Retreater
Member

I also still have my basic D&D dice from the early 80's, the ones you had to 'colour in' with a white crayon, used them in a game on Saturday in fact! Heck, I still have my Holmes Basic 'wax dice' that came with the very very first boxed set back in 1976. Nobody will let me roll them anymore, they're completely worn out. lol. (the d6 can roll for 30 seconds easily and the most common result is 'DM decides if it is a 4 or a 6') Retreater I don't think you're a grognard man. You have fairly enlightened attitudes towards play from what I've read ;) I'd call someone a 'grognard' who steadfastly sticks to some very early modes of play and denigrates anything not crafted by the hand of Gary Gygax or at least hailing from the mid 70's when he was last a creative force in RPGs. No doubt that also dates me, lol.

@Retreater Just wanted to let you know there is a conversion of 500 4e martial exploits to 5e on the DMsGuild that you might be interested in - and it is free! https://www.dmsguild.com/product_info.php?products_id=265088&it=1&SRC=Newsletter_FPW_text

I'm not one of those who holds with Retreater's despair over SCs. They work WELL, and between the DMG, DMG2, and RC the sum total of the updated advice is not bad. Basically you have, as of RC, your success threshold, which skills are considered primary, and then how many free advantages and how many difficult checks the DM is allowed to require, plus the list of secondary skills. It is up to the DM and the players to work these things into the narrative. You need a dynamic narrative, with genuine conflict which engages with the PCs goals and plans. That can be fairly simple and basic for a Complexity 1 SC, but generally it will mean some real plot engagement for most SCs. Frankly I would take the idea that you are authoring the SC in detail up front with a grain of salt. I would prefer to think in terms of Story Now style 'scene framing' type play, where the players choose the general direction and approach, and the GM brings the conflict into a scene somehow, which in this case results in an SC. TBH I don't have a radi...

1 .Did you buy your book? If yes write in. 2. Are you going to become so world famous that people will bid $$$$$ for a post-it of your shopping list? WRITE IN YOUR BOOKS! 3. Do think writing in your books will kill the resell value? Unless you are 2, there are too many copies out in the world so, WRITE IN YOUR BOOKS! 4. Do need the notes in one place? WRITE IN YOUR BOOKS! Homework WRITE IN YOUR BOOKS! 100 times before Friday. NOOOOO!!! Don't go to the dark side. Books should remain as pristine as possible throughout the time you use them. :D Ok, my mom was a librarian. The notion of writing in books was beaten out of me at a young age. :p Out of the criticisms by Retreater, the one I will NEVER understand is the complaint about official adventures. This is 2019. We've had 3pp adventures in the game for twenty years now. Why in the name of little fishes do you need "official" adventures. DM's Guild lists almost 3 THOUSAND 5e adventures. What more do you need?

Anyway! Getting back to the original point of this thread, I wanted to share my personal experiences for @Retreater since we seem to share similar (but unique) paths. My DM origins began further back with the Basic (Red) and Expert (Blue) sets, and then progressing through AD&D (1st/2nd) until it became D&D again (3rd/4th) and ended abruptly with the NEXT (5th) re-iteration. Finding a consistent gaming group was never easy for me until 4th edition came around, but I wasn't an immediate fan when it came out. To me, the game felt incomplete as it lacked many of the traditional player classes and races. But once the PHB2 came out, I took a more serious look. That's more like it! 4e wasn't without its flaws and shortcomings, but what edition of D&D isn't? But what I saw that really shined outweighed all of it. Classes designed to be equally balanced and useful no matter what you played. Cooperative play and design became more important (i.e. players were more often building characters as a group rather than a single entity hoping for a group to support whatever they wanted to do). Encounters were easie...

...t better because some DM took a chance on us and we learned from the experience. Since there is some flexibility with the group size due to absences, he's a generally known quantity, and he's enthusiastic - I'd recommend taking him on but laying down some ground rules about your group's style (particularly on the teamwork/stealing from the party thing). Sooner or later he's going to have to learn that his own personal style preference will have to be compromised with the style preferences of other people at the table, and an experienced DM coming from a generally friendly direction can help with that. Yes, I stunk as a player and GM, still do, and I have been doing it since '79. I'm always keeping an eye towards being better at both. Though with this being the seventh player, I'd be leery of adding someone that could take up over their one seventh of allotted table space. It is a hard call, and you are totally right in that we all had to start somewhere, and the final arbitrator is Retreater and if they think the cost-benefit analysis means that taking them on is a positive thing. I also agree that setting forth the parameters of the game beforehand is really crucial.

Even after the dragon....however that’s handled....ifthe PCs defeat it or of they run from it, won’t the rest of the dungeon likely be aware? Based on te more recent comments by Retreater, it seems like it’s more a flaw in how the dungeon’s presented. I think that based on that, it’s a bad idea to punish the PCs for poor design. Have a group of villains come along and the PCs can get dragged into combat which then alerts the rest of the denizens. Or have them hide and overhear about the magic gear that was taken from the last group of adventurers that came through. There are several ways you can take things. I’m not familiar enough with Forge of Fury to know the whole scenario, but there are plenty of general solutions.

Retreater I think that if you allow a total party kill or similarly harsh outcome, what you’re essentially doing is punishing them for being efficient. Only in a game would it be “smarter” to fight every opponent in a dungeon rather than sneak past most of them and then face only the boss. Probably not a great message to send to them, especially if they’ve already expressed frustration with character death. I think you have a few options. First would be to let them face the dragon, and see what happens. You can have the dragon be overconfident and have this show by playing him in a tactically careless manner. Maybe that will help swing things in the party’s favor. You can also have the dragon be surprised that the mere humanoids were able to hurt it, and have him flee to fight another day. No dragon wants to die, and a recurring foe is a great thing to have in a D&D game. If things go the dragon’s way, you can again have him be overconfident and not finish the party off. Have him let t...

...ightly less than a +1. If you need a 2 you have a 95% to succeed normally, and 95% + 5% * 95% = 99.75%, agains slightly less than +1. This is the minimum. If you need an 11, you have a 50% normally, and a 50% + 50% * 50% = 75% with advantage. That's the equivalent of +5. This is the maximum. Your +/-6 to +/-7 is outside the range of what is possible. That mean it is likely not the average. You may want to double check you math. One common mistake I've seen is working out to roll 2d20 and subtract the higher fromt he lower. That's really comparing advantage (best for 2d20) with disadvantage (worst of 2d20). It's clear if you work it out as percentages what it can be for every target. Man, these arguments hurt me because there's this weird thing where everyone tries to map a normal distribution onto a flat distribution via +/-. It's wrong in a technical way. But, I'm an engineer, so that's probably just my bag. That said, the above is the right wrong way to do it Retreater, billd91. The "bonus" that advantage applies differs depending on what the target number on the d20 is for success. It's greatest in the middle, where it increases the chance of success by 25%, and weaker on the ends where it's bit less than a 5% bump. If you need to roll a 20, advantage helps by almost doubling your chances from 1/20 to 19/400, but if you need an 11, advantage increases your chances from 10/20 to 15/20. If you need a 2, advantage bumps you from a 19/20 to 399/400.

So...just something to keep in mind: At level 6, the max skill bonus a non-rogue or bard will likely have is +7. If the DC is consistently 15, then the chance of failing is 35%. Which means that MORE THAN HALF THE TIME, with maximum skills, your party will get the 3 fails before they succeed 10 times. In practice, several PCs are likely to make attempts even WITHOUT optimal skills...meaning that the chance of success falls even more. If the price of failure is TPK, I might suggest you improve the odds a bit in the PCs' favor...or provide them with options (e.g. aiding each other for advantage or something) for improving their luck. Pretty much this. I've watched many of Matt Colleville's videos and I did like the skill challenge one. Retreater has essentially set the party up for failure here and since failure was a TPK that's pretty harsh. I don't say this to be a dick, but you need to consider the chance of success and allow for other options. Did they HAVE to go that way though the dungeon? If they had another option was it clear that there was another option and that one choice was deadly (and maybe quicker) and the other choice was safer (but maybe slower). As long as the player have a choice that has good odds of success all is fine, when they have no choice but to gamble on good dice rolls you're not creating a good playing environment. If you are using a skill challenge, it's more important that it seems exciting because of how you describe the action, rather than the players feeling stressed because of mounting failed rolls. You can also pressure the players by demanding quick responses, and keep the narrative going from your end if they dither, or forcing checks that they might not like because they too...

I am curious why you think it's haughty? I can't speak for Retreater , but for me there were a few lines in his tweet that jumped out to me. "There is one ranger: the one in the Player's Handbook" "Frankly, the revised ranger helped feed an internet-fueled view of the class... I wasn't sorry to end it." Both of those... the tone I picture them said in is almost derogatory. And, while I missed whatever it was he said in 2017 about never doing an alternative class, as someone posted earlier in this thread, two years ago near the end of 2016 (09/12/2016) they were saying very different things about the state of the Ranger. Just in the first paragraph of that PDF we have "the class’s high levels of player dissatisfaction and its ranking as D&D’s weakest class by a significant margin" quoted as the reason for the revisions. And they talk about doing research and finding the class lacking back then, it's abilities rated as some of the worst in the game and people generally being unhappy with it. And you know... that is weird to me. I ge...

Having 20+ enemies in an area indicates this is some bad encounter design. Only if you're playing 5e

I'm studying in prep to run a night hag coven and thought I should polymorph the party's fighter (turning him into a toad seems thematically appropriate.) But all that needs to happen, basically, is a party member swats the frog, does some minor damage to kill it, and the spell is broken. It seems like Hold Person is a better spell for taking out a combatant, and it's lower level. With easy ways around spells, saves at the end of every turn to get rid of bad conditions, it seems 5e enemy casters are very lousy. Your players are going to hate me. Look at beasts with the Water Breathing trait and walking speed 0 feet. For a party of 5th level or higher, I recommend you consider a Giant Shark with 126 hit points & which can help separate the party or block their access (if you strategize well or get lucky). ;)

I'm not a fan of the current WHFRPG. I got the Starter Set and found it almost unplayable. This might have a better rule system. Too bad all that rich setting lore is gone. (Honestly, that's a problem with the AoS wargame too.) It has it's own unique setting. I would advise people to give this setting a chance. Also why did you find the Starter Set almost unplayable.

The party's wizard, bard, and druid all have access to polymorph and should know how it works. So no challenge there. By this logic, the party's wizard should be able to hit four different people with a sword in a round, because the fighter knows how to do that.

I'm studying in prep to run a night hag coven and thought I should polymorph the party's fighter (turning him into a toad seems thematically appropriate.) But all that needs to happen, basically, is a party member swats the frog, does some minor damage to kill it, and the spell is broken. It seems like Hold Person is a better spell for taking out a combatant, and it's lower level. With easy ways around spells, saves at the end of every turn to get rid of bad conditions, it seems 5e enemy casters are very lousy. If the party understands the limitations of polymorph, sure. If you don't have anyone who can cast it, just describe the hag gesturign and sayign a word and the fighter turns into a toad. Does someone possibly waste their action attacking it? Or you can turn it into something with lots of HPs but little ability to affect the battle, like some sort of big fish. Also Hold Person allows a save every round, so it often may be on par with the fighter losing an action and then so...

Also the Citadel washes are awesome. The paint pots are terrible, however, and I vastly prefer dropper bottles. I definitely agree with these sentiments...I use a mix of Vallejo Game and Model colors as well as Citadel, but the paint pots are awful to work with.

So this is saying that DMs can run the adventure path in 5e if they convert it? Not that it's dual-statted or being published in two formats? That is correct. The modules are all for Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. DCC is based off of D&D 3E and is highly compatible with D&D 5E (ascending AC, hit points, and saves for example). Any spells would have to be swapped up, but the systems both use spell levels and have many similar spells.

So this is saying that DMs can run the adventure path in 5e if they convert it? Not that it's dual-statted or being published in two formats? I believe that's correct. This is a good idea, though, despite requiring the DM to do a bit of conversion. I did something similar a year or two ago with classic D&D modules. We started off with Against the Cult of the Reptile God, then Isle of Dread, Ravenloft, the Desert of Desolation trilogy, Death's Ride, and Earthshaker!. It's a fun way to give modern players a chance to experience old modules, and as a DM it's fun to find ways to string separate plots together into a cohesive campaign.

Maybe I'm looking more at myself since I turned 40, but I'm wondering what traits led me to become a grognard? 1) Not using projectors for maps at the game table 2) Backing off from 4E to play Pathfinder a decade ago 3) Backing off from 5E to play 4E currently (haha) 4) Not following Critical Role 5) Not active on Discord or Reddit but preferring message boards like ENWorld 6) Using miniatures and tactical combat over "theater of the mind" 7) Not using D&D Beyond 8) Not getting into Virtual Tabletops like Fantasy Grounds or Roll 20 9) Using dice instead of die rolling apps 10) Not liking people using PDFs at the table (preferring physical copies) I find myself wondering kind of the same thing. I'm not sure I'm a grognard, but I do know I'm quite set in more than a few of my ways when it comes to tabletop gaming. I'm almost a decade younger than you, so I find myself wondering WHY I'm not in touch with things like Critical Role, not on top of things like Reddit or Discord, not...

3) Backing off from 5E to play 4E currently (haha) This is it. The rest might make you old or a traditionalist or just someone who plays in meat space. But when you prefer and older edition to a modern one, you become a grognard.

Maybe I'm looking more at myself since I turned 40, but I'm wondering what traits led me to become a grognard? 1) Not using projectors for maps at the game table 2) Backing off from 4E to play Pathfinder a decade ago 3) Backing off from 5E to play 4E currently (haha) 4) Not following Critical Role 5) Not active on Discord or Reddit but preferring message boards like ENWorld 6) Using miniatures and tactical combat over "theater of the mind" 7) Not using D&D Beyond 8) Not getting into Virtual Tabletops like Fantasy Grounds or Roll 20 9) Using dice instead of die rolling apps 10) Not liking people using PDFs at the table (preferring physical copies) None of those 10 makes you a grognard. Being over 40 and MAKING A WHINING POST MAKES YOU A GROGNARD. Now go mow your lawn, take your meds, and quit drooling over the booth babes.

It's great to read about others' experiences running this series. Do you have any other suggestions as I go further into the series? P3 - this is the highest I've run - I'd probably say 'don't bother'; I used it as I needed a stand in for Shar's Towers of Night in the Shadowfell, now occupied by Orcus and his demons; the tower in P2 worked well for that being such a close fit. We cut out the whole outer bastion section as the PCs just climbed over it. :D It's extremely linear; I'd say cut it even more than I did, maybe 4 fights; I tend to keep the ones that use the battlemap. P2 - if you are still running this you might like to look at my game logs. The three zones - Phaevorul, Hordethrone, the Abyssal lair - I think worked very well. The main thing I did was have the Abyssal gate affecting Phaevorul & Hordethrone drain 1 from max healing surge number every time the PCs long rested; they LR'd a bit too much and faced the final battle with the two heavy hitter PCs on 0 surges and ca 28-30 h...

Then we jumped ahead to P2: Demon Queen's Enclave. Since the theme of the campaign is Orcus and undead - that's really the next time in the series the theme picks up. P2 is definitely a highlight. I ran H2 Thunderspire Labyrinth more recently and it is one of the better ones too, but I did end up cutting big chunks in the second half (after the Duergar fort). I think P2 is the only one where it felt like we used pretty much the whole thing - looking at my blog we started in session 48 http://frloudwater.blogspot.com/2013/08/session-48-into-darkness-236-2761480.html we ended it in session 59 http://frloudwater.blogspot.com/2014/01/session-59-die-zirithian-die.html 12 sessions, so with 1-2 fights per session there must have been some encounters not used - I remember there was stuff on the east side of the Enclave unused as the PCs didn't go that route - but it felt like we got the whole experience. Whereas with H3 Nightfang Spire I cut it down to 8 sessions and around 8 of 30 encou...

My hate is because no one uses searchable PDFs and it's a matter of "wake up my device, find correct document, open document, scroll through pages of text, wait for the device to populate pages, etc." Also tends to be the players who are less inclined to purchase content and are the same to less knowledgeable about their characters and their abilities. I've yet to see any online service (D&D Beyond included) that is as fast as just using a book to look up something. [D&D's 4E character builder was a great resource for character creation, however.] Players using PDFs at my table are expected to: 1. Not use pirated material 2. Have a the PDFs open and use a device with instant wake-up (a kindle, iPad, or a laptop with flash drive and proper sleep settings - e.g., create a custom "gaming" power-management profile to prevent device from going to sleep) As for D&D Beyond, it is far faster than books. 1. As a player, I can just tap on an ability or spell can get all the info. No nee...

My experience might be different than yours, but I've found a few issues with large numbers of opponents in 5E. The creatures usually pose no threat and go down in a single strike and can't reasonably hurt the party. Or they completely overwhelm the party with their numbers. In either case, the combat turns into a slog. It definitely helps to use some of the optional rules in the DMG, such as Cleaving Through Creatures (p. 272) and Handling Mobs (p. 250). This lets you have the hordes of gobbos without too much slowdown. 5E doesn't have swarm or pack rules beyond what's in Handling Mobs, but I think a good way to represent a big horde of archers or a swarm is as a saving throw, for instance, requiring all targets in an area to make a Dexterity save or take some amount of piercing damage when faced with a barrage of fairly low end archers.

My experience might be different than yours, but I've found a few issues with large numbers of opponents in 5E. The creatures usually pose no threat and go down in a single strike and can't reasonably hurt the party. Or they completely overwhelm the party with their numbers. In either case, the combat turns into a slog. Yep, different experiences. But if it is that swingy for you it sounds like a player expectations issue I had. When we first transitioned from 4e to 5e we had a similiar issue because the players expected they could take on any challenge. So I had to make encounters so overwhelming to convince them that hey - some times running from / avoiding a fight is the correct choice. Once they understood this, it didn't matter how many monsters there were (in general) they had a solution for the problem. If the party is being expected to just walk into a town and put every inhabitant to the sword, (to me) that isn't good adventure design. I am not familiar with the adventure (U...

I know it's a cheat, but it's cutting out a lot of the ho-hum adventure design present in that series. Dropping the keep is about the only way of handling that adventure. Where to stand, and who to protect, has always been a choice for them to make. If the mage is a jerk, you might stand in front of the cleric instead. If someone is down, you can choose to stand over them, same as in 4E. Which happens but isn't brought forth in the same way as 4e. This is actually the problem, for me. Given that HP in 4E will recover so quickly, nobody really sustains any major injury, which makes it feel like combat is meaningless. No matter how badly you get beaten down, you'll be back to full by morning. Which also means it's a hollow gesture to stand over someone's body, and protect them; there's no risk to you, because you can't be hurt, because you'll be fine in the morning. The one house rule I always and without exception use in 4e is that an extended rest takes a long, lazy weekend some...

I've converted two of my groups from 5e to 4e. One campaign is highly tactical and combat-oriented (following the H1-E3 campaign). The other has a good mix of role-playing, story, etc., with limited combats. Both are enjoyable. Yay! And good for you. How are you dealing with Keep on the Shadowfell not being a good module in the slightest?

I loved the concept and setting, but in execution was a little bland. Same. The flavor and setting is awesome, but I really couldn't get into the mechanics which were too bare-bones yet still oddly broken. Every character gets hit and takes physical damage to the same stat, even the character who specifically relies on using points out of that stat for their features to function, which leads to finesse and brainy characters getting beat up without effecting their abilities while the tough guy characters get their core abilities gimped when they're hit physically. It's super simple, and only uses 3 stats, but STILL manages to be intrinsically imbalanced. I would love a Numenera setting with 5e mechanics.

Our group has seen successful, long term campaigns (say 6 months of regular play), but only in a few systems: AD&D (many years ago), D&D 3.x, Pathfinder, Star Wars (Fantasy Flight), Call of Cthulhu, and D&D 5E. Me personally? AD&D 2e D&D 3e D&D 3.5e Star Wars (WEG d6) Star Wars (WotC d20 Original) Star Wars (WotC d20 Revised) d20 Modern Vampire: The Masquerade Mage: The Ascension Werewolf: The Apocalypse