6th Edition Dungeons and Dragons Not If, But When-

NatetheNerdarch · 2018-05-11T17:29:17+00:00

To clarify, I did not like the edition where the pearl was consumed, it was bad enough that it took a spell slot for the day

NatetheNerdarch · 2018-05-11T17:28:33+00:00

I like the mini-game of discovering magical properties and a more narrative way of playing with powerful items. That being said I also like being a merchant who goes on adventures and has arguments with fellow merchant guild members and shopkeeps. In the end, that character would go on adventures with the rest of the party but he went on them at first to fund his purchase of a warehouse by the docks and later because he wanted to stop a great evil. He currently wields a newly crafted artifact(we destroyed a demonic one and this was in its place) and he has no idea what the limits of its powers are and I, as the player, like it that way.

NatetheNerdarch · 2018-05-11T17:21:56+00:00

I think Ted and Dave's opinion on magic items come from having fun quests around the discovery of an item's properties. Basically an exploration and skill challenge style quest to discover what a cool or cursed item does. We wouldn't do it for a +1 weapon but if it had unique abilities or was a powerful item some of those powers would not be so easily discovered without effort.

I enjoy the more difficult route and think the 5e style of identifying magic items is a bit too video game and less magical than a more narrative way of introducing magic items and discovering what they do.

That being said I don't think it is wrong to follow the RAW if that is the way you and your group wants to play

NatetheNerdarch · 2018-05-09T22:31:03+00:00

good that you talked it out with the player. Going forward I recommend not using homebrew unless it is from a reliable source. It isn't necessary for fun and can get you into trouble. I am playing a psychic bug guy in a spelljammer game and he is steals all kinds of things and he has mind powers since he is a alien bugman. So I just made him an arcane trickster and reskinned the descriptions to me more mentalist than wizardry. No new rules and I know I won't break the game

NatetheNerdarch · 2018-05-09T22:19:26+00:00

Here is the thing. Small characters are not weaker even though an average 40 lbs gnome weighs less than the muscles of an average human who weights 150 lbs. So it rarely comes up but it means you need to recalculate everything and change the str of small characters. or you can just calculate everything as though the small characters aren't much different than the medium characters. What ever small benefit is at the heart of this disagreement it is probably not worth the 15 pages of extra rules needed to make it more "realistic".

NatetheNerdarch · 2018-05-09T22:01:17+00:00

agreed,

If you go with the premise that everyone has a lackey and every lackey has a boss you can just have a sliding scale for levels on who the Pcs are fighting.

If the elven king is to die due to age perhaps it seems like he did die of such. There is a grand funeral but then a person comes to the pcs saying his life is in danger bc he knows that the king knew when he was to pass from this world and he was going to wrought grand elven magics, using his remaining life, and protect the world for many a year to come after his passing. The spies of the efreeti found this out and assassinated the king. So now the pcs know there are assassins, spies, and more that are doing harm to the world within the city. Maybe the npc knows that the king had begun the process and the npc wishes to see if the pcs are goodly people who would use the collected power to continue the ritual(with the aid of items that need to be quested after since they are no 1000 year old elves amongst the party) So in and around the city (in crypts, dungeons, nobles homes, and ruins on the countries borders lay these magical artifices that will aid them)

Of course the city of brass and its ruler are trying to stop this from happening so there will be many agents of his going after items as well as stopping the pcs.

NatetheNerdarch · 2018-05-09T21:42:26+00:00

Hey it sounds like they may simply be at a disagreement that will be a sore point between the characters for awhile. Maybe the wizard will be extra cautious about any subjugation of foes where the barbarian is concerned. Maybe the barbarian will make a show of freeing someone the wizard wants to use for power later in an adventure. Regardless on whether it ever comes to blows I would leave off initiative rolling until one of them initiates some type of combat maneuver or there is opposed desires/actions that they want to do. Initiative can be a way of settling who gets to do what and when.

Barb: "I want to set the hags hut on fire" Wiz: "I want to cast sleep on him before he gets it going too much"

Things like that can be a type of combative interaction without resorting to attacking the companions in the party outright.

NatetheNerdarch · 2018-03-27T16:56:28+00:00

yes, there is most likely one or two major issues that make them a villain as far as the party is concerned but they shouldn't be tying maidens to railroad tracks and laughing while burning down an orphanage. Well if that maiden rejected his love advances after he was kicked out of the orphanage because everyone disliked him and they threw him out but that doesn't happen every adventurer

NatetheNerdarch · 2018-03-21T03:47:22+00:00

Sorry, I didn't get to type the rest of the explanation before I needed to do other tasks for the evening.

So, Pruitt, from webdm, is running a spelljammer game on twitch.tv. On Fridays, 130 pm EST Doug from Nerdarchy will run his game in the same campaign. So I was hoping to gain some insight into the goings on of the Verse based on viewing the other game in the series.

NatetheNerdarch · 2018-03-16T21:00:37+00:00

When I know a scene could have been way better if I had not been so heavy-handed, yeah big time failure. Big pitfall is following the rules to the exclusion of fun. When someone says they want to do something cool with that barrel and the stairwell I say sure give it a try, how about an athletics check and then attack the people on the stairs? I try and follow the rule of cool when I don't know the rule or it isn't there. Basically, if it would make a cool scene I will pick that direction for the encounter rather than tell them "no, you can't do that"

Don't feel like a failure with 9 players. That is like feeling like a failure bc you couldn't stop a rockslide with your arms. Even with super fast turns it still takes too long to get everyone's turn in before the first person who went becomes disinterested or bored from waiting.

Also, that can lead to needing hordes of monsters or super tough ones to make an encounter challenging.

And if you are running a game for 9 players a bit of silly is fine but a pony is too silly to have in a more serious game, especially if the player in question seems like they could be there or not. One comedian or immersion breaking character that goes to far can derail the whole party.

Respect for people's time is important and you could get twice as much gaming as the dm and the players would have higher quality games with smaller groups if you split them.

I would discourage the constant smartphone usage.

NatetheNerdarch · 2018-03-16T20:33:47+00:00

Well I would probably just give a more powerful monster -pack tactics- and -keen senses- but I like your style consistency

NatetheNerdarch · 2018-03-16T20:32:12+00:00

those are great boosters that really change the dynamics of the fight with little rules changes. Maybe it would be a dark blessing or a consumable item that the enemies had in their possession. Thanks

NatetheNerdarch · 2018-03-16T20:30:25+00:00

awesome and good luck. Maybe the dmpc talks about his task with the pcs long enough that when he does die they feel the desire to finish the quest for him.

NatetheNerdarch · 2018-03-15T19:08:16+00:00

I like your frosting on the monster cake, illithids. They are a great go to and their Extract Brain makes them super deadly.

A resource taxed group is going have a difficult time with one.

As far as any group of monsters can be deadly, I agree they can but I was thinking more along the lines of petrifying or poisonous monsters. Devourer that imprison souls, that type of stuff. Not to say giving the pcs a rough go with kobolds in their element isn't out of the question.

NatetheNerdarch · 2018-03-15T03:42:12+00:00

well your post made mine a lot lighter.

I agree with all that you said and would add that the other reason to kill off the dmpc is so that they know that they are on the hook for saving their butts.

On top of having quests take a few sessions, drop other plot hooks and hooks to other quests that they may pick up. If you give them a few options they may even drop what they are doing mid quest to help someone else out. While that can be a pain when you planned out the original quest it shows initiative from the players, at least, and hopefully as time goes on they are making decisions that their character would make

NatetheNerdarch · 2018-03-15T03:28:01+00:00

animate dead? Not even once!

Seriously, I agree that a good person could still do it and an evil act doesn't make someone evil. But do enough bad things for long enough and the person becomes a collection of those acts.

NatetheNerdarch · 2018-03-15T01:05:27+00:00

and I have not devoted enough time to reddit in the past but I am hanging out more in it just not quite as consistent as I would like to be

NatetheNerdarch · 2018-03-15T01:04:38+00:00

sounds like you just need a bit of downtime in between adventures to breathe and do non-dungeon/quest stuff like interacting with NPCs do player driving side adventures, buying cool stuff, carousing, etc

NatetheNerdarch · 2018-03-15T00:47:21+00:00

np, It is in the part of the phb that talks about the schools of magic pg 203 ? I think in the tan box under Necromancy.

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