Dungeons and Dragons

[sage vector]

You could reflavour a tunneling enemy to have a similar effect

Just take a bulette stat block but instead of burrowing it shrinks and grows

[arctic yew]

I am thinking of how to word an ability that lets someone change size at will in one of my many

Many custom monsters

[sage vector]

Size manipulation

[modest echo]

Protean

[sage vector]

It depends on what type of monster too

is it a 4th dimensional slippage or can it do it because of biological reasons?

Does it just Scrunch itself?

[arctic yew]

The reason is.....

Well

Complicated but to make really dumb lore short

This monster is a half giant. Not giant kin,half human half giant. and because of shenanigans involving bloodlines and ancient curses,they are the closest thing in the setting to a titan,which were proto-giants that worked as gods for the giants before they were killed

So

Biological/divine magic?

[sage vector]

Curse of the Titan, Divine Blood, Scrunch

[rustic iron]

How do I help make 5e an enjoyable experience

Friends have asked me to run a game

[fair sand]

thats kind of a super subjective question tbh, I do think a good overarching principle is to focus to the table experience over sticking to strict abidence to the rules perhaps

[modest echo]

Asking them the kind of game they want to have (how much combat, what media references to draw from) will be a big help

[mellow rivet]

honestly as long as you don't come in expecting it to suck, or expecting it to be a masterpiece of improv comedy, you're going to have a good time. It's a functional game and you're playing it with friends!

just take a leaf out of the lancer rulebook, have combat with enemies that aren't all the same, have challenges that don't threaten to end the campaign in one go and have objectives other than kill everyone from time to time

[craggy cloak]

Sitreps improved my 5e DMing immensely

[rustic iron]

Yeah Lancer has given me a crash course on both how to handle downtime and also how to handle missions

[fair sand]

i think those are great tools to apply to dnd, heck the loose concept of skipping the small stuff and picking back up where interest is can be good to apply too

[arctic yew]

a thing that relaly helped in my table (might not help everyone) is the 3 rounds and out rule

usually by the end of round 3,the combat is already decided one way or another barring extrenous circumstances,so by that point is a good time for either the enemies still alive to surrender or run,or for you to suggest the same on the player's side

[craggy cloak]

Ive also found using average damage really expedited some grunt/minion turns

[proud osprey]

owo?

[trail ferry]

uwu

[arctic yew]

do you think victorian london and fantasy medieval europe can coexist in the same setting

[modest echo]

They basically coexist in pop culture, so, yeah probably

[tepid crane]

Depends what era of medieval

[proud osprey]

ye

source: i live in london. shit downright medieval

[worthy plank]

Snooty nobles dueling with longswords instead of smallswords would be nice

[proud osprey]

thinkin about d&d

early campaign plan:

• Caravan into the town of Bak Sharel. Bak Sharel arc: deal with Dwarf bandits, or don’t.
• Continue on with the Caravan to Pos Diel, or maybe Temuscil’s Rest, either way there’ll be some sort of notable conflict here.

for this second leg, i was thinking that the arc’s central villains might be the Pox Knights, a legion of demonically plagued crazed zealots who fight in the name of demonic lords, who came up from the Kingdom of Yerrowe in the south, and who are up to some sort of demon shit - suggestions welcome

they may also just be trying to gain territory

hrrrrm

time to worldbuilding

[proud osprey]

thinkin about

mechanics

[tepid crane]

Demons of ice or cold that have weapons and armour of frozen mercury. When it imbeds in the target it starts to melt and now they have mercury poisoning

[proud osprey]

hmm

maybe. bit esoteric

these dudes are like

nurglesque

body horror, spores, plagues, what have ye

[dapper cove]

Today's session; Sometimes you hunt the metaphorical bear, sometimes the metaphorical bear is you.

[tepid crane]

How does one exactly get hunted by a metaphor

[craggy cloak]

Metaphorically

[tepid crane]

So if your intelligence score is low enough your safe

[proud osprey]

my how abstract

gonna write up some notes on the snow elves tonight for my buddy playing a snow elf monk in the upcoming campaign

thinking mechanically…

• resist cold damage
• advantage on saving throws against effects related to cold
• +2 constitution +1 dexterity
• borhal (snow elf) weapons training
• +survival skill

[dapper cove]

Oh being hunted by a metaphor would be silly; they hunt the metaphorical bear.

It did however almost eat the house they were inside

They did have two general routes laid out for them which they could have taken, but then one came to the realisation she was the bear. She wasn't, but that sounded better and thus I dropped the other laid out options and tied it all together with the bear eating the house they were in.

They did miss out on some cool stuff by not going into the cellar, but I can rework that into something else if need be. For now, bear.

[proud osprey]

what the dog doin

[trail ferry]

Dog stuff

[proud osprey]

what the dwarven kennelmaster with three mastiffs doing (should he have specialised bonus actions/reactions to command his hounds in combat?)

[tepid crane]

I would say treat those three mastiffs as their own creatures

[proud osprey]

well. yes

but also special reactions or whatever to be like “fuck em up boy!”

[craggy cloak]

Something like the house captains bonus,

Battle Command.

Choose one creature within 30 feet of the drow that the drow can see. If the chosen creature can see or hear the drow, that creature can use its reaction to make one melee attack or to take the Dodge or Hide action.

[topaz lagoon]

I’d honestly say let him do that with all the dogs rather than just one

Dunno about the math on it but I think it’s cooler

[craggy cloak]

It would jump up the offensive CR for sure

[proud osprey]

there’s a lot going on in this first encounter; you see, there is an entire section of caravan worth of people

[brazen yacht]

Hm I can ask stuff like this here

Okay, I have a kinda build question?

Is it possible to play a Soulknife as a ranged sneak attack rogue?

[craggy cloak]

you can throw them 60ft!

you even get a free bonus action attack if you need it

[brazen yacht]

It's not like, Bad or anything?

[craggy cloak]

Nope!

I'd argue its part of the intended flavor and mechanics to be able to bob and weave at a safe distance while chucking blades

[brazen yacht]

Awesome

[craggy cloak]

If you have a good way to get Sneak Attack on them (either yourself with the Aim feature or using allies) go to town

[brazen yacht]

Thank you!

[pure elm]

yeah Soul Knife has very good range actually

[craggy cloak]

yeah! I've had two players as soulknives, if you get to a later level the teleportation gives you a lot of funny in-and-out-of-combat utility

[pure elm]

which is good, because ranged Rogue is way easier than actual melee IME

[craggy cloak]

but also it was great for the campaign, since they could attend meetings and balls and such """unarmed"""

[pure elm]

you can just Aim or Hide for advantage, and it's fine

[spice hornet]

technically this is spelljammer not dnd, but it counts to me.

here's some "Super Secret" merchant NPCs i drafted up for a friend's campaign- some uh. Space Myconids! Somehow one or all of these three just show up everywhere-

[proud osprey]

fucked up

i like to make my myconids even less humanoid than this

[proud osprey]

how big should the starter town of bak sharel be for my upcoming game 👀 what should it contain therein? already got two taverns down

Manor Square Public House “Manor Pub”
The Stonegate Lodge

[sage vector]

I like to give players a choice. Two or three of a couple of different standards

[spice hornet]

Some specialized stores/services perhaps? A smith, tailor, apothecary, etc.

[topaz lagoon]

It kinda depends on what the town does, right? Like does it sit at an important trade crossroads, does it provide infrastructure for a local mine, etc.

I remember there was a website to crunch numbers for how many of each profession a "standard" medieval-ish town would have for a given population, though I personally thought the numbers were a bit skewed

In general, I think any town that isn't just a loose collection of farms needs at minimum a.) an administrative building of some kind; could be a dedicated hall or a church that serves dual purposes, and b.) a nearby inn

The next step up from that (imo) is having a general store. After that I think you get kinda specialized labor like a smithy, a livery stable, a leatherworker, etc. -- broadly, the kind of labor that a farmer can't do. I think the next step up is some kind of local market/mercantile infrastructure + artisanal labor like bookbinding, money-changing, painting, etc.

This is just how I understand it, though.

(This is also leaving out a lot of labor that farmers could do themselves, but would still end up having specialized workers in town before the arrival of people like merchants/artisans. For example, I'd imagine a not-insignificant number of farmers could make their own bread, but there would still be a baker in town long before there were like, merchants, doctors, etc.)

[tepid crane]

I like to make a chain of jobs that interconnect until I run out of resources or space feasibly in the town for growth. If you have wheat farmers then there is probably a miller, and if theres a miller then there needs to be a stone mason to make the mill. If theres a stone mason then there should be a blacksmith to make the tools.

[topaz lagoon]

(Also, all of your farmers should hate the miller as a matter of course.)

[brazen yacht]

But y tho?

[sage vector]

My mill powders wheat and rice, your mill works on gristle and mice

[topaz lagoon]

Historically, farmers relied on the miller to, well, run the mill that turns their grain into more valuable flour. In exchange for operating the mill, the miller gets a cut of the flour he produces from your grain, which is already not an arrangement the farmers will really enjoy. You also couldn't actually watch this process happening because of how time-consuming it is, so you'd just leave your grain with the miller and at some point return for your flour. But during that intervening time, the miller could in theory skim off of your share of the flour and then cut the remainder with sawdust (or something) to cover up the theft. I couldn't tell you how frequently or not this really happened, but it was enough of a thing to be covered in the Canterbury Tales.

[tepid crane]

Yeah usually there is only 1 miller in a town I believe and it was illegal to have your own millstone without being a member of the guild

It got to the point in Great Britain that so many millstones were being seized some towns were noted to have their courthouse path be made of them

[brazen yacht]

Ah

[topaz lagoon]

(I actually had a Vaesen game about this; the real horror was the landlord's rezoning of the commons!)

[fair sand]

Yall think for a drop in and out one shot kind of environment, where you aren't there for every session and you're not sure who will be in your party, a drakewarden Ranger, a horizon walker Ranger, a college of swords bard, rune knight fighter, or way of mercy monk sounds most interesting

college of valor also comes to mind

[topaz lagoon]

this is a caster only household

and ranger isn't cool enough

I don't remember if Rune Knight is one of the fighter subclasses with enough complexity to be an honorary caster

[fair sand]

i just figure a ranger and bard are both good "do a bit of everything " classes

so they can happily sort of role fill or shore up any party where they're weak a lil bit

eldritch knight also comes to mind though they can't quite fold into social situations

i guess rangers cant either

[fair sand]

I do think taking either of the Ranger companion classes would ensure I have a dedicated companion at all times

The drake companion seems relatively strong too

[craggy cloak]

I'm a big fan of the way of mercy monk, and my second best vote is the rangers since they have nice generalist niches if you cant be there reliably

but im also just not a caster guy so i can be the foil to juno's opinions

[fair sand]

My concept for way of mercy monk is an itinerant doctor, providing non magical healing free of charge, often looking for room and board instead, and sometimes medicinal materials

[craggy cloak]

Will Adventure 4 Food

[fair sand]

For the range I was thinking a dragonborn drakewarden who was or is clanless

Finds solace in the drake spirit

And for the swords bard, was thinking a traveling skald collecting oral histories for pay and food

And drink

[sage vector]

Swords bard also has some fun with "ah yeah I was the company bugler, turns out I have a knack for it. Also a bugle is a lump of metal which is good to have on hand in a battle."

A french horn that doubles as a shield

[craggy cloak]

always proud of the bard i had for a one shot who had a small drum and the other side of his drumsticks were sharpened daggers

[sage vector]

Bam badda bam badda stab badda bam

I mean I'd love a contrabassoon oboe

https://images.app.goo.gl/edjEKvPjEpoVWgvV7

Great club form

[stone hollow]

DM is doing a homebrew rule where we get two actions and a bonus action

should be interesting

[brazen yacht]

That's...

Fascinating

[fair sand]

Huge boost, enemies get the same?

Or just a player steroid

To justify harder battles?

[stone hollow]

enemies get it too

[brazen yacht]

So everyone just has double the attacks?

[ashen hollow]

That's going to lead to some utterly insane novas by multiattack enemies lol

Welcome to Hydra TPK hell

[brazen yacht]

Yeah, I feel like that's just going to make whoever goes first kill the other side even more

[muted yacht]

Could be interesting with a 'no duplicate actions' rule tho

[brazen yacht]

It could, but then does casting two different spells count as a duplicate action?

[fair sand]

im curious to see how it goes certainly

i think the spellcasting thing is actually already coverd seperately in 5e

because of sorcerer

(because of the rules text indicating that you can't cast another spell in a turn except for a cantrip that takes one action. Meaning even with 2 actions, you could still only cast 1 leveled spell and 1 cantrip in your turn)

[brazen yacht]

Yeah,

[pure elm]

That's only for bonus action spells actually

You can cast multiple spells just fine as long as its not with a bonus action

[brazen yacht]

Hm technically that seems to be correct

[topaz lagoon]

curious how combat math levels out between classes now; do martials with two multiattacks finally just completely run over casters in damage comparisons?

[fair sand]

that was a thing that occured to me

martials quickly outpacing magicals

[topaz lagoon]

Also, yeesh, poor rogue (kinda)

[pure elm]

Hmm
It does somewhat move things in their favor, though not sure if it's enough

[muted yacht]

Rogues in shambles in comparison

[fair sand]

Guess it'd not be an issue if the table had no rogues

[arctic yew]

.....the stupidest possible idea for a random encounter
Two giant balls stand on a field

They do nothing,until someone speaks

If someone makes a joke about testicles while they are within earshot,they start rolling towards them

They act like the rolling sphere trap,except they hunt you down instead of rolling in a straight line

[sage vector]

https://youtube.com/shorts/J-JX3LGQk9Y?si=NcX1wWloKk5Rws6L

[stone hollow]

im trying to think of a character concept for Circle of the Moon druid but im not really coming up with anything, any ideas?

[modest echo]

Beast cursed to become humanoid, Wildshape is bending the curse out of shape

[stone hollow]

hmm

[sage vector]

Botched ressurection spell that brought a man and his large pet dog back in the same body

[dapper cove]

Wood grafting which you change the shape of to emulate the beast

Same can be done with metal, bones, or any other material of your choosing.

[trail ferry]

friends and i made a party of goblinoids

gm hates the idea but accepted it

gm allowed me to have an ogre who's my adoptive sun

how should i name him?

i'm a bugbear

[modest echo]

Ogre named Kresh

[worthy plank]

Name him golgoroth and see if the gm gets it

[trail ferry]

[worthy plank]

What are everyone’s characters out of curiosity?

[trail ferry]

uuhh

goblin artificer

hobgoblin warlock

and i'm a ranger

[worthy plank]

hobgoblin warlock is interesting

what subclasses?

[trail ferry]

idk yet

we lvl 1

[worthy plank]

lol fair

[trail ferry]

do love me boy tho

he's dumb as a rock

but he's got a heart of gold

[tepid crane]

Damn you got a ogre in your party at lvl 1

[stone hollow]

playing this!
http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/sorcerer:stone-sorcery-ua

[modest echo]

Ooooh that's a fun one

[stone hollow]

Now i just gotta think of a character design, race, and background lol

Probably gonna use Dual scimitars until i get the dual wielder feat. BECAUSE TWINNED SPELL WORKS ON MAGIC WEAPON AND ELEMENTAL WEAPON WOOOOOOOO

[sage vector]

all goblin party goooooo

Is your artificer a front line fighter?

I hope so cause otherwise tanking is hard for the team

[worthy plank]

Could be a frontline ranger

[trail ferry]

@raven pewter is this you?

[worthy plank]

Nah it needs to be a budgie

[raven pewter]

yeah actually owls are more at thijs / dokutah owlice thing

i'm all budgiepilled and crowmaxxing

[worthy plank]

what class would budgie or crow you be?

[trail ferry]

a loud one

[raven pewter]

this one: https://fxtwitter.com/SQuirrel147/status/1769593798173069481

[worthy plank]

monk

or in pathfinder a weird witch/monk

[raven pewter]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE2wCH6yles

[worthy plank]

lmao

[trail ferry]

Oh right

[topaz lagoon]

potemkin gameplay 😌

[sage vector]

I've played with the book the owl picture came from

It's basically the "adorable little animals" book

Humblewood, that's the name

Bird privaledges.

[fair sand]

i made a strig for it! never got to play it tho

[sage vector]

I played a session or two, I had a hedge bard

[proud osprey]

crow what now

[sage vector]

What's interesting is the corvum actually get an intelligence bonus

by the normal rules from the book, which aren't really used any more but that's the base bonus they get

[worthy plank]

Ye

I'm a bit sad there isn't a version of humblewood for pathfinder since I don't rly play D&D anymore

[sage vector]

Fair

I miss my pathfinder game I had I got so sad when it stopped

I was such a horrible little man

[worthy plank]

lmao

[sage vector]

I desire to play so much but it's hard because time zones

[fossil zodiac]

dnd x lego https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/dungeons-dragons-red-dragon-s-tale-21348?CMP=AFC-AffiliateUS-0wLgH49VWzI-2949699-115554-2

[modest echo]

just remembered that Flaming Sphere and Fireball are different spells

[sage vector]

Flaming Sphere is the arson spell because it WILL light shit on fire while it hovers around the room

meanwhile fireball just kinda blows up

[arctic yew]

....someone with knowledge of french can help me come up with a name for a time control ability for a french don-quixote-esque character?

[modest echo]

What's the scope of the control

[arctic yew]

speeding himself up/slowing things down

dragging himself from another timelines to act here

teleporting by jumping in time to when he would be in the place he wants to jump to

[modest echo]

hmmmm
Chronolier (chrono+chevalier/knight)

maybe that's weak

[cedar rose]

https://tenor.com/view/spongebob-no-money-empty-wallet-gif-10670836

[sand hornet]

Anyone know any good homebrew or whatnot that's similar to the Thaumaturge from PF2e, either mechanically or vibewise?

[next canopy]

hi iwanted to know if any one had rp tips for a former adventure getting out of retirement ?

[tepid crane]

https://tenor.com/view/tookanarrowtotheknee-video-game-gif-5381722

[next canopy]

lel

i meant how should i play it, gruff veteran or doting grandpa

[next canopy]

cause he is a dotting grandpa with his familly but he's also a dwarf

[sage vector]

Bringing up previously experiences stuff works well for veterans. "Oh yeah, saw a mimic eat our thief whole once. That's why I hit chests with an axe first."

Give little quirks and habits that they've developed from their own adventures

Ask the cleric to bless any water/meals before eating because "once a vampire slips you their blood in your food once you don't forget it"

Be willing to compare the other players to people you used to work with. Sometimes you're proud, the fighter swings harder than even your old barbarian party member, sometimes you're a bit mean, like how your old bard wouldn't have just gotten a cheaper deal he would have gotten them paid to be there. Just make sure to mix it up. Don't want to show favouritism.

If you've always been an adventurer in this area talk to your dm about knowing some of the long lived people. Other dwarves and other elves. It might happen rarely, might even backfire, but it's something you can talk to the dm about.

[tepid crane]

Come up with a good reason for why you are still adventuring. Most adventurers usually retire with heaps of gold and jewels but if you are an old dwarf (270-330 yrs) something must of gone terribly wrong to still be adventuring. Or maybe you just want to get away from the wife. (I think boomer jokes could be kind of absurdly funny coming from a ancient dwarf)

[next canopy]

here's what I had in mind do far:
Back in teh day he became an adventurer to find a fairy that stole a familly heirloom (hence why fairies are his favored ennemy) After all that he got married, had kid and wrote recipe books for adventure and survival guide. For a while he was really happy to take care of his familly and that was the main reason he was cooking all the time to take care of his wife and daughters. But life his life and his daughter wen on to have a life of their own. Still he had his wife to cook for.

But when she died, he became depressed and lost the will do anything and above all cook. So for a while he subsisted on good berries. For some reason (to be determined) he manage to get a drake spirit and become a drake warden. thinking the critter to be somewhat lmost he want to find the drake family and reunite them. But now he has someone to cook for

[true olive]

Okay I can’t stand this aspect of 3.5

There’s like 12 spells where its a core rule book spell and it also effects ghost

And every setting that focuses on a specific monster type is like this

[tepid crane]

Do you guys remove goodberry from the spell list?

[craggy cloak]

Nah, why?

I don't really homebrew anything besides recalculating some CR though, so I know I'm an odd man out.

[modest echo]

Not a fan of free rations?

[tepid crane]

Yeah

Lot of spells just nullify the exploration/travel elements

[craggy cloak]

I'm personally fine with that, but I tend to find those elements unfun in any ttrpg.

[modest echo]

Ye
It's player permission to not care about it, basically. I see the logic of removing that option if you've talked to your players about it

[tepid crane]

Yeah like I started watching the delicious in dungeon anime and you can’t really get the camp moments of cooking and setting up tents if you can just cast goodberry and leoman’s tiny hut

[craggy cloak]

I find that those are mostly rp-led moments for my party, but I'm not sure 5e can handle that Meshi moment mechanically even without those spells.

[tepid crane]

I mean between survival checks and buying food

[craggy cloak]

Sure! I can ask for a roll and make them spend money on rations, i guess, or i can cut a roll out and just let them have the scene. That's just for my tables, though.

[brazen yacht]

I mean, how is making a roll really that much different than spending a spell slot?

[tepid crane]

You still have to have stuff on hand to cook with

[craggy cloak]

i forget people run it like that sometimes

Im fairly sure a lot of that just comes in the starting gear packs though

[tepid crane]

Well you run out of those rations pretty fast

[craggy cloak]

I wouldn't know ive never used them haha

but i meant cookware

[brazen yacht]

Sure, I guess, but, like, if your players aren't doing the campfire rp scenes, removing goodberry isn't going to fix that?

Yeah, cookware is included in the packs

Like, that's not a mechanical thing that's a talk with the players thing

[craggy cloak]

I do think you can still have a meaningful mechanical forage-and-cook thing going on

I just don't think its the base game's survival roll / Ranger class stuff

[tepid crane]

Right my players don’t use goodberry however it’s still an option as I haven’t banned it yet

So if they did suffer from not having it that may make them want to use it if it was available to their characters

[craggy cloak]

I ran some level of survival mechanics when we did Rime, but largely I focused on the Cold rather than food elements

and we found that there was some satisfaction in the loop of "return to town, repair cold weather gear, prep spells for said weather, repeat eventually"

and it was nice to eventually get to spells like Tiny Hut that eased some of this burden

[brazen yacht]

Especially on that last one

Like, it feels good to have a spell that solves a problem

Especially a problem as important and consistent as "a safe place to sleep"

[tepid crane]

It feels less genuine to me

[brazen yacht]

Is Fireball less genuine than using a sword?

[tepid crane]

Moderately but it’s also not as renewable

A spell you use every night before recharging your slots isn’t really wasting a slot

[craggy cloak]

Whats the end goal feeling you want for yourself and your players?

Whats the emulation you're seeking?

[modest echo]

that gets me thinking a different system might be more comfortable

[brazen yacht]

*A spell slot you can't use for an entire day because if you don't have it ready it might cause problems

[craggy cloak]

If its a spell-slot thing, you can push for more exhausting and resource-intensive days; if its a feel, you might be better solving this with a talk rather than mechanical changes to see if they're receptive to your ideal playstyle.

[tepid crane]

Going on adventures and exploring

[modest echo]

or at least, a much more extensive set of house rules than banning specific spells

[muted yacht]

I wanna note that there's a particular sort of catharsis in finally picking up a spell to deal with an issue you've been dealing with persistently

[craggy cloak]

I guess I would ask what part of adventure and exploration is fixed with the removal of certain spells, so to speak

[tepid crane]

It feels like there would be more reward to finding a good place to sleep at night or managing to fish some local wildlife from whatever fantastical setting you find yourself in

[modest echo]

So you want them to invest in the setting/natural world?

[tepid crane]

Yeah that’s the exploration aspect I’m looking for

[craggy cloak]

Do they have reason to do so currently? Are there things worth looking for, dangers to watch for, little moments of prose and beauty to get, etc?

[tepid crane]

Well they are kind of following a treasure map and collecting pots of magical ink to restore the original cartography

So they should be trekking through the woods a fair bit

[craggy cloak]

True! But whats in the woods to entice the players to look, to forage, to keep an eye out?

Whats the carrot

[topaz lagoon]

One of the things I did when trying to revamp wilderness/overland travel was make sure that every day the PCs experience something. That doesn't have to be anything that's like fully fleshed-out or time-consuming like a random enemy encounter; a lot of entries were just stuff like "carving in a tree, roll 1d6; 1 - 2 bearded face, 3 - 4 goblin graffiti, 5 - 6 heart with initials" or just "coyotes howling." Some of those were more concrete things to experience, like shallow graves that might have loot (or just bones) or long-ruined wagons by the roadside, but there was always Something

It doesn't have to take up more than like, maybe half a sentence in describing how the day goes by

[craggy cloak]

Sometimes a bridge being out is something to spend resources on!

[sage vector]

Sometimes all you need to do is say "You see a Raccoon with the FATTEST ass"

Be prepared to have the players spend three days trying to tame it though

[trail ferry]

i made a bugbear who has an ogre as an adoptive son

i said it as a joke

and then the gm allowed it

"well shit im a dad now"

[craggy cloak]

congrats!

[topaz lagoon]

Slight addendum; "loot" here also very expressly was not just gold, but instead it was what you might call "gold equivalents." Little trinkets like "a large fossilized shark tooth", "a pewter drinking horn with stag designs", or "a gold locket with a courtesan's portrait" -- items which were ultimately a slightly more abstracted but also interesting form of money

The theory is that it's a tangible reward which provides character to the world without soaking up a lot of time or player focus

though if they want to spend ten minutes fiddling with the little frog sculpture carved out of serpentine, more power to them

That's still a success condition, because you've interested them in some capacity

[sage vector]

I'm gonna be honest if I found a fossilized shark tooth I'd just flat out keep it

I'd make it into a necklace or use it for crafting material for my new awesome staff

[topaz lagoon]

that's also a win

like the possibility that a player might just keep a neat trinket or somehow repurpose that bolt of canvas into some MacGuyver nonsense in the dungeon crawl? Also good

foolproof strategy except that it might take a second to come up with the right kind of loot if you're like me

[sage vector]

Show them the fat ass raccoon and they shall be pleased

[tepid crane]

Yeah no my players would probably not choose to waste their food on a random animal (in fact they would probably take it as an opportunity to get more food)

[craggy cloak]

I think it would be useful to you to come up with some lists of things in the exploration phase that your players would like to interact with

[timber sleet]

#general message any advice on balancing this encounter?

and the wording on some of the abilities

(in fact, i actually just noticed something about the change shape ability that i worded wrong, so ill fix that now)

[quartz vale]

it being 5e, it’s anyone’s guess unfortunately - encounter balance is heavily dependent on party comp etc.

two decent fighters could obliterate that before the end of the first turn, for example

[timber sleet]

ah, thats unfortunate

the nice part is that the final fight will be in the middle of a big battle so i can add allies and enemies to the fight to balance it on the spot pretty easily

also, unrelated to balance, what do you guys think of the monster in general? its my first ever serious attempt at a homebrew monster

[modest echo]

I think there's a lot of cool flavor to it
I'm slightly concerned about a 1d4 duration as a multiattack, just feels like a lot of rolling, but maybe that's normal for high level play

Wait can it cast Quickened Time Stop

[timber sleet]

it doesnt have quickened

it originally did and then i realized "oh wait thats stupid, now it can cast and attack in the same turn, im not doing that"

[modest echo]

Cool cool
Good catch

As-is, the high level spells and the attack loop are going to be competing for actions. Which isn't a problem as long as you have notes for what's being prioritized

[timber sleet]

yeah, its gonna blow a lot of high-level slots early because of the timestop delayed blast fireball combo

probably my biggest concern is that its gonna be frustrating to fight because of all of the manipulation spells i gave it

dominate person, mass suggestion, confusion

[modest echo]

That's a possibility, yeah
Might be worth talking to the table about?

[dapper fulcrum]

dee en dee

[modest echo]

huge if true

[nimble quartz]

So I might be playing in an additional D&D campaign to the one I’m already waiting on lol. Planning on playing an Aasimar paladin/warlock multiclass, potentially with 3 levels of sorcerer thrown in for access to Metamagic. I’m not sure what the best level progression would be, though.

Specifically, I’ll be playing the MotM lineage version of Aasimar with Radiant Consumption, as a good-aligned (GM-approved, I have character arc stuff planned) oathbreaker paladin/hexblade warlock, potentially with 3 levels of shadow sorcerer. I know I want to start with paladin and immediately take one level in warlock before going back to paladin for some levels. I also think I want 5 levels of warlock eventually for the additional invocations, with the rest in paladin, minus the 3 I might put in sorcerer.

I did work out a leveling order that I was satisfied with at first, until I realized I’d get my ASIs/feats at 5, 8, 15, and 20 (assuming I take sorc levels), which has me worried about falling behind the rest of the party stats-wise. It is as follows: Pally 1/Warlock 1/Pally 3/Warlock 3/Sorc 3/Pally 4/Warlock 1/Pally 4. Of course, there’s no guarantee the campaign goes to 20 anyway… I just like having a plan lol.

[quartz seal]

Hmm, bit of a niche question but does anyone happen to know of or have on hand a nicer looking character sheet than the standard WOTC one? There’s nothing wrong with it per se, just looking for something more aesthetically pleasing or with better spacing and layout to use with a tablet

[ashen hollow]

My average d20 roll for the first 9 rolls of the session today was 4.5

[timber sleet]

that kinda reminds me of a funny thing, im currently a player in a 4e campaign and i have rolled a total of 2 numbers over a 9 in the past 2 sessions, across at least like 25 rolls

[ashen hollow]

Ok you win my god

[sage vector]

Throw those dice into the dice jail

set them in jello

[tepid crane]

nah positive reinforcement you got to bond with your dice

[sage vector]

Emulsify them in cheese

[trail ferry]

Cheese

[worthy plank]

Queso

[tepid crane]

I don't know how to feel about my DM's current campaign. The whole session was just arguing and then we fought a boss level monster that dipped after 1 turn because a NPC scared it off (I suspect the DM didn't realise how strong the monster was until it dropped 75% of the party to 1-4 hp with one attack.)

No one else seems to have a problem with it though for some reason

[sage vector]

Arguing?

[timber sleet]

ive come to realize that a level 20 party is going to fucking curbstomp my bbeg, and this is supposed to be a hard or even deadly encounter, so im buffing it up by a bunch

[timber sleet]

it has been buffed

[tepid crane]

I don't know any other word for it besides saying "Nah I'd win" and ooc discussion over everything with no attempt to agree

[sage vector]

Have you spoken to them about it?

[tepid crane]

yeah they just either don't have an issue or say "If you're not enjoying it you can just leave"

it sucks because we are all pretty good friends outside of the game

[dapper cove]

Silly idea; hydra who masquerades their extra heads as puppets, and tries to make people think they're just a dragon who's very good at puppetry.

[fair sand]

raised to be a bit ashamed of being a hydra or just has a passion for the hobby

[craggy cloak]

A professional never breaks kayfabe

[dapper cove]

They heard about how hydras are supposed to be masters of disguise, due to false hydras, and saw their chance to shine.

[topaz lagoon]

Honestly, I’m now struck by the opinion that just normal hydras are underrated monsters. Yknow what’s scarier than one snake? A bunch of snakes. With legs.

And do you know what happens if you try to fight it? Even more snakes.

[craggy cloak]

lots of heads probably means a bigger calorie intake for all those brains!

Very Hungry Snakes is a pretty compelling enemy

[topaz lagoon]

It’s like a serpent clown car

[craggy cloak]

Mission: Serpent Clown Car
Sitrep: Survive

[topaz lagoon]

peak dungeon design tbh

[craggy cloak]

https://tenor.com/view/indiana-gif-26590674

[tepid crane]

I think hydras are cooler than dragons tbh. They feel less “woah rare magical beast it’s so majestic” and more like a crocodile-squid monstrosity

[craggy cloak]

hydras can be made pretty weird too, since the default is fairly vanilla

[fair sand]

how dangerous/scary are hydras mechanically?

and if they arent, whatd you do to make em a bit more frightening?

[arctic yew]

i am horrible with numbers when making creatures

boss monster

[stone hollow]

Has anyone here ever run an adventure module (that they'd recommend)

[dapper fulcrum]

official DnD products or community-created content?

I can recommend a few Adventurers League 5e modules that work really well as 4 hour oneshots

a good number of them i would even put above official adventure content

[sand hornet]

Odyssey of the Dragonlords

My favorite module of perhaps any game ever

[craggy cloak]

Whats the level of the party / how well item'd are they?

[arctic yew]

7

i am honestly afraid to level then up more because they started the game at level 3 and dogwalked a cr 8 encounter that was supposed to be sneaking through

[craggy cloak]

so far im just noticing that maria's defensive CR is about 24 but her offensive CR is 8, so it'll likely be a long drawn-out fight due to her high AC/saves

[arctic yew]

defensive cr?

[craggy cloak]

oh, so CR can be split into 2 sections, offensive and defensive, as per the DMG

5etools has a CR Calculator you can use to figure that out!

Usually a problem that results in CR feeling off is that a monster is too lopsided one way or the other

barring spellcasting stuff it looks like Maria, on a boring average turn, can put out about 60 damage per round, but can take a beating herself.

[tepid crane]

Hoard of the Dragon Queen was my first ever experience playing dnd and it was pretty easy to run.

[arctic yew]

i see

[tepid crane]

It’s pretty easy to run

[craggy cloak]

Hoard of the Dragon Queen has a lot of problems, but it can be run with some DM Elbow Grease

partially because it was polished off before the 5e rules were fully realized, and thus Hoard has some very baffling CR choices as well as odd linear nature with little agency

honestly the only ttrpg patreon im in is entirely for his work on CR Reloaded since it works so well; he put out the free stuff here https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-N4m46K77hpMVnh7upYa

[arctic yew]

...i wonder how crunchy crits works on this calculation

[tepid crane]

I wasn’t aware of that I thought it was pretty well received?

[topaz lagoon]

I like parts of Ghosts of Saltmarsh though I only ran like the very first bit

[craggy cloak]

As far as all of my big circles, Hoard is the lowest rated module for 5e

[modest echo]

I've heard its combat balance is questionable

[dapper fulcrum]

Throwing an Adult Blue dragon at level 1 parties

Several difficult encounters back to back at level 1

Throwing 4 Assassins at a level 3-4 party in the first iteration of the mod (changed to 4 veterans when it was rereleased, but still)

[topaz lagoon]

... Four veterans is still way overboard for a level 3 party? interesting change lol

[craggy cloak]

At least the adult dragon is a setpiece moment BUT it gives no guidance on that

[tepid crane]

How should this of been written then to give more guidance?

[dapper fulcrum]

Not in paragraph format for sure

Should be formatted in the same way one formats a puzzle

Puzzle or trap

[craggy cloak]

More explicit about not TPKing the party imo

Theres more I could add but ill sum it up by saying "its incredible how a lot of 4e modules managed to be fairly DM Friendly and the first 5e Module drops the ball on dm prep help, organization, and guidance on any module stuff"

[dapper fulcrum]

Descent into Avernus is pretty bad at this too

[stone hollow]

For once I can't think of campaign ideas when I actually want to do a campaign

[tepid crane]

I'm thinking of introducing a turn timer to my group's game to make combat run a bit smoother. How much time should each person have?

[topaz lagoon]

6 seconds

[fair sand]

my advice with a turn timer is to speak with the whole group, mutually select a target turn time

then work back from that

so say you want a 30 second or less turn, start at like.. a 1:30 or 1:00 minute. Each new session, shave 10 seconds off that timer until someone fails to meet the current target. Talk about why they couldn't meet that, then use that same target the next session

Then go back to shaving about 10 seconds per session until you hit your target turn time

pausing each time your players cant hit the current target

to examine and plan on how to reduce that timing

also, make sure you are also held to the same standard and that the consequence for not meeting a timer is spelled out clearly before hand

you can be more aggressive with targets and directions, but im a fan of the graduating introduction

rather than simply dropping it into the game state

[craggy cloak]

Something that helped my main group was that at the top of each round they just get 1-2 minutes to fully discuss plans, with the intention of helping preplan turns

[fair sand]

^ this is also a great tool

top of the round plan making can cut down on mid turn planj making

[arctic yew]

Me,who never went to any social gathering,trying to write a rave Party for a DND game

[craggy cloak]

Folks like good music, a chance to (sometimes anonymously) socialize, and let loose

For d&d you can really go wild with magical additions

[arctic yew]

Tl dr

They are going to a mafia hideout

They would come to what is effectively a meeting to read the wills of several members that died on a countrywide tragedy,before it turns into a rave party out of nowhere

Because partying is kind of their deal

[tepid crane]

What’s the tech level of your setting?

[arctic yew]

Fucked

I mean,it's medieval fantasy but they also got robots, flying ships and giant Mecha (don't tell then tho)

[lament geode]

one of my favorite things to do at any party scene

is have an antagonist of some form show up

but they're JUST there for the party, not the players

Like "Yeah, across the bar you see that motherfucker from X sessions ago"

[sage vector]

Woo rave

if I'm thinking Rave I'm thinking a chance to make bad life choices and listen to music so loud it drowns out the little voice in your head trying to tell you about bad life choices.

recreational charms

[dapper cove]

Reminds me of the RPG En Garde, where there are clubs that are rivals with one another. There's one bar there which you must be a member of one of the two cavalry clubs to join, both of which are rivals with one another.

[tepid crane]

does anyone even use copper and silver coins? It seems like they never show up?

[lament geode]

Last time I played D&D they were almost wholly narrative

you had as many coppers and silvers as were narratively interesting

[tepid crane]

could you give me an example of how that worked in play?

[lament geode]

So like

we hated inventory management

nobody wanted to keep track of currency

So it's like "Okay how much does this cost?" "3 silver" "Aight cool, you have it now"

and we just kinda understood you weren't going to break the bank on it assuming you had infinite money

But sometimes

A failure on a roll would somehow involve them not having enough money

Or if they spent a LOT recently I'd be like "yeah man you're out of everything but gold, you'll have to pony up"

and sometimes they would invoke it, too

Like they tried to pay their tab after scoping out a bar that was going to be used for a cult's meeting in the future

but also prepped for a lot of stuff

so then I was like "Alright, yeah, you can pay your tab and leave" and one of them goes "I go to pay my tab, but... wait, we bought a lot today, huh?"

then they had to navigate not wanting to pay way more money than necessary and it became a Whole Thing(tm) but in a fun way

Otherwise they were mostly narratively like

"I toss the guy a few silvers for his time"

"I use coppers to make an impromptu map on the floor to explain my plan"

But that requires a certain level of trust between players/DMs that not everyone has

[tepid crane]

yeah I dont have much trust in my current DM or fellow players but even if I did I dont think I could enjoy a game like that

glad to hear it sounds like you all had a long fun campaign

[lament geode]

Yeah, I don't do D&D proper much anymore

By the time I'm done putting together how I'd like to do it, it's basically a different game. I still like it and want to run it again soon

But stuff like inventory and ammunition, spell components, etc, all feel way too simulationy for my tastes, we typically abstract those out and make them mostly narrative outside of large quantities

and/or important interactions

[tepid crane]

I understand the style yeah I just like my narratives to be emergant from the simulation if that makes sense

[lament geode]

Like yeah your spell needs a hag's toenail, some nightshade, and a harpstring? Sure, those are things you could buy

[tepid crane]

kind of like how rimworld is described as a story generator

[lament geode]

But if you need a precious gem that's gonna take some effort to get

like when I run Odyssey of the Dragonlords after I move out, nobody wanted to hear the story about how Theseus didn't have 20 Silver or a minor spell component, etc

[tepid crane]

I am that nobody I think

[lament geode]

lol

Yeah I mean, obviously there's room for it, not trying to be like "and it's bad"

but I've been spoiled by other games

and can't not let it seep in

[tepid crane]

yeah? I do now realize a lot of very modernly principled games dont even really have currency

[lament geode]

Yeah, D&D has this like, simulation-y aspect to it where it tries to have the cake of "You are in a real world with real things when you're in-character" and eat it, too

[tepid crane]

I dont really get the metaphor but yeah it is definitely a simulationist game

[lament geode]

Over the years it's gotten less and less simulationist, but it's still got those roots

One of my favorite uses of currency in a game was Battle Century G

Which had one of your pilot stats be "Wealth"

And at any point, once per session, if it was relevant and made sense, you could substitute your Wealth stat for something else

"Oh jeez none of us have a really high charm, but I have Wealth 7... I could roll that to sway them!"

etc

[tepid crane]

Yeah I recently played Wrath and Glory of the 40k line and it had a similar wealth stat I didnt jive too well with

I think its an example of a system heavily having tone built into it

[lament geode]

Hell even Fabula Ultima has Zenit as a currency but even that's like, abstracted somewhat with Inventory Points

10Z = 1 Inventory Point and you spend those to say you have an item rather than going to a store and buying them

[tepid crane]

So it follows quantum inventory?

[lament geode]

Pretty much? Only really rare items cost money

but stuff like potions and ingredients and consumables

you just pay the IP and say "I have this!"

(And if you've got the Tinkerer class, you use IP to fuel abilities)

Ryuutama is similar(Very similar systems) but you have to keep track of rations and water and animals and feed etc

Honestly, I could see a D&D game focusing on a long journey being fun to keep track of stuff like that

(But at that point I'd be running Ryuutama instead)

[tepid crane]

Yeah my current game is kind of about a journey since we are sailing around a archipelago but people only want to keep track of very specific things which confuses me

[muted yacht]

My group ran into a hoard of like 8,000 silver pieces in a dungeon
So it was a good chunk of change (at the time) but we needed to actually work out how we were transporting it around, because it was just so large and heavy
(This was 3.5, with encumbrance tracking)

We ended up setting up a cache that was closer to the 'shop' so we wouldn't need to carry it around all the time

[craggy cloak]

I dont use money rewards in 5e much. Mostly loot and favors and such.

My players do not like tracking money

[trail ferry]

Neither do i good gm

[tepid crane]

I love when problems arise from stuff like this that you have to solve. My party was trying to find a way into a dwarven hold that had its main entrance collapse and the only entrance was a side passage through the jungle.
Luckily I brought along enough ropes and pulley systems to make a path.

Also personally I love money rewards because they are a path to giving the players what they want. I can’t make the reward for a mission always be exactly what they will want in the future so money is a good way to give them the ability to buy it.

[slender nexus]

The issue I have with that in 5e specifically is the lack of magic item economy

For casters it's a good way of giving them the ability to buy what they want since there's defined prices and a presumption of availability for material components

But for martials once they have their armor there's anything available to purchase is just as dependent on DM fiat as the mission rewards would be in the first place

Definitely something you can adjust as a GM though, it just raises the threshold on the work you have to put in to make monetary rewards work

[tepid crane]

Yeah there isn’t a concrete description on the commonality of magic items in 5e. The DM’s guide has rules for finding sellers and auctions like magic items are prized art pieces but I see a lot of people use a “Magic shop” that kind of just puts everything out there for grabs

[tepid crane]

I hear a lot of people do hidden death rolls

How does that go over?

[modest echo]

https://mataramg.itch.io/the-ardent

oh hey matara does 5e homebrew i guess

[arctic yew]

magine you're in DND,fighting a killer robot on a factory (yes,i know,medieval factory its dumb)

You fuck them up bad

on their turn,they rip out their own head and toss it into the production lines

After a turn,they walk out of the production line,full health and completely recharged back into the fight

what would you do

[sage vector]

wreck the production line then do it again

[craggy cloak]

report them to OSHA

[tepid crane]

I dunno about OSHA the factory seems to be working as intended and they dont have any tripping hazards

[sage vector]

OSHA don't care about working as intended

OSHA only cares about safety

throwing shit around a factory is how you get OSHA kicking your door down

[fair sand]

oh the convo has moved on

but in my current game

ive started using it more often

silver and copper i mean

the way the gm incentivizes it is that normal people will react to gold, sometimes in positive, sometimes negative, and often disruptive

for example a player too handy with their gold demolished the local economy of a place by tipping and paying exclusively in gold

and a lot of workers just quite their jobs that day

having been paid like what they make in a year or what they make in 6 months

other times alley cats, urchins, and poor folk might not accept gold because it makes them a target

[craggy cloak]

I like that approach, I think it can help ground the setting.

[fair sand]

or because no one has change for gold in their circles

its like paying for a cookie using a hundred dollar bill

and silver/copper becomes the more... normal mode of exchange for non valuable items or interpersonal exchanges

i dunno if its like a lore or book factoid, but we usually run with like "a normal farmer in the world makes a gold a year, roughly"

as a worldshaping thing

[tepid crane]

Or under the right circumstances which I would like to see someday. Players could really invest into the local economy through supporting the businesses.

[fair sand]

admittedly the gm did it as a bit, but it was a nice like comedic grounding bit

to say like "yall actually have a lot of money"

everyone that got tipped a couple gold pieces or got paid in a small chunk of gold for small services was like "Holy shit, thats more than I make a year in this dump. I'm getting out of this shitty town. See you fuckers later, except you, you're cool"

[cedar rose]

played a DnD oneshot

how my character went before dying

RIP Fuckmaster69 🫡

[tepid crane]

What does any of those mean

[timber sleet]

decided to make another crazy high level monster just for the fun of it, making overly complicated statblocks is fun :3

[proud osprey]

might end up running d&d for my brother and some friends at some point in the foreseeable ish future

would need to be a one-shot

[sage vector]

One shot good

[timber sleet]

my first ever campaign that i dmed (and currently only lmao) was a oneshot, the players really liked it :D

[sage vector]

Also not dnd but I had the huge money problem before where someone had to ask me how much a bribe was because I handled the money and they didn't know if a hundred gold was enough for a bribe

And I had to be like... this is one of the richest restaurants around and thirty gold is a good bribe

I handled the party expenses but he was a noble so it was very fitting

[timber sleet]

im bored and wanna make another random monster statblock but dont have any ideas, someone give me inspiration

it can be anything really, some stats, a cr, a name, another monster to use as a base

[modest echo]

Alien dragon

[timber sleet]

alright, i took that idea and basically translated it to "dragon from another plane of existence"

so now, im making the "Dranarut," an inevitable that takes a draconic form and protects the inevitability of magic, paticularly dragons, because dragons are often really important for magic to exist in a lot of pieces of media

[modest echo]

Excellent

[sage vector]

I would like to offer the name "False Stump-Sucker"

[modest echo]

niiiiice

[timber sleet]

just noticed i forgot to fill in a number, new i was forgettting something

ugh

https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/4445187-dranarut ok, fixed the missing number

[solemn totem]

So I know 5e well enough but I wanna learn older systems like 3/3.5, what might be some good ways to start?

[tepid crane]

I don’t personally know any but there are some servers dedicated to older editions of dnd

Might be worth checking out

[slender nexus]

There's a Pathfinder forum, https://discord.com/channels/426286410496999425/1161695831775248426

But I think it focuses on 2e

(I think PF1e has eaten most of the 3.5e playerbase but I could be wrong)

[lament geode]

There's a part of me

Deep deep down

Maybe I'll do it for my birthday

but I want to run AD&D

[proud osprey]

would anybody like to help me design a one-shot for my brother and company in case that ever happens? as well as pre-gens

needs to be:

• a good taste of the “vibe” of d&d
• self-contained. one hour
• PHB-adjacent, so nothing too high concept character-wise would be preferable. i’d rather have elf wizards and halfling rogues than tabaxi divine soul sorcerers, you get me? just to avoid some jargon
• not level one? maybe like. level 3 or 5

[tepid crane]

Sure

[proud osprey]

:3

i’ve somewhat orphaned my setting to d&d, where aerim has become its own gradually developing very different system with very different stuff going on, so i need some sort of generic d&d-able fantasyland

[tepid crane]

Same I want to finally run the original Keep on the borderland some day

[proud osprey]

and i don’t like using prepacked campaign settings, half the fun is creating a town and a dungeon and such

[tepid crane]

What are you looking for in the oneshot besides what you stated

Dungeon crawl, hexcrawl, combat slog, roleplay

[proud osprey]

idk, a good self-contained little romp that spans some broadly generic but still fun d&disms. maybe there’s a tavern fight, maybe there’s a dungeon?

[tepid crane]

Also what do you consider the vibe of DnD?

[proud osprey]

class-based characters bonking monsters (that’s violent bonking, for you gremlins out there), broken up with travel and social encounters, sometimes with investigation/puzzle sequences

genre wise: weird fantasy, hiding under a fairly thick layer of generic high fantasy

ie for my brother who has seen LOTR and some other fantasy shit in his time, not spelljammer at session one, but maybe a monster or two weird enough to suggest at the expanse of the setting

i find it’s always useful to have a healthy amount of pregens

let’s say i try and have him round up like. four people total including himself. i’d want like 2 options per head, so i’d bring eight

and bc this is gonna be some really basic bitch vanilla d&d, a few of those will be human

definitely want to have a

• wizard
• fighter
• rogue
• cleric

[tepid crane]

I guess for pregens go with the archetypical “dwarf fighter” “elf wizard” “halfling rogue” etc

[proud osprey]

yeah seems reasonable

i normally go:

• human fighter
• elf wizard
• dwarf cleric
• halfling rogue

[tepid crane]

Did you decide on a level?

[proud osprey]

are half-orcs still a thing

[tepid crane]

Yeah

[proud osprey]

i think 3 seems fair. people’s characters don’t just piss the bed at a slight breeze but aren’t overloaded with features like some of them can be by level 5

[tepid crane]

Makes sense

How big is the dungeon going to be?

[proud osprey]

idk about The Dungeon just yet

urban setting or small rural town/village

i think the former is probably more easily self-contained, no?

[tepid crane]

Not really

Urban setting has more working parts, more npcs, etc

If its a oneshot just having a rural town will cut down on the amount of plot relevant npcs you have to make and less plotholes

[proud osprey]

sorry! the latter

small town

needs a name

name which should be pronounceable, easily enough remembered, nothing too noodly, probably east to write down also

there should be a tavern, a blacksmith, somewhere to buy bits

the town of Badgers

people know that

sounds like a name you could give to a place

@mellow rivet i see u

for what u are

[mellow rivet]

lol

[proud osprey]

okay Badgers has:

• inn + stables
• church
• blacksmith
• mill
• baker
• stonemason
• woodworker
• apothecary / midwife
• hunting lodge or shack / butcher
• shrine on the outskirts to some old gods
• cheesemaker

and then outlying farms

houses a population of about 200

[tepid crane]

The cheesemaker is vital

[proud osprey]

they don’t have a bookstore or a printer or an alchemist or anything too radical

or a magic shop

lemme get some paper and a pen

so level 3

whatre some good CR appropriate “massable” enemies

i’m thinking potentially that some baddies might come along, sack the town, and drag some people off to a lair of sorts

[tepid crane]

Bandits, orcs, cultists, goblins are a bit too squishy

[proud osprey]

all of those are a bit too squishy or just the gobs

i’m wondering if there’s any other premise i find engaging

[proud osprey]

maybe like

a haunting? shrug

[sage vector]

Travelling wizard causes ruckus in Inn when they get too drunk, accidentally unleashes lesser plane on town. Players have to find a way to seal it back up.

[proud osprey]

too high concept. cool though… yoink

[sage vector]

Hmm...

Perhaps the local graveyard has a curse on it and the town hires adventurers to put down undead that spring up every year?

And perhaps even break the curse

Zombie beating is a great past time, and you could spinkle in ghouls and banshees or whatever flavour you want

[proud osprey]

yeah undead was my other idea

ideas:

• amidst the wars in the realm, a band of orcs have made their way down from their mountain stronghold to capitalise on poor protection from the country in which badgers dwells, taking captives and loot.
• the church’s graveyard, with plentiful graves within, seems to have had every single coffin exhumed. this was discovered during the morning, and tracks lead into the woods

[tepid crane]

Sorry yeah I meant just the gobs are too squishy

[proud osprey]

yeah

[sage vector]

Squisheny gobbos

[proud osprey]

it’s true

controversial but true

[tepid crane]

Goblins are best when they are outside of stabbing distance

[timber sleet]

i almost never start campaigns below 4 tbh

4-10 is around where id run oneshots, sometimes a little higher

[proud osprey]

on account of the fact that this is a one shot, and later levels of d&d aren’t very engaging to run, 3.

[proud osprey]

or else they go pop

[tepid crane]

3 is a good start for players who know the game yeah

[timber sleet]

hm, i guess starting at a little bit higher levels is just a my group thing

personally my players love the feeling of being a bit more powerful and i love being able to go a little crazy with the enemies i use lmao

[proud osprey]

these players don’t know the game

my brother wants me to introduce him

d&d peters out at about

level 15 or so

running high level stuff is OKAY ISH but it’s not as fun as the golden era of like 5-15

3 is where everyone has unique abilities and their subclass so

inoffensive to me

barbarian - half-orc
cleric - dwarf
druid - human
fighter - human
paladin - half-elf
rogue - halfling
warlock - human
wizard - elf

maybe

no warlocks are noodly

gr

so options are:

• orc plot: players arrive in town after it was sacked? or maybe it’s sacked during their stay during the night. they then are recruited to go and rescue the townspeople for gold and fame, culminating in a battle against some orc boss type
• undead plot: players arrive in a town, starts to be hounded by the undead, the undead lead into the woods, culminates in a battle against some necromancer boss type

[sand hornet]

Kinda wanna make a KSBD Demuirge inspired character for a friend's game, but I'm unsure what class works best, WotC or homebrew/third party regardless

[dapper cove]

Today's session; the gang gets back to the city, learn how to make C4 from the local pub owner, and decide that they must blow up the university.

The accidental campaign theme of "Do not learn things, learning is bad" remains as strong as ever.

Update; "Come out ye black and tans" has been added to the playlist by the players.

Edit: I should probably note that the people the headmaster they're going after absolutely deserves this with the shit they've pulled.

[proud osprey]

radicalised gamers

[timber sleet]

https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/4447967-shadow-jelly i made another dnd homebrew monster, decided to do something simple
(also sorry if im posting too much by posting every statblock i make, ill stop if its too spammy)

[dapper cove]

The aim is to radicalise the library to join their cause.

[timber sleet]

so quick question: im currently trying to branch out from just making homebrew monsters and im making a homebrew magic item. its pretty simple: the sickening sword, a +1 longsword that on hit, forces the target to make a con save or take some poison damage and be poisoned until the end of its next turn
im running into 2 issues though: first, i cant find any official magic items that have a basic on hit effect, so i dont know how its worded in official books, and second, i dont really know how magic items tend to be balanced. this is objectively better than a +1 longsword, so its rare obviously, but im not sure what to put the con save and poison damage at to make it similarly powerful to other rare magic items

any help on this?

wait, fixed the first issue, now its just figuring out how powerful it should be

[muted yacht]

eyeball math- DC 13-15 looks to be about average, skimming some existing items
Giant Slayer is extremely comparable, dealing +2d6 damage and forcing a Str DC 15 save vs. Prone on hit, but only giants; Glimmering Moonbow is +1d6 and 1/long rest can gain resistance to weapon damage for a round

I think I'd give it 3 charges per day; spending a charge grants +2d6 poison damage and a DC 14 save vs. being poisoned for a round
something in that general range

another comparison point is the dagger of venom, but it's kinda weak

there's a pretty significant spread even within the "rare item' category tbh

[timber sleet]

alright, finished making the item, heres the description:
"You have a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon.

This weapon has 3 charges. When you hit a target with this weapon, you may spend a charge to deal an additional 2d6 poison damage and force the target to make a DC 14 Constitution save, with the target becoming poisoned until the end of your next turn on a failed save. The weapon regains all expended charges daily at dawn."

[tepid crane]

Could go with something more creative then regaining charges at dawn

[timber sleet]

its my first ever homebrew magic item, i wanted to do something simple just to get used to it

[tepid crane]

I get that but tying it into the poison aspect could be kind of cool, like if the sword needs to “drink” some poison to regain charges etc

[pure elm]

daily charges is the standard, and is good to keep it reliable

[tepid crane]

Feels like its solar paneled I never understood why all magic worked off the sun

Even in places like the underdark

[pure elm]

it's effectively just per day, but they don't directly want to say its per day

[brazen yacht]

Why?

Why don't they want to say it's per day, that is

[tepid crane]

The gnomes wait until everyone is asleep to put in new magic batteries

But yeah I get something like Pelor god of the sun giving out divine items that regain their magic after being hit by the first rays of the sun

Everything else though doesnt make sense to me

[pure elm]

1. it's tied to an objective measure because of attunement items, so you can't finagle out multiple charges by staggering rests with people or somethin
2. saying per dawn is less obviously gamist than saying it resets when you long rest, even though in practice they are usually the same

[proud osprey]

the masculine urge to generate a starter town for low level d&d play 😪

[sage vector]

Give em an ooze problem

[proud osprey]

they don’t have an ooze problem

i like the idea of the town as a bastion of civilisation out in the rural wilds

like this be the realm of bandit and beast and blade, but also where the farmers and townsfolk and peasants live

okay so we’ve got Badgers

we’ve got a list of stuff in badgers

i.e. this guy, from earlier:

• inn + stables
• church
• blacksmith
• mill
• baker
• stonemason
• woodworker
• apothecary / midwife
• hunting lodge or shack / butcher
• shrine on the outskirts to some old gods
• cheesemaker

let’s think about who lives here

is it a town with one or two predominant species? a bit of a hodgepodge melting pot frontier town? what’s our vibe

with starter towns in a PHB-adjacent setting i’m always going to trend towards a human-centric population, to ease the fantasy into the centre stage

likely halflings too

it’s a farming town, with hunting, healing services, cheesemaking, an ancient shrine, baked goods, and a blacksmith

let’s say its a majority human population, with the second foremost plurality being halflings, and then some individuals and stragglers within other races

go real classic with it and sprinkle in a dwarf man for the blacksmith

thinking the dwarves are from a mountainous kingdom somewhere nearby

the Kingdom of Dóth?

pronounce dough-th

the Dwarfhold of Dóth? too many Ds? silly?

he’s a Dóthlander, people call him that, and others from that region

[timber sleet]

so, i made a thunderbird statblock, and i decided to make it very slightly intelligent (7 int, enough to speak) and chaotic evil, and i only learned after i published the statblock to dndbeyond that the thunderbird is not an old mythology thing but is instead some folklore from the ojibwe tribe, a tribe that is still around today, and i feel bad for appropriating their culture like that, but dndbeyond doesnt allow you to delete published homebrews, so im trying to come up with a different name for it. any suggestions? im struggling because its a giant bird that has lightning powers, its kinda hard to come up with a name other than "thunderbird"

[mellow rivet]

Storm Crow

[timber sleet]

ive thought about that, but it seems a little too goofy imo

but if i cant find anything else i guess ill have to go with that

ooo, someone suggested taking the scientific name of a corvid species and mixing in some electricity-related wordplay, that could work

[proud osprey]

i’m gonna build lego minis of my townsfolk

there are 100+ of them

will i need a mini for each? no. probably not

[timber sleet]

https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/4453806-stormfeather completely forgot to post the statblock or say that i found a new name, woops lmao

[modest echo]

ooooooh

[timber sleet]

https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/4456609-puddle-of-boiling-tar made another statblock

[proud osprey]

thinking the first adventure in this setting should be something fun

gripping

rollicking good time

thinking as a possibility, there is a nearby dungeon, possibly a burned abbey, to take inspiration from my favourite game rn, housing a nothic as a mini boss

[stone hollow]

Anyone got any good firearm rules? Looking to do a wild west setting

[sand hornet]

I like Valda's

[proud osprey]

yeeeehar

[proud osprey]

wild west as in everyone’s got firearms?

[stone hollow]

Yeah

[proud osprey]

ruined abbey occupied by [undead? aberrations? fiends?]

[tepid crane]

Undead in a gothic building are a pretty good vibe

[proud osprey]

mm true

[proud osprey]

zombies and shadows, maybe a demon

an aspect of the devil

egads

evils

the abbey is divided into two sections:

• the thriving convent, a leftover vestige of the greater abbey whole
• the decaying ruins, the site of a fell ritual and terrible events, as well as years of history. now inhabited by the undead souls of the brothers, who stalk the halls mindlessly, and believed to house nefarious spirits long damned away.

the convent would be a good little social hub, with the sisters offering their services dutifully

i’m thinking lesser cleric spells, potions and alchemical and arcane components, access to literature

[modest echo]

oooooh

[proud osprey]

they’d work well as a kind of spiritual mirror to the town below, who offer food and some services, accommodations and smithing and such, but instead offering more arcane services and provisions

they also have a guest house

the players will start in the tavern

the badgers stablehouse

gimme some tavern nonsense

[tepid crane]

A lance of down on their luck hedge knights who have lost most their arms and armour in a tourney and are now drinking their pain away before returning home

[slender nexus]

Apprentice alchemist selling slightly-off potions

[topaz lagoon]

pickpockets waiting to gank your shit if they think you’re drunk enough and worth the trouble

[craggy cloak]

A single dwarf researcher trying to figure out which rock seasonings and harmful to surface dwellers and which aren't, like salt

[proud osprey]

gonna pick through some manuals tonight :) cook up an adventure and starting session for my friends next weekend

[proud osprey]

did some more work on the village of badgers

i need an inciting incident for the campaign, and a lead to follow there

thinking possibly the orcs thing

orcs come, raid some of the outer farmsteads, and it’s a WHOLE thing

[arctic yew]

alright,i need some ideas

this is a artificer workshop

theres a bunch of turrets. i need things to break LOS with the turrets. any ideas?

[slender nexus]

Alchemy bench, randomized explosions when it gets hit

Big telescope

Armor rack

Speciment tanks

Vat of mysterious liquid (OSHA compliance optional)

[arctic yew]

the telescope might not work since this is underground but the rest surely does

[slender nexus]

Big microscope

Slightly-malfunctioning housework golem

Automatic hairdresser

[topaz lagoon]

big Tesla coil

[slender nexus]

Multiple big Tesla coils, with electric arcs between them

[arctic yew]

...thats cool and i am gonna slave over this for days trying to make it work

[topaz lagoon]

simple! it refracts bullets in a random direction if you hide behind it

[arctic yew]

no i meant

find stamps that work to make it

[topaz lagoon]

Ah

[arctic yew]

inkarnate is hard to us

[arctic yew]

also,because you somehow stumbled into it

theres a bunch of those. well,not golems,straight up robots. maid and butler robots

they are all inside the ball,together with the artificer.

[slender nexus]

...are they supposed to be in there?

[arctic yew]

not really,no!

this is daniel's workshop

daniel is a da vinci-like figure in this world. unreasonably smart at everything,exploded their tech nearly 5 decades in the 10 years he was working

he got murdered.

now,heres the weird part

when he was murdered,he basically... put himself on suspended animation,on a pocket dimension of his own making. with nothing but himself,and his army of robot servants.

that ball is the pocket dimension

||ryouiki tenkai||

[timber sleet]

question: would a cursed ring that you cannot take off use the same language as cursed armor you cant take off, being the words "don" and "doff"
apparently there arent any official cursed rings (at least not on dnd beyond) so i cant find any existing magical items for reference

[modest echo]

Don and Doff are linked to the rules about how long it takes to take armor off and put it on, which doesn't quite apply to rings, buuuuuut

It would probably still work

[timber sleet]

yeah it feels a little awkward but i cant find any other way to word it that feels official and not awkward

[modest echo]

Equip/Remove would probably work

[timber sleet]

yeah thats probably better

"Curse. Once you equip this cursed ring, you automatically attune to it and can’t remove it unless you are targeted by the remove curse spell or similar magic."
sound good?

[modest echo]

Yep!

[tepid crane]

I mean hey you can still take it off but you have to sacrifice your piano career

[proud osprey]

done some absolutely solid work today on prepping the new d&d campaign for next weekend

AMA

[tepid crane]

What stores are there and what are their stocks

[proud osprey]

there is a blacksmith, apothecary, hunting shack/butcher, baker, and cheesemaker, as well as leatherworkers on the outskirts of town and a nunnery up next to the ruins of the abbey. they sell what you’d expect, with ample but non- exhaustive stocks

[proud osprey]

did you have any specifics in mind

additionally, many of these individuals will work directly for commissions from the party or others with means

[tepid crane]

Why the non-exhaustive stock?

[arctic yew]

you cut it off

it grows back on your other finger

[tepid crane]

At that point I would just put my hand under a anvil or in lava

[arctic yew]

also

i know thats VERY much not for everyone,but

i removed remove curse from my game

instead,everything that would require remove curse has a specific ritual needed to break the curse

[tepid crane]

So like remove curse?

[arctic yew]

remove curse:you cast a spell and its gone

ritualistic remove curse:you find out what is needed to free of the curse and do it,no magic required

[proud osprey]

it’s a starter town. dinky

[tepid crane]

I just figured that would make it exhaustible. Small rural towns probably dont have an unlimited supply of resources or items

[proud osprey]

hence it’s not an exhaustive list of items

[proud osprey]

better

[timber sleet]

what rarity should this be?

im thinking rare

[proud osprey]

yeah

[timber sleet]

the idea is all of these effects have benefits but also downsides
for example: the one that applies daylight to you makes you a walking torch and can deal damage to enemies, but it can also make stealth basically impossible and deal damage to allies

i think my favorite one is the ethereal weapon, it just attacks stuff at random with no regard for whether its an ally or enemy

originally the effect on a 6 would make anything that targetted you have like a 40% chance to have no effect, which would include not only attacks but also buffs and healing, then i realized that was very unbalanced and i didnt want to spend 30 minutes tweaking the % chance

https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/8415109-ring-of-many-powers alright, finished making it

this is so much more complicated than the other magic item i made lmao

[bright gale]

Hello guys! I wanted to ask for a little bit of help in regards to optimizing my character, I've gotta choose between having a 20 char or fey touched on my sorcerer/warlock, because I'm a sorcerer I'm really spell starved so the extra castings + spells knowns are really nice, on the other hand 20 char is 20 char...

Also, because of point buy if I were to choosefey touched I'd lose my current 12 wis, and I'd have a 10 wis

[pure elm]

Do you have any good Concentration spells already?

If not, picking up Bless with Fey Touched is pretty great too

[bright gale]

Yeah, I got bless, and next level I can pick up spirit guardians

[pure elm]

Oh are you Divine Soul?

[bright gale]

Yeah, Im divine soul 4 hexblade 1

campaing is ending at level 10, so im shooting for sorc 5, warlock 2, bard 3

[muted yacht]

doesn't sound like there's anything in particular you want off fey touched then
I'd grab the charisma

you're picking off a bunch of lists it sounds like

the first level of bard is going to give you like 4 more spells known, too

[pure elm]

probably prioritize the Cha then yeah

especially since EB is probably gonna be very important for you

[bright gale]

Yeah, very well thanks for the help!

Oh! Lastly, what spells do you reccomend I take? Ive got these so far

[muted yacht]

At level 2, can't go wrong with Hold Person, Detect Thoughts, Invisibility, or Web. At level 1, I like Silent Image as a utility level-1 spell; Detect Magic and Fog Cloud are decent utility to throw around on occasion

You probably want at least one area-of-effect spell.

[slender nexus]

Command is a personal favorite. Feather Fall is something that you'll only use a few times in a campaign, but it will save your butt each time you do. Mage Armor is just general value, though I'm guessing you'll be getting medium armor from Hexblade

Spiritual Weapon and Sanctuary are top-tier combat spells when you've got a good cantrip to pair with them (and EB is the best of cantrips)

Misty Step shines both in combat and without

(Ditto for Vortex Warp)

Rime's Binding Ice is another combat favorite

Levitate can let you approach so many problems laterally, and it's also super mean against creatures that don't have ranged abilities

[brazen yacht]

What are some fun like, to use 3.5 terms, templates, for a high level wizard to be accused of being?
Like, I've already got Lich and Vampire, probably some rumor of mind flayer or something

[modest echo]

hmmmm
Half-dragon maybe?

[brazen yacht]

Preferably evil, although a funny good-aligned one to angrily go "he's not a lich he's a [whatever]!"

For reference, it'll be referring to my character's teacher, who probaby won't ever actually show up

[modest echo]

or shapeshifted dragon

[brazen yacht]

These are slanderous rumors about the secretive wizard who took a princess as an apprentice

They don't even have to be like, super practical tbh

[modest echo]

secretly a Drow exile

[brazen yacht]

Ooh that's good

[muted yacht]

Hybridized with another creature (ex. glued on Beholder eyes)

Worm that Walks

Ghost
Uploaded into a golem

[brazen yacht]

Ooooh yeah

[bright gale]

Ooh thanks for that recomendation, I was a little bit skeptical because its a con save, but the debuffing seems really solid

[topaz lagoon]

A genie, perhaps?

Maybe a devil

or in league with them

[slender nexus]

As someone who used Thunderwave as a mainstay for most of a campaign, Con saves are honestly fine for low-level AoEs, lots of the stuff you'd want to AoE has mediocre saves

You have other spells for the scary single targets

And Rime's has a strong enough debuff (no save at eot is huge) that it remains relevant basically forever, unlike, say, Shatter

[bright gale]

Yeah thats fair, I also love thunderwave

[slender nexus]

Thunderwave is particularly fun if your GM is willing to let you be a bit cheesy with the knockback

I love the sound audible out to 300ft, causes so many problems

[proud osprey]

rather enjoy

[proud osprey]

agree

edges of cliffs, etc

[timber sleet]

Me when the party's cleric forgets that toll of the dead makes a highly distinct sound and attracts the entire dungeon to their exact location

[bright gale]

Hey guys, so my dm let me have an uncommon magic item on my sorc, and I cant decide between a bloodwell vial or a cloak of protection, what do you think I should take?

I already have 20 cha, so that would put my spellsave dc over the normal limit

[brazen yacht]

Hm

What's your AC/Saves look like?

[bright gale]

So, thanks to hexblade Ive got acces to medium armor + shield + the shield spell, rn my ac is 17, but with a better nonmagical armor it could reach 18

[pure elm]

Bloodwell, no contest

[bright gale]

Nice

[pure elm]

the extra DC is way stronger

and you get some extra sorc points too

[bright gale]

And my saves right now are +1 dex +5 con(and war caster) +8 cha, the rest are at a +0

[brazen yacht]

+0 Wis is kind of painful imo

[bright gale]

Yeah, but I got lucky + favored by the gods

[brazen yacht]

I forgot if the cloak helps with saves

It'd only be +1...

[bright gale]

lucky the feat not halfling luck

Yeah true, and Im in barovia, so Im getting my wis tested at every turn

I could do an 8 str and push the wis to a 12

[brazen yacht]

I'd say the bloodwell

[slender nexus]

Cloak is real good, but for Sorc I'd go Bloodwell as well

[trail ferry]

since the gm allowed me to have an adopted kid who's also an ogre

i wonder how long it takes for them to reach full size

[tepid crane]

How old are they now?

[trail ferry]

14 my character adopted them before the game ever started

[tepid crane]

They should be full sized by now

Like a full adult

[trail ferry]

really? how do ya know?

[tepid crane]

Monster manual

[trail ferry]

ooh

[tepid crane]

But talk with your dm, thats only for the forgotten realms. Obviously other settings might give them different biologies.

[trail ferry]

right right

[tepid crane]

In looking this up apparently PF1 Golarion they hit adulthood at 6

[proud osprey]

gonna try and run a city game with some workplace people, small group urban campaign. any pointers or thoughts?

[trail ferry]

Rats

A city needs rats

[lament geode]

https://tenor.com/view/fea-giant-rat-gif-25069354

[proud osprey]

true

it needs rats

[brazen yacht]

I come here with a request for help:

I need a comically long name for my Princess PC

[modest echo]

Aurelia Sophia Liselotte Lyrabelle

[brazen yacht]

Ooh that's nice

Character's name is Elizabeth, so that would be Elizabeth Aurelia Sophia Liselotte Lyrabelle?

[modest echo]

yeah that works!

[tepid crane]

Are there sewers

[proud osprey]

yes i think

BUT

no longer necessarily thinking in terms of there being a big city

[proud osprey]

i’m thinking something else

maybe guests of someone important

[proud osprey]

okay so i’m running a very classic game in a new very classic setting i’ve cooked up, set in a basic baby starter town with plenty of context and information, plot hooks, dungeons, etc

very open ended start, sandbox potential

but that’s four my gf and some of my best mates

i’m gonna try running a campaign for work people

what vibe should i bring

what’s been floated by colleagues is:

• urban game
• pirate game, or some kind of seafaring game
• megadungeon

[tepid crane]

Megadungeon

[proud osprey]

okay SO that may happen

[timber sleet]

megadungeons can be really fun but please please please add in some settlements or wandering npcs or monsters that have the potential to be non-hostile, so many megadungeons fall into the trap of just being giant fighting gauntlets and it misses so many of the cool things you can do in ttrpgs

[proud osprey]

but for the session 1 i have gone with a few things:

• this party will start at the Knight and Pilgrim tavern, in Setille, a town under the governance of the City of Mollebourg, in the Imperial Province of Mollebranque, a region in the Cadric League, or Cadric Empire
• here, some members of the Knights Mendicant will be acting rowdy and belligerent, harassing locals and bar staff, and causing a scene. they will incite violence against the players, and eventually authorities will barge in to arrest the players when!
• all of a sudden, a holy woman of noble standing, Lady Lissoria Helíon (a previous player character from a game about four years ago) will enter the tavern, having heard the commotion on a peaceful walk through town, and dismiss the guardsmen, offering the players to accompany her the final day of her journey into Mollebourg

so there we’ve got:

• starter town
• religious and political angles, tension between those angles
• promise of greater adventure in the city and room for some limited free roam in the town, unless the players choose to stay in town

if the players go to the city: infinite possibilities; if they don’t, also pretty endless

meanwhile my other group start on the westernmost edge of the empire, in the town of badgers, in a different province, with different concerns

and this is all concurrent. so at some point, circumstances permitting, a joint session would be some powerful stuff

[timber sleet]

seems like a very interesting idea, i like

although be warned, sandbox campaigns can be really difficult to do right

if you need tips, the youtuber deficient master has a really good video on sandbox campaigns

(and really good videos in general)

[proud osprey]

i’ll be fiiine, i’m me

i’ve been running open ended rpgs since i was like ten

and i’ve been running 5e basically as long as it’s been around

and i’ve been making games since i was like twelve

[timber sleet]

ah, didnt realized you were already experienced in this lmao, sorry

[proud osprey]

oh no it’s all good

im 24, forever DM for most of my groups, don’t hugely enjoy even being a player

for me the fun lives on the far side of the screen

i kinda wanna have people roll their characters

AND

to roll their characters “discovery” style

as in, roll your 4d6 drop low, in order, and piece a character together with those rolls

[timber sleet]

ive personally never been a fan of that kinda stat choosing, i prefer standard array or sometimes pointbuy, although rolling can make some more dynamic characters

[proud osprey]

i’ve always enjoyed rolling stats

just as long as nobody is too busted

once played in a game where the GM had us “steal” a roll from the next player at the end of character creation

REALLY interesting

worked weirdly well

but i wouldn’t do it

need some sort of dungeonette type content for the town of setille though

can’t be rats in the basement

thinking it’s undead or vermin of some variety though. maybe plants. POSSIBLY a monstrosity

any ideas?

maybe i’ll flick through a monster manual

i will do this

but first

business to attend to

[proud osprey]

business attended to

time to flick manual

flicking

[proud osprey]

thinking that this campaign will feature some viking style raiding country doing mischief and mayhem along the eastern coast of the cadric empire

imagining like big ettins wading out of the waters, coming up to smash up towns

[proud osprey]

talked to two of my prospective players

drow thief and wood elf druid

gonna make it so their homelands hate each other to shit

[proud osprey]

okay seems like they’re both playing wood elves :o

[trail ferry]

Wood

Beaver elves

[proud osprey]

tru

[arctic yew]

me:"hey barbarian,give me a wisdom save"

5

barbarian: "Oh no"

me: "Oh no,don't worry barb,YOU are fine."

barbarian: "OH NO"

[proud osprey]

ALWAYS good

[proud osprey]

gonna be making a map, maybe later tofsy

[proud osprey]

not later today 😔 it was too nice out

[tepid crane]

How do you guys interpret someone having a stat score of bellow like, 8

[craggy cloak]

For my games, that's below a heroic standard.

A genuine achilles heel of some kind

[tepid crane]

Well right but I was just noticing that no creature with a int bellow 6 can speak a language like common, elvish, etc

Like our barbarian temporarily has a int of 5 so would he act like a animal?

[timber sleet]

i generally homebrew that any creature with an int below 6 cant know any languages, but other than that, theres not really any quantifiable stat barriers for things, so i dont really bother with it

[craggy cloak]

You could discuss that with how the barb wants to handle it; that's usually my philosophy on handling things like that.

I like to take into account why the stat loss happened too

fundamentally tho i maintain a stance of not wanting to rob player agency but also wanting to provide story opportunities

[arctic yew]

noticeably below average

average is 9-10