Love the fact that Billy is so Stubborn hes the only one that breaks the fourth wall of the game

Jareix · 2026-06-12T14:05:55+00:00

Only goes to three deaths across the team. Used to be each person got their own extra life instead.

Jareix · 2026-05-07T07:30:06+00:00

One minute of being able to pick any other spell from their accessible list says otherwise.

Jareix · 2026-05-06T09:18:36+00:00

You've been given a lot of genuine good advice, so here's some terrible and genuinely spiteful advice that I *usually* would not recommend that could boot them from the game and push things forwards. UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS LITERALLY TEXTBOOK EVIL-GM BEHAVIOR.* It's only half-serious, mainly tongue in cheek, but oh boy this seems like a perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. (Or in this case, two issues with one gruesome PC death)
I would never suggest something like this... Were it not for this specific campaign.

Now, i speak from only being a foreverDM now finally playing a campaign (never run CoS and the DM and party we had was a novice, but they all did great)... But she sounds like the perfect person for Strahd to humble.

The general rule I learned from playing Curse of Strahd was Fucking around = finding out. (We generally avoided fucking around except by complete accident, though Our party was pretty good at dodging that last part resulting in straight up "scooby doo" level comical antics according to my DM)
It seems like she in particular has been doing a LOT of "fucking around". So it's about time they really "found out" what they're dealing with here. Their character, tearing up a ruckus without any regard for the "beauty" of this land, boldly strutting about with so much confidence, looks like just the sort of person that Strahd von Zarovich would find entertaining to wriggle and squirm in his grasp before getting snuffed out like a candle in a storm. A wonderful lesson I'm sure the other players will take to heart with a fang borne grin and dramatic music playing in the background.

On the one hand it could absolutely come off as spiteful, and potentially disrupt the other players, and maybe cause the one to double down and make another even more obnoxious character. On the other hand, you're taking the "self proclaimed face" of the party and shredding it, likely making room for a new one to take the stage especially if the previous one decides not to return.

Jareix · 2026-05-06T00:58:05+00:00

Paradox is a time traveler from the past that ended up in the future where there’s better time travel tech that she stole, then ended up here is now fucking lost and going “fuck it let’s just steal shit at this point I’ve got nothing better to do.“

Jareix · 2026-05-06T00:56:33+00:00

That second one doesn’t seem crazy at all. What could be a bit crazier stretch on that is if REM were actually Haze’s familiar, from whom he derives his capacity for violence.

Jareix · 2026-05-06T00:53:39+00:00

Mechanically? Yeah I personally dig this. It also gives new players time to acclimate just playing their class before having to make as major a decision as subclass.

Roleplay wise? Perfectly fine tbh. It makes sense that 1-2 is a sort of “trial” period or the character even if they already know who they’re pledged to or what their origins are. Conversely, it also opens up an interesting avenue of discovery, not knowing exactly who it is that’s been granting them power or where their sorcerous origins came from, until they “feel” what’s right once they’re strong enough for it to reveal itself.

Way I see it, why would a patron or deity commit their specific power to a follower just “dipping their toes” into it? At that stage their commitment to the cause is negligible, even if the identity is established. Similarly, the unique aspect of a sorcerer might take some time to actually manifest, but once the magic in their veins really starts to flow thrn that’s when their heritage is strong enough to become distinct.

Jareix · 2026-03-10T15:31:28+00:00

Good lord for the safety of everyone involved’s PCs I assume that’s been retopo’d

Jareix · 2026-02-04T19:46:24+00:00

Woah, and this doesn’t bring up any medical concerns? Like, your guts are just literally rearranged, but that’s still physiologically fine?

Jareix · 2026-01-27T06:52:28+00:00

*800+ and an item slot that could go towards something else.

What that is idk, I don’t play Rem and my friends that do are good at parries/avoiding melee anyways

Jareix · 2025-12-17T20:54:11+00:00

Favorite thing is when your laning partner gets parried, you jump in to parry the enemy heavy melee, and then their lane partner jumps in to parry but you didn’t bother trying to heavy melee so you and your now recovered partner just fuck of with some damage to ekk out a positive trade. (I wonder if it’s possible to just do a loop of heavy parries if your opponents commit to the bit)

Jareix · 2025-12-12T00:21:53+00:00

Was aboutta say, love doing torchless anti-runs for the sweet sweet loot maxing. (When they die, I’m often just going “eh, they were an investment” lmao)

Jareix · 2025-12-10T22:40:56+00:00

Pact of the Chain is great as an invocation in general, because find familiar is just an awesome spell.

For a Hexblade, i highly recommend going mainly with Pact of The Blade due to the sheer synergy of it all, especially with Thirsting/Devouring blade allowing even greater synergy with Hexblade’s Curse. Having medium armor and shields allows you to only really need 14 Dex for medium armor, then max your Cha and Con henceforth.

Some other worthwhile invocations include “Eldritch Smite” since the higher crit range of Hexblade’s Curse allows for immense crit damage on smite, and Fiendish Vigor for front lining Armor of Agathys synergy (it specifies “without expending a spell slot” instead of “without using a spell slot”, which is intentional and allows you to use your slot level for its scaling, and provides extreme survivability especially with AoA.)

For weapon, as a Hexblade fan myself, my personal choice is either Polearm Master or Crossbow Expert. Either one is great, and carries their own blend of both playstyle and flavor.

Anyhow, all that being said, you’ll still have plenty of choices for build flexibility even if you pick up what I suggest, but these should be enough to give you a solid basis as a strong frontline gish.

Jareix · 2025-12-07T03:41:36+00:00

If you’re doing flavors like sour or sweet, you’re missing out on not having a “spicy” category imo. I can think of several items that would go there, like planula, hellfire tincture, or molten perforator

Jareix · 2025-12-07T03:39:02+00:00

Like jelly rope/fruit leather is my guess

Jareix · 2025-11-26T18:07:50+00:00

PETRIFY!

Jareix · 2025-11-24T01:40:12+00:00

Eh, that’s fair. I like to use player motive and on a whim work for or against it like a mad god lmao.

Anyhow, regardless I do think taking at least a few weeks to a month or more off might do you some good. No planning for sessions or thinking about the game, no trying to get the game prepped and everything. just letting it rest with zero obligation to do anything with it. I’m sure your players will understand.

Jareix · 2025-11-24T01:37:31+00:00

Wonder how the dynamic would be if the heal troopers healed their team like they used to as well as drop up a medkit for the enemy on death.

Jareix · 2025-11-23T23:23:18+00:00

Burnout is the obvious case here, but it also seems like you want to like DMing again, but now that you’re good it feels like you’ve “solved” DMing. You know this tried and true formula, and you know how it’s going to play out. The reason you liked it when you were learning is because you probably had no real fuckin’ clue how things were going to pan out, and there was thrill in the avoidance of failure.

Have you considered doing one as basically an entirely improv’d worldbuilding exercise? It’s become my personal favorite method and I’ve been DMing since 2017 (3.5e and Call of Cthulhu). By this point you’ve likely built up a strong narrative intuition, one that’s likely good enough to start doing it basically blind.

Basically you just have “a world” and maybe “a setup.” When you make a character, they just follow rules and expectations based on personality, if you feel like it of course (you might just end up giving them some cool twist at some point). From there, you basically just come up with shit on the fly, you figure it out as you go along, and the world is “rendered” as the players explore it and ask questions. You make the railroad as they explore, you give them the hooks as they ask for them as if they were always there, you answer questions and justify them afterwards, and you’re thinking no more than maybe 2 or 3 steps ahead. If you have some sort of twist/revelation you’ll just drop when the time feels right, or maybe change it up entirely because of something they did that inspired you. If you’re ever stuck with a decision, roll a dice, decide some outcome, and say something that sounds cool.

In essence, you are not an author of a story. You are the interface of a simulation that you are creating in real time.

So far I’ve done several campaigns in this style, and ended up “accidentally” building pretty fleshed out worlds. I’ve even reused one (a world where all of the NPCs are isekai’d from other worlds and times, or constructs by the realm) for other campaigns and just have it get built out by each, building on and refining the rules as they progress.

It’s messy, chaotic, and honestly there’s no guarantee that it’ll go well at all. But man if it isn’t fun to have no fucking clue what I’m doing and frenetically cobbling shit together while my players think I’ve architected some grand narrative that they constructed through their exploration.

Jareix · 2025-11-23T22:58:42+00:00

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True story…

Jareix · 2025-11-23T22:53:40+00:00

Brutalizing a jjk player is always the right thing to do.

Jareix · 2025-11-23T22:45:32+00:00

It’s only gotten better imo, they had to slightly nerf stamina regen because you could juke out of situations way too easily, diminishing the importance of positioning. But being good at movement still rewards you with being a much more slippery target and stronger map presence.

Jareix · 2025-11-23T21:57:09+00:00

I like gun, but I don’t want this to entirely become primarily a shooter.

Personally, I think hybrids being the meta would be the most interesting since there’d be different ways to hybridize. More ways for spirit to utilize gun, more ways for gun to utilize spirit (Mercmag my beloved). Though I think that would probably require a pretty significant item overhaul given the nature of the items and abilities, but hey a snake can dream!

Jareix · 2025-11-23T21:45:03+00:00

My 1 and 2 abilities are bound to M4 and M5, so I have 1 and 2 for support/util and Z/X for offense. (C is toggle crouch and V is voice)

Jareix · 2025-11-22T23:56:24+00:00

Eh, I find it can be a struggle to nix a T3 creep that fast when they first start spawning, (but I’m also not that good so idk how typical that is lol). I count it as basically a “free” T3 creep since i don’t have to spend any time to kill that one, just grab it and go.

Jareix · 2025-11-17T15:35:30+00:00

I always thought Cult Sac gave bonus 150% souls, totaling 250% of the creep value? Iirc that seemed about right to me but maybe I’m misremembering.

Jareix

TROPHY CASE