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Made in us
Terrifying Doombull




 LordofHats wrote:
So I picked up Odyssey of the Dragonlords cause I want to run a Theros style Greek adventure but the Theros book doesn't have one really and I hoped to canabalize.

Not sure I'm gonna do that now.

Has anyone played this? I know someone was asking about 3rd party adventure modules a bit back. Right now the book is kind of blowing me away, especially in comparison to the official campaigns published by Wizards.


I've honestly heard nothing but bad things about it.

Hard railroad, terrible DM PCs, awful boss monsters that break most of the rules (and a few that aren't beatable without DM fiat/ massive editing of the adventure), and lots of solutions that basically can't be gleaned if the players haven't read the book.
And the setting details read as gibberish, basically making even less sense than a Doctor Who/Dragonlance crossover fanfic with He-Man and the worst elements of Americanized versions of Greek myth.

Efficiency is the highest virtue. 
   
Made in us
Krazed Killa Kan






Columbus, Oh

Blowing you away in this case meaning WOW this is SO much better?

I havent had much chance to look at any 3rd party D&D items, but the hardback campaigns Ive read have left me Meh

2+2=5 for sufficiently large values of 2.

Order of St Ursula (Sisters of Battle): W-2, L-1, T-1
Get of Freki (Space Wolves): W-3, L-1, T-1
Hive Fleet Portentosa (Nids/Stealers): W-6, L-4, T-0
Omega Marines (vanilla Space Marine): W-1, L-6, T-2
Waagh Magshak (Orks): W-4, L-0, T-1
A.V.P.D.W.: W-0, L-2, T-0

www.40korigins.com
bringing 40k Events to Origins Game Fair in Columbus, Oh. Ask me for more info! 
   
Made in us
Secret Force Behind the Rise of the Tau




USA

Hard railroad, terrible DM PCs, awful boss monsters that break most of the rules (and a few that aren't beatable without DM fiat/ massive editing of the adventure), and lots of solutions that basically can't be gleaned if the players haven't read the book.
And the setting details read as gibberish, basically making even less sense than a Doctor Who/Dragonlance crossover fanfic with He-Man and the worst elements of Americanized versions of Greek myth.


I can see the railroading with some of the stuff but it looks like a lot of that can be left out (or kept in and run, if the group wants to do it that way). In a way railroading doesn't feel out of place in a quasi-Greek setting. Fate and gak is a thing and I don't see anything that can't be glossed over by a good DM to cover the rails well. Leaving out the Epic paths, the book doesn't look any more railroady than any standard published campaign. Keeping them feels like it would force a certain amount of rail roading though.

There is definitely a lack of tools for arranging combats though. There's no guide to the book for what level players should be for what content and some of the combats seem designed with 'run away' being an option? Not sure. That part of the book is definitely messy. I'd also say the tone is a bit all over. Some parts are clearly humorous in a tongue-in-cheek way that seems to clash with other parts.

Hard disagree about the setting details though. The setting is honestly maybe the best part of the book. It's pretty good. It's basically someone smashed Dragonlance and Clash of the Titans together and this is what you get and I have to say it's not bad. I'd play a campaign in the setting. The in-book race options are all OP, but not more OP than the best official options. The sub-classes are hit and miss. Some are just lazy. Some are outright broken. Can't lie though, the Wizard subclass is pretty freaky cool. Wizard philosopher? Hell yes, great idea. Haven't gotten to any of the NPCs, though I noticed that most of them fit certain cliche archetypes.

 porkuslime wrote:
Blowing you away in this case meaning WOW this is SO much better?


Mostly in terms of how much work clearly went into it. Better? Hmm. A lot of the official campaign modules, especially those of the last few years, have felt kind of half-hearted/assed in a lot of ways. Part of what blows me away here is that someone bothered to actually put together a full level 1-maybe 20 adventure with a main campaign and lots of extra bits. There was a lot of work put into this thing. Is it all good? Just at a glance I can say no, but there's some cool gak too.

   
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MN (Currently in WY)

So, session 28 or so of Curse of Strahd, and we might finally be starting to get somewhere.... maybe. Still, at the rate my group is going; it is going to take us another 6 months or so.

I honestly did not expect it to take this long when I signed up, and am starting to get campaign fatigue!

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Made in us
Krazed Killa Kan





USA

I'm sorry to hear you are getting fatigued Easy E, I hope your campaign starts picking up speed.

   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





The Battle Barge Buffet Line

 Easy E wrote:
So, session 28 or so of Curse of Strahd, and we might finally be starting to get somewhere.... maybe. Still, at the rate my group is going; it is going to take us another 6 months or so.

I honestly did not expect it to take this long when I signed up, and am starting to get campaign fatigue!


What's the schedule/session length now?

We Munch for Macragge! FOR THE EMPRUH! Cheesesticks and Humus!
 
   
Made in us
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MN (Currently in WY)

On session weekly for 3 hours in person. Outside of the session, we do not talk D&D.

However, I am finding that we are sticking to a lot of tropes of D&D about travel, resources, time, NPC interaction, etc that is really bogging down the game for me.

I despise random encounters as a waste of time. Travel between plot points is killing me. RPing pointless NPC interaction is getting on my nerves. Setting and narrating every PCs watch even when nothing happens is sucking away my soul. Each person's dreams being RPed and narrated is driving me bonkers!

However, I get the impression these are the methods they have always done things with the group I am part of, so I don't want to rock the boat too much. Everyone seems to be having fun, and I am having fun; but I can feel the fatigue starting to set in as I just want to get on with it!

Any thoughts on how to handle this?


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Made in gb
Is 'Eavy Metal Calling?





UK

It never hurts to bring it up with the DM. Even if this is how they generally do things and the rest of the group is fine with it, at least letting them know might a) prompt them to maybe reign it in a bit and b) make them aware of the things that bore you a bit, so they might start to throw you more of what you do enjoy to balance it out. Past that, a talk with the group might be awkward, but it could be that some of them have similar misgivings and are being equally quiet about it. If it's actively affecting your engagement with the game nearly 30 sessions in, it's possible and perhaps even likely you're not alone there.

For the record, I'm 100% with you on this. Gameplay that isn't relevant to the narrative and characters is just frustrating to me. Everything that happens should be designed to create tension, drama or peril and the things that don't are just not relevant for me. I'll narrate over days of uneventful travel or restocking on supplies in just a few seconds, because that's really not what I'm here for. Sure, if the players specifically ask the shopkeep for local information or the barman for rumours, that can become an RP moment, but if they're just resupplying or booking tavern rooms, I just have no time for that sort of pointless admin being strung out longer than necessary. Ditto for watches, I try to only call on them when there's actually a chance of something happening or being noticed, or if players expressly want to do something during that time. Otherwise, it's just a quick line or two and a confimation that everyone gets to click the Long Rest button.

I've just started a new game with a new group and one of them seems very into the logisical side of it, so I imagine they may not enjoy it when I get to my first 'Peter Jackson montage' and skip over a few days of travel where nothing happens. but we shall see. As DM, I see myself essentially as a director, and as such, my interest is in moving from scene to scene in as effective a way as possible. When part of the session is a life-and-death back alley brawl and the other half is a high-stakes meeting with the local baron, I'm not wanting to play out a scene in between where the players stop a random dwarf in the street for directions and get into a discussion about his beard care routine, or ask a local farmer how his crops are doing and get invited for tea; if this were a show or film, no one would watch those moments with any interest, and thus, I skip over them where possible.

 
   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba






Yeah, I definitely definitely feel that. I much prefer the 'we are showing the important bits' style and as much as I love just chatting in character, having to roleplay through doing something inane like manage watches or such if theres no underlying point to it is unbearable.

"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"

"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"

"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"

"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"  
   
Made in us
Norn Queen






Depends on the style of game. All the watches and such matters if there is actual risk and danger.

Dnd has mostly moved away from its hex crawl roots where wandering encounters, resource depletion, etc etc... All that really mattered. So now people some times go through the motions but without any of the risks or consequence which turns it into minutia.

How often do players deplete their rations while traveling? How often do they go looking for fresh water? What are the actual consequences for not?


These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
 
   
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MN (Currently in WY)

The biggest thing in this game is that we may not get a "Long Rest" if we are interrupted by a random encounter that will deplete our resources and weaken us for the next fight.

However, that is an element of gamey-ness that I personally do not appreciate in D&D. If I wanted to play resource management, there are way better games for that. However, it does harken back to D&D's roots, even if I feel the genre of RPGs have moved away from that model.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/11/11 14:59:38


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Norn Queen






Some have. Some are invested in it. DnD tries to do it some times (tomb of annihilation) to various degrees of success.

I was just noting that the needing resources and preparation isn't inherently a bad thing. Its dnds current lack of consequence that has turned it into a time wasting bunch of faffing about.


These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
 
   
Made in gb
Is 'Eavy Metal Calling?





UK

My soft houserule for Long Rests being interrupted is that when an event prompts characters into doing something brief during the 8-ish hour period, I let them complete the remaining time so long as they're not actively doing anything for more than, say, half an hour or so.

If a bunch of Goblins attacks you in the night, and you fight them off in 4 rounds, that's less than a minute of action even with my more generous assumption of turn length (I don't stick to a hard-and-fast 'every round is precisely 6 seconds'). After that brief exertion, if you want to pick up your camp and move a mile or two away to prevent further ambush, fine, you forfiet the benefits of the rest and have to start over, but if you decide to stay put then within reason the rest isn't going to take much longer than it initually would.

I did have a scenario come up last week where, 6 hours into an 8 hour rest, an Elf character who had already completed their Trance rest got knocked out and revived on 3HP in a combat at the camp. There, I gave everyone the option of extending the rest by another 2 hours (ie. everyone gets a Long Rest, with the Elf completing their second Trance of 4 hours) or not, as while the rules technically say something about not benefiting from a Long Rest more than once every 24 hours, at the end of the day going into the next part of the session with most of the party at full strength and that one player at 3HP and half spells just isn't that fun. Doubly so as the Elf trance feature is meant to be a benefit, rather than the strange hindrance it would have been here.

I'm big on consequence for roleplaying, much less so for consequence based on weird rules interactions or micro-managing logistics.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/11/11 18:39:06


 
   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba






 Paradigm wrote:


I'm big on consequence for roleplaying, much less so for consequence based on weird rules interactions or micro-managing logistics.



^this.

If "how are we going to manage our resources" is part of the dramatic tension of the story we're trying to tell at this point, then we bring it in and make use of it, and do a bit of quick roleplay to determine who will be doing what and what the consequences of that will be. When we're traveling through an area that makes resource management important, we introduce a mechanic to determine how this will reduce our effectiveness in combat - for example, if we decide that while we cross a desert, my druid will be using create water to keep people hydrated, our ranger will be in charge of keeping our directions and making shelters and the sand will affect our construct party member's body, we mark down that we will be entering the next area with x fewer spell slots, y character at some level of exhaustion, and z character with lowered movement speed.


"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"

"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"

"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"

"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"  
   
Made in us
Terrifying Doombull




 Lance845 wrote:
Some have. Some are invested in it. DnD tries to do it some times (tomb of annihilation) to various degrees of success.

I was just noting that the needing resources and preparation isn't inherently a bad thing. Its dnds current lack of consequence that has turned it into a time wasting bunch of faffing about.


Part of the big problem with the current 'Long Rest' model in D&D is it becomes very binary, and the biggest effect of it is that most/many character classes lose their ability to really contribute because they can't get their resources back (or fear they can't).

This leads to one of several scenarios:
a) the group plays hyper-cautious, which gets boring (and possibly they refuse to consider any activities that might involve a soft timer of some sort). They also shy away from doing cool stuff with their class abilities for fear they won't get it back when they need it.
b) the group exploits the hell out of the rest mechanics.
c) the group overextends and it turns into multiple deaths or even a TPK, because if nothing else, all (non-consumable item) healing is tied to rests. If the group gets interrupted a lot, it rather rightfully feels adversarial on the DM's (not the monsters) part.
Adventure fails/ends because you were tapped out at room #3 just feels bad.


---
To make it worse, a small number of classes don't care about long rests so much (warlock and fighter, and warlock is on a really short stick for a long time, 2 spell slots until level...11???), and can really push for an otherwise exhausted party to get in over their heads. There's something to be said for different kinds of resource management, but the current model is frustrating. And they are somewhat shifting it to per day uses = proficiency bonus (or 2x prof), or a payment mechanic (ki, spell slots) to recharge instead of rests, but not changing it for existing subclasses and they're really inconsistent about it overall.

Efficiency is the highest virtue. 
   
Made in de
Battlefield Tourist






Nuremberg

D&D is in it's roots a simulationist style of game. It's for simulating a fantasy world, rather than for telling stories. The rules don't really do anything to simulate narrative structures, there are a lot of games that do that a lot better, like Blades in the Dark or FATE or whatever.

I play D&D to be immersed in or to create an immersive fantasy world. Some element of resources being important is required for my immersion. I don't try to tell a story with my games, I try to "see what will happen" in a world I have created or a world I am adventuring in. And then later on I'll tell the story of "what happened", whatever it was. In that sense, systems for random events while travelling are good, because they help to simulate a complex world with a lot of things going on.

Of course, these sorts of things have to be used carefully, and when used poorly can produce an unfun or tedious experience. My solution to that would be to go back to the world design phase and design a less tedious world with more interesting things happening in it.

But also, I do recommend people who play D&D but find resource management tiresome to check out games designed with them in mind, because it's likely to be a rewarding experience.

This was actually my main problem with the advice in the 4e DMG, they kept saying "skip to the fun", and what they meant was dramatic scenes and combat. But that's telling me what I find fun, and saying that I don't find navigating a fantasy world and managing my resources fun. I do find that fun, so don't skip it!

   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran





 Easy E wrote:
On session weekly for 3 hours in person. Outside of the session, we do not talk D&D.

However, I am finding that we are sticking to a lot of tropes of D&D about travel, resources, time, NPC interaction, etc that is really bogging down the game for me.

I despise random encounters as a waste of time. Travel between plot points is killing me. RPing pointless NPC interaction is getting on my nerves. Setting and narrating every PCs watch even when nothing happens is sucking away my soul. Each person's dreams being RPed and narrated is driving me bonkers!

However, I get the impression these are the methods they have always done things with the group I am part of, so I don't want to rock the boat too much. Everyone seems to be having fun, and I am having fun; but I can feel the fatigue starting to set in as I just want to get on with it!

Any thoughts on how to handle this?



I started Curse of Strahd when it first came out and abandoned it after a few sessions, pretty much for the reasons you stated. Since then I have run the entirety of Out of the Abyss (OotA) and learned a lot about running campaigns, in particular with the official module. The main thing to keep in mind is that it's still your world. You call the shots. Your party will not care what is official and what is homebrew material if it's engaging. In OotA I routinely cut out sections and NPCs I thought were unnecessary or slowed things down. Sometimes I rolled them into existing characters. A few times I wrote entirely new sections that were not in the book at all (looking at you, Blingdenstone...). I also filled out the Menzoberranzan chapter a lot to fit in adventures related to their backstories.

I completely disposed of random encounters. I despise these as a mechanic. If there isn't a reason for the baddies to be there for the story then they're gone. However, it is perfectly acceptable to use them to grind down your hero's for a tougher boss fight, alter the atmosphere in a dungeon, or because you want to try out your own custom monster in a certain environment. As long as it contributes to the story you're trying to tell! However however my players didn't actually mind them. A lot of the things that rubbed me the wrong way as a DM, the players were totally chill with.

Knowing what I do now I will probably try to go back to Stahdovania or Baronia or whatever magical mistovakia it's called at some point.

Also IIRC whenever Strahd is killed the campaign is over. If you can think of a convenient way for your party to nab that last artifact and get to castle then you're theoretically only a few sessions from ending it. But hoo boy I remember the section on Castle Ravenloft being quite daunting. Then get to homebrewing your next adventure!!
   
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MN (Currently in WY)

 Da Boss wrote:


But also, I do recommend people who play D&D but find resource management tiresome to check out games designed with them in mind, because it's likely to be a rewarding experience.


I would love to, but for some reason once you learn how to play D&D, people are loathe to move on or try others. I find this is true for a few reasons:

1. It is not easy to learn D&D and its associated rules and tropes. They want to use that knowledge.

2. After learning D&D, they think AL RPGs have that steep curve and do not want to go up the curve again.

3. They have system mastery and that is comfortable, it is hard to get out of your comfort zone for leisure activities.

4. When they try other games, the "lessons" they learned in D&D do not apply, and this can feel dissatisfying


At least, that is what I have experienced.

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Nuremberg

Yeah, it certainly seems pretty common. Back when I started playing we played lots of different kinds of games so it seems less weird to me to switch systems. That said I really like d&d and what it does, and it's the game I play most of the time. We've been playing a high lethality megadungeon campaign for nearly 2 years, I'm up to my 5th character (though number 4 is still alive, the high lethality has lead to us running a stable of active characters so that we don't have to start from scratch in the event of a tpk. We run them as A team and B team, but A team has been wiped or reduced to one member more than once and the previous B team promoted and a new B team formed). I think if you're running something like this D&D 5e is pretty perfect.

   
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Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba






 Easy E wrote:
 Da Boss wrote:


But also, I do recommend people who play D&D but find resource management tiresome to check out games designed with them in mind, because it's likely to be a rewarding experience.


I would love to, but for some reason once you learn how to play D&D, people are loathe to move on or try others. I find this is true for a few reasons:

1. It is not easy to learn D&D and its associated rules and tropes. They want to use that knowledge.

2. After learning D&D, they think AL RPGs have that steep curve and do not want to go up the curve again.

3. They have system mastery and that is comfortable, it is hard to get out of your comfort zone for leisure activities.

4. When they try other games, the "lessons" they learned in D&D do not apply, and this can feel dissatisfying


At least, that is what I have experienced.


I do find conversely that with RPGs that have a less steep learning curve there is a little bit too shallow of a pond to commit to a super long running campaign.with dnd there is at least the perception of near-infinite growth and new things..even if those new things are just the same old things with bigger names and more impressive descriptions

Also its kind of the kleenex of RPG systems, and people who are loathe to switch from dnd often just dont like the rules side of RPGs in general, so even if say pathfinder were easier to pick up they dont care about that anyway.

I can get people into Fate or PBTA super super super fast, but they tend to fall off them a lot quicker than dnd campaigns. I'm hopeful that the upcoming avatar RPG has enough meat on its bones to allow for more progression than the usual PBTA setup, because its got just eeeeeeeeeverything I want in a core gameplay resolution system.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/11/17 20:08:45


"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"

"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"

"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"

"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"  
   
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Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

Tomorrow we are back to Barovia again.

We are all getting our ass-handed to us by a killer tree and some sort of shade thing; which do not appear to be aligned, but are wailing on us anyway. I think my character has been reduced to 0 HP like 3 times in last week's battle, but to be fair I started by doing something pretty aggressive and paid the price.

At the end of the last session, one of our 5th level characters also got hit with a disintegration spell.

I think it might be time to "runaway"!


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MN (Currently in WY)

Well, we almost had a TPK and only some magical shenanigans (and possibly some DM fudging) allowed us to escape. Only 1 party member disintegrated. The rest of us are close to 0 HP or have been revived from 0 a couple times all ready. Pretty spent resource wise.

.... and then Strahd showed up in the close of the last session, hell bent on reclaiming the Tome of Strahd which is in our possession.

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MN (Currently in WY)

Some folks were out, so we played a One-Shot. It was a nice palette cleanser to play something different.

How often do you intersperse One-Shots or similar diversions into your long running campaigns?

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Witch Hunter in the Shadows





 Easy E wrote:
How often do you intersperse One-Shots or similar diversions into your long running campaigns?
Usually board games when someone is out, though we did have a side-game based on the old Tower of Doom / Shadow over Mystara arcade games when we knew someone was going to be missing a number of on/off weeks.

We also tried a little In Nomine as a backup game as there were next to no mechanics to remember, players being mis-leveled didn't really matter, and short 'slice of life' games don't need much setup or motivation to get the angels involved or have any large scale lasting concequences of success or failure.


And your Ravenloft game reminds me of why I took a hexblade (3e) the last time I was invited to play in the setting :p
   
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Jovial Plaguebearer of Nurgle





Kansas, United States

So, I'm playing a necromancer (Wiz7) in our current Strahd game, and I'm finding the sub-class to be... lackluster. By the time I can animate dead, the animated servants are functionally useless, even with my necromancer buffs. I can dish out a ton of damage... as long as I use Evocation spells. My Necromancy spells are effective at debuffing some things, but not the undead, which it seems like a necromancer should be capable of handling preferentially.

Any thoughts or advice?

Death Guard - "The Rotmongers"
Chaos Space Marines - "The Sin-Eaters"
Dark Angels - "Nemeses Errant"
Deathwatch 
   
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Secret Force Behind the Rise of the Tau




USA

It is pretty lackluster. I've seen many try necromancer of the years I've now played. I've rarely seen anyone feel satisfied by it. Many of the Wizard subclasses in general honestly feel meh to me. Most of the fantasy for the class really just comes from the base class itself.

I'd suggest switching to a Warlock if you can. Pact of the Chain, Undead Patron. You'll have less ability to unleash a skeleton army, but you'll feel more like a master of necromantic power/a lich.

Another option is the Circle of Spores Druid, who is basically a Druid Necromancer. Mechanically, they can get an army of minions going, but it takes a DM willing to go along with it in a lot of ways cause the mechanics are a bit wonky.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2021/12/12 01:30:16


   
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Nuremberg

5e is not built to manage summons or minons really. It breaks the action economy pretty quickly.

   
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Secret Force Behind the Rise of the Tau




USA

The shortcut is to just treat minions as a horde. The way several of the summons are written (especially the druid summons) are so annoying. It's easier to just toss what the spell actually says and throw down a 'horde of woodland critters and such. Horde of skeletons. Etc. That way you can treat the summons as a single entity, which makes the action economy and pace of the game easier to manage.

   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba






 Easy E wrote:
Some folks were out, so we played a One-Shot. It was a nice palette cleanser to play something different.

How often do you intersperse One-Shots or similar diversions into your long running campaigns?


Pretty often. We've created a whole ton of super gonzo zany custom level 2 characters with very very loose character creation rules and we tend to use one shots to run those characters.

My favorite is a hexblade warlock with every ability description reworded to create the character of Pippa Gumstocking, Suspiciously Happy-Go-Lucky Orphan Gal.

"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"

"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"

"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"

"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"  
   
Made in us
Jovial Plaguebearer of Nurgle





Kansas, United States

 LordofHats wrote:
It is pretty lackluster. I've seen many try necromancer of the years I've now played. I've rarely seen anyone feel satisfied by it. Many of the Wizard subclasses in general honestly feel meh to me. Most of the fantasy for the class really just comes from the base class itself.

I'd suggest switching to a Warlock if you can. Pact of the Chain, Undead Patron. You'll have less ability to unleash a skeleton army, but you'll feel more like a master of necromantic power/a lich.

Another option is the Circle of Spores Druid, who is basically a Druid Necromancer. Mechanically, they can get an army of minions going, but it takes a DM willing to go along with it in a lot of ways cause the mechanics are a bit wonky.


Thanks for the suggestions! I talked it out with my DM, and we're going to homebrew an Artificer sub-class based on the Arcane Defender. I'll let you all know how it goes: we play again this Sunday.

Thanks again!

Death Guard - "The Rotmongers"
Chaos Space Marines - "The Sin-Eaters"
Dark Angels - "Nemeses Errant"
Deathwatch 
   
 
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