The General D&D thread

At least it's better than the Elven Nazis that my friend had for his world.

Yes, they were basically the Aldmeri Dominion, and yes the party is currently planning on annihilating the section of the planet they live on (his campaign setting is some weird combination of Rift, Planescape and Mass Effect)

Depending on the time zone I would not mind joining up with you Knowless.

I kind of already have a party put together (and folks waiting to see if any of said party have schedule problems). :/ Sorry.

edited 31st Jan '16 3:43:06 PM by Knowlessman

My Greek Game finally has a full cast, being topped off by the addition of a badass Spartan Princess, whose backstory involves chopping the balls off of the false king of Macedonia.

Tomu, as someone whose considered playing an Ancient Greek-themed game, I'm curious as to the details of your world. Like, is it just a fictional version of Hellenia or is it like historical Greece? How big is magic? Are things like satyrs and centaurs playable? How influential are the gods?

1.) It's based roughly on Ancient Greece, and in fact does try to be historically accurate in a few ways; the major city states are Thebes, Athens, Sparta, and Macedonia. China also exists (the "Middle Kingdom") and indeed one of the P Cs is from there.

In particular, the era is the era in which Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander the Great all lived, though the tech level is kind of variable. Weapons, for instance, get a damage bonus based on material, starting with bronze and going up to Fine Steel.

Plato being an NPC is somewhat relevant, seeing as how the campaign is basically just an Allegory of the Cave Allegory.

2.) Magic is pretty limited in the proper Greek Peninsula area, only available through Titan Pacts, which are of course heresy. The Chinese guy is a Wu Jen though, but that's also considered a big no no.

3.) The gods are material beings. They're not actually gods in the "we created the universe" sense, so much as they basically just shaped the peninsula after the fallout from Kronus' fall. They're basically just extremely powerful psions (though I use the term very loosely), who do their best to make sure that the Fires of Olympus (psionics) don't fall into the hands of humankind.

P Cs will start the campaign by trying to dethrone the false king of Macedonia, as one of the P Cs is the rightful Princekingguy, and then the whole schtick re: gods and the Flames of Olympus will go from there.

Fortunately, none of my players read this forum.

Supernaturaly type creatures exist, but the only playable race that's non-human is minotaur, and that's largely an artifact from the fact that one player is playing a character from a past campaign.

edited 31st Jan '16 8:20:24 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

Couple reasons I'm sticking with it, Nocturne. I'll try to order them from most to least, um, petty?

By the way, this is for 3e-to-P

1. I'm already doing it. Why change the horse, mid, uh... pitstop...? I don't actually have a game running. I like my fucking horse, okay?

2. I much rather just stick with some easily nabbed core race stats. Like, I'm pretty sure there's some LA +0 version of drow, but why bother looking? Just slap some black face on an elf, swap low-light for darkvision, call it a day. Like, it's right there with everything else. It certainly feels simpler to me.

3. Man, those some shitty stats.

4. It segues perfectly into the fact that I imagine goblins filling the same niche halflings do, as tiny gypsies, so why not give 'em the same stats?

In fact, that's what my gobbies are, they're green halflings. I find this aesthetically pleasing.

Mind, I do have use for the gobbie stats, and the orcs, to represent primitive evolutionary throwbacks, cavemen essentially.

edited 31st Jan '16 8:56:42 PM by God_of_Awesome

In 4E (which no one here plays), goblins are PC playable with DM permission, but since so much of racial balance is racial feats, halflings as goblins works better just from a gameplay standpoint.

@Knowlessman: There is support subscription option for roll20

^^Sooo wait, you don't have 5E's player's guide? .-. I mean, it does have drow stats xD

edited 31st Jan '16 9:41:39 PM by SpookyMask

I think they go out of their way not to ask for money until you're already in.

You have shit for token options without shelling out, that's for sure.
Looks like it'll do perfectly well, though, even with ads.

edited 31st Jan '16 10:52:40 PM by Knowlessman

The ads only show up when you're logging in. The only problem you might have is a limited token selection, but they're reasonably cheap and you can buy them when you think you might need them. Really, what you're gonna be starved for most is terrain.

Bah, who needs tokens, I just use character avatars as tokens.

I use maptool myself. And I have a lot of resources. I like it better then roll20, but that is likely because I was using maptool first and got too use to it's systems. I can't program a marco on roll20 with any skill, but I can on maptool.

@Spooky Mask: All my friends use PF, so that's what I use.

The only game I'm trying to get them to jump to is Exalted, but not a topic for this thread.

Maptools is the best. Here's my model for monster attack roll macros:

[h:name=token.name] [h:powerName=""] [h:rangeText=""] [h:power=powerName+" ("+rangeText+")"] [h:action="Standard Action"] [h:damageType=""] [h:Close Burst=0] [h:Half Miss=0] [h:Friendly=1] [h:Damage Roll=1d8] [h:Damage Bonus=] [h:Attack Bonus=] [h:Reach=] [h:Defense Targeted="AC"] [h:numberOfAttacks=1] [h:isSingle=1] [h:skipInput=1-isSingle]

<div style="width: 350px; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px; border-color: #000000; padding: 0 0 3px 0;"> <div style="margin: 0; padding: 0 0 2px 5px; background-color: green; color: #FFFFFF; font-weight: bold;">[r:power] ( [r:action] )</div> <div style="padding: 0 0 0 5px; margin: 0;">

[while(numberOfAttacks>0,""),code:{ [h:jsonData = json.set("{}", "Damage Bonus",Damage Bonus,"Damage Roll", Damage Roll, "Attack Bonus", Attack Bonus, "Defense Targeted", Defense Targeted, "damageType", damageType,"Reach",Reach,"Friendly",Friendly,"Close Burst",Close Burst,"Half Miss",Half Miss,"Targets Override",0,"isSingle",isSingle,"skipInput",skipInput)]

[MACRO("Monster Attack@lib:Attacks"): jsonData] [h:numberOfAttacks=numberOfAttacks-1+isSingle] }]

Ha ha, yeah, no way that that's gonna format right.

Oh, huh, aside from line breaks, it didn't have any weird formatting. Weird.

edited 1st Feb '16 8:12:52 AM by TheyCallMeTomu

^^Ah, if you meant Pathfinder(I might be wrong, but I don't know anything about D&D books so if there is another PF I don't know what it is), there is still advanced race guide <_< And its free on prd

Try and get everyone to convert to 4E, and enjoy your newfound free time as you lose all your friends!

Exalted is a terrible terrible game anyway.

The story is good, but playing it makes me wonder if the designers realised that it isn't actually 2001 anymore and you don't need special dicerolls for every conceivable player action.

And that maybe you don't need to make your feat-equivalents a flowchart.

Or have different charm trees for different PC types Because Reasons.

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled D&D talk: Is there anyone here who's tried out the Warlock in fifth edition? Back in 3.5 it was one of my favorite classes and the fact that apparently the Pathfinder guys can't make the class because of license issues is one of the few things about 3.75 that makes me really sad. On the other hand, I didn't really dig the fourth edition Warlock, and I'm wondering how the new edition plays with the class.

Flowcharts are the best though!

I actually added flowcharts into my 4E game~

On the other hand, they're super duper simplistic flowcharts. "Talent trees" as they were.

5E Warlocks have the following things going for them:

1.) They regain their spells during a short rest instead of a long rest. Depending on how often characters get short rests then, they can actually have a crapload of effective spells per day.

2.) They work pretty well with multiclassing: with only 2 levels of Warlock, you can get the full damage output from Eldritch Blast (as determined by character level), unlike a class like Fighter whose at-will damage output is based on class level.

3.) While Warlocks by default have a mediocre spell list, their pact specific spells include a few good ones. I like Telekinesis for instance, though it's not very useful if there's a lot of enemies to be fought at once. Infernal pact Warlocks get Fireball, making Warlocks are pretty good at the whole blaster role.

4.) A Sorcerer/Warlock multiclass combination can actually convert encounter spell slots to sorcery points, and then convert sorcery points to daily spell slots. That sounds more OP than it actually is though, since Warlock levels don't stack with actual caster levels.

I haven't had the chance to actually try the class out in real play much, but another player of mine played a Warlock in a game that went to 10th level, and was relatively effective.

If I had one grief with the Warlock class, it would be that they don't seem to do as well at higher levels, compared to "real" spellcasters, but that's just a hot take.

edited 1st Feb '16 9:43:42 AM by TheyCallMeTomu

Seemed pretty fun when I tried them out once

The Sorcerer/Warlock multiclass allows this ridiculous cheese.

Sadly, the campaign I'll be Warlocking in doesn't use standard rest rules: short rests are "between encounters" so I can't, say, use multiple short rests overnight just because I don't have to sleep, because that's not how it works.

5e Warlock is better all-around than the 3.5 one. Like, I'll admit that. That class was mediocre at best in 3.5 and in 5e is now on par with the Sorcerer and Wizard.

Which makes me honestly want to try my hand at converting the 5e Warlock to 3.5

I mean, I've already done conversions like that with the 4e Shardmind and 4/5 Dragonborn

edited 1st Feb '16 10:17:51 AM by BlackSunNocturne

Pathfinder has a class that follows the same basic FLAVOR of the Warlock — the aptly-named Witch. The Witch has the added benefit of having powers related to ideas of classic witchiness — like having a familiar, riding a broomstick, and cooking and eating people — which is way cool and I'm pretty sure the Warlock doesn't get that sorta stuff.

Pathfinder classes are rad and if people haven't converted them all to 5e they should because 5e seems way simpler on the rules front than PF. 5e rules with PF flavor would be my jam.

There's this thing, but it isn't really the most balanced.