Let's talk D&D

You know you could just kill all your players with a bolt of lightning and be done with it.
Point taken. Personally, I've always limited it to one random encounter a night, max, unless there is a compelling reason why they shouldn't be camping out.
 

Dave

Staff member
I have a rule set where I roll for random encounters the basic amount, but then I roll percentage twice if an encounter is had. The first percentile is the danger and the second is aggression. So say there's a high danger but low aggression, then the monster or beast will simply pass the group by. Or if there's a low danger, the aggression might not matter. It could be something like a mosquito bite. Something that has it out for the group or an individual, but doesn't disturb the camp.

Works out to really cut down on the encounters, but can throw some cool stuff in that adds flavor.

And if they find the tracks of the big bad thing that passed them by in the night, so much the better.
 
You mean the doors you had to pick because they were locked? Because someone else has the key?
Ok, someone get a locksmith, we need to find out if one can lock a door with a lock-pick... (or you know, you can just use a piece of furniture to block the door, should work fine for an hour).

Point is, it's not that impossible, under the right conditions.
 
I got my copy yesterday. I like the rules so far. It's different, but same enough that anyone who played 3.5 should grasp them quickly.
 
From what I'm hearing, multi-class is game breaking for two reasons in particular:

- Multiclassing into Wizard has no downsides, as you lose nothing by doing so instead of starting as a wizard.
- If you have proficiency in an armor, you can cast spells without penalty.

This basically means that any intelligent player who wants to play Wizard is going to start as a fighter, get ALL of the weapon and armor proficiencies that way, then ether switch to Wizard at lvl 2, or stick it out for 1-2 levels for the extra attack and fighter bonus. Tank Mages are the new Wizard now, I guess. I'm not sure how this got past testing.

EDIT:

Thinking about it, it has further reaching issues. There is no reason not to start out as a fighter, no matter what you want to play, because you are always going to want the extra weapon or armor proficiency. Any non-dex based class is going to want to be able to wear at least medium armor for protection, especially casters. Dex-based classes are still going to want it for the extra weapon proficiencies. Clerics are going to want the better weapon choices.

In essence, the way multi-classing works has made Dex a minor-dump stat because you will NEVER need more than +2 to have decent armor class, meaning the only time you'd actually want it is for dex classes or bow focused characters.
 
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Except for the DM saying no multi-classing allowed. All the optional rules are game changing.
It would probably be better to just say "No spell casting in armor except Divine spells", like it used to be. Multi-classing adds enough variance to the game the working around the broken rule is better than just getting rid of the customization. Looking at the book (mine came early), Clerics don't need it as much because any melee focused cleric (War, Tempest) gets them already. But it's your game and I wasn't planning on multi anyway.

I'm kind of home brewing a Death domain for my Cleric ATM... I'll submit it along with a cleric build. If you dig it, we'll go with it. If not, I'll roll up something else.
 
Alright... this was surprisingly painful to do for free, but I've got the official character sheets in a format that you can just use Paint or something to edit for characters. So... anyone planning to make a character for the game, here you go.

If someone wanted to turn those into a PDF you can just fill in or whatever, I'm sure there are thousands of players that would love you.
 

Attachments

Something like this, perhaps?
Yes, JUST like that. I honestly wonder why Wizards didn't release that themselves, unless it's because they are planning to CHARGE us for it. I know they have a character gen utility and I believe it's going to be integrated into the online play platform they are working on. Supposedly they are going to sell module access there, so the DM can just buy a module and then everyone can play it on a virtual table top.
 
Yes, JUST like that. I honestly wonder why Wizards didn't release that themselves, unless it's because they are planning to CHARGE us for it. I know they have a character gen utility and I believe it's going to be integrated into the online play platform they are working on. Supposedly they are going to sell module access there, so the DM can just buy a module and then everyone can play it on a virtual table top.
Only took me about 20 minutes in Acrobat to put that together.

I admit that I didn't bother trying to make sure that the tab order for all of the fields was correct, but I did try to make sure that font sizes on multi-line fields were decent.

It wouldn't be *that* hard to create software what would let you keep track of your stats, and then print the info onto these character sheets on demand. I could probably whip up something like that in less than a day.[DOUBLEPOST=1409232018,1409231682][/DOUBLEPOST]Just noticed that there's an error in my form...the STR stat is duplicated "under" the DEX stat. I'll fix that when I get home from work and upload a new version.

The pdf could use some time and attention--some of my fields don't line up exactly, etc. But you get what you pay for ;)
 
Only took me about 20 minutes in Acrobat to put that together.

I admit that I didn't bother trying to make sure that the tab order for all of the fields was correct, but I did try to make sure that font sizes on multi-line fields were decent.

It wouldn't be *that* hard to create software what would let you keep track of your stats, and then print the info onto these character sheets on demand. I could probably whip up something like that in less than a day.[DOUBLEPOST=1409232018,1409231682][/DOUBLEPOST]Just noticed that there's an error in my form...the STR stat is duplicated "under" the DEX stat. I'll fix that when I get home from work and upload a new version.

The pdf could use some time and attention--some of my fields don't line up exactly, etc. But you get what you pay for ;)
I tried doing the same thing but I just couldn't get it to line up quite right.
 
Alright, having read most of the PHB, I am actually pretty upset at the wait they're putting us through for the MM and the DMG.
 
So the saturday game didn't happen because Vent was down. Now that it's back up, do we have any serious takers for another try? Maybe we should start off by saying what our availability is?

I'm generally available any time that isn't 9am-1:30pm on Mondays.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
Is this the right thread to talk about one of the Tales on Table Titans? Game of Throngs

The tale ends with "I learned a valuable lesson that day... not sure what it is yet, but I'll tell you when I figure it out." A lot of the tales end with no clear idea of what went wrong, and sometimes I don't know either, not having played much pen & paper RPG, but I can pretty easily tell you what happened in this case.

The DM let the player meta-game! The player should have not had any clue of the exact numbers that he'd need to roll to keep a certain number of ogres in check. The DM should have given vague descriptions of the player's mental effort and feelings of stress or mental decay. The player should not have been able to tell if he needed to roll an 18 or a 20, maybe not even know if they needed a 15 or a 20.

Then again, let's assume I'm wrong, and the player fairly would have had the in-game knowledge of the limitations of this unusual artifact (ha!). For the sake of argument, say this knight has enough knowledge of arcana to be able to know his capability with the artifact. That's when the DM throws shit at the player to force a penalty. Have a party of monsters stalk the players. Not attacking, but howling through the night to keep them awake. Fail a check to get decent rest? Take a -1 to your next willpower role. Miss another night of sleep? -2. Third night of sleep lost? -3. Want to mind c0ntrol what's keeping you up at night? Sorry, you don't know where it is out in the darkness, or how many there are. Hell, maybe it's mindless undead, or spirits, that can't be controlled. Make the players either let the giants go, or pull them closer and use them to fight. Don't just let your players have an uneventful march, hoping for the odds to finally catch up to them. You're telling an epic story, and if your players want to walk a risky path on a tightrope, then have a gremlin ready to jump on the line to make it more difficult for them.

Am I wrong about that?
 
A few times at conventions, I've have people talk about their gaming experiences, and one comment I have grown to hate is, "I like (x system) but it's really broken." I hate it because it is inevitably followed by discussions of a previous campaign where the DM was basically being Santa Claus, allowing all kinds of extraordinary combinations and legendary gear and essentially running a super-powered campaign without raising the corresponding difficulty. "So when my barbarian was using his +15 flaming vorpal greataxe of speed, he could easily do 200 points of damage per round. So you can see how broken the game is."

"Um, no, what I see is that your DM let you all play in god mode with really high power levels."
"No, we started off at first level, but it's really easy even at the beginning."
"Oh, okay, did you roll your attributes or do point-buy?"
This leads to one of a few answers:
"Well, we rolled 4d6 and drop the lowest, but we re-rolled anything lower than a 16." (out of 18)
or
"We did point buy, the DM set it at 50 points." (in Pathfinder, 15-20 is considered standard and 25 is considered heroic)

Look, playing in a high powered campaign is a lot of fun, absolutely. But don't engage God Mode and then bitch that the game isn't challenging or that it's "broken". YES, BECAUSE YOU FUCKING BROKE IT.
 
I'm just picking up 5e after not playing for 16years. I am not sure whether to play as a Rogue or Ranger, or Halfling or elf.

The rogue is almost too typical but the Ranger seems to be a master of nothing.
I'm a big fan of duel wielding and sneaking, so both are good that way. It just seems like the Ranger is a weak fighter and weak spell caster.

And the ranger paths seem weak. The hunter only works in certain situations, and the Beast Master companion seems worse.

Maybe the rogue would be better as a wood elf instead of halfling, change things up a bit.
 
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