Hi there, I'm Penn from one of the submissions, thanks so much for reading and discussing my submission! I'd just like to throw in, for discussion, a little extra info: One of my players, I kid you not, almost *never* rolls above an 8. Every session, she has rolled one nat 20 in the last year and frankly the dice have been absolutely awful for her. I understand the allurer of luck and as long as it feels reasonably balanced, I'm all for it, but sometimes it's just *rough* the entire session, like what Jack was mentioning about a fighter who misses every attack. In our first campaign she was a fighter who quite literally never hit with her spear, could only hit with spells *every* time she rolled for her spear attack it was 5 or under, it felt like a curse. These systems I use for free auto-success aren't unlimited, and in a full session you only have like 2 opportunities, so the tension can come from not knowing if you should spend it at one time or another, the famous RPG elixir problem. I totally understand these systems aren't for everyone, hence it being a hot take, just wanted to plug in some extra context for why I do it. Love the podcast, thanks so much! :D
This helped a lot Pen my dice look is atrociously varied when I play and DM. The idea certainly makes more sense with that context. I think though even limited I still dislike an suto success abilty. It is however nuanced so yeah. : 3
I think a good compromise on the charisma debate is to have the high stat character take the lead and the dice roll, but have good role-play arguments lower the DC.
Time Stamps: Topic Start: 11:30 12:30: If you are not building charisma; let the people who are take care of the social rolls 21:45: Challenge rating works; you just didn't read the book. (Title card story) 29:14: Changed the lucky feat to automatically succeed only 2 times. 39:23: Non story RP is often forgotten about. 56:30: Insight should be rolled by the DM 1:01:02: Barbarian should be able to use strength for intimidation rolls. 1:02:58: Telling new players to play LMOP makes the hobby worse for wear in the long term.
For the insight/perception check one, I think OP’s frustration came from something like this: Player: “Does NPC seem trustworthy?” DM: “Roll an Insight check for me” Player: “4” DM: “NPC seems trustworthy to you” Player character, talking to the party later: “Hey I don’t think we should trust that NPC” That’s just bad player behavior though, and needs to be discussed above table that meta gaming like that isn’t cool
You guys made a good point. Personally I'm not going to move to one DnD. Especially with all the third party 5e books and Tales of the Valiant coming out.
Second Opinion: I bring it up all the time: A group of Troglodytes, which are CR 1/4 creatures, and nearly wiped a party I was part of because they have Multiattack. Pretty sure the party was level 3 or so. They just kept getting off 3 attacks each per round, and it nearly killed us. Challenge Rating is trash.
the insight, perception one is valid and it is normal in PF2e, anything that is a knowledge roll is done secret. it keeps the ones that are looking for a trap from rolling a 2 and asking someone else to look around because they know they failed that check (where as if it was a 18 they would probably not have bothered to ask someone else). In pathfinder it also means if a recall knowledge check is a crit fail you can give them false information, say they get one true and one false thing and they wont know if both are true or if they just failed the check. Edit to add: They still get to roll since it is a vtt(just choose blind) and I almost always error towards the party because I WANT to give them info :)
I HATE when people say stuff like " this is the worse thing that ever happened to this sport/hobby/video game etc." You don't like that things are now attracting more attention and we might get more of that thing?
I got into dnd/ttrpgs 4 years ago and I've not watched a single CR but I know people who do. It doesn't matter how people get into the hobby. The more people who try it the more future DM/GMs we get.
1:01:10 The thing is, Con already is representing the barbarian just gritting their teeth through attacks, and dex is them moving in such a way that they don't get hit as hard... Using strength for AC instead of dex here just feels like wanting to have more dump stats so Str and Con are the only two you need 😅
A couple things about making/helping with checks you aren't good at being detrimental to the game that weren't mentioned: The rules support using different stats to make certain checks. If the party is trying to persuade someone but is too stubborn to be "sold" by Charisma, the Wizard using their intelligence to make a concrete point that the NPC is willing to listen to can be made as an Intellgience(Persuasion) check. It's the same as the way people often talk about using Strength for intimidation. And it reiterate Jack's point, if what the non-charismatic person says is good enough, a roll doesn't need to be made. Always sending in the Eloquence Bard to make a persuasion roll is just too gamey for me. You're not supposed to succeed on every roll, otherwise we wouldn't be rolling dice. If the roll has real stakes, I think the DM should convey that ahead of time and let the players decide how to approach it. But if it's just a casual check, then just let the person play the game. Secondly, it's also in the rules that you can only use the Help action if you're proficient in the same skill you're helping with (PHB 175, 'Working Together'). I personally think this is garbage. In most cases it makes sense, but there are other ways to help. If the Barbarian is trying to lift a boulder, the Artificer can't help with Strength, but they can use their intelligence to find something that will work as a fulcrum and lever. And I always tie this back to the movie the Fifth Element in the beginning the child is using a mirror to reflect light from the outside onto the heiroglyphs so the archeologist can read them better; that's helping, and it has nothing to do with the child's intelligence. In this way I always think it's the most fair to ask a player to describe how they're helping and arbitrating if it's enough to warrant the advantage. At the end of the day the Help action is tool to help players create relationships with each other, and I don't think they should be discouraged from doing so just because they don't have the right proficiencies.
A follow-p question, concerning the auto-success discussion, if auto-success that's limited feels bad for players to have, should Legendary Resistance be reworked as well? Make it so the monsters can just re-roll with a lowered DC?
Just wanted to echo my agreement with ya'll on the first point about charisma checks! This is something I'm personally handing right now as the bard of our group, I have been desperately trying to involve my group in RP / charisma checks more because they're worried about their low stats hindering them. To Hells with it, I say! Even if it's challenging, even if we fail, isn't there some fun in that? Plus with this D&D take, it feels like a way for some serious pressure to be piled onto the charisma player who would be expected to kind of solo dialogue with NPCs?
I feel like the DM rolling the Perception/Insight checks stems from having characters who act like they know they just rolled low on a check. Which isn't uncommon among newer players; separating what you know from what the character knows. This is just better handled by talking to your players. but if for whatever reason they can't break the habit then rolling behind the screen isn't so bad. Not ideal, but isn't a bad stop-gap.
Third Opinion: I kind of like and hate the idea of an auto-success for using Inspiration or Luck, and I agree that there should be some kind of chance still. Maybe some kind of roll that reduces the DC of the check the character was trying to make? Or a roll against something else, like one of the character's own Ability Scores instead of a DC? Just throwing ideas out.
I really appreciate challenge rating as a new dm to give me a starting point for what monsters to throw at my players. How do I know what monsters to use if challenge rating is unreliable?
I found you guys through TikTok and I’m one of those new subscribers! It’s awesome going from 1min to a whole hour and I enjoy listening in the background while I’m working :)
So I have a DM that has the following opinion: Monk's are fine, you just need to stop using all your Ki point's each fight. This is in a discussion at 3rd level (2 monk/1Barb) when we had 4 combats in one day. I asked the DM about using the OneDnD Monk, because imo, it fixes this issue. They said no, implying it was broken.
Barbarians using Strength for Unarmored Defense is as overdone as Sorcerers being Con casters. I don't think it's as silly as Sorcerers being Con casters, but I also don't think it's necessary. Barbarians are supposed to soak damage. That's why they have the higher health pool and resistance to damage. They can also wear medium armor and benefit from wearing a shield which is better in the early game anyway unless you roll god stats. Even then wearing armor will most likely just serve you better because you can find magic armor to either futher increase your AC or provide other benefits. The only argument for using Strength is that Dex+Con makes Barbarians sort of an unofficial MAD class, and furthermore it makes them MAD on specifically the physical attributes (STR, DEX, CON) which means your mental stats are going to be low if you're going all in on unarmored defense. Even as a medium armor wearer they still have this problem to some extent, but I don't think it's something that needs fixing. You also have to keep in mind things like Belts of Storm Giant Strength exist. There's a reason there aren't magic items, besides the book that can be used once a century, that increase your Dex beyond 20.
Charisma is the way the world sees your character. The way the player talks and interacts with the game is done through their characters filter: if we don't punish a shy player who wants to play high charisma, we shouldn't reward a very social player who dumps charisma
Sounds like a good healthy breakfast haha. Yeah CR isn’t the best in the books. I have to agree, I like the tension a dice roll creates and an auto success takes away from that but each to their own if they like doing that.
@ 58:47 I have a DM like that, seem's afraid ofgiving anything away, and it just feels like getting stonewalled all the time. examples: My charecter, a blue tabaxi, (blue tabaxi dont exist in this world) has no idea where she came from, or who her biological mother is. We enterd a crypt to killa bunch of undead, and found...ANOTHER BLUE TABAXI, (The first tabaxi of any kind my charecter has ever seen in her life, shes 19) We save the Tabaxi, and try talking to her, and get nothing. Then the blood god shows up making some of us offers, realises my charecter is sworn to her goddess and retracts the offer for her. This blod god also mentiones that were all have special blood, my charecter and the other tabaxi are so because were from another version of this world. Kinda floored, M charecter tries to again talk to the other tabaxi, the other tabaxi's response, 'eh, it will all work itself out I guess' She was under no magical effect, had no memory tampering or anything, we couldnt get anything useful out of this tabaxi at all. This tabaxi also lied about her name (nat 20 insight) but when confronted denied it. even under detect thoughts (Which I had to blow sorc points on for subtile spell as the DM turns whoever your talking to hostile if you use anyspell at all to help yourself in the convo. (yes, even casting guidance on yourself), But even under detect thoughts we got nothing. My charecter who's been sworn to her diety for 19 years gets nothing about who or what she is, who her mother is etc. But everyone else is more than happy to share... Angel with a grudge and just wanting to watch my charecter suffer, chases her across a desert, knocks her to unconsious, then flys off muttering about how my charecter was supposed to be stronger or something. Got into a weird extra dimentional library, and found out my charecter is supposed to ressurect a 5000 year of Order of knights in order to keep the world safe, the Angel above...was this orders captain and personally slaughtered the last of that order about 500 years ago. Why...he wont say...its a secret. Ask goddess about it...get nothing. Ask goddess about what I'm supposed to be....nothing Ask goddess what it is she would like me to do if I chose to...nothing Ask where I'm from...nothing Ask who my birth mother is...nothing shrug ok, move on. Meet another PC's 'diety' Queen of the Valkries I belive, she tells me she KNOWS who my mother is....but wont tell me. Meet a Blood god that HAPPILY tells me im from a alternate world. Afore mentioned Library. The Tabaxi we rescued. no non diety/super powerful being, knows anyhting about the order my charecter is suposed to bring back, or anything about the Angel that wiped out the order before. Oh and my charecter also has her goddess's PERSONAL famillier...who knows nothing/wont say anything. That's just 1 campaign. another campaign same DM. Had something sneak up on us that had a base stealth of 31 (on it's WORST roll) vs our best perception check possible of 30 (THats a NAT20btw) Asked my charecter for a survival check to locate some tracks or evidence of where something went, I rolled an 18 + 4 (2 off my Max), 'yeah no you see nothing' We found a gient and some humanoids having a fight, giant had glowing red eyes, (this was seen by TWO of our party having perception checks of 24+) We goto help the humanoids hoping to gain an ally in this jungle we were in, to discover they to have glowing red eyes....which we didnt see as we were too far away....we were 100ft away, My charecter can run that distance without breaking a sweat. (50ft base + 10 longstrider, Monk) So ofcourse we had to fight all of it as it all decided to turn around and fight us. We won, tried to save the humanoids, all but one died to the giants last aoe attack....thing. My charecter cared for the unconsious humanoid that appeared to worship cat's. When he woke up, I tried to speak to him, got nothing, tried to tell him his friends were dead and we couldnt save them, nothing. And he just walked off into the jungle in the middle of the night. (The red eyes were gone btw) My charecter....IS A DAMN TABAXI.
First one, I'm of two minds on this one. When it comes to skill challenges, I would agree that the higher stat should probably take the lead. However, I think even a low charisma character who might have a roleplay reason should be allowed the chance to try. I feel this is very nuanced though. On CR.. yeah I've ran combats meausred with CR and it can vary so much. Its not perfect and in my mind is best as a guide. An ability that let's you auto past isn’t great. The point of the roll is the chance of failure. If there is no chance then don't have them roll maybe. Perception one.. neither Perception or insight are unfoolable and a high insight isn't mind reading. I treat it as. Oh high insight, you think this guy is hiding something. Depending on the situation is limited amount of information NPCs can lie also. Oh boy Lost mines I findi t very boring but I have run and played it several times. But it's how I started and it took me ages to move into running my homebrew world. Which is my favourite part of being a DM
I don't see the dm rolling for certain things as cut and dry as you make it out to be. Ive read some other systems where this is the norm for some rolls. Now i agree, and if i played this systems i would usually allow my player to roll for themselves, but i can see the value in sometimes having the dm roll. For example, if the player rolls some kind of knowledge based check. If they roll a 2, they know that what ever info i give them is bull shit, or i just tell them they dont know anything. For an insight check, the player should believe whatever info they gleamed from their roll. So if you rolled a 2 and the dm says "you believe they are telling the truth" you are forced to pretend that you believe them even though you clearly failed. If the dm rolls and then just tells you you believe them, you dont have to pretend, you just go off of the info your character has. This obviously needs player to dm trust, and the dm shouldn't be fudging a player roll.
I don't understand what the last person is even suggesting with that take, because the two things they say not to do seem so contradictory. Matt Collville suggests beginning with a homebrew campaign, but starting small and building it up as you go (what he calls the spiral technique of worldbuilding, something which might have been beneficial to Margaret when she was running her first game), and he's even said recently that Lost Mine of Phandelver is a bad place for a brand new GM start because it's quite long for a beginner module. I think, once again, Redditors be Redditing and they're just complaining for the sake of complaining.
i 100% agree with the critical role take. That show has only brought more love and players to D&D and so many folks just want to exclude them like its primary school.
Hi there, I'm Penn from one of the submissions, thanks so much for reading and discussing my submission! I'd just like to throw in, for discussion, a little extra info: One of my players, I kid you not, almost *never* rolls above an 8. Every session, she has rolled one nat 20 in the last year and frankly the dice have been absolutely awful for her. I understand the allurer of luck and as long as it feels reasonably balanced, I'm all for it, but sometimes it's just *rough* the entire session, like what Jack was mentioning about a fighter who misses every attack. In our first campaign she was a fighter who quite literally never hit with her spear, could only hit with spells *every* time she rolled for her spear attack it was 5 or under, it felt like a curse.
These systems I use for free auto-success aren't unlimited, and in a full session you only have like 2 opportunities, so the tension can come from not knowing if you should spend it at one time or another, the famous RPG elixir problem. I totally understand these systems aren't for everyone, hence it being a hot take, just wanted to plug in some extra context for why I do it. Love the podcast, thanks so much! :D
This helped a lot Pen my dice look is atrociously varied when I play and DM. The idea certainly makes more sense with that context.
I think though even limited I still dislike an suto success abilty. It is however nuanced so yeah. : 3
I think a good compromise on the charisma debate is to have the high stat character take the lead and the dice roll, but have good role-play arguments lower the DC.
Time Stamps:
Topic Start: 11:30
12:30: If you are not building charisma; let the people who are take care of the social rolls
21:45: Challenge rating works; you just didn't read the book. (Title card story)
29:14: Changed the lucky feat to automatically succeed only 2 times.
39:23: Non story RP is often forgotten about.
56:30: Insight should be rolled by the DM
1:01:02: Barbarian should be able to use strength for intimidation rolls.
1:02:58: Telling new players to play LMOP makes the hobby worse for wear in the long term.
For the insight/perception check one, I think OP’s frustration came from something like this:
Player: “Does NPC seem trustworthy?”
DM: “Roll an Insight check for me”
Player: “4”
DM: “NPC seems trustworthy to you”
Player character, talking to the party later: “Hey I don’t think we should trust that NPC”
That’s just bad player behavior though, and needs to be discussed above table that meta gaming like that isn’t cool
I do exactly this to my players, but they RP the roll result and not the meta.
Critical Role was not the worst thing to happen to DnD. Toxic players/DMs and Hasbro are the worst things to happen to DnD 🤣
AMEN
You guys made a good point. Personally I'm not going to move to one DnD. Especially with all the third party 5e books and Tales of the Valiant coming out.
Second Opinion: I bring it up all the time: A group of Troglodytes, which are CR 1/4 creatures, and nearly wiped a party I was part of because they have Multiattack. Pretty sure the party was level 3 or so. They just kept getting off 3 attacks each per round, and it nearly killed us. Challenge Rating is trash.
the insight, perception one is valid and it is normal in PF2e, anything that is a knowledge roll is done secret. it keeps the ones that are looking for a trap from rolling a 2 and asking someone else to look around because they know they failed that check (where as if it was a 18 they would probably not have bothered to ask someone else). In pathfinder it also means if a recall knowledge check is a crit fail you can give them false information, say they get one true and one false thing and they wont know if both are true or if they just failed the check.
Edit to add: They still get to roll since it is a vtt(just choose blind) and I almost always error towards the party because I WANT to give them info :)
It's Cloggin' Time! It's Monday night so dnd night. The first homebrew stream of the Pride theme was lovely. Loved how different they were.
I HATE when people say stuff like " this is the worse thing that ever happened to this sport/hobby/video game etc." You don't like that things are now attracting more attention and we might get more of that thing?
I got into dnd/ttrpgs 4 years ago and I've not watched a single CR but I know people who do. It doesn't matter how people get into the hobby. The more people who try it the more future DM/GMs we get.
1:01:10
The thing is, Con already is representing the barbarian just gritting their teeth through attacks, and dex is them moving in such a way that they don't get hit as hard... Using strength for AC instead of dex here just feels like wanting to have more dump stats so Str and Con are the only two you need 😅
A couple things about making/helping with checks you aren't good at being detrimental to the game that weren't mentioned:
The rules support using different stats to make certain checks. If the party is trying to persuade someone but is too stubborn to be "sold" by Charisma, the Wizard using their intelligence to make a concrete point that the NPC is willing to listen to can be made as an Intellgience(Persuasion) check. It's the same as the way people often talk about using Strength for intimidation. And it reiterate Jack's point, if what the non-charismatic person says is good enough, a roll doesn't need to be made. Always sending in the Eloquence Bard to make a persuasion roll is just too gamey for me. You're not supposed to succeed on every roll, otherwise we wouldn't be rolling dice. If the roll has real stakes, I think the DM should convey that ahead of time and let the players decide how to approach it. But if it's just a casual check, then just let the person play the game.
Secondly, it's also in the rules that you can only use the Help action if you're proficient in the same skill you're helping with (PHB 175, 'Working Together'). I personally think this is garbage. In most cases it makes sense, but there are other ways to help. If the Barbarian is trying to lift a boulder, the Artificer can't help with Strength, but they can use their intelligence to find something that will work as a fulcrum and lever. And I always tie this back to the movie the Fifth Element in the beginning the child is using a mirror to reflect light from the outside onto the heiroglyphs so the archeologist can read them better; that's helping, and it has nothing to do with the child's intelligence. In this way I always think it's the most fair to ask a player to describe how they're helping and arbitrating if it's enough to warrant the advantage. At the end of the day the Help action is tool to help players create relationships with each other, and I don't think they should be discouraged from doing so just because they don't have the right proficiencies.
A follow-p question, concerning the auto-success discussion, if auto-success that's limited feels bad for players to have, should Legendary Resistance be reworked as well? Make it so the monsters can just re-roll with a lowered DC?
ITS CLOGGIN TIME
Cloggin on over to attack the unaware on a Monday afternoon 😎
Just wanted to echo my agreement with ya'll on the first point about charisma checks! This is something I'm personally handing right now as the bard of our group, I have been desperately trying to involve my group in RP / charisma checks more because they're worried about their low stats hindering them. To Hells with it, I say! Even if it's challenging, even if we fail, isn't there some fun in that? Plus with this D&D take, it feels like a way for some serious pressure to be piled onto the charisma player who would be expected to kind of solo dialogue with NPCs?
I feel like the DM rolling the Perception/Insight checks stems from having characters who act like they know they just rolled low on a check. Which isn't uncommon among newer players; separating what you know from what the character knows. This is just better handled by talking to your players. but if for whatever reason they can't break the habit then rolling behind the screen isn't so bad. Not ideal, but isn't a bad stop-gap.
It's cloggin' time!!!!!! So pumped for another episode. Will you be doing anything special when episode 150 comes along?
Third Opinion: I kind of like and hate the idea of an auto-success for using Inspiration or Luck, and I agree that there should be some kind of chance still. Maybe some kind of roll that reduces the DC of the check the character was trying to make? Or a roll against something else, like one of the character's own Ability Scores instead of a DC? Just throwing ideas out.
I really appreciate challenge rating as a new dm to give me a starting point for what monsters to throw at my players. How do I know what monsters to use if challenge rating is unreliable?
I don't think anyone is saying to not use any metric of challenge. Just that the current system is a bit off in its math
white cheddar cheez-its gang fr
I found you guys through TikTok and I’m one of those new subscribers! It’s awesome going from 1min to a whole hour and I enjoy listening in the background while I’m working :)
So I have a DM that has the following opinion:
Monk's are fine, you just need to stop using all your Ki point's each fight.
This is in a discussion at 3rd level (2 monk/1Barb) when we had 4 combats in one day.
I asked the DM about using the OneDnD Monk, because imo, it fixes this issue. They said no, implying it was broken.
As always, love the podblast, love the squadi-b’s and love you both! Here’s to the algorithm 🎉
I think it is cloggin time!! My first time here you two seem nice
Tik Tok success as a little treat to celebrate pride month
Oh no!!! I'm all caught up on podcasts and have nothing to watch when I'm in the gym... Welp I guess I should restart 🤷
Barbarians using Strength for Unarmored Defense is as overdone as Sorcerers being Con casters. I don't think it's as silly as Sorcerers being Con casters, but I also don't think it's necessary.
Barbarians are supposed to soak damage. That's why they have the higher health pool and resistance to damage. They can also wear medium armor and benefit from wearing a shield which is better in the early game anyway unless you roll god stats. Even then wearing armor will most likely just serve you better because you can find magic armor to either futher increase your AC or provide other benefits.
The only argument for using Strength is that Dex+Con makes Barbarians sort of an unofficial MAD class, and furthermore it makes them MAD on specifically the physical attributes (STR, DEX, CON) which means your mental stats are going to be low if you're going all in on unarmored defense. Even as a medium armor wearer they still have this problem to some extent, but I don't think it's something that needs fixing.
You also have to keep in mind things like Belts of Storm Giant Strength exist. There's a reason there aren't magic items, besides the book that can be used once a century, that increase your Dex beyond 20.
Charisma is the way the world sees your character. The way the player talks and interacts with the game is done through their characters filter: if we don't punish a shy player who wants to play high charisma, we shouldn't reward a very social player who dumps charisma
Sounds like a good healthy breakfast haha. Yeah CR isn’t the best in the books. I have to agree, I like the tension a dice roll creates and an auto success takes away from that but each to their own if they like doing that.
Fighting bronchitis, you made me feel better
It's cloggin time! My t-shirts are on their way, can't wait :D
@ 58:47
I have a DM like that, seem's afraid ofgiving anything away, and it just feels like getting stonewalled all the time.
examples:
My charecter, a blue tabaxi, (blue tabaxi dont exist in this world) has no idea where she came from, or who her biological mother is.
We enterd a crypt to killa bunch of undead, and found...ANOTHER BLUE TABAXI, (The first tabaxi of any kind my charecter has ever seen in her life, shes 19)
We save the Tabaxi, and try talking to her, and get nothing. Then the blood god shows up making some of us offers, realises my charecter is sworn to her goddess and retracts the offer for her. This blod god also mentiones that were all have special blood, my charecter and the other tabaxi are so because were from another version of this world.
Kinda floored, M charecter tries to again talk to the other tabaxi, the other tabaxi's response, 'eh, it will all work itself out I guess'
She was under no magical effect, had no memory tampering or anything, we couldnt get anything useful out of this tabaxi at all.
This tabaxi also lied about her name (nat 20 insight) but when confronted denied it. even under detect thoughts (Which I had to blow sorc points on for subtile spell as the DM turns whoever your talking to hostile if you use anyspell at all to help yourself in the convo. (yes, even casting guidance on yourself), But even under detect thoughts we got nothing.
My charecter who's been sworn to her diety for 19 years gets nothing about who or what she is, who her mother is etc.
But everyone else is more than happy to share...
Angel with a grudge and just wanting to watch my charecter suffer, chases her across a desert, knocks her to unconsious, then flys off muttering about how my charecter was supposed to be stronger or something.
Got into a weird extra dimentional library, and found out my charecter is supposed to ressurect a 5000 year of Order of knights in order to keep the world safe, the Angel above...was this orders captain and personally slaughtered the last of that order about 500 years ago. Why...he wont say...its a secret.
Ask goddess about it...get nothing.
Ask goddess about what I'm supposed to be....nothing
Ask goddess what it is she would like me to do if I chose to...nothing
Ask where I'm from...nothing
Ask who my birth mother is...nothing
shrug ok, move on.
Meet another PC's 'diety' Queen of the Valkries I belive, she tells me she KNOWS who my mother is....but wont tell me.
Meet a Blood god that HAPPILY tells me im from a alternate world.
Afore mentioned Library.
The Tabaxi we rescued.
no non diety/super powerful being, knows anyhting about the order my charecter is suposed to bring back, or anything about the Angel that wiped out the order before.
Oh and my charecter also has her goddess's PERSONAL famillier...who knows nothing/wont say anything.
That's just 1 campaign.
another campaign same DM.
Had something sneak up on us that had a base stealth of 31 (on it's WORST roll) vs our best perception check possible of 30 (THats a NAT20btw)
Asked my charecter for a survival check to locate some tracks or evidence of where something went, I rolled an 18 + 4 (2 off my Max), 'yeah no you see nothing'
We found a gient and some humanoids having a fight, giant had glowing red eyes, (this was seen by TWO of our party having perception checks of 24+)
We goto help the humanoids hoping to gain an ally in this jungle we were in, to discover they to have glowing red eyes....which we didnt see as we were too far away....we were 100ft away, My charecter can run that distance without breaking a sweat. (50ft base + 10 longstrider, Monk)
So ofcourse we had to fight all of it as it all decided to turn around and fight us.
We won, tried to save the humanoids, all but one died to the giants last aoe attack....thing. My charecter cared for the unconsious humanoid that appeared to worship cat's.
When he woke up, I tried to speak to him, got nothing, tried to tell him his friends were dead and we couldnt save them, nothing.
And he just walked off into the jungle in the middle of the night. (The red eyes were gone btw)
My charecter....IS A DAMN TABAXI.
Good ole' Clogging Time!
im clearly a bad DM then because the first campaign i ran was lost mine. i feel a learned a lot for just doing that.
First one, I'm of two minds on this one. When it comes to skill challenges, I would agree that the higher stat should probably take the lead.
However, I think even a low charisma character who might have a roleplay reason should be allowed the chance to try. I feel this is very nuanced though.
On CR.. yeah I've ran combats meausred with CR and it can vary so much. Its not perfect and in my mind is best as a guide.
An ability that let's you auto past isn’t great. The point of the roll is the chance of failure. If there is no chance then don't have them roll maybe.
Perception one.. neither Perception or insight are unfoolable and a high insight isn't mind reading. I treat it as. Oh high insight, you think this guy is hiding something. Depending on the situation is limited amount of information NPCs can lie also.
Oh boy Lost mines I findi t very boring but I have run and played it several times. But it's how I started and it took me ages to move into running my homebrew world. Which is my favourite part of being a DM
I don't see the dm rolling for certain things as cut and dry as you make it out to be. Ive read some other systems where this is the norm for some rolls. Now i agree, and if i played this systems i would usually allow my player to roll for themselves, but i can see the value in sometimes having the dm roll. For example, if the player rolls some kind of knowledge based check. If they roll a 2, they know that what ever info i give them is bull shit, or i just tell them they dont know anything. For an insight check, the player should believe whatever info they gleamed from their roll. So if you rolled a 2 and the dm says "you believe they are telling the truth" you are forced to pretend that you believe them even though you clearly failed. If the dm rolls and then just tells you you believe them, you dont have to pretend, you just go off of the info your character has. This obviously needs player to dm trust, and the dm shouldn't be fudging a player roll.
I would pass away if you did penultimate merch.
Hot take though, id probably be the only one to buy it lol
I don't understand what the last person is even suggesting with that take, because the two things they say not to do seem so contradictory. Matt Collville suggests beginning with a homebrew campaign, but starting small and building it up as you go (what he calls the spiral technique of worldbuilding, something which might have been beneficial to Margaret when she was running her first game), and he's even said recently that Lost Mine of Phandelver is a bad place for a brand new GM start because it's quite long for a beginner module. I think, once again, Redditors be Redditing and they're just complaining for the sake of complaining.
i 100% agree with the critical role take. That show has only brought more love and players to D&D and so many folks just want to exclude them like its primary school.
Let’s goooooooo!🎉