D&D V6 - Edition jokes don't really make sense anymore - Games

Best loot item of the session: [IMG]https://puu.sh/uYlBE/6ba334bf1f.png[/IMG]

[QUOTE=JeSuisIkea;52010992]I started writing a campaign and I wanted it to be standard "find and kill the necromancer before he raises an army" stuff. I drank a little and started writing and now the story goes that the party learns of a foul necromancer raising a dark army to conquer the lands with, and go to his dark fortress to defeat him. When they get there they discover the castle has pretty much been torn down and he has built a rather extravagant manor there instead. When they break in they discover the legendary necromancer and lich Asgarth the Blackheart has gone slightly insane from the constant consorting with the dark forces beyond his control and he lost control of his body, deteriorating into an insane skeleton. He now goes by Sir Bones the Grim, and he locks the party inside his manor as they enter. Instead of your standard dungeon fighting to him, he leads them through puzzles and insane traps he designed while singing musical numbers and throwing insane parties. I even wrote musical numbers for me to sing filled with skeleton and death puns. Towards the end the players realize that he isn't raising an army to scour the land anymore, at the end of his insane dungeon is actually the world's first nightclub cabaret, and he's been building to cater to the dead, and that he just put the players through the insane ringer because they were technically invading his property. He's raising the dead was so he could invite them to the show. Figured the party would either let him go ahead and he could become some sort of ally in the future or kill him to stop the insanity. If they let him go they could hear about Sir Bones the Grim and his travelling posse of performers terrorizing the land completely by accident, or if they kill him he'd haunt their ass. Was going to explain the weird anachronisms and the fact a skeleton invented jazz music by saying his mad rituals and experiments before he went nuts involved him looking into the future and different worlds and everything he saw became a jumbled mess in his rotten brain by the time the players found him. Is this too retarded to keep. I think it's a lot more interesting than the original idea but it's also something I thought up while drunk.[/QUOTE] This is a great idea and has a lot of potential. If you're concerned about the swinging jazz aesthetic being a little too strange for the medieval setting you could always push the timeline a little closer to the early industrial age/early gunpowder era. Regardless, I would highly recommend having as much fun with your spooky jazz skeletons as possible. Maybe the music is slowly spreading from tavern to tavern and some of the constabulary are concerned about this new 'devil music' that the kids and drunks are so into.

We just got our first roll on the magic items table in our campaign. I got 2 gems worth 50 GP and a potion of greater healing. One of my party members got 2250 GP and another one got to roll 6 times on the table and one of those rolls was a 100. I'm bitter because I got fucked by RNG. I just used my potion on a court wizard because he got knocked out and almost killed in a blast. Why not? Group member told a shitty joke right afterward and got inspiration.

[QUOTE=Plattack;52012243]We just got our first roll on the magic items table in our campaign. I got 2 gems worth 50 GP and a potion of greater healing. One of my party members got 2250 GP and another one got to roll 6 times on the table and one of those rolls was a 100. I'm bitter because I got fucked by RNG. I just used my potion on a court wizard because he got knocked out and almost killed in a blast. Why not? Group member told a shitty joke right afterward and got inspiration.[/QUOTE] Money is for losers anyway. Real men become king of the paupers. Your frugality lends you aid in your relations with the commoners! You should use this ability to become the leader of a massive peasant rebellion to seize the means of production! And considering that peasants are the means of production, you can pretty much declare it a success so long as you manage to make any small military victory! They shall live and die as freemen! Mostly die though I'm sure.

Solidarity with peasants is something poor people delude themselves with

[QUOTE=RearAdmiral;52012997]Solidarity with peasants is something poor people delude themselves with[/QUOTE] I mean, you're not poor if you then use the opportunity to loot everything in site on the assumption that most people aren't coming back for their stuff. Alternatively, if you're crafty you can backstab the entire rebellion to the nobles and become a hero to the people who actually have money.

[QUOTE=F.X Clampazzo;52013152]I mean, you're not poor if you then use the opportunity to loot everything in site on the assumption that most people aren't coming back for their stuff. Alternatively, if you're crafty you can backstab the entire rebellion to the nobles and become a hero to the people who actually have money.[/QUOTE] Backstab them too and raise the dead peasants as an undead army for even higher profit margins!

[QUOTE=thejjokerr;52014589]Yo guys, beginner question: if we somehow get our AC up above 20, how will an enemy ever hit with a 1d20?[/QUOTE] attribute bonuses and touch ac abilities also magic that targets will/reflex

also in most editions of D&D a natural 20 hits no matter what the AC is

[QUOTE=thejjokerr;52014589]Yo guys, beginner question: if we somehow get our AC up above 20, how will an enemy ever hit with a 1d20?[/QUOTE] enemies all have attack bonuses written into their statblocks, just like characters add stuff to their attacks

In my current 3.5 game, I have a different system for giving the players magic items and whatnot. A flamboyant mystical merchant appears between adventures. He gives the party members bracers. The bracer has three gems on it. After each adventure, a gem lights up indicating they have 1 point to spend at the merchants shop. They can spend 1 point for a magic item, 2 points for a better magic item, and 3 points for a greater magical item. Currently, what they get is randomized, but I think it would be much more interesting for the players to have them choose for themselves. That being said, I could use some suggestions for "interesting" magic items. Here are some examples I have for reference. [B]The Retrieval Pearl:[/B] Call the name of a target and cast this pearl into a body of water. If the object is located in the body of water, the pearl will latch onto it and bring it to you. [B]The amulet of Pelor's fury:[/B] Allows the user to cast "Scorching Ray" once per day. If sunlight is touching the face of the amulet, Scorching Ray get's 2 rays. Otherwise, it only gets 1. [B]The Ring of the Grammarian (From "The Adventure Zone" podcast):[/B] Once a day during casting, allows the user to change one letter of the spells name to alter it's meaning. The altered effect is determined by the DM. For example, "Heroes Feast" could become "Heroes Beast" and summon a heroic beast to fight for you. [B]The Sword of Song:[/B] A bard who sings their song successfully for one round can have the sword loop that verse, allowing the bard to perform other actions as long as the sword remains drawn. As with most music, the song get's stale after you hear it over and over. After 5 rounds, a player must make a wisdom saving throw to continue to receive the benefits of the song. Failing the save means you grow tired of the song and stop receiving it's benefit.

[QUOTE=thejjokerr;52014657]Can you please give an example play? We're still quite confused. Were improvising atm but would love to play properly[/QUOTE] The difference between AC and touch AC is typically touch AC is a lot lower - it's for spells and abilities where all you've got to do is make contact, not necessarily do damage - touch ac is when you lose any bonuses from armor, shield, and natural armor, but retain bonuses from dexterity, deflection, dodge and so on. So while I might swing a mace at a dude who's got 21 AC, I could use a spell on him that goes off of touch AC instead, which can be significantly lower if whoever you're fighting is heavily armored. Additionally, as time goes by enemies also get bonuses to attack as Mellow said. A 1st-level Goblin might have an attack bonus of +1, meaning when he rolls a d20 he can hit anyone of up to 21 AC as the highest he can potentially roll is a 21. A Young Black Dragon, on the other hand, has +9 to attack, meaning it can potentially hit anyone in combat that has up to 29 AC. (These are all 3.5 stats, just used for example). Factor in the fact an Ancient Black Dragon gets +40 to hit and you can sort of see how this starts to pan out. The only time it'll ever be outright impossible to hit someone with 20 AC is if you take a penalty to attack rolls - an attack bonus of -1 makes 20 AC impossible to hit as you can never roll that high without buffs or boosts.

[QUOTE=elowin;52014629]also in most editions of D&D a natural 20 hits no matter what the AC is[/QUOTE] I kinda hate the botch/crit system of DnD, because they don't increase/decrease in likelyhood/effect as you get more powerful. That and the people who've been running my game, for some reason, have been horrendously inconsistent, been badly under-imaginative, or badly over-imaginative, and one of them consistently had a botch mean that my character'd do something i'd never do ("you rolled a 1 on your search? well you close the first draw, assume nothing else is here, and leave". I mean, c'mon; finding something nasty/harmful would've worked so much better) I don't think i've had many times where I've enjoyed a botch.

[QUOTE=The Jack;52014692]I kinda hate the botch/crit system of DnD, because they don't increase/decrease in likelyhood/effect as you get more powerful. That and the people who've been running my game, for some reason, have been horrendously inconsistent, been badly under imaginative, or badly overimaginative. I don't think i've had many times where I've enjoyed a botch.[/QUOTE] Botches don't exist RAW in D&D. It's just a very common houserule that most people don't even know is a houserule.

[QUOTE=thejjokerr;52014657]Can you please give an example play? We're still quite confused. Were improvising atm but would love to play properly[/QUOTE] [img]http://i.imgur.com/08TDcqc.png[/img] all creatures have modifiers to their attacks which are listed on their statblocks, based on attributes and proficiency modifiers just like the players the combat chapter explains it pretty clearly also the touch thing rear is describing doesn't exist in 5e, which I assume is what you're playing

[QUOTE=Mellowbloom;52014700]also the touch thing rear is describing doesn't exist in 5e, which I assume is what you're playing[/QUOTE] Oh yeah, didn't stop to think what edition was being discussed. Assumed it was 3.5 or Pathfinder as touch AC was brought up. 5e shook a lot of things up so it's always worth clarifying what edition you're running if you have any mechanical questions as Wizards of the Coast has changed things pretty substantially over the years.

[QUOTE=F.X Clampazzo;52012922]Money is for losers anyway. Real men become king of the paupers. Your frugality lends you aid in your relations with the commoners! You should use this ability to become the leader of a massive peasant rebellion to seize the means of production! And considering that peasants are the means of production, you can pretty much declare it a success so long as you manage to make any small military victory! They shall live and die as freemen! Mostly die though I'm sure.[/QUOTE] It's funny you say this because right before we found the loot room we rolled strength to rescue civilians from the rubble of an explosion and I crit failed the roll so I stubbed my toe and didn't move any debris.

[QUOTE=Plattack;52015531]It's funny you say this because right before we found the loot room we rolled strength to rescue civilians from the rubble of an explosion and I crit failed the roll so I stubbed my toe and didn't move any debris.[/QUOTE] This is why i love reading various DnD stories, especially when players critfail on simple tasks. :v:

[QUOTE=thejjokerr;52014657]Can you please give an example play? We're still quite confused. Were improvising atm but would love to play properly[/QUOTE] Let's say your AC is 21 for whatever reason. A monster has a +5 bonus to its attack roll from its stats and level (as an example, it could have more or less than this number). That means it adds a 5 to the d20 for its attack roll, so if it rolls 16, it increases that by 5 to 21. That means it hits AC 21 on anything 16 or up.

Tonight in The Curse of Strahd: Local half-orc monk decides he wants to deal some extra damage to Strahd, since we're gearing up to storm the castle. How does he decide to do this? He'll make himself some holy silver knuckles. He and the dragonborn sorcerer scour an abandoned city for silver and melt it down with the sorcerer's firebolts in the abandoned blacksmith's shop. The monk slams his fingers through the molten metal to create the required holes to hold onto. He takes 24 damage because MOLTEN SILVER. He tells the sorcerer to cut the silver into a clean square using more firebolts... with his hand still in the metal. he takes 50 more damage. Uses wholeness of body to heal 30 hp. The sorcerer throws two vials of holy water into a jug for the monk to cool the silver in. 8 damage from the sting. They actually use the blacksmithing tools to create the second knuckle... except the monk slams his fingers through the molten metal again to create the finger holes instead of actually doing things smartly. 28 more damage, and then 5 more from cooling it off in holy water again. He now has one silver knuckle that looks like a passable brass knuckle, and one that looks like a hunk of metal that has burned into the flesh of his left hand.

[QUOTE=Aezir;52017578] He now has one silver knuckle that looks like a passable brass knuckle, and one that looks like a hunk of metal that has burned into the flesh of his left hand.[/QUOTE] sounds like a mutation you'd get from resuscitating lol

Last night my players were given an introduction into the logical reasoning that if magic artefacts are so common in ancient civilisations, that logically they have to store all the malfunctioning, or otherwise defective magic items somewhere, either to destroy or recycle them or at least keep them from causing problems elsewhere. They were pretty sure when they walked into a multi-room vault deep under an ancient fortress that it was full of legit riches or cursed shit. They thought they found the motherload of artefacts, and none of them were even cursed! Notable loot includes: A Fur Coat of Cold: actually makes the wearer feel cold A curse detecting rod that shows everything as cursed regardless of if it's cursed or not. A bag of magic beans: They're just beans that show up as magic. Nothing special about them. A bag of holding: bag morphs to literally hold you in place when you open it. It is otherwise a normal bag. Scroll of Fire and ashes: quickly burns to ash after it is read aloud. Eight crates of fireproof candles. A rod of disintegration: when you point the rod at something or someone and press a button.. the rod disintegrates. And some other totally great items. They haven't tested any of them yet. Opss.

how do you handle it when the party splits up i hate having one or more of my friends just sit there doing nothing while i GM for the other

[QUOTE=_Maverick_;52019297]how do you handle it when the party splits up i hate having one or more of my friends just sit there doing nothing while i GM for the other[/QUOTE] I split it 50/50 for my time and interrupt one group to do stuff for the other, etc. That and bad things happen to those who split up without good reason. Like suddenly monsters get much harder and more numerous, etc. I also sometimes restructure things like rooms and tunnels to naturally bring them back together.

[QUOTE=_Maverick_;52019297]how do you handle it when the party splits up i hate having one or more of my friends just sit there doing nothing while i GM for the other[/QUOTE] I tend to split the focus as evenly as possible; if the group splits in half, start a timer for 10 minutes, and take turns with each group giving them roughly 10 minutes of stuff. That is, unless something is particularly more interesting about one group, like combat, or a puzzle, or NPC dialogue. Alternatively, right before switching off to the other group, give the ones you're focusing on something to think about, or something to actually do in the background while you're running the rest of the players through shit, then switch off. That way, they aren't sitting around twiddling their thumbs; they're thinking about the situation or figuring something out, amongst themselves.

Murder all of them, rocks fall you die. pls do not split party

[QUOTE=Aezir;52008404]If you could uh...[I]roll out[/I] a config for that to do One Roll Engine style rolling, It'd be much appreciated.[/QUOTE] [t]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5168294/screencaps/Screenshot%202017-03-27%2014.30.08.png[/t] [editline]27th March 2017[/editline] i also have private rolling with the dm implemented [t]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5168294/screencaps/Screenshot%202017-03-27%2014.45.07.png[/t] [t]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5168294/screencaps/Screenshot%202017-03-27%2014.44.13.png[/t] you DM the bot with your roll command and it also sends it to the configured dungeon master

[QUOTE=_Maverick_;52019297]how do you handle it when the party splits up i hate having one or more of my friends just sit there doing nothing while i GM for the other[/QUOTE] I make a specific point to ask what each member of the party is planning on doing and how they're going to accomplish it (if its complicated). Once I've done that I tend to choose whose got the longest/shortest personal trip and narrate it or provide some player interactivity before going down the line. I very occasionally jump between player stories to create dramatic moments, like having the player walk into the dark alley before shifting over to another player who is talking to the Abbot about all the disappearances happening in dark alleys. There's a few added benefits to this: 1. If you want all players to go somewhere, you can occasionally direct them to one location. If the Fighter wanted to go get drunk at the tavern then the party can meet him there later once the Abbot has told them to go speak to the barkeep so long as you do his story first. 2. Players occasionally realize they both want to go to the same place, and it saves them from back tracking on shopping trips when one unintentionally reminds the other. 3. If you want to keep players entertained who mainly end up sitting out, consider having small set pieces planned for them like stopping some street urchins from stealing bread or something that plays off their character quirk.

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/C6XuK76.png[/IMG] illustrating a D&D party for a book

[QUOTE=MenteR;52022109][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/C6XuK76.png[/IMG] illustrating a D&D party for a book[/QUOTE] Damn, that looks sick as fuck.