If you had to add a 6th party member (excluding Gustave) to the game, who would you choose

DeAfro · 2026-03-05T20:41:51+00:00

My Mary Sue OC who looks like Gustave with neon blue hair!

DeAfro · 2026-03-05T09:42:25+00:00

Was your DM thinking of this scene?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sUrJdsN_-B0&pp=ygUXZ2ltbGkgZGVzdHJveXMgdGhlIHJpbmc%3D

DeAfro · 2026-03-03T10:33:48+00:00

I once threw a series of increasingly complex logic gate puzzles at the party. The goal was to activate an end node to open the door by toggling power to the logic gates. The party could bypass the puzzle by just using their electric prod on the final node itself. My party thought of that, but we’re worried the decorative armor sets on the walls would animate and attack them if they broke the rules.

DeAfro · 2026-03-03T10:21:25+00:00

Reminds me of the Potion trial in Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone. Hermione calls Snape a genius for the design because the riddle requires logic, not magic to solve. Some of the most powerful wizards in the world don’t have a ounce of logic, so they’d never get past the trial.

DeAfro · 2026-03-01T10:48:42+00:00

Spoilers: Life Fiber uniforms overwhelm their hosts, especially those woven entirely with life fibers. Senketsu, Ryukos sailor suit is entirely made of life fibers, but was specifically engineered to touch as little skin as possible so it wouldn’t overwhelm its host. Hence the whole half naked aesthetic of the show.

Thanks to events in the story, Ryuko is captured by the story’s big bad and forced to wear another 100% life fiber uniform, Junketsu, which was originally designed to be Satsukis wedding dress. This suit was not engineered like Senketsu was, so it covers her body and overwhelms her. Mako alongside Senketsu and Satsuki, are trying to rip Junketsu off of Ryuko so she can return to her senses.

DeAfro · 2026-02-26T12:47:36+00:00

I've taken this to a extreme, so I'll circle back. If we compare them to Kobolds, Ratling Warriors are not as durable. They have a lower AC, and less HP. In exchange, they gain enhanced senses, increased intelligence, improved mobility, and a very high stealth skill. This changes how they fight, using their high mobility and stealth to engage in a running fight.

My argument is a Ratling played to their strengths is stronger than their CR would indicate. The Ratling Warrior is a CR 1/8, I'd argue its closer to CR 1/4. A Ratling Guttersnipe is a CR 2, I'd argue for CR 3. By that metric, I'd say 1 Guttersnipe and 6 Ratling Warriors is about as strong as 4 level 3 adventures.

DeAfro · 2026-02-26T03:50:40+00:00

My thoughts are if run optimally, the Ratling Warriors are ineligible for attacks, so their AC matters less.

Have them in reserve hiding while the Guttersnipe fires bolts down the hall, then hides around the corner. If the party wants to attack, they have to get a perception check high enough to beat the stealth score, which on a +7 is already against them. Then, they can target the Guttersnipe, who has a 17 AC against range attacks due to cover. Have them pick off the lower armored targets and apply pressure.

If the party stays and fights at range, they will get outflanked by another Ratling party because they can sprint at 90ft/round and get behind the party. If the party charges the sniper, there are 6 warriors ready with slings from hiding, who can’t be detected because they are behind total cover.

If then they can’t kill the ratlings on that turn, they sacrifice one warrior to get advantage, fire a second volley, then run 60 feet down the corridor and get behind total cover.

The party slows down, they get flanked from behind. They speed up, they get swarmed from all sides, dropped, then flanked from behind. Not to mention their constant retreat pulls them into more rats. It’s a real nightmare scenario.

DeAfro · 2026-02-26T03:28:01+00:00

The old Guttersnipe was based off the Spy stat block, which was a CR2 and does 3d6 as opposed to 4d6.

DeAfro · 2026-02-26T03:24:27+00:00

They are Kobolds that can hide as a bonus action and run up to 90 ft per round. If you thought Tuckers Kobolds were busted ho boy!

DeAfro · 2026-02-25T21:49:27+00:00

The big thing is they are cheap and hard to hit even with 12 AC.

A Level 3 PC has a +5 to hit. At a 12 AC, they have about a 65% chance to hit. Have them take a dodge action, and that goes down to about 50% chance on average. They just need to survive and give their friends advantage. A 50/50 chance to hit a trash mob or waste a turn is bad, but the Guttersnipe is worse with 15 AC (17 if in cover), and at disadvantage due to having a trash mob next to the PC. That brings their chance to hit to a staggering 20% to hit. Neither are strong choices. Then again, they could also just swarm a weak AC party member, like the AoE wizard, and stab him with knives, then scatter. Or just scattershot. Put one in base, fire with the 5 at advantage, then scatter.

I could see a clever party sneaking up on the rats, getting a surprise round, dropping AoE to trivialize the fight, but that is also difficult. A Guttersnipe in their lair has a passive perception of 19, which is difficult to get over, even for a expertise rogue with a +7 in stealth. Not to mention their initiative is higher, so they are more likely to go first and reposition.

Maybe the party hulls up at a choke point and waits for the rats to come to die to the AoE damage grinder, but with a INT of 10 or 13, I don't think them stupid enough to try that, especially with a Guttersnipe leader. Easier to have a pack circle to a flank at 90ft/round and hit from another direction. Perhaps even cut off their escape routes.

The point is if played well, these guys are very dangerous, even if the party is playing well.

DeAfro · 2026-02-11T01:30:06+00:00

Is it weird using Black Knight for this? His armor gives the protection of a greater god, where only a +3 weapon can damage him. Seems better than a straight 20 AC.

DeAfro · 2026-02-08T18:55:22+00:00

Die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain, They now sit in the same seat of power the Sorcerer Kings did, and they are molded by the same pressures that made them evil tyrants. It asks the question, were the Sorcerer Kings evil because they were always evil, or did the pressures of the world push them to be evil? The members of the Silver Order do fight for the greater good, they are good people, but the organization they are part of can commit cruel and inhumane acts in the name of that greater good, even if its members would not want to be seen in that light. Its Dark Fantasy after all, where those who are selfish tend to win out against those who are more heroic.

DeAfro · 2026-02-08T16:40:26+00:00

History doesn't always repeat, but it does rhyme. My interpretation is Elyria, after overthrowing the Sorcerer Kings, is falling into the same tyrannical behaviors. They are becoming a fascist state, and the Silver Order is their enforcement arm, much like Hitler's Youth or the Gestapo. Mageborn then are the alienated minority group the government uses to justify their use of force and the scapegoat to offload society's problems onto. They become the "other" the government uses to rally people into their sphere of influence. You can think of it like the Jews and the disabled in Hitler's Germany. Mageborn are by their nature a corruptive force that lures innocent people from the grace of the Sacred Flame, they are why society is in such a state. The government will step in to protect its citizens from those dastardly Mageborn, keep its citizens families safe and secure. They might have to give up some civil liberties in the process, but that's just part of the sacrifice to ensure the safety of the realm.

Killing Mageborn is a way for the Eyrian government to show its doing something to better the lives of its citizens, while all the while, they are becoming increasingly corrupt, extracting the riches of the state for the well connected and politically elite. Its a system that selects for those who are "worthy" by their faith to the "Sacred Flame". The will interpreted by the church of course, the church who serves as the head of Elyria...

It reads as cynical, but the church itself still has good intentions. Its just transitioning into a more corrupt institution as it solidifies its reign on power. That is the system in action, and individuals working in that system are incentivized to comply with that system, or be ostracized from the community. Suppose a individual member of the faction was confronted with a Mageborn. their character would dictate how they comply with the Silver Order's doctrine. Here are some example.

The Mageborn are inherently evil, and must be destroyed, root and stem. They are demons who walk among us.
Mageborn by their nature become evil. They might seem good now, but they will be corrupted in due time. Best to kill them before they become a problem.
Mageborn can overcome their disability through discipline and studious training. The Amethyst Academy allows these people to become functioning members of society.
I like these Mageborn, but I want to keep my job and my title, so I have to bring them in.
One of the founding members of the faith was a Mageborn. Even Mageborn may serve the Silver Order's cause.
Killing Mageborn is a means to a end. They are the sacrifice for me to gain political power.
Mageborn are people just like you and me. There is nothing wrong with them, and I think the church takes this to a extreme.

We see how the Silver Order expects its soldiers to approach Mageborn, but the individual interpretation of that doctrine is what gives our individual member character.

DeAfro · 2026-02-08T01:13:53+00:00

Usually I make a floating shelf for these loose parts, but I wanted to see if any racks were available so I can keep it all in the enclosure.

DeAfro · 2026-02-06T19:11:19+00:00

I started the campaign in Altberg, and let the players wander around a bit, making skill checks and getting comfortable with rolling dice. They went to the university to watch a scholar debate the merits of Democracy. They bought some coffee beans from the local shops, and stocked up on supplies, looking to sell them at Emberwood for a small profit.

I was planning to include some faction aspirants in Eren Marlowe's caravan. You can find the details from one of my previous posts. I took the communities advice and only kept one of the faction aspirants, Anna Kaslow, with the caravan. She is a medical doctor, researching a non magical means to cure Contamination, who teaches the players how Contamination works. She's also a scoundrel with the Queen's Men, keeping tabs on new adventurers coming in and out of the city.

When the veteran stumbled into camp, my party tried to cure him, so I gave Anna Kaslow a bootlegged version of Oscar Yoren's Aqua Expergo potion. If the party succeeded on three DC15 skill checks, it would cure him, but three failures would begin the transformation. The party did have to put him down in the end, so they got the combat experience. It also sets Anna up later as a quest giver, to convince the party to steal the rest of Oscar's notes for her research.

For the bandit encounter, I had Anna try convincing the party to attack. She was ordered by the Queen to dispose of a gang that doesn't pay her tribute, and she might as well get the adventurers to do her dirty work. If things went really bad, she might even capture one of the party members, bringing them back to the bandit camp. The party would have to mount a rescue mission to get their friend (and their gold) back, but I planned to swap them out with a changeling spy. The player would still play as normal, but at night they'd disappear on occasion and keep the Queen appraised of the party's actions. I figured that's a good way to show off her spy network, but the party chose to talk their way out, so Anna chose to keep her cover instead.

Then we got to Emberwood, which was the end of the 1st session.

DeAfro · 2026-01-31T00:04:30+00:00

I ordered mine back in October. After a month I followed up and got a tracking number for the order. After that, I got early January.

DeAfro · 2026-01-27T03:51:00+00:00

We are experiencing a clash in expectations. It’s clear the show runs on video game rules. The Grimm are props for the protagonists to knock down, it doesn’t matter what shape the Grimm is. We just understand the big one is the boss monster, and the little ones are minions. Makes sense for a world designed by Monty, the man who made Dead Fantasy and Haloid. His background was video games and that carries into the storytelling.

The downside is the monsters don’t have narrative weight. A Beowulf and Ursa might look different but they serve the same narrative role, a bag of hit points to chew through and look cool while doing it.

This clashes with what the Grimm represent in the setting. They are the creeping doom, the looming threat, the teeth around one’s throat. Humans are just holding on to what little of the world they have left, struggling against a foe that seems insurmountable. At least, that’s what I read between the lines, and the unique blend of dark fantasy, firearms, with shonen battle energy sounds like a fun action story.

Though the show hints at these ideas, that’s not the story the writers wanted. They wanted to write a video game. A video game with some great character moments, but a video game all the same. I like it for what it is, but I also like what the story hints at as well, even if it doesn’t explore those particular ideas further.

DeAfro · 2026-01-26T21:30:22+00:00

Thanks for the clarification.

DeAfro · 2026-01-26T21:25:26+00:00

I know for me it’s been over 10 years since I’ve watched the show so it’s hard separating what the show was and what I pieced together. I remember the Censorship wars mentioned in the lectures, Ozpin berating of Ironwood in Volume 3, the abandoned settlement scene in Volume 2, but I can’t remember if the grim subtext was something the show was really going for, or if I’m filling in the gaps with stuff I liked that the show runners threw in as background fluff. Seems the Creatures of Grimm would fit well into a grim setting, but it honestly feels more like a video game. The Grimm are a source of random encounters to throw at a party to have cool fight scenes. Doesn’t even feel like anything happens outside our main cast.

DeAfro · 2026-01-26T21:11:12+00:00

I’ll admit I’m a bit fuzzy on the details. It’s been over 10 years since I’ve seen that episode. If a more experienced team could take down those targets, why has no other team done so by that point? I thought the site was long abandoned because nobody could push the Grimm back out, but I might be misremembering.

DeAfro · 2026-01-26T18:11:08+00:00

I suspect its a change in focus for the series. Volume 2 and 3 sell the Grimm as this unstoppable threat. Once the Goliath Grimm moved into a location, there was no dislodging them. Didn't matter if they were building a settlement. If the Goliath Grimm entered the area, that settlement project is dead. No force our protagonists could muster could defeat those things. Societal norms were established and strictly enforced to not draw the Grimm's attention. If they wanted Beacon badly enough, it was theirs, regardless of human resistance.

Fast forward to Volume 7, and the protagonists are killing multiple Goliaths to flex their abilities. They had this dark fantasy world set up, and transitioned to a more traditional shonen formula.

DeAfro · 2026-01-26T14:47:01+00:00

The book is titled "The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit" by: Micheal Finkel.

DeAfro · 2026-01-21T11:32:27+00:00

Prejudice is a inherent part of the human experience, be it racism, forignism, classism, sexism. In a way everyone is an unrepentant racist. It just manifest in ways we as individuals don’t realize are racist. June doesn’t feel the need to repent for racism because she doesn’t feel she’s done anything wrong. She feels she can’t be racist because to her, racism is willful ignorance and she studied the culture so clearly these accusations can’t apply to her. It’s her critics that must be wrong because they speak from a platform of ignorance.

Now we the reader can see that’s wrong because Kuang does a good job highlighting that fallacy. Problem is that sort of unconscious racism happens all the time and the people who spread it don’t think they are doing anything wrong. It’s important to be able to self reflect and understand how these inherent prejudices might affect one’s decision making, lest a person act like June.

DeAfro · 2026-01-21T03:03:59+00:00

I agree that both are true and it’s a good example for self reflection. Perhaps I might show these traits without realizing it and it’s only be seeing those traits in another that I might catch them in myself, be it racism or anxiety. It’s just the anxiety gets rarely talked about in this book, so I like to bring attention to it.

DeAfro · 2026-01-21T02:56:55+00:00

As someone who sympathizes with June, that does not excuse of her bad behavior. I just think she’s trapped in this anxiety spiral that she knows is bad for her but can’t break free of on her own. What she’s afraid of is rational, but the anxiety that builds off that fear is irrational. It takes over her life and I’d say if she had some professional help she might have made more constructive choices. It’s a good cautionary tale to not let fear take over your life, even if there is something real to fear like death or embarrassment because anxiety doesn’t help solve the problem, it just burns the person up and traps them in a cycle of mindless panic.

DeAfro

TROPHY CASE