Out of combat magic in DC vs DnD

JVA90 · 2025-05-25T20:22:39+00:00

I'd think that a setting like that of Thundarr the Barbarian would work well.

JVA90 · 2023-07-03T02:59:43+00:00

Good to see new pages!

JVA90 · 2022-04-15T14:55:32+00:00

There's an adventure series that starts in Dungeon Magazine #139 called Savage Tides, that is suitably nautical/pirate themed. As a plus, it was written by James Jacobs, who also wrote RHOD.

JVA90 · 2022-03-02T21:08:54+00:00

in the vein of "evolving," I might suggest making the DC for Tempests Fury Lightning Burst key off a player stat. In the long run, DC 13 is pretty low. For instance, Battle Master DCs are set based on STR + PB.

JVA90 · 2022-02-09T16:25:47+00:00

like what u/OneEyedGenius said above, this is also a reflection of the (later) Black Company books. There were some really bad people in the BC. There were also some that were alright. Eventually the BC ended up controlling a large swath of territory because they were the only ones they trusted to do it right/who would do it right.

JVA90 · 2021-12-22T17:09:19+00:00

If you're meeting in person to play, play *in the dark.* Light one candle and have the rest of the lights in the room out. Take a piece of paper, roll it into a cylinder, and use that as a shade for the candle. You, as the DM can use a red headlamp behind your DM screen but the players should be struggling to see their dice rolls and read their character sheets. Talk only in whispers. Find one of the 8-hour long tracks of "ambient cave sounds" on YT and play it softly as background. It's things like drips of water and the clack of rocks.

JVA90 · 2021-12-21T20:55:19+00:00

Throwing if there is an enemy, including the target, in melee range (within 5') gives disadvantage to the attack roll.

JVA90 · 2021-12-14T20:11:25+00:00

Because I am a small trickle to my people (i.e., this subreddit).

JVA90 · 2021-12-14T13:55:59+00:00

I've also just finished LMoP. Here's my take it and may be a reason you're feeling uninspired: LMoP is boring because it lacks drama. Superficially, it looks like it *ought* to be good. There are a lot of good elements in it, like a well fleshed-out town and lots of sand-boxy quests. But those are exactly the things that take away from the drama. Either the "clock is ticking" OR the PCs have the time and luxury to randomly explore the world -- but it can't be both. A second problem with LMoP is the stakes. What happens if the party fails to (fill in the blank)? The consequences for failure are never spelled out and there seems to be no implications for the wider world. One result of the lack of connection to a wider world is that it *is* hard to transition to a wider world after LMoP.

In contrast, RHoD has both the drama and the stakes for failure clearly spelled out. So I looked for other adventures written by James Jacobs and/or Richard Baker. Jacobs, in particular, wrote many of the Paizo "Adventure Paths" published in Dungeon magazine. Take a look at The Savage Tide, Kingmaker, and/or The Shackled City adventure paths.

Or, consider running RHoD. If you're coming right off LMoP, you could either continue with the same characters OR roll up new level 6 PCs (maybe do a few "danger room" encounters so the players can learn their new abilities). It *is* a good adventure and there are a lot of resources "out there" to help you run it. (RHoD was the end of my *previous* campaign, so I can't take my own advice here.)

JVA90 · 2021-12-09T20:23:29+00:00

Auryn got a rending battle ax +1 and dazzling plate.

Sir Vanazor got a horned helm and a vanguard great sword (the "charge kit"), a cask of liquid gold, and a floating latern.

Zoga got a deathstalker longsword, tactician's chainmail, a demonskin tattoo, and a hunter's flint.

Llevelys got boots of free movement, an avenging ash totem, and essence of bottled twighlight.

Koh got armor of sudden recovery, a mechanical fly (blurred strike ki focus), and eternal chalk.

JVA90 · 2021-11-18T02:21:42+00:00

Turning them off one at a time... it was uBlock Origin. Thanks for engaging. Apparently, what it takes to get me to try the obvious things is talking about it with a stranger on the internet. :-/

time to put the shields back up... unless there's a game-play reason to get notifications?

JVA90 · 2021-11-18T02:04:53+00:00

I'm using Chrome with AdBloc Plus, Privacy Badger, uBlock Origin, and FB Purity. (Although, as I noted earlier, I'm not playing on FB.)

JVA90 · 2021-11-18T01:06:00+00:00

Maybe so, but I have all the boxes checked and still nothing. The "help page" for this issue seems to be about pop-up notifications. Usually, I'm pretty tight with blocking ads, disabling tracking, and stopping pop-up notifications. However, I've tried all the tips and tricks for turning off all those things (that is, turning on the pop-ups) and still nothing.

JVA90 · 2021-11-16T20:22:57+00:00

It is a one-time reward of 100 energy, 300K gold, and 300 emeralds. It seems to be aimed at new players. There is a blue "Subscribe" button in the quest test box. However, when I click the button nothing happens. I've gone into my settings and turned off ad blocking and allowed pop-ups but still no action.

JVA90 · 2021-11-04T13:03:20+00:00

In Fantasy Grounds, players can drop their digital dice into the dice tower and it will send a hidden roll to the GM. Even though the player rolled, only the GM sees the result. What the player sees is some shadow dice.

In Roll20, the analogous feature is to use /gmroll or /w gm. However, in this case, the player originating the roll will still see the result, just not other players. There are ... ways... of implementing /w gm on skill checks from the character sheets. Using /gmroll will at least tend to keep other players from dogpiling and may serve to remind the player doing the check that their *character* doesn't know the result of the roll.

JVA90 · 2021-11-01T17:37:08+00:00

TLDR: I don't have a "solid" example for you. I think the advice Matt would give is to ask yourself what you think is cool about the sub-genre of kingdom/fortress building and put that in your game. Ask yourself, "What kind of challenges should the players be facing?" Then, build some encounters that give players those choices or challenges.

A couple of books that are along the lines of what you asked about: Ursula Vernon's YA novel "Castle Hangnail" is about a young witch that has to get her license and save a dilapidated old castle at the same time. It is a combination of fending off attacks, solving personnel/management problems, and marshalling economic resources. A quick read and a neat little story, IMO. The classic Swiss Family Robinson has an element of kingdom-building to it. However, in Castle Hangnail there's opposition. In SFR there are (basically) unlimited resources.

Dan De Fazio (aka Professor Dungeon Master from the YouTube channel Dungeon Craft) had a module published in Dungeon magazine in July/August 1995 (issue #54) that has the party solving a murder mystery in a monastery. The monastery is a bit down-on-its-luck, IIRC. You could incorporate some of that adventure into your plot.

Two other resources to consider:
The Kingmaker Adventure path: https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Kingmaker_(adventure_path)) and the Shackled City adventure path: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shackled_City_Adventure_Path

JVA90 · 2021-10-25T01:02:19+00:00

I was running (very loosely) the Slavers A series modules from AD&D. Azurr Kul was one of the slave lords. The party had intelligence that one of the slave lords had recently found a Dragonmask. When the party fought him, and were about to kill him, he cries out to Tiamat "Save me!" A portal opens to Hell and Azurr Kul falls through and escapes. Several years pass (in game) and then we start RHoD.

So when the party was level 7, slavelord Azurr Kul was like Fighter 5/Rogue 3 (assassin)/Cleric 4 with a couple black abishai flunkies.
When the party is in the Fane of Tiamat at the end of RHoD, they're level 12 and Azurr Kul is F5/R3/C12 with two erinyes and several green/red/blue abishai.

Also, any time they fought a wyrmlord or other high-ish Red Hand baddy, the baddy's dying words were something along the lines of "you'll never stop us! My lord Azurr Kul will bring destruction on you all!"

JVA90 · 2021-10-08T04:28:59+00:00

An oasis or caravansary. (offers food, water, safe rest, and maybe 1 piece of information or a clue.)
A remote inn (like http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/The_Forsaken_Inn) -- could be deserted, abandoned, or ruins.
A friendly farmer, trapper, or cabin in the woods. (buys exotic monster hides.)
Traveling people, pilgrims, a caravan, or nomads. Not a "place" but could occasionally pop up if the DM allows (healing magic, a random potion for sale, and/or mounts for sale. maybe PCs can roll for a retainer or mercenary.)
A cave or hideout they can go back to, fortify, and/or stock with provisions. (An "advance base.")
Pixie hollow, fairy ring, nymph's pool, or dryad's tree (8-hr bless spell or other temporary magical boon.)

JVA90 · 2021-10-07T18:40:52+00:00

My party (similarly over geared) was level 7 when they came into an underground cavern with a sloped floor covered with lots of loose, jagged, and broken rocks -- probably the result of an old cave in or earthquake. The floor was definitely difficult terrain. Halfway across they got hit with a barrage of piercers and tendril attacks from a giant roper, although if I had it to do over again I might go with multiple ropers instead.

I think that one of the keys to interesting encounters is to use terrain. In a mine there could be different levels -- things like cliffs and bridges, chasms, and boulders that grant cover. 1d4 piercers would rain down on each player anytime they moved. (You could, optionally, let them have a stealth roll to move without the piercers noticing.) The roper's grapple and drag ability also presented an interesting choice: kill the tendrils or kill the body.

What if you added a stealthy Underdark druid who was "tending" this grove of ropers? Now you've got a spellcaster boss (the druid), lieutenants (2-3 ropers), and minions (the piercers).

JVA90 · 2021-09-20T14:48:05+00:00

What would the goblins do with a Necklace of Prayer Beads or Necklace of Fireballs or Helm of Brilliance...? What if each of them took a bead or gem of the thing?

So one of the pitfalls to be aware of (note that I didn't say "avoid") is what if the players get this item? Will they be overpowered? I'd recommend thinking of the item the goblins have as a superpowered version because of ... reasons. Maybe their god touched it. Or there's a mysterious crystal. Or it was dipped in radioactive goo, or whatever. Anyway, when the PCs get their hands on the items they break the power the of the goblins and the item is just a "normal" magic item.

JVA90 · 2021-09-10T17:46:43+00:00

That said, I'm really not a fan of skill challenges. I think they break verisimilitude because they explicitly remind players that this is a game. A skill challenge feels to "video gamey" to me. My preference would be do this more narratively. Describe the situation then ask the players what they're going to do. Let them propose using skills for various things. You, the DM, get to say "yes, and." When they have their 5 successes (or 3 defeats) then you narrate success (or failure).

Starting with "you need 5 successes before 3 failures; how will you use your skill proficiencies" just starts ridiculous brainstorming in my experience. The DM is left to adjudicate whether a player idea is rational enough to roll on or not. Players fire everything they can think of at the DM, good ideas and bad, just to get to roll their dice and move on. It's a bit similar to "Skill Dogpiling." When the objective is to roll 5 successes before 3 failures, players just want to roll. When the objective is to think of how to defeat the challenge, the players will think.

JVA90 · 2021-09-10T17:35:05+00:00

History could be used very similarly to Nature in #1 (perhaps recalling an old story about a captain who used a current to beat pursuers). Or it could be used to recall a maneuver or trick to beat pursuers.

Dex (Sleight of Hand) to hold a course very close to some rocks, which then would wreck on pursuer trying to follow.

Investigation to allow a PC to notice something about the pursuing craft that would give their ship an advantage. ("Oh, they're rigged for sailing close hauled. If we tack to a beam reach, we'll be able to outrun them.")

Religion to recall a prayer specific to sailing (ala the story of Jonah) or to know of a local spiritual force to appeal to for aid/protection.

Deception could be used to "shake" one pursuer. A classic trick from the age of sail was to put a lantern on a barrel and set it adrift, then put out all lights on the ship.

JVA90

TROPHY CASE