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the PHB is the only book you actually need out of the three. Maybe swap the DMG and MM
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Apr 14, 2024 06:56
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How complete are any 5th edition dark suns conversions? I'd love to play in the setting. Post apocalypse D&D sounds neat.
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Apr 14, 2024 08:45
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There's at least one good one out there, a couple of other ones of varying satisfaction. Someone also made a 5 volume compendium of Athas that's around a thousand pages.
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Apr 14, 2024 08:55
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Facebook Aunt posted:How could they? How could Hasbro put this on out to a mainstream audience next to Monopoly and Peppa Pig? I think this concern is overblown for a few reasons. First, WotC didn't feel any mainstream backlash for bullshit like the Hadozee, Grungs, or Vistani. Members of the D&D community were rightfully critical of insensitive and downright racist crap, but that didn't affect Monopoly and Peppa Pig sales. Second, they can put disclaimers or trigger warnings on the material, much like the "This stuff comes from the before times" disclaimers that are all over their reprint materials on DrivethruRPG and DMs' Guild. Third, they could, as you essentially note, point out that depiction is not endorsement--the point is to tear down Athas's corrupt power structures and defeat those enslavers and rapists. Two of the most successful SF film properties in the last decade are remakes or relaunches of of works that directly inspired Dark Sun (Mad Max and Dune), and neither of those shied away from depicting awful worlds filled with awful people. Fourth, they could downplay or walk back some of the most egregious stuff. TSR was already doing that in the 90s by having Neeva's marriage to Caelum directly contradict the Mul fluff you quoted and having the revised boxed set focus more on the weird aspects of the setting like lost psychic civilizations and halfling genetic engineering projects gone awry. And finally, 4E Dark Sun didn't come out that long ago. Yes, D&D was much more niche back then, but Dark Sun was one of 4E's major releases, getting as much material released for it as Forgotten Realms and Eberron got, and arguably even more as PHB3 and DMG2 contained a lot of material tailored for Dark Sun.
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Apr 14, 2024 16:37
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PeterWeller posted:I think this concern is overblown for a few reasons. First, WotC didn't feel any mainstream backlash for bullshit like the Hadozee, Grungs, or Vistani. Members of the D&D community were rightfully critical of insensitive and downright racist crap, but that didn't affect Monopoly and Peppa Pig sales. Second, they can put disclaimers or trigger warnings on the material, much like the "This stuff comes from the before times" disclaimers that are all over their reprint materials on DrivethruRPG and DMs' Guild. Third, they could, as you essentially note, point out that depiction is not endorsement--the point is to tear down Athas's corrupt power structures and defeat those enslavers and rapists. Two of the most successful SF film properties in the last decade are remakes or relaunches of of works that directly inspired Dark Sun (Mad Max and Dune), and neither of those shied away from depicting awful worlds filled with awful people. Fourth, they could downplay or walk back some of the most egregious stuff. TSR was already doing that in the 90s by having Neeva's marriage to Caelum directly contradict the Mul fluff you quoted and having the revised boxed set focus more on the weird aspects of the setting like lost psychic civilizations and halfling genetic engineering projects gone awry. And finally, 4E Dark Sun didn't come out that long ago. Yes, D&D was much more niche back then, but Dark Sun was one of 4E's major releases, getting as much material released for it as Forgotten Realms and Eberron got, and arguably even more as PHB3 and DMG2 contained a lot of material tailored for Dark Sun. That's all true. But the nature of D&D is that there is basically infinite amounts of content that could exist. Always has been. But the publisher puts out a handful of books per year. Which leaves nearly infinite content never published. If the marketing data shows 12% of people think a thing is exciting and 10% thinks it's horribly offensive, with most people just not giving a drat that's probably not a thing that's going to the top of their list that year. The thing with Larian went well. Maybe they could try licensing out some of the old dead content that isn't covered by the OGL. Then if someone wants to do a thing with Dark Sun or whatever Hasbro could take some of the profit with none of the risk.
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Apr 14, 2024 22:24
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The thing about wizards and sorcerers is it's not that sorcerers should be a subclass of wizards. But that late model sorcerers are varied enough and wizards cookie cutter enough that wizards should be the subclass. Sorcerers were literally designed an excuse for wizards to have 20 or so pages of spells that no one else could use without it feeling quite so egregious. And the idea sorcerers were good because they got more spell slots is deeply flawed because wizards were a spell level up half the time. A wizard of a specialist school with a decent primary stat at every odd numbered level (except 1 and 19) could cast three spells that were one level higher than any sorcerer and only one spell fewer of one level lower. Meanwhile at even levels the sorcerer's "flexibility" was a joke as they only knew one spell at their highest level and two at their second. What they have become as of 5e is the "everything else" arcane caster. Bards get their power from music, wizards from books, warlocks from sugar daddies, and sorcerers from everything else. And unlike wizards the base class being weaker has given enough room for there to be significant difference between sorcerer subclasses. Unfortunately the PHB and Xanathar's sorcerer subclasses are crippled by a lack of spells known - but they are defined among other things by mostly having unique spell list extensions (especially for the Aberrant Mind/Psion*, the Clockwork Soul, the Lunar where you can still see the Dragonlance serial numbers, and the crippled Divine Soul which has a better stocked shop when the problem is not enough spells known for the class to buy things) - and given that all wizards from all (non Dunamancy) subclasses can cast all wizard spells regardless of school the abilities "Learn spells from all arcane schools and change up through a book, while casting out of your book" is wide enough to be a sorcerer subclass. As for it not feeling as if sorcerers gain much as they level, they gain spells. And spell levels which are the most powerful abilities there are. Your spells are your class features and who you are for a sorcerer. For wizards they are equipment. And OneD&D has actually given sorcerers a couple of flare-of-power spells, and an ability to power up for +1DC on saving throws and Advantage on attack rolls for a couple of minutes a day. If you actually want to just cast a limited range of spells as of the 2024 re-release sorcerers will finally be the better choice. * Yes, the Aberrant Mind Sorcerer is a psion. Thing is that everyone now casts like a 3.5 psion, complete with upcasting and spell flexibility and the Aberrant Mind is a full spell point caster from level 6. The one thing they don't get is the 70 (literally) pages of custom tailored spells that the psion got.
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Apr 15, 2024 00:19
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LMAO another night another twice that we were almost TPK and the last fight we should have TPK . Its at this point that people have agreed that maybe we should roll up extra characters because , bard, wizard, thief are not equiped at 3rd level to handle most encounters.
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Apr 15, 2024 03:37
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Hollismason posted:LMAO another night another twice that we were almost TPK and the last fight we should have TPK . Its at this point that people have agreed that maybe we should roll up extra characters because , bard, wizard, thief are not equiped at 3rd level to handle most encounters. This sounds similarly to how my just-dissolved campaign started: We didn't have any Session 0 and created all our characters in isolation without communication and our party was: Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Druid, Ranger. Not a single front-line combatant in the bunch. I took that as an important lesson to consider party roles BEFORE deciding on your character.
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Apr 15, 2024 04:04
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Hollismason posted:LMAO another night another twice that we were almost TPK and the last fight we should have TPK . Its at this point that people have agreed that maybe we should roll up extra characters because , bard, wizard, thief are not equiped at 3rd level to handle most encounters. If you went abjuration wizard you'd have a lot more survivability. That said a lot of problems are solved by just having a paladin in the party.
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Apr 15, 2024 04:06
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Imma roll up Dwarven cleric of life. That'll be our "fourth" player.
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Apr 15, 2024 13:55
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Facebook Aunt posted:That's all true. But the nature of D&D is that there is basically infinite amounts of content that could exist. Always has been. But the publisher puts out a handful of books per year. Which leaves nearly infinite content never published. If the marketing data shows 12% of people think a thing is exciting and 10% thinks it's horribly offensive, with most people just not giving a drat that's probably not a thing that's going to the top of their list that year. Licensing out settings they don't want to publish themselves was WotC's procedure in the 3E days, so that is something they could try again. But they seem much more interested in publishing settings as part of that limited content than they were in those days, what with Ravenloft, Spelljammer, Planescape, all those M:tG settings, and the podcast settings. I think the real issue for Dark Sun, as I think I said the last time we had this conversation in this thread, is not that WotC is afraid of a backlash; it's that Dark Sun would require some real design effort on their behalf, and they have neither the will nor the staff to make it possible. So ultimately, I agree that the most likely way we'd get a new edition of Dark Sun is through a license with someone who wants to put in the effort to do it well.
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Apr 15, 2024 14:47
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The other really big issue WotC /Hasbro has is accrued cruft. Like, there's decades of Dark Sun tie in fiction and continuity and side characters and so forth and that makes it difficult to "relaunch" a setting. The bigger issue though yeah is that Dark Sun had both a very specific art style and a very specific design philosophy / aesthetic and both would require real investment to revivify.
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Apr 15, 2024 14:53
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The licensing stuff out thing is interesting because I'm playing BG3 at the moment and while it feels like D&D with an extra degree of bonus action problems, it also at times feels like they're desperately trying to cram as many D&D references as they can in there. Mind flayers taking a joyride on their spelljammer ship through avernus while being chased by dragons has crashed into the sword coast where a secret war between Selune and Shar somehow involving the Harpers and Zhentarim is played out by a druid enclave with a tiefling problem and goblin encampment with a drow problem, both of which you can meet Volo. I am fully expecting Drizzt to introduce me to Elminster at some point. It also has that first D&D campaign feel where your characters all have these huge expansive backstories but are level 1 - one of them even being a frontline soldier in the blood war for hundreds of years - and she starts at probably level 2 by the time you find her. I'm not even going to get started on Gale. I am enjoying it, but it does feel very much like rather than being a game in its own right it's a bit of a slideshow of 'here's roughly everything going on in the forgotten realms at once' and I worry if they start going the 40k route of just licensing it out to whoever asks, there'll be more of these slideshows instead of good stories told in the setting. Honor Among Thieves kind of fell into the same trap, but there weren't quite as many layers crammed onto it.
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Apr 15, 2024 15:21
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Imagine trying to be an ordinary farmer and raise a family in the forgotten realms
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Apr 15, 2024 15:24
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Imagine trying to be an ordinary farmer and raise a family in the forgotten realms Just prepare your will accordingly for when you die in an orc/illithid/demon attack and your children go on to become adventurers Bobby Deluxe posted:The licensing stuff out thing is interesting because I'm playing BG3 at the moment and while it feels like D&D with an extra degree of bonus action problems, it also at times feels like they're desperately trying to cram as many D&D references as they can in there. This stuff actually gets explained later on and ties into the main plot, but as for party members, they've been depowered by the tadpoles. It's good that they have extensive backstories IMO because most of your party members are also origin characters so they'll feel more fleshed out if you play as them change my name fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Apr 15, 2024 |
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Apr 15, 2024 15:26
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Imagine trying to be an ordinary farmer and raise a family in the forgotten realms Losing one of my kids because they plowed the fields one day and fell in a ankheg hole.
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Apr 15, 2024 15:27
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I did have a whole theory where the ubiquity of magic would change the economy completely and farming would become a prestige thing as 'real' food would be reserved for the nobility, while everyone else marches down to McElminsters for a processed slab of Nutrient™ Just a kitchen full of minimum wage teenagers giving themselves RSI doing the 'produce nutrient' cantrip.
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Apr 15, 2024 15:28
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Bobby Deluxe posted:The licensing stuff out thing is interesting because I'm playing BG3 at the moment and while it feels like D&D with an extra degree of bonus action problems, it also at times feels like they're desperately trying to cram as many D&D references as they can in there. I mean, on the other hand, why play in Forgotten Realms the Tabletop equivalent of the MCU if you aren't going to tie it in to the greater setting? Its why I personally don't run campaigns in FR or DL, because I don't feel like I have as much knowledge from the books to really flesh it out and don't want my own interpretation to clash with my player's interpretation and also because of how much I enjoy those works I have a very "I'm in a Museum, Look but Don't Touch" mindset for established settings and why when I run a Module I set it in my own setting and make whatever substitutions and adjustments needed for it to work.
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Apr 15, 2024 15:51
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Imagine trying to be an ordinary farmer and raise a family in the forgotten realms Back in 1E days my campaign setting assumed the average middle-aged person on the street was 6th level. Finishing public education started you out at level 2. Obviously, 5E has a very different approach. But D&D has always walked closer to the “this is a story about heroes, so towns are settings and supporting cast, not functioning places, and nobody poops unless it’s a sewer level or there’s an otyugh.” It’s the lethal settings that best support “we’re farmers and the adventures come to us” approach, though I have heard stories about druid PCs more focused on identifying roadside herbs than arriving at a dungeon.
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Apr 15, 2024 16:53
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Skill checks are based around a DC of 10 for tasks an average person could 50% carry out, aren't they? Your average person wandering round is considered level 0 unless they have training as a bandit or guard. WOTC probably don't want to account for the power disparity between a child / teenager / adult because (a) that's starting to get a bit GURPS and (b) I feel like if they added a stat block for 'child' their media representation would get very weird very quickly. It's another problem with DC checks that they're mostly left up to the DM to just mentally size up how hard they think it'd be, which can lead to some weird metagamey disparities, like if the party has a good rogue suddenly the DC of every door in the campaign jumps up by 5 or 10 points.
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Apr 15, 2024 17:11
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If you're a good rogue it should be trivial to rob poor people, and rich people will have good locks. If the PCs want to spend three sessions steal 46,749 copper pieces from a village more power to them I guess.
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Apr 15, 2024 17:15
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:The other really big issue WotC /Hasbro has is accrued cruft. Like, there's decades of Dark Sun tie in fiction and continuity and side characters and so forth and that makes it difficult to "relaunch" a setting. I think the 4E book contradicts both of these points. It successfully resets the setting to immediately after the events of "Freedom" and the assassination of Kalak, gives ample details on the Tyr region and drops almost all the rest of the accumulated cruft. Barely anything from the revised boxed set makes it in. And while I don't particularly like the 4E book's art--especially compared to the Baxa, Brom, and DiTerlizzi art from 2E--it effectively captures the "stones and sandals" vibes. Raenir Salazar posted:I mean, on the other hand, why play in Forgotten Realms the Tabletop equivalent of the MCU if you aren't going to tie it in to the greater setting? Its why I personally don't run campaigns in FR or DL, because I don't feel like I have as much knowledge from the books to really flesh it out and don't want my own interpretation to clash with my player's interpretation and also because of how much I enjoy those works I have a very "I'm in a Museum, Look but Don't Touch" mindset for established settings and why when I run a Module I set it in my own setting and make whatever substitutions and adjustments needed for it to work. There are a few issues involved with how BG3 uses the setting. First, a lot of that stuff isn't really "the greater setting". The mindflayers, githyanki, and Avernus stuff are more generic D&D tropes than specific FR tropes. Yeah, FR is basically the generic D&D kitchen sink setting, so there's nothing wrong or contradictory with involving those elements, but they're not really tied into FR's specifics. BG3 does use a lot of FR specifics--the Dead 3, the war between Selune and Shar, Harpers, and Zhents--but it uses them in very shallow ways, the exact sort of thing you try to avoid by not using published settings. BG1 and 2 were great games because they told cool stories that were rooted in the geography and history of FR. They gave you a real sense of place. BG3 is also a great game, but it's not because it uses its setting well; it's because it has entertaining fuckable companions and a lot of fun interactions.
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Apr 15, 2024 18:30
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PeterWeller posted:BG3 is also a great game, but it's not because it uses its setting well; it's because it has entertaining fuckable companions and a lot of fun interactions. Deep down we are all Chaotic Neutral bards
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Apr 15, 2024 19:59
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Bobby Deluxe posted:I did have a whole theory where the ubiquity of magic would change the economy completely and farming would become a prestige thing as 'real' food would be reserved for the nobility, while everyone else marches down to McElminsters for a processed slab of Nutrient™ I like idea that nobles have access to a royal wizard with so many “cleaning up” cantrips that their kids never develop a healthy gut microbiome, and are super susceptible to diseases and illness. On the other hand, I don’t know I want to introduce gut microbiomes, a topic I barely understand, to a high fantasy world.
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Apr 15, 2024 20:04
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If you're in a setting where magic hasn't been taken to it's logical conclusion and reformed day to day life across the planet, it's not wrong to assume or state that Primus and the other gods of order have poached all the good logisticians.
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Apr 15, 2024 20:17
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I guess the way it's put across is like a university degree. In theory anyone can do it if they have the time, money and upbringing; it's just that most people don't have at least one of those things. In a world where people could pick up magic initiate from their local novely store, it would completely turn the economy sideways.
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Apr 15, 2024 21:08
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I think even magic intitiate is basically a PhD. With full blown level 1 mage being a solid 10 years of study. There's obviously savants and poo poo who get it quicker but that alone keeps magic fairly rare.
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Apr 15, 2024 21:15
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Last night we successfully planned and performed a heist that only went 10% awry. Using Disguise Self and Potions of Transformation we passed ourselves off as the manager of a casino with two new bodyguards, broke into his office and stole all his paperwork (we were looking for things tying him to recent murders, thefts, blackmailing and also two attempts on our lives) before slipping out unseen via a hidden exit. By slipping out unseen I mean I pushed a button that opened a hatch under the office desk into a hidden tunnel, while the office door magically sealed itself and the room rapidly filled with poison gas. After going over the paperwork and journals to make sure we had enough evidence to bust this guy we blasted down the doors to his house, initially finding it empty and seemingly abandoned in a hurry - until a good investigation roll uncovered the bastard we were after in a Saddam-style hidey-hole under the floorboards. Two solid W's in one night, now we just need to find out where he stashed the latest batch of stolen goods, because we were originally hired to keep it from being stolen in the first place 
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Apr 15, 2024 21:22
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Narsham posted:But D&D has always walked closer to the “this is a story about heroes, so towns are settings and supporting cast, not functioning places, and nobody poops unless it’s a sewer level or there’s an otyugh.” It’s the lethal settings that best support “we’re farmers and the adventures come to us” approach, though I have heard stories about druid PCs more focused on identifying roadside herbs than arriving at a dungeon. https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0122.html
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Apr 16, 2024 00:33
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Does anyone have any resources.on old D&D modules maps being remade for roll20. I've found some but not all of them. I'm actually looking for Against the Slave Lord's , The Temple of elemental evil etc.
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Apr 18, 2024 16:25
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Hollismason posted:Does anyone have any resources.on old D&D modules maps being remade for roll20. I've found some but not all of them. If you find a solid update of "pool of radiance" let me know
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Apr 18, 2024 16:34
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:If you find a solid update of "pool of radiance" let me know I found these https://www.artstation.com/jonpintar/store All free although I haven't downloaded them.
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Apr 18, 2024 16:38
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