So later today I'm going to be doing a one shot with a level ten character (that will involve the deck of many things), and asked myself "hrrrrmm, what would be an ammusing bit of bullshittery to foist unto the GM? A real "if you only know one trick make it a good one" type?"
I came up with "bare assed" Bognella Blackiron, hill dwarf bear totem barbarian who has a constitution of 18, durable, tougness, and an ac of 18 with a shield strapped to her arm; as a result of all of this she has 145 hps (effectively 290 when she is raging). Thye icing on all of this is that she recovers a minimum of 9 hp every time she spends a hit die thanks to durable.
I intend to play this chaotic neutral dwarf in the veign of an irate middle aged woman from the australian outback who is incapable of going more then 3 sentences without spitting out some sort of profanity and ~much like the hulk~ is less of a hero then a force of nature directed towards unwitting victims by clever associates.
In response to @Gaddez , I have made a chaotic evil human wizard who is trying to always sell people real estate at the best possible price. The major problem with him? He has a very small chance of turning into his psychotic alternate personality who as soon as things go down, he shouts out "STEP ONE!!!" and launches a fire ball directly at the nearest enemy. And yes, the nearest enemy could be 5ft away from him and he will still do it.
So I got an email about a kick starter from EN5ider for books or pdfs containing 7 new classes and like 45 subclasses. the 7 sub-classes were all released on their patreon account and I was wondering if anyone had backed them and had any opinions about them. Unplayable, broken shit I could find better versions of on a dozen forums? Stuff that puts WoTCs stuff to shame? etc.
So I need some brainstorm material. One of my players is a Warlock with a fiend pact. The player had 2 sessions in a row where he was rolling straight garbage. I think he hit like 2-3 attacks out of 20+ attempts. After the second straight session of terrible rolls, the character ended up at the campfire with his head in his hands, wondering where he went wrong. In his dreams, he heard a voice ask if he needed help, to which he replied Yes, knowing that there would be a price to the help.
The very next session, the party runs up against a dragon. The warlock player's first three rolls in this combat: nat 20, nat 20, nat 19. I could not have asked for anything better than that. The dragon then swarmed the warlock, knocked him unconscious, and retreated. While unconscious, I had a separate conversation with the player about how he felt heat, danger, and need, and got the sense that payment is forthcoming. The player loved it.
Now, I'm at a loss for what the payoff should be. Anyone have any good ideas or places I can mine for ideas for a Fiend Patron and what they might ask the PC to do, or what price they might make the PC pay?
Diagnosed with AML on 6/1/12. Read about it: www.effleukemia.com
First stop and think about what sort of game you're running and what the players have in expectation for this sort of thing. The big question is if you'd really let him go Evil and how the other players (and sorta PCs) would react to the Warlock going capital E evil. Not much reason to actually tempt him much if you're not willing to follow through on it or if playing along just ends up in them having to retire their character or get ganked. (Assuming they're not fine with those outcomes.)
If you are down with it I would start with inaction. The Warlock knows something bad will happen to somebody and they can easily prevent it...or they just don't do anything. Bonus points if it is someone who sorta deserves it. Fiend just asks them to look the other way. Then the Fiend pushes for more overt actions based on covering up the previous action. Then you get him in so deep and they've already done such terrible things that it doesn't matter anymore does it?
First stop and think about what sort of game you're running and what the players have in expectation for this sort of thing. The big question is if you'd really let him go Evil and how the other players (and sorta PCs) would react to the Warlock going capital E evil. Not much reason to actually tempt him much if you're not willing to follow through on it or if playing along just ends up in them having to retire their character or get ganked. (Assuming they're not fine with those outcomes.)
If you are down with it I would start with inaction. The Warlock knows something bad will happen to somebody and they can easily prevent it...or they just don't do anything. Bonus points if it is someone who sorta deserves it. Fiend just asks them to look the other way. Then the Fiend pushes for more overt actions based on covering up the previous action. Then you get him in so deep and they've already done such terrible things that it doesn't matter anymore does it?
Ok, yeah, since we're playing on roll20, start out with a private message pushing for him to do something off, which becomes increasingly more difficult to resist, or increasingly effed up actions. I like that.
The group doesn't want to play with capital E evil players, so ultimately, I would play it as sort of a demonic possession type thing, where once it's overtly obvious the player character is under an offensive influence, the player and the party will have options on how to deal with that. Possibly with physical side effects that other characters could potentially notice - lengthening of horns, sharpening of nails/claws, etc. If they fail to notice / don't do anything, the player has mentioned in other conversations how it might be cool if a PC ends up having to leave the party, to eventually become a BBEG that the rest of the party must face down / potentially rescue. He's playing a character who is otherwise good, but once made a pact with an unknown force to save himself from death. He's seeking redemption from what that cost him, so it could be interesting to see him try to resist or fall further into the hole.
Diagnosed with AML on 6/1/12. Read about it: www.effleukemia.com
There's also a lot of wiggle room where you can have a player serving the ends of a devil without necessarily being evil. Unintended consequences are an obvious one - the fiend demands a payment that involves a task that does not appear to be overtly evil, and it's only after completing it that the player gets an indication that it caused something bad to happen. "Kill this monster (that's guarding a mcguffin that I want one of my other servants to fetch)", "Expose this corrupt priest (which will undermine faith in the local church of pelor and screw up their investigation into my fiend cult so I can operate freely)", "Destroy this dangerous artifact (which, while dangerous, was also one of the only things that could have stopped or bound me)", "Kill the servant of a rival fiend (so that I can take his territory)", that kind of thing.
Alternately you can do more explicit deal-with-the-devil fighting-evil-with-evil stuff - the fiend helps the party's good-aligned goals in exchange for a service somewhere else and hey is it really evil to help a devil if it serves the greater good? What's a little devil worship if you use the power it grants to kill two other devils? It probably cancels out!
As far as identities for the fiend, a devil works better than a demon if you're going for subtlety and manipulation. From there it probably depends on the dynamic you want. Asmodeus seems like the go-to if you want the fiend to be a Big Deal; Dispater, Belial, maybe Levistus might be a good choice if you want an archdevil without it being THE archdevil, and it might let you play up the fire-with-fire bit by having one of them working to unseat Asmodeus - it's a good way to play up the 'sure, you're serving an arch-devil, but it's mostly got you fighting another, bigger, eviler archdevil, so you might not REALLY be evil for doing it' angle. A bearded devil or a pit fiend could work similarly if you want something lower-power that the players might be able to fight and kill before the level cap.
I could use a little help. My players are going to want to storm a building soon. I anticipated this, but what I did not anticipate is that this building will almost certainly be burning to the ground while the players frantically search it. How should I render the inherent danger of this situation mechanically?
Hmm. For me, I'd probably think of a few hazards that come with being in a burning building, and make PCs make skill checks/saves to not be negatively affected by them.
Need to have a time limit on how much time they have to search the building too. I'd probably end up doing it as a sort of skill challenge thing, where the building is too dangerous to stay in or collapses after X failures, which gives the PCs a chance to pass the checks and get some or all of what they want out of the building first.
I could use a little help. My players are going to want to storm a building soon. I anticipated this, but what I did not anticipate is that this building will almost certainly be burning to the ground while the players frantically search it. How should I render the inherent danger of this situation mechanically?
Couple ideas:
I'd think regular con checks against smoke inhalation. Failing causes temporary stat loss maybe? Substantial failure causes unconsciousness checks.
Maybe add a bonus to their check (or advantage) if they took steps before hand (wet scarf over their mouths/nose to breath through etc...)
Automatic damage from heat. I'm thinking once a round, maybe it starts with a 1d4, then moves to 1d6/1d8 as the flames grow more intense.
Maybe offer a saving roll for half damage. Not sure what stat or skill you'd use for that though.
Occasional dexterity checks to dodge the huge flaming log that just fell from the ceiling?
Failure means they get pinned, then someone needs to make a strength check to move the beam.
I'd probably treat it like stinking cloud, heavily obscured, and con saves to keep from spending your turn coughing and choking, maybe adding -con damage on a fail. And increase the CR every round or two.
I could use a little help. My players are going to want to storm a building soon. I anticipated this, but what I did not anticipate is that this building will almost certainly be burning to the ground while the players frantically search it. How should I render the inherent danger of this situation mechanically?
Do you play with a grid, and anticipate using it in this case?
Depends a bit on where you want to land along the realism - superheroism axis.
For the superhero paradigm (my preference), I might try a setup where smoke inhalation is constantly dealing small amounts of fake damage (probably with CON saves for half) to the heroes' max HP. The fake-max-HP damage wouldn't be healable with standard Cure spells, but it also wouldn't change their instant death threshold, and it would clear up after the scene was over. The idea is to create a timer that feels natural, and also to make real damage from combat, exposure to open flames, or the occasional falling log have more of a threat of knocking people unconscious. In my mind, the ideal situation would be for a couple of the PCs to accidentally get knocked out, and for the others to have to drag them to safety.
For a more realistic take, something like tinwhiskers mentioned, with a Stinking Cloud that is progressively getting stronger, seems appropriate.
I could use a little help. My players are going to want to storm a building soon. I anticipated this, but what I did not anticipate is that this building will almost certainly be burning to the ground while the players frantically search it. How should I render the inherent danger of this situation mechanically?
Do you play with a grid, and anticipate using it in this case?
Yes and yes.
I like the smoke inhalation Constitution saves people have suggested. I'll probably start at DC 10 (with advantage if they've taken step to mitigate the problem), but instead of increasing the DC, have it deal 1d4 Constitution damage (which will be healed by a short or long rest, but will naturally make the check more difficult since it'll decrease Constitution modifiers). If a characters' Constitution drops to 0, they fall unconscious.
This way, smoke inhalation is likely to take awhile to down a character, which feels right since in reality it would take about two minutes, which is an eternity in combat rounds (which I think I'd use for a situation with a ticking clock like this one).
Look exhaustion is the perfect mechanic here. It has 6(5 really) levels. It incurs additional stacking debuffs that influence the game. It takes time to heal, it's HP independent.
1: disadvantage in ability checks
2: speed halved
3: disadvantage in attack rolls
4: HP max halved
5: Speed is zero
6: Death.
fall damage? Exhaustion. Enviornmental damage? Exhaustion. It's really easy
Yeah, I used exhaustion as the penalty for my party failing stuff like CON based Survival checks to navigate through intense climates and stuff like that when I was GMing 5E. It works well for that stuff.
Okay. Exhaustion then, with tinwhiskers' suggestion of a gradually increasing DC. And it's likely that—given the propensity of half the party for pulling all-nighters (I have sown a certain amount of paranoia among them that has driven them to take on secret tasks when the others are sleeping)—one or two of them will already have a level of exhaustion to start, so that'll be interesting.
So later today I'm going to be doing a one shot with a level ten character (that will involve the deck of many things), and asked myself "hrrrrmm, what would be an ammusing bit of bullshittery to foist unto the GM? A real "if you only know one trick make it a good one" type?"
I came up with "bare assed" Bognella Blackiron, hill dwarf bear totem barbarian who has a constitution of 18, durable, tougness, and an ac of 18 with a shield strapped to her arm; as a result of all of this she has 145 hps (effectively 290 when she is raging). Thye icing on all of this is that she recovers a minimum of 9 hp every time she spends a hit die thanks to durable.
I intend to play this chaotic neutral dwarf in the veign of an irate middle aged woman from the australian outback who is incapable of going more then 3 sentences without spitting out some sort of profanity and ~much like the hulk~ is less of a hero then a force of nature directed towards unwitting victims by clever associates.
Details of the result to follow.
So I promised details for bognella for how she'd play out and overall it worked like a charm; via a combination of grab bag, swapping and purchasing, I wound up with 4 magic items (a swan token, a ring of regeneration, a +2 short sword and a +3 shield), which all came togehter to make her absurdly tough to kill (with no armor she had an AC of 21); in short succession she solo'd an iron golem for 5 turns (there was a bard around but he couldn't do anything to it other then hamper it a little with vicious mockery), fought a pile of orcs and faced a pair of devourers and not once did she have to make a death saving throw.
Also, the game gave me some fresh perspective on the ring of regeneration: It's simultaneously more and less useful then I had initially anticipated due to the fact that it heals 1d6 every ten minutes. Which is abysmal as combat healing goes, but as an aide for noncombat healing, it's pretty beast; a short rest will get you back 6d6 health before you have to spend any HDs.
Have y'all seen the UA spells for lowbies? Also, if you have opinions about the three subclasses from a while back, there's a survey now where you can go into detail about what you liked or didn't like.
Chaos Bolt
1st-level evocation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 120 feet
Components: V, S
Duration: Instantaneous You hurl an undulating, warbling mass of chaotic energy at one creature in range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 2d8 damage. Choose one of the d8s. The number it rolled determines the type of damage, as shown below.
d8 Damage Type
1 Acid
2 Cold
3 Fire
4 Force
5 Lightning
6 Poison
7 Psychic
8 Thunder
If you roll the same number on both d8s, the chaotic energy leaps from the target to a different creature of your choice within 30 feet of it. Make a new attack roll against the new target, and make a new damage roll, which could cause the chaotic energy to leap again. A creature can be targeted only once by this mass of chaotic energy. At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, each target takes extra damage of the type rolled. The extra damage equals 1d6 for each slot level
above 1st.
The one part that looked a bit confusing after a single read was the part about the spell jumping from enemy to enemy if you roll the same number on the d8's.
I guess if you keep getting doubles, it keeps jumping...or does it stop you and you go to jail without passing go and getting 200$?
Chaos Bolt
1st-level evocation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 120 feet
Components: V, S
Duration: Instantaneous You hurl an undulating, warbling mass of chaotic energy at one creature in range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 2d8 damage. Choose one of the d8s. The number it rolled determines the type of damage, as shown below.
d8 Damage Type
1 Acid
2 Cold
3 Fire
4 Force
5 Lightning
6 Poison
7 Psychic
8 Thunder
If you roll the same number on both d8s, the chaotic energy leaps from the target to a different creature of your choice within 30 feet of it. Make a new attack roll against the new target, and make a new damage roll, which could cause the chaotic energy to leap again. A creature can be targeted only once by this mass of chaotic energy. At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, each target takes extra damage of the type rolled. The extra damage equals 1d6 for each slot level
above 1st.
That looks fun.
I'm a big fan of using dice rolls for stuff like this. If I was homebrewing a chaos bolt style spell for 5E, I'd probably have gone with a natural even roll on the d20 lets it jump to another target rather than on the damage roll, but it seems like they wanted a lower chance of it happening.
If you run out of enemy targets it might jump to party members since you can't repeat target.
It says "of your choice", the implication being that you can always choose "no one". My usual grumbles about natural language apply here but I believe that is the correct interpretation.
Well the chances of you getting tons of doubles in a row with unstacked sice are very slim. So I don't think WotC thought that far ahead. If you do though, I think you can end it.
Why does it randomly have shitty scaling? Every other spell in 5th adds more dice of the same type as the original spell, this one rolls d8s initially and then scales with d6s for no apparent reason
It's not like scaling with d8s is too powerful, there are first-level damage spells that start at 2d10 and add d10s. Thunderwave is 2d8 + d8s for scaling and is also more likely to target multiple enemies than Chaos Bolt is.
Cause Fear is unreasonably good - disadvantage on all attacks and limited movement control for the whole combat, no round-to-round saves, and low level enemies make the save with disadvantage? Sold.
That "at higher levels" option has to be wrong, right? I can't imagine they'd really want the base spell to use d8s and then the scaling to use d6s. It's super counterintuitive and I can't recall off the top of my head any spells that do that.
Edit: That's a good point. Gotta keep the base at 2d8 because of how the jump to new targets works.
Why does it randomly have shitty scaling? Every other spell in 5th adds more dice of the same type as the original spell, this one rolls d8s initially and then scales with d6s for no apparent reason
It's not like scaling with d8s is too powerful, there are first-level damage spells that start at 2d10 and add d10s. Thunderwave is 2d8 + d8s for scaling and is also more likely to target multiple enemies than Chaos Bolt is.
Cause Fear is unreasonably good - disadvantage on all attacks and limited movement control for the whole combat, no round-to-round saves, and low level enemies make the save with disadvantage? Sold.
Really practical reason for this: So you know what dice need to double to make it bounce.
I fear for on of the Tuesday DMs at my LGS mainly because right off the bat, he has a very charismatic table and the sorcerer is wanting to change up how some of the wild surge table rolls work. For example, if he rolled the percent where his skin turns a different color, he wanted to roll an additional die to see what color it would turn into.
I fear that he (the player) might get a bit overboard with wanting to change up the abilities.
Chaos Bolt
1st-level evocation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 120 feet
Components: V, S
Duration: Instantaneous You hurl an undulating, warbling mass of chaotic energy at one creature in range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 2d8 damage. Choose one of the d8s. The number it rolled determines the type of damage, as shown below.
d8 Damage Type
1 Acid
2 Cold
3 Fire
4 Force
5 Lightning
6 Poison
7 Psychic
8 Thunder
If you roll the same number on both d8s, the chaotic energy leaps from the target to a different creature of your choice within 30 feet of it. Make a new attack roll against the new target, and make a new damage roll, which could cause the chaotic energy to leap again. A creature can be targeted only once by this mass of chaotic energy. At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, each target takes extra damage of the type rolled. The extra damage equals 1d6 for each slot level
above 1st.
That looks fun.
I'm a big fan of using dice rolls for stuff like this. If I was homebrewing a chaos bolt style spell for 5E, I'd probably have gone with a natural even roll on the d20 lets it jump to another target rather than on the damage roll, but it seems like they wanted a lower chance of it happening.
Chaos Bolt
1st-level evocation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 120 feet
Components: V, S
Duration: Instantaneous You hurl an undulating, warbling mass of chaotic energy at one creature in range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 2d8 damage. Choose one of the d8s. The number it rolled determines the type of damage, as shown below.
d8 Damage Type
1 Acid
2 Cold
3 Fire
4 Force
5 Lightning
6 Poison
7 Psychic
8 Thunder
If you roll the same number on both d8s, the chaotic energy leaps from the target to a different creature of your choice within 30 feet of it. Make a new attack roll against the new target, and make a new damage roll, which could cause the chaotic energy to leap again. A creature can be targeted only once by this mass of chaotic energy. At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, each target takes extra damage of the type rolled. The extra damage equals 1d6 for each slot level
above 1st.
That looks fun.
I'm a big fan of using dice rolls for stuff like this. If I was homebrewing a chaos bolt style spell for 5E, I'd probably have gone with a natural even roll on the d20 lets it jump to another target rather than on the damage roll, but it seems like they wanted a lower chance of it happening.
Isn't it a 1/8 chance to roll doubles?
On two dice, yes. Basically consider only the second die and it will have a 1/die size chance as rolling the same as the first die. Gets more complicated if you were rolling more than a pair of dice.
I'm sure they did think of it. And I agree with Denada that the spellcaster can choose to end the spell if it gets too crazy. A mischievous player and/or DM may want the opportunity to hit PC with this kind of spell too.
Chaos Bolt
1st-level evocation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 120 feet
Components: V, S
Duration: Instantaneous You hurl an undulating, warbling mass of chaotic energy at one creature in range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 2d8 damage. Choose one of the d8s. The number it rolled determines the type of damage, as shown below.
d8 Damage Type
1 Acid
2 Cold
3 Fire
4 Force
5 Lightning
6 Poison
7 Psychic
8 Thunder
If you roll the same number on both d8s, the chaotic energy leaps from the target to a different creature of your choice within 30 feet of it. Make a new attack roll against the new target, and make a new damage roll, which could cause the chaotic energy to leap again. A creature can be targeted only once by this mass of chaotic energy. At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, each target takes extra damage of the type rolled. The extra damage equals 1d6 for each slot level
above 1st.
That looks fun.
I'm a big fan of using dice rolls for stuff like this. If I was homebrewing a chaos bolt style spell for 5E, I'd probably have gone with a natural even roll on the d20 lets it jump to another target rather than on the damage roll, but it seems like they wanted a lower chance of it happening.
Isn't it a 1/8 chance to roll doubles?
Yeah, that's what I mean. I was saying if I was building a spell like this, I'd give it a 50% chance to jump to a new target by having it happen on a natural even roll on the d20 attack roll rather than using the damage roll for it. It feels more natural to me to use the attack roll to determine if it leaps rather than the damage roll.
Chaos Bolt
1st-level evocation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 120 feet
Components: V, S
Duration: Instantaneous You hurl an undulating, warbling mass of chaotic energy at one creature in range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 2d8 damage. Choose one of the d8s. The number it rolled determines the type of damage, as shown below.
d8 Damage Type
1 Acid
2 Cold
3 Fire
4 Force
5 Lightning
6 Poison
7 Psychic
8 Thunder
If you roll the same number on both d8s, the chaotic energy leaps from the target to a different creature of your choice within 30 feet of it. Make a new attack roll against the new target, and make a new damage roll, which could cause the chaotic energy to leap again. A creature can be targeted only once by this mass of chaotic energy. At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, each target takes extra damage of the type rolled. The extra damage equals 1d6 for each slot level
above 1st.
That looks fun.
I'm a big fan of using dice rolls for stuff like this. If I was homebrewing a chaos bolt style spell for 5E, I'd probably have gone with a natural even roll on the d20 lets it jump to another target rather than on the damage roll, but it seems like they wanted a lower chance of it happening.
Isn't it a 1/8 chance to roll doubles?
Yeah, that's what I mean. I was saying if I was building a spell like this, I'd give it a 50% chance to jump to a new target by having it happen on a natural even roll on the d20 attack roll rather than using the damage roll for it. It feels more natural to me to use the attack roll to determine if it leaps rather than the damage roll.
I read natural 20, dur.
Yeah for a level 1 spell, rather than a cantrip, 2d8 (with attack roll) isn't amazing.
50% chance to jump on the D20 roll is boring though, IMO. And it also might lead to the spell being a bit overpowered for a first level spell.
Using the damage roll to determine the damage type and hoping for doubles to have the spell jump just seems more fun, and fitting the chaotic source of the spell.
Posts
I came up with "bare assed" Bognella Blackiron, hill dwarf bear totem barbarian who has a constitution of 18, durable, tougness, and an ac of 18 with a shield strapped to her arm; as a result of all of this she has 145 hps (effectively 290 when she is raging). Thye icing on all of this is that she recovers a minimum of 9 hp every time she spends a hit die thanks to durable.
I intend to play this chaotic neutral dwarf in the veign of an irate middle aged woman from the australian outback who is incapable of going more then 3 sentences without spitting out some sort of profanity and ~much like the hulk~ is less of a hero then a force of nature directed towards unwitting victims by clever associates.
Details of the result to follow.
The very next session, the party runs up against a dragon. The warlock player's first three rolls in this combat: nat 20, nat 20, nat 19. I could not have asked for anything better than that. The dragon then swarmed the warlock, knocked him unconscious, and retreated. While unconscious, I had a separate conversation with the player about how he felt heat, danger, and need, and got the sense that payment is forthcoming. The player loved it.
Now, I'm at a loss for what the payoff should be. Anyone have any good ideas or places I can mine for ideas for a Fiend Patron and what they might ask the PC to do, or what price they might make the PC pay?
If you are down with it I would start with inaction. The Warlock knows something bad will happen to somebody and they can easily prevent it...or they just don't do anything. Bonus points if it is someone who sorta deserves it. Fiend just asks them to look the other way. Then the Fiend pushes for more overt actions based on covering up the previous action. Then you get him in so deep and they've already done such terrible things that it doesn't matter anymore does it?
Ok, yeah, since we're playing on roll20, start out with a private message pushing for him to do something off, which becomes increasingly more difficult to resist, or increasingly effed up actions. I like that.
The group doesn't want to play with capital E evil players, so ultimately, I would play it as sort of a demonic possession type thing, where once it's overtly obvious the player character is under an offensive influence, the player and the party will have options on how to deal with that. Possibly with physical side effects that other characters could potentially notice - lengthening of horns, sharpening of nails/claws, etc. If they fail to notice / don't do anything, the player has mentioned in other conversations how it might be cool if a PC ends up having to leave the party, to eventually become a BBEG that the rest of the party must face down / potentially rescue. He's playing a character who is otherwise good, but once made a pact with an unknown force to save himself from death. He's seeking redemption from what that cost him, so it could be interesting to see him try to resist or fall further into the hole.
Alternately you can do more explicit deal-with-the-devil fighting-evil-with-evil stuff - the fiend helps the party's good-aligned goals in exchange for a service somewhere else and hey is it really evil to help a devil if it serves the greater good? What's a little devil worship if you use the power it grants to kill two other devils? It probably cancels out!
As far as identities for the fiend, a devil works better than a demon if you're going for subtlety and manipulation. From there it probably depends on the dynamic you want. Asmodeus seems like the go-to if you want the fiend to be a Big Deal; Dispater, Belial, maybe Levistus might be a good choice if you want an archdevil without it being THE archdevil, and it might let you play up the fire-with-fire bit by having one of them working to unseat Asmodeus - it's a good way to play up the 'sure, you're serving an arch-devil, but it's mostly got you fighting another, bigger, eviler archdevil, so you might not REALLY be evil for doing it' angle. A bearded devil or a pit fiend could work similarly if you want something lower-power that the players might be able to fight and kill before the level cap.
Need to have a time limit on how much time they have to search the building too. I'd probably end up doing it as a sort of skill challenge thing, where the building is too dangerous to stay in or collapses after X failures, which gives the PCs a chance to pass the checks and get some or all of what they want out of the building first.
I'd think regular con checks against smoke inhalation. Failing causes temporary stat loss maybe? Substantial failure causes unconsciousness checks.
Maybe add a bonus to their check (or advantage) if they took steps before hand (wet scarf over their mouths/nose to breath through etc...)
Automatic damage from heat. I'm thinking once a round, maybe it starts with a 1d4, then moves to 1d6/1d8 as the flames grow more intense.
Maybe offer a saving roll for half damage. Not sure what stat or skill you'd use for that though.
Occasional dexterity checks to dodge the huge flaming log that just fell from the ceiling?
Failure means they get pinned, then someone needs to make a strength check to move the beam.
Do you play with a grid, and anticipate using it in this case?
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
For the superhero paradigm (my preference), I might try a setup where smoke inhalation is constantly dealing small amounts of fake damage (probably with CON saves for half) to the heroes' max HP. The fake-max-HP damage wouldn't be healable with standard Cure spells, but it also wouldn't change their instant death threshold, and it would clear up after the scene was over. The idea is to create a timer that feels natural, and also to make real damage from combat, exposure to open flames, or the occasional falling log have more of a threat of knocking people unconscious. In my mind, the ideal situation would be for a couple of the PCs to accidentally get knocked out, and for the others to have to drag them to safety.
For a more realistic take, something like tinwhiskers mentioned, with a Stinking Cloud that is progressively getting stronger, seems appropriate.
Its frankly really good for "non-combat" damage types really
Yes and yes.
I like the smoke inhalation Constitution saves people have suggested. I'll probably start at DC 10 (with advantage if they've taken step to mitigate the problem), but instead of increasing the DC, have it deal 1d4 Constitution damage (which will be healed by a short or long rest, but will naturally make the check more difficult since it'll decrease Constitution modifiers). If a characters' Constitution drops to 0, they fall unconscious.
This way, smoke inhalation is likely to take awhile to down a character, which feels right since in reality it would take about two minutes, which is an eternity in combat rounds (which I think I'd use for a situation with a ticking clock like this one).
Look exhaustion is the perfect mechanic here. It has 6(5 really) levels. It incurs additional stacking debuffs that influence the game. It takes time to heal, it's HP independent.
1: disadvantage in ability checks
2: speed halved
3: disadvantage in attack rolls
4: HP max halved
5: Speed is zero
6: Death.
fall damage? Exhaustion. Enviornmental damage? Exhaustion. It's really easy
So I promised details for bognella for how she'd play out and overall it worked like a charm; via a combination of grab bag, swapping and purchasing, I wound up with 4 magic items (a swan token, a ring of regeneration, a +2 short sword and a +3 shield), which all came togehter to make her absurdly tough to kill (with no armor she had an AC of 21); in short succession she solo'd an iron golem for 5 turns (there was a bard around but he couldn't do anything to it other then hamper it a little with vicious mockery), fought a pile of orcs and faced a pair of devourers and not once did she have to make a death saving throw.
Also, the game gave me some fresh perspective on the ring of regeneration: It's simultaneously more and less useful then I had initially anticipated due to the fact that it heals 1d6 every ten minutes. Which is abysmal as combat healing goes, but as an aide for noncombat healing, it's pretty beast; a short rest will get you back 6d6 health before you have to spend any HDs.
Overall: 9/10, would play character again.
One that's doing a one shot with level 10 characters :P
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/starter-spells
That looks fun.
I guess if you keep getting doubles, it keeps jumping...or does it stop you and you go to jail without passing go and getting 200$?
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I'm a big fan of using dice rolls for stuff like this. If I was homebrewing a chaos bolt style spell for 5E, I'd probably have gone with a natural even roll on the d20 lets it jump to another target rather than on the damage roll, but it seems like they wanted a lower chance of it happening.
It says "of your choice", the implication being that you can always choose "no one". My usual grumbles about natural language apply here but I believe that is the correct interpretation.
It's not like scaling with d8s is too powerful, there are first-level damage spells that start at 2d10 and add d10s. Thunderwave is 2d8 + d8s for scaling and is also more likely to target multiple enemies than Chaos Bolt is.
Cause Fear is unreasonably good - disadvantage on all attacks and limited movement control for the whole combat, no round-to-round saves, and low level enemies make the save with disadvantage? Sold.
Edit: That's a good point. Gotta keep the base at 2d8 because of how the jump to new targets works.
Really practical reason for this: So you know what dice need to double to make it bounce.
I fear that he (the player) might get a bit overboard with wanting to change up the abilities.
Isn't it a 1/8 chance to roll doubles?
On two dice, yes. Basically consider only the second die and it will have a 1/die size chance as rolling the same as the first die. Gets more complicated if you were rolling more than a pair of dice.
Yeah, that's what I mean. I was saying if I was building a spell like this, I'd give it a 50% chance to jump to a new target by having it happen on a natural even roll on the d20 attack roll rather than using the damage roll for it. It feels more natural to me to use the attack roll to determine if it leaps rather than the damage roll.
I read natural 20, dur.
Yeah for a level 1 spell, rather than a cantrip, 2d8 (with attack roll) isn't amazing.
Using the damage roll to determine the damage type and hoping for doubles to have the spell jump just seems more fun, and fitting the chaotic source of the spell.