/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General

For me
>humans, definitely fucking humans, so many fucking humans
>elves
>dwarfs
>half-elves
>half-orcs
>gnomes
>dragonborn
>goliath
Never seen a halfling, not even once. None of those other extra races aside from goliath either.

This is kind of strange to see: back in my 3.5 days, you saw almost as many elves and half-elves at the table as you did humans.

Is there anything particular about 5e that would lead to so fewer elf players?

for me its
2 gnomes
2 dragonborn
2 half orcs
2 humans (both me)
and then 1 of almost everything else thats been published.
no elves, no tieflings, no genasi

Well, the LotR movies all came out shortly after 3e did. That probably had a significant impact on it. Conversely, the Hobbit movies haven't mad as big of a splash as they did.

All the elf fags are still playing Pathfinder.

also i should note my group doesnt play with v humans, just vanilla +1 across the board humans.

- Half-elf
- Human
- Halfling/Dwarf/Elf
- All other PHB races
- DMG race/Elemental Evil race/UA race

Lots of SCAG customization.

I have ideas for a Dwarf ranger, Goliath rogue and High-Elf Feylock, but I'm also a forever DM so I'll likely never get to play them.
>Is there anything particular about 5e that would lead to so fewer elf players?
I think it might just be that humans get a free feat. I might say 'no variant humans' next campaign, see if that encourages more variety.

For most classes, I'd rather play a Half Elf than any normal elf. Those two free skills are nice.

Is the Aarakocra imbalanced? It seems that having a fly speed for level 1 would break combat way too much.

For me it has been:

Humans
Elves/dwarves
Half orcs
Half elves
Halflings/dragonborns/tieflings
Goliaths

As a side note, I have never seen or even heard mention of a player playing as a duergar. I know the subrace is pretty poor but it does surprise me that it's talked about so little.

having played a few one shots with a continuous party, including an aarakocra bard (college of blades or something, more combaty than valor bard), its not so bad.
they can't lift people over pit traps very effectively, the combat flying thing is a moot point when most of our combats have been in dungeons, and the player that plays it isn't really a min maxer at all and just likes making bird noises (tee bee aitch). so idk. in the wrong hands i don't even think it would be that OP. but again our guy isn't really set up to take advantage of it and hes not very... creative... with his combat or anything anyway (though he is with his rp).

I see. Thanks for the insight.

I'm mostly just worried about mix-max players who make an Aarakocra and just sit up in the air with ranged attack/spells while never being in any sort of danger.

Half-elves are perfect skill monkies.
Elves are rogue/monks.
Humans get a free feat with versatile bonuses, which is much harder to come by, and usually cannot be obtained until level 4 where people would want to increase their main stat anyway.

I've a character that can fly, though nobody knows it yet. They haven't flown once, but I'm sure they will soon.
While flying can be incredibly powerful in one versus one, you often have the rest of the party fucking about.
It's the same problem as with devil's sight + darkness. You become a god of the night, but everybody else is left behind in a pool of 'what the fuck?'

How does your own party interfere with your ability to fly? You can just stay above them.

hey Veeky Forums
i have a new DM who wants to start a longer campaign and i was invited to join. Our characters start at 3rd level. Now.. i normally play a paladin but i wanted to try something more interesting. I was thinking monk or ranger. I kinda like the idea of a ranger built like The Witcher... a melee combatant specialized in tracking and precise strikes. Is something like that viable ? is it a bad idea ?

Maybe the damage isn't being divided enough so instead of the 5 goblins splitting up to fight your party they all focus one guy down and kill him

Depressingly, the Ranger is pretty bad. The character is pretty good, though.

For the purposes of The Witcher, though, see if the DM allows homebrew. If so, Matt Mercer wrote up a Blood Hunter class that functions as that, basically.

If they don't allow Homebrew, I'd go Eldritch Knight Fighter, and try to get proficiency in perception and survival.

Couldn't they potentially do that even if you're a grounded character who just sits back? I don't think that really has anything to do with flying unless the DM makes Goblins so stupid that they all split up to pick 1v1 fights with any PC's in their line of sight.

For me, it's been

>humans
>elves
>dragonborn
>goliath
>everything else

The Hunter ranger archetype is probably what you want.
Whether or not its a good idea depends on the campaign, ultimately. Ask your DM if that concept would see much use.

Ranger is fine. None of the classes are "bad." Some of them are lackluster and mediocre, but nothing is just so bad that it's not viable. Play whatever you want.

>duergar

they show up in the early episodes of Critical Role, and play an important part in the plot for some time

and they pronounce it as "dor regar" instead of "dwegher"

>mfw

>the halfling sitting on the dwarf's shoulders in a trenchcoat

Eh, you do have a point. It just disappoints me that Ranger is the least attractive of all the classes.

If I ever get a player that wants to play one, I'd tell them to go for the spell-less ranger from UA, and take both Hunter and Beastmaster archetypes.

eh let them have their fun while they're in a field. occasionally send flying enemies at them, but they traded basically any other ability to be harder to hit (except for spells, arrows, flying enemies, bad weather, whatever) while outside. inside, in a dungeon, underground, thick forest, etc, they're pretty much a worse version of an elf.

(really high ceilinged) white room scenarios make them seem strong, but they could of picked a better race and just positioned themselves in the back of a room instead of flying around, and you wouldn't blink twice at it, you know?
also i personally think it would be interesting to, from time to time, throw in some flying enemies into the mix. like, "two of the bandits can also fly" (tiefling, aarakocra, pixies, griffon riders, whatever). then the party needs to make choices like "kill those guys fast to maintain air superiority" or not.

RANGER IS FINE UNTIL AROUND LEVEL 9.
play a ranger all you want. if your campaign goes past level 8 then consider starting to multi into something else (bard? cleric? monk? fighter? rogue? whatever). but until then you're totally fine.
its viable.
after 9 is what everyone actually has a problem with the ranger complains about. they just stop getting abilities that are well thought out or not something that another class gets way earlier, and often better.

There's always going to be "the best archetype" for every class, and there's always going to be "that class" that is a little underpowered.

And you shouldn't tell them to do anything like that. Let them decide for themselves before you force your opinion on them. If they come to you of their own will and mention that they feel a little underwhelmed, then you can offer some suggestions to help.

Immediately just saying
>Oh, you want to be a Ranger? They're pretty bad, you know. Here, I'll let you pick both archetypes.
is just either going to make them not pick Ranger altogether or make the other players upset that they aren't getting the same rewards just because their DM is biased against Ranger, for some reason.

>There's always going to be "the best archetype" for every class
not sure this is true, m8
i agree with the rest of your post tho.

I'm a little surprised there are so many goliaths and so few genasi.

Uh... the spell-less ranger is amazing - but letting them choose both beastmaster and hunter makes them almost entirely better than a battlemaster; more like a specialized but better than battlemaster.

I use the spell-less ranger and the normal ranger, if you use the wilderness at all they are incredibly useful only combat grinder campaigns make them less useful.

I always thought it was pronounced something like Dway-Gar.

Because the mechanics don't add up to the fluff of elemental races. They never have, really.

Neither does the elemental gameplay

Earthbending is awful in D&D

>Shitty class design is just part of gaming.
Will this cancer die already?

>Put the burden on the player to make the class competent at it's concepts.
And the trap choice guardian I see.

Why do people so vehemently defend that poorly designed and implemented classes are a feature that should be accepted, rather than a failing that should not be tolerated from professionals?

>letting people play the game as written and decide for themselves what is fun and good
>this is somehow wrong now
>you're more qualified to make decisions for the game writers AND the players
Stop this. As a DM, you control your campaign. As a player, they control their character. When you start telling them how they should build their character, especially when they are well within the written standards of the game, you're being a prick.

Anyone use the DM Screen app for Android? It's a pretty handy way of generating tons of random elements for your game. I'm a new DM so it's kind of automating a lot of the finer details so I'm free to work on the big strokes.

I promise I'm not a shill for a free app.

>Shitty class design is just part of gaming.
What is human error? Nothing can be perfectly balanced because humans are making it.

The best you can hope for is that everything is at least viable, which is what 5th Edition does. Once again, no class or archetype in 5th Edition is so bad that it feels not viable.

How much HP does the container for Magic Jar have?

pls respond

Depends on the size and material/DM arbitration.

I think it depends on what the container is made of. If it's glass, Crystal, or a gem stone, it'll break easily enough with the right tools and force. If it's metal, it will be much tougher to crack, especially since it's such an expensive item.

1) Humans
2) Aarakocra (two of them, but both were short-lived and by a player who was trying to find a PC he liked so it was really more like one)
3) One of a variety of different races, including minotaur (my PC!!!), but not a single gnome, half-elf, or half-orc. Lots of humans, though, even non-variant ones!

You can say no variant humans but the problem is you're probably not going to get any humans because regular human is absolute trash.

We've had two Aarakocra, and there was only one situation where it broke combat a little.

A swarm of zombies in the entrance of a castle, crossbowmen on either balcony over it all. The aarakocra rogue flew over all the zombies and took half the crossbowmen completely out of combat as he forced them to drop their crossbows before knocking them off the edge.

It didn't make the encounter trivial, but it did make it much less dangerous. Still, a monk or Thief could do so just as well, spellcasters could have blocked out their view using Fog Cloud, it really didn't do anything that other PCs couldn't replicate.

It did come in handy when our sea-ship's captain was thrown overboard. Rather than taking him completely out of combat, he ended up being back before his next turn started.

My party:
Human
Elf
Half-elf
Half-elf
Halfling
Half-orc

>tfw I'm the DM and trying to balance an encounter

Alright, time to make some kind of metallic nesting doll so the players have a mid boss fight puzzle while fighting off one of their own party members.

I am okay with this. After DMing a campaign with 4 humans and a dragonborn (who joined because a guy playing another human dropped out), I'd welcome a no-human party with open arms.

Say you have Bob and George

Bob flies

George is now the only one who can be engaged in melee

everyone attacks George

Now, George will probably make a tactical retreat while flyingguy bombards everyone

Okay, let's now add Ren, Run and Tub
Ren, Run and Tub are all fighters.

They love to charge in and whack things.

What do they do?
Run in and whack things.

You're going to have to convince your entire party to flee while you singlehandedly, slowly pick off the enemies.

This is especially bad if the enemies have hostages.

The level 3 'fly' spell exists and could solve the same problems in the same way against melee-only targets. Sure, you have to be level 5, and you can't use it all the time, but it's ultrabrilliant at the same times having always-flying is.

Also flying people can be good for scouting, but can't take the entire party.

For me, it's been:

Humans - 7
Elves - 4
Dwarves - 2
Half Elves - 2
Halflings - 1
Half-orc - 1
Dragon Born - 1
Changeling - 1
Gnome - 1

That accounts for every 5e game I've DMed since it came out.

I've always wanted to be a halfling paladin

Is that actually a viable race/class thing for 5e

What level is the party? Depending on their level I may have a suggestion on how to make this "nesting doll".

yeah why wouldn't it be?

Lightfoot halflings get +2 Dex and +1 Cha, and have a couple of handy features (lucky and brave) that might help out a paladin.
If you used finesse weapons and bows (to make use of that racial dex bonus), yes this is absolutely a viable race/class combo.

Is it possible to make an effective melee Dragon Sorcerer?

I want to make a somewhat Skyrim-like Dragonborn ripoff (Not the actual Dragonborn) but from what I can tell trying to make a melee sorcerer is a pretty stupid idea.

any class with a charisma bonus makes for a viable paladin, you might just have to choose if you want a dex pala or a regular one

However, depending on the variable of the halfling, they're actually good for both

They just turned 6. I'm always looking for suggestions!

(Monk, warlock, rogue, bard.)

+1 HP a level makes your HP a d8 basically, which isn't great but its not bad, plus you get to start with unlimited mage armor.
twinning or quickening gfb (or the like, you could do booming blade or shocking grasp or what have you) is a pretty normal melee gish tactic people discuss online. the downside is that the best weapon they can use is quarterstaff, so you want to either start with a race that gives you weapon proficiency OR a lot of people advocate for dipping paladin 2 so you can smite on top of 2x gfb, and you get weapons (and armor if you start paladin).
idk what skyrim dragonborn do, as i never played skyrim, but if you want to post more info i'll brainstorm a bit.

Half-elf dragon sorc with weapon proficiency instead of skills from his race.

Why not just go fighter and go into Eldritch Knight?

Look up "objects" in the DMG, hope your casters don't have Shatter

I think Eknight isn't flashy enough for most people

and to be fair, they are a bit lackluster. Horrid spell progression, shitty level 3 feature.

they don't get anything that reaally makes them "feel" like a gish until level 7. And most games probably don't make it to level 7 and if they do, that's months of game time

>shitty level 3 feature.
>spellcasting
>shitty level 3 feature
Okay

So one of my players drank a lichs phylactery ( blood in a vial ) while the lich was still about ( lichs a pretty ok guy ), is there any rule about this i don't really know what's happening now as a dm.. do you guys have a clue?

Thanks!

>mfw they don't

The +2 Con isn't a major selling point for them stat wise, and I have trouble imagining them just walking into a bar and ordering a drink without some heavy roleplay. The roleplay will get repetitive as commoners have no clue what you are, some will not trust you and some may even just attack you on sight.

They are a little on the low side for the game part of dungeons and dragons and can cause extremely boring and repetitive roleplay scenes that have to matter.

I meant weapon bond

and let's be completely real; Eknight spellcasting is trash. You almost have to multi-class into wiz if you want to do shit with spells

Dragonborn themselves are basically OP as fuck demigods, as are most player characters in Elder Scrolls games once they level up a bunch, but the Greybeards themselves are a pretty good concept and more of what I was going for; a monk of sorts seeking to become more dragon-like because they think Dragons are the coolest shit ever/they want to become more stronk/they're scalefags and want that dragon poon

Honestly Monk refluffed would probably be the best way to play it, with Ki techniques replaced with Voice power.

elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Greybeards

If I had to pick two additional Monk schools to add they'd be a Wild Monk that's a "survival of the fittest" melee Druid and a Dragon Monk where they're trying to emulate their Dragon master, for evil or good depending on the color of the monastery's leader.

We are playing Curse of Strahd and my sorc player used Shatter in the basement of a church... It took out two wooden beams supporting the floor above them.

I got to describe the floor sagging a few inches above them before it settled. We'll see if it collapses next session.

make one of them roll for the floor

Eldritch Knights are melee first, casters second. Their supplemental spells like Shield or Absorb Elements help them survive melee combat. Then, since they can pick any spell every so often, they can pick up amazing non-DC spells. It's not great but it's not trash, either.

you should peep the playtest sorc, and then i guess weep because it doesn't exist in 5e as it is. i'm "working on" adapting it to 5e for a campaign i want to run, but "working on" means i worked on it for an hour and then gave up. but its still kind of cool, you turn more and more draconic as you use up your spell points, and you have a few unique abilities you can use like "dragon strength" which is basically smite.
yeah that works. if you want +1 damage go half-drow so you can use a rapier, but whatever.
i was just fucking with you. EK is... interesting. i want to make one if my current char ever dies just to try it out...

Honestly the biggest issue with EK is the school restrictions, it's bad enough that they get barely any spell slots and spells known in addition to not knowing how to do Ritual Casting without a feat without even being able to take things they might want.

I agree, Evocation is basically worthless since in all likelihood your DCs are shit and essentially useless since you get the good ones like Fireball too late. Abjuration is great, though, imo.

I don't disagree with you, but assuming you're the same guy, are you looking to make a character fit a theme or make a character do as much damage as possible? Because it sounds like EK is more fitting to your theme, even though it may not be as good. EK is still solid if we're just talking damage/utility.

I'm going by how many cross the section of floor. The map has a note for my view and someone will probably drop through he hole.

Please respond.

Looking for some advice for CoS if anyone wants to help me brainstorm some outcomes to the parties current situation.

The group made it to vallaki and dropped off ireena with the priest. He asked them to find the bones, and they tracked them to the coffin maker. Long story short, they got the bones but the coffin maker was killed by the vampire spawn and the party barely made it out of the house alive before deciding the best way to kill the vamps inside was to burn the whole building down.

So what would be the logical reaction from the burgomaster and his right hand man (i forgot his name). Would showing the bones as proof and having the priest vouch for them be enough? Should there be much harsher penalties? Maybe have the burgomaster send them after the cult in town in order to "prove their innocance"?

Thoughts?

Probably necrotic damage, first, then plagued with the thoughts and fears of the soul the lich has been storing in the phylactery to fuel it. Who did the lich use imprisonment on to seal their soul in the phylactery? Maybe it's insight on someone who was about to defeat the lich, where the lich has been. If you have the opportunity I would say the character cannot heal exhaustion with only 8 hours, but more like 12, as he can hardly sleep due to the nightmares being brought on by the souls in the phylactery.

Nah, it just solves a problem most builds don't have.

War Priest should recharge on a short rest, not a long rest And/or instead of War God's blessing they should get extra attack

beside trying to not get into the discussion that the fact that a fighter is basically the most trained in melee martial arts in the class system what said is 10/10

k
i like it

have the burgomaster send them off to acquire wine for the festival in 3 days time.

Planning to run a text only run of either Death House or Phanedelver with a bunch of news.
Which do you suggest, and what's the largest party size you could recommend for either?

Death House 4-6
Phandelver 3-5

Only run Death House if you're going to go into CoS hot. Some Death House encounters are designed to run away from, which newbies might not consider an option.

if war cleric got extra attack, they'd just be a straight up paladin with full casting

Green-Flame Blade and Booming Blade will be your friends if you want to go straight sorcerer.

hey /5eg/
I'm creating a level 4 barbarian to join a group I was invited to, but I kinda want to take some fighter levels too.
So I have a lvl 4 character and want to multiclass barbarian/fighter, help me.

2 Fighter for Action Surge/2 Barbarian, going 3 Barbarian to get Bear Totem.

ok slow down
why?