it's not our campaign, it will ultimately boil down to what you and the DM can agree on. I think an outright immunity to Madness is a bit strong, but perhaps advantage on Wisdom saves against succumbing to Madness effects is a bit more in-line. Either way, like Moose said, you want to make sure it's relevant but not overpowered
@MageintheBarrel If you are negating a major effect of the story (madness) by your backstory, if I were a DM I'd add a different liability. Such as yeah, you're immune to demon madness, but stress can cause your own brand of crazy to manifest in new ways.
@MageintheBarrel I have to say, this plus "spent hundreds of years lost in the black forest" is setting off my GM danger sense. Being "very crazy" still needs to allow the character to have some kind of coherent motives.
True, incoherent characters can be hard to deal with from a DM perspective, and annoying from a fellow player perspective. Especially if they my-guy and try to justify being disruptive.
you just have to make sure you don't infringe on other players' fun and agency. And yeah like Mark said, you want to still allow your character to "buy in" to the situations at hand
@MageintheBarrel Yes. We had a character that could only communicate through one person, and it was difficult to coordinate at the best of times. When the translator went down, we effectively lost two for one.
@MageintheBarrel Communication is one of the most essential things for a party and for a group of players. If you take away the easiest way to do that without replacing it with something else, things get frustrating fast.
@MageintheBarrel Again, it depends what you do with that character motive. If it's "I enjoy killing, so I joined this orc-hunting quest" then it could be in line with the game, but if it's "I enjoy killing so I will stab my fellow adventurers" then it'll probably annoy the other players.
@MageintheBarrel I would stay away from the Indefinite table effects and select from the lesser tables, but apply them as permanent character quirks/flaws. The Indefinite effects are designed to be cripplingly bad
@MageintheBarrel Here's the thing I see coming: you cannot and should not use "bUt I'm CrAzY" as some sort of license to do outrageous and party-harming things. Instead, use them to make your character odd in interesting ways that the party can interact with.
@JohnP OTOH we had a character who was super-crazy and had one other party member she was close to, and when he went down, her player handled that with the most glorious emotional meltdown ever
@G.Moylan What if you had the benefit of being immune to imposed madness, but battle (or similar level) stress has a 1 in X chance of triggering an effect from the short term table, and a 1 in Y chance of triggering a long term?
Rule of thumb: If the character is a nuisance for the other participants (such as by being antagonistic, or disruptive, or uncommunicative) then it will probably be received poorly at the table
@MarkWells very similar to this: The character becomes attached to a “lucky charm,” such as a person or an object, and has disadvantage on Attack rolls, Ability Checks, and Saving Throws while more than 30 feet from it.
@JohnP That would mean that the background trait becomes too active IMHO. EVery single battle? Way too likely to trigger. And the issue of being immune to demon lords would still be there.
If I were to use a system like that I'd likely set it up like Wild magic: roll a d20, on a particular roll, make a Wis save. if you fail the save, roll for madness. But if it's triggering off Combat it's still incredibly frequent
I can definitely understand the compulsion to design your character, but always remember that you can get away with a lot of otherwise "party-breaking" things if you talk it over with your group before.
@G.Moylan Probably true, but you could figure out something to where the chance of it happening is an equivalent offset to being immune to demon induced.
@MageintheBarrel - if you are set on this, to help get player buyin, if they agree to try it and it becomes unworkable, your character may need to be miraculously cured.
We had a player with a GREAT backstory, but it introduced elements that eventually became unworkable, so there was some retcon/fudging that happened to keep the cool elements and core concept but not make it a chore for everyone else.
We've often had evil characters in our party, but they generally understand they're living in a wide world with repercussions for actions. They still can be them, but they're aware of the world around them.
@Yuuki I wouldn't say "never". I've had it done in parties successful and very well (even in parties with LG characters). More like you have to be very thoughtful about how you do it.
@JohnP "Battle" seems like way too broad a trigger. I've seen this done effectively with triggers like "being surrounded" or "endangering myself to protect others", though.
@MageintheBarrel It's about roleplaying when you've killed someone - not in looking to kill everyone. You can even roleplay disappointment when someone else gets the kill.
The point of it, as a madness effect, is that you notice that violence isn't disturbing anymore, and that itself disturbs you. It means you're losing some of your humanity, or dwarfanity, or whatever.
After looking at the full table, the one that I could see be one of the more interesting ones is finding it hard to care what goes on around you. All of them could be potentially party breaking, but that one could be played with.
THe problem is that a lot of these are things that may become disruptive at the table. It's not the ideas that are problematic, it's the way you may play them.
Honestly, defining your character from a table of effects that is largely meant to be punitive seems like we are working from a set of things that is already suboptimal.
@NautArch The biggest complication that I can see is that any of them really intrude on almost every single encounter, which is why they become party annoying.
@NautArch Thinking about it further, I wouldn't have such an "Oh God no" reaction if this was inflicted on my character by an outside source. It's the idea of choosing it deliberately when building a character that makes me think no good will come of it.
Hrm...I can see discussing crazy in the context of a character, but when it crosses over like that, it's probably a topic we don't want to embrace here.
@MageintheBarrel Just remember we play these games to have fun. But everyone at the table needs to have fun. It's when your fun infringes on theirs where My Guy comes into play and that's what you every much need to consider the whole table and not just your character.
Also remember that your character is fluid. Their background is one thing, but they're going to grow and change as they adventure.
I do have some experience with the madness table. My last campaign ended with daily rolls on the table after WIS save failures while we were in the 9 hells. It was fairly annoying, but made some sense. Ended up mostly just burning spell slots to use Greater Restoration to resolve it.
@MageintheBarrel What I've done when trying to come up with some character concepts, is take a character in a movie or book that I really like, and trying to think about how I would play that character and go from there.
Probably the best examples I can think of (And it's likely because they actually started as game characters) is the hero group from Dragonlance.
@MageintheBarrel I also think this process is pretty different. For me, I start making my mechanical character first. I build them functionally and as I build I think about how I want them to play and then fill in backstory that supports my functional choices.
But my tables lean heavier on combat then roleplay :)
@Ryan oh weird. haven't done AL, but it seemed like it's easier to get magic items (scrolls) which would make a wizard even better because you can more easily expand your spellbook.
@NautArch i dont know i just hit level 3 and debating if I should stick it out until level 4 or change now maybe to Rogue. There's just so much emphasis on fighting in Adventures League
@Ryan A lot of folks don't like the monk, but I've had some fun with it. Your toolkit isn't as big, but the tools you have a are a lot of fun. And narrating your own actions is my favorite part.
CoS question: if Strahd now knows where all the items and his enemy are because he was in disguise as Ireena and the party has told him what her reading was, would it be in character for it to turn out that Eva knew this and gave a false reading to throw him off?
most play it like a hack and slash and im tired of trying to be the only intelligent one in the party.. we had almost a TPK on first day yesterday and did have a player completely die with 3 failed death saves
@Ryan Tactics are important. THere's a guy at my table that always ran off by himself because he was "just playing his character". New game starts, different character...same actions.
@Ryan Everything anyone says about AL just sounds depressing. It's on rails so you can't be clever. Also, it's mostly just combat. Also, now you don't get to come back with piles of treasure.
@MageintheBarrel being the 'only thing you could find' does not make it a good homebrew. It makes it the only homebrew. I'd much more strongly recommend building a naruto ninja type character using the existing mechanics.
I don't know enough (read: any) about naruto to help - but i'm guessing others here do and can.
@MageintheBarrel Seriously, take a look at the Way of Shadow Monk subclass. It's a precision/stealth martial artist that grows into kung fu movie assassin powers.
@JohnP Mostly time. That campaign was supposed to be an 'extra' game for us. We have our main campaign and one of the players wanted to start their own to schedule when the main couldn't meet. The DM has since rethought that and wants to schedule more frequently. I've got kids and can't do 2 games/week and I was causing scheduling issues because of that.
Or they were choosing to play without me, and that wasn't much fun for me :P
And then some of the other guys I play with started wanting to get together to play some music and invited me to join. And I'd rather do that then try and deal with all the other juggling - and that makes me feel like i'm doing something 'real' with my time :D which my wife also likes the idea of.
@JohnP I've basically got general approval for 1 night/week. Don't want to /can't do more. ALthough I do have a game i run on roll20 that happens about once every 6 weeks on saturday nights. But that's after the kids go to bed, so isn't really a problem.
@JohnP clarinet :) Haven't played in a loooong time, but really enjoying getting back to it. We generally just jam.
@NautArch HAHA! Yeah, prolly needs a bit of care :) and I hear you on the lip. Last time I tried flute, I lasted about 10 minutes before my lips cramped up.
@JohnP Tried the flute once but coudln't figure it out :) Did play some trumpet in high school because I played in the jazz band. Apparently our conductor was never able to get clarinet music so I played trumpet on my clarinet. Awkward when I was first chair playing clarinet so tried to learn some trumpet on easier songs.
@NautArch I played some trumpet in jr high, but when our Irish dance group needed musicians, I picked up irish flute and whistle, and some basic bodhran.
@MageintheBarrel I thought that when I was 28. My wife and I have two kids, grown up, daughter turning 30 this year. What you think your future is may change. :)
@MageintheBarrel Yep, that was my plan at 28. When I asked a friend to be a sword bearer at my wedding, he laughed "What, you're never getting married, you said so many times." He was a sword bearer at our wedding. Life is a funny old dog, that I can say. :)
@MikeQ Hmm, as I was not the groom, I was not able to disrobe the bride and examine her wedding dress in detail. (For obvious reasons). My daughter's wedding dress I do not think featured one ... but I'll ask my wife. She'll know.
@MikeQ Mrs Starmast was intimiately involved in the wedding dress shopping, selection, and detail. She'll know, and is easier to reach than my daughter.
But I can ask my friend's bride; I am sure she'll remember.
@JohnP I still have my officer's sword in a closet; since my wife insists that I not be cremated when I go (long story, and I'll be dead so I will be able to do nothing about it) I have asked that it be buried with me.
Anyway, speaking of TTRPG homebrews, I'm trying to brainstorm a mechanic that rewards cooperative PC interactions in Uranium Chef, and/or discourages PVP. As written, PCs score points for their own creations, and can attack other competitors (but not their recipes) to catch up. So I'm looking into models for reinforcing friendly competition.
@MarkWells As written in the Uranium Chef module for Fate, it's PVP. The game is about a sci-fi cooking competition show.
Competitors can impede each others' progress by attacking them directly, but they can't sabotage or target their ingredients.
If I added a blanket rule that penalized PVP, then I'd need to replace it with a different mechanic, otherwise the PCs don't really interact during the competition
@MikeQ I know nothing about Uranium Chef but I've seen almost every episode of Project Runway, and it sounds like the concept of a team challenge.
You're trying to collectively make the best meal you can... but of course one of you will be declared the winner at the end so you want to distinguish yourself above the rest of your team, also.
(Not really anything there mechanically, though. I'm just gnawing pointlessly on the idea.)
@MarkWells Right. And I think I want to keep that premise. I've thought about making the whole thing cooperative, where the PCs are all on one team against an NPC opponent, but I don't like that PCs-vs-DM structure.
Only if I had 4 or 6 players. And I can't assume that.
I could do something like... if the PC does poorly but the judges saw them helping others, then the judges will "go easy" on them, in the form of bonus points
Or perhaps the expectations could vary over time? Maybe the PCs are informed re viewer surveys, which may change over time, therefore the GM can dynamically adjust the rewards and consequences for PC coop vs competition
@NautArch I would comment on Frost Giant tactics being a swingy element to that encounter, to follw up on your point about tactics. That ties it to his question better. (He made a comment about rocks/nets, so addressing their use of that would fit)
@KorvinStarmast True ( and I addressed this), but mechanically speaking, with that +9 to hit, they were fairly likely to make contact with the party. Using the net wasn't necessarily required.
@KorvinStarmast And yeah, frost giants aren't that stupid. INT 9 is still probably smart enough to work together.
@NautArch Well, I had an eye on the crit percentage increase ... the focus fire issue takes one PC per round down to 0 HP unless the dice hate the giants.
Situation:
In a battle sequence our Paladin (Oath of Vengeance) has successfully cast Hunter's mark, later in the battle our Wizard cast Silence.
We know that Hunter's Mark requires V (verbal) component to cast, but is it also required to "Move" the spell? Can the paladin move the "Hunter's m...
If an enemy has multiattack and a PC uses an ability that causes the enemy attack to have disadvantage, do they have disadvantage on all their attacks?
Situation:
In a battle sequence our Paladin (Oath of Vengeance) has successfully cast Hunter's mark, later in the battle our Wizard cast Silence.
We know that Hunter's Mark requires V (verbal) component to cast, but is it also required to "Move" the spell? Can the paladin move the "Hunter's m...
