Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?
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Bards have access to a lot of crowd control. He has fear, hideous laughter, crown of madness, sleep, etc. Luckily sleep doesn't scale well and crown of madness/hypnotic pattern are charms but yeah. If you have to counter hypnotic pattern with all charm immune creatures then that seems like a balance problem.
Hypnotic pattern doesn't have any saves past the first wisdom saving throw. That's 10 turns of CC. Yeah, the enemies allies can wake them up for an action but that is still a tax that a lot of the time can leave them both next to each other or waste two turns of movement and taking attacks of opportunity which can be a strategy in itself. We have been fighting some low intelligence creatures too and they likely wouldn't even realize that from an RP perspective
It just seems to me that the spell itself has balance problems and immunity is your only option to balance it?
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@wirestyle22 said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
It just seems to me that the spell itself has balance problems and immunity is your only option to balance it?
Nope it also needs materials to cast "Glowing incense/crystal vial of glowing material" this is supposed to be fairly expensive and rare outside of a big city unless the Bard can craft it themselves.
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@coliver said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
@wirestyle22 said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
It just seems to me that the spell itself has balance problems and immunity is your only option to balance it?
Nope it also needs materials to cast "Glowing incense/crystal vial of glowing material" this is supposed to be fairly expensive and rare outside of a big city unless the Bard can craft it themselves.
Yeah, my DM and each player are keeping track of that stuff. Perhaps we've been given too much access to gold.
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Creatures also need to be able to see the pattern, if they are anywhere with in the 30 foot bubble and have something blocking their view, even partially, then it has no effect.
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I would also house rule this potentially so they get a disadvantaged wisdom save each round.
This also is a concentration spell, meaning the Bard can't do anything else while casting this and as soon as he is done the creatures wake up.
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@coliver said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
This also is a concentration spell, meaning the Bard can't do anything else while casting this and as soon as he is done the creatures wake up.
You can only not cast other concentration spells I thought
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@wirestyle22 said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
@coliver said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
This also is a concentration spell, meaning the Bard can't do anything else while casting this and as soon as he is done the creatures wake up.
You can only not cast other concentration spells I thought
Yep you're right. My mistake.
Casting another spell that requires concentration. You lose concentration on a spell if you cast another spell that requires concentration. You can’t concentrate on two spells at once.
Taking damage. Whenever you take damage while you are concentrating on a spell, you must make a Constitution saving throw to maintain your concentration. The DC equals 10 or half the damage you take, whichever number is higher. If you take damage from multiple sources, such as an arrow and a dragon’s breath, you make a separate saving throw for each source of damage.
Being incapacitated or killed. You lose concentration on a spell if you are incapacitated or if you die. -
@coliver said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
Creatures also need to be able to see the pattern, if they are anywhere with in the 30 foot bubble and have something blocking their view, even partially, then it has no effect.
See that is part of the issue I have with D&D on Roll20 as well. People pick the exact 5 ft. cube for the center of their spell to maximize the effect with as little detriment as possible. I brought up that to my DM as this kind of marksmanship type of play really ruins some of the detrimental parts of the game. Michael Jordan didn't hit every three pointer so why can my wizard hit his fireball exactly, every time? Seems to me that you should have degrees of accuracy. Example: If you roll a 20 it's a perfect shot, if you roll a 1 it shouldn't just miss, it should veer off somewhere randomly. Roll to see if it hits an ally. Stuff like that.
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@coliver said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
@wirestyle22 said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
It just seems to me that the spell itself has balance problems and immunity is your only option to balance it?
Nope it also needs materials to cast "Glowing incense/crystal vial of glowing material" this is supposed to be fairly expensive and rare outside of a big city unless the Bard can craft it themselves.
Is this contained within a components pouch? I think it is. That makes getting the ingredients incredibly easy as components pouches are available to bards.
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@dustinb3403 said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
I've never actually played any pen n paper games...
I guess I should probably give it a try but I feel that making an investment to purchase a book etc would be wasted.
I can honestly say I enjoy D&D more than pretty much any game I've ever played. Including video games. The group you play with is really important. I've known every person in my group for 1.5 decades and we play a lot of games together.
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@wirestyle22 said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
@coliver said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
Creatures also need to be able to see the pattern, if they are anywhere with in the 30 foot bubble and have something blocking their view, even partially, then it has no effect.
See that is part of the issue I have with D&D on Roll20 as well. People pick the exact 5 ft. cube for the center of their spell to maximize the effect with as little detriment as possible. I brought up that to my DM as this kind of marksmanship type of play really ruins some of the detrimental parts of the game. Michael Jordan didn't hit every three pointer so why can my wizard hit his fireball exactly, every time? Seems to me that you should have degrees of accuracy. Example: If you roll a 20 it's a perfect shot, if you roll a 1 it shouldn't just miss, it should veer off somewhere randomly. Roll to see if it hits an ally. Stuff like that.
Uh WTF? You cast your spell to take effect where you can see. done.
Seriously, the issue here is you people don't know how to handle magic.
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@coliver said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
Creatures also need to be able to see the pattern, if they are anywhere with in the 30 foot bubble and have something blocking their view, even partially, then it has no effect.
Correct and it is an instant thing. Also ANY damage breaks it. Suddenly your people are out of it.. Throw rocks at them. Cast a low damage AoE spell and intentionally hit your allies.
Not to mention, the DM should use it on the party also.
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@jaredbusch said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
@coliver said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
Creatures also need to be able to see the pattern, if they are anywhere with in the 30 foot bubble and have something blocking their view, even partially, then it has no effect.
Correct and it is an instant thing. Also ANY damage breaks it. Suddenly your people are out of it.. Throw rocks at them. Cast a low damage AoE spell and intentionally hit your allies.
Not to mention, the DM should use it on the party also.
It does say "Any Creature" so that should include player characters.
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@coliver said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
@jaredbusch said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
@coliver said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
Creatures also need to be able to see the pattern, if they are anywhere with in the 30 foot bubble and have something blocking their view, even partially, then it has no effect.
Correct and it is an instant thing. Also ANY damage breaks it. Suddenly your people are out of it.. Throw rocks at them. Cast a low damage AoE spell and intentionally hit your allies.
Not to mention, the DM should use it on the party also.
It does say "Any Creature" so that should include player characters.
Also correct. There is nothing in this spell effect to say that it does not affect the bard's friends.
This is not different than a fireball dropped by the wizard. It affects everyone in the AoE.
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@wirestyle22 said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
@coliver said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
@wirestyle22 said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
It just seems to me that the spell itself has balance problems and immunity is your only option to balance it?
Nope it also needs materials to cast "Glowing incense/crystal vial of glowing material" this is supposed to be fairly expensive and rare outside of a big city unless the Bard can craft it themselves.
Is this contained within a components pouch? I think it is. That makes getting the ingredients incredibly easy as components pouches are available to bards.
To your comment yes, it doesn't appear to have a cost associated with it so it is included in the components pouch.
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@jaredbusch said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
@coliver said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
@jaredbusch said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
@coliver said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
Creatures also need to be able to see the pattern, if they are anywhere with in the 30 foot bubble and have something blocking their view, even partially, then it has no effect.
Correct and it is an instant thing. Also ANY damage breaks it. Suddenly your people are out of it.. Throw rocks at them. Cast a low damage AoE spell and intentionally hit your allies.
Not to mention, the DM should use it on the party also.
It does say "Any Creature" so that should include player characters.
Also correct. There is nothing in this spell effect to say that it does not affect the bard's friends.
This is not different than a fireball dropped by the wizard. It affects everyone in the AoE.
I have no idea what point you're trying to make here. I'm talking about 5 ft. squares on Roll20 and something like fireball perfectly hitting every enemy but not allies because you are exactly out of range. IE a perfect shot. I just think perfectly aiming spells and abilities is kind of stupid. Has nothing to do with hypnotic pattern. It's any spell.
Instead of casting it directly on the enemy, I cast it one square to the right and three squares up. Now three enemies are included in the aoe and my rogue is just slightly out of range. That kind of markmanship, perfectly aiming every spell. Even if I rolled a 14 and barely hit my target in the case of something that is not a save.
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@jaredbusch said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
@coliver said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
Creatures also need to be able to see the pattern, if they are anywhere with in the 30 foot bubble and have something blocking their view, even partially, then it has no effect.
Correct and it is an instant thing. Also ANY damage breaks it. Suddenly your people are out of it.. Throw rocks at them. Cast a low damage AoE spell and intentionally hit your allies.
Not to mention, the DM should use it on the party also.
I'm not confused as to how it works. It's 120 feet affecting a 30 foot cube. It's incredibly easy to hit multiple enemies and cc them for a long time with zero effect to the party
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@wirestyle22 said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
@jaredbusch said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
@coliver said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
@jaredbusch said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
@coliver said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
Creatures also need to be able to see the pattern, if they are anywhere with in the 30 foot bubble and have something blocking their view, even partially, then it has no effect.
Correct and it is an instant thing. Also ANY damage breaks it. Suddenly your people are out of it.. Throw rocks at them. Cast a low damage AoE spell and intentionally hit your allies.
Not to mention, the DM should use it on the party also.
It does say "Any Creature" so that should include player characters.
Also correct. There is nothing in this spell effect to say that it does not affect the bard's friends.
This is not different than a fireball dropped by the wizard. It affects everyone in the AoE.
I have no idea what point you're trying to make here. I'm talking about 5 ft. squares on Roll20 and something like fireball perfectly hitting every enemy but not allies because you are exactly out of range. IE a perfect shot. I just think perfectly aiming spells and abilities is kind of stupid. Has nothing to do with hypnotic pattern. It's any spell.
Instead of casting it directly on the enemy, I cast it one square to the right and three squares up. Now three enemies are included in the aoe and my rogue is just slightly out of range. That kind of markmanship, perfectly aiming every spell. Even if I rolled a 14 and barely hit my target in the case of something that is not a save.
If your DM is not calling for a spellcraft check to do that, then that is, yet again, your DM failing to do his job.
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@wirestyle22 said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
I'm not confused as to how it works. It's 120 feet affecting a 30 foot cube. It's incredibly easy to hit multiple enemies and cc them for a long time with zero effect to the party
You are totally missing the point. Let's break this down.
- if you are dong it 120' away, then there is no reason the DM should have everyone grouped in a handy bundle. unless there is terrain.
- if there is terrain, then some enemies also probably cannot see the bard. and thus will not be affected.
- just because the AoE is 30' cube does not mean it affects someone that cannot see the bard as stated.
- if you are doing it 120' away, then there is no reason that the DM could not wake up one or two with someone that was not in range. Once they wake up, it is a chain effect to wake up more.
- there is also no reason that the one you attack cannot decide not to engage whoever attacked him and instead wake up his friends.
- if you are doing it less than 120' away then you could easily affect the party also.
- calling out to the party to warn them (even if you use a code word) can cause alert enemies to react to save themselves.
- this is a free immediate action that can ALWAYS be taken.
- no matter how far away you cast, a player with spellcraft can make a roll to know what you are casting as an immediate action (or maybe reaction, I forget) and potentially warn his allies.
- It is a 3rd level spell of which a bard only gets 3 uses of until a long rest.
- yes you can use higher level slots to power a lower level spell, but that is then sacrificing many other potentially more useful spells.
- if you are dong it 120' away, then there is no reason the DM should have everyone grouped in a handy bundle. unless there is terrain.
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@jaredbusch said in Pen and Paper RPGs - What's your favorite?:
if there is terrain, then some enemies also probably cannot see the bard. and thus will not be affected.
just because the AoE is 30' cube does not mean it affects someone that cannot see the bard as stated.What? It does not specify that you need to see the bard. It's like a color grenade dude. You just need to have sight. Not see anything specifically. If you're in the radius of the spell you are affected. What version of the spell did you link? That doesn't look like 5e. This is what I see for 5e:
