As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/

[DnD 5E] You can't triple stamp a double stamp!

12122242627101

Posts

  • AuralynxAuralynx Darkness is a perspective Watching the ego workRegistered User regular
    Shawnasee wrote: »
    So the party I'm DMing found a large magical tapestry with a dragon inside of it. They took a sword from the tapestry and then folded it up to stop the dragon from getting out. They have been carrying it around for months now.

    They also just killed a Witch Queen, her coven, a giant oblivion moss monster and some NPC's.

    It was a good fight.

    After resting up, they searched the area and found a journal that led them to some specific items of magical import, one of which was the skin of a demon and a sister witch who were plotting behind the WQ's back. She made a cloak out of them.

    The party also has a magical anvil that will allow, at great cost, the transfer of some abilities from one magic item, to another.

    Indeed, our last session, we spent 6 hours transferring attributes and/or deleting them.

    One of the party members has decided he would like to merge the magical tapestry (with the dragon in it) to the Cloak of the Witch Queen.

    ...

    I asked him what he thinks might happen, and he said he doesn't have a clue, he just wants to see what happens, and now I do too.

    Any input? EDIT: Like, what might that look like? What special ability might that give? The opportunities are endless and I am a bit overwhelmed.

    From the sound of it, it'd create a cloak that was also a portal to another dimension activated by putting it on. Or maybe it just translates the previous owners of the skins used to make the cloak into the tapestry-world. I'm sure they're fine with that.

    kshu0oba7xnr.png

  • webguy20webguy20 I spend too much time on the Internet Registered User regular
    edited December 2018
    Id say that it becomes like one of those cloaks with many pockets, but dragon themed. One use of dragons breath, one use of flight, one of dragonskin armor, one of dragons charisma. Things like that.

    Its secretly cursed though so when they use an effect it alerts the dragons mate who has been searching for centuries for the dragon trapped in the tapestry. When it finds the players its going to be pissed. They could free the dragon at that point but whatever effects the party used the dragon is now missing, and the dragons mate is even more pissed.

    webguy20 on
    Steam ID: Webguy20
    Origin ID: Discgolfer27
    Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
  • NyhtNyht Registered User regular
    So I just FINALLY got to play D&D again and our group decided a couple change ups since there was few month time gap from the last time and the party weren't really all that tight-knit as it were.

    My wife, the Mystic, semi retired her mermaid and made a Eladrin Glamour Bard.

    My brother continued on with his Human Oath of Ancients Paladin.

    My daughter continued on with her half elven gunslinger.

    AND then we get to the sister in law who temp retires her Dream Druid to make a very "different druid".

    Her name is Squee ... and Squee is a goblin. Squee speaks in a squeaky voice. Squee has Good Beatles instead of Good Berries. Squee is a Spore Druid who worships Gork and Mork (Warhammer but I'm gonna let this shit ride all day). One is nicer, one is meaner.

    And the best part?

    Extra juicy and squishy. Squee casts every spell in a rhyme like "Iggy Wiggy, Grease Like Piggy!" for Freedom of Movement, as an example. Fantastic start back up.

  • DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    Looking at Oath of Redemption Paladin and its... really intriguing in a "wow that's not how you usually play D&D" kind of way?

  • SmrtnikSmrtnik job boli zub Registered User regular
    Nyht wrote: »
    So I just FINALLY got to play D&D again and our group decided a couple change ups since there was few month time gap from the last time and the party weren't really all that tight-knit as it were.

    My wife, the Mystic, semi retired her mermaid and made a Eladrin Glamour Bard.

    My brother continued on with his Human Oath of Ancients Paladin.

    My daughter continued on with her half elven gunslinger.

    AND then we get to the sister in law who temp retires her Dream Druid to make a very "different druid".

    Her name is Squee ... and Squee is a goblin. Squee speaks in a squeaky voice. Squee has Good Beatles instead of Good Berries. Squee is a Spore Druid who worships Gork and Mork (Warhammer but I'm gonna let this shit ride all day). One is nicer, one is meaner.

    And the best part?

    Extra juicy and squishy. Squee casts every spell in a rhyme like "Iggy Wiggy, Grease Like Piggy!" for Freedom of Movement, as an example. Fantastic start back up.

    Omg your family is the best and i hope you appreciate them.

    steam_sig.png
  • NarbusNarbus Registered User regular
    edited December 2018
    Unless there are specific abilities that the Witch's Cloak already has, I'd go with:
    Cloak of the Balauriad
    This leather cloak is pitch black, with a blood red lining. Hewn together from demonic leather, a strange alchemy has bound together the power of a demon and a dragon within the cloak's folds.

    This cloak can hold up to six charges.
    As an action, the wearer of the cloak can throw wide the cloak and spend 1 or more charges to call forth power from within.
    Firebolt (1 charge)
    Fireball (3 charges)
    Demonic Meggido (5 charges)

    Demonic Meggido: a 5 foot wide ball of black fire rolls out across the battlefield, in a straight line for 30 feet. Any creature in the path of the fireball must make a dexterity saving throw, taking 6d6+6 damage and being knocked prone on a failed save, and taking half damage without being knocked prone on a success.

    The cloak regains 1d6+1 charges every day at sunset.

    I like the classics.
    Plus, there's some clear paths for upgrades, if you're into that, and equally clear paths for the cloak to corrupt its wearer, if you're into that...

    Narbus on
  • see317see317 Registered User regular
    Does the Firebolt level, or is it stuck at first level cantrip damage?

    I think you might want to boost Demonic Meggido, or swap it's cost with Fireball if you want that ability to be used.

    If my math is correct DM does 12 to 42 damage over a 5r x 30 foot cylinder (~500 cubic feet) along the ground and might knock the target prone, if it fails the save.

    Fireball, at level 3, does 8 to 48 (8d6) damage (when cast at level 3) in a 20 foot radius sphere (~33,000 cubic feet), also with the dex save for half damage with a 150 foot range.

    While the knocking prone part of DM is nice, I think I'd rather go with the damage, range and area of two Fireballs for the cost. Sure, the lack of precision might be a downside, but...

    The other option, I think maybe lose Fireball, replace it with a reflavored Chromatic Orb restricted to fire damage (keep the "ball of black fire" description. It does 3-24 (3d8) damage to a single target with range.

  • GlaziusGlazius Registered User regular
    Shawnasee wrote: »
    I asked him what he thinks might happen, and he said he doesn't have a clue, he just wants to see what happens, and now I do too.

    Any input? EDIT: Like, what might that look like? What special ability might that give? The opportunities are endless and I am a bit overwhelmed.

    The tapestry has the unmistakable sense of depth about it, but you can no longer reach into it. It is a scene of a witch and a demon, taking a journey toward a burning mountain, and it seems to be satisfied.

    During a short rest, one person resting under it, or someone of your choice resting near it: regains one-fourth of their hit dice, or recovers one-half their level in restored spell slots, or finds that one broken or empty thing in their possession is now whole or full.

    But the witch and demon move closer toward the burning mountain. Or perhaps the mountain moves closer to them. What will happen when they meet?

  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    I'm just curious about something

    what happens in curse of strahd if you use the dark gift of resurrection on the silver dragon skeleton

  • GaddezGaddez Registered User regular
    I'm just curious about something

    what happens in curse of strahd if you use the dark gift of resurrection on the silver dragon skeleton

    Well, if it was me gming, the result would be that you create an utterly insane malevolent undead monstrosity that hates itself and everything in barovia but hey: Thatt's just me.

  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited December 2018
    Gaddez wrote: »
    I'm just curious about something

    what happens in curse of strahd if you use the dark gift of resurrection on the silver dragon skeleton

    Well, if it was me gming, the result would be that you create an utterly insane malevolent undead monstrosity that hates itself and everything in barovia but hey: Thatt's just me.

    I suppose that would be a possibility but you can just kill your players at any time without first having them trudge through the amber temple, it also feels pretty mean to just homebrew up a middle finger every time they try to go outside of the box

    I'm thinking I'd probably have the dragon's soul be unavailable, shared among the knights of argynvostholt or something

    edit: or have strahd beat them to the punch and raise it as (young) dracolich to taunt them, but not take away the dark gift or make it do something other than what it's supposed to do

    edit2: this came off as more combative than I intended

    override367 on
  • JusticeforPlutoJusticeforPluto Registered User regular
    Okay, some context about our game.

    We start off in a Tavern fleeing from enemy soliders who have breached the walls. As part of the army, we need to gtfo. The city is falling, and we need to make it to a rally point to evac with some civilians.

    We spy an owlbear and two knights in the street. Me and the barbarian sneak across to the allyway, while the paladin just charges across. Sigh. Luckily we weren't spotted some how.

    In the allyways we find looters. Paladin stops to kill them, and our commanding officer (played by the DM) says nothing about it.

    Luckily our rouge talks him down.

    We fight a group of knights, make it to the church, and get passed off to another NPC commanding officer to go save a relic from the underground vault before the enemy gets it.

    Along the way every puzzle cause an argument. At one point I ask the rouge to check for traps, and he responds by hitting on my character (female knight). This quickly escalates to a fist fight that I easily win. At another point, the barbarian finds a moon touched longsword. Seeing as I use those and he doesn't, I ask if I may have it. He says yes, on the condition I stop arguing with the paladin (I was mad at him for not stealthing and starting a pointless fight).

    Oh, and their is an Asimir Sorcerer who claimed he took orders from no one.

    At one point the group volunteered me to go first down an obviously trapped hallway. After the rouge refused to check for traps (due to the fist fight) I asked the DM's commanding officer why they were letting this happen. Their response was "we seem to be talking a lot and not moving". That's a great observation, why don't you do something?!

    I really didn't have fun. It felt like the paladin wanted to pick every little fight (we also ran from a group of skeletons that he was very upset about), the rouge and the sorcerer didn't want to follow orders. The barbarian did, but that was about it. We didn't have any back story, and the enemy threat wasn't really fleshed out, nor the McGuffin we're are getting. So, we don't know who were are, who we are fighting, or what we are supposed to do.

    I was upset at the DM for introducing a commanding officer twice, but not haveing them do much to keep the party moving. I was upset with the other players for not really reacting to what little information we had (time is of the essence). Felt like my character just tried to boss (aka keep us I track)everyone around and failed, causing even more fights and time wasted.

    I didnt want my character to be bossy lady, that's not who I made but the circumstances (I felt) demanded it. So, I got permission to make a new character. Hence why I wanted easy going, slightly silly ideas. One of my own was a kolbold who just wanted every one to like him.

    I made a rouge (I was talking about earlier) but decided to save that idea for another game.

    Thoughts? (Even if it's that I'm crazy and upset over nothing big)

  • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
    edited December 2018
    Your group and your DM suck and the solution is for everyone, possibly including you, to be nicer and care about everyone's fun and to talk openly and directly about how the game is going. If anyone ever said to me that I could have the sword if I stopped arguing with Bob I would stop the game to have an immediate session zero talk about what everyone wants from the game. That's a ridiculous thing to say ever.

    All of that said, it seems like you have a clear path forward. If they let you have fun when you're an easy going nobody, great. If they won't let you make or play that character, it starts to seem like they're maybe being super unreasonable.

    Powerpuppies on
    sig.gif
  • KadokenKadoken Giving Ends to my Friends and it Feels Stupendous Registered User regular
    You might just not gel well with the group.
    The DM’s plans seemed poorly thought out. If the Aasimar and rogue doesn’t take orders (in lieu of a bomb collar or Escape From New York FoxDIE) the GM should either set them straight or give him incentive to follow orders. This is not free form adventures fun times from the context you give. They have a mission and need to do their jobs. If the paladin acts like a jackass, let him die and the rest of you leave for him to learn. If he gets upset you don’t help, that is his fault for acting rashly. The DM should have told the rogue to do their job in the hallway if they were enlisted with those skills in mind. Depending on the tone of the setting the commander not caring about looters would make sense.

    DM should have planned better and mediated more strongly. The rest of the party should have cooperated to the best interest of the party and the goal of having fun together.

  • JusticeforPlutoJusticeforPluto Registered User regular
    I'm new to the group, and our first set of characters is going great! But yeah, I feel like this is going off the rails.

  • BullheadBullhead Registered User regular
    Our game last night went rather awry, and unlike your situation where the DM did nothing, our DM decided to heavily punish the character (and in fact killed him). So yeah I feel like (as a newbie at D&D) your DM failed you. Our DM wasn't perfect (as I think he let it go to far before he punished him), but I really think that's their role (though based on override's posts it's not always easy to do!).


    FWIW, the situation:
    Guy is playing a dwarf fighter, and we're on the first level of the mad mage. He's moderately annoying as he charges directly down every hallway and into every situation (to the point where we apparently missed like 4+ hidden doorways because we were simply running down hallways chasing after him instead of investigating around. I've not used stealth on my rogue since he joined as he's always out front.

    We entered a large room with a statue, 30ft high ceilings, and multiple pathways. The DM informed us we could here goblins around one corner, and he took off after them (explaining the dwarves hate goblins and thus he was going murderhobo on them). The rest of the group stayed behind to investigate the statue/room, and he decided to keep chasing down the next hallway and around a corner. At which point it was clear the DM had had enough, and he introduced him to 20 goblins having dinner. He killed two before being permadeathed :D. We attempted to go catch him when we heard the battle start, but our DM jumped us with 3 bugbears to keep us in place (which downed but did not kill our ranger). They're now all heading straight for us, but I think we're suspending this campaign to start a homebrew so it's a moot point now....

    96058.png?1619393207
  • JusticeforPlutoJusticeforPluto Registered User regular
    Your group and your DM suck and the solution is for everyone, possibly including you, to be nicer and care about everyone's fun and to talk openly and directly about how the game is going. If anyone ever said to me that I could have the sword if I stopped arguing with Bob I would stop the game to have an immediate session zero talk about what everyone wants from the game. That's a ridiculous thing to say ever.

    All of that said, it seems like you have a clear path forward. If they let you have fun when you're an easy going nobody, great. If they won't let you make or play that character, it starts to seem like they're maybe being super unreasonable.

    Right, I'll well aware I might be part of the problem.

  • SteelhawkSteelhawk Registered User regular
    Are you the odd man out in this group? Or is it all a bunch of randos?

    Could it be that these douchenozzles are just giving the new guy (you) a hard time? Or are they indeed just douchenozzles?

  • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
    Your group and your DM suck and the solution is for everyone, possibly including you, to be nicer and care about everyone's fun and to talk openly and directly about how the game is going. If anyone ever said to me that I could have the sword if I stopped arguing with Bob I would stop the game to have an immediate session zero talk about what everyone wants from the game. That's a ridiculous thing to say ever.

    All of that said, it seems like you have a clear path forward. If they let you have fun when you're an easy going nobody, great. If they won't let you make or play that character, it starts to seem like they're maybe being super unreasonable.

    Right, I'll well aware I might be part of the problem.

    wait i meant to say that they were for sure part of the problem and you were only maybe part of the problem

    it's possible if you also fucked around doing whatever you wanted and not caring, they would have allowed it and had fun. I'm not sure that's true though, it sounds like the barbarian player called you out for arguing with the paladin after the rogue talked him down! Why didn't he call out the rogue? Is there a good reason you bothered him more than the rogue? There are lots of these little questions and you can answer them but we can't. All I'm saying for sure is that there's a 0% chance this is all or mostly your fault.

    sig.gif
  • NyhtNyht Registered User regular
    Smrtnik wrote: »
    Nyht wrote: »
    So I just FINALLY got to play D&D again and our group decided a couple change ups since there was few month time gap from the last time and the party weren't really all that tight-knit as it were.

    My wife, the Mystic, semi retired her mermaid and made a Eladrin Glamour Bard.

    My brother continued on with his Human Oath of Ancients Paladin.

    My daughter continued on with her half elven gunslinger.

    AND then we get to the sister in law who temp retires her Dream Druid to make a very "different druid".

    Her name is Squee ... and Squee is a goblin. Squee speaks in a squeaky voice. Squee has Good Beatles instead of Good Berries. Squee is a Spore Druid who worships Gork and Mork (Warhammer but I'm gonna let this shit ride all day). One is nicer, one is meaner.

    And the best part?

    Extra juicy and squishy. Squee casts every spell in a rhyme like "Iggy Wiggy, Grease Like Piggy!" for Freedom of Movement, as an example. Fantastic start back up.

    Omg your family is the best and i hope you appreciate them.

    They are generally pretty awesome. The brother and sister in law can kind of disappear into games for weeks/months which usually causes our droughts, but otherwise I appreciate them very much so. They don't metagame. They don't bring any drama to the board. They aren't murder hobos. And they all four seem very engaged at the table and keep coming back, so I can't complain.

  • GaddezGaddez Registered User regular
    Gaddez wrote: »
    I'm just curious about something

    what happens in curse of strahd if you use the dark gift of resurrection on the silver dragon skeleton

    Well, if it was me gming, the result would be that you create an utterly insane malevolent undead monstrosity that hates itself and everything in barovia but hey: Thatt's just me.

    I suppose that would be a possibility but you can just kill your players at any time without first having them trudge through the amber temple, it also feels pretty mean to just homebrew up a middle finger every time they try to go outside of the box

    I'm thinking I'd probably have the dragon's soul be unavailable, shared among the knights of argynvostholt or something

    edit: or have strahd beat them to the punch and raise it as (young) dracolich to taunt them, but not take away the dark gift or make it do something other than what it's supposed to do

    edit2: this came off as more combative than I intended

    The thing about the Ravenloft setting (and this can't be stressed hard enough) is that one of the core aspects of it is that the land is perpetually tormenting those living inside of it; doesn't matter which duchy your in, the dark powers have a hundred different ways to give you what you want in the worst way possible.

    Case in point: Azalin. He was a ridiculously powerful lich who had wanted his son to take over running his city state, but said son was initmidated by the enormity of the task so much that he committed suicide.

    When Azalin got a duchy by walking into the mists, he discovered that his son was alive in the uppermost tower room of his castle.... but only when the lich was in the room with him.

    Simply put, I can't imagine the land allowing anything as powerful as a silver dragon to upset the balance like that.

  • AuralynxAuralynx Darkness is a perspective Watching the ego workRegistered User regular
    edited December 2018
    Gaddez wrote: »
    Gaddez wrote: »
    I'm just curious about something

    what happens in curse of strahd if you use the dark gift of resurrection on the silver dragon skeleton

    Well, if it was me gming, the result would be that you create an utterly insane malevolent undead monstrosity that hates itself and everything in barovia but hey: Thatt's just me.

    I suppose that would be a possibility but you can just kill your players at any time without first having them trudge through the amber temple, it also feels pretty mean to just homebrew up a middle finger every time they try to go outside of the box

    I'm thinking I'd probably have the dragon's soul be unavailable, shared among the knights of argynvostholt or something

    edit: or have strahd beat them to the punch and raise it as (young) dracolich to taunt them, but not take away the dark gift or make it do something other than what it's supposed to do

    edit2: this came off as more combative than I intended

    The thing about the Ravenloft setting (and this can't be stressed hard enough) is that one of the core aspects of it is that the land is perpetually tormenting those living inside of it; doesn't matter which duchy your in, the dark powers have a hundred different ways to give you what you want in the worst way possible.

    Case in point: Azalin. He was a ridiculously powerful lich who had wanted his son to take over running his city state, but said son was initmidated by the enormity of the task so much that he committed suicide.

    When Azalin got a duchy by walking into the mists, he discovered that his son was alive in the uppermost tower room of his castle.... but only when the lich was in the room with him.

    Simply put, I can't imagine the land allowing anything as powerful as a silver dragon to upset the balance like that.

    All correct, but it's probably fair to extrapolate from the 2E modules (especially but not exclusively Circle of Darkness) that they'd let it run wild causing chaos, sadness, and general problems for a while before affairs settled down to the status-quo torment and misery.

    E: The novels too, in fact!

    Auralynx on
    kshu0oba7xnr.png

  • GaddezGaddez Registered User regular
    Like the slogan for this setting could be "All our knives are actually screws to facilitate twisting."

  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited December 2018
    Gaddez wrote: »
    Gaddez wrote: »
    I'm just curious about something

    what happens in curse of strahd if you use the dark gift of resurrection on the silver dragon skeleton

    Well, if it was me gming, the result would be that you create an utterly insane malevolent undead monstrosity that hates itself and everything in barovia but hey: Thatt's just me.

    I suppose that would be a possibility but you can just kill your players at any time without first having them trudge through the amber temple, it also feels pretty mean to just homebrew up a middle finger every time they try to go outside of the box

    I'm thinking I'd probably have the dragon's soul be unavailable, shared among the knights of argynvostholt or something

    edit: or have strahd beat them to the punch and raise it as (young) dracolich to taunt them, but not take away the dark gift or make it do something other than what it's supposed to do

    edit2: this came off as more combative than I intended

    The thing about the Ravenloft setting (and this can't be stressed hard enough) is that one of the core aspects of it is that the land is perpetually tormenting those living inside of it; doesn't matter which duchy your in, the dark powers have a hundred different ways to give you what you want in the worst way possible.

    Case in point: Azalin. He was a ridiculously powerful lich who had wanted his son to take over running his city state, but said son was initmidated by the enormity of the task so much that he committed suicide.

    When Azalin got a duchy by walking into the mists, he discovered that his son was alive in the uppermost tower room of his castle.... but only when the lich was in the room with him.

    Simply put, I can't imagine the land allowing anything as powerful as a silver dragon to upset the balance like that.

    If you ran curse of strahd would you let the party actually win and leave Barovia at the end, or just force the "Bad" ending? It's sounding like you don't want them to succeed because it's a grimdark setting when as written they absolutely can (they just can't make barovia a happy place)

    I feel like I'm absolutely supposed to let the players succeed, and only allowing them to succeed in exactly the manner as described (confronting strahd with the sun sword and kicking his ass) feels wrong to me as a DM

    Since the player was kind enough to give me time to think about this (they're going to be running a heavily truncated version of COS after tomb to tie up a lose end requiring access to barovia), since he figured its logical they'll end up at the amber temple fairly quickly starting the module at 11th level, I think I'll let them do it if the situation comes up - but after killing strahd and leaving barovia they'll keep in touch with the vistani - and learn that it's going to become a raving lunatic and its revenant knights are going to become the new enforcers to take the place of the vampire spawn (different verse, same as the first)

    What's more likely is the scenario I've been planning for. Since I started this campaign with Death House and they left barovia afterwards - taking the ghost child with them, resurrecting her, and dragging her through the jungles of chult; when they finally go back to barovia with Rudolph Van Richten and deal with strahd to return their friend rose to her liberated homeland ... she's going to use all this fancy wizard shit and magic items she got from them to take over the place (unless the situation arises where the dragon thing happens, I trust this player to not metagame but he told me that is what his character will do if he learns of the dragon skeleton and gets the dark gift)... and over time become just as fucked up

    I look forward to like a year later someone being like "yo what ever happened in barovia?" and finding out no matter what state they left it in, it's back to being basically the same

    override367 on
  • SteelhawkSteelhawk Registered User regular
    edited December 2018
    I think that's right. No matter what ridiculousness your players end up doing to Barovia, it is a demi-plane of dread. Any realm of Ravenloft is not going to get a happily ever after, rainbows and unicorns ending. Your big damn heroes can go in and kick Strahd's ass! The people of Barovia will rejoice.... for a bit.

    And soon afterwards, some other horrible thing will take Strahd's place. Whether that's a ghost witch girl, or an insane resurrected silver dragon or whatever.... Ravenloft needs a dark ruler. It just is.

    Steelhawk on
  • GaddezGaddez Registered User regular
    Gaddez wrote: »
    Gaddez wrote: »
    I'm just curious about something

    what happens in curse of strahd if you use the dark gift of resurrection on the silver dragon skeleton

    Well, if it was me gming, the result would be that you create an utterly insane malevolent undead monstrosity that hates itself and everything in barovia but hey: Thatt's just me.

    I suppose that would be a possibility but you can just kill your players at any time without first having them trudge through the amber temple, it also feels pretty mean to just homebrew up a middle finger every time they try to go outside of the box

    I'm thinking I'd probably have the dragon's soul be unavailable, shared among the knights of argynvostholt or something

    edit: or have strahd beat them to the punch and raise it as (young) dracolich to taunt them, but not take away the dark gift or make it do something other than what it's supposed to do

    edit2: this came off as more combative than I intended

    The thing about the Ravenloft setting (and this can't be stressed hard enough) is that one of the core aspects of it is that the land is perpetually tormenting those living inside of it; doesn't matter which duchy your in, the dark powers have a hundred different ways to give you what you want in the worst way possible.

    Case in point: Azalin. He was a ridiculously powerful lich who had wanted his son to take over running his city state, but said son was initmidated by the enormity of the task so much that he committed suicide.

    When Azalin got a duchy by walking into the mists, he discovered that his son was alive in the uppermost tower room of his castle.... but only when the lich was in the room with him.

    Simply put, I can't imagine the land allowing anything as powerful as a silver dragon to upset the balance like that.

    If you ran curse of strahd would you let the party actually win and leave Barovia at the end, or just force the "Bad" ending? It's sounding like you don't want them to succeed because it's a grimdark setting when as written they absolutely can (they just can't make barovia a happy place)

    I feel like I'm absolutely supposed to let the players succeed, and only allowing them to succeed in exactly the manner as described (confronting strahd with the sun sword and kicking his ass) feels wrong to me as a DM

    Since the player was kind enough to give me time to think about this (they're going to be running a heavily truncated version of COS after tomb to tie up a lose end requiring access to barovia), since he figured its logical they'll end up at the amber temple fairly quickly starting the module at 11th level, I think I'll let them do it if the situation comes up - but after killing strahd and leaving barovia they'll keep in touch with the vistani - and learn that it's going to become a raving lunatic and its revenant knights are going to become the new enforcers to take the place of the vampire spawn (different verse, same as the first)

    What's more likely is the scenario I've been planning for. Since I started this campaign with Death House and they left barovia afterwards - taking the ghost child with them, resurrecting her, and dragging her through the jungles of chult; when they finally go back to barovia with Rudolph Van Richten and deal with strahd to return their friend rose to her liberated homeland ... she's going to use all this fancy wizard shit and magic items she got from them to take over the place (unless the situation arises where the dragon thing happens, I trust this player to not metagame but he told me that is what his character will do if he learns of the dragon skeleton and gets the dark gift)... and over time become just as fucked up

    I look forward to like a year later someone being like "yo what ever happened in barovia?" and finding out no matter what state they left it in, it's back to being basically the same

    I mean, you do you Bud, but Ravenloft (a Gothic Horror themed setting) has a tendency to shit all over everyones best intentions.

    Also: The fact that they want to go back is the sort of thing that no sane person who managed to escape the demiplane (which is something of an epic feat up there with pissing in vecna's empty eyesocket and then getting to live) should ever want under any circumstances since as I've already pointed out: it turns everything good in your life to ashes and erodes the morality of those who dwell within.

    So to answer your question: It depends on what you mean by winning. In all due liklihood I'd set it up wherein one of the players had to do a thing to keep a portal open and then inform them that they were free to leave, but if they did then barovia would be without a lord and the land would find something else, something that might actually be worse then strahd. If the player left then that would be the end of it, but if they decided to stick around, the dark powers would effectively empower them to become a lord capable of enforcing their will while at the same time corrupting them so that they're eventually at about the same level as strahd.

  • JusticeforPlutoJusticeforPluto Registered User regular
    Is it a faux pas to play a class someone else is already playing?

    Namly, I was thinking of playing a Changling to account for why my character changed in between games (wouldn't tell the party, just the DM). However, I was having a hard time coming up with something other than rouge.

    I already have a wizard in the second party, and the current party is Barbarian, Rouge, Paladin and Sorcerer.

  • davidsdurionsdavidsdurions Your Trusty Meatshield Panhandle NebraskaRegistered User regular
    Double rogue can be fun as each character specializes down different paths. And the role playing can be good as they can either compete or cooperate or both.

  • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
    I have sometimes asked if another player minds if my character starts to become good at stuff their character was good at. It's more about doing the same things in combat or the same things out of combat than class, precisely, I think

    sig.gif
  • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
    playing a character from a secret kept from the other players may complicate your original goal of "play a silly person who will go along with anything to resolve the silly/serious gap in the current game" though

    sig.gif
  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited December 2018
    Gaddez wrote: »
    Gaddez wrote: »
    Gaddez wrote: »
    I'm just curious about something

    what happens in curse of strahd if you use the dark gift of resurrection on the silver dragon skeleton

    Well, if it was me gming, the result would be that you create an utterly insane malevolent undead monstrosity that hates itself and everything in barovia but hey: Thatt's just me.

    I suppose that would be a possibility but you can just kill your players at any time without first having them trudge through the amber temple, it also feels pretty mean to just homebrew up a middle finger every time they try to go outside of the box

    I'm thinking I'd probably have the dragon's soul be unavailable, shared among the knights of argynvostholt or something

    edit: or have strahd beat them to the punch and raise it as (young) dracolich to taunt them, but not take away the dark gift or make it do something other than what it's supposed to do

    edit2: this came off as more combative than I intended

    The thing about the Ravenloft setting (and this can't be stressed hard enough) is that one of the core aspects of it is that the land is perpetually tormenting those living inside of it; doesn't matter which duchy your in, the dark powers have a hundred different ways to give you what you want in the worst way possible.

    Case in point: Azalin. He was a ridiculously powerful lich who had wanted his son to take over running his city state, but said son was initmidated by the enormity of the task so much that he committed suicide.

    When Azalin got a duchy by walking into the mists, he discovered that his son was alive in the uppermost tower room of his castle.... but only when the lich was in the room with him.

    Simply put, I can't imagine the land allowing anything as powerful as a silver dragon to upset the balance like that.

    If you ran curse of strahd would you let the party actually win and leave Barovia at the end, or just force the "Bad" ending? It's sounding like you don't want them to succeed because it's a grimdark setting when as written they absolutely can (they just can't make barovia a happy place)

    I feel like I'm absolutely supposed to let the players succeed, and only allowing them to succeed in exactly the manner as described (confronting strahd with the sun sword and kicking his ass) feels wrong to me as a DM

    Since the player was kind enough to give me time to think about this (they're going to be running a heavily truncated version of COS after tomb to tie up a lose end requiring access to barovia), since he figured its logical they'll end up at the amber temple fairly quickly starting the module at 11th level, I think I'll let them do it if the situation comes up - but after killing strahd and leaving barovia they'll keep in touch with the vistani - and learn that it's going to become a raving lunatic and its revenant knights are going to become the new enforcers to take the place of the vampire spawn (different verse, same as the first)

    What's more likely is the scenario I've been planning for. Since I started this campaign with Death House and they left barovia afterwards - taking the ghost child with them, resurrecting her, and dragging her through the jungles of chult; when they finally go back to barovia with Rudolph Van Richten and deal with strahd to return their friend rose to her liberated homeland ... she's going to use all this fancy wizard shit and magic items she got from them to take over the place (unless the situation arises where the dragon thing happens, I trust this player to not metagame but he told me that is what his character will do if he learns of the dragon skeleton and gets the dark gift)... and over time become just as fucked up

    I look forward to like a year later someone being like "yo what ever happened in barovia?" and finding out no matter what state they left it in, it's back to being basically the same

    I mean, you do you Bud, but Ravenloft (a Gothic Horror themed setting) has a tendency to shit all over everyones best intentions.

    Also: The fact that they want to go back is the sort of thing that no sane person who managed to escape the demiplane (which is something of an epic feat up there with pissing in vecna's empty eyesocket and then getting to live) should ever want under any circumstances since as I've already pointed out: it turns everything good in your life to ashes and erodes the morality of those who dwell within.

    So to answer your question: It depends on what you mean by winning. In all due liklihood I'd set it up wherein one of the players had to do a thing to keep a portal open and then inform them that they were free to leave, but if they did then barovia would be without a lord and the land would find something else, something that might actually be worse then strahd. If the player left then that would be the end of it, but if they decided to stick around, the dark powers would effectively empower them to become a lord capable of enforcing their will while at the same time corrupting them so that they're eventually at about the same level as strahd.
    Escape from Barovia
    Strahd’s death grants Barovia a reprieve. The fog that surrounds the land thins, and it no longer harms those who pass through it. The dark clouds that have loomed over the valley for centuries give way to sunshine, shocking the Barovians out of their despair.

    The Barovians take the sunlight as a sign that the evil in their land has been purged. Though escape is now possible, most Barovians realize that they have nowhere to go and no reason to leave. A few depart, fearing the return of the darkness or longing to see their ancestral homelands. Those who have souls can leave the valley, while those without souls fade into nothingness as they take their first steps beyond the edge of Strahd’s former domain.

    Saying "you do you" makes it seem like I'm being overly kind but I think people are dragging baggage from other published material about Ravenloft from past editions into this campaign to not let the players leave.... its quoted directly above how Curse of Strahd ends

    yes it does eventually return to the same Barovia, but there is a temporary reprieve

    The reason my players got out the first time has nothing to do with what should normally be possible, I ran death house and asked if they wanted to do Tomb of Annihilation and then a brief stint in barovia or Curse of Strahd and tie the end of that into Tomb of Annihilation, they wanted a jungle dino adventure so they got to leave Barovia (Acererak needing them to finish the job they had unknowingly started for him and probably having some pull with the dark powers)

    override367 on
  • JusticeforPlutoJusticeforPluto Registered User regular
    playing a character from a secret kept from the other players may complicate your original goal of "play a silly person who will go along with anything to resolve the silly/serious gap in the current game" though

    I was going to be a very laid back Changling.

    Idk I really can't come up with anything for this game. I know so little!

  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited December 2018
    Speaking of Acererak, the party disrespected him last week to his face when he showed up to taunt them. The bard told him that the guide with her was going to be her wife and they would defeat him and laughed at him. He cursed her with his staff and waved goodbye, departing via teleportation.

    This Sunday: the bard's fiance gets kidnapped by acererak and suspended over lava in the tomb of the nine gods, because why would you tell a bond villain about your fiance. I need to make a bunch of cat+fire or cat+cage or cat+lava puns for acererak to occasionally Sending at the bard (bard's fiance is a tabaxi)

    override367 on
  • AuralynxAuralynx Darkness is a perspective Watching the ego workRegistered User regular
    This Sunday: the bard's fiance gets kidnapped by acererak and suspended over lava in the tomb of the nine gods, because why would you tell a bond villain about your fiance

    Acererak has always me as the true, ascended post-monologue sort of villain who just Soul Traps people so they stop bugging him, but this is too much fun as an idea to let that get in the way.

    kshu0oba7xnr.png

  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited December 2018
    I'm not sure how it developed this way but I'm running him as a mix between Dr Evil and Skeletor, and he's nuttier than a fruitcake

    Also he has a bunch of devils working for him as laborers that are fairly unhappy with working conditions but vehemently oppose unionization on the grounds that someday they'll be the ones on top and they don't want their underlings to have rights

    The party accidentally blew up a volcano (long story) and I had Acererak send a bill to them for 30,000 gp for the cost of the entire lava stage of the tomb that they accidentally destroyed (there is no such stage in the module). The druid strongly considered maybe giving him 30,000 gold pieces? They'd have to take out a loan for some of it of course. I found this delightful

    He's still totally evil though, for example I've decided to make the little girl's undead skull from the first floor one of the Skull Keys that opens the final door. Problem is they took the skull out of the tomb and resurrected her. Well that's going to present a moral dilemma!

    override367 on
  • webguy20webguy20 I spend too much time on the Internet Registered User regular
    I absolutely fucking love that he invoiced the party. That is just amazing.

    Steam ID: Webguy20
    Origin ID: Discgolfer27
    Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
  • ZomroZomro Registered User regular
    Next game I run, I want to include an NPC Lich who's bssically Marvin from Hitchhiker's Guide. Immortal, highly intelligent, extremely powerful (because lich) but very depressed. Capable of destroying the party with little effort but he won't because it wouldn't make him feel any better, so why bother? Would be there, story wise, to gain information from but is not a villain.

  • ZonugalZonugal (He/Him) The Holiday Armadillo I'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered User regular
    Years ago I saw some art by Steve Prescott that completely informed my perspective of Liches.

    84700.jpg

    Ross-Geller-Prime-Sig-A.jpg
  • JPantsJPants Registered User regular
    Question for any of you that do sessions primarily or exclusively online: What tools/programs would you recommend for some total noobs looking to get a game going? We would want maps or soimething graphical for the combat at least. I tried Roll20 years ago and found the experience a little frustrating but it's possible it's improved since then? I also know there's FantasyGrounds i have no idea if it's worth the cost. I don't mind paying some money to get things working, or even on a sub basis, as long as the value is decent.

    Looking for any input or insights to get us pointed in the right direction. If it matters it would be 5e we'd be playing but I could also see me running a 4E game eventually.

  • SteelhawkSteelhawk Registered User regular
    This is a good question actually. Even for old fashioned players like me who still prefer to use gawddamn pencil! :)

This discussion has been closed.