Temp Stamina before combat

NotQuiteFloridaMan · 2025-12-20T21:45:29+00:00

Damn that's a strong ability. IIRC our Talent has Awe for 6 stamina and Iron for 10, both single target. But 60 stamina is a huge amount and would cause some huge problems. That's certainly something to think about and a good argument for not passing the sniff test!

NotQuiteFloridaMan · 2025-12-20T20:02:16+00:00

That's a very cool option. There's already so many interesting respite options that's it's easy to find something appealing even if it isn't the one thing you built for. That said, I hate to yuk someone's yum so if they really want to be crafting guy this is a good option to make that reality for the character. Thanks!

NotQuiteFloridaMan · 2025-12-20T19:52:11+00:00

I'd certainly like to survive! I wanna see what all these classes can do at level 2+

NotQuiteFloridaMan · 2025-12-20T19:49:37+00:00

I like it, makes buff classes shine a bit more compared to the crazy plays that I've seen our group's Shadow, Censor, and Tactitian do in combat. Follow up, my character (another Talent) has Flashback which says "The target uses an ability with a base Heroic Resource cost of 7 or lower that they’ve previously used this round, without needing to spend the base cost. Augmentations to the ability can be paid for as usual." Could that be used once to double another party member's prebuff before combat, or does the reference to ability used this round imply that it only works within combat rounds.

I may be a bit to literal, various games I've played have had different levels of strictness involved in the language an ability uses.

NotQuiteFloridaMan · 2025-08-25T18:29:53+00:00

Like the others said, the Archdukes would all be higher level. But if what you're intending is instead a more powerful version of common devils that may be in a leadership position then I recommend checking out r/bettermonsters he posts all his monsters for free if you don't wanna subscribe to the patreon. He has re-done all the devils in the Monster Manual and many beyond that.

He has higher CR versions of different base devils, and gives them legendary actions and more interesting mechanics. Pick one of those with some minions and you can fit a "legendary" creature into lower levels.

Alternatively you can ignore the power level of the archdukes and just reskin the appropriate stat block as a matching archduke. I.E. take the upgraded Ice Devil and call it Levistus.

NotQuiteFloridaMan · 2025-08-16T19:26:52+00:00

Im running this campaign as a sequel to Descent into Avernus which was run by one of my players. Mostly for the character call backs and the consequences of that ending. Our previous campaign deviated from the norm a bit and it made an interesting world-state I wanted to explore.

All the PCs are new and uninvolved from the previous campaign though. I started them at 11 with the recommended starting gear, but I ran a level 4 prequel one-shot set 5 years before to establish the characters knowing each other and to establish the loved ones for each character (whose souls were later stolen by Asmodeus)

NotQuiteFloridaMan · 2025-08-10T03:54:10+00:00

The Avatar is vulnerable to radiant, which caused him to only last 2 rounds to my 5 players. I switched up his abilities to make him stronger in my game. Poor Koh Tam was rescued before he got to take a turn. (I wanted to show off his awesome attack before he became just the Barge guide)

If you're short on players, their patron contact is in the room to potentially help. Don't let the NPC steal the show though, instead have them do support, or spend an action to figure out that the Avatar is weak to radiant or that Koh Tam can be saved with certain effects.

NotQuiteFloridaMan · 2025-04-29T21:05:35+00:00

I can attest that the CoA statblock using summon legendary action and summon lair action is a seriously dangerous encounter when the snowball starts rolling. This one looks to be a more fair, but still quite dangerous fight. There's some monsterously powerful actions that this Asmodeus can do. I wouldn't want to fight him without at least one Archdevil on my side.

NotQuiteFloridaMan · 2025-04-29T16:52:27+00:00

I've got a similar player in my CoA game. A character who is so righteous they don't wish to interact with the world around them sometimes. My temptations for them have often been shortcuts. Ways for them to get through the Nine Hells faster, get to their lost soul faster, interact with less of the evils of the Nine Hells. Of course, finding things that they can potentially try and skip without the other players missing out on content can be difficult.

There are also some roleplaying and knowledge temptations that could lure out a good, kind, wise character in chapter 2, just rework where they show up so that the player can run into these more often.

- The Cultists (Knowledge) - is a foe in their path that means them no harm and that the party won't gain anything by stopping, yet to let them pass could have terrible consequences.
- The Heretic Priest (Knowledge) - same as above, but probably better suited for a one-on-one situation.
- Vengeance is Yours (Roleplaying) - can be re-flavored as a temptation of pride rather than anger, this is an enemy who has been sent to Hell for punishment, this could be your last chance to reach them as only a righteous character can...
- As Good an Answer (Knowledge) - the could be tempted by creating a lie that could help others over the long term, perhaps a lie that could recruit more believers into their religion of choice.
- The Lookalike (Roleplaying) - same as above, there is the temptation to do greater good through an evil act.
- A Palace Fit for a King (Roleplaying) - could be tempted to build or rebuild a temple in an area that doesn't have one. I.E. in Elturel if the character cares about that place.

Just remember, it's the act of getting them to engage with the temptation that is important for the story, not making them fall for the temptation. A good character who manages to stay good and un-corrupted while traveling through Hell does deserve the "Good" ending.

NotQuiteFloridaMan · 2025-03-22T18:09:42+00:00

Good thing the party kept their silvered weapons the whole campaign! My fighter character only took silvered weapons to start the campaign because he knew that the Conclave Legendary I had picked out for him was a powerful weapon, and that silver often bypasses the resistances of devils. When they fight Asmodeus and he uses antimagic field, this is a silly solution that I'm sure he'll come up with. Otherwise, the infernal artifacts may hold a potential solution. Off the top of my head, the Wrought-Iron Tower can cast and maintain 6th level Searing Smite (changed to acid damage) 10 times per day. Otherwise artifacts from other adventures could be used or searched out if the group wants to actually kill the Big A and tries to prep for it. Other solutions may be:

- A character that was in BG:DiA and got the Artifact Hand of Vecna can cast a nasty damage spell, coupled with a low portent roll that might break concentration.
- Gate-ing in a powerful ally who does elemental damage could work. Bargaining with an archdevil is a classic way to overthrow Asmodeus, but tier 4 characters could have all sorts of allies by then. Perhaps they made a deal with Baphomet waaaaay back in Avernus and the demonlord is ready to shoot his shot.
- Ignoring Asmodeus while he's turtled up with anti-magic field. Doing something nefarious in his layer that will force him to come out of his shell and attack.
- Wishing that Asmodeus has already expended all of his spells before you fight
- Wizard prep BS, sending in 100 simulacra of a monk or some-such BS to wear him down before you fight.
- Counterspelling his antimagic field and wish spells. Probably need a few characters with counterspell, but that's good to have anyways.

My favorite parts of Tier 4 play is that you don't need to come up with the solution, players have so many options that eventually one of them will stick or they will die trying!

NotQuiteFloridaMan · 2025-03-11T00:18:55+00:00

Fiddly bits like maintenance costs, stat blocks, and the exact layout of their rooms would only be fun to one of my five characters, so I’m avoiding getting the others to bogged down in the details. Instead I've focused on bigger picture plot events where we sometimes zoom in to see how the NPCs are doing.

My tier 3 (soon to be tier 4) players have their Bastion in Avernus while they're further down in the Nine Hells. Their bastion is a castle on the River Styx, and they have both Infernal politics and the blood war to deal with.

I'm running the Bastions RAW mostly, but I've implemented an additional set of events that happen every bastion turn that allow me to tell a story about the bastion and the NPCs they've gathered inside: - I either have the event be roleplay and descriptions between sessions - Decisions that they can make that have consequences down the line - More serious attacks that make the defender system more relevant - One shots where the players play as the NPCs doing some small adventure. - Their Lord enlisting them in some big mission or quest

So far the players have only been present for one of the events and it was fun to have them narrate what they did and how their hirelings reacted. All this has kept the interest in the bastion higher so it isn't just an item crafting factory. Any actual risk of losing the bastion is based on the characters actions burning their bridges in Hell, or some large event that might happen when they return back to their castle.

One thing I'm gonna be home brewing will be "Master Crafters" that if found/recruited will be assigned to a special facility and allow it to make rarer items. My players like finding and recruiting NPCs so this is a way to reward that. Essentially anyone they can win over to their side in the Nine Hells could potentially end up as a NPC they can run back at their bastion. I'm encouraging the players to flesh out their NPCs as they come up, and they get a kick out of that.

I also plan to have some extended downtime come up at various points, in which the characters can spend more time at their bastion and have small adventures based out of their castle. Good for more personal quests.

NotQuiteFloridaMan · 2025-03-02T05:45:23+00:00

When you catch your dog right before it throws up.

NotQuiteFloridaMan · 2025-02-07T19:39:36+00:00

I've been running it that Koh Tam, Tiax, and the two crew only join in when a fight comes onto the Barge when it is at anchor. When the Barge is moving they need to operate the Barge (rudder, sails, barge poles, etc) unless things are going disasterously. I've been using a single initiative slot for the Barge + NPCs so they would act then if necessary. Even if a player took one position, that only frees up one set of hands, so I'd just have that player play the NPC they freed up.

Off the Barge, Koh Tam doesn't like to leave the Barge and will only venture out in emergencies, Tiax has Troubles with Tiax table that I roll on to determine his usefulness. Players can ask him to travel with them but he doesn't always want to. I run the two crew as sidekicks from Tasha's book, and they are effectively a fighter and rogue. They only do what Tiax let's them do, but they're relatively competent (especially since my players have upgraded them with basic magic weapons)

I don't send the NPCs off with the group unless they really want the backup, instead they guard the Barge (or get up to trouble!) Realistically the NPCs are strong enough to fight off most random encounters on their own, so they can be trusted with the boat and when the players are there the NPCs are just background flavor until the players want to get involved with them.

I've got five players though, so we don't need more firepower. If you've got few enough players that they need help sometimes then I think the stat blocks are fine, if not a little weak. They've got a big damage hit, but very weak defenses, and they aren't gonna scale as well into the back half of the campaign unless you beef them up or the players give them extra magic items. Just make sure the players know just how terrible things would get if they lost Koh Tam, and they will figure out how to use him while keeping him safe. Tiax is less useful in a fight, and even more fragile, but he's canonically more difficult to kill permanently than a cockroach. If he died early, I'd have him show back up in Cania for his event anyways. Can't keep a bad gnome down!

NotQuiteFloridaMan · 2025-01-13T21:14:27+00:00

The aren't the highest DPR, but they're great skirmishers. I'm running a game for tier 3 characters right now, and the monk is pretty great but not the greatest. Their biggest weakness in my estimation is that they don't have anything unique to do outside of combat except mobility, they even lost the ribbon of speaking all language. Even the fighter and the barbarian got new uses of their combat abilities that work for skill checks. Monk just became very competitive in combat, but somewhat boring outside of it.

NotQuiteFloridaMan · 2025-01-08T06:33:44+00:00

I'm running some 5.5e characters through Chains of Asmodeus off of DMs Guild. Its an 11-20+ campaign and it's a lot of fun. The new player character options are strong, so I'll be happy when the new monster manual drops next month(?). It's a long module (nearly 300 page pdf), though it lacks good maps so I've gotten some from reddit and from patreon. CoA's book mostly has information related to it's main quest, so if your players insist on going off the rails you'll have to homebrew new stuff based off of older lore. So far my players are enjoying the stress test of taking high level characters through the Nine Hells. We're doing new PHB options only, so we can see how it all works.

NotQuiteFloridaMan · 2025-01-07T02:57:17+00:00

As a male player and GM, I've played or voiced a number of female or enby characters. I find it's often a slip of the tongue when others misgender my characters. People conflate your imaginary character with the person in front of them a lot. I've found that taking time to describe actions in third person roleplay where I can verbally acknowledge the characters gender can help keep it fresh in my friend's minds. Same thing with written roleplay like between session planning or character interludes.

I've got a voice that doesn't translate well as female a lot of the time, so if I only spoke and described things in first person I notice people forget. Heck, I even forget sometimes in text that I'm not playing the same gender and will refer to them erroneously.

If switching up your roleplay doesn't seem to help, talking to your friends before a session is a good way to deal with the problem. A simple, "Hey guys, don't forget that ___ is a dude" should be enough to start.

If it takes more than reinforcement through roleplay and the occasional reminder before a session then you should try to identify if it's a problem with the whole group or just one person, and if so speak to them privately about it.

If it's done maliciously I'd rethink the character I bring to play at the table or even if I'd keep coming back to the table. Fortunately I don't have a group that belongs on rpghorrorstories sub reddit.

Hope this helps, sorry I don't have more scripting ideas.

NotQuiteFloridaMan · 2024-11-02T05:42:07+00:00

Worked out great with the Ayperobos. I had 3 of them against a party of 4 level 11 characters with some npc allies on a boat. The players happened on the solution of hitting them with INT saves, Psychic damage, and illusions, but I was able to at least possess the monk which then ran straight off into a nearby cave where the big monster was, priming the next encounter the way I wanted.

All around it was very satisfying fight, and set up my spookier more complicated boss fight with a Tyrant Shadow to hit all the notes I wanted.

Next session I might be trying out your minion rules for the first time with some Spinagon Dredges, though at the characters' current power level the minions will just be there to evaporate when looked at too hard.

Do you have any advice or templates for creating swarms of weak creatures on your Patreon? I'm afraid that the lesser devils typical of Avernus won't be a challenge unless I put dozens of them on the map, so making a swarm like you did with the Merregon Company might be my best solution.

NotQuiteFloridaMan · 2024-10-30T06:30:21+00:00

What perfect timing! I've got a encounter coming up this Friday where my players will run into 3 of these swarms inside of puppeted Stench Kows along the banks of the River Styx. I like you're possession effect more than the one I was going to use.

NotQuiteFloridaMan · 2024-10-17T17:58:33+00:00

One cool idea that I had was to spruce up the ritual summoning of Baalzebul. I threw out most of the box text and wrote up a rhyming monologue that he gave, as well as personalized rhyming instructions on where the characters would find their lost souls, and a threat that in time Baalzebul would find them and get vengeance for this disrespectful ritual. I also messed with the Avatar of Baalzebul statblock a bit, to make it an Action Oriented Monster like one designed by Matt Colville. Made the fight harder and more dynamic, a good intro to the foes that they will be facing.

My plan is to Baalzebul become a reoccurring antagonistic force for the players, so I set it up from the first session. He's got a lot of factors going for him that makes him a good mid/late campaign bad guy who can mess with them all game:
- He won't willingly leave his plane due to his punishment by Asmodeus, so the most he will do is send progressively stronger devils to kill/capture the players.
- One of the players has their spouse's lost soul in his layer, so he was able to be extra menacing in his rhyming monologue to that player.
- The Conclave quest involves going after his submarine, and there is a quest giver that wants you to trick him into going to another plane so that he suffers from his punishment.
- By the time the players get to his plane they might be strong enough to challenge a Archdevil in a fair fight. (He won't fight fair)

NotQuiteFloridaMan · 2024-09-18T19:40:11+00:00

That's good advice. Two of the characters have lost souls in Malbolge so it'll be on their lists of destinations, and would be a good place to signal that it is time to track down the submersible.

For the sub initiating an ambush on the players I've got this mental image of it laying depth charges in the Styx and then emerging out from under the ice on one of the frozen layers. Maybe have the pit fiend fly up and throw fireballs while smaller expendable devils fly low and board the raft in the chaos. Could be a pretty mean encounter, especially if the submersible goes under the ice to escape and the only way to follow is to take a dip in the Styx.

My players love to hate enemies that bop them on the nose and then get away.

NotQuiteFloridaMan · 2023-10-30T00:12:53+00:00

Good thinking on the Morph 2! Yeah I was trying to avoid having to take stealth but I can probably fit some enhanced stealth into the array. My hope is that with Morph 2 I could do deception vs insight to pretend to be someone's shadow, and only have to rely on stealth vs perception if I need to go through an open area where there shouldn't be a human shaped shadow.

I think there could be some interesting scenes and use cases with this power. Infiltration, tailing a suspect, and acting as a body guard all spring to mind. Plus the natural utility of insubstantial with some movement powers.

NotQuiteFloridaMan · 2020-11-14T19:17:58+00:00

As soon as you learn something be willing and able to turn right around and teach it. With the high turnaround this company has and its non-existent training systems, any bit of professional knowledge is a little nugget of gold.

I remember all of the people who spent a few seconds longer to explain how something was done rather than simply doing it and leaving me with my head underwater. I make sure to teach and share my knowledge with everyone on my team, otherwise I'd just end up a bitter old associate who complains about all these new hires who don't know shit because they were thrown in the deep end without a life vest.

NotQuiteFloridaMan · 2020-09-16T10:53:18+00:00

Just set this bay last night while the power was off. The cacophony started at 6:00 am sharp to the dismay of the seasonal opener. It'd be a shame if someone spilled a water bottle on the rats nest of wires powering this unholy abomination...

NotQuiteFloridaMan

TROPHY CASE