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Facebook Aunt posted:Agreed. I guess you could make the argument that a steampunk vibe artificer won't fit in some settings. But you could say the same about a monk or a tiefling. I've never played a steam punk type artificer. I prefer a witch type artificer who brews up weird potions and has animated scarecrow minions lol. "person who makes magic items" fits pretty easily into any fantasy setting. But yeah if they made it a base class maybe emphasize that it doesn't have to be steampunk.
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Sep 29, 2022 09:57
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Facebook Aunt posted:Darkvision is cool when it is a rare bonus. It would be fine if absolutely everyone had it. It is dumb and boring when it is something almost everyone has, turning humans, halflings, etc. into cripples weighing the party down. I agree with your broader point, but this feels more like "Cat" is incorrect. Cats do have dark vision, they can see perfectly fine in dim light in real life.
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Sep 29, 2022 12:15
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Yeah. It’s weird. And dogs are known for their good noses, not cats..
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Sep 29, 2022 13:19
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Zurreco posted:If you also don't even want to provide a range (at least 5 more than your AC) then you're just an adversarial DM. This is a rather extreme take. Hiding your rolls is not being adversarial. And if you don't want your players wasting Shield, you can just say "Shield isn't going to help on this one." Anarcho-Commissar posted:I agree with your broader point, but this feels more like "Cat" is incorrect. Cats do have dark vision, they can see perfectly fine in dim light in real life. Yeah, looks like the cat god who created cats done hosed up. Nobanion! 
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Sep 29, 2022 14:06
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Anarcho-Commissar posted:I agree with your broader point, but this feels more like "Cat" is incorrect. Cats do have dark vision, they can see perfectly fine in dim light in real life. The discrepancy would be easily corrected if "dim vision" existed, yes. They simplified vision to either you see just like a RL human, or you supernaturally "see" in completely lightless areas. Nothing IRL can see in complete darkness, but loads of things can see more or better than humans, so the result is pretty dumb. Cats and things should have dim vision, where they see great (and in black and white) in dim light, but are still blind in complete darkness. Maybe dwarfs and things from the underdark should be able to see heat signatures, like predator vision, which is somewhat useful for navigating lightless depths but you can't read by it. Maybe Aarakocra should be able to see ultraviolet light, like many birds, which I can't imagine ever being useful but is kinda cool.
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Sep 29, 2022 14:24
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Looking over the class changes UA now and rangers get hunters mark at level 1, always have it prepared, and don't need to concentrate on it. Thank god
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Sep 29, 2022 15:12
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change my name posted:Looking over the class changes UA now and rangers get hunters mark at level 1, always have it prepared, and don't need to concentrate on it. Thank god
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Sep 29, 2022 15:18
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If I ever homebrew my own setting one of the first changes going down is nobody has darkvision. Bring back scary dark dungeons and torches IMO
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Sep 29, 2022 15:57
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Summit posted:If I ever homebrew my own setting one of the first changes going down is nobody has darkvision. Bring back scary dark dungeons and torches No dark vision. Dwarves see underground because of symbiotic bioluminescent bacteria in their beards. The bacteria live in the surface and feast off the beard oils and dead skin cells. There are multiple species that luminesce different colors. With careful grafting and using the right oils and supplements all kinds of psychedelic patterns can be created and doing so is considered the epitome of dwarf grooming and fashion.
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Sep 29, 2022 16:08
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change my name posted:Looking over the class changes UA now and rangers get hunters mark at level 1, always have it prepared, and don't need to concentrate on it. Thank god Thank gently caress
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Sep 29, 2022 16:09
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I recently ran a small dungeon in which the plane of shadow was leaking into a mine. All darkvision was reduced to 5ft, all magical light spells fail, all natural light sources cut to a quarter of their normal distance. The walls of the mine had been magically morphed into a sort of gelatinous void substance which players and monsters could move through (though PCs took damage), but would instantly extinguish any torch or lantern. The players in this session were mostly martial types who used both hands for combat, requiring them to put down their lanterns to fight effectively. So naturally, first order of business in combat was to pick up their lanterns and yeet them into the black. Overall the players really enjoyed it, they said it felt very atmospheric and really captured what being in the dark actually felt like.
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Sep 29, 2022 16:09
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PeterWeller posted:This is a rather extreme take. Hiding your rolls is not being adversarial. And if you don't want your players wasting Shield, you can just say "Shield isn't going to help on this one." If you're going to say whether or not Shield is going to help, you're providing the range Zurreco was talking about. If you refuse to tell if Shield would help, that's pretty adversarial.
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Sep 29, 2022 16:31
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Staltran posted:If you're going to say whether or not Shield is going to help, you're providing the range Zurreco was talking about. If you refuse to tell if Shield would help, that's pretty adversarial. quote:"The orc rolled a 21. It's axe slices effortlessly though your robes..." Or quote:"The elder dragon rolls a 29. It swipes at you with it's claws..."
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Sep 29, 2022 16:43
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Staltran posted:If you're going to say whether or not Shield is going to help, you're providing the range Zurreco was talking about. If you refuse to tell if Shield would help, that's pretty adversarial. You can certainly give your players that information, but I don't think withholding that information is adversarial. I feel like Shield is meant to be a bit of a gamble (unless being used to negate Magic Missile), and if you want a consistent and reliable defense buff, you case Mage Armor instead.
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Sep 29, 2022 16:57
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"The demon rolls to attack. *rolls* What is your AC?" "My AC is currently 18." "The demon hits you." "Can I cast Shield to block the attack?" "You can cast Shield to find out." "I use my reaction to cast Shield!" "The demon still hits you. Please expend one spell slot." "What was the final value of the attack roll?" "That is only for the DM to know." There are so many opportunities to streamline the situation or mitigate impact to quality of play by simply saying "they rolled a 24" or "you feel that this attack would still land through Shield." Playing requires a certain level of trust between the DM and the players and if the DM is going to sit there and make you needlessly hinder yourself without any context, they are adversarial. I would absolutely quit that campaign at the end of the session and would advise anyone else to do so as well.
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Sep 29, 2022 17:06
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In your example the DM is telling the player the total rolled. If the player still doesn't know if Shield will help, then either they're incapable of basic math or the DM is hiding the player's own AC from them. Refusing to help with arithmetic if a player is genuinely not capable of it seems like a dick move, and the latter is a campaign gimmick and a huge edge case. If the only thing you tell is either "the orc misses" or "the orc hits", as was being discussed, then that does seem adversarial to me. PeterWeller posted:You can certainly give your players that information, but I don't think withholding that information is adversarial. I feel like Shield is meant to be a bit of a gamble (unless being used to negate Magic Missile), and if you want a consistent and reliable defense buff, you case Mage Armor instead. It's not like they're mutually exclusive. Also that assumes the caster is unarmored. What if they're a Hexblade wearing half-plate and a shield?
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Sep 29, 2022 17:12
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Zurreco posted:There are so many opportunities to streamline the situation or mitigate impact to quality of play by simply saying "they rolled a 24" or "you feel that this attack would still land through Shield." Playing requires a certain level of trust between the DM and the players and if the DM is going to sit there and make you needlessly hinder yourself without any context, they are adversarial. I would absolutely quit that campaign at the end of the session and would advise anyone else to do so as well. I'm prone to hide the roll if it's a whole new enemy or type of enemy, cause it makes sense that if the first time in your life you've seen some caster or monster, you instinctively throw up the shield and then get got, it tells you something. If it's the 17th Dark Footsoldier they've faced, I let them know if a reaction will work or if the enemy only "barely" hit them or whatever.
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Sep 29, 2022 17:15
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Zurreco posted:"The demon rolls to attack. *rolls* What is your AC?" "The demon hits." "I cast Shield." "The demon still hits. Sorry brah." There. Nice and streamlined. Its not a breach of trust to withhold exact rolls from the PCs. It's not needlessly hindering them to not let them know the results of their choices before they make those choices. I think it'd be absurd to quit a campaign because you felt like the DM made you waste a 1st level spell slot. Staltran posted:It's not like they're mutually exclusive. Also that assumes the caster is unarmored. What if they're a Hexblade wearing half-plate and a shield? Then they already have pretty reliable defense from most attacks and can make an informed guess before choosing to cast Shield.
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Sep 29, 2022 17:30
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It's certainly a style of play. But like the only variable is the demons attack bonus in this case. You know the roll and you know your own AC. You also know that attack bonuses will fall within a bounded range. So you can play a guessing game for a couple of rounds until you figure it out. The same phenomenon occurs with enemy AC - it's a secret unless one of your players does basic algebra. I don't hate that some people play that way and a round or two of limited information is still limited information. It just doesn't stay that way for long and (to me) it isn't worth the hassle to maintain it.
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Sep 29, 2022 17:38
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If you had a player who rolled attacks, then didn't relay the result and instead asked the DM for the AC of the target before stating that the attack landed, folks would immediately assume that the player was fudging their rolls to get to a predetermined result. Somehow the DM doing it in the other direction is totally ok, though.
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Sep 29, 2022 17:51
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It's a tension of trying to leave mystery in a game. Possibly a misguided place for it, but that's why.
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Sep 29, 2022 17:53
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Yet another reason I love VTTs, no one has to deal with that bullshit.
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Sep 29, 2022 17:55
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It’s also lame to meet an enemy the players have never before witnessed or even comprehended, like some otherworldly ethereal bat-spirit, and then you say “It has an AC of 18 and is resistant to non-magical slash damage. It has 84 hit points, two attacks/turn, and rolls a +8 to hit. What do you do?”
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Sep 29, 2022 17:57
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I’m more likely to give immediate stat info to prevent an accidental murder. “The guy cussing you out is a basic town constable. He has 12 hp, a non-magical club, and a leather coat for armor.”
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Sep 29, 2022 18:00
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ya'll really play with some untrustworthy people you can't have an adult conversation with huh? Players can cheat anyway. I've seen fellow players lie about the die they've rolled. You talk to them about it. DMing is a bit different, as you are technically like in control of the entire set up and structure of the game. Like I've fudged rolls before as a DM when I realized like mid combat, oh poo poo, I drastically overtuned this encounter for what it's intent was. and adjusting difficulty on the fly If you feel like your DM is ever being unfair to you then you just talk to them. But DM's hiding the roll is at the very least not uncommon.
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Sep 29, 2022 18:01
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My players had the same experience with a flameskull. It was fun because despite the combat log telling them it was partially resisting damage they didn't notice for a couple rounds so they had something approximating an "uh why can't we kill this thing?" real world experience.
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Sep 29, 2022 18:02
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Dexo posted:ya'll really play with some untrustworthy people you can't have an adult conversation with huh? Yeah, I don't see anything wrong with hidden DM rolls and unhidden player rolls, or even a DM doing some rolls hidden and some unhidden. If everyone's a stranger then folks should probably default to everything being public, but meh players should expect some level of DM fuckery. However that fuckery should be done to preserve a sense of fun and excitement for the players. I like loving around with HP totals if a fight is too easy or too hard and I can't add a second wave or have the enemies flee, but I'm never doing that to either make them slog through more boring combat, or to cheese out an encounter. It's either because I want the fight to feel more epic and they're tearing through it or because I'm gonna have a TPK if I don't.
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Sep 29, 2022 18:08
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mlmp08 posted:It’s also lame to meet an enemy the players have never before witnessed or even comprehended, like some otherworldly ethereal bat-spirit, and then you say “It has an AC of 18 and is resistant to non-magical slash damage. It has 84 hit points, two attacks/turn, and rolls a +8 to hit. What do you do?” It's also lame to be a master of the arcane arts who can for whatever reason has a very specific exact number of times they can use their magical powers per day that recharge in discrete chunks. It's a game, there's going to be numbers and stats on it who gives a gently caress, if the only interesting thing about your monster is getting to stroke your chin while telling a player just trying to use their special defensive spell "OooooOOooh, what a magical mystery! Will your attempt succeed or fail? I'll never tell!" you've got other problems to figure out just let people know whether or not their poo poo works. I had a DM who would try not to tell me if my spells succeed or not because "how could you tell?" Well I don't know but I have to know if I'm concentrating on an active effect because it's an important game mechanic so why don't you stop loving jerking me around and just tell me if he saved or not. DMs being obsessed with opacity need to loving stop, it adds nothing to the game, save us ALL some time and just say the numbers when stuff happens. Edit: To be clear this isn't about trust this is about not wasting people's time because you've got a hard on for verisimilitude.
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Sep 29, 2022 18:32
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I'm gonna tell you whether or not Shield worked, after you cast Shield. I totally agree it's a dick move to withhold whether or not the NPC succeeded on their save. But I see the thing with Shield more akin to me rolling the save and telling you the result before you decide to cast the spell.
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Sep 29, 2022 18:39
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What DM is not telling you if your spells succeed or not. There is a fundamental difference to saying, "What's the Spell DC on your fireball, 17, okay he beat it", and the DM not telling you if you succeeded or failed at whatever you tried to do. Like my players do that once they clearly know what the spell DC or AC they have to beat on something is. None of those require knowing specific numbers on the die that anyone is rolling.
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Sep 29, 2022 18:40
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Glagha posted:I had a DM who would try not to tell me if my spells succeed or not because "how could you tell?" That’s dumb, but it’s not a reason for every character, especially a never ever before seen threat to walk around with a public stats board they hand to characters. An easy way to explain a spell fizzle or lack of effect can be done via visually, or arcanely explaining the result. Or in many cases, if it’s simply never going to work, I will tell a caster that as you begin to summon the energy to cast whatever, you perceive whatever it is that would negate the spell outright and let them choose another action if they like, as long as it’s bot a direct game mechanic like counterspell. Here’s an easy example: A fighter and cleric meet someone who appears to be some basic grunt, and then when they swing on him, he uses a reaction to throw up a magical shield, and his bracers glow with magic, and the player’s attack misses. Or what looked like an ornamental cloak animates to deflect a blow. Or you chop a creature’s tongue off and it starts to regenerate. There, you learned something about this guy via storytelling, and it’s not fudging numbers. If literally every NPC or dog your party meets is secretly a superspy/mage/villain, it’s a hack storytelling move. And with higher level characters I tend to give them a ton of leeway to use their experiences and skills to assess who is who and what’s what. But there are video games to play or tactical tabletop games that exist where every single mechanic is exposed and secrets and reveals don’t exist, like tabletop tactical wargames etc.
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Sep 29, 2022 18:44
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Azathoth posted:Yeah, I don't see anything wrong with hidden DM rolls and unhidden player rolls, or even a DM doing some rolls hidden and some unhidden. If everyone's a stranger then folks should probably default to everything being public, but meh players should expect some level of DM fuckery. Yeah, the whole point of the conversation was DMs who were hiding information to the direct detriment of their players. It takes nothing away from the campaign to provide a tiny bit of info/context so that your players don't feel cheated out of resources. There is a big difference between "you need to be shown that this enemy is immune to fire damage so you can adjust" and "you need to infer that the roll was high but can't actually do anything about the situation in the future."
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Sep 29, 2022 18:45
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mlmp08 posted:That’s dumb, but it’s not a reason for every character, especially a never ever before seen threat to walk around with a public stats board they hand to characters. Who, other than you, has suggested this at all?
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Sep 29, 2022 18:57
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Toshimo posted:Who, other than you, has suggested this at all? I may have misunderstood. Wasn’t Zurreco saying that the DM hiding an enemy’s AC is unacceptable behavior?
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Sep 29, 2022 19:00
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Clearly we need to bring back thac0 and attack matrix. This way players can't use math to figure out the monsters AC. If they know the attack matrix you can kick them out of the game for daring to read the dungeon masters guide.
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Sep 29, 2022 19:01
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mlmp08 posted:I may have misunderstood. Wasn’t Zurreco saying that the DM hiding an enemy’s AC is unacceptable behavior? No. He never said that.
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Sep 29, 2022 19:12
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I really hope they stick with the theme of making all of the feats offer +1 stat and an effect. Feats are cool and good, and having the math always push players into an ASI until like level 16 sucks.
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Sep 29, 2022 19:18
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NeurosisHead posted:I really hope they stick with the theme of making all of the feats offer +1 stat and an effect. Feats are cool and good, and having the math always push players into an ASI until like level 16 sucks. Yeah, that's a legit good thing and I hope they continue too.
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Sep 29, 2022 19:23
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Glagha posted:save us ALL some time and just say the numbers when stuff happens. This is a method, but the numbers can end up the same but tell two different stories. An enemy rolls a 19 to hit, hits player AC of 18. In this case the enemy is pretty crappy, has a +2 to hit, but it rolled well. An enemy rolls a 19 to hit, hits player AC of 18. in this other case, the enemy is exceptionally skilled at combat, has a +9 to hit, but made a totally mediocre natural roll. You can get that across well with narrative better than with "it rolled a 19 to hit" which might not give players nearly as much info as describing how effortless the latter skilled/dangerous the enemy was in hitting the player versus how lucky and strained the former basic enemy was in hitting. Unless you mean show the numbers like literally saying "It rolled a 19 to hit, because it rolled a natural 17. This enemy has +2 to hit."
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Sep 29, 2022 19:28
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mlmp08 posted:I may have misunderstood. Wasn’t Zurreco saying that the DM hiding an enemy’s AC is unacceptable behavior? Zurreco is saying that withholding the enemy's to-hit roll so the PC doesn't know whether or not Shield will work is unacceptable.
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Sep 29, 2022 20:12
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