Bards can be pretty good for that.
Granted, Cecil is now dead. But, we still have a druid and a cleric.
I'm not familiar with Pathfinder's feats, but 5E has one called 'Tough' that boosts max HP by twice your level and lets you add an additional 2 HP to your roll when leveling. It's good for any player that has a tendency to get up close and personal with enemies. I took it for my rogue and nearly doubled his hitpoints when leveling. (27 -> 51). If Pathfinder has that and she goes bard or sorcerer, I'd recommend it.Bards can be pretty good for that.
Granted, Cecil is now dead. But, we still have a druid and a cleric.
RIP Cecil (great last words, BTW). I'm not sure what she's inclined to, In terms of meta-game, Bard, Arcanist or Sorcerer would be best, assuming our cleric rejoins us soon.
The original 3 books, plus Greyhawk and the various Strategic Reviews ( for Ropers etc)I used to have those. But where are Blackmoor and Eldritch Wizardry?
PDFs at https://rpg.rem.uz/Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons/Original%20D%26D/Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons%20-%20White%20Box.pdf
https://rpg.rem.uz/Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons/Original%20D%26D/Supplement%201%20-%20Greyhawk.pdf
The original 3 books, plus Greyhawk and the various Strategic Reviews ( for Ropers etc)I used to have those. But where are Blackmoor and Eldritch Wizardry?
PDFs at https://rpg.rem.uz/Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons/Original%20D%26D/Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons%20-%20White%20Box.pdf
https://rpg.rem.uz/Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons/Original%20D%26D/Supplement%201%20-%20Greyhawk.pdf
Multiclassing for 5e? Well the first is, do you need to do it for your concept? Or is it something you can do with a single class and some feats? Are you willing to pass up the capstone powers for the classes you picked? Multiclassing in 5e tends to front load a bit more power or options in the earlier levels, but you really tend to lose out as you reach the high levels. Especially if you are a multiclassing magic caster.
If you do decide to multiclass consider the typically 4 level break points where you get feats. Since they happen when a class hits certain levels, not when your total of all classes hits a certain level. So if you went 3 levels in ranger and three in wizard for instance, no feats until you take that 4th level in one of the classes.
I assume by "feats" you mean the class specific feats like the rogue's Uncanny Dodge and the bard's Song of Rests, right? I couldn't find anything restricting the standard feats list. And e erything I've seen agrees that taking standard feats at those level benchmarks is level cumulative. I'm not sure how early you can start multiclassing, though. But going by the examples given and the prerequisite scores for each class, I think the earliest you can multiclass is level 4.
It already does say that. The text I quoted earlier is at Character Advancment > Beyond 1st Level (https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Character%20Advancement#content) for Roll20, Step-by-step Characters > Beyond 1st Level (https://www.dndbeyond.com/compendium/rules/basic-rules/step-by-step-characters#Beyond1stLevel) for D&D Beyond. I don't know which wikia site you mean, but I don't think there's any official one.I meant that they need to state it specifically in the multiclassing section to avoid potential confusion and arguing.
You can multiclass as early as you want, provided you meet the ability minimums and your DM allows it. There's a build that allows you to multiclass as early as level 2 (you have the stats at level one, but only a single class).
Do you mean this Slayer (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/slayer/)?Yep.
It sounds a bit like you might want some Rogue in there as well, given that Slayer seems to be a Ranger/Rogue hybrid in Pathfinder, although it looks like a lot of the talents could be roughly replaced by a Battlemaster Fighter's maneuvers.
As much as I hate to be the stop-having-fun guy (rule of cool, &c), but on thinking about it, I think that remote robbing would only work if everything you wanted to steal was within 30' of you as well. Familiars can only deliver touch spells, and Mage Hand is not a touch spell. Rattata would still be useful to see where the hand is, but not to extend the range of the spell.
Our session Saturday night was mostly finishing up after the last adventure, and doing things such as identifying items, taking rescued prisoners to safety, and then preparing for the next part of the plot. Unfortunately, that means dealing with some high-level orcs, and of the two characters who speak that language, one used Charisma as a dump stat, and my character who is a) an elf, and b) shares in her people's racism. I don't expect that our interactions with them will go well.
Oh, also, we successfully introduced our new character, a priestess of Shelyn who will apparently be splitting between tanking and healing. I think that the new player works well with our group (that's a bit of an understatement), and I'll be glad that there will be someone else in full plate between me and the scary things. I'm still kicking myself for burning the components for a Limited Wish when there were clerics right there who could cure the suicidal ex-assassin.
Best of luck to you! Maybe your new party member just so happens to speak orcish? Either that or perhaps the charisma dump stat character will speak orcish like an orc and e respected for it. Break leg.
In the morning I was in a very fun party using The Fantasy Trip (TFT) system. My character was basically Hawkeye. When his bow string snapped in the first combat it became very clear just how useless he was for anything else. In the second combat - where we had time to plan - I took out as many enemies as the rest of the party combined. I would totally play that ancient system again
What ancient systems have you folk enjoyed?
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sjgames/the-fantasy-trip-old-school-roleplaying?ref=user_menu (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sjgames/the-fantasy-trip-old-school-roleplaying?ref=user_menu)
I'm going to have to record one of our sessions because it gets pretty absurd sometimes.
I'm going to have to record one of our sessions because it gets pretty absurd sometimes.
Please do!
I'm going to have to record one of our sessions because it gets pretty absurd sometimes.
Please do!
I'm attacking the darkness!
There is already a Ravenloft adventure in 5e, but I don't plan on using it. Nor send people to Ravenloft. It's my own setting, so I stay away from published adventures and just pick and choose what I like from published material.
I actually have a bone gazebo model from an after Halloween sale that's perfect size for 28mm miniatures. And since the land my party is in is full of all kinds of grim fairy tale style enemies, I just have to have them deal with a Vampire Count or something to have an excuse to use it.
Or maybe it'll be a Mimic-zebo... You never know.
Wow!Once I came up with the idea of making a tidally-locked world, a bit of research and a map generator allowed me to get a better handle of what I was working with. I'm stealing enough ideas for the light and dark side (Dark Sun and Frostburn respectively) from other sources that I largely get to focus on the middle. And for that, it helps that I was able to dig up a bunch of notes from ages ago including a 5000 year timeline, from the last time I was working on a setting. Much of the material is stuff that I can adapt fairly easily.
Seriously.
Way further than what I've got.
Right now I just have two loose setting ideas:<snip>
- One is a world dominated by the reptilian races with the only mammals being small rat-like creatures.
- G'do, a massive desert that's a sea of sand. Plenty of Underdark monsters have adapted to living in the sand sea along with some new monsters.
For a possible explanation as to why the G'do desert is like this, I was thinking that the Underdark could slowly be collapsing or filling in somehow. The air would be escaping from tons of tiny cracks throughout the desert floor. Thus causing the sand to act as a liquid. It's more interesting than the nebulous explanation of "it's magic" or "a wizard did it".
Hmm. The Dark Sun setting had a giant sea of silt, and the desertification literally *was* that a wizard did it, or rather that all the wizards did it since arcane magic is the fossil fuels of the setting. Some of the old 2nd-ed books on that setting may have some useful info in terms of helping with the world-building. Then again, since I don't plan on publishing any settings, I figure I'll take anything that's not nailed down from anywhere.
That seems like a pretty cool idea, and I presume that either the lizardfolk or Yuan-ti would be considered the human analogue.I was thinking the lizardfolk would be the human analogue, while the Yuan-ti would be akin to elves. Kobolds would loosely equate to a mix of gnomes and dwarves, and dragonborn a loose mix of dwarves and goliaths in terms of equivalence.
I think it's good that you're giving a nod to science and real world phenomena. It's like the lake of boiling water I mentioned from last game, when one of the clerics casts water walking on everyone, I had to pointedly ask about the whole convection issue. I think that you have a good instinct for where you want to take this, and both Neko_Ali and I were thinking of something that you might be able to poach extra ideas from.
Edit: I like using lizardfolk for humans and the yuan-ti as elves. I hadn't even thought about the latter.
I'd like to try the playtest out... But my group is already doing three nights a week for five different campaigns. And my room mate is absolute dead set against anything Pathfinder because there are 'too many options'. She doesn't like all the splat books and optional rules...I've never played the system, so I'm no expert, but isn't the point of optional rules that they are optional? If you don't like them you don't have to use them, right?
I'd like to try the playtest out... But my group is already doing three nights a week for five different campaigns. And my room mate is absolute dead set against anything Pathfinder because there are 'too many options'. She doesn't like all the splat books and optional rules...I've never played the system, so I'm no expert, but isn't the point of optional rules that they are optional? If you don't like them you don't have to use them, right?
In the play test rules there's only like 10 classes. It's no more complex than d&d. I'm not saying she has to play anything she's not interested in playing, but if her complaints are about rule, option, and book bloat, now would be a good time to give the game a shot since they are starting over with a new edition.
Interesting. Shadowrun is wicked clunky and rules heavy. I was a fan of the world building and aesthetics of SR, but when it came to mechanics and game design, it was woefully disappointing. But that's just mho.
I mean, that's what I said and it makes sense to me but she's apparently had bad experiences and just isn't interested in trying again. Her big complaint was all the additional classes and such that came out... but like you said, if you're running the game you always have final say in what's allowed. She's not even interested in giving Starfinder a try and I really want a go at magic space adventures. I tried to pitch it as an option for our Sunday game but people mostly wanted to play Shadowrun. Which I don't mind since I love the setting and system.
Edit again: Neko, for the most part, he isn't truly evil, but does give us enough rope to hang ourselves and is good at exploiting a character's (or player's) personality.
You didn't push them in front of the bus, but you didn't say anything as they walked in front of the proverbial bus.Edit again: Neko, for the most part, he isn't truly evil, but does give us enough rope to hang ourselves and is good at exploiting a character's (or player's) personality.
That's what all good evil GMs do and why my players hate me sometimes. Because they know in the end... They really did it to themselves. I was just helping things along.
I posted some ideas about a game world upthread somewhere, and now I'm actually trying to make it. I forgot how much work was involved in the whole process. Right now, I'm working on the main pantheon, and even with only 15 gods, it's a lot of work. I'm on page six right now, and only putting in a paragraph or two for each one. I expect by the time I have everything fully fleshed-out, each one might take up a page to itself. I guess when I get bored, I can always switch to cities or countries (I already have that mapped out), but part of me wants to at least get to a point where I can finish for now.Pantheons are a lot of work.
Pantheons are a lot of work.
I looked into it for the lizard world one I mentioned above, and I'm honestly tempted to just reskin one of the existing pantheons with a bit of mixing and matching.
word processors didn't exist
2018, So it only recently folded?
Wow.
Well, it happened this way....Hippolyta (Phil's experienced character) was leading or attempting to lead a gaggle of Turkeys down the first level of High Dudgeon's Dungeon. After KOing a group of Orcs, some by Sleep, some by Clerical sleep (a mace just behind the left ear), the party came to...a Door! Out stepped an old Gent who ummed a bit, aahred a bit and Proclaimed himself *the* 10th ' level monk. (HINT! HINT!) On the first level.
Did the party ask for ID? No. For some reason--probably because my Dungeons have an (unwarranted?) reputation for deadliness, Hippolyta was not suspicious. The old man told the thief if he would just step inside, he would be told something to his advantage. (HINT! Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly..)
AT THIS POINT Hippolyta became suspicious due to Phil's knowing my motto is TANSTAAFL. Hippolyta was dissauded from taking action at sword point by Democratic Vote. The thief went in, the Doppleganger . neatly swiped off his head and spent several minutes getting his features good enough to stand a close inspection.' (HINT! HINT!)
Finally the Doppleganger came out and the party proceeded. Hippolyta frantically pleaded that in the streets of Denmark there was an odor of Decay. The Doppelganger, being an intelligent, hardworking, SURVIVING monster insisted on taking a position in the rear. Hippolyta was Of Course the Target For Tonight. The Thief stabbed her in the back, pleaded a pre-emptive strike since Hippolyta wanted him tied up, and because of popularity was forgiven.
After staging a few diversions (stab Run, run,a monster!" "Whewl Where's Fred?" "The Minataur lizard/ Balrog/ Orcs / Hydra got him.") (Massive hints all the time) Finally the Doppelganger hoisted the Jolly Roger and massacred the pitiful remnants of the depleted party.
Not quite word processors, but hasn't TeX been around for about 40 years?
Edit: Of course, access to computers at the time, especially networked ones was quite limited. I suspect that a lot of folks didn't have access to BBSes or newsgroups in the early 80s.
I don't *think* there's a rule saying I can't cast with a weapon in my hand, but I'm still pretty ineffectual with it due to being a squishy caster and having a strength penalty. The GM did say that I could take a feat to use weapons with my prehensile hair, and I may do that somewhere down the line, since my hair has a strength bonus equal to my int bonus. Given what we're dealing with, this place is fairly low on both the quantity and quality of the lewtz, so even a +1 holy sword is a big thing. I just hope we can turn the gunslinger good, since he's pretty good at melee as well.Prehensile hair???
Thing is that the campaign is based off of one of the Pathfinder adventure paths (Curse of the Crimson Throne), so there's quite a bit of Paizo's IP in there. Granted, we've faced quite a bit of custom content (due to our penchant for running things off the rails and to help level/gear us for what we're facing (and we're still under-geared for lvl 14, IMO), but there's still a *lot* of copyrighted stuff. I'm content just sharing the stories here and IRL with other tabletop gamers for their enjoyment.
It was very relaxing. He was taking a dirt nap after all.
At least it wasn't a result of the Deck of Many More Things… That thing raised the terror level of one gaming group I was in more than anything else.Very true.
He was taking a regular nap and got sniped. And now he doesn't have a tail again. Stupid critical injury table.
Sadly, not blue. Greenish brown with orange striping (like an ornate box turtle).He was taking a regular nap and got sniped. And now he doesn't have a tail again. Stupid critical injury table.
Is he blue and think that the tail is "delightful"?
Oh fuck. I had typed about six paragraphs and the page crashed. I really wish that there was a "save" feature here.Ditto.
goldfish poop gang
EDIT [1] Oka, Ta'pi, Pu'u, and Ding. 100% intentional pun.
Oh fuck. I had typed about six paragraphs and the page crashed. I really wish that there was a "save" feature here.Yeah... Ever since losing a minor essay in the Discuss sub-forum when I clicked Preview, I draft anything more than a one or two line posting in a text-editor with a BBCode plug-in and copy-paste it in. Even for short posts I hit Cmd-A Cmd-C to copy it to my Clipboard before hitting Preview.
Did I mention that they're called the Al Cassava Gang?goldfish poop gang
Rather useless recurring adversaries (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoldfishPoopGang)?QuoteEDIT [1] Oka, Ta'pi, Pu'u, and Ding. 100% intentional pun.
You're a terrible person.
But was it a Dread Gazebo?Sadly, it wasn't a mimic (that we know of). Though, it did seem to have some setience to it. The gazebo was built by a crazy architect named Ferrick(sp?) the Mad. We also suspect it might link to the Abyss, but nobody in the party speaks Abyssal. Oddly enough, it's our Drow cleric of Lathandar[1] who speaks Ignian.
The only witnesses to the arson are horses and barn cats, so the party gets it into their heads to grab one of the feral moggies and use it to sniff out the elf, or elves responsible. They knew that the mute half-ogre was good with animals, but were able to get it out of him that he could actually talk to them (he's a druid). First, they go to Ms. Fanservice who is performing a magically-enhanced musical act at the inn in which they are staying. She was clean, and I gave enough of her backstory that she'll probably show up again in the future. So they trekked over to the inn/tavern where they knew the owner was involved, and had the cat sniff the elves that worked there. The cat hissed and struggled, and the half-ogre said that these were the elves. It wasn't enough for court, but they did feel justified in executing the warrant that they had to search any business in town, found the secret room, and incriminating map. So the next step, of course, is going to the watch, who'll lend them a couple of men to search the tunnels. Of course, if they go in the tavern way, they'll soon discover that it's heavily booby-trapped, and they have no rogue."Triggering the trap still counts as finding it."
That last bit sounds familiar. BTW, what text editor do you use?.....I don't know what those things are. I've just either been punching these into an open browser on my phone (why I lost the first 2 of these 3 sessions' summaries) or I type it up in Wordpad or Libre Office Text.
For writing game stuff, I've found that doing everything in LaTeX with either TexMaker on Mac, or Kile in vi-mode on Linux is the easiest way to keep the document properly broken down, and easy to read when printing. It was just a little of a learning curve to pick the language back up.
Oh, I'm an idiot! I thought that you were talking about what you used to write stuff that you used for game.No you're not. Don't worry about it. It's been a miserable couple of days weatherwise and my brain was half melted with these damned bump caps. Nearly had a heat stroke Tuesday.
i will allow that if you had an unimaginative GM i can see how 4th might *maybe* make non-combat a little more irritating, but you're already screwed if you have an unimaginative GM anyway
In D&D 4E, every roll in the game, no matter where you are in the campaign, the level of your character and what is happening, is a "you have 55% chance to succeed" roll. It doesn't matter what you do, because the progression of player characters and opposition is linked so tightly together, levelling up your characters becomes meaningless
i will allow that if you had an unimaginative GM i can see how 4th might *maybe* make non-combat a little more irritating, but you're already screwed if you have an unimaginative GM anywayI'm watching High Rollers: Aerois and the DM brought back the skill challenges from 4E into his 5E game. Very interesting to see and something I might do.
Hmm. Given that I don't feel comfortable running in person sessions for, probably a year if we're lucky, and I hate shit like Zoom for something like gaming, I think that instead of sulking, it's time for me to start fleshing out the lore more completely. When I started, I had rough outlines of various groups in power in various areas, as well as roles in larger plotlines. While most of the PCs were from fairly close to the city they landed in, or, in case of the Nazi elf,[1] had a professional reason to be in the area. There's also enough that I can steal from pre-existing fantasy settings to make that job easier.
[Snip]
In our 5E game, our DM made the mistake of having us encounter a horde of sea hags trying to summon a flesh golem. He was expecting a huge, difficult boss fight, or for us to back off and leave them in peace. Instead, our wizard stepped into the room and immediately cast thunder wave. Only two made their save; he killed the other fifteen. Our rogue picked off the stragglers with throwing knives. The whole fight lasted only a couple seconds.
A few moments later, our chaotic evil gnome paladin (long story) smashed their source of power with a battle axe, got trapped in the shadow realm, and was possessed by a demon before I rescued him. If you're keeping track, that's a chaotic evil Oni gnome paladin with CON 19. Who wouldn't flee?
This is actually the second time I've encountered the phrase 'Nazi elf' in less than 24 hours. Is that just a thing?
This is actually the second time I've encountered the phrase 'Nazi elf' in less than 24 hours. Is that just a thing?
They're a rigidly militaristic society, routinely occupy other countries that they think are influenced by certain sorts of extra-planar beings, and have an inquisition that is committing genocide against groups that they consider "tainted" by the Shadow Rift (where they got their nickname). I never liked the drow in D&D, since they're basically just a bunch of dark-skinned sadistic murder-hobos.[1] The Shadow Elves are more dangerous because they actually have their shit together and a common purpose. Of course, there are as yet unrevealed lore reasons why their society became that way, and there actually is a method to their madness.
[1]The main distinction between their appearance and that of other elves, is that *their* connection to the Rift is that they are just somewhat desaturated. Powerful members of their society, especially magic-using classes are flat-out monochromatic
In our 5E game, our DM made the mistake of having us encounter a horde of sea hags trying to summon a flesh golem. He was expecting a huge, difficult boss fight, or for us to back off and leave them in peace. Instead, our wizard stepped into the room and immediately cast thunder wave. Only two made their save; he killed the other fifteen. Our rogue picked off the stragglers with throwing knives. The whole fight lasted only a couple seconds.
A few moments later, our chaotic evil gnome paladin (long story) smashed their source of power with a battle axe, got trapped in the shadow realm, and was possessed by a demon before I rescued him. If you're keeping track, that's a chaotic evil Oni gnome paladin with CON 19. Who wouldn't flee?
In our 5E game, our DM made the mistake of having us encounter a horde of sea hags trying to summon a flesh golem. He was expecting a huge, difficult boss fight, or for us to back off and leave them in peace. Instead, our wizard stepped into the room and immediately cast thunder wave. Only two made their save; he killed the other fifteen. Our rogue picked off the stragglers with throwing knives. The whole fight lasted only a couple seconds.
A few moments later, our chaotic evil gnome paladin (long story) smashed their source of power with a battle axe, got trapped in the shadow realm, and was possessed by a demon before I rescued him. If you're keeping track, that's a chaotic evil Oni gnome paladin with CON 19. Who wouldn't flee?
It happened again. We started a new campaign, and two sessions in, our druid killed nine grimlocks with one thunder wave (no chaotic evil Oni gnome paladin this time, unfortunately).
CN is usually just “chaotic stupid”.
CN is usually just “chaotic stupid”.'Congratulations, you've pissed off the shopkeep. He's a level 20 abjuration wizard.'
A short mystery that my players got involved in early on came to a quick end shortly after the Battle of the Feral Cat.
'Congratulations, you've pissed off the shopkeep. He's a level 20 abjuration wizard.'
You could go Divine Soul sorcerer or a warlock with a Celestial patron to get half a healer
Apparently there's a variety of sorcerer 'builds' based around the metamagic options you take[1]. I've never really tried any of them on purpose[2], but the two I know the names of are 'sniper' and 'nuker'. I'm just going to assume that one's called 'utility caster' since that's a term I've heard tossed around in discussions about well balanced big parties.You could go Divine Soul sorcerer or a warlock with a Celestial patron to get half a healer
There's already a Fighter/Warlock, and I don't want to steal his spotlight.
But there's a good chance my next character (if this one dies) will be a Sorcerer of some kind, and it's not impossible they'll be a Divine Soul.
Heh. As the last game I was in as a player progressed, my witch went from being a fair all-around caster with a few off-heals and a bit of CC, to almost entirely CC/healing, with the occasional big nuke thrown in. It happened soon enough (within the first 5 levels played at), that I was freely able to reroll some feats and spells known to accomodate that. Sadly, it looks like that campaign is a covid casualty. And of course, that’s right after hitting lvl 18 and getting my free combat-res.As long you had fun, right?
Our current Saturday campaign DM only allows flanking for rogues and creatures with pack tactics.
Our current Saturday campaign DM only allows flanking for rogues and creatures with pack tactics.
Technically, rogues don't need flanking for Sneak Attack (but the requirement is similar to flanking in 3E), and pack tactics is not technically flanking. So I'm assuming y'all are playing RAW?
Nice when your dump stat doesn’t come with penalties.