So, I'm trying to make some character tokens for my Dungeon Dads (nee Murder Hubbies) group for Friday's game. Our first of the New Year. These guys are really keen on D&D (and I'm trying to not let it go to my head and think its all because of me) and are looking at heroforge's custom minis and talking about terrain and stuff. And my official line, and it has been for years, is "That shit is really really cool. But that's a slippery slope of time and money that I dare not let myself slide down." As a salve, I'm printing up coloured tokens to stick onto flatwashers to push around the map board rather than the assorted meeples we've been using so far. Hopefully, they'll be excited?
Anyway, that's not the point of my post. My point is that while I was searching for suitable images to use as tokens I came across this dude:
And now I really want to make a Pirate-y, swash and buckle type bard as my backup character for the CoS game starting in a few months in case my hexblade gets eaten by wolves. Which College is best though? Definitely not Glamour for the concept, and Shadows doesn't fit the art either....Swords maybe? I dunno. My only practical experience with 5e bards is me reworking the ill-fated Glamour bard in my other campaign.
I feel like Swords is the obvious choice, what with the weapon as a casting focus and the Flourish options allowing you to bounce all over the battlefield
That's pretty cool.... but right now I'm trying to squeeze enough time into my day to download pics from GIS and turn them into tokens, and then annoyingly fitting those (hopefully) properly sized images into Avery labels so I can print them and stick them onto washers at home. And I still have to find time to make scaled maps for giant sized encounters to use said tokens on.
Futzing around with heroforge is something that can come later.
In yesterday's game, we said goodbye to an old companion.
Early on in our campaign, we had been tasked by a magical research group with finding and recovering "an animal that is more intelligent than it should be" after a recent magical storm. We ended up finding that an entire town's colony of mice were... well, not quite NIMH-level smart, but at least talking and capable of coherent reasoning (and crafty enough to escape easy capture). The fighter, nevertheless, was able to catch one, and the ranger convinced it to come along with the party for a life of adventure and seeing new sights.
The wizard then pointed out that said "adventure" would likely end up on a dissection table, and the ranger felt so guilty that she convinced the mouse to talk an older mouse, one who was feeling a little less spry, into coming with us for the possible benefit of mousekind as well. Both mice instantly took to the ranger and lived in her pack, with a single-minded goal of doing pretty much anything with the bribe of cheese.
Even after delivering the older mouse to the (probably-fatal) ministrations of the researchers, the first mouse continued to accompany the party through explorations of caves, through tombs full of undead and spider monsters, on a ship sailing across the sea, and across the world. We arrived at a wealthy capital city, and the ranger decided to treat her little non-familiar buddy with a reward from the fanciest cheesemonger on the continent. After browsing their wares in a terrific bout of roleplaying and purchasing a wheel costing more than the party's inn bill that night, the ranger simply assumed that the mouse was simply in a cheese coma in her pack and failed to notice that the mouse had in fact escaped soon after she left the shop.
It wasn't until the next morning that the ranger found out that the mouse was gone, and raced back to the shop, whispering the mouse's name among the wheels of cheese until determining that it wasn't there. She went back to the inn and collapsed into tears. Luckily, the clerk at the inn tried to help her, and during the conversation the mouse turned up in the rafters of the inn.
The mouse said that it had made a lot of friends up in the rafters, and was starting to tire of sleeping in the ranger's pack and wanted to settle down. The clerk was shocked, but asked that the mouse at least go live in the stables and convince its new friends to go with him and leave the inn itself alone. The ranger left the pricey cheese behind and said goodbye.
The barbarian took it upon himself to head back to the inn on his own the next day, and talked to the clerk again. He slid the clerk two platinum and asked the she make sure the mouse was taken care of. The clerk agreed; after all, the inn already had noticeably fewer rustlings in the walls, and if all it took was the occasional piece of cheese to keep any rodent problem down it was worth it. This conversation was not made public to the rest of the party and was apparently done purely out of the goodness of the barbarian's heart for the ranger's benefit.
After hearing what had happened, however, the fighter was upset. She'd caught that mouse! How dare it skip out on the group without saying goodbye to her! The fighter went back to the inn and confronted the clerk, then went to the stable and convinced the mouse to come with her instead of retiring (a 20 persuasion roll vs the mouse's 2 to resist). The fighter paid the clerk 10 gold in apology for intimidating her, then returned to the party with the mouse.
Fighter: I found Twitchnobbin!
Mouse: I'm comin' with ya!
Ranger: (sobbing) Twitchnobbiiiiiin! (hugs all around)
Barbarian: Did... Did the clerk say anything about some money?
Fighter: Don't worry about it. I paid her off.
Barbarian: (stonefaced) Ah.
Barbarian: <to the DM> You're going to find a new Nemesis on my character sheet.
GNU Terry Pratchett
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
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I was hoping for Cranium Rat shenanigans, but your story is pretty awesome too. :biggrin:
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited January 2020
Can I get some help outfitting a boss-type character with spells? I have never DM'd DnD but I'm making a setting and included monster profiles. https://darkheresychainsofmalice.blogspot.com/2020/01/dprussrs-scalovia-part-1.html
This is the "Old" version of that setting that could possibly slot into anyone's DnD game. The "new" setting is essentially a post-revolution industrialized Stalinist state trading one type of authoritarianism for another. I'm trying to think of spells for essentially half-dragon/dragonborn overlord seneschal types that rule in the place of their master dragons when they are asleep on their hoards. They are very cruel, very paranoid, they are part of a hierarchy where they're basically second in line at the top and in charge most of the time. I gave them fireball and timestop and I'm not super sure about the latter. I just wanted to give them stuff to explain how a place like this hasn't just been destroyed by a band of enterprising adventurers. I'd like them to have 7 spells that don't fall in the line of some other characters I've made in the past where they don't get to use all of their cool toys before the players just wreck them. Since their superiority is very race-based I guess they would have to choose from sorcerer powers. Does anyone have like a good set of boss spells?
Also, how much would a magic hearthstone covering 100 feet that is known to be necessary to traverse across the frigid land this setting is and the manufacture of that hearthstone would be coveted and secreted away by the above types be? I put down 100 platinum to be safe.
Any other suggestions would extremely welcome. I have never done homebrew for DnD before.
And another session: our Eldritch Knight was sit, so he sat out the session, deliriously drawing circles of magic detection (by now a running joke in the campaign as it is one of his few spells and his go-to). Leaving the rest of us (dwarven monk, aasimar sorceress and half-orc bard) to finish the current dungeon.
We've saved half of the missing students undergoing their trials and ended up at the door to the final trial. As good little adventurers, we immediately turned back to search the missing rooms (bad choice, all it cost us was hitpoints.)
First puzzle room was a chess puzzle: 6 pieces left, hint hinted that somebody needed to sacrifice. Bard was left behind while he tried to figure out the final door. Sorceress knew nothing of chess and touched a pawn and entered the puzzle as the pawn (ouch). Instead of being smart, Monk decided to be loyal, so I touched a bishop on the same side. Leaving only a knight on our side, which immediately got taken out by a rook. Sorceress was taken next (26 points of damage at lvl 3, so our Sorceress was down). I managed to take out the rook, but the rest was a stalemate. Bard and Cleric Warforged NPC heard my cries for help, stabilized and healed the sorceress, then the Orc took the role of King on opposite side. I sacrificed myself so the game could end and got hit for 23 points of damage. Puzzle was solved, but we did find a vial of fluid.
Next puzzle was face your true self. Bard (trying the whole time to get admin access to the mechanisms and warforged that were running the tests with minimal success) managed to enter the backstage for personel, Sorceress saved herself from drowning in quicksand, I got stuck with myself turning into gold and could find no way out, so the sorceress had to save me (bit of a miscommunication I guess between what I felt was the core of my character and the DM).
Final puzzle was a completely empty room. The most devious of puzzles. Some tried to find anything invisible, but we quickly though screw this (there were 5 tests, we finished 5 tests, so it seems to fit). Back to the main door.
A bit of healing later, we decided to enter the final door (nope, not taking a long rest for what turns out to be a boss fight, bad choice again). With our meat-shield fighter out of it, it was another bad choice, but we hoped to finish this dungeon this night. The Door was alive and a warforged itself. We were nice to it and managed to get inside with a bit of unwitting help from the warforged cleric who repaired the door for us. (Also got the DM to admit that the Sorceress distracting the Warforged by claiming there was something wrong with the Fighter, should not be Deception, cause there really was something wrong with him). Door opened, the three of us went in, lead by the Bard being invisible (or actually he was behind us, but he was invisible, so who knew?). We entered an arena (bad news), but in a bit of both Sorceress as Monk being optimistic and naieve, we decided it was a theatre and convinced the Bard to give a show. Turned out an Icescale Drake lived here and in the snow, it was nearly invisible. A sneak attack later, the Bard was wounded and we decided that 16 WIS should be enough to have some tactical insight, I decided that we should retreat to the tunnel, where an invisible opponent would still be difficult, but not as much as in an open area. We retreated (except for the invsible Bard, who decided to go the other way. Which bit him in the ass, literally, when the Drake still saw the bloodtrail he left behind). I also decided that having the Fighter (hopefully as NPC) working as meat shield would even the odds. (Again bad decision, DM played him a delirious and he was useless during the fight and possible even worse as he cast a ritual that nobody knows what it did yet). Bard was wounded so we decided he should just cast Mockery (as he had little other spells that would work on this foe) and getting Disadvantage on him, would give us a chance. I tried to knock it prone and Sorceress would try to cast Guiding Bolt on it. All of this failed, because we rolled terrible.
We ended the night with me down, about to roll my first death save of the campaign. Eldritch Knight ritual seemed to break reality. Sorceress and Bard wounded. Drake not impressed at all by us so far.
Oy va voy, I hadn't read up on my spells in ages and only just found out that at level 5 Booming Blade evolves into BOOMING Blade...
levels 1-4: target takes 1d8 thunder damage when they willingly move
levels 5-10: on successful hit: target takes 1d8 thunder damage AND takes 2d8 thunder damage when they willingly move.
I have dissonant whispers on my sorcerer and cast quicken dissonant whispers after hitting booming blade with my staff at level 12, and then used war caster to booming blade again as they were running away, that one crit
my DM looked like I had just taken a sandwich he had made for himself out of the fridge and eaten it when I produced the d8s
Is it willing movement if a spell is forcing you to run away?
Not really, but we all agreed that's dumb, the metric we use for booming blade is if it's forced movement or not (I.E. does it provoke an attack of opportunity?)
The reason this combo doesn't work by RAW is that it's a potential boon for a gish sorcerer, and the design team already hates sorcerers
(Tbf even with that combo working out as well as it could, the eldritch knight easily outdamaged that on her round)
Forced movement is different than causing the target to use it's Movement. I push you with Eldritch Blast + Repelling Blast, that doesn't trigger things like Booming Blade. If I cast Fear on you and make you use your movement to run away from me does, because you are doing the movement.
Forced movement is different than causing the target to use it's Movement. I push you with Eldritch Blast + Repelling Blast, that doesn't trigger things like Booming Blade. If I cast Fear on you and make you use your movement to run away from me does, because you are doing the movement.
That sounds fair enough, considering the effort on the players part. But it isn't RAW so I couldn't blame a DM who would argue that "willingly" suggests that the victim of the BOOM has a choice whether they want to move or stand still.
The tokens went over well with the Dungeon Dads last night! So Yay for giving myself more work! But I guess eventually I'll have quite the stash of tokens to draw from?
The party headed north searching for the famous hero Harshnag to help them in their quest to get these dang giants to settle the fuck down. Last session while in Everlund the Harpers told them to search the North for him. In Longsaddle, they heard he was in Mirabar a month ago. At Xantharl's Keep, they heard he was spotted not even 2 weeks ago. I turned the Xantharl's Keep encounter into an epic siege. Mapped out the main gate that was the brunt of a foolish siege that involved goblins being hurled through the air by special trebuchets mounted on the backs of Ogres and poor tactics with a frost giant and some hobs also just standing around letting themselves get hit with arrows and fireballs, giving time for some sneaky bugbears coming over the walls on the other end of town. It all ended easily enough (ten Bugbears vs. six 7th level characters is not much of a challenge) with a dead evil frost giant being tossed through the front windows/wall/roof of a tavern by the good guy frost giant Harshnag who peeked into the hole he just made in the building and a gave the party a sardonic, "Hey. We good here?"
Forced movement is different than causing the target to use it's Movement. I push you with Eldritch Blast + Repelling Blast, that doesn't trigger things like Booming Blade. If I cast Fear on you and make you use your movement to run away from me does, because you are doing the movement.
That sounds fair enough, considering the effort on the players part. But it isn't RAW so I couldn't blame a DM who would argue that "willingly" suggests that the victim of the BOOM has a choice whether they want to move or stand still.
Tl;dr: Yay "natural" language.
Well pre 5 it would qualify. Movement is either willing or forced and this was willing. Its not a push, pull, or slide, the creator of the effect does not direct the end location of the movement. The mover may move around or through obstacles at their discretion etc.
Forced movement is different than causing the target to use it's Movement. I push you with Eldritch Blast + Repelling Blast, that doesn't trigger things like Booming Blade. If I cast Fear on you and make you use your movement to run away from me does, because you are doing the movement.
That sounds fair enough, considering the effort on the players part. But it isn't RAW so I couldn't blame a DM who would argue that "willingly" suggests that the victim of the BOOM has a choice whether they want to move or stand still.
Tl;dr: Yay "natural" language.
Well pre 5 it would qualify. Movement is either willing or forced and this was willing. Its not a push, pull, or slide, the creator of the effect does not direct the end location of the movement. The mover may move around or through obstacles at their discretion etc.
thats how it is for most effects of this kind, booming blade is kind of unique in that it specifies willing movement, which is unnecessarily complicating things when we already have a binary of forced movement or regular movement, to determine attacks of opportunity
it seems entirely to prevent booming blade from comboing with spells like cause fear or dissonant whispers, which, feh - the game needs more combos like that, not less
Just DMed my first game. Good times were had.
Figured I'd ask for some suggestions to flesh out the potential campaign path I have planned. Characters at the moment are level 4 and stats were rolled rather than array or point buy, so they trend considerably higher than normal characters, but we only have 3 characters so it balances out more or less.
Tonight's game:
The players approach a crossroads (this lets them decide if they're already a party or gives them a chance to meet and party up), at the crossroads they meet a traveling tinker and his wagon who asks them to accompany him on the road as a group traveling is going to be much safer than several individuals, especially as the Dread Moon is waxing. The party wizard inquires as to what the Dread Moon is, as she is a plane traveler from Dark Sun and not familiar with any local things. The paladin aces his religion check, and reveals that the Dread Moon is believed to be the head of The Unnamed God, who tried to betray the pantheon and was slain when they united against the Unnamed God, leaving it's head in an erratic orbit as a reminder of the what happens when one of their number breaks the rules. The Unnamed God's true name was stricken from every record and forbidden to be uttered so that it would be lost to time. So, not "unnamed" as in never named, but "unnamed" as in it had a name that was removed.
I asked for Religion, Arcana or History checks. The Arcana check would have revealed an ancient mage war, where at least one mage had successfully placed their citadel on the Dread Moon, and used the power of the head of a god to fuel their own transformation into a lich. The combination of necromantic and divine magics increases the severity and impact of the power exponentially causing the Dread Moon to have it's considerable affect on the planet and it's inhabitants.
The History Check would have revealed details as to the effects the moon has when it's at it's closest point to the planet. Massively reshaping landmasses, driving wildlife into a frenzy, creating monsters and summoning aberrations and the like. Old records are rare and valuable as the towns they're stored in are typically subsumed by the unnatural disasters inflicted by the moon, but pillaging these ancient ruins can be lucrative for the adventurer bold and strong enough to return.
But, they didn't make those checks, so...? I'm sure the information will make it's way into their hands eventually if we continue playing
Anyway, first night at camp, random encounter: three giant boars, attracted to the camp fire are attacked by my murder hobo players for the crime of curiosity, and are defeated and put into a smoker.
After repairing the wagon (one of the boars was blinded, and charged the wagon destroying a wheel) the party and their new tinker buddy hop on the wagon and start heading to the next town, a days travel away, halfway through the forest, the wagon is stopped by a tree that's been cut down and put across the beaten path. Enter the first kobold encounter, one sorceror, two dragon shields, and a half dozen regular kobolds. The party takes them down pretty handily, the rogue takes some damage as she engages the kobolds in the woods (IE, out of direct sunlight, hooray for Pack Tactics), and the paladin fights the dragon shields and sorcerer up close. Pack tactics cancels out sunlight sensitivity so they're fairly evenly matched. The tinker and wizard plink away fairly ineffectively, though the wizard did read the kobolds mind to get warning that the kobold was serving a dragon and wanted their stuff for the dragon.
Eventually, the two dragon shields are down, the rogue's dispatched the three kobolds she was fighting, and the sorcerer is heavily wounded. The remaining three kobolds charge the wagon to distract the people there while the sorcerer makes a get away.
The party arrives at the small village, and are hailed as heroes for seeing the tinker safely through the increasingly kobold run woods and are invited to stay at the public house. Naturally, they do so and go to sleep to recover from the days combats. They wake to find the Tinker has been up all night regaling the town with tales of their fighting prowess, the number of kobolds ballooning to dozens in the ambush, and the three boars have been talked into a veritable army of wereboar marauders turned away in the dead of night. The village elder begs our mighty adventurers to clear out the kobolds who have taken up residence in a cave nearby the village that the village younghave in the safer days in the past used as a "camping ground and swimming hole" (quothe the elder "They pretend that they're going up there to camp and swim, and we adults pretend to believe them, same as we did with our parents, and they with their parents before them...").
Exploring the cave, they find piles of shiny junk, polished bits of glass or metal, rocks with mica in them, basically the collection of a cracked out magpie might establish if it was able to raid Etsy. A second room has a better sorted pile of shiny junk, but outside of an in depth investigation, it's just so much junk. A few sleeping kobolds fail to notice the adventurers thanks to their healthy stealth rolls and are killed in their sleep.
Then it's off to the room with the swimming hole, located in the far back of the cave, an opening in the roof lets a small stream of water poor into the the room, through a hole in the floor and into a chamber beneath where it accumulates into the swimming hole, the Wizard has explored to find this opening from the outside, and has started randomly tossing coins down it while the paladin and rogue are exploring the rest of the cave system. I figure this attracts any of the awake kobolds to that room so what should have been a series of pretty easy 3 v 4-6 fights instead becomes a kobold cluster fuck with over a dozen of them in the room. Three dragons shields, three sorcerers and a double handful of normal kobolds.
The wizard's able to snipe down the sorcerers from outside, while the paladin kept the shields occupied, the rogue got beaten up pretty good fighting a trio of kobolds with daggers while a bunch of them with slings also took potshots (this time with advantage thanks to pack tactics). It's rough going at first because that's a bunch of rolls against all the PCs and a crap ton of advantage they're facing, but the PCs win out in the end.
A perception check reveals that there is something large under the water, and the wizard shimmies down a rope to meet the dragon (I may have encouraged discourse rather than combat at this point by threatening them with a bigger, angrier dragon if they retreated back to town to rest up and lick their wounds, but it was getting late and I was getting tired).
The dragon and the wizard have a chat where in the dragon reveals that it really just wants to hibernate through the Dread Moon time, and had agreed to share the cave with the kobolds, not realizing that the kobolds would form a cult around it's generosity and spend their days robbing any caravans in the area for anything shiny, and their nights throwing the shiny garbage at the dragon as tribute. The dragon wasn't willing to go back on it's offer of protection (I'm evil, but I'm lawful evil), but it was incredibly grateful that the adventurers had taken care of them. Not grateful enough to give up it's treasure, of course not, but grateful enough to let them leave without further trouble.
The adventurers travel back to town: beaten, bruised, scorched and a few hundred GP richer (some of the piles actually did have semi precious gems and coin in them), and the awareness that whatever the Dread Moon means, it's unpleasant enough that a dragon would prefer to curl up and sleep through it.
And that was tonight's game.
I've got a rough outline for adventure type in the setting for levels through 20.
1-5: General low level adventure stuff
Defend the town from raiders, light dungeon diving into natural dungeons like caves, hunt and kill monsters etc.
5-10: Uncovering the history of the Dread Moon
Find and raid deeper dungeons, finding the ancient cities that were lost in past close passing of the moon and plundering their stores of knowledge, possibly get the idea that if you can get to the moon and destroy the lich and its phylactery, the necromantic energies will disperse returning the Dread Moon to just a relatively benign dead god head.
10-16: Locate, recover, repair the legendary spell jammer
Underdark style dungeons, definitely going to be some illithid and the like at play. Locate the cult that worships the spell jammer as a god (think Beneath the Planet of the Apes, with the cult of the doomsday bomb). Eventually repairing the thing to get to the dread moon.
16-20: Dreadmoon
Reskinned tomb of annihilation, extensive dungeoneering, fight a super demilich, kill an undead god, rest of the pantheon shows up and asks you what the hell you think you're doing.
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Lord_AsmodeusgoeticSobriquet:Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered Userregular
Why is there no underground favored terrain. My gm among others draws a distinction between underground, and in the underdark specifically. So why is there no generic "underground" or "caves" favored terrain?
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
Why is there no underground favored terrain. My gm among others draws a distinction between underground, and in the underdark specifically. So why is there no generic "underground" or "caves" favored terrain?
I don't think that was ROI? IMO, they should be the same for the purposes of being favored or not.
While I appreciate that the Underdark and a "regular" cave dungeon area might be different.... that is a very fine hair to split wrt flavoured terrain.
And that IF he was going to make that distinction, then there should be no issue with having two separate terrains to favour.
Why is there no underground favored terrain. My gm among others draws a distinction between underground, and in the underdark specifically. So why is there no generic "underground" or "caves" favored terrain?
I don't think that was ROI? IMO, they should be the same for the purposes of being favored or not.
While I appreciate that the Underdark and a "regular" cave dungeon area might be different.... that is a very fine hair to split wrt flavoured terrain.
And that IF he was going to make that distinction, then there should be no issue with having two separate terrains to favour.
I'd argue that the Underdark is a unique enough biome to warrant it's own unique terrain to be favored.
But then, I'd also say that if you're in a cave in a forest, than it would still count as forest for a favored terrain. You'd be running into much the same wildlife inside a forest cave as you would outside, and many of the same foraging tricks would work inside the cave as out (Edible mushrooms, roots, etc...), same as if you're in an arctic ice cave, or a desert cave etc....
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WACriminalDying Is Easy, Young ManLiving Is HarderRegistered Userregular
First session of Dragon Heist went extremely well, I think. Unfortunately, my Aasimar Fighter and Tabaxi Wizard didn't make it to the session, but the other four party members seemed to enjoy themselves. They saved everyone it was possible to save, they got paid, and they achieved level 2.
Why is there no underground favored terrain. My gm among others draws a distinction between underground, and in the underdark specifically. So why is there no generic "underground" or "caves" favored terrain?
I don't think that was ROI? IMO, they should be the same for the purposes of being favored or not.
While I appreciate that the Underdark and a "regular" cave dungeon area might be different.... that is a very fine hair to split wrt flavoured terrain.
And that IF he was going to make that distinction, then there should be no issue with having two separate terrains to favour.
I'd argue that the Underdark is a unique enough biome to warrant it's own unique terrain to be favored.
But then, I'd also say that if you're in a cave in a forest, than it would still count as forest for a favored terrain. You'd be running into much the same wildlife inside a forest cave as you would outside, and many of the same foraging tricks would work inside the cave as out (Edible mushrooms, roots, etc...), same as if you're in an arctic ice cave, or a desert cave etc....
The Underdark should absolutely be separated from other terrains. Its wierd down there. But the weirdness comes from the inhabitants, mostly, rather than the terrain itself.
In that respect, since favored terrain and favored enemies are separate things, IMO underground is underground. And while two dungeon levels beneath a ruined keep would not count, as it is clearly man made, and a glorified bear den in a forest would not count either. Nor would an kuo-toa cave lair beneath the sea count either.
But I would say that abandoned dwarven mountain complex, still 1000 ft above sea level, would indeed count as being similar enough to the Underdark that a Ranger would find enough similarities that their knowledge of the Underdark would be applicable in that situation as well.
sooo for me underground is .. well .. underground.
See in the real world living in dark caves doesn't really pan out. Biomass needs to come from somewhere and there's no sun underground. Which isn't to say it doesn't happen, there are some cave systems where you have water washing in nutrients or bats shitting like crazy and that creating an ecology but in general ... neh.
You don't have that problem in fearun. The mushrooms there can feed off latent magic from the weave. That's the plankton of the deep.
If you're underground and it isn't a dead and wet maze of stone then you benefit from the perk, imo.
In my Curse of Strahd: The Pre-Edition (Title not yet finalized) we have made it up to 1 day before the wedding
A plot by one of Strahd's former commanders has been uncovered and stopped(?) (no it hasn't, they didn't find out about the poison in the kitchen). Two of the players took 9 year old Lovena Wachter exploring the crypts and almost got her killed, she got possessed by a ghost and ran off. Whoops! Well nobody knows they were responsible. The bard and warlock pinky swore to not tell anyone this ever happened. Lovena was fated to survive the events, and that is even more likely now that she's going to be lost in the crypt until Strahd finds her in a few days while searching for traitors, and returns her home.
The wizard, ostensibly queen of the dusk elves due to everyone who would have that honor being dead now, had a dinner with Rahadin. He was creepy. He got called out by Strahd and the wizard tossed his room like the mob looking for missing coke, finding his journal. She discovered that Rahadin is in love with her, AND he's actually her secret-father, that the king hadn't touched her mother in years. He mentions that he will give her pure royal children. She did not keep reading, put the room back where it was, and got the hell out of there.
The Rogue, having uncovered the plot, ate dinner with Strahd. He likes Strahd. As he drank Strahd got more and more agitated as the wine flowed, he finally got off his chest what was eating him: This wedding is a mistake, Tatyana doesn't know what she's doing, Sergei is a pretty face over a vapid, empty head. The thought of her purity being ripped from her by a clumsy inexperienced fool like his brother, that boy, sickens him, and that by the time Tatyana realizes that she can't REALLY love Sergei it will be too late. The rogue said nothing at all to him, finally getting a sigh and an apology from Strahd. "I forget myself Lord Stefan, of course my brother is a fine warrior and a pious, trustworthy man. He will make a good husband. Do me the honor of forgetting that you heard me speak such vileness." The rogue did not argue.
The Vistana Warlock and Bard (tatyana's sister!) are having a great time running cons on all these nobles, collecting quite a sack of money selling everything from luck incense to contraceptive potions (all fake). They even managed to get Tatyana in on a con, we only get her personality in the published material from Strahd's point of view - a father figure she is grateful to - so of course she's an angel from that point of view. I have her as having a small gambling problem (she cleaned the party's clock in three-dragon ante), a pretty bad priestess who hasn't paid enough attention to her studies (but is nonetheless popular because of her beauty and celebrity status), and as the initiator in her relationship with Sergei. She's a good person, dedicated to the principles, if not the holy texts, of her faith and giving to charity, but she's not a statue on a shelf - except to strahd.
Sergei for his part is blissfully unaware of either the treason that was, at least for now, thwarted, or that at this moment his brother is on his knees begging "death" for his heart's desire, moments away from killing his best friend and draining his blood for overhearing such blasphemy
The valley is covered in an unseasonable mist that grows day by day, the sun failing to burn it away until well past noon... nothing to worry about
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WearingglassesOf the friendly neighborhood varietyRegistered Userregular
edited January 2020
Okay, I've pivoted a bit on the Fungal Pauldrons, having read Evolving Magical Items, and essentially have each character one evolving magic item:
They receive theirs via quest reward around level 3, then undergoes three tiers of development up til.... level 9-11.
- Biboy the Barbarian inherits his grandfather Boy the Barbarian's longsword. Starts as a masterwork longsword (+1 to attack roll).
- Therin the Druid gets the Ghostcap fungus as a rite of passage from his master. Transforms his leather armor to the equivalent of a nonmetal chain shirt (13+Dex AC).
- Benny the Minotaur must forge his angel feathers by request of his angel friend into a Battleaxe whose blades and shaft are styled like an angel with wings stretched out. Starts as a magical weapon with no bonuses, but the angel face frowns/smiles/changes in certain situations.
- Zorya the Forge Cleric finds the long lost shield of her order's Patron Saint, the smith-saint Avonova. Starts as a normal shield with an at-will Light (cone 15 ft).
- Yogan the Artificer builds her new spellcasting focus from a blueprint purportedly created by Niv-Mizzet himself. Gives her +1 to her cantrip spell attack rolls.
- Yashira the Bard "finds" a brooch that gives her Advantage to one skill check once per day.
Here's my planned evolution for each:
The Barbarian longsword will get Absorb elements and Enlarge (self) down the line, plus the normal damage increase. Unsure of casting / charges.
I (level 5) - Now Magical. 3 charges. Can cast Absorb Elements on self. Recharge 1d3/day.
II (level 7-8) - Attack bonus becomes +1 to attack/damage rolls now. Increase to 5 charges (recharge 1d4). Can cast Enlarge self (costs 2 charges)
III (level 9-11) - Attack bonus becomes +2 to attack/damage rolls now. Increase to 7 charges (recharge 1d6). Add 1 weapon dice if you crit.
The Angel Axe gets radiant damage buffs. Kinda want to give this a noncombat bonus that doesn't make Benny a pseudo paladin.
I - +1 to attack/damage. Jump 1/day. The angel face can react to liars (Advantage on Insight (Wis)).
II - Bonus 1d6 radiant dmg. Jump now Str bonus/day. The angel can now telepathically communicate tactical advice (Advantage on attack roll ???times/day, Advantage on skill checks involving tactics).
III - +2 to attack/damage. ANGEL SUMMONER (or maybe not).
The Druid armor gets.... I dunno. I realized his Spore feature gives him temp HP already, and I'm not sure if extra Wild Shapes are needed, since they recharge on short rests already. I kinda wanna make him choose between two effects (LIFE or DEATH), being a Golgari druid.
Zorya's Shield gives her social bonuses, and light-related effects, plus a few casts of Healing Word so she doesn't need to use up her slots healing her dumb teammates and have more fun casting better spells.
I - 3 charges, Healing Word
II - +1 AC, Increase to 5 charges, can now mimic Gem of Blinding effect as a reaction against getting hit using 1 charge
III - Dunno
For the artificer, I plan on giving some gradual bonus spell slots, and maybe a HP Buff to her and her minions? I kind of also want to give her Firebolt a buff (+Int to damage), but I don't know if tier 1 (level 5-ish) is too early or not. I want to make her item modular, but I'm afraid this would just give her AP.
I - Spell storing 2 charges, something
II - Spell storing 4 charges, something
Yashira I have no idea what a double-agent bard would want that wouldn't immediately out her as a Dimir double agent. Disguise self seems too on the nose.
I
II
III
Are the items balanced? It's probably best I don't think of the last tier yet, it's a bit presumptuous that we'll reach that.
At starting level, a normal shield with a light spell and the once advantage on a skill don't seem as strong as the rest to me.
The Golgari could convert damage done to enemies that round into temps for friends with y yards x times per day. The whole "they feed everyone" thing Golgari got.
Dmir one could provide free disguise self spells or enable some mini-vampire like abilities (shapeshift bat, fog cloud, spiderclimb, that sort of thing).
High rank angel axe could have on crit a portal open up to mount Celestia, an angel flies out and does a flyby attack roll, and another pray opens up in front of him he goes into. Like the angel flies in a straight line and just gives the target a good additional whack. Your choice whether it automatically hits, whether it can crit, and which angel type you use.
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WearingglassesOf the friendly neighborhood varietyRegistered Userregular
edited January 2020
FUCK
I just realized there's a nonzero chance now that Benny will call his axe "Buffalo Wings".
EDIT:
- "Temp HP for everyone else" sounds good as a Golgari ability, yeah.
- Is Blinding 1/day as a reaction against an attacker good for a level 3/uncommon magic shield?
- Trying to come up with something for the Bard that's also feasibly useful for Boros, since that's her cover identity. Or something just generally good for bards.
- Not sure if Ravnica has a Celestian counterpart, as Boros angels are pretty standard fare.
Next month my Dungeon Dads group is taking a break from actually gaming and engaging in what corporate speak calls a "team building exercise" at the Storm Crow Manor here in Toronto!
For the bard, you could have an item that can summon a phantasmal flaming sword, which passes through all defenses to burn the target for 1d6 per round.
That's what the illusion the item creates looks like to the party, anyway. But it's really casting Phantasmal Force, which looks like whatever you want it to, but is only visible to the target.
Edit: on further consideration, the sword illusion should probably only show up when the player uses it to make a phantasm that looks like it, so there's no awkward incentive to secretly convey a cool illusion the rest of the party can't see and doesn't know about.
This could also work as an item that casts Shadow Blade with an illusion to make it look borosy, but that might depend on the kind of bard.
Spiritual Weapon is a very boros spell, that's also useful for an assassin or spy.
Have you considered myconid abilities for the fungal pauldrons? Start with rapport spores and grow to the pacifying and hallucinatory ones. Final ability could augment the spore druid's temporary zombie ability into full-blown spore servant. I also second the goodberry shrooms, with the possible addition of other mushrooms that replicate spell effects like maybe astral projection and dream.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
The hero forge kickstarter continues to be nuts. Clearing two million. I wonder if it'll see three. I have to imagine most people who want minis and are ok with kickstarter have thrown in at this point.
What might happen is people get excited about the options that keep on unlocking through stretch goals and increase their existing pledge to get more minis
Is there a particularly good crit-fishing build for Paladins?
Funny you mention it, but I'm playing one right now and it's excellent. Variant Human for GWM, take Oath of Heroism. Channel Divinity to crit on 19-20, and throw out Temp HP or Frightened when you do crit. Haste as an Oath spell for the extra attack, GWM gives extra attack on KO or crit. Obviously use your smites on crits.
There's probably a better race, to be honest, but that combo is pretty good. I have a Bard in my party with some ability that gives me advantage on every attack I make in a round, which means at least 6 chances to crit per round with Haste up.
Last session, the party was exploring a tomb and my paladin volunteered to undergo a trial as part of a trap (long story). An Adamantine Golem attacks while I'm locked in a crystal, and the Wizard's player turns to her husband the Fighter's player (who suggested my Paladin volunteer and also prides himself on throwing out big dick damage) and says, "Great, a big fight and our Boss Killer is disabled."
Is there a particularly good crit-fishing build for Paladins?
Funny you mention it, but I'm playing one right now and it's excellent. Variant Human for GWM, take Oath of Heroism. Channel Divinity to crit on 19-20, and throw out Temp HP or Frightened when you do crit. Haste as an Oath spell for the extra attack, GWM gives extra attack on KO or crit. Obviously use your smites on crits.
There's probably a better race, to be honest, but that combo is pretty good. I have a Bard in my party with some ability that gives me advantage on every attack I make in a round, which means at least 6 chances to crit per round with Haste up.
Last session, the party was exploring a tomb and my paladin volunteered to undergo a trial as part of a trap (long story). An Adamantine Golem attacks while I'm locked in a crystal, and the Wizard's player turns to her husband the Fighter's player (who suggested my Paladin volunteer and also prides himself on throwing out big dick damage) and says, "Great, a big fight and our Boss Killer is disabled."
5th ed is probably my favorite Paladin to date (4e's Str/Wis Paladin and solo-Cha Paladins are close behind) purely because you can just be like, "'Spells?' That's a funny way to pronounce 'Smites.'" and it really simplifies the class without truly losing too much (although there's some really great spells that are pretty hard to pass up, but you can and still be pretty alright).
Is there a particularly good crit-fishing build for Paladins?
Funny you mention it, but I'm playing one right now and it's excellent. Variant Human for GWM, take Oath of Heroism. Channel Divinity to crit on 19-20, and throw out Temp HP or Frightened when you do crit. Haste as an Oath spell for the extra attack, GWM gives extra attack on KO or crit. Obviously use your smites on crits.
There's probably a better race, to be honest, but that combo is pretty good. I have a Bard in my party with some ability that gives me advantage on every attack I make in a round, which means at least 6 chances to crit per round with Haste up.
Last session, the party was exploring a tomb and my paladin volunteered to undergo a trial as part of a trap (long story). An Adamantine Golem attacks while I'm locked in a crystal, and the Wizard's player turns to her husband the Fighter's player (who suggested my Paladin volunteer and also prides himself on throwing out big dick damage) and says, "Great, a big fight and our Boss Killer is disabled."
5th ed is probably my favorite Paladin to date (4e's Str/Wis Paladin and solo-Cha Paladins are close behind) purely because you can just be like, "'Spells?' That's a funny way to pronounce 'Smites.'" and it really simplifies the class without truly losing too much (although there's some really great spells that are pretty hard to pass up, but you can and still be pretty alright).
Bless/smite. Thats pretty much all i did with my spell slots and it was super effective.
this sunday I get to kill my entire party in curse of strahd, I am excited
this is the one time I have an actual "you are fated to die" excuse to kill them, no matter what, they will end up in a final destination style death spiral
except the warlock, who is going to survive and her daughter will be her character going forward
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WACriminalDying Is Easy, Young ManLiving Is HarderRegistered Userregular
Something I forgot to ask about...in my last session, there were a lot of sheep and livestock getting killed in the course of the encounter. My group's barbarian kept stopping to harvest meat, wool, etc. from the dead.
On the one hand, I don't want to discourage him from roleplaying, so I feel like I should give him some benefit from this. But on the other hand, I don't want to run this like Skyrim where players feel like it's worthwhile to just take anything that isn't nailed down. What should I give him? Just, like, 1d6 copper pieces for each animal he harvests, when he gets back to town and sells it? For the time being, there's not really going to be any survival/foraging elements needed, as they're in a major urban center where food and such are pretty easy to come by.
Posts
Anyway, that's not the point of my post. My point is that while I was searching for suitable images to use as tokens I came across this dude:
And now I really want to make a Pirate-y, swash and buckle type bard as my backup character for the CoS game starting in a few months in case my hexblade gets eaten by wolves. Which College is best though? Definitely not Glamour for the concept, and Shadows doesn't fit the art either....Swords maybe? I dunno. My only practical experience with 5e bards is me reworking the ill-fated Glamour bard in my other campaign.
here is a guide
You just rotate it to the pose you want and throw up coloring using paint.net
ofc in march they're adding a toolset to just do that natively that looks to produce fairly good results
Futzing around with heroforge is something that can come later.
(That is super cool, though.)
The wizard then pointed out that said "adventure" would likely end up on a dissection table, and the ranger felt so guilty that she convinced the mouse to talk an older mouse, one who was feeling a little less spry, into coming with us for the possible benefit of mousekind as well. Both mice instantly took to the ranger and lived in her pack, with a single-minded goal of doing pretty much anything with the bribe of cheese.
Even after delivering the older mouse to the (probably-fatal) ministrations of the researchers, the first mouse continued to accompany the party through explorations of caves, through tombs full of undead and spider monsters, on a ship sailing across the sea, and across the world. We arrived at a wealthy capital city, and the ranger decided to treat her little non-familiar buddy with a reward from the fanciest cheesemonger on the continent. After browsing their wares in a terrific bout of roleplaying and purchasing a wheel costing more than the party's inn bill that night, the ranger simply assumed that the mouse was simply in a cheese coma in her pack and failed to notice that the mouse had in fact escaped soon after she left the shop.
It wasn't until the next morning that the ranger found out that the mouse was gone, and raced back to the shop, whispering the mouse's name among the wheels of cheese until determining that it wasn't there. She went back to the inn and collapsed into tears. Luckily, the clerk at the inn tried to help her, and during the conversation the mouse turned up in the rafters of the inn.
The mouse said that it had made a lot of friends up in the rafters, and was starting to tire of sleeping in the ranger's pack and wanted to settle down. The clerk was shocked, but asked that the mouse at least go live in the stables and convince its new friends to go with him and leave the inn itself alone. The ranger left the pricey cheese behind and said goodbye.
The barbarian took it upon himself to head back to the inn on his own the next day, and talked to the clerk again. He slid the clerk two platinum and asked the she make sure the mouse was taken care of. The clerk agreed; after all, the inn already had noticeably fewer rustlings in the walls, and if all it took was the occasional piece of cheese to keep any rodent problem down it was worth it. This conversation was not made public to the rest of the party and was apparently done purely out of the goodness of the barbarian's heart for the ranger's benefit.
After hearing what had happened, however, the fighter was upset. She'd caught that mouse! How dare it skip out on the group without saying goodbye to her! The fighter went back to the inn and confronted the clerk, then went to the stable and convinced the mouse to come with her instead of retiring (a 20 persuasion roll vs the mouse's 2 to resist). The fighter paid the clerk 10 gold in apology for intimidating her, then returned to the party with the mouse.
Fighter: I found Twitchnobbin!
Mouse: I'm comin' with ya!
Ranger: (sobbing) Twitchnobbiiiiiin! (hugs all around)
Barbarian: Did... Did the clerk say anything about some money?
Fighter: Don't worry about it. I paid her off.
Barbarian: (stonefaced) Ah.
Barbarian: <to the DM> You're going to find a new Nemesis on my character sheet.
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
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https://darkheresychainsofmalice.blogspot.com/2020/01/dprussrs-scalovia-part-1.html
This is the "Old" version of that setting that could possibly slot into anyone's DnD game. The "new" setting is essentially a post-revolution industrialized Stalinist state trading one type of authoritarianism for another. I'm trying to think of spells for essentially half-dragon/dragonborn overlord seneschal types that rule in the place of their master dragons when they are asleep on their hoards. They are very cruel, very paranoid, they are part of a hierarchy where they're basically second in line at the top and in charge most of the time. I gave them fireball and timestop and I'm not super sure about the latter. I just wanted to give them stuff to explain how a place like this hasn't just been destroyed by a band of enterprising adventurers. I'd like them to have 7 spells that don't fall in the line of some other characters I've made in the past where they don't get to use all of their cool toys before the players just wreck them. Since their superiority is very race-based I guess they would have to choose from sorcerer powers. Does anyone have like a good set of boss spells?
Also, how much would a magic hearthstone covering 100 feet that is known to be necessary to traverse across the frigid land this setting is and the manufacture of that hearthstone would be coveted and secreted away by the above types be? I put down 100 platinum to be safe.
Any other suggestions would extremely welcome. I have never done homebrew for DnD before.
We've saved half of the missing students undergoing their trials and ended up at the door to the final trial. As good little adventurers, we immediately turned back to search the missing rooms (bad choice, all it cost us was hitpoints.)
First puzzle room was a chess puzzle: 6 pieces left, hint hinted that somebody needed to sacrifice. Bard was left behind while he tried to figure out the final door. Sorceress knew nothing of chess and touched a pawn and entered the puzzle as the pawn (ouch). Instead of being smart, Monk decided to be loyal, so I touched a bishop on the same side. Leaving only a knight on our side, which immediately got taken out by a rook. Sorceress was taken next (26 points of damage at lvl 3, so our Sorceress was down). I managed to take out the rook, but the rest was a stalemate. Bard and Cleric Warforged NPC heard my cries for help, stabilized and healed the sorceress, then the Orc took the role of King on opposite side. I sacrificed myself so the game could end and got hit for 23 points of damage. Puzzle was solved, but we did find a vial of fluid.
Next puzzle was face your true self. Bard (trying the whole time to get admin access to the mechanisms and warforged that were running the tests with minimal success) managed to enter the backstage for personel, Sorceress saved herself from drowning in quicksand, I got stuck with myself turning into gold and could find no way out, so the sorceress had to save me (bit of a miscommunication I guess between what I felt was the core of my character and the DM).
Final puzzle was a completely empty room. The most devious of puzzles. Some tried to find anything invisible, but we quickly though screw this (there were 5 tests, we finished 5 tests, so it seems to fit). Back to the main door.
A bit of healing later, we decided to enter the final door (nope, not taking a long rest for what turns out to be a boss fight, bad choice again). With our meat-shield fighter out of it, it was another bad choice, but we hoped to finish this dungeon this night. The Door was alive and a warforged itself. We were nice to it and managed to get inside with a bit of unwitting help from the warforged cleric who repaired the door for us. (Also got the DM to admit that the Sorceress distracting the Warforged by claiming there was something wrong with the Fighter, should not be Deception, cause there really was something wrong with him). Door opened, the three of us went in, lead by the Bard being invisible (or actually he was behind us, but he was invisible, so who knew?). We entered an arena (bad news), but in a bit of both Sorceress as Monk being optimistic and naieve, we decided it was a theatre and convinced the Bard to give a show. Turned out an Icescale Drake lived here and in the snow, it was nearly invisible. A sneak attack later, the Bard was wounded and we decided that 16 WIS should be enough to have some tactical insight, I decided that we should retreat to the tunnel, where an invisible opponent would still be difficult, but not as much as in an open area. We retreated (except for the invsible Bard, who decided to go the other way. Which bit him in the ass, literally, when the Drake still saw the bloodtrail he left behind). I also decided that having the Fighter (hopefully as NPC) working as meat shield would even the odds. (Again bad decision, DM played him a delirious and he was useless during the fight and possible even worse as he cast a ritual that nobody knows what it did yet). Bard was wounded so we decided he should just cast Mockery (as he had little other spells that would work on this foe) and getting Disadvantage on him, would give us a chance. I tried to knock it prone and Sorceress would try to cast Guiding Bolt on it. All of this failed, because we rolled terrible.
We ended the night with me down, about to roll my first death save of the campaign. Eldritch Knight ritual seemed to break reality. Sorceress and Bard wounded. Drake not impressed at all by us so far.
levels 1-4: target takes 1d8 thunder damage when they willingly move
levels 5-10: on successful hit: target takes 1d8 thunder damage AND takes 2d8 thunder damage when they willingly move.
I missed out on so many 1d8 rolls!
my DM looked like I had just taken a sandwich he had made for himself out of the fridge and eaten it when I produced the d8s
Not really, but we all agreed that's dumb, the metric we use for booming blade is if it's forced movement or not (I.E. does it provoke an attack of opportunity?)
The reason this combo doesn't work by RAW is that it's a potential boon for a gish sorcerer, and the design team already hates sorcerers
(Tbf even with that combo working out as well as it could, the eldritch knight easily outdamaged that on her round)
That sounds fair enough, considering the effort on the players part. But it isn't RAW so I couldn't blame a DM who would argue that "willingly" suggests that the victim of the BOOM has a choice whether they want to move or stand still.
Tl;dr: Yay "natural" language.
The party headed north searching for the famous hero Harshnag to help them in their quest to get these dang giants to settle the fuck down. Last session while in Everlund the Harpers told them to search the North for him. In Longsaddle, they heard he was in Mirabar a month ago. At Xantharl's Keep, they heard he was spotted not even 2 weeks ago. I turned the Xantharl's Keep encounter into an epic siege. Mapped out the main gate that was the brunt of a foolish siege that involved goblins being hurled through the air by special trebuchets mounted on the backs of Ogres and poor tactics with a frost giant and some hobs also just standing around letting themselves get hit with arrows and fireballs, giving time for some sneaky bugbears coming over the walls on the other end of town. It all ended easily enough (ten Bugbears vs. six 7th level characters is not much of a challenge) with a dead evil frost giant being tossed through the front windows/wall/roof of a tavern by the good guy frost giant Harshnag who peeked into the hole he just made in the building and a gave the party a sardonic, "Hey. We good here?"
Next session: Eye of the All Father!
Well pre 5 it would qualify. Movement is either willing or forced and this was willing. Its not a push, pull, or slide, the creator of the effect does not direct the end location of the movement. The mover may move around or through obstacles at their discretion etc.
thats how it is for most effects of this kind, booming blade is kind of unique in that it specifies willing movement, which is unnecessarily complicating things when we already have a binary of forced movement or regular movement, to determine attacks of opportunity
it seems entirely to prevent booming blade from comboing with spells like cause fear or dissonant whispers, which, feh - the game needs more combos like that, not less
Figured I'd ask for some suggestions to flesh out the potential campaign path I have planned. Characters at the moment are level 4 and stats were rolled rather than array or point buy, so they trend considerably higher than normal characters, but we only have 3 characters so it balances out more or less.
Tonight's game:
The History Check would have revealed details as to the effects the moon has when it's at it's closest point to the planet. Massively reshaping landmasses, driving wildlife into a frenzy, creating monsters and summoning aberrations and the like. Old records are rare and valuable as the towns they're stored in are typically subsumed by the unnatural disasters inflicted by the moon, but pillaging these ancient ruins can be lucrative for the adventurer bold and strong enough to return.
But, they didn't make those checks, so...? I'm sure the information will make it's way into their hands eventually if we continue playing
After repairing the wagon (one of the boars was blinded, and charged the wagon destroying a wheel) the party and their new tinker buddy hop on the wagon and start heading to the next town, a days travel away, halfway through the forest, the wagon is stopped by a tree that's been cut down and put across the beaten path. Enter the first kobold encounter, one sorceror, two dragon shields, and a half dozen regular kobolds. The party takes them down pretty handily, the rogue takes some damage as she engages the kobolds in the woods (IE, out of direct sunlight, hooray for Pack Tactics), and the paladin fights the dragon shields and sorcerer up close. Pack tactics cancels out sunlight sensitivity so they're fairly evenly matched. The tinker and wizard plink away fairly ineffectively, though the wizard did read the kobolds mind to get warning that the kobold was serving a dragon and wanted their stuff for the dragon.
Eventually, the two dragon shields are down, the rogue's dispatched the three kobolds she was fighting, and the sorcerer is heavily wounded. The remaining three kobolds charge the wagon to distract the people there while the sorcerer makes a get away.
The party arrives at the small village, and are hailed as heroes for seeing the tinker safely through the increasingly kobold run woods and are invited to stay at the public house. Naturally, they do so and go to sleep to recover from the days combats. They wake to find the Tinker has been up all night regaling the town with tales of their fighting prowess, the number of kobolds ballooning to dozens in the ambush, and the three boars have been talked into a veritable army of wereboar marauders turned away in the dead of night. The village elder begs our mighty adventurers to clear out the kobolds who have taken up residence in a cave nearby the village that the village younghave in the safer days in the past used as a "camping ground and swimming hole" (quothe the elder "They pretend that they're going up there to camp and swim, and we adults pretend to believe them, same as we did with our parents, and they with their parents before them...").
Exploring the cave, they find piles of shiny junk, polished bits of glass or metal, rocks with mica in them, basically the collection of a cracked out magpie might establish if it was able to raid Etsy. A second room has a better sorted pile of shiny junk, but outside of an in depth investigation, it's just so much junk. A few sleeping kobolds fail to notice the adventurers thanks to their healthy stealth rolls and are killed in their sleep.
Then it's off to the room with the swimming hole, located in the far back of the cave, an opening in the roof lets a small stream of water poor into the the room, through a hole in the floor and into a chamber beneath where it accumulates into the swimming hole, the Wizard has explored to find this opening from the outside, and has started randomly tossing coins down it while the paladin and rogue are exploring the rest of the cave system. I figure this attracts any of the awake kobolds to that room so what should have been a series of pretty easy 3 v 4-6 fights instead becomes a kobold cluster fuck with over a dozen of them in the room. Three dragons shields, three sorcerers and a double handful of normal kobolds.
The wizard's able to snipe down the sorcerers from outside, while the paladin kept the shields occupied, the rogue got beaten up pretty good fighting a trio of kobolds with daggers while a bunch of them with slings also took potshots (this time with advantage thanks to pack tactics). It's rough going at first because that's a bunch of rolls against all the PCs and a crap ton of advantage they're facing, but the PCs win out in the end.
A perception check reveals that there is something large under the water, and the wizard shimmies down a rope to meet the dragon (I may have encouraged discourse rather than combat at this point by threatening them with a bigger, angrier dragon if they retreated back to town to rest up and lick their wounds, but it was getting late and I was getting tired).
The dragon and the wizard have a chat where in the dragon reveals that it really just wants to hibernate through the Dread Moon time, and had agreed to share the cave with the kobolds, not realizing that the kobolds would form a cult around it's generosity and spend their days robbing any caravans in the area for anything shiny, and their nights throwing the shiny garbage at the dragon as tribute. The dragon wasn't willing to go back on it's offer of protection (I'm evil, but I'm lawful evil), but it was incredibly grateful that the adventurers had taken care of them. Not grateful enough to give up it's treasure, of course not, but grateful enough to let them leave without further trouble.
The adventurers travel back to town: beaten, bruised, scorched and a few hundred GP richer (some of the piles actually did have semi precious gems and coin in them), and the awareness that whatever the Dread Moon means, it's unpleasant enough that a dragon would prefer to curl up and sleep through it.
I've got a rough outline for adventure type in the setting for levels through 20.
1-5: General low level adventure stuff
I don't think that was ROI? IMO, they should be the same for the purposes of being favored or not.
While I appreciate that the Underdark and a "regular" cave dungeon area might be different.... that is a very fine hair to split wrt flavoured terrain.
And that IF he was going to make that distinction, then there should be no issue with having two separate terrains to favour.
I'd argue that the Underdark is a unique enough biome to warrant it's own unique terrain to be favored.
But then, I'd also say that if you're in a cave in a forest, than it would still count as forest for a favored terrain. You'd be running into much the same wildlife inside a forest cave as you would outside, and many of the same foraging tricks would work inside the cave as out (Edible mushrooms, roots, etc...), same as if you're in an arctic ice cave, or a desert cave etc....
The guy who was originally going to play Totally-Not-Geralt went with...well, a different character concept.
The Underdark should absolutely be separated from other terrains. Its wierd down there. But the weirdness comes from the inhabitants, mostly, rather than the terrain itself.
In that respect, since favored terrain and favored enemies are separate things, IMO underground is underground. And while two dungeon levels beneath a ruined keep would not count, as it is clearly man made, and a glorified bear den in a forest would not count either. Nor would an kuo-toa cave lair beneath the sea count either.
But I would say that abandoned dwarven mountain complex, still 1000 ft above sea level, would indeed count as being similar enough to the Underdark that a Ranger would find enough similarities that their knowledge of the Underdark would be applicable in that situation as well.
See in the real world living in dark caves doesn't really pan out. Biomass needs to come from somewhere and there's no sun underground. Which isn't to say it doesn't happen, there are some cave systems where you have water washing in nutrients or bats shitting like crazy and that creating an ecology but in general ... neh.
You don't have that problem in fearun. The mushrooms there can feed off latent magic from the weave. That's the plankton of the deep.
If you're underground and it isn't a dead and wet maze of stone then you benefit from the perk, imo.
A plot by one of Strahd's former commanders has been uncovered and stopped(?) (no it hasn't, they didn't find out about the poison in the kitchen). Two of the players took 9 year old Lovena Wachter exploring the crypts and almost got her killed, she got possessed by a ghost and ran off. Whoops! Well nobody knows they were responsible. The bard and warlock pinky swore to not tell anyone this ever happened. Lovena was fated to survive the events, and that is even more likely now that she's going to be lost in the crypt until Strahd finds her in a few days while searching for traitors, and returns her home.
The wizard, ostensibly queen of the dusk elves due to everyone who would have that honor being dead now, had a dinner with Rahadin. He was creepy. He got called out by Strahd and the wizard tossed his room like the mob looking for missing coke, finding his journal. She discovered that Rahadin is in love with her, AND he's actually her secret-father, that the king hadn't touched her mother in years. He mentions that he will give her pure royal children. She did not keep reading, put the room back where it was, and got the hell out of there.
The Rogue, having uncovered the plot, ate dinner with Strahd. He likes Strahd. As he drank Strahd got more and more agitated as the wine flowed, he finally got off his chest what was eating him: This wedding is a mistake, Tatyana doesn't know what she's doing, Sergei is a pretty face over a vapid, empty head. The thought of her purity being ripped from her by a clumsy inexperienced fool like his brother, that boy, sickens him, and that by the time Tatyana realizes that she can't REALLY love Sergei it will be too late. The rogue said nothing at all to him, finally getting a sigh and an apology from Strahd. "I forget myself Lord Stefan, of course my brother is a fine warrior and a pious, trustworthy man. He will make a good husband. Do me the honor of forgetting that you heard me speak such vileness." The rogue did not argue.
The Vistana Warlock and Bard (tatyana's sister!) are having a great time running cons on all these nobles, collecting quite a sack of money selling everything from luck incense to contraceptive potions (all fake). They even managed to get Tatyana in on a con, we only get her personality in the published material from Strahd's point of view - a father figure she is grateful to - so of course she's an angel from that point of view. I have her as having a small gambling problem (she cleaned the party's clock in three-dragon ante), a pretty bad priestess who hasn't paid enough attention to her studies (but is nonetheless popular because of her beauty and celebrity status), and as the initiator in her relationship with Sergei. She's a good person, dedicated to the principles, if not the holy texts, of her faith and giving to charity, but she's not a statue on a shelf - except to strahd.
Sergei for his part is blissfully unaware of either the treason that was, at least for now, thwarted, or that at this moment his brother is on his knees begging "death" for his heart's desire, moments away from killing his best friend and draining his blood for overhearing such blasphemy
The valley is covered in an unseasonable mist that grows day by day, the sun failing to burn it away until well past noon... nothing to worry about
- Biboy the Barbarian inherits his grandfather Boy the Barbarian's longsword. Starts as a masterwork longsword (+1 to attack roll).
- Therin the Druid gets the Ghostcap fungus as a rite of passage from his master. Transforms his leather armor to the equivalent of a nonmetal chain shirt (13+Dex AC).
- Benny the Minotaur must forge his angel feathers by request of his angel friend into a Battleaxe whose blades and shaft are styled like an angel with wings stretched out. Starts as a magical weapon with no bonuses, but the angel face frowns/smiles/changes in certain situations.
- Zorya the Forge Cleric finds the long lost shield of her order's Patron Saint, the smith-saint Avonova. Starts as a normal shield with an at-will Light (cone 15 ft).
- Yogan the Artificer builds her new spellcasting focus from a blueprint purportedly created by Niv-Mizzet himself. Gives her +1 to her cantrip spell attack rolls.
- Yashira the Bard "finds" a brooch that gives her Advantage to one skill check once per day.
Here's my planned evolution for each:
The Barbarian longsword will get Absorb elements and Enlarge (self) down the line, plus the normal damage increase. Unsure of casting / charges.
I (level 5) - Now Magical. 3 charges. Can cast Absorb Elements on self. Recharge 1d3/day.
II (level 7-8) - Attack bonus becomes +1 to attack/damage rolls now. Increase to 5 charges (recharge 1d4). Can cast Enlarge self (costs 2 charges)
III (level 9-11) - Attack bonus becomes +2 to attack/damage rolls now. Increase to 7 charges (recharge 1d6). Add 1 weapon dice if you crit.
The Angel Axe gets radiant damage buffs. Kinda want to give this a noncombat bonus that doesn't make Benny a pseudo paladin.
I - +1 to attack/damage. Jump 1/day. The angel face can react to liars (Advantage on Insight (Wis)).
II - Bonus 1d6 radiant dmg. Jump now Str bonus/day. The angel can now telepathically communicate tactical advice (Advantage on attack roll ???times/day, Advantage on skill checks involving tactics).
III - +2 to attack/damage. ANGEL SUMMONER (or maybe not).
The Druid armor gets.... I dunno. I realized his Spore feature gives him temp HP already, and I'm not sure if extra Wild Shapes are needed, since they recharge on short rests already. I kinda wanna make him choose between two effects (LIFE or DEATH), being a Golgari druid.
Zorya's Shield gives her social bonuses, and light-related effects, plus a few casts of Healing Word so she doesn't need to use up her slots healing her dumb teammates and have more fun casting better spells.
I - 3 charges, Healing Word
II - +1 AC, Increase to 5 charges, can now mimic Gem of Blinding effect as a reaction against getting hit using 1 charge
III - Dunno
For the artificer, I plan on giving some gradual bonus spell slots, and maybe a HP Buff to her and her minions? I kind of also want to give her Firebolt a buff (+Int to damage), but I don't know if tier 1 (level 5-ish) is too early or not. I want to make her item modular, but I'm afraid this would just give her AP.
I - Spell storing 2 charges, something
II - Spell storing 4 charges, something
Yashira I have no idea what a double-agent bard would want that wouldn't immediately out her as a Dimir double agent. Disguise self seems too on the nose.
I
II
III
Are the items balanced? It's probably best I don't think of the last tier yet, it's a bit presumptuous that we'll reach that.
The Golgari could convert damage done to enemies that round into temps for friends with y yards x times per day. The whole "they feed everyone" thing Golgari got.
Dmir one could provide free disguise self spells or enable some mini-vampire like abilities (shapeshift bat, fog cloud, spiderclimb, that sort of thing).
High rank angel axe could have on crit a portal open up to mount Celestia, an angel flies out and does a flyby attack roll, and another pray opens up in front of him he goes into. Like the angel flies in a straight line and just gives the target a good additional whack. Your choice whether it automatically hits, whether it can crit, and which angel type you use.
I just realized there's a nonzero chance now that Benny will call his axe "Buffalo Wings".
EDIT:
- "Temp HP for everyone else" sounds good as a Golgari ability, yeah.
- Is Blinding 1/day as a reaction against an attacker good for a level 3/uncommon magic shield?
- Trying to come up with something for the Bard that's also feasibly useful for Boros, since that's her cover identity. Or something just generally good for bards.
- Not sure if Ravnica has a Celestian counterpart, as Boros angels are pretty standard fare.
https://www.stormcrow.com/
I hope we can get the table beneath the Beholder!
That's what the illusion the item creates looks like to the party, anyway. But it's really casting Phantasmal Force, which looks like whatever you want it to, but is only visible to the target.
Edit: on further consideration, the sword illusion should probably only show up when the player uses it to make a phantasm that looks like it, so there's no awkward incentive to secretly convey a cool illusion the rest of the party can't see and doesn't know about.
This could also work as an item that casts Shadow Blade with an illusion to make it look borosy, but that might depend on the kind of bard.
Spiritual Weapon is a very boros spell, that's also useful for an assassin or spy.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Funny you mention it, but I'm playing one right now and it's excellent. Variant Human for GWM, take Oath of Heroism. Channel Divinity to crit on 19-20, and throw out Temp HP or Frightened when you do crit. Haste as an Oath spell for the extra attack, GWM gives extra attack on KO or crit. Obviously use your smites on crits.
There's probably a better race, to be honest, but that combo is pretty good. I have a Bard in my party with some ability that gives me advantage on every attack I make in a round, which means at least 6 chances to crit per round with Haste up.
Last session, the party was exploring a tomb and my paladin volunteered to undergo a trial as part of a trap (long story). An Adamantine Golem attacks while I'm locked in a crystal, and the Wizard's player turns to her husband the Fighter's player (who suggested my Paladin volunteer and also prides himself on throwing out big dick damage) and says, "Great, a big fight and our Boss Killer is disabled."
5th ed is probably my favorite Paladin to date (4e's Str/Wis Paladin and solo-Cha Paladins are close behind) purely because you can just be like, "'Spells?' That's a funny way to pronounce 'Smites.'" and it really simplifies the class without truly losing too much (although there's some really great spells that are pretty hard to pass up, but you can and still be pretty alright).
Bless/smite. Thats pretty much all i did with my spell slots and it was super effective.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
this is the one time I have an actual "you are fated to die" excuse to kill them, no matter what, they will end up in a final destination style death spiral
except the warlock, who is going to survive and her daughter will be her character going forward
On the one hand, I don't want to discourage him from roleplaying, so I feel like I should give him some benefit from this. But on the other hand, I don't want to run this like Skyrim where players feel like it's worthwhile to just take anything that isn't nailed down. What should I give him? Just, like, 1d6 copper pieces for each animal he harvests, when he gets back to town and sells it? For the time being, there's not really going to be any survival/foraging elements needed, as they're in a major urban center where food and such are pretty easy to come by.