Gamemonger's page

How do people play Insanity, the spell (an ongoing confusion effect) outside of combat?

Rolling dice to determine actions every 6 seconds out of combat makes the game unplayable from both a practical level and a fun level.

Our group faced this a few sessions ago, and the player who's PC was insane decided that, outside of combat, whenever it came time for him to actually act, he had a 50% shot at doing what he wanted, and a 50% chance of doing something he didn't want (including babbling incoherently).

We all enjoyed this a lot, and the PC seemed truly insane.

Anyone else done anything interesting with Insanity outside of combat?

I'm wondering if a cone spell can be used around a corner.

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Say you have a setup like this. (X = solid, O = open, W = wizard, T = target).

OXXX
WXXX
OOTO

The wizard wants to shoot a cone spell that hits the target without losing partial cover. We know that the wizard can shoot a ray spell, similarly to how an archer can shoot an arrow. However, I'm not sure about a cone, given that the corner of the square the Wizard shoots the cone out of is the very corner being shot around.

How does a Druid/Ranger/etc direct an Animal Companion to hide and stealth? There is no appropriate trick under Handle Animal.

I'm hoping to see if RAW provides a way to allow PCs to have their Animal Companion stealth.

Is there an existing spell that can duplicate a cheap nonmagical object, such as a handwritten note?

I'm DMing a campaign where I had my players roll 4d6 and drop the lowest. The scores averaged out to be equivalent to a 28 point buy.

Combat so far has been a cakewalk for them. Simply to add some more challenge to combat, I was thinking of upping monsters attack by 1. I could alternatively increase monster AC by 1, though it might slow combat a little.

Do either of these options seem too drastic? Any alternatives people have used for very powerful characters?

Can a PC and mount both receive the charge modifiers?

More specifically, if a PC directs his mount to Charge and attack at the end of the Charge, and the PC chooses to attack (making the DC 10 Ride check for "Fight with a combat trained mount) at the end of the charge, does the PC get the normal Charge modifiers?

The reason I ask, is that a PC making a mount move means "The mount uses its action", however, in this case the PC is specifically asking the mount to take its own action. It could be interpreted that the PC is just along for the ride, and can take a standard non-Charge action at the end of the charge.

I'm prepping my first campaign as a DM.

I have several pieces of information or choices that can only be discovered when the player/PC requests something specific. These are mostly basic skill checks (mostly things like Knowledge, Linguistics, Diplomacy, Sense Motive) but I'm trying to design it so the PCs are rewarded for picking up on smaller clues, etc.

What's an appropriate way to reward XP or at least measure the CRs of these types of things? Should the XP go to the whole group? The players who figured it out? The PCs that succeeded in the skill check?

(Note, I don't want to develop all of these into full fledged skill encounters requiring dozens of rolls, but simply reward the players themselves for realizing that *now* is a great time to Sense Motive/etc)

I'm confused as to whether thunderstones are single use or many use. The descriptions don't explicitly say that it is consumed or destroyed so I'm leaning toward many use for both of them. Is this correct?