D&D Campaign 2: D&D Harder

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Sly Boots
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Re: D&D Campaign 2: D&D Harder

Post by Sly Boots » Thu Nov 24, 2022 7:05 pm

Cool. Tbf this is more of a refresher/followup discussion from the previous session 0 we did...

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

Post by Mantis » Thu Nov 24, 2022 7:08 pm

I can probably run past half 8, closer to 9, most likely.

It'll be fine, she's used to being disappointed in me.

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

Post by Sly Boots » Thu Nov 24, 2022 7:13 pm

:lol:

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

Post by Bird » Thu Nov 24, 2022 8:19 pm

Farley hails from a small rural town in the Great Forest where he was never cut out for a life of drudgery and everyday toil. He has spent his early years focussing on creative pursuits and attempts to entertain the local Harengon populace, much to their annoyance. He soon learned that he was no mere musician, but a talented bard who could weave magic from sound and song.

One day, Sylvan spirits in the trees spoke to Farley, foretelling a prophecy that he would become the worlds most famous bard and chronicler of unbelievable tales.

When he returned to the village elder with this revelation, the elder unveiled a chest of weathered adventuring equipment from his youth - a brace of daggers, a small leather jerkin, travelling cloak and a distinctive feathered hat. He broke the news to the town that he was leaving for good, and was showered with gifts of supplies and equipment from his well-wishers.

As he took his first steps away from the town, he could hear a chorus of celebrations as the denizens of the town cheered him on in his quest.

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

Post by Wrathbone » Thu Nov 24, 2022 9:00 pm

Regarding the climbing speed question, the consensus on forums seems to be that it doesn't give you any extra climbing abilities (e.g. like Spider Climb), it just means you can climb faster on surfaces. Creatures without a specified climbing speed can climb at half their movement speed - e.g. a human with a speed of 30ft can climb 15ft in one round on a typical climbing surface, whereas a tabaxi has a speed of 30ft and can climb 20ft in one round.

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

Post by Raid » Thu Nov 24, 2022 9:24 pm

Fair enough. I wonder if I'd picked up on a house rule or something, but it seemed right considering that otherwise it's a racial feature that means Tabaxi can only climb very slightly better than humans despite them having claws to assist. I'm mostly just bitter because strength is my dump stat so despite being of a climbing species that lived in a forest, Opus will not have much luck with athletics checks. :lol:

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

Post by Wrathbone » Thu Nov 24, 2022 9:32 pm

I think if it's a surface where claws would clearly be a big advantage in climbing then I'd consider it a lower DC, certainly. And to be honest, I can't recall the last time climbing speed has been relevant in one of our games, if ever!

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

Post by Mantis » Thu Nov 24, 2022 9:34 pm

So can I assume that flying speed works the same way in that if a character doesn't have a specific one listed then we take half our standard movement speed as default.

Providing the direction of flight is directly downwards.

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

Post by Wrathbone » Thu Nov 24, 2022 9:43 pm

:lol:

Falling, with style.

EDIT - I’ve never had cause to give falling speed much thought, but apparently Xanathar’s Guide clarified that it’s 500ft per round. :shock:

Don’t fall, is my advice.

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

Post by Raid » Thu Nov 24, 2022 10:16 pm

Charr used falling speed to great effect in the siege of the Unmansionable when he cast Reverse Gravity and catapulted all of our foes into the air.

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

Post by Mantis » Thu Nov 24, 2022 10:28 pm

I think it's purposefully designed to be so significant per round so that for all intents and purposes you fall instantly. It introduces unnecessary and tedious gameplay complexities if you spread falling time over multiple rounds.

I'm not a fan of the suggested damage cap in the raw rules though. An enormous fall without any kind of magical assistance should still be fatal even for higher level characters in my opinion. It maintains a nice level of peril in certain environments where you're typically pretty damn untouchable anyway if you're above level 15.

Incidentally, removing the cap also allows for amazing moments like the Keyleth goldfish incident in the first Critical Role campaign.

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

Post by Wrathbone » Fri Nov 25, 2022 6:44 am

On the subject of mortal peril, I’m sure I know the answer to this but I’ll ask anyway: is anyone firmly against character deaths? I try not to run campaigns where every fight has a high risk of a party fatality, and even if there was then after a certain level there are ways of resuscitation, but I do intend to have occasional moments of acute danger. I ask because obviously having your character die might not be pleasant, but I know that some thought and effort has gone into them so if losing them is a hard pass then I can take that into account.

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

Post by Sly Boots » Fri Nov 25, 2022 7:03 am

Honestly I'm almost expecting Corvus to eventually go the way of Mollymauk :lol:

I think permadeath is a good way of keeping the stakes high. I might put some thought into a second character... :-k

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

Post by Raid » Fri Nov 25, 2022 7:19 am

I think mortal peril is a necessary part of making the game exciting, and I wouldn't want it to absent. There were fights towards the end of Dave's campaign that made me genuinely nervous (in a good way) because I wasn't convinced we were all going to make it.

I don't want my character to die, sure, I've put a lot of thought into him, but that needs to be the responsibility of myself and the rest of the party.

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

Post by Raid » Fri Nov 25, 2022 8:43 am

Something I forgot to bring up last night and one thing I sorta did but didn't elaborate on. Are we sticking with the same rules regarding spell components that we did in the other two campaigns? What about spell focuses, as they're used to remove the component cost (unless a component has a specified monetary value)? Charr had a focus in one hand for the entire campaign, and I didn't actually learn what they did until this morning. :lol: I thought they were what you needed to cast the spell through, sort of like a weapon that the spell emerges from.

And on Opus' tendency towards hero worship; I didn't discuss that with Dave before mentioning it last night and I think I sorta blurted some things out and I don't think I really made it clear what I meant. Opus is a child, he thinks all of this wizardry stuff is cool and he's almost incessantly curious. If he sees someone else casting spells he's going to want to know how they do it. I don't want Opus to copy Dharnon, but he might end up looking up to him in some respects. I think it might also be helpful to co-ordinate our learned spells so we're not stepping on each others toes too often (I know the playstyles are going to be very different, but we'll still have a lot of the same basic spellcasting options).

Ignoring the RP stuff, mechanically, can you copy spells out of another wizard's spellbook if you have the time and the gold cost to do so? I think Korvak did this in the last campaign but I just wanted to be sure. It doesn't remove the spell from the original source does it? I re-read the Colour of Magic recently, and spells in Discworld are entities rather than just words on a page, and I just wanted to make sure it's not the case in D&D.

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