/5eg/ D&D 5e General

GM here, just wanted peoples opinion on the new ranger rebuild. I've got a player who has been running a beastmaster and with the new Ranger, wants to swap. At first glance it looks fine, only thing I'm concerned about is he is currently using a sailor themed character with a harpoon gun (Heavy crossbow) and a giant-crab companion.

They are level 9 giving it +3 Str and +1 Con, so the crab will have 51hp, AC19, +7 to hit for 1d6+7 damage and DC15 grabs. Doesn't seem too bad to me since the ranger will only be making one singular attack each turn, and at best adding +4 for favoured enemy and a spell effect.

I'm gonna need you to wedge in Misty Step somewhere

Rage for concentration instead of normal concentration is pretty strong, it also means that spells that would normally be able to be concentrated on for longer are limited to one minute, as per raging. There was another drawback that occurred to me earlier, but it escapes me.

I'll look into the druid list, the reason I didn't use it as-is was because I didn't want to make it so directly comparable, but that may not matter so much. I think it also lacks things like haste or enlarge, which were some of the major effects I was imagining the casting having. There may be similar effects in the druid list.

Taking an action to rage+cast seems a more reasonable use of actions, but I'm still worried about them losing their rage due to not taking damage/attacking.

Maybe split the die however you want? I was picturing this happening perhaps as an action during battle multiple times, trade off being the barb gets less healing for himself during short rests. I'll take a look at the monk feature too. Thanks for the feedback!

Looking at Paladin 7 Warlock 13 for a new char. Game probably won't last that long, but am I making a terrible mistake? Ancients/Archfey.

Rather than it being a small animal, which seems like it could be inconvenient a lot of the time, why not just have it be a blood ritual the barbarian does? That fits with the barbarian losing a hit die more anyway. I agree it should apply across the whole party.

You could give a choice of voodoo patrons that provide learned spells. Pick one when you take the class, when you 'rage' you are actually possessed by it.

Consider a wolf companion of the same level with +4 Dex would also have 8d8+8hp, 19AC, +8 to hit for 2d4+8 damage and a DC16 prone, with pack-tactics, a crab should be fine.

That works. Get a list of patrons, like domains or lands, and those spells get added to your spells known while you rage. So you get the druid stuff normally, but when you rage suddenly you're a druid with the War domain or whatever.

Multiclass into spellblade next level. I'll have level 2 spell slots to burn

My bad, wasn't paying enough attention to the levels.

Sounds pretty good. Maybe just the straight d12 then with no other modifiers to split up. Or maybe at higher levels you add your rage damage.
Kinda like this idea, the EK spell progression was kind of a placeholder anyway, to avoid having to come up with an invocation-like list of features to pick from (my initial thought process) but a limited, expanding spell list is a good balance between those.

Friends is overrated, I say. It's good, more useful than prestidigitation, but I would say it competes with all the other choices there.

Why're you multiclassing into wizard exactly? Are you going to get two levels in it for something such as 'portent' or abjuration or something?
A single level seems kind of lackluster. Arcane tricksters still don't really rely on spells for damage.

Why are you choosing 'find familiar' with your arcane trickster when you don't need to prepare the damn thing anyway? Have something you need to have prepared all the time, like feather fall.

Why don't you have shield? I know it's not as great for rogues who get uncanny dodge, but there'll still be a time and a place you'll wish you have it over witch bolt or maybe even mage armour if your DM is the type to hand out magical items.

My playgroup just voted in a houserule.

The Dm can trigger wild magic surges at any time after a tides of chaos feature is used, instead of just after spells.

Any problems up foresee?

none moreso than usual. If the GM is being particularly fickle, they might wild surge while you're sleeping. IDK how relevant that is, though.

>spellblade
Oh, right, that probably answers the 'are you taking two wizard levels for something' thing.
BB/GFB and such.

If you've got good starting stats I would say it's not actually too bad an idea if you level it until you get 'extra attack', though 'song of victory' takes a lot of levels to get to.

That's not a house rule.
That's core rules.

Repostan', pic related this time.

Anyone had any experience with Adventures in Middle Earth yet? Hopefully playing a game of it in two days time, and I don't think I can stop myself from making a Beorning Slayer as stereotypical as it is. I would make a Warden actually, but we don't really have anyone tanky or hard-hitting as of yet.

How do you guys keep combat interesting? My players seem to enjoy my stories, but I always feel like my Mob tactics are flawed, or that I underutilize their skills. Do you have specific ways of planning out your combat encounters to keep them both deadly and interesting?

My very first pen and paper RPG was LotR themed, although I do not know if it was Adventures in Middle Earth. It looks really familiar, though.

My experience was that combat was busted and our Wizard just spammed Flame of Arnor. But we had a lot of fun.

DC11 prone. Shove is STR (athletics) based, Wolf uses Dex for attacks.

AiME is a brand spanking new splatbook for 5e, so I highly doubt it. Also

>wizard
>LotR
AiME does the correct thing of not allowing the players to play wizards or have any spells in general.

Oh, fucking awesome.

I have no idea what I played then, it was over five or six years ago, and Wizard was one of the classes a la Gandalf. Most of the spells were what you'd expect from Tolkien wizards but Flame of Arnor was the exception. Huge AoE to all "Agents of the Shadow" that could see it, which was basically everyone.

Outside of that I think he was pretty useless.

We had a Fighter (I think they're Champions?) a Lord, a Wizard, and... something. Another Fighter, probably. It was a good time until the party became unkillable.

Lawful enemies should be more tactical.
They may have commanders who focus on keeping their minions from fleeing from battle, make sure they know who to attack and the like. Of course, the commander correctly identifying squishy mages depends on how smart said commander is.
Lawful enemies might employ tactics such as firing from cover, having shieldwalls to prevent advanace, trying to fight from the top of a hill, those things.
They might use traps, but I think even chaotic and neutral are quite inclined towards traps.

Each environment should play different.
If you're in icy terrain, there may be patches of difficult terrain that if you attempt to move full speed over you may slip on, like with the grease spell.
If you're up a mountain, there may be ledges and such and danger of fall damage.

If you're in a creature's lair, there are all sorts of environmental hazards you can implement.

Some enemies might even try to appear friendly before backstabbing the party or leading them into a trap.

Some encounters might be winnable through non-combat means, or such like. Some encounters might present a tactical challenge, where you're against a really deadly melee enemy and have to keep distance, or keep hidden. That sort of thing.

As long as players have the chance to understand what's going on (i.e. there's not a single tell that the guy leading you to a trap is dubious) and you're imaginative to come up with ideas, it should be doable to make every combat different.

As long as your player isn't multiclassing only a few levels into ranger, it should be fine.

If they're multiclassing ranger, then you should be worried.

You're an awesome GM. FYI. Going that far into detail to make sure there's sometimes a thirteenth month in a year? That's cool as hell.

I'm thinking of playing my first proper D&D game by going to an Encounters group that meets weekly at my FLGS, since I can't get any of my friends to actually commit to a campaign. I figure I should probably have a character rolled up and ready beforehand, yeah?

Anyone have any experiences with organized D&D play? Last time I did organized play was Pathfinder Society, and that was a miserable experience as all anyone cared about was min/maxing their character and only caring about combat and big numbers. Even the DMs tended to gloss over and summarize what would normally be some RP bit. It was a miserable experience and I worry this is going to be the same.

Thanks user. Will do.

It depends on the store. I've had my best and worst dnd experiences wit AL at different stores

That's what I'm worried about, it's the same store as Pathfinder was. Though I feel like a lot of those people still stick to Pathfinder Society. Guess I'll just show up and see how it goes.

At least with AL, you don't have to deal with the extreme levels of min/maxing that pathfinder brings to the table. But like the other person said, sometimes the table variance can be trash.

so now that grimoire is dead, and 5e has been out for TWO FUCKING YEARS NOW

WHERE THE FUCK ARE MY FUCKING SPELL APPS AND SHIT? goddamnit wotc get on the fucking ball already

>expecting WotC to be on the ball with technology
>mfw

Well, DC13.

dnd-spells.com is still around, though dndmagic.com similarly died recently so I don't give it much hope. Hardcodex.ru is still around as well. Also there's the spell list exe thing in the Mega, and a ton of iOS and Android apps that have been around for ages. The SRD spells are on 5thsrd.org and 5esrd.com, and built into Roll20 via their compendium feature.

googleben.github.io/Spellbook/

Ooh, that's a nice one. Thanks for the link, user.

I don't expect anyone to, but yeah I can see a lot of folks going 3, maybe 5 levels into ranger then going fighter or something since the companion scales with character level not player level, dipping 3 into ranger gives you a fighting style, some minor utility magic and a 20HD companion with +6 to everything.

Is it too easy to live in 5e? How do you guys create real tension?
Everytime my players so much as get a scratch they start discussing having a long rest. I've used time limits or races against other forces on occasion, but I don't want to sound like a broken record.
That said, even if they do pass out, stablizing is incredibly easy. Being sent to 0 hitpoints really doesn't have much repercussion.

Most people rule that the class features scale based on the class levels, not on total character level, like warlock invocations and such. So you would get proficiency bonus scaling and ASIs, but not more HD.

>Everytime my players so much as get a scratch they start discussing having a long rest
Start sending shit that goes bump in the night. I don't give a fuck if it's in an inn, your BBEG should know what Invisible Stalkers are.

>Being sent to 0 hitpoints really doesn't have much repercussion.
So change it? Lingering injuries can be a thing.

1. Lingering Injuries

2. You don't regain HP after a long rest. You get to spend hit dice after a long rest, and get back half your total as normal.

The above make for interesting conversations and choices.

3. Random Encounters: I use this, checking every few hours, including when they're asleep. My players know this. Depending on their luck, it might just be some yummy rabbits...or a terrifying creature from beyond the realms that humanity has even dreamed of.

If you want to challenge them, then challenge them. Start bringing out the big heavy-hitters in the MM or homebrew your own. Bring in long-lasting diseases, poisons, and curses. The game being challenging is entirely on you as a DM, not on the rules. That's just shifting blame.

is it dumb to have an enemy npc cast multiple spells on the same turn?

This is all good advice. I especially like the long-rest HP gain idea. I find resource management to be a key role in 5e, so another excuse to use it would be fun.

I wasn't trying to criticise the system, just wondering what I was doing wrong. I want to strike a balance between "stomp everything" and "Oh shit what".

you don't have to hurt them to interrupt their rest

>fucking storm comes in CRACK-FUCKING-KOOM MOTHER FUCKERS IT'S A GODDAMN DOWNPOUR SCARES THE SHIT OUT OF YOU AND WAKES YOU UP

>THE GOBLINS CAME AND SHOT FIRE ARROWS AT YOUR TENTS, NOW YOUR SHIT'S ON FIRE WHAT DO YOU DO? GO AFTER THEM? FUCK THAT LONG REST THEN. OH GOING BACK TO SLEEP? WHOOPS THEIR BACK, THEY KNOW YOU AIN'T GONNA DO SHIT TO THEM-

>CARAVAN ROLLS IN, MERCHANT POPS OUT WANTS TO HAVE A CHAT. CHATS YOU ALL UP FOR ABOUT 2 HOURS WANTS TO HEAR THE NEWS, STORIES OF OTHER LANDS AND PLACES

>THERES A FUCKIN BEAR IN THE CAMP HE WANTS YOUR FOOD

Oh god those fucking things.

"Do you not trust the feelings of the flesh? Our Biology yearns to join with yours. Come with your flesh, your bone, your teeth, your eye..."

I would lean heavier into Paladin. At level 11 you get Improved Divine Smite which is an excellent ability I would highly suggest grabbing if you intend to smite hard. You'll also get more HP and what not, too.

youtube.com/watch?v=oR6WBGKw0MA

Ha, I see what you mean. I'm rather charmed by the idea of the adventurers trying to lure the bear away so they can go back to fucking sleep.
Grumpy adventurers in general trying to go the fuck to sleep and dealing with various shitty minor problems is pretty funny in general. Hope they don't go all murder hobo on some poor merchant though.

if they do then his son or family or guild will hear of it. everything they do has a reaction.

Friendly reminder that Klauth aka Old Snarl is stronger than most demon lords

And kids today think a crappy animatronic bear is scary. They don't understand true fear.

It's not just that. The level 1 feature is a bit much for just one level, really.

As if strength rogue multiclass wasn't bad enough, it'll now be barbarogueanger as they take a single level in ranger to get a good part of assassin's ability, a barbarian skill you'd otherwise miss out on for multiclassing out of barbarian, +2 to damage on every single attack roll against humanoids to add to multi-attack + two-weapon-fighting (if done).. And the other stuff such as natural explorer is just icing on the cake, really.

Advantage on initiative is useful for almost anyone, given that can quite often mean an extra turn in combat.

It's sort of dumb but due to the action economy there is no other way of making a lone encounter powerful enough to fight off an adventuring party. Just don't do it for normal humans and have humans have allies to back them up instead because otherwise why can't the player's character do that? It's fair if maybe a dragon has a special racial ability to cast multiple spells per turn or a lich somehow after 1000 years of study develops the ability but it's not normally fair if an NPC wizard has such an ability and players don't. Of course, maybe the NPC wizard has made a pact with devils or something.

You might wonder why DMs should worry so much about being fair. The reason is so that players can appropriately judge risks. If an NPC somehow has powers beyond what is typical of NPCs or players than players get into fights that they aren't prepared for.

I know this is weird to ask, but does 5e have any boef style books yet? I'm asking for a friend.

boef?

What is "boef"?

Depends.

Monsters often use several abilities in a turn. Say, beholders fire several rays.

If they're casting like a player would, there has to be a damn good reason you're letting them do it.

One NPC I had had an 'advanced' haste spell that allowed them to move at both initiative and initiative -10, with some restrictions. They also had a few minor summons.

A large mecha-type thing may get several actions because there are creatures inside it. Of course, there may be limitations.

Always have an answer to 'why can he do that but I can't?' other than 'Lol, it's an NPC' or 'because he's super-smart!' or something.

Legendary actions exist, which allow a creature to act outside its turn, although only to a limited degree.

Generally, it's dumb unless one of them is a bonus action spell, or they have some sort of multi-attack like 'use your gaze attack and two claw attacks'.
There is no multi-attack like 'you cast two spells', because that just doesn't happen.

Book of Erotic Fantasy

if you consider it something akin to a legendary action, then no. they might not be able to do it all the time, and they might not be able to cast every spell
but like most things with legendary actions, there arnt going to be alot of them in a fight, and they might be the ONLY thing fought

Boefa deez nuts!

But then gnomes would be overpowered, due to their low anal circumference rolls.
They'd die of anal bleeding all the time.

Eer, underpowered, sorry.

Warlock invocation: Requires Pact of the blade, Hex spell. When you hit a target with your pact weapon, you can use a bonus action to cast Hex on that target without using a spell slot.

Yes, no, maybe?

Being a lvl2 Dwarf Fighter, with

14
12
16
10
12
10

Using Protection and going into Battle Master, should I focus on raising stats, or picking up a few feats like Shield Master, or Sentinal first?

Don't take Sentinel, since when an ally gets attacked you can't shield-guard them AND take an attack, you'll be stuck choosing. While choices are good, whenever you do one the other is a "wasted feat/style.".

I like Shield-master because shoving people prone is fantastic after your first hit, giving the rest advantage, so I'd grab that. Because you're getting bonus to hit and bonus damage from BattleMaster, increasing your stats is less important but it depends what feats you want.

The first concern I did notice, why is your Dex 12? You're prime to use heavy armour, so that should be an 8 or a 10. If you're planning on medium (Which there is no reason to do so when you have access to heavy.) then it should be 14.

>14 STR

for what purpose

it gives them ever so slightly more damage one round, but eats through their spells obviously, and depending on their level, becomes completely useless. that and it could

It depends on if you want +1 to hit and damage or if you want more things to do with your reaction.

Personally, with your stats, I'd rather have the +1. Seems like you're using a shield, so I assume your AC is in the 17-19 range, which is typically more than sufficient. I'd say if you're about to get maneuvers, take the riposte maneuver so you get a reaction attack against enemies that miss you, you get to add a d8 to your damage which is better than the reactions or bonus actions from the feats would give you, iirc.

Short version, +2 to your attack ability and get used to your maneuvers before you give yourself more options vying for your reactions and bonus actions.

That's a good point, I'll reconsider Sentinel, I'm just not exactly sure what I should consider taking. Alert? Resilient (Wisdom)? I'm just not sure. Good point on the dex though, I could move it to Strength

I decided against being a Mountain Dwarf cause I wanted the bonus to wisdom. I'm planning on not making just a meat stick, but a bit of a thinker. I'll probably bump Strength though now.

In the last 5th ed general, someone suggested taking Duelling instead of Protection, and then to pick up Sentinel. Talking about it with my group, it seems that I've become the "tank" and just based on how my characters personality has developed, I feel it would make sense for my character to have an ability offered by say Protection, or Sentinel but at the same time, I wouldn't want to hamstring myself too badly.

>eats through their spells
Please re-read.

And while it's true the damage never scales, it's still helpful for Bladelocks.

>wants to be a thinker
I, too, sometimes get caught up in the character more than optimizing. My first character I ever made was a half-elf ranger, which races' bonus stats do not work well with ranger but I liked the half-elf fluff. My second character, a fighter, I "wasted" an ASI on 2 points in wis to get a better modifier on animal handling, to go with the character background. Level 9 (?) And still has 18 str. Sometimes I wish I had 20, but then my animal handling helped me get an owlbear mount.

Yeah, I mean 12 Wis isn't exactly much to write home about, but I also took Insight, and based on the group discussion, he's become this old Quartermaster Dwarf guy that the rest of the party turns to as a tie breaker to solve disputes or what to do next. I totally want to play the shit out of this character.

I too find D&D a lot more fun when I fit roleplaying into my rollplaying.

Does your group take a lot of short rests? If that's the case, go ahead and take the feats, and let your maneuvers make up for your to-hit like someone else said. Precision attack let's you add your die to the hit roll, which is not bad, plus riposte like I said, because I don't think you're getting hit often and you can maximize on that. But, I think you only start with five dice added as long as you remember you have them you'll go through them quick.

I want to say it's bad, but I think it might actually be balanced enough.
The fact it only applies after your attack kinda devalues it a bit, and leaves EBing still way better.

Alone, it might encourage people to melee once ever and then eldritch blast the rest of the way, but at least that's a bit more gish-ey.

It'd be nice if you didn't have to have three invocations total including that one to make meleeing even slightly viable when EB only 'requires' one, and the other two are just added utility.

So, about that - I don't think it should cast hex before the attack, but perhaps something like 'you can cast it as a free action', and then it still costs a bonus action to transfer it. That's only a tiny buff to it, though.

This is a new group, We've yet to play. My AC is 17 at the moment, I'm...Not too sure how I feel about dropping down to 16 AC to bump my Strength to 16. I wouldn't really feel "tank" like if I got slapped around every time someone took a swing at me, and I'm not sure how long it would take me to be able to afford, say Full Plate or something.

In either case. If I changed around my stats, should I aim for Shield Master, or Sentinel first?

>Decide to do something different with an Wood Elf barbarian
>We rolled for stats and end up with:
> 18 ST, 14 DEX, 12 CON, 10 INT, 14 WIS, 12 CHA
>Pick up a Glaive because glass cannon.
>Party has to face rusted/nerfed versions of Shield Guardians
>The AC is too dam high
>Decided to team up with Dual weilding Gnome Fighter and throw him onto the heads of the Guardians to go for the joints while I grapple them.
>We hold off one Guardian while the Spell casters and other fighter keep the other one busy
>Finish off first guardian and move on to the second one
>Roll 20 natural twenties to throw the Gnome and grapple the Guardian to quickly end the encounter

I feel like going the grappling route now but the average CON is making me hesitant. Or should I stick with the Polearming?

>im slightly retarded
well its much better then, good for bladelocks (essentially the same as a cleric having to "waste" his first bonus action to buff his weapon/cast a spell, then use his bonus actions on some other extra attack)
i could see it being op with multiclassing though, or it just making other classes nearly need a 3 level lock dip for free hex. i would limit it to times per rest, either 1-2 per short, or cha for long.

>calls character a glass cannon
>worried about "average" con
fortune favors the bold

Yup. Been reading over the Dragons of the North articles too and damn, these things be crazy

I think it'd be better if it cost a bonus action but applied to the first attack. Which needs rewording:

When you use your action to make an attack with your pact weapon, you can use a bonus action to cast Hex on the same target as a 1st level spell without using a spell slot.

So it costs your bonus but also takes effect before your (potential) damage. You'll still do less damage than eldritch blast, but you get rewarded for at least starting in melee by getting free Hex spells - the only thing that scales is the duration, and lets face it an 8-hour hex isn't really useful (you can't really concentrate on it during a short rest because it has to be on a specific creature and doesn't transfer until you kill that creature).

Making it an invocation is kinda bad, but if I use this I'm rolling Thirsting Blade into pact of the blade for free.

>went to the store to get some 1-inch washers to make some poor-man miniatures
>got home with a bunch of 5/8 washers because I don't know shit about inches

I guess they will look bulkier if I add somethins else to the base. Maybe styrofoam...

It requires Pact of the Blade, so it already requires minimum 3 levels of Warlock.

>20 natural twenties
That should read 2

but being strong as dwarf fighter is roleplaying

I wouldn't call it overpowered.

3 levels to get hex on all your attacks is pretty disasterous for a class that'd benefit the most from it - a fighter, who gets multiattack (3). They need level 20 to get multiattack (3) in the first place.

At level 2 you already get 2 hexes every short rest, and each hex can last you through an entire encounter.

But now I think about it, it might be a bit too good on an EK that focuses on EBing with war magic and using the bonus action attack to apply hex- Wait a minute.
Actually, it should still cost a bonus action probably.

However, I don't really like the idea of it automatically applying before the attack.
You might as well just say 'If you spend a bonus action on your turn, you deal 1d6 damage on all attacks this turn. You cannot concentrate on spells this turn.'
Which is kind of silly, but a much simpler version of someone spam-casting hex.

It'd be nice to see more utility like you get out of EB's invocations - pushing enemies and extra range. Maybe some invocations that allow the warlock to tank a bit more in reward for getting into melee combat. I don't know how, though.