/5eg/ D&D 5e General

Fire Elementals with Orc Swords

Sword elementals with fire orcs

Fire orcs with elemental swords

Fire Swords with Orc Elementals

S Word elementals with forks

Not exactly the greatest thing ever but I saved several party members from a lightning bolt cast by a demon lord once with a counterspell. I think I rolled a 21 on the check so idk what level it was cast at but it was stopped regardless.

Now, the greatest bout of luck I ever had with a wild magic surge was the greatest thing to happen to any of my characters. So, my group was in the underdark in one of the demon lord's lairs and I'd been pushing my luck with the pasrez*(?) that causes the wild magic effects down there when spells are cast by casting guidance every time someone needed help with anything. Eventually, on the way to the boss room, I got hit with a wild magic effect and got the surge. The following was the greatest series of roll ever. I ended up getting a third eye, gained the mirror image effect, hada cloud of feathers and a cloud of fog surrounding me, and began to radiate light. Then, the second I walked into the boss room, a super powerful magic missile exploded from my hand and flat out killed one of the 3 creatures in the boss room which was apparently a cleric. No other noteworthy effects happened until the last surge happened. I got blue skin at the end, as a permanent reminder as to what happened. It was a wild ride and I got lucky as hell.

Colossal orcs wielding giant fire elementals wielding huge orcs wielding large fire elementals wielding medium orcs wielding small fire elementals wielding tiny orcs

Elemental swords starting orc fires

sounds hot

>Female Human Fighter character
>Player tells you, the GM, that she was originally a guy, but got a Cursed Girdle of Strength and a gender-swap
>She uses whatever magical item or potion she can get to try for the same curse
>She is a pretty big tomboy because of it too

Would you allow it? I really want to do it so that the 'playing the opposite gender' roleplay quirks make sense, and for the lulz

I wouldn't allow it if the magic items are still on that character sheet rather than just a backstory curse that happens to be permanent.

i have a pair of players whose characters were gender swapped when they died.

The girl player is playing a dude who turned into a chick when he died.

The dude is playing a chick who became a dude when she died.

i think they did this to get around the fact that i dont allow cross playing in my games.

did i "win" or did they? i honestly cant tell

I'd personally allow it, but it's my fetish anyway, so I'm probably biased

Could always say they threw the gender-swap belt into a river or something out of anger, just so you don't have to worry about the player having one.

I could fluff it that something else swapped him, or that he just sold the belt because he couldn't stand having the thing that cursed him

Honestly the trinket could just be the now spent cursed item or something like that.

Maybe an empty vial that had some gender-swapping potion in it, that he was tricked into drinking thinking it was something else?

Is there a reason you don't allow cross play in your games? You state it sort of nonchalantly but it strikes me as weird; there has never been a problem specifically related to cross playing in any game I've been in.

That's actually better and plays into my theme of betrayal.
I wrote down that a wizard misread detect magic, but I could have that wizard just give him a false potion, maybe give the DM ideas for a revenge arc? Good stuff

its just something that makes me uncomfortable and i tend to default genders to the person playing IE: i refer to male players characters as he, him out of habit.

im not going to rage a sperg fit about it if someone just HAS to play the opposite gender, but it does make me uncomfortable

Yeah sure. I'll make a mental note of it to expect you to come out as trans at some point though.

Similarly, I had a 3rd level Wild Sorcerer/Arcana Cleric who fervently believed their erratic magics were imbued with divine purpose, and it was their duty to understand their meaning. When casting Mending to fix a broken "preserve the land" relic inside an abandoned temple, a trap was triggered and the chamber began to fill with sand. Everyone else fled, but I remained to finish casting. By the time I was done, the door was blocked and I was trapped. Began burning spells slots and Tides of Chaos to trigger Wild Magic. First got healing, then minute o' magic. Got hair loss, then alcohol immunity, but as the chamber completely filled, got transported to the Astral Realm for a turn. Came back outside the chamber, and ran out of the temple with bonus action teleports speeding up their escape. Having risked their life, they were saved, and rewarded with a moment in the home of their god, his belief became even more fanatical.

Fair enough. It isn't something that happens all the time in my group, but I think all of us have done it at least once. Guess I just never crossed my mind as an odd thing, as long as the character makes sense.

If you throw a gender swap belt into a river, it develops kinks.

Has anyone used Animate Dead in an actual game? How much support does it provide? Were there 'consequences'? Has anyone lost control of their summons?

Pact of the Tome lock, what two first level ritual spells from book of ancient secrets are there that arnt pretty much useless
the only things im seeing are alarm, identify, and find familiar. everything else seems situational as fuck like seeing if a potion is poisonous or reading shit you dont know how to read and several of which show up as other invocation options anyway

I think it sounds pretty good

Find familiar and identify are pretty much the go-tos

I'm having trouble seeing how that even happened if you didn't want it to.

Oath of the Sorcerer-Lord MkII.

r8 and h8 m8s

Remove Curse is a 3rd level spell

Bend magic is stronger than regular metamagic

The resistance thing is a bit complicated

Other than that it's ok i think

What's the intention for Raw Magic? Keep in mind the teable was designed for players, and has more good effects than bad.

Servant of the Sorcerer-Lord might be too powerful, given Paladins already get +CHA to all saves.

I like the concept though. Is it for Dark Sun?

What is a sorcerer lord?

Does anyone have any guides or tips for building a rich city environment? Players are planning on inciting change in a city and I need ideas.

You can only use a Channel Divinity option once per rest
Yeah I'm not sold on Raw Magic. Any ideas? Its also specifically a Wild Mage thing and the sorcerer-lord you serve might be draconic or favored soul.

I just read it in the DMG under changing class features, but it could be used for Dark Sun
Uber powerful sorcerer who a paladin swears an oath to

How about restoring spell slots equal to 1/3rd of your paladin level?

I've already given spell slot restoration to the Oath of Arcane, as similar to Wizards

You could inflict Raw Magic without it costing channel divinity and it would be a ribbon feature.

You could give Dragon Sorc Pal's proficiency in speaking Draconic.

There's a girl in my group who recently started dating my friend and it's annoying as hell. She plays a druid who does like archery and shit, she doesn't use a lot of her spells since, like all girls, she's not a very competent player. I'm trying to think of a good way to get her character killed off, but subtly. I'd like to do it in a way that isn't traced back to me. I've been considering loaded dice for the GM but that might get me killed as well. She sometimes asks me for help leveling up her character (she's 6th level right now) so are there any bad options I can offer to gimp her? Or spells with unintended effects that she might kill herself with? I really just want her out of the group at this point but I'll settle for killing her character if I can.

Since raw magic is a way to disrupt casters (I'm assuming) you could change it to reflecting a spell back at the caster, or perhaps absorbing a spell and gaining a corresponding spell slot until you next short or long rest. Both are fairly flavor neutral.

Posting my own paladin oath for review, questionable flavor and all

How bad is it?

Oh man, you AGAIN? Look, just because she turned you down...
Does anyone else have the pic, so anons know better then to deal with this guy? The one with all his various posts?
This has got to be the fourth or fifth time that I've seen.

How bad is what?

I can't believe you're still at this.

What's their story?

to be this butthurt ?

Dwarf is actually a creepy wizard who keeps him waifu under constant mind control, that pic is him reapplying the mindcontrol spell as she tries to finally regain her freedom after so, so long . . .

Trips confirm. I was going to say he's a dwarf priest trying to cure her blindness, but she looks way to distraught for that, and he looks way too somber.

bro following her home and sleeping in her bushes outside is totally not stalking. he just totes wants whats best for his group mang

A creepy wizard in what must be full plate? That looks too bulky for his medium proficiency.

I swear, I've seen this music video.

Still at what?

You still havent explained what you are talking about.

Holy shit, I remember you!
Dude, you've got issues.

For a second I'd wondered if you might be a different user just memeing, but now you've confirmed it's actually you or you're another user who is breddy gud at copying him. 10/10 in that case, congrats

He took his first two levels in Fighter for Action Surge

She's about to die a terrible and agonizing death. Dwarfbro prepares to euthanize her with a quick neck snap and spare her all that suffering, but he takes no joy in this solemn duty.

This is more evil than mindcontrolling a waifu forever.

...

So how do I actually get a DM to go along with my Gender-Swapped Fighter character?

Say it was due a cursed belt of gender bending :^)

Make it gender swapped from a woman to a man.

So is it completely awful to play a (probably half-orc) dex barbarian who goes rogue 3 (assassin)/Barb 5 to play a frothing rage machine that springs from the shadows? Pick up TWF and dual wield rapiers to spring from the shadows and obliterate things with assassinate.

Present the DM with a female fighter who was originally a dude who got cursed (or vice versa). Worst case, he never brings it up again and your stuck playing a chick (or dude).

Make a character whose personality and life goals don't revolve around the gender-bender experience. Basically, write the fighter properly like any other character you'd make, then include this gender-swap event as well as how your character feels about it and how it impacts their goals. If your character feels like their gender identity is the most important, or god forbid only important part of their nature, then you've written a poor character.

why are you giving the paladin cantrips at 3rd level when every other oath gives 1st level spells

Tell them that if they're allowed to do it, so can enemies.

So much this. Nothing was better as DM than doing a silent roll on a d20 for a 1 and telling that backstabbing motherfucker that a common thug slit his throat while he was wandering from a tavern at night and he was dead, five levels-worth of work down the drain.

On the one hand, it's fair to tell players "Hey, if you want to be able to one-shot enemies stone dead, they can do the same to you." On the other hand, murdering player characters with a single dice-roll is the kind of adversarial GMing that drives a wedge between players and game master.

Perhaps a better compromise would be to ask your group in advance whether they want high lethality or low lethality with those kinds of actions, and that it's a double-edged sword. That would definitely be more mature and reasonable than saying "Well, you tried to slit that guy's throat last session, so I had an NPC thief try it on you and they succeed. Make a new character."

One roll that has to a critical failure per day is hardly poor gamemastery. Not only that, his fellow players were the ones telling him to stop because it was invalidating their play.

First, I think it fits the flavor more. Secondly, it adds a lot of utility to the archtype. Third, I feel that setting back the Oath spells kind of evened out the Channel Divinity.

I suppose I could give the cantrips as part of Balloon Trick, then straighten out the spell list to be more in line with the other Oaths, but it feels a bit weighty to me.

What do you think of it?

>On the other hand, murdering player characters with a single dice-roll is the kind of adversarial GMing that drives a wedge between players and game master.

Its not a problem. Remember: the players are the ones who chose this path. The players are the ones who wanted this. Its their decision, not yours, that instead of a hit point system, we should just "roll to instant death" people.

I had PCs use Antimagic Fields, Sunders, and Disjunctions on enemies in 3e, for example. Then I informed them that monsters generally aren't hampered by such things, only PCs and NPCs, and that they should quit it. So when the cleric closed in on a lich with an antimagic field, he gated in a powerful pit fiend. Trapped behind his own defenses, it was a contest of a 3/4 BAB muggle vs a tough fiend and he died, then he got soul bound.

Never had a problem with PCs doing that again.

Yeah, this is basically how the game works. If they've managed to sneak up behind an enemy (Stealth roll vs Passive Perception) then they have advantage on the attack roll which is likely to cause it to hit and gives them two die rolls to try to crit with. If they're a Rogue they'll get Sneak Attack too.

Obviously the game isn't written for it but I have to say I kind of dig the idea of the bloodied state in 4e. A nasty sneak attack could start combat off with the enemy bloodied and give you an advantage.

At least Reject-user putting a different spin on his story this time. But for now, his salt-quest continues.

Let's say there's a game that might involve Planescape coming up, and I want to run a Human or Wind Genasi Storm Sorcerer who was previously indentured to a Djinni, and received their powers when sent on their way. Would probably be extremely formal and continue to clean things for the party and make tea at regular intervals, as they were wont to do for their former master.
Is the idea _fun_ enough that I wouldn't upset fellow party members with how much I love maid aesthetic?

I think as long as the character itself isn't naturally subservient in personality it should avoid being annoying.

It could work, but you need to have them be more like a head maid or a team mom of sorts. They'll take care of chores like that, but they won't just let people boss them around and do everything for them.

Play it up as them being a sort of habitual neat-freak.

Does anyone have good music recommendations I could use for Death House/CoS?

Huge chunks of the Darkest Dungeon soundtrack are on Soundcloud.

Dark Souls Firelink Shrine/Majula themes work great for ambiance in more peaceful areas.

And of course, Bloody Rain for Castle Ravenloft proper.

Bloody Tears, I mean.

Here's a few hours of creepy noise.
youtu.be/g-zV0YqtAxo

youtube.com/watch?v=ho9rZjlsyYY

you can only make an opportunity attack each turn?

It takes your reaction, which you only can ever have one of, so: yes.

its a little more... i dunno, upbeat than some of the other suggestions, but the Alice the maddness returns soundtrack is fitting, good and spoopy

a few of the tracks definitely wouldn't work though, because of the level they were made for
youtube.com/watch?v=AOP26WOOMbc

Dark Sun when

Does 5e restricts more your roleplaying than any other edition? i feel that allocating your skill profeciences once in the game killed it a bit for me

How are those two things related? It even introduces mechanical benefits to roleplaying through inspiration and advantage/disadvantage.

There's a variant rule in the DMG that gets rid of assigned skill proficiencies and instead of having a set number of selected skills you are proficient in, you add your proficiency bonus if your background suggests you should. Only works if your group aren't a bunch of Hendersons, which is why it's just a DMG variant, but talk to your DM about it if you feel your group is RP-focused enough to pull it off

no, in the sense that "being good" at a skill, meant putting points into it every level. which is the same as your proficiency bonus
if you want to become better at something while playing, you get a feat, multiclass, buy training, or talk to your DM.
you didn't have time to pick up new Knowledge (specific ass religion) or Perform (Cock whistle) while your reasoning for getting better at things was "killin alot of evil fuckers"

Absolutely not. I've always felt more hindered than helped by the 3e skill system, while I absolutely loved 2e's prof system, and 5e hits the mark more.