WilloftheWest

I'm putting on my tabletop min-max hat. A +1 modifier (i.e. a +2 to the score) to an already high ability offers diminishing returns compared to using that modifier to shore up a low skill, especially if your build doesn't give at least a +2 to the 3 key save abilities (Dex, Con, Wis). Do note that this comes with a caveat that a +3 modifier to your main stat and a second +3 to a key save stat are definitely essential for an optimised starting build. Unless you're playing a Monk or a dex-based build for a Wis caster, you're inevitably leaving a key ability score without at least a +2 modifier.

To return to your previous post of the 17/16/15/8/8/8 stat array, unless you're limiting yourself to Monk or Cleric, Druid, or Ranger (lol), assigning this stat array leaves you with an 8 in one of Dex, Con, or Wis, probably Wis. Considering that 8 ability, assuming a DC of 13 on a save (which is an optimal save early game and a low save mid-late game) you have a 40% chance to save. An extra +1 in that ability brings that to a 45% chance, an 12.5% increase. Now consider a primary ability of 16, with an early game proficiency bonus of +2. An attack roll against an AC of 13 (which is pretty middle of the pack early game) gives you a 65% chance to hit. An extra +1 equates to a 7.6% increase in probability to hit. This is discounting all the ways in which one can get significant boosts to attack rolls via high ground, acid, prone, hiding etc.

To again harp on with this 17/16/15/8/8/8 example, a truly optimised build assuming a key ability not part of your 3 top skills is a 16/16/14/12/8/8. If you're planning on taking the hag hair, I'd go as far as to suggest shoving it in the 12 and then shoring that to 14 via resilient in that skill. After all, that extra +1 to attack means absolutely nothing if you can't pass a save against a second level Hold Person.

There aren’t many interactions which outright rob you of your agency, and indeed it’s very possible to resist the urges. It shouldn’t strongly impede any paladin playthrough, apart from that one hiccup that happens at camp.

Having played through on tactician, the game is very playable with only 18 in your main stats. There are so many opportunities for advantage, accuracy buffs, and just straight up positive modifiers that an extra +1 to your roll is negligible. The only 20 I took was to Shadowheart’s wisdom because I didn’t need an extra feat for the build.

That said, if you have two particular half-feats in mind for your build such as resilient Con and and Actor on a Cha caster without con saves, then starting with a 17 and 15 is fine. If you’re planning on heavy good guy RP, a +1 isn’t worth compromising your morals by sparing a hag.

The only interaction I’ve found where you can mention non-lethal is telling Mayrina about confronting her brothers. She still just cries that they’re dead.

Like no, they’re probably still unconscious and you should definitely check on them because that’s dangerous, but I threw them both some lay on hands.

And Cloud of Daggers is great at chokepoints.

Broke: save the grove Woke: destroy the grove Bespoke: steal the idol of Silvanus

Every single RPG in existence owes it's creation to d&d. All of them.

This is so easily disproven that I’m wondering whether this is a troll comment. There are many well known RPGs that were developed independently and contemporary to D&D, which themselves have many derivatives. GDW published Traveller in 1977. Chaosium published Runequest in 1978 and Call of Cthulhu in 1981. Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone have been writing Fighting Fantasy books since 1982.

D&D itself is based partially on Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor game, which he’d been designing since 1971.

The 19 that is face up is the check after modifiers are added. Your unmodified roll is 9 and you have a +10 modifier

Anon is as old as the girl will be when Anon is twice as old as the girl was when Anon’s age was half the sum of their present age.

This is great news. A school environment, where kids are learning first hand how to socialise and cooperate with one another, is exactly the place where we should be teaching peaceful conflict resolution techniques.

Part III is titled A Search and an Evocation. It details Charles Ward's quest to uncover the information revealed in part II, and his continuation of Curwen's work.

Ward, now 17, is intrigued by the mystery of a lost ancestor and takes to researching at libraries and archives spanning the entirety of New England. He comes across undestroyed diaries of witnesses and private correspondences between Curwen and other necromancer friends. One notable friend is a Samuel Orne, posing as his son Jebediah at the time of the particular letter. Understanding that his unnatural lack of ageing will raise suspicion, Orne goes on long journeys, returning decades later as his "son" with a will from Samuel bequeathing his estate to Jebediah. Curwen laments at his inability to do this due to the need to manage his shipping business.

Ward is excited to learn that Curwen's manor at the time of his death still stands. He bribes the family living there in order to gain access to the house. He is disappointed at the state of disrepair of the once grand manor and the apparent lack of care by the current owner. He knows from his research that Curwen had a portrait in this house. He finds a peculiar wall and tests it with his knife. He finds evidence of an oil painting painted onto the panelling of the wall and thus bribes the owner for him to have the newer layers of paint stripped.

It is now that Ward comes face to face with his long lost ancestor. He is shocked to find that Curwen bears an uncanny likeness to himself. He brings his parents to view the painting. His father is astonished and pays to have the painting removed and reinstalled at the Ward household.

Behind the removed painting, Ward finds a curious small hole in the wall. Inside the wall he finds a diary and a note left "To Him Who Shal(sic) Come After." Comparing the handwriting to other pieces, Ward confirms this to be the writing of Curwen.

He begins his singular task of researching Curwen. His schoolwork slips though he still passes his classes, thus not arousing concern from his parents. Upon graduating, Ward declares that he will not attend university, for Curwen's notes hint at scientific discoveries that he could not achieve through a classical education. Curwen becomes obsessed with finding the grave of Curwen, as he finds evidence of its location relative to another grave.

At 21, Ward embarks on a 4 year journey across Europe, where he will continue his studies under the supervision of great European minds. Upon returning at 26, Ward claims the garret of the family manor to himself and forbids entrance to all others. Here he conducts chemical experiments and produces bangs and noises that frighten his mother and servants.

One night he sneaks out and returns with a gang of men in a motor car. They bear a heavy oblong container up the stairs and Ward continues his studies. His mother later reads about a disturbance at a local cemetery. The site is not on the groundskeeper's record of burials, thus he surmises that the disturbance was a brilliant scheme by bootleggers to hide contraband.

The sounds in the garret reach their crescendo, with Ward shouting a continuous evocation. His mother investigates and is horrified to recognise the evocation as that carried on the wind in the record of the nighttime raid over 150 years ago. Ward's father returns to find his wife passed out near the door to the garret, and a whispering occurring inside. The smell is terrible. When Ward appears, his manner is apparently changed. His father says that the limit has been reached on his experiments in the house. Ward agrees and says that he needs only read now, with further experiments conducted away from the house when needed.

The way that Ward appears changed from the attic, I believe at this point that he has become possessed by Curwen, who he has disinterred from his unmarked grave. I find it a bit comical how disconnected and apathetic his parents seem to be. It's fair enough that he's declared he shan't be attending university, but for a reason he states he is conducting private research which would stump even Einstein. No matter how brilliant they reckon their child is, they should have steered him away from this research years ago.

Part II is titled An Antecedent and a Horror. It presents the story of Joseph Curwen as researched by Ward and so has holes in the narrative where records were more thoroughly destroyed.

Curwen is a supposed chemist, apparently in his early 30s, who fled from Salem to Providence following the beginning of the Salem Witch Trials, for he believed that his experiments may attract unwanted attention from ignorant townsfolk. Thirty years after resettlement, he appears to have physically aged a maximum of five years. Though he explains away this anomaly as good genetics, people come to believe him an alchemist who can provide cures for their common ailments. Though he does not dissuade people away from these claims, his supposed antidotes do not work.

Curwen becomes an enigma to the people of Providence as he eventually reaches at least his 90th year with no signs of debilitation or ageing. He orders all manners of powders, bottles, and boxes to his residence, and his purchases from local chemists becomes a topic of gossip. He is seen at all hours of the night riding to and fro between manor and farm, the latter being managed by a pair of Native American servants. odd sounds are often heard from this farm in the dead of night.

Despite his eccentricities and a general aura of fear surrounding him, Curwen is regarded as a scholarly and well read, generous, and a shrewd businessman. He eventually attracts the attention of another scholarly gentleman - Mr Merritt - from nearby Newport, who pays Curwen a visit to discuss literature. Mr Merritt is frightened away when he discovers numerous blasphemous tomes, including a copy of the Necronomicon which was rebound to appear as a more innocuous occult tome.

Now over a century old, Curwen is a social outcast. Despite this, he holds a virtual monopoly over shipment of certain goods to Providence, and so he continues business. He continues to donate generously to civic projects in order to keep up pretences. He is caught numerous times in the midst of nighttime ramblings through a local cemetery.

Eventually a new scandal arises when people note the rate of disappearances among the sailors Curwen employs. Furthermore, it has been a while since he was last caught on his skulks through the cemetery. People become increasingly hesitant to work for him, but Curwen's business does not appear to be impacted. He turns first to financial domination and eventually to outright fear in order to coerce sailors into loyal service. Wanting to make an in-road back into society, he forces one of his captains to break an engagement between his 18 year old daughter and a man from town. Curwen, now well over a century old, marries the young woman and sires a daughter. The breaking of this engagement will prove his eventual downfall.

Ezra Weeden, a sailor and former fiance of Curwen's wife Eliza, seeks revenge on Curwen and singularly dogs Curwen during his suspicious endeavours. Several nights he hears Curwen interrogating apparently distressed subjects. Oddly, Curwen questions them in foreign languages and on obscure subjects that occurred centuries past. He spies several shipments of coffins travelling up river to a hidden cove, bypassing the docks and any suspicion from the town. In 1770 a ship with a cargo of mummies is forbidden to dock, and Curwen takes a defensive position on the medical properties of the balms, all but confirming but never admitting his involvement in the affair.

Weeden, now possessing enough information to indict Curwen, seeks aid in town. He finds aid in a cabal of well-to-do gentlemen and a mob of willing raiders, all of whom wish to bring Curwen to justice. They conduct a nighttime raid on Curwen's properties while preventing reinforcements from the river. Records of the raid are lost, other than a river watchman describing horrific noises arising from Curwen's lands, including an ominous curse and plume of red smoke on the wind. Curwen's laboratory is razed, his experiments destroyed; Curwen himself is executed and buried in an unmarked grave.

Lovecraft manages to tell a thrilling and evocative story without yet introducing us to the actual horrors of this tale. It's very clear that Curwen was engaging in necromancy in order to gain historical secrets, and I found myself invested in the nighttime raid; Lovecraft manages all of this without one mention of zombies or gratuitously violent scenes. It's a masterclass in horror writing.