/5eg/ DnD 5th edition general

Chad edition

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What is the most "Chad" class/race/ background combination?

Variant human fighter.

Half-elf Valor Bard.
Search your heart, you know it to be true.

(You)
After that, we made a lot of fetch quest and basically tried to make our way in the higher rank of the order while doing the least amount of actual work possible. We lied, bullied, stole, traded favors and sometime busted heads in the name of the Scarlet Flame.

In the beginning, the mage wondered if Ardeshir was really a paladin, but he managed to convince him that everything they did was for the Greater Good. They always had the best food, were never sent anywhere dangerous and nobody messed with them, so it helped make the argument more convincing.

It did not last, though and one day, reports of an undead army that were sent since two months finally made their way to the outpost, and the duo was chosen to negociate with their leader (A Lich) and ask him what would make him go, all according to the standard procedure. They tried to explain to their superior that it was suicide, and the officer told them that if they refused to follow order, they would be demoted and put to latrine duty. Of course, between a boring life of cleaning toilets and an encounter with a bloodthirsty army of undead, they made the reasonable choice and choose to go see the Lich.

On their way to the crypt, they fought a few bandits, some undead, they also met a caravan that fell into an ambush and help themselves with its content after Ardeshir helpfully ended the suffering of the mortally wounded caravaneer (He just had an arrow in the left ankle but that sort of things can get ugly)

And the Noble background.
This makes me want to write up a Chad statblock.
Funny, I actually had a 'Chad' character that fit the bill for this. He was a huge nerd in secret and his Chad-isms covered up the fact that he was hopelessly lonely due to being raised as an aloof knight with no idea how life outside of war and nobility actually worked at least until he got married.

Half Elf Valor Bard Noble for max chad?
Or maybe Gladiator fluffed as an athlete.

Oh Arthur, you so unlucky.

I mean, fuck.

He's also annoyingly unreliable comparatively speaking with his hit rate even after factoring in his bonus against other weapon types he's supposed to counter with his axe.

Meanwhile you can just get away with bullying enemies to death with neutral matchups on units that hit like a truck anyway, or have some mean gimmick.

Silver Lining. His kid is fucking godlike if you get Arthur to bang Effie.

>Oliveball 'Gladiator'
Seems appropriate.

I love using him for his crit rate
Thank you, you just gave me a foil for one of my players who is also taking the noble background.

I'd give you a character sheet link, but he's in a running game as an NPC now. It's complicated.
If it helps, he has Dragonchess proficiency, 20 STR and 16 INT, and no ability score below 14 (I rolled godly for him). If he lived in modern times he would probably spend as much or more money on wargames as he does on booze.
His wife is... not a Stacey, but she can pass for one when she wants. 20 CHA.

What's the difference between the Adventurer's League and the book versions of the adventures?

AL adventures are usually stand-alone adventures only tangentially related to the campaign's storyline.

So, pretty much everything.

Then we arrived in front of the Crypt and met the vampire who was guarding it. This guy was special, because we were destined to meet him several time during the campaign. Each time, he would try to pick a fight with us. Each time, Ardeshir would convice him otherwise with a mix of lies, reverse psychology and insane troll logic. The first time was easy, we just told us that we were here to speak with his master. He then led us through a labyrinth (Because apparently this crypt was made to prevent the people in it from getting out) filled with traps.
We spoke to the Lich (Who was very polite and even made some small talk with us), gave him the letter from our commander, and he asked his undead scribe to write an answer -which seemed surprinsingly short- sealed the letter and sent us back on our way.

But the vampire did not wait for us outside and we had to go back to the entrance alone. We thought for a second about knocking back on the Lich's door to ask for direction but we thought that it would make us look like complete idiots, so instead we decided to navigate the maze filled with traps. The mage and his magelight were super useful, he solved most of the riddles and he was starting to become very useful in combat. Instead of direct damage, he was using all the funny debuff and the ennemies were always tripping, blinded, confused, dazzed while I pushed them in traps or punched them in the face.

Then he saved my hand as I was going to put it in a hole to pull a lever, by suggesting that I first poke it with a stick. Claws appeared out of the rock, breaking the stick in tiny little piece. At this moment we became bro and I told him who I really was, he thought about some way to hide my alignement if we met a real paladin, etc etc, it was a bonding experience.

Reminds me of the time a friend showed up at a game, declared "I'm making Kanye West" and proceeded to roll nothing below a 16.
The GM watched him do it. It was incredible.

So he's that guy who is ripped and looks like he should tell you about his sports trophies, but you go into his house and find shelves of expertly painted minis on display?
Maybe before he meets his wife, or before he's married to her, he deliberately acts like a jock and designates mental tasks he would be great at to other people.
Sometimes he slips and says something insightful, but just covers it up with a "or something like that."

That's pretty cool, I guess.

Something like that.
His wife indulges his nerdiness because they do actually care about each other, even though it does look like she plays him like a grand piano (and to some extent, she does).
If there was a team game and they needed one more person, she'd probably nominatively show up and let her husband play for them both while belittling or screwing with the heads of the other team for her amusement.

(Don't look at the image before I say so !)

After that, as we did not know what time it was, we decided to light a fire in one of the biggest room of the crypt (That we were painfully mapping), eat a bit, and sleep the 8 hours necessary for him to get all his spells back. The night goes without any incident, we continue to wander the maze, and suddenly we find a pile of items on the floor. We start looking for useful things and the DM rolls for magical items. We found a magic amulet that allows the wearer to throw one chromatic orb per day, he take it. Then we found a one-handed axe that seems magical. I take it, and it's a cursed weapon that I cannot remove. But on the other hand, it gives me half of the damage I make in health, which is godly. There is another problem with it but I will only discover it much later.

The problem we have now is that this pile of treasure belongs to someone : A Minotaur, who starts chasing us in the labyrinth. The mage and me manage to drive him on a pool of grease that leads to a pit filled with spikes, and then we use him as a bridge to get on the other side. After a few minutes, we find the exit, and meet our friend the Vampire. He tells us that his master did not ask him to leave us alive, and we answer that he did not ask him to kill us, either. While he is dazed, we leave.

The good thing with the fact that me and the mage were now bro was the fact that I could now summon my trusty charger. It would not have been a good idea before, since it looked like pic related.

Anybody have the dark souls pdf?

...

Also have the first level chapter of the actual book.

What?

Thanks dad.

AL is always related but takes place in a different geographical location. Published adventures are typically along the Sword Coast, and AL is I think somewhere along the Sea of Stars. Never done AL but I think thats right.

Who is Chad?

So if I wanted to run Curse of Strahd at home but play at my game store, I'd be okay and wouldn't spoiling anything for myself?

Some douchebag from Fire Emblem Fates.

A stereotypical jock asshole
The pic isn't a chad, I just love how he looks and want to run a paladin using his picture.

AL starts at level 1. The hoard version has chapter one of the campaign, the princes one has the first level side quests.

I mean... if you want to run Curse of Strahd you should read the whole book before even starting the first session.
I think the beginning of AL starts out in Faerun but it moves to Barovia eventually. I haven't done it so I can't really comment on this season.
But if you want to run CoS you should read the whole thing.

ok, I (very quickly) read through a few of them. The AL this season seems CLOSELY but tangentially related. So I don't think it will per se ruin CoS for you. But I still think it will be tough to play AL and run CoS without spoiling some things for yourself.

Can he actually be a Paladin in-game?

I just looked it up and yeah, he can. Which is probably what I'll do whenever I get around to finishing that game.

Why aren't Warlocks Int casters?

Because it was the secondary stat for warlocks in 4e, and grognards would be triggered.

Why isn't Medicine an INT skill?

And Survival, for that matter.

Glut of INT skills

>grounds
>4e
lel

Shit that should say grognards, obviously

They were cha for the last 2 editions. Why should they be int anyway?
Because the dnd definition of wisdom overlaps with the Webster definition of intelligence in some ways. Also perception for some reason

We need Con skills.

Most things that would seem like a con skill tend to feel like they just outright shouldn't be skills

Holding breath. Ignoring pain. I dunno I got nothing

Odd that Athletics is STR, when strength is unnecessary for most real world athletics.

I like the idea that the warlock is unlocking mysteries from the other entity as they level rather than just being granted powers so I like them as int casters
Not that guy though

Thinking of making a Binder subclass for Warlock. Going, to essentially make it change his bonus spells, patron gift, and invocations between preset lists associated with different vestiges on a short rest.

My question is, from a balance perspective, is the added versatility too far from the Warlock's design philosophy? Narrow spell list and limited types of invocations are supposed to be a balancing factor for them, right?

Is anything you use con for something you get better at with training? Or is it an innate inborn skill?

You can definitely train up your endurance for lengthy periods of strenuous exercise

The problem with that is endurance is your con score itself

I'm not that familiar with binders, but is the idea that they make smaller pacts with lesser powers, rather than one pact with a larger power?

If that's the case, what about trading in spellcasting (except for cantrips) for more invocations and the power to change them on a (short?long?) rest.

Well, the problem with that is:
A) spellcasting is a core class feature and removing it is beyond the scope if a subclass. I'm trying to keep this as tightly knit as possible.
B) Almost half the invocations require spell casting to function.
C) Spells are a nice versatile way to capture the flavor of a Vestige.

How about an option to pick proficiency with Constitution (Concentration) instead of a con save for spell concentration?
We already have pushing and grappling be athletics-based.

They didn't study for their magicks, they just made a deal with some other force.

Charisma, representing the force of personality thing, fits the class quite well. After all, you're drawing your power from something you didn't learn but recieve, just like your old Sorcerers. Alternatevily, using a pact as your 'focus' could be somewhat similar to using a musical instrument as one, and Bards are also Charismatic.

If someday they change their casting stat, it'd be Wisdom, since Willpower is tied to that and I'm pretty sure you can make a point or two about being able to stand whatever your patrons included in the deal.

But Intelligence? That's reserved for something you studied for from the very beggining, and the other classes that qualifies under this are Divine Spellcasters, and I guess we can agree that WotC does the right call at tying them to Wisdom since spellcasting is secondary to their fluff.

Got an arcane trickster-like boss who may be fought at some point.
They have an improved haste spell that allows them to take an additional turn each round at initiative-10 and are likely to summon shade-like mobs during the fight.

Everything will be fine, right?

Call the second turn an "after image" or a "shadow clone" or something equally ninja-like.

Because they shouldn't exist.

Neither should half the classes.

>WotC will never have the balls to have Fighter and Wizard be the only classes

Give me a reason why all characters couldn't be made as archetypes of those two YOU CANT

Afterimage sounds good. Likely will restrict its movement so it can only move each 5ft if the move takes it closer to the caster, so it could move diagonally towards and a little away from the caster to hit something before going towards the caster but cannot move at 90 degrees from the direction of the caster. Probably make it so each takes half health damage but they share a health pool, to make the otherwise not-so-tanky rogue-like boss able to take hits from that size of a group.

Wizard could be a subclass of fighter. They're like fighters, only they're squishier and fight using magic!
Why not just have an 'adventurer' class and have everything be a subclass of that? You could have subclasses like 'wizard', 'warlock', 'bard', 'fighter', 'barbarian'...
Oh, look, it's the exact same thing as we have now!

Athletics for pushing and grappling is a mistake.

There should be a seperate skill line with seperate free proficiencies for directly combat-related skills such as for keeping concentratiom, disarming, throwing objects such as bombs, identifying enemy abilities on the spot (rather than nature checking everything using an action to find that bears maul people) or to taunt enemies.

How do you handle critical failures, especially in combat? My dm rules that either you shoot yourself with an arrow, you stab your buddy with a sword, or you accidentally throw your weapon away. Is that a dick move or just how it goes?

Usually something unusually bad, but not -directly- damaging to the players. Throwing their weapon by mistake, tripping and falling over prone, getting their sword stuck in a crevice in the wall, or things like that.

Dick move

>However, realize that point buy can lead to
irritating min-maxing, and rolling for stats can create characters that are exceptionally skilled in this grim, deadly world.
Didn't Dark Souls give whatever class you chose pre-set stats? Why not make it an option and have a default array for each class?

Doesn't exist. A 1 is a miss/fail for attack rolls and saving throws. That's it.

As long as you somehow tie in trading souls for stat points this is good

Stupid question: If I have an arcane focus, I don't need material components? As a warlock if it's relevant.

Correct. Unless the material components have a cost and/or are consumed, in which case you need those specific components.

So one of my players is playing a Ranger in next weeks session.

I want to buff favoured enemy combat wise in some kind of way without making the Ranger too strong early on. What would be a good idea to do?

I make it funny but never have it impact gameplay

>I throw my dagger!
Rolls a 1
>You misjudge the spin, the dagger's pommel smacks you on the nose, you scramble a bit and regain composure, but yes, everybody saw that. You are embarrassed

>new book coming out gives players the option to play as a full on Orc

What if a full Orc and an elf are in the same party? How could they possibly work together? Same with Gnomes and Goblins, Goblins have been raiding gnomish mines and villages for centuries, how could a Goblin and a Gnome get along? Is the forgotten realms entering a Martin Luther King era? Will Orcs and Elves meet up and have one big hug of equality?

Tell your player things some meta-gamey things the ranger should know about an enemy he has studied thoroughly

"The ogre is badly cut and bruised,he must be at just under half health"
"The lich is hanging on by a thread! It looks like one more hit should do the trick"
"The creature's eyes shift nervously toward the door, a well placed word of discouragement should demoralize this creature and cause it to flee"
"Hydras tend to grow new heads after being decapitated, using fire to burn the stumps should make it easier to slay the beast"

And so on

Natural 1 isn't a failure on saving throws in 5e.

The "Saving Throws" section is on page 179 of the Player's Handbook, and it makes no mention of natural 1's or 20's. This is contrary to the "Making an Attack Roll" section, which has a subsection "Rolling a 1 or 20" on page 194.

Saving throw bonuses don't usually get high enough to make a 1 succeed, but you can make a Paladin who only loses concentration through high damage (22+ in a single hit) or unconsciousness. (Resilient feat + Aura of Protection)

...

Give them their capstone at first level.

It's hilarious how little this does to actually fix the Ranger. For any other class that would be crazy talk. But it's not a bad idea.

>Orcs become playable
>Every party must now include elves and Orcs getting along together as best buds

I'm not sure if you're trolling or just took WIS as a dump stat

Exactly why I suggested it. It makes them better against their favored enemies, but its still only a few points of extra damage each swing. If they're not fighting their favored enemy, they still suck.

To make the Ranger more effective overall, they should get the ability to use that Hunter's quarry ability for 1d6 extra damage way more frequently. Give it to them for free twice per short rest or something.

>Evil alignments become playable
>hurr durr what happens if Evil and Good are in same party

My bad, didn't mean it like that, we had a lot of discussion a couple threads ago about character races mixing horribly in settings like the genasi and goliath, was just trying to get some sense on what /5eg/ thought about Elves and Orcs being in the same party in the Forgotten Realms setting. Pls no bully.

The book doesn't mention it, but what effect would a rope and a grappling hook have on climbing? Nothing at all? Just a straight Athletics check?

I've got an 8 Str archer (shoulda gone for 10) and I'm thinking of climbing on top of roofs to get better vantage points. Would I be better off just using a ladder?

Well the rope and grappling hook would allow you to attempt to climb things like straight castle walls, which you probably couldn't do unless you were a thief rogue

On regular climbs you could do normally they might reduce the DC (DM depending) but other than that there is no benefit

Well the DM decides on that. I would give advantage if it makes sense in the situation.

>spell sniper feat via variant human at level 1
>eldritch spear invocation at level 2
>take 2 levels of sorcerer to get distant spell
>can now cast eldritch blast from 1200ft away
>literally don't even have to be on the game map to do damage

Has anyone ever done this? You could be a magical assassin for hire.

>archer with str penalty
Why are you doing this to yourself

Still new to D&D, only started playing last year. This guy's my first archer. Live and learn.

Fair enough just remember not to skip leg day next time

Would you still need line of sight?

I really like this idea. If one of my players were a ranger I'd do this

Most likely, but spyglasses are a thing.

That does have a gameplay effect though.

>throw dagger
>miss
>don't have dagger

>throw dagger
>hit my nose
>still have dagger

Depends. I have them do a d6 and the roll dictates the effects. Melee, ranged, and spells all have different outcomes except rolling a six just means they missed and to praise the RNG gods that nothing else happens.

Effects can be being knocked prone, accidentally attacking teammates near/on the way to the target, being knocked prone, weapon durability damage, enemies getting an AoO, etc.

But enemies get these same effects as well though, and everyone is fine with them since it makes fighting more unpredictable and it's actually saved their asses in multiple situations.

Why do people constantly ask questions that are irrelevant with DM control over setting or player agency?

Are there really this many people who only play Forgotten "because it was so fucking boring" Realms? Can these people not conceive of any deviations from these official settings?

I guess I shouldn't be surprised, this is a guy who basically asked "hurr, what happens when a good guy player and a bad guy player are forced to team up"

I don't know why you guys think Ranger sucks so much. My party has just reached level 5, ranger, monk, paladin, bard, warlock and me as rogue. Suddenly my sneak attack is nowhere near as impressive. Whereas I'm at the most doing 5d6+4 damage per turn, if I can trigger it, the ranger is doing 2d8 + 1d8 (colossus slayer) + 2d6 (hunter's mark) + 8. And they have spells, Cure Wounds, Pass Without a Trace, all things that make a huge difference for the party. Don't get me wrong, I still rather play a rogue because it fits more what I want and I'm having fun being a Swashbuckler, but rangers aren't so bad as people make them out to be. At least the Hunter archetype isn't.

Oh, right, overlooked that detail

Well you could just say it bounces off your face and lands some distance away

>mfw our ranger has -2 strength mod

>elves
>good
LISTEN HERE YOU KNIFE-EARED PIECE OF SHIT

They really aren't, the ranger has been shown many times to be able to keep up with a fighter in damage at high levels

Rangers are balanced mechanically, or at least hunters are, beastmasters just need a small hp boost to the beast

What people complain about, which is the features being somewhat boring, can be fixed with having a semi-decent DM

Do you mind sharing what each number did for melee, ranged, and spell attacks? I'd like to try this out

>They didn't study for their magicks

that's not what the book says