Assumptions:
the bard has 20 dex
the bard is shooting with a longbow
another player can consistently provide the help action for 1 attack with advantage every turn
the bard has elven accuracy
The bard is level 10, so a +4 proficiency. The bonus action would generally be used to either cast He...
The Feign Death spell begins with this line:
You touch a willing creature and put it into a cataleptic state that is indistinguishable from death.
I read this as flavor, since ‘cataleptic state’ isn’t defined by the game. It is still a very evocative description of the spell effects. Here’s...
@jgn That is what votes are for. Trying to micro manage answer quality ahead of time is not the purpose of this site. And if you go back to SO's root competency, an XY problem needs to be called out so that a useful answer can be arrived at.
About to stream our D&D 5e actual-play podcast momentarily: https://www.twitch.tv/events/Z67IW3lNS-6jdTtC3ouRmA
In a universe adjacent to our own lies a world known as Runia. This world, once peaceful and idyllic, is now threatened by a monstrous being from its prehistory. A group of adventurers known as Whiskey Company have risen up to do what they can to fight this entity known only as Nagat. They have trekked far across the mortal realms in search of the shards of Barrinoth, the Titan of Justice, in hopes of returning him to his full power.
In informal contexts, the singing is a semi-organized thing of chaos where someone proposes a song, usually through a short speech relating to it. There might be different verses known to different people and it somehow automatically resolves itself, and there are a few shared command words like "tempo" to speed up and "mellan sup" (Swedish for "between-drink") to call for a small drinking break between verses. And "skål" ("cheers", again Swedish) to signify the end of the song :)
In formal contexts people typically stick to only the verses in the song book, so everyone has the same set.
Most of the songs are well-known tunes with lyrics related to drinking, the academic life, history or revelry, and most faculties have whole songs or verses relating to their own fields. Casual racist and sexist humor used to be prominent too but many student organizations have stopped that. Of course many songs still promote lots of drinking which I don't really agree with, but I think there's been an updraft for alternatives there too.
@Youjay depending on the nature of the change it may be disapproved of
if you're updating the question to make details more clear because answers seem to be missing the point, probably okay - if it alters the nature of the actual question a lot because an answer has made clear your problem is actually something else, best to ask a new question instead
okay, i'm asking about the balance of a homebrew spell, someone made good points that convinced me to change elements like its casting time and spell level (and purhapse its "At Higher Levels" effect but that might be pushing it.
Okay well then ask a new question would probably be better thanks @Carcer
ah, it's homebrew review, too! I think there's explicitly a meta policy somewhere about good homebrew review question asking, but yes, if you're making some changes to your homebrew based on answer advice, it's considered the right thing to do to ask a new question iterating on your homebrew and link to the prior one, don't edit the question and possibly invalidate answers
Would a magic item that requires attainment (say a necklaces for example) that has detect magic spell active at all times without concentration be too busted? say at rare or very rare.
If too broken would "cast at will" as a rare item be any better?
Answers to questions like What should the rarity rating be for this homebrew Healing Brick? are usually based on comparison of effects of an item. On the other hand, there are questions like
The power level of the Sword of Sharpness doesn't justify its very rare rating - am I missing something...
rarity is theoretically a measure of how powerful an item is and in the normal rules informs how rare such items are and how much they cost to acquire, though in practice it's pretty well established that the actual rarity rankings given to items are very loosely correlated to how powerful/useful they are.
4e had rarity for part of its run and I thought it was pretty silly. You've either got the item or you don't, the fact that you're more likely to have not gotten it doesn't matter to power balance.
All the loot drops. For intraparty balance each character should get roughly equally powerful items, rare or not.
If I gave every player nothing but rare items, but the same amount of rare items to each player, intraparty balance would be the same as if I gave each player one rare item, or none.
There's also a factor where rarer items give features which can "break" adventures/negate certain challenges, up to Deck of Many Things as possibly the worst offender (it also has other issues)
Yeah, 4e had that, it was called artifacts, they were story-defining items that usually boosted the entire group's efficacy in some way regardless of which individual held them. They got handed out about one every five levels, making sure to spread them around the group so nobody felt left out over the course of the campaign, and over a few levels they depreciated or escalated until they made a massive Story Moment happen and then they went away.
4e also had rarity, which was just slightly more expensive and slightly better than normal loot of the same level and a set of complications and calculations to tack onto loot tables, one of the most streamlined and elegant GM-side mechanics in the edition.
Again, no real reasoning behind making it artificially scarce because --unlike artifacts-- the power balance was dependent on everybody getting the same amount.
@kviiri Essentials, I think. Which is plus ironic.
Specifically Mordenkainen's Magnificient Emporium, if I'm remembering correctly.
4e artifacts were awesome and doled out carefully not so much because they'd create power imbalances --although many of them were designed to break rules in amusing ways to enable a particular kind of campaign which otherwise would've been boring or horrendous-- but because they were physical shards of story that you got to carry around and be heroic about. Glutting the game with them would've overcrowded the narrative.
4e's rare items were just "you get the effect of wearing a necklace and a half in one necklace."
The 4e separation of normal magical items, meaning the "plus X" stuff one normally collects a set of, and Artifacts that represent stuff like the One Ring or Very Special Magic Weapon or somesuch is pretty sensible.
@kviiri It helped me understand Fate, too, where you just ditch all that +1 gear stuff that doesn't make the story interesting, and only assign mechanical value to stuff that has narrative value.
@WilliamMariager Write 'em down and sell 'em on itchio?
I'm missing my old Big Long Session games but I've been lucky enough to get a few friends who play cozy games for an hour or two most weekends and that's very nice.
Yeah, it's been a long time since I've had a proper long session. Before I moved, we met up every other week. But with everything going on in our lives, a lot of time would be spent just talking and catching up. We'd probably have a total of 2-3 hours of play time.
I've been considering making an actual prepared adventure for my players. So when I'm home next time, we could find a weekend to play through it. But I just know my players well enough, that preparing too much is dangerous. :D
Well, Medix just gave me another knockoff spell. Wading Bond. If the target were to become wet, they only become damp instead, and you also become damp.
these are the ones where I haven't written descriptions, but think have a good idea of what they do: Magic Mist Aisle Indivisibility Furball Detect Weevils and Food Meatier Swarm Wizard’s Focus
**Wall of Ire ** You create an invisible wall on a solid surface within range. You can make the wall up to 60 feet long, 20 feet high, and 1 foot thick, or a ringed wall up to 20 feet in diameter, 20 feet high, and 1 foot thick. Any creature within its area when the wall appears or at the start of its turn must make a Charisma saving throw. On a failed save, a creature becomes angry enough to resort to shouting, but not quite angry enough to come to fists unless already hostile.
**Loemand’s Portable Outhouse** As Leomund’s Tiny hut, except an outhouse, complete with luxurious toilet paper. Any object left inside of the Outhouse when it disappears is transported to the Swamp of Oblivion. Any creature inside when the spell ends is shunted to the nearest available space and takes 1d4+1 force damage.
@BESW, that's exactly how I did it with my players. They were very good at driving the story, so I often just manage the overarching stuff and then they make sure everything moves along.
I also give my players a lot of power over the story. It's rare that they need to clear anything with me. If your character lost his parents in some tragic back story, then the guy responsible will exist somewhere. Or maybe they're searching for this and that artifact and I'll play into that as well.
Related, I actually visited an interesting company once. They were experts in setting up camps in emergencies. They could setup a camp with water, electricity, rooms, etc for I think 30 people, pretty much anywhere on the globe in less than 24 hours. And within 48 hours, they could scale it up to 300 people or something.
Very very expensive service, but also used when it really mattered.
Before visiting, I never thought a private company could specialize in that. Seems like such a rarely used thing. I thought that was just something governments did.
Oh, yeah. I would not want to eat a mouthful of raw cinnamon powder; the flavor is not good. Cinnamon candy tastes like that. But cinnamon is amazing as part of something, so I could be totally on board with cinnamon toffee.
@WilliamMariager I started liking salty licorice after I re-mapped it in my head from candy to salty treat
It's a national stereotype we Finns like that stuff but when someone refers to some candy in a mixed bag as "bad-tasting ones" it invariably means the black licorice/salmiack ones.
For some reason many candy bags have em, mixed with normal ones.
@doppelgreener When I was first making home made chili con carne, I used to add a bit of cinnamon, but one has to be careful about that or it will overpower some other flavors
@doppelgreener I have a friend who is a great cook/foodie, and he has me doing the Indian style of putting most of my spices in the oil as the oil heats, and then adding meats / onions into that to max out the flavors. It works.
Particularly with my chili and my wife's home made spaghetti sause
It was a real awakening for me. His wife mostly cooks vegetarian with occcasional chicken, and that's her default beginning, so it works on less meatier dishes as well
@NautArch I tried to bake a chocolate + habanero cake one time; my cousin had made one. His tasted great, mine was ... not so good. Not sure what I got wrong, but we didn't do it twice.
@KorvinStarmast hehe. My old man stomach can't do habaneros. Heck, I also feel like I"m starting to move that way with garlic. And that makes me super sad.
@Gwideon Just as a pre question, have you addressed your concern directly to your friend? Over a coffee, or something "Are you getting payback for a TPK/Character death here? It kinda seems that way." (Or something like that in casual conversation away from the table)
@Gwideon it's an idea, and I must emphasize that it needs to take place away from a game session unless your whole group wants to "do an intervention" ... I am not suggesting creating a conflict, my suggestion is to talk as friends, and share your side of the story.
With this guy's ruling you could just keep a rat in a cage everywhere you go and say "Oh I can perceive a threat therefore I'm immune to being surprised"
What you've shared with us in the question, in terms of how its coming across, in terms of style/game tone ... Session 0 and all that. (Session 0 can happen at any time)
@Gwideon But yeah, you have to discern in your gut your social/relationship aspect of the gaming group. That's IMO more important that any of the games you'll play. Personal opinion.
@Gwideon I suspect any realistically helpful answer is going to involve you having to talk to your friend about it, and you're probably going to get answers recommending you stop playing with this friend/walk away from the game if they're as unapologetic about it as they sound
@goodguy5 eh, that can be complicated. I've known people who were plenty good friends most of the time but there were certain social situations where they became somewhat intolerable.
like taking boardgames/cardgames/videogames etc. way too seriously, so on and so forth
@goodguy5 to put your observation in context, we had a DM who played a lot of gotcha on us in AD&D 1e, was a bit of a rules lawyer, and almost took delight in the theory of "always give a monster an even break." He was also one of the best DM's our group ever had. Weird dichotomy. A lot of PCs died in his games. I have a note book somewhere, sort of "the hall of heroes" that has over a dozen retired by death character sheets.
(though I'm admittedly jumping in in the middle of this chat and haven't looked at the whole context, but it always worries me when someone justifies bad D&D by "I don't want to lose the group")
@goodguy5 All of us players had at various times asked for a time out and asked him "Are you playing agianst us? Because if you are trying to win, this isn't the right game to be playing."
@Gwideon That campaign for sure needs a session 0. Maybe even same page tool.
@Delioth Yes, I am. We have had a lot of Q&A on that tool, and IMO it is great for some groups of people, and for other groups won't advance the conversation.
@Delioth the group itself is a good group it's just this one person who's been repeatedly problematic. sadly this guy seems to be the subject of most of my questions
@NautArch In re that hard but also fun DM, I stood for him as groomsman at his wedding. He flew in from across the country for my wedding, Etc. the guy who played the dwarf in that campaign, and I, are still in touch .. etc.
@Delioth I suspect this is a high-school-age friend group that's started playing D&D and in that social context walking away from bad games or ejecting problem players is a lot more difficult
Inspired loosely by the Witchers Quen Sign, I've created this abjuration spell that's designed to completely negate the damage from a single attack (or similar instantaneous instance of damage like a fall or spell), a whole body shield that dissipates after one use. While concentration is kinda r...
@Gwideon Personal anecdote. IN our shared campaign, I sometimes DM and my Brother sometimes DM's. I am more mechanically expert, in terms of having gone all in trying to figure out how this editions works, and I also keep an eye on long/short rest rhythm since some classes have things that recharge on short rests.
@Gwideon Conflict is hard, but it's unavoidable. What makes it 'easier' is in how you approach actually doing it. The fear of conflict is often greater than the conflict itself. And you'll feel MUCH better afterwards - regardless of the outcome.
I tend to ratchet up the challenge, and I also "err in favor of the players" because I like to keep the pace of play moving.
My brother does a lot of "Hmm, let's roll a d20 and see what happens next" which can result in some hilarious and random stuff happening. But it's not how I do things. Our group, though, is very much a beer and pretzels group, and all of the players are adaptable.
So both of our styles of implementation work, and the campaign continues.
Um i admit I usually run a fairly easy game when it comes to combat. to me combat is more about making the players feel cool while fighting cool monsters. my campaigns tend to be more story focused while still allowing for quite a bit of silliness.
These sort of TTRPG systems mean different things to different people, so everyone has their own expectations. For some, it's about surviving the DM's challenges. For others, it's about story and feeling cool. The key is to make sure everyone wants to play the same game.
that's what most of the table likes. I try to throw in a pretty challenging encounter every now and then as that's what the player in question really enjoys and I try to make my bosses fun and interesting.
Yeah - no game's going to go well with 2 players who want to exclusively fight bigger and bigger monsters, where 2 other players want to roleplay building a tavern
Sometimes the solution is to compromise. Or to feature different styles of game in the same session. As long as the players understand that some parts of the game will be catered to them, and other parts will be catered to the other players.
Yeah, there's a chance that specific setup might work if the players are permissive and willing to compromise, but it becomes less and less tractable as needs/desires differ further
@Gwideon It's okay to not get everything right! It's more important to check in with the players and get feedback (which is often hard to get.) But the more you know what you need to do differently, the more you can improve.
@Gwideon but you've also got to go in with confidence about the session and encounters. You are effectively a leader in the role as DM - and you've got to play that part :)
It's a great opportunity to help build your confidence
Assumptions:
the bard has 20 dex
the bard is shooting with a longbow
another player can consistently provide the help action for 1 attack with advantage every turn
the bard has elven accuracy
The bard is level 10, so a +4 proficiency. The bonus action would generally be used to either cast He...
The Feign Death spell begins with this line:
You touch a willing creature and put it into a cataleptic state that is indistinguishable from death.
I read this as flavor, since ‘cataleptic state’ isn’t defined by the game. It is still a very evocative description of the spell effects. Here’s...
Answers to questions like What should the rarity rating be for this homebrew Healing Brick? are usually based on comparison of effects of an item. On the other hand, there are questions like
The power level of the Sword of Sharpness doesn't justify its very rare rating - am I missing something...
