eh, you kind of have to just embrace the nonsense. you can only control your character. regardless, anything that happens is usually fine. i'm currently about 10 sessions into a campaign and have seen about 4 combats. still one of the best ive played in despite Troy Barnes and CUtigers trying to rob literally everyone we pass.
Finished our first campaign(Strahd) about a month ago. My first character, elf monk, died about 5 sessions in and I picked up an NPC and played the rest of the campaign as a werebear(with bugbear traits when in bear form) paladin. I dealt Shitty AMC Show blow to Strahd(it turned into homebrew toward the end and Strahd had a dragon form). We're currently building characters/story for our next campaign which starts in October. I'm leaning into a Fairy that was taken into Feywild and now hides his fairy traits wizard. Starting at level 3 and and he'll just be a general wizard to the party but learn necromancy while the story progresses. I've left it up to the DM to force a situation in the campaign where he has to use his wings and reveal that he's a fairy and not just a very short Halfling.
we tried strahd once. i was playing a 4 wisdom warforged that was a homebrew divine soul sorc/abjuration wizard combo. we had one human looking person in the group. two robots, an owl, a human, and something else weird. obviously the npcs did like us very much so we were like "oops. we fucked that up. lets start a level 20 campaign instead."
Do it secretly and frame another innocent person for the murder. See how good they are at role playing then!
I actually had a secret murderer PC in a campaign I ran. The reveal almost destroyed the campaign. I do NOT recommend allowing this
So did you have side bar sessions for the murdering? Or do it at open table? I am proposing it all happens at open table and then the other people have to play their PCs with the knowledge their PCs have.
Having it all out in the open would have worked better, the players were all good enough I don't think they would have metagamed it
So...who's gonna step up and organize a TMB campaign that we can stream for the entire board's entertainment?
Ya. I am running CoS right now with a group that includes two players that played in the game I ran that ended with the pandemic (it's a live game). We lost two players (not to COVID, to being so-so players that we didn't invite back when we restarted last year) and replaced two others, so we just started over. I wound up modifying the story substantially, including making the the Bonegrinder a legit orphanage and the dream pastries a kindness the sisters bring to Barovia. Basically, they are heroines in this deeply depressed plane of existence. One of the repeat players has either forgotten the original run through (which was consistent with the book) or is willing to accept that I've made changes, while the other keeps making insight roles and searching for the crack in their "goodness" to demonstrate they are murdering kids.
I like their style this would be awesome. I don’t know nearly enough about D&D to pull this off but if I could frame this one cleric in our group it would be hilarious how did the reveal play out?
So the character in question had secretly received a boon from a murder god that allowed him to turn into a weretiger every full moon. He had two absolute murder sprees on full moons, and after the second one the party became determined to find this serial killer they kept crossing paths with. Eventually they end up in the feywild (chasing an NPC that was important to the secret murderer, this player was very high maintenance and demanded a lot of spotlight), where I had decreed it is a full moon every night. One of the party members noticed he was missing one evening and scried on him. He failed the save and they saw him in full weretiger form hiding in a bathroom stall. Session ended there, and angry DMs and texts followed for a week.
Find an NPC in the campaign that everyone likes and is generally good. Become a petty thief and take an interest in the NPC's stuff. Goade the DM by asking "Does [the NPC] have anything interesting like a unique dagger?" The DM, taking your bait, will likely say something like "Yes, he has an onyx bladed dagger with an ornate filigreed hilt." BINGO! Invite the NPC to hang out with you one night. Get them a drunk and offer to let them sleep it off in your room at the inn. Steal their unique dagger while they are passed out. [Up until this point, it is important NOT to let the DM/players know your plan or they will try to thwart it]. Secretly murder an innocent person with the dagger (or plant the unique item the DM tells you about at the scene of the crime). Sneak back into your room and tell everyone in the inn the next morning how [the NPC] came to your room at dawn shaken and very afraid.
It was honestly an incredible campaign; but they had been tracking this murderer for a while, and the life cleric had lost family members to him. I don't blame them for getting mad, I let that one guy do pretty much whatever he wanted. Learned a lesson about putting certain guardrails in place.
The campaign in question actually ended on a cliffhanger of the party committing an explicit act of terrorism. They planted a bomb in a building that belonged to the ruling organization in the future dystopian Waterdeep they found when they returned from the feywild. It's been two years and I still think about that campaign and what would have come next all the time. But too many people had too many kids and it went on hiatus which has now turned out to be permanent
On the topic of my upcoming campaign, I really like our DM. He strongly encourages RP, which I'm down for and regularly comes up with creative combat scenarios. But it was apparent from his immediate draw to Strahd and now the setup for our new campaign, where we will "definitely be going to Hell for part of"...it's all a bit heavy. I'd like to spend some time in town fucking around a bit more or in a semi-normal setting and it doesn't appear there's a whole lot of opportunity for that.
Also, we’re set in a world where a dragon war took place and drove our ancestors out of their homes and up into the mountains. We did a dead year world/map creation for the setup. Our premise is we’re the first group to move back down to the world our families used to live, and everyone despises dragons. My celestial is one of the dragon gods, who saved me while I got caught in a storm traveling in the mountains. Only me and the DM know that part and I’m excited to see where he takes it.
i blew up a prison to get someone out who totally belonged in there. but hey, he had access to a drug that gives +1 level for 8 hours and a lot of connections to get me to the source of it. same character may or may not have used the drug to fireball some "evil empire" life boats. and may or may not have made a pact with a particularly powerful ancient white dragon and is now basically a cult leader calling the dragon to steal shit and force servitude upon helpless citizens. dragon was supposed to be a throw away character from a christmas day one shot. it has now become a central figure in our homebrew world.
This is fucking awesome and suits your personality. Hoping for tons of success and happiness for you.
2024 phb ua 7 released today. i might would actually play this barb. PATH OF THE WORLD TREE LEVEL 3: VITALITY OF THE TREE When you activate your Rage, you regain a number of Hit Points equal to your Barbarian level. At the start of each of your turns while your Rage is active, you can choose another creature within 10 feet of yourself to gain Temporary Hit Points. To determine the number of Temporary Hit Points, roll a number of d6s equal to your Rage Damage bonus, and add them together. If any of these Temporary Hit Points remain when your Rage ends, they vanish. LEVEL 6: BRANCHES OF THE TREE While your Rage is active, whenever a creature you can see ends its turn within 20 feet of you, you can use your Reaction to summon spectral branches of the World Tree around it. The target must succeed on a Strength saving throw (DC equal to 8 + your Proficiency Bonus + your Strength modifier) or be teleported to an unoccupied space you can see within 5 feet of yourself or in the nearest unoccupied space you can see. The space the target teleports to must be on a surface or liquid that can support it; otherwise, the target doesn’t teleport. (DESIGN NOTE: VOLUNTARILY FAILING A SAVE The 2024 Player’s Handbook will clarify that any creature can voluntarily fail any saving throw.) LEVEL 10: BATTERING ROOTS Tendrils of the World Tree extend from your melee weapons. While you wield any melee weapon, your reach with that weapon increases by 10 feet, and when you hit with it, you can activate the Push or Topple property even if you’re using another Mastery property with that weapon. LEVEL 14: TRAVEL ALONG THE TREE As an action, you touch a Huge or larger tree or a Teleportation Circle to create a link through the World Tree to a Teleportation Circle somewhere else on the same world or on another plane of existence. When you do so, you can specify a target destination in general terms, such as the City of Brass on the Elemental Plane of Fire, and you and up to five willing creatures within 30 feet of you appear at the Teleportation Circle closest to that destination. If a Teleportation Circle is too small to hold all the creatures you transported, they appear in the unoccupied spaces closest to the circle. Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a Long Rest. If you’ve run out of uses of this feature, you can expend five uses of your Rage, choosing to activate this feature instead of Rage.
after reading the document, it's clear the dnd team and larian were working close together during the development of baldurs gate 3.
Weird and unique but idk that it’s actually good. Lv3 you often want to rage first round so idk how good those HP would be, but the temp HP on teammate is good. B/C tier. Lv6 is a good soft “taunt” but within 20 ft you could usually get there anyway. Situationally useful teammate save. Low B tier. Lv10 extra reach is good, but how often does that extra 10 ft matter? Especially if you can pull someone with a reaction anyway? C tier. Lv14 very, very strong. Not too many high level campaigns don’t benefit from safe long distance travel. S tier, but do you really want to take 14 levels of barbarian??? So unique but nothing adds damage, nothing adds defense or tankiness. All add a little utility, but not really synergistic.
its certainly undertuned but i doubt it makes it to print in that state. however, it is thematically interesting unlike all other barbs and their "hit thing with big stick, get hit with big stick, all while wearing no shirt" schtick. so, so boring.
any of you guys want to give the shop a follow? Spoiler https://instagram.com/chicago.role.players.guild?igshid=NzZlODBkYWE4Ng==
We’re four sessions in and starting to make a little progress. Entered our first dungeon last night just before calling it a night. We’ve had a few party changes and one dude that joined is playing a fairy rogue. He’s added some spice to the group but is almost annoying in the opposite sense of the others that are too nice. It is a good bit of balance though. After our first battle he was over eager to get to looting and initially tried to loot all of the bodies and keep the gold for himself before I stepped in and made him split it with the party. He then snuck in a room at the tavern and tricked one of our clerics into robbing some priest that was in there sleeping with him. Last night he had to be warned against trying to murder an innocent person in this bath house when the massage price was too high for his liking lol.
I really like the intrepid heroes campaigns, the misfits of magic game (different system) was also really good and only 6 sessions
Totally different world, it's the kids on brooms system. But still a dimension 20 game. I didn't like the prequel to ACoC as much as the original but it was fun to have mercer run that season.
I got as close as I ever have to my character dying. We got into a fight we shouldn’t have, and my 30HP/13AC warlock got chased down/beat unconscious. Got to my 5th death roll save and rolled an 11 We leveled up so I have shifted around some of my spells I know, and added the Mage Armour invocation. That will take my AC up to 15 so that will hopefully make me a bit more squishy
Got a group that is playing for the first time Monday. Bunch of new people so I’m pretty excited. Playing the Paladin role for our group.
Is that the thing at Great Wolf Lodge where you walk around with a fake wand and point it at TVs throughout the hotel