#sometimes you just roll crit fails a lot

[nyoomsamurai]

so i died for a little while </3 i ended up getting dragged back clawing and screaming into my hyperfixation on a dnd campaign sooo here's a couple lil things from it (much more will be coming, for this is my main interest atm)

featuring: 10k corrupted link who i may have pissed off and is going to end my life on sight, and a lv5 fighter who is doing his best but WOW he rolls like shit

also note, these are not my characters. i will share my brainrot over him some other time... my very terrible brainrot...

#legend of zelda #zelda #link #botw #dnd #art #life is not daijoubu </3 #sometimes you just roll crit fails a lot #and miss all your attacks

[baronfulmen]

Holy shit Pathfinder 2e is even better than I was expecting you guys

Look I don't want to dump a long post on everyone but please click to read more. Come on. It's actually interesting.

Okay so I know Tumblr, here to get you interested is a fun fact: There's a specific god that will help you trans your gender.

The rest is more about rules and gameplay but click anyway.

Having three totally interchangeable actions per turn is SO GOOD, and having actions worth doing means you don't end up just doing the same thing every turn like in 5e.

Anyone, regardless of class, can choose to use their turn to:

Move, move, and move again.

Attack, attack, and attack again (not actually a good strategy but it's nice to have the option).

Roll intimidation to make the enemy frightened, trip them (which is more likely to succeed now that they're frightened), and then hit them (which is more likely to work now that they're on the ground).

Move, shoot someone, then duck behind cover.

Cast multiple spells if you know spells (most often good spells cost two actions to cast, but some cost one so you could cast 2-3 spells in a single turn sometimes).

Cast a spell (if you know spells) that is the equivalent of a concentration spell in 5e, and then use an action to keep the one you cast last turn going too (then next turn you can use an action to sustain BOTH of them and also do a third thing).

Hit someone, step back out of their range without provoking an attack of opportunity (though wonderfully most people can't do those anyway which means people actually move around in combat thank god) and then raise a shield to get an AC boost.

Roll to recall what the thing you're fighting is weak against, attack it, and then (because that first action told you it has a gaze attack) avert your eyes.

Etc.

That's without any feats or class features (I mean as noted above not everyone knows spells and stuff but you get what I mean) and there are other actions I didn't even mention. PLUS, it means spells can do different things for different numbers of actions!

(Those little diamond shapes are actions, so you can see that this one spell can be cast for one, two, or three actions with different effects)

2. Degrees of success mean that things don't fail outright as much and you can get bonus effects from tons of things. Also it means that every little bit helps which encourages strategic gameplay (like the tripping and intimidating stuff mentioned above).

Rolling ten or more higher than your target is a critical success, and missing it by ten or more is a critical failure. Also, getting a nat 1 or nat 20 changes the degree of success by one level. So you can get a nat 20 on something way out of your league and have it bumped from a failure to a success, or you can roll so well that you crit succeed just because you got a 31 on a DC 20 save or something (numbers are bigger in Pathfinder because you add your level to almost everything, but it's all balanced out and is fine I promise).

Like, look at what tripping does:

Or spells!

See, it's not purely save-or-suck!

3. There are so many cool ways to customize your character!

Pathfinder 2e is built on feats, but unlike 5e they're actually balanced. You get skill feats! You get class feats! You get ancestry feats! A lot of them are minor by themselves but FUN and you get SO MANY that no two characters will ever be alike. You can also (optionally) take an Archetype that lets you kinda sorta multiclass into not only other classes or a medic or a special kind of whatever but also random shit like "guess you're a ghost now".

Right now there are 3,983 feats. Yes really. This isn't as intimidating as it might sound; a lot are for specific classes, specific archetypes, specific ancestries, or for skills your particular character doesn't care about. Some are also restricted to higher levels, or have other requirements like having a certain skill at X rank or having some other earlier feat. Also at any given time you're looking for a particular type of feat, so your list will be smaller and totally manageable. It's 100% fine and easy to pick one. Like, when I was picking a level 2 class feat for my summoner these were my options:

Not so many that it's overwhelming or anything, but because you (over time) select so many different kinds of feats it really lets you fine tune your character to be whatever you imagine.

4. There are specific rules for things you can do while wandering through a dungeon or the wilderness or whatever!

Yes, sure, in 5e you can say "uh, I'm gonna keep casting Guidance over and over as we walk" or something, but a lot of the things people ask to do are hard to rule on. Can they really be constantly ready in case combat breaks out? How do you give them an advantage for that sort of thing without it just being a free buff?

But in PF2e there's rules for that! If you think there's gonna be combat, you can take actions such as:

Scout! This means if a fight breaks out everyone gets a +1 to initiative!

Avoid Notice! This means if a fight breaks out you roll your stealth for initiative rather than perception (everyone is trained in perception and it's the default thing you roll for initiative, but theoretically the GM could have you roll anything, like if you were trying to act friendly and then surprise attack maybe you'd roll deception) and if you roll well you can start combat hidden!

Defend! This means if a fight breaks out you start with your shield already up, raising your AC!

And then there's non-combat focused stuff too, like searching and keeping detect magic up and all sorts of stuff. There's a whole page of activities.

5. Some of the magic items are really funny.

#pf2e #pathfinder #pathfinder 2nd edition #5e #tabletop rpgs

[jones-friend]

Kingdom Death

Today I had the chance to play Kingdom Death: Monster. KDM is a fantastic big box game with Berserk-like grimdark feels and a gnarly sense of humor. So CW, many parts of this game are soul grinding and depressing. If violence, gore, horrifying monsters with sexual overtones, hopelessness, these darker kinds of themes aren’t appealing to you then you should skip this one!

While I dont typically enjoy these things I liked what KDM was doing and I enjoyed the way it handled them.

In KDM you and three other survivors awaken in this dark land, its surfaces made of stone faces, with a great prowling beast that devours its prey bite by brutal bite. You take arms with your fragment of a face and a sash around your waist and challenge the great beast!

You’re going to die. And dying isn’t even the worst thing that can happen to you.

KDM fully embraces its grimdark nature. Injuries often come with intensely debilitating consequences like ruptured spleens and eye gouging. Everything comes with a risk, today trying to land an attack on my own turn caused me to get decapitated! Don’t get too attached to your characters, death is only two bad rolls away.

The gameplay loop is survivors go on a hunt for a monster, they have a showdown with a monster, and a settlement phase where players grow their home base.

During the hunt players advance across event cards, some unique to the monster some generic. Events can be positive but they can be negative, some can move the monster or survivors closer or further away. You have to catch the monster before you reach the starvation space or there’s dire consequences. You are never safe in this game. In one event one of our hunters died and we had to go into the fight already down one party member.

Then you have the showdown. KDM has a legion of beautifully designed mini’s that are part of the experience. Each turn begins with the monster using an attack off the Monster AI deck. Then players move in and attempt to land wounds. Each wound removes a card from the Monster AI deck and we continue until we land a hit and the monster can’t remove any other cards.

This removes attacks from the deck as we wound the monster. And sometime attacks pop back on the deck. The gorm’s hiccup puts the monster in this endless loop of hiccuping until you land damage and its hilarious.

When you DO land a hit you aren’t dealing damage yet. You flip over a Hit Location (HL) card. There is a threshold required to deal a wound. If you fail to wound often there’s a repercussion that can kill you. Like the monster getting an extra attack. Then there’s TRAPS in the HL deck that can have lethal consequences (and one did!).

You take about two damage to a body part before rolling on debilitating effects tables (like ruptured spleen!) and there’s a lot of tables with a lot of bad things that can happen to you!

You will use your items and gear in coordination with your allies to down monsters for parts!

You will return to your settlement with all gear and any survivors and enter this settlement phase. Events happen here (that can kill you!) and you start smiths, shops, form societal ideals for passives, you construct a settlement in this hostile world and gather new population to your settlement (which are essentially your pool of lives).

After managing your gear, making new stuff, and managing different events youre off on a new hunt!

KDM is an incredibly wide game. Its Berserk + Monster Hunter. Its got a hilariously grotesque sense of humor (if you crit the lion’s balls it only targets you) and despite all the bad shit the game throws at you its more about managing complications than just suffering.

KDM has an incredible price point of $400 because the developers are entirely behind its big box identity, having incredible mini’s and production value. The price point makes it a hard sell BUT there are black friday and gencon deals that can reduce the price. If these big box games are something you enjoy I would look into KDM! Its a great time!

#Kdm #kingdom death monster #Board games #tabletop #grimdark

[maliro-t]

nat 20, crit fail, prep and tpk!

nat 20: What's the most memorable RP scene you've been a part of?

I know this is technically a question for me as a player but as a DM, there was an exchange with one of my players (in blue) as this little kid NPC (in red) after they'd saved him from a pretty horrible massacre that just went:

"Have you seen people die?"

"Yeah."

"Did you like them too?"

"Yeah. But there's nothing I could do for them. And they're happier where they are now."

"I wish you could be happy too."

"Yeah."

Which just got me real in my feelings about Mr. Mumford and made me real proud of his player :)

crit fail: Have you ever had a character death? What happened?

I personally have not! I think that's in part because the longest campaigns I've been in as a player were only over about 7 or eight months, so I haven't had a ton of opportunity to be thrust into mortal peril. Although I guess you never know lol, especially at lower levels.

prep: How much prep work do you do? How far out do you prep?

I would say it varies session to session, which is probably normal. I've played around with completely homebrewing some shorter sessions, but there honestly isn't a place for that in my work life balance, so I've turned to running published material (namely Curse of Strahd). That takes a lot of the burden of prep off, since I more rarely am designing things from scratch-- although I do my fair share of modification, and there still is plenty of stuff that I have to figure out myself! For most games I will make sure I have the sections that I will need from the book marked out and available, and especially if looks like it's gonna be a sort of open-ended RP game, I'll write out certain guidelines for myself into my campaign notebook so it's easier for me to keep track of things (I also do this for combat, in that I'll usually write a few lines about major figures' goals, if they're relevant, and maybe their first move or two). I try not to prep much beyond what I think will fit in a session (because I frankly don't have time), but sometimes I overestimate, and will end up with notes that last me three sessions. But beyond sort of vague notions of bigger picture building blocks that are moving in the background, I try to only prep stuff I think will be immediately pertinent. And I do trust my improv skills enough where a lot of that will be vague sketching! For example, in CoS there's a festival that's upcoming in one of the major cities, but the book has truly no information about what the festival itself entails beyond sort of a morbid procession, so I went into that game with an opening scene, a vague thought about ring toss, and a vague thought about local card sharks, and just kind of played it by ear from there. And it was one of our most fun games! I do prep a LOT for combat though-- we play on roll20 so I'm cobbling together maps (which usually will take an hour or so depending) and will often times write out entire stat blocks so I don't have to be looking for them. I do use the dnd beyond encounter tracker some of the time, but in big, complicated encounters, I find that can actually make my life extra confusing, so I do a lot of handwriting shit out on paper.

tpk: Have you ever had a game go completely off the rails? TPK? How did you adjust?

I did in fact facilitate a TPK in my current campaign which was !!!! yeah I would say off the rails is putting it mildly! The entire party was slaughtered by dire wolves, which was a random encounter on the way to a completely different objective so. very unexpected. It was one of those games that truly makes you feel insane, and it was almost entirely down to rolls-- I was rolling very well for these wolves (I think I crit 3 or 4 times?) and they were rolling extremely poorly. It was honestly easier for me that everyone went out than just a few people, because it meant that I could make on the fly decisions for the group and no one had to sit out the rest of the session. So, once the last person went down I gave everyone a kind of solo limbo vignette where we zeroed in on some character/backstory stuff for each of them, just to kind of settle everyone (which was really fun to do, especially since there's a lot they don't know about each other's histories, some more than others), and took a five minute recess to figure out what to do next-- I was lucky that unbeknownst to the party, they were on their way to knock on the door of a hag coven, who had their own reasons to want them alive, so I ended up having them all wake up as their captives. Congrats, you made it to where you were going! Sorry, you're still fucked! And THAT ended up being one of the most fun, intense encounters we've run. And I certainly am weaving some threads in the background about how exactly they survived and what the long-term consequences of that are.

#thank u truths! the whole list of questions is great #there are. definitely more off the rails examples i could have given #but u know the literal TPK was a big one #ask #impossibletruths #placeholder campaign tag #it speaks

[mothenbythighs]

And we're back! Doing these daily was kinda a pipe dream maybe one every 3 ish days. So the last few archetypes have been from adventure paths which is why they were a) uncommon and b) kind of under developed. And when I saw the next one is uncommon I was dreading it was the same thing, but this one is from Dark archive and while originally I thought it was just a clone of the vigilante archetype it's actually a lot more interesting than I gave it credit for.

Day 4: Alter Ego

To pick up the dedication you have to be trained in deception and stealth, you become expert in deception and get the assume a role action.

Assume a role is a giant block of text so let me try and simplify it a bit. If in the last 3 days you spent an hour studying someone visually you can impersonate that persons job better. You gain a +1 circumstance bonus to deception check to impersonate and a lore skill relating to the job you're impersonating, you can add your level to the proficiency of the lore skill. If you start studying someone else your impersonation ends (which i really don't like. Kinda goes against the fantasy for me)

So this archetype is trying to fit the master of disguise fantasy, unlike vigilante that gives you two identities this one let's you with just an hour of prep time become whatever you need for your undercover stealth mission. I especially love it giving you a lore skill for your role, if you impersonate a cook you actually become a good cook!

We're on the List is an uncommon skill feat that you can pick up if you're trained in society. If your ally fails a deception check to impersonate you can use society to aid them, if you succeed not only do they get the aid bonus they also get advantage on their roll (I know that's a 5e term idc). Honestly even tho this is really situational it's really good when it comes up, if you're playing this archetype this is is probably pretty good in your campaign. This feat is pretty firebrands themed, even mentioning a named character but I dont see why you couldn't reflavor it.

Change of Face is the first of a few of this archetypes feats that uses occult magic, it's a skill feat that lets you use illusions and transmutation to impersonate without a disguise kit. This is just cool tbh, its gonna come up exactly once when you get caught by a guard and they take your disguise kit from you but it'll be really cool when that does happen.

Our first non skill feat is Fake It Till You Make It. When you take on a role you get the same bonuses from your lore skill to 2 regular skills. Amazing! Sometimes there's not a lore skill that fits your role perfectly, if you impersonate a guard you're gonna want to be trained in athletics and intimidation.

Sound Mirror is weirdly good you can cast ghost sound, ventriloquism and silence as innate occult spells, the ladder two only once a day and silence can only be cast on yourself. Even with the only self silencing restriction this is just a basic X spellcasting that all the caster archetypes get. And all of them help with stealth which is exactly what you wanna be doing.

In Plain Sight is a skill feat that lets you use deception instead of stealth to avoid notice. Sure! Your stealth is probably pretty good but your deception is probably a little better especially with your dedications +1

Swap reflection is the sickest shit I've seen in my life once every 10 minutes for two actions you swap your reflection with an enemy in 120 feet and then your reflection pulls them into the reflection, they make a Will save with the incapacitation trait

Muscle mimicry is a skill feat that needs master in deception and trained in athletics. If you saw an enemy perform any of the athletic maneuvers you can use a reaction to get a +1 circumstance bonus to using that same maneuver, or a plus 2 if they crit but you lose the bonus if you don't use it in your next turn. The timing restriction makes this kinda awkward to use but god it's so cool god it's so fucking cool you get to copy their move but do it better it's so fucking cool.

On a crit success nothing happens

On a success you either swap places with them or you warp adjacent to them whichever they prefer

On a failure it's the same as success but it's whichever you prefer instead

On a crit failure you swap places with them and they become trapped in their own reflection for one minute AND HAVE TO SPEND ACTIONS TO MAKE WILL SAVES TO GET OUT

I know they're rarely gonna crit fail and the incapacitation trait makes it kinda situational but like come on how can you not love this. The only way it could've been better is if it also dealt damage to the target somehow

Illusory Identity is a giant wall of text but tldr it's another uncommon firebrands feat and during your daily preparation you can take a blank piece of paper and create fake documentation for whatever identity you want, more complex documents need a more time. A creature that sees the documentation has to make a Will save to see if they believe it or disbelieve the illusion. Sure

Borrow Memories is an uncommon feat that lets you cast Mind Probe as an innate occult spell once a day, if you use the spell on the person you're studying for assume a role you can delay the effect of the spell until you assume the role if you do you can sustain it up to ten minutes, each time you sustain it you ask the target a question and you might get the answer answer. Yeah I can see why this is uncommon this can easily break campaigns. Really cool tho

Finally for our capstone at level 14 it's another uncommon firebrands feat It Was Me All Along! For one action if your identity is hidden you can remove your disguise stride up to your speed and feint a target in 30 feet and if you succeed you get advantage on your first attack against them that round. Kinda disappointing for a capstone, don't get me wrong it's a good effect but like at level 14 people are picking up feats like whirlwind strike and this is kinda disappointing in comparison. Gotta in the top 10 feat names in the game tho

This archetype honestly surprised me. It's flavor is amazing the mechanics back that up really well it has a lot of skill feats which you don't see very often in archetypes and all of the occult magic gives it an interesting depth with stuff like Swap Reflection just a slam dunk outta the park with this one. Alter ego is the first archetype to get my patented Underrated Archetype seal of approval.

For the best class to use this my pick goes the Investigator, you can go on undercover investigations so the flavor is outta the park, and mechanically you have a high int so you'll be good at using your role lore skill and you get a lot of skills so you can impersonate them even better.

#moth talkin about pf2e archetypes #pf2e #pathfinder

[switch]

How much do you know about FGO E-sports (F-Sports, if you will)? Do you have any general tips for team-building?

i am fgo esports. it’s what i do. my sheer love for it is damn near the only reason i still play the game and don't just look at fanart.

general tips are sort of... difficult to give, because different servants and different fights can have very different needs, especially as we’re going to approach the super high difficulty 1 million+ HP quests next year. the best general advice i can give is units who don't have card based buffs that i consider "esports units".

if you gave me a more specific unit or a specific fight, i could give much more targeted and less... insane-sounding advice. honestly, in a lot of ways, planning is more vital than teambuilding. you have to plan ahead of time to be able to teambuild successfully in a lot of fights.

depending on what unit you're using for damage, identify their best universal support, and then go down the list of more situational supports. obtain or use as many of them as possible. if you're doing esports with vlad, you want castoria, then oberon, then avalon, then johanna, then tamamo, then douman, etc. if you're doing esports with moriarty, you want koyanskaya, then oberon, then merlin, then douman, then skadi ruler, etc etc.

gamepress' command chain calculator isn't... 100% accurate or ideal, but it will give you a good idea of what supports/CE you need, or if the fight is even possible, and if it is, exactly what needs to happen for it to be possible (what cards do you need to draw, and when? when do you need crits? do you need a high roll? does a support need to die on a certain turn? etc). if you're not sure about a fight, test some possibilities in there. it's a useful tool even if not ideal.

if this is something you want to do more than just once or twice, do your damnedest to NP5 your damage unit, and 3 append them or 2 append them if they're a zerker (WITHOUT spending money do not spend a cent on this game). you might be able to fudge the NP level if they're a strong unit with super effective damage like scathach or kriemhild, but you may still hit a wall if you want to do the 1 million HP fights. it sucks if they're not free, but i failed the beni-enma new years CQ just because my moriarty wasn't NP5. nothing else in the game scales as well as a servant's core np damage modifier, and it will save you a lot of damage RNG. basically, you have to carefully save and plan your rolls for non-free damage units and supports.

get in the habit of under-leveling your support units, and saving multiple copies of welfare supports (unless said welfare's most valuable buff is tied to their NP level like santa martha, but this is rare). my castoria is only level 70, my koyanskaya will also be. my lady avalon will only be level 50 because her third skill offers no offensive value! if you're doing esports, you want to create as many opportunities for support units to die as you can, and prioritize a support unit's offensive skills. sometimes you may be up against an enemy that can't even kill a third ascension bunyan, so you'll need a spare bunyan who's only level 1. units who have a strong offensive support skill in their first one or two slots (avalon) are a godsend.

plan ahead AT LEAST by one year by looking at the fgo wiki for more specific needs. do you want to do 7 turn kiara? you'll probably need asclepius and reines, so figure out a good time to roll for them. regular or super high difficulty anastasia? you need invuln pierce, try to find a way to get your hands on calamity jane or make sure you have origin bullet. regular or super high difficulty junao? look into your options for anti-divine and anti-lawful damage. you may not be able to do everything if you're f2p, so try to prioritize fights you care about or ones that never rerun (e.g. kiara is always available, so you can always build towards her).

the best scaling buffs in the game are NP damage, super effective (vs class, attribute, etc) damage, and then crit damage.

your best CE's will be either NP damage or SE damage ones. as long as no funny business is going on, nothing beats even a non-MLB black grail. sometimes you'll need 50% starting ones, sometimes you'll have to use 0% starting ones to maximize damage. similarly with support servants, identify your best damage CE's, level them to 100 or whatever highest level you have on them, and then go down the list. look up how to make CE EXP bombs if you have to. assume you'll probably need a pierce invuln/defense CE at some point, as well as anti-divine.

other general "esports supports" (for the value of their buffs and optionally ability to be underleveled) include chiron, bunyan, santa nightingale (she's damn near mandatory for 7 turn kiara), santa martha, nobukatsu, mozart, gong, lanling, jane, xu fu, rider vinci, and paracelsus. they're good for cost.

you're probably going to be relying on a mix of crits and NP damage most of the time to clear an esports fight, unless you get into the extremely high difficulty shit, in which case you're going to have to lean more on NP damage and/or SE damage.

get oberon.

#switch speaks #fate

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

17 30 and 32! (In case it didnt go thru before oop)

As a matter of fact it did not! I thought ask-eating days were behind us, but I guess some things never change.

17. they’re crying—what did it take to make them cry?

Failure, especially if related to something she promised someone. Frustrated, angry tears at being unable or in some way powerless to help someone she cares about are a good bet.

A particular in-game incident? This one time, Ez failed some checks and got possessed by a vengeful spirit during a particularly unpleasant series of encounters towards the end of the campaign when we made Strahd Fucking Pissed. So she started attacking the already pretty run down party and, of course, she went for Ramiel first because that's peak drama, right? And of course she rolled a crit with her rapier (to add insult to grievous injury, Ez usually rolled like garbage whenever we had her with us). So Ramiel, adamantly refusing to actually fight her and being a wee bit Utena-stabbed just then, held onto her and cried on her a bit. It was great, a deadly reflection of previous fun bonding sparring sessions they’d had, thematically resonant, all of that. I love playing these games, man.

I did write her having a good post-back-from-the-dead cry here.

Another specific incident that comes to mind is something that happened while we were playing out our little epilogue in Barovia, tying up loose ends and such. In the catacombs of the big bad evil castle there’s a whole maze of crypts, a lot of which are traps, or cool items for adventurers to find, or just awful puns - or all of the above. In particular, there is one haunted by the ghost of a person with a horribly punny name obsessed with flying and making some sort of winged contraption. I believe the idea is a player character opens that specific crypt, fails a save, then gets controlled by this ghost and tries to leap into the chasm below the castle in an attempt to fly. So while clearing out the castle after its master’s defeat, we came upon this crypt, and Ramiel deliberately failed the save, used her once-per-day one-minute glowy aasimar wings ability, took the ghost on a little spin around the castle towers in the bright glorious newly-restored sunlight, finally letting them find peace. Was it her or the ghost shedding a few tears as this happened? Probably both of them. I realise this is a joke/trap, but it actually turned out really touching and genuine and post-big bad defeat cathartic.

30. how do they handle confrontation?

Oh, that’s an easy one. 100% RIGHTEOUS ANGER. Was managed down to a fuming, angry simmer during extra touchy incidents later on, but only with great effort.

32. which of your decisions led to their voice being the way it is?

Hm, we don't really do voices too much. Funny NPCs sometimes, PCs not really. We did have little hype sounds for our VTT for when your turn would pop up in combat! Hers was a snippet of some angelic choir or other overlaid with a shinkkkk of a sword being drawn. It was pretty fun to make.

Speech-wise, were Ramiel to give some sort of inspiring, rousing speech bolstered by her super high charisma score, it wouldn't be based on fancy wordplay, or refined, thought-through oratory or trained speechcraft (our artificer is into all that and also high-stakes international diplomacy, hah). It would just be clear, straightforward, no-nonsense, and absolutely agonisingly earnest. The kind of… you just want to believe it, right?

My favourite thing about the way paladins and the whole "holy knight" concept were done in 5e was that it wasn't tied to a patron deity or similar. The oaths are essentially… believe in your beliefs and stick to your convictions so hard it literally gives you supernatural powers. Probably my favourite take on paladins and the one with the most personal appeal is Pathfinder’s Virtuous Bravo (the swash! the panache!), but Oath of Devotion is absolutely up there.

After finishing the actual Curse of Strahd adventure, we moved from 5e to Ironsworn/Starforged and let me tell you, this gal is all Heart.

#ask meme #blorbos from my tabletops #oathkeeper replies to things #gonna take my horse to the old svalich road #ramiel #dnd #tabletop #curse of strahd #jeejyboard #jeej got my back always!!! thank you

[sun-critrole]

Inspired by extracandy’s awesome twitter thread about the passage of time in Campaign 2, I thought I would utilize Critrolestats’ exhaustive data pool to have some fun.

Keep in mind that the data we have access to is skewed, since it depends upon the players self-reporting their rolls. Not every natural roll is announced out loud. These numbers are also only correct up through episode 139.

The way I’ve chosen to interpret the data is using ratios. Theoretically, if you roll a d20 a lot and record all the times it lands on a 1 or on a 20, those numbers should be about the same. On a 20-sided die, you would expect each face to pop up about once every 20 rolls (about 5% of the time).

I did a quick sample of this: I rolled a d20 200 times. I rolled 13 nat 20s and 10 nat 1s, which is pretty close to what the statistics told me to expect. My 20-to-1 ratio was 1.3 to 1. This means, for every nat 1 I rolled, I also rolled 1.3 nat 20s. That’s a really small sample size, but each of the CR cast has rolled a d20 way more than 200 times in Campaign 2. (If I kept rolling forever, I would expect my ratio to eventually be 1 to 1 - for every natural 1 I rolled, I also rolled about 1 natural 20.)

Of the crits and crit fails acknowledged on stream, Beau has the most of both. This tracks - monks roll a lot of attacks! 136 nat 20s divided by 104 nat 1s place her success-to-failure ratio at roughly 1.30 to 1. That’s about the same as what I got in my small practice roll session.

Do that math for every player character, and here are the numbers you get:

Beau - 1.30:1

Fjord - 1.58:1

Caleb - 1.23:1

Nott/Veth - 0.95:1

Jester - 0.75:1

Yasha - 1.09:1

Caduceus - 1.45:1*

Mollymauk - 2.27:1*

*Here, the math begins to break down a bit. Mollymauk only ever rolled 11 natural 1s and 25 nat 20s, which is a pretty small sample size compared to the rest. I would say that even Cad’s 29 natural 1s is too small. If we add all Taliesin’s rolls for the whole game, across both characters, we get a far more reasonable 1.68:1.

Matt’s DM rolls are a much bigger sample size, as he rolls more than any given player character in most sessions. His ratio comes in at 1.96:1. Nat 20s are announced by Matt about twice as often as nat 1s.

There are some fun questions brought up by looking at this set of data.

Why is it that most players have announced more nat 20s than nat 1s?

I can guess that most of it has to do with mechanics. The CR cast doesn’t tend to have something awful happen with every critical failure, like dropping a weapon instead of attacking. There isn’t much of a difference between rolling a 1 or a 2 on a perception check - they both fail. However, when rolling a natural 20, you do the best you possibly can do. Matt has chosen to sometimes grant players special rewards for rolling a nat 20 on a skill check. This doesn’t even take into account that, in combat, nat 20s do double dice damage, so they are always announced. Nat 1s may often be glossed over with a “No, that doesn’t hit” comment. 

If that’s the case, why is Sam’s and Ashley’s ratios about equal for 20s and 1s?

I think a lot of the variation in ratios here comes down to play style. Sam loves to fail, as proven by his refusal to re-roll 1s as a halfling. The 1s are just as fun as the 20s for him, so it makes sense that he’s announcing them at roughly the same rate. I may be wrong in this, since it’s not tracked by Critrolestats, but I feel like Ashley is more likely to announce her natural rolls, regardless of the result? If that’s the case, it makes sense that her number would also be closer to a statistically balanced ratio. Again, this comes down to how she chooses to play.

Okay  so, why is Laura’s ratio so messed up?

And to this, dear reader, I have no answer. Maybe someone with more math knowledge than me can talk about statistical significance. Jester has rolled 61 nat 20s and 81 nat 1s. Maybe that’s too small a sample size to really get helpful data from. Maybe the way Laura plays means she is more likely to announce nat 1s, because she is more disappointed in her dice.

But maybe, just maybe, Laura Bailey’s dice bag is cursed. Not quite Wil Wheaton mega cursed, but cursed all the same.

#critrolestats is my savior #all my homies love critrolestats #critical role #math #wil wheaton dice curse #long post

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #172

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re making Rider of Resistance, a.k.a. a good reason as to why Type Moon should just... stop. Just stop, please, this is an intervention. As usual, expect spoilers below the cut, which is where you can find his build breakdown. Otherwise, check out his character sheet over here!

Next up: She’s a lumberjack, and she’s okay!

Christopher Columbus is a Gloom Stalker Ranger for a noble phantasm that lets him seek out whatever he desires as well as the smash and grab tactics the conquistadors are known for. He’s also a Swashbuckler Rogue to turn him into a high-seas swindler.

Race and Background

Cumulonimbus is a Human, but I want a feat so he’s a variant human instead. This gives him +1 Dexterity and Constitution, proficiency in Deception, and the Silver Tongued feat from unearthed arcana.This bumps your Charisma score up by 1, and you double your proficiency bonus when it comes to deception checks. You can also replace one of your weapon attacks with a contested skill check: your deception vs. their insight. If you succeed, you can move without provoking attacks from them, and your attacks have advantage against them until the end of your next turn. If you fail, they’re sick of your shit for an hour, and can’t be deceived in this way.

Unsurprisingly, Columbus is a Sailor, which gives him proficiency with Athletics and Persuasion. We’re changing things up a bit here, but you’ll need that silver tongue on longer voyages.

Ability Scores

Columbo’s highest stat is his Charisma; he’s a very clever leader, and an even more clever liar. Second is Wisdom, it’s like he can search things out using magic or something. If you’re going to survive a long ship voyage, your Constitution has to be solid as well. For your sealegs we’ll make your Dexterity better than average. That also helps with you running into fights wearing regular clothes. Your Strength isn’t that great, but we’re dumping Intelligence. We just don’t need it.

Class Levels

1. Ranger 1: Starting off as a ranger is cool, it gives you proficiency with Strength and Dexterity saves, as well as three ranger skills; Investigation for up close “treasure hunting”, and Perception to spot land just that little bit faster. You should also grab Stealth proficiency, it’ll make surviving in Chaldea a lot easier.

You would have gotten more skills by starting as a rogue, but starting here gives you extra health as well as Favored Enemies. Grab the two kinds of humanoids most akin to natives in your setting for advantage on survival and intelligence checks about them.

You’re also a Deft Explorer, which at level 1 makes you Canny with Deception checks, doubling your proficiency bonus. Take a shot every time I double your deception proficiency. You’ll take 3 shots, but that’s exponential, so it adds up quick. It’s still level 1, and you’ve got a +11 to deception, that’s pretty damn good.

2. Ranger 2: Second level rangers can get the Mariner fighting style, adding 1 to your AC while out of heavy armor, and giving you a swimming speed so getting knocked overboard isn’t a game over.

You can also cast Spells now using your Wisdom to cast them. Hunter’s Mark is a gimme since we’re not taking Favored Foe, but we’re also dipping into a third Unearthed Arcana for Wild Cunning, a ritual spell that gives you one of several effects. There’s a lot, but they mostly boil down to finding stuff important to survival more easily.

3. Ranger 3: As a Gloom Stalker ranger, you know the benefits of getting the drop on people better than anyone. Your Dread Ambusher takes the chillage out of your pillage by adding your wisdom modifier to your initiative rolls. Also on your first turn you get an extra 10′ of movement, you get an extra weapon attack, and that extra attack deals more damage. The conquistadors weren’t called the conquistadors because they were bad at conquisting.

You also get Umbral Sight thanks to all those nights of watching for the shore, making your dumb human eyes less dumb thanks to Darkvision. On top of seeing in the dark, you also count as invisible to any other creatures that rely on darkvision while in the shadows. Chris doesn’t have his own evade to be fair, but honestly with all the races having darkvision humans get screwed over so much that I’m willing to overlook it this time.

For this level’s spells, Hail of Thorns will give you some light weapons fire from your trusty ship. You also get Disguise Self for free from being a gloom stalker. It’s not in character, but again it’s free, and god knows you’d put it to good use.

4. Ranger 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to grab the Piercer feat, rounding up your dexterity for a bigger modifier and the ability to re-roll one die of piercing damage per turn. Also, your piercing crits deal an extra die of damage when they hit now!

5. Ranger 5: Fifth level rangers get an Extra Attack each attack action. You can still only use a crossbow once per turn, but you’ve got a sword, I’m not worried.

You also get second level spells! Locate Object is what we’re here for, but you also learn Rope Trick for free. Camping equipment was nice, but it’s time we set out for real treasure.

6. Rogue 1: Bouncing over to rogue gives you proficiency with Sleight of Hand, so you can finally get those darn eggs to stand straight. I don’t know why they made a Portuguese man obsessed with a Chinese myth, but whatever.

You also get Expertise in two skills, Perception will help you spot land faster, and Deception is basically just a meme at this point. Both of them get their proficiency bonus doubled. If you really wanted a crazy modifier out the gate you could’ve done this at second level for a +19 to deception, but instead you get it here for a +27. At this point you could totally lead someone on for the entirety of a pseudosingularity and not break a sweat! Not that you would, obviously.

You can also Sneak Attack with ranged/finesse weapons (hey, look at your arsenal, what a coincidence) to deal an extra 1d6 damage to creatures that are next to allies or that you have advantage over. As the men of Agartha could say, you don’t fight fair.

Also: Thieves’ Cant. It’s a language.

7. Rogue 2: Second level rogues get Cunning Action, so now you can dash, disengage, or hide as an action. You’re always moving forward. And sometimes, “forward” means “as far away from the people you’ve conned as possible”.

8. Rogue 3: Is making a sailor a Swashbuckler stereotypical? Probably. Either way your Fancy Footwork means you can ignore attacks of opportunity from creatures you’ve made a melee attack against, and your Rakish Audacity adds your charisma modifier to your initiative rolls. So now your initiative can be added to your growing list of character traits with silly modifiers thanks to its +8. Also, you can sneak attack against creatures when you’re dueling them.

Also also, your sneak attack is 2d6 now.

9. Rogue 4: Use this ASI to bump up your Dexterity for more accurate attacks and less accurate attacks against you.

10. Rogue 5: Use your Uncanny Dodge to get those sea legs working, dodging well enough as a reaction to avoid half the damage from an attack. And your attacks are scarier now, thanks to a 3d6 sneak attack!

11. Rogue 6: Use this round of Expertise to double up on Persuasion to figure how where people keep their valuables and Sleight of Hand to slip them into your pockets while no one’s looking.

12. Rogue 7: Admittedly, Chrissy Boy doesn’t have an evade skill, but he does get Evasion anyway, making his failed dexterity saves deal half damage and successes deal 0. I mean his guts arguably does the same thing at low health, but now we’re quibbling.

Also, 4d6 on sneak attack.

13. Rogue 8: We’ll go back to ranger soon, but first grab another ASI to bump up your Wisdom, speeding up your initiative and making your spells a bit stronger.

14. Ranger 6: It’s been a while, huh? You get another two humanoids to add to your Favored Enemies so you can terrorize a wider swath of natives, as well as Roving from the Deft Explorer goodiebag to speed yourself up and swim no matter what you’re wearing.

15. Ranger 7: Seventh level Gloom Stalkers have an Iron Mind, helping you keep your head on straight even during long voyages. Or against wisdom saves. Honestly the latter’s way more common, let’s go with wisdom saves. You have proficiency now, is what I’m saying.

We’ve also been seriously neglecting your magical damage, so pick up Magic Weapon so you aren’t mostly useless against a demon.

16. Ranger 8: Use this ASI to bump up your Dexterity one more time for better guns and AC. You can also use Martial Versatility to swap out your Mariner fighting style since it overlaps with roving, but I like it where it is. To be fair you could also make Columbus a Triton barbarian, but then he wouldn’t be Columbus.

You also learn Land’s Stride, which lets you ignore nonmagical difficult terrain, and you have advantage against magical difficult terrain like the one caused by Entangle.

17. Ranger 9: Ninth level rangers get third level spells like Conjure Barrage, which lets you conjure... a barrage. Like Hail of Thorns, this is basically your cannons firing off in the background. You also learn Fear for free. That smile is pretty creepy, after all.

18. Rogue 9: Ninth level swashbucklers get another feature, Panache, letting you make a persuasion check against a creature’s insight as an action. If they’re friendly, they become charmed. If they’re unfriendly, they have disadvantage on other creatures, and can’t make opportunity attacks against other creatures.

Personally I like Silver Tongued’s version better for combat, but the added utility is nice. Also, 5d6 sneak attack. That’s important.

19. Rogue 10: Grab the Tough feat with your last ASI for an extra 38 HP now and two more at level 20. You’ve survived at sea for over a month without getting mutinied, and you’ve got guts. Literally.

20. Rogue 11: Eleventh level rogues get 6d6 sneak attack as well as Reliable Talent, meaning you can’t roll lower than a 10 when using skills you’re proficient with. This means you’re guaranteed to roll at least a 16 on Athletics, a 25 on Persuasion, and a 61 on Deception.

Pros:

You are really good at deception. Like, ridiculously good. Like, literally can’t fail good. A minimum roll of over 60, in a game where DC 30 “nearly impossible”, is dumb. Especially since you can weaponize that check thanks to your UA feat.

Speaking of, if you’re willing to only make 1.5 attacks a turn instead of 2, you’ve basically got guaranteed advantage thanks to that feat.  That’s really useful when it comes to setting up your sneak attacks.

You’re also pretty tanky, with almost 200 HP and most of the rogue’s abilities to avoid damage. You don’t have your own healing, but I’m sure you can talk Medea into helping out.

Cons:

Your casting modifier is only a +3, so your spells aren’t as strong as they could be. Most of them don’t use your modifier at all, but expect your cannons to be a bit lackluster.

You will never need to roll a 61 on deception. You could have used that Canny on another skill to make two skills busted, but when you gotta flex you gotta flex.

You are playing Christopher Columbus.

#fate grand order #FGO #dnd 5e #D&D #Rider of Resistance

[quasieli]

top six: fictional characters that give you gender envy, flowers, little things that make you happy and d&d moments :D

Ooh lotsa questions!

Gender Envy:

1) Bow from She-Ra (2018). Something about buff athletic dude who wears crop tops and is soft as hell is very Gender to me.

2) Vax from Critical Role. Pretty boy, kinda goth rogue? That’s sexy as hell and I wish that was me. 

3) In a wildly different idea of gender envy, I’ve been thinking about it lately and @quantum-lesbian’s character in the Frostmaiden game I’m in with them, Ambrose, is Big Gender. Beautiful non-binary drow with a starry and kinda witchy aesthetic that dresses super grandly and ostentatiously no matter the occasion? Yes please.

4) Pete from The Unsleeping City, specifically season two. I adore season one Pete but season two Pete that works in a queer bookshop and has a teapot arcane focus, is artsy and is unapologetically a trans man who doesn’t give a shit about gender roles? Sign me the fuck up.  

5) Beau from Critical Role. Buff GNC lesbian mixed with academia, but like academia from the prospective of a grad student with ADHD trying to learn everything about their special interests? A+, I love her and I’m jealous. 

6) I’m gonna cheat a lil bit for this last one. I know the prompt is fictional characters, but Julia Lepetit and Jacob Andrews in their Hitman streams? Simultaneously both of them were Gender for me. Jacob esp felt like that for me, which is weird cause dresses can make me dysphoric, but I am also slightly envious of the Dude in a Dress type of gender presentation. 

Can you tell that I’m a confused trans masc enby

Gonna put it under the cut from here cause oof, there’s still a lot more.

Flowers:

1) Big slut for Sunflowers, always have been, always will be.

2) Fun fact, my dad’s family used to own a flower shop (in like the 70s, so I never got to see it :(), and one of their big things was hydrangeas. My dad has always loved them and now I love the snowballs too!  

3) A recent favorite, the Baker’s Globe Mallow. It’s a type of flower that only grows from the soils of forests that have been affected by wildfires. It’s a simple little flower but I love the idea of something beautiful rising from the ashes after tragedy. A little dramatic, but I’m queer, ofc I’m dramatic.

4) Roses are another important flower to my family (Rose was a family name for a couple generations), and ya know, they’re a classic. 

5) There’s this beautiful magnolia tree in front of my house that blooms with the most beautiful white and pink flowers every spring, and it’s one of my favorite things to see every year. 

6) There’s so many different types of Lillies and they’re all very pretty, but the Purple Stargazer is prob my favorite.

Little Things That Make Me Happy:

1) My cat, Maddie. She may be a cranky girl at times, but she is also very sweet and will always be my baby (even though she is 12). 

2) Not a little thing really, but my best friend. Just getting a sweet/silly text from her or the two of us chilling in a room, sitting in a comfortable silence because we just like being together, nothing better. 

3) Baking, esp if I’m doing it for others. I’m not much of a sweets person myself, a little treat every once in a while type person, but I love baking. It’s a very relaxing process for me, even when it can sometimes get stressful, but seeing people enjoying something I made, especially something that brought me great joy to make, is simply the best. 

4) In the same sorta vein, crafting and other art, but that’s a bit more personal. I love making things for others, but art, particularly drawing, is something I do more for me. It’s such a great feeling when you can get into a really good art mood and just sink yourself into a project. I love it.

5) My plush toys. Yes, I am a 23 year old, no I will not stop loving my plushies. I just got a few new friends, which I made a post about recently, and they such good cuddle buddies. However, there is one king amongst them all. I have this old, beat up christmas puppy beanie baby, on his tag named Jingle Pup, but I just call him Jingle. I had one version of him since I was like 6, but he currently lives on a shelf cause he is very beaten up and fragile, but his “brother”, who I got when I was 8, is still in kinda good shape and is currently chilling on my chest as I type this lol.

6) Again, not a little thing, but it’s important to mention; D&D. The game itself is such a joy, but truly the best part of it is the people. I love creating stories and memories with people through this weird little game. Truly one of my favorite things to do.

D&D Moments:

These are all gonna be personal moments, rather than anything from actual play shows/podcasts. RC is Reforged Campaign, where I play Saube, and FM is Frostmaiden, where I play Sparks.

1) RC - Meeting Mahety, Saube’s girlfriend. We met her way back in session 12 and we are now up to like session 73. Saube saw her and was immediately big heart eyes at her but also felt a bit awkward and shy. So, being a game a dice, I decided to roll. 10 or higher, Saube would talk to her, 9 or lower, she’d stay put. I rolled a 17, 17 is now a lucky number for me. I love Mahety and I’d die for her. 

2) FM - This was an insane fight that should not have been so crazy, but in a fairly early session, my group went up against an angry druid and her awakened animals. So much batshit stuff happened in that fight, and we unfortunately lost our bread loving bard (RIP Agneyis), but one of my favorite combat turns happened in this fight. Our artificer, Omaren, has a robe of useful items and one of the patches on it creates a large pit. Thinking quickly, Omaren tore off the patch, slid it under one of the dire wolves we were fighting and created a looney tunes style pit under it, allowing us to take it out easily via pot shots. Such a clutch move and such a funny visual, especially because the dire wolf kept failing the checks to get out of the pit.  

3) RC - Saube’s Zebrith (I will never remember how this actually spelled RIP). So, for context, Saube ended up with a death curse (long story) that mechanically meant they had disadvantage on any death saving throws. Scary as hell, need to get that fixed! So, Saube and their party had to be smuggled into another country to talk with some religious leaders of a goddess known as The First, the goddess of death. They were told that Saube would have to go through the aforementioned ritual, which included her soul leaving her body for a short period of time. During this ritual, her friends had to call back to her, to say things that would bring her back to her body and I still cry thinking about that game. That ritual was not only important for Saube bodily, but spiritually as well. After that ritual, Saube officially became a cleric of The First! 

4) A real sappy one, RC - Saube meeting all of her friends. Anyone who follows along with the rantings on my blog probably knows how important this game is to me. I met this random group of strangers on tumblr and formed a D&D party with them and now, a year and a half later, I honestly think it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I know that sounds silly and dramatic but not only has this game brought me so much joy and comfort, but I also gained a group of really amazing friends who have been nothing but amazing since day one. As much as Saube knows she can depend on SICL, I know I can depend on my group of weirdos lol. We both love our friends very much and even though we’ve all been through some crazy shit, we wouldn’t change it for the world.    

5) RC - Just playing Saube in general. I really didn’t intend for it to be this way, but Saube is very much a reflection of myself. She is the first long term character I have ever played and so much of me is in her. I try not to treat D&D like therapy, because that’s unfair to my DM and fellow party members, but playing Saube has allowed me to work through some of my own problems, especially social anxiety, in a lot safer of an environment. It isn’t so much that I’m asking this game to help me fix my life, but playing out these scenarios that, in the real world, would make me anxious or make me freak out, I can stop, take a moment to breathe and work out these issues in a way that makes sense to me. Playing her has led me to understanding myself a bit better, as well, and that’s truly such a wonderfully unexpected gift from this whole experience. 

6) Lastly, a silly one: RC - Getting a crit 6. The last session of this game got real interesting. Saube’s party ended up in the ethereal plane and magic got real fucky there. So, any time any of us tried to cast a spell, we’d roll a d20, not look at the result, and then try to guess what number rolled. The closer to the number, the better the result. A few times, a few people managed to get within like 3 or 4 of their roll, but oh the power I felt when I rolled a 6 (on Saube’s die!) and guessed it correctly! So, not only did the spell (Bless) work, but it worked super well. So instead of getting +1d4 to attack rolls and saving throws, Saube and two other party members got +2d4 to attacks, saving throws and skill checks. So powerful I broke the rules of D&D lmao. 

#asks #ask games #floralprintshark #D&D #Flowers #Saube #Sauhety #SICL #Sparks #long post #thanks <3 <3

[beowulf22121]

Some D&D advice.

This is for all the minmaxers who have to hit things the hardest and have a perfect answer to everything.

What I remember about season 1 has nothing to do with dice rolls or combat.

It was the flash cards Pike made for Terry Darington to remember names. Most of the cast was having sex and Grog was showing off his junk.

But even more in my mind, it was the limerick Laura gave Sam in exchange for a magic item. From memory:

Have you heard the tales of Scanlan the Bard?

Or Burt Reynolds if you've read his card.

He always tries to get laid,

Sometimes with women he's made.

But we still respect him because rhyming is hard.

That's it. The best few moments from season 1. Not "How do you want to do this?" No dramatic death. Not any of the the series of crits or series of fails they had. No dice were involved, just some friends acting out characters at the table.

That's not to say combat wasn't dramatic.

Watching Liam sneak attack for 70+ on the regular and outstripping the 50+ from Travis on a solid hit was amazing, because then Travis would swing two more times for the same damage and you're like "Oh, Liam only does 1d4+dex on his next two..."

Seeing guests like Felicia Day use what a lot of power gamers call a utility spell to do 100 damage (150?) to a giant and basically make the hit of the day? Thats why disintegrate does damage along with its "clear 10 cubic feet of material" or whatever.

D&D was and is a combat game, and you need your character to survive to tell their story. But the story of wizard batman, and dumb guy with an axe? We've heard those.

Tell me the story of dumb guy with an axe, whos mom insisted he learn to cook so he can feed his friends. What's it take to get him to cook you something unprompted? How loyal is he? do friends change on a whim, 2 or 3 people rotating out every few days based on who complimented him last? or is a plate of food basically a lifelong brotherhood commitment?

Instead of Theify McStealstuff, let's hear about the kid raised to steal who went full cleric of life and spends her time dropping loot into peoples pockets ashe she casts remove disease.

Get out there and have fun your way, just make sure everyone else has fun as well.

#critrole #cr #cr1 #d&d

[itsbenedict]

Two-Faced Jewel: Session 4

A half-elf conwoman (and the moth tasked with keeping her out of trouble) travel the Jewel in search of, uh, whatever a fashionable accessory is pointing them at. [Campaign log]

Saelhen and Looseleaf, following their recent dance conquest, get back on the road to Thunderbrush- and get themselves wrapped up in a blood feud between rival farming villages. Before that, though... something goes bump in the night.

It's the night after the wedding reception, and the party has free rooms, courtesy of Carrid Bronzebloom. Looseleaf and Oyobi remain roomies, Vayen shares a room with Orluthe, and Saelhen insists on a room of her own, as a proper noblewoman.

Also as a proper noblewoman, she searches the room for any and all places of entry or exit, and places some ball bearings in front of them. It's just the window and the one door, so... two spots.

In the night...

A pair of crit fails, on the part of whoever's sneaking into her room at night, and on Saelhen's part to notice them! Saelhen, it seems, meant to sleep with one eye open, but the eyes disagreed on which one it should be, and she dozed off something fierce.

Which means that Oyobi, trancing in the adjacent room (elves don't sleep!) is the only one to hear Vayen bang his shin on something and go "ow!" in the middle of the night. Oyobi, however, has a -1 to int, and fails to recall exactly which rooms her other party members were in.

The next morning, Saelhen notices... that the ball bearings by the door have been disturbed. Even though the door was locked, and remained locked the whole time, someone was able to get into her room and pass the DC 10 dex check to not get knocked over by the ball bearings. Apart from that, though, nothing in her room is out of place or missing. Hm...

On the road, while Looseleaf is distracted buying a quarterstaff from a traveling merchant, Saelhen and Oyobi touch base on the situation in Thieves' Cant.

They're not taking action on this just yet, so they proceed onwards. The tall grass starts to thin out and get shorter- turning to prairie, and then almost scrubland as the climate gets more arid. It's here, as day turns to evening, that they approach a two-story building at a crossroads.

Benedict I. (GM): There's small buildings in the distance on either end of this road- and further up the highway, past the two-story building is a tall black stone tower that seems to be standing in a field, completely alone. As you approach the crossroads, you can see the sign- Wheatley General. And as you approach closer, you can see the vandalism. Some sort of yellowish-white paint has been used to write "EAT SHIT, TRAITOR" across the left half of the building's exterior, and the glass windows have holes in them. Across the right side is similar vandalism, in a more brownish-yellow paint, reading "SWINDLER INSIDE". To the left of the store is a sign pointing off to the left, northwest, reading "<- Barley". And to the right of the store is a sign pointing off to the right, southeast, reading "Wheat ->".

Inside, the place is cleaner than the outside, and fairly well-stocked for a general store in the boonies. At the counter is a very tall and very tired-looking person- either an especially tall human or a very lanky goliath.

(Most of the session is interrogating this dude.)

He tells them that they have rooms for rent, and that they're open 24 hours. Also, he warns them not to visit Wheat or Barley- apparently, they've got some kind of blood feud going on, and there's a lot of hate directed his way for trying to be neutral in the conflict.

Looseleaf: "What... are they paranoid about?" Benedict I. (GM): "Each other, mostly." Looseleaf: "And wwwwwwhy are they paranoid about each other," Benedict I. (GM): "If you go down there, they're gonna interrogate you to make sure you're not sent by the other guys to kill people." "Oh, uh, the killing people." "The murders and stuff." Looseleaf: "OKAY you could have LED with that," Looseleaf says, flipping her antennae forward and backwards. Benedict I. (GM): "They keep, I don't know, killing each other, over pointless stuff." "And getting angrier and angrier about it." "S'why I left and set up here. Tired of it." "Didn't... really help, though." "As you can probably see." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Ah. One of the sad affairs where each death is the next death's cause." Saelhen lowers her eyes. "In my country, we call such things ばかげたナンセンス."

Looseleaf's not sure this adds up. She wants to know why he set up shop in a place he hates, rather than just pack up and leave. His excuse is that his little sister is still in Barley, and he needs to stay here so that she has someplace to go if things get worse for her.

Looseleaf: "Wh- why are you letting your little sister stay in a place where people are apparently regularly dying- you're painting this place up to be a warzone, that's how you're making it sound?" "Seriously, why not just, I don't know, book it for Blacksky. It's not that far a travel from here." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "You assume he can compel her to leave, Madam Looseleaf." Looseleaf: "Or, even the port town upwards the road from here. That's where we're going too; if it's inability to leave keeping you here, we could take you with us?" Benedict I. (GM):"It's... ugh. It's not that bad. Just like... I don't know, they all act like it's not happening, until it does." "Nobody will admit to killing anyone, even if they'll talk all day about how the other side deserves to die." "Too polite for it."

Saelhen declares that she'll confer with her companions on what to do about all this- but the shopkeep insists that he didn't ask them to do anything. It's not their problem, and it's better to not get involved.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Ah, of course. I forget myself in this exotic lands. No one has asked anyone to do anything. Yes, Oyobi? Vayen?" Benedict I. (GM): Vayen has no response. "It... sounds like something should be done, though," Oyobi says. "If it's a monster, I can kill it dead!" The tall guy sighs. "You're Deathseekers, aren't you?" "You're looking for a quest." "But I can't pay, so... just forget it."

Looseleaf is entirely on board with this guy's pitch- why should they get involved?

While they're deliberating, there's a mysterious thump from the back of the store. Thalath asks them to please wait while he deals with the situation- so of course they peek at what he's doing.

Thalath piles up a few armfuls of groceries, and brings them to the backdoor, where, waiting for him, sits... a wheelbarrow. Which wiggles expectantly.

Thalath, unsurprised by this ("...Still the usual."), exchanges the groceries for a sack of coin left in the wheelbarrow, which trundles away, satisfied.

Anyway, this is unremarkable, so the party continues deliberating on what to do. Looseleaf theorizes that the murders are being committed by some unknown monster preying on both towns, which would be far too dangerou-

Oyobi is super down for night-monster hunting, and votes that they interfere. Orluthe volunteers because he just wants to help people (and not because he wants to fight monsters, surely), and Saelhen wants to get involved because getting tangled up in a clan war might provide an opportunity to get rid of Vayen somehow.

Vayen votes to get involved, too.

That... doesn't bode well. But, uh, the votes are the votes! Looseleaf is determined to do this right, if they're doing it.

Looseleaf: Get a sheet of parchment out, start taking notes. "We're investigating apparently now!" is what Looseleaf says. "Now, tell me everything you know about these mysterious deaths." "The great detective Looseleaf is on the case." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Cultural studies," adds Saelhen. "This will make fascinating material for a thesis on standing intergenerational grudges." Benedict I. (GM): "Wh- oh, god. That's- studies? Don't tell me you're from the University..." Saelhen du Fishercrown: Better than deathseekers! Benedict I. (GM): "I should've known when you said "run to Blacksky" and not "run to Oyashio"..." "I mean... I guess they'll know you're out-of-towners for sure." "So you probably won't get run out on a rail." "But... you really don't want to get involved. It's just heartbreak no matter where you look."

They put the screws I mean persuasion rolls to Thalath, and manage to get some information out of him:

His sister's name is Kensa, but if they go around asking about her, they'll know it was him who put them up to it, so please don't

There've been honor killings on and off for a while, but there's been a sudden and severe uptick in killings in Barley over the past year.

Barley's victims are all found in their fields, with four evenly-spaced holes in their chests, in a diamond pattern- and sometimes the bodies go missing.

He doesn't know much about Wheat's murders ("you'd have to ask Sass", but he heard dogs were involved.

There's a new killing around once a week now- usually on the outskirts, not in the town center.

The local authority in Barley is one Malath Kanthalga, cleric of Diamode, who's huge and has four fingers on her right hand.

Looseleaf: "What are the local authority forces like? Who would usually be responsible for handling deaths like this? Is there an Ecumene in charge of this town?" Benedict I. (GM): He nods, and grimaces. "Malath Kanthalga. Cleric of Family, in Barley. You'll be able to recognize her because she's gigantic and only has four fingers on her right hand." "If it's not three, by now." "She's the one in charge of witchhunts and telling people how to live their lives."

Looseleaf puts two and two and a DC 15 Religion check together to come to a conclusion. To the Ecumene of Diamode, which puts family first, losing a child is like losing a finger from your hand. Consequently, under Diamode law: to disown a child, you legally have to cut off one of your fingers. Given that, and what Thalath said about emphatically not being a Kanthalga, it's likely he was disowned.

On their way out, they notice the wheelbarrow trundling towards that weird black tower down the road- and Looseleaf pops back in to ask Thalath about it.

Looseleaf: "What's with the ominous black tower looming over everything in the distance like an evil villain's lair in a storybook," Looseleaf belts out rapidly. Benedict I. (GM):"Wh- oh, that?" "That's just- don't go over there, either." "That's just- there's some crazy torture wizard, stay the hell away if you can help it." Looseleaf: "There's a crazy torture wizard, and he buys groceries from you?" "And... nobody's thought to pin all the mysterious deaths on the ominous crazy torture wizard with an evil tower?"

Thalath seems convinced there's no way it could be the crazy torture wizard in the spooky tower. Reasons being:

you can't torture people if they're dead

he doesn't bother anyone anymore, since people got mad at him kidnapping people and then got mad at him trying to trick people into volunteering

he hasn't been seen in at least a year

he's totally senile and couldn't possibly get away with dozens of murders without being caught

Looseleaf suggests that maybe this guy is dead, killed by one of his own creations, and that monster is responsible for the murders. Thalath doesn't think that's possible either- he's clearly still alive, right? Someone's doing magical lightshows up in that tower every night, and someone's putting sacks of coin in the wheelbarrow in exchange for groceries.

Looseleaf... makes an arcana check to remember something about arcane magic, which I mentioned in our Discord chat:

Benedict: things about the world you would know as common background knowledge: arcane magic- that is, magic built into the world by the gods as part of the system, available to anyone with sufficient training or talent- strains the body somewhat it feels tiring, like physical exertion Farn: is it exercise? Benedict not quite, is the thing unlike physical exercise, which builds up the body's muscles so that you can do things easier over time magical exercise just gives you more of a feel for magic, so that you can do more difficult things with it. the easy stuff never gets any easier- you just have more endurance magic practice is known to shorten lifespans a bit and make the body frailer- a mage needs to work out more and eat better than a non-mage to maintain the same physical fitness it's why wizards are typically squishier- it's not a game balance thing, it's a literal effect of putting in the amount of practice to be a good wizard Farn: and arcanists tend to be nerds so that's often not gonna be a thing i imagine not enough time in the day! Benedict: yep furthermore, the image of a wizard as an old man with a long white beard isn't really a thing in the popular imagination- because physical aging makes you less able to cast magic that strain magic puts on the body can cause actual damage when your body's deteriorated enough and can't handle that strain this is why Dean Variable Velocity is in a wheelchair. she was one of the most accomplished wizards in the world, with raw power that whole cities feared- but she's no longer capable of more than the simplest cantrips due to her advanced age casting big magic would literally tear her apart and has done so in the past, costing her the use of her legs that's why she's an academic administrator, now- she means to pass on her knowledge to the younger generation, who can actually make use of it

What Looseleaf realizes is: if the old man is as senile as Thalath says he is, it's pretty weird that he'd be doing big magic lightshows every night. Maybe impossible! Maybe whatever's happening up there isn't an alive old wizard doing magic!

They report back to their team about their findings.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "There appears to be a torture wizard in the tower," she remarks. Orluthe Chokorov: "A... torture wizard?!" Looseleaf: "Okay, here's my deductions, courtesy of the great detective Looseleaf's ultimate thinking brain," Looseleaf says. "According to Thalath, there's an evil torture wizard in the tower, yes. Like, an actual, comedically evil torture wizard, which- that makes no sense?" Saelhen du Fishercrown: "A torture wizard whom Sir Thalath regards as not at all a viable culprit for these incidents, no less." Looseleaf: "How has nobody come around and dealt with the torture wizard? There's a cleric of Diamode here for crying out loud, and I know that Diamode isn't exactly super big on conquering evil and saving the helpless, but surely having a torture wizard around interferes with family values in some way at least." "I bet Thalath's the real wizard or something. Thalath's a great name for an evil wizard." "And at the end, he's gonna be like, muahahaha, I fooled you all, it was me behind the whole situation, my machinations laid undetected for YEARS." "Guy really doesn't want us going to the evil wizard tower or any of the towns." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "The point Madam Looseleaf is driving at, whilst also recklessly speculating, is that we would like you to keep an eye out for anything..." "Torturous, or wizardly, while we investigate." Looseleaf: "Look, you're the one who wanted us to get into this situation involving people getting killed, and now apparently on top we also have to worry about becoming tortured by torture wizards."

So, to investigate further, they head into Barley to gather information. On the way, they noticed, by the roadside... some old rotted wood and blackened soil that indicates a building burned down there some time ago. Looseleaf reads the spirits of those burned-out foundations and finds that- while it was too long ago to get details- they burned down from a fire that burned hotter than normal fire should've, and... those burnt timbers witnesses, and sometimes caused, death. It seems like there used to be a town at this crossroads, before it split.

They arrive in Barley, and they're directed by a local farmer to the Temple of Diamode, in response to which Orluthe takes off his cap and stole- he doesn't seem to want to be recognized as a cleric of Diamode by actual Diamode clergy. There, they meet...

Malath Kanthalga, clearly a goliath, is handing out pieces of newly-forged plate armor to a queue of farmers. (That's expensive! They wouldn't be buying that stuff if they didn't need it, out here!)

She rounds on the party and gets a very good roll to intimidate them, demanding to know who they are and what they're doing there.

Looseleaf comes up with a clever angle- she wants to offer her services as an animist, to inspect the bodies of the victims and determine how they died- ostensibly proving once and for all that their hated enemy was responsible, is the angle.

Malath isn't opposed to her doing some magical forensics- she seems convinced that it was in fact the town of Wheat that's been killing the people of Barley, and expects the investigation to confirm what she already knows. She refuses to let up on the guard thing, though- safety first.

So, next time... it's time for some fantasy CSI! I've never written a murder mystery in a setting where magic is real before, so this'll be a fun challenge.

#twofaced jewel #tfj log #d&d 5e

[bardicknowledgeblogger]

Critical Story Beats

While it’s not really an aspect of the rules anymore, a lot of us who play D&D and other similar TTRPGs like to make use of the Nat 20 = Auto Success, Nat 1 = Auto Fail rule with varying degrees of success and excitement.

I’ve seen people post their stories of Nat 20s and 1s resulting in hilarious and ridiculous moments as a DM allows the player to get away with something they probably shouldn’t have been able to, or failed horribly at something that really should have been easy to accomplish. I’ve read posts from frustrated DMs trying to keep players with godlike luck from just auto succeeding encounters they shouldn’t be able to waltz through like this. And in my own games, I’ve simply seen Crits be... well, not much. You succeed or fail in a way that doesn’t really make much of a difference from a normal success or failure.

Obviously everyone runs their games a bit differently, and there’s not anything wrong with having silly story moments or more low key interactions at your table if that’s what works for you. But lately, I’ve been trying to challenge myself to make moments in my stories more engaging, and that includes handling Critical Failures and Successes. So I wanted to share a few different ideas, philosophies, etc... on how to handle these rolls! Hopefully you find some things to apply to your own games as well! 

(This is mainly on how to make the most of your Nat 20s and Nat 1s - if there’s interest I will make a different post about how to handle problems with it, such as succeeding the impossible and how to curb that without players losing “faith” in their Crits)

Everything below the cut because it’s a tad long...

Making Things Interesting

This has been a guiding philosophy for me lately in all of games, as I strive to make sure that every choice made, while still narratively coherent and satisfying, is also as interesting and intriguing as possible. I want my players to feel enraptured with every moment, and that idea has carried over into my narration of critical fails and successes.

In the past, I wasn’t very good at handling Crits, especially the failures. In a combat, if a player rolled a Nat 1 for their attack, my response was often to have them just.... drop their weapon, or a spell just failed to cast. It wasn’t very interesting and proved to just irritate and frustrate the players because it was a minor inconvenience that resulted in a wasted turn and nothing more. Similarly, Nat 20s in many non-combat situations were the same as usual successes with the added flourish of “You do it flawlessly” Which was.... fine, but not very exciting. This year, I started to try and change things.

When a player rolls a Nat 1 or a Nat 20, I take a moment to pause as I think “What would be the most interesting thing to happen in this situation? What bad thing could completely shift the tide in this one moment and introduce a new conflict/what amazing thing could shift everything in their favor and create a satisfying and exciting moment for all?”

A recent example I’ve had of this - My players were navigating through a massive underground cavern, and were entering a larger room that was pretty dark and had some unique traits that had been different from the rest of the cave system. I had my players roll Perception, to see how many of these details they picked up on, and one of the players rolled a Nat 1. Now, in the past, I would have made some joke about them being too busy watching their feet to make sure they didn’t trip that they didn’t notice anything happening around them. But this time around, after some consideration, I decided on something different.

What if instead, they were so focused on trying to see something, trying to see anything, that they started seeing and hearing things that weren’t really there. Many of us have been in that position before - it’s late at night and you get an uncomfortable feeling so you look around in the dark of your room, and suddenly you feel like you definitely saw something move out of the corner of your eye, or heard a shuffling noise. So that’s what I did.

While the other players started to get details about how the cavern was carved out, signs of drawings on the walls, etc... the player who rolled a Nat 1 became convinced that they could hear whispers and shuffling in the darkness, could see dark shapes flitting about just at the edges of their vision. They started to panic and nearly started blind firing spells in an attempt to chase whatever it was off and had to be coaxed the rest of the way through the cavern.

Instead of a forgettable moment, it become a defining experience for this player as they navigated through the cavern - an experience that has shaped them in some way. And that’s the goal.

How Do You Want To Do This?

If you’re a fan of Critical Role then you’re familiar with this line and the excitement it can summon up. This is something you can carry into your games as well in regards to Critical Successes.

Now obviously not everything is going to be something you can give any player control over. But allowing the player the opportunity to really bring the vision of their character to life for an exciting conclusion to an encounter, or for any epic moment really, does a lot to build hype and excitement in the game. It make players eager to see that 20 come up on their die, and gears them up for what is coming next.

The easiest place to put this into practice is in combat. Obviously this works incredibly well if they get a Critical Strike that finishes the enemy off, as you can give them full control of the narrative if you’d like. However, there are still ways to apply it in the combat even if they aren’t finishing it off.

I try to reward my player’s combat crits by turning the tide of the fight pretty drastically, allowing them to stagger or even cripple the opponent with their attack. If your players seem eager to engage with narrative and add their own flavor and flare to the actions of their character, this can be a great place to allow them to do so. You can tell them “Your attack manages to cripple the opponent’s arm - how do you want to do this?” And let them build their role in the story. It may not be quite as spectacular as you had originally imagined, or perhaps its something completely different from what you would have done - either way, it is likely to get your players more engaged, and way more excited for these strikes.

Extra Rewards and Penalties

Finally, and something I’ve already vaguely alluded to in the previous sections, you can handle Crit Fails and Successes with “extras”. Sometimes a player fails or succeeds a task where there’s not a lot you can do with it - Maybe they’re picking a lock, and they roll a Nat 20 to do so. There’s unfortunately not a lot they can get beyond succeeding to unlock it (unless you had planned additional traps or something that they can now bypass) so in these instances, I try to think about what extra they might get out of the situation.

Maybe as they re-positioned themselves to finish unlocking the door, they jostled a nearby potted plants and noticed that just in the dirt was a small ring of keys that may be able to be used on other doors or chests within this place. Maybe, if you were planning an encounter in the next room for a guard they were going to alert coming in, they find that guard asleep and you mention that the player was so expertly silent with their lockpicking they didn’t alert or awaken the guard, allowing the players to bypass him altogether.

Obviously there are still some limitations here, and it may not be the most exciting thing, but it can still elevate a success from “Yay, you did it just like you would have if you rolled one of the other 3 numbers” to being something special. This same principle can be applied with Nat 1s, if they fail at something that simple can’t have consequences. 

I mentioned my Perception example above, but sometimes a Perception check simply can’t be twisted into anything more. So in addition to them missing out on whatever was going to be noticed, give them something extra to focus on instead. Maybe they trip over something and twist their ankle - not enough to have major mechanical effect, but enough to be frustrating and something to keep them preoccupied from the other information. Or perhaps they see something that is ultimately useless but stands out to them - a shiny pebble on the side of the road that has a strange green hue to it. If the player really plays along and even takes the pebble, trying to determine what it does, this is something you can potentially play with later. Maybe the pebble is a mark used by goblins to track potential people to rob? Perhaps the stone grows bigger every day until they start receiving movement penalties. They possibilities are truly limitless.

There’s obviously a lot more you can do, but these are the things I’ve been trying to incorporate into my own games. I want there to be magic to seeing a 20 come up on the die, and a sense of dread to seeing a 1. I don’t want it to be a minor annoyance, I want it to be a defining moment in the story.

As mentioned at the top - I will look at doing another one talking about how to handle Impossible Successes and Failures if there’s some interest!

#d&d #dungeons and dragons #rpg #dming #dm tips #critical success #critical failure #crit #crit fail

[rekkingcrew]

Campaign Debrief

So for nearly 2 years I ran an Edge of the Empire campaign with 3-4 players, mostly weekly. These last couple of months we’ve been using discord, which has gone great. I want to get down some of my thoughts about what worked and what didn’t. 

This is gonna be a big wall of text and all but two bits are gonna be under the cut: system and play style. 

Fantasy Flight Star Wars game system is legit my favorite system EVER. (Not to dick wave or anything, but that’s including D&Ds 2-5, Gurps, White Wolf, Blades in the Dark, Dungeon World, Deadlands, and a few miscellaneous other short form ones). The system of advantages and disadvantages, and especially triumphs and despairs rather than just straight successes and failures really opens up complex narrative opportunities and gives a chance for wild story beats that just would not have happened otherwise. The fights go fast but feel meaty and there’s a lot of room to pitch advantages to your friends so you’re not just waiting your turn. Character creation is granular enough that your choices always feel meaningful, and points can be spent anywhere, so you can really specialize and shape your character. 

We played very collaboratively and it made things AMAZING. Part of this is that we were all good friends and have played together for a while now. Our taste in what kind of story we want is similar- nuggets of drama scattered throughout, but mostly cutting up. A lot of the best NPCs and story suggestions came from my players rather than from me- our season one boss villain, Imperial spymaster “Uncle” Karston Severax, a pantoran ex-special forces black operative whose current public face was a Mr. Rogers-esque children’s TV presenter, for example, was someone my players started out and all of us collective “yes and” added to around the table, and he was JUST THE BEST. These kind of exchanges also gave us moments like the time our tech tried to blackmail the head of a security corporation with the fact that he was having an affair and he’d written just LOADS of incredibly cringey fanfiction; but the roll was such that the attempt ended with him finally getting the push he needed to quit a job he hated, get out of a marriage that just wasn’t working, and follow his dream of self-publishing. He even dedicated his first book to our slicer. Because it wasn’t a DM vs Players atmosphere, because we were all on the same page, I could ask my players “hey, what do you want for your triumph?” and “all right, so who is the NPC you know?” as well as just “that’s enough to finish this guy, what does this look like?” This campaign was 1000% better for sharing that world building load, and the players were all, I think, more invested. 

more below the cut. 

What Worked

One of the most useful things I ever did was start giving players morality pet NPCs that were their special hench people, and I’m embarrassed that I waited so long to assign one to our droid. 

The zero session was absolutely invaluable in setting the tone of the game and the relationship between characters, and I will bang this drum until I’m fucking blue in the face. Don’t meet in the first session. Sit the players down and say “how do you know each other, why do you stay together, what are some of your past adventures?” It’s just so much better. 

Cameos and ties to our other games, in what we’ve been calling “The Drax Kreiger Expanded Universe” have continued to be welcome pretty much every time. People were delighted to have a moment or two to slip back into old characters. 

I was able to identify what each player wanted and give them that. Brick’s player wanted quiet scenes with big character emotion, like his one on one pit fight the character didn’t want to have, or the letter from his mother telling him how proud she was of him, or the time in training where he tapped into how angry he really was and it spooked the character and everyone on the ship. Nyla’s player wanted a big epic, but also difficult space journey of good vs. evil, and so Nyla got a padawan whose parents she had possibly killed when she fought for the empire, she dug up the grave of her clone teacher’s order 66′d jedi for the crystal for her lightsaber, she got to cleanse a temple that was trapped in a fruitless struggle between light and dark, and a climactic lightsaber battle that was about possibly sacrificing herself for the good of others. TK’s player was deep into star wars trivia and space stuff, so he practically squealed when Verpine shatter weapons showed up, and he seemed to get a kick out of the Evocii, and also that time they put on wing suits and dove the atmosphere of a gas giant. It’s worth noting nobody was actually all that interested in the thing that turns my gears: complex mysteries with a lot of clues and investigation, and once I let that shit drop, things ran a lot smoother. 

Some of our best stuff was non-combat challenges, like climbing the cliffs of Naboo or navigating the deep undercity of Nar Shadaa. The guys reliably failed anything social, but environmental challenges were always appreciated. 

I always tried to make sure there was more than one way to do things. For any given mission, especially early on, I’d try to brainstorm at least three ways something could be accomplished. 

My party split up a LOT, but we found a sort of cinematic cutting back and forth to be really useful. When there was a big crit, or a goal accomplished, or something like that, we’d jump to the other party even if the fight wasn’t over. Sometimes that was only just, like, Brick and the guys doing drunk karaoke and saying to no one in particular “MAN, I hope Nyla’s having as fun a time as we are!” but it kept everyone involved and it wasn’t just people waiting their turn for 20 minutes at a time. Also people chimed in with fun advantages and disadvantages. 

I had everybody write backstories and whenever I could, I incorporated in things from what they’d written. Our second season was basically TK tracking down the guy who’d made him, a Thackwash alien with the same sort of shifting personalities he had. TK’s player hadn’t written much about the guy except that he’d been a salvage mechanic who constructed TK for protection when he got in trouble with the local mafia. Giving that guy complementary personalities for each of TK’s really helped stick the landing on that one, and the player really enjoyed having actually completed his character’s goal. 

It’s worth saying, we took some time at several points during the campaign, either individually or as a group, to talk about what we liked and didn’t, what we wanted more of, where we wanted things to go, possible directions for characters, mechanical issues, how to have a better game, group dynamics, all sorts of stuff. In a way it’s like sex: people have this fucked up expectation that you’ll just be good at it without communicating, and man, fuck that. Talking to my players was ALWAYS worthwhile.

I was always adamant, because it was a thing that bugged me when I was a player, that if a character had spent the points to be good at something, they got to be good at it. That made some things difficult, but I think it was the right decision. It took me a while to tailor fights right, and honestly a lot of times, splitting up the party was the best way to balance fights, but I never said to anyone hey that thing you spent all those points on, could you please not do that?

My players were excellent about encouraging each other to have serious dramatic moments. TK was completely ready to die in a fight, and when he lost a significant chunk of his programming, the way he chose to play it was really heartbreaking. Everyone came inside and had tea with Brick’s mom. No one stepped on anyone else’s fun when it was time to be serious, and everybody was great about cheering each other on, whether they were being funny or being dead serious. 

I FUCKING FINISHED A CAMPAIGN. IT HAD AN END. So much stuff petered out over the years, I was adamant I wasn’t going to do that. 

What Didn’t Work

Boy, my players had pretty much all the trouble trying to remember to use “they/them” pronouns for NPCs with neutral or alien genders. 

No one is interested in falling damage. Sigh. 

I did not keep good track of money or ship fuel or anything. The campaign didn’t end up relying on it too heavily (I was honestly expecting a much more Cowboy Bebop setup than where we drifted), but that was an area I kind of fell down. 

We never really got obligation working correctly and in the end we just ended up abandoning it. We kept doing the force morality because the lone force player was very into it and it was a huge part of that character’s journey, but for the rest having people show up to collect on obligation was sometimes not possible in the story- or if it was possible it was pretty cumbersome. Campaign did obligation by arc, and I think that’s a pretty useful way to do it- roll at the end of the arc for what’s coming next. 

Early on, I made way too many assumptions about what was an adventure hook for my players and what was an annoyance. Honestly, bits of this lasted pretty late. At one point I gave my players a spy for the larger rebellion they could totally talk to- he was even working with their resident bothan spy- but they looked at the senatorial assassination he was doing and literally said at the table “I think it’s best if we just walk away from all this.” And so they did. Which was frustrating, but, you know, it is what it is. They also never much cared about the hutt gang war. 

I let a lot of things drop that I would have liked to bring back before the end, but in all honesty, I think we were all running a bit out of steam. I would have liked to put in Brick’s old mentor, or follow up with the imperial governor that was a falleen in a human skin suit, or see more of the bounty hunter’s guild, or have a nice end thing with our bothan spy, or any of that. But I do think it was time to end it. And we followed the threads people liked. 

I had way too many NPCS.

What sort of worked

I had like 200 npcs and they were not all bangers. In particular, I let the party design their own ship, which I wish had played a bigger role (though it did really set the tone), and I let them design 2 npc crew who would fill in any party roles they didn’t want to play and guard the ship so they could go on adventures without worrying about it. The devaronian scoundrel was with the party to the end though I never really got him to be more than a joke, but the bothan spy kind of fell off, and while she made some appearances, she didn’t really have as big an impact as I would have hoped. She kind of got replaced by Nyla’s padawan, a hench mon calamari called Nezrene, who was a better fit with the party. But, you know, players will do what they like.

Factions. In the first bit of the campaign, my factions were a fucking life saver, because I could design scenarios with a sort of “what is each faction doing/ which faction hurts from this, which benefits?” By the second season we’d kind of abandoned them to go to the core, and by the third my group was solidly rebel, so the hutts and bounty hunters fell a lot by the wayside. I still think having a couple of broad poles of power, and having the players know them and their leaders, is a good call. But they do seem to kind of organically pare down on their own, and it’s easy to get caught up too much in them. Useful sorta?

There was definitely a point where my players just were not challenged by conventional challenges. We ended up doing most of the later fights that involved a lot of minions in montage. I’d have them roll their fight skills unopposed, just to see if they got any interesting advantage/triumph set ups. I still had boss fights that were mostly challenging, but there just was no point in throwing storm troopers or low level gangsters at them. Not when they have soak 8 and autofire, and that one talent that lets you kill every minion in a combat. Designings fight got a bit tricky, and in those big high level combats, despairs and triumphs come up a lot more and really sway the fight, which I like, but also it’s very hard to plan for. 

Mass combat was tricky. I did a lot of it toward the end because my players were generals in a rebellion. I always had them do the rolls and some of the narration, but that wasn’t always enough to make them feel like things weren’t very arbitrary. 

I personally love the rule that if you roll a despair shooting into an engaged combat you shoot your friend. Nyla, who got shot twice this way, does not. 

We started the game with a tech character who dropped out. Toward the end, we picked up another tech character whose player couldn’t do their regular stuff because of covid lock down. Neither of these characters could fight at all, and both were very differently oriented than the rest of the party, and that was tricky to manage. Additionally, the dude coming in at the end had like a year and a half of in jokes he did not get and there were 200 goddamn npcs. I tried to give him the lowdown on what he might have heard about the party, but it was a combination of too much information and not that much player interest. He did get to break a star destroyer though, and I think he liked that. 

I offered players XP to write backstory stuff, and later goodbye notes others could find if they kicked it. Not all of them did. In the end it made a negligible difference, and I still think offering the bounties on this is basically a good idea. 

What I would do different next time.

Three ring binder that opens and closes so I could move fucking NPC stats around. I filled two goddamn school notebooks with notes for this campaign and there were so many goddamn times I was like “I KNOW I wrote this down, but where?!”

Players felt a bit aimless when they didn’t have a specific villain. I’d planted a few in, but they took finding, or they were too easy to avoid. Next time I would have a few more people who were actively on my player’s tails. 

I would keep better campaign notes and/or ask one of the players to do so. I used to do recaps for the games when I played Rek. There’s stuff I KNOW I’ve forgotten, and more I’ll forget as time goes on, which is a shame. It’s a weird, ephemeral medium, but possibly I’m just spoiled by living in an age of easy reproduction and enormous storage where data is concerned. 

Better book keeping in general, really. 

When I did a mystery short, I wrote up a list of all the clues people could find but not where specifically they were, so that I could just jam them anywhere they seemed like they’d make sense whenever a roll called for a player to find something. I think I’d try to do that with player’s personal stories so they could be woven in a little better. I did a lot of flying by the seat of my pants. 

All in all, I’m pretty happy with how it went, and I’m ready to get back to playing for a bit. I loved DMing, and I more or less DMed the game I would have liked to play, but man, doing this all the time, or being the only person who does it? After a while, that’d be a lot, and I’m looking forward to the break. 

#star wars edge of the empire #Edge of the Empire #tabletop rp #i dmed

[leidensygdom]

1, 2, 12, 13, 26!

OKAY SO I’m gonna try to focus on the campaign  I’m running myself (Gharmyra) because I’ve had so much RP over all these years and so on I wouldn’t ever stop talking otherwise. It’s gonna be a good way to talk a bit more on what has had Syg been invested into for the past half year!

1. A favorite character you have played.

I think that out of all the NPCs in the campaign I’m running, I’m enjoying Vest the most. He’s an old character of mine (Vor’kalth/Veth’shal, as he’s gone through many names in-character) who I really enjoyed back in the day but couldn’t RP since forever. While working on the campaign’s prep, one of the players mentioned he’d be multiclassing to warlock, and it was both a great way to introduce watchers early on (since Vest, as an undead, is a watcher) and getting to use him again. And I’m really glad I did that, because he’s been hella enjoyable and was probably a much better choice than a possibly edgy-brooding-patron instead.

2. Your favorite character that someone else has played.

oh god this one is just too hard to answer I hate playing favorites with other people’s characters. But p much if I’ve RPed with you I love ur character xoxo

12. Your in game inside jokes/memes/catchphrases and where they came from.

OH god so we have a few--

There’s a running joke over Yu’Yden, that cutie up above, being the BBEG. To the point we have an exclusive channel in which I keep track of the times he’s been called evil. So far, he’s been called evil 44 times

Another one of them is bacteria. It came up on accident, I think it was @eine-krone​‘s character (Hákarl) who mentioned it, and then we realized “shit, this is an industrial setting, bacterias aren’t a thing”. So canonically his... character, who’s an artificer, has invented a soap that kills bacteria. Except nobody knows what are they. Just a marketing thing.

Hákarl’s character also scores very bad in medicine, to the point he often gets crit-fails. As he put it, “he’s a machine-doctor, not a human-doctor”. Most times he checks for someone’s health, it leads to an “inconclusive analysis” on knowing if the person is either dead or alive. He’s currently writing a report on another party member’s defunction, despite how she’s alive. And well. And talking and so on

The monk eats about anything. Including magic items. Specially magic items. Anytime we come in contact with something edible-looking or just... shiny, he rolls a wisdom save to determine if he’ll eat it or not. This is getting problematic, since he once ate a puzzle piece, and he went through a room filled with poisonous pies and ate a couple of them (and he didn’t eat the rest because the party was examining those). One of the things he ate sometimes whispers him stuff. (and for the record, the character’s a human. A regular human)

The roguelock just never sleeps okay. Being a kalashtar, she should be able to have nice sleep, since she literally cannot have nightmares per se, but- She just doesn’t. This is also dice-rolled, and she rarely, rarely scores anything over 10. And if she does, seeing her feeling okay usually scares the rest of the party

Actually, she just has awful luck. Like, she defies all statics overall. A grand majority of her rolls are below 10, or even below 5. She has a +9 bonus to perception, but rest assured, she’ll never score more than 15 on it.

In the same manner, Vest (the roguelock’s patron) can use his own cantrips to do stuff, as long as it’s for comical purpose and not actually interfering with battles or the plot. He will use these for nefarious reasons. Or to steal shinies. Specially to steal shinies. 

There’s a cutie pink tiefling NPC, Isolde, who can be summoned at any point by holding chocolate. No matter what. She’s also effectively inmortal as far as we know.

One of the players has this sheet where he keeps track of all the incognitos, questions and theories about the plot. It’s two-sided, and he filled one side already. And I think the only item they have solved for now was because I officially confirmed “no, there are no aliens either”

I wanna mention Eine did a whole mind map to keep track of the plot too. It’s complicated

13. Introduce your current party.

Ok so lemme introduce my player’s characters!!

This cheerful guy here is Glar, the human monk. He was sold by his family to a thieves’ gang to settle down a debt, and was raised rough. The thieves’ gang kinda disbanded after the two guys in charge got in a big fight, and he’s been trying to figure out his life ever since. Chaotic to hell and beyond, often the comic relief of the group.

This guy here is Hákarl (Cousin Hákarl, legally), a dwarf-goliath artificer and @eine-krone​ ‘s character. Dwarf goliath means he has the proportions of a dwarf but the height of a goliath, and everything about him is pure cryptid fuel. He owns a business which invents all sort of weird gadgets: Everyday items made into weapons, soap, plushies, etc. In his backstory, he... Split his soul in half and put the other half in a warforged as his bachelor’s thesis. Except all the nice things about himself were in that side of the soul. So, the warforged (Ténn) is a sweet cinnamon roll, while Hákarl is certainly cursed. He also wants to destroy Gharda (one of the nations) and commit deicide.

And this one is Laestis Luvali, the rogue-warlock kalashtar. She’s baby, really. Born in the first caste (akin to nobles in this setting), she’s has been realizing her peers are actually pretty awful. Her and her family have now cut ties with the first caste and have moved with The Chain, the rebel ludite group that’s actively fighting against them. She’s a kalashtar because of the sword, a family relic passed down generations that their ancestor fetched from a war from a millenia ago, which... turned out to be sort of cursed. It has a watcher within, one of these crystal-undead beings. Vest, her patron, has been trying to reach the Luvali forever to maybe get himself out of there, and Laestis has been the first one to answer the call. And their friendship gives me life tbh

26. What was your favorite scene to write and show your characters.

oh gods i have so many i want to show them but HUH stuff I’ve done-

I really enjoyed when I introduced them to the first (enemy) watcher they had to deal with, Nilodus, and what happened after. 

It was just ominous as heck, and it was the point in which the players realized what kinda stuff were they facing. At the same time, I enjoyed a lot when one of the villains they had been facing (Uth’gaeel) transformed into some big crystal eldritch horror, with an animated battlemap and everything. The boss fights have been overall very fun, and I’m doing my best to homebrew them and make them interesting!! I have one planned I want to s c r e a m about. Overall I just have a lot of plans--

Anyways, thanks a lot for asking! And damn that was a long post

#ask #answer #reply #gharmyra #dnd #dungeons and dragons #sleebyfrogs

[tigerkirby215]

5e Sett the Boss build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Riot Games)

Moshi moshi, bossu?

Sett is the latest “Opee Opee” on the Rift (mostly because Rito won’t fucking nerf his damage yet like Jesus Christ how is a reduction to his armor by 3 going to stop him?) but after the complete OMGWTFBBQ that was Aphelios a simple champion was a nice change of pace. With a Q that punches people, a W that punches people, an E that punches people, and an R that pile-drives people it’s nice to have a new, fun, easy difficulty champion to vary the top lane a little.

Helps that he’s a furry anime boy who’s voiced by DIO.

GOALS

ORA ORA ORA ORA - We need to punch hard and punch... not as fast as Star Platinum, but still fast enough.

He’s immortal! Unkillable! Unmatched! - Sett can survive in a fight with high durability and Grit for days.

RODA ROLLA-DA - Sett’s only ability that isn’t a punch is his ultimate, which lets him grab someone and throw them around.

RACE

Sett is a half-Vastaya and Shifter is perfect for a half-beast who wants to get their wild side on. You get 60 feet of Darkvision and your Shifting feature which gives you temporary health equal to your level and your constitution modifier and an additional effect tied to your subrace. While most of the subraces could work Beasthide is perfect for a pit-fighting boss: you get proficiency with Athletics and an increase to both your Constitution (+2) and Strength (+1). In addition you gain an extra d6 hitpoints when you shift, and your AC increases by 1 during that time.

ON OTHER SHIFTERS:

Longtooth gives you a bite attack to use with your bonus action while shifted. The bite is useful to get more damage output but sadly isn’t in character.

Swiftstride lets you float like a butterfly, but Sett is much more the “sting like a bee” type.

Wildhunt makes it impossible for your enemies to get a cheap-shot in while you’re shifted, but we don’t need the stats and virtually every other Shifter is more useful to us.

ABILITY SCORES

15; CONSTITUTION - To be the boss you’ve gotta be able to take a punch. Remember that it's not about how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.

14; DEXTERITY - To survive in the fight pits you’ve gotta float like a butterfly. Also our race will bump our Strength to a 14 and I don’t like odd numbers. Wait then why is our Constitution going to be a 17...?

13; STRENGTH - Sett certainly stings a lot harder than a bee, packing a whopping left hook that can send a blind monk flying.

12; CHARISMA - You don’t get to call yourself “the boss” without having people like you... just be sure not to sell any drugs.

10; WISDOM - Sett’s mama taught him some wise words but he’s still a hot head at times.

8; INTELLIGENCE - You’ve been hit by as many Facebreakers as you’ve received; I doubt you even know how many anymore.

BACKGROUND

While you keep away from the Noxian gladiatorial pits the underground fight ring makes you a Gladiator in your own right. You get proficiency with Acrobatics and Performance to let you style as you slam dunk your foes. You also gain proficiency with a Disguise Kit and a musical instrument of your choice, both of which aren’t too in-character but are still great to have.

But most importantly you get the By Popular Demand feature. This lets you find the local fight ring and get in a brawl for the entertainment of the people. You get paid with food and a place to stay, and the people will treat you like a proper celebrity!

But most importantly you get a costume in your starting equipment, meaning that you can dress fancy with pressed pants and a fur coat on your bare chest.

(YOU WERE EXPECTING OFFICIAL ARTWORK BUT IT WAS ME; SETT! Artwork by @victorli_ran on Twitter.)

LEVEL 1 - FIGHTER 1

Starting out as a Fighter you get proficiency in two skills from their list: take Intimidation and Survival to be the lion in the pit of wolves. You also get Second Wind for some pit grit to restore hit points equal to a d10 plus your level in Fighter once per rest.

But most importantly we get a Fighting Style, and we’re starting with Fighter so that we can get our punching on. Unarmed Fighting lets you use your fists to fight and do a d6 of damage. If both fists are free you can increase that damage to a d8 - grab a chair or something similar to use as a shield but you do your real damage with your left hook. Additionally if you grapple someone you do a d4 damage to them, and can do an extra d4 whenever you hit them while they’re grappled. Pin them to the ground and beat the stuffing out of them until the ref rings the bell. Then beat them some more!

LEVEL 2 - BARBARIAN 1

Quickly jumping to Barbarian for Unarmored Defense equal to your Dexterity plus your Constitution. Currently your unarmored AC is 1 less than you would have if you had chain mail but you can’t wear Heavy Armor if you want to Rage. While raging you have advantage on Strength checks and saving throws (including grapples.) You can also do extra damage with strength weapons (such as your fists) and have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. Your rage lasts for 1 minute but ends early if you spend a turn where you don’t hit someone or get hit, or if you’re knocked down. You can rage twice before needing to long rest.

LEVEL 3 - FIGHTER 2

Going back to Fighter you get Action Surge, letting you take one additional action on your turn before needing to rest. Sneak a good right hook in after hitting them with the left.

LEVEL 4 - FIGHTER 3

3rd level Fighters can choose their martial archetype and Champions are masters of the ring. They get Improved Critical which lets them crit on a 19 or a 20, effectively doubling your crit chance. Who says you can’t build an Infinity Edge?

Why Champion? - The main reason for the Champion subclass for the level 18 subclass feature. Champion is a perfectly viable subclass but it’s not exactly an interesting one. Battle Master is a lot more exciting and if you’re not going to reach level 20 I’d honestly recommend it over Champion. After posting this build I’ll make an errata for this build with Battle Master over Champion.

LEVEL 5 - FIGHTER 4

Grabbing the 4th level in Fighter for an Ability Score Improvement, or rather a Feat. Since Shifter is from Eberron I expect you to have access to the Aberrant Dragonmark feat. 

You increase your Constitution by 1 to make it a nice, even 18. You also learn one cantrip and one level 1 spell from the Sorcerer spell list. Your spellcasting modifier for these spells is Constitution (not Charisma!) and you can cast the leveled spell once before taking a short or long rest. Your cantrip doesn’t really matter (if you want to be efficient I’d recommend taking a ranged attacking cantrip) but for the spell take False Life for more Pit Grit. You gain 1d4 + 4 temporary hit points for 1 hour which go away when the hour is up or if they get hit out of you.

In addition when you cast False Life you can roll one of your hit die - I’d recommend rolling your Barbarian die for higher potential rolls. If you roll an even number you gain temporary hit points equal to the number rolled, and I’d argue that this health stacks with False Life. If you roll an odd number a random creature within 30 feet other than you takes force damage equal to the number rolled, but if no other creatures are in range you take the damage instead. Your rage can sometimes be dangerous but if you keep your cool you can grit down and take more hits.

On Greater Aberrant Powers: Getting this feat early is always useful but if your DM is using this rule it’s extremely helpful. After level 10 you have a 10% chance to get an Epic Boon, which can give you the upper hand in a fight that no one else can. When it happens your hitpoint maximum is reduced by a roll on your hit die plus your constitution, so I’d recommend rolling your Fighter hit die so you lose less health. You also lose that hit die permanently, and it can’t be restored through any means. The trade of a hit die for an Epic Boon is more than worth it though, so get excited if some greater powers manifest!

LEVEL 6 - BARBARIAN 2

Grabbing a second level in Barbarian for Reckless Attack. When you punch you can choose to give yourself Advantage on all attacks on the turn but all enemies will have Advantage when attacking you. With Improved Critical you have about a 20% chance to crit if you have Advantage, so you can knock your opponent out before they hit you.

Speaking of Advantage, Danger Sense gives you Advantage to Dexterity saving throws against effects you can see. You’re not magic but if you see a punch headed your way you know to duck.

(Artwork by @victorli_ran on Twitter.)

LEVEL 7 - FIGHTER 5

Guess what boys it’s a straight track through Champion Fighter now. Level 5 Champions get an Extra Attack, so you can hit them with a left hook and a right punch.

LEVEL 8 - FIGHTER 6

6th level Fighters get another Ability Score Improvement and we’ll cap off our Constitution for maximum pit grit. 

LEVEL 9 - FIGHTER 7

7th level Champions get Remarkable Athlete, letting them add half their proficiency bonus to any Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution check they don’t have proficiency with. You already have proficiency with STR and CON saves as well as Acrobatics, but this will let you add half your proficiency to Stealth and Slight of Hand checks.

LEVEL 10 - FIGHTER 8

8th level Fighters get another Ability Score Improvement and it’s time to increase our Strength for harder punches.

LEVEL 11 - FIGHTER 9

9th level Fighters get Indomitable, letting them reroll a saving throw once before taking a long rest. If you fail a Strength or Constitution check this should be enough to save it, and if you need it for a Dexterity check you effectively get three total rolls for the save.

LEVEL 12 - FIGHTER 10

10th level Champions get an Additional Fighting Style but unfortunately most of these rely on us using weapons and armor. Since you’re using your fists your best option would be a way to grab your opponents: the Superior Technique fighting style from the Class Feature Variants UA gives you a d6 Superiority Dice to use on a Battle Master Maneuver which comes back on a short or long rest.

You also learn one Battle Master Maneuver and Restraining Strike from the same Class Features UA will let you grab someone for the Ultimate Show Stopper! After hitting a creature with a weapon attack you can use your bonus action to attempt to grapple them. You roll your Superiority Dice and add the number rolled to the grapple check, further increasing the chance that you make the grab. "GOIN' FOR A RIDE!"

(Artwork by @victorli_ran on Twitter.)

LEVEL 13 - FIGHTER 11

11th level Fighters get a third Extra Attack, so you can sneak another left after your right. Or alternatively you can Action Surge for 6 attacks in a turn!

LEVEL 14 - FIGHTER 12

12th level Fighters get another Ability Score Improvement and we’ll continue increasing Strength to punch harder, better, faster, and stronger.

LEVEL 15 - FIGHTER 13

13th level Fighters get another use of Indomitable. Man that’s a hard word to spell... that’s all I’ve got.

LEVEL 16 - FIGHTER 14

14th level Fighters get another Ability Score Improvement, so max out your Strength for maximum punching action.

LEVEL 17 - FIGHTER 15

15th level Champions crit on an 18, 19, or 20 thanks to Superior Critical. If you give yourself Advantage with Reckless Attack you have a little less than a 30% chance to crit, and over the span of 3 attacks you have a 37.7% chance of not at least getting one crit if they all have Advantage. With that many attacks you’ve gotta hit something vital!

LEVEL 18 - FIGHTER 16

16th level Fighters get the last Ability Score Improvement of this build and now that we have maxed out Strength it’s time to improve our grapples. The Grappler feat gives you Advantage on attack rolls against a target that you are grappling and also allows you to use your action to pin your grapple target, restraining them until the grapple ends. Unfortunately you can’t pick them up and drop them on the enemy ADC but you can certainly drop them to the ground and wail on them.

NOTE ABOUT GRAPPLES: Grappling is in-flavor for Sett but isn’t very practical in 5e. If you want something more useful the Tough feat will give you an additional 36 health at this level, and a total of 40 extra health once you reach level 20.

LEVEL 19 - FIGHTER 17

At level 17 Fighters get another use of Action Surge and a third use of Indomitable. This means more attacks and less chance to fail when being attacked which overall means more time as the boss of the ring.

LEVEL 20 - FIGHTER 18

18th level Champions finally get some Pit Grit thanks to Survivor. At the start of every turn you regenerate health equal to 5 plus your Constitution modifier, which is +5 so you regenerate 10 health per turn total. This health regen only works if you’re below half health but not if you’re at 0; regardless you have the endurance to tough-out a fight no matter the odds.

FINAL BUILD

PROS

DORA RA RA RA RA - You can throw many hard-hitting punches: 3 per turn and up to 6 if you use Action Surge. Not only that but with Superior Critical and Reckless Attack there is a very high likelihood that you’ll crit with your attacks for double damage.

I CAN beat the shit out of you - Even if you’re unarmed you can still fight, requiring nothing but your two fists and your raw muscle. This means that even if your allies are stripped bare you can still defend them on your own.

Diamond is Unbreakable - You are insanely tanky. A maxed out Constitution with Fighter levels leads to easily over 200 health, and you can reduce incoming weapon damage with Rage and keep yourself in the fight with both Shifting and False Life giving you Temporary Hitpoints.

CONS

10 Meter Range - Unless you took a ranged damage cantrip with your Dragonmark you have no options to fight outside of melee range. It’s fair enough since Sett is a melee fighter, but like most Juggernauts the way to counter him is to just keep away from him. Considering that you have a 30 foot movement speed that’s incredibly easy to do.

Magician’s Red - All your damage is physical bludgeoning with your fists, so unless your DM gives you some magic knuckledusters you won’t be bypassing magic resistance anytime soon. What’s more is that our saving throws for everything other than Strength and Constitution are awful and while Danger Sense can help with DEX saves Indomitable can only help so much when you have at best a +1 or at worst a -1 to a saving throw.

MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA - A lot of the options taken in this build are done entirely for flavor. Even if Rages are nice so are 4 attacks, and the Unarmored Defense is more of a cosmetic feature since plate mail would get the job done just as well. Probably the biggest issue is that Grappling as a whole in 5e is USELESS USELESS USELESS USELESS, meaning that our secondary Fighting style and pick up of the Grappler feat end up going to waste. But with that being said I know most campaigns don’t go to level 20 anyways and at earlier levels this build is more than serviceable; it’s only at later levels that the weird choices start to come into play.

But that only matters if you’re fighting a war and you’re fighting in the pits. The rules are different in the pits: no weapons, fox-men only - it’s the final destination. You’re the boss of the ring and you can strike down all who oppose you. But if you hear someone playing the piano as some blond Japanese-Italian kid approaches you; run.

(Meme made by u/smakuliak on Reddit)

#DnD 5e #dnd build #dnd guide #dnd #League of Legends #dnd fighter #jojo's bizzare adventure #jojo reference