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>Previous thread:
Tell us about that deal with the devil your character made. Doesn't have to be a literal devil.
This to be desu. I use spreadsheets for balance calculations when homebrewing.
If you don't do math when homebrewing, you're doing it wrong.
Will roll20 tokens ever be posted from CoS?
Pretty sure roll20 tokens is what gets troves banned half the time.
I'm a new DM. How do I do vampires right? I want to have them as the crux of my campaign but I'm bad at creative stories. How do I make them a threat without constant bloodmurdering?
anyone else disappointing by the end of Lost Mines? It built up all this mystery and magical intrigue then you just beat up the Black Spider, an average Drow, whos plans are never revealed and also the Forge is pretty useless now. Stoneseeker thanks you for your help and that's it.
Here's my advice to you. Don't use vampires. Use a vampire. One vampire is a mysterious villain with dark powers. Many vampires are a bunch of glorified bloodsuckers.
Take a look at Curse of Strahd and learn. The campaign is vampire-centric, but has a whooping ONE vampire. It's how Strahd acts, how his story is intertwined with every other character, that makes the campaign a vampire story.
Well, that and the fact that it's literally the story of Dracula with WotC copyright slapped on it.
Vampires are suave, experienced, and smart. They figure what adventurers are going to try, b/c others have tried to kill them and failed.
They have thralls everywhere, so they know a LOT. The party planning a bar? One of the other patrons was a thrall and relayed everything to the vampire.
They know their weaknesses—sunlight, running water, lack of escape in mist form—and plan around them. Their homes are solid and windowless (or at least very impressively curtained), far from rivers, and have plenty of ventilation.
They're incredibly cultured. Polite even in the face of adversary, well-read and knowledgeable, and of course incredibly strong. Their lifespan makes them patient as well, and they always have backups upon backup plans.
Some failings that the PCs could exploit:
* A vampire with a strong artistic sense is dumb enough to have a gothic home with tons of windows, a skylight, and some decorative silver weapons.
* Arrogance. The oldest vampires believe that for all the above reasons that they can't be beat, and they makes them sloppy. They appear to the party without backup, for example.
* Lust: for all their willingness to charmed, a pretty/handsome PC could get through their armor or extract a promise to be spared in exchange for loyalty.
* Hunger: they still need blood to survive. Evacuate everyone in a given area, and it forces them to travel farther for prey, making them vulnerable.
Can the spreadsheet user from last thread post his setup? I'm super intrigued by the way you described the functionality.
Read AngryGM's articles on NPCs. Specifically the ones on villains and antagonists. Then do this
I need names for courses in a magic school curriculum.
Morality in Magic
No one takes the effort to grab them anymore despite it being super easy for anyone with half a brain.
The more you have of something, the less interesting and special it is. Look at liches - a very unique concept of a wizard, who is immortal, but has a weakness that he's forced to hide. If played right, a lich could be a memorable villain, but you should absolutely avoid using it twice in the same campaign. It will prompt the "Oh, another one" reaction.
Now liches suffer from such oversaturization, Veeky Forums tries to one up each other with stupid gimmicks, as if it's what makes a villain cool. "My lich's phylactery is a song!" "My lich's phylactery is the plane of negative energy!". "My lich's phylactery is hidden on another plane, guarded by a billion skeletons!"
I thought it was his mouth but is actually his nose lol
Conjurational Ethics
Necromancy 101: How to work with a shovel
Sorcerers and the Imminent dangers of Wild Magic.
>"My lich's phylactery is a song!"
Okay but you gotta admit that's fucking cool as shit. The lich can only be killed once nobody remembers the song anymore? Baller. Perhaps not beatable by a single group of heroes, but the narrative possibilities are intriguing.
>Okay but you gotta admit that's fucking cool as shit
It really fucking isn't.
Migrated from the last thread, b/c I got some good advice but want moar
I've got a level 4 sorcerer for a game in a few days, and I've gotten everything worked out everything but the metamagics. What should I pick?
Spells are
Shocking Grasp
Gust
Prestidigitation
Lightning Lure
Fire Bolt
Ray of Sickness
Ice Knife
Feather Fall
Aganezzer's Scorcher
Shatter
I was thinking about Empowered Spell and Twinned Spell to start out, then Heightened Spell and Extended Spell at higher levels.
Thoughts on that and the spell list?
I've since been told that I should use Quickened and Subtle instead of Heightened and Empowered. Which admittedly is pretty appealing.
>Blaster caster
Shit, nigger, what are you doing
I'm open to suggestions, hit me.
I think he is trying to have fun
What's the difference between a paladin and a war domain cleric?
gonna make an arcana cleric of Celestian aka space jesus
will probably play an aasimar
what wizard cantrips should i get?
Do you mean fluff-wise, or mechanics wise?
theyre spelled different
A war domain cleric fights for the advancement of his god's agenda.
A paladin fights to advance a set of ideals, and may or may not even worship a god.
Paladins hit stuff. Clerics cast and sometimes also hit stuff.
Fluff-wise, Paladins are conviction while Clerics are faith.
Mechanically, Clerics are full casters and will never ever ever compare in damage to a Paladin without spell use.
If a character fights for his god and ideals, here's a quick test as to whether he is a cleric or paladin:
When the head priest of a church announces a change in the tenets of the faith...
...the cleric changes his ideals.
...the paladin changes his god.
Feedback requested on how I might convert this NPC to D&D 5e:
I like this one. Realistically, it WOULD be a course in a school that teaches conjuration.
Well, then, he's on the wrong board.
Abjuration: A practical survey of how not to be killed
I don't do math for homebrew. But that's because I tend to stay away from tacking on damage to new abilities. Otherwise copying current numbers suffices.
Dude, that's some old fantasy level stuff, and objectively a an awesome campaign idea. Who destroyed your sense of wonder?
Suggestion is always a great spell socially and if you use subtle it has some strong applications outside of the typical dungeon crawl. I'm personally a heightened/subtle kinda guy but I also prefer a save or suck and buffs playstyle to a blaster.
>Paladin
>Fightsman who is supernaturally empowered by their belief in doing what they believe is "the right thing"
>Various flavors based on different ideas of what "the right thing" is
>Sworn to uphold an Oath, not necessarily beholden to a deity or church doctrine
>Can cast, sort-of
>Hits like a truck in physical melee because SMITE MAKES RIGHT
>War Cleric
>Religious dude with bigger weapons than most
>"Chosen One" for a deity of the War domain
>Personal beliefs matter less than acting according to the divine will of their deity
>Full caster
>Can into melee, sort of
>Secretly a better as an archer
Anyone have a decent non-hex map of Mystara? Or really anything Mystara, I don't care for Faerun and I'd like to introduce my players to a more classic setting. So far I have the Gazetteers and some PDFs from the Vaults of Pandius.
When should a wild magic sorcerer roll for magic surge? The phb is really vague, but I think once for every spell cast seems fine to me.
1, 20, or pretty much whenever you think it'd be appropriate. Alternatively, roll a d4 and have them roll on a 1.
Can a bard use the Message spell to intimidate someone?
Hmm, that's worth thinking about.
>>Secretly a better as an archer
Explain. That sounds awesome.
Is decent description combining fluff and crunch, but of course the crunch will vary based on the edition/game. Then again, so will the fluff.
>SMITE MAKES RIGHT
I'm stealing.
Of course, based on what he says. But it's up to the DM whether you actually roll intimidation, just like in regular conversation.
with the appropriate roll I don't see why not.
I think the animal messenger one is so much better.
>A squirrel delivers death threats to someone
Once we acquired one of the Sending Stones the villains used to communicate. For the rest of the campaign we used them, each adventuring day, to send them flowery death threats.
>not a bird
>not tweeting death threats to your enemies
My character made a deal with Asmodeus, but desu it was kinda coerced because his soul had been tapped for collection by an infernal spellbook that gave power in exchange for your soul, your experience and knowledge being sucked into and added to the book once you died. Kind of an Auto-warlock maker deal.
Either, Both?
So a cleric follows a faith an a paladin follows whatever they think is correct?
Makes sense.
So does a paladins power come from their own self-belief? How does that work?
Planning on running Death House with only three players, but a lot of the encounters seem too tough for a smaller group. Should I bump them up to level 2 while advancing to 3 partway through or half the number of enemies in a given encounter?
The Paladin's power comes from the strength of his resolve. It's why he's a charisma caster, like a sorcerer, his power comes from within.
have you read the PHB? there's like two pages of fluff for each class. it's a good place to start.
How would you guys present a labyrinth for your players to navigate? Nothing too fancy, just think of your typical palace garden grass maze.
>So a cleric follows a faith an a paladin follows whatever they think is correct?
Yeah, basically.
>How does that work?
It's a magical universe, we ain't gotta explain shit. You just need to accept that with sufficient conviction, a person can come to represent an ideal, and thereby gain the power to champion it.
Have them designate one player as a mapper and give them some graph paper.
Yeah
This. Paladins embody an ideal and their strength of conviction tangibly empowers them.
>send players to collect mundane thing from cave
>encounter weird letters in the opening
>they turn a bend and find mundane thing
>as they turn back round the corner they are met with different terrain than before
Start mappin' boys
I thought about that, but wouldn't it get boring with me saying 20 times "you go left and you reach a dead end"?
Won't that get boring whether or not they're mapping it?
A labyrinth with nothing else in it? Because that's just a pointless waste of time.
Literal mazes don't work very well without a large playmat or something, because it means the players have to draw a very accurate map based on your cues which tends to be not very fun for the party. I would know, I used to try that shit.
If you're going to use a maze, make them roll to navigate it. Or don't use a maze at all, at least not as an encounter/obstacle.
just make it a race, X amount of days to finish the maze or they lose the prize (and get kicked out)
Reaper, reaper that's what people call me...
Guess a maze isn't that fun after all.
Yeah mazes are a great idea in theory, but they just don't work in tabletop games in my experience
A maze -can- be fun. It just needs to be less of a maze and more of a large building with many rooms or things along the way.
Mine's in a deal with a high-ranking succ but also a young god. First contract gives up the soul if I die before dethroning a queen of hell but if I do that ownership returns, gives me a mental link with them and the succubus's draining kiss, as well as an at-will Modify Memory. As for the god that's gonna be my ticket for easy living after all of this ends. Spread knowledge and innovation and all that, gonna open up a school or just become a weird guy why scries around looking for problems and solves them. Or I just invent a magical sham-wow and use the proceeds to pay someone else to open a college for me.
Unless a higher bidder shows up but what I've been given so far is pretty sweet.
On it's own, a maze is a bad idea. There aren't really any tangible interesting stakes involved with a big maze. It works fine as the setting in which actual obstacles are placed, however. If your party has to navigate a maze to find an object or slay a creature or rescue a damsel before she gets eaten, then you have something worth looking at. But just sticking a maze in front of your party and going "ok roll to get through" is shitty DMing.
Yeah, I can see a dungeon being set up in such a way, perhaps with some rooms changing due to magic or dimensional silliness.
How would you do it in such a case? Let's say they have to reach the end under a time limit, to rescue the damsel. But that doesn't change the mechanics of the maze.
Should I really care if I have low DEX on a heavy armor cleric?
Dex saving throws are pretty common
Nope.
Aside from occasionally failing some DEX saves there's no point to having DEX on heavy armor characters as far as I know, unless they use DEX as their attack stat which would be out of the ordinary.
Probably not that much.
Just watch out for fireballs
Doesn't dex help with AC?
Not in heavy armor.
Gotcha. I never played with heavy armor so I don't know shit.
My point stands. You would have easily caught that if you'd read the chapter on equipment, even if you've never used heavy armor yourself.
I'm not trying to be mean, just saying that lots of questions would never even come up if you read the book.
>cleric fights for the advancement of his god's agenda.
I've never liked the idea of playing a Cleric who is basically a servant. (I'm not trying to go full fedora here, but I can't get into the head of a true theist. That doesn't seem fun to me.)
What does anyone think of a Cleric who has a more mercenary outlook? They do work for a deity and expect to receive divine power in response, and both the deity and the Cleric think that's a fair deal. The Cleric has their own agenda and is their own person, but they have a relationship with their patron that isn't one-sided.
I also like the idea of a single character who does work for a whole pantheon. Kratos gets boons and tasks dropped on him throughout God of War 1. He's not really a spellcaster, but he does keep getting stronger and acquiring magical abilities until he becomes a god himself. The protagonist from Sacrifice has a similar deal. More people should have played that game. Tim Curry plays a trickster deity with a balloon for a face.
I've played all of 6 sessions and I'm not the OP of this topic, I haven't read everything yet and mightve missed a few details which is why it was a question. Chill on me.
Warlock. You are thinking of a Warlock, user.
It's meant to lead into another adventure, either homebrewed or one of the modules.
Sorry about the delay. I went to do the dishes while I thought about it. I'd probably start by figuring out a distance the party has to travel to reach the end. Then I'd set a speed reduction for the maze to simulate the difficulty in traversing it. Lastly, I'd set a time limit for the party to reach the end before the princess gets eaten. With all that in place, before the players set foot inside, I'd ask them how they're going to go about doing it, giving them pace bonuses for each plausibly useful tactic. So say they have a dwarf who is good with stonework, maybe he says he can read the wear in the stone to identify commonly tread ground. Anything like that that could give them an edge, I'd give out a bonus for. Once they're done with that and head inside, I'd narrate them through, pausing for points of interest. If a trap goes off, or if they spot a treasure chest off in one direction, etc. I'd give them an opportunity to deal with it however they want, but tasks that take time will cost them. At each point of interest I'd mark down the time remaining and if they reached the girl in time they've succeeded. If they got there quick they might have even beaten the monster to the punch and can escape without a fight.
First idea is literally a warlock.
Clerics are believers. That's the point of the class. They may become disillusioned, they may evolve over the course of their career, but they're servants first and foremost. They don't negotiate with their god.
Your second idea is perfectly workable. A cleric can worship more than one god. But it's still, at least ostensibly, a servant-master relationship, not a business partner relationship.
Yes, but you didn't ask us whether or not it was a good idea to start with.
No. Fuck you, read the book.
6 sessions probably means you've played for a month and a half at least? At that point, if you're still having fun, you should probably read the rulebook. I can understand putting off the commitment until you're, well, committed, but it's probably time.
The DMG does cover the possibility of clerics devoted to forces (like a druid) or philosophies (like a paladin). But you would have to reconcile that with some of their mechanics like divine intervention.
You don't understand user, if you haven't read the entire book cover to cover enough times to have it memorized, then you're a disgusting normie that spells the doom of this hobby. seriously though you have no excuse for the armour thing since it's super obvious with the chartbut the other user needs to learn some bedside manner holy shit
So, how could I pull off explaining how a supposedly blind monk can see?
Why would a blind monk see?
I've been reading through, unfortunately I didn't retain it all.
I'm often teaching/advising the other players at the table on things pertaining to their classes, but I forget shit and haven't memorized everything, coupled with not having much spare time.
Barring some crazy race choice with blindsense/tremorsense/etc., you're pretty shit out of luck unless the DM grants you some Ki pseudo sight, essentially turning your blindness into a flavor-only thing.
Sonar. He has super-sharp hearing because monk powers, he can whistle and listen for echo.
Does your str modifier damage also increase with versatile? Or does it remain as is?
He's lying about being blind and wears a blindfold made of sheer material.
what?
Only the dice size changes when 2hing a Versatile weapon.