TRPG General Chat

BESW

12:50 AM

"What if Planescape, but also Discworld?" An OSR/D&D/SWORDDREAM setting gazetteer by Dan D.

trogdor

2:36 AM

Oh god

That's a terrifying combination

user15026

3:12 AM

I don't know what a Planescape is

BESW

It's an old and pretentious "I took Philosophy 110" D&D setting.

V2Blast

4:28 AM

Planescape

Planescape is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, originally designed by Zeb Cook. The Planescape setting was published in 1994. As its name suggests, the setting crosses and comprises the numerous planes of existence, encompassing an entire cosmology called the Great Wheel, as originally developed in the Manual of the Planes by Jeff Grubb. This includes many of the other Dungeons & Dragons worlds, linking them via inter-dimensional magical portals. == Development == Planescape is an expansion of ideas presented in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master...

So many restrictions:

> David "Zeb" Cook developed Planescape when he was assigned to create "a complete campaign world (not just a place to visit), survivable by low-level characters, as compatible with the old Manual of the Planes as possible, filled with a feeling of vastness without overwhelming the referee, distinct from all other TSR campaigns, free of the words "demon" and "devil" and explainable to Marketing in 25 words or less".

Hot RPG Questions

6:42 AM

4

Q: If my Scout rogue has used his full movement on his turn, can he later use the reaction from the Skirmisher feature to move again?

Here is the situation I am wondering about: My Rogue is in melee with an opponent. On his turn he disengages, and moves his full movement away from his opponent. The opponent, on their turn, uses their full movement to put themselves within 5 feet of my Rogue again, ending their turn. Can my ...

trogdor

7:08 AM

@BESW well, beyond that, it's a really not nice place to be

V2Blast

8:19 AM

The latest episode of Marvel's Agents of SHIELD is so good

BESW

10:01 AM

3

kviiri

12:13 PM

Howdy

vicky_molokh

2:36 PM

/me waves.

Shalvenay

4:17 PM

hey there @ACuriousMind

ACuriousMind

ahoi @Shalvenay

Shalvenay

how're things going?

ACuriousMind

About to make something to eat so I don't die of starvation when we play in a bit ;)

Glazius

4:50 PM

@Shalvenay @ACuriousMind Sorry, I don't think I can do today. I had to pull a lot of late nights this week and I'm kind of just balancing on the edge of sleep right now.

Shalvenay

@Glazius understandable, no worries. next week, same bat time, same bat show, same bat channel? :)

ACuriousMind

@Glazius Aw. Well, of course health and sleep come first, so rest well :)

Shalvenay

@ACuriousMind would you be OK with me pinging you with Discord in a little while here btw?

ACuriousMind

@Shalvenay sure

Shalvenay

5:55 PM

@ACuriousMind hey again, sorry for the delay in getting back to you, is now a good time?

V2Blast

6:57 PM

Facing our first big battle in our Adventures in Middle-earth game

just villagers and Beornings against a smallish group of bandits, but still

exciting stuff

KorvinStarmast

8:01 PM

@V2Blast I think that @JohnMontgomery has a neat t-shirt in the making: gods need prayers, DMs need players

V2Blast

9:01 PM

That combat was a bit of a slog

Shalvenay

@V2Blast what was the final score?

V2Blast

9:17 PM

@Shalvenay we scared some of the enemies off with intimidation, killed most of the rest, and one of the two affected by a fear class feature managed to climb a little bit out of reach onto a cliff face

...also, the DM had initially ruled that one of my starting cultural virtue (i.e. "racial feat") worked with great spears (it normally works with broadswords, longswords, or regular spears): reddit.com/r/AiME/comments/bgrdf8/…

Shalvenay

@V2Blast nice

V2Blast

Now she thinks I'm able to do too much damage with it (we don't even have Extra Attack yet; we're level 4).
The spear is simple, 1d6 piercing, with thrown (20/60) and versatile (1d8)
The longsword is martial, 1d8 slashing, with versatile (1d10)
The broadsword is martial, 1d8 slashing, with finesse
The great spear is martial, 1d12 piercing, with heavy, reach, and two-handed.

Shalvenay

also, mind giving me the elevator-pitch on what a Beorning is?

V2Blast

the people led by Beorn

:P

Shalvenay

more seriously?

V2Blast

9:21 PM

Great spear does 1d10+Str, +2 from the cultural virtue mentioned above, +2 damage right now from Battle-fury (i.e. Rage), +1d4 from the Mounted Combat subclass feature. The virtue and subclass feature only apply while mounted, of course, and subclass feature only applies against Small/Medium unmounted humanoids.

That's... literally what they are. They're a subgroup of humans in Middle-earth led by Beorn the shapeshifter: tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Beornings

BESW

@Shalvenay Beorn is a bear-associated shapeshifter.

Shalvenay

aaah

now I get it :)

V2Blast

Anyway, I imagine my annoyance at being nerfed is exacerbated because the DM had talked with us about "crit fail" houserules early on, I expressed that I didn't like them at all because they tend to make characters look/feel incompetent and it hurts any attempt to have a serious tone, and affects martial characters more than casters (and in AIME, basically everyone is martial...). The DM seemingly agreed that we'd avoid using such houserules for now...

and then this session, she had a nat. 1 on an attack roll by one Slayer (i.e. Barbarian) PC result in it hitting the PC next to them (on which he happened to roll max damage - I don't think he even added the Rage damage)

Zachiel

Yeah, the hurt any attempt to have a serious tone is real.

V2Blast

and then she brought up after the session that she thought I was doing too much damage. (Even though I only hit about 3 times in what was about a 5-round fight...)

I don't think 2 damage per attack is going to be that significant... I just like my great-spear.

V2Blast

9:51 PM

Kind of a waste of a starting feat ("virtue"), though it's not like the other choices are really any better.
One gives expertise and advantage in Animal Handling with horses, which is... okay, I guess.
One literally gives me a squire, which could be useful but I just don't want to deal with a squire.
Other options for the virtue I took benefit either archery or shields (which obviously don't synergize with a two-handed great spear).
One lets me temporarily reduce my Wisdom score to give myself temp HP for an entire Adventuring Phase (basically, Adventuring Phase is when you adventure, Fello…

Black Spike

hi

checks if there is room for another Lurker

V2Blast

10:11 PM

@BlackSpike lurk away, my friend

Black Spike

:)

+2 dmg, on top of 1d10 (or d12?), + STR (presume big?) + Rage + Mounted does sound like it is putting a big, fat cherry on the top of "I DO DAMAGE!".
Well, maybe not that big a cherry, but what other damage-dealers does the party have?
Sword-n-board 1d8+Str?

V2Blast

@BlackSpike The party has another Slayer (aka Barbarian) in addition to me (he's the one that got the crit fail and hit a party member (the Fighter equivalent?) for max damage with his greataxe (12 on the d12 + Str mod of 3 + 2 from Rage + 1 (as it's basically temporarily a +1 weapon due to enhancements))

we also have a hobbit Treasure Hunter (i.e. rogue) who mostly shoots from range and occasionally shanks enemies in the ankles, and a Scholar (bard-ish equivalent?) who does a little fighting but not really a major damage-dealer

Black Spike

10:30 PM

It's always a tricky balance ... my current players call some st00pid numbers, and I just look at them, wide-eyed, and say "do be explaining please?" and they run through it, and I say "oh ... OK ..."

... and then I go away and stat up some Monsters/NPCs/Foes that can do similar things ... :D

V2Blast

Yeah, another party member (the other Slayer - who's also the DM's boyfriend) said of the crit fail houserule: "I think it adds to the difficulty, in a game with pretty much no magic and a party that steamrolls everything. We're all pretty OP"

I replied: "Crit fails don't make combat more interesting to me at all. There are ways to make combat more interesting (and challenging) that aren't "you stab yourself/an ally 5% of the time"."

adding crit-fails isn't going to make a basic combat any less basic, it just makes it take longer and make our characters look bad at their jobs ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

anyway I'll probably wait a day or two and then try to hash this out with the GM. I figure a break from the topic will be better for everyone before I bring it up again

Black Spike

Crit-Fails ... should be something that doesn't take away from the PC being *awesome*, but makes the whole table laugh!
"You try to stab the foe, but they twist, and you hit their water-bottle, which leaks all over your crotch! You look like you've wet yourself!"

trogdor

@BESW god dang you :P

V2Blast

@BlackSpike The issue is, this is not the sort of tone you want in a deadly fight to save a village from bandits in Middle-earth

BESW

@trogdor What did I do?

V2Blast

10:36 PM

@BESW What didn't you do?

(I don't know either)

Black Spike

Yeah, fair enough, tone is important

BESW

trogdor

@BESW nothing really

Except the bear thing

The bear associated shapeshifter thing is unforgivable obviously

V2Blast

Like, if this was a house-rule in our inherently comedic Hyperlanes campaign, I'd honestly be pretty okay with it. (Our pilot was a YouTube-equivalent livestreamer. The campaign ended with us running from a sting operation organized by Randy Marsh in a Princess Leia outfit, organized to catch our pilot for copyright infringement. The villain we'd beaten earlier was a Darth Vader equivalent, the creator of a party member that was a printer robot.)

@trogdor Blame Tolkien

trogdor

@V2Blast But that would be fair

V2Blast

10:39 PM

@trogdor as opposed to being bear?

Black Spike

I currently rule that 1s and 20s don't affect your chance to succeed, but have minor (in-tone) humorous side-effects. If a nat-1, plus all your bonuses, still hits, then it hits, roll damage! (but you've got a wet crotch. Or you lost your own water bottle. or something)
If a nat-20 still misses (OMG! What are we facing?!?), you still miss, but maybe you gain position for next round

trogdor

@V2Blast Oh god I'm outnumbered

No wait

I'm not, because I'll just assimilate all bear jokes

V2Blast

@BlackSpike Well, nat. 20s auto-hit (and crit) and nat. 1s auto-miss per the 5e rules, but I agree that this is how I'd handle nat. 1s, with the appropriate tone. You miss wildly on a nat. 1, maybe falling for an enemy's feint or something (without additional mechanical effect, just flavor); you strike true on a nat. 20, managing to overwhelm the enemy. In more comedic campaigns, they could be flavored more ridiculously.

Black Spike

Our games tend to swing wildly between Deadly Serious and Monty Python, wihtout warning

trogdor

The bear jokes belong to the punllective now

V2Blast

10:42 PM

@trogdor assimilate into the bearg collective?

trogdor

Yeah nothing seems to work for that

Bearg is better than anything I thought of

V2Blast

> There... are... four... bites! (And they do 1d6+2 piercing damage each.)

2

Black Spike

(I don't play much D&D ... one of our players has a pathological distrust of it. Always did, and wasn't helped by a recent game he played: "bad" DM didn't let him use his Bard/Charisma to any effect

Next game will probably be a Rolemaster variant

Black Spike

11:00 PM

**trying very hard not to roll out the 'Right to Arm Bears', 'Right to Bear Arms' jokes ... **

#offTopic y'all wear vest? With your "Right to Bare Arms"?

C. Ross

@BlackSpike Seems so many players have a pathological distrust of one game or the other.

Black Spike

Yeah. :(
Usually down to a bad DM in formative years ....

C. Ross

@BlackSpike Perhaps we should have pathological distrust of certain DMs. :-)

Black Spike

@C.Ross I think my players do ...

C. Ross

11:20 PM

So, I don't usually run modules, but I'm planning on running Lost Mines of Phandelver in the coming weeks. Anyone have advice on re-skinning?

Black Spike

I don't know LMoP. Name seems to crop up ...
Generic advice on dropping a Module into your own campaign:
change all the names to fit. read the module WELL, and link all the bits to things your players already know

C. Ross

@BlackSpike Yes, since this is a campaign starter ... it's a little different

Black Spike

(OR: tell your players: "We're doing LMoP. I reckon it fits near town X, yeah? we good?" :) )

Ah, as a Starter ... kinda different ...

C. Ross

Yeah, normally I would just run it straight down the line, with whatever flavor I felt appropriate, but apparently LMoP is relatively well played online.

So players are likely to have heard parts of it if not played it.

Black Spike

You play online? Never done that

depends on your players: They know the twist? twist it right back! Or not! Or tell them you did, and don't!
If they're good at keeping OOC knowledge out of the way, cool!

knowing "internet rumours", and then playing it ... with Special C.Ross Twist ... :D

C. Ross

11:31 PM

@BlackSpike I don't often. I mean this one shows up in things like Adventure Zone

Yes, that's my basic idea is to put in some twists, replace a couple NPCs, but keep the arc the same

Black Spike

Aha. Yeah, they may well know a bit about it ... can they still play it "straight"? Maybe ...

C. Ross

Yeah ... Session 0, Tuesday, we'll talk about it

Black Spike

Cool. I'm a big fan of Session 0

BESW

Is it the kind of adventure which relies on player ignorance?

Black Spike

I've got Session 78 tomorrow night! Tryin gto roll tings towards a conclusion ...

BESW

11:35 PM

I haven't played one of those in a very long time...

V2Blast

@BlackSpike it's the D&D 5e Starter Set campaign.

@C.Ross Reskinning how?

linksassin

Morning all.

V2Blast

Really all that matters is whether your players have played it before or seen it played :P

trogdor

Session 78 sheesh

V2Blast

@linksassin guten morgen

Black Spike

11:36 PM

@V2Blast aha. I knew I'd heard of it! mt gf is running the "dragons" campaign for her Girls-Only game ...

C. Ross

@V2Blast Changing enough that it won't be exactly like the playthrough's people have heard. Enough to make it novel.

Black Spike

@trogdor yeah, we tend to have LONG games!

V2Blast

@C.Ross tbf I'd never seen it played before I got the starter set and started DMing it for my friends. Then I encountered people using the starting dungeon from it in like 2 different homebrew campaigns

Black Spike

This one is set in the same world (two years later) as a previous game we played 10 years ago! :D

C. Ross

At a minimum, replacing some NPCs and particular monsters. Probably not doing a full reimagining though, because I don't have time for all that

trogdor

11:38 PM

@BlackSpike yeah that's I'm not 100% sure I've ever had that many sessions of one game, maybe in 4e though

Black Spike

@C.Ross yeah, a few tweaks, a bit of personalisation, swap some bits around .. enough that they don't know the #spoilers, but basically the same ..

C. Ross

@V2Blast The starting dungeon does have a neat little twist to it

V2Blast

@C.Ross Our DM had drawn it out on Roll20 herself, so as we were heading in, I immediately recognized the shape of the terrain... :P

Black Spike

We play EVERY week ... and if a game doesn't last a year or more, it just a Short Game, a quick dabble ... :D

Anything labelled "one-off" .. "single session" ... yeah that'll last a month ...

#pimpMyForum www.themutepoint.com
wher we (try to) keep our games. Session reports, rule discussions etc

I am pleased to see that a friend's old-school D&D is still going .
they play 1/month, whith a drop in/drop out, play with who-ever turns up system (each session, they exit the dungeon and head back to town). That's been going over a year now ... some people are LEVEL THREE!

V2Blast

oh my

trogdor

11:50 PM

Man

XD

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