Charles Bukowski posted:

Hello thread. I am DMing for the first time on Sunday! I'm a bit nervous, but I've been reading over the campaign and the multitude of DM advice threads on reddit. I'm a little annoyed the campaign book isn't as detailed as I would prefer, but I guess that's for me to flesh out with my own additions to the story. The previous DM was very generous to our party, but he wants to play now and asked me to take over for the 2nd book of this campaign (Rise of the dragons). I would like to run the game a bit closer to the rules, but I don't want to be a "no you can't do that" kind of DM. I'm going to try and find a balance where the game isn't easy mode like it has been, but not me just denying the party things and making it unfun. I'm also going to get everyone to send me their backstories as the previous DM didn't do much to try and incorporate them into the campaign.

Mendrian posted:

I think people have already got you covered w/r/t 5e and its ruleset. But let's talk about improvisation.

One first time mistake a lot of DMs make is trying not to improvise, and not letting the players improvise. This is a sure way to have a Bad Time; any time a player's agency is questioned they will begin to have Less Fun, unless you are explicitly trying to play a tactical combat game, in which case maybe that's the expectation.

The second mistake DMs make when it comes to player improvisation is saying yes, but then making it functional impossible. Like, setting the DC 30 or plain-ol' not setting a DC, letting a player roll, and then just telling them they've failed regardless of the outcome. This is the same thing as saying no, but with more steps. A particularly insidious version of this is the DM who says, okay, roll for it, but then makes you roll about six times between beginning and end the action. For example, "I want to swing on this rope" becomes, "make an athletics check to jump, an acrobatics check to hang on, a attack roll with disadvantage, and then.... etc" because the player will more than likely fail.

Your best bet is to say yes to the idea and present the player with a simple cost or a single check. Costs can come in the form of actions (typically bonus actions or movement are best for this; taking away an action should be reserved for attack-equivalent actions), future disadvantage, hp loss (10% or less than their total, generally) or something more ephemeral. If the player's idea is just too outlandish for you ("I want to ride this dragon!") then let the player know that, and negotiate a compromise ("well you can't ride him but I'd let you hang on to his wing.").

Another option is to let a player try something unusual in combat if they have Advantage, and require both rolls to hit in order to pull off whatever stunt they're driving for.

Polo-Rican posted:

I was DMing a game recently and had the players enter a vampire's lair.

One of the PCs should know all about vampires, so I read off some basic info about vampires, including this little gem I didn't know about :

"If a piercing weapon made of wood is driven into the vampire's heart while the vampire is Incapacitated in its Resting place, the vampire is Paralyzed until the stake is removed."

The players opened the casket and then the player with the stake rolled a natural 20 dex check for plunging the stake into the heart accurately. So, the players were able to kill a monster normally worth 10,000 XP without breaking a sweat — literally the easiest kill in the entire adventure so far. I'm fine with this since the players did carefully prepare for the battle... and, luckily this particular vampire wasn't integral to the story, just something that had been terrorizing a village of nearby NPCs. Still, it doesn't feel right and I'm curious about how other people handle wooden stakes and vampires.

Ryuujin posted:

Its not perfect but I kind of like it? It doesn't have the huge variance of xp in the current system, and still calls upon CRs to a degree. Though obviously if you are going to throw something more than 2 times your level in CR then it breaks down as everything more than 2 times your level in CR is worth the same amount of xp, then again I think there was some diminishing returns thing already. Also it falls apart if the party is different levels since they will more or less level at the same rate instead of needing less xp for lower levels.

But going off a 100 xp per level, empty out when you level, makes it simpler to know right off the bat how close you are to leveling. I could see at least trying to use it.

AlphaDog posted:

One group I play with has 2 (out of 4) players who are very traditional about XP and don't want to play a game where you just level up when the DM says so because of reasons they'd be happy to explain to you at length. The DM loudly agreed with them, and has been giving out xp to everyone in differing amounts at the end of each session since the game started. Every single time we've accumulated enough xp to level up, it's been every character at the same time at the end of a plot arc after we fight the end boss and get the loot and move on to the next bit of story. When we levelled to 3, I asked the DM if there was any point actually writing down these xp numbers, and he said "gently caress no, we're milestone levelling, I'm just keeping (those two) happy, you should probably mention it to (other guy)".

We're level 12 and the two dudes who care deeply about detailed xp haven't noticed yet.

dwarf74 posted:

Hey guys! I just found out that D&D Beyond gives you a 15% discount if you buy all the books up-front!

Only a $279 bargain to buy electronic versions of the books you already have! And holy moly you get a whole 15% off the future ones, too (no, of course they aren't included, this is only the stuff now)! What a steal!

I mean, I dunno about you but I can't wait to pay $300 for a character builder!

https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/beta-testing-feedback/5743-faq-d-d-beyond-pricing-purchase#c8

Subjunctive posted:

"Well, guess you're all wrapped up then. What's your next character going to be?"

MonsterEnvy posted:

If I had a choice though I would buy all the character options in that case.


I am not ether. Would be much better if they had a thing to somehow check if you own one of the physical books. Still this device could be useful for buying books in the future. It looks like it would appeal more to people that don't already own the books.

Caphi posted:

Do people like this realize that they'll be responsible for babysetting a level 1 through a bunch of encounters with archdemons or head cultists or whatever?

P.d0t posted:

Alright, I've gotta ask:

How many people itt are legit using some sort of character generator to make their characters for 5e?
If so, how much of that is "to use additional content that is spread over UA/is in a book I don't own"?

Enola Gay-For-Pay posted:

Volo's guide to monsters has a bunch of races.

MonsterEnvy posted:

No just one. Still it's mainly a monster manual. Not a player races book.

The Upcoming Xanathar's Guide appears to be the big player options book.

Darwinism posted:

An animated TV series could potentially be good, where LA D&D stuff... well, we all know how that ends up.

I'd give my firstborn for a Fell's Five TV series.

Darwinism posted:

The thing is that all of these things are very low-magic at the most, even the most fantastical GoT gets is nothing compared to what people expect from D&D.

So when a live action D&D thing happens, you have spells being thrown around, magical armors and weapons, far more common magical beings of different types, etc. All of this is a lot more expensive to CGI or practical effect in and very difficult to do in a manner that's convincing. And while D&D has the name recognition in the public sphere, it really doesn't command budgets high enough to do this in the Western movie economy.

Ryuujin posted:

Do you have access to PDFs while playing? If so the best character sheet I have seen is More Purple More Better's Form Fillable Sheet. It generally gets updated fairly quickly when new content comes out, has options to select if you want UA material available, has options to change the colors of the sheet, is up to date with the last bit of character options released, is Pay What You Want, and you can download updated versions when they come out if you have purchased it.

Other than that? Not sure, most of the apps I used to see seemed to either be limited to level 1, limited to the same stuff Beyond currently is, have no information and need you to enter everything manually, or were taken down.

Enola Gay-For-Pay posted:

From what I gathered OrcPub offered a lot more than most other resources, and it was all executed far better than Beyond or a huge PDF. I wasn't really using the site, though, and I wasn't aware that they were charging for content which is kind of a red flag.

Not that there's anything wrong with MPMB's pdfs, they're pretty loving great, but they're still giant slow PDFs.

Magil Zeal posted:

I agree on Battlemaster maneuvers and hell I homebrewed 22 new ones, but at the same time I feel like it's a pretty big design problem right now that BM maneuvers are tied to one single fighter archetype and that makes me really not want to play any other fighter archetype. Really, all fighters should get BM maneuvers and the martial archetypes need to be overhauled. Like, Knight is kinda neat, but picking it means no maneuvers at all and that's sad.

User0015 posted:

Yup. Again, the jumping rules are pretty funny to if you've ever done any kind of athletic activity in your entire life. A DC 10 strength check to jump a low hedge or wall? Are you serious?

I'd pay a good chunk of change to see Mike Mearls attempt a tough mudder if he thinks hopping a wall a quarter of your jump height is remotely challenging, or that running and jumping 12 feet at a sprint is an incredible feat only capable by athletes in peak physical condition. An average standing jump is 7 1/2 feet, which would put your D&D stat score in the 14-15 range. Even a poor standing long jump is at least around 6 feet, which still puts you above average in D&D terms. Hell, most goons could probably hop across a puddle of water 6 feet wide with little effort.

The Gate posted:

Yeah, Con is probably the better option on second thought, for that reason. A flat duration (of a minute? 4-5 rounds?) with a save each round might also not be terrible since most spells act that way. If there's an even higher tier of options, that might be the place for effects that are short duration, powerful, but have no save at all, or for ones with only a single save and are slightly longer?

mastershakeman posted:

How does that Kickstarter 5e supplement work legally? Does that guy need official permission to market it as such?

Kaysette posted:

Ryuujin posted:

Grapple isn't really all that strong by itself. It does become quite good when combined with Prone. And of course if you could pull both off in one turn, and can actually keep the enemy from escaping, then it becomes quite good single target control.

Technically nothing in Grapple, or Restrained, prevents or even remotely hinders spellcasting. Or attacking.

I believe there is actually a feat for hindering spellcasting?

thefakenews posted:

Welp, turns out that Mearls says you can. Doesn't seems correct to me, but oh well.

https://www.sageadvice.eu/2016/06/02/can-a-character-attempt-his-bonus-action-between-his-2-attacks/

Raar_Im_A_Dinosaur posted:

BM attack? Stop using poop as weapons.

The Gate posted:

Man, the more I hear about Colville's stronghold KS, the less I like it. The latest video he's talking about the units you recruit, and apparently units are divided by races. Which seems super weird? Like, why can't there be a unit of heavy cav, and it's a mix of races. That seems about ten times more likely than, "Oh hey exactly 100 Elf cavalry just showed up" or whatever. Especially in a setting like Faerun where most empires are big mixes of races. I don't see why they'd suddenly segregate themselves. Also, the things you recruit are based on your Class and Alignment, I haven't seen anything to indicate you can work to choose what sorts of units/people to recruit and change the percentile roll (because of loving course it's a big percentile chart).

I think whenever this hits I'm just going to rip out the costs and whatever rules he has regarding the physical buildings and effects of various followers, and dump the rest. Like hell, you're the guy in charge, can't you put up recruiting posters and send word "Hey we're looking for x, show up and we'll pay you" instead of "Hey randomly anyone come over and maybe we'll give you a job."

The Gate posted:

5e.txt

"Bad design? No no, you can do anything you want!"

And yeah, that's true, but it would be nice to have something professionally designed from the ground up that makes sense and is balanced. I'm sure I can hack something together, but I'm also not a game designer.