..
but the player then produced an index card he had prepared before the session with buff spells his wizard had cast on himself before teleporting to the lich. Among these were true seeing, which meant there was no way the lich he had been talking to could have been an illusion.
Okay 1. were I the DM I would have said "well, okay, no way for me to know that unless you tell me, so this whole time you know you've been talking to an illusion."
2. Classic twist is that the lich was keeping something worse at bay. There was an ancient black dragon whose plans were being stayed only by the threat of the lich. Or the lich had five lieutenants, and now there's a fight for power between them, or the lich was keeping something much, much worse than an arcanaloth sealed up in the basement and now that the lich is gone guess what's about to break free and be rather cranky about the whole ordeal...
Honestly, with him leaving the group ... I think this smells more like opportunity than problem.
Like take this ...
The player (who had playing in our campaign for a long time) also said that this was likely the last session he could attend and said that if I wanted I could run his PC as a villain who had betrayed the party. He also provided many ideas for modifications he would make to the lich's former lair and frankly did a lot of DM prep work regarding the lair for me, so I may do that.
... and ...
... Classic twist is that the lich was keeping something worse at bay ...
... and a dash of ...
the lich had five lieutenants, and now there's a fight for power between them
... and just fucking run with it. The old PC is now, through some magical fuckery as the lich was destroyed, a lich himself, and has partial awareness of the other lieutenants (who were, themselves, imbued with knowledge of their rivals at the death of the prime lich). They've all now inherited a bit more power, but only one of them can inherit the whole thing, and they need the whole thing to keep [whatever] at bay.
Yeah, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
He just kind of drove two other players, came in with them, and is like "hi im their DM for the other game they play every other sunday, im going to be playing a druid i gotta create my character though" and kept interrupting the session every 15 minutes to ask questions about character creation for the next 2 hours and then got upset I couldnt integrate his new character in THAT game - even saying "I have never had trouble integrating new PCs on the fly"
I should have said "get out of my house" but I'm too much of a weakling
Yeah he's trying to co-DM your game and you need to lay down the law or you'll be miserable. There's no other way around it. If he's going to cram himself into your existing game, and immediately try to build a game-breaking network of bird spies, then he clearly has no interest in the overall health of the game. This is in your court.
Yeah he's trying to co-DM your game and you need to lay down the law or you'll be miserable. There's no other way around it. If he's going to cram himself into your existing game, and immediately try to build a game-breaking network of bird spies, then he clearly has no interest in the overall health of the game. This is in your court.
Gonna be a real shame when that network of new bird sentiences attracts the attention of rolls d6 and d12 together, consults table Tk'tkak'ak'tk, Hive Queen, the Abyssal being with the portfolio for creating and also enslaving new minds - a portfolio that it guards jealously. Enjoy your eternity of psychic vivisection in Tk'tkak'ak'tk's Breeding Pits, hubristic druid! Imagine the fate of Prometheus, but instead of a single vulture it's thousands of sparrows, and instead of a liver it is your memories, thoughts, and dreams. Delicious!
yes I can punitively hit him ingame but I think I need to like, sit the hell down with him and tell him that he needs to get with the party
I've made up my mind, no bird spies, no special ruling - I'm sticking to my guns about awaken requiring the component even with the staff (it was my initial ruling and he managed to argue me down, but I just have to shake my head and insist), and he has to spend the downtime in the same place as the rest of the party or take the narrative equivalent of the dodge action for the 3 years they're doing downtime montages
He's really new to the game and the onus is on him to adapt to the existing story, not the other way around.... that's my actual feelings and I should make them clear, if I keep nursing resentment and playing around the edges I'm going to end up being the asshole. I've already had to yada-yada over important plot events to fit in session time because of hour plus long side-jaunts with his fey druid to talk to plants, and that stuff is all great, but it needs to take a backseat to the existing players until he's a more established member of the group
yes I can punitively hit him ingame but I think I need to like, sit the hell down with him and tell him that he needs to get with the party
I've made up my mind, no bird spies, no special ruling - I'm sticking to my guns about awaken requiring the component even with the staff (it was my initial ruling and he managed to argue me down, but I just have to shake my head and insist), and he has to spend the downtime in the same place as the rest of the party or take the narrative equivalent of the dodge action for the 3 years they're doing downtime montages
He's really new to the game and the onus is on him to adapt to the existing story, not the other way around.... that's my actual feelings and I should make them clear, if I keep nursing resentment and playing around the edges I'm going to end up being the asshole. I've already had to yada-yada over important plot events to fit in session time because of hour plus long side-jaunts with his fey druid to talk to plants, and that stuff is all great, but it needs to take a backseat to the existing players until he's a more established member of the group
Oh I absolutely agree. I was proposing that you have this heart-to-heart with him while helping him roll up his second PC, which would hopefully be a more natural fit for your existing story and party (maybe even still a druid, if that's adding to the whole table's enjoyment, but one with more ...modest and flexible ambitions).
yes I can punitively hit him ingame but I think I need to like, sit the hell down with him and tell him that he needs to get with the party
I've made up my mind, no bird spies, no special ruling - I'm sticking to my guns about awaken requiring the component even with the staff (it was my initial ruling and he managed to argue me down, but I just have to shake my head and insist), and he has to spend the downtime in the same place as the rest of the party or take the narrative equivalent of the dodge action for the 3 years they're doing downtime montages
He's really new to the game and the onus is on him to adapt to the existing story, not the other way around.... that's my actual feelings and I should make them clear, if I keep nursing resentment and playing around the edges I'm going to end up being the asshole. I've already had to yada-yada over important plot events to fit in session time because of hour plus long side-jaunts with his fey druid to talk to plants, and that stuff is all great, but it needs to take a backseat to the existing players until he's a more established member of the group
Oh yeah, I was thinking: Isn't this the Wizard School game? That's like a pretty big part of your descriptions and something the party is all on board with so the first thing his character does being "LATER NERDS!!!!" is not a great sign.
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
The one thing id say is if your going to have that staff require material components, have all staffs do it. Having it be a case by case basis is going to rough potentially. As a player id be happy with a solid ruling either way, just as long as its consistent across the board.
yes I can punitively hit him ingame but I think I need to like, sit the hell down with him and tell him that he needs to get with the party
I've made up my mind, no bird spies, no special ruling - I'm sticking to my guns about awaken requiring the component even with the staff (it was my initial ruling and he managed to argue me down, but I just have to shake my head and insist), and he has to spend the downtime in the same place as the rest of the party or take the narrative equivalent of the dodge action for the 3 years they're doing downtime montages
He's really new to the game and the onus is on him to adapt to the existing story, not the other way around.... that's my actual feelings and I should make them clear, if I keep nursing resentment and playing around the edges I'm going to end up being the asshole. I've already had to yada-yada over important plot events to fit in session time because of hour plus long side-jaunts with his fey druid to talk to plants, and that stuff is all great, but it needs to take a backseat to the existing players until he's a more established member of the group
Oh yeah, I was thinking: Isn't this the Wizard School game? That's like a pretty big part of your descriptions and something the party is all on board with so the first thing his character does being "LATER NERDS!!!!" is not a great sign.
I worked the fighter into wizard school by talking with the player about how we can get a guy with 8int and 10wis to work at the wizard school, he suggested "I'm a member of the eye (he's basically a Spectre from mass effect), wizards gotta learn to fight with staffs and learn to cast spells while getting the shit kicked out of them right? PE teacher?"
So he managed to get his way in there as the combat instructor, and he gets to beat the shit out of the party with quarterstaffs which hell enjoy, as well as several dozen teenagers who want to be wizards (in addition to basically teaching them athletics and what not). As faculty he actually gets to keep his equipment, none of the rest of them got to keep shiiiiit (all put in a vault)
Druid player didn't want to even consider this.... but like, that's going to be his only option. He can be the nature professor (I have... a narrative contrivance to remove existing professors, one of the party members smuggled his arcanaloth patron past the school's defenses using a suitably evil ritual, the arcanaloth is wearing one of the girls in the school like the bug from Men in Black - thats how the fighter got in, the other PE teacher mysteriously vanished), or some other suitable roll, or shit just pay to be a student his INT is high enough - but he needs to get onboard the plot line all the players wanted
And that last part is key: I had other plans, the players got really excited about going to wizard school with this 12 year old NPC they kidnapped took on an adventure without necessarily thinking through the full length and breadth of their actions, and I thought shit that sounds fun, why not
For the birds, I'd have them worship the druid as a god, but not in the nice way. Like in The Quantum Magician. They'd abscond with the druid and force them to awaken their progeny. Hundreds of birds could be pretty brutal about enforcing their wishes on a lone druid. If the druid escaped they'd be on the run from birds forever.
Is that sparrow just a sparrow? Or is it one of them?
The one thing id say is if your going to have that staff require material components, have all staffs do it. Having it be a case by case basis is going to rough potentially. As a player id be happy with a solid ruling either way, just as long as its consistent across the board.
I don't have to make all staffs require material components, "Awaken" specifically has the spell component used as part and parcel of the spell's casting and as the DM I can tell RAW to shove it:
After spending the casting time tracing magical pathways within a precious gemstone, you touch a Huge or smaller beast or plant.
I've had the same houserule for the staff of the woodlands in all 3 campaigns I've run since I started running 5e games years ago
The DM is fine with this ruling, the party is fine with this ruling, the new player is not. IMO, it's him who has the obligation to get onboard. He can go find another table if he doesn't like it.
There are lots of great ideas how to deal with this without doing that, but all of those play into what he's trying to do - which is make the campaign about him.
I'll also mention in passing that the Wizard School campaign sounds like a really good time and I'm vicariously raging at and also pitying this chump for, if I've understood it correctly, saying "Well I'm your players' Uber driver, and I will take payment in becoming Birdmaster, Master of Birds and no other coin"
Get over yourself and put this tie on before the headmaster sees you out of uniform and makes us muck out the Chuul pens again, bruh. It's Wizard School Time.
_
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
the one wizard had badly misinterpreted how spell casting limitations worked, casting a cantrip and then attempting to fireball the shrimp... which he couldn't do with his fighter action surge...
Why doesn't that work? My off-the-cuff understanding is that you are limited to one non-cantrip spell per turn, and Action Surge gives you a real action to use on whatever you want, so I think "cantrip, then action surge->fireball" should be ok?
the one wizard had badly misinterpreted how spell casting limitations worked, casting a cantrip and then attempting to fireball the shrimp... which he couldn't do with his fighter action surge...
Why doesn't that work? My off-the-cuff understanding is that you are limited to one non-cantrip spell per turn, and Action Surge gives you a real action to use on whatever you want, so I think "cantrip, then action surge->fireball" should be ok?
I didnt get far into it last session, they just sat down for their first Enchantment class and I modified the speech from Torulf Jernstrom's presentation on how to manipulate mobile game customers called "Lets Go Whaling" (really, just the fucking worst)
"This course will cover a fairly large number of arcane techniques for manipulating behavioral psychology. The tricks on how to manipulate perceptions and will are varied, and some of you may be slightly shocked by the number of ways enchantment can be applied. I will leave morality out of the discussion of the application of arcane theory and - if we have time at the end - we can discuss the ethics of it"
I made sure to point out that casting enchantment spells on other students was frowned upon and would result in a night in the chamber of horrors with "The pain monster" except for academic reasons
For the academy itself I have copied the evil wizard academy from Dungeon of The Mad Mage and just made it less evil
This week I'm hoping to get through primers on evocation, illusion (the teacher is stuck invisible forever), and necromancy (a waiver is signed by students that should they unfortunately perish during their studies, that their body will be donated to the academy for future necromantic instruction)
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Okay yeah see now I'm even more annoyed with birddruid because wizard school sounds amazing and any dude who wants to dump all over it so he can play his own game should go kick rocks.
I'm thinking of what I want to do in my next campaign. I'm considering a houserule that the Paladin's Divine Smite only be usable once per turn in the same fashion as Sneak Attack. What do you guys think?
I think a switcheroo is a useful way for your BBEG to escape the spotlight for a bit to get the players off their back and set some other schemes in motion. Yes, it’s a little unfair and it’s a bit of a retcon but let’s be serious — what was that one player thinking when they went off and did what they did? Not being much of a team spirit (in the people-around-a-table sense), and on his own there are plenty of clues he could have missed. Liches aren’t typically ones to be caught unawares, after all. So why did this one appear to be flat footed? Seems more likely it intended this.
Part of the reason I'm reluctant to undo what he did is because he'd clearly been preparing for this multiple sessions in advance and is therefore showing a lot of interest and investment in the campaign.
The full breakdown of what he did goes like this:
- He established that he had a small lair in the Material Plane that the party rested in once.
- He spent a month of downtime researching the lich and procuring a Sphere of Annihilation and Talisman of the Sphere for his lair.
- He went to Gehenna and bought the services of an Arcanaloth.
- He used Wish to summon the lich's phylactery, which I decided was bound within a demon that would wink back to its original location in three rounds.
- He used plane shift to teleport the demon to his lair (going by RAW unwilling targets are teleported to random locations, but I decided at the time to let it just appear at the lair).
- He used the Talisman of the Sphere to move the Sphere of Annihilation to the demon, causing the phylactery to be destroyed (I thought at the time of trying to prevent this, but the player at this point had already put several sessions of preparation into this plan and I wanted to reward his preparation).
- He teleported along with the Arcanaloth to the lich's mobile lair, summoned demons to distract the lich's underlings, and attacked the lich. At this point I tried to say the lich he was near and had been talking to was just a programmed image, but the player then produced an index card he had prepared before the session with buff spells his wizard had cast on himself before teleporting to the lich. Among these were true seeing, which meant there was no way the lich he had been talking to could have been an illusion.
- He and the Arcanaloth briefly battled the lich before casting feeblemind on it.
- He plane shifted the feebleminded lich to his lair with the initial goal of using a scroll of imprisonment on it that I had previously included in a treasure horde, but then instead finished him off.
- After this he went to a portal to a mindflayer colony I had established earlier, used mindblank and greater invisibility to infiltrate it without the colony's elder brain being able to detect him, killed the unaware elder brain and its guards with a necklace of fireballs, used dance macabre to raise the mindflayers as zombies, summoned demons, and announced he intended to conquer the mindflayers and put as many of them as he could to work in the lich's former lair as his own minions.
The player (who had playing in our campaign for a long time) also said that this was likely the last session he could attend and said that if I wanted I could run his PC as a villain who had betrayed the party. He also provided many ideas for modifications he would make to the lich's former lair and frankly did a lot of DM prep work regarding the lair for me, so I may do that.
If this is the last session the player is going to make it to....couldn't you just let him have that fun, and then run the game as if his character...didn't do any of that?
Honestly, if it were me (and I had run this 1 on 1 session for this player as a send off), I'd run it by the rest of my table and see what they all wanted to do. They could essentially ignore the other player's character's actions, or we could treat him as the new evil villain.
But one thing about the player's plans and such - it honestly sounds like there's a BUNCH of concentration spell overlap in here....but maybe not if he's high enough level? I just don't see why he would have wanted to do all this without anyone else to witness? It sounds like he wanted to go out with a bang....
Honestly I'm super confused.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
I'm thinking of what I want to do in my next campaign. I'm considering a houserule that the Paladin's Divine Smite only be usable once per turn in the same fashion as Sneak Attack. What do you guys think?
Id leave it. If they decide to alpha strike, thats fine. They are consuming spell slots to do it and the enemy must appear super tough to burn multiple smites against.
The arcane trickster managed to smuggle thieves tools into the school, I asked how since they not only had a wizard check them all over magically, they had a doctor give them a physical and take all of their stuff - it was akin to entering prison because they're super paranoid about magical creatures sneaking in (and, well, theft). She rolled well but I needed an actual explanation.
She reverse pickpocketed the thieves tools onto one of the professors, and then after getting her uniform, pickpocketed them back off of him
I'm playing up the whole angle that once you get past the incredibly secure entrance and admissions process - this place has fuck all for defenses against conventional thieves (except high picklock DCs from arcane lock), their wards and traps and golems are all keyed to magical threats, because they're wizards
she's going to steal so many scrolls, mugs, pens, spellbooks, and pointy hats\
Edit: the first random powerful nicknack she's pilfered and hidden securely is a golden box with a button on it that says "Come and See" in abyssal on it.
I pulled that out of my ass and I have no idea what to make the button actually do, but it was in the "this stuff is probably really dangerous" lab. It cant just be a gate to the abyss, thats too easy
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
The arcane trickster managed to smuggle thieves tools into the school, I asked how since they not only had a wizard check them all over magically, they had a doctor give them a physical and take all of their stuff - it was akin to entering prison because they're super paranoid about magical creatures sneaking in (and, well, theft). She rolled well but I needed an actual explanation.
She reverse pickpocketed the thieves tools onto one of the professors, and then after getting her uniform, pickpocketed them back off of him
I'm playing up the whole angle that once you get past the incredibly secure entrance and admissions process - this place has fuck all for defenses against conventional thieves (except high picklock DCs from arcane lock), their wards and traps and golems are all keyed to magical threats, because they're wizards
she's going to steal so many scrolls, mugs, pens, spellbooks, and pointy hats\
Edit: the first random powerful nicknack she's pilfered and hidden securely is a golden box with a button on it that says "Come and See" in abyssal on it.
I pulled that out of my ass and I have no idea what to make the button actually do, but it was in the "this stuff is probably really dangerous" lab. It cant just be a gate to the abyss, thats too easy
Pocket dimension that shows the user whatever their greatest desires are. Anybody stuck in there dies because they never want to leave, and the abyss claims another soul.
Pretty much the joy can that dr. Venture creates. The episode where they meet Dr. Orpheous.
You can even have it powered by a damned childs heart!
Edit: the first random powerful nicknack she's pilfered and hidden securely is a golden box with a button on it that says "Come and See" in abyssal on it.
I pulled that out of my ass and I have no idea what to make the button actually do, but it was in the "this stuff is probably really dangerous" lab. It cant just be a gate to the abyss, thats too easy
The box does nothing, it's in the "Probably dangerous" pile because nobody at the school is willing to risk pushing the button to find out.
"Sure, no matter how many times we cast "detect magic" on the box it comes back as utterly mundane, but do you really want to take that chance, Headmaester?
Edit: the first random powerful nicknack she's pilfered and hidden securely is a golden box with a button on it that says "Come and See" in abyssal on it.
I pulled that out of my ass and I have no idea what to make the button actually do, but it was in the "this stuff is probably really dangerous" lab. It cant just be a gate to the abyss, thats too easy
The box does nothing, it's in the "Probably dangerous" pile because nobody at the school is willing to risk pushing the button to find out.
"Sure, no matter how many times we cast "detect magic" on the box it comes back as utterly mundane, but do you really want to take that chance, Headmaester?
Wow that would be the best way to fuck with a wizard player, because no matter how many times the DM tells them with a shit eating grin that Identify reveals nothing, they're going to further build a narrative in their head of this thing being some kind of impossibly powerful artifact
I'm thinking of what I want to do in my next campaign. I'm considering a houserule that the Paladin's Divine Smite only be usable once per turn in the same fashion as Sneak Attack. What do you guys think?
Id leave it. If they decide to alpha strike, thats fine. They are consuming spell slots to do it and the enemy must appear super tough to burn multiple smites against.
Ever since the party got involved with the Nine Hells all the archdevils have been taken down pretty handily by the Paladin so that none of them feel like true threats. I'm at the point that I'm thinking of just statting-up a bunch of oathbreaker paladins for the party to fight instead because paladins are clearly the most powerful things in 5E.
the weakness to paladins is ranged combatants and balls of hitpoints to soak up damage before a boss encounter
Regarding ranged combatants, this paladin often uses Find Greater Steed to get a Pegasus and then doubles its speed with Haste. Ranged combatants are going to be melee combatants very quickly.
the weakness to paladins is ranged combatants and balls of hitpoints to soak up damage before a boss encounter
Regarding ranged combatants, this paladin often uses Find Greater Steed to get a Pegasus and then doubles its speed with Haste. Ranged combatants are going to be melee combatants very quickly.
A pegasus only has 59 hitpoints and bad AC, and doesn't have the hover property so if it's restrained, paralyzed, stunned, etc it just falls... seems like the pegasus would immediately become target #1
Haste can be dispelled as well (as can the steed itself! fiends are assholes!) and if he's got 4th level spells, enemies should have access to that
now hes texting me that he wants an army of treants and to create a village of "kercpa", fey squirrel people from a previous edition
I didn't argue with him I just asked "do you have anything that can create treants or summon fey permanently?"
This the person who you said never plays and only ever gets to DM?
...I think I can guess why...
He's getting really pretty passive aggressive at this point and I asked him what his ultimate goal was, why does he want to do all these things, and how does it relate to the party? Why doesn't he discuss his plans with the party? I get it he's new, but he's going to need to step outside of "what my character would do" for a second, or roll a character that would work with the party
Edit: the first random powerful nicknack she's pilfered and hidden securely is a golden box with a button on it that says "Come and See" in abyssal on it.
I pulled that out of my ass and I have no idea what to make the button actually do, but it was in the "this stuff is probably really dangerous" lab. It cant just be a gate to the abyss, thats too easy
It should give her true sight and/or limited x-ray vision, buuuuuuuuut
It's due to the four extra eyes that pop up on her forehead. Enjoy the first week of classes!
now hes texting me that he wants an army of treants and to create a village of "kercpa", fey squirrel people from a previous edition
I didn't argue with him I just asked "do you have anything that can create treants or summon fey permanently?"
This the person who you said never plays and only ever gets to DM?
...I think I can guess why...
He's getting really pretty passive aggressive at this point and I asked him what his ultimate goal was, why does he want to do all these things, and how does it relate to the party? Why doesn't he discuss his plans with the party? I get it he's new, but he's going to need to step outside of "what my character would do" for a second, or roll a character that would work with the party
He hasnt responded yet
I've had characters that I just couldn't play in certain groups because that character just wouldn't end up with that group. Shit happens.
This dude is being super disrespectful to your entire table. Soaking up resources that could be used to prepare for the rest of the party. Frankly I'm pissed at the players who brought him and would legit consider speaking with them about the serious violation of manners inviting a stranger to your house.
Everything about this has me steamed to the point that I would have a very hard time not just folding the whole damn game if I was the DM. But I'm the person who lets little shit like that get to me.
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Okay 1. were I the DM I would have said "well, okay, no way for me to know that unless you tell me, so this whole time you know you've been talking to an illusion."
2. Classic twist is that the lich was keeping something worse at bay. There was an ancient black dragon whose plans were being stayed only by the threat of the lich. Or the lich had five lieutenants, and now there's a fight for power between them, or the lich was keeping something much, much worse than an arcanaloth sealed up in the basement and now that the lich is gone guess what's about to break free and be rather cranky about the whole ordeal...
Because that strikes me as some big BS that's exploitative.
Like take this ...
... and ...
... and a dash of ...
... and just fucking run with it. The old PC is now, through some magical fuckery as the lich was destroyed, a lich himself, and has partial awareness of the other lieutenants (who were, themselves, imbued with knowledge of their rivals at the death of the prime lich). They've all now inherited a bit more power, but only one of them can inherit the whole thing, and they need the whole thing to keep [whatever] at bay.
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He just kind of drove two other players, came in with them, and is like "hi im their DM for the other game they play every other sunday, im going to be playing a druid i gotta create my character though" and kept interrupting the session every 15 minutes to ask questions about character creation for the next 2 hours and then got upset I couldnt integrate his new character in THAT game - even saying "I have never had trouble integrating new PCs on the fly"
I should have said "get out of my house" but I'm too much of a weakling
Gonna be a real shame when that network of new bird sentiences attracts the attention of rolls d6 and d12 together, consults table Tk'tkak'ak'tk, Hive Queen, the Abyssal being with the portfolio for creating and also enslaving new minds - a portfolio that it guards jealously. Enjoy your eternity of psychic vivisection in Tk'tkak'ak'tk's Breeding Pits, hubristic druid! Imagine the fate of Prometheus, but instead of a single vulture it's thousands of sparrows, and instead of a liver it is your memories, thoughts, and dreams. Delicious!
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I've made up my mind, no bird spies, no special ruling - I'm sticking to my guns about awaken requiring the component even with the staff (it was my initial ruling and he managed to argue me down, but I just have to shake my head and insist), and he has to spend the downtime in the same place as the rest of the party or take the narrative equivalent of the dodge action for the 3 years they're doing downtime montages
He's really new to the game and the onus is on him to adapt to the existing story, not the other way around.... that's my actual feelings and I should make them clear, if I keep nursing resentment and playing around the edges I'm going to end up being the asshole. I've already had to yada-yada over important plot events to fit in session time because of hour plus long side-jaunts with his fey druid to talk to plants, and that stuff is all great, but it needs to take a backseat to the existing players until he's a more established member of the group
Oh I absolutely agree. I was proposing that you have this heart-to-heart with him while helping him roll up his second PC, which would hopefully be a more natural fit for your existing story and party (maybe even still a druid, if that's adding to the whole table's enjoyment, but one with more ...modest and flexible ambitions).
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Oh yeah, I was thinking: Isn't this the Wizard School game? That's like a pretty big part of your descriptions and something the party is all on board with so the first thing his character does being "LATER NERDS!!!!" is not a great sign.
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Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
I worked the fighter into wizard school by talking with the player about how we can get a guy with 8int and 10wis to work at the wizard school, he suggested "I'm a member of the eye (he's basically a Spectre from mass effect), wizards gotta learn to fight with staffs and learn to cast spells while getting the shit kicked out of them right? PE teacher?"
So he managed to get his way in there as the combat instructor, and he gets to beat the shit out of the party with quarterstaffs which hell enjoy, as well as several dozen teenagers who want to be wizards (in addition to basically teaching them athletics and what not). As faculty he actually gets to keep his equipment, none of the rest of them got to keep shiiiiit (all put in a vault)
Druid player didn't want to even consider this.... but like, that's going to be his only option. He can be the nature professor (I have... a narrative contrivance to remove existing professors, one of the party members smuggled his arcanaloth patron past the school's defenses using a suitably evil ritual, the arcanaloth is wearing one of the girls in the school like the bug from Men in Black - thats how the fighter got in, the other PE teacher mysteriously vanished), or some other suitable roll, or shit just pay to be a student his INT is high enough - but he needs to get onboard the plot line all the players wanted
And that last part is key: I had other plans, the players got really excited about going to wizard school with this 12 year old NPC they kidnapped took on an adventure without necessarily thinking through the full length and breadth of their actions, and I thought shit that sounds fun, why not
Is that sparrow just a sparrow? Or is it one of them?
I'm quite certain thats what he wants
I don't have to make all staffs require material components, "Awaken" specifically has the spell component used as part and parcel of the spell's casting and as the DM I can tell RAW to shove it:
I've had the same houserule for the staff of the woodlands in all 3 campaigns I've run since I started running 5e games years ago
The DM is fine with this ruling, the party is fine with this ruling, the new player is not. IMO, it's him who has the obligation to get onboard. He can go find another table if he doesn't like it.
There are lots of great ideas how to deal with this without doing that, but all of those play into what he's trying to do - which is make the campaign about him.
Get over yourself and put this tie on before the headmaster sees you out of uniform and makes us muck out the Chuul pens again, bruh. It's Wizard School Time.
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Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Why doesn't that work? My off-the-cuff understanding is that you are limited to one non-cantrip spell per turn, and Action Surge gives you a real action to use on whatever you want, so I think "cantrip, then action surge->fireball" should be ok?
I didnt get far into it last session, they just sat down for their first Enchantment class and I modified the speech from Torulf Jernstrom's presentation on how to manipulate mobile game customers called "Lets Go Whaling" (really, just the fucking worst)
"This course will cover a fairly large number of arcane techniques for manipulating behavioral psychology. The tricks on how to manipulate perceptions and will are varied, and some of you may be slightly shocked by the number of ways enchantment can be applied. I will leave morality out of the discussion of the application of arcane theory and - if we have time at the end - we can discuss the ethics of it"
I made sure to point out that casting enchantment spells on other students was frowned upon and would result in a night in the chamber of horrors with "The pain monster" except for academic reasons
For the academy itself I have copied the evil wizard academy from Dungeon of The Mad Mage and just made it less evil
This week I'm hoping to get through primers on evocation, illusion (the teacher is stuck invisible forever), and necromancy (a waiver is signed by students that should they unfortunately perish during their studies, that their body will be donated to the academy for future necromantic instruction)
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
If this is the last session the player is going to make it to....couldn't you just let him have that fun, and then run the game as if his character...didn't do any of that?
Honestly, if it were me (and I had run this 1 on 1 session for this player as a send off), I'd run it by the rest of my table and see what they all wanted to do. They could essentially ignore the other player's character's actions, or we could treat him as the new evil villain.
But one thing about the player's plans and such - it honestly sounds like there's a BUNCH of concentration spell overlap in here....but maybe not if he's high enough level? I just don't see why he would have wanted to do all this without anyone else to witness? It sounds like he wanted to go out with a bang....
Honestly I'm super confused.
Id leave it. If they decide to alpha strike, thats fine. They are consuming spell slots to do it and the enemy must appear super tough to burn multiple smites against.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
She reverse pickpocketed the thieves tools onto one of the professors, and then after getting her uniform, pickpocketed them back off of him
I'm playing up the whole angle that once you get past the incredibly secure entrance and admissions process - this place has fuck all for defenses against conventional thieves (except high picklock DCs from arcane lock), their wards and traps and golems are all keyed to magical threats, because they're wizards
she's going to steal so many scrolls, mugs, pens, spellbooks, and pointy hats\
Edit: the first random powerful nicknack she's pilfered and hidden securely is a golden box with a button on it that says "Come and See" in abyssal on it.
I pulled that out of my ass and I have no idea what to make the button actually do, but it was in the "this stuff is probably really dangerous" lab. It cant just be a gate to the abyss, thats too easy
Pocket dimension that shows the user whatever their greatest desires are. Anybody stuck in there dies because they never want to leave, and the abyss claims another soul.
Pretty much the joy can that dr. Venture creates. The episode where they meet Dr. Orpheous.
You can even have it powered by a damned childs heart!
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
The box does nothing, it's in the "Probably dangerous" pile because nobody at the school is willing to risk pushing the button to find out.
"Sure, no matter how many times we cast "detect magic" on the box it comes back as utterly mundane, but do you really want to take that chance, Headmaester?
I didn't argue with him I just asked "do you have anything that can create treants or summon fey permanently?"
Wow that would be the best way to fuck with a wizard player, because no matter how many times the DM tells them with a shit eating grin that Identify reveals nothing, they're going to further build a narrative in their head of this thing being some kind of impossibly powerful artifact
it should also have keyholes on it
Ever since the party got involved with the Nine Hells all the archdevils have been taken down pretty handily by the Paladin so that none of them feel like true threats. I'm at the point that I'm thinking of just statting-up a bunch of oathbreaker paladins for the party to fight instead because paladins are clearly the most powerful things in 5E.
Regarding ranged combatants, this paladin often uses Find Greater Steed to get a Pegasus and then doubles its speed with Haste. Ranged combatants are going to be melee combatants very quickly.
This the person who you said never plays and only ever gets to DM?
...I think I can guess why...
A pegasus only has 59 hitpoints and bad AC, and doesn't have the hover property so if it's restrained, paralyzed, stunned, etc it just falls... seems like the pegasus would immediately become target #1
Haste can be dispelled as well (as can the steed itself! fiends are assholes!) and if he's got 4th level spells, enemies should have access to that
He's getting really pretty passive aggressive at this point and I asked him what his ultimate goal was, why does he want to do all these things, and how does it relate to the party? Why doesn't he discuss his plans with the party? I get it he's new, but he's going to need to step outside of "what my character would do" for a second, or roll a character that would work with the party
He hasnt responded yet
It should give her true sight and/or limited x-ray vision, buuuuuuuuut
It's due to the four extra eyes that pop up on her forehead. Enjoy the first week of classes!
I've had characters that I just couldn't play in certain groups because that character just wouldn't end up with that group. Shit happens.
This dude is being super disrespectful to your entire table. Soaking up resources that could be used to prepare for the rest of the party. Frankly I'm pissed at the players who brought him and would legit consider speaking with them about the serious violation of manners inviting a stranger to your house.
Everything about this has me steamed to the point that I would have a very hard time not just folding the whole damn game if I was the DM. But I'm the person who lets little shit like that get to me.