In the end though, combat is always mundane to me, I find it boring. So for me, I will always find some way to involve terrain, environment, or external influence to add something to combat. I rarely change stat blocks, instead I change tactics, creating a sense of progression. Belak will start out fighting with arrogance, using minimal effort and taunting the players with his immense power. As the players whittle him down he starts to fight with more of a tactical mind, trying to reclaim or hold the combat advantage. When he gets low enough on health he'll go mad, start using things, like the power of the Gulthias tree, to try to crush these annoying adventurers.
re-read this a few times. Especially the part of changing tactics. When reading up on a specific monster I learn their intelligence, their society and militaristic workings etc. With kobolds I can see adding throwing pots and what not. Goblins feel less creative and have less ingenuity in my opinion. Where do you draw the line of changing up tactics and adding elements/tactics that would be rather meta-gaming?
Disclaimer: I am biased in that I prefer magical items to be augmentations to a character as opposed to the defining trait of a character. I am also a DM who uses magical items as rare gifts, my players are level 6 and have 5 magical items. The six of them had to figure out how to divvy up a magic bulls-eye lantern that casts light, a bag of holding, boots of striding and sprinting, cloak of protection +1, and a pearl of power.
That said, I feel that your T1 ability might be a bit much, here's my take:
T1 - +1. magical weapon property, add 2d4 fire damage to each attack made with the Greataxe. If the d4 rolls a 4 you may roll it again, adding the new roll to the first roll. (I feel a great axe doing around 18 damage a turn at lvl 3 might be a bit much,
--- +1. magical weapon property, Improved Critical, on a critical hit add 2d4 fire damage to each attack made with the Greataxe. (with the change it's 7 damage a turn avg with a slightly higher Crit chance.)
The first iteration of the T1 ability could give the player the ability to solo the average CR 3 creature in 4 turns. The second ability increases the damage by 1, no a huge bump that way. It now avoids resistances against non-magical attacks and has a larger crit range, making it quite versatile at a lower level. Other than that, it looks like a rather fun item for your player!
I didn't say the axe was overly powerful, just that it was powerful compared with 'normal' D&D 5th E treasure. Nothing wrong with that.
MMORPGs hand out magic items almost every drop - sometimes they are an upgrade, sometimes you spend ten minutes trying to see if they are an upgrade. Rarely do they feel magical. If I was playing in your campaign and picked up that axe, I would KNOW that I have a world changing item there. I would assume it had an awesome history/backstory. I would worry that everybody would be after it. Meta-gaming, I would wonder what in the 12 Hells are we likely to be facing if you can drop this bad boy into the campaign. I would be excited and eager to test it in battle.
Can't see the downside there! :)
FWIW - I thought the opening scene of SW:IV was AWESOME! Marv from Sin City is tough as a rhino and yet still loses fights occasionally - he is a great character. I have let characters get their hands on Mournblade (twin to Elric's Stormbringer and makes your +6 sword look like a stick!) and ride dragons into battle. Once at the same time! Bigger is not always better, but that doesn't mean it's always worse. Enjoy your game and don't panic about what outsiders might think of your game (OOH, look at those power-gaming murder-hobos!)
Still trying to find out how to provide magical items. It is a lot less then in 3e and 4e apparently. The party will have Shatterspike, this greataxe and the Shadow Ray bow at lvl 3. A bag of holding as reward after Forge of Fury at lvl 5. And then most magic weaponry and such will happen in Red Hand of Doom. Should work out well I hope. Especially since I have the combat be aimed at 5-6 people party... when my party is 3-4 players at the moment for this campaign. I prefer not to scale down combat encounters and rather scale them up if the environment makes it seem plausible. Then its up to the players to find information and prepare and figure out their own ways of dealing with the situations. And I don't fudge rolls either if things go wrong after they commit. So far that led to some interesting situations. In the end still a lot of tweaking and ad libbing as we go.
Slightly higher crit chance. Sounds deadly in the hands of a barbarian. Especially seeing their damage output later on when they crit. That said it would feel very rewarding to the player without being to overpowering. Improved Crit would mean he'd crit on a 19 AND a 20?
Where do you draw the line of changing up tactics and adding elements/tactics that would be rather meta-gaming?
It's a goofy question, I draw the line at "meta-gaming" when it becomes DM vs Player..
When a fight starts there's a motivation, a conflict, Players want X and the creature(s) want Y. I come up with the motivation of the creature(s) and have them act on that motivation (sometimes it means the creatures run before combat even starts). As the fight progresses, or a key moment occurs (like 25% hp lost), I reassess the situation and see if the creature(s) may alter their motivation. If the motivation has a reason to change ('stop the players' turns into 'escape with the mcguffin') I alter how the creature(s) act.
The environment is keyed to specific timers or actions so as to potentially get the creature(s) as well as the players. Lava gouts spew forth magma every 16, 9, and 4 on the initiative chart. The pillar falls if enough damage is done to it (a player gets pushed into it = 2 damage, a critical miss deals weapon damage to it, etc.). If the boss starts feeling like they're losing they'll head for a lever. Maybe the players see the lever and try it before the boss does.
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You've read up on goblins, they're less creative and lack ingenuity in your opinion. So when the players start to route them in a battle, does that mean they're not smart enough to run away? Does that mean they're not going to be able to run around their cave systems with greater ease than the players? Does that mean they won't know to fortify important locations? Does that mean they're not going to ambush the players from various vantage points?
If you look at the sunless citadel, and take the story into account, the "not so clever and tactical" goblins accomplished something crazy. They managed to infiltrate a kobold compound, break open a cage with a baby dragon in it, subdue and capture the baby dragon, and then run off victorious. I'm not going to say Belak didn't help them figure out a plan, but I am willing to bet he didn't perform the operation, so the goblins had to adapt to the situation when things went sideways.
The way I interpreted the goblins managing to get the white wyrm was due to the bug/hob goblins that are present. In my campaign they're installed there by the Red Hand to spread their influence. With the wyrm coming with them for "safe keeping" for usage in the rituals later on. At some point the kobolds went for a big attack and managed to obtain the Wyrm. In response the hob goblins and bug bears now got more involved to re-take what was given in their safe keeping. Hobgoblins are known to be more militaristic with bugbears providing more brute power. That is what made their counter attack succeed while still having a few goblins being captured. Balsac the bugbear is a hunter and the adventure also mentions the White Wyrm is rampaging since he hasn't domesticated it yet.
The little goblins do know basics, but having tactical hobgoblins nearby really helps though. Sure they can set up ambushes, know to take cover and have better understanding of their lair with traps. It still is rather limited in my opinion. Especially if you also take their INT value into consideration. They're not that smart either. It's not that they're incapable...they're just limited in their potential. Since my players went to deal with the entombed Dragonpriest first it gave the goblins a chance/time to set up defenses. They upturned two tables allowing 2 ranged goblins to hide behind each table. With their arrows trained at the door. So I did employ tactics with the selling point it came from the hobgoblins influence/orders. When outnumbered their fight/flight instinct kicks in and they try to run away. My issue in the Sunless Citadel was more... "Where do they run to?". Due to the chaos they couldn't just go down the pit, they couldn't go past the PC's into the corridors where they'd also end up in Kobold territory. Grenl the Shaman was down so a parley was out of the question.
That said the Citadel is pretty straightforward with very little space to even setup goblin ambushes properly. Making them more responsive. By the time they can take action the players are already at their front door.
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1. On another note. I'm going to give all non-young dragons a spellcasting ability of some kind. Never understood the reason for encountering a dragon outside of its lair and it suddenly starts popping out bulls strength, mage armor etc potions and scrolls. Where was he hiding it... up his butt? However I'm curious about a situation that I'm fore seeing. Dragon casts fog/mist and withdraws slightly inside of it as cover. Then it casts invisibility on itself as well. The dragon can still using his sensory abilities to know where the players are and bite/claw/tail strike them. Creating an eerie situation where the fog slightly moves, but nothing is visibly there. In case this dragon would fall back a little...would Opportunity Attacks still work? The players can swing their attacks in a direction they think he was at, but don't know for sure. I'm assuming an Attack Roll with Disadvantage would suit the situation, but not 100% sure.
2. The Red Hand of Doom adventure uses a time table. In many conversion debates people spoke about creating loot and enemies, but no one even considered the time table. In 5e the pace of the things adventurers achieve in a day is much higher. Other then travel time there is little that slows down actual progress in regards to the time table. I either add additional (side)events that throw a wrench in the PC's progress to slow them down. Or I need to tighten the War Time Table. Meaning that it can be done within 30 days instead of 40. Any suggestions on this?
3. Coming back to the topic of Hill Dwarf Resilience. Should You give HP equal to the lvl the barbarian would end up with 240-250hp excluding the 220-260hp he'd get from regular leveling up with die rolls and CON modifier. So that means around 500hp at lvl 20. That sounds like a lot. On the other hand. Giving only 1hp each time its only 20hp among 20levels... that isn't even worth mentioning. Maybe house rule it with a mid way solution. That it stops at lvl 10. So lvl 11-20 gets +10hp bonus for each level up as the max. The total amount of HP extra is like 2 rounds of big attacks for high level opponents. Or just little bit extra survivability against huge breath weapons and similar effects. Any ideas?
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Since most of the broad prep work for this campaign is done I only need to do the session to session details. Which is relatively little. That means I've started prep work on the second campaign for the other group of players. An Underdark setting with the City of the Spiderqueen in due time. I read the adventure Into the Abyss that starts in the Underdark upto the summoning of Demogorgon. Would be cool to incorporate that somehow as well.
Later today my group is going to fight Belak the Outcast. They'll be starting after a long rest going at the Shadow near Ashardalon's shrine in room 50. So they're really close. After that its mostly just an RP session and traveling to other villages with optional side-content if they want. I turned the Beholder inn into a gambling hall with games of chance for the weary travelers. Building to rent rooms is next door. Some criminal elements. I've taken the liberty of "Stealing" a lot from Keep of the Shadowfell for side content. A little escavation/mine with bandits and kruthiks, the waterfall lair now holds bullywugs that moved from their usual north location in the Witchwood's to the south due to RHOD events and the black dragon up in the north. Taken some rooms/corridors from the Shadowfell Keep in case the PC's stumble upon old ruins/tombs along their journey to flesh out the old dwarven civilization that ones reigned supreme in the vale. And if they don't stumble on any of it I just re-use it elsewhere :D
Last night they completed the fight against Belak the Outcast of Sunless Citadel. Next time It'll be traversing back, taking care of loose ends and going to Oakhurst. Also had my first kill m whahaha.
They cleared everything fine and smoothly without too much hassle. Last time they took a long rest in room 46-47 which had the small dragon statuette holding a plate. They spend a lot of effort trying to find secret passages or traps while nothing is there. I agree that this is an odd room. Since they placed some coins as offering I just let them wake up with a small blessing as reward for it. Basically an Inspiration Die of 1d6 they could use.
In Belak's personal chamber they found diaries, documentation mentioning experimentations etc to explain the things they encountered. Also to provide back story of Belak as to why he is here, his research into undeath, Gulthias and thus the tree. When things happened later they totally ignored/had forgotten all that information. It wasn't presented as an info dump either, but in brief summary of the information they found while quickly nosing through the notes. Players will be players I guess.
The final fight, as per the module, is already listed as deadly according to the CR. Something that I don't use. So I modified it by adding lots more Twig Blights to a total of 12 instead of 3. These critters are slow to move and die pretty fast with only 4-5 hp a piece, accompanied with low damage output. Also the humans all felt really squishy and gave them more HP. Added some Underdark spores. Prepped the tree with vampiric Charm on a 5-6 recharge with a dc of 15 Wis to break free of.
It started well for the players. They assumed Belak was the one mind controlling Sir Braford and Hucrele. Ranged focus fire took Belak down fairly quickly in 3 rounds. Everyone moved in and started fighting the remaining humans and the toad that was a real piece of work for them to handle. Barbarian tried to move around and flank. He ended up alone on the side turning the Twig Blights into firewood. The druid came in range and used her Moonbeam and aided in clearing the Blights while using Poison Spray and other spells to hit Hucrele. Sir Braford and the cleric were having a one on one. Since Shatterspike is meant for that cleric I used this fight to demonstrate what it can do by breaking his own mace and shield. Gradually the Gulthias tree's influence became more present as the ranged players were suddenly forced to defend it at all cost. The Toad was the last one standing with almost all the players being charmed. Several well timed Spell Scrolls such as Scorching Ray and the one that does insane necro damage wounded the Toad badly. While the last bit of life was slammed out of it by the Moonbeam...which lasted the entire fight and proven very helpful.
It felt as if the last stage of the fight felt really dragged out, because of the charm. Two players were trying to fight the toad AND trying to damage the tree while also getting shot at by their team mates. At that point I took it further. Three rounds had post since they got charmed which meant the psychic connection was now very present in their mind. Those controlled players found themselves in an altered state of reality where they were face to face with Gulthias himself. I let it develop to the point that, through a series of skill challenges, they could damage the tree as well from within. In the end the cleric tried to put distance between him and the controlled barbarian, but was knocked unconscious by a critical hitting Opportunity Attack. Near the tree was the druid which got shot down by the ranger. During the final round the druid rolled a critical fail on her death save and died. Whereas the cleric was down to 2 fails and got stabilized just in time through a medicine check. Before looting and resting the ranger threw an alchemist fire on the tree. Which I assume will be burning forever and thus never re-grow. Unless some NPC's come down here in the future and get involved for their own nefarious goals.
They're all new players and don't want their first deaths to be too much of a negative experience. Most of the other players said, rightly so, we only met this elf 2 days ago. I'm not going to spend my resources on reviving someone we just met. The cleric will learn Revivify at lvl 3, but lacks the amount of gems required to pull it of. Last idea at the moment is about having that player create a new character. Then turn the revival of the druid into a short quest. At the end the player can then choose which character they prefer to continue with.
==================== 1. I've been working on my atmospheric/immersive descriptions. That is improving, but still has some way to go. 2. I suck at monologue's from NPC. Especially in a scenario as Belak was. he said "Do you even know why you're here??" - To which the ranger said: "no why don't you tell us!!!". And then he pretended to listen while whispering tactics to the others. I found it funny, but I can't seem to pull of a good timing/approach on how to make bad guys more pro-active when the heroes enter his domain. With NPC's in time its easier since they're just simple reactive. As for dialogues in general I am horrible...same for movies and books. I don't get what makes good dialogue since I simply can't bring myself to caring enough. For me its about delivering information and how you do it is not important. Which works fine with regular NPC's, but not with the more prominent ones. Any suggestions how to get better at this? 3. Using the beamer was a great success. Could easily add hue's and such to show status effects. The usage of Fog of War was the big winner however.
You don't have to be good at dialogue. Change from first to third person.
"The arch overlord sneers at your question, then in a condescending tone explains that once he resurrects the ghost of his girlfriend past she will enact the ceremony of Blah, blah, blah."
Dialogue is absolutely essential in novels*. Roleplaying games - not so much. You can mix 1st and 3rd person dialogue as much as you like. In a perfect world, keeping to 1st person is best, but we don't all have a 20 cha and 20 int to roleplay with.
One thing though, if you don't care about something, don't expect your players to. (Except treasure - they'll always care about that!)
I also wouldn't sweat it too much over the character death - If you allow the PC to come back, then you cheapen the cleric getting spells to drag the soul back from death. The players have to believe death is a very real possibility, or where is the heroism?
*You can bet your rainy day 5,000 gp diamond that the author of a novel/movie did not write that sparkling dialogue in one easy draft.
1. On another note. I'm going to give all non-young dragons a spellcasting ability of some kind. Never understood the reason for encountering a dragon outside of its lair and it suddenly starts popping out bulls strength, mage armor etc potions and scrolls. Where was he hiding it... up his butt? However I'm curious about a situation that I'm fore seeing. Dragon casts fog/mist and withdraws slightly inside of it as cover. Then it casts invisibility on itself as well. The dragon can still using his sensory abilities to know where the players are and bite/claw/tail strike them. Creating an eerie situation where the fog slightly moves, but nothing is visibly there. In case this dragon would fall back a little...would Opportunity Attacks still work? The players can swing their attacks in a direction they think he was at, but don't know for sure. I'm assuming an Attack Roll with Disadvantage would suit the situation, but not 100% sure.
I haven't looked at the RAW on this question - I assume you already have - but my personal feeling is that you should get an opportunity attack (at disadvantage as you suggest.) I see the OA as being a reflection of the defender concentrating on something other than the fight in front of him, reducing his defences slightly, rather than being an actual extra attack.
But....I have a house rule that if anybody wishes to just flee directly away from an opponent, they may do so without needing to take the disengage action. They purely take a double move away. This only works for the first square of movement, and cannot be attempted out of or into difficult terrain. This encourages fleeing from battle, as the current rules, even with disengage, make fleeing an almost suicidal option.
See Lindy Beige - Back attacks for a very entertaining video that sealed the deal on my feelings about running away.
Spellcasting dragons??? Damn right - does anything else shout raw magic louder than a freakin' dragon? (Well, OK, a few things, but Dragons are fairly iconic in Dungeons and Dragons. Give 'em magic and powers and magic items and more powers.)
Some questions that I've been thinking about lately. Perhaps some of you can shed some light on it as well.
1. A new player joined the group. making a skill monkey basically. Nothing wrong with that. However he wants to make and use traps as well as poison. Found a nice website with ideas to deal with harvesting ingredients to attempt and craft a poison. However how do you deal with traps? What would be easy enough to craft between a tinkerer, woodworker and leather worker. What would be easy enough to transport and setup on the go.
2. At lvl 15+ content. How do DM's deal with combat? It seems there is a huge flat bonus from proficiency and items. Monsters don't really seem to have many with 23AC and higher. Meaning that they're always easy to hit since players can roll around 25-30 fairly easy. Same the other way around where opponents have huge bonuses to players not even scratching 20AC in most cases.
3. Injury tables have come up with my players thinking it would be a fun addition. To me it seems like a nice idea, but a lot of administrative work for minimal payout. After all spells can just heal most infliction and injuries without an issue. Going to take a lot of time to think about.
there are a few more things, but those escaped my mind for the time being.
1) All of that depends on the craftiness of the player. Generally they'll need the tools to build the traps, as well as the skill necessary. Let them figure out the traps they want to try to make and have them roll the skill checks to build it and make it work. -I build a "Home Alone" style trap using a canvas sheet, some rope and a bag of ball bearings. I had to roll some dex checks and int checks to see if I could build it. The DC of the trap was decided to be 8 + proficiency + dex.
2) High end combat requires more thought, the simple whack-a-hero game really can't apply. You'll have to look at what your players' weaknesses are, you'll have to fight more tactically, and you'll need to use the environment to it's fullest. Dragons have a meager AC when you take into account the level that the players are, however you can TPK a group of lvl 15 adventurers with a single Adult White if you play it right. Use their abilities to keep them from being dog-piled, focus fire a single player, and have them run, hide, and fly as much as possible.
3) Injury tables, when done right, are fun and they don't require much administration if you have a table to work from. If your players want injury tables make sure they understand that injuries of substance cannot be healed from a simple spell. They'll need something like Greater Restoration, Wish, or the Fountain of Youth, things like that can return them to their fully healed state
There are a few things to consider with traps. In no particular order:
1) Traps are generally defensive and immobile (even the rolling ball type traps...) whereas adventurers are the aggressors most of the time.
2) Unless you are going to watch over them, traps are non-discerning - they will 'attack' whoever triggers them: dragons, orcs, the postman, toddlers, Bambi....
3) Other stuff that I'm sure other people will think of. :)
As a fan of turtling in RTS games, Orcs Must Die, Dungeon Defenders, Legend (David Gemmell), Orc Attack (Atari 400), First Blood (The first Rambo film), and many others, I am in favour of trap builders but I'm not sure I would want them to be prominent in my campaigns. If I were to encourage them, perhaps treating traps a bit like spells for the purposes of how much space they can affect, how much damage they do, how many you can deploy in a day etc...
I suspect that most traps are NOT built primarily for the purpose of killing/maiming or slowing an aggressor, but are instead used to give soldiers (and conscripted troops) something to do with their plentiful time rather than just waiting and worrying about the approaching enemy...Also it's good for morale to see the enemy hurt without risk to yourself or your friends. Remember though, merely taking first blood does not guarantee victory. :)
1. Apparently it'll be easy standard traps at first with more elaborate stuff later on. I'm ok with it. As for traps being immobile/defensive... They can still be used by the scout of the party. Lure opponents in to reduce their numbers, or inconvenience them in some way. So I can see a tactical usage for it. One that I have to keep in mind when prepping situations. I'm wondering how to decide on the amount of damage for when they come into play, or possible slow/blind/deaf effects that could occur. Basically what I'm looking for are guidelines to make it work mechanically on the spot.
3. well DMThac0 part of the administrative part are the several tables related to each damage type. Plus you need to be constantly mindful of the triggers at which they even get applied.
When I have used injury tables I used an approach that used 2 rolls, a d12 that figured out which body part was injured and a d10 to figure out the type of damage.
d12
Head
Left Arm
Left Leg
Left Hand
Left Foot
Chest
Back
Right Foot
Right Hand
Right Leg
Right Arm
Full Body
d10
Loss of body part (if head or full body, 0 hp and roll death saving throws)
Severed/useless body part
Paralyzed body part
Physical tic (limp/shakes/wandering eye)
Scarred body part
Disfigured body part
Numbed body part
Broken body part
Crippled body part (if head or full body, 0 hp and roll death saving throws)
Minor injury (deep bruising, severe cut, etc.)
This makes it simple enough for the player to write down on their sheet and track. A simple modifier or flavor to the sheet may also be added if/when needed to reflect the major damages. It also allows you to use the narrative to describe the situation and modify it on the fly if you feel the need.
For any subsequent ailments I just went with what felt appropriate based on the information.
Randomly generated example: 2: Left Arm 7: Numbed body part Lingering ailment: The arm is permanently numb. Skill checks, attacks and actions that require the use of both arms would lose proficiency or half dex, whichever is lower.
It's made up on the fly and can be adjusted however you see fit, heck you could ask the player how they want to have it affect the character. This type of thing gives the base information and the mechanical/flavor of it is added after.
1. Apparently it'll be easy standard traps at first with more elaborate stuff later on. I'm ok with it. As for traps being immobile/defensive... They can still be used by the scout of the party. Lure opponents in to reduce their numbers, or inconvenience them in some way. So I can see a tactical usage for it. One that I have to keep in mind when prepping situations. I'm wondering how to decide on the amount of damage for when they come into play, or possible slow/blind/deaf effects that could occur. Basically what I'm looking for are guidelines to make it work mechanically on the spot.
As DMs we would all like this,. :) (But then do we become more like impartial adjudicators?)
My experience with DMing tells me to allow the traps to have a chance to do a significant amount of damage (maybe double what any other PC could do in a single round without using daily resources.) You have to balance the desire of the player to be awesome with the desires of the other players to not be overshadowed. Negotiate with all the players as to the possible outcome, saving throws required etc. Depending on the group, this can work really well.
Snares and spike traps can slow, buckets of sand/ash/labrador fur might blind, and for deafening.....yeah, anything short of a full on Death Metal Concert is unlikely to achieve that.
Well... we are Impartial Adjudicators. Without it you can't have the game functioning and it would be chaos. All we do is describe an environment and let the players lose in it. So we also have a co-operational story telling aspect. But mostly its still Adjudicators of the rules and rolls which makes up the foundation on which we build further.
As for looking for such guidelines. There are a fair amount of DM's out there who have already done their own setup of mechanics. Was looking for something like that to continue on with. Same for my overland travel setup. I found someone else setup and just tweaked it for my own needs/style instead of having to re-do everything. Was hoping something like that would exist for traps as well. Haven't found anything yet though.
Speaking of overland. Several sessions ago I had decided to use it instead of fast travel. At least for the first time around. Because the module Red Hand of Doom is my center piece I build everything around that. Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury also take place in the Elsir Vale. Traveling from A to B covers almost all villages/hamlets I decided it would be a nice way to introduce the players with each location. Perhaps with some optional side quests if they feel up for it and thus create a form of connection/investment with the Elsir Vale for when the Horde of the Red Hand arrives. It also shows how vast the vale is when walking on foot/horse&wagon. I estimated 2 sessions to go through all the places and start with the Forge. However they seem to be having a lot of fun traveling and encountering the side stuff. Two sessions in and they're only at the first village Terrelton. With my estimate I now have contend for the next 4 months without needing to prep anything new heheh :D
The side content also allows me too create some differing/experimental stuff. Currently they're doing an investigation into corruption. A paladin of Pelor had an associate being undercover looking into some shady events slightly out of town. So they're doing investigative stuff. Also a great way to introduce yet another new player. I've said not to invite any more friends since the current number is what I currently feel comfortable with. Anyhow they actually used stealth, snuck around, waiting for time to pass, observe, send in a wild shaped druid to scout. Then at night go into the tents to meet with the undercover agent followed by a quiet assassination while capturing the leading bandit for interrogation. I'm so proud of their progress.
Only thing I currently am looking into is the amount of magic items. It feels as if they're being showered with it. Need to tone it down. As for the adventure modules they have tons of magical gear. Want to reduce that as well and turn it into a low-mid magical game instead of high magic. Thing is...what other rewards could be provided? constantly handing out gems, money or favors from someone gets old fast as well.
Still waiting for Strongholds and Followers. Really want to look it through and start prep work on future Vraath Keep/Ixial's Tower the players can turn into their own base if they so desire. The new player already stated he wants to form his own thieves guild at some point. Other players also have a few ideas that would require a base of operations. I'm sure it'll be a lot of fun with the additional third party toolkit.
We took a short break for the summer vacation, some people needing to move into a new house etc. So yesterday we resumed the mine investigation stuff. However I had dropped the ball, by coming totally unprepared. I had NOTHING, because I was just lazy about it for a while. Yet it became the best session so far it seems. A caved in wall to an area that wasn't mapped leading into a dark cavern system. Some kruthik's that turned into a challenging combat scenario. Leading further down through a giant grotto. One group member had fallen behind trying to tame a Kruthik Hatchling as pet. Tried to catch up with the group while being an hour behind them. So when the group heard noises they shot arrows leaving the dwarf to only 1 HP. Oh that was so funny how they RP'ed that out. Eventually it led to an 800-900 year old dwarf tomb. Using the opportunity to not just tell about the history of the world, but show it. Tomb with traps of course, iconography/hieroglyphs that told story of conflicts in the Dwarven Empire etc.
At every turn I had no idea what was coming next. A giant room with a dwarf statue holding up a sword. And I just let the players say what they were doing, combined with the rolls of dice, I just added elements to the chambers step by step. Eventually this specific chamber had two doors to each side. back wall had the giant statue standing 20ft apart of each wall. They tried opening a door triggering the trap with a giant wall crashing down and cutting of the escape route. Slits in the ceiling opening up with sand pouring down. First 2, then another 4 and another 4 gaps with sand pouring down at increasing pace. With the shatterspike weapon the cleric bashed open the door. First the wood, seeing there was a metal plate to reinforce the door. So he had to bash through that as well. But it lead into a 3ft corridor and a dead end. Same with the other door. The rogue decided to take a closer look in the small corridors to find that some of the masonry stonework could be taken out. Revealing a small chest with a key. At this time they were knee deep in the send, trouble moving, running to the other door and dead end corridor to find another key. In the mean time the druid used thorn whip and such to try and stop the statue from swirling around its giant sword. Allowing the group to get behind the statue. Finding 2 sliding panels in which the keys fit. Then the wall behind the statue opened up a passage into a crypt.
With every step of that room. Every element I added on the spot. I had NO idea where it was going or how it would work together. But in the end it was epic and they loved it. I just went with what the players wanted to do. What the dice said if it was a success. And just let them shine.
In the chamber with the sarcophagus. They had encountered two of such scenarios in the Sunless Citadel. In both cases stuff came crawling out to attack them. They were expecting the exact same thing too happen here as well. Instead I responded by not letting it happen and instead add a trap the moment the druid succeeded on a trap perception check. However they went through great lengths for preparing against an attack the moment the lid would be pushed of. They made traps with wires and alchemist fire etc. So funny :)
1. I tried to keep in mind to reduce the magic rewards that I set out for myself. Instead the dwarf barbarian is trying to tame a Kruthik Hatchling to be his pet in due time. They ripped apart some traps and thus ended up with an Ancient Dwarf Thunderbuss. And they harvested some poison from the adult Kruthik's glands. Which the ranger responded too by looking for a sponge which he put at the bottom of his quiver and drenched it in poison. Nothing magical, but still some nice stuff.
2. regarding the injury table... I play in another campaign. That DM uses tables for so many things I find it ridiculous at times. It even feels as if he just adds things to kill players, or try to...well not in the sense he's against us. More that he goes out of his way trying to create a certain combat, because he wants things to be challenging for us. So it comes from a good place, but the execution is not great. It also shows I dont want tables in my game that much.
3. How to go about training/taming a Kruthik? Such a similar question has been asked several times on the boards, to which some I replied myself. Got some ideas. Mostly to have the barbarian describe how he wants to tame it. Instead of just rolling an animal handling check each day. He also has to spend some intense time with that beast. Thinking about making it an elaborate skill challenge spread across several in-game days. Combined with elements of Social Encounter mechanics in order to have it shift alliances. They should still be on the road for another 10 days before arriving at the start of Forge of Fury. Plenty of time to at least make it docile enough. Will have to work out the RP details and which mechanics that fit with it. For combat I'm not too worried. Its just another NPC that joins the party basically. It has its own free will whether it even wants to fight or rather burrows in the ground and runs away. If he succeeds on taming the Kruthik... How long is the period from a hatchling to grow into a young...or adult....or even a Hive Lord? Although I could do that with the druid's setup. Look at which level she can wildshape in a animal that corresponds with the CR of the next "upgrade" for the Kruthik. I think it could work. Any ideas are always welcome.
4. Since they also drained poison from a young kruthik as well as the hive lord... it means they got a weaker poison and a full grown one. Thing is... I don't know a damn thing about poisons. (yet).
So... A dwarf Thunderbuss. Had to make a weapon with those stats. So here is my new homebrew creation. Feedback would be appreciated. I want it to be a powerfull shotgun effect with some lightning aspect. Since that is what the trap was about. So took the spell Fireball and tuned that down a bit. Also presented them with limited amount of ammo. Since its such an ancient device nobody even has ammo.
Ancient Dwarvish Thunderbuss
Ranged 20/60ft, 2 handed, loading, works with heavy crossbow proficiency only Small creatures who shoot this need to make a DC14 Athletics check or get pushed back 5ft Misfire occurs on an attack roll of 1-3 which causes the force to create tears in the barrel so it won't be usable again. 2d10 piercing damage to the single target. Upon impact a 20ft radius sphere of lightning erupts. DC14 Dex Save to evade and take half damage. On failure the targets in the area take full damage of 4d6 lightning damage. The lightning sphere can spread around corners. It can also electrify water.
The group was investigating a possibly, illegal, mining operation. When entering the mine itself there was an area not listed on the map. Passing through the collapsed wall they traversed through a dark cave system. It eventually led them into an underground grotto. Exploring further they came across a very old dwarven tomb. Dating back 800, if not more, years ago. They had made it passed various traps. However, on their way back out, they decided to try and take apart some traps for materials.
Very carefully Elrill used his Shatterspike to break the sturdy wall without setting off the explosives. It was delicate and precise work, but they managed to find some ammo (5 to be exact) as well as a functionally looking blunderbuss. However this isn't a regular one since the trap also shocked them. This weapon fires, very specifically made, pellets from its trumpet-shaped barrel.
In the current age firearms don't exist...as far as everyone knows.
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re-read this a few times. Especially the part of changing tactics. When reading up on a specific monster I learn their intelligence, their society and militaristic workings etc. With kobolds I can see adding throwing pots and what not. Goblins feel less creative and have less ingenuity in my opinion. Where do you draw the line of changing up tactics and adding elements/tactics that would be rather meta-gaming?
Disclaimer: I am biased in that I prefer magical items to be augmentations to a character as opposed to the defining trait of a character. I am also a DM who uses magical items as rare gifts, my players are level 6 and have 5 magical items. The six of them had to figure out how to divvy up a magic bulls-eye lantern that casts light, a bag of holding, boots of striding and sprinting, cloak of protection +1, and a pearl of power.
That said, I feel that your T1 ability might be a bit much, here's my take:
T1 - +1. magical weapon property, add 2d4 fire damage to each attack made with the Greataxe. If the d4 rolls a 4 you may roll it again, adding the new roll to the first roll.
(I feel a great axe doing around 18 damage a turn at lvl 3 might be a bit much,
--- +1. magical weapon property, Improved Critical, on a critical hit add 2d4 fire damage to each attack made with the Greataxe.
(with the change it's 7 damage a turn avg with a slightly higher Crit chance.)
The first iteration of the T1 ability could give the player the ability to solo the average CR 3 creature in 4 turns. The second ability increases the damage by 1, no a huge bump that way. It now avoids resistances against non-magical attacks and has a larger crit range, making it quite versatile at a lower level. Other than that, it looks like a rather fun item for your player!
I didn't say the axe was overly powerful, just that it was powerful compared with 'normal' D&D 5th E treasure.
Nothing wrong with that.
MMORPGs hand out magic items almost every drop - sometimes they are an upgrade, sometimes you spend ten minutes trying to see if they are an upgrade. Rarely do they feel magical. If I was playing in your campaign and picked up that axe, I would KNOW that I have a world changing item there. I would assume it had an awesome history/backstory. I would worry that everybody would be after it. Meta-gaming, I would wonder what in the 12 Hells are we likely to be facing if you can drop this bad boy into the campaign. I would be excited and eager to test it in battle.
Can't see the downside there! :)
FWIW - I thought the opening scene of SW:IV was AWESOME! Marv from Sin City is tough as a rhino and yet still loses fights occasionally - he is a great character. I have let characters get their hands on Mournblade (twin to Elric's Stormbringer and makes your +6 sword look like a stick!) and ride dragons into battle. Once at the same time!
Bigger is not always better, but that doesn't mean it's always worse. Enjoy your game and don't panic about what outsiders might think of your game (OOH, look at those power-gaming murder-hobos!)
Roleplaying since Runequest.
Still trying to find out how to provide magical items. It is a lot less then in 3e and 4e apparently. The party will have Shatterspike, this greataxe and the Shadow Ray bow at lvl 3. A bag of holding as reward after Forge of Fury at lvl 5. And then most magic weaponry and such will happen in Red Hand of Doom. Should work out well I hope. Especially since I have the combat be aimed at 5-6 people party... when my party is 3-4 players at the moment for this campaign. I prefer not to scale down combat encounters and rather scale them up if the environment makes it seem plausible. Then its up to the players to find information and prepare and figure out their own ways of dealing with the situations. And I don't fudge rolls either if things go wrong after they commit. So far that led to some interesting situations. In the end still a lot of tweaking and ad libbing as we go.
Slightly higher crit chance. Sounds deadly in the hands of a barbarian. Especially seeing their damage output later on when they crit. That said it would feel very rewarding to the player without being to overpowering. Improved Crit would mean he'd crit on a 19 AND a 20?
It's a goofy question, I draw the line at "meta-gaming" when it becomes DM vs Player..
When a fight starts there's a motivation, a conflict, Players want X and the creature(s) want Y. I come up with the motivation of the creature(s) and have them act on that motivation (sometimes it means the creatures run before combat even starts). As the fight progresses, or a key moment occurs (like 25% hp lost), I reassess the situation and see if the creature(s) may alter their motivation. If the motivation has a reason to change ('stop the players' turns into 'escape with the mcguffin') I alter how the creature(s) act.
The environment is keyed to specific timers or actions so as to potentially get the creature(s) as well as the players. Lava gouts spew forth magma every 16, 9, and 4 on the initiative chart. The pillar falls if enough damage is done to it (a player gets pushed into it = 2 damage, a critical miss deals weapon damage to it, etc.). If the boss starts feeling like they're losing they'll head for a lever. Maybe the players see the lever and try it before the boss does.
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You've read up on goblins, they're less creative and lack ingenuity in your opinion. So when the players start to route them in a battle, does that mean they're not smart enough to run away? Does that mean they're not going to be able to run around their cave systems with greater ease than the players? Does that mean they won't know to fortify important locations? Does that mean they're not going to ambush the players from various vantage points?
If you look at the sunless citadel, and take the story into account, the "not so clever and tactical" goblins accomplished something crazy. They managed to infiltrate a kobold compound, break open a cage with a baby dragon in it, subdue and capture the baby dragon, and then run off victorious. I'm not going to say Belak didn't help them figure out a plan, but I am willing to bet he didn't perform the operation, so the goblins had to adapt to the situation when things went sideways.
The way I interpreted the goblins managing to get the white wyrm was due to the bug/hob goblins that are present. In my campaign they're installed there by the Red Hand to spread their influence. With the wyrm coming with them for "safe keeping" for usage in the rituals later on. At some point the kobolds went for a big attack and managed to obtain the Wyrm. In response the hob goblins and bug bears now got more involved to re-take what was given in their safe keeping. Hobgoblins are known to be more militaristic with bugbears providing more brute power. That is what made their counter attack succeed while still having a few goblins being captured. Balsac the bugbear is a hunter and the adventure also mentions the White Wyrm is rampaging since he hasn't domesticated it yet.
The little goblins do know basics, but having tactical hobgoblins nearby really helps though. Sure they can set up ambushes, know to take cover and have better understanding of their lair with traps. It still is rather limited in my opinion. Especially if you also take their INT value into consideration. They're not that smart either. It's not that they're incapable...they're just limited in their potential. Since my players went to deal with the entombed Dragonpriest first it gave the goblins a chance/time to set up defenses. They upturned two tables allowing 2 ranged goblins to hide behind each table. With their arrows trained at the door. So I did employ tactics with the selling point it came from the hobgoblins influence/orders. When outnumbered their fight/flight instinct kicks in and they try to run away. My issue in the Sunless Citadel was more... "Where do they run to?". Due to the chaos they couldn't just go down the pit, they couldn't go past the PC's into the corridors where they'd also end up in Kobold territory. Grenl the Shaman was down so a parley was out of the question.
That said the Citadel is pretty straightforward with very little space to even setup goblin ambushes properly. Making them more responsive. By the time they can take action the players are already at their front door.
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1. On another note. I'm going to give all non-young dragons a spellcasting ability of some kind. Never understood the reason for encountering a dragon outside of its lair and it suddenly starts popping out bulls strength, mage armor etc potions and scrolls. Where was he hiding it... up his butt? However I'm curious about a situation that I'm fore seeing. Dragon casts fog/mist and withdraws slightly inside of it as cover. Then it casts invisibility on itself as well. The dragon can still using his sensory abilities to know where the players are and bite/claw/tail strike them. Creating an eerie situation where the fog slightly moves, but nothing is visibly there. In case this dragon would fall back a little...would Opportunity Attacks still work? The players can swing their attacks in a direction they think he was at, but don't know for sure. I'm assuming an Attack Roll with Disadvantage would suit the situation, but not 100% sure.
2. The Red Hand of Doom adventure uses a time table. In many conversion debates people spoke about creating loot and enemies, but no one even considered the time table. In 5e the pace of the things adventurers achieve in a day is much higher. Other then travel time there is little that slows down actual progress in regards to the time table. I either add additional (side)events that throw a wrench in the PC's progress to slow them down. Or I need to tighten the War Time Table. Meaning that it can be done within 30 days instead of 40. Any suggestions on this?
3. Coming back to the topic of Hill Dwarf Resilience. Should You give HP equal to the lvl the barbarian would end up with 240-250hp excluding the 220-260hp he'd get from regular leveling up with die rolls and CON modifier. So that means around 500hp at lvl 20. That sounds like a lot. On the other hand. Giving only 1hp each time its only 20hp among 20levels... that isn't even worth mentioning. Maybe house rule it with a mid way solution. That it stops at lvl 10. So lvl 11-20 gets +10hp bonus for each level up as the max. The total amount of HP extra is like 2 rounds of big attacks for high level opponents. Or just little bit extra survivability against huge breath weapons and similar effects. Any ideas?
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Since most of the broad prep work for this campaign is done I only need to do the session to session details. Which is relatively little. That means I've started prep work on the second campaign for the other group of players. An Underdark setting with the City of the Spiderqueen in due time. I read the adventure Into the Abyss that starts in the Underdark upto the summoning of Demogorgon. Would be cool to incorporate that somehow as well.
Later today my group is going to fight Belak the Outcast. They'll be starting after a long rest going at the Shadow near Ashardalon's shrine in room 50. So they're really close. After that its mostly just an RP session and traveling to other villages with optional side-content if they want. I turned the Beholder inn into a gambling hall with games of chance for the weary travelers. Building to rent rooms is next door. Some criminal elements. I've taken the liberty of "Stealing" a lot from Keep of the Shadowfell for side content. A little escavation/mine with bandits and kruthiks, the waterfall lair now holds bullywugs that moved from their usual north location in the Witchwood's to the south due to RHOD events and the black dragon up in the north. Taken some rooms/corridors from the Shadowfell Keep in case the PC's stumble upon old ruins/tombs along their journey to flesh out the old dwarven civilization that ones reigned supreme in the vale. And if they don't stumble on any of it I just re-use it elsewhere :D
Last night they completed the fight against Belak the Outcast of Sunless Citadel. Next time It'll be traversing back, taking care of loose ends and going to Oakhurst. Also had my first kill m whahaha.
They cleared everything fine and smoothly without too much hassle. Last time they took a long rest in room 46-47 which had the small dragon statuette holding a plate. They spend a lot of effort trying to find secret passages or traps while nothing is there. I agree that this is an odd room. Since they placed some coins as offering I just let them wake up with a small blessing as reward for it. Basically an Inspiration Die of 1d6 they could use.
In Belak's personal chamber they found diaries, documentation mentioning experimentations etc to explain the things they encountered. Also to provide back story of Belak as to why he is here, his research into undeath, Gulthias and thus the tree. When things happened later they totally ignored/had forgotten all that information. It wasn't presented as an info dump either, but in brief summary of the information they found while quickly nosing through the notes. Players will be players I guess.
The final fight, as per the module, is already listed as deadly according to the CR. Something that I don't use. So I modified it by adding lots more Twig Blights to a total of 12 instead of 3. These critters are slow to move and die pretty fast with only 4-5 hp a piece, accompanied with low damage output. Also the humans all felt really squishy and gave them more HP. Added some Underdark spores. Prepped the tree with vampiric Charm on a 5-6 recharge with a dc of 15 Wis to break free of.
It started well for the players. They assumed Belak was the one mind controlling Sir Braford and Hucrele. Ranged focus fire took Belak down fairly quickly in 3 rounds. Everyone moved in and started fighting the remaining humans and the toad that was a real piece of work for them to handle. Barbarian tried to move around and flank. He ended up alone on the side turning the Twig Blights into firewood. The druid came in range and used her Moonbeam and aided in clearing the Blights while using Poison Spray and other spells to hit Hucrele. Sir Braford and the cleric were having a one on one. Since Shatterspike is meant for that cleric I used this fight to demonstrate what it can do by breaking his own mace and shield. Gradually the Gulthias tree's influence became more present as the ranged players were suddenly forced to defend it at all cost. The Toad was the last one standing with almost all the players being charmed. Several well timed Spell Scrolls such as Scorching Ray and the one that does insane necro damage wounded the Toad badly. While the last bit of life was slammed out of it by the Moonbeam...which lasted the entire fight and proven very helpful.
It felt as if the last stage of the fight felt really dragged out, because of the charm. Two players were trying to fight the toad AND trying to damage the tree while also getting shot at by their team mates. At that point I took it further. Three rounds had post since they got charmed which meant the psychic connection was now very present in their mind. Those controlled players found themselves in an altered state of reality where they were face to face with Gulthias himself. I let it develop to the point that, through a series of skill challenges, they could damage the tree as well from within. In the end the cleric tried to put distance between him and the controlled barbarian, but was knocked unconscious by a critical hitting Opportunity Attack. Near the tree was the druid which got shot down by the ranger. During the final round the druid rolled a critical fail on her death save and died. Whereas the cleric was down to 2 fails and got stabilized just in time through a medicine check. Before looting and resting the ranger threw an alchemist fire on the tree. Which I assume will be burning forever and thus never re-grow. Unless some NPC's come down here in the future and get involved for their own nefarious goals.
They're all new players and don't want their first deaths to be too much of a negative experience. Most of the other players said, rightly so, we only met this elf 2 days ago. I'm not going to spend my resources on reviving someone we just met. The cleric will learn Revivify at lvl 3, but lacks the amount of gems required to pull it of. Last idea at the moment is about having that player create a new character. Then turn the revival of the druid into a short quest. At the end the player can then choose which character they prefer to continue with.
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1. I've been working on my atmospheric/immersive descriptions. That is improving, but still has some way to go.
2. I suck at monologue's from NPC. Especially in a scenario as Belak was. he said "Do you even know why you're here??" - To which the ranger said: "no why don't you tell us!!!". And then he pretended to listen while whispering tactics to the others. I found it funny, but I can't seem to pull of a good timing/approach on how to make bad guys more pro-active when the heroes enter his domain. With NPC's in time its easier since they're just simple reactive. As for dialogues in general I am horrible...same for movies and books. I don't get what makes good dialogue since I simply can't bring myself to caring enough. For me its about delivering information and how you do it is not important. Which works fine with regular NPC's, but not with the more prominent ones. Any suggestions how to get better at this?
3. Using the beamer was a great success. Could easily add hue's and such to show status effects. The usage of Fog of War was the big winner however.
You don't have to be good at dialogue. Change from first to third person.
"The arch overlord sneers at your question, then in a condescending tone explains that once he resurrects the ghost of his girlfriend past she will enact the ceremony of Blah, blah, blah."
Dialogue is absolutely essential in novels*. Roleplaying games - not so much. You can mix 1st and 3rd person dialogue as much as you like. In a perfect world, keeping to 1st person is best, but we don't all have a 20 cha and 20 int to roleplay with.
One thing though, if you don't care about something, don't expect your players to. (Except treasure - they'll always care about that!)
I also wouldn't sweat it too much over the character death - If you allow the PC to come back, then you cheapen the cleric getting spells to drag the soul back from death. The players have to believe death is a very real possibility, or where is the heroism?
*You can bet your rainy day 5,000 gp diamond that the author of a novel/movie did not write that sparkling dialogue in one easy draft.
Roleplaying since Runequest.
I haven't looked at the RAW on this question - I assume you already have - but my personal feeling is that you should get an opportunity attack (at disadvantage as you suggest.) I see the OA as being a reflection of the defender concentrating on something other than the fight in front of him, reducing his defences slightly, rather than being an actual extra attack.
But....I have a house rule that if anybody wishes to just flee directly away from an opponent, they may do so without needing to take the disengage action. They purely take a double move away. This only works for the first square of movement, and cannot be attempted out of or into difficult terrain. This encourages fleeing from battle, as the current rules, even with disengage, make fleeing an almost suicidal option.
See Lindy Beige - Back attacks for a very entertaining video that sealed the deal on my feelings about running away.
Spellcasting dragons???
Damn right - does anything else shout raw magic louder than a freakin' dragon? (Well, OK, a few things, but Dragons are fairly iconic in Dungeons and Dragons. Give 'em magic and powers and magic items and more powers.)
Roleplaying since Runequest.
Some questions that I've been thinking about lately. Perhaps some of you can shed some light on it as well.
1. A new player joined the group. making a skill monkey basically. Nothing wrong with that. However he wants to make and use traps as well as poison. Found a nice website with ideas to deal with harvesting ingredients to attempt and craft a poison. However how do you deal with traps? What would be easy enough to craft between a tinkerer, woodworker and leather worker. What would be easy enough to transport and setup on the go.
2. At lvl 15+ content. How do DM's deal with combat? It seems there is a huge flat bonus from proficiency and items. Monsters don't really seem to have many with 23AC and higher. Meaning that they're always easy to hit since players can roll around 25-30 fairly easy. Same the other way around where opponents have huge bonuses to players not even scratching 20AC in most cases.
3. Injury tables have come up with my players thinking it would be a fun addition. To me it seems like a nice idea, but a lot of administrative work for minimal payout. After all spells can just heal most infliction and injuries without an issue. Going to take a lot of time to think about.
there are a few more things, but those escaped my mind for the time being.
1) All of that depends on the craftiness of the player. Generally they'll need the tools to build the traps, as well as the skill necessary. Let them figure out the traps they want to try to make and have them roll the skill checks to build it and make it work.
-I build a "Home Alone" style trap using a canvas sheet, some rope and a bag of ball bearings. I had to roll some dex checks and int checks to see if I could build it. The DC of the trap was decided to be 8 + proficiency + dex.
2) High end combat requires more thought, the simple whack-a-hero game really can't apply. You'll have to look at what your players' weaknesses are, you'll have to fight more tactically, and you'll need to use the environment to it's fullest. Dragons have a meager AC when you take into account the level that the players are, however you can TPK a group of lvl 15 adventurers with a single Adult White if you play it right. Use their abilities to keep them from being dog-piled, focus fire a single player, and have them run, hide, and fly as much as possible.
3) Injury tables, when done right, are fun and they don't require much administration if you have a table to work from. If your players want injury tables make sure they understand that injuries of substance cannot be healed from a simple spell. They'll need something like Greater Restoration, Wish, or the Fountain of Youth, things like that can return them to their fully healed state
There are a few things to consider with traps. In no particular order:
1) Traps are generally defensive and immobile (even the rolling ball type traps...) whereas adventurers are the aggressors most of the time.
2) Unless you are going to watch over them, traps are non-discerning - they will 'attack' whoever triggers them: dragons, orcs, the postman, toddlers, Bambi....
3) Other stuff that I'm sure other people will think of. :)
As a fan of turtling in RTS games, Orcs Must Die, Dungeon Defenders, Legend (David Gemmell), Orc Attack (Atari 400), First Blood (The first Rambo film), and many others, I am in favour of trap builders but I'm not sure I would want them to be prominent in my campaigns. If I were to encourage them, perhaps treating traps a bit like spells for the purposes of how much space they can affect, how much damage they do, how many you can deploy in a day etc...
I suspect that most traps are NOT built primarily for the purpose of killing/maiming or slowing an aggressor, but are instead used to give soldiers (and conscripted troops) something to do with their plentiful time rather than just waiting and worrying about the approaching enemy...Also it's good for morale to see the enemy hurt without risk to yourself or your friends. Remember though, merely taking first blood does not guarantee victory. :)
Roleplaying since Runequest.
1. Apparently it'll be easy standard traps at first with more elaborate stuff later on. I'm ok with it. As for traps being immobile/defensive... They can still be used by the scout of the party. Lure opponents in to reduce their numbers, or inconvenience them in some way. So I can see a tactical usage for it. One that I have to keep in mind when prepping situations. I'm wondering how to decide on the amount of damage for when they come into play, or possible slow/blind/deaf effects that could occur. Basically what I'm looking for are guidelines to make it work mechanically on the spot.
3. well DMThac0 part of the administrative part are the several tables related to each damage type. Plus you need to be constantly mindful of the triggers at which they even get applied.
When I have used injury tables I used an approach that used 2 rolls, a d12 that figured out which body part was injured and a d10 to figure out the type of damage.
d12
d10
This makes it simple enough for the player to write down on their sheet and track. A simple modifier or flavor to the sheet may also be added if/when needed to reflect the major damages. It also allows you to use the narrative to describe the situation and modify it on the fly if you feel the need.
those tables are easy enough to determine location and type of ailment. however what about additional status effects as result of those ailments?
also. I just realized the Dungeons and Dragons magazines are no longer being made? Did WOTC stop producing them? if so why?
For any subsequent ailments I just went with what felt appropriate based on the information.
Randomly generated example:
2: Left Arm
7: Numbed body part
Lingering ailment: The arm is permanently numb. Skill checks, attacks and actions that require the use of both arms would lose proficiency or half dex, whichever is lower.
It's made up on the fly and can be adjusted however you see fit, heck you could ask the player how they want to have it affect the character. This type of thing gives the base information and the mechanical/flavor of it is added after.
As DMs we would all like this,. :) (But then do we become more like impartial adjudicators?)
My experience with DMing tells me to allow the traps to have a chance to do a significant amount of damage (maybe double what any other PC could do in a single round without using daily resources.) You have to balance the desire of the player to be awesome with the desires of the other players to not be overshadowed. Negotiate with all the players as to the possible outcome, saving throws required etc. Depending on the group, this can work really well.
Snares and spike traps can slow, buckets of sand/ash/labrador fur might blind, and for deafening.....yeah, anything short of a full on Death Metal Concert is unlikely to achieve that.
Roleplaying since Runequest.
Well... we are Impartial Adjudicators. Without it you can't have the game functioning and it would be chaos. All we do is describe an environment and let the players lose in it. So we also have a co-operational story telling aspect. But mostly its still Adjudicators of the rules and rolls which makes up the foundation on which we build further.
As for looking for such guidelines. There are a fair amount of DM's out there who have already done their own setup of mechanics. Was looking for something like that to continue on with. Same for my overland travel setup. I found someone else setup and just tweaked it for my own needs/style instead of having to re-do everything. Was hoping something like that would exist for traps as well. Haven't found anything yet though.
Speaking of overland. Several sessions ago I had decided to use it instead of fast travel. At least for the first time around. Because the module Red Hand of Doom is my center piece I build everything around that. Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury also take place in the Elsir Vale. Traveling from A to B covers almost all villages/hamlets I decided it would be a nice way to introduce the players with each location. Perhaps with some optional side quests if they feel up for it and thus create a form of connection/investment with the Elsir Vale for when the Horde of the Red Hand arrives. It also shows how vast the vale is when walking on foot/horse&wagon. I estimated 2 sessions to go through all the places and start with the Forge. However they seem to be having a lot of fun traveling and encountering the side stuff. Two sessions in and they're only at the first village Terrelton. With my estimate I now have contend for the next 4 months without needing to prep anything new heheh :D
The side content also allows me too create some differing/experimental stuff. Currently they're doing an investigation into corruption. A paladin of Pelor had an associate being undercover looking into some shady events slightly out of town. So they're doing investigative stuff. Also a great way to introduce yet another new player. I've said not to invite any more friends since the current number is what I currently feel comfortable with. Anyhow they actually used stealth, snuck around, waiting for time to pass, observe, send in a wild shaped druid to scout. Then at night go into the tents to meet with the undercover agent followed by a quiet assassination while capturing the leading bandit for interrogation. I'm so proud of their progress.
Only thing I currently am looking into is the amount of magic items. It feels as if they're being showered with it. Need to tone it down. As for the adventure modules they have tons of magical gear. Want to reduce that as well and turn it into a low-mid magical game instead of high magic. Thing is...what other rewards could be provided? constantly handing out gems, money or favors from someone gets old fast as well.
It seems to me that you are already handing out the best treasure : great content and opportunities to have fun.
What are your 3 favourite fantasy novels?
Now think about all the rewards the characters got for "saving the world" or whatever they did.
Having said that - Strongholds and Followers is out soon. I think that will be a literal game changer for many of us. :)
Roleplaying since Runequest.
Still waiting for Strongholds and Followers. Really want to look it through and start prep work on future Vraath Keep/Ixial's Tower the players can turn into their own base if they so desire. The new player already stated he wants to form his own thieves guild at some point. Other players also have a few ideas that would require a base of operations. I'm sure it'll be a lot of fun with the additional third party toolkit.
We took a short break for the summer vacation, some people needing to move into a new house etc. So yesterday we resumed the mine investigation stuff. However I had dropped the ball, by coming totally unprepared. I had NOTHING, because I was just lazy about it for a while. Yet it became the best session so far it seems. A caved in wall to an area that wasn't mapped leading into a dark cavern system. Some kruthik's that turned into a challenging combat scenario. Leading further down through a giant grotto. One group member had fallen behind trying to tame a Kruthik Hatchling as pet. Tried to catch up with the group while being an hour behind them. So when the group heard noises they shot arrows leaving the dwarf to only 1 HP. Oh that was so funny how they RP'ed that out. Eventually it led to an 800-900 year old dwarf tomb. Using the opportunity to not just tell about the history of the world, but show it. Tomb with traps of course, iconography/hieroglyphs that told story of conflicts in the Dwarven Empire etc.
At every turn I had no idea what was coming next. A giant room with a dwarf statue holding up a sword. And I just let the players say what they were doing, combined with the rolls of dice, I just added elements to the chambers step by step. Eventually this specific chamber had two doors to each side. back wall had the giant statue standing 20ft apart of each wall. They tried opening a door triggering the trap with a giant wall crashing down and cutting of the escape route. Slits in the ceiling opening up with sand pouring down. First 2, then another 4 and another 4 gaps with sand pouring down at increasing pace. With the shatterspike weapon the cleric bashed open the door. First the wood, seeing there was a metal plate to reinforce the door. So he had to bash through that as well. But it lead into a 3ft corridor and a dead end. Same with the other door. The rogue decided to take a closer look in the small corridors to find that some of the masonry stonework could be taken out. Revealing a small chest with a key. At this time they were knee deep in the send, trouble moving, running to the other door and dead end corridor to find another key. In the mean time the druid used thorn whip and such to try and stop the statue from swirling around its giant sword. Allowing the group to get behind the statue. Finding 2 sliding panels in which the keys fit. Then the wall behind the statue opened up a passage into a crypt.
With every step of that room. Every element I added on the spot. I had NO idea where it was going or how it would work together. But in the end it was epic and they loved it. I just went with what the players wanted to do. What the dice said if it was a success. And just let them shine.
In the chamber with the sarcophagus. They had encountered two of such scenarios in the Sunless Citadel. In both cases stuff came crawling out to attack them. They were expecting the exact same thing too happen here as well. Instead I responded by not letting it happen and instead add a trap the moment the druid succeeded on a trap perception check. However they went through great lengths for preparing against an attack the moment the lid would be pushed of. They made traps with wires and alchemist fire etc. So funny :)
1. I tried to keep in mind to reduce the magic rewards that I set out for myself. Instead the dwarf barbarian is trying to tame a Kruthik Hatchling to be his pet in due time. They ripped apart some traps and thus ended up with an Ancient Dwarf Thunderbuss. And they harvested some poison from the adult Kruthik's glands. Which the ranger responded too by looking for a sponge which he put at the bottom of his quiver and drenched it in poison. Nothing magical, but still some nice stuff.
2. regarding the injury table... I play in another campaign. That DM uses tables for so many things I find it ridiculous at times. It even feels as if he just adds things to kill players, or try to...well not in the sense he's against us. More that he goes out of his way trying to create a certain combat, because he wants things to be challenging for us. So it comes from a good place, but the execution is not great. It also shows I dont want tables in my game that much.
3. How to go about training/taming a Kruthik? Such a similar question has been asked several times on the boards, to which some I replied myself. Got some ideas. Mostly to have the barbarian describe how he wants to tame it. Instead of just rolling an animal handling check each day. He also has to spend some intense time with that beast. Thinking about making it an elaborate skill challenge spread across several in-game days. Combined with elements of Social Encounter mechanics in order to have it shift alliances. They should still be on the road for another 10 days before arriving at the start of Forge of Fury. Plenty of time to at least make it docile enough. Will have to work out the RP details and which mechanics that fit with it. For combat I'm not too worried. Its just another NPC that joins the party basically. It has its own free will whether it even wants to fight or rather burrows in the ground and runs away. If he succeeds on taming the Kruthik... How long is the period from a hatchling to grow into a young...or adult....or even a Hive Lord? Although I could do that with the druid's setup. Look at which level she can wildshape in a animal that corresponds with the CR of the next "upgrade" for the Kruthik. I think it could work. Any ideas are always welcome.
4. Since they also drained poison from a young kruthik as well as the hive lord... it means they got a weaker poison and a full grown one. Thing is... I don't know a damn thing about poisons. (yet).
So... A dwarf Thunderbuss. Had to make a weapon with those stats. So here is my new homebrew creation. Feedback would be appreciated. I want it to be a powerfull shotgun effect with some lightning aspect. Since that is what the trap was about. So took the spell Fireball and tuned that down a bit. Also presented them with limited amount of ammo. Since its such an ancient device nobody even has ammo.