Just a couple more days, then I can throw my players into a hole so deep it makes Alice In Wonderland look like a 1 foot pit.
Oh lord, are they signing up for Fantasy Cutco?
If I say yes, what would your reaction be?
Make sure that even if they figure out that it's a giant scam and they go after the people who are perpetrating it, they are still on the hook for all the suffering and financial crimes they may have committed.
Yeah but these swords can cut through a can of soda, a brick, the thighbone of an adult dragon, a troll skull, and a truck tire, then still be sharp enough to shave the skin off a tomato. You can't get that in your local town market.
Now if you'll just take a look at these available equipment packages, I think you'll find that the Executive Set is really the best value...
Just a couple more days, then I can throw my players into a hole so deep it makes Alice In Wonderland look like a 1 foot pit.
Oh lord, are they signing up for Fantasy Cutco?
If I say yes, what would your reaction be?
Make sure that even if they figure out that it's a giant scam and they go after the people who are perpetrating it, they are still on the hook for all the suffering and financial crimes they may have committed.
Yeah but these swords can cut through a can of soda, a brick, the thighbone of an adult dragon, a troll skull, and a truck tire, then still be sharp enough to shave the skin off a tomato. You can't get that in your local town market.
Now if you'll just take a look at these available equipment package, I think you'll find that the Executive Set is really the best value...
You've got a keen eye, Rathner the Bladesman, almost as keen as the edge on our fine sabers.
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Mostlyjoe13Evil, Evil, Jump for joy!Registered Userregular
Okay. In ....november....sigh...we are finally getting new class options from WoTC themselves. About bloody time. I'm so tired of Forgotten Realms, but whatever. I want to use 5E for more settings please.
I recall running into a flock of perytons back in 3.0. One of them charged and missed, and I asked the DM what the chances were that such an anatomically awkward thing caught an antler on the ground or a branch or something and broke its neck. DM shrugged, rolled a percentage, then cursed and removed the token from the table. This proceeded to happen to all six of the attacking perytons. Never underestimate the power of logic.
Would boosting the players in certain aspects to reflect the game setting/thematic reasons be terrible? E.g. if they're working for a detective agency give everyone +2 stealth regardless of class/skills.
Would boosting the players in certain aspects to reflect the game setting/thematic reasons be terrible? E.g. if they're working for a detective agency give everyone +2 stealth regardless of class/skills.
Why stealth? If anything, investigation. And tie it to having their official toolkit (brush, white powder, magnifying glass, notepad with pencil, etc...) on them. And make it be proficiency instead of flat +2. Make it such with actual investigation proficiency if they do have that or pick it up later via that feat that gives proficiencies in skills.
Rolling a d20 to find clues is probably the least interesting way to play detective. Imo, when you're in a detective scene, don't roll any dice, play it like a puzzle. Have between one and three details the players don't know, scatter clues throughout the room, and as the players mention the details or facts by speculating on the clues, reveal them to be true. That way the players know they're on the right or wrong track, they know when they're done investigating a given place, and they all get to participate equally in the detective stuff without it coming down to rolling a hit or miss on a die.
I'm not against rolling search/perception/investigation/what-have-you checks to find clues...but if your plot hinges around the players finding some clues you will need to figure how to give them those clues when the whole party flubs their rolls.
"Oh shit...you all failed? Well, fine. Eventually one of you looks under the desk and sees the McGuffin taped beneath. Your skill and ability means nothing." is not an idea solution.
It'd be better not to rely on the dice but use them more for dramatic effect.
Rolling a d20 to find clues is probably the least interesting way to play detective. Imo, when you're in a detective scene, don't roll any dice, play it like a puzzle. Have between one and three details the players don't know, scatter clues throughout the room, and as the players mention the details or facts by speculating on the clues, reveal them to be true. That way the players know they're on the right or wrong track, they know when they're done investigating a given place, and they all get to participate equally in the detective stuff without it coming down to rolling a hit or miss on a die.
The characters are almoat always better at doing these things than the players. I'm not looking to see if my buddy Matt can figure out the puzzle, I'm seeing if professor darven greycastle can figure it out.
He has a 20 int.
I can explain what the professor did, and what they uncover/recovered, and what they glean from the things recovered/uncovered by the party.
I'm not against rolling search/perception/investigation/what-have-you checks to find clues...but if your plot hinges around the players finding some clues you will need to figure how to give them those clues when the whole party flubs their rolls.
"Oh shit...you all failed? Well, fine. Eventually one of you looks under the desk and sees the McGuffin taped beneath. Your skill and ability means nothing." is not an idea solution.
It'd be better not to rely on the dice but use them more for dramatic effect.
Yeah if it is required information dumping we can "yes and..." our way into how we've stumbled into getting the information.
IMO the ideal situation is where you can plausibly give enough clues for the party to progress even if the players are stumped and the characters botch their rolls, but if the players are smart or the characters get good rolls, they are rewarded with some extra hints/details that make a fight easier or otherwise help to get a "better" outcome of the investigation.
Rolling a d20 to find clues is probably the least interesting way to play detective. Imo, when you're in a detective scene, don't roll any dice, play it like a puzzle. Have between one and three details the players don't know, scatter clues throughout the room, and as the players mention the details or facts by speculating on the clues, reveal them to be true. That way the players know they're on the right or wrong track, they know when they're done investigating a given place, and they all get to participate equally in the detective stuff without it coming down to rolling a hit or miss on a die.
The characters are almoat always better at doing these things than the players. I'm not looking to see if my buddy Matt can figure out the puzzle, I'm seeing if professor darven greycastle can figure it out.
He has a 20 int.
I can explain what the professor did, and what they uncover/recovered, and what they glean from the things recovered/uncovered by the party.
I find this also makes prep far easier.
I would normally agree with this. But if the whole theme of the campaign is detectives, then it makes sense to devote special and unique focus to those segments.
If I wanted a character to roll +int to solve a puzzle, that's awesome, but I wouldn't make that puzzle the driving mystery of the campaign.
Rolling a d20 to find clues is probably the least interesting way to play detective. Imo, when you're in a detective scene, don't roll any dice, play it like a puzzle. Have between one and three details the players don't know, scatter clues throughout the room, and as the players mention the details or facts by speculating on the clues, reveal them to be true. That way the players know they're on the right or wrong track, they know when they're done investigating a given place, and they all get to participate equally in the detective stuff without it coming down to rolling a hit or miss on a die.
The characters are almoat always better at doing these things than the players. I'm not looking to see if my buddy Matt can figure out the puzzle, I'm seeing if professor darven greycastle can figure it out.
He has a 20 int.
I can explain what the professor did, and what they uncover/recovered, and what they glean from the things recovered/uncovered by the party.
I find this also makes prep far easier.
I would normally agree with this. But if the whole theme of the campaign is detectives, then it makes sense to devote special and unique focus to those segments.
If I wanted a character to roll +int to solve a puzzle, that's awesome, but I wouldn't make that puzzle the driving mystery of the campaign.
But it still pretty much removes the mechanics of D&D from the scenario entirely, and allows someone not built to be a crack investigator (high int wis and cha) to be the one solving all the puzzles. Like if the actual smartest person on your table is playing the barbarian "hitter" role, and they solve all the brain teasers while the wizard player sits there not saying anything.
But you also know your group so that may be a null concern for your players.
I've just had puzzles like that fall really flat on a table or two because it breaks out from the game we are playing because the smartest characters were not actually being played by the smartest people on the table. Which is totally fine, I play bards a whole bunch, I wouldn't say I have a 20 charisma.
I do like the idea of kinda mini gaming to make the investigation seem more investigative.
I just generally use a version of skill challenges. gotta pass a few perception/investigation checks, then we can do some int checks, that will tell you the next place to check, we can do another round of investigation checks, possibly a round of trap busting, some more knowledge checks, and boom we investigated the room and you guys found the information you needed to.
At or around level 2, it's likely to take more than 2-3 hits to do 33 points of damage to something that's resistant to nonmagical weapons. Average attack damage from a player at that level is usually gonna be in the vicinity of ~8 per hit. (1d8+3 averages 7.5, 1d10+3 averages 8.5, 2d6+3 w/great weapon fighting from a real heavy hitter is still only gonna be an average of 12). Players aren't likely to have magical weapons at level 2, so anyone not shooting spells at it is gonna be dealing half that. You're looking at more like 6-7 nonmagical hits to kill a peryton, and since players will likely have a +5 to attacks at level 2, that 13 AC means they're hitting about 2/3 of the time - so, roughly 10 actions to drop one. (With the additional consideration that if the peryton got the drop on the party, one member is probably bleeding out and unable to act, and the flybys mean that some party members - like the heavy-hitter with the greatsword - might not be able to even attack it every turn since it'll be up in the air).
And 'the players should see it coming' doesn't really work as a drawback - firstly there are plenty of circumstances where they won't, secondly if that's an intended part of the creatures balance it should be discussed at length in the creature entry and possibly included in the statblock ("disadvantage on stealth checks" or whatever) rather than relying on the DM to interpret the circumstances around the monster in the intended way without guidance, and thirdly the actual likely play pattern matters - a lot of DM aren't going to be interested in starting an encounter with a monster 200 feet away, they're going to say "narrative stuff, mood-setting, roll initiative, there's a peryton...here" and put it in the room with the party already. Doubly so for the sort of novice DMs who are likely to take CR at face value and not realize they're about to kill some players.
Perytons are fine when you're tossing a couple of them, or one peryton+some other stuff, at a party of level 5 characters - those characters have the HP to soak a dive bomb or two before they drop and probably have some magic weapons (and a lot more spells) to deal with its magic resistance - and that's probably how they were written to be used. They're unreasonably lethal against level 2 characters (who have no magic weapons and 10-20 hp vs a dive bomb attack that deals an average of 24 damage), and probably shouldn't be used as a solo fight against a level 2 party. The problem is that the CR system has no way of differentiating between those two uses, and so tells DMs that a peryton is a fair fight for their level 2 party when it's not.
I've written, deleted and re-written a few counter arguments for this a few times, but ultimately, I think this is the most illustrative thing I can say:
1 CR2 Peryton is the equivalent of 4 CR1/4 Goblins, by the book, and honestly, the goblins might be more dangerous.
I'll explain.
Goblins are harder to hit (15 AC vs 13 AC), slightly less accurate (+4 attack bonus vs +5), but as written, can move + hide on their turn, and attack at range instead of having to get within melee. They also have a +2 bonus to their initiative, compared to +1 for the Peryton. In your listed ~10 actions to take down a peryton, with a party of 4 characters, that's ~2.5 rounds. Call it 3. Depending on initiative order, in total, that means:
Peryton: between 4 and 6 attacks
Goblins: between 8 and 12 attacks (often at advantage due to their ability to re-position and hide)
Average damage per round (without accounting for targeting, as PCs will have almost at least 13AC, and very often considerably higher, plus things like Fighting Style: Protection to impose disadvantage, and Shield to bump AC):
Peryton: 24
Goblins: 20
The 24 may be higher, but it's easier to deal with. Since it's only 2 attacks, things like Shield, Fighting Style: Protection, or hiding are twice as effective as against 4 attacks (the math is actually more complicated because the peryton's first successful attack is twice as damaging as its second, but if you make it miss both its attacks it obviously does no damage, as opposed to the goblins still doing 50%)
And if you want to compare perfect monster strats (Peryton basically needs the party to not react at all, nor move at all, nor do anything like Fog Cloud to do it's 30' dive bomb, 30' move away, repeat), the goblins can open up at 80' range with advantage (ambush from hiding). So that's 8 attack rolls to try to hit 4 times, giving a bunch of chances at rolling a crit. If you're cruel, that would be a surprise round too, so the "real" first round will have started with the party having 16 attack rolls rolled against them for 8 attacks, very likely critting at least once, and dropping one or more member, with very little wasted damage in there too, as the goblins can spread the damage wherever they please. By round 2, the party still might have to burn dashes and perception checks to try to hit any of the goblins (or even see where they are), and they're going to be taking another 4 attacks, many probably still at advantage.
But most people just run goblins straight, ignoring Nimble Escape, ignoring their proficiency in stealth, and most encounters with goblins end up being a joke.
So I guess my point is just that every monster needs to be thought about before you run an encounter with it, if you want your game to be the "right" level of challenging for your group. Whatever level that may be.
Diagnosed with AML on 6/1/12. Read about it: www.effleukemia.com
To be clear I'm not advocating removing the use of those skills entirely. However, if a large portion of the important parts of the game are going to be investigating rooms and sneaking around places, then Ser Steel Swingsword is going to have a pretty bad time. Bringing the whole party in on equal footing for the really pivotal moments ensures people stay engaged.
Then, during scenes where it's not quite as important you go full-on NCIS, bring back skills as usual to let the smarter characters do their thing well.
Also if the party is going to be doing a lot of sneaking, I recommend co-opting the teamwork rules from Blades in the Dark. For a group roll, have the whole party roll stealth for instance, and have someone lead the group. The group's roll is the highest result of that roll, and the person leading the group suffers some sort of disadvantage for each failure that was rolled. That way the party can be sneaky without mandating everyone have high dex. If you're going to be trailing or shadowing people a lot that'll be important, unless you want Ser Swingsword to be running into every combat encounter 2-3 rounds late.
If it's not going to be a "single skill" sort of situation you can also default to skill challenges, which are not terrible when used correctly and have the advantage of existing in the same mechanical framework as the rest of the game.
I once ran a game where the party was tasked with recruiting an army by visiting various cities and convincing leaders of groups to join their cause. I handled it poorly though, and as a result the majority of the party, who were not charisma focused characters, were not satisfied with it. My biggest problem was that most of the group felt useless a good portion of the time, and that's why I recommend that sort of approach.
I hate intro sessions. I actually saod "this whole scene feels....scripted" as a piece of the setting, to which one of my player just shouts at me, "NO....REALLY?!"
Not the greatest of starts, my players almost had me quit right then and there, but I went along with it.
But hey, I now have them knowing one of the major npcs dilemma (Titania has gone missing) and now they are in the feywild. Thank christ Im past the worst? Well, I do have a stab happy half-drow and a cantrip loving Yuan-ti sorc so thats nice.....
Detective agency might not have been the best term. Currently, my PCs-to-be would be in an investigative group that forcefully separated itself from the upper class cabal that runs the city behind closed doors. This isn't entirely known to the players and characters, but they're trying to overthrow or dismantle it.
Thematically I feel like they should have some basic ability to accomplish their missions subtly, but in a game mechanic way rather than a hand wavy way.
Detective agency might not have been the best term. Currently, my PCs-to-be would be in an investigative group that forcefully separated itself from the upper class cabal that runs the city behind closed doors. This isn't entirely known to the players and characters, but they're trying to overthrow or dismantle it.
Thematically I feel like they should have some basic ability to accomplish their missions subtly, but in a game mechanic way rather than a hand wavy way.
So are they investigating and outing the shadowy organization running the city?
Needing to meet with folks, and investigating places and being altogether shady individuals as they hide from the government?
At or around level 2, it's likely to take more than 2-3 hits to do 33 points of damage to something that's resistant to nonmagical weapons. Average attack damage from a player at that level is usually gonna be in the vicinity of ~8 per hit. (1d8+3 averages 7.5, 1d10+3 averages 8.5, 2d6+3 w/great weapon fighting from a real heavy hitter is still only gonna be an average of 12). Players aren't likely to have magical weapons at level 2, so anyone not shooting spells at it is gonna be dealing half that. You're looking at more like 6-7 nonmagical hits to kill a peryton, and since players will likely have a +5 to attacks at level 2, that 13 AC means they're hitting about 2/3 of the time - so, roughly 10 actions to drop one. (With the additional consideration that if the peryton got the drop on the party, one member is probably bleeding out and unable to act, and the flybys mean that some party members - like the heavy-hitter with the greatsword - might not be able to even attack it every turn since it'll be up in the air).
And 'the players should see it coming' doesn't really work as a drawback - firstly there are plenty of circumstances where they won't, secondly if that's an intended part of the creatures balance it should be discussed at length in the creature entry and possibly included in the statblock ("disadvantage on stealth checks" or whatever) rather than relying on the DM to interpret the circumstances around the monster in the intended way without guidance, and thirdly the actual likely play pattern matters - a lot of DM aren't going to be interested in starting an encounter with a monster 200 feet away, they're going to say "narrative stuff, mood-setting, roll initiative, there's a peryton...here" and put it in the room with the party already. Doubly so for the sort of novice DMs who are likely to take CR at face value and not realize they're about to kill some players.
Perytons are fine when you're tossing a couple of them, or one peryton+some other stuff, at a party of level 5 characters - those characters have the HP to soak a dive bomb or two before they drop and probably have some magic weapons (and a lot more spells) to deal with its magic resistance - and that's probably how they were written to be used. They're unreasonably lethal against level 2 characters (who have no magic weapons and 10-20 hp vs a dive bomb attack that deals an average of 24 damage), and probably shouldn't be used as a solo fight against a level 2 party. The problem is that the CR system has no way of differentiating between those two uses, and so tells DMs that a peryton is a fair fight for their level 2 party when it's not.
I've written, deleted and re-written a few counter arguments for this a few times, but ultimately, I think this is the most illustrative thing I can say:
1 CR2 Peryton is the equivalent of 4 CR1/4 Goblins, by the book, and honestly, the goblins might be more dangerous.
I'll explain.
Goblins are harder to hit (15 AC vs 13 AC), slightly less accurate (+4 attack bonus vs +5), but as written, can move + hide on their turn, and attack at range instead of having to get within melee. They also have a +2 bonus to their initiative, compared to +1 for the Peryton. In your listed ~10 actions to take down a peryton, with a party of 4 characters, that's ~2.5 rounds. Call it 3. Depending on initiative order, in total, that means:
Peryton: between 4 and 6 attacks
Goblins: between 8 and 12 attacks (often at advantage due to their ability to re-position and hide)
Average damage per round (without accounting for targeting, as PCs will have almost at least 13AC, and very often considerably higher, plus things like Fighting Style: Protection to impose disadvantage, and Shield to bump AC):
Peryton: 24
Goblins: 20
The 24 may be higher, but it's easier to deal with. Since it's only 2 attacks, things like Shield, Fighting Style: Protection, or hiding are twice as effective as against 4 attacks (the math is actually more complicated because the peryton's first successful attack is twice as damaging as its second, but if you make it miss both its attacks it obviously does no damage, as opposed to the goblins still doing 50%)
And if you want to compare perfect monster strats (Peryton basically needs the party to not react at all, nor move at all, nor do anything like Fog Cloud to do it's 30' dive bomb, 30' move away, repeat), the goblins can open up at 80' range with advantage (ambush from hiding). So that's 8 attack rolls to try to hit 4 times, giving a bunch of chances at rolling a crit. If you're cruel, that would be a surprise round too, so the "real" first round will have started with the party having 16 attack rolls rolled against them for 8 attacks, very likely critting at least once, and dropping one or more member, with very little wasted damage in there too, as the goblins can spread the damage wherever they please. By round 2, the party still might have to burn dashes and perception checks to try to hit any of the goblins (or even see where they are), and they're going to be taking another 4 attacks, many probably still at advantage.
But most people just run goblins straight, ignoring Nimble Escape, ignoring their proficiency in stealth, and most encounters with goblins end up being a joke.
So I guess my point is just that every monster needs to be thought about before you run an encounter with it, if you want your game to be the "right" level of challenging for your group. Whatever level that may be.
The ability to spread damage is the point. The problematic difference between the two encounters is that the goblins deal their 20 damage and either (played aggressively) focus on one character, probably knocking him to zero but maybe missing enough to just take a big chunk out of him, or (played nonthreateningly, perhaps because you've realized your players are in rough shape) spread their damage across the party, lightly damaging everyone but not presenting a mortal threat before the party has a chance to respond. Even in the focus fire scenario, they knock a guy to 0 and then change to targets to the next guy.
The peryton dive-bombs somebody with a d6 or d8 hit die and instant-kills them via massive damage (incidentally turning that 2.5 round timer for 10 actions into a 3.3 round timer in the process, by dint of turning the 4 man party into a 3 man party). Or maybe he misses, and Team Monster does nothing that round at all. Neither is very fun.
(Your comparison is also leaving out a number of other variables that aren't strictly relevant to the main thrust of my argument, like the fact that 4 goblins have 28 total ehp while a peryton has ~60, and that the goblin party's damage output will drop as soon as you land a hit, deal 7 damage, and kill a goblin, but the peryton's won't change until you deal all 66. Even ignoring damage spread, the goblins deal 20% less damage to start with, have a smaller attack bonus, die twice as fast, and lose damage output as they drop - total expected damage output is less than 40% that of a peryton. With advantage on all attacks AND a surprise round you might be able to get them to 80%.)
Spike damage that approaches or exceeds player HP totals is problematic, especially for new DMs (because they don't have time to realize how much danger the party is in before they accidentally kill a character with a random wilderness encounter), and especially in the context of the CR system, which is supposed to identify 'appropriate' challenges for the party, and doesn't. A CR 2 peryton, by the book, is a Medium difficulty encounter for a party of 4 level 2 characters. Medium difficulty means (again, according to the DMG) "one or two scary moments for the players but the character should emerge victorious with no casualties". The way a Peryton works makes it pretty clear that it's actually a Deadly encounter for the same party ("could be lethal for one or more characters, survival often requires good tactics and quick thinking and the party risks defeat"), because it is immediately lethal for one character on its first action if it gets an even an average roll. Again, by the book, that ought to make it a CR 4 creature worth 800 exp, not a CR 2 one worth 450.
Is that more appropriate? Probably, since that's about when it stops presenting a deadly threat to players and about the level range in which its magic resistance feature will be relevant but not non-interactable, but then the thing becomes a waste of XP budget as an inclusion in a higher-level encounter because its newly-doubled exp cost gets doubled again due to the number of monsters multiplier and someone following the encounter guidelines ends up only being able to 'afford' to throw it against parties so high level that they can swat it out of the air without caring about it. Fundamentally, the problem is that the CR system tries to measure two very different qualities in a monster ("how dangerous is this monster to a level 2 character?" and "how dangerous is the monster to a level 10 character?") using the same number, and that doesn't work because the answers aren't the same and do not scale linearly. The DMG knows the answers aren't the same, makes note of the fact that the system doesn't really work in a lot of cases...and then tries to use it anyway. The result is that the encounter design system is actively misleading, especially to the people who need its guidance the most - new players.
The problem isn't that perytons (or animated armors, or bugbears, or centaurs, or specters, or yetis, or any of the other monsters that have this problem - the CR 1-3 range is rife with things that were almost certainly written to be one of 2-4 monsters put in an encounter with a level 4-8 party and that can easily wipe a party or at least gib a couple players if encountered alone by a party of level equal to their CR) are too dangerous, it's that their CR lies about how dangerous they are to an equal-level party. And the system is most broken in exactly the level range where a bunch of brand-new players and a brand-new DM are gonna sit down and fight a Specter because it sounds neat and the book said it was a fair fight and not fully understand why a 'medium-difficulty' encounter was killing a player outright every turn until it wiped the party.
Every monster does need to be thought about - and analyzed, and mathed out, because even the surface-level comparison of total dpr ignoring hit chance vs expected encounter duration you're making goes well beyond just 'thinking about the monster' - before you run an encounter with it. That's exactly the problem: If you can do those things, then you don't need CR in the first place. An encounter-building guide that you have to already have a detailed understanding of the system's math to use correctly is like a set of training wheels that can only be used by people who are already expert cyclists: worthless.
To be clear I'm not advocating removing the use of those skills entirely. However, if a large portion of the important parts of the game are going to be investigating rooms and sneaking around places, then Ser Steel Swingsword is going to have a pretty bad time. Bringing the whole party in on equal footing for the really pivotal moments ensures people stay engaged.
Then, during scenes where it's not quite as important you go full-on NCIS, bring back skills as usual to let the smarter characters do their thing well.
Also if the party is going to be doing a lot of sneaking, I recommend co-opting the teamwork rules from Blades in the Dark. For a group roll, have the whole party roll stealth for instance, and have someone lead the group. The group's roll is the highest result of that roll, and the person leading the group suffers some sort of disadvantage for each failure that was rolled. That way the party can be sneaky without mandating everyone have high dex. If you're going to be trailing or shadowing people a lot that'll be important, unless you want Ser Swingsword to be running into every combat encounter 2-3 rounds late.
If it's not going to be a "single skill" sort of situation you can also default to skill challenges, which are not terrible when used correctly and have the advantage of existing in the same mechanical framework as the rest of the game.
I once ran a game where the party was tasked with recruiting an army by visiting various cities and convincing leaders of groups to join their cause. I handled it poorly though, and as a result the majority of the party, who were not charisma focused characters, were not satisfied with it. My biggest problem was that most of the group felt useless a good portion of the time, and that's why I recommend that sort of approach.
baseline 5e already has a rule for group checks - if the party is doing a group activity that requires a check (like sneaking as a group), everyone rolls and the whole group succeeds as long as more than half of the party succeeds, with the logic being that the people with high results are helping the people with low results. As far as I can tell it exists basically for the express purpose of making sure that the plate-armor paladin doesn't automatically invalidate all stealth-based problem-solving strategies for the party.
Detective agency might not have been the best term. Currently, my PCs-to-be would be in an investigative group that forcefully separated itself from the upper class cabal that runs the city behind closed doors. This isn't entirely known to the players and characters, but they're trying to overthrow or dismantle it.
Thematically I feel like they should have some basic ability to accomplish their missions subtly, but in a game mechanic way rather than a hand wavy way.
So are they investigating and outing the shadowy organization running the city?
Needing to meet with folks, and investigating places and being altogether shady individuals as they hide from the government?
Something like that. The guild/corporation is underground for fear of being snuffed out in retaliation, but the PCs don't know this inherently, I don't think. They don't start out knowing about the cabal either because it's a behind the scenes, illuminati type dealy. However they get hired out for missions, so I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to work it out. It just felt like they should be inherently sneakier.
Detective agency might not have been the best term. Currently, my PCs-to-be would be in an investigative group that forcefully separated itself from the upper class cabal that runs the city behind closed doors. This isn't entirely known to the players and characters, but they're trying to overthrow or dismantle it.
Thematically I feel like they should have some basic ability to accomplish their missions subtly, but in a game mechanic way rather than a hand wavy way.
So are they investigating and outing the shadowy organization running the city?
Needing to meet with folks, and investigating places and being altogether shady individuals as they hide from the government?
Something like that. The guild/corporation is underground for fear of being snuffed out in retaliation, but the PCs don't know this inherently, I don't think. They don't start out knowing about the cabal either because it's a behind the scenes, illuminati type dealy. However they get hired out for missions, so I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to work it out. It just felt like they should be inherently sneakier.
I'd still favor an item based approach, maybe everyone in the organisation wears some sort of custom gray cloak and oh hey look it's a +2 to stealth.
In my character's opinion she's a selfish, manipulative asshole. Everything of the past year in-game has been her manipulating the party into this moment. The demon cloak, the demon amulet, the orb of law. All the people who have died along the way. All the events that put people in harm's way. All this to get the end result of having our party arrive in a Drow-overrun Dwarven city on the outskirts of the Underdark. A place my Drow loathes with every fiber of her being. Strongly considering her just saying "no thanks" to this offer of being her champion and going off to save Ioun and Corellon.
I hate intro sessions. I actually saod "this whole scene feels....scripted" as a piece of the setting, to which one of my player just shouts at me, "NO....REALLY?!"
Not the greatest of starts, my players almost had me quit right then and there, but I went along with it.
But hey, I now have them knowing one of the major npcs dilemma (Titania has gone missing) and now they are in the feywild. Thank christ Im past the worst? Well, I do have a stab happy half-drow and a cantrip loving Yuan-ti sorc so thats nice.....
Yeah it occurs to me that we inadvertently gave you the most socially awkward group concievable.
Like, it makes sense that my character is weird since I'm playing a lizardfolk and the yaun-ti plays his characters with irreverence on a regular basis, but the drow player seems to have built her character to be as obtuse and borderline unplayable as possible; like for crying out loud the character is 8 years old and her player isn't old enough to be lamenting the loss of her childhood yet god dammit.
Honestly if I was presented with this party at the store and their weren't any moderating factors to them from other players, I'd probably engage in the patented method of brute force puzzle solving.
My mind is now a jumbled mess now that I know what I am dealing with. The most worrying part is that I have yet to even see how the Lizardfol Barbarian and the Kenku Rogue even go around things...
Detective agency might not have been the best term. Currently, my PCs-to-be would be in an investigative group that forcefully separated itself from the upper class cabal that runs the city behind closed doors. This isn't entirely known to the players and characters, but they're trying to overthrow or dismantle it.
Thematically I feel like they should have some basic ability to accomplish their missions subtly, but in a game mechanic way rather than a hand wavy way.
So are they investigating and outing the shadowy organization running the city?
Needing to meet with folks, and investigating places and being altogether shady individuals as they hide from the government?
Something like that. The guild/corporation is underground for fear of being snuffed out in retaliation, but the PCs don't know this inherently, I don't think. They don't start out knowing about the cabal either because it's a behind the scenes, illuminati type dealy. However they get hired out for missions, so I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to work it out. It just felt like they should be inherently sneakier.
I like it, you're essentially setting up a bit of a leverage/Angel/bbc robin hood type of deal.
Could just make everyone either start with or multi a level of rogue. It would make the game super crazy with a crazy skill spread hopefully.
Like start at level 2 with everyone grabbing a level of rogue and a level of anything.
But some players may balk at that so the, you're all proficient in stealth is good.
If your game never gets to level 20 and you don't do stupid CR things giving a level of rogue (I'd offer it as level 1 or 2 for gear/saving throw reasons) wouldn't be that silly, I don't think? It might lessen the accidental level 1 TPKs, too. But at that point it's almost like just giving an extra hit die + stealth so I dunno. This is all very in the theory category right now, anyway.
If your game never gets to level 20 and you don't do stupid CR things giving a level of rogue (I'd offer it as level 1 or 2 for gear/saving throw reasons) wouldn't be that silly, I don't think? It might lessen the accidental level 1 TPKs, too. But at that point it's almost like just giving an extra hit die + stealth so I dunno. This is all very in the theory category right now, anyway.
Yeah there are definitely trade offs there. You're starting the game at level 2, and people all over the party will be able to spike out some extra damage on most rounds.
Detective agency might not have been the best term. Currently, my PCs-to-be would be in an investigative group that forcefully separated itself from the upper class cabal that runs the city behind closed doors. This isn't entirely known to the players and characters, but they're trying to overthrow or dismantle it.
Thematically I feel like they should have some basic ability to accomplish their missions subtly, but in a game mechanic way rather than a hand wavy way.
So are they investigating and outing the shadowy organization running the city?
Needing to meet with folks, and investigating places and being altogether shady individuals as they hide from the government?
Something like that. The guild/corporation is underground for fear of being snuffed out in retaliation, but the PCs don't know this inherently, I don't think. They don't start out knowing about the cabal either because it's a behind the scenes, illuminati type dealy. However they get hired out for missions, so I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to work it out. It just felt like they should be inherently sneakier.
Couldn't you require stealth as part of their characters' backgrounds? Are backgrounds still a thing?
Between the investigative work and digging deeper into an over-arching conspiracy, this is reminding me a lot of Night's Black Agents, which is based on Gumshoe. Gumshoe has some useful mechanics for keeping an investigation moving forward, which could probably be adapted to a 5e setting.
I'm pretty sure @Aegeri has some experience with this...
You could indeed require stealth proficiency as a part of their background. You could even create a custom background that everyone had that had the requisite proficiencies that you wanted.
I'm angling towards more of a "guild perks" system that's likely item based. Hell, it might end up only being flavor to explain why they are sussing out a mystery. At least that way if it's a problem, I can remove it without it being too BS once the story moves on.
So far the only mostly complete bit I've got sorted out is the first mission to a cellar on a private estate whose owner has been overhearing noises in. Aside from that I have a train ride to Ur/Babylon where they hopefully solve a simple puzzle and get teleported to a plane where they talk to Marduk and gain a greater undetermined quest. I'll probably have them thrown off the train in Turkey or Romania on the way, too.
I've learned in this endeavor that I can sort out backdrop and key figures and events fairly well but I'm ass at intriguing characters and mesmerizing story/plotwork.
If your game never gets to level 20 and you don't do stupid CR things giving a level of rogue (I'd offer it as level 1 or 2 for gear/saving throw reasons) wouldn't be that silly, I don't think? It might lessen the accidental level 1 TPKs, too. But at that point it's almost like just giving an extra hit die + stealth so I dunno. This is all very in the theory category right now, anyway.
So this reminded me of a campaign idea. There's plenty of literary examples of characters who have the sort of "I was a mage's apprentice, but then I rand away with a traveling troop when I was 16, but then I was drafted into the army and fought in the Great X war. And that's where I found Helm and devoted my life to him and that's my I'm a Wizard 1/ Bard 2/ Fighter 2/Cleric 6" or w/e.
And I was thinking it'd be interesting to have a campaign, where if say the characters went and completed a quest for an order of monks, where at the end of the arc they'd gain 2 lvls, instead they gain 1 level in monk and 1 in whatever they are. Or maybe have silo'd XP 'trees', and if they did something that was say nature related they could get 1000 XP as a druid or a ranger.
I don't know that it'd work mechanically or balance wise, and it'd be hell to track all the various abilties and spells as the game went on but the idea of characters getting better at skills by using those skills in game just seemed interesting to me.
If your game never gets to level 20 and you don't do stupid CR things giving a level of rogue (I'd offer it as level 1 or 2 for gear/saving throw reasons) wouldn't be that silly, I don't think? It might lessen the accidental level 1 TPKs, too. But at that point it's almost like just giving an extra hit die + stealth so I dunno. This is all very in the theory category right now, anyway.
So this reminded me of a campaign idea. There's plenty of literary examples of characters who have the sort of "I was a mage's apprentice, but then I rand away with a traveling troop when I was 16, but then I was drafted into the army and fought in the Great X war. And that's where I found Helm and devoted my life to him and that's my I'm a Wizard 1/ Bard 2/ Fighter 2/Cleric 6" or w/e.
And I was thinking it'd be interesting to have a campaign, where if say the characters went and completed a quest for an order of monks, where at the end of the arc they'd gain 2 lvls, instead they gain 1 level in monk and 1 in whatever they are. Or maybe have silo'd XP 'trees', and if they did something that was say nature related they could get 1000 XP as a druid or a ranger.
I don't know that it'd work mechanically or balance wise, and it'd be hell to track all the various abilties and spells as the game went on but the idea of characters getting better at skills by using those skills in game just seemed interesting to me.
I think you'd be better off granting bonus minor feats for that sort of thing. Not major bonuses, but little things like, say, "Honorary Member of the Shining Sun Monks: Gain a +1 Will bonus and a +2 to all Endurance checks involving cold or heat." Not going to break a game, even if they've got 3-4 feats like that, but it's a nice bit of flavor and serves as a nice little reminder of the character's history. Plus you're never going to have players complain about straight bonuses like that.
I have relaxed quite a bit since the last time i posted and things have been picking up greatly. the party has just defeated the big boss of the Sunless Citadel of the Yawning Portal and while they havent leveled to 3 yet they are within 100xp away. the party decided to then go through EVERY room and passage they missed along the way instead of just leaving the dungeon and are currently trying to take the Citadel for themselves while making the goblins and the kobalds that lived there already their employees, they were talking to the goblins first they started talking about if they want to form an alliance of sorts with shared treasure in the castle and i finished the session giving them a choice, A) either the goblins get the citadel and everything in it, the adventuring party removes the kobalds from the citadel and the party gets 1 room for themselves but the goblins choose which one (there are plenty of 10x10 ft rooms to choose) or no deal
a couple of the players basically want to recreate Acquisitions Inc and make an adventuring company and have the Citadel as their HQ even though there is a mansion waiting for them when they get back to town
All in all, things are definitely better since last update, group is also not as squishy as before thanks to a couple new additions, before i had 2 clerics, a bard, a warlock, a sorcerer and a rogue, new additions are a ranger, a fighter and a paladin who was the bard but decided to kill off his character and make a new character based off a joke someone at the table made
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Yeah but these swords can cut through a can of soda, a brick, the thighbone of an adult dragon, a troll skull, and a truck tire, then still be sharp enough to shave the skin off a tomato. You can't get that in your local town market.
Now if you'll just take a look at these available equipment packages, I think you'll find that the Executive Set is really the best value...
You've got a keen eye, Rathner the Bladesman, almost as keen as the edge on our fine sabers.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Why stealth? If anything, investigation. And tie it to having their official toolkit (brush, white powder, magnifying glass, notepad with pencil, etc...) on them. And make it be proficiency instead of flat +2. Make it such with actual investigation proficiency if they do have that or pick it up later via that feat that gives proficiencies in skills.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
"Oh shit...you all failed? Well, fine. Eventually one of you looks under the desk and sees the McGuffin taped beneath. Your skill and ability means nothing." is not an idea solution.
It'd be better not to rely on the dice but use them more for dramatic effect.
The characters are almoat always better at doing these things than the players. I'm not looking to see if my buddy Matt can figure out the puzzle, I'm seeing if professor darven greycastle can figure it out.
He has a 20 int.
I can explain what the professor did, and what they uncover/recovered, and what they glean from the things recovered/uncovered by the party.
I find this also makes prep far easier.
Yeah if it is required information dumping we can "yes and..." our way into how we've stumbled into getting the information.
I would normally agree with this. But if the whole theme of the campaign is detectives, then it makes sense to devote special and unique focus to those segments.
If I wanted a character to roll +int to solve a puzzle, that's awesome, but I wouldn't make that puzzle the driving mystery of the campaign.
But it still pretty much removes the mechanics of D&D from the scenario entirely, and allows someone not built to be a crack investigator (high int wis and cha) to be the one solving all the puzzles. Like if the actual smartest person on your table is playing the barbarian "hitter" role, and they solve all the brain teasers while the wizard player sits there not saying anything.
But you also know your group so that may be a null concern for your players.
I've just had puzzles like that fall really flat on a table or two because it breaks out from the game we are playing because the smartest characters were not actually being played by the smartest people on the table. Which is totally fine, I play bards a whole bunch, I wouldn't say I have a 20 charisma.
I do like the idea of kinda mini gaming to make the investigation seem more investigative.
I just generally use a version of skill challenges. gotta pass a few perception/investigation checks, then we can do some int checks, that will tell you the next place to check, we can do another round of investigation checks, possibly a round of trap busting, some more knowledge checks, and boom we investigated the room and you guys found the information you needed to.
I've written, deleted and re-written a few counter arguments for this a few times, but ultimately, I think this is the most illustrative thing I can say:
1 CR2 Peryton is the equivalent of 4 CR1/4 Goblins, by the book, and honestly, the goblins might be more dangerous.
I'll explain.
Goblins are harder to hit (15 AC vs 13 AC), slightly less accurate (+4 attack bonus vs +5), but as written, can move + hide on their turn, and attack at range instead of having to get within melee. They also have a +2 bonus to their initiative, compared to +1 for the Peryton. In your listed ~10 actions to take down a peryton, with a party of 4 characters, that's ~2.5 rounds. Call it 3. Depending on initiative order, in total, that means:
Peryton: between 4 and 6 attacks
Goblins: between 8 and 12 attacks (often at advantage due to their ability to re-position and hide)
Average damage per round (without accounting for targeting, as PCs will have almost at least 13AC, and very often considerably higher, plus things like Fighting Style: Protection to impose disadvantage, and Shield to bump AC):
Peryton: 24
Goblins: 20
The 24 may be higher, but it's easier to deal with. Since it's only 2 attacks, things like Shield, Fighting Style: Protection, or hiding are twice as effective as against 4 attacks (the math is actually more complicated because the peryton's first successful attack is twice as damaging as its second, but if you make it miss both its attacks it obviously does no damage, as opposed to the goblins still doing 50%)
And if you want to compare perfect monster strats (Peryton basically needs the party to not react at all, nor move at all, nor do anything like Fog Cloud to do it's 30' dive bomb, 30' move away, repeat), the goblins can open up at 80' range with advantage (ambush from hiding). So that's 8 attack rolls to try to hit 4 times, giving a bunch of chances at rolling a crit. If you're cruel, that would be a surprise round too, so the "real" first round will have started with the party having 16 attack rolls rolled against them for 8 attacks, very likely critting at least once, and dropping one or more member, with very little wasted damage in there too, as the goblins can spread the damage wherever they please. By round 2, the party still might have to burn dashes and perception checks to try to hit any of the goblins (or even see where they are), and they're going to be taking another 4 attacks, many probably still at advantage.
But most people just run goblins straight, ignoring Nimble Escape, ignoring their proficiency in stealth, and most encounters with goblins end up being a joke.
So I guess my point is just that every monster needs to be thought about before you run an encounter with it, if you want your game to be the "right" level of challenging for your group. Whatever level that may be.
Then, during scenes where it's not quite as important you go full-on NCIS, bring back skills as usual to let the smarter characters do their thing well.
Also if the party is going to be doing a lot of sneaking, I recommend co-opting the teamwork rules from Blades in the Dark. For a group roll, have the whole party roll stealth for instance, and have someone lead the group. The group's roll is the highest result of that roll, and the person leading the group suffers some sort of disadvantage for each failure that was rolled. That way the party can be sneaky without mandating everyone have high dex. If you're going to be trailing or shadowing people a lot that'll be important, unless you want Ser Swingsword to be running into every combat encounter 2-3 rounds late.
If it's not going to be a "single skill" sort of situation you can also default to skill challenges, which are not terrible when used correctly and have the advantage of existing in the same mechanical framework as the rest of the game.
I once ran a game where the party was tasked with recruiting an army by visiting various cities and convincing leaders of groups to join their cause. I handled it poorly though, and as a result the majority of the party, who were not charisma focused characters, were not satisfied with it. My biggest problem was that most of the group felt useless a good portion of the time, and that's why I recommend that sort of approach.
Not the greatest of starts, my players almost had me quit right then and there, but I went along with it.
But hey, I now have them knowing one of the major npcs dilemma (Titania has gone missing) and now they are in the feywild. Thank christ Im past the worst? Well, I do have a stab happy half-drow and a cantrip loving Yuan-ti sorc so thats nice.....
Thematically I feel like they should have some basic ability to accomplish their missions subtly, but in a game mechanic way rather than a hand wavy way.
So are they investigating and outing the shadowy organization running the city?
Needing to meet with folks, and investigating places and being altogether shady individuals as they hide from the government?
The ability to spread damage is the point. The problematic difference between the two encounters is that the goblins deal their 20 damage and either (played aggressively) focus on one character, probably knocking him to zero but maybe missing enough to just take a big chunk out of him, or (played nonthreateningly, perhaps because you've realized your players are in rough shape) spread their damage across the party, lightly damaging everyone but not presenting a mortal threat before the party has a chance to respond. Even in the focus fire scenario, they knock a guy to 0 and then change to targets to the next guy.
The peryton dive-bombs somebody with a d6 or d8 hit die and instant-kills them via massive damage (incidentally turning that 2.5 round timer for 10 actions into a 3.3 round timer in the process, by dint of turning the 4 man party into a 3 man party). Or maybe he misses, and Team Monster does nothing that round at all. Neither is very fun.
Spike damage that approaches or exceeds player HP totals is problematic, especially for new DMs (because they don't have time to realize how much danger the party is in before they accidentally kill a character with a random wilderness encounter), and especially in the context of the CR system, which is supposed to identify 'appropriate' challenges for the party, and doesn't. A CR 2 peryton, by the book, is a Medium difficulty encounter for a party of 4 level 2 characters. Medium difficulty means (again, according to the DMG) "one or two scary moments for the players but the character should emerge victorious with no casualties". The way a Peryton works makes it pretty clear that it's actually a Deadly encounter for the same party ("could be lethal for one or more characters, survival often requires good tactics and quick thinking and the party risks defeat"), because it is immediately lethal for one character on its first action if it gets an even an average roll. Again, by the book, that ought to make it a CR 4 creature worth 800 exp, not a CR 2 one worth 450.
Is that more appropriate? Probably, since that's about when it stops presenting a deadly threat to players and about the level range in which its magic resistance feature will be relevant but not non-interactable, but then the thing becomes a waste of XP budget as an inclusion in a higher-level encounter because its newly-doubled exp cost gets doubled again due to the number of monsters multiplier and someone following the encounter guidelines ends up only being able to 'afford' to throw it against parties so high level that they can swat it out of the air without caring about it. Fundamentally, the problem is that the CR system tries to measure two very different qualities in a monster ("how dangerous is this monster to a level 2 character?" and "how dangerous is the monster to a level 10 character?") using the same number, and that doesn't work because the answers aren't the same and do not scale linearly. The DMG knows the answers aren't the same, makes note of the fact that the system doesn't really work in a lot of cases...and then tries to use it anyway. The result is that the encounter design system is actively misleading, especially to the people who need its guidance the most - new players.
The problem isn't that perytons (or animated armors, or bugbears, or centaurs, or specters, or yetis, or any of the other monsters that have this problem - the CR 1-3 range is rife with things that were almost certainly written to be one of 2-4 monsters put in an encounter with a level 4-8 party and that can easily wipe a party or at least gib a couple players if encountered alone by a party of level equal to their CR) are too dangerous, it's that their CR lies about how dangerous they are to an equal-level party. And the system is most broken in exactly the level range where a bunch of brand-new players and a brand-new DM are gonna sit down and fight a Specter because it sounds neat and the book said it was a fair fight and not fully understand why a 'medium-difficulty' encounter was killing a player outright every turn until it wiped the party.
Every monster does need to be thought about - and analyzed, and mathed out, because even the surface-level comparison of total dpr ignoring hit chance vs expected encounter duration you're making goes well beyond just 'thinking about the monster' - before you run an encounter with it. That's exactly the problem: If you can do those things, then you don't need CR in the first place. An encounter-building guide that you have to already have a detailed understanding of the system's math to use correctly is like a set of training wheels that can only be used by people who are already expert cyclists: worthless.
baseline 5e already has a rule for group checks - if the party is doing a group activity that requires a check (like sneaking as a group), everyone rolls and the whole group succeeds as long as more than half of the party succeeds, with the logic being that the people with high results are helping the people with low results. As far as I can tell it exists basically for the express purpose of making sure that the plate-armor paladin doesn't automatically invalidate all stealth-based problem-solving strategies for the party.
Something like that. The guild/corporation is underground for fear of being snuffed out in retaliation, but the PCs don't know this inherently, I don't think. They don't start out knowing about the cabal either because it's a behind the scenes, illuminati type dealy. However they get hired out for missions, so I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to work it out. It just felt like they should be inherently sneakier.
I'd still favor an item based approach, maybe everyone in the organisation wears some sort of custom gray cloak and oh hey look it's a +2 to stealth.
In my character's opinion she's a selfish, manipulative asshole. Everything of the past year in-game has been her manipulating the party into this moment. The demon cloak, the demon amulet, the orb of law. All the people who have died along the way. All the events that put people in harm's way. All this to get the end result of having our party arrive in a Drow-overrun Dwarven city on the outskirts of the Underdark. A place my Drow loathes with every fiber of her being. Strongly considering her just saying "no thanks" to this offer of being her champion and going off to save Ioun and Corellon.
Yeah it occurs to me that we inadvertently gave you the most socially awkward group concievable.
Like, it makes sense that my character is weird since I'm playing a lizardfolk and the yaun-ti plays his characters with irreverence on a regular basis, but the drow player seems to have built her character to be as obtuse and borderline unplayable as possible; like for crying out loud the character is 8 years old and her player isn't old enough to be lamenting the loss of her childhood yet god dammit.
Honestly if I was presented with this party at the store and their weren't any moderating factors to them from other players, I'd probably engage in the patented method of brute force puzzle solving.
I like it, you're essentially setting up a bit of a leverage/Angel/bbc robin hood type of deal.
Could just make everyone either start with or multi a level of rogue. It would make the game super crazy with a crazy skill spread hopefully.
Like start at level 2 with everyone grabbing a level of rogue and a level of anything.
But some players may balk at that so the, you're all proficient in stealth is good.
Yeah there are definitely trade offs there. You're starting the game at level 2, and people all over the party will be able to spike out some extra damage on most rounds.
Couldn't you require stealth as part of their characters' backgrounds? Are backgrounds still a thing?
Between the investigative work and digging deeper into an over-arching conspiracy, this is reminding me a lot of Night's Black Agents, which is based on Gumshoe. Gumshoe has some useful mechanics for keeping an investigation moving forward, which could probably be adapted to a 5e setting.
I'm pretty sure @Aegeri has some experience with this...
So far the only mostly complete bit I've got sorted out is the first mission to a cellar on a private estate whose owner has been overhearing noises in. Aside from that I have a train ride to Ur/Babylon where they hopefully solve a simple puzzle and get teleported to a plane where they talk to Marduk and gain a greater undetermined quest. I'll probably have them thrown off the train in Turkey or Romania on the way, too.
I've learned in this endeavor that I can sort out backdrop and key figures and events fairly well but I'm ass at intriguing characters and mesmerizing story/plotwork.
So this reminded me of a campaign idea. There's plenty of literary examples of characters who have the sort of "I was a mage's apprentice, but then I rand away with a traveling troop when I was 16, but then I was drafted into the army and fought in the Great X war. And that's where I found Helm and devoted my life to him and that's my I'm a Wizard 1/ Bard 2/ Fighter 2/Cleric 6" or w/e.
And I was thinking it'd be interesting to have a campaign, where if say the characters went and completed a quest for an order of monks, where at the end of the arc they'd gain 2 lvls, instead they gain 1 level in monk and 1 in whatever they are. Or maybe have silo'd XP 'trees', and if they did something that was say nature related they could get 1000 XP as a druid or a ranger.
I don't know that it'd work mechanically or balance wise, and it'd be hell to track all the various abilties and spells as the game went on but the idea of characters getting better at skills by using those skills in game just seemed interesting to me.
I think you'd be better off granting bonus minor feats for that sort of thing. Not major bonuses, but little things like, say, "Honorary Member of the Shining Sun Monks: Gain a +1 Will bonus and a +2 to all Endurance checks involving cold or heat." Not going to break a game, even if they've got 3-4 feats like that, but it's a nice bit of flavor and serves as a nice little reminder of the character's history. Plus you're never going to have players complain about straight bonuses like that.
I have relaxed quite a bit since the last time i posted and things have been picking up greatly. the party has just defeated the big boss of the Sunless Citadel of the Yawning Portal and while they havent leveled to 3 yet they are within 100xp away. the party decided to then go through EVERY room and passage they missed along the way instead of just leaving the dungeon and are currently trying to take the Citadel for themselves while making the goblins and the kobalds that lived there already their employees, they were talking to the goblins first they started talking about if they want to form an alliance of sorts with shared treasure in the castle and i finished the session giving them a choice, A) either the goblins get the citadel and everything in it, the adventuring party removes the kobalds from the citadel and the party gets 1 room for themselves but the goblins choose which one (there are plenty of 10x10 ft rooms to choose) or
a couple of the players basically want to recreate Acquisitions Inc and make an adventuring company and have the Citadel as their HQ even though there is a mansion waiting for them when they get back to town
All in all, things are definitely better since last update, group is also not as squishy as before thanks to a couple new additions, before i had 2 clerics, a bard, a warlock, a sorcerer and a rogue, new additions are a ranger, a fighter and a paladin who was the bard but decided to kill off his character and make a new character based off a joke someone at the table made