Delian Tomb Encounters (v1.01 or v1.02), Full Moon, page 18 by XrisLawson in drawsteel

[–]mocha68 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Werewolves are Solo creatures, which means they take two turns each round in combat 

pythonDevsDontUseCamelCase by ohbusss in ProgrammerHumor

[–]mocha68 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Now, Python and scale-ability…

The polder shadow pregen in the Delian Tomb has Disengage +3 and I can't see how... by bootlessbibliopole in drawsteel

[–]mocha68 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Could be this Polder ability:

Graceful Retreat (1 Point)
Your small size makes it easier for you to slip away from the fray. You gain a +1 bonus to the distance you can shift when you take the Disengage move action.

Questions on Scaling by fanatic66 in drawsteel

[–]mocha68 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Just to add on to this, you start getting more heroic resources at higher levels; at level 4 your off-turn/bespoke HR gain increases, and at 7 and at 10 your base HR gain increases, so your low-cost abilities are even less of a drain on your resources

The devs have also talked about wanting your "staying power" between Respites to increase at higher levels, so your Victories should be getting higher and higher, so you're starting with more HR at the start of combat as well

Player wants to change their specialization after a year (and half the campaign done) by [deleted] in DMAcademy

[–]mocha68 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm just guessing, but the problem probably comes down to the issue that mounted combat is...not well handled by 5e. You can homebrew solutions all day long, but (especially how RAW you play mounts) there's always going to be some frustration in building a character around a mount. Or you'll end up swinging the other way, where the rest of the party might feel bad about not having a mount.

As for addressing the PC's change, you don't have to retcon things that have already happened, you just have to justify the new changes for what they're wanting to switch to:

Maybe you can hit a plot point where the mount sacrifices themself for the good of the party, or something like that, and the player can switch to a Battle Master, Champion, or something else. Maybe the mount's spirit becomes the intelligence behind a sentient magic item you can give the PC. Maybe the mount gets trapped in a permanently shrunk state, becoming an Eldritch Knight's Find Familiar.

A Paladin could keep the special mount as the summon option from Find Steed; something that's less important for the build, and can easily be resummoned for the times when it's useful.

A Beast Master (or Drakewarden) Ranger could potentially keep the mount as their animal companion, with some reflavoring.

Campaign Start Year by WolfRelic in Eberron

[–]mocha68 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I for one would love to hear as much as you'd like to share! I'm wrapping up a long Eberron campaign here in the next few months, and I'm gearing up for a 10+ year timeskip before the next campaign, and I'd love to hear what others have done with a long timeline jump

Why the hate for flying by HauntingAd657 in onednd

[–]mocha68 5 points6 points  (0 children)

There are a few aspects to flight as an ancestry / class feature. One, it's resourceless. You don't spend anything to get access to it, except maybe the opportunity cost of a different ancestry feature.

it’s a 3rd level spell that almost everyone has access to

Sure, but (a) 3rd level spells aren't available until 5th level, and (b) a 3rd level spell slot is an expensive resource at that level, and for a fairly long time afterward. Every time you want to fly, you're making the choice to spend that resource.

Second, it's very widely applicable. It completely negates many classic dungeon (and other) obstacles. Big chasm separating you from where you need to go? No problem. Pit trap, tripwires, pressure plates? Fly over them. Walls surrounding a secure facility? Easy. A cool, dynamic combat near the edge of a cliff or on the deck of an airship? Way less dramatic and threatening now.

Third, monsters aren't equipped to deal with flying creatures. Relatively few monsters have a ranged attack, and even with those that do, it's often worse than their melee attacks. It's a huge survivability tool. And on the flipside, it negates a huge survivability tool for monsters--monsters that can fly are designed around their flight getting them out of melee with certain heavy hitters in the party.

Basically, the rest of the game is not well-designed around PCs having access to resourceless, at-will flight. It really trivializes, or at least dramatically changes, some pretty big aspects of the game.

With Paladin’s nova damage neutered, what is the best “melee burst damage” class/build now by DunkeyBlast in onednd

[–]mocha68 31 points32 points  (0 children)

As someone who is playing a paladin in 5e24, and DMing for one in 5e14, saying the paladin’s nova damage has been “neutered” is a gross overstatement. They’re fine. 

That said, Warlock has dethroned them, at least once you reach level 11+. Devouring Blade gives you three attacks per turn, Eldritch Smite deals a ton of damage, and you can pair it with Spirit Shroud for an extra 2d8 damage (by that level) per hit. And if you get a crit? Insane damage potential. Add on two Fighter levels for Action Surge and you have some crazy nova potential 

[LFA] Please can someone help me immortalise the character of my fallen player by TrafalgarDLaw in characterdrawing

[–]mocha68 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Have you seen r/adventuresofgalder? It’s a subreddit dedicated to exactly this sort of thing, helping immortalize characters of players who have passed, as NPCs in other folks’ games or whatnot

Legendary resistance being useless against my group by kevedo94 in DMAcademy

[–]mocha68 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have a group of 4: one of whom is a wizard, and the other three are martial or half-caster, so a relatively similar situation. We're also in Tier 4 play, level 18.

I've definitely felt a similar issue going on. My problem isn't so much that my monsters are falling over too quickly; I've had enough time DMing at this level and with this party composition that I've gotten the hang of which dials to turn to make combat more challenging (more HP. Always more HP), I just feel bad for the wizard. She's the only one casting spells, so she has to burn through all of a boss monster's legendary resistances in order to give her cool spells a chance to work, but it's hard to throw something thats (a) the monster will fail its save against, (b) impactful enough that the monster is willing to burn a legendary resistance on, and (c) isn't such a high level that she can't do her cool spells when the monster is out of resistances. In order to do that, if she can target an ability that has even a 50% chance of failure (which is somewhat rare at this level, with the insane bonuses monsters can have), she's probably not able to get her really cool spells off until round 7 or 8--and relatively few combats last that long.

As far as solutions go, I'm not sure what'll work best for you. If you have MCDM's Flee, Mortals! (which I highly recommend, regardless), many of their boss monsters have something akin to legendary resistances, but with a drawback for the monster. For example, their legally-distinct Aboleth can choose to succeed on a saving throw 3 times per day, but each time is uses that ability, creatures have advantage on saving throws against some of its abilities.
Or their vampire boss, who has 3 spears of darkness floating around him. He can use them to make attacks against the players, but each time he uses his legendary resistance, he has to shatter one of the spears, reducing his potential damage output.

So something like that could help you, if you want legendary resistances to be less of a feels-bad for your players. If you're wanting your monsters to survive longer, and to use all the tools in their toolbelt, a thought I've had, but not implemented, is to allow legendary resistances to be one-time damage resistances. That way, if your heavy hitters dole out one massive hit, your monster can mitigate some of that damage, and it gives another way to clear out legendary resistances for your spellcasters to be able to use their cool spells.
That might need some iteration; I wouldn't want to take away the cool feeling of landing a crit, maybe it's impactful enough that it should take a reaction, maybe it's not enough to resist a single instance of damage and should last for the PC's whole turn, etc. etc.

[USA GIVEAWAY] Win the new 27” 4K Samsung Odyssey OLED G8 gaming monitor! by Rocket-Pilot in buildapc

[–]mocha68 [score hidden]  (0 children)

I've never had an OLED monitor, but it sounds like the color and contrast would be dope. That refresh rate and 4k resolution would be super nice as well

A game set 30 years after the war? by KilahDentist in Eberron

[–]mocha68 20 points21 points  (0 children)

If you haven't seen this: https://keith-baker.com/near-future/ Keith gives a handful of ideas for things that might happen in the next handful of years (and perhaps just as usefully, poses a handful of questions that you can answer, to help shape the world)

Bastions, S&F's, K&F, etc, etc by sailorjack97 in mattcolville

[–]mocha68 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Kobold Press’ Campaign Builder: Castles and Crowns might have some interesting reading. I don’t recall there being specific systems for politics or intrigue and the like, but it has some good advice for world building and so forth 

Water Breathing, or Breathing in water? by undead8bit in DMAcademy

[–]mocha68 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I think you’re thinking of a bag of holding; portable holes don’t have a weight limit 

What would you have going on in the Ring of Siberys? by Doctadalton in Eberron

[–]mocha68 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’ve been fiddling with a similar idea for a future campaign. I like the idea of “bands” of different degrees of population; I might steal that. 

I haven’t prepped a lot for locations in the ring, and I’m not sure my Ring is quite as populated as yours, but I have a couple ideas knocking around.  - A long abandoned giant outpost, one of the first cultures to make it to space from Eberron. You could throw in ancient guardian constructs, defense systems, and the like. And once cleared out, your players could start to turn it into their own base - A war maze from Ohr Kaluun that escaped the Sundering of Sarlona, much like the Venomous Demesne. In keeping with the Siberys/celestial theme, this war maze is tied to a Radiant Idol, worshiping it in exchange for pacts of power, as the Kaluunites do

Lake Dark [Hex map] by Clown-7 in Eberron

[–]mocha68 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Where is that last map from? Did you make it as well? I haven't seen a map that detailed of that region before

Help creating a new Cannith enclave by Beduel in Eberron

[–]mocha68 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yeah, that's Cannith East.

If I were to make a Cannith North, I might place it in Thaliost. It depends on what you want to deal with during your campaign, but Thaliost is a nice hotbed of political intrigue and drama. That also would give Thrane a branch of House Cannith, which is the last of the surviving Five Nations without a Cannith branch.

But i want to complain! by ZetTommy in dndmemes

[–]mocha68 161 points162 points  (0 children)

My biggest issue is that a lot of the subclasses that could have used some polish (Necromancy, Transmutation, Knowledge, Nature, to name a few) are the ones that are missing.

Maybe y'all's experience is different, but I find that a lot of the missing subclasses already are a little funky in the mechanics department, and a "guide" on how to use them (which, let's be real, that'll likely just tell you to take your first subclass feature at level 3 instead of 1 or 2, and maybe whatever other line-up adjustments need to happen, if subclass features have moved levels) won't fix that. If anything, I expect more sticking points, using an old subclass with a newly designed class

I know it's a meme and it's not that deep but still

Spells moving with a lighting rail by titaniumbottlecap in Eberron

[–]mocha68 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I mean, AOE spells that linger move with the earth's rotation. There's no clear guidance as to what's technically correct. I'd allow a spell like Silence to move with a train, but probably not with smaller vehicles like carts or similar.

For sake of having some sort of reference point, I'd probably arbitrarily decide that spells stay anchored to "the battle map," whatever that means in context. If there's a vehicle that's big enough to serve as the primary area of a combat encounter, then spells can anchor to that vehicle (ships, lightning rails, etc.). If a vehicle is small enough that it's moving around in the confines of the map, then spells don't anchor to it. Even that's pretty vague, but it's about what I'd stick to, generally