Topic: The Dungeon and Dragons Thread

@Tyranexx They were meat pies. Our Monk, Fighter and Bard participated in the even along with two NPCs. The Bard made it through two pies before calling it quits and the Monk made it to four. Our fighter and the NPC went toe to toe up to pie number 8 when I rolled a nat 1 for the NPC causing him to puke. Our fighter made it though but afterwards ended up puking due to something Our Tortle Monk said. Think that scene with John Candy in The Great Outdoors lol.

Tal' Dorei is another continent on Exandria which is the world Matt Mercer created. It's actually right next to Wildemount and is connected by a few islands, think Alaska and Russia.

We shall see how it effects my current campaign maybe at some point the PCs will head over there.

@Tasuki That sounds like a fun meat pie eating contest! XD Definitely some creative roleplaying there. Congrats to the Fighter for a hard won eating contest.

I'm curious to learn what happens when/if Tal' Dorei shows up in your campaign at some point.

@Tyranexx Well, going to Tal' Dorei is all up to the PCs. Who knows, they might not even go there, but if they do I will be prepared.

@Tyranexx Those are some good subclasses and what not. Did you get any dnd related stuff for Christmas?

Just found this thread. I am currently playing Curse of Strahd with a Custom Lineage Artificer Battle Smith with some friends. Just hit Level 5 where the character is going to get interesting, as I picked up Extra Attack and I finally found my groove with him (which means that he will probably die soon to Barovia).

@Darknyht Curse of Strahd is great especially when paired with Von Ricthens guide to Ravenloft. I just wish they would have released more of tbe older Ravenloft adventures like they did with Curse of Strahd.

@Tasuki it has been interesting of the party I am the only original character left alive (although we are using some pretty punishing death rules). We‘ve struggled a little through various bouts of bad rolls as we have played too, but in Barovia only the devil himself has any luck.

But we just managed to defeat our first milestone, so perhaps things will improve some. Reaching Tier 2 will help also.

@Tasuki For DMing, how many plot threads do you prepare? I've never DMed, so I'm curious as to all the prep involved.

@Themagusx1 I did not. I intentionally had a bit of a light list this year. I have quite enough stuff for now. 😅

@Darknyht Oh yeah I am very familiar with the Ravenloft setting and know how it can be. Some of my best RP moments came during a Ravenloft campaign. I had a Paladin in Ravenloft, I know what was I thinking lol and I ended up sacrificing my Paladin oath to bring back a fallen party member. My character then hit a major depression seeing all the horrors and suffering going in the Realm and not being able to help anyone anymore. I played him going darker and darker until one session I met an NPC and after taking sometime off to reevaluate himself that character came back as a Monster Hunter, a Simon Belmont type character. He was alot darker then when he was a Paladin but he decided to fight for the good people of Ravenloft.

I handle deaths a little different, I don't like the Death Save rule, as your character can die just on an unlucky roll. I stick with the old D&D rules of -10 HP you die. That way it gives the party a chance to heal a fallen comrade. Of course if it's catastrophic damage like a Giant stomping you or a Dragon biting you in half well then your dead.

@Tyranexx It all depends actually how many I think I can fit into my campaign. I look at the story type, where it takes place, the creatures they fight, the end goals of said adventure etc.

I look at plot hooks as seasons of a TV series this season the party might be ridding a town of vampire lords, and then the next they might be discovering a long forgotten ancient city. I also try to tailor them to characters backgrounds even if they don't connect to the overall story of the campaign. Perhaps the bards long lost sister is now a servant of the Vampire lord ruling over a small town. Even if the adventure doesn't connect to the overall story, I always add something to remind the PCs of the overall story.

Now what order the PCs go in to handle the plot hooks, I leave that up to them, and will scale the creatures and such if need be. For example if the Vampire Lord adventure is for levels 9-10 and they are 4-5 then I will lower the Vampires HP or something along those lines. And then on the other hand if the sucken city is level 1 to 3 and my PCs are 6 and 7 well.I beef it up.

Of.course you should run how many you feel comfortable running if you only can handle one or two, that's fine and if you can handle 5 and 6 that's fine too. Also talk with your players if you find too many plot hooks convoluting the many story. Sometimes if you give players too many choices they may feel overwhelmed and not enjoy the game anymore. Also keep in mind a plot hook do to the players may never get picked up for whatever reason. Maybe PCs didn't pick up a clue or a bad roll on the PCs part made it so they couldn't pick it up. They may not feel that plot is important to them at the time or figure someone else can handle it and may just not end up ever doing it, and that's ok too.

@Tasuki Seasons.... That's an interesting and resourceful way of looking at plot hooks. Neat that you try to tailor NPCs and events around the characters as well. It's been hinted at that this may very well happen in our Grim Hollow campaign in regards to my rogue's background. Is level scaling usually pretty easy to implement, or is there quite a bit of leg work involved? Might depend on the NPC or monster in question I suppose.

I do quite agree that communication is key between the players in the DM in D&D. I think my group is normally pretty decent in this regard, though we're not always the best at affirmative decision making lol. We always have at least a couple of options on what to do next, though our current DM is adhering pretty closely to the Tyranny of Dragons campaign material.

As an aside, are there any plot hooks you wish players had picked up, but didn't?

@Tasuki I tend to use Xander's Guide to Everything's This is Your Life section to randomize backstories, so my Artificer was an orphan, who was enslaved by a hag, visited the Shadowfell (Shadow Touched), and lost his family. Me and the DM worked that into I was sold to some Hags who were experimenting on me to find a way out of their situation (trying to avoid spoilers). Their experiments sent me into the Shadowfell and I came out in the realm at large where I grew up, got married and became a merchant (failed merchant background), only to have my family and business destroyed by bandits.

So my character entered the campaign haunted and feeling that he was a curse to everyone. When finally everyone but him appeared to be killed, he fled into the woods in despair (everyone else was starting to think I was working with the DM against them). A wandering stranger restored some hope in him by offering a different perspective on the situation. As the team reformed and finally had success, my character is now looking for atonement and redemption.

The truth is the original idea I had for the character wasn't working (Repeating Crossbow/Ranged), and it took time for me to figure out how to retool him on the fly to fit party dynamics. Battle Smiths (and Artificers in general) have a lot of flexibility and complexity in them, and I think I was overwhelmed with possibilities at first. I've now settled on a Spear/Glaive wielding Monster Hunter who leans into the Occult (Shadow Touched, and eventually Ritual Caster) to both power his gear and bring utility in his hunts.

@Tyranexx I would recommend Sly Flourish's site which has a lot of good advice, along with the book "The Monsters Know What They're Doing". Both have some good practical advice on how to run campaigns and encounters better. Sly's advice on the Essentials Kit I ran was helpful as we typically only have three party members when we play. The book gives great advice on how to make monsters seem more intelligent and have somewhat unique tactics based on their stats than the typical run at the characters until they die. Tactics are based off of Str, Dex and Constitution while Intelligence and Wisdom guide how well they would adapt or if they are wise enough to flee.

@Tyranexx Level scaling isn't too hard, mainly what you do is add or decrease the Hit points. If it gets spells then it's just a matter of adding or taking away spells. Mostly for me anyway it comes down to how intelligent I play the creature.

As far as plot hooks that PCs never took too. There was one in my old Greyhawk campaign that I was DMing 20 years ago. I had a hook for the classic adventure White Plume Mountain. Sadly my players for whatever reason never wanted to go that route. Of course to be honest that campaign fell apart so who knows if at some point the PCs would have changed their mind.

@Darknyht That is an interesting character. My son is currently playing a Tiefling Bloodhunter with a repeating crossbow. He has been thinking of going into Artificiar primarily the Artillery one. Basically he wants to make a Demonhunter from Diablo type character.

@Darknyht "The Monsters Know What They're Doing"....Definitely an intriguing title. I'll have to give both resources a look soon. I also took a brief look at Sly Flourish's site and already know it'll make for some good reading. We usually have five players total, including the DM. There are currently a couple of NPCs in the mix of our main campaign though. I'll ask other table members if they're familiar with these resources. I appreciate the resources!

@Tasuki When level scaling, are increases decided on rolls like with player HP, or is there a set rule depending on the enemy's level? I suppose which spells are added or removed depends on how "nice" the DM wants to be.

Shame that plot hook wasn't followed; I'm sure it would've been a fun time! At least from what I've been able to find regarding that classic campaign online (1979?). Also sad that particular group fell apart, but I suppose life happens.

@Tyranexx Not really l don't do dice rolls for level scaling but I guess you could. I usually just do a fraction depending on how much higher or lower I need the creature do be. When it comes to damage I may use a lower die like if something calls for a d8, I may use a d6 instead. If it's more I just add more to the total rolled. For spells it depends on what level the spellcaster is.

White Plume Mountain is one adventure I want to run, as have but it seems that something always happens. They actually have the 5th edition version in Tales from the Yawning Portal which I have, so it probably will be a plot hook at some point for my current campaign.

Yeah that's just they way it goes with life. It was a campaign I started in high school with my friends we even managed to play it a few years afterwards but yeah life happened. I got married and had a kid, two other of my friends married each other, two went into the military and another we as a group had a falling out with so that was the end of that campaign. Funny though how life works though 4 of my current players did play that campaign and did bring up maybe starting it up again maybe a few years later from where we ended the campaign. It's an interesting idea sadly though all the notes as well as the characters for that campaign were lost in the fire.

@Tasuki I think I got the dice roll idea form seeing some of the creature stars and descriptions on 5e Tools. Could be I also misinterpreted what I saw. I quite like the method you describe for level scaling; it seems less left to chance.

Let me know if you do use White Plume Mountain as a plot hook again! I think it would be suitable for the group you currently have based on your previous posts.

Wow. That campaign started a long time ago! Shame that the fire claimed any remnants of it.... Life certainly does happen in large gaps of time. I know a couple who certainly likes to game, but they're so busy with their kids that it's hard to segue them in for anything. It's pretty great that many of you are able to still play together in your current campaign.

@Tyranexx Yeah having young children can make it hard to game. That's why I stopped playing for awhile. I stopped right after 3.5 came out and missed the entire horror that was 4e and didn't start playing again till 5e. By that time my son was 15 and heard our old stories of D&D and wanted to play. As fate would have it I bumped into one of my old friends that I use to play D&D with at the local grocery store, he went into the Navy and we just lost contact. Not long after that my friends in Washington said how they missed me Dming and that got me thinking, and as they said the rest is history.

@Tasuki Yep, they have three kids all under the age of 9. Doesn't help that the poor toddler is an allergy magnet. 😅 The oldest wanted to play on our end of 2021 New Years one shot, but he isn't the best at following some of the crazier rules yet. Smart kid for sure, but he gets bored with some of the proceedings rather fast. Sounds like a lot of things aligned just right for your current group to materialize. That's really cool that your son plays too.

Was 4e that much of a train wreck? I've heard stories....

@Tyranexx Long story short they attempted to make 4e more like a video game and stuff just didn't translate well from video games to table top. That and they tried to make a system now like they are doing now with One D&D but where just to far ahead.

@Tyranexx That is a question that has led to many arguments and flame wars. The most basic answer was they were very different games. I played Star Wars RPG at the time and the Saga Edition used proto-4th edition rules. I would characterize the difference as they were built around two very different play styles. 3rd edition was designed for tabletop first with optional miniature rules, but gameplay could drag on forever due to all the rolls. To me the 4th edition seemed to be designed to sell the miniatures and be a tabletop RPG as a secondary goal. 4th edition was designed to move quicker but things just felt different than expectations.

In the end they played very differently, and I would say that Wizards just misunderstood what their player base wanted. So you ended up with Pathfinder becoming a competitor and eventually 5th edition which seems to balance things better between the two.

@Tyranexx @Darknyht Myself personally I never played 4e as that was during a time in my life I couldn't play Tabletop RPGs, I was more into World of Warcraft at the time. However a few of my friends did try it and didn't like it. Some ideas were great like minions and bleed effects but overall they felt like it was more like a tactical RPG like Fire Emblem. I honestly think if they would have named the system Dungeon and Dragons Tactics and sold it along a system players knew it would have done better.

During that period my friends moved onto Pathfinder like alot of people did as that felt more like a true successor to D&D at the time. My two friends who.play my current campaign also play a Pathfinder game and have tried to talk me.into joining, but I don't really like popping in mid campaign, plus right now I can only dedicate one night to gaming.