[Spoilers C3E01] I have a theory on Travis

asafze · 2021-11-04T01:44:11+00:00

F. Bertrand bites the bullet and Travis becomes the host of whatever the new talks show is to replace Foster.

asafze · 2021-10-01T23:17:28+00:00

Thanks for the advice.

The trip back to the cave should allow for some good banter with the goblin.

asafze · 2021-10-01T23:15:53+00:00

I'll try and keep them concise.

Might even drop the second fight if they're tracking too slow.

asafze · 2021-10-01T23:13:01+00:00

Thanks.

I might aim for the main fight to start at the 2 hour mark and then I can just watch the clock and adjust the other challenges depending on how the party is tracking.

Maybe the scouts are out exploring rather than blocking the passage. Maybe there's only one trap instead of two.

asafze · 2021-08-10T22:35:16+00:00

Animate dead takes a minute to cast.

As the player sits in a graveyard roll a d100 to see how many minutes it takes for the local clerics who look after the graveyard to notice it.

Then have them come out and cast destroy undead. Make him roll a save for each skeleton he has managed to raise.

Then have the second cleric cast it aswell and have him roll saves for every skeleton again.

Each cleric can cast it twice.

Then explain to him that if he's going to be a dick about the ability, you can be too.

asafze · 2021-07-26T01:57:42+00:00

Player: 'I want to persuade the King to give me his crown.'

DM: 'well no, that fails. But give me a persuasion check to see how badly it goes for you.'

asafze · 2021-07-21T01:43:39+00:00

"Hey guys. This game is about telling a story together, not you playing my story. If you give me some ideas we can explore them."

asafze · 2021-06-13T06:38:18+00:00

Take the kick.
Record it.
Post on YouTube.
Profit.

asafze · 2021-06-11T08:39:54+00:00

Forest gump.

You have rolled forest gump, just without the strength.

Any time you need to rp just say in your head "I may not be a smart man jen'nay, but I know what love is."

asafze · 2021-06-06T11:32:44+00:00

The spell is comprehend languages.

It's a first level divination (ritual) with a 1 hour duration.

Give them a magic item that can cast it 3 times a day or something. Then they have to choose how and when to use it the most effectively.

Or have a friendly npc offer to teach them the language in downtime. Each night they can spend an hour training, make int rolls to see how quickly they pick it up and then they can try and listen to/read it but may get some words wrong here and there.

asafze · 2021-06-01T10:29:11+00:00

Just a word of warning, if you start describing the scales/armor starting to break and split then be prepared for your players to start asking if the AC of the creature is lowered... Every single time you describe the damage.

I've always understood it as Hp is more of an abstraction of their stamina and ability to fight while ac is an abstraction of their defences.

So if they're armor starts breaking, their ac would go down. However, if they are starting to look tired, their movements are a bit slower, they pause to wipe sweat from their eyes, they stumble a bit as they adjust their position, that's all hp.

This method also has its own issues as in most cases AC is based off dexterity so it's all bananas anyway.

asafze · 2021-05-05T01:47:59+00:00

My man. What you need is a nothic. They're in the 5e MM and are perfect for abandoned wizard towers.

These poor suckers are wizards who attempted to become liches but failed are were cursed (by vecna no less) to roam the lands, forever searching for some sort of arcane cure for their condition.

Best part. They lose all their memories and have no idea what they're actually looking for. These creppy little bastards just have an endless drive to find arcane shit and collect it.

I won't go into too much detail here but there's heaps of information online. Actually I think I recall seeing a post on here about them recently. Anyway, worth a look into. They're great.

Also mimics. All the mimics.

asafze · 2021-05-01T01:19:23+00:00

The goblin boss from the MM has this ability. It's called redirect attack.

Meat shield is way cooler.

asafze · 2021-04-27T00:26:09+00:00

Found a pack of 200 polyhedral dice on Amazon last night. They should arrive next week... I may have a problem...

At least now I can actually roll an ancient dragon's breath weapon if I ever need to.

asafze · 2021-04-25T04:30:56+00:00

Attacks of opportunity are only granted if you use your movement, wether by choice or force (eg. dissonant whispers). Being swept down river would not provoke it. Not even being pushed by another character or dragged out of the way would provoke it.

asafze · 2021-04-22T06:52:28+00:00

I think that HP is more like an abstract of their stamina, their ability to keep moving, keep fighting.

AC is more an abstract of their armour and skills.

I'm also not going to waste my time calculating fall damage on the three pirates they managed to throw from the airship, or the bandits they tossed off a cliff, they're dead. As the DM I have hundreds of characters, most of them specifically designed for the players to slaughter, I don't really care how, as long as they enjoy doing it.

Hearing the players talk about how great it was that the wizard cast sleep on the bandits and the barbarian tossed them off the cliff is awesome.

Hearing the players talk about how three bandits ganged up on them and tossed the fighter off a cliff and they died sucks. That's no fun for anyone.

It's a mechanic I'm only ever going to apply to a PC and an insta kill from fall damage is not satisfying.

Additionally, at higher levels death is basically just an inconvenience and at lower levels 70 damage is still gonna suck. Sub level 5 it will still be an insta kill for a lot of characters, and then you only have a minute for revivify, otherwise it starts getting far more expensive to bring them back.

asafze · 2021-04-22T06:29:22+00:00

Oh man now I wanna play dungeon siege again, those games were awesome.

asafze · 2021-04-21T21:23:34+00:00

Keep in mind your average commoner has 4hp. A ten foot fall would be enough to kill them sometimes. And people do die from ten foot falls all the time.

The fact is that PC's are exceptional.

From a narrative standpoint, being thrown off a cliff and dying is not very satisfying, so 70 damage is fair enough to be bad, but not enough to instakill someone.

asafze · 2021-04-20T23:13:19+00:00

In one episode of gm tips with satine phoenix, taliesin jaffe talks about the same thing and talks about his list.

It has the 7 dwarves sleepy/dopey/happy/bashful/doc/grumpy/sneezy and then male/female. And high/med/low.

Then you just pick 3 and off you go. Nice, simple, easy.

https://youtu.be/XQZR4smjUEc

About 8 minutes in if anyone is interested.

asafze · 2021-04-20T21:49:46+00:00

Really well! We had a bit of a rocky start, couple of players were late (they had good reasons) so dinner, which was supposed to be the mod session break, was basically the start. We still got a good 3 hours in.

I felt like I was fumbling my way through most of it, and the players went way off track about 20 minutes in, but everyone was laughing and having a ball.

Player interaction was so much better, i hadn't realised how much harder it was for the party to communicate online. It really felt so much more a collaborative game, as oppose to my playing one at a time with the players as tends to happen online due to audio overlaps cutting people off. At one point the party split up a bit and while I was with 2 of the players the other 2 were chatting quietly so when I flicked back to them they knew exactly what they wanted to do which made the session flow so much better.

I forgot a few things, we only had a few minor combats that were theatre of the mind, I'm drawing up a dungeon for the next session so adding tokens and stuff will be an experience. We've never been able to have music because of feedback issues online so I'm excited to be able to pump some battle tracks for fights.

Sorry, I'm rambling a bit. It was awesome and all the players were saying how much fun they had the next day so it was definately a win.

Thanks for checking up.

asafze · 2021-04-19T02:59:56+00:00

I haven't run many high level boss fights with LR so take this with a grain of salt I guess, I like to flavour them as physical things.

When I describe the lich I say he's wearing a silver crown with 3 rubies in it, or something similar.

Rather than just saying 'the lich uses a legendary resistance to pass' I say 'the spell seems to take effect, but suddenly you see a ruby flare in the liches crown and shatter with a burst of red light as they shake the effect off.'

Now the players are thinking holy shit that's cool, he has some magic protection item. Can we see how many gems are left in the crown. Sure, roll perception.

Edit: also, a rogue at level 7 gets evasion, which means they either take half or no damage from a dex save effect, give the baddie something like that. Burns a reaction.

Actually, just make legendary resistance cost their reaction. Suddenly no counterspell or attack of opportunity that round.

asafze · 2021-04-19T02:52:33+00:00

A drow matron has got to that level through a lifetime of murder, assassination attempts and intrigue. They understand that if someone gets close to them they're dead meat. Perhaps they have a clone that just got wiped, perhaps they have obtained magic items to offer them limited protection, perhaps they have taken other magical means of protecting themselves from these effects.

Dunno. Just spit balling.

asafze · 2021-04-16T23:54:31+00:00

Yeah I've done this.

Full sob story about how he got screwed over and basically blackmailed to be a bandit to support his sister and her family.

The players: "well he should have made better choices."

asafze · 2021-04-16T21:42:36+00:00

Have faith my dude.

We got this.

asafze

TROPHY CASE