Welcome to Thunderdome

I was going to put this in the D&D thread, but it applies to. . . . . everything.

https://rpg.rem.uz/

I found it trying to find PDFs of and old RPG I used to play called Top Secret. Well, I found them.

I have some D&D modules not on there. "Tomb of Horrors," the notable one.

That reminds me, I also have the Ravenloft module, ha ha ha.

No, I haven't looked at it.

Got some good creature tokens from that link. To be fair to the creators of what is a crazy amount of free content, I do own the book it comes from!

Reading stuff about Ravenloft isn't the worst thing ever. It will be difficult to actually spoil future content. For a variety of reasons. Those past modules mostly dealt with the castle I think. The 5E setting is really about pulling things out to the valley scale.

On my honor, I have not done any research. In fact, I didn't even know it was what it was until you said, "Ravenloft Castle" in the 2nd session. As it is, I haven't opened that mod in about 25 years.

I have been told, though, that it is kosher for players to freely refer to the Monster Manual. DM ruling on that?

GORDON wrote: On my honor, I have not done any research. In fact, I didn't even know it was what it was until you said, "Ravenloft Castle" in the 2nd session. As it is, I haven't opened that mod in about 25 years.

I have been told, though, that it is kosher for players to freely refer to the Monster Manual. DM ruling on that?

Refer away.

The Temple of Elemental Evil...

Think I have that one, in the box. It was a thick one.

Which is what she said, constantly.

I think we should have to pass a . . . whatever (History, Animal Lore, something else) roll before being able to look up a creature's stats. If our character has never seen or heard of it before, they shouldn't just get the knowledge Matrix style.

Cakedaddy wrote: I think we should have to pass a . . . whatever (History, Animal Lore, something else) roll before being able to look up a creature's stats. If our character has never seen or heard of it before, they shouldn't just get the knowledge Matrix style.

I'd probably vote this method.

I know something about a vampire spawn, but would Koban know that? No, and as such, I haven't shared it here. Koban would know about general vampire lore though, so he would know sunlight, wooden stakes, holy water, etc.

Leisher wrote:

Cakedaddy wrote: I think we should have to pass a . . . whatever (History, Animal Lore, something else) roll before being able to look up a creature's stats. If our character has never seen or heard of it before, they shouldn't just get the knowledge Matrix style.

I'd probably vote this method.

I know something about a vampire spawn, but would Koban know that? No, and as such, I haven't shared it here. Koban would know about general vampire lore though, so he would know sunlight, wooden stakes, holy water, etc.

But say you have been playing D&D 5E for the past 5 years and you just knew the creatures because you've played it so much or maybe you were even a DM for some time. That doesn't necessarily ruin the game for you because you knew that a creature has 45 HP and has two separate attacks.

If the DM thinks this was a problem and groups were stacking their teams in someway to beat said creature then the DM is free to change whatever they want about them, be it HP, attack die, weapons carried, saving throws, immunities, etc.. I don't personally see an issue with that.

But this doesn't mean that i would agree to opening up the manual everytime you fight a creature.

It all comes down to roll playing vs playing the numbers. If you know a creature has 45 HP and a resistance to fire, you fight it based on that knowledge (don't use fireball on it). So, the knowledge DOES affect how you'd play. Now, that's not to say your character doesn't know it anyway, thus the skill check. At the same time, there are going to be some monsters that people just know about through folk lore, stories passed on, etc. We know about Vampires IRL, because of movies and books. Some of us (Leisher) knows more about them than others because of, whatever fascination he has with them that made him dig deeper. Our characters are not newborns, so they've heard rumors, tales, and did research on their own for whatever. "My uncle was a ranger in the kings guard and he said when you fight a dire wolf, go for it's eyes" or whatever. So I personally won't be digging into the manual for every monster. But, I might dig in to refer to a monster that Alex has fought before. Instead of taking notes after each fight, etc, I'll just use the manual. I chalk up any knowledge I have from previous D&D sessions as rumors and knowledge my character's relatives and friends passed down. However, I'm not hitting the manual to verify it. I'm going based on memory alone. So, when I'm wrong, it's because of false rumors, forgetting, or just bad info.

But let's be honest. The only reason we are opening the manual is to find out how to best fight it! (or if we should at all)

What Cake said...

There was a pretty funny movie back in the 80s called "Love at First Bite". George Hamilton was a vampire and Richard Benjamin (playing Van Helsing) kept trying to kill him using various methods of lore. However, he wouldn't be applying them correctly or he'd use the wrong ones. For example: There's a scene where he shoots Hamilton with silver bullets, and Hamilton has to say, "That's werewolves."

We should be Richard Benjamin.

Our characters should know lore and legends for vampires, werewolves, etc. and then be able to piece together strategies for other creatures based on logic. We definitely shouldn't use the manual and the vampire spawn has a great example as to why. It has a mechanic in encounters that if we know about it, we'd be able to immediately counter and make the fight easier. However, we shouldn't and couldn't know about it.