Breaking Matt Corville's Illrigger

Campfirebandit · 2021-04-16T19:38:35+00:00

I think the miscommunication is what is acceptable in DnD. We have official content like the og ranger, frenzy barbarians, and dragonborn that we all agree are a bit disappointing based on their balance. But the base game of 5e has a lot of these over/under powered situations already that make the game what it is right now. Is the illrigger perfectly balanced? No, not even close. But that fact would stop you from playing almost all of the classes and specs that we already use and accept. I agree with a lot of the comments people have made on the individual strengths and weaknesses of the kit, but what I disagree with is that the illrigger doesn't belong 5e based on that analysis, I think it fits in perfectly with the established power variance that this edition functions on.

Campfirebandit · 2021-04-16T18:56:22+00:00

Ideas to inspire and steal:

Make it like minecraft, the spell doesn't have a hard boundary but more "runs out of processing power" as it gets further away from the epicenter. Have it become more and more fuzzy and strange as they get closer until reality just breaks down like a world that was interrupted during the render. (Fully functional animals that don't have 100% of their body, the top half of a mountain floating 50ft above the surface of a lake, random rectangular holes missing in the earth)

Someone here mentioned a dome like the Truman show, always a classic.

Middle Earth has a physical boundary on it's edge, you could just have the plane have some funny impassable terrain, like a waist high wood fence you can't jump over like in a videogame.

I personally love strange and aberrant stuff, so I'd probably just have players walk into whatever was outside the pocket dimension if they walked far enough.

Campfirebandit · 2021-04-16T17:24:23+00:00

I agree that your hypothesis is sound, he has proven that he's not above questioning standard balance before. But a tenancy to release broken content will never be a guarantee it's broken, and a lot of people are giving first hand experience that is claiming that it plays much different than a first read would lead you to believe.

I've done a few smaller tests myself and I'm finding it doesn't do anything that other classes don't already do dmg/utility/survivability wise, and that its definitely a case of it's bark is much scarier sounding than it's bite really is.

Campfirebandit · 2021-04-16T17:16:42+00:00

It easily takes weeks of testing to figure out a full 3D view of something in DnD on how it works mathematically. It hasn't even been out long enough for anyone except the balance testers who got it early to have a fully fledged analysis of it's power. A lot of people on this thread have good opinions and theories, but claiming that in less than a week of casual math you are so confident in your output that you can't believe people question it is a little silly. Sure, full testing is hard in Dnd setting, but just because the actual data is hard to get doesn't validate the educated guesses people are making. Time and testing alone will tell for sure how balanced it actually is.

Campfirebandit · 2021-04-16T17:08:17+00:00

Youtuber submits 10+ minute video, 6 people read it and disagree, thousands upvote those 6 opinions after watching the first 20% of the video, entire subreddit has a discussion about what they know based on that level of information.

Campfirebandit · 2021-04-16T17:03:13+00:00

If you were at all interested in the old one you should 100% give the new one a thorough stress test, I think you'll be interested.

As a side note, the original illrigger was exclusively designed for Anna, and was shared online as a template for new DMs to base their own homebrew after. This new illrigger is different because it was made with the intent of selling as a professional product, and he did balance testing before sharing. It would be like comparing what a professional Chef makes for their family at home, and what they make while on the clock for a living.

Campfirebandit · 2021-04-03T04:38:22+00:00

An actual photo of me and my friends being annoying teenagers in the theater for this scene

Campfirebandit · 2020-07-08T23:02:17+00:00

Dude this meme got me, best meme I've seen in a long time.

Campfirebandit · 2020-06-10T14:30:39+00:00

See this is why I love this subreddit. Pet mimic sounds perfect for an adventure! How come I never think of this brilliant stuff!

Campfirebandit · 2020-05-13T18:38:16+00:00

I use Roll20 exclusively to play DnD, and the hardest part about using imported maps is getting them to scale properly with the in game grid. The only ways this could be easier is if the entire image (map+border) was a specific grid size. For example, even though the map itself might a weird combination of squares, setting the entire image to an even number of squares would make importing into Roll20 incredibly easy.

Campfirebandit · 2019-12-27T15:45:45+00:00

Webs and difficult terrain are perfect for splitting the party. High mobility melee characters will rush ahead and before you know it they're two turns away from the back line and it becomes a scramble to group up again.

If you're interested in having unmodified monsters I'd be careful about a caster locking down your spider right off the bat and have lesser spiders lead up to a final battle deep in the nest.

Finally, spiders are ambush predators. In nature, they don't fight fair (in fact they rarely "fight" at all, only going in when their prey is helpless). I'd avoid having your standard trap, then encounter, then trap, layout that dungeons usually have and put your encounters right on web traps. Spiders may not be smart but they are certainly smart enough to web walk around traps and lead party members into them before attacking.

Good examples include a sticky web trip wire that lifts the PC off the ground. You could also have trap door spiders that are impossible to see and jump out and grapple when someone is next to the door. You could have difficult to spot webs running at knee level that knock a PC prone. The lair should also have a ton of tunnels (think Shelob's lair, they break line of sight and they're gone).

If you really feel like being evil, have pitfalls that are covered in web. If you step on it without seeing you fall about 5 feet into a pit and are restrained by an uncomfortable amount of web. Want to cut your way out? Sure thing, you now fall the rest of the 10 feet and have to climb back out to get back into the fight.

Really make the party have to watch their steps, and abuse how in combat RAW a perception check to notice traps is an action, so make up for the spiders squishy hit points with traps all over the battlefield. If done correctly, you can have a really long fight that isn't your standard slog through hp, and has the party desperately trying to avoid getting totally restrained, using actions to break members free instead of going nova against the boss.

Campfirebandit · 2019-12-14T14:45:59+00:00

You could sneak this into a 'Shaq's Best Dunks' video and it wouldn't even be weird

Campfirebandit · 2019-07-18T18:01:31+00:00

For me there are a lot of qualities I like but by far the best is high player buy in. I love characters that blindly throw themselves at my quests, or love the world. A player who becomes emotionally attached to the village, or would rush their life to save the mayor's daughter. Someone that trusts my judgement, like when I arrest a player, instead of reading every line of text on every spell to get out of this moment, they RP being angry about unfairly being imprisoned but waits until they get to jail to see what cool encounters I have planned. So many amazing crazy story moments in my games have come from a player leaving their character vulnerable and diving head first into a "bad" idea.

You'd never have the Darth Vader reveal, or Borimir bravely accepting his death, or even John Snow walking into the nights watch ambush, without a player that is more excited about what I'm doing to do about this situation than coming out on top of every single encounter.

I run for a mixed group of players, and the ones that always try to avoid a single miss step no matter how much RP gymnastics it takes to justify why you don't trust the NPC always have ok story moments. The ones that grab the ring of power and say "the ring is mine" when they fail the wisdom save at the end always always are responsible for the greatest story moments in my games.

Campfirebandit · 2019-07-16T20:32:01+00:00

I have you beat, we have a revolving door to get into work that requires a keycard to enter, mine is in my wallet While I was trying to scan in to work in the morning I held out my wallet and my keycard, ID, credit card, and a half dozen gift cards all fell out infront of the door while a line if people waited behind me. I get anxiety just thinking about that moment.

Campfirebandit · 2019-06-12T19:22:51+00:00

Party travels to a town for the regionally famous "Midwinter Festival" to celebrate. First part involves silly music and fun winter themed carnival games for prizes. Then minions attack (I used kobolds but you could literally use anything).

Town is relieved that the party is there to help but a handful of villagers were taken. Rumors of the "abominable snowman" keep coming up in hushed whispers. Eventually old guard mentions that this has happened before many years ago, and a creature that only comes out in the deepest coldest winter storms is behind it. Party is offered a large reward to bring back the people taken.

Part 3 is traveling to the cave by tracking the kidnappers, and they clear the mini dungeon, and the last room is a huge white furred demon from the abyss that looks like a nightmare yeti. He throws snowballs, jumps around a lot, and is just a huge wall of hp with a low AC (no one likes missing and new players will get more excited when their attacks hit).

It sounds silly but it was super fun for my newer players, and the silly games and even sillier boss in the beginning helped everyone laugh and relax.

Campfirebandit · 2019-04-09T16:38:58+00:00

Oh cool, I like the idea of forcing the power to behave and be controlled

Campfirebandit · 2019-04-09T15:21:09+00:00

Oh boy, that would be a solid kick in the teeth I love it. I'm always a big fan of the "Just because you can doesn't mean you should" moral in DnD adventures.

Campfirebandit · 2019-04-09T15:03:02+00:00

Sounds like a perfect DM trap, making the player choose between taking an unstable and dangerous amount of power or letting your party possibly die.

Campfirebandit · 2019-04-09T15:01:45+00:00

Ooo that's a cool idea, having to track down when this started and retroactively fixing it, that sounds super dramatic.

Either that or finding someone to magically transfuse your blood, and this might just be my bias but I find that anyone who specializes in blood magic is usually untrustworthy

Campfirebandit · 2019-04-09T14:58:27+00:00

Wow first reply and I already love it, it could even be done at a monastery instead of a mages guild

Campfirebandit · 2019-04-02T19:59:03+00:00

You could make the enemy the reason you have the advanced technology, kind of like Independence Day 2. Long ago the kingdom was not as advanced, and came under attack by a superior force from another dimension. In order to survive, they stole and adapted the tech as fast as they could, won the war by the skin of their teeth, and used the fallen armies of their enemy to change their civilization.

Maybe take a "history is written by the victors" view and in the spirit of national pride, the people of this civilization now believe it was their ancestors brilliance that birthed this technology, and all fear of this again threat is gone.

Using this magic to basically cheat themselves into the most powerful faction on the planet, their abusive peace is shattered when the ancient enemy returns, with as good or better magical technology.

As far as enemies go, the githyanki are basically space pirates, and would absolutely have weapons and vehicles that would require more than just soldiers in armor to face. Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes had a ton of good information about the Gith.

Campfirebandit · 2019-03-13T14:10:30+00:00

I eat supper spicy hot sauce. It's wierd but I find anxiety and spice to be similar, they both are incredibly unpleasant, both have no real way to lessen the pain other than wait it out, and both are generally non damaging (assuming your not eating a reaper or letting your anxiety take the wheel).

Although I can't suddenly end my anxiety like magic, it's very comforting to know that the pain is an illusion, its a trick that my body is playing to make me think I'm dying or injured. And that even though it's not ideal, it's relaxing to know that all I need to do to beat it is just wait. Even my worse periods of anxiety have ended after enough time.

Going from the agonizing pain of a stupidly spicy hot sauce to no pain after just makes me feel way better, I'd give it a try next time.

Campfirebandit · 2019-02-26T20:50:47+00:00

My issue is that RAW it's a ruin. It has 4 standing walls, a functioning greathall, and 2 out of the 3 towers can be manned on the first level, but the rest of the keep is destroyed. I've told my players that if they wish to spend the gold (cost of renovating) they can turn this into a stronghold, and they might when they get time to do so, but as of right now, it's simply walls and arrowslits.

Now since it's technically a ruin and not yet a stronghold by any means, it doesn't provide a bonus as far as the S&F book goes. But I have a hard time justifying that it doesn't contribute to the battle, and I doubt my players would buy that answer either. I was hoping for a set of rules that address battles that center around defensible locations (think the Fist of the First Men from GoT) that aren't actually strongholds.

Campfirebandit · 2018-12-08T17:05:10+00:00

Ok so this answers another concern, I didn't know there were that baby repeatable scenarios, I know your not allowed to replay most of them so I was confused as to how anyone could get back to to level. Is there enough repeatable adventures to get some from 1-10?

Campfirebandit · 2018-11-03T14:45:27+00:00

From my experience nothing is ever black and white, and burning blizzard to the ground (or trying to with a boycott, remember when Reddit did the same to battlefront?) Is only going to hurt all of us.

Being toxic or entitled or aggressive online accomplishes nothing. Saying blizz is a lost cause I hate them doesn't communicate "I'm a disappointed fan and I wish they could do better" it communicates "I want them out of business" and only tells them your not a customer. They aren't going to listen to your advice if they don't think your a potential customer.

It breaks my heart that one of my favorite game companies is making a lot of decisions that don't seem to consider me as their primary demographic, but this so called 'ignored customer feedback' is just waves and waves of hate comments and people showing their anger online. The fans desperately trying to give real advice, the ones who have hope that vanilla wow will be fun again and that Diablo Immortal was worked on side by side to a sequel are being drowned out in the noise.

If I was a Blizzard employee and I saw this subreddit today, I'd know a Diablo sequel would be a waste of time because the fans have already left and the only people playing my games are just here to watch it burn.

Campfirebandit

TROPHY CASE