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denimgorilla posted:I’m currently in a 7 person group and I absolutely agree. It’s nice when someone can’t make it. She made a ghostwise circle of the moon druid that had a mercenary background so she could drop in and out of games as necessary. Unfortunately we switched DMs halfway through, and the new DM started trying to rearrange games around her shifts, despite her saying repeatedly that she didn't want to hold anyone up, and eventually we just stopped arranging games and the campaign stopped dead. It was my first non-teenage experience of DMing, and I kinda liked it. A murder mystery in a little farming village complete with a locked room mystery. A group of bandits were shaking down the village for protection money using baby mimics. One of my players said he felt genuinely uncomfortable about my description of a tankard sprouting teeth and the handle unfurling into little tentacles, which it used to launch itself up his arm. The final tavern fight was hilarious because I had a list behind the screen of which objects were mimics, and I specifically did it to gently caress with the bard who I know has a penchant for improvised weapons. At one point a player put his sword down and when he turned around, there were two swords. It ended with a lot of fire.
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Dec 14, 2020 19:58
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The point of grease is to cast it on enemies that you know have bad dex saves, so that they slip and miss a turn, right? I never rated it because it wasn't direct damage, but then I played a bard in a Neverwinter Nights based MMO mod and the guy running us through it said to try it, and holy poo poo is it a great control spell for it's level. Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Dec 15, 2020 |
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Dec 15, 2020 16:05
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TheAardvark posted:They should just rename grease to Lube. no one would make the mistake any more. "I cast lube on the dragon!" "It's an AOE, you have to cast it on an area." "Of the dragon?" "Oh no."
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Dec 15, 2020 16:54
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You could weaponise a bag of holding if you gave the caster a spell that would make the bag suddenly become affected by the weight of it's contents.
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Dec 15, 2020 16:59
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Also have the stats for an enemy a few CRs higher than they can handle. 'Accidentally' leave it out to scare the poo poo out of your players.
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Dec 16, 2020 16:10
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It's a psychic knife, it can only exist within 60' of the rogue which is not far away enough for accuracy to be at disadvantage. Plus it's a psychic knife.
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Dec 19, 2020 12:29
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Fresh Shesh Besh posted:As others have said the way to rule this is not to allow one particular ability to have infinity range because that's asinine and you'd have to be consciously making a bad decision to prove a stupid point about the book being a little vague. As for the RAW, unless they've changed the online version from the published book, it says "It has a normal range of 60 feet and no long range" in the rules, so it'd be hard to argue that it has infinite long range when the rules state no long range.
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Dec 21, 2020 13:57
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Staltran posted:Also, it does list short/long range, even if it didn't say it was a weapon. Staltran posted:And to reiterate the argument for the infinite range: Staltran posted:If you treated "no long range" as the same as zero long range, you could only attack yourself with the weapon, no matter what the short range of the weapon is. It doesn't mean you can only hit yourself, unless you entirely disregard the clearly stated normal range of 60'. E: Also it says the blade has a range of 60ft, and disappears on a miss, so I would be inclined to rule that you can only manifest the knife up to 60', and beyond that it disappears same as on a miss. Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 17:28 on Dec 21, 2020 |
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Dec 21, 2020 17:15
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TheAardvark posted:Right, and it has no long range. Therefore you can't attack at all at any range.
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Dec 21, 2020 17:58
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Raenir Salazar posted:There's also maybe some element that the DM gave me an ability which gives me a random boon (or corruption+boon if evil energy) if I absorb magical energy, and because I had zero instructions as to what the ability does and that I will, "find out with use" well, scientific method time! I of course use it on everything trying to figure out how it works, which also annoys them. I hate to be the guy bringing up  Matt Mercer but his DM advice is to talk one on one to each player before you start, find out what each one wants from the campaign, and then organise a pre campaign group meeting to make sure everyone is ok with the compromise the DM has found between those positions. Someone might passionately hate roleplaying in character and just wants to give 'i attack the orc' instructions. That sort of player is going to fundamentally have a hard time in a group that wants to spend four hours of soft improv in town shopping and exchanging backstory. Or like getting a raid group together for an MMO. A player who wants to stop and admire the scenery and read all the lore is going to have a bad time with a group trying to speedrun it for the third time that week, and vice versa. In an ideal world if you have one player who really doesn't fit, they should agree to play with another group. But in reality (especially now), that's not really possible, so part of the DM's role is to carefully mediate that middle ground and make sure everyone agrees to be on the same page. It sounds like your DM has not squared that circle, because you have at least one party member who wants to go full lawful good, and your DM has not made sure everyone is ok with that out of character. Conflict between lawful/chaotic and good/evil characters can be great, but only if the players are into it ooc, which it sounds like you two aren't. Also he doesn't seem to have made it clear what pace people want, if the rest of the group are annoyed at you experimenting and talking to werewolves and dragging spiders along with you. If it was an issue of ooc time, the DM should have quickly let you roll to investigate for poison sacs. If the time pressure came from in game events, the dm should be making that clearer to you so that you agree with the rest of the group and left the spiders. Like to a certain extent there is an overview here where the rest of the group seem to be getting annoyed with you slowing things down, and you're not picking up / acting on that. You also seem to have chosen a very particular build that requires you doing stuff like this. But if there are disagreements in playstyle at the table, the DM really needs to step in and moderate that as well if they want everyone to be having as much fun as possible. Throwing that recharge thing at you but not telling you how it works, and leaving it for you to experiment with it - in a group that apparently hates experimentation - is kind of a dick move on his part as well. Nyyen posted:We were thinking that it would have tentacles blocking progress through a rectangular room. Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Dec 22, 2020 |
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Dec 22, 2020 14:09
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Raenir Salazar posted:I don't think its really a playstyle issue, because Rob did go through like a two session multipart quest investigating and rooting out a smuggling ring from the city were at that had infiltrated the city guard; i think it's a combination of pre-5e assumptions about alignment combined with personality issues. In an ideal world you'd find another group, but I guess next time play a character that fits more with what the rest of the group wants. It's also possible they're jealous you're doing ludicrous damage thanks to your DM's homebrew catapult rules. Do they all have abilities that do as much extra damage? Perry Mason Jar posted:Oh poo poo, thanks! It also costs 100gp not 50gp, lol. Don't know where I got 50gp from. Either way, it's fine. If it lists a cost in GP but doesn't specifically say it's consumed, then you just have to have that component on you and you can keep using the same one each time. If you want to throw them a bone, let the wizard loot the component (i.e. off another wizard) rather than have them shop for it.
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Dec 24, 2020 05:43
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Or you know, ask him if he can tell them not to metagame. E: That came off sounding lovely. I didn't mean it to. Not all groups are perfect and sometimes you have to just work with what you've got. Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 06:34 on Dec 24, 2020 |
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Dec 24, 2020 06:31
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:They're old but they have several centuries' worth of experience between them. They're all barbarians/fighters (so no mages, rogues, etc.) but they've seen every combat trick so many times that they've already countered you before you even realize you'd decided what you were going to try.
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Dec 24, 2020 21:54
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Ignite Memories posted:Do you wanna be a witch who gets her powers from the murky forest itself or one who made congress with the devil?
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Dec 30, 2020 16:09
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Or you go with Pratchett's theory from Small Gods, and this god pops into existence with one extremely devoted follower.
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Jan 3, 2021 18:24
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It's also quite mean if everyone else is level 20, and you have to go round gathering up believers by doing cantrip 'miracles' (that your cleric can hear their 'god' audibly straining to perform in their head).
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Jan 3, 2021 18:59
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"I cast thaumaturgy, making the doors and windows slam open!" sounds of god, who is little more than an invisible servant, running round in the background individually yanking each window open
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Jan 3, 2021 19:44
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I have a concept I've been struggling to find the best way to build, and a game coming up I'd like to be able to use it in. The core concept is an ex-city watch member turned detective. What I'm struggling with is that I see him as more of a hand to hand fighter. Backstory is he uncovered something he shouldn't have, got the poo poo beaten out of him, and is now obsessive and paranoid. Ideally I'd homebrew something to have some extra damage when unarmed. So instead of having ki points and flurry of blows etc, they'd have access to rogue sneak attacks (I don't see him dedicating himself to martial arts so much as being sneaky, knowing where to hit etc). I'm also having trouble building it in D&D Beyond as a homebrew. I know there's an investigator rogue subclass in (I think) Xanathar, and a City Watch background in Sword Coast. Should I just stick to those and try to sweet talk the DM into letting me hide a pair of brass knuckles? Can you normally apply a sneak attack bonus to unarmed strikes? Or are there any other feats you think might be useful to help my unarmed strikes remain competitive if I survive to higher levels?
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Jan 4, 2021 05:51
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My wife was recommended Foundry VTT, and has watched a few videos saying it's great, but they did seem a little bit promoted to me. It's her first time DMing for a new group and I'm trying not to be annoying and ask if she's doing a session zero, if she's prepared this, if she's done that etc.
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Jan 5, 2021 19:22
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Most of the artificer artwork tends to have lenses or glasses as well, it's not out of character unless you're going for strict medieval, no crossbows no guns setting.
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Jan 6, 2021 17:08
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I'm taking advantage of Tasha's Stat Bullshit as well. Made a tiefling fighter, +2 Str and +1 con to fit his farming background. He never really got any poo poo from people for being a tiefling, and grew up mucking in with the chores rather than stealing or swindling his way round. Really like the freedom, and it fits with the general relaxation on build restrictions in 5e. The other two players are new so I didn't want too big a backstory, so basically he's from a farming village and he's heading out on a rumspringe type deal to see the world, then come back with what he's learned.
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Jan 9, 2021 18:51
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Avrae is in dice jail for what it did to our first attempt at playing online. Six kobolds should not be able to knock out a paladin with a warlock and rogue for backup.
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Jan 11, 2021 13:50
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Level one, chainmail & shield, bonus feat protection fighting style. Warlock was pact of the blade and standing beside me so I could impose disadvantage, and the rogue went ranged. There were 3 outside guarding, 1 melee, two ranged; so essentially a one-on-one encounter. They trashed us so bad I was out of healing when we went into the cave where the other 3 were. That was 2 melee and a caster. Everything went wrong. They kept critting and rolling really well, everything we tried either missed or they saved, all our saves failed. This wasn't just bad luck, this was even the DM saying 'something fucky is going on here.' Afterwards the missus did an experiment and found that over an average of 50 rolls, just asking it to roll a d20 trended towards midrange with a couple of crits, whereas when we asked it to roll an attack, it barely rolled anything above a 10. When the DM tried, there were so many crits and 10+ rolls it was hosed up. Also after that we got accused of being murderhobos despite the kobolds attacking first and none of us having a common language.
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Jan 11, 2021 16:06
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aldantefax posted:scooby doo d&d time
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Jan 12, 2021 12:16
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Lucky seems like such a nightmare. One floating reroll would be bad enough, but it gives you three per long rest, right?
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Jan 13, 2021 20:18
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Disargeria posted:I enjoyed giving my players fun utility items but there's a certain depression that comes about when you give out a Robe of Useful Items and it gets used to create a ladder exactly once ever. In the hands of your average stat building murder hobo, these items would be passed over and never mentioned again. But giving glue that requires a wish spell to unbond to Sam Riegel is going to lead to some amazing play, if a few headaches for the DM. Same giving the bone flute to Taliesin. I think a lot of players would prefer more like a +1 sword, or something with a few daily spell charges, but players that can make good use of the more esoteric items are an absolute gift to any campaign.
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Jan 13, 2021 22:28
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Splicer posted:Me: "OK anyone else?" Like the DM should be saying there's a log, or a blockade in the way, or a surface is too steep or whatever, and then the players can roll athletics to climb over, then work out how to get their friends up as well, or open it from the other side, or look for a rope. But if they're asking the players to come up with their pwn problems as well as solutions? There may as well be no DM in that equation. The players should only ever be coming up with solutions, not the problems themselves. I think specifically it's the idea of the player saying "There's a log" rather than "Why are we held up? Is there a log in the way?" Even then ot doesn't make sense, I think I need more context around the skill check and how it was phrased by the DM. Did he say "Ok, you have to get to the next town, do some skill checks, I'm going to get a coke zero' or something?
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Jan 14, 2021 22:55
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Hmm. It still doesn't sit right with me, and I could probably find a chunk of the DM's guide about their role as storyteller, but ehh. The great thing about D&D 5e is it's flexibility with different playstyles, and if the rest of the group was ok with it, probably best to just bite your lip and think of some cool stuff your character could do.
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Jan 14, 2021 23:07
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Splicer posted:You're actively discouraging new players from being imaginative and contributing to the scene. I'm genuinely sad that you've done that to them. This is not hyperbole, I am making this actual face
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Jan 14, 2021 23:55
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Splicer posted:Me: "OK anyone else?" Don't get the players to make up their own challenges, because that's not what they're there for. It's not the specificity of a player creating a log that wasn't there that bugs me so much as the DM essentially saying "you guys make stuff up for this bit, I can't be arsed." It's like asking a friend to play tennis and then watching them play tetherball. It's not taking away creativity from players, because the role they are playing is their hero, and how that player responds to the world and the events that happen in it. I understand if the players are roleplaying downtime or a shopping trip, because then you do get some interesting things from players saying things like "I want to find a powerful mage to help me with this" or "I want to talk to the paladins at the church about training (i.e. multiclassing)." But even then, the player suggests a thing they want to do and the DM paints them a picture of their surroundings as they do it. That's always been the GM/player dichotomy in D&D. I get that other systems might have a different interpretation of 'collaborative storytelling,' but this is the D&D thread and that's the game Trivia was playing in the example he was asking about.
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Jan 15, 2021 01:30
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kingcom posted:Also I got some loving beef with this poo poo. What the gently caress are you talking about 'that's literally the DM's main job'. Now lets put aside the paid GM's stuff cause I've got no experience with that and don't really understand the social nature of it. 2) Fine, the DM's 'role' then. Not job. I would have thought the context of the post would have made clear I'm not talking about paid employment. 3) When I say it's the DM's job/role, I mean as defined in every iteration of the Dungeon Master's Guide for D&D and most of the Players Handbooks as well. I don't really care about other systems, if you want everyone else to do your job for you, go play Baron Munchausen. No seriously, go play it, it's collaborative storytelling of the broadest kind and you'll probably enjoy the mechanics of it. The mechanics of D&D however require the DM to be the one who creates the world and the things in it, and how they present problems for the players. 'Collaborative storytelling' is a huge field and there are many ways of doing it. D&D specifically works as a subtype where the DM controls the setting and the players control their characters. For example a DM who says to a rogue "You walk into the room and set off a trap, it does x damage" is taking control of the character in a way that the player wouldn't want - presumably the player, having chosen a rogue, would want to check for traps. That's bad DMing. The inverse of that is that players don't stray into world creation, which is what you het from "I'm on a path and there's a log blocking it" while the DM checks his phone and says 'yeah roll for it.' There are aspects of improv to it, but ultimately the rulebooks and structure make it very clear that the DM creates problems for the players to solve, and the system doesn't work the other way round. Trivia posted:The player could also say "I overturn a table to use as cover." when there was no table before. Well, that's fine I guess, but what's to stop them from willing a table into existence in every conceivable room, or attempting to do so? Other than "Not being an rear end in a top hat." That's where it can get "gamey," and the distinction between action / reaction is important imo. Part of the problem is that the player willed that thing into existence as a problem and not a solution. I'm not talking about session 0 or backstory here, I'm talking about - to use the curtains as an example - one of your players suddenly saying that they can't see because the curtains are closed. In the initial example of the log, the difference is that the player didn't say 'I find some logs and do some cool parkour poo poo over them to move faster' - that would be reacting to the world. Saying there's a log blocking the path is going against reasonable assumptions about the scenario as described. The real problem is that the DM didn't describe the scenario at all. They did pretty much zero work in getting the players from A to B. Was there a map? Was there a vague description of the topology of the area? Likely problems and encounters? If the DM had said 'you are on a path' and the player had invented the log, that'd be the player overstepping. But the DM never even described a road, or a route, or anything. It was billed as a skill check sequence, but the idea behind a skill check is that the DM presents players with a problem, and they get creative about using their skills to solve it. They don't get creative about thinking up their own problems travelling from A to B. The more I think about it the more I feel like the log example has multiple problems, and it shows that the DM didn't plan anything for that whole sequence of quest and got the players to fill in for them. It shows exactly why the DM describes and creates the world, because if you leave it to the players then what is the DM even there for? To extend the metaphor, imagine if you turned up to a game and the DM just sat back and said, start of session 1 'Ok how do you get to the boss?' And then got you all to roll for the villages you pass through, the fights you have, random loot on the bodies etc. That's not why we play D&D. We play it to be told a story by the DM. We collaborate by playing the role of characters in that story. The DM facilitates that by describing the world and the problems. If players go round creating their own descriptions and problems then again - what is the DM even for? Trivia posted:It feels like it would devolve into Calvinball at that point. The reason players don't get to make poo poo up - outside of reasonable assumptions from the DM's description - is that otherwise you end up with a gradual escalation of players making poo poo up. Like imagine if your party walks into a shop and the rogue suddenly goes crazy and murders the shopkeeper, declaring that he's the bastard who killed his father. If the player and DM had discussed that beforehand, great! If not, it could turbofuck the DM's notes about that NPC, the town, the player and what they had planned for the party to achieve. I was using an extreme example to illustrate, but in the example of the log, if later the DM wants to use a plot point about travel within that area being safe or the empire being functional, or it being an important trade route, how do you explain that a tree fell and nobody dealt with it? The butterfly effect of players making poo poo up is pretty destructive to the role of DM, but this isn't really my point as it pertains to the log. Ultimately the DM should have described the journey if they wanted something interesting to happen, or skipped it if they didn't. Because they weren't adequately controlling the narrative you end up with a situation where a new players ends up doing something - inventing things in the world - which would piss off a lot of other DMs. Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 14:45 on Jan 15, 2021 |
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Jan 15, 2021 14:27
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Right, but you do see why a DM going "Make up some stuff for your characters to do for this bit guys, I'm going for a quick wank" is not exactly good DMing?
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Jan 15, 2021 15:04
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It's bad DMing within the definition of what DMing is, is what I'm saying.
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Jan 15, 2021 15:14
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PicklePants posted:I had some players that were kind of abusing it for a while. Then I started laying more on the fact it has verbal and somatic components. You can't do it sneakily, and they can't do it with the, "I cast guidance!" post roll. Guidance sort of seems like a crap version of the help action though, and seems like there are a pretty small number of cases where guidance would be better?
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Jan 18, 2021 04:03
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Hexblade / Pact blade question (the player in question has both, for maximum confusion). The rules for Pact of the Blade say you can "use your action to create a pact weapon in your empty hand." However, the PHB says you can "draw your weapon as part of the same action you use to attack" under the 'other actions on your turn' section. So are pact weapons not summonable in the same way you'd draw a normal weapon? Does it really take your action to summon it? Or is it talking about summoning a pact blade into the empty hand for dual wield purposes? Alao, I'm unclear on the precise interpretation of the PHB's wording - if the player makes the special sword they found in a tomb into their pact weapon, does that mean they can no longer choose the form it appears as? Does that mean they can summon a second sword and choose the form of that one? At the moment I think we're just going to homebrew flair it that he can use summon to 'draw' the blade as part of an attack, but it would be interesting to know the RAW interpretation. Side question - if a normal fighter killed someone with a greatsword the previous turn, could they draw & fire a light crossbow this turn? Is there anything in the rules that would delay or cause problems with that?
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Jan 19, 2021 04:03
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One of my co-players is determined to take some ranger levels, and I don't want to step on his character concept but I also want to make clear that 3.5's mix & match approach doesn't work nearly as well in 5e as it did before. The best way I've found so far is when he's talking about abilities, is pointing out that they are based on your class level, so while me and the druid are going to be rocking abilities scaled to sixth level, he'll be picking from a large selection of level 3 abilities he can't effectively mix and match because of turn limitations. Or have I got that wrong?
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Jan 20, 2021 16:31
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Ok, if you planned very carefully in advance you could make it work. Madmarker posted:It depends on how and what he is doing....going five levels of fighter and then picking up 3 levels of ranger to get gloomstalker is actually very powerful. It really depends on his base class and what exact multiclass he is dipping into. Essentially he's going to be level 3 with extra options by the time we're all level 6.
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Jan 20, 2021 17:15
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I think they're going to be narratively led primarily. Hexblade because their backstory is they found a sword in a tomb, and to use CHA with the sword. Pact of the blade also because of the sword, I guess, and the improved pact weapon invocation. Stats are 16 cha, 14 dex & con, 12 wis,10 int, 8 str. No idea why he wants ranger, but he has expressed to the DM that he wants an animal companion for combat. Honestly I think he's throwing it in there because he was undecided between Warlock and Ranger, and he's more used to 3.5 style multiclassing. I don't really want to tell them how to build their character, but I do want to give them fair warning if they're about to step off a cliff, build wise.
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Jan 21, 2021 04:16
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I'm pretty sure I read that in game, a character can hold their breath for 1 minute + an extra minute for each point of CON modifier. The spell lasts 1 minute, so if you have a negative con value, yeah, it could drown someone.
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Jan 23, 2021 19:49
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Nash posted:How far ahead do you guys plan your home brew campaigns? I’ve got the basics notes and outline of act 1 down. I know the big bad and what he plans to do at the end of the campaign. It’s the in between that very foggy. I think they managed to finish that session's worth of content by the end of about the 5th session. There was an awful lot of missing hints and adding hooks on the fly to point them in the right direction, but I vaatly overestimated the ability of the players to stick to the plot and not wingman the bard as he hits on literally the only barmaid in the village.
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Jan 25, 2021 21:44
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