[QUOTE=Glent;49950331]That's fine but it's not the typical paladin. By the way he phrased his question, it's safe to assume he's the more common variant of paladin that has appeared throughout editions of D&D as the "default" for the class.
To be clear: If you're playing a prototypical paladin, your character shouldn't be okay with theft, and theft isn't the only (or worst) thing that a crime-oriented party will do.[/QUOTE]
Definitely nothing stopping you from creating a rigid by-the-numbers Paladin who loves his God and whose moral standards are strictly defined by the letter of the law. There's also nothing saying that's how you have to play your Paladin, though. Paladins gain their power through strength of sheer conviction in something. That something can be just about anything you want it to be and you can still have an interesting and relevant character who helps keep the game moving. Beauty, creation, love, mercy, justice, honor, joy, blah blah blah. Any ideal, virtue, or philosophy that one could devote their life to is one that could be the basis for a Paladin. In roleplay terms, the devotion should have a clear counterpart to keep your character interesting and stir up the possibility for conflict.
For example:
Beauty - Ugliness
Creation - Destruction
Love - Hate
Mercy - Vengeance
Justice - Injustice
Honor - Dishonor
Joy - Misery
If all Paladins were prototypical, they would become an incredibly boring class to have in the party. Mix it up a bit. Get creative with the character classes and character creation.
Your rogue assassin doesn't have to be a sneak-thief type of character. Perhaps he is actually a brilliant surgeon, and simply gets the "sneak attack" bonus from knowing just where to strike to inflict maximum trauma?
Your barbarian doesn't have to be a tribal warrior. Perhaps his parents made a deal with a fiend or fey creature for great fortune, but had to pay with a family curse that causes their descendants to become prone to mindless rage and bloodlust? You are or were simply tying to live a normal life, but could barely restrain yourself from violence.
The fun in character creation is making somebody interesting and unique. I'm a bit bummed when my players make by-the-numbers characters. The characters are ultimately less interesting, and the players don't seem to be as invested in them.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;49950527]If all Paladins were prototypical, they would become an incredibly boring class to have in the party. Mix it up a bit. Get creative with the character classes and character creation.[/QUOTE]
The majority of paladins ARE prototypical, by necessity (through their place in the world) or otherwise. Unlike other classes, paladins tend to be strictly defined in the setting as well as in the rules. A rogue can be pretty much anything - tinkerer, pickpocket, explorer, scientist - but paladins have defined roles tied to the setting (orders of paladins, who tend to get their powers from divinity, only aslong as they follow strict tenets set forth by their patrons - that's what's most common, anyway). As a GM, you can cut paladins some slack and say they can be devoted to whatever they want... but in some ways, that also takes away from the class, too.
I guess it just depends on how you choose to run your game. I prefer to let my players build the characters [I]they[/I] want rather than the ones I want. Obviously there are some aspects I have to step in and make a ruling on every now and then, but if I had a player who wanted to be a Paladin that wasn't part of an established order, or who got his powers through strength of conviction rather than a patron god, I would definitely allow that. I don't think it's a necessity at all. It all works out the same mechanically, so it's really only a matter of roleplaying and story flavor.
your paladin oath shouldn't make you care about people breaking the law or doing immoral things
being a good person is enough for that
you can be dedicated to the concept of nice soup for all I care but unless you have a chaotic or evil bent you're probably gonna care at least a little when the party rogue is robbing old people for their pensions
I made the big bad of my group's Chapter 1 adventure a classic big bad black knight. Bit of a plot twist at the end that he turns out to be a pitious knight that's only doing the things he's doing to prevent a bigger evil from unfolding later on. Wonder what the players will do - he'll be a potential companion for Chapter 2.
Side 'big bad' character who showed up once to mess with the group is a crazy Lich who 'forced' them to get a book for him. They've super convinced it's an powerful book that he'll destroy villages with when really it's just a rare book of rhymes to entertain him so they burned it. Lich will be devastated.
[QUOTE=Rats808;49948469]Stuff like that is why I dislike pointbuy; you have to be terrible at one thing to be great at another, and that's usually unfitting of the character concept you had in some way.
The latter thing depends on your definition of 'weak', and the system, really, because a lot of systems have different definitions of what a willpower score represents.[/QUOTE]
It's funny because this is the exact opposite argument of what most people complain about regarding point buy, which is that everyone is boring because nobody picks any real weaknesses.
[sp]both complaints are essentially false[/sp]
should calm emotions negate a barbarian rage effects if the barbarian doesn't pass the saving throw?
5e question btw. i think it works like that in pathfinder but 5e doesn't say anything about it so i might have to do a little homebrewing for this. maybe the barbarian should have advantage on the saving throw, since it's practically a charm effect?
[QUOTE=MenteR;49952254]should calm emotions negate a barbarian rage effects if the barbarian doesn't pass the saving throw?
5e question btw. i think it works like that in pathfinder but 5e doesn't say anything about it so i might have to do a little homebrewing for this. maybe the barbarian should have advantage on the saving throw, since it's practically a charm effect?[/QUOTE]
its hard to be angry if you arent angry
[QUOTE=MenteR;49952254]should calm emotions negate a barbarian rage effects if the barbarian doesn't pass the saving throw?
5e question btw. i think it works like that in pathfinder but 5e doesn't say anything about it so i might have to do a little homebrewing for this. maybe the barbarian should have advantage on the saving throw, since it's practically a charm effect?[/QUOTE]
Up to GM, but I'd say yeah. If the barbarian has advantage vs charms while raged, sure.
[QUOTE=elowin;49952346]its hard to be angry if you arent angry[/QUOTE]
rage is more than just a guy really pissed off. if you're into eagles and other birds of prey, your blood boils of superhuman ferocity and your butthole clenches so hard that you literally fly.
[QUOTE=MenteR;49952711]rage is more than just a guy really pissed off. if you're into eagles and other birds of prey, your blood boils of superhuman ferocity and your butthole clenches so hard that you literally fly.[/QUOTE]
ýou fly out of sheer anger
sheer butt-clenching anger ferocity
Meanwhile in Earthdawn, I try to interrogate a troll witch into telling me the name of an amulet she had, but she keeps spitting in my face. So I slap her(literally) with a spell that's fluffed as channeling malevolent spirit energy through my hand. It kills her.
[I]I slapped someone so hard it killed her.[/I]
[QUOTE=elowin;49952733]ýou fly out of sheer anger
sheer butt-clenching anger ferocity[/QUOTE]
5 min oc
[img]http://i.imgur.com/Xl7x0ht.png[/img]
[QUOTE=MenteR;49952254]should calm emotions negate a barbarian rage effects if the barbarian doesn't pass the saving throw?
5e question btw. i think it works like that in pathfinder but 5e doesn't say anything about it so i might have to do a little homebrewing for this. maybe the barbarian should have advantage on the saving throw, since it's practically a charm effect?[/QUOTE]
In 3.5 (I think) it explicitly says it stops a barbarian's rage if it works, so there's a precedent for it working in 5e
[QUOTE=MenteR;49952254]should calm emotions negate a barbarian rage effects if the barbarian doesn't pass the saving throw?
5e question btw. i think it works like that in pathfinder but 5e doesn't say anything about it so i might have to do a little homebrewing for this. maybe the barbarian should have advantage on the saving throw, since it's practically a charm effect?[/QUOTE]
This use of calm emotions (to make a character indifferent to creatures of their choice instead of hostile) prevents them from being able to attack those characters (it doesn't actually say they can't, since the spell is worded in such a way that's generally intended to be used on NPCs instead of players, but that's my takeaway), and Barbarian Rage ends if you haven't attacked anyone or taken damage at the end of your turn.
It wouldn't end the Rage outright (meaning you couldn't cast Calm Emotions, then have someone immediately attack the barbarian to break the calm emotions and have the rage be gone), rather it would end it when the barbarian hasn't attacked anyone or taken any damage at the end of their turn.
If the barbarian has Persistent Rage, it wouldn't end unless they waited the full duration with Calm Emotions up.
[QUOTE=Rats808;49952858]Meanwhile in Earthdawn, I try to interrogate a troll witch into telling me the name of an amulet she had, but she keeps spitting in my face. So I slap her(literally) with a spell that's fluffed as channeling malevolent spirit energy through my hand. It kills her.
[I]I slapped someone so hard it killed her.[/I][/QUOTE]
Meanwhile in Earthdawn, the Nethermancer "accidentally" murders a harmless hostage during "interogation," and then skipped town without telling anybody.
[QUOTE=elowin;49953334]Meanwhile in Earthdawn, the Nethermancer "accidentally" murders a harmless hostage during "interogation," and then skipped town without telling anybody.[/QUOTE]
"Harmless"
She was tied up and in a bag, sure, but she was an insane elementalist. Far from harmless.
[editline]17th March 2016[/editline]
And then on the way home, we saw three wolves twitching by the side of the road. When we got close, they spasmed out and went flat on the ground, then flew at us like missiles.
There's a wizard out there with a grudge, I guess, and a really weird spell.
[sp]After they all missile'd at us, I went around and killed 2 of them(the ork killed the other one), then yanked some unbroken bones out of one of them. Nethermancers need bones for shit, yo.[/sp]
[QUOTE=Chronische;49944302]Let me see. LET ME SEE! I will judge your death trap quality, and overall dungeon deadliness. The best traps are ones where the players set them off by 'disarming' what they thought was the trap, the worst (most boring) traps are the generic pressure plate/tripwire trap.[/QUOTE]
So I'm working with this right now; I used a random dungeon generator to get the shape, then eliminated hallways until I got what I wanted. The numbers correspond to a list with written descriptions of the rooms, as well as more detailed layout. My campaign depends a lot on theater for the mind; still, I find myself needing map for this one. The players start in the center, at 1, and the exit is the hallway at the very top. They'll only be seeing fractions of the map, though, so as to keep that a mystery. Scattered throughout the dungeon are the corpses of old adventurers, many of whom tried to draw maps of the dungeon to help them find their way. It's not finished yet, but the player copies of the map will have semi-descriptive symbols on it and a key.
[URL="http://postimg.org/image/5oq385br7/"][IMG]http://s29.postimg.org/5oq385br7/Level_1.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
It's a heavily trap-and-puzzle focused dungeon, with only a few enemies. Many of them are bait and switch traps, like you said. One I'm particularly proud of is at a room that is at a lower elevation, wherein taking the obvious option of moving runestone A to statue B ends up flooding the room with magma.
You'll also notice that the file is titled "level 1" - that's because there are two of them after. The second level is a smaller, less maze-like dungeon where the players have to deactivate a prismatic wall by finding and snuffing out multi-coloured magical candles hidden across the dungeon. The third level is a hack-and-slash cave that precedes a fight with a particularly nasty Dragon.
The sections in between the levels are open stairways through caverns deep within this mountain (think the Mines of Moria - isolated staircases with chasms all around) where they can catch glimpses of their competition (A lich, a chronomancer, and dieselpunk fascists from the future) fighting their way through to the same goal. That will be where most of the exposition happens.
Yessss....
My friend, you need any trap help? I've got tons of traps that I never use because I know it would be a party wipe. They could barely handle White Plume Mountain!
Just wanted to throw out a big thanks to everyone who answered my questions regarding Paladins!
I'll be sure to smite some undeads for you guys tomorrow!
:joy:
[QUOTE=Sandvich9;49954527]Just wanted to throw out a big thanks to everyone who answered my questions regarding Paladins!
I'll be sure to smite some undeads for you guys tomorrow!
:joy:[/QUOTE]
dont forget to closely scrutinize your party's resident wizard/sorcerer/warlock for preforming miracles while remaining a godless heathen!
[editline]17th March 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=elowin;49953334]Meanwhile in Earthdawn, the Nethermancer "accidentally" murders a harmless hostage during "interogation," and then skipped town without telling anybody.[/QUOTE]
that was fast lol
[QUOTE=No Party Hats;49954726]dont forget to closely scrutinize your party's resident wizard/sorcerer/warlock for preforming miracles while remaining a godless heathen!
[editline]17th March 2016[/editline]
that was fast lol[/QUOTE]
Hey, at least I'm being safer than I used to be.
I made sure the rest of the group stood in a box around me when we approached the wolves, so I couldn't be ambushed from any angle, because I'm the squishiest member of the party.(Even lower Unconscious rating than the Windling/pixie, I'm pretty sure)
[QUOTE=AtomicWaffle;49953804]So I'm working with this right now; I used a random dungeon generator to get the shape, then eliminated hallways until I got what I wanted. The numbers correspond to a list with written descriptions of the rooms, as well as more detailed layout. My campaign depends a lot on theater for the mind; still, I find myself needing map for this one. The players start in the center, at 1, and the exit is the hallway at the very top. They'll only be seeing fractions of the map, though, so as to keep that a mystery. Scattered throughout the dungeon are the corpses of old adventurers, many of whom tried to draw maps of the dungeon to help them find their way. It's not finished yet, but the player copies of the map will have semi-descriptive symbols on it and a key.
...
[/QUOTE]
How do you do good puzzles in TTRPGs like this? I can scarcely think of anything past "push the right button or combination of buttons." Can you give some examples of your puzzles? I'd generally have more time to put actual effort into my games, buuut I'm running 5 of them at the moment, and it's only through the collaborative effort of several players in the different games that I haven't outright killed myself yet from overwork, though I'm definitely on the border.
[QUOTE=Aperture fan;49955607]How do you do good puzzles in TTRPGs like this? I can scarcely think of anything past "push the right button or combination of buttons." Can you give some examples of your puzzles? I'd generally have more time to put actual effort into my games, buuut I'm running 5 of them at the moment, and it's only through the collaborative effort of several players in the different games that I haven't outright killed myself yet from overwork, though I'm definitely on the border.[/QUOTE]
If your players arent retarded, try riddles.
[QUOTE=No Party Hats;49955715]If your players arent retarded, try riddles.[/QUOTE]
Basic riddles. With difficult riddles you might consider letting them make an intelligence check for their character to figure it out, if they can't. They'd get much less XP / rewards for that though.
Here's a freebie:
"Two words is my answer. In order to keep me, you have to give me. What am I?"
[sp]Your word[/sp]
You can also draw out a puzzle. Something like a simple Last Crusade style "Spell the thing in the right order or get punished" kind of deal is easy enough to set up. You're lazy if you use a shitty tower of hanoi (or any other thing that hsa been done millions of times, like the "one of us always lies") shit.
I don't really frequent this thread, how many of you guys play Only War and it's relatives?
Any criticisms about it?
Compared to DH and Rogue Trader I think that OW rewards minmaxing a bit too much, because it's incredibly easy to just rush a broken combo of talents and kick ass easy
I love the 40k systems but as player and GM I prefer the structured advancement style much more than the completely freeform one
[QUOTE=Joekirk;49955753]Basic riddles. With difficult riddles you might consider letting them make an intelligence check for their character to figure it out, if they can't. They'd get much less XP / rewards for that though.
Here's a freebie:
"Two words is my answer. In order to keep me, you have to give me. What am I?"
[sp]Your word[/sp][/QUOTE]
lol I said "a favor." That probably just goes to show what my alignment is.
Lately I've been thinking a lot about this arcane trickster gnome I made in the past. Every time I think of character ideas, I keep coming back to her. Maybe I'll get to play her one day.
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