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 Syro_ wrote:
I agree that good and evil can be terms that are a little too strong, and it's something that's bothered me about the alignment system in D&D, but I also think it's a good idea to have just renamed more accurately. I don't remember where I read it recently and I haven't been able to find it again but it was a summarized version of more indepth alignment descriptions from somewhere else. It boiled down to:
lawful: value the laws of society and promote them over the needs of the individual
chaotic: value individuals over society at large
good: place value and safety of others above yourself
evil: self centered and self interested, placing your needs and wants above others

The term "evil" feels like all evil races and characters are psychopaths and sadists. I like the above summery for that reason. Anyone know the source? Thanks

I read an alternate system for naming alignments on Giant in the Playground, which I really like.

Good becomes "Righteous"
Evil becomes "Wicked"
Lawful becomes "Legit"
Chaotic becomes "Radical"
True Neutral becomes "Chill"
If someone is partly neutral, they are "Totally (non-neutral part of their alignment)"

Try it.

@Elemental: I like that, very funny.
"Totally" is only for non-neutral alignments? You can't be totally chill?

Anyone who thinks they're totally chill is far to excited to be chill

I've been playing D&D for just over a month now, and we've had some very amusing scenarios.

My character is called Thoruk the Distracted, a half-orc barbarian who has a vendetta against ducks (his family was killed by a duck, his backstory revealed).

In his first mission, he found a lovely dress in a cupboard in a castle. It didn't fit, but he wears it anyway - Thoruk likes pretty clothes.

In his second mission, he chained 3 natural 20's together when sneaking to disappear from the party as they started to discuss their plan for too long, and managed to slam a cooking pot over the bosses head to blind him. Sneaking away has become his party trick - somehow, he always rolls 20's or 1's.

He's rolled a 1 when attacking a monster emerging from a cave, and then had to run into the cave to retrieve his greataxe.

In his next mission, he hurled a druid at the enemy, who turned into a giant octopus mid-flight. Someone was already riding the enemy (giant spider-creature, the name escapes me) when the octopus landed. they were not impressed.

In the most recent encounter (which had to be left on a cliffhanger over Christmas) a water elemental monster has risen from a canal, and Thoruk was in a boat with the same character who was riding the spider-monster. he jumped to the front, yelled a warcry to get it's attention, then "hup!"ed to the back of the boat, just long enough for Xamphia (the other character) to say "I hate you..." before the elemental slammed down on the boat, launching thoruk into an epic midair attack like a catapult (and launching xamphia into the canal).

fun times... I love being chaotic neutral, AKA comic relief

Sounds like you and your group have gotten into a lot of fun shenanigans. I'm glad your enjoying it so much, it makes me want get moving on some D&D games happening with my new group.

 some bloke wrote:
I've been playing D&D for just over a month now, and we've had some very amusing scenarios.

My character is called Thoruk the Distracted, a half-orc barbarian who has a vendetta against ducks (his family was killed by a duck, his backstory revealed).

In his first mission, he found a lovely dress in a cupboard in a castle. It didn't fit, but he wears it anyway - Thoruk likes pretty clothes.

In his second mission, he chained 3 natural 20's together when sneaking to disappear from the party as they started to discuss their plan for too long, and managed to slam a cooking pot over the bosses head to blind him. Sneaking away has become his party trick - somehow, he always rolls 20's or 1's.

He's rolled a 1 when attacking a monster emerging from a cave, and then had to run into the cave to retrieve his greataxe.

In his next mission, he hurled a druid at the enemy, who turned into a giant octopus mid-flight. Someone was already riding the enemy (giant spider-creature, the name escapes me) when the octopus landed. they were not impressed.

In the most recent encounter (which had to be left on a cliffhanger over Christmas) a water elemental monster has risen from a canal, and Thoruk was in a boat with the same character who was riding the spider-monster. he jumped to the front, yelled a warcry to get it's attention, then "hup!"ed to the back of the boat, just long enough for Xamphia (the other character) to say "I hate you..." before the elemental slammed down on the boat, launching thoruk into an epic midair attack like a catapult (and launching xamphia into the canal).

fun times... I love being chaotic neutral, AKA comic relief

From my 25 years of playing D&D I gotta say, for a Noob you seems to have a firm grasp on how to play. I approve!

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
From my 25 years of playing D&D I gotta say, for a Noob you seems to have a firm grasp on how to play. I approve!

Thanks! We joined a group at a "try D&D" event, had a great & patient DM, and picked it up pretty swiftly. I still need telling what to do a lot of the time, but so far as making plans and trying to simultaneously ruin & succeed at a plan, I think I'm nailing it

Another one I forgot was, once the boss had been blinded with the pan, he fell in a patch of grease made by a wizard, which then got set fire to, and I decided the best thing was to throw a waterskin at it - like a chip-pan fire. Then the druid thought "create water" would be a good idea for a bigger explosion. Only 2 of 5 adventurers were still conscious after the explosions (thoruk, naturally, somehow dodged it) but the boss was dead!

 some bloke wrote:

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
From my 25 years of playing D&D I gotta say, for a Noob you seems to have a firm grasp on how to play. I approve!

Thanks! We joined a group at a "try D&D" event, had a great & patient DM, and picked it up pretty swiftly. I still need telling what to do a lot of the time, but so far as making plans and trying to simultaneously ruin & succeed at a plan, I think I'm nailing it

Another one I forgot was, once the boss had been blinded with the pan, he fell in a patch of grease made by a wizard, which then got set fire to, and I decided the best thing was to throw a waterskin at it - like a chip-pan fire. Then the druid thought "create water" would be a good idea for a bigger explosion. Only 2 of 5 adventurers were still conscious after the explosions (thoruk, naturally, somehow dodged it) but the boss was dead!

Stories like this reminds me of a friend Half-Orc Barbarian he played during 3rd edition. Although I'll admit the results from my group were hardly as successful. Although the time he swam naked across and underground lake to help setup a makeshift bridge to get the rest of the PC's across led to him being attacked by a young Black Dragon. He then proceeded to string a bunch of crits together and killed the dragon almost single-handedly all while being completely naked.

good times!

 Syro_ wrote:
@Elemental: I like that, very funny.
"Totally" is only for non-neutral alignments? You can't be totally chill?

Sounds like chaotic neutral to me...

Running a oneshot murder mystery for my family soon, and just finished preparing notes for it - it'll be interesting to see how they take to it!

^ Cool, let us know how it goes.

Hey all, having my first go at DMing of late

Session 0 yesterday; not so smooth.
lessons learned
1. i need to start a scene description with the time, weather, ambient light levels and then start describing what can be seen by the players.
2. i found it quite tricky doing NPC stats on the fly
3. the simple questions from the players are the ones that caught me out
4. 'time' becomes unstable and fluctuates around a D&D session

 SirDonlad wrote:
Hey all, having my first go at DMing of late

Session 0 yesterday; not so smooth.
lessons learned
1. i need to start a scene description with the time, weather, ambient light levels and then start describing what can be seen by the players.
2. i found it quite tricky doing NPC stats on the fly
3. the simple questions from the players are the ones that caught me out
4. 'time' becomes unstable and fluctuates around a D&D session

1) I saw a thing a long while ago that suggeted to start each "scene" with the five sense.

When you wake the next day you can feel the contrast of the cool dew in the air and the warmth of the sun as shafts of sunlight breach the canopy of the forest. (feel and sight) The air is filled with the smell of the woods surrounding you. (smell) You can hear the chirps of birds waking with the day. (hearing) Despite the long rest the cool refreshing air adds a refreshing taste to your mouth as you start your day. (taste).

You give the players a lot to work with when you give them a simple single element to each sense to build their reactions from.


2) Don't. Get some note cards. Write out generic NPC stats to use. I try to make generic NPC stats and equipment for each of the classes and then add or remove equipment in my head as the situation calls for it. A Bard makes for a excellent merchant. A fighter a town guard. It doesn't matter that you use the same bard stats for 100 different innkeepers, the players will never know that. You just need the numbers to work off of.

3) Improvisation is just something you need to learn with practice. And the more you do it the less you need to plan.

4) Yup!

We did a murder mystery 'one-shot' in my group before Christmas and tbh I was a bit disappointed;
1. With three murders we had three murder scenes to go over and multiple suspects to question which meant that we had to go at a breakneck pace to get through the content. As a group that can spend 4 hours roleplaying doing a bit of shopping and finding an inn for the night, this was a bit of a tall order!
2. Spells like 'zone of truth' and 'friendship' meant that using 'the little grey cells' to catch the killer out was not really necessary, you just zapped the right people with the spells and viola!

2) yeah. Dnd sucks for that reason without heavy house rules. Part of the reason i dislike dnd. Detect spells and spells that force things like the truth strip away interesting game play and turn them into toggles. You have the ability and you win or you dont and then you go get the ability.

I think it makes sense if spells like that are not admissable though. Like how is a non-mage to know whether a mage casting some spell on someone isn't just dominating them or something? Can't trust magic, gotta have proper evidence. Magically compelled confessions are worthless.

It does remove the "whodunnit" part of the plot, for sure, but there remains a need for investigation unless the players want to take the law into their own hands (and if they do, fine, let them deal with any consequences).

I also make it illegal to cast spells on people in public in civilised places, it is basically like attacking someone with a sword even if the spell does no damage, because of the danger of mind control or otherwise subtle magic. So players need to be circumspect before they go casting spells like Zone of Truth in a public place.

And I make high level NPC cleric rare, and give them a more limited spell set so they can't just go and ask the local priest to do it (which is the closest I get to "house rules" rather than "logical setting stuff").

But it is true, 5e is full of stuff that can basically be "adventure cancellation". Ranger has the baseline ability to never get lost, which to me takes an entire subsystem out of the game for exploration. That is pretty crazy!

 Da Boss wrote:
I think it makes sense if spells like that are not admissable though. Like how is a non-mage to know whether a mage casting some spell on someone isn't just dominating them or something? Can't trust magic, gotta have proper evidence. Magically compelled confessions are worthless.

1) It's uninteresting to have have the players themselves have a definitive answer because it means the players themselves are impossible to dupe. The point of the players investigating is for them to have something to solve. When the players can just cast a spell and know that that person did it there is nothing left to solve.

2) It's unfun for the players to have access to a power that basically does nothing.

3) If you can magically compell a person to tell the truth you can magically compel them to lead you to the evidence you need. It's all bad.

It does remove the "whodunnit" part of the plot, for sure, but there remains a need for investigation unless the players want to take the law into their own hands (and if they do, fine, let them deal with any consequences).

I also make it illegal to cast spells on people in public in civilised places, it is basically like attacking someone with a sword even if the spell does no damage, because of the danger of mind control or otherwise subtle magic. So players need to be circumspect before they go casting spells like Zone of Truth in a public place.

Which is all well and good but that just means they do it behind closed doors.

And I make high level NPC cleric rare, and give them a more limited spell set so they can't just go and ask the local priest to do it (which is the closest I get to "house rules" rather than "logical setting stuff").

But it is true, 5e is full of stuff that can basically be "adventure cancellation". Ranger has the baseline ability to never get lost, which to me takes an entire subsystem out of the game for exploration. That is pretty crazy!

Yup. And thats the problem. Special abilities shouldn't shut down or solve entire themes of games. Anything that does is inherently bad for the game.

I'm fairly sure Zone of Truth does state that the target knows they are compelled to tell the truth, and they have the option to simply not speak, so it's not so cut and dried. It also explicitly states that they can offer cryptic truths if they wish, and they are not Charmed so may still try and escape or offer up lies until they fail the save (and being a CHA save, the people you're trying to get the truth from are probably fairly deceptive by nature and thus boast a higher CHA than most). Likewise, they can simply move out of the area, unless the PCs have a way to keep them in place which is an extra hurdle potentially.

That's before you even get into the kind of prep you can do to make it more of a challenge. Have the person with the information hard to even get to in the first place, with anything from a castle wall and a flip-ton of guards to a decoy to some magical means of getaway. Plant leads and red herrings that lead players to g on chasing people who don't have the information they need, or have the opposition tying up loose ends so it becomes a race against time. Hell, if you want to get really fiendish, start playing with things like Modify Memory and Dominate Person so while Suspect A thinks they did the murder and thus will say as much under ZoT, it's actually Suspect B under the charm of Not-Even-A-Suspect X, who is now free to go about their nefarious business while the pesky do-gooders go chasing dead ends and unwitting accomplices. Make your antagonists smart: they likely know these spells exist, and will thus move to counter them in the same way real-world criminals try to foil mundane law enforcement.

And at the end of the day, you still want your players to figure it out. You just want to make it enjoyable and challenging to get there, and I think even with things like ZoT (which requires a cleric in the party, and for them to have it prepared, and to have the spell slots for it which at lower levels isn't guaranteed if they've been in a fight that day) you can set that up. in the same way that your fighters and barbarians can probably take down your boss in a straight-up fight without ruining the entire adventure, the ability for a certain player to determine truth instantly doesn't mean you can't still set up a compelling and intriguing mystery.

 Kroem wrote:
We did a murder mystery 'one-shot' in my group before Christmas and tbh I was a bit disappointed;
1. With three murders we had three murder scenes to go over and multiple suspects to question which meant that we had to go at a breakneck pace to get through the content. As a group that can spend 4 hours roleplaying doing a bit of shopping and finding an inn for the night, this was a bit of a tall order!

The trick with oneshots is to keep things moving before they really stagnate. In a campaign session, I like nothing more than taking an hour out for everyone to sit and chat round a campfire or figure out where they're going next or learn more about the world (shopping sessions are still something I despise though! ), but when you have limited time to get to an end point, you always need to be ready to throw in the next plot element even if the players are getting bogged down. Say in your big manor house you have an Upstairs Murder and a Downstairs murder, if the players have spent an two hours of your three-hour session meticulously going over every single (largely irrelevant) detail of the former, there's nothing wrong with having one of the kitchen staff pop upstairs and tell them they found a clue in a servant's passage that they ought to come and look at. Not only is this telling the characters something, but it's also sending a hint to the players that the information they need is elsewhere, and that as the time-conscious DM you're wanting to draw their attention to the next area.

Incidentally, that goes for whatever system you're running. I'd posit that DnD may not necessarily be ideal for a murder mystery (though it can work and if it's what people are familiar with, fair enough), so you might have a smoother experience trying another system that places less emphasis on classes/stats as those tend not to be so relevant to the genre. Personally, I have a homebrew system that I use instead of 5e for anything more adventure/investigation than fantasy/questing (that's incredibly rules-light really, as this sort of thing generally ends up being more about player intelligence than character setup anyway), but something like Call of Cthulhu sans the eldritch horror parts might be a good basis to work from as that places a lot more emphasis on mental/technical skillsets than it does physical abilities. There's probably a specific murder mystery RPG out there somewhere, though I can't think of a specific one off the too of my head.

I think it's a problem when you have to write elements of the story around the abilities of the players.

Questions like "What if the guy is hard to get to because he is in a castle and surrounded by guards" is potentially changing the story to negate the players. Saying things like... "well he has an amulet that hides his alignment" is the same. It's a problem that shouldn't need to be addressed to begin with.

It's not changing the story so much as allowing the antagonists a level of agency and intelligence that makes them worthy adversaries. They might not know this specific party is coming for them, but if they're at all intelligent or aware, they know these spells and abilities exist. They know they're going to be opposed. They're going to try and do something about that, whether that's mundane or magical, blatant or subtle. They don't want to be defeated, and they're going to take actions both before and during the events being played out to try and make sure they aren't. The DM has both the right and the responsibility to give them the capacity to be active, intelligent and prepared if it suits them as characters (master criminal is probably better prepared than crazed cult leader, for instance). NPCs, even moreso antagonists, should not be static or immutable. Players shouldn't be the only characters that get to be proactive in achieving their goals.


I am also a big believer that content in any game should, at least to some extent, be tailored to your players, both in terms of specifically challenging them where appropriate and the inverse, giving them the opportunity to make good use of their particular abilities. I feel a game should be set up to give characters (and by extension players) a challenge to engage with, whether that's combat tailored to their prowess, a puzzle or task that makes use of the abilities they have at their disposal or NPCs that are going to come into conflict with their ideals or beliefs. I appreciate that's a lot of work for the DM at times, but personally I can't imagine running identical games for different sets of characters in terms of both challenge and opportunity.

 Paradigm wrote:
It's not changing the story so much as allowing the antagonists a level of agency and intelligence that makes them worthy adversaries. They might not know this specific party is coming for them, but if they're at all intelligent or aware, they know these spells and abilities exist. They know they're going to be opposed. They're going to try and do something about that, whether that's mundane or magical, blatant or subtle. They don't want to be defeated, and they're going to take actions both before and during the events being played out to try and make sure they aren't. The DM has both the right and the responsibility to give them the capacity to be active, intelligent and prepared if it suits them as characters (master criminal is probably better prepared than crazed cult leader, for instance). NPCs, even moreso antagonists, should not be static or immutable. Players shouldn't be the only characters that get to be proactive in achieving their goals.

Which in turn places a barrier to entry on the world and raises some questions.

How does a evil king get control of a kingdom when people can detect evil? How do you ever get a jafar when you paladins are around? In order for those people to get into positions of power they first have to find items/abilities of power which requires them to have some measure of power to begin with. Nobody in the world can win by virtue of their own ability. It's all magical items and special powers. Once the world runs on the availability of those specific powers you now have a world that has to run on the idea that those specific powers exist. Which in turn eliminates most of the "mundane" stuff that should make up the majority of the world.

Which wouldn't be a problem if those abilities were hyper rare or extremely costly. What if Zone of truth required some incredible sacrifice? Not money. Like.... someone has to give up their sight? THEN the ability exists but it makes sense why it isn't always used. What if in order to detect evil it only worked on individuals, took hours to cast, and required a blood sample of the person you were detecting on? Even then you would imagine that a Kingdom would have every person anywhere near the leader undergoing the ritual by policy.

I am also a big believer that content in any game should, at least to some extent, be tailored to your players, both in terms of specifically challenging them where appropriate and the inverse, giving them the opportunity to make good use of their particular abilities. I feel a game should be set up to give characters (and by extension players) a challenge to engage with, whether that's combat tailored to their prowess, a puzzle or task that makes use of the abilities they have at their disposal or NPCs that are going to come into conflict with their ideals or beliefs. I appreciate that's a lot of work for the DM at times, but personally I can't imagine running identical games for different sets of characters in terms of both challenge and opportunity.

I agree. I just think the existence of THOSE powers inherently shifts the nature of the game in a way that cannot be taken back and ultimately limits the whole scope of the game all so a single player can go "oh cool.".

Oh, yeah, it undoubtedly comes with a ton of baggage in terms of in-world politics and sociology, I just don't think that baggage is necessarily a bad thing. I prefer to think of it as an integral part of the nature of fantasy, dealing with real-world concepts but under a set of rules that operate entirely differently to reality. The way in which a tyrant comes to power, for instance, can still be the same: wealth, guile, populism, the hubris of the establishment, the exploitation of outside events for their own gain. But where in reality one might alter documents or spread propaganda to present a false narrative about the previous power, in fantasy they might instead enlist the help of a powerful wizard to perform a ritual that alters the memory of the entire populace to believe their new tyrant is a benevolent king. Where one might bribe an accomplice, they could instead take complete control of them for weeks at a time. Where one might lead a coup from within the military, they instead strike a bargain with a dragon or a lich or a demon to overpower and dominate those who would resist. The cause and effect remains largely the same, it's simply the means themselves that are more fantastical.

Not to mention that just as in reality, crime, evil and injustice still happens because people invent ways to circumvent the systems that exist to prevent those things, in a fantasy world where spells can read your mind, of course there's a healthy black market in talismans that are going to put false thoughts into your head if anyone tries. The mightiest warriors wield magic swords, so naturally there are alchemists and enchanters trying to make armour that is immune to magic, rendering them glorified baseball bats. Every action has its equal opposite reaction, and that's true whatever universe you're in.

I also think this inherent skewing of the scales lends important context to the arc of would-be heroes over the course of a campaign. You go from the people completely subservient to these principles and realities to people that hold power over them, earning the right to reshape the world and overcome the evil that, when you began, was so immensely overpowering and impossible. While, you might say, such a power curve is inherently abstract and unrealistic (not untrue), it's also a superb basis for the kind of heroic narrative that D&D does best.


Not saying that Zone of Truth is the greatest spell of all time or that I'd sorely miss it if it were gone, but I do think the effects of such things on a fantasy 'reality' is a feature, not a bug.

That healthy black market is directly counter to a world of normal crime. If the barrier to entry for the mafia is they have to buy amulets for every single person in their organization then they go bankrupt before they move any product. Even if they make them in house. .. using dnd rules. 1) make it masterwork (+100 gp in the making of it) + spell cost for protection from detection. What is that 3rd or 4th level spell? What % of the world even has access to those spells? Lets say the organization is 20 people.. thats at least a month of a wizard working non stop producing what is probably tens of thousands of gold worth of amulets just so some paladin doesn't kick down your door and kill everyone because somebody pinged on his detect evil radar.

In 3rd where creating magic items cost exp... well... now that wizard is fethed for doing his job.

DnD should have a heroic narrative. But that narrative carries over better when it's done on the back of the characters hard work and good decisions. Not because they gained an ability that they can use several times a day to fix all problems for them.

I think anyone thinking Zone of Truth is some sort of truth serum might need to reread the spell. It doesn't force you to answer, nor does it force you to tell 100% of the truth. Turning Zone of Truth on its head with half truths and misdirection is the easiest way to make players (or world systems) that rely on it fall prey to their own spell. The spell even says that lies of omission, probably the strongest type of lie, are perfectly within the bounds of anyone under the spell's influence.

Also in 5e, detect evil doesn't actually detect "Evil" alignments. It detects "an aberration, celestial, elemental, few, fiend, or undead" or "a place or object" that "has been magically consecrated or desecrated". So a power hungry money grubbing a-hole of a duke is perfectly immune to the spell. BUT it will detect all sorts of (possibly "good" aligned) creatures, like an angel or even a powerful fey creature.

5e made alignment an optional system. It removed almost all of the functions of the alignment system from powers and abilities available to the players, and shifted those to creature types that would be common foils to the player. Even then, the game put basic counters within the spells themselves in the form of either materials that block them (often awkward) or through either magical or innate counters (such as numerous creatures who are immune to magical scrying entirely).

I won't excuse 3.pf. I am glad that system is behind me, and would be hesitant to play it ever again. I have already told my group I will never run it ever again.

Lance845 also raises what I feel is a world design question: how often do people with those powers show up in the world in general? In my worlds? Very, very rarely outside of player characters. And since player characters can't be everywhere at once, it makes it easy for a warlord with an army to show up and claim territory simply because he has the might to do it. Even for those few that do have those powers, there are a plethora of reason they may not be willing and/or able to use them. As an example, the Forgotten Realms are a huge place, and Elminster is just one (admittedly absurdly powerful) man. Even with the other absurdly powerful characters in the Forgotten Realms, remember that for every absurdly powerful hero, there is a countering absurdly powerful villain just waiting for a single moment of weakness or distraction. "Why isn't Elminster helping us protect this city?" "Because he's busy keeping Orcus/Xanathar/Ashardalon/whatever from doing something even worse somewhere else."

As to system issues, I've yet to see a rule set with a magic system that doesn't suffer from this general issue. Magic usually breaks the laws of the world, and that can range from "we can't ever threaten this wizard because of all his permanent contingencies" of 3.pf, to "Mages are almost literally gods" from Mage the Awakening. Conversely, it might be something so minor it's basically "we just don't want healing to take actual in-game months every time".

Yes. 5th changed the detacts to work on a more focused scale that still has the same problems.

A Doppleganger is found out immediately by detect. As would be a Vampire. And any other thing that would be manipulating and using subterfuge. Even the spell detect magic means if anyone had a "amulet" to protect them from detection they would just end up with a glowing bit around their neck.

Hard counters like creatures that are immune goes back to a world where the DM crafts an encounter to counter the players abilities.

See, I am glad you mentioned Mage the Awakening and it's related titles. Magic in that can litterally do anything. But it has the biggest draw back of all. You literally might just be written out of existence for throwing a fireball. Paradox is a very real problem.

Either 1) Magic has to have incredible penalties to prevent it's careless use or 2) what it's inherently capable of must be limited in scope.

What if a cure poison/disease doesn't automatically cure poisons and diseases but instead fortifies the player for their next save to fight it off? Not a flat out "I cast and so it's gone" but I cast and we hope for the best. Particularly strong aliments are still strong in those cases and magic to help is ONLY magic to help.

Detects shouldn't give you information. They should allow notice/search/whatever checks to be used to potentially find information.

A spell slot expended for the opportunity to do more than you normally could is better than a spell slot expended that just toggles the answer on because it allows not just for failure but degrees of success.

Add in restrictive material components or the like and you have a very functional system where magic is a advantageous tool while not stripping the world of it's mysteries and problems.

 Lance845 wrote:
Yes. 5th changed the detacts to work on a more focused scale that still has the same problems.

A Doppleganger is found out immediately by detect. As would be a Vampire. And any other thing that would be manipulating and using subterfuge. Even the spell detect magic means if anyone had a "amulet" to protect them from detection they would just end up with a glowing bit around their neck.

Hard counters like creatures that are immune goes back to a world where the DM crafts an encounter to counter the players abilities.

See, I am glad you mentioned Mage the Awakening and it's related titles. Magic in that can litterally do anything. But it has the biggest draw back of all. You literally might just be written out of existence for throwing a fireball. Paradox is a very real problem.

Either 1) Magic has to have incredible penalties to prevent it's careless use or 2) what it's inherently capable of must be limited in scope.

What if a cure poison/disease doesn't automatically cure poisons and diseases but instead fortifies the player for their next save to fight it off? Not a flat out "I cast and so it's gone" but I cast and we hope for the best. Particularly strong aliments are still strong in those cases and magic to help is ONLY magic to help.

Detects shouldn't give you information. They should allow notice/search/whatever checks to be used to potentially find information.

A spell slot expended for the opportunity to do more than you normally could is better than a spell slot expended that just toggles the answer on because it allows not just for failure but degrees of success.

Add in restrictive material components or the like and you have a very functional system where magic is a advantageous tool while not stripping the world of it's mysteries and problems.

A Doppleganger is fine, it's not a fiend, fey, undead, etc. It's just a monstrosity, which isn't on the list. If your vampire is directly manipulating things instead of just charming someone or whatever, then that's on you the GM for putting them there in the first place. Any creature smart enough to manipulate an entire nation should be reasonably smart enough to do it from actual shadows or whatever. You're looking at problems that basically don't have to exist in actual game play and saying they're system breaking. They're not. I have a game set in Ravnica, where magic is super prevalent, and Detect spells and abilities have yet to be an actual in game issue. Even in a low magic setting, so you can see the king has an amulet around his neck. Good for you, so what? There's a ton of reasons for a powerful ruler to have powerful magics protecting him, the first and foremost being that he's a king.

"What if cure poison doesn't automatically work?" So.. what? You prefer players have a chance to simply waste resources for no actual gain? I mean, there are plenty of gritty realism rule sets, and even gritty realism optional rules for 5e. Go wild. I'd never play them, but you do you. Not having them doesn't make a system bad. "Detect shouldn't give you information", I really think your overestimating what they do, and underestimating the limitations on those spells and abilities. There are four, FOUR whole "detect" spells in 5e: Detect Evil and Good (which should really be "Detect Outsiders" or something), Detect Magic, Detect Poison and Disease and Detect Thoughts (mind reading). There are only a handful of other Detect abilities, the chief among them being a Paladin's Divine Sense (a weaker version of Detect Evil and Good) and the Grave Cleric's Death Sense (again, a weaker version of Detect Evil and Good).

Detect Magic: presence of magic within 30', spend an action to get its school. That's it. It doesn't tell you what the spell is (you would seem to be in favor of an Arcana check or something to determine that?), doesn't tell you the effect, the source [caster I mean, obviously a magic item would show itself], doesn't tell you anything else. It's countered by two separate spells (not including Anti-Magic Aura or anything blanket countering magic): Magical Aura and Nondetection.

Detect Evil and Good: we've been over this one. Presence of certain creatures (most extra planar and undead), again within 30'. Same material blocks as Detect Magic. Doesn't tell you who specifically, or what type they are, just that they are one of those things. Again, countered by Nondetection, as well as plenty of clever opponents. Did you know familiars are Fey?

Detect Poison and Disease: Funnily enough, the most specific of the Detect spells, since it specifically tells you the kind of poison, poisonous creature or disease (again, within 30' and the same material blockages). I have, as far as I can recall, never seen this spell cast because of how specific its target is. Again, Nondetection would block this spell.

Detect Thoughts: The most insidious of the Detect Spells. If used for more than just surface thoughts, it specifically lets the person know they are being targeted. Most people don't realize it lets you search for a thinking mind (again, within 30' and slightly reduced material blockages). Also blocked by Nondetection, Mind Blank, and a collection of other monster abilities and spells. There's also some monkeys in the details of use, including your caster pulling out spell components, and performing specific verbal and somatic components: remember that these are usually noticeable and may even be seen as offensive to the target. Sure, you can read their surface thoughts: they're all about telling you to copulate with yourself. Edit: also worth noting that unlike the previous three, the duration on this spell is 1 minute. You can get a lot of pointless small talk done in one minute.

I dunno, again, I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill here. I realize the issue extends to more than just Detect spells (since you mention Cure Poison/Disease which is just ... okay?). I'm a huge fan of the "regular dude with a sword" archetype so magic isn't even really my thing in D&D, which made 3.pf a very, very painful era indeed. I mean, my favorite archetype was basically nonviable by level 5.

Dopplegangers constantly change what they are classified as. They have been Fey and Aberrants before.

Either way, it's more of a general game design philosophy point I am making. As you say, the issue is more than detect spells. It's anything that toggles on and off situations like that. It's inherently more interesting to not be able to do that and so it's bad design to create abilities and powers that close off interesting possibilities instead of opening them up.

Poison and disease serve no mechanical purpose except to eat up spell slots (if the party has access to those spells) when the spell instantly does what it says on the tin. But as I pointed out, if instead it provided a bonus to the save for a person to over come it then poison still has impact in the short term and disease can still have an impact in the long term which makes those more interesting tools for the game.

Again, just using it as an example.

It was fun, my old D&D group had a reunion while I'm back states side and we tried to pickup with the "Impregnable Fortress of Dib" Where we left off back in May/June. It was a lot of fun seeing them. They burned the fortress to the ground with flaming arrows, then carefully approached through the underground tunnel avoiding the trap.

Hey everyone, cheers for the suggestions Lance845.

i continued to wing it for NPC stats; i'm comfortable doing it now and it's nice not caring so much about the throw-away characters.
The 'every stat at 10' approach is fine but giving each npc two stats below 8 (1D8) so the players got the feeling that average folk are a little bit useless, which seemed to go down well.
I made an NPC with 1 INT and 1 WIS. He doesn't 'get' much, can't tell halflings from human children and tends to give away his lunch money to the less fortunate.

The 5 senses thing was quite useful - it was a great way of getting out of a boring description "i check the corridor" "you look down the stone corridor; it smells of musk and damp - the roof is dripping occasionally and the floor is slightly slippy from the slime that lives off the moisture"

Best advice i heard so far about dealing with player questions is "learn your players, not the rules"

I'd like to report considerable success on dealing with players character sheets - tell them they are wholly responsible for their own sheets and the upkeep thereof; you just print off a copy at the start of each session to work with - nobody complained so far and it lets you think exclusively about the setting and plot.

How has everybody else found soundscape programs?
i ask because i have been using 'tabletopaudio's 'soundpad' html extension but i'd like to see what programs others have found and use to provide background noise and other sound effects.

I have never used any audio aids besides putting on a speaker with a generic playlist. Maybe something like celtic folk or some gak. But even that i jave done rarely.