/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General

Would adapting Aetherborn's Drain Touch into a warlock invocation be necessarily too broken?

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>>51817644
I succumbed to the meme, and it was horrible
>Warforged monk(kensai) 6
Seriously useless build. My AC doesn't matter and my attacks barely keep up with the gun-slinging artificer.

Doesn't help that the GM is building bullshit warlock/sorcerer builds with crazy fucking attack bonuses and quickened greater invisibility.

>>51817684
>Doesn't help that the GM is building bullshit warlock/sorcerer builds with crazy fucking attack bonuses and quickened greater invisibility.
Explain?

>>51817684
I have not heard that meme before.

How the fuck do I get my players to not be stupid?
Do I just have to lay down the hammer on them and punish them for stupidity? Do I have to have a non-retard guide them? Legit, they take 5 hours to get through half a dungeon which I expected them to get through the entirety in 4. They keep getting hung up on window dressing and refuse to use the agency they have. I'm not sure what I could be doing better because it seems like they've just picked up awful habits from previous DMs.

>>51817684
> the GM is building bullshit warlock/sorcerer builds
What?

What are the 5e tiers and what are they based on? Utility?

>>51817709
>rank 1: wizard
>rank shit: everything else

>>51817684

Can someone point me in the direction of a Warforged Stat block please?

I'd like to throw one into my campaign somewhere.

>>51817733
The eberon UA.

>>51817733
https://5egmegaanon.github.io/5etools/races.html#Warforged

>>51817702
There's no cure for stupid, you'll need to use a crutch. Perhaps spelling things out to them that would be obvious to their characters, and presenting a few simple options for them to choose from would grease things along. Outright saying what ideas might occur to their characters may hobble their agency, but maybe they can work up from that.

>>51817709
If based on 3.pf tiers
Most everything in tier 3 and 4 with the occasional 2 (Lore wizard).
Bard and wizard are top of the heap
Since combat is short paladin is amazing because burst.
Sorcerer is one of the worst (not unusable though, just a little underwhelming) due to being a worse wizard. Martials are better in combat since there are very few ways to end combat outside of HP loss and consistency. PHB ranger is garbage but got fixed in UA.

>>51817667
I'd argue that it would be under-powered.

>>51817702
I'm suffering from a similar problem as well, and it's pretty bad.
>Players head into dungeon
>Don't make intelligent decisions at all
>Complain when something bad happens

>>51817709
Outstanding: Have the ability to easily do what it says on the box, but also can be optimized to be more powerful than similar others at their specialties or have a strong solution for anything.
>Bard, Paladin, Wizards that aren't evocation, enchantment, or transmutation
Good: Does what you'd want it to do well, competitive all around without hard optimization.
>Anything else
Okay: Classes that work, but need some optimization to keep up with their contemporaries and have only a few tricks up their sleeve that allow them to not just be straight up weaker.
>Sorcerer, Hunter Ranger
Broken: Things that can't keep up with their contemporaries at all, don't function as full players aught, have nothing that can't be done better by others easily.
>PHB Beastmaster Ranger, Elemental Monk

>>51817754
>>51817762

Cheers.

>>51817789
Wouldn't you be able to heal yourself up to full? Actually, thinking about it you could even use it on your companions if you're extremely low and they're pretty healthy after a fight.

>>51817771
Should I stop putting details into environments? I really don't want to stop since that pissed me off about a past GM when he would say "its a normal room" and just expect us to know what he fucking means by that or worse "its barren" when out in a frozen landscape. Like not a single gatdamned patch of trees for the entire place but entire cities can survive close nearby?

I'm going to try to make a 'rival party' made up of classes they didn't pick and try to see if some competition puts a fire beneath their asses.

Is literally the only CR 6 creature that can be summoned by a Conjure Fey spell, at default level, an Annis Hag?

>>51817782
Sorry, but even lore wizard doesn't have the raw mechanical game breaking power for tier 2.

Everything is 3-4, varied slightly within those rankings.

>>51817865
Most summon spells are retarded, Conjure Celestial hits 1 creature, and can be upcast for 1 more.
Couatl, Unicorn

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>>51817725
Wizards are clearly third or second place, after bards and druids. All have CR busting nonsense, all have Planar Binding, all have level 9 spells, all have encounter wreckers but the bard and druid have more survivability and defense, plus healing etc. Not that healing is tremendously important but it is just one of the many ways where wizards can't match their breadth. Also Moon Druids have amazing damage sponginess and combat ability, and a CR 1 dire wolf at level 2, and a CR 5 elemental at level 10, is honestly not that bad for what they get without spell slots.

>>51817733
+1 AC, don't have to eat/drink/sleep.

>>51817898
Hm? Shapeshifting/polymorph stuff is even stronger than in 3e, and planar binding is likewise even more powerful and open ended. 9/9 guys are probably tier 1, clerics and sorcs are probably tier 2 or 3 (because they don't get the pokemon element).

>>51817829
It's a natural melee attack that takes an action and does 1d6 damage necrotic damage and gives you the same amount as hit points. Using one allies is basically just equivalent exchange of HP between the two of you.

If you build a warlock around using that attack, you're building a warlock around doing very little damage while also being moderately difficult to kill.

>>51817970
>planar binding
>relevant before Gate

Level 9 spell*

>>51817992
No, no they aren't, and implying as much says you don't know one, or both, of the editions.

Concentration alone says you're wrong.

>>51818001
But wouldn't that be fun?

Why is elemental monk so bad?

Anyone got the Murder in Baldur's Gate PDF? Didn't see it in the mega link (unless I'm blind?).

>>51818078
Poor interaction with the core class's action and resource economies.

>>51817840

The problem with detail is that to make detail actually mean anything, it has to be at least a little interesting. But any set dressing thats interesting is automatically suspicious and gets picked apart by the players looking for where you've hidden the plus seventeen sword of goblin buggery that would logically be hidden behind the bookcase.

I prefer to describe very, very little until a player asks to look around the room. It definitely makes it a little awkward, since someone has to basically say 'I look around the room' or some varient, but it means that players get your environment description when they ask for it, which tends to make them less suspicious of details in my experience.

Try to make interesting details and window dressings relevant in at least some way, and if something is just window dressing, try not to leave open ended reasons.

I like to use the player characters to help do this sometimes. For example, I might be in a place with weird runes all over the floor just for that 'im summoning satan bitches' feel. But telling them a place is covered in glowing magic shit is automatically an indication that my players will start picking at shit.

So on describing the room, i can describe the runes and then i can then say something like 'Gargle-More Cockgobbler, with his knowledge of Satanic magic pacts, dismisses the runes as placating messages to the Demonic forces, interesting only academically.

>>51818128
I was just describing the shit that was naturally there.
Place was originally a temple for some kind of cult, died out for some reason, then got taken over by a mad scientist/wizardly rat-folk (I really don't want to use the word skaven because that sets expectations. They're generally communal but highly aggressive towards individuals not apart of their large families. Combine with living underground they go mad real easy). So it was just generally demonic shit lining the walls, occasional shrines and altars to various gods, living arrangements and evidence of imprisonment (by the rat for experiments, not the dudes). They spent so much time looking at the odds and ends that I'm not sure what to do about. I don't want to remove them entirely, especially in dungeons to keep them on their toes, but is there any way to describe stuff in a short way but still get the information across to save time? Should I just flat out tell them things.

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>>51818078
Action economy and the new spell features being overpriced hot garbage that doesn't do any sort of combos with the base monk features.


Seriously just use this.

>>51818078
Ki cost is too high. You better spend those Ki on stunning strike.

>>51818120
>>51818241
>>51818247

Sorry, I mean "Why did they make this so poorly? What was their thinking?"

I just don't understand it.

>>51817684
I completely overhauled the 5e warforged from the ebberon UA. They get way more shit now. Way, way more shit. It took like a week and 4 versions working with other group members to finally come up with the result. Fuck the baseline warforged

>>51818035
Since I am sure a Pathmonkey is going to chime in at some point, I am only referring to 3e.

Polymorph is concentration keyword, but offers a crazy upgrade. Obviously people will differ, but Polymorph actually adds supernatural abilities and hit dice, that's frikkin huge.

Magic Jar is drastically better than its 3e equivalent, and more equivalent of True Mind Switch.

Planar Binding is a largely unique effect from the 3e perspective -- you can potentially turn whatever that is a fey, celestial, elemental or fiend that you can incapacitate or even just trap into your pokemon, rather than just ones of a very narrow hit dice range (which would be borderline useless by 5e standards, as even an ordinary Deva would require a Greater Planar Binding). The tasks to which 3e Planar Binding can set creatures are much more specific, and less open ended, than 5e Planar Binding. Its a fuckin HUGE deal.

In general, people who think 5e 9/9 casters lose out in tier wars neglect the very different role between monster hit dice, character level, and challenge rating in 3e and 5e -- a level 17-18 character in 5e is more in the CR 7-12 range, and being able to upjump that is a big deal.

>>51818233
I'd say remove some of the set pieces, but you want to keep them. If they're having fun exploring I'd say let em keep poking at nothing.

Are you having enemies patrol the dungeon? You can either do this, set some sort of time limit, or do as >>51818128 suggests and have a character just know they're only set pieces.

But seriously it sounds like you may have too many set pieces, or that you're stressing some sort of importance to them when describing them that doesn't exist.

>>51818309
> 5e Polymorph
> supernatural ability
???

Wait, fuck, the UA is tomorrow?

I thought that was some guy shitposting. Back into cryosleep.

Swashbukler is pretty MAD what should I prioritize?

>>51818241
Not exactly a fix version so much as add bells and whistles to the existing version.
>>51818271
It's an issue that was noticed only well after publishing the book. It made it through it's iterations of playtest without being caught.

>>51818271
Yeah, it's pretty upsetting.
I had some good fun making an air elemental monk/tempest cleric though. Those extra spells from cleric gave him some good utility.

It's more upsetting to me that none of the spells combo at all with base class features like >>51818241 said.
Back before the errata the water whip being a bonus action was cool because you could combo it.

Honestly, making the elemental abilities combo and make more of them bonus actions would've just been miles better. They didn't even need to be spells. Fuck. Why not give an elemental attunement that effects your flurry of blows?

>>51818339

People have been mentioning it for the last four days. Just realizing that now?

>>51818329
3e polymorph is a nice buff, but it doesn't give you the forms of superior hit dice, supernatural abilities, etc. 5e polymorph lets you use level for challenge rating, which is a drastic upgrade.

In an earlier edition I had a character who was (short version) an academic archaeologist who employed a hitherto forgotten martial style they'd uncovered that mixed magic and weaponry. Is there any way to do that in 5e at 1st level?

>>51818348
It's not that MAD? Not much more than other classes anyway.
You can have 20 dex, 14 con, and 20 cha easily.
Focus dex, obviously, then cha so you get the most uses out of your abilities.

>>51818348
Dex first, Cha second, a one level dip into Dragon Sorcerrer third and Con fourth.

>>51818233

There's nothing wrong with flat-out telling them things. Though again, i prefer to have players get information 'from themselves' so to speak.

I might advise you that your dungeons shouldn't be static if you can help it. If its been taken over, people should live there.

Players shouldnt be able to just hang out in one room poking about. Thats stuff you do once you've cleared the dungeon (I.e. "You spend many hours exploring the rooms and shizz. Felchcrust the Paladin finds X, Booberella Roguesworth finds Y).

Try to make your dungeons more dynamic. Enemies should be patrolling or making noise. If a fight looks hard for the enemy to win, clever enemies should have one of their number slip away to get reinforcements, which gives your players incentive to want to hunt him down before he warns the entire dungeon.

Dont be afraid to have your players fuck up. If they go into one dungeon, fuck around in the first room and let someone go off and spend hours getting the rest of the dungeon ready (or killing the princess sacrifice they were meant to save the life of) they might be kinda put down. But losing can be fun! (They now have to explain to the king of the land that they fucked up and his princess is dead, making them outlaws) and maybe theyll learn a lesson for next time.

Even if your players are in an empty room, consider giving them hooks that point to the next one. They can hear screams echoing from down one corridor. There is a trail of blood leading to a wall (implying a hidden door). A key is on the ground, it doesnt match any lock in the room right now. Etc.

>>51818395
Honestly if you did this early on you can booming blade fuckers and walk away. Plus your AC would receive a nice bump early on. Take shield spell, and whatever cantrips/other first level spell you think would be useful.

>>51818362
Making all the abilities into bonus actions would actually justify their ki cost.

Some of the abilities like ''Fangs of the fire snake'' should be comparable to cantrips tho and as such free of cost.

>>51818388
Mixed magic and weaponry how? There are a ton of styles of gish in 5e

>>51818415
I agree.
Something that is comparable to sun-soul's light balls should also have their elemental attunement equivalents.

>>51818388
Tome or Hexblade warlock.

Otherwise play an Arcana Cleric with the SCAG cantrips.
Or better just start your first level as a Monk and then go Arcana Cleric from there.

>>51818320
>Are you having enemies patrol the dungeon?
I do roll for enemies coming to encounter but I could always set an actual schedule for them.
I'll tone it down some because I can't tell if they are enjoying it. They say the like it but they' don't seem to engrossed into anything thus far. They don't roleplay with each other for development, anything with anybody else has been one note thus far, they don't seem to enjoy combat too much but given how we've only just hit 3 that could change. Dungeon crawling seems to bore them so all I have left to try is puzzles/riddles. I'll keep trying and working but i'm a bit stalled as to where I should try and guide the game and its tone as a whole since i'm leaving it entirely open for what they want to do exactly.
Also, how often should I hand out notes for specific info as opposed to saying it out loud.

>>51818415
The ONLY problem I can foresee in making them all bonus actions would be the ability to nova with the way the cost currently works. If you got rid of being able to ramp them up in power by dumping more ki, it might be okay.

Playing Bladesinger who specializes on close range spells. What are the best melee spells? burning hands? Thunderweave?

>>51818453
Why would you go Bladesinger instead of Eldritch Knight for that concept? What would be the befits? Sure you're the full caster, but you're still pretty squishy aren't you?

>>51818418
Using mild divination to determine where you should be to positioned to avoid harm and deal damage, and later teleportation to be in the right place. If you've seen step by step diagrams in fighting guides, imagine warping between them without the interstitial movement.

>>51817865

The only Fey, yes, but conjure Fey also allows you to conjure a fey spirit in the shape of a beast, up to a CR 6

So you can conjure a mammoth like this

>>51818479
There are honestly few close combat wizard spells man. Its not a very robust concept.

>>51818479
>you're still pretty squishy aren't you?

Depends. He'll be squishy, but at AC 30, squishy only matters on a crit

>>51818488
Eldritch knight/divination wizard multiclass

>>51818514
Oh good catch.

>>51818488
>Using mild divination to determine where you should be to positioned

For example?

>and later teleportation to be in the right place

For example?

>>51818543

Summoning a Brontossaurus (CR 5), with it being a Gargantuan Beast, is also pretty fun

>>51818447
You can always just straight out ask your player's if they're having fun I guess. Honestly they just seem either a little stiff or just boring themselves. Giving them good goals and reasons to RP more should help.

For notes it depends honestly, if your characters are "meta gamey" or secretive I'd say more notes for information like items and knowledge. This may also encourage more RP.

>>51818444
I was hoping for something Int-based as he was an academic, but Arcana Cleric sounds close. Is it OK to refluff Cleric magic as not from gods?

>>51818581

Clerics cast spells by "having their souls awakened to the divine power of creation around them"

Not by having it be "from the gods", but by "sharing it"

>>51818581
Well you could fluff it as a belief in magic it self or maybe a quasi-taoist priest.
Seriously read up on Taoism, it fits well in most magical settings when you want a cleric that doesn't serve a god.

>>51818581
No refluffing necessary, the only editions in which a deity is largely required for divine magic is 1e (mostly) and 4e (mostly). Worth mentioning that the reason for the latter is that the divine power source is more tightly linked to gods themselves, and some things priorly described as clerics (Athasian elemental clerics) were presented as a different power source entirely, and templar were arcane.

OD&D, BECMI, 2e, 3e, and 5e 'atheist' clerics are fine.

>>51818556
>Using mild divination to determine where you should be

Like, you'd cast a spell and get a flash of you standing with your blade in a particular position making a particular attack, and immediately move to that position attacking in that way.

>and later teleportation to be in the right place

Later, rather than moving to the place you say you would teleport there, positioned so your weapon was already in the enemy.

>>51818679
Eldritch knight/diviner is all you need

Or really just a diviner with weapon proficiencies

>>51818411
One person lived there and they just didn't go to the side that he lived on. The other half was for keeping prisoners and test subjects.

I'll do more time lapse stuff for the purposes of exploring.
The one dude who lived there was the only smart one and was working mostly on a flesh golem and a flesh eating virus.
They were only down there because a couple of wyrmlings were keeping one of the players (who flaked the session) hostage to make them clear the area around their soon to be new home.
>>51818579
I've yet to determine which, if any are metagamey. I tried to make characters with them specifically so that they're human beings as opposed to cardboard cut outs but they already came with backstories and I was helping out a guy new to 5e so I didn't have time to do it with em. I'll probably have to have a little something on the side for them so they can get a bit of depth of character.
Thanks for the help by the way.

>>51818679

>Like, you'd cast a spell and get a flash of you standing with your blade in a particular position making a particular attack, and immediately move to that position attacking in that way.

Cool, what spell are you thinking about using for that?

>Later, rather than moving to the place you say you would teleport there, positioned so your weapon was already in the enemy.

Right on, how are you going to make that work mechanically?

Sounds like in all ways you are better off with Eldritch Knight -- and this is coming from a guy who will otherwise always vociferously argue in favor of Bladesinger as the better of the two gishes.

>>51817702
one of my players refuses to pay attention but also gets hung up on minor details. they'd just rescued some hostages who were on the other side of a pitfall (a pretty small one) and she literally wanted to spend like 20 minutes figuring out how to get them to the other side. i had to hand wave it after five minutes bc it was going no where, and then she got obsessed w barring a door that couldn't be barred and refused to leave the empty dungeon without barring it? she kept asking "are there chairs near by" and shit dozens of times after being told they were in an empty hallway and i had to put my foot down. and then it's worse in town! has to ask every person they meet every question she can think of and take extensive notes, it slows down the game to a crawl and she can't even pay attention to keep the details straight. she's confused by the plot of LOST MINES OF PHANDELVER! she won't even look at her spells outside of the session despite playing a cleric. they spent 3 sessions at level 2 because she just could NOT stop holding everything up, constantly tries to use guidance to divine the correct choice of action (yes i've corrected her each time) and prefers to open every combat with "now how can i use thamaturgy to knock them all down or scare them". every time! i spent three hours one on one with her going over each spell and teaching her spellcasting and actions and how her shield takes up an arm and that she's able to fight w a short sword and all her racial and class abilities and she STILL can't keep it straight. i'm this close to asking her to leave bc she drags out each session and is completely unwilling to study her spells and class, and she just doesn't pay attention even when she's asking every single person completely irrelevant questions!

i know i ranted but FUCK i'm losing my mind, we should be at cragmaw castle and we only just cleared out the redbrand hideout after two sessions in it.

>>51818011
Can't you do some funky shit with banishment+magic circle+planar binding?

>>51817970
Wizards have ritual-casting-from-book for essentially more spells known, a load of great rituals to go with that, portent for gauranteeing enemies fail save throws,

Heck, wizards can even put every single wizard spell in their book with enough money. And they have arcane recovery, for just a few more spells, though land druid gets a double-arcane-recovery.

I'd have to give first place to lore bard, however, for having +4 skills over wizard,cutting words, expertises, jack-of-all-trades (Which comes iwth a small boost to initiative), 1d8 hitdice and light armour (and can easily get moderately armoured), even bigger skillboosts with inspiration, stealing spells and having a still pretty good spell list with some heals to back it up, even if the level 6 magical secrets it's practically almost mandatory to pick up counterspell.
It's rogue skillmonkeying, on a full caster.

If a wizard needs more armour, they can easily just multiclass 1 or 2 levels of fighter. Druid can't do that. Wizard has shield. Wild shape's effectiveness drops off after the first few levels, and druid's spellcasting list is.. Inferior.
I'd give druid a close third, closer to paladin and cleric, but to be honest the whole thing is pretty close. Could even say it depends on campaign.

So my players are very active in searching through rooms for hidden shit. I always have atleast 1 secret room in a dungeon, but they seem kind of disappointed when they go through 5 rooms in a dungeon and encounter no secrets.

Should i just incorporate more traps, secret rooms, hidden treasure, etc etc?

A friend of mine recommended giving them an item that has charges and can be used in a room to tell them if there are any hidden things in the room, it wouldn't tell them where or what the secret was, just that there was something. It would X charges and would refresh on sunrise.

Thoughts?

>>51818938
item sounds neat, but after it runs out they're going to obsess over the rooms they didn't use it on.

I'd say just start giving them random booby prizes, add traps, or just a "you have searched the room and found nothing"

>>51818938

So they want a Wand of Secrets?

>>51818938
I don't really like the sound of the item. It'll drive players to search and search until they find it.

I think it'd be better if it's an item that gives them a clue as to where it might be, but doesn't specify an area. Say, they look into magical scrying orb and they see lots of red. So there may be a secret somewhere with lots of red.
Or they might see bricks, so they should expect there to be something hidden behind bricks at some point.

It's not a big deal, but I think general dungeon-wide clues are better than a clue as to what room it's in.

>>51818715
>Eldritch knight/diviner is all you need

That sounds about right, how much of each would be good?

>>51818904

I don't rate portent highly as a wizard thing, because you get it with 2 levels in, and I know of no one who argues that the Diviner is a good specialty overall aside from that single trick. Having portent is not a strong indicator that you intent to go all the way as a wizard.

>Wild shape's effectiveness drops off after the first few levels,

Land druids aren't intended to be switch hitting tanks. Moon druid's wild shape comes and goes, but the big levels are at at 2, 10 (CR 5 elemental-ness, ahoy!), and 20 (borderline unkillable, though of course at the end of most campaigns). My question is what midpoint between 2, 10, and 20 do you think wild shape is unusually bad at? While 20 is largely irrelevant, 2 and 10 are truly solid marking points.

>and druid's spellcasting list is.. Inferior.

Minorly so. They still get Planar Binding and Shapechange. They're pokemasters who don't need no man, can use area shutdown spells, can upgrade to a much higher CR or last very long against lower CRs. The list of resistances and immunities they can get -- without further buff spells -- from elemental form is especially amazing, and a much underestimated form of defense.

>>51819170
2 diviner

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How do I make a spooky dungeon-crawl campaign? I want something with a similar feel to Curse of Strahd, but more sandbox-ish.

>>51818938
It sounds like they want to find more things, in which case throwing a few bits of junk or extra coin their way as consolation would likely do the trick.
One possibility if you want to go the secret finding item route would be some sort of animal that guides them to the right room so they don't waste time checking ones that don't have anything, but the animal won't leave its cage unless they clear the dungeon/defeat all the enemies so they go through the dungeon first and don't bother with the treasure hunt until afterwards.

>>51819422
CoS is a sandbox.

>>51819422
Read lots of horror novels and incorporate their writing style into your world-building and environment descriptions.

>>51819259
If you have two levels, you might as well keep getting levels. If you start with wizard levels, you clearly intend to go wizard all the way because wizard's first level is one of the worst if not the worst, not that that's a big deal. Otherwise, maybe a full class could take a two level dip, but at least that's more tempting than ever taking a dip of druid. Unless you're a life cleric.

And, there are very few ways to get enemies to fail saving throws. IF you're lucky, you can find a way to get enemies to have disadvantage, but in any case it's a serious advantage to ensure something will fail your save-or-die spell.

I recall it's more around level 5 to 19 that the problems lie with the health gained being less, probably having more encounters a day and the attacks being not awfully powerful.. Though I suppose it might still be more damage than a cantrip. Elemental forms are certainly good and seems to deal with problems of not dealing damage, though it does use all uses of wildshape at once.
Well, since you can still concentrate, maybe it's not so bad with switching forms, though I imagine enemies are more inclined to ignore you and aim for the squishies.

The wizard mostly has to make it up in the spell list, and I'd definitely say druid is lacking quite a bit on spellcasting. No counterspell, very few rituals of note..

I'd at least say druid is better if enemies don't play entirely smart, given the druid's a sort-of-tank-sometimes.

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Any tips on making a slightly more modernized setting in 5e? I am very interested in making an early 1900s campaign involving some cthulhu mythos and all sorts of supernatural happenings, but I'm struggling to come up with ways to make magic work in this setting.

>>51819422
Make it all underground, focus on what your players see and can't see, play spooky music, kill them off one by one.

>>51819538
>>51819259
So, the rituals...
Alarm, Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Find Familiar, Identify, Illusory Script, Tenser's Floating Disk, Unseen Servant, Gentle Repose, Feign Death, Leomund's Tiny Hut, Phantom Steed, Water Breathing, Contact Other Plane, Rary's Telepathic Bond, Drawmij's Instant Summons

Not all of those are great, but the best ones are in there. Druid has a bunch, but most of them are extremely situational.

Leomund's Tiny Hut, Find Familiar, Alarm, Identify and Detect Magic should all show up a lot and be really useful, and the wizard doesn't even need to prepare them.

Honestly, I'll have to admit druids have a lot more combat versatility just on grounds of making themselves a load tankier and still hitting things, but I guess if you do a lot of out of combat stuff and some of the things on the wizard spell list can help a lot, the wizard spells will probably be more useful more often.

Not to mention Druid doesn't get wish abuse at level 17, but that's too far in the future. At that point, wizards get an at-will level 1 and level 2 spell. And druids are near getting archdruid.

I'd at the very least say it'd be better to have a druid AND and wizard AND a bard, and which is the best can be campaign dependent, but.. Hm. I don't really know for sure. Don't see a lot of druids, yet alone good ones.

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>>51818241
I rather enjoy this one.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rm45ue70ve5w9n7/The%20Monk.docx?dl=0

>>51819567
My first point is have you heard of Call of Cthulu. Second point is just take inspiration for what the PHB says. People began being born with magic, people learn to imitate it. With the growing of magic divine presences began to be felt, and not so divine.

Firearms are already present at the time so give martials firearms proficiency. Use the rules in the DMG but if you want the gritty options Matt Mercer's Gunslinger is not bad, cause it has misfire scores and mechanics to deal with it. Not overpowered or anything.

Barbarian could have a path with just wild firing, Paladins smite on shot, yeah it could be done.

>>51819528
There's a 3.5 splatbook called "Heroes of Horror" that has tips, tables and other helpful stuff on how to run a horror campaign. Here's a link if you're interested.

https://dnd.rem.uz/3.5%20D%26D%20Books/Heroes%20Of%20Horror.pdf

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Why do you guys prefer 5e to osr? I've only (poorly) DM'd 5e so far and when I get more familiar with DM'ing I'd like to try running an OSR hexcrawl. What are some pros/cons to 5e over other games?

>>51819794
Sorry for newfag but what is OSR?

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>>51817644
Is a Kensei with a longbow possible? Viable?

>>51819822
Old school renaissance
>>51767405

>>51819885

I don't know about viable, but Kensai means you can use strength longbows

Which is hilarious to me

>>51819885
It's possible, but the benefits of kensai rely on being able to also unarmed strike, and you can choose the weapon to be Str or Dex. So you could use a bow with strength.

It's viable, just you are much safer if something charges you and gets within 5ft of you. A cool idea would be getting crossbow master for 5ft shots and bonus action punching after attacks. But it's slowly getting into a meme zone from there.

>>51819921
oh, thank you!

So people were talking last thread about making a John Constantine character, and it really occurs to me there are so many ways you could go about doing it. How you people build him? Knowledge Cleric? Divination Wizard? Lore Bard? Arcane Trickster? A multiclass?

>>51819538
>>51819666

>though I imagine enemies are more inclined to ignore you and aim for the squishies.

There are worse fates than being able to maintain a concentration spell in peace while walloping the enemy.

FWIW, the damage milestones are something like:

2: 19 (brown bear)
6: 21 (polar bear)
10: 28 (earth elemental)
18: 33/20 (separate targets)

I am sure that's not polearm great master damage, but druids are a 9/9 caster with oodles of hit points.

From my perspective, the druid combines the wizard's affinity for the cheatiest spells in the game (shapechange and planar binding) as well as encounter lockdowns, with damage sponginess on par with the barbarian and the medium-rate resource recovery abilities of the warlock. Plus he can heal etc. I think the druid is seriously underrated in how warlocky he is, in terms of his ability to profit from short rests.

Wizards are of course quite good and I have no intention of ever ceasing to play them of course.

Myself I prefer two 9/9s as the first priority in a seriously crunchy campaign (the kind where use and abuse of planar binding, magic jar, polymorph, etc. are viewed as necessary and something to nod approvingly of by the DM), and moon druid + paladin as the first priority in anything less crunchily optimized.

>>51819794
I heard 5e is really easy to get into, that means there is a ton of people to play it.

You are much more likely to find people to play it rather than other stuff. Like I have only heard of OSR through /tg/, none of my friends play it so I really don't think I would be playing it any time soon.

>>51819950
Vengeance Paladin.

I hate people who can't look after their character sheets.

>>51819794
I gave OSR the old college try, but in the end I always thought the mechanics and balance were shit, and didn't agree with the OSR philosophy that what type of character you're playing shouldn't affect most things outside of combat. I understand that if you just roll skill checks to resolve problems without roleplaying it gets boring, but I feel like that's largely a problem with bad players and DMs.

>>51819965
Yeah you're right. I'm a full 4chan neckbeard or whatever who spends a lot of time reading about roleplaying games and other nerdy stuff, and my normie friend was actually the one who ended up buying our group's first roleplaying game (5e starter set). It's a lot better for brand recognition.

>>51819794
5e satisfies me as far as what can be found in OSR, I find them very similar. Certainly, I find 5e to be more old school and OSR-y than, say, Dungeon Crawl Classics.

>>51819794
The group was willing to learn it and wants to play it. It's not an objective reason but it's the most important one.

Is there a UA coming out today?

What is your favorite race and class to play?

>>51820097
Tomorrow

>>51820101
White, upper class
No but seriously I'm a perma-GM but I'd want to play a halfling druid at some point.

>>51819422
focus on ambiance with music and descriptive narration. do a 20 questions at the start and make one of the questions "What is your greatest fear" most people arent imaginative enough to come up with their character's so they just use their own. come up with a few mindfuck rooms that challenge their character based on the 20 questions. dont be afraid to say things that will make 80% of the group go "huh?" if it makes one person go HOLY SHIT AHHHHHHHH

Whats with the 'planar binding' meme lately?

>>51818309
>a level 17-18 character in 5e is more in the CR 7-12 range,
The lowest challenge I found for a PC class 20 was ~15. Being wrong on things like that informs how you're wrong on other parts, too. Magic jar dies to dispel magic. Planar binding leaves a hostile creature hostile. Polymorph is beasts only.

>>51820101
Human variant lets me try out new feats and make builds work. If they didn't have it then people would be making homwbrews all the time where you get to take a feat. Plus it means not everyone is gonna be super crazy races, make it more appealing for new players.

It's a cross between fighter/cleric/paladin. Fighter gets you to everything you need and options for it. Let's you get more ASIs and feats to make fun builds work and is generally hit hard to play. Cleric has some much background built in by the worshipping of a god. It makes the character feel more deep and their level 1 bonuses are awesome. Paladins have Protagonist Syndrome. A paladin has their goal laid out before them and combined with their usually good charisma, they come off as very leadership like. They have spells to make it interesting, some martial prowess, high out of combat ability, have background pasted onto them, and their goals are laid out if you try.

One of those three, I guess paladin but with close seconds.

>>51818352
>It made it through it's iterations of playtest without being caught.
4elements monk never had a single iteration of public beta test though, did it?

Much like PDK and mastermind, there was no playtest and they're kinda shitty.

>>51820211
Violating alignment can be fickle cause lawful evil means you may not want to help save a teammate at the risk of its own life.

Have you read the Black Magic Unearthed Arcana?

Anyone have experience with the gunslinger artificer? It seems a bit MAD due to the need for dex, int and con.

Conjure Fiend
5th-level conjuration
Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: 90 feet
Components: V, S
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour

You summon a fiend of challenge rating 5 or lower, which appears in an unoccupied space that you can see within range. The fiend disappears when it drops to 0 hit points or when the spell ends.

The fiend is friendly to you and your companions for the duration. Roll initiative for the fiend, which has its own turns. It obeys any verbal commands that you issue to it (no action required by you). If you don't issue any commands to the fiend, it defends itself from hostile creatures but otherwise takes no actions.

As part of this spell, you can roll a hit die and reduce your hit point maximum by the amount rolled. This reduction lasts until you take a long rest.

If your concentration is broken, the fiend doesn't disappear. Instead, you lose control of the fiend, it becomes hostile toward you and your companions, and it might attack. An uncontrolled fiend can't be dismissed by you, and it disappears 1 hour after you summoned it. If you rolled a hit die as part of casting this spell, the fiend will remain friendly to you even if your concentration is broken.

>>51820281
A player is playing it in my campaign. Not bad at all. Damage is a little high but no armor or defenses like other martials.

>>51820281
It's MAD. Gun is good.

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>Players are hunting a monster through an ancient woods recently overrun with shadowy corruption in return for a favor from an archdruid
>The second time they encounter it (though the first time it attacks them) is at a riverside, near a very old but solid and well-kept bridge
>Before it attacks they find the corpse of a kappa (but failed to identify it in or out of character) and then another floats up to the surface of the river having just been skewered, and the monster attacks from the river after they start to run across the bridge
>Fast forward 1.5 sessions, a character has died
>Wants his next character to be a kappa that survived and wants to help them hunt the monster for vengeance on his family/home, and continues to follow them for having nothing to go back to
>Currently looking at Lizardfolk stats but shrunk to small and Cunning Artisan replaced with Water Genasi's innate spells
This is gonna be a time. Especially if they manage to succeed in their quest and come back to the inquisitive agency in Sharn having gotten the half-elf killed and bringing back an obscure water spirit.

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>>51820298
>No armor
They get Medium armor (sans shields) though.

>>51820210

>The lowest challenge I found for a PC class 20 was ~15.

Really, you can't see how an archmage, arcanaloth, drow mage, or basically any caster, for example, couldn't obliterate a level 20 PC? A CR 7 Warlock of the Fiend could do it.

>>51820386
So you think that CR 7 warlock stand-in could "obliterate" an actual level 20 warlock, which would be statistically superior to it in every way?

>>51820450
>>51820386
That's kind of interesting to think about actually. Let me see who would win.

>>51820386
A fiend warlock can get power word killed

>>51819961
I still don't get the whole jerk-off about planar binding. It's only really good cast at level 6 (So you have it for more than a day and can probably refresh the duration, or something) but otherwise it's a situational combo spell that requires things druids don't have (Say, magic circle, which also needs a way to be set up quickly with yet another spell) to get an unwilling (I don't see why they'd be willing) creature to come with you. Then shapechange is all the way at level 17 when the wizard is jerking off in the corner with his 1000 demiplane clones and pretty much whatever the fuck he wants to do.

They at least have polymorph, true, and some other things I might mention like 'pass without trace'.

I'd probably say the druid's better if it's not a very high level campaign, it's around about the low levels where moon druid is blatantly OP or if you really don't need the wizard rituals (Say, you never actually have to worry about camping out or shit like rope trick).
.. Which is probably quite often, actually.
But druids aren't miles above wizard (except at certain levels) and .. I'm not sure how their skill cap is in relation to wizard, but it might actually be higher.

So

I want to play a Kobold

What are some ways I can work around sunlight sensitivity?

Currently on the table is shenanigans using a Beast Conclave Ranger.

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>>51819940
>>51819885
>Can use a bow with strength
>with strength
>bow with strength

MEAT'S BACK ON THE MENU, BOYS.

>>51819567
Have magic in the setting, but then have it be 1900's Europe or America anyway. Your players will probably not care about the incongruity. If you really need to have a divide between the fantastical old world, just have "wild lands" whenever you go more than a couple miles outside town where things haven't been civilized yet and crazy bullshit can happen. Then have the wild lands filter out into civilized towns.

>>51820450
>could

Well the CR 7 warlock is a level 19 warlock, so yes, a shittily optimized level 19 warlock can obliterate a level 20 warlock. Hit him with Feeblemind.

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Do you think they'll ever produce another Return to Ravenloft book with a compilation of small adventures spanning several domains of dread?

>>51820281
No experience, but until the later levels you don't need intellect in the slightest much and...

It does look rather lackluster in comparison to alchemist. I see little reason to go for it instead of alchemist except for long range. The damage isn't even much different, and probably worse once it comes to AoEs. Though the incredibly high level AoE does have a massive AoE radius.

Gunsmiths can't even put on a shield like an alchemist can.

>>51818904
>banishment+magic circle+planar binding?
No? Magic circle takes a minute to cast. If you banish an extraplanar for a minute, it's gone. If you start casting magic circle, you lose concentration on banishment. You have to pick a target that can't escape the circle or make ranged attacks. You have to provide the expensive component that is still consumed if the creature passes its save.

>>51820502
the point to planar binding is to have one PC summon, uh excuse me I mean CONJURE it, and another bind it so it remains friendly (regardless of the flavor justification of why it should be friendly). hence why in a high crunch campaign you should have two 9/9s.

Not being able to die permanently is nice, though most parties at that point can probably resurrect you anyway, and if you're flying solo, total loss of property on your body will make you want to ragequit.

I don't consider them "miles" above wizards by any stretch.

>>51820503
Not fighting in the sun.
Using Pack Tactics to even it out in circumstances where you can't.
Convincing the DM to give you magic sunglasses.
The classic "warlock in a cloud of magic darkness nobody else can see through" works, but you'd get advantage from that anyways so you waste having Pack Tactics, not to mention it fucks any would-be nearby teammates.

>>51818011

Yes, Planar Binding is relevant before Gate, thanks for pointing that out.

>>51818904
>land druid gets a double-arcane-recovery.
No, it's the same as arcane recovery: half level, rounded up, not 6th or higher. It's hard to take your opinions seriously when you haven't even understood the book.

>>51820527
just make your own domains of dread campaigns, i did and people loved it

>>51820450
>>51820386
>>51820472
Alright, so if we go strictly by the stat blocks, it really depends on who wins initiative. If the level 20 Warlock wins, he casts Power Word Kill and wins. If the Warlock of the Fiend wins, he casts Feeblemind and wins because most single-classed warlocks aren't going to be able to make a DC 15 INT save.

Basically a pistol duel.

>>51820605
I was looking for less obvious answers.

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>>51820210
>Planar binding leaves a hostile creature hostile.

OH NO
THE CREATURE I HAVE ENSLAVED TO OBEY ME ISNT MY FRIEND
I REALLY GIVE A SHIT

>>51820515
That's true. Although if he was fighting a level 20 martial or wizard he would still be completely fucked.

>>51820624

Yep. 1v1 the best defense is a good offense.

>>51820684
Well yeah. Warlocks tend towards more the CR 7 of the CR 7-12ishness of level 17-18.

>>51820732
I don't think that's fair to say based on this example. That creature has a specific counter to casters, so the relative CR for warlocks might be considered higher than 7.

>>51820553
>It's gone
Not if you return it just before the magic circle is finished.
>Lose concentration
Get someone else to banish, I suppose, then get magic circle up. Once magic circle is up, it's non-concentration. Or perhaps have magic circle set up in advance and have them approach you. A kind DM might let you concentrate on both, but considering quite a few classes can get banishment and magic circle and it's not an awfully high level I think you could probably find a buddy to help. Even a paladin might know it by that point.
>Pick a target that can't escape the circle
Pretty much most things you can use planar binding on, right?
>Or make ranged attacks
A bit of a problem, but a lot of creatures are mostly melee-focused. They have disadvantage on those attacks, so you just need some three-thirds cover for +5 AC. Perhaps even one of those spells that deflects missiles or a shield of missile attraction.. Or a monk. A monk might do it, your DM would be stupid not to allow a monk to deflect missiles on adjacent attacks when they're readied for it. Though they can't really deflect spells, I suppose. This is probably the biggest issue since it lasts an hour, and you have to deal with shit like balors throwing fireballs everywhere. I'm sure there's some other spell you can try here.

>>51820684
Stinking Cloud on the Wizard is possibly decent.

Wow, fighters not being borked by significantly lower leveled magic foes for once.

>>51820763
CR is actually bullshit, there is a table for what CR is but spells actually fuck it up. Never trust CR as a DM.

Cause getting feebleminded cannot be put into a CR level. That's why so few things have really powerful spells.

The Fiend Warlock is most definitely not easy for a level 7 party if the spells are used effectively.

>>51820763

Okay, what would you do for a level 17 warlock that obliterates, I don't know, fighters? Repelling blast, thingy that slows people down per hit, and some form of ability for... shooting around corners with aoe so he can't arrow him to death?

>>51820779
Welcome to goth edition. Your Indomitable, Aura of Protection, Evasion, and Danger Sense can be picked up at the door.

>>51820617
I've read it several times, but I just have a tendency to misread things. Probably doesn't help I remember someone else on 5e saying it was full level instead of half level, too.

It's hardly a big difference anyway when it locks you out of moon druid.

>>51820807
Casters, to be sure, hew much closer to encounter guidelines than noncasters (specifically, not wanting to overuse them).

I don't envision the Warlock of the Fiend not being raped to death by a pretty good level 7.

>>51820825
What kind of fighter are we talking about? A fighter of equal level?

>>51820578
I think it'd depend on your DM. I think most DMs would see trying to use planar binding on the creature to mean 'I'm going to make your my bitch' which translates, in universal terms, to 'fight me'.

The conjured creatures are friendly - they aren't 100% obedient to you. They're there to help you, but if you jump on them and try to ride them like a rodeo while simultaneously gouging their eyes out they will probably fuck you up.

Maybe if you make them really like you and actually trust you.

>>51819950
Rogue 1/Favored Soul X (New one) with the ritual caster feat.

>>51820882
>A fighter of equal level?

Yeah, 17 in this case.

>>51820630
Popularize the use of parasols so that you never have to worry about your opponents being in direct sunlight, and get an umbrella hat for yourself so you can do the same hands-free.

>>51820917
All those invocations in the Unearthed Arcana for slowing speed with repelling blast, is the fighter built to counter casters?

>>51820515
It's caster level 17, actually, has 78 hp from its 12d8 hit dice, proficiency only +3. Even if the 20 warlock did fail against feeblemind, I wouldn't put beating the NPC to death with simple weapons out of the realm of possibility.

>>51820895
>>51820578
Oh, speaking of which, perhaps the best way to do this is to create a magic circle and then use conjure X.

I suppose that's almost the same thing, and that's probably how it's intended to be.

>>51820630
Sunglasses. Lightly stained glass. A kobold tinkerer may make this. But pack tactics were added for this reason.

>>51820947
If they're a bladelock they might be able to do it I guess.

is there any equivalent to the Tomb of Horrors in 5e? Because I really want something like that. Also any news of a official 5e version?

>>51820984
Tomb Of Horrors is in Tales from the Yawning Portal, releasing April 4th.
http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/tales-yawning-portal

>>51820895

Certainly valid questions to be asked. If a creature becomes hostile from your concentration being broken, that suggests to me, however, that their friendliness is an effect of their conjuration. If Planar Binding is intended to make a friendly being hostile, though, I would think it would be mentioned, as many other forms of unnatural friendliness describe how it is broken.

>>51820895
If you bind a conjured creature, its conjuring lasts longer. It's allowed to become hostile later if you do abuse it.

>>51821015
HOLY SHIT SWEET.

>>51820935
Assume a pretty good bow fighter. If you don't, he's gonna be having troubles in 1v1 fite me land when every monster that can float or wall crawl moves off the ground slightly.

Alright guys, so according to Mearls UA got moved to Thursday. What exactly are they going to be releasing?

>>51821128
Lore variants for barbarians and clerics to bring them up to speed with how the wizard and bard have lore variants.

>>51821128
>Thursday
>Not on the D&D Twitter
>not on Mearls' Twitter
According to Mearls where?

>>51821128
Most likely a crafting system that doesn't blow

>>51821145
Lore barbarian gets 24 strength and con at 3rd level

>>51820947
Stinking Cloud his now retarded counterpart. Or, hell, Banish him now that he has Charisma 1.

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Anons, why is D&D considered a subpar role playing game by a lot of rpg-hipsters?

I often hear (both irl and on the interwebs) that D&D "is not meant/good for roleplaying" or "doesn't encourage narrative aspects". People claiming this often haven't played with more that 2 or 3 different systems.
I personally think that every RPG is good for representing some kind of tone or setting. D&D has its particular niche, but I don't find it lacks good narrative potential (if the DM is capable, the setting is good, and the players are engaged, obviously, but that is true for every RPG).

Do you think there is a mechanical reason for the fame D&D has, or has it more to do with something unrelated, like the intentional absence of an official setting (enabling shitty DMs to come up with shitty worlds devoid of any interesting stuff) or the playerbase?

If you think the mechanics are to blame, what mechanic (or lack thereof) do you think is responsible for the stigma? I know and played many other systems, I would be interested in examples.

>>51821183
>why is D&D considered a subpar role playing game by a lot of rpg-hipsters?
>rpg-hipsters
>hipsters
You found your answer right there.

>>51821145
What would Lore Monks get?
Smites?
Expertise?
Lay on hands?
Fighting styles?

>>51821196
Yes, all of those.

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>>51821015
>White Plume Mountain
Cool, I want to slay this poor bastard

>>51821109
I was thinking and an EK can counter pretty well, starting with 16 Str and a feat by h variant by 17 they will have 20 star alert mate slayer war caster mobile and martial adept. First attack, if it hits trip attack, then attack twice, action surge attack three times. That's 6 attacks 5 with advantage and he's prone. EK can shield or counter spell for the EBs or high level casts, even if it doesn't work he has indomitable. Next turn attack then action surge again attack 3 more times.

Really this kind of theory crafting is pointless, cause they are so high level, and high level stuff gets insane. With an amazing attack bonus and advantage on a ton of stuff with mid 20s AC. A fighter would not be easy.

It just comes down to who goes firs

>>51821183
Old times had people try and slot Dungeons and Dragons into every possible niche, especially when the d20 SRD came out. It does not work for every possible niche, so for most people they ended up using a system that wasn't very good at what it did, until they made a new system to do that niche. Also, it's popular and hipsters hate what's popular, especially a game like D&D that's changed itself to try and be more accessible.

Also it's due to lots of things, but the lack of an official must be used setting is absolutely a part of why D&D is so popular. It's incredibly easy to take D&D's "lazy fantasy" monsters and concepts and make your own world and game out of them. But to ask why D&D is so famous would take incredibly long essays, of which there have been hundreds written. Just go read one.

>>51821095
It should become hostile the moment you try to bind it. No sane creature would subject itself to that where it can be bound until the other person dies.
If you can win its trust somehow that the binding 'is so it can stay with you longer and then you'll release it', maybe you'll get away with it, but a lot of these creatures are quite smart and might see through your bluffs.

>>51821080
Oh, well, I missed the 'it becomes hostile to you' part on specifically conjure elementals, which suggests that it's actually unnaturally friendly. I believe the other conjurations might not actually be intended to be 'unnaturally friendly', but instead since they probably have more personality than an elemental (I might be wrong), but..
Ah, conjure celestials for example, you cannot make the celestial do things that are against its alignment. It shows that you aren't forcing it do things necessarily, that it still has at least some level of control.

I believe they left it ambiguous for the DM to decide, and I think a lot of DMs would (and probably rightfully should) make it so such creatures turn on you the moment you try to essentially enslave them. In the case of a celestial, it might be forced to do things against its alignment if you try to bind it.

The only issue I'm finding is with elementals, that seem like they would be bindable without any complications.I wonder..

Either way, you can still conjure a creature into a magic circle.

>>51821128
Lore Fighter

>>51821183
D&D's popularity has many factors.

The one I cite the most, because it is almost never countered, is that anything that it can be remotely compared to usually lacks anything like a monster manual (in the sense of graduating challenges to create a sense of progression) and almost certainly anything like a dungeon master's guide, in terms of mathematical guidelines for creating a sense of balanced progression in a campaign.

Instead D&D's competitors (and I use the word loosely), in their sneering arrogance, say "we are too good for graduating challenges, random treasure, and such juvenile things! this is a serious game, for SERIOUS adults!"

Short and sweet: the Dungeon Master's Guide.

>>51820895
Depends entirely on what sort of creature you're dealing with. Most conjured creatures are fairly unintelligent, so they're not going to understand what's going on.

Try to bind a Unicorn or something, then yeah maybe you'll run into some issues.

>>51821183
I think they could be justified saying that of pathfinder or 4e, but less so of 5e or some of the older dungeons and dragons games.

5e has a lot more focus on characters and I'm really seeing this in the games people make. Some games are mostly roleplaying, but my main issue with that is I find it imbalances rest to encounter ratio. That said, everybody still seems to have fun even if maybe the wizards can be more liberal casting their spells, and in a roleplaying game it's not like you're trying to be the best anyway.

>>51821196
They would be able to get the class features (not subclass) of any two other martial class, but only for one encounter per short rest.

They can spend one ki point to add 2d10 damage to that of their monk weapons that round, multiplied by the number of targets they have hit that round. So if they hit three different people, all take +6d10 that round.
They may spend two ki points to change their reach to one mile.
They may spend three ki points to change the damage from their next attack to ability damage.

>>51821326
This sounds balanced to me

>>51821171
Neither of those win the fight. He should be able to prevail with flame strikes and hellish rebukes, though.

>>51821273
I think in the hour it takes to bind them they'd probably get an idea unless you really manage to dull their minds somehow. They likely have an affinity to magic and you're clearly casting some questionable magic on them, even if they don't know what it is, and they might make a friendly suggetion to stop casting weird shit on them.

I think in the end it's very DM dependent, though. If a DM doesn't want you pokemonning everything, a good DM will try to skew things towards making it harder within the rules, so you'd end up having to conjure a thing inside a magical circle and trying to stop it from killing you at range in the hour you're concentrating.

>>51821221
I'm not talking about theory crafting, I'm just asking that if the caster level 17th warlock is set up to counter casters, what a warlock could do differently to counter fighter types, including ranged ones. I don't offhand know of a good Feeblemind analog for fighters. Maybe Phantasmal Force?

>>51821236
Conjure Fey and Elemental both have the unnaturally friendly part.
I will agree that many different DMs will see celestials differently.

>>51821235
>>51821262

I know why D&D is popular. What I'm not so sure about is, why do people think it's not a good system for roleplaying.
The "people tried to use D&D for stuff D&D isn't good at" point is interesting.

>>51821381
>>51821273
This is the reason why I espoused that two 9/9s are primarily important only for high crunch campaigns in which the DM fully intends for PCs to do this sort of thing, and in less intentionally high power games, I think a paladin is a good substitute for the second char.

>>51821427
Solving encounters through roleplay doesn't always give XP, other games do. But that's not always true though cause DMs can do milestones.

But yeah in the rules you don't progress through roleplay and the rules lawyers keep it that way. Other games allow roleplay to be a core strategy.

>>51821477
Bear in mind that sorcerers are little help in this. I just like to spread the idea that sorcerers aren't real casters.

>>51821487
>But yeah in the rules you don't progress through roleplay
In the rules you can gain XP for overcoming challenges. Rules lawyers can get fucked if they aren't going to learn the rules.

>>51821381
>Implying a fey spirit with the intelligence of a bear can figure out that you're trying to control them

I'd honestly ask the DM to have the conjured creature roll arcana. These aren't smart creature who necessarily know jack shit about spells. Even if they did understand what was going on, having explicitly friendly creatures that are magically compelled to follow your orders suddenly retaliating to something they don't understand is stupid. By that logic you wouldn't be able to order them to fight, since you're obviously putting them in harms way.

If the DM wants to shut down pokemonning, then he can talk to the player in question like an adult. There's no need to bullshit.

>>51821574

I agree, the DM should simply say what limits he envisions on pokemon.
"Hey DM, mind if I use this and planar binding to get us some celestial mounts?"
"Hey DM, mind if I use this and planar binding to get some protectors for the city so they aren't ganked while we're out?"

etc. That's how I'd handle it, very loosely speaking, before roleplaying it out.

>>51821568
Exactly, plus roleplay checks exist, you can roll persuasion and end a conversation. Not that that that is bad. It's just streamlined. As a DM a persuasion is only good for a line or so, not the whole paragraph.

>>51821183
>I often hear (both irl and on the interwebs) that D&D "is not meant/good for roleplaying" or "doesn't encourage narrative aspects"

Well this is true for combat, specifically.

The majority of players just say, "I hit it with my longsword" and then roll damage, move on to next player.

Where as other games put a larger emphasis on more narrative approaches to combat (i.e. "I dash toward the fiend, breaking into a slide. At which point I swing the blade of my longsword in an upward motion, trying to split the fiend in half.")

>>51821574
>retaliating to something they don't understand

Mean to say "retaliating to something they don't like"

>>51817702
Have everybody roll an INT check with dc 10. Somebody's sure to pass, then you tell them the obvious thing they're overlooking.

>>51821668
Vampire has persuasion and intimidation checks, and social stats, and is often considered a "narrative based" RPG. So I suppose that this aspect of D&D is considered good for roleplaying?

I don't know, narrative based mechanics can be good or bad for roleplaying depending on the point of view.

>>51821683
>>51821574
They're only retaliating in a 'Okay, this is creepy, I'm going to just wander over there for a bit'.
And then if you want to keep the spell being cast, you have to chase them and keep casting whatever weird magics it is.
And then they might get even more creeped out.

You have to spend an entire hour casting powerful magic ON the creature. Even a dumb creature is going to get at least a bit nervous, especially when the wizard tries to restrain it in a corner or stop it from wandering away.


It's not bullshitting to do what maakes vague sense in the rules. The fey isn't going to immediately slap your shit, it's simply going to wander away. If you keep pestering it in such a manner with your magic hokey pokeys it might slap you around the face and tell you to stop it. And slap you harder if you don't.

This isn't bullshit, it's just saying 'Well, nothing in the spell says the fey is completely 100% obedient to you, and it's still friendly with you, sort of. Maybe you should try making it trust you a bit more or something before you try this.'

>>51821843
Pretty much. You could lie to it and say you're casting a spell to empower it in battle before your next encounter.
But lying to and entrapping a fey likely won't end well for you.

>>51821814
Yeah, so it's not even that.

To be honest it's hated cause it's popular as the OP said. Everything popular is hated for one reason or another, doesn't really matter though cause it's fun and it works.

What got you playing dungeon and dragons for real? Was there a moment during your first session that hooked you in? Could extend to other table tops as well.

My first session was being a Goliath with a rapier that kept beheading people, and the disembodied head would fly into their allies and injure them. Some 4e nonsense, but it was that kind of fun openness that got me into the game that I play 5 times a week.

Around what time do UAs usually drop?

Are the genasi good for anything in particular?

>>51822008
Tomorrow

>>51822032
>>51822008
Thursday around 1

>>51820898
I feel like John would be more of a Wizard or Tomelock than a Sorcerer.

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>>51821843
>nothing in the spell says the fey is completely 100% obedient to you

The spell says the conjured creature is friendly to me and obeys my orders. I order it to stand still for an hour. If it wanders off for some reason, then I just order it to go back to where it was.

Again, by your logic you wouldn't be able to order it to fight or do anything it didn't want to. If it's allowed to disobey when you're casting a (relatively) benign spell on it, why would it not disobey when you place it in an obviously life threatening situation?

>>51822220
>As long as it doesn't violate its alignment

By planar binding it, you could potentially make it violate its alignment, so the order is essentially making it possible for it to violate its alignment.

Even if it doesn't know you're casting planar binding, it should already be suspicious.

The fact it won't violate its alignment suggests it still has free will, but that free will is only for certain things.

It's true, by the logic set there you can't order it to fight or do anything if it doesn't want to, and what it doesn't want to do is things that violate its very morals - Order the pixie to fight another pixie that they don't have problems with? It might decide not to comply.

A spell that can effectively turn a creature into your slave for as long as you live is hardly benign.

>Relatively life threatening situation
It's likely an extraplanar being, which means its life is not under threat, even if it dies. Being planar binded is much more of a threat to it than death on the material plane.

>>51822347
>>51822220

Actually, not so sure about fey killed on the material plane, or elementals. Pretty sure fiends and celestials go back. Is it only outer plane creatures that go back on death?

>>51822347
>violate its alignment

I don't like this way of looking at it, because it reinforces that behavior is determined by alignment instead of vice-versa. It's more proper to say the fey won't violate its personal desires/agenda.

>>51822067
No, it's tomorrow, Tuesday, at around 11 AM PST.

>>51822347
>you can make unaligned creatures violate their alignment

You heard it here folks.

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>>51817644

Whats your opinion on my boy, Fharlaghn?

Plan on making a cleric of his because NH is best alignmnt.

>>51822394
Well, it's 5e, so alignmen tpretty much relates to its personal desires and agenda.

And being bound by a wiziard to serve the wizard's whims regardless of what it is is definitely not going to be something they'd want.

>>51822414
If it's unaligned, that presumably means it has no real ideals or anything and just wants to live, eat and sleep, in which case it honestly might not care what you do to it as long as it doesn't hate you. If you kick the puppy before trying to bind it it'll probably try to avoid you.

>>51822445

NG*, fuck you too phone.

>>51822445
He's a good fit for the life of a murderhobo

My players use Detect Magic all the time and I'm totally cool with I, but I wanted to figure out which color each school's aura would have. So far I've got:

>abjuration - blue
>necromancy - black
>divination - gray
>enchantment - pink

I was thinking brown for transmutation, and either white, red or yellow for evocation. No idea what to use for illusion and conjuration, though. Any suggestions?

>>51822220
The important part of that clause is that you don't control its every movement. It's still an NPC. It has its own initiative and obeys your spoken commands. How it interprets those commands and how it chooses to complete them is up to it, not to you.

>>51822482
How about:
Abjuration - white
Conjuration - orange
Evocation - red (obviously)
Divination - light blue (note that there are hardly any persistent divination effects unless you're talking about magic items)
Enchantment - gold
Illusion - dark purple
Necromancy - black (duh)
Transmutation - blue

>>51821183
Because of the hipster's creed: nothing is any good if other people like it.

>>51822482
Illusion - Funky colours, man.
Evocation: Red
Transmutation - Brown or orange
Conjuration: Yellow

Of course, it'd probably be wrong to attribute them to colours. Detect magic would give you more of an otherworldly sense, more like taste except not taste.

>>51822482
>>51822536
Transmutation has to be gold

>>51822507
Yes, but if you tell it to stand still and take no actions, there's not a lot of room for interpretation.

>>51822564
I've found another issue with this plan. The duration of Conjure Fey is exactly equal to the casting time of Planar Binding. Since you must cast Conjure Fey first, it will always expire at least a moment before Planar Binding is cast.

>(NOOB DM QUESTIONS)

STARTING A GAME
LEVEL 3 RANGER MAX SKILL RANKS IN
PROFESSION FLETCHER
AND PROFESSION LEATHER-WORK

SHOULD I WORRY?

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>>51822666
>SKILL RANKS

>>51822666
Wrong edition, neither of those are a thing in 5e

>>51822666
There are no skill ranks in 5e. All he can do is be proficient in fletching tools and leatherworking tools, which at level 3 gives him a +2 bonus to checks made with each. Crafting isn't very good and takes time.

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>>51822666
Those aren't things my dog.

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>>51822666

>>51822447
The puppy doesn't have free will. It is unconditionally friendly to me (as long as concentration is maintained) and is magically compelled to obey my commands. Kicking the puppy does not change our relationship.

Now after I bind it, then the puppy might absolutely hate me. If I didn't kick it, then it wouldn't have any particular reason to hate me. Either way, that doesn't really matter. It still has to follow my commands.

The moral of the story is to never summon anything intelligent enough to realistically object to servitude.

What are the best beasts of CR 2 or less?

>>51822700
>>51822699
>>51822692
>>51822680
>>51822678
you caught me, it's 3.5
he also has max ranks in Use Rope

>>51822724
What do you mean by Best?

>>51822732
I kind of assumed that there would be a little bit of overlap

>>51822562
Actually yeah, I totally agree.

>>51822743
Probably "most powerful to use as a druid."

>>51822732
>>51822752
Nope, there are no skill ranks, you are either proficient with a skill or you're not (unless you're a rogue or bard) and crafting is by and large not a thing

>>51822743
I'm trying to pick one for a mechanical servant so just whatever one is generally the best continuing forward. In my experience the best for general situations at around 6 or whenever a druid could become them would also be the best to pick.

>>51822752
If you want overlap go for /PFG/.

>>51822783
>>51822792

damn, I'll have to go as /PFG/

I don't like it there as much...

>>51822200
Tomelock would probably work best. He's more of a deal maker/breaker and not much of a specialist.

>>51822712
The puppy will still be friendly towards you and generally obey commands, but it'll be less likely to trust you once you start doing whatever weird magical thing it is on it for an hour. If it's some sort of a fey animal, I'm sure it at least has the common sense that magic can be used to force others to do what you want them to.

You could still shove it in a magic circle, tie it up in a corner or just not kick it in the first place, but allowing magic that could possibly force yout o do something you don't want to do is essentially 'violating your alignment', even if your alignment is 'I want food.'

>>51822796
By the way you aren't in for anything from that one character, profession isn't useful and use rope isn't useful enough to actually take ranks above getting synergy skills.

>>51822653
See, now this is a real mechanical issue. Not some made up bullshit about unintelligent fey or elementals disobeying orders because muh freedom.

>>51822653
The times are probably not entirely exact and your DM is an absolute stickler if they say 'Well, magic circle lasts one hour, and planar binding lasts one hour, so just as you're a second away from completing the ritual the monster steps out and smacks your shit up'

No, the times aren't given to exact times because it's 5e and you're not supposed to stick to the rules 100%, only 98.8%.

I imagine it's no coincidence magic circle lasts an hour and so does planar binding.

>>51822732
To answer your question, no, in 3.5 the ability to make stuff and use rope is not a big deal. It's more window-dressing than anything else. The best you can make without magic item creation feats and a deep spell list is masterwork stuff, and that quickly becomes irrelevant. What matters is what you use to fight or otherwise end encounters.

>>51822821
>use rope isn't useful
...you are talking to an bondage and sailing obsessed eagle scout, I have built serviceable shelters using naught but poles and rope and shreds of tarp... and then hoisted a person or two using those shelters as supports

don't tell me shit isn't useful when it can be useful...

>>51822867
In real life it's great, in 3.5 nobody really needs it.

>>51822886
that I can reasonably believe

>playing evocation wizard
>try often to do crowd control shit with grease/hypnotic patterns/etc
>fails nearly every time
>go back to fireballing everything
Am I doing something wrong, or am I just supposed to fireball everything?

>>51822853
It's a goven that the DM will make judgment calls and bend or misinterpret the rules sometimes, but it is the height of hubris to assume that he'll always do this in your favor. It's safer to assume that he'll be overly restrictive with you, both because you're trying to break the action economy and because it makes for a much better story if you lose control of the otherworldly monster you've summoned.

>>51822924
Either you're being inefficient or your DM is fucking you other or people aren't using synergy from things like hold person granting crits.

You can use hold person as a level 4 spell to potentially paralyze up to three humanoids.
Each humanoid should probably have at least a half chance of failing the first saving throw.
If somehow they almost always all succeed, your DM is fucking you over.

You can also polymorph teammates, cast haste on teammates, etc.

>>51822562
Why didn't I think of that before, I totally agree.

>>51822536
I like blue for abjuration, it fits well in my mind. But I guess I'll go with red for evocation and orange for conjuration. Illusion seems like it'd be something really colorful, or perhaps see-through.

>>51822551
Perhaps, but I like the visual of different colored auras over objects and creatures, sometimes intertwining, basically seeing the weave itself

>>51822924
Those two spells are on the weak side. But yeah, encounter-ending spells are intentionally weaker in 5e, usually either granting a new save every turn or turning off if anyone damages the affected creature.

>>51822940
I think the best way of doing it in that case is 'You complete the ritual, but something happened at the last minute due to time constraints on your spells that means it wasn't entirely perfect. You can't be 100% sure you have complete control."

It's better than telling the player to go fuck themself, because honestly I believe there's supposed to be synergy with that one hour time and other spells that only last an hour.

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Rate my 70% geophysically-accurate world map and setting details.

>Humans, Dwarves, Elves just chilling out on the eastern half of the continent for the most part, kept away from a FUCKLOAD of Orcs on the western side of the river
>Humans, Dwarves, and Elves develop "guns" and start fighting amongst themselves
>glacial dam bursts, and the resulting deluge creates a massive inner freshwater sea that wipes out large concentrations of Elven settlements in the north, Orcish settlements on the western river, and completely floods the Dwarven homecaverns
>Humans aren't nearly as inconvenienced due to all of their coastal cities
>Dwarves can't go anywhere else and head on an exodus to the west; terrain is completely inhospitable desert and badlands so they don't encounter many Orcs, but also can't settle anywhere; finally reach the western coast and begin to rebuild
>mysterious disease sweeps through all the Orc lands and totally savages them, allowing for expansion by the Dwarves, Elves, and Humans
>Humans are curtailed in their expansion by a civil war, giving elves and Dwarves more time to recover
>Dwarves take most of the western coast and central plains; massive territory expansion causes political head-butting; REVOLUCION happens and the monarchy is forced into hiding
>Humans kick The South's ass and begin westward expansion in earnest; can't do a whole lot to Dwarves, so they fight with Orcs
>mysterious disease and massive monster attacks completely devastate coastal and northern Dwarven settlements, causing a massive retreat to the south; Democratic Dwarves turned out to be even less popular rulers and the Monarchy reestablishes itself; DemoDwarves become guerilla rebels in the jungle
>Humans capitalize and begin colonizing the abandoned western Dwarflands
>Southern Human loyalists manage to take over the far west and threaten Human Civil War 2: Confederate Boogaloo
>Halflings, Elves have been making $$$$$$$$$$ the entire time

>>51822819
Your interpretations of alignments is overly strict in a game where alignments were very intentionally designed to be loose.

What's more, applying such definitions makes the spells completely unusable. Why would any conjured creature obey any of your orders if it's allowed to defy you for the sake of self-interest? You've literally just torn it from its plane of origin in order to enslave it, if only for an hour. Surely any command would therefore violate its free will and thus violate its alignment. In fact, the only action that would be in accordance with its alignment would be to attack you and try to free itself.

So, you're either setting up a blatant double standard in which the creature can only defy you if you do one particular thing or you're making the spells completely worthless. Tell me which you prefer.

>>51822924
>party gets into fight with 12 lizardfolk
>wizard goes before the enemies and cast hypnotic pattern
>only 3 or 4 made the save or were out of the area
>party proceeds to slaughter them all

>>51823056
>Rebel Mexican Dwarves
is making me chortle for some reason

>>51823077
>interpretations of alignments
Nothing strict there. I'm just saying alignments correspond generally to what a creature wants, desires, its morals and how it associates with others. It's pretty broad, but I wouldn't say an unaligned creature 'has no alignment' in the strictest sense, because that's 'overly strict' as you've put it. Instead, I'd say that it has no moral obligations either way, but it still has personal needs and wants that have just as much priority as a regular creature's morals might do.

>For the sake of self-interest
Because it's friendly and inclined to obey your orders? Just because I say it has the capability to defy you, doesn't mean it WANTS to unless it really has to. Even if you've sort of mind controlled it a bit or if you've offered it something through the magical spell that makes it inclined to help you, either way it's clear that once you start telling it to do things it really doesn't want to do, it won't do them. Doesn't mean it won't then fight for you if you ask it to fight something that isn't its friends, just means it won't let you enslave it and then potentially make it attack its friends.

>>51823123
>you will never have a sweet Aztec temple in the jungle and fight for the glory of El Presidente

>>51823097

>get into fight with group of gnolls + a fang of whateverthefuck
>druid restrains the fang with roots
>sorcerer spams Ray of Sickness to give Fang disadvantage on all his rolls to escape

>>51822666
Fuck yeah you should be worried. I don't have time to type up all the ways a Ranger with those two crafting skills can fuck up a campaign. Just trust me, you better nerf that shit fast or get him to play something less broken, like Wizard, Cleric or Druid.

>>51822752
>>51822752
There is quite some overlap, but skill learning is entirely different.

>>51823242
FUCK...
.....well, probably better, the skill-points thing in 3.5 is a bit of a train-wreck....

>>51823154
Okay, indulge me for a moment and let's take a step back and try to clear up what the core arguments are here. I just want answers, preferably short and to-the-point ones.

Firstly, it's your opinion that a summoned creature, even an unintelligent fey spirit or elemental, can (and most likely will) recognize when someone is trying to bind it, correct? The idea being that such extraplanar entities have an implicit understanding of such things.

Furthermore, you're saying that they would then realize that being bound is a violation of their free will and would potentially allow you to order them to act out of alignment, correct?

You also believe that ordering a creature to allow you to bind it is an implicit violation of its alignment (no matter what it is), right?

Finally, you say that all of this triggers the "no acting out of alignment" clause, allowing the summoned creature to one way or another prevent you from binding them, yes?

Sup, /5eg/.

Is there a fighting style from Wizard's splats or UA for unarmed fighting? I'm hoping I get an answer here quicker than poring through all of my books, and google wasn't helpful.

>>51823555
Two weapon fight means your Punch with your other hand adds strength. So punch, 1+Str, BA punch 1+Str instead of just 1.

I think that's how it works. Don't see anything saying it does.

>>51823555
Unarmed fighting that isn't monk?

>>51823555
Tavern Brawler or monk.

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>>51823604
Two weapon fighting explicitly requires having weapons.

>>51823555
Tavern Brawler or Monk MC

There are also a couple of homebrews going around, by far the best being the barbarian subclass and the pugilist that isn't basically a STR based monk

>>51823659
There you go, so no there are no fighting styles that help an unarmed user. Monk, or tavern brawler barbarian I guess, are your answers.

>>51823448

>Firstly
If it's intelligent, it will probably recognize.
If it's unintelligent, it will probably not recognize, but it would know what magic is and could potentially do and would thus rather not risk it unless convinced otherwise.

>Furthermore
I'd say they realize that there's magic that can potentially cause them to go against their will. Smarter creatures would catch on this very well might happen more than dumb creatures.

>You also believe
It's not a definite violation of its alignment, but it's a possible violation of its alignment, especially if they're smart enough to realize - if the wizard intends to use them for such - that they will then be forced to act against their alignment.

>Finally
For the most part, with the interpretation that it obeying its alignment means if it feels strongly enough about something, it won't comply.

Basically, I'm saying it's similar to 'charm person'. The creature is forced to be friendly, but 'friendly' doesn't mean it'll do absolutely everything. It just feels compelled to help you out. And I'm saying the 'it obeys your instructions' is because of the souped up charm person, and is there for clarification purposes so DMs don't have them appear and do jack shit.

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So I'm at Bard 3 and I've decided I want to MC into pact of the Fiend warlock for story reasons. How many levels should I put into Warlock to get maximum efficiency out of my Eldritch Blast/pact features? I have to get it all sorted quick as I'm on the verge of leveling again and our next session is tonight.

>>51823760
2 is all you need, I suggest nothing more than 3, beyond that, it's personal taste.

If you want to devote yourself to EB then just max warlock for invocations.

>>51823604
>>51823605
>>51823618
>>51823665
Thank you, all.

I guess I should have mentioned that I'm making a homebrew martial class, and I'm just trying to fill out the fighting styles section. I wanted to make sure there isn't a specific fighting style that deals with unarmed combat other than Monk's martial arts. I haven't been able to find anything either, which kind of sucks.

>>51823709
I suppose that's true.

Entirely separate question: would giving this quasi-martial class the capability to add a damage die to an unarmed strike be overpowered?

I have an additional damage die effect that's activated that scales at the same rate as Monk martial arts. But, I'm just realizing that would mean that my class would have martial arts damage + an automatic 1 damage from an unarmed strike + other bonuses, which is a guaranteed 1 more damage than what a monk is going to be doing with martial arts.

Should I disinclude unarmed strikes entirely, or just change it so that unarmed strikes are a damage die instead of "an additional damage die"?

>>51823731
My assumption is that the creatures know they are being summoned, but that they are only able to be summoned because of pacts they agreed to. They show up willingly because something they get in return, whether or not that something is part of the game's explicit narrative. Kinda like the frogs in Naruto.

>>51823792
Just make it the damage die replaces the 1 damage, no need to give them a constant +1.

>>51823760
Ask your GM if it's okay to convert all your Bard levels to Warlock.

>>51823828
Yeah, I do like that way of explaining it.

Though it does make you question why they attack when you lose concentration.

After reading these spells a fair bit, it's obvious you forcibly bind them to your will, normally, unless they don't turn hostile when you lose concentration.

I wouldn't mind a version of the spell where you do offer something in return for a pact, where each side knows what it's getting. What's being offered would be negligible or hand-waved on the wizard's part, but it means the summoned creatures have their mission and don't have to do whatever the heck.

>>51823760
Two levels of warlock for eldritch blast + agonizing blast + repelling blast, use it in place of your cantrip since being a lore bard means your cantrip is.. It's not ultra terrible, but eldritch blast is certainly an improvement.

>>51823839
Thanks!

So after all the classes got UA, I can safely say that Mearls and Crawford have no idea what the hell they're doing. They've designed classes with capstones as shitty and narrow as "once per short rest you can freely move your bowels without regard to the constipation condition", and classes with capstones as powerful as "cast wish once per day for free".

And that's when the things haven't been straight up broken (See Monk). The main problem is that they can't settle on the power level they want 5e to be. I think we can all agree that every option should be as good as the Water Sorcerer, or the Warlock UA (minus the wizard), which are really the only unambiguously well made options they've done.

So make sure to put in the surveys that you want WotC to hire someone competent.

One of my players is playing a bard, and he wanted one of the harp bows that bards get in Final Fantasy XIV. I decided to give it a shot as my first homebrew magic item. Feedback is appreciated on balance.

Harp Bow +1
Weapon (Short Bow), Rare
This bow counts as a musical instrument (harp). A bard may use this item as both a short bow, and a spell casting focus. While equipped the Harp Bow causes all of your non-touch spells to have a range of 80 feet; this effect includes spells that have a range >80 feet.

>>51823895
In older editions, there was a variant rule that made it so every time you summon a particular creature type with a given spell, it's the same one. So every time you summon a pixie with Conjure Fey, it would be the same pixie. It made it feel more like a pact with an otherworldly entity, and also had the interesting side effects that you could give it special equipments but if it died you could no longer summon that kind of creature.
Would be an interesting roleplaying opportunity, especially for Conjurers.

>>51823934

Yes, we can all agree that you have an opinion.

so do you guys actaully roleplay and is it anything that isnt cringe or retarded? what 90% of these threads boil down to is retard minmaxers (who arent even good at it and for some reason are unaware of half the rules) trying to convince people to use some cancer autistic op mulitclass combo "take a dip in this for x noh and dont forget y in warlock!" so that person can inevitably ruin the game they're in by doing stupid cheese shit n combat making the dm make things harder and and the rest of your party weak because they didnt do some gay combo like you did and also by you being such a failure at roleplaying that everyone jsut wishes you werent there add on top of that ur the main cause of party tension due to your frequent spergouts when someone doesnt do what you want them to

maybe its different online, but irl, if the group isnt a bunch of millennial liberal cucks you are going to get looked at like ur a retard and laughed at with your warlock/paladin/druid or whatever faggot thing ur running. even moreso because you made a furry tabaxi.

and when it comes to characters all i see you dumpasses ever talk about is some edgy bullshit or some furry bullshit LOL

oh and seeing you guys try to justify your stupid combos is hilarious

>>51823934
>>51824042
I'm just hoping this next cycle of UA gives us V. 2's of some stuff as well as new material

>>51824070
I just hope they hired competent people from DMs guild to explain how the classes work. We won't get a mess like the monk UA if they do that.

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>>51824063
Sick blog, my dog

>>51823731
Thank you for the clear answers.

I disagree with you on every point. My arguments why have already been made. At this point, I believe this to be an issue of interpretation. Therefore, I concede that your interpretation is valid, even though I do not agree with it.

This has no bearing on this argument, but there was another argument about whether binding a conjured creature would work at all due to timing issues. For what it's worth, Crawford would allow it.

https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/644633873163403268

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>>51824063
Here, have a (you)

>>51823934
>"cast wish once per day for free".

But Wizard already gets Wish that doesn't require them to waste access to all the spells they don't get.

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>>51824063
Wow, you sure sound mature. Have a smug anime girl.

But, yes, in general everybody here acts 10x more of a faggot because it's on an anonymous image board and we have time to argue. You can't argue on 'What's the best way to roleplay?' as easily as 'What's the best build?' as one thing is more objective.

If you put any of us in a group with some friends, I'm sure 80% of us would actually play like sensible human beings. Some of us would even be playing suboptimal builds, or trying to min-max things that we generally agree are shitty in order to have fun.

Of course, there is actually a small margin of people here who actually would metagame everywhere. They're faggots.

>>51824182
???

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>>51824063
>millennial liberal cucks
I have literally no idea what this has to do with literally anything else you said
That said, go back to /pol/. We don't need you here.

>>51824157
Well, thank you for being respectful about it.
In the end it's probably best left to the DM, and the only thing to argue about there is 'Is the DM being a dick if they do this, or should they have just told you out of the game not to do these sorts of things if they didn't want you to?'
But, I can see that argument probably going nowhere.


It's good to see that Crawford agrees, because I was in the 'if they both last an hour, you should be able to make it work' camp because it seems obscene that you'd follow the spell times to the letter within 6 seconds of each other, and I sitll believe they probably intended to make so many of these spells last an hour for a reason.

Worth noting though, Crawford doesn't make any comment about the elementals resisting, but I guess it's twitter and there's limited text. And conjure elementals doesn't have anything about alignment or them being able to refuse commands in any circumstances.

>>51822220
>Conjure Fey: Concentration, for up to 1 hour
>Planar Binding: Casting Time 1 hour

>When you cast a spell with a casting time longer than a single action or reaction, you must spend your action each turn casting the spell, and you must maintain your concentration while you do so (see “Concentration” below).

>>51824509
You have to have two different casters work together.

So I'm GMing for a new group and they play, but they don't. I'm thinking of adding some events to the game to make their abilities relevant, without being too hamfisted about it.

For example, I'm setting up a bandit encounter for the next game- Is it a bad idea to give one or two of them poisoned weapons to get the Paladin to use their healing skill?

>>51824597
>they play, but they don't
????

>>51821814
VtR is definitely simulationist, not narrative. Virtually everything other than Monopoly is simulationist. For a game to be gamist, it has to be A) balanced and B) a game you can win, and narrativism requires far more outlandish mechanics than White Wolf.

Everything that tries to be realist and everything that tries to be genre is simulationist.

>>51824597
Personally I would make it so they use dirty tactics, maybe applying some sort of filth or disease-ridden thing to their blade (though it wouldn't be obvious) and attacking with that, then running and trying to fight the players again a day later.

People hit would make con saves part way along and start to feel ill if they didn't succeed. There might be some adverse affects from then on. Obviously, a paladin could then cure them.

Alternatively replace all above instances of 'disease' with a slow working poison.

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>>51821568
>sorcerers aren't real casters.

t-take it back!!

>>51821183
Fundamentally, D&D (in recent editions) is a mechanically competionist system. It tries to take all the possible character actions and quantify and restrain them. The idea of D&D is that if a circumstance is expected to frequently occur, "there's a rule for that". This ruffles the feathers of "hardcore role not roll players" who think that somehow having rules for things means you can't roleplay.
It's basically the Stormwind Fallacy applied to a system instead of mechanical competency.

>>51824631
They're just... Not all there? They make actions, but there isn't much behind them. And they don't really try to apply their abilities to anything. I want them to be a bit more creative.

>>51824648
That sounds better than what I had planned.

>>51824631
I think he means they treat everything as if they were Fighters. "I attack X" is all they do despite being rogues/paladins/rangers.

So my players will soon be venturing into their first dungeon.

Essentially, they've stumbled across a a cave served as the den of an oracle. In the old empire, heroes who were going to take up a quest would prove themselves by braving the dangers of the cave, and then receiving the advice/wisdom of the oracle after having survived/proven their mettle. They want to go through the challenges of the cave to seek wisdom to defeat a seemingly undying foe.

The dungeon is mostly setup - monsters, traps, interesting encounters, loot, it is all there. The only thing I am missing is a fun puzzle. I'm trying to avoid riddles or things that only have one answer. Anyone have any good suggestions?

>>51824920
You could be like my DM and throw giant spiders at them. Then when the spiders are defeated you say "Good job on completing my spider puzzle."

You're the DM if you say it's a puzzle then it's a puzzle.

>>51824780
In their defense the general right choice in combat is to attack in whatever way best suits your character in the moment. For martials that's usually just attacking in their unique way (angrily, stealthily, with technique, etc), for casters that's often either blowing them up or some sort of buff/debuff. The issue comes when they all do the standard fighter thing of beat them in the face. A barb isn't really a barb without rage, a pally without their smite, and a rogue without fighting dirty to sneak attack.

>>51824597
Making sure that the PCs are getting the most out of their abilities is a good idea no matter how awkwardly it is implemented. That being said you may want to start small and avoid lumping on too many extra advantages onto the enemies just because ONE of the party members has a feature that MAY help against it. So instead of giving a balanced encounter worth of bandits all poisoned weapons and watch the party get their asses thoroughly handed to them because they're taking more damage than the Paladin's one feature can possibly make up for how about giving one or two of them poison to make them stand out from the rest, or swapping some of the bandits for a creature or creatures that are of an appropriate CR and already have poison built into their stats, or start real small and have someone in the bandit's capture who is slowly dying of poison that the character can safely and easily cure after the fight for and get a plot hook out of it and maybe even a little extra reward.

I'm making a martial-caster hybrid class, and I'm trying to create a name other than "weaponspelltype" since those are pretty played out, but I also want it to make sense to anyone who has been playing table top games.

I like the process of combining root words from different languages to get something. I was thinking something like "Corsomancer" (corp- from Latin and soma- from Greek for body, mancer as in mancer), but that sounds too much like someone who manipulates their body to make magic happen.

The flavor for the class is essentially a living magical nexus whose unique physiology passively conducts magic energy. They aren't innate casters and have to study and research in order to understand magic and how their body works, but they are more martial focused than caster focused.

Anyone mind being a sounding board?

>>51825016
That sounds like a monk to me.

>>51822447
No one cares if its something it "wants" to do though.

>>51825016
Wizard with CON casting.

>>51825038
Monks don't cast magic, they channel ki. That may sound pedantic or semantic, but it's an important distinction lore and flavor wise. Monks also don't cast any spells.

>>51825068
Wizards have none of the other features of martial classes: limited weapon proficiency, no armor proficiency, no fighting styles, no baked in access to physical skills, etc. They are also full casters.

>>51825136
Monks are a living magical nexus of ki energy, whose unique physiology after years of training allows them to passively conduct ki energy. They aren't innate casters, and have to study and research in order to understand ki, and how their body works, but they are more martial focus than caster focused

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>>51825160
Fuck, you got them real good.

>>51825160
Ki is generated within the body; it is not magical anymore than psionics are magical. Monks do not passively conduct ki energy from the world around them. They also do not cast spells.

You are completely misinterpreting how monks work.

>>51825016
Swordcerer
Ley fighter/defender/whatever (as in ley-lines)

That's all I got

Assume my stats are all sub-10 on a kobold

What are some cheesy broken things I can do?

>>51825213
Ley fighter is solid as fuck, I can work with that.

>>51825214
Play a different game

>>51825231
No problem!

>>51825214
Jump off a cliff and roll a new character.

>>51825211
It might not necessarily be generated in the body.

By the humourously poorly copy-pasted description of ki:
"This energy is an elemenl
of lhe magie lhal suffuses lhe mulliverse-speeitieally,
lhe elemenl lhat flows lhrough Iiving bodies. Monks
harness this power wilhin lhemsclves lo ereate magieal
effeels and exeeed their bodies' physieal eapabililies.
and some of lheir special attaeks ean hinder lhe tlow of
ki in lheir opponenls. "

By this description, it's entirely possible the energy comes from the environment and then turns into ki inside a living thing. The difference is pretty trivial in any case, however.

>They also do not cast spells.
Every single PHB monk archetype and even some core monk features include spells, such as 'astral projection', 'burning hands', 'darkness', 'sancturary'...