/5eg/ D&D 5th Edition General

Bringing this to the new thread:
Anyone got any resources to learn more about the 5 FR Factions (Harpers, Zhentarim, Lord's Alliance, Emerald Enclave, Order of the Gauntlet)?

>>49772330
read the wiki, idiot

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I've actually used music to plot out my character's background and events before the game. Really helps round out the personality.
D'yer Mak'er, Peace of Mind, Live and Let Die, Behind Blue Eyes, Blackbird.
I'm a lawful evil bard, sue me.

>>49772330
Several thread ago, a kind anon had posted documents for this exact purpose. I distinctly remember he had linked 3 PDFs which were solely to do with each of the factions.

>>49772357
Thanks buddy but I meant more in-depth stuff like sourcebooks as the wiki is often vague and poorly sourced.

Bringing this over from the last thread.

>>49772248
This, seriously. It wouldn't be hard to change the pact blade feature to read this.

>At Level 5, your skill with the blade improves. When you use the Attack action with your Pact Weapon you may attack twice instead of once.
>At level 12, you add your Charisma modifier as extra damage to damage rolls made with your Pact Weapon.

This goes a long way to solve problems all by itself. Giving them some better armor would help a lot too.

>>49772383
no it isn't. most of the shit on the wiki is word for word taken from splatbooks. just go read

http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Harpers

and do that for each of the others. there's literally no other option, you stupid fag

>>49772408
[citation needed]
Also, you seem to have some issues, you're getting so mad over nothing. Please seek therapy.

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>>49772464
the citation you are asking for, you stupid shit, is literally at the bottom of the article i posted. its cited. there are literal citations but you are too stupid to look. go look. the citations are all official works.

>>49772408
>>49772383
>>49772330

Though the anon is getting needlessly irate, his advice is nonetheless true. The Wiki does have a decent amount of information which is plenty to act as a foundation. Plus if you look at their references, you can find the names of the splatbooks needed and then search them yourself. So, you could wisen up yourself anon...

Nevertheless, I had downloaded the PDFs that the other anon had posted when this same question came up before:

Code of the Harpers (which is also extensively referenced to in the wiki) - http://www112.zippyshare.com/v/NKI7rCrY/file.html

Ruins of Zhentil Keep
http://www42.zippyshare.com/v/URutvIJ1/file.html

Vilhon Reach
http://www117.zippyshare.com/v/WWK1VRDm/file.html

>>49772499
If you read the damn pages it's full of [citation needed]s, I've read the page, so please fuck off.

>>49772532
Thank you kindly.

>>49772330
Which do you want to know about?
I can give lots of details but most of them are relevant to 2e and 3e mostly, though 5e does kind of have a 2e flavor.

>>49772596
better cite every word or hell shit his panties

4e was pretty good.

>>49772672
b8

>>49772387
Probably not a bad idea, the armor I feel may not be as needed, just get the Armor of Agathys invocation with some Dex. Especially if people want to do the charisma for attacks and damage of the weapon they shouldn't get better armor. An 18 AC platemail full caster with extra attack seems odd, why even go paladin?

They have to be weak somewhere so keep the armor minimal. Give them the armor if you don't give them charisma mod for attacks and damage.

I stand by my suggestion last thread. Spell slot for 1 minute of bonuses such as reach, d4 damage on hit, charisma mod damage to Allies, knock prone on hit.

>>49772672

Balance results in boring crap play where no sucks and no one is great either, Boring homogenized garbage for players and DMs that lack imagination, ability and skill who rely soley on crunch as a crutch.

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>>49772672
>>49772784

This makes so much sense: http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html

So I'm planning on starting up an adventure with me and my friends. This will be the first time trying out DnD for all of us. We're about 5 people and I will most likely be DM'ing due to being the most read up on DnD.

Do you guys have any advice for what we should do as a first adventure / quest to see if it's going to work or not? Also any general advice for a DM would be awesome!

Fixing Pact Blade.

Add the following to the end of the Pact Blade section.

>At Level 5, your skill with the blade improves. When you use the Attack action with your Pact Weapon you may attack twice instead of once. At level 12, you add your Charisma modifier as extra damage to damage rolls made with your Pact Weapon. The extra damage is of the same type that your weapon normally deals.

The Thirsting Blade and Lifedrinker invocations are removed and replaced with the following

>Heartseeker Curse
>Requires Pact of the Blade
>Your weapon is driven by your patron's magic, rather than your own skill. You use Charisma to make attack and damage rolls with your Pact Weapon.

>Hexblade
>Requires 7th level, Pact of the Blade
>When you use your action to cast a spell that has a casting time of 1 action or less, you may use a bonus action to make an attack with your Pact Weapon.

>>49772955
just do starter set adv

>>49772957
That's not fixing it that's having the same problem. Any pact of the blade user HAS to get those hands down.

If you are gonna do invocations pick things that they won't all use.

>>49772596
Honestly I just need general info on all of them.
I've just run Lost Mines, the players have received offers from various factions, I want to include the factions at least a little.

>>49772955
Run Lost Mine of Phandelver, it's really good for people in this situation.

>>49772957
Should add medium or heavy armor prof in there somewhere. Or maybe "CHA instead of DEX to AC" but that may be too SAD for 5e.

>>49772978
>That's not fixing it that's having the same problem. Any pact of the blade user HAS to get those hands down.

Not really. You can ignore CHA and focus on no save/attack spells (Hex, misty step,etc.).

>>49772978
Here is an example:

Requires Pact of the Blade:
When you summon your pact weapon you also summon a shield in your offhand. While wielding this shield you are proficient in shields.

Done.

>>49772978
While SAD is nice, you still want Dexterity for a better defense in melee.

>>49773070
>SAD is nice
It really isn't and anyone pushing to make SAD a thing again is peddling canceraids

>>49773050
With heartseeker an invocation why would I not pump Cha for amazing attacks and amazing spell attacks and DCs.

Tomorrow I'll be DMing the first part of Curse of Strahd, the Death House. Any advice?

>>49773105
Expect the possibility of a TPK, unless your party is lucky and/or clever.

>>49773105
Let your players know that sometimes standing and fighting is a bad idea and remember that the monster near the end has to squeeze through the corridors rather than being able to move freely

>>49772987
>Harpers
As a faction they're NG I'd say since they include all alignments. They work like a distributed spy network; they have a base at Berdusk in the Western Heartlands that houses the "High Harpers" but lots of Harpers never meet them and from a technical standpoint the organization doesn't require them. While they ARE a good-aligned group they tend to kind of stick their noses in shit where they aren't wanted so a lot of local governments are kinda annoyed by them.
>The Zhentarim
Back in the day they were basically Captain Planet villains led by an insane archwizard and his clones and aligned with the church of the setting's most aggressively evil deity and had beholders working for/with them too.
Now they seem like like Mafia; you take care of them and they take care of you, and supposedly are "legitimate businessman"
>The Emerald Enclave
They used to be headquartered in a completely different part of Faerun, the Vilhon Reach, and were a lot less nicer in general. Formerly when one city kept over logging one city they basically released a plague to depopulate it to get them to stop. They immediately healed it once enough people had died, but during 2e they were NOT afraid to fuck you up if you decided to disrespect nature.
>The Order of the Gauntlet
Brand new faction for 5e so there's not too much about them. There's actually a LOT of religiously inspired knightly orders in Faerun, so they aren't too weird, just very active in 5e.
They seem interested in proactively fighting evil instead of reacting to it.
>Lord's Alliance
Fantasy United Nations basically.
"Agents" of the Alliance actually serve one of it's members at the behest of the rest and the different city states in it actually come into conflict over political stuff still, they just agree that peace is easier to deal with politically.

>>49773159
Thanks.
Do you know any easy comparisons to explain the factions to a group of complete newcomers?
"Fantasy UN" paints a very clear picture, so that was a good one.

>>49773176
and don't forget citations

>>49773176
>Harpers
Fantasy Spy Network of Good
>Gauntlet
Crusading Knightly Order Fights Evil
>Zhentarim
Fantasy Mafia
>Emerald Enclave
Fantasy Environmental Protectionists

>>49773202
>>49773159
>On All Levels Except Physical, I am a Good
>[Proceeds to further stagnant progress]

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>>49773194

>>49773194
The fact you're so hung up on this really makes me feel for you bro
Hope everything's okay

>>49773236
I remember seeing a thread a while back that basically said the Harpers are terrorists

>>49773202
>Harpers
Bunch of Robin Hoods

>Gauntlet
Knights of the Round Table

>Zhents
Super spooky evil mafia

>Emerald Enclave
Fantasy green party

>>49772957
Take 2, then.

Add the following to the end of the Pact Blade section
.
>You gain proficiency in Medium Armor.
>At Level 5, your skill with the blade improves. When you use the Attack action with your Pact Weapon you may attack twice instead of once. At level 12, you add your Charisma modifier as extra damage to damage rolls made with your Pact Weapon. The extra damage is of the same type that your weapon normally deals.

The Thirsting Blade and Lifedrinker invocations are removed and replaced with the following

>Twinned Curse
>Requires Pact of the Blade
>When you form your Pact Weapon, you may form a second, identical copy in your off hand. If you hit a creature with one of your Pact Weapons, you gain Advantage on your next attack roll against that creature with your other Pact Weapon. This Advantage is lost if not used by the end of your next turn and you may only have Advantage against one creature at a time. Your Pact Weapon must be a light, one-handed weapon in order to use this Invocation.

>Fiendbound Gauntlet
>Requires Pact of the Blade
>When you form your Pact Weapon, you may also form a large protective gauntlet on your other hand. Treat this gauntlet as a Shield for all purposes, save that it does not interfere with any Somatic components of your spells. Your Pact Weapon must be a one-handed weapon to use this Invocation.

>Hexblade
>Requires 7th level, Pact of the Blade
>When you use your action to cast a spell that has a casting time of 1 action or less, you may use a bonus action to make an attack with your Pact Weapon.

Can someone help me with some math?

Player lvl +/- difficulty= encounter lvl
Encounter lvl = Monster lvl

So I have
A-/+D=B
B=C

But I can't figure how to get C connected to the standard XP of a monster of the same level (F) to get the number of XP points of the encounter (G) to multiply by the number of players (E)

Anyone able to finish this formula with a proper appendix?

>>49773259
>Terrorism is inherently evil rather than just a tactic
Burger, plz

>>49773307
I never said or implied that, I was referencing another thread
Also, I'm English.
And I'm not going to debate morality on a Kenyan snorkeling imageboard.

>>49773236
If you mean Harpers, it actually mostly seems like their job is spying on other evil groups like crime organizations and the Zhentarim and then hiring adventurers to foil their plots.
Supposedly they check the ambition of other nations too, except they actually seem to have no time to do that since Faerun is fucking lousy with people that want to shit the bed before you even get into the regional politics.

If you mean the Emerald Enclave, they actually used to be a TN organization.
Weirdly a lot of the recent big adventures actually WOULD draw their attention because the scale of them would fuck up nature pretty bad, but the current Enclave seems a lot less hardassed at times based on their mission description.

Gandalf was a textbook Harper. He moved subtly urging others to do what was necessary.

>>49773302
I like that Fiendbound Gauntlet thing. Not sure why, probably just the visuals.

>>49773332
Pretty much, and Elminster was based off him but in red instead of grey.
An old 2e sourcebook mentions that the reason the Harpers work so indirectly is because they can't ever really call for "reinforcements" as most aren't even really sure how many of them there are at any given moment or where they are, so the tend to do the Gandalf thing and join existing adventuring groups and get THEM to save the day.

>>49773331
>>49773307
We just conveniently ignoring the fact they sabotage technology and scientists which could usher in a industrial age and lift millions out of starvation of poverty?

Ok.

>>49773302
What about:

>Invocation
>Bloodrite Resilience
>Requires Blade Pact, Level ??
>Your maximum hit points increase by an amount equal to your warlock level plus your Charisma modifier, and you gain proficiency in Constitution saving throws.

Kind of helps the squishy warlock stay in melee.

>>49773459
That's a pretty big jump. Not that I disagree with it, but it should probably be comparable to Tough.

>>49773491
Maybe drop the save prof?

Just something so they don't get fucked in melee.

>>49773437
We should be thankful, D&D wouldn't exist if it wasn't for their heroic efforts to destroy progress and subvert the industrial revolution

>>49773305
Never mind I got it.
Player lvl(A) -/+ Encounter difficulty(D)= Encounter lvl(B)
Encounter lvl(B) = Monster lvl(C)
# of PCs(E) x Standard XP of (C)(F)= Encounter XP(G)

A+/-D = B B = C E x F= G

>>49773437
I mean, the Harpers are pretty shit and largely an excuse to justify medieval stasis (iirc they act like peasants getting gunpowder is horrible at some point, admittedly the fluff has always been predominantly stuck in 2e so when 3e came out they just pretended nothing had changed)

When does War Magic come online?

How would you have designed the core 5e classes?

Has anyone ever made a witcher archtype for 5th ED?

>>49773614
Check out Matt Mercer's Blood Hunter, I don't know much (anything) about the Witcher series but I've heard of a lot of people using it as an approximation

>>49773459
>>49773502
I could see something like...

>Bloodrite Resilience
>Requires Level 5, Pact of the Blade
>You gain proficiency in Constitution Saves. You also increase your maximum hit points by your Warlock level and it increases by an additional 1 every time you gain a new level.

But this is treading the ground of too good to not take.

What's a way to help a DM out? Mine seems a bit stressed and I don't know how to people.

>>49773656
Why is he stressed? You could just talk to him and see what's up.

>>49773656
Thank him for running the game
Buy him a small gift, like dice or a cool mini
Cook or bake him something
Suck his dick
Make some art or a short piece of writing about the campaign
Give him a massage
Ask him if he needs anything

>>49773643
A few options could be:

>Gain proficiency in constitution saves, and increase your maximum hit points by your Charisma modifier.
>Increase your maximum hit points by your warlock level plus your charisma modifier.
>Increase your maximum hit points by your Charisma score
>Increase your maximum hit points by your Charisma score plus your Charisma modifier.

>>49773614
- Blade Pact Archfey Warlock would give you all his power set but limits you to light armor (not an issue going by pure books, an issue going by the games)
- Eldritch Knight would have difficulty getting all of the signs covered, particularly Axii, unless the DM let you change the EK list
- Monster Hunter and Ranger in general dn't have the right spell list
- Valor Bard is too casting oriented and won't cover well for two of the signs in the game

Basically the absolute best would be either blood hunter or one of the magus homebrews but I'm always dubious about homebrew.

>>49773570

I just play them as a spy network of bureocrats, ie, The Bard faction

>>49773259
one mans terrorist is anothers freedom fighter

>>49773733
Or, for more interesting ideas than con save proficiency:

>Inhuman Vigor
>Blade Pact, level 5 required
>When you are subjected to an effect that requires you to make a Constitution saving throw, you may instead make a Charisma saving throw in its place. You must complete a short rest before using this ability again.

Add in bonus HP to taste, or change it to cha mod uses/long rest.

>>49773733
>>49773643
Just split it up.
>Bloodrite Resilience
>Requires Level 5, Pact of the Blade
>Choose one of the following. You may select this Invocation again to gain a benefit you did not choose originally. This Invocation cannot be selected more than twice.
>You gain proficiency in Constitution Saves.
>Your Hit Dice increase to 1d10
>You increase your maximum hit points by your Warlock level and it increases by an additional 1 every time you gain a new level.

>New session
>Min-maxing friend asks DM if he could use ONE homebrew weapon
>"It's just a Polearm with finesse, brah. It's not going to break your game."
>Goes full dex-fag
>+3 AC, +5 THB, +3 damage, all with decent HP and Wisdom for clerical spells
>Outclasses everyone with Polearm master, the stupidest feat in the game

Good thing the DM isn't letting him bring that shit next session.

>>49773437
Temple of Gond did that too actually.
Harpers aren't the only ones.

>>49773830
Yeah, there's a reason why there's no finesse polearms in the book.

>>49773846
Wait, what?
I thought Gond was all about invention?

>>49772672

I personally think 4e was pretty good, but you're just a shit-stirring bait- shoveller, quit it.

>>49773830
The only broken part of that is level 1 pole arm master, really. You could do the same with a strength based war or tempest domain.

>>49773727
>Suck his dick
>assuming DM is male

Why is war magic a 7th level class feature?
Fuck, now I can't play a magus in 5e.

>>49772284
700HP hydra lads, died with 13 heads on the go.

NEVER AGAIN

>>49773882
He also gets shit like better initiative, dex saving throws, all those dex based skills, and whatever.

Sure, it doesn't completely break the game, but it makes strength pretty much useless.

>>49773302
What about something for 2handers?

>>49773932
You should have used the False Hydra.

>>49773913
Crazily enough all but one of those lines assumed gender but you had to go and pick the one that brings biological sex into it you cis shitlord

>>49773932

Did you try it's back?

>>49773848
Aren't two handed quarterstaves a finesse weapon for monks or something?

>>49773913
>>49773997
Leave it to /pfg/ where it belongs.

>>49773953

>Vicious Maiming
>Requires, Pact of the Blade
>Once per round when you hit a creature with your Pact Weapon, you can cause a terrible wound to render it more vulnerable. The creature has disadvantage on the next saving throw it makes before the start of its next turn.

>>49774193
Forgot this
>Your Pact Weapon must be a two-handed weapon in order to use this Invocation.

>>49774109
Quarterstaff doesn't have reach and isn't technically finesse regardless of monk class features

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>>49773913
Suck their happy spot.

>>49774259
I want Cure Peace to suck my happy spot

>>49774109
I think but you aren't going to be using polemaster feat with monk since you already have it with flurry of blows

>>49774234
Actually, Quarterstaff applies as a Monk weapon, so Strength or Dexterity can be applied.

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Best spells or ways of playing an Illusionary Wizard?

>>49774372
Phantasmal Force is one of my favorite illusion spells. Short of the victim succeeding on its save, it has insane uses.

>>49774339
I know, but that doesn't make it finesse - for example it won't trigger Sneak Attack even if a Monk wields it AFAIK.

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I keep reading all these posts on forums about how berserker barbarian is a low tier choice, but my experience has been vastly different. My berserker does about 60% of the total damage done by the party and is able to tank any and all physical damage thanks to rage. Am I just lucky to have a DM that designs encounters that favor my choices or are people wrong?

How does 5e combat compare to 4e and 3.xe combat, /5eg/?

Any advice for running 5e combat?

>>49774589
I think it's when you compare them in a vacuum Totem is better than Berserker.

Plus fatigue is a bitch.

>>49774644
Simpler, faster, and every class is good in it.

Do demonic cults legitimately give their patron any form of strength, or does the fiend only give them strength to do their bidding?

Would it make sense for a fiend to start a cult to eliminate other cults to weaken potential rivals that could challenge their dominance in the abyss?

>>49774746
Some do, some don't. Often times the power invested is just enough to cause some havoc, but not enough to be worth keeping tabs on.

>>49772387
Everything you just said reeks of

>people going pact of the blade so they get a bunch of pure combat bonuses, especially armour, without any investment other than a pact they took at level 3 instead of something less combat focused

This is a fucking dumb idea, and it has been suggested way too many times.

Pact of the blade should not exist.
Pact of the blade should never have existed.

It does not fit in in any way.

Unlike all other pacts, it is purely combat orientated.
Unlike other pacts, the pact effect itself is not awfully good at all and requires invocations to use.
Unlike other pacts, it's encouraging a gateway to a new playstyle instead of what a pact is - a choice of different utilities, some of which may aid combat.


There needs to be a full overhaul of warlock or a variant warlock to make bladelocks work. Things like giving all warlocks extra attacks on level 5, or that sort of thing.

If you want bladelocks as a level 3 option, pacts themselves need to be overhauled.

A single level 1 archetype or a level 3 pact alone isn't supposed to change your playstyle as dramatically as bladelock does, but a level 1 archetype designed around meleelocking is way better than a level 3 pact.

I often see people complain in these threads about how bad things like sorc, blade lock etc are, but does it usually have an impact in your games?

I'm playing a WM sorcerer atm, and it certainly isn't the strongest, but I don't really feel crippled. Even if I was, combat isn't the only part of the game, so I don't know that I'd be as bothered as a lot of people seem.

>>49773997
twas just a jest x
>assuming I'm cis

>>49774832
Sorcerers don't have a lot of stuff outside of combat, usually.

Sorcerers aren't far behind and have a couple of good niches, but a wizard would have so much more utility, and probably be more fun if you can't cope with doing a lot.

Bladelock will probably affect your team negatively when you charge to the frontlines and die all the time from being squishy.

>>49774820
Bladelocks are specifically supposed to be melee warlocks, to emulate Elric and the Stormbringer. There's no reason to give standard Warlocks better melee combat capability, it should be reserved for Bladelocks.

>>49774820
The existence of bladepact is not and has never been the problem. It not being some sort of witch in a hut is, if anything, a neat variation.

>>49774872
Normal warlocks won't use the extra attack anyway, because eldritch blast is so much better. They'd only use it in very limited circumstances.
But it just wouldn't be right to give a pact option 'you get extra attacks and this and that', because that's too deviant to how pacts work.
Then again, you could probably get away with it, because pact of the blade is already 'You get... Uhh.. Proficiency with a weapon, I guess? And you can hide it. If you want anything not trash, level up and spend invocations."

Blade warlocks would still distinguish themself some other way, like a lifedrinker effect or something that makes it actually viable to melee.

>>49774896
The concept isn't bad. The fact that it exists as a pact option is.

>>49774644
Simpler, less interesting, compared to 4e. If your group wants interesting combat, you have to do a lot more work as a dm to deliver it.

My advice is to look up the angry dm guide to good combat. It has a lot of generally good advice, but one thing I'd add is to make combat happen across multiple scenes. So if you have a battlemap of one scene, that's great. But think about the areas around that scene. How do those affect the enemies decision making? Add important objectives or dangerous complications to rooms outside the battle, that encourage the party moving around maps while fighting.

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What's the best way to play something like pic related in 5e?

>>49774951
The main problem is that it and valor bard compete for the gish slot and valor does it better because its fighting abilities are free.

If I was to tweak anything, I'd keep Lock as is but make a half-caster Arcane Gish as its own class, possibly as a bard replacer, with Magical Secrets going to Sorc.

>>49774833
>not realising the post you're replying to was a joke
Maximum Poe's Law capacity

Anyone willing to write an in story letter for me from a High Captain of Luskan to the leader of a band of pirates declaring war against them?

>>49775000
Low Cha, Low Wis vengeance paladin

>>49775061
Sure anon, I'll roleplay for you.

Are you the bandit, the captain, or the dm?

>>49775003
Valor bard is more like a gish done right. The bard chooses between two big choices. Pacts are just minor extra features, really.

Problem is, we already have a half-caster ranger and a half-caster paladin that go around whacking things.
Warlock is nice in that it offers a unique spellcasting system and those invocations, but it should focus less on that eldritch blast spam. The eldritch blasts is a large part of why there's no point to meleelocking.

>>49775061
'lol what are you some faggot fishreman fite me 1on1 not online we'll see what happens scrub you're only a 1d8 hitdie class

much love and endowiments,
the carptain
Not secretly a carp.'

I'm very new to D&D, and I have a stupid question: can Dragonborn eat raw meat? I'm playing a Barbarian and I want to gross my party out by eating a live wild animal.

>>49775133
Technically you could just fucking do it and your DM would say 'roll con' or something and if you had 16 con instead of a child's 8 or something you'd have a ~ 20% better chance of coming out fine.

A dwarf would be better at it.

So I for my new campaign I gave my players the option of playing as a clockwork person, and one player said he wanted to. When making the character however he said that he wanted to not speak common. He also however wanted to put his 15 into charisma and be able to do perfectly normal persuasion checks without disadvantage. I told him it was silly and he would end up regretting it, thus I said he couldn't do it. This ended up causing an argument which has now resulted in him not wanting to play even though I offered him the opportunity to prove how a robot who cannot speak common will somehow be able to reasonably persuade people. Note that whilst he tried to argue he could speak other languages, he did not know exactly how many, and even then it will still be troublesome if he was trying to talk to a human. Am I an arsehole or am I right not to allow people to make these kinds of mistakes?

>>49775159
So Dragonborn DON'T eat raw meat. Bummer.

Definitely still doing it.

>>49775106
Why not just make a Warlock archetype for fighters?

>>49775171
Fire dragonborn can chargrill whenever they want to, they don't need to eat raw meat

>>49775167
Don't say 'no'.
Make sure they're fully aware of every consequence.

A skill proficiency isn't a big deal.
Persusasion might sometimes be used in a non-verbal way, perhaps, like if signalling for surrender or to show you're unarmed or something, maybe? I don't know. And even then, other languages.

Once they're fully aware of the problems, let them go ahead as long as it doesn't make things especially hard for you or other players.

>>49775212
Wouldn't really work, archetypes don't allow that level of spellcasting.
You could make a semi-warlock with that, though. It's nice to have a short-rest based full caster, but a semi-caster would still work if the full caster option still existed somewhere.

quick question: if one gave bladelocks the ability to use their charisma for attack and/or damage with their pact weapon, would that be too much? what about extra attack at about level 5, but there's no longer an invocation for it? trying to make as few tweaks as possible to make it fun for my table.

>>49775167
Did he offer any examples? Was he trying to make a sexbot to 'persuade' people without language? It seems like he was going out of his way to be difficult, unless there was some compelling backstory reason for his character to be so far removed from civilization as to have no grasp of common.

>>49775275
Make it so it can't stact with other stats and it'd be fine. e.g.(Prof+CHA>weapon die +CHA)

>>49775260
But I know it will become a problem, and besides I gave him the offer to prove it worked and he declined. If its that simple then it shouldn't be a problem.

>>49775291
His robot worked in a library, how you could never come across common in a library I don't know.

>>49775318
would you make it a base line feature, something you gain at a higher level, or maybe an invocation, that lets you swap your attack and damage for cha?

>>49774307

That oportunity attack within reach combined with sentinel oportunity attacks halting movement is pretty good combo

>>49774820

dude bladelocks are clearly just there to enable multiclassing with martials

>>49775584
???

>>49774951
How about you just make Bladelocks use Eldritch Blast as a melee attack?

>>49775626
Start your character with level in Fighter or Paladin solve most of the problem people are having with bladelock.

Better armor, better starting weapon, fighting style, more hp etc.

>>49775702
Well, yes. Paladin 2/3 / Warlock 18/17 is a working combination we all know

dm of a campaign im gonna play soon allows homebrews. Hit me with the best/weirdest one I should play

>>49775783
Power Ranger

>>49775702
Except you still get more out of the other pact boons.

>>49775783
https://m.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/36b3ys/homebrew_barbarian_path_juggernaut/

>>49775837

you're meant to.

What, you think that capstone there is meant to be played with by anyone?

Does anyone have a reference to fighter damage outputs for different fighting styles?

I know that two handed weapons deal more damage than two-weapons, even though they have one less attack, but I haven't seen that broken down anywhere. I also want to compare defensively.

My current thought, without doing the statistical math, is that Sword & Board deals the least damage, but has the highest defense. Two-Weapons deals slightly more damage but has slightly less defense (with the feat). Two-handed weapons deal significantly more damage, but has no bonus to defense.

Is that right?

>>49775783
http://m.imgur.com/gallery/tW0J81Y

All the FF14 classes.

Tomelock with Shillelagh is the best bladelock.

>>49775376
Eh, probably toss it on in around level 7(when a EK would get war magic) and change Life drinker to say permanent mage armor.

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I've had this mental image of a bard whose backstory is basically "theatre group gets murdered, troupe leader plots revenge" and was trying to find something to match my mental image. Pic related is the closest I can get (Richard Dreyfuss from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead).

Does anyone have any ideas for actors/drawings that would be close? Been searching for a few days but nothing's hitting the sweet spot. Was thinking maybe more portly, maybe more Mediterranean. Very over-the-top thespian.

>>49776259
sword and board isn't much to sneeze at since you can benefit from duelist but yes, mostly.

Thoughts on tyranny of dragons books?

I've read that lorewise 4e never happened. If so, was it a "Everything in 4e happened, but it was undone/reversed/repaired" or a "The events of 4e were wiped from reality by (power of your choice)"

>>49776548
>Everything in 4e happened, but it was undone/reversed/repaired
This one.

>>49776548
>Everything in 4e happened, but it was undone/reversed/repaired
This. Kind of a shame because there were some cool elements that came out of 4e, but will never return

>>49776548
As 4e's shit was almost purely the realms, I go with "I just don't gie a shit"; if I were to play in the realms, I'd still keep 4e red mages and pretend nothing else happened.

>>49776548
Didn't Lathander / Amaunator split happen during 4e?

>>49776570
I blame the hypersensitive neckbeards who still get triggered by anything 4e related to this day. They also made 5e significantly lamer compared to its playtest, by spamming feedback forums incessantly.

>>49776612
What happen? What was 5e like during playtest.

>>49776689
Sorcerers we're using willpower to contain their bloodline, and as they used spells, more and more of it works slip through, resulting in bonuses and features related to it. Like a dragon sorc would grow claws and scales, letting them do really well in combat after their sprlls were out.

Every martial was a battlemaster

>>49776714
What, that sounds fucking rad

>>49776744
It could've been great, but got scrapped pretty quick.

>>49776775
Anybody revitalize it yet?

>>49776259
You are right in your generalizations. Two weapon fighting does slightly more damage than sword and board thanks to the bonus action attack, and two weapon fighting is the best cause you have the most/biggest dice.

It gets more complicated when you think about AC and total damage and number of attacks, but putting it together is an important step.

>>49776828
Two-handed weapon fighting is the best* I mean, but still it's not that simple as a tier list.

>>49776714
Martial dice caused slowdown by mid-levels (since they were a per-turn resource), were almost always better used for damage than maneuvers, and were functionally replaced by Extra Attack and shifting most maneuvers into class features or stuff like shoving, grappling, disarming, and so on. Their setup also caused all martials to run on the same "hit or whiff for your turn" thing that rogues have in 5e.

Draconic sorcerers got a reactionary defense ability and a bigger hit die, which is now a passive defensive ability (13 + Dex AC) and a per-level bonus to HP. Their melee ability also took from the same resource pool as their spells, and was functionally replaced by getting bonus damage to cantrips. They're better off they they would be if they had continued down the route presented that early on, especially since the Next sorc had a delayed spell level progression.

>>49776714
>Every martial was a battlemaster
Superiority die was a Fighter thing in the playtest already, it wasn't "every martial"

>>49776853
>Martial dice caused slowdown by mid-levels
Bitch I played that playtest, they did not cause slowdown. Sure, you could go braindead and just use it for extra damage, but that was also a perfectly acceptable use of them. I think it warrented more fine-tuning than abandonment.

>>49775098
I'm the DM. Wanna give a handout to my players.

My current party is:
Paladin
Ranger
Bard

I want to be a Druid... do you think it would go well with this party composition? My second choice is Arcane Trickster .

>>49777233
Moon Druid btw. I knew Ranger and Bard doesn't want to fight in close quarter unless they have to.

>>49777233

Druid would be perfect. You provide both additional healing and some offensive casting to the party. Or, if you go Moon Druid, you can be another front liner.

>>49777272
Thanks. I'm not really worry about healing since everyone else can do it. But I'm pretty sure Wild Shape utility would serve well in this party (until I grab ritual casting at level 4 anyway).

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>>49772284
I have been struggling to make balanced Boss encounters (aka anything that the players don't kill in a few turns while receiving minimal damage) are these alt rules any better than those in the DMG?

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Lately I have been thinking about archomentals (or well some powerful elemental) as warlock patrons. Would I be better off making a separate pact for water, air, fire and earth or a "generic" one with small differences according to the element picked?

>>49777647
Generic

Has anyone played with sanity/horror/madness rules? I've been playing Darkest Dungeon recently and was thinking of doing something similar for 5e, but only if the rules aren't ass (I'm far, far too lazy to make my own).

>>49777826
I instead play with honor.

Is there a folder with ship tokens? The ones online don't have transparent backgrounds

>>49777647
i think generic would be the superior option, with a larger amount of choices of invocation (similar to the "required" ones for other pacts) that would let you focus a specific element theme if you desired

>>49778329
I am also thinking that an elemental variation of "hurl through hell" would be alright.

>>49773437
What? Oh no, don't mind me, I'll just be banging my head on the desk from dealing with 14 year-olds who just discovered philosophy and think that their clever insights are somehow mind-blowing.

>>49773828
>taking one pact multiple times
That just sounds like a fucking mess to keep track of. Is coming up with different names for each that crazy?

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DMs: do you run Session 0s?

I'm trying to get a rough outline for an adventure I want to run for my friends written, but I don't know how I'm supposed to start it without knowing what the characters will be like who are involved.

One thing I really liked from Pathfinder was an option for djinni-blooded sorcerers where they can cast a spell they don't know if someone else verbally wishes for it. It's a really flavorful ability, and I was thinking of making a djinni bloodline for the sorcerer. How does this look for an ability?

Minor Wishcraft: Your Djinni blood lets you grant the wishes of others, to a limited degree. As an action, any other creature can make a wish by speaking out loud. If you understand them, you can use an action to cast any cantrip to grant that wish, even if you don't know it. If you cast a cantrip that isn't on the Sorcerer list, you must expend a spell slot or 2 sorcery points.

>>49778417
Of course. Session 0 is essential to having a good game (unless you're running a module).

Though, generally when I think of session 0, I think of a meet n greet between the players and DM figuring out what we wanna do, what concepts we have, and how we can get those to work together. If that goes smoothly, character building can happen right there.

>>49778436
it's kinda shitty. There are very few situations where people would rather do nothing else with their turn than enable the sorcerer. "I hit it with my weapon" is more productive in most cases. I'd say that wishing is a bonus action or smth, then make the sorcerer use their reaction to cast the spell.

>>49778472
I actually thought of that after posting. I dunno about reaction casting, but bonus action wishing is definitely better.

>>49777847
Do you die with honor?

So I want to give a reward to my players for the end of their current quest in the form of a currency that is small but worth a fortune, to the point where they either need to convert it to coin or use it as a means to invest in something big. However i'm having a hard time determining what to give them.

My initial plan was a pure platinum bar, however looking at minted gold & silver ingots in real life, it doesn't feel like it would be impressive to me. A deed would be a neat alternative, however that feels a bit restrictive. Beyond those two however, I'm having a hard time thinking of an alternative.

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GWM bladelock yes/no

>>49778518
Don't you need a free hand to do anything besides wail on people with your weapon?

>>49778505
Gems.
An heirloom treasure, very valuable to a certain faction.
A stock share in a dragon's hoard.

>>49778531
Spellcomponent pouch and letting go of the hilt lets you cast a spell.

>>49778518
>>49778531
>>49778564
Dex bladelock is better due to it's better AC, but if you have a way to get better armor proficiency it can work. Mountain Dwarf bladelock?

>>49777826
Use Blades in the Dark. You are a cog in a shady organization that goes on missions. It has damage and stress, stress needs to be soothed by indulging vices, etc. It's the best DD RPG money can buy, and it is in the PDF share threads.

As for 5e, the sanity rule works well and the madness rules are a bit crippling - the most severe madness has no mechanical impact unless a DM gives inspiration, and the low end madness can knock you out. I do like using the sanity stat instead of a different mental stat.

>>49778518
>The wizard's got a book! He's going to read us to death!

>>49778579
Quarter staff Tomelock is better than a bladelock anyways.

>>49773614
There is a class on dmsguild

>>49778531
>>49778579
>>49778600
>>49778613
I might be able to bully my dm into giving me heavy armor proficiency. Alternatively what about 1 level fighter dip, also get GWF

Is two-weapon fighting actually viable in 5e?
What madness is this?

>>49778654
Fighter? Pfffttt. Do War Cleric.

>>49778719
>Viable
For classes that never get multiattack, sure.

You only ever get a single attack with your off-hand. Ever.

>>49775000
Nice trips, am playing a Witch Hunter in a campaign. I went variant human, dual wield master. Going vengeance pally. I went strength, but for true witch hunting you'd go Dex for a rapier and off hand a hand crossbow. Variant human for mage slayer. For stats, dump int.

Heat Metal, continue to affect a character who polymorphs or otherwise shapechanges and melds their equipment?

>>49778745
To clarify: for classes with extra attacks, it simply amounts to some bonus damage over a single weapon. Less overall damage than a two-handed weapon, so unless you're using Dual Weapon Wielder for some AC and a larger die, skip on it.

>>49776612
>>49776714
do you jack off to 4e in every 5e general? There's always a series of post that sound exactly like yours.

why not just stick to 4e? nobody want to play?

>>49778745
>You only ever get a single attack with your off-hand. Ever.

You make that sound like a bad thing

>>49778484
Modified dragonblooded sorc into this abomination: http://pastebin.com/AbBrdu4F

>>49778613
Shame about the single attack though. Everyone knows Blade is the weakest pact.

>>49778654
I vote Paladin multiclassing into Warlock.

>>49778903
It's not, but for classes like Fighter, it's completely useless damage-wise because 4 attacks with a longsword and 1 attack with your other longsword loses terribly to 4 attacks with a greataxe.

But for classes like Rogue who only get one attack, it allows them to do more damage in some situations and get a second chance at a sneak attack if they miss the first strike. It's good, but for some archetypes it's far more useful.

>>49778927
>but for classes like Fighter, it's completely useless damage-wise because 4 attacks with a longsword and 1 attack with your other longsword loses terribly to 4 attacks with a greataxe.

How would you make two weapon fighting useful then?

There's no way to do it that wouldn't make TWF retarded

>>49778944
You don't use TWF with Fighters. You use it with classes like Ranger, Rogue or even Cleric.

>>49778927
>loses terribly to 4 attacks with a greataxe.
The biggest difference is between a greatsword and a longsword. 40 to 32. A greataxe's average damage for 4 attacks is somewhat less (I believe it is 38ish). It's still more damage, but not an absurd amount. Mind you, a two weapon user will be doing more damage than a sword and shield user, about 4 points more. With the feat, it's a nice middle ground between offense and defense for warrior classes. Not the smartest use of your resources, but not a useless waste. It's more useful in games that allow marking, since you can keep an additional enemy on watch.

>>49778944
TWF IS useful, its just best for classes other than fighter, because fighter doesn't need or benefit from an extra hit chance per round, particularly at higher levels, as much as classes with features built for it.
Hunter Rangers have on hit boosts to their output, Rogues have sneak attack. I suppose Hex would work well, so a duel wielding bladelock might be decent, but the pact itself is subpar.

>>49778811
Does their new form have a similar worn/held piece of metal?

If not, no? Heat Metal works on Metal, and if they use magic to change that metal into fur or something, it's no longer metal until it's metal

if it's like an illusion and not an actual change in form then it'd continue to effect them.

That's one of those things that isn't clearly defined because when the fuck would that exact situation ever occur

>>49779004
Not that anon, but i think it would be fair to allow continued concentration, so if they reverted the spell is still active. It would be kind of ass for everyone involved to just have the spell stop.

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>>49778989
You should also factor in the damage boost from GWF and a Greatsword. Being able to re-roll 1's and 2's on a 2d6 weapon is a pretty nice buff in the long-term.

There's certainly uses for it, and it's not exactly a massive loss to take it over GWF, but it's very situational. Say your other front-liner is a Paladin, and they run Crusader's Mantle. Every weapon attack gets an extra 1d4. Slightly more value. Or your Wizard casts Enlarge. Again, an extra 1d4.

But wait! You're a Warlock/Fighter multiclass and you cast Hex the turn previous. An extra 1d6!

Our giant, paladin-enhanced warlock-fighter with two Longswords now deals 8.5 more average damage than a fighter with a Greatsword.

>>49779059
>You should also factor in the damage boost from GWF and a Greatsword.
The 40 and 32 damage figures were with the Fighting Styles included, but yeah, you right. TWF is less straightforwardly powerful but benefits more from buffs that apply per attack.

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>>49778733
>>49778921
I think fighter would be better for GWF. However
>paladin into warlock
Gave me a great idea for a character

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>>49779089
Oh, gotcha. I've done the math before but I don't have the numbers memorized so I just kinda assumed.

Also, if your character ever ends up with some really cool weapons, TWF might end up being more fun. Theme-wise, I'm a huge sucker for asymmetrical weapons. My old Trident + Net gladiator from 3.5 was a favorite of mine despite not being an 'optimal' build. There's nothing wrong with doing something sub-optimal as long as you aren't intentionally gimping your character into uselessness. TWF may not be optimal, but don't let that dissuade you. The relative damage loss isn't anything massive. Plus it allows for more versatility.

>>49779149
My favorite thing with two weapons is different damage types. Piercing and Slashing and two different energy types make it hard for any enemy to deny your damage, since you don't have to lead with any particular weapon and are free to mix them up as you please

Would an enemy know it's affected by Booming Blade? I'm asking because monsters seem to know they can move one square away from my halberd user without provoking an opportunity attack and I want to use that to my advantage.

I just got back from the worst game I've ever been in. Sanity scores were a mistake

>>49779373
That's your DM's call. I've personally ruled that some monsters might, some won't.

In cases like this, it's important to remember that Rulings > Rules.

Your DM's thoughts on the matter outweigh speculation or rule references because of the vague topic matter.

>>49779373
I suspect they would be aware that something is going on, however, it's very, very hard not to move and I'd be tempted to force people to roll Dex saves rather than how the game says to do it.

>>49779415
Well, tell us what happened!

Idea for a homebrew rule: Forced casting best name I could think of
You are still able to cast spells even if you are out of slots but for every level of the spell you flip a coin, heads nothing happens, tails you take 1 level of exhaustion.
So if you force cast a level 6 spell you run the risk of dying after the spell is cast.
Thoughts? Also how would you suggest applying this to say a fighters abilities so not only casters can use it?

>>49779468
Well I had made an elf warlock with all the eldtrich spooky background stuff since I knew the DM wanted to do a spooky game. I forget to roll my sanity score though, so I do that right before the session started, in front of the DM, and I roll a 6.

I had a lot of fun throughout the game, being very excited about roleplaying, up until the point the chief cultist decides to cast Hunger of Hadar on me, and I spend an entire hour failing sanity scores, take damage up until near death, and my character yelling uncontrollably while being tentacle raped (figuratively, this isn't ERP)

The cultist guy kept succeeding at his concentration saves too so by the time I finally was freed from my tentacle prison, I had lost all hope and just did what I had to do so we could kill the man, and end the session. Even after grabbing the grimoire and I felt like I could finally do something fun and roll for sanity with advantage, I still fail because well, it's a score of 6

Since the session ended rather late and I have to wake up early in the morning I forgot to talk to my DM about it, but it really killed the fun out of me. Hopefully we work it out for next week though

>>49779373
Yes if proficient in Arcana, Int check if not proficient, no if not intelligent or mindless. Most enemies would only fall for it once, but then it just goes from being extra damage to being a lockdown spell with no save.

>>49779505
What's the impetus for this rule? Is there a reason you want to give resource-dependent classes more flexible?

As it stands, it sounds too unpredictable, random and potentially overpowered.

>>49779529
Just wanted to put a mechanic behind my personal fluff. I just think that casting spells and bending reality should require the caster to exert themself and the number of slots/spells per day is how far a caster can go before harming themself. They can choose to go beyond that point at their own peril.

>>49779583
>casting spells and bending reality should require the caster to exert themself
>So let's permit casters to cast MORE spells and there's a 50% chance it's completely free of any repercussion
Fluff aside, the mechanics behind that rule seem silly.

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I am building a multiclass rogue/fighter with a melee focus, and not sure which class to start with. The big difference seems to be that fighters get CON saving throws and rogues get DEX.

Is it better to be strong against CON effects and so-so against DEX, with evasion picking up the slack? Or to go all-out on DEX to get the most out of evasion? Or are saving throws less important than the extra skill I get from starting with rogue?

>>49779605
50% per spell level
Yeah I feel that a competent caster could get a free level 1 spell if the need was great. But spells level 2+ almost guarantee that hes gonna feel like shit after pulling it off.

>>49779627
Dex and Con are both great saves. The real difference is if you are ok sacrificing equipment for skills.

>>49778654
Things is.. you need to start off as fighter (or paladin) to get heavy armor proficiency. If you are already a warlock, you need to dip in cleric to get it.

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>>49779109
update, so the game is roll 4d6k3 and I can put 16 in strength and charisma. Variant human for GWM, start level 1 as fighter with greatsword and heavy armor proficiency, GWF. level 2 as warlock, get dark one's blessing, green flame blade, eldritch blast, arms of hadar, and hellish rebuke. for invocations, devil's sight and repelling blast. Get pact of the blade at level 4, thirsting blade level 6. Pretty good I think

>>49779678
> repeling blast
why would you want to push the enemy away from you?

>>49779627
Dex and con are both good saves to have, but if you're going to have evasion I'd say pick up con save proficiency. Most dex saves I've seen are always save for half anyhow.

As far as skills vs. gear, if you're going rogue you're probably going to be using a finesse weapon, which rewards dex use. So losing the fighter's starting armor and such isn't debilitating.

>>49775701
There'd still be no benefit other than a possible 'not needing invocation to do +charisma damage'. Ranged is better.

>>49775736
>paladin 2/3
>not paladin 6/7/8
Ha
It's like you care enough about level 9 spells ocne you reach max level that you're willing to sacrifice those godly auras

>>49779765
>There'd still be no benefit other than a possible 'not needing invocation to do +charisma damage'. Ranged is better.
Well, if that's your stance then there's never any point to a bladelock, even if it was mathematically superior.

>>49779627
What sort of multiclass?

Battlemaster5or7/rogue15or13 (sneak attack on riposte), Champion5/Rogue15 (More crit sneak attacks) EldritchKnight7/ATrogue13 (GFB/BB + Sneak Attack), or scratching that and going Barbarian5/rogue15 (Fuckstupid tankiness) are probably all viable choices.

>>49779664
>>49779729
The campaign is starting at level 10, so equipment should not be a problem either way.

>>49779802
In that case take the skills for sure.

>>49779795
No, if bladelock could somehow account for the fact that you're sending a squishy to the frontline when probably quite often a better tactic is to have everybody stand back and snipe / have only tanky guys run ahead then it could work.

The only issue is that eldritch blast has disadvantage at melee range, but you can do various things to remove that.

Not to mention, 'push enemy 10ft' is better on a ranged attack. There's lovely synergy there.

Good thing warlocks have stuff like free false life and armor of agathys, but it's not enough.

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>>49779700
parse groups of enemies.

but honestly because there isn't many great choices and I can swap it if I dont use it.
and because it might lead to shenanigans

>>49779678
Kinda sounds like you'd be better off going pact of the tome, putting only 15 in strength if possible and upping your charisma as much as possible, since you can then attack shield + club for a 1d8 weapon that relies solely on charisma.

Then, getting level 7 in paladin for +saves +whatever other aura.

Get the false life at-will invocation for tankiness.

Get extra attack from paladin, not warlock.

>>49779798
Swashbuckler/battlemaster. Leaning towards 13/7; that gets most of the swashbuckler features, more maneuvers, and as many ASIs as a single-class rogue. Although I have not ruled out going 11/9 to pick up Indomitable.

>>49779812
I feel like going dex/con and picking up only buff spells/spells that don't run off your cha (like Booming Blade) would be a fairly good way to build a bladelock, but it would kinda suffer before level 3.

>>49779891
Fighter 11/Rogue9 also works.
You don't really need swashbuckler's level 13 feature, it's only really good if you want to grapple lots and you have bonus actions to spare, which you probably don't. Barbarian-rogues would do that grappling better.

Battlemaster is a nice choice, simply because you can riposte and if you riposte you can then add sneak attack damage. The problem is that then denies you uncanny dodge, but you wouldn't have needed uncanny dodge with your reaction when they already missed anyway.

Well, whatever, it sounds like you haven't decided to do something stupid, so it's alright.

>>49779922
You'd be fine before level three. Use hex and you'll be pretty much just as good as a rogue.
It's probably viable, to be honest, but maybe not the best. It does mean you'll at least have good AC, though.

So here's my groups comp, tell me which path would probably be best for me to take. We're all lvl 2 right now since the campaign just started.

Barbarian (me)
another barbarian (going bear totem)
Fighter
Paladin
Ranger (focusing on melee combat)
Warlock

Would wolf totem barbarian be the obvious choice? We're all new to 5e, coming from 3.5 (including DM), and the advantage system seems to be really important.

The only problem I have going wolf totem is I modeled my character after Smokey the Bear, so logically a bear totem would be the one to go.

>>49779976
Yes
For the love of god, yes.

When you have that much melee output in the party, bear totem works wonders.

The other barbarian will get extra crit die if they crit (advantage gives an increased chance of crit, too)
The fighter might have a higher crit threshhold if they go champion
The paladin gets crit smites if they crit.
The ranger... Is probably drunk, fuck him.
And oddly this might be one of the few times bladelock is actually viable, but they probably still shouldn't.

>>49780008
>>49779976
>bear totem
I meant, wolf totem

You want that 'advantage to everybody in the party' all the time. People'll love you more than the 'hurr, I'm a tank, yet I'm now super tanky and even less likely to die'

Because honestly bear totem will probably only die after everybody else in the party, and that's all they're good for. It's great, but selfish.

>>49780011
>>49780008
Cool, thanks. I just want to be the barbarian that actually helps the team a lot.

I'm running Curse of Strahd.
How do I stop my players spamming long rests?
They're in Castle Ravenloft, and after every 1 or 2 encounters they decide to long rest.
The book says to roll for every 10 minutes they spent resting in the castle but I thought that was a little extreme, so I initially decided that every time they short rest I roll for a random encounter, every time they LONG rest I'll roll 3/4 times.
Eventually they got fed up with the random encounters happening, so they decided that they're just going to leave the castle, rest outside, and come back (several of them can fly, making it relatively easy for them to leave).

Does anyone have any idea of what I should do? I don't want to make it impossible to long rest because that will just fuck them over, but I don't want them to just long rest over and over either.

They've fucked things up in the castle pretty good (they destroyed the Heart of Sorrow and they killed Ireena who Strahd had successfully turned), so I'm considering having Strahd and his minions constantly harass them. If they try to leave,they're chased, maybe by some gargoyles or the dragon wyrmlings from the entrance hall. If they rest in the woods then they're attacked by wolves and bats, and maybe Rahadin is sent out to attack them.

But that sort of thing is kind of getting close to 'no long rests allowed'.

Anyone have any suggestions?

>>49780476
Do what you think they would do.

Players sleeping outside? Go out and kill them.

Players leaving the castle for too long? Fortify the defences, have them recruit help that's specifically tailored to counter things the party has.

Have them secure all the loot in harder to find places, barricade and fortify any point they may be coming through and adopt more tactical approaches such as 'have barricades, fire down over the barricades and leave the players in a much worse position.'

No longer will it be a dungeon crawl, as they've fucked up tactically. They'll have to fight back with tactics, sabotaging the new defences and all that sort of thing.

They might send scouting parties to find the player, only for the scouting parties to head back to send a bigger troupe after them.

Play the enemies as if they have a fucking intellect above fucking 6 which says 'hurr let's just stand around and wait for them to walk in, yell a dramatic monologue and then just fucking die while nobody else in the castle gives a shit.'

>>49780476
Page 186 of the PHB:

>A character can’t benefit from more than one long rest in a 24-hour period

>>49780503
Yeah, you make a good point. I guess I've been thinking about it too much like a video game and making the enemies retarded, theres no reason Strahd wouldn't just actively try to fuck them now.

>>49780525
This is your chance to do all the stupid things you should never otherwise do because it's implying the monsters have knowledge about the players.

Things like 'players keep fireballing, so now all monsters spread out to avoid all getting caught in it'.
If they have proper communication, they'll now know. It's unjustified and a dick move if there's no way the monsters could expect it, but now that the players are taking the liberty of extra rests they'll have to suffer the consequences of the enemy having extra time.

>>49780525
Exactly.
Played well, the party will not be able to beat Strahd without a serious amount of luck anyway.

>>49780476
Keep in mind that you roll every 30min outside too

My players are about to break into a slaughterhouse that is actually a 5 floor mega dungeon hiding an altar to dark forces.

The first three floors are an actual slaughterhouse that was sealed off during a plague and has gone insane.

/tg/, what kind of god awful things would you expect to find inside a slaughterhouse where the quarantined occupants have gone insane?

>>49780694
What's the technology level of the campaign? The equipment used will vary depending on that.

>>49780667
>>49780476

The characters sound mid level at least, so they have access to Leomund's tiny hut. How'd the castle creeps deal with that?

>>49780783
IME, every time you cast Leomund's Tiny Hut, a nearby enemy learns Dispel Magic.

>>49780888
It's like poetry, it's poetic

>>49778890
And queue the neckbeard who thinks this isn't a somewhat common opinion.

>>49773581
Around 5 PM.

> Arcane cleric
> want to use longsword
> no proficiency
> doesn't want to be elf
Help!

>>49781214
Ask GM to replace mace with sword

we are choosing which D&D edition using and which setting. i wanted to propose either sea or sky pirates.
is there anything particularly suited for that in 5e material, both for worldbuilding or character building?

i know PF got many manuals full of sea adventure materials.

>>49781214
I'd just allow to use someone to use any weapon, but give it the stats of one that they can actually use. So just make a longsword the same as a quarter staff with slashing instead of bludgeoning. Normal rules apply for magic items though

>>49781231
5e is like everclear. It doesn't have any flavor, isn't very good for anything in particular, but it will get you drunk.

>>49781254
False

>there are people who play non-Dex physical classes that aren't Dwarves
Get out of my party, you don't even have a mechanical excuse for not being Best Race

>>49781530
Best race mechanically is variant human. For every class.

>>49781557
>a feat
sorry I can't hear you over all these proficiencies, an extra stat point, and darkvision also poison resist but uhhhh when does that come up

>>49781557
I don't know, Half-Elf definitely gives them a run for their money.

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>>49781530
>there are people who unironically believe that character builds need to be appropriately optimized
>in 5e

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Why is mapmaking so hard

I'm going to be running a campaign soon so I'm trying to make a map

I tried Inkarnate but the stuff it outputs is too low res and is pretty limited, so I'm trying photoshop but I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing

How do you guys do world/continent/etc maps when you're dming?

>>49781765
>Homebrew setting
>Map already the size of a continent with artificial barriers to encourage lengthy and regular travel
Every time.

>>49781847
It's my first time homebrewing a setting so what would you suggest?
My plan was to make a big continent to aid in writing background flavour, and then focus on a (relatively) smaller area during actual play.
Should I just say fuck it and only map out the small area?

>>49781882
The small area should be your focus. Do that before you go so big.

>>49781882
Start with creating the small are they way you want it to be, with a goodly amount of detail, because that's the are your players are going to be interacting with. Then, work out what that area needs to have around it (trading partners, mountain ranges, etc.) in order to exist in the way you've defined it.

>>49781882
Both approaches are valid, do whichever is more fun for you.

>>49781882
Here's my foolproof advice.

>think of where on Earth you want your setting to look like
>choose a real spot on Google Earth
>bring it into photoshop and use those geographical features with maybe a couple smudges
>drop OC cities and stuff
>write out short history, usually based of a question you have about the setting like "why are my super special elves so angry at the human settlements?"
>make a handful of important NPCs
>find fitting landscape art

You can push out the setting in your head in a few hours once you've done it a few times. Don't even think about a region larger than the US until the campaign starts and your player begin to latch onto some of the lore, and leap off that to expand the borders as needed.

How would a wizard archetype that gives a scalable zombie or skeleton minion to the note of nu beastmaster ranger balance. It would be pretty much the same just swap the minion attack when you attack with when you cantrip and the whirlwind attack with attacks twice. Still seems strong giving a caster a mini fighter but I've wanted to play necromancer with a skelebro cohort since 3rd.

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So I'm planning my players to have a faceoff with one of the four horsemen, particularly War, amidst a big battle. I'm planning to take Empyrean as a base, but what kind of abilities would you add? Something what would express that War has martial prowess unlike anyone

Would you allow anything from the 5e homebrew tumblr?

The Undying warlock patron seems fairly flavorful, but weak compared to the fey/fiend/goo

What would you do to bring it more in line with the others, /tg/?

>>49782066
I vet all homebrew to see if it's balanced regardless of the source

>>49782066
A lot of Middle Finger of Vecna's stuff shows up on there and is pretty good. I particularly like his Alchemist class.

>>49782163
It's actually one of the best, and probably needs to be brought down a little before publication.

>>49782048
Probably just chuck some fighter abilities at him, even if from different martial archetypes. War has all the fighting styles, second wind, maybe crits on 19s and a few maneuvers as well. Of course, try to balance it a bit around your players' power levels so he doesn't just overwhelm them.

>>49781882
I've noticed successful setting all starts from a tiny area and expanded outwards from there.

"Artificial" Settings designed for purpose often receive ridiculous amounts of praise yet next to nobody plays them because they feel "hollow".

>>49782163
>>49782215
Sorry, I meant the Undying patron from SCAG, not the undying light one from the UA.

>>49782258
WotC really need to get their naming together.
Undying
Undying Light
Pact of Chain
Pact of Star Chain

>>49782258
In that case,

Make it an actual necromancy option, with animate dead either in the spell list, or as a once per long rest feature.

Make the level 14 feature an action, but reuseable. Make the 14 feature body part thing fun.

Body parts can spilt from you, and act on your turn. You can cast spells and make attacks from hands, even if they aren't attached to where your head is. Your head can act as a spotter for your body, etc.

>>49782163
Fanfic-tier but here goes:

Add Inflict Wounds, Bestow Curse, Animate Dead and/or Raise Dead to the spell list, along with a feature that makes any necromancy spell with a range of touch now have a range of 15ft instead.

Add a feature that makes it so once per long rest, when you're reduced to 0 hit points you have 1HP instead, and are immune to all damage until the end of your next turn. Then, you lose 1 HP and fall unconscious.

At 14th level, you cannot die, except from old age or having your head destroyed. You'll still fall unconscious at 0 HP and perform Death saving throws, until you succeed in 3. You regain consciousness and can speak, but otherwise remain unable to move, act or cast until you regain HP.

>>49782556
Your affection is wasted here, anon.

>>49782556
Why don't you want to go on the date?

>>49782660
its a girl i knew in high school who is lonely and childless. she was nice enough but she is a 1/10 and im just not interested, but im going to be nice and go meet her. shes been asking me to spend some time with her for a while and ive been weaseling out of it.

this show is nightmare fuel, christ

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2duyj8_pee-wee-vol-1-disc-3-e15-puppy-in-the-playhouse_tv

>>49782369
Probably smarter to make animate dead somehow a long rest option, or at level 11 with three 5th level spell slots you can animate 15 corpses every short rest. I'm not sure if that's all that many compared to a necromancy wizard, but it might turn someone into a napmancer who spends all his day short resting so he can control his hordes of undead, which sounds kind of silly.

>>49782697
You must be quite the catch yourself.

>>49782760
im like a hard 4

>>49782760

>guy who comes on daily onto /tg/ and blesses us with his long and unintelligible rantings using vocaroo?

guy must be an absolute catch!

forreal tho, im just busting your balls anon, have a good one, fag

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What is the best way to multiclass Bard and Sorcerer? I want to be a cute idol bard singing song that summon fireball or blast people to dead with comets.

>>49782831
You don't need to multiclass from the Bard to do that.

>>49782831
>roll a bard
>choose the college of lore
>use your magical secrets feature to pick all the neat blasting spells you want
That's it.

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>>49782795

Thought on tyranny of dragons books? New Gm wanting to learn with a group

>>49782758
Let's do the math!

A level 11 wizard can have 23 zombies using all spell slots, and not maintaining any. If the wizard wants to maintain an army, the highest possible army size is 32, using all spells for maintenance.

Assuming the dm allows 2 short rests per long rest, the warlock can summon 45 zombies per day, and can maintain an army of only 36.

>>49782859
>>49782853
Not enough blasting.

>>49782930
play sorc with entertainer bg

>>49782930
Dont forget to get the thaumaturgy cantrip from somewhere, it lets you sing about love 3x louder!

>>49781530
>not playing dex while a dwarf anyway because fuck heavy armour needing 15 strength you're a fucking dwarf

>>49783004
>hitting things with a flimsy rapier instead of with a fucking battleaxe or maul as a dwarf

Gross.

>>49782916
A wizard who specializes in necromancy gets one more undead out of each casting of animate dead, so the numbers are a bit higher. But I'm not sure if you really want to use all your higher level spell slots to upkeep an army of undead anyway (yes you do).

And doesn't the warlock get to maintain 8 undead per spell slot (4+2*2, since it's fifth level)? So it would be 8*3*3 = 72.

>somebody tries to suggest that martials can't surpass athletes in 5e in another thread

Yet a 20 strength barbarian6/fighter7/monk2 can jump 50 feet (World record: 29.25 feet or so) while carrying four average adults on their back and not break a sweat. And that's not even including the DM letting you roll athletics to get a bonus.
it does, however, require use of a ki point.

If they go eldritch knight, they can take spells that'd allow them to carry perhaps 8 or even more people while doing that, probably an even further distance. That's starting to get a bit questionable in the 'martial' department, however.

>>49783015
>not being a barbarian dwarf who fights with a rapier and shield
It's almost like you don't like METAGAMING

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>>49783042
>Yet a 20 strength barbarian6/fighter7/monk2
fuck you, eww

>>49783070
If you want to be like that, then fine.

A 20 strength fighter7 can jump 25ft while carrying two people using only their pure strength, the 15x carry capacity standard and champion's 'remarkable ahlete'. Potentially longer distances if DM does rolls.

>>49783018
Oops. I forgot that higher level casting does two more, and not one.

New math.

Wizard necromancers, at level 11 get to maintain an army of 54 max, a necromancer warlock would get to do 72.

The problem is IMO that necromancer warlocks limited to long rests would suck compared to necromancer wizards.

Maybe make an animated dead type feature that behaves differently from the spell.

I plan on bringing a mega prepared 7th level wizard to the next adventurers league epic. How many skeleton archers (and spell slots) should I burn? I feel like 4 is good, it only burns one 3rd level spell for the end of the day, Faerie fire is a pretty powerful spell, and possibility to do damage without sacrificing anything up front except gold is nice. Plus I like the extra pair of hands.

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>>49782910
They're not great, issues with pacing and pooor balancing, needs a bit of work to run nicely. (the second one is supposedly better than the first, but we quit 2/3rds of the way through the first.)

If you've not played the starter set adventure yet (Phandelver), that's been spoken of quite highly around here. You can also easily flow from that into a few of the other modules, too. Princes of the Apocalypse is pretty standard setting, good if you want a classic D&D feel, but isn't very straightforward in the way it's laid out, at least for the first half. If you give some anti cult motivation though the players will be able to get stuck in easily with any clues they find.
The Giants one is the latest and sounds OK.
Curse of Strahd is the favourite one I've got experience with, because of the strong gothic horror atmosphere, but it can be quite an oppressive environment for players if they're too used to things going their way /not getting tricked. If they're up for it though, it'll be lots of fun.

>>49773596
As a classless system where you pointbuy your skills and features based on meeting the required stats.

>>49773614
Play a vengeance paladin.

>>49773596
A semi classless system featuring archetype trees you can freely invest in with experience points. Spells are bought with experience points, as are skills and combat proficiencies.

>>49783103
But the problem with having it for short rests is that it's not really limited the same way as it's with wizards, so things could get out of hand. And you probably would want to multiclass into a wizard/warlock, since you'd really want that necromancer wizard lvl 6 bonus, and your army wouldn't get any bigger after gaining lvl 11 as a warlock.

You could make that long rest ability stronger as you level up, so it wouldn't just be "you can cast animate dead once per long rest". Still, I think it would be better not to make the warlock compete with necromancy wizards, and maybe something like >>49782037 where you have one strong undead minion would be a cool alternative.

NEW THREAD >>49783218

NEW THREAD >>49783218

NEW THREAD >>49783218

>>49779149
So i found a hombrew fighting style in the dm mega, for a net/trident gladiator how big of a boost does making nets/tridents light finnese give compared to other fighting styles?
Also tips on building a net/trident gladiator?