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Is it me, or does the first level spell damage seem awfully high. Burning hands doing 3d6 in a 15' burst, Guiding bolt doing 4d6 damage + Advantage, 3 old school magic missiles for the price of one. And NPC's will flatten low-level PC's with these as well. The shield spell seems weird as well, cast it as a reaction to gain +5Ac (effective against the triggering attack). "So you hit me, was it by less than 5? Guess i'll cast Shield then." Seems kinda gross in an immersion breaking way. Deflection would have been a better name as well.
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Jul 4, 2014 00:35
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Also in all the previews, do we have a definitive list of all the Character classes that are coming in the new Players Handbook. I hope the Sorceror made it, I really like the idea of the Sorceror as getting powers based on his heritage like they had in an early playtest i saw.
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Jul 4, 2014 00:39
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So do people actually roll for wandering monsters? I've run plenty of dnd over the years and i've never rolled for wandering monsters in my life. Had monsters coming from neighboring areas when their attention was drawn sure, or even when the party first go down x they'll encounter y certainly. But well that's another turn gone, better roll for wandering monsters, never. I've DM'd more Dnd than i've played, but i can't recall ever having seen another DM do it either. It just seems a literal waste of time to me to throw in a pointless random fight. Is it just me or is this one of those things that persist in the meta, but almost nobody ever bothers with. Material components being another good example of this.
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Jul 4, 2014 17:41
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LFK posted:
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Jul 4, 2014 18:08
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ascendance posted:Didn't Zak say if you aren't killing orc babies, you aren't playing OSR? I've long since gone to a interpertation where rather than natural creaures Orcs are creatures of chaos, they are spontaneously generated in weak points of the world (usually underground caverns) where the barriers between reality and the primordial energies of Chaos are thin. They arise, rather like the Uruk-hai in the LoTR films out of mud and filth. Small at first, growing larger with age. Ruleswise, as Goblins, then Orcs , then Bugbears.
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Oct 18, 2014 01:39
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Nehru the Damaja posted:Is the Drizzt cliche really as omnipresent as people make it sound like in the year of our lord 2017? I wanted to make a half-elf bard and the half-drow variant from SCAG seemed awesome, mechanically. Are people seriously gonna assume I'm gonna play as an edgelord or Mary Sue because a bunch of nerds read some books like 20 years ago I regret to inform you that somehow in TYOL 2017 Drizzt books are still being published. The most recent one was about 6 months ago.
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Apr 4, 2017 20:00
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Admiral Joeslop posted:
This was absolutely a thing that existed, because I played it back in the 90's. It was a Module for D&D, in what must have been second edition. You had no idea what you could do until you tried it, or how much damage you'd taken from a hit. I was playing the Wizard. I had a spellbook where the spells were a descriptive sentence of the effect in code, and I couldn't use them until I cracked the code. The higher level spells were more difficult to break. Relatively. They were all basically just substiturion cyphers that you could work out without too much time and effort. It was fun. Haven't the faintest idea what the module was called though. 25 years ago and I was just a player.
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May 22, 2017 13:27
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So it's my turn to take over GM duties and I thought it'd be fun to run a proper D&D campaign which we haven't done for ages. Normally I run my own stuff, but I'm quite busy at the moment and don't really have the time to do a lot of writing so I thought I'd just pick up one of the Campaign books, Curse of Strahd, the new Tomb of Annhilation etc. Is there a thread concensus on which is the better and more fun of these?
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Sep 22, 2017 18:28
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Magil Zeal posted:You can cast Darkness on an object, and if you can fully cover the object it blocks the Darkness. The idea being that you cast Darkness on an object on your person, then after you make whatever attacks you want you can cover up the object to let your allies see again. How exactly you do this is shenanigans. Conspiratiorist posted:You can cast it on an object and then fiddle with the hand economy and your free object interaction per turn to stow/unstow said object. Sounds like one of those scenarios where a brisk "gently caress off with that bullshit." is the correct response from the DM.
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Sep 27, 2017 23:55
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PicklePants posted:Speaking of Storm King's Thunder, I agreed to run it for my group. I'm literally DM'ing its starting this Wednesday. Changes I'm making, straight of the bat. I'm moving the village of Nightstone into the Sword Coast, not far from Bryn Shander. So there's no "Say do you mind taking the bad news 1000 miles away for me basically a total stranger you just rescued". I'm making the Nightstone itself a Giant Rune Magic artifact that most of the Giant factions would want and whose ownership will matter. Xolkin Alassander becomes a fire Genasi servant of the Fire Giants who comes to late to buy the artifact. Yep, he has a large credit note drawn on a reputable Dwarven bank and he's plausible and charming and going to be a reoccuring foil for the party. The Iceclan orcs who then attack will naturally be servants of the Frost Giant Jarl also coming late to steal the stone, and the party and Xolkin will (probably) team up to defeat them. Moving Nighstone means no randomly meeting Zephyros. Incidentally this is the one section of the book I really disliked . Cloud cuckoo lander giant arrives, declares you the chosen one's but won't help you but can also be persuaded to travel a 1000 miles out of his way. Also there's no way my players would agree to enter his castle without me basically telling them 'Yeah, I know this looks incredibly suspicious, but the plot says you have to, to further the adventure". They will encounter him later, but they'll actively have to track him down to find out what he knows. I'm thinking Archmage Roaringhorn in Waterdeep might be a good person to point them in that direction, but we'll see. Finally, as this is already running long, I'm also not keen on the whole God of Giants going "Bored now, let's shake things up". I'm making the Giant Gods distant and uncaring and in fact non-interference in 'small folk' affairs is the policy of the Storm Kings/Queens. A policy they are able to enforce not by the Wyrmskull throne, whose powers frankly I'm not that impressed by, but him having the 'Mantle of Rulership'. A Divine powerup which gives him strong Empyrean level stats. Which is why he's not been killed, the mantle and it's power would then pass automatically to his daughter. Her perceived weakness is what prompts certain giant lords to start pushing boundaries and enacting long held plans of their own. Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Oct 8, 2017 |
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Oct 8, 2017 20:34
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So played our first session of Storm Kings Thunder last night, it went very well. My party looks like a poster for diversity. We have a Dragonborn, Aassimeer, Gnome, Firbolg, Dwarf and Human. And the closest thing to a party spellcaster is a single Bard (Edit: Oh yeah. Forgot the Paladin), so that ought to be interesting. So what I was wondering was can anyone recommend low-level modules that can slot neatly into the SKT campaign. The initial level gain is far to fast for my tastes so I want to spin out those first few levels till they hit level 5 and are ready to move into the main plot and I'm too busy at the moment to write new stuff myself. N.b. They're already in the Sword Coast as I moved Nightstone to being up in the Icewind Dale region and am skipping the whole Zephyros encounter which I didn't like. Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 12:01 on Oct 12, 2017 |
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Oct 12, 2017 11:55
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kirtar posted:You might be able to do Sunless Citadel pretty easily since I think it's in the general area. Just looked at it, too low level, they'll be 2nd by the time they've finished all the Nightstone threads, but that led me to the next adventure in Yawning Portal, Forges of Fury, which with a little tweaking might do very well.
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Oct 12, 2017 19:05
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Zikan posted:if you aren’t playing your dorf as short Italian-American stereotypes who augment their hand gestures with their beard what are you even doing with your life "Ehhhh, It's-a-me, Dorfio!"
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Oct 13, 2017 17:18
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Schwza posted:My group relies on a monk to be up front and a ranger to cure wounds Interesting. How's that working out?
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Oct 22, 2017 22:53
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FRINGE posted:Whoa. Doesn't seem so unreasonable compared to incomes. A man at arms on a shilling a day, that Mail armour is a 100 days wages.
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Nov 26, 2017 13:35
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evenworse username posted:I wrote a bunch of Yeah, that was great. Thanks for that.
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Jan 14, 2018 22:30
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. I don't know how useful it is, but I can clarify stuff if it helps.
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Elysiume posted:
If you're starting at 6th, how about Valor Bard? Lots of spells, decent fighter, Singing/Inspiration buffs and Jack of all trades for out of combat activities.
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Feb 28, 2018 16:47
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Been running Storm Kings Thunder. Harshnarg, the Frost Giant NPC, with the barely reskinned Drizzt backstory got himself killed, and oh look the party had a Reincarnation scroll. Welp. He's a Dwarf now.
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Mar 14, 2018 10:54
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I'm running Storm Kings Thunder and I've just stopped bothering rolling for random encounters. When travelling I just give an off the cuff 60 second travelogue and *bamf* they're there. We've limited time to play, it's a long campaign, why waste the time. Particularly since if it is a combat encounter, it'll be the epitome of the 15 minute adventure and they'll just unload with everything they have. I will occasionally run a 'something interesting/dangerous/drama' happens en route, but scripted in advance, never random stuff.
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Apr 2, 2018 11:46
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Rigged Death Trap posted:Enjoying Ed Sheerelf and Idris Elborc I don't know. I think the bottom one is more Daveorc Bautista?
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Apr 13, 2018 10:09
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They wouldn't even have to be that high. My experience in 5e is to give the big bad some mooks for meatshields, or make it a CR way higher than the book would suggest. The action economy is everything, this thing attacks solo, 5 PC's will murder it. I'm honestly curious how low level you could get for a party to reliably beat that up.
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Apr 13, 2018 21:22
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Elysiume posted:Without going into details, the Pudding King fight is a pretty good example of why action economy is so massively important in 5e. If you're going to throw a single enemy at a party, it needs some absurd tricks in order to just not get annihilated. Case in point, my Party's 6-7th (can't remember exactly )level Paladin, squished him single-handed in one round. Granted they used clever planning to set that up, but the point is more 5E characters can have very high surge damage as well if they're free to burn, smites, action surges, or whatever limited bennies they get on a big encounter. Even at 7th level with a fair wind, and a little luck I wouldn't be surprised if that Party could take that Dreadnought. If they came to the fight fresh, and the CR rating would say that was impossible. Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Apr 13, 2018 |
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Apr 13, 2018 22:12
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Elysiume posted:5e characters can nova hard. Was just thinking about it. Without going full Mathhammer. My groups Dragonborn Fighter with the big sword could attack twice, surge action for two more, then Riposte from the Dreadnought's own attack (and even at 7th had so many HP he could probably tank a full rounds worth of 'naught attack). That's 5 attacks, even with AC20, with his Strength, buffs etc, most of those are going to hit. Never mind any Crits etc, that's a whole chunk of Hp's gone to one character in one round. Even if it pulverises one character a round. With the Dreadnought low Initiative it's probably going to go last, which means the party are going to have effectively 9 rounds combined to it's 1 (5 before, 4 after) to hit it with everything they've got before it gets a second round itself.
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Apr 13, 2018 22:34
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MonsterEnvy posted:They have actually been changed. Namely in that the Demon Lords appear to have been nerfed. The Demons Lords have had their hp reduced and have had attacks weakened. For example Yeenoghu had his 2d12 + 9 damage flail reduced to 1d12+9 and his 4d10+9 damage bite reduced to 1d10+9 damage. That seems an odd choice for CR20+ encounters, I wonder why they did that.
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May 18, 2018 20:21
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Kaysette posted:I see new DMs posting online (not here) fairly frequently about how OP fighters or other martials are in LMoP with their high ACs that the DM can barely scratch. They don't know to use save effects to mess with them Until the Paladin reaches 6th level and gets Aura of Protection and suddenly I feel like I can't remember the last time anyone failed a save.
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Jun 25, 2018 19:31
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If Fireball doesn't solve your problem, it's clearly not a real problem. 
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Jul 10, 2018 12:14
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Aren't you supposed to be like only 4th level when you do the test. So you only have access to 5 (depending on edition) or so spells chosen with no knowledge of what you're likely to face. Plus he has to do the whole thing on his own. Did anyone ever give examples of a complete test because that seems hard to design for. It'd be a fine line between too easy, so one bad roll can't kill/fail the PC or so hard that there's a very high chance of killing/failing the PC in question.
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Jul 11, 2018 13:15
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The Dregs posted:OK, so my crotchety old bastard of a friend really wants to run his 'Dream D&D Campaign". I've seen his notes, some of them are over 30 years old. This guy wants to play his best-selling fantasy novel he's never got around to writing. This game is going to be super rail-roady, and he's going to be constantly pissed when players go off script and don't do what he expected and wanted them to do. Have fun with that. Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 11:16 on Aug 8, 2018 |
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Aug 8, 2018 09:06
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adhuin posted:Is Curse of Strahd just brutally hard module? I've never played it but I've seen similar stories. Certain encounters and locations are apparently very hard for some party compositions/smaller groups.
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Sep 30, 2018 22:18
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Oh speaking of Pathfinder. I should just shout out, because it seems to have had zero marketing/promotion and there may well be those in this thread interested. Pathfinder: Kingmaker came out last week, it's essentially a modern Baldurs Gate game using a pretty faithful version of the Pathfinder ruleset and based on the Adventure Path of the same name. Seems to be getting a pretty decent buzz.
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Oct 1, 2018 13:28
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Elysiume posted:Ah, I've never played CoS so I assumed in a toe-to-toe fight he'd best the party until lategame. Probably shouldn't be commenting on it as much, given that. You might be suprised how low level the party could stomp him at if you just played it as a straight fight. The Action Economy is a hell of an equaliser, especially if the players have some of their burst damage options still (Smite, Action Surge etc) .
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Oct 4, 2018 10:56
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MonsterEnvy posted:I would love a faithful CRPG based on the current ruleset. The closest we had recently was Sword Coast Legends. But it kind of turned out Mediocre and did not actually follow any rule set. There's a new (few weeks ago) Baldurs Gate style game, with a pretty faithful Pathfinder Rules implementation that's a take on the Kingmaker adventure path. https://www.gog.com/game/pathfinder_kingmaker_explorer_edition Haven't got around to it yet myself, as I've finally gotten around to playing the near-infinite in length Witcher 3 but it might scratch your itch.
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Oct 16, 2018 16:07
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MonsterEnvy posted:The most faithful adaptation was probably Temple of Elemental Evil. Which if you download all the fixes and mods from Circle of Eight wasn't bad.
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Oct 16, 2018 18:49
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So literally just got back from running the climactic encounter of Storm Kings Thunder. We went rather off the beaten track of the module but they got to fight Imyrith the Ancient Blue Dragon in her lair at the end. 5 fully rested 9th Level PC's with time to make intelligent preperations and spell selections were predictably dangerous. Even with HP boosted to maximum and intelligently played the party brought her down in just 5 rounds without a single party death. They enjoyed it though. It took 2+ hours to resolve the fight, which is way longer than I'd normally let a fight go but it was the climax and it was fun just to have a no-holds barred slugfest. I ended up using every Giant Lair which was nice, but only 1 was in a old-fashioned 'lets wreck this place and steal their stuff way'. I used 2 for Commando-style raids where the party were still under-leveled for a straight fight against Giants but strong enough to sneak in, pick a key fight or two and escape after achieving their goal. The rest were mostly diplomatic/roleplay encounters. All in all a fun campaign, it's not perfect and I strongly suggest (as is always good advice) letting the party follow plot threads that they seem most interested in and skip stuff or add stuff as appropriate but we had a fun year of play. Next week I actually get to play a game and we're going old-skool FASERIP. Woot! Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Oct 23, 2018 |
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Oct 23, 2018 23:27
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RE: Survival stuff in Out of the Abyss. A party with access to spells like Leomunds Tiny Hut and Create Food and Water etc will trivialise all this of course.
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Oct 27, 2018 09:46
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The way I've house ruled damage in my most recent game is for every multiple of your CON in negative damage you took that counts as one failed death check. So CON 12 , reduced to -13. Start rolling as usual but with one failed death check 'marked off' So CON12, reduced to -24. As above with two checks failed, one more failure will kill you. So CON 12, reduced to -36. Instantly dead. Of course this all became academic the moment the party cleric learnt revivify.
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Nov 1, 2018 11:57
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Gharbad the Weak posted:Was that just the druid? I could swear there was another one. I may be confusing editions. The monk was similar. Had to defeat the next highest in the heirarchy beyond a certain level to advance.
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Dec 4, 2018 14:28
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