We finished 5/6 of our 3.5 Katapesh campaign last week. So I'm starting to think about my next character (assuming I don't get talked into running another game...)
I was looking at High One Warrior-Wizard (wiz substitute levels for an ex-Paladin), and Elf substitute levels for pal & wiz. But I'm not sure if it's worth it.
Then I looked at Duskblade, and I'm leaning towards that. (I rolled one up before but never got to play it)
@Miniman Elf paladin levels give you ranged smite & unicorn mount. Also a different aura, but I'd probably go Paladin of Freedom, which is almost the same. Elf wizard levels give you a bonus spell known & per-day, and improved familiar bonuses. High One War-Wiz lets you count wiz levels towards smite power (but not uses), lets your mount also be your familiar, and lets you ignore 20% ACP. You need 5 levels of each to get all that...
There's also a feat that lets you use Pal spell slots to cast Wiz spells, and count Pal levels towards Wiz caster level.
So after 10 levels, with some careful optimising, you're a decent gish... which Duskblade gets out-of-the-box...
@Adeptus If you're looking for something a bit different to do with a Cleric, Bone Knight (from Five Nations) is a really cool class that gets a bunch of cool stuff.
Maybe online folks are like me: gung-ho for a while, apathetic for a while, then back again. Kinda like a really slow bipolar thingummy (Not really, but as described)
I really like the format it has, but both times I have used it now the group assembled to play it has dropped off relatively quickly
I could have even just finished that scenario by myself, but at that point it would have been me moving the story along when I felt like it was somone else's turn to do it
OK. In my 'defense' I am mostly talking about how I might feel, not being consistently creative. (I have the occasional flash of mediocrity, but it's usually quite brief)
@Miniman yeah fair enough, like, I believe you had already added something into the scene, and then I did, and I figure we were all waiting for Greener to post something, but I think partly he was having IRL problems of some form or other
but I felt like I would be stealing something from him if I posted to finish that scene, so I did nothing
@Chemus Ok, to put it directly: just because I have wings doesn't mean I want to fly everywhere. Yeah, there are often times where it would be faster to ride a bike than to catch the bus, but the bus requires little to no effort on my part.
(Actually, around here it's always faster to ride a bike than to catch the bus.)
Community FAQ
For Role-playing Games Stack Exchange
For frequently-asked questions common to all sites in the network, see FAQ for Stack Exchange sites.
For official guidance from Stack Exchange, visit the Help Center.
Asking questions
How do we ask and answer subjective questions?
What k...
Can one of our data wizards tell us the actual rate at which closed questions are reopened (and left open) vs. closed forever? Preferably excluding close-dupes, which I think we usually (though not universally) agree are for the best? — SirTechSpec17 hours ago
had a bizarre circumstance during a 5e sessions yesterday. About 1/2 way in, I had to nerf my own player beause i felt like I was taking the spotlight too much.
but yes, my bard was controlling the encounter and I think it wasn't fun for others. I think it really went south after a hypnotic pattern took out 4 enemies.
@Adam In general, people in RPGs like having agency and a fair share of spotlight time. When one character is extremely efficient in solving problems, the other players tend to feel deprived of agency and spotlight, and this can have them feel powerless and frustrated.
Did it trivialize some big story moment, like a dual between two rival parties, or end a BBEG encounter in record time? Or was it just a throw away encounter?
@doppelgreener Yes, but it seems unfair for Naut to not choose spells that he has every right to use because a bunch of creatures have a weak wisdom save
@Adam No, that's the good thing. It was mostly just a generic combat encounter, but I could tell some folks weren't having it (mostly because they started waking up the monsters more than one at a time.)
I'm sure there is a lot of context that I just don't know that makes a difference. That's always the case. But some of the implications leave a bad taste in my mouth.
If his character's doing things that seem unfun for the group, he totally has every right to do those things, but may choose not to to increase group fun. Focusing on "it's not fair they have to not cast spells" whilst deliberately ignoring one's desire for the group to have fun is a bit like focusing on "it's not fair that person doesn't get to flex their finger" when they've just pulled a crossbow trigger and shot someone in the leg with a crossbow bolt.
This is where group play and the social contract come into their own: the game may offer choices that the group isn't interested in, and part of playing nice with others is making choices that facilitate group play rather than shirking responsibility for one's own decisions by blaming the game designers for making other people feel left out.
@Adam Look at it this way - imagine if you built the perfect character, who could defeat any monster with a single turn, an unlimited number of times per day. Do you think anyone wants to play with that guy in the party?
Guys...I get what you're saying. I do. Believe me. I'm just saying that with the information I had at the time of the comment it sounds like a silly concern. Because I had to work with was "I ended this one generic encounter"
But bards? Oh, man. In most systems I've played a bard-like concept, the fun is in choosing features and strategies which give me spotlight control in order to make sure everyone else gets their moment.
@BESW I basically started it with a Hold Monster on one fire giant, they went in and pretty much finished him off. And then followed up with a hypnotic pattern on two more fire giants and two other creatuers that had some sort of crazy reach.
Probably the most amazing "bard" character I've ever seen was a classic "lazy warlord" build in 4e, taken to extremes: he never attacked, hardly moved. Everything he did was about sacrificing his actions to grant extra actions to others.
@BESW 5e, unfortunately, doesn't really support buffing or debuffing as a strategy. And most of the "make it easy for my buddies to kill stuff" spells are like Hypnotic Pattern - it's obvious that the enemies are just waiting to be killed.
Heck, I wrote Tegan Jovanka as a proactive support character in my DW FAE campaign. Her leadership training gave her +2 to Flashily coordinate plans, so she'd have lots of bonuses to hand out to people if they followed her lead.
@NautArch You don't necessarily need to do a full rebuild, but when you level take more support spells (and possibly retrain some of your strongest ones to support as well)
If you're playing a big burly guy who specializes in beating people up, and your friend's nerdy theater character is holding the target down for you, there's a certain undermining of the power fantasy and a sense that you weren't really needed.
@doppelgreener most fights end in about 5 or so rounds. This went will be about 15 rounds (probably our longest fight we've ever done.)
@BESW I think that's the thing - my support was so effective it didn't give other party members a chance to really do their thing in a challenging manner.
basically, the DM should NEVER use low-wisdom creatures that are susceptible to charm against me
That's where, like, giving a bonus or granting an extra action can be so powerful: making the other person better rather than making their target worse is roughly the same mathematically but so very different psychologically.
@NautArch If the debuff spells are making things unfun I would go for buffing support. The mechanical effect may be the same, but it probably feels better to them. Say if you have the opportunity to blind an opponent or make the meat shield they are fighting with invisible, even though the effect is mostly the same (the opponent has disadvantage and the meat shield has advantage)I would guess that most of the time the invisibility is going to make the meat shield feel better about it.
@NautArch This is where, as a player, I'll sometimes nudge the GM to say "what's the point of playing out this combat?" Now there may be reasons to play it out, I just think they shouldn't be assumed/unexamined.
@NautArch And that's a totally-fine reason to play out a fifteen-round foregone-conclusion combat. If the players like rolling dice and sublimating themselves to the predictable elimination of enemy HP, that's great. I just think it should be explicit.
@doppelgreener I tried to move the group towards story-based levelling (at least for our main story campaign. this was our alternating DM 'campaign'...which is really more like vignettes)
@doppelgreener I have no problem with running meaningless fights--I just want the table to choose it. I'll often say (and it's usually when hypnotic pattern lands, frankly) "okay, you can just pick these off one by one and use no resources doing so. Do you want to, or do we just fast-forward?"
@nitsua60 That sounds like a useful management mechanism. In saying what I did, I was recalling a D&D campaign that I was padding out with fights that weren't fun (I could have made them more fun) and weren't really necessary, because XP requirements to level up were a thing.
@doppelgreener I've always been very keen on lots of story/exploration XP, and I've finally gone as far away from combat XP as I can imaging: killing something that wasn't obstructing your pre-encounter goals gains you 0xp.
@Miniman I don't think incapacitation gives you anything like advantage on attack rolls or auto-crit or the like, so it's basically just giving you one free hit
Monsters meant to fight a party solo get 3 different ways of breaking the action economy, because they have to to have a chance at being threatening as a solo.
@Miniman No, I know that 1v4 a monster is completely doomed. I'm just saying that the spell isn't as powerful as it could be. though it is still very powerful, I admit that
I think if you get all the creatures in a 30ft x 30ft area, get them to all fail their saves, and then surround them and kill them one at a time without them having time to react properly... you've earned that victory, but it's not "Hypnotic Pattern" doing the hard work
@NautArch that's not really an exception to the rule since it sets their move to zero. As @Erik says, it's more the reason why the spell sets their speed to zero
To be fair, that's just splitting hairs though. The fact remains that it is pretty strong to have a bunch of guys fail a save and just sit still like a zombie for up to a minute
Which means they saw that it was possible to move while incapacitated and decided to add movement speed reduction to Hypnotic Pattern rather than re-word incapacitation. Which makes me wonder what their concept of incapacitation is.
I mean, none of this is to say that hypnotic pattern is the only spell one should ever cast. But it's a spell that can trivialize an encounter in the same way that a fireball can trivialize a crowd of mooks; and the type of encounter it trivializes seems a lot more common than a crowd of CR1 in a tight formation.
@Miniman I just think it's that the situation comes up more often than a lot of other spells' prime situation. As a metagame issue: GMs and writers (IME) for reason of spotlight-sharing and action economy tend to cluster encounter populations pretty close to party-number.
the issue that this brings up from a DM perspective is having to design encounters around your storyline, but also thinking about the things the PCs do well, are vulnerable against, and balancing it. If you try and just build without doing that, there is a very good chance your encounter will be dealt with tooe asily.
@nitsua60 I carry silvered ball bearings :) We decided that it would take me a bonus action to release the bearings so I couldn't cast and attack at same time.
The thing about animate objects is that it's just so much bookkeeping.
It's a spell I would probably never use, not because it's imbalanced or anything like that, but just because it creates work for everyone at the table.
@NautArch So my "solution" is to design encounters around the world, then calculate encounter thresholds, then don't change them. I feel like my responsibility is to describe the encounter informatively, not to design it any particular way.
@nitsua60 Hey, I'm not saying it isn't manageable. Just that I don't like to spend so much of the group's time on me muttering numbers to myself like a crazy person.
Not even are the Tiny ones amongst the most powerful; you get fewer bigger objects but they are barely stronger than the smaller ones. There is almost no reason to animate anything bigger
@Miniman I actually made a 3.5 necromancer with more than 200 HD worth of undead at her command. She never hit the table for that reason.
@NautArch Secrets of Cats lets you take the Animate stunt for Naming magic:
> By sacrificing a small animal and whispering your True Name to an inanimate object—including corpses—you imbue it with life until the next sunrise or sunset. The opposition depends on the size of the object, starting at Average (+1) for insect-sized objects and increasing by two per rung on the scale ladder (page 20).
@BESW So that's how cats steal socks. They sacrifice rats and mice to some eldritch god and animate your clothes to walk them out of the dryer or clothesdrawer.
The procedure we've got at our table is that before casting the spell the wizard announces tactical intent: "I want to take out X" or "I'm trying to clear out as many of the mooks as possible." Then he rolls everything and the convention is to read left-to-right; GM announces target on die and HP, and dice are scooted off to the side a few at a time. I feel like it's no slower than a battlemaster, honestly. (And it's definitely faster than our barbarian who can't seem to keep track of an ability modifier to damage, a rage modifier to damage, *and* a magical weapon modifier to damage.)
So I'm working on encounter/adventure design. Right now, I have something set up so that the PCs should hit 2nd level as the result of one five-encounter questline. Should I break it up into two or more smaller questlines?
Well, I was definitely going to start off with some minor exploration + skill checks to gain tangible bonuses on success (like making Persuasion checks with an alchemist to get some healing potions).
I guess I should ask my players whether they want me to give them EXP numbers and they tell me when they level or whether they want me to manage the numbers and I tell them when to level.
My suggestion here is twofold: first, level up when the story asks for it, disregard XP completely; second: don't play "fodder" encounters, like "there's 30 crew members on the ship, they will surely put up a fight" - yes, a fight they will lose because they're mooks and we don't really care about that part of the story, we want to see them dealing with the captain and with the imperial guards escorting them --> this leads into "a questline has as many encounters as the story dictates". (That's my two cents that I don't apply either, anyway.)
At level 1, it's really mixed. Having run a level 1 game recently, some things that sound really hard on paper aren't that scary. And other things that sound doable nearly wipe everyone out. Either way; it's really down to luck of the dice.
But as a quick pointer for things that will almost definitely end poorly: creatures that can do damage without an attack roll. Low level monsters don't hit often, but even a certain 1d6 damage takes away a huge chunk of health.
@Zachiel Well, keeping track of EXP is definitely something I need to ask my players because I have played with some people who are adamant about knowing exactly how much EXP they've gained and how close they are to leveling.
@Erik I could always fudge the dice in their favor at lower levels or just start them at 3rd level.
But I have one player who's never done D&D so I imagine he wants to get the full experience.
@Yuuki Id say the new player should start at first level. Throwing all of their 3rd level choices at them at the beginning of the game can be a bit overwhelming
@Yuuki I do think that 5e's done a good job of parsing out "learning your character" through the first, say, three levels. So if you've a new person I'd recommend starting L1.
(On the flip-side, it means you're not "really" playing your character until L3 or so.)
As much as D&D has done a fairly good job of making paladins distinct from clerics, I feel like the "holy pious knight" concept is still stuck in their heads. Samurai with their oaths of loyalty to their lords are far more 5e paladin-like than fighter-like.
@Yuuki Really, the only difference between a conventional knight and a fighter is just in name and class flavor. A fighter, who is played as a knight, can take up an "oath" similar to the paladin. The paladin's conviction just gives him holy powers that the fighter doesn't have.
@Yuuki You jumped the conversational tracks a bit there, but assuming you're talking about the samurai from the Fighter UA, I'd argue that neither the troperiffic samurai D&D is aiming for nor the historical samurai have anything to do with magical abilities, healing powers, or any of the other stuff D&D's paladin has.
if you wanted to make a samurai, but feel that a paladin's holy powers aren't a good fit, then just describe your plate armor as typical samurai armor, say that your greatsword is an odachi, and choose fighter.
@NautArch Again, this is something I feel like I should ask my players if they're comfortable with because I have played with people who really want to keep track of EXP.
And regard story-based leveling with a certain vehemence.
(I feel like he may have played with a bad DM in the past)
@Yuuki that's my group . Personally, I'd rather have story-based. I don't really care about the XP - i care about progressing in the story and my character. If those are hand-in-hand, that's very cool.
@Yuuki I think there's a false dichotomy at play here. I award copious story and exploration-based XP, and there's plenty to track. Hey, you had this conversation and learned this thing that'll be useful later? 100xp. You found the paper that's got the ritual to unlock the door on it? 300xp.
"Story XP" doesn't just have to be "I'll wave my hand at the end of the night and tell you to level if the encounters were too hard."
@NautArch I think lots of people hear "milestone them" when they hear "story xp." It seems to me that in the 20 years I wasn't playing much the game got away from doling out XP in drips and drabs, much more toward "I'll just give you a total at the end of the night" or "I'll just tell you when to level."
And I think that's a loss.
Much like encumbrance, it seems like a practice that was discarded out of dislike for its bookkepping without an examination of what good it's providing.
@nitsua60 Yeah, we got our XP generally at the end of the night or next day. For long campaigns with a set story, I just like the idea of not being as interested in XP, which lets you dive into the story and move up when the story provides for it.
@NautArch I like XP looked at from the other end: I like it as a way of saying "yes! Talking to the mayor was an important way to spend your time. Yes! Finding that mural gave you information that's useful! Yes! Making a friend is important!"
@nitsua60 I am definitely seeing the other end now that you're explaining it. It's a difference in DM style, too. We generally haven't been active RPers, and so don't get an opportunity for or to get that type of XP.
@NautArch Sorry for interrupting the conversation, but if I could just say I finally watched an episode of He-Man last night and kept thinking about you
@nitsua60 The problem with encumbrance is that paper character sheets have boxes too small and don't auto-calculate your weight when you fill them out.
Otherwise, I love doing inventory management because I'm a silly person.
@nitsua60 One could argue that with milestone games, anything that moves the story forward is effectively the same as giving out xp. In the sense that any action you take which advances the plot, also advances you toward a level in the same way that being given experience would. Though, I do agree that actually being given the xp has a substantial effect on how player perceive the game
Having a clear goal that you can track and visually move towards is incredibly motivating.
@Adam Sure, but I've never seen anyone milestone ten times a session. There's a speed to the reward-cycle with XP that I don't see happening with milestoning.
If a DM has come upw ith their storyline and where to insert levelling in a manner that's fair and interesting, I don't see an issue. It also takes away from metagaming a bit...maybe.
@NautArch I assume you're not going to level ten times a session. So if you want to recognize milestones ten times a session, what's the reward you do give out?
@nitsua60 Indeed. One of my groups built up their whole kind of three part story outline, and each has a specific level range that some of the players want to DM for. So, the first DM was stuck at a certain level cap no matter how long we took, which lead to really inconsistent level ups and forward momentum
@NautArch I don't want to support roleplaying per se. I want to support roleplay that somehow advances the party's stated goals.
"We're trying to find the caves of MacGuffin!" -> "Let's drink all night and carouse with locals!" = 0xp "We're trying to find the caves of MacGuffin!" -> "Let's split up to hit all the bars, buy plenty of drinks, and collect rumors of the caves." = lotsa XP.
@nitsua60 but that's progressing the storyline. Go off and do things that aren't the story? That's a risk of either no XP or no storyline progression which equals further from levelling. What's the difference?
@NautArch If you're "milestoning" and one of your milestones is "learning location of Caves of MacGuffin", what's the reward? Seems like you'll run out of levels really fast....
@Yuuki Please allow me to plug my favorite electronic character sheet, which does track encumbrance: dmsguild.com/product/186823/…
@nitsua60 hmmm. If the milestone was learning the location, then it doesn't matter HOW they learned of it. If learning the locaiton wasn't a milestone, but they did it in a very clever way, you can reward them with inspiration, or move the milestone up (but not necessarily NOW)
@NautArch I dunno... inspiration seems like a really small reward, and you can only have one instance of it. XP just seems much more amenable to doling out in such quantities as you want, whenever you want, and is a thing players like. But maybe I'm showing my grey hairs....
I'm currently using arcana.io which does not do a lot of automated stat calculation (with the exception of weight tracking, I think), but it has the benefit of being able to tie characters to campaign and a bunch of other auxiliary stuff.
@nitsua60 Or maybe I'm showing mine :) I guess I like the idea of just enjoying the story and moving up the character as the story goes. I don't really care about getting an extra 100 XP because I did something cool. I'd rather do something cool because doing something cool was fun.
@nitsua60 Learning about the caves isn't necessarily the level milestone though. Completely the adventure around the caves is the milestone.
If the party wants to sit around all night drinking themselves into a stupor, they won't make any progress toward the end of the story, so they don't get any closer to leveling up, because the story isn't moving. It sounds to me like the difference between the approaches is leading people on to do things by giving them constant, small rewards in the form of XP, versus telling them that they won't get anything at all unless they finish their chores.
Or rather, the difference is giving out constant rewards to keep people motivated compared to motivating them by telling them there is a big stash of what is effectively XP waiting for them at the end of the adventure, or the end of the act of the adventure.
All xp could be party xp I suppose. Everything is split evenly so you never need to worry about it. As long as somebody does something, everybody reaps the benefit as a team
It's like how no matter what the kill count ends up being, or who had more to do in one particular encounter, at the end of the day most parties will agree to an even split of the treasure.
@Miniman, "the rule is straightforward" or "what this means is up to your group", I think you need to pick 1 or the other, here, with respect to the Inspiration question.
@godskook that's what my answer was trying to say. I really need it, isn't quite worth giving inspiration (in my opinion), but I'd also allow it at my table because of the resource value and helping each other should be encouraged.
@godskook I think "the rule is straightforward" refers to there clearly being a rule that "something that really contributes to the story in a fun and interesting way" has to happen. But what that something is, and what constitutes "fun and interesting" is up to the group
@godskook and miniman is trying to sleep right now...won't see this for awhile.
@Adam other than for the reason I said above (do it because it's nice), I don't think the rule actually supports it. It's basically giving out inspiration for nothing.
Think fo the other side, would you ask your DM for inspiration on a roll without having done anything to earn it? If the answer is no, why do you think a player should give it without earning it?
@NautArch I also don't think it was designed to let you transfer just because someone had to make a serious roll. That being said, most of the time I come into the chat with an opinion that I wouldn't do something, you guys manage to change my mind. I was only trying to explain my interpretation of the answer.
@NautArch "Can I have advantage on this save against the breath weapon because I don't want to die?"
@Adam, straightforward="easy to understand" and a rule that does not provide a clear ruling on the relevant point is not easy to understand on the relevant point, and thus, not straightforward relative to the relevant point.
On the other side of seriousness, what about giving your inspiration to an ally so he can win a drinking contest at the tavern you're stopping at for the night?
@Adam, @NautArch, the easiest way for the DM to fairly adjudicate this is to rule that it takes a certain level of action. And then, the DM should, imho, wash his hands of the process.
So...for instance, it takes a "non-combat action" or w/e to grant Inspiration to a fellow player.
I don't think giving out inspiration as a free world interaction makes sense. Both from the perspective of how that would even work in game, and for what inspiration is supposed to be. Inspiration is a reward for really giving yourself into the game. It isn't a buff that you spread around like Bless or Guidance
If you were to reward somebody with experience for good roleplaying, would you allow that player to say "Jim is 200 exp away from a level up! So I award the 200 xp I got for roleplaying to him so he levels up as the dragon is breathing fire on him so he now has more hp to soak up the fire"
@NautArch I wish the two mechanics had different names, so that we didn't have to make that distinction. But yes, bardic inspiration is a buff that you pass around like bless or guidance
But I'd still allow inspiration to work like that. But only because I try and hand it for earned effort. If you want someone else to reap that reward, that a valid decision.
Community FAQ
For Role-playing Games Stack Exchange
For frequently-asked questions common to all sites in the network, see FAQ for Stack Exchange sites.
For official guidance from Stack Exchange, visit the Help Center.
Asking questions
How do we ask and answer subjective questions?
What k...
