Shadowdark Shadowdark General Thread [+]
- Thread starter overgeeked
- Start date
It's a little thing, but the fact she includes a link to ALL of the past monsters for those who are new to the newsletter is awesome.
Shadowdweller00
Hero
Which would be different from a standard wizard in what respect? Some sort of hard-coded spellbook dependency?
Knight of St. Ydris seems a fair approximation to me personally; perhaps with a bit of reflavoring (Demonic Possession => Cursed Sword). Or possibly Warlock with a custom Arioch patron.
Scribe
Legend
Book Caster, yeah that's the challenge. But yes tied to their book.
I'm looking at the Blade as a non Caster.
Will, from Runeforged Games, did a lovely review of my new book Tower of Hapshut on his shiny new substack. Will's a mensch, everyone should read him.
DarkCrisis
Hates clowns
Okay so 6 PCs. 2 level 2 and 4 level 1. Total of 8 levels. Threw 8 level 1 Goblins at them and the gobs were easily slaughtered.
Rust Monster. Also slaughtered.
Hippogriff and 4 Kobolds, slaughtered.
What do I have to throw at them to make a good boss battle?
Also Camping/Entertaining and Marching tasks/Song. Each grants "1 luck token." Does it mean 1 each per player or JUST one and they get to choose who gets it?
How much xp is a +1 leather armor worth? Aside from dumping gold on them to get more xp how level 2 on seems to need quite a bit of xp, so more magical items? Or is most of the xp supposed to come from carousing?
Should players get a bare minimum of 1 xp per session? This session they found no treasure of real value so they go nothing. Though I guess nothing stops them from carousing if they want xp....
Rust Monster. Also slaughtered.
Hippogriff and 4 Kobolds, slaughtered.
What do I have to throw at them to make a good boss battle?
Also Camping/Entertaining and Marching tasks/Song. Each grants "1 luck token." Does it mean 1 each per player or JUST one and they get to choose who gets it?
How much xp is a +1 leather armor worth? Aside from dumping gold on them to get more xp how level 2 on seems to need quite a bit of xp, so more magical items? Or is most of the xp supposed to come from carousing?
Should players get a bare minimum of 1 xp per session? This session they found no treasure of real value so they go nothing. Though I guess nothing stops them from carousing if they want xp....
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
If you want your combats to be more difficult, have something attacking the light consistently, whether it's bats swarming the torches when dealing with unintelligent beasts, intelligent darkness-adapted creatures like kobolds using traps or magic to do it, etc. Also do all the smart stuff you'd do with 5E, with a mix of ranged and close-up fighters. Kobolds and goblins in particular should be trying to fight smarter, not harder, since they know how easily they will get slaughtered.
+1 leather armor is probably worth between 1 and 3 XP, depending on how hard it was to lay hands on.
The increasing amount of XP is an incentive to go after bigger and bigger treasures, rather than just shaking down the kobold warren again every few weeks. And yes, a good portion of the XP will come from carousing after raiding a dragon's lair, etc.
I think there should be the opportunity for XP every session, but not the guarantee of XP. If your players don't want to go hunting for it, they don't get it. But that's also OK -- there's only 10 levels and it's not necessary to blast through those levels super-fast.
+1 leather armor is probably worth between 1 and 3 XP, depending on how hard it was to lay hands on.
The increasing amount of XP is an incentive to go after bigger and bigger treasures, rather than just shaking down the kobold warren again every few weeks. And yes, a good portion of the XP will come from carousing after raiding a dragon's lair, etc.
I think there should be the opportunity for XP every session, but not the guarantee of XP. If your players don't want to go hunting for it, they don't get it. But that's also OK -- there's only 10 levels and it's not necessary to blast through those levels super-fast.
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Reynard
aka Ian Eller
In one adventure, I gave Shadows the ability to spend an action to blow out a torch instead of attack.
It was glorious.
Don't let small sample size make you pivot too quickly either. I just played in a live play where a party of four very good 1st level characters got taken to school by 6 Stingbats. I design encounters to give monsters some synergy and as the GM I play them like they know what they are doing. That usually does the trick.
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
Honestly, that's so good, Kelsey should steal it for the core book, whenever it's eventually revised.
