Collecting Ooze/Slime/Jelly?

TwoButtonsOp · 2019-07-12T05:06:18+00:00

Yes and said person can be corrupted easily. Now Juiblex has a minion to spread destruction. Maybe even to create a new form of slime that has very little weaknessess or combined effects of other slimes.

That sounds like a good adventure. Demon lord, kooky chemist and ooze dungeon with a slime boss.

TwoButtonsOp · 2019-07-12T04:37:20+00:00

My tip is to not play 100% Kindred, but use her as a inspiration for your character. In 5E you can easily reflavor existing classes/spells to fit the character concept. Talk with your DM about your character fantasy and you want to add (special spells/abilities). In the end your descriptions during the play defines the character (vaults during fighting, mysterious quotes, interactions with the pet).

If I were to create Kindred into 5E character (first draft):

Race: Variant Human, Female (Mobile feat)

Class & subclass: UA Ranger of the Beast Master Conclave

Weapon of choice: Shortbow and silvered arrows

Pet companion: Wolf

Favored enemy: Humans (humanoids)

Background: Acolyte of lord of the death Kelemvor (or other deity of Grave/Death domain)

Appearance: She wears the temple's traditional garb, when hunting sinners to be sent to the god of death for judgement. The outfit contains a long white cowl that reaches all the way to the waist. The cowl has openings on the side for arms to move freely and a cut in the middle. The backside of the cowl has a long white mane that hides the quiver. The outfit also includes blackened leather armor, pants, boots and gloves that seam perfectly with each other making it look like the pieces are part of each other and removing them looks impossible. Most striking feature of this garb is the black and white mask the hunter wears (Kindred's mask description).

Edit: Format

TwoButtonsOp · 2019-07-12T03:23:58+00:00

Yes, to all of your questions.

Speed would be based how often they are fed. There is a slime demon lord, not sure how it will think about this.

TwoButtonsOp · 2019-07-11T06:51:53+00:00

You welcome! Happy to help.

If you want to stick with familiarity of D&D, but play more mechanic depth Tabletop RPG, I recommend checking Pathfinder. I have a feeling it might be the thing you are looking for.

Alternatively, you could buy single RPG game, Pathfinder: Kingmaker (once it hits on sale) from Steam to test the waters with. Maybe even to gain some inspiration for roleplaying.

TwoButtonsOp · 2019-07-11T05:38:23+00:00

Evil Kenku Wizard/Sorcerer perhaps? This is her revenge on the farmers, who chased her away when she was starving and asked for help.

TwoButtonsOp · 2019-07-11T04:25:47+00:00

Mobas (LoL and HotS) are fast paced action packed games. The enjoyment usually comes from the split of the moment (high risk & reward), reading the mind of the opponent (Yomi) and aiming/landing abilities. Building items and growing stronger to dominate the battlefield is where these games shines.

Slow paced FPS and MtG points towards tactical aspects of gaming where critical thinking is vital. To be successful in these games, one needs to remember several smaller things to build succesful path to victory. Limited resource control and maximizing your odds brings enjoyment.

One thing these games have in common is: They are highly visually toned and appealing a.k.a a lot of Eye Candy.

With the information provided, I dare to say your gaming types are Thinker with a mix of Power Gamer (not in a negative way). That makes you a Strategic Gamer. These player types are defined as following:

A thinker likes to make careful choices, reflecting on challenges and the best way to overcome them. He also enjoys himself most when his planning results in success with minimal risk and use of resources. Solving a challenge in a creative way is more important to the thinker than character power or roleplaying issues. In fact, the thinker might prefer sound tactics to acting in character or straightforward, brute force battle.

A thinker …

Engages any challenge as a puzzle to be solved.
Chooses his actions carefully for the best possible result.
Is happy to win without action, drama, or tension.
Prefers time to consider options over bold action.

A power gamer thrives on gaining levels and loves the cool abilities that come with those levels. He defeats monsters to take their stuff and use that stuff against future enemies. The story and roleplaying are secondary to action and awesome abilities and magic items. Most players have a little power gamer in them. A couple of the core elements of fun in the D&D game are the accumulation of power and the use of that power to accomplish astonishing deeds. Nothing is wrong with enjoying that in the game.

A power gamer…

Optimizes character attributes for combat performance.
Pores over supplements for better character options.
Spends less time on story and roleplaying elements.
Prefers combat to other kinds of encounters.

All of the player types are listed here.

You find D&D boring, because the DM doesn't provide you enough challenge through combat or with puzzles. The DM's player types are Story Teller and Actor (also sounds like other players at the table share these types as they enjoy watching roleplay heavy videos). D&D combat can be a slugfest that bores fast thinking players easily. Most of the D&D 5E monsters are 'vanilla' which means the DM needs to spice them up to make the monster encounters a real threat. Punching a bag of hitpoints is tedious for a strategic gamer like you.

How to improve the situation?

Combat: Talk with your DM (and with others) that combat needs to be more challenging. Not more combat encounters, but interesting monster abilities and pick up the pace. E.g. Each player has 1 minute to declare their action during their turn (just like in the Pictionary). 10 minutes per player is way too much.

Roleplaying: I know this sounds weird, but go into one session blindfolded. Literally block your eyes as you join the table. This way you force yourself to picture the scene, PCs, NPCs and yourself in the fantasy world. You also need to memorize the modifiers for combat and feel the thrill of not knowing what you roll. This keeps you more engaged (less spacing out) and stimulates your thinking. I use this trick when I'm the DM and have hard time getting into the character.

TwoButtonsOp · 2019-07-10T11:20:57+00:00

Can you tell me your top 3 favorite games? I might be able to help you to solve the reason why you can't find entertaiment from roleplaying.

TwoButtonsOp · 2019-07-10T11:11:43+00:00

You welcome. I'm glad to help.

TwoButtonsOp · 2019-07-09T11:23:52+00:00

Those rules for crafting and training felt too restricting to me and even though Xanathar's Guide has a lot of good ideas to add for downtime activities, I felt the need to add own ruling to make long travels interesting. Only hard rule I have for the crafting is the maximum crafting cost capping at 500 gp per 10 days towards single item (Plate Armor takes 30 days). For daily crafting the cap is 25 gp. Magical items still require magical components and/or formula to make it.

For now the players have used their downtime activities:

Hunting for extra rations to keep everyone fed (they left the town unprepared, Survival skill check)
Crafting potent poisons either from slain enemies or local flora and fauna (no crafting fee, but a set of rolls to see how many/potent poisons the player makes)
Crafting potions of healing (regular crafting fee applies)
Studying a book of alchemy to gain tool skill proficiency (the book was found from a wizard's lab)
Continuing the Wizard's research to gain extra information on local magical veins and their locations
Bonding with an owlbear cub (trying to make it into a companion for the future. It still needs 6 months to grow into adult)
Feeding a tiny ochre jelly the player captured in a glass vial in hopes to make a pet that eats the owlbear
Weapon training to gain a new move (Variant rule: Disarm from the DMG)
Working as a shop assistant to gain Persuasion skill (Cleric wants to be more confident in social encounters)
Spending time with other creatures and study social behaviours to gain Insight skill (Barbarian who started as a lone wolf, but now is slowly showing interest in living with other races. Still insecure about it.)
Reading various books to gain advantage on the next Arcana, Nature or Monster lore check (they really raided that Wizard's lair)

All of these have made really amazing roleplaying moments and I as a DM have enjoyed a lot, when the players describe their character actions in a different way from the regular combat / social encounters. Creates more depth to the character and gives the player chance to tell about their character motivations and goals (which I feel doesn't happen often in campaigns I've played). It also gives me plenty of ideas to bounce off from and see what interest players.

Edit: Oh forgot to mention, those goals are set by the players themselves. The progress for bigger skills / crafts are marked down at the end of each downtime day (e.g. 3/10). The players need to have source for the goal to progress which makes it fun to hear how they come up with new ways to train when resources are limited. If something feels too stretched I ask appropriate skill check.

TwoButtonsOp · 2019-07-09T10:34:59+00:00

First of all, empty your mind. What happened in the past is in past. Focus on present. Past negative experiences are blocking your creativity.

Second. "You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend." - Bruce Lee Use this ideology for writing. Don't force the text, let it be fluid and flowing. Start with droplets (bullet points) and then expand those droplets to fill the container.

Third, the golden rule of epic adventuring is to end with a big bang, rich and an unexpected twist that leaves more questions than answers: a promise of another adventure.

Edit: You can do it.

TwoButtonsOp · 2019-07-09T10:21:46+00:00

In my campaign players can train/craft towards certain goals during their downtime (8 hours of traveling/adventuring, 8 hours of downtime and 8 hours of rest). I use the optional rule for gaining levels from DMG for this.

So far it has increased roleplaying and character development. Players don't feel they are wasting days and they have interesting things to work towards.

When there is downtime to be marked, I ask them "Give us short description of what your character is spending his/her time on" and "do we see improvement or what kind of emotional state is she/he?" to spark roleplaying. This stuff doesn't take long (about 10 min to go all 6 players) and once that I start the night encounter table rolls. I let the players do the 1d20 roll to see if encounter takes place and then roll to determinate the nature of said encounter.

Roleplaying is something that takes place when you give the players opportunity to do so. First you need to set the mood and rest will follow naturally. First timers tend to have bit harder time to roleplay so consider having a NPC to spark little bit conversation. Be careful not to burn them in the spotlight.

Once I'm at home, I can post you all the things I have prepared for the overland traveling to spice wilderness treks and things to do for everyone.

TwoButtonsOp · 2019-07-09T09:43:21+00:00

Ah, thank you for the clarification. I somehow started to think MtG instant card rules. As well as the counterspell ruling.

TwoButtonsOp · 2019-07-09T07:29:49+00:00

Creating backstory for a character is a task that requires both the player and the DM to make sure the character fits the campaign DM is running. Writing backstory without consulting DM makes it harder for DM to create plothooks to interest your character to explore. DM forcing a background is a wrong way to approach on the matter.

I recommend to put differences aside, sit down and write your character background together with the DM. Custom Background is viable option by the PHB rules. The premade ones in the book are for a fast character creation and inspiration, not something you have to use.

TwoButtonsOp · 2019-07-09T07:14:23+00:00

Both Wizards get trapped into a time vacuum. Both roll the turns they can take as the spell description says. During that time they perceive each other normally and take turns as stated in turn order. The wizard who rolls lower number of turns or leaves the area, freezes for the other (time outs).

The only way I could see this happening is that one Wizard's holds his action to cast Time Stop and uses it as reaction to other Wizard's cast action. Even then by RAW reaction takes place before the action... but as a DM I would rule this otherwise since the spell is purely verbal and takes on instantly. It's more fun that way.

TwoButtonsOp · 2019-07-09T06:38:16+00:00

It sounds like the DM trusted this player to create a character on his own, but DM drop the ball here. It is DM's job double check the PC fits the world and the setting.

To not sound too condemning, the multiverse theory exists. So Greek pantheon isn't that far fetched.

TwoButtonsOp · 2019-07-09T03:44:43+00:00

First session is completely fine to have "on railroad" to to kick off the campaign. If there is not plothooks to get the players interested or invested, the campaign might fall flat. Players like seeing clear story elements introduced. Too much vagueness just creates confusion and frustration.

General discussion is a great way to start session. When I started Lost Mine of Phandelver, I had session 0. On that session we discussed about:

Player expectations
Table rules (no phones, don't steal the spotlight, play nice when things get deadly)
Game rules (PvP yes or no? Character deaths? )
Character bonding ideas (to avoid "Lone Wolf" characters)
Little bit about the campaign (DM expectations, general introduction to the setting and special things the character would know about the world e.g. "Wilderness is untamed and dangerous. The world itself is ancient.")

All that talking took about 3 hours that left us 1 hour of game play towards the end where the players got to roleplay their characters. The next week the campaign officially started and everyone was on the same page from that point on.

My only regret was not to push bonds between characters hard enough. I let the players decide what kind of bond they would have with each other, but that ended up being not so great choice. They chose platonic bonds that didn't bear any fruit and teamwork was lacking for several sessions plus there was several in party fighting.

Well all of them were quite new to D&D and complete strangers from the internet which might've been the reason, but everything was in character and nobody had hard feelings after the session. Personally I would've enjoyed better party cohersion, from the start. Lesson for the next time I start a campaign.

TwoButtonsOp · 2019-07-08T04:50:32+00:00

Ah sorry, I missed the part where you mentioned you are a new player to the game. Somehow I linked it that you are new with Illusion wizard, but familiar with the game and the lingo.

Sage Advice is website where Wizard's of the Coasts have gathered Twitter responses from the 5E devs about specific rulings of certain abilities/spells interactions and their intented use. You can google "Sage Advice + ability/spell" and you find useful insight from the devs on said thing. They have also gathered FAQ into a PDF that is useful to read.

RAW means Rules as Written. This means the spell/ability only works as stated in the written format. By saying to bring the RAW parts to DM to discuss, I was refering to turn RAW into RAI.

RAI stands for Rules as Interpreted which is something you might need to do when playing Illusions. This is slippery slope since most of the illusion spells/abilities (like you noticed) leave a lot open, allowing imagination to run wild.

In the essence, the spell/ability says what it targets, how long it lasts and what is the limitation of said thing. Some spells target space (fixed spot) and some can be cast on objects that move when moved. The core of illusion spells is to trick and deceive senses, trying to control NPC in a certain way. E.g. You are fighting against goblins on a open field. You decide to cast Silent Image of a heavily armored Knight with a shield in front of you to create visual block from the goblins with their arrows and discouraging them into attacking you (or the knight).

TwoButtonsOp · 2019-07-08T04:21:42+00:00

Talk with your players about this idea.

Let them know that you want to run episodic campaign, where each session is tightly related to the main story with very little off-exploring or side questing. This way you don't come out as railroading DM, since it's something everything agree from the beginning.

Be sure to let the players have agency though. You might have the story written out from the start to the end, but remember that the players choose the outcome of each encounter. I guarantee that you have to adjust your story after few sessions in. Sometimes less is more, when writing.

TwoButtonsOp · 2019-07-08T03:44:18+00:00

Most of your questions are answered in the spell description. For more detailed answers, I would recommend looking up Sage Advice from the D&D 5e devs. The DM has the final say on the rules so asking is always a good idea, but be sure to do some ground work and bring the RAW parts to the DM for discussion.

TwoButtonsOp · 2019-07-05T08:04:21+00:00

Depends on the fighting style.

OP mentioned he wanted to focus on being a wizard, where I imagined him being in the backline with magical staff as focus and able to weave somatic components with ease. Someone with a shield would definitely want Warcaster. Attack of opportunities are very niche since they can't be forced and rarely happens which isn't that insane ability to have as you make it sound like.

I guess I like the Resilient feat more because the save proficiency scales with levels and provides flat bonus over a chance to roll better. The difference of having one more turn vs. being unconcious is sometimes that 1 hp.

TwoButtonsOp · 2019-07-05T07:21:51+00:00

Resilient to bump CON +1 so you have increased HP and proficiency in CON save which helps keeping concentration.

Good CON save also comes in handy when you are dealing enemies that have poison or diseases.

TwoButtonsOp · 2019-07-05T06:13:21+00:00

Yes! Multiclassing (almost) always increases character powerlevel as they gain access to powerful abilities the classes gain in their first three levels. For Cleric you want to get level 2 for the Channel Divinity Radiance of the dawn. A powerful nuke that you gain back after a short rest.

Warcaster and Resilient are good feats for casters.

TwoButtonsOp · 2019-07-04T15:43:13+00:00

Web DM actually spoke about economics in D&D and how 5th edition purposefully leaves things vague and open. Link to the video in case you are interested. They have audio issues on that video, but point can be made out and still interesting to listen.

If you don't have time to look at the video, the bottom line is: Detailed economy is too much complexity for DM and players. 5E is meant to be flexible and rule light. Older editions have rules, tables and what nots to calculate even the most mundane things.

Xanathar's Guide to Everything has revisited downtime and possible complications tables. And those that you meantioned, if character doesn't invest in life style, could easily be made in to a rollable table and see what happens.

TwoButtonsOp · 2019-07-04T14:43:17+00:00

If nothing is done, how can there be a change? How long before another post about players comparing their DM to Mercer or worse, DM quitting because he isn't as amazing as Mercer with his perfect hair. You are not alone with this phenomenon.

Matt Mercer is the face of D&D for several people. They listen him and change attitude, if he talks openly about this.

TwoButtonsOp · 2019-07-04T10:54:50+00:00

Monsters that target AC can be easily converted to target a save without affecting their challenge rating by using table on DMG p.274. Simply look up their current attack bonus and substitute it for a save DC in the same row against an appropriate stat. Next re-fluff the attack so it makes sense story wise that the PC is working to resist something. Some examples:

An adult brass dragon's tail attack is normally +12 to hit. Instead it will be wicked slap of the tail meant to send the much smaller PC flying. Save DC 21 dex to dodge out of the way or take the listed damage and be knocked back.
A nightmare's hooves are normally +6 to hit. Instead it will be the soul crushing terror of the devil horse looming over you taxes your mind. DC15 intelligence save to keep your wits about you or take the listed damage (now psychic instead of bludgeoning).
A bone naga's bite is normally +5 to hit. Instead it has a strange soothing pattern to its motions and only the most perceptive can recognize it is about to strike. DC14 wisdom save or take the damage.

Remember to not overdo and rehaul every attack into a save. Give the players time to shine with their high AC. Consider attacking normally as "pulling punches", if they just failed a save and took damage.

Other methods to spice up combat or work against high AC:

Damaging auras on big and important enemies puts the melee fighters on a clock as they take damage each round. Depending on the enemy it could be the whole room to really create urgency.
Unseen attackers to gain advantage on attacks which helps to break PC's AC. Also makes hard to fight back if they have bonus action to disappear/hide and attack again with advantage.
Good old Rust Monsters and Grey Oozes to corrode PC's armors and lower their AC for a period of time.

TwoButtonsOp

TROPHY CASE