I'm not sure what you are envisioning here. Unless one of the players sees the signs and has a way to understand them it is relatively meaningless. I mean, the Drow opponents already have effective telecommunication as the single GM mind behind all of them knows how they are all going to act and can make any concerted efforts necessary. The rest of it is just showmanship. How far do you want to let them see behind the green curtain, Almighty Wizard of Odds?
i) was thinking it would be cool to have the drow use their hand signal language to advantage.
ii) said advantage could be taken away by players.
any ideas?
been up all night, too brain dead to come up with any myself
cheers, geoff
Maybe you've over thought the matter and already answered your own question. You want the hand signals to be an advantage, just have them function as per the True Strike cantrip but giving the advantage to which ever ally is recieving the message. Alternatively you could have them function like Battlemaster Maneuvers with a d4 superiority dice.
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Broadly speaking, the reason for hand sign is (a) communicating plans without breaking stealth, and (b) making it harder for enemies to know your plans. Most D&D games ignore both problems and pretty much treat the monsters as continually psychically linked (since they're all controlled by the same person).
If it were me, I would just state that the PCs observe the drow communicating silently with hand signs and then just make sure that the drone are always positioned to their best communal advantage to benefit from stuff like flanking, and probably some of the other optional combat rules too. Then, any PC that met a minimum Passive Perception threshold and any others who’s player states they are actively paying attention to those signs could make a Wisdom Insight check at the start of each of their turns to try to determine what those hand signs mean. I would start the DC fairly high, minimum 20+ depending on party level, and then lower it by 2 every subsequent round of combat after the 1st, and I would also give any PC who knows Elvish advantage on their checks too.
howdy, planning a fight between players and drow
i) was thinking it would be cool to have the drow use their hand signal language to advantage.
ii) said advantage could be taken away by players.
any ideas?
been up all night, too brain dead to come up with any myself
cheers, geoff
I'm not sure what you are envisioning here. Unless one of the players sees the signs and has a way to understand them it is relatively meaningless. I mean, the Drow opponents already have effective telecommunication as the single GM mind behind all of them knows how they are all going to act and can make any concerted efforts necessary. The rest of it is just showmanship. How far do you want to let them see behind the green curtain, Almighty Wizard of Odds?
Maybe you've over thought the matter and already answered your own question. You want the hand signals to be an advantage, just have them function as per the True Strike cantrip but giving the advantage to which ever ally is recieving the message. Alternatively you could have them function like Battlemaster Maneuvers with a d4 superiority dice.
Broadly speaking, the reason for hand sign is (a) communicating plans without breaking stealth, and (b) making it harder for enemies to know your plans. Most D&D games ignore both problems and pretty much treat the monsters as continually psychically linked (since they're all controlled by the same person).
You need an environmental hazard that the drow are aware of and that the players aren't...
If it were me, I would just state that the PCs observe the drow communicating silently with hand signs and then just make sure that the drone are always positioned to their best communal advantage to benefit from stuff like flanking, and probably some of the other optional combat rules too. Then, any PC that met a minimum Passive Perception threshold and any others who’s player states they are actively paying attention to those signs could make a Wisdom Insight check at the start of each of their turns to try to determine what those hand signs mean. I would start the DC fairly high, minimum 20+ depending on party level, and then lower it by 2 every subsequent round of combat after the 1st, and I would also give any PC who knows Elvish advantage on their checks too.
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