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DeathSandwich posted:It's not even really rangers as a whole as it is specifically beastmasters. Hunter rangers in particular seem basically fine. Beastmaster has to tread a fine line of how to balance essentially having an extra warm body to catch arrows for you and help you fight without it becoming wildly overpowered and I kind of prefer it be on the weaker side if they can't achieve perfect balance. The problem with PHB rangers, even Hunters, is that they fail to find a niche for themselves that another class cannot easily be built to perform better while still maintaining its core appeal. A rogue can easily become a better tracker and wilderness survivalist through Expertise while out-damaging it with Sneak Attack and gaining greater utility through Arcane Trickster, and these bonuses are not locked to a single enemy type or terrain. The Wolf Totem also lets Barbarians step into tracking and travel bonuses with better damage. Ranger took over Bard's position from previous editions as the "jack-of-all-trades, master of none," except it isn't even really the former. The UA revision at least grants it the benefit of being the guy who will usually go first thanks to initiative advantage, which is a pretty strong feature, but it's still better as a level-or-two dip than a class you fully invest in.
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Apr 26, 2018 16:13
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Firstborn posted:I've been watching the second season of Force Grey. I'd like to see more of Joe after Jocks Machina and this. It's kind of interesting how some of the characters crossover... Brian Posehn with Force Grey and Acquisitions Inc (I've never watched a second, is this good?), Joe M. with Force Grey/CR, then like Strix is on Acquisitions Inc and Chris Perkins' show. Yeah, Force Grey is all one offs; both "series" are just one adventure split into smaller chunks. Well, technically the ToA adventure was two parts, since they had to do the journey to Omu and entering the Tomb separately. And yes, you should definitely consider watching Acq Inc and Dice, Camera, Action. Chris Perkins is a great DM.
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Jun 9, 2018 16:30
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So, a couple of weeks ago I introduced my players to a friendly adventuring party who are expies of Vox Machina; most of them, anyway, as the group only included Grog, Vax, Vex, Scanlan, and Keyleth. They were both headed through dangerous territory towards the same location, so they all decided it would be safest to travel together. This was especially beneficial to my party, as they're a pretty small group, and VM outgunned them both in manpower and character level. It went well, all things considered, with the party relishing the chance to see characters with powers from classes they hadn't chosen doing cool stuff alongside them. This week, though... well, one of my players (the barbarian) is carrying a cursed sword. It's not his primary weapon; it's more like an artifact he's been charged with carrying around until he can figure out what to do with it. And while it's sheathed, it's totally fine. But if it gets drawn, he has to fight against it or risk being taken over, killing anything around him indiscriminately until he can either wrest control back from the blade and sheath it, or he's knocked unconscious. He's never drawn it in the campaign so far because he takes his oath to protect it very seriously, and because he knows firsthand how dangerous it is to wield. But he had also never encountered Rust Monsters before. Rust Monsters who immediately started chowing down on his and Grog's weapons. Rust Monsters with whom he was trapped alongside Grog inside a large magic bubble created by a bead of force thrown by a fellow party member. So today he decided to finally unsheathe the magic sword. Long story short, the day ended with Grog, Scanlan and Keyleth dead, and the PC being so distraught over the hand he played in it that he chose to kill himself in penance. It was a really heartwrenching moment for the party, especially as the party's paladin (who has always had a sort of rivalry with the barbarian) arrived back on the scene just in time to watch the barbarian stab himself. Now I'm just sort of wondering what Vax and Vex will do. My gut instinct is "escape and then come back later as enemies with Pike and Percy in tow" which could make for a fun moment when the party has to deal with them as enemies.
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Jun 26, 2018 07:32
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Somebody has to be the worst player at the table. And speaking from personal experience, it could be much, much worse.
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Sep 11, 2018 18:40
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Gaz-L posted:And don't get me started on how terrible the idea of healing surges made clerics. Clerics who basically CAN'T HEAL. All they do is make you spend the equivalent of hit-dice so if you're half-dead after the encounter, oh well, time to camp. I dunno, personally I like the idea that there's only so much punishment you can take in a day before your body can't take it anymore. It put a definite limit on the length of an adventuring day, and not an especially harsh one at that. I also think surges were a better choice for post-battle / rest phase healing, since time removed the worry of rolling low by just giving you a flat number you healed per surge.
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Sep 25, 2018 23:13
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Adnor posted:Tuning combat has always been the part that scares me the most about DnD. That's the main reason I haven't actually DM any game even if I've had a few chances to. If you're playing 5e, use this. You'll still need to check out the actual monster stats if you want to avoid, say, accidentally murdering the party with a cohort of Intellect Devourers, but this can at least let you quickly generate combat encounters with some level of control over how easy or hard the fight will be. Eventually you might want to go in directions this site doesn't allow, but for first-time DMing it should suit your needs. As a general rule, the more enemies there are, the harder the fight will be. Letting your party go toe-to-toe with a single, powerful enemy sounds like it'll be awesome, but I can guarantee you that it will almost always be a disappointment. Better to send them against a slightly-weaker boss with some weaker underlings to make things more interesting.
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Oct 26, 2018 04:04
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Generic American posted:Which, to be clear, seems like it'd still be a perfectly fine way to play the game if that's what you're used to and aren't really confident enough to put on a full-fledged performance, but the clash between him and everyone else is just like strapping a bowling ball to a balloon with this episode. Honestly, I think that's why it didn't bother me so much: I DM at a table with both kinds of players, so I'm used to it. One of my players likes to go the whole nine yards in acting out what his character does in a given scene, and is strongly dedicated to following through on his character's thoughts and feelings (to the point where, some time back, one of his characters took his own life after a long struggle with both figurative and literal demons) while another generally approaches the situation from a more withdrawn position, like "(My character) is pissed off that everybody is talking around each other and not getting anywhere, so he flips them all off and walks out." Either approach is perfectly acceptable, and I don't think a DM should try to enforce one method or another on any individual player, but I'll admit that the latter isn't really what you want for a show like this. Doubly so after 50+ episodes of everyone going all-in on the former method, and thus building up an expectation.
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Nov 1, 2018 06:11
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Arthil posted:And don't kid yourself if you think Matt doesn't have either a few possible end-game scenarios planned out, plus several endings to each characters main story thought up. The man is actually pretty crazy about his planning, despite giving the advice to not over-plan! I think he meant not to overthink small details in your planning. As a DM it's important to keep things loose and move in the direction your players take the game; having too rigid a structure saps the fun out of the game as you drag your party along a course they might not necessarily be excited to follow. And on the other hand yeah, if you spend 20 hours a week writing out a ton of info about what the characters will do and where, and they consistently go off track, you're gonna get frustrated. That time would be better spent thinking up setpieces and designing unique enemies.
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Nov 14, 2018 18:52
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