5eg - On my Phone Edition

2/10 made me reply
I can't tell if you're intentionally making shit or if you seriously think any of these are playable. Do not reply. I don't care either way kiddo.

Also, I neglected to mention, aside from counter barrier relying on your DM giving you magical armour, it also locks people out of using the breastplate for no stealth disadvantage, because the breastplate only has AC 14/16.

I suggest finding some way to make it so the pacts aren't just giving flat AC increases to warlocks, and to make counter barrier dependent on something else such as the AC increase being half your proficiency bonus, rounded up.

Wew lad

Social combat is garbage - You are trash.

How's that?

>expert roleplayer

Well, while everyone is posting homebrew I might as well too.

homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/r1bQkBm5

The Witcher as a class. Let me know what you think.

S A L T Y
A
L
T
Y

How's your first time on Veeky Forums friend? :^)

5e has the most built in room for characterization, but it light on character options.

>If I ran GURPS I would abandon the idea of 5e as a tactical experience

>I would run it with background or ability score proficiency was from the DMG and use it as a lighter weight dungeon explorer with a healthy bit of humor.

Well I don't plan to GM but I wanted to play something on the side when I gm shadowrun. 80% of the games on roll20 seem to be 5th so I wanted ask here to see if that is something I could get into.

Way of the phoenix seriously got my attention Because I'm a huge birdfag and love phoenix How Am I supposed to save these again? Last time I used the print button to save as PDF but a blank page and the second and third pages were missing.

'Salty' is a reddit expression
And social combat is garbage in anything but Exalted, but that still doesn't mean you can't have a system worked out for trying to convince people of things

I recommend you read this: theangrygm.com/systematic-interaction/
It give some good ideas and techniques for working out how social encounters play out. Read his other articles too if you want good GMing advice.

Not how Yrden or Quen works precisely, but the games kept changing how Yrden worked from the original source material because it overlapped to strongly with Quen I guess in gameplay.

I use roll20 to run games
Pyromancers dungeon painter and deepnight 8bit map maker for making maps I would kill for the former to have a desktop version, I find the online version to be irritating
Rolladvantage for tokens
Donjon to randomly generate dungeons, and sometimes loot.

>theangrygm

For shields, I'm not sure exactly what the downside should be. I know it's a big strict upgrade, and unless you used weapons before then it being a focus doesn't even matter so removing that doesn't work. I get that they are too powerful even if warlocks want to mostly stay at the backlines blasting. I can see Tome being better for that if there weren't any exclusive invocations here but with abilities from there as well it definitely feels too powerful.

Plate is less thought of, Counter Barrier was originally another one for Bastion so that's where the 16-AC is from, I do want it to scale with magical armor but that wasn't intended as a huge thing, sort of like shield master not giving +2 but +(shield AC) to account for magical shields. ProfB/2 makes sense. I don't want to require 2 invocations just to get to heavy armor but maybe it should just be a custom suit of armor with 14 AC or something, but bonding to existing armor should still be possible. It wouldn't be too bad to limit it to light armor though I guess, and then MCing/feats can get you heavier armor and shields, which are used to greater effect but hopefully not OP.

Yeah, I used Witcher 3 as a basis since people will probably be most familiar with that iteration of the setting.

Are you serious kid?
>Posts shit
>"HURRRR DURR IS IT GOOD GUYS?"
>Everyone tells you it's shit
>"EVERYONE ELSE IT WRONG"

Kill yourself

>social combat is garbage in anything but Exalted
Dogs? Rules-light systems like Everyone is John and Fiasco? Unless I misunderstand the meaning of the phrase.

Is it bad I want Elemental patrons for warlock? not a different pact for each element but rather a single pact that goes "Choose an element" and depending which element you gain different spells and evocations.

>'Salty' is a reddit expression
It's from the FGC and has reached such widespread usage now that even my stupid little sister whose primary internet experience is Vines and Facebook pages of hiphop faggots uses it. Doesn't even know what Reddit is.

>Not how Yrden or Quen works precisely
Wait, it's not? What do they do then?

I've seen that, definitely one on Dandwiki which was shit as expected, but I think there was another one on DMsG or something.

All of that is literally codified in the homebrew you posted that in response to.

I'm not even gonna bother reading the homebrews there.
Also DMs guild stuff, i've got mixed feelings about it, some stuff is great, other stuff I think it's great then I go "man this does not convince me at all"

You've got a baked-in reason for their existence with the Princes of Elemental Evil, and presumably their Good counterparts would be up for that as well. The Elemental Lords (Akadi / Grumbar / Istishia / Kossuth) might not care that much, but they do deign to take on Clerics and Kossuth at least has more interest than all of them and plays tit-for-tat.

It could totally work. One easy ability might be having a single attack from Eldritch Blast optionally deal damage matching your patron's alignment.

No you got it. Dogs in the Vineyard is probably the best social combat followed by the burning wheel.

They're both defensive Signs, just with different functions.
Yrden creates an impenetrable barrier that surrounds the witcher or something near him until he disperses it. The downside is that even though nothing can get in, nothing can get out either so it's useful only to take a breather or as a defensive ward.
Quen deflects fast-moving objects, such as bolts or arrows. It can stop a sword strike just ONCE, but this causes the spell to shatter and might still cause a heavy strike to get through as the blow might have too much mass behind it.

Speaking about elementals, are the derivative "elemental" planes like smoke and magma still a thing?

Thanks for the feedback!

Here ya go.

Yeah that's exactly how I feel, it can give ideas still though. This one for example, there are a lot of balance problems but I love the types of features so I want to make a more balanced version of it.

The Paraelemental Planes?
I don't remember them being mentioned but that doesn't mean they aren't there.

4E got rid of them (along with the primary Inner/Elemental Planes and a few other ones like Limbo) and rolled it all into the Elemental Chaos.

5E brought all the planes back and just SURROUNDS those Inner Planes with the Elemental Chaos, inasmuch as you can surround infinite planes with both clear borders yet seamless transitions into the other Inner Planes (don't ask, it's not supposed to make sense).

Shield master certainly works better if the DM gives you magical shields. I guess that is true. It does start out at +2, reaching up to +5 if your DM is really generous. Starting at +1 and increasing with magical stuff sounds a bit more dangerous, though.

I'm not sure what to suggest for binding plate/shield to you, though. I already think pact of the blade is kind of poorly built.

>middle finger of vecna
Unsure if it was a vecna, but got told by a bunch of people in /5eg/ not to use anything from them.

I think the system needs a lot more simplifcation as any player trying to get into this will spend a bit too long working houserules out.

Why is int used for armour?
Int might improve the opinions others have of you through appearing intelligent from word vocabulary and the like (if you can do tha language) and may perhaps be used if multiple people are trying to talk to you at once, though that's sort of into wis territory too - perceiving multiple things at once and memorizing multiple things at once before analyzing multiple things at once.

Not to mention, anybody with crappy social stats will just obsucate for either side all the time, and anybody who isn't alone can just have an obnoxious blathermouth blathering on to obsufucate all the time. It's like dodge, except every time you take the dodge action the entire party gets the benefits.

I think the Game of Thrones tabletop thing, that song of fire and ice or whatever it was had a nice looking social 'intrigue' system you could always steal.

But still, I think it needs to be simplified a lot.

Been about a week since I posted this homebrew of mine and got a little bit of feedback on it. After toiling away for awhile I think I finally finished it.

I am aware that Reanimator is probably broken, but I made it in an attempt for it to completely replace the animate dead spell(which has a lot of problems with it).

I have some issues with it, like the no sentient weapons thing and the action to summon, outside of the more glaring problems like doing less damage, taking more risks and spending more resources with feats and invocations. Shields and armor are a lot more helpful innately though, just the ability to summon armor onto yourself as an action can be very nice and the AC is always helpful. Gonna have to think about how to limit shields though, even if I allow bucklers I don't want to say they can only summon smaller shields of +1 AC or something, though that might be the best way to balance it.

They have a lot of conversions, some good ones now and then but mostly mediocre to bad. I also think they are a bit distanced, they don't take a lot of feedback so if something isn't good I just give up on it instead of suggesting improvements (like that one there.)

Depends on the setting.

Honestly this seems pretty balanced, if not a tiny bit slightly underpowered. Save for one thing.

"Wave -
You embody the unstoppable power of a crushing wave. While you're raging and aren’t wearing heavy armor, you can use the Dash action as a bonus action on your turn without provoking opportunity attacks. In addition, you can make an attack on a creature immediately after using the Dash action and you gain advantage on the attack roll and knock the creature prone on a hit.

Firstly, the wording sucks.
Using the dash action DOES NOT TRIGGER OPPORTUNITY ATTACKS.
I assume they mean 'you do not take opportunity attacks if you use the dash action on your turn'. That effect would be more powerful than 'take the dash AND disengage action as a bonus' since taking the disengage action still fails against sentinel creatures.
Alright, so you've just used a bonus action to dash. You now immediately get to attack, because the dash action does not require you to move anywhere, it merely increases your move speed that turn, it does not require you to even more.
You then also get advantage.
You then also get to KNOCK CREATURE PRONE WITHOUT SAVE. You can then proceed to multi-attack it then run off at the speed of light without opportunity attacks.

Holy fuck.
They were doing so well up until then, and then they suddenly lost it and said 'You know what, we've failed to make an overpowered character. Let's make it overpowered.'

Yeah that one's insane. I wrote a bunch of stuff reading it the first time, at some point I may just re-create it with some tweaks and some big changes.

Oh, now I think about it. Being able to summon armour allows you to use otherwise stealth-ruining armour without wearing it all the time.

It might also be nice if you want to pretend to not be battle-ready.

However, not all DMs require you to take your armour off in your sleep. Doing that would punish dex-dumpers too heavily and force everybody ever to have good dexterity or suck. A super-tanky guy with 3 dexterity would literally have an AC of 6 in the night and not be able to do anything about it. And there are a lot of times adventurers have to stop sleeping for things.

I don't think the balance is to limit the AC increase.
I think the AC increase existing at all is the problem.
Other pacts do not confer direct combat bonuses other than to melee locks through shillelagh or pact of the blade - and melee locks suck. Pact of the tome is unlikely to help your combat potential a lot when you already have the best damaging cantrip in the game, that deals almost never resisted damage.

The pacts are generally utility over anything. Pact of the blade can be considered utility as it doesn't increase your damage output, but let you fight in melee instead of with cantrips which were more powerful anyway.

Maybe merge the shield and armour pacts, don't allow it to give proficiency but give it some extra utility and maybe open up an invocation that gives armour/shield proficiency. Though, that might be treading on 'you can cast mage armour at will' invocation.

Basically Int is the ability to overcome your personal reason/resolve with an argument.

I agree that I sort of broke form making so many actions using varied mental stats, when the fundamental was: Wis=Con, Cha=Str, and Int=Dex. I think I should lean into that more.

I like the positions more than the actions, any thoughts on how to simplify? With low(ish) "hit points" and high "damage" along with easily getting advantage I think it should be over quickly which is part of the point.

If you haven't, it might we worth reading some of the social combat from other systems, but I think you might already have done.

I don't really have much of a clue myself.
I like how things work right now, though I do feel some stats (like int) need more use, even though it'll be hard to justify the use of intelligence as it's pretty much just brainpower and memorization. Also, sometimes social events are resolved without even referring to a charismatic character's charisma once, whereas combat may constantly refer to combat stats. I guess the fix to that is that many casters use charisma for their abilities.

I'm doing my best to think of some sort of simple system, but I keep crashing at 'There are too many situations which would call for special rulings'.

A simple system that allows people to taunt might be nice, though.

Any particular homebrews from them I should check?

Well path of the primialist is a piece of shit
>Druid evocation spells
Yeah no that's not too good
>Can't retrain spells
>Spell slots have no regeneration notes for either short rest or long rest recovery
Let me make sure to mention in case you read my notes: fucking make it per short rest because otherwise it ultra shitty
>No calculation for what the spell dc/to hit is
>Con spell casting
No no no no that's fucking terrible, everyone uses con, make it wisdom like a druid or something
Not fucking con
Mind frenzy is okay I guess, no real opinion at this point
>Rage heart
This feature is so bad, everyone has con anyway so making it your casting strength isn't special, and roll an additional die for what? You didn't say what type of die. It's also terrible because it eats a rage
>Iresight
That shouldn't eat a rage, seriously, make it a daily ritual or something, not a fucking rage eating ability
>Storm fury
Well, you broke me. This is a better damage type fireball that knocks people prone, but it eats a rage, does shitty damage, hits allies, and gives you exhaustion
Overall it's shit
Fucking remake it

I'll review warboss because I like 40k
>Half orc only
Make it both half orc and orc only, orcs are a race that's going to be made soonish
>rage is enlarge
I have no issues with this
>Con mod per day to give people adv on str check/save
Str checks/saves aren't common enough for that shit, make it recharge on a short rest or just can use forever
>Legendary resistance
I like the meaning because it makes you more like a mean motherfucker legendary creature man
>Make people scared AOE
This is also good for that motherfucker angle, I like this subclass a lot, except for the adv on str stuff, make that better or something that effects other saves too

The aggressive position is for taunting and baiting and generally being a bully in your arguments. It's suited to quickly reduce AP, so in a situation like torture or questioning a prisoner you can be aggressive and they start with very low AP and you do a lot more damage.

For intelligence there it requires a bit of posturing: you need investigation followed with a reasoned argument to use intelligence to attack without the other side being factually wrong.

I think there needs to be a better defense against deceptions in general though.

Good shit. I've been kinda iffy on the Primalist for awhile now. Definitely have an idea for where I want to take it.

Also, glad you liked warboss.

I like the idea of it, but I think you shouldn't make a weapon and attack and instead should smash into them for like 1d4+ Strength mod damage, prone on a failed strength save.

>Oh, now I think about it. Being able to summon armour allows you to use otherwise stealth-ruining armour without wearing it all the time.
That is true, I only thought of it as being able to wear armor during night encounters and such, which my GM does do and I'm torn on. I want monks to benefit from those unprepared scenarios but yeah, rogue and dex fighters etc. don't need the buff. You're right about the shield though, a merge does sound like the logical solution, getting rid of the Shield invocation and stuff.

What do I do as a Wizard if my DM doesn't seem like he'll be giving us any gold? We're playing Out of the Abyss and I'm worried I wont ever get a chance to copy new spells.

Also in your opinion, what are your top spells for Wizard? I'll be coming in at level 3 and tried to keep a good mix of offensive, defensive, and utility. What I have so far: Chill Touch, Minor Illusion, Prestidigitation

Ray of Sickness, Ice Knife, False Life, Mage Armor, Shield, Alarm, Find Familiar, Detect Magic

Scorching Ray, Mirror Image

Still. If you just want to taunt an enemy in the middle of combat, you shouldn't have everyone freeze up and step down from combat for a moment as everyone starts arguing.
As fun as it would be to play phoenix wright, that would be ridiculous.

I suppose it's fine to take down charisma's position of 'used to convince people you're right' and instead hand it over to intelligence for 'logic and reasoning', but you'll find most shorter arguments aren't won by a factually correct quote or a list of statistics but instead a charismatic man controlling the direction of the conversation or something.

I suppose there's probably an option to use charisma to persuade and intelligence to give facts, and that's fair enough.

The 'not being able to wear armour at night' thing really feels kind of unfair.

There already aren't a lot of benefits to going strength and using heavy armour, without forcing anyone who went heavy armour and dumped dex to be suddenly squishier than even a wizard. Not to mention your DM is more likely to rule you'll fuck up acrobatic type stuff in heavy armour than to someone in less.

I kind of did the same thing to one of my fighters before, but I can sort of justify it as fair as that particular enemy was like being hit by a truck (the PCs were being really adventurous trying to fight this) and that it would only target AC half the time given how low level anyone was.

Oh, enough about that though.
A good utility might be to allow you to switch clothes at any given moment with ease, including armour. That might broaden its use a bit.

Oh, I let my players taunt in combat to frighten enemies as an action. This is really for a set social encounter scene and not so much to be mixed in with normal combat so much.

Copying new spells shouldn't be your worry.
Your worry should be money attached to spells.
You need 50gp to get a diamond to cast chromatic orb.
100gp for a pearl to cast identify.

You get two spells to your wizard book every level. That's more spells you have access than any other class - 44 by level 20. ... Ha, just kidding, Clerics, Druids, Paladins, Rangers etc can just choose whatever spells whenever, they have access to all thei class spells.

Shield is a must.
Alarm, detect magic and rituals like that are all good as you can cast them without preparing them.

Mirror image is good.

Firebolt is probably a good standard attack cantrip, given its range and d10 damage. Still, other attack cantrips might offer more utility if you want it.

Don't feel like you have to get a combat spell for level 2 such as scorching ray. Sometimes it's better to use that slot for utility. Still, it might be useful in your earlier levels since until level 5 it'd be your best attack if you go all in. Not to mention, its upcasting doesn't suck so bad.

How do you Fighter?

really most classes shouldn't be dumping dex anyways when you can usually dump int and charisma and be better off for it.

With a very large inventory.

Want to not think about things and just swing? Champion

Want to paint the battlefield like it's your canvas? Battlemaster

Want to cast spells and be not *just* a fighter? Eldritch Knight

Rangers don't prepare spells, their spellcasting is basically just a weird mix that wants to be druid but not.

So I'm joining a second campaign for off-weeks for my main game, and I'm considering rolling a skill-monkey half-elf. With a charlatan background it should be fairly easy to roleplay I think, but I'm looking for ideas for roleplaying the build.

It's the worst spellcasting methodology in the book and unique to a class that's already not fantastic. Why couldn't they make it work just like Paladins? Or even Druids, since the fluff says the get the magic "like Druids"?

Can't you just replace the materials with an arcane focus?

I can't decide the race of my Druid..

He will be spending most of the time in Wild Shape, pretending to be animal and spying/scouting.

Ghostwise Halfling
+ Lucky (several DM around here go with "fumble do bad thing" rule)
+ Telepathy

Half-Elf
+ Better CHA for Deception
+ Skill versatility

Any thought or recommendation? I think telepathy would open up more RP potential.

Telepathy is incredibly useful for communicating in beast form, I think that's a huge advantage on it's own.

If this happened, almost everybody would dump int.

It's already the case almost everybody dumps int.

Int just doesn't do a lot other than give you reason to know some things in-character you could probably work out with the correct spell from your wizard, anyway.

It's boring.

I dump dexterity because it just feels less boring, and I don't have to either pretend to be dumb/bad memory or forego it and do bad roleplaying.

So, yes, anybody who can use heavy armour can dump dexterity.

However, they're still penalized - dex saves are more common than int saves. A lack of stealth, and a lack of initiative. Still, that's not a massive price to pay.

If you wanted to metagame a lot, tanks would usually have low strength high dexterity (save for barbarians) because if you use a shield, there are no stronger one-handed weapons than a 1d8 - what the rapier is. You lose 1 AC for going studded leather + 5 from dex or half-plate with + 2 from dex. You can use dexterity on ranged weapons, too.

So, currently, you can kind of dump your dex. If your DM constantly makes you fight without armour, however, you're kind of fucked.
And that isn't really fair, when what you're doing is adding attribute diversity to the party.

Yes, I am making a big deal over nothing. Usually it's nothing.
But I don't want to see DMs actively encouraging that everybody takes dex.
Because the unfortunate truth is, dex and con are always good stats on everyone. Int and str are rarely as good.

No. If there is a price tag, you must provide that regardless of if you have a focus/component pouch.

However, the item is not consumed unless it specifically states/heavily implies that the item is consumed.

Also Banneret / Purple Dragon Knight (SCAG) if you want to be a Warlord / General on the battlefield.

A half-elf charlatan skillmonkey lore bard is literally the next character I'm looking to play. He's currently on the lam from authorities for pilfering the coffers of older women. He's a lush, preferring the finer things in life, and is consequently horribly vain, almost to the point of narcissism.

>I dump dexterity for reasons

Sure, that's fine, you'll just have to deal with not having a lot of AC out of your armor. That's the trade off.

>can dump dexterity

you CAN but it's almost always a worse choice. there's no sense bitching about how sub optimal you are when you're the one making yourself sub optimal. and it's not just fighting unarmored, it's the much more common dex save, all the dex skills, and your initiative that suffers too. dex is the god stat this edition, it might not be fair but that's just the way it is.

>adding diversity to the party

I think party diversity comes from more than just your stats.

PDK is a terrible archetype.

What should your AC be at Level 17?

depends on your stats armor and what your gm gives you

I thought you were constructing an argument for dumping int there. If it's a boring stat and doesn't do anything mechanically or in roleplaying (outside of making you feel like player skill/knowledge - character skill/knowledge ratio is appeased) then wouldn't you just not care about it and instead focus a bit more on dexterity?

>not having a lot of AC out of your armor
Once that character is out of their armour, their AC is so low in later levels that ANY attack can hit them. Commoners in rags have more AC than your superhero fighter.

The character might have +1 AC from fighting style, +5 AC from magical shield, 18+3 AC from magical plate armoura ll the way up to 27 AC, but..

Once they're caught out in the open, any attack that is not a 1 will automatically hit them if you assume the enemy is a late-game enemy.

That's not a good system.
You might as well tell the fighter to sit out completey while everyone else has fun, because otherwise his character is either going to be a meatshield or die.

Now, I have a good case against everything I'm saying. It's all part of being a weakness. The fighter should sit back and do archery. The paladin should focus on spells and hide away.

Maybe that's fine, and it encourages people to think a bit more about their situation.
If the DM does this constantly or has that specific character immediately surrounded or the likes, however, that would be punishing players for their choice of character.

If everyone always chose the optimal choice, we'd only see strength on GWF fighters and barbarians.

And I'll admit, you can get some interesting things going even if everyone put an '8' on intelligence, but still.
It limits viable build options, and takes away from the character creation fun.

It'd just be nice if D&D could somehow balance stats for once.

>It'd just be nice if D&D could somehow balance stats for once.
Is there a game that does this well? I've played a few other games with stats and I can't think of one that isn't also a very different system from D&D while still technically being stats, like Everway and Dogs in the Vineyard.

Okay, I sort of half-argued against myself there, but I think I can shorten my post a lot.

Yes, it's okay to catch people without their armour sometimes.
If you do it all the time, you're a dick, in the same way you'd be a dick to never allow short rests to warlocks.

Also I'd kind of like to see there being more of a penalty to dumping stats. Nothing that's stop dumping stats from being a thing - dump stats are fine as a concept. It's just if you can dump a stat and gain absolutely no negative effects unless your DM calls you out...

If you're in heavy armour, dexterity is less of a boon, but still much more of a boon than intellect.
It's something you can easily afford to lose.
Normally, you just lose a bit of initiative, you suck at dex saves and that. You can live with that.
If your DM keeps catching you without your armour, however, your DM has every single time turned you from 'party tank' to some sort of side supporting role that can't really get into the combat.

Honsetly, it's not an easy task. I think the most success comes out of this when you have only very few skills, and players don't make up for lost skills for all the zero-intellect players.

5e had a good idea going for it with saves for all classes. But then, there aren't enough int saves, cha saves...
4e had an 'either or' idea going for it, which was maybe suboptimal.

Yes, that's why you don't dump Dex. It's a choice you're making. I'm not saying you should always be without your armor but getting caught without your armor should be a real risk for everyone but barbs moon druids and monks.

and I guess sorcs and wizards because they wear robes anyways. With an enchanted shield your AC will still be decent and your damage and HP will still probably be fine for a short ambush encounter, you're just at a weaker point because you rely more on your equipment.

How do you deal with PCs that say they sleep in their armor / don't care if they stink?

Is moon druid low AC in wild shape (even counting 16 AC from Barkskin) going to be a problem at later level?

a bit but you should be able to soak it with your HP.

Either way once you're out of wild shape you just go back to being a full caster.

>any caster with two brain cells to rub together effectively can't be disarmed of their spellcasting ability
>anyone with weapons can get their shit jacked at a moment's notice
>and they have to have their defenses completely down every night beyond merely being unconscious
It's a pointless punishment for just Heavy armor classes. Light and most Medium armors will never be too uncomfortable to sleep in. Don't worry about it. If they don't want to take a bath when they're in town or some shit, have the more well-to-do NPCs react as tehy would someone who stinks.

Once you get to 20 that's 126 HP per round that they need to get through before damaging you, and before level 20 you go between that and playing like a normal full caster.

>no more spell slots

You were saying something about casters not being disarmed of spellcasting?

A shield still takes an action to put on. Well, hopefully you can normally do that, but you might not always have the time.
Though, an action to gain +2 to +5 AC is really good.

Fun-wise, I think not allowing players to sleep in their armour is okay, and can create a challenge for a fighter who'd normally just run up and sword everything. Maybe they'll learn to be tactical for once.
Balance-wise, it shouldn't be done unless non-heavy-armour users are punished sometimes, too. For example, there are some times you just can't dodge. However, we left behind touch and flat-footed attacks with pathfinder.

That's my conclusion, without me going into a paragraphs-long monologue.

Typically characters may face exhaustion or lessened benefits of a long rest.

I'd say that they should be making con saves to not get those penalties, though.

Make it a risk, not a definite thing that they'll end up a mess.

It's good to think about how you're doing things, though.
Are you going to jump the players constantly in the night? Let them wear armour.
Are you going to do a couple of one-offs on odd events to change the tempo? Don't let them wear it without penalty.

Give them armor with built-in prestidigitation for cleaning

Yes, disarmed. How are you going to steal someone's spell slots? Your comment makes no sense.

>can't be disarmed of their spellcasting ability

unless you take away their focus/component pouch, bind and gag them?

not to mention a spellcaster with a big fighter in his face is probably not in a great position anyways.

Is a melee ranger ever a good idea?

Yes. TWF ranger is D&D iconic.

Mechanic wise, Ranger combat style allow you to ignore pre-requsite, so you can be pure STR TWF and all that good stuff.

Druids can still wild shape, though that would stop actual spells. I think this is mostly in combat though, anyone is useless when tied up but spellcasters are fine without their gear while fighters rely on it.

What kind of spellcaster worth their salt does not have at least 10 different ways to get away from a fighter?

I don't think the spells and class features are generally as tailored to melee as they are to ranged, and if you wanted to dual wield I think there's a lot of other things competing for your bonus action, but it's not damning or anything
The second part of your post make me wonder if you're even talking about 5th ed