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

[QUOTE=Mellowbloom;51423444]if one player feels they're being left out maybe they should discuss that with the group? did I accidentally step into an alternate dimension where people are incapable of communicating with each other about their characters and what they want out of a game you don't need to know a group well to just discuss things, and if they're the type of person to not give a shit about the other players maybe don't play with them I appreciate it can be difficult to find good people to play with sometimes, but that doesn't mean lowering your standards to play with problem people[/QUOTE] What do you mean 'step into an alternate dimension'? Nerds are HORRIBLE at communication, and if they are they STILL might not say anything because they don't want to 'ruin someone else's fun' even as their own is being ruined. Even if it's all OK'd in session 0, seeing it in practice can ruin shit for people when they realize just what they OK'd, and then it's a bit awkward to say "On second thought, allowing this was a bad idea", especially if it's been more than 3 sessions or so. Really awkward to remove a PC at that point. Monster races ARE the problem, because of how shit they are. If they were properly built it would be no issue, but like I said it's like approving dandwiki shit, OP nonsense. If it's all balanced, there's not as much to have issue with outside of "I don't like having monsters in the party".

[QUOTE=Chronische;51423360]They are signifigantly more powerful than any other player race. Pack tactics is utterly broken on humans, and the cringe power is also ridiculous. "Oh but sunlight!" yeah, but being in melee or even just hanging back to shoot dudes your buddies are engaging neutralizes that entirely. Bear in mind sunlight sensitivity is for DIRECT sunlight, so being in shade is even enough to make it go away entirely. [/quote] Kobolds have the worst stat increases of all player races, with a net gain of 0 (+2 Dex and -2 Strength). While strength for most classes no as valuable as dex, it still means they are going to fail more strength checks they are called upon to make, among other strength associated abilities. Sunlight sensitivity, while only direct sunlight, comes into play when either you or the target/object trying to perceive are in direct sunlight. Then they are also small. Pack is quite powerful under the right circumstances, however, if you're going to min/max, there's always going to be a race which can just squeeze out a little more damage. The cower skill basically comes across as a one use improved faerie fire spell. By comparison, beyond variant humans (+1 to two abilities, one skill and one feat), you have half elfs, which are +2 Charisma, +1 to two abilities, two skills, Fey Ancestry, and have darkvision. [quote] Then there's goblins who get 2/3 of the level 2 rogue ability just innately[/quote] Goblins aren't really that good a race TBH. Certainly worse than a lot of standard races if you want to make the comparison. [quote]yuan ti who get damage IMMUNITY, and so on.[/quote] Yuan-Ti are essentially gnomes with poison immunity, 1/day suggestion, and better magic resistance. Better? Yes. Game breaking? I'd heavily lean on the side of not. [quote]If you do, then goblins are still strictly better mechanics wise.[/quote] Absolutely not.

The main thing broken about the Pureblood is absolutely the spell resistance, not the poison immunity But otherwise they're not much different than Tieflings, and poison is nowhere near as common as fire, so the immunity is only really huge when fighting other Yuan Ti or Drow Also god knows generalizing the whole hobby to 'nerds that can't communicate' is an absolute shit reason for why working things out by actually like, talking to your GM isn't viable And it's not like retcons and refluffing are impossible even if it isn't viable, or even just making adjustments based on what is the problem as opposed to just 'delete character start over'

There are going to be powergaming builds that take advantage of any one race, but honestly none stand out as so powerful I would refuse to play a game with them. [QUOTE=SiberysTranq;51423787]The main thing broken about the Pureblood is absolutely the spell resistance, not the poison immunity But otherwise they're not much different than Tieflings, and poison is nowhere near as common as fire, so the immunity is only really huge when fighting other Yuan Ti or Drow Also god knows generalizing the whole hobby to 'nerds that can't communicate' is an absolute shit reason for why working things out by actually like, talking to your GM isn't viable And it's not like retcons and refluffing are impossible even if it isn't viable, or even just making adjustments based on what is the problem as opposed to just 'delete character start over'[/QUOTE] A quick easy change for the magic resistance would be to make it similar to that of the gnome: "Advantage on all intelligence, wisdom and charisma saving throws against magic."

[QUOTE=Chronische;51423360]They are signifigantly more powerful than any other player race. Pack tactics is utterly broken on humans, and the cringe power is also ridiculous. "Oh but sunlight!" yeah, but being in melee or even just hanging back to shoot dudes your buddies are engaging neutralizes that entirely. Bear in mind sunlight sensitivity is for DIRECT sunlight, so being in shade is even enough to make it go away entirely. Then there's goblins who get 2/3 of the level 2 rogue ability just innately, yuan ti who get damage IMMUNITY, and so on. They are unbalanced as hell, and shouldn't be used at all. You might as well take trash off dandwiki at that point (do not do this by the way). That's not even mentioning the RP shit, which is already laughable since dragonborn and drow are core races (and actually balanced unlike the monstrous races piles of shit). If you don't hit drow/dragonborn with tons of RP penalties already, what's a goblin? If you do, then goblins are still strictly better mechanics wise. Overall, you should NEVER allow them as they are presented in Volos. They need some major work.[/QUOTE] The sunlight thing works both ways. If you are in sunlight, or if your TARGET is in sunlight, its automatic disadvantage. Thanks to the way advantage and disadvantage cancel in the rules, this means that in sunlight a kobold can NEVER have advantage, it doesn't matter if you have two stacks or ten stacks of advantage, a single disadvantage cancels it every time. Sunlight sensitivity is a very harsh downside unless your whole campaign takes place in the underdark, at which point a sensible DM can just go 'yo this mushroom is as bright as direct sunlight' for some encounters and boom you're good.

i love the new D&D book. i can finally dm an ooze party and have their quest be cleaning the king's shitter.

So I've made this fiend patron for our new warlock with a lot of feedback from her, but I want to make sure he's interesting. I'm currently templating him off of the Chain Devil. Here's his synopsis: [quote]Fallen celestial turned into a fiend, and bound eternally to a small pocket dimension where he tortures the evilest and most ambitious souls. The Warlock is his niece, a former celestial turned mortal, who he has given power to in exchange for her helping him exact revenge against his brother (her father). His goal is for her to naturally foster the magic hes given her and grow powerful so that in time she can come to his dimension and do one of the following: - 'Pardon' him, since she's of the blood that bound him. He'll be free and can ostensibly go look for his own daughter, but also fuck shit up. - Die. At which point he'll reform in the Nine Hells (if I've done my lore right) and be free to do the above. - Siphon power from the Warlock and any other caster she brings with her so that he can free himself. - Kill the Warlock and her companions, and then essentially do the above.[/quote] I'm kinda at a roadblock on how I make him more interesting for the Warlock while she's traveling. My main idea was to push the fiends daughter direction slightly more, hopefully piquing in the PCs interest and giving her patron some more clear personality and motivation without having him constantly whisper shit in her ear. Any suggestions?

i'm getting some feelings of special snowflakism from this but that's just me

[QUOTE=lintz;51424117]i'm getting some feelings of special snowflakism from this but that's just me[/QUOTE] It is a little, but not any more than some of the other stuff my players have suggested and I've shot down in the past (I had to politely reject one players request to play a naruto inspired necromancer). Me and her have had a pretty long discussion on what is and isin't off the table, and a lot of what is seen above is stuff I've written down as a potential end game for her character once this campaign winds down.

you could add some celestial laws that the fiend could be bound by if your player is smart and looks for these loopholes and ways of permanently binding the fiend, if she so chooses for example, the fiend could still be utterly bound by his Word and breaking it would cause the loss of his power, or something

[QUOTE=Chronische;51423473]What do you mean 'step into an alternate dimension'? Nerds are HORRIBLE at communication, and if they are they STILL might not say anything because they don't want to 'ruin someone else's fun' even as their own is being ruined. Even if it's all OK'd in session 0, seeing it in practice can ruin shit for people when they realize just what they OK'd, and then it's a bit awkward to say "On second thought, allowing this was a bad idea", especially if it's been more than 3 sessions or so. Really awkward to remove a PC at that point. Monster races ARE the problem, because of how shit they are. If they were properly built it would be no issue, but like I said it's like approving dandwiki shit, OP nonsense. If it's all balanced, there's not as much to have issue with outside of "I don't like having monsters in the party".[/QUOTE] You're talking like every single person who plays D&D is a nerd who is awful at communication. Me and my group will have discussions about rule changes and the like all the time, it's not something crazy to think about.

[QUOTE=lintz;51424179]you could add some celestial laws that the fiend could be bound by if your player is smart and looks for these loopholes and ways of permanently binding the fiend, if she so chooses for example, the fiend could still be utterly bound by his Word and breaking it would cause the loss of his power, or something[/QUOTE] Thank you for the suggestion. I'll keep this in the lore notes I have on religion and try to make some subtle references once she gets acclimated to the world. I mainly try to use story and character backstory to create interesting dungeon and roleplay sets, so having some kind of abandoned temple to go spelunking in or some kind of divine quest they have to follow would be cool.

So I'm replacing my character (the one which died immediately after eating a crit from a greataxe) with a tielfling warlock, also with a pact of the fiend. Backstory isn't terribly original, but it's something. Basically she's a folk hero for driving off a monster, but in truth she made a pact with it in exchange for her town's protection. Though the town hailed her as a hero, she eventually fled the town before anyone could find her secret or her benefactor's "visions" would come to pass. She adventures to try and find the knowledge to break the pact, trying to resist the urge to give in further for what power it would grant her. I'm considering multiclassing depending on how things go, and if it would fit into her circumstances. Like I said, it's not much of an original story, but it's something. If that character dies -- seriously, I think I have the worst luck in that respect -- I'm toying with the idea of a Lizardfolk Hunter/cook, focusing on unarmed attacks for a thematic approach. Sort of a big game hunter. I'm even thinking about using gourmand feat just to double down on the backstory approach. For a level 5 setup, I was thinking Ranger 3, Monk 1, Rogue 1, then pretty well straight ranger after that (maybe monk 2)

Alright boys and girls, come about and listen the exciting tale of my GM going into shitter territory, because he wants dungeon crawl so much. As our party has been sitting around and discussing what to do with our combined ~4k silver + ~2k gold at level 4, we decided not to give plot item to an NPC wizard, because fuck that guy. Instead, we decided to follow the golden compass that we found, because it's magical and shit. Truly, the most heroic deed. The fact that all of our party but the Dwarf Cleric are practically criminals due to a bit of confusion, previously described, we decided to leave the town, and travel towards direction pointed at by the compass. The problem is that the compass is pointing towards an abandoned town, which we helped evacuate earlier, bringing all the migrants problems to the world of fantasy. So, we decided to get some horses, a cart, and a motherfucking balista on top of it, because why the fuck not? Although we had plenty of money, we decided that maybe getting Mayor of the town on board would be a good idea - get rid of migrants and stop the monster hordes coming at the town. But this is where shit goes wrong. GM: "So, you want to go see the Mayor?" Me: "Yeah, sure, so first-" GM: "Ok, so you went to town. I will not roll to see if the guards notice and stop you." *Rolls D20* Me: "Wait, what? I am not done yet, I haven't prepared for this excursion, let me disguise first." GM: "Oh no, you said you want to go to town, so you go. If you wanted to do anything else, then say so first." Me: "You didn't let me!" *Supporting statements from other players go here* GM: "Well, you're in town now, and a guard noticed you (he rolled 5 on d20 under 6 for encounter, our usual approach)". Me: "Okay, so I try to talk to the guard, since I want to see the Mayor - clearly if someone wanted wants to see the Mayor and comes out in the open, they are doing it for a reaso-" GM: "The guard goes to grapple you." I evade the guard's bear hug. Me: "Alright, looks like he's not the smarter guardsman. I try to talk him down that I am in town on an official business, surely with a +10 modifier, I have a chance to persuade him to stop attacking." GM: "You have to roll a natural 20 to have any effect." I make the roll anyway. I fail, and the guard tries to grapple me again. I evade him again. GM: "In the scuffle, two more guards notice you." Me: "Alright, this isn't working. I'll try to run away and hide into the busiest area of the city." GM: "Make running roll." I am able to make a pretty good head start on the guards, and get to the market square. I decide to hide in the crowds, by getting some passersby to group up behind me by dropping some coins. Me: "I'm going to drop some coins behind myself, so the people in the surrounding area would swarm in, slowing down the guard some." GM: "Alright, but you drop all of your money in the commotion." Me: "Wait, you didn't let me choose how much money I take with me." GM: "Oh, so you are carrying all of your money with you?" Me: "No, that's ridiculous - I probably carry enough in my pouch." GM: "Alright, you lose 100 silver coins that were in that pouch." At this point, the ridiculousness of the situation just annoyed me to the point where I just agreed with it - what else I'm going to spend that money on, as a bard, anyway? Me: "I'll hide in the marketplace crowds, away from guards." GM: "Make a Hide check." I hide, receive NO bonus modifier. The guard get lucky and spot me. At this point, the situation has gotten so stupid, that other players at the table started bitching about letting me just get away with this. Despite GM's reluctance, he finally agrees to let the guards lose me. I end up hiding behind an oat's market stall. Me: "I approach the owner of the shop. "Good sir, I beg for your assistance. The love of my life has been locked away from me by her vengeful parents. I may be able to bypass their watchful eyes in a disguise. Good sir, please assist me in my quest for love. I will pay you 5 golds for a new set of clothes, to replace the ones that you could provide me in assistance!"". Merchant: "The storekeeper ignore you." Me: "Good sir, are you not an honorable to man to assist those in need in their quest for the greatest virtues of our world?" Merchant: "Screw off, kid, or I'll call the guards." At this point, I decide that a more subtle approach is required, so I cast "Charm Person" on the salesman. Me: "My good fellow, let us forget the problems of the past. You look like a man who needs to forget his dirty old life, and move onto a brighter future. And how not to show off your new you, as to buy yourself some new clothes on your shoulders?". I put 5 gold into the merchant's hand. Merchant: "Yes my friend, this is a good idea!" Merchant goes off to buy some good clothes, and comes back smiling. At this point I realize that he probably forgot all about the whole "Swap clothes afterwards" thing, so I put him to sleep, go Agent 47 on him (I do leave his new clothes on him - don't want the guy to be found naked), and finally get to the Town Hall. I approach the gates and begin conversation with the receptionist. I present myself as a representative of the merchants of the markets, and have brought a counter-proposal to the taxes. At first, receptionist proved reluctant, preferring to send me away, because he doesn't care for any counter-proposals. However, after everyone once again shouted at GM to let Social (Charisma 18 for fuck sakes) Character of the group to at least be allowed to roll Diplomacy, receptionist got better after I rolled pretty well, and pointed me to the Mayor's office. When I got to the Mayor's office, I knocked and entered. Mayor: "Who are you and what do you want?" Me: "Sir, I have arrived to you with a proposal that will benefit us all. As you know, a recent migrant wave from the south has brought many a thief and beggar to this beautiful town. As such, a man of power like you, are interested in restoring order to the community. We propose a soluti-" Mayor: "I don't have time for this. Get out of my office - Guards!" Mayor begins to ring his Emergency Bell™, calling in the guards. I react to this with what I think is the best choice - I run behind the mayor, and put the Rapier to his neck - at least in a hostage situation, I will be able to actually speak, as well as be relatively safe. After all, not like they will actually endanger the Mayor of the town - they fail to save him, they will probably get executed for incompetence. Right? GM: "The guards try to jump and grapple you." At this point, I just fucking gave up and (luckily with support of everyone else at the table), and flat out called out GM on his shit. First, he forces me into this whole situation without any preparations. Then every NPC goes out of their way to fuck with me - and as a CG, I can't really just murderbone my way through idiots. Finally, I can't even do any roleplay, because almost everything causes a combat encounter. Lack of roleplaying has been a thing since day one, with GM confirming that he wants us to follow plot hooks and level up so he can carry us further. We agreed to continue for now, and the rest of the session was relatively boring fight against undead as we travel towards the abandoned town. But yeah, I needed to get this off my shoulders. Not to say that the dude is a bad person - it's just that it seems that he wants to run a dungeon crawl, he dislikes dealing with logistics and background roleplay, and kinda bad at representing lively characters that aren't goblins. We also have been doing D&D for quite some time, so the formula got a bit dull. I'm thinking to propose that I could run another RPG every other week (probably Shadowrun, to allow for some non-combat, but maybe STALKER RPG I'm working on). The group is mostly alright, just flaky as hell - the fact that it still sort of holds together, is an achievement of it's own. But hey, at least we killed a rock elemental thing after 20 turns of beating up on it, while it slept. Oh, and I rolled a d20 at the end of all this, to see if I still have faith in humanity (so I'd downgrade to CN on a low roll). Luck had me stay limited to being a good asshole. [editline]25th November 2016[/editline] [B]ALTERNATIVELY:[/B] If my Bard dies, I want to run a NE or TN fighter and just fuck shit up. CG Bard is fun, when you can actually do bard things outside of fighting, but it seems that combat is the best way to go. Anyone can recommend me a powergamey build? I need it specifically to murder my way through commoners, guards, and anything GM wants to throw my way. Think Guts. I don't want to do Psion or Wizard, because that'll take a while to get to proper power level, and we had a bad experience with a Sorceror trying to bluff through EVERYTHING. I want to break the game for GM, not other players - I want them along for the fun ride. [editline]25th November 2016[/editline] Again, dude isn't a bad person - he's just spergy as fuck.

[QUOTE=Hey I'm Grump;51424202]You're talking like every single person who plays D&D is a nerd who is awful at communication. Me and my group will have discussions about rule changes and the like all the time, it's not something crazy to think about.[/QUOTE] At least in my experience, most people have a bit of an aversion to homeruling stuff. Especially when it comes to nerfing one particular PC or another. That's generally kind of a big deal.

[QUOTE=Mellowbloom;51422316]the downside to being a kobold is that you're a pathetic angry mess and nobody likes you[/QUOTE] kobolds are literally the best, i think you are mistaken

[QUOTE=Jrose14;51424797]kobolds are literally the best, i think you are mistaken[/QUOTE] Nah man this shit's disgusting [img]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/14/D%26DKobold.JPG/200px-D%26DKobold.JPG[/img]

[QUOTE=elowin;51424817]Nah man this shit's disgusting [img]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/14/D%26DKobold.JPG/200px-D%26DKobold.JPG[/img][/QUOTE] shuddup nerd at least kobolds don't look like angry hairy basketballs

I'm sorry that your GM is being a bit of a dick but your solution to get back at him is pretty passive aggressive and you'd probably be better off just leaving the group IMO.

[QUOTE=TectoImprov;51424886]I'm sorry that your GM is being a bit of a dick but your solution to get back at him is pretty passive aggressive and you'd probably be better off just leaving the group IMO.[/QUOTE] I mean, the group as a whole is alright. We just don't have any alternatives in regards to GMing, so perhaps another RPG/GM would be a breath of fresh air. [editline]25th November 2016[/editline] I guess, I'm just not getting the proper Power Trip with my bard, since as an out of combat support character I get very little to do as such, since GM is primarily capable in running combat.

I wouldn't say your GM is capable, primarily or otherwise.

Doing an all-monster bad guy campaign does sound like a ton of fun tho

[QUOTE=Jrose14;51424797]kobolds are literally the best, i think you are mistaken[/QUOTE] I didn't say they weren't

[QUOTE=Jrose14;51424872]shuddup nerd at least kobolds don't look like angry hairy basketballs[/QUOTE] Kobold babies do [img]http://img14.deviantart.net/d68c/i/2011/101/4/2/groundbold_by_rurikar-d3dqnc4.png[/img]

[QUOTE=elowin;51426465]Kobold babies do [IMG]http://img14.deviantart.net/d68c/i/2011/101/4/2/groundbold_by_rurikar-d3dqnc4.png[/IMG][/QUOTE] [IMG]http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/thumb/4/47/263Zigzagoon.png/250px-263Zigzagoon.png[/IMG] Less basketball more cutest pokemon ever

Speaking of communication and bad GMing: I have a player in my 40k Only War campaign who plays an Architectus Magna with a Shadowsword, also known as a Titan-Killer that destroys everything with its inert volcano death cannon in its front. She wanted to put Multi-Lasers on it, saying that Heavy Bolters are the same thing mechanically. We argued alot about the hole in the lore about it, with me ultimately saying no. After I said I had worries about the Shadowsword's power imbalance compared to the rest of the team especially due to her resilience towards allowing the others to control parts of it besides as transport, she decided to call it off and make me the one who said to throw away the Shadowsword. She then made a Sanctioned Psyker with the initial background being a Adepta Sororitas turned Interrogator Party member turned Imperial Guard person, blaming me for telling her to throw out the Shadowsword. After I said I never told her to throw out the character, she brings it back and proposes this: During deployments where the Shadowsword is capable of being around, she will play as two characters, the Psyker and the Magna. I feel like she's trying to pull a fast one on me and use emotion and accusations to make me allow her to have alot more firepower then the rest of the group with a tank and the ability to conjure the Warp. I don't know what to do without appearing as the bad guy for restricting her ability to do things, as she has already said she'll leave if I keep "harassing" her over the potential imbalance. I don't want to be a scumbag GM, but I'm extremely suspicious of their accusations and actions during the time they've been in the campaign. I feel as if my own control of the group's cohesion is being threatened by them brazenly blaming me for everything and making me out to be the bad guy. What do I do?

That sounds utterly dogshit. Why did you even have a Shadowsword on the table as an option? If it wasn't an option, and they are just demanding it, that's not something they get to decide. Beyond that, something like a Shadowsword is a whole-party sort of thing, with a driver, multiple gunners, ect, so it's all good as far as the party goes. Calling it off because you can't swap out weapons (how dare someone defile such a masterpiece!) is pretty petty. Under NO circumstances should you let them control two characters. That's asking for trouble. Sounds like they are trying to push for fairly outrageous shit, you have to shut them down and remind them that it's a team effort, but each player is a SINGLE member of the team. They aren't a team unto themselves, and certainly can't dictate how things are going to go to the GM of all people.

Tbh I'd kick them out. You're the GM, and if you're doing things in the interest of the other player's fun and not for your own sake as GM then fuck them. To me it sounds like they just want to be lonewolf OP murderhobo shit and you're not having any of it. They'd be gone from my game the second they proposed playing as two characters. Like it's one thing to have more firepower than other characters, there's billions of reasons that can happen, but outright having a fit because you're not letting them min-max sperg it up is grounds for immediate termination imo.

Recently got into Magic the Gathering. I'm still really new and I don't have a solid deck yet, but I had a question about the different eras of cards. I bought a deck builder's toolkit that was primarily Kaladesh, but had a couple boosters from Eldritch Moon and some others. I don't really know the differences between all the different versions that come out, but I was told that previous versions (like Eldritch Moon) would soon be unplayable or something? I picked up an Eldritch Moon booster when I got the deck builder's kit because I like eldritch things so why not (got a foil out of it though). I just wanted to know, is there a place I can check to see what cards are playable and aren't playable?

Uhh, well you'll have to know the sets. So basically when you either buy cards or use an online catalogue of cards, like the deck builder websites, just check what set they're from and then you'll be able to know if they're in standard, modern, etc. Generally these sites have ways to filter only cards of specific kinds, like only standard, only modern, etc. Tappedout.net is a really popular site for it. I used to play mtg but then I really began to hate it because all the turbo nerds played it and as much fun as it is making gimmicky decks and such, 3 turn win cheeto fingers johnny who spent over $600 on his one deck is like half the community here so it's not fun. Also wrong section? [editline]25th November 2016[/editline] Also if anyone's interested in Numenera, I still have room for 1 or 2 players still. Game's Friday's at 8PM EST.