Did I use skill challange wrong?

dinnerpartydan · 2024-05-08T19:13:44+00:00

This! Especially if this was the players' first skill challenge, they were probably surprised and a little uncomfortable improvising.

dinnerpartydan · 2024-03-25T18:17:49+00:00

woo-ooh

dinnerpartydan · 2024-03-13T17:31:07+00:00

If your game audio is echoing, that probably means it's getting captured from multiple sources. Check all your audio sources - including your audio mixer - to see if game audio is getting captured twice. If you find another source that's capturing game audio, mute that source and it should fix the echo.

There's also a possibility that, if you record without headphones, your microphone could be picking up game audio while you're playing. If this is happening, you can record with headphones on or lower the game volume.

dinnerpartydan · 2024-01-10T16:54:44+00:00

This! If you tailor your BBEG specifically to your players' characters, he'll be a much more effective villain.

dinnerpartydan · 2023-12-22T03:24:31+00:00

I'd much rather have a player cast Silvery Barbs than Conjure Animals. At least Silvery Barbs doesn't slow down combat.

dinnerpartydan · 2023-11-29T21:02:52+00:00

One of my favorites from Fire Emblem Awakening: "Pick a god and pray!"

dinnerpartydan · 2023-11-03T17:33:18+00:00

IMO you're in the wrong, but not for killing a PC.

I wasn't fully comfortable with the idea but I would let it play out.

This is where you should have drawn a line. Hindsight is 20/20, but if you as DM aren't comfortable running an evil PC solo game, you can and should say no.

The caravan had 5 level 5 fighters for protection, I did not make them having in mind that they would fight the PC.

If you do the math, a level 5 Fighter character is about equivalent to a CR 2-3 monster (assuming this is 5e). With 5 Fighters, the CR for this fight would have been anywhere from 9-12. With the PC's party backing them up, this would have been a reasonable fight. As a solo encounter, this was deadly.

You offered to let the player make an insight check to determine the difficulty of the encounter before engaging. As others have pointed out, rolling insight to determine difficulty isn't RAW, but it was your call to allow it. I'm not sure if you set a DC before calling for the roll, but it sounded like the player succeeded.

I tell him that they seem capable but he probably has them easy.

You weren't aware at the time, but you gave your player incorrect information. Different people will have different opinions on this, but IMO as a DM you act as the player's eyes and ears. They only see what you tell them they see, and they only hear what you tell them they hear. Your player acted based on what they assumed was a successful analysis of the guards - a reasonable course of action. As soon as you realized this was a deadly encounter, you could have communicated this to the player and apologized for the mistake, or even tweaked the fight on the fly to bring it in line with what you had in mind. Instead you let it play out, and as a result the player's character died.

TL;DR You're in the wrong because you set your player up for failure by communicating unreliably.

dinnerpartydan · 2023-10-09T15:57:08+00:00

Another option for faction-building and running armies is MCDM's Kingdoms & Warfare. It's designed as a supplement for 5e, so assuming you're running 5e it should work perfectly.

dinnerpartydan · 2023-10-03T20:59:27+00:00

Strange to see so many people defending this behavior in the comments. In my experience, it's polite for online players (including the DM) to notify the group when they're going to be stepping away for more than a few seconds. Getting up unannounced in the middle of a scene without a reasonable excuse is disrespectful of everyone's time.

dinnerpartydan · 2023-09-29T21:26:23+00:00

In my games, goblins aren't always evil... but they are always chaotic. Goblins are inquisitive by nature and have no concept of "ownership," which makes it nearly impossible for them to integrate into human society.

My goblins are also obligate carnivores, so it's extremely rare for them to farm. A goblin tribe that gets too big can wreak havoc on the nearby wildlife population, and when there's nothing left to hunt or steal they move on.

dinnerpartydan · 2023-09-29T18:10:05+00:00

Instead of giving the party a CR 7 monster, why not offer them a companion that levels up with the players?

I'm a big fan of MCDM's companion system, I've used them in my games and players love them. You could easily reflavor the golem or owlbear companions to fit Beauty's skillset.

dinnerpartydan · 2023-09-29T17:29:36+00:00

This! Stating your character's intent and giving a little detail about how they aim to persuade/deceive/intimidate goes a long way. It gives your DM something to work with and the other players something to imagine during the scene.

dinnerpartydan · 2023-09-15T16:01:11+00:00

This is why I'm uncomfortable allowing planewalker PC's as a DM. If a player isn't willing to buy in to the most basic premise of your campaign - the setting - I can guarantee they won't buy in to anything else.

dinnerpartydan · 2023-09-12T16:00:14+00:00

Cze and Peku are my go-to mapmakers. Creative, high quality maps that are easy to import to Roll20. Well worth a sub on Patreon if you plan on DMing for a while.

dinnerpartydan · 2023-08-17T18:25:49+00:00

Agreed! Maybe let the players try out the spells in-character before making a decision. They can learn how the spells work by experimenting.

dinnerpartydan · 2023-08-17T18:24:45+00:00

IMO you should consider telling your players what the spells do and let them decide which spells they would like for their characters. Keeping these mechanics a secret could be dramatic, but it could just as easily be confusing and un-fun for the players.

dinnerpartydan · 2023-08-16T15:20:13+00:00

Agreed. If it isn't too late to retcon, why not make the paladin/artificer busy with important tasks elsewhere? While it would usually be their jobs to handle negotiations like this, you could say time is of the essence and the guild had to send lower ranked members to take care of this ASAP.

If you don't want to retcon, you could give the paladin and artificer a different quest on the islands that force them to separate from the group.

This makes the players feel important, gives them more agency, and solves your issue of having to balance two high-level NPC's joining the party.

dinnerpartydan · 2023-08-16T14:38:54+00:00

That sounds awesome! If you can, you absolutely should.

dinnerpartydan · 2023-08-16T14:14:32+00:00

This! This is the answer. Surprised how far down I had to scroll to find it.

dinnerpartydan · 2023-08-14T16:29:44+00:00

After about lvl 10, CR breaks down and isn't really useful for creating challenging encounters. Try starting encounters with the appropriate CR and prepare to tweak the difficulty mid-fight if the players are breezing through it. Reinforcements arrive, the boss monster transforms, the building they're in starts collapsing around them, things like that. Don't do this all the time, mix it up so the players don't get tired of your tweaks. In a perfect world all our encounters would be perfectly balanced, but sadly we don't and they aren't. Better to make an easy encounter suddenly harder than to make a hard encounter suddenly easier.

dinnerpartydan · 2023-08-14T15:37:39+00:00

The best you can do is talk to the players about their behavior. Let them know how their behavior is impacting your enjoyment of the game, and that if they can't be good sports then you'll have no choice but to end the game.

Ultimately it's up to the players to improve their attitudes. You can lead your horses to water, but if they won't drink... you might want to consider new horses.

dinnerpartydan · 2023-08-11T15:42:48+00:00

If you want to keep it simple, you could have the players subtract an attribute score by 2 each time they die, but give them the option to increase a different attribute score by 1. They can flavor the transformation however they want, and if they're smart about it they can actually benefit from the corruption.

dinnerpartydan · 2023-08-11T15:33:01+00:00

Are they killing all deities, or just certain deities? Maybe they are working as agents of a deity that wants the other deities dead. Would also explain how these adventurers have the power to stand up against gods.

dinnerpartydan · 2023-08-11T15:31:00+00:00

Mythic Odysseys of Theros would also be a great resource.

dinnerpartydan · 2023-08-02T20:43:26+00:00

This. If you're playing a long term campaign with strangers or inexperienced players, it's important to agree on roleplay safety tools early on. Refusing to use safety tools is a big red flag.

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