The only way I know how to play
Khrux @ Khrux @ttrpg.network Posts 1Comments 508Joined 2 yr. ago
People generally agree that the published adventure is in the middle of the pack, I personally don't run published adventures as I barely find time to get through my own adventures. If you don't run published adventures either, then that's 1/3rd of this content not appealing to you.
As with any monster book, your milage will vary with the usage and quality of each creature. 60 monsters is reasonable though, although if you're hankering for monsters alone, just head over to open5e.com, a collection of products released under various licenses, collated into searchable databases like D&DBeyond does with WotC content. There may be 1000+ high quality monsters there, and plenty that fit the tone of Planescape.
So finally there is the part that I'm most interested in, the setting guide. This slipcase in it's entirety is shorter than some previous setting guides were, so if you're after this specifically, you will be recieving 1/4 of the content than you would from one of the setting guides from earlier in 5e's lifespan like Eberron. If you're keen on this product as a Planescape fan, then this will appeal to you the most and, of course, it's shallow, because it has to be on its pagecount.
I want to love slipcases. My heart is forever at the physical table using hard cover books, even when practically I DM with a computer. The slipcase allows you to only bring what you need to each session and control what content you may pass to players without depriving yourself of anything. However for me to love them, they'd need to be 175% the size of the books from 2017, but instead with the larger font size and lower page count, they're 60% of the legnth. Also of course the price is higher than ever due to inflation, which is reasonable to price them effectively, but I have no more expendable cash than I did in 2017 and post the OGL fiasco, I'm far more likely to recommend non WotC 5e content which often prides itself on being denser and deeper than official content.
Oops, thanks.
Also, although I agree with the sentiment, I only need a mattress that's just good enough to not cause issues, because when I'm asleep, I can't care about the mattress quality.
Maybe I'm crazy or there's a cultural difference somewhere here, but if you needed to wear long sleeves then it's the texture of the material, but surely you'd have a bedsheet over the mattress and not be able to feel it directly?
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One monster that's invulnerable to magic and one that's invulnerable to mundane in the same fight.
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I often think about the fact that AC is intentionally so hard to increase but sometimes gold is necessary like a paladin (or good loot, but it's often expected that they'll save for plate), while a monk can increase theirs just by leveling.
I don't really have any AC critiques over this, but I have issues with gold and exactly how much should be given out. I now know that to earn 1500 gp is about a level 6 thing, but I don't know why, or even where I learnt it, I could easily be off by levels due to giving out the wrong loot, or a PC who roleplays spending their gold is mechanically harmed compared to a player with similar vices from another class. I'm not even sure how I'd handle this differently, except the more I learn 5e, the more scared I get of gold and time.
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I can see a situation where a campaign centers around making monsters feel threatening and intentionally depriving a largely martial party of magical weapon. I've never ran a ghost or werewolf that is actually a problem due to either a spellcasting party or I already offered magical weapons. I kinda wish I had, because it would make that item feel much more exciting.
Meanwhile there are items like cast-off armour that don't really offer a major mechanical bonus, or even just an artificer or forge cleric making their armour magical themselves.
I don't like spam but I do like a good scam email, especially if they've actually given it some plot.
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I just took a look, it's only £18 but that's still reasonably pricey for an app when I don't really need the improvement while I have the ads blocked, especially as I had paid for a lifetime subscription before for Reddit.
I often find that if I'm having an issue or want general answers about something, I still stick "reddit" at the end of the search, but I never just open it to browse niche subs even though I am missing the equivalent here.
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I bought sync for Reddit at probably about £5. I can't bring myself to buy it for lemmy at £100 or whatever so I'm having to get by with just blocking ads.
The only other two paid apps I have is a driving theory test app and the pro version of a cocktail guide app which I've probably had for a decade now.
How do I strongly agree with both of you?
I adored the playtest for the 5e sorcerer before the 2014 PHB. I haven't read it in years but my memory is this.
• Hit die were definited by the subclass, with the two example subclasses, wild magic and draconic having a d6 and d8 respectively (look how the DNA of this carried into the PHB with the draconic soul sorcerer getting a +1 per level to hitpoints, but then isn't explored in any future subclasses.
• Sorcery points and spell slots are a singular meta-currency like spell points.
• Class features generally use spell points too.
• Most excitingly, subclasses have features that come online when you are low on sorcery points.
That final element has this amazing interplay where you feel that you're burning your humanity (or species neutral equivalent term) as you use magic, and your innate or monsterous side comes through, it was a really cool design and I'd love to see it taken even further with a subclass that also incorporated hitpoints into the flow somehow, meaning that you are a tank before you cast your spells, but literally burn out your life force as you do so, revealing the monster underneath. It could be really cool for a vampire or something else that has an interesting interplay with harm, healing and magic.
The concept didn't survive playtesting for three reasons, it's execution wasn't fantastic, it was far more unique than the other classes and it was far more difficult to learn than other classes. It's a shame because I'd have loved to see the class iterated on and explored further in playtesting.
I've often wondered why I've never seen an idea that explores combining Sorcery Points with spell slots but not spell points by using 1st level spell slots as sorcery points and offering far more low level spell slots than currently offered, but still less than the 20 that they have by 20th level. Then lock their subclass features behind having only x amount of spell slots remaining. Sorcerers already fill a niche of being the most reliable low level spell slot slingers with their flexibile casting feature, and with this, they'd have an incentive to burn them up quickly to access the meat of the character fantasy; the subclass.
This would have a totally different resource management to any other class and be narrativly weighted, as to let your true self out (like the avatar state, your vampiric or draconic self, your raw chaos magic etc).
Outside of this case, when do they come in use? It seems like an unconventional design choice as it's basically chance, outside of the occasional luck check or death saves, where does it come up?
I'm mostly asking as my experience is very 5e centric.
I realised you were talking about PF2e after reading other comments, I'm not too familiar with its rules so I didn't recognise it.
Are flat checks not altered by features that alter all checks in PF2e? There is no 'flat' terminology in the RPGs I'm familiar with so I just presumed it would be altered as it would be in 5e.
That's addressing a totally different issue to what the above piece, which is about maintaining action and agency when a PC is knocked unconscious.
The up-down yo-yo of 5e is a problem but the frustration here is when combat rounds are taking a while, it's so boring to just make one roll every 40 minutes.
I'm a big fan of the use of a dying condition, or at least being reduced to 0 hitpoints being referred to as dying, just because it's so clunky to accurately refer to it at the moment.
The thing I can see in yours that is perhaps an oversight (perhaps planned) is that anything that is designed to modify all saving throws such as the monks proficiency in all saves or the paladin's aura of protection would make succeeding by 10 or more easier in a way that's not currently covered by requiring a natural 20. (Both of these abilities currently apply to death saving throws but do not make natural 20s easier of course). Also bless, and any bonus to all saves from magic items work on death saving throws too. This also impacts the ability to fail by more than 10, making it effectively impossible without a different homebrew feature creating a penalty to the roll.
Seperatly you call it a check, which means it wouldn't be impacted by these saving throw alterations but would be impacted by anything which alters all ability checks such as the bard's Jack of all Trades, or more concerningly, the combination of the rogue's reliable talent and any way to gain proficiency in it, which is basically an automatic success.
There are a few currently niche cases where characters gain a bonus to all saving throws or specifically death saving throws which is intentionally factored into the power of the feature, and makes them exciting and useful, that are either hugely buffed (depending on how you rule their use) or totally discarded in replacement to other features that weren't balanced around this ability.
Something I do love in this is the ability to introduce the wounded condition outside of being unconscious. Imagine how scary something like a nightwalker would be if it's aura didn't do necrotic damage but instead just forced a con save Vs getting a point to your wounded condition.
Personally the way I'd handle this is to make dying a condition that is basically identical to the death saving throws mechanic currently in 5e, but have it reset when you gain hitpoints by any means, if then disconnect being unconscious from it entirely at a mechanical level and just say if you gain hitpoints when unconscious you may choose to instantly end the condition. This would mean everything that currently works in the game to offer a bonus to death saves remains, and in very rare cases, you may make death saving throws while not unconscious, either counting from there when you fall unconscious or dying while on your feet at 3 failures.
I'd also change taking damage while unconcious to just force you to make a threatened dying save, which is just like a normal death saving throw except you don't mark a success if you get 10 or more, you may only fail. This means that you can wail on an unconscious PC without worrying about killing them without agency. I'd probably also make the spare medicine checks function as a protected dying save, where you can't fail and can only gain a success on 10 or higher.
Edit: I didn't know this was pathfinder, I just assumed it was your homebrew for 5e.
I'm excited for the pipeline of AI art to ai 3D models to AI generic recreation of extinct animals, and distant humans having pet tigers who looked like this.
Imagine blade runner but the replicant animals look like something between medieval art and poor AI image generation, because those are the only surviving reference images.
It's an old picture, before AI image generation. It's a tiger teddy with some stuffing removed.
Also if I try to change a tactic, like dodging at a specific point in an attack cycle, the focus of doing so will decode all of my muscle memory and I'll struggle more than I was when I just threw myself at it blindly.