I'll try keep this quick as possible, I have two questions:
One of my players is after the "Chef" feat through narrative reasons. She and her character have been working on their cooking skills throughout the campaign so far. I really want to hold a cooking competition for her where she will earn her "Chef" feat. Winning isn't required to earn the feat. I just am not really sure how to hold such a competition. What sort of rolls would be involved? Would there be rounds? That sort of thing. Any help would be much appreciated! Have any of you held similar competitions your campaigns?
Currently the party are in the middle of a political shit show. In short...would it be bad/feel bad for the players if the thing they have been chasing suddenly vanishes in front of their eyes? Only to have them return in a few weeks time.
Longer....In our campaign the land is ruled by a Council. The Council appointed a new Master of Commerce after the previous one sadly died (she was murdered by a vampire really). Shortly after this appointment the same vampire who murdered the last Master of Commerce murdered the new one and took on the identity of the new one thanks to some Alter Self and Seeming spells. The party were assigned a task by the false Council Member (The Vampire) in desguise as the Council Member which has led to some ugly truths coming out not in favour of the Vampire. I.e. Planning to kill a powerful Trade Lord within the city after having deceived the rest of the council members as to the reasons why. A Council meeting was called where the Vampire (portraying the Master of Commerce) was scryed upon and was seen heading into the headquarters of the Trade Lords domain. Queue rapid chase by the party to the headquarters to hopefully stop the Vampire killing this Trade Lord. This is where the session ended. Currently I'm thinking for the Vampire to arrive and kill the Trade Lord and just as the party arrive The Vampire will morph into the Trade Lord and hopefully decieve the party away. I am planning on having the Vampire simply shove the dead body of the Trade Lord into a wardrobe (as she is in a hurry), and having the Vampire as the Trade Lord pretend that the Council Member they saw walk into this building never actually came in, which is not entirely false as she morphed her self to look unlike the Council Member when arriving in the Trade Lords HQ. Do you think this might make the party feel a bit meh? I am worried that they will become annoyed or upset or decieved slightly, but I think the premise sounds cool. She will return in a few weeks at a Political Party, portrayed this Trade lord, that is being held for my players PC's and she will kill again there. As for the the Council Member the Vampire was portraying, they will have simply vanished. Never to be found again, a right puzzling one me thinks.
I'm planning to run a baking competition in the near future for my party. It will be a two-day competition with three rounds each day (based on the Great British Bake Off). For two of the rounds they will be able to come up with their own recipes. To promote exploration in the new city they have arrived in, they will have to find ingredients for their recipes the day before the contest starts. For one round they will be given a recipe and have to follow it.
I will be using various skill checks throughout. For the competition I will be using intelligence checks to see if they can remember their recipes or in the case of the technical challenge, know what to do if not all the steps to prepare the final product are given. Wisdom will be used to determine if they are able to adapt the recipe if something goes wrong (for example they can't remember all of the steps of the recipe based on the intelligence check). Performance will determine how they did with the baking overall. Charisma will be used for the final product which will be presented to the judges. For this they will roll with advantage, disadvantage or just make a straight roll based on how they did on their other checks.
Winning is not important. They have been hired to protect a diplomat's daughter who has received threats but doesn't want to compete surrounded by guards. In addition to baking they will have to do things to protect her while still competing their bakes.
Morrigan has some good ideas for skill checks. A series of them to see how good the dish is. I can see good reasons for lots of ability scores for the checks. I'd add dexterity in the actual cooking of it (chopping quickly, flipping something in a pan with no spatula), heck even con if you've ever tasted hot soup to see if it needs anything else -- there's a reason they say chefs have an asbestos tongue. And of course, the feat gives you proficiency in chef's tools, so if they have the feat already, you would then allow them to add their proficiency bonus to the checks. If they don't have the feat, then they don't get the bonus, but it could be a fun way to introduce it, like, now they finally get how to do everything a bit better and can use the proficiency bonus. I'd do them all in pretty quick succession with a bit of narration between. You want to let this player have the spotlight for a bit, that's great, but not for so long that everyone else gets bored.
As for No. 2, I'd be careful with it. What are the party's passive perception/insight scores? The party might be able to hear the thud of the person getting shoved in the closet, or see some drops of blood on the floor. The vampire should really have to make a deception roll when they are acting as someone else. And if the party knows they're chasing a vampire, I'd imagine they'd be extra cautious about this, and want to make insight checks, or have true seeing ready, or a daylight spell. If you make the checks, and the vampire gets away with it, then that seems fair to me. If you just decide the vampire gets away with it, and essentially ignore any abilities the party might have, that's when I'd get upset. Not to mention a vampire, by RAW, can't change into other people, of course, it's easy enough to homebrew a disguise kit or access to alter self or something, but there should be some kind of check or something about how good their disguise is. Why wouldn't the vampire just change into a bat or a mist and flee out a window? If someone is hot on their tail, a vampire (17 int, 15 wis) would know its better to simply escape and come back, rather than do a murder, hide a body, and polymorph into the dead person in 20 seconds. Just open a window and out they fly into the night. The council member mentions not remembering opening any windows on this chilly night, how odd. Then the vampire comes back later after the PC's have gone.
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Longer....In our campaign the land is ruled by a Council. The Council appointed a new Master of Commerce after the previous one sadly died (she was murdered by a vampire really). Shortly after this appointment the same vampire who murdered the last Master of Commerce murdered the new one and took on the identity of the new one thanks to some Alter Self and Seeming spells. The party were assigned a task by the false Council Member (The Vampire) in desguise as the Council Member which has led to some ugly truths coming out not in favour of the Vampire. I.e. Planning to kill a powerful Trade Lord within the city after having deceived the rest of the council members as to the reasons why. A Council meeting was called where the Vampire (portraying the Master of Commerce) was scryed upon and was seen heading into the headquarters of the Trade Lords domain. Queue rapid chase by the party to the headquarters to hopefully stop the Vampire killing this Trade Lord. This is where the session ended.
Currently I'm thinking for the Vampire to arrive and kill the Trade Lord and just as the party arrive The Vampire will morph into the Trade Lord and hopefully decieve the party away. I am planning on having the Vampire simply shove the dead body of the Trade Lord into a wardrobe (as she is in a hurry), and having the Vampire as the Trade Lord pretend that the Council Member they saw walk into this building never actually came in, which is not entirely false as she morphed her self to look unlike the Council Member when arriving in the Trade Lords HQ. Do you think this might make the party feel a bit meh? I am worried that they will become annoyed or upset or decieved slightly, but I think the premise sounds cool. She will return in a few weeks at a Political Party, portrayed this Trade lord, that is being held for my players PC's and she will kill again there. As for the the Council Member the Vampire was portraying, they will have simply vanished. Never to be found again, a right puzzling one me thinks.
I'm planning to run a baking competition in the near future for my party. It will be a two-day competition with three rounds each day (based on the Great British Bake Off). For two of the rounds they will be able to come up with their own recipes. To promote exploration in the new city they have arrived in, they will have to find ingredients for their recipes the day before the contest starts. For one round they will be given a recipe and have to follow it.
I will be using various skill checks throughout. For the competition I will be using intelligence checks to see if they can remember their recipes or in the case of the technical challenge, know what to do if not all the steps to prepare the final product are given. Wisdom will be used to determine if they are able to adapt the recipe if something goes wrong (for example they can't remember all of the steps of the recipe based on the intelligence check). Performance will determine how they did with the baking overall. Charisma will be used for the final product which will be presented to the judges. For this they will roll with advantage, disadvantage or just make a straight roll based on how they did on their other checks.
Winning is not important. They have been hired to protect a diplomat's daughter who has received threats but doesn't want to compete surrounded by guards. In addition to baking they will have to do things to protect her while still competing their bakes.
Morrigan has some good ideas for skill checks. A series of them to see how good the dish is. I can see good reasons for lots of ability scores for the checks. I'd add dexterity in the actual cooking of it (chopping quickly, flipping something in a pan with no spatula), heck even con if you've ever tasted hot soup to see if it needs anything else -- there's a reason they say chefs have an asbestos tongue. And of course, the feat gives you proficiency in chef's tools, so if they have the feat already, you would then allow them to add their proficiency bonus to the checks. If they don't have the feat, then they don't get the bonus, but it could be a fun way to introduce it, like, now they finally get how to do everything a bit better and can use the proficiency bonus. I'd do them all in pretty quick succession with a bit of narration between. You want to let this player have the spotlight for a bit, that's great, but not for so long that everyone else gets bored.
As for No. 2, I'd be careful with it. What are the party's passive perception/insight scores? The party might be able to hear the thud of the person getting shoved in the closet, or see some drops of blood on the floor. The vampire should really have to make a deception roll when they are acting as someone else. And if the party knows they're chasing a vampire, I'd imagine they'd be extra cautious about this, and want to make insight checks, or have true seeing ready, or a daylight spell. If you make the checks, and the vampire gets away with it, then that seems fair to me. If you just decide the vampire gets away with it, and essentially ignore any abilities the party might have, that's when I'd get upset. Not to mention a vampire, by RAW, can't change into other people, of course, it's easy enough to homebrew a disguise kit or access to alter self or something, but there should be some kind of check or something about how good their disguise is. Why wouldn't the vampire just change into a bat or a mist and flee out a window? If someone is hot on their tail, a vampire (17 int, 15 wis) would know its better to simply escape and come back, rather than do a murder, hide a body, and polymorph into the dead person in 20 seconds. Just open a window and out they fly into the night. The council member mentions not remembering opening any windows on this chilly night, how odd. Then the vampire comes back later after the PC's have gone.