I've been following a Let's Read on RPG.net of the Book of Exalted Deeds from 3.5. It got to Gwynharwyf, an eladrin barbarian who has led armies into the Abyss to kill demons.
My campaign currently is centered in the ruins of a labyrinthian minotaur civilization destroyed when a cult of Baphomet caused most of the population to succumb to his maddening influence. Inspired now by that let's read I want to add another established adventuring group to the ruins that follows Gwynharwyf and seeks to eliminate any lingering trace of Baphomet's influence.
Anyone familiar with Barbarians have build suggestions for 8th-level versions of these guys? I'd like the ones who aren't multiclassed into a "divine class" (paladin and celestial warlock) to be Path of the Zealot Barbarians if possible since they're all drawing from Gwynharwyf, but the divine ones could have another Barbarian subclass.
I might try to make the two humanoid minotaurs tonight.
For whatever reason, I had always thought that wizards where the only class that got Ritual Casting without having to buy a feat.
I was very happy to discover that the Satyr Bard I'll be playing in an upcoming Theros game no longer has to spend a spell slot on Unseen Servant! Now my travelling troubadour can have accompaniment on the drums at his gigs without having to use up precious daily resources! Yay!
Also..... Ah, the Book of Exalted Deeds. I had to draw heavily from that book in the later stages of my evil 3.5 Eberron campaign after giving my players free access to the Book of Vile Darkness. So much broken stuff in both of those books. There's a swarm of birds in that book that pluck out an evil beings eyes permanently, IIRC.
DM Lesson learned: Read the shit before you say, "Yeah, sure. Sounds cool." because my player cheesed the fuck out of the Sacrifice rules there. 1) They got a Limited Wish by rolling on the table of boons. 2) The farmed so much liquid pain, that the Artificers they killed, turned into Wights and then put to work in the Necromancer's lab had PLENTY of materials with which to use when enchanting the gear they put on the rest of the undead horde.
Gawddamnit. I look back on the campaign as the most successful one I have ever run and I equally look back at that campaign as the source of so many of my never again lessons learned.
Anyone else play artificer here? If so, what do you think of the Infusion system?
I have opinions on it, but i'm curious what other people think before i start a side project of hacking it apart and rebuilding it to not annoy me so much.
My IRL campaign I play an Wiz/Artifacer.
The infusion system seems nice on the surface but after digging in more, it's hard to not just use the base bonuses instead of magic item creation. Maybe once your party is higher level, some of the base bonuses are less important and you can play with magic items, but so far I just have a list of things I'd love to create (even more so if your DM allows Xanathar's list), but can't do it because the +1 to AC and +1 to my spell attacks is just too good to give up yet
Anyone else play artificer here? If so, what do you think of the Infusion system?
I have opinions on it, but i'm curious what other people think before i start a side project of hacking it apart and rebuilding it to not annoy me so much.
My IRL campaign I play an Wiz/Artifacer.
The infusion system seems nice on the surface but after digging in more, it's hard to not just use the base bonuses instead of magic item creation. Maybe once your party is higher level, some of the base bonuses are less important and you can play with magic items, but so far I just have a list of things I'd love to create (even more so if your DM allows Xanathar's list), but can't do it because the +1 to AC and +1 to my spell attacks is just too good to give up yet
That's sort of my issue with it, in fact! Though, i also just find the Replicate Magic Item very awkard in general, and that it begs a lot of questions. Like what happens when you uninfuse a bag of holding? are the items lost?
Personally if i was hacking it apart, this is my instinct on how to redo it:
Split it up into Upgrades and Gadgets
Upgrades are where stuff like Enhanced Arcane Focus etc go. You start with a couple of those, you can have a very limited number active, and they switch on a long rest.
Gadgets are weak, spell-like effects (Gain dark vision for a bit, add an electro-zapper to your melee weapon to give it some extra oompf when you hit someone once, that sort of thing). You learn more of these in general, and can assemble them during a short rest.
Ideally, i'd tag each gadget with various crafting kits, and you'd need proficney in those to make each daget (And possibly gain a scaling bonus as well)
Idea would be Upgrades lets you get the cool, long term bonuses, and gives that sense of Artifcers being able to get MORE out of their equipment than other people. While Gadgets let you play in the crafting up a soloution/whipping up useful items for the party space.
Replicate Magic Item i'm not sure how to handle -i'm not super fond of it myself, but it's obviously a big thing for other people.
My Bard tried to sneak up on our (I believe) Sorcerer during the night and use that jug to pour mayo over him. Messed up the stealth roll, Sorc tried to use water manipulation to redirect the stream, our DM judged that, since mayo isn't fully water that they both end up covered in mayonnaise. As god intended.
Does mayo taste like goblin cum, or do you imagine goblin cum tastes like mayo? I think phrasing here might be important. Or not. You're free to roleplay up that aspect of your character, as my DM would say.
-The party purchased a bird cage to put Arabelle in, to stop her from going on mindless lawful good rampages after she goes to sleep and turns into a raven
-Mordenkainen's memories were restored and he put a Geas on the party's rogue to be his agent
-Rogue found out Mordenkainen's plan to restore balance is to destroy Strahd, free as many Barovians as will willingly leave Barovia, and then murder everyone who remains to deprive the Dark Powers of their souls. He can't tell anyone because of the geas!
-Wizard has fallen in love with Mordenkainen, she actually combed her hair for the first time in her life
-Wizard died and became a Wraith
-Warlock arranged a marriage between Arabelle and Rogue with the Vistani (she's a Vistani too). Rogue (Barovian noble) wasn't asked his opinion on this and was pretty surprised to find out. Arabelle was happy she never has to actually get married for real (she's a kid so she's just thinking of this in terms of how much freedom it gives her going forward, since Rogue doesn't even like girls). Ghostwizard and Bard gave sisterly judgement to warlock for her naked attempts to usurp control of the Tasque by proxy.
-Arrigal is now suspiciously stalking rogue to make sure this is just a political marriage. He brought his good poisons.
-Rogue still hasn't told anyone he's a vampire.
-The party purchased a bird cage to put Arabelle in, to stop her from going on mindless lawful good rampages after she goes to sleep and turns into a raven
-Mordenkainen's memories were restored and he put a Geas on the party's rogue to be his agent
-Rogue found out Mordenkainen's plan to restore balance is to destroy Strahd, free as many Barovians as will willingly leave Barovia, and then murder everyone who remains to deprive the Dark Powers of their souls. He can't tell anyone because of the geas!
-Wizard has fallen in love with Mordenkainen, she actually combed her hair for the first time in her life
-Wizard died and became a Wraith
-Warlock arranged a marriage between Arabelle and Rogue with the Vistani (she's a Vistani too). Rogue (Barovian noble) wasn't asked his opinion on this and was pretty surprised to find out. Arabelle was happy she never has to actually get married for real. Ghostwizard and Bard gave sisterly judgement to warlock for her naked attempts to usurp control of the Tasque by proxy.
-Arrigal is now suspiciously stalking rogue to make sure this is just a political marriage. He brought his good poisons.
-Rogue still hasn't told anyone he's a vampire.
a very eventful two hour session
Two hours? Fuck, our party can't even put their pants on in two hours, I'm glad if we see combat once by the end of the 6 hour session.
-The party purchased a bird cage to put Arabelle in, to stop her from going on mindless lawful good rampages after she goes to sleep and turns into a raven
-Mordenkainen's memories were restored and he put a Geas on the party's rogue to be his agent
-Rogue found out Mordenkainen's plan to restore balance is to destroy Strahd, free as many Barovians as will willingly leave Barovia, and then murder everyone who remains to deprive the Dark Powers of their souls. He can't tell anyone because of the geas!
-Wizard has fallen in love with Mordenkainen, she actually combed her hair for the first time in her life
-Wizard died and became a Wraith
-Warlock arranged a marriage between Arabelle and Rogue with the Vistani (she's a Vistani too). Rogue (Barovian noble) wasn't asked his opinion on this and was pretty surprised to find out. Arabelle was happy she never has to actually get married for real. Ghostwizard and Bard gave sisterly judgement to warlock for her naked attempts to usurp control of the Tasque by proxy.
-Arrigal is now suspiciously stalking rogue to make sure this is just a political marriage. He brought his good poisons.
-Rogue still hasn't told anyone he's a vampire.
a very eventful two hour session
Two hours? Fuck, our party can't even put their pants on in two hours, I'm glad if we see combat once by the end of the 6 hour session.
That brings up a question I have. I've noticed my players sometimes get caught up in discussing what the plan of action will be for a certain thing. Like, "we suspect there's an NPC in this building and we want to get to them so we can talk to them" for instance. How do they get inside the building? One player will suggest sneaking in the back, one player will suggest tricking the guards to go in the front, one player will suggest blasting a hole in a wall and going in that way. And then they sit and talk about it for a really long time trying to decide and have a lot of trouble picking an option! In order to keep things moving, how can I as the DM try to push them into making a decision?
I struggle most with motivating players to get out of the planning stages. Sometimes I just have to pull the trigger and have an outside event force them into action earlier than expected so they have to move move move.
I like to lightly sprinkle in a few suggested plans that are not firm (eg: contact might tell them that the serving staff all took ill and nobody recognizes the faces of the replacements, or that the guard in the east tower has a gambling debt)
this invariably results with them coming up with something convoluted and just blowing everything up anyway
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Options
joshgotroDeviled EggThe Land of REAL CHILIRegistered Userregular
edited September 2020
Me as a DM.
"You guys have three options. Start punching, start running, or get punched...10, 9, 8, 7, 6..."
Me as a player.
"I slowly walk down the hallway, taking a moment to kick in each door, look into the room, then continue on down the hallway."
Edit: My players are 80/20 fighting(exploring/roleplay). I spend more time describing map terrain than anything else in a given session.
Also have you ever seen three men get excited about the words waist height at the same time?
I run, and try to play, like the game is a guilty pleasure TV show that’s gonna get canned after two seasons. You’re having a planning scene, so it needs to be 1/8 of the episode’s run time. You can rarely do a talky episode, but action should take the priority.
I mean unless you’re particularly playing politicians in space manage the colony or dying elven lords debate leaving the world for good.
I generally do it by giving players five to ten minutes to shoot the shizz, then ask each player a leading question. After I get all the answers I tell them their plan, and wait for them to put in corrections. Everyone gets a say in the plan that way, and it’s generally agreed upon by me being firm about it.
Correction to my COS summary, they have to put arabelle into a bird cage becase she gave 1400 of the party's gold to the orphanage in Vallaki during the last forced transformation into a raven, she just (with some effort) flew away with the bag into the night
Picture the scene: You are the matron of the orphanage of St Andral. It is a dark and stormy night. Lightning illuminates your room and you see a form over your bed. You scream, thinking the devil has come for you, but no... it's...
a crazy-eyed naked 8 year old with a sack. "Money for the orphanage" she says with a thick vistani accent, pouring it out. another flash and she is gone, replaced by a bird struggling to drag a bag (now emptied of gold) back out the open window
Such is the nightmarish curse of the wereraven, you lose yourself to lawful goodness
-The party purchased a bird cage to put Arabelle in, to stop her from going on mindless lawful good rampages after she goes to sleep and turns into a raven
-Mordenkainen's memories were restored and he put a Geas on the party's rogue to be his agent
-Rogue found out Mordenkainen's plan to restore balance is to destroy Strahd, free as many Barovians as will willingly leave Barovia, and then murder everyone who remains to deprive the Dark Powers of their souls. He can't tell anyone because of the geas!
-Wizard has fallen in love with Mordenkainen, she actually combed her hair for the first time in her life
-Wizard died and became a Wraith
-Warlock arranged a marriage between Arabelle and Rogue with the Vistani (she's a Vistani too). Rogue (Barovian noble) wasn't asked his opinion on this and was pretty surprised to find out. Arabelle was happy she never has to actually get married for real. Ghostwizard and Bard gave sisterly judgement to warlock for her naked attempts to usurp control of the Tasque by proxy.
-Arrigal is now suspiciously stalking rogue to make sure this is just a political marriage. He brought his good poisons.
-Rogue still hasn't told anyone he's a vampire.
a very eventful two hour session
Two hours? Fuck, our party can't even put their pants on in two hours, I'm glad if we see combat once by the end of the 6 hour session.
That brings up a question I have. I've noticed my players sometimes get caught up in discussing what the plan of action will be for a certain thing. Like, "we suspect there's an NPC in this building and we want to get to them so we can talk to them" for instance. How do they get inside the building? One player will suggest sneaking in the back, one player will suggest tricking the guards to go in the front, one player will suggest blasting a hole in a wall and going in that way. And then they sit and talk about it for a really long time trying to decide and have a lot of trouble picking an option! In order to keep things moving, how can I as the DM try to push them into making a decision?
Blades in the Dark kind of side steps this by just having you pick a style of approach, stealthy or violent or talky, roll some dice and from the result decide how things went. Getting too far into nitty gritty of planning just slows things down and is usually the case of the blind leading the blind IMO. Unless you or parts of your RPG crew are actual buglers you're just approximating amateur's ideas in an entirely imaginary setting.
i bought a bunch of feywild stuff from DMsguild but I'm just upset at how infrequently wizards puts out books, but they are a super tiny team
I think a part of the problem is that Dragon+ is a very poor replacement for the magazines. DMs Guild is probably the actual intended replacement for the old magazines in terms of player and DM content, but barring releases that current and former official D&D team members and contributors have had a hand in the content on DMsGuild feels less legitimate. Back in the day only a handful of submissions were approved, and those that made it in were subject to editing before being presented alongside cool artwork and professional graphic design in an official context. As it is now there's lots of content of varying quality in terms of writing, mechanics, and visual presentation.
For example, Ned Turner's Lords & Ladies has an incredibly generic yet decent bit of cover artwork of a fairy princess that would look equally at home on a short storybook for young children (I guess that could be the point, but it doesn't look like the cover to a D&D product and the character isn't recognizable as anyone detailed within). There's no interior art pieces (no art is better than bad art, at least), the concepts are interesting and tries in places to fit older concepts into established 5E lore (bringing back a lot of 4E archfey, including my somewhat obscure fave the Sovereign Elk, as well as re-casting the pre-4E eladrin as sidhe that are closer to the "primal elves" described in 5E's Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes), but I can't speak to the quality of the mechanical design because I'm not really an expert in evaluating such things (although the Sovereign Elk's "Titanic Size" trait, which specifies "Any attack made against Sovereign Elk from below 20 feet deals half damage", raises an eyebrow).
Much the same could also be said about Blood War Compendium 1: Generals of the Abyss (which I just noticed is also by Ned Turner) save for the fact that the cover is much better and clearly features one of the demon lords detailed in the book. A neat detail about this one is that it includes suggestions for integrating its content into Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus.
Sean McGovern's Emirikol's Guide to Devils is one my favorite DMsGuild product so far. At nearly 250 pages it is a massive tome, and it's filled with lore that has been gleaned from throughout D&D history and amalgamated into one body that combines Planescape's Ancient Baatorians with 3E's Pact Primeval with 4E's origin for Asmodeus and devils (this unfortunately means it conflicts quite a bit with official 5E lore, but the book came out before even Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes). Its cover is superior to those of Ned Turner's previously mentioned publications, but the interior art pieces are more of a mixed bag (the opening of the book credits every piece in the book to its artist, btw). None are as good as the cover, and a few are kinda bad. The writing quality isn't that great in some places, unfortunately ("The realm we know today as the Nine Hells is also known as Baator. Before the devils arrived, creatures known as the baatorians dominated the plane They had a hierarchy much like modern devils do."). The author is primarily concerned with getting the ideas across rather than evocatively describing them. However, if you want a centralized source of information about devils and named dukes and archdukes that incorporates lore from all pre-5E editions there is no better resource. Want to know how long an ice devil has to serve before being promoted to a pit fiend? Want to know the various Ministries, like the Ministry of Mortal Relations, and who runs which? Want to know who is in Archduke Mammon's court? Want to know what alcohol devils drink? Want to learn about devils from editions gone by like dogai, hellchain weavers, indwelling devils, kalabons, hellforged devils, and xerfilstyx? Want to learn about individual devils who were only ever mentioned in one section of one book in the entirety of D&D history (such as Mammon's daughter Baelzra, who only existed for a sample combat encounter in Avernus in 4E's The Plane Above)? This is the ultimate source. It could definitely be refined and I'd expect better writing quality out of an official book, but as a collection of Infernal lore drawing from official sources (the most useful of which are noted in the opening pages) it is unparalleled.
Emirikol's guide to devils is wonderful and I've been looking for a reasonably priced place I can get my PDF of it printed
Talking/Planning too much is a big problem at my tables....but it seems like the players are having fun so I let it go most of the time. When I start to get bored as a DM I push things along, but as long as they're having fun I let 'em. And I also reward them for good planning as the situation warrants it.
My Dungeon Dad's group, while back in Phandelver, were strategizing about how to take on the young green lairing in Thundertree. They spoke for an hour about how to take it on and what if scenarios and contingencies and where the cleric will be in case someone goes down. I mean, they did a hell of a job. So I rewarded their planning by having everything go their way. Some lucky saves vs the breath weapon and some unlucky rolls by me to have it come backs meant that the group was very proud of themselves for taking down a dragon at 3rd level. And they should have been!
-The party purchased a bird cage to put Arabelle in, to stop her from going on mindless lawful good rampages after she goes to sleep and turns into a raven
-Mordenkainen's memories were restored and he put a Geas on the party's rogue to be his agent
-Rogue found out Mordenkainen's plan to restore balance is to destroy Strahd, free as many Barovians as will willingly leave Barovia, and then murder everyone who remains to deprive the Dark Powers of their souls. He can't tell anyone because of the geas!
-Wizard has fallen in love with Mordenkainen, she actually combed her hair for the first time in her life
-Wizard died and became a Wraith
-Warlock arranged a marriage between Arabelle and Rogue with the Vistani (she's a Vistani too). Rogue (Barovian noble) wasn't asked his opinion on this and was pretty surprised to find out. Arabelle was happy she never has to actually get married for real. Ghostwizard and Bard gave sisterly judgement to warlock for her naked attempts to usurp control of the Tasque by proxy.
-Arrigal is now suspiciously stalking rogue to make sure this is just a political marriage. He brought his good poisons.
-Rogue still hasn't told anyone he's a vampire.
a very eventful two hour session
Two hours? Fuck, our party can't even put their pants on in two hours, I'm glad if we see combat once by the end of the 6 hour session.
That brings up a question I have. I've noticed my players sometimes get caught up in discussing what the plan of action will be for a certain thing. Like, "we suspect there's an NPC in this building and we want to get to them so we can talk to them" for instance. How do they get inside the building? One player will suggest sneaking in the back, one player will suggest tricking the guards to go in the front, one player will suggest blasting a hole in a wall and going in that way. And then they sit and talk about it for a really long time trying to decide and have a lot of trouble picking an option! In order to keep things moving, how can I as the DM try to push them into making a decision?
This is probably my biggest obstacle to really liking Critical Role. They can go for quite a while riffing on various plans of action, with a fairly recent example involving multiple elaborate schemes for dealing with an obstacle that ended up being much easier to solve than they expected.
I don't really have an answer for you. Luckily I've always had at least one player who ends up taking charge if deliberations go on too long, usually resulting in whatever was proposed last being what happens.
-The party purchased a bird cage to put Arabelle in, to stop her from going on mindless lawful good rampages after she goes to sleep and turns into a raven
-Mordenkainen's memories were restored and he put a Geas on the party's rogue to be his agent
-Rogue found out Mordenkainen's plan to restore balance is to destroy Strahd, free as many Barovians as will willingly leave Barovia, and then murder everyone who remains to deprive the Dark Powers of their souls. He can't tell anyone because of the geas!
-Wizard has fallen in love with Mordenkainen, she actually combed her hair for the first time in her life
-Wizard died and became a Wraith
-Warlock arranged a marriage between Arabelle and Rogue with the Vistani (she's a Vistani too). Rogue (Barovian noble) wasn't asked his opinion on this and was pretty surprised to find out. Arabelle was happy she never has to actually get married for real. Ghostwizard and Bard gave sisterly judgement to warlock for her naked attempts to usurp control of the Tasque by proxy.
-Arrigal is now suspiciously stalking rogue to make sure this is just a political marriage. He brought his good poisons.
-Rogue still hasn't told anyone he's a vampire.
a very eventful two hour session
Two hours? Fuck, our party can't even put their pants on in two hours, I'm glad if we see combat once by the end of the 6 hour session.
That brings up a question I have. I've noticed my players sometimes get caught up in discussing what the plan of action will be for a certain thing. Like, "we suspect there's an NPC in this building and we want to get to them so we can talk to them" for instance. How do they get inside the building? One player will suggest sneaking in the back, one player will suggest tricking the guards to go in the front, one player will suggest blasting a hole in a wall and going in that way. And then they sit and talk about it for a really long time trying to decide and have a lot of trouble picking an option! In order to keep things moving, how can I as the DM try to push them into making a decision?
Tell them, out of character, that just doing what their character would do makes for more interesting stories. If they’re planning they need to plan diagetically. So the rogue can sneak in the back while the fighter tricks the guards and the wizard blasts a hole in the wall if they want. Or any one of them can wait to see how things play out before doing their plan.
On this construction encounters usually go “I do x” “wait let me do y first” -> OK y happens or No I did it -> x happens.
If this doesn’t fix things have someone interrupt them while they’re talking. The guards come over and ask why you need to sneak in the back of blow a hole in the wall.
Planning can work if it’s a session devoted to it and the objective is sufficiently complicated. But players should not want to plan “an” encounter. They should plan their assault on the vampires castle. But everything else? Nah.
I always try to contrive to have an NPC near my players whenever they're planning something so I can interject to try to get them to focus
but them planning things is always a great time for me to readjust my plans to deal with the fact that like, say, the rogue has just a vistani princess and the warlock is planning to kill the leaders of the Vistani tasque so that the Rogue ends up in charge of it so she can manipulate him into putting her in charge
or, i dunno, giving Tatyana to Strahd and convincing him to woo her for 30 days before the wedding so they can roam around collecting loot unmolested
My gaming group has fully realized out faults. When asked how we handle a situation one of us will usually chime in with, "We're going to debate different strategies and plans for an hour and then we're going to charge in the front door." It hasn't stopped us from acting them out, but at least we realize we're doing it.
I thought it would be fun to have my Paladin/Warlock be paranoid and almost compulsively secretive/deceptive as a character flaw due to her background as basically an (ex) holy assassin for something that pretended to be a well-intentioned deity (and still whispers unwanted kill orders to her for targets that would cause some short-term utilitarian good if they died, regardless of whether they deserve it or the long-term consequences).
Unfortunately, the other party members don't push back much, so we sometimes get caught up in elaborate overplanning for a betrayal or trap that never manifests.
Of course, positive side, the party seems nearly clairvoyant in terms of sussing out the betrayals and traps when they are coming.
So if anyone's interested, later this year after Tasha's comes out and I have my own copy, I wanna run a Mega-Dungeon.
Start at level 3, and just go on an epic dungeon crawl. One use long rest spots, crazy teleporting shop keepers for that rougelike feel, traps, skill challenges, and populating the entire thing using my grand beast generator.
So keep an eye out for me recruiting when it's time for that
So I just asked a player of mine, who’s post is above me here, to roll 1d52. I call that a DM milestone.
Important update: The deck has temporarily inversed the color of my character's skin, hair and eyes. Additionally her highest and lowest ability modifiers have swapped around.
So she currently has 8 in int, rather than 18. On the literal flipside, she now has 18 in Charsima.
I have, of course, immediately drawn 2 more cards on grounds of my character is currently a moron (At least by the heady hights of her previous int score)
Thankfully, all of this is temporary!
Edit: Further update: I now have 20 charisma until my next short rest.
So I just asked a player of mine, who’s post is above me here, to roll 1d52. I call that a DM milestone.
Important update: The deck has temporarily inversed the color of my character's skin, hair and eyes. Additionally her highest and lowest ability modifiers have swapped around.
So she currently has 8 in int, rather than 18. On the literal flipside, she now has 18 in Charsima.
I have, of course, immediately drawn 2 more cards on grounds of my character is currently a moron (At least by the heady hights of her previous int score)
Thankfully, all of this is temporary!
Edit: Further update: I now have 20 charisma until my next short rest.
So I just asked a player of mine, who’s post is above me here, to roll 1d52. I call that a DM milestone.
Important update: The deck has temporarily inversed the color of my character's skin, hair and eyes. Additionally her highest and lowest ability modifiers have swapped around.
So she currently has 8 in int, rather than 18. On the literal flipside, she now has 18 in Charsima.
I have, of course, immediately drawn 2 more cards on grounds of my character is currently a moron (At least by the heady hights of her previous int score)
Thankfully, all of this is temporary!
Edit: Further update: I now have 20 charisma until my next short rest.
I just made stats for a unique fiendish duergar NPC with a backstory tailored to secretly toying with the dwarf PC. Basically, the dwarf's adopted father killed both the duergar's father and later defeated a pit fiend decades ago, and now the devil (which was demoted all the way down to a horned devil for its failure) has found out about the duergar and supplied her with a unique Infernal contract that turned her into basically a duergar cambion. The Dwarf PC is a cleric of redemption, and the duergar is going to lie and say she wants to atone for her evil ways without letting the PC know her true motivations or the fact that she's already become a fiend whose soul belongs to the Hells.
I'm curious how this will play out. Maybe the duergar will eventually reveal she's sold her soul and the good cleric of redemption will nobly offer her soul to the Hells in an exchange to free the duergar's...only for the duergar to immediately sell her soul back to the Hells for even greater power. Maybe the Dwarf PC's deity will intervene at the last second to warn her follower of the duergar's trickery, or maybe she'll have to discover a way to win her soul back.
What's the player etiquette on reading monster stats at table while you're fighting that monster? Its bad form, yes? Uncool. Uncouth, even. I did not appreciate it.
My party was fighting ghosts and two of them were possessed. At least two of the players are following along in the SKT module we are playing using DnDBeyond & Roll20 and reading the description of how the possession works and second guessing me on which stats I was using to make save, the ghosts or the players. (I rolled a 19 on the die vs DC14. I don't care who's stats say +1 or +2). And then I got a tiny bit of sass back when I called him out on it. Last session I was reading something from the book and another one of them says, "I can just read it from the book here on the site."
What's the player etiquette on reading monster stats at table while you're fighting that monster? Its bad form, yes? Uncool. Uncouth, even. I did not appreciate it.
My party was fighting ghosts and two of them were possessed. At least two of the players are following along in the SKT module we are playing using DnDBeyond & Roll20 and reading the description of how the possession works and second guessing me on which stats I was using to make save, the ghosts or the players. (I rolled a 19 on the die vs DC14. I don't care who's stats say +1 or +2). And then I got a tiny bit of sass back when I called him out on it. Last session I was reading something from the book and another one of them says, "I can just read it from the book here on the site."
These motherfuckers are getting on my nerves!
Yeah, that seems a bit rude to me. Like, I get it, players wanna know, you know? But they should also understand and want to be conscious of the difference in player knowledge and character knowledge. I've been exposed to D&D most of my life, I'm a huge nerd that loves learning about fake creatures and places and stuff, but when one of my DMs unveils a creature that I recognize from their description, besides going "oh fuck" I don't tell my fellow players anything else about the creature, and I don't automatically have my character go for it's weak point or whatever. It's just polite, and also it's cool for me to watch my fellow players try and figure out what the creature is and what it does.
I'd ask those players to please not do that in the future, or at least try and keep the difference between player and character knowledge in mind and have their characters act accordingly. If they don't, take a monster that's obviously one thing and then give it a completely different set of stats and/or abilities that completely catch those assholes off guard. A troll that can petrify with their gaze, a beholder that teleport and burrows underground, a fuckin lava monster that summons lightning, a huge ogre that crushes them with psychic duels, stuff like that. Get em to eat shit and fuck off with that kind of nonsense.
If all else fails, use @The Zombie Penguins random beast generator and really fuck with em
What's the player etiquette on reading monster stats at table while you're fighting that monster? Its bad form, yes? Uncool. Uncouth, even. I did not appreciate it.
My party was fighting ghosts and two of them were possessed. At least two of the players are following along in the SKT module we are playing using DnDBeyond & Roll20 and reading the description of how the possession works and second guessing me on which stats I was using to make save, the ghosts or the players. (I rolled a 19 on the die vs DC14. I don't care who's stats say +1 or +2). And then I got a tiny bit of sass back when I called him out on it. Last session I was reading something from the book and another one of them says, "I can just read it from the book here on the site."
These motherfuckers are getting on my nerves!
What's their Intelligence or Knowledge stat? Not good enough? Suck it up buttercup you don't know anything.
They are treating it as a video game and they have a strategy guide. Your choices probably boil down to having a conversation about metaknowledge and the separation of character and player, Or prey on expectations and use those to lure them to their doom.
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My campaign currently is centered in the ruins of a labyrinthian minotaur civilization destroyed when a cult of Baphomet caused most of the population to succumb to his maddening influence. Inspired now by that let's read I want to add another established adventuring group to the ruins that follows Gwynharwyf and seeks to eliminate any lingering trace of Baphomet's influence.
Anyone familiar with Barbarians have build suggestions for 8th-level versions of these guys? I'd like the ones who aren't multiclassed into a "divine class" (paladin and celestial warlock) to be Path of the Zealot Barbarians if possible since they're all drawing from Gwynharwyf, but the divine ones could have another Barbarian subclass.
I might try to make the two humanoid minotaurs tonight.
I was very happy to discover that the Satyr Bard I'll be playing in an upcoming Theros game no longer has to spend a spell slot on Unseen Servant! Now my travelling troubadour can have accompaniment on the drums at his gigs without having to use up precious daily resources! Yay!
DM Lesson learned: Read the shit before you say, "Yeah, sure. Sounds cool." because my player cheesed the fuck out of the Sacrifice rules there. 1) They got a Limited Wish by rolling on the table of boons. 2) The farmed so much liquid pain, that the Artificers they killed, turned into Wights and then put to work in the Necromancer's lab had PLENTY of materials with which to use when enchanting the gear they put on the rest of the undead horde.
Gawddamnit. I look back on the campaign as the most successful one I have ever run and I equally look back at that campaign as the source of so many of my never again lessons learned.
My IRL campaign I play an Wiz/Artifacer.
The infusion system seems nice on the surface but after digging in more, it's hard to not just use the base bonuses instead of magic item creation. Maybe once your party is higher level, some of the base bonuses are less important and you can play with magic items, but so far I just have a list of things I'd love to create (even more so if your DM allows Xanathar's list), but can't do it because the +1 to AC and +1 to my spell attacks is just too good to give up yet
That's sort of my issue with it, in fact! Though, i also just find the Replicate Magic Item very awkard in general, and that it begs a lot of questions. Like what happens when you uninfuse a bag of holding? are the items lost?
Personally if i was hacking it apart, this is my instinct on how to redo it:
Split it up into Upgrades and Gadgets
Upgrades are where stuff like Enhanced Arcane Focus etc go. You start with a couple of those, you can have a very limited number active, and they switch on a long rest.
Gadgets are weak, spell-like effects (Gain dark vision for a bit, add an electro-zapper to your melee weapon to give it some extra oompf when you hit someone once, that sort of thing). You learn more of these in general, and can assemble them during a short rest.
Ideally, i'd tag each gadget with various crafting kits, and you'd need proficney in those to make each daget (And possibly gain a scaling bonus as well)
Idea would be Upgrades lets you get the cool, long term bonuses, and gives that sense of Artifcers being able to get MORE out of their equipment than other people. While Gadgets let you play in the crafting up a soloution/whipping up useful items for the party space.
Replicate Magic Item i'm not sure how to handle -i'm not super fond of it myself, but it's obviously a big thing for other people.
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Does mayo taste like goblin cum, or do you imagine goblin cum tastes like mayo? I think phrasing here might be important. Or not. You're free to roleplay up that aspect of your character, as my DM would say.
-The party purchased a bird cage to put Arabelle in, to stop her from going on mindless lawful good rampages after she goes to sleep and turns into a raven
-Mordenkainen's memories were restored and he put a Geas on the party's rogue to be his agent
-Rogue found out Mordenkainen's plan to restore balance is to destroy Strahd, free as many Barovians as will willingly leave Barovia, and then murder everyone who remains to deprive the Dark Powers of their souls. He can't tell anyone because of the geas!
-Wizard has fallen in love with Mordenkainen, she actually combed her hair for the first time in her life
-Wizard died and became a Wraith
-Warlock arranged a marriage between Arabelle and Rogue with the Vistani (she's a Vistani too). Rogue (Barovian noble) wasn't asked his opinion on this and was pretty surprised to find out. Arabelle was happy she never has to actually get married for real (she's a kid so she's just thinking of this in terms of how much freedom it gives her going forward, since Rogue doesn't even like girls). Ghostwizard and Bard gave sisterly judgement to warlock for her naked attempts to usurp control of the Tasque by proxy.
-Arrigal is now suspiciously stalking rogue to make sure this is just a political marriage. He brought his good poisons.
-Rogue still hasn't told anyone he's a vampire.
a very eventful two hour session
This has saved the party more than once. Though unfortunately the Mayo isn’t unlimited.
Also the decanter of endless water just like... totally wrecked half a dungeon of fire elementals.
That brings up a question I have. I've noticed my players sometimes get caught up in discussing what the plan of action will be for a certain thing. Like, "we suspect there's an NPC in this building and we want to get to them so we can talk to them" for instance. How do they get inside the building? One player will suggest sneaking in the back, one player will suggest tricking the guards to go in the front, one player will suggest blasting a hole in a wall and going in that way. And then they sit and talk about it for a really long time trying to decide and have a lot of trouble picking an option! In order to keep things moving, how can I as the DM try to push them into making a decision?
I like to lightly sprinkle in a few suggested plans that are not firm (eg: contact might tell them that the serving staff all took ill and nobody recognizes the faces of the replacements, or that the guard in the east tower has a gambling debt)
this invariably results with them coming up with something convoluted and just blowing everything up anyway
"You guys have three options. Start punching, start running, or get punched...10, 9, 8, 7, 6..."
Me as a player.
"I slowly walk down the hallway, taking a moment to kick in each door, look into the room, then continue on down the hallway."
Edit: My players are 80/20 fighting(exploring/roleplay). I spend more time describing map terrain than anything else in a given session.
Also have you ever seen three men get excited about the words waist height at the same time?
I mean unless you’re particularly playing politicians in space manage the colony or dying elven lords debate leaving the world for good.
I generally do it by giving players five to ten minutes to shoot the shizz, then ask each player a leading question. After I get all the answers I tell them their plan, and wait for them to put in corrections. Everyone gets a say in the plan that way, and it’s generally agreed upon by me being firm about it.
Picture the scene: You are the matron of the orphanage of St Andral. It is a dark and stormy night. Lightning illuminates your room and you see a form over your bed. You scream, thinking the devil has come for you, but no... it's...
a crazy-eyed naked 8 year old with a sack. "Money for the orphanage" she says with a thick vistani accent, pouring it out. another flash and she is gone, replaced by a bird struggling to drag a bag (now emptied of gold) back out the open window
Such is the nightmarish curse of the wereraven, you lose yourself to lawful goodness
Blades in the Dark kind of side steps this by just having you pick a style of approach, stealthy or violent or talky, roll some dice and from the result decide how things went. Getting too far into nitty gritty of planning just slows things down and is usually the case of the blind leading the blind IMO. Unless you or parts of your RPG crew are actual buglers you're just approximating amateur's ideas in an entirely imaginary setting.
Emirikol's guide to devils is wonderful and I've been looking for a reasonably priced place I can get my PDF of it printed
My Dungeon Dad's group, while back in Phandelver, were strategizing about how to take on the young green lairing in Thundertree. They spoke for an hour about how to take it on and what if scenarios and contingencies and where the cleric will be in case someone goes down. I mean, they did a hell of a job. So I rewarded their planning by having everything go their way. Some lucky saves vs the breath weapon and some unlucky rolls by me to have it come backs meant that the group was very proud of themselves for taking down a dragon at 3rd level. And they should have been!
This is probably my biggest obstacle to really liking Critical Role. They can go for quite a while riffing on various plans of action, with a fairly recent example involving multiple elaborate schemes for dealing with an obstacle that ended up being much easier to solve than they expected.
I don't really have an answer for you. Luckily I've always had at least one player who ends up taking charge if deliberations go on too long, usually resulting in whatever was proposed last being what happens.
Tell them, out of character, that just doing what their character would do makes for more interesting stories. If they’re planning they need to plan diagetically. So the rogue can sneak in the back while the fighter tricks the guards and the wizard blasts a hole in the wall if they want. Or any one of them can wait to see how things play out before doing their plan.
On this construction encounters usually go “I do x” “wait let me do y first” -> OK y happens or No I did it -> x happens.
If this doesn’t fix things have someone interrupt them while they’re talking. The guards come over and ask why you need to sneak in the back of blow a hole in the wall.
Planning can work if it’s a session devoted to it and the objective is sufficiently complicated. But players should not want to plan “an” encounter. They should plan their assault on the vampires castle. But everything else? Nah.
but them planning things is always a great time for me to readjust my plans to deal with the fact that like, say, the rogue has just a vistani princess and the warlock is planning to kill the leaders of the Vistani tasque so that the Rogue ends up in charge of it so she can manipulate him into putting her in charge
or, i dunno, giving Tatyana to Strahd and convincing him to woo her for 30 days before the wedding so they can roam around collecting loot unmolested
Comics, Games, Booze
Unfortunately, the other party members don't push back much, so we sometimes get caught up in elaborate overplanning for a betrayal or trap that never manifests.
Of course, positive side, the party seems nearly clairvoyant in terms of sussing out the betrayals and traps when they are coming.
Start at level 3, and just go on an epic dungeon crawl. One use long rest spots, crazy teleporting shop keepers for that rougelike feel, traps, skill challenges, and populating the entire thing using my grand beast generator.
So keep an eye out for me recruiting when it's time for that
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Gear is 110% going to use it because our favourite tiny robot Artificer is many things but thinking stuff through is not one of them.
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Important update: The deck has temporarily inversed the color of my character's skin, hair and eyes. Additionally her highest and lowest ability modifiers have swapped around.
So she currently has 8 in int, rather than 18. On the literal flipside, she now has 18 in Charsima.
I have, of course, immediately drawn 2 more cards on grounds of my character is currently a moron (At least by the heady hights of her previous int score)
Thankfully, all of this is temporary!
Edit: Further update: I now have 20 charisma until my next short rest.
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She's just now a moron? 🤔🤔🤔
CRITICAL HIT!
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
the warlock did a Tarokka reading on whether or not it was a good idea to try and propose to arrigal, the evil vistani assassin
I showed her a vision of Arrigal with some children attending her funeral with a smirk on his face
She went and proposed to him
I'm curious how this will play out. Maybe the duergar will eventually reveal she's sold her soul and the good cleric of redemption will nobly offer her soul to the Hells in an exchange to free the duergar's...only for the duergar to immediately sell her soul back to the Hells for even greater power. Maybe the Dwarf PC's deity will intervene at the last second to warn her follower of the duergar's trickery, or maybe she'll have to discover a way to win her soul back.
My party was fighting ghosts and two of them were possessed. At least two of the players are following along in the SKT module we are playing using DnDBeyond & Roll20 and reading the description of how the possession works and second guessing me on which stats I was using to make save, the ghosts or the players. (I rolled a 19 on the die vs DC14. I don't care who's stats say +1 or +2). And then I got a tiny bit of sass back when I called him out on it. Last session I was reading something from the book and another one of them says, "I can just read it from the book here on the site."
These motherfuckers are getting on my nerves!
Yeah, that seems a bit rude to me. Like, I get it, players wanna know, you know? But they should also understand and want to be conscious of the difference in player knowledge and character knowledge. I've been exposed to D&D most of my life, I'm a huge nerd that loves learning about fake creatures and places and stuff, but when one of my DMs unveils a creature that I recognize from their description, besides going "oh fuck" I don't tell my fellow players anything else about the creature, and I don't automatically have my character go for it's weak point or whatever. It's just polite, and also it's cool for me to watch my fellow players try and figure out what the creature is and what it does.
I'd ask those players to please not do that in the future, or at least try and keep the difference between player and character knowledge in mind and have their characters act accordingly. If they don't, take a monster that's obviously one thing and then give it a completely different set of stats and/or abilities that completely catch those assholes off guard. A troll that can petrify with their gaze, a beholder that teleport and burrows underground, a fuckin lava monster that summons lightning, a huge ogre that crushes them with psychic duels, stuff like that. Get em to eat shit and fuck off with that kind of nonsense.
If all else fails, use @The Zombie Penguins random beast generator and really fuck with em
What's their Intelligence or Knowledge stat? Not good enough? Suck it up buttercup you don't know anything.
They are treating it as a video game and they have a strategy guide. Your choices probably boil down to having a conversation about metaknowledge and the separation of character and player, Or prey on expectations and use those to lure them to their doom.