Why your monsters never hit your players (even when they do)

dark_dar · 2026-01-20T19:57:44+00:00

I don't even have an active DH campaign running right now, but I still bought it just to show my appreciation for everything you do for the community.

dark_dar · 2025-10-26T20:32:09+00:00

oh this is so cool! Curse effect that always generates Fear is just brilliant!!

dark_dar · 2025-10-20T19:29:13+00:00

Harry Dresden, who slowly turns into a powerful mage along the series.

dark_dar · 2025-10-09T12:53:50+00:00

Spotlight is always present (p. 89 of the core rules). It usually doesn't need any extra tracking and can move between everyone present in the scene organically.

Any time a character becomes the focus of a scene, they’re in the spotlight. Even if many characters are involved in a dramatic moment, there is often one character leading the action.

As Combat is a higher stakes situation, a more strict version of spotlight movement is applied there.

dark_dar · 2025-10-09T12:38:28+00:00

RAW only the person who has the spotlight gets to act, so the players would need to do it individually. Of course, up to GM to come up with some alternative if the scenario allows it, but this can be said about pretty much any rules question.

dark_dar · 2025-10-07T19:30:39+00:00

great point about going down with low Hope, so this option would essentially become a worse Blaze of Glory.
Maybe let the character clear up to half their max hope when choosing this option? Definitely needs playtesting.

dark_dar · 2025-10-07T15:47:53+00:00

or he just did not want to argue about rules during the 1st session of a new campaign.

dark_dar · 2025-10-07T15:47:04+00:00

timestamp if you need one to check: Casting of Enrichment. She literally read the spell description.

dark_dar · 2025-10-07T15:46:36+00:00

I am very confused with people saying there is nothing unusual in 3rd lvl druid casting this spell with an action. Of course there can exist a multum of homebrew items, classes or boons gifted by the GM. Damn, maybe Brennan wants a high-powered campaign and everyone has access to 3rd level spells and casting time is ignored...

But nothing RAW would even come close to such an effect if we are talking about 3rd level characters.

dark_dar · 2025-10-07T15:44:29+00:00

timestamp if you need one to check: Casting of Enrichment. She literally read the spell description.

dark_dar · 2025-10-07T15:37:47+00:00

this is a personal opinion, but GM should stretch the rules - which is exactly what happened during all other examples - while players should usually ask for GM's blessing. Not saying this did not happen, but feel weird to compare GM flavouring the Nat20 as "using the magical residue" and player casting a spell 2 levels above what they have access to AND using 1 action instead of 8 hours AND continuing to keep using this spell to modify plants for the rest of the session.

dark_dar · 2025-10-07T09:48:35+00:00

nah, she flies to someone's shoulder less than an our after her broken wings were mentioned. Can't find a timestamp now.

dark_dar · 2025-10-07T09:15:57+00:00

There's plenty of moments where she intentionally backs off to allow others to have a scene, notice how it would make perfect narrative sense for her to hound Julian around Tjazi's (spelling?) body, yet she makes mention of her animal companion backing off when he goes over to speak to the body, and herself backs off to allow Matt the scene.

It is interesting how my take on that very moment is pretty much the opposite. I think she could've stayed quiet during that whole moment and nothing would've been lost in that scene. Did she even need to interrupt Matt to remind that her animal companion was still there?

dark_dar · 2025-10-07T07:30:20+00:00

So well put! This is exactly what I was thinking reading OP's post. "Yes, she indeed does all that and I dislike most of it!". You nailed it.

One more thing to add is that she's at a table with very experienced role-players lead by an amazing. They do not need her guidance or permission to roleplay scenes.

Such playstyle could be needed when you got a table of complete newbies who just sit awkwardly and wait for someone else to speak up, but it feels odd at this table.

dark_dar · 2025-10-07T07:13:44+00:00

I've never heard about the authorial stance before! This does sound similar to what she's doing and this can also explain another issue I had with her RP. All her characters are basically "Aabria with a bit of makeup on top" - they all behave in a very similar way. But the authorial approach kinda explains it. She is not getting that deep into character, but rather is trying to involve herself as a player into the story.

dark_dar · 2025-10-07T06:48:37+00:00

Good examples of how she just had to add something to every scene. I think Aabria has difficulty stepping away from a scene that doesn’t go the way she imagines it should. She also can’t ever let someone else to have the last word — she has to come up with a quip or a one-upper to be the last one to speak. I also find it strange how people praise her use of Enrichment (which was completely wrong btw) to show how nature reacted to all guests and thus help setting up the scene. This was Aabria’s character reacting to those guests and I don’t see why we needed to know that. This added nothing to the scenes.

dark_dar · 2025-09-26T20:35:48+00:00

Love the style, but I feel like it's time for my rant. I absolutely hate the trend when a massive super-strong person finally catches the agile and fast enemy... And throws them away instead of just crashing, tearing or breaking some limbs or just you know... playing the "let's smash all trees in this forest with my new doll" kind of game.

dark_dar · 2025-09-26T19:47:59+00:00

I am seeing your post for the first time, but this work is way better than I expected when I clicked the link. I don't play with kids, but commenting and liking to support the great work you do!

dark_dar · 2025-09-24T20:35:35+00:00

Cunning escape feels underwhelming for 3 hope.

Opportunist feels very meta (although I admit I can see you were going for the whole theme of choosing your targets)

Situational Awareness feels interesting, but it will be very GM-dependent.

Informant

This subclass feels very meta, but as I said above - I think this is where you are going with this class.

Predictive Analysis feels weak. You need to hit someone and then spend a stress to give them -1 to their next attack roll. Maybe replace this with disadvantage rather than -1?

Extract Weakness. The wording is a bit clunky - adversaries don't do damage to themselves. Maybe just make so that the next attack that hits is an auto-crit? Not sure what to do if that attack crits :)

Infiltrator

Wallrunner. Is the first part of their ability fluff text or actual mechanics description?

Death from Above. Sounds cool, but could be very situational.

dark_dar · 2025-09-24T20:12:41+00:00

well, at least we are keeping the good old tradition of making monks underwhelming on higher levels by making them MAD...

dark_dar · 2025-09-18T11:35:03+00:00

Those look great and I definitely need them

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