/5eg/ D&D Fifth Edition General

:

Tom Bombadil is the DMPC.

They can both be. Gandalf's role doesn't make any sense as a player.

>We decided a few threads back on what Drizzt would be in 5e (Scout Fighter)

Really? Because the Hunter ranger archetype seems almost like it was made with Drizzt in mind. Just make him spell-less and he fits fine as a 15th or so level character.

Here, I even made him in a thread recently, on a 30-point build. Though granted I have only read up to Sea of Swords and so he doesn't have some of his more modern magic items.

Nah, he's the guy who only played one session and then disappeared who knew every exploit in the system. Funnily enough in 5e, that's Bards.

Holy shit, I had never read Clone before. Who would ever become a lich when you could just keep making a younger version of yourself and still be alive. Your new body would essentially be your phylactery. All you'd have to worry about is making a new one each time.

I get what you mean in regards to Gandalf. I was just going to hand-wave his proficiency in swords and stuff as being a part of his race, but then I remembered what his race was .

No other opinions when it comes to Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and Boromir?

Yeah, mostly because nothing Drizzt does in the books is even close to what the Ranger can do. He's literally a two-weapon fighter that is good at tracking and stealth.

>Find Familiar
>Cone of Cold

Gandalf is the most experienced player in the group. He's a former DM who metagames like a fiend.

The DM killed him off with a badly-balanced encounter, then npc'd the character when the party resorted to fucking around without the senior player's guidance.

Not really. The joy of the Fellowship is that it isn't the standard collection of Sues and Tryhards. Compare this relatively simple yet incredibly rich roster of
>"Human" Favored Soul/Cleric
>2 Human Fighters
>An Elf and a Dwarf Fighter
>Some Halfling Commoners

To the average Pathfinder group. Or at least, the one most recently in my mind from a recent thread.
>Azata-blooded Aasimar Nightblade
>Lizardfolk Inquisitor
>Human Stalker - Think Book of Nine Swords Rogue
>Undead Warlord
>Half-orc Brawler

And this was for a campaign where the players are all supposed to be playing lifetime residents of a town that has 1% of its residents that aren't Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Halflings, or Half-Elves.

Aragorn as a fighter works, but he's described as a ranger in the books. He doesn't have spells, but he does a lot of survival checks to look for tracks and kingsfoil and shit.

Which is why I suggested Scout. It gets basically that.

gandalf starts the campaign with a ring of power, a direct phone line to the gods of the setting, and on equal footing with some of the most powerful NPCs. He's not human, he's literally an angel.

No amount of metagaming in 5e will get you that.

If you insist on statting him as a character instead of a DMPC with powers as the plot demands, then he's clearly the GM's girlfriend's character.

Not really. Gandalf the Grey is basically just an Aasimar Wizard 1/Cleric 1, maybe a few more levels than that.

Quick question about hex, so it's a 1 hour concentration spell that uses the bonus action to score some extra nectroic damage on certain enemies. If the enemy that is hexed dies before the 1 hour time, you can jump to another opponent.

My question is: can you only jump to another opponent on the turn immediately after your first hexed enemy is killed? Or can you save it until the hour runs out or you blow concentration? For example, can I hex a goblin, kill him and then walk for 30 minutes and hex another one or would that expend 2 spells?

>All you'd have to worry about is making a new one each time.

There doesn't seem to be anything preventing you making multiple clones at the same time. Upon first gaining access to clone or wish, it would make sense for any caster to go on a spree of clone-making right away (hiding them in demiplanes, if possible), and then after 120 days you're basically invincible.

Not relevant for most groups, because 120 days is a long time in a game, but could make a very annoying NPC. You could even use it as a plot hook - so-and-so bad guy learned clone 100 days ago, you have 20 days to kill him before his dozens of clones start to mature and he becomes impossible to kill.

And yeah, becoming a lich is borderline useless when clone is avaliable. Besides, death knights have a better form of immortality anyway.

Except gandalf the grey is the equal to a balrog and probably 2nd most powerful wizard in the land (after Sarumon). And again, respected as a powerful agent of god by all the NPC elf lords.

The rules only state subsequent. You can have your hex parked on a corpse for 50 minutes and transfer it in the last 10 if you want.

If your DM doesn't allow that, then you can carry a bag of starving rats with you and park the hex on a rat, which you then kill with a bonus action. (and if you're a fiend warlock, gain temporary hitpoints!)

What would the most meme character be?

I'm thinking arcane trickster/fiend bladelock at the very least.

This gets you access to:

Mage hands dropping bags of daggers on people
Bags of rats for healing
A weapon that can constantly shift between glaives/polearms/halberds

>most meme character
middlefingerofvecna.com/2015/08/marionettist.html

The most fun I've ever had.

Pls don't bully rats

What if I told you my character plans to replicate video related?

youtube.com/watch?v=DKYkH8D1I9k

Can we please stop with the stupid bag of rats meme? Even if it works RAW (which is debatable but I don't want to start that again) it's ridiculous and clearly against RAI and I wouldn't want to play with anybody who tries or allows it.

Gotta love the fact that instead of just keeping the Bad of Rats clause from 4E, they just got lazy.

For those wondering, from Page 40 of the 4E DMG, under the heading "Legitimate Targets"

>When a power has an effect that occurs upon hitting a target—or reducing a target to 0 hit points—the power functions only when the target in question is a meaningful threat. Characters can gain no benefit from carrying a sack of rats in hopes of healing their allies by hitting the rats.

>Choosing not to reprint a seemingly-needless explanation
>Apparently people needed it
The designers are clearly turning over in their graves right now.

How is it against RAI though? The two features don't mention any sort of challenge required. And lore wise, it makes sense:

A fiend has granted you the power to gain health from killing things. So your character does something very fiendish: kills those things weaker than itself for personal gain.

A long death monk has learned through intense study of death to gain power from it. So he keeps a few things around he can easily kill.

Balance wise, what's the problem? They're temporary hitpoints, that you can usually only get once per round.

As a DM, I really see no problems with the bag of rats, either RAW, RAI, or lore wise. The only problem it has, that keeps getting it brought up is it tweaks your autism, and the autism of those like you, so the memesters do it to annoy you.

Which reminds me.

OFFICIAL 9GAG APPROVED MEME LIST

>King of the Memes for this thread
Bag of Rats

>The King's Noble Court
martials vs casters
glaives halberds and polearms
4 suits of plate armor
juggling daggers
bags of daggers
dragonborn are a meme race
bladelocks
cone of cold horse
generally trying to break the system
calling people you disagree with Virt
being Virt
DMs fudging rolls
Don't give advice to DMs if you haven't DM'd before
Players giving terrible advice to DMs

>the king's unfunny, ugly jester that everyone hates if you bring these memes up you're autistic
Calling beautiful, noble, fantastic warlock players edgy.

>How is it against RAI?
>Because the designers literally said so

>in a previous vastly different edition.

>Which is why I suggested Scout. It gets basically that.

Oh God it's happening again.

>3.5
>Want to play basically Zorro, the iconic swashbuckler, using swashbuckler class
>"user, swashbuckler is a terrible class, you should play a swordsage instead."
>But I don't want to play that, I want to play a swashbuckler.
>"Lel n00bfag. Play a swordsage, it's better Tier-3 Master Race instead of stupid swashbuckler Tier-5 shit."

Particularly with regards to actual D&D novels, I'm of the strong opinion that if given character X is actually stated to be part of a given class Y, then X should be statted out with LEVELS IN THE CLASS HE IS OUTRIGHT STATED TO BELONG TO.

You forgot Middle Finger of Vecna being both fantastic and shit. Which even as someone who uses their content, I have to agree. So fucking hit or miss. Ranging from fun to cringe, from almost unplayable to ridiculously strong.

>swashbuckler is a terrible class

whaaaaa

Except Aragorn does not match the Ranger as a DnD class, but does match a survival and stealth-focused Fighter. Which is literally what playing a Scout is all about.

In 3.5 it was, but that's not the point. If I'm rolling up the iconic swashbuckler then I'm going to be rolling him up in the class designed with him in mind.

Similarly the ranger class in general, and the spell-less ranger in particlar, is entirely designed with Strider in mind (stated outright in the UA it appeared in). So it just doesn't make sense to me to not stat him out as a ranger.

I mean, the Ranger class was literally based on him.
It's easier to understand if you keep in mind rangers could only cast druid spells, and casting a spell took about a minute. So getting down to the ground and listening quietly is a perfectly acceptable way of casting Speak With Nature, and Pass Without Trace doesn't necessarily require chanting, either. It's a subtle kind of magic, which makes sense in LotR.
Adding shit like Flame Blade to the Ranger's spell list certainly took it away from its roots, but I think it's still the right class. Some of what he does is downright supernatural.

Different version of the same game. Hit points didn't change, reducing things to 0 didn't change, and effects based on that were essentially carried over into 5E from 4E. Why the hell would the intent behind them change?

>all this talk of Scout

Is there a list somewhere with the not-Shit UA listed somewhere, or should we perhaps make one? Like stuff like the Scout and before SCAG was released the Swashbuckler. Excluding, of course, shit like the UA Ranger and the like.

I mean, a Rangerback in AD&D certainly was, but the 5E Ranger has about as much to do with Aragorn as it does the show Beastmaster. The modern Ranger is a lot different from its roots. Now it's a magic-casting, two-sword fighting archery master who normally shows up with a pet. There's a helluvah lot more going into the Ranger than just Strider now-a-days, and the Scout is a lot more true to that original inspiration without getting caught up in the clutter.

Hitpoints did change. The balance of monster damage versus player health changed, as did the entire accuracy system (now it's bounded). Lots of that could justify letting bags of rats work, or going to a more ability specific ruling system.

Moreover, as far as I can tell WotC has declined to clarify with a sage advice or rules tweet, despite ample opportunity.

Still looking for feedback on this.

Literally no fucking difference. The first "Human" is an Aasimar, one of the Human fighters is a Half-Elf Ranger and the last of a great and illustrious lineage, the second human fighter is literally first in line for a throne.

The halflings are literally the only ones who are normal, and they'd be rogues.

In his 3e build despite him being known as a Ranger Drizzt had nearly no actual Ranger levels at all in fact (only 2 or 3), to explain why he had no Ranger magic at all.
The rest was like 13 levels of Fighter and a few levels of Barbarian.

Gandalf is an Aasimar Druid; most magic in Middle Earth is closer to druidic than arcane.

Aragorn is either a Half Elf Scout Fighter or Hunter Ranger.

Legolas is a Wood Elf Hunter or a Deep Stalker. Gimli is a Mountain Dwarf Fighter, not sure which kit. Boromir is a Human Banneret or Battlemaster.

The Hobbits are either various types of Rogues, or Frodo is a Mastermind with the Knight background.

If Barbarian had Fighting Styles, you could roll him as a straight Totem Warrior with no issues.

>to explain why he had no Ranger magic at all.

Which is not necessary in 5E, because we have the spell-less ranger.

For that matter we had it as of Complete Warrior in 3.5 as well...

Why mastermind over thief?

>Except gandalf the grey is the equal to a balrog and probably 2nd most powerful wizard in the land (after Sarumon).

Eh....Wizards don't work the same way in Tolkien at all.
They don't all have identical sets of abilities and powers like in the movie, and Saruman's primary power was his supernaturally potent charisma.
Which is why they just ended up locking him up inside a tower without even restraining him and he was effectively neutralized as a long-term threat.

The clone spell.

This isn't even up for debate, it's an objective fact.

Bilbo imo is a better thief. Frodo is too reliant on his buddies (which is why I'm making him a Knight), to a point where he's kind of aimless the moment they get lost.

Also it fits the kind of character it sounds like Tolkien intended, which is an military officer from the gentry.

Well, the tail end of 3rd Edition attracted a lot of stupid people.
4th Edition was written for those stupid people.
They just forgot that the stupid people would still be pretending they liked DnD when 5th came out.

Eh, I dunno if I'd even consider Gandalf a member of the party. He's more of a NPC that the DM used to help bring the party together and give them info about the setting before killing him off for dramatic effect and bringing him back when the party was splitting up in order to help boost the chunk of the party that was in the middle of the heaviest fighting.

And Aragorn isn't a Half-Elf, not enough of one to be represented mechanically. And he's the unknown heir, who only discovers it over the course of the adventure. Which is a pretty common trope at this point for fantasy. A lot more common than a lizardman inquisitor walking around not-Romania like its nothing. And when you're composing the party that literally holds the fate of the world in their hands, are you surprised that the son of the steward of the nation directly bordering the Big Bad sent someone?

Frankly D&D is barely grounded in Tolkien at all. Its roots go more deeply into sword & sorcery pulp fiction.

>The modern Ranger is a lot different from its roots.

ALL the classes are different from their roots. Gygax and Arnesson and may have borrowed the words but the actual functionality of these archetypes and classes are at this point completely different from Tokien's usage.

Let's take Ranger for example; first of all, they weren't actually called that. The folk of Bree and the old Arnor region called them "Rangers" because they moved around a lot, and it was implied by the way they used it that it was meant to be an INSULT. "Rangers" was just a term for the uneducated for the Dunedain of the North.
And they knew about woodcraft and hunting, but also war and battle and lordly behavior (they rode into battle as cavalry, remember). It was more that unlike everyone else in the Third Age they still held onto their noble roots and old knowledge (they were actually educated in other words) while everyone else forgot everything and relied in superstition. The "woodsman" part is just what the peasants believed because that was all they saw, but it was a minor part of who the Dunedain actually were, which the warrior-elite and noble class of a fallen kingdom with an appropriately advanced education.

So what you're saying is that you're applying arbitrary narrative standards to one and not to the other.

If this world has lizardfolk in sufficient size to have nations, then it makes sense that lizardfolk travel around. Stop thinking of it as a nonsensical 1E "non humans are literally spawned all grown up by narrative convenience because the author can't think in terms other than human"

Which goes back to the original point. If Aragorn doesn't have any of the 5e Ranger abilities in the novels or movie or anything, why would you make him a Ranger if you statted him in 5e?

How would you stat Conan in 5e?

That has to do more with his history. He trained for most of his life as a fighter, then lived in the underdark's wilderness for a few years (and developed a rage that he rarely ever uses), then induced into rangerdom. By that point, his XP cost to go up another level were huge.

The question isn't what fits the capabilities of the character, but what path he took through life.

>Sam, Merry and Pippin are a class feature
I like it

Champion Fighter, Thief Rogue. Charisma build.

Probably Barbarian. Maybe a few levels in Fighter to reflect better fighting styles, maybe a level in Rogue to reflect him learning to become a thief (though that can be acquired via the Skilled feat or some other way of gaining proficiency with Stealth and Sleight of Hand).

Either a Fighter with the Outlander backround or a Barbarian with a Mercenary Veteran background. Conan actually wore armor pretty much all the time in the literature.
Give him the Skilled feat at some point to help him learn the wide array of skills he picked up in his life.

Urchin Barbarian with Martial Adept feat.

So you're just ignoring the part of the Curse of the Crimson Throne group where
>this was for a campaign where the players are all supposed to be playing lifetime residents of a town that has 1% of its residents that aren't Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Halflings, or Half-Elves.

That party composition literally makes no sense for the AP. Korvosa is 90% human with the more normal subraces getting another 9%. The only place that those 'nations' of lizardfolk exist in Golarion are one and a half continents away. Not the members of a ghetto in Korvosa. Or anywhere in Varisia, for that matter.

He never really had much in the way of sleight of hand skills, but he WAS very acrobatic and sneaky, as befitting the frequent "Panther-like" moniker given to him in action by Howard.

High Charisma either Champion or Battlemaster Fighter. He's really a lot more calculated and cunning than would fit with 5E's Barbarian, despite the moniker.

Athletics is a must, given how often his climbing ability came in handy. About the only thing we know about Cimmeria from the original Howard stories is that it's very mountainous, and Conan and all other Cimmerians could climb almost as early as they could walk.

Champion's a good bet, given the versatility it gives you with physical skills. His physical skills were always exceptional.

>Implying there couldn't be lizardfolk merchants who have kids while on the road
>Implying adventurers being part of that 1%-ish minority doesn't make sense
If you want to force your group to play exclusively level 1 human dirt peasants, it's up to you to be a passive aggressive dick. The fact is "lizardfolk" is less sue than "flawless ubermensch who is secretly the one true king the story revolves around" when it's rolled by a player.

So I have the official Veeky Forums character sheet, but when i try to print it none of the lines in the boxes appear on the printed sheet. It wouldn't be a huge problem except that the entire box for weapons is entirely blank. Anyone know a fix or is it a problem with my printer?

Not that user, but I think the point is more that the LotR party has interesting variety despite being fairly non-exotic, while the Pathfinder party derives its differentiation from fancy classes and races instead of backstory and characterization.

Not that you can't have both, obviously.

The problem with that is that it works of the basic implication that Tolkien's characterization was interesting for the most part.

The real party is the hobbits, surrounded by literal political giants of their world. On tabletop the humans, dwarves and elves would be largely the annoying NPCs who the DM keeps saddling your group with.

And hardly anyone has really ever accused Tolkien of being good at characterization outside of his precious hobbits. After 10, the main reason to read the LotR is the worldbuilding.

What's the strongest thing you can True Polymorph into in 5e?

If not outright "strongest", what are some fun options?

Also would you let a player run an Oni who tags along with some adventurers for an easy meal?

Have you even read the books? Gimli and Legolas are some of the funniest characters I've ever read, and their evolving friendship is fantastically-written. Boromir is a reluctant member of the party that wants to change its objectives but is willing to go along with its plan nonetheless (until the Enemy drives him mad). Aragorn is a total chill bro who lies around in the mud smoking a pipe when he could be living in luxury.

Granted, the movies take all of that characterization and treat it with about as much subtlety as Fizban treating a locked cage, but I'm going to assume you're not making assumptions based on the movies.

I don't have any substantial tabletop RPG experience and want to try it out. Is heading to my FLGS for Adventurer's League a good idea? How does that stuff work? Do I make up a character beforehand, and if so, do I just follow 5e's chargen rules to make a lvl 1 character? If anybody has experience with just showing up at a game shop for AL, do you have any advice?

D&D didn't find it's roots/inspiration in Tolkien, but his works have heavily influenced the development of the game since it's beginning.
I haven't read too much Conan, but from what I've read straight barbarian doesn't seem like too much of a stretch.

He just needs a background that gives him proficiency in stealth.

It is pretty sad that nowadays most RPG groups get saddled with the thought that "I can't play something interesting and varied without some random exotic race." Luckily, my groups have never really had that issue. Hell, the last five or six campaigns have more or less been nothing but humans and half-elves, with the occasional other race. A single gnome, a tiefling, a couple dwarves, and an elf. Current composition -- plus retired characters is...
>Young human noblewoman warlock
>Terrifying human marionettist / serial killer / babysitter
>Swarmy human thief focused solely on coin
>Gnomish illusionist and retired adventurer who got roped back with by a seemingly innocuous task
>Human antiquarian possessed by the spirit of a long-dead Pharaoh
>Human monk enjoying a break from the monastic lifestyle like an Amish on rumspringa
>Human(?) from a distant land who communicates with the party in short crude statements in Common
>Tiefling warlock that's rarely present

Sounds like your party needs a little cultural enrichment. :^)

>What's the strongest thing you can True Polymorph into in 5e?

Anything CR 20. In other words: Pit Fiends or Ancient White & Brass dragons. Honourable mention for the CR 19 Balor.

I really don't get why picking a core race other than human and half-elf triggers so much autism in grogs. I've literally ran nearly full elf/dwarf parties in 2E and had a blast, and an all-tiefling game of Planescape that turned into running a merchant company in Amn. Literally the problem is always player-dm communication.

Unless your DM let's you age/establish a lair. Then you can be true polymorphed into pretty much anything I think.

Those aren't the problem races (for me, at least). The problem races are half-lizardfolk shadowcats with the half-undead template that seem to be fairly common in Pathfinder.

But I admit I do like the party composition to fit my idea of the narrative. So if they come from a small human community, at least half should be human. If the adventure takes place in Morrowind, there should be a few dark elves. And so forth.

>Implying monolithic races

>had to retcon Lorghoth the Decayer in the Death House murdering my party because it didn't realize that by "any creature" for the altar it means animals too

I just kind of assumed a human eating cult would only really want like... people. Does anyone else have any situations like that? I feel like a big goof

Eh, for me and my group, it's more of just what seems appropriate for the setting. Like, an all-tiefling game makes tons of sense for a Planescape game. But the same can't be said for Dark Sun or Eberron or something else. We always tend to come together and build our characters as a group, which helps to likewise build some actual relationships to the characters. I mean, it's not as in-depth as something like Beyond the Wall which we also play.

The darksun equivalent of all Tiefling would be like, all Trikreen or all Genasi (which were afair accepted as a race in 2E material)

FWIW I hate the glut of templates, mostly because tacking them on willy-nilly to anything is silly. That said I kinda hope they release an Undead PCs UA conversion of Ravenloft's Necropolis rules.

How do you handle animals Veeky Forums?

I'm a rogue, but I want to used trained pidgeons, rats, etc, to accomplish things like delivering messages, or setting strange traps for enemies.

>the Ranger class was literally based on him
Ranger back in the old days was an entirely different beast than it is now though, wasn't it?

After seeing the airship art thread a few threads down I kinda want to run an airship pirate game. Anyone got any experience with that?

What is the difference between the following?

- Demipower/Power
- Demigod/Demipower
- Exarch
- Overgod
- Primordial
- Estelar
- Archomental
- Archfiend
- Archdevil
- Duke of Hell
- Baernoloths
- Abyssal Lord
- Demon Lord
- Obyrith Lord
- Celestial Paragon
- Archon Paragons/The Celestial Hebdomad
- Eladrin Paragons
- The Court of Stars
- Guardinal Paragons/Talisid and the Five Companions
- Slaad Lords
- Titans

AD&D ranger got slow progression Druid casting at level 8. It also got tracking (in 2 free Tracking NWP iirc, with Ranger-specific bonuses). The 1E ranger had a bonus to fighting giants and goblinoids. The 2E ranger gained favored enemy and was one of the classes that were considered pros as dual wielding (Bard and Thief were the other dual wielders in 2E, with both getting a kit that had free Dual wielding mastery as options)

Be a wizard and get a familiar

Already planning on getting find familiar, but I want more.

Don't know if I'd say it was an ENTIRELY different beast (sick pun btw). It was always a dual-wielding warrior, less armored than the fighter, with nature-themed magic (literally druid spells originally). It has evolved somewhat but it's actually fairly close to its roots (except for the kinds of spells it gets).

Basically this. Except you didn't need kits to dual-wield with a ranger, and only warriors got extra attacks, so it was extra-pimp at it.

DependsOnSetting.(you) desu

How does an oathbreaker paladin run compared to a standard paladin path? They seem to be more debuff and minion focused.

They are kinda kool. If you can find a wight you become very minion focused because you can dominate undead at a very early level IIR.