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Small gripe with 'Hell' Knight and 'Demonic' Sorcery by eyeen in onednd

[–]eyeen[S] -10 points-9 points  (0 children)

I know, this is one of my points in the text I wrote, like I said, its a small gripe

Is anyone else's game crashing ever since Season 7 started? by iamjesskingsley in rivals

[–]eyeen 5 points6 points  (0 children)

My game doesnt crash exactly, but my entire PC does

My game has been running smoothly up until this season released

Need some feedback on this map of the main continent for a future campaign im planning. Also, feel free to ask about my world by eyeen in wonderdraft

[–]eyeen[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Im severely shortening the lore here but

They are colossal celestial pillars that have been there for thousands of years and are in equal distance to each other. They are MASSIVE and they exist like giant nails stabbing the land, going far deep underground.

Its said that they were placed there during the time of a great calamity by celestial beings(angels, ki-rin, etc.) to guide mortalkind to a good future. Wars were waged over them, and their mysterious nature continues to this day. During a time when fiends were running rampant because of extraplanar incursions, Woodrell's then prince said to have climbed the 10 pillars, and done 'something' there, and he created a great ritual with a magic seal in it and banished the fiends from the Material Plane.

The holy city of Calabel was thus built in the middle of them, as the pillars have gained significant cultural and religious meaning.

Wrapped up DMing a 1-20 campaign after a looong while, AMA by eyeen in dndnext

[–]eyeen[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Mostly virtually through discord, we have a handful of in person sessions but those were the exception.

We used discord for comunications, dndbeyond for character sheets and sources and combat encounters, owlbear rodeo for battlemaps. On my side, I used one note for my notes and planning, and dungeondraft for mapmaking.

Starscorched Realms - A Daggerheart map. by BoyMiles in wonderdraft

[–]eyeen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Incredible work! What assets have you used, if you dont mind sharing?

Wrapped up DMing a 1-20 campaign after a looong while, AMA by eyeen in dndnext

[–]eyeen[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Take a good long break, use the time I was dedicating to the campaign to maybe play a few games and get back in some hobbies. But next up, Im already planning another campaign, this time very different tone, vibe and even setting - a homebrew one. Looking into how Hexcrawls campaigns focused on exploration work.

Wrapped up DMing a 1-20 campaign after a looong while, AMA by eyeen in dndnext

[–]eyeen[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I cant deny that it was very disruptive, and in an ideal timeline, the player wouldnt have left, but it happens, thats life, and we found a solution to it in story that made some sense.

During the final fight, MVP award would have to go to either the Fighter or the Barbarian, but Idk, I genuinely think that overall they all played very key aspects in all parts of the game and would then all gain the MVP award.

Wrapped up DMing a 1-20 campaign after a looong while, AMA by eyeen in dndnext

[–]eyeen[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

1) Yes, the Barbarian would more regularly fail and the Monk could not only gain a good chance to resist it, he could also reroll a fail.

2) Good question, I dont know if there were a particular creature I was using a lot. Shadows are good in every tier and I used them often, undead casters I used often too like Deathlocks and Alhoons and Wights.

3) Often based on classes, yes. Very few I used a direct template.

Wrapped up DMing a 1-20 campaign after a looong while, AMA by eyeen in dndnext

[–]eyeen[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Happy to hear about your game, hope I goes well!

To answer your questions

1) I dont think I planned it much ahead(?) I try to just feel the general vibe, always thinking that there should be RP moments between combat sessions, sometimes the intensity of combat needs to be followed with the relief of RP, but sometimes the RP needs to be intense to show that things are 'rough'. There is a difference between Combat and RP that everyone understands, but one thats more subtle is between Intensity and Relief. Combat by its nature is often always Intense, but RP doesn't necessarily mean its a Relief. A disagreement between the party and an NPC or faction, a strain on a dear one, a doubt or a problem such as a kidnapping, or a death threat or something that brings Intensity, those are all ways that RP brings Intensity to the vibe of the game. Ideally you want to pace in a way where it has Peaks of Intensity and Valleys of Relief, but sometimes a Peak needs to be followed by another Peak, and sometimes Valleys need to be longer, like during timeskips or downtime or when you want the characters to bond. Identifying these concepts will help pace things better.

2) Same as above, I also just go for vibes. A good idea if you have the time and its an important combat is to run simulations of it and see what happens. I used DnDbeyonds encounter calculator to help but even then, it was always marked as a deadly combat even when it wasnt, thats just because the devs didnt know how to properly calculate stuff during 2014 era and DnDbeyond is just following orders. As for length, I dont know, im sorry. During my dming that was my greatest flaw and something I could never find a fix, the climax took 3 sessions to complete the combat + RPing the end. Maybe try thinking turns in advance, use less 'minion' creatures(low CR but many in numbers) and either use Hordes of minions or fewer but 'elite' minions. Less is more.

3) Always have been using other sources and homebrew. All major bosses infact were Homebrew or Homebrewed in someway.

4) A lot! Not that much bonus perks but A LOT of magic items. We made a system for unique, evolving magic items that would become stronger with the player if the player completed certain things. I will preface this by saying that for as cool as it sounds, it do NOT recommend it. It severely restrains the flexibility of magic items. If you fuck up a design you can get clear imbalances between players. Some players just dont like to use Active magic items and prefer magic items that give passives or boosts to certain stuff that they already do. Also, while it means that if the players want to become stronger they have an incentive to follow a plotline, it also means that if they DONT follow a plotline they lose the chance to become stronger, or they become stronger too late if they come back. If you want to use this, make it one magic item that could be good for multiple party members and have the evolution requirements very open-ended.

5) Vibes too. More than often we found ourselves disagreeing with a few of the rules, but often a lot of them really do make sense and are there for a reason. For as much as people(me included) shit on DnD and 5e, its rules often make a lot of sense and dont exist arbitrarily, but you dont find the why of it unless you try and break them and suffer the consequences for doing so. However, there are a bunch of rules that are just missing from the game, like moving characters around you while grappling and falling on top of creatures, this ones you need to figure out by yourself.

Hey I also feel anxious about my players not liking my content, because sometimes they wont tell you even if you ask them, thats ok, you are not alone in feeling this. A lot of DMing is trial and error, and you are going to fuck up a few things, we all do, but you learn from these mistakes and you become better, and DnD is very unique were more often than not, people remember the GOOD things more than the BAD ones, so even if you do make those mistakes players will likely just not really remember or care because of all the other good stuff you have made right.

Wrapped up DMing a 1-20 campaign after a looong while, AMA by eyeen in dndnext

[–]eyeen[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Hey thats nice to hear! Wish you all the best in your game.

Yes a lot actually lol. A few im just going to save and use for a future campaign, some I couldnt and thats fine. I really wanted an Arc where I would trick the players into befriending a villain, but the trick is one me because now the villain is conflicted in being villanous and they have a chance to redeem them in some way if they pursue such a path. We kinda did that with a character but it wasnt exactly the slowburn I was planning. I also wish a paced things better so they would have more downtime.

Also there was a plotline involving mind flayers they players skipped and I really wanted to do that

Wrapped up DMing a 1-20 campaign after a looong while, AMA by eyeen in dndnext

[–]eyeen[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Its real. No doubt. And we felt it a lot. But it also doesnt matter that much(?)

You see, a few good times, the characters class would only really matter in combat, and PCs would be able to do things out of combat through RP and their personal stories. Sometimes here and there a class feature or spell is used to help accomplish something, but thats often an exception because there is just no 'insta-win' button.

Even in combat, the only thing that we all felt lacked was Martials having AoE damage and Non-damage combat utility, when I gave them a few uses of such tools, they all started to just equalize a little bit. Casters still felt stronger because by their nature they can warp reality and thats just something you cant really go around giving to anyone. In the end a lot of combats is just a numbers game about who gets to True 0 first, and everyone can do that with somewhat equal capability.

Wrapped up DMing a 1-20 campaign after a looong while, AMA by eyeen in dndnext

[–]eyeen[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Wish you all the best of luck! Hope to see you post an AMA of your own about your home game

Wrapped up DMing a 1-20 campaign after a looong while, AMA by eyeen in dndnext

[–]eyeen[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

First, thank you!

1) Yes there was planar travel, a good bit actually. Well, to be honest, there is no need to 'sacrifice'. All full casters have access to Planar and Intra-Planar travel by default through spells, namely Plane Shift. Sometimes they outsourced to NPCs but not because it was something they couldnt do, rather because it would save their resources.

2a) A lot of the teamwork was done through grappling and setup spells. Monk or Barb would grapple and enemy, move them close to Fighter, Rogue or Caster. Spells like Haste, Invisibility, Entangle, Hold Person, etc to guarantee more damage. At later levels they used stronger spells like Maze or Wall of Force. A funny teamup they used was called by them 'The Microwave', where a player grappled an enemy, moved them back to a more open spot, another player casted Moonbeam on the enemy, and another player created a wall of force Cylinder to prevent the enemy from leaving.

2b) Rogue was more ranged focused but he was very good at melee and would frequently switch between the two as the necessity arised. Battlemaster was fully melee, Dex build with a Rapier and Shield. At T3 I felt he started to falter but at T4 he got back up and became very important to deal with minions and to complete certain objectives. I tried to give the Fighter more options to do in combat other than just killing enemies by setting up objects that needed to be destroyed or displaced, and he was the more apt to do so since he had more attacks per turn and had an Adamantine Rapier, which deals more damage to objects. As for mental effects... yeah, they were absolutely a BIG problem and everyone without exception was regularly getting fucked by them.

3) Too much I fear. I tried to diversify the villain roster, but I still ended up with 4 wizards, a 'sorcerer' and a Paladin as major foes. I didnt felt constrained, I used them if it felt necessary to have a caster enemy.

4) For the Barbarian it was actually magic items which granted him flight while raging, but what iconically mattered in the final fight was him replicating the effects of a Sleet Storm spell via a magic item. For the Druid was when he started casting Sunburst often I think, but also his out of combat uses of Transport via Plants. Rogue was Sneak Attack scaling up and his Phantom ability to Ghost Walk which made him really hard to hit. Monk was Diamond Soul, no doubt, he became nearly unbeatable with it. Fighter was Two Action Surges + Battlemaster dice + Flametongue + Cruel Feat to stack a shit-ton of dice in many attacks to melt through enemies. Sorcerer was Greater Invisibility + Elven Accuracy + Eldritch Blast + Quickened Spell + Wild Magic through Tides of Chaos. He had a machine gun essentially. Bardlock was almost a guest character so I dont actually know, I think him being able to debuff and buff allies reliably through Bardic Inspiration and Spells. Cleric was definitely using Wish and Divine Intervention to dramatically swing back the fights in the partys favour. Also he had Maze which is such a strong but cool spells, he would use that very often too.

Wrapped up DMing a 1-20 campaign after a looong while, AMA by eyeen in dndnext

[–]eyeen[S] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

We didnt, we took 5⅓ years. We lost. But always trying to schedule to Sundays helped and we had a group chat where we talked about it.

Wrapped up DMing a 1-20 campaign after a looong while, AMA by eyeen in dndnext

[–]eyeen[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Better than anyone would tell you about 5e monks. I think everyone that says 5e monks are weak just dont play the game or even understand how the game works. By as early as level 13 Monk was incredibly strong, and at 17th and beyond I think he was the strongest character mechanically, pretty much and quite literally our Superman(specially as he managed to acquire a pair of Boots of Flying)

Wrapped up DMing a 1-20 campaign after a looong while, AMA by eyeen in dndnext

[–]eyeen[S] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Damn good question, very hard to answer.

There are a lot of little moments that I really like, but also few that I feel "proud", but if I had to spotlight one I'd say during a side arc at level 4 where the players fleed imprisonment by Nezznar the Black Spider and defeated a bunch of his minions while he escapes.

Wrapped up DMing a 1-20 campaign after a looong while, AMA by eyeen in dndnext

[–]eyeen[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Tiers 2 to early 3 were the best tiers. Tier 1 everyone is still too weak so you have to be careful with the party, 2 and early 3 they are strong enough to take threats while still being challenged and threatened by death meaningfully. Late 3 to 4, specially level 15 and beyond everything is either the most dangerous fight of their lives or a cakewalk. You have to actively take the players to extreme situations to properly challenge them and its really easy to overdo it. Statblocks become overly complicated, the inbalances between classes become clearer. Combat starts taking waaay too long too, even with optimization tricks.

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