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

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Posts

  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited April 2019
    After the battle I repaired the bed, animated it again, and took it with me

    I got his robes of the archmage, I'm not evil but the dm decided that since my character's race is evil that's good enough

    Update: I may be evil after having Dream Pastries made out of soulless children (they're not really real, right?) in Barovia

    Or rather I summoned a hag to do it for me. Now my character is back in waterdeep and has some evil pastries to sell

    override367 on
  • ApogeeApogee Lancks In Every Game Ever Registered User regular
    edited April 2019
    Smrtnik wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    30 is a very high AC

    To me it sounded like the DM didn't want to deal with the rogue player's BS and made up the value in the spot.

    Not that it's necessarily BS if all players AND the DM are up for a anything goes long of game. But that DM seems to have had a specific plot in mind and damn if some rogue is going to ruin it for him.

    Discussion with the DM afterwards revealed that yes, it was planned for her to be nigh-impossible for us to kill - she was described as a very tough dragonborn lady in heavy plate, and he wasn't kidding. We ran the numbers, and even with the surprise attack and Bless spell the rogue needed a 19 or 20 to hit (and he rolled an 18, of course).

    DM was more surprised that he had the balls to try and take her on, and even more surprised that she flubbed her save on the Suggestion so badly that she was forced to sit out the fight. The DM did have to make an extra contingent of soldiers show up and make the fight a little more dire, though.

    Apogee on
    8R7BtLw.png
  • SteelhawkSteelhawk Registered User regular
    Put down another session of ToA last weekend. Fun was had sandboxing around Omu. For story and missing player reasons, I had the group ally with the Red Wizards and merge forces. The missing PC's went with a Red Wizard team while the players in attendance traveled with a local NPC guide they had met before. Consensus all around was that the Red Wizards are creepy AF and much attention was given to letting the Kobolds reset any of the shrines so that further Thayan trips would thin their numbers for the inevitable confrontation. Which, you know.... perfect. Prior session we had, in my long experience with this group, the BEST most epic combat with the red dragon lairing below Wyrmheart MInes. I bumped its stats up a bit and we had a blast. I tried to recreate the magic with the King of Feathers, but alas. It was fun, but not as memorable. I still should have killed another PC in its jaws, instead of spitting out the Bard with 2 failed death saves so as to launch another swarm. Curse my player-loving DM heart! Unfortunately, with the summer coming and new babies in the group and another one working kitchens in a touristy restaurant we might have to go on a D&D hiatus for a while. Which makes me sad, because I want to get to the TOMB!

    All is not lost, however. Seeing as that in two weeks my Murder Hubbies group kicks off Storm King's Thunder! I've had my reservations on this one, but I think once we get to playing I'll be all right and we'll have a blast!

  • JustTeeJustTee Registered User regular
    Apogee wrote: »
    Smrtnik wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    30 is a very high AC

    To me it sounded like the DM didn't want to deal with the rogue player's BS and made up the value in the spot.

    Not that it's necessarily BS if all players AND the DM are up for a anything goes long of game. But that DM seems to have had a specific plot in mind and damn if some rogue is going to ruin it for him.

    Discussion with the DM afterwards revealed that yes, it was planned for her to be nigh-impossible for us to kill - she was described as a very tough dragonborn lady in heavy plate, and he wasn't kidding. We ran the numbers, and even with the surprise attack and Bless spell the rogue needed a 19 or 20 to hit (and he rolled an 18, of course).

    DM was more surprised that he had the balls to try and take her on, and even more surprised that she flubbed her save on the Suggestion so badly that she was forced to sit out the fight. The DM did have to make an extra contingent of soldiers show up and make the fight a little more dire, though.

    I'd talk to your DM about this kinda thing. If this lady Dragonborn was supposed to a heavy duty, plate wearing, hard to hit beast, at best, she would have been using Plate+3 and Shield+3 for ~24AC. That's the territory of *elder effing dragons*. Maybe she is one in disguise! But I've often found that allowing players the chance to hit (by not stacking AC ridiculously high), doing their absolute best to do a huge attack, then for the NPC to look at them, scoff, and continue whatever it was trying to do, is a much more effective tool to show "Don't Fuck With Me" than arbitrarily stacking an AC that isn't actually achievable or used really anywhere else in the DMG/MM...

    Diagnosed with AML on 6/1/12. Read about it: www.effleukemia.com
  • ShawnaseeShawnasee Registered User regular
    This is fine line DM decision protocol here.

    Does them attacking this NPC fuck the plot? Does them getting wrecked by this NPC ruin the fun?

    When confronted with the plot getting borked, I do not take the game mechanics into consideration.
    If I don't want the party to hit my plot fueled NPC, I tell them their attack didn't hit, NPC made their saving throw, etc...

    That NPC has literal "plot armor".

  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    It's also an important early lesson as a DM that putting a bad guy in front of the party in a combat scenario and then going 'this person is so tough that only a crazy person would even try to fight them, you'll just have to do whatever they say' is possibly the single most effective means available to absolutely guarantee that someone in the party will attack that bad guy.

    There's a reason that video games that want the invincible final boss to show up early and give a cool monologue always put him somewhere the player can't actually get to.

  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited April 2019
    JustTee wrote: »
    Apogee wrote: »
    Smrtnik wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    30 is a very high AC

    To me it sounded like the DM didn't want to deal with the rogue player's BS and made up the value in the spot.

    Not that it's necessarily BS if all players AND the DM are up for a anything goes long of game. But that DM seems to have had a specific plot in mind and damn if some rogue is going to ruin it for him.

    Discussion with the DM afterwards revealed that yes, it was planned for her to be nigh-impossible for us to kill - she was described as a very tough dragonborn lady in heavy plate, and he wasn't kidding. We ran the numbers, and even with the surprise attack and Bless spell the rogue needed a 19 or 20 to hit (and he rolled an 18, of course).

    DM was more surprised that he had the balls to try and take her on, and even more surprised that she flubbed her save on the Suggestion so badly that she was forced to sit out the fight. The DM did have to make an extra contingent of soldiers show up and make the fight a little more dire, though.

    I'd talk to your DM about this kinda thing. If this lady Dragonborn was supposed to a heavy duty, plate wearing, hard to hit beast, at best, she would have been using Plate+3 and Shield+3 for ~24AC. That's the territory of *elder effing dragons*. Maybe she is one in disguise! But I've often found that allowing players the chance to hit (by not stacking AC ridiculously high), doing their absolute best to do a huge attack, then for the NPC to look at them, scoff, and continue whatever it was trying to do, is a much more effective tool to show "Don't Fuck With Me" than arbitrarily stacking an AC that isn't actually achievable or used really anywhere else in the DMG/MM...

    I had a noble that had the players in a room, to be interrogated, and rumor was this guy was hot shit, a trained martial artist that can reportedly crush plate with his hands

    Well they did what players do, and the barbarian, surrounded by guards, swung at him, hit him with the greatsword, and did like 20 damage iirc

    I described how she took her sword out in a massive arcing swing that caused all the guards to instinctively pull back, while the lord stared unmoving, she felt the sword connect with flesh - but her satisfaction was quickly lost when she realized that he had blocked her sword with his forearm - and a single, small line of blood rolled down his sleeve (Neo blocking the sword in the matrix style), but seemed far more concerned about his shirt than the wound

    "A shame" he said, before disengaging out of the room and leaving the players to fight his guards, bond villain style (they obviously beat the guards)

    I love that so much more than just artificially buffing their AC to insane levels (this guy had like 21 ac which is really good for a monk with bracers of defense), it was my first campaign so I fucked a lot of other stuff up but I remember that particular device leading the players to *not* find where he went and attack him then and there, he had more guards, and they barely beat the 5 in the room with them - let alone with steelarms with them

    override367 on
  • JusticeforPlutoJusticeforPluto Registered User regular
    Shawnasee wrote: »
    This is fine line DM decision protocol here.

    Does them attacking this NPC fuck the plot? Does them getting wrecked by this NPC ruin the fun?

    When confronted with the plot getting borked, I do not take the game mechanics into consideration.
    If I don't want the party to hit my plot fueled NPC, I tell them their attack didn't hit, NPC made their saving throw, etc...

    That NPC has literal "plot armor".

    It's the out come the same?

  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    edited April 2019
    Shawnasee wrote: »
    This is fine line DM decision protocol here.

    Does them attacking this NPC fuck the plot? Does them getting wrecked by this NPC ruin the fun?

    When confronted with the plot getting borked, I do not take the game mechanics into consideration.
    If I don't want the party to hit my plot fueled NPC, I tell them their attack didn't hit, NPC made their saving throw, etc...

    That NPC has literal "plot armor".

    It's the out come the same?

    The better decision point comes earlier on: Does them attacking this NPC fuck the plot? Don't put the NPC in front of them or write a different plot.

    In my experience any sort of 'no you can't kill him this is an introductory cutscene for a villain you're supposed to fight later', irrespective of method, tends to be such a clear rejection of player agency that it frustrates them more than anything else, even if the scene is super cool in your head. This is a very easy trap to fall into, especially for newer DMs: You're used to seeing stories presented in the form of books and movies, where the protagonists have no independent agency to protect and the author can just decide they won't attack here, and in the form of video games, where cutscenes that pause player agency are a common and accepted part of the form, but DnD isn't that. It's a cooperative exercise, and you have to account for the very strong possibility that one of your players is going to be the guy who thinks it's dumb how the hero always lets the villain finish his monologue before fighting him, because he's going to want to participate in a story where his hero doesn't do that dumb thing.

    If you're gonna try it, my advice is to consider the question 'what happens if the players attack this guy?' and have a plan for that very likely outcome that is more interesting than 'it doesn't work and he pretends it didn't happen'.

    My own campaign recently put the players into a very temporary alliance with a villain I had intended to be a recurring problem for them. I built his statblock to communicate that he was a Real Threat (pro-tip: Giving an important monster with plausible class standing the Action Surge feature will both give you a lot of flexibility in how to play out an encounter with them and put the fear of God into your players when they realize he could attack someone 4-6 times on the same turn if he wanted), gave him several get-out-of-jail free cards to make it very likely that he'd be able to escape after his sudden but inevitable betrayal, and...a series of lucky rolls and a certain amount of single-minded tenacity allowed the players to burn through all his escapes and get him dead to rights anyway. I could have conjured him some plot armor and found a reason for him to get away regardless, but it would have felt like a cheat (because it would have been one). So instead he ends up dead on the floor, and rather than dealing with him in the future they're going to have to deal with the consequences of his death (including the surviving members of his team, who are now Very Unhappy with the party and relatively easy to slot into the role I had originally planned for him personally) - all of which is ultimately going to be more interesting (and leave the players feeling like they have more agency over the story) than me just keeping that particular guy alive by fiat.

    Don't put an NPC in front of your party that you're not prepared to let them kill. If you really want them to see him but not be able to kill him, scifi and fantasy stories have given us visions, holograms, astral projection, crystal balls, and the like as story tropes for a reason.

    Abbalah on
  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    edited April 2019
    I 100% have put NPCs in my story the party aren't meant to kill.

    Every time he starts talking to the party he leads off by first making sure the paladin isn't there and making sure to Charm the gun toting fighter first so he can get a word in edgewise before the party tries to kill him.

    Next time he talks to the party it's gonna be in a context where they can't kill him without immediately fuckin up their cause. I honestly hope they attempt to kill him immediately because it's gonna get them kicked out of the cassalanters party before they can save all the commoners from becoming a blood sacrifice to a devil.

    Sleep on
  • DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    And here's why having NPCs who are part of an organization is a great idea for starting out a campaign.

    The party can kill them and still have a threat to contend with, a threat that can learn and adapt. Dealing with the higher-ups of the organization and dismantling it can be a long-term goal of theirs for multiple levels, or even become the central crux of a campaign.

  • GaddezGaddez Registered User regular
    Undermountain continues to ammuse, as my party (having shrunk down to a managable 4) had their first real ass whipping handed to them that re-enforced both that the dungeon is dangerous and that retreat is an option.

    Specifically, the party had wandered into an area that had lots of copper lying about along with unusual tools; a little bit of early investigation had led them to conclude that the tools had been used for some sort of evocation magic relating to lightning. Wary due to the smell of rot in the air and how copper was a good conductor, the party moved ahead cautiously, with one of my party's two wizards flying off the ground in order to avoid what he presumed would be horrible traps.

    Ironically, it was after the same wizard fiddled with some barrels that they found themselves confronted with danger in the form of a pack of ghouls who despite having the advantgage of a surprise round were barely able to hurt the wizard (blade singers are remarkably tanky) and did nothing to the pair of bug bears (a halberd fighter with sentry and a paladin with protection style and shield expertise) before being turned to paste all over the copper floor.

    Copper. floor.

    Well and truly paranoid, the party was considering how to deal with this because they were certain that there was some sort of horrible trap afoot, and considered there options; the paladin was able to discern that a single undead was on the other side of a humming copper door and that the other wizard could given enough time could transmute some blankets into stone to give them something to stand on, but that would take considerable time so hey: it's just one undead and they just stomped 6; how bad can it be?

    So they unseen servant the door open and spot a floating metal skull with electricity arcing all around it and a huge man in a tuxedo in the room, and after it shrieks out "SCIENCE!!!!" they conclude this is probably going to be bad. A speedy initiative roll by the skull reinforces this, as it turns its gaze to the floor and zaps the copper flooring... causing everyone touching it to take damage in short order while the huge man walked forward with a blank expression on his face to begin smashing away at the paladin.

    Concluding that they really needed to get off the copper floor, the party began to rapidly back away with the transmuter panicked and began blindly running down a side passage and finding 3 ghasts waiting in ambush while the paladin made the clever move of grappling the skull so that he could keep it from staring at the floor. which kept them safe from anymore floor shocks but didn't help the paladin one bit as the skull proceeded to hurl magic missiles and shocking spheres at him. Also the party discovered that the huge guy in the tux was in fact a flesh golem.

    By the time the party was able to get the hell out of the lab area, two of the players had been downed and brought back with healing, 2 potions of greater healing had been used, the bladesinger was nearly out of spells and the entrance to that room had been well and truly jammed shut with pitons.

    As a reward, I gave out some xp for the ghast they killed, some extra XP to one player who was super clever, inspiration to another... and I didn't have the flesh golem, lightning skull and 2 remaining ghasts go through the door like the koolaid man.

    TL;DR This dungeon is amazing.

  • LindLind Registered User regular
    Wow thats funny. The group I DM for stoped last session right at that cooper door. It looks like a fun encounter is starting next session :biggrin:

  • GaddezGaddez Registered User regular
    Lind wrote: »
    Wow thats funny. The group I DM for stoped last session right at that cooper door. It looks like a fun encounter is starting next session :biggrin:

    Now to be fair, the ghasts weren't supposed to be involved, and the party probably could have handled the skull and the golem with a little bit of finesse, but the fact that one of the players paniced, ran the wrong way and unleashed the ghouls pushed this into a whole other level of absurdity; I'm super impressed that they didn't have anyone go into roll up a new character land.

    Which brings up something: The kid playing the transmuter makes GMing such a joy; he has a combination of imagination, fear and naivety that makes me love GMing so much for younger people.

  • LindLind Registered User regular
    Awesome stuff, the unexpected is always the best. A few encounters ago one of my players got taken over by a Intelect Devour and ran around gathering monsters to help him kill the other players. Much fun was had as DM that session :biggrin:

  • evilthecatevilthecat Registered User regular
    Lind wrote: »
    Awesome stuff, the unexpected is always the best. A few encounters ago one of my players got taken over by a Intelect Devour and ran around gathering monsters to help him kill the other players. Much fun was had as DM that session :biggrin:

    It's great when players play along and don't try metaweasel their way out of it. Much envy!

    tip.. tip.. TALLY.. HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
  • JustTeeJustTee Registered User regular
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Shawnasee wrote: »
    This is fine line DM decision protocol here.

    Does them attacking this NPC fuck the plot? Does them getting wrecked by this NPC ruin the fun?

    When confronted with the plot getting borked, I do not take the game mechanics into consideration.
    If I don't want the party to hit my plot fueled NPC, I tell them their attack didn't hit, NPC made their saving throw, etc...

    That NPC has literal "plot armor".

    It's the out come the same?

    The better decision point comes earlier on: Does them attacking this NPC fuck the plot? Don't put the NPC in front of them or write a different plot.

    In my experience any sort of 'no you can't kill him this is an introductory cutscene for a villain you're supposed to fight later', irrespective of method, tends to be such a clear rejection of player agency that it frustrates them more than anything else, even if the scene is super cool in your head. This is a very easy trap to fall into, especially for newer DMs: You're used to seeing stories presented in the form of books and movies, where the protagonists have no independent agency to protect and the author can just decide they won't attack here, and in the form of video games, where cutscenes that pause player agency are a common and accepted part of the form, but DnD isn't that. It's a cooperative exercise, and you have to account for the very strong possibility that one of your players is going to be the guy who thinks it's dumb how the hero always lets the villain finish his monologue before fighting him, because he's going to want to participate in a story where his hero doesn't do that dumb thing.

    If you're gonna try it, my advice is to consider the question 'what happens if the players attack this guy?' and have a plan for that very likely outcome that is more interesting than 'it doesn't work and he pretends it didn't happen'.

    My own campaign recently put the players into a very temporary alliance with a villain I had intended to be a recurring problem for them. I built his statblock to communicate that he was a Real Threat (pro-tip: Giving an important monster with plausible class standing the Action Surge feature will both give you a lot of flexibility in how to play out an encounter with them and put the fear of God into your players when they realize he could attack someone 4-6 times on the same turn if he wanted), gave him several get-out-of-jail free cards to make it very likely that he'd be able to escape after his sudden but inevitable betrayal, and...a series of lucky rolls and a certain amount of single-minded tenacity allowed the players to burn through all his escapes and get him dead to rights anyway. I could have conjured him some plot armor and found a reason for him to get away regardless, but it would have felt like a cheat (because it would have been one). So instead he ends up dead on the floor, and rather than dealing with him in the future they're going to have to deal with the consequences of his death (including the surviving members of his team, who are now Very Unhappy with the party and relatively easy to slot into the role I had originally planned for him personally) - all of which is ultimately going to be more interesting (and leave the players feeling like they have more agency over the story) than me just keeping that particular guy alive by fiat.

    Don't put an NPC in front of your party that you're not prepared to let them kill. If you really want them to see him but not be able to kill him, scifi and fantasy stories have given us visions, holograms, astral projection, crystal balls, and the like as story tropes for a reason.

    I'm with this 100%. My cardinal rule when DMing is that my NPCs play by the same rules that the PCs play by. If I want an NPC to have 30AC, there needs to be an in-system way for them to have gotten to 30AC, otherwise I'm just cheating. And I need to telegraph that in my description, so that my players (and their characters) know that this character is going to be impossible to hit without a means of circumventing whatever supernatural armor/defense they have.

    The whole point of having an agree-upon system of rules is so that you as a player can make reasonable assumptions about the state of play. If I, as a DM, describe a humanoid to be wearing plate armor, you can assume that means they have an AC of 18-21, because that's the mechanical limit in the system for Plate Armor. You can then decide what your chance to hit roughly is, and whether or not your character would care about the odds of hitting, or weigh the risk/reward of attacking.

    Anything that reduces player agency, like lying and saying an attack whiffs when it should hit, is just a straight no go at my table. If my players want to attempt a thing, they're allowed to attempt the thing. If it borks my plans, well then I have to come up with a new plan.

    Otherwise, why am I inviting players into my world? If a Villain is dumb enough to show himself to the party without precautions to prevent their ability to kill him, then he's a shit villain and doesn't deserve to be the big bad. If the players get around the precautions, well, GOOD ON THEM. That's the whole-ass-entire point of playing the game. So that the players can decide what they attempt and how, and the dice and the system tell us if it works or not.

    Diagnosed with AML on 6/1/12. Read about it: www.effleukemia.com
  • RonaldoTheGypsyRonaldoTheGypsy Yes, yes Registered User regular
    I only had one npc ever with a supernatural shield that absorbed damage and it was the prince of fairy dragons protected by the goddess of nature because he was a harmless creature and she didn't want him to die. Anyone trying to murder an overly cheerful fey the size of a house cat had other underlying problems.

  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    Ill only cheese rolls to avoid players getting rofflestomped

    like a wizard getting 1hkilled at level 1

  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    I only had one npc ever with a supernatural shield that absorbed damage and it was the prince of fairy dragons protected by the goddess of nature because he was a harmless creature and she didn't want him to die. Anyone trying to murder an overly cheerful fey the size of a house cat had other underlying problems.

    This reminds me of a thing i did in Tomb of Annihilation

    It was a hill covered in adorable, friendly bunnies, with a monument of an al-miraj saying "By the grace of I'jin, be safe, but disturb not her children" or something like that. Plentiful fresh water and clean, disease free fruit was found nearby

    So after the fighter killed a bunch of bunnies for no reason the bunny-shaped nightwalker that spawned ate his skin and the party spend 20 minutes debating whether the problem was that they didn't blow up the statue

  • GaddezGaddez Registered User regular
    Ill only cheese rolls to avoid players getting rofflestomped

    like a wizard getting 1hkilled at level 1

    I straight up tell my players that I cheat on dice rolls followed by informing them that 9/10 times it's in their favor and the one or two times it isn't it's so that I can increase the drama (which is again in their favor)

  • RiusRius Globex CEO Nobody ever says ItalyRegistered User regular
    I only had one npc ever with a supernatural shield that absorbed damage and it was the prince of fairy dragons protected by the goddess of nature because he was a harmless creature and she didn't want him to die. Anyone trying to murder an overly cheerful fey the size of a house cat had other underlying problems.

    This reminds me of a thing i did in Tomb of Annihilation

    It was a hill covered in adorable, friendly bunnies, with a monument of an al-miraj saying "By the grace of I'jin, be safe, but disturb not her children" or something like that. Plentiful fresh water and clean, disease free fruit was found nearby

    So after the fighter killed a bunch of bunnies for no reason the bunny-shaped nightwalker that spawned ate his skin and the party spend 20 minutes debating whether the problem was that they didn't blow up the statue

    I would watch this movie

  • Hexmage-PAHexmage-PA Registered User regular
    I forget, are we allowed to post links to Kickstarter campaigns?

    I ask because there's one for a Greek myth-inspired adventure/setting called Odyssey of the Dragonlords created by the writers of Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age.

  • DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    Hexmage-PA wrote: »
    I forget, are we allowed to post links to Kickstarter campaigns?

    I ask because there's one for a Greek myth-inspired adventure/setting called Odyssey of the Dragonlords created by the writers of Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age.

    We're allowed to post about Kickstarter campaigns, but not link directly to them.

  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited April 2019
    My TOA campaign has had 7 player deaths and none of them were from planned fights

    the worst, a near tpk, 3 fatalities was because I wanted to hint at the beholder on level 3 of the tomb very early on, so at level 6ish they stumbled on a cave with eye stalks outside, stone creatures and large piles of dust in the entrance, one of their mooks was eye lasered and turned to stone

    A sensible party would turn back

    Then when they saw the 10 eyes light up and a large central eye as they went deeper, and their magic items went dead, the beholder laughed at them and said it would be a treat to eat them in the palace his minion, acererak, built for him (I'm playing the beholder like it believed Acererak worked for it), and I prepared for them to talk to this creature (you know like, ask it where the tomb is, maybe?)

    so they run at it and start shooting at it and the only reason even half of them survived is that they had a friendly(ish), lost frost giant following them who I figured would not miss the opportunity to try and put out the eye on a beholder, even if she had to crawl through the cave

    override367 on
  • WearingglassesWearingglasses Of the friendly neighborhood variety Registered User regular
    Did they have anything to say about their collective lack of self preservation instincts?

  • webguy20webguy20 I spend too much time on the Internet Registered User regular
    "Why would you put a fight in front of us we couldn't win?"

    Steam ID: Webguy20
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  • evilthecatevilthecat Registered User regular
    webguy20 wrote: »
    "Why would you put a fight in front of us we couldn't win?"

    "Discretion is the better part of valour."

    tip.. tip.. TALLY.. HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    Admittedly, gauging enemy strength as a character is... nebulous. As a player, sure, but if you're in-character and you've never heard of a Beholder, why would it look scarier than a dragon several times its size, but half its CR?

    D&D feels kind of like playing Ragnarok Online back in the day where you'd be killing evil mushrooms just fine, then you'd stab a cockroach in the same area and it would one-shot you.

  • SteelhawkSteelhawk Registered User regular
    I feel like the characters in any given game world would be FAR more sensible that their players make them out to be.

    Super badass monster thing that is there for set dressing? Players be like, "Fuck Jim and his world-building. Let's kill it!"

    Minor NPC who gets the better of the party during a simple negotiation? Players be like, "Fuck that guy and the horse he rode in on. Later tonight we're coming back to rob him and burn him alive in his tent."

    Or is that just my group?

  • Ken OKen O Registered User regular
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    I feel like the characters in any given game world would be FAR more sensible that their players make them out to be.

    Super badass monster thing that is there for set dressing? Players be like, "Fuck Jim and his world-building. Let's kill it!"

    Minor NPC who gets the better of the party during a simple negotiation? Players be like, "Fuck that guy and the horse he rode in on. Later tonight we're coming back to rob him and burn him alive in his tent."

    Or is that just my group?

    Once during a character building session (it was a Savage Worlds ETU game) I asked the group, "Are we doing something heroic this time or the same staple babies to ceilings thing we usually end up at?" They laughed and said heroic......they lied.

    http://www.fingmonkey.com/
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  • XagarXagar Registered User regular
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    I feel like the characters in any given game world would be FAR more sensible that their players make them out to be.

    Super badass monster thing that is there for set dressing? Players be like, "Fuck Jim and his world-building. Let's kill it!"

    Minor NPC who gets the better of the party during a simple negotiation? Players be like, "Fuck that guy and the horse he rode in on. Later tonight we're coming back to rob him and burn him alive in his tent."

    Or is that just my group?

    My players have amazing restraint. I put a big bad in front of them who had been attempting to kidnap a party member for months of game time and like a year of real time, had her steal something the party should ostensibly have been protecting, and kidnap a child as a bonus, and the one who was ready to go was voted down by the others. They were pretty low on resources, but still.

  • texasheattexasheat Registered User regular
    Anyone heard about upcoming books or new content? I'm hoping to expand the collection soon but don't see anything i don't have already.

  • see317see317 Registered User regular
    Ken O wrote: »
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    I feel like the characters in any given game world would be FAR more sensible that their players make them out to be.

    Super badass monster thing that is there for set dressing? Players be like, "Fuck Jim and his world-building. Let's kill it!"

    Minor NPC who gets the better of the party during a simple negotiation? Players be like, "Fuck that guy and the horse he rode in on. Later tonight we're coming back to rob him and burn him alive in his tent."

    Or is that just my group?

    Once during a character building session (it was a Savage Worlds ETU game) I asked the group, "Are we doing something heroic this time or the same staple babies to ceilings thing we usually end up at?" They laughed and said heroic......they lied.

    We're heroically stapling babies to the ceiling.
    They might be evil babies, or turn evil in the future. How are we to know?

  • ApogeeApogee Lancks In Every Game Ever Registered User regular
    So read a lot of comments about the 30AC being unfair - personally I disagree. We survived the fight, after all!

    Really it came down to 'we can't hurt her physically, what else can we do?'. And that worked, so... success! Even if we had managed to kill her, it would have changed the plot, but not substantially; she was just one (powerful) character in the royal hierarchy.

    8R7BtLw.png
  • XagarXagar Registered User regular
    It's only unfair because AC is simulationist, and a certain set of equipment means a certain range of AC.

  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    texasheat wrote: »
    Anyone heard about upcoming books or new content? I'm hoping to expand the collection soon but don't see anything i don't have already.

    Theres the Acquisitions Incorporated book currently on pre-order on the PA store and Wizards is releasing the book with those seafaring adventures (which is a rerelease for 5e of old stuff, so eh)

  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    Aldo wrote: »
    texasheat wrote: »
    Anyone heard about upcoming books or new content? I'm hoping to expand the collection soon but don't see anything i don't have already.

    Theres the Acquisitions Incorporated book currently on pre-order on the PA store and Wizards is releasing the book with those seafaring adventures (which is a rerelease for 5e of old stuff, so eh)

    And the Acq Inc DM screen, which I pre-ordered because those are exactly the kinds of charts I would want available to me at a glance.

  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited April 2019
    Did they have anything to say about their collective lack of self preservation instincts?

    "Guys we may have fucked up"

    nobody was upset, especially because it ended up only being one true player fatality (despite the rules, I let any raise magic work within 1 minute in TOA) because he got disintegrated

    like that was 100% their bad and they knew it, but they *did kill the beholder*

    so when they went into the tomb, on level 3 they faced a death tyrant instead of a beholder because Acererak isn't going to let a perfectly good dead beholder go to waste

    override367 on
  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    Did they have anything to say about their collective lack of self preservation instincts?

    "Guys we may have fucked up"

    nobody was upset, especially because it ended up only being one true player fatality (despite the rules, I let any raise magic work within 1 minute in TOA) because he got disintegrated

    like that was 100% their bad and they knew it, but they *did kill the beholder*

    so when they went into the tomb, on level 3 they faced a death tyrant instead of a beholder because Acererak isn't going to let a perfectly good dead beholder go to waste

    Twice the exp! So it was a win all around! Yay!

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