Deck of Many Things results

[Ridley's Cohort]

IMO the 3e DoMT tends to be tilted against PCs. The rewards are not what they used to be, while the punishments are often worse.

In 1e/2e, pushing you best stat to 18, 19, 20 could be a huge boost -- it is not quite so dramatic in 3e.

A small penalty like losing d4 Int is not quite the joke it once was.

I can see a place for the DoMT in the D&D universe, but it needs to be completely rewritten from the ground up instead of applying small tweaks to the older version.

I cannot imagine allowing any non-insane PC I cared about to pick from the deck as is.

 

[Slife]

IMO the 3e DoMT tends to be tilted against PCs. The rewards are not what they used to be, while the punishments are often worse.

In 1e/2e, pushing you best stat to 18, 19, 20 could be a huge boost -- it is not quite so dramatic in 3e.

A small penalty like losing d4 Int is not quite the joke it once was.

I can see a place for the DoMT in the D&D universe, but it needs to be completely rewritten from the ground up instead of applying small tweaks to the older version.

I cannot imagine allowing any non-insane PC I cared about to pick from the deck as is.

Three words:
Weal or woe.

That's right, with a simple second level spell, you can gain the benefits of the deck without any of the disadvantages.

"Should I draw one card?"
"OK, should I draw two cards"
repeat until you get a mixed or woe result. If the spell fails you'll know it, since the result is nothing


Or you can just have a service where you sell draws from the deck. I'm sure there are plenty of commoner1s who would be willing to take a draw, with the caveat that the PCs get a cut from any of the good results (one of the wishes, or 10% of the gold, et cetra)

 

[DM-Rocco]

Ah the deck. Always a great time. In my experience, I notice that if the party pulls enough, nothing bad will ever happen. Nothing that can't be fixed by another pull.

 

[Nail]

I cannot imagine allowing any non-insane PC I cared about to pick from the deck as is.

My high-level Clr drew three cards from it during a (very memorable) gaming session. In fact, each of the PCs drew three cards.

My cleric (sun, luck domains) drew the Sun, the Throne, and the Skull.

2 rounds later, the dread wraith was dead, and my PC was a Clr 19 with a small keep. Not bad at all.......

 

[Intrope]

Three words:
Weal or woe.

That's right, with a simple second level spell, you can gain the benefits of the deck without any of the disadvantages.

"Should I draw one card?"
"OK, should I draw two cards"
repeat until you get a mixed or woe result. If the spell fails you'll know it, since the result is nothing


Or you can just have a service where you sell draws from the deck. I'm sure there are plenty of commoner1s who would be willing to take a draw, with the caveat that the PCs get a cut from any of the good results (one of the wishes, or 10% of the gold, et cetra)

As a player whose 2nd edition Wild Mage (50% chance to control chaos items) with a Luckstone (+10%) and the Alternate Reality spell (reroll a roll attempted last round), which resulted in me being able to offer anyone else a 96% chance of drawing a beneficial card, I caution you:

Don't Let That Work. It Means Infinite Wealth, Magic Items, XP and Wishes.

Aside from that highly-broken campaign (it was really broken long before that), I've had one other encounter with the deck in play: it was randomly generated on the fly in a dragon's treasure hoard. We had been previously captured and chained to the wall. When we regained conciousness (naked!) we naturally sought to break free; I ended up hiding under the hoard (hey, he's not going to breath Distengration Breath on his own treasure pile!) and found the deck. So, I'm sitting there going: "Sun. Sucks, Next!" "Keep. Can I drop[NO!]. Sucks, Next!" "50,000gp in Gems? Sucks, Next!" "Moon. Wishes. Huzzah!"

And yes, we did in fact when the battle--we were Epically overmatched by this thing (I wasn't kidding about the Disintegration Breath. Oh, did I mention it had two heads and got two distinct actions/round? as an Archmage?). 4 wishes went a long way toward fixing that...Good Times!

 

[Treebore]

Which is essentially who Enkili is.

Everyone knows what it is capable of doing, no one forces anyone to draw from it. And not only did it NOT wreck my game, everyone absolutely had a blast.

But thanks for advising me not to use one in a thread I started talking about what happened when I already did.

Same here, all 8 times I have used it as a DM and 6 times I have drawn from it as a player.

You have to be prepared to lose your character when you draw from "THE DECK".

Yeah, it is definitely game altering, but far from game destroying.

Plus it helps to not allow replacement of cards in the deck for each group that draws (Multiple Dunjons and Queen of Diamonds can destroy campaigns). Then after the group is done the deck mysteriously teleports somewhere else in the world or multi verse. I think I got those two "rules" from Dragon Mag back in its 1E days.

 

[Mercule]

I just gave a deck to my players. They found it in the treasure vault of an abandoned mages' college. So far, they haven't drawn but are sorely tempted. Personally, I hope they do. There isn't much that is permabad and DoMT have always been fun when I've used them before.

As for the variant PHB2 version -- I loathe that thing. The rebuilds pretty much turn it into a 75%+ losing proposition. Even the 25% good things aren't anything to write home about -- certainly not worth the risks. You'd have to be certifiable to draw. Even with the chance of The Void, the standard version is a much better deal.

 

[Twowolves]

Plus it helps to not allow replacement of cards in the deck for each group that draws (Multiple Dunjons and Queen of Diamonds can destroy campaigns). Then after the group is done the deck mysteriously teleports somewhere else in the world or multi verse. I think I got those two "rules" from Dragon Mag back in its 1E days.

I gave each person who drew the option of pulling all their draws at once, or replacing the card after each draw and shuffling the deck between draws. Oddly enough, everyone wanted to replace and reshuffle between each draw.

Also, once every player in the campaign drew, the deck disappeared. I had an avatar of Enkili be the "dealer", and after the last pull, s/he left with it. I gotta say, the paladin that lost all his magic items and was imprisoned in the donjon was pretty upbeat and ok with it, and the monk who lost 2 points of Int but gained 2 points of Wis and a "get out of jail free" pull was pretty darn happy. As was the wizard who gained a level and a Headband of Intelect +4, even though he too ended up in the donjon.

So, as an aside, do the Knights gain xp like cohorts? Or do they just stay perpetually at 4th level? The three people who pulled one pretty much decided it was time to build a stronghold and let these three Knights run the place, rather than have them be cannon fodder in their adventures.

 

[Mark Hope]

Three words:
Weal or woe.

That's right, with a simple second level spell, you can gain the benefits of the deck without any of the disadvantages.

"Should I draw one card?"
"OK, should I draw two cards"
repeat until you get a mixed or woe result. If the spell fails you'll know it, since the result is nothing...

A second level spell working on an artifact like the Deck? Don't think so. Good way to get stiffed by the gods of fate, though...

 

[Thurbane]

I was involved in an extensive debate about the use of Augury and DoMT over the WotC forums.

Many arguments were presented, but I believe that it would not work, or at the best reveal an ambiguous result.