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.
Whoops forgot to check this thread for the weekend. Good to know about crits!
I do have it sketched out! A few of my players are on the boards so I'm hoping they aren't checking this thread but essentially
my players don't read this! Go away!
When they get their ticket they will be transported to a massive endless warehouse type thing full of shelves with various dusty knick knacks. Their goal is to be the first to find a certain number of powerful gems. The team with the most gems when all gems are found wins! The catch is that the gems are located inside various knick knacks and they have to enter each item a-la Disgaea's item world to see if there's a gem hidden inside. When each item's "world" is cleared or the problem inside dealt with, the item will be restored into whatever magic item it used to be and they can take it with them. This gives me a ton of opportunity for fun randomized dungeons and weird worlds based on their item. They'll have to find a way to track down which items have gems and which are just random debris and there's a chance they'll run into another team inside any item, also trying to find the gems. The actual gem worlds will be full on fun dungeon encounters, the other random items will be more randomly generated things.
I'm thinking we'll have some various spirit type folks who have set up vendor shops and services as a little mini town in parts of the warehouse. This is also when they'll discover that no one has ever actually completed this race before, most people end up dying in this warehouse having not found the gems. But our players being clever will surely figure out a better way to track down the gems!
That sounds like it could be fun.
A while back, my players were trying to get some help from a silver dragon who, while still friendly towards humanoids, was very much in the "ugh, you silly children" camp of being friendly. They had to navigate a bunch of puzzle rooms for a session, instead of just wandering around doing combats.
If your players like puzzles - i understand fully that it's a bit of a divisive issue - I can share some of the rooms they went through. They'd make for good, 20 minute trinket dungeons.
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.
Whoops forgot to check this thread for the weekend. Good to know about crits!
I do have it sketched out! A few of my players are on the boards so I'm hoping they aren't checking this thread but essentially
my players don't read this! Go away!
When they get their ticket they will be transported to a massive endless warehouse type thing full of shelves with various dusty knick knacks. Their goal is to be the first to find a certain number of powerful gems. The team with the most gems when all gems are found wins! The catch is that the gems are located inside various knick knacks and they have to enter each item a-la Disgaea's item world to see if there's a gem hidden inside. When each item's "world" is cleared or the problem inside dealt with, the item will be restored into whatever magic item it used to be and they can take it with them. This gives me a ton of opportunity for fun randomized dungeons and weird worlds based on their item. They'll have to find a way to track down which items have gems and which are just random debris and there's a chance they'll run into another team inside any item, also trying to find the gems. The actual gem worlds will be full on fun dungeon encounters, the other random items will be more randomly generated things.
I'm thinking we'll have some various spirit type folks who have set up vendor shops and services as a little mini town in parts of the warehouse. This is also when they'll discover that no one has ever actually completed this race before, most people end up dying in this warehouse having not found the gems. But our players being clever will surely figure out a better way to track down the gems!
That sounds like it could be fun.
A while back, my players were trying to get some help from a silver dragon who, while still friendly towards humanoids, was very much in the "ugh, you silly children" camp of being friendly. They had to navigate a bunch of puzzle rooms for a session, instead of just wandering around doing combats.
If your players like puzzles - i understand fully that it's a bit of a divisive issue - I can share some of the rooms they went through. They'd make for good, 20 minute trinket dungeons.
Puzzles sound great! I would love to hear about and potentially steal them with your permission.
So here is the write up i sent my players after their first venture into CoS Death House (names changed):
The gang had made it to a strange shuttered village, confused as to where they were and one man down as Character A slept off getting knocked out earlier. Two children asked the group to help them with the monster that was loose in their house, and while the party considered whether to undertake heroism or not, a mystical fog left them no real choice anyway. With Character A knocked out and Character B and Character C feeling drained by the strange fog, the party barricaded themselves on the house Portico and took turns resting. The mists, oddly, did not encroach further upon them even though the rusty iron gate was just metal bars. Terrifying ghastly faces flitted through the fog, albeit trying to see them better convinced those striving that they were just seeing things. The fog excursion had so shell-shocked poor Character B that she shook in the corner of the portico and mumbled something to herself repeatedly. The party learned from the children, Rose and Thorn Durst, that their baby brother was trapped inside still, and the kids did not know where the parents were.
The party marched bravely inside after their nappy-poo (leaving Character B with the kids on the portico), into a luxurious house, clearly of a rather wealthy family. A family with some rather odd fetishes if the various wood carvings were to be believed. From the large marble stairwell, to the crystal chandeliers, and the fine silverware, the party felt that *ahem* borrowing a few of these things could perhaps expedite the search for the parents, the baby, the monster, and finer clothes too perhaps. A well stocked pantry? Why yes, we'll fill up grub here. In the family library, Character D thought he'd read for a while to pass the time but he found a secret lever cleverly disguised as a book, which opened a secret door to a secret room containing a secret corpse of a careless long-dead adventurer that ate 3 darts to the face. There was a chest with some spell scrolls and deeds to the house and a windmill, plus a will that left it all to the kids. There was also books on fiend summoning and necromantic rituals - all bogus, says Character D. The party figured they'd talk to the kids about this, but when they went to the portico, the only one there was Character B, mouth agape, face up against the stone, and sawing wood in slumber. The kids were gone!
Undeterred, our heroes braved their way to the third floor, to get on with looking for the baby and the monster, their pockets well full and satisfied. But unlike the previous too, this floor was dusty and cobwebbed. Looking to score some free armor on top of the free sword and shield he had already helped himself to, Character A awoke an ancient suit of armor, but it was no match for the crew. These intrepid explorers found another secret door amidst the grotesque wood paneling, leading into a darkened stairwell leading up to the 4th floor. Rather than proceed, though, they figured they'd get the achievement for clearing 3FL first, so they proceeded into the nursery and as they reached for the door to the crib room an apparition manifested looking for their blood. Luckily for them, the apparition while scary, could not hit to save its unlife, and soon was naught more than a splat of ectoplasm on the floor. And in the crib - an empty baby burrito. After witnessing the existence of indoor plumbing amazed Character A, he thought he'd help himself to some soap these people kept in a storeroom, and no animated brooms would deter him from his mission. Proceeding into the master bedroom, it was Character C that lead the way in robbing the family jewels, literally!
Onwards and upwards to the attic, which contained some empty rooms, a storeroom with a chest with a skeleton of a young woman with many stab wounds stuffed in it, that looked very much like the apparition that had attacked earlier, and lastly, a locked room with a solitary bricked up window, where our intrepid menagerie met with two familiar faces. Rose and Thorn were here, and they claimed to never have met the group before. They did show the party a dollhouse that was an accurate replica of the real house, down to the secret doors, one of which the party had not found before. As the troops marched out of the room a cry went out from the children "we were abandoned by our parents, locked in here to starve to death, and you that have been so kind to us now want to leave us as well?! we cannot bear it" and attempted to posses those who had shown them the attention their parents never had. Character A willingly allowed this to happen, what's another voice after all? Thus, he gained the character flaw of "I like being in charge and get angry when other people tell me what to do.” and the voice of a little girl in his head. Character E tried to fight off the possession, but ultimately succumbed and gained the character flaw of " I’m scared of everything, including my own shadow, and weep with despair when things don’t go my way.” and the voice of a little boy in her head. The characters sure wished they had a priest friend to advise them on this sort of thing, but figured they could maybe scoop up the two small skeletons off the floor into a bag and maybe they could bury them later or something?
Down the circular staircase the bevy descended into darkness. Reaching well beyond the ground floor, a curious sound of chanting started to reach their ears, but too far and vague to really tell what was being said or from what direction. Earthen corridors stretched out every which way, maze-like. It seems like our brave bunch was in the family tomb, but perhaps more. They found the empty grave of the baby, the empty graves of the kids (depositing the bones into which caused the ghosts of the children to finally be at peace and cease their haunting), and the graves of the parents - also empty but for some nasty centipedes. But not to worry, Character A used Character C's back as an anvil upon which to beat the centipides to death with his sword, and Character E even got an impromptu meal out of the whole ordeal.
Ignoring the stairs luring them further down into the abyss, the group proceeded to a large room with a family style dining table and the dirty floor littered with bones of humanoids. And in a corner, a grick ambush worked out poorly for the grick. Our heroes pressed on, trying to find the source of the chanting. As they crossed into another intersection, they were rushed by some nasty ghouls, with dirty dirty fingernails, but ultimately our amazing assembly worked the ghouls back into the dust they came from. With a foolhardy outlook, no thought of rest was given and the group pressed on into what appeared to be a torture chamber/churche, with the walls festooned with shackled skeletons and an statue of a handsome gaunt, pale-faced man wearing a voluminous black cloak, his pale left hand resting on the head of a wolf that stands next to him, and his right holding a smoky-gray crystal orb in his right hand. "Right, we haven't looted anything in a while" they concluded, and soon there was a mage hand fondling said orb. This did not please the 5 shadows that peeled themselves off the wall and attacked our group. "Courage is the better part of valor" said the back of Character C's head as it disappeared out of the room. The party ran but the shadows ran faster. A valiant last stand was established on top of the family style dining table for fine young cannibals, and the shadows went to work. One, after another, after another, our heroes were felled. Where is the radiant damage?! But each death was paid for dearly and the stealthy attackers were themselves whittled down. In the end two shadows remained, having shrugged off the attacks the party had directed their way. Everyone was making death saves, or in some cases, failing them. Everyone? Not Character E, the true ghost of this manner. POW! One shadow down. POW! Other shadow down! Character E raced to stabilize Character D and Character C before they bled out, while Character A seemed stable but unconscious. Alone in the darkness, with 3 friends knocked out for the count, and another friend far above their heads somewhere, a bird lady holds on to a treasured possession and prays.
Also, a reminder that we had talked about lingering injuries, and the collective response was "yeah ok cool". I'm going to call for an actual Medicine skill proficiency on a character roling that check (in the lingering injuries table).
So let's go with the middle option, and as of next session,
Character A has Minor Scar (19).
Character D has Festering Wound (14).
Character C has Horrible Scar (11).
Character B is s cleric and the player was not available for that session.
Character E is a rogue kenku.
Everyone but B is now lvl 3.
Players A and C wanted more details about the lingering injuries so i sent out this:
A's is on his chest, a horizontal small gash.
C's runs from his chin down to left shoulder, a lengthy thin scar.
D's is a large area along right arm, that's slowly spreading as the tissue dies. Good luck!
I play a half-orc monk in that game, with myself and another player's goblin rogue being from a distant continent under the Iron Fist rule of a MoguHobgoblin Empire. Rest of the party is a Tiefling Rogue, Aasimar Paladin and what was originally a Human Fighter and is now playing a Human Warlock. We took care of a big band of orcish raiders, and after infiltrating their camp and creating chaos as we escaped with the half-orc fisherman they kidnapped and were forcing to fight someone else, they came to the town head-on... With just the warchief, their shaman, and an orcish woman with a child.
The orc's had been raiding yes, out of necessity. They were fleeing northward from their mountain home, which they claimed was infested with undead. We'd beaten them, most of their best warriors dead and wished to be left alone to turn to hunting and fishing for survival.
After agreeing to this the party went southward... and the session before last my little goblin buddy died. He'd been dealing with some rough issues after encountering a weird fey creature, thinking he was going crazy. He wandered directly towards some pretty lights in the distance after we camped out at a guard encampment... and was killed by Will'o'Wisps. Sadly the player left, kind of think they intended to get him killed but that's not the point of this post.
Last session we arrived at our destination. There's a large Holy City in the southern mountains, protected from the undead as the patron goddess of their people is always watching over the city itself. We did not experience as much trouble as we expected, and manage to find someone the tiefling rogue knew as a contact to get my little buddy's body prepared. Seeing as the player left, when Speak with Dead was used he of course did not wish to return.
My monk awaited his body to be finished with cremation, while the others went to the barracks to see about work. This is a BIG city too. The commander of the cities military seems to see through the hooded cloak the rogue wears instantly, and gestures for him to pull it down. Instead of being outraged, he guffawed and called him a bold "young buck" while gesturing to his horns. He provided them an insignia which would give us safer passage through most of the city.
The day reached its end, my monk collected his friend's ashes within a pouch before leaving and we found our way to an Inn. The warlock... had been trying to contact their patron the whole day, with no real luck. When the group came to fetch me the rogue heard a 'whisper' within the temple, and was inflicted by 1d8 of sudden psychic damage and given a level of exhaustion. It wasn't until later that we guessed what happened...
We meet the pleasant dwarf Innkeep, he's very happy to have some customers and we settle our payment. The warlock goes upstairs, we remain downstairs to eat and drink a little. Suddenly... the DM plays THIS:
And immediately asks all of us to make a dexterity saving throw. We all succeed, the Warlock fails. Suddenly we hear a loud explosion and an intense bright light shines down through the floor despite it being stonework. Me and the rogue quickly make it upstairs, and find the Warlock's room a white-hot mess of holy flame with him laying in the middle on the remnants of the ritual he was performing. We stabilized him, and that's where we ended it...
The Warlock tried to contact his patron in the most direct way possible, but instead of "picking up" the goddess which watches over the city interfered and as the DM put it. "Booped him on the nose" causing a Fireball-level of a holy hand grenade to go off in his face. We kind of guessed that's what happened with the rogue earlier, too.
I've got some house rule ideas for you guys to critique:
Quick Rest - The first short rest taken since a long rest takes only five minutes. Lingering Death - Death save failures persist until the next completed rest. Risky Revival - A downed character with no death save failures may choose to take two death save failures and expend a hit die in exchange for regaining the maximum amount of HP that hit die can grant. Fighting Styles and Martial Adept - A character who gains a fighting style also gets the Martial Adept feat. Monstrous Maneuvers - Some monsters may augment their melee attacks with effects similar to Battle Master maneuvers, adding effects like shoving, tripping, and lunging.
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I've got some house rule ideas for you guys to critique:
Quick Rest - The first short rest taken since a long rest takes only five minutes. Lingering Death - Death save failures persist until the next completed rest. Risky Revival - A downed character with no death save failures may choose to take two death save failures and expend a hit die in exchange for regaining the maximum amount of HP that hit die can grant. Fighting Styles and Martial Adept - A character who gains a fighting style also gets the Martial Adept feat. Monstrous Maneuvers - Some monsters may augment their melee attacks with effects similar to Battle Master maneuvers, adding effects like shoving, tripping, and lunging.
Your monks, warlocks, battlemasters, and moon druids will love Quick Rest.
Lingering Death is nasty but if you want a more lethal campaign it's a good idea.
Risky Revival only works with Lingering Death I think?
No one will take Martial Adept otherwise, so sure.
Monstrous Maneuvers barely even counts as a house rule. Just a way to tweak monster difficulty.
From earlier about home brew content and cherry picking the sword coast book for ideas Or DMing
Think of it as a movie you are only doing the set designing for and the actors are ab libing
You just have to make sure they stick to the ideal of the movie and work with it
As why would the characters know about the stuff that happens over the hill if none of them have even been there?
What is your goal with these additional rules, @Hexmage-PA ?
Quick rest gives the party one near-guaranteed rest without removing 1 hour rests, which are long enough to create tension about whether or not the party has time to take them.
Lingering death and risky revival give a player the option to get back into a fight instead of making death saves, but at potentially high risk.
I also wanted to give martial characters and monsters more combat options. My original idea was to look up what the least optimal Battle Master maneuvers are and give their effects (minus the superiority die bonus damage) as an at-will attack, with the maneuver the attack is based on dependant on either the fighting style or equipped weapon. I figured just giving out Martial Adept for free would be easier.
I'd like to come up with a list of feats with non-combat applications and allow players extra opportunities to take them. That way someone won't have to choose between Actor and Great Weapon Mastery, for example. I'm also considering letting players take racial feats at first level, adding Con score to 1st level HP, allowing players to choose between rolling hit die or taking the average result, and adding some homebrew Battle Master maneuvers I found online (I'll post them here for evaluation since you guys enjoy analyzing mechanics so much).
In general I'd like a more tactical game, but not to the level 4E was.
Oh, and I'd also use marking from the DMG.
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What is your goal with these additional rules, @Hexmage-PA ?
Quick rest gives the party one near-guaranteed rest without removing 1 hour rests, which are long enough to create tension about whether or not the party has time to take them.
Lingering death and risky revival give a player the option to get back into a fight instead of making death saves, but at potentially high risk.
I also wanted to give martial characters and monsters more combat options. My original idea was to look up what the least optimal Battle Master maneuvers are and give their effects (minus the superiority die bonus damage) as an at-will attack, with the maneuver the attack is based on dependant on either the fighting style or equipped weapon. I figured just giving out Martial Adept for free would be easier.
on the death saving throw stuff:
you'll end up killing people. If you don't, you won't have any of that tension you mentioned.
on giving people stuff for free:
Be careful with this. The martial adept feat is nice because it makes Battlemasters better at what they do anyway, but if you start handing out class traits for free you end up devaluing people that picked that class.
What is your goal with these additional rules, @Hexmage-PA ?
Quick rest gives the party one near-guaranteed rest without removing 1 hour rests, which are long enough to create tension about whether or not the party has time to take them.
Lingering death and risky revival give a player the option to get back into a fight instead of making death saves, but at potentially high risk.
I also wanted to give martial characters and monsters more combat options. My original idea was to look up what the least optimal Battle Master maneuvers are and give their effects (minus the superiority die bonus damage) as an at-will attack, with the maneuver the attack is based on dependant on either the fighting style or equipped weapon. I figured just giving out Martial Adept for free would be easier.
on the death saving throw stuff:
you'll end up killing people. If you don't, you won't have any of that tension you mentioned.
on giving people stuff for free:
Be careful with this. The martial adept feat is nice because it makes Battlemasters better at what they do anyway, but if you start handing out class traits for free you end up devaluing people that picked that class.
My thinking on the death saving throw variants is that there's plenty of examples in fiction where a hero who has been gravely wounded has suddenly re-entered the fight to change the course of battle. Plus, spending your turn rolling a death save is no fun. It also provides a way to regain consciousness for parties that don't have much in the way of magical healing.
The Battle Master would also get Martial Adept for free, so they'll still have way more maneuver options, as well as more and better superiority dice.
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The group I DM for using roll20 finished up Forge of Fury a week ago. It was pretty fun, lots of combat and looting. On saturday we start with new characters in Tomb of Annihilation. Most of our sessions are pretty short, usually just 2 hours but this first session will actually be a live LAN party all saturday long. It's going to be so much fun
What is your goal with these additional rules, @Hexmage-PA ?
Quick rest gives the party one near-guaranteed rest without removing 1 hour rests, which are long enough to create tension about whether or not the party has time to take them.
Lingering death and risky revival give a player the option to get back into a fight instead of making death saves, but at potentially high risk.
I also wanted to give martial characters and monsters more combat options. My original idea was to look up what the least optimal Battle Master maneuvers are and give their effects (minus the superiority die bonus damage) as an at-will attack, with the maneuver the attack is based on dependant on either the fighting style or equipped weapon. I figured just giving out Martial Adept for free would be easier.
on the death saving throw stuff:
you'll end up killing people. If you don't, you won't have any of that tension you mentioned.
on giving people stuff for free:
Be careful with this. The martial adept feat is nice because it makes Battlemasters better at what they do anyway, but if you start handing out class traits for free you end up devaluing people that picked that class.
My thinking on the death saving throw variants is that there's plenty of examples in fiction where a hero who has been gravely wounded has suddenly re-entered the fight to change the course of battle. Plus, spending your turn rolling a death save is no fun. It also provides a way to regain consciousness for parties that don't have much in the way of magical healing.
The Battle Master would also get Martial Adept for free, so they'll still have way more maneuver options, as well as more and better superiority dice.
Hmm. I think a lot can be said about mechanics =!= story.
It depends entirely on your narration; 6 points of piercing damage is either a well placed arrow that glanced off the armor or impalement against a wall.
And even if you wanted to go down that road of trying to make sure everything is mirrored into the tiniest detail, the idea you describe is already incorporated into the death saves: a 20 will get you back up with 1 hp.
In my mind, it's way more "heroic" when it's a rare occurrence, rather than a on demand ability that every player will probably make use of.
Regarding a party without a healer: that's what potions and healer kits are for! If your party refuses to purchase them and they all want to play Legolaragorn, fine, but then they have to live with someone kicking the bucket.
Regarding "fun" when rolling death saves: I disagree on two points. First, if you've done a good job as a DM it will be a tense situation. A fight that isn't clearly decided, a fallen comrade that's bleeding out, each roll of the die buying you another round or forcing someone to use their action on a heal, it's great! It adds another dimension to combat (which in 5e can quickly deteriorate into whacking a big sack of hp). Secondly, I don't think dying ss supposed to be fun. You've made an error in judgement/had bad luck and now you're about to go see your ancestors. If you're invested emotionally in any way you're going to be rather anxious about it all.
Regarding the BM/free feat: that was my point, it works out if you give them the feat. Giving players BM class stuff without offsetting that isn't a good idea though (which is what you were initially intending to do, from the reading of it=).
These are apparently from an Adventurer's League module. The Eidolon's Divine Dread power is amusing in that it effectively makes the Eidolon an undead that can turn living beings. The Starspawn Seer's Collapse Distance power is also pretty cool: it can teleport the target while also dealing damage to creatures around the target's original space.
The module also has racial features for both Githyanki and Githzerai characters.
Githyanki Psionics - You know the mage hand cantrip, and the hand is invisible when you cast the cantrip with this trait. When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the jump spell once with this trait, and you regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. When you reach 5th level, you can cast the misty step spell once with this trait, and you regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for these spells. When you cast them with this trait, they don’t require components.
Githzerai Psionics - You know the mage hand cantrip, and the hand is invisible when you cast the cantrip with this trait. When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the shield spell once with this trait, and you regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. When you reach 5th level, you can cast the detect thoughts spell once with this trait, and you regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for these spells. When you cast them with this trait, they don’t require components.
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Most of those look way too good to me and also take up a lot of the space of the other types of fighters .
I was at least hoping to make use of the fighting style-dependent maneuvers, but the Great Weapon Fighting one in particular looks ridiculously broken.
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My weekly Curse of Strahd was last night. Some spoilers below.
After fighting some dire wolves and a mad druid we got to a walled city. It was night when we got there and the guards didn't want to let us in.
My Bard explained we were travelers and not monsters in the night, to prove it he began to sing for the guards. I used Enthralling Performance to charm the guards and we were invited into Vallaki.
We run into the Burgomaster's henchman and immediately make him angry. He tried to take our weapons, I went 100% bard and made it oddly sexual (You want my sword? Are you going to hold it? Will you use two hands? Will you be gentle?). The henchman got so uncomfortable we were able to check in at the bar to stable our horse and stow our gear before meeting the Burgomaster.
My bard loves the inn. The family that runs it seem wonderful and there is a retired circus ringmaster there! The inn is missing it's expected shipment of wine though, so I all but bully the rest of the party into agreeing to help. This place may be more fun than the first Vistani camp.
The burgomaster shows up to meet us and he brings his henchman. He explains the rules of the town and such while his henchman walks around giving the stinkeye to the other people there. We end the session with my Bard using prestidigitation to make it sound like the henchman let out a long fart while he was trying to be intimidating.
Long story short, I have the sense of humor or a 12 year old and I continue to drag the party into more trouble.
Your post makes me smile about when i get to bring my group to Vallaki (we play about 3 hours every other week) and given that they are about halfway through Death Jouse I'm guessing it's another month and a half or more away.
What is your goal with these additional rules, @Hexmage-PA ?
Quick rest gives the party one near-guaranteed rest without removing 1 hour rests, which are long enough to create tension about whether or not the party has time to take them.
In Numenera rests are accomplished individually instead of as a group (though they are often group-ized for obvious reasons), and the rule is that the first rest each day costs 1 action, then 10 minutes, then 1 hour, then 10 hours.
Basically, your first rest can be done in combat, basically a second wind. Your second rest can be done without time crunch, unless you're in a bind. The third rest is a nontrivial amount of time, and the fourth rest is BASICALLY you going to sleep, I guess unless you had to use all four of them in rapid succession. But after you take your 10 hour rest the track resets.
It's a rule I like a lot, though I'm not sure what the ramifications might be for other groups in 5e to limit you to 2 short rests per day.
Had the 5th session of The House Always Wins last night and had a blast, except I screwed up the stream and only recorded my own audio for the first half. Whoops. Gonna cut that out and replace it with me giving a quick recap before it goes on youtube.
The players had to choose between assaulting the bandit hideout head on, or meeting a contact who said he could get them inside. They knew that the bandits had a Ticket into the Race that they needed to touch, though they weren't told what kind of item the ticket would be.
Spoiler'd for long
They opted for the contact, a man named Stuart who gave them entry tickets and set them up with a plan. The rogue of the group would pretend to be Lord Bartleby, a potion merchant from Baldur's Gate that was trying to find a sneaky way to avoid the tariffs of Waterdeep. The group took to this secret identity quite well and pretended to be the entourage/bodyguards of the Lord.
Stuart led them past the entrance to a back room with a dark hole. The group jumped down the hole and fell for a while before slowing and floating down into a large sewer. Stuart guided them towards their objective but stopped at a fork when the group found a bunch of blue kobolds arguing about which direction they should go. The party extinguished their lights and engaged the kobolds under the cover of darkness, hoping to kill a few and scare the rest away but the plans changed when the kobolds shouted "Racers! Kill them!" and charged. Still, they were just kobolds and the party had little trouble dispatching them. They found a note on the kobolds in draconic, telling them to try and find the ticket with some humans under Secomber. It was signed by Olothontoronto, someone the group hadn't heard of. Given the urgency of their quest they continued onward, Stuart waving them on and reminding them to look out for the trap.
Of course, they found the trap ahead, a thin wire that was moving rapidly across the ground. In their attempts to disarm it they unfortunately set it off, causing glass to shatter in the ceiling above and a thick slurping noise to fill the sewer as a huge rotting gelatinous cube crashed down upon them. The group all dove out of the way except for Mirtul, the warlock, who was engulfed in the cube. Ferrodin the rogue fought back but the cube slid over and consumed the Monk and the Cleric. After suffering the digestion effects of the cube, all were unconscious except for the rogue, furiously darting in to stab the creature and ducking out before it could grab him as well. Luckily, Stuart returned, having suddenly remembered where the trap was and sighed as he saw the state of the party, throwing an incendiary potion at the creature that dealt a bit of damage, allowing Ferrodin to finish it off before it fully made a meal out of the party.
Ferrodin and Stuart stabilized the party and Stuart offered a "pick me up" in the form of a few vials of clear liquid, offering to sell them for 10 gold a piece. Rather than barter, Poppy, the group's death cleric, clambered up Stuart's shoulders and put an arrow to his neck, asking for a discount of "make them free." Stuart handed them over but was very grumpy about the whole thing as he turned to leave. The group downed the potions and found that they did heal their wounds but also had a strong kick of alcohol. Varsh, the monk, was a bit overcome by nausea and suffered disadvantage for a while due to his upset stomach. Still, preferable to all the acid burns and bleeding wounds.
The group knocked on the entrance to the hideout and said the codeword (Persimmons!) before being granted access and introduced to the captain of the organization. Ferrodin went to a back room with the man and discussed business over cards, paying the full 50 gold buy in for the poker game. The captain and "Lord Bartleby" got along swimmingly and the captain offered Lord Bartleby a tour of their operation, including a demonstration of some of their more interesting magical artifacts. Hoping to find the ticket, Ferrodin agreed and collected his entourage for a tour. The entourage had a lively staring contest with the angry guards out in the foyer but also rolled great animal handling checks and were spending a lot of time petting the guard dogs while the bandits rolled their eyes.
The captain led them into the back of the hideout where they had a large cave with a small dock, the place where they were smuggling things in and out of Secomber. Here there were two bandits that had been tied up to stakes and several dwarves working on loading and unloading the boats. The captain explained that the tied up people had been caught stealing booze from the smuggling operation and the dwarves were on loan from the Ebon Dwarves, here to help get the operation moving smoothly. The captain then used a gloved hand to pull a shining poker chip out of his pocket and touched it to the bare skin of one of the bandits, who immediately burned away, screaming. The captain had no idea what this poker chip was other than a particularly deadly knick knack, but the party immediately recognized the exact same glow in the poker chip as had been on the first ticket they had seen, but been unable to get. The party also noticed that the dwarves had stopped working and were all focused on the poker chip. The captain put it back in his pocket but the Dwarves kept staring and after a few tense moments of discussion, one of the dwarves revealed a hidden crossbow and began firing at the captain.
The party fought back against the Dwarves and as soon as the captain took some damage, turned on him too. Mirtul barred the door to the docks, preventing reinforcements from arriving (though they did bash down part of the door and get a crossbow through) while the group methodically took down the dwarves. The captain was a whirling dervish of steel and killed a few of the dwarves himself but eventually took too much damage to sustain, dying on a boat and uttering out curses toward the party, calling them knaves and curs and traitors. The party ignored this and rushed to search his pockets for the ticket. Poppy grabbed hold just as the door to the docks burst open and bandits flooded in. There was a flash and a rushing sensation, as if they were being pulled through space a great distance! All went white and they couldn't see! and then...the session ended, at a perfect spot for next time! They also hit level 3, good level.
All in all I think it went really well! I had to improvise a whole lot of the dialogue stuff because I didn't expect them to actually succeed at being stealthy once they got into the hideout. I think I had a decent balance of other teams trying to get to the tickets. The gelatinous cube trap may have been a bit much, I cut the health down by making it a "rotting" variant but I think they might have lost someone without Stuart to help at the last second. Need to work on tweaking my combat encounters properly. The group definitely took note of the Ebon Dwarves as being another team as soon as they saw them in there which was cool. And next session they get to see where they're gonna end up and for that I'm very excited. They're in the main meat of the campaign now.
Armor of Charging Wind - Armor (Any Light), Rare (Requires Attunement)
This elegantly crafted armor allows you to rush unseen across the battlefield, moving like the wind. Whenever you perform the dash action while attuned to this armor, you become invisible until you attack or stop moving.
I myself remember a magic arrow from 4E's Adventurer's Vault 2 that lets you teleport to wherever the arrow lands after being fired. I wanna give someone that in a game!
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For magic items i use the second edition encyclopedia magica to mine for ideas. My players love when i pull those books out cause it means they are gunna get something weird.
For magic items i use the second edition encyclopedia magica to mine for ideas. My players love when i pull those books out cause it means they are gunna get something weird.
So you're going to pull out the cloak of poison right?
Looks like cloak of resistance +1 but causes save or die when you put it on.
For magic items i use the second edition encyclopedia magica to mine for ideas. My players love when i pull those books out cause it means they are gunna get something weird.
So you're going to pull out the cloak of poison right?
Looks like cloak of resistance +1 but causes save or die when you put it on.
2nd edition had some mean stuff
Hahaha yeah, half the fun is seeing all the crazy shit I'm never gunna use. There's a time machine or two in there
For magic items i use the second edition encyclopedia magica to mine for ideas. My players love when i pull those books out cause it means they are gunna get something weird.
So you're going to pull out the cloak of poison right?
Looks like cloak of resistance +1 but causes save or die when you put it on.
2nd edition had some mean stuff
Or the similar sounding Cloak of Poisson, which generates 1d4 fish per day.
I successfully Stunning Striked a Stone Golem last night, that felt pretty good.
My DM kept saying "Wow Stunning Strike is really good" that might be bad.
I'm currently playing a HOrc Fighter, and the rest of my is Valor Bard, Lore Bard, and Gloom Ranger. None of them are minmaxers, or even playing optimally. I've been kinda try-harding in combat to make up the difference, and I just heard my DM say "Wow, fighters are really strong this edition" and I haven't even taken a feat yet. Starting to think I need to start sandbagging myself or teaching the bards how to be OP.
Compared to a suboptimal party a fighter will look great. They are pretty straightforward in how they play and they shine in combat encounters. Their out of combat utility is zilch, though.
Compared to a suboptimal party a fighter will look great. They are pretty straightforward in how they play and they shine in combat encounters. Their out of combat utility is zilch, though.
I went EK and took some oddball skills (history and insight), and my familiar is pretty neat. So far it hasn't really been an issue, though my bards like to take a back seat during social encounters (shrug), so I end up in the spot light a lot anyway.
I like the Forgotten Realms and I find the criticism that there are more powerful heroes an insufficient one, depending on the adventure. Where is Drizzt during Storm King's Thunder? Who cares unless your players know who he is and their characters ask. If they do, he's off fighting gods and a nega-drizzt in the astral plane. Elminster got turned into a cheeseburger and is trying to convince some modrons to turn him back.
I've run SKT and had zero problems with my players wondering where the more powerful people are.
They had a brush with that early on, with a silver dragon and some dwarven space marines, who are Good Guys but are confronting the giant problem in a very "hammer>nail" way instead of rooting out the cause of the problem (this is explicitly part of the story!). What my players loved is that they could stop at a random dot on the map and the module tells me there's a wanted criminal there, or that the local countess is actually a succubus. The way I ran it, they couldn't possibly respond to every giant attack, Goldenfields was saved by "another group of powerful heroes".
They enjoyed feeling like they were part of much bigger events, but through happenstance they're the ones who found the keys to the puzzle
SKT has some glaring problems but I don't think any of them have to do with the setting, it requires a DM to be willing to let players miss major content or turn the campaign into a slog
Edit: Even saying all of this, in my newest campaign, after the introductory adventure everyone fell through a time/space hole and them and the entire island of Chult landed in Tal'Dorei, Matt Mercer's setting - which I really like, and has let me do a bunch of fun things (I got the campaign guide for that setting which is really good). They wanted to play his classes and with firearms so it works better, as that world is less static and technology is actually advancing
I successfully Stunning Striked a Stone Golem last night, that felt pretty good.
My DM kept saying "Wow Stunning Strike is really good" that might be bad.
I'm currently playing a HOrc Fighter, and the rest of my is Valor Bard, Lore Bard, and Gloom Ranger. None of them are minmaxers, or even playing optimally. I've been kinda try-harding in combat to make up the difference, and I just heard my DM say "Wow, fighters are really strong this edition" and I haven't even taken a feat yet. Starting to think I need to start sandbagging myself or teaching the bards how to be OP.
When I hit level 5, that was when my fighter really took off. Suddenly you're 2 attacks per round, 4 if you action surge, plus you can use a Battlemaster maneuver each attack, plus I had a bonus action from GWM...it got nuts.
I successfully Stunning Striked a Stone Golem last night, that felt pretty good.
My DM kept saying "Wow Stunning Strike is really good" that might be bad.
I'm currently playing a HOrc Fighter, and the rest of my is Valor Bard, Lore Bard, and Gloom Ranger. None of them are minmaxers, or even playing optimally. I've been kinda try-harding in combat to make up the difference, and I just heard my DM say "Wow, fighters are really strong this edition" and I haven't even taken a feat yet. Starting to think I need to start sandbagging myself or teaching the bards how to be OP.
When I hit level 5, that was when my fighter really took off. Suddenly you're 2 attacks per round, 4 if you action surge, plus you can use a Battlemaster maneuver each attack, plus I had a bonus action from GWM...it got nuts.
I've mostly been using javelin+shield, throwing it whenever I'm not in range and using my weapon bond to summon it back. With defense, second wind, the shield, and horc ferocity, I've mostly been unkillable. I've gotten a lot of lucky crits on my action surges which probably makes me look OP.
Level 5 is when fighters go beast mode and they basically never let up. They need caster support in later levels to not fall into a mind hole or get turned into chickens, but if they have freedom of movement and death ward they're super terrifying
but yeah no out of combat utility, I let my players use STR for intimidation which has made my fighter have a lot more they can do
your bard should either be making things better or much, much worse during social interactions, that's their job
One is playing a poet while the other is pretending to be a cleric. The ranger isn't much better, he likes to pretend not to speak common whenever there's women around. Oddly enough I end up being the main character in almost every D&D game just by virtue of trying to get the game to move along.
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A while back, my players were trying to get some help from a silver dragon who, while still friendly towards humanoids, was very much in the "ugh, you silly children" camp of being friendly. They had to navigate a bunch of puzzle rooms for a session, instead of just wandering around doing combats.
If your players like puzzles - i understand fully that it's a bit of a divisive issue - I can share some of the rooms they went through. They'd make for good, 20 minute trinket dungeons.
Puzzles sound great! I would love to hear about and potentially steal them with your permission.
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The party marched bravely inside after their nappy-poo (leaving Character B with the kids on the portico), into a luxurious house, clearly of a rather wealthy family. A family with some rather odd fetishes if the various wood carvings were to be believed. From the large marble stairwell, to the crystal chandeliers, and the fine silverware, the party felt that *ahem* borrowing a few of these things could perhaps expedite the search for the parents, the baby, the monster, and finer clothes too perhaps. A well stocked pantry? Why yes, we'll fill up grub here. In the family library, Character D thought he'd read for a while to pass the time but he found a secret lever cleverly disguised as a book, which opened a secret door to a secret room containing a secret corpse of a careless long-dead adventurer that ate 3 darts to the face. There was a chest with some spell scrolls and deeds to the house and a windmill, plus a will that left it all to the kids. There was also books on fiend summoning and necromantic rituals - all bogus, says Character D. The party figured they'd talk to the kids about this, but when they went to the portico, the only one there was Character B, mouth agape, face up against the stone, and sawing wood in slumber. The kids were gone!
Undeterred, our heroes braved their way to the third floor, to get on with looking for the baby and the monster, their pockets well full and satisfied. But unlike the previous too, this floor was dusty and cobwebbed. Looking to score some free armor on top of the free sword and shield he had already helped himself to, Character A awoke an ancient suit of armor, but it was no match for the crew. These intrepid explorers found another secret door amidst the grotesque wood paneling, leading into a darkened stairwell leading up to the 4th floor. Rather than proceed, though, they figured they'd get the achievement for clearing 3FL first, so they proceeded into the nursery and as they reached for the door to the crib room an apparition manifested looking for their blood. Luckily for them, the apparition while scary, could not hit to save its unlife, and soon was naught more than a splat of ectoplasm on the floor. And in the crib - an empty baby burrito. After witnessing the existence of indoor plumbing amazed Character A, he thought he'd help himself to some soap these people kept in a storeroom, and no animated brooms would deter him from his mission. Proceeding into the master bedroom, it was Character C that lead the way in robbing the family jewels, literally!
Onwards and upwards to the attic, which contained some empty rooms, a storeroom with a chest with a skeleton of a young woman with many stab wounds stuffed in it, that looked very much like the apparition that had attacked earlier, and lastly, a locked room with a solitary bricked up window, where our intrepid menagerie met with two familiar faces. Rose and Thorn were here, and they claimed to never have met the group before. They did show the party a dollhouse that was an accurate replica of the real house, down to the secret doors, one of which the party had not found before. As the troops marched out of the room a cry went out from the children "we were abandoned by our parents, locked in here to starve to death, and you that have been so kind to us now want to leave us as well?! we cannot bear it" and attempted to posses those who had shown them the attention their parents never had. Character A willingly allowed this to happen, what's another voice after all? Thus, he gained the character flaw of "I like being in charge and get angry when other people tell me what to do.” and the voice of a little girl in his head. Character E tried to fight off the possession, but ultimately succumbed and gained the character flaw of " I’m scared of everything, including my own shadow, and weep with despair when things don’t go my way.” and the voice of a little boy in her head. The characters sure wished they had a priest friend to advise them on this sort of thing, but figured they could maybe scoop up the two small skeletons off the floor into a bag and maybe they could bury them later or something?
Down the circular staircase the bevy descended into darkness. Reaching well beyond the ground floor, a curious sound of chanting started to reach their ears, but too far and vague to really tell what was being said or from what direction. Earthen corridors stretched out every which way, maze-like. It seems like our brave bunch was in the family tomb, but perhaps more. They found the empty grave of the baby, the empty graves of the kids (depositing the bones into which caused the ghosts of the children to finally be at peace and cease their haunting), and the graves of the parents - also empty but for some nasty centipedes. But not to worry, Character A used Character C's back as an anvil upon which to beat the centipides to death with his sword, and Character E even got an impromptu meal out of the whole ordeal.
Ignoring the stairs luring them further down into the abyss, the group proceeded to a large room with a family style dining table and the dirty floor littered with bones of humanoids. And in a corner, a grick ambush worked out poorly for the grick. Our heroes pressed on, trying to find the source of the chanting. As they crossed into another intersection, they were rushed by some nasty ghouls, with dirty dirty fingernails, but ultimately our amazing assembly worked the ghouls back into the dust they came from. With a foolhardy outlook, no thought of rest was given and the group pressed on into what appeared to be a torture chamber/churche, with the walls festooned with shackled skeletons and an statue of a handsome gaunt, pale-faced man wearing a voluminous black cloak, his pale left hand resting on the head of a wolf that stands next to him, and his right holding a smoky-gray crystal orb in his right hand. "Right, we haven't looted anything in a while" they concluded, and soon there was a mage hand fondling said orb. This did not please the 5 shadows that peeled themselves off the wall and attacked our group. "Courage is the better part of valor" said the back of Character C's head as it disappeared out of the room. The party ran but the shadows ran faster. A valiant last stand was established on top of the family style dining table for fine young cannibals, and the shadows went to work. One, after another, after another, our heroes were felled. Where is the radiant damage?! But each death was paid for dearly and the stealthy attackers were themselves whittled down. In the end two shadows remained, having shrugged off the attacks the party had directed their way. Everyone was making death saves, or in some cases, failing them. Everyone? Not Character E, the true ghost of this manner. POW! One shadow down. POW! Other shadow down! Character E raced to stabilize Character D and Character C before they bled out, while Character A seemed stable but unconscious. Alone in the darkness, with 3 friends knocked out for the count, and another friend far above their heads somewhere, a bird lady holds on to a treasured possession and prays.
Also, a reminder that we had talked about lingering injuries, and the collective response was "yeah ok cool". I'm going to call for an actual Medicine skill proficiency on a character roling that check (in the lingering injuries table).
So let's go with the middle option, and as of next session,
Character A has Minor Scar (19).
Character D has Festering Wound (14).
Character C has Horrible Scar (11).
Character E is a rogue kenku.
Everyone but B is now lvl 3.
Players A and C wanted more details about the lingering injuries so i sent out this:
All 3 lingering injuries were caused by necrotic attacks, so they all have this general look about them: https://www.google.com/search?q=necrotizing+wound&client=firefox-b-1&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwij4c_Kqd7aAhVG7IMKHVn2DhkQ_AUICigB&biw=2560&bih=939
A's is on his chest, a horizontal small gash.
C's runs from his chin down to left shoulder, a lengthy thin scar.
D's is a large area along right arm, that's slowly spreading as the tissue dies. Good luck!
I play a half-orc monk in that game, with myself and another player's goblin rogue being from a distant continent under the Iron Fist rule of a MoguHobgoblin Empire. Rest of the party is a Tiefling Rogue, Aasimar Paladin and what was originally a Human Fighter and is now playing a Human Warlock. We took care of a big band of orcish raiders, and after infiltrating their camp and creating chaos as we escaped with the half-orc fisherman they kidnapped and were forcing to fight someone else, they came to the town head-on... With just the warchief, their shaman, and an orcish woman with a child.
The orc's had been raiding yes, out of necessity. They were fleeing northward from their mountain home, which they claimed was infested with undead. We'd beaten them, most of their best warriors dead and wished to be left alone to turn to hunting and fishing for survival.
After agreeing to this the party went southward... and the session before last my little goblin buddy died. He'd been dealing with some rough issues after encountering a weird fey creature, thinking he was going crazy. He wandered directly towards some pretty lights in the distance after we camped out at a guard encampment... and was killed by Will'o'Wisps. Sadly the player left, kind of think they intended to get him killed but that's not the point of this post.
Last session we arrived at our destination. There's a large Holy City in the southern mountains, protected from the undead as the patron goddess of their people is always watching over the city itself. We did not experience as much trouble as we expected, and manage to find someone the tiefling rogue knew as a contact to get my little buddy's body prepared. Seeing as the player left, when Speak with Dead was used he of course did not wish to return.
My monk awaited his body to be finished with cremation, while the others went to the barracks to see about work. This is a BIG city too. The commander of the cities military seems to see through the hooded cloak the rogue wears instantly, and gestures for him to pull it down. Instead of being outraged, he guffawed and called him a bold "young buck" while gesturing to his horns. He provided them an insignia which would give us safer passage through most of the city.
The day reached its end, my monk collected his friend's ashes within a pouch before leaving and we found our way to an Inn. The warlock... had been trying to contact their patron the whole day, with no real luck. When the group came to fetch me the rogue heard a 'whisper' within the temple, and was inflicted by 1d8 of sudden psychic damage and given a level of exhaustion. It wasn't until later that we guessed what happened...
We meet the pleasant dwarf Innkeep, he's very happy to have some customers and we settle our payment. The warlock goes upstairs, we remain downstairs to eat and drink a little. Suddenly... the DM plays THIS:
And immediately asks all of us to make a dexterity saving throw. We all succeed, the Warlock fails. Suddenly we hear a loud explosion and an intense bright light shines down through the floor despite it being stonework. Me and the rogue quickly make it upstairs, and find the Warlock's room a white-hot mess of holy flame with him laying in the middle on the remnants of the ritual he was performing. We stabilized him, and that's where we ended it...
The Warlock tried to contact his patron in the most direct way possible, but instead of "picking up" the goddess which watches over the city interfered and as the DM put it. "Booped him on the nose" causing a Fireball-level of a holy hand grenade to go off in his face. We kind of guessed that's what happened with the rogue earlier, too.
Quick Rest - The first short rest taken since a long rest takes only five minutes.
Lingering Death - Death save failures persist until the next completed rest.
Risky Revival - A downed character with no death save failures may choose to take two death save failures and expend a hit die in exchange for regaining the maximum amount of HP that hit die can grant.
Fighting Styles and Martial Adept - A character who gains a fighting style also gets the Martial Adept feat.
Monstrous Maneuvers - Some monsters may augment their melee attacks with effects similar to Battle Master maneuvers, adding effects like shoving, tripping, and lunging.
Friend Safari Type: Rock
Your monks, warlocks, battlemasters, and moon druids will love Quick Rest.
Lingering Death is nasty but if you want a more lethal campaign it's a good idea.
Risky Revival only works with Lingering Death I think?
No one will take Martial Adept otherwise, so sure.
Monstrous Maneuvers barely even counts as a house rule. Just a way to tweak monster difficulty.
Think of it as a movie you are only doing the set designing for and the actors are ab libing
You just have to make sure they stick to the ideal of the movie and work with it
As why would the characters know about the stuff that happens over the hill if none of them have even been there?
Quick rest gives the party one near-guaranteed rest without removing 1 hour rests, which are long enough to create tension about whether or not the party has time to take them.
Lingering death and risky revival give a player the option to get back into a fight instead of making death saves, but at potentially high risk.
I also wanted to give martial characters and monsters more combat options. My original idea was to look up what the least optimal Battle Master maneuvers are and give their effects (minus the superiority die bonus damage) as an at-will attack, with the maneuver the attack is based on dependant on either the fighting style or equipped weapon. I figured just giving out Martial Adept for free would be easier.
I'd like to come up with a list of feats with non-combat applications and allow players extra opportunities to take them. That way someone won't have to choose between Actor and Great Weapon Mastery, for example. I'm also considering letting players take racial feats at first level, adding Con score to 1st level HP, allowing players to choose between rolling hit die or taking the average result, and adding some homebrew Battle Master maneuvers I found online (I'll post them here for evaluation since you guys enjoy analyzing mechanics so much).
In general I'd like a more tactical game, but not to the level 4E was.
Oh, and I'd also use marking from the DMG.
Friend Safari Type: Rock
on the death saving throw stuff:
you'll end up killing people. If you don't, you won't have any of that tension you mentioned.
on giving people stuff for free:
Be careful with this. The martial adept feat is nice because it makes Battlemasters better at what they do anyway, but if you start handing out class traits for free you end up devaluing people that picked that class.
My thinking on the death saving throw variants is that there's plenty of examples in fiction where a hero who has been gravely wounded has suddenly re-entered the fight to change the course of battle. Plus, spending your turn rolling a death save is no fun. It also provides a way to regain consciousness for parties that don't have much in the way of magical healing.
The Battle Master would also get Martial Adept for free, so they'll still have way more maneuver options, as well as more and better superiority dice.
Friend Safari Type: Rock
Combat Expertise
Some seem reasonable, but some seem way too good.
Friend Safari Type: Rock
Hmm. I think a lot can be said about mechanics =!= story.
It depends entirely on your narration; 6 points of piercing damage is either a well placed arrow that glanced off the armor or impalement against a wall.
And even if you wanted to go down that road of trying to make sure everything is mirrored into the tiniest detail, the idea you describe is already incorporated into the death saves: a 20 will get you back up with 1 hp.
In my mind, it's way more "heroic" when it's a rare occurrence, rather than a on demand ability that every player will probably make use of.
Regarding a party without a healer: that's what potions and healer kits are for! If your party refuses to purchase them and they all want to play Legolaragorn, fine, but then they have to live with someone kicking the bucket.
Regarding "fun" when rolling death saves: I disagree on two points. First, if you've done a good job as a DM it will be a tense situation. A fight that isn't clearly decided, a fallen comrade that's bleeding out, each roll of the die buying you another round or forcing someone to use their action on a heal, it's great! It adds another dimension to combat (which in 5e can quickly deteriorate into whacking a big sack of hp). Secondly, I don't think dying ss supposed to be fun. You've made an error in judgement/had bad luck and now you're about to go see your ancestors. If you're invested emotionally in any way you're going to be rather anxious about it all.
Regarding the BM/free feat: that was my point, it works out if you give them the feat. Giving players BM class stuff without offsetting that isn't a good idea though (which is what you were initially intending to do, from the reading of it=).
These are apparently from an Adventurer's League module. The Eidolon's Divine Dread power is amusing in that it effectively makes the Eidolon an undead that can turn living beings. The Starspawn Seer's Collapse Distance power is also pretty cool: it can teleport the target while also dealing damage to creatures around the target's original space.
The module also has racial features for both Githyanki and Githzerai characters.
Friend Safari Type: Rock
Most of those look way too good to me and also take up a lot of the space of the other types of fighters .
I was at least hoping to make use of the fighting style-dependent maneuvers, but the Great Weapon Fighting one in particular looks ridiculously broken.
Friend Safari Type: Rock
After fighting some dire wolves and a mad druid we got to a walled city. It was night when we got there and the guards didn't want to let us in.
My Bard explained we were travelers and not monsters in the night, to prove it he began to sing for the guards. I used Enthralling Performance to charm the guards and we were invited into Vallaki.
We run into the Burgomaster's henchman and immediately make him angry. He tried to take our weapons, I went 100% bard and made it oddly sexual (You want my sword? Are you going to hold it? Will you use two hands? Will you be gentle?). The henchman got so uncomfortable we were able to check in at the bar to stable our horse and stow our gear before meeting the Burgomaster.
My bard loves the inn. The family that runs it seem wonderful and there is a retired circus ringmaster there! The inn is missing it's expected shipment of wine though, so I all but bully the rest of the party into agreeing to help. This place may be more fun than the first Vistani camp.
The burgomaster shows up to meet us and he brings his henchman. He explains the rules of the town and such while his henchman walks around giving the stinkeye to the other people there. We end the session with my Bard using prestidigitation to make it sound like the henchman let out a long fart while he was trying to be intimidating.
Long story short, I have the sense of humor or a 12 year old and I continue to drag the party into more trouble.
Comics, Games, Booze
In Numenera rests are accomplished individually instead of as a group (though they are often group-ized for obvious reasons), and the rule is that the first rest each day costs 1 action, then 10 minutes, then 1 hour, then 10 hours.
Basically, your first rest can be done in combat, basically a second wind. Your second rest can be done without time crunch, unless you're in a bind. The third rest is a nontrivial amount of time, and the fourth rest is BASICALLY you going to sleep, I guess unless you had to use all four of them in rapid succession. But after you take your 10 hour rest the track resets.
It's a rule I like a lot, though I'm not sure what the ramifications might be for other groups in 5e to limit you to 2 short rests per day.
The players had to choose between assaulting the bandit hideout head on, or meeting a contact who said he could get them inside. They knew that the bandits had a Ticket into the Race that they needed to touch, though they weren't told what kind of item the ticket would be.
Spoiler'd for long
They opted for the contact, a man named Stuart who gave them entry tickets and set them up with a plan. The rogue of the group would pretend to be Lord Bartleby, a potion merchant from Baldur's Gate that was trying to find a sneaky way to avoid the tariffs of Waterdeep. The group took to this secret identity quite well and pretended to be the entourage/bodyguards of the Lord.
Stuart led them past the entrance to a back room with a dark hole. The group jumped down the hole and fell for a while before slowing and floating down into a large sewer. Stuart guided them towards their objective but stopped at a fork when the group found a bunch of blue kobolds arguing about which direction they should go. The party extinguished their lights and engaged the kobolds under the cover of darkness, hoping to kill a few and scare the rest away but the plans changed when the kobolds shouted "Racers! Kill them!" and charged. Still, they were just kobolds and the party had little trouble dispatching them. They found a note on the kobolds in draconic, telling them to try and find the ticket with some humans under Secomber. It was signed by Olothontoronto, someone the group hadn't heard of. Given the urgency of their quest they continued onward, Stuart waving them on and reminding them to look out for the trap.
Of course, they found the trap ahead, a thin wire that was moving rapidly across the ground. In their attempts to disarm it they unfortunately set it off, causing glass to shatter in the ceiling above and a thick slurping noise to fill the sewer as a huge rotting gelatinous cube crashed down upon them. The group all dove out of the way except for Mirtul, the warlock, who was engulfed in the cube. Ferrodin the rogue fought back but the cube slid over and consumed the Monk and the Cleric. After suffering the digestion effects of the cube, all were unconscious except for the rogue, furiously darting in to stab the creature and ducking out before it could grab him as well. Luckily, Stuart returned, having suddenly remembered where the trap was and sighed as he saw the state of the party, throwing an incendiary potion at the creature that dealt a bit of damage, allowing Ferrodin to finish it off before it fully made a meal out of the party.
Ferrodin and Stuart stabilized the party and Stuart offered a "pick me up" in the form of a few vials of clear liquid, offering to sell them for 10 gold a piece. Rather than barter, Poppy, the group's death cleric, clambered up Stuart's shoulders and put an arrow to his neck, asking for a discount of "make them free." Stuart handed them over but was very grumpy about the whole thing as he turned to leave. The group downed the potions and found that they did heal their wounds but also had a strong kick of alcohol. Varsh, the monk, was a bit overcome by nausea and suffered disadvantage for a while due to his upset stomach. Still, preferable to all the acid burns and bleeding wounds.
The group knocked on the entrance to the hideout and said the codeword (Persimmons!) before being granted access and introduced to the captain of the organization. Ferrodin went to a back room with the man and discussed business over cards, paying the full 50 gold buy in for the poker game. The captain and "Lord Bartleby" got along swimmingly and the captain offered Lord Bartleby a tour of their operation, including a demonstration of some of their more interesting magical artifacts. Hoping to find the ticket, Ferrodin agreed and collected his entourage for a tour. The entourage had a lively staring contest with the angry guards out in the foyer but also rolled great animal handling checks and were spending a lot of time petting the guard dogs while the bandits rolled their eyes.
The captain led them into the back of the hideout where they had a large cave with a small dock, the place where they were smuggling things in and out of Secomber. Here there were two bandits that had been tied up to stakes and several dwarves working on loading and unloading the boats. The captain explained that the tied up people had been caught stealing booze from the smuggling operation and the dwarves were on loan from the Ebon Dwarves, here to help get the operation moving smoothly. The captain then used a gloved hand to pull a shining poker chip out of his pocket and touched it to the bare skin of one of the bandits, who immediately burned away, screaming. The captain had no idea what this poker chip was other than a particularly deadly knick knack, but the party immediately recognized the exact same glow in the poker chip as had been on the first ticket they had seen, but been unable to get. The party also noticed that the dwarves had stopped working and were all focused on the poker chip. The captain put it back in his pocket but the Dwarves kept staring and after a few tense moments of discussion, one of the dwarves revealed a hidden crossbow and began firing at the captain.
The party fought back against the Dwarves and as soon as the captain took some damage, turned on him too. Mirtul barred the door to the docks, preventing reinforcements from arriving (though they did bash down part of the door and get a crossbow through) while the group methodically took down the dwarves. The captain was a whirling dervish of steel and killed a few of the dwarves himself but eventually took too much damage to sustain, dying on a boat and uttering out curses toward the party, calling them knaves and curs and traitors. The party ignored this and rushed to search his pockets for the ticket. Poppy grabbed hold just as the door to the docks burst open and bandits flooded in. There was a flash and a rushing sensation, as if they were being pulled through space a great distance! All went white and they couldn't see! and then...the session ended, at a perfect spot for next time! They also hit level 3, good level.
All in all I think it went really well! I had to improvise a whole lot of the dialogue stuff because I didn't expect them to actually succeed at being stealthy once they got into the hideout. I think I had a decent balance of other teams trying to get to the tickets. The gelatinous cube trap may have been a bit much, I cut the health down by making it a "rotting" variant but I think they might have lost someone without Stuart to help at the last second. Need to work on tweaking my combat encounters properly. The group definitely took note of the Ebon Dwarves as being another team as soon as they saw them in there which was cool. And next session they get to see where they're gonna end up and for that I'm very excited. They're in the main meat of the campaign now.
SniperGuyGaming on PSN / SniperGuy710 on Xbone Live
New Magic Items and Conversions of 4E Magic Items for 5E
Here's a sample:
Armor of Charging Wind - Armor (Any Light), Rare (Requires Attunement)
This elegantly crafted armor allows you to rush unseen across the battlefield, moving like the wind. Whenever you perform the dash action while attuned to this armor, you become invisible until you attack or stop moving.
I myself remember a magic arrow from 4E's Adventurer's Vault 2 that lets you teleport to wherever the arrow lands after being fired. I wanna give someone that in a game!
Friend Safari Type: Rock
So you're going to pull out the cloak of poison right?
Looks like cloak of resistance +1 but causes save or die when you put it on.
2nd edition had some mean stuff
Hahaha yeah, half the fun is seeing all the crazy shit I'm never gunna use. There's a time machine or two in there
Or the similar sounding Cloak of Poisson, which generates 1d4 fish per day.
My DM kept saying "Wow Stunning Strike is really good" that might be bad.
I'm currently playing a HOrc Fighter, and the rest of my is Valor Bard, Lore Bard, and Gloom Ranger. None of them are minmaxers, or even playing optimally. I've been kinda try-harding in combat to make up the difference, and I just heard my DM say "Wow, fighters are really strong this edition" and I haven't even taken a feat yet. Starting to think I need to start sandbagging myself or teaching the bards how to be OP.
Before my Monk character was high enough level to use Stunning Strike we encountered an evil party that had a Monk who could use Stunning Strike.
Gamertag: PrimusD | Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I went EK and took some oddball skills (history and insight), and my familiar is pretty neat. So far it hasn't really been an issue, though my bards like to take a back seat during social encounters (shrug), so I end up in the spot light a lot anyway.
I've run SKT and had zero problems with my players wondering where the more powerful people are.
They enjoyed feeling like they were part of much bigger events, but through happenstance they're the ones who found the keys to the puzzle
SKT has some glaring problems but I don't think any of them have to do with the setting, it requires a DM to be willing to let players miss major content or turn the campaign into a slog
Edit: Even saying all of this, in my newest campaign, after the introductory adventure everyone fell through a time/space hole and them and the entire island of Chult landed in Tal'Dorei, Matt Mercer's setting - which I really like, and has let me do a bunch of fun things (I got the campaign guide for that setting which is really good). They wanted to play his classes and with firearms so it works better, as that world is less static and technology is actually advancing
When I hit level 5, that was when my fighter really took off. Suddenly you're 2 attacks per round, 4 if you action surge, plus you can use a Battlemaster maneuver each attack, plus I had a bonus action from GWM...it got nuts.
I've mostly been using javelin+shield, throwing it whenever I'm not in range and using my weapon bond to summon it back. With defense, second wind, the shield, and horc ferocity, I've mostly been unkillable. I've gotten a lot of lucky crits on my action surges which probably makes me look OP.
but yeah no out of combat utility, I let my players use STR for intimidation which has made my fighter have a lot more they can do
Bards being quiet during the social aspects? I’ll have their guild cards pulled.
Comics, Games, Booze
One is playing a poet while the other is pretending to be a cleric. The ranger isn't much better, he likes to pretend not to speak common whenever there's women around. Oddly enough I end up being the main character in almost every D&D game just by virtue of trying to get the game to move along.