Gamers blog party: spring 2019 invitation

Posted on March 18, 2019 by

Later Levels

Spring is very almost here along with Easter, and the anticipation for a long weekend of video games and chocolate is growing. But before that, it’s time for the first blog party of 2019 here at Later Levels – there’s no better way to set yourself up for the week and meet some new blogging friends.

The rules are simple:

🎉   Arrive at the party: don’t be shy and stand in the corner – say hello and introduce yourself in the comments below! Give an introduction to your blog to welcome new readers and let us know what you’re all about.

🎉   Present your gift: think about the posts you’ve written during the past three months and choose your favourite or one which was fun to write. Leave a link to it in your comment and explain why you’ve picked it.

🎉   Get the conversation going: there are some…

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Holding Back the Backlog

Posted on March 18, 2019 by

VIRTUAL BASTION

With all the shady business and pushy live services present in the modern video game industry, it’s very tempting to think that there’s very little worth getting these days. That is, of course, absolutely false. There’s still plenty to get excited for every year, more than ever before actually. It’s great, but it’s also kind of bothersome because it requires a bit more self-control from us gamers. It’s so easy to get caught up in the hype now that one has to mentally keep themselves from getting swept away. Just about every serious gamer has a backlog now, and it’s all we can do to hold it back sometimes.

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Static group running reaper

Posted on March 17, 2019 by

Micki's Delirium

After a tough run through To Curse the Sky and Creeping Death on reaper 1, the static group moved on to running Lords of Dust on reaper 3. In our our first attempt we all got knocked down by the cats at the first altar and ended up wiping, so we released and restarted. The second try went better and we managed to get through the quests without the whole party dying. I didn’t take many screenshots, but here are a couple.

Ruffshot, Schoan, Valdayanie and Jarvanna took level 16 before starting the LoD chain, while Judet who didn’t yet have enough xp for it was still 15.

That’s all I have for you for this time.
Thank you for stopping by.

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25 Shadow Plane Adventure Seeds

Posted on March 17, 2019 by

Ready To Role

BB_TGSconcept_6_fullPicture Credit: Bloodborne

It may be getting lighter outside, but it’s getting darker in this month’s Adventure Seeds! For this month I went with adventures in, or involving the plane of shadow! Some settings have some established facts about what may exist on their own shadow plane, so I tried be sure to incorporate some of facts into the seeds.

My biggest challenge with this set was not just taking any idea and attaching “shadow-” to it. For example, why not just make a “Shadow Dragon” attacking the “Shadow Castle” and speaking about the “Shadow Gems”? You’ll notice a couple that walk this line, though I hope I was able to bring them back around with another part of the seed that is unique.

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Nagmer’s Throne Cavern

Posted on March 17, 2019 by

Dyson's Dodecahedron

It should come as no surprise for anyone who has had to deal with the Obsidian Clan bugbears that Nagmer the Terrible meets anyone who requests to parlay with him in the most ridiculously ostentatious cavern setup he could arrange.

Throne Cavern Throne Cavern

Nagmer’s throne cavern is a multi-tiered affair with a natural stone bridge over an underground river. The whole cavern is lit by a massive colony of well-fed fire beetles that crawl along the floor, walls and stalactites. Any discussion with Nagmer is usually conducted by yelling from the stone bridge as his guards block the way onto the north side of the cavern.

The vast majority of these negotiations end without any success, and a fair number end with Nagmer enjoying the envoy for dinner.

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The maps on Dyson’s Dodecahedron are released for free personal use thanks to the support of awesome patrons like you over on Patreon…

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Raids week 114

Posted on March 16, 2019 by

Micki's Delirium

Raids 114 was Saturday March 9 and I mainly invited people from the EEraids channel. Here is the short run down of the nights raids:

 

1. R2 Old Baba’s Hut
With Titus tanking, I suggested we try a different difficulty than we usually do. Difficulty: R2, shambler tank: Titus, red crow tanks: Titus and Osiride. Side split: left: Osiride, Lubash, Tahlua, Papewaiio, Haleyh, Cimpletan, rest right. My side has at least 3 insta killers for totems and 3 puzzlers, so most of the hut run was fast. Low dps on baba, but no issues with tanking. I spent some time taking screenshots while hitting shadows with sunburst to see what information I’d get. I also spent a lot of time under the hut and Osi threw me some healing. Completion time: 53 min 53 s. Loot: 125 Hut runes, 24 threads of fate, Memory of a Tailor’s Duress,

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NetHack Inspired D&D 5e Hunger Mechanics

Posted on March 16, 2019 by

Power Word Skill

So my regular group is in the middle of the final chapter of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and we’re on a brief hiatus as one of our players is unavailable this month.

So I’m running two of my players through a random dungeon crawl on Roll20.

Because I needs my TTRPG fix. I needs it.

And since I became obsessed with the insanely hard rouge-like that is NetHack I was inspired to find fun ways to convert a NetHack inspired mentality into a playable D&D 5e dungeon crawl.

One thing I’ve always struggled with as a DM is a good way to track time in a dungeon. I’ve tried keeping track of turns and having players move one turn at a time. I’ve tried tracking time in terms of Travel Pace (300 ft per minute for a normal pace, 200 ft for slow pace, 400 ft for a fast pace)…

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Artificer Expanded Spell List

Posted on March 16, 2019 by

ThinkDM

As a standard practice, class spell lists generally only select from the Player’s Handbook. Some also supplement with spells from the publication where the (sub)class appears. This places a limitation on classes that could be released after Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, since they technically won’t be able to tap into those spells.

Note: since writing this a couple weeks back, D&D Lead Rules Designer Jeremy Crawford has indicated that they will be releasing an expanded Artificer spell list. In that case, you may consider these my conservative predictions.

Current Spell List

If we examine the themes behind the existing spell list, we can develop a criteria for selecting spells to add to the expanded spell list. As we discussed in the Artificer teardown, the leveled spells have a heavy utility focus. Damage spells are generally limited to elemental cantrips or buffs to weapons or objects that thereafter…

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DDO: House D-lightful

Posted on March 15, 2019 by

Bio Break

This week’s DDO goal was to chew through as many of the House D quests as possible, as this was one house that my solo Artificer had yet to touch. Plenty of quests here, starting with The Depths of Despair, a standard sewer crawler with a kind of snarky intro. If you skip by bestowment quest text in DDO, you’re often missing some pretty interesting and even hilarious stuff.

The second of the fourth “Depths” quests, Depths of Darkness, also looked like a standard sewer affair — but it had a few surprises waiting to spring on me. Not only was there an acid trap that melted my face right the heck off (I was on elite mode), there were a couple of mega-slimes that exploded into dozens of smaller enemies when hit. I was backpedaling through the entire sewer trying to kill about 30 or so mobs…

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20 D&D Wizard Quest Ideas

Posted on March 15, 2019 by

Boccob's Blessed Blog

gandalf

Today’s guest blogger is Jacky Leung from Death by Mage, and he has delivered 20 D&D Wizard quest ideas. Be sure to check our Jacky’s latest hit, Journey into the Feywild on DM’s Guild.

The wizard, ever the seeker of knowledge and arcane spells. The mightiest of their kind endured many hardships, battles, confrontations, and disasters. A wizard early in their career can still be potent, but they still suffer the fate of mortality. Only mighty archwizards who have mastered the arcane arts become juggernauts of mystical powers and wield reality at the palm at their hand. But like all adventurers, a wizard will embark on a quest in their search for power, knowledge, and truth. Maybe they’ll learn something more along the way.

  1. A local alchemist is indeed of reagents and ingredients for a new potion. They are willing to share the results with you, but the location of…

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