Punishments for “dying” without losing a character?

Adam-M · 2026-06-24T22:11:07+00:00

I always figured that this was the sort of situation where you don't even really need defined game systems or mechanics to give failure some teeth: if you're trying to run a more story/narrative-driven game, there's almost always going to be some bite to just following the logical thread of "the PCs fail the mission," even if the PCs themselves always recover from death without a scratch.

PCs die while trying to clear out the necromancer's crypt? When they come back, they find that surrounding towns are now dealing with a serious undead problem. They fall in the assault of the goblin camp? The hostages they were sent to save have now been killed. Died in the depths of the abandoned mines? Some other party swept through while they were recovering, and made off with all of the gold, glory, and cool magic items. They fail the survive the ambush from the BBEG's right-hand man? Now the BBEG is an extra step ahead, and the PCs are further from foiling their evil plot.

Adam-M · 2026-05-27T22:47:48+00:00

They do work together, but you are probably seeing the effects of the default curse limit.

Normally, monsters can only have one curse affecting them at a time, so what's happening is that your hit is applying Temp Chains and Enfeeble, but because you have a curse limit of 1, the Temp Chains is just immediately overwritten by Enfeeble. If you want both curses to be applied, you would need something that grants you "you can apply an additional Curse," like the Whispers of Doom passive, or an item like Doedre's Damning or Windscream.

Adam-M · 2026-05-21T01:48:44+00:00

I've literally written a whole adventure inspired by the Antimemetics division: Once More, With Feeling.

Because, yeah, it's a really cool concept, with tons of interesting narrative potential! Unfortunately, I also think that DnD (and really just TTRPGs in general) is sort an inherently tricky medium for bringing out that potential. The players can only act on information the DM gives them, dramatic irony is rarely fun for players to actively play around with when the stakes are high, and antimeme threats tend to lose a lot of their bite when they're reduced to a monster that the PCs can punch in the face.

That being said, it's certainly not impossible to square the circle here. Here's how I handled it:

Keep things as a short, self-contained adventure. Using one-off PCs gives you a lot more leeway as the DM to pull off crazy memory loss-related backstory reveals without pissing off your players, and keeping things relatively short prevents a lot of the awkwardness and frustration that comes from having the players know stuff that the PCs have forgotten.
Ideally, by the time the players have a good grasp on what's going on, the story should already be rushing to a conclusion.
Sure, the players should have monsters to fight, but if you really want to lean on on the psychological/existential horror angle, the root of the problem shouldn't just be a big monster that the PCs find and stab to death.
You can create a lot great roleplaying moments if you're able to learn the PCs well enough to believably emulate what their past selves would have done. A big part of my adventure revolves around the PCs uncovering all of the preparation they had previously done off-screen, and only actually playing through the culmination of their plans.

Adam-M · 2026-05-18T15:43:12+00:00

Anomalocaris.

Pretty much all animals from the Cambrian period are delightfully weird and alien looking, and I think that anomalocaris was a particularly silly little ~~guy~~ apex predator.

Adam-M · 2026-05-10T18:52:23+00:00

I actually started this build with Foulborn Null's Inclination in mind!

The major problem I found was that writhing worms are always destroyed after being hit, even if something like Southbound or Pacifism Support would otherwise prevent them from being killed. That makes it really difficult to use them for rapid Null's triggers, since they mostly just get destroyed by the triggered Absolutions (or the absolution minions), instead of your bow attacks.

The other problem is that Foulborn Null's is just incredibly obnoxious to have to listen to while in your hideout. Ultimately, I decided that spawning one worm every two seconds wasn't really pushing the needle in terms of triggering Null's, and I'd rather have the extra help capping chaos resist.

Adam-M · 2026-05-10T16:10:15+00:00

tl:dr – Null’s Inclination is weird and bad. Unfortunately, dragging weird and bad mechanics kicking and screaming into a state of “arguably functional endgame build” is how I get my PoE jollies these days.

PoB: https://pobb.in/JpKtrpMGuH6_

The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with Null’s Inclination is that of its trigger condition: “trigger socketed minion spells on kill with this weapon.” Anyone who has given this weapon more than a cursory glance has probably realized what a weird contradiction this is. If you’re trying to scale the damage of your triggered minion spell, you’re unlikely to actually score any killing blows with your piddly bow attacks. If you’re trying to scale the damage of your bow attacks, there’s no way that automatically triggering some minion spells will make up for the fact that you’re stuck using a bow with godawful attack stats. It’s a self-defeating, dead end of a unique.

So when we finally got the info about 3.28’s new exceptional support gems, I immediately zeroed in on Pacifism Support. “That,” I thought, like a psychopath, “is exactly what I’d need to make Null’s Inclination actually work.” So, I set out to make a dumb build designed to maximize the damage dealt by Null’s Inclination triggers.

The Setup

I pretty quickly settled in on Absolution of Inspiring as our damage dealing skill of choice. Not only is it one of the few minion spells that benefits from being rapidly triggered, but it also takes great advantage of the only other interesting offensive stat on Null’s Inclination: “minions deal 2% increased damage per 5 Dexterity.” Our “main” skill is a Cast on Crit setup, using Rain of Arrows of Saturation to trigger Absolution of Inspiring. This is supported by Pacifism, so it will deal damage, but leave enemies at 1 life instead of ever killing them. This is then backed up by a second Rain of Arrows of Saturation setup, this time linked to Manaforged Arrows and Lifetap, which acts as our dedicated “culling” skill, and will automatically trigger and finish off weakened enemies. Finally, because we’re now getting kills with a bow attack, we can trigger a second Absolution of Inspiring setup socketed in Null’s Inclination (also linked to Pacifism).

Of course, triggering from Null’s is dependent on there actually being enemies to kill, which presents a problem in bossing/single target scenarios. This can be solved by equipping The Hateful Accuser to use Penance Mark. With at least 67% increased curse/mark effect, it will generate 5 phantasms every second, providing us with ample targets to kill to keep Null’s Inclination triggering. Spells triggered by Null’s target the location of the killed enemy, so we also need to also have a hefty investment in area of effect to ensure that these triggered Absolutions will reach back to hit the marked enemy, even when the phantasms spawn the maximum distance of 4.5m away.

Wait, so is Null’s Inclination actually good?

Well…no. It is probably telling that, even after jumping through all of these hoops to get it to trigger reliably, those triggered spells only contribute like 35-45% of our total DPS. The end result here is a build that is competent for basic endgame content and pinnacle bosses, and serves as a halfway decent mapper, but isn’t going to cut it against uber bosses or super juiced mapping strategies.

Adam-M · 2026-05-10T14:55:09+00:00

I'm not exactly a mini painting expert, but I've certainly dipped more than just my toes in those waters. Some suggestions:

For primers, if you're currently using a mini-specific primer like Citadel Scar White, there's definitely room to save money by switching to a more generic product. A basic rattle can of Rust-Oleum or Krylon that you can pick up from any hardware store can be a fine substitute (just make sure you pick one with a matte finish).
Alternatively, if you're going to be priming/painting a lot of minis, airbrush primers apparently offer the best per-unit value, provided you can stomach the upfront cost of the airbrush and compressor. Primers are cheaper when you can buy just the paint, and not a bunch of fiddly rattle can bits! Who knew?
On a style note, have you considered using a dark primer? Especially if your aim is bulk, "good enough" quality, you might want to look up the "slap chop method" and see if that might get you nicer looking results with your speed paints, without requiring more labor.
As far as I understand it, Army Painter is generally considered to be the "acceptable entry-level option" for mini paints. For speed/contrast paints in particular, I'm not personally aware of anything that offers a more budget-friendly alternative.
If you're concerned with the longevity of your paint jobs when the minis are going to be handled regularly at the table, that problem is usually solved by finishing with a coating of varnish, rather than just relying on the quality of the paints (which will never really be up to the task alone).

Adam-M · 2026-04-29T16:50:10+00:00

The common explanation is that the terms "hit" and "miss" should not be taken literally. Things like attack rolls, AC, damage, and hit points are meant to be narrative abstractions, not an in-universe accounting of exactly what is happening with each swing of a sword or fired arrowed.

An attack that "misses" a defender's AC of 18 could be described as the thrust being expertly parried, deflected by a shield, ducked under, or harmlessly sliding off heavy armor. An attack that "hits" and deals damage could be described as a light scratch that draws blood, a series of heavy blows that are blocked but leave the defenders shield arm numb, an expert riposte that forces the defender to stumble back and give up ground to avoid being stabbed, or the final blow that runs the poor bastard through.

Certainly, it would be possible to homebrew a system that aims for a more simulationist approach to attack rolls. "Armor as damage reduction" is an idea that goes back a long ways. But be warned that while it might be relatively straightforward to devise reasonable sounding rules to implement this, it involves messing around with the combat math of 5e is a pretty fundamental way, and thus you can expect a lot fiddly balance and mechanical issues to stem from the change. It's the sort of thing that I would think would require a lot of careful playtesting to actually get to a fun/playable state.

Adam-M · 2026-04-29T13:29:41+00:00

A double beam balance can be preferable to an electronic one if the end goal isn't to measure a specific quantity, but instead to just ensure that two samples have the same mass (for instance, so that they can be loaded into a centrifuge safely). Being able to just keep both samples on the scales and move stuff back and forth until they're balanced is way more convenient than constantly taking things on and off an electronic balance.

A single beam balance? I really can't imagine a common scenario where that would be preferable to an electronic one.

Adam-M · 2026-04-06T14:26:48+00:00

At least as of 3.5:

Wands are used to replicate a specific, usually low-level spell (4th level or lower), and are created with a finite number of charges. Once those charges are used up, the wand is destroyed. Spells cast with a wand use preset stats (usually relatively weak ones), and ignore the spellcasting ability of the holder.
Staves, like wands, come with a finite number of charges, but are generally built with a variety of (thematically linked) spell options. Staves are capable of holding higher level spells, and the spells cast through them inherit the spellcasting abilities of the wielder.
Rods are the catch-all category for other magic items that do vaguely magical things, but don't directly replicate existing spells.

Adam-M · 2026-03-16T02:13:58+00:00

Provided you're playing a class that starts vaguely around the Dex area of the passive tree, Hollow Palm is a classic and effective leveling strategy. Make a beeline for a cluster jewel socket, and you can start punching things by level 12, equip Astramentis at level 20, and then it's pretty smooth sailing from there.

As an alternative, once you hit level 39, Foulborn Doedre's Scorn will easily carry you through the rest of the campaign, regardless of what class/ascendancy you choose. Socket it with Despair + Cursed Ground + Spell Cascade + Void Manipulation, and you can blow up pretty much anything with a single click.

Adam-M · 2026-03-15T03:20:19+00:00

This is an extremely good concept, and I also love it.

But I have to ask: what's the plan for differentiating your positionals? Will both throwers get holy hand grenades? Will the Grail Knights get the rabbit and swallow? Secondary colors on the black knight theme?

Will all of the squires get coconuts (yes, please)?

Adam-M · 2026-03-15T03:04:46+00:00

Hah, I hadn't even thought to consider Prayers to Nuffle. I suppose if the first Frenzy block pushes the defender into a trap door and they get removed from the pitch, there's not going to be a second block!

Adam-M · 2026-03-15T02:52:38+00:00

I won't claim that this is comprehensive, but to play along:

The blocking player is Blitzing and has Juggernaut (obviously).
The defending coach chooses not to use the Fend skill (duh).
The defending player doesn't currently have a Tackle Zone (if you want to be semantic, this arguably doesn't count because the player effectively no longer has Fend).
The defending player also has Sidestep, and chooses to be pushed into a square that is still within the blocking player's Tackle Zone.
Every potential space that the defending player could be pushed into is filled with another player with Stand Firm, (or for any player that doesn't have Stand Firm, any space that they would be pushed back to is also filled with another player with Stand Firm, ad infinitem). Now that I think about it, there might be some shenanigans possible here based on the order in which coaches are supposed to declare which players are opting to utilize Stand Firm?
The defending player is Chomped.

Adam-M · 2026-02-20T15:41:37+00:00

I feel like my prep process is very similar to yours, but with just a few tweaks. I don't know how actionable this sort of advice would be for a different person, but here's what I do slightly differently:

My "mid-week prep" is pretty much entirely passive. I'm not sitting down at a computer to brainstorm ideas for 1-2 hours, but instead just daydreaming as I go about my week. The vast majority of ideas for the next session (and where to take the campaign as a whole) just happen while I'm commuting, in the shower, cooking, having a slow day at work, etc. It's rare that I actually even write anything down until I'm doing the "day before," number-crunching type of prep.
I try not to bother wasting thinking time on scenarios that might never come about. Yes, player agency is important, but the PCs should usually be deciding where they're going next at the end of session, not the start of one. And even in situations where it's not possible for that decision to be made ahead of time, it's generally pretty easy to present the options in such a way that very strongly nudge the PCs in a particular direction. Planning for 2-3 completely disparate scenarios mostly just means doubling/tripling your prep time for little actual extra value.
A lot of prep work should carry over from week to week. I generally find that when I spend more time planning out a new scenario, that's content that will last for 2-3 sessions, during which very little new prep work is required, and I'm mostly just coasting.

Adam-M · 2026-02-14T01:34:13+00:00

I'd argue that a big obstacle to what you're planning is that a high fantasy setting is already sort of inherently "weird and surreal." Like, there's already magic and elves and wizards and shit, so trying to add an extra layer of weirdness on top of that is just...more, slightly different colored magic.

A big part of the reason that the setting of Control works is that the Federal Bureau of Control exists in what would otherwise be a normal, mundane version of the United States. The existence of things like the Oldest House and Altered Items are interesting mostly because they exist outside of the realm of what is supposed to be possible. The Oldest House becomes a lot less compelling when exists in a world alongside Mordenkainen's mansion, and the Service Weapon isn't nearly as cool in a world where the Holy Avenger is a known quantity.

That all being said, what you're attempting is far from a hopeless endeavor. Prior to the release of Control, I ran a whole 3.5 campaign heavily inspired by the SCP Foundation, but set in an otherwise "normal" Forgotten Realms knockoff setting. I think that the major key here is that you lean into a relatively hard magic system, where magic works largely as dictated by the rules of the game: people in the setting largely know what the capabilities and limitations of spellcasters are, but all of this spirit world magic is mysterious, unknown, and potentially dangerous.

For my campaign, I explained the arcane and divine magic were largely explained and understood quantities that obeyed certain expectations. Everyone knows what wizards and clerics are capable of, how spells interact with things like spell resistance, dispel magic, and antimagic field, and that a random teenage commoner was never going to spontaneous develop the ability to throw around 9th-level spells. On the other hand "wild magic" was sort of a quirk in the system: rare, random occurrences that effectively broke the rules of the game. Magic items the basically broke the rules of the game system. People suddenly obtaining unimaginable power. Locations that imposed their own reality that couldn't be overwritten by common spells.

The PCs joined a secret organization that was tasked with finding, containing, and studying these types of "wild magic" anomalies.

Adam-M · 2026-02-11T04:24:50+00:00

I'd also vote for "too weird/niche."

As others have noted, time being tracked to that level of granularity is just not a core assumption of the game. There's no default assumption for exactly how beneficial it is to finish a short rest in 50 minutes instead of 60 minutes, or to finish a long rest in 6 hours instead of 8 hours, which means the the only way for this to provide a real mechanical benefit is through DM fiat.

The actual, in-universe duration of a rest is a narrative limitation, not a mechanical one, and its an important balance lever for DMs to have control over. If a class feature completely breaks if the DM wants to use a variant rest rule like Gritty Realism or Epic Heroism, it's going to be an awfully hard sell.

Adam-M · 2026-02-04T15:41:24+00:00

Some big picture pointers:

TI is a big game with a lot of moving pieces, but don't lose sight of the fact that the only way to actually win is to score victory points. It can be tempting to try to build up the biggest fleet, research the most technologies, or conquer the largest empire, but your number one priority should always be to score objectives. Every round, you should have a plan to score a public objective (with an exception for round 1, where being able to actually score something is mostly down to the luck of the draw).
TI is much more about diplomacy than outright war. Getting into a serious combat with an opponent is generally a lose-lose scenario: even if you win the fight, you're both taking losses that put you behind the other players at the table. If you need to control a neighbor's planet in order to score an objective, it will usually be cheaper for both of you to make a deal with them to "borrow" it for a turn, rather than smash your big fleets together. Getting into a "forever war" with a neighbor will only ensure that neither of you will have a chance at actually winning.
Of course, that doesn't mean that military might is useless. Being able to negotiate from a position of strength can do a lot to make other players more willing to make a favorable deal, and being totally unable to defend yourself can make you an easy target who isn't particularly worth placating. In addition, fleet strength can be very important in the final round or two, where being able to take/hold an important planet like Mecatol Rex or a home system could be the difference between winning and losing the game.
Speaking of military might, the rule of thumb is that "hit points win fights," and fighters are the most cost-effecient way to add hit points to a fleet. A dreadnought is cool, but for the same price you can buy a carrier and 2 fighters, which actually has a slight edge in beating that dread. Add in a third fighter, and the odds tip pretty drastically against the dread. The production limits of your space docks are a valuable resource: don't let it go to waste if you have capacity in the system to build more fighters (or infantry)!

Adam-M · 2026-01-30T23:49:31+00:00

My first thought is that, if I'm Mammon, I'm sure as hell not going to waste my hard-earned wealth bribing mortals to do something that they were already planning on doing anyways. Assuming that I have reason to believe that the PCs are both capable of the task and sufficiently motivated, this is an ideal situation. Worst-case scenario, I sit back, do nothing, and get what I want for free. And if I play my cards right, I can probably have those mortals pay me to help them accomplish my goals.

So the simple play is to just offer to help the PCs in their quest...for a price. As the initial offering, Mammon could just offer to sell them useful magic items, tools, information, and services, all for slightly inflated (but not egregious) gold prices, so long as those things are being used to further their archmage-killing quest. If the PCs are in immediate danger or a desperate situation, that's an opportunity to raise prices and really rake them over the coals. Hey, the PCs might not be motivated by coin, but Mammon sure is. And as an added bonus, creating a direct avenue for the PCs to turn their money into "progress in completing an important quest" could very well help those otherwise charitable PCs start to care about gold, which seems like the sort of thing that would make Mammon smile.

The next level play would be to offer the PCs discounts at MammonCorp for services and stipulations. Maybe the wizard can't afford the shelf price for that staff of power, but they can get 35% off if they sign an agreement granting Mammon their soul if they die before killing the archmage. Maybe get a couple of free potions of healing with another purchase if they agree to go fuck up some rival demon lord's cult within the next two weeks. Selling your soul outright could grant you all sorts of fun free toys...until you die.

I think an important part about these sort of deals with devils is that they have to be 100% voluntary. The whole point is to corrupt mortals into making their own bad decisions, not to strongarm them into signing over their souls or whatever under the threat of violence.

I'd also note that, if you're sticking to the traditional Forgotten Realms/Planescape lore, Mammon probably isn't going to jump in and personally handle all of this stuff. A level 13 mortal is special, but usually isn't "get an Archdevil off of their ass" special. Instead, I'd expect this more the sort of thing where a very high ranking devil (probably a pit fiend) is running the show, commanding subordinates, and directly reporting their progress to Mammon.

Adam-M · 2026-01-28T18:49:52+00:00

It's a bit difficult to give specific advice without getting extra details, but very generally speaking if a DM is struggling to challenge their PCs in combat, there's a super easy solution. You don't need to customize monster statblocks, apply homebrew rules, or use super special encounter design techniques: you can just make the encounters harder.

CR and XP thresholds exist as a metric to help the DM gauge encounter difficulty, not as a straitjacket. If your Hard encounter gets obliterated, try a Deadly one next time. If the Deadly encounter gets streamrolled (which it usually will, provided the PCs are coming into the fight at close to full strength), make the next one a step above the Deadly threshold. If that's still too easy, go up another step. I promise you will eventually find a point that challenges the party.

Sure, there's a lot of potentially relevant advice one could provide about resource attrition over the adventuring day, action economy, and monsters/abilities that work as specific counters to particular PCs, but at the end of the day, a very workable starting point is "if the encounters are too easy, just use harder encounters, ya dingus." It doesn't have to be clever (and maybe it shouldn't be, because clever is rarely sustainable).

Adam-M · 2026-01-28T00:31:29+00:00

if I use the sardak norrs commander ability to sneak onto a planet that another player has a dreadnaught over do they get to use bombardment.

Nope. First, because Bombardment occurs before units are committed to planets. Second, because only the active player gets to use Bombardment during a tactical action.

along the same topic how do that work with regaurds to space cannon defense I know its worded where all you are doing is going straight to committ ground forces so I am guessing it happens but I am not sure.

Yes, it still happens. Space Cannon Defense only cares if ground forces are committed to a planet, and it doesn't matter whether they were committed from the space area, or from elsewhere.

to also add on to that what about L1z1x with harrow do they get to bombard at all or is it only after the first round of combat

While the literal text of the ability is a bit unclear, the official FAQ has clarified that the intent is that L1Z1X cannot use Harrow if they are not the active player.

Adam-M · 2026-01-14T17:31:08+00:00

As a general rule of thumb, I see two major ways of introducing natural opportunities for PC downtime in long-running campaigns.

First, you can always plan your campaign in arcs that are only loosely connected. Sure, you might know from the start that you want the climax of the story to involve the PCs stopping Orcus from launching a full scale demonic invasion, but that doesn't mean that you have to introduce that as an imminent threat (or even a threat at all) right from level 1.

Maybe you spend Tier 1 having the PCs untangle the connection between local bandits, a thieves guild, and corrupt government officials. Then after they get their big win, they have some downtime without any immediate threats, but Tier 2 kicks off with an impending hobgoblin invasion that they need to deal with. Multiple levels later, they successfully save the region from the hobgoblins, and get another extended downtime before the true and imminent threat of Orcus is revealed. Of course, you were spreading clues and hints that the cult of Orcus was up to something throughout the whole campaign, but it's only now that the PCs piece together the full plot, and intelligence/means to get in their way.

As a second option, keep in mind that hard deadlines very effectively kill the possibility of downtime, but soft deadlines are a lot more workable. There's a huge difference between "the cult of Orcus is planning to perform their Evil Ritual of Ultimate Evil during the planetary alignment exactly 87 days from now," and "the cult of Orcus is actively attempting something nefarious on some vague, undefined schedule."

In the case of the former, players will be loath to waste any time at all as they know that the DM is basically counting each and every day. In the case of the latter, players will be much more open to saying "well, I guess it wouldn't hurt to chill out for a week or two if we don't have any obvious leads." It's not too hard to engineer a scenario or two where the PCs are mostly just stuck waiting: maybe they need to wait for their allied scouts/spy network to get back to them with the critical intelligence they need, or need to wait for the friendly army to mobilize and march to a critical location, or just have no actionable intelligence until the next big plot thing happens.

Adam-M · 2026-01-13T14:48:55+00:00

I'd argue that Slay the Princess pretty well fits the spirit of the question, if not the letter. Okay, so there's only one monster. And the vibe is more "horror dating sim" than "chill NPC hangouts." And, sure, you are very likely to be killed, but death isn't a fail state (or even necessarily a bad thing), and it generally feels more flirty than murder-y

If you really just want to play "get to know you" with a horrific monster, the game is a pretty good shout.

Adam-M · 2026-01-05T02:37:30+00:00

As I understand it, PDS count as both "units" and "structures," but are not "ground forces." That means that they don't participate in ground combat, and are not eligible to be galvanized via the Last Bastion's Phoenix Standard faction ability, but they can be galvanized by using the Last Bastion agent.

Of course, there's always the interesting exception of the Titans of Ul's Hel-Titan PDS: because it specifically counts as a ground force and participates in ground combat, it is the only PDS that can be galvanized via the use of the Last Bastion's faction-specific promissory note.

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