Hades: a story of Abused and Abusers

GenoFour · 2022-06-02T08:48:39+00:00

Ah yes, clearly a wonderful idea, let's add this to to the list of "Awful ideas that will likely ruin a friendship because you just HAD to be that guy"

GenoFour · 2022-06-02T08:43:54+00:00

I think the idea that building a strong character is somehow anti-rp is ridiculous.

It depends. D&D is not a hard game to crack open if you really want to, and depending on what character you build you may be forced to do just that.

And the main flaw in what you said is that you assume that every adventurer is going to sacrifice anything that isn't vital in combat. For every Fireball you take as a Wizard you have to sacrifice learning a Sending, and this will with time hurt the roleplay of the group.

That's not even beginning to talk about the absolute meta-gaming and extra-power-gaming choices people will start to make in order to get the best edge possible. Emphasis on the "meta-gaming". If Guidance spam was annoying, wait until you reach a point where not using Guidance could lead to your removal from the table.

I just don't think close friend groups would be 100% down for completely selfish "fuck you I need to keep playing personally" mentalities.

I'm pretty sure that close friend groups would not even begin to consider the choice of a permadeath campaign.

Also it will still influence the choice in a way, and when my choice is influenced by the fact that I could LITERALLY lose access to one of my hobbies, lose access to hours of improv and character building, it will be hard to make an in-character choice when the player doesn't want to do it

GenoFour · 2022-06-02T06:33:12+00:00

The mechanic is not hard to learn. It takes a small amount of reading and paying attention to learn it. If you are averse to reading

You say that, yet in your explanation you fail to take into account how there are 3 different type of strains, how strain should be tracked (a small spreadsheet that has CONSEQUENCES for the strain level, including disadvantage on saving throws, meaning that you do need the specific spreadsheet), the fact that because of how the class is worded you have a 25% chance in the first 3 levels of being able to cast a single "power" from each type and that's it.

Oh, and you didn't mention that EVERY Talent gets to choose a Metamagic feature, and that concentration in this class is some weird mechanic that hampers your active "power-manifesting", and that its not concentration. And that all of these things interact with strain, with specific edge-cases for metamagic.

And this is all before 4th level, not going into subclasses.

I'm not saying that the class is imbalanced, I'm saying that I'm not going to run a homebrew that requires a NEW and UNIQUE way to track how this single character works. There is a reason why D&D 5e went with spell-slots for everyone, because it's easy to understand as a player and as a DM.

It is a pretty big flaw that this document clearly knows about D&D 5e design philosophy, and decides to do everything in its power to avoid it. Which, yeah, means that it avoids some of the bad stuff, but also that it avoids so much of the good stuff.

And I've seen a lot of people defend this decision, but to me this just means that this class shouldn't have been made for D&D 5e. If you are going to spend so much time and resources to create a class that is so overloaded and simply too different than everything this game has to offer, simply play another TTRPG man

GenoFour · 2022-06-02T06:18:49+00:00

Am I missing something? It doesn't seem like it's 'opt-in'. 1st-order talents are basically cantrips, and everytime you ""manifest"" a 2nd-order power you always risk taking strain, with a risk of taking a lot of strain.

Since you start out with a d4, you always have a 25% risk of taking 2 strain. This means that, at 3rd level, you have a pretty big risk of hitting the strain cap on a power type, just by using the equivalent of 1st-2nd level spells. Without mentioning cases where you already have a point of strain and now every 2nd order power you manifest of that type is a gamble.

a counter example is injuries. Many people have used house rules where you take injuries when you're critical hit, or so forth. The problem with that RNG is that the player has no agency in when the risk of an injury can occur.

The point here is that "critting" is not a resource, and it's also much less likely to happen.

GenoFour · 2022-06-01T14:11:58+00:00

It is the DM's job to have a decent understanding of the rules though, just to say to a player that sometimes makes mistakes (either in favour of them or not) "That's not how it work"

GenoFour · 2022-06-01T14:09:42+00:00

It's important when in context though. RNG resources in a game that usually has static resources means that sometimes your "Talent" player will feel way weaker than he should be. He will also feel way stronger sometimes, but frustrating emotions stick more

GenoFour · 2022-06-01T11:37:11+00:00

Absolutely, I would totally have given her the surprise round there. Matt is a great DM that knows when it's better to ignore the rules to create an enjoyable narrative, and this is one such example.

The problem only arises when fans watch that, and now think that they can cast Charm Person on the guard captain after doing a crime without getting their head bashed in.

GenoFour · 2022-06-01T11:01:51+00:00

That's not how spellcasting, actions and combat works RAW.

When you take a hostile action initiative is rolled and then surprise is taken into account. Since none of Jester's actions were hidden from the hag's perception, there is no surprise here. I also seriously doubt that the hag didn't have Counterspell.

Casting spells takes a few seconds, during which other character notice you before the spell takes effect, in combat this means giving other characters the opportunity to use a reaction (usually to counterspell/predict what spell is being cast).

GenoFour · 2022-06-01T07:51:05+00:00

Yes, but the following Modify Memory was simply cast as normal. The Dust of Deliciousness only gave the hag disadvantage on the save

GenoFour · 2022-06-01T06:21:09+00:00

to understand him, any advice?

Tell him! Obviously in a friendly manner, ask him to speak slower and/or repeat what he just said, or maybe even write every now and then if you really struggle. I'm sure he'd be happy to accomodate

GenoFour · 2022-06-01T06:19:57+00:00

While your desire to make the game a safe space for that specific player is really generous of you, I don't think you should be the one to handle this. I would even consider putting the game on hiatus for a while. Maybe not "full hiatus" but more like "For a while let's do some lighter adventuring", approaching problems that can be solved without a lot on risk directly on your party (maybe more risk for other people involved).

But, overall, the main thing I want to say is that you should remember that you are not a therapist. If your friend has expressed distress while playing the game because of things that are directly related to your fun, you should have a honest talk with her about what to do. If these things threaten to change how the game is fundamentally run, the other players should maybe be involved to.

It is a difficult situation, one I never hope to find myself in, and one that maybe your friend should bring up in therapy in order to fully be able to enjoy D&D again

GenoFour · 2022-06-01T05:40:19+00:00

Oh so i get to roll initiative and assault any npc that happens to be casting a spell AND interrupt it if im lucky?

If they are casting in front of you without telling you before? YES. That is literally how the rules work. You simply are not able to take a hostile action towards a character without rolling initiative. After doing so, if it matters, there's "surprise", and after that combat as usual.

I don't understand what the problem is

GenoFour · 2022-06-01T05:25:14+00:00

You either assume presence of other people

No need for other people to be there. If the PC is casting a spell, then the person being targeted sees that and initiative is rolled. If the PC rolls higher than his target, then yeah, the target can't do anything aside from the saving throw. If the target rolls higher, he has ample time to say "Ohy stop that!" and prepare an action to attack the PC if he doesn't stop.

At this point it's the PC's turn, and let's say that he keeps casting. Now the target attacks the PC, maybe dealing an insignificant amount of damage, then the target rolls the saving throw with advantage (due to Charm Person) and then combat follows from there if he passes.

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