/5eg/ D&D Fifth Edition General: Sheila's knickers edition

>>50181501
>Is it viable to make a non-combat/pacifist character in 5e?
Kinda. I had an idea for a character like that once.
Basically, you go Lore Bard and get expertise will all your charisma skills and start loading up on enchantment spells that can pacify enemies nonviolently. Maybe even hit enemies with a 1-2 punch of enchantment spells followed by persuasion/intimidation/deception rolls. You would have to get creative with it and handle enemies on a case by case basis, as well as make sure your GM and other players are on board with it.
If you just mean a character that doesn't kill, you can just carry a healer's kit as a paladin and ask the GM to not have enemies reaching 0 hp die instantly, so that you can use your kit on them.

>in a group where I can't stand any of the other players save for the GM
>GM's roleplaying is fatiguing at best, literally every NPC is some asshole who doesn't recognize that we're a party of level 7s, half of whom are some stupid special snowflake dragonborn or drow or tiefling, decked out in magic gear and shit (imagine in skyrim or something when some shitstain villager talks shit to your dragonborn who has literally feasted on the souls of dragons)

I know everyone is gonna tell me to just talk to the GM but I don't think "Hey I fucking hate everyone else in the group" is going to help anything really

>>50181501
Hot.

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>>50181501
>Is it viable to make a non-combat/pacifist character in 5e?

Does it count if you're the healslut and your party does all the killing?

>>50181406
>devalues gold
Fucking GOOD. You're playing D&D. The gold is more for roleplay purposes than it is for gear. The DMG gives the price of different buildings you can own, but leaves the magic gear up for discretion for a reason.

>>50181501
>Is it viable to make a non-combat/pacifist character in 5e?

What do you mean by non-combat/pacifist?

They themselves do not directly do harm? absolutely. many classes could do that (predominately bard cleric or wiz)

Truly pacificst/non-combatants that refuse to partake in violence in any way? Nope, why the fuck would that sort of person be running around adventuring with a bunch of magical murderous homeless people

>>50181534
If your melee attack would reduce enemy hp to 0, you can can choose to leave enemy unconcious instead. It is in the rule.

>>50181534
>If you just mean a character that doesn't kill, you can just carry a healer's kit as a paladin and ask the GM to not have enemies reaching 0 hp die instantly, so that you can use your kit on them.
If you're using melee weapons, you can actually choose the killing blow to be non-lethal instead, which knocks the enemy unconscious, rather than killing it.

But yeah, I meant more like avoiding combat, charming, or escaping through invisibility/teleporting, that sort of thing. I imagine an arcane trickster would also be a good starting point. But the more I think about it, the more I think that it would really only work in a solo campaign.

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>>50181609
TFW I did a game once where all our characters were students at a magic school and never actually killed anything.

We did have non-lethal magical duels though.

>>50181534
>>50181619
>>50181626

Beating people into unconsciousness is not exactly "non-combat or pacifist"

>>50181626
a cleric wizard or bard could easily do it.

Just make all your spells and shit be buffs/debuffs/CC/healing. You honestly wouldn't even be sacrificing much usefulness frankly, though at higher levels you would stop being as helpful

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How do I make a Shai-Hulud?

>>50181505
Have them sent out of the besieged city to smuggle a message beyond the siege lines to get help from a nearby order of paladins. The message itself is in a plain envelope, but the paper inside appears to be nothing but a simple love letter. Detect Magic reveals an aura of illusion around the paper -- the real message has been magically obfuscated, it really tells of a hidden entrance into the city that will allow the paladins to bypass the siege lines.

Make it very hard to get all the way through undetected, and once they are found, make it very hard to fight all the way through. Assuming they don't get really lucky or come up with some ingenious plan, have them captured and brought to the leader of the siege for interrogation. He has already guessed at what they were trying to do, but is frustrated by the obviously false letter, and so plays dumb.

The siege leader hopes that he can entice them into joining him so that he can learn what the letter really means and where it was going. However, even if they decline to ally with him, he still treats them nicely and sends them on their way -- saying that he does so because he appreciates their quest for love (DC 12 insight check to know that he's lying), but while secretly having them followed by his scouts (DC 16 perception check to notice the scouts).

[1/2]

>>50181669
If they fail to lose the scouts by the time they reach the order, whether by shaking them off or killing them, then the plan backfires as the sieging army learns where the help is meant to come from and organises an ambush for the paladins. If the players travel with the paladins back to the city, they can help fight off this ambush (challenging, makes use of traps such as pits, nets, etc.). If they don't, most of the paladins die.

If they agree to help the siege leader, he sends them along to accompany the ambushers. If they follow through, the paladins are killed without too much challenge. If they decide to doublecross the ambushers and help the paladins, the fight is mildly challenging as the element of surprise is on their side.

[2/2]

Adapt the details as you will, but I think crossing in and out of a besieged city is cool.

>>50181609
>Truly pacificst/non-combatants that refuse to partake in violence in any way? Nope, why the fuck would that sort of person be running around adventuring with a bunch of magical murderous homeless people
Trapfinder or Cartographer that didn't sign up for this shit.

>>50181639
>Just make all your spells and shit be buffs/debuffs/CC/healing. You honestly wouldn't even be sacrificing much usefulness frankly, though at higher levels you would stop being as helpful
Yeah, but
>>50181609
>why the fuck would that sort of person be running around adventuring with a bunch of magical murderous homeless people
what he said

>>50181576
Pacifist mean YOU don't want to kill.

I have made a quite succesful lore bard who was full on support, only occasionally did "damage" with vicious mockery (and only a specific BBEG who was being a gigantic dick, and he had caught my character and another PC in a dungeon, gloating at us), but other than that, it was purely support.

Worked extremely well, to the point where even the ranger couldn't understand why people think of rangers as weak. It is also pretty satisfying having such a massive impact on every fight without people realizing it.

>>50181712
>Pacifist mean YOU don't want to kill.
Pacifists means you also don't want to help people that go around killing others and assist them in their murders. Once again:
>>50181609
>why the fuck would that sort of person be running around adventuring with a bunch of magical murderous homeless people

>>50181660
Kek.

What are the most powerful creatures statted to date? Official only.

>>50181726
Because you know these people will murder hobo whether you are there or not, and by aiding them you might save a few lives, or straight up prevent bloodshed in a few situations.

Not that difficult to figure out.

>tempest cleric is basically 'I need magic items to make full use of thunderbolt strike / destructive wrath
>even sage advice says 'lol get magic initiate / multiclass / magic items
>if your party gets a wand of lightning for lightning bolts at a low level, say level 5, you can cast 90 gauranteed damage (before saves and such) lightning bolts every day
>if you get nothing, you're stuck using it on thunderwave/later spells that deal lightning/thunder over time or only half of it is thunder or whatever
At least wrath of the storm works with thunderbolt strike.

Truly an awkward sub-class, but not as awkward as wild sorcerer where the DM actually decides whether part of your features trigger or not.

Why the fuck are devils so much smarter than demons?
Most of the demons are retards.

>>50181788
Because chaotic = stupid WAAGH LET'S MURDER EVERYTHING
lawful = smart 'Let's not murder everything, but trick them all into murdering themselves'
Duh.

>>50181793
That makes absolutely no sense, chaotic doesn't mean less intelligent.
Also, which reject of a designer made an ancient gold dragon Int 18, Wis 17 and ancient silver dragon Int 18 and Wis 15. What the fuck is going on there?

>>50181639
>Beating people into unconsciousness is not exactly "non-combat or pacifist"
I could believe you or I could believe Prince Philionel El Di Saillune.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhF30HwUvtM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmdhsPsfrIU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzIhhtzva0I

>>50181775
>by aiding them you might save a few lives
or you could just work in a hospital or to supply food/medicine/shelter to the ppor, and be guaranteed to save heaps of lives

there's no way to mental gymnastics around it

>>50181808
Demons are literally 'FUCK MURDER KILL RIP AND TEAR' with the occasional 'HEY YOU HELP ME MURDER STUFF'

Devils have a whole goddamn social structure and society in the nine hells.

It's just how it is.

Who's more intelligent, a typical barbarian or a typical peasant?
..Actually, that question could go either way.

>>50181858
Disaster makes for strange bedfellows.

>>50181576
Talking about healsluts, what is the best way to make a total healslut who can only heal and buff and be useless in combat?

>>50181859
>>50181808
Thinking about my own question, you'd expect a barbarian to have pretty good wisdom but lower intellect. The peasant relies less on hunting and instinct and more on cultivation and learning from past examples or others, though you could say the same for learning to hunt, but..

Getting away from that analogy and back to demons and devils, devils have more to think about, because they're less about murderhoboing than demons are. Whether that means more charisma, wisdom or intellect or not is the question.

Were devils always better in mental stats in previous editions?

Would a Wild Shape Half-Elf retain Fey Ancestry benefit?

It is not a special sense so it kinda make sense for you to retain it.

>>50181870
Spouting pseudo-intellectual lines isn't an argument. >>50181858 is right - following 3 Randos around is the dumbest way to save lives unless they have a reputation for callous mass murder.

>>50181808
The same reject that realized that giving monsters intelligence scores in the 20s and 30s is completely meaningless, because what the fuck does that even represent?
And even if you can answer that question, there's no way a DM can portray that shit even half-realistically without making them "just as planned"-tier manipulators. Shit, most DMs (and players, for that matter) aren't even qualified to run 18 int monsters.

>>50181873
Bard is probably the best way, if you don't consider vicious mockery to be damage.

Otherwise, you'd have to play a tanky cleric that uses 'dodge' all the time.

>>50181873
Life Cleric.
Heavy Armor + Shield with no weapon.

>>50181859
But chaos/chaotic is not the "hurr durr I'm a retard" alignment, it's a less subtle evil sure but can be inspired nonetheless.

Reducing the creatures embodying it to retards is an asinine decision by literally retarded and inept designers.

>>50181902
IIRC, in 3e demons actually tended to be smarter than devils in the low-mid tiers. I remember this because me and the rest of my edgy teenage friends were all "fuck yeah, chaos thinks for itself instead of following others blindly" and then we'd go shoplift candy from Fred Meyer.

>>50181897
Then what's the point of any monster getting a mental score over 10? Because I can guarantee not any one has a mental score over 10, even geniuses.

People won't be act out master manipulator type roles because the designers and people are retards.

Their holistic scores represent the creature holistically for one, the culmination of a personality and any motivations and aspirations they might have.

>>50181897
20 intellect doesn't mean that they're just-as-planned. That seems more up wisdom's alley.

It mostly just means they can qualify for the arithmetic world finals and calculate really fast, or know everything.

And, heck, they DON'T know everything. They only get a base +5 to int checks, and will still fail a standard DC 10 knowledge check 1/4 or so of the time if they don't have proficiency in the relevant skill. I guess a 20 int without knowledge skills is like someone with great intellectual potential not going to school and working at mcdognals instead.

>>50181879
>>50181917
Yeah, I think demons were usually smarter on the lower ends of the CR spectrum, but devils always had the better overall stats. Guess devils were more liked.

>>50181902
But demons as far as I remember literally want nothing other than to just fuck shit up.

And just 'I want to fuck shit up and want nothing more' sounds like 'I don't desire knowledge, I just want more power so I can fuck even more shit up'

I can understand you can have a chaotic evil that WOULD persure knowledge and only sometimes fucks shit up, but I doubt most demons are like that.

>>50181879
Conan was someone who had decent mental scores all round.

Peasants were likely to have all low stats because that was their lot in life.

>>50181919
Granted, half of people are dumber than a 10. But c'mon, man. Geniuses are literally defined by having high int score.
The problem is that while not everyone is int 18, we know what that looks like, because there are real-world examples of smart people. I literally cannot even imagine what in 25 or 30 is like, and neither can you.

>>50181935
Conversely, the average devil is a mindless drone who follows orders blindly. That doesn't take too much brains either.

>>50181935
Demons used to be alignment exemplars not just extreme murderhobos.

Question about Mystic Arcanum-

>You can cast your arcanum spell once without
expending a spell slot. You must finish a long rest before
you can do so again.

Does this mean-
1 You can only cast an Arcanum once a day
2 You can cast each Arcanum once a day
3 You can cast an Arcanum without using a spell slot once, but then can cast them using slots as normal

I'm assuming it's 2.

>>50181937
That's comparing a hero to a peasant.

Most barbarians are just nomads rather than heroes, really.

Barbarians rely on survival (wisdom) a lot, peasants would rely on nature(intellect) more.

Devils really should be the one with the lower mental scores before they have to obey and are shackled to absolute tyranny, while demons in turn have freedom of choice.

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>>50181954
forgot

>>50181954
Yes, each arcanum once per day. 3 wouldn't make much sense because it's impossible to have the feature and also 6th-level spell slots.

>>50181941
Not blindly.
Imps only follow orders because it's how they get up the ranks, but all the while they're probably still thinking things through.

In that sense, however, they are neglecting wisdom in the sense they don't even need to be aware of what they're doing because a higher-up is supposedly being aware for them.

>>50181950
You mean not always chaotic evil?

>>50181962
Yeah I figured that was the case the wording just seemed a bit odd to me so I figured it can't hurt to ask.

>>50181956
>peasants would rely on nature(intellect) more.

>>50181941
Sorry to drag political debate into this, but recent polling has demonstrably enshrined the fact that people are absolutely mentally deficient and are mouthbreathers.

>>50181897
>ollowing 3 Randos around is the dumbest way to save lives unless they have a reputation for callous mass
Pacifist doesn't mean "save lives" you idiot.

Pacifist lives in a city that is raided by bandits. A bunch of strangers stroll in, and promise to hell solve the problem in exchange for gold. They solve it by making the bandit hideout the new "hot springs" of fucking blood, killing every breathing creature in there. Pacifist feels he/she can't just let them continue on a murderous rampage, and follows along, trying to work some morals into them, or just being the voice of reason towards their adversaries, trying to prevent battle from ever occurring in the first place.

This is entirely legit, and trying to work a group of mass murderers into a more peaceful group would save hundreds, if not thousands, of lives in the long run, while staying in the shitty starting town would let the Pacifist save maybe 1 every year. Furthermore, these murder hobos are actually solving problems, like said bandit raids, and once we get into undead and demon enemies, we NEED someone who can fight, because you cannot talk or reason with these beings. Pacifist or not, someone has to take care of it, or a shit ton of lives will be lost because of it.

Besides, even if the original idea was pure Pacifist, your average adventurer will eventually grow to accept the use of exessive force, even if they don't like it. It's easier to maintain a Pacifist life style while living in a secluded village or in a heavily protected monastery.

>>50181966
Yes, and imps (as well as succubi, for that matter) also used to be demons before they made all demons murderous assholes.
And yes, blindly. If you don't obey your exact orders and your superior finds out, you get stuffed in a rock for a couple of centuries.

>>50181972
Intelligence 10 is the average. You literally can't argue against this because that's how stats are defined. That means half of all people are around or above that. Geniuses are definitely in that group.

>>50181972
Agriculture isn't wisdom(survival). It's more to do with knowledge of things such as seasons, when to sow/reap, how to make fertilizer, how to get rid of bugs, that sort of thing.

Farmers stay in one place and follow a routine. They only need knowledge of how to do things, and remember it like a chinese cram school.
Hunters roam and need to track animals with their own intentions and habits, and they have to have awareness rather than flat-out knowledge.

Similarly, a devil follows more of a routine whereas a demon is more of a lone hunter.

>>50181780
Variant human magic initiate, all you need to do. Booming blade nigguh

Pretty awkward subclass though you aren't wrong. Why they dont get lightning bolt the world may never know

>>50181941
I don't even understand what problem you and >>50181919 have.
You don't have to be a master manipulator, you may just know a lot of stuff and have a calculator brain. You don't have to make them all have multidimensional genious plans that would take 10 book novels to illustrate.

>>50181985
I thought by 5e lore the way imps work is that they're promoted.. whatever the weird blobs in hell are, and the weird blobs in hell are the souls of people who've lost their souls to devils and hell.

Succubi are odd, because they can both serve demons and devils, but they don't seem to be explicitly either, they're just fiends.

>>50181980
>Abandoning your friends, family, and livelihood to preach to a bunch of psychopaths
If staying in your shitty one-horse town isn't enough, fine. Leave. But following assholes into haunted crypts and monster-infested wilderness is not the answer.
You can be an adventurer without being a typical D&D character. Go do that. With not-crazy people.

>>50181972
>"everyone is a retard, but me, xdddd"

>>50181897
Let me put it another way, if you're in a dungeon and everyone but those three randos are actively trying to kill you, regardless of your beliefs in violence, you stick with the three randos. Because anything else is going to get you fucking killed.

>>50181995
>all you need to do
What if a non-human wanted to be a tempest cleric? Or what if anon wants to pick a race that fits his idea of his character instead of for its stats?

>>50182002
I'm not exactly sure about 5e lore about imps, but I was specifically talking about editions prior to 4e.

>>50181966
No, they were always chaotic evil. That's the point of being an alignment exemplar.

Demons in 2e and in Planescape had these Int scores:
Babau genius (17-18); balor supra-genius (19-20); bar-lgura low to average (5-10); chasme average to very (8-12); glabrezu exceptional (15-16); hezrou average to high (8-14); marilith genius (17-18); molydeus exceptional (15-16); nabassu high (13-14); nalfeshnee godlike (21+); vrock high (12-14);

>>50181995
You can't use thunderbolt strike with booming blade, but you can use destructive wrath, which gives you 4d8 if you maximize it at level 17 if the enemy moves, which is probably worse than destructive wave. Destructive wave it pretty good for it, but it deals half bludgeoning if I recall right.

I'm at least glad they get thunderwave, because at least you can upcast it a bit and then that's decent, though in that sense you could just go light cleric and get fireball.

>>50182018
What the fuck are you doing in that dungeon in the first place? At best, that's an explanation for session 1. A reasonable person would immediately ditch this bunch of mercenaries.

I notice Dominate Person doesn't have the "no ordering to kill themselves" clause. Does that mean you could use it for that or is that just an implied effect since it's there on every other charm?

What are ways for people to figure out if there are mimics around?

>>50182035
>What the fuck are you doing in that dungeon in the first place?
Monsters kidnapped you. Got lost. Came to rescue some hostages and got in over your head.

I can do this all morning.

>>50182025
Devils:
Abishai average (8-10); amnizu exceptional (15-16); barbazu low (5-7); cornugon exceptional (15-16); erinyes high (13-14); gelugon genius (17-18); hamatula very (11-12); osyluth very (11-12); pit fiend genius (17-18).

They were more than evenly match, with the demons boasting overall better Int.

>>50182043
Stab everything.
Send the tastiest looking party member first.

>>50182047
Nice job ignoring the other half of my post. Why aren't you ditching these assholes as soon as you roll into town?

>>50182025
If it's exemplar of its alignment, then they should honestly just be 'let's just kill things for our own gain' because that's what chaotic evil usually is, just being a hedonistic dick that doesn't care much about social structures and cares more about self-improvement.

All they need to know is how to not die and how to attain power. They don't need deep magical item crafting knowledge because they'd probably rather steal it from somewhere if that's easier.
Devils nowadays are expected to be craftier, and they'd be more likely to do something like make a magical item, because they can then do things like put enchantments that make the wearer weak to devils.

But then, why does demon armour exist? Honestly, that feels contradictory.

Honestly the mental stats for monsters just normally feel like an arbitrary measure of 'FEAR ME MORTAL I HAVE A BIG BRAIN'

>>50181999
>>50181985
That's how you get autists.

>>50181992
It's also literally common sense.
The other sciences/professions would be intellect driven.

>>50182012
I'm not saying I'm a genius, far from it in fact, but c'mon dude, you have to admit the general public is a mass of blithering, drooling retards.

>>50182071
>'let's just kill things for our own gain' because that's what chaotic evil usually is
Not remotely. Being chaotic evil means
1. You don't give a shit about other people, and
2. You don't like rules.
The classic example is asshole CEOs, who are not known for their rampages.

>>50182074
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky animals and you know it."

>>50182071
>'let's just kill things for our own gain
It's not just that, but can encompass that to the exception of everything else.
It does require creative expression, moreso than the tyrannical yoke of obedience and following orders.

If anything, lawful evil should be the retard alignment.

>>50182071
I think it's partly just to make them tougher because int is a game statistic that affects spells

>>50182074
Farming isn't common sense, or else farming would have been developed earlier than it was in history.

Farming isn't just 'Throw seeds at dirt, plants grow, eat plants.'
You can do whole fucking degrees at university in farming.

But then again, I guess there aren't degrees in hunting because farming is more important noadays.

>>50182074
Usually people who think they are so special and smart and not a part of the "dumb sheeple majority" are the biggest retards.

>>50182071
Dude, do you even understand the various alignments?

>>50182089
It is too a certain degree, moreso than the other pursuits like chemistry and physics.

>>50182091
Okay?
I'm not expressing that I'm special, just disenfranchised with the majority of people as a whole.

>>50181902
But Chaos is retarded as all hell. That's the point; it's all about being disorderly and unproductive. Truly the most despicable group of alignments.

>>50182091
Guess you're one of the biggest retards ever, eh?

>>50182095
To be fair very few people truly understand alignment as Gary intended.

Think of law and order as the right side of the brain, and chaos as the left side of the brain.

>>50182083
>don't give a shit about other people
If they're in the way or they're not useful, feel freeto kill them.
>don't like rules
That means they're unlikely to make rules themself, and they'll be terrible rulers.

Lawful evils are typically 'tyrannical ruler' types at their highest ranks.
Chaotic evils would only keep lower ranks in line through chains, because their slaves would have little reason to serve them and would rather run away unless they share some sort of special bond.

>>50182085
If they don't use intellect for casting spells, it's useless, because intellect saves almost never happen. Intellect(investigation) against illusions might be a thing, however.

>>50182095
That's not helping anything. If you think lawfuls become lone wolves or chaotics form business corporations or whatever, say so, otherwise I have no idea what you're talking about.

>>50182084
You need some brain to have some organization.
Demons also have an hierarchical organization, but devils have a more complex and twisted one.

>>50182103
I wouldn't say it's more common sense, it's just more directly useful
Like if you haven't sorted out a reliable food source yet then knowing how to calculate the area of a triangle isn't really helping you

>>50182107
Nah, it's really not. You just played with or knew fuckers.

>>50181958
But Devils only advance by conniving and planning. Demons can just beat on nerds to get by.

>>50182120
Wouldn't that be common sense though, brah?
Knowing that cultivating a survival source is more beneficial than calculating what a triangle is?

>>50182107
>But Law is retarded as all hell. That's the point; it's all about being a mindless drone. Truly the most despicable group of alignments.

>>50182047
>>50182056
I'm still waiting, friend. I thought you could do this all morning? :^)

>>50182125
And this is why nerds don't like demons, because demons incessantly bullied them and kept taking their lunch money.

Now we're at the crux of the matter.

>>50182139
>But Law is retarded as all hell. That's the point; it's all about being a mindless drone. Truly the most despicable group of alignments.
Yep.

Think of this tbqh >>50182117

It's worth noting in real life that intellect-based people (Those who study science, mathematics and the like) tend to follow the law more than the uneducated.

You need a lawful mindset to enjoy making sense of the universe, reading books, generally ending up being quieter than the loud, rowdy people at the bottom of modern hierarchy.

>>50182121
What's it about if not Disorder?

>>50182151
>they need routine because they're usually high functioning autists

>>50182103
Well, if you have such opinion of youself compared to a majority, what can I say.
>>50182108
What, triggered your special smart snowflake sense?

>>50182117
So...Chaos is a waste of space that causes some people to have seizures?

>>50182151
I call bullshit. Smart people break the law all the goddamn time. They just don't do it violently and in public.

>>50182158
And this is the other half.

>>50182154
Disorder isn't inherently destructive. Elves are chaotic because they value free expression and no real social structure.

>>50181892
Anon-san? Anon-san? Stop your chaos demon heresy arguement and help me!

please?

>>50182142
>Big Dick Balor bullying little mage boys in the locker room

>>50182151
Artists and inventors and trailblazers usually are chaotic, because it's the creative, innovate side free from regimentation.

>>50182168
And those same Chaotic Elves are usually on a downward spiral towards failure and obsolescence. They need Law Jesus.

>>50182158
Though it's worth noting a lot of intellectuals seem to include dyslexic/dyspraxic types who have pretty poor organisation. See: Einstein's desk. Even if they're disorganised, they likely still value lawfulness and order.

>>50182168
Lawful characters may also break the law, obviously. But if they do break the law, it won't be over petty matters.

>>50182165
I kek'd.

>>50182163
Does your handler know you've escaped and within the general population?

>>50182151
You say that based on what?
>loud, rowdy people at the bottom of modern hierarchy
Or at the top, eh?
Just as a reminder, life is not a DnD game.

>>50182180
Pretty much this.

Artists are the ones who normally dye their hair and all that. Fuck tradition, fuck you mom, it's nota phase.

What the fuck sprung out of that dude's likely throwaway comment?

>>50182194
Yep, definetly triggered.

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Yes, my children, submit to Me.

Planning to give my party some monkey business with a Barlgura encounter in an old tomb (some dickhead trapped it there to guard the tomb.)
How should a massive demon ape be characterized as it makes an attempt to rough up these mortal losers? For bonus points, one of them is a tiefling; is racial abuse trendy amongst tanar'ri?

>>50182197
The best way to make alignments make sense is to compare it to real life. Fantasy works are all about relating unusual fantasy elements to real life, after all. Elves are very much like humans, but they're not.

The people at the top are often older businessmen and the like. They're not inclined to play rap on loudspeakers while travelling down the road in an open-top car.

>>50182189
No, because that's a stupid fucking trope brought about by the need to portray elves ""realistically"". Elves are literally infused with chaotic goodness by their creators. Unlike humans, they are truly capable of a very loose society where almost nobody ever takes advantage of its possible downsides.

>>50182190
>a lot of intellectuals seem to include dyslexic/dyspraxic types who have pretty poor organisation
This is a literal meme. There might be some inclination (citation pls), but working in software you realize geniuses run the full gamut of personality types, from autistic to (smart) bimbo to bullies.
>Lawful characters may also break the law, obviously. But if they do break the law, it won't be over petty matters
I assure you there are smart people who shoplift all the goddamn time.

Does a bard need to be playing his musical instrument if he's using it as a spellcasting focus? Or can he pretend that his flute is a magic wand? (pretend he's from the College of Satire)

>>50182219
>Businessmen don't play rap on loudspeakers
Man, you have no idea. People in highly-organized fields like to feel edgy, and if they're sociopathic enough they don't give a shit if you don't like their music.

>>50182222
Pretty sure smart people don't need to shoplift, because they'll have a proper fucking job.

That said, it could well be possible the distribution is even and dyslexia and the like has nothing to do with being smart, it's just the dumb ones never find out because they never cared about reading in the first place.
But the point is that you can have disorganised lawful people.

This is good and all but alignment debates are literally cancer.

>>50182244
Smart people can suffer from neurosis and psychosis just like dumb people.

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>>50182212

>>50182244
>smart people don't need to shoplift, because they'll have a proper fucking job
1. Smart =/= well-adjusted, contributing member of society. (Doesn't mean the opposite, either, of course)
2. People literally do not shoplift because they need to. They do it for a variety of reasons that you can group under "stupid and pointless edginess."

>>50182219
They don't do that because they have money to snort cocaine from the expensive prostitutes butts on their private yacht.

>>50182256
>>50182244
This.

Some people shoplift because it gives them power, gives them a thrill of adrenaline, because they think they're owed something, because they want to deprive someone of something.

There are many mores than the one you've simply tossed into the ring.

>>50182239
Maybe you know one or two who do, but generally they tend to not.

In, say, physics lectures, you'll see a lot more nerdier types who'd never even think of playing 'shit nigga nigga bitch nigga nigga' music. You still get the dudebros, but when you check into certain sorts of clubs such as D&D clubs the majority of the people there will be from disciplines such as physics.

>>50182256
If you get your typical nerd, they're unlikely to shoplift for reasons such as anxiety, the fact they're probably financiallysecure, the fact they're probably not on hard drugs, etc.
Mostly anxiety, I suppose. Something like that.
The people you find in STEM fields will be nerdier, and will be less rambunctious.

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ALL THE INVOCATIONS SEEM COOL FUCK I CAN'T DECIDE ON ONLY 8 TOTAL

Leaning at, in no particular order,
>Agonizing Blast (CHA to Damage for EB)
>Repelling Blast (10 Foot Knockback on EB)
>Ascendant Step (Levitate on self at will)
>Eldritch Sight (Detect Magic at will)
>Mask of Many Faces (Disguise Self at will)
>Witch Sight (You can see the true form of any shapechanger or creature concealed by illusion or transmutation magic while the creature is within 30 feet of you and within line of sight.)
>Devil's Sight (You can see normally in darkness, both magical and
nonmagical, to a distance of 120 feet.)

And I'm still undecided on the last one. Not that the game will ever get to the point that I have all 8 anyways.

Somewhat related- Would a character who True Polymorphed themselves into an Adult Gold Dragon (Or rather something using it's stat block) as soon as they hit 17 cause problems for a DM balancing things? As much as I'd like to play my SPESHIL SNOWFLAKE character I don't want to make unnecessary work for my DM.

>>50182276
Well, that's all fine, but those are reasons mostly tied with less thinking and more 'doing' types.

The sort who goes out and parties, races in cars down the street, that sort of thing. The more chaotic types. They show up more outside of STEM fields, but you can obviously have a few in there.
I'm not sure if I have to provide psychology papers to back that up.

>>50182227
Uh, guys? I need an answer.

>>50182281
> That entire first part
I play D&D with lots of people from entirely un-smart fields. I think you're applying 80's stereotypes (and racism?) to real life.

> Nerds don't shoplift
As a nerd who used to shoplift in high school because I thought it was cool and edgy, I laugh at how not true this is.

(Yes, you replied to the same person twice)

>>50182292
That's a lot of presumptions and stereotypes you're running with there.

>>50182292
>Not sure if I have to provide...
Yes, you do, because you're providing nothing more than "everybody knows that..." arguments and anecdotal evidence.

>>50182298
A bard creates magic through art. I doubt even a satire bard can put enough subtlety into waving a flute around to effect diverse magical results.

>>50182281
You sounds like someone with some general media stereotypes who never been exposed to what he is talking about.
There are lot of dudebros and "regular dudes" in stem. And there are lot of retards who also play D&D or think of themselves as "nerds".
And judging people by musical tastes is kinda dumb.

>>50182215
Tanar'ri would abuse you in any way they could think of without any regard to whether it's cool or not.
So, yes.

>>50182177
"You retain all benefits from your... race."
I'd say "maybe?" depending on how you interpret this line. But I'm inclined towards "no," because you're not an elf at that point.

>>50182323
I'm actually making a Swords bard whose "performance" is chopping things that are thrown at him, like Isao Machii

So that's a no then? Outside of buying a component pouch, I guess my bard will have to stay back when casting material spells.

The 5e MM is very well designed and put together regardless.

>>50181660
Recolor Purple Worms

>>50182364
Barring some massive cockups by the idiotic designers, you mean.

>>50182359
Is the whole point using the flute one handed? :P
If so, just get, like, maracas or something.

>>50182364
(you)

>>50182375
Dammit son, don't bite!

>>50182378
Yeah, and was also wondering if the guy needed to be holding it at all in case he's got his hands full with combat.

Thanks for the answer.

>>50182413
Shit, I meant castanets, not maracas. You can totally clack away a Flamenco rhythm while fencing like a mad Spaniard.
Actually, I think I just found my next character.

The lore in the cave fisher bit and Dungeon Meshi has inspired me to want to design an All The World's Meat supplement, a supplement that'll all be about cooking all of the creatures in the MM and Volo's, what each creature will taste and any uses of their bodies.

>>50182413
Well you could just get an ironwood lute and pretend that you're El Kabong.

>>50182457
What in the glorious fuck are you doing here then?

>>50182246
They wouldn't be if we kept to Gary's original plan for alignment, or even Dragonlance's.

But we chose Forgotten Realm.

>>50182525
What happened in those?

>>50182212
<-Literal mouthbreathing autist detected.

>>50182554
->
>>50182212

Lightning cutter. As part is cantrip make an attack. Deals +mod lighting then you teleport to a square adjacent to the target. Scales +1d8 ect.

Caustic blade. As a part of cantrip make an attack. At the end of the targets next turn it takes 1d4+mod acid damage. Both the initial hit and secondary scale +2d4.

Toxic stabby cantrip. As part of cantrip make an attack. If hit con save or take mod poison damage and be poisoned until next turn. Scales +1d6 on failed save.

No idea for a good ice one.

>>50182474
>not getting an ironwood lute and rocking socks off of people while bashing in heads
You what m8

>>50182540
In Greyhawk alignment was effectively the equivalent of a religion, it even had its own liturgical language language, you didn't have to just keep to the rules of your patron deity but also the greater rules of lawful good.

In Dragonlance alignment was an business agreement you made with your deity; your actions are what matter not feels or opinions.

>>50182575
So... you could think of a blade of every element, except the one that's sharp?

Probably a slowing effect or something. That's what frostfags usually want.

>>50182588
>its own liturgical language
This was immensely retarded.

>>50182575
>Lightning cutter
Nothing personel/10

>Caustic blade
This is actually pretty good and fluffy.

>Toxic stabby cantrip
Considering how normal high con saves are, this looks pretty bad.

I have always wanted an acid spell that either ignored armour AC or temporarily reduced AC though..

>>50182457
Cool story bro.

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What's the better "Tales of"-esque Mage Knight: Valor Bard or Eldritch Knight?

>>50182575
Can you throw a dagger at someone with lightning cutter, and then teleport to a square next to that person?

>>50182604
Not really.

It was never a spoken language, but a system of body language, personal understanding, and other nonverbal cues.

Also, that's likes saying celestial and infernal and abyssal are retarded.

>>50182286
It would cause balance trouble, cause you now count as 4-5 level 17 characters. But you can't cast spells anymore I believe so there is that.

>>50182651
Wizard with Bladesinging Tradition

>>50182683
>But you can't cast spells anymore I believe so there is that.
Correct.

I let a player do this as a end-of-character arc. Dragonblood sorcerer who wanted to ascend, and ended the campaign transforming into a dragon for the last battle. Suitably epic and interesting, and the character had no intention of going back to her human form, so it was also a great way to retire the character.

>>50182679
No, really, it was fucking retarded and was rightfully done away with it.

Celestial, infernal and abyssal aren't alignment languages though. That's comparing apples to oranges.

>>50182679
>but a system of body language, personal understanding, and other nonverbal cues
somehow this makes it even more retarded

>>50182679
>Implying they aren't

>>50182651
>>50182651
Richard best Tales Magic Knight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNeebOa0-SE

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>>50182731
>Best Tales Magic Knight

That's not Flynn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwoAD_si_B8

(Though Flynn would be a Paladin in 5E)

>>50182575
Thunderbolt strike would have weird functions with 'lightning cutter', but eh. Why is teleporting part of a cantrip? At-will powers are not that powerful for PCs.
Toxic is basically a direct upgrade on vicious mockery except against charm-vulnerable poison-immune targets.

Caustic blade deals more damage than the 1d8 cantrips and its secondary effect is more applicable than GFB/BB.

>>50182056
Because you believe leaving them to their own devices will lead to more people dying than staying with them. Or because you like them, or because you've got no one else to roll with. Perhaps you are an employee, cohort or slave of one of them or an NPC who wants to keep an eye on the party.
Maybe the situation is so fucked that it's no safer for you In town than the dungeon.

Lots of reasons.

>>50182323
Well, maybe some other time then, because I'm a bit too busy to start digging through the psychology department to prove that demons in a fictional game should likely have worse memory and processing capacities than a devil.
Of course, I'm never too busy to shitpost on the internet.

>>50182322
I wouldn't call it stereotypes, but rather classifcations based on observations, but obviously one can't just share observations.

Really the only easy way to end this is to say 'Let the DM choose what flavour they want their devils or demons to be in their world'.

If they want their chaotics to be more akin to wizards and their lawfuls to be more akin to sorcerers, so be it.

>>50182135
Yeah, but we're not talking about knowing if it's useful, we're talking knowing how to do it and how it works

My party will meet a young Copper Dragon next session. Does anyone know some good jokes he could tell them, or any other fun interactions he would do with them?

>>50182886
Make up some incredibly lame puns about drag-on, drag-on queens and coppers

>>50182886
Make lots of Yo' momma jokes.
>>50182844
Still, it's more common sense than anything. Druids have Wis as the main stat for a reason.

>>50182921
Would do this, but sadly English is not our native language

Did they just blatantly pilfer the vampire entry in the MM for Strahd with minimal changes?
That's fucking lazy.

>>50182886
How many dwarves do you need to light a chandelier?
Five. Two to make a ladder, two more to hold it, one to realise the all have darkvision anyway. Har-dee-har-har

>>50182967
That's racist, but fucking true.

>Attack non-leathally
>crit
What happens? Kill them or just knock them out more effectivly?

>>50183002
The latter

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>>50182886
He's young. Have him still learning about proper sense of humor. Make it very dry, straight-man style stuff.

Have the dragon standing on all fours, and peering intently at his fore-paws, twitching them every once in a while. When they ask what he is doing/what is wrong, have him murmur distractedly, "I am trying to twiddle my dewclaws. It is very difficult."

"How many wizards does it take to screw in a lightbulb? I don't know what a lightbulb is either, I was hoping you could tell me."

Have him experiment in bad taste. "What's the best thing about twenty-nine year olds? There are twenty of them! Hey, why is the paladin smiting me, knock it off!"

"...so why does the pope shit in the woods anyways? That never made sense to me."

>>50183015
>I am trying to twiddle my dewclaws. It is very difficult.
That's some Teal'c tier humor. And that's great

What exactly are the Faction Kits by WotC on DriveThruRPG?
Anyone know what they have in them?

>>50183002
Knock them out.
Besides, technically you don't decide to nonlethally attack until you know you've got the enemy to 0, then you announce you're doing it nonlethally.

>>50182886
An elf walks into a bar. Those dwarven doors are waay too low

>>50182298
No, you don't need to play it, there's no rule saying you do.
Seems odd but it's so there's not one class that needs to 2h their spell focus when nobody else does.

Didn't think this was worth its own thread.

How do I start homebrewing my own race? Never done it before and a new player is coming in intending to play as a Half-Dragonborn/Half-Elf (there's a plot explanation for this) and I don't know what to do about that.

>>50183110
>Half-Dragonborn/Half-Elf

>>50183110
take one race, take another race, slap them together

>>50183135
Essentially this

>>50183110
1) Take Half-Elf
2) Either:
A) Give elemental resistance instead of Fey Ancestry
or
B) Give Breath Weapon instead of Skill Versatility and one of ASIs

>>50183110
The DMG goes into detail, but when you are thinking of adding stuff, start small, and work your way up. With a dragonborn half elf combo I'd say +2 Cha +1 Str, Darkvision, 30 feet of movement, and 2 things. One of those could be resistance to the damage type of the parent dragonborn. The other could be fey ancestry for advantage on charm saves and can't be put to sleep magically.

That's a pretty simple baseline.

>>50183163
That's essentially a double resistance to stuff. Might be a bit too much

>>50183172
I know it does seem like much but when you step back you realize that's it. The amount of times I've been charmed in a campaign is less than 10, and resistance to one damage type is neat unless they just use something else. You don't get a feat, you don't get weapon proficiencies or cool abilities you just have very specific defenses.

>>50183132
Got something you wanna say there, partner?

>>50183135
>>50183154
>>50183163
Thanks for the help

How rare/expensive should a magical item that makes 'Self' Range spells 'Touch' Spells?

>>50182782
Waiting for damage gives the enemy a other turn to act, this the higher damage.

>>50182662
No sorry, the spells are based of the scag cantrips so melee only.

>>50182624
Yeah, I like the idea of a there's thoresque eldrich knight slamming someone with a warhammer then in a flash of lightning being the other side of them. But I guess anime had killed that for me. Names are totally just placeholders because I'm uncreative.

>>50182782
Teleport at will does seem super strong but really it's just at most 10ft to the other side of the guy so can't really do much with it.
Poison is a bit better than vicious but needs a successful attack and a failed save and to get into melee.

>>50183015
>Have him experiment in bad taste. "What's the best thing about twenty-nine year olds? There are twenty of them!"
I am going to hell for laughing at this, aren't I?

Got a question for you guys, a situation just came up rolling stats for a character.

We have only three d6, for some reason this time i'm rolling all three instead of just two twice, so I rolled three, recorded them, then fucked up and rolled all three again. Me and the DM sorta looked at eachother and he just goes "Just roll that stat again".

Later on another player did the same thing, but then just rolled one dice immediately after. The issue arose when the DM ended up making him reroll the stat same as I had to do. It's really irked this guy and he's gotten all up in arms about having to reroll the stat.

I feel like it's more to do with the superstition of the dice rolls for me but this guy is super pissed off that we didn't just do the easiest thing rolling one more dice. I also feel like it's a total nonissue and we fucked up having three in the first place so why not just reroll the shit. Quite possibly the dude is salty about rolling badly.

Opinions?

>>50183264
Yes. But it's legit funny, tell it there

>>50183278
Seek help with that autism.

>>50183278
So you're doing 4d6 drop 1 and you only have 3 dice?
Why not just use an app or something?
Why does the DM care if he rolled 3 dice then one more, that's the same as rolling 4 dice?
What the fuck are you guys doing?

>>50183278
I don't see an issue at all, but use some online dice roller if its that big of a deal to roll all 4 at once.

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Pic related, a grotesquely hideous fugly fucker got to pound a sexy giant goddess, fathering many children.

Anons? In a setting loosely inspired by the idea of "D&D meets Malifaux", would you judge a lizardfolk/gnoll/kobold Paladin to be at risk of falling for eating Terror Tots?

Crunch-wise, these are quasits/imps, fluff-wise, they're the infant form of the setting's demons, potentially growing up to be Balor-expies one day, and already vicious enough to kill a man with their bare hands.

>>50183278
This is just ridiculous. You should all use standard array and never post here again.

How ineffective is going a Lizardfolk fighter that uses natural armour+bite? I'd probably go
15, 15, 14, 8, 10, 8
then get two 16's at level 4, 20 str at 8 and 20 dex at 14, if the game lasts that long.

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Why couldn't the tabaxi have looked pic related?

>>50183432
Looks like Raja Gemini

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>>50183432
No, the tabaxi should all look like pic related.

>>50182958
>The vampire that is also a wizard and fighter uses the statblock of a vampire, but also with features from wizard and fighter
You don't fuckin' say?

>>50183432
Why can't they? That doesn't even differ that much from the VGM pic, except for the face.

>>50183432
Because you touch yourself

>>50183447
Pretty sure that's a Cat Lord, not its servant

>>50183447
Lewd.

>>50183464
I think he's saying more changes or differences would've been nice.

>>50183432
They can if you use imagination.

>>50183432
Just use e621 like a normal person

>>50183491
>e621
>normal person
>pick one

>>50183526
Good point. I don't know what I was thinking.

>>50183491
MSG?

>>50183474
By the way, was there any information about Cat Lords since Planescape?

>>50183556
Don't act like you don't know what it is. You think you're pretty sneaky with your incognito mode but you're not.

>>50183589
No, really, what is it?

>>50183606
furshit

>>50183606
Nice try.

>>50183606
If you don't know, it's better not to know.

>>50183606
Tried looking it up because I am an idiot.

Don't do it. You have been warned.

>>50183630
>>50183632
>>50183635
>>50183637
I have a tab of it open as we speak, actually. Funny that.

Once you go to e621 you never go back.

Can a wizard copy a spell from a one use only spell scroll into their spellbook and just have it forever?

>>50183785
Yep.

>>50183785
Yes, but it costs time and money to do so.

>>50183790
>>50183818

Great thanks, I am stocking a dungeon with treasure and I was just wondering if i was gonna be giving the wizard all the fun stuff and everyone else just gets money.

>>50183664
I accidentally my entire browser window when I clicked into the main site.

I am pretty fucking sure I won't be going there again.

>>50184013
Maybe some higher force was protecting you from the horrors that lurk inside.

Alright help me people.

A player of mine wants to make a dart throwing shadow monk, but we quickly realized it will quickly become shit (they level fast, and the tomelock and wizard will probably out scale him pretty fucking hard quite quickly)

How do I fix it? I am the GM, so give me your best ideas for buffing him up to be viable.

Right now I have the obvious: Darts are ammunition and can be drawn as free actions when attacking.

What else would I need to add to give him a fair chance of keeping up, in terms of core rule changes or home brewed feats/reworked monk abilities?

>>50184028
I just closed the entire window and all the open tabs. I just forgot a word there.

What happened to the eladrins, guardinals and archons?

>>50184101
They weren't quite as important. Probably still around
Eladrins are likely a mix of Planescape ones and 4E's (as in, scrubs are PC race-tier, lords are total monsters)

>>50184060
I would say let him pick a special feat that allows him to scale the darts damage like his unarmed damage. If you just scale his damage without him having to take a feat he will just be a better sun soul monk.

>>50181701
>3.5 Community domain spells
>some shit that lets you establish a telepathic link with X number of people, communicating with and intuiting their health and status conditions from far away
>some other shit that lets you cast spells across the link
>sitting in a bar having fun while playing the fantasy medieval equivalent of MMO Healing on people in another instance
>just whoring yourself out to various adventuring parties you meet
>yeah, you guys go on the dungeon run, i'll be right here healing you and shit
>if you find some spooky stuff you need to look up I can just go to the library too while you're in there

>>50182815
Ok. A couple of those are valid reasons, sort of - they also require a particular kind of person (co-dependent and desperate, mostly). But none of them sound fun to play.

>>50182025
>>50182053
I feel like if you went back in time and pointed this out to the developers, they'd go and switch a lot of these. There's probably a lot of "I'm just doing what was done in [earlier edition / material]", where someone was probably paying even less attention to consistency.

>>50182828
>I wouldn't call it stereotypes, but rather classifcations based on observations
>"I'm not racist, I've just met enough blacks to form an educated opinion."

>>50182886
>>50182967
How many Illithids do you need to light a chandelier?
One, but he needs five dwarves.

>>50184344
Okay, I laughed. Good job

>>50183245
Rare, probably; I don't see it being too abusable, except to buff one person hella.

>>50183402
STOP EATING OUR YOUNG! AND IT'S PRONOUNCED GUACAMOLE!

>>50182886
How many drow does it take to milk a cow.
Seven. One woman to command, one man to milk, four men to guard those two and one with two scimitars to fuck off to the surface

>>50183413
Natural armor would be fine. The bite would be like using a dagger - a bit underwhelming (2 damage/strike less than a longsword, which would stack up).

Less problematic if you go barbarian, because they stack more bonuses on fewer hits.

>>50184138
Incidentally, this is how one should always fluff elves.

>>50184386
I chuckled. How about this:

How many drow does it take to milk a cow?
Depends. How many scimitars do you have?

>we'll never visit the home planet/dimension of the orcs or dwarves

>>50184188
Not familiar with the sun soul monk. I thought of letting him use darts in place of unarmed attacks, but also forcing him to suffer the penalties for using a ranged attack in melee - so instead of his unarmed damage increasing, the increase is purely thrown dart damage.

Don't want to make another archetype pointless, even if I am not familiar with it. I am just also not sure if the above change is even enough to make it viable.

>>50183664
Funny, my entire group of 3 guys and 2 chick often use that site exclusively for character art. We also pretty much always play shit like kobolds or dragonborn or something like that.

>>50184435
>Incidentally, this is how one should always fluff elves.
Interestingly enough, in 4E's monster books elves were strictly Heroic-tier, while eladrin NPCs started at mid-Heroic and ended at early Epic

Do you try to take spells relevant to your archetype, or just take any spells?
I've got a divination wizard in my game now that doesn't have one divination spell in their spellbook

>>50184623
Sure, that's why I visit it too. "wink wink"

>>50184648
I always try to be thematic when I can. Sometimes I'll even take magic initiate to get additional stuff that fits a theme

>>50184638
I think the main reason there was that eladrin stats were more necessary in higher levels because that's when 4e assumes planar adventures start.
But yeah, my elves are a mix of the two.

>>50184648
It's nice to have a theme, but reasonable to stray. But your player sounds like a munchkin who only picked divination for its features.

>>50184623
How many characters have you had wearing diapers

>>50184435
it's d6, not d4 and you don't get to use two weapon fighting.

>>50183413
Fighter honestly isn't the best fit. The bite is worse than the fighters normal weapons, does not benefit from any fighting styles (you can't even use defense) and does not work with two weapon fighting without investing a feat.

The natural armor is also sort of wasted as you could just go heavy armor and get more AC while dumping dex.

Lizardmen are better as rogues (ask your DM if you can get sneak attack with your bite), monks, barbarians or rangers IMO.

>>50184589
>>50184060
I wouldn't even say it needs to be a feat. Just let darts count as a monk weapon. Daggers are monk weapons, and they're essentially identical mechanically.

>>50184648
The core wizard archetypes are designed to encourage the use of spells of their favored school. If your wizard doesn't have any divination spells, then (a) they're sorta missing out on stuff like Expert Divination, and (b) why didn't they take a different school? Portent is good, but it's not THAT good.

>>50184683
You're right about the damage die, my bad. I agree with your class choices, except monk, for a player who wants to use the natural weapon. The key is to have fewer attacks that pack more of a punch, so you won't lose as much from having a low-damage weapon.
Rogue sounds pretty fuckin sweet, actually. Crawl up behind motherfuckers and bite their neck off.

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Describe your current party.

Just got dungeonology today.
Slightly dissapointed. It's an ok fluff book and a good intro to the forgotten realms with some cute little pull outs and pop ups I felt that all the content and artwork was a reuse of information found in other books.

Verdict: A cool gift for a younger person with an interest in the setting. A pointless purchase if you have the core books already.

>>50184313
No, I am racist.

I acknowledge that races are not equal, with asians tending towards, say, +1 int - 1 cha, for example.

Does the Lizardfolk Bite get the dueling damage if the character had a battle axe and shield? I would say no, but just to confirm what do you guys think.

>>50184712
Hooooo boy.

>>50183255
If you're fighting an enemy that isn't likely to die anyway (say, a boss) then it's pretty much a direct upgrade.

You could say the same about GFB, but I suppose GFB is harder to get with two enemies next to each other - you might as well use an AoE spell.

Teleport at will isn't powerful, however, you're falling into 4e's trap. If they can teleport, then you're basically saying 'characters can teleport at will' because they could take a rat with them and use that to teleport.
Lore-wise, it doesn't make sense that you can teleport with cantrips.

>>50184695
I like lizardfolk monks because they get a point of wis and an early AC boost if you have low wis or use a shield for some free early AC before it messes with your features.

They also get to make their free unarmed attacks with a d6 already at level 4 rather than waiting for level 5 and can change up their damage type. They also get the most bites before level 20 where fighter matches them, this is a major bonus if biting is what you want.

>>50184706
bunch of dicks, all of them

>>50184722
The bite is not a wielded weapon and would never get dueling bonus anyways.
"When you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand..."

>>50184706
A ragtag group of races you hardly see once a month trooping along using magic bullshit to take care of all their problems.

>>50184767
You kinda highlighted the wrong part of the Dueling fighting style.
"you get a +2 bonus to damage rolls with THAT weapon" is the part that explains why it wouldn't apply to the bite attack.

>>50184812
Sorry, my mistake. Still no bonus damage though.

>>50184677
0.

There needs to be a grappler-monk archetype, so I can roll up a lizardfolk as one and be Killer Croc.

>>50184706
A smashaholic wannabe Thor dwarf, a cocky sorcerer and a really heroic assassin.

I'm going to be dming a D&D 5e game on Sunday for a few friends. I have never dmed before and have yet to even read the guidebooks, though I have no worry that I won't learn the mechanics by then.

My main concern is what kind of campaign I should run. They've all played in way more campaigns than I have, and I don't want to bore them. I have a vague idea of a noble contracting them to recover some stolen grain from bandits in light of the upcoming harvest festival, only only for then to discover a deeper conspiracy ~ooo~.

Also, what physical paraphernalia should I get? I imagine it might be tacky refencing guide books off a laptop so I was planning on purchasing a physical copy of the DMG, is there anything else I should acquire? A screen perhaps? The monster manual?

>>50184710
I mean... that's what it was made for.
What were you expecting?

So the only real use of Lizardfolk bite is 1d6+str as a bonus action per short rest?

>>50184855
Where did you get "bonus action" or "short rest" out of that?

>>50184851
DMG is gonna be the least useful physical book to have.
If none of the players have a PHB you need one for the group.
Monster Manual will be extremely useful for you.
Personally I have no trouble with using a laptop and my players don't mind it, but I know some people can be touchy about that stuff (same with books vs e-readers).
Screen depends on your style - obviously I don't use one as I do everything from a laptop but when I used to run with books and notepads I used one.
If it's your first time DMing I'll be honest - it's not worth trying to make a huge, intricate campaign. It never works out and you'll just end up feeling sad about your wasted preparation.
Run the starter set adventure - Lost Mine of Phandelver - and if they're not going to be understanding that it's your first time, then they're being asses - they're more experienced than you, so maybe they should try DMing.
Sorry for the long reply.

>>50184851
you can make a screen using some cardboard and tape, doesn't have to be fancy. The monster manual and PHB are pretty much necessities if you don't want to use electronics. A DMG is good to have, but not as important as the other two.

>>50184877
Hungry jaws lets you attack with bonus action and get temp hp = con mod once per rest

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>>50184877
I didn't mean the Bite trait, just usability of bite attacks

>>50184706
Human Male Fighter
Old human cleric
Quirky token weird race dex class
Sexbomb waifu

Straight-up classic

>>50184706
I don't have a party, I'm a lonely fuck and just sit here for the sake of remembering the good old times.

>>50184903
In that case, it depends.
Playing them as a low-level Monk essentially means you start up with upgraded unarmed attack damage, so that's a plus.
It's better than pretty much any other printed racial unarmed attack.

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>>50184732
I'm sorry, allow me to make it up to you with this.

It's an improvement to the PHB, that fixes problems of racism, balance and classism within the world.

It also makes character creation much more versatile, and much easier.

Thoughts?

>>50184886
>>50184900
Thanks for the replies, I'll pick up a phb and monster manual. How scrub of a move is it to run a pre-constructed adventure? Are there any others I should look at?

>>50184987
Half the people here do it. Just make sure to actually be prepared to run it by reading the whole thing first.

>>50184706
A half-orc warlock with dwarfism ("Like Tyrion you know?"
A veteran dwarf fighter who has little patience for social skills and anything that is not the military
A tiefling rogue who is looking to pull a huge heist
A wood elf druid whose tribe was destroyed by bugbears
A human wizard with a pathological fear of demons
And a second dwarf fighter who is looking to become the best weaponsmith ever

>>50184987
It's not a scrub move at all. Running pregens just makes it easier and foten way more fun if you are just starting.

Mines of Mines of Phandelver is solid, and Storm Kings thunder is pretty amazing once you finish the mines. It fleshes out the region and has a nice story.

>>50184987
As a first-time DM, running a premade is great. A lot of them this edition are really good too.
I DMed for the first time recently (though I've been playing since 3.5e) and ran Lost Mine, which my group finished a couple weeks ago.
We finished it in around 7 sessions of roughly 4-5 hours, although I did a little re-structuring.
Storm King's Thunder is another fine adventure to start from level 1.
I'd recommend against using the others - some aren't very good (Hoard of the Dragon Queen) and others are hard to run for a first timer or have a weird tone that doesn't work with every group (Curse of Strahd and Out of the Abyss).
I don't know much about Princes of the Apocalypse, but I've heard that it can drag or feel very "game-y" (not always a bad thing).
So yeah, starter set or Storm King's Thunder should do you fine. Running a premade is nothing to laugh at, especially for a first time DM.

>>50184987
Also find some guides like those from powerscore. They are really helpful
>http://thecampaign20xx.blogspot.com/

Was there any info at all as to what became of the Myth Drannor site after Elf 9/11 or am I free to wing it?

>>50185042
>>50185031
Forgot to add, you can transition straight from the end of the starter set into Storm King's Thunder really easily, which I did.
It also gives your players an opportunity to make new characters if they want to, which some of my players wanted to do (that was mostly because the starter set was their first time playing and they'd made blank slate characters without any real knowledge of Forgotten Realms).

>>50185046
Seconding this, they're fantastic.
SKT is pretty useful but I can't even imagine running Strahd without the guide.

>>50184706
Half-elf Divination Wizard and published author of detective fiction featuring himself
Human GOO Warlock nobleman who was previously impersonated by a Human Ranger jerk that revealed a new "real identity" every other hour
Human Storm Cleric peasant who worships Stronmaus and just stepped off his peasant farm for the first time in his life
Dwarf Fighter hermit who talks to ghosts in his hammer and does mysterious ritual stuff that may or may not work
Human Swashbuckler Rogue sailor tracking down whatever blew up his old ship

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I love the little consistencies that the 5e books have with eachother, makes me less bothered that they focus on one setting.

>>50184980
>he thought this was a smart response

What class and their respected archetypes makes for a better tank; Barbarian or Fighter?

>>50185011
>>50185031
>>50185042
I was under the impression that it'd be embarrassing to use a Precon but your replies have made me more confident in it all. I think I will do Lost Mine, thank you for the advice.

Now, I've been told that 2 of the players like to go off the rails and start killing random innocents if it piques their capricious goddamn fancy. How should I respond to that?

>>50185209
Session zero where you explain that you are a new Dm and that you would appreciate it if they weren't dicks who sent the adventure off rails. Murderhoboing is what some people like and that's fine, but it can be frustrating to deal with at times, so I would recommend asking them to keep it down for at least the first few sessions.

Later on it might become more okay as you master the world and the setting, at which point you send bounty hunters, guards and paladins after them.

>>50185209
Twenty plus town guards /militia (villagers with clubs, pitch forks, and torches) run them out of town /lynch them.

Once you get 2-3 grapple attempts per turn, with advantage (every other villager takes the help action), then shove to ground and beat on, not many things will survive.
Be sure to use non lethal damage and string them up / behead them in front of the whole town.

>>50184706
wood elf bard (the main charcter/entertainer)
druid (the guy that keeps dying)
edgy assassin (comic relief because of those edges)
theifling monk (loveable friendly guy but will not stop stealing including party members)
theifling rogue (rarely shows up)

>>50183432
Because catgirls are "too pornographic" for WoTC to have running around. Same reason why their anthro races have traditionally been hideously ugly, because getting decent furry/scaly artists in to do them up nicely would make them "too sexualized".

Or it could just be that WoTC's only left with second-stringer artists between Pathfinder and the death of 4e. Take your pick.

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Cute elf (nature cleric, rather than druid)
Dragonball Monk
Dragonborn Pally

It's Holy, it's supportive, it's a bit Anime

>>50184918
Love it!

>>50184706
>Describe your current party.
Use tropes to describe your party if you can.

>Hero
>Lancer
>Smart Guy
>Big Guy
>Chick

>>50184706
Bladelock swashbuckler and his 3 imaginary friends.

>>50185209
Wow, they sound stupid.
Fortunately they'll be level one, so a town militia can fuck them up, as can any local adventurers (retired or otherwise).
Honestly though, as >>50185235 says, if you're upfront about it they should be fine.
If not, they're shits who don't deserve your effort.
Even my edgiest player (can't really blame them personally - the only RPG they'd played before was Paranoia) kept it down for a few sessions, and browbeating from the other players and a brush with an NPC who was capable with dealing with their shit turned their attitude around.

>>50181815
I should do this next game. For fun. Not as much fun as convincing everyone to roll Slayers Expys of the main cast with me, but still fun

How do you make a good elven barbarian that isn't half elven?

>everyone in my group is upset with the election results
>starting a new campaign next week
Do I play a trump-like paladin?

>>50185574
Duergar.

So you can become HUUUUGE.

>>50185539
Pretty much the same way you build any barbarian, just start wood elf and prioritize str>con>dex.

Elves don't synergize too well with barbarian, but dex is not a wasted stat and you do get a bunch of nice-but-not-game-changing perks.

>>50185331
>an NPC who was capable of dealing with their shit

This sounds like the usual 'Overlevelled NPC that will kill you if you go off rails' sort of a thing.

It's much more fun to do the first thing mentioned, the 'town militia can fuck them up'.

When players fuck with lawfuls, the lawfuls fight for their society to get rid of murderhobos. It's more fun and makes more sense than a demigod coming along and insta-killing you.

What do you guys think of this as a custom 5e class? Is it balanced? Anything it could gain or lose to make it better? Any recommendations on a different spell list?

https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Blood_Mage_(5e_Class)

>>50185574
(you)

>>50185574
Goblins are bring their criminals, their rapists, and some, I assume, are good people. But they gotta go. We're gonna make dungeons great again.

>>50184706
A super edgy chaotic evil warlock who keeps fucking up his intimidate attempts to the point of making him a laughing stock, giving him huge confidence issues

A super lawful good paladin whose horse is more intelligent than he is, and is the most oblivious person in the entire realm

A lawful good assassin who can't make himself kill people, and always pays for what he steals.

A young orphan girl (druid) who feels she needs to look after the other 3, because she is pretty sure they'd get themselves killed if she didn't. She sure isn't sticking around for anything else, because of the warlocks attempt at straight up rape, which ended up with a perpetual "can't get it up/too small to penetrate a piece of paper" joke concerning the warlock. Poor guy barely dares using his magic in case it somehow fails on him.

Dumb bunch, and good thing I don't give experience per kills but "encounters" in general, because despite the party, they killed a total of 12 people, among them are 5 Undead ghouls and a vampire. The roleplay is absolutely hilarious though, but they never get anything plot related done.

>>50185574
Make Abeir-Toril Great Again

>>50185611
*You shouldn't be able to eschew materials with a gp cost
*Blood Magic is pretty OP
*Lots of brands are absurdly powerful
*Siphon is poorly worded - does it increase your Con? Because that's also OP.
*Capstone is literally "unlimited spell slots."

TL;DR: class is super OP. I would absolutely not allow it.

If you want to balance it, get rid of blood magic. Also siphon. Also brands.
Sorry - it's just not very well-designed.

Suppose I wanted to throw my trio of players at level 4 against a Gauth, I ought to say it's looking kind of starved and isn't at its peak strength or something, but mechanically what should I do? Lower the saving throw DCs on the eye beams, knock a dice off the damage or something?

>>50185611
This class is stupid in all sorts of ways. Don't use it.

>>50185611
There is already one in the Dungeon Master Guild Review

>>50185605
That's interesting, because I was running a premade campaign.
Starter Set, in the actual Lost Mine, wraith of a dead wizard is there. Tells the party that he'll reward them if they kill the spectator.
They kill it and come back, he opens a chest and says they can take everything except his pipe.
>I take his pipe
Why?
>I don't know, I want it because he told me not to take it
The book says the guy angers quickly and fights trespassers unless they follow his orders, so he attacks and knocks the player to 1hp (the rest of the party left as soon as the player tried to take the pipe).
They put the pipe back.
It's not like I randomly invented some super NPC to punish then arbitrarily, I just ran a character the way the book told me to. I literally warned them.
They guy isn't some upholder of law, he's a pissed off ghost that just wants to keep the one possession he cares about.
Also he'd have been a fairly easy fight for the party but they bailed on the problem player.

>>50185687
This was a guy fucking with an NPC and the NPC fucking him back, which is good. What is bad is to have a random lv 20 paladin one shot smite people who "break" the story.

One is a natural reaction while the other is the DM punishing the player in an unfun way.

>>50185687
>Also he'd have been a fairly easy fight for the party but they bailed on the problem player.
Great players you have.

I hate those players who just let themselves get dragged along by the retarded manchild who doesn't have a single shred of logic or common sense in them.

Seriously, just leave them to rot. Don't help them, even if you could have helped them almost risk free - that encourages them. Just leave them with their own stupidity and hope they die.

>>50185687
Hmm.

Alright, that's fine. It's okay if it was a tricky fight too, but it'd be a bit lame in my opinion if the entire party couldn't take him on.

Since it's part of lost mine, I'm not surprised. That's how I'd do it, too.

Enough to make them regret it, but enough to show them that if they put enough thought into things they 'can' fight the authorities.

Honestly not a fan of mines of phandelver. It often feels a bit too forced, and our GM had to tell us OOC where to go, because he honestly couldn't give us a legitimate reason to follow the story.

Let's just day that, when you are dungeon crawling, and find a guy who straights up tells you "the guy you are looking for isn't here", you have no good reason to continue. When you are then told "go further in, if you thought it was hard up until now, wait till you see the big guy with this ominous name!" Then you not only don't have a reason to proceed, you are told it is absolutely insane to proceed... yet that is exactly what the story expects you to do.

Whoever wrote that apparently expects a very certain party composition and people with any kind of motivation that involved huge unnecessary risks with no reward mentioned at all.

>>50185754
They were in a particularly bad mood as the same player had triggered a room collapsing trap while trying to steal gemstones from a statue - the others figured it was too suspicious that the Drow and his lackeys hadn't touched it when they were in that room the whole time.
Problem player made the save and was largely unharmed, two of the others were down to 1hp and unconscious respectively.
This being immediately after a long rest, so they couldn't just long rest again.

>>50185815
While it seems stupid, it is aimed at newer parties who often expect adventure and dungeon crawling. This is exactly the kind of thing that makes a whole lot of new players light up.

>>50184706
Shadar-kai monk (not as cringey as it sounds, actually the most reasonable member of the party. Liberated from mind flayer slavery by a PC in a previous campaign, wants to do the same for others.)
Human barbarian (This is the edgy one. Refused to have any motivation other than solitary churlishness or have any loved ones who aren't dead. Player has lost three characters already due to combination of incompetence and indifference.)
Half-elf bard (weirdly quiet. Character has no reason to be with the party and in fact was originally sent to talk them out of their current adventure. Guess he was moved by the nobility of their cause? Pure speculation.)
Yuan-ti pureblood sorcerer (Gladiator purchased by a now-dead PC. In a star-crossed romance. The one player who roleplays.)
Human warlock (kind of an idiot, but an idiot everyone loves. New player, so both he and his character see everything with childlike wonder.)

>>50185754
This. It's always dumb when the Rogue gets caught stealing by the town guards and the Fighter tries to kill them all for him. Even if it's the first session and they barely know eachother.

Just let the stranger get sent to jail. No reason to risk your life for him, and even if he was a friend the Rogue is probably going to have a better chance at just escaping if he goes quietly.

>>50185720
Yeah, I know. I've had DMs like that who punished me for trespassing in an orchard (which is where the plot was directing us) with guards that pretty much automatically knocked me out and put me in jail (of course the small village guard had magic sleep crossbows).
Not fun.

>>50185815
>>50185849
This. My party of newbies had me worried after the first goblin fight because the first thing out of their mouths was "I'm not really bothered about finding this dwarf guy".
They ended up heading to town and resting and then going back and following the tracks to the goblin cave anyway after debating whether they should try and take down the gang they'd caught wind of first, deciding that it might be easier to take goblins down and they could get stronger before they went for the gang.
New players are great.

>>50185861
>the rogue gets caught

These are the four words that begin more stupid player stories than any other. Going out alone and splitting the party for no good reason is built into both the mechanics and the flavor of rogues and other stealthy characters, even though it's never a good idea to risk the life of a PC for such a minimal possible reward. So players do it, both old and new players, because they think if they're not sneaking around alone, they're not making the full use of their abilities/not living up to their character's archetype. It's kind of built into the nature of the game, and I can't think of a good way to fix it.

>>50185872
I had this annoying game once, with a GM letting us start at level 15. He let us make insane background stories, directed us through it, and made a lot of effort for making it more grand and epic, and then, at campaign start, the assassin decides to make a point after some town guards threaten us.

He misses on a total to hit of 26, and the guard retaliates doing a total of 59 damage on the first turn. Two guards stomped the entire party by themselves.

This was a small city of about 2000 villagers, and these were described as the town guard, whom we had seen about 30 of.

There is punishing people for doing dumb shit, and there is turowing arbitrarily power commoners at very powerful PCs. The later is NEVER okay

>>50185933
"The rogue gets caught" is the yin to the yang of "the paladin gets offended"

>>50185943
Yeah, it's just bizarre.
I like my game to have consequences, but logical consequences.
If you steal a few coppers from a commoner, chances are nothing will come of it (other than the commoner being upset).
Kill a civilian or steal from a higher up? Guards (of the CR1/8 variety) or a Knight (CR2) at a push.
Try and fuck with a Wizard, deceased or otherwise? This is where real trouble begins. Also applies to double-crossing the thieve's guild and other similarly powerful entities.

>>50185933
Fail forward. The rogue gets caught, and taken to a camp which has critical intelligence in it. If he makes it out, and reunites with the party, their quest is easier.

Meanwhile, the party can track him to the camp.

Stuff like that.

>>50185991
Then the party is split for a whole session at the minimum, or split forever if the party misses the clues to the rogue's whereabouts. In many cases it would be less disruptive to just kill the rogue and have the party pay to bring him back later.

Also, there are times when the rogue can't really do anything other than die if he gets caught. If the rogue gets caught by something other than humanoid enemies, or if the rogue falls into a death trap, there's no "camp" to speak of for the rogue to wait in time-out to think about what he's done.

You just have to hope for the rogue to have the common sense not to go sneaking around more than a turn away from the rest of the party with no plan for what to do if he gets caught.

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Is 5e really the best edition of all time with no faults whatsoever or is it just the biggest meme of /tg/?

>>50186073
>best edition of all time
Quite possibly.
>with no faults
Nobody's saying that, so I don't know where you heard it..

>>50186047
"Never split the party" is such a meme.
Any good DM can run a session with the rogue starting in jail and the rest of the party outside it.
>all those assumptions
We're specifically talking about players captured by guards and taken to jail, they aren't dying or being hauled off to some secret eldritch location.

>>50186073

It's the best edition IMO but it certainly has faults. Nothing is perfect.

>18th level divination wizard
>has been thrown into a demi plane with 3 level 7's, and a dragon wyrmline
>The ceiling is 10ft up, he can't teleport out
>He has no capacity to break the demi-plane

What is the strongest thing he could do to kill the party? Assume the only level 9 spells he knows are Meteor Swarm, Foresight (which isn't already active) and Astral Projection

>>50186082
>>50186096
Every time i have ever asked if there is anything bad/wrong with 5e i always get the same cookie cutter answer of how it's the best edition of all time and the only thing wrong with it is the artwork for some fucking reason.

>>50186111
>the only thing wrong with it is the artwork
B-But the art is good ;-;

>>50186096
>>50186082
These. I like it a lot.
Mechanically I think it's the best - i.e. it's the most in-line with how I like to run it or play it.
4e combat was good, it just wasn't what I wanted.
The fluff from earlier editions (like the Volo's Guides) are great, but the actual game is obviously flawed.