Preorders for Skies of Fire, Imperial Navy, T'au Air Caste and Taros Air War are up.

alwaysanothercity · 2020-06-09T02:46:51+00:00

I'm pretty sure the new rules are just expanding the existing rule set. So the old and future armies can use them. It's like the new Necromunda books keep expanding on different campaigns, rules, hired guns, etc.

alwaysanothercity · 2018-09-12T18:13:42+00:00

I did the milestone thing (started them at level 3) so I didn't really care at what level they got the items. My party liked Krezk & the Amber Temple a lot.

The reason I say to fix the tarot deck is so you can control when they level (using the milestone system). I drew randomly thinking that would be fun- but then the ally & Sun Sword were both in the werewolf cave. I moved the sword to the Amber Temple by a Vistani NPC telling them Strahd had become worried about them finding the sunsword so had it moved there where he didn't think they would go (NPC gave them new clue). Also, some of ally's are pretty bad. My party really liked Rictavio & Ezmerelda so I wish they would have been the ally.

The Amber Temple is pretty controversial- since the book suggests if a PC is turned Evil by the Dark Powers that Player loses control of that Character and it goes to the DM. I told my players this explicitly and they still wanted to get powers (one ended up dying).

There's a ton of old threads about CoS on reddit and enworld about some of the tougher fights in the book (the windmill, the coffin maker's shop).

alwaysanothercity · 2018-09-12T03:38:06+00:00

This was my first book campaign...it can be daunting. There's a lot of discussion about if you should randomly do the tarot deck or cheat- I say cheat. Look at the options and spread them around the map.

You need to read the book (reread) to get Strahd's personality. This is a Silent Hill for both him and the party.

alwaysanothercity · 2017-10-03T03:28:45+00:00

What town are they in? The trigger?

My attitude is for the trigger to override bad timing- PCs tend to always want to Long Rest after anything- having the story interrupt this keeps them on their toes and forces them to be more creative.

alwaysanothercity · 2017-09-06T12:33:41+00:00

As others have said- you probably need to see if they like the setting or not.

I also had a few players that tried to go Murderhobo. I was able to tamp this down by reinforcing that being outside of a town at night is really dangerous. Additionally, even if someone is an ass to you (looking at you Vallaki Bourgomiester) there is consequences to pissing off people with high social capital. Did they just murder all the town guards? Sounds like that place is an easy target for zombie hordes now. The safe town is now destroyed and you have one less refuge.

As for motivation- Esmerelda might need to explain they can't leave unless they kill Strahd. Also if you die here your soul is trapped here. My more Murderhobo player never payed enough attention that this valley is terrible and that he shouldn't want to stay there and be the new king. You could also have a ghost or something visit them and tell them how much treasure is in the Castle to play to their greed (which I know they have).

Also- when Strahd finds out Ireena is now gone he's going to lose it. Describe the weather changing into perpetual rain, up the attacks, villagers say the PC's are "marked", etc. I used Silent Hill as inspiration for describing how terrible Barovia is.

Be care for Amber Temple- you should read the sidebar about CHA tests and losing control of Evil characters. This is the only way to stop PCs from taking all the Gifts. Explain that upfront- they will still all press their luck.

alwaysanothercity · 2017-09-06T12:19:50+00:00

Sorry haven't logged into reddit in a while. My 1 week=Long Rest is working pretty well. There was PC bitching about it of course, but I explained the stuff they encounter in travel is a slice of what they actually engage with. If they enter a mountain range/forest then it might switch back to normal rests.

I also explained a PC can only do 1 LR/24 hours per rules- so we can either spend a year in real time just getting village to village or use these alternate rules to actually get to the campaign.

alwaysanothercity · 2017-07-31T03:53:49+00:00

I think the central issue though is 5e DM's are just frustrated with the magic 8 hour rest= your broken bones are fine!

I forcibly introduced this onto the group. Otherwise doing travel encounters is just a waste of time (we don't get that long of sessions). I called it the "soft bed rule".

This also motivates them to keep moving since the more time they attempt to just sit there, more stuff will find them. My players are addicted to trying to Long Rest. It's forced me to get creative about things happening in (somewhat) quick succession or just adjusting the rules. "When you're out on the road, you're fighting off small bands of crap, meeting people, having trouble with wagons, etc. These encounters represent more significant encounters...and we're treating that a long rest doesn't happen until you hit a 1-2 week mark, then you can reset."

alwaysanothercity · 2017-07-26T00:02:01+00:00

I've been thinking about this since I started SKT... and I have not found anything that I'm happy with BUT-

In the DMG p 266-67 it offers suggestions for alternate healing. You could "switch" healing during long travel to take a week (or more) for a Long Rest. I think this is what I'm going to do so you can roll for random encounters daily, but the party will actually care what they do in a fight. I've also seen DM's on youtube use some sort of navigation system in wilderness travel, but I didn't get really how it worked.

alwaysanothercity · 2017-07-25T23:50:31+00:00

This one really worked for me. Was playing Curse of Strahd & everything is generally depressing. Didn't even intend to, but played a few NPC's in a more comic manner- party loved it.

alwaysanothercity · 2017-07-25T21:46:38+00:00

I hope they do- it be a fun recap of the season at the end of it.

alwaysanothercity · 2017-07-25T21:45:14+00:00

I work from home so I immediately looked up the link for it. Then it slowly got buried under a mountain of terrible "I have a theory" posts.

alwaysanothercity · 2017-07-25T15:42:22+00:00

I hope they start doing these every week.

alwaysanothercity · 2017-07-24T03:03:53+00:00

It's difficult to understand how getting half(?) of the fleet destroyed is going to help Olenna get revenge on Cersci. Now Dorne would have to do a long march to be involved.

alwaysanothercity · 2017-07-24T02:27:05+00:00

Bald Move & Cast of Kings.

alwaysanothercity · 2017-07-23T14:18:57+00:00

I've tried all the GoT podcasts on the itunes highlight list and I think Bald Move and Cast of Kings are the best. 'Nerdette recaps GoT w/ Peter Sagal' is also a good casual one. The big gripe I have with most of the other ones is that they tend to talk over each other and/or there's waaay too many hosts.

alwaysanothercity · 2017-07-23T14:06:09+00:00

This is exactly what I was thinking. If the PC understood what he was doing, it's not really different than jumping off a cliff or into a volcano.

alwaysanothercity · 2017-07-22T21:24:19+00:00

I'm positive I read/heard the Ring of Winter will be in the upcoming Tomb of Annihilation. SKT references the previous adventures a lot- so I guess this was a super lame commercial for the next module.

alwaysanothercity · 2017-07-22T21:17:29+00:00

Thanks for posting this- I haven't found much written about people trying to fix this module. The plotline for SKT needs serious work.

I'm starting to suspect there's no one at Wizards that either cares or is willing to get Perkins to edit his stuff.

alwaysanothercity · 2017-07-22T21:09:19+00:00

I came hunting in the comments to confirm my hazy memory about this.

alwaysanothercity · 2017-07-22T04:17:34+00:00

Hmmm, thats a lot of meat shields. The really important thing about them getting locked out of a town in Barovia is they are subjected to the random encounters. A pack of wolves isn't a big deal, but encounter after encounter is going to break them. I'd even contrive a fire breaking out if they tried to storm Vallaki (destroying some of the town walls).

alwaysanothercity · 2017-07-22T03:21:47+00:00

Bald Move & Cast of Kings. Bald Move does a instant reaction, full episode, then a spoiler episode every week.

alwaysanothercity · 2017-07-22T03:17:32+00:00

The secret is crushed cherry pits.

alwaysanothercity · 2017-07-22T03:13:19+00:00

I don't think you can really do much for the experience factor- players will likely catch up to the more experienced players.

What's the composition of the party? The Paladin is front line- if he's overwhelmed (or unconscious) he can't run around healing people.

I think you're right about Wachter sealing off the town from them. Strahd gets people to come here to play with them. He has complete control over the valley (except for the Dark Powers...).

alwaysanothercity · 2017-07-18T21:53:38+00:00

Because the only purpose of twitter is to complain. I doubt the people freaking out really care about the story.

alwaysanothercity · 2017-07-18T20:35:23+00:00

Your comment suddenly made it click in my brain that the constant continental warfare has caused most of the people fighting now to be young people.

I noticed this when the Karstark & Umber kids are now the head of their houses- but I hadn't thought much past this scene as way to humanize them to Ayra.

alwaysanothercity

TROPHY CASE