@trogdor works to make, at least this very specific combat, hard-deadly-but-beatable :D They got the boss down to 1 HP, he started making Con Saves like zombies do, and there was only one PC up at that point, 2 were dead, one was dying.
Well, and I never got into the wargame collecting/painting thing.
And I liked having easy, portable access to minis of any kind I wanted at the drop of a hat.
Heck, I even went meta once and used photos of minis on the printed minis, to represent statues.
My players got to have exactly the character they wanted; I could print out three dozen specialty monsters I'd never use again; if something got lost or ruined I could just make another...
And portability/ease of storage is awesome. For most of my D&D era I was GMing away from my house, so it was great to be able to carry a whole adventure of minis in a little baggie.
I mean I guess my idea of expensive differs. That miniature is $5 USD. I understand if buying lots of them for every scenario it would get pricy kinda quick but to have a single miniature of my first character thats not that expensive
My first games as a player were with groups that had very short attention spans and/or fell apart quickly and/or had a GM with no compunctions about brutal, meaningless character death.
I even had that one monster who, by the rules, I probably could have just killed literally eveyone with, but that was one of the fights where no one died
because I didn't want to play the monster in such an unfair way
@BESW this is true as well XD
it was the big cat thing that had a damage aura and the ability to go invisible
I could have had it just sit invisibly on everyone and eventually kill them,.... but then who is having fun right?
@BESW this was indeed silly
though I was halfway tempted to kill our rogue that way :P
the debuff rogue is a shameful memory for me, I realize that player had certain tenancies already, but I feel like I kickstarted that playstyle by killing off the first set of PC's that were played in that campaign
I did have fun doing work arounds to the strategy though
like the dragonborn/draconian things who exploded when he killed them
and the robot things that had a bunch of minion buddies swarming around them
"those roll-up mats" come in a wide variety of options from many sources.
So I can definitely see an argument that it'd be largely opinion to choose one of them as the "standard" you're looking for.
Unless Wizards put a measurement in their 5e materials, or only sells one kind of grid themselves, or sells a specific grid as "for 5e." Which maybe they do. Some previous editions have made an explicit square/inch statement.
Then ask "Is there an official standard?" or "Is Chessex the official standard?" or something like that--it sounds like your question is one or two steps removed from the situation that led you to ask it, and that can be frustrating all around as answerers try to guess what you're looking for, and you get answers that may not actually fit your situation.
What size are the standard grids in those roll-up mats people use for D&D 5e and thus what radius / diameter should the base of a miniature be for easy usage?
@Ryan PHB says nothing about sizes (cf. p.192), DMG only mentions 1-inch squares at p.250: "you can draw maps on a vinyl map with 1-inch squares, on a large sheet of paper, or similar surface" (paraphrased). Good night!
@Shalvenay thanks
@KorvinStarmast one thought on this question (History.SE): you say that M40 is the only one you've experience with, but later mention using M79 and M203. I'm sure I'm just missing something, but that seems contradictory. Is there some subtlety or term of art in there I'm missing? (And, by other extension, perhaps others are missing too?)
@NautArch DMG p.230-something... before asking for a roll, decide whether it's needed =)
@NautArch It shocks me how many GMs don't have that mindset. Many I observe hear "I want to do ____" and seem to be automatically thinking "okay, what skill should that be and what DC should I set," having skipped over that all-important first step.
Personally I think if there's an all-encompassing Rule 0 which can be applied to every RPG ever, it's "don't touch the randomiser unless you're okay with any result it might spit out."
@nitsua60 it's not necessarily a bad mindset. Trying to find a way to make a cool idea happen. The trick is knowing when you're getting taken for a spin down the cheese grater
@BESW This has also been key to my and my spouse's successful relationship: "don't ask a question unless you're ready for the answer."
@Shalvenay That... certainly could be and would make sense. Means that KS's answer is perfectly sensible with that knowledge, but seems strange without it.
@nitsua60 come to think of it, 'M40' is probably an informal shorthand for '40mm grenade' -- the actual military designations for NATO 40mm rounds vary with the type of warhead (training, sponge, HE/DP, shotshell, smoke, marker) you're shooting ofc
Nah, the flu doesn't turn you into a lich. It turns you into a meat puppet animated by the unthinkable ooze beings of distant dimensions which emanate relentlessly through portals in your sinuses.
After 20 or so sessions of DnD 5e, I find myself missing some of the things they had in 4e...
I'm growing rather tired of the saving throw thing, for instance. Feels rather arbitrary for some sorts of magical energy blasts to be considered attacks (that the attacker rolls) and others to be considered non-attack effects (which the defender rolls to save against).
@Shalvenay Update on the whole whiteboard marker fiasco. Apparently, it was just that one brand that doesn't erase when written on plastic. I bought a refill for the old marker and it erases fine.
@daze413 4e way is essentially that there are 4 defense values: AC (which is like AC in 5e) and three defenses based on attributes: Fortitude (Str and Con), Will (Wis and Cha) and Reflex (Dex and Int). Basically, where DnD 5e demands the target to make a constitution saving throw, the 4e version would effectively be a normal attack except against Fort, not AC.
@kviiri This sounds a lot more streamlined, actually. I've been listening to some old 4e games on youtube by Christopher Perkins, and it sounds like something I'd like to try out since most of our group are combat-centric
@Szega Yes, this is what actually miffs me the most about it. There are rules pertaining to attacks, that for some reason apply to some offensive spells for instance, but not eg. a fireball since it's saved against instead of rolled as an attack. It's not intuitive.
too bad there are no books available in my area :/ I'd have to order in the US again.... and with the exchange rate the way it is... I think I'll wait a couple months
In D&D 5, the saving throws for spells has the following formula:
The DC is set to 8 + prof bonus + magical stat bonus.
The target then makes a saving throw, adding their stat bonus and hoping to get above that DC.
Instead of having the defender roll the saving throw, we would like the attacke...
@kviiri At the risk of becoming a broken record, have you tried or heard of 13th Age? A lot less intimidating while retaining most of the good parts of 4e.
Hmm, it should be possible to calculate what the chance is to hit 0, 1, 2, ... , N targets and then map those probabilities to the die. The only problem I see is that the die goes in 5% probability steps which might not be fine-grained enough, but you can always roll twice to get 0.25% steps.
@daze413 Yeah. Basically D&D 4e's fortitude/reflex/will defenses are the exact same thing as saving throw bonuses, only the attacker's doing the rolling.
@nwp You could have an approximation of the probabilities in a table with d100 on the Y axis and the number of targets in AoE on the X. Then the problem is, how do you account for individual variations in defenses and how does one determine which targets are actually hit.
@Szega Inspiration mechanic (the DM one, not the bard one), lucky rolls, all favor the player when rolling. By RAW, they shouldn't affect spells that require a save, but because of that variant rule, you get a lot more successful spells
@Szega If I was to write an app I'd just roll once per target. Much easier to implement and prove correctness. The goal was to reduce the hand rolling, but I guess the math is too difficult to do by hand.
One thing I now realize looking back at 3.5 and 4e, it's a very daunting prospect to pick them up as "finished" games. So many books! And character options in all of them! It was easier to absorb all the info as the books were coming out.
But it's got some really cool narrative fiddly bits like every PC has something which makes them unique in all the world (your choice).
And some nifty mechanical fiddlies like using your d20 attack roll to not only check if you've hit AC, but if you trigger other effects depending on the raw die roll being even, odd, over or under various targets, etc.
I ran a paladin who, once per battle, could turn an enemy's natural roll of 5 or less into a natural 1.
@Magician There was a weakness we ran into 13th age: there's distinct mechanics, and also in theory it's a narrative game where various narrative traits (like the One Unique Thing and Skills) ought to do a thing, but it's hard to gauge how much they should be doing.
at least, it was in the game I played with you.
We had that disagreement & tension over lighting the bats on fire not really doing anything, and in the time since I mentioned the session I played and that incident to other people who've mentioned they'd played 13th age, and they said that wasn't 13th-age-ish, but I don't know what is 13th-age-ish there. 🤔
Ah, yeah. We had a pretty fundamental disagreement on how such narrative ideas should interact with the core rules.
As I even note in the post about it, the game purposefully leaves many things up to the group, and offers plenty of examples of abilities that are open-ended that way. I think if we played more together, and/or did so in person, this problem would quickly go away.
@Magician i also noticed a weird thing in that game, i'm not sure why it occurred: in many games i remember i'm an equal playing a game at a table and i can speak out when i have issues with how something's being handled. in D&D, i frequently get put in a different mindset: the person running the game is the Absolute Overlord and i can't speak up. Somehow, during our 13th age game, I got into the second mindset, and I don't know what caused that. Were I in the first, I would've spoken up sooner.
I don't blame you for that either, I'm more inclined to feel it's something to do with the game, or that it looked like D&D which put me into that mindset all on its own, or something.
I find DnD at least is one of those games that requires a lot more "same-paging" than most RPGs because it's so incredibly vague on how it's meant to be played, and passable efforts can be made in so many ways.
@kviiri I agree. And I feel in Fate, we can much more easily recognise and talk about when we're playing with different expectations. My gaming group with BESW and Trogdor had a few times we reflected on things that weren't suiting us -- we were able to talk about a character that was too creepy for the tone, about various issues holding sessions down, etc, and that was awesome.
Eventually after a dozen or two sessions we recognised there were some fundamental issues with the story & game world we were playing with and how people were relating to it and expectations around it, but that mostly came after several discussions that were kinda feeling out that there was an issue there but we weren't sure what the shape of it was exactly.
Earlier this year, we started a DnD 5e campaign with a group of new RPG players (only one experienced player among them) and I gave them a very simplified premise where they're literally members of the Adventurer's Guild that's trained them according to their class and invested with the authority to pursue quests and loot. They've enjoyed it tremendously :)
@Magician Cool! I haven't, y'know, played that many contiguous D&D sessions. The few sessions my gaming group ran in D&D 4e we had good healthy post-game reflection on what went well and where issues arose.
That reminds me: People of the British Isles, do you have something like Capri Sun?
Because around here we've discovered that Capri Sun doesn't freeze solid in the freezer, it turns to slush. And is wonderful, and we are surprised anyone drinks it any other way.
Specifically when discussing DnD, my friends tend to gravitate into two groups: those who think that DnD is a good game after a reasonable amount of same-paging, discussing which rules to ignore and what house rules to apply, and deciding a general focus of the campaign.
@eimyr nah, more often they mean "i personally enjoy what it does and how it does it"
like "this is a good movie" -- most people aren't deconstructing the movie in terms of it appropriately handling its own themes, having good cinematography, effective actors that reinforce the movie's missions, suitable narrative arcs and delivery methods for those arcs, effective use of cuts, etc. most people wouldn't even know those concepts well enough to perform such a deconstruction. they're just saying the movie felt good to watch.
For example. One of Lovecraftesque's goals ("what") is to provide a semi-random but strictly limited set of narrative beats. It achieves this ("how") through the use of a specialized deck of cards. But "why" specialized cards? Why not roll dice on a table or use a regular deck of playing cards with a cheat sheet for what they represent?
@doppelgreener Indeed, and people aren't even agreeing what "good" means. There used to be this Finnish film critic who gave almost all movies one star out of five because he was comparing everything to the great classics like Citizen Kane. Others used a different scale, but that doesn't mean they necessarily enjoyed the film any more.
@eimyr <- but average people aren't looking at things with a critical lens where they'd be meaning this by saying "this design is good", not being well-equipped enough to have that lens available
@doppelgreener One reason I liked Ebert's reviews is that no matter what he thought of the film, he explained the reasoning for his opinion clearly enough that I could tell if I'd like the film.
@BESW that is a good quality. beyond that you just gotta find reviewers who share your tastes to see what they recommend, and evaluate simply based on what they like.
@kviiri yeah, i agree with that. (but i'd consider that if i'm using a star scale that gives most things a 1/5, i need to re-calibrate my scale.)
@eimyr sure, i'm not saying such people wouldn't or shouldn't express opinion. i'm just saying that the meaning you're reading into those words simply would not be what those words usually mean, because what you think they mean could only come from someone with a suitable critical lens most people do not have.
@doppelgreener I looked the ciritc up, he said he hates giving star ratings. Maybe it doubles as a protest.
I really respect the man though. He must be really good at what he does to succeed despite constantly deviating on the star ratings (which is the only thing 90% of the readers will see).
> [...]it is only because I have in mind all those thousands of persons, not unlike myself, who work in the vulgar and meaningless bustle of offices, shops, and homes, and who are not always sure whether a sentence is Literature or whether it is just sheer flapdoodle, that I have adopted the method perfected by the late Herr Baedeker, and firmly marked what I consider the finer passages with one, two, or three stars. In such a manner did the good man deal with cathedrals, hotels and paintings by men of genius.
I asked a question about how to hide something from PCs. It got closed as too broad, which I can kinda see, but I got an answer before it was suspended that gave me exactly the information I was looking for.
What am I supposed to do now? Editing it to make it less broad might invalidate the ans...
@BESW microgame idea: My Guy Syndrome The Game. players choose from a set of mutually exclusive goals from their Guy (or Gal) and their Guy's/Gal's stats are about being jerks to each other. Potentially import a rule from "Sorry" (a board game where you have to say "Sorry" after everything you do) around having to explain it's what their guy/gal would do.
@NautArch I'm not buying it. If your AC comes from having armor sure, the armor still works while unconscious. But if your AC comes from dodging attacks it should not persist.
@nwp "any attack roll made against you has disadvantage if you can see the attacker..." I would argue that an unconscious creature cannot "see" anything meaningfully. Especially since "An unconscious creature is incapacitated (see the condition), can’t move or speak, and is unaware of its surroundings"
@NautArch Plus, it just makes it easier to run. Add the advantage and move on. Keep the game going. I'd also be concerned that it makes flat armor classes/heavy armor in many cases better than lighter armors. Dex based characters are going to have very swingy AC.
@godskook My apologies if I seemed flippant, spurning, or serious. That wasn't my intention. Whatever I was trying to do made sense in my head but doesn't come across well at all in chat with retrospect
I would delete it, but the window for that has closed, so my failure stands for all to see
So, has anyone ever tried to explore the vast implications behind the Pact Primeval in 3.5? Including:
-That 3.5 is primarily and actually Law/Chaos primary-bound, not Good/Evil, as noted with Asmodeus never swerving in his primary duties as an agent of Law from the time before the concepts of Good/Evil existed. -Asmodeus, as dispicable as he is, shares more end-goals in common with the likes of Yondalla and Moradin than say...Lolth -Paladins, living in this state of heavenly affairs, are awkwardly allowed to tolerate CG allies but slay LE who would otherwise be willing potential allies.
I remember Matthew Colville talk about a setting having a great conflict of Law vs Chaos and the usual conflict of Good vs Evil not being relevant. I would need to search more to find the exact video.
@kviiri That's a feature, not a bug. When you look at the body of Crawford's tweets, and the DMG taken in its entirety, they want to game to be able to stretch in a number of direction. Crawfords oft repeated theme of "the rules are there to help you have a fun/good game not dictate to you" resonates clearly with me based on my history with previous editions.
Response to your "DnD designers are very experienced but are still quite vague about what sort of game they want DnD to be in 5e and how the design supports it"
@Adam You seem to be saying that like it's a bad thing. Assessing a situation and making a ruling is what DM's have been doing since Arneson began as "referee" in his primordial Blackmoor world. If someone does not want to do that, nor like to do that, I think "DM" is the wrong role for that person at a table.
No worries. I was pretty matter-of-fact with that statement, which would make it easy to mistake my feelings. Plus I'm doing a pitiful job today of getting ideas across accurately
My teetotaller activities are getting even more frustrating. New members of our D&D group are all beer snobs and one works at a high end liquor store and they're always bringing special/crazy beers from the store and local breweries. I need to just bring a cup to spit in, I guess.
One of my co-workers told me about how his friends played a one shot where he brought in a bottle of fireball whisky, and every time somebody cast fireball, everyone had to take a shot.
@KorvinStarmast I really didn't want to get into designer intent behind Dex modifier on armor. Just watned to give the RAW answer. And I think Markovchain has a brilliant explanation for that piece.
@NautArch I have found that some people need to be reminded that 5e does not try to be crunchy and fiddly and that DM's are supposed to do what makes sense to the DM. I guess that the soap box I prefer to stand on.
Speaking of beer, I am about disgusted with the American beer market. It is over saturated with pretentious and undrinkable micro brews that are over hopped and rarely satisfying to drink, frequently leading to bloat and otherwise unsatisfying beer experiences.
What size are the standard grids in those roll-up mats people use for D&D 5e and thus what radius / diameter should the base of a miniature be for easy usage?
In D&D 5, the saving throws for spells has the following formula:
The DC is set to 8 + prof bonus + magical stat bonus.
The target then makes a saving throw, adding their stat bonus and hoping to get above that DC.
Instead of having the defender roll the saving throw, we would like the attacke...
I asked a question about how to hide something from PCs. It got closed as too broad, which I can kinda see, but I got an answer before it was suspended that gave me exactly the information I was looking for.
What am I supposed to do now? Editing it to make it less broad might invalidate the ans...
