D&D General DM Says No Powergaming?

[tetrasodium]

so we can name the game after the most powerful flying creature your likely to see and the name for the underground complex dating back forever...

They go back further... Even beowulf went dungeon crawling.... If you were to set beowulf in 5e... Nobody would have torches. Nobody would fear for their lives. Everyone would be well equipped half the party would bounce up & down with a shrug every time those puny monsters like grendel & his mother crushed them like insects. An epic tale is not the result you would have.

 

[Zardnaar]

it depends on the dragons goals... if it is to cause terror, that works. Especially if you never know when or where it is coming from... I can see a board with "9 days since last black dragon fly over" getting erased and 0 being written after such a thing...

If the Dragon want to wipe out the town or if the Dragon wants to kill a target in the town that isn't very viable... if the dragon uses that to force a negotiation maybe.

A Dragon holding a kingdom to Ransom 1cp per person per year.

That's 10000gp per year per million. Dragons live a long time that's a million per century per million people.

 

[Stormonu]

Should we change the thread title to "Dragon Levels Town, Peasants Level Dragon?"

 

[MNblockhead]

Except that’s true with most classes. I tend to avoid playing clerics, because a lot of adventures are really bad at justifying why it advances the agenda of the god of the sky to march into a dungeon, kill its inhabitants and take their stuff. Wizards are even worse for having mechanics at odds with their narrative! They increase their power not by staying in their tower and studying, researching new spells, but by going out and adventuring. Druids very often do very little stewardship of natural spaces.

Ironically, bards are probably the best at this because every bard I’ve ever seen is always either performing for money or working on their oeuvre.

My challenge as a DM is not designing adventures and campaigns around any one of those examples, it is why are these characters all doing this together? Generally, the best way to resolve this is to ask the players to come up with how and why they came together and help contribute to some of the world building. The only WotC adventure I ran was Curse of Strahd, which made it easy. You all got sucked into this demiplane. You, as a group of outsiders have to figure out how to survive in it and get home.

Another trope is that you the party is brought together by some patron to fulfill some goal that is also in all of their interests. One thing I like to do is have a campaign where it is assume that there are fairly long periods between quests. After a quest, each character is off doing whatever makes sense for that character and then a day comes when a need or opportunity arises to bring the party back together. Part of the role playing can be convincing the Wizard that it is in his or her interest (or the moral imperative is not strong enough to sway the decision).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

They go back further... Even beowulf went dungeon crawling.... If you were to set beowulf in 5e... Nobody would have torches. Nobody would fear for their lives. Everyone would be well equipped half the party would bounce up & down with a shrug every time those puny monsters like grendel & his mother crushed them like insects. An epic tale is not the result you would have.

That's not a 5E problem.

That's a problem 1E or 2E onwards.

You've really got to go back to very early editions to make it so "nobody would have torches" isn't a thing, Continual Light is a level 2 spell buddy (level 3 if you're a 1E Cleric, but level 2 also if you're a 2E Cleric). People would be throwing stones with Continual Light cast on them like they were glowsticks at a party in the woods.

Also, if you really did Grendel, bro, everyone would be a Fighter or Rogue or some kind of magic-less Bard, so absolutely they'd fear for their lives in 5E.

 

[MNblockhead]

And, yet, players seem to be absolutely reluctant to allow an enemy an Opportunity Attack against their PC, IME. Even when the more interesting and/or tactical choice would be to move away and risk it, they choose to stay put. Even when that enemy is likely going to take a swing at them anyway on the next turn. Anyone other DMs experiencing this?

It depends. In my current campaign, which is a mega dungeon, this is often the case because of the environment they are usually fighting in. But when you have NPCs tactically placed with an environment in their favor, simply running into the middle of the action and staying there will quickly become a death trap.

Really the only issue I have with DnD is that at high levels all combat is high magic. You need NPCs with access to disintegrate, high-level counter spell, etc. I also have custom magic items like rings of teleport other for high-level baddies, because I find it more interesting to teleport a PC into a death trap that gives them a high-stakes activity to engage in than simply using banishment to put them into a demiplane time-out box. The stakes become more like superhero stakes. Sure, you'll mostly likely defeat them. But can you defeat them without terrible collateral damage or in time to save the Mr. MacGuffin or prevent the ritual from completing, etc. Don't get me wrong, it is still fun. But it take some work and creativity on the DMs part and the core books do not give you a lot of tools or guidance. Also, none of the official adventures (that I'm aware of) give good (or any) examples of high-level play.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

You've really got to go back to very early editions to make it so "nobody would have torches" isn't a thing, Continual Light is a level 2 spell buddy (level 3 if you're a 1E Cleric, but level 2 also if you're a 2E Cleric). People would be throwing stones with Continual Light cast on them like they were glowsticks at a party in the woods.

I love shareeing this little story... we would cast it on the inside of a scroll case then open one end to make it like a flash light

edit... it was a flash light

 

[soviet]

I love shareeing this little story... we would cast it on the inside of a scroll case then open one end to make it like a flesh light

Quoted before you get a chance to edit! :-0

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Should we change the thread title to "Dragon Levels Town, Peasants Level Dragon?"

Peasants can’t level a dragon. A dragon can only level by training with a dragon that is older, and spending time, money, and peasants.
-Gary Gygax, probably.

 

[tetrasodium]

That's not a 5E problem.

That's a problem 1E or 2E onwards.

You've really got to go back to very early editions to make it so "nobody would have torches" isn't a thing, Continual Light is a level 2 spell buddy (level 3 if you're a 1E Cleric, but level 2 also if you're a 2E Cleric). People would be throwing stones with Continual Light cast on them like they were glowsticks at a party in the woods.

Also, if you really did Grendel, bro, everyone would be a Fighter or Rogue or some kind of magic-less Bard, so absolutely they'd fear for their lives in 5E.

No darkcvision in 5e is designed to obliviate the need for light. This just does not happen often & the vast majority of things that might make the passive perception matter tend to make the GM look adversarial & trigger player vrs gm. even 3.x darkvision was less reliable than 5e. 2e darkvision was pretty much ask your gm in the PHB & the DMG giving the DM some advice they can follow or not.

Eventually having magictorches that happen to be weapons & things is still torches.