The Dungeoneers And The Dragonslayers (A DND Thread)

[Frustration he/him]

12 hours ago, The Last Fæ said:

I just started a Split DMing Infinite multiclassing. It is absolute destruction (huge amount of difficult encounters), see we can go past level 100 (in 5e) with three people including two DMs. A little boring without social encounters, which are one of my weakest points that I need practice in. 

So 20 levels in five classes?

How on earth do you balance that?

With Sorcerer, Warlock, Paladin, Fighter alone you can make four attacks a turn and on each of them you can apply 6d8 radiant damage, and that's not even considering your bonus action, or the Eldrich smite invocation.

Add in Rogue, and you drop an extra 10d6 per hit.

 

This actually makes Champion fighter somewhat useful as all those bonuses turn into insane damage on a crit.

 

That turns into an average of hundreds of damage points per turn.

Edited May 2, 2023 by Frustration

[Voidus]

On 4/26/2023 at 3:11 AM, Frustration said:

I've been giving some more thought to trying Pathfinder, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, would you mind pitching it to me, just a paragraph or so about what you like most about it?

Oooh where do I begin?

Well first off this is less a specific thing and more a general feel, but I really feel like the designers pay a lot more attention to what does and doesn't work in their game, have a better grasp of how it is actually played, and design accordingly. There are so many oddities of 5e that make me genuinely wonder if WOTC actually know how people play their game.

Probably the biggest specific things for me are the customisation and the action economy. I adore the three-action system, it just simplifies so much and I know so many GMs who kind of houserule similar things for 5e and it honestly amazes me that it took so long for someone to actually make it this simplified. No specific actions that can only be used for specific things and you only get one a turn. Spend your whole turn sprinting? Can't do anything else but sure you can do that.
And it removes the 5e problem where some classes just have nothing to spend certain actions on. Like Bonus action is often dead for many players.

Customization is amazing, the weapons all feel so diverse and actually give you a potential reason to branch out from the standard longsword, greatsword, longbow, shortbow, dagger or rapier. And the Archetypes and the way multiclassing work give a lot of ability to diversify your build without becoming broken like a lot of 5e multiclasses do. Helps make every character feel actually unique. So many 5e subclasses give little to no variation, so everyone who plays that subclass feels very 'samey' but the feat progression in PF2e means you'll never have the same build as another character unless you're like deliberately copying them. And love the racial feats, the high level unlocks are amazing and let you do things like Tieflings with actual wings that don't break the game, gnomes who feel fey because they can just pop back to the feywild when they feel like it, even if they're not a caster.

[Frustration he/him]

9 hours ago, Voidus said:

Oooh where do I begin?

Well first off this is less a specific thing and more a general feel, but I really feel like the designers pay a lot more attention to what does and doesn't work in their game, have a better grasp of how it is actually played, and design accordingly. There are so many oddities of 5e that make me genuinely wonder if WOTC actually know how people play their game.

Probably the biggest specific things for me are the customisation and the action economy. I adore the three-action system, it just simplifies so much and I know so many GMs who kind of houserule similar things for 5e and it honestly amazes me that it took so long for someone to actually make it this simplified. No specific actions that can only be used for specific things and you only get one a turn. Spend your whole turn sprinting? Can't do anything else but sure you can do that.
And it removes the 5e problem where some classes just have nothing to spend certain actions on. Like Bonus action is often dead for many players.

Customization is amazing, the weapons all feel so diverse and actually give you a potential reason to branch out from the standard longsword, greatsword, longbow, shortbow, dagger or rapier. And the Archetypes and the way multiclassing work give a lot of ability to diversify your build without becoming broken like a lot of 5e multiclasses do. Helps make every character feel actually unique. So many 5e subclasses give little to no variation, so everyone who plays that subclass feels very 'samey' but the feat progression in PF2e means you'll never have the same build as another character unless you're like deliberately copying them. And love the racial feats, the high level unlocks are amazing and let you do things like Tieflings with actual wings that don't break the game, gnomes who feel fey because they can just pop back to the feywild when they feel like it, even if they're not a caster.

That actually sounds awesome, thank you.

[Tea Leaf]

12 hours ago, Frustration said:

So 20 levels in five classes?

How on earth do you balance that?

With Sorcerer, Warlock, Paladin, Fighter alone you can make four attacks a turn and on each of them you can apply 6d8 radiant damage, and that's not even considering your bonus action, or the Eldrich smite invocation.

Add in Rogue, and you drop an extra 10d6 per hit.

 

This actually makes Champion ficritical. Somewhat useful as all those bonuses turn into insane damage on a crit.

 

That turns into an average of hundreds of damage points per turn.

Hundreds, *Yawn*, I've seen thousands only half way there, because at one point it loses interest, so we let in a huge amount of homebrew, feats, classes, past level 20 classes.

So mine: A spearmaster. Lvl 100: 4 attacks, probably 10 - 20 crit range, extra attack on a crit, stacking bonuses as I damage enemies. It is very very dangerous.

How to balance: Introduce past level 20 homebrew monsters, fighting armies, fighting 100s of Tiamats.

[Frustration he/him]

3 minutes ago, The Last Fæ said:

Hundreds, *Yawn*, I've seen thousands only half way there, because at one point it loses interest, so we let in a huge amount of homebrew, feats, classes, past level 20 classes.

So mine: A spearmaster. Lvl 100: 4 attacks, probably 10 - 20 crit range, extra attack on a crit, stacking bonuses as I damage enemies. It is very very dangerous.

How to balance: Introduce past level 20 homebrew monsters, fighting armies, fighting 100s of Tiamats.

I feel like at that point it's just Warhammer.

[Tea Leaf]

Just now, Frustration said:

I feel like at that point it's just Warhammer.

Never played. So I have no clue.

[Voidus]

1 hour ago, The Last Fæ said:

100s of Tiamats.

[Tea Leaf]

3 minutes ago, Voidus said:

Last time we did one a player dealt enough damage to one shot a Tarrasque, at level 15
Later (like 30 - 40) they could kill literally ANYTHING in one turn, about a million damage bypassing all forms of reduction.

[Voidus]

My response is more at how one could possibly justify hundreds of Tiamats rather than the mechanics of damage
5e damage is silly. Though a million... outside of a very specific mechanical exploit I imagine that would have to be from homebrew? Even with multiple lvl 20 classes there's a limit to action economy.

[Quivil she/her]

For the longest time I thought Warhammer was a computer game.

[Tea Leaf]

5 hours ago, Voidus said:

My response is more at how one could possibly justify hundreds of Tiamats rather than the mechanics of damage
5e damage is silly. Though a million... outside of a very specific mechanical exploit I imagine that would have to be from homebrew? Even with multiple lvl 20 classes there's a limit to action economy.

Homebrew past 40, double dice for every 10 damage above AC (crit style in the campaign), +80 to attack with a huge amount of attacks.

[Voidus]

Well I hope you enjoy it. A very different sort of game, but as long as everyone's having fun that is after all the point.

[The Sibling she/her]

I just started a campaign set on Roshar!! i'm so exited its going to be awesome. 

[Just_a_Fan he/him]

"haha im imune/resist to all types of damage and have highg hp"

EEeEE tried psi rockin' omega

"hE WhAt?"

or,

"haha i  clogg up action ecomie w/ 10000000 lions"

EEeEE tried psi fire omega.

lion tower stopped moving.

lion tower stopped moving.

lion tower stopped moving.

lion tower stopped moving.

lion tower stopped moving.

lion tower stopped moving.

lion tower stopped moving. 

Edited May 4, 2023 by Just_a_Fan_YT

[NerdyAarakocra They/Them]

My friend lent me the Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play (WFRP) sourcebook and asked me to look it over.

It's storming amazing.

But also incredibly overcomplicated.

If you think combat in 5e is too slow...

[Immortal Platypus]

1 hour ago, NerdyAarakocra said:

My friend lent me the Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play (WFRP) sourcebook and asked me to look it over.

It's storming amazing.

But also incredibly overcomplicated.

If you think combat in 5e is too slow...

my friend gets mad at me for taking to long on my combat turns. I play two characters, that usually go back-to-back, with at least one ally each, and one has several attacks and decisions to make, and the other is a spellcaster with decisions to make  

[NerdyAarakocra They/Them]

11 hours ago, Being of Cacophony said:

my friend gets mad at me for taking to long on my combat turns. I play two characters, that usually go back-to-back, with at least one ally each, and one has several attacks and decisions to make, and the other is a spellcaster with decisions to make  

I think your friend might be justified...

Do other people in your group play two characters?

[Immortal Platypus]

13 hours ago, NerdyAarakocra said:

I think your friend might be justified...

Do other people in your group play two characters?

i don't take very long actually, usually between the two I'll take 2-5 minutes. the rolls take a little longer though.

No, I just do because my campaign was low on players and so I brought a friend in, but they had to quit, so I took over their character. Unless you count the friend that gets mad at me, which plays his character and his character's brother (which he used to have as an ally (it's weird) but I think is now a separate character).

[NerdyAarakocra They/Them]

20 hours ago, Being of Cacophony said:

i don't take very long actually, usually between the two I'll take 2-5 minutes. the rolls take a little longer though.

No, I just do because my campaign was low on players and so I brought a friend in, but they had to quit, so I took over their character. Unless you count the friend that gets mad at me, which plays his character and his character's brother (which he used to have as an ally (it's weird) but I think is now a separate character).

2-5 minutes can be kinda long. That's one of the things I don't like about 5e - the way you scale is rolling more dice, which takes more time. The thing I like about WFRP is that you always roll the same amount of dice and most spells just require 1-2 rolls.

For your spellcaster character, might I suggest planning out what spells to cast while other people go? It's a good way to save time and (at least in my experience) lets you plan your turns better because you have more time to make decisions and look through all of the weird spells in the PHB.

[Voidus]

59 minutes ago, NerdyAarakocra said:

For your spellcaster character, might I suggest planning out what spells to cast while other people go?

Can never be emphasized enough, one of the most frustrating things as a DM when you get to someones turn and they have given no thought as to what to do. Also as a piece of advice, keep in mind your character does not have to do the optimal thing, they are even more pressed for time to make this decision than you are. They have six seconds to decide and act. It's okay for them to make a mistake and do something suboptimal rather than count out five different kinds of area effects to decide which perfectly hits the most enemies.

[Immortal Platypus]

1 hour ago, NerdyAarakocra said:

2-5 minutes can be kinda long. That's one of the things I don't like about 5e - the way you scale is rolling more dice, which takes more time. The thing I like about WFRP is that you always roll the same amount of dice and most spells just require 1-2 rolls.

For your spellcaster character, might I suggest planning out what spells to cast while other people go? It's a good way to save time and (at least in my experience) lets you plan your turns better because you have more time to make decisions and look through all of the weird spells in the PHB.

I do. The problem comes mostly from my other character. To be fair, most of my party will take 1-3 minutes, so I'm not stretching it too much, especially since I play twice as many characters. The problem comes when I plan to cast a spell, but then my party members either kill something or step into the radius of the spell and I have to change my plan or possibly kill them. it gets... annoying.

28 minutes ago, Voidus said:

Can never be emphasized enough, one of the most frustrating things as a DM when you get to someones turn and they have given no thought as to what to do. Also as a piece of advice, keep in mind your character does not have to do the optimal thing, they are even more pressed for time to make this decision than you are. They have six seconds to decide and act. It's okay for them to make a mistake and do something suboptimal rather than count out five different kinds of area effects to decide which perfectly hits the most enemies.

Trust me, I've made a ton of intentional mistakes, from accidentally shooting a werewolf with barbed, iron arrows instead of my silver ones, to burning both my character's tents with a pillar of fire. it ended up setting most of the other tents on fire too, or blowing them away from the blast of hot air. 

I'm still working on all the stuff though. It's a constant struggle to cut down on time, especially when the fights continually get harder and I get more diversity. The other thing that takes up time is making sure that I am within range to cast certain spells, or that I can touch the a lot of people with my buff-on-contact spells.

Edited May 10, 2023 by Being of Cacophony

[Cash67 Where’s/Perry]

2 hours ago, Being of Cacophony said:

I do. The problem comes mostly from my other character. To be fair, most of my party will take 1-3 minutes, so I'm not stretching it too much, especially since I play twice as many characters. The problem comes when I plan to cast a spell, but then my party members either kill something or step into the radius of the spell and I have to change my plan or possibly kill them. it gets... annoying.

Trust me, I've made a ton of intentional mistakes, from accidentally shooting a werewolf with barbed, iron arrows instead of my silver ones, to burning both my character's tents with a pillar of fire. it ended up setting most of the other tents on fire too, or blowing them away from the blast of hot air. 

I'm still working on all the stuff though. It's a constant struggle to cut down on time, especially when the fights continually get harder and I get more diversity. The other thing that takes up time is making sure that I am within range to cast certain spells, or that I can touch the a lot of people with my buff-on-contact spells.

The other option is having one character die a heroic death

[Immortal Platypus]

5 minutes ago, Cash67 said:

The other option is having one character die a heroic death

the campaign is nearing an end anyway (i think. one of our players will be going on a mission so...)

[The Paradoxical Phenomenon he/him]

I belong here now (kinda)!

I say “kinda” because both of the campaigns I’m in haven’t started yet. In the first one, that will hopefully start in a fortnight, I’m a wizard (Harry). Specifically a high-elf wizard, probably gonna be in the School of Evocation. In the other one I’ll be a Dragonborn paladin. 

Edited May 14, 2023 by TheAlpha929

[Cash67 Where’s/Perry]

Y'all I am playing my hemalurgist tonight!!! I am sooo excited to attempt to play a character who feels conflicted (even somewhat) about the nature of hemalurgy. It is gonna be so fun!!

21 hours ago, TheAlpha929 said:

I belong here now (kinda)!

I say “kinda” because both of the campaigns I’m in haven’t started yet. In the first one, that will hopefully start in a fortnight, I’m a wizard (Harry). Specifically a high-elf wizard, probably gonna be in the School of Evocation. In the other one I’ll be a Dragonborn paladin. 

Once you've made a character you belong here. I really hope that you have fun with the campaign!