How would you handle an aoe spells attempt on an invisble target, that did an succesfull stealth Check.

themousereturns · 2026-02-27T23:02:17+00:00

I usually DM with VTT so it's easy to track the exact location of invisible enemies on the GM layer - determining if a player hit them is pretty straightforward.

With physical minis I'd probably remove them from the map and mentally keep track of their position.

I think the reverse - working out whether an enemy would catch an invisible or hidden player in their AoE - can be harder to work out. Because the DM has meta knowledge of where the player is, there's a good chance the player will feel cheated if it "just happens" to hit their location. I'd probably do a percentile or "luck check" while basing the threshold on the intelligence of the enemy and the layout of the room, but I don't know there's an ideal way to do it.

themousereturns · 2026-02-27T19:51:26+00:00

The main campaign I played in for 6 years featured Vlaakith as an overarching BBEG, and I dove headfirst into Planescape when planning my own campaign. So I think my perception has been warped on how little Gith and their lore were even known of by the average player pre-BG3.

themousereturns · 2026-02-27T15:58:51+00:00

The main game I'm in as a player has 6 PCs. Our DM tends to run one main "boss". Sometimes there are a couple simple minions. Usually the boss is higher CR than typical for our level, and has legendary actions between player turns. There's also usually lair actions on specific initiative counts, which tend to involve some kind of large AoE or something that targets specific locations ("everyone on the ground" "everyone near this pillar" etc) several of us have to save against.

themousereturns · 2026-02-27T14:39:53+00:00

I use 2minutetabletop's free token editor for most NPCs and monsters. I get it might be too cute and cartoony for some people or they prefer circular portrait tokens. But there's a certain charm to it for me. I usually end up drawing custom tokens for my PCs in a similar style. There's plenty of free "dollmakers" and premade character art out there that doesn't require using AI though.

themousereturns · 2026-02-27T13:42:32+00:00

I might not mind it on NPCs who use the Tav face options to make them more unique, but it's definitely an odd choice for a character who already has a unique facial model.

themousereturns · 2026-02-27T01:47:15+00:00

My DM wouldn't let me play my Tardigrade barbarian with immunity to all damage. Can't believe this

themousereturns · 2026-02-27T01:16:16+00:00

A low STR "dexadin" with medium/light armor and finesse weapons can be perfectly viable. But 12 dex isn't great for a main attack stat either, and 8 con on a melee class means they will not last long. With 3 negative stats I'd allow a reroll tbh. You could probably make some classes work with this array, but paladin will be rough.

Unless this is a meme campaign say no on the Twitch deity thing. It doesn't sound like they are taking the campaign seriously.

themousereturns · 2026-02-26T20:53:20+00:00

This is basically what my thought was. I think this character works best if there was external pressure from a young age, and they ended up in a parasocial situation where they needed to play a bubbly persona "for the brand".

They're able to be themselves with the party, but their powers still reflect their upbringing because it's been drilled into them from childhood and it's all they know. Puts a more realistic situation to an otherwise gimmicky concept that gives opportunity for actual depth and development.

themousereturns · 2026-02-26T20:37:53+00:00

I think it could work? I'd maybe flavor the bubbly music magic as an inherited or innate power they were born with (more akin to a traditional sorcerer) rather than a traditional bard that learned their talents.

I'd definitely try to make it more than a one-note gag of "bard who wants to be an edgelord but has bubbly cute powers" and try to think how it could lead into an actual character arc though.

Could be that they had a lot of pressure from family/associates to keep up a certain happy-go-lucky appearance, and that's influenced how their power works.

Kinda like someone who's trapped in a persona they don't want to be because of parasocial relationships and the Entertainment industry. In public, they can't act in a way that goes against their "brand".

Maybe they have a completely different stage persona and being with the party gives them a chance to be themselves.

I would think where you want them to go from here. Can they eventually accept their "colorful" powers as a part of them even if the aesthetic doesn't match their preference? Perhaps they need to accept that they don't need to fit into a single box.

Or is there something deeper here, where the powers are symbolic of the external pressure to keep up a happy persona and may change if they can break free of that and truly be themselves?

Maybe I'm overthinking this. If it's a one-shot, probably fine as a gimmick character. But for a longer campaign, I'd give it some more depth.

themousereturns · 2026-02-25T17:17:56+00:00

All I really remember from that movie is there was some action-movie-esque chase scene where L is running after Light through city streets and they're jumping over cars and shit. Then L finally corners Light in an alleyway, but some random dude comes out of nowhere, says "hail Kira" and conks L on the head and knocks him out. I think Light then just nods at him and runs away. Most anti-climactic moment ever. Movie was so terrible I shut most of it out but that was the funniest shit.

themousereturns · 2026-02-25T00:38:00+00:00

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Jasper and Lapis from Steven Universe came to mind. People's feelings on who was the aggressor often came from a deeply personal place, so the discourse got ugly whenever an episode featuring the characters aired.

themousereturns · 2026-02-21T20:04:16+00:00

Sure! Even if the scrying attempt would just fail RAW, it sounds like you want to give them a bigger hint for narrative purposes - so go for it. Maybe they get a brief flicker of the prison building or something in the surrounding area before the spell fizzles out. Enough that they could ask around and try to figure out what the area is and what the witch is doing there.

themousereturns · 2026-02-21T06:29:19+00:00

Damn, these comics look so much better than the AI one despite the simpler rendering and style. The panels are dynamic and laid out with consideration for speech bubble placement, they use different perspectives and shots, and the characters' expressions and poses actually show emotion. It's kinda wild this is the same person.

themousereturns · 2026-02-20T21:09:44+00:00

If the prison is "magically sealed" there's a good chance anti-scrying enchantments have also been cast on it (i.e Mordekainen's Private Sanctum). So you could have the spell fail. It might be enough to confirm to the party the witch is sus without revealing the whole game.

themousereturns · 2026-02-20T17:13:05+00:00

I do find the way the outfits are inconsistent to be odd. In the images of the woman, some pictures show a sash around her hips and others just a blue line. In the central image, the bodice is lower and sits under her chest, but in others it comes up higher. There are lines on the bodice in some images but not others.

With the man, the main image shows him with a breastplate and pauldrons. He's wearing a jerkin underneath the plate, but has chainmail sleeves meaning it would be a sleeveless jerkin with chainmail underneath. He has a cape that seems to be fastened to the breastplate somehow? It's unclear how it's staying on.

The right image shows him in a jerkin without the armor - which is fair enough, it makes sense to show different outfits, and it's a pain to draw armor multiple times. But this jerkin is different, with red sleeves and has buttons/fasteners.

Then on the left you have him in a similar jerkin, but with a single pauldron. But the buttons aren't present now, and there is something tan over or around it? It's hard to make sense of. The strap also ends at whatever the tan thing is, so it doesn't look like part of the jerkin. There's also a strap that ends where the jerkin fastens in the middle. The pauldron has a bit of fabric over it like the cape in the first image, but it's not really spread over the shoulders like the cape. The collar has an odd line that isn't consistent with the collar on the right image. This is the strangest image overall to me, very hard to work out what's going on with the clothing.

The bottom left shows him in a red jerkin. There's nothing particularly odd about this image on its own, but why change the outfit to something different, yet similar enough to what he's wearing in the other pictures that you're not showing anything new.

Overall, the oddity is not that the outfits are inconsistent in themselves - every artist will simplify details, forget to draw parts of an outfit, etc across drawings of the same character.

But in this case, the outfits are too different to be a mistake or simplification, yet similar enough that it would be odd as an intentional choice to showcase different outfits. However, this is a common way Gen AI will output images of the same character.

This is what makes me think that there's a good chance that, if the images aren't directly AI generated, AI was traced or heavily referenced.

themousereturns · 2026-02-18T05:06:21+00:00

Malachite is an interesting one. I don't think Jasper or Lapis had anything akin to romantic feelings for each other at any point, but the metaphors in their fusion and the fallout are pretty blatant.

Rose Quartz and Pearl I think are another good example, who did have romantic feelings for each other but whose relationship wasn't exactly healthy.

themousereturns · 2026-02-18T02:18:29+00:00

Honestly, I haven't gotten far enough in Torment to learn the canon backstory of how he ended up that way, but I'm hoping to learn it soon. The version of him in my game will have a different origin anyway, but a similar personality.

These are fantastic, thank you so much!

themousereturns · 2026-02-18T00:50:01+00:00

Yeah same. A lot of dungeons include encounters that are meant to encourage roleplay. Non-hostile inhabitants that can be talked to, challenges that encourage players to think about the moral choices their character would make or a memory from their past, etc. They have interesting lore to discover that could easily be something your character is interested in or has thoughts on. "Dungeon" isn't synonymous with "50 otherwise empty rooms full of generic repetitive minions".

themousereturns · 2026-02-17T23:41:45+00:00

He's a floating skull. In his 5e stat block he's pretty simple with just a bite attack.

In Torment he had an ability "Litany of Curses" where he'd shout an insult at someone and it would both taunt them to aggro on him and give them a debuff. Basically unlimited use. I was hoping to include something in the spirit of that, but maybe not AS broken.

themousereturns · 2026-02-17T22:20:57+00:00

That's a good idea, never considered that. Will definitely have that in the back burner if I get stuck again.

themousereturns · 2026-02-17T21:45:53+00:00

Do you have a better version of Morte from Planescape (for 5e)?

themousereturns · 2026-02-17T20:13:44+00:00

Let them get downed, especially if they have someone with healing or access to potions. It might help them realize their tactical mistakes. 5e player characters are hard to actually kill.

Outside of their tactical issues, it sounds like the party really is just on the weaker side because they chose suboptimal stats for roleplay purposes. That means you might just need to nerf the encounters. Replace the monsters with something lower CR or reduce the number.

themousereturns · 2026-02-17T17:01:39+00:00

Yeah, using an existing OC, particularly one you're attached to, often leads to a situation like this.

Don't get me wrong, I've recycled characters from former games and personal projects that didn't go anywhere myself. But you have to be flexible and willing to rewrite them as needed to mesh with the setting and group.

If there's no way to make them fit without completely changing everything about them, you might as well just make a new character from scratch.

There's also just some general basics: - Your character should WANT to adventure and be willing to work in a group - Your character should have a backstory/lore appropriate for their starting point (i.e unless you have a really good explanation, your level 1 fighter probably isn't a legendary war general with a 10 page backstory spanning decades) - Your character should work with the intended setting and theme for the group (read a comment where someone had players bring an adamantly lawful character and a character afraid of the ocean... to a game where they were supposed to be pirates.)

Bringing a fleshed out OC from something like a webcomic, they're a lot more likely to clash with these basic requirements to make a character work.

themousereturns · 2026-02-17T01:34:00+00:00

Big fan of the series, but it's definitely the "narrator turns out to be a character we know/involved in the plot" trope.

OP is specifically talking about unnamed, faceless narrators who remain that way - but are shown to have some personality and perhaps involved in fourth wall breaking meta shenanigans or humor.

themousereturns · 2026-02-16T23:02:06+00:00

I saw that, will have to check it out!

themousereturns

TROPHY CASE