Recent content by Li Shenron

  1. Li Shenron

    Do you go in RAW 100%?

    You can't even always tell for sure if something written in a core book is strictly a rule or merely a suggestion...
  2. Li Shenron

    D&D General D&D Evolutions You Like and Dislike [+]

    My favourite evolution has to be the gradual removal of character restrictions: racial limits, race-character restrictions, multiclassing (even though I am not a fan of using it), alignment, and finally druids armor. Generally I think restrictions are a positive force to create a stronger...
  3. Li Shenron

    D&D General The "Ease of Long Rests" as a metric for describing campaigns / DM styles?

    I don't really put much thought to it. Usually, the players want to push forward as long as they have resources to do so. When the PCs start being low on HP and spell slots or limited abilities, and have already taken short rests, they will consider a long rest. On my average adventures it's...
  4. Li Shenron

    D&D 5E (2014) 14th level cleric

    I think Turn Undead is originally though as a defensive weapon to get rid of foes without fighting. The 5e version is already very powerful for that use, because it's only a Wis save, so in theory you could turn undead much more powerful than the Cleric to avoid fighting them. Very high level...
  5. Li Shenron

    1 Shot Campaigns, and throw away characters.

    Mostly I DM one-shot adventures because I can't commit on longer terms, not because I wouldn't want to. But one-shots have their own advantages, one of which is exactly that the PCs do not matter as much as in a long campaign, therefore: players can try new classes, races, spells or other...
  6. Li Shenron

    D&D 5E (2024) Mearls has some Interesting Ideals about how to fix high level wizards.

    Generally I always thought that WotC should have delivered a low-complexity Wizard subclass since the 2014 PHB, but probably would not have prevented having lots of spells after level 10 anyway. Then of course if too many spells is a problem, one can always play a Sorcerer instead...
  7. Li Shenron

    TTRPG Podcasts

    I gave this one a try and it is good. I am only interested in DM advice and discussions, and this podcast has at least some episodes on those.
  8. Li Shenron

    D&D General How do you really handle illumination in your games?

    I generally want to make illumination matter, and since it's a complicated topic I typically go back and review the rules frequently, almost every time when preparing a new adventure. But then while running the game I often totally forget about it, and end up essentially handwaving it. It's...
  9. Li Shenron

    D&D General What would you do? (Example from my game)

    I would use the goodberries and the Druid's spell slots left to heal a little bit the 3 characters who are low on HP, and get out of the dungeon ASAP.
  10. Li Shenron

    AI GMs

    As a test, I tried asking ChatGPT to DM a solo story already a year or two ago, when certainly it was still a previous version. Rules-wise it was able to guide me through character creation using 5e rules fairly well, just forgot about a couple of things. During the adventure it was able to use...
  11. Li Shenron

    How does your group handle an absent player?

    Ideally, I would use the "fade to background" idea and have the rest of the players continue without the missing player's PC, with occasionally (rarely) having the DM step in and "use" the faded PC in special cases due to narrative or emergencies. All while granting the missing PC immunity, but...
  12. Li Shenron

    D&D General Blending individual checks into group checks

    I am not allowing retries, until the situation has changed. I thought very briefly whether a similar idea could be applied to retries (counting previous failures and requiring a majority of successful rolls to succeed at the task) but it seemed terrible, because it would encourage the player...
  13. Li Shenron

    D&D General Can you run Ravenloft as a one-shot?

    Found my old thread... When I asked this three years ago, I watched the suggested videos and started planning Ravenloft as a single-day game, but as I only had one month to prepare so I chose something simpler, and kept the Ravenloft idea for the future. A year and a half later, we finally...
  14. Li Shenron

    Art, is it important to you, does it help your roleplaying?

    It does matter to me. I just recently made a significant change/addition to our Ravenloft game just because I saw an inspiring picture.
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