Making players learn their characters is key. I tell people they don't have to learn how the entire game works, they can learn a lot of that on the fly. But they're expected to come to the session knowing how the stuff on their own character sheet works, and how they want to use it. I end up doing a lot of between session teaching because I have some learners who need to see it in action more than just read it.
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
The biggest combat slow down is an unprepared spell caster. A "what's going on?" Or "what's this spell do again?" Is a fucking death knell for a quick encounter.
I try to be nice.
The most annoying thing as a player or GM is, "Oh it's my turn, let me look in the book instead of planning this beforehand when I had all that time."
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
Making players learn their characters is key. I tell people they don't have to learn how the entire game works, they can learn a lot of that on the fly. But they're expected to come to the session knowing how the stuff on their own character sheet works, and how they want to use it. I end up doing a lot of between session teaching because I have some learners who need to see it in action more than just read it.
This is a big point of contention between my GM and the problem player. The dude will insist things are the way he says it is for his paladin and question the GM's authority on things then when asked what his character actually does he can't give an answer because the GM has to do most of the work for him.
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awsimoa perfectly cromulent human; definitely not a robotRegistered Userregular
Posted this in the old thread by accident because I'm dumb, re-posting here...
This year, I decided to try my hand at DMing. I've been running LMoP + Icespire with a group of mostly first-time players, and it's been going surprisingly well.
The Rogue in my group has expressed an interest in doing more stealth-related activities, but it seems like the rules around stealth are fairly vague, and it's largely up to DM discretion. I told him that I'd be likely to reward him with advantage or inspiration-- or at least a lowered DC-- for being creative with stealth, like sneaking across roof beams or clever usage of Minor Illusion (he's running Arcane Trickster).
But I'd like to give him some more mechanically tangible ways to use stealth at the table; something more involved than just "roll a DEX (Stealth) check." I've thought about creating a kind of turn-based minigame inspired by Hitman GO where he has to observe guard movements and slip between their routes, maybe even use construction paper cones on the minis to represent field(s) of vision.
All of this is a long-winded way of me asking if any other DMs out there have come across any fun or interesting ways to implement stealth in their games? I'd love any and all suggestions! Rogue has been the most involved player, so I want to reward him for his initiative.
Posted this in the old thread by accident because I'm dumb, re-posting here...
This year, I decided to try my hand at DMing. I've been running LMoP + Icespire with a group of mostly first-time players, and it's been going surprisingly well.
The Rogue in my group has expressed an interest in doing more stealth-related activities, but it seems like the rules around stealth are fairly vague, and it's largely up to DM discretion. I told him that I'd be likely to reward him with advantage or inspiration-- or at least a lowered DC-- for being creative with stealth, like sneaking across roof beams or clever usage of Minor Illusion (he's running Arcane Trickster).
But I'd like to give him some more mechanically tangible ways to use stealth at the table; something more involved than just "roll a DEX (Stealth) check." I've thought about creating a kind of turn-based minigame inspired by Hitman GO where he has to observe guard movements and slip between their routes, maybe even use construction paper cones on the minis to represent field(s) of vision.
All of this is a long-winded way of me asking if any other DMs out there have come across any fun or interesting ways to implement stealth in their games? I'd love any and all suggestions! Rogue has been the most involved player, so I want to reward him for his initiative.
The most straight forward I stole from the angry gm. Treat stealth like metal gear solid does. There's the part where the guards are unawares, there's the part where they are interested, there's the part where they've found him. Most stealth in ttrpgs leaves out that second part. If he fails a check, narrate it that the guard heard something, and starts shuffling over to investigate. Then let him figure out something clever to do to deal with the guard before an alarm is raised.
Posted this in the old thread by accident because I'm dumb, re-posting here...
This year, I decided to try my hand at DMing. I've been running LMoP + Icespire with a group of mostly first-time players, and it's been going surprisingly well.
The Rogue in my group has expressed an interest in doing more stealth-related activities, but it seems like the rules around stealth are fairly vague, and it's largely up to DM discretion. I told him that I'd be likely to reward him with advantage or inspiration-- or at least a lowered DC-- for being creative with stealth, like sneaking across roof beams or clever usage of Minor Illusion (he's running Arcane Trickster).
But I'd like to give him some more mechanically tangible ways to use stealth at the table; something more involved than just "roll a DEX (Stealth) check." I've thought about creating a kind of turn-based minigame inspired by Hitman GO where he has to observe guard movements and slip between their routes, maybe even use construction paper cones on the minis to represent field(s) of vision.
All of this is a long-winded way of me asking if any other DMs out there have come across any fun or interesting ways to implement stealth in their games? I'd love any and all suggestions! Rogue has been the most involved player, so I want to reward him for his initiative.
The most straight forward I stole from the angry gm. Treat stealth like metal gear solid does. There's the part where the guards are unawares, there's the part where they are interested, there's the part where they've found him. Most stealth in ttrpgs leaves out that second part. If he fails a check, narrate it that the guard heard something, and starts shuffling over to investigate. Then let him figure out something clever to do to deal with the guard before an alarm is raised.
For ideas about the mechanical structure, it might help to look at the downtime activities in Xanathar's; most of them essentially consist of three skill checks with the degree of success determined by how many checks the player passes.
It's relatively easy to set up an impromptu skill challenge around that structure where you know he's got an objective, you know you're gonna make him roll three skill checks (and can safely assume the first one is usually a stealth check), and you're going to give him a portion of that objective based on how many checks he beats. From there you can kinda just improv a simple narrative around the remaining checks - if he fails the first check, he's gotta do something to avoid the guards (talk out of it? deception check. climb/jump up onto something to avoid their notice? athletics or acrobatics check. use an silent image to make something illusory to divert attention or hide behind? take an auto-success, but burn a spell slot). Or if he succeeds on the check, give him something else to do en route to his objective - pick a lock, climb a wall, put on a disguise (and if he fails that check, then your third check is just the 'ditch the guards' check he avoided by succeeding the first time).
Fail two checks, the guards are alerted and you don't get what you want. Fail all three, same as two checks plus you're in a combat now. Succeed twice and you get what you're after (avoid a combat, or lure some enemies away to make the combat easier; get a piece of information; retrieve a guarded item). Beat all three checks and you get what you're after and then some (you retrieve your item and some additional thing of value along with it; you get the information you were after plus additional useful details; you avoid an entire combat instead of making one easier; or maybe three successes just lets you get in and out with your objective without being noticed in a situation where two would've gotten you your goal but also put bad guys on alert.
Edit: You'll want a game plan for how to handle Minor Illusion, though - on the one hand, you probably want to give him something for it when he uses it so it feels rewarding for him. On the other, it's a cantrip so it has no resource cost and if you give him too much it'll just become the 'win button' for these little challenges where every solution is framed around how he can use Minor Illusion to solve it. I'd probably start from a position of letting him use it to pick up advantage for one of these checks per challenge if he can describe a plausible way he's using it to assist in his shenanigans
In Metal Gear Solid 5, if you rely too heavily on long-distance head shots the enemies wise up and start wearing helmets
Maybe if a player overuses Minor Illusion, especially if the bad guys are all part of a wider organisation, the party should start seeing signs everywhere informing henchmen how to spot illusions, as a prompt that they should mix up their tactics a bit
One thing that Ars Magica has in its magic system is Sigils - every mage has a unique identifying feature in their magic, like it’s always accompanied by harp music or the sound of strawberries. From the players’ perspective, it’s another cool thing to let their mage stand out; however, it also demonstrates that their magic can be traced back to them. Maybe ask the Rogue what their signature flourish is in their minor illusions, which isn’t a choice but a manifestation of some aspect of their core being. Then, savvy organisations will be able to use that as an opportunity to spot illusions if over-used. For example, if the Rogue’s illusions always feature the colour green, then they may get to areas where the colour green is outlawed, so any illusion will have to be something that’s naturally green like a frog or a tree
when we have a combat it usually dominates a good chunk of the session, if not all of it, just due to the amount of people at the table and amount of monsters that have to be present to make combat challenging
Pic of one of said battles. Green gems were one-hit-KO minions, but still.
Well it was a good run but I have fallen to the situation where two of my players (my brother and his wife) have moved away. I don't really know what I'm going to do yet. Since the rest of the group is just my wife and daughter, I'm unsure about inviting strangers to come over which probably leads me to DMing online. I have no clue how to begin to make maps and such for that environment or if I'd even need to. I wonder if I could "theater of the mind" the whole thing.
Has anyone had positive/negative experiences with it all just being voice only? I had considered a Play By Post thing instead but I haven't had much luck with those in the past with people eventually disappearing though I do enjoy the stronger narrative that some players feel when they have the time to put their character's thoughts into written word over spoken.
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
Well it was a good run but I have fallen to the situation where two of my players (my brother and his wife) have moved away. I don't really know what I'm going to do yet. Since the rest of the group is just my wife and daughter, I'm unsure about inviting strangers to come over which probably leads me to DMing online. I have no clue how to begin to make maps and such for that environment or if I'd even need to. I wonder if I could "theater of the mind" the whole thing.
Has anyone had positive/negative experiences with it all just being voice only? I had considered a Play By Post thing instead but I haven't had much luck with those in the past with people eventually disappearing though I do enjoy the stronger narrative that some players feel when they have the time to put their character's thoughts into written word over spoken.
The biggest issue with online is varying internet connections. I kind of like voice only, it has its own strengths for me in terms of immersion (and hiding my horrible poker face), but definitely it can drag if even one person has to resort to typing out because they don't have a good microphone or their connection is spotty.
Roll20 and discord paired together have been my combo of choice. Discord can be used on a phone and the phone has a microphone so like most people should be able to work with that setup.
Oh man, pulled a session out of my butt last night. One of our side plots is a bunch of our alternate characters in a large forest with a necromancy problem. It gives me a good setting to run a game on nights we can't get our full adventure party for (It is hilariously going to be a big ol backstory for someone else's mid boss for the campaign they are working on).
We'd just finished the initial assault on the forest at the end of day 2, a few characters know of a magical shrine here that has given them necromancy problems before. Their respective parties have met up (giving us a good pool of characters to pull from). Other parties are dealing with other problems in the undead woods but tonight we focus on the alpha team and celestial rampage team.
Alpha team are a bit hodge podge, current members of the sentinels (the city state's military) and folks looking to maybe join up. The celestial rampage party is a fighter/cleric, a cleric, a divine soul sorc, a paladin, and the bard that won't stop following the paladin around (in character bit).
They've found the magical shrine they experienced trouble with before and it has been altered. Last time they encountered it, it seemed a small pyramid gripped under the roots of a tree. Now the tree is removed and the area around the shrine dug out to reveal a rather d8 like structure with more foul runic inscriptions revealed. It is also behaving much differently.
The celestial rampage characters have some trouble with their investigations and we end day 2 nearby so a new study can be taken in the better light of day. This shows some promise and the military leader sends out a patrol to ensure no attackers are inbound while the scholars inspect this shrine and figure out what it's doing and how to stop it.
The patrol is pulled from the soldiers group: a halfling thief, a gnome beastmaster (revised), a gnome swashbuckler, and a human warlock.
The first contact for the day is a group of dread warriors lead by a death lock wight.
In order to construct the map I took a grid section big enough to fit the models and a round and a half of movement and filled it with trees somewhat at random (squares with a green x are difficult terrain that provide cover). Then one of my players has a large coin with a compass rose. Whoever failed the stealth check gets to pick the direction the party is entering from and we spin the coin and figure out where that direction is and I give them a deployment zone and place monsters.
The party very nearly loses the beast master's badger, and the swashbuckling rogue takes a decent amount of damage but they, very canny in their approach, killed the wight first and saved themselves a lot of grief and mop up the encounter pretty well.
After handling themselves well in the fight the players move on and the ranger burns a number of spells into his friend the badger to get his health back up so they can keep patrolling.
We flash back to the party at the shrine for a skill challenge to determine what this strange eldritch edifice is doing. They figure out this foul shrine is amplifying the necromancy in this place. Not itself the source of the control over the undead, or what's fueling or creating them, its acting essentially as the necromancy equivalent of a wifi repeater right now. Which is very different from its former behavior.
Returning to the party out in the field patrolling, they've had time to short rest between encounters, still covering ground but not super fast, and not having encountered any opposition. Like a half hour after their last engagement and making sure that whole scene was safely behind them, they take the pace easy for an hour get some hit die in and then start hard charging again for about a half hour until they see their next contact.
We set up the whole board the way we did before, a huge monster marker on the board no scene yet laid. My players all asking what lies in front of them and I play the following sound and my players know what's up.
Finally got to drop in a T rex zombie. It vomits up other zombies. I had it vomit up greater zombies cause I knew it wasn't long for this world. 2 rounds, it got 2 rounds, but in its last round it took the warlock from full to death saves and knocked the sniper rogue out of the trees. The party finishes off all the zombies the t rex left behind a couple rounds later and blast the heck out of the normal zombies that burst forth from the dying t rex zombie.
With the ranger fully tapped on spells (all into healing except for 1 hunters mark), and the warlock luckily just stabilizing on 3 successful death saves they've decided returning to the healers may be in their best interests. The session ended off in the middle of their 3rd day of the assault on the undead wood
I have to keep pretty strict count of days here cause there's 5 groups of adventurers on a concurrent timeline, technically 7, but one of them is super far away and ahead by a few days (because it's on a mission to rewrite the setting without really realizing it), and the other is the two man campaign I accidentally just started.
This day will probably wrap up with the characters realizing they can trace the necromantic auras around this d8 like edafice and follow them back to their source, and hopefully the source of their problems, and moving over to the next hex in the region to get to the real necromancer stronghold there.
I literally had a totally separate game prepped until 5 minutes before the session when I found out one of my players was definitely missing the session which put us well outside acceptable numbers to pursue the truly world changing plot line (that plot line is rigged for two players to drop in and out as they can).
Well it was a good run but I have fallen to the situation where two of my players (my brother and his wife) have moved away. I don't really know what I'm going to do yet. Since the rest of the group is just my wife and daughter, I'm unsure about inviting strangers to come over which probably leads me to DMing online. I have no clue how to begin to make maps and such for that environment or if I'd even need to. I wonder if I could "theater of the mind" the whole thing.
Has anyone had positive/negative experiences with it all just being voice only? I had considered a Play By Post thing instead but I haven't had much luck with those in the past with people eventually disappearing though I do enjoy the stronger narrative that some players feel when they have the time to put their character's thoughts into written word over spoken.
Getting a Discord server is free I belive and as long as everyone has a microphone theather of the mind is great. Its tbh how I mostly play my games. Once in a while we do draw a little scen just to make it clearer but in most cases its quite fine as DM to just wing it if your players ask if they are in range or can move to or from things.
Well it was a good run but I have fallen to the situation where two of my players (my brother and his wife) have moved away. I don't really know what I'm going to do yet. Since the rest of the group is just my wife and daughter, I'm unsure about inviting strangers to come over which probably leads me to DMing online. I have no clue how to begin to make maps and such for that environment or if I'd even need to. I wonder if I could "theater of the mind" the whole thing.
Has anyone had positive/negative experiences with it all just being voice only? I had considered a Play By Post thing instead but I haven't had much luck with those in the past with people eventually disappearing though I do enjoy the stronger narrative that some players feel when they have the time to put their character's thoughts into written word over spoken.
If you run published adventure content, using Fantasy Grounds or Roll20 is the easy way to go for running D&D online. You can buy the module and the compendium content on there and just run the adventure, maps and all that are already done for you.
If you're running your own stuff and you prefer to just theater of the mind it, you can just use a free discord server. It's impossibly easy to find people online interesting in playing games. Check /r/LFG on reddit if you're not going to use a VTT that has its own recruitment tools.
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited September 2019
I love maps. I love gathering them for me and my friend who GMs. Being able to just plop one down in Roll20 and adjust the grid spacing is great. I love getting portraits for Roll20 whether they’re abstract or perfect for what I was going for.
Like I’d say a quarter of my free time is spent looking for maps, avatars, and the like to use for later.
I like a lot of the monsters in Ravnica, adds some much needed celestial statblocks. One thing that's missing I keep having to homebrew however is high CR fey
I agree but there is a odd thing playing D&D in the magic worlds as my brother and I are playing a game where his wizard is in Zendikar but facing the Eldrazi there is a real power problem
But this is generally where I have had fun in D&D since the last time of the now sad time of Dark Sun
I've been giving sorcerers 10 free spells for their Bloodline for ages, I never thought to also make them castable for cheap and automatically subtle spelled but that's UA for ya
I love maps. I love gathering them for me and my friend who GMs. Being able to just plop one down in Roll20 and adjust the grid spacing is great. I love getting portraits for Roll20 whether they’re abstract or perfect for what I was going for.
Like I’d say a quarter of my free time is spent looking for maps, avatars, and the like to use for later.
A good, inspirational RPG map is a glorious thing.
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
I love maps. I love gathering them for me and my friend who GMs. Being able to just plop one down in Roll20 and adjust the grid spacing is great. I love getting portraits for Roll20 whether they’re abstract or perfect for what I was going for.
Like I’d say a quarter of my free time is spent looking for maps, avatars, and the like to use for later.
A good, inspirational RPG map is a glorious thing.
Entire adventures and setpieces have been made because I was like “Oh this map and especially these maps in sequence give me really good ideas of where to go with this.”
Edit: this has actually been a double edged sword for me writing my adventures and publishing them on the blog though because I get caught up in the maps sometimes and I don’t want to just plagiarize so I don’t include them but instead describe the feel of what I was going for and hope anyone else who uses it is able to do it without much trouble.
An entire adventure was a dungeon crawl through fourish really cool maps I found that I realized it was unwritable so I gave up trying to publish it, although I could retry that since honestly without the maps the Dredd/The Raid feel translated into a TTRPG feel was good enough that I could give all the adventure through writing.
Kadoken on
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Tynnanseldom correct, never unsureRegistered Userregular
One of the aberrant sorcerous origin's 14th-level abilities is hilarious. Squeeze yourself through gaps one inch wide! Gloop your way out of nonmagical restraints and grapples!
That'd actually be a pretty fantastic thing to use for a recurring villain to escape all the time. Just pushes himself through a tiny pipe like an octopus, or melts into a sewer grate, unable to be followed.
Yeah, if you're 14, then when will you ever find yourself captured by someone who doesn't have magical restraints. It's not like the local goblin chief is going to do much to someone with 6th level spellslots
Yeah, if you're 14, then when will you ever find yourself captured by someone who doesn't have magical restraints. It's not like the local goblin chief is going to do much to someone with 6th level spellslots
It does let you carry your gear with you through that 1 inch pipe, so that's nice for getting in or out of difficult locations.
But I think the "Oh, you can also escape non-magical restraints" bit is a just a touch of flavor to the "Move through tiny crevices, and also get out of grapples for free because you're a slippery horrible mucus monster" part.
The other options on that feature... flying, water breathing, knowing about any hidden or invisible being within 60 feet? Those all seem like they'd be really nice at any level.
Nominally it's my ToA game, but this weekend my friend/player/other DM of the group with the hard-on for Yuan-ti is taking the big chair and we're doing the Fane of the Night Serpent!
I'm playing a local Chultan Druid (who previously was the local NPC guide hired by the Red Wizards to lead them to Omu, who clearly learned that the Thayans are creepy fucks).
My druid is Dinosaur themed and I'm totally stoked to play him for this weekends gaming bender!
Edit: And next Friday is the resumption of my Dungeon Dads (nee Murder Hubbies... too many of the kids listen in before bedtime ) sessions!
Yeah, if you're 14, then when will you ever find yourself captured by someone who doesn't have magical restraints. It's not like the local goblin chief is going to do much to someone with 6th level spellslots
It does let you carry your gear with you through that 1 inch pipe, so that's nice for getting in or out of difficult locations.
But I think the "Oh, you can also escape non-magical restraints" bit is a just a touch of flavor to the "Move through tiny crevices, and also get out of grapples for free because you're a slippery horrible mucus monster" part.
The other options on that feature... flying, water breathing, knowing about any hidden or invisible being within 60 feet? Those all seem like they'd be really nice at any level.
The "your eyes become tentacles" bit is delightfully horrifying to imagine.
The features all seem pretty benign at the levels they're received. The flavor on these two subclasses is just pure insanity and im here for it.
So I apparently need to watch the recent D&D Beyond video on Asmodeus because supposedly it states that all gods in 5E are former mortals, including Asmodeus, which is BIZARRE if true.
Outside of the second adventure in Tales from the Yawning Portal, anyone have good resources for running events in Dwarven Forges? My folks are about to head into one that's been taken over by a mindflayers, and I could use some ideas.
Outside of the second adventure in Tales from the Yawning Portal, anyone have good resources for running events in Dwarven Forges? My folks are about to head into one that's been taken over by a mindflayers, and I could use some ideas.
Have you seen the second Hobbit movie? Cause there's some bits in there regarding restarting the forges to set a trap for an implacable and unstoppable foe that seem like they could play out well on a tabletop.
I don't think I'd recommend the movie for the plot, but steal the bits you need.
Don't have any actual resources to suggest though.
Not for nothing... but Smaug is the greatest dragon to ever appear on the big screen.
His conversation with Bilbo and his torching of Laketown sustain my nerdy dragon-loving heart.
I'm trying to think of what other dragons have been on screen.
I suppose a handful from Harry Potter, Eragon... But the Potter dragons didn't speak and seemed to be just magical animals, and I never actually watched enough Eragon to know if it was sapient or not.
I think Dragonheart's Draco is pretty far up the list of greatest movie dragons. May not stand up SFX wise (it's got 20+ years on that CGI, and it shows), but having Sean Connery as a voice doesn't hurt his ranking at all.
Uh the best on-screen dragon is Falcor why is this even a discussion
We only have Falcor's word for it that Falcor is actually a dragon.
Falcor doesn't have wings, or breath fire, or have a name suspiciously derivative of either "dragon" or "fire", so, how can we really be sure?
One of the aberrant sorcerous origin's 14th-level abilities is hilarious. Squeeze yourself through gaps one inch wide! Gloop your way out of nonmagical restraints and grapples!
one of my player characters got a limited version of that, along with the ability to turn invisible, from a less extreme deck of many things - it applies to her and all the equipment she had at the time of drawing the card
however she took all her clothes off and signed a contract to give her possessions to another party member beforehand out of worry of something like the Ruin card, so egg on her face unless she wants to become a naturist (she has, more than once, engaged in a nudist robbery since then)
Uh the best on-screen dragon is Falcor why is this even a discussion
We only have Falcor's word for it that Falcor is actually a dragon.
Falcor doesn't have wings, or breath fire, or have a name suspiciously derivative of either "dragon" or "fire", so, how can we really be sure?
We can check what the book calls him. Lesse...
Seems legit. Also, since The Neverending Story book contains itself, which contains itself, which contains itself, etc, this makes it infinitely canonical. What other dragon is defined infinite times?
Uh the best on-screen dragon is Falcor why is this even a discussion
We only have Falcor's word for it that Falcor is actually a dragon.
Falcor doesn't have wings, or breath fire, or have a name suspiciously derivative of either "dragon" or "fire", so, how can we really be sure?
We can check what the book calls him. Lesse...
Seems legit. Also, since The Neverending Story book contains itself, which contains itself, which contains itself, etc, this makes it infinitely canonical. What other dragon is defined infinite times?
A "luckdragon" is no more a true dragon than a "snapdragon" is.
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I try to be nice.
The most annoying thing as a player or GM is, "Oh it's my turn, let me look in the book instead of planning this beforehand when I had all that time."
This is a big point of contention between my GM and the problem player. The dude will insist things are the way he says it is for his paladin and question the GM's authority on things then when asked what his character actually does he can't give an answer because the GM has to do most of the work for him.
This year, I decided to try my hand at DMing. I've been running LMoP + Icespire with a group of mostly first-time players, and it's been going surprisingly well.
The Rogue in my group has expressed an interest in doing more stealth-related activities, but it seems like the rules around stealth are fairly vague, and it's largely up to DM discretion. I told him that I'd be likely to reward him with advantage or inspiration-- or at least a lowered DC-- for being creative with stealth, like sneaking across roof beams or clever usage of Minor Illusion (he's running Arcane Trickster).
But I'd like to give him some more mechanically tangible ways to use stealth at the table; something more involved than just "roll a DEX (Stealth) check." I've thought about creating a kind of turn-based minigame inspired by Hitman GO where he has to observe guard movements and slip between their routes, maybe even use construction paper cones on the minis to represent field(s) of vision.
All of this is a long-winded way of me asking if any other DMs out there have come across any fun or interesting ways to implement stealth in their games? I'd love any and all suggestions!
The most straight forward I stole from the angry gm. Treat stealth like metal gear solid does. There's the part where the guards are unawares, there's the part where they are interested, there's the part where they've found him. Most stealth in ttrpgs leaves out that second part. If he fails a check, narrate it that the guard heard something, and starts shuffling over to investigate. Then let him figure out something clever to do to deal with the guard before an alarm is raised.
For ideas about the mechanical structure, it might help to look at the downtime activities in Xanathar's; most of them essentially consist of three skill checks with the degree of success determined by how many checks the player passes.
It's relatively easy to set up an impromptu skill challenge around that structure where you know he's got an objective, you know you're gonna make him roll three skill checks (and can safely assume the first one is usually a stealth check), and you're going to give him a portion of that objective based on how many checks he beats. From there you can kinda just improv a simple narrative around the remaining checks - if he fails the first check, he's gotta do something to avoid the guards (talk out of it? deception check. climb/jump up onto something to avoid their notice? athletics or acrobatics check. use an silent image to make something illusory to divert attention or hide behind? take an auto-success, but burn a spell slot). Or if he succeeds on the check, give him something else to do en route to his objective - pick a lock, climb a wall, put on a disguise (and if he fails that check, then your third check is just the 'ditch the guards' check he avoided by succeeding the first time).
Fail two checks, the guards are alerted and you don't get what you want. Fail all three, same as two checks plus you're in a combat now. Succeed twice and you get what you're after (avoid a combat, or lure some enemies away to make the combat easier; get a piece of information; retrieve a guarded item). Beat all three checks and you get what you're after and then some (you retrieve your item and some additional thing of value along with it; you get the information you were after plus additional useful details; you avoid an entire combat instead of making one easier; or maybe three successes just lets you get in and out with your objective without being noticed in a situation where two would've gotten you your goal but also put bad guys on alert.
Edit: You'll want a game plan for how to handle Minor Illusion, though - on the one hand, you probably want to give him something for it when he uses it so it feels rewarding for him. On the other, it's a cantrip so it has no resource cost and if you give him too much it'll just become the 'win button' for these little challenges where every solution is framed around how he can use Minor Illusion to solve it. I'd probably start from a position of letting him use it to pick up advantage for one of these checks per challenge if he can describe a plausible way he's using it to assist in his shenanigans
Maybe if a player overuses Minor Illusion, especially if the bad guys are all part of a wider organisation, the party should start seeing signs everywhere informing henchmen how to spot illusions, as a prompt that they should mix up their tactics a bit
One thing that Ars Magica has in its magic system is Sigils - every mage has a unique identifying feature in their magic, like it’s always accompanied by harp music or the sound of strawberries. From the players’ perspective, it’s another cool thing to let their mage stand out; however, it also demonstrates that their magic can be traced back to them. Maybe ask the Rogue what their signature flourish is in their minor illusions, which isn’t a choice but a manifestation of some aspect of their core being. Then, savvy organisations will be able to use that as an opportunity to spot illusions if over-used. For example, if the Rogue’s illusions always feature the colour green, then they may get to areas where the colour green is outlawed, so any illusion will have to be something that’s naturally green like a frog or a tree
Pic of one of said battles. Green gems were one-hit-KO minions, but still.
For those unaware, the adventure features fights with five ancient chromatic dragons in specialized arenas followed by a battle with Tiamat.
Has anyone had positive/negative experiences with it all just being voice only? I had considered a Play By Post thing instead but I haven't had much luck with those in the past with people eventually disappearing though I do enjoy the stronger narrative that some players feel when they have the time to put their character's thoughts into written word over spoken.
The biggest issue with online is varying internet connections. I kind of like voice only, it has its own strengths for me in terms of immersion (and hiding my horrible poker face), but definitely it can drag if even one person has to resort to typing out because they don't have a good microphone or their connection is spotty.
Roll20 and discord paired together have been my combo of choice. Discord can be used on a phone and the phone has a microphone so like most people should be able to work with that setup.
We'd just finished the initial assault on the forest at the end of day 2, a few characters know of a magical shrine here that has given them necromancy problems before. Their respective parties have met up (giving us a good pool of characters to pull from). Other parties are dealing with other problems in the undead woods but tonight we focus on the alpha team and celestial rampage team.
Alpha team are a bit hodge podge, current members of the sentinels (the city state's military) and folks looking to maybe join up. The celestial rampage party is a fighter/cleric, a cleric, a divine soul sorc, a paladin, and the bard that won't stop following the paladin around (in character bit).
They've found the magical shrine they experienced trouble with before and it has been altered. Last time they encountered it, it seemed a small pyramid gripped under the roots of a tree. Now the tree is removed and the area around the shrine dug out to reveal a rather d8 like structure with more foul runic inscriptions revealed. It is also behaving much differently.
The celestial rampage characters have some trouble with their investigations and we end day 2 nearby so a new study can be taken in the better light of day. This shows some promise and the military leader sends out a patrol to ensure no attackers are inbound while the scholars inspect this shrine and figure out what it's doing and how to stop it.
The patrol is pulled from the soldiers group: a halfling thief, a gnome beastmaster (revised), a gnome swashbuckler, and a human warlock.
The first contact for the day is a group of dread warriors lead by a death lock wight.
In order to construct the map I took a grid section big enough to fit the models and a round and a half of movement and filled it with trees somewhat at random (squares with a green x are difficult terrain that provide cover). Then one of my players has a large coin with a compass rose. Whoever failed the stealth check gets to pick the direction the party is entering from and we spin the coin and figure out where that direction is and I give them a deployment zone and place monsters.
The party very nearly loses the beast master's badger, and the swashbuckling rogue takes a decent amount of damage but they, very canny in their approach, killed the wight first and saved themselves a lot of grief and mop up the encounter pretty well.
After handling themselves well in the fight the players move on and the ranger burns a number of spells into his friend the badger to get his health back up so they can keep patrolling.
We flash back to the party at the shrine for a skill challenge to determine what this strange eldritch edifice is doing. They figure out this foul shrine is amplifying the necromancy in this place. Not itself the source of the control over the undead, or what's fueling or creating them, its acting essentially as the necromancy equivalent of a wifi repeater right now. Which is very different from its former behavior.
Returning to the party out in the field patrolling, they've had time to short rest between encounters, still covering ground but not super fast, and not having encountered any opposition. Like a half hour after their last engagement and making sure that whole scene was safely behind them, they take the pace easy for an hour get some hit die in and then start hard charging again for about a half hour until they see their next contact.
We set up the whole board the way we did before, a huge monster marker on the board no scene yet laid. My players all asking what lies in front of them and I play the following sound and my players know what's up.
Finally got to drop in a T rex zombie. It vomits up other zombies. I had it vomit up greater zombies cause I knew it wasn't long for this world. 2 rounds, it got 2 rounds, but in its last round it took the warlock from full to death saves and knocked the sniper rogue out of the trees. The party finishes off all the zombies the t rex left behind a couple rounds later and blast the heck out of the normal zombies that burst forth from the dying t rex zombie.
With the ranger fully tapped on spells (all into healing except for 1 hunters mark), and the warlock luckily just stabilizing on 3 successful death saves they've decided returning to the healers may be in their best interests. The session ended off in the middle of their 3rd day of the assault on the undead wood
I have to keep pretty strict count of days here cause there's 5 groups of adventurers on a concurrent timeline, technically 7, but one of them is super far away and ahead by a few days (because it's on a mission to rewrite the setting without really realizing it), and the other is the two man campaign I accidentally just started.
This day will probably wrap up with the characters realizing they can trace the necromantic auras around this d8 like edafice and follow them back to their source, and hopefully the source of their problems, and moving over to the next hex in the region to get to the real necromancer stronghold there.
I literally had a totally separate game prepped until 5 minutes before the session when I found out one of my players was definitely missing the session which put us well outside acceptable numbers to pursue the truly world changing plot line (that plot line is rigged for two players to drop in and out as they can).
Getting a Discord server is free I belive and as long as everyone has a microphone theather of the mind is great. Its tbh how I mostly play my games. Once in a while we do draw a little scen just to make it clearer but in most cases its quite fine as DM to just wing it if your players ask if they are in range or can move to or from things.
If you run published adventure content, using Fantasy Grounds or Roll20 is the easy way to go for running D&D online. You can buy the module and the compendium content on there and just run the adventure, maps and all that are already done for you.
If you're running your own stuff and you prefer to just theater of the mind it, you can just use a free discord server. It's impossibly easy to find people online interesting in playing games. Check /r/LFG on reddit if you're not going to use a VTT that has its own recruitment tools.
Like I’d say a quarter of my free time is spent looking for maps, avatars, and the like to use for later.
Sorcerer and Warlock this time.
I really appreciate the water warlock.
I agree but there is a odd thing playing D&D in the magic worlds as my brother and I are playing a game where his wizard is in Zendikar but facing the Eldrazi there is a real power problem
But this is generally where I have had fun in D&D since the last time of the now sad time of Dark Sun
I do like it though
A good, inspirational RPG map is a glorious thing.
Entire adventures and setpieces have been made because I was like “Oh this map and especially these maps in sequence give me really good ideas of where to go with this.”
Edit: this has actually been a double edged sword for me writing my adventures and publishing them on the blog though because I get caught up in the maps sometimes and I don’t want to just plagiarize so I don’t include them but instead describe the feel of what I was going for and hope anyone else who uses it is able to do it without much trouble.
An entire adventure was a dungeon crawl through fourish really cool maps I found that I realized it was unwritable so I gave up trying to publish it, although I could retry that since honestly without the maps the Dredd/The Raid feel translated into a TTRPG feel was good enough that I could give all the adventure through writing.
One of the aberrant sorcerous origin's 14th-level abilities is hilarious. Squeeze yourself through gaps one inch wide! Gloop your way out of nonmagical restraints and grapples!
Strahd and his gaseous form escapes are a classic, for instance.
It does let you carry your gear with you through that 1 inch pipe, so that's nice for getting in or out of difficult locations.
But I think the "Oh, you can also escape non-magical restraints" bit is a just a touch of flavor to the "Move through tiny crevices, and also get out of grapples for free because you're a slippery horrible mucus monster" part.
The other options on that feature... flying, water breathing, knowing about any hidden or invisible being within 60 feet? Those all seem like they'd be really nice at any level.
Nominally it's my ToA game, but this weekend my friend/player/other DM of the group with the hard-on for Yuan-ti is taking the big chair and we're doing the Fane of the Night Serpent!
I'm playing a local Chultan Druid (who previously was the local NPC guide hired by the Red Wizards to lead them to Omu, who clearly learned that the Thayans are creepy fucks).
My druid is Dinosaur themed and I'm totally stoked to play him for this weekends gaming bender!
Edit: And next Friday is the resumption of my Dungeon Dads (nee Murder Hubbies... too many of the kids listen in before bedtime
Yay for the end of unintended summer hiatus!!!
The "your eyes become tentacles" bit is delightfully horrifying to imagine.
The features all seem pretty benign at the levels they're received. The flavor on these two subclasses is just pure insanity and im here for it.
Have you seen the second Hobbit movie? Cause there's some bits in there regarding restarting the forges to set a trap for an implacable and unstoppable foe that seem like they could play out well on a tabletop.
I don't think I'd recommend the movie for the plot, but steal the bits you need.
Don't have any actual resources to suggest though.
His conversation with Bilbo and his torching of Laketown sustain my nerdy dragon-loving heart.
I'm trying to think of what other dragons have been on screen.
I suppose a handful from Harry Potter, Eragon... But the Potter dragons didn't speak and seemed to be just magical animals, and I never actually watched enough Eragon to know if it was sapient or not.
I think Dragonheart's Draco is pretty far up the list of greatest movie dragons. May not stand up SFX wise (it's got 20+ years on that CGI, and it shows), but having Sean Connery as a voice doesn't hurt his ranking at all.
We only have Falcor's word for it that Falcor is actually a dragon.
Falcor doesn't have wings, or breath fire, or have a name suspiciously derivative of either "dragon" or "fire", so, how can we really be sure?
one of my player characters got a limited version of that, along with the ability to turn invisible, from a less extreme deck of many things - it applies to her and all the equipment she had at the time of drawing the card
however she took all her clothes off and signed a contract to give her possessions to another party member beforehand out of worry of something like the Ruin card, so egg on her face unless she wants to become a naturist (she has, more than once, engaged in a nudist robbery since then)
Seems legit. Also, since The Neverending Story book contains itself, which contains itself, which contains itself, etc, this makes it infinitely canonical. What other dragon is defined infinite times?
A "luckdragon" is no more a true dragon than a "snapdragon" is.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
There's no contest.