D&D Campaign 2: D&D Harder

[Wrathbone]

Maybe make it so that only a player using the Help action would have that effect, meaning they have to sacrifice their turn's main action to do it (whether that includes their bonus action too I'd leave up to the DM), and it still may not actually work?

I think that's a fair solution, using the main action. It's a tricky balance between maintaining player agency, not overly nerfing a powerful monster and giving resolution options that aren't a simple cheese.

And to think the one vampire you encountered in the last campaign was taken out on the first round by a bizarre series of events.

[Raid]

Yeah, I don't want to make the charm effect borderline useless by making it too easy to snap someone out of; a boss fight definitely needs some sort of peril, but also some chance for heroics.

[Sly Boots]

I mean the radiant damage thing was only to make them have to make a check, right? So it's not like it would be a guarantee...

[Raid]

Yes, but there's a good chance hitting the bad guy would be what you're doing anyway, meaning there's no opportunity cost for doing it (or minimal cost, I suppose it stops you attacking something else, but hitting the main boss is an obvious benefit). It's the same for Fauxpus using the help action; Fauxpus can act on his own with no order from Opus (unlike other minions where I have to use my bonus action to order them, and they all take the same action when I do that), so it's not disadvantaging me on my turn in any way.

[Mantis]

Making it so a player character has to use the Help action to snap someone out of it makes sense. I can't imagine that one of us would easily be snapped out of a charm trance if a skeleton was shaking/slapping us or Fauxpus was nibbling our knees. It feels like it would require someone with more of a connection to the player to actually break the charm.

I like all of those other rulings though. Seems like a good way to balance everything.

[Sly Boots]

I think if you're sacrificing an entire action, in order to help another player not lose an action, I think it needs to have a near-guarantee of working, otherwise I'm not sure the action economy of it makes any sense.

[Mantis]

Pros and cons. Is it worth you sacrificing your action in order to prevent one of your teammates using their actions to potentially do something which may harm the party? Seems like a good trade off to me.

Also requiring a full action to allow a save to break the charm when the rules as written don't allow for anything like that all apart from the vampire team damaging the charmed person seems like quite a fair price to counter what is supposed to be quite a strong ability.

[Sly Boots]

I mean, sure. I'm just not sure I see myself giving up two attacks to gamble on a maybe

[Wrathbone]

It's probably a moot point if Dharnon casts Sunrise on round 1 and immediately immolates everybody. Seft's going to be using his action to apply factor 500.

[Mantis]

[Raid]

I think if you're sacrificing an entire action, in order to help another player not lose an action, I think it needs to have a near-guarantee of working, otherwise I'm not sure the action economy of it makes any sense.

I disagree. I'm suggesting an emergency way of snapping someone out of what could be a disastrous charm effect (do you really want Opus hitting the entire party with a fireball, or say your using your 4 attacks on my character whose AC probably isn't high enough to stop any of them?), but only as an option for when the standard ways of ending that effect aren't available - and there *are* options that we could be searching for that would be better. The choice you'd be making is using maybe one action to stop potentially multiple turns of an ally attacking you.

The balance is making it a useable emergency option without nullifying the advantages of the traditional ways of ending the effect.

[Wrathbone]

I think that's a great point. The ideal way to deal with it is to try and mitigate the chances of charm working in the first place, whether it's averting your gaze, casting protection spells or other means. The Help action is more of a sanity response to the (frankly ludicrous) 24 hours charm with no possible save without the vampire and chums harming the target.

[Raid]

I should point out that this is something that'd possibly be better for me to do than anyone else, because I have multiple other effects (concentration spells, minions) that can be happening at the same time without needing to use my action, and I think I have the highest speed to get to the target without having to burn any spell slots (Feline Agility is basically free, I just can't use it a second time until I've stood still for a turn, and I can cast Misty Step as bonus action once per long rest without burning a spell slot). I'm basically arguing to give up my own turn here.

[Sly Boots]

Sold!

[Sly Boots]

I do think that it would be in character for Corvus though to basically get tunnel-vision whenever he's in combat with a vamp and just be laser-focused on doing as much damage to them (and himself lol) as possible!