@Gwideon If you're doing a homebrew setting, then you don't need to account for every established faction in FR lore. If there are any factions you like, you can basically copypaste & rename them, and make some adjustments as you see fit.
(And I do suggest renaming them, so that you have more freedom in how you use these factions, and avoid having to account for players' preconceptions or assumptions for how those factions should be)
Bubbles, forgot to type the message on that. So, Blades in the Dark has a cool system you could use for having Stealth be less of an "all or nothing" approach. Each side will have two "clocks" detailing how close their actions are to succeeding, and when you succeed at a roll, you advance your own "clock." Thus, successful Stealth Checks get you further past the guards.
However, enemies have their own clock, which they can advance through successful perception, or at the GM's Discretion, if a character fails badly enough, they might instead advance the enemy clock [Instead of setting their own back or not progressing].
So, if your characters (however you decide to do it, if you want alternating characters to roll their stealth, the weakest, at least X successes, or the aggregate successes and failures of the entire party) succeed, they can progress their own clock and have a chance of setting back the enemies [GM discretion], and if they fail they don't advance, and risk setting themselves back, advancing their enemies, or both!
You only fully succeed when your clock is full; and when your action is complicated (say, sneaking past the guards and then lock-picking the door), you can have multiple clocks you have to complete.
@NautArch If I'm following, it's basically a successive check meter. So sneaking past the guards requires 3 or 4 successful rolls, picking the lock another/different two, etc?
Success on a check is based on a skill roll and a difficulty, but any roll will not (usually) outright win the check, thus not all or nothing. And the book itself is a little ambiguous on if such a roll should be independent of the others, or contested
The clock is just an easy way to track successes in a nice, visual way without taking up large amounts of paper, as you can divide a circle fairly easily into halves, 3rds, 4ths, 5ths, 6ths...
@JohnP Yeah, I get that, but I have had plenty of times I'd love to be set back on the progress of a complex, multi-role task without failing it outright.
Especially being someone whose played Dark Heresy, thank heavens for Fate
@NautArch Well we couldn't get it to the hallway, we were at the balcony near the pit and it was its turn so it had to squeeze through the small area there and we got one free attack on it
@NautArch I would have to go back and look at the rules of Blades in the Dark again, but the core concept of making success and failure on stealth a successive series of rolls instead of one-and done. And I love the fact that you can sometimes fail and still overall succeed.
Then the warlock tried to make a jump (only 10 STR so not quite enough to make it on her own, DM let me roll athletics to try to grab on and pull myself up) and failed
thankfully there was no fall damage cus Papazotl
The warlock also managed to get a blast in on it. The cleric made the jump and got another blast on the thing but then when its turn came around again it jumped onto the platform and knocked the cleric off of it
For example, it can be hard to judge as a 5e DM, "So you failed your stealth roll almost there. Do you completely lose surprise? Do you trip the alarm and the enemy gets surprise on you? Do you maybe lose surprise but the successful members of your party keep it? Do you maybe make a little noise, enough to draw a small amount of attention, but not raise the alarm?"
@NautArch that's what we're using but still what I'm describing is what he was going to use if this book didn't explicitly state what should be done for fall damage and it wasn't already super deadly
Unarmed damage, possibly with a bonus to damage from the fall
In D&D, when you have to hit something fairly accurately, you roll to hit
The opponent might get a save or might not
In this instance, I would have ruled that the Golem had to roll to hit (because it's definitely not assured), and then you got a save to roll out of the way
*roll to hit the space you were in
The Golem then got a save to take half damage from the fall
If the DM is going for realism, they should check their physics. I'm pretty sure impact force is linearly related to fall distance (source), not distance squared
@NautArch requires one of four ways to go through an enemy square. Either be 2 sizes bigger or smaller than it, overrun it, tumble through it, or be forced into that space with nowhere else to go
THink of it this way, with that kind of ruling, rolling to hit someone with a sword might miss, but if you charged someone with a lance, you were expected to hit outright if the opponent doesn't fail the save
I'm not attacking you or your DM, I'm just saying that this style of move-attacking is very broken. I'd ask your DM if he would be okay with you automatically hitting if you did the same thing
Overrun When a creature tries to move through a hostile creature’s space, the mover can try to force its way through by overrunning the hostile creature. As an action or a bonus action, the mover makes a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the hostile creature’s Strength (Athletics) check. The creature attempting the overrun has advantage on this check if it is larger than the hostile creature, or disadvantage if it is smaller. If the mover wins the contest, it can move through the hostile creature’s space once this turn.
Then this seems like a cheap and unfair trick to pull, especially as they wouldn't reciprocate
I think this sounds like an issue with the DM trying to railroad you, artificially increase the difficulty, or be adversarial and abuse the homeruling to try to kill you.
heh, noticing that the platform languages talks about how they bob as if they're on water when anything lands on them, and talks about falling damage if you fall off. But doesn't actually say that you need to make a save or ability check for anything happening ot you.
@Himitsu_no_Yami did the golem make a save as well?
"Trust your players to incorporate such meta-information as they may stumble across into their vision of the world in a way that best suits their fun," my father used to always say.
Crelith is shoved off of the platform backwards! She falls, taking 16 bludgeoning damage! As it leaps, it slams Crelith for 20 bludgeoning damage! Crelith, make a CON Save!
@NautArch nothing explicitly stated. All I can say for certain is I've failed everything I've gotten a nat 1 on and passed everything I had a nat 20 on
Having extra consequences or damage imposed on you because of a critical failure is not supported by the official rules, and thus your DM should tell you outright if they are ruling such
@Himitsu_no_Yami This really doesn't make sense. The golem needs to run 10 before jumping. THat leaves them 10' of movement left (normally.) They would need to dash in order to make the jump, leaving them with no attack to make.
To take a few steps back, do the players want a style of game where the DM constantly tries to kill them? Some groups do, some don't, so it's important that your expectations and the DM's expectations match.
@Himitsu_no_Yami I mean, the map is wonky already compared to the description and the rules around playing on a grid. It seems like WoTC made a grid, but are then utilizing looser theatre of the mind restrictions on it. So I really don't know how to intrerpret the map.
@NautArch And making stuff up can be cool, and is absolutely a great part of the game, and should definitely be done with players' trust, buy-in, and agreement.
@nitsua60 Absolutley! And done both in the player's favor and to make things interesting (sometimes not in the player's favor). But in this case, it really just seems like they're trying to game the game against @Himitsu_no_Yami.
I would say that means your DM needs to address the way they handle the rules, because you, the only consistent player, are getting sick of artificial difficulty and the lack of reciprocity. Likely, the reason the others aren't consistent is because they don't want to deal with it either
Also, if he lands on half the platform, I'd say that ends his turn as he tries to balance himself, and would have to make a save at the end of his turn or the beginning of his next turn to be able to do anything and not fall. It seems unfair to me that your DM would make you roll to balance yourself
D&D is a combat system. As a game, it means different things to different players and audiences. For some it's the Gygaxian approach, where the players control hapless adventurers and the DM tries to kill them in absurd ways. For others, it's about heroic epic stories. It's vitally important that both players and DM are trying to play the same type of game.
Personally, I like a game where I need to think tactically and strategically. I want the difficult battles, but I don't want to feel like the DM is out to get me.
@SeraphsWrath I think in this case, the Golem made the decision to shove rather than slam.
I mean, imagine if you were considered to auto-hit with Vampiric Touch. You cast it with a 5th level Spell Slot, so if your opponent fails Dex, you deal 5D6 Necrotic Damage to them the first turn, heal half that amount, and can keep that up on your next turns as an action
And so here's where all the problem-players and problem-gms come from. Clashing expectations. A new player who is excited by D&D memes and emotional attachments to their characters, plus a DM who thinks the players want Tome of Horrors.
Or conversely, a player who wants strategic combat challenges, plus a DM who just wants to tell their big epic fantasy story for a player audience.
@MikeQ Right--in my Wednesday night game I'm largely there to relax and turn off. I crank through combats like a mini-boardgame and sit back and grade papers while all the faffing-about's going on.
@MikeQ Outside of a horror RPG like Delta Green or something based on Alien, I don't think many players want systems where the DM gets to make up rules for things on a whim and have them only apply to their characters.
And Delta Green is going to be enjoyable without running into physics-breaking horrors all the time
In fact, the point of Delta Green is that such horrors are really rare, and Characters/Players must learn ways to beat them that are outside of the normal "shoot it a lot" method
It's also explicit in the Delta Green book that risks are often lethal
So players coming into it should know that, as-written, a lot of things are going to be higher stakes than normal
Similar to a story based on Alien
But D&D? There are so many different ways to play D&D, and the RAW way the book plays out is very dungeon-crawling and forgiving to players
@SeraphsWrath Yes/no. The enemy NPCs may very well be thinking that, and the DM does need to play them as such. But not all do that. And intelligence is a big consideration in picking tactics during a fight. A clay golem is not smart enough to make a leap and use a shove. It's much more likely to attempt the leap and do what it does: slam.
And actually, looking at the map @Himitsu_no_Yami, the golem would have had to have moved 15 to get to the top of the stairs. Not enough movement to get into the squeeze. They could double move to get halfway in, though.
Ok, so that leads to spiel #2: How To Talk To Your DM And Give Feedback Without Ruining Relationships ... I'm not as good at this one. Maybe others can advise.
Alright, so: First of all, be gentle, firm, and honest. Tell your DM that you don't like the way they've been using the rules, and specifically mention the Golem encounter. Try not to call them out as much as talk about un-fun things that happened.
Make yourself heard and understood, but don't alienate your GM.
"I would like to see more of the NPCs rolls on things like this."
Things to avoid are saying, "Stop cheating," or other overly-zealous statements. If it feels more spiteful than honest, don't say it
Second, be willing to compromise in an informed manner; you should talk not only about the things that the DM does, but also ways you could break the campaign, in a helpful and friendly way.
"It seems to me that I or someone else could gain artificial advantages in encounters by jumping onto enemies, and I don't think that would be fun for either of us."
"It robs the challenge for me and makes things harder on you."
"How can we make this a little more fair and fun?"
Of course, the DM may be doing this because they're frustrated with the other players not showing up and taking it out on you. It's possible they don't want to play themselves because of that.
Well, the action economy in that situation are more reasonable, but I still think the making a save instead of rolling an attack (likely at a penalty) the fact that the DM would likely not give you the same benefits in your turn, and the treating of a very stupid monster as a hyperintelligent mastermind is a little problematic
Regardless, you shouldn't have taken that much damage so quickly.
At strongest, I might see a humorous one-off where the Golem grappeled the Cleric and then the next turn, if successful, threw him at the warlock, requiring a ranged attack with disadvantage and only dealing minor damage.
That's something that would be engaging and funny, but not punishing
@SeraphsWrath The potential problem with that is that's basically a shove, which doesn't go very far.
I mean, yeah, you can come up with that cool situation, but now that's a viable tactic for the players, too. And they get an option to do a shove at a much greater distance that's now always on.
@SeraphsWrath The damage is the least effective thing, but the control aspect is huge. If you can now move a monster like that, it also vastly minimizes the battlemaster's 15' push. Or the EB repelling blast.
In a way, I can't wait for one of the characters to die cus that means I have a chance at getting one of the other characters I built who can fly and probably punish enemies with EBs from above
@NautArch True, but I think that's a lot less likely to come up if you treat it like a joke that the players laugh at rather than a tool to punish them with. Also, you might incorporate more Strength Checks. Really, though, Grappling is already a control build
Once you have someone Grappled, you can do a lot of things with them, including dropping them off a ledge
There's a reason people like to make Grappler builds, after all
@Himitsu_no_Yami we've got a minor house-rule at the table that you can't use the same race/class twice. THat's changed up with the new campaign of roll 3d6 stats down the line, but that was always our rule
@SeraphsWrath I really wish grappling was more interesting/viable RAW. It's pretty underwhelming if you follow the rules.
Additionally, when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the invocations you know and replace it with another invocation that you could learn at that level.
Our rule was that newbies got first pick all the time. Me being more experienced, I would usually end up playing a magic user like a Warlock; something a little bit harder to play than a fighter because of the very limited spell slots
Also, side note: once a human being reaches terminal velocity, they're usually dead when they stop.
Or at least, that was the rule with one of the groups I played with, a former-AL group which decided to move into "pseudo-AL" after the Treasure Points system came out
@SeraphsWrath Not always though. The odds of surviving a Terminal Velocity fall can be as high as like 3-5% if you can aim for a forest or something with enough cushioning mass to slow your fall enough that you only suffer severe injuries.
@Xirema That is true. Also, there was once a man who fell out of a B-17 and survived because he landed in a roll on an icy lake, which was a crazy story
@NautArch That was more the GM's way of helping the obviously newer players, because this group was just starting up
I take that back; an AL DM can rule that if someone plunges 10000 feet, they die instantly, without having to roll the damage to see if they "might" survive.
Science fact: You can survive falling by using your left hand for the right hand rule, causing the direction of gravity to reverse, and thus reducing your acceleration
@nitsua60 "The five of you are sitting in adjoining seats of a subway car that just came out of the tunnel and is headed toward the bridge over the river that bisects the city. You hear the other passengers suddenly speaking up "Hey, look, the bridge is out, why isn't the train slowing down?!!!" > there's your start (What they don't know is that the train driver is passed out due to stroke/injury/flu/banged his head/some reason
"The problem with reaching space isn't that space is very high up, it's that space is very, very fast." -- Randall Munroe, xkcd What If?, I'm probably misquoting
Since SSD created a tag for shape water after all the sudden release of several questions on it, does that mean we have to reconsider the tiny hut tag?
