I didn't know I was going to go Lizardfolk when I was thinking about a character, but they're just so different in terms of roleplay, and mechanically speaking they have a lot of stuff that's kind of bonkers. I get 13+Dex mod AC for free? Yes please. I can hold my breath for 15 minutes? Sure! I get a 1d6+Str mod natural attack that I can use once a short rest as a bonus action and gain THP if I hit? Hahaha, why not?
Looking forward to coming up with descriptive nicknames for all the softbodies I'm partnered with.
You should also try to covet all the bones from the enemies your group kills so you can make bows, daggers, ect...
Really creep the fuck out of the rest of the party.
I did this with a gnome alchemist once; He had a guild artisan background, an alchemy kit and a complete ambivelence to the horror that his casual collection of critter bits invoked in those around him; The first example of this was when we brought the severed head of an oni into the local mayors office for a reward and as it was being handed over he said "Wait, just a second please" and then proceeded to extract the eyes from the thing in full view of everyone.
The icing however was when he tried to convince the party to heal a frost giant they just put down so that he could try and tap it's spinal fluid. :P
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Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
I didn't know I was going to go Lizardfolk when I was thinking about a character, but they're just so different in terms of roleplay, and mechanically speaking they have a lot of stuff that's kind of bonkers. I get 13+Dex mod AC for free? Yes please. I can hold my breath for 15 minutes? Sure! I get a 1d6+Str mod natural attack that I can use once a short rest as a bonus action and gain THP if I hit? Hahaha, why not?
Looking forward to coming up with descriptive nicknames for all the softbodies I'm partnered with.
You should also try to covet all the bones from the enemies your group kills so you can make bows, daggers, ect...
Really creep the fuck out of the rest of the party.
I did this with a gnome alchemist once; He had a guild artisan background, an alchemy kit and a complete ambivelence to the horror that his casual collection of critter bits invoked in those around him; The first example of this was when we brought the severed head of an oni into the local mayors office for a reward and as it was being handed over he said "Wait, just a second please" and then proceeded to extract the eyes from the thing in full view of everyone.
The icing however was when he tried to convince the party to heal a frost giant they just put down so that he could try and tap it's spinal fluid. :P
I'm also playing a gnome alchemist in my current 5E game!
So I went to the D&D website to remind myself of the release date for Dungeon of the Mad Mage, and saw that there is also a separate map pack release?
Since there are scant details available on the D&D website, does anyone with better google-fu than I know what kind of maps these are? 1" grid size maps? Fold out or Letter size? Anything to make me justify the extra cost to buying a separate map pack?
Amazon has a few pictures of the product (https://amazon.com/dp/0786966653) and it looks like these are just letter size maps, and not playable battle maps? I am assuming these maps are also in the module itself so the usefulness, to me anyway, is questionable.
And if these maps are NOT in the module itself.... then I think I'm going to be quite annoyed!
Amazon has a few pictures of the product (https://amazon.com/dp/0786966653) and it looks like these are just letter size maps, and not playable battle maps? I am assuming these maps are also in the module itself so the usefulness, to me anyway, is questionable.
And if these maps are NOT in the module itself.... then I think I'm going to be quite annoyed!
It seems like it is a way to manage tracking a massive 23 floor dungeon and what's going on in all of it.
Id expect the actual book to have the same maps (probably in color too) but they won't be dry erase ready.
I might actually be into this map pack just for having a massive hollow dungeon to work with.
Like this is definitely a DM campaign management product not a play mat product.
Sleep on
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Yea, I know in Strahd the maps are in the book, but if the players are moving around a lot it means a lot of flipping back and forth in the book for the DM to keep track of. Ours photocopied the maps out of the book so he had a separate resource. Having a separate map pack can be a huge help.
The usefulness of these maps outside the module itself is one thing. But not including them in the intended module in the first place would be infuriating to me.
The usefulness of these maps outside the module itself is one thing. But not including them in the intended module in the first place would be infuriating to me.
I have never once seen such a map pack in an adventure and i'm talking back through to first edition adventure booklets. Generally maps are provided in line within an adventure, and you have to keep flipping back to the random page on which the one map was provided.
I would make the assumption those in line maps exist in the adventure module. If they aren't... well fuck even i'd say someone should get fired for that cause you literally can't have a dungeon crawl adventure without the map.
The usefulness of these maps outside the module itself is one thing. But not including them in the intended module in the first place would be infuriating to me.
I have never once seen such a map pack in an adventure and i'm talking back through to first edition adventure booklets. Generally maps are provided in line within an adventure, and you have to keep flipping back to the random page on which the one map was provided.
I would mane the assumption those in line maps exist in the adventure module. If they aren't... well fuck even i'd say someone should get fired for that cause you literally can't have a dungeon crawl adventure without the map.
Yes, of course. I'm not expecting an appendix of full page maps in the module. But these maps should absolutely, at the least, be included inline within the module.
If they are not, it would be a terrible, money grubbing, tragedy. And if they are a purely supplemental map pack, then that's nice to have, but definitely not a must buy for me. I'd like to flip through the module itself first and see how useful the maps given are before making a final call on that.
Through AL I received a PDF of the first chapter of Mad Mage and the map was definitely included. They are also all in the Dnd Beyond version of the module, so I think it's safe to say that they'll be I the print edition.
Its out on Roll20 and DnD Beyond now digitaly btw. The maps are in the same style as in Waterdeep Dragon Heist, ie mostly black and white. It's alot of big big maps in the roll20 module.
Had another session of the Curse of Strahd game I play in last night
Amber Temple Spoilers
Man that place is terrifying, everything seems to cast fireball constantly, we've been hit by like 9 of them already.
Always being pitch black + a giant statue that shoots a fireball at you if you catch its attention is bad news bears for characters without darkvision!
Our rogue grabbed a magical staff in mid combat and gained a new major character flaw, an overwhelming obsession with gaining power. Combined with the six flaws from the deals hes accepted already plus the possibly 9-12 more that could be here if the temple is symmetrical, I don't see how that kind of character can continue with the party.
As a player I find it frustrating, we've already had our first instance of a magic item being hoarded with the flaw as the justification, and CoS is super light on magic items already. The character is also our only person with darkvision and has super high investigation so he always will find loot first and have a chance to pocket it, and the flaw "I won't take no for an answer" means the only way to pry it away will likely be to murder him. Though I don't know if that is possible anymore, as he gained a power promising him immortality!?
Also I know its greedy but my character doesn't feel heroic to me, we're level 6 and the comparison between my character and the rest of the party, power wise, makes me sad.
My character is a dex based ranged fighter with no magical dex gear or magical armor, he has a strength based magic spear but not the stats to make it worth using. He has negative charisma and 10 int so he doesn't stand out in any skill or provide any out of combat utility, at most providing an extra (worse) roll in non-combat situations.
The rogue has expertise in every skill my fighter has, darkvision, spider climb, some sort of lightning power, 'power over the dead', the ability to spread a disease at will, 'has many lives', a huge charisma boost from a gift, and now a crazy magical staff that can cast fourth, fifth, and sixth level spells and recharges every day. Due to him being best at stealth and having darkvision he always scouts for us so my character can't get to the sarcophagi before the rogue drains them of power, which is a bummer because my character is at a place, storyline wise, where he would heavily consider making a deal if he thought it would help him get revenge.
Our paladin has a lightsaber that sheds sunlight and plate armor + shield, making him a defensive and offensive monster.
Our light cleric has soloed four different encounters so far this campaign, ending them in one turn before I come up on initiative!
I dunno if I just had a bad string of sessions or if I'm really as weak as I feel or what. Everything we've faced in the last 4 sessions or so has either been resistant to nonmagical piercing or straight immune, so my one strength has been neutered. I know CoS is supposed to inspire dread and make the characters feel weak, but I almost feel like my character is the only one suffering from these things and its started to wear me down.
You need to work this out with your dm before resentment boils over.
Also if i were your dm, and the rogue was taking literally all the dark power deals, is be asking him to roll up a new character and the rogue would go work for Strahd (or try to take over from Strahd).
Alternatively, the cleric i think could solve the flaws, if i remember right, not not at level 6.
The catch with the amber temple is that all those bargins come with hefty catches, and stacking all of them together is liable to make the character borderline unplayable due to a myriad number of compulsions and idiosyncrises in addition to being really, really evil.
And frankly, if you have someone gleefully taking every deal then it's perfectly appropriate to murder the fuck out of that guy because he's liable to become a new minion for strahd as soon as he sees him due to how the dark powers of ravenloft operate. Further, this would be quite apropriate to the setting
I love my D&D group, I'm just blowing off steam. The DM knows I had a few bad sessions and I trust he's got plans to alleviate my issue or murder my character so I can make something more helpful/interesting! I do have a lot of anxiety about how our group is going to handle the imminent pvp, I really don't enjoy that kind of play.
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
Can't hurt to talk about your concerns out of character
So, I got invited to play D&D with some friends. First time playing. On our third or fourth session we had 2 characters die and now we all are making back up characters just in case we need a fresh start (dm and the players who died are still working out what to do since they were Central to the plot).
Anyways, we roll for stats. My first character was down right gifted. 4 16s, and 12 and a 10. However, the second character I made, I got a pretty bad roll. My friends are dead set on rolling for stats and hp. I'm kinda against it, because being effed over by dice before the game begins and not be able to run the character I wanted to seems dumb.
Thoughts? My friends seem dead set on rolling and don't understand my problem with it.
Something to think about though, did you enjoy the rolling the first time around because you had good stats and your friends had crap ones (which is why they are happy to reroll)? Point buy removes the random from the equation.
Well all had good stats. This time I got okay but not great. (16, 14, 12, 10, 8, 9) All my friends had much higher rolls (like only one stat below 10, and at least one 18 or 17). One poor guy in our group got a 12 as his highest roll, and the rest were 10 and lower. How is that going to be fun?
To add to all this, we don't roll as a group but at our own home. Somehow I feel like rerolling is common, even though my friend said it was cheating to him.
TL;DR I'd rather have every one start off on even footing.
Thoughts? My friends seem dead set on rolling and don't understand my problem with it.
Tell them honestly you don't think rolling for stats is going to be fun long term, and if they insist, then you either say ok or you walk away. If you say ok, you potentially have the option of just tossing that character in the meat grinder first chance you get, but that may soil their fun, and they may get upset since it's sort of a sabotage move.
I like rolling, but you've got to do it in the open. And if you want to reroll, you have reroll all 6. Keeping the 17 and rerolling only the 4 is uncool.
Somebody is rolling at home and comes to play with three 16's, two 15's and an 18? Yeah, chances are that guy is a douchebag cheater.
Oh I rerell all 6. Just with the wonders of modern technology it's very easy to rereoll till you are happy. Hence why I don't get this scouts honor, roll from home.
Thoughts? My friends seem dead set on rolling and don't understand my problem with it.
Tell them honestly you don't think rolling for stats is going to be fun long term, and if they insist, then you either say ok or you walk away. If you say ok, you potentially have the option of just tossing that character in the meat grinder first chance you get, but that may soil their fun, and they may get upset since it's sort of a sabotage move.
These are my friends who I've asked to play with for a while. Hopefully it doesn't come to walk away.
Having people roll for stats from home without others seeing is a recipe for distrust
When we roll for stats I let people reroll if they don’t get a single 16, their character is supposed to be heroic
If nobody has over a 12, why are they an adventurer? A Peasant has 10s across the board, if you aren’t significantly beating that, you probably aren’t exceptional enough to do anything important
*disallowing* someone to point buy boggles my mind, as its just going to lead to annoyed people attacking guards at level 1 and rerolling until they get something better
And if you get unlimited rolls at home until you get a sheet you're happy with, what is even the point. See who's the most patient to get 18s across the board?
I'm also generally against rolling, but unless you're that guy who got everything 12 or less, it usually isn't going to make a massive difference in your character's efficacy if you have a 16/14/13/13/12/8 versus 18/16/16/14/12/12. You're talking a +2 bonus at most in straight rolls, which, yeah it sucks. But a competent character build can compensate for that pretty easily, or even just building orthogonally to your teammates, i.e. if the rest of your party is Wizard/Fighter/Cleric/Sorcerer and you roll up a Rogue, your skill advantages will mean you're still useful, and you'll still probably be the character with the best Dex. Or if the lucky roller decides to be a blasting Evocation Wizard, building yourself a buffing/debuffing Wizard will make everyone like you better and be way more useful to the group. I've had Hypnotic Pattern completely trivialize encounters that would have been real grinds, and your Fighters and Barbarians will love you when you cast Haste.
If it bothers you, explain to them how you feel and ask if you yourself (and perhaps the guy who also got screwed) can just use point buy instead, since rolling for stats is (on average) going to give slightly better stats anyway. If they don't, you can always make a bunch of identical characters, rerolling until you get godlike stats again, and introduce and suicide each of them immediately until you get to the one you like. That's a really passive-aggressive solution, but they're being jerks, so they deserve it.
I mean if it were up to me we would be doing point buy
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
edited November 2018
I like doing a boosted array. 16,14,14,10,10,8, or a 30 point buy and you can buy a 16 for 11 points as well if poeple want to figure it out on their own. Also everyone gets a free feat, and races give a generic +2 to skill boosts at creation.
4d6, reroll 1s once, roll two arrays. If you're still sitting on an array with a combined bonus less than 9 after racial bonuses factor in and you can repeat the whole process.
I also use rolled proficiency which changes the game considerably.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
4d6, reroll 1s once, roll two arrays. If you're still sitting on an array with a combined bonus less than 9 after racial bonuses factor in and you can repeat the whole process.
I also use rolled proficiency which changes the game considerably.
Posts
https://www.ishtar-collective.net/cards/lord-gheleon?highlight=gheleon
I'm the good cop because it's the good cop that gets the answers.
Bad cop asks a question, and then I ask a question.
My first question will be "Right or left hand?"
Then the bad cop asks another question.
My second question will be "Which finger?"
My third question will be "Do you want to tell them everything they want to know, or do I eat the finger you selected?"
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I did this with a gnome alchemist once; He had a guild artisan background, an alchemy kit and a complete ambivelence to the horror that his casual collection of critter bits invoked in those around him; The first example of this was when we brought the severed head of an oni into the local mayors office for a reward and as it was being handed over he said "Wait, just a second please" and then proceeded to extract the eyes from the thing in full view of everyone.
The icing however was when he tried to convince the party to heal a frost giant they just put down so that he could try and tap it's spinal fluid. :P
I'm also playing a gnome alchemist in my current 5E game!
And the party is legitimately terrified of him!
Since there are scant details available on the D&D website, does anyone with better google-fu than I know what kind of maps these are? 1" grid size maps? Fold out or Letter size? Anything to make me justify the extra cost to buying a separate map pack?
Amazon has a few pictures of the product (https://amazon.com/dp/0786966653) and it looks like these are just letter size maps, and not playable battle maps? I am assuming these maps are also in the module itself so the usefulness, to me anyway, is questionable.
And if these maps are NOT in the module itself.... then I think I'm going to be quite annoyed!
It seems like it is a way to manage tracking a massive 23 floor dungeon and what's going on in all of it.
Id expect the actual book to have the same maps (probably in color too) but they won't be dry erase ready.
I might actually be into this map pack just for having a massive hollow dungeon to work with.
Like this is definitely a DM campaign management product not a play mat product.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
I have never once seen such a map pack in an adventure and i'm talking back through to first edition adventure booklets. Generally maps are provided in line within an adventure, and you have to keep flipping back to the random page on which the one map was provided.
I would make the assumption those in line maps exist in the adventure module. If they aren't... well fuck even i'd say someone should get fired for that cause you literally can't have a dungeon crawl adventure without the map.
Yes, of course. I'm not expecting an appendix of full page maps in the module. But these maps should absolutely, at the least, be included inline within the module.
If they are not, it would be a terrible, money grubbing, tragedy. And if they are a purely supplemental map pack, then that's nice to have, but definitely not a must buy for me. I'd like to flip through the module itself first and see how useful the maps given are before making a final call on that.
Amber Temple Spoilers
Always being pitch black + a giant statue that shoots a fireball at you if you catch its attention is bad news bears for characters without darkvision!
Our rogue grabbed a magical staff in mid combat and gained a new major character flaw, an overwhelming obsession with gaining power. Combined with the six flaws from the deals hes accepted already plus the possibly 9-12 more that could be here if the temple is symmetrical, I don't see how that kind of character can continue with the party.
As a player I find it frustrating, we've already had our first instance of a magic item being hoarded with the flaw as the justification, and CoS is super light on magic items already. The character is also our only person with darkvision and has super high investigation so he always will find loot first and have a chance to pocket it, and the flaw "I won't take no for an answer" means the only way to pry it away will likely be to murder him. Though I don't know if that is possible anymore, as he gained a power promising him immortality!?
Also I know its greedy but my character doesn't feel heroic to me, we're level 6 and the comparison between my character and the rest of the party, power wise, makes me sad.
My character is a dex based ranged fighter with no magical dex gear or magical armor, he has a strength based magic spear but not the stats to make it worth using. He has negative charisma and 10 int so he doesn't stand out in any skill or provide any out of combat utility, at most providing an extra (worse) roll in non-combat situations.
The rogue has expertise in every skill my fighter has, darkvision, spider climb, some sort of lightning power, 'power over the dead', the ability to spread a disease at will, 'has many lives', a huge charisma boost from a gift, and now a crazy magical staff that can cast fourth, fifth, and sixth level spells and recharges every day. Due to him being best at stealth and having darkvision he always scouts for us so my character can't get to the sarcophagi before the rogue drains them of power, which is a bummer because my character is at a place, storyline wise, where he would heavily consider making a deal if he thought it would help him get revenge.
Our paladin has a lightsaber that sheds sunlight and plate armor + shield, making him a defensive and offensive monster.
Our light cleric has soloed four different encounters so far this campaign, ending them in one turn before I come up on initiative!
I dunno if I just had a bad string of sessions or if I'm really as weak as I feel or what. Everything we've faced in the last 4 sessions or so has either been resistant to nonmagical piercing or straight immune, so my one strength has been neutered. I know CoS is supposed to inspire dread and make the characters feel weak, but I almost feel like my character is the only one suffering from these things and its started to wear me down.
Also if i were your dm, and the rogue was taking literally all the dark power deals, is be asking him to roll up a new character and the rogue would go work for Strahd (or try to take over from Strahd).
Alternatively, the cleric i think could solve the flaws, if i remember right, not not at level 6.
That's really common at good tables
So, I got invited to play D&D with some friends. First time playing. On our third or fourth session we had 2 characters die and now we all are making back up characters just in case we need a fresh start (dm and the players who died are still working out what to do since they were Central to the plot).
Anyways, we roll for stats. My first character was down right gifted. 4 16s, and 12 and a 10. However, the second character I made, I got a pretty bad roll. My friends are dead set on rolling for stats and hp. I'm kinda against it, because being effed over by dice before the game begins and not be able to run the character I wanted to seems dumb.
Thoughts? My friends seem dead set on rolling and don't understand my problem with it.
Something to think about though, did you enjoy the rolling the first time around because you had good stats and your friends had crap ones (which is why they are happy to reroll)? Point buy removes the random from the equation.
To add to all this, we don't roll as a group but at our own home. Somehow I feel like rerolling is common, even though my friend said it was cheating to him.
TL;DR I'd rather have every one start off on even footing.
Tell them honestly you don't think rolling for stats is going to be fun long term, and if they insist, then you either say ok or you walk away. If you say ok, you potentially have the option of just tossing that character in the meat grinder first chance you get, but that may soil their fun, and they may get upset since it's sort of a sabotage move.
Somebody is rolling at home and comes to play with three 16's, two 15's and an 18? Yeah, chances are that guy is a douchebag cheater.
These are my friends who I've asked to play with for a while. Hopefully it doesn't come to walk away.
When we roll for stats I let people reroll if they don’t get a single 16, their character is supposed to be heroic
If nobody has over a 12, why are they an adventurer? A Peasant has 10s across the board, if you aren’t significantly beating that, you probably aren’t exceptional enough to do anything important
*disallowing* someone to point buy boggles my mind, as its just going to lead to annoyed people attacking guards at level 1 and rerolling until they get something better
If it bothers you, explain to them how you feel and ask if you yourself (and perhaps the guy who also got screwed) can just use point buy instead, since rolling for stats is (on average) going to give slightly better stats anyway. If they don't, you can always make a bunch of identical characters, rerolling until you get godlike stats again, and introduce and suicide each of them immediately until you get to the one you like. That's a really passive-aggressive solution, but they're being jerks, so they deserve it.
And then in addition to those three sets you generate you also have the option to take the "standard set" out of the book.
It's generous enough a method that nobody ever really ends up unhappy with their character, but I've always preferred point-buy method.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Do you choose the best set out of three, or the save roll for a stat three times and take the highest from there?
You roll up sets of six and choose one of the three sets. You can distribute the rolled stats however you like.
(If you can track down a copy of the 4e version of Gamma World, now there's a game that has you roll your stats up and it's awesome.)
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
it basically spits out characters with stats in the 13-15 range all around which is fun and not imbalancing
I'm probably putting to much though in this and should just enjoy the game. But still.
You're not, at all
If you're doing "roll, but reroll if the total is less than X", then just do a point buy with X points and save the trouble.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
I also use rolled proficiency which changes the game considerably.
How do you do rolled proficiency?
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981