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

[QUOTE=Chronische;52875415]She's not from the Forgotten Realms, she's from Grayhawk first off. Secondly, Nerull and Vecna are far superior death and undeath deities in that setting! In any event, she's been a 'real' deity since 4e, just not from FR, thus the lack of inclusion. They haven't cared about Grayhawk since before 2e, and I say this despite the fact that it was the base setting for 3e.[/QUOTE] They have Greyhawk deities in the PHB though :( They almost included her as a Warlock path, but that path seemed kind of silly anyway. That's probably why they left her out though, because she isn't apart of the Forgotten Realms.

I bought the Alt art xanathar's guide I'm poor now, but it was worth it! :v:

Seeing that picture.... I think I'm dropping the extra cash on the limited edition one. [editline]10th November 2017[/editline] I now have the limited edition.

One of the best things about the book for dm'ing is it has a tables to roll for names of npcs. With 50 or so for each of: Dragonborn Female, Male and Clan (so 150 total) Dwarf Female, Male, Clan Elf Child, Female Adult, Male Adult, Family Gnome Female, Male, Clan Halfling Femtale, Male, Family Half-Orc Female, Male Tiefling Female, Male, Virtue Arabic Female, Male Celtic Female, Male Chinese Female, Male Egyptian Female, Male English Female, Male French Female, Male German Female, Male Greek Female, Male Indian Female, Male Japanese Female, Male Mesoamerican Female, Male Niger-Congo Female, Male Norse Female, Male Polynesian Female, Male Roman Female, Male Slavic Female, Male Spanish Female, Male Looking through my copy, it is an exception resource for dming, including a lot of rules on extra actives, and how to quickly move through them and outcomes (such as gambling, creating magic scrolls, thieving from someone, selling a magic item) with a lot of consequences for each. But the name thing... One of my players constantly insists I come up with names for each characters. With several thousand names, it's going to be a big help.

Session the other night was fantastic, seemed like my players had the most fun out of any of our previous sessions. They arrived at an island controlled by a ferocious clan of orcs who were in possession of a magic cannon that the party needed to kill a massive kraken that's been terrorizing the region. With the party was a large force of human soldiers from a human-sepremecist religious order that was basically using the party to get the cannon and a few other artifacts so their order could kill the kraken and take all the credit. The party, having wizened up to their plan a bit thanks to the help of a third party giving them some warnings, decided on some of their own fuckery. While the order humans marched on the orcs defenses, a few members of their crew including their second-in-command NPC who they are happy to let deal with the micromanagement of their crew joined in, carrying a barrel of black powder. While this happened, the half the party brought the ship around the side of the fort to support the attack with their cannons, and the other half walked a good distance ahead of the humans, so they could maybe negotiate. Through a staggering series of super high intimidate and persuasion rolls, they got an audience with the warchief. They promised the orcs that they would help them fight off the human attackers if they were given the cannon, and they proved their strength when the fighter bested the warchief in single combat. They heard some warhorns, the humans had arrived and the fight had started. The party lowered the cannon off the fort using some rope onto a hidden rowboat, where the players who were on the ship had went to wait. They handed it off to their crew and scaled the small cliff face, rejoining the whole party. They then approached the gate where most of the fighting was happening. Zeb, their NPC crew leader, was behind the lines of the fighting, and lit the barrel of black powder and rolled it into the fray, the resulting explosion clearing a good chunk of both sides ground forces. Then, with that taken care of, the party charged into the fight and started killing indiscriminately as a few of their sailors helped (most of which died, being untrained soldiers). The battle ended with all of the orcs dead and all of the humans dead. The party went back into the main hall and murdered the injured warchief (from the fight earlier) and broke their deal. Now my party has a small fortress, and possibly two more boats if they can convince the skeleton (not literally) crews that the humans left on their personal vessels to let them on board (so the party can murder them all). T'was a fun session, but now I have to figure out how and what to allow them to do with the fort.

like 10 sessions from now you should totally blast their asses for having sided with orcs and betrayed the humans tbh. the north romombors.

[QUOTE=MenteR;52885527]like 10 sessions from now you should totally blast their asses for having sided with orcs and betrayed the humans tbh. the north romombors.[/QUOTE] Oh they'll probably get fucked kind of hard because they keep forgetting that they have a novice from the humans order ON THEIR SHIP because they really wanted a cleric, so they begged the order to give them one on retainer for a while. And they keep forgetting he's there because most of the time they're on their ship, they have a few days of calm and heal naturally as opposed to needing a cleric.

My Exalted session last night was fun to run. [quote]The group had previously(as in last session) chased down the remnants of a Wyld Hunt they fought, which consisted of an Air Aspect and a Wood Aspect Dragon-Blooded; the Air Aspect got knocked out pretty quick, the Wood tried to run, and rather than have her retreat turn into a series of rolls i just had her failing the first roll result in her tripping and knocking herself out. This session started with her waking up while the group was bringing her back to the city they've captured, snapping her handcuffs, then snapping the Air Aspect's neck, holding up, and giving a big speech about how she was [I]not[/I] going down without a fight(despite the fact that they'd taken away her weapons, and she had no points in Brawl). She threw her friend, then disappeared, but one of them aced his Awareness roll and saw her running away; cue everybody else dogpiling attacks on her, until by the time she got a turn she only had 2 health levels left. So she used charms to bite her tongue off and poison herself, thus committing suicide, rather than being captured. Then the group returned home and met an envoy from one of the neighboring cities that technically owes fealty to them now, and got a bunch of gifts from a diplomat. They proceeded to get drunk and celebrate both their defeat of the Hunt and the good relationship between the cities, moving forward. While everyone else was passed out, the Eclipse headed to the city temple to talk with the City-Mother/Goddess of the City, but when he got there he instead met a Lunar that the Dawns and Night had met while out in the desert earlier in the previous session, and his snake-man god. Also, he got a Past Life vision of a First Age version of him kicking ass and taking names with a First Age version of the Lunar in the temple. They talked for a bit, and ended up forming a brotherly bond(for now).[/quote] And then everyone went to sleep and the session ended with this stinger: [t]https://i.imgur.com/DLIZjS8.png[/t] (The Scintillating Fountain was made by the group's Twilight in a single afternoon, using magic, a week after the group as a whole killed the former Despot and ended Slavery within the city.) [editline]13th November 2017[/editline] Oh, also, the Eclipse spoke to the only survivor of the Wyld Hunt, a Fire Aspect who they've had imprisoned for about 20 days, and bound her into an Oath saying that she won't try to escape or kill any of the group, then let her out of her cell. TL;DR Murder mystery next session, with a lot of potential suspects, some of them only because of player action. :v:

Last edge of the empire session was beautiful. Our last missing player joined up, and he was amazing. He had had a bit of experience before, more than half the group, less than the other half, but he got so into it, and really got into character. The first part of the session was fighting pirates, and while everyone did the usual i shoot whoever, this guy went into detail, and had some banter with the enemies, he helped bring the group together which is what i was worried about, and most of all helped encourage the others to start rping a little more. I love it when you get someone like that.

-snip-

Gdi got talking about shadowrun again and now I wanna do another campaign and no ones running one :c On the other hand, I now know how much a bunraku parlor spends on 'ware :v: (Roughly 570,000 for 15 not counting bodies or location)

I'm not sure whether people have heard this for worldbuilding etc, but I've been using a site called [URL="https://inkarnate.com"]Inkarnate[/URL] to make a map for my very first game as DM. It produces some really nice results. This is one I've spent about 2 hours on, which I'm planning to use today (and hopefully other sessions to come, if the players enjoy it! [img]http://puu.sh/ymtde/f032acbde6.jpg[/img]

[QUOTE=Jacko245;52892222]I'm not sure whether people have heard this for worldbuilding etc, but I've been using a site called [URL="https://inkarnate.com"]Inkarnate[/URL] to make a map for my very first game as DM. It produces some really nice results. This is one I've spent about 2 hours on, which I'm planning to use today (and hopefully other sessions to come, if the players enjoy it! [img]http://puu.sh/ymtde/f032acbde6.jpg[/img][/QUOTE] Yeah, inkarnate is really nice. I've used it in the past before, and would be using it for my IRL game if I had a color printer.

Go, from one small town to a bandit camp, kill the dudes and leave. Simple. It took 7 hours.

Sounds like typical RP We managed to make 'leave town to head to the last battle of a war' take about eight hours last sunday between all the goodbyes and assorted roleplay By comparison we had a battle plan figured out in about an hour before we went back to more fluffy matters

Prologue cave crawl before the actual story starts; takes two full sessions. :v:

[QUOTE=Alxnotorious;52896025]Prologue cave crawl before the actual story starts; takes two full sessions. :v:[/QUOTE] Try 6 sessions... :gun:

Normally I'd pose this question somewhere like reddit, but I know everyone in my group browses reddit a lot and visits the DnD subreddit, so I'm asking here. What exactly am I meant to do as an early game bard? I'm super squishy, and all of my spells thus far rely on the enemy making a saving throw vs. wisdom or dex, and nothing utilizes my charisma. I get that I have a lot I can do out of combat as a skill monkey, but I feel useless when it comes to combat. I've got a few buffs I can toss out, but they don't seem to be helping much. I've tried to talk our way out of combat and out of character everyone seems to support this decision vigorously, and it's worked at least once, but aside from that (when I had a teammate back me up by impaling a guy before combat started), none of them have their character speak up or back me up in any way, so when I fail to calm a group of enemies, I instantly become the target, since I'm the only one who has made any motion to say or do anything. Then, to top it all off, no one does anything to get between the enemies and I, and I end up getting targeted. In our most recent encounter, we're up against 4 thugs and their commander. I tried to talk them down, out of character everyone agreed, then in character no one did anything as the conversation amped up. We go into combat, everyone in the party ran to attack the one commander and 2 of the 4 thugs ran towards me and started swinging. One of my party members had the opportunity to use a spell and force them away, but did a literal ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and ran past them to attack the commander. It's like, I'm having fun being a bard, but at this point I just feel that I can't and shouldn't even bother to help before combat because all my efforts are wasted on a team who simply refuse to help if things go south.

[QUOTE=Plattack;52896430]Normally I'd pose this question somewhere like reddit, but I know everyone in my group browses reddit a lot and visits the DnD subreddit, so I'm asking here. What exactly am I meant to do as an early game bard? I'm super squishy, and all of my spells thus far rely on the enemy making a saving throw vs. wisdom or dex, and nothing utilizes my charisma. I get that I have a lot I can do out of combat as a skill monkey, but I feel useless when it comes to combat. I've got a few buffs I can toss out, but they don't seem to be helping much. I've tried to talk our way out of combat and out of character everyone seems to support this decision vigorously, and it's worked at least once, but aside from that (when I had a teammate back me up by impaling a guy before combat started), none of them have their character speak up or back me up in any way, so when I fail to calm a group of enemies, I instantly become the target, since I'm the only one who has made any motion to say or do anything. Then, to top it all off, no one does anything to get between the enemies and I, and I end up getting targeted. In our most recent encounter, we're up against 4 thugs and their commander. I tried to talk them down, out of character everyone agreed, then in character no one did anything as the conversation amped up. We go into combat, everyone in the party ran to attack the one commander and 2 of the 4 thugs ran towards me and started swinging. One of my party members had the opportunity to use a spell and force them away, but did a literal ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and ran past them to attack the commander. It's like, I'm having fun being a bard, but at this point I just feel that I can't and shouldn't even bother to help before combat because all my efforts are wasted on a team who simply refuse to help if things go south.[/QUOTE] Sounds like your party needs to step up its teamwork. You [I]could[/I] say that it was the DM picking on you, but attacking the lone, squishy-looking guy makes sense from a tactical standpoint. Maybe steer your bard in a more fun direction via RP so they are encouraged to protect you? Just off the top of my head: become a camp counselor/therapist kind of guy who has group sessions after each encounter. Talks about feelings and "What we coulda done better this time, Fellas" in the gentlest of tones while playing your instrument.

[QUOTE=Nitrowing;52896479]Sounds like your party needs to step up its teamwork. You [I]could[/I] say that it was the DM picking on you, but attacking the lone, squishy-looking guy makes sense from a tactical standpoint. Maybe steer your bard in a more fun direction via RP so they are encouraged to protect you? Just off the top of my head: become a camp counselor/therapist kind of guy who has group sessions after each encounter. Talks about feelings and "What we coulda done better this time, Fellas" in the gentlest of tones while playing your instrument.[/QUOTE] I'm not blaming the DM in this case. I totally get attacking the squishbag who is running his mouth. My issue lies with my teammates who won't back me up. I've specifically asked at some points if someone could stand between me and the enemies after combat breaks out but everyone runs past their front line and seems to ignore any kind of tactics (and not like "WAAAH STAND BETWEEN ME AND THEM" but more like "hey could we not all attack one person because it leaves us wide open"). And as far as I can tell, people do like my character. He's become close friends with one of them, he got the entire party a free stay at the local tavern because he told a wonderful story about a milquetoast NPC that the party had encountered earlier, I haggled a trader into giving us a permanent 20% discount on items. But the moment we get close to combat everyone just kind of like backs off and forgets how to act.

So to add a little extra, i've been using a website to generate Star Wars style opening Crawls for EotE sessions. A new one each story arc (every few sessions). I think it adds a little to the atmosphere.

[QUOTE=Plattack;52896757]I'm not blaming the DM in this case. I totally get attacking the squishbag who is running his mouth. My issue lies with my teammates who won't back me up. I've specifically asked at some points if someone could stand between me and the enemies after combat breaks out but everyone runs past their front line and seems to ignore any kind of tactics (and not like "WAAAH STAND BETWEEN ME AND THEM" but more like "hey could we not all attack one person because it leaves us wide open"). And as far as I can tell, people do like my character. He's become close friends with one of them, he got the entire party a free stay at the local tavern because he told a wonderful story about a milquetoast NPC that the party had encountered earlier, I haggled a trader into giving us a permanent 20% discount on items. But the moment we get close to combat everyone just kind of like backs off and forgets how to act.[/QUOTE] Cheat. Stack the encounter/environment deck in your favor, look for CHA boosting whatever at every opportunity, write little ditties about what's going on that cast your group as lazy murder hobos as viewed through the eyes of an old person seeing it all done before [I]and sing them in public to other people[/I], check the layout of the place you're fixing to make your epic speech in and make sure exits are clearly marked, start buying and carrying [I]explosives[/I] and eventually the group will come to understand without backup your choices are non-violent peaceful amelioration or 100X hyperviolent destruction of property/people/the precious woobie you were questing for and there is no in between unless they intervene on your behalf, until such time and levels as you're able to get more bard juju under your belt.

Tips for making a wizard antagonist who [I]doesn't want to[/I] [U]KILL[/U] the players still seem like an absolute fucking asshole cunt? I was thinking stuff like, as they run at him, he uses mage hand to pull their pants down and trip them up in public Throw mud in their eyes, cast annoying spells on them like a constant stink bomb. Stuff like that, ideas?

Humiliation, blatant isms, being a cunt to NPCs and party-friends, having a super irritating (within reason) "I win" card that the players need to cooperate to remove

[QUOTE=Plattack;52896430]Normally I'd pose this question somewhere like reddit, but I know everyone in my group browses reddit a lot and visits the DnD subreddit, so I'm asking here. What exactly am I meant to do as an early game bard? I'm super squishy, and all of my spells thus far rely on the enemy making a saving throw vs. wisdom or dex, and nothing utilizes my charisma. I get that I have a lot I can do out of combat as a skill monkey, but I feel useless when it comes to combat. I've got a few buffs I can toss out, but they don't seem to be helping much. I've tried to talk our way out of combat and out of character everyone seems to support this decision vigorously, and it's worked at least once, but aside from that (when I had a teammate back me up by impaling a guy before combat started), none of them have their character speak up or back me up in any way, so when I fail to calm a group of enemies, I instantly become the target, since I'm the only one who has made any motion to say or do anything. Then, to top it all off, no one does anything to get between the enemies and I, and I end up getting targeted. In our most recent encounter, we're up against 4 thugs and their commander. I tried to talk them down, out of character everyone agreed, then in character no one did anything as the conversation amped up. We go into combat, everyone in the party ran to attack the one commander and 2 of the 4 thugs ran towards me and started swinging. One of my party members had the opportunity to use a spell and force them away, but did a literal ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and ran past them to attack the commander. It's like, I'm having fun being a bard, but at this point I just feel that I can't and shouldn't even bother to help before combat because all my efforts are wasted on a team who simply refuse to help if things go south.[/QUOTE] Don't do what 27X said. That's kinda that-guy-ing your way through things. Ask your DM if you can draw some spells from some other official splatbooks, if you're only using the PHB so far. Thunderclap from Elemental Evil, for example. Cantrip with only a somatic component, everything within 5 ft of you makes a con save against your spell save DC, on failure they take 1d6 damage (increases by 1d6 at 5th, 11th, and 17th level to 2d6,3d6,4d6 respectively). Get spells like faerie fire to help your teammates do their thing better, so they see why they should protect you, spells like sleep to do some crowd control, and for the love of god this is[B] the most important part[/B], talk it out with your fellow players. "Hey, guys, I'm feeling a little useless between my combat abilities and you guys' level of willingness to help protect my character in combat, like my character is just some guy you keep around to do the talking for you. I'm not ready to give up on this character yet, and I'm not asking you to get super defensive over him, but a little support would be greatly appreciated." [QUOTE=_Maverick_;52897750]Tips for making a wizard antagonist who [I]doesn't want to[/I] [U]KILL[/U] the players still seem like an absolute fucking asshole cunt? I was thinking stuff like, as they run at him, he uses mage hand to pull their pants down and trip them up in public Throw mud in their eyes, cast annoying spells on them like a constant stink bomb. Stuff like that, ideas?[/QUOTE] Why is the wizard an antagonist? If he's just being a dick to the players, just have him fuck with them. Oh, the party went into a dungeon? He locks the door behind them. The party is trying to act as security for some masquerade party? He shows up and causes embarrassing events, like casting minor illusion on a woman's dress to trick a player into attempting to put out the flame and creating a breach of etiquette. Have him turn former compatriots against them by spreading rumors. It'd help knowing why he's antagonizing them though.

Have him be an OP asshole who teleports you away if you try to attack him. Have him wash everyone off the streets with a small terrestrial tsunami as he is going on a leisurely walk. If you talk out of hand, he just mutes you. Basically, make him impossible to take on head-on, so the group has to come up with indirect ways of getting rid of him. Like, he'd expect his food to be poisoned, but he wouldn't expect bottom of his slippers to be oiled up to hell, so send rogue to infiltrate his home to do that, etc.

[QUOTE=Aezir;52897901] Why is the wizard an antagonist? If he's just being a dick to the players, just have him fuck with them. Oh, the party went into a dungeon? He locks the door behind them. The party is trying to act as security for some masquerade party? He shows up and causes embarrassing events, like casting minor illusion on a woman's dress to trick a player into attempting to put out the flame and creating a breach of etiquette. Have him turn former compatriots against them by spreading rumors. It'd help knowing why he's antagonizing them though.[/QUOTE] Basically the gods, about 12 in total now are fucking [highlight]LIVID[/highlight] at the party for their actions They are vilified by the Fey The underdark is after their blood Mercenary companies are hunting them They haven't been making friends so to speak... He is just one in a long line of people who wants them to [U]SUFFER[/U]

Was thinking of running a LotFP horror game in Veins of the Earth where the players and a bunch of NPCs start out as prisoners sentenced to exile, but in this kingdom, "exile" means throwing you down a pit into a vein and told to go. I really like the Veins book and need an excuse to use it for something.

[QUOTE=_Maverick_;52897750]Tips for making a wizard antagonist who [I]doesn't want to[/I] [U]KILL[/U] the players still seem like an absolute fucking asshole cunt? I was thinking stuff like, as they run at him, he uses mage hand to pull their pants down and trip them up in public Throw mud in their eyes, cast annoying spells on them like a constant stink bomb. Stuff like that, ideas?[/QUOTE] Spreading lies about them, casting illusions on them so they appear hideous or fearsome, conjuring pests on them, or even things as vast as turning the weather against them, altering the terrain so that travel is impossible or at least very difficult, and enchanting people they had as allies to now be their foes.

Have him curse their socks to be eternally soggy. That's the most evil and torturous thing I can think of.