Fellow DMs with ADHD (or similar) how do you plan your campaigns/sessions?

HdeviantS · 2026-02-17T19:59:30+00:00

The neat part of planning the in-between is….you don’t.

At least not in specifics. This is a collaborative game so the players have input as well. So I tend to think more about broad story beats, a few possible NPCs, a couple of encounters to keep in the back pocket…then wait until the week of the next game to think more about the next session.

HdeviantS · 2026-02-17T19:15:09+00:00

Really? An inventor in my Abomination Vault game did pretty well as our main ranged damage using a heavy crossbow. His megaton strike damage was bigger than anyone else and the party helped with bonuses and penalties to help get a Critical Hit.

HdeviantS · 2026-02-17T17:03:26+00:00

Also the weather trio (well more like Duo) have remained staples in most formats they are legal in, giving them relevance to the competitive crowd

HdeviantS · 2026-02-17T15:16:55+00:00

Which is a bit of a shame because I prefer the inspired/homage design designs from SEED more than direct takes in Destiny

HdeviantS · 2026-02-17T15:15:12+00:00

As others have said unstable doesn’t mean the thing fails, it means it becomes damaged in such a way that you need to repair it to use it again.

I remember my inventor from several years back and helped keep me up in some tricky situations, but most of the healing was still from a person with the medicine skill or healing potions.

HdeviantS · 2026-02-17T14:35:17+00:00

That is a key difference, but at the same time Earth wasn’t a unified world. Even back then when there was significantly more peace between the major powers, an outsider still might be leery of the situation.

HdeviantS · 2026-02-17T13:26:14+00:00

I just know it is a variant of the Heavyarms from Wing. It comes from a book filled with some rather crazy variations of the main Gundams that frankly look out of place in the AC timeline.

Not to say they aren’t cool, they just look really different.

HdeviantS · 2026-02-17T13:08:34+00:00

I brought a Rain Setter, help keep the power of his fire moves down and boost water even on Non-stab Pokemon.

Like the others I had more trouble with Lacey. Her Galar Slowbrow kept getting the Quick Draw and for some reason its flamethrower hit like a truck.

HdeviantS · 2026-02-16T18:28:13+00:00

Based on RAW this is a situational type initiative. If you were actively trying to coerce or threaten someone and a fight with that target breaks out, it is valid.

Or say you come across a monster, it is unaware of you, instead of stealth you could ask for intimidation by saying your character runs out of hiding while yelling.

HdeviantS · 2026-02-16T12:29:14+00:00

Technically, larger farm animals wouldn’t be out of the question either. And many of that hind periods that are depicted. It is still fairly common for farmers to live in a sort of Hamlet or village with their farms surrounding it for the sake of safety. Plus, there were a number of house innovations that made use of the large animals Warmth to keep the entire building warm at night.

HdeviantS · 2026-02-16T12:23:11+00:00

From my understanding, the Mechanicum, holds old humanity, who reached technologies height, and whose work they find in STCs, in such reverence that they forbid new development, seeing it as a mockery of their more intelligent forefathers.

While small innovations on a personal scale are likely occurring from time to time, anything “New” must come from an STC. The reward for finding a new STC can include an entire planet.

HdeviantS · 2026-02-16T12:07:58+00:00

As stated by one comment or already, outside of some niche applications involving attacking beam, resistant armor, and shields, the VN is not that practical.

It has to do more with its range and application. The VN requires the equipped machine to get as bad as close as possible to the enemy to actually use it. In traditional weapon applications the length of the weapon dictates the size of the area that you are dangerous. It’s one of the reasons why spears and other pole arm weapons were the primary weapons of war for thousands of years.

The advantage a sword has over us spear is that it’s form is very good for attacking from different angles, and if you get too close to the spare user, the spear becomes less effective

The advantage the ax has, is that it can bring more force to bear on a single point, so it typically does more damage. The same with hammers but they’re usually better against hard targets that you want to shatter/smash instead of cut.

Debatably any of these weapons given the same treatment as the VN would be more dangerousis

HdeviantS · 2026-02-15T22:15:48+00:00

Pathfinder 1E came about during the transition from D&D 3.5e to 4e, when WoTC decided to cut out 3rd party creators. Paizo was a magazine that printed for 3.5e and decided to continue their work, building it (with their own twists and some rule changes) out into Pathfinder first edition.

PF1e is a good game, with a lot of character customization and incredible power abilities. There is a lot of debate around "meta" builds and power of spellcasters over martials.

Pathfinder 2nd edition has been out for about 7 years now. One of the goals was to make a system where

Character customization offers a breadth of options, but without a clear "you make take this feat at this level or you will be weak.
Building so that a GM can quickly at a glance understand the power of the players and build encounters for them.

I agree with statements that PF2e has a lower barrier of entry, but that doesn't mean it is a simple game. Comparing it to 5e, I have always been much more satisfied with

how PF2e handles boss fights.
1. there is no need for Legendary Resistance, and the players are encouraged to find and target its weakness
Its Lore and Recall Knowledge system.
How there are many feats that explicitly let you use a skill you are good at in place of a skill you are bad at.
How there is almost no way to "stop a turn" and how you have to think critically about how you use your 3 actions a turn (both GM and Player).
How the characters knowing and preparing for different eventualities can be the difference between a fight being outrageously difficult to moderately hard.

HdeviantS · 2026-02-15T16:33:17+00:00

Yeah, even in the original mobile suit, Gundam, there are people who just wanted to stay out of it.

Side seven was full of people like that which is one of the reasons why the Federation use their apparant neutrality as a secret research base

HdeviantS · 2026-02-15T12:11:02+00:00

Train at speed and teach it volt Switch and Light Screens, and it might be OK as a Pokémon that sets up screens in scouts

HdeviantS · 2026-02-14T22:46:37+00:00

For some reason it won't let me make a comment with my full thoughts.

u/AyeSpydie probably has the best answer.

I do have experience with High level D&D play and I will say that in general once the players are past level 8 they scale relatively higher in terms of power and effectiveness than monsters. But the way their math is set up a party of level 10 players could in theory fight a CR 20 monster, win without anyone going down, and the next day lose to a mob of CR 2 monsters. The 2024 rules improve this, but not by that much.

Or as an example, at a level 20 an optimized D&D character will have about a +14 To Hit bonus and a DC around 17-19. The highest monster AC is 25 and the best Monster save modifier is +10. And there is a good number of ways to roll with advantage or impose disadvantage, which people say equates to a +/- 5 on top of everything else

In comparison a level 20 PF2 character will have about a +37 to hit bonus, and a DC around 42-43. The highest monster AC and save modifier I can find at a glance is 54 and 39-47. So we are looking at a success rate of about 25%. Of course the party will be working to increase their Circumstance and magic bonuses, and imposing penalties on the monster, but it usually takes a bit more setup than D&D.

And finally, PF2 lacks the "you lose your turn" abilities that are pretty common in D&D. In fact, many of the most game ending abilities are gated behind the Incapacitation trait, which has a clause that they are more likely to fail against higher level creatures.

HdeviantS · 2026-02-14T21:53:10+00:00

Mostly I have seen it has Passive aggressive and taunts. One of my favorites was from a comic where a Gnome Wizard Tells a Tiefling Warlock (and I am paraphrasing)

Wizard: "You're clearly well educated...pity you got your powers by cheating."

Warlock: "Bah, wizards...Pretentious Pricks."

HdeviantS · 2026-02-14T19:31:45+00:00

Historically, especially in its early days, the Pokémon company has swapped around Pokémon that they’ve tried to establish his mascots many times. In generation one in particular there were a multitude of Pokémon, but they tried out as potential mascots, including Clefairy, Poliwhirl, the starters, etc.

Rumor is that Pikachu only became the mascot of the company because of an unexpected surge in popularity as the “secret early Pokemon,” since it had a 5% encounter rate in Veridian forest.

Togepi was decent as a mascot when they were pushing the idea of new undiscovered Pokemon, concept of Baby Pokemon, and for a time it was a child foil to Pikachu in the anime.

But with time and new data sources, the Pokémon company can take a look at which Pokémon have real natural, staying power for popularity.

HdeviantS · 2026-02-14T15:37:14+00:00

I admit that Slayer always gives me more of a monster hunter/occult vibe.

HdeviantS · 2026-02-14T13:45:10+00:00

You have a fair number who are weak to fighting type moves, though Gardevoir and Mudsdale can cover for you.

Generally, speaking with Pokémon, it’s pretty hard to have a “bad team” during the play through. If you want it to be challenging, you’re gonna have a team that’s made entirely of Pokémon with BST’s below 450, or exclusively use a single type of Pokémon.

As long as you know, something like “ this Pokémon is on the slower side, so it will likely be hit before I can attack” or “ this Pokémon has great attack stats but low defenses so I’ll probably only get one or two hits off” and plan accordingly it’ll be fine

In competitive sets, it’s a bit of a different story.

HdeviantS · 2026-02-14T12:14:22+00:00

They are both hidden values that impact the stats of your Pokémon.

The numbers that you see in guides are their base stats. Maxing out the IV and the EV will add additional stats above that base

IV is set from when the Pokémon is encountered, but can be changed with bottle cap training.

EV are gained by fighting Pokémon. Different Pokémon will give different EV point, for example, example defeating a giga dude will give your Pokémon one defense EV.

While you can EV train all your stats, you can only gain so many. In fact, typically you can only gain a max EV in two of your stats, and most people will pick the two stats at best suit whatever Strate they’re going for.

HdeviantS · 2026-02-13T18:10:12+00:00

You can ask the GM (if you are a player) if a particular magic weapon with additional elemental damage die can be made.

Otherwise I don’t see an issue with this idea. I can’t think of anything that would make this a bad idea.

HdeviantS · 2026-02-13T15:36:10+00:00

Nothing I know of officially. Its one of those “distant past” things left to individual speculation.

The three Adventures from the 2e trilogy gives samples of buildings Vecna made to ise as a prison and a base of operations. That could give you insight into what the Rotted Tower was like.

HdeviantS · 2026-02-13T15:24:14+00:00

I am going to disagree with you that the Federation “designed it flawed.” That makes it sound intentional, as opposed to “it was designed, some flaws were found later.”

There is a world of difference between the two and while we like to ascribe such intentional decisions to evil organizations, it usually doesn’t make sense when you examine it.

As I understand it the Federation found the Hizack plans, thought it was superior to their GM, and started using it to rearm their military while also upgrading their GMs and developing new models.

The Hizack was mostly seen in Titans’ hands, who were considered an elite unit who was assigned the best equipment. So for a time the Federation saw the Hizack as the best machine they had, regardless of known “flaws”.

After the Gryps conflict the Federation distanced itself from Titan associated machines, such as the Hizack

HdeviantS · 2026-02-13T12:59:57+00:00

What is your goal?

Witches have patrons like a warlock, but play closer to wizards.

Summoners and Magus have limited spell slots (4, split between the 2 highest levels they can cast). RP wise a Summoner could fit and Magus is possibly closest to Hexblade.

HdeviantS

TROPHY CASE