@trogdor Essentially, "encounter powers" recharge on a short rest, while "daily powers" recharge on a long rest. The difference is that you aren't assumed to be able to rest, so the DM can prevent your abilities from ever recharging.
And, on the flip side, I remember granting "short rests" in the middle of climactic 4e battles, while the boss would change to a new phase, or, in once instance, while the party was falling through the collapsing floor.
the new AC and Base Attack system. the fact they got ridden of all that excess of generic magic items (ex: short sword +1 to +5). spells slots instead of powers. more skills and rules for crafting and stuff!
i always hated generic magic items, everyone need a cloak of resistance plus something, a weapon plus something, a ring of protection and on and on.... that's why when i'm DMing i use a homebrew version of the automatic bonus progression
@Magician use activated or continuous were spell level x caster level x 2000gp hahahaha
but there were extra rules on that
he can make a ring that can cast infinite true strike for 2000, but no always on!
a quicken true strike would be spell level 5 x caster level 9 x 2000 = 90.000
the think i liked most on the 3.5 was my two handed wand user look a like pistolero, ranger wizard eldritch knight, it wasn't the most powerful character but i love that bastard
i think we remember it its because we played a hell lot of it
@RafaelSantos Those tend to be rather boring, unless the players are in it for number optimization and they have viable alternatives, yep.
There's basically two ways to use generic +X items: one is to deprecate old ones so the PCs just receive buffs in the form of new, better items as time goes on, the other is to have several viable items available at all times so the players can use them for tactical flexibility.
The latter solution would be a lot more fun without the overhead in terms of stuff for the player to remember, though.
@kviiri I actually really liked 4e's take on bonus items: while +X items existed, they only got replaced every five to ten levels and you never had to get just a flat +X. Instead you'd get +X and [special bonus], which also improved alongside the flat bonus. And if anybody in the party had ritual casting you could just take some time one night and sacrifice the gold needed to upgrade it to the next level.
...and that was just for three slots on the body. All the other slots were purely special bonus stuff, usually adding riders to your existing abilities or granting new powers, and if you got one that worked really well at level 5 there was no pressure to swap it out all the way through 'til endgame at level 30.
(And even if there WAS a better thing later, the better thing was usually only every ten levels or so.)
We had a ranger who specialized in debuffs by sacrificing all damage to activate feats and powers which immobilized characters.
His default weapon for the job had extra range so he could do it from further away.
But if you could teleport, he'd swap out for his Feyslaughter weapon that said "when you hit a creature, that creature can't teleport until the end of your next turn."
While from the tactical POV I like the whole "swap out stuff for different bonuses", the bookkeeping aspect is a bit of a hurdle. And it doesn't really match my idea of "heroic fantasy" either; hoarding magic items for bonuses doesn't have a lot of precedents in literature, does it?
@Magician He used Bolas, with Bola Training (immobilize target instead of dealing damage), Vicious Advantage (combat advantage against immobilized or slowed targets), World Serpent's Grasp (when you hit an immobilized or slowed target, knock it prone), Grounding Shot (+2 to hit prone targets)... and the Ranger at-will attacks Twin Shot (attack one target twice) and Rapid Shot (make one attack into one square and one attack each into every square adjacent to it, but at -2 for all attacks).
Twin Shot for the immobilized + prone one-two punch in a single action; Rapid Shot for "I know you're hiding there somewhere!" or for enemies that grouped up kindly.
My group instead went with the "our basic attacks make you weep" party, because we had a warden/shaman hybrid who specialized in granting extra basic attacks to everybody.
Everyone did their own thing, with some decent synergy, but the warlord/shaman just made everyone extra beastly. "Someone moved past me! Ranger, shoot him with my opportunity attack!"
(Hybrids in 4e were almost always awful, unless you had a very very specific vision of something that couldn't be done any other way, and did your homework. That player's vision was "I never want to roll to attack.")
(Hybrids in 4e were almost always awful, unless you had a very very specific vision of something that couldn't be done any other way, and did your homework. That player's vision was "I never want to roll to attack." No single class could allow that, but shaman and warlord together just barely managed.)
Then we got Tattoos of Shared Vengeance: any time one of us got crit by a non-minion attacker, everyone else got to make a basic attack against the fool.
> Baby. (Extra) Whilst you're carrying this, any actions you take in a physical conflict to defend yourself (and the baby) cannot get a result below a Tie. However, you're weak to having to go out of your way to take care of the baby.
Monday's Prompt. Who is this magical woman? What is her story?
(also if anyone knows the original artist @ them or tell us who they are. THANKS!)
#blackhistorymonth
@BESW Something in her pose suggests that she's about about to cast a spell straight out of a book (as opposed to learning it beforehand). Maybe she's new to the whole magic thing, and about to learn a grim lesson of what happens when you mispronounce "Cthulhu" while weaving your spells... and then goes on a bold adventure to fix the damage, make new friends and grow as a person and as a witch.
will be interesting to see how well our party fares -- what with a tribal shaman (outlander background cleric), a ranger, and an Ancients paladin (who also has Survival as a skill prof AIUI)...who knows, maybe we can go without hiring a guide at all? XD
@Rubiksmoose interwebs, its the stackizen game that nits is running
It closed because I called it a dupe, and since I have a particular privilege for 5e questions it closed as dupe with one vote. I wasn't that keen on closing it, just getting the "is it a dupe?" process started. Please take a look, folks, and if you don't think it's a dupe please vote to reopen.
One of the rules for targeting spells in the Player's Handbook says that spells must have a clear path to the target.
A Clear Path to the Target
To target something, you must have a clear
path to it, so it can't be behind total cover.
If you place an area of effect at a point that y...
@MikeQ no, not at all :) I think it'll work out on that one in the end pretty nicely. I'm actually stoked for what I'm starting on as a player -- just had session 0 for the chatizen ToA game this last Saturday
It stands for Tomb of Annihilation, and is unrelated to Bionicle
It's either a tomb where things get annihilated, or a tomb for burying things that have already been annihilated. Or a tomb for a guy named "Annihilation", which seems like an odd name.
I'd guess and say a really big dungeon crawl? With undead and lots of traps? I don't actually know much about it, other than some brief mentions here in chat.
@kviiri You can't apply your tag hammer to questions where you added that tag yourself. It must be present in the original revision, or be added by someone other than yourself. This means you have to have an accomplice to perform that abuse.
but yeah -- our party is my big jungle cat (Chultan-born-and-raised Tabaxi tribal shaman, built as a Nature cleric with an Outlander background, worshipping Gwaeron Windstrom of all things), our wandering lizard (Copper Dragonborn Ancients Paladin with a Folk Hero background, who came to Chult on a pilgrimage and taught some Chultan farmers how to stick it to the bandits along his way through Chult), and our one newcomer (human Gloomstaker Ranger spy sent by nobles to check out the situation)
@nitsua60 -- I have a couple of ToA questions re: design intent. mind if I ping you on Discord with them, or would it be better if I dropped them in say the ToA spoiler room?
Hey Blades-kids. I've got a session of Blades on the books for Wed evening (7pm cst US) to raise money for charity with @LawfulGG, come do some scoundrel stuff. https://www.facebook.com/events/1908521456145191/
We've been playing with the same group for... wow probably 3 years now? And even now, we're still dealing with issues. The latest one we realised is that we now overthink things, since we used to always assume the best case scenario.
Contribute to the conversation yourself; the GM and the players are all friends playing a game together, there can't be any power imbalance in the social portion.
I'll say what I think I did wrong, what I'm thinking of changing for next time, what I really liked.
Yeah we did do a post mortem. However I think that the players that were suspicious of dungeon worlds play style. Feel vindicated by my failure. A lot of their complaints were about the DW system rather than the issues I introduced.
sometimes the best thing is to pause or stop a session if it's too rocky, too. i've had times where people were too worn out or stressed out to talk productively.
@WheatWizard how so? what parts of DW did they have heartburn with?
and are they coming from a traditional (D&D/...) background, some sort of alternative RPing background (perhaps freeform-ish stuff?), or brand new to RP?
One thing I'd suggest, is a DMPC. Watch your contribution. You can use a DMPC to better integrate yourself into the group, and it can help get you in the mindset of the player. If you are driving the story, it can mean 1 of 2 things: 1. you're railroading, or 2. the players are lost and need direction. But it can help you understand the other side of the table a bit better.
@Shalvenay They didn't like that my GM moves were not always related to the process of attempting the roll. For instance when a player tried to spout lore about the best path through a sewer system, they failed, so I had a wave of sewage take them by surprised while they were thinking about the path. They felt that because spouting lore can't cause a wave of sewage I shouldn't have done that.
It was explained to me as a narrative tool the GM could use to explain why the character failed on their check, rather than necessarily a consequence of their failure.
Rewarding failure is one of the big philosophical shifts PbtA, and other games in its category like Fate, makes from D&D-likes. It reinforces the idea that as players we should embrace failure because it makes for more interesting stories, even if as characters we're always going for the win.
@noneuklid ah, that makes sense, that was what I was kinda thinking, but wasn't sure
@WheatWizard I don't mind XP on failures too hard, myself, but it can be a bit annoying in that it becomes harder to get a tempo of progression if you will
@WheatWizard one thing I've noticed in DW games is that party members subtly drift apart in the timing of when they level. this isn't unique to DW (AD&D/2e actually had this happen more drastically with its per-class XP curves), and I'm not sure how much of a concern it is in DW or any other PbtA system, but it does strike me as awkward from a "make it so the party doesn't go splat" perspective
One of our other players GMs a game without xp on failures and we have drastic level differences regardless. Alignments are the worst offenders because some are so easy to attain that they are acheived every session and some alignments are nigh impossible.
One of the rules for targeting spells in the Player's Handbook says that spells must have a clear path to the target.
A Clear Path to the Target
To target something, you must have a clear
path to it, so it can't be behind total cover.
If you place an area of effect at a point that y...
