Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

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Okay, here's a discussion topic. Checking with your DM about progressing your character: what do you ask about ahead of time?

In our current game, we're level 5 now and hopefully soon to be leveling up again. At level 6, as a Lore bard, I get my first two Magical Secrets, so I could potentially do some interesting things by introducing some good spells to my repertoire. However, that got me to thinking about whether I should check first to see if there's anything that might be an issue. As an example, the DM banned races with innate flight because that would cheese the jungle exploration section, but having the fly spell probably wouldn't matter too much, especially at this stage.

After mulling it over, I came to the following conclusions:
  • If it's in the PHB, completely RAW, then you don't have to discuss anything. It's the foundation everyone's working from, so there shouldn't be any objections to it. The exception would be if the DM has already laid out restrictions from the start of the campaign, in which case you should stick to those. But once things are going, they can't decide to ban a spell they don't like.
  • If it's an optional rule, then it's not a bad idea to check first. This includes additions from Xanathar's/Tasha's, as well as races or spells added in any other sourcebook. Feats are technically optional despite pretty much everyone allowing their use, so I'd ask before taking a feat the first time. After that, I'd say just go for it and not worry about asking again at later levels.
  • If it's homebrew, then definitely ask first. Pulling some random shit you found online and saying it's totally legit bro without running it by the DM is just begging for them to off your character.
So under those rules, I'm just not going to ask and surprise him with something interesting later. He already let me take Silvery Barbs at level 1 (the fool), so all spells are presumably on the table now, and this is a class feature from the PHB. Assuming we make it to level 10 though, I'm gonna cackle hysterically when I summon a pegasus for the first time and fly outta Chult in style.
 
King Dead said:
Okay, here's a discussion topic. Checking with your DM about progressing your character: what do you ask about ahead of time?
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Usually I'm DM so I'm on the other side.
But usually what I ask is "what's in/what's out" but usually I just stick to a system's core book because I'm not a munchkin. What I also do is send my character sheet to the DM, or at least give him a delta, to review and approve.

And that's how I run my games. I'll give a list of what's in, what's out, and what you need to check with me before you bring it in. Cause if you want to cast spells from the Astral Plane, you're going to run into enemies from the Abyssal.
But I still maintain vetopower.
Homebrew EXPRESSLY forbidden (the DM is the only one who gets to brew), and my usual rule is "No Zine shit, if it didn't come out in a hardback release its probably not kosher".
Even then, I want to know what's on your sheet, mainly so I can start napkining combat and make sure stuff will be close enough to be fun. And if you sneak something past me on the sheet, I'll probably let it go - just remember that revenge from a guy who literally runs the world can be a bitch.

I had one time someone wanted to break a jungle exploration one shot with Fly - I explained to them that the island was a prison, there was a mechanism powered by a imprisoned fire spirit that would attack anything magical that was in the several mile range it classed as "escaping" or "illegally entering". And that meant if he ended his turn more than 5 feet off the ground, he was going to take a fireball spell to the face. And everyone was cool with that (until he forgot, kept hovering at 30ft becuase they found a giant snake with 30ft reach, and took a fireball to the face. But that's another story), it still let him evade a fair number of traps & hazards without breaking the game. He still had to stay on paths, because the foliage was greater than 5-feet tall (fireballed if he ended up over the jungle) and I ruled that it was too dense for him to see through from above, so he needed to scout with the rest of the party.

Sayer of the N-Word said:
I have never seen the word "freakshit" before.
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Neither had I until I saw it mentioned in this thread like a year ago.
And yet despite having never seen it before, we both knew exactly what it meant.
 
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King Dead said:
Okay, here's a discussion topic. Checking with your DM about progressing your character: what do you ask about ahead of time?
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In my experience, any worthwhile DM will lay out what he does and does not accept a head of time, when the adventure or campaign starts, so there's no need to constantly ask what is or isn't accepted.

I tended to have permissive DMs/GMs in college, so very little wasn't accepted, outside homebrew. Their opinion on that depended on the DM/GM in question and the homebrew in particular, but I never really tried to run homebrew, so it was never a problem. My last major campaign, me and another guy were both running Crusaders straight out of Tome of Battle. But it helps that nobody tried to break the game.
 
Gameplay question for folks:
background, I've noticed that my players roll a lot of nat 20's on things that don't really matter. This is focused on systems by Wokeshit of the Coast the world's most popular roleplaying game.

I've been batting around the idea of letting players "bank a 20" when they get a critical success that doesn't matter, so they can instead save it for a critical moment.

The rules of this are:
If you roll a Natural 20 you can bank it.
- You can only have one banked Natural 20.
- When you bank your 20, you turn your critical success roll into an immediate Nat 1 critical failure, and you need to suffer the consequences.
- Banked 20's expire at the end of the next long rest (don't just hoard your precious, actually use the fucker)
- Luck God/ess needs to feel better than neutral about you to do this.

What do folks think?
 
Ghostse said:
Gameplay question for folks:
background, I've noticed that my players roll a lot of nat 20's on things that don't really matter. This is focused on systems by Wokeshit of the Coast the world's most popular roleplaying game.

I've been batting around the idea of letting players "bank a 20" when they get a critical success that doesn't matter, so they can instead save it for a critical moment.

The rules of this are:
If you roll a Natural 20 you can bank it.
- You can only have one banked Natural 20.
- When you bank your 20, you turn your critical success roll into an immediate Nat 1 critical failure, and you need to suffer the consequences.
- Banked 20's expire at the end of the next long rest (don't just hoard your precious, actually use the fucker)
- Luck God/ess needs to feel better than neutral about you to do this.

What do folks think?
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Works fine and dandy for more storytelling games where you don't want a random awesome roll to go to waste on something minor.

If you wanted to heavily simplify and weaken it just go with saying that when they roll a nat 20 and it doesn't matter (skill rolls etc.) they can bank being able to treat a natural 1 as a 1, not an auto failure. It's less meaningful since in most scenarios it doesn't matter but when your high levelled barbarian decides to backhand a goblin to death and nat 1s the attack roll on a target AC they can hit even on a 0 on the dice being able to ignore that is handy. Unless the table is in favour of failure being funnier.

I'd also be tempted to let it apply to nat 20s on attack rolls on things you can't crit since those are often moments of misery.
 
King Dead said:
Okay, here's a discussion topic. Checking with your DM about progressing your character: what do you ask about ahead of time?
Click to expand...
I think a lot of it depends on the DM. If it's someone newer to the game you're playing it's best to just be chill and ask questions, if it's someone you've gamed with a really long time you'll know the boundaries already. If someone from the thread were to run a game I would probably just stick to the core rules and try not to be any trouble.

On the other hand if it's a good friend that I've gamed with for a decade and they're running Pathfinder and are currently playing in MY game then I will be a power gaming little shit and try to get away with whatever nonsense I can because that's what they deserve. Unless they actually want me to you know, not. But we wouldn't be playing Pathfinder in the first place if that was the case.

Point is just ask if stuff out of the CRB is all right to use, double check your math if you're not sure on something.

Also don't feel bad for my friends. They're all playing elves.
 
Huh.
Ghostse said:
I had one time someone wanted to break a jungle exploration one shot with Fly - I explained to them that the island was a prison, there was a mechanism powered by a imprisoned fire spirit that would attack anything magical that was in the several mile range it classed as "escaping" or "illegally entering". And that meant if he ended his turn more than 5 feet off the ground, he was going to take a fireball spell to the face. And everyone was cool with that (until he forgot, kept hovering at 30ft becuase they found a giant snake with 30ft reach, and took a fireball to the face. But that's another story), it still let him evade a fair number of traps & hazards without breaking the game.
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Huh. That sounds like fun. Did any party members try to, e.g., seal a bunch of tied-up rats tied to rocks, hurl them like grenades, and then have the party mage cast Feather Fall on the rats to weaponize the aura?

Or would you need to be a little cleverer, and use summoned monsters or the like?
 
Ghostse said:
Gameplay question for folks:
background, I've noticed that my players roll a lot of nat 20's on things that don't really matter. This is focused on systems by Wokeshit of the Coast the world's most popular roleplaying game.

I've been batting around the idea of letting players "bank a 20" when they get a critical success that doesn't matter, so they can instead save it for a critical moment.

The rules of this are:
If you roll a Natural 20 you can bank it.
- You can only have one banked Natural 20.
- When you bank your 20, you turn your critical success roll into an immediate Nat 1 critical failure, and you need to suffer the consequences.
- Banked 20's expire at the end of the next long rest (don't just hoard your precious, actually use the fucker)
- Luck God/ess needs to feel better than neutral about you to do this.

What do folks think?
Click to expand...
You might be reinventing the wheel a bit. It's a lot simpler to just give player characters Inspiration when they roll a 20 on a skill check, or kill an enemy with a nat 20 crit. Long story short, the PC succeeds in such spectacular fashion they are emboldened their success.

This helps make even "wasted" 20s feel good and it gives players a reason to fucking use their Inspirations. Since they don't stack, you'll want to clear Inspiration quickly if you have a way to earn it back on any potential d20 roll. Most players are so afraid of wasting something they'll never know when they'll get back they'll basically forget Inspiration exist unless they're completely fucked already.
 
I've only asked to do homebrew once thus far, but it was very minor. I found an improved version of the dragonborn race, with different stat allocations and minor benefits depending on which ancestry you chose. I asked if I could use that instead of the PHB version, and the DM said it was fine, which is how I became a silver dragonborn wizard (INT boost, History proficiency). I don't think we were even aware of the Fizban's variants at the time, and I've been using those since then.
Corn Flakes said:
You might be reinventing the wheel a bit. It's a lot simpler to just give player characters Inspiration when they roll a 20 on a skill check, or kill an enemy with a nat 20 crit. Long story short, the PC succeeds in such spectacular fashion they are emboldened their success.

This helps make even "wasted" 20s feel good and it gives players a reason to fucking use their Inspirations. Since they don't stack, you'll want to clear Inspiration quickly if you have a way to earn it back on any potential d20 roll. Most players are so afraid of wasting something they'll never know when they'll get back they'll basically forget Inspiration exist unless they're completely fucked already.
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If I remember correctly, that's exactly what the One D&D playtest rules added: get a nat 20, get inspired. Although Inspiration doesn't mean you bank the 20 for later, you just get advantage when you decide to use it. DMs can still choose to give it out when appropriate, it doesn't just come from nat 20s.

Inspiration is one of those weird things that players and DMs both tend to ignore and forget about, even though there's a box at the top of everyone's character sheet that you've probably looked at time and time again. I think the nat 20 Inspiration rule is a simpler and stronger version than "sacrifice your great luck now for the potential to use it by the end of the day," especially if your players aren't able to come up with a good use for it before they lose it. And because you can't have more than one Inspiration at a time anyway, it'll encourage its use while not feeling overly punishing if they can't spend it right away.
 
Morethanabitfoolish said:
If you wanted to heavily simplify and weaken it just go with saying that when they roll a nat 20 and it doesn't matter (skill rolls etc.) they can bank being able to treat a natural 1 as a 1, not an auto failure. It's less meaningful since in most scenarios it doesn't matter but when your high levelled barbarian decides to backhand a goblin to death and nat 1s the attack roll on a target AC they can hit even on a 0 on the dice being able to ignore that is handy. Unless the table is in favour of failure being funnier.
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For Nat 1s in combat, I have the player roll another D20; 10-20, nothing happens just normal failure conditions for 1. 1-9, fumble.
In skills, Nat 1/20 isn't an autosuccess. Its just another number.

I guess I should also clarify: in my games Nat 20 is an automatic hit but not auto-crit; but they have to roll the attack again (with any bonuses/penalties) to see if it crits for all the extra damage.
(so all the weapons have crit dice that fire off even if you fail to confirm the crit)

Corn Flakes said:
You might be reinventing the wheel a bit. It's a lot simpler to just give player characters Inspiration when they roll a 20 on a skill check, or kill an enemy with a nat 20 crit. Long story short, the PC succeeds in such spectacular fashion they are emboldened their success.

This helps make even "wasted" 20s feel good and it gives players a reason to fucking use their Inspirations. Since they don't stack, you'll want to clear Inspiration quickly if you have a way to earn it back on any potential d20 roll. Most players are so afraid of wasting something they'll never know when they'll get back they'll basically forget Inspiration exist unless they're completely fucked already.
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ITs not 5e, its a different version of the worlds most popular roleplaying game. I could bolt it on, but I'm looking for something to let the avandra-worshipping party feel like the goddess of luck is really on their side and it would seem that sliding around Failures and Successes is the sort of shit a goddess of luck should be able to pull off.

Its also because there's some shit the party has that doesn't cook off unless they roll a Nat 20, so I think it'd make combat more interesting if they can actually use their powers.

If I was going full balance I'd add some conditions so you can't just reach into your backpocket for a Nat 20 (because we all know it'll only be for smacking something in the face) but the activation conditions are so niche I'm ok giving the players an advantage.
 
Pendulous Dong said:
What's your favorite encumbrance system in a TTRPG? Most systems seem to gravitate towards either "autistically track every pound of shit you're carrying" or "lol make it up."

I'm really looking for something where the size of an object factors into how encumbering it is rather than just how heavy it is.
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Not a game I've got to the table, but I love Knave's slot based inventory system. You have 10 slots + con bonus. Each item uses a slot, and things like coins or other small items can fix X to a slot unless you have a bag to carry it. The genius of it is that spellbooks and armour take up slots. So fighters would come loaded down with weapons and armour, wizards with spell books, and clerics with holy symbols.

For Savage Worlds, I used a simple system I call "Ask 'How are you going to carry that?'". For linear games, this works fine and stops players from trying to loot every library or carry around step ladders. Min maxers started wearing a lot of leather jackets (for armour without looking out of place in public) and trench coats (for carrying guns in public), but I think that fits the paranoid paranormal investigator aesthetic so I let them do it.
 
Can't quote the posts but I find odd to ban flying races as not to ruin jungle exploration, jungles can have a pretty dense canopy so flying won't be of much help most if the time, ok cool you can see a clearing north of where you are but can you carry the rest of the party with you?
 
BlazikenLover said:
Can't quote the posts but I find odd to ban flying races as not to ruin jungle exploration, jungles can have a pretty dense canopy so flying won't be of much help most if the time, ok cool you can see a clearing north of where you are but can you carry the rest of the party with you?
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I'd let them make a flying character and then the first time they flew above the trees they get swooped up by a giant eagle, carted away, eaten, and then their remains vomited up for the chicks. Roll new character.
 
Just go with 'coconuts fall, everyone dies' or send a ludicrously overpowered dinosaur after them ala Island of the Ape. Gary Gygax knew how to make players cry.
 
I might be watching the PathFinder 2 game I'm DMing end in a matter of minutes due to drama.

Details changed to make me look cooler than I am for brevity, clarity, and anonymity.

One of the players was a bit of a whiner. Every bad roll, questionable decision, or rules mistake had him complaining how he was a bad player, a burden to the group, and how he should just quit. (I don't know if this has a name. I've heard suicide baiting, self pity, or roleplay terrorist, but those don't seem to fit.)
Other than that, he was the star player, getting into the game, a great knowledge of the rules, and even doing homework almost immediately.

During his most recent complaining spree on Discord between sessions, when he said he should just leave, I replied with "do it faggot". ... Actually I was more polite than that, but the sentiment was the same. I was sick of this behavior and was in no mood to entertain his bullshit again. I'm not going to put up with someone threatening to leave or throwing a pity party every time some minor thing doesn't go their way.

So after a bit of tard rage, he quit the game, blocked me on Discord, and now the group is at risk of fracturing since we don't have a full party.


This is not the first time I've seen this behavior either. I've been of the opinion they either knock it off or leave since I'm not going to change the rules for them, and other players don't want to be around people like that.


Ghostse said:
I've been batting around the idea of letting players "bank a 20" when they get a critical success that doesn't matter, so they can instead save it for a critical moment.
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Somehow I missed this page of posts. But my solution is kind of like Corn Flakes. A reroll token is good enough.
If you don't want that, give them a d8 or similar they can use to add to any roll.
A third option is a token that can be spent in a number of rule breaking ways. To take another turn, to regain a spell slot, to do an extra attack, or to instantly succeed any check before rolling. Whatever fits that you think is appropriate.

If you don't want them to have pockets of d20s, tell them that the banked token goes away at the end of the session, or even the end of the next combat.
 
Judge Dredd said:
So after a bit of tard rage, he quit the game, blocked me on Discord, and now the group is at risk of fracturing since we don't have a full party.

This is not the first time I've seen this behavior either. I've been of the opinion they either knock it off or leave since I'm not going to change the rules for them, and other players don't want to be around people like that.
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why? you can play pf2 just fine without a full party (of course that's the same for every system, pf2 just makes it very easy to adjust on the fly so it's not a major annoyance).
just keep playing till you find someone else and bumb the numbers back up, or don't and just play it out.

agree with kicking people out, but then I'm just the GM and can only assume how the rest of the group thinks until they open their fucking mouths (which most of them only do when asked). so even if it annoys me, if they're fine with it I just roll with it - but let them know they get no special snowflake status and get treated like everyone else, whining about shit like a child won't change that. if they don't quit and the group disbands because some social connections come into play (it was someone's GF or mate) often enough it stops quite soon after.
point is there's a reason they behave a certain way, even if they're not aware of it themselves, and if nothing happens nothing will change.
 
Judge Dredd said:
I replied with "do it faggot".
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You did the right thing. If an adult is acting like that you don't want to associate with them anyway. Small groups are a lot of fun to play with anyway. A two or three person party just means that those characters get more involved. You could also just hand them a weaker NPC goon to follow them around.

As an aside one of my all time favorite NPCs was our coachman in a game years ago. We hired a coach to go to some town and got attacked by a hippogriff, supposed to be an easy little side encounter. Thing started with murdering the coachman next to his teenage son who was learning the ropes before turning on the party. The subsequent combat was a disaster, the thing rolled 20s (in front of us) for every save and most of it's attacks. We couldn't roll anything above a 5. Finally, after half the party was bleeding to death we had the thing on the ropes and the coachman's son finished the fucker off with his crossbow.

From then on he was the party's bro. We bought him equipment, guided which skills his NPC classes would take and he got a sweet hippogriff tattoo at one point. Ended up as a 4th level expert 1st level warrior by the end of the game. Good old Paul.
 
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