BougieBirdie

See, that’s exactly what I liked about the ability.

It’s an attack that even if you walk away from it, you have a story to tell about it

It’s a tough pill to swallow

Swallow Whole used to be my favorite mechanic with large creatures like dragons, hydras, or what have you.

I mean, it’s both narratively and mechanically a powerful ability. Usually the creature gets a bite attack with Improved Grab, so they get a free grapple if they hit. Then the next turn if they have a grappled creature in their mouth, they swallow them. From there it’s usually continuous acid / bludgeoning damage, but the swallowed creature gets a chance to fight their way out or get rescued.

Being grappled was already somewhat debilitating, but you could usually ignore it. But when you get swallowed it immediately raises the stakes. It also means you can’t ignore getting grappled because it can become so much worse so quickly.

Then one day one of my players noticed I was using the ability a lot and accused me of having a vore fetish. Now I don’t really use Swallow Whole at all

Found the power-gamer

Personally, I’m a big fan of the ‘useless magic item’ and try to get one to each of my players. Lots of them are cosmetic: helmets with glowing eyes, cloak of billowing, squeaky shoes. Sometimes they’re just weird, like the wand of create wand which is a one-charge wand that crumbles to dust after being used to make a wand of create wand

Story time:

I had some trouble scheduling the group together, so I ran some one-on-one adventures with each member so they’d still get a chance to roll dice.

So the cleric is cruising around town one night when this man runs out of his house yelling for help. Some horrible goober (later identified as a bodak) snatched his son out of bed and absconded into the spooky cellar. The man can’t go far to summon the watch because his invalid father is upstairs and can’t be left alone, so isn’t it fortuitous that a locally well known adventurer happens to be strolling by?

So the cleric goes down into the basement to get the baddy. The bodak has the boy hostage and has a deadly gaze attack.

My expectation was that the cleric was going to Turn Undead and scare off the monster. The cleric’s expectation was that they were going to cast Pillar of Fire and cook that sumbitch.

Pillar of Fire is a cylinder with something like a 20 foot radius and 40 foot height. I ask if he’s sure, and he is, so the monster, child, cellar, first, and second floors burst into flames.

Realizing he’s toast if he stays here, the cleric leaves the cellar and bumps into the frantic man on the street. He asks if he got the monster and the cleric shrugs.

The man then agonizes over whether he should save his father or his son, and then plunges into the cellar. Moments later, the burning house collapses on itself.

And that’s how our cleric wiped three generations of a bloodline off the map with a single spell.

I try to win as the DM.

“Winning” in this case being that everyone had a good time.

I did this one campaign which was a hexcrawl where the party was shipwrecked on an island purported to hide the lost city of gold.

The site of the shipwreck was home base, but the party obviously wanted to explore. There were some NPC crewmate survivors, so they would assign them to work on projects while they were exploring. I would always tell them that “some guy” was working on their stuff.

Cut to a few months later when they have a sort of mutiny on their hands. It seems that one crew member in particular was fed up with how much work they had to do while the party went adventuring that they turned the crew against the party.

The mutinous ringleader’s name? Sum Gai

I have the D&D 3.5 core rulebooks on my shelf in the nerd nook. I know that I’m never going to play 3.5 again, but it’s the system I first got into the hobby with. It would feel wrong to get rid of my personal history of nerdship.

The gazebo is in the right, the rogue shot first

Where can I get one? Either the t-shirt or a partner that would be interested in one, thanks

Friendly reminder that the alpha female hyena is the one with the largest penis

In my experience, the winter months kill many a game. Between the holidays, work stress, weather, and seasonal depression it can be hard to keep your group together for a few months.

My players love our game, so I’d be hesitant to say that it’s not important enough to them. Sometimes we let the important things slip when we’re busy, or a perfect storm just keeps you apart.

All that to say, we usually get back together in the spring. Sometimes there’s attrition, and usually we’re playing a different game when we come back. But that’s okay too, it feels natural to start up something new after you’ve lost your momentum

I was definitely trying to figure out how to work that in there

So wait, you’re telling me I could just be walking down the street, minding my own business, when some jerkass wizard from another universe merges our realities or whatever to heal my doppelganger? I’m out 6 HP because of some guy who doesn’t live in my universe and I don’t even like got hurt?

I’m imagining as a consequence to doing this all the time, eventually the wizard is going to have a class action lawsuit against them from all the innocent bystanders they’ve hurt. And just imagine the legal complexity of serving all these suits across different universe’ legal codes. This wizard’s going to be bogged down for an eternity in the courts.

In all the multiverse, there’s got to be someone who specializes in parallel-universe case law. A Parallelalegal, if you will.

Yeah, you get it.

For session one with a group that hadn’t played together before, the party was getting together at a sort of Adventurers for Hire placement agency. They all had to take a number and then they would have an interview with HR. Basically, a one-on-one introduction with each player, asking a bit about their background, special skills, etc. It was a good ice breaker, and a familiar enough situation that really got the roleplaying going.

The wizard showed up far too early and got ticket 1, The rogue showed up around the expected time and got ticket 3, and the barbarian was very late and got ticket 43. After the wizard has their interview, they call for number 2, who is a rando halfling NPC. The rogue decides to lie his way through to cut in line and says he has ticket number 2.

The halfling was miffed, but like, whatever, halflings are used to being looked down on (pun intended) and figures he’ll just explain and take the next interview. Well, the barbarian saw this exchange, and bullies the halfling into giving up their ticket. The barbarian takes the next interview, and by then all the vacancies were filled and the halfling was left out in the cold.

That halfling became a recurring character, someone who the party kept accidentally stepping on. Like, one time the party was at a fancy restaurant, and someone was given the wrong food, so they made a mild complaint. Well, the halfling made the food and was on his last warning, so the owner fires him on the spot. Poor guy, the party never did take the trouble to learn his name.

I love me some satire, so most of my games are critical of society in some way. You’d be amazed how much mileage you can get out of putting your party through a mundane experience.

Our fantasies are influenced by our reality. If you hold up a mirror to society and see something you don’t like, that’s not the mirror’s fault.

Huh, would you look at that. I missed the giant table header that said “Price/Day”

I swear in an older edition a couple gold went a lot further. Inflation comes for us all

The spell affects 10 gallons of water at first level, leaving you with close to a pound of salt valued at 5cp. That’s not going to break the bank, but assuming you spend only one 1st level slot per day every day, in a month that will earn you 1.5gp, putting you somewhere between a Modest and Comfortable lifestyle. edit: turns out these prices are per day, I can’t read, and I’m going to die in poverty covered in salty rags

Bi-weekly game checking in here, hoping to play tonight for the first time in months.

I don’t write anything down because I figure the game’s going to get postponed at the eleventh hour