I'm running SKT now (for extra headache I moved it to Critical Role's Exandria, and had to reproduce all of the locations on the Exandria map in photoshop and rename most of them)
What I did is in session zero established how each character are a specialist sort of force within the military. The party is already established at level 1, they get a salary (10gp per tenday) and can stay at barracks for free and order peon guards around.
I also established where they were all from so I can put their friends and families in danger as a good motivator. Also Zephyros, after landing his tower on the Orc Warchief and then introducing himself, mentioned there would likely be significant treasure if they help him
I read the SKT book front to back, and I think that the intro parts are rather dull, with the highlights being the giant strongholds and some of the "endgame content" afterwards. If I were to run SKT, I would find a way to put as many of those in as possible.
1. Nightstone should be truncated if you run it, the caves are fine, the town itself is fine, having two armies attack then the elves? Nah. I had zephyros' tower literally just land on the orcs, the table laughed and we didn't waste so much time. I had a few handpicked encounters from the book on the way back to the city to get them to 4. They made peace with the goblins and the goblins get to stay in the cave and will help the town rebuild to pay for what they did (and get enough food to survive in kind)
2. Dont' do every chapter 2. Pick one of them you really like, feel free to poach NPCs from the other ones. I had them go to Triboar, cut a lot of quests out of it, had them run into the fire giants to introduce them to the rod of vonidad (so a shortened version of triboar), and am putting the Main Chapter Threat in the north (Bryn Shander)
3. Don't do every giant stronghold, pick one or two that you think are great, in my expeirence the hill giant one is crap and the fire giant one is aces
4. It's okay to miss content! It's Skyrim the D&D campaign and not every dot needs to be hit and not every quest needs to be offered
there's a good guide for it here for Pay What You Want:
I'm not running Storm King's Thunder, but I have looked through it and taken some ideas for my own campaign.
For one thing, I thought it would be a fun twist if Chief Guh's weird plan actually kinda sorta worked. The party recently met Guh's husband King Brakkamul, an earth giant (based on the 4E earth titan, which was basically an ancestor race to the hill giants). He's on a search for a present suitable for his queen, who he became enamored with because she's clearly the greatest of the hill giants in the material plane. She's currently chilling at home on her earthmote queendom in the Elemental Chaos.
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
I'm supposed to start running Storm Kings Thunder in three weeks time.... and I kinda don't want to?
I haven't read the whole module yet, which I really should do before making a decision, admittedly. But so far I don't know what the impetus is for the players to get involved in this inter-giant political conflict. I mean, the Death Curse is something I can get behind, for example. That's a campaign! But meddling in a spat between giant siblings?
Someone help me out here...
Uhhh
You get to reset a caste system
Is that good?
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited April 2019
I’m really bad at these kinds of things dealing with aristocratic based squabbling and politics. Cause I want to yell, “Sans Culottes til I die!” and just upturn them and free folk. Anytime there’s like a thing where it’s like, “we have to respect the king’s wishes, blah blah blah,” I’m just like, “let every dirty stinking tramp arm themselves with a knife and a fireball scroll.” I do not get anything out of royal or noble shenanigans anymore. Probably one of the reasons I fell off of GoT.
The party is level 5 and just finished Lost Mines. Right now their motivation is to deliver a letter from the Lionshield Coster in Phandalin, to the Lionshield Coster in Triboar. We'd be skipping chapter 1 entirely, and heading to Triboar to start the adventure at chapter 2. I get that part. Bum around town for bit, then fight off a random fire giant attack (in waves, because I don't like the idea of switching up between their own PC's and the NPC's as suggested.... I think I'd rather run the NPC as assists for the party if the going gets tough.) That's all well and good.
The group consists of newbs or lapsed 2e players, so I played LMoP fast and casual without delving too much into greater FR lore. So I didn't really delve into the factions or have the party/player choose a team (except for the Zhents-as-minor-bad-guys, as I positioned Halia as a conniving sort trying to weasel the location of Wave Echo Cave so as to take it for the Zhents before the Rockseekers could secure their claim during the coda). Meaning that they don't really know the other factions, ie: the Harpers... so Daratha's quest that essentially kidnaps the party one by one for a secret Harper meeting could be seen as provocative, rather than super-spy cool.
I'll try (once these dang children go to bed and leave me alone!) to read more of the module and wrap my head around things. The module has promise and really could be great fun, but as I am also running ToA with my other group....well... I know which one I like more.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
edited April 2019
We're just getting into SKT from Lost mines and our DM pretty much told us they giants are going to fuck shit up if we don't intercede, and since we're all flavors of good it's enough motivation. My character is a Paladin of the people though, so as he heard all about the crazy caste stuff, in his head he was pretty much "Guess I'm going to have to figure out how to kill a God, because this is bullshit".
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
My bigger issue is that my DM at the time did not convey the threat of the giants very well. We were just kind of doing things giant related and I dropped out after like two months of telling myself "I'll like it this time"
So far, my issue is that the PC's who start in Chapter 2, as written, have no idea what is going on until they get to Chapter 4? So for the entirety of the massive 3rd chapter, the characters have no idea about the Ordining and the conflict between giants and yadda yadda. They're just wandering the countryside knocking off 3 or so side quests for shits and giggles. Not until they meet Harshnag could they get an idea of whats going on, plotwise?
At least in Chapter 1 there is an NPC there who can at least give the party of the jist of the entire adventure. "Giant god gets mad & flips table. All the giants are now running around picking up the pieces and stepping on the small folk. Now come for a ride in my floating wizard's hat tower!"
Edit: Mind you, a sandbox with no driving plot does have its merits too. I was more hoping that using a published module wouldn't have to make me do so much work to have it all link up and be somewhat coherent. If I can get them in good with the Harpers, having access to a fast travel system would also be nice.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
I keep seeing folks write (in other places, not so much here) about characters finding "treasure hordes". At first, it was just an annoying typo, but I think it may be growing into a hilarious campaign b-plot.
Now every time I see "treasure horde", I get this mental image of a swarm of blinged-out goblins, bedecked in kilos of the gaudiest possible jewelry and waving weapons so covered in gilding, filigree, and gems as to be next to useless. Being goblins, they don't take care of their finery, and so they roam about the countryside stealing whatever shiny things they can get their grubby mitts on. It sounds like it would make a great comic-relief interlude in a long-running game.
Via investigating corpses. I barely get any environment loot (stuff we find in puzzles).
So random?
It probably feels like more due to there being more corpses than puzzles, even if it's probably all jank
Now if you pulled a Holy Avenger off some persons body the rest of the party may be right to be concerned. Not least of which because you killed a paladin.
Via investigating corpses. I barely get any environment loot (stuff we find in puzzles).
So random?
It probably feels like more due to there being more corpses than puzzles, even if it's probably all jank
Now if you pulled a Holy Avenger off some persons body the rest of the party may be right to be concerned. Not least of which because you killed a paladin.
I mean there is a red dragon that dropped it in Baldur's Gate 2, presumably it having killed the previous owner.
Okay so we had a party member die last session. And their new character is a sorcerer (they were a rouge). So now are party is 2 sorcerers, a wizard (me), a cleric and a blood hunter. Having 3-4 casters in the group feels odd. When we started we were a rouge, blood hunter, wizard and cleric, but then we added another person and a sorcerer and then the rouge died and became a sorcerer.
Basically I feel like my roll in the group kinda got taken my 2 other members now as well. Is it bad form to retire a character mid campaign and roll another? This is all home brew so I don't want to burden the dm that much.
It's tough now. But at the time, somebody probably should have said that there's already a lot of magic users in the party. And suggest dead rogue guy take on some other role.
There's no reason for you to drop your character if you're happy with it. Let the dead guy change. He shouldn't be too attached to his sorcerer yet anyway.
I keep seeing folks write (in other places, not so much here) about characters finding "treasure hordes". At first, it was just an annoying typo, but I think it may be growing into a hilarious campaign b-plot.
Now every time I see "treasure horde", I get this mental image of a swarm of blinged-out goblins, bedecked in kilos of the gaudiest possible jewelry and waving weapons so covered in gilding, filigree, and gems as to be next to useless. Being goblins, they don't take care of their finery, and so they roam about the countryside stealing whatever shiny things they can get their grubby mitts on. It sounds like it would make a great comic-relief interlude in a long-running game.
You want xvarts!!!
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KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
It's tough now. But at the time, somebody probably should have said that there's already a lot of magic users in the party. And suggest dead rogue guy take on some other role.
There's no reason for you to drop your character if you're happy with it. Let the dead guy change. He shouldn't be too attached to his sorcerer yet anyway.
A) I doubt he would There was never really a discussion about what he would play.
But anyways I've got bigger problems with my group now I guess.
My celestial warlock of Amaunator got a C- on his after-action report stuck in his fancy new Book of Law, his abilities adjusted for better effectiveness. I determined that modron signatures look kinda like QR codes.
After nuking the crap out of some hobgoblins, I distracted the other two party members with inane warlock chatter so the rogue could trip the gross goblin shaman who had cursed our ranger and then left a note that implied they'd help us against the hobgoblins but totally didn't and then kinda acted like she did into a very, very long drop. I found the magic fueled by Maglubiyet illegal and the general lack of constancy disgusting, and figured she'd probably try to sell us up the river at the first chance
After that, our newbie rogue got to learn about mimics and Strength drain from undead at the same time!
I also got inspiration for a cool description of Hold Person: Golden motes appear around the bugbear, clustering around the edges of its form, then a cage of golden light snaps into place between the motes, outlining it with what looks like a wireframe.
It's tough now. But at the time, somebody probably should have said that there's already a lot of magic users in the party. And suggest dead rogue guy take on some other role.
There's no reason for you to drop your character if you're happy with it. Let the dead guy change. He shouldn't be too attached to his sorcerer yet anyway.
A) I doubt he would There was never really a discussion about what he would play.
But anyways I've got bigger problems with my group now I guess.
OK. But if you like your wizard, don't drop him. Maybe change your role a bit. Let the sorcerers drop the fireballs, and maybe you could rethink your spell selection and become much more of a utility or support type caster?
Right but I don't know how to get new spells besides finding them. I went evocation so most of my level up picks are based around that.
And my best friend told me that he and others felt I was hogging the spotlight along with the loot. Which I disagree with, especially considering my character can't talk so actions are his only. So making a new character that can talk is super tempting, as maybe if I can communicate more at the table we can avoid stuff like that.
Sorcerers get like 4 spells and no ritual casting, they're good at blowing everything up (not as good as evocation wizards) and little else, wizards are batman
You are entitled to new spells as you level. And outside of that you should be finding them as treasure as you adventure. Every time you find a scroll, or a rival wizards spell book.... copy that shit down into your own spellbook! When you hit towns and cities, try to spend your loot on buying spell scrolls so you can copy them down as your own.
Copying spells is a pretty crucial component to being a wizard, without finding spells wizards lose what puts them above other casters: utility
The DM should be sprinkling either scrolls or spellbooks in, and if you can find a friendly wizard npc, they can copy their spells into your book for 10gp/level 1hr/level (if they really like you)
Right but I don't know how to get new spells besides finding them. I went evocation so most of my level up picks are based around that.
And my best friend told me that he and others felt I was hogging the spotlight along with the loot. Which I disagree with, especially considering my character can't talk so actions are his only. So making a new character that can talk is super tempting, as maybe if I can communicate more at the table we can avoid stuff like that.
If there is already a sorcerer AND an evocation wizard in the party, I would be pretty cranky about an ADDITIONAL sorcerer joining, that is kinda wtf in terms of character choices
Of course, I would have already been kinda cranky about there being a mute character in the party, unless it was being played by the best roleplayer ever
I've tried to talk to the DM about other issues. He's been receptive but this one was straight "you need to talk to the player"
Which I don't disagree with, but how do you handle such a fundamental disagreement. I honestly don't feel like I'm doing it.
Plus it only came out because he let it out at the table (via a snide remark that I asked him to clarify in private) after letting it build up, rather than talking to me before this was an issue. So I'm sore about that.
I'm playing a magic item obsessed gnome and I just wanted to share my personal favorite bit of RP from today's session:
NPC: "The previous king was cruel. He ruled us with an iron fist."
Me: "Where is this iron fist now?"
NPC: "He is dead."
Me: "No, I mean where is the iron fist that he used to rule with? It sounds like some kind of powerful magical artifact."
NPC (to rest of party): "Is he stupid?"
I've been running Curse of Strahd, and my players finally left the Amber Temple (after spending 5 3.5 hour sessions in there). There was a trail of slime from the busted amber sarcophagus leasing up the mountain (not in module, i added it).
The party's barbarian had been having these fever dreams where some kind of demon is siphoning the souls of his ancestors, and i was taking away his barbarian powers every few long rests.
They confronted the demon in the barbarian village i added further up the mountain from the temple. It was a Sibriex (https://www.aidedd.org/dnd/monstres.php?vo=sibriex) i had nerfed some to bake appropriate for a lvl 9 party. They had with them Kasimir (who got what he wanted at the temple), Ismark (while i gave gladiator stats and has been their prophesied companion for a long time), and two hell hounds one of the characters picked up to serve her from a sarcophagus (and a terrible fear of fire from another lol).
The Sibriex only lasted 2.5 rounds, got to take a turn twice (plus legendary actions), and that's with the wretches turning out from all the villagers it had infected . Perhaps i shouldn't have lowered the save DC down as much as i did.
I'm definitely going to have turn up the difficulty out they will just dunk on Strahd when they get there.
I've tried to talk to the DM about other issues. He's been receptive but this one was straight "you need to talk to the player"
Which I don't disagree with, but how do you handle such a fundamental disagreement. I honestly don't feel like I'm doing it.
Plus it only came out because he let it out at the table (via a snide remark that I asked him to clarify in private) after letting it build up, rather than talking to me before this was an issue. So I'm sore about that.
So 1 guy is annoyed, but didn't want to confront you? Have you talked to other players about it? Ask for their opinion first. Consider this: what if no one else feels the same about your bird?
I'd have a word with the guy who just swapped. "Hey man, I know your Rogue got trounced, and with you as a Sorcerer that's another front liner we'll be down. If you want to do some big damage, a Paladin or Fighter can both really throw down, and it puts some more beef on the front row to help keep everyone alive."
A well-buillt Paladin can dish out some serious damage. The one I play is level 9 and he can drop some NUKES with Great Weapon Mastery. He's definitely the top single target damage in the party, and there's a Hexblade warlock with some OP homebrew dual wielding stuff he's competing against for that title (not literally, it's not a competition, but we are tracking it just to see how balanced the homebrew is). For the record, my party is Paladin, Cleric, Artificer, Bard, Warlock, Sorcerer/Warlock. A party of all casters can work.
Worst case scenario, someone dies due to poor party balance, and they can reroll as a tankier class. But it kinda sounds like there might be some other issues going on in your group.
EDIT: Plus a Paladin has Cha secondary, so if he's feeling like he's not participating, having a good Persuasion might help.
A high Charisma paladin is amazing. That Saving Throw Aura is staggeringly powerful.
Contemplate this on the Tree of Woe
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silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
Had something come up in a session, and while I wouldn't say it's an issue, per se, it's definitely something that needs resolving before we can continue.
So I'm running Curse of Strahd and one of the PCs is a Warlock in service to a Great Old One, and the player has been leaning harder into PC's devotion to their Old God as we progress through the campaign as things get darker and more desperate. In practice the player is piloting the PC increasingly madder, in the the mad hatter sense, inoculating the PC's psyche from Barovia with a different strain of insanity. The PC's devotion to their god is fanatical, and the player's stance is "Bows to no man, dies a man, as my god intends." For example,
the first time the players met Strahd at the beginning of the campaign, all the other PCs bent the knee and begged for mercy when it became clear they were hopelessly outmatched, while this player refused and Strahd ending up killing them (plot stuff ensued and the PC lived on with some... future plot implications).
Fast forward to recently and the PCs are in
(Strahd spoilers):
The werewolf cave, and have just killed almost all the werewolves. Mind you, one of the PCs is a full blown werewolf at this point, and for plot reasons, another PC's child, who the PC thought was dead, ended up being kidnapped by this werewolf clan and turned into werewolf. This was legit a nice twist for the players and they were impressed the backstory got tied into the narrative.
Unfortunately, the last action the PC's child did before surrendering and reuniting with their parent was bite the crazy PC and infect him. When the crazy PC got a chance to speak, he went "I don't want to be a werewolf like <Party Member>. I'm going to die a man, like my god intends. My PC jumps off the cliff face to their death."
:bigfrown:
So I roll fall damage for them, and it's not enough to kill the PC. It's more than half their max HP though, so I roll on the long term injury table, and the PC breaks both legs.
Then it's time to call a wrap, so we do.
I don't know what do. Should this PC survive, in spite of the player? I feel that's almost punishing the other players. Should I let the player reroll, or is that rewarding bad behavior? Should I force the player to reroll, so he stops acting insane? Maybe this player is dissatisfied about something, and we should just talk?
Looking for hot takes, cold takes, and other takes of all temperatures.
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What I did is in session zero established how each character are a specialist sort of force within the military. The party is already established at level 1, they get a salary (10gp per tenday) and can stay at barracks for free and order peon guards around.
I also established where they were all from so I can put their friends and families in danger as a good motivator. Also Zephyros, after landing his tower on the Orc Warchief and then introducing himself, mentioned there would likely be significant treasure if they help him
1. Nightstone should be truncated if you run it, the caves are fine, the town itself is fine, having two armies attack then the elves? Nah. I had zephyros' tower literally just land on the orcs, the table laughed and we didn't waste so much time. I had a few handpicked encounters from the book on the way back to the city to get them to 4. They made peace with the goblins and the goblins get to stay in the cave and will help the town rebuild to pay for what they did (and get enough food to survive in kind)
2. Dont' do every chapter 2. Pick one of them you really like, feel free to poach NPCs from the other ones. I had them go to Triboar, cut a lot of quests out of it, had them run into the fire giants to introduce them to the rod of vonidad (so a shortened version of triboar), and am putting the Main Chapter Threat in the north (Bryn Shander)
3. Don't do every giant stronghold, pick one or two that you think are great, in my expeirence the hill giant one is crap and the fire giant one is aces
4. It's okay to miss content! It's Skyrim the D&D campaign and not every dot needs to be hit and not every quest needs to be offered
there's a good guide for it here for Pay What You Want:
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/193601/A-Guide-to-Storm-Kings-Thunder
For one thing, I thought it would be a fun twist if Chief Guh's weird plan actually kinda sorta worked. The party recently met Guh's husband King Brakkamul, an earth giant (based on the 4E earth titan, which was basically an ancestor race to the hill giants). He's on a search for a present suitable for his queen, who he became enamored with because she's clearly the greatest of the hill giants in the material plane. She's currently chilling at home on her earthmote queendom in the Elemental Chaos.
Uhhh
You get to reset a caste system
Is that good?
The group consists of newbs or lapsed 2e players, so I played LMoP fast and casual without delving too much into greater FR lore. So I didn't really delve into the factions or have the party/player choose a team (except for the Zhents-as-minor-bad-guys, as I positioned Halia as a conniving sort trying to weasel the location of Wave Echo Cave so as to take it for the Zhents before the Rockseekers could secure their claim during the coda). Meaning that they don't really know the other factions, ie: the Harpers... so Daratha's quest that essentially kidnaps the party one by one for a secret Harper meeting could be seen as provocative, rather than super-spy cool.
I'll try (once these dang children go to bed and leave me alone!) to read more of the module and wrap my head around things. The module has promise and really could be great fun, but as I am also running ToA with my other group....well... I know which one I like more.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
I feel differently, and I even feel like the last time I loot I paused and asked "if no one else will"
At least in Chapter 1 there is an NPC there who can at least give the party of the jist of the entire adventure. "Giant god gets mad & flips table. All the giants are now running around picking up the pieces and stepping on the small folk. Now come for a ride in my floating wizard's hat tower!"
Edit: Mind you, a sandbox with no driving plot does have its merits too. I was more hoping that using a published module wouldn't have to make me do so much work to have it all link up and be somewhat coherent. If I can get them in good with the Harpers, having access to a fast travel system would also be nice.
Are you all getting random loot or is it tailored to specific characters?
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
So random?
Now every time I see "treasure horde", I get this mental image of a swarm of blinged-out goblins, bedecked in kilos of the gaudiest possible jewelry and waving weapons so covered in gilding, filigree, and gems as to be next to useless. Being goblins, they don't take care of their finery, and so they roam about the countryside stealing whatever shiny things they can get their grubby mitts on. It sounds like it would make a great comic-relief interlude in a long-running game.
It probably feels like more due to there being more corpses than puzzles, even if it's probably all jank
Now if you pulled a Holy Avenger off some persons body the rest of the party may be right to be concerned. Not least of which because you killed a paladin.
I mean there is a red dragon that dropped it in Baldur's Gate 2, presumably it having killed the previous owner.
Basically I feel like my roll in the group kinda got taken my 2 other members now as well. Is it bad form to retire a character mid campaign and roll another? This is all home brew so I don't want to burden the dm that much.
There's no reason for you to drop your character if you're happy with it. Let the dead guy change. He shouldn't be too attached to his sorcerer yet anyway.
You want xvarts!!!
Check out that Arcane Trickster/Monk multiclass, they're just trying to steal your utility caster role as the Bard!
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
A) I doubt he would
But anyways I've got bigger problems with my group now I guess.
After nuking the crap out of some hobgoblins, I distracted the other two party members with inane warlock chatter so the rogue could trip the gross goblin shaman who had cursed our ranger and then left a note that implied they'd help us against the hobgoblins but totally didn't and then kinda acted like she did into a very, very long drop. I found the magic fueled by Maglubiyet illegal and the general lack of constancy disgusting, and figured she'd probably try to sell us up the river at the first chance
After that, our newbie rogue got to learn about mimics and Strength drain from undead at the same time!
I also got inspiration for a cool description of Hold Person: Golden motes appear around the bugbear, clustering around the edges of its form, then a cage of golden light snaps into place between the motes, outlining it with what looks like a wireframe.
OK. But if you like your wizard, don't drop him. Maybe change your role a bit. Let the sorcerers drop the fireballs, and maybe you could rethink your spell selection and become much more of a utility or support type caster?
And my best friend told me that he and others felt I was hogging the spotlight along with the loot. Which I disagree with, especially considering my character can't talk so actions are his only. So making a new character that can talk is super tempting, as maybe if I can communicate more at the table we can avoid stuff like that.
The DM should be sprinkling either scrolls or spellbooks in, and if you can find a friendly wizard npc, they can copy their spells into your book for 10gp/level 1hr/level (if they really like you)
If there is already a sorcerer AND an evocation wizard in the party, I would be pretty cranky about an ADDITIONAL sorcerer joining, that is kinda wtf in terms of character choices
Of course, I would have already been kinda cranky about there being a mute character in the party, unless it was being played by the best roleplayer ever
And even then I get accuses of hogging the limelight, so.....
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Which I don't disagree with, but how do you handle such a fundamental disagreement. I honestly don't feel like I'm doing it.
Plus it only came out because he let it out at the table (via a snide remark that I asked him to clarify in private) after letting it build up, rather than talking to me before this was an issue. So I'm sore about that.
NPC: "The previous king was cruel. He ruled us with an iron fist."
Me: "Where is this iron fist now?"
NPC: "He is dead."
Me: "No, I mean where is the iron fist that he used to rule with? It sounds like some kind of powerful magical artifact."
NPC (to rest of party): "Is he stupid?"
The party's barbarian had been having these fever dreams where some kind of demon is siphoning the souls of his ancestors, and i was taking away his barbarian powers every few long rests.
They confronted the demon in the barbarian village i added further up the mountain from the temple. It was a Sibriex (https://www.aidedd.org/dnd/monstres.php?vo=sibriex) i had nerfed some to bake appropriate for a lvl 9 party. They had with them Kasimir (who got what he wanted at the temple), Ismark (while i gave gladiator stats and has been their prophesied companion for a long time), and two hell hounds one of the characters picked up to serve her from a sarcophagus (and a terrible fear of fire from another lol).
The Sibriex only lasted 2.5 rounds, got to take a turn twice (plus legendary actions), and that's with the wretches turning out from all the villagers it had infected
I'm definitely going to have turn up the difficulty out they will just dunk on Strahd when they get there.
So 1 guy is annoyed, but didn't want to confront you? Have you talked to other players about it? Ask for their opinion first. Consider this: what if no one else feels the same about your bird?
A well-buillt Paladin can dish out some serious damage. The one I play is level 9 and he can drop some NUKES with Great Weapon Mastery. He's definitely the top single target damage in the party, and there's a Hexblade warlock with some OP homebrew dual wielding stuff he's competing against for that title (not literally, it's not a competition, but we are tracking it just to see how balanced the homebrew is). For the record, my party is Paladin, Cleric, Artificer, Bard, Warlock, Sorcerer/Warlock. A party of all casters can work.
Worst case scenario, someone dies due to poor party balance, and they can reroll as a tankier class. But it kinda sounds like there might be some other issues going on in your group.
EDIT: Plus a Paladin has Cha secondary, so if he's feeling like he's not participating, having a good Persuasion might help.
So I'm running Curse of Strahd and one of the PCs is a Warlock in service to a Great Old One, and the player has been leaning harder into PC's devotion to their Old God as we progress through the campaign as things get darker and more desperate. In practice the player is piloting the PC increasingly madder, in the the mad hatter sense, inoculating the PC's psyche from Barovia with a different strain of insanity. The PC's devotion to their god is fanatical, and the player's stance is "Bows to no man, dies a man, as my god intends." For example,
Fast forward to recently and the PCs are in
(Strahd spoilers):
Unfortunately, the last action the PC's child did before surrendering and reuniting with their parent was bite the crazy PC and infect him. When the crazy PC got a chance to speak, he went "I don't want to be a werewolf like <Party Member>. I'm going to die a man, like my god intends. My PC jumps off the cliff face to their death."
:bigfrown:
So I roll fall damage for them, and it's not enough to kill the PC. It's more than half their max HP though, so I roll on the long term injury table, and the PC breaks both legs.
Then it's time to call a wrap, so we do.
I don't know what do. Should this PC survive, in spite of the player? I feel that's almost punishing the other players. Should I let the player reroll, or is that rewarding bad behavior? Should I force the player to reroll, so he stops acting insane? Maybe this player is dissatisfied about something, and we should just talk?
Looking for hot takes, cold takes, and other takes of all temperatures.