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Lord Windy posted:Stuff  quote:I put my hand up to run the next campaign under the idea that it would be more story based and less PC-centred. Do your NPCs fill a Gandalf role (provide critical narrative, enable PCs to move forward, act in a supporting fashion to PC actions), or take over the spotlight (every single GM-run Driz'zt clone)? Ideally speaking, you probably shouldn't have a Gandalf with the party in any case, but if you do, remember -- when the PCs come second to the plot or the NPCs, the game becomes less fun. Is your game as immersive or as well-narrated as a halfway-decent video game? If not, then sacrificing PC primacy for plot's sake is a mistake. Also: setting. Using a D&D example, is your campaign setting at least as interesting as Dark Sun? If not, don't remove something as central as magic. (There is no divine power in Dark Sun, but the setting is interesting enough that it justifies removing an expected trope.) Why does everyone want to play humans and use magic? Is it that the other options aren't interesting enough? If so, that's not the players' fault. quote:so I've restarted the game. Albeit with some concessions like letting them all play humans and putting magic back into the world. quote:Quite a few of them got a shock when I put them against creatures they couldn't fight after going into length about how the area they were going into was bad. quote:I find it a little boring due to it being quite unstructured quote:I really want these guys to enjoy something more than just is essentially "Lets grind levels until we are powerful enough to do insane poo poo". If everyone wants to do "insane poo poo", then start off at the appropriate power level, and make sure that the challenges the PCs face are indeed challenges for them (in terms of combat, environment, and roleplay). I doubt that they want to have super-masters-of-death and kill snotlings...well, once in a while it's fun to mow down choads in a dazzling display of carnage, but God Mode gets boring fast.
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Dec 4, 2010 17:19
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Calico Noose posted:<snip> Non-nonsense version: "You can play your character that way if you want, but people will react in a realistic fashion. At best, people won't want to talk to you. At worst, you'll be institutionalized. It's hard to keep a precious unique flower alive in the wild, and I ain't running a greenhouse on the other side of this screen." Slightly accommodating version: Ask him to play the character straight most of the time. When he blows his first SAN check for temporary insanity, he lapses into this fantasy persona to attempt to prevent any more damage to his psyche.
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Feb 21, 2011 15:42
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Quarex posted:This sounds pretty reasonable. He seems literate and intelligent, tell him "look, I understand that there is always some degree of comic relief in the apocalyptic horror of Call of Cthulhu--but this needs to be the exception, not the rule." If "a pretend British detective" is his coping mechanism, it is then funny precisely when needed most, after something genuinely terrifying and scary has occurred. Rather than ruining the set-up to the horror. Or something; it is not like I am Mr. Cthulhu Expert Man. Calico Noose posted:The way he arrived at the homeless man talking to cardboard hampster was me telling him to gently caress off when he said he wanted to play Minsc from Baldurs Gate in Call of Cthulhu. Good: In a particularly high-mortality game, each new character I created was another brother from the same family, each with daring/tough/manly names that rhymed with each other or the last name. I played them all straight, each was different, but it was a little running joke and a subtle commentary on the visciousness of that game. Bad: Once had a player who wanted to play an insane asylum escapee who tags along to help out his alienist friend. Sort of Renfield meets the Joker meets Krusty the Klown. Saying hard is no to friends.
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Feb 21, 2011 20:17
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ItalicSquirrels posted:Or, y'know, you could sit down with your DM and see why he's making all these Arcana checks. If he's that into them, ask if there can be a bit of point reallocation into Arcana that everyone now gets as a class skill (seeing as it's so prevalent). When my Dark Sun PCs hit 2nd level and I realized that they had made more Endurance checks than every other skill put together, I gave them this bonus. Adding Endurance as a class skill for everyone and letting them retrain a skill for free was my first idea. But I realized that this first solution gave something to half the party and nothing at all to the other half, and -- more importantly -- in my game Endurance basically became a skill tax on each PC. (Of course I only did this after one of my PCs stole Jennifer away from me.) Edited to add: homullus posted:So . . . the GM should only ask for skill checks when there will be a mix of successes and failures, when the party will have interesting decisions to make as a result of that mix. I think I've been doing it wrong. Some GMs like to use skill checks to heighten tension or add uncertainty, but if you do this you have to narrate differently. If at least one party member succeeds in a perception check = "Your sharp eyes notice x about the statue" vs. everyone failing = "The only thing that about the statue that seems remarkable to anybody is x". Admiralty Flag fucked around with this message at 20:49 on May 2, 2011 |
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May 2, 2011 20:39
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Dog Jones posted:I've found that having good atmospheric is one of the most important and easy things you can do to immerse players as a GM. I thing one of the main differences between my scary Dread session and my less scary CoC session was the fact that we were playing CoC over skype, so the players weren't listening to the creepy play lists I had going. As a one-shot where the PCs are all isolated on a derelict spaceship or something -- I'm sure there was an adventure like this in one of the Blood Brothers supplements -- you could use the technology to your advantage, but that's the exception rather than the rule.
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May 3, 2011 16:46
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Interstellar Owl posted:I've DMed 3.5 and I've also DMed some Star Wars d20, I asked them this question and they just want to have fun, so I was going to set the campaign in Dark Sun, sort of a treasure hunter type campaign where the PCs are a bunch of broke mercenaries hearing about a stash of treasure and gold kept by a dangerous tribe of Halflings and in the way they're encountered by crazy people and encounters. If I might make a suggestion, make sure that everyone has a background, tied to at least one other player, preferably from a variety of cities, so that you can include some intrigue and personal challenges. Your game will likely need a break from being a series of setpiece wilderness/dungeon ("ruins") encounters. Someone's from Draj? Perfect, they need to go there to get some more information about a myth referencing the lost treasure, they get mixed up in the batshit insane culture of Burma-junta-meets-the-Aztecs, and the PC from Draj finds out his old nemesis is now a Moon Priest, or that House Tsalaxa hasn't forgotten that debt his father owed (and they don't care that his father is dead and the PC is dead broke, they can always use slave labor). The treasure could be rumored to be a magical oasis with trees that grow abundant food, and instead of gold it's a collection of honest-to-Dragon steel weapons, supposedly wielded by nameless sorcerer-kings lost to time. (Iron is already worth more than gold, and how much more would magical steel be worth?) On the other hand, if you're looking for a real freebooting campaign where everything isn't about PCs getting screwed hard (by the environment, by city politics, by wasteland raiders, by just plain bad luck) in a grimdark world -- and a basic component of heroism is just surviving -- there's a better choice. If you or your PCs would prefer "Indiana Jones and the Blowgun Pygmies" then use Eberron. There's political intrigue, abandoned temples, lost tribes, centers of civilization, etc., but the tone is quite different. Definitely more suited to a group of down-on-their-luck mercenaries trying to strike it rich. Also, there's an entire thread on Dark Sun, the objectively best setting* ever. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3196218 (*Applies to RPGs, board games, movies, books, or any future creative works.**) (**I may exaggerate slightly but really there's so much to do here in terms of game style, plot threads, moods, etc., that it's great. It might just not be the right tone for the game you want to run.) edited to add more  : Gomi posted:I realized that by 'terrain' I really meant more 'set dressing' in general. Terrain specifically would be squares of terrain with effects, but random objects like 'this half-finished wand could do anything if you're desperate enough to grab it off the table' -- that's the sort of thing I imagine your Hackmaster group would find entertaining. Sometimes when your players think back about a battle it'll be "holy crap, remember that death construct with the necrotic aura, and how we had to rotate the melee guys out?", but they'll remember more fondly "remember when we figured out that the death construct was shifting the damage he took to those zombies while we had to dodge those death energy pillars to fight him? Yeah, and you pushed that barrel of oil off the ledge while the sorcerer cast burning spray on it to ignite it, and we wiped out seven of them in one round? Man, we'd have been screwed if we hadn't done that." Admiralty Flag fucked around with this message at 18:36 on May 20, 2011 |
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May 20, 2011 18:24
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homullus posted:With apologies to Henry Ford, "You can play any kind of Dark Sun campaign you want, as long as it's harsh, desperate, and set in a desert." [derail into Dark Sun chat] Ha, mostly true, but considering the completely hosed-up political/social situation in the city-states and that most towns/villages are run by megalomaniacal desperate power-hungry strongmen, my PCs are sometimes pretty happy to get back into the desert, on occasion just a few minutes ahead of the guard and the Templars. Basically, I follow this model: Wilderness: Call of Cthulhu minus the unnamable horrors (PCs usually survive long enough in combat to come up with a name for whatever they're fighting) mixed with Battlestar Galactica ("I hope we have enough supplies in the caravan to make it to the next town, so long as the raiders don't show up") and a dash of Lost (I don't mean the TV show, I mean "dammit, that sandstorm blew away the tracks and I hope that this is the right way") plus the Donner Party. Civilization: Paranoia with the serial numbers filed off (Friend [/derail into Dark Sun chat]
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May 20, 2011 18:52
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homullus posted:I am not sure why you are asking me this. I am all for changing settings and whatever else people want to change for their games, but if you change Dark Sun enough, it's not Dark Sun, it's your Dark-Sun-inspired homebrew. I am not interested in getting all Ship of Theseus about it, but if you want a campaign with frequent and fast travel between locations, safe highways, a strong centralized government, a party full of Divine classes, a Goblin War, and everything from climbing icy mountains to underwater adventures . . . you can modify the geography, politics, magic system, and history of the Dark Sun setting to do all that and have an awesome superfun campaign from level 1 to whatever with great stories to fill the Best Experiences thread, but I'm not going to accept your claim that you were playing in the Dark Sun setting. In Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk or Eberron, things are different for players and PCs. If my PC was captured by slavers, had all his poo poo stolen by government officials and thrown into the arena, had to flee a town for his life (and likely never return) because of refusing to pay a bribe to the right person, or had a trade cartel attempt to kill him, I might be able to accept this as a downturn or part of an adventure. But if this sort of thing happened to my PC regularly, I'd call bullshit. In Dark Sun, "that's the wasteland for you (tm)". In most worlds, the base measure of PC exceptionalism is advancing levels and acquiring a basic amount of magic items. The base measure of heroism (for "good" characters) is regularly fighting injustice and protecting the innocent. An exceptional measure of heroism might be to free a kingdom from an oppressive master (e.g., a dragon, lich, evil king, etc.). In Dark Sun, the base measure of PC exceptionalism is being able to travel between two cities in a small group with a fairly good chance of survival. The base measure of heroism is slightly unfucking some innocent peasant's life for a brief period of time. An exceptional measure of heroism would be to free a caravan of slaves, to work with the wizardly Al-Qaeda to to kill a particularly important (and repressive) Templar, or to help a village fight off raiders or monsters. You could change the stakes in most other settings to match Dark Sun, or change Dark Sun's stakes to match other settings, but it wouldn't feel like Dark Sun. Or to put it another way, because the world is so corrupt, so hopeless, so merciless, the smallest acts of survival, defiance, and humanity stand out as exceptional. Dark Sun = Battlestar Galactica (new version) Most other settings = Star Wars, Star Trek: TOS/TNG/DS9 Dragonlance = Star Trek: Voyager
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May 20, 2011 20:35
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Gomi posted:Minor-action teleport 5 isn't really too bad for a set-piece fight or a short-term companion -- make it useful by having a lot of terrain that is hazardous or annoying to climb around, so paying the taxifey to zap them to a good ledge becomes a real pace-saver. What level are we talking about? Not to get all mathy on you but perhaps charge in the same range as a reasonably-leveled consumable/item? Even in my mid-heroic Dark Sun campaign, those prices sound like a discount. (Using a price of maybe 2-4% of a permanent magic item for a one-time effect.) E.g.:
Other options might include:
Just be aware that it'll likely slow things down regardless of how it's used. Even killing monsters faster due to CA/+2 attack/+2 damage will likely be outweighed by even a vanilla implementation: "Hmm, which do I need more, attack or damage? What do you guys think? And is it worth 10 GP?" Also, if money doesn't mean anything to your PCs, then perhaps raise the stakes...healing surges to invoke the powers!
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Nov 23, 2011 03:34
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Party Boat posted:The PCs are level 6, and the scenario involves them escaping from the Feywild while a malevolent force turns everything around them to ice - so teleport 5 will be very useful as there will be increasing amounts of difficult terrain as the encounters wear on. Just one more quick thought, because I love giving PCs the option of making difficult choices instead of outright screwing them... Instead of giving the fey his own initiatve count, make it so that the fey grants only one power per round, and recharges each successive round at the same time as the next-slowest PC instead of right after the PC who used it (because if McSmashy the rogue is at 27 and uses the fey, the next turn he'll just delay until 26.9 or whatever, no big loss). However, if someone really needs to gain the benefit before it recharges, he can recharge the fey with a healing surge and then pay the gold. That way, the people who are most likely to benefit the most from the attack bonuses and mobility (strikers and to a lesser extent controllers) will be burning through their surges quickly if they abuse the option. Good luck!
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Nov 23, 2011 21:56
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Vodvillain posted:I'm looking for a little advice with my group right now. We're playing D&D 4e in a homebrew campaign. My dudes are all level 2 right now, here's the lineup: You can use backstories (if they exist) to intertwine destinies and then dangle personally-involving plot hooks in front of certain characters, who will drag their colleagues around (at least if those colleagues want any help from them in the future). A questgiver could offer knowledge of a ritual if the mission is completed. But the questgiver isn't going to give away his knowledge for free or before the job is complete. Combine it with the idea below and you can start to prod the PCs if you need to do some driving. But if the PCs keep playing hardball with people looking to hire them, there's other adventurers in the sea. "Sorry, I don't know you people, why would I give you anything more than a token downpayment? Now if you'll excuse me, I have an interview with another adventuring group." To build on this, start to flesh out personalities for this rival group (for humor value, perhaps they all look like the PCs with goatees). Then it'll become personal for your PCs to outdo them, or plan shennigans around tripping them up. Or try this: no one is giving out quests. Ask the PCs what they want to do in the city. If they get into it, that's great. Otherwise, if things start dragging and the PCs aren't proactive, then they can start hearing rumors about the "haunted sage's tower" or "abandoned shrine of Kord" just a day's trip out of town. No one will pay them for it -- in fact, turnabout is fair play, the PCs may have to drop some coin to get directions -- but it ties into what at least some of the PCs want. (Good luck with the Goliath Warden, that's the worst sort of PC unless they have a backstory explaining why that's how they are.) For leading the PCs around a little forcefully, how about : knowledge of rituals is rare in this world, and regardless of the student's skill it can't be guaranteed that the ritual can be taught -- maybe regardless of the pupil's intelligence/whatever any given ritual just doesn't take. Then you can have crusty old sages offering to teach them rituals, but only if they complete the quest. The PCs are in no position to demand prepayment, and you can just subtract the market cost of the ritual from the treasure given at that level. (It should be easy to get the warlock to take Ritual Caster if he wants to make use of forbidden knowledge, otherwise he's just book-smart in the ways of evil.) eta: to not hose the Warlock by prodding him with a feat to drive plot, give every PC a free "non-combat" feat. No skill training, nothing that helps your powers or combat stats or changes numbers on his character sheet, just stuff like Linguist and so on. The Warlock (and maybe the Paladin) would be good candidates to take Ritual Caster. Admiralty Flag fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Jan 18, 2012 |
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Jan 18, 2012 23:45
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Vodvillain posted:Those are some seriously good ideas, I think I have a solid plan for these jerks now. Thanks, chaps! Pretty hard to refuse jobs when your other options are to become slowly weakened by thirst and hunger until slavers grab you, or you take to mugging beggars (because the people who actually have stuff worth stealing also have guards) in order to survive. (OK, I'm kidding. A little. Dark Sun requires the right sort of players who can adapt to the setting, give up their expectation around getting +4 Bows of Awesomeness, and accept that constantly getting pissed on is part of the game, and the heroism comes with turning piss into lemonade...wait, never mind, bad imagery.)
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Jan 20, 2012 18:39
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Thelonious Funk posted:So I might be lucky enough to play in a game with the person who wrote this as my DM, and after reading it over I think you folks might enjoy the idea: 1) Enchant Magic Item can create an item up to five levels above the character's level. 2) The party finds "reagents" that have a coin equivalent (but of course can't be used as cash in most circumstances -- think of it as 25 GP of Eye of Newt). These reagents can be used for rituals, buying favors from the VA (or cashing in favors to get reagents from the VA), or to enchant magic items. It's just genericizing this pool of almost-money for simplicity. 3) Because PCs don't have the sort of cash to throw around that they do in a regular D&D game, and because the Heroic tier is in part centered around finding three specific gems with amazing primal power, the PCs occasionally find gems that are imbued with fragments of primal/psionic/magical energy. The gems themselves are not especially valuable, often being burnt or flawed due to holding this much power. However, the power they hold can be released in an Enchant Magic Item ritual to reduce the amount of reagents needed to either create an item (requiring a finely-crafted base object) or upgrade/change an item (where the cost is just the difference in the GP value of the two items). The best sort of gem will reduce the cost by 90%, lesser types by less. Also, PCs have found packets of ink that do exactly the same thing but only for tattoos. The one catch is that the type of gem governs the type of upgrade that can be made, and upgrades can only be made in the same "direction" (e.g., a weapon that focuses on pushing would make a poor base for a flaming weapon). This requires a little interpretation and arbitrariness on my part, but I think it works: pre:Element Gemstone Color Aspects affected Wind Topaz Cloudy Air, flight, deflection, noise, lightning, thunder, awareness, power Sand Citrine Brown Stability, impact, defense, readiness, venom, thunder Heat Ruby Red Heat, fire, blood, rage, battle wisdom Chill Lapis Lt. Blue Cold, ice, the mind, light, healing, rejuvenation Void Onyx Black Nothingness, destruction, death, necrosis And there's another set of gems that just help with types of items. pre:Gemstone Color Items affected Amber Orange Armor and defenses Amethyst Violet Weapons Malachite Green Clothing and trinkets Moonstone White Wondrous Items Prismatite Multi- Tattoos and boons
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Jan 20, 2012 19:03
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wellwhoopdedooo posted:<Charging stuff> Once in a while, it's OK to mess with chargers using specific anti-charging tricks to shake things up a little. (I've been considering a ranged controller with the encounter immediate reaction "when enemy moves adjacent, teleport 3 squares" and houseruling that you cannot reverse direction on a charge, because even though it's RAW legit it doesn't pass the reality check. But that's just to make sure the controller gets off a couple of nifty attacks before he's dead.) The flammable oil slick is twice the fun too. But these should be the exception. Chargers are damage machines, but yeah, they're strikers, and strikers who are necessarily taking greater risks than the twin shot archer hiding 18 squares back. You wouldn't put in "anti-healing zones" because the leaders "get off too many healing powers", would you? In short, though, the best answer to mitigate his effects on encounters on a regular basis that also doesn't make it seem like you're screwing the charger is enemies using proper formations (and terrain, if applicable). A surprise flammable oil slick is OK once in a while, but do it more than once per tier and your players will figure out you're trying to screw the barbarian. But if in every combat the ranged baddies get into hiding or duck behind their brute, no one will call bullshit on that, that's just basic intelligence. And once in a while it's fun to throw an overpowered force at the PCs and intentionally use bad tactics for them (I don't know, a bunch of Andro-using kobolds on PCP?). It make the players feel badass cutting down superior opposition because they're using the brains. plester1 posted:<Too many rituals?> I say let him have all he wants. Rituals are typically non-combat and don't really make anything overpowered, just way more interesting IMO. DarkHorse posted:<Minion survivability>Are there minions that have resistances? Depending on how high a level the party is, you may be able to find monsters with Resist 3 or 5 lightning.
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Jan 24, 2012 21:08
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Lord Yod posted:This is far and away the best way to deal with it. When the players are fighting enemies of appropriate training and intelligence (i.e. people with military training, presumably not bandits, definitely not unintelligent monsters, etc) they should expect the enemies to use appropriate tactics...Overall this makes it so that when the party is fighting intelligent enemies they know they'll have to use more elaborate tactics in order to win, versus when they're fighting animals and can just charge in and engage. This makes combat more fun (because of the variety) and also makes your campaign world more believable. Even bandits and raiders use tactics (otherwise, the only way they could be successful would be in sheer quantity of numbers). Ambushes using favorable terrain and pre-planned escape routes, etc. But even among your real scum, even they realize that the guy who can actually hit something with a bow should be in back and they should try to keep people away from him...otherwise, why are they wasting time letting him practice with a bow and make arrows instead of just making him use a sword and do real work when there's downtime? Shifty McShiv knows he's no match for these guys in plate mail, he hasn't survived on the streets this long without understanding basic concepts like that, but if he can sneak up to this roof to circle back to the guy wearing a dress, well, he can show that wizard what his own kidneys look like. As to animals being unintelligent and unable to use tactics, I would recommend you do not try your theory out in real life on a group of wolves, or even feral dogs. (I grew up with a small yippy dog who hated me, and I eventually learned I had to walk backward out of a room he was in or he would try to bite my heel to bring me down.) Pack animals form packs for a reason, and it isn't social networking. Even ants use widescale coordinated tactics when their nest is invaded! One common denominator between the humans and the pack animals...normally you would want your leader safe from immediate danger, but especially in a gang situation I imagine the leader is going to have to demonstrate his alpha status by being front and center in the battle. Just make him an elite or something so he doesn't go down quickly. This isn't to say that all humanoids should use intelligent tactics or that all animals do. But someone doesn't stay alive long enough to be artillery/ranged controller/lurker without the group making sure they can do their job. A mass of brutes and soldiers -- berserking orcs? -- sure, I can see no tactics working there. But too bad for them their shaman died five battles back because no one was guarding him.
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Jan 24, 2012 21:45
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kannonfodder posted:He actually had a pretty interesting idea behind why the paladin joined the group, it was going to attempt to "redeem" the party, or at least set them down the proper path, when all its doing is restricting their fun and making them do things behind his back (aka they sneak away and he goes and makes a sandwich while they adventure). So it started as a good idea, but really isn't working out. What is the general playstyle of the game? Is it close to "standard D&D" (party stands together vs. external forces, for the cause of justice/money/saving themselves/rad magic items/gaining levels)? Or is it more deep along the lines of intrigue roleplaying, with intra-party conflicts and secrets? (Not trying to say that deep roleplaying is exclusive with the former, just trying to understand in overly-simple terms whether your players signed up for a mostly "PvE" or "PvP" game.) If it's "PvE", then the character concept doesn't work (except for broad comedy). If it's "PvP", then it doesn't seem like there's an issue, especially if you apply Liesmith's First Rule in reverse (e.g., it's one thing to ignore the sins of transitory NPCs, but much worse to put up with cancer of the soul standing next to you day after day), so I won't talk about that (plus it doesn't sound like that's the case). When I DMed many years ago in high school, I usually said OK to at least one of my players rolling a character who was actually a greedy, backstabbing assassin in disguise, and then wondered why they could never get past the first eighth of the Temple of Elemental Evil. Same idea. Just because a player wants to play a PC with a certain concept/outlook/whatever doesn't mean that you have to allow it just becase they want to do it -- they've got to go at least halfway to fit in with the rest of the group. Also, don't discuss this sort of stuff via text. You guys are way over-invested emotionally in this issue (as can be seen by the three hous gone by), and the possibility for miscommunication is magnified. Just call him and say something like, "Dude, it's not an issue of how you're playing the character, it's that your character isn't fitting in with the group. Everyone signed up to play a PvE game and your character doesn't work in that setting. I'm sorry, I should have said something earlier, but we've got to fix this now or the game's going to suck. These guys are putting up with your PC in the group, so how are you going to make things easier for them?" Also, "the other character in the dispute was being an rear end, but that is his character." Exactly the same thing applies here. How does the rest of the party deal with his being an rear end/why is his being an rear end tolerable to the rest of the party? Then the answer needs to apply here. Or does the rest of the party not tolerate it? Then it's a problem. And "because he's eeevvvilllll" isn't an explanation for why the PC gets away with it and the paladin doesn't. Who's more likely to start calling each out in a lethal manner after a week of putting up with each other? A group of paladins (each worshipping a different deity and practicing different creeds and beliefs) who banded together to stop a red dragon from ravaging the countryside, or a bunch of evil characters who have their eyes on the big payday of the dragon's gold? If genre holds true, the former iron out their differences after a couple of initial internal fistfights while the latter starts falling apart with knives and poisons after a week on the road. OK, I guess that wasn't so quick after all.
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Apr 2, 2012 18:33
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Magic Rabbit Hat posted:One lucky hit and a bad Fort save later and I was face down in the dirt because of a Paralyze/Con Damage poison that takes six rounds to wear off and needed two saves to cure. Is your DM just stupid? Because when I put poo poo like this in my games there's a really good reason for it and make sure there's something for the player to do in case they blow a save six times in a row (e.g., play the NPC backup or whatever). There's a reason why Stun (save ends) is the worst status effect in 4e. At least with a Dominate you can tear something up, even if it is your own party.
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Apr 2, 2012 23:43
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Guesticles posted:I don't understand this question. 1) What is the makeup of the rest of the encounter group? Or is it just minions? 2) Does the party have multiattackers/AOEs/zones/a paladin with extra marking abilities? The equation at heroic is that 4 level n minions = 1 level n standard, but that's all up for grabs. If the minions are coming in through a confined area and you have AOE controllers or damage zones, that's all she wrote; you'll need double the number to even pose any challenge. If you have high single-target DPS, then it'll be more challenging for the PCs. Minions are best used in conjunction with other ideas, unless it's intended to be a "yawn! pesky kobolds everywhere, interrupting my nap! Well, let's kill them and get back to sleep" PC powertrip moment. There have been some other posts in this thread and others about how to make minions worth using
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Apr 16, 2012 19:36
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Manic_Misanthrope posted:The party is kinda balanced: One wizard, one Sorcerer, one Cleric, one Battlemind...However, a group of Kobold minions block the road, rallied by a wyrm priest to try and take a shot at the party. HOWEVER!: During this time, a few elven archers hiding on the sides of the roads begin to take potshots at the party while a human bandit sneaks up from behind to try and steal the cargo and bring it back to their cave. tzirean posted:Depending on builds and encounter setup, a wizard and a sorcerer can handle a surprisingly high number of minions. You may want to add more than you think you need, and if necessary have some turn coward and run off. Yeah, this sounds like the encounter will (all other things being equal and the PCs not being incautious/very unlucky with Perception) cause the party to do this: Battlemind: Lockdown the human bandit and beat the crap out of him so the other party members don't have to worry about sneak attacks. Cleric: Assist Battlemind with melee, off-tank charging kobolds, and/or fry wyrm priest if laser cleric Wizard: Disable the archers, doing some damage, but preventing a significant amount of their damage potential from reaching the party Sorcerer: Annihiliate the kobolds, especially if the sorcerer has taken some powers that blast a single target (the wyrm priest) hard and do splash damage against the minions. Not saying that wouldn't be a good encounter...allows the PCs to play to their strengths and lets everyone shine. Alternately, the fight turns into a cluster as the Battlemind rushes the Wyrm Priest and gets tied up by the minions (preventing the AOEs from shredding the rabble due to friendly fire risk while not stopping the Wyrm Priest from doing anything), the Cleric tries to get the Archers (silly heavy armor wearer, trying to chase down the elves), the Sorcerer tries to ineffectively fight the bandit (doubly so if not a dagger sorcerer), and the Wizard tries throwing damage around in all directions without thinking about control and/or blows most of his powers to stay alive after being focus-fired by the archers/kobold slingers. It's a 50%/50% chance that either scenario will happen for the average party, and the results tend not to be influenced by the last fight. IN about half the fights, my PCs channel Rommel with their tactics; most of the rest of the time, their spirit guide is Commandant Klink. In terms of "safety" minions, to make sure you have enough, the Wyrm Priest can have a line of bodyguards (which also helps so that the battlemind doesn't somehow avoid the other rabble and break the encounter off the bat by pinning the Wyrm Priest). These guys can all be armed with slings and short swords. Have their attack either be some weak minion ranged attack or allow them to use standard actions with a sling in hand to add +x attack and/or damage to another kobold's next attack ("coordinated attack", "sniper team", "distracting shot", "hail of stones", whatever.). That way, you're not rolling any extra dice, just making the other minions a little more effective. Then, when it looks like the Wyrm Priest might get threatened (which could very well be if the PCs are getting beat up -- "they might just get desperate enoguh to charge"), the reserve draw their swords and form a line with readied attack actions, effectively removing them from the fight until the PCs bring melee attacks to the Wyrm Priest, or if the Wyrm Priest is getting pelted by the wizard and sorcerer, they are commanded to go stab those casters (taking them right into opportunity attack range of the battlemind and cleric). That way, there's no "surprise reinforcements" or "fleeing cowards" (which I always find disappointing as a PC) -- and if the PCs try to engage the wyrm priest in melee, they've already won the fight. Just my $0.02 on that topic...I hate reinforcement minions (unless there's a good reason) and doubly so cowardly ones; it breaks the immersion as you're letting the PCs know you're taking it easy on them because you misjudged the encounter, while having minions act recklessly doesn't really seem to have the same effect (they're just dumb cannon fodder, after all).
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Apr 17, 2012 00:33
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Guesticles posted:They don't need to read my mind. In addition to "Lets think about our bard", they've got several ways to not end up with the bunk prize. What's the 12th level equivalent of "Magic Lantern"? Seriously, why are you doing this? Why not just give out loot that's obviously for specific PCs and just rotate who gets what items to make sure everyone has about the same number of items and the same approximate total of 'pluses'? (Of course I'm anal enough that I have a spreadsheet set up to show for each PC how many items they have, the average level of the items, the delta between their pluses and the party average, factoring for inherent bonuses, but that's not really necessary.) I can't speak for how it works for everyone else but I hear few complaints in my group, because everyone gets items that are awesome for them, and when someone does complain about getting shafted on items compared to the rest of the party I can ask them, "Really, how's that?" knowing there's no good answer. The only catch is if (e.g.) half your party uses hide armor, so you have to give out the more specific versions first so the warden doesn't call dibs on the hide armor you planned on giving the ranger -- give out the lifefont armor first before the more generally useful armor you were planning on giving the ranger. eta: just in case someone misreads this, my PCs have never seen the spreadsheet. That's just for me to plan what items are found at each level. Admiralty Flag fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Oct 4, 2012 |
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Oct 4, 2012 16:54
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Iunnrais posted:In my youth, I was a fan of Piers Anthony. (Hey, don't look at me like that, we were all young once!) Iunnrais posted:At any rate, there is one scene that has stuck with me for about two decades now: In his book "On a Pale Horse" (Incarnations of Immortality Series) the Grim Reaper goes to visit Gaia. The path to Gaia was what I can now describe as a non-turing-computable self-consistent glamoured time-loop. I've been spending the past week trying to figure out if there's any POSSIBLE way to run it, or something similar, in an RPG. (* While looking up the episode to find out the ship's name, I found out it's actually a Soyuz-class vessel, which I guess means they stuck some plastic bits on a Reliant model.) The difficulty seems to be in avoiding rehashing the same encounters/actions as the PCs try to figure out the puzzle. It could get tedious playing through the same scenes over and over. Perhaps something like split the PCs into three different timelines/whatever, and each team has to overcome obstacles and pass an extended skill challenge (as well as figuring out the problem). That way, no one is really sitting on the sidelines too long. Based on splitting the group, I had an idea for a really fun battle to close out the separate tracks before the party reunites. Wall of words incoming, but TL;DR version: put each group of PCs against a group of monsters that have the advantage, and the PCs have a way to exchange opponents across battlefields to get "better" matchups. Split the party so that the groups are somewhat homogenous (e.g., ranged strikers + controllers, defenders + melee strikers, and leaders). Then each group has a simultaneous battle (use one initiative chart, but three separate battlefields, so no one is waiting for some other battle to finish). Oppose each group with a collection of problematic enemies in appropriate terrain (skirmishers/soldiers in ruins with lots of cover against the ranged PCs, artillery/controllers in a mudpit against the melee PCs, and brutes/lurkers for the leaders in an unholy zone that reduces healing surge value) -- i.e., tailor each group of enemies to be very difficult for that group to fight. (E.g., soldiers will lock down ranged characters while skirmishers will be able to keep up with any PCs who have get-out-of-melee-jail cards, artillery/controllers can split up and pick out the melee group from range, and brutes/lurkers can generate enough damage to burn through the healing from the leaders.) Thus, each group of PC starts out disadvantaged against their enemies. Here's the catch: Include some mechanism for PCs to swap out enemies. Allow the PCs to figure out some basic principles either before or at the beginning of battle. Then, when a PC is next to the Altar/Crystal/Statue/Stalagmite of Timeshifting, it might be a minor action (maximum of one try per turn) to make an appropriate skill check (from a decently-sized list, so it's not just the people with Arcana who can do it). Passing this check on an average DC exchanges a random enemy on the current battlefield with one from their neutral battleground, and a hard DC exchanges a random enemy with one from the battleground where the PCs have the advantage and/or limits randomly selected targets to the strong opponents (so the PCs have a reason to keep doing it once they have a majority of disadvantaged monsters in their battlefield). Confusing? Here's an example: code:So using the example above, let's take the example of a radiant cleric. He uses a minor action next to one of the McGuffin sites on his battlefield to make a Religion check. If he doesn't get the average DC, then nothing happens. If he makes the average DC but not the hard DC, then a random monster from his battleground is swapped with a random one from the ranged battleground. If he makes the hard DC, then a random monster from his battleground is swapped for one from the lockdown battlefield -- unless the randomly selected creature is already from one of the other battlegrounds, in which case take an advantaged monster from his battleground and swap it with a neutral monster on the neutral battleground. (So he would never hurt his group by passing a check, such as getting rid of the ranged monster brought over on an earlier turn and getting a melee DPR monster that was exchanged earlier.) Before rolling, PCs could instead choose pull over a random target instead of swapping, and the random target would be a native one from the battleground matching the DC (neutral for average DC, advantaged for hard DC). (This is in case they've taken down more of their enemies than one of the other groups, so they're not sitting around while another group is getting pounded.) The difficult parts would be customizing the monsters so they have a real advantage against one group that doesn't carry over (e.g., make sure the ranged monsters' advantage over the ranged PCs doesn't apply to the leaders, based on the PCs' specific abilities, etc.), and coming up with the right battlegrounds to frustrate but not shut down the disadvantaged PCs. Finally, as a broad skill set is used to operate the McGuffins (so that it's not just one PC per team who has to do it), that means that most PCs will have a very solid score in any appropriate skill, so the DCs might need to be raised, a battlefield's McGuffins collectively only work once per round, etc. Otherwise the whole battle could be sorted by the end of round two. Needs refinement but it just came to me.
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Oct 5, 2012 22:22
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clavicle posted:So I'm running 4e with my friends and everyone seems to be having fun, but I need advice on a couple of things. Companion characters are basically NPCs written up in monster stat blocks. When I had attendance problems with a smaller group, I got sick of rebalancing fights on the fly to account for absences, and it became doubly-bad if (e.g.) no defenders showed up. So I created companion characters for those PCs. To speed things, I calculated their initiative as though they rolled a 10 and gave them a set average damage roll for all attacks (doubled for crits). For any complicated powers, I simplified them (e.g., Avalanche Strike proned the user instead of -4 to defense) or just swapped them out for others of the same level. Finally, for dailies, I toned down the power so it was encounter-level or found a similar-feel encounter power from 2 levels higher (e.g., 3rd level encounter for 1st level daily). The whole idea was that I could hand any player a companion character and they'd be able to run that character quickly and without having to figure out how a bunch of complex powers worked, and the only variables that needed to be tracked were HP and surges. Definitely a good option for the irregular player. About the defender issue: generally I think that things ought to be fun for the PCs and their choices. Someone runs a non-optimized character because it's fun? Then great, I take that into account when building encounters (obviously a fictional example in my game, bunch of munchkins for the most part in my group). But, the way 4E is designed, you need a defender. You can fudge healing through an NPC or boons or whatever, no party is ever short of strikers, and as for controllers -- the best status effect to put on a monster is "death", and having an extra striker does that pretty well. But defenders are key to 4E tactical combat? You could redesign encounters so a defender is unnecessary (e.g., all ranged combatants), but that'll get old. You could create a companion NPC defender, but all that will do is let some PC run two characters (because the last thing you need is to run another NPC) and cause you to rework any encounters you've already designed. The best option probably is to convince someone to switch classes, and allow them to do it at no penalty (up to and including changing their stats, feats, skills, magic items, race, etc.). That warpriest? Sounds like a perfect candidate for a paladin. (And point out that 4E paladins aren't like those boring earlier-version do-gooders; they're basically well-armed zealots "on a mission from God", as the Blues Brothers would put it.) Someone is playing a monk? Then convince them to play a Brawling fighter. You get the idea. If you point out that the PCs are getting creamed in every fight, and that you have a solution essentially continues playing the same character, someone should go for it. (After all, the PC's personality should remain the same, just the specific abilities and game mechanics change. And if everyone is so in love with their specific mechanics that no one will make this change to help the game out, well, that's fine too. Hope they pack a ton of healing potions.) Also, the problem might be that your players think that fighters are the most boring class in the entire game. It's completely different in 4E. Defenders are all fun to play (except maybe the Essentials defenders) and each is distinct in how they fill the role. I think controllers are the only role that comes close to being as interesting. Or another approach: which is more fun? Shooting two big arrows every round and occasionally shooting one more when the warlord tells you to? Or suplexing an ettin, giving him a wedgie, and slapping him a pinkbelly so that he is enraged enough to keep attacking you instead of going after that ranger who keeps shooting him with two (or sometimes three) arrows round after round? Finally, you didn't say you were going to do this and I doubt you were based on your post, but because it ought to be said often -- when someone misses, don't screw them out of XP, gold, or items. That just sucks, especially in 4E where the math runs everything. It's not that everyone else is more dedicated to the game, it's that someone else has something better to do on a given day (family, work, catching up on sleep after working 80 hours, playing in a different campaign that overlaps every six weeks, or whatever). It's basically saying, "prioritize this or you get rewarded less." Umm, that's what my job does, I'd rather not have the principle carry over to game night. Alternately, if the game is fun, then attendance is its own reward, and absent players don't need a penalty.
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Nov 21, 2012 18:02
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AfricanBootyShine posted:I started DM'ing for the first time last week. We're running Dragon of Icespire peak, but that is beside the point. Have the players do some of the work for you, from letting them play scenes as minor NPCs to answering, "tell me, who is that mysterious stranger in the back corner of the bar, and what does he say to call your party over?" Also, don't feel bad about summarizing conversations, especially conversations between NPCs.
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Feb 18, 2021 02:07
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Torquemada posted:WHFRP 4e: All the stuff in the narrative has nothing to do with the PC, so I'm assuming that you want to weave it into a story where the PC finds out what's going on and helps the initiate, and is thus entrusted with the job of escorting the books. Very simply (assuming this is only part of a session Zero and needs to be short), Incel Initiate is actually a low-ranking Nurgle cultist and, rebuffed by the PC's friend, has decided to make her look bad by infecting her patient with Something Nasty that makes the patient's condition worse. PC draws upon their medical knowledge to realize there are two different problems at play here, does some investigation, realizes that Something Nasty requires frequent exposure to Sinister Essence, does sleuthing, finds Sinister Essence in the Incel Initiate's cell along with a "So you've decided to praise Nurgle" pamphlet, exposes him, and gets the recognition and the job as a favor. That's probably enough for an hour or two of play. Adding in the other threads you have: the traditionalist movement is heavily infiltrated by Nurgle cultists, because they recognize that medical science can be effective at spotting and ending contagion. Thus, they're engaged in behind-the-scenes political struggles as well as out-and-out sabotage. The High Priestess seems suspicious, however, because of her very open and honest admission that Shallya's power is not always enough -- or even needed. (What she actually says is that medical science is just Shallya's grace come in a different form, but the Nurgleites are good propagandists.) The PC's friend stumbled onto the plot and had to be kidnapped/eliminated/infected, depending on how you want to play it. The Witch Hunter or Inquisitor has followed some clues and is sniffing around the temple. The PC will get a chance to eke out clues and bring them to the attention of the authorities, but it'll be too late -- a desperate ritual and brawl will break out. Needless to say this will all devolve into chaos (little c), and the PC will get a chance to contribute by interrupting a ritual to summon some nurglings or the like -- I'm assuming the PC won't be able to stand up to the cultists in combat power; that's what the Witch Hunter/Inquisitor and their retinue are for. The PC might even get a chance to rescue their initiate friend. They are rewarded and get the job escorting the books as an additional reward, likely with a letter of introduction to someone important to his career.
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Mar 16, 2022 20:43
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YOUR UNCOOL NIECE posted:I'm running a 1920s Urban Shadows, and the party and I lit a fuse at the end of the last session that I want some ideas for. Not familiar with Urban Shadows, so I don't know if this is in its wheelhouse, but this guy came back from the slaughterhouse that was the Great War...perhaps in the fury of battle and the senseless loss of life (which did persist after the US entered the war, just not to the same degree as it had during years of stalemated trench warfare), what if this guy became a blood pact warlock of some sort? He found he had an innate talent to convert death and suffering into *things* happening, horrible things. To keep himself sane he's kept a lid on his power until he's pushed too far by the PCs, and then even if they blow him away, they have to deal with what he's already set in motion/called forth/etc. Maybe he's not a warlock, just a psychic sensitive who passively absorbed all the negative energy from the suffering, despair, and death he saw/passed by/experienced in Europe, and he can let it out in small controlled exercises or large uncontrolled displays. His reluctance to tap into the depths of his power (or more precisely, his darkest experiences and feelings) are what have kept him on a leash so far. But when the PCs (or the dockworker werewolves or whoever) lean too hard on him, he starts letting it out...and can't stop it.
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Mar 27, 2022 22:58
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There’s no more space at the gambling tables. The only way to get into the casino is…on stage! Once, when RPing a poker game, my GM just had us roll our gambling skills (or sleight of hand at a penalty, if we wanted to cheat), and based on the rolls just gave us cards he picked from the deck. Simple yet brilliant way of simulating multiple hands through a few checks and hands. Are your players more likely to take inspiration from Bond movies (for casino showdowns) or heist movies (to out-cheat the cheaters)? If you can predict how they’ll handle things you can prepare better.
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Apr 10, 2022 21:54
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Reveilled posted:My D&D players are likely to be travelling through the ruins of a Victorian city dragged into hell and drowned in the Styx in a few sessions. The characters are all from Faerun so I want to have them explore a location that’s “futuristic” in the sense that it’s clearly not somewhere you’d find in a pre-industrial setting. I was thinking like, a locomotive factory. If you want to zoom out a bit then the setting from Blades in the Dark sounds like it would hit the flavor to a T, but it won't help you in terms of actual floor plans because the system eschews that level of detail. But in terms of districts, buildings, trappings, etc., it'll give you a lot of detail to work with.
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Apr 23, 2022 19:37
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Just offhand, some other things from which that the knife could cut you free, perhaps accidentally just by holding it the wrong way (because holding it unsheathed in just that way severs the mystical cord connecting you to the entry):
The quest for the scabbard for the knife could be an adventure in itself, and an urgent one because the knife can be hacking bits both large and small out of the PCs' lives but cannot be left out of their reach. (Maybe it's immune to scrying/ location-finding magic while it is possessed by an intelligent being.) Obviously, some of these would have to be carefully planned and require both player buy-in and maybe some sort of "D&D 4E-like power substitution" (thinking here of a character who loses access to their power source; they'd need alternate abilities to remain effective, like a Wizard who has access to a pouch full of indeterminate potions and alchemical substances that they can specify when they use them). ETA a couple of ideas. This could be the plot device that allows a respec if players aren't happy with their class/want to reenvision themselves for Epic tier Admiralty Flag fucked around with this message at 20:09 on May 19, 2022 |
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May 19, 2022 20:03
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Everything Counts posted:Looking for everyone's opinions on this; is it OK to just do a "slice of life" session? Do players respond well to that? No mystery to solve or quest to run, no real plot advancement, just a couple hours interacting with townsfolk and RPing with each other? There's a town that is central to our campaign and we've never really taken the time to establish the place beyond a couple important NPCs, so I wanted to do something low impact that's just getting to know the place so the incoming plot will have actual stakes. Just because there's "no real plot advancement" doesn't mean the session can't be strewn with more hooks (for future sessions) than an overturned tackle box. I remember fondly one game session where we all had a night on the town that I think was supposed to be a 10 minute interlude before getting our next hook, but my Dwarven barbarian/berserker prestige class (I don't remember the name; it was a 3.5 FR I think -- key notes are +Fort, +Will, +Dwarven resistances IIRC) decided to extend the night's party on his own. Getting as drunk as his high CON and Dwarven resistances would allow, he started demanding free goods and services at establishments because "If it wernshn't for me and my friendsh, you'd all be spheaking Orcish now." It ended with a parkour chase from the city guard who eventually caught him after he fell 40' off a wall and stunned himself long enough to be brought into the slammer, then he decided to chant Dwarven battle hymns at full volume in jail. The guard had to rouse a cleric who tried to cast Silence on him, but he passed the save; the cleric got smart and cast it on the lock of the cell. He had to pay a big fine and all that but got released because the mayor needed us to do something else. The key was the DM was letting other players play NPCs involved in the rampage. Lots of fun. BUT a that was only fun because everyone got to be involved, even if not as their character, and there was action (doesn't have to be physical action; could be social action like bluffing or diplomacy). (Technically, there was also a lot of roleplaying on my part.) If you decide to go this way and the players are OK with it, make sure you set up scenes where multiple players can be involved, either as their characters or as NPCs. Also, you might want to take a page from PbtA-type games and let the players do a lot of definition of the town, even down to letting them draw places on the map. It'll give them a bigger stake in things later on (e.g.) when the maiden Rowena has to be rescued from marauding goblins if they're the ones who named and described her.
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Aug 14, 2022 21:41
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Triskelli posted:I’ve been running a campaign for teens & tweens at the local library, but we’ve only got about 1.5 hours of play time. The kids seem to enjoy things so far but how would y’all recommend fitting combat and role play into a single session? Or just general tips for very short sessions What system are you using? Obviously it'll be easier to do both if you have a system that allows compression of combat to a few rolls like something in the PbtA or FitD families. Is the group stable? Even if it is, regardless of system, you may want to use simplified character sheets, because every second looking up what someone can do or how to make a given roll is one of your 5400 seconds gone. But this becomes even more important if you have new people coming in and out. Counterintuitively, let the players take a role in describing things/defining the world. It's not roleplaying per se but involves them actively in a non-die rolling fashion, and more shy players might find that easier to do than speak as their character. Just allow for time spent doing this, and make sure to swing the spotlight onto players who haven't gotten their fair share of time.
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Aug 15, 2022 18:00
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trapstar posted:How concrete should I make the storyline(s) of my campaign? Should it be something I initiate from the start or is it possible to ease into different storylines you have prepared letting the players pick the one they like the most? At around what level should the main quest line start to become a clear-cut thing? (Planning on DMing my first game in the future) Keep it flexible. You can start out with a storyline like "Kobold cult going to take over villages through underground tunnels," but if your players like getting into political intrigues, then you'll need to ditch your storyline plans and pivot. Maybe 3rd level for pushing the storyline once you've gotten the idea that the players will synch with it? All depends on what you expose them to in levels 1 & 2. (Best answer: a variety of themes so you can see what resonates) On the other hand, if your players are more passive, then you sort of need to ram that storyline from level 1 (or be ok with running disconnected adventures).
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Sep 15, 2022 04:45
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Deteriorata posted:A thing we've done is group NPCs into squads and have them attack and defend as a group. One roll for the whole group - they all hit or they all miss - five guys doing 1d6+1 damage each do 5d6+5 damage if they hit. Much along these lines, if OP wants to get pretty crunchy and is playing D&D 5E, they could dig up a copy of Battlesystem and change what needs to be changed to make it 5E compatible. From what I vaguely remember, it sort of worked like this: your attacks per round * THAC0 roll (remember those?) indicated what % of your troops hit, depending on how much you made/missed the rolls by, and each troop did a base amount of damage (average for their weapon), so youd figure out how many troops hit based on your THAC0 roll and multiply it by the average damage. For every X HP done (depending on the defender's HP), you'd kill one of their troops. There was other stuff in there, like command radii for leaders that were based on level+CHA (fighters got a hefty bonus to this IIRC), and troops out of command couldn't execute certain orders and took a morale penalty. (Units suffering losses had to roll vs. morale.) Please note that my memory may be totally inaccurate and instead I might be remembering a mishmash of Battlesystem and 3.X that I ginned up for a night of running Alterac Valley in my WoW campaign many, many years ago. (I took it as a point of pride that my players chose to come to the table instead of getting on vent and raiding.)
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Oct 1, 2022 20:40
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Nash posted:Chases. Anyone ever do one? Third party involvement to help or hinder the PCs, if you've overturned or undertuned the chase (or just for comedic effect) Something I transmogrified from the excellent James Bond 007 game: setting or bidding on DCs. Setting: "I'm looking for a really thick crowd to push through or hide in, at least a DC 16." (Skill to get through is negotiable, of course.) vs. "The guards are chasing you to the drawbridge, which is opening. Everyone on both sides needs a DC 15 roll to make the leap." -- "I'm going to detour through a tight alley to waste a few more seconds. Now, if they want to catch me on the other side, it's a DC 18 roll now." Related, 4E skill challenges (make X number of skill rolls, only Y per skill, before the group fails three rolls.) Most importantly, embrace every cheesy chase cliche you can think of. Toppling an apple cart gives a -2 penalty to a pursuer's roll. Assassin's Creed blending in with monks. "The man who catches Bond lives." Knock yourself out. Your players will love it more the cheesier it is. Ninja edit: these are D&D-focused but the principles carry over, especially the last one.
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Nov 17, 2022 16:14
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kneelbeforezog posted:Is there a cthulhu rpg thread?
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Nov 20, 2022 18:08
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Nash posted:Chases. How do you folks do them? (I'm going to refer to the assassin as 'he' to avoid confusion with the adventurers). To heighten tension, I'd come at it from the other way around: the default assumption is that the assassin gets to the next target unless the PCs are successful in stopping him, and the PCs have to make the skill rolls to stop him. (Of course, the PCs will likely be successful, but let's preserve kayfabe here.) I'd keep some sort of range tracker (e.g., melee, close, short, medium, long, very long, extreme). The PCs might start at medium range. Successes/failures as a group on skill checks affect the range. If they get to melee, they get to try to stop him with combat/grapples/etc; if they get beyond extreme, the assassin gets away. Ranges could also give a penalty to the checks marked with an asterisk (or for those marked with an octothorpe, the inverse is true and there's a bonus correlative to how far away you are from the assassin -- an apple cart toppled at long range gives the PCs more opportunities to dodge around it, etc.) Any PC who tries something clever (e.g., the ranger tries to shoot an arrow through the rope holding a banner above the assassin in order to entangle and slow them, wizard tries to block off alley with web spell, etc.) can roll against some target and give a bonus on everyone else's skill check if the PC succeeds, but automatically fails their skill check for that round of pursuit. If the PCs are too successful, then there might be rolls where they cannot "gain ground," but only lose it (marked with a percentage sign) Sample skill check ideas:
Hope this makes sense. I think it'll be more dynamic than "You roll then I roll for him, oops, blew it, you get a little closer to him."
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Jan 3, 2023 21:01
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Indolent Bastard posted:I'm trying to populate a mid to late adventure dungeon end boss. The trouble I'm finding is that everything either seems laughably easy for the party to destroy or they are some kind of lich that is going to absolutely tpk my players. "Generation ship" of xenophobic dwarves who literally locked themselves away the surface world. Clerics with create food & water spells/rituals (can't remember if this is an official 5th Ed spell) provide sustenance for the tribe, supplemented with mushrooms. Gives you more options for resolution that "exterminate all opposition" for solution as a bonus.
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Feb 13, 2023 01:35
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trapstar posted:Any good tips for implementing a good martial classed badguy in a campaign? I have a brutal barbarian warlord character I want to use as a villain and I'm not sure how to build them up as a villain without them just tracking down the party and just challenging them directly to combat. Three ideas: 1. Don't just make him atrocity city. Maybe make him like Genghis Khan: surrender your city, get to serve the Khan as a satrap, reasonable taxes and military levy, etc. Resist, and it's ravage and plunder time. Just because he's a barbarian doesn't mean he has to be a mindless force of destruction. In fact, he's more interesting if he isn't. 2. What aspect of the predominant PC culture is incompatible with the horde's mores? If you want to turn things around on the PCs a bit, then perhaps the so-called barbarians might be a little more enlightened than the 'civilized' folk: women's equality, full rights for monstrous humanoids (who follow the laws of the horde), equal enforcement of laws for rich and poor alike, enforced redistribution of wealth to support the serf class, whatever. 3. Give the horde an easily-articulated goal. Maybe that's not "conquer the PCs' lands." Maybe it's "find the blade Drakefall," because prophecy says an ancient wyrm is coming to ravage the horde's lands, and Drakefall is the only weapon that can slay the beast. Legends say that Drakefall is located in the treasury of Capital City... Of course, there's nothing wrong with characterizing him as a brutal force of nature -- that's how everyone in his path is likely to perceive him -- but as the PCs gain information they may find their preconceptions challenged. They might even throw in with Kor, if his cause is noble enough and his crimes exaggerated, or at least their consciences will be strained as they stand against him.
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Feb 14, 2023 02:13
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Lamuella posted:Presuming you're talking about a 5e-like system I would generally do something like this:
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Feb 21, 2023 22:18
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Morpheus posted:Do you guys have any suggestions for when a player is getting frustrated due to rolls that just aren't going their way? You sound like the Ranger in my 4E game. His daily was Split the Tree: pick two targets, roll to hit both of them, use the higher roll (so, yes, improve your chances to crit both) against both, and do dump loads of damage against any target you hit. Almost invariably, he would miss not only with the two rolls but also with his elven accuracy reroll. Absolutely cursed. He was a DPS machine in all other ways, except when he tried to use this ability. The advice is follow all normal and received dice dehexing methods. They don't work but can't hurt.
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Mar 4, 2023 21:44
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The Slack Lagoon posted:I have recently discovered my party really really likes puzzles and riddles. 1) https://www.google.com/search?q=lists+of+riddles 2) The Grimtooth's Traps series 3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disentanglement_puzzle; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baguenaudier; https://www.wikihow.com/Win-the-Peg-Game; etc.
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Mar 22, 2023 20:46
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