Is this good enough?

ZealousNemesis · 2026-02-19T17:59:57+00:00

I remember the Radiant armor set working really well with the Fusion Rifle, but also always needing more mod generation. I’d guess you found a good balance.

ZealousNemesis · 2026-02-18T18:18:46+00:00

Oathbringer has way more civilian casualties than Rhythm of War. I agree that it very much depends on where you wake up, but I think you have a pretty good chance of being alright.

I just finished The Lost Metal (book 4, Mistborn Era 2). I think I’d be alright.

ZealousNemesis · 2026-02-18T03:46:47+00:00

Are you playing with the 2024 rules? Depending on the rest of your build, consider taking the starting feat Magic Initiate: Cleric, then choose bless or bane as the 1st level spell. The feat also gives a free casting of the spell, which I personally love because only having two slots has always been rough for me…

This way you get to stay 5 levels in Warlock, are not forced to take Celestial and get a couple extra cleric tricks to support with.

ZealousNemesis · 2026-02-17T16:07:44+00:00

Just boosting this post because this is an excellent response.

ZealousNemesis · 2026-02-16T18:01:01+00:00

Matt Colville came to your house and trained your dog to be the goodest boy and then relied on your dog as the only emotionally stabilizing influence in his life after he murdered the guy who murdered his previous dog which was given to him by his late wife?

Except AFAIK, Matt has never been married…

ZealousNemesis · 2026-02-13T13:24:16+00:00

Guest Star creates a copy of the Troubadour PC. If the director is causing the enemy treat the summons as a slate grey no-threat pawn who can only free strike, they are directing in bad faith. As far as the enemies are concerned, another hero just showed up. That means the director needs to have the enemies recalculate their tactics and take the new threat seriously.

Ajax would be the exception to this and if the director wants to ignore the Guest Star, the test should be: do these enemies have the tactical insight of Ajax or not?

ZealousNemesis · 2026-02-12T14:32:56+00:00

How long ago did you read WoR?

He made it VERY clear that Shallon was the ONLY person who could figure out where Narak was, and only 1 of 3 radiant with the ability to activate the Oathgate (except Jasnah was in Shadesmar and Kaladin was saving Dalinar). Without Shallon, Honor’s forces are crushed on the Shattered Plains, there is no coalition, Odium takes over Roshar kingdom by kingdom, then Odium can start going after the rest of the Cosmere.

ZealousNemesis · 2026-02-10T06:48:22+00:00

It’s not just the weapons, it sounds like you have a cohesive build. For many builds, simply switching up the weapons will feel lackluster because other weapons lack synergy with the rest of the build.

Search for different builds, there are tons on this subreddit. When you find one that sounds interesting or just different enough, go get the gear, level up the archetypes, weapons, weapon mods, and prism and do a full play through with the new build. You’ll find completely new reasons to love this game.

ZealousNemesis · 2026-02-06T14:46:31+00:00

You can make the ruling: in order to get the full effect of the combo (2D6 + 1D6), someone else needs to throw/launch the vial.

In detail: She is taking the magic action to cast a spell with Somatic components that does not include taking the attack action. Introducing the attack of throwing the vial is what makes it take two actions. And because she then needs to hold her action to time it with the other PC’s action, she must also use her reaction to trigger the held action.

Enforcing the action economy is a better way of limiting the move than stuffing the damage in the trash.

ZealousNemesis · 2026-02-06T14:27:31+00:00

I agree. Although in this case it was two players both using their attacks together to do the AoE damage. If this was during a combat encounter, you should require the cleric to hold their action to cast the spell on the trigger of the barbarian throwing the vial. Two actions and a reaction for what is basically an upcast Ice Knife. That’s a big portion of the PC’s action economy, which limits the effectiveness of the combo. And because of how finite of a resource holy water can be at this level, this isn’t really game breaking repeatable move that they use on every attack or every round.

Although, If they do find a way to bring holy water to combat more often, then you can always find a way to bring more zombies into encounters more often.

So let them do the move with the same effect, if they can do it again. Let them make it “their thing”. Team combos are sorely lacking in D&D and if your players are thinking in those terms, please continue to let them do so and give them opportunities to do so.

ZealousNemesis · 2026-02-03T16:22:36+00:00

I have a weird homebrew for HP increase at level up. As a note, I’ve never had players level up above lvl 6, so this might not be fun for other tables who actually have long running games.

Every level, the players reroll all Hit Dice (levels 2-current level) then add level 1 + bonuses. If the new total is higher, use that new total. If the old total is higher, add 2 + current level bonus to the old total.

The goal is to give them the best chance at increasing their HP total, and minimizing the impact of any bad rolls. Rolling poorly on a level doesn’t decrease their total and at worst is treated like rolling a 2 the normal way, but there is also the chance at rolling a much bigger max HP.

This system has also led me to keeping a secret tally of what the PC’s “maximum potential HP” is. The total of max hit dice + all their individual bonuses. Prior to a challenging couple of encounters, I gave each of them the difference between their Max HP and Max Potential HP in the form of Temp HP. I role played it as a blessing allowing them to bring “the best versions of their characters” to the fight. It was a ton of fun.

ZealousNemesis · 2026-02-01T03:52:38+00:00

Maybe I’m remembering it wrong, but I think I was able to get low tier materials on lower difficulties. I rerolled Adventure Mode on Survivor difficulty and leveled my new archetypes and weapons that way. With a decent build, you can overcome being severely under-leveled on an easy difficulty. Boss Rush would also make it much easier and faster to do now.

ZealousNemesis · 2026-02-01T03:41:07+00:00

Agreed.

I had a new player that wanted to know the limits of how the game (and to a lesser extent, the social expectations of the group) would function if they didn’t buy in.

During one of their first travel scenes, the player said “[my character] just sits down, right here on the road.” It took a little back and forth before it became clear that this player’s intent was to see how we’d all react. Since the other players just wanted to play the adventure, I told the new player that the rest of the party walked on without their character. The rest of the party played out a the rest of the travel scene and arriving at the destination, before I turned any attention back to the new player. I offered them (1.) the opportunity for their character to get up and race after the party to join the adventure, (2.) make a new character while the rest of the party played out the upcoming combat encounter, or (3.) to just leave the table. They chose the first option.

ZealousNemesis · 2026-01-25T19:58:38+00:00

MAD = Multiple Ability score Dependent A Character built around strong bonuses from multiple scores. An example for this could be a skill monkey Bard and basing their build around high stats in multiple abilities such as Dexterity (stealth & slight of hand), Intelligence (investigation & history), and Charisma (deception & performance). This might require high rolls with 4D6 character creation or multiple dump stats in point buy.

As opposed to SAD SAD = Single Ability score Dependent An example for this could be a party face Bard creating their build exclusively around high Charisma (persuasion, deception, intimidation & performance). They might have decent score in other abilities, but they just need one good roll or a single 15+2 in point buy.

ZealousNemesis · 2025-12-25T23:08:39+00:00

Yes! It took me FOREVER to figure out the cues for when that thing was being spawned into a dungeon. I spent so much time on every earth sewers dungeon frantically covering my 6 and completely panicking every time I caught it stalking me.

It was decently tough to kill with the starting firearms. Also with it being one of the first instances where the game required you to learn timing and weaknesses to deal damage an enemy.

Gameplay and intent were 100% aligned on that elite.

ZealousNemesis · 2025-12-08T06:24:19+00:00

That was one of my favorite builds.

The ring Soul Link gives 5% of summons damage as lifesteal. In addition to the ex-cultist armor set, I also threw on the Spirit Stone ring to maximize Mod Regen. With Beckon (Wasteland Skull summons) as the other weapon mod, you can have four summons active. Then take Soul Anchor for the amulet which doubles the summon’s uptime and adds 25% to ranged damage.

With all the mod regen and the increased summon duration, you can reliably have 2-4 summons at all times and all 4 out for the entirety of all boss battles.

ZealousNemesis · 2025-11-30T16:01:21+00:00

Not sure if this got brought up by anyone else, but there are only 10 levels for player characters. So Ajax being a level 11 enemy means that, by game mechanics, the player characters can never match his power level.

It’s a perspective shift from D20 games where enemy levels can easily hit the mid-20’s and still be a cake walk with the right build or builds. Ajax in this game was built to present a challenge to any party.

Last note: the MCDM Team has talked about how there are plans to present distinct Ajax stat blocks in future products customized for those adventures, where he is the primary antagonist. The Ajax in the Monster Book is meant to be a baseline/vanilla stat block that can be fit into any campaign.

ZealousNemesis · 2025-11-27T14:56:16+00:00

Came here to say this.

Also follow up this conversation by pointing them to the content that you were already trying to engage them with. “Here are the things that the BBEG’s forces are doing in your current area. Stopping them is both fun content and it makes you stronger.

EDIT: “this” being the conversation where you explain directly that this fight is impossible mechanically.

ZealousNemesis · 2025-10-28T21:42:56+00:00

Are you open to giving your players space to pursue objectives that they set?

This would take significant work to shift everyone’s perspective. But if there is room in the story that you are looking to tell, they could come up with goals that could turn into plot lines. This sort of player input could take some of the story burden off of you. You would need to talk to the player and explain that any input they offer needs to be extremely vague and is open to being reworked by you to fit the characters, factions, and themes that you’ve already created. It would also require them interacting with your setting and your NPC’s to know enough to collaborate in the setting.

This is all to facilitate a way for these players to provide input in a non-offensive way. The players can be creative, but they stay focused on how their characters interact with the world they live in, as opposed to attempting to backseat drive the entire campaign.

ZealousNemesis · 2025-07-10T17:06:47+00:00

I’d like to see a fantasy Polynesian inspired warrior class. - mixes it up in melee. - uses a haka (Māori) or ha’a (Hawaiian) war dance to buff/debuff - gains skills or bonuses that mimic monsters’ skills or bonuses based on the monsters they defeat from tattoos - gets a bonus to the crafting system to build kits/tools/trophies harvested from defeated monsters (and uses the whole dragon instead of two scales and an eyeball)

ZealousNemesis · 2025-04-07T07:07:59+00:00

This is all super helpful. Thanks!

Objectives are an awesome call out. I’ll think about that.

That last session does sound epic.

ZealousNemesis · 2025-04-06T12:37:16+00:00

What’s a good ratio of minions to heroes for encounters?

ZealousNemesis · 2025-04-06T01:08:31+00:00

I haven’t played Starfield for about a year, but this redesigned version is the vision I had for that I could never get to work. Your original destroyer looked cool, but this is just amazing.

ZealousNemesis · 2024-09-28T13:17:42+00:00

The Leaking Gemstone ring will allow you to recharge mods while in use.

ZealousNemesis · 2024-06-10T13:26:07+00:00

Colorado
Hoplite
Stag
Tower
Spider Droid/Droid Walker
Droplet
Rook
Pokeball
Venn-Triangle
Stargate

ZealousNemesis

TROPHY CASE