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[CornBurrito]

Save to restore reality. No effect.

I'm pretty sure you didn't even read that post you quoted, your reply pretty much completely ignores it. It opens the door for Mages to fumble WAY WORSE than a fighter ever could. All I ask is that you read before you quote.

I gave you multiple ways to make critical/fumble rules work for mages, which can be tweaked to nerf mages all you want... House rules are house rules, use or don't, I don't care.

I'm just giving you some ways you might enjoy fumble rules. Hell try those fumble rules with Mages only! On a nat20 save the spell backfires in a way determined by the DM. That seems like something you would love and might help bring the Wizards back down to reality at your table. Cheers!

I am talking only of tables that only apply fumbles to melee attacks. Your suggestions of giving it to magic spells by making them roll is fine.

And are you joking about "save to restore reality" or do you not know the hundreds of spells that don't allow a save? Solid fog for example.

Save to restore reality isn't balancing by the way since melee attacks can miss even on non fumbles.

 

[CornBurrito]

Dp.

 

[ElectricThunder]

I never really expected to see the day to this extent, but WoTC has very nearly entirely took their head out of their ass on a great many fronts!

https://sites.google.com/site/dndphilmont/free-d-d-community-use-license

Public Domain Birthright---about damn time. Jousting at Pathfinder's licensing. This elaborate CUPs apparatus to tie all the older stuff up as much as they can.

Likely somebody more versed than I can arrive at a meatier highlight list, but still---woo hoo.

 

[DeadPhoenix]

Kickstarter: Five Moons RPG by Sean K Reynolds

New RPG by a guy who worked on Pathfinder(and shit tons of other stuff, he's been doing this for 19 years apparently). Seems kinda similar to 13th Age in that is basically a somewhat simplified version of other d20 games. He's got a lot of post about it on his blog if you want to see what he's going for.

 

[krypt0nian]

I never really expected to see the day to this extent, but WoTC has very nearly entirely took their head out of their ass on a great many fronts!

https://sites.google.com/site/dndphilmont/free-d-d-community-use-license

Public Domain Birthright---about damn time. Jousting at Pathfinder's licensing. This elaborate CUPs apparatus to tie all the older stuff up as much as they can.

Likely somebody more versed than I can arrive at a meatier highlight list, but still---woo hoo.

Ummm it's a parody thread. Zero chance of Hasbro ever agreeing to this. The Jan 2015 date should've told you.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-D-COMPATIBLE-and-FREE-D-amp-D!-COMMUNITY-USE

 

[ElectricThunder]

.....................

Apparently I should actually start visiting the EnWorld forums...reckoned it was something of a rough head's up especially due to some of the finer details towards the bottom seeming at least a bit obtuse---this is some bullshit! Salt in the wounds as I knew that the Birthright licensing situation had recently gone weird/quiet so there was maybe a chance~

Sigh

 

[Kaervas]

Finally got my hands on a 5e phb yesterday.

The art is underwhelming (bad even, in some cases) and the game feels totally uninspired. Played a test game and it wasn't great. It seems stuck in a limbo between 4e and 3e, with characters gaining boring powers with no reason whatsoever.

Not a fan really, gonna stick with DCC and 2e.

 

[embalm]

I ran the 5e Battle with a Young Adult Green Dragon, Azorgorath.

The party grew larger than expected as everyone wanted to play for this encounter.

5e rules.

A party of seven adventurers at level 4.

• Wild Mage Sorcerer - lots of DPS from twinned spells
• Slayer Bow Ranger - lots of long range dps
• Sword and Board Fighter - High armor and health
• Storm Cleric - Loves blasting, not much for healing
• Assassin Rogue - Joins the fray quickly and fights in melee
• Arcane Trickster - Hides whenever possible, uses mostly short ranged attacks
• Life Cleric - Great player always makes good use of spells
• Gnome Druid - Played

like an insane naked gnome druid.

The Enemy:

• Azorgorath, Young Green Dragon of the Misty Woods.
• Priest, a dragon cultist tempting pursuading
• Acolyte, dragon cultist recruits

Lay of the Land:
The entire area is covered in an knee deep layer of fog.
Set in an old town, there are a few broken an roofless buildings, along with lots of trees and patches of rough terrain.
Two buildings about 150 feet apart are the dragon's tower, a 50ft tall structure, and the cultist hide out, a 1 story restored building.
A town center left wide open.

Basic Strategy:
Azorgorath arrives to the battle late to make a grand entrance as the party attempts to handle the Dragon Cultists.
The Acolytes attack with cantrips, and then protect themselves by casting Sanctuary and only want to heal the dragon through the combat.
The Priest casts spiritual weapon and acts as an alternative source of danger, a powerful ability lets her swap spells for bonus damage. Her chance to hit is low, but her dispel magic and the chance of big damage makes her a great addition to the battle.

The party targets the Cultists and cuts them down quickly. Sanctuary was fun and through off the party since the rogue and fighter have terrible wisdom. There was one major hiccup. The wild mage triggers wild magic... This causes drunkenness on the Ranger.

When Azor, arrives I have him hover for a round and ask questions of the party, demanding to know why they dare kill his slaves.(He doesn't care about the cult yet, but enjoyed their gifts and eagerness to please him) The party responds with attacks.

Azor lands and uses his poison breath weapon on the Druid Gnome, Wild Mage, and Ranger. The ranger and wild mage drop, the Druid barely survives.

The party pretty much panics after the first breath attack. Some attempt to give up, others want to continue fighting.

The fighter, assassin,and arcane trickster, hide in the rebuilt shelter and unleash ranged attacks. The Life Cleric, Talos Cleric, and almost dead gnome spread out and continue the fight outside. When my breath weapon is refreshed I land in front of the door and hit everyone inside with the breath weapon. More party freak out.

The life cleric casts a group heal, getting everyone back on their feet. The dragon grapples the life cleric and flys upward with him. The Dragon later throws the cleric from 30ft at the arcane trickster.

The party all very badly beaten up, realize the dragon isn't even going hard at them. It's playing with them like a cat would a mouse. This made me smile because it's exactly how you want a dragon encounter to feel.
Everyone agrres to plea for their lives and they attempt to make a deal with the dragon.

They offer a cursed evil magical dagger. The dragon takes the dagger, but to remove it from the cursed player he removes his hand as well. We'll get that player a new hand of some kind at the temple of Gond in Baldur's Gate, which he is pumped for.
The dragon also keeps their dead sorceress, which really freaked out the players.


**
Some notes on the encounter:

They could have easily won. If they put up a united front and tried to spread out a bit more, they could have easily brought down the dragon.

They were all very selfish though. Everyone attempted to hide, take cover, or stay out from the open. Which resulted in a lot of bunching up and caused some deadly breath weapons.

The dragon was fun to run. I'm excited to get my monster manual this week, because this Dragon was pretty vanilla. I didn't run Legendary Actions, it didn't have a frightful presence, it didn't have any kind of spell casting, and it didn't have lair actions. You can do a lot with just flight and breath weapons, but I'm very excited to run some of the bigger beasts now.

After the session, the players talked about future dragon fighting tactics. I hope they are more prepared as I plan to bring back their green scaled friend very soon for a re-match.

 

[embalm]

Finally got my hands on a 5e phb yesterday.

The art is underwhelming (bad even, in some cases) and the game feels totally uninspired. Played a test game and it wasn't great. It seems stuck in a limbo between 4e and 3e, with characters gaining boring powers with no reason whatsoever.

Not a fan really, gonna stick with DCC and 2e.

I think 5e plays a lot like 2e with kits and 3e features. They dropped all of the push, pull, shift, nonsense of 4e, kept ability checks simple, allow for play without minis/maps easily, have optional rules like feats and multi-classing to allow muchkin fun, and AC goes in the right direction .

The only parts that remind me of 4e are short rests, which are an hour long and shouldn't be taken lightly, and Monsters, which have more unique powers than 2e or 3e, but allow for easier encounter building. Both of which were the only things I liked in that ruleset.
(For more old school feel, make short rests take 8 hours, and long rests take 24 hours or 1 week)

2e rocks, but I would give 5e another chance. I'm pretty high on it right now though, but maybe it's my group who are making amazing characters.

I recommend running a 2e adventure with 5e PCs and Monsters. We're doing Castle Ravenloft in 4 weeks and it's really easy to convert and balance the monsters. I'm really looking forward to it. I think some of 5e new rules are going to make the adventure a lot more fun like:

• Crazy stuff vampires can do, like legendary actions, making Strahd deadly than ever
• Allowing for hordes of enemies vs high level parties, which will make some old school encounters fun as the numbers match up again (hello 4d6 wolves)
• Different classes have a lot of synergy, players that think through blessing and hasting a Paladin will do well

Just 2cp though, always play what you like.

 

[Keasar]

Been reading through the 5e D&D starter set rules, if I understand this right, Wizards don't memorize specific spells in certain amounts anymore (2 Magic Missiles, 1 Flaming Hands, 1 Color Spray etc. etc.) but now memorizes specific spells and instead have number of uses of different levels of spells?

If that is so, I like it. Keeps the strategy of preparing certain spells for certain situations but keeps it a lot more open than having to perfectly plan what needs to be used.

 

[Jackben]

embalm thanks for sharing your session, I enjoyed reading it. It sounds like it was a memorable encounter.

 

[embalm]

Been reading through the 5e D&D starter set rules, if I understand this right, Wizards don't memorize specific spells in certain amounts anymore (2 Magic Missiles, 1 Flaming Hands, 1 Color Spray etc. etc.) but now memorizes specific spells and instead have number of uses of different levels of spells?

If that is so, I like it. Keeps the strategy of preparing certain spells for certain situations but keeps it a lot more open than having to perfectly plan what needs to be used.

This is correct. I'm pretty sure it's how Sorcerers worked in 3e.

I think they did a good job making sure each spell casting class is very different in this edition

• Wizards - Huge spell list, good amount of casts per day, allows you to prepare a variety of situational spells, they benefit a lot from being able to cast low level spells in higher spell slots, sub-classes focused on the study of a particular school of magic
• Sorcerers - More casts per day, but far fewer options, sub-classes that really make the magic feel internal, and meta magic that allows you to double a spell, extend reach, and other cool stuff,
• Warlocks - Very few casts per day, they heavily depend on cantrips, but they regain spells on a short rest; sub-classes and bonus spells based on patron offer a lot of flavor for who granted your powers
• Bards - Loads of spells that work as magical music stuff, lots of charm or dominating type effects, ability to take other class specific spells, heals, and tossing out bonuses to others for free

@Jackbean, thanks, it got long, but I'm glad someone enjoyed it.

 

[krypt0nian]

embalm, I am beyond hyped for your upcoming Ravenloft run! Cannot wait for run through details.

 

[embalm]

So I picked up the 5e Monster Manual this week and I really, really dig it.

There are 3 main things that they did right with this book, which I think makes it the best monster manual ever released for D&D

1. The Story Behind the Monster - Each monster has fluff, story, or description. The stranger and harder to use monsters get more lore and text than others. These are full of story hooks, ideas for alliances and enemies, ways to interact with them. One of my favorite is about how ogres are really stupid and can be fooled, but if a silver tongued rogue pushes him to think too hard he will just smash him to bits. Some monsters get entire pages of history and story ideas, it's awesome.
2. Art for Everyone - Every monster gets a picture, I'm not in love with every piece of art, but every monster has an image and most of them are great. I love describing a beast as it's hidden in the shadows, and then showing the picture to the party once it charges into their torch light.
3. Varied Combat Styles- I'm going to talk a lot about this below

So I've said before that I think 5e really does a good job of cherry picking things from previous editions and the MM is a great showcase for this.

Old School Swarm Battles -
So a huge difference between 1e, 2e, & 5e versus 3e & 4e is the number of monsters you are supposed to throw at the party. The new monster manual is really heavy on monsters of CR 2 and lower, I mean really heavy, like 50% of all the monsters are CR2 or lower.
A good example is the kobold, which attack the party in groups of 5d4 in 2e for 7xp. Their stats and xp from 2e are almost even with 5e, meaning their attacks usually miss, they almost always die in one hit, and their xp is at the lowest amount in the game. The only way to make them a challenging foe is do it in groups. 5d4 kobolds is about the perfect number for a crazy good battle at lvl 3.
(note this could be done in 4e with minions, but 1hp ogres was not my idea of 2e swarm, now you play the ogre as an ogre and swarm with the goblins and all is right in the world.)

New School Solo Battles -
5e takes some of the rules from 4e to make encounters with solo monsters more interesting though. They have added legendary actions and lair actions, allowing big boss monsters to act in limited ways on other turns and allowing them to bend the environment to their will against the party. Note that if you don't like these they are easily removed and in some places it says that it reduces the challenge of the monster. Good examples of this is the vampire legendary action letting him move at the end of another characters turn, making them very fast and impossible to outrun, something like a classic vampire appearing around the corner as you try to flee.

Balanced Battles -
This is what I almost always ran in 3e, a battle of several different people or creatures of similar level to the party throwing down. Most 5e creatures/NPCs have smaller abilties unique to them and combos of these can make crazy fun and possibly deadly combats. Like a wolf which knocks enemies prone, with a monster that has low chance to hit but high damage can change the dynamics of battle drastically. This kind of battle also divides the party initiative, so planning and preparing for turns becomes harder, if you use that kind of initiative.


I really like this mix. It really lets you create some crazy diverse combats without doing any extra work. Just pick your monsters and roll the dice.

 

[CornBurrito]

embalm, you talked a bit about magic classes. But do mundane classes have more options in combat than "I full attack"? I know in Dnd 3.5e there were sort of some options available, but a lot of them were subpar unless you specialized in them. Like pouring all your feats into ONLY tripping, or ONLY charging, etc... and some styles like TWF were hard to use because you had to maintain two weapons. IIRC 5e doesn't have manuevers which were introduced in 3.5e's Tome of Battle, but what do they have?

 

[Keasar]

I am starting to become more and more interested in this 5e of D&D.

The fluff part for the monster manual sounds great, I talked earlier in the thread about one of my favorite RPG books of all time, Jorges Bestarium for Swedish Drakar och Demoner, on how it uses a lot of story and fluff to flesh out the monsters in the book and give the reader a feel for how they can be used. In the case of Jorges it always starts with a entry from Jorge himself talking about his meeting with the monster or retelling of other people's experience with it, followed by a more general description of it.

Is it similar in the 5e Monster Manual?

 

[ultron87]

embalm, you talked a bit about magic classes. But do mundane classes have more options in combat than "I full attack"? I know in Dnd 3.5e there were sort of some options available, but a lot of them were subpar unless you specialized in them. Like pouring all your feats into ONLY tripping, or ONLY charging, etc... and some styles like TWF were hard to use because you had to maintain two weapons. IIRC 5e doesn't have manuevers which were introduced in 3.5e's Tome of Battle, but what do they have?

One nice thing is that stuff like tripping dudes or grappling doesn't require any specific feats or builds anymore. You can just turn any attack into a grapple or shove attempt and you don't get any disadvantage or provoke an opportunity attack because you didn't take a feat. And doing a full attack doesn't mean you're literally just hitting them with your sword three times. If you can take three attacks on a turn you can use your first one to try and shove the enemy prone with an opposed Strength vs STR/Dex check, and then (if successful) have advantage on your remaining attacks.

Don't have the PHB in front of me, but you could look at the Basic Rules to see what they do with the Fighter and Rogue. Fighter, at least with the sub class in the basic rules, doesn't get a ton of extra stuff to do besides a lot of attacks, but Rogues get a bonus action every combat turn they can use to be super mobile, which I like a lot.

 

[embalm]

Is it similar in the 5e Monster Manual?

In some places yes, in most places no. Instead of using a standard approach for every monster it seems like they cherry picked what they felt was most important for players and wrote it up.

All of them get a few paragraphs.

Kobolds have one that talks about their lairs and traps, another about their missing god who was fooled by a Gnome god, and one about their jealousy for kobolds with wings. Things that get the brain spinning for building stuff around them, like "If a gnome is in the party maybe my kobolds will target him at all cost"

Giants get an overall description for how various types of giants interact and a bit about their ancient history. Then each giant type gets a bit about where they live, how they use other giants, things they like and so on.

Some monsters get small notations written by famous D&D characters, most are short, some are longer, and at least one is in the form of a bard's song.

Overall I can't remember from what perspective these are written in, so I'm going to guess it's from a 3rd person all knowing.

 

[embalm]

embalm, you talked a bit about magic classes. But do mundane classes have more options in combat than "I full attack"? I know in Dnd 3.5e there were sort of some options available, but a lot of them were subpar unless you specialized in them. Like pouring all your feats into ONLY tripping, or ONLY charging, etc... and some styles like TWF were hard to use because you had to maintain two weapons. IIRC 5e doesn't have manuevers which were introduced in 3.5e's Tome of Battle, but what do they have?

See ultron87's post above for the basics.

Here are some things I think really highlight melee characters.

Look at grapple rules. The PHB says that to do things similar to a grapple follow the grapple rules. In short you give up an attack to attempt a grapple, disarm, a trip, or other crazy stuff. No feats needed, no AoO for attempting it. Take that goblin to the ground.

You can move and attack, which is great for melee attackers. You can split your move between attacks. You always get all of your attacks. Example time: Level 6 Barbarian cut orc with axe, move 10 feet to bigger orc, cut him gooder, then move 20 feet into base to base with last orc.

Melee attacks are the only attacks than can cause non-lethal damage. No penalty to attack, but at the death blow say he is unconscious not dead.

Fighter maneuvers (available through a feat also) allow you to attack and attempt one of those trip, grapple, disarm things in some way.

Fighters can also grant themselves another action, doubling their attacks, or doing whatever they might want too. Fighters that take eldritch knight subclass could use this extra action to cast a spell then charge into battle.

Paladins can sacrifice spells to deal smite damage. It's a lot of damage also.

Rangers have spells cast as bonus actions that affect ranged attacks and defenses.

Feats as a whole grant entire trees from 3e and can really change how your character plays, they are like mini-subclasses in some ways. In most cases you will only really want a single feat which will grant more options to your choosen style of play.


All of that said, this still boils down to the player.
I have a Fighter who loves roleplaying his bounty hunter backstory, but just attacks with his longsword in combat. He has decided to max his str instead of taking feats. He doesn't use his manuevers because they are limited to 4 per short rest, and doesn't use his bonus action for the same reason. He enjoys unloading on boss type encounters, even though he bores himself during other combats.
He novas at lvl 5 with 4 longsword attacks at our highest To Hit(+8) dealing 1d8+6 + whatever bonus manuever he decides to throw in which adds 1d8 damage. (max of 5d8+24)
It hasn't happened yet, but I fully expect him to one shot a big bad when I'm not expecting it. I also suspect they plan on casting elemental weapon on his sword soon, adding d6s to each attack.

 

[Rootbeer]

Damn... That new 5e monster manual is very dope. Probably already became my favorite MM of all time (adjusting for bias)

Hope Wizards really benefits from the DMG delay. I'm hoping it turns out similarly excellent.

 

[Nairume]

Damn... That new 5e monster manual is very dope. Probably already became my favorite MM of all time (adjusting for bias)

Hope Wizards really benefits from the DMG delay. I'm hoping it turns out similarly excellent.

Yeah, the MM is super good.

I wish that it spent more time talking about the monsters than their stats, but I guess if they are wanting to keep to the promise of not trying to flood the market with a bunch of sequel books for the core three then it's best if they get as much as they can in one fell swoop.

 

[krypt0nian]

Yeah, the MM is super good.

I wish that it spent more time talking about the monsters than their stats, but I guess if they are wanting to keep to the promise of not trying to flood the market with a bunch of sequel books for the core three then it's best if they get as much as they can in one fell swoop.

I LOOOVE the Lair Powers. But honestly I want a new Monster book every year, sorta like Paizo does it.

 

[Nairume]

I LOOOVE the Lair Powers. But honestly I want a new Monster book every year, sorta like Paizo does it.

Yeah, lair powers are such a great idea that I do look forward to seeing them do more stuff with them.

I'll take new monster manuals or at least doing new monsters packaged into other supplements, just as long as they keep with their intention on not going crazy with books that add too many new classes and other crazy shit.

 

[krypt0nian]

Yeah, lair powers are such a great idea that I do look forward to seeing them do more stuff with them.

I'll take new monster manuals or at least doing new monsters packaged into other supplements, just as long as they keep with their intention on not going crazy with books that add too many new classes and other crazy shit.

Agreed. Add some every couple of years. Maybe support the settings with one hardcover each.

 

[Armoured Priest]

Working on getting Lost Mine of Phandelver set up in roll20 for my player to give a go for 5th edition.

 

[Riposte]

Thanks for the write up embalm. I plan on running the starter set with a few friends and some noobies soon. We will see where it takes us from there.

 

[Mike M]

Man, over the past couple weeks I've acquired the Starter Set, PHB, and MM, but have no one to actually play with : ( My monthly game is home brewed by the DM beyond recognition, so it's not as though these rules will amount to anything.

I haven't actually bought an RPG book in ages...

 

[embalm]

Man, over the past couple weeks I've acquired the Starter Set, PHB, and MM, but have no one to actually play with : ( My monthly game is home brewed by the DM beyond recognition, so it's not as though these rules will amount to anything.

I haven't actually bought an RPG book in ages...

Offer to run a one shot using the new rules, you could run the first part of the Starter Set and use the pregens. Usually DMs will enjoy the break and it would give you guys a chance to try out the game.
A player in my group wants to run a lego built dungeon full of far realms monsters as a one shot; Everyone is pretty excited for a change in pace.

 

[krypt0nian]

No PDF plan for 5E from WOTC yet? Or did I miss it? We are pretty much all digital now, and I'm really not giving them $150 for this game. Hopefully their PDF prices are more like Pathfinder. $10 for core books.

 

[SCHUEY F1]

Some friends and I have started playing D&D using the free basic rules set. Down the road would it be difficult to transfer to the 5th edition rules with our characters?

 

[ultron87]

You're using these rules? http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules?x=dnd/basicrules Transition will be quite easy then, as you're already playing 5E. Transitioning to the "full" game will just give you more options and stuff.

 

[SCHUEY F1]

You're using these rules? http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules?x=dnd/basicrules Transition will be quite easy then, as you're already playing 5E. Transitioning to the "full" game will just give you more options and stuff.

Cool, thanks. Yeah we are using those rules.

 

[Loona]

I have a bit of a general question - is there any software tool to help make grappling rules simpler to deal with?

Those have a reputation for complexity, which is understandable when you're checking a book for possible actions and counters, but at least in principle it seems like it should be possible to handle their flow not unlike a computer RPG's dialogue tree - a touch of automation that would free P&P players' minds from having to check reference material mid-game.

I checked http://www.rptools.net/index.php?page=tools based on the OP, but at least there I found nothing of the sort.

Maybe there's some obscure tool out there that at least tries to tackle that problem, even if for a specific game system with grapple mechanics distinct from typical rolls for hits, misses and criticals?

 

[KittenMaster]

Depends on if you're playing 3.5 or Pathfinder. I like to refer to a handy flowchart (seen to the right after scrolling a bit) for PF but PF uses a defensive stat for grappling instead of opposed rolling so I have nothing useful for 3.5.

 

[embalm]

What game are you playing? 5e grapple rules are pretty simple.

You can choose to grapple instead of attacking. If you have multiple attacks, a grapple replaces one of them.

You roll a Str(athletics) check, and must meet or beat an enemy Str(athletics) or Dex(acrobatics) check. If you win the enemy is grappled.


Side note, these same rules are used for all player driven combat ideas. Want to Disarm, same rules. Want to Trip, same rules. Want to Push, same rules.

 

[Loona]

What game are you playing?

None at the moment (it's been a few years since I dabbled with 3.5 - that group is now way too physically spread out), but both as a fan of fighting games and the level of detail and creativity P&P RPGs can allow, I've been wondering if there have been ways to manage the potential complexity of that particular kind of combat.

So, I'm not so much looking for a tool to fit a specific game, but wondering if any automation has ever been devised to manage grappling's options, stats and counters, regardless of game.

 

[shoplifter]

Just got my CoC 7th Edition backer PDFs. My god, these books are absolutely *gorgeous*.

Based Chaosium.

 

[ultron87]

Had one of those sessions last night where I had this big cross country journey with various encounters planned out for the players and instead they spent the entire session just role playing stuff in their starter town that they had just defended from a monster attack. It was awesome. And now I don't have much work to do before next week!

I must say now that they're level 11 I'm feeling like the Pathfinder combat system isn't quite holding up for difficulty balancing purposes. It feels like the only way to actually put the players in danger anymore is either colossal burst damage that could instantly kill one of the squishier party members and even down the tanks on a good set of hits, or using really debilitating spell effects that I hate to cast on PCs because telling someone "you don't get to play this fight" because they failed a single roll is shitty. They should pack some counter measures for that stuff (dispel magic, or whatnot) but I'm still not a fan of that kind of effect. The biggest thing probably is that I need to do more stringing together of a lot of encounters in a row to stretch their resources, but that is tough to do depending on how the adventure is put together. There should be a big dungeon crawl coming up soon, so we'll see how that works out.

 

[KittenMaster]

Making difficult battles for 3.x is very hard (and if you're new to the system it's also possible to accidentally make a battle that is too hard based on misinterpreting monster rules which I have done twice). I finally managed to make a battle in Excalibur that wasn't a complete pushover without relying on Spellcasters with save or die spells, at least.

 

[SCHUEY F1]

Just got my CoC 7th Edition backer PDFs. My god, these books are absolutely *gorgeous*.

Based Chaosium.

I have been looking to maybe getting into CoC. I wonder when the 7th edition will he available to non-backers?

 

[shoplifter]

It's actually available in PDF right now on their website as a paid purchase. Hardcovers are supposedly either next month or Q1.

 

[dude]

Exalted question:

Can anyone share some Sorcery trials stories with me? I'm looking for inspiration since on of my players is trying to become a sorcerer. I sort of devised a Humility trial for him, but I'm stuck on the other trials.

(Background: In Exalted, before becoming a sorcerer, one must pass five tests: Humility, Journey, Tutelage, Fear and Sacrifice.)

 

[SCHUEY F1]

It's actually available in PDF right now on their website as a paid purchase. Hardcovers are supposedly either next month or Q1.

Cool. Would definitely like a hard copy.

 

[Riposte]

I feel like I'm doing something wrong with the 5e starter set. Well, what probably happen is that I gave my players their health for level 2 at level 1 and that has made things too easy, but in terms of offense, they still seem too powerful vs. the first dungeon.

 

[SCHUEY F1]

Is there any specific campaign/adventure people would recommend for CoC?

 

[shoplifter]

If you want a published one, you can't go wrong with Masks of Nyarlathotep.

 

[SCHUEY F1]

If you want a published one, you can't go wrong with Masks of Nyarlathotep.

Thanks!

 

[embalm]

I feel like I'm doing something wrong with the 5e starter set. Well, what probably happen is that I gave my players their health for level 2 at level 1 and that has made things too easy, but in terms of offense, they still seem too powerful vs. the first dungeon.

I guess you're talking about the goblin ambush and the goblin cave. There are a few things to keep in mind when running this.

I think Goblins get that extra disengage or hide action, so make sure they are hard to get into melee with. They should be running around all over the place while the players chase them down.

Goblins should attack from hidden places. Use that stealth to attack from darkness, or from behind cover. This gives them Advantage on attack rolls.

In the cave, keep in mind how small it is. Groups can hear fighting and some may run away to alert other parts of the cavern of invasion.


If your players are really rocking the adventure, keep in mind that it's a living world. Add a wondering monster that might be a bit more of a challenge for them to the exit of the dungeon. (all that noise and smell of blood can attract some nasty things)

Don't be afraid to add a few monsters. Start small with 1 or 2 and see how much more of a challenge it is.

 

[Xeinok]

Hey guys, nice OP.

I'm currently playing a weekly D&D5e game and a weekly Eclipse Phase game - anyone else tried out Eclipse Phase before? It's my first sci-fi pnp rpg and it's been total friggin' madness so far.

 

[Rootbeer]

Want the upcoming 5e D&D DMG for about $22?

Add it to your cart, and during checkout enter HOLIDAY30 for 30% off bringing the price down to around $20 + tax!

Works on *ANY* book actually (but only once per account) But I think a lot of us already own the PHB and MM. If not? Why not get yourself a cheap 5e PHB?

(also suggested: GRRM's A World of Ice & Fire )