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Messages - Agita

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61
Things you can do sort of in passing, like opening or closing a door, picking something up off the ground, or drawing or sheathing a weapon, can be done in addition to your regular turn within reason (when in doubt, one such action per round). So if you want to drop your javelin and get the big hammer out, that will essentially be a free action and you can still move, attack, and rage if so inclined.

With Stratovarius's permission, I'll have Kovoir take a fairly safe action on his turn, which is coming up now.

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[D&D 5E] The Lost Mine of Phandelver / Re: Goblin Arrows (IC Thread)
« on: August 30, 2017, 05:48:37 PM »
Judging from the state and smell of the carcasses, it's been about a day since the horses died. Though the suspicious Pieron looks around warily, he sees no trace of any ambushers. It's only when his expectations seem to have proven false that they become true: Two small, lean shapes dart out of the foliage, snarling and brandishing short, wickedly curved swords and round wooden shields: Goblins! The creatures leap from the embankments on either side to land next to Pieron, one on a dead horse and another on the road, and slash at his legs and weapon arm. The lower goblin draws a long bloody gash in his thigh while he fends off the one on the horse.

Zuzie and Kovoir on the wagon, however, find that these two are not the only ambushers when an arrow shoots out of the foliage just as their attention has been pulled to the road in front of them - a third ambusher, this one armed with a crude shortbow! The arrow audibly glances off Kovoir's armor and whips past Zuzie's shoulder to land harmlessly in the wagon. It is black-feathered, just like the arrows that killed the horses.

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[D&D 5E] The Lost Mine of Phandelver / Re: Dice rolls
« on: August 30, 2017, 05:21:49 PM »
Rolled 1d20+4 : 4 + 4, total 8
Rolled 1d20+4 : 17 + 4, total 21

Rolled 1d20+4 : 4 + 4, total 8

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[D&D 5E] The Lost Mine of Phandelver / Dice rolls
« on: August 30, 2017, 05:10:49 PM »
Rolled 1d20+6 : 17 + 6, total 23

Rolled 1d20+2 : 2 + 2, total 4
Rolled 1d20+2 : 12 + 2, total 14
Rolled 1d20+2 : 1 + 2, total 3

65
No problem. That's a great way to make a backstory.

You can tell about how long the horses have been dead without a roll. I'll let others announce what they're doing before I post the results, though.

66
Having looked over the character sheets, everything seems to be mostly in order. The only two things that jump to my eye is Zuzie's AC should be 13 from what I can tell (11 base from leather armor, +2 Dex - yes, leather armor is +1 AC over being unarmored in this edition), not 14, and Nanshork's character doesn't appear to have a name yet. These don't seem that hard to fix, so I've gone ahead and posted the IC thread early as penance for a weekend of dead air. We're not starting completely in medias res, so you have until the blood actually starts spilling to mess with your sheets and decide on two-handed versus sword and board and whatnot. No pressure though. ;)

IC thread link: http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=18165

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[D&D 5E] The Lost Mine of Phandelver / Goblin Arrows (IC Thread)
« on: August 29, 2017, 06:20:00 AM »
In the city of Neverwinter, a dwarf named Gundren Rockseeker asked you to bring a wagon load of provisions to the rough-and-tumble settlement of Phandalin, a couple of days' travel southeast of the city. Gundren was clearly excited and more than a little secretive about his reasons for the trip, saying only that he and his brothers had found "something big," and that he'd pay you ten gold pieces each for escorting
his supplies safely to Barthen's Provisions, a trading post in Phandalin. He then set out ahead of you on horse, along with a bodyguard named Sildar Haliwinter, saying he needed to arrive early to "take care of business."

You've spent the last few days following the High Road south from Neverwinter, and you've just recently veered east along the Triboar Trail. You've encountered no trouble so far, but this territory can be dangerous. Bandits and outlaws have been known to lurk along the trail.

You've been on the Triboar Trail for about half a day. As you come around a bend, you spot two dead horses sprawled about fifty feet ahead of you, blocking the path. Each has several black-feathered arrows sticking out of it. The woods press close to the trail here, with a steep embankment and dense thickets on either side. The wagon won't be able to easily pass by unless the carcasses are moved. At the pace you've been keeping, you should be able to reach Phandalin by sundown or a bit after, but you might end up having to camp out if you're held up for very long here.

What do you do?

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68
All right, it looks like everyone's got a character up. Barring anything catching my eye when I look over them, I'll post an IC thread tomorrow during the morning or early afternoon (for me).

69
D&D 5e / Re: Anyone run 5e Ravenloft - Curse of Strahd - tips?
« on: August 27, 2017, 10:29:37 AM »
I disagree with the conclusion about Strahd's enemy (that their defenses may need to be shored up): First off, for some of them, it plain doesn't make sense to do so. Of course the vistani child is going to be a noncombatant. I think it is fine that some of the possible allies are weaker or more fragile than others - note that "no ally at all" is also a possible outcome. If the ally is not someone who can feasibly fight alongside them, they will have to make choices when wandering into potentially dangerous areas. Leave them behind and risk Strahd's assassins finding them, or take them along and place them in danger? Perhaps, if going somewhere like Argynvostholt or the Amber Temple, the ally might tag along to the entrance, then hide nearby while the characters explore.

Even in a fight, that Strahd knows who his enemy is doesn't mean every fight will be about monsters trying to kill the ally and the characters preventing that. Barring specific orders, any combatant will focus on enemy combatants who are a real threat first. Even then, Strahd's servants have free will and their own goals and approaches. Worried about area attacks or ranged attacks? Have the noncombatant get away from the melee and take cover at the start of a fight, like a real person would when a firefight breaks out. In the very worst case scenario, the players can just let their ally die, if they're callously inclined.

I do dislike the inclusion of Mordenkainen in general and especially as a potential ally for the opposite reason, because he's an archmage with 9th-level spells that will probably just carry the party by himself.

And finally, if you don't want to worry about any of the above and have the ally NPC stand on their own in a fight, just fudge the reading to get one of the allies that can do that. Ezmeralda, Rictavio, and Sir Godfrey are good ones.

70
D&D 5e / Re: Anyone run 5e Ravenloft - Curse of Strahd - tips?
« on: August 27, 2017, 06:20:32 AM »
I studied the adventure fairly extensively in preparation for running it, though I haven't gotten around to doing so. I also played through about half of it. My first comment is that it's a pretty interconnected adventure with a quite strong plot thread running through, but it's hard to realize this in how it's written. The whole book is laid out kind of like a computer game, by area instead of by story like many other adventures are, so if you want to get an idea of the story beats the players are mostly expected to follow, though they can strike off and explore, you're going to have to hunt through the book.

A good example of this contained within a single area is in Strahd's castle: Several events throughout the book lead to the characters getting a formal invitation to dine with the Prince. When they follow the invitation, Strahd's chamberlain awaits them in the entrance hall and leads them to the dining room, where they find Strahd playing the organ, he talks with them briefly, then mocks them and disappears. But this is not presented as one event, rather the section on the entrance hall simply reads "The chamberlain leads the characters to the dining hall area" and then the dining hall section says "when the characters first enter, they find Strahd playing the organ, etcetera".

Basically all the plot lines are presented like this, often across multiple parts of the map, and there are a fair number of them. This isn't bad as such - the point is to enable a sandbox approach, and the module does a decent job of bypassing the inherent problems of sandbox play - but I definitely recommend reading through carefully and making notes on interconnected events so you can plan for them and don't miss them.

As another general note, it is important to keep in mind the kind of players you have and how they will react to dangerous situations. Curse of Strahd cavalierly lets you walk into encounters you really can't handle, so have a plan for signaling to players that an area is very dangerous, or that an encounter is out of your players' league, and a way of handling retreat outside of the combat system. For example, if you want to start at first level, the final encounter of Death House is a shambling mount, a CR 5 monster that four or five level 2 characters really aren't going to kill on their own unless they do something like slow it down and then bring the house down on it (as my group did). Make sure the players realize a heads-on confrontation is a bad idea as early as possible, and that they're not necessarily shackled to the combat system.

Lastly, two specific encounters that left an impression in actual play, one good and one bad: First, at the vineyard, there are three druids and hordes upon hordes (double-digit numbers) of blights. When I read this on paper, it seemed like the kind of ill-conceived fight that doesn't actually work well in a game, but when we played it out, it actually ended up being tense and well-paced. The best way to fight this is to not stand your ground, keep moving, and take out the druids one by one - they all start out alone, so they're actually easy to kill if you move quickly and don't give them time to regroup and the players feel like a badass fantasy SWAT team. Just don't actually take the blights' 30-50 turns individually.

Second, the revenants at Argynvostholt. There are a few ways to earn their hostility and be attacked by them within the fort. The problem here isn't so much the danger - you'll probably be level 4 or 5 by the time you poke your head in there - as their durability. Once you leave the fort, you have an order of implacable enemies, and that's fine, but within the fort, you get attacked by large numbers of monsters with high hit points, high AC, regeneration, and not very exciting combat tactics, so that fighting your way out is a huge, boring slog. In this case, they're not individually so threatening that it's a clear signal the PCs should cut and run, so they're like as not to commit to fighting the revenants (and possibly be overwhelmed by attrition anyway).

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D&D 5e / Re: Who decided these magic item rarities?!
« on: August 27, 2017, 05:37:18 AM »
I can't read the writers' minds or anything, but just judging from game design principles, I'm pretty sure the relative rarity of those two examples specifically has nothing whatsoever to do with the balance of their features or convenience. Neither one requires attunement, both let you breathe water indefinitely as a standard action, one also gives you a swim speed while the other makes you swim normally. That difference is practically trivial.

One is clearly better than the other, yes, but from a standpoint of what they do in the game, they both accomplish the exact same thing: They let PCs explore places that would otherwise be cut off to them. For the game designer, and for the GM, that one feature is vastly more significant than the swim speed. So what if one is strictly better than the other? It's the GM who decides what you get, anyway, or that's the default assumption. (Arguably, this means the two are redundant and one probably shouldn't exist. Sure. Also arguably, the difference exists so that the GM can decide whether they want to give their PCs the slightly more down to earth or "gritty" cap that only lets you breathe or the flashier and more convenient cloak. Matter of preference here, though it also serves the function of pointing out that there's not just one way to do a given thing and GMs can make up their own magic items even if there's already something similar in the DMG.)

Actually, if we realize that the two do the same thing, we can also figure out why they're specifically uncommon, and not rare or common or very rare or legendary. If you look on page 135 of the DMG, it recommends certain guidelines for access to magic items, and says that uncommon items are appropriate starting at level 1 while rare ones are better for level 5 and up. Now, Water Breathing is a third-level spell, so that your wizard will have access to it starting at level 5, if needed. So after 5th level, giving a cap of water breathing or cloak of the manta ray as treasure is less significant, because if the PCs really want to get past some water, they probably have access to a way to do that anyway. So levels 1-4 are when these items are both at their most interesting and exciting (but they're not common because that would say things about the game world you don't want to say about every D&D game world).

72
Personal characteristics: They are technically required, but I will be honest: This stuff is sort of tacked on, the books don't do a great job of actually answering the "or something", and aside from a few clever bits in the DMG it barely interacts with the rest of the system. It's one of the weaker points of 5e, in my opinion. What they are fundamentally supposed to do is that I, the GM, give you a goodie when I think you've portrayed your character well. It doesn't really get more concrete or complicated than that.
For our purposes, you can treat them as optional if you're having a hard time filling them in, or leave them blank for now and fill them in later.

Equipment: As already noted, you get starting equipment from your class and background, which generally give you what you need starting out as a member of your class, objects from your background for flavor, and some starting pocket money. If you want, you may choose to forgo these and buy your starting equipment the hard way (in this case, just take the average of the starting gold roll). If you're starting with the class and background kits, you may also buy extra things from the equipment list with the starting gold from your background, if you wish.

73
It's really up to you. At first level specifically, the healing could be quite helpful if you're worried about stray luck downing someone, and there's both a bigger healing spell that takes your action and a smaller one that can be used as a bonus action, i.e. in addition to your attack or other action (think 3.5's swift actions, with some special rules for spells cast as bonus actions specifically). That said, it may be something of a self-fulfilling prophecy in that you're more likely to need healing if you don't have a frontliner who can make enemies focus on them. Barbarians specifically take half damage from weapons while they rage, so there's that (though you won't be raging in every fight). Do you prefer safety or aggression? If you want to bowl over a dangerous fight quickly and have a good shot at ending it before you're in danger, I'd recommend the barbarian. If you'd rather play it safe and have a tank more than a bulldozer, or have a team of backliners and avoid direct fair fights, I'd go for the cleric.

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D&D 5e / Re: Converting spells to 5e
« on: August 20, 2017, 03:46:06 AM »
I have three suggestions on what could be done with Touch of Fatigue, depending on what you think would be the most interesting niche for the spell to fall into, gameplay-wise.

One, let it stack all the way up to lethal levels of exhaustion but set it to a single level of fatigue per casting, no scaling. This would make it somewhat impractical in combat, but potentially quite useful in a variety of noncombat situations, where you can impose disadvantage on someone opposing you and maybe even kill them subtly if you're dedicated enough.
Two, set it to some number of exhaustion levels greater than one (probably two, because I'm still very wary of that third level with its disadvantage on saves - if you want to give out three levels of exhaustion, I'd make it a higher level spell at a minimum) but give it a concentration duration similar to how it has a limited duration in 3.5. This way, you can't stack the spell multiple times, and there is a way to disrupt it in combat. You could even have its duration, rather than the exhaustion it gives, scale with spell slot level, so that with a high enough spell slot used it lasts ten minutes, or an hour, or several hours and is still useful out of combat. See Hex or Hunter's Mark for an example of what I mean, though I would probably start the duration at a minute or ten minutes.
Three, very potent debuffs such as levels of exhaustion beyond two can be balanced by making it concentration duration (up to one minute, generally) and letting the victim save against it every round, like with Hold Person. This version would be purely for use in combat. The problem with it is that pesky disadvantage on saves the third level imposes, including on the saves you'd make to shake it off. That's not very desirable, since it undermines the point of letting the target save every turn. You could patch that with a specific clause negating the disadvantage against the spell itself, though it's a little clumsy.

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D&D 5e / Re: Converting spells to 5e
« on: August 18, 2017, 09:34:26 AM »
There is, in fact, a save on the proposed Touch of Fatigue.

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D&D 5e / Re: Converting spells to 5e
« on: August 18, 2017, 06:38:55 AM »
Sure. I have three comments on the Touch of Fatigue conversion. First, since it's a touch-range debuff, it would make sense to me for it to require an attack roll, which touch-range spells do not just by default in 5e. Your mileage may vary on this, it's not a big deal either way (and there are some valid reasons to force a save rather than an attack roll, such as not allowing a player to use inspiration on the attack roll to increase the chance of hitting). If you do want it to need an attack, though, I would not also give it a saving throw before it even takes effect.
Second, I would have it scale with higher spell slot levels, rather than automatically, if you want it to scale. Only cantrips really scale automatically, and then just damaging cantrips, to keep pace with other classes' weapon damage increases. Spells of 1st level and higher always use higher-level spell slots to get bigger effects.
Third, I recommend being very careful with giving out more than two exhaustion levels at a time. This is in one part because the sixth level of exhaustion outright kills you, and partly because the exhaustion debuffs at higher levels quickly get to be very universal, very harsh, and very long-lasting. If I'm handing out three levels of exhaustion, then I only need to peg you twice to kill you with no further questions asked. This is fine when you're only giving out one level, because then you need six hits, but two is a little problematic. Three (with two levels of exhaustion per casting) is sort of borderline. Also, with three levels of exhaustion, the target is taking disadvantage on all attack rolls and saves, which not only nearly neuters their offense but also makes it that much easier to stick the second casting (or... any other nasty things you want to do to them).

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D&D 5e / Re: Converting spells to 5e
« on: August 17, 2017, 06:00:11 AM »
Here's the rest. If Prayer of Fortitude is just Prayer, I've covered that.

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D&D 5e / Re: Converting spells to 5e
« on: August 17, 2017, 04:01:04 AM »
Holy Sword would be mechanically problematic in 5e ported straight (flat bonuses to hit and damage break the system's math, and effects that key off alignment basically don't exist with very few exceptions), and is conceptually basically covered under all the various Smite spells.
Where are the other three from? I can't find Glory of the Martyr, Prayer of Fortitude, or Sword of Conscience in Spell Compendium, so I assume they're in a Complete book or something more obscure.

EDIT: Found all but Prayer of Fortitude in BoED.

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D&D 5e / Re: Converting spells to 5e
« on: August 16, 2017, 02:51:36 PM »
Let's see now. As a note: I am completely ignoring any Unearthed Arcana playtest material, both because I don't want to hunt it down across several releases and because it's not official material yet. I am also liberally inserting my own opinions on what's worth porting. Hot take alert, and all.

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This is as far as I'm getting for now. The rest should be a little faster when I get to them.

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D&D 5e / Re: Converting spells to 5e
« on: August 16, 2017, 09:24:33 AM »
This will take a little while since I don't remember most of these, but it shouldn't be too hard. Let me first go through the spells I know for a fact have a direct equivalent in 5e, then I'll take the time to go through the rest and see if any spells are close enough. There's also a few I think probably shouldn't be converted to 5th (and some I think had no business being printed for 3rd in the first place).

Detect Magic, Ghost Sound, Remove Blindness/Deafness, Greater Teleport, and Astral Projection all have direct equivalents or are subsumed into another spell in 5e. Detect Magic is a 1st-level spell rather than a cantrip (it works slightly differently but has the same purpose and general function), the Minor Illusion cantrip can make either an illusory sound or a small illusory image, Lesser Restoration can cure several conditions including blindness and deafness, the 5e Teleport spell (7th level) sort of combines 3.x's Teleport and Greater Teleport in having unlimited range on the same plane of existence but retaining a failure chance.

I'll take some time to go over the rest of the list in more detail later. Remind me to look at your other 5e stuff sometime.

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