/5eg/ Fifth Edition General

What are some good advice columns and articles for more experienced DMs? There's a lot of stuff out there for new DMs that I've been reading, but a lot of that is common sense to me after 15 years. Still, I want to step up my game so what do I read or try now?

I had a website but lost it, it had the stats of a ton of 5th edition monsters. Any ideas?

After DMing that long I would look at other peoples created content, both to see what DMs people think are good are doing and to steal it and reduce your work load.

onepagedungeon.info/2016/

This is a list of dungeon contest winners, they are all one page and usually pretty creative and give experienced DMs a lot of leeway.

Other than that theangrydm is cool enough.

Theangrydm is right about 50% of the time. I could write some angry rants about his angry rants.

The one page dungeons look nice though, thanks!

A player showed up with a homebrew class because he didn't like the way any of the existing ones played.

It was a samurai with lots of anime style special moves, extra attribute bonuses, and no resources required to expend for anything.

Hi.

I come from /a/ myself, and if I were you, I'd tell him he was a faggot and to play a Fighter like a sane person.

For what reason

I don't encounter problems with Vista, haven't hit a program that won't run under it yet (Discord was tricky, but I made it work), and every OS after it has a shittier version of MS Paint which requires modifying a lot of system files to get back (and is restored/undone the moment there is any kind of OS update or problem). Also, don't have to pay for an upgrade.

>literally only advantages are mspaint and inertia
Well, more power to you I suppose.

Reposting this little bit I made for those who'd be interested in transforming weapons and whatnot

Well, what are the advantages of 7/8/10 if I don't have a problem with Vista working to begin with?

It's not really a big deal until April 2017 when security patches stop rolling out for Vista.

I used Windows XP up until a few years ago. My laptop that I never use still has Vista on it as well. I don't see the big deal here. I heard a lot of bad things about Vista, but I never had any problems with it at all.

Yeah if it works, it works. It's the rate at which it doesn't work that's the real issue.

So, what? I just got lucky or something?

>/5eg/ - Operating Systems

It's just Veeky Forums being Veeky Forums.

Little bit. It's not exactly a miracle that you didn't have a problem but enough people did.

Story time! So when Vista released I was working at a big box electronics retailer. What happened was prior to Vista's release they were selling machines with WinXP and a 'Vista Ready' (or maybe 'Vista Compatible'?) sticker. They also promised a free upgrade to Vista if you bought a new machine within a certain time frame.

First thing I learned about selling laptops is the vast, vast majority of people (often parents) are going to buy the $300 craptop that is barebones for WinXP. Very different crowd than the slightly tech-savvy nerds that make up a decent portion of traditional game players. So you have these super cheap laptops with Vista rolling out or people taking the free upgrade from WinXP to Vista on machines that couldn't run it well. Additionally the default on Aero effects use the video card and laptops (especially cheap laptops) have terrible video cards. "Vista sucks, it's so slow compared to my computer with XP!"

All that aside Vista wasn't all that great from a technical and security standpoint when it released. The updates leading up to SP1 and especially SP2 were really important in improving it. People really hate on it but they forget how much of a gong show WinXP was before its first service pack. It happens every time and people are dumb and forgetful.

t. Former technician, and current MCP

Anyone think the cantrip scaling could have been useful as a general power progression, for both magic and martial? I'm reminded of 4e tier improvements.

>I'm reminded of 4e tier improvements.
That could very well be why they didn't do it.

All the martials have power progression (more sneak attack die, higher Rage damage bonus) except Fighter. He's reliant entirely on archetypes. Second Wind's +FighterLevel is the wimpiest thing ever, and Action Surge remains the same. Their third and fourth attacks will almost never be relevant due to most parties just not getting that far. What's left? The extra feat at sixth level?

Veeky Forums what's a good way of making an alchemist with minimal homebrewing? I have a player who went fighter and took the Tavern Brawler feat for profiency on throwing stuff like acid vials and alchemist's fires.

Pastingfromthread:

Hey I've gotten into a group of 4, I only know one other person will be a dwarf fighter and we're all going to be noobies, and I'm itching to play a Paladin. We're going to be playing Lost mines apparently.

I want to try and avoid lawful stupidness, being THAT GUY and being edgy / brooding in a corner, as a foremention.

So essentially, this guy lived in a small farming village, I was hoping for greek-like land but I couldn't find any near Neverwinter so I chose a little north of Amphali, which is 3 miles north of Waterdeep.So at 13 his father gets sent to hell via succubus. The paladin wants to get his father back, and at first tries the Bard College of Valor as he's heard the myth of Orpheus, but he fucking sucks at being a bard so after 3 years he quits and returns to his farm village, his mother has remarried and doesn't really seem to care about pally's father's disappearance, and with the help of the two little brothers of pally they keep a small farm.

He stays in village for 4 years, and in that time reads up on mythology and the Gods at the church either in the village or at Amphali, and has gotten I'd say in shape as he's been working the fields.

At 20, he sets out.. and I'm not sure how to connect this to becoming a paladin and being at the mines. I'm not sure how one becomes a paladin, how would a deity recognize him? How strong would my character be? I know you're supposed to be essentially luke skywalker at the beginning of 4, so does he only have leather armor on? Or would he already have plate mail?

Also is this backstory edgy? I didn't want to be generic hurr durr i've always been good, but I also hate feeling like I'm being an edgelord. Anyhow, what Deity would he follow, that would allow him to get his father out of hell? Also what if a CE rogue shows up? I don't want to just be an asshole and follow him around saying he can't do this or this, would I just try and offer peaceful methods of approach?

>except Fighter
Extra attack counts, it's comparable to cantrips level progressions. Also battlemasters little tricks scale.

Honestly it's pretty close, it just lacks having it scale at all the same levels. The only real stickler is the spells, you get better ones as you level but a 1st level damage dealing spell soon falls behind a damaging cantrip.

How about superiority dice size and Cantrips and crit chance? There's something in every subclass. Whether they are actually good or not is debatable though.

> Tired of DMing with my friends, looking to play a 5e game for the first time with people i met on a pen & paper forum
> DM and his brother were playing a shitload of Warhammer and WoW Burning Crusade
> They are obsessed with rules and basically play the whole session like a theater of the mind wargame: in 8 hours of Out of the Abyss we fought 7 encounters, some of them pretty forced
> For instance when we sneaked up on a random drow priestess, DM forced us to play the whole encounter like a fight despite the fact that we were 5 PCs grappling, restraining and gagging her alone.
> He argues that in D&D you never can assassinate/cut someone's throat/take someone hostage because, and I quote, "a dagger only deals 1d4 damage"
> His brother agrees with him and refuses to deal non-lethal damage to the priestess so we can escape the camp safely by holding her hostage. Thus we have to fight yet another bunch of drows/quaggoths and only out DM playing like shit (basically throwing his drows in the barbarian's arms) keeps us from TPK

to be continued

Thief rogue. Use fast hands to use items as a bonus action.
Apothecary/Alchemist set to make simple potions, acids, bombs, etc.
Medkits as well.
Be the doctor.

continued

> At this point, 7 hours in, DM's brother complains that "his character's build doesn't make sense" and wants to change character. Everyone is waiting for him to make up his mind for half an hour. I suggest that we could finish this session with this character and he could change for the next session. He finally decides to keep the same character.
> After the first 8 hours of session and since we have to stop at 10, DM forces us to go into some weird dungeon despite the fact that we're supposedly being chased and tracked down by drows and shit
> After basically throwing the boss encounter of his dungeon he gives a +2 weapon (dawnbringer) to his brother because "it fits his character"
> DM also showers us in rewards and gold for the littlest things because "it's funner this way". We already have 6 magic items and 250gp in one session and we're all level 4
> At this point I'm pretty sure we're never going to have a challenging encounter ever
> DM called me twice this week already to ask me if I'm willing to host another game in july, I don't have the strength to answer

should i, Veeky Forums ?
could it get better ?
so many red flags...

I think Superiority Dice do the best job at staying relevant throughout the game. You can never not benefit from advantage and adding extra die to attack and damage rolls.

I'd DM at that point. You can't possibly do worse.

Is lead generally considered a magica insulator? Does it require a lot of lead for it to take affect? I'm curious as I'm trying to determine weather or not bullets should be able to be enchantable or not.

What the FUCK? Level 4 is ONE session? I've done ten sessions of OotA and we're only now level 4. Well, granted, we'll probably hit level 5 tomorrow, but still.

>A dagger only deals 1d4

Your DM is a faggot and is ruining OotA for you. Leave. OotA is amazing and doesn't deserve to be tarnished by his faggotry.

Little brothers are a plague upon role-playing groups. Either the older brother dotes on the younger one, the younger one just agrees with everything the older one says, or both. And they will both defend the other ones that guy type behavior.

Maybe. You could say it holds a charge anyways though. Maybe say lead is suitable for a temp damage bonus but you'd need embedded magical materials for anything fancy.

Eh...my brother and I play in our Wednesday game, and I've tried to avoid doing that. Granted, we may strategize to help one another out, but we also help the rest of the group.

>Extra Attack counts
You get the third at 11. Pretty much no one gets to fucking 11. And now that I'm looking at it again, Barbs don't really scale, either. Rage Damage starts at +2 and doesn't hit +3 until level 9, and stays there until 16. They're stuck with 4 rages from 6 to 12.

Superiority Die only noticeably improve at 7. That's when you get two extra moves and an extra die. The damage doesn't go up (and only then by a HUGE d2) until 10.

Compared to full casters which are getting additional spell slots every level and whole new tiers every other on top of more archetype features, more class features, and spell damage scaling options (using higher slots) it's easy to feel underwhelmed by the general sense of power progression with martial classes. Fighter in particular is heavily front-loaded, and that level 7 improvement to their archetypes is one of those "utility" ribbon deals but winds up being so fucking bad that not only can every other class attempt it anyway, it's pretty much never going to be useful to you in the first place. At least Barbarians can see for a mile around.

But it's hard to do anything to Fighters to rectify this without nerfing their early game or making them overpowered. They just have to deal with being boring schmucks.

Yeah but i mean, would YOU dm for these guys? I think current DM would be OK with me DMing but I'm not sure i want him, and ESPECIALLY his brother, as players.

Plus I kinda wanted to be a player for once. And I still got to do some fun shit in this session, as a bard...

Is this the wrong place to be asking this?

Dude, we're comparing class features to cantrip scaling, not to spell level progression.

Many spells which involve far-sensing are explicitly blocked by certain amounts of materials. They'll say something like "you can't sense what's beyond two feet of wood, one foot of stone, four inches of metal, or one inch of lead".

But they're talking general density and stuff. There's nothing explicitly anti-magic about lead or denser materials, they're just blocking whatever natural phenomenon like radiation that the sensing magic happens to be utilizing to get its effect across (the difference between "magic sound waves" giving you sonar and "natural sound waves formed by magic").

That's the only way I see salvaging the situation, outside of leaving them entirely. Your skills at 'tard wrangling I can't know from here.

Yo. how would you do the shadowcaster?

i believe it would make most sense with the warlock casting progression and spells per short rest, though the pacts are a bit... lackluster. any ideas on an ability to replace pacts or a way to reflavor pacts in a way that fits the shadowcaster?

Tell you what, describe the shadowcaster in an efficient way and we'll base class features on how you describe it.

I think backstory is OK. "Hell via succubus" is a decent band name and I like the mother remarrying and not giving a fuck anymore - it's uncommon in backstories, yet it feels realistic: people, especially women I'd say, move on.

I think you have to make him find faith somehow. Maybe he's enslaved, or he simply has to find some shitty work (the mines themselves, perhaps?) that makes him realize life is tough and some people gets the absolute worse end of the stick.

I think when you're making a character in 5e you almost always want to think about your subclass from the get go. With Paladins especially, knowing what Oath he'd take would make smithing your backstory easier. If he's really stubborn about saving his father from hell, maybe Avenger would be better.

I don't think your DM should allow characters with very opposite alignments in the same party, but don't forget that a paladin in 5e isn't tied to Loyal Good either.

Just my $.5

Any idea with which deity he should follow? I'm unfamiliar with the multiverse as I'm a first timer.

>two whole quarters
Look at Uncle fucking Moneybags over here, boys.

Shadowcaster, as described in tome of Magic, was unique in that shadow magic isn't actually like regular magic. You had fundamentals which were kind of like cantrips and you have Mysteries which had themes about them and the way it worked was in order to advance in the mystery you had to go from first to the next one and the way it worked you started by casting mysteries like spells, then like spell like abilities, then as supernatural abilities I believe if I remember correctly.

For prestige classes, one of the stand out ones is the Nocturnemancer which was based around controlling the "shadow" of magic such as dispelling spells, making yourself immune to a spell you were affected by or recharging the uses of your mysteries.

I'd think to translate it into 5th it'd take it's quese from the mystic where mysteries functioned like disciplines excpet you had a resource to spend on them like spell points or superiority dice or something.

>Playing a paladin
>get sent on deadly quest by the king
>offered one of two escorts, a caravan of mercenaries or a select few of the king's guard
>Friendly with the head of the king's guard, ask him in private if there's any from my church amongst his ranks he could select
>says he can
>get provided with a cleric, fighter and ranger as escort
>DM asks me to roll perception to see if I recognised the cleric
>I do from passing him on occasion and we get friendly quick
>2 months later I find out he and the others have nothing to do with muh god at all

Turns out the church I went to that city to train under was actually some sort of superchurch which had all sorts of religions under it and that they were picked out at random. It wouldn't be an issue plot wise really, but I'd been taking sermons with them, buried one with some religious items and the king's guard does have a load of members of my religion in it to pick from anyway.

No more religion m8s ;_;

alright.

so a shadowcaster is very similar to a sneaky wizard but with multiple ability dependency. in 3.5 this was split between Int and Cha, with Int limiting max spells and Cha for save DCs.

Furthermore, a major feature of the class was its ability to warp regular magic through its connection to the plane of shadow, thus they do not cast spells per say, instead they cast 'mysteries'. cantrips are fundamentals of shadow that are slightly stronger cantrips. mystery progression was very different from regular spellcasting as per wizard or sorcerer, however. This progression gave the shadowcaster irregular boosts in power when they are first able to cast 4th and 7th level mysteries. This was due in part from a significant power boost in lower tiered/leveled mysteries becoming spell like abilities, or supernatural as higher tier mysteries are unlocked. Thus, 7th-9th level mysteries will always be cast as spells, 4th-6th are cast as spell likes, and 1st-3rd are cast as supernatural abilities, with each tier gaining an additional use per day.

>continued

Mysteries themselves were broken into 'paths' with bonus features or feats becoming available depending whether the shadowcaster chose many different paths or specialized in one or two, further differentiating shadowcasters from regular spellcasters.

Yeah I wasn't expecting that from people in their forties, but I gotta say the DM going back on his multiclass ban TWICE because of his brother's indecision was... yet another red flag. Ugh.

I've heard/read great things about OotA and I was very eager to play it. As a DM I usually go with milestones for leveling up, and try not to make people level up in the middle of a session since it's a bit annoying for some people. Our barbarian basically had to wait an hour throughout the session because our warlock and I had to pick our spells.

I guess the best thing about this whole experience was the confidence boost for my DMing (^:

Yea I'd say you have the right of it. But I wouldn't try basing anything on the current mystic, at least a draft of the full version is necessary to be decent. Going on without that would be tricky.

That's if they ever get around to doing the mystic. I'm afraid the grognands may have moaned and made other weird noises enough that it doesn't fit their medievel europenis settings or maybe they are taking their time before they come out with the splats for Dark Sun and we'll see Mystic in all it's 20 level glory.

I dunno, psionics are established enough that there should be enough grognard support. And if anything the mystic take on it is even more medieval fantasy themed than before.

But it'll probably take forever to get it right.

Speaking as someone with an encyclopaedic knowledge of FR religion, you're gonna have to give us more character personality and backstory if you want a God that's tailored to that.

I can tell you that Tyr (JUSTICE) is popular in Neverwinter, while the big Waterdhavian Gods are mostly magic-oriented (and Tempus [1v1 ME FAGGOT], but he's an asshole). Other popular gods in the region (but not really concentrated in various cities) are Tymora (get lucky), Lathander (get jacked and smile about the sun), and Chauntea (Mother Earth).

Torm (LOYALTY) and Ilmater (help the lepers) round out the usual Paladin Trifecta with Tyr. Helm (guard stuff) is close, too, and probably the coolest dude of them all because he chills out and gets the job done without being a crazy bitch about stuff. Tangentally related to Tempus is Red Knight (play chess and study battlefield tactics) but she's boring as shit and every character following her winds up the same.

While you can have any deity (or none at all) as a Paladin now, there's not a whole lot left for humans. Of those that traditionally allowed Paladins while the LG and One Step rules were in effect, you have Eldath (don't fight, sit by the lake), Mielekki (unicorns!), Kelemvor (...eh), Kossuth (FIRE), and Savras/Azuth/Deneir/Mystra, which are all various flavors of "magic".

You can use Player's Handbook, Appendix B (page 293 to 299) along with the forgotten realms wiki to find a god for him.

Honestly it depends of how he finds faith, makes him realize that the Divines are important. You could work with your DM to find something good that you'd both like to play with - with your character(s) and through the plot.

One way of seeing things, to me, is that a Cleric is someone that's raised in the holy orders. It's kind of his profession, it's kind of his routine.
A Paladin, without necessarily being a fanatic, is someone that got "strucked" with it. One day something happened and, ever since, he's kinda obsessed with the questions that "something" raised... And he can't see himself fighting for - or against - anything else.

Obviously that's one way of seeing it and it's probably not even a good one. I'm just spitballing here.

Thanks for the help, I'm working on some JS right now but later I'll try and fix the backstory. How long / fleshed out are backstories generally?

great stuff friend, keep it up!

Yeah, hopefully it'll make people less squeamish to allow them in their homebrew settings as well.

I thought you guys might like this. A buddy of mine used these stats for his Sorc:

10
10
15
11
11
17

In order from Str to Cha. He's now lamenting that his Mage Armor gives him no armor. I keep making fun of him for fucking up so bad. How much would you guys make fun of him?

What are you on about? Mage armor increases his armor class by three.

But Mage Armor does give him armor.

I thought you guys might like this. A buddy of mine used these stats for his Barb:

17
11
15
10
11
10

In order from Str to Cha. He's now lamenting that his Greatsword gives him no damage. I keep making fun of him for fucking up so bad. How much would you guys make fun of him?

Is his subclass dragon sorcerer? That'd be the only way mage armor is useless.

Now *you're* just trolling.

Not enough to avoid being hit LOL

At least your barb ain't dyin' like a bitch every encounter lmao

>Completely missing the point

Storm Sorc. At least he gets a free disengage on spell casts, otherwise he'd have invoked the Dark Gift multiple times by now.

I thought you guys might like this. A buddy of mine used these stats for his Druid:

10
11
15
11
17
10

In order from Str to Cha. He's now lamenting that his Shillelagh gives him no AB. I keep making fun of him for fucking up so bad. How much would you guys make fun of him?

I thought you guys might like this. A buddy of mine used these stats for his OC race:

31
19
27
7
24
4

In order from Str to Cha. He's now lamenting that his race only let's him do x4 crit damage on 15+. I keep making fun of him for fucking up so bad. How much would you guys make fun of him?

u

>lol casters R teh best cuz they never get hit

You're a retard.

He's just trying to birth a shitty meme, ignore him.

I thought you guys might like this. A buddy of mine used these stats for his Rogue:

11
17
15
10
10
11

In order from Str to Cha. He's now lamenting that his rapier doesn't do any damage. I keep making fun of him for fucking up so bad. How much would you guys make fun of him?

No problem.
I'd say if you're going out of your way to ask for tips you're already working more than enough on your backstory. It's difficult to say though, because it usually depends on your DM and on your party. Some DM really like being able to use their PC's backstory. Some DM absolutely give no shit and only care about their scenario. Both styles have their drawbacks, and you usually can't really do anything about it anyway.

I'd say: add a traumatic event, something not too cheesy about religion, and you're good to go. As the sessions go, you'll get opportunities to flesh it out more. It's pretty good I think to stay vague about your backstory, because you may use that sometimes, and come up with improvisational tidbits that'll help you in game. It has to be done reasonably and without forcing the DM's hand thoug.

For instance, one of my players once suddenly mentioned that her character was very good at fishing because she used to spend her free time by the riverside. Obviously she didn't tell me about that beforehand, and obviously she needed the advantage on that damn roll - but why would I care? It helped flesh out her character's background and made her character look great, it helped my storytelling, and it helped another of my PC to not drown like a fucking idiot.
Everybody wins.

>user wants to laugh at his dumb friend
>it turns out user is the dumb one
Are you trying to secretly kill the Druid in your AL game, too?

Rapier uses dex..

Honestly, I think you're overthinking it. A sleek, simple backstory is usually better since no one else cares about your character as much as you do and you want to give them less to remember. E.g. does his mother's remarriage affect him in a way that his father being sent to hell does/could not?

My personal rule of thumb is basically to tell as much about my character as I'd put on their profile for a dating site.
>where they're from
>what they do/did for a living
>any hobbies?
>personality?
>their best anecdote

As for being Lawful Good, a good angle is being like a parent who just wants what's best for their child (except your child is everyone). Disapprove of the rogue stealing stuff, let him off with a warning the first time, tell him if he ever does it again you'll be forced to take action.

Beyond that, suggest taking on quests that help the needy ahead of quests that pay well; always try to be the responsible one, bringing more potions than you need and not taking risks with other people's safety; and look for lawful-good solutions to problems, so if a noble has an important plot item, see if it's possible to negotiate for it before you try to steal it.

>Rapier with +5 to hit and +3 damage does no damage

In what way is laughing at my buddy for having 13 AC after a spell slot me being dumb? He spends most of every encounter rolling death saves.

>LMAO THAT MAKES U TEH DUMB NOT HIM

Veeky Forums in a nutshell folks. I should have expected such retardation.

Dear Veeky Forums,

I only recently realized that AC is treated like a DC and you don't have to beat it, matching it is still a hit.

Love,
Idiot.

Hey guys im looking for some help, im running an 8 man campaign and they all said they want to go to a volcano. trouble is i cant think of what they would fight that is out of the norm, like i could have em fight mercs and orcs but they do that else were and i feel like they wouldn't care for that. so do any of y'all have any suggestions on what i should pit them against or any idea in general with volcano and lava?

fire.. anything?

fire-orcs
fire-mercs
fire elementals
fire giants
fire beatles
fire table settings
fire W-2 forms

Some ice based being that is eating the heat and gaining power

Salamanders, Azers, Efreet, Fire Giants, Magma Mephits

I'm in hell.

And if anything, it's only anti-Divination. Imbuing bullets with magic would probably be Abjuration (or possibly Evocation or Transmutation or whatever you want the bullet to do).

...There's gotta be a rule that you gain a minimum of one hit point, right?

that would be a funny boss
i figured i could do that, wasn't sure if i should though
thanks ill take that into account

Here's the example I made in the last thread. Just a 15 minute mockup of templates. If you want the possibility of fucking things up, make it an optional rule, like how it already is for familiars.

I'll explain it for you, since the other guy's beyond help.

He posted a story ridiculing his friend for casting Mage Armor, presumably while not having a lot of Dexterity. What he failed to realize is that Mage Armor doesn't care what your Dexterity is. You get +3 AC. If you have 10 Dex, this puts you at 10. If you have 14 Dex, this puts you at 15. If you have 18 Dex, you've got 17. It's +3 either way.

The joke here is that he's failing to understand how the spell works, the same way that someone who laughs at a high Dex character using a finesse weapon for "no AB" is failing to understand that you can use your Dex instead of Strength with a finesse weapon. Now he's trying to cover his ass by pretending that a flat 13 is somehow unplayable for a ranged character.

If he wanted us to laugh at his friend, all he had to say was "he's playing a Tiefling", because that's the only way you get that kind of stat spread with point buy (Half-Elf gets an extra stat point).

Yeah not sure what form that ice thing can take, maybe a weird demon or freakish elemental.

Also, check'd

The healing section doesn't mention it specifically, but I assume so