It's nice when that whole bundle of roles that for some reason often get shoved on a GM can actually devolve to the people who're best suited to execute that role.
speaking of games @nitsua60 -- you were thinking about running something for the Oz/Guamanian folks, what's that look like? (I'm down for joining, as long as the time is semi-workable ofc)
@Shalvenay That's true, I'd forgotten about that. But I'm certainly happy to. My work-day is much more flexible during the summer, so I wonder if my morning/their evening could work?
@Miniman I dunno. A lil' something-something. This stems from the fact that when I ran a 5e intro back in Jan/Feb/whenever the time I was able to run wasn't great for some people across the world. Now, with my summer schedule, I'd be happy to run something shortish (say, 6 sessions or so) for people from across the world who're interested. (cc: @trogdor @Adeptus @otherAustraliansICan'tRemember @SomeoneHere'sFromThePhillipinesIThink @etc.)
Some highlights of 13th Age for me include replacing skills with a short list of player-written backstory elements, and keying extra effects off attacks based on the raw d20 roll in addition to the ordinary "check if you hit" part.
And I can't say enough about the One Unique Thing.
@BESW I'm actually slightly skeptical about the raw d20 thing. It does sound good to me because I'm pretty good at remembering rules, but I wonder if my co-players will ever learn to remember to check if they roll, for example, an even number.
It's an extra fiddly bit, yeah, but I found it worked because it added excitement to a single event rather than adding many extra events (eg, the movement economy is much simpler because you can just have stuff happen off the attack).
My players are mostly of the variety that's only ever played these DnD-style reasonably combat-heavy romps and don't fancy themselves playing a combat game. They're really averse to adding more rules to social situations, which bugs me somewhat.
Or non-combat situations, in general.
I don't think they'd accept icons that easily anyway.
In my understanding Icons are still VERY high up on the fiat tower; they're... more like nudges for the GM to guide the scene or story in certain directions. Kind of like an improv comic asking for suggestions from the audience.
"I need another character for this scene, can someone roll their Icons and tell me who the character is going to be connected to?"
@BESW But there's a roll, and if it hits, the GM has to provide aid to the player, right? That's a pretty far cry from DnD where the GM can pretty much decide everything outside combat.
Items like Amulet of Health and Gauntlets of Ogre Power that set a character's stats bother me. From a character building point of view it makes sense to make a fighter with 8 Str and hope for a Str setting item. I wish it did +X to stats instead to avoid situations where the Str item goes to the cleric because it provides more benefit there than for the fighter. Am I missing something?
I guess one reason why I like combat in DnD more than anything else is that it's sort-of guaranteed to be fair. In non-combat situations where we tell the GM we do something, the GM makes us roll, and we have no idea what's going on or what number we need to hit, and the GM all that often doesn't know either and sort of decides everything on the fly on a whim.
Well, yeah. Sorry about ranting, btw. I'm just frustrated I'd like a more transparent game but my party likes secrecy (without proper consideration of how it effects the game, IMO).
@Magician I don't think so. You can only increase your stats up to 20 with ability increasing features from your class. And then there are those belts that are all better than what you can naturally do, so they all give ridiculous stats.
I'm on record as being a fan of secrecy only when I can point at a particular constructive reason for that particular instance benefiting from the secrecy.
@nwp Ah. Right. Well, I suspect in that case the answer is "because that's how they worked in AD&D." And PCs shouldn't be able to count on getting these items, for obvious reasons. For the record I'm not a fan of them either.
@kviiri Aaaand that's pretty much my main problem with 5e. It can work just fine, but it doesn't encourage "good" or even thought-out playstyles. So players fall into all the traps of D&D all over again, that we've had decads to work out and understand.
In sharp contrast to that, 13A is all about understanding and avoiding these pitfalls. In some ways, it's like playing a heavily house-ruled game of D&D, fine-tuned to provide a specific experience.
DnD 5e is not a single game anyway, it's a vast, continuous probability distribution of games with slight but meaningful variations in style. When you give a bunch of people the books and ask them to read them (and the stars align weirdly and they all actually do!) each person's DnD 5e wave-function collapses to a point in DnD space that matches their idea on how the game is to be played with infinitesimal chance of two views actually agreeing.
@Magician Yeah. I guess it helps that it borrows heavily from 4e. In retrospect, I think I would enjoy 4e's clear focus...
@BESW I think most of the people in my group would understand my views on gaming better if they knew what "system mastery" meant :) I haven't been there myself, but reading this site for a few years has been quite an educational experience on the workings of 3e and 3.5e.
In our final 3.5 game, the straw that broke the camel's back, we had someone who really wanted to play a monk who was learning to turn into a dragon (awesome concept, good defenses, but the mechanics meant they could barely hit anything), someone who'd created a caster who spammed massive amounts of nigh-unstoppable damage...
...and someone who wanted to play a fire mage because it was a desert themed campaign--but in 3.5, desert themed meant everything had fire resist so they had to spend all their resources overcoming fire resist instead of actually doing things that'd make the character cool or effective.
Monsters which attacked hard enough to challenge the monk squashed the other two. Monsters which didn't die in the first round to the boomstick had godly levels of hp that the other two couldn't make a dent in. Monsters with fire resist made the mage happy because his feats were useful, but he shouldn't have had to spend all his feats on that in the first place.
At another point, instead of the boomstick we had a grappler who made the monk even less useful because the grappler attacked a lower defense than the monk so if I wanted to challenge the grappler the monk couldn't hit anything even more than usual.
And if I set defenses so the monk could hit 'em, the grappler would hug them to death before the monk's tiny damage did anything.
(And while the grappler was hugging them, the monk's high defenses weren't needed.)
Our first party in 4e, we did synergy. It got scary effective and was a ton of tactical fun.
While I see what you're getting at, I don't think having a Str 8 fighter for the first n levels of the campaign just to have it topped for free later on is a good strategy.
I mean, it sounds like such a terrible strategy I wouldn't really worry about players unbalancing the game with it.
@kviiri Gosh, that sounds like how some editions of D&D "balance" wizards. "Sure, you have Power Like Unto the Gods at level 15, but you were really pathetic at level 2. That's balance, right?"
@nwp If you use the magic item drop tables in the DMG, it's on the same table as +2 weapons, though. But yeah, it's a possible outcome in the low-challenge trasure hoards.
Final Fantasy series has a recurring class "Onion Knight" whose shtick is just that, they're abysmal at low levels but get a massive power spike when near their level cap. I seriously hope it's meant to be a joke class.
You start with 2 Hero Potential and 1 Sesquipedalian Power.
Give your wizard a pretentious name and a narrow magic speciality, then venture into the dungeon with your fellow squishies!
When you encounter a threatening situation, you must Dare Chance: roll 1d6; if you roll equal to or under your HP, gain 1 HP. If you roll over your HP, lose 1 HP or spend 1 SP to Cast a Spell (see below). If you roll a 6, you die too quickly to Cast a Spell.
Cast a Spell: describe how your magical prowess got you out of that jam and roll again. If you roll over your HP again, you may…
d10 funny hats table, d10 wizard specialties table, d10 honorific table, arrange as preferred. d10 table for name syllables, use the same dice in the same order - end up with three-syllable name.
also needs an encounter table. Same principle: d10 location, d10 monster, d10 complication. d10 table for adventure name, again use same dice and apply three times
@kviiri So you roll over your HP, and choose to spend a SP to Cast a Spell instead of losing 1 HP, and your re-roll from Casting a Spell is under your HP? Yes, you get 1 HP and multiply your SP by 2 or add 2, whichever is better.
@nwp This question somewhat answers that. It basically says that the stats gained are not as useful as they seem and meta-gaming by hoping for such an item doesn't happen.
Hats: 1. Two-pointed; 2. Unidentifiable, squished; 3. Top hat smoking like a chimney; 4. Upside-down crab tied by a string; 5. Ushanka; 6. Spinning sombrero; 7. Backwards cap; 8. No hat, wild hair; 9. Hat of Invisibility - makes the top of your head invisible; 10. Billiard balls floating around your head.
Wizard Specialties: 1. Igneomancy - fireball juggling; 2. Cricetomancy - hamster summoning; 3. Hybridology - make your own owlbear; ...need to go make dinner now
i have used my ⚡ MOD POWERS ⚡ to edit it because clearly I have gone mad with power.
Speaking of going mad with power, I posted this meta last night in which I have (not necessarily) gone mad with the power of potentially adding a super helpful new feature, please check in and let me know if you've got any good ideas of what we should write:
I’ve recently discovered Stack Exchange has a feature called tag warnings which cautions a person with further information about how a tag should be used. Tag warnings look like this:
This example comes from Biology SE’s [species-identification] tag. You can try it out yourself here — click in...
It could be closely connected to the behaviour of meta's four required tags, of which one is required, but with the option to submit without (but a warning first).
@Szega that's the one I was talking about, indeed!
Not sure if the Tengu question is on-topic here
Instinctively I would have say no, but apparently there is a "Tools and equipment used while playing table-top RPGs (including running them online)" line among what is on-topic
@BlueMoon93 Use a custom mod flag and write that the conversation should be moved to chat. Mods are automatically notified if there are 20 messages under a post in under 72 hours I think. And the participants get an automatic "Don't you want to go to chat with this? Please don't use the comments for longer discussions" kind of text with an automatic link to do this after they wrote 3 messages or so in a row, I think
@nwp We had this situation in my last party: I was a DEX-based fighter, the other fighter was STR-based. Both started with 16 in our primary stat and while I threw the first two ASIs into my stat, the other fighter took synergizing feats. Then a belt of some giant's strength dropped =\
(It was rolled off the module-specified table, so I don't fault the GM. Just highlights the problem you're talking about.)
Also, after thinking about it for a bit, a fighter with 8 Str isn't that bad actually. Just use finess weapons and light armor until you find such a belt or gauntlet.
Assuming you find the belt or the gauntlets. Tabletop games aren't like computer rpgs. You can go adventuring as much as you want, but unless the system lets you build magic items yourself, the GM can always just refuse to hand out those items.
@nitsua60 The [Object] of [Thing] [Stat] items are very good for characters with MAD. In an AL group, I had Gauntlets of Ogre Power on a Druid that I later traded to an Eldritch Knight. It will allow him to forgo Strength-bumps in favor of Intelligence. I debated trading it with the Barbarian, but he was going to natural blow past it anyway.
It was AL play, and it was still early enough that he could reshuffle, so he did. Dropped his STR back to 14 or so (so he wouldn't be totally impotent in an AMF), but used the recovered points to bump his INT a bit.
@Adam The deck of many things is pretty creepy... I don't think my players will ever get their hands on that one. Just like I won't every give them the belts
@Secespitus GM control really is the way to manage it... especially if you set the players' expectations in advance. Telling them "Nope, I think these are cheesy and they won't appear in my game" is helpful.
@T.J.L. We are all completely new to the game, but they have a similar take on it like me and making your choices useless by giving out x strength to someone is not the way to go
I don't worry about plot derailment--my players can take care of that just fine =D It's the "wait, what game did we decide to play together?" derailment that bugs me.
It seems to me like there is this agreement that the deck will absolutely destroy your game despite the fact that few people have ever even tried to use it in any capacity
Heck, I would give it out in a main campaign with the primary reason of saying "yeah, I was a DM and gave out a deck of many things" and so my players could say "I got to draw from the deck of many things".
It seems to me like there is this agreement that jumping of buildings will absolutely destroy your life despite teh fact that few people have ever even tried to do so in any capacity.
Sometimes, *SOMETIMES*, you don't need to experience something to be aware of how hazardous it is. The Deck of Many Things is one of those times, imho.
@godskook People jump out of planes all of the time. So I put in a few parachutes and see what happens. To me, nothing in the deck is irreversible. And while a few cards might be "catastrophic" in the sense that a lot of stuff can change, none of them really immediately stand out to me as "welp, the game is over". If the parachutes don't open and the campaign falls to pieces, I'll enjoy the ride down.
@Adam my point actually does lead to the conclusion that with yes, with enough safety devices, you can run a Deck of Many Things without it harming your game objectionably.
And in some cases, no safety devices might still result in survival, just like a person being able to survive a drop from terminal velocity without any significant injuries.
I am just pointing out how unreasonable it is to believe that one needs to try the Deck to understand that it is exceedingly dangerous.
How different are the Pathfinder and D&D versions of the deck?
We had one in some Pathfinder gritty campaign about escaping the Razmiran inquisition when you are lvl 4 and the divine magic is not working, and it was far from destroying the campaign. It made one of the PC pretty powerful and one decided to re-roll after drawing the cards, but the character was pretty destroyed even before drawing them
@AnneAunyme Mostly the same, but there are a few small differences. For example, in 5e the Moon card grants 1d3 wishes, not 1d4, and there is no time limit for when you can cast them. As another example, the vizier card in 5e explicitly states that you also gain the wisdom necessary to apply whatever answer you receive in a useful and unambiguous way.
@A.B., if that someone else wants to answer themselves, I'd say to let htem, but in absence of that, the goal is to preserve good answers as answers, not let them die in teh comments.
@A.B. and that's more important than being frozen in indecision because the OP of the answer hasn't decided YET to post it as an official answer, imho.
While poking around for interesting tags to fill my favorites I noticed loaded-dice. Currently there are only two questions tagged, and in both circumstances it seems to me that dice would suffice. Kill it with fire?
@A.B., I'd also personally offer to delete my reproduction of their answer if they supplied their own answer, to allow reputation to flow where it "should".
@nitsua60 Thanks for answering my question earlier, and inadvertently clarifying once again that our DM is definitely bending the rules to accomplish whatever goals he has in mind for our party (he gave the rogue the sneak attack bonus claiming the Cloak of Displacement illusion hadn't kicked in yet, as I described in my question)
@NautArch That's a good question. In fact, good enough I'm not sure what I think, and encourage you take to meta. "If I compile a table of blah blah, would it be appropriate to post here?" My inclination is that "12% abjuration, 16% conjuration, 9% divination..." would be fine, but including the whole compilation would be reproducing more of copyrighted information than is really necessary to answer such a question.
@godskook Bhaal's not statted in my 1e Deities & Demigods, which is the most-recent reference for that sort of thing I've got on my shelf =)
@NautArch Let's assume damage. Cause "how common is this damage type" is an inherently flawed question low-level spells cast from high-level slots are able to "keep up". Eventually the answer becomes "as common as the caster chooses to prepare them".
@godskook Well, I don't have the know how to compile a complete and logically sound answer to that. But common wisdom at my table is that upcasting a spell isn't usually as good as a spell naturally of a certain level in terms of just damage. The usual example is burning hands, which when upcast to 3rd level deals 5d6, versus a level 3 fireball which deals 8d6 over a much wider area.
@nitsua60 the idea I'm approaching this from is that high-level wizards will just prepare damage of every type if each damage-type is roughly competitive at that stage of the game.
@nitsua60 which leads me to the conclusion that rpg.stackexchange.com/q/103361/35386 is a fundamentally flawed thing to look at for providing useful information.
Since a past level 1 spells, the solution to not having a spell of that level prepared to cast is to upcast the right damage-type from from a lower spell level.
@godskook @NautArch @nitsua60 Thanks for the heads up - could be DM error, could be malicious, but good to know that something is off that is not my understanding of RAW
@godskook Thanks for the link! I don't have any intention of getting into an extended argument with the DM over RAW vs DM interpretation, but good to have as a resource anyway
@B.S.Morganstein If you can create a framework for those discussions, I highly recommend it. I don't have one and live in a "my way or the highway" table.
@NautArch Speaking of highways... I'm driving up to VT on Friday after work. Stockbridge-and-vicinity might be a good place/time to stop for a quick bite. You around?
(Or frying the bun in the fat that came off the burger... I've spent an unreasonable amount of time trying to get the calorie-count on a burger up above 1K.)
I’ve recently discovered Stack Exchange has a feature called tag warnings which cautions a person with further information about how a tag should be used. Tag warnings look like this:
This example comes from Biology SE’s [species-identification] tag. You can try it out yourself here — click in...
While poking around for interesting tags to fill my favorites I noticed loaded-dice. Currently there are only two questions tagged, and in both circumstances it seems to me that dice would suffice. Kill it with fire?
