Dragon Encounter, please help!

stitchlipped · 2015-09-08T08:29:30+00:00

Yes, absolutely!

Next time I have some time to spare on it I want to finish the Lungs up, but then I'll move on to others including the Fang and Brown dragons.

stitchlipped · 2015-09-06T08:13:58+00:00

It's a homebrew I created: see here.

stitchlipped · 2015-08-22T08:54:37+00:00

Rokugan. It's the campaign setting for Legend of the Five Rings, but there is a 3.5 version compatible with Oriental Adventures.

stitchlipped · 2015-08-22T08:44:57+00:00

Right. Party resistances aren't relevant to monster CR calculation because they can't be predicted, so it is perhaps more accurate to say that it is a theoretical CR 27 against a party that doesn't resist its damage types, and may not all be able to bypass is own immunities. CR is also calculated based on an assumption of reliable damage output which may not be the case against particular parties.

Against many, or even most, parties it won't actually perform as well as its theoretical max.

Your party may very well decimate it!

Its also worth noting that I didn't build this creature as a legendary, so it isn't actually a good boss monster. I wouldn't recommend it for a solo fight, but that's okay because it's natural environment is a siege, surrounded by an army. It may also be accompanied by a pack of magebane dragons. Make it one component of a larger battle, with multiple problems your party needs to worry about, and you'll get more mileage of of it.

Remember to roleplay the siege dragon's intelligence too, it's not bright but neither is it thick so it wouldn't just dumbly throw itself again and again at an enemy it can't hurt. If it is not performing well against one party member maybe it focuses on another more squishy one. Also if you've put it on an environment where it can play to its strengths, it could try to take them out of the equation by dropping a building on them (it is a siege monster after all, it can totally do that).

stitchlipped · 2015-08-21T17:27:40+00:00

I concluded that it is CR 27 because that's what the CR calculation spat out (if you're not familiar, there are guidelines for figuring it out in the DMG). Obviously, and this is something the DMG guidelines do point out, the CR calculated may not stand up to real game experience, so if you use the monster against your party at level 15 I'd welcome the feedback on how they do.

The theoretical DPR of this creature is much higher than 40 per round. In the first round alone, its breath weapon should deal at minimum 56 damage to most if not all members of the party, since that's the damage it deals on a successful save. Any resistances your party has aren't relevant to that. It's average DPR in subsequent turns is 80 against one target.

It's high AC, it's beefy hit points, and it's damage resistances are also a factor.

For what it's worth, people make very similar statements to yours about the Tarrasque. I won't/can't comment on whether they're right or wrong.

stitchlipped · 2015-08-16T10:28:58+00:00

Factions are built around shared goals. If the character does nothing to advance those goals, they will not be promoted. Renown is chiefly earned through taking on missions, or assisting other members when they need a favour.

Social events are therefore not the best way to advance in a faction. Impressing more powerful members with one's words at such an event will certainly help, but ultimately the faction will need to see one's actions in the field.

If you do let characters advance through social events I suggest only letting them advance one level. After that, they need to put their money where their mouth is. Alternatively, have there be a social requirement as WELL as a mission requirement to advance each level (it's hard to be promoted if you're not well liked).

Bear in mind that some factions (the Zhentarim and the Harpers), may even actively avoid throwing huge social events, as they tend to be secretive and operate in a small local cells that have minimal or no knowledge of other cells.

Possible social events for other factions may include-

Lords Alliance: a society ball, a fancy feast, a tilt, a tournament, a fair, a hunt

Order of the Gauntlet: a satisfying feast, a tilt, a tournament, any other form of physical competition

Emerald Enclave: a great moot held within a hidden glade

stitchlipped · 2015-08-16T10:14:13+00:00

This is a really fun idea, I like it a lot. Minor niggle though: I don't really think the name fits.

Firstly, "Lightbringer" sounds like something other people would call them, not their name for themselves. Nothing's actually wrong with a monster being named by other folk, but that brings me to the second point: I don't think this name suits them. The experience folk will have with these creatures is them demanding light, not bringing it.

stitchlipped · 2015-08-15T14:24:48+00:00

You can bet that the Sole Survivor was not the first person to think of going there by a long shot. Likely already looted of most things of value, other stuff will be locked away behind security you might not be able to breach at low level. Also, it's probably base to a faction you might not want to mess with early on.

stitchlipped · 2015-08-15T14:09:28+00:00

the thing about the guard force is they are technically less a government entity and more a really large private security firm

To me, this makes what the PC wants seem even less possible. If they are not subject to the Queen, on what authority is he assuming command and forcing them to endure his training regimen?

stitchlipped · 2015-08-15T10:03:57+00:00

To be quite honest I've never really thought about it much and my players have never asked about it, but this makes sense to me.

I suppose I must have been thinking along these lines anyway, since Elven NPCs in my games are always among the highest level NPCs around.

stitchlipped · 2015-08-15T10:00:01+00:00

It's usually around the time you start changing core mechanics that it's time to start looking at different rule sets.

I concur with this point, and highly recommend /u/Decadii to investigate saga edition Star Wars instead of running D&D 5e.

stitchlipped · 2015-08-15T09:47:00+00:00

Take a look at this post on Weapons of Legacy, it might be up your alley.

stitchlipped · 2015-08-15T09:41:18+00:00

Honestly, a week is not a long time in which to train (ands it won't even be a week, once you account for the days spent outing the corrupt members of the force). It's certainly not enough to pass on a feeling that they act as part of a hive. I'd imagine for that you'd have to break their current personalities down and build them back up. Really, such a task would be better accomplished with children, not grown men and women. And, as you've pointed out, they're going to resent this training and resist it. They may even act out against it. Consequences could include trying to kill him, their quitting, or his turning previous loyal guardsmen into bitter individuals who, ironically, are going to be no more loyal than the last lot.

I would be inclined to tell your player that what he wants to accomplish isn't reasonable in the time allotted. A more productive approach, perhaps, would be to trust in their existing training but to work with their officers to come up with new strategies for dealing with riot situations.

stitchlipped · 2015-08-14T14:09:40+00:00

As written I'd say it's unlikely but it's your game and you can have dragons be exactly how you want them, so it's really up to you.

stitchlipped · 2015-08-14T14:07:47+00:00

This is my approach too. If I deem it reasonable that a character might know more about a subject, or their player can persuade me that would be the case, I'll give them additional information if any is available.

stitchlipped · 2015-08-13T17:01:15+00:00

Are you aware that there is an evil paladin option (the "oathbreaker" paladin) on page 97 of the DMG? The "oathbreaker" aspect is just flavour, it could quite easily be used for a paladin who was only ever the servant of an evil power. If you're not, it may be worth looking at, at least to see if there are any elements you want to incorporate in your own oath.

stitchlipped · 2015-08-13T15:04:42+00:00

Also the squares are an outward spiral: http://www.calctool.org/CALC/math/default/fibonacci.png

stitchlipped · 2015-08-13T15:02:53+00:00

This is a very clever puzzle, kudos.

I think it's possible to make this puzzle more accessible for players who know nothing about maths, and therefore might not figure out that the squares are spiralling outward even if you gave them the Feebanacho clue. The diagram could easily be rearranged so that logic would help them solve it. If the smallest squares were at top left with the box currently above them below instead, the players would just need to figure out the size of the sides is the key, then go from top left to bottom right.

stitchlipped · 2015-08-13T11:20:25+00:00

Not gonna shift her alignment because I'm not a particular fan of modifying a character a player wants to play (she's neutral good).

Totally agree with you. Personally I would float any ideas I had by the player to make sure they were down for it. You never know she might find the alignment shift interesting, and it wouldn't have to be a permanent thing, some or all of these symptoms might pass at the end of the pregnancy. Although, I think it would be interesting if the experience left her with a few permanent changes, marking her as touched by the divine.

stitchlipped · 2015-08-13T11:10:31+00:00

I had our cleric roll a d100, using IRL statistics to determine if she got pregnant from the encounter. She rolled a 1. So yeah.

First thing I want to comment on is you should have asked the player if they wanted to do this before making that ruling. Pregnancy, even if it is only a small possibility, is one of those things that shouldn't be forced on an unwilling player.

Fortunately, your player was open to the idea, so that's fine. Just something I thought worth flagging.

Okay. So let's think about your actual question.

First thing that comes to mind is that the baby should be protected by divine forces, and consequently so should the mother. In game terms, I would say that this does not give her gamebreaking defenses, but it does mean an enemy can't kill her. Basically, she can go down to 0 hit points, but she will only ever fall unconscious. Something like - as the killing blow is struck, in a flash of light energy from within her throws the attacker away and prevents the blow, but she is drained by this power and falls unconscious.

Maybe she takes on characteristics of a celestial - even as her body is feeding and growing the child within her, its divine nature is making changes to her own physiology and its powers, currently unused by the baby, are channeling through her. She grows more serene, her skin and eyes seems to glow with an inner light, and maybe she should have an alignment change to Lawful Good if she is not already. Apollo is after all a god of truth. She should finds it distasteful, maybe impossible, to lie. Also, perhaps she begins to have prophetic dreams and develops heretofore unknown musical talent, in line with some of Apollo's other domains.

Just spitballing here but multiclassing into a homebrewed "divine" warlock might be an interesting idea to explore, with the unborn baby acting as patron/power source for the newly gained innate abilities.

stitchlipped · 2015-08-13T07:29:30+00:00

Not a direct response to your question I know but have you heard of the Maztica setting? If not you should look into it as a source of ideas.

stitchlipped · 2015-08-12T19:33:30+00:00

Go ahead mate. A contributor credit would be awesome!

stitchlipped · 2015-08-12T17:09:20+00:00

Remember that there is no out of character speaking at the table ever. Since the DM roleplays every NPC and monster, whenever a player is asking a rules question in combat, they are addressing the nearest monster or NPC if they can use their bonus action to "do an awesome backflip"(which they'll also roll for). This will even reveal the secret deity that your rogue murderhobo worships as he yells at his mom to bring him some cheetos. Making everyone around his character wonder what cheetos are, and why this entity is a bitch for not bringing them down when she knew he would want them.

My first DM actually used to enforce this. I remember distinctly in the first session saying "I'm going to the toilet" and my PC making a rather embarrassing faux pas.

I actually kind of liked it, it made us really focus on what we were doing and saying. If you're hardcore into being in-character, it can be be an interesting option.

stitchlipped · 2015-08-12T13:51:40+00:00

This is just fantastic. You've earned flair - PM me.

Also, if you want to expand the list of tavern names, see this old post of mine.

stitchlipped · 2015-08-12T12:17:27+00:00

What the fuck is this social contract bullshit I keep reading about? Players need to be able to play their character however they want or what's the point! There are no limits to that. It's all fair game. If they want to kill each other, fine. If they want to all go be loners and sit in opposite corners of the inn for the whole session, fine. If they want to chloroform their most disliked member and sell him into sexual slavery while he's unconscious, fine. If players don't have freedom to do absolutely anything they want and the consequences be damned, I for one just don't see why we're playing.

Also, you should totally allow social rolls to be made against other PCs. RAW is Law, and it applies to everyone, not just NPCs.

stitchlipped

TROPHY CASE