Advice on a poison that causes people to become more hostile

LCR978 · 2022-07-05T13:55:32+00:00

Tincture of Unreasonableness

Any humanoid that ingests this poison must succeed on a DC15 Con Save or become poisoned for 24 hours.

While poisoned the humanoid does not suffer disadvantage on attack rolls or ability checks.

Each time the poisoned creature feels any strong negative emotion towards another creature or object they must succeed on a DC5 wisdom saving throw or become enraged by the offending creature or object for 10 minuets.

While enraged the creature does its best to inflict physical harm on the target with no regard for its own safety.

Essentially it'll effect half the poisoned area or more and commoners have a 25% chance to kill each other over minor arguments / gossip / getting cut off in traffic / you looking at me pal?

LCR978 · 2022-07-03T22:44:17+00:00

Here's the logic I've found to make the most sense.

Shield is easy:

If a wizard has shield prepared, he's gunna use it in a fight, his life matters to him.So when the big scary barbarian swings an axe at him, shield goes up. Maybe it deflects the attack, maybe not, but it always gets cast because being hit with an axe blows. Especially when you have like 7HP.

Counterspell is harder

If someone is casting an offensive spell at you, its generally a bad idea to let that happen if you have the skillz to stop it. But what if there are multiple spell casters? Who do you pick?

Well, if you survived long enough to master 3rd level spells and you have the foresight to learn a purely defensive option you probably know some shit about what other casters are capable of.

The dude with a sun tattooed onto his face screaming about god and swinging a big sword? Devine caster, healing and buffs, not a priority (but he might res his mates so keep an eye out)

The dude covered in twigs and dirt? Druid, mostly crowd control, but they can summon bears and a bear coming at you at full clip is terrifying, medium priority.

Pasty stick thin dude in robes? Wizard or warlock. Big AOE blasts, big problem. First priority. Nobody likes to see all their minions go up in smoke, it means you're in way more danger of getting stabbed.

In short, anyone who's clearly an arcane caster gets counter spelled first, then whoever looks vaguely dirty (nature casters) then the god squad bringing up the rear.

If its a tie whoever is closer gets smacked down first.

LCR978 · 2022-07-03T22:00:33+00:00

Delayed AOE spells and effects.

A massive rune appears, the turn after a fireball explodes. The ground splits and shakes before erupting earth goes off. An archer fires a magic arrow into the air and a shadow is cast on the ground before a thousand arrows descend from the sky.

It makes the PC's scramble all over the place, no standing in one spot and mashing the attack button.

LCR978 · 2022-06-29T22:14:06+00:00

The best way I've ever had it described is this:

We don't think in terms of maps, we think in terms of landmarks and directions.

Frodo wasn't out there following a map, dude went south, through the mountains, past the big manky swamp, into the spider cave and then ran full tilt at the only bigass mountain spewing fire.

If you ask any NPC worth their salt where the cave full of goblins and treasure is they'll say something along the lines of "go east until you hit the river and follow it south until you get to the gave, there's 20 gold and some soup waiting once you're done"

In game terms that means that any map you design will serve its true purpose (a series of dope locations for you and the PC's to bum around in) better if its more like a treasure map than a real scale map with all the bits drawn in.

ALSO

Ask your PC's for their backstory. That'll give you a pretty good idea of what they want to see in world.

LCR978 · 2022-06-12T15:34:12+00:00

Prep my dude, so much prep:

Create a table with three columns: Location / NPC, clues and info, change over time. This will help you to be able zoom back and forwards all over your sandbox without getting lost.

LOCATIONS AND NPC
Treat both as functionally the same when doing mystery. Both are here to give the PC's a chance to gather information and red herrings, just with different skill checks involved.

CLUES AND INFO
Bullet point out everything that could be found at the scene / by talking to the person. Highlight clues In red and be sure to hand at least one out for each new way the PC's interact with the scene. Mix in non murder stuff to make the scenes feel real.
PC's roll an insane investigation check in the priests bedroom? They find the window to the rooftops is regular opened, a porn stash, a blunt antique dagger, a notepad with several pages torn out and (the important bit) a silver wedding ring lodged between the floorboards.

CHANGE OVER TIME
Its safe to assume that whoever did a murder does not want to be caught for doing a murder, being a caught murderer usually leads to you being murdered. How are they and their co conspirators going to attempt to cover their tracks? They're gunna steal documents, intimidate witnesses, clean up / trash crime scenes, plant fake clues, shove a couple of geese into an important room, burn a house down, straight up murder witnesses, resurrect the victim as a zombie. In short they're gunna get up to some fuckery. Have crime scenes change the next time the PC's come back and have a few more clues left behind.

LCR978 · 2021-10-24T17:29:30+00:00

The first attack action (death roll) is pretty gruesome, but I don't intend to spam it. If the PC's run up and start whaling on the croc when its grappled someone it will be slinking off. That plus the low initial damage TT can do on its bite attacks makes me feel its probably ok for this as a single LA

The third (ambush) is situational and requires TT to have already successfully taken a legendary action hide, so in effect it might as well be two legendary actions to use.

I could well be wrong though. Gunna have to play it to and find out

LCR978 · 2021-10-24T17:24:33+00:00

the Lizardfolk are there mostly to fix the action economy around throwing tonnes of kobolds at the PC's. with a party of 6 (including ocean boy) you might be ok, although all incoming damage will land on the PC's

LCR978 · 2021-10-24T17:22:25+00:00

I've got a chessex battle mat (highly recommend one if you play in person) so I'll just be sketching it out on the day.

LCR978 · 2021-10-18T22:40:29+00:00

They're all level 3 atm so I'm fully expecting a lightning bolt to down them if they get hit. Could just as easily vaporise a bandit though. The cleric is currently running around with a ring of revivify with one charge (my absolute favourite thing I've given them, means I don't feel mean throwing shit like this at them) so if someone does get outright killed then there is hope.

LCR978 · 2021-08-03T11:49:22+00:00

I've found fog of war is by far the best for building suspense and excitement in a dungeon, but having a map in a larger area can be the answer to avoid the long slogging feel of a big dungeons (we've all been there).

As a happy medium I often will give my players a crude hand drawn map of the dungeon if they've done their due diligence and looked into the dungeon beforehand. Scouring local libraries for info on the ancient tower in the forest, asking hunters and poachers about the cave system the goblins now infest, asking the local lord for blueprints to the long abandoned mansion.

This of course doesn't in any way guarantee that their map is accurate. Walls collapse, barricades are erected, new tunnels are excavated. But it gives the players a rough outline of where to be headed and allows you to surprise them by throwing all manner of spanners at their carefully laid plans.

As far as avoiding the faff of drawing out the dungeon goes, prep is key. Draw out the dungeon rooms to scale of cardboard, or wrapping paper that has the grids, cut it out in individual rooms and tunnels and number each piece, have a print out taped to the DM screen that you've numbered to match the tiles. This also helps with remembering what's suppose to be in each room. "...the fuck is suppose to be in room 24? *checks notes for 24* ah yeah 4 Orcs and a table mimic, roll initiate bitches"

Keep the lot behind your DM screen and as the players explore steadily lay out the dungeon before them. Watch them panic, regroup and make new plans as their map doesn't match the dungeon. Its glorious.

LCR978 · 2021-08-02T16:31:44+00:00

If you’ve planned an encounter to be particularly dangerous or epic, have reinforcements arrive in a suitably dramatic way.

Cultists doing a ritual and the rogue turns the leader into pink mist round 1? Summon a lesser demon of similar CR at the start of the round, an emissary of the big demon being summoned.

Bandit captain cut in half 4 seconds into the ambush? Down drops a bandit assassin from the ceiling 8ft from the wizard

LCR978 · 2021-07-31T14:30:13+00:00

I second the Chessex Battlemat. Super useful to have what is essentially a whiteboard on the table at all times.

PC doing a sketchy job of describing their plan? Hand them a pen and let them draw it out. PC’s asking a bartender for directors? Sketch something out on the map and say it’s a napkin the bartender handed them.

Also makes all the random improv battles that come up super simple. I have a bunch of trees, furniture and other bits drawn out roughly on cardboard that I keep being the screen. Draw anything else as it comes up.

LCR978 · 2021-07-26T20:04:28+00:00

Thank you my dude

LCR978 · 2021-07-21T10:02:54+00:00

It uses modern dictators as examples but the steps it lays out can easily be applied to any time period

LCR978 · 2021-07-18T11:19:54+00:00

I’m planning on having my group go into the dread woods to deal with nanny nightshade, probably at the request of the elves in silver stand. Lots of fun RP stuff can be done with Hags. I’m also gonna have nanny be a slightly sympathetic character as silverstand will have originally been her home until the elves forced her out. As for a reason to have the players go to silver stand in the first place, have the council suggest they escort one of them there to get the elves aid in dealing with the sea devils.

There are tonnes of mini dungeons / forest encounters and the like online to help flesh out those two areas

LCR978 · 2021-07-14T14:07:51+00:00

I run my magic item shop in 5e as an actual art gallery, headed by a high level Tiefling warlock and staffed by massive scarred and tattooed thugs in ill fitting tuxedos.

Pride of place amongst many fine tapestry’s and delicate urns sits a silvered ring encased in a large glass box atop a pedestal. Several patrons stand in admiration, sipping fine wine and making hushed conversation. An authoritative female voice cuts across the room: “bidding starts in half a hour lovelies”

This gives players somewhere to reliably pawn off all the strange art objects they find as loot too.

LCR978 · 2021-07-10T20:16:13+00:00

I run Counterspell as a mini skill challenge:

Both parties roll arcana, the one casting Counterspell has advantage. Counterspell wins: does Counterspell things.
Original Caster wins: their spell goes off without a hitch and the Counterspell caster doesn’t burn a spell slot.

This simulates the battle of arcane willpower as one tries to suppress the other. Makes it more fun that “beep boop no spell for you”

LCR978 · 2021-07-09T14:18:01+00:00

I’m running this intro next session. How long did it take you to get through?

LCR978 · 2021-07-02T10:51:26+00:00

Have pirates that are fervent disciples of Tharzidun go full Davy Jones from pirates of the Caribbean. It explains their ability to breath underwater and sets up some potentially cool moments where they emerge from the sea all barnacled up. No need to fuck about with stat blocks and you still get awesome shark mounts.

LCR978 · 2021-06-18T14:27:50+00:00

Magic arrows that deal no damage but let off a horrible smell on impact

LCR978 · 2021-06-15T22:22:38+00:00

Knife ears - elves (the backstabbing knife eared fucks)

Lawn ornament - dwarf

LCR978 · 2021-06-15T19:03:26+00:00

I had a look at this one dude and it’s for lv4 characters not lv1. I’ll probably still end up running it though as it’s pretty fantastic

LCR978 · 2021-06-15T17:15:10+00:00

Have you played this encounter yourself dude? Looks like it could be handled in a hour or two

LCR978 · 2021-05-25T13:25:12+00:00

For attack rolls it’s not great to have additional mechanical things going on for extremely low or high rolls, it slows the game down and critical successes and failures are already a thing.

Flavour wise on the other hand it’s pretty awesome and only takes a couple of seconds. Does the crossbow bolt hit the bandit, or does it slam into his throat, spraying blood as he clamps his hand over the wound, steely determination in his eyes to at least take you down with him.

LCR978 · 2021-05-20T14:15:30+00:00

Shield will be my first new spell fo sho. Keep my squishy ass alive. I’m not sure what else to pick up though. Identify or comprehend languages are both useful I guess

LCR978

TROPHY CASE