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Tias posted:One of my players, the human bard, is from the charlatan background and has the "disgraced noble losing all her lands" bond. In the Forgotten Realms, which kind of noble would she be, and what families might be relevant to tie her in with? We're starting with a (reskinned) Ghosts of Saltmarsh, so it makes sense for her to be somewhere around the Mere of Dead Men. Waterdeep nobility is at least touched on in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist for 5e. See this 3e web enhancement (this is a direct link to a zip file to download from archive.org) for details on noble lands and manors around the city: https://web.archive.org/web/20160816130823/http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/WATERDEEP2CX.zip
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Jul 9, 2023 20:17
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^^^^ Aw yiss, thanks a lot! ^^^^ Kinda, yes. The "Prime Material Plane", if I remember correctly, is the place where all the normal lands and continents are, full of all the regular races, monsters, undead and whatever else peoples the "primary" plane of existance your game takes place in. This is to contrast it with the "Negative Material Plane" where everything is pure anti-living energy, home to shadows and all manner of other powerful undead, and the "Positive Material Plane", which is the pure land in which everything reaches its full potential of life. This has since been replaced with other planes, but that is how it used to be.
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Jul 9, 2023 20:18
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Tias posted:Whereas I understand that you can only cast one spell requiring concentration at a time, at what times is a spellcasters concentration in danger of being broken? Can you cast a spell while in melee if, say, you make a check of some sort? Must you check to keep concentration if you take damage? Concentration, unless I have forgotten something - it's been a minute since I played a caster - is only threatened when you take damage, and you have to make a Con Save vs 10+(1/2 of damage taken) to keep it running. This is still a pretty dicey check given that no Casters are natively proficient in Constitution saves, and why War Caster is considered one of the stronger feats for a spellcaster to take.
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Jul 9, 2023 20:29
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Tias posted:Whereas I understand that you can only cast one spell requiring concentration at a time, at what times is a spellcasters concentration in danger of being broken? Can you cast a spell while in melee if, say, you make a check of some sort? Must you check to keep concentration if you take damage? If you have already cast a spell that requires concentration, the only way to lose concentration is to cast another spell that requires concentration, hold an action to cast ANY spell or cantrip, become incapacitated, or to take damage. I suppose letting your concentration spell last for its duration also counts, technically. Per your question and per 5e rules, taking any standard action or whatever should not interfere with concentrating as long as it isn't the first two things listed previously. You are only at risk of losing concentration against your will if an outside force damages you or otherwise takes you out of the fight. You SHOULD make a concentration check if you take any damage, but I have seen some DMs let minor (~1 damage) environmental sources of damage not trigger it. Something really interesting that Solasta added is the Annoying Bee cantrip which a fun little prodding way of dealing with casters, but I understand that some people think it is OP. I'd like to see more of that kind of status manipulation stuff in ODD development. Monathin posted:you have to make a Con Save vs 10+(1/2 of damage taken) to keep it running. The DC is 10 or half of the damage taken, whichever is higher.
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Jul 9, 2023 21:17
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Zurreco posted:If you have already cast a spell that requires concentration, the only way to lose concentration is to [...] hold an action to cast ANY spell or cantrip,
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Jul 9, 2023 22:24
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Bobby Deluxe posted:I had never heard that one before, where does that come from? I'm pretty sure it's in the basic rules for readying an action - readying a spell takes Concentration. Zurreco posted:The DC is 10 or half of the damage taken, whichever is higher. D'oh, that's right, that'll teach me to mix up my systems, I think that's the math for a similar thing in Pathfinder 1e.
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Jul 9, 2023 22:27
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Your DM can also force you to make a concentration check in other, non-damaging disruptive circumstances (I believe the example they give is getting carried off your feet by a huge wave of water) but this is entirely subjective.
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Jul 9, 2023 22:46
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Bobby Deluxe posted:I had never heard that one before, where does that come from? https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/5e_SRD:Ready_Action
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Jul 9, 2023 22:48
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Edit: nevermind link above answers
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Jul 9, 2023 22:50
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Oh right, that does actually make sense.
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Jul 10, 2023 01:43
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Vanadium posted:Not technically a 5e question, but which book(s?) should I read to understand why everybody loves Planescape? The second edition books (I’d just start with the campaign setting book and go from there to be honest) are written pretty much fully in character as if they’re guides written by NPCs, which wasn’t unheard of for setting books in that period (I remember Volo’s guides to the realms were written like actual pre-internet travel guides, with reviews of pubs and hotels), but the slang usage gave it a very distinctive style that was basically catnip for a certain kind of lore junkie. There’s still a few Web 1.0 sites out there for planescape stuff (e.g. mimir.net) where you can see the result, basically everyone wrote their material for the setting by adopting an in-universe persona. I do think it suffers a bit from the Seinfeld Problem in the modern day; it’s grimy cosmopolitanism, the strange city where an angel could have tea with a demon, the divorcing of D&D from any semblance of the medieval to make something pure fantasy, all of that has been iterated upon and done countless times since and it wouldn’t surprise me if a modern reader couldn’t quite see what we saw in the 90s. It blew my mind as a kid.
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Jul 10, 2023 04:01
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Bobby Deluxe posted:Hmm, weird incident with our DM. We just finished a mini arc and were headed back to the big town to spend our ill-gotten gains etc. DM says at the magic shop that we can get "any magic item of uncommon or lower rarity." He grants our party several green rarity items of their choice - cloak of protection, ruby of the war mage, admantine armour etc. . As a first time DM I understand the impulse when players do something unexpected that will have large potential ramifications to say "no" simply because it's scary and unplanned and will make a lot of things difficult. That being said, I've found it's best to try and say "yes" anyway and figure out the aftermath because that's what the players have fun with, and even if it ends up a shitshow it's a good story everyone can look back on and laugh about. I don't know how experienced your DM is, but it sounds like a knee-jerk reaction and talking about it, as other poster have said, might sort things out.
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Jul 10, 2023 04:22
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Bobby Deluxe posted:Hmm, weird incident with our DM. We just finished a mini arc and were headed back to the big town to spend our ill-gotten gains etc. DM says at the magic shop that we can get "any magic item of uncommon or lower rarity." He grants our party several green rarity items of their choice - cloak of protection, ruby of the war mage, admantine armour etc. . If you want an extra bit of ammo that it won't imbalance the class and is totally expected within the rules, in Adventure's League you can get one free at 5th level. https://media.wizards.com/2021/dnd/downloads/DDAL_PlayersGuidev11_0.pdf quote:STARTING PLAY AT 5TH LEVEL That says for starting at 5th level, but is given out to players that get there through leveling up too because AL is so random and you might never get the thing you want. Like as a ranger by 5th level I had a bunch of magic swords and daggers, and a boatload of weird poo poo, but what I needed was a magic longbow. WotC totally expect warlocks to get a rod of the pact keeper.
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Jul 10, 2023 05:35
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Reveilled posted:The second edition books (I’d just start with the campaign setting book and go from there to be honest) are written pretty much fully in character as if they’re guides written by NPCs, which wasn’t unheard of for setting books in that period (I remember Volo’s guides to the realms were written like actual pre-internet travel guides, with reviews of pubs and hotels), but the slang usage gave it a very distinctive style that was basically catnip for a certain kind of lore junkie. There’s still a few Web 1.0 sites out there for planescape stuff (e.g. mimir.net) where you can see the result, basically everyone wrote their material for the setting by adopting an in-universe persona. Cool, definitely checking that out. I glanced through the player's guide so far, it's definitely a distinctive style and mood. mimir.net is an amazing time capsule. quote:I do think it suffers a bit from the Seinfeld Problem in the modern day; it’s grimy cosmopolitanism, the strange city where an angel could have tea with a demon, the divorcing of D&D from any semblance of the medieval to make something pure fantasy, all of that has been iterated upon and done countless times since and it wouldn’t surprise me if a modern reader couldn’t quite see what we saw in the 90s. It blew my mind as a kid. Yeah, I'm on a kick of looking for old stuff that inspired or at least preceded stuff that I'm familiar with. I do get the impression that as a whole, it's the kind of thing that D&D has tried not to do again in the past couple decades, but at the same time you can't really get around a bunch of nerds thinking about something like Planescape, given enough time with spells around summoning or planar travel. I guess I should ask this too--can we point to any fantasy novels as an obvious, direct inspiration for any details of the Planescape cosmology, beyond the general idea of taking a whole bunch of mythological kinda places and shoving them into a single place? I guess I've heard about Order/Law vs Chaos being a thing in a bunch of books I probably should read at some point, but I don't think I heard anything about Elric going to Chaos Land and getting into fights at a truck stop on the way to Law Land or whatever. Also, maybe I should have read pre-Planescape descriptions of how the planes fit together first... So far I'm pretty surprised from actually reading Planescape instead of just picking up on vibes from references to it. While I figured it was going to have that kind of cosmopolitanism, I didn't think it was gonna put so much emphasis on philosophy (and I'm dying to learn how philosophy factored into actual playing the game). Also I assumed it would be more of a cosmopolitanism involving all kinds of different material-plane worlds, like, about trade and knowledge exchange between the bigwigs from Faerun and from Greyhawk or whatever, and weird high-level-NPC politics. Maybe that's more of a Spelljammer thing which I also have only heard about and not read anything of. It seems like it's mostly about hanging out in or basing yourself out of Sigil while detailing the (Outer, at least?) Planes as destinations but also as a place where relatively normal people can just, like, live and come from and everything, which I guess makes a lot more sense for an actual playable campaign setting. There are also a bunch more Outer Planes than I thought there were going to be (and at the same time I'm surprised they're limiting it to any specific number/list). I get that there are basically a bunch of strongly opinionated, philosophically varied, somewhat-aligned-specific groups, but I'm not sure yet if they're basically glorified street gangs in Sigil, or actual 'geo'political powers across the entire planar multiverse. I think I need to read some actual adventures to figure out what they actually want players to do apart from getting a planar quest in a planar tavern to kill a planar dragon while musing about entropy or something. Is there like an actual cold war going on between... planes? alignments? powers? that players might get involved in, or is everybody going to be busy doing more normal adventuring things just with a bigger travel budget? I'm hooked enough that I'm sure I'll find out soon.
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Jul 10, 2023 06:59
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Monathin posted:I'm pretty sure it's in the basic rules for readying an action - readying a spell takes Concentration. So does this mean that if you ready a spell and take damage before you release it you have to pass a con save to cast it?
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Jul 10, 2023 07:16
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Lamuella posted:So does this mean that if you ready a spell and take damage before you release it you have to pass a con save to cast it? Yes, if you ready a spell, get attacked, and take damage, you have a chance of losing the spell. e: Assuming the triggering condition for releasing the spell was not "I get attacked", because I believe in that case you can release the spell before the attacking roll. But in all other conditions, yes, you would have to make a Con Save to maintain Concentration as standard. Monathin fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Jul 10, 2023 |
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Jul 10, 2023 09:07
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Vanadium posted:I get that there are basically a bunch of strongly opinionated, philosophically varied, somewhat-aligned-specific groups, but I'm not sure yet if they're basically glorified street gangs in Sigil, or actual 'geo'political powers across the entire planar multiverse. I think I need to read some actual adventures to figure out what they actually want players to do apart from getting a planar quest in a planar tavern to kill a planar dragon while musing about entropy or something. Is there like an actual cold war going on between... planes? alignments? powers? that players might get involved in, or is everybody going to be busy doing more normal adventuring things just with a bigger travel budget? I'm hooked enough that I'm sure I'll find out soon. In Sigil its an inescapable truth that the Lady of Pain is the city's "ruler" on account that she clearly wields near omnipotent power within its boundaries and enforces its neutrality, but her direct servants, the dabus, only seem concerned with maintaining the city's buildings, meaning the sovereign and her government are wholly uninterested in how the creatures of the city choose to organise themselves. As a result the factions have taken it upon themselves to perform the various roles a mortal governments and guilds would fulfill, police, tax collection, manufacturing, entertainment, etc. Each one functions as a sort of mutual support society outside of Sigil. They have bases and strongholds elsewhere on the outer planes, and most mortals of consequence (i.e. humanoid NPCs with speaking parts) you meet out on the Great Wheel are going to be members of a faction, but there's definitely an element to this where those distinctions which the living mortals care so much about are for the most part just irrelevant to the setting's real powers. Some low-ranking devil who deals with imports from Sigil is going to be familiar with faction politics as a necessity of his job, but the Powers themselves are playing a completely different ball game, and a god is very unlikely to care what faction you're from, if they have even bothered to learn what a faction is. The major war on the outer planes is the Blood War, the eternal battle between the Nine Hells/Baator and the Abyss. Players can get pulled into that, running jobs for either side, or they might involve themselves in faction politics, or yeah, just do regular D&D poo poo but bigger scale. With its natural central hub, sprawling setting and punkish cockney mishmash stylings, Planescape works pretty well as a shadowrunesque thieves/thugs/treasure-hunters for hire game where you run short arcs as the players get hired for jobs, which you could weave into something bigger.
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Jul 10, 2023 10:11
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There was a popular videogame that did a good job showcasing the more interesting stuff in the setting.
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Jul 10, 2023 13:15
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Is there a (free) platform where one can see all available subclasses? My paladin player wants to know what she can do once she makes 3rd, but there's no easy index available.
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Jul 10, 2023 14:01
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Well, there's the 5e (dot) tools site which you could hop in just to look at the subclasses. That would be my first stop before digging deeper and/or hunting down books. Any use of that website beyond looking at the names is piracy, so bear that in mind.
HOMOEROTIC JESUS fucked around with this message at 14:11 on Jul 10, 2023 |
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Jul 10, 2023 14:08
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http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/ should have most stuff I think, alternatively https://www.dndbeyond.com has the player's handbook stuff for free. My DM has more money than sense so he's bought every single book on dndbeyond which is great for us players because it allows for sharing content with members of the same campaign.
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Jul 10, 2023 14:09
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HOMOEROTIC JESUS posted:Well, there's the 5e (dot) tools site which you could hop in just to look at the subclasses. That would be my first stop before digging deeper and/or hunting down books. Any use of that website beyond looking at the names is piracy, so bear that in mind. whats the story with that site? how is it allowed to exist?
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Jul 10, 2023 14:21
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Probably hosted somewhere that doesn't give a gently caress about taking it down. It's not serious enough for pressure to apply widespread blocking at the service provider level, they normally reserve that for the massive torrent sites, drugs and sex crimes.
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Jul 10, 2023 14:26
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hot cocoa on the couch posted:whats the story with that site? how is it allowed to exist?
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Jul 10, 2023 14:28
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Froghammer posted:It's not, WotC has tried and failed to shut it down multiple times Doubly funny since they’re now running massive ads all over the site from Google/Hulu etc
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Jul 10, 2023 14:31
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5e Tools has been taken down in the past but it's been stable the last few years. It's extremely easy to run your own instance of it too so it's not like WotC could do anything about it if they tried. Personally though, I really only use it for the books I own. Gosh, it's such a good resource for building printable spellbooks and monster lists. With proficiency in using the filters you can really cut down on wasted time skimming through books and web pages.
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Jul 10, 2023 14:40
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Yeah it's just so insanely well put together, wotc could take a page from their book on how to make easily accessible information from the books. I download a copy of the site every few months just in case it goes down.
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Jul 10, 2023 15:04
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Its the best 5e site. It loads pretty well, great tie ins with foundry, you don't have to log in to use it, doesn't try to link me to a bunch of other sponsored D&D content and it looks good on my phone. Wizards should just buy it and copy it but they would just ruin it by adding a bunch of video's and clickable images everywhere.
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Jul 10, 2023 15:09
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It really highlights the problem Wizards has with subclasses being spread out between books, many of which have no real use to a player beyond the subclass. I'm more than willing to buy a book just for a subclass I am going to use but I'm not willing to buy a book when the subclass is all I want out of it and I don't know if I want to use the subclass but I can't legally know if I want to use the subclass until I buy the book. Sorry Wizards but $20-25 is way too loving high for that. I get that Wizards will never create a site of their own like that because it's not going to juice Q4 KPIs but it's pretty indispensable as a player to have access to something like that.
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Jul 10, 2023 15:20
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Thanks! Our gaming club actually has a fair bit of the splat books (xanathars, ScaG, some others), it's just super annoying to figure out where everything is, and a master index really helps stuff along.
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Jul 10, 2023 15:22
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With the move towards online resources and their VTT, maybe Wizards would do well to go back to the days of "The Complete [Race/Class]'s Handbook" where you buy the Paladin book for, say $30, and automatically get any future Paladin subclasses that are published in other sourcebooks. But I expect they'll just go to a subscription model like everything these days.
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Jul 10, 2023 15:28
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Azathoth posted:It really highlights the problem Wizards has with subclasses being spread out between books, many of which have no real use to a player beyond the subclass. I'm more than willing to buy a book just for a subclass I am going to use but I'm not willing to buy a book when the subclass is all I want out of it and I don't know if I want to use the subclass but I can't legally know if I want to use the subclass until I buy the book. Sorry Wizards but $20-25 is way too loving high for that. On dndbeyond, you can just buy the subclass out of the book you want for like $2 without buying the rest of the book.
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Jul 10, 2023 15:29
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hot cocoa on the couch posted:whats the story with that site? how is it allowed to exist? Games Workshop has the same issue with Wahapedia. It's far better put together than anything they've ever created and they can't take it down no matter how much they want to.
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Jul 10, 2023 15:33
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You can usually buy individual items from most books on DnD Beyond separately for a couple of bucks each. Not ideal, but if you just want a subclass and some module specific magic items or something, you can do it. edit: That's what I get for not refreshing the page before posting.
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Jul 10, 2023 15:36
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Toshimo posted:On dndbeyond, you can just buy the subclass out of the book you want for like $2 without buying the rest of the book. It would be nice if this could make it out beyond DNDBeyond but good to see they're doing it there at least.
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Jul 10, 2023 15:38
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Reveilled posted:But I expect they'll just go to a subscription model like everything these days.
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Jul 10, 2023 15:39
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Wikidot is great for research but is otherwise not a real replacement for the source books. WotC has this weird idea of how information should be organized/presented that is needlessly burdensome to navigate. I have had countless new players back out of playing casters just because the PHB Spells chapter is so difficult to bounce around. Wikidot has done a great job of filtering spells for specific classes or schools of magic that even dndbeyond can't seem to do well. I learned recently that there is almost no homebrew for Artificers because that class is not in the SRD and so any attempts are technically IP infringement. Hopefully ODD adds them in so we can get some dumb broken builds out there.
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Jul 10, 2023 15:56
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If dnd beyond was just, I dunno, 8 bucks a month and here’s literally every published thing that exists then it would do gangbusters I’m sure. They could even limit it to just published character options and charge for actual game books separately and they’d still probably do pretty well out of it.
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Jul 10, 2023 16:36
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History Comes Inside! posted:If dnd beyond was just, I dunno, 8 bucks a month and here’s literally every published thing that exists then it would do gangbusters I’m sure. 4th edition did that.....it was wonderful
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Jul 10, 2023 16:40
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History Comes Inside! posted:If dnd beyond was just, I dunno, 8 bucks a month and here’s literally every published thing that exists then it would do gangbusters I’m sure. That's almost certainly the model the will be pushing with ODD.
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Jul 10, 2023 17:01
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