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They got rid of a magical amulet with blood related powers and was connected to the plot as soon as they realized It was cursed. Same another group for a powerful cursed Sword that required periodical killing to Power up and, before that, the magical bag that tries to bring you on a vengeance quest against an extra-dimensional demon. They just tried to get of the object as soon as they could.
YggdrasilTM fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Apr 6, 2023 |
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Apr 6, 2023 23:41
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Cursed item that every time you invoke its power, you get one inch shorter until you eventually disappear into nothing The gnome they stole it off of used to be a goliath
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Apr 6, 2023 23:53
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Leperflesh posted:To me a curse should inspire the fiction. As long as you possess the cursed object, you are [haunted by the ghost of its creator | can only speak in rhyming couplets | can no longer see the color red | everything you eat tastes like ashes in your mouth | become an irresistible magnet to bees | have an incurable case of the pox | all your hair falls out and won't grow back | have terrible nightmares whenever you sleep | everyone sees you as a hideous troll | are compelled to deliver an insult to every person you meet | go blind | age rapidly | cannot move beyond ten thousand steps from the item's place of origin | etc.] until you are rid of the thing. We had a good one of these in a previous campaign. Our rogue found a magical shortbow that had no mechanical curse but two RP effects: 1) it made her believe she was the greatest archer in the world 2) if she ever met another archer she was filled with the desire to prove she was better than them. It sincerely changed how she reacted in combat and in social situations, to the point of the party staging an intervention.
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Apr 7, 2023 00:19
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Reveilled posted:The best "cursed" item I ever gave the party was the +3 rapier they stole from Jarlaxle Baenre, which had the dread curse "Jarlaxle wants his loving sword back". My group stole an Acheron blade longsword from a vampire with a similar curse. "She wants her loving sword back" became an ever-present threat of her crashing their exploits. In fact, she killed one of them for it.
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Apr 7, 2023 00:27
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I started off running my players through the Sunless Citadel and two of them are a moon elf cleric and paladin pair that basically described themselves as yokai and curse hunters. we decided they had been sent by an elf sage to find an artifact in the ruins. That ended up being a makeshift "stake" that some hero used to pierce the heart of the ancient vampire Gulthias himself, whose influence ended up corrupting the tree he was staked to, as well as the stake itself, which is actually the scepter of a god of portals and doorways (the idea being that whoever fought the vampire just used whatever holy object they could get their hands on in desperation). It's more of a plot device than a magical item for the characters to use, but got me started on this theme. in the citadel itself, the druid guarding the grove and the Gulthias tree bought the goblin chief's help with a magic circlet, supposedly so he would receive praise from the spirits of his ancestors and past chieftains of his tribe, but their voices ended up driving him mad instead. My druid player wants to be able to contact her predecessors in an Avatar-type way so this item was pretty much bait for her, but I think that the mechanical function of the curse will be that every time she uses it, I roll a d20 to see if everything she hears is a lie. they're currently on another quest for a story-related cursed artifact and it's becoming a running theme for the campaign, so I wanted to get an idea for how I should keep designing items like these, now you've all even given me some concepts to steal! Tosk fucked around with this message at 15:10 on Apr 7, 2023 |
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Apr 7, 2023 02:40
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One of the best curses in our game wasn't an object, but I could see it being used with one. The dwarf fighter ghosted a human lover to marry another dwarf. His ex had information we needed, though, so off to pester her we went. She gave this cliched "I'm mad about what you did but love you enough still to be happy you're happy" and shook his hand goodbye. Two sessions later, we attempt to heal the fighter mid-combat only to discover he can't recover hit points. It made what would have been an easy fight suddenly very tense, and a cool investigation later to determine how he got cursed and how to remove it. (It was his ex, dun dun duuuuuuun)
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Apr 7, 2023 13:46
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Reveilled posted:The best "cursed" item I ever gave the party was the +3 rapier they stole from Jarlaxle Baenre, which had the dread curse "Jarlaxle wants his loving sword back". This. This is 100% a Jarlaxle thing.  Doing this sort of thing well is why I personally prefer *not* to play in Forgotten Realms because I love these characters so much that I'd worry that the DM (or me, if its me) might not be able to properly do them justice; so seeing something like this that 100% feels congruent to the fiction and the idea of the character makes me so happy to hear it; as its like the peak of D&D (in an Established Setting) for me. 
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Apr 7, 2023 15:23
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And tonkght we are going ode the good old body swapping thing so I'm using an armor artefice but since I am origynally a vengeance oath paladin I'm going superaggreaaive and I play as Basically iron Man. Sorry 'm drunk. Bacaro tour. It'ya Venice stuff
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Apr 7, 2023 15:33
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Raenir Salazar posted:This. This is 100% a Jarlaxle thing. Thanks! I've not read many of Jarlaxle's books, so I don't know if the follow up was also in keeping, but throughout the back half of the adventure the party (who were harper agents) were expressing misgivings to each other about what their boss (the spymaster of Waterdeep) was up to. She could have reassured them if they'd spoken, but all of them chickened out of actually confronting her about it so it led to them just stewing in their own disillusionment. Jarlaxle, spying on the party through his sword, came prepared to the final fight armed primarily with a speech designed to hammer hard on all those doubts and paint himself as the good guy, finishing with promises of asylum and work in Luskan for the party in if they joined him. It was the first time I've had a villain give a "I am the one in the right here" speech which resulted in the party deciding that the villain didn't just have a point but was actually just objectively correct and taking the offer.
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Apr 7, 2023 16:23
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Reveilled posted:Thanks! I've not read many of Jarlaxle's books, so I don't know if the follow up was also in keeping, but throughout the back half of the adventure the party (who were harper agents) were expressing misgivings to each other about what their boss (the spymaster of Waterdeep) was up to. She could have reassured them if they'd spoken, but all of them chickened out of actually confronting her about it so it led to them just stewing in their own disillusionment. Jarlaxle, spying on the party through his sword, came prepared to the final fight armed primarily with a speech designed to hammer hard on all those doubts and paint himself as the good guy, finishing with promises of asylum and work in Luskan for the party in if they joined him.  YES!
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Apr 7, 2023 17:52
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Tosk posted:...snip... From personal experience, I want to warn you that this approach is going to create some massive disparities between your player characters based on which classes need to get their magic from loot, and which have it baked into their class or subclass. If simply being able to deliver magical damage without a malus by Tier 2 is in question, you're going to make your mundane rogues wish that they had picked soul knife instead of swashbuckler, thief, assassin, scout, etc. The same problem will exist for fighters and barbarians and to a lesser extent, paladins and rangers. Monks actually have a built-in solution for this with Ki Empowered Strikes at level 6. You may want to try to balance this by limiting magic granted by classes: magical effects drawing unwanted attention, or making even simple components and foci require questing for, or not automatically granting new spells on level up, or even limiting the number of innately magic classes can be in the party. All these are even further departures from how 5e is designed and balanced for. E: a big part of the problem is many of the base classes and many of the more recent subclasses just really don't fit with a low magic world. You may have to go through all the options to decide which are even compatible with your vision. Ginger Beer Belly fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Apr 8, 2023 |
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Apr 8, 2023 15:37
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Just cull non-magical resistance wherever you see fit.
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Apr 8, 2023 15:46
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Yeah if you do low magic, just like make basic +x weapons and armor still non magical in fiction but "incredibly well crafted" and allow it to be so well crafted to break said resistances and immunities.
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Apr 8, 2023 16:12
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Adamantine is not inherently magical, just real strong.
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Apr 8, 2023 16:30
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Are there TTRPGs with weapon progression systems ala Dark Souls upgrades? I feel like that's a system which would be well suited for Dungeons and Dragons. That might start treading into 4e weapon systems, I dunno. IIRC there was a whole method of melting down magic items to get other, better items? It would be nice for players to have options to drag a beloved weapon along through a whole campaign. Plus, more options for rewards. What if looking behind that abandoned obelisk in the distance revealed mystical upgrade stones? Sounds better than random coins. On the Dark Souls note, I also think weapon coatings beyond "silvered weapons" would be nice. Combined with a weapon upgrade system, you could have interesting dynamics between magical weapons, temporary magical coating, different resources for upgrading magic vs mundane weapons, etc. Maybe it's all just too cumbersome for most players but, I dunno, it might help with the lack of interesting nonmagical loot in 5e. I know, it's a meme to post about naively grafting systems from other games to 5e but it's exciting me at the moment dammit. I also want to complain about Vancian magic but that will be a rant for later.
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Apr 8, 2023 21:56
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HOMOEROTIC JESUS posted:Are there TTRPGs with weapon progression systems ala Dark Souls upgrades? I feel like that's a system which would be well suited for Dungeons and Dragons. That might start treading into 4e weapon systems, I dunno. IIRC there was a whole method of melting down magic items to get other, better items? Pathfinder 2e has magic being imbued on existing items by having runes carved into them, and these runes can be changed out later. This can be done for you, or if you have the right crafting skills you can do it yourself. https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=733
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Apr 8, 2023 22:00
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And Pathfinder has an optional rule to just automatically level up your gear. https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1357 It does have Vancian casting, which yeah, isn't great, although there's an optional rule for that, too. https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1519 3 Action Economist fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Apr 8, 2023 |
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Apr 8, 2023 22:16
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The Critical Role setting books has items called Vestiges of Divergence that basically have three states: Dormant Awakened Exalted Where the item starts in its dormant state as a +1 weapon/armor with some magical abilities, then depending on damage dealt, killing blows delivered, hits avoided, puns shat, whatever levels up and gains another +1 and more abilities.
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Apr 8, 2023 22:21
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Government Handjob posted:The Critical Role setting books has items called Vestiges of Divergence that basically have three states: That's pretty cool.
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Apr 8, 2023 22:22
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Beaten to both the pathfinder stuff and the Wildemount stuff. Might as well bring up Dragon Hoard Gear from Fizban’s which can upgrade in four stages.
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Apr 8, 2023 22:26
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there's also the option as DM of just homebrewing it and giving your player fun quest elements by which their weapon improves. In the campaign I finished last summer, our main heavy was a Warforged fighter who had a magical sword with beasts carved into it that did extra radiant damage after he activated it (which recharged on a short rest). When we hit level 11, he had a dream where he fought a wooden Warforged with huge antlers who was wielding the same sword as him. After he won, he woke up and the sword's hilt was now gold and its stats had improved.
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Apr 8, 2023 22:37
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I believe Fizban's Treasury of Dragons also gives magic items that get more powerful over time. The tricky thing about 5e is the whole bounded accuracy thing, a +3 weapon early on is potentially game breaking, while Dark Souls has "+10" weapons. Granted each increment in DS does something different then just increasing values by 1. For my campaign I'm DM'ing I found a website that generates "Weak" magic item effects and then I just grab a few that look useful for my players and put them on a weapon/item/armor. The problem is this makes the items very clunky and complicated having 3+ minor effects to keep track of. So it'd be interesting if there was a way to upgrade a magic item so each improvement keeps it bounded. Like it'd be great if you could have say 10 upgrades on a weapon that keeps it between +1 to +3; so you can sub out all base +1 to +3 weapon and replace them with a sort of crafting/upgrade system without it resulting in overly complicated weapons; a nice compromise between qualitative and quantitative (or horizontal vs vertical) progression.
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Apr 8, 2023 22:38
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+X Weapon = +X To-Hit Striking/Greater Striking/Greatest Striking = +Tier damage dice, requires equivalent tier +X Flaming/Thundering/etc. = +Tier elemental damage Returning/Ethereal/etc. = Take up a slot, shares slots with Dmage Type, Slots=Tier Original Concept Do Not Steal
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Apr 8, 2023 23:08
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There is a 5e supplement called Beyond Damage Dice that explains other actions you can use a weapon for. I have locked those abilities behind gates in the past.
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Apr 9, 2023 02:09
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Toshimo posted:+X Weapon = +X To-Hit These definitely are some good ideas, are probably a little stronger than whatever I randomly came up with before and maybe there's other ways of playing with this. For example I think a weapon can probably do more flat damage and not break the game. +1 to +5 Damage within a tier? It isn't affected by crits and is probably more powerful at lower levels than higher levels? Zurreco posted:There is a 5e supplement called Beyond Damage Dice that explains other actions you can use a weapon for. I have locked those abilities behind gates in the past. Googling, these are some good ideas too albeit they fall more under the Elden Ring style of Sword Skills and the like.
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Apr 9, 2023 02:51
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Ginger Beer Belly posted:From personal experience, I want to warn you that this approach is going to create some massive disparities between your player characters based on which classes need to get their magic from loot, and which have it baked into their class or subclass. Thanks. What you mention hadn't come up too often in my previous games, but my last real campaign ended around level 6 during the pandemic, and a few attempts in-between haven't gotten past level 4 yet. Like I mentioned in that post, I have come to the conclusion that yeah, I agree D&D just doesn't fit that kind of fantasy very well and it's best left to other games. Tosk fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Apr 10, 2023 |
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Apr 9, 2023 03:02
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My thanks to everyone for the weapon upgrade ideas! I'm still reading and pondering.
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Apr 9, 2023 12:49
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Did a quick one shot with my girlfriend and her youngest kid today that involved robot ninjas kidnapping the mayor, ghost pirates unaware of their own demise, a giant walrus, an evil wizard and a case of mistaken identity.
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Apr 9, 2023 19:03
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Government Handjob posted:Did a quick one shot with my girlfriend and her youngest kid today that involved robot ninjas kidnapping the mayor, ghost pirates unaware of their own demise, a giant walrus, an evil wizard and a case of mistaken identity. Did the kid turn into a murder hobo?
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Apr 9, 2023 19:28
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He did pretty well in the encounters that could be solved non-violently, but I telegraphed pretty hard that there were other options.
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Apr 9, 2023 20:33
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Verisimilidude posted:The dnd movie was really fun, you should def check it out
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Apr 12, 2023 22:26
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I'm still tickled by the line, "I do not traffic in colloquialisms."
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Apr 13, 2023 14:31
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Bobby Deluxe posted:I feel like the paladin was pitched at just the right balance between virtue and silliness. Like the rock as he's walking away. "Is he going to go round... no, straight over it." He was legit the funniest character in the movie IMO, Rene-Jean Page has great comedic timing. Also what a spot-on interpretation of "DMPC with an edgy backstory"
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Apr 13, 2023 14:37
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The casting overall was brilliant, but Hugh Grant as "annoyingly more charming than Chris Pine" and Rege as "annoyingly prettier than Chris Pine" were especially brilliant
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Apr 13, 2023 14:44
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I was distracted by how incredibly attractive the paladin was.
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Apr 13, 2023 15:47
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I'm gonna be running a short game this weekend for a couple of friends, two of which haven't really played much dnd. Nothing too complicated since there'll be alcohol involved. I want to do something silly like having them stuck in a Resident Evil mansion with a Nemesis-like Blood Golem Meets The Kool Aid Man creature hunting them, but I'm not quite sure how to pull it off yet, so suggestions are welcome.
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Apr 13, 2023 18:29
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Government Handjob posted:I'm gonna be running a short game this weekend for a couple of friends, two of which haven't really played much dnd. Nothing too complicated since there'll be alcohol involved. Just play Death House and tune it to suit
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Apr 13, 2023 18:57
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I also like the idea of a horror movie stalker-monster but I'm not sure how to make it work in D&D. Hit-and-run attacks that wear them down and make them paranoid maybe.
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Apr 13, 2023 19:01
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Van Richtan's Guide actually gave a Meyers style slasher as a monster
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Apr 13, 2023 19:34
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Play a game of Betrayal at House on the Hill and then copy your final board + events into the session plan.
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Apr 13, 2023 19:50
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