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

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Posts

  • SteelhawkSteelhawk Registered User regular
    edited March 2019
    Suds wrote: »
    Anyone know if Mike did all the art for the book?

    I don't know...

    But I thought it was Kris Straub who did all the art for the Aquisitions Inc stuff?

    Steelhawk on
  • GONG-00GONG-00 Registered User regular
    Suds wrote: »
    Anyone know if Mike did all the art for the book?

    From listening to the panel, Mike did the cover art and the A Team artwork. Kris, Amy, and some experienced DND artists also contributed.

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  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    Oh shit, thanks. Insta-buy. Not sure if I ever get to use it, but I'll read it cover to cover regardless.

  • Hexmage-PAHexmage-PA Registered User regular
    edited March 2019
    I've been looking on DMs Guild a lot lately and wanted to share two of my favorite recent finds:

    Ulraunt's Guide to the Planes: The Shadowfell

    This one is heavily inspired by 4E's "Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond". It also features Osterneth the Bronze Lich from "Open Grave: Secrets of the Undead", who is a rare example of a female lich.

    Emirikol's Guide to Devils

    Quite possibly the most comprehensive publication regarding the Hells, compiling and reconciling lore from nearly every source save for Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (which hadn't been released at the time). For example, the preview pages syncreticize info regarding Asmodeus from 2E's Planes of Law, 3E's Fiendish Codex, and 4E's Codex of Betrayal.

    I'm also sharing the index page for the personal blog of the author of Emirikol's Guide to Devils. His website has many incredibly comprehensive articles on various D&D-related subjects. For example, if you've ever wanted to see an overview of every cambion featured in D&D history look no further!

    The Official Index to Power Score

    Hexmage-PA on
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited March 2019
    evilthecat wrote: »
    Nealneal wrote: »
    You don't need to know anything other than that you have Counterspell prepared. It just stops spells 3rd level or lower and you get to roll to stop any spell of higher level. If you cast it from a higher level slot, then you automatically stop any spell of that level or lower. It's RAW in the spell itself.

    You don't understand.
    I'm not saying that it doesn't work that way.
    What I'm saying is if the DM is announcing which spell the lich is casting at which level then he's doing it wrong.
    If he's explicitly telling his players that it's the liches turn then he's shooting himself in the foot.

    Legendary action, cast cantrip, watch the PC wizard blow his spell slots on garbage. Force the PC to think about what he's doing.

    A creature with casting as its main way of doing anything only needs to be counterspelled, regardless of what it's trying to do, to be essentially made utterly useless. There isn't any need to bother with "What is he casting" when the answer is always "Just use highest level counterspell available". Casting creatures, invariably, have lower HP than their non-casting counterparts as they're supposed to have spells to make them more resilient. Take the spells away and they're basically no longer worth their CR.

    There is basically no reason for a sensible party not to completely spam counterspell against the Lich.

    Edit: Plus wait until you see an entire party with the ability to counterspell, with everyone who does not have access to the spell having multiple scrolls of it.

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    Scrolls of counterspell are less of a deal, since you cannot use them as a reaction unless you spend your action preparing them

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  • SchadenfreudeSchadenfreude Mean Mister Mustard Registered User regular
    You also can't use scrolls if the spell is not on your class spell list (unless you're a thief of high enough level).

    Contemplate this on the Tree of Woe
  • evilthecatevilthecat Registered User regular
    Aegeri wrote: »
    evilthecat wrote: »
    Nealneal wrote: »
    You don't need to know anything other than that you have Counterspell prepared. It just stops spells 3rd level or lower and you get to roll to stop any spell of higher level. If you cast it from a higher level slot, then you automatically stop any spell of that level or lower. It's RAW in the spell itself.

    You don't understand.
    I'm not saying that it doesn't work that way.
    What I'm saying is if the DM is announcing which spell the lich is casting at which level then he's doing it wrong.
    If he's explicitly telling his players that it's the liches turn then he's shooting himself in the foot.

    Legendary action, cast cantrip, watch the PC wizard blow his spell slots on garbage. Force the PC to think about what he's doing.

    A creature with casting as its main way of doing anything only needs to be counterspelled, regardless of what it's trying to do, to be essentially made utterly useless. There isn't any need to bother with "What is he casting" when the answer is always "Just use highest level counterspell available". Casting creatures, invariably, have lower HP than their non-casting counterparts as they're supposed to have spells to make them more resilient. Take the spells away and they're basically no longer worth their CR.

    There is basically no reason for a sensible party not to completely spam counterspell against the Lich.

    Edit: Plus wait until you see an entire party with the ability to counterspell, with everyone who does not have access to the spell having multiple scrolls of it.

    In the scenario described, they only had one wizard.
    So the lich uses a legendary action to cast a cantrip.
    The wizard blows his highest level spell slot to counter spell.
    The lich is now up and has his normal turn and can cast whatever he wants knowing that the wizard handled prematurely.

    It doesn't work if there are multiple wizards or PCs actually paying attention to initiative order, but then you can switch it up with the tactics others described.

    tip.. tip.. TALLY.. HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
  • TarantioTarantio Registered User regular
    I would think a Lich coming back after losing due to counterspells would find a way to be effective with spells not cast in the moment, like big nasty constructs or summons. Possibly hidden under illusions, possibly illusions that look like the Lich itself, Doom-bot style.

    Or just go the OotS route, and create powerful undead human constructs that happen to look like a Lich.

    Also maybe magic items that you wanted to give to the party anyway, that let it do things that aren't as easy to counter?

  • SteelhawkSteelhawk Registered User regular
  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    Goumindong wrote: »
    Scrolls of counterspell are less of a deal, since you cannot use them as a reaction unless you spend your action preparing them

    That got errata'd
    Starting with its second sentence, the
    first paragraph now reads as follows: “If the spell is on your
    class’s spell list, you can read the scroll and cast its spell without providing any material components. Otherwise, the scroll
    is unintelligible. Casting the spell by reading the scroll requires
    the spell’s normal casting time.
    Once the spell is cast, the words
    on the scroll fade, and it crumbles to dust. If the casting is interrupted, the scroll is not lost.”

  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    Steelhawk wrote: »

    An End Table Table? How the fuck is this not on the normal DM screen, everyone's had to homebrew solutions to End Table types on the fly!

  • descdesc Goretexing to death Registered User regular
    Goumindong wrote: »
    Scrolls of counterspell are less of a deal, since you cannot use them as a reaction unless you spend your action preparing them

    That got errata'd
    Starting with its second sentence, the
    first paragraph now reads as follows: “If the spell is on your
    class’s spell list, you can read the scroll and cast its spell without providing any material components. Otherwise, the scroll
    is unintelligible. Casting the spell by reading the scroll requires
    the spell’s normal casting time.
    Once the spell is cast, the words
    on the scroll fade, and it crumbles to dust. If the casting is interrupted, the scroll is not lost.”

    Tbf how long does it take to read a piece of paper that says “no u”

  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    desc wrote: »
    Goumindong wrote: »
    Scrolls of counterspell are less of a deal, since you cannot use them as a reaction unless you spend your action preparing them

    That got errata'd
    Starting with its second sentence, the
    first paragraph now reads as follows: “If the spell is on your
    class’s spell list, you can read the scroll and cast its spell without providing any material components. Otherwise, the scroll
    is unintelligible. Casting the spell by reading the scroll requires
    the spell’s normal casting time.
    Once the spell is cast, the words
    on the scroll fade, and it crumbles to dust. If the casting is interrupted, the scroll is not lost.”

    Tbf how long does it take to read a piece of paper that says “no u”

    1c1.png

  • hlprmnkyhlprmnky Registered User regular
    All this talk of liches and counterspells and whether you have enough counterspells or the lich has a shadowy corner in which to hide makes me think of Zultan Kulle or whatever his name was from Diablo 3, all being reanimated drop by drop of cursed blood in a fortress that he carved into another dimension with magic, while thinking to himself “This time ...this time things are going to be different/.”
    I don’t mean in any way to bag on people whose liches have been rolled by a party of adventurers, the combat rules are complicated and generally meant to give players lots of different ways to shave the yak in front of them. But I can’t help thinking that liches, dragons, archdevils, etc. really need to be that special kind of enemy that benefits thoroughly from planning and foresight you only get by existing partially outside of the time and space of the narrative, e.g., by having the DM’s thumb on the scale a little.
    Different tables have different contexts and consensual realities, of course, but I feel like for me the defeat of something like a lich is a narrative event that has to do with character sacrifice, or the closing of a story arc for one or more PCs, not so much whether this or that particular roll goes well, or whether the party manages to squeak out one more 5th level counterspell than the lich’s character sheet lets it work around.

    _
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  • GaddezGaddez Registered User regular
    I'd be down with liche's having as a special effect irresistable force on a spell as a 3 times per day bonus action; effectively it slices through magical defenses and resistances so that no, you *are* going to have to deal with that fireball the thousand year old archmage just lobbed your way.

  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    I'm fine with flexible dungeon design to drain the party of some resources on trash first. If they already get to the front door after a few encounters the lair is right there, but if they rest up in front of the door then they'll encounter trash mobs first in an antechamber or two.

  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    edited March 2019
    So, our level 8 party had been investigating a Disturbance for a while now. It started during a previous job, where we bumped into a noble/businessman with two henchman on the way back from (our party) having slain our first dragon. Said noble had a damaged carriage and we offered to escort him to the nearest place that would patch it up enough to reach town before we moved on. Nothing really out of the ordinary except that he seemed to have a faint magical aura around him and when my Aarakocra Bard tried to dispel it for a joke it didn't work (and when he tried it again it, again, didn't work, and he resisted an unknown spell being cast at him in retribution). Many would find that suspicious but my Bard is a birdbrain who figured fair's fair.

    At this point I imagine many people in the thread are already going "...oh!", but hey, we're a party of dummies.

    We come back to town, have a rest and are told there are some rumours of a wild beast attacking animals on some farms nearby. After much investigation we determine a semi-recent guild member is actually a weretiger whose condition has been growing uncontrollable lately, being treated in secret by a pair of magical researchers. With them barely contained in a magic circle and some questioning involving Detect Thoughts and questionable reasoning we determine their condition was a curse from a few years back, inflicted by someone looking suspiciously like a person we'd met a few days ago, and the condition is getting worse because of physical proximity.

    So yeah.
    We're looking for a Rakshasa. Which is fun, because we're too low level for any of our direct spells to even be able to affect it. And half our party isn't even Good.

    We get the weretiger out of town for our own safety in our guild's magical steampunk tank (don't ask, D&D), then track down Mr Jazz Paws.

    Except he disappears into a magical doorway, which turns out to be some variant of Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion. The fight ends up being inside a conjured reality whose owner has complete control over it, with lair actions that, every round, would rearrange the room, walls moving, growing spikes or dart traps, carpets swapping places (marked by printed out pieces of paper that, once you walked on them, might have Trap written on the bottom), all the while we're fighting a Rakshasa and about a dozen animated suits of armour.

    Unsurprisingly the cat Plane Shifted away when our Paladin hurt him a bit too much, so we have a pissed-off devil to look forward to in the future!

    Oh yeah, that spell my Bard resisted way back when? Plane Shift, the cat was trying to send him to the Nine Hells. Whoops!

    I've always loved 5th Ed's lairs, but I think our DM outdid himself with this one, even if it had been a party wipe I would have been happy with that fight. <3

    Glal on
  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    A contingency: mislead set to create a copy of the lich casting spells so your players waste their counterspells is also fun

  • KadokenKadoken Giving Ends to my Friends and it Feels Stupendous Registered User regular
    I posit to you: a leche
    A lich made out of milk

  • Nerdsamwich Nerdsamwich Registered User regular
    All you need to beat him is a few summoned cats.

  • Hexmage-PAHexmage-PA Registered User regular
    edited March 2019
    One on one fight between the paladin PC and a narzugon today as a public duel.

    The narzugon died on the first turn.

    The paladin soon after celebrated with pies he bought from a bizarrely cheerful baked goods shop in the Nine Hells named Plumpberry Pies, located alongside stores with names like "The Screaming Adonis".

    Hexmage-PA on
  • MrVyngaardMrVyngaard Live From New Etoile Straight Outta SosariaRegistered User regular
    Suggestion on padding fights with big bads: lower level evil adventuring companies. Presupposing your players Are The Heroes (or at least the competition!)

    You catch them both at a bad time - maybe they don't have all their gear on since they weren't expecting you to just kick in the door or perhaps they're just cocky murderhobos (since you don't know anyone like that, of course) looking for a "easy victory". It's likely they have some other possible plot hooks on them since they've been out working for other evildoers if they're freelancing and just maybe they're some faction agent's pet project that just hit the Wall of Irresistible Compression like a ogre chef's meat hammer impacting a gently sautéed kitten over the Elysian Fields.

    Just enough under-level mettle to make the players occupied, but not enough to pose too much of a threat.

    "now I've got this mental image of caucuses as cafeteria tables in prison, and new congressmen having to beat someone up on inauguration day." - Raiden333
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  • KadokenKadoken Giving Ends to my Friends and it Feels Stupendous Registered User regular
    I like that. Also if you’re a guy who likes making backup characters or a GM who just makes folks even if they’re not sure if they’re ever going to use it, then make those OCs into enemies.

  • XagarXagar Registered User regular
    Not D&D per se, but on my bosses I started adding a special property that would make that the players felt like their defenses did something, but didn't invalidate the enemy entirely. The boss will have a signature attack on a cooldown (like dragon breath) which is dangerous to counter. Usually, I make it so the counter will work, but they cannot counter again that battle, but I think that would work less well in D&D. You could also have some other penalty, like psychic damage, a condition on the target, etc.

  • Ken OKen O Registered User regular
    After taking a break while someone else ran a few games, my DM that did out CoS campaign has started throwing out ideas for what to do with the characters next. I'm super excited to continue the adventures of my bard and his friends. It's still probably a month or two away, but I'm already looking back over the character sheet and planning nonsense schemes.

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  • FryFry Registered User regular
    Hexmage-PA wrote: »
    This one is heavily inspired by 4E's "Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond". It also features Osterneth the Bronze Lich from "Open Grave: Secrets of the Undead", who is a rare example of a female lich.

    Does the lich being female inform its plans or behavior in any way? It is interesting that my default assumption of a lich is "male," but I'm not sure what would differentiate a female lich (skele-boobs?).


    Re: lich as a big bad, and dealing with PC counterspells

    A lich has super intellect - maybe for the final showdown, have it operate multiple bodies at once, each operating independently, casting its own spells and with separate concentration, etc. That would make it a little harder to lock down with just one PC counterspelling (or one PC grappling it/knocking it down, etc.). But there's still a huge value in someone locking down one or more of the bodies, otherwise the party is eating multiple fireballs/disintegrates/whatever per turn.

    If you're doing a big enough arc where the PCs have had a chance to disrupt the lich's plans in other ways, you could even demonstrate the PCs' successes in that regard by having some of the bodies visibly malfunctioning. Like, there are five lich puppets in the room, but one of them is just standing around with a confused look on its face, and one of them is angrily throwing lightning bolts over and over at a scorch mark on the wall.

  • Nerdsamwich Nerdsamwich Registered User regular
    Obvs, the she-lich has a skeleton clothed in ladylike ecto-flesh and her plots revolve around the attainment and manufacture of fabulous robes, enchanting jewelry, and arcane cosmetics. She seeks ultimately to sport the Look of Vile Darkness, and must be stopped at all costs.

  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    It would also be cool to just have more representation in villains that doesn't rely on bad stereotypes.

  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    Denada wrote: »
    It would also be cool to just have more representation in villains that doesn't rely on bad stereotypes.
    Naaahhh we can't have that in our decades old nerd fantasy world/s

  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    I loved the story of the DM who took a preexisting module and just gender swapped all the NPCs, resulting in the party becoming paranoid about This Weird Woman-Centric Town.

  • TurambarTurambar Independent Registered User regular
    "Wait, according to this handout, Mark is pregnant. How does that work?"
    "Uh, the mother is a wizard"
    "Oh. Carry on then"

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  • SteelhawkSteelhawk Registered User regular
    I'm supposed to start running Storm Kings Thunder in three weeks time.... and I kinda don't want to?

    I haven't read the whole module yet, which I really should do before making a decision, admittedly. But so far I don't know what the impetus is for the players to get involved in this inter-giant political conflict. I mean, the Death Curse is something I can get behind, for example. That's a campaign! But meddling in a spat between giant siblings?

    Someone help me out here...

  • DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    Turambar wrote: »
    "Wait, according to this handout, Mark is pregnant. How does that work?"
    "Uh, the mother is a wizard"
    "Oh. Carry on then"

    Alternately: "That's a very personal and rude thing to ask, don't you think?"

  • Hexmage-PAHexmage-PA Registered User regular
    Osterneth's basic deal is that she uses magic to disguise herself as a normal noblewoman, but in reality she's a lich who used a ritual to replace her own heart with Vecna's.

  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited April 2019
    Glal wrote: »
    I loved the story of the DM who took a preexisting module and just gender swapped all the NPCs, resulting in the party becoming paranoid about This Weird Woman-Centric Town.

    my TOA game is incredibly female centric at this point (although it has, I believe, many more female characters anyway)

    Primary non acererak antagonist is a lady lich (now alive, because of the ranger), secondary is a lady arcanaloth, through them upending the social order in nyanzaru they put Ekene Afa in charge as some kind of quazi-queen. They got Mwaxanare designated a merchant prince after getting Ifan Talroa kicked out for being a snake worshipper. Fenthaza backstabbed Ras Nsi

    basically it's just a pile of matriarchies at this point, mostly because half the named male NPCs have been ANNIHILATED per the name of the module

    As party members' characters have died they've picked up beloved NPCs to take over as their characters, as a result, the party has a single male character in it, and he's half-tree due to reasons unrelated to him being Valindra Shadowmantle's trophy husband

    override367 on
  • Hexmage-PAHexmage-PA Registered User regular
    Glal wrote: »
    I loved the story of the DM who took a preexisting module and just gender swapped all the NPCs, resulting in the party becoming paranoid about This Weird Woman-Centric Town.

    I'm trying to add in more female NPCs into my games. Two of the three imps the party encountered last session were female, but I had to keep correcting myself because I kept defaulting to he.

    I also thought the idea presented in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes that eladrin can change gender and also present as non-binary was neat, so I tried to have a non-binary eladrin NPC. Unfortunately, it ended up being super awkward for me because I kept accidentally saying "she" instead of "they".

  • TurambarTurambar Independent Registered User regular
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    I'm supposed to start running Storm Kings Thunder in three weeks time.... and I kinda don't want to?

    I haven't read the whole module yet, which I really should do before making a decision, admittedly. But so far I don't know what the impetus is for the players to get involved in this inter-giant political conflict. I mean, the Death Curse is something I can get behind, for example. That's a campaign! But meddling in a spat between giant siblings?

    Someone help me out here...

    You shouldn't run an adventure you don't want to

    That won't be a good time for anyone

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  • wildwoodwildwood Registered User regular
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    I'm supposed to start running Storm Kings Thunder in three weeks time.... and I kinda don't want to?

    I haven't read the whole module yet, which I really should do before making a decision, admittedly. But so far I don't know what the impetus is for the players to get involved in this inter-giant political conflict. I mean, the Death Curse is something I can get behind, for example. That's a campaign! But meddling in a spat between giant siblings?

    Someone help me out here...

    Would figuring out the characters' motivations make you want to run the module, or is there more to it than that?

    If you can't come up with good motivations for the characters, then make the players do it. Lay out the situation they'd be getting into, and ask them to come up with reasons why their characters would get involved. If they've been playing these characters for a while, give them some leeway to retcon in some back story, if needed.

    But don't do that if there's other reasons why you don't want to run it, because the players will be motivated to play by the time they figure those answers out. Which would suck if you're still "meh" about the whole thing.

  • SmrtnikSmrtnik job boli zub Registered User regular
    The reason players meddle in giant plans in the module is that the Giants, in their dick waving contest, are doing things that stop on human/elf/dwarf settlements.

    But if there campaign is not your thing do something else.

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This discussion has been closed.