The General D&D thread

What about the other Underdark creatures? Like derro and duergar?

Not nearly as sexy, so who cares.

In all seriousness: In one of my earlier settings, the relationship between the sub-races of the elves and the sub-races of the dwarves was important. The duergar betrayed the drow in some ancient conflict, and the high elves, the eladrin, betrayed the morradin, the mountain dwarves.

Only the sylvan, the wood elves, and the svartalfar, the hill dwarves, remained close allies and are the most prosperous sub-races for it.

Several of our new GD freshmen have shown interest towards trying out D&D. I'm planning to run The Lost Mine of Phandelver for them, as it's apparently a pretty good starter adventure. So far it looks good, and the more sandbox nature of the adventure fits my DMing style.

New semester, new campaign! Apparently we start tonight and I'm super excited!

The page image for SchmuckBait.Tabletop Games is just too good.

And now I know you read Darths And Droids.

My Troper page coulda told you that. :V

I'm not seeing the connection between and

Today's Darths & Droids strip linked to that page. It links to the wiki something like every third strip or so on average, really.

Ah, okay. I've lagged behind on my Darth's, in that case.

Hey guys, question time: do you have any good ideas of getting rid of revenant-ism?

One of the characters became a revenant as a means of avoiding rerolling a character in their first session, and while it's all fine and good, the party's attempts of "curing" her have maybe become a bit too big priority. However, due to their persistence and numerous rather clever, even if unsuccessful, attempts I would like to reward my players by actually allowing them to succeed. The thing is, there is no 'canon' D&D method of removing the condition like there is with lycanthropy or vampirism. Now I have guided my players towards a place where they will probably find the information they seek, so I'll have a few sessions of time to figure out what they will actually discover, but as of now, I have no idea.

So would any of you guys have any ideas for appropriate methods of "curing" the revenant? Some sort of necromantic ritual? Pleading the God of Death? Just have them acquire one use of Wish and hoping they wouldn't completely break the game?

edited 1st Sep '16 2:17:30 PM by Xeroop

Raise Dead?

Well, she's been revenant for quite much longer than 10 days, and the spell specifically says that it cannot restore undead creatures back to life. I think they actually considered this at one point.

Then bash together a homebrew ritual with some arbitrary components that they conveniently find somewhere.

A revenant stays as it is until one year passes or until their quarry is dead. Either way, just wait 'til one of the two conditions is met and then rez 'em. Just be careful to keep the dust that they crumble into.

Is there a particular reason they want to be unreven - Oh, it replaces their racial features, doesn't it?
Uh... Say that dunking them in holy water does it, and/or sticking them in the Elemental Plane of Positive Energy for a second? This is homebrew territory anyway. (Well, it was starting from when the player became a revenant, I think, unless you're playing 4e.)

Look, you got their soul, the body has been preserved by necromantic energy, the normal limits on resurrection methods should not apply.

Or, at least, their should be way to finnagle around it. Say, take the rez spell, but you gotta jigger a few extra components to it.

I'd favour the approach of making it a 'find some rare ritual components and/or go on a quest to win the favour of an appropriate deity' sort of thing.

Really, I'd say the second part is more important- when people start bending the rules of Life and Death in non-standard ways, getting the divine Green Light is just pragmatic. Plus it explains why only the PCs can do it.

The quest could also be something morally questionable, if that's the direction you want to take this.

edited 1st Sep '16 4:15:57 PM by Gilphon

This reminds me of the fact that Revenant was a playable "race" in Fourth Edition. Perhaps look at that for an idea?

The rules of PC revenants in 5e are part of the problem; resurrection magic shouldn't work since the soul never really leaves the body, and the rules specifically say that after the revenant's quest has been completed "the revenant cannot return back to life" which to me sounds like a pretty specific point of no return.

I was thinking of some sort of higher necromantic ritual à la DeVir's ritual from Out of the Abyss: something with multiple, difficult-to-achieve components and a possibly morally questionable ritual, perhaps requiring someone else's life to be sacrificed in order to transfer life to the revenant?

That, or some incredibly morally dubious quest from the God of Undeath.

Maybe I'll give the party a choice between the two.

edited 2nd Sep '16 2:26:03 AM by Xeroop

Clearly, the party will need to beat the god of death in a cooking contest.

Revenant Update: so, all that planning went down to drain when the revenant character pulled the equivalent of Fates from the Deck of Many Things and unmade her revenant-ness.

On the bright side, it made for some good role-playing, as she felt like the next meal and sleep she had were the first in months (which they were), even though technically she'd never been a revenant in the first place.

It also produced some good comedy, as one of the characters pointed out that the revenant's love interest, a character they spent the last two months of retrieving after he jumped into a mind flayer portal because the illithid had stolen an artifact that'd be able to cure her, now jumped into the portal and made the rest of the party roam the Underdark in search of him not because of love, but because why not.

Not that it was completely free for her either: the deck was a 'reward' for a rather dangerous heist mission the party pulled off previously - which included things like swim-sneaking around beholder, accidentally turning the enemy guards resistant to all damage due to a magic mishap, and locking the party dwarf in a portable whole with a Yochlol - and the two other cards she pulled from the deck gave her a -2 to all saving throws and made her considered to be flanked whenever two opponents are fighting her at once, no matter their position.

And even if my planning went to waste for now, I certainly know what the next player who turns to a revenant must do to end their condition, if they don't want to fulfill their quest and perish.

Wow, that's... actually pretty hilarious.

Also adorable that she got to enjoy eating and sleeping for the first time again.

The thing I have with anti-nihilistic paladins is their relationship with deities. Paladins DO have a special relationship with the god they worship or at least get their power from them?

That's how I understand it. They're essentially like militant Clerics, they're fighting for a cause. Not a lot of room for nihilism.

I don't know, I'd allow godless Paladins. They'd just have to specify exactly what's the cause they believe in, and then their powers are pure determination incarnate. No god required.

(But I usually try to keep gods out of my settings in general, so they're not the typical high fantasy setup)

edited 12th Sep '16 1:01:41 AM by Cozzer