that he decided to play a Dragonborn Warlock so now I have to learn even more trying to weave that into the game but I think it will be a blast.
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Apr 14, 2021 15:11
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Azathoth posted:In addition to what other people have said, for a lot of people (particularly newer players) this is a social activity. Yeah. There's a line in Summerland where Chabon writes something like, "baseball is less a sport and more way to structure a nice summer afternoon." Similarly, for a lot of people, D&D is less a game and more a way to structure an evening with friends.
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Apr 14, 2021 15:16
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PeterWeller posted:Yeah. There's a line in Summerland where Chabon writes something like, "baseball is less a sport and more way to structure a nice summer afternoon." Similarly, for a lot of people, D&D is less a game and more a way to structure an evening with friends. I feel the same. The point is not to grind through the maximum possible content at highest efficiency. At least not for us. We're all vaccinated, so we're getting together in person again. It's nice to be able to just chat with people and react to a situation together. Physically rolling dice is far more satisfying than seeing a number pop up on a screen.
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Apr 14, 2021 15:21
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DourCricket posted:Is everyone else not already planning a long weekend with their DnD groups for 40+ hours of RPG goodness like we're teenagers again once everyone in the group is vaccinated? No? Just me? I'm planning an all day session where we cover all of White Plume Mountain. This will be my first time running a game in person and we have a fairly chaotic couple of players so it's gonna be interesting.
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Apr 14, 2021 15:22
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Trojan Kaiju posted:I'm planning an all day session where we cover all of White Plume Mountain. This will be my first time running a game in person and we have a fairly chaotic couple of players so it's gonna be interesting. Having run White Plume with two different groups - enjoy dude, it's an amazing adventure (get an actual timer for the mud room and let it go off and freak out your players)
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Apr 14, 2021 16:01
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Splicer posted:In D&D any one roll is made up of three numbers minimum and you only ever care about the total. Not only does this overcomplicate calculating your numbers compared to what you actually get out of them, but what the individual components are doesn't get reinforced in play because you never actually use them. Siivola fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Apr 14, 2021 |
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Apr 14, 2021 16:15
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Drewjitsu posted:You call it Barristers and Bugbears, right? Attorneys and Aarakocra doesn't have the same ring to it. Lawyers and Liches
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Apr 14, 2021 17:33
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Enjoy posted:Lawyers and Liches https://twitter.com/DnDBeyond/status/1224346808412966916?s=19
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Apr 14, 2021 18:14
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BalefireBeanz, for the undead with an active unlife
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Apr 14, 2021 18:16
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Enjoy posted:BalefireBeanz, for the undead with an active unlife The coffee that's hot hot hot, even when you're coold
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Apr 14, 2021 18:42
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Enjoy posted:Lawyers and Liches Enchanters and Esquires
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Apr 14, 2021 18:43
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