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Cake day: June 20th, 2023

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  • This particular end-boss seems very specifically designed to be “rescued” instead of killed outright. I don’t think it will feel like a letdown at all to play it out like the book recommends. It starts out as a raging monster, and gradually comes back to its senses.

    Imagine you are the Avengers, and the Hulk is the end boss. The goal isn’t to kill the Hulk, the goal is to survive him long enough to get Bruce Banner back. Part of the team has to distract him and keep him from killing Natasha while she tells him that the “Sun’s getting real low…”

    It doesn’t matter that one of you has the guaranteed soothing words to calm him down, you still have to survive and coordinate to even get him to listen.


  • So I just went and checked out the specifics of this battle, and the key phrase is “speak with empathy and compassion”. If the player doesn’t approach the character in question with actual “empathy and compassion”, then they don’t get to make the persuasion check.

    If your party actually figures out that someone needs to talk to this guy, and HOW they need to talk to him, then it’s perfectly fine that they automatically succeed on the roll, as long as they let the most eloquent person in the group do the talking.

    I imagine most parties will go into default “boss battle” mode and not try diplomacy at all. If you want a party to stop shooting, smiting, and casting, and instead start talking about feelings, in the middle of a boss fight, that’s going to probably take some pretty big hints by you that it’s even a possibility. If they figure it out, then they deserve to win that way.


  • Eloquence Bards get to treat any roll on certain charisma skills as a 10, whenever they roll less than a 10. So with expertise and high charisma they can guarantee a roll of 22 or higher in those skills related to eloquent speech.

    Usually the DM can set difficulties or even decide if a roll is called for at all, but this module has a chance for diplomacy, and the corresponding DC baked in.

    I agree, though, that the correct answer is “Let the eloquence bard do their thing!” The chance to talk the boss down comes in “phases” for a reason. As long as you still have to survive Phase 1 and Phase 2 before you can suggest surrender in Phase 3, you’ll still have an interesting encounter.

    And there is always the possibility that by Phase 3, your bard player won’t even think about using diplomacy once the fighting has already been going for a bit.






  • It’s a great fun movie. The plot’s great, the pacing is great, the references are great, the comedy is great. It’s a fun adventure with a relatable team of misfit heroes.

    It takes some liberties with the game mechanics to accomplish this. If you can’t forgive that, you’ll have a rough time, especially if you like wildshaping druids and spellcasting bards.




  • Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a group that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of any other group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you you will be banned on sight.

    I suspect you will be labeled as “sympathetic to groups known to discriminate against a group of people”, so yes, you will likely be banned from this particular community.