ZEITGEIST Zeitgeist session 0 in 5e

[kelots]

picked this up and its awesome, thank you! now to find a tool to stitch all the PDFs into one so i can CTRL+F for things hahahahaha.

 

[arkwright]

picked this up and its awesome, thank you! now to find a tool to stitch all the PDFs into one so i can CTRL+F for things hahahahaha.

Adobe Acrobat Advanced Search lets you search for terms across all PDFs in a folder at once. It's pretty handy.

 

[kelots]

Thanks mate the advanced search is perfect!

Anyone have thoughts on the Artificer repeating shot and Muzzle-Loading property? I've got a second player now asking about the Tasha's Gunner feat too which removes the reloading penalty.

Seems like it's against the design intent on outlined in the players guide section on Muzzle-Loading. Does this drive any party-power imbalance (e.g. the latter player is going to be a sniper and using a rogue build so this would let him hide as a BA if he's not reloading).

Anything to watch for here or any mechanical implications to consider, or just let em go to town shootin stuff haha

Other random question, having trouble picturing the distance of the sea. Is Danor visible from Risur? Or over the horizon haha

 

[RangerWickett]

Anyone have thoughts on the Artificer repeating shot and Muzzle-Loading property? I've got a second player now asking about the Tasha's Gunner feat too which removes the reloading penalty.

I don't know how the A5E artificer works. Sorry.

Other random question, having trouble picturing the distance of the sea. Is Danor visible from Risur? Or over the horizon haha

That's the map. The nearest distance between the two countries is about 200 miles. Though the Yerasol Archipelago has islands that are closer, which is why both sides fought for control of them.

 

[Tormyr]

Artificer creates magic ammunition when the gun is empty, but an artificer will only be able to fire two shots. Any other class can buy a clip modification for a gun to only need to reload once every 6 shots.

Tasha's Gunner feat ignores the loading property, but Zeitgeist guns specifically have a different property called muzzle loading which requires an action or bonus action to reload.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

I don't know how the A5E artificer works. Sorry.

akshually, the repeating shot infusion is from the o5e artificer, not the a5e artificer

 

[kelots]

Artificer creates magic ammunition when the gun is empty, but an artificer will only be able to fire two shots. Any other class can buy a clip modification for a gun to only need to reload once every 6 shots.

Tasha's Gunner feat ignores the loading property, but Zeitgeist guns specifically have a different property called muzzle loading which requires an action or bonus action to reload.

Yup the design intent seems clear that guns should be cumbersome to use, rather than half my party looking at going vHuman to bypass this. Artificer magic reload looks like it might be good to go, but the player looking at the feat version is making a sniper focused build so I'm wary of the action economy between reload action and bonus action to hide to give sneak attack.

I noticed the bit about rules for crossbows being fine for guns too, and the crossbow expert feat is intended to ignore the reloading property but agree it's not the muzzle-loading one.

I was thinking with these I could use a stepping stone system of muzzle-loading > loading > auto. So if the player gets a feat that applies to loading, it could reduce the time for muzzle-loading from an action/bonus to an interaction, and anything with loading to auto. How's this sound? Think this gives some progression and they can invest if they want it?

I guess I'm looking for a sense check from existing DMs: are guns something to manage tightly, or am I being a stick in the mud and should just let the party get blastin' if they wanna? Any of the prestige classes rely on muzzle-loading to keep power in check?


Magic system:
I'm a little confused with the magic item system haha, players get rep and can rent out (or buy? or just ask for?) magic gear within the constraints on the "tools of the mission section".

It says that all gear must be handed in, but it also says that items given as gifts are the parties to keep? I think I've found some threads which explain the latter half of it, but for the former - do the players just get to say "i want to requisition XXX" from sourcebooks/google? Do I create (/is there a list somewhere) of the quartermasters inventory? Obviously as DM I could veto things like a deck of many things, but is it pretty much open season for requests? How have other DM's handled this?


Thanks so much for your help everyone, getting hyped for this games first session!

 

[Tormyr]

I set up a credit system with the quartermaster of the following values.
Common: 50 gp
Uncommon: 500 gp
Rare: 5000 gp
Very Rare: 50,000 gp
Legendary: 500,000 gp

A PC who requisitions an item pays the corresponding cost to the quartermaster out of their stipend. They get the full value back for items returned to the quartermaster in good condition. Obviously, consumed items like potions cannot be returned.

Separately, I also use the Risur prestige level to limit how much gear the RHC trusts the party with at any one time. This limits how much they can requisition. Because there are so few Common magic items, I replaced Common with Uncommon in the descriptions. I also allow them to replace one "slot" at a given rarity with two slots at the next rarity lower (i.e. two Uncommon items instead of one Rare item). This makes the early chapters slightly magic item heavy, but evens out over time.

 

[Tormyr]

One of my players is a gunsmith, and she just took a clip as soon as possible, nullifying most of the problems with reloading. She uses Steady Aim quite often, but it does take all your movement for the turn (ideal for snipers).

I guess what I am trying to say is that the players might not want to devote an entire character level if their only issue is reloading. They will be able to buy a modification to negate most of the cumbersomeness soon enough.

 

[kelots]

Thanks buddy big help. Will keep this in mind! Looks like the player who's leaving our group for Uni soon can't make it so we're jumping into session 1 tomorrow. I think I'm pretty comfortable with most of the stuff from above (the mass-search through all PDFs helped me a ton in figuring out who I could improv off and who I needed to keep future events in mind!)

Either way we'll still be a month or so off game-start full time so this is more of a toe-dip into the campaign to help the team get a taste for it and help them flesh out characters.


One new thing I'm struggling with is one of my players got caught up in the Philosophy of William Miller in the players guide. He's now making this a big part of his character. Gist is he's playing a Spirit Medium Necromancer Wizard and wants to have found a rare or interesting book (ideally a rare/lost chapter of William Millers book) and wants this to have half-blood-prince style notes from "someone" in the margins.

Via the Spirit Medium theme he is hoping for this books previous owner to have subconsciously steered him to find the book of magic he uses (almost warlock flavoring for a wizard but I think it works with the rest of his story) and that has set him on this path.


This raises 2 questions for me if anyone can help

1) Is Nic the right person to be the books owner (e.g. has he found a true chapter?) I was thinking as an alternative, maybe his "chapter" is someone else's copy of the book who kept the notes. Either independent side plot but could possibly be on the Ghost council now or something? Seems like a great thing to tie into if I can figure this out and would love any tips.
2) I know my players and he'll drive for conversations with other Philosphers haha. I noticed Rutger Smith on the first voyage is a big Miller fan with some tips for a conversation to be hinted at. For this or future encounters (or for the chapter he might have himself) are there example writings or musings available anywhere (from other DMs or in later books) or is this something I need to improvise?

Thanks guys will report back with how it goes