698
I suppose that doesn't hurt anything... (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/rpgmemes@ttrpg.network
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[–] 78 points 2 years ago (19 children)

I assume this prevents some consumption of rations?

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  • [–] 54 points 2 years ago* (15 children)

    I was wondering why the DM would even need to make a call, but I guess that would be relevant.

    Any DM that said no without a reason for a lack of ants would be a bad DM.

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  • [–] 18 points 2 years ago (14 children)

    Maybe an ant hunt mini adventure or some minor consequence to this action.

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  • [–] 32 points 2 years ago (13 children)

    Or just reward their creativity...

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  • [–] 33 points 2 years ago* (12 children)

    The best DMs will allow it as an immediate reward and remember it for minor consequences later to progress the campaign in some way. "Druid knocked unconscious and taken while eating ants" type stuff

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  • [–] 20 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    I kind of like the idea of "of course you can! ... Rolls die

    You have angered Ancephole, goddess queen of the ants!"

    And then you get this cool side adventure where the party has been shrunk down and must escape a hive of sentient ants

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  • [–] 23 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

    Pretty sure ants are already sentient, but I like it.

    Edit: apparently ant sentience is somewhat hotly debated, and the current understanding of ant consciousness and metacognition is murky.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago*

    I love that you came back and added that edit, that's some commitment to keeping us up to date on the latest scientific breakthroughs about ant brains (I mean, I'd they have one?) and I appreciate it.

    Edit: ants do in fact have (tiny) brains.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Those ants were a druid colony and now you've eaten Neveah....

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Honestly, this would be a lot of fun as a campaign. Starts off a normal group, druid played by the dm as a PC. Druid shifts, hijinks ensue, druid dies, and now the rest of the party has to battle their way across an unforgiven, sapient bug populated map, to reach the wizard's house to turn them back. It's only a mile away, but to them at their size, it might as well be the other side of the planet

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  • [–] 18 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    "Sure you can." Later on the druid fails a diplomacy check because they've got an ant stuck between their teeth.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Druids shouldn't be engaging in diplomacy anyway. Most of the druids I've known, thought that diplomacy = "destroy all cities and allow the forest to grow you humanoid bastards!"

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    Or ‘ants are enough energy for an anteater, but not a druid doing other stuff. Buff melee attacks/perception while in anteater shape, but nerf them in some way if they change or try to use magic in human form’

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  • [–] 15 points 2 years ago*

    One of my favorite wizard characters was worried about rations, so I wrote into her backstory that she actually made an original 1st level spell for graduation of Wizard's School.

    That went over like a Lead Zeppelin. The spell used a tiny touch of wild magic to "randomly multiply" the ingredients you had available. Just a single berry? You're getting a day's worth of berries. A carrot, a celery stalk, and an onion? Well you're getting all the fixins for a delicious vegetable stew.

    The spell created magical food that couldn't be used as the material component for a further cast, and consumed the material components given. It then produced 1 day worth of vegetables, fruit, and berries, per caster level up to 5.

    The headmaster and two other professors watched my character demonstrate her spell, at which point the headmaster immediately mind wiped the other two professors, and explained that I could only keep that spell if I swore to NEVER allow anyone else to see me cast it. Apparently it strayed too close to Clerical magic, and could have reignited the Wizard/Cleric War, that never actually happened, and actually turn it into a shooting war this time.

    That particular character gave up on creating new spells till she was above 16th level.

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    • [–] 47 points 2 years ago

    My rule as DM is that players can freely expend their normally limited resources if it's done for role playing or fun and doesn't affect the story, combat, etc.

    Druid wants to spend all evening as an owl in the rafters of the barn? Cool. Wizard wants to create a pocket dimension in which he can then use Wish to create the universe's best ganja and smoke it in peace? Awesome.

    Artificer wants to ... wait, he wants to do WHAT with his pants? Okay fine, but we're cutting to black for the evening. And there may be assassins in the morning now.

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    [–] 45 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Well it does hurt the ants tho

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    • [–] 41 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    Ok so how much exp do I get for killing a hundred ants?

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  • [–] 19 points 2 years ago* (4 children)

    Each ant only gives you 0.0000000001 XP so multiply that by 100.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Jokes aside

    1. They'd be 0 XP creatures
    2. XP should be awarded for progressing the story, the XP from CR is a helpful guideline for how much XP progressive encounters should award but killing random peasants or forest animals without progressing the story shouldn't award anything.
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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    If creatures were to award xp, then all mages' colleges wouldn't be about learning / books / spells. Intro to magic 101 would be "alright class let's slaughter us a bunch of goblins".

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    that’s how goes in like every mmo i’ve ever played

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    Ye, that's the difference between pen and paper and a game. Unless it's a singleplayer experience, gating stuff behind story progress doesn't bode well with players and ends up generating less repeatable gameplay. But for pen and paper, you have a DM that can adjust on the fly. They can give out a level for a daring escape, they can give inspiration based on player behavior, they can have a talk with players and hear their expectations on how their character should perform at this stage (i.e. "we have slain a dragon, and my dude is a paladin that isn't strong enough to wear a damned shield!"). They can give magic items that introduce novel ways to play a character. A game isn't advanced enough to do that yet.

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    • [–] 33 points 2 years ago

    They probably taste better in that form.

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    [–] 21 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Vampiric shapeshifter who only consumes while not human; it's more accepted that way

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    • [–] 20 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    “Roll on it.”

    rolls a 1

    “You successfully transform Into an anteater, but it’s that blue Hanna-Barbera one who can’t catch a single ant to save its life.”

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    • [–] 11 points 2 years ago

    If you can't even fly around as an owl and eat voles in your free time, what is even the point?

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    [–] 11 points 2 years ago

    It also brings back some HP (at least in 3.5)

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    [–] 8 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Better an anteater than an aunt eater.

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  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Depends

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    • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I approve this message :)

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    • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    Those are the best moments, tbh

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