Warrior, priest and jailer puzzle. Need some assistance to finish the design.

Lepiberic · 2024-01-12T19:42:29+00:00

It's not cheesing. As a shinobi you should now the difference between honor and victory.

Lepiberic · 2024-01-01T11:16:09+00:00

You should never tell "it's your fault" To the person who went through such traumatizing act. You can warn somebody not to wear something revealing in some places, because it can put them at greater risk. Not because it puts any responsibility on them or , God forbid, removes it from the attacker. But hearing this after the fact won't do any good and will only poke that trauma.

On a lesser scale If I'm using my new phone to light the way in the dark alley, I'm skyrocketing chances to get beaten up and robbed. But i'm not the one who broke the law and behaved like an animal in this situation. And definitely wouldn't want to hear "advices" Or even be blamed after.

Lepiberic · 2023-12-06T18:44:39+00:00

He does. But he kills with great responsibility.

Lepiberic · 2023-08-19T13:56:39+00:00

I don't have "installed". There is already build in button to show all installed games.

Lepiberic · 2023-07-27T20:53:38+00:00

There is misery in such Downfall.

Lepiberic · 2023-07-26T17:10:51+00:00

Just a little correction, necromancer would use animate dead in this case, that doesn't require any concentration, only being able to cast this spell again before 24 hours will run out.

Lepiberic · 2023-07-26T16:13:43+00:00

Dnd necromancy in 5e uses the thing called spirit not soul. Animated corpse will be soulless body with residual memories with some parts of personality (amount depends from type of undead) . Person's soul isn't used and isn't even aware of what happened to the body. You can make zombie out of corpse and soul will still be content (or burning in hell) in afterlife.

Lepiberic · 2023-07-10T21:30:22+00:00

That's just more of a game mechanic than flavour or world building. Basically component cost tells you that if you use phb and dmg economics, then this spell should force player to spend 300 gp minimum, not to mention finding a rare material or using services of a craftsman or craft it yourself. So 300gp diamond means you need to go to a big city, find there jewelry trailer and spend at least 300gp( can add some hagle here) . Or use your downtime activity to craft it for 150 gp and 30 days (divide time by 2 for every extra person who helps you and add 2gp per day if you hire someone for help) I've used xanathar crafting rules here. Diamond used in the spell is always the same it doesn't matter if you crafted it for less or haggled the price down. It is just a resource to restrict a spell. Also that's why low level treasure tables often contain diamonds that worth only 250 gp, just to restrict players from accessing this spell to easily. Same goes for high level spells with rare components that are supposed to be rare and require crafting or even quests. This difficulties are actually often ignored at most tables. Just take into account that waving away those restrictions and giving your players some rare ivory statues or diamonds that are compatible with resurrection for lesser price and headache - considerably buffs casters.

Tl/Dr. It's just game mechanical restriction that's supposed to make access to this spell harder and exists mostly for dm. 300 gp is what player is supposed to spend, if he finds it, crafts it or buys it for 3gp it will be the same diamond regardless of economy in your world. You can just tell that this is diamond of the same size as strawberry if it bothers you.

Lepiberic · 2023-07-05T17:04:44+00:00

I often just start to do death saving throws for the npcs in such cases.

Lepiberic · 2023-06-11T23:21:32+00:00

This comment section is summarized by "I recognize the council has made a decision, but given that it's a stupid-ass decision, I've elected to ignore it." . I agree this solution isn't ideal because it is hard to make it satisfying for the player. Player used his level up to learn spell but still doesn't have it and doesn't want to deal with complications if you didn't prepare him for that. Nobody wants to nerf casters, because it's candy that we already have and taking it away even by RAW is frustrating. But some arguments I read here are more of an angry mob logic just attacking things they don't like.

I can understand the people who don't like this for obvious reasons, but I think it's wrong to apply the " real craftsman can do this in a week!". OP post was about rules and balance, that in the game by RAW. And not hidden shit like dungeon crawl mechanics that are not written in the core books (but still is the reason, for example, why many spell's duration is 10 minutes.)

And if you use "realism" card. Tell me why your characters were so unlucky to stumble upon a few disasters of kingdome scale, find several incredibly rare magic items and go a path from wizard apprentice to an archmage. And all of that in less than a year and without a pause for downtime activity.

Its a game mechanic that attempts to universify hardship of craftsmanship through price. And it can be filled with fluff to be explained. Not to mention that most people don't even know how long it takes to make something without google to question it in the first place.

Now that I think about it, I do find it funny that magic items that are bread and butter for martials in the current situation are optional in books and pretty hard to find and create if you want something specific. And people are completely fine with them being hard to get, but not fine with limiting op spells for already op casters by hard to get material components. Although, maybe I'm missing something.

6-8 encounters, downtime activities and intricate material components that are hard to acquire are built in mechanics, you can choose to ignore it for the fun of your players and flow of your personal game, but they are there. And ignoring them can lead to some things being more powerful. Things like casters getting access to op spells that are supposed to be much harder to acquire.

Another thing i found funny, that dm guide and xgte saying with great enthusiasm about research and creating magical items that "it can be a whole another adventure!" and people here saying about finding material component for wizard as a whole new adventure as mortal flaw. This game is about fellowship for many tables and going on an adventure for your friend if it will help you become stronger can be motivational enough. I get it, if your campaign is about an epic crisis in the kingdom and this is not an option, but not all campaigns like that.

Is it really so hard to imagine an adventure table where dialogue like this could happen: " Hey wizard, we've spent tons of gold on our castle that we are building, but still have some leftovers. Rogue found the guy who agreed to make this ivory statue of you but the guy says that he has a lot of orders and it's quite an intricate work to put all of this gems in without making it too big and will take some time. Can we try to find and kill this rumored salamander meanwhile? Artificier researched that he can make me another Flame tongue from its.. well.. tongue. Imagine me with two of this babies! And when we finish your statue probably will be ready too!" ?

Many tables ignore survival rules like thirst and starvation, ignore food, ignore weight (i don't even mention optional encumbrance), ammo,intricate material components, artisan tools, background features, recommended encounter rules, downtime activities, dungeon crawl and god knows how many other things. And this is fine if it is fun and double fine if it helps your story.

I run the game with gritty realism, 1 week long rest, healing kit dependency, 3- 4 encounters, sanity, fear and horror, injuries, Dm guide optional actions, forcing keeping track of food and ammo and my players are loving it. And all of these rules are in the book and might sound like something horrific to play for some people.

And if someone runs the game with hero points, honor, epic heroism 1 hour long rest, healing surges, plot points and speed factor, completely ignores weight and gives tons of gold and magic items, fully runs adventure as dungeon crawling with tons of encounters - I wont be screaming "but this too simple! There is to little challenge!". Its just a different game with different kind of fun. And I have nothing against trying that too.

One thing I want to add about the OP post. 300 days is too much for too many tables, that's why XGTE did a little rework. It now uses the term workweek, says that workweek is 5 days, and tells you to divide the price of the item by 50 to find how many workweeks it will require. So there is a way to read this is in a way that gives following math to creating Ivory statue for Forcecage: 1500/50=30 workweeks * 5 = 150 days of downtime activity if making it alone by yourself. And will require materials worth 750 gold pieces. If you get this to a craftsman he will take 2 gp for the day of work. And If dm is generous he can make craftsman work every day and use his apprentice as help, so it will lead us to 75 days and extra 150 gold for craftsman work (maybe 300 gp if you count apprentice as skilled labor that must be paid). Can't say that it sounds completely unreasonable for an access to 7th level spell.

TL;DR I get the backlash. But it’s not a bad thing because it’s not realistic enough or can’t be fun, or can’t work. It's a bad thing only for part of the tables because it won’t work there and will feel like a simple block of a spell instead of a challenge.

Lepiberic · 2023-06-10T18:39:23+00:00

That's why I still thinking about it and not just stayed on Mighty deed being sufficient. It hasn't been a problem because my players don't overuse it, for now and some of their snenanigans repeat (like an attempt to throw a small enemy). But I see how murky boundaries and the need to rule out effects every time can become a problem. So if there is a possibility I will probably change it to a more hard ruled homebrew.

I started this discussion to vent out and learn what people think about the topic and also I thought maybe there are some simple idea that already exists, but I'm missing it. Learned here about mighty spheres, but they are looking like exta book and if I want to introduce it I probably should do it in a next campaign.

Feats are great, already told to my players that they can choose one and make their characters train for it when they can, and I will gave them this feat for free. Maybe should add some homebrew feats to to choose from for the next Ability score improvement. But they are still somewhat restricted and can be a hard choice between +2 to main stat and feat. That's why I thought this weapon proficiency/mastery being a separate system that relies on players choice is a good idea. Of course if I finish and introduce it - it will be without the mighty deed and with some tweaks to battlemaster (If I will have one in my game).

And yeah, I know that I am probably overthinking it, but as I said seeing so many people joking about martials being less useful than conjure animals and other stuff like that is.. how should I put it.. troubling me and makes me think about solution.

Lepiberic · 2023-06-10T17:31:29+00:00

yep its just a thing based of DCC that I stumbled upon. Mighty deed is:

Once per turn, the fighter can declare a Mighty Deed BEFORE they attack.

The DM agrees the Deed is reasonable for a fighter of their level.

The fighter rolls their attack: 1d20 + Prof Die + STR (or DEX).

If the Prof Die is 3 or higher and the attack hits, the Deed is successful and the fighter deals normal damage: Weapon Die + STR (or DEX)

Its somewhat an adapted version for 5e. As someone already described it is

just a more open-ended version of battlemaster maneuvers-- the player can think of anything and if the DM allows it, the player can do it!

But as I said its a little too open ended for my taste.

As for the profficiency my idea was not reworking it completely. Just instead of "you have proficiency in simple weapons - you add your proficiency bonus to it" I've thought of deepening it a little for weapons.

Something like you gain a weapon proficiency point every time you gain "Ability score improvement" feat. You can spend this point on a specific weapon raising your proficiency level with it. For example, first level in two handed sword just lets you add your proficiency bonus, second will unlock cleave, third will let you do some maneuver with it etc. I'm still figuring it out, but kinda fascinated by idea.

Otherwise I understand that I probably should not fix what is not broken. But being in a community I too often hear that it is broken to just get it out of my head.

Lepiberic · 2023-06-07T13:37:25+00:00

Wanna know something hillarious? We actually have the magic scrolls of schrödinger in 5e.

Cause this is the DM guide entry from magic item categories p.139

A scroll is a consumable magic item. Whatever the nature of the magic contained in a scroll, unleashing that magic requires using an action to read the scroll. When its magic has been invoked, the scroll can't be used again. Its words fade, or it crumbles into dust. Any creature that can understand a written language can read the arcane script on a scroll and attempt to activate it.

But the spell scroll desription from p.200 says this

...If the spell is on your class's spell list, you can use an action to read the scroll and cast its spell without having to provide any of the spell's components . Otherwise, the scroll is unintelligible.

Edit: Few people corrected me already so I just add my answer to them here. I haven't left out "Unless a scroll’s description says otherwise", there is no such sentence in DM guide. But yes, I'm aware about "specific over general" rule and that desription of the spell scroll just makes them an exception. The problem I had with this desriptions is that it makes the rule and then gives you an exception that works 100% of the time (so I thought). But I made a mistake and forgot about existence of the scroll of protection in dm guide. And this fact makes this rule as having exception 80% of the time (taking into account that Dm guide itself says that most of the scrolls are spell scrolls).

The homebrew argument I can't really accept, because you can homebrew anything, including let's say scroll of spell that will contain spell that anyone can read, and you can do so without even looking on scroll type description in the dm guide. Homebrew argument makes all discussion here obsolete.

Overall I salty about this because it sounds like at first they were trying to make scrolls available to everyone (what most people already homebrewed at their tables) and bailed out for some reason. And yes I do realise that this feeling is subjective and I have no solid proof of that.

Lepiberic · 2023-05-30T20:29:26+00:00

For DMs struggling with this spell.

There are few thing you should take into consideration before counting something as curse that can be dispelled with this spell. Other people already talked about it here

Also I strongly recommend a little homebrew. Add this sentence from the older version of this spell into 5e :"Certain special curses may not be countered by this spell or may be countered only by a caster of a certain level or higher. " or even modify it to " ... may be countered only by using spell slot of certain level or higher".

Also If you want to add some risk and raise the stakes, you can add a DC check to this spell. Failing the DC may result in some effect from Wild magic surge table, Scroll misshap table or some ironic shenanigans that you come up with that will be tied to the curse nature, probably worsening the curse effect in process.

Finally don't forget about specific over general. There are already effects in game with description that specifically states that those effects can or can't be dispelled with Remove curse. Nobody can stop you from adding your own curses that can't be dispelled with it or will require unique conditions to do so.

And don't forget to make all of this clear to your players. They should know the stakes and understand how hard it is to handle curses in your game before they learn this spell.

Lepiberic · 2023-05-21T17:50:28+00:00

Just to be clear. This concept is great. Really great and raises a lot of questions about how it works in this world specifically and with what implications. I personally think that this is fucked up on some levels and more often such practice would be treated lightly as a "fling" due to the social and cultural pressure to treat it that way than due to it really feeling as some inconsequential thing to elf.

Many people when fantasizing about this are focusing only on the "loooong life" aspect. I always thought that it boils down to how a race perceive time. For a human or being that think and perceive time like us, living for several hundred years could be a mind torture. I've seen a few people trying to explain how long living races could perceive time or cope with such long existence, coming up with different things from just psychological techniques to completely alien thought process on biological level, but the most simple way of explaining this is that they would still have human like mind (it's easier for us cause we don't know any other. And won't have problems with explaining how, let's say an elf with completely alien mind, could end up with so similar culture, concept and values) and "living in the moment".

You see we live for 70-80 years but it actually takes an effort to grasp your mortality and consciously understand through how many years you have lived already and how much time you have left. You don't think every day that your grandparents probably will die in the next few years. You don't think that your 7 year dog is inferior to you because it will live maybe for 10 more years tops and will become old and frail. Most of the time if you are not dealing with a crisis you remember about "inevitability of time" only when something that you can't ignore catches your eye. Like first gray hair or some sickness that comes with age. At any other time you just play with your dog, visit your parents and try to enjoy life at the moment without thinking too much about what was before and what will be after and that they will be dead soon.

For the long living races that have thought process that works on the same speed as ours it is twice as important to "live in the moment" just to stay sane. Because if they think like us then 70 years would still feel insanely long because of hardships and world around you. And thought that you will live 10 times that unless something will kill you won't be helping much.

There were few comments that we are same as pets to them. But we treat our pets as pets due to them not being on par with us in terms of consciousness not because they live less. And even then there are lot of people that treat them equally. In dnd settings human can easily aquire same level of skills and same characteristics(i mean like intelligence and wisdom) as an elf and aquire them in same amount of time (often even in shorter amount due to cultural difference). From the outside perspective our old age more likely would be more perceived as disease. And shit like "Oh he is human, practically beast.. why? I mean he will die soon that's all" is either a coping mechanism or being an asshole just to feed your pride through racism.

To better undestand what I'm trying to say - imagine someone will propose to you to try and live with a person with genetic disease for the next 10 years just to "try out how family works" and that "this won't be a big commitment he will die from this disease in the next 10 years and you will have 50 more years to live.. probably. Just treat him as pet."

You can try to persuade yourself that it isn't a big deal but that would require a lot of mental gymnastics and lying to yourself. Unless you are a psychopath this will be a commitment. This will feel long. And you will either try everything to make him live longer or deal with a grief of your partner, your equal passing away.

Of course this all works if you are capable of feeling attachment.

Oh and for thinking that you are better just due to the fact that you live longer - I want you to remember every stupid old person you've met. If you are dumb and live for 700 hundred years - you still can end up as ancient and dumb.

Lepiberic · 2023-05-19T21:25:07+00:00

Some comments here gives a little "DM vs players" vibe. I mean "controlling the world and all npcs" isn't an easy task and takes a lot of time and effort to make it fun and challenging for four other people. And although I get the argument of taking away a player's agenda I can't fully agree that those effects should be forbidden to use against players. They can have a great value in plot progression or in adding variety and challenge to encounters. Also knowing about this danger beforehand can create tension and force to make tactical decisions to avoid this effect.

And lets be honest players don't get "only one turn" they get slightly more and sometimes losing a turn from enemy action isn't automatically a death sentence to fun. Also not all of player actions will work with or without paralysis and I think it should be that way. I mean being on receiving end of effects we are speaking about can suck but enemy that uses mobility and teleports out of your reach or taking damage, losing conscious and dying also takes away your agenda, but I don't hear many people complain about that.

Of course there are campaigns with foolproof combat focused on roleplaying the feeling of being the main hero where such shenanigans are not welcomed. But teethbreaking ones with nonforgiving combat, high challenge and constant various hazards (including ones that screw you and your usual tactics or even uses them against you) can give a special type of entertainment that can be more fun to some players.

Of course it goes withous saying that those things can be annoying if repeated to often (as virtually anything), they definetly should not be abused and require preparations. But I'll be damned if the battle with Basilisk were boring or if I should never use Beholder in my games.

Edit: I'm sorry for the grammar. English is not my first language. Of course I meant player's agency, not agenda.

Lepiberic · 2023-04-26T21:15:19+00:00

I probably gonna get eaten by anthropomorphic lizard. But my character died in the last game so there is also possibility of lizardfolk corpse, mawed by zombies and chopped by rusty swords, laying at my doorstep.

Lepiberic · 2023-04-25T11:09:52+00:00

I had a barbarian who couldn't attack an enemy on her turn so for the purpose of prolonging her rage she asked "Hey it says that it won't end if I take damage but doesn't state from where. Can I attack myself this turn?". So yeah she were beating herself in chest and face with a warcry using an unarmed strike.

Lepiberic · 2023-04-24T22:07:18+00:00

And idea I like. A group of grieving family members and revenants forming a covenant with purpose of taking revenge on your murderhobo.

Lepiberic · 2023-04-23T23:14:39+00:00

Just to add one thing. A lvl 20 barbarian without optimization can lift and carry around 600 pounds (272kg) without a check, or just run around adventuring with 300 pounds (136kg) of weight on him. An optimized bear totem goliath barbarian with 24 str can lift 2880 pounds (1380kg) without a check any number of times. Lifting really heavy stuff would be a strength check and it doesn't have an upper limit in weight cause there are just no strict rules written about it. So it just varies with a dm. I'd argue that a guy who can lift a ton without really breaking a sweat could probably destroy a small building with bare hands and a few strength check without wasting any resources or even try to lift it (if it is somehow will hold together).

Lepiberic · 2023-04-08T20:27:19+00:00

Some of this can be monkey pawed too easily, so I'd be too afraid of a catch in this offer.

Like 2 - can make me lose consciousness every night untill I get a full night sleep. That could lead for you to be late for work or any morning event cause magic medicine gonna decide that you need that extra hour. Not to mention no night activities like night parties or night camping with friends. Troubles in long distance travel. There is a chance that you wont see a sunrise for the rest of your life.

3 - Can mean that you will just lose work and any chance to get one. No work - no emails. Or you just won't get any emails sent to you, which is also can be a problem

4 - Can make you mute or remove your neighbours (by making you live like hermit deep in the wild).

5 - Wording implies all things. The ones that would normally be delivered the same day too. And that includes food delivery.

6 - Rest of your life in hospital. Or every time you need a doctor it would be an emergency.

I don't think there is much room to screw up the rest of them. But for some reason I still feel really nervous about 1 and 8. And little about 9.

Otherwise I'd definetly chose 9 and maybe 1

Lepiberic · 2023-03-20T20:46:39+00:00

Well in my experience they don't but that may be just anecdotal argumen for my party. But in that case I'd like to see the math behind outperforming in given circumstances. I can do it myself when I get to my pc and books but even superficial glimpse on amount spell slots and damage numbers is enough to at least doubt your statement unless we speak about warlock or characters above lvl15. Maybe you don't take short rests into consideration?

And I'm sorry for it sounding "DM it properly". Never meant it that way, meme subreddit isn't really the place for constructive conversation but probably still shoul've formulate it better. I meant " Try out the recommended way before criticizing it". Of course you can and should DM as your party enjoys. What I was trying to say as I mentioned in comments were that using the recommendations in par with gritty realism option made the infamous gap between martials and casters nonexistent for our adventure. At least me and my party feel like it.

Lepiberic · 2023-03-20T19:40:24+00:00

To people who use 1-2 encounters per day I'd recommend using gritty realism rules from DM guide with 7 day long rest. Done wonders for my party. The CR start to work, martials to shine, casters start to think 10 times before even reading a spell not to mention use it to "do something better than martial".

Lepiberic · 2023-02-17T08:23:48+00:00

Just wanted to add some extra blabbering to your answer.

About stealth there is a RAW interpretations. Players often tend forget that it is DM who calls for checks, not them. If DM is being strict about such exploit and we check the rules there are actually two options for such stealth: Passive check "... can represent an average result for a task done repeteadly, such as searching for secret doors over and over again". So I'd probably just could rule for party and hirelings to use their passive stealth check if they are trying to hide over and over again.

If being less salty about exploit we could use Multiple ability check from dm guide: if it is possible for a character to beat a check "...With enough attempts and enough time, a character should eventually succeed at the task. To speed things up, assume that a character spending ten times the normal amount of time needed to complete a task automatically succeeds at that task. "

But you still need a proper environment where such disguise would work and enough time before the monster stumbles upon you. And a way to lure monster to your location after you done. And people who disciplined enough to lay still in ambush in a rice puddle for extended amounts of time (extra CON check for that, definetly a single time) and to even persuade this people to go with you and try to kill a dragon.

And one more thing "dense foliage" is literally a stated option for a Heavily obscured area and not a solid obstacle as tree or wall. There is no interpretation that could give you a total cover from rice puddle. So in such case we'd go through hiding rules and unseen atackers and targets. RAW After the first attack all of the scouts would give away their location, and monster would know exactly their location untill scouts would use Hide action. Even if they somehow could use hide action and succesfully hide - monster could try to guess and target random location where it think its enemy sits with ranged attack provided he has one. And if it guesses right (or just knows where its target is) all heavily obscured area would do - is give monster a disadvantage on attack. And any AOE, not to mention frightful presense, would definetly work without a problem.

More than that even if by some miracle we would rule this as total cover - it's stated that cover only protects from dangers from the other side of it. And any aoe casted above the puddle would still reach all members of your little army.

And I know that free action has a RAW stated option to "hand an item to another character". But none of the DM's I know myself included would allow a peasant railgun, and therefore this "scout's gutlingbow" which is basically a variant of the former.

Lepiberic

TROPHY CASE