/5eg/ D&D Fifth Edition General

I gotta make a support character for an upcoming game, and since half of the party is made up of nobles, I have decided for kicks that I should play a caster stylized as a personal assistant.

My question comes down to this: What is the best way to make a magical party secretary?

>some sort of title to placate them
>placate
1. They wouldn't be murderhobos
2. I generally don't let the PCs be the strongest people in town until late game. There's going to be CR13+ people in the Imperial Court.

They're hobos though. What were they doing BEFORE they were killing monsters?

>murderhobo
>only killing monsters and not upsetting laws

Those are adventurers, user; murderhobos break both of those rules.

A Conjuration Wizard that fabricates all the little doodads that the nobles need at any given moment.
Downside: It's not support as in Cleric/Bard.

Then what I have been describing as murderhoboing is very wrong.

Nothing even 0.00000000000000001% anomalous about a level 10 guard captain, D&D hasn't had a pretense of low powered normies for, what, 3 whole editions over nearly 2 decades?

you can't murderhobo without, well, murdering.

Murderhobos are the peopple who decide to solve the fact that they don't have enough money for the Sword of Amazing by killing the weaponsmith.

>They wouldn't be murderhobos

Murderhobos are generally a decision the DM makes rather than the players.

>There's going to be CR13+ people in the Imperial Court.

Well an archmage with 9th level spells is CR12, so what the fuck is a CR 13 person gonna be?

Nah, murderhobo = adventurer. They:
1. Kill = murder
2. Wander around with the only possessions being that which they carry = hobo

"Murderhobo" is just a satirical term cooked up to refer to player characters in general (they are hobos who go around murdering), not a specific kind (other than that 99% of PCs are homelses people who wander around killing).

user, all murders are killings, but not all killings are murders. If what you said were the case, King McNoble would be pressing charges against you for killing that Beholder trying to decimate the land.

>Kill = murder

>Well an archmage with 9th level spells is CR12, so what the fuck is a CR 13 person gonna be?
An archmage with 9th level spells covered in the Imperial treasures, maybe? A level 20 royal champion (fighter) covered in stupid strong equipment and magic items?

>Murderhobos are generally a decision the DM makes rather than the players.
No, DMs can make a campaign conducive to murderhobo'ing but actually playing as one is the choice of a player.

>Level 10 guards

Jesus Christ, what is this, a town bordering a portal to Hell where all the villagers have to be 5th level fighters just to fend off the daily demon incursions?

My DM allow use to multiclass with UA.

Should I go nuclear druid? Is it actually fun? Will the novelty wear off?

if you don't like "murderhobo," would you prefer "person that is between housings who terminates life?"

Adventurer.

>level 10 guards
Captain of the Guard, I don't think this is really that out there for a major city.

murder and killing are not the same terms. There's a reason they're called murderhobos and not killhobos.

Level 10 Captain OF THE Guard.

Also a level 9 veteran is CR 3, so a military force of CR 3 veterans doesn't strike me as abnormal a lot.

Murderhobos are people who kill people for apparently no reason beyond their personal gain, or just for enjoyment, people being defined as non-hostile intelligent entities, so the guy who attacks the merchant after you complete the quest to loot his shit.

Nuclear Druid is by far the most broken thing in the entire game pre level 17~ when it comes to the whole wargame murdercore aspect of the game. Your DM 200% doesn't even know Nuclear Druid exists, and will not initially understand why you're doing [Top Tier Damage for your level] without rolling to hit.

I believe the politically correct term these days is "killwanderer" or "people of dungeons" ("dungeon people" is considered offensive nowadays)

>There's a reason they're called murderhobos and not killhobos.

Solely because it sounds funnier. Murderhobo is just an irreverent description of the adventurer lifestyle (wander around homelessly and solve the majority of problems with violence), the dissection of the term to try to use it to refer to BAD adventurers came much later. It even refers to PCs in video games that have no moral choices or whatever.

If there is a distinction between murderhobo and non murderhobo PCs, its not on the basis of how "nice" or "mean" they are, but whether they are fundamentally homeless people being dragged by the plot between one violent encounter and another, ie the vast, vast majority of adventure paths and "save the world from the BBEG" plots.

Level 10 is the level you fight the final boss of SKT at. I don't see anyone hiring random guard captains to fight the ancient blue dragon.

and man, all the people who aren't killwanderers just don't get why they can't say murderh*b*. Like, I don't care if your granpappy says it, it just not okay in these modern times.

>or "people of dungeons" ("dungeon people" is considered offensive nowadays)

The captain of the guard is the cream of the crop. I've always found it fucking stupid that your average adventurer team is worth, after maybe five sessions, easily the entire guard of a major city.

sic-a-bums.

>why don't CR 9 giants just hire CR 3 humans to take down CR 17 dragons?

Woa... really... mkes u tink...????

IIRC, Level 5 Hexblade nova will beat it.

Hexblades have to worry about actually hitting.

There are many, many adventurers where "murderhobo" would be an improper description.

One of my early 3.5 characters killed a hobo for the pure purpose of becoming an assassin. That character was a murderhobo murdering hobos.

But that is exactly what happens. Maybe use your brain next time.

PCs are superhuman mang. They're like Beowulf or some shit, beyond normal human capabilities.

goddamn hobo-murdering murderhobos.

Cleric 1/Druid 4 can do two 3rd level magic missiles (5d4+5)x2, and add 2d10 to each missile.
This adds up to (10d10+5d4+5)x2 which equates to 72.5 average damage per spell, 145 total.

Hexblade 5 can do [greatsword+str+magic weapon invocation + 3rd level spell slot + prof from curse] (2d6+6 + 6d8 + 3)x2 which equates to 43 average damage per attack, 86 total. And you have to roll to hit.

Yeah, but things get messy when you start playing around with that kind of stuff. You only need a handful of decently levelled guards to pretty much outmode adventurers. After all, why hire a bunch of seedy strangers when you can just call on your trusty guardsmen instead?

So I was thinking about how different draconians could be used as, preferably, high tier antagonists -- ignoring the obvious fact that many of them are not so high tier afterall, but I enjoy the fact that they are tough, end game foes in Dungeon Crawl.

Auraks are particularly interesting to me because they remind me of warlocks. They even cast 2 spells of levels 1-4, have unlimited energy blasts, and even have a form of mental control that requires unbroken concentration!

On the other hand, I can't think of any ability remotely like their whole "go into a nonmagical frenzy upon 0hp." OF course, this is for a kind of antagonist, not a PC, so I can be fast and loose with abilities.

>things get messy
Not really, all you have to do is for there to be a shortage of guards. It's not like a shitty village is going to send 5 of its 20 guards off to raid the gnoll cave when they might not come back alive.

Adventurer things are too dangerous, too much guesswork, too much time or the guards don't rightly care about attacking an Orc village to save one farmer.

Its usually better to imagine that the end comes for psychotic murderhobos when another set of adventurers is hired to match up to them

The logical consequence of a group of high powered serial killers is that they will eventually be treated like the Liches Dragons Demons and Beholders out there as a great evil that must be stopped

I've actually had one group of PCs meet their end via a coalition of wraiths and lichs, because their leader (another lich) reasoned that getting rid of the great evil that's been murderhoboing around the country would be a good way to earn the trust of the foolish fleshbags

>Yeah, but things get messy when you start playing around with that kind of stuff.

I can't imagine how.

>After all, why hire a bunch of seedy strangers when you can just call on your trusty guardsmen instead?

After all, why send your own dudes when you can """""""""""hire""""""""""" people literally for free who have fantastic powers and that are equipped with amazing mystical relics, and only have to be paid once they return, if ever?

And a payment that will make adventurers FURIOUSLY JACK OFF and be super grateful is simply letting the captain of the guard train them for a month or so (DMG suggestion).

The whole no down payment thing is really an edge adventurers have

That just makes adventurers into cheap sellswords, getting scraps that guards don't have time for. I can appreciate if you're going for a tone or something, but it does inevitably downgrade adventurers from superhuman heroes to basically just mercenaries.

>Not paying adventurers

That's how you get your town burned down by the CN sorcerer. Better hope all those overlevelled guards are good firefighters too.

Reposting my question from the last thread, since noone answered that one.

Need someone with Adventurers League experience.I'm trying to get the League going in my town in the literal middle of nowhere. Got a bunch of players (both frequents in my home campaign and newcomers) ready for a test run. Guys and gals are pretty excited about the whole thing and especially the factions. But here's the problem.
One player wants to pose as a Harper while being Zhentarim. One doesn't want to reveal his faction to other players at all. Is this kind of thing actually permitted in the League play? Or should they all be explicit about their allegiances?

>That's how you get your town burned down by the CN sorcerer.

what? the point is that you only have to pay them if you succeed, and you lose nothing if they lose.

If you send your private retinue, on the other hand, you risk losing your best dudes.

>but it does inevitably downgrade adventurers from superhuman heroes to basically just mercenaries.

I care nothing about the LEL SUPERHUMAN ADVENTURER 200 FOOT FALL xD HP = MEAT POINTS maymay, its a fucking retarded meme. That level of stupidity needs to die.

But you can survive 200 foot falls. And that's because your character is superhuman. It's in the mechanics of the game. Do you consider the rules of the game a meme?

>Power levels described in the PHB and DMG
>Memes

>But you can survive 200 foot falls.

Solely because of an editing mistake decades ago.

>DMG
>ctrl+F "superhuman"
>no results

Wow that's a really stupid thing to say.
You do know that a lot of the rules of the game have actually changed over the last couple of decades right?
Like, that's why the game discussed in this thread is the "fifth edition"?
There's no reason to suspect the falling rules would have never changed.

>Wow that's a really stupid thing to say.

Its a correct one. I care nothing for your opinion.

>You do know that a lot of the rules of the game have actually changed over the last couple of decades right?

Sure, yet the amount of falling damage you take is owed solely to some sub-moron editor. Because of that one sub-moron editor, people furiously masturbate about how D&D is "supposed" to be a superpower RPG and not Swords & Sorcery.

And yet, because of that sole piece of evidence (falling damage), anons take that one bit of proof and extrapolate it to nonsense like "human armies could NEVER do what our guys do... because they can't fall 200' comfortably!"

Trying too hard.

ah yes, if someone has a differing opinion, it must be trolling

Dank quibbling, my friend. The point is that PCs represent a height of strength beyond the average human. They're supposed to be great heroes. At least that's what the book implies.

But everyone can play how they want to. If you prefer less fantastic PCs, that's your prerogative.

I'd probably make the guard commander of a town or city a Veteran, so CR3

>The point is that PCs represent a height of strength beyond the average human.

Nobody in this thread disputed that, however briefly.

Nothing about towns that have veteran guards and warlords (or whatever) for guard captains interferes with that.

Anyine have a pdf of Nord Games critical hit / fail decks for 5e yet?

If you were serious it would be much more pathetic. I have more faith in you than that user.

oops someone with more knowledge about the history of the game disagreed with me, better become furious

Both of you are pathetic, go find a chatroom and take your bitchfit there.

See, the problem is that once you start doling out levels it does become disputed. PCs aren't really special when every town has a handful of guards that are as strong as them. They're just mercenaries at that point.

And again, it's fine if you want your PCs to be nothing special. That can be interesting if done well. It's just not what the default assumption is in the books.

Well I was gonna stop but since you're such a cutie...
You have low standards for what counts as furious.

So I'm going to be playing Wizard in my group's next campaign, after almost a year and a half of playing purely martial characters (a rogue and a fighter, to be specific). With that in mind, what are some of people's favorite wizard spells, from a fluff and mechanical standpoint?

Find Familiar is always great.

Feather fall is always amazing. You can escape so many situations simply by being able to jump from somewhere high (at least at a level where everyone doesn't have flight yet).

The first thing I'd recommend you do is pick an interesting school of magic - Illusion (OP, but creative), Transmutation (makes you tough, gets lots of the most entertaining spells), Necromancer, etc. Try to avoid Divination and Evocation as they're not that interesting IMO.

In my opinion, you'll usually have a more interesting time focusing on debuffs/buffs than straight up damage as a wizard. Take Fireball and magic missile, they're both great. But don't be afraid to use stuff like Enlarge/Reduce, getting creative with Invisibility, and so on. Using spells out of combat can be much more interesting than their obvious combat uses, such as using Hold Person to prevent a guard from shouting for help.

A good primer on spells can be found here: docs.google.com/document/d/1ZHzEjiHvtDItZE2ixfoYwqi7brTO-ag8uBJndE5saro/preview

>See, the problem is that once you start doling out levels it does become disputed.

Out of curiosity, why did you respond to a post without comprehending it?

The post pointed out nobody is even remotely arguing that PCs should only be of average strength.

Meanwhile, you are arguing that the very presence of anyone but the PCs equaling their strength, let alone exceeding that (despite that being perfectly normal in D&D history) is some sort of odd deviation from the rules. Fuck that.

>It's just not what the default assumption is in the books.

It is in D&D. The DMG even directly states that the 50 or so soldiers the PCs hire to protect their strongholds will be an undefined mix of guards (2 HD) and veterans (9 HD).

Try again.

Alright, thanks. I was initially leaning towards Evocation since that seemed the most useful (my group does lean pretty heavily on the "kick open door, stab orc in the face" approach), but I'll definitely give the other schools a second look.

If you just wana blow stuff up, you're probably better off going with sorcerer for meta-magic options like twinned and quickened spells. Evocation as a school is one of the worst wizard schools, and the only ability that really ends up being useful is the one that lets you avoid hitting allies. Wizards are for battlefield control, Sorcerers are for blasting.

How is having an army of 9 HD goons working for you evidence that PCs should be nothing special?

Well Evocation is definitely useful, but everyone's first impulse with Wizard is just to go pew pew everything. That's like, the least interesting way to do it. You can make things big, or small, bend light around creatures, mind control people and then make them forget about it. While you should always have fireball and magic missile readied because sometimes the world just needs explosions... you'll probably find it a much more appealing experience coming from a martial if you focus on all the utility and control spells wizards get. Because those are the things that MOST distinguish them from martials. Focusing primarily on blasting will just make you feel like a squishy, more versatile ranged battlemaster.

That if 9HD guys are just normal skilled hirelings and not LEGENDARY EBIN EARTSHATTERING HEROES THAT MAKE GODS SHIT THEMSELVES, then towns having them as protectors isn't a big deal.

We're just willfully misinterpreting each other now, I think. I can't make my point clearer on my part and I disagree with your point as you've articulated it. On my part, I'll play as I see fit and hope you'll do the same.

What page of the DMG is that?

copypasta'ing from pdfs yields "interesting" results

~ARRISONS
::.:astles and keeps employ soldiers (use the veteran
and guard statistics in the Monster Manual) to defend
- em. Roadside inns, outposts and forts, palaces, and
·emples rely on less-experienced defenders (use the
;;uard statistics in the Monster Manual). These armed
arriors make up the bulk of a property's skilled
'lirelings.

For some reason, palaces have shittier protectors than keeps? Okay.

p127

>For some reason, palaces have shittier protectors than keeps? Okay.
More or less makes sense. A palace is a place of luxury and casual rule, while a castle is fortified against attack above all else. A keep is in places where conflict can easily arise on borders and such.

>The point is that you only have to pay them if you succeed, and you lose nothing if they lose.

What kind of low rent adventures are you doing that don't have some payment up front? Lawlful Good Crusaders might run after the Orcs up in them hills sight unseen, but anybody with a brain is going to see that the town has enough resources for good guards and leverage for contract pay.

A competent level 20 party could beat Tiamat, who is a god. Probably wouldn't take an insane number of veterans to pull it off. I guess the gods are just weak.

When you're checking stats against traps or surprises, do you check perception (to see it) or dex (to dodge it) or both?

Like, not before you arrive at it (which would be obviously perception) - the trap springs, but they wouldn't know about it just because they're in danger, because it's silent.

>What kind of low rent adventures are you doing that don't have some payment up front?

over 20 years of DMing *and* reading modules in which nobody finds it the least odd that rewards are given for doing things?

If they've triggered the trap, then just do the normal save. The save assumes that they notice it in the split second before it does it's damage or whatever, which is what the save represents. If they pass, they managed to dodge out of the way or deflect the blow or whatever.

>A competent level 20 party could beat Tiamat, who is a god

Well yeah, especially if Tiamat is being stupid.

>be queen of all evil dragons
>leader of an evil secret society dedicated to ushering in rule by dracoliches
>be in control of all abishai
>grant powers to evil clerics all across the world
>use no dracoliches, evil dragons, or abishai in your boss fight

ok

>Probably wouldn't take an insane number of veterans to pull it off.

Q. How many 5 damage veterans does it take to beat a goddess who is immune to nonmagical weapons?
A. All of them.

Q. How many 5 damage veterans does it take to beat an ancient red dragon (darkvision 120') at night?
A. All of them, unless someone manages to cast Faerie Fire on it. Range is 60', so you can't see it. Its breath is 90'.

Cool, thanks.

I was also thinking about orphans patting down adventurers while pretending to be begging. Insight to realise what they're really doing, or Perception to see them doing it?

Is it overkill to have players roll for whichever is higher?

And even more overkill to have them roll whichever is higher, then if the higher was Insight, roll a Dex save with advantage to stop them, and if Perception was the higher, with disadvantage (as they're slower to stop them if they have to spot them doing it)?

I'd say insight to know what's up or perception to catch them in the act, but no changes to the save either way. Maybe not even have a save, it's a fairly minor thing, and a competent, reasonably athletic adult (even the wizard qualifies) should have little trouble catching a kid under normal circumstances.

Cool shit. Much obliged.

How many strong minions Tiamat has isn't really relevant. I was just talking about how deadly she herself is.

I forgot the immunity to nonmagical weapons, but ignoring that she would probably want to think twice about fighting anything even resembling a small army.

Sure, but ANY individual should probably avoid an army. 5e is designed to incorporate attrition of resources and a number of enemies, and a god is going to have minions of her own. In Tiamats case, even one or two would be enough to make a huge difference.