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

[QUOTE=elowin;51297792]rigging is cheating[/QUOTE] Some of the other racers were riggers too, but we cheated by raising a retractable bridge on everyone else, but it wasn't even needed.

I need some feedback on the mechanics of this boss fight I'm considering. Three level 1 PCS are going to encounter the phantom of an evil pyromancer & musical fanatic who was magically blinded in life. The curse has remained with him in his undead 'pyrophantom' form and I'd like to include aspects of it into the fight. Here's what I have now: [quote] - The phantom relies on casting a 1d8 firebolt at range and a 1d6 attack at close range. He has a conditional form of blindsight that allows him to 'see' about 10ft around him. He relies on sound and noise to discern where the players are past that. He also knows misty step to phase into a different part of the chamber to stop martial characters from just wailing on him too much. - Unless attacked at close range the phantom will typically move a short distance and use his action to 'listen'. The amount a player moves in their turn sets a DC for him to hear them. DC starts at 30 and lowers by 5 for each 5ft of movement or attack they take. When they stop moving or make an attack a perception roll is made by the phantom. Regardless of the outcome he'll always follow the roll with a reaction ranged attack directed at the source of the noise, but passing or failing the DC decides whether he rolls normally or with disadvantage. - I'd like to include a trap of some kind that fills the tomb with an ambient 'hum' for a round. Allowing the phantom to discern player location with ease. Likewise, any clever use of noise the players chose to use can act as a stun effect on him or a distraction. - If the Sorcerer is just casting prestidigation to make fart noises in one part of the chamber over and over the phantom will start to ignore them, or just get pissed and start using his turns to fly around blindly and try to get the characters within his 10ft of blindsight so he claw at them. [/quote] Thoughts? I'm still pretty new at building encounters.

[QUOTE=Archimedes;51298328]I need some feedback on the mechanics of this boss fight I'm considering. Three level 1 PCS are going to encounter the phantom of an evil pyromancer & musical fanatic who was magically blinded in life. The curse has remained with him in his undead 'pyrophantom' form and I'd like to include aspects of it into the fight. Here's what I have now: Thoughts? I'm still pretty new at building encounters.[/QUOTE] If he can't see beyond 10 feet what's to stop the party from just spreading out and hailing ranged attacks at him from every direction? Getting shot isn't exactly going to pinpoint the shooters' exact location, just their general direction, and being hit from multiple directions sure wouldn't help. Even if he has super senses that could pinpoint their exact location, if they just move slightly to the side that'll totally throw it off.

[QUOTE=Nerts;51298272]Some of the other racers were riggers too, but we cheated by raising a retractable bridge on everyone else, but it wasn't even needed.[/QUOTE] Most of them got killed or delayed when I set a whole stretch of busy intersections to yellow lights, and the one who got past got her car wrecked by Nert's shotgun The bridge was just me showboating at that point

[QUOTE=elowin;51298455]If he can't see beyond 10 feet what's to stop the party from just spreading out and hailing ranged attacks at him from every direction? Getting shot isn't exactly going to pinpoint the shooters' exact location, just their general location, and even if he has super senses that could pinpoint their exact location, if they just move slightly to the side that'll totally throw it off.[/QUOTE] I think I may have miss used the term blindsight, basically he can see normally within 10ft of him and everything past that is hearing and echolocation. The last bit about super senses and pinpointing the source of attacks is where the disadvantage is supposed to factor in thematically. The thing is supposed to have ungodly good hearing, but if a player spends their turn just attacking at range the phantom is rolling against a 25 DC and probably going to fail. That's fine, it's cool to imagine an angry entity lashing out against the faint noise of a notched arrow with a blast of fire. If that's what the fights starts to turn into I'll go to phase two where he'll begin moving towards the only sources of sound he's hearing until he can actually see the players with his shitty 'vision'. [editline]2nd November 2016[/editline] I may make some changes to what impacts his hearing, like player distance so even if he gets close without hitting someone moving away or going for a sly potshot will still result in a potential hit against the offending PC.

[QUOTE=Nerts;51298272]Some of the other racers were riggers too, but we cheated by raising a retractable bridge on everyone else, but it wasn't even needed.[/QUOTE] With a good mage and decker you would win that race in a motorised shopping trolley with some good rolls. And should have done so just for the funny factor.

Wasn't even our car, is the thing It was some loaner civvy car with bolted on armor and a harpoon gun that both proved totally unnecessary Besides it was probably enough that we showed up the girl who usually wins every race right after she iced one of our Ancient friends (she couldn't be killed then and there for averting-gang-war reasons) in a borrowed car as a team that had never raced before And in all honesty we probably could have won totally legit, given the performance of the other racers. But we wanted to be sure and we probably would have had to pay for drinks at the afterparties if we hadn't won (plus not getting our biggest payday to date)

So, our party went through a flooded maze (so our party's gnome rogue was piggybacking on me the whole time), got charged by a shark that almost killed me in 3 bites. I summoned some badgers to stop it, only for them to all get gulped up in a single bite. Then the party got lost, we walked around a bit, found a chest with 24,000 silver pieces (!), somehow recovered them with a raft, befriended a Bullete to help us get the raft out, and finally brought back the silver into our camp after hiring a bunch of peasants to help us move it. So, now we're in danger because the peasants probably will spread rumors of us being rich, so every bandit for miles will come on by. And now we have money for things, but we have no idea what to spend it on as a Level 4 group. Maybe we'll buy an Inn.

Today my character transitioned from "floating severed head of evil necromancer" to "head of an evil necromancer transplanted onto the headless body of a noblewoman who made fun of necromancer for not having any arms and legs", in a way that would have made DIO proud. Thanks for the arms and legs :^)

[QUOTE=Sir Whoopsalot;51297856]In today's bout of 5e, the 3 level 1s of us got surprised by 4 giant badgers. We died after the first badger crit and downed someone, following by the second badger also critting and outright killing someone. The DM decided a mulligan was in order so we redid the encounter with a badger less. We got one down with sleep. We died again. At this point, the DM softly giggled to himself and fiat'd our way out of it. Although I'm missing a thumb, someone else is missing a pinky finger and a third person is now missing a toe on each foot. Had to appease the badgers somehow, you see.[/QUOTE] Yeah in 5e is pretty deadly when you're level 1. Me and my friend almost went down in an encounter with five commoners :v:

[QUOTE=Archimedes;51298328]I need some feedback on the mechanics of this boss fight I'm considering. Three level 1 PCS are going to encounter the phantom of an evil pyromancer & musical fanatic who was magically blinded in life. The curse has remained with him in his undead 'pyrophantom' form and I'd like to include aspects of it into the fight. Here's what I have now: Thoughts? I'm still pretty new at building encounters.[/QUOTE] Save difficult encounters for after level 1. Level 1 is notoriously lethal.

[QUOTE=thisguy123;51298669]With a good mage and decker you would win that race in a motorised shopping trolley with some good rolls. And should have done so just for the funny factor.[/QUOTE] I made a catgirl street racer character actually, before I decided to play a street sam instead, they'd have been rolling 26 dice and completely annihilated the circuit even with sub-par rolling :v: I think I gave them the Legendary Rep quality too, so that street race session would've been pretty different.

[QUOTE=Archimedes;51298328] Three level 1 PCS are going to encounter the phantom of an evil pyromancer & musical fanatic who was magically blinded in life. The curse has remained with him in his undead 'pyrophantom' form and I'd like to include aspects of it into the fight. Here's what I have now.[/QUOTE] I wouldn't try any sort of hard encounters at level 1, simply because with how low the health is at those levels. Single attacks can mean the difference between dying and surviving with near full health. Luck in dice rolls have such a high factor in combat at that level. For instance, at level 1, a light crossbow fired by a character with a +2 dex modifier can kill a +0 con ranger, fighter or paladin if they roll an eight for damage, or a +2 con D8 hitdie character. It can leave the characters in the uncomfortable spot where there's no opportunity to disengage, heal or otherwise avoid dying between rounds, especially with multiple enemies. With few options in the way of spells or special abilities at level 1, it can often come down to who got the better dice rolls, not if the PCs engaged foolishly. Bad dice rolls can still be awful at higher levels, but with (usually) a buffer it isn't crippling. [editline]3rd November 2016[/editline] You also need to be careful with single monster encounters. There is a fairly fine line between them flattening your party, and being too easy, especially at low levels.

[QUOTE=Ogopogo;51301740]I wouldn't try any sort of hard encounters at level 1, simply because with how low the health is at those levels. Single attacks can mean the difference between dying and surviving with near full health. Luck in dice rolls have such a high factor in combat at that level. For instance, at level 1, a light crossbow fired by a character with a +2 dex modifier can kill a +0 con ranger, fighter or paladin if they roll an eight for damage, or a +2 con D8 hitdie character. It can leave the characters in the uncomfortable spot where there's no opportunity to disengage, heal or otherwise avoid dying between rounds, especially with multiple enemies. With few options in the way of spells or special abilities at level 1, it can often come down to who got the better dice rolls, not if the PCs engaged foolishly. Bad dice rolls can still be awful at higher levels, but with (usually) a buffer it isn't crippling. [editline]3rd November 2016[/editline] You also need to be careful with single monster encounters. There is a fairly fine line between them flattening your party, and being too easy, especially at low levels.[/QUOTE] I have 7 players and I was just using a generator for encounters because it's level 1, nothing too special. Just some destination to destination stuff. And the difference between 6 and 7 characters is apparently enough to bring it from 5 goblins to a werewolf.

[QUOTE=Fish_poke;51302384]I have 7 players and I was just using a generator for encounters because it's level 1, nothing too special. Just some destination to destination stuff. And the difference between 6 and 7 characters is apparently enough to bring it from 5 goblins to a werewolf.[/QUOTE] Something definitely seems wrong there. I suppose the thing is it might be considering 7 turns to 1 turn for it, but even without the damage immunities, it would be liable to slaughter much if not all of your party.

[QUOTE=LiquidNazgul;51300281]Today my character transitioned from "floating severed head of evil necromancer" to "head of an evil necromancer transplanted onto the headless body of a noblewoman who made fun of necromancer for not having any arms and legs", in a way that would have made DIO proud. Thanks for the arms and legs :^)[/QUOTE] And then she was drawn (not by me) [t]http://i.imgur.com/EgJV144.jpg[/t] I'm considering re-animating her head but nah, I'll just leave it as a creepy preserved good luck charm. Did I mention we're playing evil characters yet, started around Halloween? It's going surprisingly well.

[QUOTE=Ogopogo;51302453]Something definitely seems wrong there. I suppose the thing is it might be considering 7 turns to 1 turn for it, but even without the damage immunities, it would be liable to slaughter much if not all of your party.[/QUOTE] It's why I just slapped a couple more goblins into it and felt alright. No way am I throwing something with DR at not only a bunch of level 1s but also 6/7 are new players.

[QUOTE=Fish_poke;51302590]It's why I just slapped a couple more goblins into it and felt alright. No way am I throwing something with DR at not only a bunch of level 1s but also 6/7 are new players.[/QUOTE] No, werewolves have damage IMMUNITY to nonsilver weapons. They are still managable with cantrips and the like, though it's pretty likely at least one party member will go down and/or be infected.

[QUOTE=Fish_poke;51302590]It's why I just slapped a couple more goblins into it and felt alright. No way am I throwing something with DR at not only a bunch of level 1s but also 6/7 are new players.[/QUOTE] Yeah, generators assume normal-ish party strength and competency, and I've yet to see one that doesn't give encounters that would murder a couple of people if you tell it you have a large party. [editline]3rd November 2016[/editline] Most of them just add PCs together to determin party strength, it'll see nine 1st level characters and three 3rd level characters are being the same, but there's a lot of things that'd be challenging to the second group that would outright kill several of the first group.

D&D is generally pretty dysfunctional at the very low levels. And at the very high levels for that matter, but for completely different reasons.

i like d&d at low levels because it forces the players to come up with sweet strategies that almost always fail miserably.

Unless you've done some unholy levels of minmaxing, any result under about 6 on a d20 at level 1 means you just fucked up.

I dislike DnD's leveling up system in both 3.5 and 5. Both for the random element, 5 for being simplistic, both for being very linear (the extra perk levels are rather welcome for offering more choice) . Multiclassing largely fucks you.

[QUOTE=plunger435;51300708]Save difficult encounters for after level 1. Level 1 is notoriously lethal.[/QUOTE] I'll put this encounter on the backburner for now and maybe throw it at my main group of PCs later. I've got a month to balance it so I'm sure I can simplify the fight and make it less deadly but still interesting. Thanks for the feedback everyone.

[QUOTE=MenteR;51302732]i like d&d at low levels because it forces the players to come up with sweet strategies that almost always fail miserably.[/QUOTE] But that's what Shadowrun is for. :v:

[QUOTE=Archimedes;51303717]I'll put this encounter on the backburner for now and maybe throw it at my main group of PCs later. I've got a month to balance it so I'm sure I can simplify the fight and make it less deadly but still interesting. Thanks for the feedback everyone.[/QUOTE] It is a pretty cool and original fight conceptually, so you should definitely use it at some stage. Just not whenever PCs are capable of being killed by a heavy wind like at level 1.

You could just start them off at a level that isn't 1 and get to the good stuff right away.

Am I the only one that enjoys the simple, visceral combat of level 1?

[QUOTE=Oliolio;51304148]Am I the only one that enjoys the simple, visceral combat of level 1?[/QUOTE] You mean 'your choices don't matter, only the dice do?'

[QUOTE=Vengeful Falcon;51303757]It is a pretty cool and original fight conceptually, so you should definitely use it at some stage. Just not whenever PCs are capable of being killed by a heavy wind like at level 1.[/QUOTE] That was my crucial concern. I'm running the session mainly for my friends gf whose new to DnD so I'd like to give some simple examples of what's possible in DnD: Puzzles, Speech & Roleplay, and combat encounters both with and without gimmicks. I'll probably do something simpler for the fight, like having the floor begin to ingite forcing them to move or have several torches in the area that the players can attack for additional damage.