D&D Meta Thread

[Τamamo]

The Troll is one thing, but I don't like the guy with the crossbow watching over us. We'll get shot if we move out. Gotta lure it to us.
Yulya should cast Shield of Faith on Alice. Cat is tough with Rage.

[Alice]

The more I think about it, the more issues I discover in our gameplay. Not unresolvable but we gotta address them.
The main problem is that Vanilla D&D is a turn-based game that is played in real-time. People sit at a table and react to each other's moves in an instant. We are playing D&D as a semi-real-time game in which everything in each turn happens simultaneously, yet we play round- based because everyone types at different times and the DM's move is a monolithic block of text. There is no chance to interfere in the middle of the DM's turn. That's a problem. I have Deflect Arrows, Yulya has Silvery Barbs. In an ordinary game, the DM would roll dice for his monster's attacks one after the other. He scores a critical hit and a player would immediately say nope, I deflect this attack or I use Silvery Barbs. We can't do that. There are 2 solutions.: Deflect Arrows is easy because I have this reaction every turn. It's a bit cheesy but I'd simply let Joy decide which attack I deflect if several hits occur.
Silvery Barbs is a different beast because it literally invalidates the DM's entire turn in our play. Yulya would have to state afterwards that she forces a certain re-roll and you'll have to re-do your entire turn. It's just once-per-day but still I see no way to handle this properly.

Now back to Monk mechanics.
Honestly, I'm no Bera-tier genius and I can't really understand the consequences of your game mechanics yet. I can barely understand the simpler Vanilla rules. I still think it puts me at a severe disadvantage because I need to hide every turn which I don't have to in Vanilla to avoid being targeted. I just have to end my move out of sight or reach. So I'm one action short each turn. which either costs me movement or an attack and ruins my action economy.
https://tabletopjoab.com/action-economy-in-dd-5e-explained/

You'd have to give me Hide as an additional bonus action but that opens an entire world of new problems and seems like a bad idea. I mean Alice is weak in this form, that's ok, but I fear that won't improve even at higher levels with these game mechanics.

I also don't like the idea of not announcing Ready actions but making them standard. We have no means to determine if an enemy has spent his actions last turn if we discover him. That's the reason why in Vanilla, you cannot ready an action if you are not aware of the specific trigger. Otherwise all enemies you don't surprise would constantly lay in wait as defenders. Imagine this in the goblin cave. You have 10 goblins with readied bows and every approaching adventurer would get showered with poisoned arrows before having the chance to do anything. That's realistic but not feasible for adventurers storming dungeons with enemies outnumbering them 10:1. Similarly you could man the palisades with 5 crossbowmen which shoot everything that moves. That's not allowed in Vanilla rules. Neither for the DM nor for players. It only works like 'I see this goblin or know he's hiding behind that corner. I ready my bow and shoot him if he comes out'. This is to avoid a WWI -tier trench warfare scenario where both sides lay in wait for 50 turns and the first one who moves loses. That's called the Ready Action Dogpile and known to make the game unplayable.
https://tabletopjoab.com/the-ready-action-in-dd-5e-everything-you-need-to-know/

The Ready action also consumes an action and a reaction so if you ready an action you can't take other reactions like opportunity attacks.

But whatever, I don't think talking about it helps. We're at a nice cliffhanger so why not have a short intermission?
Alice vs. Goblins. I wanna see how this works out before I make something stupid that ruins the actual game.

Plot me against a few goblins in a high cover environment in this threat and let's see where this goes! I don't know myself, gotta test it. I have more time tomorrow so we should be able to play a few rounds.
I'll make a few scenarios too so you can tell me how they'd go.

[Our Angry Bear Brain]

>monk action economy and auto-moves

Yes, I have noticed that either I'd have to make the move for you automagically or pause when I think you might want to do something and that's no good either.

So my solution to that would be to allow you or me to write scripts (that you could set up triggers), add points if need be, so that different scenarios are handled. I believe we already started to do that and it may become unwieldy.

The other involves buffing you in exchange for not being so reactive. Of all the other characters in we've had as a system, we don't seem to have this issue. Sentinel and other reaction based skills are handled automatically upon meeting certain conditions. This will take some back and fourth to accomplish for you.

>You'd have to give me Hide as an additional bonus action

Done if that's going to help, I could even give you a bonus for hiding and see how that goes. Your stealth isn't great.

>Imagine this in the goblin cave. You have 10 goblins with readied bows and every approaching adventurer would get showered with poisoned arrows before having the chance to do anything.

It didn't happen, it could have happened, I use fair judgement.

>Alice vs. Goblins. I wanna see how this works out before I make something stupid that ruins the actual game.

>I'll make a few scenarios too so you can tell me how they'd go.

Let me think about it. I could make a new thread, but let's not stop the current game for it. As far as your time, if you need more time to run these scenarios that's up to you, but I'd prefer to just keep going on the main thread as well, I'll be extra lenient if something happens and you disagree with how you were able to handle it.

This is an additional puzzle to this game that we need to work out playing the game, consider it a challenge.

[Our Angry Bear Brain]

I want to lean towards keeping this simple. Simple for me is adding triggers or exchanging abilities.

After reviewing Silvery Barbs, and other such things may occur, we could exchange such a spell for another spell of her choosing. It's not the best spell, I don't think it's worth worrying about beyond that.

So my suggestion is:

1. Replace actions or spells that rely on choices mid-situation to occur on a trigger basis, perhaps adding additional opportunities for it to occur since choice was removed, or exchange them for something else. It shouldn't take away a significant amount of autonomy.

2. Replace these with something else of your choice.

3. Buff your other abilitys or actions in exchange for these.

For your deflect arrow, that could be exchanged for disadvantage for anyone shooting at you, or additional AC against ranged attack, or resistance to ranged damage. All of which would be a better deal than using a ki point to deflect an arrow when you have a finite number and there are better things to use them on. It could also just be once per turn you ignore the first arrow hit.

Let's go through every ability you are concerned with at this level and compromise on a fair buff or exchange.

[Τamamo]

Yes let's continue!
I am utterly confused as well but you know Cat's not the girl to care about such things. Move fast and break things. We will learn from the game. I just noticed it has been months since our last battle with the bandits and this didn't really count, we actually forgot a lot. The last serious encounter in the Goblin cave was half a year ago!! Can you believe that?

Ok so what do we do?
I won't have Cat storm out into the open and get shot by the Troll and the Bandit with the crossbow. Do we count as hidden from both at our current position? Or should we take an action to hide? We gotta lure the troll here into the thick cover. Ashley should summon another wasp.

Is my assumption that the bandit can't see and shoot above trees correct?
I think the red circle or the area North of it would be good for an ambush. Alice South, Cat North then flank the Troll. He's gonna have trouble in the thicket. and Alice should not have trouble disengaging and hiding.

Can Cat move straight W without being seen or better NW-SW under the upper tree?

[Our Angry Bear Brain]

Yes you are all currently hidden. You weren't found and unless you step out from behind cover they have no chance to find you unless they move to a line of sight position.

If you move I will presume you choose to remain hidden. Presume also that these trees are wider at the base and at least 2x taller than wide so if you move behind a tree, they can't see you. The wind is also masking your footsteps but they can possibly smell something's up as you are upwind.

You can't move directly west without potentially being spotted, there's a small chance. You can move north and west using the tree directly above you as cover.

Moving through a tree full of snow will definitely be seen.

[Τamamo]

Ok just as I expected!
How far can Cat move using Stealth and remaining hidden? Does this work with Dash or Feline Agility? It's difficult terrain.

[Our Angry Bear Brain]

Stealth and difficult terrain do not stack in my opinion, it's half speed for both. I like to think of a turn as being roughly three actions. You can attack only once unless you have a skill or feat to allow it, you can move twice but one of those will use the attack slot, this includes stealth move, unless you have a feat that allows attack-move and you should eventually get this, the third is use or other, then you add bonus actions and other no cost actions. Your use action/no cost actions also reload a bow, draw a weapon or shield, etc. The attack slot is also used for spells.

In other game types other than D&D there is a three action economy that potentially allows 3 attacks or three moves and there is no dash etc. Bear and the others play that way and it's faster paced but also everything has higher HP and monsters are far more capable. Feats also dominate play which can lead to intense combinations. Battles are slightly faster. It makes sense for them, but I like those feats and that's why I push feats on you. The monsters you encounter here will be enhanced and nerfed based on other sources and balance.

So whatever her speed is with feline agility or dash, just cut it in half to do that move as stealthily as possible and/or with the difficult terrain.

[Τamamo]

Cat has a normal base speed of 30
Dash doubles it to 60
Feline Agility adds another movement to 90.
So half speed would be max 45 but consumes all actions.

If Cat uses an action to hide she can go 30 with Feline Agility. That's enough.

[Kashtan]

After reviewing Silvery Barbs, and other such things may occur, we could exchange such a spell for another spell of her choosing. It's not the best spell, I don't think it's worth worrying about beyond that.

not the best spell?
silvery barbs is one of Yulyas strongest assets exactly because you can literally go nope and rewind time when the enemy lands a crit or succeeds on a saving throw. you can also use it to give someone advantage in a difficult situation it has many uses because of this reroll - advantage double feature.  i agree we can make it a readied spell thats released on a trigger but no way shell replace it for something else.

its still wonky bc she will have to choose beforehand and not after the action occurs.

[Our Angry Bear Brain]

>silvery barb is best spell

Then think about how you would use with a trigger action, hopefully automatically, in this case having it as a trigger means you can cast it before any encounter. This could be handled like Hellish Rebuke but on critical hit to anyone, or like Embolding Bond between two creatures.

If you want it buffed to counter the fact that it's lost some autonomy then let me know. I could say it has a number of uses per trigger or it lssts for 1 minute.

[Kashtan]

guess it would work like this:
Yulya says in the coming rounds she would like to use Silvery Barbs to re-roll a severe hit on a party member or a successful saving throw of a monster depending on priority.  and she can change that priority every round. it should not be too general but ultimately youll have to decide what makes most sense. since she can use it only once per day it needs to be effective at the right moment. its not good to determine that at the start of an encounter. like right now we have no idea if it is more important to negate a hit of the troll or make it re-roll a saving throw. its very situational.

[Our Angry Bear Brain]

Right and it's incompatible with this style of gameplay in that it's far less powerful as I said. Yes, we are not playing exactly according to the rules because we are not playing as the game was originally designed to be played, so we have to be flexible.

I'd be willing to up the frequency to more per day if it could be a trigger, say to act on a critical strike that would turn the tide of battle. One that would cause someone to get downed etc.

[Alice]

>Deflect Arrows
My bad, it's Deflect Attacks, not just arrows.
As a reaction, each turn I can try to deflect one attack, ranged or melee, that includes (sic!) bludgeoning, piercing or slashing damage. Even if it has additional damage types - for free.  The dmg reduction is 1D10+DEX+LV = 1D10+6
If I reduce damage to zero, I can spend one Ki point to deflect it to someone else, which is the real fun.

Instead of completely remodeling this, why not do what Kashtan suggested? If a specific situation occurs, we broadly say what triggers this and what we want to achieve in our turn. Apart from that it's up to you which attack I deflect and which enemy gets hit instead. I don't see a major problem with Deflect Attacks.



With Silvery Barbs it's a bit more complex but if Yulya says she wants to use it in this or that case beforehand it's also doable.

Bah, I'm tired recently. The long Summer days are exhausting. We'll just play and see what happens, then adjust rules accordingly.

[Our Angry Bear Brain]

So just to be clear, I'll draft UOS two trigger actions. One for Silvery Barbs and one for deflect attacks.

The draft for each is as follows:

Silvery Barbs: sans any input from Yulya, upon a critical hit to someone on Yulya's team, once per long rest (or 8 hours non-consecutive rest) I will choose two creatures, one the perpetrator, one a member of your team, and perform the spell action on them.

Benefits: no need to use an action to cast the spell, greater potential frequency. Critical hits are pretty dangerous so it's fair to say a good critical hit is a good candidate for this.

Deflect Attack: if no target is specified, once per turn, a melee hit will be partially stopped and if any damage remains, redirected to another creature of my choosing within range of the strike or 5ft whichever is greater or a ranged hit again partially stopped and any remaining damage redirected to the next closest hostile creature along with the actual munition. as a reaction, for free unless you use your reaction for something else during your previous turn. It acts somewhat like parry but without requiring you to use an action to set it up. I want this to be default automatic for any first strike you receive without ki point cost unless you've already used your reaction or another action that used a ki point that turn. Up to the number of ki points you have total per short rest, (So it's not cheese but it helps. Again you will not lose ki points for this)

Benefits: does not cost any points, will make you much harder to hit and potentially dangerous to hit, potentially funny results.

The attack has to have hit, has to be physical damage as described, and critical hits are included. Unless you want it to trigger only for critical hits or that and any hit that would down you. That's your choice because they will still be limited.