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Any other GM's here that sometimes have this feeling that you should have prepared more, only to have the party enjoy something a lot that you just winged?

I retconned in some tropical freehaven relatively close to but always unscathed by that permanent giant storm. Of course this has to do with a part of something connected to what dropped in Numeria, it looks like a pyramid but is actually a hedron.

Short version: bad guy breaks in partially, party breaks in fully because alignments yo. They proceed to press buttons, the thing subsequently tears a gash through the island and partly explode into the ocean, the party emergency-teleporting to safety.

Of course, now the storm redirect mcguffin is gone and shit is about to shift to hurricane season.

They can grab a ship, an adventure in itself. Or they can use the old tunnels. The deep, deep tunnels. Although what will become of the island's inhabitants? Place your bets now!

Also: Dimensional assault is super kek and I must build a magus around it.
 
Havock said:
Any other GM's here that sometimes have this feeling that you should have prepared more, only to have the party enjoy something a lot that you just winged?
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Used to happen quite a bit when I was running Star Wars Saga Edition.

Some of the SWSE splatbooks would have ten or twelve "Mini-Adventures" in the back that would basically describe a single encounter in detail with map and NPC stats. On a few occasions where I didn't have a full adventure planned out, I would let them decide what they felt like doing, which would usually boil down to "raid some Imperials and take their stuff", and then use the map and baddies from a mini-adventure to describe the place they decided to raid. Other times I would provide a mission, but make up the details about the objective on the fly in response to whatever wacky ideas the group would have about how to carry it out, to allow for maximum shenanigans. ("What's on the floor above the place we're breaking into?" "Uh... lawyer's office." "Okay, we go in there. 'We need a lawyer! My friend's being accused of assault!'" "Okay, I know where this is going, so I'll just set up the bit for you. The lawyer asks, 'When did this alleged crime take place?'" "'Oh, it was about...'" *looks at watch* "...right now.'" *punches out lawyer* *cuts through the floor with a lightsaber*)
 
The Imperator said:
What are some inventive ways to ferry players to another plane/planet?

Thanadaemons' boats (PF) can move passengers to other planes, for a price.

A scroll of Dream Voyage (PF) can move a group, assuming the target doesn't say no to them.

What are some other ways, and it can be DnD, Pathfinder, or some other game, I'm just looking for ideas, I can fill in the mechanics.
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I remember an artifact in the Dungeon Master's Guide for D&D 5e, called Cubic Gate. It's a cube that can either cast the gate or the plane-shift spell to six different planes, depending on which side you press. The book says, that the cube regains charges at dawn, but you can always just take that particular part out and say it just had one charge left and is now inert.
 
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The Imperator said:
That's true, but the PCs don't know the destination, so Interplanetary teleport wouldn't work based parameters being too vague.
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I didn't know that you wanted them to get there under their own power, so I figured they could be taken there against their will and abandoned by an NPC to set up the plot. :p

I believe that Pathfinder has something equivalent to spelljammers, since the other planets in Golarion's solar system have been described as possible adventure locations.
 
The Narrator said:
I didn't know that you wanted them to get there under their own power, so I figured they could be taken there against their will and abandoned by an NPC to set up the plot. :p

I believe that Pathfinder has something equivalent to spelljammers, since the other planets in Golarion's solar system have been described as possible adventure locations.
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Nah, they're on a quest to find Ithaqua and get him to stop a love interest from being turned into a Wendigo.

Ithaqua is not on Golarion, and they're about to find that out. So they need a way to find him without know precisely where he is.

I'm giving them the quest to find a negotiate with Ithaqua as a mythic quest, although one of them will have to pay a price for saving the friend from becoming a Wendigo.
 
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Hi, folks. I'm hoping to get some help with multiclassing in 5th edition. There's a player in a campaign I'm part of who chose a very odd character build to basically min-max his defenses. Specifically he started as a Fighter and then immediately swapped to Wizard at level 2. He's continued as a Wizard since.

By starting off as a Fighter he gets proficiency with all armors, shields, and the strength and constitution saves. According to page 164 of the handbook multiclassing to Wizard doesn't get you any additional proficiencies.

Am I crazy or does that mean that the Fighter / Wizard doesn't get the Wizard's saves for intelligence and wisdom?

Also, since you don't get starting equipment when you multiclass, does that mean that his character should not have received the spellbook with 6 first level spells?

Thanks!
 
Nicholai said:
Hi, folks. I'm hoping to get some help with multiclassing in 5th edition. There's a player in a campaign I'm part of who chose a very odd character build to basically min-max his defenses. Specifically he started as a Fighter and then immediately swapped to Wizard at level 2. He's continued as a Wizard since.

By starting off as a Fighter he gets proficiency with all armors, shields, and the strength and constitution saves. According to page 164 of the handbook multiclassing to Wizard doesn't get you any additional proficiencies.

Am I crazy or does that mean that the Fighter / Wizard doesn't get the Wizard's saves for intelligence and wisdom?

Also, since you don't get starting equipment when you multiclass, does that mean that his character should not have received the spellbook with 6 first level spells?

Thanks!
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Yes, he doesn't get saves and he needs to buy a spell book. In return he gets heavy armor and a shield, con saves (good for casters cuz concentration), martial weapons, and a fighting style. It's not particularly broken to let him have a spell book, but raw he needs to buy one.
 
erlking said:
Yes, he doesn't get saves and he needs to buy a spell book. In return he gets heavy armor and a shield, con saves (good for casters cuz concentration), martial weapons, and a fighting style. It's not particularly broken to let him have a spell book, but raw he needs to buy one.
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Thanks. I thought I was correct but this is a first 5th edition campaign for the group. We've all been having fun.

Also, is it just me or did the Sorcerers get nerfed in this edition? Pretty much everyone has the Sorcerer's old ability of "pick which spells to cast" and they get fewer spells than most dedicated casters.
 
Anybody ever do Ravenloft campaigns using Pathfinder as the basis for the rules?

I mean, you could use 3.5, but I do like some of the things in Pathfinder a lot better (I vastly prefer the Pathfinder version of the Ninja class to the Ninja class presented in D&D 3e, for example) and Pathfinder is a little more accessible.
 
The Imperator said:
Nah, they're on a quest to find Ithaqua and get him to stop a love interest from being turned into a Wendigo.
Ithaqua is not on Golarion, and they're about to find that out. So they need a way to find him without know precisely where he is.
I'm giving them the quest to find a negotiate with Ithaqua as a mythic quest, although one of them will have to pay a price for saving the friend from becoming a Wendigo.
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Ah, then they could probably get to wherever he is by traveling through the Frostfel, since it appears to exist on multiple worlds as a thin-spot between the Prime Material and the Plane of Ice.
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Leng and the Dreamlands are also good sources of one-way travel to other worlds.
 
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Nicholai said:
Thanks. I thought I was correct but this is a first 5th edition campaign for the group. We've all been having fun.

Also, is it just me or did the Sorcerers get nerfed in this edition? Pretty much everyone has the Sorcerer's old ability of "pick which spells to cast" and they get fewer spells than most dedicated casters.
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Yeah more or less, it's a common complaint for 5e. There's some good homebrew that fixes it if you think it's really bad, but generally they aren't too low power due to the usefulness of Metamagic which is restricted to them.
 
The Narrator said:
I didn't know that you wanted them to get there under their own power, so I figured they could be taken there against their will and abandoned by an NPC to set up the plot. :p

I believe that Pathfinder has something equivalent to spelljammers, since the other planets in Golarion's solar system have been described as possible adventure locations.
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A lot of that is portals, but there are some ships, normally not Spelljammer level. Verces has the most ships, and theirs are basically great metal dirigibles. The Sarcesians of the Diaspora (the asteroid field that used to be two planets) use personal space-wings to fly around betweeen asteroids and nearby worlds as individuals. The Bone Sages of Eox have the best ships, though being undead, theirs don't include atmosphere. And the Brethedons use large natural creatures that can travel between worlds as a means of natural transport (using mind magic to direct their course).
 
erlking said:
Yeah more or less, it's a common complaint for 5e. There's some good homebrew that fixes it if you think it's really bad, but generally they aren't too low power due to the usefulness of Metamagic which is restricted to them.
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Visualize me shrugging. I've been playing a Sorcerer in the campaign I mentioned and the Metamagic can be useful but it is very situational. I just wish I had a larger list of known spells. I can prepare pretty much everything, great! When you compare the number of spells a Sorcerer can know, total, versus the number of spells other classes can prepare (which is less than the total number of spells they have access to) it gets silly. Only Paladins, Rangers, Eldritch Knights (Fighter), and Arcane Trickster (Rogue) have fewer preparation slots than Sorcerers. The two other classes who don't have preparation slots and just know their entire spell list are Bards and Warlocks. Bards, formerly a master-of-none class, know more spells than a Sorcerer does. Warlocks, an odd semi-caster class, know the same number of spells. (They do, however, max out at 5th level spells.)

So the only casters "worse" in those terms than a Sorcerer are the hybrid classes or alt-specs for Fighters and Rogues. I could care less about a lot of things but give me more than effectively two spells of any given level! :(
 
Paulie Romanov said:
Anybody ever do Ravenloft campaigns using Pathfinder as the basis for the rules?

I mean, you could use 3.5, but I do like some of the things in Pathfinder a lot better (I vastly prefer the Pathfinder version of the Ninja class to the Ninja class presented in D&D 3e, for example) and Pathfinder is a little more accessible.
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Yes. I'll note that the Pathfinder Fighter's "bravery" ability has its origin in Ravenloft, where they were given the same ability to represent how badass they were for challenging the creatures of the night head on without any special magic.
 
Nicholai said:
Bards, formerly a master-of-none class, know more spells than a Sorcerer does.
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Actually, Bards were one of the few decent Jack of All Trade attempts in early 3e. They can be optimized into competence for just about everything other than blasting and ranged martial combat. They won't outdo a specialist at it, but they can be competent at pure martial melee, buff-based Gishing, party support, skillmonkey and diplomancy. The overlap means they can be two or three of these at once, in fact.

Really, it's Factotum and Chameleon making Bard look bad. Factotum is a masterpiece of managing to make "does literally everything" actually balanced in a party of moderate specialists. Chameleon is a case study in "does literally everything" gone overpowered, making all other high-versatility classes look more than a little like shit in comparison.
 
Morphic Tide said:
Really, it's Factotum and Chameleon making Bard look bad. Factotum is a masterpiece of managing to make "does literally everything" actually balanced in a party of moderate specialists. Chameleon is a case study in "does literally everything" gone overpowered, making all other high-versatility classes look more than a little like shit in comparison.
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lolwut?

if we're allowing all wotc 3.5 sources, as implied by referencing the factotum and Chameleon, Bard easily outperforms both of them if you bother to optimize. Improvisation lets a bard easily out-skillmonkey anyone who doesn't have cleric casting. Dragonfire inspiration and Snowflake wardance allow the bard to murderblender just fine while still retaining spells to cover non combat stuff.

Chameleon is neat, but it's MAD and has very limited daily uses of abilities, meaning that it's versatility is theoretically good but falls of very quickly if your DM does multiple encounters per day. Factotum is highly versatile, but struggles to output real Damage, (or for that matter, healing), and is unlikely to be able to cover battlefield control or buffing duties in an extended adventuring day, again due to daily use limits.
 
Nicholai said:
Visualize me shrugging. I've been playing a Sorcerer in the campaign I mentioned and the Metamagic can be useful but it is very situational. I just wish I had a larger list of known spells. I can prepare pretty much everything, great! When you compare the number of spells a Sorcerer can know, total, versus the number of spells other classes can prepare (which is less than the total number of spells they have access to) it gets silly. Only Paladins, Rangers, Eldritch Knights (Fighter), and Arcane Trickster (Rogue) have fewer preparation slots than Sorcerers. The two other classes who don't have preparation slots and just know their entire spell list are Bards and Warlocks. Bards, formerly a master-of-none class, know more spells than a Sorcerer does. Warlocks, an odd semi-caster class, know the same number of spells. (They do, however, max out at 5th level spells.)

So the only casters "worse" in those terms than a Sorcerer are the hybrid classes or alt-specs for Fighters and Rogues. I could care less about a lot of things but give me more than effectively two spells of any given level! :(
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This is the homebrew I was referring to, and it fixes basically the problems you're talking about, giving bonus spells and so on.
 
Count Rushcore said:
That's cool! I didn't know that.

Kind of explains why I liked that item so much when I first discovered it. Those things are the McGuffins in the campaign I'm currently DMing :D
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And if they made it an artifact, I'm disappointed. 1-2e artifacts did things like "anything I write with this pen becomes true" or "summon the Egyptian god Ptah" or "by finding the right button combination/song (first is Machin of Lum the Mad, second is Heward's Mystical Organ) I can do literally anything, or "is a totally indestructible magic powered mecha" or even "I can only be hit on a natural roll of 20"
 
Arawn_Emrys said:
And if they made it an artifact, I'm disappointed. 1-2e artifacts did things like "anything I write with this pen becomes true" or "summon the Egyptian god Ptah" or "by finding the right button combination/song (first is Machin of Lum the Mad, second is Heward's Mystical Organ) I can do literally anything, or "is a totally indestructible magic powered mecha" or even "I can only be hit on a natural roll of 20"
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I was inaccurate with my description. It is a wonderous item, legendary rarity. Not quite artifact-level.

I do have heard that 5e is more ... frugal, let's say, with magic items. Game-balance-wise a party is not supposed to have more than a single +1 weapon until around mid-game, and not much more otherwise. At least that is what I heard.

Which is sad if its true.
 
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