# Dungeons and Dragons highlights



## Couratiel (Feb 2, 2021)

Who else here plays DnD or other Table top RPGs?

Today, one of the player characters died.
The DM said the players next character would be introduced in the dungeon

"But how do we know there is a dungeon?"
"You are IN A DUNGEON" 

Poor Cleric had to deal with his first party death. He is not taking it well, especially since he considers it his responsibility to keep everyone alive. But it wasn't his fault that the druid was crit twice in the same battle

Anyway, here is the Cleric, Makani Calabi
He's absolutely a heal bot and his only form of offence is his fists. (Which isn't so bad at a 1d6+3 )
He's pretty strong for a cleric because he is the closest thing his people had to an ambulance. 









What characters are you currently playing as? (Or most recently played as?)
Who is your favourite character to roleplay?


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## GentleButter (Feb 2, 2021)

I have a hard time not playing a halfling bard or an orc barbarian


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## Couratiel (Feb 2, 2021)

GentleButter said:


> I have a hard time not playing a halfling hard or an orc barbarian


Relatable
One of my other favourite characters to play is a barbarian (Or technically a Bloodrager)
She is very skittish, a literal raging alcoholic and breaks a lot of stuff.  She's a lot of fun to play.


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## TemetNosce88 (Feb 2, 2021)

I had a few fun instances role playing in high school.

In DnD, we had an alchemist decide it was a good idea to throw an explosive poison bomb into a horde of enemies. A horde of enemies that the rest of the party was in melee combat with. That was a bad day.

We also had people randomly killing themselves because they were bored and wanted to re-roll their character. I wound up getting some nice bonus stuff from the DM because I was the only person in the party who *didn't* do that.

In a sci-fi setting, I wound up having my character driving another character to a back-alley clinic for live-saving surgery. I wasn't sure what else to do so I hung around the clinic for a few hours, until the military burst in and arrested me. That's when I remembered that our vehicle was a stolen military truck, which I had just left out on the street for everyone to see. Whoops!


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## Punji (Feb 3, 2021)

Only ever played a single one-shot game of DnD, but it was quite fun.

I played a minotaur barbarian, charging everything with my horns and massacring them with a great axe. Fun!

Never forget, always double-tap.


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## Firuthi Dragovic (Feb 3, 2021)

One of my regular passions.  I'm more used to other systems but I've regularly played D&D weekly for... approximately 5-6 years now.

I tend to play multiclass characters a lot, but I'm currently playing a shifter bard and plan to go full Valor bard, no multiclassing.  (Hyena shifter to be exact, because the character is based off of a tribe of gnolls from a previous Pathfinder campaign but 5e D&D makes gnolls unplayable by default due to how their lore works).

It's hard for me to pin down just ONE moment, so I will cover one of my more absurd multiclass setups.  6th-level Grave cleric, 3rd-level mastermind rogue, 3rd-level battle master fighter.  (Probably would have put more into cleric if the campaign went further than that.)  Grave cleric allows for double-damage shots 1-2 times a battle, mastermind allows others to gain advantage as a bonus action, battle master gives both the archery fighting style and precise strike.

Combine that with Sharpshooter feat and either a 50-damage NON-crit shot is actually pretty easy, or any decent paladin gets RIDICULOUS smite potential.

I referred to him as "Camio", after the Ars Goetia demon.  This absurd character WAS an aarakocra after all.


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## Tacoshark (Feb 3, 2021)

I have been playing for only a few sessions but I currently have two characters made. I usually play as a lizardfolk hunter and have a sheet set aside for a raunchy gnome artificer. I also have an idea for a joke character I would like to play as down the line.


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## Rumpleteazer (Feb 3, 2021)

Ooh I love D&D! Your character looks really cute, like he could be straight out of the latest She-ra series. 
Recently, I've played a tabaxi con artist bard with an Irish accent called Harmony:



And right now I'm playing a halfling way of mercy monk called Virtue who's inspired by a mix of Judy Hopps and Batman and an Officer in the Azorius Senate (in the Ravnica setting):




Currently in the Ravnica campaign, I'm in a task force with members of other, much less lawful good guilds, who have all committed petty crimes in front of me and who have already conspired to kill me. So, I've created a backup character, my contingency plan, in case they go through with it. My backup character is a humble chef... Hehe... Let's just say for now that although she will seem to be a simple chef, perhaps with some flavourful artificer abilities, she's specifically built around being able to hide what she can actually do or her two real classes or her actual guild. She will always insist on simply being a chef and never use the extent of her abilities or the actual damage she's capable of dishing out, but if they ever turn on me or give me good enough reason, she is capable of doing enough damage in a single round to insta-kill any of them without them ever seeing it coming. This is why you should never conspire to kill creative problem solvers in D&D.
I haven't quite finished her character art, but here it is so far:


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## TyraWadman (Feb 4, 2021)

We were doing a campaign that was related to Zelda themes to accommodate the less familiar players. My character was supposed to be OP from the beginning. I was supposed to be on a conquest of sorts to stir the plot and help set major events in motion. 

I was not OP.
All of my watered down opponents landed crits and made every recovery roll required. 
I was an intimidating woman, wearing nothing but a potato sack and wielding my magical blade, reduced to two HP in the first attack of the game. 

Character lost sight of her morals and objectives to unite the land and smashed their skulls in. 

Then at some point the DM made it so he wanted a character to die, but I refused, and used my crossbow to try and kill/attract the attention of some creature from killing a dude. It didn't end well, I lost it. So I just said 'fine, I'll use the second one I have in my inventory-" 

But then he poofed it away and made my life 10x more exhaustingly unfortunate. 

Haven't bothered trying to find anyone to play with, since every group I've tried seems to have their own version of what is 'fun' and 'acceptable'.


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## Rumpleteazer (Feb 4, 2021)

TyraWadman said:


> We were doing a campaign that was related to Zelda themes to accommodate the less familiar players. My character was supposed to be OP from the beginning. I was supposed to be on a conquest of sorts to stir the plot and help set major events in motion.
> 
> I was not OP.
> All of my watered down opponents landed crits and made every recovery roll required.
> ...


Awha??? Your DM just overruled what you had in your inventory to railroad a character death??

That sucks so bad. I hate it when DM's force your character to be or do things they aren't/wouldn't or otherwise bend the rules to railroad. There's always gonna be a bit of failure and regrettable behaviour (like irl lol) because of the dice and chance involved, but when a DM does it too it just breaks all the fairness of the game and saps the joy of playing your own original character.

I really hope you can find a good group that suits you, cause it really can be such an awesome thing when the group dynamic works. I found my current group through a d&d group finding page on facebook and got lucky. You could be lucky too. <3


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## Faustus (Feb 4, 2021)

I find D&D too stereotyped and restrictive. 
“what do you want to be, a fighter, a mage, a ranger...?”
“I want to be a miner.”
“... whut?”
“Yeah a miner who beats people up with his fists!”
“Ok a monk.”
“No, no mystical powers, just a miner. With a dog.”
“A monk-ranger cross?”
“Aaaaaaargh!!!”

also it tends to degenerate into dungeon crawling with little or no story. I mean ‘dungeon’ is just an old word for castle keep, they aren’t even real dungeons most of the time!

give me a nice game of Fate or Everway any day.


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## Telnac (Feb 4, 2021)

Oh the tales I can tell...!

I've been running campaigns since I was playing AD&D back in the mid 1980s. My current campaign is on hiatus b/c I'm old school and don't want to game unless we're around a table and are actually rolling physical dice. I tried Roll 20 and didn't care for it.

So rather than tell about my current primary NPC, I'll share about one of my favorite NPCs from prior campaigns. When I have time, I'll post on here about another of my favorite NPCs.

The first NPC I'll share was a goblin wizard by the name of Scrotum. He was as profane as his name suggests. He had a charisma of 6 and was obsessed with getting laid. For most of his life he was chaotic neutral and he enjoyed shocking any lawful characters by his complete disregard for any system of morality. He didn't specialize in necromancy but he used necromancy a LOT because it pissed everyone off so much to see him riding a zombie like a horse. He rode zombies in other ways too, often publicly (which is all I can say about that and keep it SFW!)

The only thing that kept him alive was his other obsession: defensive magic. He loved pissing off powerful enemies and laughing in their faces when they couldn't kill him. I've lost count how many times he waved his bare buttocks in the face of enraged kings or church officials.

He was first introduced as a PC in a campaign that saw him go from 1st level to 13th level. At first he was little more than comedy relief but as he grew more powerful he became more and more of a dangerous liability. His presence often resulted in the PCs getting into pitched battles with NPCs they were trying to befriend.

After that campaign ended I used him as a recurring NPC in 2 other campaigns, the last of which was an epic level campaign in which he joined the party to follow a resurrected Vecna into the Abyss and slay him. While in the Abyss Scrotum ended up selling his soul to the demon lord Pazuzu in exchange for passage through the skies of the Abyss. That turned him Chaotic Evil and forever enslaved him to Pazuzu's will.

Scrotum was killed in the battle with Vecna but he was raised as a lich by his new master so he can help finish off Vecna. Vecna had previously killed Orcus and claimed his wand, so when Vecna was defeated Scrotum claimed the Wand of Orcus and became a demon lord in his own right. He now sits on the throne of Orcus and is the Lord of the Undead, a title he relishes even if he is dead and is still bound to serve Pazuzu.


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## Couratiel (Feb 4, 2021)

Faustus said:


> I find D&D too stereotyped and restrictive.
> “what do you want to be, a fighter, a mage, a ranger...?”
> “I want to be a miner.”
> “... whut?”
> ...


I think that heavily depends on what version and what DM you have.
In Pathfinder, what you describe would probably be a brawler class. No magic, just good ol' punchin. 
In Pathfinder there is dozens upon dozens, if not a hundred different kinds of classes you can play. If you can think it, chances are there is a fitting class for it.


I've played long sessions with no dungeon crawling at all, with a lot of session being heavily roleplay and story based which I absolutely love.
With the right team, literally anything is possible.
The hard part though is finding such a team.


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## Faustus (Feb 4, 2021)

@Couratiel  nevertheless you’re beholden to a class system, and classes are often not well balanced. Also, in order to cover every possible base, you need a lot of them. This can be expensive and slow down play a lot as people leaf through, weighing up their options. It’s even worse if you have a min-maxer in the group.

I agree you can occasionally get a group that is more story focused, but D&D isn’t built with story in mind, it’s basically a modified war game and always was. Its rules are designed to resolve conflict, not drive or inspire an interesting plot. The GM typically knows what is going to happen and merely steers the PCs into the future he predicts. Classic adventure campaigns can only be designed this way for sale or it would be ridiculous.

But there are games that use rules to drive story. FATE’s aspect system for example gives players bonuses for actively driving the story in an interesting direction while emphasising their characters personality. And Everway’s fortune deck resolution uses tarot-like images to suggest not just success and failure, but the nature, theme or style of that result.


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## Couratiel (Feb 4, 2021)

Faustus said:


> @Couratiel  nevertheless you’re beholden to a class system, and classes are often not well balanced. Also, in order to cover every possible base, you need a lot of them. This can be expensive and slow down play a lot as people leaf through, weighing up their options. It’s even worse if you have a min-maxer in the group.
> 
> I agree you can occasionally get a group that is more story focused, but D&D isn’t built with story in mind, it’s basically a modified war game and always was. Its rules are designed to resolve conflict, not drive or inspire an interesting plot. The GM typically knows what is going to happen and merely steers the PCs into the future he predicts. Classic adventure campaigns can only be designed this way for sale or it would be ridiculous.
> 
> But there are games that use rules to drive story. FATE’s aspect system for example gives players bonuses for actively driving the story in an interesting direction while emphasising their characters personality. And Everway’s fortune deck resolution uses tarot-like images to suggest not just success and failure, but the nature, theme or style of that result.


Yeah the balancing can certainly be tricky sometimes. But the real world isn't perfectly balanced either, so it makes sense to me for not all classes and races to be balanced. With enough creativity it can be pretty fun to work with the DM or other players to create homebrew classes or races.

To be honest I've never played true Dungeons and Dragons, so I can't vouch for how it's built. I've only played Pathfinder, and with the skill system it can make roleplay/story scenes quite enjoyable. The spontaneous nature of the dice has made for some hilarious scenes, but they've also caused some very touching and heart warming scenes too.
If your DM isn't good at improve though, any TTRPG can turn into a rail road pretty fast.

Although it's not strictly written in, there is plenty of room within the Pathfinder rules for DMs to reward the players for things like character development, driving the story forward or creative problem solving, and that's one of my favourite parts about the game.

 Currently I've been working on writing a homebrew campaign. I'm hoping to find a cozy balance between roleplay, story and dungeon diving with room to go either way depending on what the players want.

The notion of a fortune deck does sound pretty cool though.  I think the Curse of Straud campaign features fortune cards too. It's a neat way to mix it up, so even if you play it several times, it will come out differently


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## Telnac (Feb 5, 2021)

For me, D&D is just a framework. If you're the DM and you find it's too limiting then change it! If you're a player and you have a good DM then they can work with you to create the character and background that works for your character.

If another game system fits what you want to do better, fine!  Use that. The main thing I like about D&D is that it gives a foundation for those who may struggle with creating interesting characters. Anyone who's seen any fantasy movie featuring a muscle bound character wielding a giant sword knows what a Fighter is. I don't have any problems creating interesting settings, characters and plot lines so I can run my campaigns in any variant of the rules.  For me it depends entirely on the players.

I find it helps to not overwhelm new players with an over abundance of choices. At the same time, experienced players want interesting variety. That's one of the things I like about the different editions of D&D out there. If you have experienced players who want to customize everything, great! Pathfinder is a good choice. If you have players who only know that they want a character who likes to get drunk in pubs and get into fights with whoever is around, great! The core rules of 5th Edition has just enough options to help flesh that idea out but not so many as to be overwhelming. If you have both then you can go with 5th edition with additional rulebooks and also some house rules to make it interesting for the more experienced players but not overwhelm the new players. It's all about finding the right balance to make it fun for everyone.


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## Netanye Dakabi (Feb 6, 2021)

i like playing a healer


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## Kinare (Feb 8, 2021)

My D&D adventures are boring, but here we go.

Saw someone doing a starter campaign on furry site. Decided to join since work schedule was kinda regular at the time.
Made a character specifically to try to learn as much as possible: Tiefling warlock named R'ee.
Dragged friend who was more experienced into playing with this group of noobs so I could use him as a social crutch.
R'ee had a rat named Tahko (taco), a wolf named Gil (technically the party's but fuck the rest of the party he was mine), and eventually a pseudodragon named Dergn - so basically Dr. Doolittle. I didn't get to name the wolf, else it would have had a cool name too.
R'ee was nearly killed in the first dungeon because she couldn't stealth for shit and I insisted on playing her like a rogue that occasionally casts spells. I mean, she was a street urchin who had to steal to eat, it made sense, but sadly her dex was crap and RNGsus had long ago forsaken me. Luckily, the cleric decided to heal her before she failed the last death save.
R'ee tried to steal from friend's character (a paladin) day 1 and failed. Tried again day 4 and failed again. Yeah, I kept trying despite the lack of stealth skills because character development is more important to me. Some day she would have succeeded, I'm sure of it. When that day came, I planned on having R'ee make it obvious without outright saying that she succeeded, like say she stole a coin - I had planned on making her place the coin where it would be seen by friend say after a rest or something. Alas...
Things occurred and I left the game after like 6 or 7 sessions.

In D&D I most enjoy the ability to go about things in different ways, being tricky, getting away with things only through making plays no one else consider. Naturally, I like manipulation spells the most. I hate linear thinking, "let's just blow it up" kind of playing. Sometimes it's the only option, but it's the least fun.

I'd love to get into D&D again under the right circumstances, but work tends to limit me too much for me to commit long term to a certain day and time. Maybe if I ever get a normie job I can find a group again.


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## Kit H. Ruppell (Feb 8, 2021)

-In a homebrew campaign, the party snuck into an evil wizard's tower to steal his spellbook. We weren't spotted until after we had grabbed it, leading to a chase scene reminiscent of Scooby Doo which concluded in my character barring the door with his spare crowbar on the way out.

-In Storm King's Thunder, the party engaged with some Fire Giants who were overseeing the construction of what was basically a giant adamantine mech. We dropped its fist on the leader, who failed all of his Strength checks to get out from under it while we pummeled him to death. To add insult to injury, my Druid, who was in the form of a Giant Eagle at the time, shat on his head.

-In Dungeon of the Mad Mage, the party sent the Monk ahead to scout a room. Inside was a Mind Flayer. She snuck up on it, rolled three crits in a row, and killed it in a single turn. After this, we decided to let her go on ahead and deal with shit.


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## Firuthi Dragovic (Mar 26, 2021)

So I thought I'd bring this up again because over the last few years, I've played several information-based characters with at least decent connections and as a result gotten pretty good at conveying full stories and situations in under 25 words, the limit of the D&D Sending spell.

Should I be concerned about how much I have to stomp all over grammar rules to make this kind of thing work?


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## Foxy Emy (Apr 5, 2021)

Couratiel said:


> Who else here plays DnD or other Table top RPGs?
> 
> Today, one of the player characters died.
> The DM said the players next character would be introduced in the dungeon
> ...



Playing a Grippli in Pathfinder named Two. I would share more but that is spoilers for the podcast we are doing.


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## Tacoshark (Apr 5, 2021)

Recently in a campaign, we were lured into a sewer system to find bandits and ended up having an hour long fight with tortle rogues. Thats right, we got our asses handed to us by Ninja Turtles in the Sewer


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## KimberVaile (Apr 5, 2021)

Punji said:


> Only ever played a single one-shot game of DnD, but it was quite fun.
> 
> I played a minotaur barbarian, charging everything with my horns and massacring them with a great axe. Fun!
> 
> Never forget, always double-tap.


Kekekekekekeke


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## Attaman (Apr 7, 2021)

Been running an _Al-Qadim _mix of an adventure box and homebrew for a while now. Though by far my favorite experience was in another campaign wherein I watched a Dwarf Barbarian slowly chew through the officers and Centurions of "What if a Roman Legion, but Fantasy and also they're all fucked up like that guy from _Eternal Darkness_" one-by-one in a series of duels until it eventually reached the point that the Legate himself had to step in to stop her. 


Faustus said:


> @Couratiel  nevertheless you’re beholden to a class system, and classes are often not well balanced. Also, in order to cover every possible base, you need a lot of them. This can be expensive and slow down play a lot as people leaf through, weighing up their options. It’s even worse if you have a min-maxer in the group.


Of minor note: 4E might be up your alley here if you have friends who insist on playing D&D. You both get to infuriate the 3.PFer players, _and_ play the D&D edition that unanimously did the best to make classes less imbalanced (in fact, one of _the_ biggest complaints from 3.PFers is that most classes can do most roles and that it's almost impossible to fuck up your build in Session 0).

The counter is that it's 4E so good luck finding a group, likewise have fun with combat taking 3+ hours.


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## Faustus (Apr 8, 2021)

Attaman said:


> Of minor note: 4E might be up your alley here if you have friends who insist on playing D&D.


It's still a class system which too frequently doesn't offer me the kind of character I want to play, and it's still a combat-centric game with weak support for non-combat options. Nope, my game is still FATE Core thanks. I'll qualify that further:

*D&D*
Setup: very long-winded character gen, heavy with options, 1 - 2 hours.
Combat: Highly structured, very complex, full of nuance but time-consuming.
Stealth: Mostly unstructured, single-skill-roll affairs with a few feats.
Persuasion: Generally single-skill-rolls, a feat or two if you're lucky.

*FATE*
Setup: open, flexible character personality system, simple skills, moderate number of options, 10 minutes - 1 hour.
Combat: Medium complexity abstracted system that encourages creativity over heavy tactical thought and number crunching.
Stealth: Same system as above.
Persuasion: Same system as above.

This works because the concept of 'Conflict' is deliberately vague and can be adapted to multiple forms of problem solving with minimal adaptation. Also, non-combat characters are not marginalised and you can develop a story rather than just resorting to the old hack-and-slash.

I'm not knocking D&D, I know a lot of people like it, just not me. It also kinda narks me that, because the media never mentions games that AREN'T D&D or some numbers-filed-off copy (looking at YOU, Big Bang Theory) whenever Role Playing gets mentioned, people go 'Ohhh you like D&D?' Nope. I don't. I'm a narrativist. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that most people don't even realise that there are other tabletop RPGs, or at least there are kinds of RPGs where you spend more time chatting to each other in-character than stomping around a dungeon killing things and taking their stuff.

If I have to do a class-based high fantasy, I go for 'Barbarians of Lemuria'. If I want to play a board game with some tactical depth, I'd rather play Agon.

I'm sorry if I've derailed the thread a bit with this, so here's an amusing tale from a D&D game that had a VERY BAD DM. (I know this isn't representative, the DM was very, very bad, but I found it kinda funny!)

*DM:* (reading from a published adventure) You are at the Inn, do you want to a) look around furtively, b) talk to the other patrons, or c) look for a job?
*Player A:* Actually, I'm going to visit my grandmother.
*DM:* (Ignoring Player A) what do the rest of you want to do?
*Other Players:* We're going to visit his grandmother too.
*DM:* You can't do that, you've got to pick A, B or C!
*Other Players:* But we want to visit Grandma!
*DM:* ....I'm gonna set Lord Soth on you.
_Extremely brief combat ensues involving a bunch of level 1 characters and a legendary death knight. Players go find a better game._


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## Attaman (Apr 8, 2021)

Faustus said:


> It's still a class system which too frequently doesn't offer me the kind of character I want to play, and it's still a combat-centric game with weak support for non-combat options. Nope, my game is still FATE Core thanks. I'll qualify that further:


Oh, entirely valid. I feel like other games do the class system stuff better than D&D anyways (particularly when they do not lock you _into_ the class system outside individual encounters / sorties: Ones such as Lancer wherein your combat class is determined heavily by just what Mech you're currently piloting and buying / customizing a new one's always an option), I just brought it up as there's a world of difference between editions and most people are use to the horror show that is 3.PF's "You can screw yourself over before exiting Character Generation" where I don't think there's a single class above C-tier without spell slots?


Faustus said:


> I'm sorry if I've derailed the thread a bit with this, so here's an amusing tale from a D&D game that had a VERY BAD DM. (I know this isn't representative, the DM was very, very bad, but I found it kinda funny!)


Rule 0 of DMing: Your party is a herd of cats. Be prepared to treat it like one.


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## Faustus (Apr 9, 2021)

Attaman said:


> most people are use to the horror show that is 3.PF's "You can screw yourself over before exiting Character Generation" where I don't think there's a single class above C-tier without spell slots?


Hehe if you want a horror show, see if you can find a copy of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Skills and Powers. Makes you long for the days of the red box.


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## Netanye Dakabi (Apr 13, 2021)

why can you only play as "half" orcs and not just orcs.

are you assuming that race defines alegeance?


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## KimberVaile (Apr 17, 2021)

For all the paladins out there that constantly get into arguments with the rogue.


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## KimberVaile (May 31, 2021)

Punji said:


> Only ever played a single one-shot game of DnD, but it was quite fun.
> 
> I played a minotaur barbarian, charging everything with my horns and massacring them with a great axe. Fun!
> 
> Never forget, always double-tap.


He also makes for a great skeleton key. Could you imagine if we went around NOT taking everything that wasn't nailed to the wall?


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## Faustus (Jun 3, 2021)

Netanye Dakabi said:


> why can you only play as "half" orcs and not just orcs.
> 
> are you assuming that race defines alegeance?


That's kinda D&D's bag, yeah. Most monsters have an 'alignment'. Me, I don't even like the concept of alignment for human characters. Personality is more nuanced than a nine-choice selection, and most people ignore their alignment when roleplaying anyway, unless the GM is the kind to try and enforce it (which can lead to a lot of silly bickering).


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## Attaman (Jun 3, 2021)

Faustus said:


> That's kinda D&D's bag, yeah. Most monsters have an 'alignment'. Me, I don't even like the concept of alignment for human characters. Personality is more nuanced than a nine-choice selection, and most people ignore their alignment when roleplaying anyway, unless the GM is the kind to try and enforce it (which can lead to a lot of silly bickering).


The funny / sad thing is that... like, D&D solved this (well, "solved": Some of the writers got the memo, while others distinctly _didn't_) back in a setting released in _*1992*. _Racial alignment was tossed in the bin, rules and lore explicitly made mention of allowing for and encouraging use of more 'monstrous' PC races like the obvious (Gnolls, Kobolds, Orcs) and the unexpected (like Giants, Wemics, Minotaurs, and Centaurs), and you can presume that if all the half- stuff from 3.5 on had been around at the time (Reminder that Half-Dragons didn't really even get any sort of official endorsement until a Dragon-specific setting was made in 1994) it probably would have been fairly accepted too (since if anything the setting went the _opposite_ route of the usual Fantasy 'coming for our women', with the biggest in-setting hang-up on cross-species relationships being that people _hoped_ they could lead to kids).

It was written in 1992 so it had its _own_ bugbears to deal with, but... seriously: It kind of shows how utterly slow and ingrained a lot of stuff with the community is that there was an entire line for D&D released almost thirty years ago that went "Hey, this racial alignment shit's stupid" and yet _here we are today_.


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## Releaseone (Jun 4, 2021)

I enjoy a lot of watching Dungeon and Dragons campaigns. You're going through so many emotions during the game... I play in DnD a few times a month. It's not a lot, but every game is unique. I also love watching DnD campaigns on youtube. It helps me to relax or to make some experience for future matches. Before every game, I read https://dndguide.net/. It's beneficial for newbies and old players. It doesn't matter if you are a dungeon master or a player. Guides are helpful for everyone who wants unpredictable twists during the game. Thus, you get original matches every time you play.


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## Faustus (Jun 6, 2021)

Attaman said:


> It was written in 1992 so it had its _own_ bugbears to deal with, but... seriously: It kind of shows how utterly slow and ingrained a lot of stuff with the community is that there was an entire line for D&D released almost thirty years ago that went "Hey, this racial alignment shit's stupid" and yet _here we are today_.


I don't really think it was the community that was at fault. I remember those rules and they were just broken, to the point that while many players would have loved to play as monstrous characters, either the creatures were too massively crippled to be competitive, or they had game-breaking powers or drawbacks and the GMs wouldn't allow them in the first place.


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## Jaredthefox92 (Jun 6, 2021)

My friends and I do more of Warhammer 40k tabletop simulator rounds in my Discord. I play Death Guard and Chaos in general. I am trying to get them to try Necromunda, but thus far no dice.


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## Attaman (Jun 6, 2021)

Faustus said:


> I don't really think it was the community that was at fault. I remember those rules and they were just broken, to the point that while many players would have loved to play as monstrous characters, either the creatures were too massively crippled to be competitive, or they had game-breaking powers or drawbacks and the GMs wouldn't allow them in the first place.


I was speaking more the "Allow people to play non-standard species and toss Racial Alignment in the bin" aspect: Mechanically I'll wholeheartedly agree that there was a _ton_ to be desired with how non-PHB options were handled. Which was not helped with the official popularity of gauntlet-style events at that time where PCs were tossed into peculiar situations and told "Survive the longest / Clear the course the fastest".

But even so, it's telling that thirty years ago there were people at TSR who thought "Maybe we're going a bit too far with the stuff for Orcs?" and whatnot. Realized that Alignment had some pretty obvious failings once you removed them from very specific in-universe theological interpretations.


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## Faustus (Jun 7, 2021)

Personally I'm more interested in fantasy games if they throw aside the usual elf/human/dwarf combo and go with other mythological creatures, or even entirely invented ones. There was an interesting one called Mechanical Dream that was truly bizarre, but it proved a hard sell to players because the creatures and the world it was set in required too much explanation. Other games did odd things with classic species, such as Aeternal Legends and the Shadow of Yesterday.

One of the issues I have with just adding more is it's plain ridiculous how many sentient species seem to exist in certain settings.

Ahh well, there's always Albedo, or Iron/Jade Claw.


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## KimberVaile (Jun 25, 2021)

Nearly having a TPK from a bunch of floating heads (vargouilles) was something I think would stick with me just on how embarrassing it is. Lol. Running back to town to use my wily charm to gain some hired help was also quite interesting. Thankfully the party survived being kissed by a bunch of vargouilles and didn't turn into floating heads themselves, thanks to some NPC assistance and my natural charm with me being a fox and all.


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## Attaman (Jun 26, 2021)

And here I was expecting it was you or another party member's _sunny_ disposition keeping everyone safe from the Vargouilles infection.

"Impossible! You should have turned hours ago!"
"I have been basking in sunshine to ward off the curse!"
"... But it's 2am!"
The Bard turns towards the party's Rogue.
"My sunshine's favorite time of day."


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## Punji (Jun 29, 2021)

Why does everyone kill themselves before I can murder them?

Dicks just tryin' to drop my K/D I swear.


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## KimberVaile (Aug 10, 2021)

Sorlock continues to be the best caster in DND 5e I am finding. Just goes to show, Eldritch blast goes well with everything.


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## Marius Merganser (Aug 10, 2021)

Meet Marius, the friendly but clumsy druid.
(Art by OldWorldBird)






How clumsy is he?
Well, he's a *diving duck* and one time he went to investigate something under water.  I rolled a 1.  Add to that the -1 investigation modifier, and he almost drowned and needed rescuing.

That campaign came to end and when he killed off the main baddie in a fiery explosion...

...that also killed himself, half the party, his love interest, a band of friendly mercenaries and...


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## O.D.D. (Aug 10, 2021)

KimberVaile said:


> For all the paladins out there that constantly get into arguments with the rogue.


As a paladin sometimes the rogue is a stupid shitheel.  Sometimes it's the warlock or the bard.

But it's usually the rogue.

E: tho really that warlock is being a huge shitheel lately and I can't wait for his player to decide to make a go at me, follows a LG god, is LN and constantly does shit that is CN/CE I have no idea why the DM lets it slide


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## Faustus (Aug 19, 2021)

Another classic: I remember being told of a D&D game for level 1 characters where a PC died because they looked up a chimney and a bat fell out of it and bit them on the nose.


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## KimberVaile (Oct 20, 2021)

I've really been enjoying Dnd 5th edition, all the differrent character builds feel unique and actually kind of useful. I don't feel like I'm dragging people down when I have the urge to play a fighter, or a sorcerer even. It used to be that you had to be a Wizard in Dnd 3.5 to have any utility and usefulness. But you could play a vanilla Barbarian or Paladin and you'd feel like you're doing quite a bit for the party. I suppose that's down to better balance but regardless. 

Dnd 5e's becoming a favorite of mine!


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## Attaman (Oct 21, 2021)

KimberVaile said:


> I've really been enjoying Dnd 5th edition, all the differrent character builds feel unique and actually kind of useful. I don't feel like I'm dragging people down when I have the urge to play a fighter, or a sorcerer even. It used to be that you had to be a Wizard in Dnd 3.5 to have any utility and usefulness. But you could play a vanilla Barbarian or Paladin and you'd feel like you're doing quite a bit for the party. I suppose that's down to better balance but regardless.
> 
> Dnd 5e's becoming a favorite of mine!


The sad thing is that there's 3.PF supplements that try to fix the caster supremacy (ex: Warlords from the _Tome of Battle_ stuff)... and ironically a lot of 3.PFers hate said books _specifically because_ they feel like the design decision was intentional and playing martials (let alone martial classes without spell access!) is supposed to be Bad and Not Fun.

Also, to briefly linger on the utility note (since it's been a while since we've had too much commentary in here), a heads up to people that the relatively recent _Tasha's Cauldron_ book has some optional rules in it that might be useful for getting a bit more out of your characters in longer campaigns. I'm not going to plug any material outright as, well: Money's money. But if you see one while perusing a shop might be worth browsing at least to see if anything sticks out to you, likewise if somebody you know has a copy and is willing to let you rifle through. It's mostly just quality of life changes (a lot of the content is either from other books or available mostly the same online via _Unearthed Arcana_ articles for free), but can be nice to look at none the less. A personal favorite is the rule that allows most classes - when they reach a point they have access to an Ability Score Increase - to also tweak around some choices made earlier on, such as a Fighter's Fighting Style or a Sorcerer's Metamagic. 'Cause sometimes you just don't like a choice you made 2-4 levels ago but don't want to bother the DM.


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## KimberVaile (Oct 22, 2021)

Attaman said:


> The sad thing is that there's 3.PF supplements that try to fix the caster supremacy (ex: Warlords from the _Tome of Battle_ stuff)... and ironically a lot of 3.PFers hate said books _specifically because_ they feel like the design decision was intentional and playing martials (let alone martial classes without spell access!) is supposed to be Bad and Not Fun.
> 
> Also, to briefly linger on the utility note (since it's been a while since we've had too much commentary in here), a heads up to people that the relatively recent _Tasha's Cauldron_ book has some optional rules in it that might be useful for getting a bit more out of your characters in longer campaigns. I'm not going to plug any material outright as, well: Money's money. But if you see one while perusing a shop might be worth browsing at least to see if anything sticks out to you, likewise if somebody you know has a copy and is willing to let you rifle through. It's mostly just quality of life changes (a lot of the content is either from other books or available mostly the same online via _Unearthed Arcana_ articles for free), but can be nice to look at none the less. A personal favorite is the rule that allows most classes - when they reach a point they have access to an Ability Score Increase - to also tweak around some choices made earlier on, such as a Fighter's Fighting Style or a Sorcerer's Metamagic. 'Cause sometimes you just don't like a choice you made 2-4 levels ago but don't want to bother the DM.



Yeah, I liked some of the spells and features Tasha has added to some of the classes. Playing a Sorcerer is a lot more enjoyable with the optional rules. I'd say a Vanilla sorcerer is actually a good deal more viable with the Tasha's add on. Though, I still think Vanilla Wizards are a little too strong compared to other casters, especially Divination Wizards. Granted Sorcerers are better for multiclassing. Paladin and Warlock work pretty well with Sorcerer IE. The only multiclass option for the wizard that really seemed worth it was the artificer, which is good, but probably not as good as a Sorlock or Sorcadin. 

It was still my hope that Vanilla Sorcerer or Warlock be about even with the Wizard, but sometimes I don't think it's quite there. You have to multiclass to get the most of Sorcerer almost. (The Sorcerer only gets one spell the Wizard doesn't get, and it's not really great.) When you combine that with all spells only recharging on a long rest vs the Wizards spells recharing on a short rest, and the very limited Spells known, it seems like Sorcerers were sort of intended to get the short end of the stick somewhat. I think the Warlock to a lesser extent has some of the same issues, sans the long rest drawback in place of very limited Spell Slots. 

Don't get me wrong, both classes still perform pretty well, but I'd still say the Wizard usually gets a slight edge in terms of Vanilla builds. So, I am glad at the very least there was some imbalance recognized.


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## Attaman (Oct 22, 2021)

KimberVaile said:


> Yeah, I liked some of the spells and features Tasha has added to some of the classes. Playing a Sorcerer is a lot more enjoyable with the optional rules. I'd say a Vanilla sorcerer is actually a good deal more viable with the Tasha's add on. Though, I still think Vanilla Wizards are a little too strong compared to other casters, especially Divination Wizards. Granted Sorcerers are better for multiclassing. Paladin and Warlock work pretty well with Sorcerer IE. The only multiclass option for the wizard that really seemed worth it was the artificer, which is good, but probably not as good as a Sorlock or Sorcadin.


For those who don't 5E or are new to D&D: A big reason Sorcerers (and, to a degree, Warlocks) are so good for Multiclassing is that those casters use _Charisma_ for their main spellcasting attribute, while Wizards use _Intelligence_. And of those two attributes, Charisma sees more use between:
+ Skills. Most of Intelligence's Skills are knowledge based, as opposed to Charisma's social interactions. And 5E has generally moved away from "We're going to hide important / necessary information behind Intelligence checks", while diplomacy is forever an evergreen skill regardless of system. 
+ Saving Throws. Intelligence's saving throws are almost exclusively reserved for Illusions (a rare magic in 5E) and Psionics (rare outside niche enemy encounters like Mind Flayers). Conversely Charisma is used... maybe not as often as Willpower, but more frequently than Int at least.
+ Class abilities. Int is only really used by Wizards, Artificers, and niche sub-classes (specifically: Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster). And as might be obvious, half of those (Artificers, Wizards) are not like the others (Fighters, Rogues). Charisma meanwhile is important for all Bards, Paladins, Sorcerers, and Warlocks, while also useful for several varieties or builds of Cleric, Fighter, and Rogue.

All of this combines with Sorcerers _also_ having a fairly large stretch for their Class (7th through 13th level) where they only gain very basic benefits (two Ability Score increases, additional Spell Levels and Spell Slots), which means it's far less a loss to dip out than it may have been with some other classes.

Likewise the reason Kimber points out Divination Wizards is that twice a day (or three times / day after a point) they get to decide - after somebody's rolled, but before results are declared - "Actually you're using this dice result instead" from a pool rolled at the start of the day. This can be used to turn an ally's miss into a hit, an enemy's hit into a miss, flip a saving throw failure / pass, and so-on. It's a skill that - unlike a lot of class and subclass bonuses - remains evergreen, because there's almost never a point in a typical adventuring day that it is _not_ useful to swap somebody's roll.


KimberVaile said:


> It was still my hope that Vanilla Sorcerer or Warlock be about even with the Wizard, but sometimes I don't think it's quite there.


IMO the biggest thing holding Sorcerer and Warlock back is that a Wizard's Ritual Casting (as well as their Short Term spell recovery via Arcane Recovery) is just _that good_. A Sorcerer's Sorcery Point-based Spell Recovery is _technically_ better than Arcane Recovery (likewise a Warlock's Short Term spell recovery), but a Sorcerer using SP to recover Spells is not using their SP for their other unique class features, while a Warlock's Short Term recovery isn't always possible. Not only that a Wizard's Ritual Casting rule is _really_ good since it's basically "If you copy the spell down and have access to your spell book, you can Ritual cast it". Which, considering how large a Wizard's spell pool is _and_ that it's fairly difficult to lose your Spell Book...

Basically a Wizard can know more Ritual Spells alone than a Sorcerer or Warlock might know spells, period.


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## Firuthi Dragovic (Oct 22, 2021)

....I will admit I don't rely on a lot of the Tasha's Cauldron spells, per se, mainly because too many of them are summons and the regular game I'm in is only friendly to so much prep.  (It's a MASSIVE table of 10 and we generally have 3 hours per session tops - basically what you get for store play most of the time - so it's rare for a session to NOT be taken up by tons of combat.  I think after the next campaign I'll want to step up as an extra Dungeon Master so we can have smaller tables.)

The subclasses, on the other hand, are nice.


I admit, next campaign they do (I really hope they do the Dragon Queen series or Storm King's, I've heard that their other choice of Strahd is absolutely NOT conducive to a table that massive) I'm likely playing a shifter rogue.  Still don't know what subclass or if I'm doing multiclass options, other than I'm NOT wanting to worry about spellcasting at all this time.  I usually play casters of some sort and unfortunately I've found myself VERY limited at this table as to what spells actually mean anything - most of the proper roleplaying-type spells don't get a fair shake OR someone else in the party steps up with the same spells I have.


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## Attaman (Oct 23, 2021)

Firuthi Dragovic said:


> I usually play casters of some sort and unfortunately I've found myself VERY limited at this table as to what spells actually mean anything - most of the proper roleplaying-type spells don't get a fair shake OR someone else in the party steps up with the same spells I have.



The thing about a D&D group is that it can often times be worthwhile to play a small one-off campaign with them before delving into a proper one because... well, see above. Each group (particularly each DM, but also other players) tend to have their own style of play, and that can quickly render some things more or less important than others. Recommending a mini-campaign over a Session 0 as a Session 0 rarely encapsulates enough to have a full idea of everything (so much as an idea of what your fellow players' characters are going to be like), but a mini-campaign _can_ give you a feel for a group's strong and weak spots.


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## KimberVaile (Feb 1, 2022)

Random two cents.
Death saving throws and mechanics that render you potentially useless for most of the fight is bad enemy design. In my opinion at least. Severe limitations to player agency is not fun to fight against. Difficult, yes, but not fun.

Mostly salty cause I was knocked out of the fight immediately due to a save or stun spell. I don't feel like I really could have done anything differently to avoid that other than roll better. I'm not blaming the dm at all he ran a very good session, but I will say that I very much dislike these save or be useless type spells with the monster design. The same goes double for high level charm spells, which essentially force you to attack your allies in the worst possible manner.

Again, yes it is difficult and yes you can prepare for it, but it is not a fun mechanic to fight against.


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## Baron Tredegar (Feb 2, 2022)

Ok so me and my Dad were running a second edition campaign. We were in this mountain region that was supposed to be like Tibet. We were captured by monks and were roped into escorting the Dalai Lamas daughter to an arranged marriage to the Khan. Traveling with us was the Dalai Lamas top general and fifty soldiers who were basically redshirts. We got to this mountain pass that was filled with abandoned monasteries that was full of gnolls, goblins, orcs, and an oni. We had finally gotten through the mountain pass with the princess, ourselves, the general, and three redshirts still alive. However at the end of the pass was an enchanted stone samurai that would attack us if we did not pay tribute. The tribute would multiply depending on how many people there were and it was impossible for us to pay for everyone. At that point my dad came to the decision to pay for our characters and the princess and leave everyone else to fend for themselves. So then I had to roll the battle between the three redshirts and the general against the stone samurai. The redshirts died, but against all odds the general killed the stone samurai. At that moment the general was pissed at us for the rest of the campaign and became the most badass npc we have encountered so far.


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## Faustus (Feb 9, 2022)

Baron Tredegar said:


> We were captured by monks and were roped into escorting the Dalai Lamas daughter to an arranged marriage to the Khan.


...the Dalai Lama's *daughter*...?
I guess somebody was off sick the day they were supposed to have lessons on celibacy.


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## Baron Tredegar (Feb 9, 2022)

Faustus said:


> ...the Dalai Lama's *daughter*...?
> I guess somebody was off sick the day they were supposed to have lessons on celibacy.


The module we were using was from 1989 so it was definitely an experience.


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## Firuthi Dragovic (Feb 18, 2022)

Big war sequence at the end of the Tyranny of Dragons module.  That mega-group that I was talking about?  Two of the key ones are still under a banishment effect and most of the rest are in the map quadrant that has Tiamat (including one of the players who has a mirror of life trapping and somehow managed to drain all of Tiamat's legendary resistance auto-saves with it).

Leaving only a couple of us (myself included, playing the shifter rogue I was talking about) to deal with a group of 4-5 mages that is going around trying to sweep the camps (they already torched one, and if they torch all three we outright lose even if Tiamat goes down).

I really hope 8d6+18 (yeah, this is 5e, I went pure rogue for the 13 levels we got and I have Sharpshooter with +3 arrows) is enough to take one of them out in one shot.  There are not enough of us in the back line who can pull off defense and I only barely have above 100 hit points thanks to magical buffs.


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## TexTheSkullfox (Apr 16, 2022)

I play!


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