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Can a sorcerer cast spells out he dick? I rolled a nat 20 on the dick size check in the imp zone game and I think it can function as a free hand/wand to cast from
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May 15, 2018 21:11
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That depends. The whole point of having an implement, narratively, is that you can lose it.
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May 15, 2018 21:16
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Average Bear posted:Can a sorcerer cast spells out he dick? I rolled a nat 20 on the dick size check in the imp zone game and I think it can function as a free hand/wand to cast from Yes, as per p. 69 in the PHB.
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May 15, 2018 21:16
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Nice.
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May 15, 2018 21:35
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CJ posted:My paladin is level 16 now. Are any of the level 1-4 spells worth spending an action casting or should i just keep smiting? Bless, depending on party composition (ie 3+ attackers). Shield of Faith, as it's a Bonus Action Detect Magic if you run into invisibility you otherwise have no way to see through. Protection from Evil and Good if you're not Devotion, but with its 10 min duration preferably you'll cast it ahead of time if you think you'll need it. Ideally other casters in the party should be taking care of it, but Dispel Magic and Daylight are clutch when needed. Command and Banishment are very situational, but have their use case if you've got the CHA. Everything else that's good is for out-of-combat casting (ie Find Greater Steed, Revivify, etc).
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May 15, 2018 21:46
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There are also a few spells that are pretty much smites, but with a rider.
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May 15, 2018 21:50
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Aren't the Smite Spells worse than basic Smites because you have to pre-cast them and can't save the slot for a crit?
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May 15, 2018 22:36
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Razorwired posted:Aren't the Smite Spells worse than basic Smites because you have to pre-cast them and can't save the slot for a crit? They tend to do less damage then average no matter what. Thier gimmick is applying a rider like blinding, or slow, or AoE effects. Other spells tend to be based on buffing, ether the party or the paladin himself. Edit also D&D Beyond Interview with Crawford about our favorite Hippo People the Giff. https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/227-meet-the-giff-in-mordenkainens-tome-of-foes MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 23:05 on May 15, 2018 |
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May 15, 2018 23:03
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I have a group of noobies (except me, I'm the DM). We decided to get serious and run a weekly campaign. We voted on campaign books to run and Princes of the Apocalypse won because it seemed the most straightforward and beginner friendly campaign book out there for 5e. I've been reading it and, boy, is it a confusing mess. I pick it up and put it down 5 pages later, scratching my head. It seems like everything in the book references other sections, but they only rarely tell you what those are or give page numbers. We start this weekend and I'm a bit scared. Considering committing the ultimate sin and inserting a DMpc to help them out with hints and lore. Have any of you run this piece of poo poo? Am I doing it wrong?
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May 15, 2018 23:37
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The Dregs posted:I have a group of noobies (except me, I'm the DM). We decided to get serious and run a weekly campaign. We voted on campaign books to run and Princes of the Apocalypse won because it seemed the most straightforward and beginner friendly campaign book out there for 5e. I've been reading it and, boy, is it a confusing mess. I pick it up and put it down 5 pages later, scratching my head. It seems like everything in the book references other sections, but they only rarely tell you what those are or give page numbers. We start this weekend and I'm a bit scared. Considering committing the ultimate sin and inserting a DMpc to help them out with hints and lore. Have any of you run this piece of poo poo? Am I doing it wrong? Make sure you run the intro part of the adventure. It's in chapter 6 along with the side stories. But yeah it is a suprisngly complex adventure to run. But it's still fun. This guy wrote a guide on it. http://thecampaign20xx.blogspot.ca/2015/04/elemental-evil-guide-to-princes-of.html
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May 15, 2018 23:47
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MonsterEnvy posted:Make sure you run the intro part of the adventure. It's in chapter 6 along with the side stories. Is that the moving stones one?
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May 15, 2018 23:49
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The Dregs posted:Is that the moving stones one? The Moving stones place is involved in the intro, being the final chapter of it. but the Necromancer cave takes place first.
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May 15, 2018 23:50
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It's not you, Princes of the Apocalypse is organized like loving garbage and makes some weird-rear end assumptions about which order players are going to do things in. From what I remember, it's the one where the elemental dungeons each have two parts... and it's built assuming that the PCs will do the first part of every dungeon before they do the second part of any dungeon. The first parts are all levels 3-6 and the second parts are all levels 6-9. If I had to recommend a newbie campaign book for 5e it sure as hell wouldn't be PotA. Maybe SKT.
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May 15, 2018 23:52
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Storm King is easier for sure. Even Horde of the Dragon Queen while it needs some fixes is better for first timers. The best of them all for first time players is Lost Mines of Phandelver, which can segue into Storm King, or Princes of the Apocalypse pretty easily.
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May 15, 2018 23:58
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I think OotA is the most linear if you’re looking for ease of running but still fun. SKT is pretty straight forward except for choosing which giants to beef with when. ToA is open ended at the start but set up in a much more interpretable way than PotA.
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May 15, 2018 23:59
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Faced with this decision, I chose SKT, and I kinda regret it. I think I'd do hot springs island or something else third party if I had to do it again (a system-agnostic hexcrawl module that some dude on reddit made 5e statblocks for all the monsters) Tomb of Annihilation seems much more reasonable - although there is an open ended portion, you can pace it how you like and give them information easily enough and there's a big obvious goal they're working towards. I haven't read through any of curse of strahd but I've heard good things. (The internet has a lot of brand-loyal people who will say any given product is good regardless of whether they've even run it or played in it or even read it, so I don't trust that general impression very much.) SKT has a huge long section, right near the start of the adventure proper (after the intro hook and opening scene) , basically requiring the DM to run 2 XP levels with very few hooks built-in and just a huge list of places that maybe they'll go to. You have to make them give a poo poo basically, which is good practice for you but in this kind of defeats the point of a premade module. No effort is made in that section to write more about places that are more important - it seems like 25 writers got 5 notecards each and wrote up a bunch of stuff they thought up about a random place. Major city? One paragraph. Random monastery nowhere near any plot-relevant locations? Might have a whole column. I survived and perhaps I'm stronger for it but overall my opinion of SKT and, in fact, wotc's 5e team in general is pretty low at this point.
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May 16, 2018 00:13
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Kaysette posted:I think OotA is the most linear if you’re looking for ease of running but still fun. SKT is pretty straight forward except for choosing which giants to beef with when. ToA is open ended at the start but set up in a much more interpretable way than PotA. OotA is a nightmarishly bad one if the GM is the first timer. It's an adventure that presents and organises itself like its an open world when in reality is a very linear experience and trying to parse that as your first experience is going be a very rough process. kingcom fucked around with this message at 01:32 on May 16, 2018 |
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May 16, 2018 01:26
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Well poo poo. I don't have time or money to get a different book. Guess I have to figure this out.
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May 16, 2018 01:58
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I haven’t run it yet and I’m a new-ish DM, but SKT seems pretty straight forward so far? Here’s a town that’s in trouble, kill some gobbos, go find the towns people, come back, things happen in different ways depending on how your party explored, give them options for where to go next based on where the Sky Giant’s floating castle can go. Am I missing something? It seems real solid to me, up to Chapter 2! 
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May 16, 2018 02:55
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How is Strahd for a first time DM? (ran a DW campaign for a few months but we all found it a bit too soft) I’ve heard it’s good but not if it’s newbie friendly.
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May 16, 2018 02:59
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When I was running it, I excised a lot of the most boring crawling in Princes for some of the better ones. The town is also pretty good. Your first session should probably just be Necromancer's Cave. After your PCs arrive in town, have the first NPC they show interest in use the plot hook for the Cave. I forget what it is? Lost children? Have the NPC point the players to the Constable or whoever gives that particular quest. This gives you opportunity to show some of the town and the people in it. Go do the standard zombie and skeleton crawl with a nice introduction to traps in dungeons. You get to chew the scenery a little and mark out as a silly wizard at the end and your session will probably come to a close here. Pay attention to how your table reacts... if they seem super interested in one of your NPCs, you could have them send out the players again. Matt Colville had a cool video about how players (newer, especially) really benefit from having at least 1 core NPC who they can trust and won't lie to them. Don't bother with a DM PC - they just steal the spotlight. Keep your infodump NPC safely back at home, too tired or important to do the dirty work. It works especially well for low levels. Don't overthink it E: Strahd is excellent. There's a lot of help in running it online. I've found huge forum topics, reddit posts, website columns, etc. about cool ideas to put in the game and ways to steer it, and almost everything I've seen has been universally good. I'm playing in a Strahd game right now, but we are very near the beginning. The tone can be kind of gloomy, but if your players don't mind this can be a lot of fun. You also get to play a villain that pops up and torments the PCs. It's pretty fun for the DM, too, I'd think. I think the criticisms levied at SKT is that the major plot isn't introduced until the end, and to get there, your PCs have to care about Giant Society Problems, and your rear end in a top hat thief or whatever probably won't give a poo poo. If you have some players who will go where the adventure is because there's adventure there, this looks good. I think another thing I heard was that there's a portion where they list like 8+ locales and only want you to use 1? Something like that? Lots of super optional stuff that you'll never see unless you run the game multiple times. Strahd has something similar, but it's more inherent proofing of players reading the material by hiding the macguffins in "random" spots according a tarot reading that is fun to play out. I've only read SKT - but at the shop I go to, and the places I play, it has a reputation as being hard to do because it's more of a sandbox. I'm on Chapter 4 of HotDQ this Sunday, but so far has been okay. I'm using it only as a rough frame work to hang other stuff on, like tying in my PC's backgrounds. This week, we'll be visiting a Kelemvorite temple on the way so my Cleric can have some cool skill tests performing burial rites and clearing a crypt with Warhammer 40k skull decorations. E2: Also, I'd handpick stuff. Random encounters can be okay and fun, but if you are using published material, I'd just pick the stuff you want to do. If you are only going to run this game once and really want the players to trigger X Event, just have X Event happen. Roll a die to make it look random. You paid for the book. Firstborn fucked around with this message at 03:12 on May 16, 2018 |
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May 16, 2018 03:00
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Quidthulhu posted:I haven’t run it yet and I’m a new-ish DM, but SKT seems pretty straight forward so far? Here’s a town that’s in trouble, kill some gobbos, go find the towns people, come back, things happen in different ways depending on how your party explored, give them options for where to go next based on where the Sky Giant’s floating castle can go. Am I missing something? It seems real solid to me, up to Chapter 2! This, maybe? Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:SKT has a huge long section, right near the start of the adventure proper (after the intro hook and opening scene) , basically requiring the DM to run 2 XP levels with very few hooks built-in and just a huge list of places that maybe they'll go to. You have to make them give a poo poo basically, which is good practice for you but in this kind of defeats the point of a premade module. No effort is made in that section to write more about places that are more important - it seems like 25 writers got 5 notecards each and wrote up a bunch of stuff they thought up about a random place. Major city? One paragraph. Random monastery nowhere near any plot-relevant locations? Might have a whole column. Neither of the games I'm currently in use published adventures, but both of the DMs have said pretty much the same thing about SKT. Like "If I wanted to do the work I demonstrably could and would make something heaps better than any published adventure, so when I buy a published adventure to avoid doing the work and have to do the work anyway, it shits me up the wall".
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May 16, 2018 03:13
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Honestly I think my real mistake was jumping into a super long campaign module as my first attempt - that has hurt me more so than which one I chose. If you want to use a module, I'd start with smaller ones and decide where you want to go at each point. Maybe a common antagonist or greater thread will come emerge naturally and maybe not and that's okay for now. I also dislike that they just didn't bother picking out cool treasure for me to give the party in my areas. Ahh, 3 items from table B , coming right up. I'm giving them thematic stuff that I make up based around what their characters Deep carbon observatory is next on my list when I do a module, though I'm not gonna do it in 5e. It definitely seems tough for a new DM but I'm in love.
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May 16, 2018 03:49
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I'd pick a series of cool, fun one shots and tie them together loosely as Big Ole Adventures. Start with A Wild Sheep's Chase or the Wolves of Welton. I come across one page dungeons and stuff all the time and the fun of DMing for me is sometimes how to incorporate cool stuff (cool stuff from other systems, too!) Currently looking at Tower of the Stargazer. I hear good things.
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May 16, 2018 03:51
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Tome of Foes trip report: Our DM in my home game busted out a Nightwalker on us in our last session. We're a level 9 party of four (moon circle druid, lore bard, swashbuckling battlemaster, and totem barbarian) and, well... Luckily it didn't have eyes for us, so we were able to It was a rad as gently caress looking 25 foot tall slenderman which flew around Magneto style. Its main attack was (iirc) a con 21 save to avoid ~50 damage, and if hit another con save to resist losing those hit points from your max HP permanently. Oh, and if you are reduced to 0 hit points by any of the Nightwalkers attacks, you ded. Like disintegrate dead. I was reduced to 2. So, yeah. If you like making your players pee themselves in character, I highly recommend picking up Tome of Foes.
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May 16, 2018 03:53
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Noxin of Shame posted:Tome of Foes trip report: Our DM in my home game busted out a Nightwalker on us in our last session. We're a level 9 party of four (moon circle druid, lore bard, swashbuckling battlemaster, and totem barbarian) and, well... Luckily it didn't have eyes for us, so we were able to That sounds like a fun fight in about 9 more levels haha. You saw a CR20 baddie and lived to tell the tale!
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May 16, 2018 03:58
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:
Uh you do know that you are not supposed to use XP in SKT. The Adventure states at the start that it's designed with Milestone in mind. So that long section you are talking about is only supposed to go as long as the DM feels it should. Once they feel the main plot should happen the party is supposed to run into Harshnag and level up. Noxin of Shame posted:Tome of Foes trip report: Our DM in my home game busted out a Nightwalker on us in our last session. We're a level 9 party of four (moon circle druid, lore bard, swashbuckling battlemaster, and totem barbarian) and, well... Luckily it didn't have eyes for us, so we were able to Can you share any details about Tome foes. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 04:44 on May 16, 2018 |
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May 16, 2018 04:41
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MonsterEnvy posted:Can you share any details about Tome foes. I didn't take photos of stat blocks or anything, because I don't want my friend to lose his job. But we did see the artwork, which is pretty great. Lore wise, apparently they are more common where the veil between the material plane and the Shadowfell is less defined — If someone crosses over into the Shadowfell, then a Nightwalker crosses over into the material plane to maintain balance. Which, I dunno, doesn't seem like a fair trade tbqh Kaysette posted:That sounds like a fun fight in about 9 more levels haha. You saw a CR20 baddie and lived to tell the tale! Right? Made us feel like ants on a leviathan. The perfect ego check to a motley crew trying to save the world.
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May 16, 2018 05:34
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Where/What are the rules for casting a spell from a scroll?
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May 16, 2018 06:38
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MonsterEnvy posted:Uh you do know that you are not supposed to use XP in SKT. The Adventure states at the start that it's designed with Milestone in mind. So that long section you are talking about is only supposed to go as long as the DM feels it should. Once they feel the main plot should happen the party is supposed to run into Harshnag and level up. Yeah but it use levels and it at least has to feel like two proper meaty levels worth of stuff to give a poo poo about. It's bad enough that I used the starter chapter 1 adventure that rushed them from 1 to 5 - I don't think anyone at my table found that particularly satisfying. I had them unify the ten towns to organize shared resistance to any threat and push off some opportunistic mercenaries for one, and join the harpers and do some work for them while helping the survivors of the attack for port llast for the other. It was fine, but I probably used less than 5% of the published material in that huge chapter and that's a piss poor ratio - I paid for the book seeking usable material not fluff text about mountains they never give any reason to visit. The stuff the players cared about most in there was the stuff I made up.
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May 16, 2018 06:44
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Cassa posted:Where/What are the rules for casting a spell from a scroll? DMG, page 139: quote:A scroll is a consumable magic item. Whatever the nature of the magic contained in a scroll, unleashing that magic requires using an action to read the scroll. When its magic has been invoked, the scroll can't be used again. Its words fade, or it crumbles into dust. DMG, page 200 quote:SPELL SCROLL
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May 16, 2018 08:14
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Razorwired posted:Aren't the Smite Spells worse than basic Smites because you have to pre-cast them and can't save the slot for a crit? Apply to ranged weapons. Stack with real smites on the same attack. Have utility effects. Smite spell cons: Paladins don't really use ranged weapons. Magic Weapon or Divine Favour also stack and will do more damage over the course of the fight. The utility effects are kind of garbage for the level you get to cast them at. So it's worth grabbing branding smite in case you run across an invisible guy or if a lot of your party lack darkvision, and a wrathful smite for +2d6 damage and potential advantage on your second attack isn't the worst use of a first level spell slot at fifth (or for throwing at a flying enemy that is inexplicably flying within throwing range). But even then these go out the window if you care about stealth. Splicer fucked around with this message at 09:02 on May 16, 2018 |
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May 16, 2018 08:59
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gradenko_2000 posted:DMG, page 139: Cheers! That 'has to be on your spell list' is garbage and I dislike it.
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May 16, 2018 09:17
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Cassa posted:Cheers! That 'has to be on your spell list' is garbage and I dislike it.
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May 16, 2018 09:25
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Just don't have it have a check at all
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May 16, 2018 11:22
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Is there a good resource for modified creatures? I used the modified bugbears someone posted in here earlier and that made for the best combat encounter of the session- made everything more interesting and XCOM-like.
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May 16, 2018 14:30
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IMO make spells tools with trapped spirits that you can ONLY use if you don't have Spellcasting as a feature. The arcane field around the tool and an actual caster cause interference.
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May 16, 2018 14:42
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Just finished up LMoP and realized that two thirds of the named magic items in the adventure we're useless for my players. Should I be modifying these?
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May 16, 2018 14:44
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kidkissinger posted:Just finished up LMoP and realized that two thirds of the named magic items in the adventure we're useless for my players. I generally switch up loot to make sure most of it is useful then they can try to sell the rest.
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May 16, 2018 14:45
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Razorwired posted:IMO make spells tools with trapped spirits that you can ONLY use if you don't have Spellcasting as a feature. The arcane field around the tool and an actual caster cause interference. You mean that casters can’t use spells?
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May 16, 2018 14:48
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