D & D

[drauz]

Anyone play D&D? I am interested in trying it out.

Would anyone want to give it a try? I think they have online ways to play so we wouldn't have to live close by.

[Tgo01]

I cast magic missile at the darkness!!111

I'm down. We should live stream it to Twitch so everyone on GS can watch us be the best dorks ever.

[Gelston]

No. I'm busy arguing with Marines from the 80s that hate that Marines now all used ACOGs on their rifle.

[drauz]

No. I'm busy arguing with Marines from the 80s that hate that Marines now all used ACOGs on their rifle.

http://i.imgur.com/wdpPbF3.gif

[drauz]

I found this in google search.

https://roll20.net/

Looks to be free and have everything that would be needed. VOIP and chat integrated. Would just need a few more people and a GM. I could GM but with me having never played before it might not go well.

[Gelston]

I found this in google search.

https://roll20.net/

Looks to be free and have everything that would be needed. VOIP and chat integrated. Would just need a few more people and a GM. I could GM but with me having never played before it might not go well.

Yeah, that is what we used for RPeries in ESO before dueling was released.

[drauz]

Yeah, that is what we used for RPeries in ESO before dueling was released.

Were there any problems with it?

[Gelston]

Were there any problems with it?

Not that I ever saw. Oh wow, the website looks a lot different now. We didn't have to create accounts or anything back then. Looks neat though.

[Gelston]

We used https://rolz.org/ too.

[drauz]

Cool, thanks for the info.

[Whirlin]

Only if we can sit at a table at Wayside and pretend our characters are playing...

[Ltlprprincess]

I'd totally be down. Zaigh does d&d on the regular on Thursdays so maybe he can dm? I've never played before.

[Ltlprprincess]

Only if we can sit at a table at Wayside and pretend our characters are playing...

:cheers:

[Warriorbird]

It's fun. With the right DM and players it can be a great way to enjoy an evening.

[chalion]

Only if we can sit at a table at Wayside and pretend our characters are playing...

I have a bag of mixed dice in game for this.

[Back]

I've actually entertained the idea of getting into a D&D game recently. If it fits in with my schedule I'll try it out.

[drauz]

I would really only be available Fri, Sat, Sun evenings.

Keep responding if you'd like to join in and I"ll try to get more details hammered out.

Not sure how many people generally play (I assume its 5-6 + DM) but we have 3-4 so far so we are almost there.

[Ltlprprincess]

I would really only be available Fri, Sat, Sun evenings.

Keep responding if you'd like to join in and I"ll try to get more details hammered out.

Not sure how many people generally play (I assume its 5-6 + DM) but we have 3-4 so far so we are almost there.

I've got 1.5 months left in FL. Until then, I can't say for sure what nights I'm free, but Sundays are generally not good due to other IG obligations.

[Hips]

One issue with roll20 is people have to make sure not to talk over one another- things get pretty garbled over their VOIP. I'd recommend using their Google Hangouts extension.

What edition are you all thinking? 5th is excellent, a wonderful successor to 3rd/3.5.

[Taernath]

I'm down. No crazy hours though.

[drauz]

One issue with roll20 is people have to make sure not to talk over one another- things get pretty garbled over their VOIP. I'd recommend using their Google Hangouts extension.

What edition are you all thinking? 5th is excellent, a wonderful successor to 3rd/3.5.

I literally have no idea what any of that is. I know very little about it and am just starting to even look into it.

If their VOIP isn't great we can use discord and mute their VOIP. Its very light weight and pretty good.

[Hips]

There's a whole bunch of editions of D&D, 5th edition is the newest. It's very beginner friendly (in my opinion). I have a bunch of pdfs, though not many of the newer ones (Volo's Guide to Monsters, etc.) if you don't have them yet: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzaQm72eNoPNUGdCWjFWQU44Ykk

In short: roll20 is easy to learn and easy to use. A more expensive option if the game really takes off is www.fantasygrounds.com, but people will have to pay for that.

I would also recommend signing up for www.dndbeyond.com once you're ready to start getting into the game, it's their new online tools for 5th edition. Still in beta.

If people are looking for an easy way to create characters, ForgedAnvil is my favorite. You just pop numbers/select feats in excel and it builds the character sheet for you.

I want to play, if that's not clear! Let me know what I can do to help. :D

[Ltlprprincess]

I'll be sure to send Zaigh in the direction of this thread in case he's interested in DMing.

[Androidpk]

No. I'm busy arguing with Marines from the 80s that hate that Marines now all used ACOGs on their rifle.

Iron sights are best sights.

[Gizmo]

I found this in google search.

https://roll20.net/

Looks to be free and have everything that would be needed. VOIP and chat integrated. Would just need a few more people and a GM. I could GM but with me having never played before it might not go well.

Roll20 works great and is what most people use on the internet to play DnD. There are also some cool GM tools for it too like maps and overlays.

I haven't used it much from a GM stand point since the only thing I really GM anymore is the new Star Wars RPG which is an amazing system/dice mechanic

[Axhinde]

"Roll the dice to see if I get drunk!"

[Astray]

It all depends on your DM in my experience. Having a rule nazi for a DM fucking sucks.

[Gelston]

Iron sights are best sights.

No one cares about the opinion of an Air Force POG on weaponry.

[Ceyrin]

Only if we can sit at a table at Wayside and pretend our characters are playing...

I tried collecting various dice over the years to try and create this potential experience one day. I never could find a d4 or d20

[zennsunni]

It's fun. With the right DM and players it can be a great way to enjoy an evening.

Or even an entire day...

[Androidpk]

No one cares about the opinion of an Air Force POG on weaponry.

What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I’ve been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I’m the top sniper in the entire US armed forces.

[Ltlprprincess]

What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I’ve been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I’m the top sniper in the entire US armed forces.

*guerilla

[Ceyrin]

*guerilla

No, no. I like it better the other way. It conjures amusing imagery.

[Nathala Crane]

*guerilla

http://i.imgur.com/U7Ghu2s.gif

[Ltlprprincess]

http://i.imgur.com/U7Ghu2s.gif

My fantastic wit is lost on you, plebe.

[Nathala Crane]

My fantastic wit is lost on you, plebe.

:(

[Latrinsorm]

I enjoy playing and recently got into DMing. The hardest part by far and away is getting people to all do it at the same time repeatedly. A single encounter can easily take an hour, it's very difficult to tell a story without a persistent group. As such, I recommend starting in an arena or similar type scenario, where you can easily work in various participants without overly fudging the storyline.

I also recommend starting not with a pure DnD version but a homebrew version where new people can start with a bare minimum of investment. I am going to repost here a stripped down version of 3.5 I used to get DnD going in another group. Given that this is a GS board you could certainly go a lot more complicated than a group with no MUD familiarity, but I strongly urge you not to. I can't stress enough that the hardest part is going to be people finding time to play, make the time investment needed to play as low as possible for most success. It's not about intelligence, it's about time. Good luck, everyone!

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Class

The fighter is the meat of the party. The most health, the best armor, the biggest weapons. Generally not too bright, though.

The cleric channels the will of the gods, for better or for worse. The gods help those who help themselves, though, so the cleric puts a lot of stock in hit points, armor, and a mace to the face too. Jesus got up close and personal when he spit in your eye, clerics do no less.

The rogue is the tricksy one. If you want to beat down a door with your shoulder, be a fighter. If you want to pick the lock and save thousands on rehab bills, be a rogue. Same applies to combat: the rogue isn't gonna stand and bang with anything beyond a particularly anemic goblin child, but let a rogue navigate to the right spot and they'll kill the blaggard sure as blinking.

The wizard is the fancy pants. Could get knocked out by a stiff breeze and as useful in a butt kicking contest as a one legged human, but put a meat shield in front of him and he can rain fireballs on the masses. (Asbestos vests recommended for said meat shield.) Particularly altruistic wizards can focus on enhancing party members, or they can just cast lightning bolt and kill everything.

Stats

Strength - how well you swing a weapon, how easily you hit things, how hard you hit 'em
Dexterity - fine motor control, using a ranged weapon, dodginess
Constitution - toughness, endurance
Intelligence - how quick you learn, problem solving
Wisdom - how much you know, how much you've experienced
Charisma - force of personality, good looks, leadership

We're gonna be using 28 point builds: every stat has a minimum of 8 and a maximum of 18. It costs you one point for every stat increase up to 14, two points up to 16, and three points up to 18, so it takes a total of 16 points to have an 18 stat. The most important single stat for each class is Strength for Fighters, Wisdom for Clerics, Intelligence for Wizards, and Rogues really need everything, but everyone gets something out of every stat. Here are some archetype builds to get the ball rolling, you can select any of these or build your own.

Puny Wizard
10 Str, 15 Dex, 14 Con, 16 Int, 10 Wis, 8 Cha
Intelligence gives you more and better spells, Constitution gives you health, Dexterity helps you aim your ranged attacks. Bing bang boom. Wizards have a library of sixteen spells that they can choose from to memorize before an encounter, here's the selection I would roll with:
Level 0 - detect magic, acid splash, acid splash, telekinesis
Level 1 - expeditious retreat, detect secret doors, magic missile, magic missile
Level 2 - blur, scorching ray, web
Level 3 - lightning bolt, fireball

Battle Cleric
16 Str, 10 Dex, 14 Con, 8 Int, 16 Wis, 8 Cha
Clerics have to be in touching distance to cast their spells, so a cleric's gotta be prepared to be in the thick of the action, and as long as you're there you may as well crack some skulls. Clerics only have nine spell options and they are granted not from poring over some dusty book but just by asking their god nicely.
Level 1 - cure light wounds x 3, inflict light wounds, protection from evil
Level 2 - cure moderate wounds x 3, aid
Level 3 - cure serious wounds, inflict serious wounds, prayer

In each case you can cast only the spells that are listed without resting, so the Wizard could cast acid splash twice and no more. Think Final Fantasy the Original, not Final Fantasy 6. As we go along I will include a full description of all the spells, I just include these to help flesh out the picture.

Assassin
10 Str, 14 Dex, 10 Con, 16 Int, 14 Wis, 10 Cha
Rogues also have to be in touching distance but you can't hit what you can't see, so the assassin focuses on their skills more than brute force of arms: diplomacy, disable device, hide, listen, move silently, open lock, search, and spot are their bread and butter, meat and potatoes. You can also select three of bluff, disguise, escape artist, sleight of hand, tumble, and use magic device. Utilizing these skills allows the assassin to flank and sneak attack their opponent, then it's lights out.

Fighting Fighter
Fighters in this genre are the most boring class because all they do is wallop things, so the game gives them a ton of feats to choose from to wallop things in a huge variety of ways. For our purposes here's the fighter baseline:
16 Str, 8 Dex, 16 Con, 8 Int, 8 Wis, 10 Cha
From here you can choose three options:
Strength - 18 Str, unlocks Two Handed Fighting, Power Attack, and Cleave
Dexterity - 14 Dex, unlocks Two Weapon Fighting, Dodge, and Spring Attack
Intelligence - 14 Int, unlocks Combat Expertise, Improved Disarm, and Improved Trip
And every fighter type gets use of the intimidate skill.

If you really want to build an 18 Cha 16 Wis 8 everything else fighter, that's your prerogative. Also keep in mind that while these numbers are the baseline reality, you should feel free to build out everything else about your character: how tall are they? what hair style? any cool tattoos? (There's no such thing.) are they religious? agnostic? bicurious? There's a huge amount of lore for any number of scenarios, but I want you to feel free to just freestyle it. Blank canvas!

.

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Alright, so you've got your characters. What kind of gear will they use? In our game we'll only focus on weapons and armor.


fighter cleric rogue wizard item
x x x x dagger
x x x x club
x x x x staff
x x x spear
x x x shortbow
x x x sling

x axe
x x sword
x x hammer
x greatsword
x longbow

x x x leather armor
x x brigandine
x plate mail

x x buckler
x shield
I want to stress that this is the gear you can start off with. You can find gear while on the adventure, and you are always allowed to improvise an attack although since none of you are the Jackie Chan class this will almost never be as good as using a proper weapon.

There are five basic ways to use weapons:
-One handed, nothing in the off hand.
-One handed, shield in the off hand.
-One handed, weapon in the off hand.
-Two handed melee.
-Two handed range.

Trying to use two one handed weapons applies a penalty to hit. You can reduce this penalty by using a light weapon (dagger or axe) in the off hand, although of course those weapons don't hit as hard as grown man weapons. You can also reduce this penalty by being an especially dextrous fighter, but you'll still always have a penalty.

A shield does make it slightly harder to maneuver, but if you're gonna go single one handed and you can use a shield you pretty much always should.

Ranged weapons let you fight from (you guessed it) range, and if the enemy only has melee and never saw that episode of Justified about the 21 foot rule then it's easy pickings. The downside is you only have so much ammo, plus you need dexterity to shoot well and strength to melee well so if your ranged character is reduced to meleeing they'll probably be lousy at it.

There is no best or worst option. This is my design. Various weapons will be better in various situations.

The thicker the armor, the harder you are to hurt, but the harder it is to move around. If you want to be a nimble duelist prancing around out there, go light. If you want to stomp into the middle of a fracas and start wailing away at everything, go big.

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brief breakdown of combat, and i'll walk people through as we play too

combat in DnD is essentially turn based (more like Final Fantasy than WoW)
step one generally is to roll for initiative. this determines the turn order, and is a twenty sided die (d20) modified by Dexterity bonus
there are four basic options for a turn: move then standard, standard then move, two move, and full
-move is just as it sounds, you navigate the space of the world. it also includes things like standing up, climbing, jumping, etc.
-but you also get a single free action. you can move five feet (if you use no other moves), ready a weapon, scratch an itch, little stuff like that.
-standard is attacking, casting a spell, defending, big stuff like that.
-the only full for our purposes is withdraw, which lets you move away from opponents, which brings me to my next point:

why wouldn't you just move normally to run away? Well, because if you're adjacent to an enemy and you try to move away normally you provoke an attack of opportunity, which just means that even though it's not their turn the enemy gets to whack you one. you've gotta manipulate the space just as much as you manipulate your character to really get into DnD.

now, once you get all that settled and actually attack it's pretty simple. you roll d20 to hit, and if you do then you roll again for damage. if your hit roll is high enough you critically hit (in general) and get to roll for a bunch more damage depending on your weapon. if you do more damage than the enemy has HP remaining, they're dead.

you can make it easier to hit if you attack the enemy from behind, but obviously they're in general not just gonna stand there like a bozo while the whole party hits from behind, so someone's gotta be in front keeping them engaged. the more intelligent enemies are also going to try to maneuver around you, so you gotta keep an eye on them, and some combat is more chaotic than others.

one last critical point is that unlike modern MMOs, DnD allows friendly fire. this is especially relevant if most of the party is in a scrum and the wizard decides to lob in a fireball.

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it's a lot to take in, but just think of it like soccer. shots have accuracy and power, and you want to be as close to the goal as you can with as few people (friend and foe) in your way, and you also want to be wary of the counterattack and not just send 11 into the enemy box (so to speak).

[Warriorbird]

I tried collecting various dice over the years to try and create this potential experience one day. I never could find a d4 or d20

https://www.artisandice.com/

[Tgo01]

Oh geez, Latrin DMing D&D. He would trap the group in a room with the walls closing in and someone would ask "How much time do we have until we're crushed to death?" Then Latrin would give them an hour long lecture about how they would most likely die from the room getting too hot long before they are crushed to death.

[Warriorbird]

Oh geez, Latrin DMing D&D. He would trap the group in a room with the walls closing in and someone would ask "How much time do we have until we're crushed to death?" Then Latrin would give them an hour long lecture about how they would most likely die from the room getting too hot long before they are crushed to death.

You'd just script the DM and the other players...

[Androidpk]

Oh geez, Latrin DMing D&D. He would trap the group in a room with the walls closing in and someone would ask "How much time do we have until we're crushed to death?" Then Latrin would give them an hour long lecture about how they would most likely die from the room getting too hot long before they are crushed to death.

Latrin would totally be biased against my weed smoking monk.

[Latrinsorm]

Latrin would totally be biased against my weed smoking monk.-30 to Will save is fair

tough

but fair

[Zaigh]

I agree with Hips that 5th edition D&D is a good start, and would even go so far as to recommend that starting characters just come from the core Player's Handbook instead of any of the additional material. That way the amount of information you need is a bit lower and all contained in one book.

I've never used any of the online tools, but have been playing in various D&D and other tabletop RPGs for the past 15-20 years. A decent amount of time for a session is about 3 hours, it lets the group get through 1-2 encounters per session (depending on how much they talk about things outside of just doing them). If I wasn't taking classes for the next few years I'd be down for potentially DMing, but the prep work I'd normally put in would be drastically hindered by said schoolwork. :/

[Androidpk]

-30 to Will save is fair

tough

but fair

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2013-10/enhanced/webdr06/7/1/enhanced-buzz-wide-32161-1381123864-7.jpg

[Latrinsorm]

wanders between single and plural, gendered and neutral
no grasp on reality

more like "tokey" allen