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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 July 2019
    Update on my increasingly crazy game:

    The party doctor/cleric has a wax golem, an infiltration/assassination construct they bought from a deranged gnome, he didn't really know the capabilities of it. Long story short, the golem ended up devouring a noble's teenage daughter and taking her appearance, but it's okay because before her lord father (who was one room over) could find out the rogue snuck into his place and murdered him and stole his stuff (and discovered randomly he worked for the BBEG, thats gonna complicate the last chapter).

    They met up in the mansion not realizing the other was there, the cleric was like "yeah so my golem's this noble girl now? I think the real one was murdered and this is just a copy, hey we should tell her parents and lets pool our money see if we can get her resurrected, I fucked up", "about that... they... drow killed them, drow assassins, yes"

    So the golem (looking like the daughter) told the authorities yes, drow killed her father. The party was rewarded for saving her, and the cleric took her with and a hair brush until he could get enough money to get Resurrection cast on the hair

    Cut to a few days travel later and a small jaunt into the court of an arch fey. The Cleric, who has been collecting bits of necromancer artifacts that literally replace parts of you with undead parts, beseeched the archfey for the the last part. He was offered "the skull of the necromancer king" by the archfey with a grin. Thinking, for some reason, "Sure I dont need my head", he grabbed it and shoved it in his face, popping his skull out the back and killing him instantly and completing his transformation into a long dead necromancer king. I asked if he had anything to say as a spirit and he begged the archfey to spare him, if he does, he will grant the archfey access to the prime

    DONE! His eyes blink open, and he's in the body of a teenage noble brat, a construct version of it anyway, but good enough to fool people. This is when the cleric discovers that the girl is very much not dead, she's trapped in there with him, a prisoner in a facsimile of her own body, used as a source of information for this infiltration golem they acquired.

    "This should put the breaks on everyone's bad decision making for a moment" I thought, "next theyll do a quest I have to both bring the girl back to life and then the cleric can use the golem's power of shapeshifting to be himself again, status quo restored"

    Cleric: "Sorry Mary, you're from a very influential family and I need to use that for now. I'm going to need to borrow you for a while"
    Cleric player: "Hey, DM, that wizard apprentice from the silvercut crossroads said she was going to some kind of wizard academy? I'd like to enroll, since we're entering a period of downtime, and send the bill to this noble girl's remaining family. Id like to write them a letter that I'm traumatized about losing my father and I needed to get away for a while"
    Rogue: "OOH is there an age limit? I wanna go to wizard school"
    Sorcerer: "Ooh Ooh! Me too!"
    Me: "It's *decides* 1000 gold pieces a semester"
    Rogue: "Thats okay remember we did that quest for the Arcanist who sits on the council of Tal'dorei and she said she owed us a favor, well ask her"
    Fighter: "I wanna get a job as a PE teacher"
    Druid: "So like, we're all going to D&D Hogwarts?"

    Me: *selecting notes marked "Downtime" in onenote and clicking delete* "Looks like it!"



    I am not even mad

    edit: also now there's a necromancer king and an archfey walking around and the party is wholly unconcerned with it, but that's okay previously they collected an amnesiac avatar of Lolth, who is now working at their base of operations doing paperwork, wearing a necklace of nondetection, and quite happy with her life

    override367 on
  • webguy20webguy20 I spend too much time on the Internet Registered User regular
    My god that whole story is so rad.

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  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    So that Cleric is Chaotic Evil, right??

  • Hexmage-PAHexmage-PA Registered User regular
    edited July 2019
    Has anyone else tried adding class features to monsters? I kinda want to give a boss monster a 20th-level Rogue's +10d6 sneak attack to really make the party squirm.

    Before this I gave a narzugon the Oath of Conquest Paladin's features, but he just got pushed into the River Styx by the party before he could do anything.

    Hexmage-PA on
  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Hexmage-PA wrote: »
    Has anyone else tried adding class features to monsters? I kinda want to give a boss monster a 20th-level Rogue's +10d6 sneak attack to really make the party squirm.

    Before this I gave a narzugon the Oath of Conquest Paladin's features, but he just got pushed into the River Styx by the party before he could do anything.

    The basic assassin from the back of the monster manual has sneak attack.

  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited July 2019
    Aldo wrote: »
    So that Cleric is Chaotic Evil, right??

    chaotic neutral, if he didn't have "resurrect the noble girl once he gets the money" as an important personal objective he'd be chaotic evil I think? I don't really use alignment anyway

    He convinced the girl that this was necessary for him to learn how to safely split the two of them up, also she can have control during the not school parts of school because he only cares about school - she gets all the benefits of going to a super prestigious mage college without having to do any of the actual work, and his roll was pretty good despite the -1

    that is an actual goal of his, to find out if there's a way to get his own, real body back

    his character is a creepy plague doctor that's hyper-focused on cleanliness and removing disease, hes got expertise in medicine and the healer feat, always wears thick gloves, walks right up to NPCs and starts examining their complexion, eyes, and mouth without asking, and mutters "the pestilence" to himself constantly (8 charisma). He still does that, only now it's an adorable noble girl

    override367 on
  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited July 2019
    Sleep wrote: »
    Hexmage-PA wrote: »
    Has anyone else tried adding class features to monsters? I kinda want to give a boss monster a 20th-level Rogue's +10d6 sneak attack to really make the party squirm.

    Before this I gave a narzugon the Oath of Conquest Paladin's features, but he just got pushed into the River Styx by the party before he could do anything.

    The basic assassin from the back of the monster manual has sneak attack.

    Assassin are what you use if you want to off-button a party member before the fight starts, good lord they do so much damage on an ambush

    2d8 +3 (crossbow) + 8d6 (sneak attack) + 14d6 (poison)

    override367 on
  • FryFry Registered User regular
    Cut to a few days travel later and a small jaunt into the court of an arch fey. The Cleric, who has been collecting bits of necromancer artifacts that literally replace parts of you with undead parts, beseeched the archfey for the the last part. He was offered "the skull of the necromancer king" by the archfey with a grin. Thinking, for some reason, "Sure I dont need my head", he grabbed it and shoved it in his face, popping his skull out the back and killing him instantly and completing his transformation into a long dead necromancer king.

    Ah, the ol' Head of Vecna. I always thought that was an urban legend, but apparently people do fall for that one!

  • KadokenKadoken Giving Ends to my Friends and it Feels Stupendous Registered User regular
    edited July 2019
    Hey, I made a gnoll race lore. I'm using DnD Beyond's homebrew with the age stuff changed, but this lore came from my head trying to make a background for Katt Dogg and Kae'Arh Ess'Wun. This is the history of the Beyatuans, the society my gnoll characters are from.

    https://darkheresychainsofmalice.blogspot.com/2019/07/non-dark-heresy-beyatuans-history-of.html

    Except for maybe Wylde and Yaketsuku, this is probably my favorite lore I ever did work on.

    Generally, I changed the gnolls from always hungry barbarians to badlands nomad types along with giving them a more nuanced culture. It's also written to be open-ended in terms of what world it's set in on purpose to fit anywhere.

    Kadoken on
  • tinwhiskerstinwhiskers Registered User regular
    edited July 2019
    So I'm looking for some opinions on DMing.

    I've been running a dragon heist group, and its been going meh. Players are all relatively new and the party comp is really not suited to urban intrigue.

    So I'll put this in spoilers but I'll be vague, if you are looking to play Dragon Heist.

    So the players were conducting a midnight raid of a large manor house. The house was also being attack by a bunch of gang. Seeing a bunch of dead NPCs, and encounter a few gang members, The PCs heard combat occurring on the floor ahead, The PCs then back tracked, found a bunch of the staff hidden away and helped them to escape the house. After this they returned towards the combat, but stopped by to look through/loot all the downstairs rooms first. Despite me emphasizing several times that there was loud fighting/screaming/pounding from above them.

    They then went up stairs and saw the assaulting gang engaged in combat with the house guards. They killed the attacking unit, with some indiscriminate AOE thrown in, and then they immediately launched into an attack on the manor guards killing several.

    At this point the party was pretty depleted, but they were ready to go rush in and get merc'd by the owners of the manor. Mostly as a stall, I decided that the city watch, would probably have been alerted by the escaped staff,(seeing as they ran past their dead coworkers on the way out) and they arrived.

    The PCs are now arrested, and that is where I ended the session.

    I really don't know where to go from here. This is also a reoccurring issue with the PCs.

    SPOILERS
    A few sessions earlier when investigating the fireball, they decided to get all tough guy "Ohh thats a nice vase be ashamed if something were too...oops" with the owner of the Tiger Eye detective agency, Who is actually a Rakshasa, and kicked the living shit out of them and should have TPK'd the half of the party that was there.

    They also, in a sort of weird tabloid subplot started a fire in an orphanage to stage a dramatic rescue of the kids. But by in the orphanage, I mean they stood outside during the day and the wizard shot fire bolt at its roof a few times. e: I should mention that before starting the fire, they tried to persuade the tabloid owner that they had already rescued the kids from a massive fire at the orphanage. 1) In the space of about a 30 minute gap after having first talked to him and 2) with the orphanage being located just down the street from the print shop.

    So my PCs are arrested, having committed murder. But more generally, I just can't seem to get any 'realistic' engagement with the world with them. I'm not sure what I should be doing to help that.

    tinwhiskers on
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  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    That sounds like a prompt for a, "Guys, this isn't working" discussion with your players, @tinwhiskers .

  • webguy20webguy20 I spend too much time on the Internet Registered User regular
    Yea did you all have a session zero? The big thing to accomplish is making sure everyone is on the same page on what you all expect out of the campaign.

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  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    edited July 2019
    You know, you could also go a totally different direction and lean into the zaniness. Have all of these ridiculous schemes work against all logical sense because the world has become sitcom stupid:
    • Walking two feet away is roughly equivalent to casting a Zone of Silence (which doesn't exist in 5E but now it doesn't have to!).
    • Absolutely ridiculous lies told in the most unconvincing way are successful.
    • Everyone has zero peripheral vision. If you're even slightly out of their direct forward field of view, you're basically invisible.
    • Every authority figure becomes impossibly terrible at their job.
    • Tense, emotionally charged situations are resolved with a thirty second heart-to-heart.
    • No structural and/or property damage is permanent, and no one dies unless their (off-screen) death can serve as an object lesson for the PCs.
    • The PCs have an amazing home in a highly prized neighborhood of Waterdeep, but don't seem to ever have to worry about what it costs.

    Either way a conversation with the players is warranted. I'm just saying that going for more realism isn't the only option :smile:

    Denada on
  • TynnanTynnan seldom correct, never unsure Registered User regular
    Denada wrote: »
    You know, you could also go a totally different direction and lean into the zaniness. Have all of these ridiculous schemes work against all logical sense because the world has become sitcom stupid:
    • Walking two feet away is roughly equivalent to casting a Zone of Silence (which doesn't exist in 5E but now it doesn't have to!).
    • Absolutely ridiculous lies told in the most unconvincing way are successful.
    • Everyone has zero peripheral vision. If you're even slightly out of their direct forward field of view, you're basically invisible.
    • Every authority figure becomes impossibly terrible at their job.
    • Tense, emotionally charged situations are resolved with a thirty second heart-to-heart.
    • No structural and/or property damage is permanent, and no one dies unless their (off-screen) death can serve as an object lesson for the PCs.
    • The PCs have an amazing home in a highly prized neighborhood of Waterdeep, but don't seem to ever have to worry about what it costs.

    Either way a conversation with the players is warranted. I'm just saying that going for more realism isn't the only option :smile:

    “The One Where We Jumped Into The Yawning Portal”

  • SmrtnikSmrtnik job boli zub Registered User regular
    Alternatively, next session hang the characters in a public square and have them make new ones /evilgrin

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  • KadokenKadoken Giving Ends to my Friends and it Feels Stupendous Registered User regular
    Feedback and criticism welcome on that gnoll society thing by the way. Anything off or needing reworked or missing I’m all ears.

  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    An honest talk about what kind of dnd tyey enjoy. If they want more dungeons, then I would stop with Dragon Heist. Have a Masked Lord step in during their imprisonment to force them to a far away prison colony in Chult or on a boat and let them escape far away from urban society and introduce another campaign or exciting plot there. That way they can keep on using their current characters.

  • XagarXagar Registered User regular
    tomb of annihilation report: i got a teleport hat and my second teleportation circle address, time to break this campaign wide open

  • SteelhawkSteelhawk Registered User regular
    I miss my campaign! The forced hiatus (due to the passing of one of my players' mother... fuck cancer, btw) of my ToA campaign has got me so frustrated. I just want to power through Omu and get to the gawddamn Tomb of Horrors-redux!!!

    Then I can enjoy the horrendously slow play of my core group as we chug through CoS (interspersed with another game because one of our group hates D&D and plays reluctantly, while we reciprocate and play whatever flavour of the month he wants to play between D&D sessions) whilst I finally sit down get the nuts of my homebrew setting down and ready to play.

    Sigh.

  • SchadenfreudeSchadenfreude Mean Mister Mustard Registered User regular
    My homebrew game will be back up and running after a 134 day hiatus, so I'm looking forward to that. You'd think I'd have used that time to prep the next session, but I seem to have forgotten :)

    Contemplate this on the Tree of Woe
  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited July 2019
    You need to hammer early on in Dragon Heist that Waterdeep is a city of laws and not the place where the adventurers can just do whatever they want, and some parties just aren't compatible with that

    If the campaign is salvageable you might take the opportunity of them being arrested to use a magistrate as a DM voice, and give them one (and only one) warning, maybe begrudgingly recognizing how necessary adventuring parties are for the safety and security as the city - and then segue into getting the players into a faction (at least one of them) just so they have an anchor point to something

    Alternatively, if its not for them, I really love prison escape into new campaign

    (either way it needs to be addressed before your next session out of game)

    override367 on
  • GaddezGaddez Registered User regular
    So I've been having a hoot with floor 3 of undermountain, or more specifically: the river and how every time my players go anywhere near it hilarity ensues.

    Passage 1: The players are more or less bullied into going across the river to reach the other side and deal with monsters on the other side. En route, one of the players is having incredible trouble in the water (basically drowning) and while he's down there sees... a mermaid. She swims over to him and begins embracing him and gives him a sweet kiss, while rather pointedly not letting him swim back to the surface. A pair of bug bears in the party swim over to try and help out, and both of them fail their grapple checks so badly that the Mermaid effectively grapples all three of them and reveals that she is in fact a sea hag. This leads to an incredible ammount of derp as the three of them struggle to free themselves ans the wizard but eventually they manage to do so while learning a valuable lesson: you can't cast spells when your mouth is full of water.

    Passage two, the players swim up stream and have various issues. they're able to get there though, with one player realizing that the fly spell lets you bypass the plebeian task of swimming.

    Passage III: having explored the cave up near the north end the players make their way south and come across another hag posing as a mermaid. They manage to kill her, but the barbarian and the paladin (having realized they're almost out of javelins) try to lasso the rapidly sinking sea hag only to roll a 5 on their attempt to make a knot and a 1 on their attempt to actually catch the corpse... leading to them having hurled the rope at the sea hag... and not having held onto it at all. On the positive side: they did hit her with the rope.

    Passage 4: Having "rescued" a hobgoblin prisoner the players learned the fastest way to get to the lower levels was... to go down the river, with the alternative being to go running through drow infested tunnels. Being mildly beat up by friendly fire from the drow wizard in the party, they decided to take the river since it was the fastest to where they needed to be with the barbarian dwarf taking a bed with him because he was concerned with drowning.

    Almost immediately the drow wizard went under and the barbarian (who's player was the father of the drow player) took the time to try and rescue him which was made much harder by the string of ones the players were rolling... a giant clam clamped onto the dwarf, the drow swallowed enough water to get 2 exhaustion levels, the rogue tried to tie a rope to a hand crossbow bolt which ended in a broken crossbow bolt, the paladin wanted to go spear fishing but had long since used up his javelins.. it was hilariously inept on everyone's parts and at one point the dwarf considered abandoning the drow to a watery grave but ultimately he was able to get back into the water and rescue him.

    And before anyone asks, I didn't make this super hard for the players; swimming up stream was a DC 15 because your fighting the current while just floating down river was a DC 10, which even when people had a -1 penalty should lead to basic flotation at least 45% of the time.

  • SchadenfreudeSchadenfreude Mean Mister Mustard Registered User regular
    You need to hammer early on in Dragon Heist that Waterdeep is a city of laws and not the place where the adventurers can just do whatever they want, and some parties just aren't compatible with that

    If the campaign is salvageable you might take the opportunity of them being arrested to use a magistrate as a DM voice, and give them one (and only one) warning, maybe begrudgingly recognizing how necessary adventuring parties are for the safety and security as the city - and then segue into getting the players into a faction (at least one of them) just so they have an anchor point to something

    Alternatively, if its not for them, I really love prison escape into new campaign

    Yup. The Dragon Heist DM screen even has the Code Legal of Waterdeep printed on the back. Use it I say.

    My homebrew party went a bit murderery, to the extent that if they were seen in town it would be a problem, and basically had them forcibly recruited by a local spymaster. "There's a bounty on your heads. Work for us and we can keep you alive, and maybe, eventually, have it lifted. Here's a job I need done fifty miles away!" They're not happy about it, and I envisage that particular spymaster getting shanked in the future but it's kept the campaign going at least.

    Contemplate this on the Tree of Woe
  • FryFry Registered User regular
    I probably wouldn't make players roll to tie a knot ever, I assume that's something that everybody would just know in a D&D world.

    DC 10 for "just float down a river" sounds awfully high to me, I would think that would be DC 5 at most. If I even called for a check, which I probably wouldn't unless there's an active combat or other situation where the timing matters. For trying to swim upstream, sure DC 15 sounds reasonable for a strong flow, but failing the check is probably just "you don't make any progress upstream," unless it's a failure by 10 or more.

  • KadokenKadoken Giving Ends to my Friends and it Feels Stupendous Registered User regular
    DC 15 is for when you go chasing waterfalls instead of sticking to the rivers and the lakes you're used to.

  • WearingglassesWearingglasses Of the friendly neighborhood variety Registered User regular
    So, bit of a stupid question - the bard, the cleric, and the artificer won a hard fought battle in an orc camp - their leader is an ugly mess of viscera, one has been Sleep'd, and the rest have fled. We tie up the remaining orc for questioning, then went on back to the quest giver, forgetting to loot the bodies / orc camp. Would you as a DM remind them of the missed opportunity for lootz a) before they leave the camp, b) after the session, as a lesson learned, or c) not at all?

  • KadokenKadoken Giving Ends to my Friends and it Feels Stupendous Registered User regular
    Are they new? Remind. Do they not play often? Remind.

  • WearingglassesWearingglasses Of the friendly neighborhood variety Registered User regular
    It was the second session of two of us, and the first for the cleric.

    Though I'm guessing the DM probably forgot as well.

  • TynnanTynnan seldom correct, never unsure Registered User regular
    In situations like that it's useful for the DM to remind the players of things that the characters would know or take for granted. It's unlikely that the bard, the cleric, and the artificer adventurers would neglect to check for loot - even though their human puppeteers did.

  • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
    I would just retcon that during the next session?
    It all happened offscreen, like the elf cloak in lord of the rings that made them look like a rock, but now you guys have these cool things

    sig.gif
  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    Tynnan wrote: »
    In situations like that it's useful for the DM to remind the players of things that the characters would know or take for granted. It's unlikely that the bard, the cleric, and the artificer adventurers would neglect to check for loot - even though their human puppeteers did.
    Both of my DMs seem to take perverse pleasure out of the party forgetting to loot because for the players it's 5 seconds after an intense 2 hour battle while for the characters it's potentially days of downtime. Complete with telling us what we missed out on once it's too late. :p

  • XagarXagar Registered User regular
    So, bit of a stupid question - the bard, the cleric, and the artificer won a hard fought battle in an orc camp - their leader is an ugly mess of viscera, one has been Sleep'd, and the rest have fled. We tie up the remaining orc for questioning, then went on back to the quest giver, forgetting to loot the bodies / orc camp. Would you as a DM remind them of the missed opportunity for lootz a) before they leave the camp, b) after the session, as a lesson learned, or c) not at all?
    The DM is the players' eyes. I usually just tell them what they got/have them roll on a table right when combat ends.

  • DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    Glal wrote: »
    Tynnan wrote: »
    In situations like that it's useful for the DM to remind the players of things that the characters would know or take for granted. It's unlikely that the bard, the cleric, and the artificer adventurers would neglect to check for loot - even though their human puppeteers did.
    Both of my DMs seem to take perverse pleasure out of the party forgetting to loot because for the players it's 5 seconds after an intense 2 hour battle while for the characters it's potentially days of downtime. Complete with telling us what we missed out on once it's too late. :p

    Certain strains of D&D encourage this sort of goosery. We'd all be better off if it died out. Just because D&D is stereotypically played by teenage boys doesn't mean it should encourage folks to act like them.

    Nod. Get treat. PSN: Quippish
  • SteelhawkSteelhawk Registered User regular
    Glal wrote: »
    Tynnan wrote: »
    In situations like that it's useful for the DM to remind the players of things that the characters would know or take for granted. It's unlikely that the bard, the cleric, and the artificer adventurers would neglect to check for loot - even though their human puppeteers did.
    Both of my DMs seem to take perverse pleasure out of the party forgetting to loot because for the players it's 5 seconds after an intense 2 hour battle while for the characters it's potentially days of downtime. Complete with telling us what we missed out on once it's too late. :p

    I don't take perverse pleasure in it, but sometimes it does amuse me when players forget to loot and they miss out on minor trinkets and coin. That said, if there are any plot relevant items or choice loot I'll specifically remind them. And regardless of the situation, I always ask the players "Is there anything else you want to do?" before we move on from a scene.

  • GlaziusGlazius Registered User regular
    edited July 2019
    Gaddez wrote: »
    And before anyone asks, I didn't make this super hard for the players; swimming up stream was a DC 15 because your fighting the current while just floating down river was a DC 10, which even when people had a -1 penalty should lead to basic flotation at least 45% of the time.
    The game ended badly. One of characters is dead. It is game over and it is game over in bad style. They had no chances. They weren't even close. It wasn't a good game.

    'You were unlucky. Too many bad events. It's adventure game, sometimes you have luck, sometimes you don't...' I say. Vlaada is searching through decks of cards. 'There are good and bad events in all of those decks?' he asks pointing four decks of cards.

    'Yep.'

    'You can't have good events, here, Ignacy' he says.

    Did I just hear him saying the thing he just said? 'Are you kidding?! You've just lost because of lack of good events!'

    'There can not be good events in those decks. You have to get rid of them. You don't control the game at this moment. Ignacy, you – as an author – have to have control over your game. You can't design game that you don't control.

    'You want game to be difficult, you want game to throw at players 3 bad events and you want the game to help them twice. That is your dream configuration. But math is cruel. There will be games like ours today, with 4 bad events and only one good. There will be even games with 0 bad and 5 good events. Players will play it, will have 5 good events, finish the game without smallest effort and then they will write on BGG that game is easy like piece of cake and boring and they don't recommend it.'

    Math is cruel, and dice don't care about you. It doesn't matter how easy it is to not drown in the river; if you decide it's something to roll for at all, then either you plan for it happening or you've let your game go out of your control. "Sure they've failed the last three rolls, but what are the odds they're also going to fail the next check and die helplessly?" 45%. Same as they always were.

    Glazius on
  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    The moment you need to roll there's a 5% chance you'll fail regardless of how skilled you are. Which is fine in combat and stressful situations, it adds to the tension, but it feels real bad when you're a player and you basically fail to cross the street because of it.

    Unless your answer to "are you okay with the worst possible outcome if they keep rolling 1s?" is "yes" then don't make them roll. I had a Rogue in our 4th Ed game and she had the worst bloody luck. Which was annoying, because it was the one time I decided to make a more serious character that wasn't all jokes, but that doesn't really work when multiple times per session you fail something you're technically a grandmaster at because 5%.

  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    The out in both scenarios is, if you - for whatever reason - want them to roll but don't actually want them to fail, that you can also have them roll just to determine the degree of success, which is what people are usually doing when they call for rolls on trivial tasks even if they don't realize it.

    As long as you understand that that's what you're doing, then rolling a 1 to float down the river doesn't mean you're drowning, it means you float down the river like a clumsy oaf, sputtering and gasping in an undignified way. If you want a mechanical consequence, maybe you drop something in the process and it's lost in the water.

    Or if you call for the grandmaster lockpick to roll for picking a lock, a 1 doesn't have to mean failure. Maybe a 1 means it takes a long time, or made more noise than usual. Or maybe a 1 is fine and still succeeds because he's an incredibly good lockpick and you're just checking to see if he rolls so high that he also avoids setting off the alarm the party failed to notice.

    You shouldn't call for rolls unless they matter, but there are also ways to make a roll matter that are not just 'if you roll too low you will fail a basic task you're supposed to be good at'.

  • davidsdurionsdavidsdurions Your Trusty Meatshield Panhandle NebraskaRegistered User regular
    Also, as the dungeon master, I try to always be ready to declare advantage/disadvantage at a moment’s notice if a player rolls too extremely unlikely like three 1s in a row or whatever.

  • GaddezGaddez Registered User regular
    I do actually allow and even encourage players to get creative with their problem solving skills, particularly when it comes to team work.

    If for example the players had tied themselves together they could have concievably made it to shore and then used advantage to help another memebr to shore and then begin just auto succeeding to haul the others to shore assuming they had enough strength to pull in the players and their equipment.

    Also; I'm strongly of the mind that if everything goes perfect and smoothly at all times then the adventure is nice but ultimately kind of mediocre since it doesn't have any real tension or potential for absurdity. Whether I'm a player or a GM, it's the times when things start to fall apart for the party that it gets really memorable.

  • wildwoodwildwood Registered User regular
    edited July 2019
    Denada wrote: »
    I think what I'm ultimately getting at is my disdain for daily combat resources. I think the PCs should have all their toys to play with in every fight, unless you're running through the part of the superhero movie (a part which I usually hate) where the hero loses their powers for a while and learns a new appreciation for what they had right before they get them back (but better this time).

    You know, reading through what I just wrote, I think it's probably just a style difference. I see D&D as fundamentally a power fantasy, and I like it like that. If I wanted like a character drama, or to explore the danger of unchecked power, or trying to be a hero in a world that doesn't care about heroes, I'd probably play a different game.
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    wildwood on
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