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Wait, did the M9 get one of the threshold crests? I lost track.
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Jan 29, 2021 23:28
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redbrouw posted:Why do wizards and wizards society keep around anti magic golems and books that make you anti magic tattoo person? Seems counterproductive. 
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Jan 29, 2021 23:40
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Cheston posted:Wait, did the M9 get one of the threshold crests? I lost track. They lost their whole bag of holding - including the crest in it - I think? I lost track too...
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Jan 30, 2021 00:09
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DeathSandwich posted:The more we learn about Lucien and his abilities, the less I like about him and his presence in the story. He's all knowing and omnipotent with essentially free scrying all day every day, is king of the wizard killers and effectively came out of nowhere. If Matt had seeded of the eyes of nine earlier in the story and established that the people carrying the eye tattoos had special abilities above and beyond the regular chumps then it would of made it far more significant when lucien wanders back into the plot with a whole bunch of them. As is it just feels like some neighborhood gang toughs just accidentally bumbled into God powers - the whole Molly thing not withstanding. Yeah, when I saw a 6 hour recording and 250 new posts I got really loving tense assuming something terrible had happened and even after Ashley's bad dice rolls summoned the Nightmare in Ivory, I was sure there must be something more but it was at least fun as gently caress to divert the big quest with an ancient white dragon as basically a random encounter and I was really nervous but excited about the show's second half....and then just became numb as it went on because Lucien is just boring bullshit. I don't play DnD and have never seen a Beholder as an actual enemy since I didn't watch the first 27 or so episodes of campaign one but Lucien just doesn't feel like he fits in to the game at all to me as a casual fan. His anti-magical ability allows him to cancel any spell indefinitely for no apparent cost, including racial abilities, no spell anyone has can affect it or the Eyes at all apparently, and even Deities appear to be kind of confused or lost on what's going on while Artagan finds what Lucien does creepy. It doesn't seem like it's balanced to or fits within the setting at all. Which robs the confrontation with him of a lot of it's actual tension. I was pretty sure this episode was going to be a TPK for a good two hours, and felt nothing beyond "well, yeah, of course he managed to kill them, because Matt created a character that uses something that might as well be from another setting and which no-one in the party can do anything about." I'm not bothered that he came out of nowhere personally, since our heroes aren't going to have a smoothly scaled path signposted to everything Matt wants to do; what bothers me is that Lucien feels like he doesn't actually fit in this game. At least after this episode there are some hard limits established, but it still feels kind of bullshit to have an enemy that can freely cancel the very concept of magic indefinitely in a sizable area of any battle with no apparent effort or cost just by looking at it. I'm not sure they can plan around that, especially when the guy they're trying to plan around can seemingly spy on them at will on top of cancel their magic. Hopefully he won't be around too much longer, because this episode really emphasized how tedious he can be. Hulk Smash! posted:They lost their whole bag of holding - including the crest in it - I think? I lost track too... Jester grabbed the large crest off Zoran in her owl form I think, and I don't remember her ever dropping it. I don't recall her talking about lugging it around either, mind, but the size and awkwardness of holding it may just have gotten lost in the player's obvious emotional and physical fatigue during the fight. tsob fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Jan 30, 2021 |
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Jan 30, 2021 00:27
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Hulk Smash! posted:They lost their whole bag of holding - including the crest in it - I think? I lost track too... Lost their bag of holding (which is also kind of bullshit, Cad's passive perception should have noticed it was missing a lot sooner) which held Caleb's necklace which held the crest but they managed to grab the one that Zoran was lugging. Senjuro fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Jan 30, 2021 |
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Jan 30, 2021 00:28
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tsob posted:At least after this episode there are some hard limits established, but it still feels kind of bullshit to have an enemy that can freely cancel the very concept of magic indefinitely in a sizable area of any battle with no apparent effort or cost just by looking at it. I'm not sure they can plan around that, especially when the guy they're trying to plan around can seemingly spy on them at will on top of cancel their magic. Hopefully he won't be around too much longer, because this episode really emphasized how tedious he can be. Unrelated to the cone I also just realized that you auto fail dex saves when you're stunned. Coordinated Stunning Strike and Disintegrate could wreak havoc. And if they focus fire Otis and Cree then Caleb and Fjord can blast the rest from the sky with impunity. The Tombtakers aren't as scary as they appear if the M9 bring their A-game. edit: VVVVV but his friends aren't. Senjuro fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Jan 30, 2021 |
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Jan 30, 2021 01:02
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Lucien is immune to stun, too.
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Jan 30, 2021 01:10
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Senjuro posted:Lost their bag of holding (which is also kind of bullshit bullshit, Cad's passive perception should have noticed it was missing a lot sooner) which held Caleb's necklace which held the crest but they managed to grab the one that Zoran was lugging. Doesn't it also have fjords cloven crystal in it too? Could be an interesting standoff. "Return what is mine and I wont release the kraken."
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Jan 30, 2021 01:14
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Cheston posted:Wait, did the M9 get one of the threshold crests? I lost track. Jester grabbed the big one off Zoran, and never said she dropped it and never got anti-magicked out of her owl form. So unless Matt wants to try and be real dick about it, they should have that one.
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Jan 30, 2021 01:14
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DeathSandwich posted:Doesn't it also have fjords cloven crystal in it too? Could be an interesting standoff. "Return what is mine and I wont release the kraken." I think the amber has the crest, the cloven crystal, and Ves' body. Plenty of stuff for Matt to spring on the party 20 episodes from now.
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Jan 30, 2021 01:15
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Do you guys ever get that feeling where you don't want this to end? [...] Do you remember what I said about not wanting this to end? I want this to end right now I'm glad I don't watch CR as it airs because I had to take several breaks to get through the latter half of this, jesus christ my nerves. E: lol TTT has all of Beau's fireworks now, too Government Handjob fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Jan 30, 2021 |
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Jan 30, 2021 01:40
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I can’t get over that they decided to fly their polymorphed party members straight down onto a group that has a dude that they KNOW can cancel magic. I mean I’m sure it was just a case of “in the rush of the moment we forgot,” but even so.
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Jan 30, 2021 03:00
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Government Handjob posted:Do you guys ever get that feeling where you don't want this to end?  I don't think any of them could take it.
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Jan 30, 2021 03:15
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TotalHell posted:I can’t get over that they decided to fly their polymorphed party members straight down onto a group that has a dude that they KNOW can cancel magic. It seemed less "in the heat of the moment we forgot" and more "it's either do something desperate that'll probably fail or do nothing at all". They discussed his anti-magic ability dropping the polymorph when deciding who would fly in first and in what formation they should approach if I recall.
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Jan 30, 2021 03:17
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tsob posted:It seemed less "in the heat of the moment we forgot" and more "it's either do something desperate that'll probably fail or do nothing at all". They discussed his anti-magic ability dropping the polymorph when deciding who would fly in first and in what formation they should approach if I recall. And honestly, if they hadn't botched the stealth roll they might very well have made the grab and been off running before Lucien could react.
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Jan 30, 2021 03:32
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redbrouw posted:Why do wizards and wizards society keep around anti magic golems and books that make you anti magic tattoo person? Seems counterproductive. I run campaigns, and one of my antagonists I made up was a guy who hated magic and made it his mission to destroy knowledge of hurtful magics, including destroying arcane knowledge and hunting powerful mages. I made his points amount to "Almost all magic exists to hurt and control." The response from one of my players was along the lines of, "What about healing spells?" My response was "How often do you use helpful magic to fix what offensive magic has broken?" I figured it was dumb enough and full of enough holes that they would just get tired and fight him. Queue me having anxiety about having to re-write my campaign as my players were genuinely considering helping one of my villains burn down an arcane library.
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Jan 30, 2021 05:52
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Government Handjob posted:
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Jan 30, 2021 07:09
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I still didn't feel any real tension that session. Even if they lost Lucian wouldn't have killed them.
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Jan 30, 2021 07:30
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RC Cola posted:I still didn't feel any real tension that session. Even if they lost Lucian wouldn't have killed them. I do not believe that at all. Lucien was going for blood.
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Jan 30, 2021 09:09
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Yeah, he made it pretty clear that even if they teleported a crest away or something that they'd just kill them and go find another one and be done with it. Which in all honesty is a sorta lame way to force a conflict in with this mega busted nothing personnel kid NPC but y'know.
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Jan 30, 2021 09:21
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Pennsylvanian posted:Queue me having anxiety about having to re-write my campaign as my players were genuinely considering helping one of my villains burn down an arcane library. How many of your players were playing as martial classes, because that might make this response much more understandable. Am I alone in thinking that the No you don't get to do magic in eye range thing is one of the few ways to really tone down a lot of the bullshit the nein is capable of doing? To me the whole thing only seems like -teleports behind you- because this is the first time someone is getting something over on the PC's directly.
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Jan 30, 2021 10:22
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Jetrauben posted:I do not believe that at all. Lucien was going for blood. Agreed. If Matt was the kind of DM to bail out the party when a plan went catastrophically bad, Molly would be alive and we'd be chasing Ves DeRogna right now instead.
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Jan 30, 2021 13:07
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Jetrauben posted:I do not believe that at all. Lucien was going for blood. yeah, if Yasha hadn't pulled her away, Lucien would have for sure killed Beau.
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Jan 30, 2021 13:40
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Nemo2342 posted:Agreed. If Matt was the kind of DM to bail out the party when a plan went catastrophically bad, Molly would be alive and we'd be chasing Ves DeRogna right now instead. True to a point, he did pull his punches in the later half of the fight. He could have easily TPK'd if he wanted.
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Jan 30, 2021 14:10
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Given how the M9 solves most of Matt's challenges in recent times, I think it says a lot more about how difficult it is to balance an encounter around dealing with them than it does about Lucien being overpowered. That whole encounter just escalated insanely due to player choices and initiative ending up as it was. If Beau hadn't dove right into the middle of the group like she did to start it off, along with Caleb being dead last and being paired up with Cad they likely could of got out a lot more cleanly. Like for real, having two casters who can and love to polymorph their problems away must make encounter building a nightmare for Matt if he just wants one big monster.
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Jan 30, 2021 14:40
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Nemo2342 posted:Agreed. If Matt was the kind of DM to bail out the party when a plan went catastrophically bad, Molly would be alive and we'd be chasing Ves DeRogna right now instead.
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Jan 30, 2021 15:04
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Josef bugman posted:Am I alone in thinking that the No you don't get to do magic in eye range thing is one of the few ways to really tone down a lot of the bullshit the nein is capable of doing? To me the whole thing only seems like -teleports behind you- because this is the first time someone is getting something over on the PC's directly. The thing that makes it feel out of place to me isn't even "no you don't get to magic", it's the fact it has no gameplay penalty, nothing can affect it within the game's rules and even in the lore seems to be a completely new and unique thing that outright Gods can't fathom. Dunamancy was a new thing Matt dreamed up for the campaign so far as I know and almost as soon as they encountered it the party started being able to interact with it, and Caleb eventually learned several Dunamantic spells. I cannot imagine Matt ever letting anyone learn anything that Lucien is doing and having it as a player character ability. A character that he takes over because they've fully fallen? Sure. I can't imagine Matt will ever allow Marisha to control Beau as she wanders around with an anti-magic ability though. Another way to consider this, in my opinion, is the cost and level of interaction between players. If a player casts a spell, it costs a daily slot and takes components other people in battle with them can track the usage of, detect, steal etc. The eye thing is just free, so far as we know and has no limits on the number of times he can do it or have any cooldown. Not only is it free, it can't be disrupted in any meaningful way. A caster can have their concentration broken, their spell countered or dispelled etc by non-casters or by other casters. The only way to stop this is to knock Lucien out. You can't even stun him, because he's immune to stun too. No other class has any defense against this except to try and avoid it or plan around it. Which you can't even blind Lucien to manage, since nothing can disrupt or cover the eyes going off the rest of the campaign. There's a level of interplay and balance between physical classes and casters that may not be perfect, but still has some push and pull between the two. There's no interplay here with this new type of power. It's just better, and trumps magic in all ways and at all times. Which is kind of poo poo. I cannot image a player ever having that ability because it completely breaks the gameplay balance to let them have it. It's only something you could ever have on a boss, and at that point is basically just creator fiat. The fact it can even affect racial abilities like Cadaceus' ability to turn invisible for one round just makes it rankle that little bit more to me. It sounds magical, but that's an innate ability so there's really no reason that should be disrupted in gameplay as far as I'm concerned. It'd be like Matt telling Travis his half orc relentless endurance is cancelled, and sorry, you just go down this round or telling Laura that Jester takes full cold damage while this character is around because she's no longer resistant to cold in his presence. It's gimping the player of an aspect of the character that isn't even majorly powerful for no reason. On the whole, what Lucien is and what he can do don't feel like they're part of DnD anymore to me. It might as well be a system from a different game entirely for all the difference it makes to how the players interact with it. Can we disrupt Lucien using our abilities? Nope. Can we do anything to affect the Eyes forming on our party members? Nope, they resist everything. Do our Gods at least know about this thing? Nope. What can they do with Lucien? Beat him up. Which, yeah, really gets in to the "role play" aspect, when there's only one action you have that can meaningfully affect part of the game. At which point, why have it be part of the game? Or at least, why have it be a codified thing at all, since you might as well just go "I saw a sparrow today, therefor your fireball no longer works". There's about as much capacity for the players to affect one as the other. After last week's episode someone mentioned that under any other DM Lucien would be that DMPC, and while I've no point of comparison since I've never played the game I get the feeling under this DM Lucien is basically exactly what the guy was implying. Or at least, he's annoyingly overpowered and isn't something the players can interact with to any great degree beyond talking to or beating him up since they don't appear to be able to disrupt anything he can do or his plans in any meaningful way. Which is what I imagine that guy was on about. Matt has a story, and the only to stop it is to kill Lucien. So hopefully he's killed soon so the players can get back to characters with abilities they can comprehend and whose stories they can actually affect and interact with. The players don't seem to mind, but as an audience member I certainly do, since it doesn't feel like the same game at all when Lucien is around. Senjuro posted:True to a point, he did pull his punches in the later half of the fight. He could have easily TPK'd if he wanted. I think that may be less "Matt didn't want to do so" and more "Lucien didn't want to do so". Which, there's some blurring of the lines in those things obviously, but Matt has portrayed Lucien as someone who isn't particularly concerned with the Nein and barely sees them as a threat so it's not really surprising that he wouldn't expend much effort in fighting them and would be willing to let them go when it looked like there'd be some effort required on his part. He could have dashed after them to get them in range, but that would require he run after people and make him seem like he's expending effort to destroy his enemies and that's not Lucien. tsob fucked around with this message at 18:03 on Jan 30, 2021 |
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Jan 30, 2021 16:37
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tsob posted:No other class has any defense against this except to try and avoid it or plan around it. In response to the first bit highlighted above, yes? That is the whole point? You can't just go in guns blazing with everything and expect to just claim victory with little consequence. With this you have to change tactics and think about things in order to plan out what looks good and can be helpful, it creates a far more entertaining story and far more entertaining fight than just going "I shoot fireballs at them until they are all dead". It is one of the few things in 5e that might require you to take note of positioning in order to gain advantage over someone and that's great! Also, why on earth is making Lucien a weird overpowered boss monster bad? He was obviously doing lovely things to people and is, let's be blunt here, a zealot. He was never going to abandon his quest or stop trying to hurt other people so that he can gain power. Like, I guess this is just a fundamental disconnect but "weird magic that makes no sense and cannot/ has not been fully tried by people studying it" can exist right alongside "this magic has been known about amongst some people for ages and they are constantly refining it". Both are completely interesting takes on what "magic" is. In response to the second highlighted bit, I think that would be awesome if done in say "you find yourself facing an elemental creature of terrifying cold, the sort where trees explode in the centre of forests" and finding out that it is strong enough that it can make sure that even someone resistant takes more damage would be incredible! You'd have to show that it was coming first, obviously, and maybe have some interaction so that instead of losing all of it you just take d10 less damage or what have you, but it is still a cool take on something! I also have to absolutely laugh at the idea that "the characters aren't all that powerful". 1) There are 7 of them. 2) 3 of them are pure casters. The last one is really important because full casters are broken. The power that a full caster like a wizard has is absolutely mind-boggling in this game. I also have to laugh a little bit at the whole "all you can do is beat them up?" aspect, because fundamentally that is all that DnD is. You can keep wrapping it in tin foil but the main meat of the game is "how are we going to find this thing and kill it". Violence is the way that you solve every problem in the game. "Apply fist to face" is the best way to resolve almost every single conflict inside a DnD game. I fail to see how having Lucien act like a poo poo, plan things out and set things up and succeed at things is entirely robbing players of their agency.
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Jan 30, 2021 18:27
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Josef bugman posted:In response to the first bit highlighted above, yes? That is the whole point? You can't just go in guns blazing with everything and expect to just claim victory with little consequence. Then I guess it's one of those fundamental disconnects you mentioned, because having something the players cannot affect on any level isn't a consequence to me: it's just arbitrary. You can have consequences from things the players can affect, or have no consequence from something they can't affect. Josef bugman posted:Also, why on earth is making Lucien a weird overpowered boss monster bad? Fights in DnD to me are interesting as an interaction between two groups that use fundamentally similar power sets and rules. Not as a solution in of itself either, as you implied later; as a way of facilitating or getting to the role play aspects. Fights on their own are meaningless. If one group has access to things the rest don't, it's no longer as interesting; it's that kid on the playground going "nuh uh, my power allows me to do all powers". Just making stuff up as they go along to always be the best and always come out on top. If one group is using a different set of rules than another then it stops being an interesting fight where each group is trying to outsmart the other based on shared rules. Josef bugman posted:maybe have some interaction so that instead of losing all of it you just take d10 less damage or what have you If the area gets extra cold then a player with cold resistance doesn't stop resisting cold; they still take more damage than they would in a comparatively warmer area, but less than someone of another race not resistant to cold. Nullifying that doesn't make the area interesting; it just takes away an aspect of the character. Josef bugman posted:I also have to absolutely laugh at the idea that "the characters aren't all that powerful" It's nice that I gave you a chuckle I guess, but that's not actually what I said. I said a particular racial ability isn't that powerful in and of itself, not that a specific character with that ability isn't powerful given all their abilities. tsob fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Jan 30, 2021 |
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Jan 30, 2021 18:42
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tsob posted:The fact it can even affect racial abilities like Cadaceus' ability to turn invisible for one round just makes it rankle that little bit more to me. It sounds magical, but that's an innate ability so there's really no reason that should be disrupted in gameplay as far as I'm concerned. This much is RAW for D&D 5. If a racial ability or monster feature has the word "magic" or "magical" in its description, it can be disrupted or suppressed by an anti-magic field. Hidden Step, the ability in question, is explicitly magical. On the other hand, a dragon's frightful presence and breath weapon abilities are both non-magical since they are inherent to the nature of the creature. That ancient white dragon would have had a good chance of slaughtering the Tomb Takers if the Mighty Nein hadn't been there.
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Jan 30, 2021 18:56
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Josef bugman posted:
Because it doesn't feel earned. At least with weird overpowered boss monsters of the monster flavor you expect it to have inhuman capabilities. You don't have to establish that a beholder has some hosed up unnatural abilities - just look at it. Likewise with a group like the Cerebrus assembly or even the followers of Ukatoa, you had those moments seeded earlier in the story to establish how scary they were and how above the pale they were. Yeah, Lucien killed Vess Derogna, but at the end of the day she was a person that could of been theoretically gotten with a regular old assassination - it established Lucien as a threat but not really that he's toying with god powers - especially since we hadn't even seen what Vess was capable of either. I made the comment earlier that it's like some gang of street toughs accidentally stumbled into god powers. They are somehow omnipotent and godlike powerful yet bumble around lost in blizzards. DeathSandwich fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Jan 30, 2021 |
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Jan 30, 2021 20:04
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DeathSandwich posted:Because it doesn't feel earned. At least with weird overpowered boss monsters of the monster flavor you expect it to have inhuman capabilities. You don't have to establish that a beholder has some hosed up unnatural abilities - just look at it. Likewise with a group like the Cerebrus assembly or even the followers of Ukatoa, you had those moments seeded earlier in the story to establish how scary they were and how above the pale they were. Yeah, Lucien killed Vess Derogna, but at the end of the day she was a person that could of been theoretically gotten with a regular old assassination - it established Lucien as a threat but not really that he's toying with god powers - especially since we hadn't even seen what Vess was capable of either. So Akira, then.
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Jan 30, 2021 20:06
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jng2058 posted:So Akira, then. Akira if you sleep through the early/middle acts where Tetsuo is a government labrat and you just wake up at the end when he's turning into a mutating hellmonster. DeathSandwich fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Jan 30, 2021 |
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Jan 30, 2021 20:07
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tsob posted:Then I guess it's one of those fundamental disconnects you mentioned, because having something the players cannot affect on any level isn't a consequence to me: it's just arbitrary. You can have consequences from things the players can affect, or have no consequence from something they can't affect. You'd prefer if it was a save or something? Some way for the players to interact with it? Because sometimes limiting things helps to create something that is more interesting. Especially when your team is powerful and used to using said power. tsob posted:Fights in DnD to me are interesting as an interaction between two groups that use fundamentally similar power sets and rules. Not as a solution in of itself either, as you implied later; as a way of faciliitating or getting to the role play aspects. Fights on their own are meaningless. If one group has access to things the rest don't, it's no longer as interesting; it's that kid on the player going "nuh uh, my power allows me to do all powers". Just making stuff up as he goes along to always be the best. But that is never the case. Monsters have lots of abilities that PC's cannot use. The thing where the worm stuns people for 10 rounds unless they make a save, for instance, would be criminally overpowered if given to a PC. The rules that you dislike are, in this instance, a slightly different version of an already existing monsters powers. Would you dislike the Vokodo fight because the spells can bounce off or hit other people? Like with the golem fight, in the tower. He had a cone of null magic and disabled several spell casters using it. Was that fight not interesting or impactful because he could do that? tsob posted:If the area gets extra cold then a player with cold resistance doesn't stop resisting cold; they still take more damage than they would in a comparatively warmer area, but less than someone of another race not resistant to cold. Nullifying that doesn't make the area interesting; it just takes away an aspect of the character. Or they could, its literally a game and changing the rules of that game so that players can't just think "ahaha this is a Giant, it will have the following abilities:" and instead have something that works in a slightly different way is fantastic. It forces people to think on the fly, to come up with things and see how it goes. That I think is the real gold of any player interaction. It forces characters who have gotten used to relying on things to change and adapt. tsob posted:It's nice that I gave you a chuckle I guess, but that's not actually what I said. I said a particular racial ability isn't that powerful in and of itself, not that a specific character with that ability isn't powerful given all their abilities. I must have misread you, I apologise. DeathSandwich posted:They are somehow omnipotent and godlike powerful yet bumble around lost in blizzards. "Some weird dude gained cosmic power" is just Vekna or the raven queen. As to the thing it's people who are on the climb to god-hood who cannot do certain things. Like If the TT were essentially going "we can perfectly see everything including where we should go" would that be more overpowered. You can be a combat monster and still not be able to tell entirely what you need to do. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Jan 30, 2021 |
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Jan 30, 2021 20:37
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DeathSandwich posted:Because it doesn't feel earned. At least with weird overpowered boss monsters of the monster flavor you expect it to have inhuman capabilities. You don't have to establish that a beholder has some hosed up unnatural abilities - just look at it. Likewise with a group like the Cerebrus assembly or even the followers of Ukatoa, you had those moments seeded earlier in the story to establish how scary they were and how above the pale they were. Yeah, Lucien killed Vess Derogna, but at the end of the day she was a person that could of been theoretically gotten with a regular old assassination - it established Lucien as a threat but not really that he's toying with god powers - especially since we hadn't even seen what Vess was capable of either. yeah they should have established that there was something strange about lucien and that he was toying with strange powers from beyond the planes and that had made him quite powerful and in possession of mysterious abilities
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Jan 30, 2021 20:58
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Lucien is a physical threat with some Beholder powers attached. I think a literal Beholder would be more of a threat personally, don't see how he's some bullshit DMPC at all. As an NPC prior to Mollymauk he was the leader of one of the Claret Orders, like Wildemount's equivalent of Geralt of Rivia, not some bumbling street tough. And if the party wants to mess with Antimagic themselves, Veth could probably buy it on a scroll and completely shut down the next Wizard they come across and quickly neutralize them with Beau or Yasha on sentinel duty. I played with a guy who loved using those scrolls as an Eldritch Knight against spellcasters.
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Jan 30, 2021 22:56
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Josef bugman posted:You'd prefer if it was a save or something? Some way for the players to interact with it? Because sometimes limiting things helps to create something that is more interesting. Especially when your team is powerful and used to using said power. I guess. I'd think if it's a power that a player could potentially have access to that it'd be a concentration thing that could be broken instead, but a save is certainly another way to do it. A limited number of slots on how often it can be used or a cooldown between uses seems likely too. Josef bugman posted:But that is never the case. Monsters have lots of abilities that PC's cannot use. The thing where the worm stuns people for 10 rounds unless they make a save, for instance, would be criminally overpowered if given to a PC. The rules that you dislike are, in this instance, a slightly different version of an already existing monsters powers. Would you dislike the Vokodo fight because the spells can bounce off or hit other people? Like with the golem fight, in the tower. He had a cone of null magic and disabled several spell casters using it. Was that fight not interesting or impactful because he could do that? Stun is still something players can do though. It's not an ability that players don't have access to at all. The worm has access to a better version of it, but it's not something entirely new. Which, to me, this was. I'm wrong on that as it turns out, but to me this came off as (to some degree, still comes off as) an entirely new power. Not just because I'd never seen it before, but because everyone in game was acting like it's completely new and even a lot of people in this thread were confused about just what it was. There was some talk about anti-magic, but even that was generally dismissed due to the fact the effect permanently disabled any spell rather than just knocking it out for the duration of the gaze. Perhaps more importantly, other things the players can do can interact with something like stun as an effect. It can be removed as a status, it can investigated. Players know what it is. Anti-magic is apparently a spell people can learn having looked it up, as well as being a buyable scroll as someone else mentioned but it must be pretty rare and doesn't often come up in DnD within my limited experience listening to or watching actual plays. It appears like the things the City is doing are treated as even rarer though, because as I said, nothing the group can do, despite your view of how powerful they are, has any effect on the Eyes and not even Gods or extra-planar beings seem to know anything it. I guess Lucien is different in my head too, both because he's a humanoid and because he's a former PC character who the player could, at least theoretically, control again, and, perhaps just as much because he's someone the cast could, at least in theory, do something else with. The same way they did with the Drow. The Mighty Nein landed in the midst of the royal court and were all set to be eviscerated, until Liam talked them out of that by showing the Drow the Beacon they had. Now they not only work with the Kryn Dynasty, but helped broker a peace deal between them and the Empire. Lucien and The City isn't someone that Matt appears to want the group to do anything with beyond "stop them". They could talk to Lucien, sure, but he doesn't actually appear willing to let that talk come to anything, and nothing anyone can do has any effect on the Eyes. Even that talk was somewhat on rails though, because, as was being debated heavily last week, the Tomb Takers caught them even with plans on how to evade the Tomb Takers that should have given them a substantial lead, immediately had abilities that let them expose and subdue the group and the Tomb Takers were unwilling to let them go unless the Mighty Nein did something immediate like teleporting; which had been established as dangerous for it's own reasons. Matt portrays Lucien as someone perfectly happy to just go get another crest rather than deal with the Mighty Nein, but also had Lucien go out of his way to catch the Mighty Nein and unwilling to let them go once they were in his ward. Josef bugman posted:Or they could, its literally a game and changing the rules of that game so that players can't just think "ahaha this is a Giant, it will have the following abilities:" and instead have something that works in a slightly different way is fantastic. It forces people to think on the fly, to come up with things and see how it goes. That I think is the real gold of any player interaction. It forces characters who have gotten used to relying on things to change and adapt. "This giant that you've just encountered is not the same as other giants that you've encountered and has different abilities" isn't the same thing as "this giant that I established as being immune to cold is not immune anymore and is taking just as much damage as everyone else now for no apparent reason". New characters being different even if they look the same is not the same thing as taking something already established and making it no longer work the way it's established to work. Someone else pointed out that it is part of how the rules work though, which I still think is dumb personally, but hey, it's in the rules, so 
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Jan 31, 2021 17:04
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tsob posted:I guess. I'd think if it's a power that a player could potentially have access to that it'd be a concentration thing that could be broken instead, but a save is certainly another way to do it. A limited number of slots on how often it can be used or a cooldown between uses seems likely too. Why? Do you think that a beholders eye ray becomes overpowered just because it can make certain members of the fight act differently? tsob posted:Lucien and The City isn't someone that Matt appears to want the group to do anything with beyond "stop them". They could talk to Lucien, sure, but he doesn't actually appear willing to let that talk come to anything, and nothing anyone can do has any effect on the Eyes. Even that talk was somewhat on rails though, because, as was being debated heavily last week, the Tomb Takers caught them even with plans on how to evade the Tomb Takers that should have given them a substantial lead, immediately had abilities that let them expose and subdue the group and the Tomb Takers were unwilling to let them go unless the Mighty Nein did something immediate like teleporting; which had been established as dangerous for it's own reasons. Matt portrays Lucien as someone perfectly happy to just go get another crest rather than deal with the Mighty Nein, but also had Lucien go out of his way to catch the Mighty Nein and unwilling to let them go once they were in his ward. Sometimes it is good to have an asymmetric sort of play. Having monsters or other combatants do things that the players don't expect or have to create or think round (puzzle battles, to borrow a term from vidya games) are, to me at least, great fun. I can more than understand if you disagree. Anti-magic field is 8th level, so it is pretty goddamn powerful, but it is also just 2 levels away from where the M9 are at the moment. Extra-planar beings and the Gods themselves not having all the answers is, I would again only personally argue, a good thing. It prevents you from just doing the thing that a lot of groups do and just going "answer our question deity" and then spending a load of time quizzing God in order to get an edge. The Gods in DnD aren't the triple omni we are used to and having some things that they are unable to help with is, to me, forcing people to take some responsibility for doing things and that is awesome. I think that when you start tapping the unknowable entity from beyond space and time and it may well be partially puppeteering you to release it upon an unsuspecting world I think we can possibly move away from the limits a frail humanoid body can have. To me it seems more like someone who has been able to tap a very deep well of something powerful, but wants to release it and doesn't fully understand what they have. I have to really dive into the bit above. Do you think that is the fault of Matt or just a part of a character created? Like, is it wrong because you want something to be different, or wrong because it doesn't fit? To me Lucien seems a lot more like a manipulative arsehole who doesn't really care about anyone other than himself and his goals. He puts on a great mask and even appears to care about others, but to me he reads as someone completely committed to his ideal of what he wants. I think that's cool and serves as a nice contrast between the more humane and understandable people that the Nein have encountered. Ultimately sometimes the thing that the person wants isn't in your power to give and they might not accept it any way. Lucien could go and grab another crest, but why not make it easier on yourself and just steal it from folks that have done the hard work. It makes your life just that little bit easier. tsob posted:"This giant that you've just encountered is not the same as other giants that you've encountered and has different abilities" isn't the same thing as "this giant that I established as being immune to cold is not immune anymore and is taking just as much damage as everyone else now for no apparent reason". When did Matt establish that Lucien didn't have any of the abilities he's used? He cancelled polymorph at the lava lake, he cancelled the freaking dome, he's cancelled the tower. The threads were all there, very clearly and the idea that it's somehow brand new information seems mistaken.
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Jan 31, 2021 19:35
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Josef bugman posted:Why? Do you think that a beholders eye ray becomes overpowered just because it can make certain members of the fight act differently? afaik a beholder still has to drop the antimagic gaze in order to use abilities which Lucien didn't, and also Josef bugman posted:Anti-magic field is 8th level, so it is pretty goddamn powerful, but it is also just 2 levels away from where the M9 are at the moment. it's an 8th level spell with a 10ft radius, 1 hour duration, and is concentration. I feel like that along with straight up immunity to stuns is crazy boring. Like it's not good enough that he's got legendary resistances and actions and probably really good stats but also just saying "lol nah this doesn't work" feels mega lazy to me, esp. noting Matt's continued griping about stuns
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Jan 31, 2021 20:16
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Abroham Lincoln posted:afaik a beholder still has to drop the antimagic gaze in order to use abilities which Lucien didn't, and also Not "drop," exactly; beholders can use their antimagic cone and their eye beams every single turn, but they only get to aim their cones once per turn and their eye beams don't work within its area.
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Jan 31, 2021 20:36
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