/5eg/ D&D Fifth Edition General

What would you like to see in a new Warlock Patron?

We've got dick-ass trickery and plant shit in the Fey, healing and blasting in Positive Plane, survivability and explosions in Fiend, and mindfuckery in the Great Old One. What's left?

I'm kind of leaning towards a reality-alteration Warlock. Spells and effects that change creature perception (illusions, mindfucks like the GOO) or physically change the world by summoning, transmuting, or working actual materials (in addition to getting your mindfucked pawns to do the same). Another possible element is the revelation or keeping of secrets and being a sneaky fuck, with spells that supplement what the Warlock can already kind of do with certain invocations. Is that too similar to the GOO or Fey?

I was looking at something like this for patron spells. Obviously some of those levels need to be pared down, but I'm not sure what to drop for the best theme cohesion. Some of these, like Compulsion and Speak With Dead, can be gained through invocations, so replacement suggestions would be nice.
>1: Silent Image, Charm Person, Fog Cloud
>2: Gust of Wind, Phantasmal Force, See Invisibility, Pass Without Trace, Silence
>3: Speak With Dead, Clairvoyance, Sending, Blink, Wind Wall
>4: Compulsion, Fabricate
>5: Modify Memory, Creation

I'm going for stuff that fits Vestiges, the patrons of a sort for Pact Binders.
>therafimrpg.wikidot.com/vestiges
These are beings who exist (arguably) outside of the normal flow of time and perception, though many of them were presumably mortals before. They have been forgotten by men and gods and the cosmos themselves, but through strength of will or perhaps just a consequence of being entirely forgotten and forsaken, they endure. They're all different from each other, but their strongest shared desire is to experience reality again, and to that end they make deals with mortals, living vicariously through them and often forcing some aspect of their being or personality onto the "host".

Groups fell apart or PCs died before lvl 4?

GWM Fighter:
8d6+20+40, average (with GWF style) 92 damage.
Without spending any resources. If you crit or kill something along the way, you can attack again for 2d6+5+10 for an extra 23 damage on average. It goes higher if you add in Champion's extra probability of critting, or Battlemaster's superiority die.

Always. I find it leaves me with less regrets due to poor character build choices. I also find it fun. I don't see why you shouldn't. It's not like your unmade decisions are set in stone, and if you never see those higher levels, no big deal.
>it cuts you off from possibilities down the road
How? Just pick the other options if they present themselves.

Old, but I've gotten an interest in Monks as well:
I honestly don't think there's a really good multiclass for monks. You could go with Cleric or Druid for the spellcasting since you've got WIS but I dunno if it's really worth the investment of a level? Same with going Rogue for Sneak Attack and Expertise...

A shadow monk 6/assassin 14 gets you some crazy alpha strike potential

Monk/BM fighter for maneuver spam
Shadow monk/warlock for devilsight + darkness combo
And monk is a dip for druid to buff AC/wildshape

Kk, I dunno shit about 5e. Where do I find out about these Shadow Monks, they're a prestige class right?

More shit from the old thred: These were pretty great! :3

Classes have archetypes selectable at level 3. Shadow monk is one of five options for monks. There are no (published) prestige classes.
You should probably familiarize yourself with the game before thinking about MCing

5e does subclasses rather than prestige, betwen level 1 and 3 you specialize in 1 of 3 or more paths
Monk gets way of the open hand, shadow or elements for instance

Ah, yeah I remembered that just as I pressed the post butan. :3 It was the "Shadow Monk" expression that confused me, sounded like talking about a whole different class.
Though I've no idea of what you mean by MC?

>specialize in 1 of 3 or more paths
>ranger gets 2
being a ranger is suffering

Multi Classing.

So I'm having a bit of an issue with my group. I'm generally the guy who does most of the talking, even going so far as taking an almost leadership role. The issue is that my character, before leaving home, was a farmer.

I want him to feel less comfortable in a leadership role, as well as looking to others for leadership, but no one else speaks up. When I'm genuinely stumped on what to do there are silences, and our DM has to do something to jar us, and I end up picking up the slack.

Don't get me wrong, I'm having a blast. Last session alone we outmaneuvered a goddamn giant squid in a mini magical submarine, I blew the fuck out of a transport using Thunderwave, and we're currently planning a way to get back into a city while it's under siege (and also we've been captured due to said transport blowing up.)

So, tldr: How can I get the rest of my group to actually so shit?

>implying farmers can't be natural leaders
EMOND'S FIELD REPRESENT!

Why not just use the favoured soul origin?

Nyarlathotep.

Blade pact.

Use a crowbar.

>Sorcerer only gets 2
>Druid only gets 2
The difference is that unlike ranger both choices are decent.

That's a good fucking point.

Sorcerers got boosted to 3
Still no love for primal casters

GWF has a significant penalty to hit though, and the guy fucked over by not counting in hex damage.

It's largely negligible at high level with the generally low monster AC but scaling to hit

4 actually.

Dragon, Wild Magic, Favoured Soul, Shadow.

And I forgot Storm. So 5 origins total.

I'm ignoring UA since that's more iffy on the allowed materials scale

So they only have 2 origins if you ignore the majority. Gotcha.

Storm is in SCAG

Pretty hype for the tv show. Also hype for the inevitable RPG tie in.

So you just ignore half, not the majority.

Eh, for some reason WoT never struck me as something TV worthy. Seems like a movie budget would serve it better, but it's way too long for that. It'll be interesting how they portray Trollocs at least.
First Law Trilogy miniseries when?

It's good form to just assume UA is not allowed, saves you headaches later

Pesronally I allow everything minus one or two UA options like ambuscade ranger

I generally assume UA is allowed, but the DM can freely tweak their features. Some of them are very powerful when compared to the alternatives, after all.

I have an idea for my Fae Warlock's patron, but I feel like I need help expanding upon it.

So for starters, it isn't a single Fae, instead it's a whole trade organization. Now of course it isn't for-profit in the way mortal ones are with silly coins and the like, but I'm certain such a group isn't too far-fetched for the Fae. Basically I was thinking my character, a merchant, somehow wandered into a Fae Trade Moot and somehow struck a deal. What that deal is I'm still not sure.

And what does he have to do in return? I don't really have much on that either, sadly. Maybe he just hands out business cards to everyone he deals with, telling them he'll "See you there!", all the while leaving out the fact that the Moot itself is a rather dangerous place for mortals to be. I don't know.

Groups fell apart.

I've played with DMs that don't even know the UA exists. Best thing is to assume it doesn't exist too.

I've played with retarded DMs too, user.

MAKE THE CAMPAIGN GREAT AGAIN!
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It's shocking, but not everyone cares enough to monitor online releases that are admitted to be unbalanced playtest material.

Yes, I know people that have attention spans of a goldfish too.

Barbarians have 3 but 2 of them are shit.

Barbarian has the illusion of more because of totem variety

I never really read the berserker, but you're right, it's kind of shit.

To be fair, choosing different totem options provides quite a bit of customization.

IMO the WOT main plot has too many characters to do in a movie. The theme is at least partially about how the three characters manipulate the fate of countless people in a complex almost unpredictable pattern.

I'm more excited for the triggering it will cause. When it lures tumblr in with it's depictions of female dominated society, only to demolish their hopes with a traditional male figure who wins by dominating magic and disregarding a lot of bitches.

innocent ignorance=/=mental defect

it always annoyed me that there are classes with tons of subclasses (wizard/cleric), and then classes that only get 2, one of which is boring as fuck (druid/circle of the land, sorc/draconic origin, bard/valor)

How do you roleplay a psion? I'm interested in them from the UA (not fully finished, but I never wind up in campaigns that go on that long), but how do you play them in your games?

I feel like that could backfire terribly if the writers decide to take some "liberties" with things.

>innocent ignorance=/=mental defect
It turns into a mental defect once you tell them about its existance and they continue to ignore it.

How is the berserker shit? Free bonus action attack from level 3, invulnerable to charms and fear mid-combat, even the capacity to make other creatures afraid of you.

I just let them ignore levels of exhaustion up to their con mod

>Free bonus attack
Exhaustion though. From experience, it can be fairly brutal.

But you're right, it can definitely be worked around, especially if you don't care about skill checks. They're not actually that bad.

have you informed the DMs user was talking about of UA?

Elitists who believe theirs is the truest form of magic, turning thought to effect with no intermediaries of gods, arcane symbols or any such nonsense. Add god complexes to taste.

Alternatively, the enlightened, those who have broken the illusion of reality and achieved a zen like perspective on existence.

Alternate alternate: reskinned sorcerers with a bunch of bent spoons.

I really want to see a binder pact where the warlock summons entities into himself.

In a recent campaign I was a con artist who used his psychic powers to make people think my shitty charms and trinkets were worth something.
For an immortal you're basically a Jedi. Just pretend you're Obi Wan and have fun with it.

Decide how your character manifests your powers, and roleplay from there.

An knowledgeable erudite capable of projecting their will upon reality will likely be a calculating sage, stoic and wise, perhaps arrogant or cruel. But a passionate wilder who manifests their basic emotions as psionic bursts will be far more capricious and emotional. An empathic psion is going to be more attuned to the mood and spirit of those around them, and some psions may even be indistinguishable in manner from priests or wizards.

Think about all the psychic characters throughout fiction, and think about the styles and mannerisms that resonate with your character concept.

So, my current universe's lore allows for the use of black powder rifles as a dex weapon. I want to make them powerful, but still fairly balanced.

>Black Powder Rifle
>two handed
>1d8+2
>Must spend a full action to reload it
>effective range of 50ft

>Black Powder Pistol
>one handed
>1d6+2
>Must spend a full action to reload it
>effective range of 35ft

Bonus actions overlap with many things. TWF is impossible. To enter a rage in the first place is a bonus action, so they don't even get their effect for a round.
I let them ignore exhaustion while in frenzy, and at higher levels remove 2 levels of it per long rest

Exhaustion after frenzy ends, yes. You can't frenzy again before taking a long rest without stacking up on Exhaustion, but you can still rage and hit things normally. I'd call that very manageable.

There are basically two ways of getting this done, ignore exhaustion like said or give extra benefits when frenzied, I would go with option a, but there are other ways
> "take the attack action as a bonus action" instead of "a single weapon attack"
>double STR bonus
>higher crit chance

Any other ideas?

These are not at all powerful. One attack every 2 rounds, completely negates extra attack.

The damage is nice, but they're just too slow.

>Take the attack action as a bonus action
Too OP when multiclassed with fighter.

I'd like a summoning pact, and one that focuses on the elements.

A voodoo pact, that takes the "fucking with NPCs" of the GOO to a new level.

I made a witch pact one. It didn't really have too big of a theme besides witch myths and bargains.

>> "take the attack action as a bonus action" instead of "a single weapon attack"
This is a very bad idea. Barb 3/fighter 17 pumps out six attacks a round. Just add an extra attack to the normal attack action. remove bonus action consumption altogether

Just use the dmg weapons, they are balanced enough

I see what you mean, though honestly just removing exhaustion/ignoring it up to con mod seems to do the trick

bonus action attack action is way overpowered
doubling STR bonus is too much
higher crit chance steps on champion's already tiny niche

I'd still have issue with the bonus action. They lose the ability to use the GWM bonus action attack, and that feat is probably the reason you went berserker to begin with

How about coupled with "at level 6, when using reckless attack you can choose to do 10 extra damage instead of gaining advantage"

Why is a short rest 1 hour and a long rest 8?

This doesn't make sense to me. The encounter balance is supposedly 2-3 encounters per short rest, with 2-3 short rests per day.

That means the average adventuring party is fighting 6-9 different groups of people a day, and this is normal according to WotC.

That's a mass murder spree, not an adventure.

Having short rests be 1 day, and long rests be a week would make way more sense. That way the lifestyle rules are actually meaningful, and you can fill the adventuring days with exploration and social encounters, with combat being spaced out.

>Hoouse rules and campaign adaption

That's a variant rule called "gritty realism" in the DMG

That would add even more damage then just gettung an extra attack, and again boost fighter to insane output. 3 attacks + bonus action + 10*4 GWM + 10*4 reckless? Just give them the extra attack.

That's pretty much the gritty resting variant in the DMG. I'm using it myself with a few changes (the diviner wizard can use his Portent ability per short rest instead, for instance) as my games are fairly light on combat. It's working well so far.

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I ran death house and that's about how many fights the players got in. The specter, animated armor/broom, the grick, the ghouls, the ghasts, the shadows, the shambling mound, etc. Battles are constant in published adventures

Okay, I'm trying to choose between the sorcerous origin for my sorcerer, a dwarven lady.
I can't choose between wild magic and storm, can anyone help me out?

I like this a lot, the too-smart-for-their-lot-in-life kind of angle. Good for an adventurer to slowly learn they aren't nearly as great as they believe, and can improve themselves.

I've seen psions lumped in with sorcerers a few times, and it confuses me. I feel like they are quite different, with sorcery being more blastery and evocation heavy and psionics being more along the mind magic routes of psychic damage, illusions and shaping things. Also, very much towering intellect vs. powerful force of will.

I feel like some of those tread much more along the lines of charisma-based magic, but I fell like this is maybe a point of contention in interpretation of psionics.

Reposting this since I threw it at the end of the last thread.

This is Martial Dice from the Martial Options homebrew cleaned up and simplified.

>I've seen psions lumped in with sorcerers a few times, and it confuses me.
Some fiction depicts psions as naturally gifted prodigies. In that they are like sorcerers, and would likely share personality traits because of it.
I also read a book where sorcery was the word used for psychic magic, so there's that too

>Also, very much towering intellect vs. powerful force of will.
This is why people hate Psions.

I'd say dwarven lady could related more to draconic bloodline, with the treasure hoarding and cave/mines love in common with dragons and whatnot.

Honestly just chose whatever you think fits your character's past/style more.

Wild Magic is a lot of fun if your DM is a fun guy. As a DM, I wish every group had a wild magic type player. That sort of interaction between players (player uses a feature, so the DM gets to next, and then the player gets to, etc) is an example of really good game design, and one of the few examples of such in 5e.

My DM is thinking about running the Curse of Strahd adventure, so I'm considering playing a Ranger with Favored Enemy Undead. But, I've always heard the core implementation is underpowered, so I'd like to know what alternatives there are.

There's Unearthed Arcana: Rangers, but it only covers levels 1-5, and I'm not sure how long I'll be playing this character. Also, Unearthed Arcana: Modifying Classes includes the "Ranger with No Spells" which sounds fun, but I feel like it would still suffer from balance issues.

Are there any other obvious alternatives I'm missing? I'd be willing to look at homebrew, if someone has a suggestion.

so my current players are the classic "new to D&D familiar with RPGS" murderhobos

The town they're about to arrive in is run/taken over by a gang. They'll demand the party pay a fee to enter the town, and I am 90% sure that my party will just try to murder them

I will have the gang explain that the entire town is packed with members of their gang, and that not paying the fee/attacking them will incite all the gang members to attack them on sight

how should I go about handling this in the likely event of my party continuing to be drooling retards? I kinda like the idea of stomping their shit and throwing them in a dungeon to teach them some humility, should the party go about doing stuff in town stupidly

TLDR how do I make a muderhobo party not be murderhobos? we're only like four sessions in so there hasn't been any consequences to their stupid shit yet, but I want to make sure that there will be in the future

In what way?

So would I, but Vestiges are so varied that it'd wind up as an archetype with a bajillion sub-archetypes.

Oddly enough, I think the best emulation of Pact Binders is Psions, but replacing the concentrated Disciplines with a bound Vestige instead. Maybe adding something like that to the Warlock would work, but it seems like a bunch of special snowflake rules.

The five level ranger is overpowered, the maneuvers ranger is underpowered. You can get by with hunter ranger, just remember to get sharpshooter and pick the right favored stuff

...

Is this the first town they've been to? If so, yeah, have the townspeople/gang handle it appropriately.

If not, and they were murderhobos in the last one too, potentially have the first gangsters to see them attack them on-site, and then when the dust settles have a wanted poster with crude drawings that roughly match the party's description be among the loot they pull from the first band.

Alternately, skip the gang and let them do their thing. Are they having fun? Is their fun preventing you from having fun? If the latter, why don't you just let them know you're looking for something a bit deeper and ask that they find a new DM?

Let them slaughter people. If they fail they're capture and given a chance to escape, if rhey succeed the bandits surrender and they can take over rhe town. Of course, everyone won't trust them, and backstabbing may occur

If they've been getting away with it for 4 sessions, it's likely you'll get all the blame when they're finally punished.

But as for this specific case, don't have the gang loudly announce that they're some evil gang. Have them act as "guards" (even if it's clearly a farce), explain that the money is a show of good faith on their part, and that they won't offer any protection to people who enter the city unlawfully. Try to make them think of it as a tax, if they feel obligated to pay it they might be less apt to try and cheat their way out of it.

Also, make sure there's some something physical like a "passport" that they're getting in return, even if nobody in the town recognizes it. If it feels more like a legitimate transaction, they'll be less likely to attack the people hitting them up for money.

You should probably consider giving them some non-gang-related combat encounters outside of town. If there are some goblins or whatever they can spend time killing instead, they might feel less like they need to pick a fight with the gang to scratch their itch. Or if they really want to be bastards, they could give the goblins some weapons and send them after the thugs guarding the gate, that way their hands are clean.

What are your rules for long rests?

I don't let my players long rest more than once in 24 hours, since it's munchkin as fuck to rest for 8 hours in between every fucking encounter, which is what they'd do if I let them

if they try to rest in a dangerous spot I roll random encounter (for both short/long)

how do you guys do it?