The D&D thread

j00t said:

my first character that got to 20 was a human grave cleric. it was a 3 year campaign and the dm gave me flight at about lvl 14. it was a story beat that resulted in me being able pop fiery wings with 90' fly speed for 10 minutes per day.

it created exactly zero problems at my table.

i'm not saying it WONT create problems, just that the problems you guys are describing seem to be issues with the table, not the game. ie: stop playing with players who get off on trying to ruin the dm's life

Click to expand...

At level 14, flight is near the bottom of the list of things that make my DM life hard so it doesn't surprise me at all that it didn't cause any problems at your table.

Grabbit Allworth said:

At level 14, flight is near the bottom of the list of things that make my DM life hard so it doesn't surprise me at all that it didn't cause any problems at your table.

Click to expand...

i mean... you just said that flight is not an issue for one shots, but in long campaigns it's awful. well i had flight in a long campaign and it WASN'T awful.

but you're missing my actual point.

stop playing with people who disrespect the time you put in as a dm. if you need to create all these caveats to counter your players doing things that piss you off, stop playing with them.

j00t said:

well i had flight in a long campaign and it WASN'T awful.

Click to expand...

That you received at level 14. That's close to the end for most campaigns. Even if you played it out to the max level, having flight in tier III play is almost a given. It's something I would expect at that point.



And no, I'm not missing your point. I don't play with people that disrespect me. In fact, I actively remove shitty players from my table if I have to.

The point of MY post was to emphasize the fact that there are mechanics in D&D that make the game much harder to manage. Some are easily quantifiable (like flight) others not so much. When a DM knows those mechanics inherently create issues he has to solve, it's best to limit how quickly those mechanics are introduced in to the game. When it happens organically as players level, that's fine. However, maybe I wasn't clear, I was advocating against allowing low-level (or fresh, level 1) characters to have access to stuff like flight.

And I absolutely do not "counter" my players, ever. I'm not an oppositional DM. I suppose that's why I'm so careful about what type of environment I create for my players. Once I open a door for them, I'm not going to create artificial guard rails to box them in. Players know when you're doing that and even if they didn't, it's lame to do shit like:

"In this area of the cave, the ceiling is low and uneven, covered with sharp stalactites. Flight here would be dangerous, if not impossible," to simply to thwart them.

Regardless, at this point, we're talking past each other. Every table is different. Wildly different.

yeah that's fair, i suppose.

from a player's perspective, i absolutely expect the dm to counter me. not all the time, that's obnoxious. but if i'm playing something like an aarakocra with flight at lvl 1, i'm not expecting that to be an iwin button.

i guess here is my perspective. if, as a player, i'm doing something that is circumventing encounters in unfun ways, even if that's something completely mundane. something that isn't really considered cheap, but i'm using it in cheap ways, i absolutely expect the dm to hard counter me sooner rather than later. i almost feel like i'd feel cheated if the dm DIDN'T counter me.

but something like flight, where you have obvious advantages, i feel like if, as a player, i'm using that in creative ways that doesn't just immediately void an encounter (that i know the dm spent a lot of time on) then it should be allowed, and rewarded. but i ALSO expect that not every encounter is going to even allow flight, such as fighting in sewers or underground caverns or whatever. or honestly even situations where flight is a detriment, like against a blue dragon that PREFERS to be in the air, in which case i'm basically BEGGING the dragon to eat me.

i don't know... i don't like the idea of official sources being banned. the closest thing we do in that vein at our tables is when a new book comes out the dm usually doesn't allow it for a month or so, giving them time to look through it so they know what to expect.

that being said, i do understand tables are different and play different games.

Noticed a player cheating. He's an old fat man, possibly double our age. He hosts the games and cooks probono for the whole group, steaks, ribs, etc. So I'll let it slide? But damn it's lame

Conefed said:

Noticed a player cheating. He's an old fat man, possibly double our age. He hosts the games and cooks probono for the whole group, steaks, ribs, etc. So I'll let it slide? But damn it's lame

Click to expand...

Yeah that sucks. I used to cheat when I was a teenager; I think most of us did to get a one up on each other. Eventually we started playing with adults and found the joy at the table of failure. The rogue failing the stealth check and running naked down the street with his clothes after getting caught banging the BBEG's girl. The barbarian failing the intimidate check, so he started beating the shit out of some guy with a metal tankard in a tavern. Failing the saving throw and being a simp for a low level enchantress after she casts charm person.

Insecurity? Vulnerability? Ego? I've run into a few older gamers that cheat. It's...really sad.

as far as cheating goes, i think it comes from a fear of failure, or a possibly a fear of being useless. it absolutely sucks when it comes to your turn and you miss all your attacks.

one of the things that my table does is that generally, failures aren't humiliating. it's REALLY easy to go the route of nat 1's being some ridiculous pratfall but it can be hard sometimes to differentiate a laugh at the character's expense and a laugh at the player's expense.

i think i talked about this here a while ago, but the first session of one of our campaigns where we started out as a clan of traveling dwarven tradesmen. the very first roll of the game, the dm had us roll to see how well we set up our tent for the next day's expo. i rolled a nat 1. instead of having it be this joke that i don't know how to set up a tent, the dm explained it that since i was sort of the big brother of the clan, i decided to spend my time helping one of the other players (who also rolled pretty low). the roll wasn't necessarily how WELL we set up our stuff, it was more about how quickly we set it up. i stayed late to finish my tent while the other 3 players went out and met the locals.

when i rolled the 1 i was like, bruh... but he turned it into a character moment that i was actually happy with. instead of being a source of contention and embarrassment, it was something i was proud of.

that's a hard thing to do but i think it definitely helps set the tone that "failing" is okay and makes for good story moments.

Yeah lots of the most dynamic storytelling comes from the failures. I think the universe is radically opposed to stealth checks when the character is naked. (When doing Dragon Heist with my current group as a player my rogue was naked and invisible in an aquarium when he rolled a crit fail on a stealth check and that led to one of the most hilarious action sequences ever)

Genjiro said:

Appreciate your view.

As I said above, my friends are 100% min maxers who in WOW/EQ etc nerd out to maximize their rotations etc.

Click to expand...

This sounds like a group that should try 4E. People shat on it so much when it came out, but it is perfect for people who want to play MMO style in real life, youre powerful, the monsters are powerful, combat is more engaging.

Grabbit Allworth said:

That you received at level 14. That's close to the end for most campaigns.

Click to expand...

I think most of the data WotC has ever collected on campaigns shows that very few games end with characters never reaching beyond like level 12, and most only make it to around 10. That's why there is so much more development targeted at those levels, both in game design and premade modules. This goes back to 3e and 4e as well. It is way easier to find a 1-5 or 5-10 premade than it is to find 11-15 or 15+.

Angerz said:

This sounds like a group that should try 4E. People shat on it so much when it came out, but it is perfect for people who want to play MMO style in real life, youre powerful, the monsters are powerful, combat is more engaging.

Click to expand...

It's an unpopular opinion, but I agree that 4E did some things right. The problem was that they abandoned too many core tabletop RPG principles in their attempt to make combat more engaging. There is no reason you can't build a system that takes some elements from 4E combat but keeps the important RPG stuff too.

Angerz said:

This sounds like a group that should try 4E. People shat on it so much when it came out, but it is perfect for people who want to play MMO style in real life, youre powerful, the monsters are powerful, combat is more engaging.



I think most of the data WotC has ever collected on campaigns shows that very few games end with characters never reaching beyond like level 12, and most only make it to around 10. That's why there is so much more development targeted at those levels, both in game design and premade modules. This goes back to 3e and 4e as well. It is way easier to find a 1-5 or 5-10 premade than it is to find 11-15 or 15+.

Click to expand...

Yeah that's true. They've released data on that. It's exceedingly rare for players to get past lvl 10.

My dm has talked about not really liking games past 10 because the things get out of control really quickly because stuff at that level just isn't tested enough to be balanced.

I wonder if wotc devs are trying to adjust for that and that's why you get source books that are releasing races and classes that are significantly more powerful than the ones that are in the phb.

I mean take descent into Avernus for example... You're going into the hells as like a lvl 2 character...

Conefed said:

Noticed a player cheating. He's an old fat man, possibly double our age. He hosts the games and cooks probono for the whole group, steaks, ribs, etc. So I'll let it slide? But damn it's lame

Click to expand...

I would tell him in passing, say something like hey I noticed you cheating, do what you want but now you know I know. Him knowing he is caught may take the fun out of it, that or make his DCs all but impossible or awww you just missed it by 1 no matter what he rolls.

I never understood that whole ascent into avernus at low lvls. Like my group accidentally made it to the brass city in the plane of fire in their mid teens. They all chose to avoid stuff and hide while escaping. Which they did. And I was sitting there like ugh I have 3 fire giant and a bunch of salamander minis I'm hiding here. Come on!

Fuck me, I was just about to buy a copy of Dungeon World to flip through because it's gotten such great reviews and I've seen several D&D YouTube channels praise it. As I was checking out, I noticed the author -- Adam Koebel. Jesus Christ, I couldn't get that shit out of my cart fast enough.

I cannot watch anything that faggot is in without physically sneering and it has absolutely nothing to do with his 'sexual harassment issue.'

bigmark268 said:

I never understood that whole ascent into avernus at low lvls. Like my group accidentally made it to the brass city in the plane of fire in their mid teens. They all chose to avoid stuff and hide while escaping. Which they did. And I was sitting there like ugh I have 3 fire giant and a bunch of salamander minis I'm hiding here. Come on!

Click to expand...

I don't run published adventures, but I do enjoy collecting them and I read through some of them to spark my own imagination and steal an idea here and there.

That said, Descent requires A LOT of DM intervention to work. Not only is the whole premise questionable, the players get super railroaded in the early stages.

Rime is very similar insofar that it requires a shitload of work from the DM to create a cohesive narrative. If I were a DM that ran published modules, I'd be incredibly pissed off how much you're left in the lurch with Rime. Especially as a new DM, because many, many of the choices the players can make will get them killed if the DM is inexperienced.

I could never do those pre-written adventures with my group. They would spend 6hrs on 1 pave of it and get 0 accomplished.

They actually all wanted to do some tomb of horrors stuff. (The 4e one) So I was like ok cool. So I incorporated it into two sessions. I went through maybe 4 pages od material. Bit I used maybe 10% of each page lol.

Learning that DnD is more than roleplaying a character v stimuli . I'm finding myself forcing my character to care to be there, to stay with group, focused.
The hook that was set up for us makes no sense - for example, we are commissioned to retrieve thing / unrelated thing happens, but why bother? especially in a shitty muddy town - no get on with it and return retrieved thing. (but as a being outside the game I realize that's what's wanted of us)

There have been 3 sessions so far and the party has split at least 3 times. 3 female players and 3 male. two of the other males get distracted easy. Two of the females act like rivals and get jealous if either gets too much attention and both of them hate the third female who is.. honestly trying. In RL she's a stereotypical loud black Christian who dgaf - keepin it real. but every game so far she has improved in some way. Yeah she has inherent flaws of character, but I believe quality rp can develop social skills in RL in addition to in game improvement. spoiler: my female is one of the two and she wants to hear nothing resembling support of the third.

Current strategy - follow gf lead, give her hooks to interact with and ensure she has the best time, figuratively fuck all the rest and literally fu.. well yeah

Anyone play Jade Regent? We are about to finish module 1 (Brinewall) and the forced relationship and caravan battle reminds me of Skulls and Shackles. I fucking hate it. Does it get any better for those who've played it? =P

Kuriin said:

Anyone play Jade Regent? We are about to finish module 1 (Brinewall) and the forced relationship and caravan battle reminds me of Skulls and Shackles. I fucking hate it. Does it get any better for those who've played it? =P

Click to expand...

I've never played PF, but I have the PDF for every adventure Paizo has published.

So, after I saw your post, I went and briefly scanned Part I of Jade Empire and it looks like a fairly straightforward, generic published campaign-opener with a Far Eastern theme. In my short read through, it looks like any combat your caravan encountered was a consequence of your DM rolling on a random encounter table included in the module appendix. Of course that's assuming he's running it exactly (or close to) the way it's written.

In part I, there's 3 or 4 characters that are, seemingly, very important to the narrative and the caravan is a major component in moving the adventure forward, but the module does state that had you chosen not to join the caravan, it would have just left without the group.

Do you just not like the theme or do you feel like you have no agency and that your choices don't matter? Obviously, pre-written adventures have a narrative that needs to be followed (at least loosely), but if your DM has pre-determined how you're going to interact with the world, you're not playing D&D. What the DM 'should' be doing is saying -- "This is what's happening -- how would you like to proceed? Trying to field all the curve balls players will, inevitably, throw at you is the best and worst part of the game for DMs.

P.S. The included maps are well done.

bigmark268 said:

I never understood that whole ascent into avernus at low lvls. Like my group accidentally made it to the brass city in the plane of fire in their mid teens. They all chose to avoid stuff and hide while escaping. Which they did. And I was sitting there like ugh I have 3 fire giant and a bunch of salamander minis I'm hiding here. Come on!

Click to expand...

Low level adventures into the lower planes were something that always irked me. All manner of fiends love being summoned to the Prime and messing with mortals. How do you think they'll react when some weak mortals are walking around on their home turf?

Low level adventures in many outer planes have to suspend a bit of disbelief; you run into the weakest possible encounters (manes, dretches, etc.) And never really encounter all the horror and nightmares those places are known for (because if you did your under level 6 character would be paste).