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  • KurtDunniehue@ttrpg.networktoRPGMemes @ttrpg.networkMy brain hurts
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    1 year ago

    The secret is to not work from what you’d like to do, but to work backwards from what your players want to do.

    Seriously, throw out all the prep you have that isn’t landing, and just ask your players what kinds of things they want to do. Then, make stories inspired by the actions or accomplishments they want to undertake.

    … This does require that your players have some idea of what they want to do, though. If you have checked out or uninvested players, there’s essentially nothing you can do I’m afraid.

    So now I will soapbox to the players reading this: Your job is to be invested in the game. If you don’t put energy into being invested, you’re not fulfilling your side of the arrangement at the table.




  • I don’t think you picked up that I playtested both, though.

    The monks played okay, if rather awkward in my playtests of the rules. They should do more damage, but they were all suitably impactful in a fashion that this dance bard cannot replicate with the ribbon features it has been given.

    The bard was just a bard with what is effectively a free melee attack cantrip that doesn’t scale with their casting stat. They do not step on the monk’s toes, because they were too busy casting shatter, fireball, and other uses of their magic action.

    It’s flavorful and fun, but the impact of the dance bard is not on their level 3 features. It’s their level 6 features that give the class a tonne of impact.


  • Because I have playtested monks, and their ability to control and knock enemies around while punching more often and for more damage while being quicker than the dance bard.

    The dance bard in my playtest was awkward, and did less single target damage than the monks in my other playtest. It also was not able to attack and disengage for free, giving it much less of a skirmishing feeling.

    A bard without any subclass features is a strong and versatile character. With the dance bard subclass, the bard is actually playing suboptimally, and does not outperform the monk in my playtest.






  • I think the changes to the Paladin smites do present a neat way to change hunter’s mark for the better, as there are a tremendous number of other attack-rider spells that should be able to be looped in to the typical ranger round, in addition to hunter’s mark.

    In my own playtest with the ranger, I was absolutely floored with how much damage it can do, so I hesitate to make damage output even easier. It’s not a bad idea to have rangers be the absolute Kings of ranged damage, but only if we’re okay with them having a strictly ranged damage dealer class identity.

    However to your point, I think making each attack-rider spell into some permutation of hunter’s mark is the way to go. Perhaps hunter’s mark should be something that is automatically applied if you use any of the primal shots, but only for rangers (or maybe a particular ranger subclass)?


  • Hunter’s Mark damage scales every other spell level, so it goes to 2d6 at level 9 if you use your highest spell slot at the time. No point in casting at 2nd level at all.

    Ah whoops I goofed on the scaling of hunter’s mark! In my defense I was juggling a lot of new mechanics and the ranger was a last minute addition to one of my playtests.

    But looking at the general numbers, one fewer d6 per turn would have been a drop in the bucket to the damage they were outputting. It was sincerely surprising on how impressive they were, I expected them to perform worse based on my first impressions of reading the class. Actually playtesting revealed that they are in no way nerfed.

    I promise you, “Don’t group up when you fight things with breath weapons” is not a strategy unique to Rangers. That’s just something kind of busted with ranged builds in general.

    That’s kind of my point, that Ranged builds having guaranteed high damage is an issue because there are so many perks, like ease of safe positioning. I think Rangers are doing great damage, and that might be a problem.


  • I’m honestly not as sold on the idea that resources are a balancing consideration, all told. Or at the very least they aren’t as big of a consideration as many people presume. But perhaps you’re right and rogues are fine, at the very least I don’t think rogue players will generally notice that they are doing less damage due to how clutch they can be with their cunning strikes.

    As to Hunter’s Mark damage, it’s higher damage at level 5, when you miss once. Which means that the damage floor is higher in general starting at level 2 spellslots (character level 5), and the damage ceiling is lower only if you are able to make 3 attacks. At level 3 spellslots (character level 9) and onward, it’s simply the same or higher damage, excluding gimmicky action surge builds.

    As to when it is useful to upcast, it’s useful in any fight that you think is serious. The biggest problem is that the rest of the spellcasting toolkit is sitting there, doing very little for the most part (standout exception is Conjure Barrage which is fantastically powerful and fun).

    edit: Oh and to answer this…

    If the Ranger was optimized for being fast, and the Rogue was constantly tripping the enemies, why are you surprised it was hard to hit the Ranger?

    These were two different playtests, with different classes. The ranger and the rogue weren’t in the same playtest group, so this wasn’t the result of complementary kits. It’s mostly a consequence of the the enemies having only average movement speeds, and the counters being somewhat melee heavy.

    But even in the encounter where I had 60 flight speed dragon wyrmlings, the situation constantly played out that this ranger was never grouped up with the rest of the party, so I couldn’t hit them in the breath attacks. This amount of safety is a bit problematic with their higher damage output, IMO.




  • The amount of specificity of rules is not binary, it exists on a spectrum.

    I think that the amount of specificity we’re seeing in the Playtest rules are beginning to encroach on an unsung virtue of 5e, with allowing for ‘Rulings, not Rules.’ Several times I have found that these specificities put more work on me, the GM, to sort out if a situation is clearly defined and doesn’t require my ruling, as opposed to just entirely requiring me to make a ruling in the moment.

    To this end, PF2e does say this quite often. Where a situation that has many vague outcomes the rules will state ‘the GM will determine the outcome.’

    It has felt like in 5e, that could be a general guideline in almost all cases without being explicitly stated. It feels like that’s being chipped away.










  • A tale that is perpetually dark in tone becomes tiresome very quickly. It needs to feature the occasional ray of light for contrast and to create a sense of hope. Monsters and other terrors must be offset with creatures that are kind and lovable, giving the characters even more reasons to stand against the darkness. Here are a couple of ways to add glimmers of light to a tragic tale:

    • In a land as dreary as Barovia, take the time to describe the occasional scene of beauty, such as a pretty flower growing atop a grave.
    • Make sure that the heroes have contact with NPCs who are honest, friendly, and helpful, such as the Martikovs in Vallaki or the Krezkovs in Krezk.

    -Curse of Strahd, Introduction. Marks of Horror. 2016.