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- Jun 4, 2018
Google 'The Trove'.
Then contact me if your rulebook erection lasts longer than four hours.
Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)
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Then contact me if your rulebook erection lasts longer than four hours.
- Joined
- May 30, 2018
Hard disagree about him being Prince from someone who played original CbN and the second one. Out if all of Lodin's kids they just happened to pick the Gang black dude. His stats are underwhelming and their note that his resources are his biggest assets instead of his stats are laughable in comparison to the others. The dude isn't even a contender for such a big city. The only way he became Prince is if some higher power propped him up to be their puppet - that it is.
Chicago by Night v5 is ultimately disappointing to me. Waste of money and time and it'll rot on my shelf. The Lasombra joining the Cams is ridiculous considering their stipulations to doing so.
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2019
Why do you want to kill your PC's? What's the point in that? You want to challenge them, engage them, make them sweat, encourage them to find new/creative ways to do things. I went from being a "KillerDM" to more of the "Rat BastardDM" where they PC's live but they are horribly scarred and walking wounded. I'm not saying let them cakewalk all over your game but killing a PC is easy/boring. Making the PC be remembered in story and by the player(s) is vastly more my speed these days. That's how PC's live forever.
Answer to your question:
The easiest way to kill a PC is Not Let Them Rest.
No sleep, no downtime, no abilities coming back. They will blow their load quickly and then have nothing left for the end boss.
A running gauntlet of low level mobs constantly peppering them to death is an awful to kill your PC's but it's doable.
I personally let them short rest and deny them long rest in certain situations. I also get rid of wandering monsters and that's a bitch to keep track of and boring as fuck. I reduce that down to a skill role where i say "You fought some BlahBlah's you rolled under X, subtract Y hp and a 1d4 spell level spell, moving along"
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- Joined
- Jul 12, 2014
Out of curiosity, who would you have picked for Prince?
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2017
I don't know about his picks, but my personal picks would be either Annabelle Triabell or Ballard, although I could also see someone like Balthazar as well.
The only way I can see someone like Kevin Jackson as the Prince is as the unwitting pawn of some ancient Elder like Helena, Critias, or Menele, since he's invested enough in the Camarilla system to be somewhat trustworthy (if we're going off of CbN 1e and not V5) but is also young enough to gain some semblance of respect and support from the Anarchs, and can be used as a "fall guy" for the other elders in the city in the event something really bad goes down again like it did during Under a Blood Red Moon.
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2017
Seconding this. Since 3E a lot of players take resting whenever they want for granted. I've had people throw fits when the goblins/orcs/hobgoblins tracking them refused to let them rest and instead kept hunting them. The biggest one was a group that thought they were clever for using "rope trick" and pulling the rope up behind them, the trackers found the tracks, the shaman came in and ordered the hobgoblins to build a bigass fire under where the footprints stopped. Apparently having a 15 Int NPC actually think was the hallmark of a "killer DM" or something.
Rest is something that gets taken for granted far too often.
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2019
THIS!
The Monsters Know What They’re Doing - Ready-to-Use Tactics for D&D 5E
Ready-to-Use Tactics for D&D 5E
themonstersknow.com
Your monsters are not stupid, they KNOW what they are doing. The above website/blog/book details tons of monsters and what their thoughts, ideas, plots, motivations are beyond the shit you read in the Monster Manual. Your monsters have survived this long to get to where they are not by being dumb buy by having survival and intellegence to know how to survive and flourish.
That site showed me what something so simple as a Fucking OOZES do in order to keep living day to day. We take that knowledge of human(oid) instinct for granted and say "Well it's just some orcs, they do +5 to hit and 1d8 damage with 15 AC." Fuck no they don't, they got where they are by being either bigger or smarter than their competition and have some base tactics besides "They swing their battleaxe to hit, oh they miss"
Giving your monsters battle tactics respective of their intelligence is a vastly overlooked trait.
I once had a pack of trained guard dogs flank the pc's and attack as a pack. You would have thought I made the goddamn dogs into Sun Tzu Clifford Edtion the way the PC's howled at my tactics. "Dogs wouldn't flank! They'd never do that! Why would they attack in front and back!?!?"
After combat I showed them a video of national geographic Hyenas in Africa and how they instinctively attack, feint, distract in a pack. Can't argue with Nature and training at bringing down foes bigger than themselves.
They still called Bullshit on me but everytime I threw in some canines they sure as hell took them out with a fireball first.
- Joined
- Jul 26, 2017
The other thing that can be done quiet easily is whenever someone goes down to 0 HP they gain a level of exhaustion upon being stabilized and getting back up.
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2014
So what is the other potential book you wanted to review? As for Kindred of the East, I have some good memories of that series despite the occasional annoying snobbishness. My favorite Dharma being the Devil Tigers and favorite Heretic Dharama being the Godlings.
EDIT: I'm almost done with the Toreador section of the 5th ed. of CbN and reading Rowan and Erzulie's entries made me see how LGBT+ characters can be done well or screwed up. Erzulie is a transgender Toreador woman who has a past that's not 100% connected to her identity, she's got plot hooks and schemes with story potential, and allies that are decently written. While Rowan is the "queer, non-binary transgender" Nosferatu who has no real schemes and goals other than hanging out with their burner friends, their past is only related to their labels, and has very basic connections with two other characters. Personally, I would've preferred Tammy back. (I felt sorry for her in CbN second edition.)
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DDBCAE CBAADCBE
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2019
You're thinking about this whole thing too hard. The easiest way to kill your PCs is to let them do what they were already planning to do and don't intervene.
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2019
Careful with that though, as it can easily cause a death spiral of exhaustion. I'd have them take a level of exhaustion at the end of any fight where they had been at 0 hp at any point. Then it doesn't spiral so fast but does get the point across.
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2015
Isn't that the point? To make getting killed actually mean something?
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2019
Your experience may differ from mine, but the times that I've seen people go down in fights and get revived mid-fight, they typically went down again and even a third time since the healing vastly underpaces the damage received. With the original suggestion (1 level of exhaustion each time you go to 0 hp) this would end up causing characters to end combat at 2 or 3 levels of exhaustion, which seriously incapacitates them and makes even traveling back to a safe haven treacherous. Maybe this is what you are going for; if so, then perfect, no changes necessary. I merely suggested capping the amount of exhaustion suffered to 1 level per fight, so as to prevent characters from being rendered utterly useless in combat. But I prefer more heroic fantasy versus gritty "realism", so my approach will differ from others.
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2018
Don't overdo it though. 'Tucker's Kobolds' is an infamous example -- a killer GM basically gave his kobolds ridiculous amounts of tactical skill and cleverness.THIS!
The Monsters Know What They’re Doing - Ready-to-Use Tactics for D&D 5E
Ready-to-Use Tactics for D&D 5E
Your monsters are not stupid, they KNOW what they are doing. The above website/blog/book details tons of monsters and what their thoughts, ideas, plots, motivations are beyond the shit you read in the Monster Manual. Your monsters have survived this long to get to where they are not by being dumb buy by having survival and intellegence to know how to survive and flourish.
That site showed me what something so simple as a Fucking OOZES do in order to keep living day to day. We take that knowledge of human(oid) instinct for granted and say "Well it's just some orcs, they do +5 to hit and 1d8 damage with 15 AC." Fuck no they don't, they got where they are by being either bigger or smarter than their competition and have some base tactics besides "They swing their battleaxe to hit, oh they miss"
Giving your monsters battle tactics respective of their intelligence is a vastly overlooked trait.
I once had a pack of trained guard dogs flank the pc's and attack as a pack. You would have thought I made the goddamn dogs into Sun Tzu Clifford Edtion the way the PC's howled at my tactics. "Dogs wouldn't flank! They'd never do that! Why would they attack in front and back!‽?"
After combat I showed them a video of national geographic Hyenas in Africa and how they instinctively attack, feint, distract in a pack. Can't argue with Nature and training at bringing down foes bigger than themselves.
They still called Bullshit on me but everytime I threw in some canines they sure as hell took them out with a fireball first.
While monstrous humanoids such as kobolds, orcs, etc should be able to puzzle things out even with an average (8-10) Intelligence score, advanced battle tactics could be a sign in-game that they're being led by a superior intelligence.
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2015
I seem to recall kobolds being really good with traps though, so maybe not completely outside the realm of possibility. Maybe Goblin Slayer would be another example? It is the monster's home that the PCs are invading, they should have some plan.
But yeah, smart and proactive monsters can fuck your PCs up. I'd rather have those than punching bags or monsters that behave like WoW mobs.
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2015
AA works better as a slasher group than a hunter group at this point. AKD is probably going to be pushed more towards being a Mummy cult or counter organization.
REGENDarySumanai
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kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2017
Always use monsters at their intelligence instead of them being braindead. As someone said before, using dumb monsters with strategy and tactics is basically saying that a higher power is at work. On another topic, I really want to try out Half-Orc Druid in 3.5, mainly because of substitution levels.
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2017
I probably have more than what the Trove has to offer for various RPG's. It's however a decent site for older content, but it doesn't have a lot of the older stuff and doesn't update very often. I tend to either go to volafile to check on files and to request books.
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2014
Sometimes you can't avoid it though, especially if you can only really have a session run for about 3 hours or so since even a single fight can take some time.
Still, yeah, it's true the real killer of a party is the supplies and stocks. Another thing that should be done, especially in dungeons or in inhospitable areas, is to ensure they have to manage food and drink, since until they get magic items to counter this, the Cleric can only supplement so much.