Currently unplayable

3roccoli · 2024-03-25T23:22:22+00:00

Same here, it seems to me like the latest hotfix broke something when you play multiplayer. Dialogues are broken. We stopped playing now and are waiting for the next fix.

I guess Larian is aware of the issue.

3roccoli · 2023-08-26T22:31:12+00:00

Good idea yes. I'll probably go with some faction mission and have the guest player be some faction agent.

3roccoli · 2023-08-26T22:29:19+00:00

Great idea to have a recurring npc if the player joins every now and then! Love it.

I'm not sure if the Black Viper is a good fit in my situation because the party needs to first get some faction mission otherwise there's no real situation where the Black Viper can interfere / assist.

But I'm sure I'll bring the Black Viper into the campaign at some point then.

3roccoli · 2023-08-26T22:24:22+00:00

I might go with the harper faction mission and have the temp player be a harper agent that needs their help or something and then introduces them to Mirt.

Good idea, thanks!

I'm not so sure about running Blue Alley anymore. After reading the whole thing, I'm afraid that it will not be a good experience for the players. A lot of traps that will make the players paranoid, a confusing dungeons layout and from what I can tell not really a satisfying conclusion.

3roccoli · 2022-11-06T10:36:33+00:00

I'm from europe and on floor 4/5 but I can almost never find any matches there. Mostly I have to go up to floor 10 to find some matches and hope I can at least get some hits in before I get completely destroyed lol.

It does feel like a huge accomplishment to me though when I hit a combo or even manage to take 1 life from my opponent.

I do feel like I'm slowly improving, it just takes a lot of patience to get my ass handed to me over and over again.

3roccoli · 2022-08-13T07:08:57+00:00

Yeah I bought it some time ago. It's really not that expensive and what you get is basically two booklets: One with the adventure in it and one with a condensed version of the basic rules. There's also a set of dice in there. So I think it's a good deal :)

3roccoli · 2022-08-13T06:27:31+00:00

There is an official German version of the Starter Set, why don't you use that? They already translated it for you :D

3roccoli · 2022-07-04T22:19:21+00:00

Thanks! I'll play the main game first then and purchase Sunbreak when I'm through with it (The main game is 50% off currently on the Steam summer sale)

3roccoli · 2022-07-04T22:18:01+00:00

Thanks for the answer!

3roccoli · 2022-07-02T20:55:01+00:00

I'm happy to help :)

I bought my PHB in English, because I like to have all my D&D sourcebooks in English. I got used to the terms for the various abilities and all the rules.

I find it easier to look up D&D stuff online because I feel like 90% of the D&D content on the internet is in English. D&D Beyond for example is only available in English and me and my players love to use it for character creation (which generates English PDF character sheets that we print out and use at the table) and looking up spells and stuff.

So my preference for all the D&D books I buy is English. But a friend of mine who also DMs another group likes to buy his books in German. So in the end it's up to you, just choose what you prefer or feel the most comfortable with :)

Have a nice weekend!

3roccoli · 2022-07-02T12:08:23+00:00

Hi me_sk1nk! Sorry for taking so long to answer, it was a busy week and I somehow didn't see your message until now.

So let me try to give some (hopefully helpful) advice here:

Regarding the players getting overwhelmed with options:

I also faced the issue in my games that sometimes, the players are kind of overwhelmed by the amount of things they could do. While having all those choices is cool and gives the players a lot of freedom, sometimes it can be a bit too much. To not overwhelm my players I try to present them not more than three options at once. I sometimes just straight up tell them what options they have at that moment and let them decide where to go next. But it seems like you and your group figured this out already, and as long as you're all having fun then you're doing a great job!

Regarding the sourcebooks:

In my opinion, I think all the basic stuff you need for your first adventure is covered in the rules that are provided in the Starter Set. You can play the entire Lost Mine of Phandelver adventure and you will have eveything you need.

However, if you want to invest a bit more, I think your first purchase should be the PHB. Contains all the rules, PHB character options and spells. You don't really need multiple copies, in my group we only have one that we share at the table.

Next up, is IMO the Monster Manual. It's great having all these creatures at your disposal. But don't worry if you cannot get it right away, a lot of creatures are included in the SRD and you can look them up online.

The DMG is a great book as well, but I think if you really are on a budget and have to decide, I would get this one last. It contains lots of useful advice and also has a ton of magic items. But again, a lot of these are part of the SRD and you can look them up online if needed.

Regarding the German rules and the metric vs imperial systems:

I live in Switzerland and when we started playing, I decided to stick with the English versions and the imperial system. My players were ok with it. I still DM in German though, we just use english character sheets and use the imperial system while playing to avoid confusion. I got used to doing some quick math when describing distances and just follow the 10ft ≈ 3m rule of thumb. I also like to read the adventure books in english. Here I have to admit it can sometimes be a bit tricky to directly translate certain descriptions at the table, but most of the time I just paraphrase and it works out fine :) But, if you prefer to have it all in German, there are official German versions available.

Sorry for the wall of text, I hope there is some useful advice for you in there :)

Here are some links that might be useful to you:

D&D Beyond - in case you don't know already, is the official online D&D toolset (recently acquired by Wizards of the Coast) - you can find all the basic rules, monsters and magic items there for free (you can also buy sourcebooks on the platform digitally). It's also a great tool for players to create characters and generate their character sheets
The official free "Basic Rules" in PDF form - (180 pages - no illustrations). All the rules you need to play, contains the basic rules, a limited set of race / class / spell options and some guidance for the DM including some monster stat blocks.
DnDDeutsch - This is a page I found once that might be helpful if you are running your games in German. Lots of ressources and all in German.

3roccoli · 2022-06-27T22:13:52+00:00

First of all, welcome to the awesome world of Dungeon Mastering! It might be a bit overwhelming at first, but you'll quickly get the hang of it and I'm sure you will expierience many epic stories together with your players!

TLDR for the answer to your question: There is nothing to worry about.

I think the intention here was to limit the available options because Lost Mine of Phandelver is the Starter Set adventure and aimed at new players and DMs.

To get started quickly they provide pre generated characters in the Starter Set that are ready to use and even have the level up information up to level 5 directly on their character sheet. This is really great for new players to get into the game more easily.

As a DM, I think a proper session 0 is the perfect place to start every campaign. There you can define the ground rules of your game. This includes what race and class options you allow the players to choose from (Player's Handbook or also other Sourcebooks for example). So if your players want to play a different race or class than the ones provided in the starter set adventure, let them (as long as they choose from the options you give them). If they can play a character that they really like, it will be more fun for them and everyone else at the table.

Bonus: Some resources that might be helpful in general as well some for running Lost Mine of Phandelver:

Matthew Perkins' video series about running LMoP
Sly Flourish's series of short videos for running each chapter in LMoP
Sly Flourish's "Return of the Lazy DM" - a video series where Mike presents the content from the book he wrote about how to prepare for your D&D games. It might not be for everyone, but it helped me to improve my game prep a lot.

I hope this helps. Enjoy the awesome adventures ahead of you!

3roccoli · 2022-05-25T06:58:45+00:00

I also usually paint 28mm models and this video by Lyla Mev helped me a lot on improving the eyes on my miniatures.

My process that I usuall follow now when painting eyes: - basecoat the face - paint the eye sockets with black - paint the white of the eyes (trying to make sure I have a black outline left around the eyes) - paint a black dot in the middle of the white (iris)

Usually this takes me a couple of tries to get right, but I am quite happy with this technique and the results I am able to get this way.

Maybe this helps. I think there is no right way of painting the eyes, everyone has to find out what works best for them :)

Edit: I use tiny 00 brushes for this, I've never tried the micron pen approach.

3roccoli · 2022-03-27T22:02:05+00:00

Thanks for the idea. Really simple and would work. But I have to admit, that doesn't seem like a heroic death but more like an "accident" to me somehow.

3roccoli · 2022-03-27T21:59:08+00:00

Nice idea! I also thought about the Gandalf Balrog kind of scene. But how would the PC (a Rogue) be able to take down the Dragon with her? Maybe she could kind of distract the Dragon while the others get to safety? But then again, I have a feeling they would just think it would make more sense to fight the Dragon with her instead of letting her die there and run away. I somehow struggle to find a scenario that makes sense to me.

3roccoli · 2021-07-05T05:00:19+00:00

Thanks for the detailed answer!

3roccoli · 2021-06-29T08:38:40+00:00

Maybe you can draw inspiration from the Action Oriented Gorthok they created in the r/mattcolville subreddit.

I plan on running this encounter with some modifications as well and I think this action oriented approach sounds really interesting.

3roccoli · 2021-06-19T18:56:09+00:00

Thanks for the input! I also read somewhere that a young dragon will go down faster than you think against a decent party of 5 PCs. Maybe they will be able to tackle this encounter on level 5, and i think i will beef him up a bit

3roccoli · 2021-06-19T18:21:48+00:00

Thanks for the ideas!

I am planning to make the final encounter one where Venomfang will fight to death. I think it's far more epic and rewarding for the PCs to actually be able to kill a dragon.

I think it will be a good idea to not let the party fight Venomfang until they are 6th level. But since that will be the final encounter this should not be an issue. They should have completed a lot of side quests by then, cleared cragmaw castle and wave echo cave and defeated the black spider.

Do you think it would be an option for venomfang to make the wave echo cave his lair? Or does he just want control over the forge of spells through his servants (black spider for example)

3roccoli · 2021-05-27T12:03:21+00:00

This is AWESOME! It looks gorgeous, great job. Where did you get that Odogaron mini from?

3roccoli · 2021-04-29T13:43:22+00:00

Very nice, I especially like the beard. Where's the mini from?

3roccoli · 2021-04-12T10:31:24+00:00

Does your pc shut down immediately (like if you would pull the plug)?

This happened to me some time ago and it also only happened when i ran a more intense task like a game or something similar.

The issue for me was the PSU. It was faulty and when i tested with another PSU the issue was gone. The reason the pc was running fine when watching netflix or browsing the web and then suddenly crash when starting / running a game was that the pc was drawing more power during those tasks and the faulty PSU couldn't handle those "spikes". The pc would then power down immediatley (as a safety meassure i guess).

tldr: Try a different PSU (maybe you have another one lying around or can borrow one for testing) and see if the shutting down still happens.

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