D&D chatter

@PrinzVyper there miiiiight be one or two spells that don't have a verbal component? (although all the ones I can think of have one.) or there might be a feat or two (Battlefield Magic or something like that, maybe) allowing you to cast spells without using the verbal component. but:

I was thinking pretty much what she said! :3 the Monster Manual doesn't go into a lot of detail re: kenku mimicry restrictions—like, it doesn't say if they can mimic sounds they heard a while back or qualify how long a "while" is. so as long as they heard the incantation when they learned the spell (i.e., someone else taught it to them), I think it's reasonable to say that they could reproduce the verbal components. it would preclude them from learning to cast new spells from scrolls or books, but that's not super relevant to anyone except wizards. I dunno what you mean by "original spells," though? as far as I know there's no such thing in 5e; the only way you can do something magically that's not an effect of a listed spell is to describe what you want to a deity, djinni, etc. or to use a wish spell, and neither of those require unique verbal incantations.

 

Traditionally d&d has had means for magic-users to invent new spells of the player's design, in cooperation with the DM. The 5e DMG has a section about designing new spells, not sure that it specifies anything about the character inventing the spell as such. However, since wizards add new spells from their list to their spellbook as part of leveling up, a new spell added to the list by the player & DM could be "researched" or "invented" that way. (A kenku wizard adding spells via leveling up might not be able to cast them until someone speaks the verbal components for them, regardless of whether the spell is in the book or invented at the table)

That doesn't really apply to warlocks though. They don't invent or research spells anyway.

A note about the levitate spell: iirc, it only lets the caster float up and down, you would need to find a means of achieving forward momentum. That's how it has worked in past editions anyway, may want to double check the 5e version. Eta: so it wouldn't let your warlock float around, but it would let them float up to things and get a taste of flying sorta.

 

yeah, 5e is just floating up and down too, but I'm sure my warlock would find a workaround. little puffs of prestidigitation wind? wooden poles with spikes on the ends (kinda like ski poles) for pushing off of things/pulling themselves forward?? tying pieces of cardboard to their arms and flapping??? idk, man. they're determined. :P but you're right, it's a shitty replacement for flying.

 

Sorry for question unrelated to current discussion, but how many GMs here/that people here have played with do alignment shift? Because what little DnD experience I have comes from the Neverwinter Nights games, which can be pretty strict re: alignment. (See my LE rogue going CE because she gained a chaotic point every time she stole. She's a ROGUE. And she's not Lawful because she Never Does Crimes Ever, she's Lawful because she has a warped-as-fuck honor code.) I ended up looking for mods to fix it, and someone was refusing to make one because it's actually a thing some GMs do?

I mean, I can see major events changing your alignment, but slight shifts like that sound more like a pain. Probably because NWN doesn't have an actual GM and can't read intent, so it was always more infuriating than not.

 

The only time my (good) GM has bothered keeping track of people's alignments is the very brief time we had a barbarian with us, because they're restricted to chaotic and the GM in question loves the roleplaying aspect of the game and encourages us to take actions our characters would make rather than metagaming. (See also: my CN absentminded-scholar-flavored catfolk may have needed bailing out after she cluelessly wandered into a Classy Diplomatic Embassy in scruffy leather-and-bone adventuring gear, but I got extra experience and "karma" (basically a homebrew Inspiration-type thing that lets us alter rolls in exchange for points) because it was perfectly in-character for her to do so :P)

but yeah, AI-ruled games are... gonna have problems, since the AI can't read intent (yet :P). I'd think someone would have made a mod that let you avoid alignment shift altogether by now, but... [shrugs]
fwiw I also parse Lawful as "adheres to a strict set of rules" rather than directly following The Law Of The Land.

 

Yeah, I don't mind bonuses for acting in character (Rifts, my first introduction to tabletop, only gives you a little XP for fighting split up into three tiers [small threat, medium threat, great threat] and the rest is all RP/cleverness/stuff like that.) or even a full alignment change because something happened and changed a character's morals- something inspires them to be a better person and they become Good, they lose faith in the system and become Neutral or Chaotic, stuff like that. But "you steal too much, you're not lawful anymore" is ???

 

@Lazarae @Loq the only time I'd call a character who regularly adhered to a code of conduct "chaotic" is if that code of conduct is something like "always prioritize yourself over others and don't do anything that isn't beneficial to you," since to me "lawful" implies compliance with the laws, rules, ethics, etc. of a group, whether that group is a family or a god's followers or the people who hold some kind of universal ethical standard (the Golden Rule and rephrasings thereof isn't necessarily affiliated with a particular group, but I'd say a character who adopted it as a moral tenet individually would still be lawful). so "lawful" is "act for something greater than yourself" and "chaotic" is "act for yourself only," although that's maybe not the best way to phrase it... hmm. I could also say that lawful characters act according to standards that sometimes conflict with their basic impulses, while chaotic characters act as their basic impulses dictate, if that makes more sense. there are exceptions to that in the official alignments of monsters vs. their described behavior and such, but that's how I like to think of it. assuming stealing = chaotic is definitely incorrect. stealing only to benefit yourself, maybe, but stealing under the direction of a thieves' guild is very lawful!

 

@Xitaqa is correct. I mentioned it because the act of creating a new and original spell is very important in the home-brew system I run. The system I use is a "High-Magic" system, by that I mean that magic is fairly common, and almost everyone has at least the potential to be a magic-user of some kind. This is for overarching plot reasons. I require all my PC magic-users to create a new spell every time they gain the ability to cast spells of a new level. These new spells can be small variations of existing spells, Purple Fireball for example, or whole new concepts as long as they are spell level appropriate. It does make it awfully complicated for me when the PCs find a new spell-book though :) I'm not exactly sure how this Warlock class would fit into my system though...

 

My usual ruling on Lawful vs. Chaotic is that Lawful people think the world would be better off if everyone followed the rules they followed, whereas Chaotic people either follow intensely personal rules or act on personal impulses. Not sure where that leaves Neutral, though...

The nine-point alignment system has always bothered me, because to my mind the relationship of Good and Evil to Law and Chaos is contextual. A Chaotic act could be Good or Evil depending on the moral state of the order it undermines or ignores. The problem with all those "does the paladin fall" debates is that the paladin code is a virtue ethic (protect the innocent, don't cheat, don't lie, don't use poison) and the assumptions of the alignment system seem like the ends justify the means (in an unavoidable choice between evils, the right action is the one that causes the least harm. Good seeks to prevent harm, Evil causes harm for its own ends, Neutral doesn't go out of its way either way). So what if a paladin can remove an evil dictator easily, by poisoning him, or by an honorably conducted war that will kill hundreds of arguably innocent people?

It's one reason I like the Eberron setting and 5th edition D&D; they both decouple the alignment system from the mechanics a little bit, so it's easier to run a game with more subjective morals if you're so inclined.

 

That's why I like Rifts's alignment system; it allows for a lot more wiggle room inside one's alignment and is separate from class-related conduct codes. So you could have a scrupulous (sort of cowboy cop) Cyber Knight- they follow a modernized chivalric code that requires them to help those in need and deal fairly with innocents, but might ignore local laws because red tape is bullshit. If they know someone's guilty they won't bother getting a warrant if it means the criminal may get away. Scrupulous characters are mostly honorable to innocents, strangers, and good-aligned characters, but will lie to, cheat, and steal from people they know to be criminals/evil.

My LE rogue had a personal code instead of one derived by a community, but I counted her as lawful because she followed very strict rules on how to behave. She wouldn't steal from, lie to, or cheat people who earned her respect, even if they were enemies, but disdained the "willing weak" and considered them free game for everything but killing. She'd always keep her promises, but avoided giving her word, and never betrayed friends even if it meant changing her plans. She'd never kill an unarmed foe, in that they have no weapons on them at all, but would set traps, ambushes, and backstab anyone carrying something more lethal than a butter knife. She'd never drag someone's family/children or their noncombatant friends/lovers into a feud, but allies are SOL. NOT a nice person, but somewhat honorable.

 

I run a whitebox/basic campaign, with a three point alignment system: Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. In the first rulebook I started with, Lawful was defined by actions such as keeping one's word and supporting the group, even risking or sacrificing ones own life to protect the group. Chaotic was defined by actions such as lying and cheating and saving one's own skin even at the expense of the group. And Neutral was shown as I guess trying to be fair to others and being willing to invest effort into supporting the group I order to earn the benefits of being part of it, but also being willing to cut and run if it came down to life and death.

I really like this system better than the nine point system that tries to be a universal or cosmic graph of moral and ethical action. The three point system could easily be renamed with terms like Honor, Fairplay, and Autonomy. I also realized that the three alignments are beautifully illustrated in the film The Good, the Bad, And the Ugly.

Angel Eyes says that that once he's been paid, he always finishes the job - even if that means two clients both hire him to kill each other. He also works well with a team of minions and operates as an army officer for rather a long while. The villain of the film is Lawful.

The Man With No Name first appears in the film killing a team of bounty hunters in order to claim their prisoner himself, and then once he has collected the bounty he rescues that prisoner in order to collect his bounty again in the next town. When he decides his partner is too obnoxious and not valuable enough to make continuing the scam worthwhile, he abandons him in the desert. He joins partnerships and teams and walks away from them without a second though. The hero of the film, such as he is, is Chaotic.

Tuco the Rat is selfish and greedy but he also believes in old friendships. He is willing to participate in a risky partnership for good profit, he can lead a team, and he can work alone. He is never the first one to betray a partner, but will tirelessly seek vengeance against those who betray him. The most entertaining character in the film is Neutral.

That's the way I see it anyway.

 

Just got done my first session of a new group and setting, and our party is an assorted group of people who all died before their time. Normally, when someone dies before their time and ends up where we are, they're sent there by their deity. We, uh, weren't. The guy in charge of greeting new arrivals was pretty distressed to discover that and actually didn't believe us for a good bit. And then he got increasingly distressed, because one of our party members worships a chicken, and another one decided that the obvious solution was to try tickling the guy for...some reason. (The attempt failed, badly; they both rolled natural 1s and ended up in a heap.)

The campfire greeter gets fed up with our party due to Tickling Jerk (who's interrupting and talking over a lot of the rest of the party, and ruining the efforts of the saner members at trying to find out wtf is going on and what we need to do) and tells us to fuck off and not come back until we've gathered up the idol pieces. My character manages to at least get an explanation of what the idol looks like, so we're not searching blind for it.

And then we all introduce ourselves, and my character is a bit vague about how she died (she's told the party she was conducting negotiations with a dragon, she hasn't said why or for what) and the bard (who is one of the Sensible characters) is just "none of your business how I died, but if any of you see this person I'm looking for, please tell me". We go down the road we got pointed on, and then suddenly bears as we get close to the town.

We roll for initiative, about half of us get a natural 20, and I win the draw to go first, and I proceed to summon a fuck-off ball of fire; I smack it into one of the bears, and singe one of the others with its proximity effect. Tickling Jerk decides that hey, he's supposed to be the tank right? and promptly runs up to one of the bears and punches it twice. He succeeds and the bear is utterly baffled, but he then gets a bit surrounded. And mauled.
We manage to take down the bears (and discover that Chicken Worshiper's pet chicken is terrifying in combat), partly because the DM takes pity on us (due to the fact that half-way through the battle, we discovered that the AC and HP for the bears had been transposed - they were supposed to have an AC of 11 and an HP of 19, but instead got an AC of 19 and an HP of 11. Which explained why they were dying so fast every time we managed to hit them, and also why we were having a hard time hitting them even on decent rolls) and partly because the fireball is doing enough damage that it's either directly taking out bears or weakening them enough that someone else can take them out.

The mayor shows up after the bears are all dead, and is very grateful to us! But the town doesn't have much in the way of money, so we got a house that used to belong to one of the townspeople who died to the bears we killed. The bard did manage to progress the quest, though - she asked about the idol, and turns out the town's got one of the pieces! The mayor threw that in as a reward as well.

 

I'm in a Spelljammer campaign with some friends!

My character is a gyrfalcon aarakocra who's almost 7 foot tall. Their name is Ejiro and every session, when we roll for starting HP, they get really low. Like. Last time they had 2 hp the entire session. Luckily the session consisted mostly of speculating about boxes and trying to negotiate with kobolds for access to a staircase. We had to go up a different staircase.

Also the session was saved by Ejiro's backstory meaning that it made sense for Ejiro to a, know Goblin, and b, be calm and double-check apparent threats.

Other characters are Spin, a throll (Homestuck trolls put into Spelljammer), and Murray, a giff (hippo person).
Spin's a rogue with low Wisdom, and her player makes wisdom rolls a lot to see if Spin does something dumb. Over every session we've been in, she's never passed a wisdom roll.

In previous sessions this has lead to her shoving her face into a scrying pool (ruining the scrying spell) and trying to butter a live cat because "cats like butter right".
On the other hand she rescued a character that was about to be executed by the evil empire with nothing but live chickens, prompted a running gag involving an expy of the Annoying Dog in a prequel session, won against a large number of armoured gnoombas (not a typo), and got an NPC to pay to clean the floor.

In a previous session, Murray threw a porticullus that was trapping everyone except for Murray in zero-g into space.

There used to be a fourth player who wasn't a GM but he changed characters every session and I think he insulted the GM for not running a min-maxing, kill-everything type of session?? anyway he left.

In the first session of this campaign, we got attacked by elves, lost, fled, crashed our ship into a lake (only Ejiro actually stayed on the ship, everyone else wound up in the lake), and then spent over half an hour just discussing gear choices. Spin's player wanted an armload of live chickens, adventuring gear, and a vampire hunting kit.
She got only the adventuring gear because everything else is expensive.

I tried to buy 10 javelins because the GM typoed on the price and they were way cheaper than they were meant to be.

 

that DM feel when you realize you have the opportunity to make shit extra tragic for a player:


(one of my players slept with a guard at the castle they now control. the next thing that happens is that, while the players are gone, there's a surprise attack on the castle and a guard is killed. i am definitely making it the guard she slept with, and she is definitely the type of character to take it badly. and her player is the type of person to appreciate the pathos. i am excite.)

 

Ok, so- I am putting together a modern day with magic campaign with a mostly homebrew system. There's no classes, but there are ability trees that are kinda like feats? Except that in theory they allow you to personalize how your character operates. There are ten different trees and three tiers of abilities, and each character'll have a certain number of ability slots. The system itself is d20 and will probably run like a pared down version of DnD? I know I got myself into this situation, but are there any systems with similar things I should take inspiration from? I am thinking of taking inspiration from class skills and feats from pathfinder especially, but I'm not sure how many of those would fit? The idea is that first tier abilities are fairly simple things that still allow the players to gradually make their own characters distinct, Tier 2 are more specialized (since you need 1 or 2 Tier 1 abilities to get a Tier 2 in the same tree) things (like I am thinking that something like pathfinder's Cleave would be a Tier 2 Light Weapons ability) and Tier 3 are very powerful. They can either be passive buffs or active moves you can decide to do. The 10 abilities trees are Stealth, Unarmed, Defensive, Ranged, Heavy Weapon, Light Weapon, Summoning, Enchanting, Glamours, and Sorcery (those last four being the four distinct types of magic in the setting- they wouldn't be spells, that's something else, but things that alter/enhance how you do magic. Thank you all and sorry for rambles, I am very very tired and very very brainfog.

 

Sorry to double post, but! I am planning to run a magical girl tabletop on Kinstugi, if that is a thing that might be interesting to you!

 

Thinking over potential variant rules to implement in my next campaign. I love D&D 5e, but it makes combat feel very all-or-nothing. Injuries just vanish overnight unless they're outright lethal. Even in a high fantasy setting this strains my suspension of disbelief.

The "Slower Natural Healing" rule (you don't get all HP back on a long rest, you have to spend hit dice like on a short rest) seems like a good start. I don't have to threaten the PCs' lives in every combat to make them feel high-stakes.
Adding the "Lingering Injuries" table might enhance the effect -- you check on the table when someone crits you, or when you roll a 1 on a saving throw against something damaging. (This might make some abilities more or less powerful: "Lucky" for halflings lets them reroll 1s, and the Champion fighter gets an expanded crit range.) Since this applies to both PCs and monsters, it makes combat less predictable and more dangerous for everyone: a couple of lucky/unlucky rolls and you could blind or hamstring an opponent several levels higher than you.
Might be good for the urban intrigue sandbox campaign I've got on the back burner. Gently encourages the players to find non-combat solutions, think strategically, and look for tactical advantages. And when combat does happen, the potential for mayhem goes way up.

 

I was scanning over my 5e books while writing a D&D character headcanon post, and I'd forgotten how much I loved some of the shit they did with backgrounds and classes. I tend to instantly launch myself at Bard, but if I ever do another 5e campaign, I might try something different, just to play around with some of the other toys in the box.

 

Have ever of you guys ever been part of a game using Urban Arcana or some other urban fantasy setting? If so, how was it? I'm thinking of using a setting like that for a campaign of my own in the future. (and a scifi setting with an alien invasion, and a post-apocalyptic setting inspired by Gamma World and After the Bomb, and...)