Best Version of DnD?

[Doug Sundseth]

1 hour ago, Doug's Workshop said:

Robert Shaw starred in Swashbucker, which also ranks high on my list.  (Also starring James Earl Jones and Peter Boyle.)

 

Probably my favorite pirate movie.

 

"One black, one white, and two khaki."

 

[Dilvish the Deliverer]

Started playing with my DnD group last night.  seems like a good fit so far.  They were finishing up Death House as the intro to Curse of Strahd.  I've already played it once (and run it myself 3- or 4 times), so it was interesting to see things unfold from a players point of view.  I kept my knowledge separate and got compliments from the DM when I didn't try and steer the Dwarf Cleric from touching the *redacted* and triggering a boat load of shadows from showing up.  Watching the rest of the part freak out when they started taking Strength damage was fun!.

 

Though the MVP for the final encounter was the Bard and his casting of Dissonant Whispers.  I almost died during the escape as I was one of the two 1st level characters and just didn't have the HP to hang with the rest.  I'm level 3 now so hopefully gong Bladesinger tradition for my wizard will help with the survivability.

[PaganMegan]

On 09/21/2017 at 5:49 PM, TheAuldGrump said:

I don't know... is 5e more of a Captain Red -

5e - Mathou by YeAuldGrump, on Flickr

 

Or a Captain Barbossa?

5e - Rush by YeAuldGrump, on Flickr

 

The Auld Grump

Definitely Barbossa!

 

Matthau is OBVIOUSLY Dungeon Crawl Classics!

On 09/21/2017 at 6:30 PM, TheAuldGrump said:

So, maybe this then?

 

The Auld Grump - yes, I like pirate songs....

Okay, I take it back.

 

THIS is 5e!

[TheAuldGrump]

46 minutes ago, PaganMegan said:

I am certain that part of the reason you liked it is who you saw it with.

 

I can't think of a single person that I would rather have seen it with!

 

The Auld Grump - speaking of pirates, I hear folks on the stairs.... We're about to get boarded!

 

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Discussion going on right now - in a few weeks they will need to deal with issues outside of Korvossa.

 

Some of the PCs are very much built to function in a city, and will, in point of fact, kind of suck outside of it. (Megan, for example, will pretty much lose her witch's Patron until they get back.)

 

So, should they split the party - which means my giving the ones that stay in the city lots of things to do. (Which will be easy, but then I am evil.)

 

Or should the City based characters generate (or have me generate) some temporary characters for their time outside the city?

 

I am good with either.

 

The Auld Grump

[BlazingTornado]

17 minutes ago, TheAuldGrump said:

(Megan, for example, will pretty much lose her witch's Patron until they get back.)

Is that how mechanics work in Pathfinder? Eek, talk about trap options.

[Auberon]

It's not really a trap if you know what you're getting into from the start.  Overly specialized might be a more appropriate term.

 

Those I first played with would say, "If you build an urban character that's fine, but that's the character you get to play.  No complaining when it's not urban and you suck."  Not everyone plays that way though. 

 

Personally, I am not a fan of splitting the party, so I would say keep them together in whatever way works for the group.

[BlazingTornado]

Good point.

 

Gotta live with your overspecialization.

[TheAuldGrump]

The straight up Witch class is a really good generalist - in some ways more versatile than the Wizard (they have access to healing spells). Alley Witch is a very specialized version, taken from a book written specifically for city characters - and is a very good fit for about 3/4 of the Adventure Path.

 

I decided that the best answer was Both - everybody is generating a second character, the ones with city type characters doing a character that will do better in the wilderlands and the dungeons, while the others generate a character for the city - rather than leaving half the party with nothing to do, I am adding material to keep everybody busy.

 

So, Megan is doing up a ranger, Molly is doing up another rogue (she likes rogues), Jon is doing up an urban ranger, Duncan is doing up a wizard, Jenny is creating a Summoner, etc.. Jenny is taking an opportunity to try a class that has interested her for a while, but wanted to try before making it a main PC. (When the parties get back together, the players can choose which of the characters to continue with - so it is possible that Jenny will keep the summoner, and drop her cleric in favor of the summoner. Her cleric is almost as city bound as Megan's witch.)

 

Mike is doing a ranger with hippogriff mount. (A variant that is specific to Korvossa, but having a hippogriff in the wilderlands... yeah, a very sold choice.)

 

Julie is thinking about rolling up a White Necromancer, but is not sure yet.

 

All the new city characters will belong to the same Resistance cell - making it easy.

 

The new wilderlands characters will have ties to either the city watch or to Thousand Bones - a Shoanti Oracle.

 

The Auld Grump - this will add about a month to the play time for the next adventure in the Path.

 

*EDIT* Ironically, splitting the party into two smaller parts would have meant that I could run the adventure as written - I have to beef up the encounters because we have more than four players....

Edited September 24, 2017 by TheAuldGrump

[Club]

Have you ever heard about Ars Magica's Troupe options?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troupe_system

 

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I ran an Ars Magica game for many, many years, starting with second edition, and continuing through fourth..

 

I rather like the Troupe concept - but my players do not always agree. (In particular, I wanted to run a 3.5 Eberron game, with the PCs each having several characters working for an Agency, rather than being a Party.)

 

The Auld Grump

 

*EDIT* Ars Magica remains my favorite magic system of all time.

Edited September 24, 2017 by TheAuldGrump

[Doug's Workshop]

The "troupe" concept is one of the reasons I prefer old-school versions of D&D instead of 3.x/Pathfinder. 

 

My own rule is that players can have a "minion" that is three levels lower than them, representing a lackey, friend, compatriot who can end up substituting in for the main character.  Older versions of D&D aren't quite so brutal with level differences (similarly, 1 HD orcs are still a threat at character levels).  This sub-character is under the control of the player, so morale rules don't apply.  However, the players don't get another one if the original dies.  So the 4th evel fighter has a friend who's a first level fighter.  If the player says, "yeah, Joe the first level fighter opens that chest" and then Joe dies, too bad.  You don't get another lackey until you reach eigth level. 

 

Of course,I also don't automatically bring in new characters at the average party level, so reckless disregard for character life will lead you the player running low-level characters.  And while the power difference isn't as great in older versions, a first level character isn't going to stand up well against 9th level characters' enemies.

[Rob Dean]

8 hours ago, Doug's Workshop said:

My own rule is that players can have a "minion" that is three levels lower than them, representing a lackey, friend, compatriot who can end up substituting in for the main character. 

 

Is this in lieu of the henchmen rules, or as a supplement? My players used to have a fair number of henchmen, although I admit that I wasn't too worried about tracking morale.  Another 40 years of miniatures games and it would be second nature these days...

[Doug's Workshop]

15 hours ago, Rob Dean said:

 

Is this in lieu of the henchmen rules, or as a supplement? My players used to have a fair number of henchmen, although I admit that I wasn't too worried about tracking morale.  Another 40 years of miniatures games and it would be second nature these days...

 

In addition to.

If the players want to rent help, I don't see why they shouldn't be able to.  Similarly, the morale rules pretty much demand that PCs pay attention and address henchmen in a way that costs them money.  These rules are a combination of "loyal to a fault" friends and "I trust this person with my life" henchmen.  Players can use them to "split the party" or get everyone together in order to take on big challenges. So a player with a 9th level fighter may want a thief as a second character, and this set-up lets the player have access to both without worrying about a DM screwing the player over (something I've encountered very often through the years, and make sure I establish trust with the players to know that I won't do that).

[Unruly]

On 9/6/2017 at 7:01 PM, TheAuldGrump said:

Huh, an observation -

Most folks seem to be kinda against the idea of common guns in D&D/Pathfinder....

 

But it looks like having pirates trumps this - so common firearms in a piratey Pathfinder game is okay....

 

The Auld Grump - who likes blackpowder in his fantasy....

 

I think it depends on how it's handled. One of the things that I have a problem with is how some people and/or systems want to introduce 19th century firearms into a medieval fantasy setting, with things like repeating rifles and Colt-style revolvers being regular weapons. If a medieval fantasy game has black powder as explosives and single-shot muzzle loaded muskets, I've got few problems with that. Unless it's also letting you fire off multiple rounds from your single-barreled, muzzle loaded musket in a single 6-second round without magical intervention. Then I've got a problem again. Adding in multi-barrel weapons like the old pepperbox revolvers, double barreled muskets, and the like should allow you to fire multiple shots per round, but no matter what a firearm should take a minimum of 1 full D&D round to reload(per barrel). After all, the best trained soldiers of the time had trouble getting past 3 shots per minute. Getting a full muzzle loaded reload in just 6 seconds would be unheard of in reality...

 

The advantage of firearms over archery in D&D should be that firearms should ignore armor, have a longer effective range, and potentially do more damage because most early firearms used large ball ammunition that was at least the equivalent of a .50 caliber in size. I think the British Brown Bess musket of the 18th century used a .70 caliber, and I'm fairly certain that the arquebus of the 15th century typically had a caliber that was in that range as well...

 

On 9/21/2017 at 10:56 AM, TheAuldGrump said:

Jon is more 'You scream, and you leap.' Most often at the first available target. (This is a group that is more likely to have the Barbarian run out of rage than have the casters run out of spells...)

 

Jon is the one that makes the 'most injured' enemies that Molly then deals with....

 

In real life, Molly plays jai alai, while Jon fights heavy list in the SCA.... 

 

The Auld Grump

 

What's that supposed to mean? You got something against people with fighter brain?

 

On 9/21/2017 at 9:32 PM, Jokemeister said:

 

Excuse my skepticism but really?  I can imagine that it has a plot (maybe even a decent plot) but I'm finding it hard to believe that the acting is anything other than bad.

 

Actually, it's considered to be a fairly decent B-movie. So much so that they released a version with all the porn scenes cut out, and people actually bought and enjoyed it. Apparently, the plot and acting stand up half decently on their own.

 

I know. It's kinda weird. But hey, if they can make a B-movie quality porno, then I'm not gonna complain too much. After all, I think too many people have way too strong an aversion to sex in media, so having that sex be surrounded by a half decent movie just helps.