/5eg/ D&D Fifth Edition General

>doing an underground

>What is your favorite setting?
Forgotten Realms, actually, so I'm doing pretty good. Though I'd like to range into the Dalelands more and leave the Sword Coast for a bit. Also some stuff for Amn, Tethyr, and Calimshan.

>Which setting do you most want to see released in official materials?
Of the unpublished ones, I guess Spelljammer.

>What's been your most memorable moment in 5e so far?
The time I essentially single-handedly slew a CR 13 white dragon at 8th level, definitely.

Incoming shitstorm in 3...2...1...

How'd you manage it?

So Veeky Forums how do you roll for your stats? Is the default option good? My players seem to always come out with insanely good stats or nothing greater than 14...

I single handedly killed a CR10 as at level 5.
Considering the hit points of a Aboleth, it isn't surprising though.

>rolling for stats
Why

If you do decide to do it, do it as the book says, I think this edition is 4d6 drop the lowest

Okay, so, what are the important things for Shamans?

Elemental and Resto Shamans need to be full casters with access to healing spells, elemental damage spells, possibly summoning elementals, Bloodlust if possible. Land Druids (with the circle spells picking up anything not on the druid spell list, and an agreement only to Wild Shape for travel purposes) fits the best of all existing classes, I think. IIRC Druids get shields too?

Enhancement Shamans are going to be dual wielders with some minor spell casting too. So, probably melee Hunter Rangers (ironically Hunters will never pick Hunter Ranger because of how important the pet is) or something like Eldritch Knight houseruled to use Druid spells instead of Wizard.

I don't think totems are interesting enough to give any particular mechanical effect to. Like, I'd probably just use them as spellcasting focuses / incorporate them into spell descriptions sort of thing rather than 3.PF out some incredibly narrow mechanical description for how they work.

Zendikar, desu. Back when the first Zendikar set was released it became the primary inspiration for a 3.5e setting I made. Those dramatic landscapes are still among my favourite.

What about Nature Clerics?

Had an idea of a PC, but wondering if it's a little too edgy or weird and I don't wanna be That Guy.

Character in a nutshell:
>Half orc born to a travelling merchant and female orc
>Merchant gets ostracized due to his relationship and has to set up a struggling shop to make ends meet
>My character carries guilt whole life and decides to join the army so that their wages can support their parents.
>Army a little cold towards half orc, but squad warms up soon enough, friends are made
>Division sent to clear out an enemy encampment, but it was a trap that led to the whole squad getting killed so the rest of the regiment could clear up after
>Dying, my character sees a fiendish character offering a deal: perform as his emissary on this plane and he'll save her life and give her the power to avenge her squadron and support her parents
>She accepts

So basically a fighter/warlock multiclass with a female half orc soldier-turned-mercenary. She'd wanna be CG but of course the stuff the patron would want of her might lead to some bad stuff.

(also is it weird to play a female half orc when I'm a guy? I swear its not a fetish of mine)

Can't decide between Spelljammer, Eberron, and Dark Sun. The least generic, and most interesting settings.

I was thinking of allowing a totem to work as a way to cast concentration spells without actually having to use the concentration mechanic, like earthbind totem or stoneskin totem, but having them be super fragile (something like AC10, 5hp) and only affecting targets within a specific area

It can work as long as you don't brood over your backstory too much. Do you think it is practical for [revenge against army commander] to be a goal for your character, especially if you describe them as CG? Why did the fiend accept your character in particular?

roll 3d6, rerolling anything under 6. Do this 3 times, to get three numbers.

Next consult the following chart to get your last 3 numbers.

186
177
168
159
1410
1311
1212

The chart runs both ways. For example, if I rolled 18, 7, 11, then I would have a second set of three numbers of 6, 17, 13.

Combine the two sets to generate your array:
18,17,13,11,7,6.

This system has a few advantages: the average number of any given array generated by it will always be exactly 12. The stat total generated by it will always be 72.

This ensures that every stat array generated by it is optimal.

IMO, systems like this (roll half the dice, calculate the other half) are the best for rolling because of these advantages. You could do something similar here with 4d6, 2d8, 6d3, 8d2, etc. Just as long as you make it so the minimum roll is always the same distance from 12 as the maximum roll is.

Though I wouldn't recommend rolling for stats. in my experience players only enjoy stat rolling until they get a shitty roll. Then it's nothing but complaints all session long.

Then again, that is if I did end up making the class, I dunno, I guess it works out that way
New circles for elemental and resto
Ranger path or paladin oath for shaman

Being a Thief helped a lot.

- Dagger of Venom, i.e., magic weapon to get past Resistance;
- 50 ft. length of rope tied into a lasso;
- A successful attack roll with said rope to lasso its leg;
- Climbing at full speed (60 ft. in this case since I'd already used my Action, so I was left with my Move and my Bonus (Dash) from Cunning Action) up the rope and onto its back thanks to Second-Story work; (worth noting here that the dragon flew well away from my comrades in the interim, hence why they weren't helping);
- 3 potions of cure wounds as needed to survive attacks;
- 1 potion of water breathing to survive going underwater;
- Not needing to make Constitution saves against Frigid Water until a number of minutes equal to one's Constitution score has passed;
- Climbing onto a big creature granting Advantage (and thereby Sneak Attack) while also putting me out of range of all of the dragon's attacks except its tail;
- Successful Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks to avoid being thrown off or crushed;
- Successful Dexterity (Stealth) checks to avoid the dragon being able to even see me on its back about 1/5th of the time;
- Lucky feat to re-roll bad rolls;
- Blind luck letting me critical several times;
- Uncanny Dodge feature to halve damage against me 1/round;
- Mediocre rolls on the dragon's part, including its final attack roll.

I survived with 4 hit points (one more hit would have killed me but it managed to fail to hit me with its tail attack AND Legendary attacks). It had also already taken 16 damage from the other party members, however my last attack dealt damage such that I was only 3 points away from having dealt the dragon's full HP to it in damage.

It's momentous because not only did I essentially solo the dragon, but in fact this was my first time fighting a dragon in D&D ever, since until this campaign I had been stuck as a Forever DM for about 10 years.

I was torn between the main bond being between revenge or just becoming an independent merc supporting a nice old couple. I'm leaning more toward the latter though, so I could drop the vengeance.

As for why the fiend chose her: He actually made the same deal to everyone in her squadron but everyone denied the deal except her, I was gonna tell the DM this so he could cause a little mind-fuckery later on if their relationship got strained

4d6 drop lowest 6 times, and you can choose to re-roll your lowest score but if you do you must also re-roll your highest.

>Why

Because a) that's how the game is supposed to be played, and b) it can be fun to work with a character with a poor score.

You can build characters with poor scores using point buy

> ITT: furious self-bumping

Nature Cleric.
Totem Barb.
Any Circle Druid.
Outlander Wizard with Elemental Spells.

You have not indicated any reason this needs to be its own thing.

This is pretty cool. We ran Death House recently with random stats and the suck stat Barbarian turned out to be the coolest character, so I guess we got lucky there!
I will see how this kind of system goes over with the players.

>playing Dark Sun and not dealing with defiling
What other heresy are you planning? Not forcing your Clerics into an elementally-themed domain? Banning psionics and Muls? Not putting slaad literally fucking everywhere? Letting halflings in the party?

>a character's attributes are determined by the fortunes of their birth and not any specific training regimen or the circumstances of their life up to the point of play
How fucking arbitrary. Why don't you pick a race and class first, then roll, and lock stats in the order they're rolled instead of being able to shuffle good rolls to class-appropriate skills? That's how you simulate your goofy genetic predisposition.
>but why would my character have wound up as a Wizard if he was born with 9 Intelligence and never got smarter before ASIs
good question

The dragon should actually have had disadvantage on tail attacks to you, senpai. It's really hard for lizards to swipe their tails at their backs, not to mention the whole deal with it having to to actually aim at a spot it's not used to aiming at.

And it technically should be hitting itself if it misses you.

Literally Mellowlink.
>EVERYTHING FOR REVENGE

Just make a less damaging version of the spell Blight that's level 0 and makes it so that things can't grow there again. Make it so that the arcane caster can choose to gain advantage on attack/force disadvantage on saving throw, but as a result the negative spell goes off and auto-targets things in this order:
Nearby nonhostile magical plants
Nearby mundane plants
Nearby allies
Nearby Enemies
Nearby Hostile enemy plants.

Looking for some feedback on some race selections. Some are straight adaptations of vanilla 5e stuff while others are an amalgamation of two or more races with some adapted homebrew stuff thrown in.

pastebin.com/TXuc3xBZ

>slapping a fly on your leg and killing it also does 6 damage to you since the fly itself had 6 HP and died from the swat
Don't be silly.

My question is why the dragon didn't juke and shake like a madman, forcing a million acrobatics checks to hold on to its back (or the rope [or the rope to stay tied to it]).

Deathbloom seems good especially for Ravenloft BUT I'm confused. Can he shapeshift into anything with the [Plant] Archetype?

I think a way to make him better is to have him only go up to CR 1 like the Circle of the Land but make him be able to shapeshift up to CR 6 [Plant] creatures, following the same path progression as the Circle of the Moon

Your logic doesn't really, user.
It's doing everything it can to get the deadly creature off its back. It's going to strike as hard as it can in that position. It's more like punching the fly as hard as you can and giving yourself a dead leg.

The rope stayed tied to its (hind) leg but that wasn't relevant once I was on its back.

>My question is why the dragon didn't juke and shake like a madman, forcing a million acrobatics checks to hold on to its back

It did, but I kept making the Acrobatics checks and then dealing damage.

If we're being completely honest, and with perfect hindsight, the most efficient thing the dragon could have done from a gaming standpoint is stand still and just swipe at me with its tail over and over again. I survived with a small enough amount of hit points (4 hp) that a single additional successful attack, even with Uncanny Dodge, would have killed me due to its minimum damage being 8. But it wasted its actions several times on trying to throw me off instead.

Would have been great if it worked, of course, since then it's free to fuck me up with claws, bit, tail, and CON-save-based breath weapon. But it didn't. Because again, perfect hindsight.

> forcing a million acrobatics checks

Also from a strictly gamist standpoint it doesn't work like that. The dragon could use its Action to try and shake me off, which forced an Acrobatics check against its Strength check (this is defined under climbing large creatures in the DMG). I just kept passing those checks, and it could only do this once on its turn in lieu of any other kind of Action.

Don't worry guys I wouldn't actually do something so stupid, just responding to a guy in the previous thread who was annoyed I planned to alter the druid spell lists to fit the Azeroth setting, considering druids there can't into fire/frost/earth

Most of the group are wow players so I'll just ask their opinion and see where it goes

A is human
B is variant human
C is half-orc
D is a dwarfelf
E is a half elf with a bonus feat (OP)
F is absolute trash
G is the most broken thing I have ever seen

Sounds like you're GM went easy on you. No way you should have been able to kill that Dragon.

It sounds like the green text story about the luchador

Oooh that's actually really good. Might steal.

>G is the most broken thing I have ever seen

Thought so. The race originally had +2 on all Knowledge checks and +1 racial bonus on all saving throws, but that was for 3.5e.

The main problem is the advantage on all saving throws, right? I'd like to keep some bonus to saving throws to be true to the original. Is adding a character's proficiency bonus to all saving throws still too broken, or should I leave it as a static, low number?

Stop posting your story. You've explained it countless times and everytime you do somebody rightfully points out that it wasn't singlehandedly, you had the Dm on your side the entire time.

Absolutely still broken, most things about it are okay, but put together it becomes a massive ball of "make a wizard and win forever"

+2 int and proficiency in all int skills is too good

Proficiency in all saving throws is too good

If you are adding any number to saving trows as part of the racial bonuses it should be to either one specific saving throw or in all saving throws against a specific thing

And if you're adding skills you should add 1, two at the very most

>make a wizard and win forever

That actually fits with the setting.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll see what I can do.

> Advantage on all saving throws
What the fuck

Please help.

Advantage adds up to about +5 on average.

So if you think adding advantage would be op, then adding in proficiency on all saves definitely would be.

Working on a not!warforged style race for a homebrew setting. One of the subraces is battle-constructs a la Eberron, but the other is more like a magical reactor worker.

I want both to have a form of innate magic resistance, but I don't want it to be excessively powerful (e.g., actual resistance). Would reducing all damage/healing from spells by ConMod (minimum 1) be silly?

Here's how I would score it, using the pointbuy system:
>+2 Intelligence (2)
>+4 Skills (2)
>Advantage on all saving throws (6+), score eyeballed because no race has that ability
>Total Score: 10+ (at least 54% better than half-elves, arguably the best race in the game)
Considering that the target number is 6, you could just have advantage on all saving throws BE the racial feature.
What you should probably look for is this:
>+2 Intelligence (2)
>+2 Skills, to be picked from INT skills, (1)
>Gnome cunning (2)
>+1 Tool Proficiency (0.5)
Making it an arguably balanced race (5.5 points).
Referencing point system here: docs.google.com/document/d/1ViqLSEN67mmd2Lo_OJ-5YX0fccsfI97kFaqx7V1Dmw/pub

>Would reducing all damage/healing from spells
That is, damage/healing from spells to this creature, not from spells this creature casts.

Cleric
>2d6+5d8+15 (mean 47)

Fighter
>3d10+2d6+75 (mean 100)

Nigger are you fucking seriously trying to imply that a minmaxed cleric outputs more damage than a minmaxed fighter?

Also, fucking christ, it's this guy again.

What are its other racial features?
I'd have it receive about a quarter less healing than usual, unless the magic resistance is powerful, then half instead, or that they have to make a Wisdom save to receive full healing and otherwise receive only half.

When making your character, consider what type of magic they would be working most with. They have Resistance to the appropriate damage type (IE Force for raw arcane energy, Necrotic for necromantic, Radiant for divine, etc). This represents the specialized physiology your makers granted you.

Perhaps have a once-per-day neutralization of damage from that energy type, if you want to get particularly specialized with them.

I accidently fucked up as DM in Out of the Abyss by letting the party fight 6 Giant Spiders at level 2. They all survived it but 3 guys are at 0hp and the rest as like, 2hp. Should i let them have a free long rest without the persuer stuff?

I'd say yes, though I have a tendency to let my players off easy.
Also, how many of them are there?

Race: (Ishii)
+2 Con
Hardened to Magic (The reduced spell damage/healing feature)
Living Construct (As Warforged)
Sub 1: (Kurrok)
+1 Int
Size small, move 25
Cast Identify as ritual 1/SoLR
1 Artisan Tool Proficiency
Sub 2: (Mekka)
+1 Str
Proficiency in Intimidate
+1 AC when Wearing Armor.

>What is your favorite setting?
Home brew is best brew.

>Which setting do you most want to see released in official materials?
Maybe Spelljammer so people might shut the fuck up about it? Birthright, perhaps? I won't use it, but like to see my elegant gentlemanly friends happy.

>Nigger are you fucking seriously trying to imply that a minmaxed cleric outputs more damage than a minmaxed fighter?
Different guys, user, the cleric guy was making a cleric able to hold himself in melee not to outclass a fighter, follow the conversation chain. Veeky Forums is more than one guy.

5 charaters, a bard with no spells, heal cleric who has 2 level 1 spells left, fighter, barbarian and a ranger. They survived by calling in one of the NPCs for help

No. What good are mistakes if we don't learn from them. They should be happy they made it to level 2.

Check out the core races who actually get something related to saving throws. They only gain advantage, and only on certain saves. Dwarves have advantage on Con saves against poison. Gnomes have advantage on mental saves against magic. Halflings can reroll natural 1s in everything, including saves. But pay attention that those are all small races, with the detriments that being small has.

Assuming Hardened isn't too powerful, that's perfectly fine.
If you want advantage on all magic saving throws, I'd say that at the very least comes at the cost of having to make saves against ALL magic, friendly or non. Given that they're constructs, they might be unalterable, but not be able to be healed by magic, either.

Are we just going to ignore the elephant in the room that is casters are superior to martials?

They could simply face the possibility that the drow find them- but suspect their fellow party members are hopelessly dead due to the spiders around.
If they could be reasonably convinced the group was all killed, they might turn back and report as much, hoping that if any of them survived, they would kill their masters as per drow perpetual backstabbery.

>docs.google.com/document/d/1ViqLSEN67mmd2Lo_OJ-5YX0fccsfI97kFaqx7V1Dmw/pub

Dead link, but this is what you're referencing, right?

I tried to make it in line with a friend's preexisting homebrew from late 2e/early 3.5e days. Maybe I'll just ban players from picking it.

It's close enough (and probably more accurate).
As a general rule, if they qualify as 'superior precursors', they're probably not appropriate as a PC class.

I'm pretty sure the cleric guy said he could outdamage rogues, monks and barbarians.

>For me it depends on how badly he fails it, failing badly enough breaks the mechanism and makes it unopenable except by breaking
>Critical Fail skill checks
>an expert locksmith (with a +17 to lockpick checks) ruins the entire locking mechanism once every 20 attempts
Okay

>replying to previous threads
>ever

That's why you play a halfling to make it only once every 400 attempts.

You wouldn't roll unless there's a chance of failure though. If there's no penalty for failing the check then don't roll. Also bear in mind that a 1 isn't an automatic failure.

Should have mentioned this only happens when in combat or other stressful time-sensitive scenario

>b& for calling someone a n word
>people had wrong opinions
What do you expect me to do, user, my hands were tied.

better keep this post on topic lest i feel the wrath of the banhammer again - manacles can be broken by any commoner with one minute to spare

He said he could outdamage rogues
>Who deal 10d6+2d6+5
>Average 47
monks
>4d10+20
>Average 41
And SOME (he used the word some) Barbarians, mainly SnB and TWF ones. 2hd ones he even said that dealt more, but not much more (57 calculated by other dude I think)

>Inb4 Monk spending 5 ki per turn
Sure, and for 4 turns you deal more damage, and then you can't do shit. Of course the cleric could also use an AoE and deal more than the monk to more targets but that wasn't what they were talking.

I still think Rogue can do more, just make an AT and use Sneak Attack AND GFM (though I know lots of GMs don't allow this).

>GFM
Kek, I meant Green Flame Blade, or better Booming Blade and then cunning action to disengange and move to bait him into taking more damage.

>If you want advantage on all magic saving throws
Oh, I'm not that guy.

I thought about the can't-be-healed, must-be-repaired thing, but it seemed too 3.PF. I also had considered an armor/tool/weapon meld comparable to Keith Baker's 'forged, but it was another thing was more flavorful than functional or balanced.

I think I'll phrase the feature this way:
> Hardened to Magic
> Your body is engineered to resist titanic magical stress, for better or for worse. Whenever you would take damage or regain HP as the result of the effects of a spell, make a Constitution saving throw: on a success, reduce the amount of HP lost or gained by half.

Here's my answer-as-a-question to a lot of these questions about critical success/failure:
>Is it dramatically appropriate?
>Does it add anything to the situation?
>Does it raise tension in a situation where tension is lacking?
>Does it change the power dynamics of a situation?
In my experience, the DM acts sort of like an author for the Player Characters' novel.
Which means that he's got to put them through the wringer every so often- they don't always succeed, things go wrong, relationships between them and the NPCs can sour or develop.
But they can also get a stroke of curious luck, assisted by a friend they helped out or a fellow they spared, and they can have moments of incredible glory.
So sometimes, when you need to get into the corrupt baron's stronghold and the guards are closing in on you, when the rogue rolls a 1, the lock-picking tools snap and the lock is unopenable. Now they have to figure out a way to fix the lock as the hounds close in on them, or find another way in entirely.
If you're just cranking out locks at your shitty-ass job as a locksmith, it doesn't affect the story or the game whether you botch one out of twenty or one out of fifty locks, so there's no need to bother with critical success or failure.
The manacle problem holds here, too. The whole point of making it a DC 20 break is so that when the barbarian goes into a rage in front of the cruel overlord holding him in chains, he can break his bonds and immediately start beating motherfuckers with other motherfuckers.
If there's one thing that's hurt roleplaying games the most (especially D&D), it's assuming the setting is there to fit the mechanics and not the other way around. I'm not saying re-homebrew everything to taste, just understand why the mechanics are the way they are.

>early level group
>manage to kill nerfed archdevil
>one of the players carves a mask out of it's skull
>expresses excitement to use it as flavor for multiclassing to warlock
>DM shuts him down
>player shrugs, accepts it
>we all think he's gonna get warlock-esque powers or something the DM is working on
>next quest we have we stumble into the archdevil's level of hell
>kill him for real this time
>go home
>get a handful of gems between us from the trip
>the player with the mask gets nothing
>he seems a little deflated but says nothing
I feel like the DM missed a chance here, but the guy got a whole quest centered around him
Still can't help but feel a little bad for him having his hopes dashed
I dunno though, what do you guys think?

yeah, the DM fucked up. that skull mask thing was a cool idea.

>Player wants to multiclass
>GM shuts him down
Strike 1

I'm pretty sure they're making Eberron now, very slowly. It was one of the first UAs they made, and they recently slipped an Eberron option into the Gothic Horror UA (the inquisitive).

How do you think they should handle Eberron, given it's based around the 3e magic item shop that was removed in 5e? Aside from artificers and inquisitives, what options do you think there should be?

>AT and use Sneak Attack AND GFB (though I know lots of GMs don't allow this).
For what purpose. That strictly contradicts the rules of the game. In the future I'm asking my GMs before the game begins if they will rule this and if they do and they don't back down after being shown the relevant clauses from the manuals and the explicit ruling from mercer/crawford, I will decline to join.

Also:
>AT
Why not play a high elf (racial cantrip GFB) assassin for auto crits = double SA dice, double weapon dice, double GFB dice?

The DM gets no points for being a tease. The player came up with a cool plot thread; he shouldn't go home empty-handed.

I mean, the inquisitive got it's first mention in the SCAG appendices. If they're actively working on Eberron at all, they've been playing the long game.

>manage to kill nerfed archdevil
>one of the players carves a mask out of it's skull

>kill devil
>keep skull

>kill devil (on prime material plane)
>the skull and corpse remain on the prime material plane

user...

>How do you think they should handle Eberron, given it's based around the 3e magic item shop that was removed in 5e?
5e can handle giving everyone a decent number of magic items fine. Attunement stops a lot of things from being abused and having extra utility stuff is a good.

Besides, Eberron tends to go for pulpy, action-hero campaigns, so making characters more heroic, even through equipment, is a good thing.

I would have made the mask a minor beneficial magic item (something like 1 extra pact magic slot at lv1 in exchange for a hit die once per short rest) with a curse that only comes in when in that circle of hell

Then turned it into a major magic item (1 extra full pact magic slot)

>For what purpose. That strictly contradicts the rules of the game
Yep, and I still found quite a few GMs that ban that combo because it goes against """"RAI""""

>running an AT and using SA+GFB goes against the rules
wait, what?
I've been using exactly that for this entire campaign, whenever something manages to force it's way into melee range with me/I need to go into melee for some reason or another.

He kept the mask and since we're switching to 5e now he's going to take the magic initiate feat so he can get himself some warlock spells without having to multiclass and thus circumvent the DM but I have no idea how he's gonna take it, as a threat to his authority or something
We all talked about it later and the DM basically said that he should be happy he had a whole quest centered around him, the player never brought it up again but I took issue with it if I'm honest
I'm not entirely sure how these things work, I'm still reading up the lore on monsters like that I really love the dragon stuff, I want to have a full conversation with one But the GM has specifically said he thinks a world is boring if it has "too much lore" so he's never defined anything about the world except a map of the country and the names of the cities

It doesn't go against the rules, user, just that some GMs think it goes against RAI (I found some that think it goes against RAW also, even when you point them the rules)

Yes we are, because no they aren't, not in any way that anybody actually cares about for purposes other than trolling d&d threads

Wouldn't that depend on how the devil in question got to the Prime Material? A summoned creature disappears when dispatched, but one that arrive via interplanar travel (gate, portal, vortex, what-have-you) may be considered permanently and properly present.

Get a new DM

That reading comprehension thooooo
mad skills desu senpai

to answer your question, SA+GFB does not contradict the rules. furthermore AT is not the only method to SA+GFB

>That reading comprehension
uh? I'm not quite sure what I'm missing.

>spoiler
I'm aware it's not.
I just wanted to make one, and GFB was a nice little bonus.