Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

[King Dead]

Pray for me, we are attempting to get our old group back together after close to a year. This unfortunately includes going to the married couple's house and potentially having to deal with their kids interrupting every five seconds again, but I said I was willing to give it a chance at least. That said, my friend and I have basically told each other that if it gets to be as much of a problem as we're pretty sure it's going to be, we're going to drop it. No tabletop is better than bad tabletop.

 

[Quintus]

The best moments are where your players come up with some insane theory as to what is happening and it is way better than whatever you had intended so you just go "uh yeah" and just run with it.

It's true. For most of the campaign in my homebrew sci-fi setting, my players were convinced that robo scorpions with mono-molecular blade tails were the hidden enemy.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

Pray for me, we are attempting to get our old group back together after close to a year. This unfortunately includes going to the married couple's house and potentially having to deal with their kids interrupting every five seconds again, but I said I was willing to give it a chance at least. That said, my friend and I have basically told each other that if it gets to be as much of a problem as we're pretty sure it's going to be, we're going to drop it. No tabletop is better than bad tabletop.

Depends on how old they are. We managed to incorporate our hosts' two boys into the sessions. They do love rolling dice and whooping bad guys

 

[Meat Target]

The best moments are where your players come up with some insane theory as to what is happening and it is way better than whatever you had intended so you just go "uh yeah" and just run with it.

I need to get better at rolling with the bit and not being too strict of a DM. I have a tendency to intervene when they're about to fuck up, instead of letting them do it face the consequences of their choices.

I understand that the worst thing a DM can do is kill the funny.

Depends on how old they are. We managed to incorporate our hosts' two boys into the sessions. They do love rolling dice and whooping bad guys

Playing tabletops with kids goes one of two ways:

• Trying to make friends with a goblin king or Chaos demon
• The most appalling war crimes imaginable

My friend was playing some wargame with his son, who bombed his field hospital. The kid said "so what? They're not ours". He then knew he's raising a future Henry Kissinger.

 

[40 Year Old Boomer]

I have a tendency to intervene when they're about to fuck up, instead of letting them do it face the consequences of their choices.

You need to develop a crueler sense of humor. The players learn faster when you let them touch the hot stove burner or pull the TV down onto their heads a few times.

 

[Ghostse]

Biggest issue I have sometimes with rolling when something comes out of super left field in a campaing is I try to make sure to keep dropping breadcomes and arrows in the story to point to what's going on. So while I'm happy to flex I have to think "does going with this contradict anything before, and if so can it be made to support the new direction?"
which is why its important to not plot TOO tightly.

And just aside, I think that's one of the things OSR plots excel at. You can't have a huge intricate plot built around a character who might die at with a bad roll.

 

[LovisXVI]

I need to get better at rolling with the bit and not being too strict of a DM. I have a tendency to intervene when they're about to fuck up, instead of letting them do it face the consequences of their choices.

You need to develop a crueler sense of humor. The players learn faster when you let them touch the hot stove burner or pull the TV down onto their heads a few times.

Encouraging it also fun, "Stab him in the back" "Open that door" "Diabliarize him", no way anything bad could happen from any of those things.

 

[Meat Target]

You need to develop a crueler sense of humor. The players learn faster when you let them touch the hot stove burner or pull the TV down onto their heads a few times.

So, the incident in question was that the party found an quest item that would be required to unlock the BBEG. But one player wanted to weld the item to his helmet like a retard.

In retrospect, should I obliquely warn them about such foolishness? Say something like "are you sure you wanna do that?", indicating that there will be consequences?

 

[Ghostse]

So, the incident in question was that the party found an quest item that would be required to unlock the BBEG. But one player wanted to weld the item to his helmet like a retard.

In retrospect, should I obliquely warn them about such foolishness? Say something like "are you sure you wanna do that?", indicating that there will be consequences?

Sounds like the retard now has a cursed helmet. Or when the BBEG shows up, his head gets crushed inside his helmet like a fucking grape as the BBEG collapses it.

I'd maybe give him some warning with fell voices whispering in his ear when he puts on the helmet. But unless you do something mechanical like "the voices distract you, giving you disadvantage on wisdom saves" they will probably find it interesting and see how many of them can fit their heads into the helmet at one time.

Which as much as I like to make fun of my players for retardation any TTRPG with any sort of narrative, from narrative games for drama majors to the crunchiest most austic 2e with full combat speed rule, are narratively built around around "everything is chechov's gun", where if its mentioned or responds to the player actions when interacted with, the interaction must be important and related to something they're supposed to do.
So if I feel that something in the environment might give misleading narration - i.e. "The surface of the sphere of annihilation ripples at your presence" - and is likely to result in something that won't be interesting or fun, I usually try to give the players a narrative hint to keep them from being stuck going down a dead end.
"The voices fill you with icy dread"
"It changes colors, but you don't feel like this by itself has done anything important"

now if they ignore that and keep going.... well, fuck around, find out.

 

[anti SJW]

So WOTC is at it again. They said you would have access to all the old 5th edition stuff on DnD Beyond when the new stuff comes out.

You still have access to everything you bought. But they changed all the spells and magic items in the database to the new 2024 version. Any digital character you have on DnD Beyond has the new version now. Even if you didn't want to update to the new version.

If you want the digital character to play with the old rules, you have to manually put it in as a homebrew spell or magic item on the digital sheet. Each item or spell individually. I assume they will have all races, classes, ect switched over by the street date of the new players handbook.

 

[40 Year Old Boomer]

So WOTC is at it again. They said you would have access to all the old 5th edition stuff on DnD Beyond when the new stuff comes out.

You still have access to everything you bought. But they changed all the spells and magic items in the database to the new 2024 version. Any digital character you have on DnD Beyond has the new version now. Even if you didn't want to update to the new version.

If you want the digital character to play with the old rules, you have to manually put it in as a homebrew spell or magic item on the digital sheet. Each item or spell individually. I assume they will have all races, classes, ect switched over by the street date of the new players handbook.

Paypigs get what they fucking deserve.

 

[Ghostse]

So WOTC is at it again. They said you would have access to all the old 5th edition stuff on DnD Beyond when the new stuff comes out.

You still have access to everything you bought. But they changed all the spells and magic items in the database to the new 2024 version. Any digital character you have on DnD Beyond has the new version now. Even if you didn't want to update to the new version.

If you want the digital character to play with the old rules, you have to manually put it in as a homebrew spell or magic item on the digital sheet. Each item or spell individually. I assume they will have all races, classes, ect switched over by the street date of the new players handbook.

View attachment 6343098

Is anyone actually suprised this is how it went down?

 

[JJLiautaud]

So WOTC is at it again. They said you would have access to all the old 5th edition stuff on DnD Beyond when the new stuff comes out.

You still have access to everything you bought. But they changed all the spells and magic items in the database to the new 2024 version. Any digital character you have on DnD Beyond has the new version now. Even if you didn't want to update to the new version.

If you want the digital character to play with the old rules, you have to manually put it in as a homebrew spell or magic item on the digital sheet. Each item or spell individually. I assume they will have all races, classes, ect switched over by the street date of the new players handbook.

View attachment 6343098

How incompatible was 3.5E with 3E?

 

[anti SJW]

How incompatible was 3.5E with 3E?

When WOTC announced 3.5 only like 3 years after 3rd came out, the swore that everything would be compatible.

• Bards received more skill points and spells on their spell lists were changed.
• Clerics are allowed to spontaneously cast cure and inflict spells of the "mass" variety.
• Druid Animal companions advance as the druid levels up now, making the druid more playable, Druids were given access to far more spells than before.
• Fighters Feat list received an overhaul and many of the feat descriptions changed.
• Monk's Flurry of Blows was changed to have different advancement, and received different options for bonus feats. (It didn't help much in the long run, Multi-attribute-deficiency cripples this class)
• Paladin's can summon their mounts instead of them being ever-present. They can also smite evil more times per day.
• Rangers received a hit die increase, more skill points, Favored enemy and animal companion also received large revisions for the class, making it playable.
• Sorcerers were allowed to make small revisions to their spells known when they level up (but still have stunted casting when compared to wizards, picking up their spells a full level later)
• Wizard spell specialization was changed, and Familiars bonus stats were changed as well.

• Alchemy was rolled into Craft(Alchemy)
• Animal Empathy was removed from the game and instead Ranger and Druid now get the skill as a class ability.
• Innuendo which before was used to covertly pass messages along was rolled into the Bluff skill.
• Intuit Direction was rolled into the new Survival skill.
• Perform was rolled into its own skill, which works similar to the Craft and Profession skills.
• Read Lips was removed from the game and rolled into the Spot skill.
• Ride no longer is specific to different mount types.
• Pickpocket was rolled into the Sleight of Hand skill.
• Scry was removed, and now only relies on the spell Scry.
• Wilderness Lore was rolled into the Survival skill.

• Ambidexterity and Two-Weapon fighting were rolled into each other so that Two-Weapon Fighting provides the benefits of both feats.
• Expertise was renamed to Combat Expertise
• Weapon Finesse was redone, and now provides a benefit to every light weapon instead of requiring a new taking of the feat for each individual weapon that needed to be taken advantage of.
• Sunder was rolled into the Sunder special attack, and the Improved sunder feat was added to avoid Attacks of Opportunity while using Sunder.
• Shield Expert was rolled into the feat Improved Shield Bash.
• The feat Improved Critical was changed to not allow stacking with other Critical Range Enhancing effects.

The following spells were added to the game:

Acid Splash, Animate Plants, Arcane Sight, Arcane Sight (Greater), Baleful Polymorph, Bear's Endurance (Mass), Blight, Bull's Strength (Mass), Call Lightning Storm, Cat's Grace (Mass), Command Undead, Cure Critical Wounds (Mass), Cure Moderate Wounds (Mass), Cure Serious Wounds (Mass), Daze Monster, Deep Slumber, Dimensional Lock, Disrupting Weapon, Eagle's Splendor, Eagle's Splendor (Mass), Enlarge Person (Mass), False Life, Fox's Cunning, Fox's Cunning (Mass), Glibness, Heroism, Heroism (Greater), Hold Monster (Mass), Inflict Critical Wounds (Mass), Inflict Moderate Wounds (Mass), Inflict Serious Wounds (Mass), Longstrider, Moment of Prescience, Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum, Owl's Wisdom, Owl's Wisdom (Mass), Polar Ray, Prying Eyes (Greater), Ray of Exhaustion, Reduce Person (Mass), Shout (Greater), Summon Instrument, Symbol of Weakness, Sympathetic Vibration, Touch of Fatigue, Touch of Idiocy, Undeath to Death, Waves of Exhaustion, Waves of Fatigue.

The following spells were completely removed or changed:

Animal Friendship, Emotion (Fear), Emotion(Friendship) became Charm Person, Emotion (Hate), Mass Haste, Negative Energy Protection became Death Ward, Nystul's Undetectable Aura became Nystul's Magic Aura, Polymorph Other became Baleful Polymorph, Polymorph Self became Polymorph, Symbol (Discord), Symbol (Hopelessness).

The following spells had their names changed:

• Change Self → Disguise Self
• Charm Person or Animal → Charm Animal
• Circle of Doom → Inflict Light Wounds (Mass)
• Command Plants → Control Plants
• Emotion (Despair) → Crushing Despair
• Emotion (Hope) → Good Hope
• Endurance → Bear's Endurance
• Enlarge → Enlarge Person
• Greater Dispelling → Dispel Magic (Greater)
• Healing Circle → Cure light wounds (Mass)
• Improved Invisibility → Invisibility (Greater)
• Invisibility to Animals → Hide from Animals
• Invisibility to Undead → Hide from Undead
• Mass Charm → Charm Monster (Mass)
• Minor Globe of Invulnerability → Lesser Globe of Invulnerability
• Protection from Elements → Protection from Energy
• Rage → Emotion (Rage)
• Random Action → Confusion (Lesser)
• Reduce → Reduce Person
• Resist Elements → Resist Energy
• Symbol → Symbol of (Death, Fear, Insanity, Pain, Persuasion, Sleep, Stunning)
• Teleport Without Error → Teleport (Greater)
• Vanish → Teleport Object

On top of that, Many spells had their spell schools changed as well as some substantial changes to spell levels as well.

The spell effects of the following spells were changed:

Blade Barrier, Blindness/Deafness, Call Lightning, Endure Elements, Eyebite, Flame Arrow, Harm, Haste, Heal, Neutralize Poison, Otiluke's Freezing Sphere, Polymorph, Reduce Person, Righteous Might, Scrying, Scrying (Greater), and Wall of Force.

Along with those, many Domain spells were changed to either different domains or removed from domains entirely.

Damage Reduction Changes

Damage reduction was changed to allow many different types of things to bypass that damage reduction, Including Special materials such as Silver, Adamantine, and Cold Iron; Weapon Types, such as Slashing, Piercing, and Bludgeoning; Alignments, such as Good, Evil, Lawful, and Chaotic; Magic and Epic were also added to indicate physical damage reduction, and epic damage reduction. These factors were also combined to indicate monster weaknesses to certain aspects.

Equipment Changes (originally by Sean Mcmillian)

Equipment is now listed in small and medium-sized version for use by small and medium sized characters. The largest effect of this adjustment is the Shortsword/Small Longsword issue, which means that small characters will usually do one die-size less damage.

 

[40 Year Old Boomer]

Rangers received a hit die increase

wtf no, they went from a d10 to a d8 which still pisses me off.

 

[The Ugly One]

So, the incident in question was that the party found an quest item that would be required to unlock the BBEG. But one player wanted to weld the item to his helmet like a retard.

Welding doesn't exist with medieval technology.

I need to get better at rolling with the bit and not being too strict of a DM. I have a tendency to intervene when they're about to fuck up, instead of letting them do it face the consequences of their choices.

I understand that the worst thing a DM can do is kill the funny.

Playing tabletops with kids goes one of two ways:

• Trying to make friends with a goblin king or Chaos demon
• The most appalling war crimes imaginable

My friend was playing some wargame with his son, who bombed his field hospital. The kid said "so what? They're not ours". He then knew he's raising a future Henry Kissinger.

I once ran a premade dungeon where a dark god was locked behind a complex system of seals. It was very, very obvious that this was the dark god's prison. The idea of the dungeon was that emanations of the dark god were causing trouble, and they needed to stop the emanations by kicking the dark god back to the dark realm using some magic sigils and such they were supposed to find around the dungeon. There wasn't really a way, as written, to unlock the seals, but they managed to figure something out that I, as the DM, could not find any way to disallow without a deus ex machina event.

So, I allowed them to unseal the dark god, but somehow get away, but the god started turning the land around the dungeon into a vortex of despair and hate. I pretty much tossed the module at this point and made shit up, and it was in the end the best campaign I've ever run. They managed to banish the dark god, but only by sacrificing the humanity of one of their party members, summoning another dark god who had a real bone to pick with the first one, and the land around the dungeon is now a hellish wasteland. None of this was in the module.

 

[AnOminous]

You need to develop a crueler sense of humor. The players learn faster when you let them touch the hot stove burner or pull the TV down onto their heads a few times.

It depends. I usually foreshadow things to some extent, and if they ignore the warning signs and go full speed ahead, then what happens happens. If I'm the one who screwed up, I'll try to give them an out. One of my least favorite moments was killing a beloved and long-lived character to a sucker trap, but it was in a cannibal cult house full of traps including perimeter traps outside the house itself. It was a refrigerator in a kitchen with a decaying human torso with a knife in it on the kitchen table. Open the door and you get blasted in the chest with a double barreled shotgun.

 

[anti SJW]

wtf no, they went from a d10 to a d8 which still pisses me off.

That's right it was a decrease. Sorry.

 

[Meat Target]

Welding doesn't exist with medieval technology.

This was a Blades in the Dark campaign, which is Victorian/steampunk.

 

[Snekposter]

Welding doesn't exist with medieval technology.

Oh no, its existed in various forms ever since classical times. I believe there's even some medieval chainmail that was found to be spot-welded instead of riveted.