D&D Campaign 2: D&D Harder

[Sly Boots]

Yep, I've now melted down my dice and will stick to DnDBeyond from now, which seemed to work out a lot better!

[Bird]

I think I'm really going to enjoy having a bard in the party. Bardic Inspiration has always felt like a crazily good ability when I've seen it used in other campaigns (although I'm not sure if I misheard or misunderstood, I think I added it to a damage roll and it's only supposed to be for attack rolls, though as I got a 1 I doubt it would have made much difference), and that was the perfect situation for Faerie Fire.

I nearly didn't take Faerie Fire but it seemed like a very Farley spell. I wasn't sure looking at his spells if he was going to be any use in combat at all but that final round really felt like he made an impact! I think he needs a little ranged weapon like a crossbow or something for when he runs out of slots, he's got pretty good dex as a harengon and gets proficiency with them.

Also, I finally got to try out speak with animals! Even though I couldn't think of anything more than "do you like being a horse" it was great fun.

Another great session! I think I'm going to do his writing as a short story per arc, so will share the murder at haltons rest story once we've solved it/moved on.

Already excited for the next one - I think Farley has solved the murder!

[Mantis]

So Paizo announced their own alternative to the OGL yesterday and it looks like it may get quite a lot of traction with third party publishers. Massively damaging for WotC if it's successful.

I'm considering moving over to Pathfinder 2e for any future campaigns I run. The entire ruleset, including additionally published expansions, is all available online for free. Just need to look up how functional it is, though I have largely only heard good things.

[Bird]

I think I'm really going to enjoy having a bard in the party. Bardic Inspiration has always felt like a crazily good ability when I've seen it used in other campaigns (although I'm not sure if I misheard or misunderstood, I think I added it to a damage roll and it's only supposed to be for attack rolls, though as I got a 1 I doubt it would have made much difference), and that was the perfect situation for Faerie Fire.

Farley has "Magical Inspiration" which lets you add your inspiration d6 to damage or healing of spells, the normal bardic inspiration can only be added to attack rolls, saving throws and ability checks.

"Song of Rest" lets you add a d6 to healing only if you've chosen to roll hit dice. I actually had an mp3 ready for song of rest to play while we're resting, I need to get that over to you somehow. I've also got one for the play if we ever perform it, and some other fun bits.

[Mantis]

Perhaps we could perform the play once the murder is solved. We could dramatise our own adventures to let people know how we heroically saved them from whatever threat and the group could double up as an adventuring theatre troup.

[Bird]

Perhaps we could perform the play once the murder is solved. We could dramatise our own adventures to let people know how we heroically saved them from whatever threat and the group could double up as an adventuring theatre troup.

Yes! This will also get us free lodgings and favourable treatment in the town thanks to Farley's traits... assuming it goes well. Dharnon did say he wanted to be an actor!

[Mantis]

He already has proficiency in performance thanks to my new Bladesinger traits!

It'd be great. Corvus could always play himself in every scenario.

[Sly Boots]

*Badly*

[Wrathbone]

So Paizo announced their own alternative to the OGL yesterday and it looks like it may get quite a lot of traction with third party publishers. Massively damaging for WotC if it's successful.

I'm considering moving over to Pathfinder 2e for any future campaigns I run. The entire ruleset, including additionally published expansions, is all available online for free. Just need to look up how functional it is, though I have largely only heard good things.

The timing and nature of Paizo’s announcement was perfect. It makes any changes to the OGL by WotC almost irrelevant, and WotC look stupid for their non-response to the debacle.

They have responded now, though, and it appears they’ve backed down. The actual content of the new-new OGL will be crucial of course, but ultimately all they succeeded in doing is devastating their reputation and convincing most of the community to give other RPGs a go.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1423-an ... icense-ogl

I think it makes sense for us to stick with D&D for this campaign, but I agree that in the future I’ll be looking at Pathfinder 2E, not least because it’s supposedly better than 5E in many respects. I’d really like an equivalent of dndbeyond character sheets for it, which I’m hoping Demiplane will turn out to be.

[Sly Boots]

I'm happy as long as we keep our little gaming group together, not fussed at all about which ruleset we use. I've played both PC Pathfinder games so I'd say I'm at least passably familiar with it

[Mantis]

Whilst the rules are obviously quite different, from what I've heard it isn't a difficult jump to make coming from 5e to Pathfinder 2e.

So Paizo announced their own alternative to the OGL yesterday and it looks like it may get quite a lot of traction with third party publishers. Massively damaging for WotC if it's successful.

I'm considering moving over to Pathfinder 2e for any future campaigns I run. The entire ruleset, including additionally published expansions, is all available online for free. Just need to look up how functional it is, though I have largely only heard good things.

The timing and nature of Paizo’s announcement was perfect. It makes any changes to the OGL by WotC almost irrelevant, and WotC look stupid for their non-response to the debacle.

They have responded now, though, and it appears they’ve backed down. The actual content of the new-new OGL will be crucial of course, but ultimately all they succeeded in doing is devastating their reputation and convincing most of the community to give other RPGs a go.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1423-an ... icense-ogl

I think it makes sense for us to stick with D&D for this campaign, but I agree that in the future I’ll be looking at Pathfinder 2E, not least because it’s supposedly better than 5E in many respects. I’d really like an equivalent of dndbeyond character sheets for it, which I’m hoping Demiplane will turn out to be.

I think there are already quite a few tools available that could act as a replacement for character sheets and such. There's an app which I forget the name of that is supposedly very good.

And Foundry VTT looks excellent as a replacement to Roll20, in fact it looks superior in every way and I believe you can create entire character sheets for multiple systems in that. The upfront 40 quid cost is nice too as I'm pretty sure I spent more than that subscribing to Roll20 for the year to access the dynamic lighting for the Lady Fortune campaign.

My thinking is that if we do a one shot in the not too distant future to wrap up the Lady Fortune characters that you guys made then I'll make that the last 5e campaign I run. Any new things after that I'll be adopting Pathfinder rules. The character customisation looks a lot more varied at least.

Even if they back pedal the whole announcement, I'm not sure I really want to support WotC anymore when there are clearly better alternatives out there run by more agreeable companies.

[Wrathbone]

Oh, totally. They've burned their bridges with the TTRPG community and then attempted to gaslight everyone in their response, which is some amazingly shitty behaviour. I won't be buying any more D&D material for the forseeable future.

The speed with which they've cocked everything up makes me wonder if Liz Truss is pulling the strings.

[Raid]

I suspect what's happening in this thread is being repeated across the internet. The failure to nip this in the bud quickly enough (regardless of how much of a non apology that was) has got people looking at what the alternatives offer. Did Wizards just not realise how good their competitors are?

[Wrathbone]

https://pathbuilder2e.com/

This is pretty good. I put together an example P2E character in under 10 minutes. Still no idea how the rules work, but it seems there are already perfectly viable character builders available.

Did Wizards just not realise how good their competitors are?

Their execs have a history of hubris and arrogance when it comes to everyone that’s not them. I expect they thought most people wouldn’t bother to unpick the legal loopholes and those who did would just roll over.

[Sly Boots]

What he says at the end suggests this OGL stuff is just the tip of the iceberg.