Category: Uncategorized

Daily Punch 1-11-16 Discovered Fury feat for DnD 5e

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I like the feats that let you splash a bit of a class into your current class.  Let’s build on those and start with the barbarian!

 

Discovered Fury

You have learned the ways of angry, fury, and how to let those protect you in the heat of battle.  Gain the following:

  • Increase your Strength or Constitution by 1, to a maximum of 20.
  • Choose one skill a barbarian gains at 1st level.  You are now proficient in that skill.
  • You gain the Rage ability of a barbarian.  You can only enter a rage once per day, but you gain all the benefits of a barbarian of your level.

 

Thoughts?

 

Daily Punch 1-8-16 Trapfinding feat for DnD 5e

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5e thieves get some good tools to deal with traps, but how about the rest?  Here is a feat to help anyone else who want to try dealing with traps.

 

Trapfinding

Everyone who survives the dungeon needs someone who knows how to deal with the pesky traps. You’re that someone.  Gain the following benefits:

  • Gain proficiency with thieve tools, gain proficiency in Dexterity(slight of hand), or gain +2 to Dexterity(slight of hand).
  • When looking for traps, increase your passive perception by +5.  And, gain advantage on all Wisdom(perception) and Intelligence(investigation) checks only when looking for traps.
  • When disarming traps, you gain advantage on the Dexterity(slight of hand) check.

 

Thoughts?

Ring Side Report- RPG Review of Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide

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Product-Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide

System– DnD 5e

Producer– Wizards of the Coast

Price– $36

TL; DR-A doughnut-great fluff, but no crunch! 87%

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Basics-Welcome to the Forgotten Realms!  The Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide is the first player and dungeonmaster book for DnD5e.  It focuses on the world of the Forgotten Realms and more specifically the Sword Coast.  The book builds the current Realms and provides the standing of the world, as well as giving players some new backgrounds, class archetypes, and race options.

Mechanics or Crunch-The best description of the mechanics in this book is “What mechanics?”  Most of the crunch in this book is confined to one chapter.  It’s a decent chapter, but it only supports a few classes with some classes not receiving any new toys.  They do get some Forgotten Realms specific story, but no new crunch/mechanics to drive it home.  This book also only has one feat in it, and that is an optional feat.  There were high expectations for this book, and I feel it didn’t meet them.  What’s here is good, but there is just not enough here to really make this worth it for every crunch heavy gamer. 3.75/5

 

Theme or Fluff-I love the Forgotten Realms, and this is a decent introduction to a part of it.  As the title suggests, this book focuses on the Sword Coast.  What the book focuses on is great!  Each area gets a great description really building out the world in interesting ways and telling how the Realms have changed since 4th edition.  However, it mentions the rest of the world.  That’s good, but they don’t provide a map the the rest of the world.  That’s my main problem with what is here.  There are parts mentioned in a sentence that are not shown.  The previous editions’ Realms books showed me the world,gave it a one line description, and then left it at that.  This book doesn’t even give me the geography past the coast.  This wouldn’t be a problem except the novels, adventures, and the Adventurer’s League all take place in the parts of world not covered in depth by this book. 4.75/5

Execution-This book covers a ton of ground, and it does it reasonably well.  Everything has pictures, which is awesome, so the book sufficiently breaks up the text.  There are a few walls of text though.  The art is good, the font is nice, and the maps are amazing.  I’d like this book to be a bit thicker to give space for more breaks and more information, as well as to justify the price a bit.  However, I liked the way this book was laid out and built overall.  4.5/5

Summary-I wasn’t thrilled with this book.  The theme is great.  New players in the Realms will get a ton out of this book.  Even people from 4th edition will have a lot to learn about the new realms.  The overall execution of the book is great, if a tad pricey.  However, the biggest problem is the lack of mechanics.  This is the first real expansion to the system, and it doesn’t do or provide much expansion to the system.  This book isn’t bad, but stacked up against the core books, I wasn’t impressed with this book.   87%

Daily Punch 1-7-16 Acrobatic Dodge feat for Pathfinder

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How about some Pathfinder?  Haven’t done that in a bit…

 

Acrobatic Dodge (Combat)

You dance as much as you duck, and enemies can’t seem to hit you because of it.

Prerequisites: Dodge.

Benefit: When you are attacked, as an immediate action you can make a Acrobatics check.  If your check equals or exceeds the attack roll, you gain the benefit of cover against the attack.

Thoughts?

Daily Punch 1-6-15 Weapon Halo spell for DnD 5e

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Time for the last Eldritch Knight spell for a bit-the Weapon Halo!

 

Weapon Halo
4th-level evocation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Personal
Components: V, S, M (a weapon)
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

When you cast this spell and touch a melee weapon, you are instantly surrounded by fiery and icy floating versions of the weapon.  For the duration of this spell, any creature that attempts to attack you with a melee attack has disadvantage and takes 2d6 cold and 2d6 fire damage.  The creature that succeeds at a Constitution saving throw  reduces the damage by half for each type of damage.

Thoughts?

Daily Punch 1-5-16 Force Backswing spell DnD 5e

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I’m working my way up from level 1 to 4 for the Eldritch Knight, so today will be level 3 and the Force Backswing!

 

Force Backswing
3rd-level evocation
Casting Time: 1 bonus action
Range: touch
Components: V, S, M (a weapon)
Duration: 1 minute

When you cast this spell and touch up to two melee weapons, these weapons take on a ghostly aura as force echos of the movement follow them wherever they move.  For the duration of this spell, any creature you strike with a weapon under the effect of this spell takes an additional 3d6 force damage as the echos rip through the target.

 

Thoughts?

Ring Side Report-Board Game Review of Seekers of A Hidden Light (Shadows of Malice Expansion)

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Product–Seekers of A Hidden Light (Shadows of Malice Expansion)

Producer-Devious Weasel Games

Price– $25.00 here http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0146Y8HDC/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1944687502&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B00NAG5YCK&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=165FDTXJBT8THFCG5PQT

Set-up/Play/Clean-up– 1-3 hours (2-8 players)

Type-American

Depth-Light

TL; DR-More depth for those who want it. 90%

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Basics-Need more from your Shadows of Malice game?  This is the expansion for you!  This game doesn’t fundamentally change the nature of the game, but it does add new options.  Mystics get two new important abilities: quests and lures.  Quests require an avatar to enter an area to either get one resource (via a luck roll), kill a particular monster type, or do both at the same time.  When a quest is completed, the players get to return the quest for new potions, soulstones, and lux.  Lux can be spent to buy super powerful potions or new runes which are engraved on weapons increasing their power.  Lures are new ways to cause monsters to fight your character instead of having to fight in lairs.  These lures provide a luck bonus to the roll to determine the monster encountered as well.

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Mechanics-What you read above is pretty much what’s in the box, and that’s not bad.  This expansion isn’t here to completely change the nature of the game, but it does bring some fun extra parts to it.  Fighting monsters in lairs can be tough, but lures provide a way to fight monsters with much less power.  The new quests are a fun addition as well.  You can only have one at a time, but they do provide you with some goals and will cause players to go off and look for specific fights.  Overall, it’s an added layer onto the game that you’re used to playing.  It’s not overly risky in terms of expansion to the game, but it’s also something that fits well into the game  4.5/5

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Theme-This game has some great theme, but some interesting choices as well.  The new lux mechanic is worked well into the story.  Now players are given quests by mystics who also extract lux from the objects they desire.  That works well and builds the world around it.  Players get some awesome stories from hunting monsters to find light in the world.  But, players also get some weird moments as now not only do mystics heal you, send you on quests, but they also operate the bait shops of the world.  Players get lures from mystics as well as from monsters themselves.  That’s a little bit off as I would think the towns would have the bait shops.  It’s only a small misstep though as the expansion adds on the the game in fun ways. 4.5/5

Instructions-This expansion shows some growth from the base game.  This book reads much better and really helps players to add the new elements quickly to their game.  Players also get an appendix to help them find where each topic is discussed.  The rules are still a bit too wordy, but they don’t take long to read. It does plug quickly into the game and won’t take long or be hard to figure out when you do so.  4.5/5

Execution– If the base game is like Arkham Horror, then this expansion is a small box expansion like The King in Yellow.  This box has new full cards, new half cards, and tokens.  Compared to Fantasy Flight Games, it’s fairly priced.  I do like all the pieces that come in this box.  Heck, the box itself is well put together as it’s made with solid cardboard.  I’ve even made an unboxing video which you can view here https://youtu.be/Wiku-FDMmvQ    4.5/5

Summary-This expansion is a fun addition to the Shadows of Malice world.  Now players can undertake epic quests to gain the power of light while building up their own abilities, use bait to lure monsters out of hiding, and use the power of light itself to gain epic upgrades.  The expansions doesn’t bring anything out of place in the game world.  However, this expansion doesn’t tack on much to the game beyond what was already working here.  If you don’t like the base game, this expansion won’t do much to sway your opinion.  However, if you are looking for a solid expansion to your Shadows of Malice games, then this is a great way to build more replay into your Shadows of Malice game. 90%

Daily Punch 1-4-16 Lighting Rod spell for DnD 5e

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How about we continue the spells for DnD 5e and the Eldritch Knight?

 

Let’s keep building on the them of the Eldritch Knight.  How about some weapon based spells for above 0-level?

 

Lighting Rod
2nd-level evocation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 30 feet or touch
Components: V, S, M (a weapon)
Duration: instantaneous

Choose a target in range, and either make a melee spell attack roll or a ranged spell attack roll.  On a hit, the target takes damage equal to the weapon’s damage  plus your spellcasting ability modifier as you throw or strike the target with the weapon.  Next, the creature must make a Dexterity saving throw.  On a failure, lightning shoots from the sky and does target takes 4d6 lightning damage.  On a success, the spell fails, but the spell slot is not used.  In either case, the weapon returns to your hand.

 

Thoughts?

Daily Punch 12-30-15 Second Sword Spell for DnD 5e

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Let’s keep building on the them of the Eldritch Knight.  How about some weapon based spells for above 0-level?

 

Second Sword
1st-level conjuration
Casting Time: 1 bonus action
Range: touch
Components: V, S, M (a weapon)
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
When you touch a weapon while casting this spell, you imbue it with a piece of your will.  This weapon can float five feet high, move, and make attacks for you while you concentrate on the spell.  Each turn as a bonus action or action, you can command the weapon to make one attack for you using your melee spell casting attack bonus.  The weapons damage type is the same are the weapon’s normal damage.  When you move, you can mentally command the weapon to move up to 30 feet as well.

When the spell ends, the weapon flies back to your hand.  If your hands are full, then it falls at your feet.

Daily Punch 12-29-15 Spell Swing feat for DnD 5e

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I think Eldritch Knights get a bit of the short stick (or sword!).  Let’s work on making them that much more awesome!

Spell Swing

Enemies fall before your sword as much as your spells, and you’ve learned to effectively combine the two to become a spell storm of destruction.  Gain the following benefits:

  • Increase your Constitution, Dexterity, or Strength by 1, to a maximum of 20.
  • When you cast a wizard or sorcerer spell of 1st level or higher, as a bonus action, you may take an attack action taking all attacks that action would grant you.

 

Thoughts?