/5eg/ D&D 5th Edition General

I asked this question in the last thread but it was verbose and bad, so I shall simplify:

I need to show the players that a villain means business, and also that the gods are rapidly losing their power. I also want to show them that the BBEG's abilities are ludicrously effective against gods. I have thought of a few ways to do this:

>A minor (and extremely stupid) God tries to challenge BBEG, and gets incinerated
>BBEG gets annoyed at a god and decides to switch their alignment (either from good to evil or the reverse), causing them to instantly become absolutely disgusted at their past actions. If it goes from good to evil the god would decide to murder a few of their own clerics or something, and they would probably collapse in terror at the reverse
>BBEG decides to elevate some minor god to major god status or the reverse
>Something else

What would be best?

If the BBEG is more powerful than the main pantheon of your setting, there are a few things you can do to show that is the case without having a deus ex machina moment.

If he is more powerful than gods, he has religious followers on par or if not more than those gods simply on a might makes right basis. He can win political arguments by DEUS VULT.

If he is more powerful than gods then he should leave the material plane and start fucking things up for the party cosmically. Maybe he leaves a door open to the lower planes, maybe he fucks with the source of all magic, maybe the cleric can't use his abilities anymore, etc.

Have the BBEG cause a huge, extremely powerful natural disaster. Like, he drops a fucking capitol city into a massive sinkhole, or immolates it or whatever. Describe in detail the damage this causes, the bodies, the buildings, all of it in exacting detail. Make it a real horror show.

Then, next to the ruined city, seemingly carved into the ground in massive letters, is a message:

>Your move, (name of god that the city worships)

I think that'll get the point across pretty effectively.

>What class are you most interested in seeing for the next official release?
None. We've got plenty for my purposes.

My setting is based on large tendrils of land that spiral through space, and I was initially planning on having him just destroy one of the main ones. This would be a cataclysmic disaster that would kill billions of people, however, and I don't think the BBEG would actually be able to do it. His powers are more focused on fucking with deities. Manipulating the world is harder for him.

Fucking with the source of all magic might be interesting.

I think my main problem is that he needs to show off his abilities on his first appearance, which is going to be in the middle of a great cosmic meeting of the entire pantheon. So it somehow needs to be confined to one room, which is a decision I am now sort of regretting.

So, like, his power is that he's basically an anti-god then, if I'm interpreting this correctly? Like, he can fuck them up, and they can't fuck him up?

Because if so, it's pretty easy.

>villain walks into meeting unannounced
>everyone is watching him walk in, like who the fuck is this guy
>weak or mid-level (preferably mid-level, gets the point across better) gets up and starts walking up to him
>this god is pissed, who the fuck are you, how dare you enter this place, etc.
>villain just laughs at him, or just stares silently (not sure of this guy's personality, whatever's appropriate/insulting to the god)
>god does some super powerful god attack like throwing a meteor or swinging a massive club, whatever
>villain is completely unnaffected by the godly show of power
>one shots the god with a simple blade, or shot to the head, etc.
>"Now that I have your attention..."

This is what they call a "no sell" in professional wrestling, and it's super effective at establishing strength over an opponent.

>What class are you most interested in seeing for the next official release?
The only class I want an official release of is the Mystic, maybe an Artificer base class for craft-based characters and either a base class or set of classes dedicated to ToB blade magic.

Another UA comes out on Monday, but it's supposed to be their "DMs Guild spotlight" bullshit again. If anyone has bought any of the stuff they featured and is willing to share when the time comes, drop it here or in the Discord so I can add it to the Mega. I can clean DrivethruRPG PDFs if need-be.

I don't see a big difference between half-baked content from pros and fully-baked content from amateurs. All this stuff, official and unofficial, is just Gary Gygax fanfic anyway.

I think it'd be cool to have an Intelligence-based martial class. Something focused on tactics and predicting what opponents are going to do.

One subclass could be a mage hunter, specializing in disrupting concentration and supernatural abilities. The other could be a harasser, manipulating foes to give allies openings.

tl;dr I think an int-based mundane character would be nice if I had to choose.

This sounds like it could be really good.

Now I just need to pick a god who is sufficiently arrogant and stupid enough to attack him. Maybe one of the orc gods?

I'm using a slightly modified Forgotten Realms pantheon. I know the setting, but not extremely well. This is the first campaign I've ever played in for more than like 3 sessions. Does anybody stand out as a good candidate.

I also am not super familiar with FR, it's probably my least favorite setting. Go with an evil god, especially one of war or some kind of combat, they're more likely to get up and challenge the fucker. Probably chaotic too, a lawful god would at least figure out who the guy is before flying off the handle and attacking him.

Okay, I think I have a good gist of what should happen.

I wrote down a little scene script.

pastebin.com/SB0FYMvd

Is it getting the personality of the BBEG across correctly?

Not that you would know what that's supposed to be. I'm mostly just asking what sort of personality you see in this snippet.

I'm really fucking nervous about trying to get the tone of this guy correctly, because he's supposed to be flamboyant and showy but also deeply menacing.

I like it quite a bit, user. I think, going with what you've got here, you have a good villain on your hands. Really cocky, really showy, and it's because he knows how strong he is against the very gods themselves, and he is fucking loving it.

Be sure to, at some point, have him get really serious seemingly out of nowhere. Like when he goes into his little speech that I'm sure he's going to have after that show of force. Nothing is more menacing then when the flamboyant guy suddenly gets serious.

Then after he's done being serious, he just goes back to flamboyant again like nothing happened. It shows instability in his mind, that he's truly deranged. Probably one of my favorite villain tropes because it's so damn effective.

If I play a necromancer wizard, will it be a trying burden to keep track of all the undead minions? I want to play a wizard and I love pet classes, but I don't want to slow down combat.

My opinion? Makes one of the major-est gods become mortal and casts him down upon the world. Could you imagine the backlash that would cause? A man with a huge army of followers and crusaders backing him as he tries desperately to reclaim his mojo? That would be a hell upon the world as it is. Meanwhile BBEG just sits back and watches the worm writhe.

>You’re pretty sure that red dragons aren’t quite that well-attuned with fire.
Huh?

Well, even as a Necromancer, you wont get any Undead for a while so you wont be slowing down combat until the higher levels

5e Spelljammer when?

Most of them aren't literally on fire at all times

Question.

What do you do about dick DMs?

I just played my first session of 5e and the DM killed my character by singling it out with a monster way above our expected CR.

As a new player (and no access to the monster manual at the time) I didn't really have a full appreciation for what was happening, but now that I'm at home and am looking at the MM I'm realizing that the DM was being a giant cockface for no reason.

This is also his first time DMing so maybe he's just incompetent.

Thoughts? I can greentext the story if anyone's really curious about the details.

Red dragons are immune to fire damage.

Just gives the highlights, what monsters, what level and classes are the party?

Either never or after the other Tier 1 settings. Spelljammer was a Tier 2 setting in the surveys (so not at the same level as FR, Ravenloft, Planescape and Darksun), but it's a weird tier 2 in that instead of leaving everyone kinda meh, it leaves everyone either loving hit or deeply, profoundly hating it.

I know. That doesn't mean they are on fire constantly.

>Just gives the highlights, what monsters, what level and classes are the party?
k.

>Ranger 2, Monk 2, Paladin 2, Warlock 2, Bard1/Cleric1 (me)
>In a big room under ground, 2 feet of water on the floor and a dias w/ altar in the middle
>Monk is a halfling so he's riding on my shoulders (6'4" Dragonkin) instead of swimming
>We go check out the dias
>Shambling Mound springs to life
>Ranger nature check results in a big fat "guys lets get the fuck out of here"
>My init roll fucking sucks
>Shambling mound approaches me and the monk since we're closest
>It uses BOTH ATTACKS on me
>Get 1 hit KO'd, grappled, and engulfed; monk backflips onto the altar
>Paladin tries a desperate attempt to knock the thing backwards with a thunder-slam move (forgot ability name) but it fails
>Party turns tail and runs the hell away
>I roll a nat 20 on my death save but DM bungles the rules and doesn't tell me it brings me back with 1hp so that I can even attempt to struggle free
>Next round I take a bajillion crit damage from being engulfed and auto-die
>Party ends up kiting the slow ass monster down a hall and actually kills it

I feel like the DM should have used one attack on me and one on the monk - that way even if it knocked one of us out we wouldn't be grappled + engulfed (which only happens when BOTH attacks hit the same target) and the party MIGHT have been able to haul ass away (it only moves 20ft a round) with an unconscious member in tow. Or, had I been knocked out but nat 20'd my death save I would have popped up and ran the fuck away myself. But nope, he pops up with a "hey you guys aren't supposed to be here yet" CR5 monster and uses it to auto-fucking KO basically the squishiest member of the party. What the fuck.
Is this normal for DnD?

Oh no you lost a level 2 character.

nut up. why wouldn't a creature with multiattack use them both on a single target, especially when they get a special effect if both hit?

to reiterate, nut up bitch

Huh? I don't give a shit about the character. I mean, I wanted to see how the build turned out but fuck it, I'll keep that one in mind for some other adventure. I just don't think this is a very good way to introduce a *brand new fucking player* to your group or to DnD.

The research assistant couldn't experiment with plants because he hadn't botany.

Sounds like your boy is trying for a 'be the DM your players love to hate' style of game, which is tricky to get right even for an experienced DM. Just ask him to leave the Dark Souls shit until after he's got the basic rules figured out.

Meh... you were unlucky with your initiative. D&D is a game after all... sometimes you lose.

I'd like to see an alchemist class at some point that can make things like alchemists fire and acid viable beyond early levels and can make other alchemical bombs to throw at enemies.

It's called taking the Guild Artisan background and prof in Alchemy.

Sounds like death house. That adventure is suppose to kill at least one person.

But yeah, in truth the mound would use both attacks on the same target to get its special engulf. Sort of a creatures tactics deal. If it were something like an umberhulk and this happened then the DM targeting you out would be much more valid a theory.

That only let's you make them. I'm talking about being proficient with using them in combat, getting more options to make and use in combat, farther throwing distance, and etc. like that. Sorta like the alchemist of PF but for 5e.

Sounds like your DM was actually running a module. In which you do encounter a Shambling Mound at level 2, however the party could avoid it by sacrificing a living creature. So he might have forgotten that...

On the other hand, a 2nd level party could still outrun it, you were just really unlucky with your initiative. Roll a rogue next time.

The only thing he fucked up was forgetting you get conscious when you roll a 20 on a death save. But even then, you would wake up, prone, suffocating, and before your next turn came up the Mound would drop you again. Tough luck.

Or rather, roll a Barbarian. No more getting instantly knocked out.

>Sounds like death house.
Yup, that's the one. We were going to look for something to sacrifice other than a PC when it came to life. Although I'm wondering now if he'll count me as a sacrifice or not. I did technically die at the altar...

>But yeah, in truth the mound would use both attacks on the same target to get its special engulf
Why? Is the DM supposed to min/max monster attacks just because? It's a giant plant with an INT of 5 after all.

PS: How can a plant discern two separate characters when one is riding on the shoulders of the other? One part I left out - the Monk's init went first but he prepped a reaction attack for when the shambler drew near rather than trying to swim (too slow). So he actually stabbed the thing but it still attacked me.

>The only thing he fucked up was forgetting you get conscious when you roll a 20 on a death save. But even then, you would wake up, prone, suffocating, and before your next turn came up the Mound would drop you again. Tough luck.
As I understand it, I would have woken up at the _start_ of my turn and then have to use my action to escape the grapple (DC14 vs my STR bonus of +2, so not easy but not impossible). Then I could have ran away, assuming it missed it's attack of opportunity (not fucking likely). If it weren't deaf I would have loved to used Dissonant Whispers to force it away (was my initial plan when it attacked - except for the part where I died).

Nah going Sorc. If the DM is actually going to pick on me I'm not fighting it. I'm just going to double down on offensive magic (fuck supporting the party, that plan clearly didn't work out the first time) and see what I can break with spell points - like if you take spell sniper and then use extended range, can you triple the range of a spell?

So our 5 man party is hitting a road block. As we gain levels and our wizard's powers grow, we're having trouble reconciling our party dynamic in character.

The problem stems from our wizard being a necromancer. My character is a paladin who holds death very sacred (and naturally views undead as detestable and as the ultimate perversion of life and death), and another character is a shadow monk who is a member of an assassin cult that also holds death very sacred. To him and his order, death is a a gift that is bestowed upon specific people, and anything that corrupts this gift, such as undead, is an affront to their order.

Naturally the three of us out of character want the party to succeed and perform as a functional unit. We're just having trouble bridging the gap in character, especially as the wizard's power and influence grow as we gain levels.

>Why?
Why not?

Because it's a giant plant, not Erwin Rommel?

I guess I should point out that the necromancer also holds death in reverence, and has often times before sided with our characters when it comes to looting sarcophagi and graves. He just seems to believe that if the dead is payed proper respect, he should be allowed to use them after death and give their bodies renewed purpose.

It's a big dumb plant, any reason it has to attack a single person is exactly as valid as any reason it has to attack 2 people.
Not exactly tactical genius.

>It's a giant plant with an INT of 5 after all.
That doesn't make it a lobotomized brain dead moron. It just means it's acts instinctively, and it's got the base instincts of a predator. Those instincts drive it to eat the poor stupid fuck who got in front of it, in this case you and those exact same instincts would also have driven it towards you rather than the halfling because you're a bigger meal for it.

Next you'll be complaining a group of 6 int shadows focused on you when you were the only good aligned character in the party Shadows specifically target and eat good people since that's how they reproduce by the way.

You died in death house, big fucking whoop the name should be a giveaway. Your DM did nothing wrong.

Except for the death save thing.

>You died in death house, big fucking whoop the name should be a giveaway
For the record no one told me that's where we were - I wasn't around for the first session

Which was completely inconsequential since user would've died anyway. He made a single ruling flub that wouldn't have changed anything anyway. It was a straight up heads you die, tails it kills you, situation.

Bullshit. Thing could have whiffed the opportunity attack.

Look, I get it. You're pissed your character died in your first session and your DM wasn't very forgiving either. You should probably have been warned the party was going through a deadly module, or you should've asked.

Either way you died, at low levels that's very common. My first ever RPG session (in 5e, too) was nearly a TPK as 3 out of 6 party members died to a bugbear. It happens. The dice can be a bitch sometimes.

Don't be passive aggressive and try to "break" the game. Talk with your DM if you feel it wasn't fair, but be reasonable. Maybe he is willing to give you a chance to use that one turn with 1 HP to run away. Very unlikely, since you use your action to escape and probably exit prone, you would only get 15ft away before he caught up and engulfed you again.

You may as well just accept it and move on. (Sorcerers are a lot of fun, by the way. Wild ones especially.)

It's actually a nice story.

>Six 5e noobs, playing LMoP
>Rogue, monk, barbarian, ranger, warlock, bard
>Raging barbarian rushes into obvious ambush, receives 3 crossbow bolts to the chest
>We kill some goblins, one escapes and alerts their leader
>Bard uses dancing lights to draw their initial shots, we rush in
>Bugbear, wolf, a bunch of goblins... well shit
>Already damaged barbarian goes down first, not managing to hit once
>Monk does some damage, but is dropped next
>Next round bugbear crits and insta-kills the ranger
>I, the haflling rogue, run away and jump down a 20ft shaft with 2 HP. Had I flubbed my acrobatics I'd be dead too.
>Bard and warlock run the hell out of there, the bugbear close behind
>Somehow I manage to completely circle around the cave and get behind them, landing a lucky sneak attack
>Cue party celebration

It was scary, but also so thrilling! We paid our respects to our dead companions and moved on... eventually meeting new ones.

Even the insta-killed ranger loved it!

Our DM only wanted a one-shot, so we had to find a new one.
>tfw all our fights with this new DM have been relatively easier and no one has been anywhere close to death
I mean it's fun being a badass, but I find it kind of boring without any real danger.

Yea, that's the game for you. Welcome to Dungeons and Dragons, sometimes you die

At least post the full picture.

This is why you have a session 0

>divine sorc

After seeing what they did with favoured soul, I don't trust wizards to do this.

Reposting because I'm a shill

Looking for critiques/advice if I should change anything

Also thinking of other specs that could use similar systems

Anyway, have at it

Here's one of the things I bought. It's pretty weeb. But honestly I really like it. Not sure on the balance of it all but If I ever actually get into a 5e game I'd at least want to playtest this material.

I've finally done it. I've come up with the objectively best method of rolling for stats.

Roll 6d3. Yeah. Six, three sided dice. We have computers and 3d printing, this isn't impossible anymore. Record the number

Roll 6d3 and record 2 more times.

You should have 3 numbers now, between 6 and 18. Find each number on this chart, and record the number next to it in the same row.

18:6
17:7
16:8
15:9
14:10
13:11
12:12

For example, say I rolled 18, 9, and 12
I'd find 18 on the chart. 6 is next to it, to the right. I record 6.
I find 9 on the chart. 15 is next to it on the chart, to the left of it. I write down 15.
I find 12 on the chart. 12 is on the chart both times, but both times the only number next to it in the same row is 12, so I write down 12.

I now have 6 numbers between 6 and 18:

18, 15,12,12,9,6.

Distribute the numbers you've recorded to your stats.

Some perks of this system:

>it always generates a playable array
>the average of any given set generated by it is ALWAYS 12
>the point total given by it is always 72
>despite being constrained, there is still room for a lot of variance in stats.
>pretty simple to do: just look at a chart.

Some cons:
>illiterate poorfags won't be able to figure out how to use the internet to roll d3s.

Did you fix the highlighting mistakes or whatever?

Wow, holy shit, okay
I couldn't get through the whole thing because I felt a trenchcoat and fedora coming
But holy shit guy
>Ki users based on charisma instead of wisdom
>that fucking stupid strong iaijutsu or whatever
>"Domineer"
For fuck's sakes

At least the magic items look okay, but even then 5e isnt meant to be a magic item heavy game

Please stop trying to bring weeaboo fightan magic back

Or we can point buy and skip the unnecessary bullshit, gaining the same perks in less work.

Point buy isn't random tho

That's a good thing.

>We have computers and 3d printing, this isn't impossible anymore

Or, you know... just roll d6 and halve the results, rounding up.

That's a bad thing tho.

...

Yeah, as far as formatting goes it looks fine now (I think). If anything I should try to get my hands on some free art to replace the stuff I used

never said I wrote the thing. just paid a buck for it guy.

That bein' said. Ain't gonna stop me from wanting BoNS to return in some shape or form. Don't like it. Don't use it. Just go on your merry way playin' the game your way. Let others enjoy it the way they want to.

Do everyone a favor and stop assuming anything remotely different from "Your D&D" isn't D&D to begin with. We've come a long way from the game Gygax gave us.

For you, maybe

Oh, my bad, I didn't think anyone actually liked that turd of a book unironically

Hey, more power to you guy, if you're a DM and want that at your table that's your own deal

Is a bolt case or quiver required for using a ranged weapon well? Where is the ammunition stored otherwise?

You have to be careful with these really powerful abilities, I would pick something that can't be turned on to the party.

Like if the BBEG can change alignments why doesn't he do it to the party? The LG and CG PCs may not care anymore if they become evil. And if you say he isn't going to use that ability why not?

Something that may be pretty cool is him sapping power from a god. He becomes more powerful and you get a now mortal God as an NPC for quests and all that.

In your other hand if need be.

But for the most part yes, you'll want a quiver

Haven't tried 5e yet to be honest. Most of the players in my area play PF and my current DM plays nothin' but AD&D, and I'm also waiting for more material to be released for it.

Personally I enjoyed BoNS because it was the first chance at an attempt to give martials something else to do in combat besides swing a sword around, and i've been at the bad end of enough groups were I've been stuck doing nothing while the casters in the group basically led the way. And I will admit to being a weeb for the sake of wishing martials could perform mechanically as well as the casters do in most anime. Even if that line is a blurry smear on the wall.

More stuff from DM's guild

What keeps the Underdark from completely flooding? It's usually portrayed as far below the water table and even below sea level.

If you like being a summoner the Druid is actually pretty good, and you won't get the RP stigma for being the thing the party has been killing all campaign long.

Conjure Animale Conjure Minor Elementals Conjure Elementals and Conjure Fey are available.

Caves and Caves and Caves full of monsters that destroy the water whenever their particular cave gets flooded.

Loth.

The seawater is destroyed yet the salt remains, hence the Drow

> That Spoiler
Fuck that thing.

That's the game. Also, serves you right for multiclassing at level 2.

Don't hate it, but it's overpowered

> I didn't have a Monster manual
> I didn't have a copy of the adventure
> nobody told me what we were doing
Fucking Christ.

I'm confused, are you suggesting user should have metagamed?

Because if so then you are a cunt

I wouldn't know how to tweek it to make it more balanced, probably edit the last ability somewhat. all in all that's been my favorite homebrew so far.

>be arcane trickster 3, warlock 3 (pact of the chain/fiend)
>have familiar stuffing bottles during traveling.
>stealing shit all over the place with mage hand
>combat happens
>have familiar sneak bottles onto people
>have magehand do the same
>eldritch blast the bottles
>caltrops and ball bearings exploding all over their square everywhere while alchemist fire sets them and the oil in the bottles on fire
>then the poison sets in

This class is so much fun.

Adventure modules, seriously, even 4th edition had actually modules not just thinly strung together Adventure Paths

But practically, another setting/sourcebook like Sword Coast Adventurers Guild, just focused on a different region.

>allowing yourself to get within 30 feet of a monster
>going anywhere that you're not 100% positive does not contain a hidden danger
>at level 2
Reroll as a Throwbarb.