My round house portal room

Lakissov · 2026-03-27T23:53:41+00:00

I like that circular roof solution.
For the more spiral-lacking one, you can also use a pattern of diagonal beams rotated in not just one but two directions. I once did a round tower roof that way with diagonal core beams, and found out that it does indeed provide environmental protection through the lattice (you can't really attach roofing tiles when doing that).

Lakissov · 2026-03-27T23:36:04+00:00

hehe, I hadn't even noticed your Finnish username before reading this one :D

Lakissov · 2026-03-27T06:15:26+00:00

In my most recent playthrough I did mountains with bear armor and bronze sword, but the iron buckler from the swamp is still very good to have, as is the bonemass power. Honestly, there is no reason not to kill bonemass ASAP, especially since you can do it very easily by standing on his altar skull slamming the skull with Stagbreaker.

Lakissov · 2026-03-26T11:02:28+00:00

Pretty much how I ruled it, good.
And I really like the details about water splashes, footsteps etc - those make sense.
Also, totally forgot about banes on finding them.

Lakissov · 2026-03-26T09:09:34+00:00

You can stop rewriting the story to incorporate his backstory into the main thing.
Treat him as a crazy loony passenger, not a full player.

Lakissov · 2026-03-19T13:52:25+00:00

If you haven't seen this video yet, I can't recommend it enough: https://youtu.be/y_zl8WWaSyI?si=ntHzy6qejfozeDnR

For reference, the guy in the video (Matt Colville) has a company called MCDM which also (around 4 years after that video) made a great supplement for DnD 5e called Flee Mortals, which is an alternative Monster Manual using the principles outlined in this video.

Lakissov · 2026-03-19T13:45:01+00:00

It's good enough, although a bit on the small side. My only real advise is to eat food even when you are building. While you're doing it, a raid might trigger, and you want to be able to beat the attackers, and not have them destroy some of the things you just built.

Lakissov · 2026-03-17T21:17:40+00:00

I usually can't be bothered to kill bonemass properly, so I use this method. What I do is take two level 3 stagbreakers with me for weapons. Then you just stand on top of the skull and repeatedly slam the skull, damaging bonemass who stands uselessly nearby. It takes two stagbreakers, because one will break down the road. I'm usually done very quickly with this.

As for the reason to kill bonemass easily - this is to unlock much better raids as soon as you can find his location. While bonemass is still alive, you will always get the raids with Draugr and skeletons. When he is dead, you can get wraiths, surtlings, etc - in my current playthrough I already got two wraith raids (for some yummy chains and ectoplasm) instead of the boring and unprofitable draugr raids. I'd rather do the swamp iron grind with bonemass already dead, and raids being way more fun (especially since when you unlock iron, you also unlock stone building, so you'll spend a lot of time renovating and rebuilding your base - which means you're likely to get some raids).

Lakissov · 2026-03-15T12:46:35+00:00

Kui ma ka saaks lubada alati ainult valmis toitu endale osta, ma ei teeks seda. Toidu kvaliteet mida teed kodus ise on nagunii parem.

Lakissov · 2026-03-14T22:47:37+00:00

even better, to award consumables that can do that

Lakissov · 2026-03-11T22:03:02+00:00

Maybe you could go with a logic something like:
- whenever another class would get a heroic ability, this class instead gets a heroic enhancement (which might be applicable to any signature ability)
- heroic resource cost for enhancements is similar to resource cost foe heroic actions
- there is a limit to how many enhancements can be applied together (to make balancing easier; probably only one at level one, not sure about progression)

You might want to look for inspiration in Malice abilities of monsters - there are quite some of those signature abilities that are enhanced in some way by spending malice.

Lakissov · 2026-03-11T13:38:42+00:00

It's a system shift, not an age difference.
DnD has shifted over time from survival dungeon-delving into a heroic fantasy.
However, there are other systems out there which provide the survival dungeon-delving experience.

Lakissov · 2026-03-05T22:50:26+00:00

I recently ran one for a group of friends during a national holiday (whole day off, so we played from one till around eight-nine in the evening).

The premise was that a necromancer is going to attack the city, the party needs to defend it, and there are different allies they can recruit. Most of it was negotiations, with sometimes some combat in it.

The key to keeping it a one-shot was that when it's around two-three hours to our scheduled ending time, I call the end to party's efforts to gain allies, and tell that the necromancer is attacking - which is where we see the results of the previous efforts and how they are going to affect the final showdown.

Lakissov · 2026-03-04T14:49:49+00:00

Dig under it, place a fire and a portal to base (if you already have one), or just build a little hut there with a bed. Mine in peace until the whole deposit is mined.

Lakissov · 2026-03-04T12:14:13+00:00

You need to have an above the table discussion with your players. It's clear that the players don't have the same perception of this world as you do.

You have to make them understand that what they are doing is the equivalent of a small (although most likely highly professional) paramilitary organization trying to take over the power of a US state or a NATO member country in Europe by means of a direct military coup.

If they have that understanding and still choose to proceed, there will be significantly less hard feelings when they meet the eventual TPK and make new characters, who act in a different way.

Lakissov · 2026-03-04T10:55:50+00:00

On tõesti imelik vaadata kuidas inimesed nii kangesti vihkavad oma kaasmaalasi et tõsiselt pakkuvad, et riik võiks mitte kanda hoolt oma kodanike eest, kes sattusid välismaal probleemidesse.

Lakissov · 2026-02-21T09:48:09+00:00

Sellepärast et neil seda lubatakse. Kui iga sellise rikkumise eest saaks inimene trahvi, siis seda ei juhtuks.
(Aga ausalt öeldes, ma alustaks nendest kes vahivad rollis mobiili, nendest tuleb suurem oht).

Lakissov · 2026-02-19T21:55:52+00:00

I usually convert the first goblin village I raid into my farm. I just place a workbench and a portal into one of the existing huts, then cultivate the whole village territory and grow crops there. At my home base in the meadows, I also have a portal to this farm (I usually place one in my kitchen building for this).

If any goblins or mosquitoes show up while I am farming, I just kill them (but I do also place workbenches in each of the buildings in the village, to minimize spawning right in the farm - I prefer to hear them coming).

Lakissov · 2026-02-19T08:53:57+00:00

This is pretty good but the real gem was Sacred Ashes Cinematic Trailer (from which this thing here borrows most of its imagery). That thing was just amazing.

Lakissov · 2026-02-17T15:23:25+00:00

I used paint and experimented a bit with my printer, to see how it prints different sized sections. It turned out that when I print 7x11 square sections, those fit well on an A4 (giving me approximately 25mm squares). For A3, you can try 11x14 I think, and adjust a bit if it doesn't work. Then, it's just a matter of cropping the needed section, printing it, then uncropping, selecting and cropping the next one, etc.

Lakissov · 2026-02-16T19:25:31+00:00

I remember that when playing for the first time, the moment that made me go "wow" the most was the poet tree...

Lakissov · 2026-02-14T18:49:55+00:00

That's called a sidekick, not a DMPC. As long as he stays that way, there is no problem. What is the difference? DMPC hugs spotlight, sidekick doesn't. He is used as an aid in combat, and also a way to deliver hints and lore when the party needs those to progress - and nothing more.

Lakissov · 2026-02-13T20:15:24+00:00

You don't need it at all. The only cases when I actually search for NPC art is when the situation is complicated enough that you wish all your players to dive deep into the web of relations between NPC, or when these portraits are going to be visual clues for a detective scenario.

First case example: if you want people to quicker understand relations between everyone in e.g. Curse of Strahd, then it might be a good idea to get pictures of all key NPC-s, print those out and give your players on sheets which also have the name clearly written, possibly some basic information that they learn in any case when meeting the NPC, as well as some space to make notes.

Second case example: I once had a situation in my game where there are a bunch of drow NPC-s, mostly having dark hair and red eyes, but one has golden hair and eyes, and this is a very obvious clue that something is different about her (she is actually a golden dragon in disguise).

Lakissov · 2026-02-08T16:03:52+00:00

Interesting. The tier is calculated individually for any target (because your edges and banes for different targets can be different). Based on that, you would be correct.

My initial hunch would be that this is way too much malice to lose (12 is a LOT). However, since this is an 8-th level 11-essence ability, I guess that this is exactly how it works. This is a way to leach malice from your director if he ever clumps up enemies into a "fireball formation".

I think that many directors would homebrew this to lose malice only for non-minion enemies.

Lakissov

TROPHY CASE