I like the idea of the secret death saves being rolled by the PLAYER not the DM. So in an ideal world, I'd have some Death Save screens to give to a player who's dying. One side signals that they are dying, player rolls their death saves. DM takes note/ watches the roll behind the screen. If the player rolls three saves or is healed, the screen is lifted! If they die, the screen turns around to a 'dead' side.
I just got the Creature Case. Thanks so much, not just for the review and alts, but also concrete, " this works, this don't. " So....* any * further advice on not nicking /bending/damaging clings upon disc/ map board removal, and, since I haven't opened my case yet, could I cut out 1" like "pop tarts" box cardboard disc's, draw on em and put those on the plastic case discs? Waste of time? Thanks again guys!
session xp requires your sessions to be consistent in duration and quality i think is disingenuous to say that a character would not be able to tell if they ever did poorly when they are trying to do something, they could have previously experienced what its like to do well/poorly at the thing they are trying or even seen examples from others.
i theory crafted a ranger im bout to start running. going rouge then acrobat then swashbuckler dedications, with flurry, twin feint, trumble strikes using the pirana kiss knives.
I want D&D to be good. I really do but, yeah... what you missed was that the solo adventure and the 2-level starter adventure has a little of everything to introduce you to hazards, traps, monsters , etc. PF goes out of its way to actually teach you how to play and how to GM. This Beginner Box is my go-to gift for friends who haven't played yet. Most people assume that PF is "crunchier" or "math-ier" which, well... try it. Also, Pathfinder just works -- use the encounter builder and create a 5-Room dungeon. It's just embarrassing for D&D. Oh, and you forgot the adjective "Money Grab" - way to go Hasbro...
I personally hate critical tables because, as someone with notoriously bad rolls, it always feels like I'm just being punished for my dice. I did like you guys' idea of having the DM just come up with a few complications instead of actual penalties, though.
After listening to the milestone discussion, sadly (or maybe happily for me) I realised my DND has nothing in common with these guys and decided to stop watching. I did read a few comments and saw I was not alone re: milestone. As a hint, talk together as a group and don't be a DM autocrat :)
I play most of my 5e games with both gritty realism and slow healing, but some softcore versions of those. Personally, I like to do 6-8 hours for short rests, and 36-48 hours for a long rest. depending on the amount of damage the character has suffered, the healing could be 25,50 or 80% of their max hp. Honestly I believe both rules to be great, and I couldn’t play without them, but I enjoy a slower paced style of games, more akin to sword and sorcery, rather than high fantasy, so I understand it’s not something everyone would fancy.
My campaign has chapters, about helping or hurting dragons. As soon as a dragon is done, they level up. Everyone knows that. With xp we knew we were close so literally just wondered around the highlands triggering the random encounter tables to grind and it was not fun. As a DM. How do you give experience for finding a clue, solving a puzzle, picking a lock?
Many good points. The biggest problem I have with this game is that to my knowledge there are no rules for fights against single boss monsters - even wildcards are barely able to keep up with the heroes and need extras to present a challenge, but for a dragon that can challenge the whole party alone without extras you need house rules. And once in a while I WANT such a boss fight.
I have never played a TTRPG before and I will DM for people who never played one either. Since I only heard about dungeons and dragons so far I got the D&D beginners box and was severly disappointed when I opened it. Had to buy the rulebook just to give my players the opportunity to create their own characters. When I asked friends If anyone has ever run a D&D adventure and could recommend one (because I really dislike the adventure that comes with the box) one of them said they play Pathfinder. Wich got me looking into that and I am SO glad I did. The adventures seem much more creative and fleshed out, the world has a bigger history than D&Ds (even though it is obvious that the creators took more than just inspiration from D&D) you can get all of the basic rules for free and the system is much more intuitive for beginners. It just feels like wizards of the coast / Hasbro isn't putting in effort anymore now that D&D is a brand almost everyone knows. With Pathfinder I get the feeling that they really want their players to have fun. And although I love the creativity of some aspects in the world of D&D I feel like Pathfinder gives me many more tools to toy with so that I am confident I can run a great adventure no matter what my players end up enjoying.
1- I understand this was your first channel vid. It is about the 4th one of yours I watched. I feel that might have been too slow a start, especially for today's world where people are so short on time. I may be taking time to write this but that is because I genuinely want you to do better in the future. I can admit it was a funny way to start the channel with the old fashioned B/W "non-talky" style. Please be careful about ever doing it that way again. 2-While I can say passing a graph paper around the table can work, the 1 inch map grid is so much better, it lets everyone keep up with where everyone is in real time(if the players ate responsible enough to pay attention when it is not their turn). Try to get them sooner than later.
I want to emphasize getting a mat with hexagonal on one side and squares on the other. The square side is good for buildings. The hexagon side us great for outdoor battlefields with no buildings. The hexagon allow you to cut down on the math for moving diagnally.
Just a little crazy you rated "Session Leveling" over "Milestone Leveling". All I could think about leveling by session is that some sessions are extremely slow and nothing happens (Think shopping sessions), and players will still level.
milestones are great, leveling up happens organically with the story and the accomplishments in game, not just because you killed enough goblins or showed up to enough sessions.
TImestamps would have made this video a lot easier to skip around to the higher-rated House Rules if one is just interested in the Higher 2 or 3 Tiers.
i do death saves by having the player roll their death save and ONLY I am permitted to know if it was a success or a failure. Therefore no meta gaming by the other players. BUT because the player is rolling their own saves I take no blame upon that characters death because they rolled it themselves and could see what it was. This works well for me because we play online.
You guys are right about the milestone leveling, it depends on the DM. A good DM will adapt the milestone system if the players chose to go in a different direction than the campaign plot. Also in games that use minions, the sleep spell is S+.
Im familiar with the Pathfinder from the PC games. I never played the desktop version but WOW it looks impressive. Im too lazy to DM myself but I would be happy to join a Pathfinder group !
Leveling up for 'not playing' does feel weird as a Gamemaster. It is a team game, and not a skill-based one, so having people level at the same time is the most stable but I also think the lesser talked about flipside is how your table deals with risk in session. If a player can level up but keep their PC from dying by missing sessions, yet the few who always attend stand a higher risk of losing them but get no larger reward? It does feel a bit unfair. I largely make treasure the session-by-session reward, though its not a perfect solution.
I'm not a big fan of critical hit or fail tables. I can see where some groups may like the gonzo effects if they find combat boring. I think they hurt PCs too much. One of my D.s has a fumble that costs you your next attack /spell. If yiu have two attacks, you lose one as you recover. If you are a spellcaster, you are limited to a bonus action spell.
I would agree with a chunk of this. For me, Runara cannot be a super powerful polymorphing dragon, as that completely undermines player agency; and the players have to be there on a collective mission, as otherwise the party will lack cohesion. For me, Sharruth, the ancient dead red dragon buried beneath the lsland is in fact, a dracolich and the succesful completion of Sparkrender's ritual will mean he rises. He is very keen that this ritual is not interrupted, so he is killing the myconids, encouraging the harpy to sink the ships, and using zombies to kill the Dragons Rest folk. And he would have gotten away with it, too, except for those pesky players...
