Dungeons & Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, Chronicles of Darkness, Other TTRPGs

[Totenkindly]

You know, I really hate it when other players do stupid shit that just makes things worse, while thinking they are doing something cool.

For example, right now we're in a tall room with huge smoke elementals who are doing flybys. Two of us can now fly. They were doing a lot of damage to us, but we have now wounded them and could finish this fight in a round or two --

-- and the bard decided to drop Inspire Courage (so we don't get +3 on att/dmg, which for my crits was a +6 on each hit) so he could fear them instead. Fear just makes them flee. Either they will flee into the top of the room, so now I won't get a full attack and kill the one I'm fighting this turn; or they will flee the room, and then likely return once we've moved on and are in a new fight, which will make that fight much worse + the two fliers might not be able to fly at that point.

The bard is very pleased with himself, and I'm just thinking, "Are you fucking kidding me?" Really shit strategy, dude. That's only really helpful if they aren't fliers, and we are getting our asses kicked and really need a respite. It's not something you do when we're going to win shortly, and not in a crowded tower where we have to take a room at a time to avoid getting swarmed by shitty undead.

I've also been on this call 90 minutes and we're only two rounds into this fight because people keep bopping in and out. This group is so terrible at pushing forward. I like the people but I'm frustrated by the lack of progress. I think we could have gotten into a really cool fight tonight after this one and we're wasting the evening fighting two stupid elementals.

 

[Totenkindly]

So to follow up on this debacle:

1. We went into the next room, where we had to fight four things we'd never seen -- they ended up being Fallen, they weren't necessarily dangerous but they wouldn't die quickly and couldn't be crit even when we made them corporeal. We could only take one down (out of four) over two rounds despite doing a lot of damage.
2. On the third round, four shadows / greater shadows slipped into the room. They suck because of ability / energy drain + their attacks are touch attacks (so DEX matters more than armor). So now we are fighting seven things, with the Monk being most likely to avoid getting touched but pretty much everyone else is hosed unless the monsters roll poorly. My pally had just cast Blade of Light on her sword, which fills the room with daylight and allows her to fully strike incorporeal things, at least. Now she has seven incorporeal things to attack.
3. Starting the next round, as expected, the two elementals came back. Now we have nine things we are fighting with seven people (four players, three NPCs), and they're all hard to hit / damage, and some probably do energy drain and/or cause fear if you fail the save even if you are typically immune to fear.

Great job, there. Exactly as I anticipated. FML. Don't be doing that stupid shit in the future pls?

Better yet, there could be a boss nearby on this level, this fight is taking way too long, and only the monk is protected against energy drain (because my cleric decided to be safe rather than sorry and spent one of his turns casting it).

My pally will need to waste another round of buffs/attacks by casting Death Ward on herself. She hates shadows and almost was killed by a Greater Shadow some levels back, so it's like one of the few things that gets under her skin.

 

[The Cat]

So Im enjoying what Im learning about second edition chronicles of darkness. I like how a beat is awarded to the player when you want to increase the difficulty of a door when the player character is socially manipulating an npc, it keeps the stakes high while rewarding the player for their trouble.

 

[Totenkindly]

So Im enjoying what Im learning about second edition chronicles of darkness. I like how a beat is awarded to the player when you want to increase the difficulty of a door when the player character is socially manipulating an npc, it keeps the stakes high while rewarding the player for their trouble.

You can pretty much reward beats sometimes by choice of the player -- they can get a beat if they are willing to undertake additional risk or disadvantage.

 

[The Cat]

I like the spirit world in Chronicles of Darkness, Werewolf, and Mage, and Changeling seem like the perfect settings for a dark ghibli story

 

[Totenkindly]

I like the spirit world in Chronicles of Darkness, Werewolf, and Mage, and Changeling seem like the perfect settings for a dark ghibli story

Spirits can be extremely nasty. You kinda don't want to mess around with them unless you have some big guns.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

What are the spirits like in the Werewolf world? They're my favorite of all the classical monsters.

 

[The Cat]

What are the spirits like in the Werewolf world? They're my favorite of all the classical monsters.

Dark animism there are spirits everywhere and almost every thing has a spirit; if youve ever seen spirited away or my neighbor totoro, prinsess mononoke, theres just a lot of them, Its also a bit like Inuyahsa as the demons are also spirits.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Dark animism there are spirits everywhere and almost every thing has a spirit; if youve ever seen spirited away or my neighbor totoro, prinsess mononoke, theres just a lot of them, Its also a bit like Inuyahsa as the demons are also spirits.

That's the one with the spirals, right?

 

[The Cat]

That's the one with the spirals, right?

No the one with the Spirals is Uzumaki.

Inuyasha is billed as a feudal faery tale.​

 

[Totenkindly]

Actual D&D stamps (from Britain):

Edit: I should say the artist is Wayne Reynolds, who had done some things for D&D originally but then basically provided the visual "stamp/branding" for Pathfinder, doing all their covers and all their iconic class characters when they were getting off the ground. He's just absolutely spectacular and really helped Pathfinder launch.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I'll take an owlbear or a beholder.

 

[Totenkindly]

Art of the Genre: The Top 10 RPG Artists of the Past 40 Years – Black Gate

 

[Totenkindly]

So after four sessions using PF2, I'm not quite sure how I feel about the system.

Newer system revisions have their own "thing" that stands out elegantly.

• D&D 5e has its advantage/disadvantage rolls that apply through all roll types and make dicing easie.
• PF2 has its three-action per turn economy, heavily simplifying the old PF1 system which was full of exclusions and more complex rules.

I'm still learning the intricacies of the system and there just aren't enough web pages or videos out there to describe the best synergies for less used classes. (one issue.)

The other issue is that I find PF2 insanely lethal, which to me is NOT fun because one reason I game is to develop a character through a storyline. It's like getting to meet and understand another person, watch them develop, see them go in directions I did not expect, and grow into whoever they are supposed to be as part of the unfolding story. I am okay with people dying, because that happens, but not on the level of PF2 where we lost the best equipped character on Session 2, almost lost more characters on Session 3, and on Session 4 almost lost two more characters (and did officially lose one, except then we saw in the rules that someone can burn a Hero Point to stop dying).

There was definitely a weakness in DND 5e and PF1 where you can have characters going down, then getting restored to a few points of health and running around like a maniac again in the same combat, going down again, etc., all without any real ill effect. PF2 seems to swing entirely in a different direction. If you go down, you REALLY want to stay down and just hope you make your stabilization rolls -- although this leaves you vulnerable to just getting coup de graced if the GM is a dick. If you get healed awake, then immediately drop again (because you would only have a few points of health), you drop right back into unconsciousness but you are even CLOSER to death because you still bore the Wounded condition. Your Wounded condition contributes to your Dying condition score, which places you closer to the time you'll just die.

Theoretically this is fine, but PF2 also has modified crit rules. Not sure if there's a value where a crit always occurs (a nat 20?) but if you get 10+ higher than you needed on a check or attack, that is a crit success. So now if the GM is not paying attention and pits you against things with an attack bonus that can more easily get that +10 success on you (with multiple attacks), you're likely going to go down a lot more. Or even if the GM just "gets lucky" on a few rolls in a row, it could kill you.

So last night we had this:

We walked under a tree. That's all we did. Suddenly Mercy and Iggy were grabbed by vines and strangled, hoisted into the air 10'. They are two spellcasters aka mostly ranged. Other characters are not as ranged. They are taking damage and quickly hoisted another 10' in the air, taking more damage. Mercy is unable to breathe, so she fires Force Barrage into the vines holding her (no somatic component) and they release her but she falls 20' and takes more damage, although using Acrobatics she manages to minimize that falling damage. Iggy is hoisted higher in the tree so he's now at 50'. He sucks at using his dagger to cut loose and can't target the vines well, so he just starts to cast healing on himself to stay alive (he loses the first spell by missing his concentration check).

Before Mercy can get up, two more vines snake down -- one crits her, one crit fails. The DM decides this means just a single regular success, and she is hoisted 10' in the air -- and passes out because she's out of health. Note that she got to do nothing in this fight, she was just grabbed, hoisted and choked, blasts out momentarily, then before she can flee again she's just knocked unconscious and hoisted again.

Our summoner needles the vines on Mercy (because no one can reach Iggy right now) and sends his Eidolon under her to catch her as she falls, to avoid a catastrophe. The needles kill the jungle roper - like monster and it plummets to the ground, fortunately missing everyone. Mercy is caught but still unconscious; fortunately, she stabilizes.

Iggy is eventually 80' up in the tree, while trying to cut himself loose + heal himself as he can to stay alive. The summoner (a sprite) flies up in the tree in 15' increments to attack with more needles. Eventually the second jungle roper dies, and both it and Iggy plummet 80' to the ground. The DM decides to be nice and modify falling damage to avoid just killing the cleric outright. SOMEHOW he is still conscious. (Which I think is ridiculous in itself, he might have been fudging rolls. But the situation was also ridiculous.)

Mercy is still unconscious, so the summoner stays with her to heal her up a little with First Aid (which takes ten minutes) while the others go into the nearby one-room building to investigate... and are attacked by diseased swarms and a ghoul. Somehow in this battle the cleric actually does die (and the others all come close to going unconscious), but then we remember the Hero Point rule and he burns it to stay alive.

So now we just have another excess: Someone is likely to die each adventure (or until the GM figures out how to better balance encounters), so you have to use Hero Points to override the death. I'm not sure I like that either, and I really don't like wanting to explore a story and not really doing anything wrong, yet essentially being executed by the DM randomly. Because that is what it felt like. And I even spent some of my build points to improve Mercy's HPs, or I would have been dead sooner.

I really don't want to have combat in this game, yet we had THREE combats last night, and could have had a fourth. I have a few ideas for other characters, but then it just starts to feel like a video game and you are losing the sense of building something as a character and story.

 

[The Cat]

So after four sessions using PF2, I'm not quite sure how I feel about the system.

Newer system revisions have their own "thing" that stands out elegantly.

• D&D 5e has its advantage/disadvantage rolls that apply through all roll types and make dicing easie.
• PF2 has its three-action per turn economy, heavily simplifying the old PF1 system which was full of exclusions and more complex rules.

I'm still learning the intricacies of the system and there just aren't enough web pages or videos out there to describe the best synergies for less used classes. (one issue.)

The other issue is that I find PF2 insanely lethal, which to me is NOT fun because one reason I game is to develop a character through a storyline. It's like getting to meet and understand another person, watch them develop, see them go in directions I did not expect, and grow into whoever they are supposed to be as part of the unfolding story. I am okay with people dying, because that happens, but not on the level of PF2 where we lost the best equipped character on Session 2, almost lost more characters on Session 3, and on Session 4 almost lost two more characters (and did officially lose one, except then we saw in the rules that someone can burn a Hero Point to stop dying).

There was definitely a weakness in DND 5e and PF1 where you can have characters going down, then getting restored to a few points of health and running around like a maniac again in the same combat, going down again, etc., all without any real ill effect. PF2 seems to swing entirely in a different direction. If you go down, you REALLY want to stay down and just hope you make your stabilization rolls -- although this leaves you vulnerable to just getting coup de graced if the GM is a dick. If you get healed awake, then immediately drop again (because you would only have a few points of health), you drop right back into unconsciousness but you are even CLOSER to death because you still bore the Wounded condition. Your Wounded condition contributes to your Dying condition score, which places you closer to the time you'll just die.

Theoretically this is fine, but PF2 also has modified crit rules. Not sure if there's a value where a crit always occurs (a nat 20?) but if you get 10+ higher than you needed on a check or attack, that is a crit success. So now if the GM is not paying attention and pits you against things with an attack bonus that can more easily get that +10 success on you (with multiple attacks), you're likely going to go down a lot more. Or even if the GM just "gets lucky" on a few rolls in a row, it could kill you.

So last night we had this:

We walked under a tree. That's all we did. Suddenly Mercy and Iggy were grabbed by vines and strangled, hoisted into the air 10'. They are two spellcasters aka mostly ranged. Other characters are not as ranged. They are taking damage and quickly hoisted another 10' in the air, taking more damage. Mercy is unable to breathe, so she fires Force Barrage into the vines holding her (no somatic component) and they release her but she falls 20' and takes more damage, although using Acrobatics she manages to minimize that falling damage. Iggy is hoisted higher in the tree so he's now at 50'. He sucks at using his dagger to cut loose and can't target the vines well, so he just starts to cast healing on himself to stay alive (he loses the first spell by missing his concentration check).

Before Mercy can get up, two more vines snake down -- one crits her, one crit fails. The DM decides this means just a single regular success, and she is hoisted 10' in the air -- and passes out because she's out of health. Note that she got to do nothing in this fight, she was just grabbed, hoisted and choked, blasts out momentarily, then before she can flee again she's just knocked unconscious and hoisted again.

Our summoner needles the vines on Mercy (because no one can reach Iggy right now) and sends his Eidolon under her to catch her as she falls, to avoid a catastrophe. The needles kill the jungle roper - like monster and it plummets to the ground, fortunately missing everyone. Mercy is caught but still unconscious; fortunately, she stabilizes.

Iggy is eventually 80' up in the tree, while trying to cut himself loose + heal himself as he can to stay alive. The summoner (a sprite) flies up in the tree in 15' increments to attack with more needles. Eventually the second jungle roper dies, and both it and Iggy plummet 80' to the ground. The DM decides to be nice and modify falling damage to avoid just killing the cleric outright. SOMEHOW he is still conscious. (Which I think is ridiculous in itself, he might have been fudging rolls. But the situation was also ridiculous.)

Mercy is still unconscious, so the summoner stays with her to heal her up a little with First Aid (which takes ten minutes) while the others go into the nearby one-room building to investigate... and are attacked by diseased swarms and a ghoul. Somehow in this battle the cleric actually does die (and the others all come close to going unconscious), but then we remember the Hero Point rule and he burns it to stay alive.

So now we just have another excess: Someone is likely to die each adventure (or until the GM figures out how to better balance encounters), so you have to use Hero Points to override the death. I'm not sure I like that either, and I really don't like wanting to explore a story and not really doing anything wrong, yet essentially being executed by the DM randomly. Because that is what it felt like. And I even spent some of my build points to improve Mercy's HPs, or I would have been dead sooner.

I really don't want to have combat in this game, yet we had THREE combats last night, and could have had a fourth. I have a few ideas for other characters, but then it just starts to feel like a video game and you are losing the sense of building something as a character and story.

I dont enjoy combat much in rpgs, makes me feel like my character fucked up things really bad. But I keep ending up in groups with a bunch of terminal combat chasers. im not opposed to combat happening, but id rather it be a last resort than plans a-z

 

[Totenkindly]

I dont enjoy combat much in rpgs, makes me feel like my character fucked up things really bad. But I keep ending up in groups with a bunch of terminal combat chasers. im not opposed to combat happening, but id rather it be a last resort than plans a-z

I think the other games drop into combat easier (DND 5e and earlier, Pathfinder 1e, etc.) because there are less ill effects. I think if combat was deadlier, then players would avoid it. Currently I really would like to avoid it.

There's been a nice change overall in RPGs where players get credited with XP for 'dealing with the encounter' in some way, not just by murdering the opposition.

I had built Mercy as a society witch, so she has been geared for interaction (aside from her average CHA score) and could be very effective in social situations. But we've barely gotten any of that so far in the campaign. And now the last two session were spent on a tropical island as our group tries to find and retrieve fresh water to bring back to the ship so we don't get whipped by the masters. Everything we found tried to kill us. (Last week, it was giant toads and hooker ghouls; this week it was giant crabs, jungle ropers, and ghouls and swarms.) Nothing wanted to chat, social skills have no reason to exist at the moment.

I am seriously going to need additional alts created.

Right now, I have:
1. The monk who serves the god of destruction and is happy to watch the world burn (with some kind of half-genie heritage?) -- ripoff of Tyrian from RWBY.
2. An awakened Lemur who is a plant kineticist and who can summon trees repeatedly to protect the party -- this one is kind of my Rocket Racoon ripoff.

 

[The Cat]

I think the other games drop into combat easier (DND 5e and earlier, Pathfinder 1e, etc.) because there are less ill effects. I think if combat was deadlier, then players would avoid it. Currently I really would like to avoid it.

There's been a nice change overall in RPGs where players get credited with XP for 'dealing with the encounter' in some way, not just by murdering the opposition.

I had built Mercy as a society witch, so she has been geared for interaction (aside from her average CHA score) and could be very effective in social situations. But we've barely gotten any of that so far in the campaign. And now the last two session were spent on a tropical island as our group tries to find and retrieve fresh water to bring back to the ship so we don't get whipped by the masters. Everything we found tried to kill us. (Last week, it was giant toads and hooker ghouls; this week it was giant crabs, jungle ropers, and ghouls and swarms.) Nothing wanted to chat, social skills have no reason to exist at the moment.

One of my favorite things about old school essentials is straight up combat is discouraged without a sound strategy in place. The DM is encouraged to set up encountered with solutions to encounters that reward player cunning rather than player CHARGE WERE SAFE BECAUSE WERE HEROES.

 

[Totenkindly]

This was from last week's session and it is highlighting one of the funniest parts of this campaign so far: The cleric's attempts to fire a longbow, critically fail, and shoot Mercy instead -- who is taking it with huge indignation.

Azrok hops atop the nearest pylon and starts to hop across the river, while Mercy weaves luck around him to keep him from falling. He doesn’t need the help, with his superb balance, and skips across making it look like he’s on solid ground. After landing on the far side, he turns and bows in a flourish.

“This one is not as limber,” says Zeta, “but should still have the capability to cross.” She leaps from pylon to pylon and seems to be doing okay, even if not as carefree as the swashbuckler – but as she reaches the center of the river, to our horror we see a large unexpected ripple in the water. Suddenly a giant red tongue flashes out of the water and thwaps itself around the android.

There are cries of dismay around the group. Ignatius fires an arrow that goes wide, while shouting a warning. Simultaneously an arrow from Azroc on the far shore thunks into the emerging creature’s head, right next to the gaping mouth.

Elsin whips magical needles at it. “It’s a giant frog!” he squeaks.

“Activate assault mode,” intones Zeta. Some kind of aura springs up around her and suddenly she blasts the toad with electricity.

Preparing to hurl her own spells at the creature, Mercy doesn’t notice the ripples in the water right next to her. Suddenly another large toad splashes out of the water on top of her, lashes out with its tongue, and pulls her headfirst into its gullet so that only her kicking lower half is visible. Now inside the toad’s mouth, confused and smothered, Mercy just starts wildly unleashing needles into the toad’s innards.

Muttering something that might be a muffled curse, Ignatius backs up and shoots an arrow at the toad swallowing the witch. Feeling good about the first shot, he quickly fires another and this time gasps as the second missile plunks right into Mercy’s posterior, wringing a muffled scream from inside the toad.

Out in the middle of the river, Zeta is melee blasting the aggressor toad with electricity, which crackles all over its body and tongue. Trying to make up for his last mistake, Ignatius shoots a divine blast at Zeta’s toad -- and hits the android instead.

“Ever heard of aiming?” shouts Azroc, as he skips out easily onto the wooden stumps and runs the toad right through the head. It shakes, then collapses, releasing Zeta.

Elsin flings more needles across the water, peppering the toad gulping down Mercy, and this time kills it as well. “Yay me!’ he cries, watching the toad slump in the water… and then start to sink under the surface taking a kicking and screaming Mercy headfirst with it. “Bad me! HELP HER!”

If Ignatius’ bad shot did anything useful, at least it had woken the witch from the stupor of the toad’s stench – just in time to feel herself sinking under the surface as brackish water streams into the frog around her. “I WILL NOT DIE INSIDE A TOAD!” she screeches (although all anyone outside hears is a muffled shriek of fury), and then with a tremendous effort somehow squirms backwards out of the toad’s mouth, staggering onto the shoreline, covered in foul-smelling water and strings of toad saliva, looking positively miserable and pissed off.

Perched on a pylon in the river’s center, Azroc studies the water for more toads. Nothing appears. After a few seconds, Zeta continues leaping across and soon gets to the far side, followed by Azroc.

As Elsin summons his eidolon, Mercy cleans herself off with magic, an angry look on her face. When she’s done, she stalks to over the uncertain cleric and thrusts the arrow he shot her with back into his hands. “Out of all that, you managed to hit me?”

The others watch this exchange with interest on the far side.

“Is he going to say something about the size of the target?”

“He’d better not… but I kinda hope he does.”

They watch as the cleric’s mouth opens tantalizingly – and then he thinks better of it and just winces sheepishly as he puts the arrow back in his quiver. Tightening his boots, he starts hopping across the river on the pylons. Mercy watches him annoyed, then limbers up a little, takes a few deep breaths, and follows, concentrating hard. She kind of sways in the middle of the river, almost losing her balance, and then manages to hop the rest of the way across without falling back in.

Last night he fired at a giant crab front point blank range -- and it bounced off the shell and hit Mercy again.

He has also almost winged other party members. he very rarely has scored with an arrow but keeps firing them.

When he was unconscious and seemingly dead, the party almost took the bow and smashed it into little pieces due to the obvious "curse" it has in his hands.

 

[Totenkindly]

 

[The Cat]

View attachment 31146

preach sister.