/5eg/ D&D Fifth Edition General

>>49338643
>Which class is the best class
Paladin
>and why is it entirely relative?
Because all forms of entertainment, which D&D falls under the umbrella of, are completely subjective.
Even "bad" things have people that enjoy them, and many people enjoy the same thing for almost completely different reasons.
This is especially true in D&D, where much of the entertainment value is fueled entirely by individual imaginations rather then hard rules.

>>49338643
First for Champion Fighter is literally shit

>>49338643
>Which class is the best class, and why is it entirely relative?
Bard and/or Paladin
It's relative because as long as you meet a certain baseline, you're pretty much set for combat encounters. Everything else is fun.

Does anyone know a good method for handing monsters as a DM? Like, organizing their stats and actions and stuff without having to flip through the monster manual during combat.

>>49338643
I don't understand Innistrad. Is the plane basically a bubble where an island floats in an ocean of ghosts surrounded by mana, and beyond is just the infinite void? Is the moon actually a totally separate plane?

Or is Innistrad just a Europe-like continent attached to a bigger one, and there are other continents out there beyond the ghost seas?

Could Innistrad just be on the other side of the same world as Kamigawa, since they both have tons of spirits?

Anons? I've been playing Zombie Army Trilogy recently on Steam, and I was wondering; would a region based on that game's storyline fit into a fantasy world, or not?

To summarize, basically, as one country is in the final days of losing a bloody war against triumphant invaders, the deranged leader authorizes "Plan Z": using black magic to open rifts to hell that animate the country's slain defenders as demonically-charged, dim-witted yet malicious flesh-eating zombies. Only it turns out that, whoopsie, somebody in high command fucked up and left the magical macguffin to control the zombies disassembled, so the undead horde promptly goes on the rampage against all living things, until the dictator who started it all gets killed, rises from the dead, and makes plans to lead them into slaughtering all the world.

Cue the invaders desperately rallying and trying to hold back the unliving hordes until a bunch of crazy murder-masters manage to sabotage the remaining supply lines that the zombies are using to equip themselves, kill the undead dictator and close the hellmouth... only this just stops the dead from endlessly rising and still lives millions of now-directionless, still sadistic and murderous zombies milling about the burnt out waste of what was originally a country.

Cue the other nations, burnt out and weary from the war, saying "fuck this shit" and cordoning off the country-sized charnel pit and just leaving them and any survivors in there to rot.

Would this work as a bit of world-building fluff, or is it too tied up into a more "urban fantasy" type setting to work in an Eberron or Faerun-esque high fantasy setting?

Any DMs here, how do you deal with getting the party together in the first place?
Do you just have them meet in a tavern?
Do you skip over it and have them already be an established group at the start of the game?

How do you do it?

>>49338761
Meeting at a local tavern, on the road in a caravan, in a village where shit's going down. The hook depends on the situation and you can use unique hooks for each character in the party if you want.

can someone post the shaman character sheet ?i formatted my pc and lost it ...

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>>49338761
Always always ALWAYS have the party be an established group beforehand. It instantly gives their characters reasons to trust eachother and work together, rather than just being a bunch of random schmucks who really have no reason not to cut and run as soon as their get their first bit of loot.

Find out what the campaign is going to be ablout, make up a group that fits (mercenaries, members of the same guild, servants to the same lord, ect) and tell your players they need to make a character who has a reason to be part of this group.

>>49338643
>Which class is the best class

Bladelock obviously

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>>49338848
Seconding this, minus the blade part.

Seems like Warlocks in general are the class with the most flavorful mechanics and fluff. Their magic is limited enough to keep them from breaking the game in two like other casters, and they can do enough things to be built multiple ways and still be good characters. Everything about Warlocks is just right.

Now if only wizards and their ridiculous reality-bending ability to do everything could be reigned in with some sort of similar re-work...

>>49338643
Bard, Paladin, Strength Rogue with a touch of multiclass or perhaps Druid.

>>49338889
Seconded.
Warlocks are great design-wise for flavour and fun, but balance-wise are probably a bit weaker than some other casters.
Their main issue is often defaulting to eldritch blast.

>>49338751
I think you're putting more thought into it then WotC when they made it.

>>49338643
Bard is best class because it allows me to beatbox people to death, and they keep missing cause my beatboxing is so good(although anyone can pick up the cantrip). It is entirely relative because some crazy people wouldn't want that in their fantasy game.

>>49338752
Sure, it's got magic and kingdoms and war and shit.
If you wanted you could even do some name-dropping; one of the layers of the Abyss (which is one of the three types of Hell in D&D) is ruled by the classic Demon Lord Orcus, the Prince of the Undead.
He could easily be the original "source" of said zombie apocalypse because that's right up his alley in terms of methods.

>>49338761
gay orgy, but i tell them something different

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There's always a lot of talk of how monks lovingly sucks the D like they can't get enough of it. But would they really be so lacking if you'd let them get ahold of some +DEX magic items, to compensate for not using +weapons for example?

>>49338643
Rogue, I enjoy it the most.

>>49339035
>But would they really be so lacking if you'd let them get ahold of some +DEX magic items
Yes, they would be marginally better than shit. But it doesn't make the class itself any better.

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>>49339047
Shame :<

>>49338734
One I've seen that I like is to use cards or something similar for tracking initiative, and write their HP and some other quick reference stuff on each one
I usually just keep a note with attack scores and HP totals of the big enough monsters and just count of mook shit in my head

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>>49339090
No, not really.

>>49338643
i've been studying the revised ranger, like it a bunch but i would love if the deep stalker had a little bit more of humpf, so here's my idea, tell me if it's too strong of if it's better at level 13 or 17 (the only levels without perks):

once per turn you can decide to add to your attack roll or to your damage roll your profiency modifier halved (round up).

>>49338752
Hell, I'd play it - sounds fun. There's going to be huge opportunities for loot, you're gonna need the odd walled city here and there etc.
Just make it an island...

>>49338752
Postapoca fantasy is bretty gud

Is there any way to make a dartmeister like in 2e?

>>49339150
There are class features gained. 4th level and 5th level spells, and with the stalker ones in particular I think it's a big enough feature as is. The once per turn reroll on miss probably does more for damage than you realize though, particularly if the stalker has sharpshooter

>>49339201
ok then

Should I get into 5e or PF?

>>49339271
5e is the easist system ever, PF has literally 20 books of rules, you pick. They're both great systems, but one is harder to understand that the other.

>>49339271
Since this is a 5e thread... 5e!

If you want to actually play a game and enjoy the majority of it then go with 5e. If you prefer to theorycraft and build optimized or off the wall characters, but not actually play, go with PF.

Still no pdf for Storm King's Thunder or Adventures in Middle-Earth?

>>49339291
It is in the MEGA Trove v3.

>>49339271
5E has three core books, one splatbook (that doubles as a setting book) and several adventures out (of which only one set truly is bad, the remainder are quite nice).

PF is built off of 3.5 which was known as the "Linear Fighter Quadratic Wizard" or "I only allow these tiers of classes because all of them below that tier suck too much" edition for a reason. It has tons of "core" books, lots of adventures and lots (and I mean lots) of splatbooks but suffers from the core game and constant errata. The adventures are more hit-and-miss, the splats and errata often cause lots of issues in character creation and it still has all of the baggage of the issues that were in 3.5 and never really eliminated (full casters win, martials fail, half casters are able to achieve some win and some fail).

As someone who has devoted hundreds of hours now to both systems, I'd go with 5e any day.

>>49339280
>>49339286
but 5e seems kind of limited with the types of characters you can make

>>49339300
ty

>>49338643
Bard best class, because overcoming encounters without rolling for damage is delicious, and gets me engaged in the game
Relative because some people like chopping through the meat like a sawmill

>>49339329
Only limited on how you portray them. Listen, the best fighter in PF will never get close to a plain wizard in power, skill or versatility but the fighter in 5e can stand almost on par with them for long periods of time.

Just try the game out, you can get everything for free from the trove and go from there. If you don't like it, you don't like it but as I said here >>49339326 I greatly prefer 5e over Pathfinder for a number of reasons.

>>49339271
He asked in /pfg/, too, and holy fucking SHIT
>>49339266
How much self-loathing can one thread contain?

>>49339362
I guess Im looking for a system that lets me express character ideas in a mechanically format well

>>49339383
they play pathfinder, its not like you're happy with their lifes

>>49339329
but it's also the most homebrewable system around, there are tons of homebrew classes.
It's your pick, pathfinder has like 60 classes but it's extremely complex

>>49339035
If monks start with good stats, they're good.
There is an item in one of the official .pdfs that boosts unarmed attacks.
Monks can use weapons. A 1d8+3 quarterstaff is better than a 1d10 fist. Monks get two weapon attacks at level 5, which is just as many as most martials get.

And don't underestimate being able to use stunning fist as 1 ki, with ki regenerating on a short rest.

>>49338751
all planes are basically bubbles floating in the blind eternities. think of it as a cross between Exalted's Creation and Spelljammers Crystal Spheres.

>>49339383
serves those animu fugs right

>>49339395
Here's the thing, bro.

Sure, there's only, what, twelve classes, with a handful of archetypes each.

But they're intentionally generic, to encourage you to flavour them however the hell you like. You have to let go of Pathfinder's "there's not an option named the thing I want, so I can't do it" mentality.

Maybe you want a Metaforge, but oh no, 5e doesn't have a Soulknife OR Aegis (yet?)! But wait, what's this over here? There's a Warlock who summons a Pact sword, and an Invocation for at-will Mage Armour! METAFORGE COMPLETE.

>>49339395
What are you trying to play? I'm sure you can get help from 5e on what class, race and background combo would help you best on that and how to fluff it out for your best results. Sorry, but chances are that if you try to do it PF you're going to juggle like 20 books and need to be many levels in before you pull it off (if you even can).

>>49339395
then use Mutants and Masterminds instead of any DnD or derivative like pathfinder.

>>49339395
Don't be fooled. While PF will technically allow you pretty much any sort of archetype, there are so many trap options that at the end of the day, only a few archetype are truly efficient.

Unless your character ideas can ben translated into a wizard/druid/priest of some description, I'd recommend taking a look at 5E.

Personnally, I played 3 years of Pathfinder, both as a player and as a GM, and the variance in power level got painful to see as we progressed, leading to frustration from some players. I got to be GM near the end of the campaign, and by god encounter design was a nightmare then.

Having switched to 5E, I get how you can believe that there are fewer options. It's true, but most of the options are good.

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>>49339417
But 5e-chan, what if the animu was coming from inside the thread?!

>>49339439
well, that or GURPS.

Any Generic system that ets you build your character out of a list of powers and components instead of using pre-built classes.

>>49339445
historically speaking that's when we make a new general thread

>>49339449
but shiiiiit, GURPS is like a thousands pages long

>>49339457
You can literally run it with just the rules-lite pdf and then eyeballing the numbers. Sure, there are rules specifically made to determine pretty much anything but you don't NEED those rules to play them as such. Just guesstimate the amount XP it would need to get and what it does and go from there.

I only played the rules-lite version and only for a few sessions but it just didn't click for me so I left that group

>>49339383
I've gone from rivalry, to confusion, to heartwrenching pity. I want to send them a gift basket, pat them on the head, and give them the card of a good abuse therapist, because that system has done some terrible things to these people.

>>49339150
anyone wanna gimme their opinion on this ?
aside from >>49339201

Raw says short swords are piercing. Will houseruling it to have slasing make it too good?

>>49339531
If I remember right all that really does is make them redundant with scimitars

>>49339531
Look one line above Shortswords on the weapons table, dude. Scimitars ARE shortswords that do slashing damage.

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>how it feels trying to convert a DM mostly used to 4e and actually enjoying the system to 5e, of which they've yet to properly review but are unsure of
You've been in a coma for 3 years while your 4e campaign was running. Please wake up. We miss you.

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>>49339563
Nothing is wrong with 4e, anon. I would still try to get them to transition over though, at least to test the system but if they still feel like sticking with 4e, well, that's their choice.

At least they aren't playing 3.P, right?

>>49339563
At least you aren't stuck in a 3.5 game with some weird combination of the DM's denial of his own sunken cost fallacy on all the prep time he's taken for his campaign, and the group wanting to let him down easy and just have someone else run a 5e game because the 3.5 one is getting increasingly miserable to deal with every session

>>49339457
Well here. Fine, ya increasingly picky bum, try this on for size. I've been working on it for a bit, and was hoping to playtest before releasing, but see if it tickles your fancy. It's a generic system with only 12 pages worth of rules, most of which are just examples or clarification.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yqAbRnIvl4VnwdnlzIF9brfWO72uVZ4WiL3WJeIdrw0/edit?usp=sharing

It's not very simulationist or crunchy, it leans more on the gamist and narrativist side of things, but that I feel that's fine. DnD has the Gamist-Simulationist market on lockdown, and GURPS the Narrative-Simulationist. If you just wanna sit down and play a game and tell a nice collaborative story, without a lot of baggage from the system telling you what is and is not possible or a lot of rules and numbers to keep track of, this is the thing.

>>49339584
The way they do it is fine. It was a good time.

ButI feel 4e just isn't worth it if you don't do pure combat. They do certainly do a fair bit of combat and get all that they can get out of 4e, but 5e is probably better at any given moment you're not in combat.

>>49339606
I thought people generally considered 4e worse than pathfinder/3.5.

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I'm sketching out the basics for what is going to be a new campaign setting and I thought it would be cool if one of the continents was shattered apart a long time ago by some kind of cataclysm, but I'm trying to figure out what that would actually look like.

Does this look realistic? It's the bottom right one, obviosuly.

>>49339627
There's a large number of people who love 3.pf because it's the first RPG they played. While there are legitimate issues with 4e, most of them haven't actually played it and are just on the hate-hype train. 5e was in many respects created to appease that audience, which is a shame because they threw out most of the improvements from 4e.

Also, it depends on the player. Players that enjoy fun are more likely to enjoy 4e. Players that enjoy making bizarre character concepts work by cobbling together 14 sourcebooks, enjoy system mastery, or have autism will enjoy 3.pf. The systems are aimed at different audiences.

>>49339627
>ButI feel 4e just isn't worth it if you don't do pure combat.

I can't comment for how your games went but I was in a 4e campaign for a little over 2 years. We did so much shit out of combat! There were even entire sessions without a single weapon drawn or arrow nocked. Yes, combat is a the big part of the game (a huge one) but that was because people in 3e/3.5 complained that the classes were so disproportionate in combat they had to make a system that made everyone (more or less) equal. Out of every D&D system I've played, 4e is hands down my favorite. 5e is a very close second though but 4e hit all of my little buttons in ways no other system ever has.

>>49339627
It's less about 4e vs 3.5 in that case so much as having to deal with the social implications of telling someone "I don't really care that you spent an absurd amount of time preparing this. It's god awful" who can't really handle it. Mostly we've just been humoring him for a while, but it's starting to take too long for him to wrap up the campaign and patience is slipping

>>49339648
>Players that enjoy fun are more likely to enjoy 4e.
How to spot someone is full of shit

>>49339648
people that want Wow-like raids like 4e.
people that like designing characters like building a magic deck like 3.P

People actually there to play a tabletop game like 5e.

>>49339647
Looks pretty good to me. If you're just going for a general look it's perfectly acceptable but if you want to try to get more detailed, just make sure you put a few more squiggles and shit on the coasts and you're golden.

If you don't mind my asking, why did it shatter?

>>49339676
As someone who does not like WoW (and I really, truly tried to give it a try but it was just so bleh) and I loved 4e. 3.P sucks because all it takes is one new splat book to completely ruin your character and you were basically punished trying to do anything interesting by pages of rules and supplement. 5e is great, it speeds things up, simplifies things and allows just the right amount of crunch to keep the game moving fast but as I said here >>49339663 4e just hit all my buttons in the details of how it played out, at least at my table.

Can we go back To 5e instead of talking about an abortion as 4e and completely obsolete and thousands times better done by paizo 3.5e? *sigh*

>>49339647
Looks pretty good desu

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>>49339700
>thousands times better done by paizo 3.5e?
>thousands times better done by paizo
>better done by paizo

>>49339663
Certainly, we did things out of combat.

I joined in at the very end of a long campaign, so I started in the late 20s in level.

I'm fine with being handed a sheet full of pages upon pages of abilities I have to learn.

But...
Almost none of those abilities can be used in any way out of combat.

Like the game seems to have been intended, it really feels a lot more MMORPG like. 'I use this ability, which does this.'
And it doesn't really feel like there's much else you can use those abilities for unless you're really, really creative.

I guess the main advantage from this over 5e is that in 5e most of the utility is taken up by casters. A fighter might not often have a lot of utility.

But even then, if you're playing a spellcaster in 5e it feels much nicer to play outside of combat.

And then, there's also the magical item economy which is sort of a thing with pathfinder too. You just get tonnes and tonnes of money - enough money to buy the world - and are then probably expected to have all sorts of magical items.

In 5e at least, magic items are supposed to be a bit more special and not 'something that's practically a given you'll have'.

4e definitely succeeds at a MMORPGey feel, though.

I'll admit, I didn't get a lot of 4e experience.

>>49339667
There's a point that people have to know that they have to let it go.

>>49339648
I'll admit I did have a bit of fun trying to work out pathfinder. And then it got played a little and campaign died and that was that.

>>49339682
>>If you don't mind my asking, why did it shatter?
I haven't decided 100% yet, but my initial thoughts are that a powerful civilization that is no longer around did some bullshit that resulted in it shattering.
Maybe they gained so much power that a deity decided to ram his fist up their ass, maybe they attempted to collectively ascend to Godhood and it went badly.. Not entirely certain yet.

>>49339698
>all it takes is one new splat book to completely ruin your character
I don't think that really follows. New material did sometimes have the problem of "Now that there's rules for this, you need a feat to do it", but by and large supplements didn't really make characters weaker. Arguably, you could say they made them marginally weaker in the sense that there's little reason to use, say a fighter, if warblades are an option, but the real problem there was how shitty fighters were in the first place. My real problem with that shit is it just gets tedious after a while, and options that should only really exist for flavor end up being either some sort of weird trap or the best way to make a character regardless of their actual background

This really isn't the place to go in depth into 3.5 though

>>49339726
i mean you can try to meme how much you want but the truth doesn't change lmao

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So I looked on the crossbreeding table and humans and centaurs can breed, but only if the mother is the centaur.
How does a half-centaur half-human even fucking look like?

>>49339916
Wut? Anon, put down the Book of Erotic Fantasy and back away from it

>>49339916
Well wherever you found that table it probably wasn't official, but I imagine either something that looks like a satyr or something much more unfortunate

Is CR not a thing anymore? How is the GM meant to balance encounters?

>>49339150
That's just the ranger capstone. Do something else

>>49340154
uhm what? CR is still a thing , read a MM

>>49340169
what does capstone mean

>>49340154
Challenge Rating is a thing, but it only means "dangerous if fought below this level."

Encounter difficulty is meant to be balanced by the XP gains it provides.

There's a chart in the monster manual, and I think also in the phb and basic rules.

>>49339627
5e and 4e don't really handle out of combat much differently. They're both more or less "you have skills, roll them to do stuff"

>>49340182
20th level feature

>>49339627
4e is just different and probably would have been accepted as a decent game if it didn't have the D&D name slapped on it and didn't end support for 3.5.

>>49340202
4e had skill encounters.

>>49340189
In fact, have a calculator made just for this very purpose
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eoRg79_yTUQ6AXxLNDq6Vl9_DAJH4h7tzs5HBikCuEE/htmlview

>>49340218
Which everyone (with sense) ignored

>>49340207
fuck you're right, i completely forgot that, thanks I'm gonna figure something else then. I was maybe thinkiung always taking half damage on fall damage since the underdark is place that requires a lot of alert for thgat kind of peril.

>>49340233
Really, it seemed like a neat idea?

>>49339734
>Almost none of those abilities can be used in any way out of combat.
Utility powers, rituals, martial practices
>And it doesn't really feel like there's much else you can use those abilities for unless you're really, really creative.
So like spells
>I guess the main advantage from this over 5e is that in 5e most of the utility is taken up by casters. A fighter might not often have a lot of utility.
Why is that an advantage?

>>49340249
Eh, they were interesting in theory, but a lack of creativity on the parts of DMs/players means it becomes too divorced from general adventuring, and the actions are disjointed nonsense done only to fill a success quota. I've seen it used well once, and it was when the DM never revealed it was a skill encounter.

Much like the rest of 4e, the biggest problem was presentation.

>>49340251
Forget the last point, I cannot into reading

>>49338734
This is crazy but:

My MM fell appart so i cut the spine off the book, sleeved the pages in protective sleeves and threw it in a binder. Now before session i just have to find the stat blocks im using and pull them out. I can write on the blocks with markers because the sleeves and my homebrew monsters sit right alongside the MM.

It ended up costing more than the book and id say the sleeves add too much bulk (needed a 3 inch binder, could need a 4in down the line) but the ease of use is amazing during session.

Dual-wielding barbarian or barbarian with two-handed weapon? Which one is better and why?

>>49340278
If the reason skill challenges are bad is because players and the DM arent being descriptive then id say thats a problem with that group not the mechanics.

Ive run skill challenges in 5e and the results were great even when people knew it was a skill challenge. It went well because my players and i responded with actual descriptions of what was happening rather than just rolling dice and passing turn.

>>49340476
the answer is sword and board barbarian

Explain the fluff of Vancian magic to me

>>49340706
Metaphysically speaking, you throw energized shit at people.

How many feats do you get each level?

>>49340706
Spells don't take "one action" or "one swift action" or "one round" to cast. Spells take a few MINUTES to cast. So, first thing in the morning, the wizard or cleric or druid or (anyone except the warlock) spends a few minutes casting MOST of every spell they expect to use that day, leaving the last few gestures, words, and/or components undone. When you need the spell in combat, you complete the spell with this final action.

Spells, being power beyond mortal comprehension, don't like to stay in fleshy brains, and you can only contain so much, for so long. As you get more practiced at it, you can do better.

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Has anyone done math on Beast Conclave's numbers in combat? The changes are really satisfying to look at, but it's a problem if it's TOO powerful as well. Would the best way to approach it be to look at Hunter (which is the same barring the changes to the class chassis) and compare Hunter to existing classes (since there's plenty of precedence and experience there)?

>>49340785
Not too powerful. Currently, your companion can't bypass resistance to non-Magic or non-Silver (which most monster have at higher level)

>>49340741
0.

feat is totally optional rule in 5e.

You can choose to learn feat instead of ability score improvement (which you usually get every 4 level).

>>49340857
Damn, what? That's a complete change. You don't even get a feat at 1st?

>>49340877
Feats are much much stronger than previous editions. So no.

>>49340877
There is a human variant trait that you can get a feat at level 1. That's it

>>49338761
>crashing a party in the tavern
>prison break
>hired by a noble/merchant/contractor to cooperate

Bog standard.

Or have them all be raised in the same town where they grew up together.

Or everyone is a monk/paladin/thief/wizard/barbarian... the movie (adventures where everyone shares at least one level in the same class are the best).

>>49340843
I guess you could equip your pet with stuff like silver gauntlets (ape) or give it silver claws/teeth or some weird shit like that.

>>49340903
>>49340903
Ah, thanks bros. Good to know. Also, where might I find the variant trait?

Can you conceivably go to ANY plane at any level and have a fun / challenging time?

I realize my storytelling / adventure plotting all focus on the mundane being made intriguing, and that I haven't really brought my players to somewhere FANTASTICAL yet. I feel like this is doing them a big disservice. Right now they're all 9th level, and we've been through forests, jungles, on the sea, mountains, big cities and small villages (as well as large cave systems, haunted castles, and ancient temples).

I'm considering going somewhere like the Feywild, Abyss, or one of the elemental planes. Heck, March of the Modrons caught my eye recently. Just curious on how to really kick it up a notch.

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So I'm cooking up my first ever DnD character ever.
I want to play a human Warlock, Pact of the Tome and an Old God as a patron.
And I'm struggling with the background.

So far I've thought about being a historian, librarian or something along those lines.
I enter the pact with the Old God because of gambling depts that I couldn't pay off and was offered help in exchange for something unspecified. Undecided how I get the offer as off now. The book of the Pact however I want to be some sort of small non-suspicious tome, like a ledger or history book.

Any ideas on how to help a fellow anon out?

>>49340945
In the PHB in the Human racial stats

>>49338761
The group I currently DM for all met during a riot. A rich noble who was about to get stormed called out to them specifically (because of how they look) and offered each of them 100g to get him back to his house.

From there he hired them for another job. And they met more contacts and so on and so forth.

>>49340955
You could have entered the pact just because of your unending thirst for knowledge, since not much is known about this god, why can't you be the one to shed light on it?

>>49340968
Thanks heaps bro, keep being awesome.

If 5e had PF's skills pool, would it make the system even more awesome?

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>>49340955
Maybe he unknowingly got trick into signing the contract?

Maybe while walking around penniless, he saw a girl coming up to him, she asked "Would you like to join the Axis cult? It will improved your luck with money and your party show skill!" and he just accept it.

>>49340476
Two handed if you want to get into power attack and cleaving. Essential if you are going berzerker as the extra attack takes a bonus action.

If you want to dual wield, build your character for critical hits. Half orc barb / champion with reckless attack is going to be rolling 6 attacks, criting on 19s and get an extra critical dice.

>>49341004
no. 5e is steps forward, no need to make a step backward.

>>49340928
>adventures where everyone shares at least one level in the same class are the best
I played an adventure where every PC was a wizard. Not just any wizard - a lvl 1 wizard that specialised in one school of magic and wore a brightly colored robe. So adventure quickly became a game "OH FUCK IM OUT OF SPELLS GUYS THERE'S AN OGRE HERE DO SOMETHING! WHERE'S THE RED WIZARD? GODDAMIT WE NEED A FIREBALL HERE NOW!".

>>49341031
That sounds like some comedic good times.

>>49341004
No, skill point system lead to a lot of imbalance and while its removal in 5e lead to the Int dump problem the smaller more general skill pool of 5e is much more preferred as it opens up more participation and options from classes left in the background while not stepping too much on the rogue.

>starting new campaign
>tell them at least one of them must be a non-caster
>tell them it's for plot reasons
>also that wizards/sorcerers/warlocks are generally hated
>party shows up with 4 casters and 1 barbarian
I'm not sure what I expected

Going to be hilarious when they start walking into rooms of "lose your top spell slot, take xd8 damage from the mana burn"

>>49341120
Oooh, that's deliciously evil. I might start doing that with my party who stack nothing but fireballs and counterspells.

>>49340955
That's terrible and makes no sense. At all. Read literally one thing about Lovecraftian anything.

Background doesn't have to be a short story but it needs to make sense. Step ur game up anon. If you were doing fiend, yours would be fine. But this is a God of the universe that deals exclusively in madness. Why tf you talking about paying off debts.

I didn't understand until yesterday that sorcerers could only swap out spells when they leveled up. I've changed mine on a short rest a couple times and the DM either didn't notice or doesn't know sorcs work that way either, but I reverted my list because I felt like a cheater. Feels bad man.

>>49340955
I think stumbling upon the Tome is already enough to establish a contact. I think Warlocks are supposed to be somewhat insane (in an obsessive kind of way, not lolrandumb xDD), so you found this book and began researching it: you stopped eating, sleeping, you couldn't think about anything else but the book's contents. It was all nonsense, just gibberish, but you kept telling yourself "no, there has to be something here", you started to tell yourself the "words" written in the book, as if it by saying them in a certain way would help you find their meaning, when you got tired of constantly reciting them, you started thinking them and that's when the contract took your mind, your mind wasn't really your own, but it was being invaded by the elder god.

>>49341164
Just wait till you hit 5 and then you get 6 fireballs everyday.

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First time GM here, planning on running 5e this weekend. I've read the core book cover to cover and picked out a few monsters from the MM for the first session, but I was wondering if there's any particular pitfalls of the system I should watch out for going in? Common houserules, things typically banned at tables, etc?

>>49341120
As soon as you tell players that you are restricting somthing its suddenly all they ever wanted.

I played briefly in a friends low magic game where he invited a bunch of randoms from the area, was a fucking mess of complaining because everyone decided they had to be full casters. To be fair he kind of deserved it when he let someone take warlock levels just for being an evil dipshit.

I played a holy monk that was searching for ancient scripts of his religion. He had magic initiate which i used to get bless / guidance. Was a neat concept, to bad the game fell through.

>>49340765
>So, first thing in the morning, the wizard or cleric or druid or (anyone except the warlock) spends a few minutes casting MOST of every spell they expect to use that day, leaving the last few gestures, words, and/or components undone. When you need the spell in combat, you complete the spell with this final action.

In 5e using spells doesn't remove them from your list of prepared spells, which doesn't suit this explanation. If you were just finishing the spell you wouldn't expect to be able to finish it again over and over.

It used to be the case that using spells was like having a belt of grenades - you prepare the grenades in the morning, and when you wanted to use them, you pulled the pin and it went bang. But in 5e it's a little different because whenever you throw a grenade, it doesn't "use up" the grenade on your belt.

To make things more confusing, in previous games spell slots were about how many spells you could cram into your head - like how much space you have on your grenade belt. But in 5e, spell slots are seperate from preparing spells, and only feature in the casting of spells. You still have a limited amount of space on your grenade belt (how many spells you can prepare) but there's a different limit (your spell slots) on how many times you can actually throw those grenades...and you can make your grenades more or less powerful by using higher or lower level slots, but each level has a seperate limit on how many times you can use it, and I've run out of grenade metaphors.

I like the system, but it's a little counterintuitive. It's only semi-Vancian so the Vancian fluff only semi-works.

>>49341120
>rooms of "lose your top spell slot, take xd8 damage from the mana burn"
wait how does that work, i wanna try to use it myself.

How's the new revised ranger?

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I vaguely remember reading about a class skill/feat that gives the character a tattoo that can summon a shield that's in whatever shape the character wants, as a bonus action. Can someone help me out and post the full skill or send me to the right book?

>>49341203
>start at level 1
>good characters only
>multiclassing needs a damn good reason
>let other players reward inspiration but reserve the right to veto
>start with a simple encounter and onjective, dont make them heroes right off the bat.

All i can think of off the top of my head.

>>49341217
>If you were just finishing the spell you wouldn't expect to be able to finish it again over and over.
Well why not? All you have to say is the rest of the spell doesn't go away, and that the energy that actually fuels it is tied into the final casting.

>>49341233
Not perfect but pretty good. If they had started with it there would have been little complaint.

>>49341221
if their top spell slot is a level 3 spell, they lose it and take 3d8 damage.

Room is also immune to all forms of detection and cannot be dispelled from outside.

They're vaults designed to keep gods out, because gods literally can't run out of spell slots.

The most important thing about revised ranger is that it brought it to my attention that I could have had a giant weasel for a companion all this time.

>>49341203
I don't allow the feat "lucky" at my table. I'm also pretty strict on homebrewing because homebrews are almost always way overpowered and they generally bring out the inner 12 year old of whoever is playing it: "well my guy can do this and this and that and this and has ray gun eyes and is immortal and breathes fire and has 15 level 9 spell slots."

Also be wary of parties that rest after every encounter. Throw ambushes at them. Don't be afraid to kill PCs even early. At the same time don't actively play against them. I fudge WAY more rolls for my players than against them and encourage them to come up with creative ways around my pitfalls.

>>49341233
Good enough to stop complaining about the old one.

>>49341300
I know it's part of your settings theme, but the mechanic still feels a little shit to me. Guess asymmetrical penalties get under my skin, even for casters. Don't really see how it would keep out gods, either.

>>49341291
>>49341308
>>49341313
What was wrong with the old ranger?


At least they're listening to critique.

What is some recommended homebrew?

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>>49341308
Good taste. Play a small-sized ranger.

>>49341176
Yeah this makes more sense.
Being the librarys curator for instance would make sense since that would mean he could get access to restricted tomes and whatnot.
Reading through a few books about cults and strange beings and finally reading an actual tome used in a ritual. Thanks friendly anon.

>>49341149
Yes. The story and character I was inspired by solved his problem by renting out his basement to cultists which summoned strange creatures and he became a servant after being blinded by the creatures brilliance.

>>49341352
Beast master has the most glaring issues. Smarter anons than I can explain better, but you basically have to divide your actions between yourself and your companion, which blows compared to the revised ranger where the companion is essentially a character in itself, complete with initiative rolls, bonds, flaws and such. Also, favored enemy as printed is extremely situational. The revised version still is situational, but at least it has actual combat applications now.

>>49341236
Dragonmark tattoos? UA: Eberron?

>>49338643
Tempted to take the UA spear feat for my paladin should I?

>>49341493
Just do it.

>>49341334
A) this mana burn happens every turn till there are no spell slots left to burn
B) There are arcana checks to detect it before blundering into it
C) Even Gods die from 9d8 force damage a turn plus having all of their magic turned off. The vault is more than just walking thirty feet to a chest and getting out.

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Would you be alright allowing your New Beastmaster the following animal companions*?
>Blink Dog
>Crocodile
>Elk*
>Giant Crab
>Giant Frog
>Giant Goat*
>Giant Lizard (+1 variant trait)
>Giant Wolf Spider
With the provision that any d10 hit dice are reduced to d8, and number of hit dice greater than 3 are reduced to 3, and their HP adjusted accordingly. Also, that starred creatures have their strength reduced to 15.
Yes, I know blink dogs aren't beasts.

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>>49341334
He warned them. He didn't just drop it on them. Literally told them.

No sympathy.

>>49341352
Old beastmaster problem

> Paper thin armor pet with low health (this encounrage people to use their pet as shock troop as oppose to bonding with it like the fluff said)

> Ordering pet eat up your action (why would you order your pet to attack once, when you can attack twice or thrice and do more damage?)

>>49341509
Ah, thought it was once when you enter then done. Gods could probably tank that.

Anyway, seems pretty harsh, but if the one barbarian can do what needs to be done in the room it should be ok. Is there any warning that you're entering such a place?

>>49341474
>>49341542
This reeks of a hold-over mechanic from 4e. Good thing they've changed it.

>>49341493
if I was player i would do it myself, I always loved how fencing spear combat looks but being a DM i can't really be a player. It's a pretty great feat, do it me boi and pierce away.

>>49341562
Is it? I remember some summons having weird action economy but I thought the pet was a bit different. 4e worked better I think, due to the structure of it. Been a while, anyway.

>>49341518
yes but not the blink dog, and not just because it's not a beast.

>>49341560
Well, after I kill them the first time, they'll presumably be paying more attention when they start delving into the depths of a dungeon looking for the final treasure. And the check to not blunder into it is arcana, as I mentioned.

Whether the barbarian can do it alone is another matter. But, the casters can just blow their spell slots and come in with him. They're not all full casters

>>49341352
Several things.

The unique ranger features favored enemy, natural explorer, and foe slayer were dumb. You either picked the wrong location and foes or you talked to your dm and picked the right one. (Why not just always have the right one instead of circumventing rules?). You were very close to just being a ranged fighter and that was it.

Beastmastery was heavily unintuitive. All summoned creatures in the game (find familiar, steed, conjure elementals, fey, beasts, etc.) Have their own separate action economy and then the ranger has to spend their actions telling the beast what to do. (You'd think by 5 or 6 levels, it would know that bad guys should be attacked?) They weren't weak damage if you picked the right pet, but they just played awkwardly. All on top of their survivability being poor.

>>49341518
The Blink Dog should not be a starter. That's something maybe a DM could award later instead of a magic item at level 10+

>>49341619
well yeah if that then i would allow it.
i'm >>49341597

>>49341083
It actually was very funny.
You see, the wizards were students from nearby acadeny of magic... And common people weren't inclined to trust us. Not that they hated us, but general reaction was "Oh, it's THOSE guys again." Considering that wizards left their [s]magical realm[/s] castle in the mountains only when the world was ending or the wizards were out of cheese, we kind of understood them. So we were on our own to solve every problem, and not a single villager agreed to serves us as [s]meatshield[/s] bodyguard.
Our group was tasked with transporting a particular tome to another academy. The tome was huge - and I mean HUGE, - and full of strange spells, so they couldn't just teleport it or move throught any other magical means. On other hand, no one wanted to leave the cozy castle, where the dire squirrels were the most dangerous things around, food was served thrice per day, and the basement was filled with wine, delicacies (and, of course, cheese) just to march on foot through the Planes of Boredom-and-Orcs, Harpy Hills of Harpyness, Molesting Forest (those vines were very indecent, let me tell you) and, of course, the Cursed Swamps of Unimaginable Doom just to deliver the fucking Tome. So the Counsil of Archwizards decided - after a dozen snack breaks, - to pick the most talented sudents and send them with the Tome. After that everyone promptly forgot about this until the day the squad was to embark on their journey. So Archwizards just grabbed the students that were closest to the Tome at the moment (it was just sort of lying near the gates, no one bothered to pick it up and place back into the library), gave them the letter to the other academy and kicked the party into the wilderness. And thus began the epic tale of fizzled spells, occasional monstergirls and very, very fast wizards. Seriously, at one point we considered making "Epic Runner" prestige class, because the Yellow Wizard outran a centaur while retreating from battle with hydra.

>>49341632
Sounds like the academy archwizards were gnomes.

>>49339329
You want customization, play GURPS.

>>49341632
i would probably love to dm your group.
That is the cutest story.

Going to attempt to trick my players into delivering a magical WMD from one nation to another, and start a war. It's an enchanted object (right now working with a locked empty chest). Basically anyone in a 30ft radius of it is infected, and when they speak common in that radius they'll immediately start to zombify/monsterfy/get wrecked.

Any suggestions on how to flesh this idea out more? The players are going to be given random CON saves while near it, every time they speak Common but will for obvious reasons, at least it gets to their destination, have a form of immunity to it.

>>49341484
No, this was a homebrew from 5eg
Something something class that was based on summoning weapons

>>49339271
5e is more player-friendly in so many ways, starting with its much smaller library. It isn't remotely as much of an investment to have a full library of 5e books - unless you're playing published adventures, there are four total books so far (and one of those is largely a setting book). Compare that to Pathfinder, which >>49339280 sold short - it actually has 22 hardcover books just in the main RPG line. That doesn't include any setting books or the softcover splats. An additional benefit of the smaller library is that 5e doesn't demand nearly as much "system mastery" to have a character that can keep up.

5e also dramatically reduces the disparity between full spellcasters and non-spellcasters in several ways. Spellcasters in 5e don't have nearly as many options as in Pathfinder, which means they don't have nearly as many overpowered options. The new rules for multiple attacks further benefit martial characters: they can actually move and still use all of their attacks in a round.

There is one key thing I liked about Pathfinder as a GM, though: the sheer variety of enemies I could throw at the players. Pathfinder has five bestiaries, and between adding class levels or changing feats and spells known, it was super easy to have a custom enemy for the players. 5e has guidance on creating new monsters, which is more than I can say for some RPGs I want to like, but I feel like it still takes more guesswork than Pathfinder.

I have the option to learn a language, what would be useful for Curse of Strahd?

>>49341734
What happens when your idiot players open it themselves?

>>49341632
See. I said that games where everyone shares a class are great.

I had episodes of "Everyone is feylock" (magical dudes with low tier pokemon familiars), "The legends of martial artists stealing dragons balls" (Ocean's 11 comedy edition where everyone is a monk), "Pirates of the sandy sea" (went from "Arabian niiiights" to swashbucklers surfing on sand dunes and raiding caravans owned by a sultan who managed to piss them off big-time), "Aztec knights of the round table" (Bunch of vengeance paladins who MCed into various classes and establishing the not!Arthurian England in not!Mesoamerica).

>>49341792
>You feel a pulse of magic ripple out from the chest.
>Everyone give me a Constitution saving throw.

Pretty much anyone that doesn't roll a 1, saves. On a 1 that player will get diseased at the least. The chest is still very much active, although empty.

>>49341754
Nothing, everything is in common

>>49341850
That seems more like a jarred fart than a WMD. I feel like one person within 10 yards would get rekt after delivery, that person would get put down, then they'd throw the chest in the dumpster and execute the party.

>>49341734
Have them all be elves and speak in sylvan.

>>49341878
Sorry, thought I explained it in the first post. Each person who was affected by the spell becomes a carrier of it. And it's passed through speaking Common with one another. For NPC's the effects will be almost immediate and very dire.

>>49341876
That's not true, some Infernal pops up now and then, and knowing the Vistani Patterna can't hurt.

>>49341878
The idea is that the adventurers make the perfect insurgent what with their status, ability to somehow always meet with Kings, Dukes, Nobles and other people of importance.

Between Skull-Face and Foxdie, I've been slightly influenced.

>>49341914
I played through the whole book without encountering it

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>>49341597
>>49341619
That's fair. Do the others seem egregious, though? I've always thought it was unfair that only small creatures could have the mounted animal companion fun, and when the option is only available for them it makes things feel a lot more cheesy.

I moved from PF to 5e and was so glad that feats were now optional that I never bothered to learn the rules for 5e feats. Do they help balance out martial classes? How many of y'all use 5e feats?

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So for Curse of Strahd, I want to create the edgiest character ever. Literally pic related will be her appearance, and I want ALL the edge in her backstory.

(Generally I role up characters with no edge at all, so I want to change that)

So how's this, and how can I add even more edge:

>Sofya Falkonichna Oronova
>The Oronov family were servants of the vampire lord Nikolaj Ivanov for centuries, and Sofya’s mother, Alada Sergichna, was preyed upon by the family’s vampire lord while Sofya was still in the womb, resulting in Sofya’s birth as a dhampir. Sofya grew up in fear of depredations of Lord Ivanov, watching him kill or turn much of her family, including both her mother and father, but she herself was spared numerous times, though she did not know why. Eventually Lord Ivanov was driven into retreat by servants of the Church of Ezra, and the few surviving Oronovs liberated. Sofya became a devout Ezran follower, and vowed to slay vampires wherever they laired.

>• “A monster that slaughtered dozens of innocent people spared my life, and I don’t know why.”
>• “I don’t talk about the thing that torments me. I’d rather not burden others with my curse.”
>• “I expect danger around every corner.”
>• “I’m a monster that destroys other monsters, and anything else that gets in my way.”
>• “There is evil in me, I can feel it. It must never be set free.”
>• “I assume the worst in people.”
>• “My greatest fear is giving in to my vampiric bloodline.”

The character is going to be a Hunter Ranger that dual-wields a handaxe and shortsword. And yes, the DM has okayed the dhampir race ahead of time (alongside other Universal Monsters-themed races)

Illusionist thief yay or nay? pointers for building it?

>>49338734
My DM uses d100s for keeping track of HP.
>>49338889
Warlocks and Paladins are most flavourous if you ask me. But Warlocks are more fun to play and to DM to.

>>49342000
I've never seen a feat-less game. Martial classes are fine as-is, but getting access to stuff like Polearm Master, Great Weapon Master, Sharpshooter, and Crossbow Expert increase damage significantly. Sentinel is a good martial lockdown tool.

>>49341587
>will do

>>49342000
>Do they help balance out martial classes?

I don't know about that, but they can help round out some of the more plain or narrowly-focused classes, especially fighters who get a couple of extra feats. Not so much a balance thing as letting you customize a class that otherwise doesn't have many options.

>>49342000
Homerules

I give out one free feat to everyone at lvl 1.

Do what you want with them.
They aren't really broken unless you combo two or more of them with specific stuff.

I also brew humans to have one extra skill proficiency , get +2 to Con and +1 to a stat of their choice (nobody ever mentioned variant humans again).

For once I wish the made more feats like granting a form of unarmoured defence or unarmed strikes that isn't tavern brawler.
Heckler even class specific feats would be great to have.

You need more sorcery/ki/psy points?
Spend your ASI for the feat you need.

You want to be better with throwing weapons?
Here a feat that removes close quarters disadvantage for ranged attacks and allows you to make a throwing weapon attack as a bonus action.

Seriously this needs work.

>>49342163
You're the DM. You can make custom feats if you want.

Each one of my players has at least 1~2 rare magic items at 9th level. A new player just joined and looks like he'll be permanent.

What's a good magic item for a Life Cleric? Was thinking of giving him an Animated Shield or Sentinel Shield or something. The players are basically going back to the cleric's home where he can hit up his stash.

How do modern firearms without burst fire work in combat? Is it just a single shot?

>>49342184
I'm a DnD noob and i'm looking for any tips/pointers on building an illusionist thief?

>>49342312
Arcane trickster.

>>49342312
What half of that is more important to you? Depends on whether you really want a pure illusionist, pure arcane trickster, or maybe a multiclass.

>>49342312
Option 1
> Rogue. Arcane Trickster. Specialize in Illusion / Enchantment spells.

Option 2
> Wizard. Illusionist. Do thiefy stuff.

Option 3
> Cleric. Trickery domain. Wear leather.

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>>49341652
No, they were mostly humans. Archwizard of Divination was an orc, because no one else risked eating those mushrooms (have you tried eating a shroom that CACKLED at you?) and Archwizard of Illusion was a halfling, but everyone else were humans. Races other than humans, orcs and halflings were very rare in this part of the world.
Elves, after a couple of very bloody civil wars and approximately twelve near-ends-of-the-world, collectively went "Screw that, we're outta here!" and left this continent for another, where they can live in peace. No one knew where exactly they went, and no one actually cared.
Gnomes were wiped out completely after... Well, no one is sure WHAT they did, but one day they just disappeared and the northen part of Jolly Mountains of ITSAGAINTOHSHI was replaced with a huge tear in reality. It didn't explode, it didn't spawn demons or other shit. It wast just there - a reminder that tinkering with fundamental laws of reality has consequences.
Dragonborn didn't like the climate too much, and sticked to the southern part of the continent. Also, 300 years ago Tiamat went apeshit on them because they refused to serve her, and she kind of reduced their numbers a bit. Bahamut kicked her ass in the end, but the damage was done and poor dragonborn went from "the nation with the most powerful military in the world" to "a dozen loosely connected nest-cities that try not to die to the fire giant raids".
Dwarves, after the most recent near-Armageddon situation, shut off their connections to the surface. They had very serious political problems and were a tad bit xenophobic, so they didn't say anything to anyone. One day halfling caravan came to Moltenmetal, dwarven capital, and found that the gates are closed and there are no dwarves around. (Of course we eventually went there and discovered what all of that was about)
>>49341676
Aww, thanks! I can tell a few stories from this campaign, if you want. But be warned - my English is mediocre at best.

>>49342346
Multi Classing seems a bit too complicated for me, my initial plan was to just play a wizard focusing on illusions/disguises so i can steal shit idk

>>49341958
But anon... a heavy armored Halfling cavalier is my fetish

>>49342377
An illusionist wizard with good dex and a roguish background sounds good for you.

>>49342435
Thanks! I've always wanted to try an illusionist but my dm's usually speak against it sadly. Hopefully this time i will get to live out my dreams of trickery!~

Is it dickish to restrict resurrection spells in my game? I kinda hate how it trivializes death. Would love to make death quest-worthy, but my guys are already 10th level. Also I want to force a reincarnate.....so....

>>49342366
An orc wizard doing mushrooms to become a master of divination is something I can get behind.

I'd like to hear more stories.

>>49342453
Hmm if your dm isn't into illusion it may be a problem, since it sorta depends on the dm to agree to things working as you intend.

>>49342462
It's dickish if your campaign has been going for awhile and you just now bring it up, especially if you've allowed anything of the sort before.

If you tell people that at the start, it's fair. I only allow True Resurrection and the other spells don't even exist, but I have alternate rules in place for what happens when you fail all your death saving throws, since I make enemies with appropriate intelligence double tap you if you're down.

>>49342462
Not too bad, as long as it isn't a thing you suddenly spring on them arbitrarily. Let them know long before it comes up.

>>49342366
dude your English is very good. I'd like to hear a bit of story

>>49342502
New dm this time around who has no issues with it.

The grimoire github got DMCA'd, anyone got a directory backup? Would love to have one for offline use.

>>49342502
I never understood this until I played with a completely different circle of friends / non-friends.

Played LMoP, and I had a deception-based Tiefling Sorcerer who abhorred blood and violence first hand, but was a master manipulator / conniver with a noble background. Planned on going full Kingpin / Mob boss.

My personal goal was to pay / coerce / convince enough goblins to work for me instead, and develop my own spy network in the cities with thugs. The DM shot down any attempt at diplomacy, and everyone else just wanted to hit whatever was in front of them. The DM obliged that.

>>49342477
>>49342588
Alright. I don't have them typed, so pick one and I'll get to it.
- The Beginning of the Tale, or how we met the orcs and learned to fear them.
- Wizards Try Agressive Negotiations, or how we learned not to mock the centaurs.
- Wizards Get Their First Real Quest, or why we don't go to the hills anymore.
Keep in mind that campaign ended almost two years ago, so I'll have to through my records to actually remember the details. So it mi-i-ight take a while.

>>49342462
No its not if its clear from the start as others have said.

Restricting spell acquasition to requiring an adventure, even for non-wizards, is really cool and memorable. I think the problem with res spells tho is youll have that player sitting idle for a potentially long time so you want to consider some options. (Let them play NPCs, friend or foe, or somthing)

Still giving the players an adventure to acquire a spell or item or ingrediant is way cooler than "you spend x days searching for y thing" or even worse "the cleric spends a slot and reses you"

>>49339035

Monks aren't BAD, they just fall of damage wise later in the campaign because they don't get abilities like Great Weapon Master or Sharpshooter to skyrocket their damage, and they don't get the utility of (full) spellcasting to solve issues with a few words and a dance number. They'll still be useful with Stunning Fist setting up your other martials and casters with strong Dex save targetting spells, and they do get a lot of nifty bonuses. They just need more damage and they'd be a great class.

>>49339150

It's totally unnecessary. The deepstalker has a lot of power baked in that someone might not notice, but getting the extra attack at level 1 is pretty big and getting the ability to reroll one missed attack is excellent. The only thing the Hunter class has to beat the Deep Stalker in damage is the 1d8 extra they get from giant slayer every turn, so in a long fight where everybody hits the Hunter will pull ahead but if you account for accuracy I imagine it'd be close to even.

Deep Stalker also gets some REALLY excellent spells.

>>49342782
>- The Beginning of the Tale, or how we met the orcs and learned to fear them.
Just go down the list really. They all sound good.

>>49339150
Levels 13 and 17 are when rangers get level 4 and 5 spells. Those are perks, especially for the Deep Stalker that gets Greater Invisibility at 13 when no other ranger does.

>>49339531
Houserule everything to have logical multi attack damage types.
>don't poke with your longsword

>>49342929
Has anybody homebrew a fixed monk yet?

>>49343126
Fix implies something is broken.

There's an WOT4E rework / revision.

What's the point in being proficient with an instrument if you're already proficient with Perform? I'm thinking of making it so that if you play an instrument you aren't proficient with, you make the Perform check with disadvantage sine it's an instrument you've never learned.

>>49343126
Fix? Maybe you could make an unarmed feat for minus hit/plus damage, and add some magic equipment that's actually useful, but it isn't broken.

Would yo play an universal system with 5e rules?

>>49343265
>Player: I try to do X
>Player rolls dice
>DM: "You succeed/fail and then Y happens."

I don't see why not. It's really not that difficult.

>>49343126

Scaling your martial arts die (via magic items) will help. You shouldn't be the best at damage, but getting to a d12 or 2d6 damage dice will definitely alleviate the problem somewhat. Maybe a magic item that increases your unarmed damage. They don't really NEED a homebrew fix, the only thing I'd like to see is some non-ribbon abilities when they get Tongue of Sun and Moon and the "no longer have to eat" ability, since those are the ONLY things they get at those levels and they don't really have any mechanical impact.

If you wanted to increase what they do out of combat maybe give them the ability to use Dex for athletics or expertise in a very, very limited subset of skills like Acrobatics (or athletics) so their skill checks are stronger I guess. That might be unnecessary though.

What are some tactics kuo-toa in a sewer system might employ if they are looking for someone who is invisible (they just watched him cast invisibility)?

Hey guys. I need the middle earth stuff, is that out yet?

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>>49343332
Seems like not enough people know this thing exists in Hoard of the Dragon Queen.

>>49343431
Yeah it's in the mega.

>>49343457

Yeah, that thing is a nice step (especially if it scales up to +2/+3 eventually), and something that functions like Superior Unarmed Attack from PF/3.5 era would work too (that scales up your unarmed attacks one dice level). You'd still be behind Fighters/Barbs/Rangers/Paladins who can Great Weapon Master/Sharpshooter out TONS of damage, but you'd probably wind up much less behind too.

>>49343521
It's not hard to extrapolate it up to +2 is a rare and +3 is a very rare, considering a generic +1 magic weapon is also an uncommon with no attunement.

Superior Unarmed Strike let a monk count as a higher level. It just let the progression continue when multiclassing if you were a monk. You're thinking of Improved Natural Attack.

>>49343126
Homebrew feats:

Pure ki. (Requires monk level 2)

You dedicated a lot of your training to raise the quantity and quality of your inner energy.
You gain additional ki points equal to a quarter of your monk level rounded up.
Features that utilize more than one ki point to use have their cost reduced by one ki point.

Iron body tempering. (requires monk level 6)

You dedicated a lot of your training to temper your body to further extremes by chaneling your ki in a ritual that strengthens your body even further.

You gain an additional 1Hp per monk level.
You gain +1AC.
You gain a scaling bonus to damage/to hit rolls with unarmed strikes equal to a fifth of your monk level rounded down.

Spell fist. (reqires monk level 5)
You learn 2 cantrips and one level one spell from the sorcerer spell list.
The level one spell slot is recharged once per short rest.
Immediately after casting the spells learned through this feature you may execute an unarmed strike as a bonus action.
Your spell casting ability is Wis and your spell save DC is your ki save DC.

>>49343417
They'd probably just point and go "He's over there." Kuo-Toans can sense invisible beings, and can pinpoint their exact location if it moves.

>>49343574
Why feat-tax the monk when it's already a MAD class? Just say monks get that stuff and be done with it.

>>49343565

In letting you count as a higher level it let you scale your damage dice up higher though Improved Natural Attack served the same purpose.

>>49343574

Giving a monk more Ki is also a neat idea but absolutely don't make it a feat. Monks are MAD as hell and they have almost no room to pick up feats. Personally, I think giving monks +Wisdom modifier to Ki works out fine (it'll give you about 3 extra at low levels and 5 extra at the end of the game, totally manageable).

Working on a group of NPC's who specialize in taking down / hunting wizards and other spellcasters.


Is this ability too powerful? Also how do I word it so it makes sense and isn't as wordy.

>Recharge 5-6
>Once per turn can cast counterspell as a reaction. If a spell is countered in this way, this creature has advantage on all saving throws against the caster of the same spell, and all spell attacks made against this creature from that target are made with disadvantage.
> Only one creature may be under this effect at a time.

Plan on implementing this, and/or a combination of >>49341300 this as well. Paired with things like Mage Slayer, and high movement, I plan on targeting some of my spellcaster players.

>>49343619
>In letting you count as a higher level it let you scale your damage dice up higher
Yeah but that meant you reached the end of your progression sooner. The progression didn't go past 20, and it meant there were some levels it didn't actually do anything. Much simpler to just increase the die size by 1 and not complicate things by referring to the martial arts chart. Also such an item/feat would be useful to non-monks.

>>49343640
Why do you care about the legal-ese of the ability when it's your custom NPC and you know how you want it to work?

>>49343688
>legalese
I keep notes of all my homebrew / custom stuff so I can easily format it later for republishing to DMSGuild and what not.

>>49343487

Obliged, mate.

>>49343669

It was just an example, really. I couldn't remember the name of the other guy that improved your unarmed attacks, and since it was 'controversial' anyways I figured I'd just mention the one that worked. However, IIRC, Superior Unarmed Strike DOES scale your dice past level 20.

It's irrelevant to the discussion anyways though, I guess. The jist of it is if you improve the top end for the Monk's damage it should help them keep up when they start to fall behind.

>>49343640

If you don't have a lot of casters and you get a big group of enemies this basically just says "your casters go afk for combat". I don't like it because of that. Counterspell for free is already really strong.

>>49343640
It would be cleaner if you just made this a bonus action, minus the counterspell
You also don't specify a duration, yet it's a recharge power?
And is there any precedent for an effect only one monster can have on at a time? Why not just not have other monsters with it in play?

>>49343720
>List in stat block under Reactions, set a spellcasting modifier for the creature under a Spellcasting trait.
>Counterspell (Recharge 5-6): Cast Counterspell without using a spell slot. If a spell is countered in this way, this creature has advantage on all saving throws against the caster of the same spell, and all spell attacks made against this creature from that target are made with disadvantage (set a time limit here, like until the end of the caster's next turn).

>>49342366
+1 for stories :)

>>49340251
>>49340202
At the levels I was at, I had pages and pages of abilities. As mentioned before, this was the end of a long campaign.

Then you get two rituals from a limited selection, which are really low-level things that don't realldy feel special for being such a high level Bard. Right, yes, clarification, I was a Bard and there was one or two other spellcasters.
You get some items, maybe. Items generally just give '+X to a skill'. Some skills just give '+X to diplomacy' or something.
Then, there seemed to be some other fluff bonus like 'You can have some people follow you around town' or 'you can always get a carriage'. Didn't really get much use at that point, since you could get many times that with the ridiculous hoard of money.

So it seemed that aside from some things you got right at the start, abilities either give you a flat bonus to skill or you have to find a reason you could use a combat power out of combat. Say, teleport to teleport over a wall. The modifiers by that point are arbitrarily high - Anywhere between about +30 and +50. That's how they simulate 'super powered heroes' - high numbers.

5e uses things such as advantage a lot. Flat bonuses are rarer, and even some combat abilities like 'hex' have clear out of combat usage. Magic items feel unique rather than dime a dozen out of a discount magic item store.

Maybe it works better at levels 1-10 or on a different class but it felt like we were level 1-10s even at level 30 out of combat.

>>49344738
>>49340202
>>49340251
Oh, I will add though, there were some things that I did like.

Healing surges were actually kind of neat. I can't remember the popular opinion on that, but through being a dwarf and stacking up extra health and healing surge value I was 'customize' the bard to be excessively tanky health-wise, aside from the fact anybody can hit them except on a 1.

'Encounter powers' aren't actually too bad an idea I think. It means you don't have to feel ashamed for hassling the DM to give you a short rest where you could definitely take one but when they want to just move along. They weren't the best, but sometimes I dread when a DM doesn't handle rest pacing in 5e properly.

And some of the things about the defences. Allowing one stat or another to be used for a defence is better than 'Dexterity gives you AC and initiative and dex saves and stealth and this and that and if you want to go strength you can go suck a donkey off.'

>>49338643
Got an encounter planned tonight where the players will be demanded a toll from bandits to cross a rope bridge. If they pay the bridge will be cut (unless they surprise me) and the party will fall into the ravine. If they don't pay then the bridge will be cut and they will be stranded on the side they started on.

My question is, how would you guys handle this encounter. I have no intention of killing the players and I plan on having them alive at the bottom of the ravine. Would you guys simply make it a shallow one 20-40 feet deep? Or would you add water or something at the bottom?

This is really just a warm up encounter for them. It's been a week since we played.

What are some interesting ways to decide character creation? I just did a game with arrays, a +1 bonus to any one stat, and a max stat limiter.

Upside was anyone could start with a +3 in their main stat as any race/class combo.

Downside was there was no variance.

I just played in a series of one shots where I had clown town rolled stats despite having 3 different points for character creation, so I was trying to come up with something less stale, but not as random.

>>49344856
My friend made his entire character by rolling a d8 and a d10. Probably a little more random than you want but I thought it was neat.

>>49344738
You get as many rituals as you can buy. If you olny had two, it's because you never bought any..

Few items in 4e just gave skill bonuses. Most were combat oriented, either giving another daily/encounter power, modifying an ability of your class, or having a constantly triggering property, like "+1 AC/Reflex when you shift" or "push one extra square when attacking". If most of your items only gave modifiers to skills, you bought a lot of shitty items.

Diplomacy is a skill, so your third issue is confusing.

>>49344817
Everyone hated heeling surges, believing it was "free healing" Anyone who actually played 4e never had issue with them, but nobody played 4e so popular opinion is the uninformed one.

Short rests in 4e were five minutes. If you have to hassle your DM for five minute reprieves he is intentionally trying to kill you.

>>49344837
Why do the bandits wish to cut the bridge? If it's to loot their bodies, why would they do it if it were easily survivable? Make it deep enough that it shouldn't kill them, but would kill more simple travelers, or else enable the bandits to shoot them from above. Also, let them climb the fallen bridge as a ladder on the side where it's still attached.

>>49338778
Just play a feylock.

>>49344907
Of course, a lot of the items were for combat. Some had a slight skill bonus or something.
I'm not too familiar with the system, so I suppose I never really got myself a chance to buy items that do certain things / more rituals. I didn't see other people use the ritual-like abilities much, though.
However, if you can buy as many (?) as you want, it does sound like it'd be devaluing when you'd have enough money to by all of the rituals anyway rather than a choice between rituals.Not sure if there's a limit.

And skill was supposed to refer to an ability or power or whatever you'll call it.

The short rests is mostly referring to 5e. It's an hour long. If nobody else in your party gets much from a short rest and you're a warlock or something, you'll be hassling everyone else all the time in order to get them unless everybody else needs healing.

There's a road that my players have traveled about 3~4 times now, going back and forth between cities. The last time is because they were hired to protect a caravan going through from bandits and because there have been increasing reports of violence and thuggery on this road.

The kicker is that the reports are just backlash from previous encounters the players have had on this road (kobolds asking for a toll, bounty hunters after them, a random bridge troll). Each time they fight something, they do pretty well massacaring whatever they fight, and leaving the bodies everywhere.

Anyways, they're about to cross this road again, what's a good escalation for this? I was thinking of having armed or professional guard ACTUALLY extorting a toll, or having one of the cities hire the party to hunt down whoever is causing all this violence (IE themselves).

>>49338778
Here's the Shaman character sheet:

1. You are a warlock
2. Instead of a pact option, you may pick the wizard's 'portent' ability
3. You can undercast your spellslots for less cost.
4. You get a different spell list or something, I don't know.
5. Pick a few abilities from other classes and steal them to replace warlock features.

Congratulations, you are now a shaman.

>>49344998
Rituals were notoriously expensive to cast, so no one casted them. Their utility was never at fault; they're pretty much spells ported straight from 3.5 and given a longer casting time so casters can't godmode the game like they used to.

Anyone know if there's a table or search engine for 5e where magic items are sorted by rarity?

>>49344837
What level?
>Warm up encounter
so guessing low, would add water. Personally as a player I'd be wanting to fight the bandits, because bandits.

>>49345091
Never mind, Google was being a derp and not searching properly. Found one on WotC's website.

>>49345005
I guess I'd wonder why bandits and kobolds or whatever keep coming to that road if whoever tries shit there gets slaughtered

>>49342768
No, but there's this
web.archive.org/web/20160531165339/http://ephe.github.io/grimoire/

>>49345080
If they were a flat cost, we'd probably be fine at our level with all that money. So that might've fulfilled the 'I am high level powerful wizard' power fantasy.

Waiter, do you have change for an astral diamond?

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Is it culturally insensitive if I play my half-elf outlander feylock like a feral witchdoctor?

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Alrighty then. First things first: let’s meet the cast and look in horror and disgust at monstrosity that were homerules for this particular campaign.
So, homerules:
- Instead of Inspiration points, we used WIZARD POWER! Points (aka “MWAHAHAHAHAHA I’M UNSTOPPABLE NOW” tokens). They represented our unfinished formal education and hidden wizardly potential. We could use them to increase damage\duration\other effect of spell. Then we rolled d20 against DC told by DM, and if roll was successful, effect applied. In case of failure spell fizzled and was lost. Unbalanced and arbitrary? Yep, but fun nonetheless.
- Each character could use only one spell school. The main source of all fun and madness. I would not recommend trying this with random players: its very, I repeat, VERY easy to abuse the shit out of this.
And… that’s all about homerules. Now, to the players.
When you need worlds saved, a book delivered or cheese eaten, you will find no finer specialists in these fields. Enter The Wizards.
The Red Wizard, Evoker. When he’s not blasting things to oblivion, he parties. The most outgoing person in the group.
The Blue Wizard, Conjurer. The laziest mage ever. He’s also party healer, when he is actually awake.
The Green Wizard, Abjurer. Cool-headed and courageous, he uses crossbow with surprising precision.
The Yellow Wizard, Enchanter. Slightly unhinged (likes to tell inane stories and can’t concentrate on matter on hand at all) but actually the most kind-hearted wizard in the party.
The Black Wizard, Transmuter. Very curious and loves reading history books, he’s our lore expert. Actually a Purple Wizard, but constantly forgets to dye his robe.
Also, The Tome. Huge spellbook of unknown origin. Can levitate a bit, and uses it to follow the Wizards. May or may not be sentient. Party was tasked with delivering The Tome to another magic academy.
With that out of the way, let’s get to the story.

>>49345374
When the gates of the academy closed, the Wizards panicked. They were not accustomed to the life outside of the castle, and had no inclination to change that. After a few minutes of discussion, it was decided to move to the nearest village and try to procure the supplies. And cheese. The group had some money and a map of surrounding lands, so not all was lost. The Wizards embarked, and the Tome followed.
After a few hours of traveling, Green Wizard spotted hunched figures ahead. The group immediately assumed that it was peasants returning to the village. Wizards immediately sprinted forward, hoping to get these commoners to help them by giving them food, money and all that. What else are peasants for?
As it was, these were no peasants, but savage orcs. One of the unfortunate side effects of all these wars between the good guys and bad guys that were fought in the past was that many of the orchish clans were driven almost to extinction. Of course, before that they served the Evil Overlords of Evilness and probably deserved to die, but the thing is - Overlords died, and orcs didn’t. Nowadays most of them abandoned their old ways and tried to build a civilization for once (it worked), but some of the most corrupted orcs disappeared into wilderness, becoming even more sadistic, insane and mutated. These are savage orcs.
Of course, only the Black Wizard knew all that, and even he remembered this too late. One of the orcs spotted the Wizards and started screaming and howling. Savages instantly grabbed their crude weapons and charged at the horrified party.
Fight was short and brutal. All wizards managed to stay alive, but they were shaken, wounded and out of spells. After a heated debate, they decided to march onward instead of resting, because orcs may come back and slaughter them in their sleep.
The worst thing – orcs did come back. Instead of charging at the group, they followed the wizards, waiting for the moment to attack.

>>49344856
Write up a bunch of slips with pre-made base ability score arrays, a background, and a short line with something from the character's early life. Most scores from the array can be arranged as desired, but a few of them (especially the dump stats) might be bound to specific ability scores.

>>49345385
It was unnerving to say the least, but the party knew that they were in no shape to fight, so they just shambled forward. After some time, when the party was crossing small river, orcs finally attacked. Wizards tried fighting back, but orcs were cunning – they stayed in the tree line and threw javelins at the party, constantly changing position, so wizards were unable to use their spells properly. Then it dawned on the Green Wizard – orcs were surrounding them! The group was on the bridge, and javelin flew in them from both directions. Judging by the sounds of it, even of greenskins were arriving. So the wizards jumped into the river, using illusion and dancing lights to cover their escape. After swimming for a bit, wizards returned on land and started running. They were exhausted, wet and wounded, but they ran faster than ever. Soon a village appeared on the horizon, much to the joy of the party. They ran all the way to the tavern, almost jumped inside and locked door behind them. Tavern keeper didn’t allow them to use the basement to hide, though. After a night’s rest, right at the dawn, Wizards were unceremoniously thrown out of the village. Because, apparently, the orcs tracked the group down and still wanted to eat their spleen for breakfast. And villagers were not in the mood to fight a band of mutated cannibalistic monsters for some lousy mages. They were also not in the mood to feed these mages to orcs, so they pointed where the next, more fortified, village was, and woke up the Wizards soon enough that they have a fair chance to get there.
- But of course! – started the Black Wizard. – Orcs are master trackers; really, we shouldn’t be surprised that they managed to find us.
- Well that’s an academic question by now anyway, - said the Red Wizard. – What should we do?
- Run, gentlemen, - calmly answered the Green Wizard. – RUUUUUUUUUUUUN!
And so they ran.

>>49345349
as long as you don't have any half-elves in your group it should be fine

>>49345401
The Wizards managed to get halfway to the next village when the orcs came. Greenskin were armed with huge straight swords that were more akin to the butcher’s knife than sword. Black Wizard, without slowing down, managed to tell everyone that these weapons were called Cleavers and that they were heavy and sharp enough to, well, cleave a grown man apart. This little bit of information helped the party to actually increase their running speed, a thing they were thought impossible. After a long chase, mages managed to lose orcs for a moment, and used this to prepare a little surprise. With creative use of illusion, Grease and Feather Fall the Wizards tricked orcs into falling from a cliff. The fall didn’t kill them, but it slowed them down, and the party needed all advantages they could possibly get.
Mages were on the last stretch before the village when they heard the battle cries of the orcs. The Yellow Wizard used Sleep, but all it managed to do is distract some of the greenskins – too few to actually count for anything. To cover the escape of the Yellow, the Blue used Fog Cloud. They were losing spells for no apparent effect, and the orcs were slowly, but surely catching up with the Wizards.
Epic chase culminated in a bloody battle near the gates of the village. Party was flinging spells with abandon (and spells kept fizzling with equal passion), and villagers were supporting them with arrows from the wooden walls.
At last, the greenskins relented and started retreating. Wizards began cheering and dancing traditional wizardly war dance, which consisted of wildly jumping and flailing hands around.
Villagers here were actually nice and not only gave the mages some supplies but sold some simple weapons as well. Now the group was armed (with staves and daggers) and dangerous (but not very much). After that, all they needed was a bigger map and – as requested by the Blue Wizard, - a nap.

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>>49345411
Well-rested, mages managed to formulate a plan: they would travel east, through the rest of Planes of Boredom-and-Orcs and right into the Harpy Hills of Harpyness and the Windy Mills, human city. Alternative was to take route through the local forest and the more wild part the Planes to the Sapphire Falls, ruins of elven city and trading center for local halflings. It was unanimously agreed that they have seen enough of the savage orcs and their Cleavers, and so the group will go in the direction of the hills instead.

And thus ended our first session. Since then we never mocked the orcs or thought of them as bags of EXP. Not in this campaign, nor in any other.
---
Not the most breathtaking story, this is. I'm sorry if I disappointed anyone. But it was nice change of pace to actually see orcs as formidabble foes instead of low-level punchigng bags.

>>49345374
>>49345385
>>49345401
>>49345411
>noonecares.jpeg

>>49345442
Aw, thanks.

>>49345374
>>49345385
>>49345401
>>49345411
Amusing. I take it this was intended to be a light-hearted campaign from the start.

>>49345374
Well, having a wizard of each spell school does sound like fun if everybody's on board. Probably make it so certain wizards use different spellcasting modifiers.

>>49345543
Yes, it was. It's kind of hard to be serious when the PC are wearing color-coded robes and try to buy a donkey for eight potatoes, to be honest.
>>49345554
It was fun, but it really depends on the players.

Alright, it's almost 3 AM here, I need to get some sleep. If anyone will still be interested then I will post other, hopefully more interesting, stories tomorrow.

>>49344943
I was thinking about having an ogre at the bottom that finishes survivors off and then splits spoils with the bandits. It's going to be pretty open for them to handle however they want. The ogre will cut a deal with them if the price is right.

My party's going to be visiting a city of the undead on the Negative Energy Plane soon.
What environmental effects should I have?

I was thinking 1d6 necrotic damage per round (with specialized spells to counter that), and a Con save every day or gain 1 level of exhaustion, with 6 making them a wraith. Thoughts?

>>49346073
Sounds about right to me. I probably wouldn't bother with the exhaustion thing since I feel like it would be addressed with any sort of protection, and without protection I can't really imagine sleeping or surviving sleeping with 1d6 damage a round

I imagine people don't go to the negative energy plane (intentionally anyway) without some sort of protection in mind unless their goal is elaborate suicide .

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How do I make pic related in 5e?
New player here, though I know the basics of the classes and rules, I just haven't played much D&D for awhile.

>>49346242
What, is it 2009 in here all of a sudden?
She's either a Sorcerer (if you want to focus on lots of blasting magic) or a Druid (if you want to highlight her shapeshifting) and add a hefty dosage of edge that's actually considered pretentious in-universe.

>>49346242
>image.png
Come on man, who is that?

>>49346242
Druid comes to mind

>>49346271
That's Morrigan from the first Dragon Age game.
I guess she's also in the abortion of a third game, but I like to pretend that the series died with the game that was never expected to have a sequel along with the sad shell of a company that made it.

>>49346242
Morrigan is fits druid the best because of her shapechanging but I don't know anyone who ever has use that shit. But her personality I could see her working more as a Warlock(Great Old One) with Pact of Tome

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I'm working on a monk path that enables archery. I've moved away from making it entirely focused on that, but nonetheless I want it to give some bonuses to it.
That said, I'm not sure what the best way to proceed are. I think I'm well off with the level 3 and 6 abilities, but am unsure what to pick for the level 11 and 17 features out of:
>Spend ki to attack a creature within range that is visible to your Spirit Sense, ignoring cover unless there is no unblocked path to them
>Bind spirits with another, allowing benefits such as ability to see through each others' senses as an action, tell their hit points, distance, communicate telepathically, take damage for them, etc
>Ki sink big arrow attack comparable to quivering palm or touch of the long death, but less damage and with rider conditions
>Override the spirit of an enemy, temporarily turning them to your side
Any thoughts? I might use the second ability for 11, and roll some parts of the others up for 17, e.g. a ki sink spectral arrow that ignores cover and imposes a condition, possibly connecting them to the monk's spirit somehow, either allowing limited control or perhaps damage transference.

>>49346305
>But her personality I could see her working more as a Warlock(Great Old One) with Pact of Tome

She's an Asshole Druid, or "Shadow Druid" as 2e was wont to call them.
Basically rather then the "harmony and peaceful nature" type of person they're all about Darwinian cruelty instead.

Which was basically her whole thing.

>>49346242
It's kinda weird how her model looked NOTHING like this in the first game.
This looks more like she did in the first game's cinematic trailer.

Why was Ranger considered to be so weak? And do the revisions really make a difference?

>>49346386
Lack of useful class features and overabundance of ribbons.

Lack of unique class features (still a problem in the revised ranger, but not as bad).

Absolutely dead 1st level.

Beast master's shit action economy and beast survivability.

Overall the feedback WotC got about them immediately after release was poor across the board, in both mechanics and general feel of the class.

>>49346242
Human Druid (Circle of the Moon archetype), with the Outlander or Hermit background.

>>49346330
I've only really hopped on to D&D with 4e so I was unaware of Shadow Druid but her whole thing with wanting to have the Old God Baby and then fuck off through the mirror just gave me more of a warlock vibe.

>>49346386
The Hunter Ranger was okay, but Beastmaster was weak.
The overall abilities of the Ranger had often little combat benefit either, problematic on /tg/ where effectiveness of a class is mostly based on combat.

The Ranger was hardly "useless", especially compared to earlier editions, but it wasn't the best and many players would have liked it to be better.

Would giving the berserker barbarian the ability to reduce exhaustion by 2 per long rest fix the archetype? Any other simple changes I could make?

>>49346451
In terms of the DA franchise, yes.
But in the DA franchise, ALL magic is functionally identical and such and so simply comparing personality isn't really a good starting point.
Wynn would make a fantastic Cleric for instance, except she's technically the equivalent of a Wizard. That should show you the difficulties of a direct port.

Morrigan makes no pacts for her magic (she just was taught it) and actually fits the description of a NE Druid (or CN trying really hard to be edgy, which I actually think is close to the truth in-universe considering how much she mellows out); she's mean-spirited, uses nature magic, disdains civilized laws and structures, often craves power not because of what she can do with it (Warlocks usually have goals in mind, hence being willing to make desperate bargains for power) but because having power is how the strong survive in nature so more of it is always good.

Plus I imagine some evil Druids would be okay getting knocked up with weird superior predator babies, but that's something not touched upon in D&D because it's basically PG most days.

>>49346418
>>49346453
I ask because we've got one in our group that is helpful because of favoured terrain and damage output. They seem a bit one trick pony and a little boring to play, but not completely useless.

What's the reasoning behind Hammer of Thunderbolts requiring Belt of Giant strength AND Gauntlets of Ogre power when both of those items do the exact same thing?

One of my players has a 'lesser' belt (sets strength to 19), and I'm considering having the party find the Hammer as well, and letting that player attune to the hammer with just the belt equipped.

Game breaking? A hassle? Unnecessary?

>>49346558
You don't need to ATTUNE to those, just be WEARING those. Don't attune to the gauntlets.

>>49346540
asshole druids are pretty fun to play, honestly

Hi, i'm not well versed in the monster manual and i've been trying to look for roughly 9ft tall humanoid creatures consisting of 2 legs and 2 arms and 1 head for disguising purposes? if anyone knows any scary monsters that fit this category i'd love to know.

>>49346558
They used to do different stuff, and it was a sacred cow so they left it in. Do what you want. If you want to keep things mechanically balanced to what it says, have it take up the appropriate number of attunement slots

>>49343073
At least they finally got rid of the nonsensical longsword/bastard sword distinction.

>>49346549
It's not completely useless at all.
That's basically 3e and 4e logic where if everything isn't in Top Tier it actually IS totally pointless, which is not the case in 5e.

However PHB 5e Ranger had very few ways it could be built in a fashion that made it super functional, and the limitation of the class compared to some other classes (Champion Fighter for example is mechanically boring but also quite effective) felt kinda lame.

But no, it wasn't "bad" and wasn't "terrible".
Just wasn't as good as others.

>>49346603
There are non-asshole druids..?

>>49346558
Are you not familiar with the Thor myth?
In the actual mythology of Thor, Mjolnir was so heavy that he needed a magic belt that increased his strength tenfold to lift it, and even then he needed special gloves that he wore to control it's weight to use it effectively in combat.

The Hammer of Thunderbolts is classic Mjolnir.

>>49346669
Sure.
Most Druids aren't particularly dickish and often seem like overworked environmentalists in settings they show up in; maybe a bit cranky but not deliberately mean.
Morrigan was deliberately mean to cover up how she was insecure about pretty much everything after leaving the swamp.

Does anyone have the Sword Coast Adventures Maps?

The Trove just has the city maps but not the overland maps and that is what I am looking for.

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>>49346810
This is the only overland map in the SCAG.

>>49346810
The giant-ass one is in the Supplements folder.

>>49340955
As a potentially helpful point, Great Old One doesn't have to be Lovecraft, it works as The Force or an Aboleth as well.

Just so long as it's powerful, not of this realm, and primordially old.

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>>49340877
>>49340945
Read the fucking book.

Anybody have a copy of The Holdenshire Chronicles (Act 1): The Ills of Hengistbury [Revised] from En5ider? That's the only one missing.

>>49346840
>>49347015
okay thanks.
Thought there where more that showed additional details that the large map didn't.

If its just that map than I guess I can segment it into regions and print them that way.

What would be a good pick for a cleric who worships dragons, as far as gods go? Specifically they worship all dragons, metallic and chromatic alike. Bahamut and Tiamat seem too extreme.

>>49347052
You might be thinking of the maps from Princes of the Apocalypse and stuff like that.
>>49347062
Bahamut and Tiamat are usually the only dragon deities of note, but they ARE only deities of dragons.

I guess your guy is just a weird cultist then, like those Cult of the Dragon weirdos?

>>49342034
Put a bullet in your head.

Does anyone know if there is a good overland map for the Storm King's Thunder adventure?

I see there is a really well detailed one in the Roll20 app but I don't think you can download/copy those outside of the Roll20 program.

I find it highly frustrating trying to track down all the maps for that module since none of them seem to be all in one place, I fear i'm going to have to scan the actual book and fuck around with them.

>>49347172
The hi-res map of the North is going to be released in the next few days (from WotC's Extra Life fundraising). You can also use the bigger Sword Coast map from SCAG, in the Mega under Rulebooks -> Supplements.

A bunch of the maps from it are already in the Mega (as is the adventure itself). It's missing a few of them that were done by a different artist though.

>>49347207
okay thanks!
Yeah I notice the Trove only has maps from one artist in it and I can't find anywhere maps for a lot of the towns/adventure locations.

Really hope the overland map gets released before this weekend since that is when I will be running it.

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>>49347062
>>49347094
See the 3.5 Draconomicon (attached) for details, page 30-36 The TL;DR is:
>Aasterinian: CN goddess of invention and play
>Astilabor: N goddess of the horde and wealth
>Bahamut
>Chronepsis: N god of fate, time and knowledge
>Falazure: NE god of darkness, energy draining, and undeath
>Garyx: CE god of destruction and death
>Hlal: CG goddess of trickery and stories
>Io: N god of dragonkind itself
>Lendys: LN god of justice
>Tamara: NG goddess of healing, light, and mercy
>Tiamat

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If anyone has bought Storm King's Thunder or LMoP and wants to contribute the maps, you can rip them like this:
- open Firefox or Chrome, load Roll20, go into the game that has the campaign assets in it
- hit F12
- go to the Network tab
- open the map page with the map you want to rip on it
- filter for for Img (Other on Firefox)
- sort by size
- the biggest ones are likely to be the maps

Chrome has thumbnails but Firefox doesn't. The one's that start with data: are ones loaded by Roll20 via JavaScript and then drawn dynamically. In Chrome you can right click the preview and hit Save.

>>49347062
>>49347252
Forgot to mention this, but Io definitely sounds like who you want. Neutral, has no enemies at all, and is only interested in the continued survival of dragonkind.

>>49347252, >>49347281
Why would anyone want to worship "dragons in general" anyway?

>>49347373
Because dragons in general are awesome?

>>49347386
In the old sense of awe inspiring, sure. They're a bit too over done to be cool.

>>49347483
>They're a bit too over done to be cool.
I'm really having a hard time imagining any character thinking this...

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>>49342929
>they don't get abilities like Great Weapon Master or Sharpshooter to skyrocket their damage

Rokushiki homebrew best Monk subclass.

>>49340337
Hilarious. The 2e MM was like that.

>>49340476
Dual-wielding barbarian does very little damage compared to two-handed weapon. Also, you'll have to decide between raging and making your third attack.

>>49347386
>>49347483
>>49347502
The first Dragon Age had a line about Dragon Cultists that sums them up quite nicely.

>Elven Knight Lady: "Why would anyone want to worship a dragon anyway?"
>Nerdy Shut-In Mage: "Dragons are BIG and LOUD and POWERFUL and BREATH FIRE! Some people are easily impressed, I guess."

>>49347641
>>49347641
>>49347641

New brad.

>>49347373
Yeah. That's kind of stupid.

Just the one dragon is probably fine.

There could easily be a symbiotic relationship with humans and a non-marysue-dragon.

The dragon is powerful and protects the people, and wise.
The dragon, however, cannot do everything themself, and having lots of minions who can keep watch and make and do things is very useful. Not to mention, dragons are unlikely to be great at making gold and stuff themselves.

On the other hand, a mary sue dragon would probably just use telekinesis or magic to instantly do all those things and render humans useless.

On a larger scale - Many dragons and an entire civilization, this could mean that you could have a civilization that worships 'dragons in general'.

>>49339178
Actually, I do have a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting, but it's more of a "Mournland (Eberron) meets Fallout" over-setting, with the whole world blowing itself to hell in a magical world war. Could I fit this "homage" in a setting like that, or does it kind of depend on the idea that the rest of the world is less messed up?

On a different topic; in a monstrous PC party featuring a kobold and a goblin, which do you think would more believably make for a Life Domain cleric, and what god could you see it worshipping? I can kind of see a Goblin Cleric of Lamashtu courtesy of Pathfinder, but maybe a Kobold could have some kind of tribal "mother-goddess" it could worship as well?

>>49341217
5e is closer to packets of mana being spent on otherwise convoluted programs you assigned macros in your brain.

You know a certain jumber of programs. You assign macros to a number of programs you know, so they can be triggered on-demand. Things stay assigned a macro until you assign it to a different program. And given some time, you can re-assign your macros, though the more complex the program the longer it takes.

Rituals then, are programs also capable of pulling in their mana from the surrounding environment instead, given an additional 10-minute timeframe to the normal casting time, likely due to a combination of charge time and not bring cast with a macro.

>>49341746
Sure, but pathfinder has a complete srd available free online, unlike 5e.

>>49347617
Well okay, so a video game had the author's own logic inserted into character dialogue. That really helps convince me that most folk wouldn't be impressed by a dragon. Of course it makes sense for *us* to be unimpressed by dragons when they're so prevalent in fiction, but if they were real and we had to share the same world with them we'd likely think different.

>>49341430


>>49341430
Makes me think of an eldritch accountant. A mathemagician. You started out a bad gambler when the cult offered you money for your basement. Eventually you started wondering how these crazies always have money. So you go through their books. Now you're a gambler with a SYSTEM. You understand the REAL VALUE of the NUMBERS. They control the world. You're sure of it.

>>49340249
In abstract it's like any other skill use in noncombat encounters. But, it was also presented exceedingly poorly for most of 4e's lifespan.