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

Are you talking about making a thread? Like I said it's got the depth of a puddle. I really can't think of anything major I really missed that wouldn't just be the exact same thing over and over. If it's formatting for this thread just let me know and my apologies if that's the case. I'll edit my shit.
I meant how these people write their apology letters. They're all the same.
 
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Are you talking about making a thread? Like I said it's got the depth of a puddle. I really can't think of anything major I really missed that wouldn't just be the exact same thing over and over. If it's formatting for this thread just let me know and my apologies if that's the case. I'll edit my shit.
I meant how these people write their apology letters. They're all the same.

@Anonymus Fluhre I think you mean the call-out letter.
And yup, tools and formats and suggestions to help you write your #metoo.

And WB, I think you're fine. Less than my gay infodump. Any particularly hilarious bits from the calls? I couldn't stand anyone's voices, but "the rain-man of sexual harrassment" fit the short time I was able to stomach listening.
 
I don't know if any of my players browse the farms but if they do, Armada crew, please do not click the spoiler below.

Currently planning out a player versus player play by post mystery game. My six players will be investigators in the fictional town of New Providence in 1972, with one of them actually being the serial killer they're supposed to be tracking. It's my most ambitious game yet and I have no idea if it'll work out but I'm excited. I roped the most level headed player in my group into being the killer so hopefully they'll make a good challenge. Has anyone done anything like this before? If so I'd like to hear how it went.
The problems with things like that is that there is a good chance either someone will be savvy enough to immediately think of the trope, or that the other players assume this can't be even an option so they'll get pissed off when it's revealed.
There's a reason why this is considered a bad writing practice in books and games (Heavy Rain for example).
 
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I don't know if any of my players browse the farms but if they do, Armada crew, please do not click the spoiler below.

Currently planning out a player versus player play by post mystery game. My six players will be investigators in the fictional town of New Providence in 1972, with one of them actually being the serial killer they're supposed to be tracking. It's my most ambitious game yet and I have no idea if it'll work out but I'm excited. I roped the most level headed player in my group into being the killer so hopefully they'll make a good challenge. Has anyone done anything like this before? If so I'd like to hear how it went.
Something like this happened naturally back in a Cyberpunk campaign I ran a couple of years ago.

There was a basic heist setup were most of the players were employees of this big pharma company and they wanted to steal some secret new tech from one of the factories. One of my players decided that his characters was going to be an HR lady who in actuality was a spy trying to get that shit for some foreign nation, I rolled with it. The rest were basically blue collar bros.

So campaign rolls around, they start planning for the heist and executing stuff, meanwhile none of them catch on to to the HR lady, despite all of the shady stuff shes doing behind their backs. I guess they simply didnt think that you could do that stuff as a player. The character ended up being the "final boss" when, after the heist was done, she finally sent them over a safe house full of armed dudes ready to kill them. It was a very cool moment of realization for the party and it ended up being a great final session. By the end of the shootout, 4/6 of the PCs (including spy lady) were dead.

Overall it was a cool campaign and we remember it very fondly, but mostly because the "secret interaction" worked out and ended in a satisfying way. There were a lot of ways where it could've gone horribly and I think we were very lucky.
 
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The problems with things like that is that there is a good chance either someone will be savvy enough to immediately think of the trope, or that the other players assume this can't be even an option so they'll get pissed off when it's revealed.
There's a reason why this is considered a bad writing practice in books and games (Heavy Rain for example).

I had a one-shot game sort of like this.
The players were all prisoners on work-release from Fantasy Devil's Island to go investigate a threat. I off handed mentioned in the game intro/backstory write up (GM's know the offedly I mean) that the Warden had a network of agents, and every player then got a secret mission card with their secret mission on it.
For the next the two sessions (because my players play like molasses in january) everyone was trying to figure out who was the traitor (or everyone except for them was the traitor.)
There was no traitor. Which just made everyone twice as paranoid, and they very nearly died when the cleric blocked the way to the escape boat demanding they figure out who the traitor was.

It only really works when everyone knows each other.

The other problem with actual traitor mechanics is unless the players have a werewolf/mafia/among us mechanic to ID the traitor, if you don't want it to just be a cheap-shot 'twist', you need to give them clues. And either your clues are so vague you might as well not given any, or they are too good and players figure it out mid-adventure.
Because they will fail to put together "Red Square" in a letter means that the quest item is hidden under the one red tile in the noble's bed chamber - because you want them to. But if you off handedly mention "I have be able to closely observe my pursuers" they will immediately put together "Oh shit, Charlie's the killer" - because you don't want them to.
 
Got into a discussion with my bros last night about house ruling a few feats and abilities for the sake of encouraging more variety in fighting styles. Some examples:
If CBE can apply to spells, sharpshooter should apply to throwing weapons.
Bringing back dual wielding by having the two weapon fighting style and the dual wielder feat affect the number of bonus action attacks you can make in relation to a character's extra attack feature (capped at 3).
An agreement that if we try to implement this that paladins will not get off hand attack smites. Ditto for Eldritch Smite.
TCE Ranger's favored foe ability not requiring concentration.
Foe Slayer working on every attack on your turn because anyone sticking out 20 levels of ranger deserves SOMETHING.
 
Got into a discussion with my bros last night about house ruling a few feats and abilities for the sake of encouraging more variety in fighting styles. Some examples:
If CBE can apply to spells, sharpshooter should apply to throwing weapons.
Bringing back dual wielding by having the two weapon fighting style and the dual wielder feat affect the number of bonus action attacks you can make in relation to a character's extra attack feature (capped at 3).
An agreement that if we try to implement this that paladins will not get off hand attack smites. Ditto for Eldritch Smite.
TCE Ranger's favored foe ability not requiring concentration.
Foe Slayer working on every attack on your turn because anyone sticking out 20 levels of ranger deserves SOMETHING.

I will preface this with:
I am running a 4e campaign. Usually I am pretty fast and lose with 4e combat, but this time I am hewing to exact letter of the law. That is because the 4e campaign I am running now is mechanically different than any other 4e campaign because once I have a player who is smart but not as smart as she believes she is, and tries to do things like figure out enemy HP with math instead of senses (Normally I don't care; its meta gaming but the minis don't model damage so I'm willing to write that down to 'things your character would know') which isn't a problem so much keeps losing of which enemies have been hit and gets frustrated when her numbers don't add up, and usually a couple times a combat complains 4e combat rules are not identical to Pathfinder combat.
One of the things I generally like to do with D&D is give out reward feats - white-elephant sort of funny things that provide dubious benefits or resolve gray-area cases. (I gave our fighter the ability to determine if food was poisoned, but only after they'd eaten it. I gave our wizard enhanced mage hand that let them lift anything under 6 pounds to resolve the 'is mage hand 4.999 or 5lbs?' debate) I don't dare do that with the current group of rules lawyers.

Which is a long way to say that house rules should be tuned to a group, and every group is different.
Since I don't really play 5e and don't know your group, I can just give general advice.
If the rule enhances your groups play, and you trust (or threaten) them into not trying to break the game, I'd only do a quick sanity check on the math to make sure it doesn't accidently go unbound on you at very high or very low numbers. No one will really notice if you fuck up the probabilities by a few points, but just make sure it doesn't end up exploding the game.
The only thing you've listed I'd be slightly wary of would be Two-handed fighting, since in a big budget game like D&D I would expect there's a mathematical calculation that was intended to balance Dual-vs-Twohanded-vs-+Shield.
I'd also keep an eye on scaling as people level.

tl;dr- Just ban crossbow expert.
 
Bleah, the no-reply bug.

Solid advice. This is something that's going to get playtested between myself and a few others in the group (the other DM and a former DM). Crunched the numbers while I was at work because it's a slow night. This is pretty basic and doesn't factor in any subclass abilities and is just bog standard generic fighter.

tl;dr fucking geek math
Note: the proposed change is TWF fighting style and dual wielder feats each adding an extra bonus action attack as your Extra Attack feature gets upgraded to a maximum of 3 for fighters and 2 for other classes.
Tier 1: Level 2 Fighters, no feats, appropriate fighting styles, 20 in primary offense attribute, Action Surge applied after /

Great Sword
+7 to hit, 2d6+5 / +2d6+5
Min: 7 / 14 Avg: 12 / 24 Max: 17 / 34

Archery
+9 to hit, 1d8+5 / +1d8+5
Min: 6 / 12 Avg: 9.5 / 19 Max 13 / 26

Sword & Board
+7 to hit, 1d8+7 / +1d8+7
Min: 8 / 16 Avg 11.5 / 23 Max 15 / 30

Dual Wielder
+7 to hit, 1d6+5 + BA 1d6+5 / +1d6+5
Min: 12 / 18 Avg: 17 / 25.5 Max: 22 / 33

Tier 2: Level 5 Fighters, appropriate fighting style feats applied (sharpshooter/dual wielder/gwm/), action surge applied after /, +1 Weapons

Great Sword
+4 to hit, 4d6+32 / 4d6+32
Min: 36 / 72 Avg: 46 / 92 Max: 56 / 112

Archery
+6 to hit, 2d8+32 / 2d8+32
Min: 34 / 68 Avg: 41 / 82 Max: 48 / 96

Sword & Board
+9 to hit, 2d8+16 / 2d8+16
Min: 18 / 36 Avg: 25 / 50 Max: 32 / 64

Dual Wielder PHB
+9 to hit, 2d8+12 + 1d8+6 / 2d8+12 x2
Min: 21 / 35 Avg: 31.5 / 52.5 Max: 42 / 70

Dual Wielder House Rule
+9 to hit, 2d8+12 + 2d8+12 / + 2d8+12 x2
Min: 28 / 42 Avg: 42 / 63 Max: 56 / 84

Tier 3: Level 11 Fighters, additional feats applied (crossbow expert/polearm mastery) for additional cheese builds, +2 weapons now, action surge, blah blah blah

Great Sword
+6 to hit, 6d6+51 / 6d6+51
Min: 57 / 114 Avg: 72 / 144 Max: 87 / 174

PAM/GWM
+6 to hit, 3d10+51 +1d4+17 / 3d10+51
Min: 72 / 126 Avg: 87 / 154.5 Max: 102 / 183

Archery
+8 to hit, 3d8+51 / 3d8+51
Min: 54 / 108 Avg: 64.5 / 129 Max: 75 / 150

LE EBIN HAND XBOW EXPERT
+8 to hit, 3d4+51 +1d4+12 / 3d4+51
Min: 67 / 121 Avg: 73 / 131.5 Max: 79 / 142

Sword & Board
+11 to hit, 3d8+27 / 3d8+27
Min: 30 / 60 Avg: 40.5 / 81 Max: 51 / 102

Dual Wielder PHB
+11 to hit, 3d8+21 + 1d8+7 / 3d8+21
Min: 32 / 56 Avg: 46 / 80.5 Max: 60 / 105

Dual Wielder House Rule
+11 to hit, 3d8+21 + 3d8+21 / + 3d8+21
Min: 48 / 72 Avg: 69(nice) / 93.5 Max: 90 / 135

Tier 4: Level 20, +3 weapons, feets, surges

Great Sword
+9 to hit, 8d6+72 / 8d6+72
Min: 80 / 160 Avg: 100 / 200 Max: 120 / 240

PAM/GWM
+9 to hit, 4d10+72 +1d4+18 / 4d10+72
Min: 95 / 171 Avg: 114.5 / 184 Max: 134 / 246

Archery
+11 to hit, 4d8+72 / 4d8+72
Min: 76 / 152 Avg: 90 / 180 Max: 108 / 216

The Virgin Hand Crossbow Expert
+11 to hit, 4d4+72 +1d4+18 / 4d4+72
Min: 95 / 171 Avg: 102.5 / 184.5 Max: 110 / 198

The Chad Greatbowman (oversized long bow)
+11 to hit, 8d6+72 / 8d6+72
Min: 80 / 160 Avg: 100 / 200 Max: 120 / 240

Sword & Board
+14 to hit, 4d8+40 / 4d8+40
Min: 44 / 88 Avg: 58 / 116 Max: 72 / 144

Dual Wielder PHB
+14 to hit, 4d8+32 + 1d8+8 / 4d8+32
Min: 45 / 81 Avg: 62.5 / 112.5 Max: 80 / 144

Dual Wielder House Rule
+14 to hit, 4d8+32 + 3d8+24 / + 4d8+32
Min: 63 / 99 Avg: 87.5 / 137.5 Max: 112 / 176
The numbers look reasonable. Higher accuracy compared to sharpshooter/GWM/PAM builds at the expense of damage. More importantly, it's flat out superior in damage to going sword and shield with the Dueling fighting style rather than the PHB version being on par with it. We're still going over ways to break it beyond Paladin smiting, hand crossbow/throwing weapon cheese, and Eldritch Smites from Warlocks (who are fortunately limited by spell slots). One nice thing is this actually makes Champion Fighter look a lot more viable in regards to crit fishing and melee Rangers could definitely use an extra attack.

One downside is this devalues the Monk's Flurry of Blows, and they're already hurting in that their main class feature is nearly trumped by a level 1 Fighting Style until they get to a really high level most games will never see. I proposed dropping the ki cost to use Flurry of Blows and it's something else to examine later down the line. Ditching Crossbow Expert altogether has also been discussed as it's a fucking stupid feat and using range attacks in melee distance should be rolled into other more appropriate feats (Spell Sniper/Sharpshooter). I find it absurd how in RAW it's possible to fire a crossbow 8 times but throwing 4 knives is somehow not permitted.
 
@40 Year Old Boomer
I've just given your post a quick once over and will give it a more thorough read through later, just want to mention -

So again, different editions but: In 4e dual-wield gets the thick, hairy shaft (unless ranger). You trade damage or AC&REF - but if you're doing the intended high-magic campaign, what dual wield really gives you (if you aren't a ranger) is ready access to a 2nd damage type.

So when crunching numbers don't overlook soft advantages - Ranged attacks let you reach out and touch an enemy. How does Dual wield work with Attunement; does it take two attunement slots? Can you only dual wield mundane? (do you even give a fuck about attunement in your campaign?) how much does a shield protect?
 
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I was talking about Thirsty Sword Lesbians on a FB page and someone shared this list of SJW-infected companies.
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1630937473168.png
 
@40 Year Old Boomer
I've just given your post a quick once over and will give it a more thorough read through later, just want to mention -

So again, different editions but: In 4e dual-wield gets the thick, hairy shaft (unless ranger). You trade damage or AC&REF - but if you're doing the intended high-magic campaign, what dual wield really gives you (if you aren't a ranger) is ready access to a 2nd damage type.

So when crunching numbers don't overlook soft advantages - Ranged attacks let you reach out and touch an enemy. How does Dual wield work with Attunement; does it take two attunement slots? Can you only dual wield mundane? (do you even give a fuck about attunement in your campaign?) how much does a shield protect?
In 5e attunement varies from item to item. A +X weapon or piece of armor won't require attunement, but a Frostbrand sword or an Animated Shield will, with a cap of 3 attuned items (except for Artificers). Weapon type damage doesn't matter very often except in rare circumstances where a creature actually has resistance to magical weapon damage, and in nearly all those cases it covers bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing. Enchantment bonuses max out at +3, so a fully kitted Fighter with a shield would have 26 AC vs 22 AC for a dual wielder (they get a +1 AC bonus when wielding two weapons) before you factor in any additional attunement items or defensive buffs. The shield can also add a +2 to +5 to a Dex save through a feat.

Itemization is less of a factor in regards to balancing this than spells, though. I'm going to run the numbers for various spells that would affect damage later tonight, but the three big ones available to an Eldritch Knight fighter are Enlarge (+1d4 per hit for 1 minute, accessible at level 8), Shadow Blade (summons a sword that deals 2d8 psychic damage per hit for 1 minute, accessible at level 8, can be upcast to deal 3d8 damage at level 19) and Spirit Shroud (every attack does 1d8 cold/radiant/necrotic chosen at casting for 1 minute, accessible at level 14).

Fortunately, in 5e, you can only concentrate on one spell at a time, so an attempt at stacking is going to either require the party juicing up one person or consumption of expendables, which are not a guarantee. Then I have to factor in multiclassing (11 fighter/X levels of whatever else). There's also the fact that counterspell exists, as does dispel magic, antimagic field, force cage (also known as gay baby jail in my group) and any number of other ways to neutralize the dual wielding blender. I imagine all of this at most will be comparable to the paladin rolling a crit and burning their highest level spell slot to smite or a warlock cheesing with eldritch blast and a Spirit Shroud upcast to do 2d8 per hit. In the end, it's going to get played out and tested. Really helps that the two others I'm working with on this are also my workmates. Nepotism pays off.
 
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I was talking about Thirsty Sword Lesbians on a FB page and someone shared this list of SJW-infected companies.View attachment 2516192View attachment 2516193
Ah, so that's the "woke list" David Hill was sperging about on twitter. Unfortunately, none of the red ones there surprised me. Hopefully more of the green ones come out with definite statements about keeping politics out of their products. Sure, the people might have their political viewpoints, but they really don't need to ooze over onto the product.
 
Ah, so that's the "woke list" David Hill was sperging about on twitter. Unfortunately, none of the red ones there surprised me. Hopefully more of the green ones come out with definite statements about keeping politics out of their products. Sure, the people might have their political viewpoints, but they really don't need to ooze over onto the product.
Watch as one gets insecure over the "wrong" people enjoying their products and go woke.
 
Ah, so that's the "woke list" David Hill was sperging about on twitter. Unfortunately, none of the red ones there surprised me. Hopefully more of the green ones come out with definite statements about keeping politics out of their products. Sure, the people might have their political viewpoints, but they really don't need to ooze over onto the product.
There's also a neutral list that I forgot to add.
1630945684103.png
 
I was talking about Thirsty Sword Lesbians on a FB page and someone shared this list of SJW-infected companies.View attachment 2516192View attachment 2516193
Idk what Necrotic Gnome is, but its not Green in the slightest. If the discord is right, they stopped the Oriental Adventures themed supplement they had planned because of the BLM and Antifa riots. I can’t exactly gather proof of this though, considering I’m banned from there.
 
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I was talking about Thirsty Sword Lesbians on a FB page and someone shared this list of SJW-infected companies.View attachment 2516192View attachment 2516193
Idk what Necrotic Gnome is, but its not Green in the slightest. If the discord is right, they stopped the Oriental Adventures themed supplement they had planned because of the BLM and Antifa riots. I can’t exactly gather proof of this though, considering I’m banned from there.

I haven't kept up with NG themselves, but Necrotic Gnome is a Euro so a degree of cuckism is expected.

However, NG's US distributor is Exalted Funeral who publish & advertise to their email list shit like this:
its not even an woke RPG, its just a bunch of sobbing about being a faggot (and I think tranny) and Antifa. Not even sobbing about how hard it is to be a faggot in games getting gatekept by these evil white males, just general sobbing about how you can't be a completely disgusting faggot or society rejects you, and how cruel it is you are expected to get a job that isn't just "being a faggot".

So they should not be green based just solely on their US distribution partner.

Also, damn, didn't realize Evil Hat was behind Fate and Blades in the Dark. Fate is no loss, but sort of sad to hear about BitD as I've heard some goods about that.
 
So one of my fellow players is a Lawful Good Aasimar Cleric of Ilmater. Another player, a Human Rogue, had been bitten and turned by a Vampire and was now only able to maintain control of herself thanks to a magic ring. As we have found out if she takes enough damage she can temporarily fly into a near feral rage and rip someone apart and eat them. In our latest combat encounter she does just that and our Lawful Good Cleric sees this and just shrugs it off like it’s no big deal, justifying it as the person she was eating being a bandit and therefore deserving of death while furthermore insisting that it was somehow humane.

Meanwhile, when our resident wizard who stopped a pandemic that threatened the entire country decides to use Shocking Grasp to interrogate an orc who had tried to kill us with the bandits the Cleric decides that’s too far.

Also just want to point out that Ilmater is a creepy balding leper who happens to be a sadomasochistic. He’s called The Crying God and The Broken God.
 
I could see a LG justifying the feeding as a necessary evil re: they need to eat, vs. just needlessly fisting an orc with shocking grasp. But I would still think sitting back and letting the feeding happen would cost some points off the 'good' axis of the alignment.

I think the obvious solution is the same as anything: kill all Devas/Assimar, and then purge the gnomes.
 
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