dnd-discussion

[rugged hawk]

That's okay, I'll own my 18 TERAbyte HDD forever

[tough torrent]

I specifically mean Tabletop Simulator, the game on Steam

[rough basalt]

Well what i mean is you only own a temporary license to access the stuff on ddb.

[rugged hawk]

You don't own that statement you just made

[hollow stone]

i've never heard of that until right now if that tells you anything

[rugged hawk]

Yes

[rough basalt]

Well "temporary" basically until revoked either by them ending service of ddb or other means.

[rugged hawk]

I mean, worst case scenario, I use my PC setup to play offline Maybe hook up my fourth monitor for an extra screen to slap books on.

[rough basalt]

It's a VTT that can be used for a lot of various things

It's caveat tho is everyone needs to own it.

[hollow stone]

is it a purchase?

[rough basalt]

Yep

[hollow stone]

oh, maybe like 0.3% of people then

[rough basalt]

Ye it's 20 bucks and everyone has to have it.

But it's also usable for board games, warhammer, card games of stuff I'm aware of.

So people do use it it's just not as popular as Foundry or free options for DnD.

I think Fantasy Grounds is also pretty popular tho I'd never understand why.

I call it the VTT for people with 8 monitors, 6 computers, and have the 90s hackerman music playing as they output thousands of code a millisecond.

Apparently it's amazing once the DM gets the Fantasy Grounds Academy Master's Degree but my experience was with someone who didn't go to the academy.

[turbid vessel]

I've seen people use Google meetings for DnD, where there's a will there's a way

That shared drawing feature is clutch

[rough basalt]

Oh for sure. I just have had a year of excruciating pain using FG so I don't see any good with it personally.

[sharp fulcrum]

I figured out how to make a nuke with a infinite money

[rough glacier]

With infinite money it's easy to do anything in D&D

[rough glacier]

Foundry has some issues, like a hard learning curve and having to host it externally via port forwarding or a hosting service but it's simply too good

[hot marlin]

No you did not. Money is usually made of silver, copper, electrum or gold. None of those are usable materials for a nuke

[rough basalt]

Yeah, the learning curve is nothing compared to FG tho

[hot marlin]

Unless you mean infinite money like bribing the DM in real life?

[rough glacier]

FG?

[rough basalt]

Fantasy Grounds

The Python coding of VTTs

[sharp fulcrum]

Level 3 glyph of warding and 100 page book

[hot marlin]

OK so: You did not figure that out, a lot of people mentioned that before you. And who wants to explain why this doesn't work?

[rough basalt]

Actually pythons much easier than FG

[rough glacier]

Ohhh

[turbid vessel]

that aint even old tech, that's ancient tech

[hot marlin]

We should all know why this doesn't work by now, come on people.

[rough basalt]

FG is basically ancient

[turbid vessel]

glyph of warding abuse has been around even before 5e where the spell was called something else

[rough basalt]

it operates like an early 2000s software

[sharp fulcrum]

Then at level 7 u can create a minion as a wizzard who thwn at level 9 can cast wish for low amount of gold then use the gold on glyph of warding

[rough basalt]

Basically you have to take several courses in their discord to learn how to DM using FG

So you dont end up making a miserable game where players are more focused on manual labor than the game

[rough glacier]

Well, if you put enough time and effort into it, it can be good but it can't beat the comfort of using something prepare with all the bells and whistles

[hot marlin]

No, that is strictly impossible. I don't know which rules you're using, but those aren't 5e rules

[rough glacier]

Oof, the main reason I love foundry is because it's super player friendly

[rough basalt]

Yeah FG isnt

if the DM doesnt know how to work it

If the dm is lazy, its the worst experience you'll ever have with a VTT

[turbid vessel]

it's like the Linux of VTTs lol

[rough basalt]

Thats it

Linux of VTTs

[rough glacier]

I bet an experienced dm can make something 10 times better than foundry but it just seems like alot of work

[rough basalt]

It can be better in the automation department

[jagged vigil]

Hey guys! Things with my Good and Evil party members are coming to a head on this next session, I'm excited for it. Any of you guys have good stories on mixed-alignment parties in your campaigns over the years?

[rough basalt]

But it requires hardcore electronic music, several monitors, and montages that make you look like a super genius

[rough glacier]

That can be detrimental though, sometimes some manual stuff is fun like arranging inventory

[errant crag]

Ooh ooh I know I know, I raise my hand

[rough basalt]

Another way to put it could be its the Shadowrun of VTTs

[errant crag]

It doesn't work because the Glyphs disappear if the book moves too far from the casting location

[hot marlin]

Exactly pink!

[rough glacier]

Do you have any video representation of what a good FG session looks like?

[rough basalt]

Nope

[sharp fulcrum]

Simulacrum (7th level, Wizard)

[rough glacier]

I bet there is some crazy guy out there with the most intricate set up hosting the best dnd game the world has ever seen

[sharp fulcrum]

Simulacrum can cast the wish spell for me and I just simply repeat the process

[rough basalt]

Multiple monitors is mandatory

[rough glacier]

Won't be me though, I'll just use my lazy man's vtt and a prepare campaign

[rough basalt]

as you cant adjust window sizes in FG

[turbid vessel]

one of my favorite campaigns i played in had one player playing a morally dubious character who was the way they are because of their track record of people using, abusing and manipulating them, causing them to have a pretty blah perspective on the nature of sapient beings. being in a party of comparatively loving, affectionate people put them on several identity crises throughout the campaign, it was great to watch

[rough glacier]

That's just unreasonable

[rough basalt]

Everything im seeing is from years ago before Lord Foundry saved paid vtts

By giving something anyone can figure out how to use on a base level in a couple sessions but a lot of time bores a lot of fruit

[errant crag]

I still just use Roll20

[rough glacier]

God bless foundry and it's one time purchase

[woven flint]

I thought pf something dubious

A Champion fighter whose secondary fighting style is Unarmed Fighting

Maybe they usually fight with a sword or something and they're like
"Man, I don't need a weapon to rock your shit!"
And drop their sword to put up their dukes

[rough basalt]

FG had to go f2p

[rough glacier]

God help you

[errant crag]

It works just fine for me and my group

[rough basalt]

FG does have great support from official avenues but yeah its a VTT for someone who enjoys coding in Malboge or C++

[rough glacier]

That's what the style is for

[rough glacier]

I like c++ but I'm not spending hours learning the Linux of vtts, I don't even like Linux

I mean sure back then maybe, if I had no other option

[rough basalt]

Id say on a diffculty list of my personal experience.
DDB 1/10
Owlbear: 2/10
Foundry 4/10
Roll20 7/10
Fantasy Grounds 20/10

[rough glacier]

Well the main issue is that you have to pay for everything and it's a subscription

[dense nacelle]

What’s the current DnD discord discourse

[sharp fulcrum]

@hot marlin Simulacrum (7th level, Wizard) which then can use the wish spell

[rugged hawk]

Alignment system, obviously.

[rough glacier]

I'm learning about an obscure vtt

[rugged hawk]

I still maintain Vecna's CG. CN at worst.

[rough basalt]

Funny enough it was the "Foundry" before Foundry

[dense nacelle]

The most diabolical vtt is tabletop simulator

[errant crag]

Only thing I pay for is the PHB and the adventure I'm running which you can get away with not paying for, I just do it so my players can use the character builder

[errant crag]

Tabletop simulator is pretty bad tbh ime

[rough glacier]

One day there will be another giant after foundry, but it'll take atleast 7 more years

[hot marlin]

OK so:

1. You said "at level 7", no. At level 15.
2. That still doesn't work because that's not how glyph of warding works

[rough basalt]

Basically its Fantasy Grounds is the stubborn old man that wants to do everything the hard way out of pride. Foundry is his son wanting him to take it a bit easy sometimes

[rugged hawk]

Glyph of Warding works however the DM agrees it works

[rough glacier]

Still, after I bit the bullet to switch to foundry I couldn't go back

[rough basalt]

Ye ill never use a different vtt

[dense nacelle]

Foundry is good but it requires esoteric knowledge

[woven flint]

Spells typically work as worded

[rough basalt]

Eh not really

[rough glacier]

It's just generally good in every area

[rough basalt]

Foundry is pretty simple compared to the one im blabbing about

[rough glacier]

No, it's just intimidating at first

[errant crag]

Roll20 is the McDonalds of VTTs

[rough glacier]

Then you realise half the stuff on screen is just files for stuff

[hot marlin]

Let's imagine a DM whose reading comprehension is above a toddler's.

[rough basalt]

Foundry gives you a direct route to most of the tools and tells you what they do.

[rough glacier]

And the other half are rulers and map tools ect

[rough basalt]

Fantasy Grounds gives you a coding page

[dense nacelle]

I feel like foundry is the best if you’re running whole games using it, OBR is best for games that are being run half using avrae/ddb and half vtt

[rough glacier]

More like arbys

[turbid vessel]

only reason i like roll20 is that the character sheets are modular, and there's character sheets for games that aren't DnD. in roll20 character sheets, you can write in whatever you want in the boxes, which lets you do many things.

• you don't have to buy online character packs, you can copy and paste from your own books.
• you can make small alterations to abilities based on houserules.
• you can add homebrew content

[rough glacier]

That's why I love foundry, I have nothing else open on my screen

[rough basalt]

I remember the first time i used roll20 was for a Pathfinder one shot and i was in tears by the end of it

[rough glacier]

You can do all of that in foundry

[rugged hawk]

Oof, you'd do Zachthebold like that?

[rough basalt]

cause it wasnt letting me copy and paste

[rough glacier]

Matter if fact it's easier in foundry

[rough basalt]

He reads more than others but he doesnt read all of it

[rough glacier]

No one even mentioned the lag yet

[hot marlin]

I am not sure I know what you're referring to

[turbid vessel]

you can, but that part doesn't do it quite as elegantly

[errant crag]

I like Roll20 because I've had so many good experiences with their support and such, I've had Roll20 support employees hop into a discord call with me to help me get my session up and running thirty minutes before the session started. Feels like they actually give a damn

[rough glacier]

It just feels. So. Clunky.

[errant crag]

Hey Zach is one of the better D&D YouTubers leave him alone

[rough basalt]

Roll20 is the best if you're playing hyperniche systems imo

[rough glacier]

How so? For me with less than 2 modules it's like 2 clicks

[rugged hawk]

Oh, I guessed you missed his short regarding Glyph of Warding: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/AcQ8OBq-oXE

[errant crag]

Not a single person here is trying to tell you Roll20 is better, people are just sharing their subjective reasons for preferring it

[turbid vessel]

we're DnD players, you can't make fun of us for our game having bad rules cause we don't read the rules of our game 🔥

[remote wadi]

Is it just me, or do I find a deceptively good chemistry between Ranger and Belt of Giant Strength?

[rough glacier]

I think even then, you can just tweak foundry to remake said system

[hot marlin]

Oh. Oh this is making me angry.

[errant crag]

I love me a STRanger

[hot marlin]

Oh that I hate

[remote wadi]

No, not like a full investment in that. Just getting the belt

[rough basalt]

I downloaded fantasy grounds again out of curiosity and i didnt even get into the actual map without closing it due to information overload

[rough glacier]

And I'm just saying, it is technically easier, alot of people like me where intimidated by how complicated and headache inducing foundry looked

[errant crag]

Okay but we're not intimidated by it we just prefer Roll20 for our purposes

[hot marlin]

Why can't people read before they make youtube content?!

[rough glacier]

More power to you then my friend

[hot marlin]

Is it so hard to read?!

[rugged hawk]

Gee, it's almost like some folks make content for fun, not for 'muh accuracy'

[rough basalt]

Roll20s grown on me better lately

I'll never use it as a dm but i dont mind games in it nowadays

[hot marlin]

Accuracy is fun!

[remote wadi]

Like, the main drawback of a Bow Ranger is that while sword and board is also a possibility, you have very few options for actual weapons (and if some form of weapon masteries or unique abilities are present, this becomes more impactful)

[rough glacier]

There is this one bald guy on tiktok who just reads broken combos on reddit and acts like it's his own and half of them are just wrong

[hot marlin]

Look, if accuracy is not fun, if people find it acceptable to put such garbage on the internet, then that means I'm the abnormal one. Which is not possible, everyone else is wrong, I am perfect

[rough basalt]

I know who you're talking about. He fully believes they work too

[rugged hawk]

Okay, it can be. Counterpoint, this party just became the new BBEGs of the next campaign because they blew up a city

[rough basalt]

He'll fight with you in his comments if you call out the obvious flaws in his logic.

[rough glacier]

The other half of the time they are so utterly situational they are just useless

[remote wadi]

But having the Belt of Giant Strength means that you can make use of your Martial Weapon proficiencies without sacrificing neither feat nor Fighting Style

[rough glacier]

Or he finds a broken class ability but fails to mention how it can only be used like twice per long rest

[hot marlin]

They did not blow up a city! Even if that worked. That was maybe a hundred fireballs, yes. But each of them was centered on the same point. They utterly destroyed a radius of 20 feet and maybe caused a fire, but that's not a nuke

[rugged hawk]

Stop spoiling the experience. We'll say it works like circle magic and expands the radius

[rough glacier]

It can be a deceptive first look into what dnd is since recently there has been alot more people entering this hobby

[hot marlin]

It does not. You could throw a billion fireballs, if they're centered on the same point, someone 30 feet away will still be fine

[rough basalt]

People do look at those shorts and think that they actually work

[remote wadi]

Like, even getting the rare variant means that swapping from, say, a longbow to a pike is very much possible without taking damage and accuracy decreases

[rough glacier]

Now all you get are just copy cats of people obviously trying those op combos then getting disappointed when it gets shut down by a competent enemy

[paper portal]

yeah you get so many people thinking youtube shorts mage hand stuff is actually something you can do and its completely unhelpful for everyone

[rugged hawk]

I can't hear you very well over how I want this to work

[errant crag]

I feel like it's so harmful to the community

[crimson gulch]

love a melee ranger, the dual weilding one with the belt of storm giant strenght in my last exandria campaign Slayed so hard

[rough basalt]

Gotta remember most dnd players dont know how to play dnd so when yt man say something work it works

[hot marlin]

If people need to spread misinformation to be funny, that means they have no business even attempting to be funny and should go back to whatever infernal hole they crawled out of, and admit that they will never be funny.

[crimson gulch]

yep, its up to the dm to make sure their games are ran properly, no one else is going to do it for them

[remote wadi]

Or just YT algorithm as a whole and think that a Ranger is the 2 worse halves of Fighter and Druid the same way that a human is the 2 worse halves of dwarves and elves

[rough glacier]

It also just makes the already dying martial class scene worse, martial classes are good it's just that people keep getting too many long rests!! Now everyone avoids them like the plague

[paper portal]

the martial caster divide depends on a LOT of factors

[rugged hawk]

"I don't misinform. I just LIE." -HeavenlyFather, 20XX

[remote wadi]

Based reference

[paper portal]

optimization level, character level, length of days, encounter types

[errant crag]

ZachTheBold is usually pretty good about stuff like that, that video is definitely an outlier.

I find his Guidance video very humorous

[rough glacier]

It also just promotes the idea that D&D is a game to be "beaten" and that you HAVE to optimise how you play, I don't mind minmaxers as they are valid but it just makes people feel dumb for just doing cool impractical stuff

[buoyant oar]

• DND shorts -pointyhat -everyoneelse

[hot marlin]

Ok fine. One little mistake, no big deal. No big deal. No big deal.

[knotty vine]

I now understand the power of absorb elements ngl

[paper portal]

there's also just the fact that none of their build advice is actually good optimization lol (except pack tactics is decent)

[rough basalt]

its for algorithms

algorithms favor anger, buzzwords like ranger bad or "i beat my dm"

and misinfo

[hot marlin]

Uh. I was told that pointyhat was generally above the norm of D&D content creators

[remote wadi]

I always keep it in the middle of compent. Not lowkey throwing, not ultra top tier combos

[hot marlin]

And I think the new rule is "we don't talk about oneshotquesters", yes?

[rough glacier]

All you have to do for this op broken synergy is multiclass and suffer until level 18!! While the campaign ends at level 6

[buoyant oar]

I watched the D&D shorts timeline of the Forgotten Realms. It was so wrong. I immediately just assumed he used ChatGPT

[mild lodge]

hi

[errant crag]

I like ZachTheBold's videos discussing topics like dungeons, PC death and how it can change the tone of a game, and making up boss HP and how it can devalue the boss encounter and such

[crimson gulch]

oh man it was so bad wasent it?

[rough glacier]

Fun is the most important factor, that abd not being annoying to your teammates

[paper portal]

exactly, at most they end up slightly better than just what an average dnd player would cook up for a normal character

[rough glacier]

Recently almost any video about dnd reads exactly like chatgpt, and chatgpt gets all the lore and info INCREDIBLY wrong it's funny

[paper portal]

yeah optimization is awesome imo but im not gonna do it if nobody else at the table is cus then they dont get to do anything (unless its an optimized support character i do have one of those currently)

[rough glacier]

And that's the best case scenario

[buoyant oar]

I think the part that makes me the most upset is that his video was hyper condensed, which is fine, but there's literally a hyper-condensed version of the lore that's correct in the sword coast Adventurers guide. He couldn't even be bothered to use that.

[hot marlin]

OK I'm putting it on! Let's see... I'm not as big an expert on the Forgotten Realms as you are but we'll see if I find the inaccuracies...

[rough basalt]

I think dnd shorts is among the just doing it for algorithms

[rough glacier]

It also just screws with the difficulty curve, now either your party will suffer with unfair fights or you'll get targeted unfairly OR the fights are too easy, complete loss situation

[remote wadi]

Perhaps. But if you spend your turns in a corner crying to the point that you get the Frightened status, you may need to reevaluate what fun is

Or be like me and see leaving the campaign at request of the DM a lowkey flex because they couldn't handle average Monk gameplay

[rough basalt]

the bald dude mentioned earlier is more like Oneshotquesters and fully believes what he says

[hot marlin]

OK first off: No, this is not the D&D timeline, this the Abeir-Toril timeline. Misinformation one.

[uncut zenith]

You’re not wrong

[rough glacier]

Depends on the table, everyone has a way of playing they like, a DMs job is also gathering people who will mesh together well

[novel eagle]

Random question real quick, if I am grappled by a creature and someone casts sacred flame on the same creature, do i need to roll a dex save as well?

[remote wadi]

No

[rough glacier]

He's just so cocky too

[novel eagle]

Alrighty, thank you

[errant crag]

No it's not an AoE

[remote wadi]

Only AoE spells like burning hands or thunder wave

[rough glacier]

No

[buoyant oar]

I think that's why it feels chat gpt to me. It's just so confidently wrong

[hot marlin]

Wow, no, this is nonsense. Even the 4e lore is poorly understood

[errant crag]

Do y'all mean D&DShorts?

[uncut zenith]

Even D&DShorts’s “broken character build” videos are just there for the views. Im convinced he either doesnt know the rules as well as he says he does or he ignores them so he can make his “broken” characters.

[remote wadi]

Which, for the record, I make a lot of attempts to get along well

But some people can be intent on having their fun only be from your lack thereof (and from my experience, more often than some)

[rugged hawk]

4e lore was a WoW expac no one asked for, if it's misunderstood, it could only improve.

[rough glacier]

I wish cleric subclasses were more specialised rather then "here is an op base class with free extra spells and an even more broken class feature!"

[errant crag]

It is pretty sloppish tbh

[paper portal]

he gives bad advice much more often than he gets rules wrong tbf

[atomic kayak]

Thats impressive, considering how often he gets rules wrong

[buoyant oar]

You know, as somebody who is a big forgotten Realms nut, there's actually quite a few things that I actually really loved about 4th edition and is lore. I think the execution was very poor. But they were some nuggets in there that could have been saved.

[uncut zenith]

His whole MO seems to be proving how “WOTC doesn’t know what they’re doing”, but he also struggles with proving he’s any better

[errant crag]

YouTubers like those are why I'm so strict about Rool of Cool in my games

[buoyant oar]

I'm just glad they moved on from the D&D must be like improv and you must yes and until you die. That was an exhausting few years.

[rough basalt]

nah this bald dude is like baby face shaved and american or canadian irc

[paper portal]

rule of cool is "if the rules allow it then its cool" /silly

[remote wadi]

Honestly, I'm pretty sure that I can make a debatably video with no prior experience on how Ranger is a lot better than people give them credit for

[rough glacier]

Rule of cool is dead nowadays, if you do it too much you'll eventually get a player who will just use it to reverse engineer an op combo

[hot marlin]

... He did a part about the war between the dragons and the giants without mentioning the dracorage mythal?!

[uncut zenith]

Mind you im not saying WOTC gets it right 100% of the time, but if you’re gonna call them out at least try and make sure you know what you’re talking about

[paper portal]

yeah ranger is the 7th best class in 5e and 9th in 5.5, nothing fabulous but theyre not like bottom tier garbage

[hot marlin]

Literally the most important part of that lore and he didn't mention it

[rough glacier]

Depends, alot of rules can be open ended so it can lead to some shenanigans

[undone rain]

Ughhh oneshotquesters. After everything hes done i cant look at him the same way anymore

[hot marlin]

... I'm sorry, Lolth the most powerful being in the abyss?! No, no, no, sir.

[paper portal]

yeah even the "RAW" players like me ban some stuff, mostly infinities lol

[remote wadi]

From what they tell you. But I lowkey believe they're higher with a competent DM and setting

[hot marlin]

Oh, he finally mentioned the dracorage mythal. And he didn't mention what it was actually about and messed up the timeline

[uncut zenith]

imo nobody plays the game 100% RAW and that’s by design

[rough glacier]

There are also spells that I just hate

[hot marlin]

Yeah, no, I'm done, this is bad. This is incredibly bad. I am utterly convinced he did not even read the timeline on the wiki, nevermind opened an actual book

[rough glacier]

Leamonds tiny hut is just such a stupid spell

[paper portal]

nah they tell you ranger is last im basing this off like actual optimization and not whatever goes on in youtube videos
obviously its different for every table cus not everyone does play with optimized stuff

[paper portal]

nystuls is also nearly always banned lol

[rough glacier]

Then you get a youtube shorts video calling silvery barbs a hate crime against humanity when there are spells 100 times worse

[hot marlin]

... King Karsus. He called Karsus a king.

I am starting to think youtubers can't read

[rough basalt]

the reality is most dndtubers cant read and a lot of the ones who can will ignore it for whatever works

[remote wadi]

It's super dumb. Even dumber when they call Barb and especially Fighter direct upgrades

[paper portal]

to be fair if you account for level id call silvery barbs maybe like 5th best spell

[uncut zenith]

They can read. Selectively.

[undone rain]

Whuh whats happenin

[paper portal]

6th ig cus nystuls

[turbid vessel]

most dnd fans in general can't read lol

[rough basalt]

true

[frail wasp]

i certainly cant

[rough glacier]

Dndtubers aren't for actual dnd fans or ttrpg fans, they are for people too hesitant to actually play but just interested enough to learn about it

[errant crag]

My problem with it is that most of the time it isn't even cool, it's just then describing something happening in a different way then it does, or them describing themselves doing something with no regard for action economy

[uncut zenith]

I don’t even know what any of this chat says

[errant crag]

I don't think this is broadly the case

[rough glacier]

Yes but to be fair the lucky feat exists and nobody speaks bad about it

[errant crag]

The disingenuous shorts guys maybe

[rough basalt]

The biggest channels generally yeah

[buoyant oar]

It's a funny meme that D&D players can't read, but it is a very alarming thing at the table. Just how much D&D players blatantly do not to learn the game they're playing

[hot marlin]

Well: One Dndtuber made a short that propagated a misconception about glyph of warding. Then we collectively took a dump on DnDShorts and I have been watching his nightmare of a video on "the entire D&D timeline".

[rough basalt]

As they grow off disingenuous shorts

[rough glacier]

Yeah just trying to bend reality to win

[paper portal]

oneshotquesters lol

[turbid vessel]

the best meme/shitpost dnd youtubers are the ones who are transparent that their content is all for laughs and aren't actual genuine advice of how to play the game

[undone rain]

And hes wrong on several things i assume

[rough glacier]

Maybe but most channels are just wrong

[errant crag]

A lot of D&D YouTubers have vods of their games up on second channels and such

[uncut zenith]

A lot of D&D influencers genuinely seem like they’re fans of the game. But there are others who, to me, feel like they’re more focused on being influencers than they are being D&D fans

[undone rain]

He only plays dnd for youtube thats it.

[rough basalt]

Ginny Di earned a lot of respect with me when she said sometimes she makes disingenuous slop and clickbait just for the algorithms in one vid.

[buoyant oar]

I think when it comes to players learning the rules if anything else could be put on the dungeon master. In my opinion it would be, stop solving the rules for them, teach them, and show them where to go in the book to find the ruling so they can learn for themselves.

[uncut zenith]

That said, this is a personal opinion and not a fact

[hot marlin]

Almost everything? Even the things he gets right, he misrepresents. First off, it's not the D&D timeline, it's the Forgotten Realms timeline. And no, it's not the timeline. The dracorage mythal does not happen after the king-killer star. Lolth does not cause the Crown Wars.

And Lolth is not the most powerful being in the abyss, what the hell?

[frail wasp]

most DND influencers have less than 25 followers :V

[rough basalt]

Oneshotquesters was more of a grifter than anything.

[undone rain]

Oh good lord how can someone be so wrong

[rough basalt]

From what I've heard he's never played much dnd at all, mainly his wife did

[rough glacier]

That's not fair in practise, if you are a new player absolutely ill guide you with patience and welcoming love, but if you aren't new to intermediate I shouldn't have to do extra work to stop you from breaking the game

[undone rain]

I believe hes done oneshots but only on youtube

[hot marlin]

... Oh no. Oh no no no. He confused the time of troubles and the spellplague.

[undone rain]

Not as a hobby

[hot marlin]

He thought Mystra dying at Helm's hand during the time of troubles is what caused the spellplague and the collision of Abeir and Toril.

How? How does someone make a video so blatantly wrong?

[rough basalt]

Aight we rolling initiative

How dare the Time of Peak get compared with the Slopplague.

[paper portal]

so you could say he was a oneshot quester

[buoyant oar]

Dungeon Masters should never allow anyone to break their game. That's not what I'm saying, I'm saying that instead of the DM taking all of the responsibility of knowing the rules players don't have to learn them. And that's a problem.

[rough glacier]

You know what's a true honest tap of info that isn't just reading the books? The old classic of having someone who knows about it tell you

[undone rain]

What youtuber should i watch to learn of dnds deitys

[rough glacier]

Like a folk story being told around a campfire

[undone rain]

Badum tss

[buoyant oar]

Jorphdan for Forgotten Realms

[hot marlin]

"Midnight steps forward to become the god of magic during the spellplague and stops the worlds colliding together".
DnDshorts, being absolutely, unbelievably wrong, 2025

[frail wasp]

players of most games don't learn the game before playing them, that's not unique to dnd

[short brook]

Who is the most powerful being in the abyss?

[rough basalt]

A lot of DnD players just never learn after playing either

[undone rain]

Thanks

[frail wasp]

that's why tutorial is so important

[rough glacier]

It indeed is, though thankfully I run my games fully digital so most of the complicated stuff is automated

[paper portal]

a level 20 wizard next question /silly

[short brook]

lolth being a god, I thought she would be

[undone rain]

I think shar is one of em

[buoyant oar]

She's not in the abyss I don't believe

[hot marlin]

The queen of Chaos? Maybe Pale Night? Maybe Demogorgon? Any of the hundreds of gods that live in the abyss?

[buoyant oar]

Tharizdun Is where I put my money

[undone rain]

Altough shars a bum tbh. Selune better

[hot marlin]

Yeah, probably. Though I thought he was in another plane

[buoyant oar]

He's moved around a bit

[short brook]

I just didn't know they reached divinity like lolth but I don't doubt it. I want Pale Night to be the strongest in my hc

[buoyant oar]

He's less consistent than the cosmologies

[short brook]

Mother of Demons not being strongest being there is a lil weird to me

[undone rain]

Vlaakiths definetly not up there, miss fake god

[rough glacier]

@hot marlin in your opinion what is the coolest D&D monster, and if it isn't the bulette why are you wrong? /silly

[buoyant oar]

The reason I picked the chained God is because the abyss exists because of him

[rough basalt]

Vlaakith is mostly a fraud

[uncut zenith]

She’s not the mother of demons

[rough basalt]

She's dangerous but only against mortals.

[short brook]

Is she not?

well, my bad.

[undone rain]

Isnt she a lich actually

[rough basalt]

Yep just a regular lich

[undone rain]

Damn what a fraud

[rough basalt]

She makes herself appear as a God but she's just a lich with a Vorpal Sword

[hot marlin]

I'm pretty sure I'm stronger than my mother in just about every way. Admittedly, we haven't boxed in a while.

[rugged hawk]

Vlaakith is mostly a lich. She's spent centuries feeding on the remaining energies of a dead god's corpse, trying to ascend.

[rough basalt]

Nothings happening really tho

[hot marlin]

Vlaakith also feeds on the souls of other Githyanki, taking their powers and skills for herself.

[short brook]

yeah I guess

My mom would beat me with a sandal i couldnt win

[hot marlin]

Vlaakith is also one of the most accomplished wizard, fighter and psionic in the multiverse

[rough basalt]

Also to eliminate any potential threat

[rugged hawk]

Tbf, if she tried to do it quickly, she'd just die.

[buoyant oar]

The Queen of Chaos is also a good contender

[undone rain]

Shes almost as bad as lolth when it comes to treating their subjects

[unkempt atlas]

Guys i need a little help on something, my dm is allowing me to play a fairy in our campaign and im trying to figure out the mechanics on how it would work out

[rough basalt]

If she didn't regularly eat strong Gith all it'd take for her to be overthrown is for the illusion of divinity to be broken.

[buoyant oar]

The real evil elven god is corellon.

Dude is like Zeus he straight up sucks.

[rough basalt]

Lolth propaganda /j

[undone rain]

I like the gith lore tbh, a false god is not smth you see everyday

[unkempt atlas]

She's a barbarian, and uses a shortsword like a greatsword

[errant crag]

Then just give her a Greatsword

[rough glacier]

Be a huge fairy 🧠 /silly

[errant crag]

And say it's a Shortsword she's using as a Greatsword

[hot marlin]

You know, people keep saying "Zeus sucks", but that's based only on Hesiod's Theogony and Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound. In every other text, Zeus is great

[rough basalt]

Lolth couldn't handle not being loved anymore and caused all that bad stuff in corellons name

[short brook]

I just figured demon princes weren't true divinity, thats why I thought Lolth was the strongest being there. Devils got Asmodeus, surprised to find no greater deity for the abyss

[rough basalt]

Lolth is far from the strongest

[undone rain]

I believe bg3 handled the giths very well

[hot marlin]

Oh yeah, and Ovid's Metamorphosis, but that's technically Jupiter, not Zeus.

[undone rain]

Love the idea of rebel giths and has inspired me to make my own rebel gith

[short brook]

Ya but she's an actual lesser deity in the registered pantheon, that was just how I inferred it

[undone rain]

(Whos actually a githzerai but shhh)

[rough basalt]

Key word being Lesser

[errant crag]

I still gotta play the Githzerai order cleric I was making

[short brook]

Yes, but still a deity nonetheless

[rugged hawk]

Asmodeus isn't the strongest, either. He managed to oust Gargauth, but that was only because a majority of the Nine Hells basically unanimously voted Gargauth out for being too evil.

[undone rain]

Im actually making a githzerai cleric lol

[rough basalt]

Asmodeus is a case of the right devil for the right job

[rugged hawk]

Gargauth didn't actually take an L from getting kicked out of the Nine Hells, though. He became the Tenth Lord of Nine and a deity.

[short brook]

Tenth lord of the nine is a cool title

[rugged hawk]

Yeah, Asmodeus will always be second place

[short brook]

He's also kinda chopped

[rugged hawk]

Gargauth is now the god of contracts, power, and betrayal. No wonder Asmodeus wanted him gone.

[woven flint]

Too bad he's a bum

All Devils are bums!!!
RAGGH

[short brook]

A real and true statement

[rough basalt]

True

[unkempt atlas]

Maybe her little 3'6 frame could handle it?

[woven flint]

The Demons put belt to ass
I can respect them for that

[rugged hawk]

Gargauth is basically a Dark Lord of the Sith "I have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it further."

[short brook]

BTA as some would say

[buoyant oar]

Too bad he's stuck in a shield

[woven flint]

Might be spoilers 😭

||I know DIA is probably one of the most played Moduels but...||

[hot marlin]

If it had been said last week, it would have been for us

[buoyant oar]

That Shield's been in D&D since third edition

[woven flint]

Not all players have been playing since Third Edition 🤔

[errant crag]

Using a regular Shortsword without doing TWF on a Barbarian would just be significantly worse than using a Longsword or Greatsword so I would just say that it's a Shortsword she's using as a Greatsword and functionally just have her use the Greatsword weapon stat wise

[buoyant oar]

Fair enough

[woven flint]

Just because something has been around for a while doesn't mean it's common knowledge

[errant crag]

Especially in D&D

This ain't a famous movie we're talking about it's a D&D game

[woven flint]

Hell, I didn't know about Lord Garguth until ||I looked at his shield a while back by accident while looking for legendary items||

[buoyant oar]

Thinking back to that one time a moderator here muted me because I mentioned that Strahd was in Eve of Ruin.

Despite the fact that the marketing of the adventure spoiled that.

This is a much better place now

[errant crag]

Thats still a spoiler

[buoyant oar]

It was also on the front page of D&D Beyond

[errant crag]

In my experience the vast majority of D&D players don't consume D&D marketing material

[hot marlin]

I can agree that something is not a spoiler if it's part of the marketing

Or even if it is, the spoiler was already done by the marketing, so who cares

[rough basalt]

I think technically it is but it'd be like saying Hulk wasn't gonna be in a Hulk movie if you said strahd won't be in a module ddb said he would

[crimson gulch]

Yep, I love that so few players metagame and read the modules

[paper portal]

yeah thats kinda just a product of big servers most of the time tbh

[buoyant oar]

Thankfully, like I said this place is a lot better

[paper portal]

theyre still pretty strict

[errant crag]

If I brought Eve of Ruin to the table at session 0 and said "Aw man are you guys excited to fight Strahd von Zarovich?" my players would be pissed

Because that would be a huge spoiler to anybody who doesn't actively use D&D Beyond

[buoyant oar]

Far far far less than they were not even 2 years ago

[unkempt atlas]

Perfect

[rough basalt]

Well in this case it wouldn't be reading the module it would've been scrolling social media and you see "fight strahd in dnds newest adventure!" From ddbs social media advertising

[paper portal]

my main issue with the way most servers do moderation is that its based on infractions with no lenience for more active members so youre essentially punished for chatting more often but thats not an issue specific to this server

[hot marlin]

There have been some changes to the server that do make it more livable since... About the end of 2024.

[errant crag]

There absolutely shouldn't be more lenience for more active users

Regulars shouldn't get special treatment

[buoyant oar]

Yeah, you should definitely maintain the same standard regardless of who it is

[rough basalt]

All my moderated actions I've understood since that time ended.
I've been like "yeah I had that coming"

[buoyant oar]

Me too with the exception of during the dark times.

[errant crag]

I have such a seething hatred for DDB, both because its such a god awful platform, and because for some reason people assume that everybody uses it when it's such a god awful platform

[rough basalt]

But yeah I can see the argument for a spoiler but also for it not being when DDB had it on reoccurring paid advertising on social media.

[errant crag]

It's so wild to me to assume that everybody uses DDB it's the most predatory means of accessing D&D content

[buoyant oar]

It is by far not the most predatory

[umbral girder]

Yeah they could have been worse

[rough basalt]

They tried to be worse but thankfully it didn't work out

[paper portal]

its not special treatment its accounting for the fact that youre gonna have more slip ups if youre more active

[buoyant oar]

Vtt specific versions of modules can't be used elsewhere. D&D Beyond absolutely can be if they wanted to prevent its content from being used elsewhere. Things like Beyond 20 Chrome extension and the ddb importer for Foundry would not exist

[rough basalt]

Naturally why would you receive moderator punishment if you never talk in the server

[errant crag]

That's part of the problem, they want to make it less consumer friendly

[crystal star]

Not breaking the rules shouldn't really be numbers game

You can just not ever do that

[buoyant oar]

I've been an early adopter of ddb. I got a legendary bundle when it was less than $300. I've always been a defender of the platform. As a supplementary way to get access to content.

I always buy my own books on top of ddb because I have that ability. I've been far less friendly of the site since it was purchased by Wizards of the Coast. I was a lot more forgiving when it was a third party venture, then when it became a first party venture. Especially now that it's been years.

[rough basalt]

And the rules are pretty fair.

[paper portal]

thats not really realistic though, everyone gets a bit off topic sometimes or forgets which swear words arent allowed or sends an emoji or smth (mostly the first one lol this chat is only talking about dnd like 60 or 70% of the time)

[rough basalt]

You don't get warnings for mentioning pathfinder like you would if you mentioned Pathfinder in some smaller dnd servers.

[paper portal]

i did once get muted for being off topic while talking about dnd so like

[errant crag]

The moderation has improved a lot over how it used to be

[tough lynx]

I got a message deleted cause I said a cat breed…

[buoyant oar]

That could have been auto moderator. It's pretty strict here for good reason

[paper portal]

yeah sure im just saying thats a gripe i have with discord moderation in general is that it punishes you for being active

[rough basalt]

I just don't get why it shouldn't

[errant crag]

Yeah but there reaches a point of being active for long enough that you should know the rules

[rough basalt]

It's not like they fully ban you for one mistake.

[hot marlin]

There's also a point where if your activity is getting you warned often enough, you may be better off touching some grass

[paper portal]

that is true

[rough basalt]

Yeah I often get too heated in here so I try to do something else

[hot marlin]

Some people are terminally online

[rough basalt]

Unfortunately can't touch grass

[errant crag]

They gave me dozens of warnings before banning me and even then they accepted my appeal several months later and let me back in

[buoyant oar]

But on D&D Beyond, I'm happy the changes that are being made are finally being made. But I will also acknowledge the fact that Wizards of the coast is not a small company. They have big company profits. DDB probably should have had these quirks and updates ready to go for 5.5's launch. Not 2 years later

[rough basalt]

Cause the weather keeps going from 80 to 30s

[rugged hawk]

What if I'm allergic to grass?

[rough basalt]

So the human adaptability isn't able to kick in comfortably

Maybe I should need to use the chant
"With this human body I summon"

[crimson gulch]

No kidding, so many service failures

[rustic walrus]

Hello

[hot marlin]

Then touch some water, get near a river.

[buoyant oar]

Like I said, far more forgiving of it whenever it was a third party venture. And about the first 6 months to a year after it was acquired.

[rough basalt]

I think the reason the fixes are finally happening is connected to the noticeable increase in book quality and positive connections with creators

[errant crag]

I will never use DDB unless I'm joining a game where it's required and I'm not needing to pay because the DM owns the content already

[buoyant oar]

But especially with the 5.5 rules revamp, it wasn't like that came out of nowhere. They had like 2 years.

[rough basalt]

Yeah but there were different people in charge then who still had considerable control until the corebooks started releasing

[buoyant oar]

And I get that. The website had a lot of spaghetti code and a lot of tech debt. Believe me I'm aware. But the Wizards of the Coast is a large company you could probably given more resources to the ddb team.

[atomic kayak]

The main "issue" with the. mess. that is the website is that to actually proper restructure (and more importantly) futureproof it, it would require taking the whole thing offline and doing a clean wipe of everything. Including everyone's characters.

Which well. Sure would go over with people

DDB was already failing in this regard even before wotc bought it

[buoyant oar]

Maybe my web dev skills are a bit out of date but database cloning and staging sites exist

They still exist right?

[errant crag]

Even when I have used it as a player the character builder felt obtuse in the order it did things in, even I as a person who isn't inexperienced was getting confused by it. Can't imagine for a new player, though maybe I'm just dumb.

[buoyant oar]

Oh it's definitely not been very good since the new rules have come out. It's very confusing

[rough basalt]

Im confused by the new layout but the changes to some things have been better

[atomic kayak]

The site was designed pretty much exclusively around the very narrow band of "this is part of the base rules in the 2014 phb". It didn't even support a lot of the optional stuff from the 2014 dmg

[rough basalt]

Like the dice roll history starting with the most recent roll now

[atomic kayak]

Its why the site stopped supporting the mildly more experimental UA so quickly (which was before wotc bought it)

[rough basalt]

before itd start with the first roll of the campaign so you have to scroll through pages of rolls

[buoyant oar]

No, I get that. And I'm aware that I'm not privy to a lot of the behind the scenes stuff, but it's felt that ddb has always been a very tiny team, especially considered the emphasis that the company puts on it. I think a lot of the delays in the services could have been softened if the amount of manpower share that ddb has was more equal to the amount of importance that it had for the company

If that makes any sense at all

As for the UA stuff, I completely understand why Adam and the original team stopped supporting it. He would mention on the live streams often that he would learn about the UA when the public did

[rough basalt]

Ye i think they might finally be getting the resources they need, now that some major changes have happened

[atomic kayak]

tbh, based on just how spaghetti the homebrew tools are (which as far as I am aware, was literally almost identical to the rules the devs themselves used for the actual content), I doubt more resources would inherently help without the aforementioned "total reset" method

[onyx haven]

I do hope they can eventually get back to putting UA on the website.

[buoyant oar]

Maybe it wouldn't have. Like I said, most of my comments are armchair and I'm willing to admit that. I've just managed similar projects for other companies in obviously different industries and I just get curious about what their thought process is

[atomic kayak]

I think their (wotc's) thought process was something along the lines of "this thing is making money so its ours now and we don't have to change anything about it or (more importantly) invest anything into it"

maybe thats not fair and it was actually a hasbro thought. who knows. but still

[rough basalt]

I've had a bit of a feeling since the book quality jump, the content being more exciting and more respect for figures in the community since the new team took charge that a lot of issues may have been from people that aren't exactly there now.

[buoyant oar]

Definitely! I think the new team that's been spearheading the releases has been a great change. Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford did a lot for this game, but it was getting pretty easy to tell that their hearts weren't in it those last couple of years.

[rough basalt]

And there was the guy who said wotc would never do dark sun or setting guides cause "it's not worth it"

Who left in early '24

[buoyant oar]

Which to be fair given the controversy that guy was going through at the time I would have said the same thing

If you can't handle the backstory of a flying monkey species with care and candor. Do not attempt slavery the setting.

[fickle heart]

From what they've (the lead for DDB's back-end, iirc) said, they're working on stuff (that stuff being revamping the website as a whole) in a sandbox.

I think they even said they're working on getting the character content to transfer over, which is the hard part.

[rough basalt]

Then new team comes in "Slavery exists in FR, it's not good and there's people against it."

[buoyant oar]

In early 5th edition Dark themes like that existed pretty prevalently. And then like the internet mob found them like bad tweets from 2009 and they kind of over corrected really hard on the bad things happening. I think we're in the equilibrium phase

[rough basalt]

Ye the new team is just like "man dnd has all this prime for content just sitting around. We just have to respect it."

[atomic kayak]

always worth remembering that Dark Sun was mentioned in the 2014 core books

[rough basalt]

And 2024 dmg

[fickle heart]

What I'd give for darker themes to exist in 5e again...

[buoyant oar]

And like we're still not all the way back there, I don't know if we should go all the way back there. There's some things that should be updated. For example, slavery exists in the Forgotten Realms, but you can bet they were not going to let it be featured in one of the five Adventure settings in the book so Calimshan was updated to outlaw it.

[rough basalt]

I think Dark Sun 5e the more I look into it has been in the new teams plans since they started taking over.

[knotty vine]

I now understand the peak of absorb elements

[rough basalt]

Since the IP for it was renewed after WotC let it expire in '24 last year in October after the last of the Old guard was gone and the Dark Sun UA was stewing for a couple months

[buoyant oar]

I'm going to be real curious if they actually end up doing it what the marketing is going to be around that book. Dark Sun If it's done as always has been done or at least to that r-rated level. Cannot have run-of-the-mill wacky fun happy-go-lucky marketing attached to it. People should be informed of what they're getting into.

[rough basalt]

Market is as "you hate slavers? You hate genocidal maniacs? You wanna killem? Come to Athas"

Since 5e PCs can do something about the state of Athas as opposed to the past.

[buoyant oar]

Dear wizards employee, that is reading this chat hopefully. Please do not make the Mad Max comparison. Somebody already did that for descent into Avernus

[rough basalt]

Wizards employee. I come to you as a humble consumer. Do not make Borys, the Sorcerer-King a misunderstood bad guy. Keep him a sadistic monstrous genocidal maniac. Let us have irredeemably evil monsters to destroy.

[rugged hawk]

We already have those, they're called Dwarves, Hobbits, and Goblins

[fickle heart]

I think the difficult part of darker themed contexts like Dark Sun is that you truly need to have a clear communication on how you expect people to engage, including engagement that makes sense in the context of the setting but needs clear boundaries so that people don't view that engagement as indicative of anything real world.

[knotty vine]

Yall i have a question

[rough basalt]

I think it should have a "session 0" section in the first few pages

[knotty vine]

if i were to make a magic item that allows me to cast Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion what ratity would it be

[rough basalt]

Clearly outlining the content, and whatnot

[hot marlin]

Honestly, they'd be better off hiring Rich Burlew. He recently wrote a parody of Dark Sun that, while comedic, clearly completely understands how the setting should be treated.

[indigo cedar]

the biggest problem I would assume is thise who will scream loud on the internet about how wotc are evil and all that, even tho they aren't the target audience of such a setting

[rugged hawk]

Out of curiosity, did you consider Galder's Tower instead?

[hot marlin]

Do that, minus the comedy, and you're golden

[knotty vine]

I wanna throw parties!

[atomic kayak]

Rare realistically, assuming its a 1/day

[knotty vine]

Of course

[rough basalt]

Like for my setting guide, I recently started on the blood magic for my world.
It's dark and disgusting, so I put under the chapter title in big bold letters "content warning, gore, cannibalism, dark themes"

[rugged hawk]

I find MMM to be too much for a personal lair, but the other dwelling spells too pathetic for various reasons. Galder's Tower was the only real option I liked, however, it's locked specifically to Wizard spell lists, so I had to make a homebrew version for Warlocks and Sorcs.

[rough basalt]

I think if they do something like that but as a section in the beginning with guidance on how to handle the dark themes for Dark Sun that'd be good

[fickle heart]

I think the problem is moreso navigating the moral issues in a "realistic" way, without putting a shiny gloss on them.

[indigo cedar]

I do not disagree, but there will always be people who react negatively just because it makes them feel good about themself

[rough basalt]

If the new team ignores people who won't play dnd, and releases a good dark sun book my soul is theirs

[knotty vine]

Maybe

[rugged hawk]

Oh, and the Instant Fortress is just too squishy. Primarily because it can only be repaired via Wish.

[rough basalt]

Cause an important thing a lot of companies could stand to adopt is that a lot of internet screamers aren't actually consumers of your product.

They're just screaming out of boredom or for cash off of clicks

[hot marlin]

Honestly, I'm not seeing it.

[knotty vine]

I like to live lavishly is all

[fickle heart]

Of course, but that's not people who will actually be engaging with and affected by the product.

[rough basalt]

Ime it's mostly "old dnd players" who haven't played anything past 2e but seem to have the "right opinions" on 5.5e

[rugged hawk]

Like, I'd settle for 'Mordenkainens Moderate Manor' or something.

[indigo cedar]

very true, but it never stops them from making noise

[rough basalt]

Mordenkainens houseboat

[hot marlin]

Shadowrun has involved themes of racial discrimination, political corruption, since the nineties. VTM has involved a certain kind of violence since the nineties. Dark Sun is not special

[rough basalt]

True

[worn crow]

Dyno did not like you there

[knotty vine]

honestly that sounds nice too

[rough basalt]

Shadowrun even involves prejudice in its character creation to a degree.

[ripe nimbus]

I think we're kind of past peak "complain about bad things being presented in fiction even if they are presented as bad", that feels like a very early-mid 2010s thing to me

[rough basalt]

They're negative qualities basically telling you you're a bad person for it

[jolly canyon]

Time for me to be the change in this world. Newbie player who has only played 5.5e and thinks old dnd is bad 😈 /j

[rough basalt]

Way Shadowrun does it is by having sections where it's like "this is the kind of stuff you'll possibly go through or experience"

[indigo cedar]

The advantage with having a smaller audience is that you can also allow yourself to explore a lot of darker themes

[rough basalt]

if you have clear warnings and guidance for handling dark themes, you are not at fault for the consumers mistakes.

But thats something thatll always exist

some Mom will get her son "Murder death kill" simulator and scream at the devs for there being Murder in it

[hot marlin]

The fear of people reacting negatively to fiction portraying bad stuff as bad is overblown. People don't do that. The Boys is still a very popular show. Breaking Bad is still considered very much above the cut.

[rough basalt]

True, the Boys has won several big awards and couple of its actors big awards for their performance in it

Homelanders actor and Karl Urban iirc

its truly down to how you handle dark themes

[hot marlin]

While there are some people who are, for lack of a better term, reactionary children whining whenever a work of fiction refuses to be a comfortable escapist fantasy, those people are still the minority.

[rough basalt]

like S4 had a very bad handling of a certain dark theme and the director got rightfully criticized for it and his bad response to the criticism

[turbid vessel]

then the opposite end of the pendulum become clear, people who view the affect of dark themes as positive because the show doesn't have explicit good and bad guys
IE, big corp supporters watching The Boys not realizing that they're exactly the demographic that the show makes fun of

[rough basalt]

I've been slowly working towards my setting being as dark as originally intended but the right way (imo)

[short brook]

settings with lots of bad stuff usually aren't my cup of tea but they should have the right to be a thing

[rough basalt]

Oh yeah btw the other most popular tabletop game is Warhammer, and every Warhammer world completely sucks

Warhammer is so grimdark it loops around to being morbidly hilarious

But it also has those same dark themes that are serious issues

[turbid vessel]

really the most important question to ask when using dark themes is "what kind of story am i trying to tell?"
there's a lot of thoughtful storytelling that can come from dark themes, but if they're just used as shock value or present the narrative in an inauthentic way, then that's when it comes of as in bad taste

[short brook]

I've seen a lot of people that get upset when a villain is evil and does evil things, they can only do evil things on the normal evil list. It's weird, they can't do more intimate evil because it's too much i guess compared to like murder

[tired rune]

The Australian femboy tiefling artificer kind

[rough basalt]

Like you can "For the Emperor!" all you want but there's a reason Roboute Guilliman is trying to make massive reforms to the Imperium cause it absolutely sucks

[turbid vessel]

yet another reason you gotta ask yourself what story are you trying to tell. sometimes people try to hard to portray a villain as evil as possible, not even wondering what kind of evil we're trying to go for

[hot marlin]

And then the question is what kind of dark themes? Berserk has a very different kind of darkness than Warhammer, which has a different kind of darkness than Mississipi Burning

[turbid vessel]

cough cough, average warhammer fan

[rough basalt]

Theres two kinds of warhammer fans /hj
"I know this is absurd and it sucks, but i like how it sucks"
"this isnt absurd and is ****"

[short brook]

I love warhammer's setting, it seems like fun, but also man it feels demoralizing to me a little because my god it's a bit unrelenting (though I guess that's the point).

[rough basalt]

yeah its a setting where if you try to play it 100% straight you're likely gonna get tired at some point

[short brook]

Settings like FR where there's capacity for both sides are much more my style

[hot marlin]

Absolutely the point. It should be demoralizing, it wants to be demoralizing, because war is demoralizing.

[rough basalt]

But some people love dark worlds and the stories that can be told in them

[short brook]

Yeah, I know. I'm just not the preferred audience, can still appreciate how dope the setting is though

[turbid vessel]

when i couldn't be in 1 warhammer forum without someone being an actual xenophobe, i took that as a sign that the game probably isn't for me
but that's starting to get off track

[short brook]

Yeah that

[rough basalt]

It depends on where you engage with the community

forums suck, social media is memes and cosplayers

[short brook]

there's the weird titles I can't remember it but like noble bright or whatever, isn't that what the FR is?

[rough basalt]

Discord its either the bad ones or good ones

[tired rune]

It's discord. What do you expect

[rough basalt]

A good comparison ive seen is Warhammer and Helldivers 2 have the same kind of fanbases

[short brook]

I mean I won't lie, grim dark settings attracts a certain type of people that are like the worst

[knotty vine]

I KNOW

Thats why i always avoid games that say "game of thrones" like 😭

[rough basalt]

Half to majority of the fanbases engage in the absurdity of the IP without taking it unnecessarily seriously

But the loudest online presence are the ones who take it 100% seriously to unhealthy degrees

[hot marlin]

Actually the people who take it seriously are not the problematic ones.

The ones who take it actually seriously are the ones who are concerned about the themes, about what the story is saying.

The ones who uncritically accept it and revel in it? Those ones are weird

[knotty vine]

Explode

[rough basalt]

my point is unnecessarily seriously

Like the 2% of HD2 fans that supported ruining a dudes life for no reason

Or in warhammer the like 10% that make the community look bad by being racist and other stuff online

[errant crag]

Anybody else think that PCs being unconscious during death saves is kinda odd? Not balance wise, but like, narrative/in world?

[short brook]

That was an insane situation, every fandom/community has got those people though

[knotty vine]

Your just eepy

[short brook]

I don't like it personally

[knotty vine]

Dying/very sleepy

[rough basalt]

kinda part of my point

the insane minority aren't the sane majority in both cases

[short brook]

yeah for sure, it just feels like those settings/games they're louder than usual

[rough basalt]

its cause they're more openly nastier which gets a lot of algorithm pull

[short brook]

Yeah, I can believe that for sure.

[rough basalt]

I was in a game years ago with a "gold standard community" and everyone was very two faced toxic positive

I was in a group that had people from a south american country cant remember which one, that'd talk crap about the other guild members in their native language cause they assumed we wouldn't know it and they were part of the "positive gold standard members" as they liked to call themselves

[turbid vessel]

i haven't heard that term before, gold-standard community. where did that come from?

[rough basalt]

I dont remember what they actually called it so i just called it what i think would fit

basically it won an award for having the "best community"

[turbid vessel]

ahh, gotcha

yeah, some people get really good at being toxic while using words that seem really positive if you blur your vision

[rough basalt]

But a lot of them started dropping their facades when the WoW players made a migration cause they wanted a game that better treated its players

[plush ermine]

My brain is failing to think of any other cool flavor combos for gestalt for star druid besides diviner

[undone rain]

Why'd i read that as shar druid

Think ive read too much on the deitys

[fickle heart]

Definitely depends on what "dying" is meant to represent, so I can see it. I think the "dying on your feet" works better for stories where death isn't necessarily a "bad thing" and you wanna have the ability to control your own demise.

[short brook]

Idk, I just don't think people that are in fight just immediately knock out

[rough basalt]

I take it as you're teetering in and out of consciousness narratively

[analog night]

1: the swamp arena

a thick hazy fog rises from no where it seems and trees sprout quickly and abruptly once everything calms down they hear a loud croak in the near distance and a death slaad jumps them

death slaad

swamp with a hazy fog

2 desert

sand starts to pile in quickly and they all start to feel incredibly hot like boiling hot and a few cactus sprout out of no where as the sand settles they see six gnoll's come after them

a gnoll fang of yeenoghu 2 gnoll pack lords and 3 gnolls

[short brook]

I don't like just becoming suddenly inert

[knotty vine]

I love being a fight/rogue with cure wounds

and lesser resteration

[rough basalt]

I think mechanically its cause being downed is something thatll commonly happen in dnd

[analog night]

HOW DOES THIS SOUND CHAT (it needs more details sorry also if im inturupting)

[rough basalt]

And part of streamlining is making it very clear and cut

Its not necessarily like older dnd or OSR where hitting 0 means "you watch your cleric get their head cut off by the minotaur" immediately

[knotty vine]

I watched this happen once

It was crazy

[rough basalt]

High lethality lends itself to very funny deaths ime

[short brook]

ngl the suspense of rolling deaths saves kills me

literally

[turbid vessel]

that's a fun part of systems where death is common, the deaths themselves usually become more comedic and slapsticky. Call of Cthulu is like that at a lot of tables

[short brook]

rolling two failures back to back then having to get three successes in a row is the worst

[rough basalt]

I ran a 3 session game of Shadowdark and one of the deaths was a Wizard flying off a handrailcart and slamming into a wall dying instantly

Cause they hit a tight turn too fast and the cart tipped

[short brook]

When playing games like that, you're just out for the rest of the session? What happens?

[rough basalt]

they made another pc

[turbid vessel]

sounds like it needs to go in #dm-discussion

[short brook]

on the spot?

[rough basalt]

shadowdark you can make pcs in like a minute

[analog night]

fire mb

[short brook]

Gotcha

[rough basalt]

its just
Race
class
item
go

and they have a character generator site to make it faster

that same player died 3 times that session

[short brook]

Makes sense, deaths do sound like slapstick

[rough basalt]

he was a graverobber who then got knocked into a grave by a zombie and broke his head

then a dwarf going to his grandmas grave who got pushed into a grave plot by a zombie and broke his neck

it became so hilarious all these people coming to a mining town graveyard

Theres a lot of sheer hilarity you can have in high lethality

In normal games it can be really awkward when a PC dies instantly in a funny way

cause a lot of people will wanna laugh but its that persons 20 sessions in pc

Like theres been a few deaths in CR where you could see the players trying not to laugh including the one who died

[rough basalt]

I had this happen in my wednesday game last week. it was 2 fails then 2 successes then 1 last fail

Death saves are fun

especially when they're stuck in a situation where autodamage will cause a failed death save

Like being in a swallowing creatures stomach

[glad ferry]

Gotta love when you roll 2 nat 1 for death saving throws

[rough basalt]

i think ive only seen one pc die to rolled death saves

and it was the one last wednesday

[glad ferry]

It happened to me on a charscter I was playing for the first time

[rough basalt]

Every PC I've killed with monsters has been instakills or finished off

It was looking like a character death yesterday when a Remorhaz critted the wizard for 65 damage and ate him

[turbid vessel]

here's a question: have you guys ever gotten a nat 20, when it was the worst time to get one? for example: a character i had was a lycanthrope who had to resist bloodlusts or go feral for a turn, targetting whoever was closest. near the end of the campaign, he fought his sister who he was trying to save from the evil path she had taken, but when his bloodlust got triggered, he had to target her. and i rolled a nat 20 on the attack. with all the damage riders i had since we were level 12, it was an instant kill.

[golden violet]

Does anyone know if they banned content sharing with players on dnd beyond?

[rough basalt]

Never had one like that I can remember.

I did roll two 20s and instakilled another PC

[woven flint]

You know you can.. declare nonlethal on melee attacks, yeah?
even if you do massive damage

[rough basalt]

But I intentionally attacked them.

[woven flint]

OH

I see, they were bloodlusted

[glad ferry]

One of my characters almost died by having their souls tucked out of them

[rough basalt]

Two nat 20s on both attacks with 2 level 2 smites against the party warlock

[turbid vessel]

yeah, it was out of my hands at that point

[glad ferry]

Luckily he had durable which gives advantage on death saving throws

[rough basalt]

That was one of the cases that led me to believe pvp can be fine.

[glad ferry]

Usually its a true death if the amount of damage goes into the negative to the amount of hit points they have and no death saves

[rough basalt]

Cause in character my Paladin and his Warlock had an agreement "no killing innocent people"

That we agreed would have consequences out of game if broken.

He broke it then I reduced him to atoms.

[glad ferry]

Or they fail their 3 death saves. Its always fun when you have 2 pass and 2 failed

[rough basalt]

I liked that paladin I kinda wanna play her again sometime since that game was cut abruptly in the worst way

She was scared of the dark which was fun when the Warlock casted Hunger of Hadar on her.

[thick void]

I want to do something emotional and vulnerable at the next session but I don't think anybody at the table will come with me (in a RP sense, not actually going anywhere)

[woeful fulcrum]

Hey, I don't mean to interrupt your conversation but I had a question, I'm dm'ing for the first time soon and I've built the world and what the goal is but I don't have any puzzles to find certain items and don't know how to create any, I'm starting on doing kids on bikes and it's a once upon a time themed campaign. Any suggestions?

[woven flint]

One time, my party sorcerer cast a fireball on my Armorer Artificer while attacking some other enemies near me, so after the fight, my character was frustrated, the sorcerer said "Then don't get in the way, idiot!"
I downed him with a Crit Thunder Guantlet punch and then healed him back to full after lmao

We both were fine with these incidents out of character because I told him it'd be okay to fireball me as I had absorb elements anyway, but we, in character, had been at eachothers throats for a while

We both laughed when it critted

[umbral girder]

I believe that’s a subscription thing

[glad ferry]

It crits when you dont want it to, and doesnt roll well when important unless its one of those lucky times

[woven flint]

My only instance of PVP that involved characters actually attacking eachother
They had somewhat of a heart-to-heart when talking during a long rest, so it actually gave us some character development

(For clarity, I asked if it was okay before I hit him out of character)

[harsh hinge]

This would be a good conversation-starter in #dm-discussion!

[umbral girder]

So what I’m hearing is I need more monsters with Crown of Maddness and Dominate Person.

[woven flint]

Or beings willing to make tempting deals

I've got like....
Two characters who absoultely slap the shit out of a fellow party member if it got them something in return though
And that's my Bugbear Ranger (Who only really likes 1 of his 4 other party members)
And my Air Genasi Artificer who'd do it out of curiousity

[rough basalt]

My first campaign had a pvp moment that ended in my character falling apart cause he didn't remember anything about who he was. Only the bodies that kept stacking up trying to get a powerful staff to destroy a bhaal cult sect from within.

It was a session that I've yet to experience anything close to.

[woven flint]

Otherwise, most of my characters are too caring to hurt their party members or are actively trying to be better people

[rough basalt]

My character straight up blew up a neighborhood in waterdeep before they stopped him.

We had to pay Xanathar to cover it up.

[glad ferry]

The biggest issue im running into right now is I got 2 players who dont do anything to help. They just sit there and pick daisies pretty much

[rough basalt]

Made one of his "casters" he was done with take the fall for it.

[woven flint]

My Warforged Pugilist almost caught his first in-character kill (He nonlethals usually) over one of our party members being shot at
And would've absolutely caught a body after our Gnoll Rogue died if i was there that session

[turbid vessel]

my first dnd game, the rogue wanted to steal my spellcasting focus without me knowing. the DM was also new and didn't know how to handle it, so they just let it happen. i then went like 2 more sessions without my spellcasting focus because "it would be metagaming to assume my character took your focus"

[woven flint]

That sounds... painful

[turbid vessel]

since then i've had a generally bad taste for PvP, but i recognize it can go really great if done right

[turbid vessel]

we were all like 14, i look back at it with humor lol

[woven flint]

The Waterdeep party I'm in plans on killing Xanathar and Manshoon eventually

[rough basalt]

My party and my mass murder basically made part of waterdeep a better place.

Cause all the killing was like Cyricists, and other evil God cultists and criminals and such. Xanathar probably lost quite a number

[woven flint]

We're all locals of Waterdeep and we're tired of the crime on the streets, though we've spared plenty of Zhentarim and Xanathars Guild and a few other criminal folk to try and give them a second shot at life (which has actually been doing well, some live in our manor with us and help us run our Tavern during our offtime)

[rough basalt]

We could've killed Xanathar if we'd wanted I think.

We were level 11 with a DMs very busted homebrew shenanigans.

Laeral probably didn't appreciate all the holes I kept putting in her city

[turbid vessel]

level 20 waterdeep shenanigans sounds like peak dnd lel

[woven flint]

we've done good deeds for the city, so we have a few allies
We went from Dragon Heist to Dungeon of the Mad Mage with the same characters lol

[turbid vessel]

you can just mog xanathar into behaving cause your party has defeated the equivalent of 10 xanathars

[woven flint]

Screw that.
Kill Xanathar and their title

[rough basalt]

Send him to the Rock of Bral to be trained in the art of Pizza by Large Luigi to reform him.

Nah, the only good Xanathar Guild member is a dead Xanathar Guild member. Only exception is the fish

[woven flint]

Xanathar's men has put too many holes in our Home/Tavern for us to be anywhere near thinking of redeeming him lol

[rough basalt]

Yeah and part of initiation for the Xanathar Guild is pretty screwed up crimes

Like murdering your family and stuff

[errant crag]

Are there any disadvantages to playing a PC species that IS NOT a Humanoid?

[rough basalt]

So every Guild member killed is a positive for Waterdeep

[errant crag]

I know it has a few benefits but are there any inherent disadvantages?

Inherent*

[hot marlin]

Uh... Not an inherent disadvantage, but discrimination?

Oh, and banishment in 2024

[errant crag]

I ask because my friend wants to run Crooked Moon and I wanna use the player races from that book and most of them are not Humanoid

[rough basalt]

Me when I cast Banishment on a Fey PC in my world and they're basically dead if they don't break the conc.

[errant crag]

So Banishment probably won't be an issue since most of them are undead and plants and constructs

[rich tundra]

Guys. Do you think making DnD cartoon is a good idea ? To show duferent monsters and places. Or people just will not care ?

[rough basalt]

Blight would be trouble for plants

[umbral girder]

There already is a DnD cartoon notably

[rough basalt]

I think theres a couple spells that constructs have disadvantage on

But basically the downsides are niche.

[errant crag]

The race I'm considering playing is one of the only two humanoid races amongst these player races

[woven flint]

There's a weapon that does more damage to Constructs, but I'm fairly sure a dm wouldn't use it against you

[umbral girder]

: )

[errant crag]

Don't some healing spells not work on constructs and undead?

[rich tundra]

Well yes but they old and new one is cringe anime stuff. Am talking old school dnd. With half naked man fighting monster to save half naked woman or smthing

[rough basalt]

My Monday party only has one Humanoid now

[errant crag]

A lot of the races are constructs and undead

[umbral girder]

Me when I use Orc Splitter on the Orc players

[rough basalt]

Cause the tiefling was resurrected as a construct. (Reborn mechanically)

[woven flint]

Not In 2024 rules

[umbral girder]

What new one?

I’m talking the 1980s Hanna Barbera cartoon

[rough basalt]

I don't think there's any animated dnd stuff where it's half naked man saves half naked woman.

Other fantasy stuff sure

[umbral girder]

Yeah haven’t seen that before for D&D

[rich tundra]

Vox

[umbral girder]

I mean technically we had War Duke for the men part

[umbral girder]

Pretty sure that show actively pushes back its DnD ties last I checked to be its own thing.

[rough basalt]

Vox has lewd scenes and raunchy humor but it's not like 80s fantasy type

[rich tundra]

Well let's say a barbarian fighting a drider in some ruined Lolth shrine

Will it be interesting to see ?

[rough basalt]

I mean if it looks good

[umbral girder]

A concept that is a bit just ok.

[rich tundra]

"Primal" style

[rough basalt]

Tbh I do have a fondness for the ridiculous 80s era but the ones that did it for both sides

[rich tundra]

Well i dont wanna do like heavy scenario stf. Just short episodes from DnD stf tht can happen

[rough basalt]

Where men and women were in basically nothing and ripped to the gills

Let men have bikini armor

[umbral girder]

He-man and She-Ra style

[rich tundra]

Well u ripped or u have magik or u undead

[umbral girder]

Notably their show was also Hanna Barbera like the D&D cartoon

[rough basalt]

Hanna Barbara made so much peak

[umbral girder]

Scooby Gang vs Venger when /jk

[rich tundra]

Well it's a bizarre fantasy world what do u want from it ?

[rough basalt]

Ye something unfortunately lost in fantasy along the way was a lot of the weirdness.

People thought they had to throw weirdness out with the bad stuff

[glad ferry]

Take over xanthers role and title

[rough basalt]

There's a lot of good stuff you can take from the past and do right with what is known now.

Like a lot of people will whine about skimpy armor but if you put anyone in it and not just women, you're gonna get a lot of "hell yeah" from a lot more people than whiners.

[errant crag]

I would much prefer to see men in skimpy armor anyways

[rough basalt]

You know what the strongest warrior in a Fromsoft game looks like? A person in their underwear.

[umbral girder]

Based

Reminds me isn’t the Storm Giants Belt based on He-Man?

[rough basalt]

I think so

[glad ferry]

A male in bikini armor would be fun to run

[woven flint]

As a man, I prefer no armor

[errant crag]

That's just a barbarian

[woven flint]

I run into the fray...
Booty ass naked!

[rough basalt]

Dude would get along with Bjornulf the Unclothed

[woven flint]

And Monks!
And Sorcerers..

and Wizards!

[errant crag]

The last barbarian I played wore only the pelt of a tiger as a loin cloth and nothing else, not even shoes

[rich tundra]

Ok am doing this

[umbral girder]

Also a subclass for Paladin too

[woven flint]

And Dance Bards

[rough basalt]

Oh right that reminds me.
All the priestesses of one of my gods church don't wear shoes.

Kojima would be proud.

[glad ferry]

Ive got a yuan ti bard dancer who won't be wearing shoes

[woven flint]

When you can't even say...

My name..!

[errant crag]

Do all the worshippers not wear shoes or only the priestesses

[remote wadi]

Lowkey, I think I'm onto something with combining your normal Ranger with Belt of Giant Strength

[glad ferry]

Say my name say my name

[rough basalt]

Worshippers take their shoes off when their actively praying or on "Hallowed ground"

[remote wadi]

Basically the class that can actually benefit from all those weapon proficiencies without sacrificing things like Archery or ASIs

[rough basalt]

So in the city they sort of call home, everyone's barefoot until they leave the city pretty much.

[woven sail]

Ughhhh completely irrelevant to everything else going on but one of my players canceled AGAIN

[woven flint]

I had a lizardfolk Rogue who didn't wear anything sometimes...

[tranquil trail]

I neev@teeth_are_yummy @teeth_are_yummy

[remote wadi]

The real BBEG of DnD
Conflicting schedules

[woven flint]

It's okay though, nobody ever saw him /silly

[rough basalt]

The Priestess I'm writing my setting guide through the eyes of has a quote actively complaining that she wishes she could still feel her feet

[tranquil trail]

Hi

[woven sail]

More like she lives with strict grandparents bro this is buns

[glad ferry]

A goblin would be interesting as a pc with their short lifespan

[tranquil trail]

I have starter set hero's of the borderland

[woven flint]

He was a Phantoms Rogue..

But also an Albino Lizardfolk.. so people thought he was a ghost sometimes!

[remote wadi]

Either way, RIP

[rough basalt]

A lot of the lore for my world varies between dark, unhinged or just goofy

[errant crag]

If you're looking for players you gotta check out #find-a-game

[rough basalt]

Like Kobolds being made by the Dragon God to make the Dragons learn responsibility

By annoying them repeatedly until they guided them with anything.

[crimson gulch]

The ranger in my toa game had a fire giant belt before he got petrified, good times

[rough basalt]

I like how I do Dragons in my world.

I loosely base them off a manwha where Dragons act a lot like people but completely disregard the damage they cause the world and its inhabitants.

[remote wadi]

I mean, it realistically would make sense. The main upside about sword and board is that you do get that extra AC to fall back on. But unfortunately, your options for weapons are limited

Having that belt would fix that issue (and if the dnd/bg3 game has magic weapons or abilities locked behind weapons), you now have plenty of opportunities to expand your arsenal

[woven flint]

In my world Dragons wouldn't exist because I'm sick bastard!
Every other fantastical beast would though

[rough basalt]

Except in my case they kinda have a divine mandate to regard the inhabitants of the world.

Not that they have to follow it but most choose to

[umbral girder]

Thinking about the time I knew very little lore about dnd and just invented my own with the named characters

Wild times

Bahamut and Tiamat died when creating the world.
Tiamat being elemental magic became the world and Bahamut being mostly positive energy made life on the world

[rough basalt]

I remember my first campaign was basically about a crown of wishes that caused some bull crap and broke into several crowns worn by the original holders children.

Then some nonsense happened which caused their palaces to be melded to FR and trapped in places

Like one was under mountains on the sword coast

Another was buried at the foot of the big volcano outside neverwinter.

I ran that one as a one shot

I thought i did alright

Made the boss have a lair effect that caused exhaustion from extreme heat

I feel like I've reconnected with that creativity but with an understanding of the game now lol

[unkempt atlas]

Does ANYONE have a stat sheet for a fairy? Does that even exist?

[honest hazel]

What kind of fairy

[crimson gulch]

There's several kinds in the monster manual

https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/5195164-pixie

[hot marlin]

So your campaign was essentially about entering several different areas, seeking different bits and pieces of a McGuffin, areas that could be tackled in any order?

Uh... Why am I getting the urge to play Dark Souls 1 again?

[rough basalt]

Never got that far.

Tbh I drew it up based on two messy low player one shots, got it started on a whim then went four days with only like a a total of maybe 8-10 hours of sleep overall before the 1st session rewriting all the prep based off some reddit advice.

Cause I had like 5 days I thought to make a whole first megadungeon.

Expecting the players to just speed right through.

I'm not running any additional more 5e campaigns for awhile.

Rn my brain is completely full with my 3 5e games and shadowrun game along with the setting guide I'm making.

[rough basalt]

Btw you should do this

Play peak souls 1

[crimson gulch]

Just be careful you don't go Hollow

[errant crag]

The Fairy playable race in Modenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse

[unkempt atlas]

You are amazing and I love you

[errant crag]

I have no strong feelings towards you one way or the other

[jolly agate]

what other smol races we have besides Halflings, Goblin, Gnome and dwarf?

[narrow delta]

That one race from dragonlance, the halfling with the serial number filed off

[idle oar]

kender

[narrow delta]

Yeah that

[idle oar]

There's also faeries

[past blaze]

"halfling with the serial number filed off" absolutely killed me

[pine bloom]

Hi everyone

[robust flame]

I wanna borrow all of my friends kids and do a baby’s first D&D campaign party…soon as those kids turn 8 it’s over

[knotty vine]

Judgement

[empty thicket]

an adventure of them being knights trying to slay a bad evil creature
Something simple, something nice

and you give them characters

[robust flame]

I’m making one of them a wizard…the most chaotic child will be the wizard

[severe rampart]

What level wizard

[robust flame]

To make it fun I’m gonna teach them fireball immediately to see what happens

[sage frigate]

Yooo im tryna make a magic item for a campaign im gonna run could someone tell me if its op or not? 👀 first time dming and making magic items so i hardly know what im doing

[severe rampart]

#homebrew can help ya

[sage frigate]

Thanks!

[empty thicket]

"you can be a cool wizard that throw fireballs and spells, or a knight with a shiny and strong armor, a Big strong barbarian with 2 axes that scream a lot!! or finally you can be X" (X = place any option you want"

[severe rampart]

Rogue

[robust flame]

I’ll make sure it’ll be simple enough to understand and simple enough for me to DM because I’ve never DMd by myself before

[empty thicket]

yeah, you will need to explain their options, what they can do, etc. etc.

[robust flame]

My friend and I made a scooby doo campaign together and trolled tf out of everyone the whole time

[severe rampart]

Changeling Con-man tricking all of them

[errant crag]

A familiar is still useful to a Barbarian surely right?

I mean it can attune to magic items and take the magic action, maybe I can give it an Enspelled item so that my familiar can cast spells while I'm raging

[minor cargo]

Also. It can be your friend. 🥹

[errant crag]

True

[sonic forum]

Unrelated topic just chiming in but im building a western campaign and im telling you all this might be the greatest thing ive ever written

[rough basalt]

Ima need to make a table of contents for my setting guide cause at 50+ pages finding where im going is getting to be a huge pain

[sonic forum]

Obsidian is great, have you checked it out?? All your notes complied to an easy mind map!

[rough basalt]

I couldnt make sense of it

[prime basin]

Out of combat, sure

[rough basalt]

I'm using homebrewery tho

[sonic forum]

Valid valid^^

[prime basin]

its good navigation utility and like steve said, it is a friend

[rough basalt]

it looking like a dnd book gives me the fun i need

[south wasp]

Hello, I am new to the server. Not totally new to DND, but am an amateur. I played Pathfinder Kingmaker a lot so I am familiar with some basics of the rules and the system. Can I find a DM here and a group to play together online with?

[empty thicket]

rarely a familiar wont be useful

[fossil hollow]

#find-a-game

[south wasp]

Thanks!

[sonic forum]

At my current stage and theres no easy way to write this so ill just type it.. im coming up with fantasy slurs, which i have cleared with my players but i still feel.... "ew" is the best way to put it

[errant crag]

If my DM is doing flanking rules then it may help me get around needing to reckless attack

[sonic forum]

Trying to find that line currently where less IS in fact more

[errant crag]

I'm playing a third party race and can cast Find Familiar once per day without material components, and I wanna play a Barbarian of this race but I don't know if I'd get value out of it

But the race also gives me built in spider climb and lets me use a reaction to add my PB to my AC once per day

[fossil hollow]

Help action (although thats a bit redundant with Reckless).

Otherwise, it will be out of combat utility

[empty thicket]

A familiar can help you to scout areas, depend of which and its features too.
íf not it serve you like a character design//mascot

[errant crag]

Surely these are good for a barbarian

[fair summit]

Cute pet is the best utility 😏

[fossil hollow]

Spider Climb and Parry are neat

[errant crag]

The familiar is required to be a Spider

The parry only being once per day feels kinda weak though

[empty thicket]

It cant like throw webs or apply venom?

[errant crag]

Familiars can't attack

Unless you're a pact of the chain warlock

[empty thicket]

Oh crap, welp, it can go through places at least or serve you like some sort of "mage hand"

If not, use it for intimidate people

[errant crag]

I'm thinking this third party race with Barbarian with a Longsword so I don't need to reckless attack and can apply Sap giving them straight up disadvantage against me, which can be made more effective with my racial parry

Oh wait the racial parry comes back on a short rest that's way better

[crystal hatch]

in my head my character should only know two languages but i forgot that character creation hands out languages like candy LOL

[rough basalt]

Hoping tomorrow my power won't be out for over half the day and I can get more work done on my setting.

[prime pewter]

My party is finally gonna be playing dnd!!

[errant crag]

Finding out that two handed versatile weapons don't work with Great Weapon Master

I could have swore they used to but apparently no they never did

GWF does, that's probably why I thought GWM would

[prime basin]

One part of GWM does

[errant crag]

True

[prime basin]

Not really worth it though

[errant crag]

Yeah the PB extra damage was the main thing I wanted

Surely falling onto an enemy counts as moving 10ft in a straight line towards them

Assuming I fell from higher than 10ft

[hot marlin]

Uh... Yeah, it actually might.

[fossil hollow]

yeap!

[hot marlin]

Which may lead to my "misty step 30 feet above enemy's head" tactic on my monk to combo very well with certain feats

[fossil hollow]

axe kick em

[errant crag]

Interesting

Makes my built in spider climb feel a lot less useless on my barbarian

I could fall onto a target, split my fall damage between me and them, and then attack them with extra Charger damage

[fossil hollow]

yeap. although youd (both) be Prone, but you'd presumably have enough movement to get up

[errant crag]

Could be an Athlete moment

Nah that's getting too whacky

If I was a beast barbarian though able to add (Athletics Check result) to my jump height

Now that's a gimmicky strategy with some chest hair

[prime basin]

Idk why but I thought of a literal chest with hair when you said that

[strong wave]

Any advice on running a 24 character in a 14 game?

The DM says it's allowed but I am confused

[vapid pawn]

ask questions like is casting two spells legal? what year of nagic items can i use and drinking a potion an action ?

[strong wave]

Wait 24 characters can cast two spells at once?

[vapid pawn]

leveled spells?

kind of

[dark basin]

You can only expend one spell slot per turn to cast a spell.

[glass granite]

Yes

You just need a way to cast a levels spell without expending a spell slot

[strong wave]

Like a wand?

[lavish flame]

yup or a species trait

[glass granite]

Or magic initiate

[woven flint]

You know?
I really like the Fey Touched feat

[strong wave]

I didn't know but now I know

[woven flint]

Indeed you do :>

I plan on taking it on my Firbolg Bard when he reaches level 3
1 because... Misty Step, duh.. But also to give him Bless (As It gives you 1 free level 1 Enchantment or Divination)

[strong wave]

I don't like doing fey anything in DND because I don't fully understand the fey and it's hard fore to visualize it on my head

For me

[woven flint]

I like the idea of getting bless on a bard because it makes the anxious resource hording side of me not worry too much about the Bardic Inspirations I'm spending lol

[strong wave]

Isn't bless use a +1 to an attack roll

[dark basin]

And saving throws.

[woven flint]

No

its a 1d4 to an Attack Roll or Saving Throw

In older editions I believe it was a +1 that scaled with level it was cast at

[dark basin]

Easily one of the best spells.

[strong wave]

When you say older editions do you mean 14 or 4

[woven flint]

... Older editions in general lol

[strong wave]

So it's only 1d4 in the 24 rules?

[woven flint]

I consider 2024 and 2014 to still be the same edition (Because they are.)

[strong wave]

Oh okay

For me it's hard not to think of it as 3.5e

But I know it's not as drastic change as 3.5.was

[prime basin]

They technically aren't

you can consider it that way, but 5.5e is its own thing as stated by WoTC

as much as it shares in common with 5e of course

[woven flint]

I literally don't care lol
its still 5th ediiton.

Slams desk
5e is 5e.

[prime basin]

Much like the hexblade warlock of 5e is the same as the hexblade warlock of 5.5e

[woven flint]

to reinstate the above.

anyway

yeah, I think taking Fey Touched.. on the Fey adjacent bard is genuis.
Thank you, Tokii 🧐 /silly

[dark basin]

WoTC threaded the needle on making just enough changes for 5.5e to not be unique but just enough to where you need the newer books.

[woven flint]

I always try to like... take feats that make sense
A lot of my Fey adjacent characters have Feytouched
or characters that have close affinity to fey

[cunning venture]

hey, so im looking for a party to join, and get to know with...

[woven flint]

#find-a-game

[prime basin]

I don't really think you do. The only thing I think is probably a necessary addition are the new monsters which are way better and more combative

[dark basin]

It's a lot of minute changes that add up to a larger whole. Feat changes don't matter on their own, some spell changes don't matter on their own, some subclass changes, etc. but it adds up.

[prime basin]

The thing is I don't think subclass changes really matter

[thick void]

Cough cough Metamagic Adept for the Sorcerer cough

[errant crag]

My party members don't ever use the bardic inspiration I give them

[humble cairn]

It's funny that your reply has made things more ambiguous and less clear!

[prime basin]

unless its stuff like the old hexblade with its charisma for attacks

[errant crag]

In some ways, I did mean that

[humble cairn]

But what, in this case, constitutes a "literal chest?" That's the funny part.

There are at least two meanings that I can think of, both of which are literal.

[prime basin]

What do you think?

[errant crag]

My Beast Barbarian's epic pectorals!

[strong wave]

Are those the stomach ones

[errant crag]

No those are abs

Your pectorals are your breast muscles

[strong wave]

Why have a six pack when you could have a keg I always say