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[D&D 5E] Nothing is true, everything is permitted.

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Posts

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Ken O wrote: »
    Zonugal wrote: »
    Aldo wrote: »
    Zonugal wrote: »
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    Sounds ambitious and awesome.

    Why are you dropping them back down to 1st level in between seasons? That seems frustrating. Why not make new characters?

    I'd give them that option but if they want to carry over their current characters it seems the easiest way?

    You can adjust encounters or skip over a few meandering bits of the story instead? You don't have to gimp your characters for every new campaign.
    Ken O wrote: »
    I think as a player it'd be frustrating to have my character dropped back to level one repeatedly. Losing all their cool powers and such doesn't seem fun. Would all their gear be stripped each time too?

    Hmm... I definitely don't want to adjust or modify any of the current modules...

    What if I gave the players the following options:

    A. You make a new character at starting at level one for this new season.

    B. You can rebuild your character starting from level one for this new season.

    Eh?

    I like the idea of new characters each time being somehow linked. You could do something where the new characters are the offspring of the party.

    Right now I actually have a player in two of my games he's playing "brother" type characters. They grew up in the same orphanage, one of them is none to fond of the other. He's angry at the other guy getting taken on as a jewellers apprentice and leaving him by himself in the orphanage. The third "brother" (The head of the gang that didn't do well without the first character's cooler head around to temper his wild schemes) is already getting a later campaign written around him.

    I've actually been connecting campaigns, and basically running a living setting for my friends for years now. I think I'd call it the third season now.

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Its really driven everyone in my group to consider where their new characters will sit in the cast and current stories instead of just considering what mechanics they want to interact with. More often than not they start with some setting aspect they want to explore more, and figure out a good mechanichal fit for someone in the position they are looking to fill.

  • KhildithKhildith Registered User regular
    I pulled the trigger and bought SKT for Roll20 to run with my group! At least one member of my group reads this forum so I won't be able to ask you guys for advice, but I really dig the layout and detail of this thing. It really is like 75% fluff which is going to help tremendously!

  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Goumindong wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Goumindong wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    The offhand is a d4, amd utilising the PAM feat caps your main hand attack at a d10.

    And?

    And those things matter because E(1d10r2) is 6.3 while E(2d6r2) is 8.322; a reduction in 2 damage per attack.

    So the PAM fighter is doing 27.6 DPR and the Dual Weilder is doing 25.5 (assuming 18 stat, and 1 feat) = 8.2%

    You may get an extra opportunity attack per combat which is nice, but its not like you're a rogue.

    An extra opportunity attack per enemy, at least for melee enemies. That's gonna be more than one in most combats.

    Again, though, this seems like a very odd debate, in which I say "TWF is worse than the alternatives because the alternatives deal 10-20% more damage" and get repeatedly told "no, you're wrong, here's math showing that the alternatives are only like 10% better"

    That's...that's what I said.

    You said 15 to 20% better... and they’re not. They’re 0 to 9% “better” and none of those numbers are the same.

    As for the extra OA. You get an extra OA per enemy only if enemies only close against you on different rounds. Taking your OA takes your reaction and you only get 1/round.

    That being said it has some great synergy with pushing attack so it’s got that going for it.

    They are. Your own math keeps coming up around 10% better, and you're consistently leaving out factors that bump things further in favor of GWF which I've gone over a couple of times, most notably the substantial impact of GWM itself.

    Even if your point is supposed to be that a 10% difference is negligible and irrelevant, that would seem to suggest that spending two pages trying to prove that GWF is 'only' 9% better than TWF instead of the 15% I claimed is far more of an exercise in pedantry than the original claim could possibly have been. It seems difficult to argue that a base 10% difference is a meaningless rounding error but this other 6% you think you've found is somehow critically important.

    I have not ever ignored GWM. GWM simply does not produce as much damage as you think it does unless ACs are super low. Like, at level 8 with 18 str and + 4 proficiency your breakeven AC is ~16. Like... two monsters have ACs that low in that CR band...

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  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    Goumindong wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Goumindong wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Goumindong wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    The offhand is a d4, amd utilising the PAM feat caps your main hand attack at a d10.

    And?

    And those things matter because E(1d10r2) is 6.3 while E(2d6r2) is 8.322; a reduction in 2 damage per attack.

    So the PAM fighter is doing 27.6 DPR and the Dual Weilder is doing 25.5 (assuming 18 stat, and 1 feat) = 8.2%

    You may get an extra opportunity attack per combat which is nice, but its not like you're a rogue.

    An extra opportunity attack per enemy, at least for melee enemies. That's gonna be more than one in most combats.

    Again, though, this seems like a very odd debate, in which I say "TWF is worse than the alternatives because the alternatives deal 10-20% more damage" and get repeatedly told "no, you're wrong, here's math showing that the alternatives are only like 10% better"

    That's...that's what I said.

    You said 15 to 20% better... and they’re not. They’re 0 to 9% “better” and none of those numbers are the same.

    As for the extra OA. You get an extra OA per enemy only if enemies only close against you on different rounds. Taking your OA takes your reaction and you only get 1/round.

    That being said it has some great synergy with pushing attack so it’s got that going for it.

    They are. Your own math keeps coming up around 10% better, and you're consistently leaving out factors that bump things further in favor of GWF which I've gone over a couple of times, most notably the substantial impact of GWM itself.

    Even if your point is supposed to be that a 10% difference is negligible and irrelevant, that would seem to suggest that spending two pages trying to prove that GWF is 'only' 9% better than TWF instead of the 15% I claimed is far more of an exercise in pedantry than the original claim could possibly have been. It seems difficult to argue that a base 10% difference is a meaningless rounding error but this other 6% you think you've found is somehow critically important.

    I have not ever ignored GWM. GWM simply does not produce as much damage as you think it does unless ACs are super low. Like, at level 8 with 18 str and + 4 proficiency your breakeven AC is ~16. Like... two monsters have ACs that low in that CR band...

    ...no?

    First off, a quick check on DnDBeyond shows that 20 out of 25 CR 8 monsters in the database have ACs of 16 or lower. 8 of them are 14 or lower.

    Secondly, unless every fight is a solo fight you're also going to be consistently fighting lower-CR monsters with lower average ACs.

    Thirdly, that's only roughly the breakeven point if you're attacking at a +8 with no other modifiers. In practice a character of that level will have substantially higher accuracy than that due to some combination of magic weapons, buffs like Bless, and simple advantage, which any power attack build is likely to have some kind of reasonably-reliable means of generating. If you're attacking something at that 'breakeven' AC with a +1 greatsword and advantage, you're generating in the neighborhood of a 20-25% damage increase from power attack alone, on top of the already-higher baseline damage GWF has over TWF.

    Fourthly, power attack is only part of what GWM does - it also provides bonus action attacks whenever you kill a thing, which is also going to boost your average DPR over time, particularly for the standard greatsword GWM setup which does not otherwise get bonus action attacks at all.

  • Hexmage-PAHexmage-PA Registered User regular
    edited April 2018
    How does Two Weapon Fighting compare to the other fighting styles aside from Great Weapon Fighting? I'm wondering if TWF and Dual Wielder is uniquely bad or if Great Weapon Mastery is just broken because the designers underestimated how easy it would be to get the +10 damage bonus.

    As it stands it sounds like Dual Wielder should at least also get a cleave-like benefit, or an extra reaction for opportunity attacks, or something.

    Hexmage-PA on
  • NyhtNyht Registered User regular
    Two Handed Weapon use is really good. Two Weapon Fighting is still fine (not better/ as good, just fine) and can be pretty cool for a character to use.

    Tah dah!

    So my brother who went down the Oath of the Ancients for his Paladin after swapping from Vengeance has been going full on with his idea for the character. In WoW he changed his Death Knight to mimic it a bit with green hair/shoulders/armor/etc which got me thinking of something to do with his character.

    He's playing a human but I'm thinking of slowly changing his character's appearance to match this concept. His hair will grow a few green streaks in it, gaging his reaction to this change. I can go back on it if needed but I get the feeling he'd find the physical changes pretty cool and I can tie it the Oath taken easily enough.

    Everyone hit level 7 from their session so it's a good time to start introducing the change. I've never dealt with an Oath of Ancients Paladin before but their level 7 was just a huge reason I always wanted to play one.

    My wife's playing the Tempest Cleric and neither she nor I Cleric much. Any stand out level 4 spells to advise her on?

  • TerrendosTerrendos Decorative Monocle Registered User regular
    edited April 2018
    Nyht wrote: »
    Two Handed Weapon use is really good. Two Weapon Fighting is still fine (not better/ as good, just fine) and can be pretty cool for a character to use.

    Tah dah!

    So my brother who went down the Oath of the Ancients for his Paladin after swapping from Vengeance has been going full on with his idea for the character. In WoW he changed his Death Knight to mimic it a bit with green hair/shoulders/armor/etc which got me thinking of something to do with his character.

    He's playing a human but I'm thinking of slowly changing his character's appearance to match this concept. His hair will grow a few green streaks in it, gaging his reaction to this change. I can go back on it if needed but I get the feeling he'd find the physical changes pretty cool and I can tie it the Oath taken easily enough.

    Everyone hit level 7 from their session so it's a good time to start introducing the change. I've never dealt with an Oath of Ancients Paladin before but their level 7 was just a huge reason I always wanted to play one.

    My wife's playing the Tempest Cleric and neither she nor I Cleric much. Any stand out level 4 spells to advise her on?

    Banishment, baby. Also I think you pick up Divination around that time? You can ritual cast it, so it doesn't need to count as a spell slot. Depending on the GM's interpretation of the effect it can range from really lame to utterly gamebreaking.

    Terrendos on
  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    Hexmage-PA wrote: »
    How does Two Weapon Fighting compare to the other fighting styles aside from Great Weapon Fighting? I'm wondering if TWF and Dual Wielder is uniquely bad or if Great Weapon Mastery is just broken because the designers underestimated how easy it would be to get the +10 damage bonus.

    As it stands it sounds like Dual Wielder should at least also get a cleave-like benefit, or an extra reaction for opportunity attacks, or something.

    Its generally higher than other types. And the feat is actually quite good marginally due to the AC. Additionally TWF builds can be dex based and so benefit from the fact that dex/con is a generally a better primary stat combination than str/con as dex saves and skills are both more common/dangerous but dex also gives initiative which is a very important stat.

    For characters which do not get a lot of attacks two weapon fighting depends a lot. A second attack is really good but the marginal value on the TWF fighting style itself is really high comparatively and losing out on in makes a big difference. Paladins get a slight increase in DPR very late in the game because, while they don't get the TWF style, they do get bonus damage on attacks (up to +2d8 eventually) but its generally lower otherwise. Rogues get a significant advantage in being able to get another chance at sneak attack damage if they missed. War Clerics et all get a slight increase in damage due to the probability of getting their extra damage off. Classes that do not get martial weapons (or greatswords) also get a slight advantage because 2x handaxes = 2d6+ stat. While no other weapon besides a maul or greatsword can match that without getting to 2+attacks.

    Examples of Damage for fighters around level 5-10 for 20 stat and no feats. TWF will be doing 25.5, GWF will be doing 26.664(greatsword). Duelist will be doing 23. Sword and Board will be doing 19. The TWF fighter will get 50% more chances to crit fish*.

    *because you get to decide when to use battlemaster combat styles the raw number of chances of crits factors into your DPR because you get to double the superiority die damage when you crit as well.

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  • ShawnaseeShawnasee Registered User regular
    Wait! Back up a minute...players can only have three attuned magic items at a time??

    Oh man, my group is going to collectively combust.

  • BrainleechBrainleech 機知に富んだコメントはここにあります Registered User regular
    edited April 2018
    Well this is interesting my book of Xanathar's Guide to Everything is miscut so many of the pages are still stuck together in the groups they would be as the book as assembled

    zhxaf6i6awfy.jpg
    epnajnyqwtvy.jpg
    tja0b972p3rm.jpg

    Brainleech on
  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    Shawnasee wrote: »
    Wait! Back up a minute...players can only have three attuned magic items at a time??

    Oh man, my group is going to collectively combust.

    Yup. Though note that not all magic items require attunement.

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  • NyhtNyht Registered User regular
    Brainleech wrote: »
    Well this is interesting my book of Xanathar's Guide to Everything is miscut so many of the pages are still stuck together in the groups they would be as the book as assembled

    zhxaf6i6awfy.jpg
    epnajnyqwtvy.jpg
    tja0b972p3rm.jpg

    "Interesting" is a very positive word ...

    Yeah, that's super weird. Reached out to Wizards yet?

    Also @Terrendos thanks for the suggestions.

    Banishment seems really good and Divination fits strongly with her character as an oracle.

  • Ken OKen O Registered User regular
    My weekly Curse of Strahd group is tonight. I'm excited to see what kind of horrible situations my bard drags everyone into this time.

    http://www.fingmonkey.com/
    Comics, Games, Booze
  • SmrtnikSmrtnik job boli zub Registered User regular
    Ken O wrote: »
    My weekly Curse of Strahd group is tonight. I'm excited to see what kind of horrible situations my bard drags everyone into this time.

    If you are the Bard in the game I'm DMing tonight, you still haven't sent me your updated character sheet!!

    steam_sig.png
  • Ken OKen O Registered User regular
    Smrtnik wrote: »
    Ken O wrote: »
    My weekly Curse of Strahd group is tonight. I'm excited to see what kind of horrible situations my bard drags everyone into this time.

    If you are the Bard in the game I'm DMing tonight, you still haven't sent me your updated character sheet!!

    Hahaha. Nope. My group is mostly people I've known since high school. But we're using Roll20 because as we've gotten old we've either moved out of state or had kids. There's just no way to do in person.

    Is your bard enamored with the Vistani? Because mine really likes them.

    http://www.fingmonkey.com/
    Comics, Games, Booze
  • SmrtnikSmrtnik job boli zub Registered User regular
    Only Vistani my group has met so far led them to a trap that got them to Barovia in the first place (he ran into their inn by side of road near Daggerford, shouting about his family being taken, then ran off into the woods. The party followed him to a cave filled with baddies, never found him or his family, then came out of cave into Svalich Woods. ), so i doubt they'd be happy to see him again.

    They said, they are camped for the night in the Death House portico with the mists blocking them in there, where we continue tonight.

    I'm wondering if i should make one of the later, named Vistani (i.e. Lugosh) turn out to have been the guy.

    steam_sig.png
  • BrainleechBrainleech 機知に富んだコメントはここにあります Registered User regular
    Nyht wrote: »
    Brainleech wrote: »
    Well this is interesting my book of Xanathar's Guide to Everything is miscut so many of the pages are still stuck together in the groups they would be as the book as assembled

    zhxaf6i6awfy.jpg
    epnajnyqwtvy.jpg
    tja0b972p3rm.jpg

    "Interesting" is a very positive word ...

    Yeah, that's super weird. Reached out to Wizards yet?

    Also @Terrendos thanks for the suggestions.

    Banishment seems really good and Divination fits strongly with her character as an oracle.

    How? and would I need better pics?

  • SteelhawkSteelhawk Registered User regular
    Twitter or email, I assume. I hear they're very good about fixing these sorts of things.

    Also, if you bought the book from a bricks and mortar retailer, I'm sure you could just return it or exchange it with zero hassle.

  • BrainleechBrainleech 機知に富んだコメントはここにあります Registered User regular
    I got them on Amazon
    They arrived yesterday

  • ArthilArthil Registered User regular
    edited April 2018
    Then you are fine. Contact WotC with those images and they will sort you out.

    Arthil on
    PSN: Honishimo Steam UPlay: Arthil
  • HydroSqueegeeHydroSqueegee ULTRACAT!!!™®© Registered User regular
    edited April 2018
    So is DnD beyond the only official source for reference material? Are there downloadable PDFs out there somewhere (that aren't book scans)? I need something I can store on my phone so I can fiddle while on the go and at work.

    I was looking at Fantasy Grounds, but that looks like more PC based and running online stuff. So I can't just fire it up and plan shit or look up things while I'm out.

    HydroSqueegee on
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  • SCREECH OF THE FARGSCREECH OF THE FARG #1 PARROTHEAD margaritavilleRegistered User regular
    damn animate object is a hell of a spell huh

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  • ZonugalZonugal (He/Him) The Holiday Armadillo I'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered User regular
    damn animate object is a hell of a spell huh

    It's a great way to defend a castle.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuHBmbYFxQM

    Ross-Geller-Prime-Sig-A.jpg
  • SCREECH OF THE FARGSCREECH OF THE FARG #1 PARROTHEAD margaritavilleRegistered User regular
    Zonugal wrote: »
    damn animate object is a hell of a spell huh

    It's a great way to defend a castle.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuHBmbYFxQM

    we've been encountering werewolves lately at level 9 in curse of strahd, but since i have at least 10 silver coins....

    gcum67ktu9e4.pngimg
  • SmrtnikSmrtnik job boli zub Registered User regular
    So my groups cleric couldn't come today so I'm to Death House they went with a barbarian, a bladesinger wizard, a rogue, and an alchemist.
    Got to the kid room with no real trouble (they found the secret room with the deeds before), and one of them willingly got possessed by Rose, and Thorn succeeded in his try, but they found the graves pretty quickly after that and did the right thing. Then they went West (down on map) and the grick and the ghouls wore them down a bit. I go, "it's getting late, you his want to keep going, pause here, what?" and they wanted to keep going so they find the wooden Strahd statue. Wizard goes "i mage hand the orb". They tried to run from the 5 shadows but realized they were fucked so stood their ground in the humanoid bone dining room. They were lvl 2 at that point (I've been doing actual xp instead of milestones) but very close to leveling. The first shadow to die lvld the rogue to 3, the second leveled rest of them. The barbarian was heavily wounded already from earlier and was making death saves by second round, but stabilized while shadows fought from on top of him.

    In the end, only the rogue was not making death saves but was consistently hiding and chipping away at the last two shadows. After the last one, went down i kept initiative going and the rogue stabilized the wizard and the alchemist (wiz was 1 save away from death, which he has already rolled as a raw 1 before it was his initiative, lucky the rogue went first).

    And that's how we were there an hour longer than usual haha.

    steam_sig.png
  • captainkcaptaink TexasRegistered User regular
    So is DnD beyond the only official source for reference material? Are there downloadable PDFs out there somewhere (that aren't book scans)? I need something I can store on my phone so I can fiddle while on the go and at work.

    I was looking at Fantasy Grounds, but that looks like more PC based and running online stuff. So I can't just fire it up and plan shit or look up things while I'm out.

    https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/BookIndex

    This is the free rules compendium. WOTC does not have pdfs.

  • Ken OKen O Registered User regular
    Last night's Curse of Strahd was great. Oddly enough our Cleric couldn't make it either.

    We went to the Vistani camp and my bard was bummed to find out the first group he had met wasn't there since he had made a "friend". We got our fortune told and then took to the mountain pass to get to Valakia.

    Our traveling situation is fun. Before starting the game we bumped up to second level and were given a few hundred gold. My bard being the a bard, spent the money on a magic lute from Xanathar's and a 2 horse carriage. It's the equivalent of a van with a dragon painted on the side. So we snuck a certain npc out of the village in my carriage while the rest of the party is on horse back.

    The session ended in the middle of combat. We're being attacked by dire wolves on one end of a bridge and a skeleton and it's skeletal warhorse on the other side.

    http://www.fingmonkey.com/
    Comics, Games, Booze
  • SmrtnikSmrtnik job boli zub Registered User regular
    I am excited about springing that skeleton on my group at some point.

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  • SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGaming Registered User regular
    edited April 2018
    So I'm running a 5e DnD game on Twitch. It's been a lot of fun so far and I'm running a campaign of my own devising which has been going mostly pretty well. The players were contacted by a woman offering them a chance at finding information about their most precious desire in life, if they succeeded in a contest of sorts. When they arrived at the location she suggested and met each other for the first time, she told them they were now a team in a race against various other teams in Faerun.

    A synopsis of the past few sessions, spoilered for length
    The race is a big deal in some circles and it seems to be known by some of the more secretive organizations but there's not many details she's allowed to give them, due to the rules. The main thing they need to do for the first step is get their entry ticket. There are more teams than tickets so to pass the first step they need to find a ticket. They went down into this little tomb and found that a team of goblins had beat them inside. They took out the rear guard and snuck further in to find that the goblins had been pretty much all killed by zombies. The group dispatched those and found the room with the ticket, a glowing Roulette spindle attached to a roulette table that looked out of place in the tomb. Before they could reach it however, a huge dude in massively baggy black clothes blasted his way in through the ceiling and grabbed the spindle, vanishing in a flash of light. The spindle was still there, but no longer glowing. They headed up to talk to their contact who asked them to meet in the town of Secomber for more information.

    They made their way to Secomber encountering a drunk druid and helping him cleanse his grove along the way. Since the spellplague happened, I'm giving Secomber kind of a "last town on the frontier" vibe. Most of the other small towns collapsed and the people fled here. There's not a ton of order and the town isn't huge but there is a river and a small port and a few basic amenities. Lots of people moving through towards Waterdeep and such.

    At this point I let the love of puns get the better of me and the party met Tom, of Tom's Two Tower's Tavern, where they enjoyed some terrific Twhiskey. (TM, by Tom). As they met with their contact again, she informed them there was a good chance of a ticket being in the town they're in right now. A local bandit organization finally united some of the warring thieves organizations and have a hideout somewhere underneath Secomber where they have gotten their hands on a ticket. Only problem is, they're not actually aware of the game and can't use the ticket. They know they have something special, but not exactly what. To make matters worse, other teams have started to get wind of the ticket being here and the party being a competing team.

    While meeting with their contact the windows of the tavern exploded inwards and bottles of Cloudkill got tossed inside, along with the exterior of the tavern getting set alight. The party managed to save Tom and themselves but the building was too far gone and collapsed in the flames. The Cloudkill ran into the cellar where it still sits, preventing Tom from getting many of his belongings and his beloved Twhiskey recipe, though he has asked the group for help in that matter.

    At this point we had to swap a person out so when they went to visit the former barbarian party member they found he seemed to have turned into silver. The barbarian had set up a camp right outside of town and a man setting up a festival had approached him, assuming the town sent him out to help. He shrugged and did indeed help, so the party was standing in the middle of a carnival looking into this tent while plenty of random people were strolling by oohing and ahhing at the cursed silver man. During this a few interesting folk strode into the square. 4 jugglers and a man in a robe were in one area, the man in the robe laid out a small carpet and was throwing up bits of smoke and flashes of light like a little show while the jugglers danced around him, tossing knives and various things to each other as they juggled.

    A cleric in full plate came out with a retinue of people, one with a horn, one with a flag. (The party didn't bother checking the guy's sigils or anything) This guy lowered his visor and had his lackey blow the horn, then demanded to speak to the proprietor of the carnival. No one made any moves to do anything about this and the guy seemed kinda lost. The party decided to ignore him and were discussing how they might best grind up a man made of silver so they could sell it.

    Then the guy in the robe on the carpet finished his ritual. A blue beam of light shot into the sky and then sunburst out over the festival, making some cool pyrotechnic displays that made many of the festival goers point excitedly. But as this blue wave passed over the 4 jugglers and the man in the robe, it coalesced around them, making them shimmer just slightly with a blue glow. This same thing happened to each of the party members as it passed, highlighting them in the crowd. The man in full plate and his retinue also glowed, though they sighed and turned to leave upon seeing this.

    The newest member of the group had just arrived (having been told by his contact that the group needed him to meet up and be a replacement) and strode right up to the jugglers to ask them why he was glowing with them when one of the jugglers with the knives took a swipe at him. The group noticed this and engaged in combat, fighting off the jugglers as the crowd screamed and scattered. Their leader, the guy who cast the ritual, tossed out a few spells and then made his escape through the crowd once a few of the jugglers went down. (They later examined his ritual carpet and guessed he cast some sort of spell to locate other players in the game. They couldn't find a scroll to recreate it themselves) Their new party member introduced himself and told them he had been attacked by a group of rainbow haired people tossing colorful boxes (Wild magic grenades!) at him on the way to this town.

    Their contact called for them and they turned to see her striding out of the tent where their silver friend had been lying. She was now holding him, somehow having been miniaturized. (Planning for him to now be a magic item they can toss out and he'll grow to normal size and fight for a round or two I think). Since the tavern burnt down they regrouped at the General Store where poor old Tom seems to have gotten a job. The general store has a meeting room upstairs that Tom let them use, grateful that they saved him from the burning Inn. They shared info, asked their Contact for more information on the people they've been encountering, and have a decent idea of some of the opponents now. They know that the group that burnt down the inn are the Ebon Dwarves, the jugglers are members of the Jesters, the rainbow haired folk are from the Wilders, and she wasn't familiar with the plate wearing religious people. She tells them about the bandit group under secomber that has the ticket and even has a contact they can meet to try and talk their way in. (Planning on there being a high profile illegal gambling operation going on, they can either infiltrate like Bond...or more likely shoot their way in like Bond)

    So our next session will be a foray into the sewers followed by finding the bandit hideout and getting the last ticket. Assuming they can get there before any of the other groups find out about it as well!
    So that was super long but I'm hoping I have started to develop this into an interesting thing. There's multiple parties at work, they aren't even 100% sure who their contact is and who they're working for or what the race will entail when they're actually in it. I'm hoping the tension of other people actively working towards the same goal is coming across as interesting, the party seems to be positive about it so far. Once they actually get the ticket I'll hammer down exactly which other teams also managed to get a ticket and then the very interesting bits begin! I'd be curious if anyone has experience running a sort of race like this and would have any kind of pointers. I'd love to do something like a Casino Royale type session and have been trying to figure out how to work that in. I tried to do a few carnival games and that ended up being a little bit of a slog with too much rolling. It's been a blast DMing and trying out stuff like this again.

    We are still occasionally getting caught up on little rule things that I need to hammer into my GM brain more. Like, do spell attacks crit? In 5e what exactly does a crit do? Easy stuff to look up but as we're streaming I need to get better about having that info on hand. Especially since roll20's compendium decided to not work for me last night!

    Our current party is:
    Human Warlock, fey pact (Adolescent Girl, think Wednesday Adams)
    Halfling Cleric, Death Domain, worships Urgolan
    Human Monk who thinks he's a punch wizard
    Half-elf Rogue, more of a swashbuckler, writing a travel guide of Faerun

    The warlock stole a prize doll from the festival after the people scattered and then discovered it's a Talking Doll which I imagine will lead to some very fun interactions.

    SniperGuy on
  • HydroSqueegeeHydroSqueegee ULTRACAT!!!™®© Registered User regular
    At this rate I'm going to need a plotter printer to make some of these maps I've been finding. Good lord. Wish large format printers weren't so damn expensive.

    kx3klFE.png
  • NarbusNarbus Registered User regular
    SniperGuy wrote: »
    So I'm running a 5e DnD game on Twitch. It's been a lot of fun so far and I'm running a campaign of my own devising which has been going mostly pretty well. The players were contacted by a woman offering them a chance at finding information about their most precious desire in life, if they succeeded in a contest of sorts. When they arrived at the location she suggested and met each other for the first time, she told them they were now a team in a race against various other teams in Faerun.

    A synopsis of the past few sessions, spoilered for length
    The race is a big deal in some circles and it seems to be known by some of the more secretive organizations but there's not many details she's allowed to give them, due to the rules. The main thing they need to do for the first step is get their entry ticket. There are more teams than tickets so to pass the first step they need to find a ticket. They went down into this little tomb and found that a team of goblins had beat them inside. They took out the rear guard and snuck further in to find that the goblins had been pretty much all killed by zombies. The group dispatched those and found the room with the ticket, a glowing Roulette spindle attached to a roulette table that looked out of place in the tomb. Before they could reach it however, a huge dude in massively baggy black clothes blasted his way in through the ceiling and grabbed the spindle, vanishing in a flash of light. The spindle was still there, but no longer glowing. They headed up to talk to their contact who asked them to meet in the town of Secomber for more information.

    They made their way to Secomber encountering a drunk druid and helping him cleanse his grove along the way. Since the spellplague happened, I'm giving Secomber kind of a "last town on the frontier" vibe. Most of the other small towns collapsed and the people fled here. There's not a ton of order and the town isn't huge but there is a river and a small port and a few basic amenities. Lots of people moving through towards Waterdeep and such.

    At this point I let the love of puns get the better of me and the party met Tom, of Tom's Two Tower's Tavern, where they enjoyed some terrific Twhiskey. (TM, by Tom). As they met with their contact again, she informed them there was a good chance of a ticket being in the town they're in right now. A local bandit organization finally united some of the warring thieves organizations and have a hideout somewhere underneath Secomber where they have gotten their hands on a ticket. Only problem is, they're not actually aware of the game and can't use the ticket. They know they have something special, but not exactly what. To make matters worse, other teams have started to get wind of the ticket being here and the party being a competing team.

    While meeting with their contact the windows of the tavern exploded inwards and bottles of Cloudkill got tossed inside, along with the exterior of the tavern getting set alight. The party managed to save Tom and themselves but the building was too far gone and collapsed in the flames. The Cloudkill ran into the cellar where it still sits, preventing Tom from getting many of his belongings and his beloved Twhiskey recipe, though he has asked the group for help in that matter.

    At this point we had to swap a person out so when they went to visit the former barbarian party member they found he seemed to have turned into silver. The barbarian had set up a camp right outside of town and a man setting up a festival had approached him, assuming the town sent him out to help. He shrugged and did indeed help, so the party was standing in the middle of a carnival looking into this tent while plenty of random people were strolling by oohing and ahhing at the cursed silver man. During this a few interesting folk strode into the square. 4 jugglers and a man in a robe were in one area, the man in the robe laid out a small carpet and was throwing up bits of smoke and flashes of light like a little show while the jugglers danced around him, tossing knives and various things to each other as they juggled.

    A cleric in full plate came out with a retinue of people, one with a horn, one with a flag. (The party didn't bother checking the guy's sigils or anything) This guy lowered his visor and had his lackey blow the horn, then demanded to speak to the proprietor of the carnival. No one made any moves to do anything about this and the guy seemed kinda lost. The party decided to ignore him and were discussing how they might best grind up a man made of silver so they could sell it.

    Then the guy in the robe on the carpet finished his ritual. A blue beam of light shot into the sky and then sunburst out over the festival, making some cool pyrotechnic displays that made many of the festival goers point excitedly. But as this blue wave passed over the 4 jugglers and the man in the robe, it coalesced around them, making them shimmer just slightly with a blue glow. This same thing happened to each of the party members as it passed, highlighting them in the crowd. The man in full plate and his retinue also glowed, though they sighed and turned to leave upon seeing this.

    The newest member of the group had just arrived (having been told by his contact that the group needed him to meet up and be a replacement) and strode right up to the jugglers to ask them why he was glowing with them when one of the jugglers with the knives took a swipe at him. The group noticed this and engaged in combat, fighting off the jugglers as the crowd screamed and scattered. Their leader, the guy who cast the ritual, tossed out a few spells and then made his escape through the crowd once a few of the jugglers went down. (They later examined his ritual carpet and guessed he cast some sort of spell to locate other players in the game. They couldn't find a scroll to recreate it themselves) Their new party member introduced himself and told them he had been attacked by a group of rainbow haired people tossing colorful boxes (Wild magic grenades!) at him on the way to this town.

    Their contact called for them and they turned to see her striding out of the tent where their silver friend had been lying. She was now holding him, somehow having been miniaturized. (Planning for him to now be a magic item they can toss out and he'll grow to normal size and fight for a round or two I think). Since the tavern burnt down they regrouped at the General Store where poor old Tom seems to have gotten a job. The general store has a meeting room upstairs that Tom let them use, grateful that they saved him from the burning Inn. They shared info, asked their Contact for more information on the people they've been encountering, and have a decent idea of some of the opponents now. They know that the group that burnt down the inn are the Ebon Dwarves, the jugglers are members of the Jesters, the rainbow haired folk are from the Wilders, and she wasn't familiar with the plate wearing religious people. She tells them about the bandit group under secomber that has the ticket and even has a contact they can meet to try and talk their way in. (Planning on there being a high profile illegal gambling operation going on, they can either infiltrate like Bond...or more likely shoot their way in like Bond)

    So our next session will be a foray into the sewers followed by finding the bandit hideout and getting the last ticket. Assuming they can get there before any of the other groups find out about it as well!
    So that was super long but I'm hoping I have started to develop this into an interesting thing. There's multiple parties at work, they aren't even 100% sure who their contact is and who they're working for or what the race will entail when they're actually in it. I'm hoping the tension of other people actively working towards the same goal is coming across as interesting, the party seems to be positive about it so far. Once they actually get the ticket I'll hammer down exactly which other teams also managed to get a ticket and then the very interesting bits begin! I'd be curious if anyone has experience running a sort of race like this and would have any kind of pointers. I'd love to do something like a Casino Royale type session and have been trying to figure out how to work that in. I tried to do a few carnival games and that ended up being a little bit of a slog with too much rolling. It's been a blast DMing and trying out stuff like this again.

    We are still occasionally getting caught up on little rule things that I need to hammer into my GM brain more. Like, do spell attacks crit? In 5e what exactly does a crit do? Easy stuff to look up but as we're streaming I need to get better about having that info on hand. Especially since roll20's compendium decided to not work for me last night!

    Our current party is:
    Human Warlock, fey pact (Adolescent Girl, think Wednesday Adams)
    Halfling Cleric, Death Domain, worships Urgolan
    Human Monk who thinks he's a punch wizard
    Half-elf Rogue, more of a swashbuckler, writing a travel guide of Faerun

    The warlock stole a prize doll from the festival after the people scattered and then discovered it's a Talking Doll which I imagine will lead to some very fun interactions.

    This whole thing sounds amazing. Do you have a sketch out of how the game is going to play out?

    As for your questions:
    From page 196 of the PHB:
    CRITICAL HITS

    When you score a critical hit, you get to roll extra dice for the attack's damage against the target. Roll all of the attack's damage dice twice and add then together. Then add any relevant modifiers as normal.

    It just says "attack", with no difference between physical and magical. So if a ranger crits with their longbow, the total damage would be (2d8) + attack mod, same as if the wizard scored a crit with Frozen Ray.

  • ShawnaseeShawnasee Registered User regular
    Passive Investigation of 28...

    Passive Investigation.

    How do you passively investigate?

    Read a book while you check for traps?

    We came to a consensus at the table when the question was asked, but I'm still not sure about the meaning or how to apply it.

  • DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    Shawnasee wrote: »
    Passive Investigation of 28...

    Passive Investigation.

    How do you passively investigate?

    Read a book while you check for traps?

    We came to a consensus at the table when the question was asked, but I'm still not sure about the meaning or how to apply it.

    What it represents is what you can spot by just looking around normally, without taking any sort of specific extra effort or focus.

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    I thought there was only passive perception.

  • SteelhawkSteelhawk Registered User regular
    DarkPrimus wrote: »
    Shawnasee wrote: »
    Passive Investigation of 28...

    Passive Investigation.

    How do you passively investigate?

    Read a book while you check for traps?

    We came to a consensus at the table when the question was asked, but I'm still not sure about the meaning or how to apply it.

    What it represents is what you can spot by just looking around normally, without taking any sort of specific extra effort or focus.

    That's Passive Perception you are talking about. The original question was about Investigation.

  • RendRend Registered User regular
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    DarkPrimus wrote: »
    Shawnasee wrote: »
    Passive Investigation of 28...

    Passive Investigation.

    How do you passively investigate?

    Read a book while you check for traps?

    We came to a consensus at the table when the question was asked, but I'm still not sure about the meaning or how to apply it.

    What it represents is what you can spot by just looking around normally, without taking any sort of specific extra effort or focus.

    That's Passive Perception you are talking about. The original question was about Investigation.

    Passive investigation is when you learn something non-obvious beyond what you can simply perceive. A high passive perception might allow you to notice a hidden assassin. A high passive investigation might allow you to notice that the items on the alchemist table were used recently, maybe within the last hour or so, both without rolling.

    At least that's how I'd do it.

  • doomybeardoomybear Hi People Registered User regular
    Yeah, think of it like Sherlock Holmes. Passive Perception may help you notice that someone's boots are muddy, but a passive investigation would help you connect that mud to a river you're going to have to pass an hour's travel past this tavern, and twigs indicate that those boots probably walked through the forest and not on the road, and since the person wearing the boots is not a lumberjack or hunter due to muscle development/other context, you deduce that the person is a scout for bandits that ambush travelers by the river, which you might otherwise not have suspected if all you could see was that their boots are muddy.

    what a happy day it is
  • webguy20webguy20 I spend too much time on the Internet Registered User regular
    Speaking of crits I was thinking a fun house rule would be if a damage spell requires a save and the target rolls a one then it counts a crit. Could be fun. Fireball could be ridiculous.

    Steam ID: Webguy20
    Origin ID: Discgolfer27
    Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
  • evilthecatevilthecat Registered User regular
    edited April 2018
    I use passive ability scores for things people are adept at.
    If the rogue spends all his free time cracking locks then I'm not going to make him roll if his passive score beats the lock on the barn door.
    Same goes for the legolas archer that failed to spot the tarrasque hiding behind a bush in a field.
    It feels supremely lame when the "I'm awesome at this" PC fails because they rolled a 1 or a 2.
    That isn't to say you can't do it now and again for comedy setups, but I'd not do it when the decision in question is plot relevant.

    On the flip side, active checks are for things that the PC would find challenging or require some lateral thinking from the player.

    evilthecat on
    tip.. tip.. TALLY.. HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
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