/5eg/ D&D Fifth Edition General

>literally came out today

The best you're gonna get is: It looks alright. Needs testing.

I like the look of it, but I'll have to run some actual tests in actual play first.

And the Beast Conclave gets an independent attack from the beast PLUS a reaction attack from the beast when the ranger attacks.

The ranger is a MARTIAL class though, he should not be pushed into the rogue tier of attacks, and it makes Beast not really worth it since you're still missing out on on the attacks/ your animal companion has to be next to the guy.

Yeah, so it's just one archetype that lacks the extra attack, really.
Like I said, need to play it first.
I'm guessing in actual play it won't matter that much.
Just need to try it out a bit and find out rather then jump to conclusions before you actually try anything.

You're only missing out on a THIRD attack for the round if the beast isn't nearby.

The second attack is the one the beast gets to take on its own turn.

Natural Explorer makes it a really good (maybe a bit too good) utility dip, but none of the changes there are particularly bad. It's a better revision than redoing the entire class like the ambuscade ranger was doing.

That said, there are still a few problems. The beast companion still never gets magical attacks, there's no spell sharing to help keep on-par with the other rangers with Hunter's Mark and such, and the beast's offensive abilities actually scale a bit worse now due to not having your proficiency to their attack rolls. At least they are a bit more survivable now and can easily be brought back to life.

Indeed. And with the new Favored Enemy, your attacks have a good chance of connecting a lot more often. I can already see a Ranger with Archery fighting style. +9 to hit FE at level 2 is pretty good. Throw in Sharpshooter and it gets a bit ridiculous by level 5.

When you consider the animal companion's whirlwind attack, reaction attack, and ability to set up flanks, it's definitely better than the extra attack.

Its only to damage, not to hit.

The FE bonus is to damage, not attack.

Oh, I thought it said to the attack roll. Whoops. Well then, scratch that, you'll just be tearing through your FE's rather than hitting them more often.

Chaotic characters are more often than not cancerous if you're playing with anyone but the best.

I don't like the Bard and the Psion is like a weird Monk/Warlock multiclass, but it's not bad aside from that.

Glad this finally happened in a way that works well.

Definitely looks like it'll bring the ranger up to strength with some of the other classes.

>not having your proficiency to their attack rolls
Ranger's proficiency applies to their AC, skills, saving throws, attack bonus, and damage rolls.

Meh. Sometimes.
I've got an okay player (she's kinda shy sometimes) who does Chaotic fairly well.

+2 damage
>tearing through

Depends on how they play the "chaotic" part really.

So I can understand how warlocks gain pacts from otherworldy supernatural titans, but I'm having trouble seeing how a warlock that gains it's power from a vampire lord can all of a sudden sudden a sword, book, or demon.

That's a pretty solid buff.
Especially in 5e. It's not overwhelmingly powerful but it's not supposed to be either.

Vampire gives him a weapon, a Book of Shadows, or a fiendish familiar.
Simple.

Read the new UA.

Their proficiency bonus in this version applies to their AC and damage rolls, not to their attack rolls.

Mind you, it's not a regular vampire from the Monsterous Manual.
It's someone of great magical power besides, such as Kas or Strahd von Zarovich. Besides, it could also be a Lich you make your Pact with.

I do think it's a good and needed buff, I just don't think it's going to be make it a "tearing through" level. HP bloat is real.

New to 5e and I was looking at the Warlock class and thought it was really cool that they could summon a weapon at will. Any advice for making a Pact of the Blade Warlock? I'm not sure what Patron I'm on, but I think that Great Old One is pretty cool, although I'd also be willing to use Fiend.

>thought it was really cool that they could summon a weapon at will
If that's what you liked, take a look at Eldritch Knight.

Pact of the Blade is hard-mode.

Would you allow a player to play as a Vistani warlock who's patron is Strahd in a non-CoS campaign? The build is a variant human, but instead of a feat, he get's the Evil Eye ability.

It says that it does in the blurb "Keeping Track of Proficiency," directly under Companions Bond.

The wording is a bit weird, but it then says in Companion's Bond that it uses ranger's proficiency bonus as its own. It follows with, "in addition to the areas where it normally adds its proficiency bonus," meaning attack rolls still get the bonus.

Yeah, sounds fine.

It says in addition to when it would normally get a proficiency bonus, meaning attacks are included.

I'd be a little unusual, especially given the weirdly variable nature of Evil Eye, but sure.
Make sure they actually read about the Vistini though, they're pretty strange and their culture does not lend itself well to heroes and adventurers.

My point is:

PHB Beast Master: companion gets your proficiency added to its normal attack roll bonus, giving it a great to-hit.

Revised Ranger: beast companion uses its proficiency bonus as normal, only increasing at the same rate your PB does, so it has a much lower to-hit.

The sharing of ASIs helps that in the long term, but it will still end up with a lower bonus to attack rolls than the PHB beast companion.

>Read the new UA.
>Their proficiency bonus in this version applies to their AC and damage rolls, not to their attack rolls.
>When you gain your animal companion at 3rd level, its proficiency bonus matches yours at +2. As you gain levels and increase your proficiency bonus, remember that your companion’s proficiency bonus improves as
well, and is applied to the following areas: Armor Class, skills, saving throws, attack bonus, and damage rolls.

Seems like a fair trade compared to dying to a stiff breeze like the PHB Beast Master. A couple of the recommended companions have 15 or 16 for their attack ability score, so they'll scale at about the same rate as a point-buy player.

The Pact of the Blade Warlock is a skirmisher who swaps between cantrip ranged attacks (eldritch blast*/chill touch) and pact weapon melee attacks with cantrip defenses (blade ward/fiendish vigor*).

Basic play is pew pew from a distance until the foes close in with the front ranks, then dive in to attack in melee or engage enemy ranged users face to face.

If you are looking for more of a front line or melee combatant you want to look at Eldritch Knight.

Read the paragraph right after that box.

It doesn't get your PB as a bonus to its normal stats EXCEPT for damage rolls and AC. Otherwise its stuff is calculated using the normal PB + ability mod rules.

If you want dedicated melee lock, start with 1 level in fighter, switch to warlock until you get the extra attack invocation, i think it's called Blade of Thirst? Then take another 2 or 3 levels in fighter, probably battle master, before going the rest of the way into warlock. Otherwise just pick up Agonizing Blast, which you'll want anyway, and play him like a switch hitter. Go STR if you do the fighter dip, go DEX if you don't.

Different user here, but it literally says
>in addition to areas where it normally uses its proficiency bonus...
Which, according to the box just before it, does include attack bonuses.

Also, you go dedicated front line, pick up Armor of Agathys and later get Fire Shield. Make sure you cast Hex a lot. Also, regardless of whether you go STR or DEX, Darkness + the darkvision pact is really good for you.

It does use its proficiency bonus, by having PB + ability mod, already calculated in the stat blocks.

>As a rule of thumb, a beast can serve as an animal companion if it is Medium or smaller, has 15 or fewer hit points, and cannot deal more than 8 damage with a single attack. In general, that applies to creatures with a challenge rating of 1/4 or less, but there are exceptions.

>and cannot deal more than 8 damage with a single attack

So Giant Poisonous Snake is no longer legal, then? That's bullshit.

>Readan Plant Growth's description
>Has a neat out of combat use
>As well as a combat use

That's cool as shit. Any other spells out there what have multiple purposes?

No, it doesn't use ITS proficiency bonus.
In the sentence before, it states it uses the ranger's proficiency bonus, rather than its own.

And its proficiency bonus starts at +2 like all other creatures, so it only changes if your proficiency bonus is higher. And the point remains--it doesn't add your proficiency bonus on top of its remaining stats like the PHB beast master, which was my initial point and that I've already said will usually work out fine because of the extra ASIs, but it will still normally have a lower to-hit than the PHB beast master.

You ought to read the 3.5 Plant Growth effect.
It was such a broken spell for its level.

Though a lot of the normal animal companions listed in the UA can deal over 8.

It's a rule of thumb, not a hard rule.

What 1/4 CR beasts have that high an attack bonus anyways?

Was going to make a big post about the new UA, then my browser crashed and ate the text. So here's the condensed version:

It's good, probably needs a bit more fine-tuning of wording for a few things (the discussion going on right now about Beastmaster and whether or not the companion uses Ranger proficiency for attack rolls as well. Yes, it does), more testing needed for ways to let the companion's attacks be considered magical for purposes of overcoming damage resistance/immunities (I'd probably throw it in at the level 7 class feature, as that's 1 level later than the Monk's unarmed attacks becoming magical, and require another small ritual to turn the beast's natural weapons into magical).

Deep Stalker might be a bit frontloaded (getting darkvision along with extended range on it at 3rd level), but considering it's probably intended for Drizz't to have, that's ok.

Everything else is small buffs to it's movement and survivability, which isn't needed, but is nice.

Never mind. I'm retarded.

Compare what's written in that article and the PDF to what Jason "I Am Terrible At Game Design" Buhlman wrote when called out on caster supremacy. It's like night and fucking day when it comes to attitude here.

So, which beast is the best for beastmaster?

That's the point of not saying 'all are' and instead 'most are'

People who make edgy characters are likely to end up heading towards chaotic neutral as they won't want to be confined to 'being evil' or 'being good' or confined to being anything really, and chaotic is just the 'I do what I want, Mom!'

Or, someone will make a batshit insane character, who'll become a chaotic stupid.

If the player looks more the sort to tend towards nice characters like lawful good or something and they go and defy expectations and make a chaotic neutral or lawful evil character, they're probably okay as they're choosing those alignments for an interesting character rather than making a character that reflects what they want to be.

Probably wolf cause the prone on attack. But now that this is present I can think of other stuff like the panther with two attacks with pounce, and the boar.

Hillary "The Corrupter" Clinton. She's OP except she's have seizures occasionally

>Egypt

A polite reminder that in this edition Litches explicitly need to eat souls, but noting is said about mummies. Mummy Lordship is the way forward for trouble free immortality; please update all Veeky Forums memes appropriately.

>If the player looks more the sort to tend towards nice characters like lawful good or something and they go and defy expectations and make a chaotic neutral or lawful evil character, they're probably okay as they're choosing those alignments for an interesting character rather than making a character that reflects what they want to be.

Right now she's CN, verging on just TN.
She's not particularly good, but isn't cruel, is highly sensible and practical, and generally only works when expecting to get paid for it. I guess you'd call her character a "professional" adventurer as she treats it like a business, and though she's willing to lower rates for people who can't pay as much she does expect payment for work.

Speaking of that, how well are martials balanced vs casters in 5e? I haven't really been following 5e, but if it's decently balanced I might be inclined to pick it up.

How does the Mind Flayer "Extract Brain" works?

It must incapacitate the humanoid and then roll the hit? If it's incapacitated why there is need to hit?

>A polite reminder that in this edition Litches explicitly need to eat souls, but noting is said about mummies.
That's how it was in 2e too, actually.
There wasn't hard mechanics to it but it was mentioned here and there.
I would also personally rule that (as befitting the theme), mummies and especially Mummy Lords are tied in some way to their tombs, hence the "mummy's curse" stuff.

Casters are still more powerful, but the gap in power is vastly less significant.
It's about the difference of power between casters and materials as in 2e I think. Not exactly mind you, but pretty close.

>Mummy Lordship is the way forward for trouble free immortality; please update all Veeky Forums memes appropriately.

clone is now the easiest method of trouble free immortality, try to keep up.

Why should EVERYBODY get magical attacks? Later on, there'll still be creatures vulnerable to normal attacks.

The ranger themself may have magical attacks, and that's what matte-
>no multi-attack for beast masters.
Ha.
Well, they'll just have to stick with being better against mundane enemies.

I think a feature like 'Your pet acts as if it has a magical weapon for the purpose of hurting favoured enemies' would work well, considering the lack of multi-attack already clashes with not getting +2 or +4 to damage every single time you hurt said enemies, or triggering hunter marks.

Advantage on initiative as a level 1 feature is pretty stupid, when you have to wade through the shite that is Barbarian After Level 5 to get it otherwise.
Assassin feature as a level 1 thing might be okay.
And then hunter conclave stealing rogue features is kind of.. Eh.

I think they should focus on unique abilities rather than just stealing from rogue.

>As a rule of thumb, a beast can serve as an animal companion if it is Medium or smaller, has 15 or fewer hit points, and cannot deal more than 8 damage with a single attack
Ape, Black Bear, Wolf and Giant Badger can all do more than 8 damage though

Anyone?

Well, partially this But the pact feels... ghostlier than that. I know it suggests vampires, but it seems to fit an actual necromancer better.

Caster supremacy still exists, but it's not nearly as bad as it used to be. They significantly reduced the number of spells per day all casters get and completely removed bonus spells for having a high casting stat, but also made preparing spells much less of a hassle -- now you don't have to prepare three cure light wounds or two fireballs, you just prepare a spell once and decide which slot you're using to cast it.

They changed how concentration works, too, in that now you can only concentrate on one spell at a time, and a lot of buffs and such that casters used to stack now require concentration, meaning you can only have one of them up at a time.

Plus, the game as a whole is a lot more open to improvisation and making shit up than previous editions were, where they had rules for absolutely every little fiddly fucking thing you could possibly want to do. Rather than do that, 5e just says "Pick a DC, pick an ability score, maybe pick a proficiency if it's something you can git gud at, roll it and see what happens." It's actually pretty refreshing.

>go strength if you want the fighter dip

why is that necessary for a fighter dip? dex fighters are fine too.

If you've ever tried to hammer a nail you will know that just cause it's sitting still doesn't mean you will hit it every time.

DEX Fighters have a nice concept but I don't like them because the only good option aside ranged fighter is the two weapon build since there is no Fighting Style good like there is to STR Fighters, and also there is no weapon that could match a STR Fighter.

They probably mean to get heavy armour.

However, if you want to min-max, 14 dexerity and medium armour is better than 15 strength and heavy armour.

If you're using one hand for a shield, dexterity completely matches strength. Dexterity allows you to use a rapier (1d8), strength allows you to use various 1d8 weapons (longsword, warhammer, rapier)
Dexterity allows you to use a whip. (1d4). So does strength.

Strength allows you to use better thrown weapons, though.

For someone such as a warlock, wearing a shield might be a good idea anyway since really as much as you want to bladelock you still have spells and eldritch blast is still better than your melee, probably.
And if you use Booming Blade or GFB, the weapon you use doesn't matter a lot.

Seriously?

I though that missing nails is a joke thing.
I NEVER missed a single nail in my life. Fuck, don't tell me this is a thing.
I mean, HOW can you miss a fucking nail, holy shit, is eye-hand coodination all retarded or what

>If you're using one hand for a shield, dexterity completely matches strength.
The shield-using Strength fighter has a much easier time using Shield Master.

>since there is no fighting style

except for dueling? +2 damage on your one handed weapon attacks is great for Dex fighters. You don't do as much damage as a two handed strength fighter but if you're a ranger and you want to do damage then pick up a crossbow and sharpshooter.

No matter what you can always fuck up, you can miss a nail, and you can always miss trying to jam your razor sharp break into the skull of a drow. So yeah you gotta roll to hit.

That +2 adds up over time, plus you can use a shield with it. The Dueling description specifies that if you have a weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you get its benefit.

I don't think that a creature that is used to eat fucking brains would fail to do it if the target was incapacitated.

This works better for Weapon/Shield, what I mean't is that there isn't a 2 handed weapon with the finesse property, which would be freaking awesome.

Yeah I get the concept.

It's the analogy that got me

Oh, that's someting I forgot. Strength is better for grappling and shoving, though sometimes that's best left to a barbarian or something.

However, a dex fighter will have better use of shield master feat's dex save negation, as they'll have better dex saves.

If you're a pure fighter and you want to use your extra feats for things like polearm mastery with quarterstaves and shield master it might be good, but I'd say strength is still probably best for GWFers and barbarians.

My dream of playing a gnome beast-master ranger with a giant crab as his animal companion is becoming a viable reality.

Yeah. Don't knock Dex fighters, they're perfectly fine. Honestly, they're pretty good.

That's probably intentional. I don't think a finesse heavy weapon would be cool anyways. Basically, when you go (one handed) Dex you trade slightly better damage options (GWM/Pole Arm Master) for much better AC (Shield), a better strong saving throw, a better initiative, and better dex skills. It's a good trade off. Especially for a Warlock.

Play ratfolk and go full Mouse Guard.

A 2 handed weapon with the finesse property other than monk's fauxing it with monk weapons might look good, but it'd pretty much kill the point of strength as a stat for good for anyone but barbarians. Probably.

Then again, I think GWF feats and such need the 'heavy' propety, not the 'two handed' property.

Well IMHO it woudn't need to have heavy property and could have a lesser damage, could be a piece of wood with blades in its edges or something like that.

For advantages of being dexterity...
Don't forget that you're also getting better ranged attacks, you don't end up with piss-poor unarmoured defence if you can't sleep in your armour, you can wear lighter armour (which weighs less and the DM might often allow you to do more stupid tricks than if you were wearing heavy armour), using finesse weapons means it's more viable to multiclass into rogue along with meeting the 13 dex requirement for that, you won't have stealth disadvantage if you get 20 dex and wear light armour instead of medium armour for the same AC as half-plate, the fact dex saves are more important than strength saves and that likely you'll be better in bed.

It'd be okayish. I wouldn't make it less than 1d10 because otherwise why wouldn't you just use a rapier?

I still don't know if I see the point. And I'd say for a Warlock going Dex could be totally fine.

Next sunday my group will face the boss they're after. The boss is a High Tech Mind Flayer, they're 6 characters level 4.
They don't have any magic item and they have only something around 30 GP each.
There is: 1 Barbarian, 1 Sorcerer, 1 Wizard, 2 Clerics (War and Life) and a Thief.
What could you guys suggest to put in the loot? It must be something good since this is the momentaneous final boss but nothing super strong.

It's a flavour thing I think, I honestly don't like multiclass.

>Later on, there'll still be creatures vulnerable to normal attacks.
I hope you mean vulnerable as normal English speaking and not key feature

A DMG. That way they can open it up and find the table for determining random magic items.