/5eg/ D&D Fifth Edition General: Imp Edition

Is... is that Vulcan?

>Iron Dragon
>Glorious flashbacks to the golden days of 2e

Truly you (or your DM) is mah nigga.

Oh, sorry. I was thinking Oathbreaker 7 / Fiendlock 13 for double CHA mod and strong spellcasting.

What are the pros and cons of a Dex Fighter/Dex Paladin instead of a Strength-based one?

Where do I find the Winged Tiefling variant? Is it as fun as it sounds?

Dex Pros
>Good AC doesn't cost an arm and a leg
>Good Initiative
>Can into Ranged
>Less MAD

Dex Cons
>Less Damage
>Can't GWM
>Can't GWF
>Can't Polearm Master
>More easily fucked by monsters with ram attacks
>Bad Athletics checks

Strength: fuck-off-big damage. Able to grapple, climb, and swim really well.

Dexterity: range. Pretty big damage if you do Archery with Sharpshooter. Able to stealth and keep your balance really well, as well as going earlier in combat more often. Less dependent on gear for AC. Also let's you avoid damage more often from common Dex-based AoEs.

Light/medium armor and ranged weapons are the main ones. So it's better if you wanna be even remotely sneaky. And you have better unarmored AC if you get caught unawares.

Compared to a Strength-based fighter, you'll have a bit lower damage output (since ranged weapons are weaker than melee weapons).

The fact that your Dexterity saves will be better can be considered either a pro or a con, since you don't have proficiency with them. So you can choose between really good Strength saving throws and bad Dexterity saving throws or kinda so-so saves for both.

Dex can also stealth better. Could be a make or break thing if the rest of the party is prone to stealth.

scag im pretty sure

Basically what says, but also including the pro that you can be much stealthier and have a more common Saving Throw.

I've been wanting to include demons more in games, but it usually comes across as too edgy.

Oddly enough I think using Imps as the primary demons would help with that. Demonic ancestry is way less impressive when its some random imp

Valor bards benefit a great deal from taking a level in fighter. Start fighter 1, then go Bard the rest of the way.

If you do this, I'd still recommend boomingblade+greenflameblade alongside pact of the tome for shillelagh and only having about 15 strength instead. It's what my plans for my tempestcleric-warlock is. However, Pact of the blade works out if you intend to level warlock to at least 12 and you start with at least 16 strength as well as 16 charisma.

One lovely thing about a healing class + warlock is that you can use healing spells every short rest, so you can easily heal everybody if you take a long enough short rest.

I'd say there are a lot of potential multiclasses that aren't too viable, though.

I was thinking about this but I can't make up my mind for it
>Heavy armor
>Con saves

>slows down casting progression and extra attack
>less skills

I am seriously considering getting heavy armor prof as a feat instead (I want to do a PAM valor bard at some point)

I imagine that edgy is good for demons. Unless you're wanting to make them sympathetic, I suppose.

Been using a winged tiefling in one campaign. Haven't flown once yet.
Nobody even knows they can fly.

Saving it for a "holy fuck they can do that?" moment when flying would be really, really useful.

The 30ft flying isn't as ridiculous as the aarakocra's flying, but being able to fly at all might not always be useful (especially when your friends are all busy charging to their deaths rather than tacticalling things) but I'm sure it'll be really useful when it's needed.

To be honest, I think for a valor bard getting heavy armour as a feat sounds better if you can survive to level 4.
Valor bard already gives you proficiency in most of the things you'd go fighter for (martial weapons, shields and all the way to medium armour, leaving you open to feat up heavy armour).
You get 2 more HP by starting fighter and second wind.
.. But the loss in spellcasting and bardiness and all that probably isn't worth those minor things.
Starting with a heavy armour class sounds a lot more fun for someone who has no armour/has light armour and no shield proficiency instead.

Then go for devils.

Since devils are lawful evil, they come off as less 'I WANT TO MURDER EVERYTHING RAAAGH' and have a more tactical, sinister and tricking way to things. Instead of just threatening to burn everything, they come off as appearing rather nice.

You can always cut out a middleground. Foocubi, for example, appear 'in all of the lower planes' or something, and are neutral evil.

Imps and Devils are good options. Also don't forget comedy blunts edginess.

You also get fighting style, but yeah I'd rather do a full bard and see how it plays out. Slowing down the PM bullshit isn't too great but with a regular GWF build it should work fairly well I think.

Half-Elf, planning 16, 8, 16, 8 10 16

Dex Fighter excels at manuverability, versatility, accuracy, and defense, while also reducing MAD issues (A Str Fighter needs Dex, but a Dex Fighter doesn't necessarily need Str). Ideal for ranged and dual wielding characters, and good for sword and boarders.

Str Fighters excel in damage and battlefield control, especially with the associated feats such as Great Weapon Master and Polearm Master. Great for sword and board, awesome for any 2 handed weapon, and amazing with polearms (GWM + Polearm Master + Sentinel is my favorite build, and human fighters get that shit online by level 6)

Really NO Unearthed Arcana for this month?

Isn't it cut back to every two or three now?

Solomon Grundy, baby.

its monday
they just dont know what monday

That's some bullshit unless they're gonna actually start pushing out some serious splatbooks now

Playing AL so ill just do whatever til level 4 and then take advantage of the free rework before level 5.

Delayed again to next monday. Check in monday when we find out it's delayed again.

mega.nz/#!YVUlkYaI!7DL8CG4vXeQqAYjv3I4_4tWQFUOjS2Wtun-MzbV5EiQ

CoS, Here ya go peeps may want to add it to the Trove Mega

What a load of bull.

DEX fighters can use bows well and have finesse weapons to fall back to in melee, STR fighters can use two handed weapons well, and have throwing weapons to fall back on for ranged. That's all the fucking difference there is. Fuck, STR fighter will have higher baseline AC thanks to full plate.

You read like one of the designers so far up his ass he doesn't even know what the fuck he's talking about.

What's different from the pdf we already have in the trove, exactly?

Good luck getting the full plate anytime soon in a reasonable game

About to run a game, and a player is rolling up a tiefling battle princess. She wants her father to be a major focal point for her character, so I'm gonna have to find a way to introduce devils into my setting one way or another. Should be fun. Definitely setting him up as a calm, icy tactician type.

Specifically I want to go Rapier and Shield and be a qt otterbody duelist instead of a typical brawny Paladin.

I will deliver beautiful justice in light armor that displays my fantastic form, so that all might behold me and despair of ever being as pretty as I am.

user, that scan was cropped, optimized, and added to the Mega shortly after CoS came out.

is there an official 5e writeup for a "urban barbarian", more of a berserker warrior without the nature-oriented powers? Only have the core books.

You should be getting it around level 5ish. Even in AL which is pretty throttled thats normal.

Considering that dex won't get to +4 til level 4 (and still not as good as splint with the light armor options) Heavy armor actually pulls ahead EARLIER than dex.

Unless of course you roll stats, but thats a story for another time.

Going by the random loot tables you should have enough gold for it by level 5, sooner if you're lucky/frugal

You could just do the actual berserker subclass that is in the core books.

It's really fucking bad though if your DM ever does anything that isn't combat.

Frenzy being so terrible also kills it, there's no reason it should give a level of exhaustion.

It's not like a bonus action attack while raging is even that broken given it's essentially all the archetype gets.

SCAG has battlerager that's not terrible and is based on dwarves trained to fight in spiked armor. I wish it did something to address abandoning unarmored defense.

Does rary's telepathic bond cause any message to be heard by everyone, or can you create "private messages"?

I think you can probably communicate with any number and any combination of the others you're telepathically bonded to.

Session report:

Session 2 of a goblin sidestory. We have a warlock (me), a ranger, and a druid.

The goblin tribe leader gave us a mission last session to go retrieve some item. The problem is that we had no idea what it was - just the name. We knew that it was probably in the elven forest city, so we set out.

We finally reached the city, and saw that in the center was a massive tree - about 100 yards in diameter. Through careful scouting, we found out that elves could enter the tree by touching a certain spot on the bark. We tried it ourselves, but the tree would not grant us entry. In fact, we managed to set off an alarm and got a bunch of elves chasing after us.

We managed to escape, but my familiar and the ranger's animal companion were killed. We decided that the tree must only grant entry to elves, so we hatched a plan to kidnap one: I would disguise myself as a crying baby and we would snatch whoever came to investigate.

It didn't go very smoothly. The elves managed to sound the alarms. But we *did* manage to kidnap one and flee.

We traveled deep into the forest and woke him up to try and interrogate him. It didn't go very well. Our plan of action for next session is to wait a month for the elves to stop looking for us, and then use our prisoner to make our way into the tree.

nobody cares

no1 curr

Suggestion: You'll want to condense your storytimes so you tell a whole arc at once, rather than one session a week. Nobody's going to follow your story, and as-is, it's..NOT a story.

I care

What is the average age a Wizard should be? Also any school I should use mainly?

60+

Age: whatever you want. Most wizards will be older, but not all.
Most of the schools are very strong. Transmutation is probably the weakest, but even it gets a full heal or free raise dead. Divination is probably the absolute best all-around just because Portent is so broken, but it's very close.

What kind of character do you want to play? Blaster (evocation)? Minionmancer (necromancy/conjuration)? Mindfuckery expert (illusion/enchantment)? Buffer (transmuter)? Plot obliterator (divination)? Controller (conjuration/illusion/enchantment/divination)?

Why are you taking a job from a goblin leader and that elf will fuck you over.

Hey hey, let's not forget Abjuration. Ever wanted to just say "No, I take less damage this turn" or at later levels "No, I'm shielding my ally this turn"? How about protecting your allies from being charmed or cursed? Or how about just flat out saying "No, fuck you, go back to your home plane"?

Abjuration is fucking great.

Probably try a minionmancer as that seems interesting.

Yeah, I completely forgot about Abjuration. It's a very strong school, definitely top tier. Unusually tanky for a wizard, and amazing at dispelling/counterspelling. Sorry for forgetting them.
If you want to be a minionmancer, there are two approaches. Casting Animate Dead in combat is a waste of magic, but casting Conjure Elemental/Conjure Minor Demons can win an encounter. Necromancy is better if you have lots of prep time, but Conjuration can pull more stuff out in emergencies. One of the coolest features conjurers get is 30 bonus HP to summons (drop an 8th level Conjure Minor Demons and enjoy your 1500 hp of uncontrolled minions), and necromancers can take control of other undead (death tyrants and demiliches are some of the best).

Thanks user

No problem. I love wizard and love helping people. There are some "automatic" spells you should get. Detect magic obviously, alarm, find familiar, leomund's tiny hut, mage armor, shield, etc. But one you absolutely need is Wall of Force, 5th level. It's complete bullshit, and it's hilarious.

>Or how about just flat out saying "No, fuck you, go back to your home plane"?
Kind of a noob here. What exactly are you talking about?

Banishing stuff like demons or elementals.

You mean with the spell Banishment? Though it is an abjuration spell, I don't see why abjurers would be any better with it than other wizards.

They won't. Rather, they get a lot of tankiness spells. They can absorb damage with a ward they create for free (pump it up every morning with Alarm), give that ward to somebody else, add prof to Dispel Magic and Counterspell, and finally have resistance to all damage from spells. They're the best school vs. other casters, but only okay if you aren't fighting at least some casters. Hence why I love divination the most--you can literally never go wrong with free spells, seeing invisible people passively, and ignoring rolls altogether.

>Plot obliterator

We talking answers out of the ass as a fuck you to the DM?

>We talking answers out of the ass as a fuck you to the DM?
Three words.
Contact. Other. Plane.
ephe.github.io/grimoire/spells/contact-other-plane

It's a ritual so any school of magic can cast it repeatedly (as long as you make your check), but diviners also get to reuse spell slots.

If you're completely tapped out for the day except for 1 6th level slot, you can cast True Seeing, then Scrying, then Arcane Eye, then Clairvoyance, then Detect Thoughts, and finish it up with any 1st level. 6 spells for the price of 1.

If you're doing PAM, you're setting a feat on fire for nothing, when the one drop gers your build online faster (martial profs, Second Wind, Con Save prof, Great Weapon/Duelist style) and nothing Valor Bards get beside Extra Attack matters until Bard 10. Extra Attack is less meaningful to you since you're building for PAM, which gives you a bonus attack, and you should be building around one of the SCAG Swordmage cantrips, which don't let you get iteratives anyway.

If you're a humie, you could go Fighter 1 (PAM as your feat)/Bard 4 (Magical Lineage-Sorc or Lock for Greenflame or Booming Blade), because at that point, you use Valor for the self buff and don't really care about lacking an iterative because you're doing three shots worth of damage already (Cantrip with [W]+1d8, Rider with 1d8+Cha, Bonus haftbutt).

Also, martial bards suck at low levels. If you cared about casting and damage you would be a Lore Bard with a two-level stop in Warlock or a straight Bard who Magical Initiate stole Hex and Eldritch Blast so you can spend your Secrets on shit like Scorching Ray.

I'm thinking about creating a monster similar to pic related for my players to fight. It won't ever make an attack on its own but whenever the PCs attack it, the creature will attack back and roll double damage that the PCs do. Think this could be a good challenge?

The hell is PAM?

What about ranged attacks? Spells? AoEs? And if it doesn't attack, why wouldn't they just walk away?

depends on how stupid your players on

This will fall one of two ways
>Players are dumb and kill themselves
or
>Players are smart and just ignore it.

Also wobuffet only works because it requires careful prediction for its setup to work. This doesnt work well when converted to dnd.

PoleArm Master

Pic related

I'd make it to where there's some sickness or affliction going on and the creature's existence is the cause of it. So they'd have to kill it to end whatever it's doing. I'd throw in infinite spawning minor enemies that would stop once the creature was killed to put more pressure on the PCs to end the fight quickly

I legit would leave rest of the party to fight it and bitch out.

You can't use PAM with booming blade or GFB so that whole idea is shit. And with AL rewrites I can essentially start as a level 4 valor bard with PAM and Heavy armor prof (so 16 str/con/cha) so I don't have to deal with the early game struggle.

If the cantrips worked the way you thought they did that would be cool though.

New DM here and I need advice/suggestions/critics on how I should go about running a quest where the players descend a long, treasure filled, dungeon. I figured it would be like Dungeon Meshi and the Etrian Odyssey games where it is broken up into different layers and challenges and there is a village on the surface to return to. What I am trying to figure out is how to design a labyrinth that is supposed to be explored without constantly going "there is a spooky path to the right and a different scary path to the left, choose a path". I guess I just start with a map and let the characters walk around and see the sights until they find the stairs down?

Also I'm not sure how to tell players when it is safe or not to take short/long rests when within a monster filled dungeon.

For short you can have look outs, long it depends on what is near them.

My DM is planning a "Medium difficulty" campaign, We only have a Druid and an Abjuration Wizard for team support. Paladin too I guess, but he's more of a tank build. Fresh First Level campaign, we want it to last a long time.

The DM is going to try to soften the blow on Death saving throws. Which sounds better?
>Only the first roll of a death saving throw can be a critical failure and count as 2 fails.
or
>Death saving throws cannot critical fail.

this is kinda a terrible suggestion, but you might want to look at (and in no way completely read) the worlds largest dungeon.
it was composed of 16 seperate minimaps, all connected to make its large map, and for the most part, each map was "unique" in its level difficulty and its theme
as in, different monsters, or different hazards, that kinda shit, quite like how etrain oddyssey does
not to say "ice" map is right next to "volcano" map, but you get the idea. im proud to say i own it, AND will literally never play it, but if you can find a pdf or some exerpts, it would be a good way to get ideas

since the players were trapped inside it the entire duration of the game, it obviously was designed with a large number of restoration/break/safe points in mind, and for the most part, all of the rooms were separate in their challenge, unless they were designed NOT to be

the latter, but realize critical failures arnt going to be common

The second option seems like a good, simple answer. With these things, it's best to keep it nice and clean.

The bonus action haft strike does not require you to make the Attack action. It requires a melee attack, which is what GFB/Booming Blade have you do to activate it.

I'm not telling you to use the OA on entry part (those shenanigans are Warcaster+BB)

I've lost two characters in 3 campaigns to crit failures on death saving throws. Shit feels bad.

>never bothered reading School of Divination before
Oh holy shit that's amazing

uncommon doesnt mean nonexistant, which is why i suggest the latter, that way you're guaranteed three saves

Playing a fighter right now, still low level, but want to make him into an archer, I know I know why not ranger, I don't rightly know. I rolled for a random character and I'm seeing where it takes me.

What I want to know is aside from the sharpshooter feat what can I do to build up a longbow fighter? Fancy arrowheads? Magic bows? Where should I drop skill points?

I rather like this ranger rework. What do you guys think about it? Is it balanced? Does it seem way more interesting and fun than the PHB one? Would you allow a player to use it?

>want to make him into an archer

You are going to have a bad time.

Dear /5eg/,

I get paid to DM for a bunch of 10-12 year olds. Most of them are pretty easy to please, but some of them have started asking me about multiclassing. There's one slightly autistic, for real Bard in particular who wants to be better at mundane stuff since he has hella spell list access. What should I tell him?

Crossbow expert

>slightly autistic, for real Bard

Tell him the truth or slightly bend the rules for the kid.

Always give the group a sense of urgency, the quest or dungeon has some sort of time limit or the characters have shit to do outside of the dungeon. Let players decide if they rest and figure it out the hard way if they don't think & scout. If they take a long rest in hostile area, they will likely encounter something. If they flee or wait too long, the dungeon becomes tougher, alert and sets traps with patrols.

When designing a dungeon, do it in just dots and lines for the draft with inklings, put it on a grid if you think it'll be used. Keep dungeons short, sweet and meaningful mostly. Once in a while you can do a mega dungeon though, where the players will be there for multiple sessions or perhaps the entire campaign.