When the offhand comment becomes Fiat

Omega · April 11, 2017, 11:58:50 PM

Index cards for spells.

or my personal favourite, Poketmod type spellbooks. A single pocketmod booklet will make an 8 page book counting cover and back. You can bind them together into an ever growing spellbook.

Or any given little blank notebook hardbound or not.

cranebump · April 12, 2017, 10:41:43 AM

Quote from: Headless;956806So your problem is by fiat you allowed the players to make charcters more "gamey" with feats and such than you want to deal with?

Can you have a version of "the talk" with them? Change systems? Make a no rule books at the table rule? Hard for a wisard but if you print their spell book, the can flip through a limted number of spells instead of the whole players hand book.

And if you don't like meat shield monsters just have them run or give up after they start losing. If the are getting whittled they keep fighting, they are big and strong after all. But if they take a couple of big hits with out answering they bail.

You summed it up right there. We can definitely do some things to shorten our "lookup" time. I had forgotten until last night that I bought the Cleric/Wizard spell cards, and have them stowed away somewhere. That will help.

I run monsters much in the way you suggest -- intelligent ones won't stick around to be hacked to bits.

I like your idea of "no rule books," especially since most of what we need to know is on the sheet (most). I can inform them that it is their responsibility to know how their characters run before they show up. So, if they miss out on one of their kewl powerz, it is on them.

cranebump · April 12, 2017, 10:44:09 AM

Quote from: Omega;956824Index cards for spells.

or my personal favourite, Poketmod type spellbooks. A single pocketmod booklet will make an 8 page book counting cover and back. You can bind them together into an ever growing spellbook.

Or any given little blank notebook hardbound or not.

Good idea. There are also some e-resources that allow looking up on the phone. I think the best thing for this situation is to tell them to be ready to go on their turn, and allow the use of devices for quick reference, off turn, or if the whole table has a question that I cannot easily answer or make a ruling for.

Omega · April 12, 2017, 04:31:04 PM

Quote from: cranebump;956896Good idea. There are also some e-resources that allow looking up on the phone. I think the best thing for this situation is to tell them to be ready to go on their turn, and allow the use of devices for quick reference, off turn, or if the whole table has a question that I cannot easily answer or make a ruling for.

One thing I do is warn the player to have their stuff prepped by their turn. "You have all that time to prepare. DO NOT WAIT TO START PREPPING!" (Unless the player happens to be handicapped and literally has to pay attention.) As allways there are moments where you can.

Christopher Brady · April 12, 2017, 04:36:50 PM

The closest thing I've had that happen, was when I had an ancient graveyard suddenly get up and attack the PC's. To which the PC's linked the setting's ancient Chaos War to it, and decided that was why they had never seen an actual graveyard in any of the previous villages/towns they saw/went int (Actually, they either never checked if there was one, or I forgot to mention it.)

And so, it came to pass that the modern villager cremated their dead, to prevent the chaos seeped land to bring back loved ones as zombies and stuff. It was an off hand thing, that became lore and a setting feature.

cranebump · April 12, 2017, 08:23:05 PM

Quote from: Christopher Brady;956939The closest thing I've had that happen, was when I had an ancient graveyard suddenly get up and attack the PC's. To which the PC's linked the setting's ancient Chaos War to it, and decided that was why they had never seen an actual graveyard in any of the previous villages/towns they saw/went int (Actually, they either never checked if there was one, or I forgot to mention it.)

And so, it came to pass that the modern villager cremated their dead, to prevent the chaos seeped land to bring back loved ones as zombies and stuff. It was an off hand thing, that became lore and a setting feature.

That is always a cool thing when something like that happens.

Per my previous reportage, I did contact the players via message and put out the word about, "know your character; have some resources on hand to quickly check things; keep it off turn as much as possible." I also made sure they knew that I have to adhere to those stipulations, as well.

RPGPundit · April 20, 2017, 03:20:16 AM

I've never had much of a problem with Divination spells, but I can also certainly respect a GM saying NO to them, partially or completely. The main thing is to be consistent about it; if you do have divination, in my experience the dumbest thing you can do is to keep having 'special situations' ("oh... yeah, well in THIS dungeon divination magic doesn't work!" or "The wizard has anti-divination wards in his tower.. huh? Oh no, YOU can't have that, it's something special").

Omega · April 20, 2017, 07:03:50 AM

But a prepped villain may actually warrant special situations. The trick as usual is to not overdo it.

A smart villain might set up their base overtop some anti-magic zone. Curses can spread null zones to X spell or a whole type. Gods can just up and deny whole swaths of spells. Various anti-dectection/scrying items exist too. You just dont want to keep using these gags to the point that the spell/s become effectively non-existent. At that point you might as well have just come clean and said "no".

Gronan of Simmerya · April 20, 2017, 01:53:13 PM

In Original D&D, the "Magic Research Rules" appeared before the spell list.

This was not an accident.

"Huh? My ROCK TO MUD spell doesn't work on the evil wizard's castle? Why not?"

"No, it doesn't. Interesting, isn't it?"

Christopher Brady · April 21, 2017, 04:25:06 AM

I don't like switching rules around on my players, it tends to destroy trust which frankly is not fun when you have your players second guessing you rather than playing the adventure.