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Verisimilidude posted:Excellent. I recently had a situation where a well, full of perfectly normal drinking water, flummoxed my players so much they spent 10 minutes discussing what to do about it. From the start I said “it is a well filled with clean drinking water”, but that didn’t stop them from making their goblin sidekick test it, cast detect magic on it, beseech their gods to unlock any knowledge of this well, test if the water was actually holy water, and finally swim in it to see if it led to some hidden passage. (It was only 3 feet deep, and they could see the bottom) You see a single, perfectly fresh, round red apple on the floor in front of you.
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Sep 23, 2022 22:14
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| # ? May 31, 2024 15:47 |
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This is more just general GMing advice but it's applicable. If you make a habit of describing lots of extraneous and decorative detail in every scene, your players may tend to fail to notice or react when you describe something important that you want them to at least consider interacting with. However if you rarely or never describe extraneous and decorative detail in scenes, your players will reasonably conclude that anything you actually mention is probably significant. Finding a good balance between these two poles takes practice, and can vary from one group to the next, and isn't a terrible thing to actually just tell them what's going on. Like "your characters investigate the well and quickly realize it's just a well" without rolling dice could be followed up with "no seriously, out of character, as the GM I'm telling you as players, there's no trick here. I just thought there needed to be a source of drinking water in this location, it makes sense. You can move on." Or conversely "amidst the redolent vines twisting up the redstone wall, the arches decorated with miniature statuary of winged figures playing trombones and flights of tiny dragons, the rough-hewn pavers in brown and burgundy patterns, you notice that pile of straw baskets again. Hmm, yes, a pile of baskets, something seems significant about them. You should probably take a LOOK at the BASKETS. <rolls dice, doesn't even look at them> You pass a Perception test and realize those baskets might be concealing something..."
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Sep 23, 2022 22:23
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Also if the players are having fun fuckin with a well, plotting and scheming, well let them.
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Sep 23, 2022 22:40
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Verisimilidude posted:Excellent. I recently had a situation where a well, full of perfectly normal drinking water, flummoxed my players so much they spent 10 minutes discussing what to do about it. From the start I said “it is a well filled with clean drinking water”, but that didn’t stop them from making their goblin sidekick test it, cast detect magic on it, beseech their gods to unlock any knowledge of this well, test if the water was actually holy water, and finally swim in it to see if it led to some hidden passage. (It was only 3 feet deep, and they could see the bottom) I got a real trap for your players 
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Sep 23, 2022 22:44
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a funny trap you can do is put a mine cart on tracks, describe it as "being able to fit one person" and if a party member goes inside the minecart for some reason just have a trap door underneath the minecart tracks give way to reveal a hidden area as the guy in the cart falls in
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Sep 23, 2022 22:51
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sebmojo posted:You see a single, perfectly fresh, round red apple on the floor in front of you. My favorite so far was normal cat in a strange place. Drove them crazy.
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Sep 23, 2022 23:23
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sebmojo posted:You see a single, perfectly fresh, round red apple on the floor in front of you. Aha! a false fruit!
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Sep 24, 2022 00:02
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Verisimilidude posted:Excellent. I recently had a situation where a well, full of perfectly normal drinking water, flummoxed my players so much they spent 10 minutes discussing what to do about it. From the start I said “it is a well filled with clean drinking water”, but that didn’t stop them from making their goblin sidekick test it, cast detect magic on it, beseech their gods to unlock any knowledge of this well, test if the water was actually holy water, and finally swim in it to see if it led to some hidden passage. (It was only 3 feet deep, and they could see the bottom) Even experienced groups can get hit with that one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg7AfMQ_J5Y
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Sep 24, 2022 00:18
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pog boyfriend posted:no because they still have momentum going in as they slingshot through the centre of gravity, they would hurtle past it, reach a lower relative point due to friction, and repeat the process until they lost all of their energy(assuming the planet is round, which it is not. all fantasy worlds are flat earth) You'd be traveling at terminal velocity pretty quickly, which would slowly get lower and lower as you approached the center, so I don't think you'd hurtle very far past it.
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Sep 24, 2022 03:00
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Rutibex posted:Foraging and rations isn't fun. This is coming from the oldest of old school hex crawling DM. What happens when they run out of rations? Starving to death in the wilderness isn't entertaining, and rolling to forage isn't entertaining. Just skip it. If you've got a ranger, druid, or anyone who spent a skill point in survival, hunting and foraging is their jam. They want to use those skills. Show off their dazzling wilderness prowess. They put up with days in the city sitting on their hands with their abysmal social skills. There has to be a way to make travel interesting. Meaningful choices. Like do you want to follow the road or cut overland? Parties with wagons have to stay on the roads, but otherwise it's a choice. On the roads you meet other travellers, merchants, pilgrims, guard patrols, highwaymen, and potentially tiny permanent settlements who find it useful to be near the road. There could be farmers, a tannery a day away from the nearest town because tanneries stink, a logging camp, way shrines, monasteries, and so on. Any tiny establishment could also be an opportunity for trade, an impromptu travellers inn where you can get a meal and sleep indoors with a barn and feed for your mounts. The land between towns isn't empty, the land between cities is super not empty. Overland you won't meet normies. The guard is unlikely to patrol, normal travellers stick to the road. Who might you find? Slimes, animals, hermits, hunters, nomads, herbalists, cartographers, or people who are trying to travel unseen like raiding parties. You might stumble upon a bandit camp, forgotten ruins, a sacred grove, an animal den, an intriguing cave, a patch of medicinal herbs, a patch of valuable recreational herbs, a fairy circle/feywild portal, magic animals, a tree struck by lightening, gold dust in a stream, and so on. It's a freaking magical fantasy adventure, the wilderness if far from empty. Even boring RL wilderness isn't empty. They should also have a good chance of leaving the wilderness a little wealthier than they entered. Kill a bear? Bear hide is valuable, your ranger, survival guy, or guy with leatherworking tools should have a good shot at skinning the bear and rough tanning the hide to keep it in good condition until you can sell it to the next tannery you come to. A few silver at low levels isn't nothing, and at higher levels it will be a griffin or a displacer beast instead. Lots of backgrounds come with tool proficiencies, see if there is something related to to their tool proficiencies they can find in the wilderness. A smith, tinker, jeweller or dwarf who grew up in a mine might realize that that mossy stone over there is actually malachite, and know that a previously undiscovered surface level copper deposit would be worth a lot to the right people. A guy with cartography tools should literally be able to make a steady income just mapping all the places they travel noting threats and points of interest to sell to the cartographer's guild or whoever to update their maps. Travel shouldn't be a pause in the adventure. Travel is adventure.
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Sep 24, 2022 03:45
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 First round of the first Light of Xaryxis encounter is going alright, they knocked down 2 blights, the wrestling monk has another grappled and prone and its just toast next time someone looks at it funny. I started off with the 2nd round of blights appearing off map a little more narratively to drive them to the docks.
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Sep 24, 2022 03:56
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sebmojo posted:You see a single, perfectly fresh, round red apple on the floor in front of you. I poke it with a 15ft pole.
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Sep 24, 2022 05:34
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Mr. Lobe posted:I got a real trap for your players
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Sep 24, 2022 10:35
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Facebook Aunt posted:If you've got a ranger, druid, or anyone who spent a skill point in survival, hunting and foraging is their jam. They want to use those skills. Show off their dazzling wilderness prowess. They put up with days in the city sitting on their hands with their abysmal social skills. I agree with 99% of this and you make a fair point about rangers and druids having specific wilderness skills. I think this is a flaw of 5e, the wilderness systems are boring or non existent so those class features don't have anything interesting to hook onto. I would be willing to give rangers and druids a bonus on the wilderness exploration chart, so when you have a ranger in the party the whole group gets a +2 or whatever (maybe based on level) to the roll on the random encounters chart. Making every encounter on the road more beneficial, because it bias the roll towards the positive encounters. Also maybe a bonus to reaction rolls and surprise rolls when encountering things in the wilderness.
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Sep 24, 2022 11:56
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imagine dungeons posted:I poke it with a 15ft pole. The pole is a mimic, roll initiative
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Sep 24, 2022 12:00
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Leperflesh posted:This is more just general GMing advice but it's applicable. I definitely practice this, but in this instance they asked what was in the room that I glossed over and they went ham.
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Sep 24, 2022 13:14
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imagine dungeons posted:I poke it with a 15ft pole. it rolls away from you, then comes to rest. it is still perfectly red and ripe.
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Sep 24, 2022 13:35
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Toplowtech posted:"OVER, THIN and KING, what could it mean. I think the king may be starving to death!!!!" - Your average group. A manticore, crouched and ready to pounce. A lich, crowned and resplendant upon its throne. An umber hulk, arms wide as it roars. Above each is a small opening with a rope hanging from it. On the floor of the dais is inscribed a glowing phrase: "try overthinking" The passage above the lich contains a safe resting point. Pulling either of the two other ropes releases a slippery liquid as per the grease spell, and awakens the statue underneath (which is immune to the grease)
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Sep 24, 2022 14:00
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Bobby Deluxe posted:Three statues stand before you: That's actually pretty good!
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Sep 24, 2022 14:34
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Looking for 2 good foundry addons, one to handle letting players move up and down their spelljammer ship levels, so i guess a like portal system to connect up and down stairs? And looking for something to replace/augment the status effects icons on tokens, Foundry is good but they aren't 1 to 1 the dnd effects. Also, if you run Spelljammer Academy and don't give the players Wizpop the Autognome as a companion you're a bad DM and a monster.
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Sep 24, 2022 14:52
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sebmojo posted:it rolls away from you, then comes to rest. it is still perfectly red and ripe. i begin casting divination
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Sep 24, 2022 15:14
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I've mashed together LMoP and DoIP to use Phandalin as a base of operations for my group (which includes two new players). I'm sure lots of people have run LMoP specifically and might have ideas to contribute for some changes I'm trying to make. I really want to overhaul Wave Echo Cave, the Black Spider and particularly the Forge of Spells. I've come up with the skeleton for an idea but I need help with a few loose ends. I basically found those three elements in particular majorly lackluster as a capstone for the campaign, even as an adventure intended for low level characters. edit: (I had a wall of text here about my campaign minutiae that I figure would be better suited to a post in the DM help thread at some point) Tosk fucked around with this message at 01:57 on Sep 25, 2022 |
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Sep 24, 2022 22:40
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Maybe the forge was the focus point for the demonic disaster and can only craft cursed demonic items, and as long as it remains intact it can be used to open up portals directly to the abyss?
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Sep 24, 2022 23:07
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Elendil004 posted:
I don't own the adventure, so I'm interested in the unnamed token which looks like a golden gnome 2 squares south of Vesper. What's that about?
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Sep 24, 2022 23:26
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Libertad! posted:I don't own the adventure, so I'm interested in the unnamed token which looks like a golden gnome 2 squares south of Vesper. What's that about?  That is Wizpop, he can get picked up in the Spelljammer Academy adventure and not surprisingly my players have taken a liking to him so I gave him some artificer abilities and support spells and they're taking him along. Same with Pffred and Plasmoid and Krik-lit the Thri-kreen. Elendil004 fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Sep 24, 2022 |
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Sep 24, 2022 23:32
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Sounds pretty rad. Also sounds like the adventure writer's been reading some Roald Dahl.
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Sep 25, 2022 01:48
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Elendil004 posted:Looking for 2 good foundry addons, one to handle letting players move up and down their spelljammer ship levels, so i guess a like portal system to connect up and down stairs? For teleport there is a "Stairways (Teleporter)" mod that can transport between locations in a scene or to another scene. For status effects, "DFreds Convenient Effects" is good The Slack Lagoon fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Sep 25, 2022 |
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Sep 25, 2022 02:19
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Libertad! posted:I don't own the adventure, so I'm interested in the unnamed token which looks like a golden gnome 2 squares south of Vesper. What's that about? Spelljammer Academy is free https://www.dndbeyond.com/claim/source/spelljammer-academy Edit: If you have a D&D Beyond Account. Yusin fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Sep 25, 2022 |
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Sep 25, 2022 02:33
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Rutibex posted:I agree with 99% of this and you make a fair point about rangers and druids having specific wilderness skills. I think this is a flaw of 5e, the wilderness systems are boring or non existent so those class features don't have anything interesting to hook onto. Yeah the problem is definitely the lack of guidance in the rules. Wilderness itself is great. All the best adventures (and horror movies) involve an isolated group travelling in the wilderness. Reducing that to nothing but a foraging roll is dumb. Imagine if cities were run the same way, lol. Urban foraging roll. Ooh bad luck there, while looking for lunch all you find is a dodgy guy selling mystery meat pies, and a dwarf selling rat-onna-stick. Eating at either one requires a constitution saving throw for non-dwarfs. You wanted to do some shopping while you're in town? *rolls dice* Today you find a haberdashery and a tack store. Would you like to buy any hats or saddles?
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Sep 25, 2022 02:38
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Yusin posted:Spelljammer Academy is free https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/sja Oh that's great, for a while if you didnt' claim it you just couldn't see it. edit: lol that's still the case I guess, fuckin stupid and idiotic to do it that way.
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Sep 25, 2022 02:40
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Elendil004 posted:Oh that's great, for a while if you didnt' claim it you just couldn't see it. It's in the All Sources for Adventures not the drop down.
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Sep 25, 2022 02:50
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Yusin posted:It's in the All Sources for Adventures not the drop down. Yeah but if you click to any of the content it takes you to the "you don't own this page"
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Sep 25, 2022 02:52
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pog boyfriend posted:i begin casting divination The divination indicates neither great weal or great woe is associated with the apple, which is nonetheless perfectly red and fresh
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Sep 25, 2022 03:38
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sebmojo posted:The divination indicates neither great weal or great woe is associated with the apple, which is nonetheless perfectly red and fresh Is this because while delicious, there is a worm inside the apple?
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Sep 25, 2022 03:40
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 you cannot tell. The apple appears fresh, round and perfectly red.
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Sep 25, 2022 03:44
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sebmojo posted:
I cut open the apple, what do I see? I use my +1 knife if that helps.
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Sep 25, 2022 03:45
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How are you picking it up
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Sep 25, 2022 03:52
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sebmojo posted:How are you picking it up I use mage hand to lift the apple.
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Sep 25, 2022 03:56
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You slice carefully into the apple with your magic dagger, ensuring no part of your body touches the red skin or is splashed by the juice from the perfectly ripe flesh, though a couple of drops fall on the floor. Inside the apple you see this  For the briefest of moments, then the image is replaced by a juicy cut half of a red ripe apple
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Sep 25, 2022 04:06
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(rolls discreetly behind the screen)
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Sep 25, 2022 04:07
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