Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Any D&D/D20

Shadowrun

World of Darkness

Palladium

Other (feel free to post about it)

[MrWiggles]

Alrighty.
So we're playing two games. We're playing Save World Ripper, 1st ed. And we're playing Pulp Call of Cthulhu.

So the last session of Ripper, was kinda fruastrating. Rippers for those who dont know, is Victorian actiony horror setting in the savage world system. None of the characters that started the campaign are social. Which has been kinda of challenging. We can't really do the investigation and research part very well. And thats kinda of an interesting struggle but not bad or limiting.

When we started playing, we were all hit kinda hard by the Status stat. Status isnt part of the general Savage world. Its the game attempt, and rather poor one, to abstract the prim proper social setting in the victorian ages. And meant to also enforce that the monster fighting should be done in secret. With how the game is set up, is terribly easy to loose Status. Which effects how folks treat you in society and it also effects social rolls. And it was very hard to regain any lost status. And also status loss was instant, which struck the playing group as kinda of way to silly. I pulled out my sword cane in rural town in South England, and then the entirity of Victorian world, knows I made a bad move. 'Perently the system they have in Rippers 2nd does a better attempt at this system, with including it with this favor system. You gain favors for fighting monsters, and you can use favors for equipment and if you do something to lose status you can use favor to defend against it and only lose status when you dont have favors to buy it off. We collectively as a playerbase has decided to not deal with that aspect. And if we were we'd probably all be at zero status anyway.

The actual fruastrating part is money.  So the Rippers give you a stiphen. Its just not a lot. Its 10 pounds a month for Novice and 20 pounds for Season. And you know, lots of things cost a shilling. Or 0.05 pounds. So petty cash isnt sooo much the problem. Its other things. Like travel. We have to pay all travel out of pocket. So we had to travel from Paris, France to Cario, Egypt. First Class travel was 12 pounds. Steerage, was 3 pounds. Traveling in the most meager fashion, was almost a quarter of a month wages.

And like so lots of things beyond the travel, and expenses for investigating are just expensive. Like all special weapons for the Rippers are expensive. Like the Ripper Claws, are 3 pounds. 6 pounds if you want it in a special materiel that can actually hurt the monsters. As most of the monsters in the game take half damage from mundane damage and on top of that have 8 or 12 toughness. So to hurt it with a gun, shooting normal bullets require doing like 25 damage. And on 2d6, that doesn't happen too often. Savage World has exploding die. So it can happen.

The Implaler which is this this oversize crossbow that fires stakes is ten pounds. To get even decently equiped takes a lot of money.
And of course traveling with any kinds of guns, let alone the more exotic kind are illegal if discover and would give me a status hit. The GM so far, hasnt been too hard on traveling with guns. My character has a streamer chest that is his arsenal.


So we investigate and find ourselves in Cario. And we have a map of a Necropolis, which is somewhere off in the middle of the desert. 2 weeks one way journey. So just for traveling you need one month of food, ontop of the food needed to stay on site, and tents, and camels. Food for a month is 15 pounds. Camels are a 4 pounds. And the Necropolis is burried, so we tried to figure out how much a 2 month expedition would cost with like a dozen labors to do the digging and stuff. And it was like close to 1000 pounds.
We couldnt do the adventure because our characters couldnt afford to do the adventure. And we tried to do side jobs, and but most of that pay 1 shilling a day. And food for a day cost 1 shilling, so effectively nothing.

One of the players was just like, "So, we go back to London. We're to poor to adventure." and the GM brought up a good point that folks in this time period, would spend small fortune to do treks into the heart of Africa.
And we're not disagreeing that the prices are unfair. They're just so far our of reach that we cant really hope to do it without some sorta of artificial kick. Which we did get. Through shanigans, we got the work crew and food, and I and the player that said we should go back to London was banned from Cario and maybe all of Egypt.

So Rippers are meant to be this world wide organization with Lodges through the world. And so I go and try to find one, as there 'perently no yellow page listing for them. Not even at other lodges. It 'perently all word of mouth.

So I manage to find the only british pub in Cario. And so I go to it, and I talk to Al. And I try to be you know, subtle. I talk to him. "This reminds me of a place I feel at home in London. A great lodge that I found lots of supporting folks." And like Al wasn't giving me anything. No acknowledgment. And so like, maybe I was being tooooo subtle. My character with no social skill. So like, I namedrop hellsing. And still get no indication of what I want. And so I try to wait until the bar closes. And the bar doesn't close. Open 24 hours. Fine. So, like out of just out of ideas, before I just start a bar fight (as my character has the major disad for Voilence), manage to drag Al to a backroom, where I can just speak plainly to him. And yea it turn out to be a fucking Ripper Lodge. Like pulling teeth.
So none of our group has tracking or surival, so getting to the site was a challenge. Took 3 weeks. Awesome. We're probably going to starve out in the desert. And on our first night, we got attack and lost 3 out of 12 workders. Which is kinda of mix blessing as we probably dont have enough food for them... And I got to kill two of them motherfuckers.

And the Pulp CoC game is pretty fun. We're on a Steam cruise coming from San Fransico to Thialand with a stop in Hawaii. There a rigid class structure with the 1st class 2nd class ect ect. And the ship crew are blocks to us from going above our class.  And so in that game, a new player, and new to rpg in genera that seem a bit younger, has been interesting. Its interesting finding his hole in knowledge. Liek we have a light and quick conversation explaining what a blackjack was. And the player himself isnt very familar with the 1930s, or history in general. Hes asking questions, being receptive to answers. Like we had to explain what a ship purser was. There is a news reporter, and he wants to write a paper that'll him work for Hearst. No idea, who Hearst was. And we live in California. Hearst Castle is a national landmark.

[pikachu17]

I was pretty sure this was impossible, but then I took a look through my new copy of Xanathar's Guide:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You're playing an Oath of Redemption paladin, aren't you?

Yes, I am. I don't have Xanathar's guide, though. I just took it directly from Unearthed Arcana. Is the final product different than the Unearthed Arcana version?

One more question, can I dash as both a bonus and regular action in the same turn, and what would my speed be for that turn be if I can?

[Biowraith]

One more question, can I dash as both a bonus and regular action in the same turn, and what would my speed be for that turn be if I can?

Only certain classes/paths* can dash as a bonus action, but there's nothing in the rules saying you can only dash once per turn so barring GM intervention those cases can indeed dash with both regular and bonus action on the same turn.  You'd have triple your normal movement (after any modifiers) that turn, e.g. if you normally have 30ft move, you could move 90ft on a double-dash turn (30ft move + 30ft 'regular' dash + 30ft 'bonus' dash).

*if I remember correctly it's level 2+ rogue or monk (costs ki) and level 3+ totem barbarian if they took path of the eagle at level 3

(fwiw, citations: https://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/02/10/dash-twice/ and https://www.sageadvice.eu/2014/09/01/the-fastest-rogue/)

[pikachu17]

It said that it doubles your speed, so I thought it would maybe quadruple.

Does Cunning Action give you options for your bonus action, or does it give you an additional action that can only be used for Hide, Dash, and that third option?

Does Action Surge also give you an extra bonus action? The wording is a bit strange.

[Biowraith]

Cunning Action is the former, options for your bonus action.

Action Surge does not give an extra bonus action, only an extra regular action (the "on top of your regular action and a possible bonus action" is just clarifying that it is in addition to what you'd normally have).

[Kadzar]

It said that it doubles your speed, so I thought it would maybe quadruple.

The description for the Dash action makes no use of the word "double" or anything related to multiplication. It says it you gain extra movement equal to your speed. Movement is not the same thing as speed. Movement is how fast you are going, whereas speed is the baseline of how fast you can go. So usually your movement is equal to your speed, but, since Dash gives you additional movement equal to your speed, it's not actually doubling but an addition equal to a variable that happens to equal the variable that you're adding to.

That last part may have been a little confusing (and possibly wrong. It's been a while since I took any math classes), but this difference between speed and movement (which I'm not sure is ever actually called out specifically in the book, but can be inferred from the rules and is referenced in the Tweet above by the Lead Rules Designer), means that something that changes your speed and something that uses up movement are two different things. So, for example, standing up from prone takes an amount of movement equal to half your speed. So, if you took the dash action on a turn that you got up from being prone, and your speed was, say, 30 feet, you could spend 15 feet of movement to get up, and then you could move 45 feet after that (since Dashing gives you 30 feet of movement in addition to your normal 30 feet, which is 60 feet, and you subtracted 15 feet to get up (half your speed)). This works because being prone doesn't affect your speed, but, rather, requires you to speed 1 extra foot of movement for every foot you crawl while prone. Normally this works the same as your speed being halved, but not always, this being one case.

Does Cunning Action give you options for your bonus action, or does it give you an additional action that can only be used for Hide, Dash, and that third option?

It gives you uses for your bonus action. You only get one, unless you have some kind of feature or spell that explicitly says you gain an additional bonus action.

Does Action Surge also give you an extra bonus action? The wording is a bit strange.

"Action Surge grants one action, not a bonus action." The wording of "possible bonus action" refers to the fact that bonus actions are things that can only be used when you have a spell or feature that lets you do something as a bonus action, so you might not always have a bonus action to use.

Preedit: Ninja'd somewhat on the latter two questions.

[pikachu17]

Thanks for answering my questions.

Anyway, I'm going to raise my paladin's Dexterity so he can eventually get the second highest nonmagical AC of 22, but in order to use Dexterity as my attack stat, and also use Warrior of Reconciliation, I need to wield a Simple weapon that deals bludgeoning damage, and it needs to have finesse. I don't think the 5E player's handbook has such a weapon.
Is there one in a supplement?
Two more questions, does the Xanathar's Guide version of the Redemption Paladin have differences between itself and the original Unearthed Arcana version?
Is taking 3 more levels of Rogue so I get an ability improvement one level sooner worth it?

[Kadzar]

Thanks for answering my questions.

Anyway, I'm going to raise my paladin's Dexterity so he can eventually get the second highest nonmagical AC of 22, but in order to use Dexterity as my attack stat, and also use Warrior of Reconciliation, I need to wield a Simple weapon that deals bludgeoning damage, and it needs to have finesse. I don't think the 5E player's handbook has such a weapon.
Is there one in a supplement?

I don't know of any such weapon, and I doubt such a thing exists. Finesse and bludgeoning aren't exactly complementary concepts.

Two more questions, does the Xanathar's Guide version of the Redemption Paladin have differences between itself and the original Unearthed Arcana version?

Looking at it, it looks like Xanathar's Guide dropped the Armor of Peace and Warrior of Reconciliation features, changed some of the Oath spells, and the Channel Divinity features are a bit better (the bonus to Persuasion checks now lasts 10 minutes instead of one and can be used with all checks made at that time, instead of just one. The other one can now be used on any enemy in range who dealt damage to someone other than you, rather than just ones that made melee attacks). And for Aura of the Guardian, damage you take on other player's behalf can't be reduced in any way, and the range that it can be used at increases to 30 feet at 18th level, like most paladin auras.

Is taking 3 more levels of Rogue so I get an ability improvement one level sooner worth it?

Probably not for its own sake. Usually when people talk about ability score improvements and multiclassing, their concern is more about losing out on them because they took a break on one class at such at time that they would almost get an ASI from that class and it would be a while until they got one from the other. If it's only one level, it's probably not a big deal, and you should be more worried about delaying paladin class features. That said, rogue has some nice class features of its own, so it somewhat depends on what you're going for, exactly. Usually, though, you only want a few levels in one class and then all the rest in your main class.

[SalmonGod]

I don't know of any such weapon, and I doubt such a thing exists. Finesse and bludgeoning aren't exactly complementary concepts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKQNkcSGFes

[Rolan7]

I'd suggest a sap.  They don't seem to be in 5e's SRD, but they're light weapons in 3.5 (which mostly means weapon finesse can be used).
However, they're (for some reason) martial instead of simple.  I think that's dumb, personally.

Light maces in 3.5 would apply - simple, light/finesse, and bludgeoning.  5e says maces and light hammers aren't finesse weapons, so meh.

[GiglameshDespair]

Saps would probably count as clubs in 5e.

[scriver]

Yeah. One of my homerules for 5th ed would definitively be "Clubs get finesse".

[Rolan7]

I suppose 5e clubs should get finesse, since they cost a silver.  Unlike 3.5e clubs which are literally free, implying they're improvised chunks of wood, for a silver you should expect a properly balanced weapon.
Personally I would port the "light mace" from 3.5 (5 has mace, and light hammer, no light mace).

Even better, grant finesse to quarterstaffs!  They seem like the perfect example of finessed bludgeoning (Kill Bill aside).

[Mephisto]

I'm running an entirely improvised game for some coworkers on Slack. It started with a premise of "You're Earth's first extrasolar colonists. You arrive only to find that some later colonists beat you there. Go do things."

Now we've got vaguely racist Noble Savage sapient trees that communicate via flashing lights. And I've got to come up with names for them. The current prevailing idea is that they're such Noble Savages that they don't actually have a name for themselves and instead took on the word that the first human they saw used to describe them.

I recall reading this sci-fi story long, long about tiny aliens that resembled butterflies. The first person to see them, an individual from some Asian country (sorry, this was a long time ago), uttered the word for butterfly in his native language when she saw them and the name stuck. In this world, that person was Chinese and these sapient trees now go by the name Shu.

How did I find myself in this situation?

[pikachu17]

Looking at it, it looks like Xanathar's Guide dropped the Armor of Peace and Warrior of Reconciliation features, changed some of the Oath spells, and the Channel Divinity features are a bit better (the bonus to Persuasion checks now lasts 10 minutes instead of one and can be used with all checks made at that time, instead of just one. The other one can now be used on any enemy in range who dealt damage to someone other than you, rather than just ones that made melee attacks). And for Aura of the Guardian, damage you take on other player's behalf can't be reduced in any way, and the range that it can be used at increases to 30 feet at 18th level, like most paladin auras.

Well, sounds like if I use the official version, I don't need a finesse simple bludgeon. No Armor of Peace? Damn it, no 22 AC for me...
What does it have instead of Armor of Peace, and Warrior of Reconciliation?