#d20 is better when its short and you spend less time with the characters stop dragging all this shit back i dont want it. leave it be | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

monstersdownthepath · 5 years

Text

Spiritual Spotlight: Nivi Rhombodazzle, the Grey Polychrome

True Neutral Demigoddess of Gems, Stealth, and Gambling

Domains: Community, Earth, Luck, Trickery Subdomains: Caves, Deception, Fate, Thievery

Faiths of Golarion, pg. 47~51

Obedience: Engage in a game of chance in which gems, money, or objects of value equaling or exceeding 10gp are at stake. Offer a prayer to Nivi Rhombodazzle out loud just before the wager begins (before the dice are thrown, the cards are drawn, the wheel is spun, etc). If there is no one else to wager against, make a bet against yourself on Nivi’s behalf, setting aside the winnings as an offering to her should she ‘win.’ In either case, afterwords, spend the remaining time in private reveling in the thrill of chance and steeling yourself for the moment when fate will turn against you. Benefit: Gain a +4 sacred or profane bonus to Bluff and Sleight of Hand checks. The type of bonus depends on your alignment; if you are neither good nor evil, you must choose whether it is a sacred or profane bonus when you first perform this Obedience and cannot be changed after.

Much like Cayden Cailean, keeping Nivi’s faith on the down-low is more or less impossible. Thankfully, her faith is accepted (or at least tolerated) in more or less any settlement, aside perhaps in those where gambling is viewed with scorn.

This Obedience may at first seem like it’s difficult to do consistently because after all, you stand to lose 10gp every day! But note that it says that 10gp must be at stake, not that you, personally, must have contributed to the prize. If ten other people each donate 1gp and you toss in a single copper (or a button that looks like a copper in the right light and when not examined too closely), the thing still counts for your Obedience. You don’t have to spend a silver, you just have to be part of the wager.

Also note that this Obedience can very well apply to things like a party deciding who gets to carry the Cursed Artifact Of Horrible Death (certainly worth more than 10gp) for the day, though you CAN’T use it if someone’s spinning a chore wheel. Your labor may certainly be worth more than 10gp, but her Obedience demands that material goods be at stake.

Also, there’s nothing saying that you can’t simply give items back once you’ve ‘won’ them, or that other winners can’t give their ill-gotten gains back to their rightful owners. The alternative Obedience requiring you to bet against yourself also doesn’t say you need to donate or otherwise lose Nivi’s winnings, so you can just pocket them once more at the end. Nivi might look down on that, though--despite her penchant for gambling, she does not tolerate actual cheating--so do that carefully.

That benefit is pretty good, though. Bluff is a very valuable skill for moments where Diplomacy can’t be used, and though Sleight of Hand is much rarer, the moments where you NEED to use it will make you thankful you have the bonus.

Boons are gathered slowly, typically obtained when a given character has 12, 16, and 20 hit dice. Unlike fiend-worshipers, servants of the Eldest, and devoted of the Empyreal Lords, characters worshiping Neutral gods do not seem to have catch-all classes (though I could very well have just missed it)… but Neutral-aligned characters can enter the Evangelist, Sentinel, and Exalted Prestige Classes earlier than Evil characters, classing in as early as level 6 (they need +5 BAB, 5 ranks in a single skill, or the ability to cast lvl 3 spells); entered ASAP, one can gain the Boons at levels 8, 11, and 14.

----------

EVANGELIST

----------

Boon 1: Gambler’s Essentials. Gain True Strike 3/day, Augury 2/day, or Haste 1/day.

I love this ability’s name. Not above steering luck in her own favor (NOT cheating!), Nivi grants her followers the same blessing. 3/day True Strike is fairly decent, though as your levels climb, you may find it more and more difficult to justify giving up a round of actions in order to assure your next attack strikes. Augury I’ll usually never take even as a spell-like; it takes too long to cast, and knowing the future may cause it to change.

Besides, those two options are stacked up against Haste. They never really had a chance. Unless you desperately need a fortune told, Haste is always, ALWAYS the way to go every time it appears as a potential Boon.

Boon 2: Gambler’s Egress. 3/day as a swift action, you may cast Litany of Escape as a spell-like ability targeting yourself or an ally.

I had no idea Litany of Escape existed until doing this article. For those not in the know, it’s a Close-range (25ft + 5ft/level) spell that can be used on a willing creature (and yourself, which is a Gambler’s Egress-only blessing) to instantaneously pop them out of a grapple or a pin, and teleport them 10ft in any direction while getting them to their feet.

I know a lot of times I’ll say that an ability is invaluable or that it will save your life, but it goes without saying that instantly breaking a grapple regardless of how skilled the grappler is while also giving your friend 10ft of breathing room can stop an encounter from immediately ending. Even if you’re not in direct combat, this spell renders the old “knife to the throat” hostage situations a non-issue and keeps you from being kidnapped by some stealthy, grabby enemy. Normally, the litany is limited by its need for verbal and somatic components (difficult to use while grappled), but as a spell-like, it uses no components.

AND it’s a swift action! So not only can you squeeze out of a Purple Worm’s mouth, but you can then blast it/slash it/run screaming in the same round! I also appreciate the fact Nivi is generous enough to let her followers use this power three times a day.

Boon 3: Gambler’s Prayer. 3/day as a standard action, you may make a wager against Nivi Rhombodazzle. This wager manifests as a Wondrous Effect generated by a Rod of Wonder, which can be aimed towards a target up to 60ft away provided the effect does not affect the wielder. If the 88-90 result is rolled, the gemstones fired are blessed by Nivi and each successful strike deals additional damage equal to your Charisma modifier (min +0).

It’s important that you know what a Rod of Wonder is so I’m linking it twice. These weird and wacky items can do everything from provide cover via a cloud of butterflies to instantly turning the victim to stone, to reducing the wielder by two entire size categories, to simply blasting someone with a Fireball. This is one ability that actually gets endlessly weirder to use depending on if your DM uses variant Wondrous Effect tables, which I highly encourage when using this power.

I adore this ability! Though how useful it actually as obviously depends heavily on how lucky you’re feeling. Fitting for someone worshiping a goddess who embodies the rush of a wager! But less practical for an adventurer who wants a situation handled, especially once you realize that the save DCs for the Wondrous Effects are pitifully low by the time you get this power (a blessing in disguise, as it reduces the chance of you getting screwed over). If nothing else, it makes for a great distraction, a good party trick, and a good trick to pull out when you just want to make things more interesting.

----------

EXALTED

----------

Boon 1: Faithful’s Fortune. Gain Bless 3/day, Misdirection 2/day, or Heroism 1/day.

Ehhh, not a lot here, really. Bless and Heroism are nice, though I’d lean more towards Bless; giving everyone a weak boost is usually better than giving one person a better buff, Heroism is obviously better if you have someone on you side who’s consistently making full-attacks, or someone you expect to be in the thick of it, so it’s a tossup about whether it or Bless is better to take each day.

Misdirection is a cute spell, but unlikely to come in handy unless you really need to hide information about yourself or another. It’s the niche spell in this lineup, one you’re unlikely to need, but will be happy to have when you do.

Boon 2: Gemstone Guardian. 1/day as a standard action, you can summon a Huge Earth Elemental. You gain 100ft of telepathy to commune with the Elemental, and it follows your commands perfectly for 1 minute/Hit Dice before vanishing back into the Plane of Earth. This called Elemental will never obey a command that would make it cause direct harm to a gnome or svirfneblin, though it can be commanded to grapple or otherwise restrain such a creature.

A Huge Earth Elemental is a CR 7 beatstick, undecorated and plain in stats but resilient and obedient. They possess a 15ft reach and two slam attacks which deal 2d8+9 damage. Nothing particularly special, another body on the field, but they do ALSO have the very interesting Earth Glide.

Earth Glide allows the Elemental to pass through anything short of solid metal while burrowing, making it an amazing scout despite its immense size. Earth Glide technically allows it to pass through even worked stone, allowing it to weave easily through stone fortifications protecting an enemy camp, a dungeon, or a castle, so long as it’s not reinforced with metal or wood. With 100ft of telepathy between the two of you, an Earth Elemental can easily report everything it sees to you, and even crossing out of that distance doesn’t mean they instantly die. They can come back and report on what they saw.

Note that the first time you use this to your advantage, it’s likely the DM didn’t forsee it. The second and beyond? Awfully weird how enemy vaults and bedchambers are so often lined with lead nowadays, eh?

That being said, having a bruiser big enough for you to hide behind is still decent, even though it becomes less useful as your level climbs.

Boon 3: Seven-Pipped Gem. As an immediate action, you can gain a luck bonus on any single d20 roll equal to half your total HD. You may use this ability after you’ve rolled, but you must use it before the result of the roll is declared. If you use this ability on a Sleight of Hand roll, or a roll pertaining to a game of chance, the luck bonus is equal to your total HD instead. You can safely use this ability a number of times per day equal to your Charisma modifier (min 1), but if you have no daily uses of this ability left, you may still invoke it. Doing so results in a 50% chance that your luck bonus becomes a penalty instead.

Any d20 roll. Any. Skill check, ability check, attack roll, saving throw, weapon damage roll with a ridiculous weapon, random chance rolls on specific weird abilities, death rolls... It’s really astounding how many d20 rolls a single player character makes in one session, isn’t it? And you, servant of Nivi, can get a preposterously huge luck bonus to any of them. Getting +4 to any roll is an amazing ability, and getting +6 is astonishing. You, at minimum, get +7 (fittingly enough), which rises all the way to +10 at level 20.

And if you’re doing some cute Sleight of Hand trick or dealing cards? +20.

Even at 1/day, the ability to get +7 and up to any single d20 roll is... Not particularly incredible compared to most final Boons, I’ll admit, but as your Charisma modifier rises, this ability goes from ‘useful’ to ‘outrageous.’ 2/day? 3/day? 4/day if you’re a Swashbuckler or Charisma-based caster? You basically become untouchable.

And, of course, if you’re feeling daring, there’s the chance of using this ability as often as you feel like in order to try and succeed. At a certain point, like with attack rolls and saving throws, there’s very little reason not to, because if you fail you’ve already failed and things can’t get any worse. But if that +7 would let you just squeak by? Go for it! If you’re going to die, you might as well try, right?

Just note that, because it’s an immediate action, you can only use it 1/round... And that a DM may take abuse of this ability as a signal they need to be harsher on your failures. Maybe you take a swing at a monster with 20 AC and roll a 13. You’ve already missed, right? So might as well try and use the Seven-Pipped Gem to succe--oh you got a penalty instead. Oh well, not like you lost anything! Unless the DM decides that your foul luck caused your weapon to slip from your hands, opening you up to an Attack of Opportunity...

----------

SENTINEL

----------

Boon 1: Communal Combatant. Divine Favor 3/day, Shield Other 2/day, or Prayer 1/day.

Back in Milani’s article, I discussed both Divine Favor (Exalted) and Shield Other (Sentinel), so just pop over there and give them a look if you need a refresher! Favor is a lot more useful for the traditionally-martial Sentinel than it was for the typically-caster Exalted, so it’s a pleasure to see here! Its power rises with your level, up to +3 to attack and damage rolls, and while its spell form quickly falls off in usefulness, its spell-like form is much more flexible. Its 1 minute duration will last likely an entire combat with some time left over (meaning you should slap it on the moment you detect trouble), and it’s always nice to have.

Shield Other is typically nicer to have, though. Granting your allies expanded durability is always good, and your own (presumably) fat HP bar buffering your fragile but more blaster-y friends will keep them from being downed the moment they’re focused.

Prayer is... Actually really good? It’s a very small bonus, but it applies to everyone in a 40ft burst, works on more or less every roll they make, and penalizes enemies at the same time. That’s a +2 swing in your favor, and it offers no saving throw. It won’t change the course of an entire combat, but it’ll certainly make everything run a little more smoothly. All three of these options are actually really good! It just depends on what your party needs, really.

Boon 2: Stone Strikes. 1/round as a free action when successfully striking an enemy with any weapon in the hammer weapons group, or any weapon with “gnome” in its name, you may attempt a sunder combat maneuver check against any one weapon or piece of armor your target is wielding/wearing. You get a +2 competence bonus to this check for each size category above yours your enemy is.

First thing’s first: Note that there’s no daily limit to how many times you can use this power. There’s really, really no reason NOT to use this ability, beyond wanting to steal your enemy’s equipment for yourself, because even failing your check doesn’t cost you anything but a bit of extra time from rolling the dice. Going for a sunder build can see enemies peeled right out of their armor or robbed of their weapons in short order, though it should be noted that this ability doesn’t state that your sunder attempt doesn’t provoke an Attack of Opportunity. Easy enough to overcome with a single feat (Improved Sunder), and building your character with this ability in mind can make for a very, very fun but very, very frustrating (for the DM) character.

Note that sunder attempts take the object’s hardness into account, though. Without powerful magic weapons, you’ll likely only be hitting for 2 or 3 damage at a time. For enemies with unenchanted gear, this is often enough (a typical weapon has around 5 HP), but enchanting them boosts both their hardness and their HP, making actually shattering them extremely difficult to do. You can, at least, give them the broken condition relatively easily.

And, again, since you can do this for free on any successful attack, there’s really nothing stopping you from just tacking it on every single round until your enemy’s breastplate or longsword lays in a thousand pieces. I do like the touch that you’re better at breaking things that are bigger than you, though, which means you’re actually encouraged to get into a giant’s threat radius for once.

Boon 3: Strength of the Earth. As a free action, you may enter a specialized defensive stance. In this stance, you gain a +2 dodge bonus to AC, a +4 morale bonus to Strength and Constitution (which causes you to gain +2 HP per HD you possess), and a +2 morale bonus to Will saves. In this stance, you cannot willingly move from your current position, or the stance ends (it is NOT ended if you are forcibly moved by an enemy). You cannot enter this stance while raging. You may maintain this stance for a number of rounds per day equal to 4 + your Constitution modifier, plus an additional 2 rounds per day for each Sentinel level you possess. Breaking or being broken from your stance fatigues you for 2 rounds for ever 1 round you maintained it (min 2), and while fatigued from this ability, you may use your Stone Strike ability 1/round against an enemy that strikes you in melee.

Hmmm... You know, on paper this looks good, but against any enemy that doesn’t actually want to fight you, this ability is defeated simply by walking away. Not a fan of that, unless you’re wielding a compound bow (or any ranged weapon, but a compound bow lets you use the extra +4 Str), in which case you’ve just become a shielded artillery platform.

I’m just really not impressed with this power, despite that. I am aware that most combats in Pathfinder tend to devolve into “standing next to the enemy and pushing the Attack Button,” but against enemies that DON’T want to stand next to you and attack away, like, say, around 60% of the classes in the game, this power translates to turning yourself into a Do Not Cross barrier. There’s a LOT of interesting things you could do with this ability, especially if you had a reach or ranged weapon, but, again, all an enemy has to do against you is walk away. If you break out of the stance to reposition, you get fatigued, and any enemy worth their salt will attack you at that point. They’ll probably lose their weapons for doing so, but being fatigued is painful nonetheless.

... All that being said, though, there’s a great many enemies who simply won’t recognize the fact you’ve just taken on your defensive stance, and will continue to stand next to you and attack without realizing why their strikes are being deflected more and more often, and without realizing that you’ve just gained +2 HP per HD and that you’re suddenly hitting much harder and much more often.

You can read more about Nivi here.

#Spiritual Spotlight #Neutrality Notes #Pathfinder #Dungeons and Dragons

46 notes · View notes

vortexofdeduction · 7 years

Text

Dungeons, Dragons, and Neurodiversity

So it’s not surprising that D&D documentation says nothing in about mental illness. Of course, there’s nothing to stop you from giving your character a mental illness for roleplay reasons (whether that’s to experience mental illness or to show other people what your illness is like. Side note: I say mental illness here since most things I list fall into that category, but technically I mean any kind of neurodiversity). However, I’ve been thinking that it would be really interesting to add some game mechanics for various mental illnesses. Note: these are obviously not Adventurer’s League legal, but feel free to use them in your homebrew games (credit would be nice, especially if you share my rules somewhere else). I included several well-known mental illnesses that I thought would work well in D&D. When I could, I tried to strike a balance between positive and negative features so that nothing is too game-breaking. Feel free to tweak as needed, and please provide feedback if you have suggestions of what to change and/or what to add. Under the cut is a list of mental illnesses and their mechanics, as well as the mechanics of coping mechanisms.

Overall things to consider:

How did your character get their disorder? Some people are just born that way, others are affected by mental illness as the result of physical or psychological trauma. Trauma in the world of DnD could be like trauma in our world (abuse, survivor guilt, etc.), but there is also potential for DnD themed trauma (mind-controlled and forced to harm loved ones, trapped in a dungeon for an excruciatingly long time, etc).

How does the disorder affect their personality? For example, people with anxiety disorders may be more anxious and nervous in general, and people with autism may talk a lot about their special interests.

What are their coping mechanisms? Coping mechanisms can can help temporarily ease the negative effects of mental illness. Players and DMs must discuss what coping mechanisms are appropriate to the character but also keep the game balanced. A few examples of positive coping mechanisms:

Medicine: can be bought from most stores in between campaigns (or any time the character can go to a store). Each disorder has its own medicine that diminishes all effects of your illness (positive and negative-- sorry that’s how medicine works) for a certain amount of time (usually one day) until the next dose is needed. However, it’s quite expensive and working as a freelance adventurer probably means you don’t have insurance to cover it. Also, there may be side effects. To be extra realistic, include a withdrawal mechanism which means you just can’t go on and off medication whenever you feel like it.

Meditation: spend a few minutes calming yourself in order to diminish negative effects of your illness. This cannot be done during combat (kind of hard to meditate when you and your friends are being attacked)

Support from friends: have one or more of your party members make a persuasion or performance check as they attempt to cheer you up. On a natural 1, your symptoms temporarily worsen. On a successful check (DM determines DC), the negative effects of your illness are diminished.

Some coping mechanisms are negative and thus have unpleasant side effects in addition to diminishing the negative effects of your illness. For example:

Self harm: make an attack roll against yourself using a melee weapon and take the damage you roll.

How do they feel about their mental illness? Do they hate it, have they gotten used to it and just come to accept it, do they think it makes them stronger, etc.

Do they have comorbid disorders? The more mental illnesses you add to one character, the more complicated it gets to keep track, so you probably don’t want more than 3. But hey, that’s between you and the DM.

OCD

The character may have one or more types of OCD permanently, and/or they may temporarily gain a type of OCD after certain situations. Suggested situations that may cause a character to have OCD: head trauma (waking up after being unconscious or dead), psychological trauma (e.g., watching a friend die), taking psychic damage. However it happens, the character gets an OCD type from the following list. The character may choose to make a wisdom save to try to resist. The first time it is DC 20. The DC decreases by 5 with each successful save and increases by 5 with each refusal to try to resist. (Players can decide whether their character is more likely to resist or to give in and whether the character knows what will be the effect of trying to resist.) The character no longer has that OCD type after the save DC is 0. If the save DC raises to something practically impossible (e.g., 35), the character may permananently have OCD, or the player may need to work with the DM to determine what can reduce the DC (perhaps look at the Coping Mechanisms section)

OCD types

Second-guessing: for every ability check, the player must make two rolls and take the second roll. This doesn’t apply in cases where the player has advantage or disadvantage.

Cleanliness: each time the character takes damage, they must spend their next turn in combat (or the next 5 minutes out of combat) cleaning themselves. No action, movement, or bonus action may be taken. The character also has advantage on perception or investigation checks related to "dirty" things (dirt, slime, blood, etc.)

Scrupulosity: the character is obsessively concerned with morality. The character switches to lawful alignment (good/neutral/evil stays the same) and must act according to a strict set of moral/religious rules. Clerics, paladins, and any other characters bound to an oath or a deity may become so concerned with upsetting their god or breaking their oath that their abilities related to their god or their oath (e.g., a cleric’s spells) may be less effective

Need to tell: the character has disadvantage on any deception checks and has a chance of blurting out information that should be kept secret.

Repeating: the character is compelled to repeat certain actions (DM determines which actions this affects). For example, the character may cross a bridge, feel like once wasn’t enough, and go back to the other side and cross the bridge again. To determine how many times an action is repeated, roll a die (DM determines which dice type).

Lucky/Unlucky numbers: roll two d20 dice (reroll if the number is 1 or 20). The first number is the lucky number; any ability rolls of this number automatically succeed as long as success is not impossible (e.g., a lucky number would succeed a DC 30 check to unlock a door, but fail at an attempt to pick a lock that cannot be picked). The second number is the unlucky number; any ability rolls of this number automatically fail (treat the roll as a natural 1).

Hypochondria: the DM picks a disease. The character now believes they have this disease. The symptoms are psychosomatic, but they do exist. The disease is not contagious. The disease can be cured by several successful persuasion checks from other party member(s) (follow the same decreasing DC rules as stated earlier for OCD types, but don’t increase the DC at any point) or any spell or potion that can cure a disease.

Counting: every time the character sees something countable (treasure, creatures, etc.), they are compelled to count. This could be time consuming and inconvenient. However, the character is better (faster and more accurate) at counting than someone without this type of OCD.

Autism

Poor social skills: the character's charisma score can be no higher than 5 which means the modifier is -3. Note: this does mean those points can be used for other attributes. The character also has disadvantage on any checks involving reading people (e.g., an insight check to tell if someone is lying)

Special interests: the character gains the equivalent of the ranger features Favored Enemy, Natural Explorer, and Fighting Style. Basically, choose an enemy, a terrain, and a fighting style and you are especially good when dealing with these things. For rangers with autism, the DM and player should work together to figure out appropriate features, either different ranger features or different autism features.

ADHD

Attention deficit: to maintain any sustained action (concentration spells, rituals, etc), the player must make a DC 10 wisdom save each turn of combat (or every few minutes out of combat) or lose focus. For players who can cast concentration spells, this replaces the DC 10 constitution save for concentration checks.

Hyperfocus: 3 times per long rest, the player may choose to take take two actions instead of one during a round of combat. After a short rest, one charge of this ability is regained.

Fidgeting: all that fidgeting around has gained the character a permanent +2 increase to their dexterity score.

Phobia

Fear: the character is afraid of a certain type of enemy (e.g., goblins), object (e.g., traps), type of magic (e.g., necromancy), or fighting style (e.g., archery). Whenever possible, the character will avoid the feared enemy or object or anything/anybody using the feared magic school or fighting style. The character will have disadvantage interacting with (using, attacking, etc.) the subject of their fear.

Knowledge: the character has advantage on any ability checks related to the object of their fear. For example, if the character is trying to identify a creature’s tracks, the DM may make another roll in secret and take the higher roll because the tracks are of the feared enemy.

PTSD

Traumatic memories: the rules for PTSD are similar to Phobia, except that the fear comes from a specific traumatic memory rather than an irrational fear. Also, a character with PTSD may have up to 5 triggers (taken from the categories mentioned in the Phobia section).

Flashback: instead of having disadvantage on interacting with one of their triggers, each time the character interacts with one of their triggers, roll a d4. On a 1 or 2, the character has a flashback. In combat, this takes up their turn. Out of combat, this simply means the action is not performed. Flashbacks cause characters to lose concentration.

Hypervigilance: while conscious, the character cannot be surprised.

Bipolar disorder

Mania: at certain times (DM’s choice, player’s choice, random dice rolls, or predetermined triggers decide when and how long mania occurs. DM decides which of these methods to go by.), the character goes into a manic state. During this state, the character may complete every action twice as fast. This applies to actions in combat, any out of combat actions that take a significant amount of time (e.g., ritual casting), and sleep (better than a trance; no “quiet time” needed, they can get right back to work). The character also has an elevated mood, meaning they have advantage on any saves against psychic damage and/or being charmed. They also have advantage on any saves against attempts to be demoralized (e.g., if an enemy tries to intimidate them). However, they are more reckless and thus have disadvantage on any ability checks involving dexterity or relating to impulse restraint.

Depression: immediately after the mania ends, the character enters a depressive state for the same length of time as the mania was. The low mood means they have disadvantage on any saves against psychic damage and/or being charmed. They also have disadvantage on any saves against attempts to be demoralized (e.g., if an enemy tries to intimidate them). For every turn in combat, first roll a d4. On a 1, the character focuses on past regrets and thus misses their whole turn. Before making an ability check, the character or another party member must motivate the character by making a wisdom save or a persuasion check, respectively. On a failed save/check, the character’s self confidence is too low to carry out the action. The character also needs twice as long to sleep.

Dissociative Identity Disorder

Alters: create several different (but significantly different) character sheets, one for each alter (note: it is helpful to pick 4, 6, or 8 alter. More than that is a lot. If you choose a different number, you may need to make a table in which some alters are represented by more than one number). At time intervals as determined by the DM, roll a die to see which alter surfaces. (Optional rule: instead of choosing at random, have the player and DM discuss ahead of time which alter should surface when.) Use that alter’s character sheet. Apply the xp and loot gained from each session to all alter.

Schizophrenia

Hallucinations: at certain times (DM’s choice, player’s choice, random dice rolls, or predetermined triggers), the character experiences a hallucination. The DM rolls on a random encounter table (can be a regular random encounter table, or a table full of encounters that that specific character is likely to hallucinate). The character believes the hallucination is real and acts accordingly until either the hallucination finishes (after a predetermined amount of time) or the character succeeds on several wisdom checks to determine it is a hallucination (following a decreasing DC mechanism like with OCD).

Delusions: the character is living under one or more false beliefs, or delusions. These delusions have a significant impact on the character’s way of life, despite the fact that they are not true. Any attempts to convince the character that they are delusional will fail. However, the character may sometimes be convinced to act in opposition to their delusions.

Disordered: the character’s thought and speech patterns are often disordered and may be confusing to other people. The character has disadvantage on ability checks relating to attempts to communicate with others (persuasion, intimidation, etc).

#dnd #dnd 5e #d&d #dungeons and dragons #neurodiversity #mental illness

68 notes · View notes

deck16 · 7 years

Photo

Wreck of the Magellan Player Feedback

For the background behind this, see here.

I ran the sample adventure bundled with the Alternity Beta Quickstart and collected player feedback. It’s below.

(You can read my detailed pre-game feedback here.)

Conventions and Notes

I’m not going to mention players by name here. I will instead use the character names (and sexes) as per the adventure "The Wreck of the Magellan.”

We had five players, which means all but one premade PC was used. Vance Carr was the one who missed out; instead of playing him as an NPC (as suggested) I simply said he was unavailable for the mission at short notice and let another crew member of the Simor Fraser take the job as “acting captain.”

While I did my best to capture my players’ thoughts I may not have understood them 100%. I will have misrepresented some of the thoughts below, I am sure. For that I apologise.

And I’m sure I don’t need to say this, but this is feedback. Not demands. Not angry ranting. Do not mistake a big list of critique as hatred. (Quite the opposite.)

Thoughts are grouped by subject matter, but not otherwise ordered in any special way.

We only got through some of the adventure, due to limited playing time. We stopped at the end of the first combat encounter (Scene 3b). I intend to complete the adventure and will create another post like this if there’s sufficient new feedback.

The Pie

The most-talked about new rule was the new Initiative system. Which we flippantly called the "Pie System”, because we drew up the 8-Impulse circle as a pie and someone (I think me?) started referring to Impulses as “pie slices”. As in “move the monster three pie slices forward”.

What did players think about the Pie System?

The Pie System pretty much mandates use of the a physical “prop” to keep track of things. Tharsi thought this presented a great risk: if knocked over some very important information about the combat could be lost.

Most players liked how the Pie System makes speed matter. That is, it now matters that some actions are fast and some actions are slow.

Frank commented that speed could now be used as a balancing mechanism: for example a low-damage weapon might be useful because it is fast. Frank thinks this is a more elegant way to balance something powerful than (say) by limiting its use with charges.

Tharsi remarked that Initiative checks are less important now because they only dictate order once, at the very start of combat.

All players think the new Pie System is cumbersome. This was partially because of the physical prop needed to track it, and because getting everyone in order at the start is a bit of a chore (got to compare Success Levels and raw roll numbers).

Wade lamented that the ability in 1998 Alternity to move while performing any action has gone, though she can see why given the nature of the system. (Yes, Assault is a thing, but it has not got that same flexibility.)

Some players remarked that a circle is not the ideal shape for Impulse tracking. While a circle conveys the “looping” idea, rectangles offer more space; and Temu commented that a shape like a hippodrome would be the best of both worlds.

In the Pie System, different actions have different speeds. And so the order of combatants is “shuffled” by the speed of the actions they take. Montero liked this feature as it avoided the metagaming that can happen when initiative order is locked in stone (e.g. “eh, I won’t retreat from this ogre because the cleric goes before the ogre and she’ll heal me up”).

Frank likened the Pie System to the cooldown system found in many MMOs.

The GM and Montero miss the way initiative was re-rolled every round in 1998 Alternity, as this led to an unpredictability that seemed very fitting for combat.

Overall, Tharsi and Frank support the Pie System.

Overall, the GM does not. (I can see certain neat features inherent to the Pie System. I am not 100% certain but am strongly leaning toward 1998 Alternity’s Action Check system. I elaborate on my likes for the old system here.)

The Core Mechanic

Wade showed a strong aversion to the new roll-high mechanic because it felt alien after so much roll-low from 1998 Alternity. It’ll be a hard habit to change.

Tharsi disapproved of the new names for Success Levels (from Ordinary, Good, Amazing to Average, Excellent, Stellar), feeling they were change for change’s sake. (Tharsi felt the same way for the new names for Ability Scores and Professions/Archetypes.)

Tharsi felt that Alternity had too much chance for failure -- both 2017 and 1998 Alternity. (I wonder if this was brought to mind by the early part of the adventure, where something “routine” like orbital scanning or removing a black box etc was delayed repeatedly by failed checks.) Montero countered that Complex Skill Checks mean that it’s not so much a case of “if” but “when”. I mentioned that the GM should not call for checks for truly routine things. Despite both counters, I still can see where Tharsi is coming from. They did not “feel” like expert space explorers when it took hours and hours of in-game time to do routine tasks because of failures.

Frank felt that the Core Mechanic system was superior to the D20 roll-above-DC system.

With regards to Success Level calculation, Tharsi prefers the add-5 mechanic of 2017 Alternity to the half-and-half mechanic of 1998 Alternity. Tharsi felt high success levels were too rare in 1998 Alternity and that 1998 Alternity’s system encouraged metagaming to set scores at numbers divisible by 4.

Frank didn’t like that high success levels can be impossible without step bonuses (in some cases). Frank mentioned the “critical hit” of D&D, where there was always a chance for a top-tier result, and felt that was lost. Frank was disappointed that a 3-rank skill he had was did not have a high enough score to get Stellar results without a step bonus.

Skills

Montero shared some concerns about the attainability of Success Levels but thought it better to reserve judgement until it was known how affordable skills were going to be.

Many players noted that even characters who (seemed to be) highly proficient only had a 50% chance of success, which felt very low. For instance, Temu has 5 ranks in Engineering yet only a 10/15/20 score. As GM I get that this doesn’t mean “they fail at half the things they do”, but the perception obviously stuck as this point was raised by many players and at different times. Montero used the term “expectation mismatch” to describe the gulf between the perception of many ranks and the reality of what it meant in-game

Montero mentioned that 1998 Alternity had a difficult character creation process, especially when it came to purchasing skills. He mentioned that it was essentially not doable without character-creation software -- this caused the assembled players to nod and agree pretty much in unison.

Frank claimed that the existence of both Combat: Energy and Combat: Heavy skills was peculiar and wondered where a hypothetical heavy energy weapon would fit, and why? (We have one in the Beta: the Shock Rifle. Which is Heavy.) Montero agreed. The two discussed, remarking that a laser pistol was not sufficiently dissimilar to a kinetic-projectile pistol to use different skills. But they did agree that heavy weapons were clearly different to pistols and rifles, and warranted their own skill. We read the Beta’s explanation that “[Energy weapons are] a little different from firearms because they generally don’t have much recoil, don’t require you to lead the target or account for a drop over distance,” to which Frank replied, “what, so they’re easier?” As GM I am inclined to agree. The difference between a laser pistol and a 9mm pistol has to be less than the difference between a 9mm pistol and an assault rifle. These skill divisions don’t stack up.

Montero thinks that the new set of streamlined skills are a big improvement over 1998 Alternity’s skills.

Frank believes that Extreme Sports is a silly skill, and contends it belongs under Athletics. He says a similar thing about Interview belonging under Influence. (As GM I agree somewhat with the first and disagree strongly to the second.)

Montero misses Street Smart from 1998 Alternity, thinking it was a skill that fit a lot of modern/sci-fi settings.

The Resilience skills seems mildly open to abuse, or at least inconsistent use. It favours the heroes entering into a large number of safe combat encounters: with enough any character could in theory heal up entirely. To protect from this, it may be worth disallowing re-use(s) until fresh injuries are incurred.

Archetypes and Talents

Frank likes the archetypes -- especially the Battler and Striker, and many of their associated talents -- because they do what they say on the tin. He likes that their game-mechanic use is clear.

There is concern about certain talents and “autonomy”. For instance, the Threat Talent somewhat breaks the autonomy of targets. Montero wonders if villains will use such Talents to “control” the heroes, and if that’s a good thing.

Montero notices many Talents seem relevant to Skills, and hopes they will be tied to Skills rather than Archetypes, similar to 1998 Alternity’s Rank Benefits. Frank agrees.

There is conversation over the difference between Strikers and Battlers. Frank thinks that the Striker is a rogue; or a “dexterity fighter”. Montero hopes it will be possible to make a strong-man heavy-weapons Striker.

Other Game Mechanics

Tharsi strongly approves of the Durability Track, saying it is intuitive. In particular, Tharsi likes how injuries matter; unlike in an traditional HP system. She also approves of the element of randomness: a hit might be trivial or serious.

Montero thinks belt jets are over-powered. Why would anyone not use them.

The Inspiration Talent is broken badly. Two heroes with this feat could spend Hero Points endlessly.

Tharsi likes static armour values for resistances. One less dice roll to slow down combat.

Wade prefers rolling for armour resistances because she enjoys the excitement of “responding” to an attack against her rather than just passively taking damage.

Montero prefers static armour resistances because he feels the “double randomness” of damage and armour can be too random -- it can marginalise the fact your hero is wearing armour at all. Montero enjoys the randomness but feels the randomness in the attack damage is enough.

Character Sheets

We understand that a Beta doesn’t have to be perfect, but some feedback was offered on the pre-made character sheets.

Agent Wade is skilled in Combat: Energy yet carries a heavy pistol? What is the +10 in front of all her weapon scores? Why does her gear give the heavy pistol a -1 penalty when the weapon table earlier in the Quickstart has no such penalty?

Tharsi felt that the character sheets should show calculated scores for untrained skills.

It was remarked that weapon speeds would be useful information to include with damage and so on.

Miscellaneous

When I read to the players about the “Stellar Union” someone quipped, “Better than the Excellent Union?”

I posed the question whether certain action movie heroes were Battlers or Strikers. One player confirmed that Dutch from Predator must’ve been a Battler because he issues the mother of all taunts.

#rpg #Alternity

0 notes