/5eg/ D&D 5e General

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Rate muh Drizzt

If I put something up on DM's Guild, it belongs to Wizards forever, right?

I couldn't then go on to use the same text in a different OGL product?

Would it be too much for an archetype to have a few different sets of abilities? I mean, they are all linked together so you can only have one set at a time, but it requires a short rest to change between them? I don't think it's actually overpowering on its own but it could be an unfair amount of versatility compared to regular archetypes.

>>45045360
Dri/zzt

>>45045400
Yep.

Nope.

6th for a slower and more sober book releasing schedule that can only benefit the game in the long run.

>>45045763
>slower
Haha

>>45045586

That's what they're doing with psionics. You can check it out in this unearthed arcana: http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/awakened-mystic

>>45045586
The UA Mystic has that with Disciplines (sort of; actually it's a bonus action and concentration). Martial Adept homebrew class in the archive has it too, same mechanic.

Admittedly, they're not huge changes generally, and there's enough cross-applicability between them that the three or four choices you get will be tied together enough that it forms a cohesive ability set between disciplines/stances and changing at the right times is part of your tactical approach, rather than being a prep thing.

>>45045801
>>45045807
I see, didn't give the mystic a look yet.

My idea was a differently themed and mechanic elemental monk, and was looking for the sweet spot between being master of all the elements and having a shit ton of abilities. I suppose a minor action swap can work, then, at least for combat. I guess I'm more worried about higher level utility being too numerous like being able to fly AND burrow AND have a swim speed whenever you need. I might have just drop the utility gimmick and stick to combat options.

I wish Invocations gave access to Truespeech. It's a cool magic system.

>>45045807
Bear in mind though, that setup is part of a class package and not merely a single archetype. That many options for what is equivalent to a 1/3 caster at best can easily outstripped by the number and power available.

>>45045332
Okay 5eg, how do I home brew a class that can do a little combat healing but has warlock pact magic style casting without making it terribly broken? Could I foreseeably swap out some of the warlocks signature spells for a few of the paladin smite spells and still have it work OK?

Justify Palalock in a way that makes sense. You can't

>>45046027
Druids aren't 1/3 casters though, even Moon druids.

>>45046052
Ancients Paladin is literally a Feylock that likes to smile and is more martial.

>>45046052
Just fluff it as something else.

>>45046041
Bump down the requirement for the UDL Warlock's healing ability and deduct HP at a 1:4 ratio.

>>45046060
That's the point, we're talking about multiple sets of power as an archetype, as opposed to the whole class.

>>45046052
Fey deity paladin. Sorcerous hell Knight. Mad champion of yog sothoth. Aspirant death Knight/warlitch. Explosively radiant paladin.

Really, your devotion to your patron makes things easy and flavorful. Paladins just aren't the same LG bound cut and dry characters anymore.

>>45046119
I think you bearly missed the point.

>>45046077
I'm looking for something with as little complication as possible, this is actually something only being used by an assistant NPC for a new player in a one on one game. Thus far all it has is the ability to use a deities chosen weapon as a divine focus for spellcasting, a fighting style, medium armor, ONE paladin channel div, and divine pact magic (no cantrips) stripped of blast spells and given paladin smite spells. No smite magic burning, pact boons, or invocations. Lay on hands is simple enough but not quite so unique and might be too much in conjunction with pact magic.

>>45046127
LE Oath of Vengeance Paladins are a ton of fun.

>>45046182
Level three, I might add. Right now it's two-handing a longsword, but I'm allowing it to use the protection fighting style without a shield in this way because deities favored weapon blah blah

>>45045332
My favorite is Battle-master19/Monk1 so I get to use dex for spears and need no armour.
Go monk first for Dex/Str saves.
Go human with 27 point buy to get Wis/Dex to 16 and Con to 15 and all else to 10.
Spend two ASI on Resilient-Con and Observant for Con and Wis saves as well as a +1 to the stats.
The rest of the ASIs on Wis and Dex to get:
10Str/20Dex/16Con/10Int/19Wis/10Cha.

>>45046231
Observant does not give you prof in wis saves, it just gives you a bonus to passive perception. Switch out observant for a straight +2 in wis so you can have more AC and a better wisdom save in turn.

Also I don't think the spear uses dex. You could use a shortsword though and be just ass effective.

Hey guys I was wondering if any of you have a picture of a door with a face. Preferably a metal door. I'm giving my players a dungeon they have to paly though, and to get to the "Vault" they have to go through two door puzzles.

The first puzzle is a talking door. I tried finding a picture of a door with a face on it. If any of you have anything that would work, that would save me a lot of time and effort. Otherwise I'll have to continue searching, or make my own with my half-assed photoshop skills.

>>45046418
Spear is a simple weapon, and thus a Monk weapon that you can use Dex for. That's the whole point of the monk level.

>>45046458
grab a picture of a demon door from fable

>>45046494
I'll be damned, you are right. I never noticed that. That is pretty rad.

However, I realized while looking over your post again an oddity. If you grab 16 in both Dex and wis at lvl 1 and 15 in con you could not have 10 in everything else even if you were going nonvariant human. Moreover, fighters get 7 ASI so if you only max dex and wis and get con to 16 you should have more feats.

Don't take this the wrong way though I really do like this MC idea, I'm just pointing out some flaws I'm noticing.

>>45045332
Fighter EK 5/Dragon Sorcerer X
I was trying a Dex/Str build to be able to use ALL weapons effectively and also fight unarmed well. My character was supposed to be trained in all ways to murder.someone as a special assassin. The damage dropped a bit but I could use Shield insanely well. Who knew having 20+ AC is actually super effective. Blur, haste and G. Invis were to come but I didn't get to a level to use them sadly. I had higher spell slots than spells on purpose to be able to spam shield more without worrying about options, just grinding them into Sorc points and casting away. She got a Cloak of Displacement and suddenly the GM never forgave himself. I was going to drop a few levels in Rogue for the expertise on Stealth as well.

>>45046591
Oh I'm not that guy, I haven't looked that closely at his maths.

>>45045332
>favorite multiclass?
At the moment? I have a fiend patron bladelock 3/rogue 2/battlemaster 3. It's going rad as hell. I have no idea if it fits your curve or not, but I'm doing well enough in my game that it doesn't matter.

>>45046052

Devotion paladin who just took one level of Undying Light Warlock.

"Can't you feel it? The light...it's all around us!"

Does a Paladin need to have his hands empty to Lay on Hands? It only says you need touch the creature you want to use the ability one, but the name of the ability implies to me that you should be touching them with an open palm.

>>45046458
You could always shoop the face of Nicholas Cage on a metal door

>>45046809
Lay on Hands with the back of your hands, from inside a gauntlet. It works fine.

So is anything on dms guild actually worthwhile? Classes and archetypes I mean, mostly.

>>45047242
There are a few. Sort by rating is a thing.

My personal favorite is the shaman class, but I have something like fourteen downloads from yesterday to go through, so I'll report back later.

>>45047297
Eh I trust this place more than their rankings, but I was going to do some downloading myself later regardless.

>>45047242
Are you going to wave one of them in front of a DM and demand to use it? That's kind of gauche. I would only use that place for DM stuff.

>>45047559
If I had a dm I'd share neat stuff I found with him.

If I were dming I'd love to collect cool options for my players.

But I haven't had the chance to play anything for years so it's all rather hypothetical, isn't it?

As someone who mostly played in the 3.X era I find the sheer amount of published adventures mind boggling. I played for something to the order of 8/9 years and only once did I play in a published adventure. What's up that this has become the norm?

>>45048094
Adventures and settings sell and are easier to make tie-ins for other platforms (video games, novels, and so on) than supplements and such. The story build-up and time it takes to run them is also better for their slower release schedule. It's worked out pretty well so far.

>>45046162
Bear in mind that your pun was grizzly

>>45048094
There's always been adventure modules.

I like the ones they've put out recently. They're pretty easy to hop into, allow for a lot of customization, and can act as a specialized setting guide/encounter guide.

I've basically been using the Baldur's Gate adventure they put out shortly before 5e as a setting guide and its worked wonderfully.

>>45047885
As a jaded old DM, I guess I too easily recall memories of players trying to hand me broken, barely-legible third-party dreck and trying to get me to accept it, as well as players completely ignoring any homebrewed options I try to give them.

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>>45045332
I just started playing with a few friends recently.

What's the best way to Paladin?

I really like the idea of a campaign that stops at a fairly low level. And E6 looks like an interesting way to make that kind of permanent.

How would I handle doing something like fighting a Beholder? Like us there a way to scale down monsters?

>>45048788
Old-school. Everyone's afraid to be a good guy (Twice I've overheard players saying they only play Vengeance paladins because they effectively have no code of conduct) but there's really nothing to be afraid of. The DM will love that you're easy to motivate with the promise of helping others, and if any PCs want to do bad things while you're looking right at them, they suck at doing bad things. If they want to do bad things behind your back, just roll with it and roleplay your character's ignorance of it.

>>45048830
That would defeat the whole purpose of e6. e6 is supposed to make high-level monsters frightening again. With 5e's bounded accuracy, it's possible for 6th-level characters to kill a beholder, but only if they think out a good plan for a change, and a beholder should never be seen as a boring "oh, we can take that)" kind of encounter.

And if you really, really want a lower-level beholder, there is one already; it's called the spectator.

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Favorite multiclass that I haven't had an opportunity to try: Mystic 5 / Druid 15

Combo mind thrust with pack instincts as your bread and butter.

>>45048916

I was looking at multiclass options for my Druid last night and came up with...exactly zilch. I did not, however, look at the Mystic, so I'll give it a look now.

>>45048959
Barbarian or monk might work for an onion druid, in light of the recent ruling that you can use Unarmored Defense to calculate your AC in place of natural armor.

>>45048987

That is pretty cool, but I had, unfortunately, spent several downtime days, a lot of gold, and a lot of convincing my DM to allow me to craft a turtleshell armor so I could buff up my AC. Unarmored Defense would actually lower my AC at this point.

>>45048788
>>45048844
Agreed. It's fun to subvert tropes. But its also fun to BE those tropes every now and then.

You are basically the DM's best friend when they give you a mission that is straight forward. "Oh, those things are evil and I feel like I should kill them, how convenient that the DM has a battle map and monster stats already pulled up."

Paladins aren't stupid killjoys. They're motivated and have a strong sense of right and wrong. And just because they're lawful doesn't mean they can't break rules. They just need to make sure they can reconcile their actions with their personal morality.

>>45049035
But that goes away when you're in Wild Shape. A level of barb or monk would make your animal forms significantly harder to kill, and with the way alternate forms work you're already getting effectively a ton of temporary HP when you change form, so you're harder to kill than pretty much anything short of a barbarian.

>>45049059
Is it even subverting the trope anymore if nobody plays it straight? In 15 years I've never seen someone play a straightforward paladin actually dedicated to doing good deeds. I've only seen grey guards, alternate paladins of nongood alignments, and other such edgelords.

>>45049102

True enough. I'm a Land Druid though. Going for a summoner type. Gonna have hordes of giant crabs protect me. I only really Wild Shape if I need emergency HP (or to set up a dastardly trap, that'll teach those goblins to use giant lizards as mounts).

>>45049136
Then you probably don't want to multiclass, as it would delay the rate at which you get your highest-level spells. Your spell slots use your combined levels in all casting classes, but your ability to prepare higher-level spells does not.

>>45049174

That's pretty much the conclusion I reached as well, which is a bit unfortunate. Oh well, it should still be fun to swarm the field with giant owls.

If you could make one thing off the DMSG part of the PHB/DMG, what would it be?

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>>45049059
>>45048844
Hey, I have no problem with a lawful good Paladin.

Thanks for the advice.

>>45049127
I'm planning to play it as straight as is possible.

Wish me luck.

>>45049276
I haven't seen anything that's actually any good on the DMSG, but something that adds more feats.

>>45049276
new backgrounds, race variants, feats imo

>>45049127
Good point. It's funny how people focus on the "I want to do something non-traditional!" so much. Some percentage are edgelords who see it as some kind of weird stick-it-to-the-man. As if the man cares about what you do in your spare time. Some percentage see "oh, there's a variant, therefore the original must be garbage." Which honestly might be historically true. And I think the rest want to make a special snowflake, forming a blizzard where all you see are snowflakes.

Like, you know your character is more than just race/class right? Like none of this matters if you just play them as a murderhobo.

>>45048844
The problem is, everybody has played a stereotypical "good guy" so many times, there's little appeal in playing a class built around being a good guy.

>>45049615

Have they? It seems like everyone I've ever met wants to play alternatives from day 1; they just assume that everyone is tired being a hero, and nobody ever gets around to actually being a hero.

Which is why playing a Good paladin is seen as such an undertaking.

So OotA question: is it easy to miss the sunblade dungeon? My group is going through the module and we just escaped our slavery and decided to head toward Blingdenstone. I just want to make sure we don't miss out on having her in the party.

Also you don't go through very much of the adventure with all of those NPCs, right? It's making fights cumbersome.

>>45050001
The sunblade dungeon is a setpiece encounter that has no fixed location. It's up to the DM where and when it shows up, if at all.

>>45049615
I dunno, maybe people think of their characters as being "good" but honestly most characters tend to get played out as very morally ambiguous. Like killing indiscriminately, not thinking about the ramifications of their actions, doing awful things "for fun/laughs," or extorting people for money.

Most D&D players go full murderhobo from the get-go. Probably because it takes some amount of effort to truly be good or follow a moral code.

how do you determine what uncommon magical item a new lvl 5 character will get at the start of the game? I liked the 2nd edition AD&D game of randomly rolling and determining what item you could get that way, but it seems the DMG doesn't have something like that for determining random magical items. I dont really want my players to just 'choose' what uncommon item they get either. does a table like this exist somewhere?

>>45050052
Have them roll on the treasure tables until they land a magic item.

>>45050052
Good DM mode: come up with one that fits their background and class.

Lazy but okay mode: roll on random loot table.

Players will love you but you might regret it: let them choose.

>>45050100
>Good DM mode: come up with one that fits their background and class.

I dislike this approach. You should be defined by how you use what you have, not the other way around.

I give a magical whip to a character to see what ways of using it they invent, not becuase they build a whip-based character.

>>45050100

I'm traditional and roll magical items completely by random unless they obtain something in a quest related to their character. Since it's an uncommon item, it doesn't require much more thought beyond a random roll, in my humble opinion.

>>45050128
I more agree with this approach, yes.

>>45050128
We're talking about characters starting at 5th level getting magic items from their pre-campaign actions. When it comes to magic items during the campaign, I agree, but when it comes to starting equipment additions, I'd rather give something suited to character concept than fuck with it. There'll be plenty of time to see how the character adapts to new equipment during actual play.

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>>45050052
WotC put out a "list of magic items" PDF a while ago.

Alternately, use a site like http://lordbyng.net/inspiration/ . Magic items in 5e are quite powerful at low levels, even the uncommons. Like a +1 weapon is a great treasure around level 5. Having them start with a circlet that has two one-use comprehend language charges is (I think) more fun than starting out level one with a sword of dick smashing.

So I was reading the spell creation guidelines in the DMG last night, and apparently a 9th level spell that hits multiple targets should do around 14d6 damage, save for half. Does WotC actually proof read some of this stuff before they print it? Meteor Swarm is the premier 9th level blast spell, and it does 40d6 damage from a mile out and covers a massive area. It's like every time they write guidelines on how to create your own stuff, they purposefully write in contradictions (looking at you, Favored Soul) for the hell of it.

How do you pronounce Zuggtmoy?

>>45050275
I'm inclined to say
>Zugg-tuh-moy
or
>Zuggit-moy

>>45050264
iirc, when asked the same question about lightning bolt and fireball, they have higher damage because they're iconic spells.

Similarly, they attribute a lot of fine-tuning decisions (like monster CRs that don't follow the DMG guidelines) to playtesting feedback.

It's bullshit reasoning, but there you have it.

>>45050275
>>45050302

I pronounce it the first way.

>>45050331
Same here

>>45050316
So it's the usual sacred cow BS. Got it.

>>45050362
Pretty much.
They openly stated that a lot of their decisions in printing got heavily altered/removed/changed because of playtesters insisting on sacred cows.

There's still the whole thing about arcane casters and the ranger as well.

>>45050233
Very cool website, thanks anon

>>45050396
>arcane casters and the ranger

I'm not sure what you're referring to.

>>45050264
Has anyone actually cast a level nine spell in game?

Like how does a spell like that not just break the game in half? How is that fun to be able to flatten anything with no challenge?

>>45050464
I've never kept a character going long enough to even cast a 3rd level spell, so I wouldn't know. My old group had severe campaign ADD.

>>45050411
Agreed, super happy that I found it. I found the uncommon items in the DMG to be somewhat lacking (either they were too generic or too powerful for level 3 or just looked like they would require too much micromanaging). But these are sweet and make for good finds in treasure hoards.

>>45050464
Make a villain cast a broken as fuck 9th level spell to make him look like a badass in your campaign intro ?

>>45050421
Back during the alpha playtest they were debating between having one "Mage" class and then having different archetypes (evoker wizard, dragon sorc, etc) versus having the different arcane classes also function very differently.
To understand the latter, the original sorcerer when they tried splitting the classes had far less spells than the wizard, used an MP system, and had a threshold system were if they burned through their MP at a rapid rate they would start to get passive buffs and new abilities based on their bloodline, the example was a Dragon Sorcerer who turned into a melee-dragon man with breath weapon and all if they burned through MP too fast.
Warlock also functioned significantly differently from the PHB version, its invocations being the core of the class and each of them having sweet scaling functions.

On the public forums they said they wanted to test to give each class a completely different feeling, because the point of the archetypes system is that each class has to function dramatically different enough to warrant it being a class and not an archetype.

The playtesters hated the new version of the sorcerer AND the idea of the sorcerer being a mage archetype, claiming that was too different from "previous editions."

WotC then revealed they were thinking on not including some classes in the core then, Sorcerer, Warlock, Ranger, and Monk, iirc were the ones they were considering saving for a later book.

People grew loud and angry about this, in part because they had seen previous playtest versions and in part because they didn't want a repeat of 4e having three different PHBs to have all the classes.

So the shoddy versions thrown together in a hurry are the ones we are stuck with.

So Druid /anon/ here from yesterday. I was able to convince my DM to allow me to have one Wildshape form that is a Monstrosity with everything else being the same and it should be tied into my background. So max CR of 8. What monstrosity would be the most useful do you think. I was looking at the Hydra since it is a CR 8 and thus the max CR rating.

>>45050627
Depends on what level you're starting at and what level you'll be going to.

>>45050584
The original versions sound much more interesting, mechanically. People never know what they want..I wonder if someone on the DMs Guild has a working draft of a refluffed arcane caster.

>>45050627
Are you the minotaur sailor with the terrifying reputation? Things kinda blend together in these generals for me.

>>45050627
Wait I got that wrong it would be CR 6 since it is rounded down. Damn....

>>45050275
The way it's spelled. Zuggt-moy. Two syllables, hard stop on the T.

>>45050584
The sorcerer and warlock sound very interesting. That sorc sounds really flavorful. A barely contained font of raw power that gains bonuses for burning through resources.

>>45050584
I'm not in love with capitulating to whiners. But I think the way iconic classes were split up in 4e was really annoying. So overall I'm fine with the inclusion of more classes in the PHB.

I do like the MP system sorcerer idea. Seems more interesting than the sorcery points guy we have now (which basically just turns into "oh look, an extra spell slot woooo").

It'd be nice to see that idea implemented in a future PHB or some other sourcebook.

Rolled Stats > Point Buy > Standard Array

>>45050584

Dammit, the sorcerer and the warlock both sound really interesting.

I wish we could play those classes sometime, maybe as UA. Chucking vancian magic out on its ass to try new things almost always makes using magic more interesting even if it's rarely as strong.

The playtest with the heavy-armor-and-willpower sorcerer is in the Mega (081712). It's interesting but is organized a bit poorly. I could see how it could be a bit confusing, since you have to juggle a bunch of active sorcerer powers from our sorcerous origin AND your spells. They both drain from the same resource pool, too.

>>45050584
>in part because they didn't want a repeat of 4e having three different PHBs to have all the classes.
I honestly think that was a good idea. The slower release gave them time to actually work out the power sources and how they worked

>>45050584
They should have just gone Fighter, Mage, Cleric, Thief plus archetypes, with potential to add new archetypes in future supplements.

Also, the "casters as one class" Mage didn't come around until one of the later playtests (080213, so August 2013). It explicitly used a spellbook and was a wizard in all but name, no sorcerer fluff included.

>>45050584
>releasing more classes at this release speed
Good thing they didnt...?

>>45050829
Point buy is basically the same as standard array.

Rolling is fun, but can create imbalanced gameplay if one person gets turbo unlucky and another gets multiple 18s.

>>45051181

Maybe a bracketed roll system could be fun? Roll for stats, but no one stat higher than 16, no one stat lower than 8?

>>45051251
You'd have to set the upper limit to 15, but that could work for players that want to roll but DMs who don't want ranges outside point buy or array.

Redpill me on Sorcerers.

>>45051251
For what fucking purpose?

Just use array or point buy.

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>>45046684
if I did this, I would hit EK 7 to bonus action attack after green flame blade

also:

action: green flame blade
bonus action: quicken green flame blade
action surge: green flame blade

is that even good? I have no idea.

>>45051310
We wuz dragons n shit

>>45051251
Then what's the point of rolling? Just use an array then.

I won't stop anyone from having their fun, but there's enough luck involved in D&D as is. You're going to have an arbirarily difficult time if you get multiple -1 modifiers, and woo-hoo you're amazing at everything (why is the rest of the party even here?) if you get multiple +3s.

>>45051310
>Redpill me on Sorcerers.

They were a retarded idea in 3e and they're still a retarded idea. They do not have enough differentiation from Wizards to justify their existence as anything other than an alternate casting rule set.

>>45051316
It's quite a bit of damage output, especially if you for some reason go far enough into sorc to get +cha to fire damage.

The melee attack cantrips are always competitive with an extra attack, and you could do it three times in one round with that setup.

>>45051310
They are fun to multiclass into. They also are unique in that they get to twin concentration spells.

You will be casting the same 5 spells over and over. Most of your spells require concentration and you have a smaller spell list, so you'll be stuck with very limited options.

My overall experience with sorcerer is that it's ok. You definitely feel like you're casting the same small number of spells over and over though, and you feel that concentration tax more so than other casters.

>>45051479
>They were a retarded idea in 3e and they're still a retarded idea. They do not have enough differentiation from Wizards to justify their existence as anything other than an alternate casting rule set.
I feel like Sorcs could be redefined as a speedier, less "heavy" half-caster/Gish type class. They're halfway there already But then, WOTC seems to hate gishes for some reason.

>>45051730
That would have been a totally reasonable direction to take it during development, I'm not sure how well it would play out in the current 5e environment. You'd have to figure out how to make it contrast with the gish archetypes without rendering them (more) useless.

>>45046591
Yeah i failed the calculation when i wrote the post since i didn't have the PHB on hand.

Basically normal human bumps Wis/Dex from 15 to 16.
Con can be 13 with the bump to 14 and one other stat is an 11 since there's a point left-over.

As for feats i can just pick Resilien-Wis after reaching Wis 19 and Dex 20 from the first four ASIs.

Then the next is Resilien-Con and i still have one extra feat i can pick or get my Con even higher.

Maybe martial Adept for an extra superiority die.

In the end assuming Feats: Resilient-Con, Resilient Wis, Martial Adept i get:

11 Str
20 Dex
15 Con
10 Int
20 Wis
10 Cha

Save proficiency: Str, Dex, Con, Wis.

Or instead of Martial Adept i get 17 Con.

>>45051730
Gish?

>>45046494
You can use it as a dex weapon, but it does not count as a "finesse" weapon (which isn't a huge deal unless you aw a rogue or some such) doesn't have reach, and as per the martial arts rules, can only be used with one hand, and thus you don't get anything out of the versatile property. You could foreseeable throw it with dex, which is cool for a spear, but otherwise, statistically it's pretty much just a shortsword, but flavoured differently.

>>45051916
Uh on the stats... Con 16 for the stat listing.

>>45051498
especially because thats available to you at level 5, coincidentally also when the damage on gfb starts to be good.

by my math you're doing average damage of 40.5 and 42 or so, +6 to the first number if you're using str instead of dex.

versus say a gwm fighter at level 5 doing four attacks plus bonus action attack using precise strike for about 100 damage to one target. or spread out.

so maybe its not so hot.

but lets say at 11... gwm is doing 6 attacks for 140 average or so (i mean... not including accuracy, but precise strike helps). gfb has +charisma to damage now but you're doing say 75 damage to one and 39 damage to the other. still less even with great weapon. but if you could accurately hit with great weapon master i guess that would bring it up to 105 + 39, which is pretty close. you would need to be fighter 3/sorc 6, but i also assumed you had 18s in strength and charisma at that point. so you need to be fighter 4 sorc 6, plus have a feat from v human (or just be fighter 6 sorc 6 or fighter 4 sorc 8 or whatever other combo).

anyway the sorc combo also is only for like... when you need to do that. otherwise you're a full caster (multiclass) which is cool

>>45051916
>As for feats i can just pick Resilien-Wis after reaching Wis 19 and Dex 20 from the first four ASIs.

>Then the next is Resilien-Con and i still have one extra feat i can pick or get my Con even higher.

technically you can only select each feat once.

>>45051916

You can't take feats more than once unless they say so, and Resilient doesn't say so.

>>45051923
Spellsword

>>45051981
Wait really?
I though you could as written in the errata...
You just can't pick the same stat or a stat with which you are already proficient in saves.

>>45051936
>can only be used with one hand

Ah, that's where you're wrong. The weapon can't have the Heavy or Two-Handed property; it says nothing about being one-handed or such. You can, in fact, make use of the Versatile property. That's why Quarterstaff is the go-to weapon for starting monks.

>>45051923
Fighter/Mage or similar. A fighty arcane spell caster. Comes from a type of Githyanki specialized in that sort of thing.

>>45051936
Actually the errata mentions this and you can use it with both hands and still go with dex.
So yeah 1d8 instead of 1d6.
I always get the DM to cheeze out that Pole-arm master and reach as well.

>>45052014
>you just can't pick the same stat or a stat with which you are already proficient in saves

Which is a non-issue because feats are taken in place of ASIs - so you wouldn't ever take a Resilient in a stat you already had proficiency in; you'd just allocate an ASI to it (one point or two).

Unless there's some new errata I'm not aware of, the errata doesn't change the rules on feat acquisition nor on Resilient specifically. And unlike, say, Elemental Adept, it doesn't give permission to take it again for a separate stat.

>>45051730
Well they were close range blasters in 4e, made to skirmish in melee then book it when things got too heavy.
But 4e was worst edition etc etc.

gonna be playing my session of D&D ever in a few months but I'm already filled with anticipation. I'm very unfamiliar with character creation and my DM said he'd help me out when we get there but I anted to plan ahead.

How does a half-orc druid sound? I want to focus mainly on tanking (as a bear shapeshift) and some team support. Initial thoughts?

>>45052168
Hm so i'd have to switch it up and take Fighter first for STR and CON saves, then spend resilient on Dex and get Observant for passive perception.
Maybe tough for extra HP.

>>45052264
>Initial thoughts?

I'd go with something with a Wisdom bonus instead of half-orc unless you just have your heart set on half-orc for roleplay reasons. When you shapshift you'll have the stats of the animal, so if you plan to rely on that for tankiness you don't really need to make your base stats tanky.

>>45052312
Alright, thank you. I didn't necessarily want to be a half orc but I know the people in the party are going to all be dwarves or elves and I wanted to switch it up a bit, but I'll think of something

>>45052123
>errata
I wasn't aware of that. That's actually pretty cool.
>cheeseing your gm into tweaking a simple weapon to have reach
Unless it's some sort of magic weapon property, you are dirty as fuck and your dm is a spineless bastard.

>>45050584
I was curious so I just looked, its in the 81712 playtest packet for those interested.

>>45052299

Eh, it's either Res(Dex) or Res(Con) depending on which class you take first, so that's a wash. Are you going to have enough ASIs for this? You need to bump Dex and Wis up, and also Con.

Since you're specializing in Dex, you might go Fighter and just forgo Resilient (Dex), since your score alone will give you a good bonus.

>>45052377
>I wanted to switch it up a bit

You could always go human. When I play human I'm usually the only one at the table, and variant human is quite nice as far as options go.

>>45045332
In my games humans get +2, +1 to two attributes of their choice, bonus skill prof of their choice, and prof in one save of their choice. No var humans, and EVERYONE gets a feat at level one. I find it stops variant human over saturation.

Thoughts?

>>45050584
Monk's one of the oldest additions to the playtest, but yeah, Ranger Warlock and Sorc. didn't have nearly the amount of playtesting and finish that the other classes did.

4 Elements Monk also, for some reason, got reworked and hosed right before release.

>>45052634
>variant human saturation
Is that a thing?

>>45052634
I hardly ever see anyone play variant human, and except for certain builds I don't really think it's more powerful than most races.

Free feat at level one for everyone is fine as long as you're OK with a slightly higher power level. It's a bit more generous than I'd prefer but it's not bad by any means.

>>45052634

To clarify, that's +2 to one stat, +1 to one stat?

That's fair, but a save proficiency is too strong - you just gave every caster human Con save proficiency for free.

If human's schtick is versatility, give them versatility, not raw power anywhere they choose.

Perhaps once per long rest, a human can recall a story they heard or a person they met and be inspired - so once per long rest, a human can add their proficiency bonus to a skill check or tool check that they are not otherwise proficient in.

>>45052511
That's very true, I'm considering it.
Though I was looking into races not like the usual ones and I was thinking of a satyr, because I definitely want to be a druid and it fits the whole nature aspect. Idk if my DM will accept it though

>>45052695

I think, somehow, players have collectively managed to agree that variant humans stand a head above other races. Or maybe the fact that it's technically an optional rule makes people less likely to immediately assume it's available. Or maybe they focus too hard on the +1 stats (never mind that many feats make up the difference).

File: I've fallen and I can't get up.jpg (55KB, 1280x720px) Image search: [Google]

55KB, 1280x720px

This is how I Oathbreaker Paladin.

>>45052767
His homebrewed human is basically just a variant human that took resilient. It's not unreasonable. If he's playing point buy there is literally no difference between the two.

>>45052484
Well after 4 ASIs i'm already at 20 Wis 20 Dex.
Spend Resilient on Con and that's 5 ASIs spent.
2 more to go.
With those i'd bump my Con up and maybe get Tough or something for extra Hp.

>>45052829
>I think, somehow, players have collectively managed to agree that variant humans stand a head above other races.

I don't really get this. They're actually pretty closely balanced with other races. They're either +1, +1 with a major racial bonus (a feat that doesn't increase a stat) or +2, +1 with a minor racial bonus (a feat that does increase a stat.)

Standard human is only good for edge cases though.

>>45052924
That's funny, that's how I fiendlock.

I made an old lady warlock who was only able to adventure because of her pact, and who was still really frail. It was for a campaign that I expected to be unfun. I actually had a blast playing her before the campaign finally fizzled out.

>>45052438
Is it that far fetched to give it reach?
I'ts a spear damn it.

Quarter-staff has reach and the same damage die with blunt instead of piercing.
The only thing Spear has is the throwing damage which you will barely use especially when it's your only magic weapon.

>>45052634
I was thinking of something similar
>+1 to two scores
>proficiency in 1 skill, 1 tool, 2 weapons (planning on stating specialty weapons) and light armor
>Takes less time to learn Human languages (of which there would be several)

>>45051531
>>45051310
It depends on whether you want to be the dispenser of Twinned Haste, Twinned Fly, and Twinned Improved Invisibility.

>>45052965

Feats can be quite powerful - a fighter with Polearm Master has doubled his attacks per round right at level 1. And with the stat cap of 20, everyone tops off their primary stat by around level 8, so after level 12 or so, everyone has the same stats, but vhuman has another feat.

Granted, that means that the difference is far less pronounced from level ~4 to level 12, and that's probably where the vast majority of player time is spent (being that most campaigns don't go past 14-16 and many peter out before that).

>>45052671
>4 Elements Monk also, for some reason, got reworked and hosed right before release.
VORTEX PUNCH!

fuck time to homebrew everything in the playtest back into the game

>>45052995

Because the reach spear is a martial weapon, the Pike.

>>45052995

>Quarter-staff has reach and the same damage die with blunt instead of piercing.

Oh boy, another person trying to homebrew without reading the book.

On top of all that this would make the spear better than every other simple weapon.

>>45052995
>quarter staff has reach
It doesn't. Read the book.

>>45053098
A pike is over 10 feet long.
A spear is from 6 to 8 feet long.

>>45053103
Because it's like that in real life you know.

>>45053112
Wait what?

Seems like i must keep my DM of /tg/ till this thread dies.
Good thing i occupied our PC.
Now i just need a reason to keep her of of it.

>>45053060

That said, the extra feat is what humans get in exchange for things like darkvision (having rolled with all-darkvision parties, this can be a big deal sometimes), halfling luck, inherent resistances, racial spells, and so on. I think it's a fair trade.

Certainly a lot better than the +1 to all stats and nothing else bullshit of the normal human.

Does any anon possibly have Book of Erotic Fantasy Remastered? I have been looking but have come up with torrents that don't work out.

>>45053144
>Seems like i must keep my DM of /tg/ till this thread dies.
i've made the last few OPs, I'll just add quarter staffs dont have reach to the next OP

Shouldn't a spear have reach?

I mean, historically, wasn't that the point of spears?

And if the answer is "because balance", then why's it in the game at all?

>>45053144
I am sorry, I didn't realize that there were weapon distinctions like "simple" in real life. In real life what you are talking about is longer (seriously, the spears here have throwing distances on them, you really think you can hit something 60ft away with an 8ft spear?). It would be a pike. If you want a long spear its obvious that its not a throwing weapon, and you are using the martial weapon "pike"

>>45053212
Reach reads like this in the rulebook:
This weapon adds 5 feet to your reach when
you attack with it.

Which is stupid but a spear is usually around 8 ft long so you still aren't at 10 ft.
Thus the weapon reach is treated as 5 ft... which is again also retarded.

>>45053246
I usually take away the 60 ft ranged attack in exchange for giving reach.

>>45053060
>Feats can be quite powerful - a fighter with Polearm Master has doubled his attacks per round right at level 1

A level 1 mountain dwarf fighter has +2 str, +2 con, advantage on savings throws against poison, resistance to poison, darkvision, and some relatively minor flavor related features.

A level 1 variant human fighter with polearm master has +1 to two stats (probably Str and Con), one skill proficiency, a 1d4 bonus action attack so one extra attack per turn for the life of the character that will be 1d4 for the life of the character if he doesn't want to take a different bonus action, and gets an attack of opportunity when creatures enter weapon reach.

That's pretty even in my book, you're severely overestimating the power of Polearm Master. It's a good feat but it doesn't flat out beat the racial abilities of a fighter focused race.

>>45053246
A pike is between 12 and 15 ft.

A spear is between 6 and 10 feet.

And somehow the people who wrote the PHB equated Spear=Javelin...And managed to do the same for tridents.

>favorite multiclass? multiclasses that work while staying on curve?

Is a Fighter/War Cleric viable?

>>45053144
>a pike is over 10 feet long
>a spear is from 6 to 8 feet long
>muh real-life minutiae

Yeah? Well guess what, that doesn't matter in the fucking slightest. There's lots of different types of longswords in real life, too, but all of them in 5e can be two-handed for 1d10 damage. The reason there's no reach spear in simple weapons is because it's in martial weapons. You asked a question, there's the answer. Not to mention that reach comes with no penalties in 5e, so it's not something they wanted to hand to just anyone.

>>45052995
>Is it that far fetched to give it reach?

No, but it's a poor balance decision to give them reach and keep them as a simple weapon. If you want to include reach you need to make it into a comparatively shitty martial weapon. In which case it should also be taken off the monk weapon list.

>>45053054
Severely underpowered. Worse than standard human. There is no mechanical reason to play this version of human.

>>45053468
On the same line, I'm sure there's a reason the only one-handed reach weapon is 1d4 and martial.

>>45053324
Not him, but I would say the thing about Variant Human is that they get their pick of any feat of their choice, whereas other races are stuck with the same set of features (SCAG variant features excepted).

It's not just that a Fighter can take Polearm Master. A Fighter has their choice of Polearm Master, Crossbow Expert, Magic Initiate, Sentinel and so on.

Sure, races like Half-orc and Dwarf and Aarakocra have features that let you base your early build off of them - but they are highly specific in nature. But Humans can pick any of a number of builds, simply because they can cherry-pick the feat they want.

>>45053518

Yeah, this is what I was getting at.

And this is early in the cycle. As more classes, options, and feats become available, having a race feature being "pick anything" is a bit of a liability.

>>45053460
Yes just depends on what you want out of it though.

I'd go fighter 5 or 6 into war cleric but that's just me and again it just depends.

>>45053468

The whole Martial weapon & simple weapon division is already bollocks.

Spears and sabres are the simplest weapons to use and learn to fight with.

Longswords and heavier pole-arms like halberds are have a steeper learning curve.

Ah i'll stop bitching.
It's better not to become a spreg about it.

>>45053518
I feel like that's rather the point of playing a human.

>>45053578
>The whole Martial weapon & simple weapon division is already bollocks
You are correct I think, and you should just homebrew whatever you want weapons wise in your campaign. That's the beauty of it.

I still don't think there's a reason to give quarter staffs reach though.

>>45053593
I'm playing a non variant human. And a rogue too so I'm not even a MAD class. I kind of like having pluses on literally all of my stats.

My DM didn't want us to pick variant human. I could of convinced him to if I had a good reason but I didn't particularly want any feats at the time so idk I just went with the vanilla option.

It's pretty fine tbqh

>>45053518
Which doesn't make them mechanically more powerful, just more versatile. I get what you're saying, I just don't think it makes a difference.

>>45053561
I'll agree that in the future if we end up with feat bloat it could become an issue. But it's not in the current environment.

>>45053578
Simple vs Martial has nothing to do with realism and everything to do with game balance. If you want a saber as a simple weapon the homebrew is easy. Give it 1d6 slashing damage and make it light. The reason short swords and scimitars are martial is because they have the finesse trait.

>>45053578
Sperg freely my brother; this place was made for venting the injustices of poorly designed ttrpgs

What are some of the best bang for you buck Feats? Ones that stand out from the crowd as really solid pick ups.

Part of me wishes they were vaguer with weapon types and went for a more generic set, especially since crit ranges are gone. Maybe a few unique weapons like whips, of course, but you could have a few generic types:

>versatile martial weapon
>this is a longsword, axe, warhammer, or similar heavy melee weapon. It deals 1d8 damage and has the Versatile (1d10) property.

>Polearm
>this is a glaive, longspear, halberd, or other reach weapon. It has the heavy, two-handed, and reach properties, and deals 1d10 damage.

It might help stimulate creativity rather than just picking the best one on the list (who uses flails when there's no downside to the warhammer?)

>>45053079
Wow reading through more of this, playtest D&D seems a lot more fun than published 5e, is there any reason not to just play playtest?

Would anyone be interested in doing that? You'd need to probably be in the Bay Area though because I don't really feel like playing online. But we could make a discussion group for it. Even a /next general/ thread or something.

>>45053706

There is no character that won't benefit from Lucky, especially RAW.

Some benefit more than others (Divination Wizards love it, for example) but literally anyone can end up using it to great effect.

>>45053706
Great weapon master
Any Barb/fighter/paladin without it is wasting their life

>>45053718
Run a game and do it like that. Or play a game ask the DM to do it like that.

I do agree about the point with flails, though. They're cheaper gold-wise, but nobody is ever actually put out by a 5gp price difference.

>Dex no longer added to AC if wearing armor
>armor is now piecemeal, with each piece adding +1 (or more) AC, as well as more expensive
>total possible AC for heavy armor wearers unchanged

How fucked would this be?

I'm trying to slightly un-bound gear progression, because it seems to flat to me.

>>45053677
>Which doesn't make them mechanically more powerful, just more versatile. I get what you're saying, I just don't think it makes a difference.
It makes a difference in that Human is a viable race for basically every class, whereas other races are limited by their features and racial bonuses.

This means that, while perhaps two out of five players are considering whether or not to play a Dwarf for their Cleric or Fighter or what have you, every player at the table is considering Human as an option. Perhaps not as their foremost option, but certainly AN option.

This, I think, goes a way towards explaining the 'variant human saturation' that anon was complaining about a while ago, rather than Variant Humans being overpowered.

>>45053718
I'd prefer weapon categories actually meaning something. A flail supporting a different fighting style than a warhammer, which would be used differently than a polearm, etc etc. Sorta like how 4e supported different weapon types with different feats, but but baked into the weapon itself this time

>>45053706
For general use Luck is probably the best. Depending on what you want to do Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master, Sharpshooter, Crossbow Expert, and Warcaster are all pretty solid. I've probably missed a few. Resilient is really good under the right circumstances.

>>45053779
I would be down to have more of an armored core style arm and armoring your character game.

>>45053718
I had totally forgotten about crit range on weapons. Thank you for reminding me so I can properly appreciate their absence.

>>45053779
>Dex no longer added to AC if wearing armor
So the maximum AC a Dex-based character can have (sans Mage Armor, Unarmored Defense, etc.) would be 15?

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to achieve here. How is adding on a +1 AC piece of armor different from buying a new suit of armor that gives 17 AC instead of 16?

>>45053718
>crit ranges are gone?
what do you mean?

>>45053779
>Dex is no longer added if wearing armor
Well you've just fucked over rogues, rangers, bladelocks, low-level barbarians, bards, clerics, land Druids, Dex fighters and Paladins, and mountain dwarf wizard/sorcs. Anyone who's not a monk, wiz/sorc or heavy paladin or fighter.

Did you miss that Dex isn't added to AC with heavy armor anyway?

>>45053787
>It makes a difference in that Human is a viable race for basically every class, whereas other races are limited by their features and racial bonuses.

Which has been the Human's distinctive trait pretty much as long as D&D has existed.

I personally have never had an issue with variant human saturation, though I'm sure it varies by group. Most of the time when someone plays a variant human in my experience it's either because they have a specific build that would benefit from a specific feat in mind or because they don't want to play a demihuman for roleplay reasons.

What do people think about how long rests work in this game? I sort of don't like how it's all fatigue based, and was considering just rewarding the effects of 'long rests' after x amount of encounters or something like that.
Followup to that, it feels like warlocks are balanced around the fact that they get alot of their stuff back on short rests compared to long rests.
Any suggestions on how to fix it if I changed the long rest system?

>>45053892
I'm getting tired of all the Human Variant polearm builds I've been seeing.

>>45053877

In 5e, a critical hit happens on a 20, and you roll the weapon's damage twice.

In 3e, a weapon could threaten a critical hit on an 18 or 19, depending on the weapon, and some could deal 3x damage or even 4x damage on a crit.

It's often what differentiated weapons. Right now, a battle axe is a longsword that costs 5gp less and weighs 1lb more, but in 3e, a longsword threatened a crit on 19-20 and did 2x damage, while a battle axe threatened only on a 20 but did x3 damage. A scimitar dealt only 1d6 damage but had an 18-20/x2 crit range, and heavy picks dealt 1d6 and had a 20/x4 crit range.

>>45053779
>dex no longer added to AC if wearing armor

This fucks every Dex heavy class except Monk. It's a terrible idea unless you want to do a much more extensive overhaul of AC and class balance.

>>45051730
>WOTC seems to hate gishes for some reason.

>valor bard
>war and tempest clerics and probably others
>PALADINS
>RANGERS
>Blade singer
>EK
>AT
>Bladelock

>>45053928
Short rest = 8 hours
Long rest = one week
Fatigue rules for not sleeping

>>45053998
Oh, for a moment I thought that ranged weapons had lost their crit capability for some bullshit reason.

>>45054017
Don't forget all the unearthed arcana gishes they've added

>>45053935
The builds that trade out features like refusing to get dropped once per long rest or rerolling 1s for an ability which gets countered by enemies with reach or ranged attacks, and expands the 5 foot radius in which enemies can dance freely around you without eating an OA to a 10 foot radius?

>>45053636

>>45053677
As for game balance:

Well i thought about creating a 10 point-buy system for learning weapon proficiencies.

But when you pick fighter, monk, barbarian or paladin (martial classes) you get 10 extra points to spend.

Then you spend your points according to the cost of the weapons you want to be proficient with.

A short-sword and sabre no matter heavy or long will cost you 5 points while a longsword , estoc or rapier costs 10.
A dagger, club or mace will cost 2 points each.
A spear or quarter-staff will cost you 8 points while a halberd or great axe will cost you 15 points.

Then specify for monk weapons that they have to have the light property along-side the versatile property if they can be wielded 2-handed.

The light property lowers the damage die by 2 so instead of a 1d8 (1d10) versatile longsword you get a 1d6 (1d8) if it has the light property and can be treated as monk weapon.


A light spear would be also 1d6 (1d8) while a heavy spear would be 1d8 (1d10) but not a monk weapon.

The weapon version with the ''heavy'' property would also have a Str stat requirement to use or you get automatic disadvantage on all attacks you make with it.

All pole-arms would have the reach property and work with pole-arm master.

So basically a wizard still gets to learn how to wield a long-sword but won't be able to use anything else and will also have to stick with the 1d6 (1d8) version or have at least 13 Str to use a heavy long-sword properly (seriously go to a HEMA group and try to use a long-sword one handed, it gets quite difficult if you lack any muscle.. then imagine a wizened fellow who is only skin and bones warped in books trying to use it).

Versatile still isn't finesse so only monks get to use light-versatile weapons with dex if they don't have the finesse property (and long-swords are practically the same as spears for them now with the same die but no reach).

>>45054120
I'm starting to get the feeling that the problem has nothing to do with a mechanical issue and more to do with him just being annoyed at unimaginative groups.

>>45053742
What do you think is special about lucky for divination wizards? Or do you just like having lots of dice?

>>45053998
Its a shame that this crit system had to go, it felt pretty good in that edition. In 5e going either way with it would be busted as fuck since you now multiply ALL dice with crits (sneak attacks, smites, superiority die, etc). Doing that all 3x more often or having it deal 4x as much damage would be fucking crazy.

I kind of want to see what you could do to balance out a system a little similar for 5e though. Maybe just 19-20 or x3, and only for certain "underpowered" weapons? Or would you have to make entirely new ones?

>>45054298
When I was thinking of how to do adamantine weapons as a magic item, I had them expand the crit range by 1 (so it stacks with the champion feature). It keeps them thematically similar to adamantine armor, which cancels crits.

>>45053928
Just to clarify on this by fatigue based I more meant that I dislike how it's sort of attrition based and the 'benefit' to being a warlock is that you gain everything back on a short rest. I was trying to homogenize it slightly by making every class have restores of spell slots and whatnots on a short rest, and then just balancing with much harder encounters. Thoughts? Ways to bump up warlock? etc

>>45054272
I think he just likes having lots of dice.

The people who benefit most from Lucky are actually spellcasters who have single-target spells that deal massive damage on a single attack roll, so that they are less likely to waste their slots.

Multiattackers like Fighters don't gain as much out of it, as they roll more dice. Neither do casters that rely on save-based spells, because you can't expend luck points to force enemies to reroll saves.

>>45054374
>spellcasters who have single-target spells that deal massive damage on a single attack roll
Let me know when one of those gets printed. Wild mage sorcs could really use it. Until then, the most dramatic thing lucky does is counter crits rolled against you. Cutting Words does the same thing though.

>>45054195
Seems like a long and convoluted way to go for a bit verisimilitude but on a casual read through it sounds like it would work out similarly balance wise except that each character will have fewer weapons they're proficient in (which isn't necessarily a bad thing.) Slightly buffs Weapon Master, but it's still probably not enough for that feat to be worth taking.

Is there really even a point to having weapon proficiencies in the first place?

>>45054374
Depending on your DM skill monkeys and faces can get significant mileage out of Lucky.

>>45054348
>Ways to bump up warlock?

Actually enforce rest rules so that the 15 minute adventuring day doesn't ruin things for the classes that have longevity focused features. You'll start seeing your full casters ending up at a long rest with spell slots unspent because they're so paranoid about using them at the wrong time.

It increases the sense of tension for the part as a whole, which is a nice bonus.

Also occasionally interrupt their rests if they don't take precautions first.

>>45054454
Shit, you're right. I always thought there had to be at least some, but apparently I was wrong in assuming that.

>>45054512
I too enjoy having my Wizard wield a greatsword.

>>45054298

This'd be too rules-heavy for 5e, but maybe you could clarify that a major crit where everything is doubled only happens on a 20, while a 19 only doubles the weapon dice.

>>45054512
The main reason is to give fightery types a niche where they get to use every kind of weapon, and can focus on big high damage weapons or using a shield with a normal one. In this edition it also keeps things like GWM in the wheelhouse of martial types, instead of skill monkeys getting easy access to it.

That being said, with the way sneak attack and monk weapons are worded its not particularly important. The only finesse weapon rogues aren't prof in is whips, and monks are prof in all of their monk weapons already, and those are the things you really have to worry about changing (meaning, you shouldn't make anything else a monk weapon or finesse).

You could probably take out weapon proficiency stuff without changing much of anything really, since spellcasters will still use cantrips, rogues will still use finesse weapons, monks will still use monk weapons, and the classes that were proficient in all of them will do whatever they wanted just like before.

Armor prof. though is hella important.

>>45054722
There are some ranged weapons that rogues aren't proficient with. Also favored soul, overpowered though it may be, only have simple weapon proficiencies.

>>45054871
What exactly makes favored soul overpowered? Better than wild sorc, I can see, but I don't see it is much better than most other classes.

>>45054985
Because by Wizards own standards it's overpowered.
Because it has an expanded spell list.

>>45054871
The only ranged weapon that rogues aren't proficient in that would benefit them is the heavy crossbow, which gives them a whopping 1 point of extra average damage. It wouldn't change anything.

Like you said, favored souls are overpowered, they are playtest material, and finally- why would they bother using weapons? Doing 4d10 damage with a firebolt seems much more attractive than wading into melee on a squishy caster than attacking twice with a weapon. Even if you had god tier stats from rolling (18 str, unless you are really talking about a sorcerer using his stat increases on str) he would deal the same average damage attacking. Except you know, he would be in melee, and he can't twin spell his attacks.

Like I said, it wouldn't really make a difference.

>>45053739
Martial die turned the game into rocket tag.
Skill die were cool. But a lot of people didn't like the extra variance.

>>45053739
Make the base four classes Mage Fighter Priest and Rogue with four power sources each that make 16 total archetypes.

Hey I'm new here and I think the advantage system is the stupidest shit ever, please prove me wrong so I can go on with my life

File: Spearlord.jpg (82KB, 400x539px) Image search: [Google]

82KB, 400x539px

>>45053212
Actually, the biggest advantage of longspears historically was that they are two handed thrusting weapons, and the leverage of two hands with the inherently longer length of a two handed weapon makes it so that a spear-user can very rapidly make consecutive attacks at high and low angles with very little effort. All spears are also very easy to construct and use, and most can be thrown with considerable effectiveness. Spears are very swift and efficient weapons.

Ironically (considering your post) PIKES were made to ditch all of those benefits in favor of reach.

You are a dirtbag.

>>45055151
>prove me wrong
That's not how it works.

>>45055151
That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed as such.

>>45055178
Fair enough. From what I can tell, I can have ten different kinds of advantage on an enemy, but only one of them counts, and even then it doesn't so much increase my odds as give me a do over. I think that's dumb, but I want someone to make sense of it because it's hard for me to believe whoever designed the system thought it was fine that way

>>45045801
Updated psionics for feb UA.

You heard it here first kiddos.

>>45055174

Spears are masterrace

>>45055212
Taking into account a ton of different sources of advantage/disdadvantage at once slows down gameplay and also causes the same stacking race that extraneous modifiers caused in previous editions, both things the designers actively avoided with 5e.

>>45055212
The math works out to increasing your odds.
Your chance to crit is almost doubled, going from 1/20 to 39/400, while the chance of crit failing go from 1/20 to 1/400.
Chances of rolling 10 and under go down, chances of rolling 11 and up go up.

>>45055059
I thought the point of combining that blurb with that archetype was "adding spells can be OP, here's an example of doing it right" which is debatable perhaps, but it giving basically no other magical boosts and just extra attack and armor is significant.

>>45055212
Rolling twice and taking the highest effectively gives you an approximate +4 to your roll, anon.

>>45055151
You're wrong. Fuck you.

You're welcome, anon.

>>45055335
See, when you put hard numbers to it it makes more sense. Still, it's a little annoying that planning something out and executing it well doesn't make a huge difference. Does the advantage system at least make the game work better as a combat sim?

>>45055138
>four power sources

No. Don't do this. Making everything an archetype (or kit) of one of the four basic class categories (Warrior, Wizard, Priest, Rogue) is fine but power sources are creatively restrictive and just generally retarded.

>>45055391
>le funny troll post

>>45055212
I don't think I can say it much better than
>>45055286
>>45055335
have, but part of "powergaming" in this edition is not doing stupid shit like going out of your way to get 3 more sources of advantage when you already have one. If character optimization is what you love about D&D you should probably wrap your head around the idea that getting multiple sources of inspiration is just as stupid as getting multiple +'s from the same source was in 3.pf.

If you don't want to change editions, you don't have to, but when previous editions did the exact same thing (no, you can't have 2 +2 profane bonuses to AC or whatever) its just you being grognardy and refusing to adapt.

>>45055393
>Does the advantage system at least make the game work better as a combat sim?

It primarily makes resolving combat rounds faster.

>>45055474
Calm down. I'm trying to like this game, but that was sticking in my craw. You don't have to raise the banners

>>45055399
I rather like the power source idea and think it actually encourages variation with the four role system

>>45055393
>as a combat sim
The draw of advantage, particularly given bounded accuracy, is that it takes the numbers minutia out of the game. In practice, out keeps the DM from having to math out your modifiers and spares him from players arguing that they deserve +1 because of the direction the wind is blowing or because the smell of cow manure reminds him of home and inspires him to do well.

It's not a combat sim. If you go into it looking for one, you're gonna be as disappointed as you were with every other ruleset. The net effect of advantage in combat is to speed it up considerably for roughly equivalent effect.

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>>45055212
abstraction. 5e plays a lot faster than PF/3.5 (you can't hide it dicklips) for reasons exactly like this, and preventing players from fishing for arbitrary situation bonuses that they can get on every roll with cheese builds is a good thing.

There are also a lot less places to get advantage/disadvantage from, so you aren't missing out on stacking advantage.

Another thing people forget is the rare occurance of advantage/disadvantage negation. If a roll would have advantage AND disadvantage, the effect is nullified and the roll is made as normal. If you would essentially have advantage from two different sources, you just get advantage over again from that source. If you suprise attack a foe that an ally has made an aid another action to help your attack with, but you've been smacked with a bard's cutting words, you still make your attack roll at advantage. Think of it like blue decks fucking around with the stack in mtg if you're willing to admit you play mtg.

Have this knight.

>>45055487
Definitely. About how long does a normal encounter last, in terms of turns and minutes? If it's much faster than 4E I might like to try running a game

>>45055561
>PF/3.5
4E, but nice try

>>45055561
>If a roll would have advantage AND disadvantage, the effect is nullified and the roll is made as normal. If you would essentially have advantage from two different sources, you just get advantage over again from that source
Ah, see I didn't see that in the basic set. That makes it much less weird to me

>>45055569
>About how long does a normal encounter last, in terms of turns and minutes?

It depends a lot on the encounter. High AC enemies are stupid hard to hit in 5e so it varies a lot. I'm not really familiar enough with 4e to make a subjective comparison about combat encounter length.

>>45055569
As someone who switched from 4e to 5e, the combats are still strangely long. I think this is a thing largely dependant on your group. Some people just don't know how to ready their fucking turns.

>>45055561
>If you suprise attack a foe that an ally has made an aid another action to help your attack with, but you've been smacked with a bard's cutting words, you still make your attack roll at advantage.

No you don't. Any amount of advantage sources are nullified by a single disadvantage source.

>>45055569
Depends on the number of combatants, though I think 4-5 rounds is a good estimate of the maximum for a standard battle. It could easily be less depending on circumstances and optimization level of your party.

>>45055622
Not sure where that anon got that rule from (because it's a very reasonable houserule I would encourage myself), but that doesn't happen by the standard rules:
>If circumstances cause a roll to have both advantage and disadvantage, you are considered to have neither of them, and you roll one d20. This is true even if multiple circumstances impose disadvantage and only one grants advantage or vice versa. In such a situation, you have neither advantage nor disadvantage.

>>45055569
It's going to vary widely by group, mostly by how easily they can make decisions and how much of a grasp of the mechanics they have.

Even a large encounter lasting a full hour means something has gone wrong. I'd say 20 minutes for an encounter that was worth fighting at all is the norm. I've unfortunately had stupidly-huge combats from bad DMs last multiple hours, but no amount of system streamlining can fix that.

>>45055663
Wait, really?

>>45055692
Refer to PHB pg. 173.

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>>45055599
>4E
You probably won't like the combat anyways if you played high level 4e. The whole dynamic is much, much different, as 5e is a game that seems to have been made to primarily accommodate Theatre of the Mind gameplay, and 4e is very much a tactical skirmish game. This is coming from somebody who actually played a shitload of 4e and enjoyed it quite a lot.

Think of 5e more like 4e essentials but sans total retardation.

>>45055663
Shit, really? I've been ruling it the other way. I'll have to look through the book again to make sure, but I would suggest homebrewing it otherwise for what I feel are obvious reasons.

>>45055692
Yes. It's kinda shitty but dem's the rules.

>>45055692
Yes. PHB chapter 7, page 173, third paragraph in the Advantage and Disadvantage section.

>>45055599
If you are coming from 4e looking for a better combat sim you likely won't find it, the main draw of 5e is the nostalgia and sacred cows in place that make it feel like D&D. 4e was very focused on sameness in classes for balance and a focus on grid based combat. It not exactly D&D but 4e had some solid war game stuff going.

>>45055569
Against fewer enemies its shorter, but it doesn't have the same minion rules as 4e, so encounters with a lot of little dudes can take a long while.

>>45055720
>5e is a game that seems to have been made to primarily accommodate Theatre of the Mind gameplay

They kind of failed at this though, the various movement and AoE rules are much easier to adjudicate on a grid.

>>45055720
I'm not afraid to try other systems, unlike most people around here. It seems like nobody is willing to just admit games are just different.

That said, I'm still not sure I like the class system in 5E. If I remember correctly, they really changed the way you get and use abilities for all types

>>45055780
They were more shooting for an in-between approach. Honestly, the system should have been packaged with better ToTM rules like 13th Age. I don't have a big problem spitballing distances for playing without a grid, but I could see why some people might.

>>45055771
>so encounters with a lot of little dudes can take a long while.

This can partially be remedied with Fireball. Also worth noting that hordes of low level enemies are actually a potential threat in 5e.

>>45055800
5e core has 12 classes with full 1-20 progression levels. Within the first 3 levels (varying by class), you make a major decision and choose a subclass/archetype/what have you. For fighters it's a martial archetype, for wizards it's a magic school, for clerics it's a domain, and so on. From there the class branches out and might have some different decisions to make along the way (like totem barbarians).

All in all, the choices you make each level up tend to be very small in scope. However, this also makes leveling up a lot less painful, as all the abilities you get are right there on your class' table. Even increasing ability score increases and getting extra attacks are class features. This has some wonky implications with multiclassing, but the cut-down approach works well 9 times out of 10.

>>45055822
I come from a background of mainly playing ToTM style games. So I don't really have a problem spitballing in general, but I do feel like 5e still manages to work a little better with a grid of some sort, because of how much specificity there is in terms of things like cone sizes and movement speeds.

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>>45055780
Its still possible though, which is a whole hell of a lot more than can be said for 4e. While I'll agree that some AOE stuff is still tricky to hash out, movement isn't that bad. It's actually been simplified to a point where I would say it's a nonissue.

>>45055717
>If circumstances cause a roll to have both advantage and disadvantage, you are considered to have neither of them, and you roll one d20. This is true even if multiple circumstances impose disadvantage and only one grants advantage or vice versa. In such a situation, you have neither advantage nor disadvantage.
This rule is both silly and nonsensical and I would ignore it wholesale.

>>45055800
Fair enough. Yeah, there aren't exact balances between what sort of classes get what in terms of the whole at-wills, encounters, and dailies like you would be used to in that certain classes get different powers at different rates, but relatively speaking compared to most other games in the same vein it's considerably more balanced (still looking at you, threeaboos.) There ARE some classes that actually did pique my interest as very 4e-ish in nature however. Check out how the warlock's pact magic system works, and once you realize that it's worded funny in a way that allows it to co-exist in a system with much more vancian caster type classes, you can damn near smell the slick of 4e dripping off of it.

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How would ya'll go about making a Pan like druid? I don't want to copy him exactly like the movie. I kind of want him more unhinged, leaning on the chaotic side of nature, moods shifting as quick as the weather/seasons etc.

>>45055997
>I kind of want him more unhinged, leaning on the chaotic side of nature, moods shifting as quick as the weather/seasons etc.
Make a druid, play it like this. Done.

>>45055951
>movement isn't that bad. It's actually been simplified to a point where I would say it's a nonissue

In most cases I'd agree, but it can become an issue when you take into account feat, race, and class features that affect movement speed. Generally in small granular steps that add up to something big. Monks will play very differently on a grid than they do TotM for instance.

>>45055951
>you can damn near smell the slick of 4e dripping off of it

The best trick 5e pulled off was including some of the better 4e mechanics while disguising them well enough to avoid instinctive revulsion in a certain segment of the target demographic.

>>45056034
I'm more getting at the race, are there Fauns or some other faun-like race out there?

>>45055951
I had a 4e DM that was fixated on playing it theatre of the mind style. It worked well enough. At least as well as when he did the same for 5e.

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>>45056041
I've considered this for TotM stuff before actually, and barring abilities that allow you to avoid AoO's provoked by moving (and accounting for the much lower AoO's occurance in general,) I think I would essentially dice it for choppy, hard to visualize melees when a player asks if they could move around a battle without provoking. Percentile dice. The more movement you have, the lower the DC to dance around foes in this situation, unless everyone is so perfectly jammed together in a shield wall that unless you're fucking around with swashbucklers, mobile, or the disengage action, it's impossible anyways.

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>>45056137
I mean, I could sort of see it in certain contexts, but so many classes have abilities that have to do with movement, and a large part of the fun I had in encounters in my experiences with 4e had to do with fucking GENIUS encounter area designs, complete with area hazards and chokepoints and difficult terrain and all that. Playing 4e in the sort of "abstract vacuum space" that theater of the mind tends to require sound terribly boring.

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Are Illusionists any good in 5e?

>>45056172
One of the fun things about playing a monk with Mobile on a grid is having 50+ movement speed letting you take the long way around enemies to avoid AoOs and still get in position without having to dash.

>>45056239
Well you'd often have to suggest such tactics instead of them being plainly obvious as they would be when looking at a grid. On the plus side such tactics were less likely to be hampered by fiddly details like someone being positioned one square too far away or something. If the DM thought it was cool enough, it worked. It also forced people to pay attwntion to all turns or they might miss a crucial change in the battlefield layout.

>>45056319
Abusing Phantasmal Force will make your DM cry. The level 10 illusionist feature isn't bad. And the level 14 one looks fun. Illusion has some good spells, but as always some of them vary in usefulness a lot based on your DM's style.

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>>45056319
Depends on the kind of illusionist. Wizards are okay. Warlocks focusing on illusion and trickery spells are fucking terrifying in combat if they have backup. Frame of reference- at level two a warlock can take an invocation to cast silent image at-will.

AT FUCKING WILL

If you can't think of a million things to do with that, you're uninvited to my birthday party.

>>45056116
Agreed. Tenfold.

Quick, I'm joining a group of friends for a group and I need a character idea, and I don't have the noral time I use to brew something else. So, suggestions?

>>45057849
Be a character with a weapon they use to fight things

>>45057849
http://whothefuckismydndcharacter.com/
>meticulous Tiefling Barbarian from the shade forests who always romanticised adventure

>>45057849
For my most recent game I was going to make a rogue (with the plan of going arcane trickster) who was a wizard university drop out who turned to a life of crime to pay back debts related to his schooling.

Sadly someone else had their heart set on playing a rogue.

>>45055692
>>45055717
>>45055727
>>45055729

That rule is there exactly to prevent advantage stacking like bonus stacking that was found in 3.X. If you have a way to consistently get yourself advantage, fine, but I think they didn't want to set a precedent where you could make a build to specifically overcome disadvantage, and do things like sneak attack while blind.

It's perfectly fair for your GM to rule that you have a net advantage in a situation, but I don't think they wanted to make advantage stacking a part of tactics.

>>45056546
>Warlocks focusing on illusion and trickery spells are fucking terrifying
Tell me about it, finally you get to *be* the tricksy fey bastard. It's a good feeling.

>>45057849
Champion fighters are basically genned for you, if you need a character in a hurry. Go for a grizzled merc who is no longer on speaking terms with their previous company after a moral dispute.

On a different note: what do people think about maintaining concentration over short rests? I plan on taking Hex on a fighter/warlock and want it to not be shit when cast at higher levels. Similarly, would an elf be able to maintain concentration while in trance?

>>45058105
I think it was more that they wanted to avoid a game of counting out tons of sources of both advantage and disadvantage. Using sources of advantage you may have strategically to counter sources of disadvantage was probably intended, just not both sides racing to see who can stack more.

>>45058287
>I plan on taking Hex on a fighter/warlock and want it to not be shit when cast at higher levels

A short rest is a period of downtime, at least I hour long, during which a character does nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds.

I'd say concentrating on a spell is more strenuous than that. An elf maintaining concentration while trancing for a long rest is right out.

>>45058306

That's exactly what I was saying. Or at least trying to say, I guess. That's what I meant by "advantage stacking"

Because if you could, somebody would do something like cast magical darkness, then sneak attack in said darkness, because you had two esoteric sources of "advantage".

>>45058287
>>45058400
I always figured the ability to do this was the exact reason Hex duration scales up at higher levels. It would be stupid to make the spell last for a full 24 hours and then not be able to use it that way.

>>45055997
wear a mask

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>reading the classes for the first time
>Eldrich Knight
>at level 3 I can recall my weapon from anywhere, at anytime

>>45058400
This, honestly: >>45058928
The intent is clear, I think.

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>>45059139
>Mysterious mask wearing characters
Has anyone ever given a fuck about them in a party? Seriously, have you ever been even moderately interested in why neckbeardington mcgee's PC wears a mask to cover their face that they desperately try to keep on for fear that the rest of the party might see whatever stupid gimmick is underneath?

I enjoy that moment to happen when their mask finally comes off and they expect everyone to be shocked by whateverthefuck it is and the rest of the party collectively shrugs in apathy.

>>45053857
>>45053881
>>45054011
Sorry, I guess I didn't really address that.

Yes, I know that is a huge deal, I just hadn't thought of a solution yet. My post was meant as more of a "how's this as a starting point", not intended to be a finished product, I didn't convey that well.

The goal is to increase the range of armor and weapon values so that there is more gear progression without destroying balance. Since bounded accuracy is baked into the system from the ground up, the only way I see of doing that is to lower AC across the board, then add new items with higher AC values.

For heavy armor wearers, my idea was to have a multi-piece armor system, instead of the one piece approach currently. Since making that post, though, I've somewhat changed my mind.

Anyways, I also plan on dropping weapon damage as well, and adding new weapons to fill the game (or adding new weapons at lower damage, etc), since the weapons table is pretty limited and intended to be refluffed, so I always make new weapons anyways.

Theoretically, lower AC and lower weapon damage cancel each other out such that the game is fucked at lower levels, but until I make up my mind that's pretty irrelevant.

>>45059359
A mask wearing character can be cool, but a mysterious mask wearing character never works. It's basically just openly telling me "my character is mysterious" across the table and expecting that to be enough to fascinate me.

>>45059359
Depends on how it's played. Let's take the most typical example: disfiguring facial scar. If they're expecting any drama to come out of it based other players reactions to that scar they're being silly. If they're using it as a way to emphasize their own character's insecurities it can work.

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What about a party of five monks who all wear masks to hide their identities from the public?

Something came up in my game tonight that I wanted to check on. A character dropped to 0, then the DM attacked the character with a monster, giving it advantage (for prone) and auto crit (for unconscious), and he said this was two auto death fails. Is this correct?

>>45059359
The only time we've ever had a mask-wearing character work was when someone played an NPC from a previous campaign. He was an airship pilot. Everyone got super attached to him but he died, but he died during an enemy encounter on his airship being thrown over the edge. Next campaign the player that liked that NPC the most had worked out with the DM to play as the NPC and disguise themselves so they wouldn't be noticed, since most of our campaigns take place in the same setting set sometime after the events of the last one.

Ended up on an airship once more, but this time it was to crash it into something. Someone had to stay behind, and none of us had the means or charisma to convince an NPC to kill themselves for us. He chose to be the one. When he revealed who he was everyone flipped out and it was the highlight of the campaign.

>>45059719
That is 100% correct. Prone and unconscious both give advantage to hit (prone for creatures within 5 feet only, but whatever), and unconscious makes attacks from within 5 feet crit if they hit. A critical hit causes two death saving throw failures.

>>45059719
I've never actually counted unconscious as prone before, but otherwise that's correct, and I see no reason NOT to enforce unconscious = prone.

If an enemy is swinging at an unconscious PC, the DM has already decided he's willing to kill you. So it doesn't make much of a difference, usually, unless he's just gang-raping one PC while the others are still up.

>>45059868
>I see no reason NOT to enforce unconscious = prone.

It's actually to the advantage of the unconscious creature. So that might influence your decision.

>>45059719
Yes. When your GM hates you enough to pull something like that the rules allow and encourage him to prolong it instead of just getting it over with and auto-killing your character.

>>45059918

It was another player this week (same player had her character die last week too, but we dragged his dead body back for a revival). Goo ate him this week, no more revives. DM tried to permakill my character too, but luckily managed to miss with advantage. Close call.

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So call me crazy, but I liked the concept of Pathfinder's words of power spell system. The implementation was way too clunky and complex, so I'm looking to make a slimmed down version for 5e. My question is, should I write it up as a casting system specific to a homebrew class, or as a general system that any spellcaster can access? I'm currently leaning toward a caster class with customizable spells rather than a set spell list.

>>45060617
You're crazy.

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>>45060855
Thank you.

Possibly a stupid question: If I cast Wall of Water, can creatures still go through it? Specifically I want to stop a giant.

>>45060956
>The wall's space is difficult terrain
Yeah, they can go through it just fine. It is difficult terrain though, so double movement through that square.

>>45061044

I can't believe I missed that last sentence so many times. So much for that.

How about instead of a wall of water, it were just a wall of creatures? Can a creature move through an opposing creatures space? I suppose for a giant it wouldn't be a problem, but want to make sure.

>>45061098
IIRC if there are more than two size categories of difference, they can move through squares like its difficult terrain (for enemies) allies can always move through each others squares just fine.

>>45061163

So I just need a wall of large creatures then. And the usefulness of Conjuring Axe Beaks continues to increase.

Tonight we had a chance to fight a really, really powerful thing in a very disadvantageous setting. For the first time since I've been playing, the Druid willingly offered his opinion of what to do. So we left. He didn't even want to help the town folk leave.

So let's talk about times you've seen a character or player completely shaken to the core.

>>45059910
Prone is only to the advantage of the unconscious creature vs ranged attacks. Unless I'm misinterpreting what you're saying.

>>45061389
It is, but unconscious already grants melee ranged attackers advantage if they choose to attack (along with an automatic crit) so counting the unconscious creature as prone is a net advantage.

This isn't a bad thing, it makes sense to me in most cases, but it's worth considering with regards to making the call.

>>45061448
I think I get what you're saying. You were pointing out that it's worth keeping in mind because it might make a difference (advantage vs no advantage), right?

Also, someone not on mobile should make a new thread. Seems this one might be auto-saging

>>45061333
I put my players up against a gauntlet last night of a fortress/compound of soldiers, an event where treants started to attack said compound and a stone giant that took residence there countering and fighting the treants while the party scurried around trying to to get squashed. They then found a Green dragon under the keep that they thought that was the boss event - lair actions and all, but once they defeated it... only to reveal the next chamber where a red wizard, two plate warriors and 5 cultists were summoning a gigantic creature from the shadowfell. Just a colossal arm really. But they where afraid to approach, because it could grapple and slam them. As the fight progressed the wizard went greater invisible and took pot shots at the party, and they realized they had to destroy a series of 5 runes on the floor around the shadow arm. So they had to approach all the while the wizard flung fire at them and the warriors tried to out flank them. The fight had a 16 round countdown timer.. with events happening on certain rounds... shadow demons entering the fight, the arm reaching out further. They got down to 2 rounds remaining before they got to the last rune. (the environment changed, rough terrain, walls etc. as the arm ripped its way into this plane.. made getting to the runes difficult.)

They barely survived. But saved the freaking world.

They were pretty shaken up. My guess is their characters develop ptsd.

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hey 5eg

was reading a book, and the main character in this particular fantasy book gets a fever

just some sort normal debilitating illness. I know the DMG has a section on Diseases, but I'm just looking for some rules on just being generally sick. Would you just impose a disadvantage on shit, or would you make them do DC CON saves based on how severe the illness is?

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>>45045332
I'm making an Eldritch Knight (not using utility spells)

I'm using standard array;

12 Str
15 Dex
13 Con
14 Int
10 Wisdom
8 Charisma

What are some neat feats I could use for this character?

>>45050584
I want this as UA.
Where can I post my thought about this and they listen?

>>45061747
Usually you make them save two or three times to see if the symptoms worsen, and if they fail the saves they start getting symptoms. As long as you don't go too crazy it's fine to make up your own effects, like having a stuffy nose so you get a minus to perception checks involving smell

Beyond XP awards for roleplaying & investigative milestone moments, what is a fun way to spice up an investigative political campaign? There are still a lot of mooks to maim and kill for the more bloodthirsty member of the party, but the rest of group is really digging on the plot hooks I'm giving them.

How can I make the experience better?

>>45061747

I'm not sure it's the sort of thing that modeling would make a game more enjoyable or engaging.

That said depending on the severity of the illness just make it identical to the Poisoned condition for fairly serious illnesses that cause weakness and disorientation, or for something less serious maybe -1 to all physical checks and -5 feet to speed until they recover with no penalty to attack rolls.

Again not sure if there's much merit in having ordinary diseases affect PCs in your fantasy adventure game.

>>45062150
Contacts. As they solve things, they meet people they can refer to or call in for help when things look bad

>>45062293
There's plenty of merit. Being at less than peak condition can have dramatic consequences. It can add to the tension

>DM informs us we're hunting a fire giant
>Look up fire giant stats

Jesus Christ. We're all level 5, we can't kill this thing.

>>45062562
1. Stop metagaming.
2. Trust the DM. If you all die and it wasn't your fault or crazy dice rolls, bring it up. Until then, assume it'll be injured or you'll get some way to bring it down to size.

>>45062562
>admitting to being That Guy

>>45062562

...why do you think you'll still be level 5 when you catch it?

>>45062562
Don't act dumb.
Spring a crazy plan on it. Drop a mountain on it.

>>45062696
Basically this. I absolutely loathe the idea that every encounter must scale to the level of the party. There should always be an exception to the rule, and the exception makes for a great campaign highlight/plot hook.

These are the encounters that are great for role play and creative problem solving, NOT direct conflict.

>>45061747
If the disease and it's progression was a serious plot point I'd probably make a set of symptoms that stack up as things get worse and have the player make con saves periodically to determine when things worsen. (so things like weakness and sore muscles would be disadvantage on strength checks, other symptoms would give disadvantage on other things as it progressively worsened.) If it was incurable without a particular remedy I'd make each con save get worse until they fail then reset it for the next step.

Also I wouldn't tell them what was going on if they couldn't figure it out themselves. Just call for the saves and tell them they have disadvantage on such and such.

I'd only do this if it was a central story point, rather than something that might just randomly happen against a particular enemy. If I were going to have it be an enemy property curable by normal magical means I'd just use the poisoned conditions or one of the diseases from the Contagion spell.

>>45062771
Not to mention that in some encounters the win condition doesn't necessarily need to be a win, it may just be escaping alive.

>>45062771

I fucking hate this, people complaining about MUH CR and MUH ENCOUNTERS PER DAY

Fuck you, if you didn't think you needed to investigate and prepare for the area before plunging in you get what you deserve

>>45062828
The Exhaustion rules might be a good place to start for just a regular "fever" disease.

>>45062890
Even if you are trying to balance things (which is by no means necessary) appropriate CR encounters are often boringly easy and sometimes what should be easy encounters by CR will nearly wipe you. CR is a deceptive crutch.

>>45062852
EXACTLY THIS. And, one of the most memorable encounters I've ever had in D&D was when my party managed to outwit an Illithid hunting party with a judicious use of prestidigitation and mage hand.

We could have either fought 1d4+1 drow raiders or had one of the most memorable encounters in our gaming career?

>>45063028
I kind of feel like teaching people that their encounters should always be scaled to be winnable for them is making it harder to pull off encounters like that. I mean, when everyone assumes that they can take a fight, they don't tend to consider surrender. Video games may also have something to do with this mindset.

>>45051977
No, you can pick feats over again if the benefits are different each time. Not even technically.

>>45056123
Outside of homebrew, maybe just be a tiefling with ram-like horns and cloven feet?

>>45063216

That's the opposite of true. The rules explicitly state that you can't take a feat multiple times, even if the benefits are different each time, unless the feat says you can.