TRPG General Chat

12:57 AM

1

Q: What is the scope of the Charlatan background?

I am currently in talks with a player, who wants his character to have the Charlatan Background, while I as the DM am not sure that's, what the character actually is. The player describes his character as someone who is not a noble, but works for nobles, doing their "dirty work" and is being expl...

Joshua

2:35 AM

Beware the teleportation circle sigil sequence in the infernal alphabet.

Bardic Wizard

3:41 AM

How are people here? I’ve been sporadically online for a week cause vacation, and my drivers license is no longer provisional as of today/tomorrow (also oh yeah, birthday, finally not child, all that stuff too but MORE IMPORTANTLY I can drive friends now and I’m camping and happy)

Hot RPG Questions

3:53 AM

2

Q: Can the Echo of the Echo Knight fighter be used to teleport across planes?

How would we do this if we're to believe this is possible anyways? The relevant rules say Manifest Echo you can use a bonus action to magically manifest an echo of yourself in an unoccupied space you can see within 15 feet of you So if planes of existence are separated physically by an infinite...

dnd-5e planes teleportation echo-knight

bobble

4:11 AM

I still have no drivers' license as I'm rather afraid to be the cause of an accident, so congrats!

ProphetZarquon

I would like some general brainstorming for a "D&D" session of unusual design, & am unsure what's a good venue for such discussion. Shall we talk about it here? Any suggestions?

Shalvenay

4:27 AM

@ProphetZarquon this is as good a place as any

ProphetZarquon

6:25 AM

Thanks!

Some friends have expressed interest in a "level zero" session I've been pondering, wherein they'd play as "NPC types" who wake up with a headache in an Owlbear cave, after a party of adventurers swept through Thi Town.

Together, they encounter a wilderness teeming with creatures (_most_ of which they wouldn't necessarily fight), & discover they are bound together by powerful magics which compel them to (among other things) undo the ill-wrought works of those reckless adventurers who left the NPCs of Thi Town in an untenable predicament.

...
Essentially, these (N)PCs should be almost enslaved to deities they once worshipped, & used as pawns or Proxies by these deities (\dragons), to foil a twisted plot hatched by nefarious 'adventurers' & ideally, these "level zero" characters should gain items & boons which become "key" to defeating the adventurers (& choosing whether to release the echo of a long forgotten Great Wyrm from its torment).

...
Main questions:
1) What spells\items\effects can I use to maximize the strength of the magical bond between a party which may include a construct, a plant, an undead, a monster which can occupy or mimic humanoids, & a Valenar Steed that wasn't successfully transformed?
2) What effect+effect or creature+creature or effect+creature combos, can I use to challenge a "level zero" party, without boring grinds or constant TPK?
3) If one PC fully dies, the whole party should die & return to the starting cave, with their items dropped along the way. Some consequence besides "permadeath" should p…

...
Bonus question: What plane should the primary portion of this session take place in?
(A Domain of Dread a'la Ravenloft? A cavern system in the Outlands? A "god-isle" in the Astral?)

ProphetZarquon

6:58 AM

^
Note that aside from some Backgrounds (or possible Boons or Dark Gifts) which grant a Lvl 1 spell use, the player characters will *not* have class features including spell slots or a Fighting Style, & won't have proficiencies except those listed in their Background. Their "former selves" (pre-ModifyMemory) will have required a Spell Scroll or other item, to cast Contingency as commanded.

So, giving them ways to cleverly defeat/avoid threats which may greatly exceed their "level zero" Challenge Rating, will probably be crucial?!?

Matthieu

7:08 AM

just to make sure, but this is based on 5E, correct?

Just asking to make sure the basis for the spells and other things like that is the same, since those can vary quite a lot between editions while carrying the same name.

For the idea itself, sounds like a really interesting concept, but wheeeew is it going to be a pain to balance everything. At this point you're basically making a whole system from scratch, using bits and pieces from D&D.

At this point I'd rather make my own system and simply use D&D as a source of inspiration, without binding myself with its rules. Trying to work around those rules to make what is basically a whole new game sounds like more trouble than it's worth, and might make it more confusing in the end.

ProphetZarquon

7:37 AM

@Matthieu Yes, 5e!

ProphetZarquon

8:10 AM

Indeed! Creating challenges that don't just kill them outright, is proving really tough to do, within the bounds of what a vanilla <1 CR NPC is capable of!

I have determined that some types of non-human "Commoner", & some humanoid constructs, are marginally more useful than unflavored human commoners. So, putting a character with weaker Background choice in this superior "body" goes some way toward balancing the team. Likewise, some Backgrounds effectively raise the CR at such a low level.

Even so, I'm thinking at least one decently strong Boon & one Dark Gift & one cursed Magic Tattoo, m…

Matthieu

Mhh I see

AncientSwordRage

9:30 AM

@BardicWizard congrats!

@bobble I can understand, any decent buses around?

ProphetZarquon

9:52 AM

So, TLDR: I want to use 5e rules, to showcase all the details it has BESIDES class progression.

There's just tons of possibility. Very true that it's HARD to balance, though that goes for any encounter I come up with. ;D

(Incidentally, what *is* the effective CR of a fully refreshed Edwin Odesseiron clone with a Mirror of Life Trapping, accompanied by a Simulacrum of Edwin Odesseiron with a Tinderstrike dagger, & 2 castings of Mirror Image already in effect upon each creature, if one of your party is possessed by a Creepy Doll that's playing along for now? Not an immediate concern, just …

AncientSwordRage

@ProphetZarquon Not sure of the CR but one of my favourite NPCs for sure

ProphetZarquon

10:14 AM

Joking aside (not that I'm ruling Edwin out), the core of my concept is to guide players through D&D 5e's climbing, crafting, schmoozing, trading, & beast handling dynamics, while their combat power is still at the level of Cantrips & trait-buffed whacks with a weapon from their Background...

So, yeah lots of "balancing" to do, in that one character needed conceptually will be a tank in terms of raw CR, & each player character will need specifically targeted buffs consistent with their chosen Background or assigned stat-block...

bobble

1:45 PM

@AncientSwordRage at school, but not home

Glazius

See, this sounds like it's a classic funnel setup. Dungeon Crawl Classics has popularized the idea, but it's basically running "level 0" characters through a deathtrap dungeon and just drawing a new sheet from the master stack as a replacement when somebody dies. So don't worry about making survivable challenges - the "magic binding them together" is all the excuse you need to bring in somebody new when an existing character bites it.

doppelgreener

2:06 PM

This meta question:

42

Q: How can I ask a good homebrew review question?

I'd like to post some homebrew material I've made, and I want people to review it so I can ensure it will work well. How can I ask a good question like this? What are our guidelines for handling these questions well as an asker? Return to FAQ Index See also: dnd-5e How should I ask about my D&D...

support faq questions homebrew

References this mainsite question:

24

Q: How do I evaluate whether my homebrew race is balanced?

I've just created a couple of homebrew races for my players to potentially choose from for an upcoming campaign. The problem is, I have no idea how well they stack up against the official races when it comes to actual game play and I'm worried some of the bonuses or features are either going to ...

dnd-5e homebrew balance races

Would it be useful to have a question for "how do I evaluate whether my homebrew equipment is balanced" and another for spells?

(I don't know if this is something that's too broad to ask about like that in D&D 5e's scope, unlike a race design.)

Someone_Evil

Spells specifically has a lot of guidance in the DMG (more than for races IIRC)

Equipment is a fascinating topic. It's not something that comes up very often (ignoring magic items, which has it's own set of oddities), and I'm not sure how much (5e wide) community theory/tools there is for it

For equipment, I'm not sure how much wouldn't just be "be very aware of what kind of option-space it goes into" which I'm not sure how easy is to generalize usefully

AncientSwordRage

2:58 PM

@bobble that sucks :/

bobble

3:09 PM

Whenever my family vacationed to a place with public transit we would get a ticket just for the novelty of it

So I've been in my share of buses and trains and subways, but always somewhere else

Thomas Markov

3:22 PM

I'm starting to think we should reevaluate the state of homebrew reviews as a whole.

JohnP

@bobble I get that when I go to Vegas for more than a day, I get the monorail ticket.

Thomas Markov

In the spirit of this question:

14

Q: Are we satisfied with the state of homebrew review questions?

For the past seven years, homebrew review questions (that is, questions of the form, "Is this homebrew balanced?") have been on-topic and thus allowed. As brought up in the latest "How is the community doing?" meta, however, they're becoming more common and arguably more problematic. Are we happ...

discussion questions on-topic homebrew

Because my answer to this question right now is something like "No not at all, our homebrew review questions are generally terrible".

AncientSwordRage

4:12 PM

@bobble heh

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