Dungeons and Dragons Megathread

[Antumbra]

It doesn't list such things explicitly but building magical stuff is just an extension of basically all other non combat actions.

You get some plans, you take some time, you spend some money. If the DM feels the action is risky, you make a skill check. If all of the above is done you succeed.

So building a flying city would just be the GM assigning a cost and timeframe to it. He'd probably say you need some specific stuff to accomplish it, like an ancient tome explaining the process and some rare reagents so your wizard had an excuse to go explore The Fetid Tunnels of Doom or wherever.

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So there aren't actually rules for it, or even a real mention of it, and in general for everything that isn't stabbing with a pointy stick it says "your GM will make up costs, special rules, times, materials, sidequests and everything else and maybe set a skill check for you - hope you have advantage on it".

That's fine, it doesn't need to have any of it as it has no ambitions beyond dungeon crawl combat, but "wing it with these vague guidelines" does not agree with "Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Maybe".

 

[AuraTwilight]

I mean, it's pretty much the same as 1E minus giving you followers and a stronghold as a 9th level class feature, so I wouldn't hold it against it.

 

[Aaron Peori]

So there aren't actually rules for it, or even a real mention of it, and in general for everything that isn't stabbing with a pointy stick it says "your GM will make up costs, special rules, times, materials, sidequests and everything else and maybe set a skill check for you - hope you have advantage on it".

That's fine, it doesn't need to have any of it as it has no ambitions beyond dungeon crawl combat, but "wing it with these vague guidelines" does not agree with "Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Maybe".

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No, there are specific rules for how much it costs to build a castle, or create a magic item, or hire a staff for it. It has rules for maintenance costs for keeps, and rules for how much money you can make on taxes and running businesses and so on. There are rules for building traps, gaining political renown and so on.

I mean, they're not like a in depth economic simulator, but if the players want to build a castle or run an inn or found a temple there are rules. You don't really need anything more than the rules as written.

 

[Mistborn]

Are you implyIng there is a standard progression of damage? Because IME that varies greatly with optimization and play style.

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Brusier monsters especially giants tend to all live on about the same power curve so they give you a rough idea of what the benchmarks are for melee PCs are. There's stuff that's meaner like Hydras and Monstrous Scorpions but their more like puzzle monsters.

But leaving aside that, you are still fundamentally ignoring the issue that players are not playing the same game. One set of players are cooperatively playing a game where they do clever tactical things to reduce enemy hitpoints as much as possible while minimizing loss to their own Hitpoints. The other player walks into their game and disrupts it by changing the nature of the game to "did I pick the right weak save and did the bad guy roll badly?"

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What's wrong with a little anti-synergy among friends? If everyone is linearly chipping away at each others HP bars then the incentives all point towards focus firing whoever is low. It also makes fights against single monsters less deterministic.

 

[Cosar]

What's wrong with a little anti-synergy among friends? If everyone is linearly chipping away at each others HP bars then the incentives all point towards focus firing whoever is low. It also makes fights against single monsters less deterministic.

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What's wrong with design that works against teamwork in a game that's about teamwork? It should be pretty easy to figure this out.

And, at a base, the game does incentivize focus firing whoever is low. Sometimes non-casters/damage dealers get abilities that do give more utility, but not too often(which is one of the problems with dnd combat). Still, there are are other options that mean that focus firing is not always the best, assuming that you can provide negatives to enemies that don't directly relate to getting closer to their Critical Existence failure point.

 

[AuraTwilight]

Brusier monsters especially giants tend to all live on about the same power curve so they give you a rough idea of what the benchmarks are for melee PCs are. There's stuff that's meaner like Hydras and Monstrous Scorpions but their more like puzzle monsters.

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Motherfucker over here implying the Challenge Rating system is at all indicative of anything, lol.

This statement isn't even true within the Monster Manuals. Giant Enemy Crabs and all.

 

[Mistborn]

This statement isn't even true within the Monster Manuals. Giant Enemy Crabs and all.

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Like I said those things are puzzle monsters. The solution to the puzzle is don't melee it dumbass.

Like please people give examples that show you actually know what you're talking about, not just stuff you found somewhere on the internet and are now regurgitating without any understanding.

 

[Cosar]

Like I said those things are puzzle monsters. The solution to the puzzle is don't melee it dumbass.

Like please people give examples that show you actually know what you're talking about, not just stuff you found somewhere on the internet and are now regurgitating without any understanding.

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Giant crabs are ambush monsters, though. You should expect to be in melee with them, especially at it's cr. Perhaps you should follow your advice and only comment on things you know?

 

[Chloe Sullivan]

The CR system being a mess is both not hard to see and vey common knowledge at this point. I think that @Mistborn is basically into the realms of ad hominem with that last post. Making insinuations about other people's intelligence and knowledge rather than giving a useful argument. Mistborn, please of the love of Pelor, stahp.

Also, puzzle monsters in a game where a good third of the classes have no real way to interact with puzzles is again another example of bad design. If you want puzzle challenges, you need to give your various player characters ways to contribute to solving puzzles.

 

[AuraTwilight]

Like I said those things are puzzle monsters. The solution to the puzzle is don't melee it dumbass.

Like please people give examples that show you actually know what you're talking about, not just stuff you found somewhere on the internet and are now regurgitating without any understanding.

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"All the monsters clearly show this trend and the monsters that don't support it clearly don't count so it's impossible for me to be wrong. I'm an adult, let me ad hominem you."

 

[Mistborn]

Giant crabs are ambush monsters, though. You should expect to be in melee with them, especially at it's cr. Perhaps you should follow your advice and only comment on things you know?

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Yes the giant crabs are problematic. That's because the are CR 3 and PCs of that level do not have the tools to avoid getting crushed by their are terrible claws. But the higher CR brackets are full of nasty monsters with melee attacks similarly above the power curve and people rarely even notice much less complain.

This actually folds back into my point somewhat nicely. The CR system rests on relatively solid bedrock, even if some individual monsters live in lala land. After all how we would be able to say that shit like Giant Crabs are above the curve if there was no curve in the fist place? The problem people have is they tend not to see the curve because they're comparing PCs to PCs instead of PCs to monsters.

 

[Cosar]

Yes the giant crabs are problematic. That's because the are CR 3 and PCs of that level do not have the tools to avoid getting crushed by their are terrible claws. But the higher CR brackets are full of nasty monsters with melee attacks similarly above the power curve and people rarely even notice much less complain.

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What? Have you blocked out the past page of discussion? People complaining about that sort of thing is what this discussion is all about!

Also, you aren't really making a coherent argument over the course of your posts. Or, at least, not a consistent one.

 

[The Imperator]

Also, puzzle monsters in a game where a good third of the classes have no real way to interact with puzzles is again another example of bad design. If you want puzzle challenges, you need to give your various player characters ways to contribute to solving puzzles.

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Ah, DnD story time.


>Playing in the Elemental Evil Adventure League stuff
>Me and two friends, and random person all play
>Teifling Warlock pregen (me), Goliath Barbarian (friend), Fire Gensai Wizard (friend), Half Orc Monk (random guy)
>Have to find a missing person
>Clues lead us to bridge where person might have tried to commit suicide
>Shady guy at bridge knows something, won't talk
>I use telepathy on him, he laughs, and gets ready to fight us
>DM tells us not to screw with him, high level NPC that is here for us to reason with using actual logic and stuff
>We easpirate the DM because we don't know what to say, finally figure out the only way to get down to the river under the bridge is to just jump and pray to the Storm deity
>We do it
>Stuck in a room with a logic puzzle. Each time we guess wrong, water level rises
>20 IRL minutes later (game is supposed to be 60 minutes or shorter) the DM finally throws up her arms and explains to us the puzzle.
>You have to hold each symbol up to a mirror to see what they look like as a mirror image and draw that on the wall
>>throw up hands in exaspiration and disgust at such a tactic, when none of us had mirrors or thought that was even something we could have done
>Easily defeat monsters in adventure, puzzle almost TPK'd us.

 

[earthboy]

>You have to hold each symbol up to a mirror to see what they look like as a mirror image and draw that on the wall
>>throw up hands in exaspiration and disgust at such a tactic, when none of us had mirrors or thought that was even something we could have done

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Sounds like a case of an adventure writer using a couple of puzzles which -- probably due to knowing the players personalities and the players having more plot context -- made some kind of sense in that home game, but made no sense whatsoever when divorced from that particular game.

 

[cmwatford]

Sounds about right. Only good module we've played so far was lmop. Tried hotdq but was full of plot holes and absurd encounters.

 

[The Imperator]

Sounds about right. Only good module we've played so far was lmop. Tried hotdq but was full of plot holes and absurd encounters.

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I heard Princes of the Apocalypse (the complete adventure book) and Out of the Abyss are both good, but as I'm writing my own campaign atm, I'd only want the books for their NPC list, which is not a good buy. So I haven't perused them yet.

 

[Stavaros_Arcane]

>Stuck in a room with a logic puzzle. Each time we guess wrong, water level rises
>20 IRL minutes later (game is supposed to be 60 minutes or shorter) the DM finally throws up her arms and explains to us the puzzle.
>You have to hold each symbol up to a mirror to see what they look like as a mirror image and draw that on the wall
>>throw up hands in exaspiration and disgust at such a tactic, when none of us had mirrors or thought that was even something we could have done
>Easily defeat monsters in adventure, puzzle almost TPK'd us.

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Was there a mirror in the puzzle room? usually when you have a logic puzzle you should be presented with everything that you need to solve it.

Sounds like a case of an adventure writer using a couple of puzzles which -- probably due to knowing the players personalities and the players having more plot context -- made some kind of sense in that home game, but made no sense whatsoever when divorced from that particular game.

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Agreed. Something every DM needs to remember when using modules or premade adventures is that sometimes you need to tweak things to match your players style.

Although in a short game like the one in question that's not easy to do.

 

[The Imperator]

Was there a mirror in the puzzle room? usually when you have a logic puzzle you should be presented with everything that you need to solve it.

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No. But there were three (or four, can't recall) that were drawn already mirrored. So it was possible to figure out, it just so happened that there were literally 4 other logical patterns that we discovered in the puzzle that we never even contemplated mirror images.

 

[Mistborn]

What? Have you blocked out the past page of discussion? People complaining about that sort of thing is what this discussion is all about!

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I thought this discussion was about SoD effects? Anyway sure people are complaining in this thread, but the MM is full of closet trolls and none of them have nearly the reputation that the Giant Crab does among the general playerbase. Like this is why you're supposed to own a bow or something, monsters that are just better than you at melee are sort of a fact of life in 3e.

 

[AuraTwilight]

For the record, I just read Out of the Abyss last night and it's the best 5E adventure, and probably one of the best official adventures I've ever seen, holy crap.

That shit about it being Alice in Wonderland-y is full on bullshit though.

 

[Cosar]

I thought this discussion was about SoD effects? Anyway sure people are complaining in this thread, but the MM is full of closet trolls and none of them have nearly the reputation that the Giant Crab does among the general playerbase. Like this is why you're supposed to own a bow or something, monsters that are just better than you at melee are sort of a fact of life in 3e.

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A) Note where I said "the last page". I'm limiting it to the recent part of the discussion that was, you know, all about people taking issue/complaining about the subject.
B) Something having a huge reputation has fuck all to do with how bad other things are. People bring up the crab because basically everyone knows about the crab, it's an easy example to explain to those who don't, and it came late in 3.5, showing that things hadn't changed. Not because it's the only example or that other things aren't bad. Hell, perhaps you should look up the definition for example.
C) Bows for non-bow focused characters is about as effective as pissing on an Abrams tank, at least at mid to high levels. Having multiple enchanted weapons is expensive, good bows are expensive, you need dexterity to hit, and so on. You can build good archers, but unless you have persistent flight ranged combat isn't all that viable for non-archery focused characters past the early levels.

 

[shepsquared]

For the record, I just read Out of the Abyss last night and it's the best 5E adventure, and probably one of the best official adventures I've ever seen, holy crap.

That shit about it being Alice in Wonderland-y is full on bullshit though.

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I haven't read all of it yet, but the climax looks incredible. Let your players be the demon princes as they fight each other, then they fight Demogorgon with the Wand of Orcus auto attuning to one of them.
That's incredible, + stats for the demon princes.

 

[AuraTwilight]

Yea, that right there sold the entire fucking book.

Well, that and the other prisoner NPCs you can form relationships with. They're all incredibly engaging and interesting.

 

[Tekomandor]

So I've been making a character for a campaign which uses the 3rd party 3.5 Rulership/War supplement Fields of Blood. It's got a lot of good ideas, but it's got some serious mechanical flaws (mainly in the way damage works, which makes die size matter far more important than it should be) and it's outright refusal to provide rules for things like all caster units is incredibly annoying. It claims to be setting agnostic, then tells you that the setting doesn't work that way?

I just can't understand how things like 1d12 being way better than 2d6 made it out of playtesting.

 

[AuraTwilight]

....I uh.

I have a second copy of Out of the Abyss on accident. Whoops.

If someone wants it, note me, I'll try to mail it to you. No money, just live in the states for shipping ease and be my friend on skype or something.