rules of thumb: combat maneuvers and blasting with items

there are three kinds of combat maneuvers:

1. little, simple maneuvers that aren't as good as an attack. these you can do for free as well as an attack. they dont matter really, who cares.
2. middley, normal maneuvers that can replace an attack. so you roll to hit, or the enemy makes a save, and you get the effect of the maneuver instead of the damage of the attack.
3. big maneuvers, or blasts, which deal damage as if they were an attack, with some additional effect, which is probably greater than that of a normal attack, something like a spell effect. the cost is more than an attack, and the effect is more than an attack
   

 so for example, if youre trying to steal an object, if it's a purely cosmetic or largely useless object, i'll let you treat that as a simple maneuver and also make an attack on your turn, because who cares, its fine. if you’re stealing a weapon or something useful, thats a normal action and it replaces an attack. If you want to destroy the enemy's item or sunder their armor or something as your action in combat, that's a blast and it uses some special rule for that case.

so for a system where all blasts need to be one rule, let it be this:

you can blast if you have an object or ability that can be used to blast. mark one use of that thing (or use it up if it doesn't have uses). you roll a save. if you succeed, you do big (d12 or whatever) damage to the target and you get the improved rider, the cool big effect you want. if you fail, you do normal damage to the target (d6 or whatever), the rider has no effect, and take a d4 ability damage to that save.

if it doesnt need to always be the same rule, then, you know, various degrees of this thing.

but the real point of this post is to propose the silly mode version of this rule, so if youre not ready to comprehend the Knights and Knaves Auxiliary Miscellaneous Toolkit, turn back, traveller.

so like, obviously you can use this rule for spell-like items, but the secret real thing is you can blast with any item. so like, blast with your rope: guy gets tied up. blast with your torch: shit's on fire. blast with your ration: gets the effect of a short rest. now we're really Dungeons and Dragonsing. please make use of this secret knowledge.

rules of thumb: challenge rating

 something i noticed with Bigby, in fifth edition, a CR2 creature is roughly equivelant to a 5th-level player character.

generally when im making something with stats i don’t assign a challenge rating because i dont really trust challenge ratings to indicate anything, but i’ve had this rare glimpse where im like, oh CR2 isnt like level 3, it’s like level 5, which is maybe going to play into my own mythology about how things are from now on

something i’d like to believe is that the character levels indicate rank in some military structure (so that level 3 characters are suitable to lead level 2 characters and level 1 characters are suitable to lead level 0 characters and so on), call that the rule of governance or whatever, i dont neccessarily simulate the tree of guys that your guy is standing on, but they’re there in potentia

i think in the past ive been too excited for doing all the population math to no end, like having the dice tell you there’s 3 cobblers in a town im not totally sure what adventure hook that is (its a classic three cobblers situation)

but supposing the rule of governance is true and meaningful and also that the adventure tops out at like level 8 (as adventures im familiar with tend to do)

then a CR2 creature is like, the king of most adventure sites (the king is like level 5, hes the guy who leads the guy who leads the guy who leads the guy who leads the guy who leads the guy)

im not sure what that does for my simulation, i mostly don’t imagine a CR2 creature as strong enough personage for that kinda leadership, in my other reckoning a CR2 guy is sort of a mid level mook, leader of a warband (12 guys or something)

so i think either thing could be true and it bothers me because it interferes with my delusion about a unified theory of the game

the zero reader

 so a lot of my posts here get 0 comments and its been that way sort of the whole time

this doesnt bother me terribly because i dont really care to read comments and enjoy talking to myself, ive run various potemkin blogs on all parts of the internet for something like 20 years now, and wouldnt know what to do with comments if i did have them, but it leads me to that perennial question of who the thing is for, the essential question of what to optimise for

for example when you write a thing, what should you assume the reader is familiar with, like for this blog...

should you assume theyre familiar with fifth edition dungeons and dragons? should you assume theyre familiar with basic/expert dungeons dragons? should you assume theyre familiar with the post you just read on a more-widely-read blog, or the post you wrote on this blog last week? should you assume theyre familiar with a sort of greatest hits of whatever you think are the dnd ideas of the past while? the greatest hits of the blog youre posting on? 

and like its the internet, so the real answer is, you can put hyperlinks and whatever but i think there are various approaches to consider

ASSUME THEY KNOW EVERYTHING

like they read everything i’ve read and everything i haven’t, and can supply all the same information im familiar with and even fill in the blanks where i’m pretending to know thing i don’t. this is nice because you can take on the role of the know-it-all dm and spew out apocryphal nonsense with the assumption that they know and can use all of the stuff you can put down, which is a very self-assured style and lends itself a certain brevity. But if the reader knows everything theres really no reason to tell them anything because they know it all already.The other problem with this style is even i dont know what i know, so its a style of writing that doesnt even work for a reader who is me.

ASSUME THEY KNOW NOTHING

so the best dnd player, it's someone that hasnt heard of dnd before. you're introducing them to the game, to the concept of roleplaying, this is someone who doesnt know the tropes, who doesnt have an existing edition that they prefer, so you can map your image of dnd right onto their brain, and then they'll have to like it. give me a child up to the age of four and i'll something soemthing whatever that quote is. but you can't really imagine that this person is an ideal reader of your dnd blog, because that person does not read dnd blogs. but similarly the best ideallest reader of your dnd blog might be someone who reads your blog only and absorbs the ideas presented therein as though in a vacuum. i dont think anyone is this reader. but this mode of writing can be more like fiction where you construct the world and need never refer to any other text from outside it. and it would be internally consistent, and scopable. but for each post to work in a vacuum without the entire corpus of all other writing youd have to do a pretty bloody good job of explaining the thing you're talking about and that requires i guess either incredible skill at explaining things in the space allotted or exhaustive definitions of everything which either way seems a bit shit

ASSUME THEY KNOW JUST ENOUGH

so this is the right way to do it, i don't know what this would mean exactly. but it's a little from either column, assuming the things that feel safe to assume and explaining the things that want explanation, putting hyperlinks to cover your ass, but getting it exactly right. just get it exactly right, its easy.

ASSUME COMPATIBILITY

that is, assume there's some version of the game that is 100% compatible with all other texts no matter how obtuse. then your text is compatible with that version of the game. The only problem with this style is that the game is not compatible with itself and you're only pretending it is. And the version of the game youre imagining will drift over time and fail to match the version the reader is assuming. So you ask the reader to do the work. And I'm not super comfortable with that because i've been that reader and I'm not really sure if 've comprehended those texts or not.

ASSUME INCOMPATIBILITY

I don't know what this one would mean, seems like nonsense. Who's writing this garbage. I guess you could try to catch incompatible cases and incorporate them back in, but there are so many versions of the game that it seems silly to extend the text so far.  You'd lose your own intention. so really you gotta work within the game you are imagining and not some hypothetical allgames however tempting that might be.

THE ZERO READER

anyway the point i think is if there are no notes you can operate in any or all of these modes at different times, the advantage of having a blog that noone reads, or perhaps noone reads, is it doesnt matter who the reader is and they can be whoever you wish them to be and think whatever you wish them to think (although admittedly you still have to imagine them as someone who does not respond). Until the reader reveals themselves to have some idea or think some thing they can exist in the superposition of knowing whatever you need them to know at the time, and this makes no demand on you whatsoever

Bigby “the Hand”

There's not a lot of cohesive themes for a spellcaster that the game supports with out-of-the-box spells that just fit, like you definitely can be the fire guy and you can be the illusions guy sort of, and you can flavor the spells to fit your concept, but if you want to be the lightning guy the spells are a bit shit, generally you end up with a guy who can do all sorts of things, that don’t all match each other. 

But one guy the game has always supported is the hand guy, and thats … fucking… dumb… but you can do it. And its clearly because one of the guys in Gygax’s campaign thought it was a fun concept and it just sort of got grandfathered in. But who is this guy Bigby, and what’s his deal? Well whenever I read into the histories of all the dudes in Greyhawk it’s revealed that none of that stuff is all that interesting or relevant to my game, and the guy I was imagining was better anyway, so let’s try to reverse engineer a guy who fills the gloves, instead.

So my ultimate goal here is to flesh out all the material you would need if you wanted to play Bigby in 5e from first level to whatever level he needs to be to be THE TRUE BIGBY of legend. I’ll crush him down into some statblocks that are 5e monsters, so he can be a villain in a campaign. And hopefully along the way I’ll give you enough juice to want to field this guy. What is the deal with the hand guy? 

My intuition is to make a caster who’s not terribly good at magic, and whose interest in magic is basically as a means to an end - and that end is making extra hands to do extra things with. The hand is a perfect implement for most any task he is willing to imagine. So we do not really need spellcasting beyond this, and we would not wish for it. This suggests a Arcane Trickster rogue -this would grant us Mage Hand Legerdemain at third level, which is a clearly better version of Mage Hand, which was always going to be our first choice of spells. I dont think any self-serious Bigby would be without the Mage Hand Legerdemain, because the idea that some other caster is using Mage Hand in ways that he cannot would frustrate this Bigby. But he can’t go all the way to 20th level with Arcane Trickster Rogue, because the spell, Bigby’s Hand, is a 5th level spell, and the arcane trickster is a half caster so it never gets to 5th level spells. But we can know that it’s three levels of Arcane Trickster at least, so why not start with that. 

So our Bigby starts out as a petty criminal, makes a name for himself as an ambidextrous pickpocket and picklock, kind of a scrawny guy, sticks to the back, good if you need someone to open a safe, cheats at cards. People start calling him “The Hand”, becomes sort of infamous. He’s a manipulator, rises through the ranks as a smuggler, he’s a regular. Relies on underlings too much, ultimately is betrayed too many times, decides to become more self-sufficient, turns to magic. So the monster version of that guy looks like:

Bigby, Cunning Manipulator

Medium Humanoid, Unaligned

Armor Class 15 (chain)

Hit Points 35 (5d8 + 10)

Speed 30 ft.

STR        DEX        CON        INT        WIS        CHA
10            20 (+5)    14 (+2)    16(+3)    13 (+1)    14 (+2)

Skills Perception (+3), Stealth (+6)
Expertise Sleight of Hand (+10), Persuasion (+6)
Condition Immunity charmed
Senses Passive Perception 13
Languages Common, Thieves' Cant

Challenge 2 (450 XP)

Improved Mage Hand Legerdemain. When he casts Mage Hand, Bigby can make his spectral hand invisible, and can use it to stow or retrieve an object the hand is holding in a container worn or carried by another creature, and can use it with thieves' tools to pick locks and disarm traps at range.
Bigby can perform these tasks without being noticed, if he succeeds on a Sleight of Hand check vs that creature's Perception.
Bigby's Mage Hand can be used to make attacks (hand crossbow/dagger) on targets Bigby can see, or to deliver touch spells.

Actions

Multiattack. Bigby makes two attacks with daggers and/or hand crossbows.

Dagger. Melee or Ranged Weapon Attack: +7 to hit. reach 20/60 feet, one target. Hit: 7 (1d4+5) damage.
Hand Crossbow. 

Ranged Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 30/120 ft, one target. Hit: 8 (1d6+5) damage.

Spellcasting. 

Bigby casts one of the following spells, using Intelligence as the spellcasting ability (spell save DC 13):

At will: mage hand, chill touch, shocking grasp
2/day each: charm person, puppet
1/day: hold person, spider climb

• 
  

Bonus Actions

Cunning Distraction. Bigby can use a bonus action to Dash, Disengage, Help, Hide, interact with an object, use Mage Hand Legerdemain, or make a weapon attack. If he has a Mage Hand active or casts a spell on his turn, he can Hide even if only lightly obscured, and gains advantage on any check (not attack) made as part of this bonus action.

Reactions

Uncanny Dodge. When an attacker Bigby can see hits him with an attack, he can use his reaction to halve the attack's damage against him.

So I think that works fine for a low-level Bigby. I'd put him in a group of regular thugs and not mark him as special until he starts doing weird stuff. Have him try to steal something from the party and escape unnoticed. A reasonably well-equipped party will still obliterate him but this is the plight of all creatures with hit points. I think he can maybe stick it out a couple rounds, if he has help, and I think he sort of has a reasonable chance of escaping to become a recurring villain or someday invent the spell Bigby's Hand, which is probably the goal here.

To even cast that spell, he can't be a straight Arcane Trickster, and needs to stick nine levels in Wizard, or Sorcerer, or Artificer. This puts us well beyond any spellcaster I’ve personally ever played, but Bigby, at this point in his career, I suppose, is determined to unlock the fifth level of hand magic. To do less would be insufficient. So this later Bigby is at least a 12th level character, and a spell researcher, and a single-minded one, at that. So this is, I guess part 1 of a longer Bigby mythos, so expect more parts to follow.

Malwardin’s Grapnel (a spiderman spell)

 Malwardin’s Grapnel (level 1 conjuration spell)

Casting Time: 1 bonus action.

Target: creature, object or surface you can cast a line to within 60ft.

Duration: until the end of your next turn.

The caster sends forth a length of sturdy silken rope from their open palm, with a grapnel on the end which holds fast to the target. A targeted creature may make a dexterity check to dodge out of the way of the grapnel (in which case it will hit whatever is behind that creature, if possible), or a dexterity or strength check as an action on their turn to detach the grapnel. The grapnel does not require a particularly suitable target and holds onto a sheer featureless wall as well as to a suitable handhold.

While the grapnel is attached, the caster can expand or contract the rope as a free action on their turn, pulling themselves towards the target (if the target is larger, or sturdier, and spending their movement to do so) or pulling the target towards them (if the target is smaller, or of a similar size, and can be pulled). A targeted creature may make a save to detach the grapnel on each pull attempt after the first, and the caster must spend their own movement at twice the usual rate in order to pull an unwilling creature. The rope is strong enough to hold the weight of two creatures (of the caster’s weight or similar) at either end. The caster may detach the rope at either end at will.

 

ok, so i've written this out as this 5e-style spell, i'm pretty sure its balanced but im not sure its good. 5e style you get sort of bogged down with exceptions and the spell sort of ends up written backwards. i think the fun central idea of this is "there should be a spell that lets you swing around like youre spiderman, or grab a guy like youre scorpion from mortal kombat," 5e has web and thorn whip and spider climb already, and a character can carry a grappling hook and a rope anyway, so its hard to find a niche here, maybe it should be a cantrip. but there should be a spell that lets you swing around like youre spiderman, or grab a guy like youre scorpion from mortal kombat

arguing with ghosts

so ive taken up the old hobby of arguing with nerds on the internet about dnd, this time on tiktok

i havent been doing this for a while and tiktok is a terrible channel for it:
-comments on tiktok have a strict character limit, so you cant really say anything in one comment
-your comments and comments of the person youre talking to sort of get jumbled up into a bag of comments in a random order so you cant read it back in a linear way
-tiktok has a strict hierarchy where posts are bigger and more than comments
-but then someone can and will lift your comment out of its bag and context to become the subject of a new post, shown first to the people that will want to agree with that creator

on top of all the usual problems (nobodys ever arguing about what youre arguing about, nobody argues in good faith, nobody ever retracts from their position and everybody always doubles down on their position, nobody has any investment in agreeing, the idea that you would disagree about something is treated as extremely suspect, and various somethings about women)

 

so my modus operandi is this:

ill be scrolling on my for-you-page (this is the basic way of interacting with tiktok)
ill see a dnd post that is wrong somehow
or alternatively (Danger Mode) ill see a post that is elevating a comment from their replies, where that comment is something i agree with, and theyll give a bad faith read and sneering reply to that comment
ill make a comment on that video affirming my contrary position

ill wait for their inevitable reply (or ill end up talking to some proximate commenter in a way that makes everything worse, then ill wait for their reply)

ill see if they back down or make some concession (this never happens)

then failing that i block them

here are some positions ive tried to hold, recently:
-that a person who plays by all the rules can still understand and care about stories
-that dungeons and dragons’ player culture is not something that comes basically from critical role
-that its important to uphold the principle of charity in this sort of argument (ie assume that the other person knows what they mean, and means what they say)
-my preference for affirmative posts where you talk about a goofy fun thing you like, rather than negative posts where you make up a guy to disagree with

i dont think these are terribly controversial opinions that i hold, (i do have much more controversial opinions, dnd has this fractal crystalline quality where you can argue about each thing, at multiple scales, with arguments at different scales acting as proxies for one another, but these are not those, like these are mild positions)

anyway im immediately shifted into proxy arguments about
-how im defending people who post negative things in replies
-how im policing the tone of what this creator can post about, or the tone of how they say what they say
-whether such a demand can be made of someone whos so female-presenting or young (as applicable)
-who am i to say this, and why should i care? 

at which point (sort of 3 replies in, with no common ground found) i generally have to block the person, at which point the whole exercise is moot, like i shouldve just blocked them to start with, but i wanted to give em a chance, i dont want to have to block each dnd person on tiktok one by one, as soon as they say something i disagree with.

but once i get to this point, where there can be no argument, because theyre blocked, theres no way to talk to them anymore, im still arguing about it in my head all day, like theres really no way out. i could kill tiktok i guess. 

i dont really remember if things were this bad on google+, i may just be viewing it with nostalgia glasses. it was pretty bad i guess. i feel like i used to argue about a better class of thing, to a more satisfying end, where everyone agreed as equals to go forward into a shinier age where some interesting middle ground could exist. i clearly do want some space online where i can argue with nerds about dnd. maybe there will be one in the future. or maybe i’m on some track where im going to become the joker or something. i’ll keep you posted