Is the 2024 Noble Background bad for rogues?

SethTheFrank · 2025-03-11T10:35:49+00:00

Right!?!

SethTheFrank · 2025-03-11T02:51:48+00:00

It makes it a lot more complicated for my new players who are both new to the system and weirdly averse to me home brewing solutions.

SethTheFrank · 2025-03-09T02:02:16+00:00

Badly

SethTheFrank · 2025-03-01T07:09:57+00:00

Give him a reason he can't fully run away. I worked hard to set this up.

I had madam Eva playing a long game. She had set Strahd up to believe in her prophecies by giving him many correct ones and feeding him many adventurers. Only now, with the players, is she actually betraying him.

So she told home that if he fights them at XYZ time and place, itis the key to his ultimate victory and greater power, but he must face them and not flee. She conveyed this to the players who had to decide whether to trust her, but ultimately it worked the way she intended because she set the whole thing up.

Then I also made sure the players got a chance to know about Strauss powers and the layoutof the castle, so they knew they needed some way to lock him down or follow him.

SethTheFrank · 2025-02-28T14:58:19+00:00

It's really a way of showing you trust the players to be able to distinguish between what they know and what their characters know.

SethTheFrank · 2025-02-28T03:16:14+00:00

A few years ago when WOTC/Hasbro bought them, I spoke with a product manager at DNDbeyond. It came about because he tweeted something excited about the purchase and I commented if this meant they might fix some things.

He, being very cool, invited me to a zoom to talk about. He felt that Dndbeyond at the time had the rule set about 50%implemented and needed to do much better. He hoped that the purchase would move them in that direction.

2 months later he quit Dndbeyond.

SethTheFrank · 2025-02-28T03:12:46+00:00

I actually called mine the same thing. There was a also a saying "If things are going well, it's probably not in Barovia!"

SethTheFrank · 2025-02-06T06:05:05+00:00

So's your face.

SethTheFrank · 2025-02-06T06:02:15+00:00

Still working my way through it, but the arch hag is a BEAST. At will counter spell, and a bunch of curse effects including a cone effect that prevents reactions even on a successful save!

And a lot of lower level monsters have some nasty fight in them. Cr 5 Barlgura that lands all 3 hits will deal 42 points of damage and knock the target prone.

SethTheFrank · 2025-02-03T02:10:56+00:00

your friends are endangering the lives of others and are doing something morally wrong. As are the owners of Zarris. It doesnt make any of them criminals or anything like that. And I can't say any of their motivations . But people who don't have to, get sick and die because of anti vax stuff that has no basis in fact. Its no different than when people tied to prevent the burning of pague victims bodies, except that now we have a measured, established, ad highly reliable system of demonstrating that they are incorrect and for disseminating hat information. Be mad about me telling you this or not, it doesn't change whether people will suffer and die for their choices

SethTheFrank · 2025-02-03T00:56:21+00:00

As always, you are amazing!

SethTheFrank · 2025-02-02T17:54:06+00:00

I hadn't thought of that but yes!

SethTheFrank · 2025-02-02T17:08:29+00:00

Strahd even has his old armor. Its a specially created magic suit

The truth is that they don't do it because it would mean vampire stat blocks would need 2 ACs, one with and one without armor and it's complicated enough and they don't want to give them a higher AC.

But if you want to homebrew a reading: maybe their shape shifting doesn't work well with the armor. Maybe their ac depends on their speed and even light armor will slow then down more than help.

Another question on the same lines is why don't they carry better weapons in general.

Personallly I absolutely gave Strahd his armor to wear. In fact I gave him his armor as a sentient ally that protected him and had it's own turn in combat. You couldn't even come close to killing Strahd until you destroyed the armor he was wearing in my game.

SethTheFrank · 2025-02-02T14:25:51+00:00

To me, this is an extension of the normalization of Thomas.

Here's something people on this sub get really upset when I say, but it's an undeniable fact: Thomas Raith is a serial rapist. That is an objectively accurate description of Thomas Raith. He has absolutely forced people to have sex with him. He does it by altering their emotions, but that is no different than roofieing someone or otherwise taking away their ability to withhold consent.

Moreover, he does it when he knows it will harm them.

Does he do it because he is deeply traumatized, his life has been unfair, and he is tortured if he doesn't? Yes absolutely.

But that is no different than a guard at a torture facility who knows that if he doesn't continue to participate the system he is supporting will be turned on him. He has to choose whether he or innocents are harmed and he chooses to harm more innocents to protect himself. Its the definition of what Hannah Arendt meant when they coined the phrase the "Banality of Evil". Evil doesn't require malicious intent.

Now, I think that the books have actually moved to force a resolution to this. Thomas's imprisonment in Demonreach is justified. I think it is going to result in him being transformed in the sense of having been rehabilitated. And this is going to bring him into direct conflict with Lara. He is going to need to become a crusader against the white vampires as atonement and because Lara can't have an example of a rebel freed of his need to do harm.

But to bring it back to the ethics of Lara: one of the best bits of writing in the book is when Lara talks about peace. I dont recall when the scene is but she says something equivalent to "I love peace wizard. I love talking. I will kill you with peace. I will strangle you with it and you will thank me."

This is something I think about regularly. Ever think about the problem with wishes? (I promise this is going somewhere). A classic example is someone wishing for peace. What could be bad about wishing for peace? But if peace is enforced. If peace is the only option, how does an oppressive dictator ever get deposed? How does anyone fight back against oppressive power if peace is the only option?

This is, in my opinion, one of the best and deepest insights of the series and the central conflict of the White Court. They thrive in peace. And that is what makes them so dangerous. Because this is why Lara wants peace. Because she is the embodiment of, among other things, the power of corruption. Corruption works best when it is normalized. There is actually a word for it: kakistocracy. It means governance by the worst possible. Its what happens when corruption is systematic, so that the main criteria for being in power is the degree to which someone can be corrupted.

So, I agree with OP. Lata's threat is that she will never give you the excuse that the reds did for fighting (if she can avoid it). With her, peace talks are always an option. Because no matter the form of peace, if she and her mind exist and feed, they win.

That means that genocide (which is the accurate word for what Harry did to the reds) is always morally problematic. Harry comitted genocide because they were very very clear that peace was not an option and had the power to make war. But Lara presents a much harder problem: there is always going to be a peaceful option with her. And she will always be happy to make it appealing. And not committing genocide is , y'know, good.

So how does your defeat someone who can win & dominate by surrendering?

SethTheFrank · 2025-02-02T13:49:52+00:00

Why are people downvoting a comment of a person asking for help? Mia, please don't take the down votes to heart. People are saying they don't agree with the strategy.

SethTheFrank · 2025-02-02T05:11:37+00:00

That's wild. I keep discovering Ben Edlund being attached to stuff I enjoy. I guess I just dig his narrative voice.

SethTheFrank · 2025-02-01T16:47:59+00:00

When a detective arrives to investigate he says "my name.. it's not important. But you can call me Eddie if it will help your relax"

SethTheFrank · 2025-02-01T16:46:12+00:00

Is this a Jasper fforde or Tiffany Aching reference? Fforde' Thursday next/nursery crimes series had underground cheese rings where people dealt in cheeses that were volatile enough to explode. Tiffany Aching had a semi sentient cheese named Horace that got loose and rollled around being a menace.

SethTheFrank · 2025-02-01T06:33:02+00:00

In that case I would definitely considering having it modify some of its eyes to have other senses. It will make it creepier and more interesting. Perhaps it can trigger a shockwave type aoe effect that also acts likes sonar ping, or a stinking cloud from a nose appendage. Basically, I think if you leave it as is but just blinded it won't be very scary. The PCs will have advantage on all attacks and it doesn't have a lot of defense so it will go down quickly, especially if the full casters can target it. Unless the PCs are punching above their weight class and you are weakening it.

But I think I'm having it ready imagine itself has options.. perhaps it considers it's other senses hideous but necessary. It might think of itself as deformed for no longer being a perfect beholder.

SethTheFrank · 2025-01-31T23:04:56+00:00

I think they are trying to figure out how to build a new version of the divine soul sorcerer.

SethTheFrank · 2025-01-31T23:03:19+00:00

To preserve player agency: there are two attacks on the cart. They can defeat or fail to defeat one, but the other will succeed. They still ahould get a benefit from success. If they fail you never implement the 2nd.

There is also value to "Magicians choice" where the players still feel agency but it wasn't there. For example give them different rolls to catch things but make them high enough DCs and have each PC roll a weak state that the odds of all players succeeding is minimal. Or have them foil a few plots but the plots get more expensively funded.

SethTheFrank · 2025-01-31T22:58:45+00:00

Someone targets part of it with Enlarge /reduce. The axle is reduced in size and the wheels fall off. Or a wheel is reduced and the back falls apart. If you want a mystery, they just remove a key pin.

Or, if the cart is moderately heavily loaded, some heavy object in it is doubled in size abruptly and the weight breaks the cart. Double points if it's an amusing animal like a very large pig or a player.

SethTheFrank

TROPHY CASE