D&D 5E Discussion

[Gyor]

https://www.enworld.org/threads/van-richten’s-guide-to-ravenloft-table-of-contents.679842/

Table of Contents and later in the thread an example of Dark Gifts.

Side note I'm increasingly convinced the Dragonic Gifts "feats" from the Draconic UA aren't really feats at all.

 

[Larianshill]

Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft is supposed offer support for higher level adventures in Barovaria.

I'm gonna say it - Strahd just resurrecting, and the world returning to the state as if the players never adventured there makes sense from the official timeline perspective (because Strahd is an iconic character, who can't be allowed to die), but I think it would be much better if Barovia reformed under a different darklord, still miserable, but differently miserable. Someone like Rahidin or Arrigal would be good options. Hell, there was an unofficial adventure with this exact premise, but it never went beyond the cover. The cover was cool, though.

Spoiler

 

[Cryomancer]

Strahd just resurrecting, and the world returning to the state as if the players never adventured there makes sense from the official timeline perspective

2E domains of dread explain how he comes back to (un)life - page 98

Vampires in general on 2E when reaches 0 hp doesn't get "killed", they assume "mistform" and have a chance to retreat to his Coffin. To permanently kill Strahd, you need to first find the location of his "coffin" which probably only he knows hence you need to somehow use control undead on him to force him to give the location of the coffin, ohhh wait, control undead doesn't work on domain lords since ravenloft messes with certain spells - page 289.

And even if you could, he has ridiculous high saves and with +2 bonus on his roll and the "power check" can corrupt or put curse on your PC atempting to take control over him. I an not joking. Even if it affected him, he would need to roll 1 to fail the save.( base save = 6 + 2 from necro specialization + 2 from how control undead works on ravenloft). And this assuming that this spell would work against him and that he din't planed any defense against this spell(which is extremely unlikely considering his high int)

"but I can use locate objects or wish to know the location of his coffin" -> Divination magic is weakened on the realms of dread and the wish will be "corrupted" by the dark forces. Wishing anything against a dark lord in the realms of dread is asking to be trolled hard by the DM dark powers. You can also try to use his obsession with Tatiana, but doesn't matter how blind by love Strahd is. He will know that is a trap cuz no way that Tatiana would wanna ask him about it.

Permanently killing him is not easy. Even using "meta". Just defeating him and escaping is already very hard...

EDIT > To be clear(since people here love to put words into my mouth), I an not saying that wish, control undead and other spells of lv 7+ should be easily obtained on the Barovia. Nor that players should use meta knowledge. Just pointing out why he is so hard to permanently destroyed.

 

[Larianshill]

In the 5E version, he comes back even if you kill him in a way that would kill a normal vampire permanently (meaning, in his coffin). That is dumb.

 

[Caim]

Pretty sure that not being allowed to die is part of the package of being a Dark Lord, otherwise they could just kill themselves and be a killjoy to the Dark Powers.

 

[Cael]

Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft is supposed offer support for higher level adventures in Barovaria.

I'm gonna say it - Strahd just resurrecting, and the world returning to the state as if the players never adventured there makes sense from the official timeline perspective (because Strahd is an iconic character, who can't be allowed to die), but I think it would be much better if Barovia reformed under a different darklord, still miserable, but differently miserable. Someone like Rahidin or Arrigal would be good options. Hell, there was an unofficial adventure with this exact premise, but it never went beyond the cover. The cover was cool, though.

Spoiler

They wanted to turn Strahd into a female elf???

 

[Larianshill]

That's Patrina Velikovna, Strahd's former side hoe. At the moment of the adventure, she's dead, stoned to death by her fellow elves, for being Strahd's bride. Her brother Casimir enlists party's aid to resurrect her, overcome with regret over doing it. Upon being resurrected, Patrina expresses remorse over her past misdeeds, and asks the party to help her recover her lost spellbook, before she helps them bring down Strahd. If they do, she

Spoiler

Immediately fucks off to pursue her evil goals.

 

[Nortar]

stoned to death by her fellow elves

Oh yes, that's a traditional elven thing, stoning to death.
Fits well with traditional elven names - Patrina and Casimir.
These NPCs are humans in everything but the "race" line; because using actual humans would not have been cool enough?
The new breed of D&D writers seems to be determined on blending all the races into a seamless "generic peasants" crowd.

 

[Cryomancer]

D&D writers seems to be determined on blending all the races into a seamless "generic peasants" crowd.

Yep. I know that is controversial, but I believe that limitations on classes and "kits" based on race and alignment makes perfectly sense and that the character race should have a much bigger impact. An "elf fighter" and an "dwarf fighter" should fight in two completely different ways, even if both are using the same weapon. One race adapted to survive in forest should fight completely different than a race adapted to survive in mines.

How to make it gameplay wise? IDK. I have zero experience playing as a martial character.

not being allowed to die is part of the package of being a Dark Lord,

I believe that depends on the dark lord. But part of the horror of ravenloft is that not even death can save you from the realms of dread... Non dark lords, depends on the realm. On Barovia, the native people reincarnate there. The adventurers who failed to slay Strahd are ghosts which "march" every night.

 

[Larianshill]

I have zero experience playing as a martial character.

Well, that's unsurprising.

 

[nikolokolus]

stoned to death by her fellow elves

Oh yes, that's a traditional elven thing, stoning to death.
Fits well with traditional elven names - Patrina and Casimir.
These NPCs are humans in everything but the "race" line; because using actual humans would not have been cool enough?
The new breed of D&D writers seems to be determined on blending all the races into a seamless "generic peasants" crowd.

Also known as "People in Funny Hats." That's been an issue in D&D settings and games since I can remember, particularly after Unearthed Arcana for AD&D 1st ed. dropped and suddenly everyone wanted to play a dark elf ranger dual-weilding shortswords (or god help me scimitars if the DM was stupid enough to allow it). It's one of the reasons I tend to favor Sword & Sorcery settings/games anymore, where player characters are a human (possibly from different cultures) and if there is some non-human, they are (rightly) viewed with suspicion or at least outright hostility and more than likely going to be antagonists.

 

[Caim]

stoned to death by her fellow elves

Oh yes, that's a traditional elven thing, stoning to death.
Fits well with traditional elven names - Patrina and Casimir.
These NPCs are humans in everything but the "race" line; because using actual humans would not have been cool enough?
The new breed of D&D writers seems to be determined on blending all the races into a seamless "generic peasants" crowd.

Also known as "People in Funny Hats." That's been an issue in D&D settings and games since I can remember, particularly after Unearthed Arcana for AD&D 1st ed. dropped and suddenly everyone wanted to play a dark elf ranger dual-weilding shortswords (or god help me scimitars if the DM was stupid enough to allow it). It's one of the reasons I tend to favor Sword & Sorcery settings/games anymore, where player characters are a human (possibly from different cultures) and if there is some non-human, they are (rightly) viewed with suspicion or at least outright hostility and more than likely going to be antagonists.

People think that the weird shit began in 5e, but as early as 1e you could play as a harpy, treant, dryad, gatorman, big-ass owl, tiny-ass humanoid, centaur, pegataur (winged pegasus), a goddamn sphinx or even a 'thal if you so desired (and had GM approval).

 

[Morblot]

People think that the weird shit began in 5e, but as early as 1e you could play as a harpy, treant, dryad, gatorman, big-ass owl, tiny-ass humanoid, centaur, pegataur (winged pegasus), a goddamn sphinx or even a 'thal if you so desired (and had GM approval).

AFAIK it goes even further back than 1e, I remember reading something about people playing as balrogs in OD&D.

 

[Cryomancer]

I remember reading something about people playing as balrogs in OD&D.

Which DM allowed that?

I struggled to find a DM to allow me to become a vampire on 3E. The DM only allowed when our campaign moved into the underdark.

 

[Bara]

Pretty sure that not being allowed to die is part of the package of being a Dark Lord, otherwise they could just kill themselves and be a killjoy to the Dark Powers.

Which is exatly how Soth got out cannonically by beimg a killjoy. Yeah that was just an excuse because writers didn't like Soth being in there but I like how actual self reflection and contemplation is the only way out.

 

[Morblot]

Which DM allowed that?

Dave Arneson, apparently. Not sure if this is about Blackmoor pre-OD&D even.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I remember reading something about people playing as balrogs in OD&D.

Which DM allowed that?

I struggled to find a DM to allow me to become a vampire on 3E. The DM only allowed when our campaign moved into the underdark.

This has been a possibility since the original D&D booklets, as stated at the end of the characters section: "Other Character Types: There is no reason that players cannot be allowed to play as virtually anything, provided they begin relatively weak and work up to the top, i.e., a player wishing to be a Dragon would have to begin as let us say, a "young" one and progress upwards in the usual manner, steps being predetermined by the campaign referee."

However, actual rules for playing non-human characters only covered dwarves, elves, and hobbits halflings, and even the four supplements lacked any rules expanding this. Gary Gygax himself envisioned a human-centric setting for D&D, and it seems Dave Arneson had similar views, with the three demi-human races being allowed only due to the popularity of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy among players. When Gygax created AD&D, he attempted to move the character race possibilities away from Tolkien by adding three (gnomes, half-elves, and half-orcs), but more importantly he made the fateful decision to allow multi-classing for demi-human characters but not for humans. This greatly increased demi-human prominence, especially of elves and half-elves, by players wishing to boost the power of their 1st-level character by double- or even triple-classing.

The later non-advanced versions of D&D, on the other hand, remained faithful to the original by having every dwarf and halfling effectively be a fighter and every elf effectively be a fighter/magic-user.

 

[Caim]

Yeah, that was always a bit weird to me. As late as 2e the nonhumans were restricted to multiclassing (two classes at the same time) while humans got dual-classing (by "leaving" your old class you could pick a new one, but if you used any of your old powers you wouldn't gain any XP for that encounter and half the XP for that adventure). Guess because earlier editions were so human-centric.

 

[Cryomancer]

I complained about 5E wiz class. If was up to me, how wizards should be?

• Rename wizard to magic user and make wizard be a "title" of upper mid level magic users(lv12+), high wizard of high level magic users(15+) and arch wizards, for only the strongest(18+)
• Reduce the hit dice to d4.
• Cap the CON mod to +1. A Wizard with above average CON should be rare.
• unnerf Conjuration, Alteration, Necromancy, Abjuration and every spell school which isn't evocation.
• Bring back the XP cost of Wish and add a heavy cost like a risk of losing a entire level.
• Bring back prohibited schools
• No more automatically learning spells from nothing on lv up. Go find/buy scrolls.
• Each magic user has to have at least 3 prohibited magic schools and a "field of research" and a clear arcane goal. Solving problems of his home town can be a good goal. They can't learn spells from this 3 prohibited schools.
• Research theme could be spell specialization and the spells of that school or spells relevant to that area. Eg - Water elementarist threats all conjuration, evocation, alteration and even necromancy spells with "water" on text as his "research theme" and can learn even if is from a prohibited school.
• Force then to have a to pass a arcane check of DC = 5+ 2 * spell level to learn a spell outside of his "research field". For eg, cloudkill is lv 5. The DC would be 15 and if he fails, the scroll is destroyed and he needs to level up to attempt to learn the same spell again case he obtains another scroll.
• To learn spells from his research field, he just needs to roll a d6 bellow his INT MOD and automatically succeed on learning any spell till his INT mod. For example, a magic user with 16 int has +3 int mod. He could learn a spell belonging to his research theme up to tier 3 with no chance of failure. To learn stoneskin if is a spell of his "field of research", he would need to roll a D6 and roll 1, 2 or 3.
• No more spontaneous casting spells. Wizards on 5e casts like arcanists of PF1e. They should be wizards and "cast and forget", not "prepare like a wiz and cast like a sorc BS"
• Racial restrictions. No dwarves or halflings wizards.
• Specialization restriction. Gnomes must be specialized on illusion or alteration or have a research theme consistent with it.
• In areas where magic is hated, magic users should have disadvantage on all social checks except intimidation. In areas where magic is loved like Glantri on Mystara, an advantage. Most areas should be neutral.

 

[Larianshill]

Hey, I think I've found your reddit account.

 

[Snorkack]

D&D's biggest problem with magic users is, and always was, the retarded Vancian magic. Just kill it and replace it with something like WHFRP magic.
There, I said it.

 

[Larianshill]

D&D's biggest problem with magic users is the existence of the "wizard" class. In 5E, there's sorcerer, who mostly focuses on blasting. Druid, who mostly focuses on summoning. Warlock, who mostly focuses on eldritch blast. And there's wizard, who has most of the spells in the game, and can do almost everything, with the only roadblock being the opportunity cost. I call your attention to exhibit 14.

As you see here, sorcerer has only 1 unique spell (Chaos Bolt), and only 8 spells that wizard doesn't know, none of them great. Meanwhile, if you list every wizard spell that sorcerer doesn't have in alphabetic order, you'll barely reach the letter "F".
No system should have a class with the description "I can do everything, on par or even better than people who specialize in the area". 3.5 had the right idea of introducing hyperspecialized classes of Dread Necromancer, Beguiler and Warmage. Delete wizard, and let narrow specialists like Dread Necromancer exist.

But this would never happen, because Wizard is a sacred cow and WotC's favorite, and because double digit IQ secondaries, who came into the hobby through memes, love wizard too.

 

[Cryomancer]

Hey, I think I've found your reddit account.

Funny but can't be my account. He seems to be playing 5e(which I don't plan to play), at low levels(which I also avoid to play), wanting to use mostly evocation spells(not a spell school which I like), watching critical role(which I don't watch) and complain about dying too quickly on 5e(which I suggested d4 hit dice instead of d6)... My reddit account is here and a topic created some time ago > https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg_gamers/comments/idtf1g/soloing_bg2eesoa_on_legacy_of_bhaal_as_a/

He is completely wrong in so many ways

• Complaining about having to prepare spells. He should just play as a WLK or SORC if he wanna a "blaster"
• Expecting to be "storming the battlefield", a very "modern video gamey" approach to the arcane arts. Magic on D&D is great cuz you have much more spells for much more situations
• He mentions that other people has "cool stuff" but doesn't mention one "cool stuff", except multiple attacks per round which is compensated by the fact that he would have fireball and 2d10 firebolt cantrip on lv 5(I doubt that he would even think on using non flashy spells)
• He mentions the trope linear fighters, quadratic wizards, but ignore that on 5E, high level wizards aren't that powerful. On your party or as enemies. And is not at lv 5 that Wizards start to become powerful. For my experience, people who thinks that casters start to become powerful at lv 5 thinks that magic is all about flashy explosions and once you get fireball, is "GG izi, just cast fireball".

Lastly, Lamentations of the Flame princess removed all flashy spells and made the existing spells far more dangerous and it is great.

And there's wizard, who has most of the spells in the game, and can do almost everything, with the only roadblock being the opportunity cost. I call your attention to exhibit 14.

One point that I brought on my "to change list" is that IMO, Wizards should depend on scrolls to learn new spells. That way, if you don't wanna a wizard who learned magic as a merc to only be used on battlefield with knock and similar spells, don't give this scroll to him.

 

[Snorkack]

Funny but can't be my account. He seems to be playing 5e(which I don't plan to play), at low levels(which I also avoid to play), wanting to use mostly evocation spells(not a spell school which I like), watching critical role(which I don't watch) and complain about dying too quickly on 5e(which I suggested d4 hit dice instead of d6)... My reddit account is here and a topic created some time ago > https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg_gamers/comments/idtf1g/soloing_bg2eesoa_on_legacy_of_bhaal_as_a/

So in other words he can't be you because he has actual experience with the stuff he talks about?

 

[Cryomancer]

Funny but can't be my account. He seems to be playing 5e(which I don't plan to play), at low levels(which I also avoid to play), wanting to use mostly evocation spells(not a spell school which I like), watching critical role(which I don't watch) and complain about dying too quickly on 5e(which I suggested d4 hit dice instead of d6)... My reddit account is here and a topic created some time ago > https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg_gamers/comments/idtf1g/soloing_bg2eesoa_on_legacy_of_bhaal_as_a/

So in other words he can't be you because he has actual experience with the stuff he talks about?

Nope; I have experience with retroclones, 3e, pf1e, watched streams about a lot of games and he can't be me, because his idea of what a "magic user" should be is completely different of my idea.