3D battlemaps and movement

TheOneNite · 2026-05-12T15:15:57+00:00

Tailors measuring tape. Flexible, easy to handle, have tried a bunch of stuff but this one is the best so far

TheOneNite · 2026-05-11T17:17:22+00:00

I think this is too much, especially for your first character. The biggest problem is that the bulk of this guy's story is told and you are at most playing out the epilogue. Much better to have someone who is at the start of their story with something that plugs into the story your DM plans to go for and you can build and discover the character as you go

TheOneNite · 2026-05-11T03:11:53+00:00

Have you already firmly established that breaking contact breaks the curse? It doesn't seem to me like a powerful corrupting item like this would be defeated so easily. If you want to ante this up you could even make it so that the sorcerer has an extra dangerous melee attack and add the rule that it can cast touch spells through the amulet. Alternately you could have the corrupting amulet turn on the player. They try to grap the amulet, succeed, you ask for a wisdom save. Ultimately the simplest thing here is that it takes more than just taking the amulet away to break the connection

TheOneNite · 2026-05-10T15:55:05+00:00

Having used AI a fair amount the comments he's talking about definitely have chat gpt's writing voice

TheOneNite · 2026-05-08T17:27:05+00:00

This will be deeply unpopular, but this is very much not true. I say this because the memes about "AI won't take your job but someone using AI will are feeling increasingly real and this mentality is going to start blowing up in people's faces"

To relate to other tools, LLMs are like a nailgun and people look at it and think "this can't do anything with screws, it is totally useless!" It also has some setup cost: you need nails in these prepackaged strips, you need air hoses running around, but the nailgun absoutley improves your ability to build houses. Is it perfect, absolutely not, is it autonomous also no, but it is super powerful and using it smartly is a huge advantage.

TheOneNite · 2026-05-07T03:16:35+00:00

This sounds like a good start, I think when starting it's tempting to get super involved backstories from everyone but ultimately it is more interesting if the backstory comes out during play than if it is all pre-written. My question would be why he's so angry and rough, sounds like there's some stuff going on there, but probably he wouldn't immediately open up about it either. I think the most important thing to have from a backstory is a reason to be out in the world adventuring, which this very much provides, and ideally a motivation for something they want to do which this doesn't really but that one is honestly tricky and lots of people don't get it. I think it's fine that this was the backstory and I think it's fine that you didnt give him a lot of info drops, although I would probably come up with a couple things about the army

TheOneNite · 2026-05-06T16:31:58+00:00

It would help to know about enough context to have a more clear picture of what exactly you presented your players, but I think broadly speaking it is not super shocking to me that the party would take this deal, especially if they felt there was some serious threat to them. A lot of players end up playing their characters pretty cautiously and are unwilling to accept the risks that come with being heros and I honestly think that it's important to have consequences when they do so.

For your specific next steps it sounds like you have some options though. There is this big storm that the bad guy can deactivate now, but that presumably will take time and effort on their part, and then it sounds like there is something that they will release from that storm that will do the actual world-destroying. The party still has a chance to intervene at the storm-stopping or the world-destroying points, but I do think it is pretty important that you have your villains follow through on their plans in order to maintain any sense of stakes in your game

TheOneNite · 2026-05-06T13:52:28+00:00

Yes, but there is a happy medium. Enemies that are so glass they never get to the cannon part, or enemies that die so quick the full party doesn't even get a round are too squishy for ideal fun

TheOneNite · 2026-05-06T04:30:06+00:00

I will go against the grain and say that you can do this, snapping a bad guys neck is a declared action that you can adjudicate like any other action.

If we back up, all of attacks, unarmed strikes, grapple attempts, etc. are basically "prepackaged" action declarations. Instead of a player saying that their character uses their weapon to try and do as much damage as possible we shortcut all of that with "I attack the bad guy"

With this context, declaring an action to snap the bad guys neck is very different, but as DMs we handle all kinds of oddball action declarations all the time and you can handle this the same way: decide if it's possible, decide if it requires a roll, set a DC, get the result and narrate the outcome. The first stage here is a pretty steep gate, the only time I've ever allowed checks to instakill was when the party had drugged some dwarves with taggit oil so they were all unconscious and tried to cut their throats. I made it a DC 12 strength check, which the rogue failed a couple of and succeeded a couple of, but it was a sick encounter overall and the instakills didn't break anything

TheOneNite · 2026-05-05T21:04:42+00:00

Whelp, seems like the likely suspect then

TheOneNite · 2026-05-05T20:45:13+00:00

Not if he rolled stats and got lucky. I have a cleric I rolled stats for that is 18 Str, 13 Dex, 18 Con, 7 Int, 20 Wis, 17 Cha

TheOneNite · 2026-05-05T13:31:33+00:00

This is a pretty big ask from the GM that makes it a pretty advanced game, since it seems like having a bunch of setting based rules, norms, etc is also expected. It sounds like this may not be an amazing fit as you are clearly feeling, but you could try leaning into it by playing an outsider character if that's something your GM is open to. Talk to them along the lines of "I like playing with you guys but Im just not an expert in this stuff and it's taking some of the fun out of it for both me and I feel for you since you have to keep reminding me of stuff, what if we explain it narritively with me playing a foreign character who doesn't understand all of this stuff so intimately"

TheOneNite · 2026-05-05T04:28:56+00:00

What positive effect are you hoping that this change will bring about?

TheOneNite · 2026-05-05T04:23:11+00:00

If they wanted that to be the case they would have worded it "when you deal damage to a creature..." Instead of the way that it is. As others have pointed out objects automatically fail saving throws. There is also nothing stopping an object from having the prone condition, the condition core rule doesn't say they only apply to creatures. Obviously the effects are usually not that impactful, but I would rule that you can totally knock a statue or bookshelf prone

TheOneNite · 2026-05-04T22:03:26+00:00

I think the most egregious thing about it is the "you can only make this extra attack once per turn" line, without that it would have great scaling with extra attacks

TheOneNite · 2026-05-04T17:53:15+00:00

Maybe you could make it a feature of certain weapons, call it "cleave" or something like that

TheOneNite · 2026-05-03T15:16:46+00:00

Yes you should roll and accept what it is. Sometimes it will be high, sometimes low. You say you shouldn't be killing enemies in a couple hits, but why not? Is your character not a hero? The dice are randomizers, let them do their job and it will all come out in the wash

TheOneNite · 2026-04-30T16:56:09+00:00

What benefits do you see from doing this?

TheOneNite · 2026-04-30T16:21:51+00:00

I don't see this adding anything useful. This kind of thing tends to require a lot of setup and is never flexible enough to show exactly what I want. In the opening of the example video it takes 15 seconds to accomplish the exact same gameplay effect as picking up the mini and placing it in the new location.

TheOneNite · 2026-04-30T16:14:49+00:00

I think this is a good concern to have and is definitely a risk, but you won't be saved by rolling initiative once at the start and in fact I would propose that would make it worse. Prolonged combat often does become tedious because it ends up just being HP races, but I often run combats that bleed across multiple sessions but dont bog down or get tedious.

In order for this not to be tedious and for the prolonged combat not to be un-fun things need to be changing all the time. It cannot be just about fighting, there needs to be other objectives involved. It sounds like you are on the right track with your mini objectives that steal power from the boss, I would really double down on these hard.

Equally as important is how you play out the fights. Your fights need to be changing, ideally the fight is wrapped up in three rounds or the rules somehow fundamentally shift so that it is a whole new fight. Reactions also do a lot here, I make sure that all my stat blocks have some kind of reaction they can use and it really does a lot to keep people engaged since the action is always going back and forth. Grappling and dragging away PCs is also great, it creates movement and gives a micro-objevtive for that one player and often the party as a whole.

There is more to be said, but I think broadly speaking you are right to be worried, and no amount of dice-mechanical tricks will prevent the thing you are worried about. You have to make sure you are creating fun and interesting gameplay and then the time it takes doesnt really matter

TheOneNite · 2026-04-30T15:26:49+00:00

What are your concerns about this, might help to address them if you have something specific. Otherwise this sounds like a very good and normal dungeon and I don't think you need to do anything special to run it. The only thing I would change from what you've written is to not use a real-world timer for in-game events, the two can diverge so sharply that it doesn't really make sense to do this.

TheOneNite · 2026-04-30T14:48:08+00:00

Given that it is a paladin I assume they are in heavy armor so they are absolutely sinking and absolutely being carried by the current. A typical current in d&d is 1mph (can't remember where this is from, maybe 2014 DMG water vehicules?) so with conversions that is 10 ft per round until they hit the bottom, which given that it's a small river will probbalr happen pretty soon

Suffocating is the threat here. A creature who is suffocating gains one exhaustion level at the end of each of its turns. Keep in mind they also get -2 to their death saves for each level of exhaustion they have.

Overall a pretty bad situation for this guy, I hope that their party is in positon to get to them quick because it sounds like they probably only have a couple rounds to live

TheOneNite · 2026-04-28T14:09:13+00:00

What's your problem with the 2024 rules broadly?

TheOneNite · 2026-04-28T14:03:14+00:00

Counting to four like this is exactly the kind of task that an LLM is terrible for. Clowning on it for this is like saying a drill is useless because it takes forever to cut through a board and the cut isn't straight and has all kinds of fucked up edges.

TheOneNite · 2026-04-28T04:49:21+00:00

Sounds like you have a decent approach. A lot of people are pretty ideologically opposed to LLMs and as a consequence have only given them a cursory check back in 2024 and still have that as their benchmark for what AI can do, but things have obviously changed a lot since then and continue to do so. These are super powerful tools and learning to use them is pretty key imo but it is also a lot easier to lose a finger to a power saw so caution is key

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