/5eg/ D&D 5th Edition General

>Merfolk OP
wait really? is one cantrip that good?

What if Strahd were a woman? How would that change the adventure, if at all, in your mind? What with 'gender politics' and all. I was thinking of a sort of Elizabeth Bathory sort of character, a female historical figure whom I consider to be truly terrifying, at least in the stories passed down about her, regardless of their factual accuracy.
Just to be clear, I'm not making a fetish out of this; I'm genuinely curious about what you folks' opinions on this would be, and I'm wishing to see some discussion.

It's not and like half the races already have that as a racial in core.

Who's his god, and what's his domain?

A lot of the part where he was an aging conqueror turned orbiter around his younger, handsomer brother's wife would have to be rewritten extensively.

Barring a few exceptions with actual personal power, women of the upper aristocracy usually had nowhere near that amount of actual control over their fate in that department.

I think it's the amphibious and swimming speed that he finds OP

>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmilla

It wouldn't change a damn thing except making things potentially pretty hot where Ireena is concerned.

Players would probably just try to romance her.

That's the only real change I can think of.

Wait, do your players not try and romance Strahd?

All male players. all male PC's.

Bitch, please. Nobody's that straight.

>implying that would stop some of my players

really? that seems strong but always situational. at least it's not a fly speed. thank god they spared that on the vampires.

I don't see the problem

I'm going to make a Merfolk GOO Warlock now.

get an octopus familiar or haggle your DM into giving you an eldrazi spawn

Not even flight speed will make vampires less weak, srly, if you're going to do that just remove them, this nerf in helps nobody

I'm still in the process of reading through Curse of Strahd, and I plan on running it in a few weeks. It just occurred to me that some of the descriptions of Strahd reminded me of Elizabeth Bathory and the atrocities she purportedly committed at her castle Csejte.
Jealousy was a huge part of her motivations, and she captured younger women whom she considered to be beautiful, especially virgins, and locked them in her dungeons, where she slowly killed them over long periods of time via mutilation and horrible torture.
Some say she believed her murders to be offerings to evil powers that would grant her beauty in exchange for the torture/death of younger women.
Supposedly there were over 300 witnesses attesting to her guilt, and her castle and its dungeons can still be seen in Slovakia today.

Some of the probably more embellished tales depict her literally bathing in the blood of virgins, and attribute vampire-like qualities to her.

Updated with Plane Shift: Zendikar material.

This was worth a 'cap.

My group has a player who is playing a deaf warlock. Obviously this complicates the casting of spells that require a verbal component.

Do I ask him to change that or do I just let it go?

>Obviously this complicates the casting of spells that require a verbal component
It doesn't affect verbal components by RAW.

His character could easily practice verbal components until they can do it by feel instead of hearing.

Pact of the Chain -> Voice of the Chain Master.
I've had a character concept in the back of my head for a while that's essentially a blind Warlock who sees through the senses of his imp familiar that's always sitting on his shoulder, invisible.
This gives him Devil's Sight without having to take the invocation, at the cost of suffering the Blinded condition if anything happens to his imp.

My favourite thing about the Zendikar PDF is it opens the door for future cross promotional stuff between the two IPs. The next best part is the fact that it gives semi official Goblins, Merfolk and Vampires so players who want to be something like that can just use the Zendikar one rather than fucking about with dumb homebrew.

There's a lot of techniques to teach verbal communication on top of sign language, some of which actually work really well (cued speech, esp.)

Life cleric of Bahamut

I feel like the necklace is too bland, it's mostly stuff the cleric can already do, anyway.

From the module, the fighter should be getting the sentient greatsword, very powerful but evil. The rogue should take the Dagger of Venom and some other thing I'll add. The wizard, a Staff of Fire.

true but he's also committed to his character being mute.

I wanted to do that with a pseudodragon for blindsense. the standard action to see things is kinda bitch though.

Make him whistle or hum them?
Or yeah, chain pact with voice, just make sure his starting spells are S/M/SM (this isn't as hard as it seems, I think you could even make a bard with a non-verbal spell list)

I have a Warlock NPC who is blind. I gave her the Devil Sight invocation and ignore the blindness mechanically most of the time (going for a Daredevil style "other senses make up for the blindness", which also explains Devil Sight). She's like a blind beggar informant type who can use Shilelagh in a pinch to fight.

>Life cleric of Bahamut

Decanter of Endless Water
- It was made from the horn of a blue dragon.
- It was gifted to a previous cleric of Bahamut by Bahamut himself after the cleric defeated the blue dragon.
- There is a hidden message on it that can only be read at Midsummer. The message is from Bahamut himself.
- The bearer of the decanter is filled with confidence and optimism.
- It has one minor magical property from the pdf in pic.

Sorry to bother, I tried asking in the pdf thread and got no answer. It´s not the right edition, but could anyone give me a link for oriental adventures?

Ooh, better idea. As a bonus action, you can speak a command word while water is pouring from the decanter. If you do, all the water spilling from it becomes Holy Water for the next round. You can do this once per day.

Inspiration cards I'm making. This will be a 1 of in a large deck of possibly 100 or so.

The PDF is literally the second result on Google for "DnD Oriental Adventures"

tjlee.com/DnD/OrAdventures.pdf

Allright, sorry. Going there then.

Not necessarily, I could see myself replacing count strahd von zarovich, his more handsome brother and the beautiful bride to Countess Strahda von Zarovich, her youger sister and the beautiful groom without breaking a sweat, women can be beta as fuck too and twinky fuccbois can totally marry into royalty

Just rule 63 the whole thing

...

>Strahda von Zarovich

I'd probably instead use Straya von Zarovichna.

His brother Sergei becomes Sergaya von Zarovichna. His father Barov becomes his mother Barova, and his mother Ravenovia becomes instead his father Ravenov.

Tatyana becomes Tatianus or Tatius.

Not sure how to make Ireena masculine.

>huur durr my Mary Sue race isn't as powerful as depicted in the lore
Cry me a river

Ivan? Ireeian?

Thanks! Very interesting idea.

...

Ivan works. Ivan Kolyan, or Ivan Kolyanov

...

Couldn't you just collect all of these into a single image?

From a business standpoint, there is no reason to not milk this.

Ooh, so how are the new goblin races? I wanna roll a Goblin Ranger or some shit.

Honestly Vamp looks perfectly fine to me, yeah the abilities they get are shit, but a vampire fighter or barbarian that specializes in grappling can get a nice 2d6 healing a turn at level 5 and a fucking zombie army if he plays his cards right

Or did you miss the part that says that if you kill someone with the bite attack they become a null?

Then read the null entry on the bestiary, a null is at the service of whoever makes it

>Humans are humans
Fair.
>Kor
>+2 Dex, +1 Wis
>Speed 30, climb speed 30 when not encumbered or wearing heavy armor
>Proficiency in Athletics AND Acrobatics
>Lucky and Brave a la Halfling
Well, that's something.
>Merfolk
>Cha +1
>30 speed, 30 swimming, Amphibious
>Wind subrace gets +2 Wis, proficiency in Deception AND Persuasion, and a druid cantrip
>Water subrace gets +2 Int, proficiency in navigator's tools and Survival, a wizard cantrip
>Trickster subrace gets an additional +1 Cha and +1 Int, proficiency in Sleight of Hand AND Stealth, and a Bard cantrip
So, an entire mental stats caster race, with tons of proficiency.
>Vampires
>Cha +2, Int +1
>Darkvision
>Resistance to necrotic
>Pic related
...So Vampires don't get any physical stats? I mean, I guess this is MtG vampires, and I only know what I read in this thing about them, so whatever.
I'm more annoyed at the totally broken phrasing on Blood Thirst. What is that shit? Unarmed attack? Any melee attack? Does it work with Extra Attack, can I add it to my at-reach glaive hit, or my melee spells?
>Goblins
>+2 Con
>Small, 25 speed
>Darkvision
>Resistance to fire AND psychic damage, and unarmored AC is 11 + Dex
>Tribe 1 gives Animal Handling proficiency, Tribe 2 gives deep gnome advantage on hiding in rocks, Tribe 3 gives Thieves Tools proficiency
...So, just +2 Con. I guess they're not optimized for literally anything at all, which I could accept for goblins if I didn't think a bit of Dexterity for hiding and shanking is pretty essential. I guess two resistances is nice.
>Elves
>Main race as PHB, but get +2 Wis
>Subrace 1 gives +1 Cha, proficiency in your choice of two skills or tools
>Subrace 2 gives +1 Dex, Wood Elf abilities
>Subrace 3 is +1 Str, Superior Darkvision and Sunlight Sensitivity, normal Elf Weapon Training, Chill Touch at first level, Hex once per long rest at 3rd, Darkness once per long rest at 5th
Lots of skill proficiencies today.

Is just me or goblins are kinda stronk compared to zendikar ones?

Kor seem strong yes, but not OP. I'd probably cut out the free 1/day Lucky they get, but everything else seems fine to me.

Merfolk do seem pretty OP though, what with the ability to breathe water and air combined with the free cantrip.

I'm making them up as I go along. Actually looking for ideas too.

You forgot that now vampires can't fly

>you and your party take everything down with nonlethal damage
>finish every enemy with a bite
>enjoy eternal null army

Vampires are actually OP

>Killing anything with just 1d6 straight
Maybe at low as fuck levels, but from that, you either have to wait till the creature is at minimum or you won't kill shit, also they don't get Str, neither athletics for a race which feature is based on grapples.

That could work, especially with russian and byzantine empresses desu

Read the feature, you have to reduce ITS MAXIMUM to 0, not reduce his current HPs to 0.

>Join new group
>Running PotA
>Using 5 minute short rests for some reason
I feel like monks, warlocks and anything else that gains most of their shit on a short rest are going to be too strong

> 1/day Lucky they get
It's not 1/day

Max hit points user
They way is worded is something that almost never will happen, you basically have to solo the creature and deal bite damage only...oh wait, you also deal 1 piercing, so you will never create a null, ever, because it's going to die before you recude his maximum hit points to zero.

Considering how crazy it is that you basically get at will animate dead, I'm perfectly fucking fine with that

Wait what, Zendikar?
That means I can play as a Kor?
Neato

Nonlethal damage is a thing
Gather a bunch of enemies and tie them up, spend a day turning a shitload of people into nulls with no expiration date

No thanks. I like women.

Any time I hear a story about someone doing dumb edgy shit in 5e it is always te fucking warlock. I don't care if it's a meme, warlocks are only played by autistic kids.

This.
>Sometimes an attacker wants to incapacitate a foe, rather than deal a killing blow. When an attacker reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, the attacker can knock the creature out. The attacker can make this choice the instant the damage is dealt.The creature falls unconscious and is stable.
>Knock out every enemy
>Nonlethal bite, or just stabilize/use Spare the Dying each turn
>Do it until it has 0 max HP
Andrew needs to fix this shit

Oh, so they get infinite/day? Yeah, that's OP as fuck.

Personally I'd remove it entirely or make it 1/day. I assumed it was 1/day because, well, that's reasonable.

Only fiendish warlocks are like that and some Lovecraftian ones.
Fey warlocks are pretty fun people to hang around with.

But if you hit an incapacited creature it gets 2 failed death saves, if you have more than one attack you basically kill it.

I gave one of my players (level 5) a Staff of Frost without realizing that it was extremely rare and powerful.

Would reducing the amount of charges that it restores per day be an OK way to balance it? Or making it so the charges don't restore?

Additionally, what sort of items should level 5 characters be getting (in terms of rarity/power)?

>Incapacited
Meant unconscious, there's no nonlethal when the creature is already unconscious

That might be true, but I have no way to confirm or deny this because edgelords are also mary sues and don't want to play a sub-optimal sub class, even though they are going to derp up the optimal one anyway.

> I'm running a Wuxia game
Has anybody ever said this and meant anything besides "my knowledge if Asian folklore is limited to one Chow Yun Fat movie, but I am gonna run a game like that?"

People give the Realms shit for being uninspired, but Jesus Christ.

You'd have to invert much of his history unless you simply made her a woman warrior which basically makes the gender change irrelevant; a key aspect of Strahd is that he conquered Barovia and that he was a great general and warrior for the glory of his family and his own personal glory (likely mostly just the latter) but it's his brother Sergei who was the kind artistic one.

LG devotion fiend Palock here, sure, my character looks edgy as fuck (I made sure of it, purple dark armor, spikes, dark aura, etc) but he's generous, warm hearted, cheerful and even naive dude who always gives a second chance. You shouldn't judge a book by the cover.

I want to make my character a human girl obsessed with elves and elf culture akin to a weeaboo. What are some good Elven (Elvish?) words I can sprinkle into my dialog to add to the character?

>sub-optimal sub class
>Feylock
This might as well be a meme, too. Fey Presence is a bitch of a level 1 feature.

>acquire paladin
>lay on motherfucking hands for 1hp
>bite
>repeat

>Oh, so they get infinite/day? Yeah, that's OP as fuck.
Halflings have the exact same feature.

Kor are just a halfling without subrace choices.

and medium sized, and with two proficiencies and with climb speed

A stable creature doesn't make death saves bucko

Feylock players have usually been total bros (and sises), but the other two pacts seem to attract edgy fucks like moths. The worst you'll get with fey is a Shakespeare fan who wants to play Puck.

As someone who's a huge fan of the genre itself, I can adequately say that D&D is not suited to run it at all.
Kara-Tur and Oriental Adventures works well as just "D&D in Asia doing D&D stuff with Asian monsters and themes" but Wuxia is a LOT different thematically and everything from it's philosophy to how you'd make characters would have to change significantly to really work. Especially magic, which strictly speaking doesn't exist in wuxia or if it does it is not the purview of human beings.

Or you could not change anything and literally fluff everything as different while keeping the rules identical, though that would get tiresome.

>Zendikar bestIary
>"Just use MM statistics for them lel"

What's wrong with that?

We did this in our group once, but it was a LONG time ago in the 90's using Oriental Adventures 2e when anime was barely even a thing and kungfu films had been niche at best for 20 years or more.
In the end it was just D&D in Eastern Asia, not Wuxia or anime or anything of the sort.

It was pretty fun, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't particularly unique beyond the setting.

How is it any different from D&D settings just adding their own setting specific monsters to the bestiary.

It also doesn't help that 5e turned a lot of spell-like class features into spells for the three part-time casters.

>You forgot that now vampires can't fly
>now
Of the 39 Vampire cards in Zendikar blocks there are only 8 with flying, and two of those represent the same Legendary creature. Flying is definitely the exception rather than the norm for Zendikar vamps.