It looks like my schedule is a mess. I am cancelling the FTF (Roll20/Discord) session. I will continue the game in forum. I hope to post soon.
We were supposed to be back home a few days ago. COVID got my wife and I. I was released from quarantine on Thursday. She was released yesterday. I just booked a flight back to New York for next Friday (the 13th of course) and will get home very late. I will need to spend the weekend with my wife trying to get back on track with stuff and I already have a long honey-do list.
On the housing front, we failed to find a place to buy in Florida on this first try. We went to contract on one place but bailed on it after the deep-dive research. Location. Location. Location. There were going to be major issues with the appraisal - the neighborhood didn't merit the price and didn't meet our requirements. We saw 50+ homes and just didn't love anything. About 1 in 10 we liked. While we man not have the patience, we do have the time to do this new home purchase right. My son and daughter-in-law are going to try and see her parents in Canada in September (they've been separated 15 months) so we'll likely house sit for them again at that time and resume our search.
Good luck with your 'lucky flight' <fingers crossed>
As to 'the list' ... best wishes!! I only seem to have 'bad luck' when I have to work with 'the boss' and her 'list' <sigh>
On the FL thing ... be =really= careful ... do some research. The home my parents had in Ft. Myers was torn down (with several others) because it was determined (after several decades of them living there) that the 'land' was 'unsafe' :-/
Thanks Nep. Cancelled in the calendar but if ever you want to pencil a session back in, I'm up for it.
In the meantime you take it nice and easy. When you have a lot on your plate is no time for stuffing your face. That way lies heartburn and indigestion! Nope, slow and steady and try to chew over every mouthful.
A word about rules and why I rely on them. I had a short discussions outside this game and a couple of situations came up in this game, so I feel it's an interesting side discussion to have.
To preface this, anyone that's had long PM roleplaying discussions with me in this game has to admit that I don't eschew roleplaying or plot in lieu of combat. In fact, in SKT this is only the 3rd combat encounter and you've had dozens of non-combat encounters. What you see is that I almost always look for a rule to enforce on all actions. And I admit it. I love the combat component of the game. D&D combat is chess on steroids - much more complicated than 3-D chess. Who here hates board games? Not me! So yeah, I enjoy the challenge and setting up challenges for others.
My experience with system-less games has been that they are more constraining and unbalanced. In one such game I played here, I had a wizard and the GM let me use any spell I wanted. It got to the point where the GM felt the need to tell me to lighten up on the magic because other players were not given equal powers. Rules, hopefully, provide balance. There shouldn't be one player with more capability than others. No player should feel weaker than others. You should all feel that you contribute equally to the game.
I've worked out a few changes to better balance the game. Bern, the ranger, has been upgraded. That's because the vast D&D player community declared the original 5e ranger severely weak compared to other classes. Mike will be using the Unearthed Arcana ranger going forward. It seems like a very similar class until you look under the covers and see that some major constraints were removed. It's a much better, balanced class.
Jaliera has a fear of fire. What does it mean? I loved that Gypsy roleplayed it. But should her reaction to the "scary event" be more severe as the fear spell? The fear spell does have her dash down the hall, away from the source of the event and then slaps the frightened condition on the target. But it allows a saving throw. Shouldn't Jaliera, knowing the situation, struggle to overcome her fear? Does it hold a grip on her forever? No. The Fear spell allows a Wisdom saving throw.
The final in-game example is Davroar's knife use, which is good roleplaying. D&D rules here don't make much sense to me so I'm adjusting. Why should a strength check have a better chance of success than a knife? Alas it is "according to the rules". A knife would do 1d4 damage as an improvised weapon and needs to do 5 points of damage to succeed. You can break free with strength check. Unbalanced. In my mind, the knife makes breaking free of the net easier, as strands are sliced. Therefor, in Davroar's case the knife will gives the player advantage on the strength check.
Also, a knife could use either Str or Dex (as a Finesse Weapon) for its attack. In such a case it would grant a bonus to Damage equal to Davroar's Str/Dex bonus. A 1d4+3 (for a Str/Dex of 16) would roll 5+ points of Damage unless he rolled a natural 1.
Do you have a stat block for a knife? There is none in any of the manuals that I have. It's an improvised weapon and not a finesse weapon. Note that a dagger does piercing damage - not slashing. A knife is not a dagger.
Neptune, I'll take your advice and do the STR check with advantage to escape the net. Now, in order to have the advantage roll should I write my post to say that I am using his 'knife in hand' straining against the netting to break free, rather than taking the time in cutting his way out?
Davroar's STR/DEX bonus is 0 so I can see if the dice roller is unkind that he could be stuck awhile trying to attack the net and do enough damage to it.
Hey Nep, I'm totally onboard with running systemful---is that the opposite term to systemless?? ---either way, I love a good bite of crunch! And I always appreciate it when you spotlight certain rules or interesting applications of rules. I find in message games that mechanics add quite nicely to the form because you're never on the spot like you are at the table. I can mull over the rules, the battlemat, my character sheet and it never interferes with the creative writing/role-playing.
Anyhoo, that's a good call about Bern's class. Tbh I always assumed he was a Revised Ranger from UA18! I've ran quite a lot of 5e D&D by now and never use the corebook Ranger.
Some complain that the UA Ranger is overpowered when combined with core subclasses but that's obviously not the intention of the UA Ranger imo. I think UA Ranger was intended to use the UA subclasses included with UA18: Beast, Hunter and Deep Stalker Conclaves. If you keep it self-contained in that way, it's adequately balanced.
For anyone on the Geek Squad who wants to know more about the differences between the core Ranger and the UA Revised Ranger, here's an article:
Zeim, I'll take that. Can you post the reference to the knife. I didn't find it but it's a good ref.
MikeD, Don't worry. We'll get your sheet updated so you don't have to think about it
Nem, You're right. At the table it's much more difficult and there's lots of pressure. In fact, I'm made it a house-rule that we don't rules-lawyer during the game when I DM. I'll allow about 30 seconds of it, make up my mind, and if I ruled wrong, I'll make it up to a player that got screwed. The DM is god, right? A simple DM alter historical reality cantrip does the trick every time
Dugan, Roll 2 separate twenty sided dice: 1d20,1d20. If either is a 10 or greater, you succeed. Otherwise you are entangled. How you describe it in-character is up to you. Also, that's just 1 action. You still have a move and bonus after, if you can use them.
†Restricted forums can only be accessed by DreamLyrics members of the age of 18 years or older. Access which is granted by the Behind Closed Doors Procedure. ™DreamLyrics Play-by-Post. DreamLyrics Play-by-Post does not own copyright on DreamLyrics texts or graphics, except trademarked DreamLyrics logos and logotypes. The works contained in DreamLyrics are copyrighted (automatically, under the Berne Convention) by the original authors and may be available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence. (See Copyrights for details.) Privacy Policy
---either way, I love a good bite of crunch! 