You know what just occurred to me? The reason why the Archery fighting style (in 5e) gives +2 to attack rolls with ranged weapons (and specifically +2) is to counteract the +2 to AC from half-cover, because the designers assume people play by the cover rules and so any creature (including allies) between you and the enemy you're attacking gives the enemy half-cover against your attack. And so the Archery fighting style is designed to cancel that out. (Of course, I very rarely see people apply that aspect of the cover rules...)
Well, I've got my three forms of Corruption - Bloodlust, Madness, and Decay. Bloodlust grants a healing ability, Madness grants an "ask the GM" ability.
I need one for Decay, and currently I'm stumped. lol
I was thinking I could go for a powerful resistance-type ability... but if you have a suggestion that works with the "decay" theme, I'm open to that too
Preparing and running a session that's mostly going to be downtime. I recently ran a session like this after the end of a long arc and the session went awfully.
I didn't really know what to prep for and school took a lot of my time, so I went into the session without much prepped except for what I knew a few of the players wanted to do and accomplish while they weren't killing things.
@Shalvenay Finals week next week. Tensions are high.
Well, this is mostly going to be when players are going to restock all their gear, possibly find better stuff, maybe look around for some information about a current quest, sell some stuff/make some money.
All that should be fairly easy to manage. However there might be one or two players that don't want to do any of that stuff, so you can set up something for them to do, like a "mini adventure". Finding the rascal kid that stole some apples from a vendor, or maybe dealing with a tavern brawl.
I'll give you a little synopsis of my party: 5 level 6 characters, a warlock whose player really doesn't like RP that much and spends most of his downtime trying to research alchemical breakthroughs (something I came up with for him), a monk who's working on some "burdens" his order sets before him in order to learn new abilities, a paladin whose player enjoys RP but is inexperienced and didn't have much to do while everyone else was RP'ing their stuff, and a cleric and ranger that were absent.
It's probably my fault for not having enough stuff prepared and available for them in the fairly large city they're in, but I feel like none of them want to take the initiative to do anything that isn't a strictly mechanical activity (e.g., I work on researching Alchemy stuff), and I don't know how to keep them all involved without ramming a plot hook down their throats in the middle of what's supposed to be downtime
I tend to do it one-on-one between sessions and either incorporate "downtime reports" at the beginning of a session or plan (with the player) what would be a reasonable trigger to in-session say "funny thing: a few months back Alice did X while you-all were recuperating. Can you tell us about it, Alice?"
@nitsua60 Oh man, I love the sound of that. Especially since most of my players seem to not enjoy downtime at the table as much as I would like them to.
@Ben Those are decent ideas! I'll keep them in mind, thanks
@nitsua60 Do you have different levels of prepared content for different players during downtime, if you've got players that have differing tastes or preferences?
You might be talking to the wrong sheep... I rarely have anything prepared. I've run a year-long campaign off of a single sheet* of paper, excluding ephemera (notes, maps, sketches) that I whip up to give to the players. (* - both sides, of course. I'm not trying to shortchange my players, after all!)
@BESW It's usually not that mundane, unless it's not about shopping or they're meeting a recurring shopkeep with more than just a bland personality for the first time.
I've watched too many streams where the players like to get into shenanigans during downtime, I guess. I keep expecting that from my players who clearly are not interested.
(It may be that your players just don't find the same thing enjoyable, but it may be that they're not seeing the possibility in downtime that you are, or that they feel deer-in-headlights at the wide-openness of a downtime scene....)
@nitsua60 I think it's all of the above. A number of them are very non-social introverts, but some are fairly extroverted. Those extroverts are usually the ones trying memorable, screwball stuff.
You might consider integrating some other systems' social mechanics.
I know some games use D&D mechanics for combat scenes, and Fate mechanics for social scenes.
Because D&D doesn't really encourage or support that sort of thing--it just gets out of the way and expects the table to handle social scenes mostly free-form.
@BESW Or even just gaining some experience playing/running other systems--without ever bringing a different mechanic to bear at the table one can transform one "pillar" of one's GMing =)
@Viishnahn You'd start by having your players write down some short phrases that describe their characters: maybe they're a Sucker for a Pretty Face who was Educated at the Academy of Blades and wields My Father’s Bloodstained Sword but is In League with the Twisting Hand and there's A Price on My Head.
@Viishnahn Then seek out some other games to play. My "regular" group is largely resistant to anything other than 5e, so I step out on them all the time =)
That defines them as someone with a personality whose goals, allegiances, and relationships give them a place in the world.
For Fate, they then earn "fate points" when those phrases make trouble for the character, and they can spend fate points to declare that things are true about the situation or to get bonuses on rolls.
This pushes the players toward interacting with NPCs in interesting ways that create little stories about getting into and out of trouble, rather than D&D's resource-management approach to downtime which places value on NOT getting into pointless side adventures because they aren't efficient.
@Viishnahn I like versions of Fate where you're prompted very specifically to write phrases that push your character into the kind of story the game is trying to tell.
Masters of Umdaar, for example, is about a team of adventurers who risk their lives braving wilderness, traps, tombs, and rival adventurers in order to find ancient artifacts of power.
So it asks you things like "What's your motivation for doing this ridiculously dangerous job?" and "What's your relationship with someone else on the team?"
@BESW Always wondered about the "declare a truth" part of those systems (5E has an optional play method where points like these exist). Are there any limits on these declarations?
@Viishnahn You can say "Because I'm An experienced thief I've been working on my shackles for this whole scene. I spend a fate point to reveal that I've finally unlocked them!"
The nice thing about Fate, compared to most other personality-focused systems I know, is that it's fast and easy to convert characters from any other system into Fate provided they have personalities to start with.
@Viishnahn Beware the Geek Social Fallacies. Not every activity has to involve every friend every time.
And most activities involve some compromise and negotiation to find something that the participants are all okay with even if it's not exactly what everyone wanted.
I've seen a lot of RPG groups go down in flames because they thought being friends replaced negotiating for a mutually beneficial shared experience.
Correction of the fallacy: when gaming with close friends, it's a different and perhaps less-practiced skill to resolve disagreement about game elements without just leaving.
@BESW I've got a really large spread when it comes to changing up things about the game. Some people agree with me and want to try new things after I present my point of view. Others don't want the game system that they're familiar with touched. The former ones happen to mostly be fellow GM's.
I'd also suggest that if at all possible, you DO try to introduce some other game systems. There are tiny, fast, easy, free games that can be tried for just an hour or so with minimal sunk costs.
And just the act of playing different things is, in my experience, dramatically good for a group.
They're all free, a handful or pages or less to read, and very satisfying as single-shot games that take two hours or less to play a session from "Let's play this game you've never heard of" to finish.
Sure. It'd probably be most fair if these focused on things that most characters use - attacks, damage, AC, saves, save DCs, perception/initiative, CHA skills, INT skills, rolling hit dice during a short rest, ... the list goes on
It may also be nice if there's some way to remove or reduce corruption - maybe doing services or sidequests for the local temple, or something like that
A lot of the GiTP forum back and forth is 3.5 and PF veterans dragging min/max approaches to 5e ... sometimes the discussions are useful, sometimes they are not ... other times the whinging about 'that's broken' gets a bit tiresome.
Heck, each game system has some quirks. There are a few missed opportunities in 5e, IMO 4 elements monk "missed it by that much!" and wild magic sorcerer was almost great. (I still want to play one, but I need to be in the right group)
Each from of Corruption works in different ways should be form; in your bloodlust tier 1, Your aggression is you need to complete that sentence.
Consider adding additional "negative traits" to either tier 2 or 3.
You get this, but it costs you that. You did it in tier 1, but not the other tiers.
Ah that's a good point. Perhaps the penalty-to-benefit ratio could increase with higher tiers of corruption. So each tier is progressively more impactful.
One thing to look at is whom they benefit/harm. Bards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks are hit pretty hard: the only positive they can really look to is the CON-bumping things, but those cost them CHA-effects. Rogues are pretty well screwed, with DEX, INT, and CHA being the three negatively-hit. Monks, Paladins, Fighters are pushed toward WIS (monk) or STR (fighter, paladin) and away from DEX (monk, fighter) or CHA (paladin). Wizards are alright--I suppose the +CON/-CHA thing is a mild benefit at likely no cost.
Now that-all may be fine. I don't know what mix of classes you expect playing.
@nitsua60 Yes, it is something I keep thinking about. Thanks for clarifying tall that though, that'll definitely help make everything a little easier to balance out
And I'm serious when I say it's not necessarily bad. You're talking to a guy who starts by assuming only Fighter, Wizard, maybe Rogue, and maybe Cleric are on the table; everything else gets the "what's the reason to include this?" treatment.
(One of my favorite campaigns was a two-player where they named their characters "Sti-kye" and "Spark LeGui.")
Ugh; the PC lich debate never ends. Sometimes I think they should just make rules for it and be done with it. Oh well there's always TP into a lich when you really need one.
@Joshua I've only ever allowed a PC to seek lichdom, with the explicit conversation with the player that they don't get to play the character once it's a lich. Liches are NPCs, period. (In the nitsuverse.)
I had a player character lich in one of my games--based on a Faerun expansion variant for leaders who thought their people would fall into chaos if they died.
Those liches were Good-aligned and had a slightly different list of supernatural/spell-like features.
I did have it so that you could only use it once per rest, but that doesn't quite seem dangerous enough... whereas if I remove it, then the only disincentive is just gaining more corruption... and I think that's too dangerous.
Maybe if I give the Town Healer the ability to remove (insert variable here) corruption per day?
Before I got stupid powerful, we briefly played at "dislodge Joshua from the moon". A bunch of mages locked onto my lunar teleportation circle, knowing full well it was a vacuum. I unleashed dispel magic as my first action. It was bloody.
Ok... so I'm coming up with ways to remove Corruption. One method is to pray in front of a Holy Symbol, like a statuette.
I'm thinking this is more/less powerful depending on what Tier of corruption your on, but I'm not sure if it should be more powerful if you're less corrupted, or vice versa?
I'm thinking vice versa... since it'd be like "ok, so you're effectively hellspawn, yet you're actually willing to save yourself... kudos" vs "Oh yeah, George is praying again. Coolies."
I have disabled the side bay by checking the "Hide left navigation" button in my settings. However, when I do this the [Questions] [Tags] [Users] [Unanswered] navigation buttons are missing from where I would expect them to be (around the red circle below) along the top (although the [Ask Questio...
While adding the tags to that meta post, I noticed something interesting... What's the difference between [design] and [site-design]? (And the difference between those and [user-interface]?) All on meta, of course.
@KorvinStarmast Actually much the opposite I thought it was a great edit and was actually going to jump in here to specifically tell you that (and then promptly got distracted). So, thanks!
@kviiri Yeah it is. I'm just very excited for it. They just better not have nerfed my main and I hope that some of the new characters are fun (Inkling especially). :D
@goodguy5 I call the doctor in this case "Slasher" (we go to the same church, he has a sense of humor about it) He is a dermatology / skin cancer guy. He's removed a few moles for me, all benign so far.
@ColinGross Fighter has the Great Weapon Fighting, but it doesn't actually require the weapon to be two-handed inherently, just that it's held with two hands
@ColinGross As an amateur historian who also disfavors excessive linguistic prescriptionism, I have a variety of conflicting views on what "modern" actually means.
But I think this recording is less than ten years old --- it was a meme in the Finnish internet community because it's a kinda sad song with a slightly unusual twist of... well, praising wood a lot.
Funny juxtaposition, and people also liked to photoshop Loiri eating logs or somesuch x)
Teleportation Circle is a candidate, although there's a lot of dispute over whether targeting a "location" invalidates the "targets an area" requirement of Glyph of Warding.
@DavidCoffron That definitely gets into that hazy area where 5e hasn't defined "targeted" or "affected". There is a case to be made that they are the same though.
@Rubiksmoose and I don't know whether dimension door would teleport the triggered or the original caster (what the OP wants to know) even if it can fit in a glyph. Not to mention deciding about destination in advance
@Rubiksmoose I think it's specific over general here. Fireball targets an area (which as a consequence targets the creatures) and is therefore valid for spell glyph
@Xirema Right it literally also says those creatures are targets.
> Each creature in a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on that point must make a Dexterity saving throw. A target takes 8d6 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
@Rubiksmoose Bluh. If the precedent is that Fireball is invalid for use with Glyph of Warding, then a looooot of questions on this site have bad answers.
No, burning hands targets the creatures in its AOE
Burning hands is noted as having targets specifically in the DMG
The DMG specifically calls out the creatures affected by burning hands to be targets in an example:
For example, if a wizard directs burning hands (a 15-foot cone) at a
near...
Target isn't a very well defined term, and it gets through around a lot in spells. Some spells target specific things, others target areas, and others target things in areas, pretty much arbitrarily.
@Rubiksmoose umm... shrug someone disagrees with the interpretation of being able to glyph teleport but doesn't want to leave their own answer? Or just frustrated that we RAW'd it instead of RAF or RACS
Or heck it could be different people entirely
I try not to worry bout un-commented downvotes too much unless I get a lot
@Rubiksmoose I would allow it for the same reason I allow Twinning Dragon's Breath: the spell itself isn't "targeting" more than one creature, the creature affected is the one causing the spell to affect other creatures.
@Xirema Good reasoning. Even though I think a strict reading of RAW leans against that interpretation. But as RAW is clear as mud wrt these things who cares.
Do my Glyph of Warding conditions all check out? I proposed them working like this:
> 1. On the First Person to enter this room, trigger when that creature sees that all their allies within 20 feet of the room have entered the room. 2. On the Second Person to enter this room, trigger when that creature sees that all their allies within 20 feet of the room have entered the room. 3. On the Third Person....
It has obvious loopholes, but I'm pretty sure it should result in a simultaneous trigger for all creatures.
I always like to come up with a good story explanation for what really happens when an attack roll is 1. Some of them are easy (e.g. dropping a sword which causes them a delay to retrieve it on the next round, or the archer who is firing over the halfling's head accidentally hits the halfling).
...
@MikeQ Mike, the problem with that homebrew is that every table has a wiseacre playing a druid, who will of course cast Awaken on the tree PC. Then what? Hilarity ensues ...
... You may want to playtest this with your next 5e group ...
for a party of 4, effective xp required to level is 2: 1200 (6 cr 1 encounters) 3: 2700 (~7 cr 2 encounters) 4: 10800 ( ~11 cr 3 encounters)
An encounter typically consists of about 4 enemy combatants.
so during level one, a party can expect to gain at least 120gp establishing that level 2 is twice as good, second level can be expected to net 280gp and finally third level can be expected to bring in around 660gp
No, burning hands targets the creatures in its AOE
Burning hands is noted as having targets specifically in the DMG
The DMG specifically calls out the creatures affected by burning hands to be targets in an example:
For example, if a wizard directs burning hands (a 15-foot cone) at a
near...
