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Dexo posted:So, Though with D&D Beyond only one person in your group needs to buy them, they can share their content with up to 5 campaigns of up to 12 players each if they have a master tier subscription.
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Nov 23, 2021 06:33
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Does Fandom ever have sales on the digital books? I see discount bundles but the cheapest is over four hundred bucks
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Nov 23, 2021 06:49
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ninjoatse.cx posted:Does Fandom ever have sales on the digital books? I see discount bundles but the cheapest is over four hundred bucks frequently, hell if you wait like a couple of days they probably have BF sales.
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Nov 23, 2021 06:51
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Does anyone have some cool suggestions for introducing a Warlock Patron into a game? By virtue of the fact that we started at level 3, the deal was already established, but no kind of relationship has developed or has been made up prior. I guess the only piece of information that I have aside from the fact that he's a Hex Blade is that his patron is actually himself, or a version of himself stuck out of time, because of the nature of magic and reality in the setting. I'd like to actually introduce the character in setting, maybe he show's up briefly during the Warlock's turn on watch one night, or something like that. Personality and all that doesn't really matter, I just really liked the idea of this extremely outside of reality entity that has its own goals in regards to the much, much grander scheme of things and is essentially trying to maneuver a version of themselves toward achieving them.
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Nov 23, 2021 10:17
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You can also buy content a-la-carte from Beyond. Say you only want the Drakewarden Ranger subclass from Fizban's, you can pay $1.99 for just that piece that will be available to view and in the character builder. The price of the full book will also be discounted by some amount.
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Nov 23, 2021 10:46
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Theotus posted:Does anyone have some cool suggestions for introducing a Warlock Patron into a game? By virtue of the fact that we started at level 3, the deal was already established, but no kind of relationship has developed or has been made up prior. I guess the only piece of information that I have aside from the fact that he's a Hex Blade is that his patron is actually himself, or a version of himself stuck out of time, because of the nature of magic and reality in the setting. My idea for this would be some kind of deal where that being has already trapped multiple other versions of himself to increase his own power. The being guides and protects this version of himelf (the PC) because he either wants a worthy successor because he feels his own lifeforce waning or wants the most powerful version of the PC to ulimately capture and feed off of, like a strange cosmical perpetual motion machine powered by other versions of himself. The being of course appears benelovent to the player but over the course of the campaign they can catch glimpses of the underlying madness and lust for power of their patron.
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Nov 23, 2021 11:10
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Rubberduke posted:My idea for this would be some kind of deal where that being has already trapped multiple other versions of himself to increase his own power. The being guides and protects this version of himelf (the PC) because he either wants a worthy successor because he feels his own lifeforce waning or wants the most powerful version of the PC to ulimately capture and feed off of, like a strange cosmical perpetual motion machine powered by other versions of himself. That's extremely rad. I am definitely going to use that. Any suggestions on how to actually formally introduce them or how you'd see that scenario playing out from the Patron's point of view? Obviously you don't want to just throw all that on the table immediately.
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Nov 23, 2021 11:16
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Theotus posted:That's extremely rad. I am definitely going to use that. Any suggestions on how to actually formally introduce them or how you'd see that scenario playing out from the Patron's point of view? Obviously you don't want to just throw all that on the table immediately. From the top of my head I see him visiting as maybe an incorporeal apparition. Sometimes maybe quite literally guiding the PC and their group. You could maybe use it as a tool to convey information the players might have missed or other things they have overlooked. Maybe the patron also some kind of boon when the player uses their inspiration. But then you would need to be careful to also give the other players some cool poo poo through other means. Those are just ideas and i have no idea how they would work in actual play. But I lean heavily towards giving the players cool stuff that are not just power increases and incorporates their backstory.
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Nov 23, 2021 11:40
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Rubberduke posted:From the top of my head I see him visiting as maybe an incorporeal apparition. Sometimes maybe quite literally guiding the PC and their group. You could maybe use it as a tool to convey information the players might have missed or other things they have overlooked. I had mentioned earlier about writing occasional dreams to give the players during long rests. This will be the second time in a row that I've done this so I plan to taper that off going forward, but a common theme so far in the Warlock's dreams is that he's running, or fleeing. The first dream he was ultimately presented with his patron, shrouded in a reflection in a mirror. The second dream, encountering the patron directly who talks to him, but he is unable to respond. My plan was, because I have no filler between the next big fight and narrative moment for the party, to have the patron show up on his watch and try to chat with him for a few minutes. How that conversation ultimately goes I have no idea, but I am absolutely going to take what you said and make all effort for him to appear benign and maybe almost playful or amused. Using him as a guide in the future that might give different suggestions than the party's current contact could be real good. The thing about playing games with friends who are super into it is that you can't like nerd out about how cool the narrative ideas are with them. I need a third party, so I am super grateful for you guys just letting me sound off here.
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Nov 23, 2021 11:45
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Theotus posted:I had mentioned earlier about writing occasional dreams to give the players during long rests. This will be the second time in a row that I've done this so I plan to taper that off going forward, but a common theme so far in the Warlock's dreams is that he's running, or fleeing. The first dream he was ultimately presented with his patron, shrouded in a reflection in a mirror. The second dream, encountering the patron directly who talks to him, but he is unable to respond. My plan was, because I have no filler between the next big fight and narrative moment for the party, to have the patron show up on his watch and try to chat with him for a few minutes. How that conversation ultimately goes I have no idea, but I am absolutely going to take what you said and make all effort for him to appear benign and maybe almost playful or amused. I have this problem with my coworker who also plays in my campaign. I can't really brainstorm story ideas with him. At least my wife dropped out of the group so I can ramble to her again. Edit: Idea shamelessly stolen from the loki show. Show your player glimples of other versions of the character. Different gender, crocodile, old man, non-euclidian. The patron sometimes warps into different shapes for a split second when he is agitated or something, suggesting he loses his grip on his great power sometimes. Rubberduke fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Nov 23, 2021 |
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Nov 23, 2021 15:20
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Hellbore posted:You can also buy content a-la-carte from Beyond. Say you only want the Drakewarden Ranger subclass from Fizban's, you can pay $1.99 for just that piece that will be available to view and in the character builder. The price of the full book will also be discounted by some amount. That's good to know. Thanks!
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Nov 23, 2021 16:29
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Rubberduke posted:I have this problem with my coworker who also plays in my campaign. I can't really brainstorm story ideas with him. At least my wife dropped out of the group so I can ramble to her again. I did that with the dream where the warlock was lost in a labyrinth of mirrors, every reflection was a different version of himself but that would work super well for the patron himself too. Definitely lifting that.
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Nov 23, 2021 18:48
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You could also riff off some things from the second Torment game. In that, the PC is one of the many castoff but still living bodies of the immortal main villain, the Changing God. And one of the companions, Callistege, is a woman who is aware of all her extradimensional "variants" (to use Loki's terminology).
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Nov 23, 2021 18:59
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ninjoatse.cx posted:That's good to know. Thanks! Got an email from D&D Beyond: “Cyber Week Sale starts November 29”. Maybe it was a typo and they meant this Friday. Anyway don’t buy anything if it’s not on sale.
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Nov 23, 2021 20:13
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nelson posted:Got an email from D&D Beyond: “Cyber Week Sale starts November 29”. Maybe it was a typo and they meant this Friday. Anyway don’t buy anything if it’s not on sale. Now it's Cyber Week after Black Week I guess. Edit: Cybercybercyber
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Nov 23, 2021 20:26
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Been playing with a new special rule in my heavily modified version of D&D 5e. The setting is wild west fantasy, so I've already changed lots of rules and classes, but this rule seems to have had the biggest, most interesting change and I can't imagine going back to any other form of this rule again. This is a replacement for initiative, and it goes as follows: quote:Instead of rolling for initiative, the players and the DM roll a d20. This is called the priority roll. Whoever wins can select one creature on their team to "activate", aka take their turn. Once that side activates, the other side can activate someone, and you go back and forth until everyone has activated. Different factors can influence a priority roll. Are you on home turf? +1 to your priority. Ambushing someone? +4 (on the first turn). Other special abilities that would normally influence Initiative? Some bonus at the DM's discretion. Whoever went second will win ties for priority. Here are some of my reasons for this rule change: In my games, players tend to just go whenever they want anyway, typically by holding actions or going into overwatch. With this ruleset, players can go whenever they want, but once they activate they cannot activate again until the next turn. Players also always want to be able to do stuff with another player. I've lost count of the number of times players have asked "can the barbarian and I do a cool move together?" only for me to sigh and say "that would be awesome, but...". I let them do this by including a "group activation" rule, where two characters can activate simultaneously, with certain classes and abilities allowing more characters to group activate. Some of the benefits of this are that players have more control over when they get to activate. Initiative is no longer a tedious process, it's a single roll that everyone gets excited for since it happens every turn. It also promotes tactical play among my players, who now are more active during the entire turn rather than just their turn. My players now talk about what they should do ahead of time. They come up with intricate plans, figure out turn orders on their own, and when they win priority in dire situations, they cheer.
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Nov 23, 2021 21:20
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Theotus posted:I had mentioned earlier about writing occasional dreams to give the players during long rests. This will be the second time in a row that I've done this so I plan to taper that off going forward, but a common theme so far in the Warlock's dreams is that he's running, or fleeing. The first dream he was ultimately presented with his patron, shrouded in a reflection in a mirror. The second dream, encountering the patron directly who talks to him, but he is unable to respond. My plan was, because I have no filler between the next big fight and narrative moment for the party, to have the patron show up on his watch and try to chat with him for a few minutes. Just show up, out of nowhere? I almost want to suggest asking your player for a saving throw before the appearance. It could be described as something like "you're feeling more tired than you were expected", then ask them to make a Con save. Whatever they roll, there's no immediate change, maybe continue describing the night scene for a couple more sentences, and then have the patron show up. After the conversation is done and the patron leaves, tell the PC that between blinks, they snap back to attention (maybe exactly where they were when they made the CON save). The idea is to make it a bit ambiguous whether or not he was physically there, or if that was a dream, or something else. That could give lots of room to play with that and do what you want. Of course, the trick to making them roll is considering what the player will assume about the consequences for passing or failing the save if the roll ends up being a 1 or 20. That's the caveat I would have about making a (technically needless) roll for that.
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Nov 23, 2021 21:25
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Verisimilidude posted:Other special abilities that would normally influence Initiative? Some bonus at the DM's discretion. there are more of those than you think. i think this system is actually quite bad also as it allows people to disregard initiative and just always start every round with the best aoe cc available or assassins or whatever reliably on both sides which makes combat even swingier in a way that i do not think is actually satisfying in the long run
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Nov 23, 2021 21:41
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pog boyfriend posted:there are more of those than you think. You can always figure out a system for it. Cap it at +4 depending on the ability, and when it comes up, inform your player “that ability wouldn’t normally work with priority, so instead it’ll give [some bonus]”. quote:i think this system is actually quite bad also as it allows people to disregard initiative and just always start every round with the best aoe cc available or assassins or whatever reliably on both sides which makes combat even swingier in a way that i do not think is actually satisfying in the long run Literally everything you’ve said is intentional, minus the swingyness which is entirely dependent on the encounter (and with how I run things, doesn’t really happen), and with the “you go, I go” system it can never really swing too far in any direction, except perhaps the players if they’re stacking abilities that permit more people joining a group activation, which is frankly fine with me if players are building towards it. This is just the way I run it, and I find it successful. My players love it and it makes combat for me more exciting. Not saying everyone should use it, it’s just a rules change that I’ve found works great for me, especially as someone who greatly dislikes the current initiative system.
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Nov 23, 2021 22:11
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I find this system pretty intriguing, mechanically, but I wonder: who actually calls out activations on the players' side? It seems like a recipe for players discussing, every single turn, who gets to go now.
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Nov 23, 2021 22:40
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Guildencrantz posted:I find this system pretty intriguing, mechanically, but I wonder: who actually calls out activations on the players' side? It seems like a recipe for players discussing, every single turn, who gets to go now. Typically someone will just pipe up and say “I’ll go next”, and unless someone objects to it they get to go. My group is tight knit and chill, and they take it upon themselves to make sure they’re not stealing too much of the spotlight. I’ve never had players tarry using this system, but typically if no one chimes up after a beat I’ll just single out a character and say “what do you do” and that gets the game moving forward again.
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Nov 23, 2021 22:45
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That's not a system I'd recommend for everyone but if you've got a group that wants flexibility and is holding actions a lot to get it, and is comfortable enough with each other that no one leaves feeling like they're always the last one picked for dodgeball, it sounds like a very elegant solution.
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Nov 23, 2021 23:10
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Verisimilidude posted:Literally everything you’ve said is intentional, minus the swingyness which is entirely dependent on the encounter (and with how I run things, doesn’t really happen), and with the “you go, I go” system it can never really swing too far in any direction, i mean its fine if you want to run the game that way, but saying "we just handwave solutions to class features and feats and items and spells that give bonus to initiative as a bonus to the initial d20 check" and "i simply just avoid running enemies that have large aoe cc abilities that can chain stun the party" shows that there are just built in mechanical issues to trying to shove this square peg in the round hole that is dnd. at this point you might as well just adopt narrative initiative where as a DM you decide who gets to go and take the rules out entirely Azathoth posted:That's not a system I'd recommend for everyone but if you've got a group that wants flexibility and is holding actions a lot to get it, and is comfortable enough with each other that no one leaves feeling like they're always the last one picked for dodgeball, it sounds like a very elegant solution. this also, certain classes(especially martials) will by design want to be last in initiative and the player balance can cause a lot of friction in the table. pog boyfriend fucked around with this message at 23:16 on Nov 23, 2021 |
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Nov 23, 2021 23:11
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pog boyfriend posted:i mean its fine if you want to run the game that way, but saying "we just handwave solutions to class features and feats and items and spells that give bonus to initiative as a bonus to the initial d20 check" and "i simply just avoid running enemies that have large aoe cc abilities that can chain stun the party" shows that there are just built in mechanical issues to trying to shove this square peg in the round hole that is dnd. at this point you might as well just adopt narrative initiative where as a DM you decide who gets to go and take the rules out entirely I don’t run encounters with chain stuns mostly because that doesn’t sound like a very fun encounter. Again, it works well in my group for the way I run games in my already admittedly heavily modified version of dnd, although I’ve had success with it as well in base dnd as a solution for initiative. If you don’t want to use it, the normal rules are there! I don’t know why you’re so aggro about it, but such is life. 🤷
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Nov 23, 2021 23:32
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Verisimilidude posted:I don’t run encounters with chain stuns mostly because that doesn’t sound like a very fun encounter. Again, it works well in my group for the way I run games in my already admittedly heavily modified version of dnd, although I’ve had success with it as well in base dnd as a solution for initiative. If you don’t want to use it, the normal rules are there! I don’t know why you’re so aggro about it, but such is life. 🤷 i mean i am just kind of an argumentative person in general, i do not mean anything personal by it and ultimately if your group has fun doing it then go ahead and do what you want to do(lord knows how many ill thought out rules changes i have done in my life). i do not think this rules change is very good and am voicing opinions on why i would not recommend anyone reading this thread adopt it as i could foresee it causing a lot of problems
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Nov 23, 2021 23:51
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Won't someone think of the poor dex monkeys? They don't have much going for them, and you're taking that away!  I have a similar idea I use for Shadowrun, where the exact action order is negotiated between the players. The best benefit of this is it keeps all of the players engaged, since they're not a team working together instead of a character acting in a moment in time. I think the system is fine, but turnaround should be fair game. If the players get he freedom to coordinate, the enemies should as well. They'd logically want anyone who can use Hold or Charm to go first, before the players could coordinate their attacks to bring them down. An alternative I would suggest is using Inspiration to achieve a similar effect. Instead of rolling with advantage, you can spend inspiration to change your initiative to go immediately after anyone else who has just gone. That way your characters could still coordinate their attacks when they way to, other abilities/feats still come into play, and you can directly control how often your players do it by awarding it more or less often. Maybe even rules about not transferring inspiration to each other so that players have to come up with more creative combinations than the same two players doing the same thing over and over. ninjoatse.cx fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Nov 24, 2021 |
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Nov 23, 2021 23:56
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ninjoatse.cx posted:Won't someone think of the poor dex monkeys? They don't have much going for them, and you're taking that away! Completely agree. Enemies act in a similar manner, to players, although I’ve relegated group activation to special creatures with the ability to do so. Most mooks the players fight are groups of minions with a single activation between them. They can all move, but they make one collective attack per activation (or some other ability) that gets weaker as mooks in the group start dying. Perhaps later on players will encounter groups that can activate simultaneously, but for now only specific enemies can do it.
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Nov 24, 2021 00:13
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It baffles me that many DMs just have enemies stand in place and swing over and over like training dummies or at best use one or two actions or spells listed with stat blocks instead of having them fight in dynamic ways just like players do. Have them jump behind cover, manipulate the battlefield, do stuff. I get that its somewhat self inflicted though, since DM guidance is probably the longest running weakness for D&D.
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Nov 24, 2021 00:21
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Bottom Liner posted:It baffles me that many DMs just have enemies stand in place and swing over and over like training dummies or at best use one or two actions or spells listed with stat blocks instead of having them fight in dynamic ways just like players do. Have them jump behind cover, manipulate the battlefield, do stuff. I get that its somewhat self inflicted though, since DM guidance is probably the longest running weakness for D&D. (sadly) 4e did it well,
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Nov 24, 2021 00:23
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pog boyfriend posted:(sadly) 4e did it well, 4e made a decent attempt at trying to winnow combat down to the "meat" of the encounter. I liked what it did for NPCs much more than what it did for the PCs, though. Having an NPC exist to do its thing and then either succeed, run away, or die pretty much matches most TTRPG players' strategies. ninjoatse.cx fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Nov 24, 2021 |
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Nov 24, 2021 00:30
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Bottom Liner posted:It baffles me that many DMs just have enemies stand in place and swing over and over like training dummies or at best use one or two actions or spells listed with stat blocks instead of having them fight in dynamic ways just like players do. Have them jump behind cover, manipulate the battlefield, do stuff. I get that its somewhat self inflicted though, since DM guidance is probably the longest running weakness for D&D. Monsters as written also often don't have good options for moving around or trying something. If they get mobbed, they might get blown up trying to flee. I feel like there should be kind of a "lieutenant" option to upscale ordinary monsters into leaders that have useful disengages or similar to allow them to be more dynamic.
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Nov 24, 2021 01:40
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Nehru the Damaja posted:Monsters as written also often don't have good options for moving around or trying something. If they get mobbed, they might get blown up trying to flee. I feel like there should be kind of a "lieutenant" option to upscale ordinary monsters into leaders that have useful disengages or similar to allow them to be more dynamic. i like 5e, but the monsters are very dull. 13th age and 4e hold the crown for that, imo.
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Nov 24, 2021 01:40
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Nehru the Damaja posted:Monsters as written also often don't have good options for moving around or trying something. If they get mobbed, they might get blown up trying to flee. I feel like there should be kind of a "lieutenant" option to upscale ordinary monsters into leaders that have useful disengages or similar to allow them to be more dynamic. Check out GiffyGlyph's Monster Maker for exactly this along with a million other improvements to 5E's garbage enemies sebmojo posted:i like 5e, but the monsters are very dull. 13th age and 4e hold the crown for that, imo. I've run a lot of 4e and am currently running 13A and while I broadly agree with this sentiment, I have to add LANCER to the top of the "NPCs that are fun as gently caress to play" list
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Nov 24, 2021 02:01
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Nehru the Damaja posted:Monsters as written also often don't have good options for moving around or trying something. If they get mobbed, they might get blown up trying to flee. I feel like there should be kind of a "lieutenant" option to upscale ordinary monsters into leaders that have useful disengages or similar to allow them to be more dynamic. Yeah, being newer to 5e, this is the problem that I have as well. I do try to go in with a battle plan my monsters have for their side of the encounter, but so often by the time the tide has turned, it's pretty clear that having them flee would just result in at most a tedious chase if they manage to get out of melee range. It's pretty much only magic users that can actually meaningfully lose a group or do tricky enough things without it just being bullshit that drags out the encounter. Boss fights notwithstanding of course.
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Nov 24, 2021 02:35
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pog boyfriend posted:(sadly) 4e did it well, I don't think 4E did it well so much as 4E just actually did it. Which is not a dig on 4E, but a dig on 5E for giving that up.
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Nov 24, 2021 04:21
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Though that could completely change come the revised books. Already the current statblocks are much better then the early ones.
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Nov 24, 2021 04:46
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D&D initiative sucks clowns and literally any alternative is better than the rules as written.  Like for example, any initiative modifiers are only interesting in the very first round. Once everyone has gone once, nobody has initiative. At that point all the feats and poo poo you spent trying to go first turn off. Considering 5E's hit point totals, that first round advantage is not meaningful anyway unless you’re level three – you can always tank a hit, and so can the dragon. The exception here is, of course, first round crowd control. It’s already a problem because there's nothing preventing players to spec into that poo poo if they want, any spellcaster benefits from a high Dex score. Likewise, the DM can just run those monsters all campaign long if they want to. Initiative is also uninteresting if you have fewer monsters than heroes because then you get those big blocks of PC actions that make combat so swingy. This also happens if the DM can’t be bothered to roll individual initiative for mooks. Anecdotally, the regular initiative also encourages players to not talk during each others' turns which cuts out all the interesting teamwork and leads into characters ambling into prime aoe spots. As a side note I also personally like swingy combat because it’s nice to know early on whether you're the ones dunking or getting dunked on. Then it’s straightforward to either demand surrender or flee. Regular 5E combat, in my experience, is a drag-out slugfest that won’t end until everyone is out of hit points and while that can be great fun for important encounters, it gets dull if every fight goes the distance. Initiative is a band-aid for existing systemic issues. It does not positively add to the game.
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Nov 24, 2021 06:57
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Siivola posted:D&D initiative sucks clowns and literally any alternative is better than the rules as written. Night10194 posted:Second problem: I want to know who came up with this game's Initiative system. They are very silly. It is the kind of rule I call a system-killer: It's embedded in the system, but it's also really, really bad, and I can't think of why anyone thought it was a good idea. You put 2 tokens in the pool for each PC, and then usually 2, maybe 1, maybe 3 or 4 or 5 for enemies depending on how dangerous and determined they are. Each enemy contributes. You also place a Round Over token in, and this is the absolute most baffling bit. Each turn, you pull a token. If it's a player's, they act once. If it's an Enemy Token, you choose any one enemy and have them act. So if you're being a dick, a Dragon backed up by a bunch of worthless Gremlins can let the Gremlins give the Dragon all their turns and then this annoying beast of terrible perfection renders all your PCs to ash for sport (We'll get to Dragons). Similarly, the actual odds an individual player gets to move tend to be bad, and you can always roll 'Round Over' and reset the stack (and have any ongoing effects trigger for the round). The poor Befouler of Ponds in my group did not get to move for multiple turns. The Monkey Monger was in a stall that was on fire and taking damage until he moved out, but poor Ewan was stuck in there because...his token didn't come up. Etc, etc. Initiative is the death of Troika! and should be flung out a window with great force, because it is almost calculated to ensure some players have no fun at all and get to do nothing.
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Nov 24, 2021 07:25
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There's always a worse alternative. 
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Nov 24, 2021 08:16
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NGDBSS posted:I see you're unfamiliar with Troika! and its trashfire game design. Here's a taste: holy god
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Nov 24, 2021 08:23
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