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Dungeons and Dragons Megathread

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Technically D&D has had muddled around with various domain management systems over the years. But more importantly there comes a time in every wizards life when he is tempted to raise a tower of black stone with the might of his mind and begin assembling his dark legions. The fact that you could actually do this with the power of your class features alone in 3e was fvcking awesome, and the fact that the game has moved away from that is super lame.
 
I made a second weapons and armor list.

I like this one better, but I still haven't put firearms on it. I need to get on that. This one is explicitly Renaissance inspired, not medieval. Full plate and greatswords exist on this list, and this list includes basket hilts galore, half-swording, and assumes that a lot of melee weapons either deal a combination of damage types simultaneously or can choose between different damage types (a lot of swords can either cut or thrust, and halberds can cut, thrust, or bash).
 
Mistborn said:
Technically D&D has had muddled around with various domain management systems over the years. But more importantly there comes a time in every wizards life when he is tempted to raise a tower of black stone with the might of his mind and begin assembling his dark legions. The fact that you could actually do this with the power of your class features alone in 3e was fvcking awesome, and the fact that the game has moved away from that is super lame.
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If I want to raise infrastructure, I'll play a game that lets me do soemthing useful and nifty with it afterwards. Like say, Exalted, where there are rules for this stuff.

I play D&D to get my superheroing on.

Look, if you were complaining about them taking out a lot of the terrain management spells used to reshape the battlefield, that I'd agree on; but D&D is and has always been about combat. If I wanted to do monument/nation building or soemthing, there are games for that.

This is seriously such a petty thing to get hung up on.
 
I think you're underestimate the degree to which having a fortress and tiny men to staff it has been a thing in D&D. Like it used to be you got a castle and shit just for being 9th level, and that sort of thing is often reproduced in various retro-clones.
 
Yeah, there were Stronghold rules from before 1e.

However, I was never sure if those were supposed to be a genre-shift ("Now you are the wicked emperor!"), or if they were supposed to signal that it's time to retire these characters and go make new level 1 losers.

Most likely, they were both.

I mean, some classes just STOPPED. Hey, Mr. Druid, you're level 14. You are DONE.

Hey, Mr. Dwarf Fighter. You're level 7 and you only have 16 Strength. You are DONE.
 
Mistborn said:
I think you're underestimate the degree to which having a fortress and tiny men to staff it has been a thing in D&D. Like it used to be you got a castle and shit just for being 9th level, and that sort of thing is often reproduced in various retro-clones.
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And since that castle rarely came with rules for productively using it, it was basically decoration.

Seriously, why does it matter if you Have rules for building a castle/tower/nation or not if there are no rules for doing anything with it?
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
And since that castle rarely came with rules for productively using it, it was basically decoration.

Seriously, why does it matter if you Have rules for building a castle/tower/nation or not if there are no rules for doing anything with it?
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Having the party be feudal landholders instead of murder-hobos offers new plot hooks at the very least. I suppose it depends on the players but in my experience if you give them some land, a spell list and some hapless peasants to lord over the campaign basically writes itself.
 
Red Hand of Doom was a 3.5 adventure, by the way. As was Age of Wyrms, but it was atleast written by Paizo in Dragon Magazine.

Incidentally, 1E D&D did have rules for running kingdoms and domains and shit. Didn't really have magical infrastructure for it though, but a retroclone called Adventurers Conquerors Kings does. It's fucking awesome and is pretty much the go-to document for D&D economy and townbuilding and shit.

You were supposed to shift from being a dungeon-crawler to running civilization-style adventures, but older editions were, by design, sparse on rules and Gary Gygax explicitly encourage people to make up their own content, figuring by the time you're running domain games you have enough handle of his game to not need hand-holding with your homebrew.

Also in 1E a Ranger could get a dragon follower for life. Holy fuck, domain play had such potential.
 
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Mistborn said:
Having the party be feudal landholders instead of murder-hobos offers new plot hooks at the very least. I suppose it depends on the players but in my experience if you give them some land, a spell list and some hapless peasants to lord over the campaign basically writes itself.
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In other words, you home brew. Just like you are supposed to homebrew all the noncombat spells.

That you could use 3.5 combat spells for engineering while 4e ones were not so versatile is not a huge merit of 3e. in both games you were supposed to handwave or homebrew the noncombat stuff, not beat metaphorical swords into plowshares.

That was the point I started with.

Glad you understand now.
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
In other words, you home brew. Just like you are supposed to homebrew all the noncombat spells.

That you could use 3.5 combat spells for engineering while 4e ones were not so versatile is not a huge merit of 3e. in both games you were supposed to handwave or homebrew the noncombat stuff, not beat metaphorical swords into plowshares.

That was the point I started with.

Glad you understand now.
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There's a difference between using the spells that already exist in a non-standard way and fiating something from scratch. If you want to play logistics and dragons the 3e spell list definitely has something to add even if you don't homebrew any spells. Fvck spells like fabricate are clearly plowshares in the first place.
 
Mistborn said:
Having the party be feudal landholders instead of murder-hobos offers new plot hooks at the very least. I suppose it depends on the players but in my experience if you give them some land, a spell list and some hapless peasants to lord over the campaign basically writes itself.
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(shrug) 5e contains rules for doing all that as well, its just not built into character classes. It does give you something to spend all that GP on.
 
Does anyone know of places to search for online groups besides roll20?

Ive been looking for a group for either Dark Heresy, d&d 3.5, or pathfinder for a while. Not having much luck sadly.
 
Mistborn said:
Depends on the edition, sometimes it just meant you had to highlander one of X 15th level Druids in the setting.
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Getting to 14th level in 1e required you to pull a Highlander three times, because there were only nine 12th level druids, three 13th level, and one 14th level. Then 1e UA retconned it that every geographical region of some undefined extent had that 9/3/1 split, and then there was a worldwide top bear at 15th level - and once you'd pulled off that final promotion, you could then decide to retire from the hierarchy and become a "hierophant" druid who would progress through 16th to 23rd level without (IIRC) further Highlander shenanigans.
 
Man Druids were really tooth and claw back in the day.

I think CoDzilla is actually preferable to Elder Druid Highlander.
 
MiracleGrow said:
Does anyone know of places to search for online groups besides roll20?

Ive been looking for a group for either Dark Heresy, d&d 3.5, or pathfinder for a while. Not having much luck sadly.
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The /tg/ board over at 4chan (and associated IRC channels) can be a fairly good source. Much better if you're willing to GM and aren't put off by no-shows of course, but I've had some great games as a result.

RPOL also seems to be a thing. I've tried it at various times over the last decade, but was always put off by the layout and preponderance of boringly weird ideas.

Aaron Peori said:
(shrug) 5e contains rules for doing all that as well, its just not built into character classes. It does give you something to spend all that GP on.
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It has rules for owning land, directing serfs, out of combat actions, raising fortifications, collecting taxes, enchanting magical architecture and making a flying interplanar castle made of walls of force layered with prismatic disintegration fields?

The last isn't essential, but it is amusing. The 3e Stronghold Builders Guide had some fairly straightforward flaws, but it had a lot of potential.
 
Mistborn said:
Depends on the edition, sometimes it just meant you had to highlander one of X 15th level Druids in the setting.
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Oh sorry, I mean 1e. I did mention it at the top of the post but yeah, I could have been more clear.

In 1e, you had to go Highlander starting at level 12, and you were DONE at level 14.

(Until and unless your DM allowed Unearthed Arcana, of course. With UA, the Highlander impression stops at level 16 and you can just advance normally again.)

Chloe Sullivan said:
And since that castle rarely came with rules for productively using it, it was basically decoration.

Seriously, why does it matter if you Have rules for building a castle/tower/nation or not if there are no rules for doing anything with it?
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I assume it was for inspiration.

Like, let's say you're a 1e Barbarian, and you can summon a barbarian horde:
Unearthed Arcana said:
The Barbarian Horde: Upon reaching 8th level, a barbarian may summon a barbarian horde. This horde can only be summoned in the native territory of the barbarian, from among barbarians of his back- ground. Cavemen, dervishes, nomads, and tribesmen (see Monster Manual, "Men") are now considered barbarians. A barbarian horde can number as many members as its leader's experience-point total divided by 1000. Thus, a barbarian who has just reached 8th level can gather a 275-member horde, and one who has just reached 9th level can have a 500-member horde.

A horde takes a week to gather in the barbarian's home territory, and must have a stated purpose, such as "Tear apart the College of Magic in Arcana City brick by brick" or "Rescue Princess Madelyn from the Storm Pirates" or "Serve under Goodbar the Cleric in his battle against the infidels." Deviating from the proclaimed purpose by the horde or its leader may cause the horde to disband, at the DM's option. Members of disbanded hordes will return by the quickest and safest route to their home lands.

A barbarian horde can only be kept together for as many weeks as the barbarian leader has levels of experience. At the end of this time, the horde is usually disbanded. Exceptions may be made if large amounts of treasure are distributed to the members, if the leader has an effective charisma of 23 or more with respect to other barbarians, if the leader of the horde is a tribal leader as well, or if an unattained goal is in easy reach. Each of these special circumstances which apply would extend the duration of the horde by 1-2 weeks at most. A tribal leader who has his horde disband beneath him will not receive a warm welcome the next time he returns to his homeland.

In addition to the normal barbarians in the horde, the leader of the horde will gain two aides, each of a level equal to one-half of the leader's level (rounded down). Each aide will have two assistants of one-half the aide's level. An 8th-level barbarian would therefore have a horde of 275 men plus two 4th-level aides and four 2nd-level assistants to those aides. The horde may include shamans, witch doctors, or clerics, depending on the nature of the barbarians. Barbarian shamans and witch doctors gain wisdom bonuses and may use magic items of any sort as applicable. Normal clerics will have full spell capability, but in all cases barbarian ability-score statistics apply. Barbarian clerics are always non-player characters.
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There's no rule for how a 275-man army interacts with the world, so you're just expected to wing it.
 
Antumbra said:
The /tg/ board over at 4chan (and associated IRC channels) can be a fairly good source. Much better if you're willing to GM and aren't put off by no-shows of course, but I've had some great games as a result.

RPOL also seems to be a thing. I've tried it at various times over the last decade, but was always put off by the layout and preponderance of boringly weird ideas.



It has rules for owning land, directing serfs, out of combat actions, raising fortifications, collecting taxes, enchanting magical architecture and making a flying interplanar castle made of walls of force layered with prismatic disintegration fields?

The last isn't essential, but it is amusing. The 3e Stronghold Builders Guide had some fairly straightforward flaws, but it had a lot of potential.
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I'll make sure to check it out. I remeber finding some really good Deathwacth games on /tg/ years ago.
 
jerkface said:
Oh sorry, I mean 1e. I did mention it at the top of the post but yeah, I could have been more clear.

In 1e, you had to go Highlander starting at level 12, and you were DONE at level 14.

(Until and unless your DM allowed Unearthed Arcana, of course. With UA, the Highlander impression stops at level 16 and you can just advance normally again.)

I assume it was for inspiration.

Like, let's say you're a 1e Barbarian, and you can summon a barbarian horde:


There's no rule for how a 275-man army interacts with the world, so you're just expected to wing it.
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Given D&D's origins, I wouldn't be surprised if you were actually supposed to model each barbarian as an individual character and play the whole thing out as a wargame using the standard D&D rules.
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
Look, if you're planning on going into a lot of potentially lethal fights, you take every modbanned advantage you can possibly get. That's just basic sense.

In a setting where magic items can give you significant power and survivability, the weird thing would be adventurers *not* hoarding the things like magpies.

Remember, D&D is, despite the thematics, a schizo tech setting where the high end of tech is vey very high. Do you know many gadgets and accoutrements an U.S. Army infantryman has in his full kit? And he's not expected to fight anything remotely dangerous as a dragon in close quarters.


That's a very low bar. Just flat losing half my WBL but spending the other half as I please is superior to VOP once you get past the low levels.
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You are assuming some things, that don't work like that in my games. Like the assumption that magic items can readily be made or gained, it simply doesn't work like that in quite a few of my games and thus this makes perfect sense. I do play one setting with the default magic system and that one is mostly the silly Beer and Pretzels games.

Plus you are assuming that people aren't decking themselves out in magic swag when they can, in my games they totally are, it's just not easy to get them magic items. This mostly owes to me making either new magic systems or heavily hacking existing ones so each of my settings has its magic be distinct and different from the norm, except one that uses the standard.

In fact even with the setting that uses the default system I am thinking of implementing reduced WBL and increased innate power instead. Me and my players too in fact agree that it is much cooler for characters to simply be innately awesome, they may have like 1-3 signature items the same way mythological heroes do, but otherwise it is all them.

Nothing about DnD requires that a setting do hefty magitek, and I prefer it that way.
 
hrm. That actually reminds me. I've been looking for variant/homebrew spellcasting rules for 5E other than the Spellpoints variant. Anyone familiar with any? Only thing I've found is I think some psionics stuff.
shepsquared said:
Elemental Evil had new spells and races, but these were released for free online (Google princes of the apocalypse player's companion).

Out of the Abyss doesn't, because of the sword coast book that's coming out.

Rise of tiamat didn't because it was released when everything was new
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Yeah, saw those. Bleedin' new spells. Where's the additional options for martials?

Sword coast...Wasn't their some unearthed arcana released with that with additional background options(sadly setting specific)?
 
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