Search results

In the words of Brennan Lee Mulligan: “uh, incredible.” First session of a new campaign after a pretty long hiatus from DMing and it feels great to be back in the saddle. It’s also the first session I’ve run in my new home, and I am absolutely loving the setup I’ve got in our game room. It’s...

Understandable. Personally, this is why I don’t really want to use Emphasis as he does, to make rolls more dramatic on his own whim. But I do like the idea of using it instead of rolling a single d20 when a roll has both advantage and disadvantage. That’s a situation where I feel like the added...

Yes, an accurate assessment. I would note that in combat there are always degrees of success due to natural 20s (which Emphasis makes twice as likely) being critical hits and natural 1s (which Emphasis makes slightly less than twice as likely) always missing regardless of total. Out of combat...

I get you. I think I started this thread off on the wrong foot by framing it as a solution to the advantage/disadvantage stacking “problem.” Ultimately I just thought that using BLeeM’s Emphasis mechanic in place of a single d20 roll when a test has both Advantage and Disadvantage was a cool...

I haven’t gone through to count, but I think it’s fairly common. Yes. In the example in post 18, I demonstrated going from Emphasis to Advantage, back to Emphasis, and then to Disadvantage. As I say in that post, what’s happening under the hood here is functionally the same as counting the...

No worries. My post #18 contains a practical example of what I’m trying to describe. I think what you may be missing is that in 5e, especially in the later end of the 2014 rules and now as more standard in the 2024 rules, there are a lot of features that allow you to give a roll advantage or...

That’s an interesting alternative, but more tracking than what I was going for here. I probably framed this thread incorrectly. My intent was, “Hey, Brennan Lee Mulligan’s Emphasis mechanic seems pretty cool, what if I tried using it when a roll would have both Advantage and Disadvantage...

Well, the idea here is supposed to be a house rule that allows multiple instances of Advantage and Disadvantage to be relevant without needing to track stacking instances of them. But, whatever floats your boat.

The idea is, Emphasis only comes up when Advantage and Disadvantage would cancel each other out. Any instances of Advantage or Disadvantage individually take priority over Emphasis. So, for a practical example, let’s say your Drow character casts Darkness (and let’s say they do not have the...

Ok, there’s art of a stag 🙄 There’s no art in the book that would tell us if his human form looks like Gandalf or not, was my point. Again, which ones would those be? The owlbear and the wizard. Both of which have plausible Curse of Strahd specific referents they could plausibly be pointing...

I specifically don’t want to do that, because it isn’t simple enough for my tastes. Adding a third status that a roll gains if it would have both advantage and disadvantage is much simpler in my view. And it’s easy to follow the logic: one status is asking you to roll twice and take the higher...

Mordenkainen doesn’t have art in Curse of Strahd, but as @GarrettKP notes, he is described as having long hair and a long beard, and his token in the roll20 adventure matches that description. What doesn’t? The devil with the cookies is obviously Morgantha. The windmill in the background is...

These two birds could be killed with one stone by ruling that, if the two numbers are equidistant from 10, take the higher result if the numbers are even (e.g. 2 and 18), or the lower result if they’re odd (e.g. 3 and 17). That makes 4 results where you take the higher and 5 where you take the...

By… doing it? I’m sorry, I don’t know how else to answer. How do I know if I have both socks and shoes without counting the number of garments on my feet? They’re different things, so I don’t need to check the total number to know if I have both.

That’s how I intend to use it, yes.

The one with the red coat, curly black hair, axe, and sword is unquestionably Ez. The little girl with the lantern hanging from a staff taller than her, and the little boy with the Blinsky doll are unquestionably Rosvalda and Thornboldt Durst. Those depictions are all directly reflective of the...

It ends up that way, but you don’t have to count them. Advantage and disadvantage? Switch for emphasis. Emphasis and advantage? Drop emphasis. Etc.

Correct. I assume so. You could make it furthest from 11 if you wanted to privilege failure.

As usual, I tagged this for 2024, but it applies equally to 2014 and presumably to your 5e-alike of choice, as long as it has advantage and disadvantage. Much digital ink (should that be many pixels…?) has been spilled on the problems with advantage/disadvantage stacking. While advantage and...

That’s what I’m saying!