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

[Janusz z Gliwic]

If you like Blade you should check out some of the other stuff by the same designer John Harper. He has a few games. lasers & Feelings has become my go-to for GMing games with randos if/when my lanned games fall through at the last minute.

Thanks, I'll check them out.

 

[The Ugly One]

You are only looking at PHB 1. Looking at the Compendium Warlocks have 25 level 1 daily powers.

I only have the original 4e Core, PHB 2, PHB 3, and the first two monster manuals.

Regardless, the fact is the stakes were too high on dailies given how they typically ranged from pathetic to nothing on a miss, with usually only one or two options being the obviously correct choice (e.g. Armor of Agathys is the only L1 daily that isn't shit). The answer is to not give players a tiny number of once-a-day powers, but that seems to have been lost on Colville. Even in AD&D, it takes so long for wizards to get a decent number of spell slots that you typically see them totally avoid save-or-suck spells like Hold Person at low levels.

 

[AnOminous]

Supposedly a large percentage of RPG gamers there are women. Which might also explain CoCs popularity, since they tend to be mystery games instead of combat games.

Generally in CoC, if you get into combat, shit is over. Even the "minor" eldritch entities are party wreckers. Even when I ran a really gun-heavy CoC campaign that was generally for dealing with human cultists or things like that. But you want to shoot your pew-pew at some amorphous mass of flesh the size of a subway train with no vital organs? Good luck with that.

 

[Henri Barbusse]

Generally in CoC, if you get into combat, shit is over. Even the "minor" eldritch entities are party wreckers. Even when I ran a really gun-heavy CoC campaign that was generally for dealing with human cultists or things like that. But you want to shoot your pew-pew at some amorphous mass of flesh the size of a subway train with no vital organs? Good luck with that.

I feel like a lot of CoC players forget about the possibility of pulling a move right out of Shadow over Innsmouth and getting the government to blow the abomination up.

 

[Acrid Alchemist]

I only have the original 4e Core, PHB 2, PHB 3, and the first two monster manuals.

Why would you only have those? The game has been out of print for over a decade. Just pirate the pdfs. Hell here is the online compendium and here is the offline compendium stolen from the 4e Discord. I can post the set up for the character builder too if you want it.

with usually only one or two options being the obviously correct choice (e.g. Armor of Agathys is the only L1 daily that isn't shit).

This isn't even true. Armor of Agathys is considered on of the worst level 1 dailies for Warlock because of its piddly damage, lack of scaling and requirement of you being in melee to get any damage from it when you aren't a melee class. You only like it because you don't like the risk of whiffing as if you can't swing the odds in your favor with things like Prime Shot, Combat Advantage and any buffs toward accuracy or penalties to the target's defense your allies can set up for you. Flames of Phlegethos from PHB1 is considered one of the better level 1 dailies if you work with your team to maximize your hit chance because its the biggest numbers which is what you want as a Striker.

Matt Colville is an idiot and a shit designer but that doesn't make once a session/day big pop off moves shit because you can miss and get only a minor benefit.

 

[AnOminous]

I feel like a lot of CoC players forget about the possibility of pulling a move right out of Shadow over Innsmouth and getting the government to blow the abomination up.

Or worse. I think my favorite campaign-ender was some dude who had read ALL the books failed his final SAN check, and since "random spell cast" was a thing, decided Call Azathoth was a good idea.

(It wasn't. I mean it did finish the enemies. And the party. And the entire world.)

 

[robobobo]

Flames of Phlegethos was my go-to back in the day, yeah. Hits like a truck, scales off Con, still sets them on fire if you miss. Add on the curse damage and it's a real wallop.

 

[Corn Flakes]

I feel like a lot of CoC players forget about the possibility of pulling a move right out of Shadow over Innsmouth and getting the government to blow the abomination up.

Barrels of gunpowder and bundles of dynamite are CoC players' best friends.

 

[AnOminous]

Barrels of gunpowder and bundles of dynamite are CoC players' best friends.

Elder Signs are really much better. Maybe a bunch of dynamite will deal with one shoggoth, but really, you're not getting rid of many eldritch with that kind of stuff.

 

[robobobo]

That was the catch-22 of the whole situation. The only reliable way to deal with horrors from beyond time and space was to use horrible eldritch knowledge, but to dabble in that knowledge instantly puts one's existence in grave peril, either by coming to the attention of the horrors, or by mere incompatibility of that knowledge with a sane and healthy human. In Dunwich Horror and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, Lovecraft had some characters dip into arcane rites and used them to deal with the issue and made it out more or less okay, but in many other stories pozloading my negholep led straight to an awful end. And a coooouple times peasant knowledge from ye olden days turned out to be actually useful, though more often whatever charms random hillbillies had were completely useless against the tentacle monsters.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Elder Signs are really much better. Maybe a bunch of dynamite will deal with one shoggoth, but really, you're not getting rid of many eldritch with that kind of stuff.

If you've got more than one shoggoth coming your way and nobody in the group burned half their brain skimming through arcane texts for the right spell, you might as well start praying anyway.

 

[AnOminous]

If you've got more than one shoggoth coming your way and nobody in the group burned half their brain skimming through arcane texts for the right spell, you might as well start praying anyway.

Praying is usually a better choice than any spell available in CoC.

Most of the spells do something nobody sane would even want to do. It's not like you start out with Magic Missile and it just gets rid of a band of gobbos.

Instead it's mostly "summon some thing that immediately tries to kill you and drives you insane if you even look at it."

 

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

I can post the set up for the character builder too if you want it.

That would be cool actually. Back in college, one of my friends spotted us the Character builder, and we used to play a 4e campaign; it was my introduction to D&D specifically and tabletop gaming in general; good times.

 

[Acrid Alchemist]

That would be cool actually. Back in college, one of my friends spotted us the Character builder, and we used to play a 4e campaign; it was my introduction to D&D specifically and tabletop gaming in general; good times.

Gotchu

Spoiler: Long kind of a pain in the ass set up

Stolen from the 4e Discord as well.
CHARACTER BUILDER INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS *** (updated 2023-Jan-11)

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INSTALLING CHARACTER BUILDER AND CBLOADER 1.4.6.1:

1. Get the Character Builder installer and update from https://www.dyasdesigns.com/CharacterBuilder/CB-oldbuilder.zip
2. Extract the file from Step 1. It should create a folder named CB-oldbuilder.
3. Get the 1.4.6.1 CBInstaller.exe and CBLoader.zip from https://github.com/CBLoader/CBLoader/releases/latest and save them in the CB-oldbuilder folder created in step (2), or save them elsewhere and move them there. This folder should contain these files: CBLoader.zip, CBInstaller.exe, Character_Builder_Update_Oct_2010.exe, and ddisetup2009April.exe.
4. Run CBInstaller.exe (Windows may complain, and you'll probably have to approve several elevated permissions)
5. Delete the "Character Builder" shortcut it creates automatically. (Some people have reported this shortcut does not get created for them; that's fine, move on if that's the case.)
6. Move everything from the CB-oldbuilder folder created in step (2) into %APPDATA%\CBLoader\ (this folder was created during step (4), and is usually found at CUsers\[your username]\AppData\Roaming\CBLoader\) (see Note below) If the Builder installed properly, but this folder was not created, you can create this folder yourself before this step, but it should not be necessary.
7. Run CBInstaller.exe from %APPDATA%\CBLoader\. This should properly install CBLoader and create a "CBLoader" shortcut.

Note: On Windows, the AppData folder is usually Hidden unless you have changed your Explorer View Settings to "Show hidden files and folders". You can also directly access your AppData on Windows by entering into search: %APPDATA% (with the % symbols) and hitting Enter.

The installation may create another CBLoader.zip file on the desktop when running the shortcut from the desktop the first time. If it does, this extra file can be removed.

Once 1.4.6.1 is installed correctly, it will report itself as 1.4.6 once the Builder's loaded. You can confirm it is installed by creating a character, and looking on the Class tab. The first class should be "Binder" if it has been installed correctly.

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EXPECTED FINAL STATE:

The final state of a properly-installed Character Builder + CBLoader should be:
CCharacterBuilder - the builder program itself. Never touch this folder.
CUsers\[your username]\Documents\ddi\CBLoader - .part and .index files. This is where you put homebrew or other content you're adding.
CUsers\[your username]\AppData\Roaming\CBLoader - this is the actual installation location of CBLoader, and you should be running CBInstaller.exe from this folder, using a shortcut. (this is the same location as entering %APPDATA% into Windows search and opening the CBLoader folder)

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UNINSTALLING THE CHARACTER BUILDER AND CBLOADER:

When uninstalling, always start by going to Windows Add/Remove Programs, and uninstalling from there first before attempting any manual uninstallation. Uninstall both "CBLoader" if it appears (older versions might), and "Character Builder".

Please see our CBLoader Troubleshooting Guide https://github.com/CBLoader/CBLoader/wiki/Troubleshooting for any additional issues with CBLoader Installation or Use.

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RUNNING THE CHARACTER BUILDER AND CBLOADER ON A MAC:

While we don't have a step-by-step guide for using the Character Builder on a Mac, it is possible on some Macs using Windows emulation.

Its a process and a half but its so nice once you have it going.

 

[Ghostse]

Missing was a problem in 4e because once you expended your Encounter or Daily, that was it, no do-overs.

Especially marshal classes had D/E powers with a Reliable keyword that were not expended if you missed. Dailies almost always did at least 1/2 on a miss.

Plus the points by @Acrid Alchemist ; if your daily sucked on a miss it was usually because you weren't coordinating with your party.

Unpopular opinion here, but I think it could work.

I can definitely see it working for melee combat; that rolling damage against armor points sounds like a good mechanic.

When I run my B/X games, I counted engaging in melee with something as "hitting" it even if that hit didn't do any damage - But that matters for some of the weapon/item effects.
But it was still important to reserve that ability - things like ghosts, ninjas, or other hyper-mobile enemies, and magic/ranged attacks did need to be counted as having been missed.

 

[Fortyone]

Is there any point getting into DND without already having a group to play it with? I've wanted to for a while but all my friends are normalfags who won't touch tabletop gaming with a 10 ft pole. Used to play a bit of 40k like 10 years ago when I was still in school but nothing since then really.

 

[robobobo]

If you have no alternative, then seeking around may be your only option. Just be ready to up and out if you find yourself with a shit group of people.

 

[Battlefield2142EU]

Looking for a new RPG podcast. Found these faggots. They went on a random anti-Johnny Depp, because they listen and believe women like Amber heard. Gave a trigger warning, the first edition of the Kult was too problematic with its violence and queer content for the modern audience. Yes, they used the term modern audiences unironically. Despite it being one of the first games in the 90s with fag content. They complain Kult treats homosexuality as a taboo.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Is there any point getting into DND without already having a group to play it with? I've wanted to for a while but all my friends are normalfags who won't touch tabletop gaming with a 10 ft pole. Used to play a bit of 40k like 10 years ago when I was still in school but nothing since then really.

Short answer. No.

Long answer. No but it depends on what you want.

You know how in the 40k fandom, about 20%-25% of people are die hard fans with multiple armies, all painted and likely costing 5 digits in terms of money. The other 75% are people who have a hobby table in the corner full of half assembled models they'll get "some day", never play the wargame side due to various excuses, and spend all their time talking bullshit. Outside of those you have the casuals and normies who might enjoy the games like Mechanicus or Space Marine, but don't care otherwise.

With DnD it's kind of the same, except the ratio of hardcores to flakes is 5% hardcores to 95% flakes, and the normies will often laugh at the idea if it's brought up.

Actually playing the game is difficult because the percentage of flakes is really high. Sometimes it's justified, like someone gets called away by work or family, but many never intended to play to begin with. People say they want to play, but will make excuses why they can't, even if you see them on Steam playing Ark or whatever. If you're in a nerd or creative rich environment you can recruit from, it might be worth a shot. eg. If you're in a Discord server full of furries or you work in a comic shop or big tech.

If you just care about the world, lore, or even the books, then enjoy things like Dark Alliance and Baulders Gate 3. Read the books, enjoy the artwork and ideas, whatever it is that interests you.

They complain Kult treats homosexuality as a taboo.

They should see that old TMNT game with fetishes as character flaws.

 

[AnOminous]

With DnD it's kind of the same, except the ratio of hardcores to flakes is 5% hardcores to 95% flakes, and the normies will often laugh at the idea if it's brought up.

And another problem is if the group is open, eventually some troon will show up and ruin everything. All it takes is one.