/5eg/ Fifth Edition General:

>>53247108
>How do you play druids and rangers?
In Out of the Abyss where the party has to care about my shit or get lost and die

>Grow up as a slave, owned by the gladiator arena of the city-state of Tharnissa.
>Never know who my parents are, I just know I was born there.
>Closest thing to a father I have is an old gladiator dragonborn, who teaches me to be strong if I am to survive this harsh life and also taught me draconic.
>Train since young with all weapons and armors I can, to be sure I will make it to adulthood.
>One day the dragonborn who was teaching me died in the arena. Guess I have to take care of my own.
>Kill my first man at age 13, in a tough, dirty fight. When he was down, I finished him with my fire breath, which I guess the public loved because they were shouting and screaming loudly. The host then called me the "Lord of Fire! Firelord!!!"
>Managed to kill a bear in the arena at age 15.
>By age 18 I have become really good at being a gladiator, and have won enough gold to purchase my own freedom. But I have never known another life, and have become adicted to the crowd cheering my name; so I keep on being a gladiator. Hell, the pay was good.
>A year later I finally buy my own freedom, and start visiting the city, and started living in an Inn called "The Brawling Troll". The innkeeper was a nice young lady who inherited the establishment. We became friends and slowly became close.
>At some point I realize that there is more to the world than killing people for money, and the bards were always singing about mighty deeds in a mighty world, so I decided it was time for me to start making my own path.
>On a notice board I see that the Duke of Therinburg from the second Berinthian Empire who is looking for "adventurers looking for work. Good pay", so I start making my way.
>I purchase a proper chainmail, a greatsword and some axes before leaving.
>After some time travelling to Therinburg I lodge at an Inn in a small vilage on the way. In there I meet a Halfling with mutton chops, a Dwarf Bard and a naked gnome.

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>Be me, Prof. Egg Gurgak, Goblin Tomelock of Ghauhandaur
>Get ko'd every encounter, since muh hp is low
>Hit Lvl 7, Take Invocation Sculptor of flesh. (polymorph)
>hit lvl 8 in the same session because DM
>Polymorph into a T-rex first round of combat, hold a drider in my jaws while it gets punched in the face by the monk

Next arcana when?

>>53247363
Should be June 5th

>>53247363
We're back to monthly schedule again, mouthbreather.

>>53247387
Just wait someone will claim "heh baited!"

Multiclassed to Warlock from Cleric to show my character's slow fall. How do I keep my Warlock levels a secret from the other players, or should I just tell them normally and trust in them not to metagame? Also should I tell my dm or surprise him with it later?
I'm a Cleric 1/Warlock 1 atm

>>53247850
First of all, you are a retard for multiclassing into something that uses another casting stat.
Secondly, you can't really hide it AND make use of it.
>I cast... Well... You know what. No, no another thing.
>Hey, Jeff, are you hiding something from us?
>Uh, no! No! Not at all. Why do you ask?

>>53247850
Also just realized slow fall != Cleric 1/Warlock 1
>>53247893
I'm fine with mads and not optimizing- there are 7 in the party so someone else can carry
Point taken though, how about help with rationalizing why I'm using warlock powers as a LG war cleric? Am a follower of God and currently trying to decide between "Using evil to fight evil" and "God says its okay"

>>53248007
Which god?

>>53248082
Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ

>>53248082
>>53248109
Actually more on the Big Catholic G, but they're interchangeable I guess

>>53247108
>Ancient Rome + Xuanhuan

Does this seem like a good setting for a D&D campaign?

Spell attack cantrips or saving throw cantrips? Which are better?

>>53248007
"Using evil to fight evil" only works when evil means are more effective than good ones, which is not the case for you. You are much better at being a cleric, than a warlock.

>>53248183
Depends on the setting

I've got a question for all the DMs: is it ok to make (sparing) use of NPCs your players just can't kill or convince?

I'm running a game of 7 people, and we're 4 sessions deep. The party is showing a complete disregard for any NPC that comes their way. It hasn't really been a problem until now -- picking fights with low level thugs, being rude to NPCs, basic, manageable stuff -- but last session something happened and I'm not sure if I handled it correctly.

I introduced a character who is supposed to be an infamous black market trader. He approached the party looking to hire them after the aforementioned thug-beating. He needed them to find something for a client of his, and that he'd be willing to pay for their services. This is where my question comes into play: completely unprompted, the barbarian of the party picks up the merchant and threatens him. Now, I imagined this character as having a sort of lazy confidence about him, and he also can't go revealing the identities of his clients so despite the barbarian rolling a 19 on her intimidate, the merchant remained calm, just saying he can't tell them that information. Luckily, the players didn't mind it or even question it.

Did I respond correctly in your opinion? Furthermore, I can see things like this escalating in the future, with the barbarian, later in that session getting thrown in jail for punching on honest merchant in the middle of the busiest district of a large city. Is it ok to make NPCs that the party can't kill/can kill the party?

>>53248282
Just pretend he had a bonus against intimidate/it was a difficult skill check. Also if he does end up dying, make his second take over or contact them with a rival trader

>>53248342
(OP here) That's a very cool idea, but could I also just give him class levels so he could defend himself if they do try to kill him? I want to start to create the idea that, at level 1, there are much bigger fish in the world and that they shouldn't become over-confident. I figure someone who regularly has dealings with the underbelly of a major city knows how to wield a knife.

>>53248282
Don't rely on NPC stats for target numbers, what you did is fine by making it DC20 (very difficult).

As far as NPCs the party can't kill, bring in a dozen guards and a more veteran officer. Like 8-10 guards and a gladiator. Make it clear this is an arrest of the one character, if they resist it will be considered a villainous act against the kingdom.

Even if it's not related to threatening the powerful merchant, he'll be blamed but his influence will be expanded in their minds. It's also fair for a city to bring out the big guns for adventurers since there's no set "we have 7 Xth level players running around" knowledge for the NPCs.

>>53247296
Rad

>>53247850
You could just rp and stuff, don't need to shit your char.

>>53248183
Usually spell attack, unless you know the enemy stats and use a cantrip that targets a weak save.
Like being a mystic and using mind thrust on everything ever, because everyone is dumb.

I'm running Curse of Strahd for a party of "around" six people

Composition is as follows

>Human Paladin
>Half Elf Bard
>Dragon Born Monk
>Halfling Thief
>Tiefling Fiendlock
>Human Battlemaster

But I'm struggling to tie these people's personal story lines to the world around them. Some of them I've worked out

> Dragonborn and Argynvost, obviously
>Tiefling and the Wachters, and maybe also Bonegrinder
>Paladins don't need shit for Curse of Strahd,
>Half Elf Bard is a female, and the Dusk Elves are right over there

But the other two are giving me the run around.. I'm thinking, werewolf the Human, and have the halfling be the latest incarnation of an adventurer who has tried and died horribly a thousand times to kill Strahd

What is your experience with this?

I'm having him be the last ghost out of the parade of the dead

>>53248513
Could always rogue him up if you're worried, then eventually turn him into a midboss / main antagonist for a few sessions.
Might just be better for him to hire bodyguards because of the barbarian, then have him start running when the fighting starts. If they do end up catching him, try to trick them towards treasure in a smuggler's lair or something

>>53248513
Use something from the MM like Veteran or Master Thief from Volo's, make him be accompanied by a couple of Thugs as well. The party will learn to behave right quick.

>>53247108
>How do you play druids and rangers?

My current Druid is a condescending jackass when it comes to nature. He understands that nature is fucking insane and exists only to breed and consume resources and spread. Left unchecked, "nature" will overrun whatever it can, and while a little nature is good, unchecked nature is dangerous. And right now most places are just overrun with nature. His role that of a gardener, to trim and guide and cut away at the dead, diseased, and unkempt. Nature can survive a little (or a lot) of guidance. You can put it in a box and make it look pretty (aka a garden). Want to hack a path through the forest to build a road? My druid will enthusiastically show you how the fuck it's done. If some idiot wants to chain themselves to a tree along the way, you just cut that asshole down with the tree.

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>>53248645
>tfw you're playing CoS and you're pretty sure the GM has story hooks for everyone but you

I don't know if I should talk to him or wait and hope to be pleasantly surprised

>>53249064
That doesn't sound much like a condescending jackass, that sounds pretty reasonable.

Talking about rangers, is there any reason not to ise UA's ranger that was greatly improved? I feel the main issue with that one is that it makes the beast enclave way more appealing than the others.

>>53249064
How is that being condescending or a jackass?

>>53249089
Well what are you playing?

>>53249201
It's OP as a level 1 dip

I got invited to a game starting in a few weeks and I've been thinking of what class to roll.
I've only really played 3.5/Pathfinder, so this is my first foray into 5e.

Samurai and Way of the Kensei monk have caught my eye and seem pretty fun.
I don't wanna be useless, so do they hold up in combat?

>>53249089
You shouldn't have asked to play a Tabaxi Monk of the Four Elements then.

>>53249630
If this is your first time with 5e I recommend going with a proper published class/archetype over some unfinished playtest UA stuff.

>>53249133
>>53249209
Sorry, I meant he's a condescending jackass to other people about nature. When the topic strikes he's a bit into lecturing and making others feel small. His ability to survive nature is a point of pride (his only point of pride, really).

>>53249245
Wood Elf Land Druid (Arctic)
It's a replacement character so there's no written backstory, just whatever I've invented in session. I'm new to the group so I'm not sure how to handle it

>>53249684
My GM is a big meany and said no Volo's. He was actually a bit offput that no one's playing a human, but that's because our one THAT GUY made "Orc Hitler" who wants to exterminate humans... in a campaign filled with humans. FML.

>>53249848
Aaah, I gotcha.
How are Barbarians?

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>>53249852
So he must be invited to elvish dinner parties all the time! :D

>>53249898
Well if it's a replacement and no written backstory there's your problem. Make a back story

>>53249906
Totem is good, Berserker is a bit tricky

REMOVE ELVES
REEEEEEEEEE

>>53249906
I really like barbarian.

>>53249906
Barbarians are good

Or, at least, Totem barbarians are good, Berserker barbarians are decent with the exception of their frenzy, which is generally useless

>>53249942
Gotcha, gotcha.
I dunno, I'm looking for something that's just flat out a lot of fun to play.
And not paladin, I've done that already.

>>53249960
Battlemaster fighter is also good and fun.

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>>53249955

>>53249974
>I dunno, I'm looking for something that's just flat out a lot of fun to play.
Sure. There are very few trap builds in 5e though, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Focus on layering depth on your character and the "fun" will fall out of it naturally. Even suboptimal characters can be hugely entertaining if they're well-storied. Sometimes spitballing in /5eg/ is a good way to flesh out a character.

>>53249955
>tfw you're macking on a fat-chested Elf honey
>tfw she's got a penis

GOD DAMMIT WOTC! I BLAME YOU!

Are there rules for firearms in 5e? If not has anyone homebrewed any? I feel like it should be more damage than a heavy crossbow, shorter range (no rifling), with a reload rule and some sort of unreliability built in as well.

So like 1d12 martial, 80/160 range, reload, unreliable. Unreliable being roll 1d8, on a 1 fail to fire, a reload allows another shot.

>>53250167

wizards.com/dnd/files/Valoreign.pdf

>>53250167
DMG has firearms.
Renaissance, modern and sci-fi

>>53248282
>completely unprompted, the barbarian of the party picks up the merchant and threatens him
Typical, and no you were right. I wouldn't let them do that or kill random NPCs without punishing them after a certain point.

>>53249852
That doesn't too bad actually. Does he act differently toward people who actually want to learn from him or is it every time and he doesn't hesitate in being smug?

Is there a status condition for being drunk?

>>53250199
can you give me a page number on that?

>>53250271
268

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Mere words can not describe the hate I have for this spell.

>>53248282

Just bear in mind that a 19, or even a 25, is meaningless in the face of a DC 30 check. Adjust accordingly.

>>53250308
Thanks

>>53250343

Why?

>>53248282
I'd definitely go down the 'Multiple NPCs' route rather than mary sue NPC route. Numbers are much stronger than one guy with mary sue stats and they speak better than 'Oh, his head's on fire, that makes him really strong!'

>>53250393
>Comes way too late
>Is way too weak for it's level
>Prohibitive cost
>The only way to undo "Save or lose" effect of petrification

>>53250416
is 100g really a prohibitive cost to a 9th level character?

>>53250063
Sweet.
What I've been told so far is that I need to have angered a powerful person in some fashion.
So I can add organizations and such as I see fit.
Maybe something like a vampire hunter that is hunting down a sect of vampires that killed/turned someone close to him?
Hunting down members maybe has angered the big boss vampire.

Another idea I was spitballing was my character found out about a future event that is putting a city in danger, so he starts buying up as much of the city property as he can to fortify it and defend it, since no one believes him. This angers rival businesses, so his company might get forcibly taken over and his fortune lost. Now maybe he's searching for another way to defend the city.

>>53250416

Ah, that's reasonable then. I thought you were gonna be one of those DMs who are all like "you get this awful curse/disease/status/whatever that-" "I cast Greater Restoration" "NO IT DOESN'T WORK!"

Hate that shit.

>>53250436
Depends on a DM. I'm level 5, and I'm yet to see a single dime.

>>53250238
>. Does he act differently toward people who actually want to learn from him or is it every time and he doesn't hesitate in being smug?
Actually, if someone genuinely wanted to listen to him I think he'd be pretty happy to teach what he knows. It hasn't happened yet though. I think part of his arc will involve being validated in the eyes of others somehow. So far he's just been the slightly unhinged elf who yells at animals, rants about mother nature being a crazy bitch, and makes vague threats about natural disasters. He made a small child cry once by describing what a tornado would do to their village (I got "fired" as a babysitter after that). He's been a fun character so far.

>>53250469

>Not looting enemies for scrap/furs/meat/whatever for copper pieces of profit

Do you even hobolife?

>>53250343
y tho

>>53250469
you should be able to shake the corpses of goblins for loose change, at least.

>>53250393
>Reddit spacing
Because it is part of how 5e absolutely babies players. 5e is for pussies almost as much as 4e, which was the ultimate pussified hugbox of a game.

5e removes
>Save or die spells
>Coupe de grace
> -10 Hp kills (admittedly for semi-good reason)
>ability drain
>poison (that bullshit extra damage type is not poison)
>curses such as cockatrice and basilisk turn-to-stone abilities, which are pussified as well

The game is meant to be a hugbox for normalfags who cannot cope with a real roleplaying game with real consequences. They are too used to Dark Scrolls or Skyrim where they can just push a button to respawn, and as a result the game has to be dumbed down to be safe for them. No longer are any of these monsters scary because all they do is reduce your hitpoints so you just have to make sure you don't run out of hitpoints. If you do run out of hit points you have a minimum of 3 turns to be healed anyway so as long as you have a cleric who isn't a fucking idiot there is basically no way you can die past level 1 unless you are fucking retarded.

Pathfinder also has this problem, where now you have to go to -Con to die from damage. This is part of pandering to a weaker-minded generation who gets asshurt when their special snowflake assassin Khaleesi Doomblade gets killed. Wizards of the Coast is designing around nothing but money now. Fewer rules (which is good to some degree as the 5e rules are quite streamlined) but also a dumbed down hugbox of a system that is only worth playing if you play D&D to have your worthless tiny ego stroked until you reach level 20 without any sort of rigor or effort involved.

>>53250514

>>53250514

>reddit spacing

I'm not from reddit, I'm just an autist from 06.

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>>53250514
Virt, just because you didn't write "Merals" in your post, it doesn't mean we don't know it's you.

>>53250514
>poison (that bullshit extra damage type is not poison)

That still exists. Plenty of poisons have rider effects while you're suffering from the poisoned condition. You can make them as vicious as older edition poisons if you want and they already have a mechanic for you to frame them with.

Also, fuck off Virt.

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>>53250514
Coupe de grace?

>>53250250
If I remember correctly not really, but I play it as if you're drunk attacks and skill checks, aside from maybe charisma based, are at disadvantage.

>>53250250
Poisoned, since alcohol is a poison to most bodies.

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>>53250453
>Another idea I was spitballing was my character found out about a future event that is putting a city in danger, so he starts buying up as much of the city property as he can to fortify it and defend it, since no one believes him. This angers rival businesses, so his company might get forcibly taken over and his fortune lost. Now maybe he's searching for another way to defend the city.
As a Barbarian? Totally pic related.

Just be careful mixing a CE character with any Lawful Stupid's in your group.

>>53250461
That's one of the odd things my group found out about diseases in 5e: There is no such thing as a 'magical' disease. As such, Lycanthropy goes from "oh noes, we need to do something quick" to "Let's find a lvl 1 paladin or a lvl 3 divine caster and get rid of this shit. Oh wait, we already have one? Neat."

Admittedly, it wasn't super hard to get rid of in 3.5 but all the magical instant fixes were 5th level or higher and were conditional.

>>53250605
Not necessarily a barbarian, but yeah

>>53250514
>Not mentioning how death saves are shit for hardercore games encouraging 'Oh, you only die if the DM arbitrarily decides to have the monster target you while you're down'
Your post is shit desu

>>53250611
3.5 diseases worked on such a time scale they were never a threat to PCs anyway. For all intents and purposes, those rules exist to describe what would happen to commoners exposed to a disease since even 1st level spellcasting is not assumed to be common or attainable for peasants.

>>53250644
Any smart monster would do exactly that, not our fault your DM assumes a group of evil wizards won't know they'd better ensure a guy is dead before going after the others

>>53250580
>spelling error
>therefore entire post is wrong

Flawless logic.

>>53250578
>You can make them as vicious as older edition poisons if you want and they already have a mechanic for you to frame them with.

Yeah but that's not in the core book and if you use it your players will consider you a jackass. Poison has zero function in 5e, it cannot kill you, all it does is deal damage like everything else. Status effects are basically irrelevant, that's why all the best builds are DPS and nothing else.

>>53250721
That wasn't an attempt at invalidating your points, I was making fun of you for spelling something wrong.

>>53250685
>Any smart monster would do exactly that

No, it's better to finish off all your allies than waste a round pounding a dead opponent. Unless you are working in concert with other groups and you know you are a sacrifice so you might as well do some lasting damage. But from a selfish point of view, there is no reason to do that.

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Anyone else use "The Mercer Scale" for awarding RP experience?

Every time a character does something cool or very in character you make a tally mark next to their name. Afterwards, either during a break or at the end of the session you add the tally x 15 x their level.

My characters are currently lvl 4 so # of characters tallys x 15 x 4

I tried tracking it in previous games but kept dropping the ball. This time I allotted RP XP at the end and they all seemed quite appreciative of it

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>>53250644
>Mfw a player went down while fighting "mindless" monsters
>No one expected them to act like monsters and start trying to drag the body away and start eating
>They decided to carry the chewed up corpse back to town and find a healer to revive
>It barely worked

My players are far more careful now, smart enemies target caster and healer first if possible(only if they know in game they are a caster or healer), while mindless ones will try and drag away their kill and eat.

>>53250611
>As such, Lycanthropy goes from "oh noes, we need to do something quick" to "Let's find a lvl 1 paladin or a lvl 3 divine caster and get rid of this shit. Oh wait, we already have one? Neat."

But that spell cannot affect Lycanthropy. Lycanthropy can only be cured by wolfsbane which is meant to be quite rare. Unless 5e nipped that in the bud too because it might get a woman's character killed off in an adventurer's league game and that would be misogynist.

>>53250762
>No, it's better to finish off all your allies than waste a round pounding a dead opponent.

That depends on the NPC's knowledge of the PCs. If NPCs see someone using healing magic, it's not unreasonable for them to start double-tapping if they're intent on fucking you up.

>>53250764
I hate keeping track of individual experience almost as much as I hate tracking group experience.

>>53250768
Did the monster do continued damage to the player resulting in forced failed death saves?

Because that's a bridge to far for me.

>>53250685
Depends on the situation. If someone is bleeding out on the floor, and none of their friends are healing him, why should I worry about him?

>>53250605
In addition to
>>53250643

I was kind of thinking that the character would do whatever it takes to save this city, no matter what.
All his actions would be for the greater good

>>53250790
So if you don't have a cleric, there's no reason for monsters to ever attack you when you're down other than them being stupid?

>>53250685
If monsters were smart, 9/10 encounters would not happen given how overwhelmingly the adventurers always win

They would all gang up and you'd have one encounter per day, but it'd be an extremely hellish encounter.

>>53250764
Why actually keep track of experience?
Is there any benefit?

>>53250803
Only xp for the group I track is how much monsters are worth and add that up at the end of the encounter and give them a total that they then divide, usually evenly.

The RPXP is tracked in tallymarks so I can do it they same way, just add totals at the end. Only trackin is the little slashes next to a name.

>>53250858
It's just a sacred cow that some people stick to. I haven't played in a game using experience in years.

>>53250768
They tried to drag away a body to eat in the middle of a fight?
That doesn't make any sense. It's not like animals are completely oblivious to threats.

>>53250768
That assumes the monster's main aim is to eat the adventurers, and most monsters, even mostly brainless ones should be able to tell 'Holy shit that guy's in an armoured shell and everybody else is spewing magical flames everywhere maybe I shouldn't try to eat the metal guy while the other people are still there?'
Darwinism and failed magical experiments at their finest.

If a monster has the intelligence not to jump off a cliff and fucking die, it has the intelligence to tell between 'food' and 'holy shit run'
That'd be like a gazelle trying to eat a lion.

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>>53250858
Leveling?

>>53250764
>Anyone else use "The Mercer Scale" for awarding RP experience?
Why the fuck would I use any of Mercer's shit?

>Afterwards, either during a break or at the end of the session you add the tally x 15 x their level.
Completely arbitrary coefficient, at least it isn't "lol 100 bonus XP for rolling a nat20" which is probably what it is.

>Every time a character does something cool or very in character

Oh so whenever they roll a nat20 on acrobatics and LITERALLY jump 30 feet straight up OMG lmao XD XD? Or when they do something that seems clever to your minute brain? No, fuck that. If they do something clever, they get rewarded in the game world. None of this bonus XP bullshit, especially because it hardly matters to advancement and is just a waste of time. Also ... "very in character"? The fuck? The players should ALWAYS be "very in character," otherwise they are shit players. Are you rewarding them just for playing the game to baseline expectation? Do you give them bonus XP for staying off their fucking phone and Instagram for more than 5 minutes, too? I mean, I did that once, but that's when I realized it was a symptom of my group being utter shite so I told them if they took out their phones during one of my sessions again for any reason but a fucking emergency, I would ban them from the group. They didn't last long after that.

Here's a pro-tip: Stop using Mercer's crappy XP and his ideas in general, he is a voice actor and a pretty face, not a creative person worthy of any merit. Delete him from your mind and focus on real GMing skills, not childish pandering.

>>53250816
How is playing as the rules are written too far? I explained when the campaign started I'm going to try and play monsters as monsters. Explain to me how a creature not being attacked wouldn't take the opportunity to go somewhere to eat?

I will say I do only have each hit count as one death save failed instead of two but that's me.

>>53250921
>Why the fuck would I use any of Mercer's shit?

In case you mandela shift into a reality where you're not a screaming autist.

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>>53250910

>>53250858
>Why actually keep track of experience?

Why even roll to hit?
Why even have monsters with specific amounts of hit points?
Why even have an Armor Class? Why not just the DM decides when you hit.
Why even roll dice?
Why even have critical hits?

The more you deconstruct the game mechanics the more they fall apart. XP is earned based on what the game is about: killing monsters and bad guys. Therefore, the more badguys the players kill, or other goals they achieve, the faster they improve. If you want to just do milestone leveling then that's fine but that means a group that has a huge challenging fight will not be rewarded proportionally. If you want a game avoiding a tough combat or overcoming it with alternative means still merits XP, I completely agree with you, as that means characters are less incentivized to attack a challenge head on, or to kill fleeing goblins / random animals for more XP. But saying it's pointless is just as stupid as saying hit points are pointless, why not just have characters die when the GM feels like they have taken enough damage?

That said I am not shitting on Milestone experience, it does feel "cleaner" in a lot of ways.

>>53250892
>Not being attacked on the edge of the battle

Yeah it decided to drag the body away to eat it in peace instead of the middle of a battle.

>>53250901
Well good thing that was their intent since they were half starved and used in experiments in an abandoned lab.

>>53250921
>Fun is bad

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>>53250960
>copying Mercer makes you less autistic

>>53250940
>what's wrong with RAW?
>this is why I'd don't follow RAW but that's just me

>>53251009
>Well good thing that was their intent since they were half starved and used in experiments in an abandoned lab.

This is good. Monsters should have reasons for doing things other than just throwing them in front of adventurers to meet a quota. Actions consistent with a motivation, even if very primitive, make a game more fun.

>>53250782
Pretty sure all it takes to remove Lycanthropy is Remove Curse now

>>53251015
Where exactly did I state that in my post?

"LMAO nat20" Cards-Against-Humanity-style "lol so random" crap is not "fun" unless you are fucking autistic. If you goal in an RPG is to make the players laugh so that their teeth shine from between their shitty hipster beards, their glasses almost falling off as they pound the fine wooden table so that the microbrew bottles quiver and clink, sounding like one of those roosterteeth episodes where they all start laughing autistically about some mildly humorous thing like it's the second incarnation of comedy jesus, so that the audio turns into a brief ear rape experience, then you are a shitty DM. That is not what RPGs are about. End of story.

>>53250921
Isn't it too early for summerfags?

>>53250476
That sounds like a fun character. Shit, I hope the guys in my group actually branch out and try to be as interesting as that.

>>53251024
Still use the rules modified them slightly, what's your point? Other than you don't like DMs who don't pull punches when it comes to a player going down?

>>53251064
>MY way to play is the RIGHT way. If you enjoy playing this game differently then you are WRONG.

betterhelp .com/
you don't have to live this way.

>>53249064
I'm going to borrow this and tweak it a bit for an NPC. I like the idea for explaining how a druid can work well into an urban setting.

Hey guys, I was just wondering how to play a Level 8 Eldritch Knight / Level 3 Warlock (The Old One)

I"m fairly new to the game and beyond just rolling to hit with my sword and casting a spell at the enemy, I don't really know how to play my Char. DM has been pretty chill with us, since our group is all newbs. But I'm ready to step it up and really get into the nitty gritty of the combat.
Just wondering if there is a general flow of combat that EK's do? Like, how the move through combat encounters, when they should use Action Surges and such.

>>53251153
Awesome, hope it works out for you.

As a sidenote, inspiration for the character actually came from a really weird place - it was Kirk meeting Bones in the JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlphfLO3MYA). That one line
>Don't pander to me kid... space is disease and danger, wrapped in darkness and silence
really struck me, and I just shifted from "doctor in space" to "druid in medieval fantasy" (I skipped Cleric because the group already had a Paladin)

>>53251250
Hit thing with sword until level 13, then cast haste and hit things with sword even more.

>>53251250

Sounds to me like you're overthinking things.

>>53242892
>>53242904
>>53242946
D&D werewolfs work differently. They're always werewolfs, even when not in hybrid or animal form.
>>53243845
I imagine you could always benefit from giving a bard protection, eh?
>>53243794
What if you got a feature to let your saving throw cantrips deal half damage on save, and another to boost the damage evocation spells, but not actually print evocation save-negates cantrips that would use both? Until later, maybe?
>>53243427
Actual 4e warlocks were better. It'd be cool to bring back the patrons' other at will options as at will options.

>>53250764
I dislike this approach because as much as it sounds nice, it's too arbitrary based on the DM and will feel a bit unfair, even if you think you're being fair.

I feel that a system such as inspiration works better as it doesn't stick around forever, it doesn't actually buff a character 'because they were roleplayed well' but instead just give them some sort of 'divine luck' (And you could call that a buff, but as before, it's a one-time thing) and it's really more of a reward to the player than the player's character. .. And you won't make someone feel 'Oh no, the DM hates me because he never game me something that doesn't actually do a lot'.

Useful feats for bards? Playing Valor and considering War Caster

>>53247108
If you want a story-telling game that's more like a game and less like a story-telling experience, it can work.

If you want to do a dungeon crawler for example, you would want to remove some of the arbitrary DM involvement and use, say, gold = EXP. (Even if the DM is still the one who puts the gold there in the first place, it's a better scale than 'when I feel like levelling you'.)

Eknight and warlock is a weird combo but alright

Eknight shines as a tank, you should not be trying to use spells as your main source of damage. I would personally probably go sword and board with shield master, knock guys around to give your self advantage and whack the fuck outta them

Action surge should either be used for big damage on a target who needs to go down, or you should use it to buff yourself with a spell and still attack or really whatever the situation calls for

If you can use UA, get the invocation from the warlock/wiz UA that gives you that flail, assuming you're blade pact. Then just smite the fuck out of dudes with a tentacle flail while never dying because of shield and absorb elements

>>53250514
I would call you a faggot but I've been playing a Hackmaster game on the side and it's a lot more enjoyable.
I just accept that 5e is for power fantasies where you don't actually get to have a power fantasy because you're 5th level forever and the GMs dozens of 20th GMPCs outshine you.

Question for the rest of the thread: What do you think level represents as far as ability and position in the world? I've been under the impression that most combatants are unleveled or level one, and anyone who doesn't have a name is going to be that. Important figures are 5th level, like a knight whose name is known throughout a kingdom and recognized court wizards and that witch in the swamp whose assistance you need to make the mcguffin potions. Legendary figures are 11th level, like a warrior king who is said to have *personally* slain the dragon terrorizing his kingdom, or a cleric said to be able to resurrect the dead. 20th levels are demigods and are restricted to myth.

>>53251370
Resilient for Constitution
Sharpshooter if you use a bow and Swift Quiver
Great Weapon Master if you use a 2-handed weapon
Magic Initiate because RAW lets a bard use his slots on his MI spell, so you don't have to waste a Magical Secret on a 1st level spell

>>53251370
Alert is always nice. Some of the racial feats are also decent if you need a +1 in something

>>53251370
War Caster or Resilient (Con) are probably your best options

How easy is it to adapt Storm King's Thunder for my island setting?

>>53251303
Heh, sounds easy enough.
>>53251310
Perhaps a little. But so far in our group, everyone is practically retarded in our group save for our Paladin, who's figured out he can just Smite everything. So he's our Tank/DPS.

I'm just curious as to when I should be applying my abilities and how to engage in combat besides just rolling to hit with my sword and waiting for my next turn.

>>53251377

Well with Warlock, I've got about 7 Cantrips. So I have more magic effectiveness. I just wanted to boost my magic capabilities and I went with Pact of the Tome because we're starting to get into some Cthuhlu elements so I'm a half-mad worshiper.

Most of what I've got figured out is that I'm using Absorb Elements and Shield a lot. But I'm just wondering what kinda' situations would I use most of the class abilities in. It's hard to explain. I just want to use all of the skills available to me, I just don't know how to best utilize them?

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What would the appropriate response of Waterdeep's City Watch to finding imprisoned Grung in a cellar?
>Running Barber of Silverymoon
>characters go down well and work their way up stairs
>Human Sorcerer imolates self, Dwarf Fighter, and Oil and Pomade Room while critically failing with grease and fire
>Orc Bard upstairs getting the sweetest fucking full back tattoo from Good Jooge is surprised as Bad Jooge and 4 Xvarts burst through the secret door and flee into the streets of Waterdeep
>Orc Bard gives chase and the townsfolk are horrified when an Orc kills Jooge in the streets, calling the Citywatch who show up almost immediately
>Orc Bard is able to convince them they have bigger problems as smoke begins to billow out of the Barbershop
>After rescuing Mops and Good Jooge, Orc Bard leads Citywatch to the fire which they quickly contain

And that's where we left off, one City Watch ran to get help another 2 remained to investigate the scene. Theres a room with 3 imprisoned Grungs that neither the players nor the Citywatch have explored it yet, but what's the Watch's response and governing laws towards imprisoned lawful evil critters such as that?

Hey guys, I need ideas for corporate-themed D&D team building exercises. My PCs are joining an adventuring guild and I want it to have a corporate culture. Nothing too ridiculous, just humorous.

>>53251582
Extreme version of trust falls. Instead of falling backwards, hoping you'll be caught, you slit your own throat, hoping your cleric will stabilize you.

>>53251507
That depends. SKT's third chapter is a huge, wide-open sandbox. You could easily alter the events within but would probably have to change some of the locations. Not to mention the dukes.

If you haven't read through it, I would take a look at these so you can get the gist of the game, then decide more.

http://thecampaign20xx.blogspot.com/2016/08/dungeons-dragons-guide-to-storm-kings.html
http://thecampaign20xx.blogspot.com/2016/09/dungeons-dragons-how-to-run-storm-kings.html

>>53251574
Would they even know what they are?

>>53251540

Well, there's a lot that depends on your DM. For instance, you might consider positioning of your character, but if your DM (like all of mine) make battlefields almost entirely just open spaces, then there's very little point. If you actually get maps with choke points that you can use to cut off some of the enemy forces, then it doesn't take a lot of forethought to make use of it; you just go there and do so. It's not as if you'll be able to draw agro off of your squishies or anything, even if you make use of a spell like Compelled Duel.

As for Action Surge, the best time to use it is either against a super strong foe you're fairly sure is close to dead and you want to make sure it dies, or against a fresh foe you want to make dead quick. Or, in a pinch, you use it when you need to do something without wasting your action economy, such as attacking and pulling a level or applying a potion or whatever.

As for your spells, as an EK, you're fairly limited. You're gonna get the most mileage out of Shield, everything else is just not all that important until Haste, if you reach that high a level. It's almost never going to be a better idea to cast a spell than simply attacking as a Fighter, unless your Shatter can hit a ton of people.

>>53251651
I figure they'd be considered subhuman/vermin

>>53247850
Slow fall into what?
Warlocks aren't evil priest. They're arcane casters.
Next time just get the magic initiate feat and get some warlock spells.

>>53251407
>Magic Initiate because RAW lets a bard use his slots on his MI spell, so you don't have to waste a Magical Secret on a 1st level spell
source on this?
i remember reading this about racial spells as well but could never get the confirmation.

What do you guys think of this for initiative:

>Enemies all use passive initiative
>Players can pick to use their passive initiative or roll for it

I'm tired of rolling for monsters, I don't want to force the players to use their passive, but I want it to be an option to speed up the combat.

Crafting some Legendary Items for a level 15-17 short campaign, each character gets one tailored item. I've got a few ideas for some, but less for others. I'll drop the character themes and what plans I have so far so I'd love any feed back or suggestions.

Campaign hook is a mediterranean sea style setting with lots of seafaring nations, cities and factions. However suddenly four of the factions have joined forces together to turn the tables on everyone else. Princess of Jade, ruler of the hobgoblin island citadel who control a massive adamantine deposit, Tariq the Fierce, an infamous efreeti pirate with has plundered for decades, Sultan Jubadi, a mysterious royal who cruises the oceans on his luxurious pleasure yacht and is a known collector of rare magical trinkets and beasts with pet dragons, and the Merchant Prince Fadahunsi who runs a massive trading cartel, known to be a affluent and obese gentleman.

Unknown to many, they are actually all of Genie Nobles, a Dao, Efretti, Djinni and Marid respectively, and have recently combined both their forces, assets and vast wealth, and their potent wish-granting abilities to create a massive magical warship. The Pirate-King himself rallied his fleet of ships alongside the respective Admirals of the realms to overwhelm the ship, but at the moment of conflict the ship took to the skies and decimated the fleets from above. The party are the greatest warriors of the realms who have been summoned by their respective employers to board the ship, destroy it and defeat the Genie Lords.

>>53251739
https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/637669202036322304

You have to extrapolate from this. It works for EKs and ATs. Bards and rangers have the same wording on their spellcasting as EKs and ATs do to allow it.

The loophole is bard, ranger, EK, and AT all say their spell slots are for spells they know without specifying the class, whereas sorcerer and warlock specify their slots are for their class spells.

>>53251820
how does this shit even happen, why would they write bard, ranger, EK and AT's spellcasting feature differently from sorcerer and warlock's?

what the fuck.

>>53248166
LE. >>53248180
Silk Road setting?

>>53251846
Discourage dipping because you can only use those slots for the spells from that class. It doesn't seem to have stopped anyone from ignoring that tidbit though.

>>53251846
Sorcerers and Warlocks get their spellcasting from completely different sources as everyone else.

Sorcerers have it in their blood
Warlocks are magic users on lease

>>53251667
Thanks mate, that actually helps out a bit.
Reviewing my options, I can usually attack twice, or attack after using a cantrip. Which is why I grabbed Green Flame Blade I believe.

Does that mean I can Cast Green Flame Blade, and perform a melee attack with it as the spells requirement, and then make another attack?

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Can I roll up a War domain Cleric and not gimp myself in terms of optimization? Or should I just roll up a paladin at that point?

>>53251883
but this is directly circumvented by the multiclassing rules that explicitly tell you can cast any of your classes' spells with say, pact magic spell slots or that you calculate your total spellcaster level and can cast any of your spells regardless of source class with them.

>>53251883
And yet even with that tidbit warlock/sorcerer is still one of the strongest multiclasses in the game

>>53251918
Why would you be gimped as a war domain cleric?

>>53251933
>And yet even with that tidbit warlock/sorcerer is still one of the strongest multiclasses in the game

Some day this meme will die. It hasn't proven true in any game I've DMed for.

>>53251923
True but let's be honest WotC doesn't even read their own rules half the time. Could be they thought it would block people from multiclassing but then they turn around and don't restrict it in the multiclassing section.

>>53251933
I haven't heard the explanation for this, why is it one of the strongest?

>>53251937
A couple 5e cleric guides I Googled up ranked them pretty low - under Healing, Tempest, and Light. Chatter from other forums said the same thing. Admittedly, these things were a couple years old so I don't know if they apply anymore.

I basically want to play a "front line" type, but with more spellcasting at their disposal.

>>53251951
It's a high-level optimization thing

Only really gets good when you're firing 3 eldritch blasts per EB use, and have enough sorcerer points to fuel the quickened casting, and since most games don't get to high levels, I can understand why it wouldn't have proven true

>>53251911

Using War Magic, you can use GFB and a bonus action attack, yes. Just bear in mind that you won't be able to use your extra attack with this method, and when you hit level 11 Fighter, it may become more attractive to simply attack thrice rather than cantrip+attack.

>>53251918
War cleric and Tempest Cleric are the two best melee cleric domains. With nature being a close third thanks to shillelagh-abuse

Trickster is the worst cleric domain

>>53251998
But I've DMed from level 3 to 20 and it's not true even at level 17. Focusing on cantrip optimization at the expense of high level spell slots is incredibly stupid. Even at 20, the 20th level sorcerer has 6th and 7th level slots the multiclass doesn't.

>>53251787
Half-Orc Champion Fighter, A champion gladiator who has never been bested in the arena, be it man, beast or monster that has been thrust before him he has thwarted for glory and fame. The Prince who claims ownership of him, has pledged his great might to aid the cause. Sword-and-board Sparta Orc.

A Half-Elf Swashbuckler Rogue, the bastard daughter of a governer who fell in love with a fleeting Elven pirate, raised to be a superb swordsman and guardian of her half-sisters. Her skills as possibly one of the greatest duelists in the realm is known to many, and she was sent to join the cause. Typical swashbuckler fencing.

A Dwarven Ranger, servant to the King of a distant dwarven city who serves as the chief beastmaster of the kings personal menagerie. To protect trade routes and political prospects, he was sent alongside one of the kings favourite pets, a wyrmling black dragon to join the cause. Crossbow Dwarf with a Black Dragon companion.

A Human Storm Sorcerer, while he himself is not well known, he deeds are. The wandering magical savant many years ago dispersed the Maelstrom, a catastrophic tropical storm that has plagued the region since recorded history. In more recent years, he merely wanders from place to place indulging in wine and luxuries, but has since stepped up to flex is mastery of lightning once more. Sorcerer of Lightning and Speed magic.

A Human Life-Cleric, A paragon and saint, her mastery of blessed magics and her proficiency with her holy weapons have her praised as a living angel, naturally insisted on lending her aid to the cause. Polearm master Cleric bringing the heals to keep the team chugging.

>>53251988
Well it really depends on the type of cleric they are wanting it to be. If they are thinking healbot then yeah it's not the best, but for a front line cleric it's pretty decent from my experience.

Being able to cast a spell at someone, to heal or buff, then slap a bitch with your weapon on a bonus is pretty helpful in my opinion.

>>53251988
It seems not good at being a spellcaster it's good at faking it's a martial.

Level 1 War Clerics can attack twice per turn. And they provide the solid utility of a Cleric caster. My war Cleric was a solid damage dealer and could cast divination spells for spying and intelligence gathering.

>>53252005
Good to know, it'll suffice until Level 11.
Thanks, really cleared some things up for me before my next sesh :D

>>53250611
Paladins aren't immune to curses, which lycanthropy is specifically called out to be. They need help getting rid of it like all others.

Otherwise for naturally born lycanthropes, nothing short of a wish spell can cure them.

>>53251979
quickened agonizing blast is ridiculously high damage, and twinning buffs or debuffs is also huge.

>>53252029
Yes, if you're building a "spellcaster" and not a damage dealer

The sorclock isn't built to make use of high-level spells, that's what wizards are for with their vastly superior spell list and better high-level features. The sorclock just kills individual things really really hard

>>53248282
naw you did fine, however personally I don't like putting NPC's the party couldn't POSSIBLY kill, just make it that there are rather severe consequences when they do so. Of course you guys killed the king and his chancellor, but can you kill his royal guard the knight commander and his court wizard who happens to also know counterspell??

>>53251937
it's rather a weak option, because cleric can get some real good damage with little to no resource expenditure, from a safe distance, while war domain is pretty strong early on, it doesn't really scale at all as other martials would.

>>53251918
that said, cleric is overall very fucking strong, so it's no like you are gimping yourself, but it's not the ultimately optimized option.

>>53252108
I don't even see the point for a damage dealer at level 20. How many turns of Eldritch Blast crap does it take to make up for an extra 2 castings of Disintegrate? The straight sorcerer can quicken that and still cast a cantrip.

>>53252023
>shillelagh-abuse
why is it abuse?

>>53252031
>>53251787
Fighter, A Legendary shield, but not sure what abilities to give it that Shield-Master feat doesn't already offer. I thought of making it able to cast absorb elements which combos well with improved criticals and makes him pretty safe from fireballs and other large elemental effects.

Rogue, A Legendary rapier but swashbuckler has damage and mobility down pretty well. Perhaps something that lets you riposte missed melee attacks against you, or something that lets you reroll missed attacks?

Ranger, A Legendary item, unsure what, maybe a breastplate or dragonscale armour. It doesn't have to be as strong as the others since I want it to include the "You have a wymling dragon instead of a wolf." trait but I don't think the dragon alone makes for a legendary item.

Sorcerer, A Legendary Focus that grants Advantage on Initative and the potentially breaking ability to hold up to 3 concentration spells at once. Might be potentially broken but I'd like to see what a caster can do with layering pesistant spells and the like.

Cleric, Either a Legendary Halberd so she isn't just the heal bitch, or maybe a legendary platemail to help keep her on her feet, either way something interesting and flashy since honestly clerics are kind of dull.

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>>53252203
>A Legendary shield, but not sure what abilities to give it that Shield-Master feat doesn't already offer

>>53252144
You can do that less times than the sorcerer can, you probably don't throw enough encounters at them, they should usually run out of level 6 slots they'd be willing to use for damage and still have one or two battle encounters left before the next rest

>>53252023

As someone who has played the Trickery domain, I'd say it's underrated. Getting Polymorph and Dimension Door as class features is fairly legit, and a free invisibility ain't bad either. Granted, its divine strike and duplication abilities are bad, but oh well. Can't have everything be as good as Tempest and War I guess.

>>53252144
eldritch blast at that point is doing 4d10+20 so a double eldritch blast is doing 8d10+40 or 9 more damage on average than 6th level disintegrate, while costing the equivalent to a 1st level spell...

so yeah, no, fuck off.

for anything that lasts more than 3 rounds, the magical machine gun sorlock is doing WAY more damage, specially because disintegrate can FAIL and missing your 8 eldritch blast rays is almost statistically impossible.

also EB can crit, and very likely so at that rate of fire, blowing the damage out of the water even faster.

>>53252144
Well let's calculate that shall we?

Disintegrate does 10d6+40 damage, which averages out at 75 damage, then we add on to that a cantrip, and we'll assume this is a fire-dragon sorcerer using firebolt, so that adds 4d10+5, which averages to 27 damage, so that's 102 damage total

Eldritch blast on the other hand will be dealing 1d10+5 x 4, so 42 damage, we add another on to that with the quickened spellcasting to add another 42 on and that's 84 damage.

That's a difference of 18 damage on average. However! There is a problem with this

A warlock-2, sorcerer-18 still gets 1 level 6 spell per-day, which means it too can use disintegrate, but instead of adding firebolt to it, it can add eldritch blast, which averages out to 117 damage, so if we add two turns together, the grand total damage difference of a sorcerer and a sorclock going full nova is 3 points of damage on average

This is, of course, assuming the sorclock was a pure sorclock, a sorcerer/warlock/fighter misses out on a ninth-level spell, but can add another EB to the nova

>>53252203
>Sorcerer, A Legendary Focus that grants Advantage on Initative and the potentially breaking ability to hold up to 3 concentration spells at once. Might be potentially broken but I'd like to see what a caster can do with layering pesistant spells and the like.
stop.

past editions thought us enough about how easily shit gets broken by multiple concentration effects.

>greater invisibility
>fly
>literally anything else, especially high level buffs or disbles

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>>53250921
oh boy be careful with all that edge lol, your games must be fuuuuun

>>53252256
Not really "Sparta Orc" though.

>>53250940
what creatures were they??

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>>53247108
>How do you play druids and rangers?
Bonus Barbarian.

>>53252392
this not taking into account that disintegrate+fire bolt is two dex saves vs eight attack rolls, and failing either is a massive loss of damage...

>>53252310
The chances of a EB crit are the same chances of a miss, assuming your opponent's AC is something you can hit with a 2, it's worse if they actually have a good number.

>>53252392
So why do you overlook the extra 6th and 7th level slot the sorcerer has over the multiclass?

>sorcerer/warlock/fighter

I'd concede that point at higher levels but they deserve power for surviving through a triple multiclass at low levels.

>>53250921
Imagine having to suffer through a group DMed by this guy. In person.

>>53252457
Okay...

>>53252392
At 17 the sorcerer can just Meteor Swarm for 40d6 averaging 140 damage across multiple targets. When the sorclock can do that, the sorcerer has extra high level slots.

The sorcerer/warlock/fighter can never do that.

>>53252399
Hmm, you think? I was thinking more along the lines of having say Investure of Air up along with being able to keep Haste on the martial and maybe Lightning-Orb on the field.

I have choice of the spells known so can avoid any too potent combos but if it can be too easily broken then I'd consider other things.

I had one idea about a Legendary staff that lets them cast lighting-bolt at will, and can add a single point turn at any point during the line for some more inventive sculpting but might invalidate most cantrips immediately, but hey legendary items.

Or perhaps an orb that lets you ignore the concentration on certain spells? Like Storm Sphere so they can stack two or even three.

>>53252458
you'd have to calculate it for both the dex save and the AC to know how likely you are to fail all of your damage, for eight EBs, even accounting for nat1s it is pretty fucking unlikely to miss them all.

and even if you do miss all of your damage, for double EB you are only expending 2 sorcery points, instead of 2 sorcery points and a 6~7th level spell slot.

>>53252466
N-no?

The grand total calculation that resulted in the average damage difference of 3 was the pure sorcerer spending both 6th-level slots on disintegrate along with two quickened firebolts across 2 turns, against the sorclock using its one 6th-level slot on disintegrate with quickened EB followed by EB and quickened EB.

If we were to add two more turns for them to both spend their 7th-level slots on disintegrate as well, then the average damage shifts. 7th-level disintegrate deals an extra 10.5 damage on average over 6th-level disintegrate, so that's a grand total damage-average difference of 13.5 across 4 turns of pure single-target damage

Of course, this is all ignoring quite a bit, the saving throws on disintegrate and firebolt, the miss-chance on EB, and the crit chance on EB, but that's too much calculation for me right now, so I'm happy to sit on pure sorcerers having slighter better nova, but sorclocks being far superior at DPR

>>53252534
Yes, this is true, sorcerer/warlock/fighter is shit at AoE

Question, what is the best character out of these possibilities? A player is trying to choose for my campaign, but they're the first one making their character.

>Nature Cleric who focuses on tanking, generally a pious guy but gets pissed off and aggressive if someone talks down to them like they don't know shit
>Spell-less Ranger who focuses on DPS who really, really hates fiends, and will lie, cheat and brute force their way around anyone who gets in their way (except for the party), but will pretty much be normal to anyone who isn't a dick
>Rogue who will focus on skirmishing with the enemy who has dreams of becoming a pirate, and tries to be a fast-talking vagabond

>>53252983
The rogue sounds the most fun to play with

>>53251395
>I just accept that 5e is for power fantasies where you don't actually get to have a power fantasy because you're 5th level forever and the GMs dozens of 20th GMPCs outshine you.

This.

alright questions

guy is making a new character, he made a knight.

he cheated his stats, adding +2 to 2 different stats thinking I'd overlook it.

Are there any mount items or special mounts aside from saddle of the cavalier?

>>53253207
I'm confused by the additional information, but there is also Horseshoes of a Zephyr and Horseshoes of Speed

>>53252419
a magical net
like dude have you ever seen anyone use the net

>>53250685
> ensure a guy is dead before going after the others
Why put it off? Just use area attacks.

Don't suppose that anyone has the pdf for Kate Holden's Spellbinder class? Mearls mentioned it and now I'm a little curious.

>>53250685
I'd agree for player tier of intelligence, especially if they have the capacity for spells and/or healing. However, things like beasts or crazed creatures, they'll probably twitch out at whatever the biggest threat at the time.

>>53250998
>but that means a group that has a huge challenging fight will not be rewarded proportionally.
You don't get more XP for making it harder on yourself. It's a completely arbitrary mechanic that can be used to encourage certain types of behavior in game. Admittedly, that is the point of XP, and if your game doesn't need such mechanical incentives to work, then you don't need it.

>>53253563
Yup, I have a Battlemaster Fighter and a Beastmaster Ranger who use nets exensively to fantastic effect.

>>53253858
Don't all attacks with a net have disadvantage?

Playing a great old one mind control PoC lock in a thievery and heist themed game. First question is any advice on great old one locks? Second question is does anyone have a cool codename idea for a mind control themed lock?

>>53252203
If you really want to do the sorcerer thing, make it two concentration spells and only one can be a self buff. Makes it slightly less broken.

>>53253949
>A ranged weapon with a range of 5 feet
What were they thinking?

>>53253625
No, but you might want to ask in the pdf share thread. They could probably help

>>53251820
While that is a valid reading, and may be intentional, I have to protest that some classes say "You can cast spells" and some classes *don't*.

>>53252689
For lets say, AC 22 and Dex Saving Throw +9 vs +11 to hit and Save DC 19. (20th level spellcaster vs. a CR 20+ mob, on average, some might have higher AC, some lower DC and of course, legendary resistance so it's not a perfect calculation)

45% chance to Hit with EB (11~19) or 4.725 dmg
5% chance to Crit with EB (20) or 0.8 dmg
99.60% chance of hitting with at least one ray or 10.46 dmg
96.48% chance of hitting with at least two rays or 20.26 dmg
85.54% chance of hitting with at least three rays or 26.94 dmg
63.67% chance of hitting with at least four rays or 26.74 dmg
36.33% chance of hitting with at least five rays or 19.07 dmg
0.39% chance of hitting with all eight rays or 0.33 dmg
33.6% chance of critting with at least one ray or 5.38 dmg
5.72% chance of critting with at least two rays or 1.82 dmg

24.75% chance of hitting with either disintegrate or fire bolt and the other one missing (1~9)
or 18.58 dmg or 6.68 dmg
20.25% of hitting with both or 20.65 dmg

I was half way through making a chart but it really isn't that important.

>tl;dr: high risk/high reward vs. consistent stable damage, fire disintegrate can deal more damage but is way less consistent at doing so on average, number obviously will vary with AC and Dex saving throw.

Does anyone actually use the inspiration mechanic? It seems like it was dropped right after the game came out, because I rarely see it brought up in Unearthed Arcana, books, streams, etc. Good riddance, I say. It was a stupid, tacked-on mechanic.

>>53251923
It's not exactly circumvented so much as being a sorcerer lets you cast your sorcerer spells, being a warlock lets you cast your warlock spells, and being an EK lets you cast your spells.

>>53253949
Battlemaster fighter has both Crossbow Master and Sharpshooter feats, solving the problem with disadvantage as well as solving the issue of nets eating all your attacks, since you can throw a net and fire a hand crossbow with advantage afterwards.

Using battlemaster dice to ensure the net hits to set up the combo, popping action surge to really pile the damage on even more. If he has haste even better because he can throw the net with the haste-action and unload a full volly of 3-4 advantage sharpshooter bolts to follow. A nice trick also is throwing a net and then hitting with a trip-attack battlemaster maneuver, can really fuck with a guys position as he has to waste both his action and half his movement to unfuck himself.

And the cherry on top, you would be suprised how often people fuck up the DC10 to escape.

The Ranger in our group uses just the sharpshooter feat, less optimised but it lets him put a hard hitting crossbow bolt into foes, or throw the net and have his pet attack with advantage. I think they plan to grab crossbow master so they can Net-Crossbow-Pet but they are doing fine so far without, they can also late-game benefit from swift-quiver to Net-Crossbow-Crossbow-Pet with a heavy crossbow.

Another option is the Lucky Feat, due to the broken ruling means your nets will have super-advantage.

I've also considered looking at the Mystic Nomad for a viable net build since it has benefits for hitting with ranged attacks and when you're focused, never have disadvantage.

>>53253949
Also Rangers can solve -some- of the issue without feats, thanks to advantage in the first turn of combat they can start by throwing a net at no penalty to set up for their allies, or best case, animal companion.

>>53252136
There's no shame in not being as good as Tempest. War clerics are still getting a lot of good things from their domain.

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>>53252203
You could make the shield able to protect the whole party when he uses Shield Master.

An element absorbing shield is cool too.

>>53252392
You forgot to twin the fire bolt.

Anyway, single target damage is nothing to be proud of, at least not that single target damage. It's a little better with Hex, over time. Disintegrate just isn't a very practical combat spell. It's more of an execution for debilitated enemies who can't pass the Dex save.

>>53254497
I like the idea of an Absorb Elements shield, since it will combo really well with Champion. Absorb a wizards fireball and add extra fire damage to your blow then get a critical? Beautiful.

Which do you think would be more interesting, able to cast Absorb Elements at will, or Absorb Elements at Xth level a limited number of times a day.

Quick question: wat's your favorite monster?

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>>53254624
do you even have to ask???

>>53254624
The Solar. If played tactically, probably the scariest thing in the Monster Manual. In an open plain, it can basically win against arbitrary numbers of other enemies.

>>53254058
Person of Color lock?

>>53254350
The only thing to be aware of is that a prone+restrained creature no longer grants advantage to distant attackers, due to the benefits canceling out. They're still extra screwed in a lot of ways, and the restrained enemy could opt to drop prone on their own.

All this talk of Sorlocks makes me wonder what the best archetypes for each are.

Assuming Fighty Sorlock maximum cheese off the top of my head would be
>Fightman 2, no archetype
>Undying Light 2
>Shadow X

>>53254690
How?

>>53254803
150ft flight speed, 120ft teleportation as a legendary action it can thus do thrice a turn if 3 or more foes, longbow so 600ft ranged, invisibility at will for hit-and-run ambushes once it gets far enough. Especially since the longbow has a save-or-die attached.

>>53247387
>>53247790
heh baited!

>>53254728
Yeah on their turn but that is just digging a deeper grave for themselves especially once your melee rolls up. with Net-Prone you either try to prone them at the end of your combo or move onto another target.

>>53254781
Maximum cheese is hexblade, not undying light

That 19-20 crit chance and +proficiency bonus damage is fantastic for EB spam

>>53254853
while not as strong, a storm giant quintessence can also be extremely difficult to fight, becoming a literally storm of intangibility, 50ft of fly speed and a 600ft sure-shot attack.

>>53254980
I thought it was only for melee, that's much better.

Oh and I forgot to add- Close Quarters Shooter style from Fighter since they said it applies on spell attacks.

>>53254980
>>53255032
>I thought it was only for melee, that's much better.

holy fuck you are right. so the hex blade, the specialized gish warlock, is as expected, the best eldritch blast spammer in the game, 10/10 design wizards...

>>53250921
I heavily suspect you don't play anything other than shrieking at ear piercing levels over a mic in console minecraft calling everyone else "butt holes"

>>53254781
If there's a sorcerer that boosts the effectiveness of EB, that'd be the one to use. Off the top of my head, that'd be Stone Sorcery, for that extra edge.

>1 player decided to roll his stats in private without asking me
>17 16 15 15 18 19
>human V

>another rolled in front of me and didn't think I wrote it down
Seems legit

Inb4 rolling for stats
I give my players the option of 3d6 reroll 1s once and array

Thinking of just forcing them to use an array since they can't be trusted anymore..

>>53255555
The player that rolled in private would be rerolling no matter what if it were me.

>>53255555
rolled in private huh? You mean rerolling now in front of everyone?

>>53255555
>roll his stats in private without asking me
how does this even happen, it's not even the first time someone has wrote about it here.

what the fuck is wrong with your players, and why aren't you whooping their asses already?

you don't need our help for this, you should be smart enough to realize that either they don't respect you at all and you shouldn't be dm'ing for them or you make them understand clearly that you are the dm, you are the one in charge, and you can listen to their for stuff but it is ultimately your call.

>>53255304
Shadow for 1 point Darkness for advantage on all beams seems like it might be better.

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Anon's Quest for Growing/Scaling Magic Weapons Continues.

First, let me preface this by stating that these are weapons designed for fairly high magic campaigns (Similar to Critical Role's tier). These Items should be compared to the higher end of Legendary items in the DMG and some Artifacts, as they are quite powerful, and large buffs for characters.

If I had a level in which these types of items would be attained it would be

>Non-Awakened items are for levels 8+
>Awakened Items are for 12+
>Exalted are for 16+

Upgrading these things is up to the DM as to how they get to their next stages. (Quests/RP/Leveling/etc.)

With that in mind!

I updated the chained sword again.
>Grapple ends on Tug
>Can only be used on one target at a time

I updated the cane sword
>Put a table & fixed the link of what it does and how it works.
>Fixed the wording on the inspiration ability
>Limited the Legend Lore to once per day. (Was this necessary?)

I updated the eldritch rapier
>Removed the extra 1d6 acid damage on a hit

I feel like the Dual Rapiers really need some work as I made them a long time ago. They do a lot of things, but they require so much to even get on a character
>Two Attunement Slots
>Rogue Levels
>Dual Wielder Feat
What do you guys think?

Thank you guys for all the help, these items would be so much worse without your help.

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>>53255674
I dunno man, I'm just getting kind of burned out on the group. if you don't mind im gonna bitch

>lmop opening, didnt finish due to sandboxing and they wanted to do different stuff for a few months
>they dont keep notes or listen to anything I say, so often they do stupid things such as revisiting a castle from lmop that was taken care of by other adventurers, which I had them meet and meet the kidnapped character
>whine when things dont go there way, or they perceive me to be 'hamfisting' when they try something and it doesnt work
>1 observer, 1 whiner, 1 arrogant player who has more experience and wont stop trying to argue with me, 1 good player
>3 characters die to completely avoidable death (lava river, they tried swimming thinking it was an illusion, when I havent use any before)
>I decide to retcon a ring of mind shielding into a ring of 1 wish so he can wish his friends back (lvl 1 to lvl 8, 6 months of playing)
>no, they want to reroll characters now that he has a wish
>obviously im going to twist this now, what I get for being nice
>wishes to have a new kingdom, his, replace the current one in a long drawn out paragraph he wrote down to ensure no loop holes as all four of them metagame for 30 minutes on this wish after I repeatedly tell them to wish
>at this point im tired and tell him the wish is gone, queue 15 minutes of arguing
>grant his wish
>dont really want to play anymore
>cheating on character rolls now

>>53255839
Shoot I forgot the link for live updates,
>http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/S1m7nEU8eZ

>>53255839
no item should ever expect a character to be carrying a feat as you know, feats are optional rules that won't fit into every campaign (not that these work for anyone either way but you seem pretty determined to them so power to you).
just make them a pair of shortsword, the damage difference is meaningless. one attunement slot, go.

>>53252079
Paladins are immune to disease, which is what Lycanthropy is until the 3rd day.

>>53255928
They do work separately which is why I did not want to make them one attunement slot. I will make them a pair of shortswords though.

>>53255895
>3 characters die to completely avoidable death (lava river, they tried swimming thinking it was an illusion, when I havent use any before)

Sorry like, did they all jump in at once? I can't imagine the scenario going down.

Joe: "Alright we're pretty sure this is an illusion right? I jump in and swim across."
DM : You take 20d6 fire damage and burn horribly, screaming.
Dave: "Huh, pretty good illusion, okay I'll jump in too."
Bill: "Yeah sounds good, lets go."

>>53255895
yeah, no reason at all to deal with that bullshit. i'm sorry for your loss.

also never, EVER, introduce a wish if you are not ready for it being used, just give them scrolls of raise dead or something.

>Writing countries
This is tough

>>53256073
steal from whoever you have to, economics always before ideals and beliefs.

>>53256034
That would be great if not for the fact that lycanthropy is a curse and not a disease.

>>53255895
Geeze man, I'm sorry that sounds like Hell. I'm happy you got out of that.

How do you guys design complex dungeons? I figure caves and such are relatively easy, but I want to make a large castle dungeon and don't even know where to begin

Does anyone have a graph of total scores when rolling 4d6 drop lowest?

why were there so many 3.5e books?
did people actually got all that crap?

i'm trying to even count how many races/classes there were and it's fucking endless, not to fucking count the feats, like holy fuck.

>>53256184
Describe your castle.

>>53256275
OGL plus the boom of the Internet age led to a lot of the 3.5 system bloat.

Most of it can be cut out with minimal loss of actual good content.

>>53256053
they were on a ledge overlooking it, on a volcano, all three of them decided to dive in.

>>53256072
yeah, no more wishes unless for something exceptional

>>53256150
I'm not out of it, it's a group of my close friends and they fully expect me to keep DMing.

>>53256335
>Im not out of it.
Do you want to keep DMing for them?

>>53256302
In general it's an abandoned royal castle, dilapidated, but still standing. Probably two floors to it and a labyrinth/crypt underground where previous royalty was buried

It's a vampire lair, so I kind of wanted to make something similar to ravenloft, but two people in my group have already played strahd so I figured i'd homebrew something

Definitely filled to the brim with traps and undead creatures

>>53256184
Who built it?

How long ago?

Why did they build it?

Where?

Are they still living there, or has something changed the situation?

From here we can start to build it.

>>53256317
i'm trying to make sense out of the psionic books for sources and they are all so bloated, i can't imagine anyone ever making use of this stuff.

>>53256418
I haven't played Strahd, but you'll obviously need areas safe from daylight, a place to keep "livestock," servant/slave quarters...

>>53256147
My bad, I seem to have looked up some shitty homebrew on DaDwiki by accident. By MM, it is as you say.

>>53256442
Psionic rules are almost always wonky and/or busted OP in D&D. It's either laughably underpowered or horrendously overpowered.

There's a reason why the Mystic class in 5e can potentially fill any/every role needed for a party and still do a ton of damage.

>>53256592
there goes my attempt at fixing the mystic then.

>>53256628
The "best" way to fix the Mystic would be to decide upon what role it should fit into in 5e and adjust it as needed.

Right now they have it being able to be a tank or DPS because they frontloaded a ton of the abilities to the point where you can do both at the same time.

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>>53256418
Okay, well, you could look up actual castles as a basis, but to make your own...

You're probably wanting a Motte and Bailey Castle.
Take a one storey wall surrounding the area for defence. The enclosed courtyard is the bailey. It will include all the important buildings like the chapel/temple, kitchen, barracks, forge, etc.
Next to the walls will be the bailey, an earthwork resembling an artificial hill. On top of this sits the castle's keep. Where the rulers lived.

I'd still recommend looking at real life examples for inspiration though.

>>53256628
Make psionics a sorcerer archetype.

After all, all the psionic monsters in the monster manual use spells.

>>53256521
No worries bro.

>>53256592
>>53256628
>>53256667
The 5e mystic needs fixing? Looks fine to me.
Looks like they've got good utility in general, and in terms of power they seem to just go from being a "blow your wad, then use shitty moves once you've run out" class to being a "go all out for a long time, don't need much resting" class.
What's broken?

>>53256667
i don't think their dps really matches full casters or even half-casters. they really, really, don't function at all after lv11 or so, when everyone else is getting their second or third tier stuff and they just get more psi points to spend of thing that is already restricted on how much you can spend per turn.

and the worse thing about the mystic right now for me, is that they have so much shit to make you play as a bag of meat with unsustainable damage. the immortal not getting any proficiencies is a joke, the avatar fits nowhere, the soul knife doesn't do enough to be worth it losing two disciplines, the nomad is fine but their disciplines give way too much power to any other mystic that just picks them and the awakened fails horribly at being a real caster, with no real high level spells.

even dumping 7 psi points per turn on psychic blasts and shit, you are never going to be as influential as a real wizard.

no planar or super high range teleports for the nomad either, avatar features that do nothing if you don't pick the one immortal discipline that heals??

i don't know, it's a mess and i wanted it to work so badly.

How many sets of dice should a player have for a normal Adventure League game? I friend of mine might tag along with me later this week but he doesn't have anything.

>>53256763
Are you saying that being able to unload at full power many times isn't scaling?

>>53256427
The adventure is going to be set in Neverwinter, so i'm using castle never as a basis and the history behind it (although i'm ignoring what the videogames did with it)

>>53256693
This seems like a good design, and similar to the area in the SCAG, only change i'd probably make is having the keep more centered in the middle, sort of watching over the rest of the castle and the city.

My main trouble is trying to map the inside of the keep, I figure i'd either make it way too simple or way too complex, it's pretty easy to imagine how the outside looks but if it's relatively large there's a ton of options on how the rooms would be laid out.

I was actually toying with the idea of using the mansion from Luigi's mansion

>>53256795
even one 9th level spell is a lot more valuable than 25 5th level ones.

at least for something that pretends to be a spellcaster, their psi points are equivalent to a full spellcaster progression, but it seems to me like they either forgot to make higher leveled effects, or they decided against it for laziness.

>>53256521
>>53256720
Just stay away from dndwiki, they're shit incarnate.

Anyone know some good ~5th level one offs? we're gonna be missing a couple people in our session tonight so I figure i'd run something smaller if I can

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Would key items (that don't necessarily look like keys) be stupid?
I can't come up with a puzzle other "than square peg in square hole"

>>53256979
Tiles that have specific designs that need to be matched to a larger picture.

>>53257052
Yeah something like that, the talon of a dragon on a wall, or a traditional jigsaw piece for a huge mural.
IDK I've got a double digit IQ

>>53257079
I'd be different instead of
>Find key insert in hole
It's
>Find key figure out correct hole and orientation

It'll take more work on your part because you'll have to most likely make a picture.

Why do Thunder damage and Force damage both exist? Aren't they essentially the same thing, "Non-physical-force-of-impact"?

Would it be fine to just remove thunder damage and any spells or effects that deal it, such as Booming Blade, Shatter or Thunderwave now just do force damage.

So I was looking over Artificer again after hearing a lot of people say it was Underpowered. Honestly Gunsmith feels like it is a little weak but nowhere near as bad as a few PHB options and Alchemist feels pretty good for an at-will damage and utility INT class.

I do still think it should be a half-caster and that the Golem thing should be removed but right now it's actually pretty good.

>>53257200
Thunder damage is physical force of impact. Sound waves, explosions and etc. all should be doing Thunder.

Force is pure magical energy destroying shit. It's not "Force" as we know it but instead more like the generic pure magic damage that's very hard counter in any way.

>>53256817
Well, you just need to fill it with the right things. Simple is good, remember people once lived here, and now people unlive here.

A large hall, for eating in and meeting people. Containing thrones, a dinner table, a hearth.

Kitchens, separate from the ones in the castle.

Bedrooms for the lord and lady

A personal shrine.

Garderobes.

And of course a wine cellar which'd be separate but likely close to the family shrine.

>>53256970
Check Adventure's League 3-5 range, and see what can be adapted into your adventure

I did pretty great by putting The Marionette into Curse of Strahd. Added more character development for Kolyan Indirovich by having him actually have a character before he dies in the opening act's attack, replaced the girl the Frankenstein-esque necromancer kidnaps for her project with Ireena, and her father who almost dies trying to save her with Iszmark, replaced Esmae, the "beautiful witch patron" of Glovia who is off screen the entire adventure with the Abbot for foreshadowing, and played with Glovia's simpathetic Necromancer look, by having her think she's actually making Ireena a favor by destroying her in her necromantic ritual to resurrect her daughter, rather than letting her become a vampire Bride

>>53257244
So if Thunder damage is physical force of impact, wouldn't it just be bludgeoning damage?

>>53257314

I always took thunder damage to be vibratory force as opposed to simple velocity.

>>53257314
It's more like vibration.

>>53257314
The easiest way to think of Thunder's sound waves.

>>53257353
>>53257334
>>53257333
So I can see why, but why does it need a seperate damage type compared to either force or bludgeoning?

I mean strictly speaking, the physical outcomes of contact with searing hot metal, a focused beams of laser-like energy, or instantanous gouts of flame are all very different, but all represented comfortably within "Fire damage.".

Plus generally thunder is the most powerful damage type, as it's easy to imagine things that are vulnerable to such effects such as stone or crystal structures or creatures, but nothing resists it even creatures you might expect to, such as those composed of soft matter or even air.

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Alright, here's my arcane paladin variant. Please call out balance. I'm wary of the changed lay on hands. I'm probably going to edit the dispel magic to only affecting one spell of your choice.

>>53256847
First of all, I disagree with your initial claim unless you're implying we're already at a single situation where you know which 9th level spell you're going to need. "Prepared spells" is a very significant limitation for a caster.
If I'm going on any D&D style adventure whatsoever, I'll take the 25 5th level spells every time.

Secondly, why are you measuring it rigidly up against full spellcasters? have you compared it to something like a Fighter? Or better yet, a barbarian? How about a warlock?

Just because they don't out-wizard wizards doesn't mean they don't have plenty to contribute with.

>>53256979
Impossibly delicate gears that complete great steampunk machines
Sygil Rings
A stone orb shaped though as if it were meant to be held by fingers of a nearby stone statue
An empty book called "Secret Doors" that needs to be restored to a shelf

Guys my DM asked me to DM a oneshot/solo adventure for her. She's making a half-elf warlock. What could be a good solo adventure? I already have an "origin story" planned for the background she gave me, but nothing else. I've never DMed in my life and my entire DnD experience is 5 sessions of 5e with her and 2 other people. Halp.

>>53251574
I like to think of grung and bullywugs as being two separate subspecies of frog. Bullywugs temperate, and the Grungs tropical

>>53257669
Is this bait? She wants to fugg.

>>53257204
Try this Artificer. I'm having much more fun with it than the UA one.

http://www.eberron5e.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Class-Artificer-Full-Class-v3.4.pdf

File's too large apparently, so try the link.

>>53257555
the warlock also gets 9th level spells and the mystic is not a martial class, it doesn't get medium armor, shields or martial weapons unless you pick a specialization, they have a d8 hitdie and doesn't get extra attack, not even through specialization.
meanwhile they have a not!spellcasting modifier which they use to cast not!cantrips and not!spell, and all of their not!spellcasting resources are on a long rest timer.

boy, i sure wonder what class should i compare them too...

i'm not saying they have to out-wizard wizards, but as they are right now, more than half of the order's features lean onto a pseudo-martial build spectrum, except poorly supported and not restricted at all to their not!spellcasting selections.

right now they are half-casters than doesn't get extra attack, d10 hitdie nor martial weapon proficiencies but get their five levels of half-casting progression at normal caster speed, only to stop at 10th level.

kind of like baseline clerics with not medium armor/shields and no high level spells, compared to a war cleric, they are kind of ok in power and utility until the cleric just outbests you at anything.

>>53257669

A good solo adventure is made of up 5 encounters, two of which are combat encounters, which should be spaced at about second and last encounter.

So, design a social encounter when SOMETHING ATTACKS. Solo is complicated and overwhelming, give her an NPC to help.

Having survived the encounter, either by force, or evasion, SOMETHING IS REVEALED, and then, by associating it to one of the hints revealed in the social encounter, A DECISION IS MADE, that leads the protagonist to the DUNGEON.

Navigating the DUNGEON isn't easy. A couple of puzzles and traps abound, including one that has taken hold of INTERESTED THIRD PARTY who the protagonist may or may not wish to rely on. Whatever decision they make, allows them to LEARN THE ANSWER , that leads to the final battle.

As THE VILLAIN IS DEFEAT, deflatete the climax with the first encounters NPC's, and congratulate everyone's good job

>>53257708
Naw dawg. I've hung out with her solo numerous times, she doesn't want dis D. Nor do I want dat P. It's just DnD.
Does anyone have the link to that blog that posted like 30+ articles on running a solo campaign?

>>53257764
>Full Caster
Nope

>>53257799
Hey that's some great stuff, thanks man! I think I'll be able to fill the gaps myself.

>>53257884
while doing that, try to fill her gap if you know what i mean.

>>53257837
Pleb

>>53257793
But they don't stop at 10th level.
It'd be like if a wizard kept getting a bunch of 4th and 5th level spell slots instead of gaining fewer and fewer 6-7-8-9th slots.

>>53257800
That's gay nigga

>>53257929
This guy knows what's up

>>53257544
dude I have always wanted exactly this, an Arcane half-caster like Ranger is to Nature/Wis based magic and Paladin is to Holy/Cha based magic

Haven't gone through it but I can say at a glance you've given them way too many spells to choose from for a half-caster. Cut some of the spell choices, a gish doesn't need/is never going to cast fog cloud or grease or something like that

>>53258038
>that's gay nigga

Damn son, you're like Sherlock Holmes or some shit.

>>53257314
>>53257333
>>53257334
>>53257353

Thunder replaced the Sonic damage type in the transition from 3.5 to 4e.

>>53257539
Force came about because 3.5 had some spells with untyped damage specifically to get around immunities.

>Two magic daggers clearly meant for TWF due to the fact the enemy was TWFing with them and one was called stormcaller and the other stormbringer
>One does thunder damage on hit, other does lighting, but only if you use a bonus when you hit them
>Say this doesn't work
>DM shrugs and say 'oh well'
oh well

What's the easiest module to run?

>>53258066
Yeah. I put basically anything half-thematic on there, and was leaving pairing it down for later. On the other hand despite it being bloated as hell it can't actually be abused like a Wizard can abuse a huge list.

I'm considering worsening the lay on hands, making channel nullification things much easier to read, giving the non combat archetype ritual casting, and cutting a lot of the spells.

>>53258066
Look at the Duskblade from 3.5, which was basically an Arcane half-caster and was designed to be the "true gish" of 3.5.

Actually, now that I check my folders, some anon did homebrew a port of the Duskblade from 3.5 to 5e. Want me to post it?

>>53258553
Not him but yes please.

>>53258438
What do you mean doesn't work?

File: Duskblade port to 5e - v7.pdf (765KB, 1x1px) Image search: [Google]

765KB, 1x1px

>>53258566
Here you go.

I can't attest to the balance around it, but the concept itself makes sense. Near as I can tell, they wanted to make it more of a DPS class than the Ranger (semi-tanky nature half-caster) and Paladin (tanky divine half-caster).

>>53258438
Enemies have multiattack and don't need two weapon fighting. The multiattack line would just say 1 attack with each dagger.

For a player, it would work with Extra Attack. Bonus to activate, attack once with each weapon.

>>53257314
thunder is almost exclusively used for mechanical waves traversing matter, aka sound.

pure force being applied, stuff that pushes, compresses or dissipates through you. bludgeoning is the exchange of energy from a massive object onto a target.

they are all the force/energy interactions, but the vessel through where they travel or are delivered changes.

in the end all damage is some form of energy, be it heat transfer (both cold and fire), electric current dissipating through tissue as heat and and chemical bond damage (lightning), pure chemical or biological damage through reactions (necrotic, poison or acid) and i guess radiant could be microwave radiation or something.

File: 1460339848092.gif (3MB, 544x612px) Image search: [Google]

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>Play a warlock
>Someone really nice who doesn't really know that he's in a pact, nor knows who is the patron
>Everyone else in the party get personalized stuff, arcs, backgrounds
>The DM adds a cute girl into my backstory who has a crush on me, and insists on adventuring with me
>Things are going great
>Between sessions DM casually hints at the nature of my patron.
>I celebrate each session that goes by without the patron talking to me.

How did this happen, I made a warlock, and I'm terrified.
What the fuck did I make a pact with?

>>53258545
I like the temp HP ward lay on hands, I think that works really well.

The dispel magic thing it does is pretty OP though, 5 points for a weaker dispel magic? I would say have the base cost to do that be 10 rather than 5

>>53258643
thanks I'll check it out. Joining a campaign soon and we have no Int based characters, one for every other major stat so I wanted to round the party out nice and clean

>>53258692
hastur is c-cute, CUTE!

>>53258595
>>53258652
I mean for the person he intended them to be for, the TWF rogue. He had giving me and someone else home-brewed weapons that fit our playstyle, so I can only assume that's what the daggers were for

>>53258692
It's what you get for giving no fucking detail on what you made a pact with. Congrats it's either going to be awesome or you're about to enter a magical realm.

>>53258752
Oh I get it you're being ambiguous instead of actually stating the problem like a passive aggressive fag.

inb4 bait or I was merely pretending to be retarded.

>>53258752
Rogue deserves it for not being a ranged attacker. Ranged attacks are more reliable for Sneak Attack because of the hide rules.

>>53257544
It feels nice, but the one from academy of protection feels a bit broken. Between high ac, shield spell and ways of having temp hp. (The lay on hands plus the channel divinity). Nicely done anyway

File: Arcane Warden v0.02.pdf (4MB, 1x1px) Image search: [Google]

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>>53258717
Yeah, it's a difficult struggle between balance and 'clean design' like being able to use the second option at level 1.

Also I forgot to run it through a spellchecker. This version should be less painful to read.

>>53258819
Problem seems pretty clear to me

Items need two attacks + a bonus action in order to be used, rogues don't get an extra attack, ergo items can not actually be used

>>53257544
I like it! However, your Spells Known column on the table and your "Learning Spells of 1st level and higher" seem a little at odds. It's pretty clear that you just need to follow the table, but it could use cleaning up.

>>53258820
Questionably, hide/suprise/ambush rules are fucking brutally shit in this edition.

So in your scenario, the Rogue ducks behind a tree and uses the hide action, then next turn pops his head out and shoots?

The moment he pops his head out, he is no longer considered a hidden enemy as they can visibly see him, doubly so if they saw, or were aware that he went behind the tree.

>>53258933
Problem already seems solved to me since the DM said it does. So one of two things is going to happen he'll hand wave it and give them a free extra attack or he'll fix it.

The issue still remains that we have a passive aggressiveness cunt here.

>>53259024
I guess it sucks if you try to apply a bunch of rules that don't actually exist.

>>53259024
>However, under certain circumstances, the GM might allow you to stay hidden as you approach a creature that is distracted, allowing you to gain advantage on an attack roll before you are seen.

Your DM would have to be a dick to not let it fly when the classes second best feature is using Hide for advantage. There's not even a rule to stop you from blind firing around the tree with your crossbow to avoid being seen.

>>53259095
Nevermind the circumstance where the rogue hides up the tree and uses the leaves and branches for cover while still being able to see his target