Dungeons & Dragons: 5th Edition - Its not called Dungeons & No Dragons, son

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Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
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It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Lucas Archer posted:

I'm looking for a little advice on the Strahd campaign I'm running. Vallaki story element spoilers

The players have arrived in Vallaki with Ismarck and Ireena in tow. The party has a paladin of lathander and was kind to the priest of the town, so they learned of the missing bones. A short investigation and a little intimidation later, they discovered the culprit and notified the guards. The guards led Henrik away in chains and the Baron invited them to dinner the following night as a thanks.

Now, the book really just drops this element, because my first thought is "what happens to Henrik"? So what I'm thinking is Izek takes to torturing Henrik overnight, and learns it was Milijov who stole the bones initially and arrests him. So while the PC's are at dinner, they'll be able to hear the moans of both npc's, with the baron completely casual about it. Maybe adding in there will be a public flogging of both at the Festival of the Blazing Sun. Is that over the top?

The other factor is since they returned the bones, the church is hallowed ground again. The party left Ireena in the church and if Izek goes to arrest Milijov while he's in the church, I can see her and Ismarck trying to stop him (btw I'm not doing the gross Izek wants to gently caress Ireena bit in the book, he's just an rear end in a top hat who works for the Baron) and from there her and Ismarck being banished, thus putting them in danger again. And if the players don't find out about it, that might be when Strahd attacks, leaving Ismarck to die and taking Ireena away.

Oh yeah, and they also left the vampire spawn in the coffin makers house. The two guards who were posted there might be dead in the morning.

So I'm not sure how to play it. Any advice is welcome.

Personally I don't like the idea of Strahd taking Ireena away with little to no chance of the party being able to interfere. I also don't like it happening so soon after the PCs have arrived cause Vallaki has a lot of poo poo going on and it sounds like they just arrived. Unless you want to just dump the other plotlines running around you probably don't want them itching to leave right away.

As for the Baron, he is a real shitlord so I don't think it's too over the top. However, if your PCs hear the moans at dinner they will likely want to do something RIGHT NOW and I don't know if you want to do that. You'd end up missing out on the Festival and it's scene with the laughing guard. If they've only been in Vallaki for a short while you may want to keep him in play for a bit so they can learn more about how much of an rear end in a top hat he is, not to mention his lovely wife and son and Izek. Presenting him and the Lady Watcher as rivals for the PCs favor could be interesting, especially since your PCs may go the route that mine did and got rid of both to install a new burgomeister in Vallaki.

Do the PCs know that there are vampire spawn at the coffin maker's? That fight was tough for my group because of the regeneration ability and because my party's cleric forgot entirely how to play his class and just plain hosed up. They were also Level 4 at the time I believe. Proper use of Turn Undead may make the battle a lot easier but you may want to keep Rictavio or someone in you back pocket to save their bacon.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2018 07:34

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 17:31

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Toshimo posted:

You mean like:

or

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the Eldritch Knight gets these spells and that's dumb as hell.

# ¿ Dec 27, 2018 18:00

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Crossposting from the GM advice thread to get some more feedback:

Need some encounter building help/advice. This is for a Curse of Strahd game I'm running, currently on break while another friend DMs a game. Some spoilers for the events in Vallaki but I'm going off book for what I need advice on.

My players; a fiend pact warlock, an eldritch knight, a life cleric, and a lycan bloodhunter; have turned Vallaki into somewhat of a safe haven. The bones are back under the church rendering it Hallowed ground. The party hit level 5 at the end of their last session when they deposed the Baron and set up Ismark as the new Burgomeister of Vallaki. They killed the Lady Watcher prior to that along with some of her cultists. They've met Rictavio and discovered his real identity.

They'd latched on to idea that there are some remaining cultists in Vallaki that need to be eliminated before they can leave the village. So that's what I need help with is figuring out this mini-adventure. The party does not know that the warlock is a warlock and I decided I can use this to maybe out her (the player is really looking forward to the eventual reveal and how the other players will react). Here's what I have so far:

The cultists are going to try to do a ritual to remove the hallowed effect from the church, they've given up on stealing the bones, or maybe they don't know about the bone part. Doesn't matter.

They are communicating with each other via glamoured posters. People who aren't in the cult or "touched by a demon" see signs for a new festival. The cultists and the warlock party member will see the true message saying that at a certain day and a certain time they will gather somewhere.

The party will find the cultists doing the ritual which will involve some sort of bonfire and a round into the inevitable fight they cultists will beg for aid which summons the face of Strahd formed from the smoke/fire (I just watched the Castlevania anime on Netflix and loved the image of Dracula in the fire from the first episode). The form in the fire will join the battle.

What I specifically want advice on is how to do the Strahd-Flame as an enemy, statblock and ability-wise. I don't know if there's a creature in any of the Monster Manuals that would be a good substitute or if I should use some of Strahd's actual stats. I would imagine it would be immobile. I also would like advice as to how many cultists should make up the bulk of the fight, and I want at least one cultist to be a bit more scary than the rest, maybe using one of the NPC warlocks from one of the books.

Advice on doing interesting things with the battle via terrain or other things welcome. Maybe the Strahd-Flame can't be directly harmed and needs something else to happen to get rid of it? Maybe there are extra cultists that aren't actually combatants but are performing the ritual and the PCs have to eliminate them while dealing with the actual cultists that are fighting them?

Lastly, or really firstly, I would like there to be a bit more steps to the investigation between find the poster and go to the ritual but I'm not sure how to do that. Maybe there should even be a step before the posters. The party may insert their own steps by doing prep things but if not I feel like it should potentially be more involved. At the same time I don't want this to last more than a session or two.

Any advice, criticism or ideas welcome. I've got ideas that I think are good but I'm not super experienced in how to do things mechanically. Some things that sound cool can sometimes be actually unfun so avoiding said pitfalls is part of what I'm after.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2019 17:57

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
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It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

mkultra419 posted:

Strahd often appears with swarms / packs of animal minions, so maybe have a group of fire themed creatures show up to keep them occupied while the face shoots the occasional scorching ray at them. I wouldn't have your party really go toe-to-toe with Strahd that early. He's a presence in the valley, but you don't want to start a straight up fight and then have to deus ex machina him away before he starts mercing PCs or you kind of weaken the effect of the eventual brawl at the end of the campaign.

If your group likes more dynamic fights and you run a combat grid you can even get video gamey with having walls of fire going off on set lines and at a set schedule. You probably want to telegraph that ahead of time or tone down the damage though. Or IIRC Death House describes Strahd finding cults worshiping him as pathetic, so maybe have the cultists present at the start have robes catch on fire and go pinballing around on fire throughout the fight.

Whatever you do, be prepared for your party to come up with the thought of ending the fight early by dousing the Strahd-head and have a plan for how to deal with it in an interesting way.

This alone is extremely good advice, thank you. It didn't occur to me when I was thinking this up but of course they'll try to extinguish the flame.

When we start up again it'll be after a long break and I want them to encounter Strahd in some way to reinforce his presence. They haven't actually had a Strahd encounter of any kind since early in the campaign. I figured this was a way to have Strahd present but not present. I was thinking he'd fire off some scorching ray and firebolt in between his utility spells like fog cloud or gust of wind or something.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2019 05:10

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
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It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

clusterfuck posted:

I've been reading this and it's good, except the price.

https://www.dmsguild.com/product/264872/Ulraunts-Guide-to-the-Planes-The-Shadowfell?src=hottest_filtered&filters=45469

It borrows content from the 4e book but it's well written in it's own right. It does sometimes use the author's homebrew epic level rules so there are level 20+ encounters but all in all you could adjust and run some adventures from the settings in here.

Maybe it�s just my phone but this link doesn�t want to work for me. Which title were you recommending?

# ¿ Mar 1, 2019 15:37

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Does anyone have any opinions on Esper Genesis? It looks like the Starfinder analog to 5e, and as someone who likes 5e and is getting progressively more fed up with Starfinder I'm wondering if it's worth taking a look at.

I saw it as part of the GMs Day sale on Drivethrurpg which is why I bring it up.

If there�s any system that has a good take on modern/sci fi 5e I�d love to hear about it.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2019 18:10

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Numlock posted:

So I�ve wrapped up my middle earth game.

The climatic battle was fun affair featuring the 3 PCs being chased by a cold drake up and down this abandoned dwarf fortress just like in The desolation of Smaug. Now the drake was not the BBG, the PCs were able to sneak in and ruin his plan (to enslave the cold drake) and didn�t have to fight the cold drake which would have let them leave. Possibly to return 5-7 levels later as they were only level 7 and only three vs a monster from the 1st age. But my dwarf player wouldn�t have that and tricked the drake into having a 1000 ton stone dropped on it. This didn�t kill the dragon which used its corrosive acid breath to meld the floor enough it was simply smashed into the lower floor instead of being pancaked (it took massive damage). Cue Benny hill chase music.

Said dwarf got swallowed but used a grappling hook to remain stuck in the dragons throat and effectively choke it to death. They barely survived by the skin of their teeth.

I was playing out of a premade module and it�s info on fighting the dragon boiled down to �the players are doomed.�

Which book is that adventure from? I have some AiMe books but I haven't really done much with the system yet. How do you like it?

# ¿ Mar 10, 2019 03:21

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Sage Genesis posted:

Re: motivation.

We're actually three players and it's the same party who did Lost Mines earlier. (This means we're also not level 1 but the DM said he'd adjust encounters to compensate. So far that does seem to be true.) When CoS was suggested we went along with it, as most of us remember Spooky Halloween D&D from our 2e days. All of us know that we're going to find a way out at the end of CoS. As players we're motivated by that, and of course just the idea of having a fun gaming night with friends.

But for our characters it's been miserable. It's been railroady. It's been uninspiring. After a haunted house scenario, Strahd showed up in person to mock us and basically told us straight up that we were only there to amuse him, implying that we were just pawns, that he could kill us right there and then, and we could never really beat him. Strahd also apparently controls the weather, the wildlife, and the totally-not-gypsies. There's also no smith in town so we can't stock up on several important arms and supplies.

So yeah, as players we know we can (eventually) fight him and go home. But our characters feel like they've been trapped in a crapsack world where their best is never good enough, and even if they did fight him it'd be all according to Strahd's keikaku. It's just kind of hard to retain enthusiasm after several sessions of that. Not just me. All of the players.

Hmm. As I type this out and see how other people have experienced the adventure, I think I'm pretty sure where the problem lies.

I was gonna make a post similar to Jeffrey from YOSPOS's about "why did you make characters who don't want to adventure," but I see you responded.

Your characters are trapped in a crapsack world and their best isn't good enough, but if you made characters who check out and roll over at that kind of obstacle then it's not the module for them. They should be amped to figure out a way to punk Strahd's rear end, mad that the odds are against them and ready to gently caress up everyone in their way until they can go home.

I think you also have a bit of a disconnect because you as players know your characters can't win (yet) but your characters shouldn't think so hard about "raising their power levels" until they can beat Strahd. One of the early hurdles in my Strahd game was I had the man himself show up fairly early in Barovia. My players kind of froze because they knew out of character that they couldn't kill Strahd so they were trying to metagame what to do. I had to say to them, "you and I both know you can't beat him yet but trust me I'm not gonna just kill you right here and now, take a step back and think of what your character would do right now." The fighter responded "Well my guy would try to fight his rear end" and I said go for it and we had a fun combat.

I think that instance helped them get more into playing a character instead of controlling pawns in a boardgame. Maybe you guys are having a similar issue.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2019 23:33

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Elector_Nerdlingen posted:

Depression central doomy sadness of the bloodstained darkness of the moon howled night cloud blood dark spiderweb gloom was super loving lame and fell apart because nobody was engaged.

I get that this isn't a vibe for everyone but I don't get people who play "DRACULA: THE ADVENTURE MODULE" when they know that's not their vibe.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2019 00:10

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

ritorix posted:

People play CoS straight without constant castylvania/true blood/whatever references??

I'm running it fairly straight for my players and it's been a lot of fun. I do plan to use a lot more Castlevania music going forward though. I managed to creep them out pretty good in the Death House. Of course there's humor, you can't do all dour all the time, contrasts are what make any tone effective. Death House was creepy, but when the child ghosts possessed a couple of my players that ended up allowing for some natural humor in how the players acted it out. I'm not gonna monkey cheese it with the Monster Mash and "I vant to suck your blud!" poo poo but I'm not gonna run it all doom all the time.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2019 16:40

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

kingcom posted:

I'd be careful of the Blood Hunter, its a hot mess of a class design and only works if you are doing specific things with it.

I like the Blood Hunter aesthetic a bunch but in play I think it�s a little underwhelming. It�s made of glass but not really a cannon and there are a lot of class abilities that rely on specific circumstances to be useful.

I assume that�s what you mean by your post but if you think the opposite I�m curious as to why.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2019 16:35

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Glagha posted:

Doing voices for characters is fun though

# ¿ Mar 19, 2019 20:36

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

If I want to be a fancy Elven Swordsman that's not a fighter how is the Kensei? Is it fun? Is it actually any good mechanically?

# ¿ Mar 20, 2019 17:47

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Epi Lepi posted:

If I want to be a fancy Elven Swordsman that's not a fighter how is the Kensei? Is it fun? Is it actually any good mechanically?

This got lost in the shitposts but for real I was looking for peoples thoughts on the Kensei. I know generally the question of "fancy swordsmen who's not a fighter" is bard but I'm curious as to other options.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2019 18:16

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Is mounted combat actually fun in this edition? I really want to make a goblin that rides around on a boar sticking people with spears while the boar charges into them. Can I actually make this work in a fun way? I would assume I would make a beatsmaster ranger for this character but is cavalier better since I know the ranger, especially the beast master, isn�t great.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2019 06:47

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Conspiratiorist posted:

I've personally given up on mounted combat since I've never been able to figure out how it works.

What is confusing about mounted combat? I wanna play a goblin ranger riding a boar in the mini campaign my group is about to do but I have not actually read the mounted combat rules that thoroughly yet. My ideal would be to run around plinking arrows from the boar and occasionally have the boar charge someone. Is that not as simple as I hoped?

# ¿ Jun 12, 2019 13:41

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Taeke posted:

I need some advice.

First a bit of backstory:
I've had some experience playing DnD. Back in our late teens me and my friends had a few sessions that quickly died out, but I got a taste for the game.Then years later, in my 20s, I had a group of friends and we played a decent campaign about halfway through until the group broke apart. Great DM, his own campaigin, and it felt like we were playing how it was meant to be played. Fast forward to now. I'm 31, I've got disposable income and some time to play now.

I recently (2 years ago) started a job that is fairly unique. I care for kids in foster situations on temporary basis. Basically, the kids I care for (ages 6 to 18-21) stay with me (my house is set up to accommodate up to 5 kids at a time) for weekends and school holidays, so that the foster parents can have a breather. We do this in a tiny village that's set up for this kind of work. Around half the people living here are in some way connected to the work. Half the kids living in this village live in foster families. It's an awesome concept. Tons of facilities around, ranging from sports-fields, special needs schools, places the kids can get their therapies, etc.
The kids that live here (and thus, stay with me) are all special needs in one way or another. Some are developmentally challenged, other have severe ADHD or (various forms) of autism, many are just traumatized from things in from their past. There's always a reason they're in specialized foster care.
Most of the people living here do some volunteer work that involves the kids as well. There's a radio station run with the help of the kids. The local restaurant has kids working there, the greenery service uses the kids for help. Just to involve them and develop life-skills and stuff. It's all pretty wonderful.

I was thinking on how to participate a bit more in the community aside from doing some tutoring here and there, and when one of the girls starting showing interest in DnD (because she watches Riverdale and apparantly a DnD-esque game is part of the plot) I've been playing with the idea of starting a low entry campaign with some of the older, more capable kids. I've got the core books myself, bought a battlemat, and started browsing the available adventures, looking for a short and sweet adventure that can be done in 2 or 3 short sessions. The first one that really piqued my interest was Dead House. I got the Curse of Strahd book and I'm hooked. I'm definitely going to run that campaign some day, but probably with friends.

It's just a bit too gruesome for the kids. The problem isn't so much the monsters, it's the human suffering as a result of it. The Dead House adventure seemed perfect as a introduction, except all the torture, the rapey nature of Strahd trying to turn women, etc. It all might be a bit much for my target audience. Might bring up bad memories from their past and stuff.

I also don't want to overwhelm myself and the kids with too wide a world with too much politics. That made Curse of Strahd ideal as well. You've got a valley closed off from the rest of the world, and the mists as a tool to railroad the players if they head towards things I haven't prepared for yet.

My question is: are there any short campaigns I can use to introduce a bunch of kids (ages 13 to 18) playing first level characters that's limited in scope and not too gruesome? I'll check out Wolves of Welton mentioned by lightrook, which seems like might be exactly what I'm looking for, but any other suggestions, advice, etc are more than appreciated. If I can't find anything suitable I'll just adapt Dead House to tone down the horror a bit and start working on my own adventures if time allows it.

Thanks in advance.

If you want to just dip their toes in Strahd in a Castlevania, go kill Dracula, way you could do a modified version like this: https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/359-strahd-must-die-tonight-how-to-play-ravenloft-in-a

There�s some neat advice and rules in there about turning it into a one shot. Save the full campaign for your friends.

Besides Strahd, I can�t recommend anything first hand but I think the adventure in the new essential kit has gotten some good buzz, The Dragon of Ice Spire Peak.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2019 14:09

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Kaal posted:

I don't think that D&D is an issue here, but I do think that Curse of Strahd is probably a poor fit as a first adventure given everything you've talked about. It's a dark, sprawling, narrative-driven, roleplaying-heavy campaign - so you'd need to do quite a bit of adjustment to get what you want out of it. I'd suggest checking out some of the Adventurers League modules, since they are shorter and more episodic, not to mention tend to be lighter fare generally. They give you everything you need for a party to get together, do some adventuring, beat up some baddies, and come home.

You can find episode summaries here (https://dndadventurersleague.org/storyline-seasons/). I particularly liked the Storm King's Thunder set; "In Dire Need" was basically a perfect adventure, with some roleplaying in a town where players are asked to save some lost dwarves, followed by a wildland trek for all the Druids and Rangers to shine, then a mini-boss, followed by a set-piece where you have to sneak past a troll/giant camp, then something of a mystery as you explore a sacred site that the dwarves are defending, and concluding with an explosive finish. To my mind, the AL episodes really don't get the attention that they deserve. The big campaigns get all the attention, but even adult players sometimes struggle to maintain the kind of focus that's needed to play out these sweeping epics without forgetting details or losing interest. And honestly these little adventures tend to be a bit better written on the whole - the narrower scope lends itself to tighter writing and better balance.

Speaking of Strahd I know Misty Fortunes and Absent Hearts is supposed to be CoS adjacent but like what are those adventures actually about? Can you or someone give me a rough breakdown? I'm running CoS and if there's more stuff or just different interesting stuff in those that I can integrate into my campaign I'd love to hear about it.

My party is already Level 5 and has done Death House, Barovia Village, Vallaki and are now at the Wizard of Wines so I don't know if it's too late to merge anything.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2019 17:47

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

sweet thursday posted:

You know what you guys? I always thought I'd have fun playing dnd and at the ripe old age of 30, I had a lot of fun

This is the good poo poo I like to hear.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2019 19:35

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

A Bad King posted:

Hello Dragon thread.

So I just played my very first session at a games shop, an Adventurer's League game. I have a question: is it common for the DM to just up and casually allow a murder-machine to challenge a party?

We had a goblin rogue in our team split off, and start rummaging around a priest's temple. He harassed, bullied, and then ~accidentally~ unleashed a CR 5 vampire spawn from a locked crypt before racing out of the Church and bolting for the main road.

Now you have a bunch of level 1's; fighter, monk, two warlocks and a few NPCs in a court yard with a wailing and very hungry dead guy who promptly turns the folks who didn't flea into giblets.

Two warlocks ran the opposite direction as the fighter gets grappled. Fighter dies. I try to stop vampire; vampire is rolling really well and kills me. "Make a new character," the DM chimes.

A) Do PC's often decide to gently caress with newbies by releasing the Krakken?
B) Why don't DMs go easy on newbies?
C) Everyone staring down at their phones. Everyone seems to be RP'ing their own story. Guess this is just a bad table?

I *just* have to ask: is this kind of experience common? The first 1.5 hrs of playtime, the DM just murders the team hobos because he decided "I'm going to allow this high challenge monster free and see where this goes?"

Yikes, unfortunately there are way too many dick GMs out there that would do that. Vampire Spawn are real rough too, even for higher level groups if they don't have appropriate magic weapons or spells.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2019 19:32

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

thespaceinvader posted:

Yeah, D&D is easy if you grew up with it culturally ingrained - I more or less understood the basics of character generation and mechanics of play well before I ever played, thanks to webcomics and TV - but if you're a complete novice it's a wildly opaque system, and even if you know what you're doing, character generation is a nightmare without some sort of digital assistance.

Simple games are things like Powered byt eh Apocalypse systems, or Fiasco, things where you can make a character more or less in play, and where the game is largely descriptive in nature.

PBTA are simple I guess but require a completely different mindset that I just can�t wrap my head around. Probably because I grew up on 3.5.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2019 19:04

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

I'm thinking of playing a Circle of Dreams Druid for a Level 10 one shot. Party will be 3 other players, one a Barbarian, one leaning Sorcerer and one debating between Fighter and Bard. I have never ever played a Druid so I have some questions:

1) Are there any feats I should consider or should I just use bump my ability scores up? Thinking Eladrin so I won't be able to hit 20 with WIS, but can do 18 and make Dex and Con 16 & 14.

2) I will likely be the primary healer, is it worth taking a level in Cleric? I saw some discussion about that. I would lose the Dreams 10th level ability to teleport 60ft as a bonus action, but I can see Cleric stuff being more useful than that ability is cool.

3) What are some good spells I should make sure to have? I think I want to be a buffer/healer more than anything else.

4) What are some good Wild Shape forms I should have in my pocket?

# ¿ Aug 28, 2019 18:15

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Reposting this cause y�all have just been babbling about edition wars poo poo that nobody cares about.

Advice very much appreciated.

Epi Lepi posted:

I'm thinking of playing a Circle of Dreams Druid for a Level 10 one shot. Party will be 3 other players, one a Barbarian, one leaning Sorcerer and one debating between Fighter and Bard. I have never ever played a Druid so I have some questions:

1) Are there any feats I should consider or should I just use bump my ability scores up? Thinking Eladrin so I won't be able to hit 20 with WIS, but can do 18 and make Dex and Con 16 & 14.

2) I will likely be the primary healer, is it worth taking a level in Cleric? I saw some discussion about that. I would lose the Dreams 10th level ability to teleport 60ft as a bonus action, but I can see Cleric stuff being more useful than that ability is cool.

3) What are some good spells I should make sure to have? I think I want to be a buffer/healer more than anything else.

4) What are some good Wild Shape forms I should have in my pocket?

# ¿ Aug 29, 2019 01:37

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

MonsterEnvy posted:

Flanking is decent. But as mentioned I do think Advantage is a bit too good for getting it. The simple +2 works wonders as long as it is not stacked up too much.

Do you still let Rogues get sneak attack when they flank an enemy?

# ¿ Sep 19, 2019 17:09

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Pendent posted:

Well, given that if they're flanking that means an ally is adjacent by definition I would really hope so.

I don't remember the wording for sneak attack but I'm guessing from your post that it specifically calls out the adjacent ally bit which makes sense since flanking is an optional rule. I just remember sneak attack as "you have it when you have advantage" so I guess I'm dumb.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2019 17:46

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

change my name posted:

Yeah the way I use history rolls (and my friends do when DMing) is that you have a baseline knowledge of a thing, but the better you do on the roll the more specialized info you have one; IE, recognizing a cult symbol as a cult symbol vs. knowing who it belongs to and some history on that thing.

In the Curse of Strahd game I'm running I have a player running an elf noble with history trained. Since Barovia is it's own demi-plane his characters knowledge of history has been completely useless but the party took over a manor in Vallaki and I've let him roll history to represent how much he's learned and retained from reading the books left behind by the previous owner. It let's him use one of his trained skills and given me the opportunity to let them know lore bits that may have not come up otherwise.

# ¿ Nov 6, 2019 18:54

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

I�d say it�s just an outgrowth of the fact that people nowadays like watching other people play stuff, be it videogames or ttrpgs, as much as they like playing them themselves.

# ¿ Nov 9, 2019 19:47

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Ramos posted:

The thing with a lot of them is that it takes forever to get anywhere in D&D. That's fine if I'm playing because I'm actively participating (and able to push forward if needed) but listening to other people fumble through stuff? Especially if they're also trying to put on a show for viewers? Gets obnoxious real fast.

I think the only exception to this was Men Quaffing Elixirs but they were doing a more Fate system-y thing anyway.

At the same time its not that different from when a serialized tv show has a terrible b plot or filler episode or even filler arc that�s just spinning wheels.

# ¿ Nov 9, 2019 20:23

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

In my entire 15 year span of playing TTRPGs I've never actually done a classic dragon fight from either side of the DM screen. The OP of this thread says that the Tyranny of Dragons hardcovers are actually lackluster, so can anyone recommend me maybe some DMs Guild adventures that are good dragon based adventures?

# ¿ Jun 17, 2020 23:06

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Epi Lepi posted:

In my entire 15 year span of playing TTRPGs I've never actually done a classic dragon fight from either side of the DM screen. The OP of this thread says that the Tyranny of Dragons hardcovers are actually lackluster, so can anyone recommend me maybe some DMs Guild adventures that are good dragon based adventures?

This got lost in the ability score discussion, but I'd love some recommendations on dragon focused modules to run. Is Icespire Peak any good for experienced players or is it more geared towards new players?

# ¿ Jun 19, 2020 20:01

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

change my name posted:

We're starting up a (most likely) Strahd game soon and I'm going to roll up a bard. I was thinking either eloquence or whispers, but are there a lot of chances for social interaction/RPing in the module that I'd actually get to use my skills on?

Yes there are a lot of NPCs scattered all over that you and the rest of your party can interact with. As long as your party aren't complete murder hobos and can buy in to NPCs then you should get a chance.

Also depends on how well your DM uses the NPCs but still I think you should be okay.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2020 05:14

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Syrinxx posted:

So does anyone have favorite campaigns they really like? Official or otherwise? I run so much AL that I guess I don't know much about most of the books at all, except GSM which as a player I can say sucks poo poo when run as an AL hardcover

I've been running Strahd and if the rona ever clears up I will hopefully actually finish it!

I have a big ole boner for vampire poo poo so the whole aesthetic of the book just vibes with me. It's kind of hard to run because it's relatively sandboxy and reads more like a setting guide than an adventure but between my own brain and the CoS subreddit I've been able to make something where my group has overall had a lot of fun. I'm still really worried about sticking the landing but we'll see what happens when we get there.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2020 05:55

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Isaacs Alter Ego posted:

Strahd seems to be extremely on rails...

I'm running it and I don't understand how you can say this. The only time the DM might need to railroad the party is to make sure they get the Tarot reading. The whole book is just a list of places with the encounters and people you might meet there. There's no "make sure they go here first, and here are the two ways to resolve this area." Do we have different definitions of on rails?

# ¿ Jul 8, 2020 16:43

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

No Safe Word posted:

Any one person in the campaign needs to have the content and the ability to share content (which comes from the Master tier subscription). Then that person can enable content sharing in the campaign.

I'm a player in my current campaign but I own all the content and I share it, but it's the DM's campaign.

Just to clarify, the person who has the content doesn't have to be the same person who has the Master subscription. My friend buys the content on his account but I have the subscription and that's how we share everything with our group.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2020 22:56

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Is there a clear write up of the changes from the UA to Tasha's for all the alternate class features? I've been off in PF2e land since last summer so I missed everything when Tasha's came out but guessing from the thread title it wasn't great.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2021 07:30

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Cornwind Evil posted:

So after some years I decided to get back into D&D (5E, of course), joining a friend's Dark Sun campaign. Decided I wanted to make a healy-healer (so, as bent towards keeping people healthy as possible), so of course I go Cleric. However, Clerics in Dark Sun can only take two domains, Light and something else (So I can't take Life). One of my fellow players thinks that maybe I should consider instead a druid (which also tied into my character's backstory) for being a healy-healer so we're looking at that. She said that a homebrew druid might give me some options I otherwise I don't have, but from my basic research, no dice. So, should if I want to play a healy-healer in Dark Sun, should I stick with the original idea of a Cleric (with Light, as that's the closer domain)? Druid with Path of the Shepard? Is there some homebrew Druid path that would be useful?

We're starting at Level 3 BTW.

I played a Circle of Dreams Druid for a while and really enjoyed it. Balm of the Summer Court is some good extra healing on top of the available healing spells you get.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2021 15:05

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Curse of Strahd is extremely good and you all are super weird.

Edit: or your GMs suck

# ¿ Jun 27, 2021 17:28

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Y'all are driving me nuts!!! Curse of Strahd is a gazeteer masquerading as an adventure!! This is both good and bad. Bad because your GM has to do a LOOOT of work and if your GM is bad then it will be unfun. Good because your GM can do whatever the gently caress they want because literally all that's in the book is a premise "Find items/people from Tarokka so you can kill Strahd and go home" and a list of places and people. That's it. Everything else is what you make of it. If you feel like its a railroad that's because your GM is railroading you! If you think CoS is a railroad try playing a Paizo adventure path.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2021 19:12

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Taeke posted:

lol, you have to be more specific because that's exactly what people are complaing about and discussing. It's mostly one thing (a gazetteer) while trying to be another (an adventure) and because of that failing at both.

A huge part of what's talked about here is even broader than that. How do you translate that kind of horror to a tabletop RPG effectively, and is CoS giving you the right tools to do that? Maybe it works better if you change the tone (make it more castlevania or evil dead?), even though that's not the original intent? Maybe it doesn't work at all jn the D&D system? If not, why?

Telling us it's just the DM's fault for not putting on enough effort or whatever, with a lot of exclamation marks isn't adding anything to the discussion!!!!!!!

Like, every adventure is what the players and DM make of it and even the objectively worst material could be saved by having the right people involved putting in enough effort, but that's not the point, and coming in here telling everyone they're wrong for critiquing CoS is lazy and dumb.

No people are complaining it is a railroad pretending to be a sandbox and that the tone is too depressing. Those are 100% the result of how your GM runs it. It's a hard adventure to run but I have found it to be a very rewarding adventure because you can put so much of your own spin on things. Strahd can be a looming threat that never gets encountered until the end or he can masquerade as a friend in his Vasilli von Holtz persona until he betrays the party or a consistent thorn in the players side. Ireena can be the heart of the game or just a minor protection quest depending on how your players react to her, and her story can end in various ways. Vallaki can end up with vastly different political landscapes, or be burned to the ground or your PCs can just get kicked out forever. There's no specific route your players have to take, they do not have to visit any location besides Ravenloft itself. What characters become major players is entirely up to the PCs, and a little bit the Tarokka along with where they visit and when.

Azathoth posted:

As someone who grew up playing World of Darkness 1.0 (mostly Werewolf and Vampire), it is baffling to me why anyone would want to try to take a power fantasy ruleset and then try to apply it to gothic horror.

As flawed as those games were, they had building that kind of atmosphere and tension baked fully into the rules, and while yeah a good DM can shoehorn that poo poo into D&D, so many basic assumptions of the 5e systems run contrary to the what the module wants you to build.

VTT support and player familiarity aside, if that's the module that your table wants to run, sit down and have a serious discussion about trying a different system.

I don't understand this take. You're playing from a completely different perspective in World of Darkness. You're playing as the vampire/werewolf and the point of the system is confronting the horror in the self. Curse of Strahd is about beating Fantasy Dracula, eventually, after struggle and toil. It's about bringing hope to a dark land and facing monsters, not being loving sad and dead. The book does not pretend to be anything different.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2021 23:11

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 17:31

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Devorum posted:

Yeah...that's the sign of a badly written adventure module. I don't know what to tell you, but an adventure module shouldn't be something else pretending to be an adventure module and it shouldn't require tons of GM labor to make it work. That's, like, the entire point of adventure modules.

I've played through a dozen Paizo APs and enjoyed most of them (*cough* Second Darkness *cough*) more than I've enjoyed Strahd.

I enjoyed the old school modules that required a lot of DM labor to make work, but they were up front about that and it was the standard of the time. It was expected. That expectation hasn't been the case for a couple of decades now at the very least.

That said, I ran B1 last year and it took less DM labor to get to run on all cylinders than Strahd and you basically have to make your own dungeons. I've run the original Ravenloft module multiple times and it works without needing to spend hours rewriting the thing.

I have a love/hate relationship with Paizo APs, they can be fun but they're written too much with a specific path in mind that you can end up beating your head against a wall if your party doesn't do the exact thing in the exact order the writers assumed would happen. They also build way way way too many fights into each book and it can be a slog.

I much much prefer how CoS is written, I have put a lot of work into running it but it was enjoyable work, and I never felt like I was fighting the adventure. I'm obviously the only person who's got extreme brainworms for this adventure, peep the Curse of Strahd subreddit for tons of info and takes from tons of people. Don't go there as a player of course.

I like how there is no route that the players are forced on. There are no forced encounters with Strahd, there are no forced resolutions to any of the events in any of the locations. The adventure is honestly very simple and I don't understand how people get so far in the weeds sometimes with it. You're trapped and can't leave until you defeat Strahd. There are some people and items scattered across the land that can help you defeat him. That's it. Everything else can be as prominent or not as you and your players want it to be. There should be no issues with character motivation as going home again is a pretty universal one.

People complain about the grimdark tone but I've never found it to be that grimdark. The book itself highlights how you should be using levity and humor to offset and underscore any actual horror and frankly most of the horror in the book is fun creepy horror. I also think that committing to making your players feel powerless all the time and sabotaging them all the time is a GM mistake that should be avoided. The book limits your party's resources and Strahd should be played as someone who at least thinks he's always in control but it doesn't say to poo poo on your players all the time. It doesn't say that every NPC should be dour and hateful. From my perspective my players are bringing hope and light to a hopeless world and that's not that grimdark to me.

There are only a few things I don't like about it. There is an encounter in Vallaki that is way deadly for the level the players are likely to be when they get there. The mongrelfolk in the Abbey squick me out. Some of the tarokka results are just way better than others.

Frankly if the idea of fighting Fantasy Dracula in Fantasy Transylvania is appealing to you then this is a good module for it. And if that doesn't then don't play it and expect it to be what it's not.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2021 19:11

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Dungeons & Dragons: 5th Edition - Its not called Dungeons & No Dragons, son

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