[QUOTE=Sobotnik;49070785]I found a chest in a room, I kicked it causing some potions to explode, setting the entire party on fire.
Also I found a potion I didn't know what it did, so I forcefed it to the halfling in the party to find out what it did (it made him scream out in pain).[/QUOTE]
wouldnt be surprised if it was a cause wounds potion
Because my party is so good at strafing from any of the DM's anticipated ideas, we've become rich beyond our wildest imaginings by consequence.
I feel like a noble again.
time for a
SHOPPING BINGE
How did you introduce your players to your world? I've got the beginnings of a multipart questline planned, but the part I had the most trouble with was just coming up with a way to take five relative strangers and say, "you're all on the same team in the same place despite having never met each other before and having different character races and backgrounds and such."
I think I came up with a decent enough intro. One by one, I'm going to give each character a brief introduction based on race and background, ending with them stepping into a teleportation circle and having it whisk them away. Like, for a human fighter with the soldier backround, I'd say something like:
[i]Your superior officer has ordered you to see the quartermaster to inquire about your units' delayed supplies. On your way, you're pulled aside by the encampment's chief wizard who tells you he needs your help. You inform him of your orders, but he does technically outrank your unit commander, and so he pulls you along anyway. You step into his large, brightly decorated tent and he immediately hands you a small crate and begins dropping various books and scrolls into it. As it fills up, he tells you to set it down and grab another from the corner.
You look around, spot the pile of crates, and take a few steps toward it, when the wizard suddenly whirls around and yells, "Wait! Watch your step!" But it's too late. You look down just in time to realize you have walked into the center of a chalked circle on the ground. Before you even have time to ask what it is, you are surrounded by a swirling light, and the world around you disappears.[/I]
I'll give a similar intro for each character. This seemed like a nice way to introduce the basics of who their character is in an immersive sort of way, and a decent enough vehicle for having them all meet. Once I've finished with all five players, I'll just say:
[I]You are all now standing in a small room, surrounded by four strangers, and staring at the faces of three VERY surprised looking Goblins.[/I]
It'll basically be doing the dungeon backwards. They'll start at the innermost chamber, fight their way past some goblins, save some people who are about to be cooked into a stew, and wander out into the sunlight to see a group of frightened looking peasants who were about to charge in and try to do the same. Just down the hill is a small village.
That'll give me the opportunity for them to go on a few local quests to solve some immediate perils (the village is under siege from goblins who have fled the forest. First you must kill the goblins, then you must find what caused them to flee the forest), which will help introduce the setting and the major NPCs. Once they have solved the immediate crisises, I can start them on their "destiny" quest where they begin trying to figure out how and why they ended up here, and how they can get back home. The liberated dungeon will become their base of operations as they begin to explore and go on adventures.
That'll all make introducing future quests easier, too. Once they've built a reputation, I can have people approach them and ask for help without it feeling wierd. That's when I'll pull that quest we brainstormed the other day, about the dude asking for help finding relics.
How did you do it?
Contriving a reason for the party to be together has always been a "you're a party just deal with it yo" for me.
So our party's level 2 and I am that person who makes a human fighter. No tiefling 3rd party superclasses, I'm a god damn human being with heavy armor and a big whopping blade. Sue me. First floor of the dungeon, we fight a zombie and a ghoul. Wizard does fuck-all, warlock instagibs with Eldritch touch in which every single dice roll is a green one (max). Rogue gets the spotlight for 90% of the session by slowly and methodically advancing in the dungeon (the party is all paranoid as fuck). I get to do one thing in this entire thing: act as a meat shield for the rogue. Once. He swings for 13, my AC is 17. Then the ghoul dies.
I'm sure when we fight big groups (which we had a chance at doing but everyone said no because it might be "too dangerous") I might have some use but I am the most useless party member at the moment. The rogue could've survived a 9 damage slash easily. I'm tanky, I'm good at fighting, I've maxed Charisma to be a diplomatic noble knight but there's no chance for diplomancy, undead aren't spooked by Intimidate and there isn't much fighting in which the rest of the party couldn't do it just as easily without me.
Oh well, not like I can't alt+tab and watch Supernatural. Still, if this is what the campaign's gonna be like, it's gonna be a great time to watch Netflix or something. I guess.
Haven't spoken up about it because I know I'm being a selfish, whiny bitch about it and the rogue should get to feel relevant -- but it does make me yawn.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;49071419]How did you introduce your players to your world? I've got the beginnings of a multipart questline planned, but the part I had the most trouble with was just coming up with a way to take five relative strangers and say, "you're all on the same team in the same place despite having never met each other before and having different character races and backgrounds and such."
I think I came up with a decent enough intro. One by one, I'm going to give each character a brief introduction based on race and background, ending with them stepping into a teleportation circle and having it whisk them away. Like, for a human fighter with the soldier backround, I'd say something like:
[i]Your superior officer has ordered you to see the quartermaster to inquire about your units' delayed supplies. On your way, you're pulled aside by the encampment's chief wizard who tells you he needs your help. You inform him of your orders, but he does technically outrank your unit commander, and so he pulls you along anyway. You step into his large, brightly decorated tent and he immediately hands you a small crate and begins dropping various books and scrolls into it. As it fills up, he tells you to set it down and grab another from the corner.
You look around, spot the pile of crates, and take a few steps toward it, when the wizard suddenly whirls around and yells, "Wait! Watch your step!" But it's too late. You look down just in time to realize you have walked into the center of a chalked circle on the ground. Before you even have time to ask what it is, you are surrounded by a swirling light, and the world around you disappears.[/I]
I'll give a similar intro for each character. This seemed like a nice way to introduce the basics of who their character is in an immersive sort of way, and a decent enough vehicle for having them all meet. Once I've finished with all five players, I'll just say:
[I]You are all now standing in a small room, surrounded by four strangers, and staring at the faces of three VERY surprised looking Goblins.[/I]
It'll basically be doing the dungeon backwards. They'll start at the innermost chamber, fight their way past some goblins, save some people who are about to be cooked into a stew, and wander out into the sunlight to see a group of frightened looking peasants who were about to charge in and try to do the same. Just down the hill is a small village.
That'll give me the opportunity for them to go on a few local quests to solve some immediate perils (the village is under siege from goblins who have fled the forest. First you must kill the goblins, then you must find what caused them to flee the forest), which will help introduce the setting and the major NPCs. Once they have solved the immediate crisises, I can start them on their "destiny" quest where they begin trying to figure out how and why they ended up here, and how they can get back home. The liberated dungeon will become their base of operations as they begin to explore and go on adventures.
That'll all make introducing future quests easier, too. Once they've built a reputation, I can have people approach them and ask for help without it feeling wierd. That's when I'll pull that quest we brainstormed the other day, about the dude asking for help finding relics.
How did you do it?[/QUOTE]
I find that providing a nice map of the local area (or the whole world) makes the world feel more concrete.
I think when Jrose ran the game i'm in he just makes it up as we go along.
In the last session we played the first map and then played tic-tac-toe and hangman for an hour while he rushed to make the next part.
[QUOTE='[Green];49071468']So our party's level 2 and I am that person who makes a human fighter. No tiefling 3rd party superclasses, I'm a god damn human being with heavy armor and a big whopping blade. Sue me. First floor of the dungeon, we fight a zombie and a ghoul. Wizard does fuck-all, warlock instagibs with Eldritch touch in which every single dice roll is a green one (max). Rogue gets the spotlight for 90% of the session by slowly and methodically advancing in the dungeon (the party is all paranoid as fuck). I get to do one thing in this entire thing: act as a meat shield for the rogue. Once. He swings for 13, my AC is 17. Then the ghoul dies.
I'm sure when we fight big groups (which we had a chance at doing but everyone said no because it might be "too dangerous") I might have some use but I am the most useless party member at the moment. The rogue could've survived a 9 damage slash easily. I'm tanky, I'm good at fighting, I've maxed Charisma to be a diplomatic noble knight but there's no chance for diplomancy, undead aren't spooked by Intimidate and there isn't much fighting in which the rest of the party couldn't do it just as easily without me.
Oh well, not like I can't alt+tab and watch Supernatural. Still, if this is what the campaign's gonna be like, it's gonna be a great time to watch Netflix or something. I guess.
Haven't spoken up about it because I know I'm being a selfish, whiny bitch about it and the rogue should get to feel relevant -- but it does make me yawn.[/QUOTE]
I wouldn't sweat it, dude. I've had sessions like that too, and then in the next one I carry the team. I imagine it will get even better when you level up more and start earning all those sweet multiattacks.
Personally, when I play brawny characters, I don't worry so much about damage output as I do about just being the center of attention. I'll jump in the middle of everything, grapple baddies, throw them around, beat them with improvised shit, and generally just make a scene. There's little more satisfying than grappling a zombie, ripping off its head, and then using the head to bludgeon another zombie into submission. I mean, as a tanky character I have the armor and the health to take risks, so I take [I]plenty[/I] of them.
It's a +1 sord
[editline]7th November 2015[/editline]
Wow, guess who's a page late.
Also, Smite Evil is wonderful in Pathfinder and I'd marry it if I could
I didn't draw the sword
And the first sessions I rushed to make the next part because we played for [I]seven hours.[/I]
[QUOTE=Jrose14;49071569]I didn't draw the sword
And the first sessions I rushed to make the next part because we played for [I]seven hours.[/I][/QUOTE]
You can't deny the fun we had playing hangman though.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;49071419]How did you introduce your players to your world?[/QUOTE]
I've seen it done either as the party already being assembled for a while (as said by Spacewolf), or the players write how they became a party in their backstories.
Another way to do it is place them all in some situation similar to the one you're describing, where they're in immediate danger that they have to gang up to overcome.
[url=https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/3ncxwx/you_meet_in_a_tavern_and_other_ways_to_get_the/]Here's a reddit post that describes some more options better than I can.[/url]
How you do your first session and bringing the party together really depends on how character gen goes.
Like in the ASOIF game that's being played here, we're all characters that are part of the same house so our goals will obviously align. If you have a more diverse cast you've got a few different ways.
You can hand wave it and say that you met a couple of days ago because a shared employer has hired you so on and so forth. You can can do the thing that all characters have an event that happens to them as you described or if you're feeling really adventurous you can do intro sessions for each character that brings them to a shared destination.
I wouldn't recommend the last one out of personal experience of having to run four different unique personalized adventures before bringing all of the characters simply because it kills the momentum that is needed to get a campaign going. But it is pretty rad having an avengers assemble moment.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;49071419]How did you do it?[/QUOTE]
In my most recent game I came up with a starting village with a bunch of NPCs (37 named NPCs) and a couple of plots going on (two major plots which can be solved in either order, with solving one helping you solve the other one, plus 9 or 10 minor side plots that they can solve), then gave each individual player a reason to go to the village related to one of the plots. So each of them would have their own motivation to head to the village but end up working together since the plots kind of tie together (plus, they were all part of the same caravan heading to the village, so an early encounter made them work together and established the party).
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;49071419]How did you introduce your players to your world? I've got the beginnings of a multipart questline planned, but the part I had the most trouble with was just coming up with a way to take five relative strangers and say, "you're all on the same team in the same place despite having never met each other before and having different character races and backgrounds and such."
I think I came up with a decent enough intro. One by one, I'm going to give each character a brief introduction based on race and background, ending with them stepping into a teleportation circle and having it whisk them away. Like, for a human fighter with the soldier backround, I'd say something like:
[i]Your superior officer has ordered you to see the quartermaster to inquire about your units' delayed supplies. On your way, you're pulled aside by the encampment's chief wizard who tells you he needs your help. You inform him of your orders, but he does technically outrank your unit commander, and so he pulls you along anyway. You step into his large, brightly decorated tent and he immediately hands you a small crate and begins dropping various books and scrolls into it. As it fills up, he tells you to set it down and grab another from the corner.
You look around, spot the pile of crates, and take a few steps toward it, when the wizard suddenly whirls around and yells, "Wait! Watch your step!" But it's too late. You look down just in time to realize you have walked into the center of a chalked circle on the ground. Before you even have time to ask what it is, you are surrounded by a swirling light, and the world around you disappears.[/I]
I'll give a similar intro for each character. This seemed like a nice way to introduce the basics of who their character is in an immersive sort of way, and a decent enough vehicle for having them all meet. Once I've finished with all five players, I'll just say:
[I]You are all now standing in a small room, surrounded by four strangers, and staring at the faces of three VERY surprised looking Goblins.[/I]
It'll basically be doing the dungeon backwards. They'll start at the innermost chamber, fight their way past some goblins, save some people who are about to be cooked into a stew, and wander out into the sunlight to see a group of frightened looking peasants who were about to charge in and try to do the same. Just down the hill is a small village.
That'll give me the opportunity for them to go on a few local quests to solve some immediate perils (the village is under siege from goblins who have fled the forest. First you must kill the goblins, then you must find what caused them to flee the forest), which will help introduce the setting and the major NPCs. Once they have solved the immediate crisises, I can start them on their "destiny" quest where they begin trying to figure out how and why they ended up here, and how they can get back home. The liberated dungeon will become their base of operations as they begin to explore and go on adventures.
That'll all make introducing future quests easier, too. Once they've built a reputation, I can have people approach them and ask for help without it feeling wierd. That's when I'll pull that quest we brainstormed the other day, about the dude asking for help finding relics.
How did you do it?[/QUOTE]
"So you all meet in a tavern" is a famous cliche for a reason, and it's because it's one of the simplest ways to get a party together. Everyone goes to a tavern, not everyone gets arrested wrongly/rightfully or serves in the Imperial Army or is a ranger etc.
[QUOTE=cyclocius;49072047]"So you all meet in a tavern" is a famous cliche for a reason, and it's because it's one of the simplest ways to get a party together. Everyone goes to a tavern, not everyone gets arrested wrongly/rightfully or serves in the Imperial Army or is a ranger etc.[/QUOTE]
You can always tell your players to explain in their backstories how they ended up in prison. Even a paladin can annoy a corrupt noble and get framed.
[QUOTE=NotAName;49072086]You can always tell your players to explain in their backstories how they ended up in prison. Even a paladin can annoy a corrupt noble and get framed.[/QUOTE]
Oh absolutely, but sometimes you don't want to too tightly involve a backstory and a party intro. Everyone goes to a Tavern at some point, Paladin may be having a drink and the Rogue's there pinching pennies while a Barbarian is balancing a keg on his nose. Nice and easy place to pick up rumors, while "You're falsely imprisoned" has a hard time leading into anything that isn't "Take out the corrupt judge!"
My cyberpunk players started off as roommates, which would make it possibly the most violent dysfunctional sitcom in existence
They started working for free rent and now they're suspended in time in the middle of a Die Hard situation (the time is gonna unfreeze when I get a working computer again) while infiltrating a corporate office (they're Bruce Willis not Alan Rickman surprisingly)
Also the infiltration rapidly turned from a nicely executed black trenchcoat maneuver to dual wielding MP5s and tripping slightly from designer drug withdrawal
I feel like I'm maintaining a healthy balance
Man I can't wait to actually be able to GM again :v:
an easy one i like to use is 'the players are all headed to the same place (via ship, caravan, etc.) and something bad happens, causing them to band together and eventually become allies'
Obviously the best way to get a party together is by making everyone a mysterious transfer student in a highschool class. Works every time.
Everyone's playing shitty weeaboo games, right?
[QUOTE=Aperture fan;49073779]Obviously the best way to get a party together is by making everyone a mysterious transfer student in a highschool class. Works every time.
Everyone's playing shitty weeaboo games, right?[/QUOTE]
[IMG]http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/715t1Zdi%2BhL._SX450_.jpg[/IMG]
God I love exploding dice
Especially when I get these 10's like fucking clockwork in Mekton
[QUOTE=SiberysTranq;49074088]God I love exploding dice[/QUOTE]
sounds like a safety hazard
I usually go with someone was hiring badasses and the party were the ones that showed up.
Is there any campaign i can join here?
(A Pathfinder one if possible :o )
[QUOTE=TOXICOOW;49075994]Is there any campaign i can join here?
(A Pathfinder one if possible :o )[/QUOTE]
More often that not everyone's games are full up. Your best bet would be to monitor the thread as there's a couple of GMs that will advertise games here as and when they come up.
[editline]8th November 2015[/editline]
Or you can try GMing and organising a game yourself.
I keep hitting our tank with my crossbow as a rogue
It's hilarious cause he has 19 in armor class so it's like impossible to hit him, but I get super unlucky rolls. First 1's to actually hit him and then double D6:es, 20 rolls and everything. Nearly killed him last time this happened too, but I was fast on my feet and asked our GM if I could roll for the arrow to go through our tank and into the next enemy. Rolled a natural 20 and bam :v:
[QUOTE=TOXICOOW;49075994]Is there any campaign i can join here?
(A Pathfinder one if possible :o )[/QUOTE]
pathfinder games are a dime-a-dozen, probably not here but on other places (reddit, 4/8chan, roll20 ect) you won't have trouble finding them
My girlfriend wants to make a Beastmaster Ranger for her character. Got a question about scaling and such, though! The character page just says "choose a beast with a challenge rating no greater than 1/4." That seems fine for early game, but as they level up farther, won't a 1/4 rating be, like, completely pointless? Dead in one hit, very low damage output, etc?
I mean, I'm assuming that as your Ranger levels up you can train more substantial beasts to command, but I don't see any rules for doing so. At what levels are upgraded challenge ratings for your beast companion appropriate? What kinds of beasts can be commanded? It says "any beast that isn't hostile," does that include monstrosity's as long as you can keep them calm? Is there a certain intelligence level they have to be below?
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;49077235]My girlfriend wants to make a Beastmaster Ranger for her character. Got a question about scaling and such, though! The character page just says "choose a beast with a challenge rating no greater than 1/4." That seems fine for early game, but as they level up farther, won't a 1/4 rating be, like, completely pointless? Dead in one hit, very low damage output, etc?
I mean, I'm assuming that as your Ranger levels up you can train more substantial beasts to command, but I don't see any rules for doing so. At what levels are upgraded challenge ratings for your beast companion appropriate? What kinds of beasts can be commanded? It says "any beast that isn't hostile," does that include monstrosity's as long as you can keep them calm? Is there a certain intelligence level they have to be below?[/QUOTE]
I haven't played 5th, but in the others 1 or 2 int is animal intelligence, and I would take "isn't hostile" to mean any creature that could possibly be tamed, yeah.
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