dnd-discussion

[fossil hollow]

Witchlight is a good one that can be done without combat

[errant crag]

Witchlight is on our list of main contenders

So far the big contenders are
Princes of the Apocalypse
Wild Beyond the Witchlight
Phandelver and Below: the Shattered Obelisk

I don't know how dangerous PotA is

[fossil hollow]

i think that one suffers from it being too sandboxy

[errant crag]

I've heard others say the same

[paper portal]

hi chat

[paper portal]

i rly like it but thats probably cus im running it more like a combat challenge and less like a normal campaign

[fossil hollow]

If i ever run PotA, im making it a megadungeon

[steel oar]

Chat what’s the best class to play for a stereotypical new yorker guy I need help with this character

[tame kelp]

My friend just passed Persuasion check against the undead.

Guess he is a Necrotiator.

Ba Tum Tss

[craggy summit]

-# I thought this was funny

[woven flint]

My dexterity dumped fighter facing down a Glyph of disintergration (It was dispeled luckily)

[cobalt escarp]

how dexterity dumped?

[fossil hollow]

you make it a low stat

[stiff rock]

heavy armour + strength based fighter and you don't really need dex for too much

[green hollow]

Hi

[severe rampart]

-# me too... Im not cut out to be a bard

[green hollow]

Im trying to find a gothic dnd

[severe rampart]

Curse of Strahd

[green hollow]

I mean for someone to play with

[severe rampart]

#find-a-game #looking-for-players

[craggy summit]

Hey having a sense of humor is CRUCIAL for playing a bard!

[green hollow]

Thanks

[severe rampart]

Good luck! :)

[tribal night]

Fighters are so funny

3 actions, 3 attacks each action and bonus actions

[fossil hollow]

at level 11

and cant use action surge more than once in a turn

[tribal night]

Oh I meant speed potion with action surge

[fossil hollow]

Potion of Haste can be given to anyone, and it restricts that action to only one attack

[tribal night]

Ohh I thought it also allowed the triple attack

[severe rampart]

All fun and games until multiple encounters per day

[woven flint]

Because I'm not a coward

[minor cargo]

I'm so happy. My group was given a quest to prevent something from getting stolen.

...So they're Home Alone'ing the battlemap. They're setting up like marbles and broken glass and like a can of paint suspended by a string that also has a candle that can be lit to burn away the string.

chef's kiss

[fossil hollow]

Haste specifically doesn't, so no

[severe rampart]

When hallucinatory terrain finally becomes useful

[tribal night]

Makes sense, ideal for classes that doesn't have additional attacks nor actions

[minor cargo]

"Steve, can presdigitation like make an anvil?"
"Eh, sorry. Not really. It'll be 'low quality'."
"...but it can light a candle, right???"

Oh, just good stuff.

[tribal night]

I tried paladin for a bit and like... you guys find this class fun? This feels like a fighter that can give second wind to other players.

[fossil hollow]

I dont need a qood quality anvil to smash someone's brain in ACME style

[minor cargo]

I know, I know. That's where I have to be "mean" DM. It's a cantrip. I'm not gonna let that fly. :(

[fossil hollow]

If im playing paladin, im doing it for reasons other than purely using the Attack action

[limber trail]

Paladins are awesome, love playing them

Such a sick support martial

[fossil hollow]

But yes, i find it fun. Because its not a fighter.

[severe rampart]

I like battlemaster

[tribal night]

Everyone loves battlemaster

[limber trail]

The core fantasy/goal of a paladin is just different to a fighter

[tribal night]

disarming attack is the fan favorite

[fossil hollow]

Tokii, dont be a contrarian /j

[woven flint]

I'm playing a Dragonborn Battlemaster Fighter rn 😎

[empty thicket]

i need to try it

[severe rampart]

Everytime it's my battlemaster's turn the enemy's hp just gets a dent in it

[woven flint]

Literally right now too, at the moment

His name is Orizontas

[fossil hollow]

Oh right, its Monday

[limber trail]

Tokii? Playing fighter? More likely than you may think.

[severe rampart]

"Goading, Savage Attack, Cleave"

[tribal night]

Oh I can't bear running battlemaster without great weapon mastery, I neeeeed that super big damage

[severe rampart]

They just reached level 4 and took Sentinel

[craggy summit]

It's even funnier when you realize that d&d rounds are 6 seconds long. So when a level 20 fighter with haste and action surge makes their attacks, that's 12 attacks in 6 seconds 😅

[tribal night]

ACtually 10 since I forgot haste doesn't trigger additional attacks

[fossil hollow]

Samurai my beloved (they can get 12)

[empty thicket]

It seems funny, a shame that i think that work too much around the maneuvers and dont give you any good passive feature

[limber trail]

9 attacks in 6 seconds*

Haste isn’t a full four attacks

[tribal night]

I thought bonus actions were included

[empty thicket]

11 if you are an orc and land 1 critic in each wave

[craggy summit]

Oh I see 🤔

[tribal night]

Eitherway level 11+ battlemaster is one hell of a crackhead

[fossil hollow]

Action 1:

• Attack X4
• Probably Nick if youre running it

Action 2:

• Attack x4
• Maaaybe Cleave

Bonus Action:

• Dual Wielder/Great Weapon Master/Polearm Master

[empty thicket]

That ngl, its what make it so strong.
If you manage to get into the distance to attack an enemy, you obliterate it.
The problem is that, reaching

[limber trail]

That’d bring it up to 10 (which is still comically high)

[fossil hollow]

Then Samurai can trade an Advantage for another attack

[severe rampart]

Samurai?

[empty thicket]

So if you have lucky or any advantage from allies
You could attack 13 times in one turn.

[fossil hollow]

Samurai subclass from Zanathar's

[severe rampart]

Oh, that's why I've never heard of it

[fossil hollow]

Xanathar

[empty thicket]

doing around 20 damage per attack landing every one of them, do around 260 damage.

[woven flint]

Barbarian and Monk are my favorite martials personally

[empty thicket]

In One Turn.

[tribal night]

Great weapon master attacking 10 times in 6 seconds, makes me wonder how tf all those attacks are missing

[empty thicket]

Oh and if you use any weapon with light you can do 1 extra attack, so 15

[fossil hollow]

laughs in Wall of Force

[empty thicket]

they are good
One tank through HP
Another through Effects and mobility

[limber trail]

Monks aren’t really tanking

[severe rampart]

Another day, another new bard for me to create

[tribal night]

I'll need to play paladin a bit more to understand what the big deal is about it

[severe rampart]

Dodge Tank maybe, if they're in the front

[limber trail]

Paladins are awesome if you play with a more support-focused mindset

[empty thicket]

In some way they kinda do, a "soft tank" like some would say
Paladin is a Hard tank for example

[fossil hollow]

Spells + Aura of Protection

[severe rampart]

Also tanking

[fossil hollow]

i prefer sponging

[severe rampart]

Never heard of the term

[limber trail]

The mobility of monks makes them much better at skirmishing and ducking in and out of combat. More akin to a rogue. They’re not fully in the back avoiding all damage, but if you don’t have to be, you don’t want to be tanking all the hits

[fossil hollow]

call me bob, the way i keep getting soaked with damage

[fossil hollow]

Damage sponge?

[empty thicket]

Paladins are... weird.
The only thing i appreciate for balancing is they arent so good with range weapons in theory
And they "shouldnt" had too much mobility

[severe rampart]

It's morning in here, my faculties are not in full operation

[fossil hollow]

Cant smite on range =/= bad with ranged weapons

[empty thicket]

The cleric starting to make you pay 1gp per heal and he donate it to some temple

[craggy summit]

Paladin is my favorite class 🔥 put simply, paladin is a mix of fighter and cleric, with a baby version of rogue sneak attack using spell slots (divine smite)

[limber trail]

All of this not to say they can’t do it. Just that it’s not quite as strong out the gate

[empty thicket]

not for that, i mean in general

[fossil hollow]

Nothing is stopping you from making a decent ranged DEXadin

They get Archery now

[severe rampart]

So far I've only played 2014 clerics

[severe rampart]

Mmm yummy

[craggy summit]

Honestly the genie paladin subclass would actually be a good dexadin

[empty thicket]

Oh....

[severe rampart]

Rapier + Shield, and then a crossbow for ranged

[fossil hollow]

Im playing a dexadin rn, although shes a dual wielder

but she wont mind a bow... i should probably pick up a longbow

[empty thicket]

wait, paladin get 1 less ASI?

[limber trail]

No, they don’t?

[empty thicket]

Or im mixxing//getting a misconception for playing too much fighter?

[fossil hollow]

They get as much as any other non-fighter/rogue

[limber trail]

Too much fighter yeah

[empty thicket]

Damn...

[limber trail]

Fighter gets the most ASIs

[fossil hollow]

Fighter get two extra. Rogues get one extra

[empty thicket]

at lvl 11 paladin get free radiant damage
Monk get at some level force damage

[fossil hollow]

You get force damage punches at... level 5 or 6

Knome!

[empty thicket]

6, its good tho, knowing you dont use any weapon, force damage to such class is okey

[sand pike]

Ooh my but but hello hi

[limber trail]

6

[fossil hollow]

danke!

[limber trail]

Magic items can expedite that

[empty thicket]

how so?

[limber trail]

Wraps of unarmed power switch your unarmed strikes to force damage

[glass granite]

Mornin folks

[sand pike]

Good morning

[limber trail]

In 2014 it’s also not force damage, it’s just magical bludgeoning

[obtuse stratus]

Morning Nugget

[limber trail]

Good morning nugget!

[empty thicket]

Wait, monk at lvl 10 can do 4 attacks with 1d8x4 force damage...in best scenario 32force damage

[severe rampart]

Morning!

[empty thicket]

without counting critics

[glass granite]

And not counting Dex mods

And in 2024 it’s 5 attacks

[empty thicket]

Figther need to wait until lvl 20 for that, okey.

jk, its balanced ngl

[glass granite]

Monks are GOATED

[limber trail]

At level 10 you can have a dex 20 for 52 max damage.

[empty thicket]

Kinda, they are okey

[glass granite]

Got a giant buff in 2024 which is great

[empty thicket]

most martials had some buffs and most casters got a lil nerf

and some a buff

appreciated because any love to martials is welcome

[fossil hollow]

Monk got the biggest buff out of any of the martials

[glass granite]

By far yeah

[limber trail]

Monks win the 2024 most improved award

[glass granite]

More damage, better deflection, a good deal more focus points, good subclasses, more attacks, the ability to use more abilities without focus

[limber trail]

Better damage as well, now being force damage

[glass granite]

The two subclasses I want reprinted most are Kensei and Astral Self

[fossil hollow]

I would be interested to see how they deal with Astral Self seeing how Force damage is part of the base class. Actually, some things from the sub are part of the base class now

[limber trail]

Kensei did disappoint me when I played it, that’s one of the subclasses that had a couple lackluster features

[glass granite]

I feel like it’d be better in 2024 with the amount of bonus focus monks get now

[limber trail]

There’s a few features in there that just don’t make a lot of sense anymore

[glass granite]

The only thing that’s quite redundant that i can remember is the force damage, what else?

[glass granite]

True. I’d personally like them to get weapon mastery (monks don’t need it but it’d be fitting in my mind)

[limber trail]

Weapon mastery on a monk is so much fun.

[fossil hollow]

Somewhat, Deflect Energy

On Astral Self, you reduce MA die + misc bonus to reduce a damage type that isnt BPS as a Reaction

Ah, here it is

Deflect Energy. When you take acid, cold, fire, force, lightning, or thunder damage, you can use your reaction to deflect it. When you do so, the damage you take is reduced by 1d10 + your Wisdom modifier (minimum reduction of 1).

[glass granite]

Iirc Astral Self doesn’t specify it needs to be an attack roll, which deflect attack needs

[fossil hollow]

Yeap, but its definitely derived from

[limber trail]

It’s also a case of, even if it’s technically an upgrade, it’s such a sidegrade that the benefit isn’t super meaningful

It does still feel like a dead feature

[fossil hollow]

Its also... a flat d10 + Wis. On a 24 monk, thats only up to +7

With deflect attack... it can go so much higher

[limber trail]

I’ve got a +11 at level 7 rn on base deflect

[glass granite]

Tbf it’s funny to be practically immune to fireball, but i see your point

[woven flint]

Augh, I love being a fighter but also being able to give my party temp HP
Battlemaster Rally and Purple Dragon Conmadant and I'm handing it out like candy today 🔥

[glass granite]

(On top of evasion and proficiency and advantage in saves later on by expensing focus)

[woven flint]

Which is good
Because everyone else is a Caster (and we have a Rogue)

[severe rampart]

the martials, the casters, oh and the rogue

[trim agate]

just a quick question - i'm a first time DM. Campaign and planning is fine. Only got 2 players so i have NPC companions to help when needed to cover all the skills they might need if they can't think of a way around things. With these NPCs i've been making them as normal DND characters giving them sheets and feats etc is this normal/correct?

[woven flint]

Fighter, Bard, Wizard and Rogue

If we had a Cleric instead of a Bard, it'd be the OG party lol

[limber trail]

Not great practice. Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything iirc has really good rules for sidekick npcs

[severe rampart]

Not really

[paper portal]

helo

[severe rampart]

Unless you think they'll get into combat it's not really necesarry to make sheets

[severe rampart]

Hello

[paper portal]

tbh best ways to account for less players are to let them play multiple characters (whether pcs or sidekicks) or just tone down fights

dmpcs very easily take the focus away from the actual player characters

[limber trail]

Yeah I wouldn’t run them at player characters

I would also keep their story involvement minimal

[severe rampart]

Or get more players

[limber trail]

They’re side characters, the plot is not about them

[paper portal]

even as npcs tbh having only half of the party be players can make things kinda weird

[woven flint]

Our wizard just got oneshot .w.
He's still alive, but he got swallowed by a Remorhaz

[trim agate]

yeah i try to keep them out of fights or send htem off before then as i don't want to take that victory from the players. I'm playing with a Barb and a Cleric so when they wanted to "sneak" somewhere it was near impossible - which i can roll with but they asked - is there a rogue in the organisation we can have help us

[limber trail]

Yeah it does

It’s also really really hard to roleplay multiple characters as the DM

[rough basalt]

I critted my wizard for 65 damage

[paper portal]

yeah thats why we run silvery barbs

[severe rampart]

Fantastic

[limber trail]

Good

[rough basalt]

Wizard was critted and swallowed by a Remorazz or however its spelled

now hes in the stomach downed with 1 failed save from the stomach acid

[severe rampart]

PC death incoming

[trim agate]

thanks for the advice - i will reduce their involvement, except one who has strong story links.
I do struggle with combat for just 2 players because it's action economy and then i find it just goes "Barb attacks" "enemy A attacks back" "Barb attacks again" repeat. i try to add environmental factors in which has been successful at times. But when it's "You go to take down the gang" a gang of 2-3 people isn't really a gang is it, but a gang of 10 is too much for 2 players to handle

[oak saddle]

Is there any way to reduce the size of a creature/animal permanently?

[severe rampart]

True Polymorph?

[glass granite]

Cut them in half

[paper portal]

makes me wonder if theres another way cus i saw some stupid rules shenanigans with enlarge reduce recently

[oak saddle]

But.... 9th level spell.....

[limber trail]

It’s not a super common effect

Not a lot of ways to permanently affect a creature’s physiology

[oak saddle]

Dang, I'm tryna get a camel for a small sized person

[limber trail]

I haven’t looked at the rules in a while, what’s stopping you from just riding a camel normally?

[oak saddle]

I don't wanna use a ladder

[limber trail]

You probably don’t need to use a ladder if you don’t want to

This feels like a superficial problem to have

[paper portal]

uh oh

[twin vector]

Anyone know if there's a way to make dnd beyond recognize you have physical copies of the books it has? I got like 7 physical books but I cant use 90% of the character creation stuff in them because that's behind paying for a digital version of the same book.

[old solstice]

Siiiigh
I miss playing a barbarian rogue when I first started DND
Lowkey didn't connect that I was able to use uncanny Dodge with rage until the last 3 sessions of campaign back then, would love to do it again cause it's so cool

[idle oar]

It does not work that way - they're different products (like buying a Nintendo game doesn't give you the Playstation version).

?books

[cosmic roost]

Accessing Content on D&D Beyond

There are four ways to access content on D&D Beyond that you may have in your physical books:

1. Purchase the full digital book from the marketplace
2. Purchase a digital/physical bundle from the marketplace
3. Join a D&D Beyond campaign with someone who already owns the book where content sharing has been enabled
4. Use the homebrew tools to copy the content from your physical book into D&D Beyond (Note: Do not publish any content copied in this way; it is for personal use only)

[dawn radish]

How do I post in #looking-for-players

[idle oar]

Read #find-a-game carefully - the instructions are listed there

The bot commands start with /looking-for

[dawn radish]

Thank you, I overlooked that part

[rough basalt]

Wizards alive

they managed to do enough to get hit to be spat out but now the rogues eaten

[severe rampart]

the Rogue will be fine, he's gonna dig out of the stomach on his own

[oak saddle]

Now I'm trying to decide if I want to try and shrink a camel, or get some sort of construct/living stone foo dog mount

[severe rampart]

Why are those the only options

[glass granite]

What small character are you playing?

[severe rampart]

Summon a Giant Fly

[rough basalt]

Nobody died but was brutal

[twin vector]

Im working on using homebrew to add plasmoids, for traits do I do the whole description or is it possible to use the original version? (Ive learned that homebrew gives limited access to things dnd beyond doesn't know you own, like the plasmoid species group)

[small heath]

Hi chat. 🙂

[twin vector]

Hi

[dawn elk]

hey, does the 2024 ruel set have any m,ore books, cause i noticed wizards ndont have conjuratio anymore

[buoyant oar]

Official 5.5 books are as follows.

Core Rule Books
Dragon Delves
Forgotten Realms: Adventures In Faerun
Forgotten Realms: Heroes of Faerun
Eberron: Forge of the Artificer

New Wizards Subclasses have been teased for this fall's Arcana Unleashed Book.

[limber trail]

Subclasses like conjuration that haven’t been reprinted are also considered backwards compatible, most (but not necessarily all) DMs will let you play the 2014 version with a 2024 character

[atomic moat]

Yeah I have the 5.5E core books and Xanathar's guide and I noted a good eight of the subclasses in Xanathars have UA updates for them so far.

[rough basalt]

Session was fun

Almost killed two PCs with Remorazs
Usually I ignore enemy terrain but I didn't realize they were actually Arctic enemies (PCs first session in the tundra/arctic side of the country)

[tribal night]

Wizardlock is such a silly build

Pros: You will never run out of spell points
Cons:

[lavish flame]

This is what I've been doing. My rule rn is basically "2014 is cool until there's a 2024 version, then we'll switch and see how that is"

even then, thats not set in stone. if 2024 Samurai comes out and it sucks, then we can always use the 2014 version

[rough basalt]

My rule is 2014 if it's not reprinted

[atomic moat]

But the 2014 version of samurai seems mediocre as well though. Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to have the same issue as the 2014 arcane archer, too few uses and recharges on a long rest.

[rough basalt]

Well it came out in the same book

XGE was when WotC started turning around on their idea of 5e

[cobalt owl]

It was also before they knew a lot of resource use issues

[rough basalt]

And started thinking that not just some classes deserved good options but all did.

XGE was when they started making what would become 5.5e

[umbral girder]

Yeah XGtE had them rewriting the DMG already in it

[rough basalt]

When they decided that players should be able to play any class they want and not feel left behind.
When DMs should have tools to better help them.
When monsters should be able to defend themselves.

Tashas was when the two first ones took shape

And Mordys Multiverse was when monsters started fighting back.

Not as well as 5.5 but a start

Then they had some bad ideas and good ones since that they abandoned fortunately and unfortunately

Good being Mythic phases for enemies. (Basically phase 2 fights)
Bad being the multiple reactions instead of legendary actions system

These last two messages are subjective tho

[lavish flame]

Yeah its whatever, I just needed an example of a subclass that is in 5e but not yet in 5.5

[tribal night]

I kissed the mindflayer out of curiousity

I did not survive

[lavish flame]

I love the whole Mythic stuff. I'm real sad it isn't part of core 5.5

Its a great design space to make monsters in. Plus I would've loved to see thek go hog on the Tarrasque with a Mythic Trait

[rough basalt]

Ye I wanna incorporate it for my worlds bbegs and most powerful

Including the Tarrasque.

When the players get the Lich to 0hp and his soul cage breaks and full heals him, then he holds up his hands and says "domain expansion." - homebrew nightmare

[past blaze]

In my opinion, doing a multi-react thing instead of legendary actions could be a reasonable middle ground between none at all and full fledged legendary actions disconnected to the actions of the party.
It's a good addition, but a poor replacement.

Adding the multi-reactions version of "psuedo legendary actions" would be good, as a design element
replacing all appearances of legendary actions with them, yeah that'd be bad.

[rough basalt]

Yeah Vecna with 3 uses of a Counterspell a round that can't be counterspelled that completely negate 4th or lower spells and do damage to you

[paper portal]

worth it imo

[tribal night]

Ngl, mind flayers would probably give the best tongue, as well as manipulate your mind to make it feel even better

[rough basalt]

Speaking of Vecna. My EoR game hit level 17

Now my Scion Rogue does a minimum of 27 on sneak attack or a 54 on a crit sneak attack.

Cause all 1s and 2s are 3s

[past blaze]

It's a degree of reactions being reactions, for better or worse, they depend on and interact with the decisions the party makes.
Legendary Actions, for better or worse once again, don't depend on, but of course simultaneously don't interact with the decisions the party makes.

Designers having a choice of which system to use, like using the reactions for something not exactly a "full legendary", would be better than never exploring it further or completely replacing the old legendary system for it.

[rough basalt]

Ye another thing about that system is Vecna losing counterspell cause he got hit by a 2014 shocking grasp

The man who stalemated the lady of pain brought low by a magical taser.

[past blaze]

This is also one of the reasons why putting vecna in only that system was a letdown

If it was legendary actions, and one of them could restore his reaction, and had that as a reaction, then coolio
shocking grasp would still disable the reaction, but not manage to disable all their other "3 a round" sourced things he can do.

[rough basalt]

Ye that period was a dark time for high level monsters

When Perkins the Butcher and Crawford the Evil gave them vulnerability to magic tasers. /hj

[lavish flame]

Agreed. I think multiple Reactions is genuinely great (especially for monsters with multiple heads), but I absolutely do not want that replacing Legendary Actions

[rough basalt]

I think they were in Planescape, Quests and Vecna

I think BoMT used Legendary Actions even tho it was within that era.

[dapper wigeon]

What should I use my ASI on as a stars druid? I already have 20 wis

Theres so many to choose from

[rough basalt]

Out of those last 4 books, Vecna got the most hate by far and honestly kinda deserved from what I can sus out.

My DMs had to make quite a bit of changes iirc

[past blaze]

Like I say, the design element would be great as an option for monster design, an intermediary between a Marilith reacting on every single turn with the Reactive trait, or a Dragon having full-blown Legendary Actions.
Imagine a new book of monsters coming out, and some of them have multi-reactions, and some of them have regular Legendary Actions.

[lavish flame]

Deservedly so

[swift silo]

Hot take (probably not I’m not sure peoples opinions on it) wild magic is way too rare and nowhere near as chaotic as it should be

[lavish flame]

yup! the dream!

[lavish flame]

way too rage?

[past blaze]

tame?

[rough basalt]

Cause Planescape got like high mixed positive cause it was simplified but good enough for beginners and solid C for vets

[swift silo]

Rare sorry

[past blaze]

A really common house rule is escalating chance

[rough basalt]

BoMT got mixed to positive cause it added a lot of good stuff but was too expensive and had bad formatting.

Quests was the best received one naturally cause it was old adventures with only statblocks altered for 5e.

[limber trail]

I gave a boss a bunch of reactions around (I think six?), and then essentially let him trigger multiple on one trigger. What that looked like is, he could parry the same attack multiple times, each parry adding more to his AC until he could make it miss. I also let him do this with opportunity attacks - multiple reactions would essentially add more damage dice to the OA. It was a ton of fun for what was essentially a summoner enemy.

That was a lot of fun

[rough basalt]

Then Vecna

[limber trail]

Made him super reactive

[rough basalt]

The absolute bomb that ended 5e on a bad note

[paper portal]

wild magic being rare is a product of your dm, you can roll on the table every turn if they let you

[rough basalt]

Cause WotC didn't wanna make Vecna dangerous or add any meat to any of the chapters.

Just "hey you're here! Here's named guy! Now you're here!"

[past blaze]

There's always the aspect of, it's nice to have a monster which isn't completely routine, where it has an option of whether to do one thing or another
But too little routine slows things down a lot more, as I have found out

[rough basalt]

Like I'm enjoying EoR but it's cause I got a great dm whose made some fun changes and a great group.

And I've never been multiverse hopping so that key jangling works for me.

[limber trail]

I really wanna run a Vecna-based game at some point but yeah I would probably ditch a lot of the multiverse jumping and would also just retool Vecna’s stat block

Or find a better third party option

[rough basalt]

Oh yeah you gotta giga buff him

[limber trail]

His stat block is rough

[rough basalt]

Dude is nothing but a pinata to level 20 PCs unless they're 3 casters and 1 melee martial

So he can just fly above and keep counterspelling the casters.

[jolly agate]

What the hell is a Skald

[rough basalt]

A Bard

[jolly agate]

What kind

[rough basalt]

Ancient Scandinavian Bard or Poet to be exact

[glad ferry]

Its not really hidden. Its more trying to figure out pricing and everything like that considering its a market open to everything out in the open. With 4 sections. A mercenary, information broker, and trades and sales. The center is the neutral zone where they deal with areas of friction or just have it settled in the arena where all fights are to the death. Plus the annual tournament for who is to become the champion and runner ups

[meager fractal]

My party just stole 24000 gold from some sleeping giants in a campaign that started last month. It's so crazy we're average level 3 and don't know what to do with the gold.

[errant crag]

Oooh

You could buy armor and weapons, spell components, animals/mounts/vehicles

Potions, poisons, spell scrolls.

[woven flint]

Gamble. /silly

[glad ferry]

Custom armor and weapons

[errant crag]

2024 PHB is much better about having listed prices for almost everything you can buy short of magic items

[meager fractal]

Our explorations around the starting hub uncovered three werebear lairs around the forest. I convinced them to be friendly to us

[errant crag]

Makes sense for werebears they're not usually evil from what I understand

[limber trail]

The DMG also has placeholders for magic items. 24000gp would net you a comically large amount of uncommon items, or up to 6 rare items (on average, and depending on stock. Not every DM uses this pricing and not every DM allows you to buy every item)

[meager fractal]

Magic items are pretty rare in setting. So are werebears but the dm that was running said it was a few random rolls that brought them all together

[pseudo pulsar]

I cast iron deficiency

[meager fractal]

I'm thinking of buying my own house

[limber trail]

Getting a party home base of some kind is always fun! (Bastions mayhaps, if dm allows?)

[pseudo pulsar]

i cast wet socks

[umbral girder]

Yeah it’s not like the DMG has a section about building a player home that levels up with you after all.

[undone rain]

Jokes on you i dont wear socks rn

[pseudo pulsar]

bet

I cast Deglove

[glass granite]

I cast manual blinking and breathing

[undone rain]

Get counterspelled

[pseudo pulsar]

okay your evil

thats it i cast:

Ingrown tooth.

actually you know what, everyone here is getting fumbled

[undone rain]

You wanna go there? Alr i cast warm pillow on both sides

[hot reef]

I cast my line

[pseudo pulsar]

I cast Increasing Gas Prices

[umbral girder]

I cast “Awareness of Wasting time on phone”

[undone rain]

Counterspelled once again i dont own a car!

[hot reef]

With the same spell casted twice, only the more potent one takes effect
Wasted spell slot

[pseudo pulsar]

XD

[undone rain]

Okay well this just reminds me to get ready for a meeting i have soon

[pseudo pulsar]

I cast tiny toes

[glass granite]

I cast iron

[pseudo pulsar]

no, I CAST AUDIBLE KNEES

[hot reef]

I fish up the cast iron

[pseudo pulsar]

not the cast iron

How will you fare against this spell?

I cast Notice Your Nose

[hot reef]

I cast feeblemind on myself. I am no longer susceptible to such magics

[pseudo pulsar]

touche

I cast inverted joints

[tribal night]

On god I need a 10/10 dark elf baddie

[undone rain]

I cast wet sleeves everytime you wash your hands

[tribal night]

Counterspell

[paper portal]

as long as you arent fishing bears

[glass granite]

Ah screw this. Antimagic field

Stop casting

[pseudo pulsar]

counterspelled, i dont wear sleeves its SPRING/SUMMER

[tribal night]

Screw it, 500 mindflayers, counter all this.

[pseudo pulsar]

I CAST TANGLED TENTACLES

[glass granite]

Antimagic field, remember?

Anywho, how’s dnd been for you folks

[pseudo pulsar]

pretty good

[undone rain]

Our dnd groups goin kinda bad. I mean not bad as in smth problematic. Rather that we are havin issues with our dms

[paper portal]

TERRIBLE /silly

[pseudo pulsar]

next week i run as dm again for my group

[glass granite]

That’s not good

[pseudo pulsar]

currently fighting a big bad in a falling elevator that will crash at the bottom in 5 more rounds

[undone rain]

Yeah dms have personal problems yknow

So they have to take a break

[glass granite]

Feather fall would be nice just about now

[swift vale]

When casting ray of sickness do you add your casting modifier? i searched it up but i couldnt find an answer

[pseudo pulsar]

if only they decided to take it XD

[undone rain]

Lucky for me i got another group to play with tomorrow

So dnd twice a week

[glass granite]

No

[swift vale]

thank you

[glass granite]

Doesn’t say it does so it doesn’t

[undone rain]

Unless it specifically says so then no

A spell will always say otherwise

[swift vale]

yeah it doesnt

thank you guys

[dense parrot]

Update on BG3
I’m so glad I got it. Y’all were absolutely right
As someone who has a pattern of buying games only to stop playing after a few days, I’ve somehow been playing BG3 daily for 2 weeks straight lol

But I’m still in the area where the Druids are somehow

[errant crag]

You mean for the damage?

[pseudo pulsar]

ive started another wizard war in another dnd server

[errant crag]

A wizard war?

[pseudo pulsar]

yes

I cast Sealed Ears

[mighty wharf]

Some campaigns have CRAZY amounts of gold for some reason. The best thing is to adjust the prices of the campaign to their first big haul.

Well, ig that doesn't help spell component prices...

But you can just adjust the component prices in the markets when they buy them.

[errant whale]

go to the casino

[errant crag]

This just makes their gold meaningless

Getting more gold means a lot less if things auto adjust to being expensive once I get a bunch of it

[ripe nimbus]

how did you guys haul 480lbs of solid gold???

hmm that's almost exactly 1 horse carrying capacity

[errant crag]

Moments like this are why I'm considering tracking carry weight

[cobalt owl]

I track it when I have to

[lavish flame]

If you play on a VTT, doing it will exclusively improve your experience imo

i guess ime

[errant crag]

I've always felt like it could have a lot of value to add

My biggest hangup has always been the situation if needing to rule a weight for something on the spot that doesn't have a listed weight and the implications of that

[cobalt owl]

I can't say I've ever tracked weight past "that is 1 cubic foot of steel, you are not picking up 500 lbs in your hand"

[mighty wharf]

Only if you keep doing it.

Think about it this way: if a country were to suddenly have a SHITTON more currency in circulation, would the surrounding countries not adjust their conversion rates?

[errant crag]

I think doing it in general devalues it. If you have a greasy merchant who knows that the party just came into a bunch of gold and then over charges them as a roleplay conflict sure, but I wouldn't have merchants automatically adjust to this solely because they have more gold.

[errant crag]

Thats not gonna happen over one adventuring party finding gold in a giant camp, and even if it did it would happen after they spent the gold not before it

[mighty wharf]

It doesn't necessarily need to be caused by them. Perhaps an event in world can explain how giants get 24000 gold to begin with.

[errant crag]

Or just don't give your players 24k gold if you're gonna turn around and make it meaningless

[mighty wharf]

Because that amount of gold is obviously not going to go well when you have a cleric who can cast revivify for 1000gp

[mighty wharf]

Yeah, but we're past that now.

[ripe nimbus]

if you don't play on a VTT you just need to abstract it a bit to make the numbers smaller and easier to manage

[mighty wharf]

They wouldn't be asking if it didn't already happen.

[ripe nimbus]

i advocate the minecraft method. 1 slot = 5 lbs, you can stack some items multiple-to-a-slot

[errant crag]

If my players did something that RAW would result in them getting a big one time payout of gold, I'm going to eat then enjoy that.

The players having a bunch of gold isn't going to ruin the game

The only way that would happen is if they were only motivated by gold and now won't follow the adventure

[ripe nimbus]

handwave a couple items' weight (rule of thumb: if it's 2lbs or lighter and it's practically never a possibly interesting logistical question how much they can carry, handwave it)

(so don't handwave food, oil, etc. but feel free to handwave the tinderbox)

[mighty wharf]

Neither would adjusting the conversion rate. My DM did that when my party got 64,000 gold collectively, he hadn't realized just how much was given at the end of the campaign (it was one of the books). Tracking carrying capacity is super annoying, and we basically all agreed we didn't want to play a logistics game.

He adjusted the rates at the shop, and we were STILL able to get some pretty broken equipment for our level.

[errant crag]

I would just do nothing

[mighty wharf]

We started another campaign after the first one for context

[errant crag]

I wouldn't have let them find 24k gold if I was worried about it

[lavish flame]

Thats fair, I don't like doing irl weight to D&D weight (cuz like... i dont want to regular Google shit while playing D&D). I usually just wing it, keeping most stuff between 1-10 pounds.

[mighty wharf]

That's the thing, the DM didn't realize how much there was.

Until we were mid session.

It was poor planning but it happens.

[ripe nimbus]

with Minecraft Inventory you can say "0 slots" for trivial trinkets and "1 slot" for non-trivial things! try Minecraft Inventory today

[lavish flame]

Egregious stuff like "lifting a statue" might get a few hundred pounds added to it, but usually 1-10 is a safe bet

[mighty wharf]

It was 16k in gp, but there was around 48k in sellables that he didn't account for, and he agreed on session 0 to not consider carry weight as long as things didn't get out of hand.

[lavish flame]

Coin weight is a tricksy one

[mighty wharf]

It doesn't make the gold meaningless if you can still buy things with it.

[lavish flame]

I like coin weight (cuz I've got a VTT that does it for me) cuz it encourages people to toy around with the currency system of D&D in a way I enjoy.

[mighty wharf]

What makes the gold meaningless is if you have so much of it, that you can clear any shop you go to. The DM might as well just give you the items then. And with that much gold, you're basically clearing out any generated shop table.

[lavish flame]

I like giving out XYZ Gold worth of Copper, because thats considerably heavier and thus a new kind of issue confounds the party. "How do we store our wealth?"

[errant crag]

Yeah, if everything in the world is suddenly 10x more expensive because the players found thousands of gold, then you're making the gold mean a lot less and they're not going to be motivated by it or excited by it anymore

[mighty wharf]

Not unless you adjust the rates. People are still motivated by yen in Japan even though their currency is inflated as shit. Why would a campaign be any different? What motivates the players is difficult, but achievable or costly prices.

[lavish flame]

Yeah idk. If you give people more gold, but adjust gold's buying power to match then whats the point of this process

[errant crag]

I just don't see the point of giving them a reward and then making it not matter. I wouldn't give my players a Flametongue Greatsword and then suddenly make every enemy immune to fire damage

[ripe nimbus]

also frankly for verisimilitude purposes the PHB prices are already too large

[lavish flame]

Yeah I wish Copper and Silver had like... relevance in the PHB prices

[ripe nimbus]

im sorry you're not convincing me plate armor should cost damn near half its weight in gold

[hot gate]

I think it's an understandeable DM reflex to try and "run with" any mistakes made. But I think it's probably healthier for the game overall if you end up doing a "ok, this didn't work out, lets undo this".

[ripe nimbus]

yeah, openly admitting mistakes and retconning is fine in moderation...

[errant crag]

Raising the prices of everything because the players have a lot of gold < raising the difficulty of encounters to accommodate for all the cool new gear the players bought with their large amounts of gold

[mighty wharf]

This is a false dichotomy; adjusting something to be balanced does not mean it will suddenly be worthless.

[errant crag]

In this case it quite literally would

[ripe nimbus]

you are, quite literally, making the gold worth less

[mighty wharf]

No... it wouldn't... only if you raise the prices so high they can't afford anything.

[ripe nimbus]

in the most direct and literal sense of worth

[hot gate]

I mean we don't have to hyperbolize it to crazy levels. Even very inflated gold prices can still work. Different D&D groups sometimes have quite different price ranges.

But that doesn't mean I don't recommend sticking to the book prices.

[ripe nimbus]

hey, i used a space

[mighty wharf]

Well, isn't adjusting how much you give them in the first place also making it worthless? With your logic, I could say I adjust the amount given to be like halved. How is adjusting it from the other side any different?

[ripe nimbus]

obviously the answer to this is to spend days trying to revise the prices with obsessive historical research and then toss up your hands because oh my God, medieval economies are complicated and then just use the book prices because none of your players care about it as much as you do

[lavish flame]

icl the book prices for magic items do warrant bloating party funds to some extent

[ripe nimbus]

but fwiw dividing prices by about 4 is a good rule of thumb. not always accurate (plate armor is still wildly inflated) but gets you closer

[hot gate]

If you go by how much gold the DMG recommend giving out, nah, we're good.
That being said, if you're buying very rare magic items, mundane items prices probably stopped mattering much to you.

[ripe nimbus]

also buying magic items isn't actually easy

even if you have the money for it

[errant crag]

If the item costs 5 gold when they have 20 and you suddenly make it 500 when they have 2000, then you're making the gold as a reward matter a lot less.

[still plover]

Got five minutes to read it, excellent thinking. Thanks for the link!

[mighty wharf]

It depends on how you go about doing it and how generous the DM is

[hot gate]

Depends on groups. If there's a magic shop, its quite easy!

[elder elbow]

Isn't that a trope?

[still plover]

We talking about economics again?

[errant crag]

A DM gave their players 24k gold. Deadbunny recommended making everything proportionally more expensive to accommodate for this. I am saying that this makes gold less valuable as a reward and they shouldn't do it.

[lavish flame]

oh shit you aren't kidding, the DMG has Remorhazes walking around with 2d10×10 Platinum Pieces.

My only questions are where were they stored? and what do they smell like?

[elder elbow]

In their backpack and they smell like platinum

[hot gate]

Probably a former adventurer in its stomach

[elder elbow]

An average of 110 platinum...
Could just be in a belt pouch

[ripe nimbus]

why does the ancient 3000-year old barrow have perfectly minted currency of the kingdom that arose only 150 years ago everywhere? dont think about it

[elder elbow]

The 150-year-old kingdom started using monster money as currency

Like, why is gold even valuable to humans at all?

[lavish flame]

this is when u get real with it and have the party melt it down into platinum bars to be able to use it

50pp per bar baby!!!

[errant crag]

I gave my 6th level players 10k gold and changed the prices of nothing and they still haven't done a whole lot with it

[still plover]

Ah, yeah. Let them buy a nice house, get on the Bastion property ladder. Or some expensive spell parts or items. Not just anything, availability is a factor, but if they're rich, there should be options.

And probably taxes. And con artists. And thieves.

[errant crag]

They would do even less with it if I made everything more expensive.

[ripe nimbus]

dum dum dum turns out platinum was considered worthless in Europe for a very long time because they thought it was basically just silver that was near-impossible to melt by ordinary methods

[elder elbow]

My group got like 300k gp each and I designed an airship

[ripe nimbus]

it has a super high melting point

[elder elbow]

Tungsten coins

[lavish flame]

yeah but this is D&D. Kill something on a forge and infuse its essence into it or whatever. Get you a dope ass super forge for free.

[ripe nimbus]

this did inspire a campaign detail where platinum coins were a symbol of an empire's vast power because they meant that they could afford to use magical super-hot-fire to smelt platinum

[still plover]

Invest in a shipping company. Gear up the milita and hire experts to train them. Give some to worthy causes. You know what a temple of Ilmater could do with a hundred gold?

[ripe nimbus]

so they're associated with the ancient fallen empires of my setting

[lavish flame]

My go-to is always Electrum Pieces for "this is some Old Shit"

[still plover]

Nice detail.

[elder elbow]

Rusted copper

[ripe nimbus]

copper rusts quickly tbh

most of the copper coins players carry around should already have a patina

[lavish flame]

rusted copper might just be chunks of rust amongst other coins

[still plover]

That's good adventuring right there.

[ripe nimbus]

electrum should be way more common in d&d i feel

[elder elbow]

I even wrote a story about how my character got the airship

[lavish flame]

You ever play/run Curse of Strahd? You(r players) will hate Electrum by the end lmao

[ripe nimbus]

it's a naturally occurring alloy that historically was quite commonly used for coinage

i played it, didn't run it. the game blew up due to personal drama

[elder elbow]

So like, there's lots of things to put money into

On a totally different note, I really do want to try running a DnD Roguelite campaign. I think it could be fun.

[lavish flame]

I've currently got my party doing a bunch of stupid little expenditures. One of them regular pays rent (60GP/mo), two of them frequently send mail (2CP/mile), they all drink (4CP-2SP/person). I enjoy it very much, I think penny-pinching is a quintessential part of low-level D&D.

[mighty wharf]

I got a broom of flying and a magic jar spell scroll at level 8. I also got Adamantine armor, and a scroll of Revivify for 500gp. All from a randomly generated loot table.

That was with the altered rates.

[lavish flame]

Bastion are a solid money-sink if you've got players who give a shit about the Basic Facilities

[still plover]

"Yeah, so, funny story, a dragonborn (looks at party member 1) and an aasimar (looks at party member 2) were recently seen leaving Baron Haroldson's estate, over the wall, with a sack of jewellery and personal items and well, we thought your party might have something they'd like to tell us having been spending big all over town. You wouldn't mind coming to answer some questions?"

[elder elbow]

3.5e had those psionic tattoos. Those were good.

[still plover]

Level 8? Seems legit.

[mighty wharf]

I DID have to pick and choose my items. If they weren't adjusted, we could have just bought everything and completely destroy the setting.

[mighty wharf]

That wasn't even the most broken things available, there was this cloak with like tons of magic patches, a ring of invisibility, a ring of spell storing (something I already had), other things that were pretty insane from what I remember, it was nuts.

I couldn't afford a lot of the extra expensive stuff, but it gave me something to save for.

[ripe nimbus]

might be better with older edition or osr games

d&d 5e is not very lethal + it takes a long time to make new characters

[elder elbow]

I mostly play 3.5e

[ripe nimbus]

3.5e is even worse on the long-time-to-make-new-characters front

it's a tad more lethal, though, but not that much at higher levels

[elder elbow]

It's pretty easy if you're used to it

And the game can be plenty lethal if you want it to be

[stuck crystal]

how does speak with animals even work? youre telling me all animals on the hypothetical globe have the same language?

no variety in culture?
and imma go a step further
how come people dont use speak with animals to learn new languages in dnd

[dark basin]

Cat isn't as commonly spoken as Elvish.

[stuck crystal]

but even within the world of animals
animals weirdly enuogh have accents

[pliant sapphire]

Each animal talk in his own "language"

[dark basin]

Of course! I would've expect a doberman and a poodle to have the same accent.

[stuck crystal]

i think its a weird topic to begin with
but just o be safe
the assumption is that there is little to no variety within animal kingdom
to guarantee diffrent langauges

and same works for species

correct?

[dark basin]

It's not rather that you learn the language that animals speak, because they speak different ones, you are simply able to converse with them and have them understand you. That's the specific verbiage and it doesn't specify any languages.

[stray sage]

is it reduntant for a character to have two different AOE debuffs if those debuffs do different things?

[stuck crystal]

got you

[pliant sapphire]

Different debuffs = more versatility

[buoyant frost]

If i where to put a dnd character backstory in this server where would I put it

[dark basin]

#character-discussion

[buoyant frost]

Double checking

[sharp scroll]

I find it a bit too punishing - the 3.5 i mean 🙂

[muted path]

Can my lv 3 party of 4 spellcasting low health players face off against 3 ogres?

[hot gate]

Potentially very swingy. If they get a good initiative roll and blast out spells, they might do well. But if the ogres manage to get close, it could get real deadly real fast.

[timid pagoda]

should i start off my new players at level 3? (as a first time dm)

[hot gate]

If the players are also new, I'd start at level 1. Otherwise 3 isn't a bad option.

[dark basin]

Orges have a +6 javelin attack that does 2d6+4 piercing. Range isn't an issue.

[remote wadi]

Why do some people think that "believing in yourself" and "being nice to the dice" is genuine advice?

Like, I don't really care how much I try to make good decisions in and out of battle. If Fate wants me and my cleric to be paralyzed, downed, and killed without anything we could do, then why look at me like I could have done something?

[severe rampart]

I keep my dice in a Tupperware takeout box and my dice have been nothing but good to me

[remote wadi]

This is virtual, though

[timid pagoda]

i am going only off of the phb but because of their custom backstory it's basically quasi homebrew, i am thinking of balancing them somehow, any tips?

[remote wadi]

But like. People really love to give me semi unsolicited advice in a game largely centered around luck

[hot gate]

I'd focus on the book options as a first time DM. But if you're looking specifically for homebrew advice, you can ask in #homebrew

[timid pagoda]

thanks

[remote wadi]

If you miss, you miss. If you fail the save to be paralyzed, probably go get some food. You'll be away for a while anyways

[dark basin]

I wouldn't recommend three ogres. Three ogres would easily overwhelm a party of 4 level 3 spell casters. For that reason, I would recommend either some changes to the stat block or lessening three to two ogres.

[remote wadi]

Even worse is the feeling when you looked at the main "face" of the party amd ask them why we didn't use up the resources we kept for a rainy day?

Summoning whistles? Explosive barrels? Important spells?

[minor cargo]

That sounds rough. Sorry that happened.

[remote wadi]

It's not the end of the world, as there are great experiences and hopefully more to come

But why am I always having to choose between no DnD and a less than stellar DnD experience? Give me a break already, life

[minor cargo]

Yeah, sorry to hear that.

[crystal star]

Someone hasnt been giving their dice the love they deserve

[remote wadi]

I'd says "Go to the underworld", but I'm already there listening to this

[crystal star]

Hehehee

[remote wadi]

Clearly not the best listener either

[dark basin]

Players shouldn't be blaming each other for something in combat. People play DND to have fun and deciding to place blame only ruins the experience.

As long as you're not an active detriment of course.

[crystal star]

I am of course being cheeky. Sometimes the dice dont play nice,and it can really suck

[remote wadi]

So who exactly should I blame for those wasted combat scenarios?

[crystal star]

Nobody, ideally

[remote wadi]

Where we save something important for a rainy day only to try and run away from said rainy day fights

[crystal star]

Poor fortune is what it is. You're a team. You win as a team and die as a team.

[minor cargo]

Are you looking for advice or just looking to vent?

[remote wadi]

Honestly, probably vent

This is a situation relatively outside of my control

Only thing I can do is make sure this doesn't happen from here on out. Take the important items and use them when needed instead of being yet anotber victim of Master Ball syndrome

[crystal star]

Id take some time to get access to some items that protect against paralysis effect, like rings of free movement or scrolls of dispell magic

[remote wadi]

No such luck. The paralysis were from a bunch of claw attacks

And Lesser Restoration becomes useless if the caster gets Paralyzed

[crystal star]

There is a myriad of ways, both raw and not, to be prepare next time. You can learn from the experience... Or not.

[hot gate]

If these experiences have all stemmed from the same group, maybe there is something you could do.

[mighty wharf]

There was a saving throw, right?

[remote wadi]

Not the same group, actually

[hot gate]

welp

[severe rampart]

Oof, sounds like something my bard player went through

You were the only caster?

[remote wadi]

Yes, but I can't exactly help with that. If I get hit at 21 AC and get paralyzed, that's game

[remote wadi]

Far from it, actually. Everyone in the party was capable of spellcasting (should also mention this was actually a BG3 game)

[severe rampart]

Ahh, then I don't know a darn thing 'bout BG3

[remote wadi]

I being a Gloomstalker Ranger that consistently gets unlucky
Life Cleric ally that can never seem to concentrate on Spirit Guardians

[mighty wharf]

I mean you could take something to help with saving throws. I took Lucky as a starting feat to help with saving throws for my Wizard since I have a low wisdom score, my table kinda plays with a mix of 2014 and 2024 rules so I have the 2014 version where it doesn't require any actions or anything.

[remote wadi]

I only could get Sharpshooter so far

[hot gate]

Wait, so this has all been about an experience you had playing Baldurs Gate 3?

[mighty wharf]

I know it's probably late now, but you could in the future.

[mighty wharf]

I think they meant the BG3 based DnD campaign?

There is BG3 related contwnt iirc

[hot gate]

I don't know

[remote wadi]

Always has been
Crit fails hand crossbow

. . .

[remote wadi]

No, the game

[odd patrol]

are molotovs a good idea for dnd

[mighty wharf]

You're complaining about literal npc reactions... am I understanding this correctly?

[remote wadi]

NPC reactions?

[mighty wharf]

What was not clear about that message

[dark basin]

Any idea as long as people are having fun is a good idea. Go for it.

[severe rampart]

At times, yes

[hot gate]

It's a multiplayer game. But that relativizes a lot about how that interaction ended with dead pcs. Because you can just reload.

[crystal star]

Its was all about a video game?

Just dont stand near the enemies what

[remote wadi]

It's never that easy

[hot gate]

It would also be #dnd-media

[remote wadi]

Bunch of enemies spawn in the area around you. Trying to be far away means not guarding the NPC, her getting taken away, and losing quite a bit

[dark basin]

Isobel fight?

[remote wadi]

Spoilers. Staying vague for a reason

But I can explain more in #baldurs-gate-3-spoilers if needed

[dark basin]

We're all being a bit disingenuous. Having a bad video game experience isn't comparable to DND, even if it's a similar system, but having a poor experience is bad.

[crystal star]

Sure but, you can just reload?

And if youre playing honor mode... Well, you're playing honor mode

[remote wadi]

I don't have reloading weapons. I just said that as a meme reference

[dark basin]

No, as in your save.

[crystal star]

Reload the save

[remote wadi]

We have several times

[odd patrol]

is there any class that just blows things up with bombs or something

thinking artificier but what subclass

[remote wadi]

I always just get surrounded, paralyzed, and down

Same with Shadowheart who, despite having an amulet that instantly stabilizes her at the end of her turn, doesn't do so

[humble cairn]

Any class with aoe spells can be flavored to be bombs.

[severe rampart]

Artillery?

[dark basin]

If you want artificer I would recommend artillerist. A while ago I made a sorcerer build for my good friend because he wanted to be someone from an anime who shouts "EXPLOSION" or something adjacent. I forget a lot of specifics for the build, but it was primitive how it simply turned spell slots into level 3 spell slots for fireball maximization.

[muted path]

I mean I'm the dm if I want them to not have spears they don't have spears 😅

[severe rampart]

Lmao I think I know the anime

[odd patrol]

artillerist sounds COOL

[remote wadi]

Person I'm playing with is a bit confusing. Plays a tiefling sword bard (somewhat unsurprisingly) and is somewhat trying my patience with a 3/2 Tempest Cleric and Wizard with Gale

[crystal star]

Trying your patience? Whats wrong with playing their characters how they want?

Sounds like you would have more fun playing on your own

[muted path]

And I have a bard who's goal is to rizz up every creature in dnd so one of the ogres will not fight cuz bro has +5 in charisma so its a pretty unstable party for my 1st campaign

[severe rampart]

Weird goal, but to each their own

[muted path]

Ik right 😂

[remote wadi]

Imagine if someone had most, if not all the solutions to your problems but chose to do something different because "Trust me, he will get more powerful later on"

And this is not mentioning the items she took that would have saved our skin on difficult fights, but insisted that we just avoid them altogether

[severe rampart]

Yeah, personally I heavily dislike it as it reinforces the stereotype of bards

[muted path]

So I have to manage this party with a dude who roled a 69 on a d100 for his bounty for rizzing up the queen, a guy who resolves aml problems with violence, a manipulator and a shady dude

[dark basin]

More respectable than my bards. All my high charisma characters turn into massive liars. "I'm the smartest man ever!" "Well, he does seem pretty convincing..." >8 intelligence.

[crystal star]

Dude if you dont wanna play with him stop torturing yourself

[remote wadi]

If anything, you're upsetting me more by insinuating that ny only 2 choices are plaging by myself and micromanaging everything
Or letting her play as she wants: not inherently bad, but sets me up for having to be the solution to the problems I never asked for

[crystal star]

You asked for it by playing a singleplayer game with other people

[dark basin]

There's definitely a grey area where you convey your feelings in a productive way. I doubt your friend would be comfortable making the game unenjoyable for you, so it's most likely unintentional.

[minor cargo]

You mentioned before you were just looking to vent. If I can? Usually when you want to vent, it's best to let it all out and then move on as quickly as possible. If you spend too long on it, you aren't venting, just boiling yourself.

[severe rampart]

I'm not talking about "respect", I'm talking about the stereotype that says all bards want to get it on with dragons and every single living creature

[crystal star]

Expect the chaos of other people. Thats what makes dnd work as a game in the first place

[severe rampart]

If your Bard's a manipulator? Sure! Sounds like an interesting character

[remote wadi]

Chances are, this is mostly just unintentional. Still very unfortunate, though. Can name several fights that would have been a cakewalk if I could use an item that she insisted we actually hang on to

Silver lining, it'll only happen once as long as I remember the details

[dark basin]

Warlocks pretending to be other classes can also be pretty fun liars. I currently have a changling level 5 warlock who pretends to be a different person each session; I simply like testing my vocal range with voices and use it as more or less a testing ground for different characters. Bless, Norman Miller the Changling.

[dark basin]

Communication is key. I can only urge you enough to talk to the other person, but the decision is up to you.

[remote wadi]

You're basically right on this. But is it really a meaningful vent if this will probably happen again with a different group in the near future?

[vast saddle]

So, yeah....my DM has spoken. I'm effectively rested for a week in any quest due to bleed

[severe rampart]

Changelings peak

[vast saddle]

I think it's okay.....I need to rethink on my roleplay in the future

[dark basin]

What do you mean? Like your character is on break because your character is injured?

[vast saddle]

Bleed is a condition when both chara and player are mixed

[dark basin]

Like the Undertale character?

[severe rampart]

I don't understand

[severe rampart]

I did not expect an undertale reference with my D&D today

[vast saddle]

No, it's related to the player's real life emotional state

[dark basin]

I know ball. Did you see how fast I clocked that the BG3 fight talked about was the Isobel one?

[minor cargo]

Sure. You can always vent when you need to. Things in D&D can get frustrating. It happens. Earlier on you said that overall, you're having a good time (paraphrasing a bit). So a quick vent to just take off the pressure of a couple of bad dice rolls or bad party decisions can be helpful to get back to focusing on the fun parts.

Now, if you aren't having fun or you want something to change, yeah, that's where we go to the communication bit - and of course we can help you if you need it. But again, that's only if you actually want to do something instead of just vent your frustrations.

[paper portal]

hi chat i wawa

[vast saddle]

Is the dude there suffering from bleed too?

[remote wadi]

Mmm, I guess. I just hate how often things apply to me like "It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose"

You want to know something even worse about me trying to avoid getting paralyzed?

[vast saddle]

Bleed may happen. It happens to me too

[severe rampart]

Hello

[paper portal]

thats why i simply play a character with no blood /silly

[severe rampart]

I don't fully understand what "bleed" means, you feel as if you're the character?

[dark basin]

Anyone read the new evil UA options? Just hoping they eventually make ASIs and feats separate.

[vast saddle]

If you don't understand....good. It means you're good in maintaining your mental states in D&D

[severe rampart]

Okay, I'm starting to piece it, is it when an emotional thing happens in a campaign to your character and you need to take a break from the game to collect yourself?

[vast saddle]

If you understand....it may happen to you in the past

[severe rampart]

It may happen to me in the past?

[vast saddle]

Or get a DM who understands the terms explain it to you

[minor cargo]

Yeah, you've got it. And IMO it's a pretty neutral thing.

Like when your PC gets angry or frustrated, you as a player, might also feel angry or frustrated. And the extent that you feel that is how much the character's emotions are "bleeding" into you.

[severe rampart]

Ohh yeah, sounds reasonable to take a break from the game because of that!

[remote wadi]

Despite having 21 AC and a magic item letting me cast shield

[severe rampart]

Did it crit you? wth

[remote wadi]

I either still got crit from the boss

Or he had an ability to make me get hit regardless and lose concentration

[vast saddle]

In my case, DM wants me to not apply for any campaign for a week

[remote wadi]

Because the moment Spirit Guardians was up with my cleric

Bam. Crit fail on the save

[dusky kite]

Haven't played in AGES outside of a single short-lived test campaign me and an IRL friend ran to test out some new stuff, cant wait to get back into the whole swing of things.

[dark basin]

Happens. A few Fridays ago, my DM got a 1/400 to crit me. Still hit a mirror image because I am a G, but things happen. First ever session of DND my character died, happens.

Can't let one combat being a poor experience bring you down.

[remote wadi]

Yep. It and the things paralyzing me simply do not care

For those curious
16 base, +3 from Dex, +2 from shield

[limber trail]

I mean sometimes it goes like that

[remote wadi]

Only the game could let me have this sort of good armor and then decide it actually doesn't matter

[limber trail]

A 26 AC isn’t unhittable

[severe rampart]

Depends on the + to hit

[remote wadi]

No, but the fact that I was ACTIVELY FEARING a 5% is quite telling

[limber trail]

What do you mean by actively fearing a 5%

[severe rampart]

the Nat 20(?)

[limber trail]

I mean yeah crits happen

Fearing them is common

[remote wadi]

Assuming it's just proficiency and stat?

[limber trail]

Usually it is

[remote wadi]

+5

[limber trail]

That’s a pretty weak monster to go up against a player with a 26 AC

[remote wadi]

Basically very close to act 2. Or already there

Either way, it's only 21 without shield

[dark basin]

That fight is Act 2.

[remote wadi]

Pfff. "Only". Really, Bloodline?

[limber trail]

Sometimes a combat doesn’t go great

Sometimes combats go amazing

That’s how it goes

[remote wadi]

Usually if they go amazing, it's because I made the right play and actually thought ahead

[limber trail]

I’ve had players utterly curbstomp some encounters and fall flat on their face the next encounter

[remote wadi]

Like if we were going to be ambushed by many strong, but frail enemies

Bam. Spirit Guardians

[paper portal]

how would you guys do a dnd nuzlocke

[idle oar]

Hey folks please use the most appropriate channel for a discussion - e.g. if you're playing Bladurs Gate 3 and want to disucss it, please use #baldurs-gate-3-spoilers

[crystal star]

Explain 👀

[limber trail]

Oh wait is this bg3

I thought it was dnd lol

[crystal star]

We all did lol

[paper portal]

well im not sure thats why im asking people, it sounds like a cool concept

[dusky kite]

Nuzlocke is where you get a random pokemon, and if that one dies it's gone forever right?

[lavish flame]

i dont think you could tbh

[remote wadi]

I tried to explain that before

[paper portal]

yep

[limber trail]

I wasn’t present, I just jumped in partway through the conversation

[lavish flame]

or... D&D on its own already has permadeath, so what would change

[idle oar]

Okay well please take any further discussion of it to the right channel please.

[dusky kite]

Maybe you could have weapons totally randomized, or loot randomized - and every time someone nears death, a random singular item (be it as little as a piece of gold, or as much as an entire weapon or amulet) disappears?

[dark basin]

Alright fellas, who's ready for a 13 player game where if you down, you've got a band of loyalty? Let's see who's here after 20 levels.

[crystal star]

Perhaps running a module but you only get 1 magic item per location?

[severe rampart]

Player character dies, remove player, bring in new player?

[crystal star]

Ah there it is. THATS our Nuzlocke

[limber trail]

I would assume a DnD Nuzlocke would just be, whenever your PC dies, any character creation options you chose for them are permanently locked out

[severe rampart]

that too!

[crystal star]

Ooh interesting. The party has to share, too

[severe rampart]

Human Fighter dies? well now no one, including the player can choose the species "Human" or the class "Fighter"

[limber trail]

This gets fun when we get to spellcasters

[severe rampart]

I actually want to try that wth

[dark basin]

I've got to say, I think my 13 starting players all different classes with bands of loyalty would be the funniest.
Greg dies the first session.
Year and a half later at session 83, Stephen dies.

[severe rampart]

Seems fun

[crystal star]

Yeah im actually digging this

[limber trail]

You maybe even have spellcasters willfully limiting their spell list to keep things open for future characters

[severe rampart]

Nuzlocked Spells too

[dark basin]

Revivify BANNED! Resurrection BANNED!

[severe rampart]

oh yeah, and why not weapons too

[dusky kite]

Oh, like if someone dies while holding that weapon, that weapon is locked?

[severe rampart]

Yeah

[limber trail]

Feats are locked too, as are fighting styles.

[severe rampart]

Ohh sorry, the human fighter used a longsword back in session 3, then died, so you can't pick up the +3 Longsword

[dark basin]

Weapons, armor, and the one shield are limited.

[crystal star]

Definitely gotta be 2014 rules or youre gonna run out of species fast

[dark basin]

"Craig! I wanted War-Caster!"

[crystal star]

Or that longsword in general

[limber trail]

I would assume it’s using backwards compatibility rules

[crystal star]

Or that +3 dagger

[severe rampart]

"Too bad Joe! I have to maintain con so my Warlock doesn't immediately become useless!"

[dark basin]

"You can have RESILENT!"

[severe rampart]

Oh yeah, Magic Items, nuzlock them

[crystal star]

Surely this is ran in ToA

[severe rampart]

You attuned to the Cloak of Billowing then died? ooh, sorry no one can pick that cloak up from your corpse

[limber trail]

What would be the optimal party build that could suffer a tpk and then have a playable party afterwards

[severe rampart]

Rogue, Ranger, Bard, Barbarian

[limber trail]

Yeah that tracks

[hot gate]

Isn't that definitionally impossible? Everyone's dead

[dark basin]

Could throw warlock in there for another caster.

[paper portal]

wizard, cleric, druid, free

[severe rampart]

Bard - Healer, Controller, Buff and Debuffs
Barbarian - Martial Tank
Ranger - Ranger things
Rogue - Rogue Things

[paper portal]

then backup party warlock sorc bard ranger

[limber trail]

I actually really do not think you want more casters because they would end up using more spells and more classes

[dark basin]

Oh, we're limiting spells too? Oh this is baller.

[limber trail]

oh of course we are

[severe rampart]

the last classes to wait/save would definitely be Clerics, Warlocks, and Wizards

[paper portal]

nah bard

[idle oar]

all of a sudden rogue-like takes on even more meaning....

[paper portal]

they only start working at 10th anyways

[dark basin]

I still think ignoring the 9 Hells that a 13 player session would be, having everyone there at the beginning with bands of loyalty would be brilliant.

[limber trail]

I wouldn't run multiple full casters just because you have so many spells gone early out the gate

[dark basin]

One spell per day. One spell can only appear on one spell list.

[severe rampart]

Lmao, with these rules "What spells are you gonna pick", when the Wizards, Druids, and Clerics have already picked them

Bard, Barbarian, Ranger, and Rogue is a good early team, if they TPK, still got amazing options

[vast saddle]

Is the D&D plot always weird?

[paper portal]

anyways i reckon a nuzlocke would be

• no two characters can have the same class
• if a character dies, the party is just down one member permanently
• for a hardcore nuzlocke, you ban long rests including the effects of levelling up

[oblique egret]

is there anyone here who's extremely knowledgeable about getting past glyph of warding movement restrictions?

[paper portal]

bag of holding, genie's vessel, any other movable demiplane

[still plover]

Not at all.

[crystal star]

I would nix that second rule unless your starting party is stupid big

[dark basin]

Why wouldn't we start off with a good team? I know I've had DMs that if you die, you're the same level as your previous character, but I've also had some where you start from level 1.

[idle oar]

No. Some are very straight forward like "help the tavern get rid of it's giant rat porblem".

[severe rampart]

in the event of a TPK, at level one, just one crit means you're dead

[paper portal]

well you wouldn't want it to be your main campaign or wtv, its meant to be a challenge with high stakes

[hot gate]

If anything, I suspect you'll find people argue from different points of view and it depends on interpretation whether or not certain interactions work.

[limber trail]

I wanna actually shout paladin as a really good early class that comes with built in non-spell party healing to negate cure wounds and healing word. It can take a lot of its own class features without having tons of stuff that other classes would rely on.

[still plover]

Ah, downed. You can get fixed up.

[vast saddle]

Now I feel like Truman's "Dad" in the Truman Show movie because my DM wants me to refrain from taking any of his West Marches quest for a week

[paper portal]

true but then losing your pallie before level 6 is sad

[dark basin]

Depends on what is critting you, your class, etc. but my point is whether or not the DM starts your new character from level 1 or the same level as your previous dead character. I've had it both ways.

[limber trail]

it is but the alternative is losing some really big healing spells and classes early on

[oblique egret]

so what? i would have something in the bag of holding pre prepared with my spell of choice, hop in, have a party member point that bag at the thing i want to obliterate, give the activation word, and thats it?

[severe rampart]

Sure, but that means someone is going to have to pick up "Cure Wounds", and if that person dies, no more Cure Wounds for the rest of the campaign

[crystal star]

Sure but if they cant make a new character doesn't that kinda take away from the "you cant choose these options again" thing?

[vast saddle]

Alright....

[severe rampart]

Even worse if it's Healing Word or Spare the Dying

[vast saddle]

I guess if it's West Marches, it will be definitely weird in terms of story line

[limber trail]

The issue I find with cleric and druid out the gate is if you kill them, that's two incredibly good healing classes gone.

[vast saddle]

Better to play the official materials if I care about plot

[paper portal]

still means you cant double up on the really strong classes like wizard and lock and armor dips are much more limited

[severe rampart]

That's why Bard as the starting healer

Bards get barely anything, and with these rules they wouldn't have great options to pick from Magical Secrets because of the limited spells

[limber trail]

I could see a bard working

[dark basin]

How are we limiting spells?

I agree that only one character can learn a specific spell, but not limited casting on said spell.

[severe rampart]

I still stand by
Ranger, Rogue, Bard, Barbarian

[severe rampart]

Yes, only one character can learn a specific spell

and they can't change that out :)

[still plover]

Getting stabilised is a DC 10 check.

I mean, personally I run level one opposition as doing average damage, with a crit being the max on their standard dice. But level one is hazardous, sure.

[vast saddle]

Also, Idk if you're old enough to understand Truman Show references

I guess not

[limber trail]

(I will say, for classes that prepare spells, but otherwise know their entire spell list, it's whatever they prepare (clerics, druids, etc). For classes like wizard who learn spells and add them to their spellbook, it's any spell they learn at all.

[severe rampart]

I mean, yea, but you'll have to spend an action to do that, + if you're still in combat that's a waste of a turn for a player who won't even get up

[still plover]

I know the Truman Show, but perhaps you should explain what the reference means for the group?

[limber trail]

essentially, if you pick a spell at any points, it's gone. Nobody else can ever gain that spell.

[dark basin]

Now, we're ignoring the evil idea of limiting backgrounds. Sorry your ability scores are so poor.

[severe rampart]

"What the hell Mickey?!, I wanted Mirror Image!"

[limber trail]

I still think you could kind of be okay with this but it's mean

[remote wadi]

Starting to see the appeal behind spellcasters a bit more. In the sense that you can be trusted with the responsibility behind casting spells because Seluné knows nobody else can

[vast saddle]

His "dad" has been missing for years, but suddenly is brought back by the producer as nonsensical plot device

I don't want that to happen to me

[dark basin]

There's definitely a slippery slope of where the idea is novel vs pure evil.

[limber trail]

oh this idea simply is pure evil and should not be played in a serious campaign

[vast saddle]

I don't want myself to feel like an outcast due to that treatment

[still plover]

What's that got to do with not going on a quest for a week?

[dark basin]

"You took... Snilloc's... Snowball Swarm? I'm going to down you, I'm going to down you!"

[vast saddle]

Or worse....I may not get any quest for more than a week

[severe rampart]

"You all may level up"
"Dibs on Spray of Cards!"
"Ah dang it!"

[vast saddle]

They are currently running a storyline that I joined before. The quest when I experience bleeding

[dark basin]

I would recommend spinning a wheel to determine who gets what. Whoever wants Elf gets put on the wheel, whoever it lands on gets it!

[still plover]

Right.

[severe rampart]

Why a wheel? leave it up to the dice gods

Okay, I want to run this now

[dark basin]

RNG, RNG. Potato, potatuah.

[severe rampart]

Curse of Strahd Nuzlocke lmao

[dark basin]

"You have my sword... and or my axe... and or my bow... or whatever I get left with!"

[severe rampart]

You can actually lose DnD with this

run out of classes, game over

[dark basin]

Now you have to limit the roleplay by limiting character traits.

[limber trail]

thirteen lives

[dark basin]

Bonus points if you extend it to verbiage. Can't use the word 'and' because David used it 3 hours ago at the start of the session.

[severe rampart]

Split up between a party of 4 or 5

[limber trail]

I would definitely go with 4

[severe rampart]

definitely

Heck, might remove Artificer so it's a nice, clean, 3 lives per player

[limber trail]

five is decadent for the quantity of options off the table at the start

[dark basin]

Can you split up who can take what action per round? Only one player can use help, one attack, one magic, one utilize, etc.

[limber trail]

I wouldn't go that far

[severe rampart]

Too Evil

[limber trail]

leave it at character creation

[severe rampart]

"Big Fan of you"
-Tiamat

[dark basin]

You people are too reasonable for my taste. I would give every player a band of loyalty and let the game run!

"Guess my Elf only speaks draconic because Steve stole Common and Elvish"

[remote wadi]

Starting to realize something

Probably the biggest thing that stops me from being a wizard or Warlock is that playing Ranger is quite fun when everything works

[reef copper]

How would they communicate?

[remote wadi]

Well, that, and Invocations/Pacts/Subclasses/Patron make my head spin

[dark basin]

That's where the fun begins.

Only one character can have comprehend languages too!

[limber trail]

wizards and warlocks are also like, just a class. It is entirely and completely valid to not play them. I can't say I'm desperate to play them either

[severe rampart]

Universal Translator 😭

[dark basin]

My charisma character doesn't have any prof in charisma skills because our fighter wanted to be good at negotiating.

[remote wadi]

The general idea is that I trust myself with picking and casting spells more than others

But why I don't do it is that I have more Fun as a stealthy Ranger shooting things down left and right

But then someone else takes the Wizard and makes them this strange Wizard Tempest Cleric borderline abomination

(One would also think that given the long rest frequencies, portent dice would be a godsend for someone like me)

[limber trail]

I honestly think in any average dnd game, the power of a build isn't something that needs to be heavily considered. What's fun and compliments the character you want to play is much more important

[cobalt owl]

Usually the DM also scales their mons against how powerful your characters/party is anyway

The imperative word is usually. Of course there are screw around and show up moments where a level 5 party is facing an iron golem

[hot gate]

Or lets the party find ways around it in creative ways

[timid pagoda]

i made my own campaign; scenarios and everything. But i somehow manage to get half of it deleted, should i just wing it? or use a pre-made encounter?

[remote wadi]

I'm not saying like the level of power gaming and ultra optimized builds

But I lowkey wish I could be both the sniper of tbe party and also the competent spellcaster at the same time

And no. Eldritch Blast doesn't count

[cobalt owl]

Thats role playing for you

Everyone has their moments though, we had a really smart barbarian last session

[trim ore]

For the first time ever, I rolled for my race and subclass for my next character. I got a Kalashtar Sorcerer. The heck is a Kalashtar?

[limber trail]

There are feats that let you take spells as a martial or weapons as a caster.

[limber trail]

They’re a species from eberron, pretty cool

[remote wadi]

I already have Sharpshooter for Ranger. And yes, it's -5 +10

[timid pagoda]

benevolent spirits iirc

[limber trail]

I mean it sounds like you’ve got everything you want

[trim ore]

I looked up art. I just seen somewhat tribal looking humans lol

[remote wadi]

Until we get swiftly overwhelmed and Spirit Guardians won't do. Then, as much as I wish I want to say otherwise, I would have killed for a good fireball

[vast saddle]

I think I really need an "All Evil" campaign, Suicide Squad style

[limber trail]

Sometimes that’s character creation for you. Can’t always get everything

[vast saddle]

I feel like, I lost spotlights so many times in heroic campaigns

[remote wadi]

Well, hopefully an explanation for what they're doing to the wizard can be one of them because believing is such a fickle thing

[still plover]

Have you got the overall concept in mind and something to start with?

[severe rampart]

Could be interesting but you'd need good players to be with

[limber trail]

Usually it’s best to let other people do as they choose

[remote wadi]

At my expense...?

The teams expense?

It could be just the bad side of me talking, but some people clearly should have their freedom questioned. Potentially revoked (half joking)

[limber trail]

The fun of DnD is that everyone gets to bring their own character to the group. If you want to play without needing to factor in other people’s choices, there are a number of video games I’d recommend

[remote wadi]

No, it isn't that serious. Not yet, at least

[dark basin]

Uh what. That is ominous.

[humble cairn]

What was the expected hardcore level discussed at Session 0?

[limber trail]

I also know a number of people who would consider playing a ranger to similarly not be a super optimal call. I don’t agree with those takes, what I want to illustrate is that judging people based on how optimal their characters are is rarely good behaviour and table etiquette.

[remote wadi]

I mean like not having the 2 primary spellcasters

[limber trail]

I’ve also played with people who make characters based on what’s optimal and people who make characters based on what’s fun/fits the character and I very much preferred the latter

[dark basin]

Are you still discussing your BG3 game?

[remote wadi]

Do you really think I have any power to do anything more than that, jfc

[remote wadi]

Broader experiences, for the most part

[limber trail]

It’s not necessarily about the power, it’s really just about being mindful of your fellow players and empowering their choices.

[humble cairn]

Team comp isn't necessary in most D&D play. In general we should let people play what they want. Especially as another player at the table, it's not really your job to be worried about balance.

Let the DM wory about that.

[remote wadi]

You weren't here when I explained the chaos

[still plover]

#dnd-discussion message

[remote wadi]

If not, just reach out in #baldurs-gate-3-spoilers

Which should be self explanatory for some things

[humble cairn]

Wait this is for BG3?

[remote wadi]

Yes. Playing with someone else. Very rough start for act 2

[humble cairn]

Well the considerations for a video game are different.

[remote wadi]

Oops, wrong ping

[limber trail]

I will broadly say, even in bg3 the main idea of being a considerate and respectful fellow player still applies here

But I’ll also leave it there because this is DnD discussion

[still plover]

Ah! Now this makes more sense. Options are more limited in a video game, the computer doesn't care what you're bringing, it'll still put the same enemies out. Talk with that player, or turn down the difficulty and have fun with the story.

[remote wadi]

I am a little embarrassed to say that this is Balanced difficulty

Dreading that I'm doing this poorly given the circumstances

[shrewd token]

How does one make arcane trickster better, in all the games I play I feel like im lacking

[jovial sleet]

What are you generally doing?

Arcane trickster is overal pretty favored considering rogues I thought

[humble cairn]

General combat loop is:
Turn 1: Throw a concentration control spell then hide or otherwise position yourself for next turn
Turn 2: Snipe with Sneak Attack and using positioning to keep yourself, and your concentration, safe
Repeat Turn 2 until the enemies drop. Substitute in a non-concentration spell if necessary.

If you have a good DM who includes objectives in each encounter besides just making all the enemies lose their HP, you have some great tools to address those kinds of things. If you need to get X to/from Y, you have the tools to be able to grab things and weave yourself through combat pretty safely and be the runner for stuff.

[shrewd token]

evidentally not enough 🤣😭

[jovial sleet]

Why do you think so

[humble cairn]

Okay, but specifics, please. What do you feel is lacking? Or is this coming from somebody else?

[shrewd token]

Nah it's mostly coming from me, I akways firget concentration spells are a thing instead of just sneak attacks lol

[humble cairn]

You're a gish, get those concentration spells up!

Are you using 2014 or 2024 rules?

[jovial sleet]

Plenty of spells that are useful outside of combat too

[shrewd token]

I forgot True Strike existed omfg

[valid wharf]

Hey fellas I’m making a new character, anyone know any fun classes or archetypes to start with?

[dark basin]

I always have fun as cleric.

[shrewd token]

I need to remember Mage Hand isnt the only existing thief adjacent thing

[jovial sleet]

Invisibility is a classic for a Rogue. Not needing the full caster to concentrate on it is a big help sometimes

[timid pagoda]

yes i do :)

[crystal star]

All the classes are so much fun, but i love love LOVE playing pugilist fighters/barbarians. Thuggishly wresting foes to the ground is great fun

[jovial sleet]

I love casters personally

[valid wharf]

I’ve never played a Druid I might give them a go

[still plover]

Kick it off then. If you've got a three adventure arc to start with, that'll give you time to remake or recover the rest. Also consider making backups of your notes - two cloud accounts and an offline copy, if they're digital. Email them to yourself or something. Dump them in a Padlet or use Obsidian.

[humble cairn]

Yes, True Strike what makes AT kind of the most damaging Rogue at the moment.

[timid pagoda]

bro i wrote them down physically 😭 this time

the remaining ones

[errant crag]

Couldn't any rogue use True Strike with MI?

[visual wasp]

Hello nice to meet you. I’m new around here especially these parts and I’ve been a fan of D&D for a while and I’ve been in campaigns, but let’s just say I have a bit of a problem with my indecisiveness plus the hard time of making decisions but however, through where these people that kindly put me in in their campaigns and I had a blast and I get to see them in physical person which also helped my first character that they made, and this was premade so I can get to understand it was a rogue halfling and the other players we had was a elf that was an Eldritch knight fighter a dwarf wizard a rogue haling, which was me and I loved it then finally to round it all up a human cleric

[random musk]

I have been in a total of 2 campaigns also new around here if and also new to the game I know some basics I would love to join some campaigns and can’t wait to play

[severe rampart]

#find-a-game is the place

[sturdy tusk]

Should I make a Spare Character for my campaign in case my Original Character Dies?

I mean, I believe they wont die, but as a Contingency?

[timber zealot]

Hye

how are you guys?

[glad arch]

You can but generally id keep it as an idea not a fully fleshed out character. What can happen is especially if youve been playing your old character for a while you start looking forward to all the new cool stuff your new character can do and might lose some interest in the charactee youre playing

[sturdy tusk]

Oh Ok

[glad arch]

So instead of fully writing Bob the wildfire druid with these specific spells, these feats, these stats, this backstory just think if I die i think it would be cool to play a wildfire druid

[sturdy tusk]

I'll keep that in mind

[sturdy tusk]

Hmm Ok
-# My party's A bit Cursed lmao

[glad arch]

It will make it easier to make a new character quickly as you know roughly what you want and doesnt steal attention from your current charactee

[sturdy tusk]

-# 6 Players, Two Artificiers, A Druid, Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard

[glad arch]

All the magic

[sturdy tusk]

Huh... Ok!
Thanks!

[sturdy tusk]

-# Too much Magic

[glad arch]

Blasphemy

No such thing as too much magic

[sturdy tusk]

Lmao

-# Thats my thought with Guns

Tho we do have a...
lot of utility Spells...

-# My Character's Only Dmg Dealing Spells are Mind Sliver, Ray of Frost and Sorcerous Burst
-# Others are barely 5

-# Atleast 2, Max 5

-# This will be fun lmao

[steel moth]

I noticed that it is a popular trend for some dms to obsess over "traumatising the player/character" but I don't really get it

[buoyant oar]

Lot of the time that traumatization comes at the express request from the player

[fossil shuttle]

How long do ya'll think I can hide the fact that my CoS character is Strahd's son? Like, it shouldn't be too hard if I'm careful, but also, it's gonna be pretty obvious if he starts walking on walls and biting people. For the record, he's a Dham and not a vampire

[steel moth]

idk, personal experience tells me otherwise

[woven flint]

Just don't have him start biting people lol

[steel moth]

and i might have gone into some instagram rabbit hole about it

[fossil shuttle]

Well obviously I'm not going to do it in broad daylight, but I'd be a fool to not use one of my racial abilities

[rotund shell]

Wolframite... I'm sorry to say that I don't think there's any interpretation of Strahd where he'd have a kid given the whole point of him is that he doesn't have his love interest.

[buoyant oar]

Realistically it's based in the principle that if nothing bad happened, you don't have an interesting story. And I'm not here to debate whether that's true or not. But a story where nothing bad happens to the characters is in my opinion going to be far less interesting than just one where the character is fine all of the time.

People are allowed to Homebrew their stories. If they oked it with their dungeon master then it works

[rugged hawk]

Let's be real, Strahd wouldn't have any kids even if he did have his love interest, given his intent on obtaining her is to immediately ||seal her away forever||.

[rotund shell]

there is that too, I suppose.

[fossil shuttle]

Talked to the DM and we've decided that his mother was a ||previous incarnation of Tatyana|| who was killed by hired vampire hunters a little earlier on in Strahd's reign

[rotund shell]

I... still don't think that's how it'd work out if I'm totally honest, but hey. The GM allowed it, who am I to argue

[woven flint]

You'd be surprised at Racial abilities that go unused.
For example
Lots of people go Lizardfolk for the Unarmored Defense, which is built with Dexterity.
They have a Strength Bite unarmed attack that gives them so temp hp, but that isn't often used from my understanding and personal experience