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

[Capsaicin Addict]

Are the PCs getting too powerful and arrogant? Whip out Tomb of Horrors and see just how tough they really are.

That's not the problem. The problem is a baked-in issue of how much fights drag on in 5E because of poor mechanics.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Now for something a little different.

In the UK, an official DnD magazine appeared. Dungeons and Dragons Adventurer Magazine. I've seen nothing about this in the RPG communities I hang out in, and if it was posted here I missed it. Sorry.

I decided to buy the first issue due to being cheap, and will give it a few issues to see how it is. I've not read it cover to cover (the reason will become apparent) but I've skimmed it and wanted to share my thoughts and opinions.

Important note. I have the Beginner Box, but never opened it due to various reasons.

Spoiler: The review

Ads? : 3/10
Initial impressions are the magazine is thicker than I expected, but on opening it the actually magazine is somewhat slim. About a quarter of the initial thinkness is various ads for the magazine I just bought. Very strange. The ads themselves point out what's in the magazine and future issues. Each issue comes with some kind of toy. Most of the time it's dice of various colours. Some are figurines that seem to be standees similar to PathFinder 2 Pawn Sets. Maps are mentioned but not shown.

There are also ads for official accessories that are consoomer shit. Overpriced DnD binders and DM screens are dumb but understandable. An overpriced "dice cage" for when your d20s have rolled too many nat-1s make me feel disgusted.

The actual magazine is fine, mostly covering the basic rules. How much of this is reprints and how much is new I don't know.


Art and handouts : 9/10
One thing I love is the huge amount of art. Again, I don't know how much is new or recycled, but it's all good.

The "magazine" is hole punched and glue bound, intended to be put in binders. But I can also see this working great as hand outs. My favourite page showed the starting kits complete with art of what's inside each. This is much better than some text saying "dungoneers kit (pgXXX)" and I can see these being a good hand out if I ever play a fresh campaign of 5e in person.

Other parts include a small booklet that lies flat explaining the combat rules. Again, I can see this being a handy prop when playing with new people or as a simple rules reminder.

There are also some pre-gen characters. Nice I guess, but blank sheets are available online. Maybe if I need level 1 adventurers for a one shot or as NPCs I can use them. The pre-gens include a human rogue, an elf fighter, and cringe a black female dwarf. I assume these are based on the movie, but I've not seen it.

If you're spending the £2 for this issue, it should be for the dice and these handouts.


Content : ?/10
Like I said, the bulk of the magazine is basically the rules. Simple character creation, combat, etc. There's not much of use as an experienced DM until a few issues in.

Then there's the adventure, or as it calls it, the encounter. This is the main bit of interest to me, and I've not read it yet. The gist seems to be the PCs are tasked with clearing cranium rats out of a building. An unusual choice for a first level aimed at beginners, but it's better than doing goblins and kobolds again. It's a few pages and comes with the monster stat block on it's own page.

It also comes with a single page gazetteer of the region, the mining town of Phandalin which I'm fairly sure is from the beginner box.

I've not read the adventure in detail, but it seems to be new. I can give details if there's interest.

 

[AnOminous]

That's not the problem. The problem is a baked-in issue of how much fights drag on in 5E because of poor mechanics.

Oh. Well. 5E ruined everything.

 

[Ghostse]

Are the PCs getting too powerful and arrogant? Whip out Tomb of Horrors and see just how tough they really are.

Modern tomb of horrors is all about getting Acerak to accept trans* indentities and to stop oppressing the black and brown bodies of the jungle area with the Death Curse though.

 

[Shidoen]

Dumbasses say orcs are like blacks people so I write my home brew orcs where they specifically hunt for dark meat and steal reparations from the half-lings. Checkmate Coastcucks.

 

[derpherp2]

Oh. Well. 5E ruined everything.

I like the part where WoTC nerfed all of magic just so they wouldn't have to use spell resistances and caster levels.



But then added legendary resistances and caster levels.
Totally don't miss Time Stop + Delayed fireball, or infinigger spell combo, or black hole.

Wait actually it's #based

Ver archivo adjunto 5341145

They're acting like 90's TTS games are a deragotory term is hillarious to me.

 

[ZMOT]

Wait actually it's #based

Ver archivo adjunto 5341145

"unfortunate racial attitudes in the descriptions of how the playable species see themselves"
do the black characters call each other nigger?

In the UK, there is an official DnD magazine appeared.

and just yesterday /tg/ had a thread how a dragon or dungeon magazine wouldn't be feasible today anymore

 

[AnOminous]

Modern tomb of horrors is all about getting Acerak to accept trans* indentities and to stop oppressing the black and brown bodies of the jungle area with the Death Curse though.

That's why given any possible opportunity you always bring back the Gygax version.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

I think we're getting Tomb of Horrors mixed up with Tomb of Annihilation here.

But yeah, most D&D games have problems with high level play, but 5E stands out. Which is a shame too; I like the advantage/disadvantage system for fast and dirty rulings.

The state of the ranger class alone should make any 5E fan hang their head in shame.

 

[Ghostse]

This is a pretty interesting new rpg that i've found. It's a mesoamerican OSR game, from what i've read of the pre release it's actually pretty well researched and historically accurate. At best it looks like it could be a lot like an Aztec version of Kevin Crawford's Wolves of God.
https://www.kickstarter.com/project...uitl-whitebox-roleplaying-in-the-aztec-empire

Since no one knows about this guy, checked back in on the KS, he's posted some FAQs.

Confirmed if you are a warrior PC the game expects you're participating in human sacrifice, and book will be over 170 pages, which seems sort of short to cover the setting/background/context plus Game Rules/Treasure/Monsters. It is also expected that female PCs won't be warriors but "you can do what you want with book once you have it" but still advises "don't project modern sensibilities on an ancient people" - which is pretty much the exact sort of answer that you should give.

So I'm probably in.

 

[AnOminous]

I think we're getting Tomb of Horrors mixed up with Tomb of Annihilation here.

Whenever I reference Tomb of Horrors it's the original module S1. Specifically this: https://archive.org/details/tsr09022bs1tombofhorrorsgreencover

I think it would kill most modern players, possibly literally irl too, from the trauma of an actual challenge.

 

[King Dead]

Whenever I reference Tomb of Horrors it's the original module S1. Specifically this: https://archive.org/details/tsr09022bs1tombofhorrorsgreencover

I think it would kill most modern players, possibly literally irl too, from the trauma of an actual challenge.

Tomb of Horrors did get an official 5e port in Tales from the Yawning Portal (a collection of dungeon crawls, some new and some ports of famous dungeons from previous editions), and I still intend on running that with my group just to see how quickly they all kill themselves. Maybe I'll run that if and when we finish Tomb of Annihilation as a one-shot to give my DM a break...or so he thinks.

Honestly, I would be legitimately surprised if any of them actually manage to get to the end, let alone survive. I'm already positive that one of them is going to stick their head in one of those devil faces and get decapitated.

 

[AnOminous]

Honestly, I would be legitimately surprised if any of them actually manage to get to the end, let alone survive. I'm already positive that one of them is going to stick their head in one of those devil faces and get decapitated.

I ran that thing I think three times and two times were TPKs. The one where they won was a sole survivor.

 

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

I love that they think that "China Doll" refers to pollution goblin Chinese.

Not dolls made out the material known as china.

You now a combination of clay, kaolin, feldspar, and quartz, a high quality porcelain first made in China, which it is named after.

Fucking tards, man.

 

[Shidoen]

Any advice on how to make an overpowered character as the bbeg but the player characters get their shit beat in the final battle but win through the power of friendship or god?

 

[Judge Dredd]

just yesterday /tg/ had a thread how a dragon or dungeon magazine wouldn't be feasible today anymore

I only know those magazines by reputation.

I know the general consensus is that printed media is dead, but I'm not so sure. My uncle reads geek magazines and comic books, my parents enjoy puzzle books, and my local newsagent still has a shelf of magazines ranging from kids stuff (a lot of lego magazines), gossip, and hobbies (gardening, cycling, and of course this DnD magazine).

On further reading, I'm not sure Dragon magazine is the niche this is going to fill. The main book is 28 pages with 8 of that being dedicated to the adventure, the rest being basic rules stuff. If they keep this format, it could be years of magazines until they reprint the entire PHB and DMG, and that's before you get to supplementary material like the Ghost of Saltmarsh boat rules. If that's the road they go down then I'm out. Even if they stick with just the basics that's still a few issues of content.

I think going for the beginner rout might be a mistake, and it might have better as an enthusiast magazine, but I don't know.


I did read the adventure thoroughly. It's interesting. There's a grave under the inn with a magic sword. A illathid creates some cranium rats to go in and get it. The game starts when the PCs go into the inn and find the place trashed. They fight a bunch of rat swarms before either heading upstairs and finding a cranium rat king interrogating people, or downstairs and finding rats digging in the basement. Once the cranium rats are defeated, the owner lets the PCs have the magic sword and the adventure ends.

It's not bad as far as a simple adventure goes.

Any advice on how to make an overpowered character as the bbeg but the player characters get their shit beat in the final battle but win through the power of friendship or god?

Sods law predicts players will score lucky crits, hit him with conditions, or worse.

So my advice would be abilities. Give him immunity to mundane damage, insane health regeneration, or something that can only be defeated with friendship. If you're playing 5e, legendary resistance is your friend.

Also, to get action economy, have him take more turns. Maybe one turn per PC, or one turn per other PC. Failing that, abilities like extra attacks can help.

I don't know what you have for a story, but I'd add a reason to leave the PCs alive. Like maybe his plan involves turning people into thralls or something. That way the players won't find it heavy handed when during the final arse kicking he doesn't deal the killing blow when a player is down.

 

[Shidoen]

Thanks Dredd, I really just wanna make my own homebrew campaign where it seems like I took a bunch of LSD to fuck with people. Basically the bbeg i'm thinking of is a Half-Drow Emperor who is an overall piece of shit, got wicked powerful lightning spells and can turn into a living lighting storm, got killed and reincarnated where he's also a lich with legions and legions of undead, driders, undead drow, and orc worshippers. Also he has two sons birthed from a female clone of his and also artificially aged into like 24 feet giants. I just have these weird ideas to campaigns I never write about. Basically at the ending if the Player Characters don't kill him I'm going to have them roll to pray so the God of this world can come back and smite the bbeg. It's going to be a crazy story once I flesh it out.

 

[Henri Barbusse]

Modern tomb of horrors is all about getting Acerak to accept trans* indentities and to stop oppressing the black and brown bodies of the jungle area with the Death Curse though.

Glad to see they're focusing on the "horror" part of the title.

 

[Spergetti]

Thanks Dredd, I really just wanna make my own homebrew campaign where it seems like I took a bunch of LSD to fuck with people. Basically the bbeg i'm thinking of is a Half-Drow Emperor who is an overall piece of shit, got wicked powerful lightning spells and can turn into a living lighting storm, got killed and reincarnated where he's also a lich with legions and legions of undead, driders, undead drow, and orc worshippers. Also he has two sons birthed from a female clone of his and also artificially aged into like 24 feet giants. I just have these weird ideas to campaigns I never write about. Basically at the ending if the Player Characters don't kill him I'm going to have them roll to pray so the God of this world can come back and smite the bbeg. It's going to be a crazy story once I flesh it out.

Give him at least one "fuck you" ability that will put the fear of god into your PC's. Make sure to broadcast to your players that he can do this without inflicting it on them first, otherwise it will feel really unfair. I usually have the bbeg fuck up an NPC right in front of them with it, and if they ask what that "spell" is I just drop hints that this bad guy can probably do things that players can't do.

 

[Shidoen]

Give him at least one "fuck you" ability that will put the fear of god into your PC's. Make sure to broadcast to your players that he can do this without inflicting it on them first, otherwise it will feel really unfair. I usually have the bbeg fuck up an NPC right in front of them with it, and if they ask what that "spell" is I just drop hints that this bad guy can probably do things that players can't do.

Okay once they’re close to defeating them he’ll start going even crazier and reincarnate a second time becoming an entire thunderstorm with tentacles made of lightning slamming into the ground.