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I always use a moral system, which is why I prefer old school monster stat blocks. Its just a score between 1-12 and you roll 2d6 to check against it. If you roll the morale or under the monster continues the fight. I usually do a check if they lose half their numbers, or get hit with a fireball or anything else that seems to turn the tide of battle and make them reconsider.
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Jan 12, 2023 19:11
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Rutibex posted:I always use a moral system, which is why I prefer old school monster stat blocks. Its just a score between 1-12 and you roll 2d6 to check against it. If you roll the morale or under the monster continues the fight. I usually do a check if they lose half their numbers, or get hit with a fireball or anything else that seems to turn the tide of battle and make them reconsider. For a moment there I thought you meant you had set up a system where every opponent had a numeric score denoting how morally righteous it was to kill them. Was very interested to see where you were going with that.
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Jan 12, 2023 19:36
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NAME REDACTED posted:For a moment there I thought you meant you had set up a system where every opponent had a numeric score denoting how morally righteous it was to kill them. Was very interested to see where you were going with that. For certain Paladins, clerics, and thieves I'd imagine their adjusted table would be, "roll a 1 or higher."
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Jan 12, 2023 19:47
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Jack B Nimble posted:Try Three Torches Deep, it's made to be a stripped down version of 5e D&D but it has good travel and supply rules. If you want combat to not always end in death I think a simple but effective method is just establish that the players decide the narrative nature of the basic combat mechanics. It's Five Torches Deep, but seconding the recommendation. I mean I've never played it, but I have the book and it seems to be the best "transition" system between 5e and the OSR playstyle, which is 100% what OP is looking for.
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Jan 12, 2023 20:08
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Oops, yeah, thanks. Yeah it'll be immediately understandable to people's that played 5e or really any of the d20 system but it'll give you the room you need to bring narrative and imagination to the front.
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Jan 12, 2023 20:16
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Rutibex posted:I always use a moral system, which is why I prefer old school monster stat blocks. Its just a score between 1-12 and you roll 2d6 to check against it. If you roll the morale or under the monster continues the fight. I usually do a check if they lose half their numbers, or get hit with a fireball or anything else that seems to turn the tide of battle and make them reconsider. Rules I've always wanted to use because they add ambiance and grittiness: AD&D morale AD&D Pain and wounds (Dragon #118) Twilight:2000 equipment upkeep/repairs Twilight:2000 coolness under fire Aftermath! mass combat Rolemaster fatigue Rolemaster healing wounds Rules I use because they add ambiance and grittiness:
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Jan 12, 2023 20:47
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Agrikk posted:Rules I've always wanted to use because they add ambiance and grittiness: Its not about gritty realism or whatever. As a DM I just prefer to interpret dice rather than make things up myself. It makes the game more interesting and prevents me from falling into a rut.
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Jan 12, 2023 21:31
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Nehru the Damaja posted:I have a setting I made for a D&D game and my growing disenchantment with D&D has made me realize certain ways that game operates aren't ideal for the kind of experience I would want to run. Any suggestions for a good fantasy RPG that hits these buttons?
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Jan 13, 2023 21:46
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In terms of systems that support or encourage conflict other than "I kill everyone," the escalation mechanics of Dogs in the Vineyard are cool from the perspective of explicitly putting the question to the players: "how far do you want to escalate this to succeed?" Conflicts usually start with words, and maybe you're forceful enough to get your message across that way. But if words aren't enough, it goes to fists. If the beat-down isn't sufficient, it might go to weapons. Eventually it can go to guns. The interesting part there are the consequences - how do the rest of the denizens of the town view you if you shot the town drunkard dead after you told him to go home and he refused?
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Jan 13, 2023 21:54
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Can anyone direct me to a big ol' black-sinister-castle map? At some point in my campaign my players are going to have to infiltrate the castle of the Sinister Baddy-Bad Bad Guys to steal a MacGuffin and I don't want to be ad-libbing the map. I'm envisioning a multi-session sneaky-stealth crawl though a Fortress of Ultimate Darkness / Minas Morgul / Death Star complex that, of course, goes hot and results in a mad dash, rolling battle to the gates. I'm looking for complexes and sub-complexes, multi-levels, and thousands of sentries talking about the new BT-16. They say it's... it's quite a thing to see. Anyone got a good map for this? edit: I'm looking for the map equivalent of this:  Agrikk fucked around with this message at 01:30 on Jan 16, 2023 |
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Jan 16, 2023 01:24
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Agrikk posted:Can anyone direct me to a big ol' black-sinister-castle map? Here you go H4 Throne of Bloodstone, suitable for level 99 characters. You will fight through at least 4-5 layers of the abyss, and the main fortresses of every demon prince. The final part is of course the fortress of Orcus himself. Watch out for the Tarrasque and the city of Liches! https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16805/H4-The-Throne-of-Bloodstone-1e
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Jan 16, 2023 01:44
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Nehru the Damaja posted:I have a setting I made for a D&D game and my growing disenchantment with D&D has made me realize certain ways that game operates aren't ideal for the kind of experience I would want to run. Any suggestions for a good fantasy RPG that hits these buttons? You'll have to do a lot of reskinning, but the mechanical bones ought to be there.
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Jan 16, 2023 12:34
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Nehru the Damaja posted:I have a setting I made for a D&D game and my growing disenchantment with D&D has made me realize certain ways that game operates aren't ideal for the kind of experience I would want to run. Any suggestions for a good fantasy RPG that hits these buttons? Fellowship may or may not be up your alley. There's one member of the fellowship per player (less one for the Overlord they're questing against, plus anyone they form a bond with to recruit), journeys are a structural thing where people take turns describing events along the way, you're expected to mark off units of food as you adventure and catch a break between scenes, combat against worthy foes relies on members of the fellowship making opportunities for each other, and the move to Finish Them has five approaches by default, only one of which is lethal. It's a game where the fellowship players are expected (it's recorded on their character sheets as agenda items to be acting toward) to be brave, take risks, tell the table of their people (elves, angels, tinkers, spying organizations, the heir's kingdom, and so on), and improve the world around them, so if your players can't be convinced to do that in a game expressly about it, you might have problems with your table's ability to roleplay as people they're not that a game selection can't help you with.
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Jan 16, 2023 16:42
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Rutibex posted:Here you go H4 Throne of Bloodstone, suitable for level 99 characters. You will fight through at least 4-5 layers of the abyss, and the main fortresses of every demon prince. The final part is of course the fortress of Orcus himself. Watch out for the Tarrasque and the city of Liches! Thanks for the tip! I checked it out and it is bonkers. It’s as though someone looked at the Deities and Demigods book and said, “looks great. We’ll take all of it.” I think it just might be what the doctor ordered.
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Jan 16, 2023 23:06
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Agrikk posted:Thanks for the tip! If it's a little too much, you could try Castle Ravenloft instead.
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Jan 17, 2023 20:26
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I left the moleskine notebook with my GM notes on a plane yesterday. 18 months worth of world building and adventure ideas, gone! We’ll see whether American Airlines’ lost and found is any good but I’m not optimistic. Suuuuucks.
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Jan 17, 2023 22:30
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Ugh that's awful. Turn it into an in world event where everyone has collectively lost the details of the past. Books are pulled from library shelves and found to be blank. Obelisks are now smoothly unadorned. Historians and sages find even simple details dancing at the edge of memory. Who could have done this? The only memory still extant, the legendary thief Ere'Lynne. Can the heroes steal back their past? Do they even want to? What does it mean to be a world without memory?
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Jan 17, 2023 22:49
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Nehru the Damaja posted:I have a setting I made for a D&D game and my growing disenchantment with D&D has made me realize certain ways that game operates aren't ideal for the kind of experience I would want to run. Any suggestions for a good fantasy RPG that hits these buttons? Check out Mythras, it's a low fantasy d100 game system. Brings everything down to a more "Game of Thrones" scope in terms of realism but has the potential to be high magic if you want it to be. The magic systems in general are very interesting.
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Jan 17, 2023 23:04
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So if poo poo goes down is there anything as ‘slick’ as D&D Beyond in regards to character generation and looking stuff up for PF2E? I just bought Foundry to spice up my home game, so I figure I’ll switch my game over if things turn bad, as I got the “Core Rulebook” as a big PDF from some bundle. That’s just the equivalent of the PHB, right? I’ll still need MM and DMG equivalents?
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Jan 18, 2023 05:13
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Your definition of slick may vary depending on your web design preferences, but the sites you are looking for are: https://pathbuilder2e.com/ for creating characters and https://2e.aonprd.com/ for compendium material and databases (monsters and items etc). I am kinda in the same boat, my group wants to switch to PF2 and I've been using Foundry as a "virtual battlemat" without using much of the 5E integration up to now, but apparently the PF2 system for it is a lot more complete. I haven't really dug into using Foundry to run the game yet, though. oh yeah and the PF thread: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4010191
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Jan 18, 2023 05:48
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Hello. My party are about to enter the crystalized corpse of an ancient deity dragon they have found deep underground. This thing is humongous, and an ancient civilization hollowed it out as a temple. I want this experience to be weird and different. This deity is one of the planes creator gods and I want the properties of this place to reflect the recumbent power in it's crystal body. I was thinking about putting them in a loop. Once they are inside the creature, they keep coming back to the same central room. But each time they complete a puzzle/section, the room changes and eventually they get the way out. I want to include things that break the laws of physics (most basic one, the door to the 'north' connects to the door to the 'south' until they solve the issue. Has anyone done anything like this before? Does anyone have any advice or pitfalls to avoid? I am planning for the God's Draconic spirit to also haunt the place as a gigantic spectral head. Toying with the idea of it attempting possession as well so the party can talk to it etc. Edit: Possibly a timeloop? They enter the temple at different periods in time. So in the past they are interacting with the old civilisation, then the present then the far future? Phrosphor fucked around with this message at 00:12 on Jan 20, 2023 |
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Jan 19, 2023 23:58
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Is there a good tool or set of charts for damage averages? I see charts for "the" average, 2d6=7 average damage. But are there more useful or nuanced charts? I want to adjust monster damage so my Froghemoth doesn't one hit kill the players, but I don't want to nerf it too hard. 3d10+6 damage is way too lethal, but I worry that 2d6 is way too soft. My excuse is that the critter is absolutely ancient, so it's like grandpa trying to put up a fight. The monster suits the setting and is such a fun fit for a mid-game boss fight I want to use it, even if the as-written stat block is way too deadly. Indolent Bastard fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Jan 20, 2023 |
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Jan 20, 2023 01:47
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https://anydice.com/ is what you're looking for I think
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Jan 20, 2023 02:12
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Phrosphor posted:Hello. My party are about to enter the crystalized corpse of an ancient deity dragon they have found deep underground. This thing is humongous, and an ancient civilization hollowed it out as a temple. those are all fairly baseline fantasy things to happen, which doesn't mean you shouldn't do them but that's basically what I'd expect. in terms of going beyond that, i'd make a list of strange sounds, events, odours and memories and drop them randomly in. riffing on the room you had, maybe a really long stairway that keeps getting grander and grander, pillars, banners, carving, then ends in a tiny door that leads them back to the other side of the room they started in but they can hear the voices of the party echoing back down the stairs they just climbed if everything is crystal, maybe the crystal is full of voices, like if you hold it up to your ears you hear whispering, with various weird consequences if you listen too hard? i also strongly recommend having them find a perfectly round red apple lying in the middle of the floor.
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Jan 20, 2023 02:31
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sebmojo posted:those are all fairly baseline fantasy things to happen, which doesn't mean you shouldn't do them but that's basically what I'd expect. This is awesome thanks. I am going to have them loop through different times that the temple has existed in. So they will see it degrade and die as time passes and this place is forgotten. I like the idea of the voices trapped, resonating within the crystal. I also like the staircase between 'rooms'. I might have them bump into an alternate universe version of the party, but I don't want them to get into a fight with them so I am not sure.
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Jan 20, 2023 03:02
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If they do get into a fight with themselves, just make it meaningless but gently caress with ‘em. Make the counterparts engage each other directly, and any time one scores a hit on the other, they swap places, give the players a check to notice themselves swapping, but by the end, they’ll have no idea who is from the original group and who is an alternate. Anyone hitting a non-counterpart is ported out back to the main room and thus doesn’t get to know who may or may not have swapped after, once the entire party returns.
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Jan 20, 2023 03:13
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If you wanted to make them hyperaware of sound, you could remap cardinal directions to speech. Each room is an exact loop of the next, until they figure out the language. To leave a room going west, ask a question. East, answer it. North is a statement, south is silence.
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Jan 20, 2023 03:15
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Phrosphor posted:Hello. My party are about to enter the crystalized corpse of an ancient deity dragon they have found deep underground. This thing is humongous, and an ancient civilization hollowed it out as a temple. There is a Dragon Magazine article from way back (1e) called “the Dancing Hut” and is about Baba Yaga’s house. Dragon Magazine #83 But an interesting feature is that the house is built around a tesseract that warps and bends reality so the map is all broken up and twisted. As far as exotic “bases” are concerned, that module is one of my favorites. Let me see if I can dig up a pdf of it and post it here.
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Jan 20, 2023 03:16
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Phrosphor posted:This is awesome thanks. I am going to have them loop through different times that the temple has existed in. So they will see it degrade and die as time passes and this place is forgotten. I like the idea of the voices trapped, resonating within the crystal. I also like the staircase between 'rooms'. I might have them bump into an alternate universe version of the party, but I don't want them to get into a fight with them so I am not sure. Is this an in person game or online? My idea for the alternate universe version of the party would be an unrelated fight starting and each player finding themselves in control of two copies of themselves. So the players can split their attack/move/etc actions between the two copies. Probably a good idea for damage to be shared between the copies. At the end of the fight each player can decide which copy was the real thing all along, based on the actions each made during combat. Make sure the enemies are scary but exceptionally vulnerable to being teamed up on, flanked, etc. This originally started as an idea to "balance" martial classes vs. casters but it should be perfect for this sort of thing.
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Jan 20, 2023 06:39
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Indolent Bastard posted:Is there a good tool or set of charts for damage averages? I see charts for "the" average, 2d6=7 average damage. But are there more useful or nuanced charts? I want to adjust monster damage so my Froghemoth doesn't one hit kill the players, but I don't want to nerf it too hard. The average result of a die is in the middle, and you can just add those up. A d6 averages 3.5, a d10 5.5, and so on. The average of 3d10+6 is 3 x 5.5 = 24.5.
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Jan 20, 2023 06:55
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If your concern is one-shotting players, then what you want to minimise is swinginess - the difference between the maximum and the minimum damage it can do in a round. For example, a d6 averages to 3.5 long-term, so rolling 3d6 for damage will give you an average damage of 10.5 per roll, a maximum damage of 18, and a minimum damage of 3. If you were instead to roll d6+8, your average damage per roll would still be 10.5 but your maximum damage per hit is now just 14. The other really good way to avoid swingy damage from one-shotting players is to handle crits differently. Instead of crits doing double damage, instead have them do the maximum damage that you could roll. This still makes them significant, but they're still within the bounds of something you'd expect to happen in the round.
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Jan 20, 2023 09:05
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I really like how Symbaroum handles this. It's a weird system where you buy powers with exp instead of traditional leveling and the setting/style is grim dark and survival horror ish. But the big thing is players do all the rolling. PCs have a defensive roll against the attack to not get hit. When they get hit their armor provides a dice of defense against a flat enemy damage. It's very fun. As was mentioned, fewer dice= tighter range around the average. Harold Fjord fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Jan 20, 2023 |
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Jan 20, 2023 15:49
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Harold Fjord posted:As was mentioned, fewer dice= tighter range around the average.
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Jan 20, 2023 16:09
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Due to real life stuff my group’s Curse of Strahd game is going on hiatus for a bit. However, most of the players are still available to play so I want to run a mini campaign with a very different tone but similar setting. Unfortunately I don’t know enough about 5e mechanics to know what level would be best for the PCs and need your advice. The game is going to be a high octane action game that takes place over one in-game night. It’s sort of the plot of The Warriors: their Dreadlord is assassinated and they need to get back to the safety of the castle atop the spooky mountain while monster hunters and other monster factions chase them down. There will be train heists, carriage to carriage combat on mountain passes, and rooftop chases. Working title: 2Fang2Furious. They will only have access to short rests or small HP regens by a “feeding” mechanic I’m playing with for the entire game, probably 5-6 sessions of nearly nonstop combat/chasing. What level would afford my PC’s the most options and a mid-tier monster level of power without having to deal with the godhood of endgame play. Thinking the answer has to be somewhere within 8-12 but tbh I’ve never had a dnd game go that high and I’m the forever DM so character creation poo poo is a mystery. Thanks xoxo.
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Jan 20, 2023 20:32
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Siivola posted:Just to confuse Indolent Bastard further: This is true when you look at the difference between 3d6 and 1d6+8, but it gets complicated when you look at something like the difference between 1d20 and 3d6. The averages and maximum values are (broadly) similar, but the probability of rolling exactly 10 is much higher on the 3d6 than the 1d20 because of how the d6s add up. No confusion, it is all food for thought. Thank you. The fight is just supposed to be fun, so I may fudge to ensure the wacky running down a road Warcraft like boss fight stays fun. The thing that will make this difficult is if the players don't try to kite the monster. If they try a stand-up fight, it may not go well even with it nerfed. The way to run a Froghemoth was well laid out in this post I found. It can be played more like a video game boss than a standard D&D fight. It has attack patterns and behaviors that make it more interesting to me. https://www.themonstersknow.com/froghemoth-tactics/
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Jan 20, 2023 20:56
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My players tonight are sailing with an ill-gotten fortune to what they are choosing to call "Spring Break Pirate Island." They are very jazzed to arrive on the pirate-founded libertarian merchant island ruled by a backstabbing council of powerful forces with a bunch of cash burning a whole in their pockets. BTW, If anyone wants it I've spent a bunch of time making backstory and rumors for the island that would honestly work in any campaign setting, and if you'd like a guide to the setting to play around with on your own, I can compile notes into a google doc and put it here for free for y'all. E: Also to follow up on the 70s action movie chase scene session, it worked out really well and the players had a lot of fun. It was kind of permission to be a little more mischievous and bold with their characters and people found themselves really getting into the action. Oldsrocket_27 fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Jan 22, 2023 |
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Jan 22, 2023 21:27
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Speaking of pirates, I have a sort of unusual request for advice because it's not directly TTRPG related. Nautical adventure seems fun, and boats and ships are the natural place to put fun chases and swashbuckling action in a fantasy setting. I've always wanted to use them, but there's one problem. I don't know jack poo poo about boats. Despite growing up by the sea, I'm a landlubber and loving hate being on boats IRL. I barely know how they work. Ships are a whole world of weird nautical jargon with port and starboard and calling kitchens galleys, plus whatever it is crew does. I've been in a whole nautical campaign run by a super-knowledgeable GM and unfortunately I didn't take the opportunity to learn then, it all just flew over my head and I focused on the land bits. But I'd love to learn - just enough to be able to semi-competently run a short pirate-themed adventure or a river boat chase without making obvious fuckups on basic knowledge. Can someone recommend accessible resources to learn the basics about this stuff, preferably geared towards this practical use for GMs (or writers I guess)?
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Jan 22, 2023 21:42
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You could have the captain of their vessel as bad at it as you are, playing it up for laughs. "Port? Don't mind if I do!" *glug glug glug* "Starboard? Ya mean that chart thing in the cabin? Never had a use for it! Pretty though." This would at least let you get started while you learn.
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Jan 22, 2023 21:57
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Oldsrocket_27 posted:My players tonight are sailing with an ill-gotten fortune to what they are choosing to call "Spring Break Pirate Island." They are very jazzed to arrive on the pirate-founded libertarian merchant island ruled by a backstabbing council of powerful forces with a bunch of cash burning a whole in their pockets. 
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Jan 22, 2023 21:58
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I'm busy being dad until the session's about to start, but I can try to put it all into one document either tonight or tomorrow.
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Jan 22, 2023 22:24
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