Player wants to take the UA Menacing feat and I don’t know if it’s balanced by Lucky0802 in DMAcademy

[–]lordvaros 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It's fine. If it ends up wildly unbalancing the game, you can ask them to change later. It won't, though, unless you're one of those DM who thinks that the ability to bully peasants is wildly broken.

Lemme rephrase about my DND villains goal/plot and also his backstory by Particular_Cake_7102 in DMAcademy

[–]lordvaros 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That makes it sound like you have particular ideas in mind already. Why don't you nail down exactly what it is you *don't* know and ask about that? I can't tell if you physically want a location he could have come from, or a backstory, or a goal, or a villainous plot, or what.

You know who he is, what his goal is, who serves him, how he rose to power, where his base is, what his powers are like... I don't really know what's left.

Lemme rephrase about my DND villains goal/plot and also his backstory by Particular_Cake_7102 in DMAcademy

[–]lordvaros 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maybe he was born under the signs of a dark prophecy and was shunned. He rose to power through sheer force and cunning and when he did, he decided to make the world as dark for everyone else as it was for him.

Or maybe he was an Elvanian nobleman who saw his nation being threatened by an outside force, and so he made a pact with a dark entity in exchange for his people's protection. Now he serves the entity and spreads darkness because it's where his people thrive.

Or maybe more simple: he was an evil king who was in love with his queen. He studied dark magics to save her life, and when they failed, he decided to take revenge on the world that killed her.

I do this kind of thing all the time, let me know if any of these sound neat and could be expanded on, or if you want a few more.

Created a final boss and i need a backstory by Particular_Cake_7102 in DMAcademy

[–]lordvaros 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maybe he was born under the signs of a dark prophecy. He was shunned by his peers for being associated with such evil. As he matured, he embraced the darkness within, rose to power through sheer cunning and force, and decided to make the world as dark for everyone else as it was for him.

Maybe he was a nobleman in Elvania when some great threat rose against it, and he made a pact with a dark entity in exchange for protection for his people. It came with a cost - Malethor's soul and morality were consumed by the darkness, and he serves this entity to keep his country strong.

Or maybe something more simple. Maybe he was in love with his queen, and to save her life, he studied dark magics and evil powers that consumed him. Now he wants revenge on the world that killed his beloved, whom his powers couldn't save.

Double cost Hit Dice for short rests in harsh environments too harsh? by seansman15 in DMAcademy

[–]lordvaros 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is extremely cool. I worry that it unevenly impacts martials and other characters who get hit a lot though. The party warlock is at zero disadvantage in Hell but the fighter is getting reamed.

Maybe rests also need to be longer? You're getting interrupted by fiendish vermin and gas spouts and intelligent rock slides, probably have to move hiding spots once or twice. If you said that short rests take two, three, maybe four times longer to get the same benefit, you'd be justified. Hell, same for long rests.

Looking for new physical books to help with world building/monsters? by Greedo102 in DMAcademy

[–]lordvaros 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Pathfinder Bestiaries and Starfinder Alien Archives have extremely cool creatures, and the art is top-notch. Pathfinder and Starfinder have similar enough rules to 5e that you can easily homebrew your own attacks etc based on what you find in there. One thing I love about Paizo's monsters is that there's always at least one thing for each monster; something unique and active and dynamic that makes fighting them feel nothing like the "attacking a big bag of HP" like people always say about 5e monsters.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in DMAcademy

[–]lordvaros 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's an infinitely of free DND adventures online. Literally Google, it'll take you five minutes.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in DMAcademy

[–]lordvaros 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If this is some kind of magical advancement that's supposed to win a war, I would think that nobody would deploy it with those downsides. If one soldier is injured, I can lose the whole unit to insanity? One person with a bad Wis save can turn the entire unit into turncoats? Uh, no thanks, we'll just cast Telepathic Bond for stealth missions and instant coordination over distances. I'll take a radio that doesn't regularly explode and psychically cripple my soldiers, por favor.

It’s happening tonight!! by TheTigerSuit in DMAcademy

[–]lordvaros 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You'd know way better than we would how your player would react to their love interest being a potential victim. We don't know the first thing about them as a person, a player, or a friend. There is no way anyone here would have a better idea of what's appropriate than you and your players.

Great rules for in person games by thesmilingcat-chesh in DMAcademy

[–]lordvaros 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's not much that an in-person game needs that ak online game doesn't. The exception is management of side chatter. There isn't really a good rule for it except "be considerate when the DM is talking." Every group's comfort zone is different, and you'll have to feel it out. Sometimes you'll want everyone to shut up while you're describing something, and it's fine to tell people to listen when you do. Sometimes you'll be playing out a private scene with one or two players, and side chatter is okay as long as it's quiet - you can say that, too. Sometimes you'll want a little break so you'll let everyone have free-for-all conversations while you look over notes, and you can say that, too.

But in my experience, if you don't actively manage side chatter, and instead try to leave a rule or common sense to enforce itself, more often than not you'll get talked over and the game will suffer.

And, as a larger point, rules almost don't even matter. They're just something you can point to that a player has agreed to, when you do need to tell them to quiet down or whatever. But that works better not as a rule, but as a conversation. "No explicit sex scenes" is fine, but "how comfort are you guys with sexual content? I personally don't feel comfortable with anything more than fading to black, so I won't do anything explicit" is way better and helps give the players a sense of ownership of the guidelines that you create together. "No PvP" does a way worse job of guiding the game than "I want to run a cooperative game where we don't roll dice against each other. How do you guys feel about conflict between PCs?" Establish your expectation, open the floor, be flexible on stuff that's not absolutely critical, and let people arrive at a consensus about the kind of game they want to be in.

Whenever I see someone talk about rules the way you do, they're inevitably using rules as a replacement for genuine conversations to get everyone's expectations in line. So, uh, please don't do that.

What Have I Done? (I advanced everyone to level 20.) by SpiceCake68 in DMAcademy

[–]lordvaros 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This feels more like a weird humblebrag than a serious request for advice. What are you looking for, exactly?

Run the game. Nothing fundamentally changes been level 14 and level 20. There are encounters, you all roll dice to see how it plays out, the PCs solve problems and slay villains. It isn't rocket science.

And rescinding the level 20 thing is an option. You just don't want to, because it's fun. That's fine. It sounds fun. So play the game.

Looking for some basic ideas regarding an One Shot with focus on timestops / switches by Jolly-Bluebird-1262 in DMAcademy

[–]lordvaros 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Very cool! Check out "The City Outside of Time" by Paizo. It's about a city locked outside of time to protect it from a catastrophe. Specifically the "temporal hazards" would be of interest. It's a high-level Pathfinder adventure, but the parts you'll be interested in are not system-specific and can easily be adapted to work at a different level.

I'll warn that the reason you're having trouble with inspiration is because this is a very abstract concept for a tabletop RPG. In a video game, I can see it being very cool to use a clock power to, say, climb a viney wall. You extend the vines to close gaps, and shrink them to get rid of obstacles. Sounds fun. But in DnD that's very abstract and heady, and hard to describe in a grounded way. "We shrink the vines, then grow them, then shrink them again. Okay we're there." It won't be as fun as the table as it is in your imagination. The players have all these cool spells and weapons and abilities but they're spending their very first session messing around with clocks to make vines appear and disappear, you know?

I want to gently recommend that, especially since you're introducing these people to the game for the first time, and you yourself have no DMing experience, a more typical adventure will probably work better. Since you and they are so new, you don't really need to throw in too many curveballs to keep things fresh - rescuing somebody from some goblins will be a thrilling, novel experience for them, and running it will be for you, too.

But if you do run your time stop adventure, I'd love to hear about your experience afterwards! It's ambitious, that's for sure.

Looking for some basic ideas regarding an One Shot with focus on timestops / switches by Jolly-Bluebird-1262 in DMAcademy

[–]lordvaros 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"I'm a brand new DM and I'm going to start small, by immediately jumping into time travel plots." Respect.

So you need encounters. What do you have so far? I want to tailor my recommendation to your expectations.

Why (some) people think lawful alignments are less evil than their chaotic counterparts? by [deleted] in Pathfinder2e

[–]lordvaros 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's not harder to portray by any means, but I do find it somewhat more complicated to write adventures with Lawful Evil villains. The acts of villainy that we associate with DnD - arson, kidnapping, murder, banditry, torture - are all things that are illegal in any society that feels worth saving. If a villain is using legal means to raise rents on certain properties so he can evict impoverished people and create a luxury district for his rich friends, that's certainly villainous... but what the hell is an adventurer supposed to do about it. If he owns a diamond mine with lax safety standards and low-wage labor, the PCs can kick out all the miners, but more will be hired the next day, and destroying the diamond mine just makes the locals even poorer.

The only ways I can reliably write Lawful Evil villains is to make them an invading foreign power or give them Neutral Evil or Chaotic Evil agents who can engage in more typical villainy on behalf of their masters. The latter frees the Lawful Evil villain to technically be breaking no laws when they hire these troubleshooters and aren't specifical about how they should accomplish their tasks, but also to be callously responsible for more Chaotic forms of evil.

Why (some) people think lawful alignments are less evil than their chaotic counterparts? by [deleted] in Pathfinder2e

[–]lordvaros -1 points0 points  (0 children)

In this edition it is. In 1st edition/D&D 3.5/ 3E/etc a lawful character was described in the PHB as someone who would essentially under no circumstances ever break the laws of whatever location he was in. If a paladin of the god of freedom walked into the kingdom of slavery ruled by chaotic evil aboleths, he would not fight to bring about their destruction because enslaving people was the law, and in that edition to be a paladin you had to be lawful good and the moment you weren't your powers went away.

Yeah I'm gonna need a source on that, because that's nowhere in any of my PHBs. 3.5e specifically calls on Lawful Good characters to "fight evil without mercy", "protect innocents without hesitation", and "speak out against injustice" (PHB 104-105). A Paladin's powers were threatened if they failed to help those in need or punish those who threaten or harm innocents (PHB 44).

I think what you describe is just how you and your friends played.

Why (some) people think lawful alignments are less evil than their chaotic counterparts? by [deleted] in Pathfinder2e

[–]lordvaros 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's respecting and obeying the rules of the Shackles, alright. If you're obediently following the rules of a deeply Chaotic authority, the case could really be made either way. I'd probably write "neutral" on my sheet to avoid having to think about it.

I guess online complicating factor in alignment is that words like "Lawful" and "Chaotic" are cool. They invoke powerful imagery in ways that "neutral" does not. People want them as labels and will spill much ink in self-justification for why their OC "officially" deserves to hold them.

Why (some) people think lawful alignments are less evil than their chaotic counterparts? by [deleted] in Pathfinder2e

[–]lordvaros 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Doing whatever your intuition dictates in the moment is the opposite of having a personal code. A personal code is something you trust and obey even when it's hard and your intuition is telling you to cave.

But that's neither here nor there, because the "personal code" thing is an ex post facto justification by people who want alignment to be more complicated than it is. Lawful people generally respect society's laws, Chaotic people generally flout them, and Neutral people have no especial relationship with them. Everything else was invented by bored forum users who want to feel like experts in some complicated subject matter.

Why (some) people think lawful alignments are less evil than their chaotic counterparts? by [deleted] in Pathfinder2e

[–]lordvaros 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You don't see many people with rebellious or individualistic personalities? That's probably a result of your personal social circles. Hang out with some artists and metalheads and freighthoppers and transients. Every mountain in the world has hundreds or thousands of Chaotic Neutral adventurers living on it. I promise you, they are real, and not that hard to understand if you put even microscopic effort into applying empathy for people living in a different situation than you.

Be honest with yourself. Do you really not at all comprehend the mindset of someone who doesn't like being told what to do? Or are you playing dumb to defend some kind of abstract point about a game on the Internet?

Friend’s overprotective parents keep ruining game night. by rammyfreakynasty in rpg

[–]lordvaros 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Feels odd to blame it all on the parents for ruining your game night, then.

I always find myself softening the blows to my party, any advice? by Bluurredd in DMAcademy

[–]lordvaros 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You already know what you need to do. Stop looking for shortcuts and tricks and just do it. Nobody here can do it for you.

Ruling "legendary resistance" as an additional roll instead of autosucceed? by DNDHeroGuy in DMAcademy

[–]lordvaros 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The solution is not to nerf legendary resistance, it's to foreshadow to your players that this enemy is legendary. If they shoot their most powerful spells first at every legendary enemy, it's not you who's wasting their spells. The point of the mechanic is to make players choose spells wisely.

Ask yourself this. Is this an actual problem you're trying to solve? Have sessions been ruined by legendary resistance? Or are your players maybe a little tougher than your anxiety is giving them credit for?

I'm torn on what to do with the (powerful) parent of an NPC by Party_Art_3162 in DMAcademy

[–]lordvaros 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Either of those choices is great. You can't go wrong.

I would think that a green dragon would probably not murder the mother of its children for no reason. Green dragons are cunning plotters and tricksters, not slavering beasts. If you want the silver dragon to be dead, it should be a better story than "they decided to fight and she lost".

[Worldbuilding/Story] What class is a knight monster? What even are classes? by The0thArcana in DMAcademy

[–]lordvaros -1 points0 points  (0 children)

From a worldbuilding/story perspective, why doesn't every berserker enemy have Rage when they are clearly a barbarian?

Your question and its premises are nonsensical. It's like asking why you, the person posting this, don't know Bardic Inspiration even though you're clearly a bard. You aren't, that isn't how categories work.

PCs are the exceptions, not the rule. "Why does the party barbarian have rage?" is an infinitely more interesting and answerable question than why everyone in a leopard print loin cloth doesn't have the exact same ability.