D&D Campaign 2: D&D Harder

Exciting adventures IRL.
Post Reply
User avatar
Sly Boots
Bar Staff
Posts: 6277
Joined: Thu Aug 09, 2018 8:34 am
Location: Hampshire
Contact:

Re: D&D Campaign 2: D&D Harder

Post by Sly Boots » Thu Apr 07, 2022 12:52 pm

Mantis wrote:
Thu Apr 07, 2022 11:28 am
Still good for me.

The sidekick thing is pretty easy to manage. Go into your character and click the Extras tab on your sheet and then you can manage them. You can put mounts and familiars in too alongside the sidekicks. You just add whichever level sidekick you currently need and then update it as and when needed when they level with you.

Might be a good way of keeping track of Waffles abilities and health on the other campaign actually.
Not sure that works too well for me, the list I'm given is every creature in the monster manual, but doesn't seem to include basic classes (cleric, fighter etc). Am I doing it wrong?

User avatar
Raid
Local
Posts: 4820
Joined: Fri Aug 10, 2018 9:07 am
Location: Keep of the Lead Lord

Re: D&D Campaign 2: D&D Harder

Post by Raid » Thu Apr 07, 2022 12:57 pm

For the sidekick?

Image

Make sure "Filter using sidekick rules" is ticked on the next bit.

It works, but it's surprisingly limited for D&D Beyond in that it doesn't seem to offer any way of rolling the correct dice automatically. It's hardly the end of the world as these things aren't exactly complicated to roll for manually. I also can't work out why my warrior has the description "Dragon of Icespire Peak" that I can't find a way of changing. A'herr won't have the emotional capability of liking or disliking that title.

User avatar
Sly Boots
Bar Staff
Posts: 6277
Joined: Thu Aug 09, 2018 8:34 am
Location: Hampshire
Contact:

Re: D&D Campaign 2: D&D Harder

Post by Sly Boots » Thu Apr 07, 2022 1:01 pm

Lol, nevermind, I'm dumb. I was doing it on the character sheet for a character I made with the same name, but a different class and who wasn't uploaded to Wrath's new campaign :lol:

I can see all the right options now, and I've added a level 1 healer to my sheet :D

User avatar
Sly Boots
Bar Staff
Posts: 6277
Joined: Thu Aug 09, 2018 8:34 am
Location: Hampshire
Contact:

Re: D&D Campaign 2: D&D Harder

Post by Sly Boots » Thu Apr 07, 2022 1:43 pm

Apologies is this is slightly wordy, but I've finally fleshed out my character's backstory:

The legends speak of a bird that rises from the ashes of its own pyre; a glorious rebirth with radiant red and gold feathers reminiscent of the flames from which it sprung.

But while he too was reborn amidst fire and ash, Corvus Blackwing is no phoenix.

Charis Sunglider was a respected member of his village, on the Isle of Beasts. A gifted hunter, he was much admired for the vibrant blues and greens of his plumage as the food and pelts he provided.

Content in his work and surrounded by a loving family, he never gave much thought to the wider world… until the night they came.

By the time they knew they were under attack, the village was already lost. Charis awoke to the sound of the screams of his friends and neighbours, while the silhouettes of large, hulking shapes danced across his wall against the glow of the fires they’d set.

Grabbing his sword and bow, Charis launched himself into the defence of his village. Outside, the hulking shadows took form and revealed themselves to be rakshasas, demoic felines delighting in the chaos they sowed and sating themselves on the blood of the bird-folk.

Charis fought bravely, but was cut down by the demonic gang’s leader – ostensibly human, but the long fangs revealed in the grin he wore as Charis slumped to the ground showed him to be something far darker. Hungrier.

As he lay helplessly, his lifeblood mixing with the dirt, watching the foul beasts tear their way into his home, Charis entreated the heavens for aid.

And it seemed that his prayer was heard.

Without knowing how, or why, Charis felt himself become imbued with terrible power. Incredible as it seemed, the more the blood flowed, the more powerful he felt. He slowly climbed to his feet, grasping his sword, which now burned a deep red and seemed almost to throb along with the beating of his heart. As he did so, a single word rang out across his mind.

“Avenge.”

Later, Charis couldn’t recall how many of the beasts he slew, only that his armed felt guided by another power, one that gloried in the death he dealt that night. To his fury, the attackers fled before he could reap his full revenge, the vampiric leader among them.

It was only the next morning that he realised that his marvellous, colourful plumage, his pride, had changed forever to mirror his new, darker purpose. And so it was, wearing a new name, he set out for the mainland in search of his foe.

User avatar
Raid
Local
Posts: 4820
Joined: Fri Aug 10, 2018 9:07 am
Location: Keep of the Lead Lord

Re: D&D Campaign 2: D&D Harder

Post by Raid » Thu Apr 07, 2022 2:20 pm

I'm sure my occult cat will not face any issues with the bird whose friends were killed by demonic cats.

User avatar
Sly Boots
Bar Staff
Posts: 6277
Joined: Thu Aug 09, 2018 8:34 am
Location: Hampshire
Contact:

Re: D&D Campaign 2: D&D Harder

Post by Sly Boots » Thu Apr 07, 2022 2:28 pm

He hates undead too! :D :lol:

User avatar
Wrathbone
Local
Posts: 3631
Joined: Fri Aug 10, 2018 6:08 am

Re: D&D Campaign 2: D&D Harder

Post by Wrathbone » Thu Apr 07, 2022 5:17 pm

New campaign link in Roll20:

https://app.roll20.net/join/12666306/QYhIjA

User avatar
Wrathbone
Local
Posts: 3631
Joined: Fri Aug 10, 2018 6:08 am

Re: D&D Campaign 2: D&D Harder

Post by Wrathbone » Thu Apr 07, 2022 6:03 pm

Sorry, just restarting my PC - lost all audio.

User avatar
Sly Boots
Bar Staff
Posts: 6277
Joined: Thu Aug 09, 2018 8:34 am
Location: Hampshire
Contact:

Re: D&D Campaign 2: D&D Harder

Post by Sly Boots » Mon Apr 11, 2022 7:31 am

I finally saw the Critical Roll episode where Molly, their blood hunter, got splatted, and it's allayed my fears somewhat about the class.

It seems like his death was the convergence of a number of factors - namely a deadly encounter Matt Mercer later said he expected them to run away from (the rest only survived by doing just that after the death), extremely piss-poor rolls and some poor decisions taken due to inexperience and probably the high pressure of the situation.

The main bad decisions were the guest star, who was playing a fighter as opposed to most of the regulars' more squishy classes, choosing that moment to double-down on the RP element, awarding herself disadvantage and refusing to get into the fight due to apparent fear of their foe, leaving the others horribly outmatched, and Taliesen knocking himself out by rolling for his blood maledict ability when he was near death.

This latter confused me actually, as the on-screen display showed him having 14hp at that point, but that kind of damage would be impossible to roll (I believe at level 5 it would be a d4). So I wonder whether under pressure he thought it was 4hp, or perhaps the on-screen display was incorrect.

Then there was Mercer activating a cone of cold ability that knocked of 40+ of his hp, despite the fact there was a fully laden cart between the two of them. I feel like if that happened in our game I'd ask whether that cover mitigated some or even all of the damage from that spell. Again, possibly not thought through due to the pressure of the situation.

There's also the fact Taliesen was playing as a dual-wielding blood hunter, a path I nearly went down until I read more about the downsides of the class online. I also believe the class was somewhat reworked a couple of years after that (2020) so some of the issues Taliesen had may also not be present now.

All in all I'm hoping that by trying to stack as much AC and hp as I can I can have a bit of a better time than he did!

Can't wait :)

User avatar
Wrathbone
Local
Posts: 3631
Joined: Fri Aug 10, 2018 6:08 am

Re: D&D Campaign 2: D&D Harder

Post by Wrathbone » Mon Apr 11, 2022 7:47 am

It was, as you say, a variety of things that led to it happening, some of it bad luck and some of it... I don't want to say unfair rulings (e.g. the cone of cold thing), but certainly uncompromising rulings. And it clearly impacted Taliesin, as he fled the table to have a panic attack (which I believe he confirmed in Talks Machina afterwards), and the history of why he chose and developed Molly based on a friend of his who died in real life is quite startling and tragic in the context.

But I also think it'd be easy to overly criticize Mercer here. Bear in mind that he and Taliesin were close friends who played D&D together long before the home game that led to Critical Role. They know what table they're playing at and that sometimes things go badly wrong. And in the long term, it really is (for me at least) the moment where the campaign comes alive, and the way it informs and shapes everything that comes afterwards is something that would never have happened if Mercer had allowed cover from the cart and spared Molly. It was a really tough call, and while it's not the call I would have made I think it was totally on point for their campaign.

EDIT - Oh, and Ashley Burch's Keg is one of my favourite guest characters, not least because she's clearly mortified that her RP led to a main character death. :lol:

User avatar
Sly Boots
Bar Staff
Posts: 6277
Joined: Thu Aug 09, 2018 8:34 am
Location: Hampshire
Contact:

Re: D&D Campaign 2: D&D Harder

Post by Sly Boots » Mon Apr 11, 2022 7:57 am

Ha yeah, I'm on the live show now where she describes herself as "canonically a coward" :lol:

User avatar
Raid
Local
Posts: 4820
Joined: Fri Aug 10, 2018 9:07 am
Location: Keep of the Lead Lord

Re: D&D Campaign 2: D&D Harder

Post by Raid » Mon Apr 11, 2022 10:50 am

I respect Mercer for his rules fastidiousness, so long as that's the kind of game you know you're playing. I definitely prefer the slightly less rules-focussed tone our forum games take though, it just suits me better knowing I can try something ridiculous and have a fair chance of getting away with it. Johnny Chiodini is much the same with his games (from what I've seen anyway), I call it the "saturday morning cartoon" style, where things are more about having a laugh than sticking vehemently to rules.

I dread to think what Mercer would have made of me stuffing Burnsie down a beholder's throat. I guess he'd have it take three turns instead of one; one to cast Fly, one to move Burnsie into position, and then a grapple action to do the throat stuffing bit, during which time Burnsie would have been making saving throws and potentially taking damage from the Beholder. Instead I got to do probably the coolest, most stupid thing I ever did with Charr.

User avatar
Mantis
Landlord
Posts: 3474
Joined: Wed Aug 08, 2018 5:39 pm
Location: The Grid

Re: D&D Campaign 2: D&D Harder

Post by Mantis » Mon Apr 11, 2022 1:20 pm

It's a careful balance to maintain. By and large I lean more towards 'rule of cool' rulings because generally it just makes the game more fun if we're doing daft stuff rather than treating it like a super strict rules based board game. If your characters are built to have a specific skill in something then you want them to actually achieve things with their skills so that they have fun with their build choices. It's a bit of a downer if the Monk, who is incredibly athletic and at later levels can literally run up walls, can't scale the sheer, fairly smooth 70 foot high castle rampart with a couple of climbing anchors and a rope.

Though you can't go too crazy with it otherwise it is impossible to ever establish any kind of serious tone in the moments where you want to create a bit of drama for a change, and some DCs are by necessity raised significantly to prevent just powergaming through something.

For the most part, if the rules don't explicitly state that something doesn't work a particular way, then the creative flexibility with which you can exploit them is pretty much infinite.

User avatar
Raid
Local
Posts: 4820
Joined: Fri Aug 10, 2018 9:07 am
Location: Keep of the Lead Lord

Re: D&D Campaign 2: D&D Harder

Post by Raid » Mon Apr 11, 2022 2:07 pm

There's nothing more disappointing than when you think of something cool or entertaining to do, and then the GM shoots it down because it's not realistic. The only tabletop RPG I ever played prior to Wrath's first game was a bit like that; we were playing a swashbuckling setting (I forget the system), and as I had zero experience with the style of game I went into it expecting Pirates of the Caribbean, but it ended up being far more Napoleonic Wars. I couldn't slice down the sail with a dagger firing a pistol with the other hand, and I think it would have taken 6 combat rounds to reload said pistol. I think I ended up carrying 6 pistols because they just weren't sensible to use as your character's main weapon.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with rules as written, I just think it needs to be made clear to the players that it's how the game will be run.

User avatar
Sly Boots
Bar Staff
Posts: 6277
Joined: Thu Aug 09, 2018 8:34 am
Location: Hampshire
Contact:

Re: D&D Campaign 2: D&D Harder

Post by Sly Boots » Mon Jun 13, 2022 5:52 pm



If I were ever to DM I have no doubt I'd be a flumph :lol:

Just wondering what Wrath and Mantis think they are. Pretty sure WB is a mindflayer, but not sure about Mantis...

Post Reply