Natural Twenty

[Big Bad Pennar]

First up. Newbies, what do you know about D&D? What are your expectations for it, and what are the things people have told you about it?

 

In 3.5e, I just read up on Character Creation and quite a few feats, in addition, I have read a few other things, but nothing too advanced (Such as Spells and other things), I do expect at least a good campaign, but I can recognize quite a few game-breaking tricks (Such as the Chicken-infested "disadvantage" as a whole)

[shadowsapex]

"Not all natural 1s are bad", huh? 

Today, when a player rolled a natural 1, the DM made them accidentally unleash the final boss. He murdered the previous boss we were fighting, who we were having enough trouble with, then incinerated a dire wolf in one shot. Aaand, by our paladin's guess, we can't recontain him in the box he was sealed in, since the seals were broken. So we're gonna have to fight him with our best fighter and our sorcerer half-damaged, me without any decent spells prepared, and the bard without inspirations.

This is a lot more interesting than our DM usually makes natural 20s and 1s, so I can't really decide if it's good or bad yet. We'll have to see how badly we get pulverized.

 

How I heard about D&D? I don't know how specifically. It's hard not to hear about something as popular as that. I'd had a vague idea what it was (people rolling d20s and fighting stuff with their characters) and I skimmed through the rulebooks on one occasion, but what really got me into the game was the opportunity to play it with a bunch of my friends, since one guy said he was a DM and the rest were interested and he set up a little campaign for us. We fooled around and did a lot of stupid things and wound up slaying a dragon and getting a city destroyed and retiring at level 6 to build a mansion with our 2k gold from the dragon's hoard.

[Thar]

My own story is a case of 'not all natural 1s are bad'.

 

I was in a campaign testing out the above build I mentioned before, the nobleborn Wild Magic Sorcerer/Divination Wizard mix. I had rolled to hit a foe with a Firebolt cantrip and rolled a natural 1 to hit. Instead of seeing if I hit one of the others, the GM decided to roll on the Wild Magic Surge table. That cantrip turned into a Level 5 Magic Missile and every shot rolled high for damage. For those who know not what Magic Missile is, it is a multi-hit spell incapable of missing its target. That natural 1 essentially turned into a natural 20.

 

That GM was forgiving as funk.

 

My least severe natural 1 (or as we called "critical failure") was when I was firing an arrow at a Beholder's eye. Not only did I miss, but the arrow ricocheted off a mounted shield, through a wall torch, and into a barrel of gunpowder that half my party was standing by, bloodying them all with the explosion.

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

We're talking about Natural 1s?
I rolled a 1 for a Reflex check, dropped my torch onto the explosive cache in the castle, blew up a castle wall. My proudest moment.

Sadly I couldn't convince the GM to give me EXP for killing a wall.

[Tentacruel]

My party's wizard and I both rolled consecutive natty 1's trying to move a dead horse out of the road and threw our backs out.

 

Then our paladin shows up and tries to cut the horse in half and rolls yet another natural 1, which results in my hand almost getting chopped off. 

[Tesability Black]

Stories relating to Natural 1s wasn't the topic I meant to start, but, oh welL. XD I have other stories, but I ain' sharing them all...

[Thar]

The best natural 1s are for communication checks, especially when my friend rolled to try and pick up a Nymph in a forest. He needed a natural 20 to win her over while she was turned away, and he rolled a 1. He ended up blind, ran into a tree that turned out to be an Ent, got thrown into a pile of thornbushes, and everything on his person, including his clothes, fell into the pond she was bathing in. Just listening to the GM list everything bad that happened to him made us all literally fall out of our chairs laughing.

[Cherz]

How does choosing a Diety work? Do I have to choose one of the gods on that chart, or can I choose any?

[Thar]

How does choosing a Diety work? Do I have to choose one of the gods on that chart, or can I choose any?

 

If you can make it work with your character, you can choose any deity you want, but usually each one is assigned to certain races and/or classes. It's usually stated in the manual which deity belongs to what, but really it's all about what your character wants to believe.

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

How does choosing a Diety work? Do I have to choose one of the gods on that chart, or can I choose any?

What Thar said but also, depends on the campaign. Some don't deal much with them and you can get away with having none. Some require only certain gods.

But usually there's some common gods, like Fighters tend to at least respect Kord, who is the god of strength. And so on. It really mostly matters for Paladins and Clerics, and such things, though.

[JessicaMuddy]

Yesterday, I was DMing as my party was helping some strangers being assaulted by Barbarians. Our barbarian threw our wizard at the enemy while he was casting a light spell in his hands. The wizard hit the enemy, and blinded a few of the barbarians, as well as himself. Now blind, 2 of the barbarians attacked him as he sat motionlessly. One rolled a 3, missing, and the other a 1. Both attacked at the same time, one of these tripping and slicing the other in half.

[Sethera]

Natural ones are a pain in the behind. I can attest to that. One of our party members died cuz of a natural one. It's funny when the enemy rolls a nat one though but that seems to never happen in most of the campaigns I've played in (then again our DM was a bit of an egomaniac who liked showing off his super-strong NPCs against us weaklings so he might've fudged some of the rolls).

 

Also I came across D&D by inheritance. My father is a huge D&D fan and he passed it down to me. I was raised watching him play through campaigns and naturally wanted to follow suit. But I haven't gotten to play as often as I'd like. Work has made it harder to find time but I will MAKE time...somehow.

[cardgameking]

I got into it cause my friends got into first. I follow the crowd.

Relating to natural ones, my friends tell me of a time when one of them rolled to see if they could find out what a mysterious white powder was. Ended up with a low roll, and knocked another party meme er out. He too then got a low roll on some kind of luck roll, and was mistaken for a murderer by a troop of passing guardsman, before being tossed into a heavily guarded fortress with secret memebers of the cult the campaign was about fighting. Wasn't pretty

[shadowsapex]

Hey guys, just wanted to bump this and ask if the group campaign's still on and if so, when it's going to start.

[Tesability Black]

If it is still rolling, the only days I'm really free for such are Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays. I've got other sessions on other days (including the irl one on Sundays).

[Thar]

Weekends are generally my free days. I can play on weekdays, but only in the late evening.

[Cherz]

Weekends. My week days are dominated by school. Next week ill be off for 2 weeks though, so if it starts by then I'll have all the free time.

[Sethera]

Weekends are generally my free days too, but it really depends because my schedule is always changing.

As for whether this is still going or not...tbh I was waiting for the DMs to come up with something, but I'm not even sure if they want to DM anymore or what's going on.

[JessicaMuddy]

Weekends are generally my free days too, but it really depends because my schedule is always changing.

As for whether this is still going or not...tbh I was waiting for the DMs to come up with something, but I'm not even sure if they want to DM anymore or what's going on.

I want to DM, but at the moment, I'm busy with school and the IRL game I'm currently DMing.

 

And on top of this, my dad said that for his birthday party he wants me to DM a campaign with some of his friends. Yeesh.

[Dova]

Weekends are free for me too, but I only have a few more weeks of school.

[Sethera]

Hmm I see then. Well, I might have to bite the bullet and DM then, if this is how things are going to go. Though tbh, since it's been years since I played 3.5, I'd prefer 5e, but I might have to brush up on 3.5, depending on what the people who are still invested want to do.

[Sethera]

So one of our DMs is still invested, yay! Everybody said weekends would work, but is there a particular day that works best? Friday night, Saturday, or Sunday? If Sunday, probably wouldn't be a good idea to do it at night, though we also have to figure out if timezones will make this confusing.

[Tesability Black]

Saturday is my only free day on weekends. The other two days already have games for me.

[Cherz]

Pref Friday night/Saturday. Sundays are a no-no.

[Htamret]

Sorry for the text wall, I'm not super great at brief writing >w<

 

YCM Username: Htamret

 

Nickname: I guess I'd be okay with Htamret, but if you like you can call me Mythos (my current username for stuff is TaintedMythos, though most people call me Tainted, so you can do that too dx)

 

Experience: I haven't really played a formal game of any tabletop games since I've never really had people to play with. I played a super boiled-down session of Iron Kingdoms with my friend and his brother one time since nobody could be bothered to learn the rules. I have a 5e pdf and made a character sheet, and I've watched D&D videos if those things count for anything.

 

(Predicted) Playstyle: I'd probably be a mix of Actor/Explorer and Investigator (I feel like Actor and Explorer are intertwined which is why I counted them as two)