@Ryan I don't have any experience with running Curse of Strahd, but I remember a question popping up a while ago about some cursed items, I think, that the players could come across that could radically change their alignment/outlook on life.

Basically, the items are cursed to give you some kind of nihilistic flaw when they are touched/attuned to. I forget the exact details, but it was something along those lines

by 1E you mean D&D Original?

@AnneAunyme yes

I mostly heard about DDO from people who wondered how it was possible to survive until the lvl 2, is it as hard as what it looks like or do they get the game wrong?

Oh yeah its very hard, I love it. I'm worried going back into 5E will feel too cheesy because there's so little consequences from what I saw previously

in OG you open the wrong door, step on a trap, get poisoned and you die. There's very real danger involved making you nervous at everything

Yes, but I also have seen examples of fights

and wonder how the PCs are supposed to progress as they get killed faster than they get experience

Why do you want to level up?

or at least develop a character's story

leveling up seems to get you more likely to survive in OG

About DD5 if that could reassure you: I played only one session. We were 3 players on Lost Mines of Phandelver. We all died during the first fight which is supposed to be easy by the book.

It can depend on the GM and setting too. In one game I'm in we're playing in Greyhawk and I just hit level 2 with my first character, another player is close to leveling as well, while we had one casualty that had to start over

In another game we're playing Borderlands and we've had casualties regularly. I've gone through 3 characters

Do you have a special technique not to die during a fight?

The Gm on the Greyhawk told me the guy who died actually was supposed to die again last week but decided for fun sake to half the damage. The GM of the Borderlands campaign would never alter a role like that

According to the rules I had if a monster decides to attack you, even if it is only a goblin, you have a reasonable chance of just dying.

Sure, avoid fights whenever I can through talking or money

but isn't money xp?

huh? no. Money you find is kinda XP depending on the GM's handling of it but money you spend doesn't cost you XP

like we were chasing a guy through the docks in the poor side of town so I just yelled out "15g to anyone that stops that man!" problem solved

@Ryan that's fantastic! We had a chance scene, but the target disguised self so we didn't know who were looking for. I had a hunch on one guy and Dispelled Magic...got him!

mornin

Hi

I played ADD once (not exactly the same game, but I guess it doesn't change that much for this specific point). My character had 2hp max (it happens) and at some point in the scenario there was "deal 2HP damage to every PC during the cutscene"

(the cutscene being beggars throwing garbage at us to get our attention)

Yeah, there's a reason why a lot has changed in DnD. People's expectations have been moving.

@DForck42 hello

those are the things I really enjoy about it. it feels real to a degree where 5E feels like you're a superhero from day 1

@Adam how goes it?

I swear our LMoP experience didn't felt as we were superheroes

@Ryan I disagree with that assumption. for 5e, I as a DM very often have situations where the players will die from a regular old goblin fight or trap. It's not hard to kill an early level player

Just the other day, I had to fudge some rolls just so that my players wouldn't be annihilated by 3 giant rats

@Adam is that Adventurer's League? The only 5E games near me all do AL

and even then they fudge rolls regularly to let their players live

No. It's my home game. And I do that because my players and I don't want a game where we drop like kobolds and keep replacing characters until we're lucky enough to make it to level 4.

Well, you can hardly blame them for fudging rolls. I haven't ever played DnD 1E but I assume character creation doesn't take nearly as long as it does in the later editions, so it's less problematic to have character deaths.

@DForck42 It goes. work is a pain. I'd much rather be prepping my next game session. I have a whole lot of stuff I need to get ready

@kviiri I watched Matt Colville make a OD&D character in one of his videos. It took 10 minutes and fit on an index card.

@Adam Heh, nice :)

video is rather long, mostly because he goes into the history of the game and the assumptions that surround it. That actual character creation doesn't take that long.

@Adam fun

@DForck42 How are you doing?

@Adam good

didn't get to work on my dungeon tiles last night, grocery shopping took too long

will be working on them this weekend

ODD takes just as long if not longer to make a character at least compared to AL. Maybe a little more even otherwise but no way is it quicker

once I've got more done i'll take photos and share them here

@Ryan I don't miss how long it took to make 3.5 characters...

especially when you had ALL of the books available... there was just so much to sort through

never played 3.5. I bet that would be my favorite from what i've heard

this video is painful @Adam I'm trying to find where he starts actual character creation and he just keeps rambling. 10 minutes in and no creation yet

28 mins

start there

yeah I dont see how that's shorter and he didnt make a full character

he did but he didn't

i guess hes showing off that app but in reality you need to adjust your Armor, roll for Age, roll for height and weight, adjust stats if needed based on race, and write in all of the other stuff like spell adjustments, to hit, ac with and without shield, weapon stats which vary based on 1arm, 2arm, and size of target, etc.

@Ryan I've grown rather fond of 5e over 3.5

That looks like an AD&D 1e sheet, not an OD&D sheet.

I said 1E

Ah, I was confused since Anne said "by 1E you mean D&D Original?" and you said yes. So I assumed you meant the original 3 Booklet OD&D.

yeah, AD&D is a different beast entirely :p

ah sorry. I mean AD&D 1E if that's different from what Anne meant

No, that's not your fault, that's me assuming stuff. And you know what they say about assumptions. Take everything I've said, and forget it. It's all irrelevant.

But I still dont know about Curse of Strahd in terms of traps and difficulty and such

considering either a Monk or Thief or combination but don't want to go that route if there's barely any tricks and puzzles and such

@Ryan 5e?

yeah Curse of Strahd 5E Adventurer's League. They're one session in

@Ryan I'm sureu, I haven't played or ran CoS

@AnneAunyme Death by beggars?

We're going to play CoS in the near future, hopefully

I'm a bit unsure about how to feel about it, we haven't been playing published modules a lot.

@kviiri I've heard it's a great module, with a LOT of room for the dm to make it their own

That's a relief then :)

so reading the Curse of Strahd book real fast, just the intro and whatnot. It says 4-6. The game I was asked to play in already has 6 players which was a concern to begin with since I prefer smaller games :(

@Shalvenay Precision dice are huge. I'd argue to anyone who complains about linear-quadratic that a BM who focused on precision is quadratic and now we're just quibbling over coefficients, not functional differences.

I'm under the impression linear-quadratic isn't a huge difference in terms of overall power between mage and fighter classes in DnD 5e, but it's a bit circumstantial.

Eg. a fighter does good, reliable damage for ten encounter straight. A mage does more damage, but runs out of slots eventually (or is compelled to conserve). Intuitively, the fighter is weaker in a single encounter adventuring day, but grows in relative power as the day gets longer because they're less reliant on consumable resources to be useful.

I actually complained about too short adventuring days in our #1 DnD party because we had a very long streak of single-encounter days.

well just messaged the DM and asked her about the style of game. Tried to word it in a way to not just get a bad "I try to do everything" type of answer

It's also a self-reinforcing problem... if the party gets used to the idea that long rests will be available often, they will spend their slots and other daily powers more easily, and actually need more rests, making the GM reluctant to make the days longer.

@kviiri sort of goes back to yesterday's discussion on time pool

@NautArch Sort of, yup. Although time pool is more easily applicable to short rests and other minor breaks than full-on "well let's spend the day healing".

In this case, it was the GMs' fault - they simply hadn't planned more than one encounter per day.

Right, and nothing is wrong with having one enormous battle that still strains team resources.

@kviiri well, the RAW answer to that is that you can only benefit from a long rest once every 24 hours, so unless they're going to march back to town ASAP... they've got the rest of the day

@NautArch Well, if it happens all the time, it is a balance problem.

@DForck42 That rule doesn't prevent them from just loitering around for the day and then taking the rest, though!

letting players wake up, do 1-2 fights in the span of 1 hour, and then take another long rest breaks how long rests are supposed to work

@kviiri nope, it doesn't, but that's boring.

and also a good example of why the time pool can be important

@DForck42 Yep, and I think there's a problem when the game design encourages the players to do boring stuff. Hence I think some sort of time tracking mechanism for longer time spans (days instead of hours) could be fascinating.

@DForck42 that's also where a storyline that has time constraints come in

@NautArch The problem is, those often spawn unwanted metagaming.

Unless handled in a rather transparent fashion, that is.

@kviiri how? If the characters know they're in a crunch, then where does metagaming come in?

@NautArch When they need to rest, mechanically. When you reach one of those points where you are low on HP and slots but also in the middle of an urgent task, eg. trailing some thugs who are trying to spirit away a kidnapped Prince, how do you decide which is more important?

If you decide to rest, you might end up arriving a few hours late only to find the kidnappers absconded, the Prince missing and the quest failed. If you don't rest, you might find yourself hacked to pieces in your next encounter, with the GM facepalming about you throwing away a perfectly good opportunity to rest. If there's no way to know what are the outcomes of these two options, the only estimate is to metagame - try to figure out what the GM would want you to do.

@kviiri as DM, I'd probably say "if you short rest, you're an hour behind them and that'll be hard to make up. if you long rest, there's a chance the trail might go cold"

@DForck42 Yeah, being open about the results is a good principle in my opinion. I'd probably make the chase thing a mechanic of its own, with a tracker/countdown clock/something.

Basically time pool, but with larger scale.

It also reinforces the positive idea that the thugs can be stopped before the port. Makes it seem a bit less railroaded if the bad guys have disappeared by the time the players make it to the port :)

@kviiri yup

Yeah, trying to 2ns guess the dm stinks, but the dm can react to the decision as well.

Let the players make a choice and the DAM adjust accordingly.

Not all GMs do that, and if the GM always decides in the players' favor, it'll eventually start stressing the players' suspension of disbelief.

Only if it's not done well. And if you don't think you can than something like the randomized dice pool can help

The problem with "done well" is, it's something not everyone can do or even define. We run into problems like not having enough X or Y in our games, and usually the suggested solution is "the GM should do Z better" - but "doing Z better" is not really an actual solution, it's just an inverse statement of the problem.

That's why I like concrete measures like enforced house rules :)

Or temporary mechanics etc.

Usually X and Y are stuff like social interaction or downtime activities like fishing or crafting.

Trying one more time to schedule for a date for my session finale session...

@kviiri fun

good luck

Thanks

I wouldn't want to lose the final session just because someone forgets to schedule. That has happened thrice now... (between my two campaigns)

Thrice in a row, I mean.

@kviiri well, it'll probably still go better than the finale of the last campaign I was in

@DForck42 Ah, the one with the elementals and a teleporting cheeselord villain?

@kviiri yes

very succinct way of putting that, lol

My main source of frustration is that we can't get all the players together anymore - after so many failed schedulings, one of our players became a father (something we knew in advance, of course, but tried to wrap up before) and will be busy with the baby for a while.

@kviiri in this case, i think it is. There is a specific event that you dn't want happening: Players feeling like their suspension of disbelief is stretched too far. That's a clear thing that a DM can try and avoid. If you've got a specific timeframe you're trying to make and you know that if you don't keep going you'll miss that. THen you ahve a choice to make and consequences to get

I would've wanted to run the final session for all players after having at least one absence per session since May, but now the best I can do is four out of five and even that requires those four to do their part and use the calendar :|

@NautArch Well, a specific timeframe is transparency, which is what I'm advocating here.

As long as it's also known to the players that one exists, so they don't have to guess.

@kviiri ah, then once again we are in agreement :)

@kviiri yeah, for my campaign I'm gonna set down that if at least 2 players are available, we're playing. I'm not gonna wait months just to play again

"Always say what honesty demands." (one of the rules for the GM in Apocalypse World)

I might also set up a strike counter. if you miss a month, you get a strike. if you are here for 2 concesutive games, a strike is removed. after 3 strikes, you're out and I add a new player to the game

if they really want back in they can get added to the bottom fo the wiat list

@DForck42 Yeah, we have a similar agreement (to tolerate one or two absences) but I wanted to make the final session so everyone can attend.

@DForck42 as someone who is currently missing a month of gaming because of life, I would walk away from a table that penalized me for that.

Another thing I've been thinking of is ditching a static group altogether and playing with whoever happens to be able to make it.

@kviiri This is how our "alternate" game works. Our "main" campaign needs all players.

Are any D&D 5e players available to assist in revising this question? It needs to be less "tell me the things", more "tell me how to recognise what things still work", somehow -- but I don't have the D&D 5e expertise or mental energy spare right now to figure it out.

When I was a more active student, I contemplated even having a fixed weekly two-hour slot at our student room for playing AW with whoever is present and interested. There's the obvious problem, though, that it gets hard if it gets too popular.

@doppelgreener available, but I'm not sure how to phrase it for the "give me guidelines". Is Robbie open to a major revision like that?

@NautArch to clarify: we're only going to be meeting once a month, and it's going to be set (probably the 1st or 2nd Saturday or Sunday). and honestly that's fair that you'd walk away. I just know my friends and if I'm not up front and strict with them they'll be flaky AF.

@DForck42 hehe. There's a current potential threat at my main table that if we don't meet 1/month, DM will remove a magic item or level. If he tries either when we get back, I'm done. I've had work travel 3/4 weeks this month and the 4th week my wife is travelling. Family comes first.

@NautArch That sounds like a nasty move, alright :(

@NautArch but on my side of the t able, I literally have a wait list of people that are interested in playing. I might make exceptions if it's something that you KNOW is coming up and I can bring in someone temporarily. basically, it goes both ways and if my players are open with me i'll work with them

@NautArch I figure if it's not close to what they've already got, they'd appreciate pointers in how to rephrase to get the question reopened and in a shape that would work for RPG.SE.

@doppelgreener done and done. Even starting on an answer for if it's reopened.

@DForck42 I understand why you'd make such a policy and think it's ok if you are up-front and honest about it.

Certainly beats the "in-game punishments" IMO.

@NautArch \o/ Thanks!

@doppelgreener np, hope it helps. It's, I think, a pretty simple answer. Even with a pretty big gray area within it

@NautArch I agree. :)

bummer that there is no response yet from Robbie

@trogdor You know a thing I miss in 4e? People having wildly different hit chances and needing to unload loads on damage on the low-AC enemy, or the opposite.

Defense-wise, all enemies feel the same.

Also, as a 4e DM, I nearly had a TPK yesterday and... well, I've never seen my players more invested in what was happening. I'm not sure if I need to worry or not.

@Zachiel all of that sounds fine

I wonder how much impact giving each attack a minimum effect would have in practice. Eg. instead of a missed attack doing nothing, it could deal one's strength modifier in damage. The numbers could be tweaked to make the change mathematically insignificant, but what if it still makes the game more enjoyable?

(minimum damage for attacks is in place in 13th Age, at least)

The encounter had a Solo 2 levels above the party, a controller their level that kept turning off the lights, hazards and infinite respawning minions. Sure, they had the chance to flee without killing anything but the solo, but they kept killing the "deal automatic damage on death" minions instead of the solo (and they got swarmed all the same), mainly because they failed a lot of knowledge checks (and a lot of saves too, especially against daze).

Didn't the players pick on the damage-on-death thing?

5e question: in your skills, do you typically write your skills total WITH or WITHOUT the ability modifier? IE, if you're level 1 with STR of 20 and proficient in Athletics, would you write your Athletics as +7, or +2?

@DForck42 I usually write it with proficiency

I'm also one of those freaks who writes the ability modifier in the larger box and the "actual score" in the smaller one :)

@DForck42 we use proficiency die, so N/A...but I'd generally do what @kviiri does

@kviiri makes sense, cause you refer to the AM way more often

@NautArch How does the proficiency die work?

@kviiri damage on death apparently seemed a better choice than being hit and blinded by an increasing number of minions every round.

@kviiri you get dice based on your level

The solo summoned some illusions and they knew that they had to hit him with radiant damage each time one died to prevent him from summoning 2 more (the hydra effect?) - that had the healer go melee to get him, he got hit by multiple enemies, he fell dying and a summoned tentacle dragged him in the "healing does not work here" areas that littered the arena. They managed to drag him out of there and to heal him, but he fell again before its round. Tactics everywhere!

@kvirii D4, d6, d8, d10, d12 at same progression points instead of a constant

@DForck42 I write skills like I do attacks, with the full bonus so I don't need to calculate anything I don't have to.

@NautArch how do yall like that?

@DForck42 we love it. More dice!

but I also like the additional swinginess that it introduces. THe idea that you are proficient in something doesn't mean you're always consistent. SOmetimes you flub it a bit, sometimes you knock it out of the park.

probably is most concerning when setting DC as there isn't an additional d20 that influences the score

@NautArch huh?

@DForck42 8+proficiency die+Spellcasting Modifier

@NautArch ahh, for spell casting

yah, although feels good to set a DC 23 :)

I guess whether proficiency dice are more or less swingy depnds on how you look at it. As usual, adding together the result of several die rolls biases the result towards the mean (although in the case of d20 + smaller die, it's more like biasing against extreme outcomes)

@kviiri and how is replacing one die with its expected roll (roughly) swerwing it away from the mean?

Anyone ever DM/GM for their boss before? I'm nervous about it

@Szega Not really against the mean, I expressed myself a bit poorly there.

@THiebert kill them immediately.

We kept discussing having an intro-level RPG campaign at the office with my boss, who is also an avid player. But nothing really ever came out of it.

@kviiri anydice.com/program/d45b

@NautArch He's expecting that

hasn't played D&D since the 80s-90s and is expecting a bit of a trap-fest and adversarial DM/Player relationship

set the stage that 5e isn't like what it used to be and whether or not you're the adversarial relationship type. If not, he'll pickup on everyone trying to have fun to tell a story together.

Its a mostly new group, but based on the types of video games that I know most of them enjoy, and the past D&D experience i have with 1 of the two returning players, I expect it to be a very combat and exploration focused group, disregarding much of the social side of the game

@THiebert that sounds like my group

@THiebert lol

Honestly, I find the hack-fest to be easier to DM for, because there's a lot less depth to it, but its not as interesting.

@THiebert It's interesting in a different way. You need to come up with more varied combat scenarios/environments/effects. I can improvise roleplay...but you ahve to do some serious planning for combat.

@THiebert It's also easy for new players in a way. You don't have to improvise much, one can just stick to actions defined in the book until getting comfortable adding some more flair to it.

alright went with Human Bard. Doesn't matter what the DM likes, I'll be ready like a swiss army knife of charisma

They'll be doing Tomb of Annihilation, which i suspect will fit their style pretty well. My previous games have been mostly homebrew, with occasional borrowed dungeons. I think running from a book requires a little bit less planning than homebrew, since a lot of things have been pre-considered.

@Ryan which system?

@kviiri I suspect that as well. I want to really focus in on the "You tell me what you want to do, I decide whether you fail, succeed, or roll dice". My other group tries to get too mechanical with their decisions and it's awkward for me to handle

@NautArch what do you mean system?

@THiebert What do you mean by "too mechanical", if you don't mind me asking?

@Ryan 5e, 3.5, etc?

oh 5e. never heard it called system before sorry

@kviiri "I want to roll persuasion on this guy to get him to help us" or the much more egregious "STRENGTH CHECK!!!" rolls dice

starting in a 5E Curse of Strahd game

@Ryan going to go Lore?

that I dont know yet, got 3 levels to decide

right now im trying to decide between regular human or variant for the feat. leaning towards feat

@THiebert Ah, I see.

I love my lore bard :) As you said, swiss army knife. I don't always hit the hardest, but I've got a tool for nearly every combat scenario (since we don't really do Roleplay).

@kviiri I've been cracking down on the latter with not allowing those rolls to count, and trying to nudge the former into actually telling me how they want to approcah the conversation, challenge, etc.

@THiebert You mean you don't yell "STRENGTH CHECK!!!" when using your own physical strength in real-life?

@THiebert I'm personally of the school that wants more mechanical structure in their games, but yeah, it sucks if everything degrades to a roll-fest with no agreed framework on how the rolls should be made and interpreted.

@NautArch yeah thats my worry on the roleplay side. Was considering Monk or Thief since I really enjoy roleplaying and exploration aspects of the game but in case the DM I'm playing with leans much more into combat I want something versatile

At some point in his history, he picked up a Ring of Mind Shielding that finally came online recently. DM had us pass through some place and asked "what's your alignment"

My response "N/A"

might end up multiclassing into Thief or Assassin later but I doubt I'll even need to

@Ryan You can make some trade-offs i your spell selection for things like Disguise Self or Suggestion. Or just trust your proficiency expertise to get you by and brute force persuasion/deception/intimidation

And if/when my character dies, his soul goes into the ring and I can get to still talk to whomever wears it next. My bard will never really be gone from the table.

hah thats awesome

where'd you find the ring?

@Ryan we generally have done random treasure rolls rather than planned treasure (although past two rotating DMs have hand-picked treasure).

im trying to allocate ability scores with the 27 pt system

@kviiri I'm happy if they say something like "I'd like to kindly nudge him towards our side by appealing to his love for kin and country, can I roll persuasion for that?". The little bit of descriptive subtext helps visualize the scene and keeps it from being entirely mechanical

never really had a use for the ring, but loved what happens when I die with it on so keeping it as one of my attunements. He was kinda annoyed I didn't disclose my alignment.

Random treasure rolls used to annoy me, but nowadays I like them.

@Ryan variant human or standard human?

everything says Charisma, Dex, Con and rest are kinda dump but I really want some Wisdom for perception because thats just annoying

@THiebert How do you make the rolls by the way? Do you have open stakes ("If you succeed, this happens, but if you fail, that") or open target number ("Roll at least 15 to succeed")?

@Ryan I kind of dumped Wisdom, but it evens out when you get expertise in the things you want (like perception)

do you do melee combat or just sit back and cast spells?

@Ryan I dipped Warlock 2 so I had the EB+Cha option. But my dex is high so I could have gone the rapier/pew-pew route. On a random treasure roll I got an Instrument of the Bards and decided to roleplay it as what I'm always holding/using/playing - so no weapons and the EB route got me there.

@NautArch I'm kinda starting to dislike the human variant

@DForck42 feats are the bestest. Works great with rolled stats, ut with point buy that straight +1 is niiice.

@kviiri Depends on the nature of the event. Usually I'm considering the DC and the consequence as the roll happens, and I know I need to improve in that regard.

@NautArch yeah, and now everyone is a human in a fantasy rpg...

@DForck42 FR is like 80% human, but adventurers aren't necessarily representative of the overall population

@DForck42 Gygax wanted everyone to play human to be fair

@Ryan meh

@DForck42 we have a table rule that we can't individually use classes/races that we've used in other characters.

my friend was talking about potentially taking human variant for the feat. told him I'd rather not cause we already have another human at the table

@NautArch what happens when you run out?

@THiebert Yeah, I just wanted to evangelize a bit - I switched to open rolls and stakes a while back and have found it much easier to not subconsciously fudge or railroad things this way :)

@THiebert you buy volo's

Also makes the players more happy to use non-combat skills, because they're more meaningful now.

@THiebert If your character has died that many times...

Or you could make up races, like half-dwarf or half-halfling aka quarterling

@MikeQ I'd like an eighth-ling

@DForck42 unless you mean unique race/class combos, there's only like 13 classes

@MikeQ half-dwarf half-halfling

it's not that if you picked a v. human I couldn't. Just that you couldn't again in the same or other campaign.

@MikeQ Or an eightfold hobbit, otherwise known as a hobbyte.

@kviiri Amazing

@THiebert shrugs

@GreySage I wish you could see the stuff I can pull off in Finnish ;)

@kviiri doo eeet

Like I have a v. human paladin and a half-elf bardlock. So v.human, half-elf, paladin, and bard (probably not warlock, since it was a minor dip) or off the table for my next character

@DForck42 my group is full of edge

@THiebert lol

The "no reusing class or race" seems unnecessarily prohibitive though. Especially for 5e where classes diverge by archetype.

everyone wants to be Dragonborn or Tiefling or Tabaxi or Goliath

I'm having my friend working for the BBEG, cause she's kidnapped his sister

@MikeQ and odder that RP really isn't a thing for us...so the race really doesn't matter as much except for the traits/stats.

@NautArch did Str 9, Dex 13, Con 13, Int 11, Wis 13, Char 15 and going to do regular human which will bump all of them up 1

@NautArch no RP? so it's just G for you guys?

ah went 1 over so Str will be 8 to start with not 9

I can understand encouraging players to try new character concepts. But banning the same race? Same class? I don't see the purpose of this rule.

but that was the table rule when i joined, so it is what it is

@THiebert kindasorta. I think we're going to try and introduce some more RP aspects, but we are really a combat table.

@DForck42 Well I create and tell these ten-minute embellished stories that end with an elaborate pun and sometimes require a bit of specialist knowledge to understand. It wouldn't probably work too well here :P

@MikeQ to encourage people to try different things, especially if you have players that will roll up basically the same character

@kviiri lol

Do any of your groups have the "Always the wrong class for the race" guy?

Is there a "cooldown" period? Or is it a permanent player history?

The guy who plays a half-orc bard, a goliath wizard, a halfling barbarian, a dwarf rogue?

@THiebert no, we're pretty optimized

@THiebert nope

@NautArch I always end up being that guy when I play, so i was wondering if it was pretty common or not

although in 5e there's no realy such thing as the wrong race for a class, unlike 3.5 where you got negatives

Suppose a player really enjoys their character, let's say a barbarian because rage is fun. Then the barbarian dies. Player tries a new class, hates it, wants to go back to baribarian. So what does the GM say? "Sorry you can't play a barbarian anymore, but everyone else can.", and that's it?

@DForck42 one of those 5e's is wrong

@MikeQ well there'd be a long, in depth discussion as to WHY they have that class and what about the barbarian they liked

@Ryan ty

:)

@Ryan To be fair, some of the monstrous races in Volo's guide to Monsters have negative stat modifiers. But that's just me being a pedant

@Adam oh I didn't know that, I haven't read through volo's

@DForck42 That's actually true, we have a gnome barbarian in our party and he's doing just fine.

assumed they followed the precedent followed in the PHB

It just seems that after enough player character deaths, you'd be forcing the players to form a party of monster races in classes they're not comfortable with. At some point, someone's gotta ask, "How the heck did we end up like this?"

@DForck42 I agree, and that's why i have fun doing this

Also, the saving throws being per-ability (unlike 4e where the equivalent defences are one per two abilities) discourage dump stats in general.

woah I just rolled awesome for starting gold. Usually I roll awful at that and am broke

Anyway, I'm a bit iffy about banning stuff from the players.

I suppose, maybe, a rule of "consecutively played characters can't share the same race/class/whatever". So the player is trying something new, but if they dislike it they can eventually go back to something that they liked.

@kviiri Unfortunately, some saves are used more often than others. An intelligence save is rarely ever used for anything for example.

@MikeQ in theory, yes. Stretch your wings, and try something else. What was it about the rage that they liked? is there a similar mechanic elsewhere? etc. etc.

Charisma saves are also woefully under-represented

@MikeQ We don't die very often. In fact, the majority of the deaths have been random with our stupid critical fumble rules.

@MikeQ how often are your pc's dieing?

@DForck42 Not often, but I've played in high mortality games where we're lucky if nobody died

@Adam Oh yeah, that's a bummer.

@Ryan Does your DM let you roll that alone?

One of those "things you just have to know".

or are you with him/her currently?

@Adam The Bane of my existence.

@Adam Unless you've got a illusionist or fighting an illusionist.

@THiebert every DM i've ever played with has been on honor system for setup so we can come prepared. if she doesn't approve it later ill reroll or just use the standardized starting items instead

I love Bane.

@kviiri I liked it earlier on,but as you progress, that d4 just doesn't do much to a creature with a +12 to hit.

@kviiri Bane is the best spell to use when fighting batmen

I"d much rather give me and two friends the d4 for bless

@NautArch 90% of those are investigation checks as I recall. The only intelligence saving throws I'm aware of are feeblemind, and one of the divination spells that lets you talk to a god. And for that second one, you have to make the save or take a bunch of damage and go insane

@NautArch Well, it's a flat 1/8 chance of a hit-turned-miss (obeying the usual boundary conditions).

@Ryan I allow away from table if you do pointbuy/standard array and standard starting equipment/gold. No rolls away from my eyes

@NautArch Better than most L1 spells handle themselves in a high-level combat! :)

@kviiri Its one of the few CHA saves, is why i pointed it out

@THiebert Yup!

@kviiri Thematically, I love bane too. The problem is, bless makes things dead faster in most circumstances and is guaranteed to boost all 3 people. unlike bane which can make combat take longer and people can save from. Even if it is a weak save.

@Adam Yup, bless is better, but as a bard I can't take it (without wasting Arcane Secrets on it).

@Adam phantasmal force!

@kviiri and it generally isn't worth the cost there.

Fair enough. That brings the number to 3. Compare that with the number of wisdom or dexterity saving throws and it still isn't even close. Which really bugs me.

Yup.

faerie fire is my goto bard level 1 concentration spell

DEX/WIS/CON are supposed to be the common saves

Why not have a wider spread though?

STR could come up often, depending on what's being encountered. Enemies that grapple, for instance.

@THiebert The thing is, it's hard to know if they're really supposed to be common saves by intention or whether it's just careless design.

@kviiri And if it is by intent, why is that their intent

@kviiri seems that way, given that every class gets one of the 3 and one of the others

@MikeQ unless you choose to use Dex on the grapple counter.

@Adam Yeah, good point.

@THiebert In that case, it's bad design they're not explicitly said to be the common saves in the book.

@THiebert Is that universally true? I can't think of any counter-examples, but... I never noticed that before.

@MikeQ Yeah, is that not common knowledge? I've seen it talked about enough that i'd assumed it was

@kviiri Is it not? i've never actually looked into it, just read it in discussions everywhere

@THiebert Not as far as I can recall.

@Zachiel 4e was actually harder to balance encounters for than I would have imagined before I ran some sessions in it

so I am not too surprised (also, it was both cool and a little annoying that enemies had different defenses in 4e, sometimes I liked it and sometimes I felt cheated by it as a player)

Yeah, the balance of 4e was rather fickle in a way.

our main DM for it was BESW, and he needed to tweak enemies at the high levels because we started to get through fights like clockwork

at some point we were just healing all the damage we took and taking enemies out in a slightly too efficient way

but fights were also taking a long time

@trogdor Sounds like computer JRPGs :)

lol

initiative is dex bonus right?

in 5e

@Ryan generally, yes. Alert feat and a few other things can add to it

thanks, just base for now

i thought Alert just gives advantage though not add

+5

I think its a barbarian feature that gives adv.

oh nice, think its a magic item i was thinking of that gives advantage on it

in any case mine is just +2 from Dex for now

Weapon of Warning, perhaps?

thats it!

In one of his other campaigns, one of our players gave the party a cursed ring of warning, which I dubbed "Ring of Ringing". The basic idea is that it does a very good job at warning the party against the enemies, by making a very loud ringing noise that's sure to attract attention.

ah Bard can't switch spells each night, i gotta pick wisely

@Ryan I hope your DM was planning on not surprising you guys for the rest of time.

? huh

The weapon of warning in the 5e book makes you and every ally within 30 feet of you impossible to surprise in combat as long as you have it near you. It will even wake you up if danger is on the way

oh doesn't matter I don't have that weapon. In a previous game someone did

im level 1 in 5th, i don't have anything but charm and good looks

Ah, I misunderstood. My apologies. I'm doing that a lot today...I must need more flaying.

character creation isn't any worse than 1E AD&D but picking spells sure is. So many more to choose from on day 1

At least in 5e, the Bard has a fairly slim selection of strong combat spells (especially ones not limited by concentration). Depending on the style of the game being played, that can make picks either very easy or very hard.

combat is my least favorite part of the game so.... yeah

I went with Tasha's Hideous Laughter, Dissonant Whispers, Detect Magic, and Identify for level 1 spells and Vicious Mockery and Dancing Lights for my cantrips

sad I won't have Mage Hand but that's alright I think Dancing Lights will be fun and someone else will likely have Mage Hand

shouldnt say that, i like combat but i like being utility in combat

I think combat is the best part of DnD 5e, and I like being a sort of "support" combatant too, but the concentration mechanic makes it a bit difficult at times.

Identify can be circumvented with a short rest. Probably can pick something else. Not sure how much detect magic would be useful, never played curse bit it's never really been helpful for me.

I use it to make money :D

Go to shops and offer to Identify and Detect Things for cash or trade

<---- gangster

(and then I lie about what I find)