[QUOTE=darkgodmaste;49285171]So, I've been giving out too much XP per encounter, instead of dividing the total XP per the amount of players.
I want to change this back to diving the XP because they've been leveling up quite fast, how do you handle this in your games?[/QUOTE]
solution, give them stronger challenges
nothing is worse than low level dnd
christmas 5e session went well
we got presents that turned out to be cursed but then we fucked up a dragon and the [I]real[/I] santa gave us legit ones
[QUOTE=darkgodmaste;49285171]So, I've been giving out too much XP per encounter, instead of dividing the total XP per the amount of players.
I want to change this back to diving the XP because they've been leveling up quite fast, how do you handle this in your games?[/QUOTE]
I divvy up XP for monsters between everyone who contributed to killing it, and then offer up blocks of 50/100/500 XP for various plot-related actions, and truly inspired actions. I give out inspiration when it's appropriate, though my whole party has had a point of inspiration for a while and not actually used it. I intend to drop some mind flayers on them the next session though, so that might pare things down a bit.
My first night DM'ing went pretty well! I fucked up the initiative order a couple times, but all in all a good game, and everybody had a blast. :)
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;49291026]My first night DM'ing went pretty well! I fucked up the initiative order a couple times, but all in all a good game, and everybody had a blast. :)[/QUOTE]
Congrats! You'll find you'll soon be infected with the GM bug, it really is fun and not nearly as scary as everyone thinks at first.
Any tips for keeping combat rounds flowing smoothly? Like, things went pretty well, but I was having a little bit of trouble managing the order and keeping track of hitpoints and such. It was six players vs 8 goblins, so I guess that's to be expected to a certain degree, but there's got to be a good way to keep things flowing.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;49291170]Any tips for keeping combat rounds flowing smoothly? Like, things went pretty well, but I was having a little bit of trouble managing the order and keeping track of hitpoints and such. It was six players vs 8 goblins, so I guess that's to be expected to a certain degree, but there's got to be a good way to keep things flowing.[/QUOTE]
Make sure people are paying attention and have a minute time limit on deciding what they are going to do. Keep track of each critter's HP and initiative (and any status effects it might be suffering) on a notepad. Combat always takes a while, but making sure everyone doesn't take 20 minutes per turn is a good way to smooth it out.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;49291170]Any tips for keeping combat rounds flowing smoothly? Like, things went pretty well, but I was having a little bit of trouble managing the order and keeping track of hitpoints and such. It was six players vs 8 goblins, so I guess that's to be expected to a certain degree, but there's got to be a good way to keep things flowing.[/QUOTE]
Let whoever is up next know they're on deck so they can figure out what they're doing ahead of time. If someone is fumbling or trying to plan too much just "say it's combat you gotta decide quick." If they take much longer they hold their turn as their character is frozen in place not sure what to do. Once they figure it out allow them to take their turn.
Ye, definitely intend to do that, once they've gotten comfy with how to play
Ok I completely misread the Way of the Four Elements for Monks and I thought they gained ALL the spells when they reached certain levels, but I guess they can only choose one spell at certain levels for like four total spells + elemental attunement?
That seems way less interesting and fun.
[QUOTE=slayer20;49291454]Ok I completely misread the Way of the Four Elements for Monks and I thought they gained ALL the spells when they reached certain levels, but I guess they can only choose one spell at certain levels for like four total spells + elemental attunement?
That seems way less interesting and fun.[/QUOTE]
That's part of why it's just not good. Even if they got all of them, they'd burn through ki in 1 go for anything interesting.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;49291170]Any tips for keeping combat rounds flowing smoothly? Like, things went pretty well, but I was having a little bit of trouble managing the order and keeping track of hitpoints and such. It was six players vs 8 goblins, so I guess that's to be expected to a certain degree, but there's got to be a good way to keep things flowing.[/QUOTE]
When your players are facing a lot of scrubby minions like goblins, consider having all the goblins act on 10 + their Initiative score rather than rolling and keeping track of each of their initiatives. That way, you just have to worry about player initiatives, and the goblins turn.
When keeping track of critter HP, just get one piece of paper or note card or something put the goblins in a horizontal list, then next to each goblin put "1," "2," "3", etc. for how much damage they've taken. Don't bother assigning each goblin a position on your list if there's nothing special about any of them, the first one to take damage is the first one on the list. Also if you like rolling for creature hp you can roll the first time that creature gets damaged. As soon as something has taken more than half its hp in damage you can describe it as bloodied and when the damage is equal to hp its dead. Can look something like this:
[quote]Goblin A: 9 hp, [del]4 6[/del] 11 (Dead)
Goblin B: 11 hp, [del]3[/del] 6
Goblin C: 5 hp, 2
Goblin D:
Goblin E:[/quote]
[QUOTE=Chronische;49291765]Or maybe split them into 2 groups, and roll for them both. Tons of actions all at once can RAPIDLY destroy a party, especially at lower levels.[/QUOTE]
Yeah this can work too, especially if the groups are distinct (e.g. Archers and Melee). Also make sure to roll individually for any character that is going to make some kind of special impact like a spellcaster.
[QUOTE=Glent;49291732]When your players are facing a lot of scrubby minions like goblins, consider having all the goblins act on 10 + their Initiative score rather than rolling and keeping track of each of their initiatives. That way, you just have to worry about player initiatives, and the goblins turn.[/QUOTE]
Or maybe split them into 2 groups, and roll for them both. Tons of actions all at once can RAPIDLY destroy a party, especially at lower levels.
Here's the finished version of my homebrew Civilization Domain for 5e: [url]https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5ttoyMfsaC7YUNELW12bzNZTWs/view[/url]
[QUOTE=Chronische;49291597]That's part of why it's just not good. Even if they got all of them, they'd burn through ki in 1 go for anything interesting.[/QUOTE]
It'd be nice having all those options available though, even if they did boil down to very specific situations. I guess I'll just change it back to my original idea of a roaming monk who is the kind of person to buy out all the ladies from a brothel for a night.
[QUOTE=Chronische;49291597]That's part of why it's just not good. Even if they got all of them, they'd burn through ki in 1 go for anything interesting.[/QUOTE]
I hear that this homebrew makes it a lot better: [url]https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1pdYIcfHauwNDM2My1XeWFYSDA/view[/url]
finished drawing these portraits for my players.
[t]http://40.media.tumblr.com/bf7041713b29608f29b78b7c13c2019a/tumblr_nz82orZ8lg1snm6fco3_1280.png[/t] [t]http://41.media.tumblr.com/9ed8312c2786cd80fc1d2087b03c2aad/tumblr_nz82orZ8lg1snm6fco2_1280.png[/t] [t]http://40.media.tumblr.com/33648c043ef78faf3b303b13b38fe116/tumblr_nz82orZ8lg1snm6fco1_1280.png[/t] [t]http://40.media.tumblr.com/fbdfc0b001879e7c94e3437370cb89b8/tumblr_nz82orZ8lg1snm6fco4_1280.png[/t]
featuring:
tharos, the dragonborn sorcerer
ayla, the human cleric
anyeweven, the elf druid
mudagog, the half-orc barbarian
can't wait to hand these out to them in our next session (which is sunday) and see their reactions!
[editline]12th December 2015[/editline]
also i ripped all neverwinter nights songs and ambient tracks. if you dm's want i can upload it on my dropbox!
[QUOTE=MenteR;49297799]finished drawing these portraits for my players.
[t]http://40.media.tumblr.com/bf7041713b29608f29b78b7c13c2019a/tumblr_nz82orZ8lg1snm6fco3_1280.png[/t] [t]http://41.media.tumblr.com/9ed8312c2786cd80fc1d2087b03c2aad/tumblr_nz82orZ8lg1snm6fco2_1280.png[/t] [t]http://40.media.tumblr.com/33648c043ef78faf3b303b13b38fe116/tumblr_nz82orZ8lg1snm6fco1_1280.png[/t] [t]http://40.media.tumblr.com/fbdfc0b001879e7c94e3437370cb89b8/tumblr_nz82orZ8lg1snm6fco4_1280.png[/t]
featuring:
tharos, the dragonborn sorcerer
ayla, the human cleric
anyeweven, the elf druid
mudagog, the half-orc barbarian
can't wait to hand these out to them in our next session (which is sunday) and see their reactions!
[editline]12th December 2015[/editline]
also i ripped all neverwinter nights songs and ambient tracks. if you dm's want i can upload it on my dropbox![/QUOTE]
gad damn
[QUOTE=MenteR;49297799]finished drawing these portraits for my players.
[t]http://40.media.tumblr.com/bf7041713b29608f29b78b7c13c2019a/tumblr_nz82orZ8lg1snm6fco3_1280.png[/t] [t]http://41.media.tumblr.com/9ed8312c2786cd80fc1d2087b03c2aad/tumblr_nz82orZ8lg1snm6fco2_1280.png[/t] [t]http://40.media.tumblr.com/33648c043ef78faf3b303b13b38fe116/tumblr_nz82orZ8lg1snm6fco1_1280.png[/t] [t]http://40.media.tumblr.com/fbdfc0b001879e7c94e3437370cb89b8/tumblr_nz82orZ8lg1snm6fco4_1280.png[/t]
featuring:
tharos, the dragonborn sorcerer
ayla, the human cleric
anyeweven, the elf druid
mudagog, the half-orc barbarian
can't wait to hand these out to them in our next session (which is sunday) and see their reactions!
[editline]12th December 2015[/editline]
also i ripped all neverwinter nights songs and ambient tracks. if you dm's want i can upload it on my dropbox![/QUOTE]
god damn can I join your group?
[QUOTE=slayer20;49298041]god damn can I join your group?[/QUOTE]
i'd love to dm to people over the internet sometime!
[URL="https://www.dropbox.com/s/z2sakhzuqcx9bc4/zipers.zip?dl=0"]here's the link to the neverwinter nights + expansions ost and its ambient loops[/URL]
Well, BDA, you were right.
The warpath of my Charisma fighter continues as her social skills are still absolutely worthless and she's good at fighting, nothing more. Some ghost guardian showed up and of course the half-elf gets to chat with it because he knows elvish and it's an elvish crypt and pointy-eared folk got to keep it together. No point letting the noblewoman with formal training in diplomacy (and proficiency in it with a big modifier) do it, oh no.
After that is over, buncha zombies notice us and it's back to fightan mode. Turns out, my fighter is a fucking tank. I mean I knew she was strong but Jesus H. Christ. 39 health and 17 AC means I can get away with so much shit. Get this, I was fighting a skeleton warrior, a zombie, two skeleton archers and a skeletal warlock all at the same time. They were trying their hardest to hit me, and finally with a flank some attack dog gone cadaver managed to nibble me for a whopping 7 damage, followed by an Eldritch Blast hitting me for 2. I took 9 damage in the entire fight despite being p much focused by everyone.
Until the rogue decided to jump in, sneak attack a zombie and then forget to get back out. [B]He thought I was getting too much heat.[/B] In the same round he gets surrounded and drops to 2hp from death. He swiftly backs up and leaves the frontlining to me since I'm in a party of glass cannons and chickens. Being the firm human warrior that I am, I continue shoving and swinging people until everything dies from the constant volley of my caster friends' cantrips.
Then we take a long rest. I just want to use my diplomacy, dude. Please.
[QUOTE=slayer20;49297324]It'd be nice having all those options available though, even if they did boil down to very specific situations. I guess I'll just change it back to my original idea of a roaming monk who is the kind of person to buy out all the ladies from a brothel for a night.[/QUOTE]
nobody will ever find out whether or not 4 elements is good in practice because nobody wants to try it after they read how bad it seems
if the idea you have for your character is an elemental monk then just play it and see what happens, monks are strong as a base class so you shouldn't be gimping yourself that much anyway
[QUOTE='[Green];49299061']Then we take a long rest. I just want to use my diplomacy, dude. Please.[/QUOTE]
Have you discussed this with your DM?
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;49291026]My first night DM'ing went pretty well! I fucked up the initiative order a couple times, but all in all a good game, and everybody had a blast. :)[/QUOTE]
Just a tip, go in sections, no matter how big the group. If you have a group of four, make them roll attacks and such in pairs. Makes combat way faster.
[QUOTE='[Green];49299061']
Then we take a long rest. I just want to use my diplomacy, dude. Please.[/QUOTE]
roll intimidate on your own party
[QUOTE=MenteR;49298071][URL="https://www.dropbox.com/s/z2sakhzuqcx9bc4/zipers.zip?dl=0"]here's the link to the neverwinter nights + expansions ost and its ambient loops[/URL][/QUOTE]
What a coincidence, I was just thinking about doing this myself, the other day. Neverwinter Nights got some dank ambiance.
Is this including NWN2 tracks, though?
the thing about quick combat is that it's usually not the actions that brings things down for me, it's the descriptions
I like to describe some things so the enemy's turn doesn't boil down to me silently moving a couple tokens around and then asking the next guy in the turn order to start. Unfortunately this technically does slow things down. Although not by a lot, but still it probably takes longer than a couple movement actions should be.
[editline]12th December 2015[/editline]
but whenever I GM i've noticed that it's kind of difficult to tell how long is too long. Since I gotta juggle a bunch of things at once, I never feel like the game is slowing down until the session ends and I realize that maybe we dwelled in one area for too long.
So the confusion with the new White Wolf/Paradox owning the White Wolf properties and revitalizing WW with a big "One World of Darkness" banner on their website got cleared up.
[url]http://theonyxpath.com/announcing-chronicles-of-darkness/[/url]
There's now World of Darkness and Chronicles of Darkness.
The cod jokes will never end. Nor will the CoD jokes, I'm sure, but I've mostly seen fish puns, so far.
So, does that mean they'll come back to oWoD or something?
[QUOTE=gufu;49301700]So, does that mean they'll come back to oWoD or something?[/QUOTE]
oWoD has already been revived, yo. Vampire, Werewolf, and Mage all have 20th Anniversary editions out, Wraith's is in the works(delayed indefinitely, iirc, for some reason), and Changeling's is in the middle of a [url=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/deluxe-changeling-the-dreaming-20th-anniversary-ed]Deluxe Edition Kickstarter[/url] that's already 336% funded.
[B]And[/B] they announced VtM4e a few months back, before the Paradox acquisition. Though, apparently that's now being handed off to Paradox/Neo-White Wolf, so they can handle it in-house alongside production of a video game.
[editline]12th December 2015[/editline]
I'm just gonna put this /tg/ post in a quote so I don't have to explain it all in my own words.
[quote]Also, from their twitter:
* Paradox/WW will be doing the new Vampire edition in-house to coincide with a new video game
* OPP will continue CofD, 20th Anniversary and anything they bought outright
* They have plans for a netflix series apparently
* They talking about humans having an important place in the WoD (probably doing a mortals line for the WoD they're publishing in house, hooooo boy...)
* They plan to get their in-house books in stores (no word if this will also be done for OPP)
* They plan to have official WW LARPs in conjunction with BNS (I'm ambivalent, but as long as I get cool LARP books I'm good with this).[/quote]
All of that was announced today/last night, at a con in Germany that neo-White Wolf is at.
[QUOTE]* They talking about humans having an important place in the WoD (probably doing a mortals line for the WoD they're publishing in house, hooooo boy...)[/QUOTE]
I thought Hunter is for dealing with mortals, though?
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
