Recent content by Maestrino

I think because DNDBeyond isn't a VTT yet. But so far, in my extremely hasty transition online, I'd say just use your character sheets and adventure modules and such on DDB, and use Beyond20 to transfer your rolls over to Roll20s rolling engine (unless you want to just trust everyone to roll...

I'd just play it like you're The Odd Couple. "Would you quit smiting my minions? It's a lot of work to make those!" "I would if you'd quit leaving them in the kitchen!"

To the OP, what optional rules have I mployed and how did it go? Spell point variant for sorcerers. Makes them more of a blasty specialist alternative to a jack-of-all-trades wizard. Super fun. Gritty realism? No thanks. If anything my parties already try to tackle too many encounters without...

American and extensive reader here. I interpret "dire" as not just "bad" but "extraordinarily bad". So in one sense a dire situation is a very bad, urgent situation. And in another sense a dire wolf is an extraordinarily bad (i.e. dangerous) wolf, which is different than the British...

I can see that, though the DMG does add the restriction that for spells level 6 and above, you can still only cast one per day at each level - you have to restrict your spell-spamming to levels 5 and lower. (I suppose the in-game lore justification is just that some types of spells are just more...

SPELL POINT VARIANT (it's in the DMG). Specifically for sorcerer, which IMO should default to this rule, but there's an argument to be made for allowing it for other classes. Definitely not for wizard or (and I hope this is obvious) warlock.

Maybe show them a one-shot? The Matt Mercer / Stephen Colbert game is pretty PG as far as I remember. IT also has the benefit of being short.

Heh. I can see most non-caster enemies not knowing what a familiar is and ignoring it. ("damn bird! Get out of my face while I smack this annoying wizard!") I can also see an absolutely paranoid wizard just blasting random small animals. ("That weasel was spying on me!")

Read it cover to cover once as a player before I had run any games. (I'm pretty good at separating what my character would know from what I know...) Then I read it cover-to-cover again in prep to run my first campaign.

This whole discussion seems to come down to whether you're the kind of DM that plots out an entire campaign and doesn't want any player backstories derailing "your" campaign, or whether you're the kind of DM that comes up with major plot hooks that can be dropped into pretty much any situation...

Now, I agree 100% that in a one-shot you don't have time to do character development. The backstory isn't important there. Much more fun to have a tight (actually pretty railroad-y) scenario cooked up and let the players use whatever crazy nonsensical character they have. Want to run that gnome...

Wait, some people don't? Current campaign: One PC was involved in a business deal that went bad with a cousin. Killed his cousin, ran away, became a pirate for a bit. This is definitely going to come up later on. Cousin was saved through a pact with some strange entity and is now going to be a...

I'll add one that's missing in here. Spoilers ahead: Acquisitions Incorporated Running it right now. So far it's a brilliant starter adventure. You have to buy into the sense of humor of Acq Inc, and you ALSO have to realize that the franchise officer abilities and items that the players get...

Oh, man, I picked up a cop[y of this one. SUPER CUTE. And the included starter adventure looks pretty solidly-written, though I haven't had a chance to run it yet.

It seems more useful if you use it by saying "I need X type of dungeon to drop into this session" and scroll through until you find something that works, and just use that part. I don't think I'd use it as a "start at one end and dungeon-crawl to the other" sort of setup.