DreamLyrics™ Play-by-Post Forums Fantasy SKT: The Storm King's Thunder OOC thread

Actually, since they live thousands of years... It makes me think they do feel entitled. Zhu particularly ignores that point because she doesn't like it.

I think you played her well. Not the wisest choice in an information discussion. The giantess was being forthcoming without having to do so. Yes, the information was one-sided and completely with bias. But it was information nonetheless.

Just made me laugh, and I wanted to share that OOC:

Well, remember as an Eladrin Zhu’s lifespan is almost 1000 years so she is as long lived as Giants. The difference seems to be that she understand that others are shorter lived and what that means while the giantess doesn’t seem to care.

I can see that.

Probably due to her decades as part of the Spellguard in Silverymoon living among humans, whereas I suspect the Giants are more isolated. She just really doesn’t like those who believe they’re entitled to abuse those weaker than themselves.

Yes, that's why they call them small folk.


This is exactly the point she tried to make, albeit with snark.

Looking things up, her lifetime is actually twice as long as a Giants so she well understands the concept. Still, entitled brutishness and disdain for others is abhorrent to her. Or, to put it bluntly., the Giant's comment that "Hey, we pissed here once a few thousand years ago so like a dog we've marked this territory as ours forever."

To be fair, the giants occupied the land from -31000 to -30,000 DR until -2550 DR, about 28,000 years. Humanoids only came to the land about 1000 years ago but were mostly unorganized until recently. The Lord's Alliance is less than 200 years old. Triboar, where you started and encountered the Fire Giants digging, was founded in 1357, less than 100 years ago. Phandalin, where you started the previous campaign, was nothing more than about 50 people until less than 60 years ago.

So, yeah, most of the giants past middle age remember this land before there were cities or a Lord's Alliance, and they grew up hearing stories of the greatness of Ostoria, and how their deity has rejected them until they reclaim its former glory.

I don't disagree on that perspective, from their point of view. Zhu just feels their point of view needs to be adjusted to account for actual events and not dwell on past glories. After all, the Elves had continent spanning Empires thousands of years ago too and she doesn't feel that newcommers are encroaching on lands she and her people should still be able to claim.

So, from a timeline/world history perspective does this campaign take place after the Tiamat Campaign or before?

Well, officially:
Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat (1489 DR)
Storm King’s Thunder (1490 or 1491 DR) <--- you are here
Lost Mine of Phandelver (Starter Set) (1491 DR) <--- you are time travelers

I know at least one character has mentioned a character associated with that Tiamat campaign, in the current RP thread.

Nep can probably give more insight.

Its fascinating (to me at least) that after being defeated in the war and having dozens of dragons killed (presumably both good and evil ones) in it, that dragons are so quickly ready to get into another conflict. Dragons are, after all, very long lived and have a very low birthrate.

The first Giant-Dragon war lasted 1000 years.

Also, what you've seen is the Giant perspective. Maybe the dragons aren't a threat, but the Giants perceive them as such. Maybe the Giants see this latest "war" (or maybe a battle?) as a wake-up call. Maybe it's just some dragons and not all the dragons. Maybe it's all a lie to make excuses. Maybe what's happening is an after-effect of the war.

All will be revealed in time.

You might also want to re-watch the teaser for this campaign. That's what you knew/thought before the latest interaction. Perhaps there's more to it than that? . https://www.dreamlyrics.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=976881#Post976881

(OOC: Ten for Davroar and Sindar, eight for Jaliera, seven for Kriv respectively, at a total cost of 875GP for full party fluency.)

(OOC - Yeah, cost is questionable. I presume that is for paying a teacher. If party member is teaching it is likely cost free.)

OOC: I think the cost is intended to prevent freebies which may unbalance the game. If everyone in the party has the same skills (which they could teach each other given enough time) then nobody's special. I haven't dug into it but I'm sure there are spells or feats or other things that people have to earn or spend "points" on. Apparently teaching another party member can only be done one-on-one as well, which doesn't really make sense either, if everyone's in a group!

All that said, I'm sure between us all we can find a happy medium here. Probably not to hard for most of the party to quickly learn "basic Giant" while a more detailed understanding would be available to those who already know the language from background/chargen/feat/use of spells/etc.

Yes, One problem with D&D 5e (although I don't think its particular to 5e) is that once you choose your initial starting skills, that's it. You never get any more as part of the levelling up process, only by having someone teach you, and the rules for that make it fairly hard to impossible to do. I have played in campaigns where my pc levelled up from 1st level to 20th that took less time that it would take to learn one new skill or a new language.

I always felt that adding skills should be part of the levelling up process. Even if it was slow (like 1 new skill every 3 or even every 5 levels), at least it gives you the ability to expand.

What's actually worse is your class skills (like spellcasting, attacks, class abilities, etc) improve as you level up (presumably thru use and practice), but your existing Skills (like Athletics, Nature, Stealth, etc) never do. They have a place on the pc sheet for you to be first "Trained" and then "Specialized" in skills but once you use your initial allotment/selection of Skills you can never improve.

I think that's a limitation of the 1 to 20 range in D&D, Zeim. The modifier from your ability score is already pretty beafy and when it goes up, all skills under its umbrella go up. Then skills you're proficient in increase with the proficiency bonus. There's not really room for them to increase beyond that because after a point it becomes near automatic success.

Zeim, You're correct that there's no "direct" way to increase skills but indirectly, there is. For instance, you may forego the ASI for a feat. In this case "Linguist" which gives you the ability to learn 3 languages. You also benefit when you go up levels when your proficiency bonus goes up so does your proficient skills, as well as the stat bumps.

One thing I've done (it was in this game too) in my "other" FTF game is enforce downtime at changes in tier. When PCs go from 4th to 5th (when we switched from LMP to SKT), 10th to 11th and 15th to 16th, they will have a break in time to do this.

I think it's more absurd that PCs go from virtually useless 1st level characters to near godhood in several months in-character game time!

Yes, agreed, but to me it doesn't make sense that a Rogue/Arcane Trickster, for example, suddenly knows how to cast magic spells (with no required mentor, studying, or practice) when he reaches 4th level but a Wizard with an Intelligence of 18 (or any other character for that matter) doesn't automatically gain the ability to learn a new skill or language at any level without weeks of game time spent training.

If a pc gets class stuff for going up a level without any required game mechanic to justify it, they should gain the ability to learn a new skill. If the system doesn't want them to go beyond "Specialized" (to Nem's point about auto success), that's fine, but a Rogue is allowed to be Specialized at first level but no one else can ever be without spending their Stat bump on a Feat. And no one can learn anything new after first level without the clunky mechanics in the DMG/PHB.

Enforcing downtime is a good means of trying to even things out, but other than the game Nep did it in I've never seen it done.

The whole 'thing' about 'leveling up' is that the character 'learns' skills and such through the training that ... normally ... happens 'outside' the actual 'game play'. It would take a =lot= of work from the GM to try and 'play' through all of that!

Yes, but it happens instantaneously. There is no required time a pc has to set aside to gain new powers for a new level, and some of those powers (like spells for a Rogue) make no sense to just 'get' instantly without work. So, lets be even handed. If you can get new class powers with no study and no required time spent doing anything (effectively, one second you don't have them and the next second, right after you kill a Kobold and get the last 5 xps you need, you suddenly have a bunch of new things you can do) why not a new skill slot from time to time? Either that, or require a pc to take out study time in order to gain a level once they have the xps. In fact, if I recall correctly, one of the early versions of D&D actually DID require you to take time out to study for your new level after you had the xps you needed.

Unless what happens is that you have been 'learning' for a while, but =now= you know enough to finally use it <shrug>

You have to admit we did not do any of that when we played Horde of the Dragon Queen from level 1 to level 20.

What you're doing makes more sense, but its not a standard thing. I am going by the standard rules, not homebrew.

So, in the standard rules, there is no explanation why skills are treated differently than class abilities. Nothing forces you to use downtime or to tell the DM that you are practicing for things you are about to get in advance to explain why you gained new class abilities. So, why aren't skills treated the same way?

For example, I don't take Nature as a Skill at First Level. Then, I happen to study and observe all sorts of stuff about Nature as we spend several levels travelling thru the forests. When I gain a new Tier, why can't I get the Nature Skill for free? Why does a Rogue, with zero training, practice, or comments to the DM suddenly just knows how to cast spells when he reaches 4th level and chooses Arcane Trickster? It is not something he would be doing normally at levels 1-4 (if the pc did not specify to the DM he was trying to learn it) and so it makes no sense that it would be something that he would get better at. Spellcasting is not part of ANY of his abilities. It just magically appears. Whereas in the Nature example at least I made an effort to learn to explain why I would gain a new Skill.