D&D General v3 - Games - Facepunch Forum

[QUOTE=Aperture fan;43775495]Why am I not surprised that it was you who caused that[/QUOTE] Because he's an inventive wizard? Besides, Grease is the best spell at low level, matched only situationally by Sleep.

Fire-based tactics are cheap, but oh so effective.

[QUOTE=Chronische;43775650]Because he's an inventive wizard? Besides, Grease is the best spell at low level, matched only situationally by Sleep.[/QUOTE] Color Spray. Low leveled enemies go down for the count and high level enemies effectively lose a turn.

Considering we very rarely actually talk about D&D... shouldn't we make a new thread called "Tabletop RPG General"? You know, for clarity's sake.

[QUOTE=Zeroarmorclo;43776433]Color Spray. Low leveled enemies go down for the count and high level enemies effectively lose a turn.[/QUOTE] They both have ups and downs. Sleep is more effective, as long as it's not elves, at dealing with large groups of low level enemies and you don't have to be in spitting range to use it. Best spell combo is grease and burning hands, though, I'm sure we can all agree.

[QUOTE=Funktastic Dog;43776818]Considering we very rarely actually talk about D&D... shouldn't we make a new thread called "Tabletop RPG General"? You know, for clarity's sake.[/QUOTE] This thread would probably die then, since it's only ever online tabletop, or other tabletop games being mentioned for however many pages.

[QUOTE=lintz;43775645]actually, it was me, he just accelerated the process significantly and the entire party agreed that it would be a great idea.[/QUOTE] Considering I was on that boat at the time I did have some reservations. Overall though it was worth it.

[QUOTE=AHappyElite;43776925]This thread would probably die then, since it's only ever online tabletop, or other tabletop games being mentioned for however many pages.[/QUOTE] Exactly. This thread should die. All aboard a new thread I say.

[QUOTE=Funktastic Dog;43777302]Exactly. This thread should die. All aboard a new thread I say.[/QUOTE] there's no reason. it would actually be worse, because more people that want to get into these games know what dnd is, but not necessarily what a tabletop game is. if i didn't know better, i would think that it was a thread for board games or something.

[QUOTE=lintz;43775645]actually, it was me, he just accelerated the process significantly and the entire party agreed that it would be a great idea.[/QUOTE] Not to mention two of your party members were still on board, while Elowin's beetles ate the ships captain. Also, that section of the boat had 150hp so you all lucked out. (but holy shit was that funny)

[QUOTE=Shortyish;43777377]there's no reason. it would actually be worse, because more people that want to get into these games know what dnd is, but not necessarily what a tabletop game is. if i didn't know better, i would think that it was a thread for board games or something.[/QUOTE] Pen & Paper RPG General? Tabletop RPG General?

Roleplay General?

or we leave it at DnD General because DnD is literally synonymous with tabletop in general i mean id understand changing the name if there was a reason to, but throwing out dumb ideas for funsies isnt really doing much.

[QUOTE=No Party Hats;43778470]or we leave it at DnD General because DnD is literally synonymous with tabletop in general i mean id understand changing the name if there was a reason to, but throwing out dumb ideas for funsies isnt really doing much.[/QUOTE] The computer nerd general chat thread is still just called CIPWTTKT (Computer Illiterate People Who Think They Know Things), since it started as a thread for bitching about that. That hasn't been the focus in over a dozen iterations of the thread. If it works there, I see no reason why it can't work here. Maybe rename it to "D&D & other tabletop rpgs v3.5", but that's not worth starting a new thread for.

honestly d&d is a more informative term to most people that 'pen&paper' or 'tabletop rpg' like I know multiple people who wouldn't know what the hell I was talking about if I said either of the last two, but if I just tell them I'm playing d&d they instantly understand

[QUOTE=DiscoInferno;43778455]Roleplay General?[/QUOTE] Sounds more like something you'd put in General Discussion :quagmire:

[QUOTE=No Party Hats;43778470]or we leave it at DnD General because DnD is literally synonymous with tabletop in general i mean id understand changing the name if there was a reason to, but throwing out dumb ideas for funsies isnt really doing much.[/QUOTE] It was just a thought, mostly because I wanted to do to do a better OP, considering that one doesn't even mention online tabletops and other stuff that we frequently talk about, and it's just not a good starting place for people looking to get into Tabletop RPGs. Also, hate to bring it up again, but a good chunk of the things I post you reply to and criticize me. If you have a good reason, then do so, but it's mostly dumb stuff.

[QUOTE=Funktastic Dog;43778858]It was just a thought, mostly because I wanted to do to do a better OP, considering that one doesn't even mention online tabletops and other stuff that we frequently talk about, and it's just not a good starting place for people looking to get into Tabletop RPGs. Also, hate to bring it up again, but a good chunk of the things I post you reply to and criticize me. If you have a good reason, then do so, but it's mostly dumb stuff.[/QUOTE] it was a bad idea i said it's a bad idea nothing personal, but if someone says something silly im gonna tell them that it's silly.

[QUOTE=No Party Hats;43778891] [url]http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1250739&p=43717133&viewfull=1#post43717133[/url] [url]http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1250739&p=43715451&viewfull=1#post43715451[/url] [url]http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1250739&p=43586227&viewfull=1#post43586227[/url] [/QUOTE] That's within two weeks. Back onto the tabletops. How do you guys feel about like, miniatures and grids and stuff? In my game I got rid of grids, because it's just too much work and gets away from the roleplay I think, but if I was playing Pathfinder, I probably would have grids.

[QUOTE=Funktastic Dog;43779077]That's within two weeks. Back onto the tabletops. How do you guys feel about like, miniatures and grids and stuff? In my game I got rid of grids, because it's just too much work and gets away from the roleplay I think, but if I was playing Pathfinder, I probably would have grids.[/QUOTE] I tend to use Tokens since I only have like 5 minis, but I always use a grid because my set up consists of a vinyl grid playmat with a sheet of plexiglass over it to draw on with dry erase marker (I had heard the vinyl mats stain overtime so I figured I'd just make it so it couldnt get bad like that). It makes it easier to build the maps and stuff that way. However when I have played online I have ditched the grid, since you get more room to roleplay if you're typing. Or with voice chat. I figure since the physical aspect of moving pieces is gone you kinda don't need the set up with it.

[QUOTE=Funktastic Dog;43779077]That's within two weeks. Back onto the tabletops. How do you guys feel about like, miniatures and grids and stuff? In my game I got rid of grids, because it's just too much work and gets away from the roleplay I think, but if I was playing Pathfinder, I probably would have grids.[/QUOTE] We just use diagrams made up of basic shapes and colors to represent things, so everybody understands relative positions, etc. But other than that everything is just narrative. For example, last night in the highway semi hijacking, we just had a rectangle for the truck, and smaller rectangles for my car, and the truck's escort. Of course I drew wicked sweet flames on the back of my rectangle, because I had the NOS goin'. Also, let's just say that our plan to hijack the truck involved an EMP grenade, and a harpoon gun.

I'm starting to think the RPG I've been writing has some serious gameplay/setting dissonance. The gameplay system is an odd thing I'm calling "No20", because you should literally never use a 20-sided die, ever. Sort of a stupid rebellion against D&D/PF and how it always uses a d20, and against the 40K RPGs always using d100. My other dice were feeling neglected. Anyways, basic synopsis of the gameplay is that checks are made with one or more dice of other types, depending on how many "dots" you have in that attribute. With no skills in it (eg. orc warrior making a personality check), you'd roll 1d3. With one dot (eg. faerie warrior making a strength check) you'd roll 1d4; two dots (merfolk enchanter making an insight check) uses 1d6. This goes on in theory up to 6d12, but I can't find a way with the current rules to get that high (an elven mage with a maxed-out runemaster subclass would only be rolling 2d10 on a wisdom check). Naturally, the difficulty for most actions is a lot lower than in a d20 system. Where a d20 game might use DC12, No20 would be DC4 (both give even odds of success for barely-trained characters). And the highest difficulty I've specced is DC11, which is supposed to be "ordinarily impossible" (breaking anchor chains with your face, walking on water, and knowing a forgotten secret are some of my examples for DC11 strength, dexterity and wisdom, respectively). After doing way too much math (brute-forcing some of it because I can't remember how permutation math works), I realized the implications of all this. First, if you're not skilled enough, you don't have even a sliver of a chance of success at high difficulty. Further, even at high levels, you still have a chance of failure. That maxed-out elven mage/runemaster would have a 33% chance of failing a DC11 wisdom check, which would be his absolute best ability. This [I]would[/I] place a lot of emphasis on flat modifiers (a +1 would be a huge deal), but most modifiers are very circumstantial, or rely on expending your limited supply of "energy". So you can't do much there, either. All that leads to groups needing a variety of specialized players. Get one player high in each stat, maybe two stats. A jack-of-all-trades character would be near-useless, as would some of the more exotic subjobs (gladiators, healers, blademancers, guardians). Combined with the health system with very low HP (first-level characters are in the 1-9 range, going up by 1 every few levels), it will probably involve a lot of failure. Wizards are extra-squishy, traps are easy to miss, and even simple personality checks are easy to fail. For a "realistic" RPG, these might all be good things. But since the intent of the game is essentially "Oglaf: The RPG", there's some *major* dissonance going on. I really need the exact opposite - having a slim chance of succeeding at something ridiculous even if you really shouldn't even be able to try. That, and it really screws up the combat system. I'm not even going to speak of it in detail right now, it's so broken. But that's mostly because I recycled much of the armor/weapon stuff from an earlier concept. I still like some aspects of No20, though. It would probably work well for the seduction checks - even being some sort of legendary hottie, you could still fumble a dice roll and completely fail. And of course I've put months of work into this system, so I don't want to discard it completely. But I'm thinking it would be a very good idea to discard it in favor of something less ruthlessly fail-happy.

If I wanted to get into D&D, where would I go? I'm familiar with the basic concepts on how the game works, and I could make a character sheet. Maybe I could be adopted into one of this threads online roll20 groups?

We've still got a spot or two (I think) in the games I mentioned a couple of pages back: [url]http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1250739&p=43689063&viewfull=1#post43689063[/url] PM me some info on yourself and I can pass it along.

[QUOTE=Twistshock;43762841][B]THROW A DAGGER TO SMASH THE ORB ABOVE MY UNCONSCIOUS CHARACTER,[/B] there's a slight moment of silence with me audible going "WHAT THE FUCK?!" OOC, and then I see my DM putting both hands back and recoiling, guess what's inside? [B]A grey ooze that falls straight onto my unconscious character[/B][/QUOTE] It was quite glorious. It's like he means no harm to anyone IC, and now he ends up with no soul and now you've been pretty much burned alive. I think I feel safer with our crazy jester than our rogue haha.

A couple of friends and I started playing D&D casually on the weekends. We've never played before, and decided it would be better to wing it than look for a rulebook we would all agree on. We decided what we wanted to be, but had to roll for stats (which I thought was silly). I wanted to be a Fist Mage named Gunthar, who I originally wanted to be ugly and dumb as bricks. I managed to roll a 20 in Int, and a 17 in Charisma which made me the smartest and most beautiful person in our group. Unfortunately, while our rogue rolled a 20 in Vit, I managed to get a 2. In our first encounter, since I had the highest skill in Perception, I was able to see the enemies and attack first. My friend jokingly yelled "Cast flare!" which is an ongoing joke in our group in that we all think flare is the most useless spell in any game. Anyway, I roll to cast and fail, leaving me stunned and I get counter hit which makes me lose almost all my health. The same friend who told me to cast flare was a lumberjack and decided he wanted to cut down an entire tree to kill some goblins. I thought it would manage to crush me to death, but I thought it would be a funny way to go out. He cut down the tree, which killed the goblin attacking me but also landed on his foot. Later on, our rogue got in a bar fight that we all helped him to get out of. The rogue headbutted an enemy, screwing up and breaking his own nose. Our Warrior tried to suplex an enemy and failed, hurting his back. Our Llumberjack smashed two of the guys' heads together, knocking them unconscious. I ran in an decked a guy so hard in face that he flew and got knocked out instantly. The rogue ended the encounter by doing a backflip and crushing an enemy's head in between in thighs "like baby sparrow's egg". I also tried to punch a bear and missed because why not, and almost got eaten.

How did you roll 20 for INT? You should have been rolling 4d6 for stats, minus the lowest dice.

Do any people here play World of Darkness games perchance? Are there any thoughts on the God Machine Chronicle that was released a while back and the new Demon splat?

[QUOTE=lintz;43783443]How did you roll 20 for INT? You should have been rolling 4d6 for stats, minus the lowest dice.[/QUOTE] We rolled a single d20, and had a base stat of 5 and since I was a human our DM gave me another 5. In total I started with 30, but I didn't want to explain it because I didn't think it would've made much sense.

You don't need to buy a book to grasp the 100% basics y'know Flinging around random bonuses and generally ad libbing the character building process is probably the worst thing you could do, since imbalances there will carry through to almost everything else throughout the campaign