/5eg/ D&D 5e General - Tremble, normies! edition

It was! The first couple of sessions were relatively on rails as I had to get them used to the setting/mechanics. At first, as their options became more free, a couple of them were a bit overwhelmed, but now they're really getting used to anything being an option, and that some plans can fail, but also that those failures simply mean new opportunities*.

*chances to flee

Thanks for the tips but, uh, what's the difference between /r and [[x]] commands in roll20?

ALL necromancers become Liches because they're scared of dying and that's basically what the foundation of the logic behind a lich is; does not like death, wants to cheat it.
And a simple explanation for the disease that's killing him is probably either a powerful curse that they can't lift or simply that he's a dickass necromancer and no cleric around is willing to heal him or is evil and powerful enough to pull it off, or maybe he's just too paranoid to let a priest do it. Or maybe the disease or curse is CAUSED by a good-aligned cleric and thus he's finding a way around it just to spite him.
In which case if he liches out his first victim needed to fuel is phylactery is probably gonna be said cleric, come to think of it.

That'd be a shitty day for that guy.
>Front door of your temple explodes.
>Robed skellyman walks in.
>"Hi there Bob. Remember that wasting curse that you gave me 'because I was an evil prick'? The one that was incurable and was doomed to cause my body to waste away until I died? WELL I FOUND A LOOPHOLE IN THAT PHRASING BOB."

I find the idea of a lich going around finding inventive ways to magically kill people who pissed him off while he was alive fairly amusing.

>WotC may turn out some pretty decent books so far with 5e, but objectively their financial goal is largely to keep costs as low as they possibly can because they've finally figured out that you can't treat D&D like Magic the Gathering and even if you DO print a million books it doesn't mean people will eventually buy them like when you print a million MtG cards, especially since every group really only needs ONE book apiece most days.

I'm genuinely surprised they don't even have, what, 20 books yet and it's been three years or so? Take adventure modules out of that figure and there's even less books.

>Yeah well fuck YOU buddy I've cursed you with a wasting death that will kill you in FIVE HUNDRED YEARS
>and I assure you, I can wait.

Dark Sun coming soon lad.

Do we have a definitive way to become a Lich from older editions or do I have to get my DM to figure it out?

Well what the hell else has he got to do now?
He can't eat food, his pain and pleasure sensations are probably next to nonexistent (he likely feels pain in the sense that he "registers" damage, not actual pain sensation), and he has no real other bodily functions or needs.

Being a lich is basically saying that you want to live SO bad you're willing to take out all the parts that make life worth living in the first place. I generally portray liches as at least mildly unstable due to the mindset required to follow through with that sort of logic and due to the kind of fucked-up-ness an intelligent mind with literally no physical distractions or joys and nothing left to fill his time but his own thoughts and whatever crazy urges drove him to lichdom in the first place would do to a person stuck that way for very long at all.

I keep getting the strong feeling that there's actually not a lot of people at WotC who are dedicated staff for working on D&D products.
I mean I bet lots of people help out and thus get their name put on the books, but I'm thinking the people actually working on D&D stuff is pretty few and are basically a minimal allotment of resources over at WotC, especially since they've ramped up advertising for MtG even more then they used to these days.
Petty dick Lich is best Lich.
Because honestly, what else does he have to do with his free time anymore?
Especially when you consider that ALL of his time is free time now?

No, though if I recall correctly in older editions you needed to be fairly powerful, at least 11th level (which was like, HUGE back in 2e) to pull it off.
The actual details are basically totally unknown but probably awfully unpleasant I imagine. I'm guessing there's more then one proper "method" of pulling it off, but they're all fairly nasty in general.

And in 5e (presumably so that liches actually have to go out and DO stuff now rather then just stay in their dungeon and do magical research and stew in their own zombie wizard juices for eternity) they need to consume souls on a semi-regular basis to sustain their phylactery, like adding wood to a fire.
I'm guessing for the initial transformation a least one other person need to die so you can move your soul into it's new receptacle, probably a BUNCH of people just to account for margin of error.

The ramifications would be it could multiclass better with wizards/eks/ATs or druids/clerics/rangers instead of with Warlocks/Paladins
Also wisdom is a great attribute because if Wis saves so they could get a +5 and still be in focus with character

The Bucket Lich.

Is a Wild Magic Sorc wise?

If memory serves, the 2E way of becoming a lich was:

>prepare the phylactery with a number of spells
>make a horrid potion with another bunch of spells
>drink the potion at a certain time, and hope you don't fail the system shock save or you'll be extra dead

You mean is it a good idea? It's perfectly fine, if you're into the random element. There's always that threat of fire balling yourself, though.

You know whats something that be cured by gold? Old age

No, its a cha class, not a wis one

I mean its not a good idea just because it can have major drawbacks.BUT I could easily imagine a Dragon Magic user with Wisdom as casting stat

Not after the modification done to the potion of longevity. In 2E, it was 1d12 years per potion with a 1% cumulative chance of getting every year removed back at once - in 5E it's a 10% cumulative chance per potion. At least you only age a few years instead of getting those 60 years you've shaved off back.

If you're powerful enough to become a lich, your powerful enough to move your soul to a younger Clone body.

A lich has more power

'm getting into DMing, but I feel I need to be more read up on general knowledge shit.

What books should I read? There isn't that much out for 5e yet so books from other editions are okay.

I started reading through the Manual of the Planes from 4e, what else should I take a look at?

Probably Dark Sun. There are some Dusk Elves in CoS.

>I keep getting the strong feeling that there's actually not a lot of people at WotC who are dedicated staff for working on D&D products.
Read the credits in the books. The D&D team is about two dozen people.

Guy said he wanted to be a lich out of death-fear, not power-hunger.

Ok you are right, whats his power level?

Living forever in the core rules: 15 levels of ancients paladin, 1 level of wild magic sorcerer. Wild magic surges may randomly increase or decrease your age, but as an ancients paladin you're immune to the increases.

The only drawback is the non-zero chance of regressing to a one year old. However an aarakocra (who benefits the most anyway) would probably be fine in this case, since they're fully grown by 3 years old so at one they should be merely small.

Im not entirely sure what you mean. For inspiration? For setting? Read the rulebooks. Youre playing in whatever universe you want. The maual of the planes might not help at all, let alone a 4th edition one, unless youre playing in 4th

5E literally has everything in three core rulebooks you can find in the OP.

>inspiration
I don't know what to tell you. Read more shit in general and bring imagination?

We'll if you want to use 4ths points of light setting there's nothing wrong with that. I was a fan of it, at any rate.

Wise? Absolutely not.

It's fun as fuck though.

Do we know any other playable races that will be included in Volo's Guide, or is it just Orcs, Goblins and Firbolg right now? What else do you want to see?

>Its been a year since I've had this character concept
>A kind user even did art for him
>Bravado Dragonborn Bard that uses three maracas, one in each hand, and one on his tail for when he whips ass making his body move LIKE A MAR-AH-CA-CA-CA

youtube.com/watch?v=8CKsGfyfyfk

I think I might just make him an npc at this point but I don't want to run the risk of dmpc. He's a red dragonborn, his scales shine like a rose, he is Vernaldo the Burning Rose. He also spits fire after he does shots. Sorry for sperging again after so long I just can't get the urge out of my head.

Imagine peppi-lepew mixed with Loki's Mask from The Mask. This is what I plan to point buy. I imagined him having a physique more like Gaston, my only regret is that he can't hae a hairy chest as a dragonborn.

str 17
dex 10
con 14
int 8
wis 8
cha 16

Catpeople and aasimar are confirmed too via reddit and shit I think? Someone's got the full list with where we know it from, one was from a podcast even.

I personally would like some more exploration into different Magic The Gathering planes and settings. Phyrexia, Mirrodin (like a chaotic Mechanus?), Kamigawa, Fallen Empires / Sarpadia / "arabian nights", etc.

Also Dark Sun.

If I cast Command and said "Surrender" while holding a manacle, would the target use it to restrain himself? Would "Use" be enough?

The party CN Rogue's player want a straight man who stop him from doing stupid stuff.

>If I cast Command and said "Surrender" while holding a manacle, would the target use it to restrain himself? Would "Use" be enough?
It depends on the DM. Personally I'd just have them drop their weapon and stop fighting on a 'surrender' command, though they wouldn't resist being manacled. And 'Use' is much too ambiguous; they could take the manacles and use them on you, for example.

Hmm.. maybe Submit? Wear? Equip?

This is mostly to stop him from firing the ship cannon or pooping on the public floor.

That's not CN that's just insane. There's no excuse for the character doing that.

Any suggestions on how to build a Dr. Strange inspired character?

Support / Blaster with martial arts training, and a huge knowledge of the arcane and extraplanar beings.

My initial thought was Monk X + ritual caster

Or Monk 2 + Warlock Fiend/Tome

Or should I drop monk and just go pure Warlock / Sorcerer / Wizard?

>Dr. Strange
>not Dr. Strangelove
Just fucking hang yourself and play the warlock-monk character, enjoy needing good dex/wis/cha fagger

Homebrew it faggot or else you will need to begin at least 6th lvl for this to work out(3 lvls of each class)

> thug with 32 hp
> challenge 2

> 15 hp orc
> challenge 1/2

> 13 hp guard
> challenge 1/4 for some fucking reason

I guess hit point bloat and caster supremacy are back in full force in this edition.

what the fuck is hp bloat?

It's the word bad player use to insult game designer when they can't kill stuff in 1 round.

It's not just about HP bloat, it's also about their abilities and their capability to spank player ass before their HP is whittled down.

Also,
>caster supremacy
It's like you haven't even played the game.

>CR whining
>doesn't even know CR is calculated on far more than HP
mfw

Well I think there's a *little* bit of it, but certainly not close to "full force".

Hit points seem fine.

So, my PC's are fairly new at the game and I've just gotten them to start roleplaying a bit more, which is great
But they haven't really been interacting with each other in terms of character-relations.
Are there any good ways to promote this? I've been thinking of making a prompt during a short rest like "...you begin to feel comradery with your group members, and you find yourself discussing battle tactics..."
Or am I better off just letting it be?

Oh, so buttmad casters, got it. Imo casters should regulary be forced down to cantrip spam during adventures.

Given the very low spell slots per day, casters excel in handling groups of enemies via AOE spells like fireball, instead of wasting their spells on singles.

>thug with CR2

Nigga, wtf you on about. Thugs are CR 1/2 in the MM.

I might let someone switch their casting stat to Int. Maybe. I definitely wouldn't let you take Wisdom.

That's a little on the nose. Have an NPC join them and talk with them, ask them about where they've been, what they've seen, etc. etc. in character.

When one person regales them with a story, and makes one simple mistake in the story, boom, someone will inevitably jump in and correct them and either continue telling the story or who knows.

The point is you've successfully manipulated them into A) talking about something that's not a fight, B) talking to each other C) boosted their camaraderie

>play barbarian
>such high HP that when in a rage nothing has a chance in hell of killing me
HP bloat is real because my character's inability to die does kinda make combat feel pointless.

At the end of each long rest choose a character. They tell a story from their background, then the other players ask them a question. That player chooses whose question they like the most, and awards them a point of inspiration.

It's when a game has too much damn hp and increases damage to compensate leading to a never-ending treadmill of damage and hp increase that never actually accomplishes anything.

>It's the word bad player use to insult game designer when they can't kill stuff in 1 round.

OH shit, I am sorry for wanting to be able to do the same stuff as a martial that a caster can do in 1 round. Oh shit, I'm sorry, just rush in and die, that's my fuckin job. Sorry for not playing a WIZARD which can put all this shit to sleep without even trying. But I should just whittle away it's hp, yep, that's my job, I am SOOOOO sorry for DARING to want to be viable as a strong buff fighter or even a nimble elf fighter, but if I'm not playing a wizard "brains beats brawn" to compensate for the D&D developers' lack of physical strength as children which led to their fantasizing about murdering their classmates with magic missile, I'm clearly a fucktard. I apologize for wanting to be useful and viable. I apologize for even wanting to play D&D 5e in the first place. I'll go back to playing 4th edition where the classes are actually balanced.

Your DM is coddling you.

Rage every fight, no longer has rage after fight #2.

Anyone here run Out of the Abyss? My players are coming up on neverlight grove and I want to try to make it more interesting as I love the idea of the place.

pic related; planning on using these for zuggtmoy corrupted myconids

You selected a class and I'm guessing abilities that give you damage reduction to pretty much everything. If you select HP bloat the character then you should feel pretty much invulnerable except for save and die shit. If you didn't then the game wouldn't be fulfilling the promise of the choices you made. It would be the same as having a caster with spell resistence designed to be constantly resisted because of "spell save bloat"

What shit are you putting to sleep at any significant level? Legendary resistence is a thing you know.

I r8 your b8 0/8 m8.

Use that shit in 3.pf thread, literally none of that applies in 5e. If you want to troll our threads start talking about 300lb gnomes or something. Gotta know your audience.

But user... In 5e you use enemy HP to determine Sleep effect not HD.

Do you actually play the freaking game?

Are you one of those people who come to the internet to complain without actually playing the game?

>thug AC 11
2 attacks, +4 to hit, low damage outside Melee and pairs well with allies

>orc AC 13
1 attack, +5 to hit, mobile and hits like a truck

>Guard AC 16
1 attack, +3 to hit, no special abilities at all and low damage

Thugs are meant to be in packs in crowded rooms, and get hit on (essentially) the roll of a 6 or higher. They are only damage when they gang up on a target.

Orcs are harder to hit and operate on open spaces to move 60ft a round to valuable targets. They hit much harder than a thug and go down with less force.

Guards are meant to keep your murderhobos from murdering the entire town, and are basically bags of HP designed to waste resources and slow down mindless killing.

It's almost like there are different creatures for different uses in the game!

If you want to hack down a pile of dangerous creatures you still have goblins who deal damage like a thug at CR 1/4, and kobolds who are CR 1/8.

Lizard folk must blow your mind, because they are have 22 HP, 15AC, 2 attacks, and decent damage! Look at this numbers! How can you bring those beasts down!?

Nothings wrong with their combat niche, it's the disproportionate out of combat utility that's always been the sticking point.

A. That's your whole gimmick
B. You aren't seeing nearly enough action between rests

>spell saves
Yeah Wis saves are my downfall, planning on getting resilient in wisdom so I have a chance in hell to avoid that type of thing

Charm is a level one spell.

I'd be hitting you with it in every boss fight.

Yeah, I can definitely work with that. Maybe have them be offered free drinks for the night at a tavern by a wealthy wanderlust dude with a disability who lives vicariously through the stories of adventurers
I definitely need to start awarding inspiration for roleplaying more often. I've only really done it for clever puzzle/ solutions

/r blobs out the details in chat.
[[x]] is compressed and shows details on mouseover.

>every boss fight

Why don't you just use it when its appropriate?

At low level, prior to the barbarian being able to get Resilient(Wisdom), the only casters should be in boss fights.

>used not hoarded
They should learn to be careful. Neither use nor hoard.
You can never know how many encounters there'll be unless you've done some hockey-pockey wizarding shit, so if you have a harsh DM you may want to store the spells up a bit just in case. If you're against a big group, fireball that shit anyway. It's very situational.
However, that approach doesn't work well with lite DMs who'll often have you wondering why you haven't used a single proper spell and why hardly anyone is injured by the end of the day.

>reaching low Hp doesn't mean you've lost
Especially if the DM skews everything for you.
Yes, it's true, I've seen many great comebacks in my time where everyone pulls through. However...
I really hate how everyone is so adverse to retreating. I suggest it as a possibility, and everyone in the thread goes "Well you'll never be able to retreat because stuff or everyone in the village will die!" when quite often you may be able to retreat. Say, a big creature in its lair might not easily exit its lair, so you can retreat to heal. Sure, it might heal too, but you can go in a bit more educated with less chance of death.
I just really like to see tactics like "Well, we're doing really badly, we need to retreat." than bashing everything without a second thought.

I'm terrified of the opposite happening with me becoming good at wis saves but then they never appear again. I just got shield master and completely negated a dragon's fire breath that toasted my wizard to death and the DM was really pissed about that

There was an arcana monk homebrew going around in the last few threads.

It went something like this:

At lvl 3:

You gain proficiency in the Arcana (Int) skill.

You gain spellcasting like AT/EK (slots/spell level/wizard list) limited to Evocation and one other school of your choice.

Your casting stat is Wis and your spell save DC is Wis mod+ Proficiency bonus + 8.

Since you learn magic through a passed down tradition you know your spells by heart and don't need to preppare them or write them down in a spell book.

You learn new spells by meditating with a scroll or spellbook for 4+spell level hours.

You also learn one form of metamagic from the sorcerrer metamagic feature which you may activate with ki points.

At lvl 6:

You learn 2 lvl 1 spells with the ritual tag from the wizards spell list and may learn any new rituals from said list as long as you find a scroll or spell book inscribed with them.

Learning a ritual costs you 8 hours spent in meditation witht a scroll or spellbook containing the ritual.

At lvl 11:
You can use your bonus action martial arts attack or FOB after using your action to cast a spell.

You learn 2 lvl 1-3 spells from any spell list (they don't have to be from the same spell list) and can cast them at their lowest level without expending a spell slot by spending 3 ki.

Instead of a lvl 1-3 spell you may also learn 2 cantrips.

You also learn a second form of metamagic which you can utilize with ki.

At lvl 18:

You gain one level 6, one level 7 and one level 8 spell slot and learn one spell for each of them from any spell list.

You may regain said spell slots by expending 4 + spell level in ki points

>DM pissed at classic situation of fighterman using his great big shield to deflect fire
>wizard subjecting himself to dragon flames without any protection

>charm, save is made with advantage
>takes an entire action
>ends when boss does anything hostile
Maybe something like a level 2 spell, 'suggestion' to suggest the barbarian runs away.

1. You need to find ways to take the brunt of the damage. If the DM is randomly deciding who's attacked or ignores you on purpose, something's fucking wrong. Yes, intelligent enemies might leave the barbarian alone but quite often when the barbarian charges in shirtless, doing massive damage with their axe and yelling, they WILL get attention.

2. DM is a pussy. They either don't set you up for enough fights every day to instigate your rage or they're not doing harsh enough creatures that can actually take you down.

Still, charm, suggestion, dominate, fear... plenty of spells to target that low save and since most casters will have the knowledge that most mundane classes are weak to Wisdom saves, it should be a frequent target.

Why is the copyright notice on this comic so fucking huge?

I can't imagine enemies will always have a caster on hand who has such a spell.

Normally enemy casters actually have more limited selections of spells than PCs.

If an organization wants to hunt down a group of PCs with lots of martials, I'm sure they'd send such a wizard, though.

And, yes, casters are probably intelligent enough to know that the more primitive seeming ones will probably be easier to charm, and the elves and the other casters might be more resistant.

Probably one of the only things berserker is good for, charm immunity. Shame it's not as good as feylock's permanent charm immunity.

Maybe tell them that Chaotic Neutral doesn't mean Chaotic Retarded.

I believe the intention is that command doesn't allow them to do particularly complicated things. Rather, it forces a sudden compulsion on them. Anything more complicated is 'suggestion' territory, where you're suggesting things like "You will put yourself in manacles and keep them on, as surrendering is your only option."

I'd imagine 'surrender' would make them spend their next turn doing something surrender-ey, depending on what they know of surrendering. Likely dropping weapons, possibly putting arms in the air, quite probably backing away and disengaging in the process. They'd then come to their senses at the end of the turn, but they might actually decide that they'll stay surrendering.

If you look at all the basic command options, they all waste the creature's turn and make them do something simple such as 'move', 'drop weapon', 'fall to the floor'.

Content teaser on Wotc's Site: Orc, Goblin, Firbolg
Storm King's Thunder Podcast: Triton
Reddit: Aasimar, Catfolk

Goddamn, Gnolls when? I had to homebrew up some just for use, and I think they're a little too powerful.

Probably in Volo's Guide.

Oh, okay neat.

What's a Volo?

dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/volos-guide-to-monsters

Thanks senpai, started googling it after I asked, appreciate the help!

In Curse of Strahd, Adventure League version,

Is there any way for me to get Isaac's Demon Arm?

Because the fucker doesn't want to get sued into oblivion.