Search results

I actually didn’t ignore the Hinterlands. I commented that it sounds good. I just haven’t had the time to fully read through the Mabar entry! I just started reading proper from the beginning of the book. Of course it doesn’t truly matter what I think, that’s not what I was even claiming. I’m...

I was commenting on the logic that because Mabar is the plane of Death it should be more dangerous than just going underwater. In that case shouldn’t the plane of fire be more dangerous than going below the waves when it is not? I liked the idea of the Irian vessel that protects the party. The...

I really like that concept. Very FF Crystal Chronicles. It’s great because it turns the threat from a binary yes-or-no to something with the possibility of gradations of danger, as you strive to protect the vessel from harm or perhaps make checks to repair or maintain it.

There’s another unfortunate side-effect of Mabar’s deadly trait. Since the entire party will have permanent necrotic resistance to survive the planar trait, all those necrotic damage dealing undead denizens will be much less dangerous. It creates a loop that renders the most dangerous plane into...

I get it, and I do think that it makes sense that Mabar itself kills living creatures. The only problem is the speed of it. Since it’s so quick, it creates the binary situation where the core of Mabar is completely inaccessible unless you have specific magic items. It doesn’t allow for...

But techincally Fernia and Risia are safer than going underwater too. Just because it’s the plane of Death doesn’t mean it has to kill you within minutes. Why can’t it kill you within days instead? That way you allow for counterplay from the players. Maybe they find something to protect them, or...

If you can get permanent protection against Mabar, it creates a situation where it’s not even a choice. If you have it, you adventure normally. If you don’t, you die. There’s no interesting consequences, no true risk since you wouldn’t go there without guaranteed protection. The traits for...

The Hinterlands sound good, I didn’t get the chance to read that section. The issue I find with the continuous necrotic damage is that it makes much of the plane ridiculously hostile. It’s hard to use in a game with such rules. What if your protection is dispelled, and no one can cast the spell...

I’ve only skimmed through the book, but I was curious to check out some of the mechanics. The rules for the plane of Mabar gave me pause. Ok, undead have 2 extra hp per HD... a little unusual considering the way 5e monsters are built, but fair enough. Make a spellcasting ability check to cast...

The ability scores don’t have to change. The same creature can keep the Int 15 whether it’s a level 3 standard creature or a level 11 minion. You look at the XP value to determine the closest equivalent to its ”inherent” level/power. 4e’s encounter building and math require that you keep within...

Thanks to minion rules, I’ve been able to pit an epic level party against an army of hundreds of soldiers (minion swarms) accompanied by a flight of young dragons (minion versions of the heroic tier solos). And it was all playable and enjoyable (and they also fought several other dragons at the...

There are monsters/creatures that grant temp hp to their allies. In the same Nentir Vale MV there’s the Iron Circle Dark Adept that grants temps. One of the hobgoblins in MV grants them to allied beasts. These creatures do exist.

You do roll for damage. There are a few minions with high resistances to represent specific weaknesses. Like these undead spirits in the Nentir Vale MV that resist 15 all but radiant. And I’m pretty sure minions can gain temp hp from allies.

Not really. You can’t use young dragons as minions at tier 4 without bogging down the game. Or how about using hezrous and chasmes in numbers? Check the auras; players are expected to roll several saves at once, plus you’re supposed to keep track of who saved against which demon. The monsters...

The rules do. In 3e there’s the rule of rolling a nat 1 on a save and one (and only one) item you’re wearing getting damaged. But it doesn’t apply if you’re taken out just by taking damage from a breath weapon, regardless of a nat 1. There’s also the hilarious rule of unattended objects taking...

The damage and attack types do matter since HP are so abstract. If it’s a poisoned weapon, then I would narrate it as a very small scrape. Context specific. But narrating every single hit as damaging the body takes me out of the fantasy. It starts feeling like a video game where the characters...

I’m almost the opposite. If a creature—PC or otherwise—with full 60 hp is hit for 12 damage, narrating that as an actual physical wound/injury takes me out of the fantasy immediately and reminds me of video games (D&D video games included) where every hit draws blood. And you’ll have 6 of those...

Are 4e and 5e (and 3e) hit points supposed to mean different things? Haven't they always been the same nebulous gamey thing since the very beginning? It's not like 5e dropped "martial healing" either since fighters heal themselves all the time by "shouting". My experience, from 3e to 4e to 5e...

That’s not true. If you design a series of separate fights, then yes, that should be considered a single encounter so that you can gauge the difficulty properly. But if the players decide to push on without resting, or something prevents it, those are separate encounters. There’s a sidebar...

I think a simple way to rule it is to say that the dragon doesn’t suffer any penalties to Perception within its blindsight radius, even when asleep. So the PC rolls Stealth normally against the sleeping dragon’s passive Perception.