The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
[D&D Discussion] 5th Edition HD Remaster Coming in 2024, Entering the Disney Vault in 2025
Denada
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Welcome to a land of epic battles…
brave heroes…
fearsome dragons…
and dangerous monsters.
In this thread, we talk about Dungeons & Dragons, one of the most well-known tabletop RPGs of all time. Its quality is debatable (and oh do we debate it, frequently), but no one can deny its popularity. It has spawned numerous editions, offshoots, play-alikes, and subgenres. We talk about all of that here. Chainmail, 1E, 2E, BECMI, 3E, 3.5E, 4E, 5E, Pathfinder, Starfinder, Gamma World, it’s all fair game because it’s all D&D or basically D&D. Also we just can’t help ourselves; trying to make this thread strictly about D&D 5E is a fool’s errand.
With that being said, 5E is the current version of D&D, is extremely popular, and is what most people are playing or want to play right now. With that in mind, here’s some possibly useful information about 5E:
What You can Get for Free
What You Can Buy if You Want
Where You Can Play
brave heroes…
fearsome dragons…
and dangerous monsters.
In this thread, we talk about Dungeons & Dragons, one of the most well-known tabletop RPGs of all time. Its quality is debatable (and oh do we debate it, frequently), but no one can deny its popularity. It has spawned numerous editions, offshoots, play-alikes, and subgenres. We talk about all of that here. Chainmail, 1E, 2E, BECMI, 3E, 3.5E, 4E, 5E, Pathfinder, Starfinder, Gamma World, it’s all fair game because it’s all D&D or basically D&D. Also we just can’t help ourselves; trying to make this thread strictly about D&D 5E is a fool’s errand.
With that being said, 5E is the current version of D&D, is extremely popular, and is what most people are playing or want to play right now. With that in mind, here’s some possibly useful information about 5E:
What You can Get for Free
- The 5E Basic Rules are available in both PDF and web versions. Note that these rules do not include all of the available character options, monsters, and other material. A free D&D Beyond account also has access to Basic Rules material.
- There is a 5E SRD. Same caveat applies about it not having everything. There are a lot of different versions of this out there, so just search engine it and use the one you like.
- There's an amazing OneNote notebook that contains all of the freely (and legally) available 5E content that was out there at the time it was last updated.
- There are a lot of character sheets, both official and unofficial. Pick one that makes sense to you. Yours truly just uses the standard one, but tastes vary.
- There's Dragon+, which is a free digital magazine. I've never read it so I don't know if it's any good.
- There are no full-content PDFs legally available.
What You Can Buy if You Want
- The Starter Set is generally considered to be a pretty good option if you want to dip your toe in. The included adventure is well-liked by most, though it has a few gotchas that can sometimes trip up unsuspecting groups.
- The Core Three books (Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual) are your standard initial investment.
- Most of the official adventures are somewhere on the scale of fine to great. Your mileage will vary depending on your group, but they're all at least okay if you don't want to write your own stuff.
- 5E content is available for purchase on a few different platforms. None of these digital purchases overlap, meaning if you buy into Fantasy Grounds, you'd have to pay again for Roll20 or D&D Beyond.
- The DMs Guild is a branded DriveThruRPG sub-site that's full of D&D content, both official and third-party. Some of it is free. Some of it might be good.
- Some companies produce accessories and other merch for D&D. These things can be nice to have, but aren't necessary for playing the game. Personally I like the spell cards, though they are a bit pricey.
- There are no full-content PDFs legally available.
Where You Can Play
- In-person with your friends is what most people want to do. The expected party size is one Dungeon Master with four Players. You can play with more or less players, and adjusting isn't really that hard. Really big groups can be hard to handle, but some DMs like them. If you want to (or have to) play as a duo of one player and one DM, go for it. It will be a different experience from "regular" D&D but it can be really fun.
- You can also play online if in-person sessions aren't going to work for you. Roll20 and Discord are the big players in that space, but really you just need a way to talk to each other and maybe share a screen if you want to use a map. There are lots of different ways to do that.
- Asynchronous online play can happen too, usually via PbP (Play-by-Post) games. We used to have a lot of those here in Critical Failures, but not so much anymore.
- If you don’t want to or can’t play yourself, Penny Arcade has Acquisitions Inc and the C Team for your viewing and/or listening pleasure. You can also watch a lot of other people play on Twitch, Youtube, and probably other platforms. If you prefer an audio format, there are many, many podcasts of people playing all sorts of games, D&D included.
D&D/d20 Discussion Thread | Bread Space | One Eldritch Summer | I Want to Save the World but I'm Just a Level 1 Skeleton
A duck! on
+2
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
So D&D Battle Royale?
Alan Moore hanging out with toad demons is the least weird thing on this page
Yes. That’s absolutely what it is.
Spoilers for the opening lines of the game:
“Ages ago the Plythmerians worshiped whatever they worshiped; Yilnarabi, Parthmarginus, Yonth, whatever name you want to attribute to the nameless, to the forgotten things a dead nation might care for. Like breath from a corpse, isn’t it? Yes.
Still, what there is, is a temple. Or so they say. A great hulking pyramid. Impenetrable, unscaleable—yet the doors are opening again, and here you are. The night of the pursuit is being rung in once more by a mercurial sky and a droplet of blood for a moon, distant, not a guide tonight. No.
Don’t tell me why you’re heading there. All the tales get tangled for one of my elderly disposition. Heroes, villains, fools and more have darkened my little abode, and I’ve enough darkness. You’re on the right path, trust me, you’ll get there alright. Ehehehe!”
Perhaps it was a hag in her hut, an owl with an elven face, the cat that isn’t, or the bleached bones of a mermaid in a shallow river. No matter. You steeled yourself to their gaze, their words, that mocking laughter. You marched on until your aching feet had carried you to the beckoning shimmer of starlight on blackest metal. The temple awaits. You enter, swallowed by its vastness, and the door behind you melts seamlessly into the walls.
What do you do?
Thank you for your potential participation!
Since there is no AC, as attacks always hit, what you wear grants you more HP.
I’m still tweaking, but I’m thinking:
Shield — Ignore one attack, then the shield is broken.
Padded — +6 HP, disadvantage to stealth checks
Leather — +5 HP
Studded — +7 HP
Hide — +8 HP
Chain — +9 HP
and so on, up to Plate being +15 HP.
Having a big bonus to HP is a good starting point, but it won’t be what endures your survival. In a lethal dungeon crawl having the skills to sense danger and figure out stuff will come in handy.
However, there will be a ton of magic items, so being able to wear certain armour will be beneficial in itself.
Drizzt was included as a wildcard and the party picked a fight with him for no reason so... they did not win
they did kill him, but he turned 4 out of 6 of them into cat food, after that the last two were killed by Giants guarding a lootbox
they just awoke a month later 600 miles from where they entered with notes congratulating them on their ranking and assuring them that none of that was real and they definitely were not clones
Images spoilered just in case they're huge (I'm posting from my phone):
The film's based on "The Legend of the White Snake" (a folktale dating back to at least the Ming Dynasty), and it's original title is "Báishé: Yuánqǐ" in pinyin. Pretty sure I know where D&D got the name and concept for the yuan-ti now.
EDIT: This scene here seems like great inspiration for a magic seller in the Feywild or something.
https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/UA2020_Subclasses04.pdf
College of Spirits and The Undead - seem pretty neat. Undead lets you go full frank franzeta undead knight, which is rocking.
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
Today I built a character without any homebrew content whatsoever. I feel I'm growing as a person.
So I've come up with Tash; a kobold ranger from the now defunct blue claw colony and protector of their most treasured artifact, the scale of a blue dragon that (inadvertently) saved them from a group of adventurers. Unlike my Aasimar paladin who was confident, diplomatic and optimistic, Tash is stressed out by the sudden loss of his colony and being surrounded by big folk whom he simultaneously doesn't trust but needs the support of.
Now I just need to decide whether he becomes a gloom stalker or a Monster hunter at level 3
the dragons have failed him, REVENGE
in otehr words i am very pro Monster Hunter here.
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
The joke is that the dragon "saved" them during the year of rogue dragons, wherein basically every dragon was succumbing to a dragon rage and this particular one had simply seen some adventurers and obliterated them before taking off, with the kobolds assuming that it did so because dragons are awesome.
Well, it clearly didnt do it this time, therefore, MONSTER HUNTING
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
But then, sometimes, the homebrew just lines up perfectly, doesn't it?
(Sources pictured: Old Gus' Heroes of the Multiverse + Old Gus' Errata: Beastfolk)
So I know I have been to busy or to tired to look it up where is the modern stuff in unearthed arcana in?
At first, Mini-dead seemed excited! She and the Mrs. started by levelling up. Mini dead picked 2 new spells (Thunderclap and Charm Person as I recall) and we resumed after we left off.
After successfully tracking down a band of kidnapping Kobolds and returning the stolen child to its mother, our duo returns to the town to find more clues concerning the mysterious bee disappearance. After rewarding them, the Captain of the Guard directs them towards the home of a local "kook" named Arven. The duo follows the Captain's directions and comes upon a strange multicolored-smoke-spewing house nestled behind some hills in the outlying area of the town. Upon approaching the strange house, they are stopped by what appeared to be a strange metal construct bearing a lance and shield. The duo attempted to reason with the creature, but it did not take long for them to realize that the creature was not sentient, and simply programmed to bar the passage. A successful perception check revealed that this creature was not very well built. A simple poke by CeeCee's spear causes it to simply fall to pieces immediately.
Upon the "destruction" of the automated sentry, a strange man emerges from the house, lambasting our heroes for destroying his property. Jerand successfully intimidates the gnome into calming down, after which point the duo explain what brought them to the tinkerer's house. They explain how animals have been mysteriously disappearing without a trace. Intrigued, the gnome, who is, of course, Arven, explains that he's been tracking odd bursts of magical energy in the area that may corroborate with the reported missing animals. Arven suspects this is some variation of teleportation or gating magic, though he has not yet pinpointed the source.
As it happens, Arven was planning to travel to nearby Oakhurst, where he hopes to meet up with some colleagues to discuss his findings. Arven offers to hire our Duo as bodyguards for the trip. Some of you may know Oakhurst as the staging area for the old school module "The Sunless Citadel". I decided to go ahead and run that campaign as I don't have the free time required to come up with a homebrew campaign of my own, especially considering that I'm not even sure how long Mini-dead will maintain interest.
It was at this point, however, that Mini-dead called an end to the proceedings.
Her: "Dad, I don't know why, but I don't feel like playing anymore"
Me: "Oh no, how come?"
Her: "I'm sad inside for some reason"
Me: "Did I say something to upset you?"
Her: "I don't know, but it started when we met the inventor"
Me: "Well ok honey, we can stop now"
and that was that.
So, I'm still not sure what exactly happened to upset her. I suspect that it might have been the fact that I portrayed Arven at being mad at Jerand and CeeCee for 'destroying' his robot, which might have made Mini-Dead feel like she was in trouble/I was yelling at her, but she doesn't want to show it because she knows, logically, that it's pretend, and that she's not really in trouble, but she can't help feeling upset just the same.
So, assuming she still wants to play after a time, I think this is a really important lesson when playing with kids. Children are far more sensitive to emotions than grown-ups are, even when they know everything is pretend, so I have to be really careful about introducing emotional elements to the game. I'm willing to bet that victories will feel super-sweet to kids, but sad and angry characters are likely to upset her all the more, so, assuming she comes back, I'll need to be very careful to really tone down angry/upset characters in the future if I hope to maintain her interest. I'll also have to be very careful to not linger on themes of death, even bad guy death, too much. I'll try to stick to Disney-deaths (enemies fall "off screen" or just poof into dust) and redemption arcs for enemies as much as possible, or keep bad guys really monstrous so their deaths don't hit too hard. Hopefully, it all turns out ok!
It was from way, way back.
https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/modern-magic
In the video he talks about modern weapons and stuff as well
I just know about it from the very 90's urban arcana book and the weapon one from that era
For those that were interested in my Battle Royale / race to the finish game, I’ll be creating a recruitment thread very soon, potentially after work today. So long as you are 1st level and of a reasonable race and class (I’ll trust you to pick), feel free to sign up!
I try to combat to neater set piece encounters and avoid random encounters almost entirely while we’re getting the ball rolling.
Story is fun, everyone seems to be enjoying it but the player who was most eager to play I cannot get to engage with the game.
We’re running it over discord, then streaming combat through a webcam. Everyone rolls their dice at home to keep things more exciting than just clicking a button.
But I can’t get him to engage or be proactive. He can be a bit passive outside of combat and tends to let the rest of group take the lead. And that’s fine, some people are like that. The bard, wizard and rogue are pretty good at discussing things and deciding on a path.
But this is just basic stuff like thinking his attack roll is the +10 it says on his sheet, then asking if he rolls a d20 for damage. This example has happened in multiple sessions. He’s a smart guy, which is why I put it down to disinterest.
He’s also the first one to pull out a phone when we have a board games night, which was why a phone ban was put in place and might be what’s happening here.
I’ve raised it with him, asking if he’s bored, doesn’t find his character fun to play and if there is anything I can do to help (like a cheat sheet or something but he swears there is nothing.
Anyone struggled with this before?
Ask him what he enjoys the most about the sessions. Also, what class is he playing?
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
It starts as a traditional high fantasy D&D game, until at some point your party finds out that the entire world is an artificial world and magic and the gods are really eccentric AIs that provide the effects of magic because they wanted to run a 10,000 year long social experiment, and the party is introduced to a group from a galactic civilization that is forbidden from directly interfering for political reasons, as are the "gods", but they want to break your world free of its artificially imposed technological stagnation, and yes this is just slamming The Culture and D&D together
I'm seriously considering this after I finish running Curse of Strahd but things often sound more interesting in my head than they do to others
I love that kind of thing, you have to make sure your players are on board though. I wouldn't necessarily be up for being surprised in it mid game. If you pitched that to me though, I'd be all on board.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
I think if at any point they get laser cannons and pump action giga-wands they’ll survive the shock.
That’s really cool though. It’d be even more interesting if all the AIs are fed back to a greater whole, so the good and evil gods oppose each other, but are still subordinate to the whole structure. Perhaps one good god (whatever the cleric, of you get one, goes for) switches to their side part way through the campaign.
If you wanted to layer the lore a bit, perhaps the AI are held in the middle of the planet, all those ‘ancient ruins guarded by monsters’ are the equivalent of the inside of an old computer.
Last thought, look up Endless Dungeon and Endless Space.
I'll put a bit more spit and polish, I don't want to give them specifics, but I will let them know it will get sci-fi later on
The structure will be similar to the book Matter, where a society of ~1910's people lived and warred in a lower level of a Shellworld that couldn't directly be interfered with because of a complicated web of politics as to which species controlled their sphere of influence
- The AIs that control the place were structured to literally believe they are gods, and they simply see the Involved civilizations as other gods, and the civ that created them as some kind of overdiety
- The Culture, being the sort of folks who object to humans being used as pawns, but who (put a lot of effort into appearing to) play nice, will have a presence on the world, but have to agree to play the part of wizards in towers or shining queens and kings in castles of some sort (think Silverymoon as being the kind of city controlled by the Culture), unless they want to start a war with the high level involved civilization that owns this sphere of space, they will have to go along with this charade and play by the rules
- Each player at some point in their backstory will have been given some unspecified "gift" by a member of the Culture, usually a fine bottle of some kind of wine or a magical talisman, the campaign will begin with the town they live in being overrun by soldiers using arquebus muskets of all things, a sudden technological leap recently realized by a neighboring city-state (someone isn't playing by the rules...)
- That gift they got? a neural lace, growing inside them, backing up their consciousness
- They will all find themselves overmatched and quite dead by the end of the first session (unless they escape, which, good for them, I'll plan for that contingency), and find themselves waking up in a VAI construct onboard a GSV with a doting mind offering to print them new bodies and a Contact agent contextualizing things for them, about how since they're natives they can reinsert them without breaking any rules.
- They'll get some kind of package of super secret squirrel contact stuff, a fake tooth that can be removed and unfold into a ridiculous gun that looks like a folded paperclip but fires a single shot burst of compressed antimatter that can annihilate a 20 foot sphere, a false thumbnail that displaces the entire party back to their headquarters, each item very carefully crafted to be undetectable and, as long as not used in quick succession, reading as "Spells" to the AIs overseeing things. Each item a single use get out of fucked card that a player gets.
- When shit gets hot around endgame and moves start being made overtly, break out the combat suits, rapid fire micro artillery, plasma lances, CAM displacers, gridfire line engines, wide dispersal lasers (for the spellcasters? well, the more area of effect weapons will use mental states to operate, not dexterity)
- Obvious question popping up, did The Culture's Special Circumstance Division oversee them being picked for Neural Laces, leak the gunpowder technology to their homeland's enemies, and make sure that they were targeted so that they could be recruited? Naaahh... right? They wouldn't do that, would they?
I anticipate a short length campaign, maybe 10 sessions
I think I'm going to schedule a one shot for Friday and run a proof of concept game to see how this skeleton works out
It was only going to be the epilogue, though - basically a way to introduce the idea of the wider 40k universe to the players, who were mainly new to Warhammer, and give the option of transitioning to Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader
That way I could keep the surprise, but it didn't railroad the players into a sci-fi game when they'd signed up for fantasy
The Alexandrian: Remixing Avernus
Spoilers for unique mechanics
Also make sure if any of your players are magic users and take flame based spells/cantrips that they have a method of changing them out/altering their elemental damage at some point.
For example my DM let me reflavor melf’s minute meteors into tiny tennis balls that do bludgeoning damage. (My character is a golden retriever. Its thematic).
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
@Smrtnik hard to say, the answer is "whoever would benefit from it most" which I'd determine based on the data at the table. Who would it actually help the most? The Barbarian probably has the HD to spend, but the ranged characters ideally are staying out of harm's way and don't take as much damage. So probably one of the other melee characters, but if the rogue is getting dropped constantly they're probably not gonna benefit as much from slow HP regen, but if the monk is never getting hit they won't need it either.
Gotta look at who doesn't seem to really need or benefit from spending HD/healing as often.