/5eg/ fifth edition general - thank fuck for the tome of beasts edition

Smithing, especially forging something like a sword, is an intensive physical act of labor that takes hours. The legs would need to be made out of immoveable rods or else they'd likely fold under the stress of heat and hammering. There's a reason that anvils are essentially a solid 2-foot thick block of metal.

I don't really see how an anvil and shield could ever be interchangeable without being terrible at either one or both of those functions.

Ah I was gonna repost it but I guess I wont bother, I already got that stuff down etc keeping it simple with a dragon born fighter, but it's honestly everything else I dont have a clue with like how many ability scores I get but I guess I'll just read through the handbook

Also In relation to pic related on yours I'm assuming paths are sub-classes you eventually go down?

reaper from overwatch?
>fiend pact bladelock
>pact weapon is dual hand crossbows
>after emptying them, toss them on the ground, and use your action to resummon your pact weapons with full ammo
>regain temp HP from kills
>be sure to grab misty step as one of your spells
>possibly take levels in fighter/ranger

>Chr 13

Why

I guess it could be a REALLY heavy shield??

I think this is one of those things that should be when the character isn't out on the road adventuring he can spend downtime doing black smithing stuff. Maybe even give him a store.

the lich is the patron

I'd still say go with Death cleric.

No, that sounds fun as hell, but I mean, reaper as in Scythe and shit.
Reckon I'll give him a glaive for a weapon as a stand in

It'd probably be "easier" to give him a magical key to a magical door which leads to a portable anvil + workshop (refluffed/nerfed Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion), where once a day he and up to 5 other Medium-sized creatures can enter this small smithing for up to 10 hours. Generally speaking you need an anvil and forge, and even for a dragonborn, his breath weapon skill isn't going to be hot enough or get a good enough even distribution of heat to make weapons or armor.

As for making said non-magical items, it's maybe a day's worth of work for most things, unless we're talking something like breastplate, half-plate, splint, or full plate.

I think the rule in 5e is 25g or 50g worth of materials to be used in crafting over the course of an 8-hour crafting session. Normally this cost is aimed at crafting magical items, but can easily be applied to most non-magical items as well.

what class is he? An Eldrich Knight could plausibly have this as a refluffed Leomund's Tiny Hut, or a divine Paladin of Thor or Hepheastus could have a Portable Forge hooked up to his Find Steed spell

Flavorwise I'd be sorrier for it, but I can definitely see how it makes for a mechanically better character

That sounds like a cool something or another to give him later in the game. I don't know if giving someone Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion at level 1 is a great idea though

given that mordekainen's mansion is a 7th level spell i don't think i'd give it to someone until at least level ten.

Yep. It varies for most classes, but by level 3 you pick a subclass (also referred to as an archetype) that gets you more bonuses to your base class.

So for a fighter you can be a Champion or a Battlemaster. The first lets you do a bit more DPS in combat (but doesn't offer much outside of that), or a Battlemaster which lets you do a bit of battlefield control (small movements, ways to make enemies prone, defer advantage or disadvantage, floating numbers to hit or miss, etc.) with a small pool of die.

I'll also recommend the Paladin class to you if you're looking at a Dragonborn and want to be the guy who wades into battle and just do a shit ton of damage while also being a tanky front liner.

As for ability scores, check pages 10-13 for numbers on what stat does what, and page 13 for standard point buy system and the standard set of scores.

especially considering this key would double as a mordekainen shelter for long rests, if it could last for eight hours

It'd have to be at the very least a level 5 present and the forge would have to let anyone in

Ah right makes more sense now

As a matter of fact I'm a bit torn between paladin and fighter but I guess it depends on what I think of for backstory right now

Oh yeah, definitely don't give this to him at level 1. But maybe the group starts out in a small town and he's got an apprenticeship going with the town blacksmith, so he starts out there. Then maybe as he adventures he hears about magical forges and items to aid in the creation of magical artifacts.

Hell, Lost Mine of Phandelver has a freaking Forge of Magic in their lost mine that dwarves and evil shit fought over. Maybe you can expy that over to your campaign, give the party something to do in their downtime (turn the mine back into a working town, with forges and shit for him and NPCs to mine and call home).

Then maybe around level 9 or 10 he gets wind of a magical key given to a master smith by your god of the forge, which let him be able to make anything no matter where he was.

Fighter's main benefits are more Extra Attacks compared to Paladin and more ASIs (ability score increases). Because ASIs double as ways to gain feats in 5e, most Fighters end up getting a 20 in their main damage stat , grab a feat or two, then spend the rest of the ASIs boosting Constitution or Intelligence for EKs.

If memory serves, I think for pure minmax Fighter 20 is the best at nova-ing damage due to Action Surge letting them get 8 attacks in one round, but I don't remember the damage calculations.

Paladin gets more damage earlier on due to various spells they can learn along with smite, but peters off a bit in the higher levels. Then again, not many campaigns get above level 8 or 10, so that is also something to consider.

Anyone ever have interesting homebrew passive abilities that they've come up with?

For example our fighter basically became a hero by accident and as a result started having stories being attributed to him without having done them. So I came up with the idea that he would get extra XP due to being credited with more than he did. Our DM liked it so now after battles he rolls a d20 to determine his extra xp.

Anons? Amateur homebrewer here with a peculiar obsession with monstrous PC races. I'll get right to the point: do you think a PC raced based on the Naga - so, human(ish) head on a giant magical snake's body, no arms (that's a non-D&D lamia) could ever be made balanced under the 5e ruleset?

Just for shits 'n' giggles, here's a first draft of one I've thrown together just off the top of my head:

Naga
Ability Score Increase: +2 Intelligence, +1 Charisma
Size: Medium
Speed: 30 feet
Vision: Darkvision
Limbless Horror: A naga's unique body shape poses great difficulty in using items designed for humanoids. Armor must be custom fitted, doubling its expense value if purchased; magic armor that reshapes itself to fit a wearer will do so for a naga, but otherwise must be manually altered. A naga can only wear Head slot, Neck slot and Body slot magical items, though at a DM's discretion it can also wear 1 magical ring on the tip of its tail.
Telekinetic: Nagas have developed an instinctive ability to manipulate items by thought alone. A Naga has a single invisible "hand" which provides them with the effective reach of a Large-sized creature. This hand can be used to interact with a single physical object at a time, allowing a naga to make all of the normal actions despite lacking physical limbs, including using a magic item or swinging a weapon. When using its telekinesis, a naga treats its Intelligence score as its Strength score for determining attack roll and damage roll bonuses, and the naga's ability to lift and carry. At a DM's discretion, some Strength checks may be replaced by Intelligence checks if a naga could conceivably use its telekinesis to do so, such as prying open a gate, pushing a crate or lifting a heavy trapdoor.

I contemplated adding racial traits like some innate spell-like abilities and/or a poisonous bite, but I was worried I'd be overloading it with abilities and making it too powerful.

pure class, fighter is brutal as fuck

multiclass fighter2/paladin4/bard14 i think could do the most damage in a single attack but doesnt get a second attack unless the bard part is valor

>everyone thinks i killed the ogre
>i didn't actually kill the ogre
>but i'm still a better fighter now despite not having actually fought the ogre

I attepted to rejigger Armor table a bit for a Bronze Agey setting. It emphasizes shield use quite a bit but otherwise ACs work out to about the same values as in 5e core.

Notes:
>1) You take the worst from DEX column. So, if you're in a lithotorax (glued cloth vest) with a Large shield, your AC doesn't benefit from DEX
>2) Shields and helmets have Sacrifice property. Basically, when you take a hit, you can sacrifice this piece of equipment to reduce the incoming damage by noted value.
>3) Parrying dagger has Parry property. When an attack on you misses, you can deal a d4 of retaliatory damage as a Reaction.

Any thoughts?

It's not a lot of xp, like maybe 50 or so on a good roll. He has actually been doing a lot of the killing so far. All our players were down with it just to give our campaign something different

It could work if the extra XP was given while he multiclassed into bard.

That seems dumb.

Forgot to add:
>4) Light plating is supposed to represent clothes with small bits of bone or metal over them. They're mostly a holdover from an earlier draft that remain here because I didn't manage to come up with another light 12 AC armor that didn't disadvantage stealth
>5) Plate is a normal steel plate. Setting-specifically, it's only available to invading otherworldly forces. I also thought about making it 19 AC but its AC unable to benefit from any other equipment on the table

Playing in a group with barb and fighter Goliath brothers. Should I roll:

> Aasimar Lore Bard
> Dwarf Boxer (Open Hand Monk)
> Half Elf Swashbuckler
> Human wild mage with gourmand for extra flavor
> tiefling knowledge Cleric of Vecna, trying to start his own cult

Cleric or Bard would probably be most useful, utility-wise

>gourmand
>for extra flavor
I see what you did there.

But seriously, fuck healing. I say go Swashbuckler. Force your DM to adapt to an all martial party.

>ranger's wolf companion has to save against a ghost's Horrifying Visage
>gets a 5
>immediately ages 20 years

Was it up to me, I'd scale it down for a wolf

Where can you find old PDFS of Dragon or Dungeon Magazines? Preferably free copies.

As far as I can tell, this has every single issue of Dragon & Dungeon they ever put out. Even the 4e stuff they hid behind Insider.

deathranger.com/

THANK YOU!

Please tell me the Ranger is currently hucking around a crippled senile old doggo sort of half waiting for it to expire but dreading the eventuality?

I'm sorry, user. Dogs rarely live to 15, let alone into their 20s.

And wolves rarely live past 13.

How do you fellow dms come up with names for everything? The hardest part for me is thinking up names for NPCs, cities, or anything else

donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/name/

Does your region have a theme of some sort? Use it if it does.
Is it cold north? Look up some norge of finnish words and mash then together. Ancient city of Kaupunki!
Is it England-like countryside? Pick the most recognizable terrain feature and name after it. Village of Greenbrook

And so on.
Oh, and yeah, random generators are also nice

Couple of issues.

Parrying dagger doesn't make a lot of sense.

The enemy misses you, but you automatically hit and deal damage?

It'd be a staple on, say, warlocks, who don't need the extra hands and would be glad to get automatic damage whereas people such as tempest clerics who get reaction attacks anyway wouldn't get to get any use out of it. I think it's mostly the automatic hitting that I think is contrived, though.

Sacrifice is a bit weird, too.
The party might carry around a whole backpack full of extra large shields just so they can get them all broken.
Still, it's not exactly bad. Just a bit weird, especially that the large shield removes all damage entirely. It's also good to define what a 'hit' is. Is it a hit from an attack? Whenever you take damage? After a dex save?

And here's the worst thing I have to admit:

You screw over the notion of ever having 'strength' as a stat.
Strength was already an endangered species, but when you make it so that heavy armour is actually less AC than light armour with dex, there really is no point in being a strength fighter other than to use GWF. Those who would benefit most from shields would likely be using GWF or something.
Only the barbarian wouldn't care, and the +3 shield technically doesn't affect unarmoured defence.
The barbarian wears medium armour or goes unarmoured defence, so they'll be having a ball.

You'd see less heavy armour, yes, but parties would consist of weaklings.

Make the shield out of adamantium. It would be heavy as hell but if the character is strength based it's not too much of a stretch. Adamantium could be described to have magical properties that resist being warped.

Oh, and there's no obvious downside to wearing a helmet at all. Other than if everyone keeps sacrificing helmets you're going to need a large supply.

Making plate give you more AC than medium armour+dex or light armour+dex should be your first priority.

19 AC but no benefit from other options is fine. In the current situation, that's basically like core DnD plus everybody wears a helmet (so everyone but plate wearer gets +1 AC), except that people won't be able to use a shield alongside it, which doesn't really make sense.
It'd make people actually go GWF fighter, though. They don't use shields anyway.

It's all work in progress and thank you for your answer.

>The enemy misses you, but you automatically hit and deal damage?
You specifically have to spend your reaction, making you lose a possible AoO. But yeah, an attack roll would be in order, I suppose.

>It's also good to define what a 'hit' is. Is it a hit from an attack? Whenever you take damage? After a dex save?
Whenever you take damage. Apllies to final damage. Probably would make sense not to apply it to AoEs.

>You screw over the notion of ever having 'strength' as a stat.
You realize that those same restrictions are in normal 5E rules, right? I don't like them and would probably get rid of them in actual play but I had to include the column for completeness sake.

>Oh, and there's no obvious downside to wearing a helmet at all.
I'm not sure there should be. It's just an item that brings your AC to expected values and could be lost in battle

You're screwing over strength as a stat because you're reducing the AC from strength armor by 2 for no real reason.

I think the parrying dagger should stay as the 'you spend your reaction to gain an effect', but the 1d4 damage seems limited and certainly might want an attack roll, and if it required an attack roll.. It wouldn't be worth it anymore.

I'd think maybe an effect like "you can attempt an attack to get an opening, if you succeed you have advantage on your next attack against them, before the end of your next turn" or something.
I think it'd work best as some sort of support weapon rather than 'deal damage' or 'increase AC', but I'm not too sure what's best for the idea.

It might make sense to apply shields to AoEs, as you can interpose it between you and the effect, much like the 'shield master' feat.

Giving everyone helmets they can get broken sometimes is probably okay, since everybody - Okay, maybe not druids. Some people can't, but most could. Maybe leather helmets or bear helmets.

The strength is a really big point though, and this is the thing that matters the most.
If there is no heavy armour, then the only reason people would go for it would be for heavy shields. And that makes sense, I suppose.
But shields have no strength requirement.
And GWF can't use a shield.

So GWF would be completely out of the question unless you became MAD - Strength to hit, and dexterity to get AC, initiative, dex saves, stealth and such skills..
At that point you may as well become a rogue instead.

Heavy armour already sucks in core 5e, without nerfing it or removing it.

>except that people won't be able to use a shield alongside [Plate], which doesn't really make sense.
As I understand it, as plate became more common shields became used less and less, outside of jousting. When your entire body is a wall of steel, do you really need another one weighing you down?

As I said, a side goal was to emphasize shield use, as appropriate for Bronze Age. There would also be no greatswords or lances, as those are unfeasible to make
And total for a Heavy Panoply + Helmet + Large Shield is 20, just like it is in normal rules for suit of plate and a shield.

Now, I suppose I could make the following:
Heavy armors are all 1 higher
Large shields are now Aspis: +2 AC, no Sacrifice. Gives +1 AC to an adjacent ally of your choice.

Does it sound better?

It's a nice idea, but a shield is something you have to actively parry with. If he wants to use it as portable cover, that could definitely work.
If he wants to carry it around as a shield?
If he's a bear barbarian, let him.

If he has 20 strength, consider maybe letting him.

If he's not awfully strong, he'll have to make it out of mythril.

>Okay, maybe not druids.
Boar tusk helmets, acheaen style

>[parrying dagger] wouldn't be worth it anymore.
It'd be great for rogues. More sneak attack opportunities are always great.

Battle Master, too. It would give you some interesting interactions, like being able to move friendlies around during enemy turns.

>no great swords or lances

or any pole arms?

I honestly don't see the point in all this. Just make your heavy armor 18 AC and get rid of the helmets. what the fuck are the helmets even for? as far as i can tell everybody can wear one and they all give you +1 Ac...so why not just increase the ac on all your armor by 1? So you can...sacrifice it I guess?

The sacrifice mechanic is retarded but the helmet "slot" is dumb too. A guy in full plate in DND already has a helmet on, that's why he's in full plate armor.

Also don't cut out pole arms entirely, especially considering some could just be a big stick with a smaller bronzier tip at the end of it. The strength wielding big-fucken-spear guy is running around with 17 AC (thanks helmet!) while dexy mcdouche has 19 AC (fuck you helmet) while also having a better initiative, more points in a stronger save, more random dex skill points, and probably getting more pussy than strong hands mc shitty armor too.

In real life, not really.

However, you can't really dodge in heavy armour.
In a fantasy setting with magical weapons and attacks that could bypass that armour, a shield would certainly be useful.

The main issue would be seeing out of the armour to anticipate the attacks, but you could imagine it like a shield being able to deflect a bullet that would otherwise be penetrating your armour.

I think the best way to deal with shields is you could have a +2 or +3 AC shield that only people with a certain level of strength could wear without it taking up a hand slot - A GWF could use it if they have enough strength alongside their greatsword. It also takes away any dex bonuses or penalties they have.
You could then scrap heavy armour entirely, and 'heavy armour' would basically be medium armour + no-hands big shield.

Make it also count as technically heavy armour for things like barbarian abilities.

Oh, certainly. It'd have to include an attack roll for that, and the rogue would sacrifice uncanny dodge, which is a fair-ish trade. Though at the rate things are going, I'd be careful about how powerful rogues get.

I just want to see someone wear an elf head on a pike above their own head on a pickelhaube.

>If there is no heavy armour, then the only reason people would go for it would be for heavy shields. And that makes sense, I suppose.
>But shields have no strength requirement.
>And GWF can't use a shield.
See I suppose you could also loot a steel plate off the invaders... Yeaaaah. I gotta think on it.

Thanks for the answer.

Spears are a single most common type of weapons in Bronze Age, they're just mostly one-handed.

>what the fuck are the helmets even for?
To increase survivability at levels 1-2, really. Just a resource you can spend to not die.

>the strength wielding big-fucken-spear guy is running around with 17 AC (thanks helmet!) while dexy mcdouche has 19 AC (fuck you helmet) while also having a better initiative, more points in a stronger save, more random dex skill points, and probably getting more pussy than strong hands mc shitty armor too.
With the goddamn Bounded Accuracy of 5e I keep being too cautious of changing anything too drastically. Which makes the whole 'emphasizing shield use' pretty hard.
Also, It's a bit strange. I thought light armors worked out the same as in normal rules, as long as you used small shields

How do you know when you're a dm that your campaign is any good before anyone plays it?

DM is running a one shot tomorrow night. I rolled (blergh) 18,17,15,12,12,12. Start at level 5, PHB only, no feats.

What is the most fun/interesting character I can make?

in normal rules there is one type of shield: shield. it gives +2 AC and you can't use that hand for items or somatic components or big weapon swinging. That's all there is.

You can't objectively. Best way is just to be flexible and communicate with your players to see what they like/dislike about your direction.

I meant comparing light armor + shield in normal rules and light armor + helmet + small shield in these

I don't see the purpose in small/medium/large shields honestly. If you want a division just do small (+2 no dex penalty)/Large (+3 with dex penalty). I'd scrap helmets entirely. If you want to increase survivability start them at level 2 or give them extra HP.

From the previous thread, regarding Bladelocks.

>You can substitute CHA for STR or DEX on attack rolls and damage rolls for pact weapons
>You gain 1 hp for every Warlock level you have and gain 1 additional hp every time you level up.
>(Other post)- letting you form or alter the form of your weapon as a bonus action like EK Fighter instead of a full action

The HP per level is arguable, but I see no reason why you wouldn't allow the CHA attacks since even if you assume 100% hit rate with melee, an Invocation'd up EB is almost always going to be a stronger choice from not only a damage perspective but because you can attack from 595 feet further away.

That said, what would be a good substitute for 1 hp per warlock level? From what I can tell it wouldn't be an issue at all, and the argument that it shouldn't be part of a pact falls flat because Blade is meant to be the straight combat pact (Not necessarily melee either mind you) and more HP is one of the most direct ways to make spellcasters better at melee.

How about an Invocation along the lines of "While you are wielding your Pact Weapon and wearing no armor and not using a shield, your AC increases by +2"? Blade already feels like it's too dependent on Invocations to work, but I think it'd be too strong to leave as a default benefit.

If you remove heavy armour and you don't allow handless shields, you will kill everything that relies on strength other than barbarian.

Paladins would rather go dexterity instead of strength.
Fighters would rather go dexterity instead of strength.

The current state of 5e is:

Strength: +1 AC, harder to put armour on, armour is more expensive, armour is heavier, better at strength saves (less common and less important), better at athletics (important for grappling), better at holding lots of items (nobody actually tracks weights normally), can use strength-based weapons such as greatswords and do GWF.
Dex: Much better initiative, better at dex saves (common, can be used to completely avoid damage from things such as disintegrate), used for sleight of hand, stealth and acrobatics (acrobatics can be used to escape grapples as well as athletics), is just as good at strength at using finesse weapons. If you are using a shield, strength weapons do just as much as finesse weapons do.

When you take away that +1 AC (or even worse, make it a -1 AC) then there's no longer any point to going strength. If you want to use GWF? Go barbarian, because they don't care.

The main problem this has is that in a bronze-age world the only strong people will be barbarians, or foolish. Which doesn't make sense.

I wish heavy armour got a bit more love, but the only real purpose of it in 5e is if you want to dump dex and end up with crappy initiative and fail all the dex saves.

Helmets are also partly an aesthetic factor. When you descibe a time when the two most important pieces of equipment were helmet and shield, it'd make sense to make helmets their own thing.
Also, I like resource management, I suppose.

Giving heavier shields an STR requirement is a good idea, it seems, yeah. THough they already mitigate usefulness of DEX

>no-hands shields
Okay, that's a bit weird but sounds interesting

I just give bladelock medium armor.

>Know thy players
>Know thy strengths
>Know too, thy weaknesses
>Know thy setting and from there buildest thine hooks.
>Playest thou not with randos thou meetest online
>Beest thou a man of excellency

That's a good band-aid fix but it still doesn't fix the one user's complaint I mostly agree with- there's no reason to actually engage in melee as a Warlock even with all the Invocations without multiclassing.

755

Hey, I'm totally fresh to 5th edition and about to join a game, but I've played 2e and 3.x so it seems pretty straightforward. However, I was just wondering a few things: is the +1 to all abilities preferable to +1 to two and an extra skill+feat for humans, or is it roughly equal? Also, is it common to customize a background or is using the existing templates preferred? When selecting proficiency skills for your class, what happens when a background you've chosen already covers that skill? Is there anything not obvious to know about Rogues (Thief archetype)? Thanks in advance, here's hoping this game gets off the ground! I've been curious about 5 since it landed, and it's already looking a lot more unified than 3.x rules.

>When selecting proficiency skills for your class, what happens when a background you've chosen already covers that skill
choose a different one

>is the +1 to all abilities preferable to +1 to two and an extra skill+feat for humans, or is it roughly equal?
Variant human is considered much stronger for almost all characters.

>Also, is it common to customize a background or is using the existing templates preferred?
Customization is common. Just follow the guidelines at the beginning of the Background section.

>When selecting proficiency skills for your class, what happens when a background you've chosen already covers that skill?
You're expected to choose class skills and then background skills, and the background rules say to choose a different skill of your choice if you are already proficient with it.

>Is there anything not obvious to know about Rogues (Thief archetype)?
Fast Hands lets you use everything except magic items as a bonus action. Throw alchemist's fire, throw down caltrops or ball bearings, throw some holy water, lots of good stuff. Just remember you can't drink a healing potion or activate a wand with it.

If you plan on multiclassing or playing a skill-monkey class, +1 to all can be better.

Fairly common to customize your background, but talk with your DM.

You get skill proficiencies from your background before you choose your class. Just choose another skill available to your class.

For thieves specifically, the "Use Object" option of your Fast Hands feature doesn't work with Magic Items that explicitly require an action to use. No bonus action wands for you.

Overall, I like the idea of handless shields as additional armor, but
It wouldn't really make that much sense to make it that it's only possible to no-hand heavy shields. But if any other shields would be no-handable, it would make effective AC of medium armor factually superior. Which is a bit of a problem.

youtube.com/watch?v=0eY2aB10IlE

What do you guys think about this video on Halfling strength? I do like the idea of applying different AS for different situations, even thought I might not do it in-game just to keep it simple, but I'm not sure if that second score should be a 20.

Anyone have ideas?

PHB only no feats?

Half-Elf Paladin of the Ancients.

Wearing shields on your arms. Because otherwise two-handed weapons won't really get used.

And the thing is, most classes that wear light armour don't even have shield proficiency anyway.

The classes that wear medium or heavy armour typically do get shield proficiency.
If you can wear medium armour, you'll probably wear that and a +2 shield just fine.

I think if you made all shields usable with no hands if you have a certain strength, that'd be fine in all cases except the barbarian.

It's just that the really big shield would have to give a significant benefit on top of nullifying any dexterity modifier added to AC.

Full absorption of an attack and increasing ally's AC sound pretty big to me
The latter one works best when there's several (more than one, really) heavy guys next to each other

Marty Stu.

Monk.

If racials can take you above 18 on character creation, aim for +2 dex and +1 wis through high-elf.
Then, take booming blade through your cantrips. Whenever you want to use flurry of blows, use booming blade.

You should have 20 dex and 18 wis. At level 4, add +2 wis.

You now have 20 AC.

Abuse the heck out of everything, and make everybody in your group hate you and appreciate that this is only a one-shot.

I'm gonna have my PC's trek through a swamp for a mcguffin next session and I need help brainstorming ideas
I already have the main plot events (bullywugs capture mcguffin, disguised hag attempts to join party to steal mcguffin and trap party, etc)
However, I want to make some cool in-between stuff since swamps are treacherous zones after all. I'm thinking of assigning a bunch of events to a d12 or something.
So far I've got:
>Stirge swarm
>Heavy fog sets in (pc group is a bunch of paranoid fucks so I think it'll be "fun")
>swamp faries trying to play harmless pranks on them (mcguffin is aligned with the fae)
>more fucking Stirges

>Whenever you want to use flurry of blows, use booming blade.
Booming Blade is used by the Cast a Spell action. Flurry of Blows can't trigger on the casting of a spell. It requires you to use the Attack action

Anyone know any organ tracks that would work for the song that Strahd is playing on his organ as the party arrives at Ravenloft?

I considered using Toccata and Fugue, but it's too generic and overused now, sadly.

youtube.com/watch?v=5S4h1gcCMBc

I got abit of a problem in my Curse of Strahd if anyone could shed some light on it. Ive been DMing for a year now but never had my players got past level 5 really because group splitting, real life etc. With this group though, we got three guys who played RPGs for between 5-15 years, one guy who started with me and then a complete beginner. They are all good people and we have fun together, but its just that they usually break immesion hard by making too many jokes, silly suggestions and not being serious most of the time. And moaning how 5e is too casual for them. For me that breaks immersion hard and ruins the experience for me a bit but im not too sure about banging down a "No fun allowed" sign for them when they are obviously having fun with it. Anyone got something similar?

That's too well known, and the song is supposed to be kind of sad and intense, rather than forboding.

If it's ruining the experience for you, either talk to them about it, or stop DMing. The game is supposed to be fun for everyone involved, INCLUDING the DM.

I feel like its fun in the moment but when i go back thinking about it and realize that all the time i spent reading the book and setting up scenes was kind of ruined, thats when disappointment kicks in. So far, ive planned on talking about it next time we play and tell that ill see how i feel about it after finishing Death House

Also, I find it interesting that they're complaining about how 5e is too casual while playing CoS. How far into Death House are they? Theres a fight in there with 6(?) Shadows that can very easily TPK. The Shambling Mound is also pretty tough.

CoS overall is very unforgiving. I'd be interested to hear how casual they think it is after getting their shit ruined by the vampire spawn in Vallaki.

>PHB only, no feats, level 5
Half-elf lets you have a +5 CHA and +5 secondary stat with a +3 elsewhere
With +3 proficiency you get DC 16 spells
Personally, I'd play a paladin because they hit their stride at 5

They think its more casual in sense that "Oh i can't customize every single skill? Pfft." or that "why can i only do 1 action per turn and not have alot of options like full attack, charge, etc". For progress, they just entered the attic and got their ass handed to them by a Animated Broom who knocked two people down and then a specter who killed one of them as the guy failed Death saves.

I checked the next encounters with ghouls and shadows and thought a little about making them less TKP right away into "Not TKP difficulty but still rough"

>Wearing shields on your arms
lmao nigga what

Good point. I brought it up because I thought you could use flurry of blows as a bypass - you can use flurry of blows to bypass not triggering martial arts when you use a bow. Of course, I forgot to read it over, so it'll only work for bows rather than any old attack.

Honestly, it's probably better like that anyway because multi-attack at that level will do better.

Strapping a shield is a thing. Though if the shield is broken, might be rather suicidal