Mercer: I’ve been at the tables growing up with, like, you know, the… the… and I use the term respectfully, toolbag players, that
Mercer, in a skeezy, macho tone: wanna roll to see how long they laaaaast. And like, Oh man, make a cons-
Mercer, in his normal voice: Like Travis said, “a constitution save?” And I was like, “Ehhhhhh.” You’re joking about that because you haven’t really had to do that in a game before, I’ve been in a game where players have wanted to do that, and it’s really uncomfortable for everyone at the table.
Brian: No, that just means they’re not getting enough action off-table.
Mercer: That’s kinda the thing, because to me, it’s an indicator of, once again, an extended fantasy. [chuckles] You know, like, “Oh man I wanna see how well I do in bed,” and it’s like, [pitying] “Ohh buddy. I guess this is.. where you have to.. play out those fantasies.”
Why’s it always a goddamn mad wizard? I want to see other classes build dungeons.
The mad fighter’s dungeon, which is a tactical nightmare of Tucker’s Kobold proportions.
A mad sorcerer’s dungeon, which is like a wizard dungeon but she has to make it using only 15 spells so it’s kind of predictable and crap.
A mad bard’s dungeon, which is that giant floor piano from Big but as a puzzle. And there’s just a gynosphinx dishing out lame riddles. Ad naseum.
A barbarian’s dungeon, which is just a hole in the ground with spikes. And he’s just there.
A mad thief’s dungeon is one where you think you know what to expect - whirring blades, narrow walkways, treasure chests rigged to explode. But it seemed like a pretty bland dungeon at first - just endlessly curving passageways carved into rock with the occassional security spell to bypass. It was weird, but nothing that an entire party of adventurers would have trouble with.
You break through the steel wall encasing what you thought was the mastermind’s lair, and realise that the thief isn’t there - it’s the city bank’s vault!
Your spells and weapons have carved a path from the dungeon entrance out in the woods all the way here, and the mad thief has been making Hide checks every few minutes to stealth alongside the party every step of the way, emerging only to claim the loot for themselves. The treasure vanishes before your very eyes, just in time for the bank’s guards to open the vault and see your party awkwardly standing around.
A theif’s dungeon would be the worst. The one who goes in and disarms the traps? Yeah, that’s the guy that knows how to make the traps impossible to disarm, the locks uncrackable, the poison darts murderous.
I couldn’t come up with a thief’s dungeon joke, because every other class is a tresspasser in the dungeon. The rogue is the dungeoneer. It’s the ol’ briar patch, and if you hear of a dungeon made by a retired assassin or thief, do not go near it.
The mad Druids dungeon- It’s just a hell forest. No paths, no markers, no way to find were anything is besides remembering which tree you’ve past and unless you know the forest by heart or can ask that sparrow for directions good luck. Even if you could speak to them, the druid has been spreading rumors amoungst the wildlife that you and your party have come to destroy their home, so all the wild beast are hostile and you’re too busy being chased by wolves and bears to find your way around.
I don’t know what the mad monk’s dungeon looks like but the monk looks like this
This is a really good point to bring up because monks tend to opperate in ways so outside the norm for most D&D classes that dungeon made by a high-level monk for a high-level monk would be exhausting for anyone else to deal with. Hope you have full-party spider-climb or flight, you unenlightened chucklefucks
hes just chilling in his zen garden, you say ‘hi’ and then he starts punching you while reciting koan
I love Dungeons and Dragons prestige classes like there’s a kind of Blood Mage that has the power to teleport by CRAMMING THEMSELVES INTO SOMEBODYS WOUND EVEN A PAPERCUT WILL DO AND POP OUT OF SOMEBODY ELSES WOUND THATS THE SAME BLOOD TYPE REGARDLESS OF DISTANCE.
Can you imagine it you get a PAPERCUT and some some unkempt wizard just stumbles out of it?
No but you’re missing the best part of that class they can LITERALLY MAKE YOU EXPLODE by popping out of you like say the big bad is the same blood type as one of your buddies you can just be like “hey fred give yourself a small cut on yer arm” and fred can and then you just cram yourself into fred’s arm and fucking six seconds later then bigbad just fucking EXPLODES IN A SHOWER OF BLOOD AND GORE AS YOU POP OUT OF THEM BEING ALL “SUPRISE MUTHERFUCKER BET YOU DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING”
There’s also
The Acolyte Of The Skin; who replaces his entire skin with a
demon. Like, a whole fucking demon.
The Green Star Adept who just fucking eats a whole bunch of
fucking expensive space-metal to turn himself into space-metal; just
shoves it all in his facehole.
The Squire of Legend; which is literally a class training to be
the best second-banana to the actual heroes you can be.
The Ghost-Faced Killer, an actual fucking prestige class named
after a Wu-Tang Clan member
The Vigilante, a class notable for the main fact that its sample
character is a fucking hobbit-Batman named fucking Beasley Biggums
The Rage Mage, who improves her spellcasting by getting really
fucking angry.
The Flayerspawn Psychic, who is a psychic who gets their powers
from having a Mind Flayer (IE, those squid-headed guys) in their
family tree, despite the fact that Mind Flayer reproduction involves
a worm eating your brain from the inside out and using your body as a
host, which is one of the many reasons the book it comes from is
considered one of the worst in 3.5E
The Vassal of Bahamut; who literally has a class feature of “gets
a shit-ton of money” at certain levels
The Impure Prince, who fights Lovecraftian abominations by turning
herself into a Lovecraftian
abomination, which seems both ill-advised and severely
badass at the same time.
The Master of Masks; which allows you to make Majora’s
Mask-style masks that give you various powers and is actually
legit-cool fluff-wise despite actually being not-very-good gameplay
wise
The Thrall Of Orcus; whose requirements bizarrely specify doing a
dark ritual “atop an altar made of at least thirty skulls.”
The Lord of Tides; which specialises in getting water in the
desert and has an ability that allows you to extract water forcibly
from a person Tank Girl-style. And if you kill somebody with it, the
water turns into a magical water imp for about a minute!
The Divine Prankster, who plays April Fools-style practical jokes
in the name of the Gods and literally has an ability that’s pretty
much the World’s Deadliest Joke from that one Monty Python sketch.
The Primeval, who literally slowly becomes a fucking Caveman as
she gains levels and has the ability to turn into prehistoric
megafauna as one of its primary class features.
The Cancer Mage, who can literally turn into a flying disease at
its highest level, has a sentient tumor as a familiar; can make armor
out of garbage, and is actually-pretty-terrible gameplay-wise unless
you get the right diseases; in which case it becomes unspeakably
broken
The Ashworm Dragoon; which is pretty much a literal specialized
Sandworm-rider class. SHAI HULUUD!
The Renegade Mastermaker, who is literally a magical cyborg
dedicated to physically emulating a specific player race of magical
robots (Yes, D&D has that), who has a magic cyborg arm called a
BATTLEFIST as a class feature.
The Risen Martyr who is literally Jesus-come-back-from-the-dead as
a prestige class.
D&D is amaaaaaaaazing…
@lilefarc plays a Blood Mage in our campaign and I honestly can’t wait for my shadow dancer to see that because he will shit himself
If the player rolled low, they know that they’re probably not going to get anything useful, and wouldn’t trust anything you give them. But what if there were things you could tell the low-rolling player, other than something that’s obviously false?
Pick something from the following list, or roll randomly, as you see fit. And if you think of another option, use that one too. Shake things up a bit.
1. by accident, completely accurate 2. not relevant to question at hand; inaccurate 3. not relevant to question at hand; accurate 4. right emotion, but aimed at the wrong target 5. wrong emotion, but aimed at the right target 6. as far from the truth as possible while being plausible 7. hard to read; no information gained 8. good intentions towards the PCs 9. hostility towards the PCs 10. roll twice, and present both as possibilities
Notes:
1. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, after all.
2 and 3. For example, “You’re not sure if the warlord is lying when she says she’ll let you leave alive, but you’re pretty sure she desperately needs to go to the bathroom.”
4 and 5. If the priest is contemptuous of the scholar, these would give “The priest is contemptuous of the guard” or “The priest is afraid of the scholar.”
6. The key here is for it to be plausible; that’ll keep the players from rejecting it out of hand.
7. Use this if you don’t have the mental energy to come up with anything else, or if you need to move the game along quickly, or if the player just barely failed the Insight check and you don’t want to punish that.
8 and 9. These are regardless of whether it’s accurate or not. On a higher (but still not making the DC) roll, the player might not know whether they failed or succeeded, and this is the kind of information that could come from a successful Insight check.
10. If you enjoyed coming up with obviously false readings, here’s your chance to still indulge in those; give the player THREE options, of which two are plausible, and one is ridiculously fake. (”You think the prince has just had a nice meal so he’s in a good mood, or maybe he likes you guys, or maybe he’s an alien shapeshifter who hasn’t yet figured out how to work facial expressions other than ‘happy’.”)
Don't give up. Unless you have to for a little while. Then don't panic. CONTAINS: Star Trek, Dungeons and Dragons, Critical Role, History, Current Affairs, Space, Cats, and Etc. Adult.
