For polearm master the text says that creatures provoke an opportunity attack when they enter your reach. So that doesn't apply if they are at 10 feet and move forward to 5 feet, does it? Only if they are 10+ and move forward into 10? It hasn't really come up at all yet i'm just confused about how these rules work.
That plus the normal opportunity attack rule that has them only be provoked if things leave your reach means polearms are at a disadvantage up close since people can maneuver around them more easily as long as they are already there. I'll have to think about positioning a lot more going forward.
For polearm master the text says that creatures provoke an opportunity attack when they enter your reach. So that doesn't apply if they are at 10 feet and move forward to 5 feet, does it? Only if they are 10+ and move forward into 10? It hasn't really come up at all yet i'm just confused about how these rules work.
That plus the normal opportunity attack rule that has them only be provoked if things leave your reach means polearms are at a disadvantage up close since people can maneuver around them more easily as long as they are already there. I'll have to think about positioning a lot more going forward.
I'm pretty sure that's correct. Polearms are great at keeping people away, moreso with Sentinel. But they're not that great if you've managed to get inside their reach.
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
edited August 2016
hard question, i think, how to avoid a standing fight
you want to leave your players with agency to do a standing fight if they want to
maybe if he catches them in the snow there's some way you could signpost the hunter has a lot of snow powers and if you can just make it out of the snow...
one thing that's hard about a chase is sometimes players have powers that let them move faster than other people in their party
edit: maybe he's taken some sort of performance enhancing drug, that will wear off and be debilitating in 30min or something?
For polearm master the text says that creatures provoke an opportunity attack when they enter your reach. So that doesn't apply if they are at 10 feet and move forward to 5 feet, does it? Only if they are 10+ and move forward into 10? It hasn't really come up at all yet i'm just confused about how these rules work.
That plus the normal opportunity attack rule that has them only be provoked if things leave your reach means polearms are at a disadvantage up close since people can maneuver around them more easily as long as they are already there. I'll have to think about positioning a lot more going forward.
I'm pretty sure that's correct. Polearms are great at keeping people away, moreso with Sentinel. But they're not that great if you've managed to get inside their reach.
Yeah I worked it out in my head conceptually some. Polearms are a formation weapon. If i'm there with two other polearm masters to either side of me, we've got a huge area of effect that no one can do shit in. Just me on my own and I need to be more deliberate about where I position myself.
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
I've got the basic concepts of this dungeon for this month's session, but I'm having a hell of a time motivating myself to actually do the real work of generating rooms and filling them with stuff. I'm sort of tempted to just not turn it into a dungeon proper (which I had said I would recently, as the group hasn't done a real dungeon in a long time) and move the goalposts so that I can focus on a dungeon design for next time (when they'll have reached a new major location, so lots of opportunities for something more unique than I'd have for this time).
All of that rambling is sort of irrelevant to my larger question: I want the party to be hunted, and I'm not sure how to handle it properly.
They're going to be moving through a heavily-forested area, and the season change has brought winter and heavy snows. Ideally, this hunter would catch them unawares so they have to escape and we can do a chase while he pushes them closer and closer to stumbling into the abandoned elven city they've been close to for some time now. Whether or not I end up making the abandoned city into a real dungeon or not, I just can't quite figure out how I want to handle the idea of them being hunted without it immediately turning into a standing fight somewhere.
Does it need to be a single hunter?
I mean, it doesn't need to be. The one hunting them is one of the last elves, coming after them because they are human and half-elf, intruding on territory that belonged to him and his kind before they were wiped out by humans. He could certainly have underlings or something similar.
Mostly, I want to make this a largely non-magical foe. They've dealt with wizards and priests and all that, and I want this to be more about dealing with a dangerous hunter on their home turf.
I'm thinking the easiest option is having the elf, and maybe some wild animals he's trained, shooting at them and running, leading them towards the city, maybe with the wild animals nipping at their heels. Then they can turn and fight the wild animals, expend resources, and still be taking fire, really pushing them to chase after the bowman.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
For polearm master the text says that creatures provoke an opportunity attack when they enter your reach. So that doesn't apply if they are at 10 feet and move forward to 5 feet, does it? Only if they are 10+ and move forward into 10? It hasn't really come up at all yet i'm just confused about how these rules work.
That plus the normal opportunity attack rule that has them only be provoked if things leave your reach means polearms are at a disadvantage up close since people can maneuver around them more easily as long as they are already there. I'll have to think about positioning a lot more going forward.
I'm pretty sure that's correct. Polearms are great at keeping people away, moreso with Sentinel. But they're not that great if you've managed to get inside their reach.
Yeah I worked it out in my head conceptually some. Polearms are a formation weapon. If i'm there with two other polearm masters to either side of me, we've got a huge area of effect that no one can do shit in. Just me on my own and I need to be more deliberate about where I position myself.
Polearm master just gives you A) an option for an attack with your bonus action, if you don't have a better use for it, and an option for a reaction attack while enemies are approaching, usually at the beginning of a fight, before people are in the thick of it.
You don't normally get an AoO when they enter reach, and if they are leaving reach, they are leaving reach. Unless you have Sentinel, you AoO is only going to damage them anyways. It might make enemies disinclined to go for the back line, but only if you AoO is really going to hurt. Otherwise, you get more targets with a Polearm vs a not ranged weapon. And for me, I love the idea of a spear knight type setup.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
For polearm master the text says that creatures provoke an opportunity attack when they enter your reach. So that doesn't apply if they are at 10 feet and move forward to 5 feet, does it? Only if they are 10+ and move forward into 10? It hasn't really come up at all yet i'm just confused about how these rules work.
That plus the normal opportunity attack rule that has them only be provoked if things leave your reach means polearms are at a disadvantage up close since people can maneuver around them more easily as long as they are already there. I'll have to think about positioning a lot more going forward.
I'm pretty sure that's correct. Polearms are great at keeping people away, moreso with Sentinel. But they're not that great if you've managed to get inside their reach.
Yeah I worked it out in my head conceptually some. Polearms are a formation weapon. If i'm there with two other polearm masters to either side of me, we've got a huge area of effect that no one can do shit in. Just me on my own and I need to be more deliberate about where I position myself.
Polearm master just gives you A) an option for an attack with your bonus action, if you don't have a better use for it, and an option for a reaction attack while enemies are approaching, usually at the beginning of a fight, before people are in the thick of it.
You don't normally get an AoO when they enter reach, and if they are leaving reach, they are leaving reach. Unless you have Sentinel, you AoO is only going to damage them anyways. It might make enemies disinclined to go for the back line, but only if you AoO is really going to hurt. Otherwise, you get more targets with a Polearm vs a not ranged weapon. And for me, I love the idea of a spear knight type setup.
Yeah the entire concept has really grown on me and has become rather apropos thematically. Nothing able to escape the long reach of Vengeance, etc.
Of course then she gets hit by an earth elemental for 56 damage but DETAILS.
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
For polearm master the text says that creatures provoke an opportunity attack when they enter your reach. So that doesn't apply if they are at 10 feet and move forward to 5 feet, does it? Only if they are 10+ and move forward into 10? It hasn't really come up at all yet i'm just confused about how these rules work.
That plus the normal opportunity attack rule that has them only be provoked if things leave your reach means polearms are at a disadvantage up close since people can maneuver around them more easily as long as they are already there. I'll have to think about positioning a lot more going forward.
I'm pretty sure that's correct. Polearms are great at keeping people away, moreso with Sentinel. But they're not that great if you've managed to get inside their reach.
Yeah I worked it out in my head conceptually some. Polearms are a formation weapon. If i'm there with two other polearm masters to either side of me, we've got a huge area of effect that no one can do shit in. Just me on my own and I need to be more deliberate about where I position myself.
Polearm master just gives you A) an option for an attack with your bonus action, if you don't have a better use for it, and an option for a reaction attack while enemies are approaching, usually at the beginning of a fight, before people are in the thick of it.
You don't normally get an AoO when they enter reach, and if they are leaving reach, they are leaving reach. Unless you have Sentinel, you AoO is only going to damage them anyways. It might make enemies disinclined to go for the back line, but only if you AoO is really going to hurt. Otherwise, you get more targets with a Polearm vs a not ranged weapon. And for me, I love the idea of a spear knight type setup.
Yeah the entire concept has really grown on me and has become rather apropos thematically. Nothing able to escape the long reach of Vengeance, etc.
Of course then she gets hit by an earth elemental for 56 damage but DETAILS.
Totem of the Bear barbarian cares nothing for your elemental damages.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
So last night I ran the finale for my in store curse of strahd campaign and it was interesting, though I didn't wrack up the body count I was expecting which was oddly disappointing.
The players were confronted by reyhadin in the chapel of the house of the dragon, and not bothering to have any cool last minute villain/hero banter, the players began firing away at him... with moderate effect due to the fact that the elf prince is one tough son of a bitch (AC 18, +7 to con and wis saves!) and things were further complicated by me utilizing what I reffered to ? acting low in the initiative order wherein ?=additional support filtering in.
There was a fair ammount of carnage that went on in the fight, as players were horrified to discover that the elf had a bunch of nasty tricks up his sleeves involving throwing knives (2 attacks of 1d4+6 +2d4 poison is no joke), the screams of his victims (bonus action 3d10 psychic to all within 10 feet wis save DC16 for half) and his use of misty step made him hard to pin down, to say nothing of the arrival of a nighmare and the two hellhounds they had simply turned away earlier meant that there was a lot of damage flying around.
Still though, I was always looking for oportunities to allow cool things to happen, and when the Moon druid in the party was nearly taken out I gave her the option to go beyond what she normally would have been able to with the concession that she would never be able to revert to her previous form; after a quick thought on the subject she agreed and moments later an Alosaurus was murdering the crap out of a hellhound (seriously: pounce is horrifying
since if it works it does 1d8+4+DC 13 strength save or prone+2d10+4 (with advantage)); I described the process of eating one being like swallowing cinamon pop rocks as the beast was banished back to the 9 hells.
Moments later, the revanants returned, and took up positions around reyhadin and the players, bludgeoning him into submission and informing the players that he was now their hostage and the players were to go and deliver the terms of ransom to strahd: the chamberlain for the skull of the dragon that founded their order; effectively the Revanants had reversed the players plan of having them fight the elf on their behalf by having the players weaken him for them... and also putting a dent in their plans to permanently hurt strahd by killing his most trusted servant.
To my surprise, the dwarf light clerics response was to unleash a fireball spell on the assembled mass of players and revanants in a bid to take them and reyhadin out. This didn't work out for him though, and the rest of the players proceded to murder the ever loving crap out of Orisc (again a pounce occured and orisc found out the hard way that having 8 strength has some serious downfalls).
For my part, I learned a lot from this fight. I only had 5 players +Ismark and the party didn't exactly have a lot of tank meat so I opened up much easier on them then it turns out I should have; They were able to throw a lot of damage his way since he was the only target they had to worry about, and they still had enough spells to hurt him effectively. If I had the hell hounds and/or the nightmare show up earlier then things would have been really different, though I worried having the damage of the hellhounds (their breath is lethal with 6d6 damage)would have simply wiped the party too quickly. If I was going to run that fight again, I'd definitley have some bodyguards at the start, or had the elf ride in through the wall with the nightmare, maybe see if I could get him to have them waste spells on him while he's ethereal.
That having been said: I'm looking forward to next season where I'll be a player.
For polearm master the text says that creatures provoke an opportunity attack when they enter your reach. So that doesn't apply if they are at 10 feet and move forward to 5 feet, does it? Only if they are 10+ and move forward into 10? It hasn't really come up at all yet i'm just confused about how these rules work.
That plus the normal opportunity attack rule that has them only be provoked if things leave your reach means polearms are at a disadvantage up close since people can maneuver around them more easily as long as they are already there. I'll have to think about positioning a lot more going forward.
I'm pretty sure that's correct. Polearms are great at keeping people away, moreso with Sentinel. But they're not that great if you've managed to get inside their reach.
Yeah I worked it out in my head conceptually some. Polearms are a formation weapon. If i'm there with two other polearm masters to either side of me, we've got a huge area of effect that no one can do shit in. Just me on my own and I need to be more deliberate about where I position myself.
Polearm master just gives you A) an option for an attack with your bonus action, if you don't have a better use for it, and an option for a reaction attack while enemies are approaching, usually at the beginning of a fight, before people are in the thick of it.
You don't normally get an AoO when they enter reach, and if they are leaving reach, they are leaving reach. Unless you have Sentinel, you AoO is only going to damage them anyways. It might make enemies disinclined to go for the back line, but only if you AoO is really going to hurt. Otherwise, you get more targets with a Polearm vs a not ranged weapon. And for me, I love the idea of a spear knight type setup.
Yeah the entire concept has really grown on me and has become rather apropos thematically. Nothing able to escape the long reach of Vengeance, etc.
Of course then she gets hit by an earth elemental for 56 damage but DETAILS.
If your DM lets you use Unearthed Arcana, the Tunnel Fighter fighting style can let you (effectively) make OAs at people who are approaching you inside your reach. Tunnel Fighter lets you access a stance that 1)lets you make OAs without using your reaction and 2) lets you use your reaction to make a melee attack against an enemy that moves more than 5 feet inside your reach, which keeps you pretty covered if you're using a reach weapon. It's also not actually an OA, either, so it'll work even if they've used Disengage to move past you.
Also if you want to make your DM regret letting you use UA content, Tunnel Fighter plus Polearm Master and the level 7 vengeance paladin feature that lets you shift 3 when you hit with an OA means you can take your Polearm Master OA when they enter your reach, hit them, and then shift back a couple steps so they're out of your reach. Then, if they keep trying to close to melee with you (or move past you), whoops! they enter your reach again, provoking another OA and letting you shift until they're out of your reach again, and so on, keeping you out of melee ranger and raining down free attacks until either they run out of movement or you miss.
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
My understanding is that you only get 1 OA per round.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
My understanding is that you only get 1 OA per round.
Only because it requires your reaction. Tunnel Fighter removes that requirement - the whole point of the selection is that it lets you make multiple OAs.
It just probably wasn't written with the ability to reposition off-turn in order to make multiple OAs on the same target in mind.
We're just playing vanilla without any of the expansions and whatnot since this is our first game with 5th edition and we didn't want to make character creation even more complicated having to reference multiple books. Like, i'd probably have used the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide to make my Tiefling a winged variant if so. I love that there are all these crazy-ass combinations out there though and people have gone to the effort to document them.
Also i'd be afraid of going too cheeseball and descending into the mindset of this being a game that I need to score the most points at in order to win, rather than it being a neat world and interesting characters we're visiting for 3 hours every week.
After my group went through Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat, we're about to take a turn with myself as the GM. This is my first time leading anything long-form (I've done some Paranoia one-session missions and collaborated with Fiasco and such), so I'm a little worried about it not being as engaging as the published stuff or being too railroad-y. I've been watching Matt Colville and I'm totally stealing his idea for magic equipment that "unlocks" new powers as you accomplish certain feats with them, as well as the thought that bards are actually useful in society (which will either make the player who always plays nothing but bards or the most bard-like thing he can cobble together happy or annoy him for because he'll actually have a job to do).
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After my group went through Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat, we're about to take a turn with myself as the GM. This is my first time leading anything long-form (I've done some Paranoia one-session missions and collaborated with Fiasco and such), so I'm a little worried about it not being as engaging as the published stuff or being too railroad-y. I've been watching Matt Colville and I'm totally stealing his idea for magic equipment that "unlocks" new powers as you accomplish certain feats with them, as well as the thought that bards are actually useful in society (which will either make the player who always plays nothing but bards or the most bard-like thing he can cobble together happy or annoy him for because he'll actually have a job to do).
If you want to try a pre-written module (to take the stress of world building off your shoulders) that allows for a lot of flexibility, Curse of strahd is fucking solid; it's sandboxy enough that your players won't ever really feel rail roaded and has lots of opportunities for you to addapt the setting to your needs for storytelling purposes.
Also: it's scary enough that the players will be begging to go back to the Forgotten realms.
After my group went through Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat, we're about to take a turn with myself as the GM. This is my first time leading anything long-form (I've done some Paranoia one-session missions and collaborated with Fiasco and such), so I'm a little worried about it not being as engaging as the published stuff or being too railroad-y. I've been watching Matt Colville and I'm totally stealing his idea for magic equipment that "unlocks" new powers as you accomplish certain feats with them, as well as the thought that bards are actually useful in society (which will either make the player who always plays nothing but bards or the most bard-like thing he can cobble together happy or annoy him for because he'll actually have a job to do).
I'm in a similar boat. One thing I remember reading, and discussing with another DM is to basically use/create a city and stick stuff in there to interact with that can trigger the main plot, and some stuff that won't but can have hints to it.
Also another thing I read which I really like is. Come up with three solutions to every conflict and for each solution make three clues that will be easy to find.
I'm also going to rewrite chunks of the Adventurers League stuff, replacing 'Dragons' with 'Fiends/Devils' so you could do something similar
Want to play co-op games? Feel free to hit me up!
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Alrighty! Time for my Curse of Strahd adventure! My group hasn't played in 3 weeks due to vacations, traffic jams and other issues, so we were all super pumped to get back into the world.
Anyways, we had all leveled to 5 after the epic adventures we had last time when Strahd attacked the town and the Burgomeister ended up getting killed by our rogue, then his corpse strung up in the town square by the mob. (She did him a favor, they were going to lynch him).
Anyways!
We rest up and the next day pay a visit to the lady of the family that opposed the Burgomeister, as we had scheduled an appointment. We learn that she has moved to the Mansion and is "seizing" power. As the old Burgomeister was a bit of a tool we weren't too concerned with this and went to talk to her anyways. After some witty repartee between her, the warlock and the rogue we learn that she doesn't know where the bones of the champion that were stolen from under the church are, but that nobody has seen the coffin maker for a few weeks, and that is odd and we might as well start there. We head out, with promise of reward for a job well done.
We head over to the coffin maker's house/business and with a super high persuasion roll and the jingling of gold, we get in the door with the story that we are here to buy a marble coffin for the old Burgomeister, as it is important to honor him in death. After a few more great rolls (I don't think anyone rolled under a 15 for this whole part of it) we learn that he does have the bones, and that there are 6 vampires upstairs. Oh shit!
So my warlordesque fighter comes up with a plan! We know where the bones are, so the rogue is going to sneak upstairs and steal them out of the coffin maker's room and then come back down to join us, where we will then set the entire place on fire and wait outside to kill any vampires that survive the inferno. Amazingly enough, the rogue pulls it off! She was amazing and her worst roll I believe was an 16, and that was across like 6 checks. She heard a couple of the vampires talking about what had went on downstairs, but dismissing it as business since nothing else had come of it. We let the Coffin Maker take some of his prized tools and tell him to get out of dodge while we go to work.
On the outside of the building we get some fires going. I roll a Nat 20 during my check, so I get my fire going and do so well I'm able to get some torches on the roof that immediately flare up and start burning vigorously. The others do OK but only make average rolls. The warlock inside casts firebolt up the stairs to get the inside of the building lit up, then he books it out the front door, where I'm coming around to bar it. At that point combat starts and we roll initiative, but the DM gives us a surprise round since the vampires were mostly asleep and weren't sure what was happening yet.
On initiative the Warlock and I both roll Nat 1s, the rogue rolls like a 16 or something, and the Cleric of Kord rolls double Nat 20s*. The DM thinks about it for a minute since this is an epic roll, and needs to be rewarded appropriately. He decided that firstly, the cleric now gains advantage on initiative checks against vampires, and secondly for this encounter Kord opens the clouds to let the full sun shine down around the coffin makers house (Boosting any damage to vampires caught in it) as well as causing a breeze to fan the flames and really get the fire going. It was bad ass.
Anyways, he guards the back door in case any of the vampires come out this way, and holds his action, the rogue can hear the vampires near a window on the side of the building, and hides under it and holds her action in case they come out that way. The Warlock and I are so amazed about the sun coming out that we lose our surprise actions (Those Nat 1s).
At this point the fire is going really hot and the back of the building is pretty much an inferno, so the cleric heads up front and waits for the vampires, and the rogue hears the vampires heading straight for the front door as well, so she goes and hides and holds her action for stabby stabby. A couple of the vampires burst out of the front door right into the bright sunlight, and right into the warlock and I. They attempt an attack but are at disadvantage due to the sun, and both attacks miss. Now I hold my action until after the warlock acts, because before we started this the warlock and I had a plan. He casts Haste on the rogue and I, then gets the heck out of dodge, and now its my turn, a fully refreshed, hasted battle master fighter, it's time to go to town on these vampires. Between the haste, having 2 standard attacks and a bonus action class feat, I get 4 attacks. 3 hit with power attack, and I end up doing about 60 damage to one of the vampires, bringing it right to the brink, as it lies burning and bleeding on the ground. I use my move action to run up and slam the door closed and brace against it, to try and keep the vampires in.
Next round the Cleric and Rogue finish off the first vampire. The other vampire that is outside tries to attack the rogue, but rolls a one, and the ones inside try to bust down the door, but roll poorly against my athletics check (27, booyah!), and I start to pound on the remaining vampire, while getting back and bracing the door again. At this point the building is an inferno and the roof is starting to collapse and the vampires are hammering at the door trying to get out.
Next Round the cleric and Rogue finish off the 2nd vampire, and the ones stuck in the building are able to punch some holes through the door and attack me for a small amount of damage before I'm able to beat back their arms, and am able to resist them breaking down the door again with another super high strength check, and I'm able to wedge my polearm into the door frame to give a bonus to holding the door. The Warlock and Cleric both on their turns cast mend on the door, and repair the holes the vampires punched in it, which was awesome.
The final round has the building collapsing in on itself and the remaining vampires dying in the fire. Overall it was an awesome and tense encounter, with the rogue kicking ass at being a rogue at the beginning while we are all on the edge of our seats hoping she makes it, to actually having a plan and successfully executing it by burning down the building with the vampires in it, and being able to keep them barricaded inside, with minimal actual combat. It was a ton of fun and our DM is excellent, and has a great story telling voice, in bringing life to the characters and setting.
In the end my mostly agnostic fighter (Doesn't really worship any one god) went up to the cleric and gave him an authentic and heartfelt "Praise Kord". He might have a convert.
*in our games when we roll a nat 1 or nat 20 we roll again, until we stop rolling the nat. So when a double twenty comes up something really cool usually happens, and a possible minor stat increase (like in a save, or initiative or something). If a triple twenty is rolled then something absolutely crazy amazing happens and someone will usually gain a +2 in a primary stat. The triple twenty has only been seen once in our group, and we've been playing for years, and Our buddies wife rolled it in her 2nd session playing, and it was really awesome.
So I haven't played any 5th edition at all, and that's cause for regret. This will be rectified in November when my city hosts a gaming convention called "GameHoleCon", which I still maintain is the dumbest fucking name, but it's a growing convention and last year was pretty cool.
On the Friday morning I'll be attending a 2 hour seminar about D&D;
Join Chris Perkins, principal story designer for Dungeons & Dragons, Jeremy Crawford, co-designer and Managing Editor of Dungeons & Dragons and Mike Mearls, the senior manager and lead designer for Dungeons & Dragons for a question and answer session about Dungeons and & Dragons, past and present, as well as past and present D&D story campaigns, including Tyranny of Dragons, Elemental Evil, Rage of Demons, and Curse of Strahd.
And then I'll be bringing a fresh level 1 character to three Adventure League (the latest name for D&D Organized Play) modules;
DDAL5-1: Treasure of the Broken Hoard
DDAL5-2: The Black Road
DDAL5-3: Uninvited Guests
Followed by a four hour Epic Adventure thing, DDEX5-1: The Iron Baron, which will feature something like fifteen tables all running through the same adventure. Results at the end will be collated and entered into canon to affect future adventures.
And then on Sunday I'll go to two more modules;
DDAL5-6: Beneath the Fetid Chelimber
DDAL5-7: Chelimber's Descent
Both of which are newly designed and will be debuting at this convention.
Adventure League confuses me. I just don't understand how it is intended to function.
Is it just supposed to be like a pen and paper Diablo 3? You can go wherever load your character in and play? But if that's the case why all the rules about every little nitpicky thing.
All the log sheet business and the DM getting XP and having out of game 'quests'. It just has all these weird trappings around it that make it seem strangely rules heavy "At least 3 players and one DM. (A legal D&D Adventurers League table consists of 3-7 players.)", all the rules about how loot is distributed, etc.
The DM rules are very explicit that the only variant rule from the DMG allowed is the rules for playing on a grid...
But how the fuck are they ever going to enforce any of these rules ever? And if its just an honor system, why have all the rules in the first place? I just feel like I'm missing something.
Adventure League confuses me. I just don't understand how it is intended to function.
Is it just supposed to be like a pen and paper Diablo 3? You can go wherever load your character in and play? But if that's the case why all the rules about every little nitpicky thing.
All the log sheet business and the DM getting XP and having out of game 'quests'. It just has all these weird trappings around it that make it seem strangely rules heavy "At least 3 players and one DM. (A legal D&D Adventurers League table consists of 3-7 players.)", all the rules about how loot is distributed, etc.
The DM rules are very explicit that the only variant rule from the DMG allowed is the rules for playing on a grid...
But how the fuck are they ever going to enforce any of these rules ever? And if its just an honor system, why have all the rules in the first place? I just feel like I'm missing something.
Because when you try and get the west side neckbeards to play with the east side pocket protectors, you better have rock solid rules for how to sit at the table, or someone is going to get a bat'leth to the eye.
In all honesty though, when working with large groups of random people, a heavy framework tends to be helpful.
I assume the DM exp is to incentivize DMing, because without DMs it all falls apart.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
So we did character generation today, and it was kind of neat with what we have to look forward to this season based on who actually showed up (there will probably be a few more players); so far we have:
1 Dragon born paladin
2 Wizards
1 warlock
1 barbarian
1 elf fighter
1 war cleric
2 monks
I'd been prepared to get my character switched to something else in case we were overloaded with paladins, but it's looking like that won't be a problem. Bigger concern is that we have a shortage of healers (we're running two tables) and thus sat least one table will be bereft of medics unless some of those missing players come back with healing abilities.
As a side note, Fan Expo was last week and I snagged something awesome:
Not a complete set and some of the mini's are busted or have hideous colors, but the guy in the bottom right will make an amazing stand in for my paladin.
So we did character generation today, and it was kind of neat with what we have to look forward to this season based on who actually showed up (there will probably be a few more players); so far we have:
1 Dragon born paladin
2 Wizards
1 warlock
1 barbarian
1 elf fighter
1 war cleric
2 monks
I'd been prepared to get my character switched to something else in case we were overloaded with paladins, but it's looking like that won't be a problem. Bigger concern is that we have a shortage of healers (we're running two tables) and thus sat least one table will be bereft of medics unless some of those missing players come back with healing abilities.
As a side note, Fan Expo was last week and I snagged something awesome:
Not a complete set and some of the mini's are busted or have hideous colors, but the guy in the bottom right will make an amazing stand in for my paladin.
Adventure League confuses me. I just don't understand how it is intended to function.
Is it just supposed to be like a pen and paper Diablo 3? You can go wherever load your character in and play? But if that's the case why all the rules about every little nitpicky thing.
All the log sheet business and the DM getting XP and having out of game 'quests'. It just has all these weird trappings around it that make it seem strangely rules heavy "At least 3 players and one DM. (A legal D&D Adventurers League table consists of 3-7 players.)", all the rules about how loot is distributed, etc.
The DM rules are very explicit that the only variant rule from the DMG allowed is the rules for playing on a grid...
But how the fuck are they ever going to enforce any of these rules ever? And if its just an honor system, why have all the rules in the first place? I just feel like I'm missing something.
The DM XP is likely to compensate the person running it for missing out on the chance to play it. With only a limited number of adventures it's not like they can go "grind" out more XP to be the same level as their friends when they go somewhere to play together.
The 3 players has been a longstanding RPGA rule which I think is still nominally in charge of adventure league.
The rest of it is just standard organized play stuff which makes a large appearance of attempting to make it look like cheating would be hard while in actual practice does almost nothing to prevent it. I did a bunch of Living Greyhawk back in the day and the only time I ever heard of anybody being called on cheating it was extremely blatant and explicitly discussed in front of like the RPGA coordinator at Origins or some other large con.
Without house-ruling, you really don't want somebody trying to play "healer" in D&D 5E anyway. For whatever reason, instead of using the 4E/13th Age method of healers being used as a force multiplier, letting them use a bonus action type thing to enable other people to use their own healing resource, 5E uses the method of tricking people into thinking casting cure wounds is ever the right choice.
In 5E, Healing Word(bonus action) is the only healing spell worth casting in combat, and even then only if somebody is unconscious to bring them back up. Later game mass cure wounds can actually be a decent use of action economy only if you have 5+ people that really need the healing.
I had to use optional rules like lingering injuries when people got KOed to make it actually worthwhile to have people get healed before getting knocked unconscious. Even then it wasn't perfect.
We finished up our D&D campaign last Sunday and it turned out great. The Angry GM paragon monster rules and called shot rules meant the final two stage dragon fight we had actually felt really good, with the dragon frenzying and getting extra turns in the middle of the fight, and the party having to disable his wings in the 2nd part of the fight in the dragon's lair before he'd do anything but breathe on them and hit and run.
Now I have to bust ass and prep for the next game I'm GMing, which is a 13th Age game kicking off this Friday night. Should've given myself a bit longer between to get ready, but we're all so excited I couldn't do it.
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
Without house-ruling, you really don't want somebody trying to play "healer" in D&D 5E anyway. For whatever reason, instead of using the 4E/13th Age method of healers being used as a force multiplier, letting them use a bonus action type thing to enable other people to use their own healing resource, 5E uses the method of tricking people into thinking casting cure wounds is ever the right choice.
In 5E, Healing Word(bonus action) is the only healing spell worth casting in combat, and even then only if somebody is unconscious to bring them back up. Later game mass cure wounds can actually be a decent use of action economy only if you have 5+ people that really need the healing.
Just to clarify, because I don't remember where in the last 100 pages it came up, but in your experience, its more effective to let people spend Hit Die out of combat? Don't you run out of Hit Die with only regaining half the total on long rest? Or are you assuming that other healing methods will be used outside of combat as well?
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
Without house-ruling, you really don't want somebody trying to play "healer" in D&D 5E anyway. For whatever reason, instead of using the 4E/13th Age method of healers being used as a force multiplier, letting them use a bonus action type thing to enable other people to use their own healing resource, 5E uses the method of tricking people into thinking casting cure wounds is ever the right choice.
In 5E, Healing Word(bonus action) is the only healing spell worth casting in combat, and even then only if somebody is unconscious to bring them back up. Later game mass cure wounds can actually be a decent use of action economy only if you have 5+ people that really need the healing.
Just to clarify, because I don't remember where in the last 100 pages it came up, but in your experience, its more effective to let people spend Hit Die out of combat? Don't you run out of Hit Die with only regaining half the total on long rest? Or are you assuming that other healing methods will be used outside of combat as well?
Spending hit dice is a big part of healing, but you're right that if the DM is actually putting you through 4-8 encounters per day, you might run out. Thing is, hardly anybody runs games where that actually happens. It's why I house-ruled 13th Age's "heal-ups" into D&D 5, where I would grant the party a long rest after roughly 4 encounters, but they didn't get those benefits from just sleeping at night.
It's not that using spell slots to heal isn't effective, it's that using them in combat isn't. So if you have a party of say 7th level characters, even if you have a Cleric in your party, you will prevent more damage to your party by having everybody go all out to just kill the enemies rather than have the Cleric use their action to cast a cure wounds spell.
Outside of combat, there are really cost effective healing spells, like the Cleric's prayer of healing, which is an AOE heal but has a 10 minute cast time. Or if you have a Druid in the party, they can create Goodberries at 10 berries per spell level, each berry healing 1 HP. My party's Druid would often have say a 3rd level spell slot left before they were about to get a heal-up(long rest), and would create 30 berries. So as long as they used them within 24 hours before they lose their magic, there's 30 HP worth of healing for one spell slot, just eat them after a combat ends.
While I am sure this analysis is correct, it disappoints me.
If adventurers are insisting on a short rest between every encounter and long rests every two or three encounters then they are the wussiest of adventurers and deserve to have no songs sung of them whatsoever.
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
Just wondering, because I'm probably going to be playing a game soon, and was considering trying to do a Lore Bard for a healer, if no one else picks up a healing role. Unf, bard doesn't have a lot of spell casts per long rest, so I'm not sure how good it will be for healing out of combat either.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
So we did character generation today, and it was kind of neat with what we have to look forward to this season based on who actually showed up (there will probably be a few more players); so far we have:
1 Dragon born paladin
2 Wizards
1 warlock
1 barbarian
1 elf fighter
1 war cleric
2 monks
I'd been prepared to get my character switched to something else in case we were overloaded with paladins, but it's looking like that won't be a problem. Bigger concern is that we have a shortage of healers (we're running two tables) and thus sat least one table will be bereft of medics unless some of those missing players come back with healing abilities.
As a side note, Fan Expo was last week and I snagged something awesome:
Not a complete set and some of the mini's are busted or have hideous colors, but the guy in the bottom right will make an amazing stand in for my paladin.
While I am sure this analysis is correct, it disappoints me.
If adventurers are insisting on a short rest between every encounter and long rests every two or three encounters then they are the wussiest of adventurers and deserve to have no songs sung of them whatsoever.
Also It's an excellent opportunity to ambush them.
While I am sure this analysis is correct, it disappoints me.
If adventurers are insisting on a short rest between every encounter and long rests every two or three encounters then they are the wussiest of adventurers and deserve to have no songs sung of them whatsoever.
Also It's an excellent opportunity to ambush them.
Yes, fully agreed.
But if you do it too much, then somehow the DM becomes the problem and not the players.
Eh. If the system makes you want to routinely attack your party while they're resting it's a good indication that perhaps you should find a system that isn't designed to make your players hate you.
Just wondering, because I'm probably going to be playing a game soon, and was considering trying to do a Lore Bard for a healer, if no one else picks up a healing role. Unf, bard doesn't have a lot of spell casts per long rest, so I'm not sure how good it will be for healing out of combat either.
Bard gets as many spells per day as any other full caster in 5E, don't they? Also, bards get a thing that makes spending Hit Dice to heal out of combat more efficient, so you have that going for you.
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
I guess? I hadn't actually looked that closely at Wiz/Sorc yet, so I assumed they could cast more than 2 spells per day.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
Yes, all full spell-casters (Bard is one) have the same spell slot progression, so Bards don't have fewer base slots than any other caster.
That being said, some classes like Wizard and the caster Druid have a once per long rest ability to restore some spell slots for themselves, so technically they have more than anybody else. Sorcerer can likewise spend sorc points to restore slots, though it's highly inefficient.
Lore Bards actually make one of the best healing classes in 5E by far though, and I'll tell you why:
1) You can just grab healing word and get people back up if they go unconscious mid fight as well as anybody.
2) This is the big one. Lore Bard gets their first magical secrets at level 6. They can take any spell that's 3rd level or lower from any other class. Guess what's a 3rd level spell? The Paladin-exclusive Aura of Vitality spell. It's a concentration spell, lasts 1 minute, once per round you can heal any ally(or yourself) for 2d6 as a bonus action. Paladin has to wait until 9th level to get 3rd level spells, but Bard's magical secrets lets them get this spell at level 6.
In combat it's a great spell because it gives bonus action healing, but takes your concentration. But outside of combat, it's 20d6 of healing for a 3rd level spell slot over 1 minute.
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
Will aura of vitality be more useful than Prayer of Healing?
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
Eh. If the system makes you want to routinely attack your party while they're resting it's a good indication that perhaps you should find a system that isn't designed to make your players hate you.
Or it makes them try way harder to find good places to rest as opposed to in the middle of zombieland.
Eh. If the system makes you want to routinely attack your party while they're resting it's a good indication that perhaps you should find a system that isn't designed to make your players hate you.
Or it makes them try way harder to find good places to rest as opposed to in the middle of zombieland.
Because that's the game we all want to be playing "Where can I find a secure corner to cower in?" instead of "Smash monsters with my sword!". I hear it has companion games of "Can I possibly carry enough food to survive on our trip to to place we actually care about?" and "What other pointless random minutia can I throw at players?" that really get them rocking in their seats.
Less snide: This is the thing about traps all over again. If you want your PCs to NOT carefully search every five foot square then you can not use deadly or frequent traps because it's a logical outgrowth of encountering such things. If you want a dashingly heroic game then you also can't hassle them overmuch about resting or provisions without it quite naturally turning into D&D: Excel Sheets edition. I'm not really throwing stones at "types" of games here so much as I'm targeting behavior that encourages a style contrary to what the DM thinks they want.
Another thing you can do for more "healing", assuming feats are allowed in your game, is take the feat that gives the entire party a small stack of temporary HP whenever you deliver some inspiring oratory (limit once per short rest). The 6th level bard in my party dishes out 10 temp hp to everyone at every short rest, which with six characters is 60 hp. That's a lot of minor hits negated for something you get every short rest with no cost to your spell slots.
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For polearm master the text says that creatures provoke an opportunity attack when they enter your reach. So that doesn't apply if they are at 10 feet and move forward to 5 feet, does it? Only if they are 10+ and move forward into 10? It hasn't really come up at all yet i'm just confused about how these rules work.
That plus the normal opportunity attack rule that has them only be provoked if things leave your reach means polearms are at a disadvantage up close since people can maneuver around them more easily as long as they are already there. I'll have to think about positioning a lot more going forward.
I'm pretty sure that's correct. Polearms are great at keeping people away, moreso with Sentinel. But they're not that great if you've managed to get inside their reach.
you want to leave your players with agency to do a standing fight if they want to
maybe if he catches them in the snow there's some way you could signpost the hunter has a lot of snow powers and if you can just make it out of the snow...
one thing that's hard about a chase is sometimes players have powers that let them move faster than other people in their party
edit: maybe he's taken some sort of performance enhancing drug, that will wear off and be debilitating in 30min or something?
Yeah I worked it out in my head conceptually some. Polearms are a formation weapon. If i'm there with two other polearm masters to either side of me, we've got a huge area of effect that no one can do shit in. Just me on my own and I need to be more deliberate about where I position myself.
I'm thinking the easiest option is having the elf, and maybe some wild animals he's trained, shooting at them and running, leading them towards the city, maybe with the wild animals nipping at their heels. Then they can turn and fight the wild animals, expend resources, and still be taking fire, really pushing them to chase after the bowman.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Polearm master just gives you A) an option for an attack with your bonus action, if you don't have a better use for it, and
You don't normally get an AoO when they enter reach, and if they are leaving reach, they are leaving reach. Unless you have Sentinel, you AoO is only going to damage them anyways. It might make enemies disinclined to go for the back line, but only if you AoO is really going to hurt. Otherwise, you get more targets with a Polearm vs a not ranged weapon. And for me, I love the idea of a spear knight type setup.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Yeah the entire concept has really grown on me and has become rather apropos thematically. Nothing able to escape the long reach of Vengeance, etc.
Of course then she gets hit by an earth elemental for 56 damage but DETAILS.
Totem of the Bear barbarian cares nothing for your elemental damages.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
The players were confronted by reyhadin in the chapel of the house of the dragon, and not bothering to have any cool last minute villain/hero banter, the players began firing away at him... with moderate effect due to the fact that the elf prince is one tough son of a bitch (AC 18, +7 to con and wis saves!) and things were further complicated by me utilizing what I reffered to ? acting low in the initiative order wherein ?=additional support filtering in.
There was a fair ammount of carnage that went on in the fight, as players were horrified to discover that the elf had a bunch of nasty tricks up his sleeves involving throwing knives (2 attacks of 1d4+6 +2d4 poison is no joke), the screams of his victims (bonus action 3d10 psychic to all within 10 feet wis save DC16 for half) and his use of misty step made him hard to pin down, to say nothing of the arrival of a nighmare and the two hellhounds they had simply turned away earlier meant that there was a lot of damage flying around.
Still though, I was always looking for oportunities to allow cool things to happen, and when the Moon druid in the party was nearly taken out I gave her the option to go beyond what she normally would have been able to with the concession that she would never be able to revert to her previous form; after a quick thought on the subject she agreed and moments later an Alosaurus was murdering the crap out of a hellhound (seriously: pounce is horrifying
since if it works it does 1d8+4+DC 13 strength save or prone+2d10+4 (with advantage)); I described the process of eating one being like swallowing cinamon pop rocks as the beast was banished back to the 9 hells.
Moments later, the revanants returned, and took up positions around reyhadin and the players, bludgeoning him into submission and informing the players that he was now their hostage and the players were to go and deliver the terms of ransom to strahd: the chamberlain for the skull of the dragon that founded their order; effectively the Revanants had reversed the players plan of having them fight the elf on their behalf by having the players weaken him for them... and also putting a dent in their plans to permanently hurt strahd by killing his most trusted servant.
To my surprise, the dwarf light clerics response was to unleash a fireball spell on the assembled mass of players and revanants in a bid to take them and reyhadin out. This didn't work out for him though, and the rest of the players proceded to murder the ever loving crap out of Orisc (again a pounce occured and orisc found out the hard way that having 8 strength has some serious downfalls).
For my part, I learned a lot from this fight. I only had 5 players +Ismark and the party didn't exactly have a lot of tank meat so I opened up much easier on them then it turns out I should have; They were able to throw a lot of damage his way since he was the only target they had to worry about, and they still had enough spells to hurt him effectively. If I had the hell hounds and/or the nightmare show up earlier then things would have been really different, though I worried having the damage of the hellhounds (their breath is lethal with 6d6 damage)would have simply wiped the party too quickly. If I was going to run that fight again, I'd definitley have some bodyguards at the start, or had the elf ride in through the wall with the nightmare, maybe see if I could get him to have them waste spells on him while he's ethereal.
That having been said: I'm looking forward to next season where I'll be a player.
If your DM lets you use Unearthed Arcana, the Tunnel Fighter fighting style can let you (effectively) make OAs at people who are approaching you inside your reach. Tunnel Fighter lets you access a stance that 1)lets you make OAs without using your reaction and 2) lets you use your reaction to make a melee attack against an enemy that moves more than 5 feet inside your reach, which keeps you pretty covered if you're using a reach weapon. It's also not actually an OA, either, so it'll work even if they've used Disengage to move past you.
Also if you want to make your DM regret letting you use UA content, Tunnel Fighter plus Polearm Master and the level 7 vengeance paladin feature that lets you shift 3 when you hit with an OA means you can take your Polearm Master OA when they enter your reach, hit them, and then shift back a couple steps so they're out of your reach. Then, if they keep trying to close to melee with you (or move past you), whoops! they enter your reach again, provoking another OA and letting you shift until they're out of your reach again, and so on, keeping you out of melee ranger and raining down free attacks until either they run out of movement or you miss.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Only because it requires your reaction. Tunnel Fighter removes that requirement - the whole point of the selection is that it lets you make multiple OAs.
It just probably wasn't written with the ability to reposition off-turn in order to make multiple OAs on the same target in mind.
Also i'd be afraid of going too cheeseball and descending into the mindset of this being a game that I need to score the most points at in order to win, rather than it being a neat world and interesting characters we're visiting for 3 hours every week.
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
If you want to try a pre-written module (to take the stress of world building off your shoulders) that allows for a lot of flexibility, Curse of strahd is fucking solid; it's sandboxy enough that your players won't ever really feel rail roaded and has lots of opportunities for you to addapt the setting to your needs for storytelling purposes.
Also: it's scary enough that the players will be begging to go back to the Forgotten realms.
I'm in a similar boat. One thing I remember reading, and discussing with another DM is to basically use/create a city and stick stuff in there to interact with that can trigger the main plot, and some stuff that won't but can have hints to it.
Also another thing I read which I really like is. Come up with three solutions to every conflict and for each solution make three clues that will be easy to find.
I'm also going to rewrite chunks of the Adventurers League stuff, replacing 'Dragons' with 'Fiends/Devils' so you could do something similar
Want to play co-op games? Feel free to hit me up!
Anyways, we had all leveled to 5 after the epic adventures we had last time when Strahd attacked the town and the Burgomeister ended up getting killed by our rogue, then his corpse strung up in the town square by the mob. (She did him a favor, they were going to lynch him).
Anyways!
We rest up and the next day pay a visit to the lady of the family that opposed the Burgomeister, as we had scheduled an appointment. We learn that she has moved to the Mansion and is "seizing" power. As the old Burgomeister was a bit of a tool we weren't too concerned with this and went to talk to her anyways. After some witty repartee between her, the warlock and the rogue we learn that she doesn't know where the bones of the champion that were stolen from under the church are, but that nobody has seen the coffin maker for a few weeks, and that is odd and we might as well start there. We head out, with promise of reward for a job well done.
We head over to the coffin maker's house/business and with a super high persuasion roll and the jingling of gold, we get in the door with the story that we are here to buy a marble coffin for the old Burgomeister, as it is important to honor him in death. After a few more great rolls (I don't think anyone rolled under a 15 for this whole part of it) we learn that he does have the bones, and that there are 6 vampires upstairs. Oh shit!
So my warlordesque fighter comes up with a plan! We know where the bones are, so the rogue is going to sneak upstairs and steal them out of the coffin maker's room and then come back down to join us, where we will then set the entire place on fire and wait outside to kill any vampires that survive the inferno. Amazingly enough, the rogue pulls it off! She was amazing and her worst roll I believe was an 16, and that was across like 6 checks. She heard a couple of the vampires talking about what had went on downstairs, but dismissing it as business since nothing else had come of it. We let the Coffin Maker take some of his prized tools and tell him to get out of dodge while we go to work.
On the outside of the building we get some fires going. I roll a Nat 20 during my check, so I get my fire going and do so well I'm able to get some torches on the roof that immediately flare up and start burning vigorously. The others do OK but only make average rolls. The warlock inside casts firebolt up the stairs to get the inside of the building lit up, then he books it out the front door, where I'm coming around to bar it. At that point combat starts and we roll initiative, but the DM gives us a surprise round since the vampires were mostly asleep and weren't sure what was happening yet.
On initiative the Warlock and I both roll Nat 1s, the rogue rolls like a 16 or something, and the Cleric of Kord rolls double Nat 20s*. The DM thinks about it for a minute since this is an epic roll, and needs to be rewarded appropriately. He decided that firstly, the cleric now gains advantage on initiative checks against vampires, and secondly for this encounter Kord opens the clouds to let the full sun shine down around the coffin makers house (Boosting any damage to vampires caught in it) as well as causing a breeze to fan the flames and really get the fire going. It was bad ass.
Anyways, he guards the back door in case any of the vampires come out this way, and holds his action, the rogue can hear the vampires near a window on the side of the building, and hides under it and holds her action in case they come out that way. The Warlock and I are so amazed about the sun coming out that we lose our surprise actions (Those Nat 1s).
At this point the fire is going really hot and the back of the building is pretty much an inferno, so the cleric heads up front and waits for the vampires, and the rogue hears the vampires heading straight for the front door as well, so she goes and hides and holds her action for stabby stabby. A couple of the vampires burst out of the front door right into the bright sunlight, and right into the warlock and I. They attempt an attack but are at disadvantage due to the sun, and both attacks miss. Now I hold my action until after the warlock acts, because before we started this the warlock and I had a plan. He casts Haste on the rogue and I, then gets the heck out of dodge, and now its my turn, a fully refreshed, hasted battle master fighter, it's time to go to town on these vampires. Between the haste, having 2 standard attacks and a bonus action class feat, I get 4 attacks. 3 hit with power attack, and I end up doing about 60 damage to one of the vampires, bringing it right to the brink, as it lies burning and bleeding on the ground. I use my move action to run up and slam the door closed and brace against it, to try and keep the vampires in.
Next round the Cleric and Rogue finish off the first vampire. The other vampire that is outside tries to attack the rogue, but rolls a one, and the ones inside try to bust down the door, but roll poorly against my athletics check (27, booyah!), and I start to pound on the remaining vampire, while getting back and bracing the door again. At this point the building is an inferno and the roof is starting to collapse and the vampires are hammering at the door trying to get out.
Next Round the cleric and Rogue finish off the 2nd vampire, and the ones stuck in the building are able to punch some holes through the door and attack me for a small amount of damage before I'm able to beat back their arms, and am able to resist them breaking down the door again with another super high strength check, and I'm able to wedge my polearm into the door frame to give a bonus to holding the door. The Warlock and Cleric both on their turns cast mend on the door, and repair the holes the vampires punched in it, which was awesome.
The final round has the building collapsing in on itself and the remaining vampires dying in the fire. Overall it was an awesome and tense encounter, with the rogue kicking ass at being a rogue at the beginning while we are all on the edge of our seats hoping she makes it, to actually having a plan and successfully executing it by burning down the building with the vampires in it, and being able to keep them barricaded inside, with minimal actual combat. It was a ton of fun and our DM is excellent, and has a great story telling voice, in bringing life to the characters and setting.
In the end my mostly agnostic fighter (Doesn't really worship any one god) went up to the cleric and gave him an authentic and heartfelt "Praise Kord". He might have a convert.
*in our games when we roll a nat 1 or nat 20 we roll again, until we stop rolling the nat. So when a double twenty comes up something really cool usually happens, and a possible minor stat increase (like in a save, or initiative or something). If a triple twenty is rolled then something absolutely crazy amazing happens and someone will usually gain a +2 in a primary stat. The triple twenty has only been seen once in our group, and we've been playing for years, and Our buddies wife rolled it in her 2nd session playing, and it was really awesome.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
On the Friday morning I'll be attending a 2 hour seminar about D&D;
And then I'll be bringing a fresh level 1 character to three Adventure League (the latest name for D&D Organized Play) modules;
DDAL5-1: Treasure of the Broken Hoard
DDAL5-2: The Black Road
DDAL5-3: Uninvited Guests
Followed by a four hour Epic Adventure thing, DDEX5-1: The Iron Baron, which will feature something like fifteen tables all running through the same adventure. Results at the end will be collated and entered into canon to affect future adventures.
And then on Sunday I'll go to two more modules;
DDAL5-6: Beneath the Fetid Chelimber
DDAL5-7: Chelimber's Descent
Both of which are newly designed and will be debuting at this convention.
Excitement!
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
Is it just supposed to be like a pen and paper Diablo 3? You can go wherever load your character in and play? But if that's the case why all the rules about every little nitpicky thing.
All the log sheet business and the DM getting XP and having out of game 'quests'. It just has all these weird trappings around it that make it seem strangely rules heavy "At least 3 players and one DM. (A legal D&D Adventurers League table consists of 3-7 players.)", all the rules about how loot is distributed, etc.
The DM rules are very explicit that the only variant rule from the DMG allowed is the rules for playing on a grid...
But how the fuck are they ever going to enforce any of these rules ever? And if its just an honor system, why have all the rules in the first place? I just feel like I'm missing something.
Because when you try and get the west side neckbeards to play with the east side pocket protectors, you better have rock solid rules for how to sit at the table, or someone is going to get a bat'leth to the eye.
In all honesty though, when working with large groups of random people, a heavy framework tends to be helpful.
I assume the DM exp is to incentivize DMing, because without DMs it all falls apart.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
1 Dragon born paladin
2 Wizards
1 warlock
1 barbarian
1 elf fighter
1 war cleric
2 monks
I'd been prepared to get my character switched to something else in case we were overloaded with paladins, but it's looking like that won't be a problem. Bigger concern is that we have a shortage of healers (we're running two tables) and thus sat least one table will be bereft of medics unless some of those missing players come back with healing abilities.
As a side note, Fan Expo was last week and I snagged something awesome:
No Regis or Catti-brie? For shame.
The DM XP is likely to compensate the person running it for missing out on the chance to play it. With only a limited number of adventures it's not like they can go "grind" out more XP to be the same level as their friends when they go somewhere to play together.
The 3 players has been a longstanding RPGA rule which I think is still nominally in charge of adventure league.
The rest of it is just standard organized play stuff which makes a large appearance of attempting to make it look like cheating would be hard while in actual practice does almost nothing to prevent it. I did a bunch of Living Greyhawk back in the day and the only time I ever heard of anybody being called on cheating it was extremely blatant and explicitly discussed in front of like the RPGA coordinator at Origins or some other large con.
In 5E, Healing Word(bonus action) is the only healing spell worth casting in combat, and even then only if somebody is unconscious to bring them back up. Later game mass cure wounds can actually be a decent use of action economy only if you have 5+ people that really need the healing.
I had to use optional rules like lingering injuries when people got KOed to make it actually worthwhile to have people get healed before getting knocked unconscious. Even then it wasn't perfect.
We finished up our D&D campaign last Sunday and it turned out great. The Angry GM paragon monster rules and called shot rules meant the final two stage dragon fight we had actually felt really good, with the dragon frenzying and getting extra turns in the middle of the fight, and the party having to disable his wings in the 2nd part of the fight in the dragon's lair before he'd do anything but breathe on them and hit and run.
Now I have to bust ass and prep for the next game I'm GMing, which is a 13th Age game kicking off this Friday night. Should've given myself a bit longer between to get ready, but we're all so excited I couldn't do it.
Just to clarify, because I don't remember where in the last 100 pages it came up, but in your experience, its more effective to let people spend Hit Die out of combat? Don't you run out of Hit Die with only regaining half the total on long rest? Or are you assuming that other healing methods will be used outside of combat as well?
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Spending hit dice is a big part of healing, but you're right that if the DM is actually putting you through 4-8 encounters per day, you might run out. Thing is, hardly anybody runs games where that actually happens. It's why I house-ruled 13th Age's "heal-ups" into D&D 5, where I would grant the party a long rest after roughly 4 encounters, but they didn't get those benefits from just sleeping at night.
It's not that using spell slots to heal isn't effective, it's that using them in combat isn't. So if you have a party of say 7th level characters, even if you have a Cleric in your party, you will prevent more damage to your party by having everybody go all out to just kill the enemies rather than have the Cleric use their action to cast a cure wounds spell.
Outside of combat, there are really cost effective healing spells, like the Cleric's prayer of healing, which is an AOE heal but has a 10 minute cast time. Or if you have a Druid in the party, they can create Goodberries at 10 berries per spell level, each berry healing 1 HP. My party's Druid would often have say a 3rd level spell slot left before they were about to get a heal-up(long rest), and would create 30 berries. So as long as they used them within 24 hours before they lose their magic, there's 30 HP worth of healing for one spell slot, just eat them after a combat ends.
If adventurers are insisting on a short rest between every encounter and long rests every two or three encounters then they are the wussiest of adventurers and deserve to have no songs sung of them whatsoever.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
On the plus side I don't have drizzt either!
Also It's an excellent opportunity to ambush them.
Yes, fully agreed.
But if you do it too much, then somehow the DM becomes the problem and not the players.
Bard gets as many spells per day as any other full caster in 5E, don't they? Also, bards get a thing that makes spending Hit Dice to heal out of combat more efficient, so you have that going for you.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
That being said, some classes like Wizard and the caster Druid have a once per long rest ability to restore some spell slots for themselves, so technically they have more than anybody else. Sorcerer can likewise spend sorc points to restore slots, though it's highly inefficient.
Lore Bards actually make one of the best healing classes in 5E by far though, and I'll tell you why:
1) You can just grab healing word and get people back up if they go unconscious mid fight as well as anybody.
2) This is the big one. Lore Bard gets their first magical secrets at level 6. They can take any spell that's 3rd level or lower from any other class. Guess what's a 3rd level spell? The Paladin-exclusive Aura of Vitality spell. It's a concentration spell, lasts 1 minute, once per round you can heal any ally(or yourself) for 2d6 as a bonus action. Paladin has to wait until 9th level to get 3rd level spells, but Bard's magical secrets lets them get this spell at level 6.
In combat it's a great spell because it gives bonus action healing, but takes your concentration. But outside of combat, it's 20d6 of healing for a 3rd level spell slot over 1 minute.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Or it makes them try way harder to find good places to rest as opposed to in the middle of zombieland.
Because that's the game we all want to be playing "Where can I find a secure corner to cower in?" instead of "Smash monsters with my sword!". I hear it has companion games of "Can I possibly carry enough food to survive on our trip to to place we actually care about?" and "What other pointless random minutia can I throw at players?" that really get them rocking in their seats.
Less snide: This is the thing about traps all over again. If you want your PCs to NOT carefully search every five foot square then you can not use deadly or frequent traps because it's a logical outgrowth of encountering such things. If you want a dashingly heroic game then you also can't hassle them overmuch about resting or provisions without it quite naturally turning into D&D: Excel Sheets edition. I'm not really throwing stones at "types" of games here so much as I'm targeting behavior that encourages a style contrary to what the DM thinks they want.