He didn’t last long, because my party murdered him, but I had a cleric of the goddess of luck that would challenge people in the tavern to dice games (which he couldn’t lose), to raise funds for his temple. My barbarian spent like an hour trying to beat him before he realized what was going on
@Infynis@jossbo Another Luck Cleric! Mine was basically Friar Tuck. He was always drunk (a lucky drunk) and searched every couch for loose change that he would give to the needy. I built him with a level dip into Barbarian so he could wear robes and occasionally “lose his temper”. I would love to get to play him again someday.
Make up some requirements to be able to create a guild (maybe there is a guilds-guild where you need to register). Requirements could be:
A fee to register your guild. This could be very expensive. Maybe they can find an investor but need to do a favour for them first.
You need a location inside Waterdeep. Also expensive, maybe they can get one via a quest. Or if they have Trollskull Manor, they could make some changes to the building to make it suitable as a guild house.
You need at least 15 members. They need to try to recruit people.
…
Also, maybe some other guilds are not happy with this (they think there are already too many guilds, or the guild is too similar to their guild) and they try to sabotage the players.
I don’t like this rule at all. Definitely among one of my least favorite rules in 5e. There are several things wrong with this rule. First, the stated reason why this rule exists is not balance, but it exists to make sure that a spellcasters turn isn’t taking too long, by limiting them to only one ‘noodly’ spell per turn to stop them from flipping through the books trying to find the two perfect spells per turn, rather than just one (cantrips are easier to remember and use, I suppose). Unfortunately it fails at this in my opinion because of reason number two: the placement in the book. The rule is listed under the “bonus action spells” header in the spellcasting section. This is right between the “action spells” and “reaction spells” sections, and both of those just say “You can casts a spell with an action/reaction” and have no real rules. So people basically glance over it and assume there’s nothing important there. This means that new players (thepeople who will take a ton of time on their turns if they have to find two spells) don’t know this rule exist. The people who do know about this rule don’t need it, because they already know what spells they want to use and are much faster at taking their turns (hopefully). Also, the fluff is entierly nonsensical “Because bonus actions spells are espescially swift, you [can’t cast other spells on the same turn]”, what? Wouldn’t it make more sense that swift spells would leave you with more time to cast other spells?
Honestly, it’s even worse than that, because once you know the rule it actually causes the game to slow down because of how noodly it is. When you are casting a spell you stop and think “Wait a minute, is this allowed according to the bonus action casting rule?”, and then you have to find that out (hopefully not on your turn, but it causes you to have to look up this rule more that you really should have to look up any rule). If I am DMing I really don’t care about my players following this rule, but if I am playing I will always follow it to the letter (unless the DM says otherwise, of course), because I have had to look this rule up so many times I can now quote it verbatim from memory.
I think that this rule could be ok, but it needs some changes. First it needs to have it’s own section in the rules book “Casting multiple spells in a turn”, or something. Don’t hide it among stuff people skip over. Second, it should probably be changed to just “Because the casting of spells is a taxing affair, you can not cast more than one spell of first level or higher in the same turn.”. This is how most people think the rule works anyway, the fluff makes a ton more sense, it is simple enough that you don’t have to look it up constantly, and as a bonus it finally would answer all those people who are very confused about how you can cast counterspell in the middle of casting your other spell (you wouldn’t be able to, because that would be two leveled spells in a turn, except it you are counter-counterspelling to save your cantrip, I suppose. But that’s a very strange edge case.)
@Nikko882@DonnieDarkmode I agree, it should be more clearly and prominently stated. I also missed it the first time and then needed some time to grasp it well. But I don't think its only about simplicity and quickness. There might come out lots of nasty and munchkenizer spell combos out there without this rule.
Honestly, as far as I’ve seen most spells aren’t an issue. Only sorcerer quickened spell really makes it an issue, but that’s mainly an issue with quickened spell rather than anything else.
I also believe Jeremy Crawford or someone has mentioned that balance wasn’t the concern when the role was put in place. I’m not able to look for the source right now, but I think Treantmonk had it in a video about this rule.
@Nikko882 I don't know, the quite simple option of throwing two fireballs in a row seems to me quite heavy. With quickened, haste or whatever. Although it took me a while to grasp it, I think limiting spells is a good thing.
Haste already says you can’t use the action it grants to cast a spell. If quickened spell had a similar thing (“If you quicken a spell you can’t casts another leveled spell on the same turn.” or something) it definitely wouldn’t be an issue.
So you actually can cast 2 leveled spells per round, even RAW, because that reaction spell would be on somebody else’s turn. Interestingly the “per turn” distinction also permits the use of sneak attack more than once per round. The limit on it is once per turn, and it’s possible to make a reaction attack that fits the requirements for sneak attack on somebody else’s turn. I was surprised when I read this in the Sage Advice compendium, but it’s because I misremembered sneak attack as being once per round.
Ah, yes, sorry. I mixed up my terminology a bit there, good catch. Every instance of “round” in my comment was supposed to be “turn”. I’ll edit it. But yes, sneak attack is also once per turn, and not round, which is very odd. It honestly seems like an oversight that just happily caused the balance for the rogue to catch up a bit. Rogue doesn’t really have any ways to consistently trigger it, and while it seems like it might be a case of “extra attacks should get the same effects as regular attacks” (if that makes sense to you) then it is extremely odd that the Barbarian’s advantage from Reckless Attack doesn’t last for the round, only for your own turn. So AoOs don’t have the advantage.
Ah ok got it. It definitely trips me up all the time as well haha.
I actually don’t mind the difference for barbarian and rogue because I see it as an additional attack and not an extra attack. So like I think treating the +1 attack from the extra attack feature differently than the use of a resource (reaction) to make an additional attack is fine mechanically. I feel like I could sit down with a player who didn’t like that ruling and give a proper reason for it besides “I’m just following the words on the page”.
In person, paper sheets, wet-erase map. Sometimes we use figures. Most of it we just use our imaginations. If I wanted to play a video game, I’d just play a video game.
Sometimes it do be like that. For me, the number game feels like a video game. When I am DM’ing giving the players freedom and being a bit lose makes a more interesting interaction.
I use foundry and love it. I’ve switched to PF2E but ran 5e on there for about 2 years. It works great for doing a lot of automation for you and you can still throw up a background image for TotM scenes. Definitely my favorite method I’ve tried for our virtual group. Though when we have In-person sessions we still use foundry with eneryone on laptops because it’s so much easier.
Wow, that is an excellent article. I’ve been wanting to try and host an In-person game for a bit but the whole “8 laptops” thing is a bit cumbersome. I think there is definitely a viable solution there to let people play from the couch and just hot seat with a laptop while the game is up on the TV.
Foundry makes a great information hub, even locally. All your DM handouts, their character sheets and notes, bags of holding, etc can live inside it. No more “who has X thing?”
I usually have a couple of maps set up for global use. One is the world/region map and I move a toke on it to show where the party is. Journal entries are pinned to locations and I reveal them as the party learns info.
Then I’ll usually have a map set up as essentially their “planning table” with all the info relevant to the current events, images, etc.
It’s set up so that even if we are running a combat in another map, they can swap back and reference something themselves if they want. I can always draw their attention back to the combat encounter map on demand if needed.
Also, if you also run 5e-tools it makes life even easier. You can import all sorts of things from 5e-tools into foundry with no need to spend time re-creating spells and items and such
$100 would cover a ton a basic supplies for a classroom and you clearly don’t have kids if you don’t think so. I buy supplies for teachers all the time and $100 covers plenty.
Yea, it’s also an attempt to drum up more business for them but they are a business. Why are we expecting pure benevolence from a corporation?
Do you also think rich white dudes who built libraries and universities in the 20th century did it benevolently? No. But we still appreciate the outcome.
Yes, that is a good topic to introduce. These things don’t just happen. Small powerful groups of people take it upon themselves to keep things the way they want them.
That’s not exactly how I read that article. Carnegie wasn’t some saint but he could have piled his money up and sat on it if he wanted to. Adjusted for inflation he donated almost $6 billion dollars to charities and argued with the powered wealthy elite in America that it was their moral obligation to give their money to charity. He directed his money definitely and it could be argued that his money could be spent more effectively in other ways but if the options are Carnegie sits on his money or he donates how he wants then I think the latter is the better option (or the least worse option). Government wasn’t interested in building libraries and Carnegie built over 2,500 of them in the US but also throughout Europe, South Africa, Barbados, Australia, and New Zealand. Carnegie was a bastard businessman, people died at the Homestead strike he’s a grade-A bastard. But he’s a bastard that built libraries that otherwise wouldn’t have been built. It would have been better if his workers were protected and his wealth taxed and spent responsibility but that wasn’t in the cards at that time. It feels like it isn’t in the cards today either. But I’d be happier, or less angry, if Bezos or Musk spent their money on charity rather than low orbit space tourism and Twitter.
I’m not going to lie I nearly didn’t write that word salad up ( I apologize for not making paragraphs) because I thought I was going to get. “Lol whatever bootlicker” as a reply. +1 hero point to you
Well my response was pretty glib and painted with a very broad brush. You used a finer brush to paint your picture.
Frankly, I think both views have merit. There were good results from patronage of the rich, but I hate seeing them used as justification for the continued deification of the rich.
There’s just too much hero worship in American society in general. We go ga-ga for the rich, the beautiful, athletes, actors, musicians, etc. It can be frustrating. Here’s to hoping it isn’t always like this. Who knows maybe someday large amounts of people will watch hours long lectures on ethical philosophy, historiography, physics, etc instead of baseball, football, and basketball. Most Americans can’t name their senators or their governor but can tell you the name of some obscure athlete from two decades ago.
Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master is in my opinion basically what the DMG should be. It’s an excellent guide to, basically, not just the rules but how to run an excellent game. This topic is not covered in the DMG with any effectiveness, which is kind of weird when you think about it.
The DM Lair is also pretty good in my opinion, in-depth videos with a lot of experience and insight behind them. It’s particularly good if you’re dealing with one specific type of problem or situation you’re trying to approach better in your game. There’s probably a video about it.
Also, bin the DMG treasure rules. They make no sense. If you’re playing a module, then you’re okay, but if you’re doing homebrew I would recommend just abandoning 5e’s economy and using the Pathfinder 2e economy instead or something. I tried 5e’s tables and they were bad, I tried rolling my own guidelines and the result was also bad, IDK, if you figure out a good system, let me know.
I don’t understand this video style where I have to watch a video with words appearing on the screen and a cartoon character talking. Why is this not a blog post so I can just read it?
I think he is working on putting posts like that to accompany the videos (or vice versa). At least he recently created a homepage. I mean, it's just some guy sharing thoughts on his hobby for free in a way he enjoys doing it?
You really don't have to watch the video (or any video).
But you can bet that there's people who prefer videos. I do, for example.
And I’m genuinely confused about this style of video being so common, but since it is common, I have to assume that it works for some people. I’m glad it works for you.
If he posts a blog post for that, I'll link it. The gist of the video is that he suggests to turn the items and equipment the players already have into magic items over time. In addition to other ways of acquiring them of course. Additionally he says it's sensible to tell the players what the items do as they get them and allow their character to play out how they discover it and then give the party some options to use the items as well as maybe add some NPCs coming for these items, because they heard about them.
This addresses several issues like players not getting the items that were intended for them, players getting overwhelmed with the amount of things they need to keep track of and a lack of emotional connection with the items.
If you got ads, I do apologize. My channel isn’t even capable of monetization as far as YouTube is concerned. I make no money off of my videos at all on any platform at the moment (or the past three years).
I’m having fun fiddling with concepts of how to convey my thoughts on my hobby in a format that I find enjoyable. Given the age of my channel and the amount of subscribers or viewers, I am well aware that what I enjoy doing/watching just isn’t for everyone, or even a lot of people.
As for the blog posts, I am actually working on that, but it’ll take some more time since this isn’t my job. It still takes time, money and effort to do. Some of which I cannot expand on this particular bit of my hobby at all times.
Hi! Sorry if this came across as a specific complaint about you. It’s a trend I’ve seen on YouTube that I don’t understand, is all. By all means, express yourself however you want! But of course, don’t be surprised if old fogies like me don’t engage with that style of content.
And thanks for the blog post! I’m a DM trying to find the best way to distribute fun magic items to my party. I have one character who wants to craft a stronger shield but lacks the necessary skills. This could be a good approach to get him the effect he wants without losing the shield he’s been spending time and effort on.
Hey! Thanks for saying that. One thing about my stuff so far is that I barely get any feedback from beyond my friend and extended friend circles. And that tends to be positive, so it’s good to hear different perspectives. I already had the blog posts and all planned, but procrastinated on them. Your comment gave me the push to sit down with it again and get it going.
I’ll keep on iterating over how I present my ideas. And you’re absolutely right, especially in this hobby, there’s plenty of people who would rather read than watch yet another video (especially in the chosen style - I had hoped the CRPG style of quest dialogue might be a good enough bridge there). Honestly, I am pretty psyched about anyone who engages with what I make. I find it utterly mind blowing that people care enough to do so.
I think the system could work! Maybe even in conjunction with a little crafting thing I put together a few months ago for my own campaigns, if your player absolutely wants to go the route of crafting the item. You can see that over here mastodon.social/ - just off your description you could join both systems. Let them gather the materials and go through the crafting process and then throw in some extra positive results tied into the story with maybe some god of Smithing seeing their sincere wish to create the shield but blundering through the process. So for their persistence and dedication to their craft, the god imbues the shield with yet another effect on top of what they might get out of the crafting process.
Wasn't wizards of the Coast recently in a bunch of hot water for not paying their artists? And now they're trying to say that they won't use AI, but they won't pay the human beings that actually do the work for them either so what is the winning move at this point?
So this creature likes to imagine himself a sphinx? I would just give simple riddles, and have it get frustrated if they say the riddle is too easy. Then hit them with a harder one and when they say that it’s harder, have it be pleased.
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