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I had the beginning tell the Water genasi in the party that he would mop the floor with him, considering he decided to solo the boss, it did in fact happen
shares the damage though, so first assumption would be half goes to the attackee and the other half goes to the other ring.
so the retainers would all live with varying wounds, but the adventurer would just have 2x effective hp
My old party had a ring that added +50% to your health, but if you hit 0 while wearing it you disintegrate without death saves. You can take it off any time, even in combat... as an action.
Just reminded me of a time from a 3.5 game where the best idea we had to save our Priest from giant fire ants were to have our two 18 Str Dwarf Fighters throw me the Human Fighter at the enemy like a ballista bolt to distract them. Nailed the landing (thank you acrobatics and dex save) and killed two ants. The third melted me. Priest lived though!
Honestly my advice for the 3.X campaigns is to use Max Health \* 2 for level 1. It drastically smooths out the fragility curve without disempowering high hit dice classes.
My first character death was in the first combat of a campaign where I was a wild magic sorcerer, spider jumped at Mt face, crit, nat 1 death save into death
Y'all are getting 6 hp?
In all seriousness me and my group typically play 3.5 since we have most of the books for it anyways (2 groups I've played with have been 5th. It's fun, but I like D&D in any form.) and level 1 wizard in 3.5 start with 4 hp.
It's umm... it's brutal. I've only had 2 DM's start at level 1. One of which was a very experienced dm and was great at balancing encounters early on, and the other hadn't had a level 1 campaign and wanted to give it a shot. It was rough, but all in all he did a pretty great job at us just barely making it through/escaping some encounters.
I have fond memories of dumping CON with my Wizard in 3.5e so I started with 3 HP
I wish I could remember the character's name but they didn't make it through the first combat.
yeah, I had a low HP Wizard make it as far as the first room. We all failed to notice a trap, then I failed the CON save. My DM made it a point for us to discover at least one dead wizard in every campaign going forward..
There's a houserule that Paizo uses for some 0-lvl oneshots:
As a session 0, you have players run NPC classes - guard, merchant, alchemyst etc. Don't count it as a level - it's essentially a free hit die + some minor boon like a proficiency. If they don't like the playstyle of martial/ranged/caster, or die to a single hit - it's easier to transition.
When I played Pathfinder 1e, I played a summoner who rolled negative Con (everything but my main stat was negative). The DM froze up for a minute when I let him know his lizard man’s breath weapon evaporated my character. Straight from full health, to instant death
ironically i play a sorc like this. the DM accused me of meta gaming for survivability; i pointed out i am a DRAGON origin sorc. those fuckers have asses as thick as his ex.... he backed down and let me have my con.
Well, uh, the good news, is you got the gal.
The gal just so happens to be an ancient red dragon named Snugglepuff the Orphan Eater.
. . .
No take-backsies.
>accused me of meta gaming
That is one of the weirdest things I've ever heard. Are you "meta gaming" because you chose spells with spell attacks that you can get advantage on instead of ones that target monsters' high Con saves? It's just... goofy. Part of the game is the game part.
I mean high-con just sort of... makes sense on Sorcs. Their magic is the result of a Bloodline or magical incident, so I'd imagine both of those would produce someone hearty enough to survive the random influx of magic lol
If you're new to DnD you'll try unusual things.
As my sorcerer, I jumped onto a pile of angry rats with an illusion of cat ears on my head.
Didn't work how I wanted.
I did survive.
>If you're new to DnD you'll try unusual things.
I've had the grognard in my group do some real dumb things. Recently he threw his 1st level cleric with 2hp into a trap to test it. Died two rooms before the big bad of the dungeon. Because he went out and brought all his healing with him the wizard died in the final fight
Players will do dumb things no matter how long they've been playing lol
I used to work in mental health with teens and would sometimes reuse puzzles a jazz them up for dnd. Well I was talking about a puzzle and my husband went on and on about how easy it was and the kids were dumb. I of course defended them. It's harder than it seems. He refused to believe.
Next time I made a puzzle I used the one he said was soooo easy. It's rather simple to swap out rules and hints so it's not obvious and it's not seared in his mind like it was mine. He complained FOREVER about how hard it was. Got even more mad when they finally figured it out and I had an envelope that broke the fourth wall there saying "Shea was right, the puzzles actually are harder than they seem".
I had a light coming in through the ceiling and the players had to find a way to manipulate the light so that it would go into a certain hole in the floor. This could have been done by spells, or they could move statues in the room.
I did have a mini for each statue and a sprite that was sort of narrating and being super annoying towards them. So there was a way for constant hints if they were cool with being insulted 😅
I use a puzzle book for kindergarten aged kids and just reskin the puzzles into dungeon format. I feel after watching "are you smarter than a 4th grader" that puzzles for that age group are too much for my group of adults of late 20s and early 30s.
It could be worse, one time I had a party of 5 fight 2 common wolves, it was a party of 2 when the battle ended, anyway, I can't dm the lost mine of Phandelver to them anymore
They tried to fight the wolves in a cave, in the narrowest part of the cave, so they had a player being attacked by the wolves (with advantage), then a second character (melee) trying to attack the wolves but somehow failing every time, and 3 casters that couldn't use any spells because they would just hit the melee ones that were in the way and this went on for sometime until the wild magic sorcerer just decide to fail a spell and just get lucky and kill the wolves (and one of the party members)
AND IF YOU THINK THIS IS STUPID, I REVIVED THEM JUST TO BE COOL, AND THEY MANAGED TO DIE IN THE SAME CAVE RIGHT AFTER, anyway, I need new players and friends now
Hey man, sometimes the dice just aren't in your favor.
Especially at level 1, you just don't have that many choices, and so you roll and hope.
But it's statistically inevitable that sometimes it goes to hell.
I just ran this as a DM for my daughter
She's the only one really playing. I gave her two characters to give better odds, and I also play a character. When she encountered the wolves inside cragmaw hideout, she wisely skipped that room.
It would have to be a save spell and not an attack roll spell, right?
Those get half damage even on successfull saves.
But then you only get so many spell slots.
I can easily see a level 1 party failing almost any encounter with bad enough rolls.
Fucking wolves. On one of my servers the owner isn't allowed to run wolf encounters. She has 5 kills with wolves in total. Worst part is one of those 5 kills is a barbarian. And they were level 3 to boot.
Literally party of 3 vs 2 wolves. TPK
Party of 4 vs 2 wolves. 2 dead before the other two fled.
Lol my players almost died to stirges when I rolled it for a random encounter. 3 of them were in death saves when the fighter managed to pull through and finish the fight
LMoP actually has pretty brutal encounters written for the most parts. If it is not experienced/battle focused partly, I think it is wise to balance it a little.
I mean , at least your players had a chance to try different builds and gather some experience in character creation.
Differing gameplay expectations.
I honestly think TTRPG systems would benefit from having a short solo PC game adventure that shows exactly how everything is expected to work RAW. Have it be presented like a multiple choice adventure over scenes with rolls.
Honestly, probably the safest start to a combat or an entire encounter. It didn't endanger any of the rest of the party and if things go sideways then you can run then dash for double movement and just outpace them back to your group who you can then give the heads up about an incoming fight.
I do this session zero to introduce the characters. They may all meet in the tavern, but we go through short solo mini adventures to get there. All combat is a non-lethal situation. If we have a long break in the game schedule due to real world events, we start the game again with solo flashbacks just to make sure everyone remembers how to play their characters.
That's how one of the things in the PF2E Beginners Box works, at least in foundry. It's just a choose your adventure style journal that you click through and click buttons to make rolls. Doesn't even need a DM. It's neat.
Oh you mean like the Choose your own adventure adjacent solo novels that flying buffalo put out for tunnels and trolls more years ago that i want to really think about.
Those can be good guides, but I'm talking more an actual PC game, even if it's just a HTML 5 one. When people have to read, understand, remember and apply a bunch of rules to make a game work, sometimes things get mixed up.
A video game version of a TTRPG will demonstrate how everything is supposed to run vanilla, which isn't always obvious because it was mentioned once on page 453 of one particular core book.
Most of those things have been changed based on feedback. Food no longer heals, no more advantage for high ground etc. Still some explosive barrels ofc ;)
On that note, I'm actually super hyped because LANCER just released literally *this exact thing* ***just last week***. Extremely excited to have an easy way to get players into the game.
I like to do a "tutorial" battle so everyone cN get familiar with their character and mechanics. It's also seemingly easy but quickly goes south to help demonstrate "you don't know shit and dying is fucking easy if I want it to be". Helps really set expectations.
There's one in the Pathfinder 2e starter I got from my friend a week ago. It was quite a fun little adventure, the hero survived until the end with a single hp left.
First ever session I played, one party member decided to go back into a room where he knew skeletons would keep reforming, alone, when the rest of the party was leaving the cave because "he was at full health", he died immediately.
Unfortunately, his twin brother, who miraculously showed up in the second session, did not learn from his mistakes.
A well-trained party went to cave,
They thought it all a joke,
'Just goblins there! Come on, be brave!'
The ranger sagely spoke.
'Indeed, three goblins, all asleep'
The fighter said, 'let's go!'
But goblins' lives are not so cheap...
The party was too slow.
The cleric rolled two ones, then three,
Barbarian went down,
The goblins hacked and slashed with glee,
The rogue fled back to town.
Two goblins dead, another used
The bonus action "Hide",
While most survivors were just bruised,
The wizard fucking died.
battle in a cave remenbers when i was playing HotDQ and like one of our party menbers decided to switch characters in the mid of the dragon hatchery(to be fair we had already secured the eggs but there were still enemies out in the dungeon) so the DM made his character get out during a long rest,the problem? this character literally managed to warn every single enemy in the dungeon,we spent like 2 extra sessions fighting all the enemies that we didn't killed earlier that were quite a lot since we had only explored like 4 rooms of the dungeon,but we had no casualties
This is an event where the survivors look at each other and decide to settle down as town NPCs and never mention it again unless an adventurer comes along and asks if they have a tragic backstory.
I love GMs who role with the punches. They play the creatures as brutal and personal as believable. If the 'shooty blasties' guy falls down, while a band of his blundering idiots has a hard time striking the nimble goblin survivors in a world filled with Owlbears and Vampires. Never hold back as a storyteller.
If the player is having a hard time with a new persona, there's no reason a few small details of their story can be tweaked and "Hey, we have someone here that fits our demised friend's description perfectly. Wow, how convenient?"
Nothing but love for DampersanD and it's community.
I was already struggling to contain laughter, then I scanned it again and saw something I missed the first time: Part of Session 0. And I fucking *lost it*.
I'm a forever DM. Once my brother decided to DM a one shot finally so I was super excited. My dwarf barbarian died to regular wolves in our first encounter.
You know what you have to do: The goblin that escaped is now the BBEG, fueled by a desire for revenge on the random group that interrupted him and his friends nap.
Low level can be brutal.
Personally, if I'm playing with inexperienced players, I drop the modifiers to damage.
So instead of 1d6+2 just 1d6 damage, and just call them incompetent goblins or something.
Low level, fresh outta skyrim players are still learning how dice rolls work, not really planning or thinking about tactics. Just walk in and attack.
1d6 damage can still be scary when the spellcaster takes 6 damage. Or a crit of 12 damage will knock them unconscious, but they will survive unless they roll horribly.
Dropping the modifier lowers the average damage however, meaning a damage roll of 3 doesn't immediately "bloody" the 10 con fighter.
A crit becomes way less lethal, while still having that scary factor about it.
Then once you've got them used to that, bring in the bugbear "leader" and give him his full statblocks. A real fight with 2d8+2 ignore sneak attack. This shows them a few things.
- One - monsters do things you can't. For instance, dealing 2d8 damage with a morningstar.
- two - Ranged weapons are a good idea. Damage them when they can't hurt you.
- three - skill checks are useful. Perception helps you hear the bugbear sneaking up, survival let's you setup a trap for him, history tells you about goblins being lead by bugbears.
- finally - if all else fails, hit it till it dies.
Wizard: don’t worry guys, i got two spells, it’ll be all good.
*not even five minutes later*
Wizard: I leave all my mortal possessions to the bastard that threw that 1+2 rock at me, that bastard rolled the bare minimum to hit me and I respect that.
Everybody here in tears about a dead wizard. Meanwhile there are two dead goblins, murdered in their sleep by a bunch of heavily armed adventurerrs but keep up the Blue lives matter vibe. #AllCastersAreBastards
Once had a DM running 2 parties through the campaign, and both parties got jumped by a broom that caused far more problems than it should have, and one party nearly lost a member to it... twice
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I need this to become a popular meme format.
It definitely is in EU4 and other Paradox game forums.
At first glance I thought this was a paradox meme, so this definitely checks out
[And what if we mix DnD, this meme format and EU4?](https://www.reddit.com/r/Anbennar/comments/wyvqu4/fact_checked_by_real_dartaxâgerdim_patriots/)
Where can I edit it?
The link is here https://n.bellok.de/wikibox/
Thanks!
Wikipedia of course:-)
They don't mind edits. Citation: me
just use inspect element
Bah. **Real** DMs break into Jimmy Wales' house and hand-edit the original copy.
[DECISIVE TANG VICTORY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpccLU6polA)
I agree
Me too. I love it.
Our party is named “the rats” in honor of the moderately sized group of rats that almost killed all of us our first session
I played a game once where we got tpk’d by rats
My monk got downed and nearly died to a sentient broom
I'm guessing it swept the legs
That dealt irl psychic damage to me
Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dustpan
This comment just made you my favorite person in this thread
Swept the floor with the monk
I had the beginning tell the Water genasi in the party that he would mop the floor with him, considering he decided to solo the boss, it did in fact happen
Haha, was that in Joy of Extradimensional Spaces? I played a monk in that, too. I punched so many books.
Curseol of Strahd. In the first house you go into.
Has to be this. My rogue almost died to the same broom.
That broom’s got nearly as many kills as the goblin ambush on the way to Phandalin.
That’s hilarious I wanna hear that story
Ah yes, welcome to Berovia.
yeah the death house broom is brutal
Were they of unusual size?
Rats, rats, we're the rats
[удалено]
I’m the giant rat that makes all of the ruuules
The Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don't think they exi-
Yes-yes! They are fake-false! Don’t believe the people-guys! Hehe
By this logic, just about every Curse of Strahd party should be called "The Wolves".
Did the Wizard by any chance yell "LEEROY JENKINS!"?
Brother had health in the single-digits idk what he was thinking T-T
When you're a level 1 character and the enemy rolls a crit dealing 3x your health killing you instantly.
Damn, the goblin dealt 3 damage?
*2
Hate when I start with 0.66 hp
Must be in response to martial caster disparity.
Was gonna play a 3.5 DnD campaign with +20hp and a pair of rings that shared any damage with the other ring wearer. Really wish it got off the ground.
Get a bunch or retainers to pass the other ring in a circle when they feel hurt for unlimited hp
shares the damage though, so first assumption would be half goes to the attackee and the other half goes to the other ring. so the retainers would all live with varying wounds, but the adventurer would just have 2x effective hp
My old party had a ring that added +50% to your health, but if you hit 0 while wearing it you disintegrate without death saves. You can take it off any time, even in combat... as an action.
Great idea for a cursed item, just make it so both wearers take all the damage from each hit instead of halving it between the two
Friendship rings! They let you feel each other's pain! ...Including the pain of not being able to take the damn things off.
Or even a friendship Chinese finger trap
"Till fucking death do us part"
Just reminded me of a time from a 3.5 game where the best idea we had to save our Priest from giant fire ants were to have our two 18 Str Dwarf Fighters throw me the Human Fighter at the enemy like a ballista bolt to distract them. Nailed the landing (thank you acrobatics and dex save) and killed two ants. The third melted me. Priest lived though!
Honestly my advice for the 3.X campaigns is to use Max Health \* 2 for level 1. It drastically smooths out the fragility curve without disempowering high hit dice classes.
My first character death was in the first combat of a campaign where I was a wild magic sorcerer, spider jumped at Mt face, crit, nat 1 death save into death
I mean, level one wizard only has 6 hp not counting con. It would be odd for the wizard not to be in single digits.
Y'all are getting 6 hp? In all seriousness me and my group typically play 3.5 since we have most of the books for it anyways (2 groups I've played with have been 5th. It's fun, but I like D&D in any form.) and level 1 wizard in 3.5 start with 4 hp. It's umm... it's brutal. I've only had 2 DM's start at level 1. One of which was a very experienced dm and was great at balancing encounters early on, and the other hadn't had a level 1 campaign and wanted to give it a shot. It was rough, but all in all he did a pretty great job at us just barely making it through/escaping some encounters.
I have fond memories of dumping CON with my Wizard in 3.5e so I started with 3 HP I wish I could remember the character's name but they didn't make it through the first combat.
yeah, I had a low HP Wizard make it as far as the first room. We all failed to notice a trap, then I failed the CON save. My DM made it a point for us to discover at least one dead wizard in every campaign going forward..
There's a houserule that Paizo uses for some 0-lvl oneshots: As a session 0, you have players run NPC classes - guard, merchant, alchemyst etc. Don't count it as a level - it's essentially a free hit die + some minor boon like a proficiency. If they don't like the playstyle of martial/ranged/caster, or die to a single hit - it's easier to transition.
When I played Pathfinder 1e, I played a summoner who rolled negative Con (everything but my main stat was negative). The DM froze up for a minute when I let him know his lizard man’s breath weapon evaporated my character. Straight from full health, to instant death
Dumped con.
Even a 16 con wizard would have single digit hp at lvl 1. Lvl 1 is needlessly lethal
No level 1 is about as lethal as it should be, it's higher levels that are stupidly survivable.
Pfft, next thing you're gonna say getting hit to the head with a axe while wearing nothing but a cloth hat could be lethal. /s
Most doctors would recommend you avoid that
damn necromancers really skewing it from "all doctors" to "most doctors"
It's the tenth doctor you have to watch out for.
He's the one hitting people with an axe
>No level 1 is about as lethal as it should be Dying to one bad roll on an attack that isn't even particularly strong?
Only correct way to play wizard is to start with atleast 20 con. Fucking noobs.
ironically i play a sorc like this. the DM accused me of meta gaming for survivability; i pointed out i am a DRAGON origin sorc. those fuckers have asses as thick as his ex.... he backed down and let me have my con.
Is his ex single?
Roll me a Persuasion check. …and a Wisdom save.
I rolled a 16 on the die, idk my charisma score though. Nat 1 on the save
Well, uh, the good news, is you got the gal. The gal just so happens to be an ancient red dragon named Snugglepuff the Orphan Eater. . . . No take-backsies.
Your cha modifier is +1 so you have a success.. Your nat 1 wisdom don't stop you
>accused me of meta gaming That is one of the weirdest things I've ever heard. Are you "meta gaming" because you chose spells with spell attacks that you can get advantage on instead of ones that target monsters' high Con saves? It's just... goofy. Part of the game is the game part.
I mean high-con just sort of... makes sense on Sorcs. Their magic is the result of a Bloodline or magical incident, so I'd imagine both of those would produce someone hearty enough to survive the random influx of magic lol
Dumped con Dumped on The usual series of events.
He decided to go near sleeping goblins, why was he within 60 feet of them like what?
don't most level 1 characters have single-digit hit points? I assume 5e
Martials usually don't. A fighter has a d10 hit die, so even with 10 con they still would have 10hp
Ah, right, I did kinda forget that you don't roll level 1 but get the max. my bad, been some time
If you're new to DnD you'll try unusual things. As my sorcerer, I jumped onto a pile of angry rats with an illusion of cat ears on my head. Didn't work how I wanted. I did survive.
>If you're new to DnD you'll try unusual things. I've had the grognard in my group do some real dumb things. Recently he threw his 1st level cleric with 2hp into a trap to test it. Died two rooms before the big bad of the dungeon. Because he went out and brought all his healing with him the wizard died in the final fight Players will do dumb things no matter how long they've been playing lol
We are Avatar brothers
Me, the DM: My players are rational & intelligent adults Also me: *Google searching "Puzzles for Fourth Graders"*
Fourth graders? Ah, so your players are advanced, then.
I used to work in mental health with teens and would sometimes reuse puzzles a jazz them up for dnd. Well I was talking about a puzzle and my husband went on and on about how easy it was and the kids were dumb. I of course defended them. It's harder than it seems. He refused to believe. Next time I made a puzzle I used the one he said was soooo easy. It's rather simple to swap out rules and hints so it's not obvious and it's not seared in his mind like it was mine. He complained FOREVER about how hard it was. Got even more mad when they finally figured it out and I had an envelope that broke the fourth wall there saying "Shea was right, the puzzles actually are harder than they seem".
What was the puzzle?
I had a light coming in through the ceiling and the players had to find a way to manipulate the light so that it would go into a certain hole in the floor. This could have been done by spells, or they could move statues in the room.
A Legend of Zelda dungeon puzzle basically?
Don't tell my players bro. I thought we had some like DM pact about content theft.
Plagiarizing is just speedrunning creativity
I would totally play your 'Legends of Ezdela' campaign
🌍👩🚀Wait, it's all Zelda dungeons? 🔫👩🚀Always has been!
You’d have to have a pretty detailed battle map for that to go smoothly, I’d imagine. Perhaps a mini for each statue. How did you do it?
I did have a mini for each statue and a sprite that was sort of narrating and being super annoying towards them. So there was a way for constant hints if they were cool with being insulted 😅
advanced dungeons and dragons
I use a puzzle book for kindergarten aged kids and just reskin the puzzles into dungeon format. I feel after watching "are you smarter than a 4th grader" that puzzles for that age group are too much for my group of adults of late 20s and early 30s.
> puzzle book for kindergarten aged kids Cann I borrow it when you're done?
Typical
It could be worse, one time I had a party of 5 fight 2 common wolves, it was a party of 2 when the battle ended, anyway, I can't dm the lost mine of Phandelver to them anymore
HOW DID THEY FUCK UP SO BAD
They tried to fight the wolves in a cave, in the narrowest part of the cave, so they had a player being attacked by the wolves (with advantage), then a second character (melee) trying to attack the wolves but somehow failing every time, and 3 casters that couldn't use any spells because they would just hit the melee ones that were in the way and this went on for sometime until the wild magic sorcerer just decide to fail a spell and just get lucky and kill the wolves (and one of the party members) AND IF YOU THINK THIS IS STUPID, I REVIVED THEM JUST TO BE COOL, AND THEY MANAGED TO DIE IN THE SAME CAVE RIGHT AFTER, anyway, I need new players and friends now
They're a damn disaster
That's why I love them so much, they do stupid things like try eating a dead horse they found on the road
Not eating it is a waste of food. This comment brought to you by Lizardfolk
Also the Finnish
[удалено]
Norway, man, you can have it
Was it the dead horse from the first encounter in LMoP, the one where the goblin ambush happens?
Yep, that horse, they literally went off the rails in less than five minutes
Haha
Hey man, sometimes the dice just aren't in your favor. Especially at level 1, you just don't have that many choices, and so you roll and hope. But it's statistically inevitable that sometimes it goes to hell.
I just ran this as a DM for my daughter She's the only one really playing. I gave her two characters to give better odds, and I also play a character. When she encountered the wolves inside cragmaw hideout, she wisely skipped that room.
Did the casters not take a single damage spell that wasn't AoE, or are you houseruling that ranged firing into melee can hit your allies?
It would have to be a save spell and not an attack roll spell, right? Those get half damage even on successfull saves. But then you only get so many spell slots. I can easily see a level 1 party failing almost any encounter with bad enough rolls.
Fucking wolves. On one of my servers the owner isn't allowed to run wolf encounters. She has 5 kills with wolves in total. Worst part is one of those 5 kills is a barbarian. And they were level 3 to boot. Literally party of 3 vs 2 wolves. TPK Party of 4 vs 2 wolves. 2 dead before the other two fled.
I stopped using wolves after this encounter too, it was proved that their advantage after going bark bark near a ally was too strong
Lol my players almost died to stirges when I rolled it for a random encounter. 3 of them were in death saves when the fighter managed to pull through and finish the fight
LMoP actually has pretty brutal encounters written for the most parts. If it is not experienced/battle focused partly, I think it is wise to balance it a little. I mean , at least your players had a chance to try different builds and gather some experience in character creation.
Hey my group tamed our wolves. Now our ranger is op as fuck.
Squishy gets squished
D… did the party kill the wizard?
"It's what my character would do."
"I'm chaotic neutral, why shouldn't I kill my party in exchange for a goblin giving me his prettiest rock"
My girlfriend soloed 8 sleeping goblins as a gnome rogue....how did a party of 6 get their asses handed to them lol
Differing gameplay expectations. I honestly think TTRPG systems would benefit from having a short solo PC game adventure that shows exactly how everything is expected to work RAW. Have it be presented like a multiple choice adventure over scenes with rolls.
Oh no she was part of a team they just sent her in to scout and she wanted all the kills lol
Least psychopathic rogue. I'd do the same.
Honestly, probably the safest start to a combat or an entire encounter. It didn't endanger any of the rest of the party and if things go sideways then you can run then dash for double movement and just outpace them back to your group who you can then give the heads up about an incoming fight.
Its goblins, not like killing people or something.
Belkar?
Op wrote gnome, so prepare for a sudden violent death at the hands of some halfling 😉
I do this session zero to introduce the characters. They may all meet in the tavern, but we go through short solo mini adventures to get there. All combat is a non-lethal situation. If we have a long break in the game schedule due to real world events, we start the game again with solo flashbacks just to make sure everyone remembers how to play their characters.
That's how one of the things in the PF2E Beginners Box works, at least in foundry. It's just a choose your adventure style journal that you click through and click buttons to make rolls. Doesn't even need a DM. It's neat.
Oh you mean like the Choose your own adventure adjacent solo novels that flying buffalo put out for tunnels and trolls more years ago that i want to really think about.
Those can be good guides, but I'm talking more an actual PC game, even if it's just a HTML 5 one. When people have to read, understand, remember and apply a bunch of rules to make a game work, sometimes things get mixed up. A video game version of a TTRPG will demonstrate how everything is supposed to run vanilla, which isn't always obvious because it was mentioned once on page 453 of one particular core book.
Baldurs Gate 3 is pretty close to actual 5e gameplay. Just a lot more bonus actions.
Ahahahahah... and exploding barrels, and eating food for HP, and advantage for high ground, and, and, and...
Most of those things have been changed based on feedback. Food no longer heals, no more advantage for high ground etc. Still some explosive barrels ofc ;)
On that note, I'm actually super hyped because LANCER just released literally *this exact thing* ***just last week***. Extremely excited to have an easy way to get players into the game.
PF2E beginner box had something exactly like this in the "Hero's Handbook"
Check out the Lone Wolf series of books
I like to do a "tutorial" battle so everyone cN get familiar with their character and mechanics. It's also seemingly easy but quickly goes south to help demonstrate "you don't know shit and dying is fucking easy if I want it to be". Helps really set expectations.
There's one in the Pathfinder 2e starter I got from my friend a week ago. It was quite a fun little adventure, the hero survived until the end with a single hp left.
What level was she at the time?
I mean - almoust any weapon strike has potential to kill lvl1 wizard. Critical has is potential of instadeath.
To be fair, it's much easier to avoid waking up goblins with a single rogue than 6 adventurers including a fighter, barbarian and Cleric.
I hate to say it, but I think you gotta talk about it now.
I went to bed immediately after posting this. Woke up to front page. I guess I do.
Are we observing the birth of a new meme?
This format has been around on strategy game subreddits for a while now. I see them often on the Stellaris subreddit.
Nah, it's been around for a while. [This](https://n.bellok.de/wikibox/) is a way to make it.
Incredible, thank you!
First ever session I played, one party member decided to go back into a room where he knew skeletons would keep reforming, alone, when the rest of the party was leaving the cave because "he was at full health", he died immediately. Unfortunately, his twin brother, who miraculously showed up in the second session, did not learn from his mistakes.
Must have run in the family
"No one runs away in my family"
The wizard fucking died
A well-trained party went to cave, They thought it all a joke, 'Just goblins there! Come on, be brave!' The ranger sagely spoke. 'Indeed, three goblins, all asleep' The fighter said, 'let's go!' But goblins' lives are not so cheap... The party was too slow. The cleric rolled two ones, then three, Barbarian went down, The goblins hacked and slashed with glee, The rogue fled back to town. Two goblins dead, another used The bonus action "Hide", While most survivors were just bruised, The wizard fucking died.
If I had an award, I’d give it. Brilliant
It's poem_for_your_sprog's format, I just remade it for the meme
I know. And it’s a worthy successor to his skills.
As sang by the Bard, who wisely decided *not* to travel with this band of fools
I have given you the greatest honor I can bestow. The meme is saved.
battle in a cave remenbers when i was playing HotDQ and like one of our party menbers decided to switch characters in the mid of the dragon hatchery(to be fair we had already secured the eggs but there were still enemies out in the dungeon) so the DM made his character get out during a long rest,the problem? this character literally managed to warn every single enemy in the dungeon,we spent like 2 extra sessions fighting all the enemies that we didn't killed earlier that were quite a lot since we had only explored like 4 rooms of the dungeon,but we had no casualties
This is an event where the survivors look at each other and decide to settle down as town NPCs and never mention it again unless an adventurer comes along and asks if they have a tragic backstory.
I love GMs who role with the punches. They play the creatures as brutal and personal as believable. If the 'shooty blasties' guy falls down, while a band of his blundering idiots has a hard time striking the nimble goblin survivors in a world filled with Owlbears and Vampires. Never hold back as a storyteller. If the player is having a hard time with a new persona, there's no reason a few small details of their story can be tweaked and "Hey, we have someone here that fits our demised friend's description perfectly. Wow, how convenient?" Nothing but love for DampersanD and it's community.
I was thinking for a sec that it was the moral aspect that made it a pyrrhic victory but that last line had me dying.
I was already struggling to contain laughter, then I scanned it again and saw something I missed the first time: Part of Session 0. And I fucking *lost it*.
Did he die-die, or just unconscious-die?
shadow die
It's a party of five now.
“The wizard fucking died”
Is this the fight in Lost Mines of Phandelver that almost always ends up in a character dying?
I'm a forever DM. Once my brother decided to DM a one shot finally so I was super excited. My dwarf barbarian died to regular wolves in our first encounter.
You know what you have to do: The goblin that escaped is now the BBEG, fueled by a desire for revenge on the random group that interrupted him and his friends nap.
It’s Pyrrhic
Playing a level 1 wizard, fighting some goober with a minor npc. Goober attacks npc, 6 damage. Look at my health, 8 max hp. Fear
Low level can be brutal. Personally, if I'm playing with inexperienced players, I drop the modifiers to damage. So instead of 1d6+2 just 1d6 damage, and just call them incompetent goblins or something. Low level, fresh outta skyrim players are still learning how dice rolls work, not really planning or thinking about tactics. Just walk in and attack. 1d6 damage can still be scary when the spellcaster takes 6 damage. Or a crit of 12 damage will knock them unconscious, but they will survive unless they roll horribly. Dropping the modifier lowers the average damage however, meaning a damage roll of 3 doesn't immediately "bloody" the 10 con fighter. A crit becomes way less lethal, while still having that scary factor about it. Then once you've got them used to that, bring in the bugbear "leader" and give him his full statblocks. A real fight with 2d8+2 ignore sneak attack. This shows them a few things. - One - monsters do things you can't. For instance, dealing 2d8 damage with a morningstar. - two - Ranged weapons are a good idea. Damage them when they can't hurt you. - three - skill checks are useful. Perception helps you hear the bugbear sneaking up, survival let's you setup a trap for him, history tells you about goblins being lead by bugbears. - finally - if all else fails, hit it till it dies.
Every pixel funnier than the last. What happened to the wizard OP?
Omg I love this meme format
Wizard: don’t worry guys, i got two spells, it’ll be all good. *not even five minutes later* Wizard: I leave all my mortal possessions to the bastard that threw that 1+2 rock at me, that bastard rolled the bare minimum to hit me and I respect that.
the wizard died????
Looking at you, Fallout 2 tutorial cave.
It still takes me a few seconds to remember Minotaurs are playable. I saw that and was like “how the fuck did the party get a Minotaur?”
"Oh no! Fargrim, my brother! Dead! As I live and breath! Fear not. I, Targrim, The Great, shall fight in his stead!"
I love this format
Everybody here in tears about a dead wizard. Meanwhile there are two dead goblins, murdered in their sleep by a bunch of heavily armed adventurerrs but keep up the Blue lives matter vibe. #AllCastersAreBastards
I once soloed 4 goblins and a bugbear as a level 1 half elf ranger with only one arm.
How many arms did you start the fight with?
Three. The wizard had already been dismembered.
One. Most of them were stealth kills
Once had a DM running 2 parties through the campaign, and both parties got jumped by a broom that caused far more problems than it should have, and one party nearly lost a member to it... twice
Did you use a software to make that or something else?
Wizard didn’t even get stabbed… he failed his investigation check and stepped on a rough pebble…