|
The Slack Lagoon posted:So long as the player is engaging with the story and roleplay, what's wrong with power gaming? The main problem is even if someone is engaging with the story and roleplay, if someone is at a much, MUCH higher system mastery than other players, it can spread out among the table and cause bad feelings. I have a group that runs into this landmine constantly - we've got a fun dude who is entertaining to play with but he cannot turn off the charop brain and will make a blender in most games. It's not that he's not interacting with the story and roleplay, it's just he has a bunch of weird hangups about being "effective" that compel him to make a character whose power level is way higher than the others. It occasionally causes stress for our group because whoever is in the DM seat has to plan around him doing really optimized damage which providing an encounter the less-optimized players can engage with and not feel like they're being totally eclipsed.
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2023 05:47
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 03:36 |
|
|
My GM wants to run the new Planescape campaign. He wants to use roll straight 3d6, no rearranging scores and roll all HP including 1st level. We start at 3rd level. 
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2023 07:08
|
|
|
Issaries posted:My GM wants to run the new Planescape campaign.  imo
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2023 07:16
|
|
|
Monathin posted:
Too late. Friend got a 3 hp Monk and I rolled a 8 hp Rogue. We both got 4 Con. I assume rest of the group are almost as bad. Life expectancy will be counted in minutes.
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2023 07:20
|
|
|
Issaries posted:My GM wants to run the new Planescape campaign. Well You are semi immortal in that campaign so it might not be as bad. No rearranging scores is a bit bullshit as even Basic D&D let you do that limitedly.
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2023 08:02
|
|
|
Empty Sandwich posted:look I just wanted to make a vague innuendo I didn't expect you to act like some kind of [rolls d10] BECMI-loving moron Look, I tolerate a lot in this thread but I draw the line at insulting  Yusin posted:Well You are semi immortal in that campaign so it might not be as bad. Yeah, the nature of the campaign makes the lolrandom characters more fitting.
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2023 13:59
|
|
|
Speaking of LMoP, I want to share the boss fight with the thread. My PCs had just hit level 5 basically on their first encounter inside Wave Echo Cave (I think it was an ochre slime in the mining tunnels), and took a long rest in the storeroom so they could level up. So they were beefy for basically the whole dungeon. They clowned on most encounters, and so I experimented with making the Spectator a legendary monster to make sure it was still challenging. This walloped them but they dealt with him fine, and the Flameskull as well (including one epic moment of the dwarf cleric leaping up onto the water wheel to chase him as he flew away lol). So I knew I really needed to buff the end boss to make it an experience. I told them they should long rest before fighting him, insinuating it may be a party wiper, and dropped clues as to where The Spider was operating so as to not have them stumble into him. I made him a 3-phase fight, planned to have him use darkness and invisibility to fight from the shadows while the bugbears + giant spiders attacked, then when he went down (he only has like 27 hp), he would transform into a CR6 version of a drider with 2 hit point pools of 61 hp each. I got this idea from some blog. When the first pool ran out, his AC would drop, he would increase to 2 actions per combat round, and have an insane multi attack - basically the drider going full monster mode and attacking recklessly. So they schemed and planned in secret, and opened the doors to the temple. Immediately the wizard ran in, misty stepped into melee range with The Spider, and disarmed him of his spellbook  . In secret the wizard took the gauntlets of ogre strength from the cleric specifically to win this grapple/disarm contest lol. Meanwhile, the druid summoned 2 CR1 creatures, and, having agreed to roll for them randomly, got a giant toad and a giant spider. She ordered the giant toad to eat The Spider, and after having been stripped of his spellbook, and surrounded in melee, the toad did. While The Spider was digesting in the toad, the wizard gives back the gloves, and the cleric casts spirit guardians, pushing into melee where she can to clean up the others in the room. Basically just as the last extra goes down, The Spider "dies" inside the toad, and bursts forth as a drider.Now phase 2 I think, I'm gonna do some damage to the PCs. The Drider gets some hits in before making its way up a column to attack from a range. The cleric, equipped with both the aforementioned gloves AND the boots of springing and striding (both items collected in this dungeon, it worked out perfectly), jumps 24 feet in the air from the ground, grapples The Drider, and rides him like a bucking bronco lmfao. My players were hooting and hollering, it was great. All the while she's got her spirit guardians laying in hits on his turn. He wasn't even able to make much use of his many attacks, as I had him try to break the grapple, and lose consistently vs the high strength cleric. He did get a few hits in but not much. They continued to wallop him, and just as he breaks the grapple and the cleric falls from the column to the ground, he's near death and the druid finishes him off with 1d4+2 damage from a slingshot (her only ranged tool left lol). I'm really glad I buffed him waaay up, but even then, I'm still glad they loving clowned him because they wouldn't stop congratulating themselves on their planning, preparation, and talking about how powerful level 5 felt with all their new spells (fireball, spirit guardians, and summon creatures putting in work). Really satisfying final boss fight in the campaign. hot cocoa on the couch fucked around with this message at 14:29 on Nov 21, 2023 |
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2023 14:26
|
|
|
That is some great creative thinking and if they completely pulped him I wouldn't care one iota. Amazing. When my party fought the flameskull my cleric decided to put the inert defeated skull in his backpack and then try for a long rest. That was great fun.
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2023 14:39
|
|
|
Idgi what did taking the spellbook accomplish? Was he using it as a focus?
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2023 17:10
|
|
|
Any tips on playing an effective illusionist? Already have my eye on some psychic spells like mind spike and mind whip.
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2023 17:16
|
|
|
Staltran posted:Idgi what did taking the spellbook accomplish? Was he using it as a focus? Yeah, also your players shouldn't be doing anything "secretly" from you, like swapping gear. That piece of gear more than likely requires attunement, which is a full short rest to swap from one player to another. Also, stealing the spell book doesn't block the spellcaster from using spells they've prepared for that day, they can still use all their spell slots and prepared stuff.
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2023 18:31
|
|
|
Who cares it was cool.
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2023 21:50
|
|
|
Issaries posted:Too late. Friend got a 3 hp Monk and I rolled a 8 hp Rogue. We both got 4 Con. I assume rest of the group are almost as bad. To surprise of no one (except GM), we all died in first encounter. "Do you want to keep the character, or sever the strand of fate?" How about no.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2023 07:16
|
|
|
you guys are going to be spending a lot of time in the Mortuary
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2023 14:36
|
|
|
So now can you say "and thus it went on like this, comedically bad heroes failing to rise to the challenge, wasting night after night of what could have been good game sessions on predictable deaths and repeated readings of the mortuary dialog box, until it came to pass that a new crop of heroes arose, ones that suspiciously looked like they used the standard stat array"?
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2023 16:57
|
|
|
Sandwich Anarchist posted:Any tips on playing an effective illusionist? Already have my eye on some psychic spells like mind spike and mind whip. I'm interested too, the short range on minor illusion has hindered me a bit and with 7 players in my party I have to choose my moments. I basically decided to mostly go for flavor while being a typical support/blast wizard until I get more spell variety later. Highlights so far were using silent image to flashily protect a hostage with a "dome of rock" then using shield to survive the counterattack. And later when a paladin was musing over whether it was proper to return a magical sword to the coffin of its former wielder I did a minor illusion whisper saying something like "Wield it against evil with my blessing". I just hit level 3 and picked up Phantasmal Force so I'm looking forward to trying that out. In the new edition we'll learn a bonus spell of our school rather than the discount to scribing? I wonder if I can talk our DM into adopting that now. It was painful deciding between illusion spells for fun and the more standard toolkit and damage spells I wanted to have access to.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2023 17:13
|
|
|
Well, I let my campaign get influenced by my nascent love of analog horror. During a moment of inspired improvisation after the combat that should have taken an hour or two to finish lasted all of 2.5 rounds, the Chrono-synclastic Infundibulum-inspired "ancient time-lost skyscraper that exists in all times and places at once, simultaneously" sent them to the Entrance to The Mall from Kane Pixels' "The Oldest View" at the end of our last session. (If you're familiar with the series, I closed the session right when the steel shutter clatters into the ceiling, loudly echoing everywhere.) It's a great setup to some pretty creepy stuff... That said, I've spent the last week and a half wondering just what the actual gently caress I was going to do with this whole scenario, and actively dreading this Thursday night's session, since analog horror kinda depends on the protagonist being a weakling nobody, and not being a powerful warlock, or a gunslinger with a magic pistol, etc etc. I think it's going to be the place where the first iteration of post-war warforged were "trained/reeducated to better interact with civilians" until Everything went Very Wrong, mixed with some of the transhumanist (negative) themes from Doctor Who's Cybermen/WH40K AdMechs. If I didn't know better, I'd swear I loved painting myself into bizarre corners.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2023 18:55
|
|
|
pseudosavior posted:Well, I let my campaign get influenced by my nascent love of analog horror. Reading that post gave me a headache
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2023 19:31
|
|
|
It sounds like you just recreated the premise of Final Fantasy Legend.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2023 19:43
|
|
|
Sandwich Anarchist posted:Reading that post gave me a headache Yeah, I'm pretty lucky that my players have a fairly high tolerance for my completely batshit game. Then again, one of my players in this same game is looking to literally recreate the concept of the biblical firmament to better placate his omnicidal aquatic patron without actually killing everybody on the planet, so they give as good as they get.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2023 19:53
|
|
|
I typically DM Call of Cthulhu, but me and my players are going to try D&D for the first time next month. I have an old Beginner Box (the Lost Mine) but I see there's a newer one out. How do they compare? Gonna be real hard not having my characters rolling sanity...
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2023 03:26
|
|
|
LMoP is still considered the best module they've put out for 5e by a wide margin
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2023 03:37
|
|
|
CornHolio posted:I typically DM Call of Cthulhu, but me and my players are going to try D&D for the first time next month. I have an old Beginner Box (the Lost Mine) but I see there's a newer one out. How do they compare? LMOP is probably the best module available for 5e. It is pretty generic in terms of what it has you doing, but for people who are new to D&D it's really good. My players had a blast playing it from start to finish, and I had a blast running it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2023 04:53
|
|
|
I think the best way would be to use the Lost Mine of Phandelver adventure from the box you have but to use the free basic rules document (https://dnd.wizards.com/what-is-dnd/basic-rules) for character creation and advancement instead of using the premades, if you want to give players more freedom to define their characters. If you want to buy a new box I recommend the Essentials Kit which includes a pretty decent adventure (that is compatible with the setting and content from Lost Mine of Phandelver) and has a trimmed down version of the basic rules for character creation.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2023 05:19
|
|
|
Phandelver also got a new adventure released a couple months back that expands the original campaign. Planning on running it soon.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2023 07:13
|
|
|
It's bad lol
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2023 07:21
|
|
|
The villain in Lost Mines needs serious work. The adventure itself is pretty fun but it's not easy to run in a coherent way unless you want to put in some effort as the DM. You can of course run as written but it'll leave you scratching your head at some points. I'd look online and see if there are some easy fixes to make it a little more engaging.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2023 07:29
|
|
|
Trivia posted:The villain in Lost Mines needs serious work. The adventure itself is pretty fun but it's not easy to run in a coherent way unless you want to put in some effort as the DM. The villain is such a loving non-entity during the adventure that players will most likely go "Who?" once you get to the final confrontation. Then again, bad design is kinda par for the course with a lot of the early official campaigns I have read or played so far. Edit: Just wanted to add that LMoP is still a fine module to run and will most likely be very fun. You just might have to put in some extra work. During my players' latest exploits in the purple worm nest in Out of the Abyss, the official writing suggests that worms pop out at 5, 10 and 15 minutes an make new tunnels. The thing is, there is absolutely no coherent mechanic for tracking time during exploration. I settled on a mixture of the tension pool system and DM fiat. If you'd be running it as suggested there could be long stretches where players would be dicking around waiting for something to happen or in and out of the worm nest without ever being confronted with a purple worm. Rubberduke fucked around with this message at 07:49 on Nov 28, 2023 |
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2023 07:43
|
|
|
Dexo posted:It's bad lol Could you explain your issues with it in Spoiler Blocks. I have read through it and liked it so far, so I am curious about what flaws you see.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2023 08:14
|
|
|
Yusin posted:Could you explain your issues with it in Spoiler Blocks. I have read through it and liked it so far, so I am curious about what flaws you see. I haven't read the update, just the original, but here's a review from a guy who thought the original was brilliant and that the update was dogshit: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/50077/roleplaying-games/review-the-shattered-obelisk
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2023 08:28
|
|
|
BattleMaster posted:I haven't read the update, just the original, but here's a review from a guy who thought the original was brilliant and that the update was dogshit: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/50077/roleplaying-games/review-the-shattered-obelisk It's so bizarre how uncreative the adventure writers at Wizards are. Stuff like "strange goblins showing up for no reason and everyone is ok with this" is straight up lazy. In the 10 minutes since I read this I've come up with half a dozen ways to make something like "strange goblins" make sense without actually hindering the storytelling of the module at large. Like I've been DMing for a while, I don't consider myself an amazing DM or homebrew writer, but even I know that you gotta have a logical reason for something like that to occur. And it'd be one thing if the DM was expected to come up with those connections on their own, and fill in the gaps of logic, but the 5e modules very frequently will describe explicitly "this just kinda happens for no real reason".
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2023 17:31
|
|
|
Verisimilidude posted:And it'd be one thing if the DM was expected to come up with those connections on their own, and fill in the gaps of logic, but the 5e modules very frequently will describe explicitly "this just kinda happens for no real reason". I generally have assumed that the adventure modules come fairly directly from the designers home brew games. Events that occur without explanation probably were due to player behavior that is difficult to explain or incorporate, but the campaign needs combats so they just get thrown in without any justification. Maybe the writers assume that it’ll get polished up, but it never really does. As a result, the campaign modules often have countless pages of useless schlock that only the DM will see, while the playable material has gaping holes that every table will need to paper over. 5e modules, like many games frankly, suffer from a lack of dedicated editors.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2023 18:14
|
|
|
It's usually not too hard to work in strange goblins. The trick is you say "they've been displaced from their original home by an as-of-yet unknown faction, forcing them to find a new home in human/elf/dwarf/tarrasque lands, thus why the goblins attacked the tavern." The unknown faction just ends up being your homebrew villains.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2023 18:32
|
|
|
https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/73234210 Our ToA campaign is coming back next week after a pause and we're about to venture into the tomb proper. I legit can't decide where to take my character; should I grab a level in fighter or ranger for the weapon proficiencies and delay my ASI progression even further (as I'm currently at rogue 5/ monk 2, so it's 2-3 off)? Should I take a feat instead of bumping my Dex to 20 right away? change my name fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Nov 28, 2023 |
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2023 19:16
|
|
|
You won't get a feat until you hit Monk 4 or Rogue 8. That being said, you should take Monk 3 to unlock a tradition since that should be a power spike for you. From there, I think Monk 4 for the ASI/Feat is the best option. I have opinions about what you should take at that point but it depends on what your character has learned or will have learned about the Tomb by the time you hit 9.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2023 19:32
|
|
|
Extra weapon proficiencies don't seem like a worthwhile pursuit when you want to be using a monk weapon with finesse to qualify for martial arts and Sneak Attack.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2023 19:39
|
|
|
Nehru the Damaja posted:Extra weapon proficiencies don't seem like a worthwhile pursuit when you want to be using a monk weapon with finesse to qualify for martial arts and Sneak Attack. Correct, but because I took Monk first, I can currently only use a dagger or short sword. I probably won't multiclass further. But the monk's Dedicated Weapon feature semi-negates this anyways
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2023 19:42
|
|
|
You can totally use a Rapier as well. Just touch it a bit.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2023 19:49
|
|
|
BattleMaster posted:I haven't read the update, just the original, but here's a review from a guy who thought the original was brilliant and that the update was dogshit: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/50077/roleplaying-games/review-the-shattered-obelisk Ah I read that review and disagreed with him on a ton of points, as he got a bunch of details wrong.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2023 21:21
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 03:36 |
|
|
Verisimilidude posted:It's so bizarre how uncreative the adventure writers at Wizards are. Stuff like "strange goblins showing up for no reason and everyone is ok with this" is straight up lazy. In the 10 minutes since I read this I've come up with half a dozen ways to make something like "strange goblins" make sense without actually hindering the storytelling of the module at large. Like I've been DMing for a while, I don't consider myself an amazing DM or homebrew writer, but even I know that you gotta have a logical reason for something like that to occur. It's not even uncreative, it's a mixture of really interesting individual concepts, bizarre ideas that make one appearance and then get dropped, and rooms on a map that have no drat logic being there at all. That suggests big problems at the development stage. Honestly, multiple adventures which should have very clear and consistent through-lines and thematic elements just don't sustain that. I think The WIld Beyond the Witchlight was one of their better efforts and despite that, it all but drops the "fey are about making deals" theme in favor of a "here's one trick to defeat the baddie" and an endgame that doesn't make much sense for the more interesting of the two campaign hooks and plays big into "we're making a reference to old D&D action figures here" in a way utterly disjoint from the theming. (And the "things at the carnival matter later in the campaign" theming needed to be a lot better than "advantage on a single roll".) Starting a campaign also seems to be a big problem; the start of Descent into Avernus is weirdly disconnected from the rest of the adventure and then they introduce Mad Max in Hell to set up one encounter and then do nothing with the idea. I'm especially baffled by the start of the Planescape adventure, where the PCs wake up in the Mortuary, which despite the heavy call-backs to Planescape: Torment, has been redesigned to have the only corridor out double as a cremation chamber (which requires to you distract a zombie, somehow knowing a mindless undead here isn't mindless, or TPK) and then has several rooms outside of that that make no sense whatsoever. As far as I can tell, the intent was to kill one or more PCs in the opening encounters to establish a central mechanic to that campaign which would allow it to continue after a TPK, but there's nothing interesting in this implementation and I might well quit such a campaign at that stage. This despite some more creative mini-adventures later on!
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2023 21:35
|
|