D&D General Assumed Lore/Sacred Cows you've changed +

[RealAlHazred]

• Spell components. I have always ignored these, regardless of edition, unless it was something super rare or special. Yes, it makes MUs more powerful when you take away that mitigating factor, and it's a big one, but I just don't like the bookkeeping aspect of it. Let mages cast spells they prepared.

I tried tracking everything down to the number of eyelashes and balls of bat guano and sulphur back in 2e. It just wasn't worth it.

I would love to have something like this actually work, and have been considering using something like the component system in Darklands, which has 23 components total -- every alchemical formula in the game draws from that list of 23. That's a more manageable list to choose from, and you can control magic use by making the rarer, more expensive components (Pure Gold, Eastern Black Bean) be much harder to find.

In most of the home games my group has run over several decades, elves were behind many of the worst things in campaign history. I think all of the DMs in my group decided a long-lived race of subtle people were the perfect elements for any number of terrible conspiracies that ruined things for everybody.

I've never had much use for alignment and ignored it in my games. My "good players" will come up with their own realistic motivations I can use to prod them, and my "bad players" would ignore it anyway.

 

[Blue]

• Spell components. I have always ignored these, regardless of edition, unless it was something super rare or special. Yes, it makes MUs more powerful when you take away that mitigating factor, and it's a big one, but I just don't like the bookkeeping aspect of it. Let mages cast spells they prepared.

So there is no way for PCs to disarm a captured caster?

Really, the totality of bookkeeping in 5e for non-expensive spell components is writing down "spell component pouch" or "XX focus". And for expensive components are a throttle to how much they can be used. For example, ignoring that means every day can start with a Heroes' Feast, which takes things like Fear out of a DM's toolbox. Or Divination. Or Simulacrum. Or Planar Binding.

 

[Sacrosanct]

So there is no way for PCs to disarm a captured caster?

Well, binding or gagging them works (no V or S components)

Really, the totality of bookkeeping in 5e for non-expensive spell components is writing down "spell component pouch" or "XX focus". And for expensive components are a throttle to how much they can be used. For example, ignoring that means every day can start with a Heroes' Feast, which takes things like Fear out of a DM's toolbox.

My original quote, bolded for emphasis:

Spell components. I have always ignored these, regardless of edition, unless it was something super rare or special.

 

[Blue]

Well, binding or gagging them works (no V or S components)

And that's not disarming. You bind and gag a weapon wielder but leave them with their weapons and armor, they can't use ti while bound - but can once they get that off.

My original quote, bolded for emphasis:

So basically you do use expensive material component. So we're back to the bookkeeping you're avoiding is writing down a spell component pouch or a focus.

 

[Rabulias]

So there is no way for PCs to disarm a captured caster?

I assume they mean material components, so note that not every spell requires material components to cast. Disarming a caster usually requires binding hands and gagging them, though a sorcerer using Subtle Spell metamagic can defeat even that. I guess you would have to knock them out or use some form of anti-magic to truly stop them from casting (or just kill them ).

 

[Charlaquin]

Oh man, I love me some sacred barbecue.

Relevant to the Ravenloft talk recently: Barovia is chock full of names that sound kind of Eastern-European but linguistically don’t really make sense, so I fix them wherever I notice them. My “Strahd’s” name is Barov Zoranovich Von Stroud. His father is Zoran Vladimirovich Von Stroud and his mother is Galina Ravenov (Ravenov being her maiden name).

 

[kenada]

Spells use their SRD names regardless of system. I don’t like having NPCs from other settings referenced in my game.

 

[Oofta]

In my games, bards are cool.

So they're what, stored in a meat locker? About the only way I can think of to make them cool.

 

[Marc_C]

• Pretty much ignore alignments.
• Stopped using XPs mid-90s.
• No spell components, unless super rare and/or expensive.
• Removed level caps to Demi-humans in TSR editions.
• Dungeons are extremely rare, those that are there are very short.
• Paladins are forbidden.

- Lastly, not a sacred cow but a pet peeve : No, the mother of your character did not die at child birth and neither is he an orphan!

 

[cbwjm]

I don't think it's the default now anyway, but in my games gods don't die without worship. Never did like that part of planescape.