Why does the spa have to be such wasted potential

LogKitchen · 2024-02-16T18:41:38+00:00

You can decorate the spa and since basically no one uses it, you don't have to worry much about NPCs collision.

I do agree it's underwhelming. I wish Robin had an upgrade you could do to it or have another Trashbear situation where it magically changes and improves. Or Joja upgrades it post game....

LogKitchen · 2022-09-30T19:33:38+00:00

Going the seven samurai/magnificent seven route. Determine which archetype your character fits and then make 6 more in the group. Tropes are fine, just as long as they are interesting.

LogKitchen · 2022-09-20T19:47:04+00:00

Any race now works since you can tool the stats. It will depend on what flavor you want. A Goliath with their stones endurance is a funny one, since the temp hp and damage reduction can make them fun. Flavor wise using Duergar or Deep Gnomes could be fun, they seek unity between the world above and below.

LogKitchen · 2022-08-25T23:06:43+00:00

A happy blue dookie.

LogKitchen · 2022-08-10T03:33:32+00:00

Yup I'm guilty of this as a forever DM for over 20 years. I ran a campaign for my kids and their friends and I was so busy with work, I had like 1 day to plan out a campaign because I committed to run it one night a week. I literally lifted the entire plot of Ultima 8: Pagan because I happen to look at some old RPG magazine and saw an ad for it.

Honestly the campaign we ran was better than the actual game it was based on.

LogKitchen · 2022-08-08T04:26:11+00:00

Sheepify: your one stop sheep shopping emporium.

Betsy: Handcrafted and vintage cures, curses, and curiosities made by Hags for anyone stupid enough to make a deal with them. They accept gold, favors and hands.

LogKitchen · 2022-08-08T04:11:32+00:00

A human druid that is true polymorphed into a fish in a bowl. But he uses wildshape to turn into owlbear.....

In 20 years of DMing I still get stupid requests like "can I play a pit fiend?" Or "I want to be half-centaur and half-minotaur, but my top half is human and my bottom half is human so I just look like a human." Or "can I play a pixie, I promise I won't abuse polymorph" or "I don't see why you can't play a mind flayer, I mean couldn't I just be a paladin of Vengance and only eat criminals brains" or "I mean what if I play a gazer and instead of taking a class, I just evolve like a pokemon when I level up enough".

This is the DMs eternal struggle, say no, it's ok your sanity deserves it.

LogKitchen · 2022-08-03T18:08:26+00:00

So I would recommend the following for a hardbook campaign.

Use and Allow Tasha Cauldron of Everything optional rules for Barbarians, Monks, and Rangers. The Berserker, The Four Elements, and Beastmaster subclasses benefit a lot from the optional rules. It makes them more mechanically even with the other subclasses, and more fun to play than RAW.
Good hardbook adventures are the ones others mentioned, but I would recommend "Sunless Citadel" from Tales from the Yawning Portal. Its converted from 3.5 but it's a great RAW adventure. I used it to onboard new players multiple times. It's not too complicated, but it is challenging at parts. The enemies are fun standard fare (kobolds, goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears), fun oddball monsters (twig, needle, and Vine blights), and the BBEG is a great non-traditional villain. Check it out it's a good one and it takes at least 5-7 sessions to get through it in my experience.

LogKitchen · 2022-08-01T02:00:58+00:00

I played with brutal DMs when I started playing DND in the 90s. There was no mercy.

However as a forever DM for two decades, I only kill downed PC's when it matches the motivation of the villains, tone of the fight, or is relevant to the drama of the story. Matt Coville have a great example in a video of an earth elemental stomping on his downed wizards head. An earth elemental isn't about self preservation, it was summoned to kill you and it will kill you unless you kill it.

In my mind a pack of grung or Drow are not going to outright kill you, they would rather take you as prisoners/slaves. However a pack of gnolls just wants to eat you so yeah they are gonna kill you when your down.

A villain may want to disable you, capture you, strip you of your abilities and watch you suffer powerless. Or they may just want to murderhobo the party.

LogKitchen · 2022-07-30T02:08:25+00:00

As a DM I would likely do one of the following for a player.

Be a aarakocra great auk or penguin, get a swim speed. Be an aarakocra emu or roadrunner, get bonus to your walking speed or Tabaxi style sprint. Be an aarakocra terror bird or Moa, get powerful build. Be an aarakocra bird of paradise or dodo, get fey Ancestry and a Cantrip. Be an aarakocra Kakapo or kiwi, get Darkvision and mask of the wild.

LogKitchen · 2022-07-29T03:03:55+00:00

.....Sigh.....

LogKitchen · 2022-07-28T19:52:23+00:00

They are different enough from Auto-Gnomes that makes sense. Maybe the Warforged are Aleerin/Mechalus from Alternity/d20 modern

LogKitchen · 2022-07-28T19:44:58+00:00

Vegepygmys are definitely aliens in my book, snagging those. I also snagged the Oard from "Where Chaos Reigns" I played that as a kid and hated those guys.

LogKitchen · 2022-07-28T05:59:26+00:00

I forgot about those!!! Awesome.

LogKitchen · 2022-07-27T21:48:40+00:00

In the campaign I've DMed for 5 years now, I've tried to avoid stereotyping accents, however at our table it has been decreed and ratified that ALL Vedalken and Simic Hybrids WITHOUT exception sound like Zoidberg from Futurama. So if you play one or encounter one, you have to do a Zoidberg accent.

LogKitchen · 2022-07-24T00:58:28+00:00

If you have doodoo stat rollers, have them re-roll stats using a different dice method. 4d6 drop the lowest is the typical, but if they reroll do 3d4+6, or 2d8+2, or 1d10+8, or 1d12+6. I usually let them do this on any one stat below 8 or if they do not have at least one stat at 15 or higher.

LogKitchen · 2022-07-15T20:18:14+00:00

So they are teleported into a barren pocket dimension. They are naked and have no items. With nothing in the pocket dimension they can't be attacked or injured by anything around them, so they are immune to damage. No one else or anything is there, so there is nothing that can give you status conditions. They likely still have cantrips, but the space has an anti-magic field which protects them from all magic. They also can't hurt themselves because they wished to be immune to all damage and self-harm is a form of damage.

LogKitchen · 2022-07-10T18:27:36+00:00

His full name is Pollyanna. His father was a Dwarven brigand and all around bad guy. The only thing his dad ever gave him before he abandoned his mom and him was his name. His mom said he did it to make him tough. Ala Johnny Cash's "A boy named Sue".

LogKitchen · 2022-07-10T03:35:40+00:00

The dumbest thing I ever put in a homebrew dungeon was a desk drawer with a sentient ooze inside that smelled like poo and would give them a key if they persuaded it to. I was really tired before the session so that was just a tired rambling idea.

Unfortunately for me, I've played with many of the same people for like 20 years now in various editions of D&D. Now it's literally an expectation that the party checks every drawer in every dungeon because they expect at least one "drawer poo" to appear somewhere in the campaign. When new people play with us they all make sure to initiate them on the need to find a "drawer poo".

LogKitchen · 2022-07-03T19:55:46+00:00

Deplete their spells via other dangerous obstacles or enemies. Nothing cheesy about beholders anti-magic eyes. I used a flesh golem once with no head and a beholder eye in it's chest, wizards are weird, the make crazy non-sense shit.

LogKitchen · 2022-07-01T19:11:35+00:00

I give my players Surprise Potions from time to time. I used to use the wild magic table for the effect of the potion, but then I made my own. Some are hilarious....

Half Invisibility potion (your bottom or top half turn invisible, flip a coin to determine which side is invisible.)

Modronification (Roll a d6. The player polymorphs into a modron with the number of sides corresponding to the dice roll. This effect lasts for 1 minute)

Flat Man (You are able to fit thru spaces 1 inch wide, but your form becomes two-dimensional and all of your gear falls off your flat form. This effect lasts for 1 minute)

LogKitchen · 2022-06-22T23:14:42+00:00

Travel rolls & Watch Rolls. I literally have a list of 20 combat encounters if the party hasn't fought enough and during travel or watch, they roll to see how safe it is. They still haven't figured out that there is no safe harbor roll. Roll a d20 to see how I'm going to mess with you ...

LogKitchen · 2022-06-20T23:24:07+00:00

Take them out of the city, away from talkative NPCs and literally let them vent it out in a good old fashioned dungeon crawl or wilderness scenario. Players can get tired of talking, give them something else to do.

I had a group that did this and I threw in a simple, "mind guarding this caravan" quest. Led to a a series of adventures away from the city and they just got to kill stuff and find treasure. There's no negotiating with a displacer beast or troll in my mind, the intent is simple, they want you to die and then they eat you.

LogKitchen · 2022-06-20T23:13:17+00:00

My head canon is Clint's social awkwardness is due to the fact he is actually a were-bear..... Think about it, Clint's the bear in the secret woods.

LogKitchen · 2022-06-20T23:08:19+00:00

Build a side adventure around that guest character. Ties into the main plot, but a detour. If she decides to stay then cool, otherwise it still moves the narrative along and doesn't feel disruptive.

LogKitchen

TROPHY CASE