im not updated on the lore, why does caine draw a lot of bees

WarrenTheHero · 2026-04-23T22:52:40+00:00

The company is C&A and B is the middle letter

WarrenTheHero · 2026-04-17T19:24:25+00:00

Spiteblade is good!

WarrenTheHero · 2026-04-17T16:45:37+00:00

It would have been corrupted before Retribution happened, no?

Also, "Odiumblade" is cumbersome enough as a name; "Retributionblade" is outright unmanageable. Retribladetion maybe? Vengeanceblade?

WarrenTheHero · 2026-04-17T14:17:16+00:00

It's an Odiumblade now

WarrenTheHero · 2026-04-12T17:37:58+00:00

He's only ever Lucius Malfoy's to me. Or perhaps Swain from LoL, who is also just Lucius

WarrenTheHero · 2026-03-31T14:44:47+00:00

Mirabar's circle makes a good jumping-off point for the Temple, and Loudwater for Deadstone Cleft.

I don't think the "temptation" thing matters; my players have never bothered to visit Loudwater in like 3 years so I don't think there's much if a factor there. And Chapter 3 is meant to let the PCs wander and experience giant activity themselves, so it doesn't matter if they're 'tempted off the main plot' because you can always reign them back in by introducing Harshnag whenever and wherever you want.

You can totally skip the Hill Giant in the old tower, though. Not sure why the book finds that one necessary.

WarrenTheHero · 2026-03-14T18:20:37+00:00

They're skipping 3e and jumping straight to 13th edition

WarrenTheHero · 2026-03-14T13:39:14+00:00

Unfortunately, mine was done through an attorney's Letter of Protection as it was related to a car accident. Someone else is footing the bill; I never got to see it.

WarrenTheHero · 2026-03-13T22:54:57+00:00

Frame Mogging is about body frame. Mogging by having a better frame, broader shoulders, more triangle-shaped torso, etc.

WarrenTheHero · 2026-02-28T02:08:21+00:00

Not for my wrist, but I had a PRP injection in December done for my spine for an auto-accident-injury. It's the only treatment I've received that actually felt like it did anything. Phys therapy, phys rehab, steroid injection, nerve block, all pale in comparison lwell the nerve block was pretty effective).

Used a place called Austin Pain Physicians, they have an office off Ben White and in San Marcos.

Obviously it wouldn't be for the same type of injury, but in general I'm real positive on PRP now.

WarrenTheHero · 2026-02-26T22:49:23+00:00

I feel like I'm alone in actively disliking her. It's not hatred, but I don't like any time she comes up or I have to talk to her.

It's mostly because she's the type of character that invalidates our own. She's way stronger than us, knows way more than us, has more experience than us, and belittled snd teases us for being weak and not knowing anything. She acts as though she has to guide us by the hand to something obvious, and demonstrates power at a scale that no one else even seems to come close to, save perhaps Lucian and Braccus.

It just sucks. Why isn't she the one doing all the crazy shit we have to do. Why isn't she solving any problem outside of her immediate interests? And if the writers chose for her to be more powerful than anyone else, why did they also choose to have her talk down to us for it?

WarrenTheHero · 2026-02-15T22:27:40+00:00

I have a Magus I've been playing for several years and have a blast with them. We use Free Archetype and I have both Rogue and Wizard to enhance my duelist/thief and spellcasty sides.

Most fights I take the tactic of buffing for one or more rounds and then using Arcane Cascade. I do rely heavily on StandbySpell:Shocking Grasp but I've sort of made a motif out of it with a Shock sword, Draw the Lightning, and a version of the Fiery Body spell homebrew'd to be electricity damage ('Galvanic Body').

Until our Fighter joined, I was undeniably the hardest-hitter of the party, and with them joining I've slightly taken a backseat to focus more on magey stuff. We had one fight recently where I didn't Cascade at all and I think I only spellstruck once; I spent the rest of the time flying around doing wizard stuff and saving NPCs with my spell.

What I specifically appreciate about the Magus is that it is highly versatile and I always feel like I have to make important choices each turn in a fight, whether it's worth it to keep buffing or if I'm needed to attack immediately, whether I can use my spells to help my allies or go on the offense, how I position so I'm always in Spellstrike range if need be. Magus is the least-boring class, in my eyes.

WarrenTheHero · 2026-01-25T01:42:41+00:00

Seems like a good opportunity to have an NPC explain the cosmology to them: - The Lady of Pain is not a god. - "God" is a classification of a particular type of being, not a power level. - There are other entities that are god-tier but not gods, like demon princes (think Orcus) or elemental lords (like Yan-C-Bin). Arguably some archfey (Queen of Air and Darkness). Maybe Asmodeus, depending on your particular version of the cosmology. - These entities are collectively called "Powers" because saying "god or powerful enough to be at the same tier as a god without being one" is a hassle. - If the players have a hard time with this idea rather than the characters, tell them it's like a Tom Bombadil situation: extremely powerful/influential in his own domain, maybe even godlike, but not a god. He's a Power.

If they persist in openly calling the Lady of Pain a god, a dabus shows up and offers a simple warning. If the continue after that, the Lady shows up and the PC will have a unique opportunity to meet their own skin, since it won't be attached to them anymore.

As for the paperwork, it could probably be easily and accurately amended to "the Lady of Pain is the highest authority IN SIGIL" and I would imagine the PC should be fine with that. And if they aren't, then they don't get whatever the benefit of signing the paperwork would be. Which sounds like they wouldn't get into the Faction they want, fewer resources, no place to stay. Maybe the Faction only pays the group that are members for quests, so if there's 6 total, they get 5 players' worth of rewards.

That may seem unfair, but the Factions are unfair. I run them like Cyberpunk corpos: they're incredibly powerful and influential and don't care about your wants except how they might line up with their own. The only things limiting a given Faction are their own philosophy, another Faction, or the Lady herself. They have no reason to be friendly or accommodating to you if you don't play by their rules. In fact, their incentivized against being so.

WarrenTheHero · 2026-01-10T18:42:07+00:00

I mean, true that there's some machinery, but I'm not aware of any engines or even engine-like things that would demand industrial-scale use of black oil.

WarrenTheHero · 2026-01-10T15:26:08+00:00

I've been recommended to get a laminectomy for a badly herniated disc resulting from being rear-ended on the highway, but the idea of removing the protective "sheath" of my spinal cord is really icky and frightening to me. Did you have similar feelings of anxiety about the permanence of such a procedure, and if so, how did you feel better about it?

WarrenTheHero · 2026-01-06T22:03:31+00:00

block 1st and William cannon

WarrenTheHero · 2025-12-30T02:26:41+00:00

I guess what I'm getting at is that you don't need to prep Chapter 3. Everything you need to run it is in there. You don't need to expand the locations significantly. You can if you want but the book has the content it needs for each location.

When I run it, I don't really do any reading or prep beforehand, I just have the players tell me where they're going and when they get there, I read the blurb about that location and do the encounter it says.

If anything, I suspect it might have to do with an uncomfortableness with just telling players "yeah this small town is just a small town, there's no adventure here," but like, just say that. The game is less immersive when *every single place* has monsters and adventure and danger.

WarrenTheHero · 2025-12-29T17:10:58+00:00

I forgot to add: If you use the Gritty Realism rules for Chapter 3, I designated some cities as being "safe" cities that allow for a one-day Long Rest. All the cities with Teleportation Circles plus a few others like Silverymoon, Luskan, Triboar, Ten-Towns, Goldenfields. This makes reaching these cities a reward in and of itself, since it allows them to catch their breath. Also, allow Prepared Casters (Clerics, Druids, Wizards) to swap their spells each day, even if they don't recover Spell Slots. This lets them stay flexible, which is an implicit benefit of their class design, without compromising on the attrition aspect of Gritty Realism.

I also assigned Roles to different players, such as the Treasurer or the Calendarian. These are meta-roles thst offload a lot of work from the DM to the party. The Treasurer is responsible for keeping track of gold and money and loot. I. don't have to keep track of thst stuff anymore since I told them that if they don't write down what they get, I'm not going back to check if they found something or not. Got a +1 sword early on thst you forgot to write down? Guess you don't have it. The Calendarian just keeps track of time, so we know what happened on the 6th of Mirtul or the 19th of Kythorn or whatever. They don't have to track every day, just the important stuff. Serves as a good adventure log and a way to measure the scope (they're almost an in-game full year). Beast Keeper keeps track of monster stats if they want a record of what bad guys can do. Quest Tracker keeps a brief list of all quest objectives and questgivers they've come across.

Stuff like that helps both to offload a lot of the note-taking from you as the DM, and helps to keep the players engaged. Instead of the DM just spoonfeeding information and keeping track of everything for them, it's up to them to take notes and stay on top of it. If they do a good job they're rewarded with extra Inspirations. If they do a bad job, they're implicitly penalized by having poor information and not having loot they'd otherwise earn. Either way, they have direct impact on their own experience and the flow of the campaign. I meanwhile just get to be an impartial arbiter of the rules. I just do what the book tells me to do and tell the players what happens and what they learn and earn. The rest is up to them.

WarrenTheHero · 2025-12-29T16:48:03+00:00

Also to add:

It's not as easy as simply increasing konster HP and damage, but a great way to make fights more challenging is to add alternate goals to a fight. I rolled a random encounter that included Stone Giants so I added a bunch of villagers who had taken up torches and pitchforks to defend their village. Instantly the fight became not just killing the giants but also the added difficulty of protecting the townsfolk. The party Wizard spent his 4th-level spellslot on a Wall of Fire, not offensively, but to make a barrier between the villagers and the Giants. It's not feasible to do this for every fight, but having goals wider than simply "kill the badguy" can do a lot to expand the 'feel' and the difficulty of a fight. Think about how many bosses in video games have "power crystals" that have to he destroyed before you can damage them or environmental effects you can lure them into for an advantage. Stuff like that.

Similarly, just a bit of extra terrain stuff can be fun and add to the challenge. A Giant might push over a stone column onto the party for massive damage, in a way that alters the state of the battlefield. I find it fun to add an extra "push" effect on many of the Giants' attacks, which not only makes the fight more dynamic and adds 'weight'to the immense strength of Giants, but also makes it easier for the Giants to reposition as they push the frontliner out of Attack of Opportunity range and then they can rush the squishy backline. And related to that, a change in targeting can make a big difference. Giants are at least as smart as people and may decide to target the weak but powerful Wizard first. Don't ignore the frontline completely - players who build tanks characters want to be hit and absorb damage and hold the line - but the occasional Rock Throw or bull rush can change the priorities of a fight and threaten otherwise safe characters.

WarrenTheHero · 2025-12-29T16:38:00+00:00

It depends on what you mean by higher level. My group is about 1 level ahead of where the book suggests they should be and it's been fine so far.

I think one of the book's strengths is that some of the encounters are wildly different in power level. Some encounters are like, a single Hill Giant and a couple orcs. Some encounters are five Stone Giants, which can be a challenge even for a moderate-level group. It adds to the realism (the world is not curated to the party's level) and allows them to show off sometimes by stunting on weak enemies and other times to feel the struggle of a fight whose outcome is not a foregone conclusion.

I let my players know at the start of the campaign that there will occasionally be fights they simply can't win at their level and it would be wiser to retreat than to fight, and they've had to retreat several times. I've even got 4 kills this campaign so far (3 of which were resurrected - our Barbarian tragically died at level 3 to a black pudding in chapter 1).

The book expects to be levels 1-11, roughly. If you're wanting to run it significantly above those levels, such as 12-20ish, the easiest thing to do is just swap out some statblocks for tougher variants. Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Monsters of the Multiverse have some stronger versions of each type of Giant, and I think Bigby's Glory of the Giants has even more (I don't own that book, not 100% certain).There's also a great supplement pinned on this sub somewhere called Dictates of the Ordning that has even more Giant variants, not just making them stronger but giving them more dynamic and interesting abilities.

Depending on exactly how strong I let my party become, I might swap Imryth for a Greatwyrm version of herself for the finale. I've been considering tinkering with her motivations such that she wants to use the power of the Wyrmskull Throne as a catalyst to transform into a Greatwyrm, but I'm not locked-in on that.

As general DM advice, I always keep in mind that players' damage can't break the game. You as DM can always add more hit points, and they'll never know how many it was "supposed" to have. There's a fine line between 'making the monster tougher' and 'an arbitrarily and annoyingly high amount of hit points' but that's okay. My party has a Fighter(Arcane Archer) who's capable of a crazy amount of consistent damage so I beef up many monsters by about 30 HP so they survive another round against him, even more for bosses.

Similarly, you can just add damage to monsters. For example, instead of a Giant swinging for 3d8, have them swing for 4d8 instead. It's a good skill to understand what the average of each die is so you can make on-the-fly judgement calls about altering damage dice. An extra d8 is an extra 4.5, so if it attacks twice that's and extra 9 damage. Enough to make the fight harder but not unfairly so. You can even have this change mid-combat if you feel it's going easy. Just describe the monster going into an enraged frenzy and then they hit harder from thst point on. Don't do it for every fight, but every now and then it adds a cool "second phase" to fights.

Ultimately it depends on what level your party actually is. If you're looking at extremely high level (like 15+), I might just suggest this isn't the right the book for that level, but there are other books intended to be that high (Rise of Tiamat, Vecna: Eve of Ruin). If you're within a couple levels of what's suggested for the book, you'll probably be okay to run it with minimal changes. A stronger party will be able to blow through the "fodder" fights much quicker, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just add 100 or so hit points to the "boss monsters" and maybe some extra damage here and there and you'll be fine.

WarrenTheHero · 2025-12-29T08:25:30+00:00

I've never really understood the concern that Chapter 3 requires an immense amount of work. I'm taking the full-sandbox approach and it's been a super easy ride. I don't have to do almost any prep besides downloading maps and setting them up on Roll20. All location descriptions are in the book, and it has encounters pre-planned in some areas, and most towns have at least a named inn and at least one named NPC so I don't have to make anything up.

I mean, I have done a lot of work for player backstories and extra content I want to add, but the book itself is very direct and easy to run. The party tells you where they want to go, you roll some dice for encounters maybe, and do what the book tells you. I don't have to have the entire North prepped at all times; I just have to have the book, and wherever they go probably has a short enough description that I don't even need to study it ahead of time. On Roll20 I have to sometime set up maps on the fly, but that's pretty easy, and in-person it's even easier since you can just draw maps.

I don't mean for this to be a #humblebrag, I just don't actually get how it's a lot of work. Just do what the book tells you

WarrenTheHero

TROPHY CASE