D&D thread
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I'm gradually starting to relax a bit about DMing.
But I'm absolutely gutted that the the guy who was DMing the campaign, from whom I took over for a while so he can have a chance to play, has come up with a paladin who would absolutely get on like a house on fire with my barbarian. No-one else is going to take a turn DMing; as long as the campaign continues it'll be passed back and forth between the two of us so Sora and Gaenor will never adventure together.
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@HardwareGeek said in D&D thread:
@CarrieVS said in D&D thread:
get on like a house on fire
I didn't think @Polygeekery was into D&D.
D&D is all about houses on fire. And other things. But mostly just fire.
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@Benjamin-Hall As a wizard, I mostly set NPCs on fire. I have 3 fire spells and 1 that can do any kind of elemental damage, including fire.
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@HardwareGeek said in D&D thread:
@Benjamin-Hall As a wizard, I mostly set NPCs on fire. I have 3 fire spells and 1 that can do any kind of elemental damage, including fire.
I've had two characters (separate players, separate campaigns) whose entire schtick was "I burn things". One was a pyromancer sorcerer (from one of the UA) who had nothing but fire spells. The other was a draconic sorcerer whose opening statement most battles was "Quickened Fireball, then use my wand of fireballs". Often upcasting that fireball as much as he could. For that second one, I started including hordes of small-fry without actually bumping the encounter difficulty--they existed to be blasted turn 1. It kept him happy at very little cost. And with effort, I could focus his burnination on NPCs who at least plausibly deserved it.
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@Benjamin-Hall My wizard isn't a one-trick pony; as a high elf, he is proficient with a variety of weapons, but the fire spells have enough range to keep him out mostly out of harm's way while being an effective participant in combat.
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@HardwareGeek said in D&D thread:
@Benjamin-Hall My wizard isn't a one-trick pony; as a high elf, he is proficient with a variety of weapons, but the fire spells have enough range to keep him out mostly out of harm's way while being an effective participant in combat.
Yup. These two basically were--if fire didn't work, they were mostly SOL. I just found it funny that they took "I cast fireball to new heights".
That second group wasn't exactly subtle most of the time--they fired the equivalent of a rocket launcher into a room. Without checking the size of the room. Or the fact that it was full of what had been established to be extremely volatile crystals. Being high level, they survived an explosion that vaporized the entire building and left a large crater. Barely. Like most of them at 0 HP, with only the tankiest conscious. Fortunately they had healing potions.
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@Benjamin-Hall I suppose it's too much to hope for, that they might have learned something from that experience?
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@Mason_Wheeler said in D&D thread:
@Benjamin-Hall I suppose it's too much to hope for, that they might have learned something from that experience?
Absolutely too much to hope for. "Learning" wasn't something they were big on. Kicking in doors and breaking bad people? That they knew well.
That group went on (on their other characters, about the same levels but different part of the world) to go tackle a demi-god-level enemy. Basically head on. Ok, that time they had allies who kept the demigod's army off their butts. Although this time, they did check the room size before firing the rocket launcher. It was no-selled this time, so NBD.
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@Benjamin-Hall All this talk of rocket launchers reminds me of one of the greatest Buffy scenes of all time. (You'll know the one if you've seen it...)
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@Mason_Wheeler said in D&D thread:
@Benjamin-Hall All this talk of rocket launchers reminds me of one of the greatest Buffy scenes of all time. (You'll know the one if you've seen it...)
Unless you're like me and have CRS Syndrome when it comes to scenes from movies/tv. I remember the dialog (often, although I have to have a triggering word or phrase to pull it into active memory), but almost never the scene.
My memory is virtually entirely verbal, not graphical.
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@Benjamin-Hall Basically, the vampires had come across an ancient demon that was sealed away thousands of years ago. It took an entire army to seal him away, because he's so powerful that no weapon forged can harm him.
Eventually they confront Buffy. The demon gives her a contemptuous look, wondering what this girl can do to stand against him. "No weapon forged can stop me!"
Buffy: "That was then. This is now." *pulls out a bazooka*
All the vampires start running for cover. The demon just gives her a blank look. "What's that?"
KABOOM! No more demon! Turns out today's weapons are a lot more powerful the ones he's used to.
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@Mason_Wheeler now I think I remember it. I only watched Buffy once, really, and that was fragmentary (a few episodes here, a few episodes there).
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@Benjamin-Hall Yeah, I was never a huge huge fan of the series or anything. But I do remember that scene!
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@Jaloopa A few years ago we played an Earthdawn campaign, in which one of the characters was an elementalist. At some point she learned the Fireball spell, and a bit later, the players got into a fight with bad guys in some old temple. They are outside, so the elementalist decides to cast her new spel for the very first time, through the door in the middle of the front wall so it explodes inside.
I figure out the scale of the place on the map provided with the adventure (Shattered Pattern), and it turns out to be about 60 by 60 feet. I then look up the Fireball spell to see what its area of effect is. I read:—
All characters within 10 yards [of the point of impact] take damage
and initially think it says 10 feet — I probably still had AD&D on my mind. Then it clicks that in these annoying units of measurement, this is the same as half the length of the temple building …
The players were certainly glad they had decided to not go inside but just blast the bad guys from the outside.
(As a side note, elementalists turned out to be a little OP, not just in combat but for general adventuring too. Especially once she got the Sky Lattice and Ease Passage spells.)
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I had a great idea today for a PC for a Christmas one-shot. But in the current situation, if I'm involved in any Christmas sessions I'm likely to be running them. I could make up a one-shot and have this character concept be the quest giver or another important NPC but it's not the same.
I like playing warlocks. I've yet to try out the Archfey patron
I got into a tight spot when I was young. I'll spare you the details but I needed - I thought I needed - help. Power. I was young, foolish, naïve. I didn't think that much of consequences. You know what young fools are. I turned to a dark place, for power.Or I meant to. It didn't turn out as I intended but, that was rather for the best. There was a contract, a written contract. All my life I've had a little trouble - though all things considered it's been more of a blessing than a bane. I'm not so good with reading and writing. I know my ABCs but the letters mix themselves up between my mind and the page.
Anyway, the long and the short of it is, I sold my soul to Santa.
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@CarrieVS said in D&D thread:
I had a great idea today for a PC for a Christmas one-shot. But in the current situation, if I'm involved in any Christmas sessions I'm likely to be running them. I could make up a one-shot and have this character concept be the quest giver or another important NPC but it's not the same.
I like playing warlocks. I've yet to try out the Archfey patron
I got into a tight spot when I was young. I'll spare you the details but I needed - I thought I needed - help. Power. I was young, foolish, naïve. I didn't think that much of consequences. You know what young fools are. I turned to a dark place, for power.Or I meant to. It didn't turn out as I intended but, that was rather for the best. There was a contract, a written contract. All my life I've had a little trouble - though all things considered it's been more of a blessing than a bane. I'm not so good with reading and writing. I know my ABCs but the letters mix themselves up between my mind and the page.
Anyway, the long and the short of it is, I sold my soul to Santa.
That's fantastic. Mind if I steal it for some theoretical future Christmas-themed game that I may or may not ever actually play?
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in D&D thread:
In 2006, the idea of Wizards of the Coast making a My Little Pony RPG was so absurd as to be their April Fool's joke.
In 2020, the idea of a D&D / My Little Pony crossover product is… real.
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>40 hours in Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access and... it stands true that the number 3 must not be said
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The Campaign: Adaptability
Sometimes no matter how clearly you lay the breadcrumbs… I am finally in the process of putting together the campaign to try and get some books printed. I’ll have a lot more details in the next couple of weeks, but I can finally show you what we’re aiming to make here. Because I do […]
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@boomzilla said in D&D thread:
Does that qualify as a war crime?
(Alternate shitpost: No D&D is better than bad D&D.)
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@boomzilla I have not played D&D with hookers, but one of my characters have encountered (and slept with) a couple orcs at a brothel once. Was a matter of "We need to wait for this person to turn up and we have a couple hours to kill, so what's on offer?" Although now he's managed to charm one of the DM's GF's elven ladies instead, and being a chivalrous guy going with her to keep her company for her arm reattachment (magical) surgery after a small incident during the final battle of the last one. And providing a reason as to why he's away as I'm going to DM a oneshot with the same group, where the DM will be joining with one of the major NPCs from the latest adventure.
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My wife and I are part of a campaign with some friends. We've got a group of 5 plus the DM. The DM's wife (DMW), myself, and one other player are all playing characters that do not match our IRL sex/gender (the third person isn''t really relevant here). At the start of the campaign, my character and DMW's character were both socially awkward people. My character because she is a tiefling cleric of Leira who grew up in the temple with little outside interaction. DMW's character because she's playing the son of a priestess of the Raven Queen who had no interaction with other people until after leaving his mother's house.
Anyway, as the campaign went on, our characters started out behaving like, Is this what it's like having friends? It's weird. Since both of them were so socially awkward, and could understand what the other had gone through, they developed a bit of a raport. Now my character is married to DMW's character. Let me just say, it's awkward playing the wife of the DMW's character, while sitting next to my IRL wife.
Of course, that
pailspales compared to the white dragonborn monk PC who is now betrothed to Xanathar.
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@abarker said in D&D thread:
Of course, that pails compared to the white dragonborn monk PC who is now betrothed to Xanathar.
What's in the pails?
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@Mason_Wheeler said in D&D thread:
@abarker said in D&D thread:
Of course, that pails compared to the white dragonborn monk PC who is now betrothed to Xanathar.
What's in the pails?
Fixed.
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@Atazhaia the paladin of my party just got suckered into going with a male hooker back to his place. Turns out it was really a demon (as in a real fiend from the abyss). Good thing his friends followed him, and good thing that there was a window for the paladin to jump out of.
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We had to go undercover as caravan guards, but our sex mad warlock decided to sign on with the brothel wagon instead, after a practical interview with the madam. Earned more than the rest of us
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I survived DMing a relatively free-form session with minimal panicking or stalling for time and next week they should get back into a dungeon which will make for at least a couple of sessions of straightforward gaming with detailed instructions.
I could almost get used to this.
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@izzion said in D&D thread:
Sometimes no matter how clearly you lay the breadcrumbs… I am finally in the process of putting together the campaign to try and get some books printed. I’ll have a lot more details in the next couple of weeks, but I can finally show you what we’re aiming to make here. Because I do […]
The follow-ups to finish the story slice were great:
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So we're finally continuing the campaign after a break for the holidays.
Since the battle for the town, things are getting better. My character now has a set of green dragon leather armor and is officially Hero Of The Town, which comes with some vaguely specified perks. Luratio has an administrative position, and has been charged by the nobility in Neverwinter with building an elks' lodge. And Zeppo has been made the town sheriff. Set a thief to catch a thief, I guess!
We still want to find the Lost Mines. We have two leads, a druid living out in the middle of nowhere, and a loose end from the previous quest, a prisoner who had been moved out of the castle we raided to a different castle, who was supposedly looking for the mine. I pointed out that no one's going to sing songs of bold heroes who went and talked to some druid, so we decided to go rescue the prisoner. As we were about to leave, our healbot NPC cleric shows up and claims he's been having disturbing, mystical dreams about a location nearby. It's pretty close to where the prisoner's being held, so we decide to take him along and do both of those quests at once.
We were getting close to the castle, finding it badly broken down, but still inhabited from what we'd heard, so the DM asked for stealth checks. Everyone rolled high except for me, so I ended up taking multiple arrow attacks as we approached. I roleplayed it thus:
And it's no! Nay! Neveeeeerrrrr!
No, nay, never, no mo-- *glrrk!*A battle with a bunch of goblins ensued. Luckily, we've got better equipment now and they're still ridiculously squishy. Eventually the boss showed up, a goblin cook dual-wielding a sword and a big wooden spoon. We targeted this guy for expeditious dealing-with, and as soon as he fell I decided to grab the spoon so I could be a literal spoony bard. Once I did, all the surviving goblin grunts were suddenly in awe of me, proclaiming me to be the new Cook.
And that's where the session ended. We'll see how that works out next time...
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@Mason_Wheeler said in D&D thread:
And Zeppo has been made the town sheriff.
What about Groucho, Harpo and Chico?
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@HardwareGeek They're not in this campaign. No idea why my sister chose to name her character after one of the Marx Brothers, but...
she did.
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Humble Bundle has a bunch of 5e books (3rd party, not WotC) on sale. https://www.humblebundle.com/books/5e-rpg-frog-god-games-books?hmb_source=navbar&hmb_medium=product_tile&hmb_campaign=tile_index_5, if anybody's interested.
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The adventure in the castle continues. Another skirmish with goblins, where I opened by accidentally stumbling over a collapsing ceiling trap. Rolled a Nat 20 on my save, but the goblin next to me got squashed. So I pointed the spoon of the chef at them and told them to surrender or I'd drop the ceiling on the rest of them! Rolled high enough on Intimidate that they all dropped their weapons and fled.
Then we went into a room with an altar, and a goblin priest and a few lackeys attacked us, yelling something about preserving the holy relics. One fight later, the lackeys were dead, and the priest got unceremoniously one-shotted by a crit, dying with a piteous sigh of "I should have had so much more character development!" We found some loot in there. Not sure what the holy relic was but we probably have it now.
The next room was dark, with an unlit brazier inside. Zeppo decided to light it, when an octopus-like creature called a grick fell from the ceiling, ambushing her.
: So did it fall in the brazeer?
: *seeing the obvious opportunity to tease her over the mistake* Wait, what? It fell in your brassiere? Awk-ward!
: *laughing* Gah! What is this, one of those anime monsters?So we start fighting this thing. At one point it tries to attack and gets in a good roll, so I used Cutting Words.
You're a foul one,
Mister Grick!
You have tentacles in your smiiiiile...Once the battle was finished, that's where we ended things because other people had errands to run. Hopefully next session we'll find the prisoner...
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We have started a new camapign, in a Japan-inspired setting, where I get to play a daimyo.
First meeting we handled a few minor things. Took care of a poacher. Handled a couple bandits. One of the bandits had a strange message that we managed to transcribe and are now waiting for help in making sense of it.
Second meeting we continued our daily lives. One of the players was busy, so she got to have a fever. We went to the market and bought stuff. Then we had a visit from a couple magicians from far away who wanted our magician and I refused. They even tried to throw a bunch a money at me to "buy him out" which made me a bit angry. And when I kept refusing they tried buying my sister (another PC) instead, which I found very insulting.
Then our bodyguard went missing on his daily round, so we had to go find him, after over a day as we kept failing on finding tracks of him. He had been attacked by some woman and had a bite mark on his chest and a cut on his hand. Then some more bandits attacked town so we had to deal with them, a few orcs and goblins. I managed to oneshot one of the goblins with a javelin by throwing it and hitting him in the head. Dangerous daimyo indeed.
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@boomzilla said in D&D thread:
A book where the author decides how well battles go by dice rolls could be an interesting experiment, or more likely completely ruin the pacing.
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@Jaloopa said in D&D thread:
@boomzilla said in D&D thread:
A book where the author decides how well battles go by dice rolls could be an interesting experiment, or more likely completely ruin the pacing.
Yeah, "and then The Hero died in an unimportant (random) encounter" doesn't make for terribly good storytelling. I can imagine an author writing around that problem (Ha! Decoy protagonist!) But a TPK means a giant rewrite to suddenly promote some side characers, or even re-introducing characters from scratch halfway through the story.
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@boomzilla said in D&D thread:
As a Shadowrun player, I fail to see what makes that picture unusual …
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@PotatoEngineer said in D&D thread:
@Jaloopa said in D&D thread:
@boomzilla said in D&D thread:
A book where the author decides how well battles go by dice rolls could be an interesting experiment, or more likely completely ruin the pacing.
Yeah, "and then The Hero died in an unimportant (random) encounter" doesn't make for terribly good storytelling. I can imagine an author writing around that problem (Ha! Decoy protagonist!) But a TPK means a giant rewrite to suddenly promote some side characers, or even re-introducing characters from scratch halfway through the story.
Isn't that basically a choose your own adventure book?
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@Dragoon one where someone else has already gone through the choices
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