I think it would be pretty cool to allow you to pick up other archetype features after level 20

Makes sense to me too. If you've completely mastered one facet of your occupation, there's no reason that you couldn't branch out to another

That being said, I've never seen a campaign get past level 5, so what do I know :p

@Adam level 5? O_o

Level 6 is kinda the sweet spot.

@Karelzarath for... what?

I haven't been playing very long, but in the two groups I play with things just...don't have staying power. One group is 5 people working off of experience points, so it takes a long time to gain levels. Plus Life things changed, so that group got restructured and only me and the DM stayed in the game, so my level got reset to match the new people.

@Adam ahh

yeah, life happens

The second group has 3 friends who all came up with 1/3 of the story that we are playing though, so there is effectively a level cap on each section of that game. The milestones are few and far between and we keep taking breaks because (don't tell them I said this) the first third was often uninteresting and unfulfilling.

that's pretty cool doing it that way though

BESW, Trogdor and I had a long story going with our group where various members would be helping to establish different, significant parts of the story.

@Karelzarath More true for PF/3.5 than 5e. 5e is much more balanced across all 20 levels of play.

@doppelgreener It is pretty cool. but at the same time it feels sort of scripted. For example there was one PC that was integral to the next part of the story, but he died. It felt like we went off script, rather than an actual adventure happening

The world doesn't really feel alive to me, it feels at times like our PCs are just there to play a part

One of our breaks got us a few sessions into SKT, and I'd really rather play that.

That's a legitimate concern

A friend and I have a story planned out that we're playing through as a sort of "prologue" to a further adventure, but then we decided it might be more fun if we just skip that prologue completely since we'd already agreed on everything that'd happen and there was more fun to be had in the further bit.

@Adam This is why I think I prefer published adventures. Too often I think the DM (to say nothing of your DMs) is more interested in telling their story rather than running a world in motion.

I think published adventures can help detach the DM's emotions from the equation

@LegendaryDude That's interesting. I'm curious about how they managed that.

@Karelzarath Bounded accuracy

Makes sense.

@LegendaryDude This is why I have a dream of running a west-marches style campaign. There is no big story. At least not initially. The players drive so much more of the game along.

Mmm, sandboxy goodness.

@Adam I think you'll like SKT.

If I ever play it.

According to my DM, it's just a big sandbox. Things happen and the PCs react. We haven't started SKT proper yet, we're finishing the intro adventure tomorrow.

@LegendaryDude I don't know if I'd describe it as a sandbox, but it does seem to offer more branching options for what the PCs do than most pre-made adventures

@Adam The collaborative stories I've had the most success with are ones where we just discuss a premise and then play to find out what happens. Fate works well with that, since it is predicated on the idea that (a) the GM doesn't have all the answers and (b) the players have mechanisms available to assert facts about the world themselves.

@diego shrug He says we can basically do what we want and go where we want once the game "opens up." I don't really know what to expect TBQH.

Though even with the branching it still has a basic plot, so you might get the option to do A, B, or C, but it ultimately doesn't matter because for the story you need to get to D eventually

@LegendaryDude good article

@doppelgreener Yeah! See that sounds really cool! See I just have a gut feeling that in our game, each step to get to the ending has been predefined, and that sucks.

@Adam Yeah, that's valid and can suck, because you already know what's going to happen and you're just going through the motions. You could just not play it at all and you'll already know the story.

Exactly. Also, despite being in a high magic world (Spellcasters own non-spellcasters as slaves, magic is so prevalent) we are all dirt poor and didn't get any treasure for a solid 4 sessions. It got better toward the end of this first third, but my soul was crushed after every search led to "you don't find anything" or "you find some chump change"

@Adam Not getting anything from fights is super annoying. My group did a 4e module that had that problem for a large part of it.

@diego Curse of Strahd is a lot like that too.

Not that the whole thing is bad. The last two or three sessions were all solid 9/10 games, and they are all really fun guys to play with. There are just parts of the game where I get really frustrated

@SevenSidedDie I'm trying in those comments; I'm getting frustrated because it feels like my point is being misunderstood rather than being disagreed with. At this point I'm just going to let it be.

@diego had a 4e 2 year long campaign where we literally didnt' get any magic items

it sucked

@LegendaryDude I think there may be a gap of conceptual models there that, yeah, is just going to be frustrating. Sometimes disengagement is the only productive route. :/

@Miniman more like a list of allowed books - which throws some people like KRyan off rails, because they think it's a stupid way to limit options, and a major reason why I get no help from people who really know the game inside-out or from Internet handbooks

@DForck42 It's definitely interesting to think about whether certain races would have different tolerances.

twitter.com/unchartedatlas This twitter is the dopest shit

Sure, all the names feel like a mix of Assyrian and Finnish, but the maps are neat

@Shalvenay yes, many 1-encounter-only fights/missions, but then sometimes it's like "we need to give 4 hard fights in a row for the guy who uses rods of absorption, rods of life, metamagic wants and lots of scrolls if we want to challenge him. And of course such a character looks more competent and stroing than the others in the game world, and I'm tired of being the less competent one because I don't want to use contingent spells, or costy consumables.

@DForck42 The 5e system isn't designed with magic items in mind, and in theory you can play a character level 1-20 without any magic items at all. But is D&D without magic treasure still D&D?

@Adam true. that's why I like magical items that don't provide +1 bonuses. basically, things that might end up being tangentially helpful at some point

for example, my bard has a scroll of tidal wave that he's otally saving for the a-holes at the fire temple

@DForck42 He's sure to make a splash with that.

@Adam That is one thing (out of many) thatI like about 5e (bounded accuracy), with 4e the system expects you to have level appropriate gear that gives +1/5 levels or it starts becoming difficult to hit monsters

@Karelzarath heh

Sword of Totally Being Able to Read and Understand Tax Codes.

Useful magic items!

@MadMAxJr lol

Dagger of Explaining Very Difficult, Mature Topics to Children.

Halberd that Remembers What You Came Into the Room to do.

Magic 8-Ball that knows the outcome of any Kickstarter/GoFundMe.

Shield of Protection from Rejection

it doesn't stop people rejecting you, it just helps your feelings not be hurt

That one rolls off the tongue nice. A+

Amulet of spellchecking.

(For magical and regular languages)

it can spellcheck in any language

Armor of Plot Resistance 30

but you have to speak the right command word to make it change dictionaries

sometimes it gets stuck on draconic and then you have no idea idea how to fix it

Ring of Fine Dining: When invoked, you may ask the target where it would like to go to dinner. The target is compelled to give you a direct answer.

@Carcer Something like this?

@MadMAxJr no no - the ring has the effect on the wearer. You're compelled to give a straight answer when asked what you want to eat

@MadMAxJr Is "I dunno, wherever you want" a direct answer?

@MadMAxJr Where can I get one of those? I need one for a friend <.<

only if "wherever you want" is genuine and doesn't mean "name places until you pick the one I actually wanted"

If it has to compel the wearer to speak the truth, wouldn't that be a cursed item?

sometimes items are cursed.

let's be generous and say you can take it off again.

But it amuses me to imagine giving that as an engagement ring out of sheer frustration

Gloves of Tipping: These gloves will always select the correct amount of coin from your inventory. Please note the magic in these gloves may work differently outside the US magical domain (and magical territories). Command words for 15%, 20%, and 25%.

And you only have to speak the truth about what you want to eat, which is a pretty limited power. It's only really a problem if you harbour the secret desire to eat babies or something

@Carcer "I love you, but PICK A PLACE YOU WANNA EAT AT FFS!"

Authentic Coin: No badly how scraped and dinged, always accepted as genuine currency of the correct amount by vending machines.

Ring of Secondary, Qualified, Technical opinion.

Glasses of Housecat Finding

Golem That Can Replace Printer Toner Cartridges

@MadMAxJr Stone of keys finding - hold it to immediately know the location of your keys

@DForck42 I could also use one of these for a friend... (if it worked on other things like shoes and TV remotes that would be a nice bonus)

@diego could be a stone of WTF did I put that?

Phylactery of Scam Detection - warns you if you're about to fall for a phishing scam (or similar) if you take a moment to contemplate before hitting Send

@Carcer The keyboard of "That isn't a Nigerian Prince" Only types the phrase "that isn't a Nigerian Prince" when you type a reply to a phishing scam

I'm not entirely certain our outsourced printer technicians aren't golems already.

@Adam lol

Amulet of Delay Uncomfortable Conversation

Pants of Wearing

@LegendaryDude Belt of pant hoisting?

Honestly, pants just need the magic descriptor so they always fit the wearer.

You don't need any additional enchantments. Unless you really need that AC bonus.

Trousers of Butt Shrinking, eh

@MadMAxJr omfg yes please!

Evertucking Shirt

@LegendaryDude eww, I hate tucking in my shirts

@LegendaryDude Shirt of wrinkle resistance

Everbroken Pants: Pants that always have /just/ the right amount of wear and tear for optimal comfort, based on wearer preference.

some sort of infinitely powered phone battery would be amazing

@DForck42 Me too, but if they never became untucked it wouldn't be nearly as big a problem

only do it when I'm trying to look super professional

see, I just never try to look professional

@Carcer The tradeoff is that it takes exactly one year of your life when first used.

@DForck42 I don't even do it then :P jeans and polo or even a henley shirt are okay most days here. It's only when C-levels come in that we try to look nice, and that happens but once or twice a year.

To heck with that! My life is worth too much!

Ring of Business Casual Disguise

Allows any attire to pass for Business Casual.

@MadMAxJr need this

I have worn shitty jeans and T-shirt when dealing with my local super seniors

couch of eternal comfort - it's always comfortable no matter how you sit or lay on it

it doesn't seem to have done anything bad to my career so far

@DForck42 also this

Uh, Chair of Reclining. It, uh, reclines.

@LegendaryDude wow... so... enventive

bath of epervescence - whenever the bath tub is at least 50% full it creates a bubbling effect

@DForck42 It's part of my Tautological Tautologies line. The line also includes the Pants of Wearing and the Belt of Pants Hoisting.

@LegendaryDude lol

I bet those sell for absolutely ludicrous sums

@Carcer yup

Coming soon we'll have the Ring of Finger Decorating.

Chair of Reclining, but not so far back you twitch slightly thinking it will fall over.

gloves of warming - they're like having hot hands always going

@MadMAxJr When I was a kid my parents had one of those really nice wheeled wooden office chairs. It had a spring and a knob to tighten it so you could tip in the chair. Except the chair was so old that the spring was worn out. So you'd reach the maximum of the chair's leaning point very quickly, and the point was just beyond that reflexive tipping point.

So basically, every time you leaned back in it you'd have a heart attack thinking it was going to flip backwards.

@LegendaryDude lol

> Ring of Approximate Wish Fulfillment.

@LegendaryDude The Glasses of Seeing?

@Yuuki Glasses of Seeing and Drinking.

> The Bag of Everything You Don't Need

argh, blast the d20pfsrd

@Carcer Yes. Straight into the sun.

it fails to include the note for dragons which are capable of casting cleric spells as arcane spells

@LegendaryDude I get this experience out of most modern recliners that have a rather well tuned balance mechanism.

@Yuuki Ring of Acceptance: It won't change anything but it makes you feel better about your life.

in the generic entry for the dragon, at least. Some of the statted out examples mention it

My body freaks out thinking, "This has to be too far."

Ring of expedited paperwork processing: For any document that requires a physical signoff, stamp, or wax seal, halve the average processing time for your documents.

@LegendaryDude Box of rapid calculations: Just utter a series of command words in a predefined grammar.

Digital Holy Symbol: Allows Cleric/Divine class abilities to function against eletronics.

sack of pens - a bag that produces an infinite amount of low quality writing pens

@GreySage I just know that would be Polish Notation.

@DForck42 They're all on bankers chains to an unseen anchor in the bag.

each pen pulled from the bag exists for 24 hours before becoming lost

@Karelzarath I was thinking Python, but its all good

@MadMAxJr lol

@MadMAxJr ha!

My players would /find/ a use for that.

"I pull out 32 pens and fashion a banker chain net."

@MadMAxJr Pairs well with the Ring of Bureaucracy: Can grant you nearly anything but all forms must be signed in triplicate and signed off by all departments involved. Also, the office closes early on Tuesdays so you better hurry.

"I rappel down the cliff using the banker chains."

@LegendaryDude I believed there was a 2nd edition cursed item for this.

Ring of Bureaucratic Wizardry.

Yup

It stores spells as per Ring of Wizardry, but you must fill out forms for a number of rounds equal to the spell level to use them.

We had a demented player create 9 pages of forms who had an accounting background.

So it looked something like the US 1040 tax form.

@MadMAxJr That is amazing. And I think I'd heard of that before, so thank you for bringing it to my attention.

Average party HP, Expected damage result of spell (if harmful), add box A, B, and any exception fields and write the result in J. If J is positive, proceed to subsection 34-B

If you have taken metamagic feat deductions, please fill out additional forms 304-A, 304-B, and multiple copies of 304-C for each metamagic feat.

The 9th page, for 9th level spells was mostly a document formatted write-in field. "Please list the political, social, economic, and ecological impact of obtaining, casting, and implementation of this spell. Please list all known possible outcomes."

It reminds me very much so of my idea for a devil who makes a deal with PCs.

> "The pit fiend pulls out a pair of bifocals and unfurls a scroll. The scroll rolls off the edge of the desk, onto the floor, and continues out the door. He dips his quill in some ink and signs, then hands the quill to you."

Iron Kingdoms had a race of Lawful Evil 'infernals'. Demonic entities that have a very strict adherence to rules. Their currency appears to be living souls, so they're very eager to bargain for them. A bit more book and paper than fire and brimstone devils.

Long, slender, gaunt figures, the black robes of horrific evil, but they're more like lawyers than tormentors. Though they have tormentors. That's for people who get out of contract.

@Yuuki Mmm. Problem with your form here. You've filled out a 1040-5E, I need a 1040-2E. Older filing, no feats. Barely a skill system honestly....

cold-blooded

@MadMAxJr In triple copies

@Adam No, the item actually specifies "in triplicate."

> This cursed ring is indistinguishable from a ring of wizardry, but has one important difference. When a wizard casts any spell while wearing the ring, a sheaf of papers and a quill pen suddenly appear in his hand. The papers are forms that must be filled out in triplicate explaining the effects of the spell, why the wizard wishes to cast it, whether it is for business or pleasure, and so on.

I cast 'create carbon copy'

@LegendaryDude Dang you item descriptions!

cont'd...

> The forms must be filled out before the effects of the spell will occur. The higher the level of the spell cast, the more complicated the forms become. Filling out the forms requires one round per level of spell.

"I cast Mordenkainen's e-Signature."

So the triplicate forms are included in the time it takes to fill the paperwork. Man, that is some fast writing.

"I cast Mordenkainen's Arbitration. I didn't agree to these terms!"

Arcane mandatory binding arbitration is held in a court of devils, chosen by the arcane power as a means of reducing stress and cost on the arcane court system in your realm. The devils are chosen by the raw force of the arcane but remain impartial.

@Adam I was thinking about your group story woes earlier but didn't have the mental energy to articulate my thoughts. I just got an upvote to this and the advice feels relevant. I was thinking, instead of having a whole story planned out, have a general direction and tone you're interested in ("let's play a light-hearted game where we try to save the planet from an evil villain"), and have "chapters".

Plan the start of a chapter, talk about what you'd like to get done in that chapter or how much content you'd like to cover and at what sort of pace or in how many sessions or hours of game time, then play that chapter through until you all generally agree the chapter's over and you achieved what you were going for. Reflect on how it all panned out, who survived and who didn't, etc.

Then, start a new chapter with the same process. Never plan further-ahead chapters except in super-rough sketch form -- things might not head that direction.

@doppelgreener That's a really good way to start. Never thought about it like that. Usually it's the GM who says, "I have an idea..." but asking the players exactly the type of story they want to play in (beyond Same Page Tool consensus) is a really good way to start a campaign.

@LegendaryDude It is! I borrowed some steps in here from Prime Time Adventures, which @JuneShores taught me about.

I'm eager to try the system of scenes that Tales from the Loop proposes. Players can suggest situations for trouble as often as the GM can. The only static part is that the GM remains in control of non-PC entities.

I cant say I've ever had a DM come up and ask me "what do you want" when it comes to the story. But it's definitely solid advice! I'll have to find a way to introduce it

@Adam Hey @JuneShores, d'you have a way you'd recommend using the prime time adventures scene-setting structure for moving through chapters in a D&D campaign? I made a suggestion just above, and the background is here -- @Adam is trying to play through a collaborative story but they're suffering from it being pre-written.

Gosh, all this talk about GM techniques always gets me so excited to start my own game some day!

"I want a nightmare system of bureaucratic legislation that ultimately takes out the dragon economy before the adventurers arrive, so that we can cast the final strike into the already weakened dragon. Then we can focus on carving up the corpse for loot since he's relatively poor."

@Adam Why wait?

The only reason my group is as focused as we are is because 3 years ago I said, "I'm going to run a Pathfinder game and you are all going to play in it."

I didn't really give them a choice... had I not phrased it that way it'd have been this wishy-washy "yeah let's get together sometime and do that..."

But because I was assertive and I wanted to DM and I gave them a time, date, and place they all showed up

I told my group, "So we're gonna play Rise of the Runelords." and I got "How long is it?" in response.

My estimate was wrong.

Very wrong.

@LegendaryDude nice

wish me 3.5 game was more reliable

@MadMAxJr That was my start.

2 bailed last minute for the last session

We played it for 2.5 years! Crazy.

Two groups is enough for me to be involved in. The one group just swapped out DM's for the second part of the story, and he's a new DM too, so I want to give him a chance. The DM for the other game is my dad, and he's been wanting for years to run the adventure we're playing through now. I couldn't possibly interrupt that.

we've got one scheduled for 4/22, hope they make it

We got to year 1.5, then social strife killed the party. Rebuilding what I could from the ashes of that fire, we're on the second attempt.

Which is fun because they never know when I've changed something from the first run.

"Did we do this last time?" "I can't remember. I certainly don't remember this."

You should introduce them to the Guild of Bureaucratic Dragons at some point.

@LegendaryDude I'm in a similar boat as Adam, and for me I have my group that is playing SKT. Once we are done with that we'll need to figure out who will be running next, it could be me it could be someone else.

@Yuuki "I'm sorry we can't attack heroes with out a 2/3rds majority and a signoff by the speaker of the council. You'll have to wait your turn to petition the council."

"If you wish to fight <Red Dragon> to get his loot, please fill out the following forms in triplicate. Do you have your dragon hunter's license? If not, you will need to fill out this form and provide an application fee as well as an annual renewal fee."

"Do you want a mock battle or a real battle? We actually have performers more readily available than real combatants. Our surveys show it's 89% as enjoyable as the real thing for less than a third of the healing costs."

*0 XP will be rewarded for mock battles.

But you gain life skills.

(*Life skills have no in-game value)

wow, I didn't realize paladin wasn't in the SRD

@DForck42 It... is.

Hmm. You've applied to fight Magtherion, Blighter of Skies, The Everburning Cinder. I regret to inform you your application has been denied. Your FICO score (Fighting/Intelligence/Charisma Observations) doesn't meet the necessary value. I'm going to need another party to co-sign for you or you're going to need collateral.

@LegendaryDude is it in the basic rules pdf?

@DForck42 The basic rules are different from the SRD

I've only got the .2 version atm, but I'm not seein git

@DForck42 I dunno, but it's pg 30 in the SRD document.

ahh

@DForck42 media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/SRD-OGL_V5.1.pdf

I feel kinda dumb now

so, why do we have basic rules and the srd?

@DForck42 The basic rules actually read as rules. The SRD is a reference guide for 3rd party publishers.

The SRD is for people to know how much of the system they can use legally in their own content. The basic rules you hand to a brand new player so that they can get started relatively quickly. I think the basic rules lack some of the more complicated or "exotic" choices because of that

ahh, ok

The basic rules also look like they have more Backgrounds than the SRD. The SRD only has the Acolyte as an example for 3rd parties.

oh nice, I didn't know smite allowed you to spend the spell slot WHEN YOU HIT the creature, rather than calling it when you do the swing

@DForck42 Yup. You can never waste a smite.

@Adam :-D

Sneak attack works in a similar way, I believe.

I'm contemplating my backup for the bard being a pally

@diego I think the basic rules have enough to cover everything in the starter set, which means it would need to include multiple backgrounds to cover all the pregen characters.

@doppelgreener This is a tough question, because most editions of D&D come with their own act breaks and pacing shenanigans. B/X is a completely different game from 5e. PTA also comes with its own structure to reinforce the episode by episode pacing, which isn't terribly compatible with D&D. Let me think about this, I need dinner.

@DForck42 Also, any spell slot can be used for Smite. Including Warlock slots, which are recoverable after short rests!

@LegendaryDude I started playing RPGs because a friend told me "You'd make a great GM. Here are the books to read over winter break, I'll have a group of players when you get back."

@Yuuki ooooh

@DForck42 And, for good measure, let us not forget that you can cast one of the smite spells (thundering smite, searing smite, etc) and also use divine smite if you hit

@Adam oh my

Yeah...Paladins do a lot of damage

@JuneShores Ok!! :D

> He was consistently interrupting scenes with inappropriate "call outs" that were out of character and would derail the game, like the time they went inside a burning how to save a little girl and he shouted "Grab her by the pussy!"

wtf

Seriously wtf

@Yuuki yeah. i get the same response.

stackoverflow.blog/2017/03/30/…

I mean, there are so many problems and worrying things about that.

OOC or not.

I mean, for one, imaginary character or not, that's a little girl (child) that you're talking about.

@Yuuki That's definitely someone who needs to be flagged for observation.

They seem to have realised the group wouldn't stand for it and removed themselves, so points for some kind of self-awareness?

That's almost kinda worse.

Also that.

hey there @Karelzarath

@Shalvenay Aloha. How goes?

OK here, as for you?

Been worse, but things are looking up.

Right now, I'm reading through the Aethera campaign setting book.

ah. what sort of setting is it?

Science fantasy for the Pathfinder ruleset.

ah

@Karelzarath good to hear things are looking up :D

OK. I have been fooded.

@doppelgreener @Adam I have thought about this question and I have to say, it's a tough nut to crack if you want to preserve all of D&D's bits. However, if you make a few cuts like, say, making return trips out of a dungeon into a teleport then it may be easier. [...]

That's a really important bid. Elide time whenever it's not immediately interesting.

That's a good policy in general, I think! But definitely emphatically important in this case.

Second, use rumors. When they're looking at the job postings or researching the local dungeon or on the road into town, ask them, "What's a rumor that you've heard about this place?" Use their rumors to construct a scenario, but twist it into something unexpected -- it's important that this twist doesn't harm the PCs directly, that way lies resentful players and turtling.

(That's from Ryuutama.)

oooh. I'm gonna use that.

hey there @JuneShores

@JuneShores yeah, I've seen one-way portals at the bottom of dungeons used to good effect on a NWN server actually

Third, control your scope. Not every physical conflict needs to invoke the combat rules. Sometimes a conflict can just be a check. Not every dungeon has to be cleared at once. Sometimes you can save the later levels for... later levels. The full domino effect of a series of events doesn't have to reach its conclusion now. You can save the consequences of a decision for a later chapter.

And for players, sometimes it's best to disengage with the conflict and say, "This is good enough for now."

@Shalvenay "teleport" here might also be in a figurative storytelling sense. skip from "hooray we defeated the big bad" to "we're back at the keep that was a week's travel away, speaking to the people who asked us to handle that big bad."

@doppelgreener that works too

@Shalvenay @doppelgreener Either of these solutions work. The Escape Rope in Pokemon games is pretty indispensable. So are careful time skips.

I actually follow a rough script for my one shot Fate games. It goes like...

@JuneShores never used one.

Am I that bad, doctor?

@Zachiel Never used what?

@doppelgreener 5 stars

@JuneShores The Escape Rope.

(but I can only give one)

Nah, you're fine. You're probably just better at the game than I am.

@JuneShores starring for future reference. :D

@doppelgreener Thank you.

@JuneShores Nah, I'm just a compulsive hoarder that never uses consumables.

i resemble that remark