D&D NEXT: Infinite Posts of the Abyss

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Proud Rat Mom: Apr 2, 2012; did absolutely fuck all

Novum posted:

Except these characters are actually incompetent. Gen. Hobgoblin is really good but shackled by his perceptions of how he thinks he's supposed to act.

Seems like a bad character concept dude

# ¿ Sep 15, 2018 17:51

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 21:34

Proud Rat Mom: Apr 2, 2012; did absolutely fuck all

AlphaDog posted:

Cognitive dissonance is a bitch.

lmao this is pathetic

# ¿ Sep 23, 2018 00:28

Proud Rat Mom: Apr 2, 2012; did absolutely fuck all

Gharbad the Weak posted:

I know there are issues with the various communities at large (I hear Vampire courted neo-nazis???), but they've been persistently worse for 5e, with even other d&d versions being generally (but not totally) better.

lol ok dude

# ¿ Sep 24, 2018 19:22

Proud Rat Mom: Apr 2, 2012; did absolutely fuck all

Fruity20 posted:

yes. I have tendency to be very gullible. I guess one thing i could do is write down notes on things my character knows and refer to it every now and then.

I don't understand how gullibility fits into that? could you explain more? also don't worry about knowledge stuff too much. I have a wide range of players who vary between knowing the game inside and out, players who get really into characters and others who can barely remember anything about last session. a good group comes to a natural consensus of what a character should or shouldn't know through backstory and a bit of common sense.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2018 17:47

Proud Rat Mom: Apr 2, 2012; did absolutely fuck all

has anyone here got the adventures in middle earth players handbook/and or loremasters guide? i'm interested in the class composition + any rule changes made, and if it could be used in a homebrew low magic setting. though my players have played delta green so maybe the newest rune quest might be a better fit.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2018 22:36

Proud Rat Mom: Apr 2, 2012; did absolutely fuck all

Edit: misread post thought you was running it instead of playing.

Proud Rat Mom fucked around with this message at 14:16 on Oct 1, 2018

# ¿ Oct 1, 2018 14:09

Proud Rat Mom: Apr 2, 2012; did absolutely fuck all

Sage Genesis posted:

A while ago I told you that a friend of mine was going to DM and he didn't know which adventure yet. That choice has been made: Strahd.

Party is almost certainly going to be a Wizard, a Paladin, and a Rogue.

Without getting into any spoilers, any general advice you can give? Like, are Clerics mandatory in this adventure? Is it heavy on the dungeon crawling or more of a sandbox or something?

If your dm is new I recommend instead that they do the starter adventure, which is not only great, but is designed to ease new dms into the role.

You can get away with a paladin instead of a cleric. It�s not a dungeon crawl, more like a narrative heavy adventure with sandbox elements. It�s great, but requires a lot of investment from both the dm running the NPC�s and players roleplaying to get the most out of it.

Proud Rat Mom fucked around with this message at 14:17 on Oct 1, 2018

# ¿ Oct 1, 2018 14:14

Proud Rat Mom: Apr 2, 2012; did absolutely fuck all

Kaysette posted:

My currently sick brain broke trying to parse this but the short version sounds great. The ability to pop back up from deaths door at 1 HP no worse for wear really irks me in 5e.

path 2e looks cool to me. I'm glad they are listening to feedback that isn't just grogs whining.

# ¿ Oct 1, 2018 14:41

Proud Rat Mom: Apr 2, 2012; did absolutely fuck all

Splicer posted:

It's the age old case of yes the status quo is bad, but is this a good way to resolve it? It's just another counter that does nothing until it kills you. So more bookkeeping with minimal play impact.

making the players feel threatened to go down is honestly the most important thing, and the wound counter does this without keeping people down and out of the game.

# ¿ Oct 1, 2018 18:10

Proud Rat Mom: Apr 2, 2012; did absolutely fuck all

Toshimo posted:

I'm starting a Waterdeep Hardback campaign next week and I'm working on character ideas. These duders will probably be used only for 1-5 (or maybe they'll want to do the 6-20 after, but no promises). Standard array with rolled wealth.

Here's my ideas so far, give me some feedback:

Aasimar - Fallen - Paladin - Oath of Conquest --- Extremely bitter for being cast out of Heaven, he's ready to conquer the Realms to show Heaven who was right all along.

Goblin - Fighter - Cavalier --- Yes. A goblin who rides a war mastiff literally everywhere.

Variant Human - Rogue - Thief Healer --- A technophile ahead of his time, he uses medicine kits and other gizmos to supplant the traditional cleric role in the party.

Lizardfolk - Cleric - Grave Domain - The first heading under Lizardfolk is "Alien Minds", and I can't think of a better descriptor for a cleric whose focus is Doing Harm.

Yuan-Ti Pureblood - Warlock - Celestial --- A snakeman who, seeking the power to ascend to godhood is Very Confused when his patron gives him the ability to save lives over taking them.

I could also go with a Goliath (class TBD) who goes incredibly all-in on the whole "Fair Play" thing.

depends how much your DM knows about waterdeep, and if he reads the whole book before running it, alot of these characters including the rogue would have great hooks for the city already. the yuan ti especially works if you limit his ambitions into a more broader 'power' goal for the time being.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2018 11:11

Proud Rat Mom: Apr 2, 2012; did absolutely fuck all

gradenko_2000 posted:

Follow-up:

An average encounter for a level 1 party is four monsters of CR 1/8 each, and each player will earn 25 XP from that one encounter.

Getting to level 2 requires 300 XP, so it's going to take 12 encounters to get to level 2

Applying this method:

* Getting from level 2 to level 3: Average encounter is four monsters of CR 1/4 each, yielding 50 XP per encounter, needing 12 encounters to level up
* Getting from level 3 to level 4: Average encounter is four monsters of CR 1/2 each, yielding 100 XP per encounter, needing 18 encounters to level up
* Getting from level 4 to level 5: Average encounter is four monsters of CR 1/2 each, yielding 100 XP per encounter, needing 38 encounters to level up
* Getting from level 5 to level 6: Average encounter is four monsters of CR 1 each, yielding 200 XP per encounter, needing 37.5 encounters to level up

All told, that's 117 (rounded-down) encounters before hitting level 6.

All of these encounters would be using the CR 0 to 5 treasure tables, which have a 12% chance of yielding loot from the Magic Item Table F, so on average, we can expect Table F to be rolled-on some 14 times over the course of all of these encounters.

Table F itself has a 15% chance of yielding a Weapon +1, so we can then expect that a Weapon +1 would come up twice in the course of the 14 Table F rolls.

The chances are a little higher if you start including things like a Javelin of Lightning or a Trident of Fish Command.

The chances are going to be lower if you start using higher-level encounters against the party, because they're going to level-up faster, but your treasure tables aren't going to be any better until/unless you start dipping into the CR 5+ tables.

they roll treasure on the individual encounter table, not hoard treasure table

# ¿ Oct 23, 2018 12:26

Proud Rat Mom: Apr 2, 2012; did absolutely fuck all

AnEdgelord posted:

So I just wanted to thank everyone (clusterfuck in particular) for the information. It sounds like Out of the Abyss is a campaign that requires a bit more work from the DM to get running than average which isnt really what im looking for. Id like something that is more or less complete out of the box.

Fortunately after looking into Curse of Strahd and Dragon Heist it sounds like both adventures might be right up my alley. Im used to running more investigative or political games from my time with nWoD and CoC. The gloomy theme of Strahd and the more urban environments of Dragon Heist also appeal to me for the same reason.

The only two adventures I dont really see that much info on are Tomb of Annihilation and Dungeon of the Mad Mage (which I know is a follow up to Dragon Heist). Id be interested to here people's thoughts on them as well.

I'd recommend not running dragon heist. it's a low level city adventure missing any connective tissue or big payoff. Tomb can be really great, but it's more suited for a whole group that has a completed module under their belt.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2018 10:03

Proud Rat Mom: Apr 2, 2012; did absolutely fuck all

Nutsngum posted:

Playing through Curse of Strahd as a tempest Cleric disciple of Thor has been way more fun then I thought. Been doing about 75% of the groups damage just by myself and I only just realized after hitting lvl4 at the end of last session just how good Spiritual weapon actually is in increasing damage potential.

Bow before the might of the thunder god assholes!

yeah spiritual weapon + whatever the circle of angels 3rd lvl spell is really sold me that martial clerics just kill the fighter equivalents, especially for the first 10 levels.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2018 13:01

Proud Rat Mom: Apr 2, 2012; did absolutely fuck all

Nutsngum posted:

I think I have come across an issue with my melee Tempest Cleric build. In that it actually fails to scale well at all.

So basically the game is setup for damage dealers to effectively scale up at lvl 5, 11 and 17 (roughly). This basically occurs with things like extra attacks or damage upgrades for basic cantrips. On top of this dedicated damage dealers will also have bonuses through hit or casting modifiers and or abilities to improve. For example eldritch blast has Agonising blast, Wizard has Empowered Evocation, sorcerer has an equivalent etc.. The differing classes/subclasses will scale different based on flavour and additional abilities and the likes.

Now looking at my tempest cleric.. he gets divine strike at lvl 8 and lvl 14 for an increase of 1d8 thunder damage each time. Theres your scaling you might say. The issue is that this is only a slighly improved equivalent of Agonising blast for example as each of those 1d8s has an average damage increase of only 4.5 ( i think that's the correct probability). Most Warlocks will be doing +4 damage at level 4 let alone lvl 8 (ignoring that this actually applies to all Eldritch blast hits).

So basically by lvl 14 I will be doing (for a warhammer) 1d8 + strength 4 (due to MAD) + 9avg compared to another full caster (Evocation Wizard with Firebolt) which will be doing 3d10 + 5 which will go up to 4d10 + 5.

Its not a marathon behind but it really feels like when the tempest (or war etc..) domain really focus a lot on melee flavour through heavy armour/martial weapons/scaling melee attack that they then nerf the actual melee ability seems stupid. Yes Booming/Green blade exists but you have to take a feat to get it which does mean sacrificing important stat increases for it.

I just feel that the domains should have a few more pros/cons attached to them. Arcana domain makes sense to scale to cantrips more and maintain general spell usefulness. Just seems silly to only somewhat focus melee oriented domains though.

My issue really is that unless I DO go booming blade my best damage per round at lvl 5 is going to be sitting back and spam casting Toll the Dead for 2d12 whilst spamming spiritual weapon. Im a cleric of Thor drat it, you gotta hit em with your hammer!

you are comparing your at will attack for a specific subclass focused for at wills, and spiritual weapon makes up the difference most of the time anyways. you got better hit dice and ac to stay in the fight. by 8th level you can destructive wrath around 6 times a adventuring day, maximizing your divine strikes or call lightning.

# ¿ Nov 6, 2018 13:47

Proud Rat Mom: Apr 2, 2012; did absolutely fuck all

Nutsngum posted:

So had to hastily throw together a last minute DnD game as one of our Strahd players is sick and I got asked to DM a one shot so I thought "gently caress it, ive wanted to run Tomb of Annihilation for for ages" so just bought it on roll20. Has anyone else found it to be really tough to get going or is it just the roll20 version seems to just dump you in a city with so much to do that you have no idea what to do? The lack of prep work didnt help but it was a massive struggle to guide the players into what they're actually meant to doing.

Considering the first side quest is a challenge 5 fight out of nowhere vs a bunch of lvl1s that i had to massively fudge to not just TPK in what was almost still session 0 it just seems to be a bit bereft of solid information.

I don't know how easy it is to get to work with roll 20, but cellar of death on the dmsguild is a perfect intro adventure and is linked directly to tomb of annihilation. That should get them up to level 2. Instead of dropping them directly to the city, have the teleport circle misfire and drop the party 3 days south from port nyanzaru. My intro character was one of them suspended 20 ft up from the jungle floor by vines with others scattered, with 4? dimetrodons snapping fruitlessly at the tangled player. i had 5 days of jungle encounters pre rolled, and if you give your players the map, they will know port nyanzaru is to the north of chult and should head in that direction (let them come up with a plan to orientate themselves). If they haven't found the city by the 5th day, have the encounter for the evening be them stumbling into Flaming fist mercenary's who escort them to there camp. the mercenarys could also come in earlier to stop a party wipe/mishaps if it feels like it's going that way. This should get them close to level 3, perfect for when they explore nyanzaru and get ready to set out proper.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2018 23:34

Proud Rat Mom: Apr 2, 2012; did absolutely fuck all

Toshimo posted:

More WDH:

So, either my DM or WotC (por que no los dos) are falling down on the job.

We are given tasks by various Waterdeep factions in order to start currying favor with them.

I picked the Zhents. Another party member picked The Lords' Alliance. Another picked the Harpers.

We got into that fight and my DM basically talked me out of straight murdering this house full of nobles to save my Zhent buddies because neither he nor the hardcover had any idea what to do if you started helping the Zhents instead of the nobles and he strongly suggested it was gonna be "and the town guard executes anyone they catch".

The next morning, we head off to the Yawning Portal to meet my Zhent contact to discuss what happened.

They aren't there, but The Lords' Alliance rep is. He gives my buddy a quest to go break up a Zhentarim deal on the docks. I'm like "dude, you are putting us in a real bad spot, because I will definitely tip off my boys."

Like, idk if the point is to turn the party against each other, but this poo poo is getting real dumb.

I stopped running it part way through, but your dm dropped the ball on that one. It's pretty clear and readable in multiple places that there is a schism in the group. davil can slowly let on, or the way i did it, have the other sides lieutenant pay the pc zhent a visit for a chat at trollskull.

You can't blame him completely though, if you ran the book without taking the time to add and foreshadow, the villains path never crosses with the pc's until the end. Curse and Tomb are the only campaigns worth running apart from lmop.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2018 13:52

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 21:34

Proud Rat Mom: Apr 2, 2012; did absolutely fuck all

One minor Gripe I have with d&d 5e is how loving ugly the dumb black with red splash book spines look on my shelf.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2018 03:28

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