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

[Corn Flakes]

Throwing a DnD friend of mine under the bus here, but he's been coming up with some rather weird character concepts. The Aarakocra tank build I mentioned a while back came from him; rather than use light/no armor and flying around at level 1, he had his bird using heavier armors and intentionally restricted his ability to fly. His justification for this, aside from trying to accommodate early-game table balance, was that his bird had a damaged wing and thus was remaining grounded while it healed up; it was an ability that he was going to have to wait on (i.e. until the party is leveled enough to take on flying enemies) and until then he was stuck in the same position as the rest of his group. He also tended to avoid ranged combat, being a more aggressive melee combatant than even the party Fighter.

Aside from that, he admitted to using the Custom Lineage from Tasha's as an excuse to bring races from older versions of DnD into 5e, like the Gnolls or Lupins, strictly using the same stat spreads. He also never took Darkvision for some reason outside of a few cases; said that he "prefers" to play with restrictions.

He's been wanting to bring some of his build ideas to our table; what do you guys think?

I'm not sure what the issue there is. The guy seems to be doing just fine: working within reasonable restrictions, making things easier for the GM (flight is a bitch to balance out at lower levels), and apparently not doing any furry gooning on the side. What are your reservations towards his behavior?

 

[One_True_Yuri]

Ive been running homebrew D&D 5th since 2019 but I have been drawing more and more inspiration lately from the Van Ritchen's guide to Ravenloft as of late and honestly I think thats the most fun setting of the 3rd Edition D&D series

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

I'm not sure what the issue there is. The guy seems to be doing just fine: working within reasonable restrictions, making things easier for the GM (flight is a bitch to balance out at lower levels), and apparently not doing any furry gooning on the side. What are your reservations towards his behavior?

In all honesty? I'm just curious as to what you guys think; there's been quite a bit of talk about restricting races and such, so I got curious as to what you guys might have to say. The player is an IRL friend - same with my entire circle of DnD players really - we just haven't really done much with Custom Lineage or restricting races like this beforehand.

Also, funny thing about the furry gooning bit you mentioned; I've brought up my friend on other threads here, let's just say that he... has a pretty negative history and opinion on furries.

 

[ProphylacticMagician]

I'm curious to hear some opinions on music in TTRPG's. Does your table use music, do you like it?

I love music in a very autistic way, so I put a lot of thought into it. For exploration it's always ambience because a looping track would get old quick, but for combats I curate big playlists for specific locations with fitting music. I can easily listen to a song I really like over and over again, but recognize that it's not the same for most people. For something like a big boss fight I might loop the same track, though. Building the musical landscape of any particular place helps me convey the atmosphere/culture a lot better.

 

[Markorian]

5e is a good framework, especially if you're looking for a group due to how easy it is to get into, but that simplicity almost requires a certain background radiation level of homebrew at all times to make it functional. There's a reason all the characters in BG3 had some weird quirks to them, not to mention all the other small homebrew flourishes.

On a somewhat related note, finally get to test out the homebrew class I've been working on on and off for the past few months with my playgroup pretty soon.

 

[#1 Hot Sauce of Kiwi Farm]

In all honesty? I'm just curious as to what you guys think; there's been quite a bit of talk about restricting races and such, so I got curious as to what you guys might have to say. The player is an IRL friend - same with my entire circle of DnD players really - we just haven't really done much with Custom Lineage or restricting races like this beforehand.

Also, funny thing about the furry gooning bit you mentioned; I've brought up my friend on other threads here, let's just say that he... has a pretty negative history and opinion on furries.

I've never understood people issue with flyers if you have a setting that has winged races the world will account for it unless they are a rarity. Though then i'm working in a group of slavers that are tracking the group down specially tuned to bring down the birdy and drag them away.

I also add things like leadened arrows that make you roll an end check and if you fall you become heavier thus losing the ability to fly for a few turns.

 

[That Guy Who Likes The Chili]

The HP Lovecraft Historical Society do an entire props bundle for that campaign. It's really insanely above and beyond but it sells (and is very impressive).

https://store.hplhs.org/collections/games-props/products/masks-of-nyarlathotep-gamer-prop-set

View attachment 7356389

Honestly, the hundred odd dollars it costs is quite reasonable for what you get. And they re-did the scroll to fix some errors in the Chinese!
View attachment 7356390

I think this has to be the End Boss of all table top prop efforts.

Stuff like this makes my dick incredibly hard.

I love to go balls to the walls with props. My most recent Campaign I had one of these puzzle decoder boxes with a key hidden inside of it they had to discover a certain name to unlock.


They also had to hunt down pieces of a mask of an old god that I 3d Printed and painted that they assembled bit by bit while they acquired them amongst many other things. I had more planned out, but their enthusiasm didn't match my autism so I had to dial it back.

 

[Apparatus Aruspices]

I love music in a very autistic way, so I put a lot of thought into it.

My BROTHER. I often find myself lamenting the inability to include songs I really like because they loop awfully, or have huge dead zones in them or lyrics or whatever. It really is an enriching experience. It's my favorite part of running a game, and probably the most fun part of prep as well.

 

[That Guy Who Likes The Chili]

I saw this headline this morning and had myself a good laugh. "Highly Anticipated"



I made some shitty memes

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

I'm curious to hear some opinions on music in TTRPG's. Does your table use music, do you like it?

My WoD party uses music quite a lot; that said, we have had some difficulty getting certain songs to fit. We've been trying to put "My Way" into a Werewolf campaign, for instance.

 

[Blarmed&Dangerous]

I've always been iffy on music because it's very fiddly - a lot of management (and, therefore, time and momentum lost) involved, and of course what are you playing it from? Everyone I know who uses it plays either from the GM's laptop or a speaker placed in the center of the table. With the GM laptop, the music is too loud for people sitting next to you and too quiet for the people on the other side of the table. With the central speaker, there's sound between you and the person you're talking to, which I feel hampers intelligibility.

I have been trying to design a table that has speakers embedded in the underside at each player station to resolve this problem, but it's been mired in feature-creep ("it should be able to do directional sound, and have underlights, and directional lighting, and be able to sync music and sound, and fold up to be portable, and...")

 

[The Ugly One]

I've never understood people issue with flyers if you have a setting that has winged races the world will account for it unless they are a rarity. Though then i'm working in a group of slavers that are tracking the group down specially tuned to bring down the birdy and drag them away.

I also add things like leadened arrows that make you roll an end check and if you fall you become heavier thus losing the ability to fly for a few turns.

Because we actually have no intuition at all for what the world would look like if random people could just take off and fly. The Grand Canyon is an impassible barrier to humans and just nice scenery to a hawk. At-will flying is fundamentally intuition-breaking, trivializing all kind of barriers and designs, makes hash out of lots of premade dungeons, and generally makes running the game world more a pain the ass, because now I have to rethink things, and I can't just pull a module out of a sheaf and run it.

And yet, the players would probably object if I redesigned the game world on the fly so that things like security made sense, e.g. every walled city having tall watchtowers throughout with sharpshooters who shoot airspace violators on sight, so you can't just bypass the gate guards.

I also add things like leadened arrows that make you roll an end check and if you fall you become heavier thus losing the ability to fly for a few turns.

Are these 25 lb arrows?

 

[#1 Hot Sauce of Kiwi Farm]

Because we actually have no intuition at all for what the world would look like if random people could just take off and fly. The Grand Canyon is an impassible barrier to humans and just nice scenery to a hawk. At-will flying is fundamentally intuition-breaking, trivializing all kind of barriers and designs, makes hash out of lots of premade dungeons, and generally makes running the game world more a pain the ass, because now I have to rethink things, and I can't just pull a module out of a sheaf and run it.

And yet, the players would probably object if I redesigned the game world on the fly so that things like security made sense, e.g. every walled city having tall watchtowers throughout with sharpshooters who shoot airspace violators on sight, so you can't just bypass the gate guards.



Are these 25 lb arrows?

Understandable if you're running modules and premades. I have large settlements/cites that have magical defenses that would inhibit or make it a bad idea to flying. Many cities also have there own flying guard specifically tailored to put down flyers. Though yea flying is very strong I am not going to deny that, but I just don't mind as at the end of the day it's for fun. Also the flyer tends to attract things that want to eat them when they fly around so there is always that risk.

As for the arrows they are just extremely cheap magic arrow that on hit forces a save or suck debuff that increases the targets weight by half their current weight. Yes their gear and what they are carrying also counts. It has killed many a flyer that attempted to fly high around or off a cliffside or mountain. You only need a 13 to save so it's not as if it has a high chance to proc, but it's always a possible threat if they're ranged units.

No the arrows do not work on objects only humanoids
They do less damage than a normal arrow they were invented in my world to ground flying units specially
They do not work on anything above large size

 

[40 Year Old Boomer]

Because we actually have no intuition at all for what the world would look like if random people could just take off and fly. The Grand Canyon is an impassible barrier to humans and just nice scenery to a hawk. At-will flying is fundamentally intuition-breaking, trivializing all kind of barriers and designs, makes hash out of lots of premade dungeons, and generally makes running the game world more a pain the ass, because now I have to rethink things, and I can't just pull a module out of a sheaf and run it.

This is where the magic of logistics comes in. Just because they can fly doesn't mean they can carry all their supplies in their arms/on their backs even if everyone can fly. That Grand Canyon is still an obstacle they have to pass. You can't just fly willy-nilly over a mountain range either, there's going to be weather and magical airborne predators such as dragons, and you still have that supply problem. Sure, one of them may be a ranger and can scrounge up enough food and drink to keep the party fed, but there's still the matter of other shit you need on a long trip. Flying affects the small battles more than the journey, unless you have something ridiculous like an airship/spelljammer.

 

[Sargon's wife's son]

And yet, the players would probably object if I redesigned the game world on the fly so that things like security made sense, e.g. every walled city having tall watchtowers throughout with sharpshooters who shoot airspace violators on sight, so you can't just bypass the gate guards.

Most of the cities I built where there's a massive Dragon Empire, which is a coalition of all of the monstrous races versus all the humanoid races, the humanoid races just have. something I totally didn't steal from GW magical void Shields.

As well as ballistas with Matt. rical Heatseeking Warheads. that explode with rune of destruction on contact.

It doesn't usually work on a foreground, great worm dragon but anything attempting to violate. the air space usually tends to die in a fiery ball of explosive bolts

 

[AnOminous]

And yet, the players would probably object if I redesigned the game world on the fly so that things like security made sense, e.g. every walled city having tall watchtowers throughout with sharpshooters who shoot airspace violators on sight, so you can't just bypass the gate guards.

Sounds like any Dwarf Fortress game I play with giant keas in it.

 

[The Ugly One]

This is where the magic of logistics comes in. Just because they can fly doesn't mean they can carry all their supplies in their arms/on their backs even if everyone can fly. That Grand Canyon is still an obstacle they have to pass. You can't just fly willy-nilly over a mountain range either, there's going to be weather and magical airborne predators such as dragons, and you still have that supply problem. Sure, one of them may be a ranger and can scrounge up enough food and drink to keep the party fed, but there's still the matter of other shit you need on a long trip. Flying affects the small battles more than the journey, unless you have something ridiculous like an airship/spelljammer.

This is relevant to the zero seconds I spend each session making the players figure out how to manage the logistics of transporting barrels of trade goods across mountain ranges.

The reality is lots and lots and lots of low-level D&D comment has maguffin out of reach, a yawning chasm in the floor you can't jump across, etc, because a key assumption of the game is the party should not have Fly until 5th level (and even then only maybe have it), and not really be able to afford to use it a lot until later than that. So giving a PC at-will fly breaks endless piles of modules. There's a game I played in as a PC where a dungeon was ended trivially, because in room 2, the maguffin was in an out-of-reach spot, and the owl-person PC flew up and got it. The end.

Since I despise furfag races anyway, having to continually revise material on the fly so they don't accidentally break a dungone that wasn't written by someone who had birdman races in mind is a lose-lose. It's extra work for me, and the payoff is now there's a furfag at my table. On top of that, players aren't stupid, so when you are constantly ad-hoc changing things to cripple their character, they know it, and it annoys them. It's easier to just say, "No, actually, there are no owl-people or whatever in this world."

 

[#1 Hot Sauce of Kiwi Farm]

Since we are talking about things that annoy us about DnD and it's community I have always hated how people continue to rant and ban things they do not like because they either think it's overpowered or just don't want to deal with it.

The shorts and rants I constantly get bombarded by that annoys me is the 1st level spell Silvery Barbs. Now I like Silvery Barbs it is a very good spell that can be used in and outside of combat. I like support spells or actions and I would never forbid things that get players to work together and build trust in game.

Many people's issue seems to be that it is a 100% hit because of it's extremely restrictive casting conditions. So the point of this whole post is to create a revised version. Instead of it working 100% of the time the target has to roll an int save. If they fail the spell works as normal and if the succeed they only have to reroll without disadvantage.

It's a very simple revision that does not change the spell while meeting those who dislike it in the middle. I have always hated how many of the DnD community would rather complain then try to think of a solution as lets be honest most of the people on social media talking about TT games don't even play. It's just another "nerd" badge for them to pin on themselves while they attempt to form a personality out of what they pretend to play or do.

 

[GhastlyGhost]

Since we are talking about things that annoy us about DnD and it's community I have always hated how people continue to rant and ban things they do not like because they either think it's overpowered or just don't want to deal with it.

The shorts and rants I constantly get bombarded by that annoys me is the 1st level spell Silvery Barbs. Now I like Silvery Barbs it is a very good spell that can be used in and outside of combat. I like support spells or actions and I would never forbid things that get players to work together and build trust in game.

Many people's issue seems to be that it is a 100% hit because of it's extremely restrictive casting conditions. So the point of this whole post is to create a revised version. Instead of it working 100% of the time the target has to roll an int save. If they fail the spell works as normal and if the succeed they only have to reroll without disadvantage.

It's a very simple revision that does not change the spell while meeting those who dislike it in the middle. I have always hated how many of the DnD community would rather complain then try to think of a solution as lets be honest most of the people on social media talking about TT games don't even play. It's just another "nerd" badge for them to pin on themselves while they attempt to form a personality out of what they pretend to play or do.

The alternative argument is, why should I bother trying to unfuck the more unbalanced parts of the game's design from WotC when I can just ban the broken shit? How do you balance flight and allow Arakocra to be playable characters at early levels where flight is otherwise impossible for them to attain? Why should you go through the effort of rebalancing all of the expansion books to put them at the same power level as core? If I wanted to design my own game to play with my friends, I would.

 

[Adamska]

I'd probably just ban the spell because fuck Strixhaven and MtG tbh. Even then, I'd probably just not give a shit because this edition is full of "roll x with advantage/disadvantage" shit already.

But then I don't play this edition really. I also know that I can just sometimes not play DnD and play something else, which works out beautifully every time.