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[Mini]

The "legendary action" requires the target to hit 0 hp, so it's not an instakill, just makes every down be a kill. Still an awful ability, not really a legendary action, and I'm not even going to get into the rest of their abilities.

[delphonso]

The soldier "legendary action" is fucked, but even with removing that, the DM could just make the enemies attack downed foes and give them failed saves, considering the numbers this guy is throwing out, that shouldn't be an issue.

If I'm understanding this guy correctly, let's imagine the fight for a moment.

6 PCs vs. "between 50 to 100 workers, 25 to 40 Soldiers and 3 to 7 Queens."

Queens have an ability that means workers and soldiers take hits for her. As written, that means you need to kill off all the workers and soldiers before you can stop the queen. The queen can summon between 3-10 (10% chance of zero) units per legendary action, of which she could have 6 per round. Players would need to be killing an average of 10 units per turn to be making progress in this fight, if you only allow one queen to have legendary actions. If all of them can take legendary actions - that's potentially 70 new units per player turn, possibly including a queen, up to 420 new units in a round. Low estimate is still over 100 per round.

That sounds exceptionally not fun.

Also, I think the recharge thing is written wrong.

[Persus13]

Recharge is definitely written wrong as its based on a d6, so a Recharge 8 or 15 doesn't work.

[Kagus]

A zealot barbarian would indeed be the answer, being completely unkillable until they've been whittled down to 0 HP and their rage ends (as the moths can't grapple a level 20 barbarian even with a nat 20).

Ah, but that's the beauty of it... Barbarians get unlimited rages per day at level 20. So the rage never ends since you can always just extend it.

The grappling is a bit odd, since the trailer on the moth bite attack requires the player to make a DC13 (14 on the queen for some reason, but nothing else) "Strength Check".

This would infer that it's a straight ability check rather than a Strength(Athletics) check as with most grappling contests. It's also not a saving throw. This means (if I'm correct in believing you can't add proficiency bonus to straight ability checks) it would still theoretically be possible for it to affect the barbarian. They'd just need to roll 5 or lower twice in a row (due to rage advantage).

If you do get to add proficiency, then yeah... Only way they'd be able to get ya is with making an actual grapple attack and getting obscenely lucky with all the rolls. Then once they've got hold of you it's pretty much curtains, since being 0hp seems to be the only requirement (never mind the fact that Zealots are still perfectly fighting fit at that point), and your own physical prowess or stature is completely irrelevant to the DC17 strength check that THEY make.


But yeah. There's a lot to unpack here.

Anyways, have some more discussion salad from the same fellow:

Spoiler: The illusory trap of... What? (click to show/hide)

Here's another clever idea I had for a trap, the party is walking around somewhere when suddenly they find themselves at the bottom of individual pit falls that weren't detected by a 10ft pole or any other such method of checking for the pitfall (the pitfall is from illusion magic) and are seemingly 10ft deep, the characters can't climb out or use magic or tools to climb out for some strange reason. (Wisdom save DC12 if anyone catches on to what's going on but if they roll blind without figuring out it's an illusion the DC raises to DC18.)

If deployed it's an option for creatures to attack the captured creatures with Advantage but if attacked and they decide to Roll Wisdom to figure it out they do so with advantage if they're composed but disadvantage if not composed, if they figure it out with or without the Wisdom Roll they gain advantage on the Roll against the Wisdom Save DC.

Any thoughts on this fun idea?

...what does that even mean?




Oh, yes, if anyone's wondering... The creative mastermind behind all this is purportedly 32 years old. So it's not, like, some 10-year-old kid just babbling about stuff going on in his hyperactive imagination.

Someone actually replied to the thread asking for links to the monsters since he was a "newbie" and couldn't find them... OP graciously supplied the links to these "Horrors of Fantasy Mad Science Run amok in all their deadly glory!", and cautioned the neophyte by saying "Try not to have nightmares..."


Yeah. 'Cause it's too late for me, dude.

[Jimmy]

So, in essence: Sumdood is bad at game design and should feel bad.

In my current Pathfinder game, my group of intrepid city guards are investigating the death of a wealthy merchant. They've learned that his wife is thirty years younger than him, married him three years ago, and had two husbands die on her before him, though they haven't found out she's sleeping with the gardener yet. Also, they've learned his eunuch butler is a talented alchemist, has a secret shrine to the god of murderers hidden in his room, and appears to have sliced a piece of flesh from the merchant's corpse and placed it on the altar.

I can't wait to introduce the future cast of characters in this murder-mystery scenario. A sleazy tiefling lawyer, a violent drunken sell-sword step-son, a half-orc mobster business rival, a greedy ex-business partner nobleman, and a mysterious one-eyed bravado lurking in the background monitoring the group's investigation. Care to guess who dunnit?

[scriver]

Is Pitfall a spell that makes the target think they've fallen down a pit when in reality they haven't? Because that would be the best spell. And a great magic trap for a magician's lair.

It seems pretty clear to me though, but it might be because I am fluent in gibberish. You fall down in a pit trap but it's actually just an illusion. You can't climb out because it's an illusion and in reality there's nothing to climb out of. You get to make wisdom checks to figure out that it's an illusion. If the player realises it's an illusion it's DC12 and if not it's DC18 because you want to encourage meta-gaming whenever you can.

The second paragraph means that creatures get advantage to attack the person in the illusion. Then it dissolves into a soup of subject/object confusion and I do not understand who does what, but I think it means that trapped person's get advantage or disadvantage on said Wisdom checks to figure out they're in an illusion depending on whether or not they retain their composure when under attack. However that is decided I don't know.

I am the Gibberling Whisperer

So, in essence: Sumdood is bad at game design and should feel bad.

In my current Pathfinder game, my group of intrepid city guards are investigating the death of a wealthy merchant. They've learned that his wife is thirty years younger than him, married him three years ago, and had two husbands die on her before him, though they haven't found out she's sleeping with the gardener yet. Also, they've learned his eunuch butler is a talented alchemist, has a secret shrine to the god of murderers hidden in his room, and appears to have sliced a piece of flesh from the merchant's corpse and placed it on the altar.

I can't wait to introduce the future cast of characters in this murder-mystery scenario. A sleazy tiefling lawyer, a violent drunken sell-sword step-son, a half-orc mobster business rival, a greedy ex-business partner nobleman, and a mysterious one-eyed bravado lurking in the background monitoring the group's investigation. Care to guess who dunnit?

I hope it's not that he committed suicide, that is always the worst answer.

[Iduno]

I have a feeling the author doesn't know what a Legendary Action is. As written, a swarm of Soldiers could defeat even a 20th level party if they do well in initiative, simply because they can all pile in and attempt the instakill move as soon as one of them succeeds in a grapple. They likely have advantage in the grapple check (as long as they do it directly and not via the bite attack), too, since they can restrain the entire party as a reaction (which calls for checks and not saves so even a high-level character only has about even chances to dodge it).

Yeah, 5th ed was designed so that nobody would have rolling an 11+ generally means you succeed, and rolling a 10- generally means you fail. They even advised that a way to speed up the game was to ignore all of the pluses and minuses and just decide what happens based on if they rolled well or not. It's effectively d2; flip a coin when something might happen, and fudge a roll if things are going badly for the players.

The soldier "legendary action" is fucked, but even with removing that, the DM could just make the enemies attack downed foes and give them failed saves, considering the numbers this guy is throwing out, that shouldn't be an issue.

If I'm understanding this guy correctly, let's imagine the fight for a moment.

6 PCs vs. "between 50 to 100 workers, 25 to 40 Soldiers and 3 to 7 Queens."

Queens have an ability that means workers and soldiers take hits for her. As written, that means you need to kill off all the workers and soldiers before you can stop the queen. The queen can summon between 3-10 (10% chance of zero) units per legendary action, of which she could have 6 per round. Players would need to be killing an average of 10 units per turn to be making progress in this fight, if you only allow one queen to have legendary actions. If all of them can take legendary actions - that's potentially 70 new units per player turn, possibly including a queen, up to 420 new units in a round. Low estimate is still over 100 per round.

That sounds exceptionally not fun.

Also, I think the recharge thing is written wrong.

Well, that is assuming you're fighting them all at once. No single nest should have more than 1 queen, based on how insects function in the world, but even in D&D, you would be hard pressed to justify having 3 together.

Anyways, have some more discussion salad from the same fellow:

Spoiler: The illusory trap of... What? (click to show/hide)

Here's another clever idea I had for a trap, the party is walking around somewhere when suddenly they find themselves at the bottom of individual pit falls that weren't detected by a 10ft pole or any other such method of checking for the pitfall (the pitfall is from illusion magic) and are seemingly 10ft deep, the characters can't climb out or use magic or tools to climb out for some strange reason. (Wisdom save DC12 if anyone catches on to what's going on but if they roll blind without figuring out it's an illusion the DC raises to DC18.)

If deployed it's an option for creatures to attack the captured creatures with Advantage but if attacked and they decide to Roll Wisdom to figure it out they do so with advantage if they're composed but disadvantage if not composed, if they figure it out with or without the Wisdom Roll they gain advantage on the Roll against the Wisdom Save DC.

Any thoughts on this fun idea?

...what does that even mean?

Is he saying they're trapped in a pit trap that doesn't exist, and are attacked at advantage without noticing that they're on the same level as the attackers? That seems to be a "the illusion isn't functioning the way it appears to, and you get another roll, because it's obviously an illusion."

[Egan_BW]

have them walk into an illusion pit, then while they're distracted drop em down an actual pit
and then kobolds rapid fire poisoned bolt at them from above

[Kagus]

So, I'm gearing up for a Roll20 game with a few peeps. We're still in the preliminary phases of just figuring out our characters and I don't think we've even come to a good agreement on what timeslot we'll be playing.

We're a fairly newbie gang in one way or another... I devour books and pick apart rules and mechanics, but I've never done a 5E game before in practice. We have a few players who have been in games before, but aren't particularly clear on how rules and mechanics work. And then we have one who has never played or read the books, but just wanted to try it out.

The new-new chick wanted to be a healer, and has thus rolled up a Nature cleric who is styling her entire character around weed. That's her healing mechanic; "The godly good herb". I was helping her pick out spells, and joked about styling Healing Word as her just vaping a cloud on someone. Yes, she's a bit of a stoner. Yes, it's weed humor all the way down.

Alright, cool, she's probably not going to stand in the limelight and smear herself over everything to the point where constant weed references get really grating. Can live with that.

Personally, I saw that the other characters people were talking about making didn't seem to have much that covered the detection/disarming of traps or the opening of locks. Decided that I should probably fill in that role. A random free-flying pun struck my brainwaves, and I'm now basing an entire character off of the concept of a "Department of Gnomeland Security". Very inspired, as I'm sure you can guess.


...and then we have one of the other players. He's been in games a couple times before. I've talked with him about cleric domain choices/builds, after I overheard him talking about the build he was planning; a build which would've been impossible unless the DM had specifically houseruled the Bonus Action Spell rule away (he hadn't).

For this game, he enthusiastically announced that he was going to play a bard.  Like, Bard Classic™, the kind that memes are made of.

A halfling bard, to be exact. Okay.

Chaotic Neutral. Oh boy.

"I want to be a little mischievous this game"

"My character will be the very embodiment of Id"

"Thrill-seeker"


Brothers... I have The Fear.

[scriver]

Does he realise the bard jokes are not jokes because people find the joke-bard funny?

[Kagus]

Does he realise the bard jokes are not jokes because people find the joke-bard funny?

It's getting better.

He's just stated that from the looks of it, all the other characters are "nerds", so his character will "definitely feel that they need him to spread their legend around", since the concept he's going with is the "unreliable narrator" role of someone who wants to write an autobiographical epic. "Think Watson mixed with Gilderoy Lockhart", and "as a Chaotic Neutral, he'll definitely think of himself as the best and most important so he will probably be really cheeky and introduce the party to others as '[Bardname] and His Band of Idiots'"


EDIT: Okay, I voiced some concerns and he might be toning it down a bit, he says he just got excited. That gives me hope!

[delphonso]

Pathological narcissist sounds pretty fun for bard, I'd say. A better twist on the cliche "sex the problem away", at least.

A buddy of mine is obsessed with the Gloom Stalker class. I'm trying to find synergies with other classes. Darkness doesn't work since no one can see through it. Is there a good way to get surprised condition on people?

[IcyTea31]

A buddy of mine is obsessed with the Gloom Stalker class. I'm trying to find synergies with other classes. Darkness doesn't work since no one can see through it. Is there a good way to get surprised condition on people?

It's not technically a condition, but the standard rule to surprise is to initiate combat without your enemy being aware of you, which is generally a contested check of Dexterity(Stealth) versus Wisdom(Perception). After a surprise round, a creature is on guard and can't be surprised again (though you can still use the Hide action to momentarily disappear and gain advantage for attacking from outside your enemy's sight).

Darkness does work if you're willing to dip two levels into Warlock and pick up the Devil's Sight invocation.

[scriver]

Does he realise the bard jokes are not jokes because people find the joke-bard funny?

It's getting better.

He's just stated that from the looks of it, all the other characters are "nerds", so his character will "definitely feel that they need him to spread their legend around", since the concept he's going with is the "unreliable narrator" role of someone who wants to write an autobiographical epic. "Think Watson mixed with Gilderoy Lockhart", and "as a Chaotic Neutral, he'll definitely think of himself as the best and most important so he will probably be really cheeky and introduce the party to others as '[Bardname] and His Band of Idiots'"


EDIT: Okay, I voiced some concerns and he might be toning it down a bit, he says he just got excited. That gives me hope!

I'm hoping for updates

[Rolan7]

This DND story, while narrated very well, upset me quite a bit.  I want to go into more detail but I don't want to poison the well.  I will say that the title, "Narrated D&D Story: Assassin Makes The Paladin Question His Morals With A Single Phrase" is total clickbait.  If only because the assassin is... verbose.  Still, I was so incensed over the conversation (two days ago!) that I considered making a video response (no longer a thing) and it just stuck in my craw.

I'm curious what other people think.  It's so weird how Youtube hasn't introduced a comment system, seems like that'd be a great place for discourse.