/5eg/ Fifth Edition General

DMs, what are your favorite ways to incorporate player backstories into the campaign?

Players, what do you like incorporated into the campaign from your backstory?

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Other urls found in this thread:

docs.google.com/document/d/1XovWm65MSmIzQWSMDMXo0_aIpZgq9YSa2KkpO3kThS4/edit#
dnd-5e-homebrew.tumblr.com/post/137154240361/runeseeker-class-by-gamehermetist
media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/UA3_ClassDesignVariants.pdf
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

Hey, anons. I'm trying to work out the balance and other various kinks on a bunch of conversions/homebrews, mostly older edition races and some new Wizard subclass options. Anyone got any feedback on the stuff I've done so far?

docs.google.com/document/d/1XovWm65MSmIzQWSMDMXo0_aIpZgq9YSa2KkpO3kThS4/edit#

Also, I take requests for attempts at race statting. I still have a 5e Trox conversion attempt one user asked for but never stuck around to get.

i like doing a classical setting with empires and powerful trading cities opposed to the usual medieval small towns and kings

how about shadar kai? lets see what you can brew.

Building on from this, I'm also interested in discussing potential for new class variants. For example, Complete Arcane's Warmage and/or Final Fantasy's Black Mage as a new Sorcerous Origin, or whether or not some of the various Wizard Kits could be spun into new Arcane Traditions.

Heh, I already have a draft of that race in the G-doc. Let me see if I can squeeze it into here as well...

Ability Score Increase: +2 Intelligence, +1 Dexterity (+2 Dexterity, +1 Intelligence?)
Size: Medium
Speed: 30 feet
Vision: Low-Light Vision
Shadowborn: You have Resistance to Cold and Necrotic Damage. You also have Advantage on Death Saving Throws.
Shadow Jaunt: Once per short rest, you may spend an action to teleport thirty feet to a point within line of sight. After teleporting, you gain the Incorporeal Movement and Damage Resistance (Non-Magical Slashing/Piercing/Bludgeoning) traits for one minute.

God last future. No, just no.

Holy shit
>bunch of resistances
>can't die
>misty step once per short rest that gives MORE RESISTANCES

Did you mean for it to be broken as fuck or are you just really shit at this?

>or are you just really shit at this?
not that user but this is definitely the answer

No, it's just that a lot of the stuff it got in 4e is hard to directly translate. Your 4e Shadar-Kai has a +1 to Fortitude defense, +2 to death saving throws and saving throws against unconscious, and a 1/encounter teleport 3 squares and become insubstantial for a turn racial power.

That's why I'm here. Finding out what's broken and fixing it.

For fixing up Shadow Jaunt, would gaining Incorporeal Movement for 1 minute once per short or long rest be better?

I'm open to suggestions on how to fix Shadowborn. Cold/Necrotic Resistance seemed okay since A: neither damage type is very common, B: it doesn't have any other racial traits aside from Shadow Jaunt, and C: it was flavorful.

The death saving throws aspect is harder to balance since they're *supposed* to be harder to kill than your average human. Would a +1 to death saving throws be viable?

Does Natural armor stacks with barding for an animal companion? I'm creating a beastmaster so this is important for my companion choice

natural armor stacks with everything but other natural armor bonuses

>necrotic resistance
>add proficiency to death saving throws
>misty step 1/long rest

That's it

No, if you want a high-AC companion with barding pick one with +2 agility and give it medium armor

I took heavy inspiration off of another Runeseeker homebrew class someone here made and rewrote it in a way that I thought was more balanced. I'd appreciate any commentary on the class. This version is a rough draft that doesn't quite have a spell list filled out, but I'm trying to keep that fairly limited since many of the other features are quite potent already.

Here's the original one my friend sent:
dnd-5e-homebrew.tumblr.com/post/137154240361/runeseeker-class-by-gamehermetist

My version is attached as PDF to this post.

Thanks for clarifying, another questions: It says you add proficiency to damage rolls, does this include ALL damage rolls like poison? Flying snake doesnt roll damage (always do 1 piercing damage), does it get the bonus too?

Unclear, but I would say yes

So, how is this for a Ranger archetype.

Archetype, Warden.

>lvl3
You learn one (maybe two?) Cantrip and one 1st level spell of your choice from the Druid's list.
You gain the ritual casting feature, as a Druid. All your spells known count as Druid spells for the purpose of this feature.

>lvl5
You learn the Circle Spells (Druid, Circle of the Land) from your Favored Terrain. At 9th, 13th and 17th level you also learn new Circle Spells, choosing from your Favored Terrains.
As an example, a Warden with Forest as their Favored Terrain who hits 5th level learns the Barkskin and Spider Climb spells. When the same Warden hits 9th level, his Favored Terrains are Forest and Grassland (chosen at 6th level), he chooses to learn spells from the Grassland list; adding Daylight and Haste to his spells known.

>lvl7
You gain the Natural Recovery feature.

>lvl 11
???

>lvl 15
???

should probably be more than one cantrip
rangers dont get archetype features at 5th level, however. you might want to give them circle spells at third, and then again at 7th, 11th, and 15th or something.

Circle spells start with lvl 2 spells, so the Ranger wouldn't have spell slots for them before lvl5.

Could start the circle spell progression at lvl7, bumping Natural Recovery down to lvl5 and giving out new circle spells at 11/15. Would be ass though, possibly worse than beastmaster

>10 rounds of invulnerability on a fucking SHORT REST
Holy shit you're a retard.

Would you guys say wanting to run a tiefling with a ring of glamour to hide that she is a tiefling is a good idea? Do you think a DM would be okay with it?

Sounds pretty cool and thematically / racially appropriate. I'd allow it.

One of my players wants to be a Warlock and take a pact with a Sphinx. I am A-okay with this and wonder if anyone has any suggestions?

Have there been any player maps created for Princes of the Apocalypse that do not have all the gm symbols on them, like secret doors and "Heres where the fireguys ambush them."

Great Old one might be a good baseline. They're rather focused on mental abilities, which fits sphinxes somewhat well. Pact of the tome could also help represent that sort of wealth of knowledge.

They should probably go for more Illusion and Enchantment effects. Sphinxes are known for riddles, so fighting them should be confusing.

Wrong edition

No, both natural armor and manufactured armor (and Unarmored Defense, and Mage Armor, and dragon sorcerer's ability) modify base armor value. You can't stack them, you take the highest (or only valid, as UD and Mage Armor specify you can't wear armor for them to work). Generaly, if it sets your AC to x + dex, you can't stack it, but if it gives +x to AC, you can (unless it's from the same source)

>Caltrops: While passing through the 5ft square, succeed 15 DEX save or movement becomes zero and creature takes 1 damage.

Say I'm being chased through a 5ft wide hallway and I caltrop a space behind me. There are two creatures in pursuit. The first one goes over the caltrops and fails his check so he remains in the square. The next one goes immediately after, is he allowed to even attempt to get past that square? If he fails his check too, then he'll be occupying the same square.

Str or Dex check to pass through the occupied space, and a dex save for the caltrops

Fail on the initial check: he stays behind
Fail on the caltrops save: he stays on the following tile

...

Sounds like a divination specialization to me. Sphinxes are really cool but their abilities are kind of lackluster, even if they are innately magical.

What are the minimum changes to 5e basic rules that would be necessary to run 5e in Dark Sun? You only really need a mechanic for defiling/preserving to otherwise just use what's printed already, right?

I'm working on a character for a new campaign, starting at level 3. I want to try and build him as a doctor type, using a Healer's kit and the Thief bonus to try and be the party medic, with expertise in some knowledge skills to go with it.

Any recommendations for backgrounds to fit with this, or cool weapons to fit with it?

Ideally, I'd like to pick up some potions or poisons to go with it and fit the whole medical theme.

I think you'd be missing out on some races, but that's more minor.

For defiling/preserving, I think you could do something involving spending hit die to recharge spellslots or something, but I'm not sure how you'd balance that.

Acolyte is an obvious one.
You could be a hermit that walks town to town healing people.
Or you could be a medic in a army and take the soldier background.

These are just some suggestions that I came up with. You could go with almost any background and just make it “but as a medic”.

Races aren't really rules changes though. Homebrewing races is easy.

I have a character similar to this. He has the soldier / medic background and traded his proficiency in land vehicles for proficiency in the herbalism kit.

then there you go.

I'd definitely take that healer's kit feat, and I might take a look at some of those new tool prof feats in the newest unearthed arcana (such as the alchemist and cook feats).

Are you just trying to do practical healing or are you cool with magical healing?

Isn't defiling supposed to affect the environment around you and potentially other creatures? Isn't preserving supposed to weaken the magic you're using somehow?

Are revenants the worst or are they the worst? Have a revenant in my Curse of Strahd party and it kinda kills all the tension when our pally never fucking dies (plus the fact that he's lawful evil so whenever justified PVP comes up we just can't kill him)

Hermit seems like a good fit. Herbalism is exactly what I was looking for in order to make healing potions.

The Healer kit feat I had planned on taking. I haven't seen those new ones though. Sounds like I'll need to spend some downtime training for more kit proficiencies.

I'm not opposed to some magical healing, but I'd like to keep it mostly mundane.

The other equip feats automatically give you proficiency in addition to their other abilities.

You might consider dipping in Spell-less ranger for the healing poultices too if you want to stay completely mundane.

I'm joining a group that is starting soon with my gf. I've played with her once before and I felt pretty awkward with the whole roleplaying thing. What's the best way to alleviate this? What's the best class to play to play when you're playing with your gf?

btw she does acting and shit so roleplaying is not awkward for her

That could be neat. Do I just need 2 levels for that?

...

3 levels actually (you take an hour to make your wisdom mods worth, and they last 24 hours). At 9th level you can cure poison with them too.

Info on page 7.
media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/UA3_ClassDesignVariants.pdf

Just takes practice. I'm DMing a game with some friends and my gf, and for the first few sessions it was definitely bizarre, but we managed to to find a weird balance of me as a DM and me as her partner that has made things roll smoothly, which is nice since one of the PCs loves her some whore houses and drow love slaves. If you're still being bothered by it, try talking to her and seeing what that leads to. Otherwise its just growing pains.

Seems rather useful, especially for getting some Maneuvers as well. I'm not sure I'll be able to spend much time gathering herbs though, since I think most of the campaign is going to take place in a large city.

Gathering herbs can include just buying them in an urban setting. Up to your DM to decide how they wanna do it, but if they can be collected in an hour in the wild, I can't imagine they'd cost more that 1-2 copper.

I'm thinking of taking a few shots of liquor presession each session. It's something I've done for stressful social situations in the past and I've found it to help.

Class recommendations? I usually play rogues. I feel for some reason compelled to choose a class that will end up being the party leader for some reason.

Why do you feel that it's awkward to play with your gf?

Dude, don't be weird and try to be an alpha

What's an interesting way to play as True Neutral?

I'd say go with whatever you wanna play, or if you and your gf's characters are going to be linked in some fashion, do something that compliments her PC. Trying to strong arm your way in to a group leader role because of your partner is going to probably just make you look like a weird try hard and make things awkward for everyone. Besides, it's D&D, there shouldn't be one de facto party leader.

I don't have a specific class recommendation, but that's mostly because I'm forever going to be a DM and at this point am unsure if I could even have fun as a PC character. If ya like rogues, be one my dude.

I'll ask him about it to be sure. Were starting at level 3 though, so I wouldn't swith til level 5 anyway.

So...Tabletitans is the official D&D comic right now. However the current arc deals with a homebrewed setting with an alternate magic system.

Do you think we'll ever see a short book or Gazetteer about the setting. Maybe the rules for Rune Wielders and Musketeers?

Yeah. He basically said I would have to buy them. Still not too bad.

Only thing I'm worried about it getting high enough wisdom to get a lot of use out of that while taking a bunch of feats for other potions.

Well, you'll probably want a high wisdom anyways since it's needed for the Medicine skill.

I'd roll Variant Human with a +1 to Dex and Wis, and point buy for a final array of 8,16,10,13,16,10.
Make sure to take the Medicine skill and try to tag survival and nature skills too to identify and create natural cures.
Take Healer at 1st level and either Alchemist or Gourmad at 4th.
Once you get to Rogue 5, Dip 3 levels into Ranger (maybe a 4th to get your last of the 3 feats) and then decide where you want to go from there.

Does anyone have good photographs or illustrations I could use for Phandalin? It's proving difficult for me to find a village built on top on ruins.

Here's a forest in trade.

I think I'll go for something like that. Alchemist at level 4 to boost up Int.

Any big reason I should go 5 levels of Rogue before switching to ranger?

Is it possible to make a dex-fighter w/ polearm (ala Oberyn) in 5e that doesn't suck dick?

Why do you think Oberyn had low strength? If anything he dumped Con considering how few hits it took to take him down.

No finesse polearms I'm afraid. If you didn't mind doing a Str-Dex build, a Spear fighter with the new Spear mastery feat probably wouldn't be bad

cum in her butt before you guys play, that way whenever you feel awkward, you remember theres cum in her butt lel

seriously though, you know her more than any anons here do, and she, and your group, are fine with it. just ask HER for tips ya potato

I saw that you mentioned going Rogue. Did you just want rogue for the 1st level skill bonus? Because if so I'd actually take 5 levels of Ranger and then dip Rogue

You wanna do your first five levels in a single class because 5-6th level indicates a significant power spike both in classes and in monsters, and you'll want the extra attack to account for that

Just seems like a str/dex fighter is going to be all kinds of glass cannon and not very fun to play. Personally I'd be ok with it but I was trying to help a friend into 5e and he basically said "Oberyn was so badass can I be that" I had to suppress my cringe.

This from the UA feats? I only skimmed those and read a bunch of complaints about reintroducing floating modifiers.

Now that I think about it though, why even have finesse as a property? Why not just let any weapon be finessed - but have a min str to wield without disadvantage. What would be the downsides (other than more dex godstat, I guess).

>whenever i make a character i either plan a loose backstory and build a character around it
>or have a character and make a loose backstory for them
>then i make a massively in depth backstory, and level them up to 20 in my mind, so i know what they will "grow up" to be
>they never get that far
one day il either stop this, or they'll get there

Yeah, Rogue first for extra skills, plus I want to start with the bonus action healer's feat trick.

Oberyn kinda was a glass cannon. Convince him to fight like Oberyn except wear plate armor. Use some of the defensive Battle Master stuff to simulate Oberyn's maneuverable defensive style. Grab Alert.

>What would be the downsides

rogue/fighter multiclass with proficiency in greatsword that can do sneak attacks.

Greatswords are only 2.5 more average damage than rapiers. Great Weapon Master and Great Weapon Fighting would kinda make a difference though.

My current party is

>paladin
>ranger
>bard
>rogue
>barbarian (me)

we're about to hit lv3 and I'm not sure which subclass I should pick. I hear berserker is pretty bad so that leaves Bear totem and Wolf totem.

Bear totem seems amazing but Wolf would be pretty great too given that pretty much everyone but the bard is using melee often

What's everyone's thoughts on adventurer's league?

Could always change sneak attack from "ranged and finesse weapons" to "ranged and one-handed melee weapons" I guess. But fair point, rogues are already damage whores.

How do you achieve the healer's feat's ability with a bonus action?

Thief's Quick Hands ability.

Or the Arcane Trickster's Mage Hand stuff if you're a bait poster.

>"Oberyn was so badass can I be that"

Basically not. 5e rules aren't conducive to strategies that involve wearing light armor while being incapable of casting spells. A Druid or Nature Cleric with barkskin and shillelagh and quarterstaff with polearm mastery would be the best unarmored polearm user.

A fighter's armor proficiency and a barbarian's rage benefits are pretty well accounted for. Forgoing those benefits would make a character extremely weak.

Berserker is okay if you don't frenzy every combat, but it's still kinda shitty. I'd say Bear totem is slightly better than Wolf overall, but team play is always great.

It's possible with crazy dice rolls for ability scores or a generous DM with point buy, but yeah default rules don't support it. Barbarian and Monk become a fuck ton better if you are allowed to start with extremely high ability scores.

Crazy disorganized for an organized play format, but I prefer the flexibility over, say, the Pathfinder Society adventures.

I almost want to pick wolf for the paladin's sake because he's been rolling so poorly but that doesn't really make sense

I see. Totally take 5 levels of Rogue then and then jump to Ranger.

do you know what the others are going? either way, you and are pretty much right
bear is "best" and wolf is amazing party, since alot of you are presumably melee
even if your dm is of the school that lets you choose an animal each level (if you're not from a tribe) theres absolutely nothing wrong going wolf/wolf/wolf

Choose what fits the character, mechanics be damned

b-b-but berserker seems so baaaad

For a game with short rest practically non existent what classes are good? I was playing a warlock but having 2 spells per day was horrible.

mindless rage is really good

>bait poster
Okay I do bait you guys with it but also it is legitimate.

If short rests are non-existent someone is doing something wrong.

martials, or a full caster not druid. bard should be your best bet if you're set on being a caster though, you just lose inspirations

still, being nonexistant, you should have at LEAST 1 a day. not wanting to or not, your characters need lunch

I dunno, I played with a berserker in my party before and they definitely pulled their weight. It's probably not the most competitive choice but it was effective enough for us not to think they were weak.

It works, just not as well as Quick Hands does.

Gimping yourself can be fun, and frenzy being so much of a nuke option can really help roleplay the "shit is serious" or "now you fucked up" moments

This makes me wonder about how each class would mesh with a third-spellcaster subclass like EK and AT.

Well, the Monk and Barbarian are the only martial that don't have a 1/3 caster subclass and monks already have a bad variant of it.

What other classes would you attach those to? Barbarian's can't cast while raging and the only other spell-less class is Monk, which already has a resource system to keep track of and sub class options that replicate spells.

So as a DM I'm a crazy motherfucker who doesn't give a shit about the rules and I decided my next session will include a DOTA-esque segment. The players will have a limited set of their abilities which will have level-dependent cooldowns and infinite uses. There will be "lanes" and they will be able to respawn. They have to kill the other side's collective brain before their own dies.

It kind of makes sense based on the situation, which is that they have incorporated with an alien hivemind and will be fighting inside of it. They will be fighting as their consciousness inside the mind, and their physical bodies are all outside of it, so thats kind of how I will be justifying all this stuff.

Any cool ideas I can incorporate into this? Is this a dumb idea? I know it is but I don't care. Any other DMs do anything as crazy and rule-bending as this?

Maybe he meant reducing ranger and Paladin to 1/3 casters? That's a pretty big overhaul though. 5th level spells are not to be underestimated.

they should have made totem warrior the magic subclass and given the better totem warrior features to the berserker

Hand them a selection of character sheets and let them pick mental constructs templates created by the hive mind from years of calculations by the consensus. They can be conveniently color coded by a simple mental filter.

Be as goofy and meta with it as your campaign mood allows.