TRPG General Chat

Hot RPG Questions

00:14

6

Q: Where does poisonous "oil of taggit" come from?

Is there any lore in D&D, whether in 5th Edition or prior, about where the poison "oil of taggit" comes from? What kind of thing is a "taggit"? An animal or plant? A mineral? In 5th Edition, it's listed in the Dungeon Master's Guide on page 258, but as far as I can tell, it's been in the game sin...

Someone_Evil

Regarding the legality thing, I remembered this meta, which 1. doesn't seem to have been acted on, and 2. is now slightly moot as the site in question has gone private (and thus isn't hosting any of the relevant content)

Hot RPG Questions

02:16

11

Q: Why would this NPC in Curse of Strahd ever attack Strahd?

In Curse of Strahd, there is an NPC the PC's may encounter whose weapon explicitly does more damage when he uses it to attack Strahd. However, said NPC states explicitly that he will not attack Strahd (emphasis mine): The module says that the players may want to take his weapon; but its descrip...

dnd-5e npc curse-of-strahd

TheDragonOfFlame

Anyone play call of Cthulhu?

im learning and don’t the skills seem super low

Also does anyone know where I can find a free copy of the 7th Ed rules online (or am I not alowed to ask that)

BESW

There's a Quickstart set PDF in Chaosium's free stuff section.

(We try not to encourage or support piracy.)

I'm not super familiar with CoC rules-wise; I've read a lot of it but never played it, there are other horror-style systems that I much prefer.

TheDragonOfFlame

For example what out of curiosity

BESW

02:31

Depends on what kind of game you're after.

If you want an adventure that lasts several sessions, with potential for an even longer campaign, and stories focused on supernatural investigation, Trail of Cthulhu is the obvious choice: it was designed specifically in response to Call of Cthulhu's failure to actively support investigative stories.

If you want to play single-session horror games more focused on uncertainty and the terror of slow understanding, Cthulhu Dark is an excellent option.

If you want single-session horror focused on heavy atmosphere and the internal mindscape of the protagonist, Lovecraftesque is really good, with the added bonus of being structured so that nobody at the table knows what's going on until it's revealed through play.

If you want a more adventurous combat-focused romp through horrific worlds, Fate of Cthulhu uses time travel to explore alternate universes where the horrors have already won, and PCs have access to overpowered combat options at the potential expense of their own identities.

If you want a one-player-one-GM experience, there's a Trail of Cthulhu offshoot called Cthulhu Confidential which has good support for intense single-player investigations in multi-session forms.

If you want a game about confronting your inner demons in an over-the-top waking dreamworld where your own anxieties are your greatest weapon and your greatest threat, there's Don't Rest Your Head.

Oct 3 at 11:35, by BESW

There's also a lot of games more tuned to one-shot horror, like Trophy Dark, which has a lot of third-party scenarios, which it calls incursions.

Aug 14 at 23:12, by BESW

SQUISHY! by Surgeryhead is a rules lite system for those who want to run a survival horror scenario in a pinch.

Aug 8 at 0:47, by BESW

They Came to Play Ball by Adira Slattery is a cosmic horror sports game created using the Firebrands Framework, with touchstones like the movie Space Jam, the cultural event Blaseball, and the LARP Beastf*cker.

Jul 14 at 5:53, by BESW

What's So Scary About A Haunted House by Zargo Games is meant to be a jumping-off point for making your own horror game. Make your own rules, if that's what you want to do! Made for What Is So Cool Jam.

Jun 27 at 11:44, by BESW

house by Marn S. is a horror storytelling game based on House of Leaves.

Feb 25 at 13:14, by BESW

WHAT HAPPENED by Mercedes Cibby Acosta is a missing persons horror TTRPG about spiritual danger, cosmic encroachment, and inevitability. For many Indigenous people worldwide, sometimes we find ourselves asking WHAT HAPPENED? We've lost so many but they aren't truly gone. This game explores my reflections on that.

You get the idea; there's a LOT of stuff out there and Call of Cthulhu's strength AND its weakness is that it's trying to be very generic while still being closely tied to the bigoted conventions of a particular author from a hundred years ago. I like to look for games that are more active about supporting a particular kind of story, and about interrogating or rejecting the racist legacies of the genre.

BESW

03:02

Oh look, this just started up:

Folk-Horror Game Jam Hosted by Feral Indie Studio. A month-long celebration of haunted harvests and deadly folk traditions!

TheDragonOfFlame

Oh cool

BESW

My personal go-to horror system is Cthulhu Dark. I use Scooby Doo and Doctor Who stories as inspirations for the mysteries.

Hot RPG Questions

03:29

4

Q: Is the Adult Gold Dragon's Weakening Breath considered a curse, disease, or poison?

In a fight with an Adult Gold Dragon today our delightful barbarian suffered from the effect of Weakening Breath. Our transmutation wizard used his Transmuter's Stone for Panacea to restore hit points, and cure poison, disease, and curses. Would this cure the effect of Weakened Breath?

dnd-5e wizard dragons poison disease

Hot RPG Questions

05:32

1

Q: Does the Svirfneblin Magic feat use spell slots

Does the Svirfneblin Magic feat use spell slots? Feat is stated as follows: You have inherited the innate spellcasting ability of your ancestors. This ability allows you to cast nondetection on yourself at will, without needing a material component. You can also cast each of the following spells...

dnd-5e feats spellcasting gnomes

Bardic Wizard

What kinds of dice-based horror RPGs are there? I’m putting together a thing for a friend for Halloween and they know they want dice as a randomizer but they’re not sure how the dice might affect the game and I suggested we look at already existing games to see what they use and how it increases tension

BESW

[gestures at massive list above] I think DRYH and Cthulhu Dark are particularly notable in terms of dice.

DRYH uses a rather complicated dice pool of multicolored dice, each of which come with different kinds of limitations or permissions on what you can do with their successes, and also create different kinds of drawbacks and problems if they roll certain numbers.

The upshot is that you're constantly balancing between risking a difficult-to-control power escalation whereby you become unstoppable and then lose the game because you turned into a monstrous embodiment of your anxieties; or avoiding that fate but slipping into an involuntary slumber during which other anxiety-monsters might devour you.

Cthulhu Dark is interesting because it's almost impossible to fail: most rolls are only to determine what goes wrong in addition to your success, and even when you've got a chance to fail it's very small. However, doing things which aren't humanly possible, or re-rolling, always introduces the risk of freaking out.

The more you freak out, the less likely you are to freak out again, but if you freak out six times you go into permanent freakout mode and can't continue as a player character... but once you reach high levels of freak you can lower your freakout level by actively obstructing the party's attempts to understand what's going on.

So CD starts out with characters jumping at sudden noises, then settling into a slow boil where they don't startle as easily but the scary stuff keeps coming at them and the stakes are higher, until they begin to fight back by obstructing the story so they can stay in it.

Bardic Wizard

Hmm. Both sound like there’s a lot of trade offs involved; I like the way that CD makes it hard to fail

BESW

Yeah. CD balances this by having one thing you cannot do: if you try, you automatically die. That thing is directly attacking a monster.

trogdor

Yeah

I actually liked CD better

Even though I was excited to try DRYH at the time

BESW

05:48

In CD, you roll 1d6 if the thing you're doing is humanly possible; 1d6 if it's within your personal expertise; and 1d6 if you're willing to risk freaking out. You can re-roll once, so long as the re-roll includes the freak-out die.

Check your highest die roll: the higher you get, the better you succeed and the less bad stuff also happens.

If someone at the table thinks it'd be interesting for you to have a chance to fail, roll another 1d6 also and if it's the highest die then you fail.

trogdor

We didn't do much of that

BESW

BUT: if your freakout die is the highest, roll it again and compare it to your freakout score (starts at 1). If the die rolls over your freakout score, then roleplay freaking out and increase your freakout score by 1.

You also roll to check for a freakout any time your character encounters something that would reasonably make 'em freak (whether it's connected to the horror or not, but it usually is).

And the story advancement is primarily gated by the group's collective exposure to horror-related freakout opportunities.

Bardic Wizard

Hmm. The game I’m (I hesitate to say writing) involved in is a thing about being fancy Victorian nobles in hoop skirts (no matter the gender) investigating strange occurrences during a high society party, with a record that the party keeps through embroidery. Based on that, I think maybe something like CD, that seems at least pretty simple to start, would be a good system to base some of it on

BESW

The core Cthulhu Dark rules fit on a back-and-front piece of typing paper with room for examples, and the guide for GMs to build scenarios fits on another paper.

Bardic Wizard

I will go look that up

BESW

05:54

@BardicWizard I've put the free PDF links in the tag wiki! Grab the core rules and the scenario creation.

(There's a numbering error in the scenario creation, but you can figure it out.)

Bardic Wizard

Thanks!

BESW

Note, the language of the PDF is "sanity." The later big-book edition re-names it "insight" which is better but honestly I just call it "fear" and leave it at that.

Despite being called Cthulhu Dark, the game's got no ties to L*vecraft at all. Its dice mechanics are just as good for Scooby Doo or Supernatural.

Bardic Wizard

I think I’ll just do a Cthulhu dark hack and maybe leave embroidery till later

Hooped horrors sounds like a bad name in hindsight

BESW

I do have a fondness for games that produce record-keeping artefacts.

...I wonder how Pilgrims of the Flying Temple could be hacked for horror?

Not that it's dice-based, it uses "draw some, put some back" tokens.

trogdor

06:16

@BardicWizard lol

Thomas Markov

11:45

@NautArch I'm writing a meta post about that question now.

Thomas Markov

11:59

0

A: Is this question about an Ordinary Items Database an off-topic tool recommendation question?

This question is off-topic. This question asks for a tool that serves a certain purpose, particularly, a database that lists common items found in various rooms at different points in history. 1. This is not an RPG question. That this question relates to RPGs at all is because its answer may be u...

RevenantBacon

(still wasn't an answer)

Thomas Markov

Okay bud

NautArch

@ThomasMarkov probably okay to delete that comment about it and clear the rack.

Thomas Markov

Done

Someone_Evil

12:17

What is this in reference to?

NautArch

@Someone_Evil The comments under my answer on the gold dragon breath question.

Someone_Evil

So, on the one hand the answers-in-comments policy is only really concerned with comments on the question. Comments on answers kinda need to state what they think the answer is, generally just for pointing out an answer being wrong. If an answerer disagree with an addition suggested by a comment, that comment generally just gets to go away

NautArch

12:32

@ThomasMarkov @Someone_Evil I'm not sure if i"m going to put up an opposing answer to the meta on the history question. It seems like someone here might be aware of it because of usefulness, but I do think it'll do better on the history stack.

Thomas Markov

My 2nd point is the strong point in my mind.

"Ive seen it before" is not a substantive difference from a tool recommendation.

Could you recommend me a tool that paints my character sheet green? [closed, obvious tool recommendation]

Does anyone know of this tool that paints my character sheet green that I saw described in a comment section one time? [This is literally the exact same question as the last]

The Oracle

12:57

2

Q: Is this question about an Ordinary Items Database an off-topic tool recommendation question?

Here is the question: Looking For Historically Accurate Ordinary Items Database For Dungeon-Stocking Tool recommendation questions are off-topic on rpg.se. Is this question a tool recommendation question?

discussion specific-question closed-questions

NautArch

@ThomasMarkov I never really thought about friendly fire issues in spirit guardians. kinda wantto play that way now ;)

At the end of our 1-20 campaign we did have a PvP session. The light cleric won, but I was darn close with my vengeance pally.

NautArch

13:25

Bold move by Kirt on their self-answer to the improvised weapons/monk weapons question

Bardic Wizard

13:41

@BESW got any good examples I could look at?

GcL

@NautArch Things that should have been a blog post somewhere else for 400.

@Carcer When you find yourself in a meta stack, stop digging. /S

BESW

@BardicWizard Cozy Town has you draw, and then add/subtract to, the town that you're telling the story about.

In Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple, each player's turn is finished by writing down a short sentence about what their character did; each sentence is added to the same sheet of paper, in order, so that at the end of the session you have written the story of what happened.

Hot RPG Questions

14:06

5

Q: Does spirit guardians hurt friendly creatures if they were not visible at cast time?

Spirit Guardians says: You call forth spirits to protect you. They flit around you to a distance of 15 feet for the duration. If you are good or neutral, their spectral form appears angelic or fey (your choice). If you are evil, they appear fiendish. When you cast this spell, you can designate a...

dnd-5e spells

Medix2

@NautArch Have you checked if history stack handles this type of question? Actually... Does that matter?

NautArch

@Medix2 It's a question about a historical database. Seems relephant.

Medix2

I am confused @ThomasMarkov You realize a big problem with tool-rec is there's no right answer? Product identification has a demonstrably correct answer

Thomas Markov

I struggle with the word demonstrably there. "Demonstrably" usually means "I can demonstrate on my own that this is the correct answer". This is not the case here. I can put forward an answer, and it is up to OP to demonstrate its correctness.

Medix2

I'm not seeing a huge difference between it and these

@ThomasMarkov That applies to all game identification as well. There's a reason many answers to some identification questions are deleted and have a comment from the OP saying "Nope this wasn't it"

GcL

14:18

@Medix2 I thought the problem was there would be many demonstrably correct answers with very little to distinguish them.

Thomas Markov

This one is totally different because it has a photo.

KorvinStarmast

@NautArch I like what he did with that.

Medix2

@GcL Yeah that's what I mean by "no right answer"

KorvinStarmast

@NautArch Hmm, if only they had asked for 5e, I know that there are table in the back of the DMG with exactly that kind of stuff ...

Thomas Markov

@KorvinStarmast Someone suggested that on OP's identical reddit thread and was told that was not good enough.

KorvinStarmast

14:21

@ThomasMarkov Ok, I guess they want/need more, and they maybe need to do some more research. (I wonder if they tried a forum, I suspect some of my GiTP associates have something on the tip of their tongue)

Medix2

Like, as an examples there's this incorrect answer

GcL

@Medix2 I think that's different than how do you deal with X? In that is that the various answers of instructions of what to do could be right, but can be evaluated against one another. It's less likely to get that sort of thing with tool recommendations.

Medix2

I'll probably just keep not seeing an easy difference when it comes to "tool-rec vs product-id & lists vs recommendations & history vs design-intent"... Maybe someday I'll post a Meta about questions that are answered by lists and seemingly selective closures

KorvinStarmast

@Medix2 My product ID question got a lot of attempts before someone nailed it. I think they are a useful category.

GcL

@Medix2 designer intent are unlikely to get answered as words from the horses mouth is generally needed to offer evidence of that. I've got transcripts of a couple Gygax interviews and a archive of forum posts he did that I occasionally search through for that stuff. Sometimes it has answers.

NautArch

14:33

@KorvinStarmast THe problem is how to vote on them, too. Incorrect attempts should be downvoted, but folks don't.

Medix2

@KorvinStarmast Oh big agree. I just know sometimes I think something is an ID question but apparently it's a REC question, or vice-versa

NautArch

@GcL ANd the issue with those isn't that there are answers, but that many people just posit ideas.

GcL

@NautArch How the heck do I know if they're wrong?

NautArch

@GcL exactly

Medix2

@NautArch Actually, wrong answers are useful. If they're deleted, you may get the same wrong answer repeatedly

NautArch

14:34

@Medix2 Sure, then I guess just downvote. Deletion was an improper statement by me.

GcL

@NautArch If the question is, "why was this renamed in later printings?" and Gygax said in an interview, "we changed the name to avoid getting sued." Then there you have it.

Medix2

@GcL When the OP tells you so

@NautArch I'm just saying highly downvotes things are also likely to get deleted, so I just don't vote

@GcL Yeah but we do allow "What was the history of gaming and influencing things when the designer's made X"

RevenantBacon

@Medix2 Well, it depends on why the answer is wrong. For example, I've posted wrong answers about "how does this critter work" because I checked the wrong sat block. Not a mistake likely to e repeated.

Medix2

I mean, I asked a whole Meta on that already though, so it's kinda done

GcL

@Medix2 That's too broad.

"Why did the designers do this specific thing?" is sometimes answerable.

NautArch

14:37

@GcL Yes, but again, the issue isn't that there are right answers, but that the site history (i believe) has shown that folks posit answers that aren't supported way too much. And it was a hassle to deal with so they just made them off-topic.

I could be wrong about that, though.

@Medix2 I'mnot a fan of deleting bad answers.

*wrong answers

GcL

But it requires someone actually talking to the designers. There's a bunch of podcasts with JC in them, so it's not like that stuff doesn't exist for 5e. Its just that a lot of people specu

@NautArch I concur that they do attract a lot of speculation.

KorvinStarmast

@NautArch I agree, folks should flag or downvote the noise answers. I've gotten better about doing that over the years.

Medix2

@NautArch Yeah I'm still surprised that basically no more than citation-less theories got upvoted preventing the regular site users from dealing with them... Guess if it just sounds convincing, it'll work

@NautArch Agreed, but people do do it, is what I'm saying

KorvinStarmast

@GcL I think that mxy's point was, at the time of the great blow up over Lino Frank's excellent answer of why firebolt doesn't set fire to worn items, was that the questions attract too many garbage and opinion based answers, even though from an expert's perspective a lot of them are answerable from at table experience or comparing one game system to another and showing how/why a choice fits a game.

But RPGSE appears to no longer be a site of experts on RPGs, per my annoying habit of linking to the very old meta on "is this a site for experts" and the attempt then to decide what an expert in this niche thing is ...

GcL

@KorvinStarmast We were supposed to be experts? Here I was having fun faffing about. /S

KorvinStarmast

14:42

@GcL Well there ya go, I enlightened someone today. 😁 You are suposed to be an expert, by golly, so get cracking with that expertise thing, eh? 😜

Medix2

The other thing I have to remind myself of is that older questions are by no means expected to be open/closed in a way that matches what we would do with them today

GcL

@KorvinStarmast What are the qualifications?

@Medix2 Clicking the link and then the X on the tab doesn't work for really old questions? You must be looking in one of those magazine things! How retro. /S

KorvinStarmast

@GcL Fear, surprise, hats, and an almost fanatical devotion to Steve Jackson.

GcL

@KorvinStarmast I have a dish rack. Does that count?

KorvinStarmast

@GcL Hmm, a comfy chair is on the equipment list, but no dish rack. Sorry about that.

We could have one shippedp to you in a couple of months, they are on back order ...

Speaking of which, IRL, our original family comfy chair - a recliner I bought in Kansas in 1993 - was discovered to be broken. It appears that my son (who is now 28, he was 1 then) flumpfed down on it a few weeks ago (he's 6' 2" and over 200 lbs) and cracked the wooden part of the frame. 😢

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

14:48

@GcL Ability to produce 3kg or more of entertainium ore in the fun mines over the course of a 3-hour session.

KorvinStarmast

@GcL And then he slid it against the wall and headed back to San Antonio without telling me. He promises to help me try to fix it next time he visits ... the Missus wants it repaired.

I have in mind a steel doubler and have some old garage door opener supports that may suffice.

NautArch

@KorvinStarmast duct tape

KorvinStarmast

@NautArch I've done the triage, and this one duct tape probably can't fix. 😕

I learned about doublers years ago in airframe repair (aluminum, usually) and I think this is the better fix.

AncientSwordRage

Help. Trapped on TVTropes. .... Going back in... see you in a week....

Bardic Wizard

15:06

@AncientSwordRage oh dear

slaps @AncientSwordRage to snap them out of it Come on, you can leave if you try hard enough

NautArch

@KorvinStarmast What was bold was selecting their own answer before waiting on response.

GcL

@KorvinStarmast Careful with your fingers around those springs. and hinges. Also check for riveted together parts before starting disassembly. Few things are more frustrating that running into riveted together steel hinges when you don't expect them.

AncientSwordRage

@BardicWizard I've almost finished my tabs....

RevenantBacon

15:22

@AncientSwordRage lies, you never finish your tabs on TV Tropes, there are always more

GcL

15:40

Some of my colleagues and I have that issue. Ending up with dozens or hundreds of tabs open. When you close them all and start over, we call that "tab bankruptcy".

2

RevenantBacon

15:52

I feel like this site does the same thing, to a lesser degree. I have a half dozen tabs open on all different questions, plus this tab.

Bardic Wizard

@RevenantBacon agree

JohnP

How official was Dungeon magazine?

AncientSwordRage

I'm down to two tabs

@JohnP More than UA, less than source books?

JohnP

@AncientSwordRage Ok, about what I figured.

Thanks

Bardic Wizard

@AncientSwordRage yay

KorvinStarmast

16:10

@GcL yep.

NautArch

@KorvinStarmast @GcL Dremel says what?

KorvinStarmast

@NautArch heh

AncientSwordRage

16:31

Opened a new tab...

Thomas Markov

16:41

Just sent a follow up email for my recent job application. nervousness intensifies

Carcer

fingers crossed

NautArch

eyes crossed

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

fingers closed

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov ::tranquillises Thomas::

Bardic Wizard

@AncientSwordRage no! Bad! Bad! gets spray bottle threateningly

Thomas Markov

16:51

1d20

Dice Service

14

Thomas Markov

I save.

Bardic Wizard

@ThomasMarkov good luck!

Four leaf clover, hawthorn, lily of the valley

(Good luck, hope, good luck)

Thomas Markov

> The position is currently on hold for the rest of this semester due to COVID and lower enrollments in classes right now. I hope to know more closer to the end of the semester in December. We will be in touch once we know more. Thank you.

RIP

NautArch

:(

sorry mang

Bardic Wizard

17:01

:(

@ThomasMarkov sending virtual red hyacinth, bramble, hawthorn

Thomas Markov

makes tea

Bardic Wizard

(Red hyacinth is sorrow, as is bramble, hawthorn is hope)

AncientSwordRage

17:20

@BardicWizard I did it I'm free

now racking up Wikipedia pages

@ThomasMarkov this is a good plan

NautArch

@ThomasMarkov Pitching to my DM to swap out banishing smite for SWS for my hexblade

gettin' some pushback

Thomas Markov

I think SWS is underlevelled TBH.

NautArch

Only if you give advantage onthe attacks :P

Thomas Markov

Nah, vanilla. It's an exceptionally good spell for 5th level.

NautArch

Banishing smite is no joke, either

5d10 on the target and remove them from play?

*potentially remove from play

KorvinStarmast

17:32

@NautArch OT question, was it you who suggested to me the TV Series Outlander ? My wife and I began watching it and are really enjoying it.

Thomas Markov

6d10 on five targets tho.

NautArch

and hexblade spells are pretty underwhelming for me. THey're all competing concentration options for hte most part. ANd most don't upcast, which lessens their appeal for a warlock.

Thomas Markov

@KorvinStarmast Old Testament?

NautArch

@KorvinStarmast 'twas not I.

KorvinStarmast

@ThomasMarkov Indeed, Malchizedek often leaves me burning questions ...

NautArch

17:33

5th level has some powerful stuff. Bigby's Hand is crazy powerful.

KorvinStarmast

@NautArch Maybe it was Nits or Kviiri or Doppel .... or Mike.

@NautArch I am hoping to survive to level 9 with my warlock. Wall of Light. Blinded condition has some nice ramifications in battlefield control ...

NautArch

@KorvinStarmast Had a celestial warlock in the Doomvault campaign. Wall of LIght was his bread and butter.

KorvinStarmast

But DM is taking a month or so break, work has increased in time requirements and he may be moving to the DC area, so I am DM again for that group.

@NautArch And it is soo thematic ...

... OK, back to meatspace, cheers and best wishes to all.

all

LL - old Superman thing - Lois Lane, Lana Lang, Lex Luthor ...

NautArch

ANd I"d very much argue that SWS is really thematic for a hexblade.

KorvinStarmast

hell yeah

NautArch

17:40

more thematic than cone of cold

JohnP

18:12

'sup all

NautArch

sup yo

straight chillin'

well, not so much actually. Son has a fever, but discussion on that goes to another chat.

Medix2

18:30

@ThomasMarkov That UA question confuses me... I feel like, uh... *one*(?) UA actually added rules that weren't just character options? There was Variant Classes or whatever and there's the Ranger stuff I suppose, but that's all I've got

Thomas Markov

Arent they all just character options?

Bardic Wizard

There’s one on rules for ships at least iirc

Medix2

Yeah so I'm unsure how there's be any "rules contradictions" which makes me think the question is easily answered. " These are all character modifications, not rules changes, so the rules won't break"

NautArch

@Medix2 Not sure how accurate that is. But I think the clear answer is going to be "no, don't do this"

Thomas Markov

The character abilities may work together for undesirable effects.

Bardic Wizard

18:32

Sidekicks, and rules on spells and magic tattoos as well

in terms of things that aren’t character options

Medix2

Yeah, I'm not seeing fundamental rules contradictions arising. Though PC imbalance is all but inevitable

Bardic Wizard

And we’ve got a new UA

Thomas Markov

skimmed through it, saw "Drake Companion". This oughtta be good /S

NautArch

@BardicWizard I don't even try to look at them anymore.

I'm fairly confident that I can homebrew better than they can now.

Bardic Wizard

I know of exactly one group in my area that uses UA, and only for the modern magic one (which was actually not all bad)

NautArch

18:38

We'd allowed some UA in our alternate campaign a few years ago. But it was different then compared to now (in my opinion.)

BUt it's always on a case-by-case basis. Doing an all "UA" is not a good call.

MIght as well let them all use dndwiki

Bardic Wizard

I’d be more likely to use it if they ever did anything more than once and showed how it changed

other than the artificer

GcL

@NautArch Could do it in tomb of horrors. Ooo... a UA character. Roll the dice. They die. Next!

MikeQ

@NautArch As someone who usually criticizes amateur game design and untested homebrew, I'm really questioning my stance after seeing a lot of these UA releases.

Medix2

@NautArch The campaigns I was in all used heavily edited and re-balanced UA XD

NautArch

@GcL We finally ended that early. I'm pretty sure it broke the group up a bit. :(

GcL

18:43

It's "fun" in the same sense that Battletoads was "fun"

Medix2

@BardicWizard And Mystic IIRC, maybe Ranger(?)

Bardic Wizard

@Medix2 isn’t that just homebrewing?

Medix2

@BardicWizard But letting them do some of the creative and grounding work. I've also learned nobody agrees what type of scaling is good XD

NautArch

@MikeQ in what way?

MikeQ

I'm agreeing with your sentiment of "I'm fairly confident that I can homebrew better than they can now."

NautArch

18:47

ah, yeah.

MikeQ

Granted, there's still tons of badly written and nonsensical homebrew out there, and I'd reckon that most are "cool ideas" that haven't undergone any design process or testing. But the takeaway is that one shouldn't automatically be dismissive of unofficial material if the official material isn't consistent quality either.

2

NautArch

19:00

I think my issue is that folks look at UA with less scrutiny than something from dandwiki. And they shouldn't.

GcL

@NautArch I concur. It should be more than a sniff test for people actually being paid to write crap.

Thomas Markov

19:13

The Undead warlock patron is terrible.

RevenantBacon

19:25

@ThomasMarkov in what sense?

Thomas Markov

It is written terribly.

In particular the 14th level ability

MikeQ

Is that the one where the warlock turns into a necrotic bomb after dropping unconscious and can blow up all their allies?

GcL

@ThomasMarkov Are you saying the writers didn't have enough brraaaaains ?

Thomas Markov

@MikeQ Yes.

> In addition, when you are reduced to 0 hit points, you can cause your body to explode. Each creature within 30 feet of you takes necrotic damage equal to 2d10 + your warlock level. You then revive with 1 hit point in your previous space, along with your gear, and you gain 1 level of exhaustion.

MikeQ

Ah, the 14th level feature is where they pseudo-astral-project and end up with two bodies, or something. Doesn't make a lot of sense.

To be fair, Undying warlock is also terrible, and it was published.

Thomas Markov

19:30

5

Q: When The Undead warlock (UA) uses their Spirit Projection ability, do their spirit and body share a single pool of hitpoints?

The Undead warlock patron can be found here at DnDBeyond or here direct from Wizards of the Coast. The subclass is freely available playtest content, so I will reproduce the feature here: Spirit Projection 14th-level Undead feature Your body is now simply a vessel for your spirit. As an action, ...

dnd-5e warlock unearthed-arcana hit-points spirits

GcL

@ThomasMarkov Play that as a half-orc name Chumba Wumba. You have get one big hit that blows up and you keep getting played despite should have been long since dead.

2

Thomas Markov

So a Half-Orc Bard with an alchemy jug?

RevenantBacon

20:30

@ThomasMarkov Most underrated magic item in the game.

GcL

21:11

So much mayonnaise

AncientSwordRage

21:57

There is some good UA but not a lot

I think after some time, when good UA is published in a book, we forget it was ever UA.

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nitsua60

23:57

@AncientSwordRage Barbarians, amirite?

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