Current Events > Do you play D&D?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I've played several campaigns.

First campaign, the DM got burnt out, and we speedran the ending, and nothing we did to that point mattered at all.
That ending was just so shit.

Second campaign, life got in the way for a few players, last session ended in the middle of the final fight. That must be over a year ago.

Third campaign, same DM as the second, the DM got some mental issues, and we've been on hiatus since August, i think.

Fourth and Fifth are still going, but the DM of both of those moved to China and his internet was out for a few weeks

Been playing a campaign for a bit over a year now

I've played a few times before but not in a while. I've had multiple groups and they all disintegrate before we get super far into anything.

specialkid8 posted...

I've played a few times before but not in a while. I've had multiple groups and they all disintegrate before we get super far into anything.

Online or in person groups?

Twice a week.

008Zulu posted...

Online or in person groups?

in person

MC_BatCommander posted...

Been playing a campaign for a bit over a year now

Could you DM an online CE D & D, hypothetically @MC_BatCommander ?

Cocytus posted...

Could you DM an online CE D & D, hypothetically @MC_BatCommander ?

I'd play

agoat posted...

I'd play

I think I'd like to too.

Cocytus posted...

Could you DM an online CE D & D, hypothetically @MC_BatCommander ?

I hypothetically could but I've never ran a game and am quite new to D&D as a whole

MC_BatCommander posted...

I hypothetically could but I've never ran a game and am quite new to D&D as a whole

Let me ask you this, are you a good story-teller?

MC_BatCommander posted...

I hypothetically could but I've never ran a game and am quite new to D&D as a whole

You could probably do alright if you had the time to prep everything. Your character has a pretty good story imo.

specialkid8 posted...

in person

I have only ever had two in-person groups. The first I ended up leaving (the high school group from my other posts, I ditched them when D&D pc games got really good), the other only lasted a few months (my brother and some of his friends). Losing the real world ones sucks more than the online ones.

I've DM'd a few one-shots in the past

pegusus123456 posted...

That's dumb as hell, rangers are apparently the worst class in the game.

the version in the players handbook had some overly circumstantial abilities, but it played fine unless you ignored the spellcasting. Rangers have a great spell list. Monks are much worse in terms of their actual design (they also don't really fit thematically with the rest of the classes but that's a semi-separate issue)

I've played a little and it'd be fun to play more but there are other TTRPGs that I greatly prefer.

My friends and I just finished a campaign that we had been playing since just before the pandemic hit. Now we're doing a couple of one-shots in the interim before we start our next long campaign, though that's technically going to be Pathfinder rather than D&D.

I theoretically enjoy playing it, but not in reality. Didn't really try until an adult and my job is shift work, so I rarely had the same time free that my teacher friends did when we played a campaign last year. I also don't enjoy the actual rpg elements and would rather just listen to everyone else talk - I want to absorb a story, not create it - but do love the combat.

averagejoel posted...

the version in the players handbook had some overly circumstantial abilities, but it played fine unless you ignored the spellcasting. Rangers have a great spell list. Monks are much worse in terms of their actual design (they also don't really fit thematically with the rest of the classes but that's a semi-separate issue)

Ranger was usually worse, but that was because most people who picked Ranger picked Beastmaster, which absolutely ruins your Action Economy.

The beast took no action on your turn (except move and dodge) unless you sacrificed one of your attacks to command it. At lower levels that means your entire action. The ranger spell list is good, but the beast couldn't benefit from things like Hunter's Mark, so you were almost always in a situation where plinking things with an arrow was better than getting your beast to help.

And that's before factoring in that you have to beg your DM for spoilers or else Favored Enemy and Terrain run the risk of becoming completely nonfunctional. Monk might not be as skilled as the rogue, nor does it have the same nova potential, and it might fall behind the fighter's dpr, but it at least worked conceptually. Suboptimal sure, but Beastmaster was bordering on unplayable. The other subclasses were outperformed by Fighter with a Bow which is a similar problem that the Monk has. (Ranger does win here though) At least the Monk gets to feel cool and unique thanks to using Fists.

The beast was also kind of shit. Tasha's replaced that whole system with new generic Beasts that work way better, and the beast uses your bonus action or optionally one of your attacks, meaning it no longer clashes with your Action Economy in any way. Beastmaster under Tasha's is quite good, but until then it was easily one of the worst subclasses in the game.

Elemental Monk might have been worse, but few people wanted that class because even to new players it was an obviously bad choice. For some reason Beastmaster Ranger was on every table, optimizations be damned, and they were always miserable because their dog kept dying and doing nothing.

i don't think i've been in a game where people play Ranger.
when people want animals, they've usually done Druids

Ive never even seen anyone play it in real life. I went over a friend of a friends house in high school and they had some manuals on their coffee table. That was as close as I got to playing besides looking through some manuals at the mall bookstore.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

All of this is true. If we had to consider the worst class overall, I'd be happy saying it's Monk. But the original Beastmaster as a subclass was worse than even Four Elements Monk imo.

Never played any tabletop rpg games but have played plenty of video games inspired or take place in their setting. I wouldn't mind trying it one of these days, my brother was into it a few years back and I never got the chance to ask him if I could join him.

Have any of you played the video game Pathfinder Kingmaker?

Its on sale now for around $7 on PlayStation store, so Im thinking of getting it. I heard its based on the same table RPG world.

Lorenzo_2003 posted...

Have any of you played the video game Pathfinder Kingmaker?

Its on sale now for around $7 on PlayStation store, so Im thinking of getting it. I heard its based on the same table RPG world.

I tried to play it several times but found it very difficult. But I still liked it for what it was.

Lorenzo_2003 posted...

Have any of you played the video game Pathfinder Kingmaker?

Its on sale now for around $7 on PlayStation store, so Im thinking of getting it. I heard its based on the same table RPG world.

I have played the shit out of Wrath of the Righteous. I've haven't touched kingmaker since from what I've heard it lacks QoL improvements from Wrath.

Well, thank you for the info.

I think Ill get it today and let you know how it goes. At least its not full retail price. I dont have experience with Pathfinder, so this should be interesting.

Not the tabletop game, but I've played some video games based on it.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

honestly I wouldn't call Stunning Strike "stupidly powerful" -- it's basically Hold Person (which I wouldn't even call a particularly good spell in the first place) except you have to hit the enemy with an attack roll first, and it targets a worse saving throw.

not to mention that you have to focus on Dex to make your attacks hit, but Wis to get a decent DC on Stunning Strike

Once my daughter is at a competent enough reading level ill likely start dming again, maybe throw a few NPC's in and have my wife and kids play a few times on our board game nights. My wife says she isn't into it despite having never even given it a chance and everything she has ever said that about when it comes to my hobbies she ends up fucking loving. I know my kids will be totally into it so with them and me sitting down to play my wife will join in.

Monks should have the entire series of Martial Arts dice bumped up at each notch.

The Four Elements subclass should have the Ki cost reduced on all their higher tier stuff, and should get a freebie of a reworked flame snake strike or whatever it was called so that it lasts a minute when used: giving the Monk a 10' reach for a fight on the cheap. The subclass would still be weak, but would feel better to use.

Man there was a west marches topic on reddit this morning. That'd be cool to do

IfGodCouldDie posted...

Once my daughter is at a competent enough reading level ill likely start dming again, maybe throw a few NPC's in and have my wife and kids play a few times on our board game nights. My wife says she isn't into it despite having never even given it a chance and everything she has ever said that about when it comes to my hobbies she ends up fucking loving. I know my kids will be totally into it so with them and me sitting down to play my wife will join in.

If I can make a suggestion, look into Pugmire. I'm assuming since you talked about your daughter improving her reading that she's younger so it's definitely a game that would fit that age bracket well.

It's kind of like a rules-light version of D&D where you play as dogs (think Redwall or a Disney movie) in a fantasy setting, with supplements that also add cats, birds, lizards, and rodents as playable characters. Definitely a fun and light atmosphere that will work well with younger players. And the rules are similar enough that once they're older, you can potentially get them started on D&D with minimal adjustment.

Lorenzo_2003 posted...

Have any of you played the video game Pathfinder Kingmaker?

Its on sale now for around $7 on PlayStation store, so Im thinking of getting it. I heard its based on the same table RPG world.

I played the PC version, is was pretty good for a while, but it drags on way way to long. Also I've heard the Playstation version has major issues.

TMOG posted...

If I can make a suggestion, look into Pugmire. I'm assuming since you talked about your daughter improving her reading that she's younger so it's definitely a game that would fit that age bracket well.

It's kind of like a rules-light version of D&D where you play as dogs (think Redwall or a Disney movie) in a fantasy setting, with supplements that also add cats, birds, lizards, and rodents as playable characters. Definitely a fun and light atmosphere that will work well with younger players. And the rules are similar enough that once they're older, you can potentially get them started on D&D with minimal adjustment.

Holy fucking shit, thats sounds perfect. The biggest hurdle to her reading right now is dyslexia, she is almost 8 years old and her reading is coming along slower than our sons did.(He was already reading full on novels by the time he was 7, so I know he was advanced in that regard) and it is really hard to gage how far along she is vs how far along she should be because our son was so far advanced. But even with her dyslexia she seems to be further along than most kids in her grade.

Looking for some cool ideas for npcs. In general tbh but maybe some cool ideas to fill out a wizard guild in the PC's starting town

agoat posted...

Looking for some cool ideas for npcs. In general tbh but maybe some cool ideas to fill out a wizard guild in the PC's starting town

This one may be a bit much, but it's one I've thought about: intelligent giant spider sorcerer that runs a magic shop.

Backstory is there's a forest with enough ambient wild magic that the local fauna exhibited magical abilities. This high level, asshole druid got into the habit of swinging by every now and then to Awaken an animal, use and abuse it for a month, then kill it before it broke free of the charm. Except this time he got shitface drunk the night before it runs out, passes out, and she just eats him. She tries going back to the forest, but it turns out a 10 Int spider doesn't have much in common with 2 Int spiders. So after she trains up some of her inherent magical abilities, she makes her way into a town with a pretty lenient government and starts living her life.

Her shop is outfitted with a lush white carpet that's really just a permanent Web spell that she can turn off and on at will.

I've probably thought about this too much for someone who has never played.

Pandemic made my games go online and because I didn't have a laptop then it caused issues and delays trying to run discord and roll20 at once on my phone so I was removed. :/

agoat posted...

Looking for some cool ideas for npcs. In general tbh but maybe some cool ideas to fill out a wizard guild in the PC's starting town

so a while ago I was in an Eberron campaign. the Warforged race comes from there. they're essentially magically animated robots created to fight in this really long war. once the war ended, they were freed and had to kinda find another purpose in life.

so this one warforged goes out into the middle of nowhere and starts meditating and contemplating life. they don't need to eat, drink, sleep, or breathe, so he's just sitting there cross-legged for years and years. eventually people start coming to see him, he becomes something of a tourist attraction, and overtime a whole town builds up around him. then one day he just gets up and walks away

IfGodCouldDie posted...

Holy fucking shit, thats sounds perfect. The biggest hurdle to her reading right now is dyslexia, she is almost 8 years old and her reading is coming along slower than our sons did.(He was already reading full on novels by the time he was 7, so I know he was advanced in that regard) and it is really hard to gage how far along she is vs how far along she should be because our son was so far advanced. But even with her dyslexia she seems to be further along than most kids in her grade.

Sounds like D&D/Pugmire will be a great way to help with that. Hope it works well and you all have fun!

agoat posted...

Looking for some cool ideas for npcs. In general tbh but maybe some cool ideas to fill out a wizard guild in the PC's starting town

You could use a version of my character Jick. He's a kobold warlock (genie patron) who got tricked into becoming a vessel for a djinn's power because he's just a nice, naive, trusting guy. Used to be a junk collector but his genie master demands that he go out and find actual treasure of value for her instead. Tends to focus his spells more on illusion, charming, and wind effects than the typical edginess of other warlocks -- basically, stuff that feels like it would come directly from the genie. The sole exception being eldritch blast of course, because without that what the fuck is a warlock supposed to do?

Lorenzo_2003 posted...

Well, thank you for the info.

I think Ill get it today and let you know how it goes. At least its not full retail price. I dont have experience with Pathfinder, so this should be interesting.

Wrath is on sale for 14.99

I'm DMing a group tomorrow, in fact.

I was playing for a couple of years, but the DM of that group moved to Denver. =(

this summer i'm gonna DM in person for the first time.
done it over Discord before, but anyone got any tips on the difficulties in that transition?

ROBANN_88 posted...

this summer i'm gonna DM in person for the first time.
done it over Discord before, but anyone got any tips on the difficulties in that transition?

I've never done it over discord, so I dunno really what would be the differences. I suppose it also depends a bit on your style as a DM. Like how open you are with your dice rolls and stuff. The guy who usually DMs for us tries his best to be really secretive. So he's constantly rolling his dice, so we won't suspect if he's checking for something.

But the prime advice imo is to make sure you all have a lot of space. Especially as DM. I guess on discord you can have most of your stuff on the computer, but figuring out a good AFK setup will save you a lot of headache.

scar_the_1 posted...

AFK setup

i'm not sure i know this acronym in this context

and this is just gonna be a one-shot, so far

ROBANN_88 posted...

i'm not sure i know this acronym in this context

and this is just gonna be a one-shot, so far

I dunno if it applies to you. I'm saying there could be a distinction between how you're organized when you're playing through discord, and when you're playing in person. Things like, do you have a bunch of books you're gonna look through instead of files open on the computer, physical vs digital notes, different desk/table, etc.

Thanks for your help everyone!