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[Sirus]

...It would work for darts. Contact poisons can be used as if they were injury poisons, so they can be applied to and delivered via darts just fine.

[Draignean]

...It would work for darts. Contact poisons can be used as if they were injury poisons, so they can be applied to and delivered via darts just fine.

For inhalation poisons, go the ninja method. Mix the active reagent with flour, pour it into a hollowed egg. Suddenly you have a thrown weapon that only needs to hit touch AC.

[MrRoboto75]

On no, I'm having flashbacks to DMSO-ladden squirt gun battles in Shadowrun.

[Jimmy]

Also, whilst I won't derail on a rant over my personal quibbles with the book, Ultimate Wilderness has an interesting section of rules for milking poisons out of animals. For example, a Witch with a greensting scorpion familiar could prep a few doses of poison from it each day, free of charge.

Also, alchemists have a discovery that lets them convert one poison type into another. Turning an injury poison into an inhaled poison, for example, gives stuff a big boost to its utility.

Still, the ultimate drawback is that poison use is expensive for a PC and typically doesn't scale well on returns. Most combat's over in five rounds, and even if the enemy fails all its saving throws, which is unlikely given the low DC of most cheaper poisons, it's usually more economical to buy a necklace of fireballs for 150 gp per d6 of damage on multiple targets.

[Arx]

I'm running a 5e campaign for some friends, which I'm doing almost entirely off-the-cuff right now. I have a couple of things for the Bay12 hivemind!

1) What are some neat demon/devil themed encounters you have for a party of three 3rd-level characters played by beginners? I'm reasonable at playing encounters by ear and tweaking them on the fly if things are going terribly wrong, but it feels very unscientific.

2) Is it just me, or does 5e feel really, really polar? I have players kicking out up to 3d10 damage per turn, but only having ~20 hitpoints. Something that's actually going to stay standing for more than a round against them has to have 30-40 hitpoints, but I'd associate that with also dealing a decent bit of damage. If it rolls more than say, 1d8+(2-3) or so, it runs good odds of killing or incapacitating a party member in that time and then it's all downhill.

What cuts? I assume I'm doing something terribly wrong, or maybe I just have a really glass cannony party (wizard, monk, cleric), but it feels really weird to have such an imbalance between damage dished and damage taken.

[Jimmy]

Personally, I don't have background in 5e, but if this was Pathfinder or 3.5e here's what I'd run:

Create a story that gives meaning to their murder spree. Old Man Peabody is a grouchy old miser that everyone in town knows is sitting on a huge fortune and has no kin left to inherit it. Recently, a gang of toughs showed up at his mansion on the hill outside town, and nobody's seen the old man in weeks. Rumor has it they're strong-arming him into changing his will to leave it to their leader. However, the truth is actually that the toughs and their leader are demon/devil cultists, and Old Man Peabody used to be in the cult in his youth before stealing their treasury and using it to buy a new identity. They finally found him and want their stuff back, but he's hidden the valuables and won't tell them where the stash is located. Mix encounters with low level mooks to start, then advance to low level demons/devils with spellcaster support. Finish with a boss divine spellcaster, mooks and a few demons, and mix a few simple traps into the old man's mansion, along with a secret room full of valuables. Rescuing the old man alive rewards them with the treasure he's hidden if they don't find it themselves.

[Kadzar]

I'm running a 5e campaign for some friends, which I'm doing almost entirely off-the-cuff right now. I have a couple of things for the Bay12 hivemind!

1) What are some neat demon/devil themed encounters you have for a party of three 3rd-level characters played by beginners? I'm reasonable at playing encounters by ear and tweaking them on the fly if things are going terribly wrong, but it feels very unscientific.

If you haven't heard of it already, I'd recommend Kobold Fight Club. It lets you search for monsters by several parameters, including type (in this case it would be Fiend. You can also search for chaotic evil or lawful evil depending on if you want to narrow it down to demons or devils) and create random encounters from the filtered creatures (though, unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to create random enounters from multiple search parameters at once, so, for example, if you want to mix together fiends and humanoids, you'll have to add one of the two types manually.)

2) Is it just me, or does 5e feel really, really polar? I have players kicking out up to 3d10 damage per turn, but only having ~20 hitpoints. Something that's actually going to stay standing for more than a round against them has to have 30-40 hitpoints, but I'd associate that with also dealing a decent bit of damage. If it rolls more than say, 1d8+(2-3) or so, it runs good odds of killing or incapacitating a party member in that time and then it's all downhill.

What cuts? I assume I'm doing something terribly wrong, or maybe I just have a really glass cannony party (wizard, monk, cleric), but it feels really weird to have such an imbalance between damage dished and damage taken.

5e monster building guildlines split up attack and defense CR, then average them out (and, unfortunately, don't keep those numbers around for use), so it's entirely possible for monsters to either be very good at defense or very good at attack.

But, also, I don't know how any character can consistently put out 3d10 damage per turn at 3rd level, so they are likely using some sort of once-per-day or at least once-per-short rest resources to do so. You probably need to put in a few more (weaker) encounters to use those up.

[Jimmy]

But, also, I don't know how any character can consistently put out 3d10 damage per turn at 3rd level, so they are likely using some sort of once-per-day or at least once-per-short rest resources to do so. You probably need to put in a few more (weaker) encounters to use those up.

This, very much this. My Pathfinder players are 15th level right now, and they have the resources and abilities to teleport in, dump their biggest daily abilities in one encounter, then teleport out again.

To counter this tactic, I've taken to running single encounters but staggering the addition of enemies onto the field, meaning they get their overall five at-level CR encounters in one big encounter instead. Essentially, wherever the group appears, the enemies in that room fight, and every few rounds more show up from other rooms as the alarm gets raised. This doesn't overwhelm the group with a massive amount of actions, but still keeps the fight challenging and forces them to consider tactics other than just using their best stuff at the start.

[Digital Hellhound]

I'm planning an semi-unusual DnD campaign and I'd appreciate some thoughts on it. Basically, I want to replicate the sort of very traditional fantasy plot of ordinary commoners who go on to save the world and become legendary heroes, down to the idyllic hometown, mysterious visitor, secret heritages and all the other juicy classic tropes of the genre. Most DnD characters start as adventurers already, even if they're new ones, but I want them to be very much beginners and amateurs, so to speak: the cleric is just a novice in the local temple, the fighter just a particularly brawny youth, the warlock the local hag's daughter, the wizard a hedge mage with barely any training, etc. They might have big backstories, but mainly about their parents, origins, maybe destinies waiting for them - maybe they're really a king's bastard daughter, or that the blood of an ancient dragon runs in their veins, or that they're fated to wield a mythical sword and save the world, that kind of stuff. The point is that they start out inexperienced, and ideally but not necessarily young.

I've introduced the group to the idea and they seemed to like it, but I'm concerned about any potential pitfalls and flaws. How to create that sort of classic, epic fantasy feel? How to encourage them into creating and playing fitting characters? What kind of problems is this kind of plot likely to have? Any other thoughts or concerns? One thing I'd probably change is Backgrounds: they represent more life experience than I'd like and maybe give too much shit too. I thought a nice way to keep them in is have them be the backgrounds of the characters' parents or so: maybe their papa was a soldier and left them the stuff the Soldier background gives, etc. I might have to disallow some entirely, though.

I'd want to run this semi-freeform: letting the players go wherever they want and make their own path in the world, but keeping a sort of grand plot/time limit/pressing danger in the background to encourage them to pursue the big events. I don't want them to feel constantly pressured by it, though - I want them to be aware of it, not to feel railroaded onto one certain path because of it.

[Harry Baldman]

If you want players to really be invested in your hometown and plot, why not use another game to generate the basic ideas behind it? My own favorite method is a game like The Quiet Year, for example, just a GM-less exercise in everybody taking turns to draw cool shit on a local map and coming up with fun complications along the way. For the Quiet Year in particular you'll get a similar effect to what you'd actually have when someone comes from a small town and has lived there all their life - an informational island that you know most everything about surrounded by a huge blank world that you need to set out into (as a result of the arrival of the Frost Shepherds, for example).

You could also use something else like Fiasco (the catch is that you're gonna doom the world with your incompetence!) or something else entirely, the point is to have a process where the players generate a lot of the starting situation for you, from which it logically follows that they understand it very well and are invested in it on account of it being their own creation.

Also, don't go out of your way to be tropey. Classic stuff that holds up tends to do so specifically because it doesn't lean on its tropes, usually because it was the one that codified the tropes in question.

[Jimmy]

It will depend a lot on your players too, if they're willing to invest into the story and buy into the world. I really like Harry Baldman's suggestion of the players filling in the world map with interesting stuff they know about the local area, since it's great adventure fuel for the starting campaign, but planning your game out in advance instead of being completely freeform will serve you well in the long run.

First, make sure the characters have motivation to get shit done. Greed is one way, but a better one is using NPC allies or authorities that push the players in a certain direction. For example, one of my future campaign ideas I want to run is a fantasy world SWAT team made of the PCs who answer to a grouchy old captain. It gives the players opportunity to act inside a single city for the entire campaign, get downtime between adventures, but also have them forced to complete quests inside of a specific time limit. Giving your own players a person to whom they're accountable, whether it be the local guard captain, the town mayor, or even the king of the country, pushes them towards action. Without the impetus of this motivation, you'll likely find your players will simply abandon their current quest when it gets too difficult.

Second, plan the broad strokes of your story in advance. What is the early game, mid-game, and endgame? Early game might be discovering a conspiracy of demon cultists within town, mid-game might be toppling their high priest, endgame might be to drive back the demon horde and seal the portal to the abyss. Early game might be defending the town from a siege of undead, mid-game might be toppling their lich leader, endgame might be destroying the unholy artifact that threatens to flood the world with undead.

Third, prep multiple outcomes beforehand for your players to achieve but be prepared to lead them towards similar results. Tracking down the cultists might be done via capturing and interrogating one, or joining the cult in disguise, or tracing clues that lead back to their base. Toppling the demon cult high priest might be a straight up fight through their fortress, or might be done via influencing the cult from within, or might be through a secret mission to sneak in and assassinate the target. The gate to the abyss might require a guardian creature be slain to prevent its life force fueling the portal, or might be done via tricking the cult into destroying their own portal, or might require a magical mcguffin that needs to be captured and brought to the portal to seal it forevermore.

[Harry Baldman]

Oh, and make sure to give the player characters something - likely a piece of special knowledge (the gods aren't real! the continent is actually the mother of all dragons! history is a figment born of the mind of a crippled demiurge and is mostly false!) or a particular power (opening portals to other planes, the compliance of ghosts, the ability to awaken artifacts of a long-dead civilization, a path to becoming immortal beings of fire and destruction) - to make them feel like they're really in on something rather than a bunch of random assholes tied together by a prophecy. Give your heroic destinies actionable and amazing perks that set your player characters apart from everyone else.

EDIT: In fact, ideally you'd want your heroes to be the sort of people who commit legitimately unbelievable deeds, in the sense that their achievements fly in the face of common sense when recounted matter-of-factly - there's an amazing amount of catharsis to be gained as a player when you can legitimately claim that you did something stupendous and never before seen in a setting. Don't have your heroes preserve the status quo, have them shatter it in a magnificent and supernatural fashion.

[Digital Hellhound]

This is all Good Good Stuff. I hadn’t thought about letting the players add to the world. I have a fairly defined world I want to use, but it’s got plenty of space for that. I’m just not sure if my players would be up for it - worldbuilding is maybe not their forte. I’d definitely talk out the basic idea of their heroic destinies (if any) beforehand though, so they get something they’ll really be into. Special powers and making them ’actionable’ is something I vaguely thought about, definitely a good good idea.

As my plans are, the party would be handed their quest (to stop an evil god from ascending into the source of all life itself, without going into detail) by a monk who gets killed while staying the night in their village (mysterious stranger!).

Said monk doesn’t actually die, though, thanks to some monk bullshit. His decapitated head will insist on them taking him to the sanctuary of his order so he can warn them about the evil plot. As this likely won’t be enough to motivate the non-heroic types, he’ll claim the fiend that murdered him will realize he’s not dead in time and return to kill all of them, too, since they know about the plot now. Everyone they care about too, if a more emotional angle is needed. They will only be safe in the sanctuary. Whether this is a lie or not depends on whatever proves narratively most satisfying.

There’s three things I want to do with this. First, he can gently prod the players into the plot’s direction if they get too sidetracked. Second, he can give advice if they get stuck. Third, comic relief - he’s a cranky old bastard due to the being murdered thing. By having him just be, well, a head, there’s no fear of him upstaging the players or becoming a crutch, but I can still give some in-world direction with him.

He’ll be used as a projectile the moment they enter combat, but that’s only a bonus. Also bound to be fun: explaining why they’re carrying around a decapitated head.

By semi-freeform I don’t mean that I wouldn’t plan the stuff, more that I’d prepare areas with possibilities and planned adventures they might or might not choose to undertake. The overarching goal of the first ’book’ would be to get to the sanctuary, seeing and discovering the world in their journey there. From there: your basic MacGuffin hunt, probably, except the MacGuffins are people.

Each book would have its own overarching goal and theme, and each would escalate or change things - as HB said, I want them to smash the status quo, if not always in an epic or grand way. I want to invest in some long-term things here; the fiend assassin will be something terrifying to escape in the early game, until they are finally strong enough to make a stand and defeat them in the mother of all cathartic moments, for example.

Fantasy SWAT sounds like a fantastic idea for a campaign, by the way.

[Egan_BW]

I believe you are referring to tactical breach wizards, sir.

[GiglameshDespair]

Fantasy SWAT sounds like a fantastic idea for a campaign, by the way.

Yeah