Dungeons and Dragons

[Ashiok]

So, I've recently gotten into Dungeons and Dragons (5e, of course) and I've been playing with some friends on Roll20. (Basically, voice chat+ Tabletop interface. It's pretty cool. 

Then I started thinking. 

I bet lots of people on 17th Shard play D&D, I wonder if we could run a campaign? Possibly with alternate rules doing cosmere things (although that's more 3.5...)

So, the questions are:

 

Who'd be interested in doing this?

What editions have you played?

What kind of campaign would you like to do?

Yea or Nea to cosmere alternate rules?
Which edition do you prefer to use? 

Finally, if we end up doing this, what time would be preferable?

 

Also, feel free to use this thread to talk about cool D&D stuff. D&D is cool, after all.

[Argent he/him]

I think the 5e DMG has some pretty solid ideas about porting D&D to your own universe, so that could work. This being said, I've only played with the 5e Starter Edition, so it's all hearsay. But I absolutely loved the latest edition - much much more than I did 3.5.

[Moogle]

I've been playing D&D for a while now with friends (DMing one, taking part in another right now). Don't have enough time to do a 17th Shard version, though I'd be interested in seeing how the campaign progresses if you guys do summaries and whatnot.

 

On editions: I find it interesting how many people like 5e, given all my friends won't play it. I like how they simplified the rules while keeping some nice bits of 3.5, but overall it's a huge turn off for me. They didn't learn from 3.5's balance issues. Casters remain absurdly good relative to the other classes. 5e buffed casters in some regards: wizards now get infinite cash when they get wish, saving throws no longer scale, so a level 20 fighter will still suck against a level 1 wizard, bounded accuracy means a group of one hundred commoners can take on just about everything so there's less 'epic' stuff, etc. Not to mention the absurdity with items setting attributes, rather than granting bonuses. Why should it be a good idea to be a fighter with the minimum strength possible? :/

 

It's funny, because I could criticize D&D (every edition) all day, but I still love playing it with friends. Don't take my post here as being particularly mean-spirited against 5e here (I can criticize 3.5 just as much, and while 4e is a masterpiece mechanically that doesn't make it fun for me).

 

As for campaign ideas:

Running something on Nalthis during the Manywar could be interesting. Not sure how'd you do Awakening mechanically. Could re-work the planet to be like Roshar, and priests act like squires to Returned and get a super-Breath they can use while they remain devoted to their Returned.

 

Scadrial could be very interesting. Plenty to be done in the days during the forming of the Final Empire. Alloy of Law also reads like it could be done as a campaign - perhaps something in that vein could be good. The party has to investigate the deaths of Allomancers, who keep showing up in the river with holes through their hearts, or something. Cue something like the Set. The MAG probably works better than D&D here, though. (I don't care for the MAG all that much, though. May as well just free-form it.)

 

Sel, I think, has a fair few ways to adapt to D&D. Wizards as Elantrians, monks as practitioners of ChayShan. Campaign ideas are a bit harder - perhaps war finally erupts, and the party has to assassinate the Wyrn?

Edited January 31, 2015 by Moogle

[Quiver he/him]

I have never played D&D. Ever.

I've kind of been interested in giving it a try, but even if there was a shop locally which sold it (there isn't), I would still need people to play it with, which I don't. The only table top RPG I've ever really played was two sessions of Exalted which, while fun, didn't really amount o very much in the grand scheme of things.

 

Still, if you guys do decide to run a campaign, would it be possible for you to post it here? I'd love to follow you and get some idea of how it's done.

[Ashiok]

Quiver, you could join us. (If we actually did a thing) The basic rules for 5e, and all of 3.5 are available for free on the internet. 

[king of nowhere]

I've been a DM with 3.0 and 3.5, and hopefully I will again in the future. However, I have no idea how one could play on the internet. I mean, there are dices to be rolled and somesuch. However, if you explain me how and you convince me it's feasible, I may join in.

(EDIT: now that I think about it, the most difficult part would be having a dialogue with an npc; how could you do that if you have to wait a day for an answer?)

 

I don't know anything about 5e. I know very little about 4e, and from what I know I would not like it, even if it is the most balanced. I care a lot about worldbuilding and consistency, and 4e doesn't seem to be focused on it (in the immortal words of roy greenhilt, "you can persuade yourself so well that you retroactively alter the past, but you cannot swing a sword in the same way twice?").

For balancing the casters, I did not allow defensive casting. I mean, also from a realism point of view it makes little sense. you start chanting and gesticulating, I attack you. I don't see how you can do that "defensively". also I covered the "step back, then cast a spell avoiding attacks of opportunity" : if one does that, his enemies can step forward and attack of opportunity. casters are still very powerful, but that way if a melee manages to close in he has a good chance.

I also nerfed a bit the dominate person spell by taking a wide approach to what kind of actions would allow a second saving throw. asking a dominated person to attack his allies, or to betray some important secret, certainly does. Some nerfing also to scry and teleport effects, in that I required some stricter "connection" to make them work. To scry on someone you must be able to identify him very well (so just a passing knowledge of his face won't be enough, and neither will just knowing a name, unless it is an absolutely unique one), and to teleport to a place you must know where it is well enough that you would be able to go there by flying. that mostly prevents scry-and-die tactics: you won't be able to scry on him if you don't know him enough to identify him among the whole world population, and even if you do, once you see him walking down the street, you won't be able to teleport there because that street could be anywhere in the world and you don't know where it is (EDIT: even if you knew which city it was, you wouldn't be able to tell a random alley from another. unless you could read the street's name, or you saw something peculiar that would let you identify it). I'm pretty sure I did some other minor nerfing here and there that I cannot think about right now.

Last but not least, while not a real nerf, everyone in my campaign world knew exactly how dangerous a spellcaster is, so every adventurer would sink good money on buffing his saving throws and making sure they can deal with a flying or invisible foe, and everyone would focus the wizard first with everything they've got. Many combats resolved with the party sorceress doing nothing but running for her life while the rest of the party killed the enemies that were set on chasing her.

Edited February 1, 2015 by king of nowhere

[Ashiok]

Roll20 is an interface. It's like a virtual tabletop. Look it up.

[Pestis the Spider she/her]

Oh, RPG! I've always wanted to try some tabletop RPGs, especially D&D, because I've heard it mentioned quite a lot, but I simply have no one that would like to play with me. No one I know is interested in this sort of thing, so I never actually tried anything like it, and I simply know nothing about it. But sounds fun.

Edited February 2, 2015 by Pestis the Spider

[Moogle]

I've been a DM with 3.0 and 3.5, and hopefully I will again in the future. However, I have no idea how one could play on the internet. I mean, there are dices to be rolled and somesuch. However, if you explain me how and you convince me it's feasible, I may join in.

(EDIT: now that I think about it, the most difficult part would be having a dialogue with an npc; how could you do that if you have to wait a day for an answer?)

 

Typically you would do sessions in real time, using a chat program. Roll20 has been brought up as an option, and it's definitely fancy. I've also seen people use a spreadsheet with Google Docs for the grid then IRC or some other group chat system.

 

[caster balance]

 

(Speaking mainly of 3.5 here) Huh, interesting. I don't think it fixes the problem of celerity + anything, but martials can definitely use that (basically, a free mageslayer feat + move).  A few questions, if you don't mind:

 

What level do your campaigns typically take place at?

Do you allow ranged AOOs?

Do you still limit AOOs to 1/round without combat reflexes?

Did you also keep the standard rule that you can only AOO if you're not flat-footed?

What items would a typical martial character have to deal with a flying invisible spellcaster and by what level would they get them?

 

My main concern for my group would be that web is as good as ever, so even if they can move and take AOOs, web will prevent that if a spellcaster can get it off if they win initiative (which they will, thanks to nerveskitter, unless you carefully restrict supplements?).

 

The approach I saw a friend do was nerf the heck out of all the ridiculous spells casters get. Color spray became a level 2 spell, polymorph etc. just outright removed, that sort of thing. Main disadvantage of the system is that you just have to miss one ridiculous spell in the hundreds that exist for it to be mostly pointless and it takes forever.

Edited February 2, 2015 by Moogle

[king of nowhere]

(Speaking mainly of 3.5 here) Huh, interesting. I don't think it fixes the problem of celerity + anything, but martials can definitely use that (basically, a free mageslayer feat + move).  A few questions, if you don't mind:

 

Huh, that's more advanced stuff than I ever had to deal with. Let's try to answer some

 

What level do your campaigns typically take place at?

I only ran one campaign bringing the party from level 1 to 6 (was pretty hard already; none of my friends were intersted in roleplaying, but I found some of them were into Heroquest, so I conducted a campaign of it and used it as an excuse to introduce them to D&D). I never had to deal with the ridiculously unbalanced stuff that exist at the higher levels.

Also,  my players were quite inexperienced, so I could not hit too hard. casters are difficult to play effectively without a lot of knowledge.

 

Do you allow ranged AOOs?

No one in the party was an archer, so i never considered it. and enemy archers generally tried to hit from afar. But, just thinking off the top of my hat, I think I would not allow that normally: after all, that would require nocking arrows faster, and it would be difficult to justify someone doing that just because someone is casting a spell nearby. but I could allow an archer the option to use one of his ranged attacks as an attack of opportunity; like "I have three ranged attacks per round, I will make two of them in my turn, and keep the third arrow nocked and ready to use it on whoever may provoke an attack of opportunity"

 

Do you still limit AOOs to 1/round without combat reflexes?

Yes.

 

Did you also keep the standard rule that you can only AOO if you're not flat-footed?

Yes, makes sense. Although I could allow exceptions for specific situations if it seems to make sense in context.

 

What items would a typical martial character have to deal with a flying invisible spellcaster and by what level would they get them?

By the level the party got invisibility, enemy adventuring parties started to pack a few potions of see invisibility with them. Adventurers above level 6-7 would generally keep a few fly potions on them just in case. For higher levels there are plenty of magical items available that grants the capability to fly or see invisibility forever or a certain number of times per day. The party never reached that high so I didn't have to come up with specifics most of the times.

Actually I remember letting them found one such item in the form of attacheable wings; however, it was malfunctioning for having been exposed to wild magic, so it had the drawback that whenever activated it covered the user in tar and feathers. they sold it for a fair price. Here you see they were inexperienced; a hardcore players would have kept it and found a way to sell the tar thus produced for a profit.

That of course applied only to opponents that had access to magical resources. It was a point of worldbuilding that the orcish tribes in the north weren't dangerous to civilization because they lacked arcane caster. their "great horde" consisted of nothing but warriors without magic items and low will saves, plus a few clerics who mostly limited themselves to healing, and was utterly ridiculed by a few dozens high level mages flying and dominating people.

 

My main concern for my group would be that web is as good as ever, so even if they can move and take AOOs, web will prevent that if a spellcaster can get it off if they win initiative (which they will, thanks to nerveskitter, unless you carefully restrict supplements?).

Unless I misremember, web allows a saving throw, so that's ok. I didn't have much of supplement material, so again I don't know much about them. I don't even know what nerveskittter do.

But yes, I think I would have carefully restriced or nerfed supplements if they had been brought into it.

As a genral rule, I envision the fight between a mage and a fighter as the figher running to the mage as fast as he can, the mage getting one or two spells in that time, if he can stop the fighter the mage win, but if the fighter makes the saving throws and closes in, the squishy wizard is in trouble. So, I try to balance thing to keep that mechanic. a wizard has dozens of ways to keep himself out of danger, but each one of them must have a saving throw or a way around. If some spell would prevent a fighter from harming a wizard, I'd not allow it or nerf it to make some counterplay possible.

The key concept is counterplay; there must be a realistic way the fighter can get close to the wizard if he is reasonably prepared and get lucky with the dice. You fly, I can fly with a cheap enough magic item. You go invisible, I can drink the potion and see you. You cast stoneskin, I can power attack and still hurt you enough that you may fail your concentration. (oh, yeah, the items giving +30 to concentration - and other skill checks -, that's another thing I removed). You dominate person, I get a saving throw. You cast all your defensive spells before teleporting to kill me, you can't because I'm in a nondescript room and even if you're scrying on me you have no idea where it is.

 

I think wizards being stronger is ok, I would feel something is wrong if the guy who could reshape matter with his thought was no stronger than the guy who swings a pointy stick. All I try to enforce is that the guy with the pointy stick has a credible chance.

Edited February 2, 2015 by king of nowhere

[Moogle]

Thank you for your answers! Always interesting hearing from other groups.

[Ashiok]

They're talking about the rules as written for a specific edition of the game. 3.5 mostly, although I believe they touched upon 5e a bit. Rules available online here for 5e, and here for 3.5e.

[Bort he/him]

I first played 2e, back when it was AD&D. I GM'ed 3.5e, and ran my players from level one through to about level 15. By the time they were that powerful though, they were becoming a major player in the power scheme of my world. I did have one last campaign to run the group through, which would have given them their own kingdom, had they pulled it off, but real life interfered, the group split up, and we never got finished.

 

I tend to play my campaigns as fairly high magic. One of the players, for example, played a human mage/cleric, choosing the Goddess of Magic to follow. Very weak at low levels, but insanely powerful once he got a bit higher. Eventually, he took the advanced class Dweomerkeeper, a specialist mage in the service of Mystra, and specialised in manufacturing magical weapons/items.

 

I also tended to include the Gods in my games. Sometimes by having the characters meet them in person, so to speak. Sometimes by having dreams or visions sent to one player or another, depending on the God in question.

[Blaze1616 he/him]

I am one of those rare fans of 4e (at least rare among people I converse with). The freedom it granted among skills, and the creativity that opened up to the players as a result, was just plain awesome.

 

As far as playing online, I don't see it as all that different than, say, Mafia is. Players just need to be patient, understanding of delays, and committed to responding in a timely manner. Some forums even have dice rolls built into their response features (Gaiaonline comes to mind). And using Google Spreadsheets, as Moogle suggested, for maps makes it a breeze. I don't see why you couldn't play online.

 

I will have to decline participating in a 17S campaign though. I just don't have the time to devote, sorry.

 

As for Cosmere magics integrated into DnD, I think AonDor is a simple addition. Seeing as the accuracy of the drawn Aons is important, it correlates to a D20 rather well if you slightly alter the AonDor rules to allow "messy" Aons to still work, but have less than desired results.

[king of nowhere]

Well, that roll20 was an intersting idea. but if the playing is made in real time via skype, count me out. I am fluent in english (I've been using it to work abroad for four years), and I have spoken it with people from all over the world, but I have huge troubles with the american accent, and most people in this board are american. I visited USA and found out that I can barely understand it most of the time. Add in that it will be over skype, and on skype I often have troubles understanding my own parents. I don't think I can manage it.

Plus, issues with the different timeline would make it really difficult to find good times to play.

[Lindel he/him]

This will probably fill up pretty fast, but if there happens to be an open seat, I'd be up for joining, assuming I don't end up being too busy.  I'm kinda with Blaze on the question of which edition, honestly . I like 4e, despite how much hate it gets. 

 

As for where to set it, I think Nalthis would be really cool, but Awakening would be pretty hard to adapt. 

Edited February 3, 2015 by Lindel

[Blaze1616 he/him]

As for where to set it, I think Nalthis would be really cool, but Awakening would be pretty hard to adapt. 

 

If you were to alter some of the rules, It would actually be pretty simple to adapt.

 

Collecting Breaths would be a narrative issue. The party could be rewarded Breaths for completing missions, doing cool things, etc. If I were the DM, my first campaign would be about a group of mercenaries within T'Telir who charge Breath, in addition to money, for their jobs. As such, the monetary gain will be a bit less than usual, but then the jobs might be rather...unusual.

 

Breaths would then become, in my campaign, a pseudo experience system. Heightenings then become "levels" (with some splitting once reaching higher levels i.e. the gap of third to fourth Heightening might be 2 levels rather than 1), and upon level up the players learn new Commands.

 

As a result, Commands become like spells. Obviously DnD stats are also involved like normal. All the normal Heightening boosts (perfect pitch, etc.) are involved as well. The DM would need to put in some effort gathering a list of Commands, what they do, what they can be used on, and what "levels" they can be learned at.

 

Finally, the rolls are then involved with whether the player visualized the Command correctly. Like with AonDor, the game would insert some leeway in the effectiveness of a Command, rather than a work/didn't work (although, unlike AonDor, Awakening has some of this built in to it). It is then up to the DM for what happens upon failing the roll (Command does not work, Command backfires, etc.).

 

Those are my thoughts, and I think it would work well. Classes could still be involved, but simplified, as in no "magic users," but there would be Awakening classes. You could then included multiple classes such as the Awakening Swordsman that would be similar to a "mage knight," and then the Iridescent Tones Scholar that is the full blown Sorcerer that gets really good at Awakening, but is useless with weapons. You could have non-Awakening characters (either they refuse to Awaken (from Idris perhaps) or just choose not to). As with normal DnD, customization is aplenty.

 

Why specifically do you think it would be difficult?

[Eerongal he/him]

I've played D&D since 2nd Ed AD&D, with 3rd edition being the BULK of my experience. I personally loath 4E, but I can understand it's appeal to others. That said, I'm currently enamored with the new 5E rule set.

 

Also, I posted this several months back, but someone on reddit was apparently making a 5E version of all the knights radiant. Searched for it really quick, looks like this is the most recent incarnation of that. I haven't given it a really hard look over, so no idea how well its balanced.

 

Also, some many years ago, I ran a (rather short) play by post here on the 17th shard forums, running through world's largest dungeon. Interest in it peter'd out pretty darn quick, though.

[Lindel he/him]

It would just take more effort to customize everything, compared to AonDor, for example. But your description seems doable. Makes me really want to run a similar campaign with my own group. 

[Blaze1616 he/him]

It would just take more effort to customize everything, compared to AonDor, for example. But your description seems doable. Makes me really want to run a similar campaign with my own group. 

 

Though I agree that it would put a lot of planning time and commitments on the shoulders of the players, but if everyone is a fan, it is a reusable system. If I were to put on this campaign, all that work would fall on my shoulders as DM and the only fan of Sanderson in the group, which I can understand why that would make some people call it difficult.

 

That being said, I don't see there being any less work for AonDor, really. You'll still need to make a list of Aons and what levels players can "learn" them at. In fact, AonDor might involve more work because there is not a leveling system built into the magic like Awakening has, though I suppose one could simply follow normal level ups. *shrugs* I guess it comes down to how badly you want it?

[Eerongal he/him]

Though I agree that it would put a lot of planning time and commitments on the shoulders of the players, but if everyone is a fan, it is a reusable system. If I were to put on this campaign, all that work would fall on my shoulders as DM and the only fan of Sanderson in the group, which I can understand why that would make some people call it difficult.

 

That being said, I don't see there being any less work for AonDor, really. You'll still need to make a list of Aons and what levels players can "learn" them at. In fact, AonDor might involve more work because there is not a leveling system built into the magic like Awakening has, though I suppose one could simply follow normal level ups. *shrugs* I guess it comes down to how badly you want it?

 

I think AonDor would pretty easily be represented as a D&D spell system, personally. Just break the aons up into spells of various levels, remove all material components, and make all of them have somatic component (drawing the Aon). Have all the casters cast like a sorcerer, where they have so many "known" spells, but maybe able to learn more like a wizard adding to his spell book, and spontaneous casting.

[Lindel he/him]

Yeah, I figure with Aons you just convert them straight into spells, and drop any other casters. Unless you're adding other magics in, and then things start to get complicated. That said, I'd be more interested in DMing or playing in a campaign on Nalthis than Sel. 

Edited February 3, 2015 by Lindel

[Blaze1616 he/him]

I think AonDor would pretty easily be represented as a D&D spell system, personally. Just break the aons up into spells of various levels, remove all material components, and make all of them have somatic component (drawing the Aon). Have all the casters cast like a sorcerer, where they have so many "known" spells, but maybe able to learn more like a wizard adding to his spell book, and spontaneous casting.

 

Right. So I suppose AonDor would be easier than Awakening, but I don't think either particularly difficult. But this is coming from the guy who didn't like the DnD world, so I made my own. So it doesn't seem so bad to me, anyways. If anyone is ever going to attempt to do so, I'd be happy to help and give input. I might do it at some point, but I don't see myself having time any time soon.

[Lindel he/him]

So who all has expressed interest in participating? I'll commit to joining if this gets off the ground, assuming time constraints don't get in the way too much. I would volunteer to DM, but I'm already running one campaign at the moment, so I'll leave that up to someone else. 

Edited February 4, 2015 by Lindel