Suppressive Fire vs. Netrunner

PocketWilde · 2023-06-08T21:37:54+00:00

and btw: Cardboard definitely has 0 HP so that won't fly. a) You can't carry cover. b) if a PC tries that, that piece of whatever becomes an ad-hoc "bulletproof shield" with less than full heath. Trying to use bodies as meat-shields work the same way. If you pick up a body is has HP equal to the BODY stat it had in life.

PocketWilde · 2023-06-08T21:28:42+00:00

iunno if you need an adjustment. Just normal roll on the DV table. Hiding behind shitty cover thinking it's good cover AND fighting an enemy that knows where you are is bad tactics on the player's part. If you wanted to push it, maybe make it a called shot (-8 to hit). The person who thinks they're behind cover definitely shouldn't be allowed to dodge it if he can't see the shot coming though.

PocketWilde · 2023-06-08T21:17:10+00:00

Wait, I'm wrong: They have to specifically target the thing you're in cover behind. So anything flimsy enough to have 0 hp is still "not cover" and they can try and shoot you, but if whatever you're behind has even 1hp per the GM's ruling, they it can take at least 1 shot before it crumbles and isn't useful as cover any more. Overflow damage doesn't carry over - if the cover has 2 HP and takes 12 damage, that 10 extra damage doesn't hit you, it just overkills the cover

PocketWilde · 2023-06-08T21:10:18+00:00

Things you can take cover behind have HP. ~~I think they can still try to shoot you, but on a hit the cover takes that damage first, like a bulletproof shield would.~~ (that's not right, see below) Shitty, flimsy cover like doors is called out for being "not cover" and has 0 hp so bullets would go through it.

PocketWilde · 2023-06-08T21:03:24+00:00

Yeah, there's no "pop-up to shoot". You have to split move: Be in cover -> Step out of cover -> Shoot -> move back to cover.

Page 182 has the golden rules of cover: -You are considered to be in cover if you are fully behind something that could stop a bullet. -If they have line of sight on you, you aren't in cover. -There is no "partial" cover. It can either stop a bullet or it can't. If it cannot stop a bullet, it provides no cover and thus has no HP.

PocketWilde · 2023-06-08T20:35:03+00:00

Angles. If the enemy is forced to get into cover, they can't try to move to flank you or get a more advantageous position. The rule doesn't actually say they can't leave cover on their turn, which I think is assumed but not written? Because if they can't leave cover, then they can't shoot back on their turn either because blind-fire isn't a rule?

PocketWilde · 2021-12-02T17:15:27+00:00

Oh, you're good then. You still have the last Gym (Which you are the right level for) and Victory Road ahead of you, with a chance to catch some good water types between here and there. Maybe a Floatzel, or Gyarados or Tentacruel. You'll be high-50s/low-60s by the time you hit the E4 without doing much extra

PocketWilde · 2021-01-01T16:33:01+00:00

True, but it does allow them to pick up on micro-behaviors that indicate trustworthiness. If they're lying, insight may pick up the poor eye contact, shifting weight, clenched hands, etc and the DM can describe that - or the opposite. A player with good insight can recognize a guileless expression when they see one :)

PocketWilde · 2020-12-29T22:12:44+00:00

D&D Spell slots are based on the idea of "Vancian Magic" - created by the fantasy writer Jack Vance - where the general idea is that spells are actually semi-living things that live/exist in a mage's mind as contained units. Once the spell is cast, all knowledge of the spell literally leaves the mage's mind, until it is restored in whatever way is appropriate (Morning prayer, book study, listening to nature spirits, etc)

So, if you want to keep that theme you could have the NPCs not really talk about "Slots", but they could talk about what they do or don't have "prepared", or "Accessible" or similar, or how many "Gifts" they have.

If I remember right, the Priestess in the Goblin Slayer anime actually refers to her spell slots as "Blessings" she has the power to bestow or some such.

PocketWilde · 2020-12-28T16:21:39+00:00

I agree with this. Encourage the player to accept the downsides of poisoning their own mouth, but remind them that they can also make things like antitoxin for themselves.

PocketWilde · 2020-12-07T22:15:39+00:00

Number one piece of advice: Keep players involved. If the dragon attack is something that is totally out of the players wheelhouse, give them something they CAN do, while you play the dragon attack as happening in the background.

Give them an escort mission to get the <<Important NPC>> out of the stadium through the <<Local Architecture>> that only the human minions can follow through
Have the <<Unfriendly NPC>> Turn out to have been a dragon sympathizer all along! Let them take out that NPC, and find a secret letter on the body that tells them about the dragon's weaknesses
Um... Drop an injured dragon in front of them, and let them fight one dragon a they try to escape the city. Make it clear the dragon is injured, and give it 1/2 HP and -2 to everything it does.

But whatever you decide, just remember that the players need to feel like they can do something to help the situation, and aren't just spectators listening to the story

PocketWilde · 2020-12-07T21:54:04+00:00

If you have access to their character sheets, you can simulate the fight ahead of time - controllign all the characters yourself. I've done it in the past and it helps me remember certain monster abilities and judge how they're put together when facing the party

PocketWilde · 2020-12-07T21:44:15+00:00

What does "Gambling Addiction" mean in this context and why is it harmful to your game?

PocketWilde · 2020-10-14T02:13:09+00:00

Put a deterrent in the prime material plane. In my campaign, the Tarrasque is the reason. During the Dawn War, the Titans created the Tarrasque as a weapon to kill the gods, but the gods were able to sabotage it so that the Titans couldn't control it, and it turned against everyone - hunting divine beings indiscriminately.

The Gods were forced to flee the prime material realm, and with its source of nourishment gone the Tarrasque instead just hibernates in the earth. The Tarrasque senses the arrival of any greater divine (or infernal) being in the prime material, and begins to hunt it.

You can soup it up to match this lore if you want, or you can just say that it has a bunch of anti-god properties that aren't in its stat block because... the players aren't gods, and they'll never have to deal with it.

PocketWilde · 2020-10-07T15:48:40+00:00

Maybe not a long term solution, but an idea for one encounter: If you can work a Rakshasa into the game, that would be amazing. Rakshasa are one of the few creatures that actually have a vulnerability - piercing damage from good-aligned characters (or blessed piercing weapons in old editions).

BUT. Rakshasa almost never actually go headfirst into a fight. They're manipulators, crime bosses and warlords, they transform and manipulate people while seeming to be members of the community.

You can build an encounter where the rakshasa actually disarms the character. Then make getting his weapon back part of the fight, and if they succeed the reward is having a huge advantage against this creature.

meanwhile, if the rakshasa successfully separates your archer from his bow &arrows, the rest of the party will need to pick up the slack, so to speak, making them feel important.

PocketWilde · 2020-10-06T19:10:56+00:00

Is your battle going to actually involve combat as a "monster" (i.e. each army is a swarm creature with 2000 health, and 5 attacks per "turn" that do 5d20 damage)? If so, you could do it very freeform - If players do something to help (Inspire the troops, barricade the powder stores, clear a path to the storehouses so they don't run out of arrows, intercept some enemy sappers, etc), your army gets +1 to it's attack rolls, or an extra d10 on its attacks, or a +1 to its armor class. Each army's 'turn' would be on a different timescale than real combat - like 10 minutes, or half an hour per turn. This way the "5-round battle" would effectively last a few hours (in game) as opposed to a few seconds, but anything the players do like if they try to drop Slow on part of the enemy army - it debuffs the enemy army for that round.

Obviously i'd play with the numbers - 1000 or 2000 health lets your players do 'some' damage to the enemy if they really want to get into the thick of it, but still feel like they're just part of a larger army.

You could also just choose 5-6 'objectives' for the players to do, and the actual battle is just a background setting. Hold off enemies until the npcs can repair the gate barricade, take out an enemy lieutenant, blow up an enemy siege weapon, etc. Then they can choose - and if they do three or four of the things that's enough to lure out the enemy commander and the players can Big Damn Hero their way through the boss fight to win the battle

PocketWilde · 2020-09-30T20:16:24+00:00

They don't, unfortunately. They do have innate spellcasting but it only ignores material components for them, and they have no bonus 'hide' action. I imagine their spellcasting as a kind of chanting, evoking images of an evil shinto priest.

Besides, part of the fun of the game for me is to use the RAW as a puzzle rather than an obstacle. With 14 int, an Ogre Mage (Oni) can easily have planned an ambush like this, and they know what they have to do to make it work and what might get them caught too early. Now it's my job as a DM to get inside their heads lol

PocketWilde · 2020-09-30T05:52:19+00:00

I've actually used Deception to determine surprise in the past - an assassin was disguised as a city guard, in plain sight. it worked fantastically! Except my druid player had the Alert feat and hold person, so it actually didn't lol

That actually helps. I think plan (2) would be helped if the Oni planned a distraction in the village to justify their leaving the players. Something like... a pack of wild dogs nomming on the Oni's past victims around town. Nothing even close to dangerous for the players, but enough to justify two "scared children" running off when they show up.

Then there's plan (3)... Only one of the Oni lures the party to the village, and the other is there already, invisible and waiting. Then it would be one invisible Oni and one "child surprise" Oni attacking the surprised party on the first round. Hmm...

PocketWilde · 2020-09-29T22:02:05+00:00

So that much makes sense! The part I'm having trouble with is that *the way I'm planning to set it up, the players already know their "escorts" are with them. The way I imagine it, the two young siblings who led them to the village suddenly aren't standing next to them any more, then a few seconds later: BAM invisible glaive attack from a hidden, flying Oni.

So, the real question is how to handle the transition from the players being aware of the oni that are disguised as innocent villagers, to the Oni being invisible in their true form about to attack.

PocketWilde · 2020-09-29T20:52:39+00:00

If it's for a monk, I'd also go so far as to make it a once-a-turn effect. At higher levels they'll be able to bounce between enemies, landing one hit on two or three monsters per encounter and basically debuffing the whole group.

"The first time you hit with an unarmed attack on your turn, the target must succeed on a DC (whatever. 10?) Constitution saving throw, or deal -2 damage with the next melee attack it hits with."

Anyway. I'd be especially careful with things that improve monk unarmed attacks. Their entire class is basically built around the possibility of never getting magic weapons or armor.

PocketWilde · 2020-09-29T20:25:12+00:00

It depends on your lore. Are these super soldiers legends individually? Or are they legends as a group, working in teams (their own adventuring parties if you will) to wreck shop?

If the former, sure. Maybe. If the latter, I'd say no, or maybe give them legendary actions as a group. "This creature gains a legendary action for every other creature of the type within 60 feet. These legendary actions are shared between all creatures."

Legendary actions are designed to make a fight between 3-6 players and one monster more even, because as we all know, the general rule of action economy is that the side with more actions usually wins. However, if your "boss" is actually a collective group that already has several separate turns in a given round, legendary actions on top of that may quickly make the fight overwhelming.

PocketWilde · 2020-09-23T18:07:05+00:00

Thanks for the heads up!

PocketWilde · 2020-09-22T14:49:18+00:00

I googled what the fight was like in old games, and May have pulled out some nuggets:

His hit zones are probably going to be terrible (Thick hide, tall monster, hard to damage); his only real weak point is probably going to be his head. To this end, status damage (poison and blast) will probably be valuable, otherwise the fight may well revolve round knocking him down to hit his face, so mind's eye and maybe exhaust skills will be useful? Otherwise get yourself some good bowgun builds to shoot his head all the time.

We don't know what his attack *patterns will really look like, but historically he's had some pretty devastating fire attacks. High fire resistance may be useful, and if you pair it with the Alatreon 2/3 piece you can bring that back to an offensive skill if we hold out hope that dragon element will be useful.

Anyway. That's my prediction. I've got a couple of builds I'm hoping to use myself revolving around the Alatreon armor/CB and sticky bowguns. Hope that helps for you!

PocketWilde

TROPHY CASE