New Sage Advice - Rules Answers: September 2016

If you keep throwing encounters that can't be done with the most direct route, that's pretty bad.

You should punish them for it, but not in the 'Okay, you're now facing a level 10 dragon' way.

Personally, I hate the concept of encounters that can't be beaten through any form of combat, except as rare encounters. Level 1 encounters shouldn't be meeting kings and archwizards at every corner, just minor hazards with some occasional higher hazards that slip in. Meeting a proper dragon would be a rarity unless they actively persue it.
So, I often design things that gives the player more options and sometimes the possibility of something not quite as bad as a TPK. For example, some thugs might only be after the player's items, thus leaving the player's characters alive. Or, the players will be attacking and the monsters defending, so the players have all the room to retreat if they need to.
They'll still be harshly punished for failure, from some teammates dying or the loss of something else, but at least it's less aggravating for the players and maybe instead of being blind with rage they'll try to fix their issue.

Maybe the players are trying to assault a monster outpost. If they attack without sneaking, they'll be bombarded from archers who are using cover, and have a disadvantage. That's a punishment for bad planning in itself. The players have room, then, to retreat, as the archers can't chase them from their tower.

EN5IDERanon here. I updated the mega. Sorry for vanishing.
mega.nz/#F!rAoGFBBJ!7oaBSiTtMQl5uDnevTEzHw

Are fighters overpowered in 5e?

Is there a site where I can read 5e's rules and mechanics?

Pathfinder has the PFSRD, 5e's 5ESRD is poorly made in comparison.

No.

Their damage is a bit high with feats, but no they are probably the best designed class in the game along with Rogue.

> take the most direct route to address problems.
what the fuck were you expecting them to do?

dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules

More specifically for a site: dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop/players-basic-rules

my DM does the same thing, or gives us someone too powerful for us to kill and seems surprised when most of the party tries to fight it anyway and we nearly all die when trying to damage control the situation

it's cool way to introduce enemies, but it doesn't work when half the party wants to kill everything we come across

What's your favourite character sheet to use?

That was poor phrasing on my part, and I apologize for it.

While there's been a fair amount of creative problem solving by this group in other games, in 5e several of the players seem to reduce their problem solving to "I hit it". No challenge assessment, no consideration for resistances/vulnerabilities, no thought for cooperation or tactical positioning. Just: where is the enemy? I walk up to it and hit it.

The first time this worked poorly because they separated and focused all attacks on types the monster clearly resisted.

The second time they separated the party, attacked something they had no business attacking, and the other group got ambushed.

So I guess what I'm trying to cultivate is (1) creative problem solving in and out of combat, (2) coordination and cooperation among the players

You could try tossing in an NPC on a quest that gives them tactical advice on the situation. Some guy trying to get his kidnapped someone back and knows the area and has an idea of what they're up against.

We've had that in our game and even the more blundering of our players went along with it. Our DM did it to try and push us into a deadly situation though, so maybe don't do that if you're trying to teach them.

Can I just say I'm thankful that we're nowhere as furry, weeaboo, pedo, and degenerate as Pathfinder General /pfg/?

I'm sorry to say that I've found no way to cure a cross-eyed mouth breather that can't even pay attention to tactics during turn order combat, where you get ten minutes to THINK between all your damn turns. You have my condolences.
This guy's advice sounds good, but different groups react differently to NPCs telling them what to do. Try not to make advice-guy too overbearing.

Fuck off.

Just wait until November, user. Catfolk and kobolds are coming.

That's nice and all, but have you considered not provoking fox girl avatar fag shitposters to come here?

twitter.com/mikemearls/status/779179225299365888

Confirmed that they stopped the DMs Guild reviews in place of Unearthed Arcana, instead shifting them to the Dragon+.

Good on them for changing it, bad on them for not realizing that it was a shit idea from the start.

probably the same person tbqh

if the dm gives a bunch of short rests then they can possibly be

we have two battlemasters and they frankly dominate since our dm lets us short rest pretty much whenever.

i'm playing a sorcerer and the other player is playing a cleric. We really can't keep up when, between long rests, we get like 3+ shorts.

second wind, action surge, four superiority dice; they get to blow through it because they know they'll just get it back.

meanwhile i get literally nothing on a short rest

Anyone have recommendations for a 1-to-2 session adventure I could run while my group takes a break from OotA? Is Dead in Thay "playable".

sounds like your gm is running the game the way it's meant to be run, good on him

I have an alternative form-fillable sheet that groups the skills by ability and not by alphabetical order. It doesn't have a currency counter but honestly who needs that.

Tall Glass of current Standard is literally the best physical sheet you can get imo.

if 4+ combat encounters per 3hr session is the way 5e is intended to be played then 5e is garbage

Self-bump because I need help.

If you think 5e is garbage, what are you doing here?

We just haven't fully migrated yet.
Wait until 5e starts making more content along the lines of Psionics, Oriental Adventures or Book of Weeb Fightan Magic to see a bigger influx

hahaha no. 5e is slow as fuck compared to PF and you guys are somehow proud of that

why did mearls ((())) himself?
Unrelated but I've got a player looking to make a paladin of Bahamut, using a refluffed Oath of Ancients, any advice?

I was thinking of making one of those soon myself, and was also kind of wondering. I'm going to stick with Ancients for other reasons, but I did notice that the oath of vengeance seemed to have a much better spell list unless I'm missing something

I'm running a game for some completely new players who are also normies with 0 exposure to any sort of rpg save for like fallout

They're good friends of mine and are pretty imaginative/creative people so I think they'll take to it.

I need a good 3~ hour oneshot to run them through. I want something that is more than just a couple combat encounters; a puzzle or two and some RP opportunities

Any DMs here have a go-to for oneshots? Like, premades or something.

I love 5e, I play a rogue in a different campaign and I have alot of fun, I also occasionally GM it and I enjoy that even more

I'm here to bitch about my other shitty campaign and it's shitty GM and my shitty sorcerer who would be much better as a wizard or a bard or something not a sorcerer

and to ask questions about stuff

because meals is a faggot

What sort of advice do you want? I don't really understand your question.

paladin is such a good class that the oath really doesn't matter. Sure vengeance is probably better in combat, does it really matter?

Take whatever oath you think fits your character concept.

Oh. Well, that's perfectly okay. Come on in! I wish I ran premades so that I could recommend some- but I don't.

Storytime? What's going on with your shitty GM and shitty sorcerer?

It due more to player ASTHETIC than what spell list works best, as I'll probably swap out some of the spells.
There's some good ones in the MEGA from Adventure League, they're mostly 2ish hours but with normies you should be fine. If none of the dozens there suit you, rip a book out of JRPG's and have them join an adventuring guild and get sent on their first mission to kill goblins or kobolds.
What spells should I swap around for it is the main issue

>3hr sessions
Fucking casual garbage.

Hold person/monster could be a pretty huge difference maker (particularly with my group that tends to always make martial types), but like I said I'm sticking with ancients for other reasons anyway, The idea of constantly looking for something to avenge sounds exhausting to me

I was mostly just wondering if I underestimated the use of ice storm or tree stride or something

Anyone have an idea for a session to run for two PCs to test out if they'll like D&D?

I don't have the PHB with me at the moment, but how many ranger spells actually require a decent Wisdom score? From the looks of it, with the new ranger you can get by with just a 14 or so in wisdom.

The GM is a good guy, and is great at balancing combat encounters. Every major fight we've had has been life or death, and the rewards are always worthwhile.

Unfortunately, he's pretty bad at every other aspect of D&D. Every session is generally 60% combat, 20% the party figuring out what they want to do next, 10% rp, and 10% non-combat encounters.

In 8 sessions I've had the opportunity to do something like, use Charm Person or Disguise Self or some non-combat spell once, maybe twice. Since it's all combat all the time, and long rests are saved for the end of the session, the fighters in the party completely run the show and I'm stuck with casting Chromatic Orb and Firebolt 24/7 with the occassional Hold Person.

As for my sorcerer, I just feel like he'd be better as a wizard in every way. The lack of rituals and the pathetic number of spells known just completely kills my fun; as I said, I never do anything other than cast damage stuff, and I never get the opportunity to do anything but that.

that's my bitching for the night, thanks lad

>There's some good ones in the MEGA from Adventure League

I'll take a look, thanks

The PCs are travelling with a caravan, when one of the people in the caravan(or the caravan master him/herself!) goes missing. They have to find and rescue the caravan master, who has been kidnapped by... well, it could either be stereotypical D&D fare, in that kobolds/goblins snuck up on the character in the middle of the night and took them away, or you could have it be some group in the caravan, allowing for a bit more intrigue and investigation.

Thanks for the art, by the way.

So you took a non-combat focused sorcerer and don't get to do a lot of non-combat stuff? Have you tried talking to your DM about it? At worst, nothing will change. Maybe you'll get to reconsider your spell selection, or maybe he might even start RPing more or something.

Here is an idea. Talk with them OOC. Try to explain the minset of the game. Tell then that a single goblin is a match for one of them and it doesnt matter how high your ac or hp is when 4 goblins jumo 1 pc they will win. Explain how they strongest feature is having more actions and how enemies are not dumb and will use tactics.
Just sit down and have a talk with them.

protection/ offensive support spells would fit Bahamut most IMO.

take the Devotion spell list and swap out a spell or two.

With two people you could just make a small custom thing. Partially this will require you to either A) suss out what kind of campaign they want (roleplay heavy, dungeon crawl, intrigue, etc) or B) try to mix a lot into a short adventure. Personally I'd just whip up a small dungeon crawl for them with some exotic enemies. Have them raid a bandit fortress with a broken golem, small dragon, or similarly intriguing monster at the end. Throw some magic items at them, and take them to level 3. If after all that they just don't seem into it then maybe it isn't for them, or they now know what kind of campaign they WOULD like.

Why don't they go devotion? It sounds much more suited.
Still,as long as it's just 'refluffed' they can do pretty much whatever without breaking anything. Changing the mechanics is dangerous, however.

Oath of vengeance doesn't have a level 7 aura like the other two PHB paladins, and those are very strong, considering everybody would be within range of you anyway. They do seem to have a better spell list, but that's just more ways to spend your limited array of spellslots.

Honestly, 'immune to charm' doesn't sound so great when everyone has +5 to their saves from you already and you could instead get resistance to spell damage, since often spells still do damage if you save against them, or sometimes work without a save.

You're not trying to cram every possible ability from 3e in so it sounds like you already have a solid plan. Just make sure to recalculate the CR.

I think it might be good to run one where the players can pretty much choose what they want to do.
Like,
"It's been a long year with not a lot of work for your adventurers in he way of things such as guarding caravans, and they've decided to do something more risky. You can go do anything you like, really, but there are some suggestions... You have an old map of some dungeon which looks incomplete of a dungeon, which apparently holds treasure and one of the family heirlooms, but you're not quite sure if you're ready yet. There's an area people have been told to stay away from out in the plains, and you sure like doing things that you're told not to.
Or, you could go deal with your old rival, who's back in town. He's always been a bit of a dick, stealing your jobs and getting in your way.
Or you can do whatever else the heck you want. Rob a bank, just go for a walk."

That'd be better if you're good at improvising and you like to run games in a more open-world way than a 'You are on a quest, go do your quest.' way. But absolutely don't just tell them 'YOU CAN DO ANYTHING!' because they don't really start with any real aims or goals, you have to give them those aims and goals.

He liked the tenants of Ancient more. I wouldn't be digging into the class benefits, just the spell list.

Then refluff devotion with ancients sort of tenants, probably.

The spell lists aren't too gamebreaking.
Devotion has a lot of spells the paladin already has access to, although some of those are quite nice to have.
Ancients has a bunch of druidic spells that the paladin doesn't have, which are probably mostly good for utility.
Vengeance has a bunch of combat spells. Might want to be wary if he's going for vengeance spells, but eh.

If they want devotion spells, probably go ahead and give it to them.

Quick, /5eg/!

Give me a name for a Wood-Elf Ranger!

>Legolas Elfeyes

Aeliphas

Bork

Do you think this is a fucking joke, motherfucker?

Bryn Liadon

No, names should be based on character not race and class. You didn't describe a character.

Vallois Eyrenhil

Alright

in the DM's setting, a large Alliance of various nations is aggressively expanding throughout the world.

My character is a Wood-Elf, who serves in the Wood-Elf Recon Corps. Standard Wood-Elf/Ranger shtick of defending the lands, yadda yadda.

The Wood-Elf nation recently rather reluctantly joined this Alliance, and my character has more or less been forced to help the Alliance troops scout the more unexplored regions of the area.

He strongly dislikes the alliance, as he believes they have no purpose in his lands, and are only there to exploit the resources found there.

However, he is dedicated to his nation, and if his superiors tell him the help his new allies, he will, begrudgingly.

He also has two siblings, both of whom joined the Scoi'atel-esque resistance against the alliance. He's conflicted between his family and his duty to his nation, but his sense of duty keeps him working in the Recon Corps.

He's CG, very strong-willed, experienced, and harbors a distrust towards non-elf Races, save for Halflings and Gnomes. His family has served in the Wood-Elf armed forces for generations.

Aeliphas the unready.

Triece Sortog

I'm thinking of changing Dragonborn to Lizard men in my setting with a Dex and Int bonus and Acid breath. Thoughts?

If that's what makes sense for your setting it should be fine.

Hey, anons. Would-be race homebrewer here who'd like feedback/critique on his efforts so far and suggestions on which of his planned races to tackle next - I got so many I've hit the point where I know I need to start writing 'em up, but I can't pick between 'em.

docs.google.com/document/d/1XovWm65MSmIzQWSMDMXo0_aIpZgq9YSa2KkpO3kThS4/edit#

For those who'd rather not poke around and try to figure it out, here's the direct list of races I need to get written up:
Pterran
Bladeling
Githyanki
Githzerai
Fey'ri
Tanarukk
Rogue Modron
Hamadryad
Satyr
Huldra
Dust Genasi
Rain Genasi
Magma Genasi
Blight Genasi
Smoke Genasi
Tanuki
Mujina
Kawauso
Bakeneko
Itachi
Tengu
Spellscale
Vyrloka

I could particularly use someone willing to talk about making the yokai races and the Spellscales work, especially the latter, as I'm having troubles coming up with decent ideas for 'em.

Vryloka, if you please.

Also just a suggestion, but you should change Shardmind ability bonus to +2 Int and +1 wis OR cha.

Vyloka coming right up as soon as I can. As for the Shardmind ability modifier change... any particular reason? Beyond legacy, I mean?

I mean, I don't really have a problem with it, I'm just not sure if 5e will handle "chooseable" ability score mods the way 4e did.

Hey /5eg/, I'm trying to get in to the hobby and I was directed here for resources and advice.

I'm reading the player's basic rules book from the mega download, but I'm stuck on determining ability scores.

The way I'm reading page 7, determine ability scores, I should move the modifiers in the small box to the large box, as these are modifiers from my race choice. That would make dex 17 and wis 9. Then I should apply modifiers from the table in those smaller boxes, not racial bonuses. So my end dex/wis would be 17 + 3 and 9 - 1.

Is that right?

Also I've listed all my racial bonuses in the traits box, should I do that or are the traits well enough known that they're just assumed?

Thanks!

The sheet is intended to have the ability scores in the small box and the modifiers in the larger box, since the modifiers are what's used more often.

But in the end, go with whichever helps you as a player more.

And the same for traits: write down whatever is best for you to remember as a player.

I already have a Satyr homebrew for my setting, only difference is I call them Fauns. Feel free to pillage my ideas.

pastebin.com/8tr5ZBtV

If half-elves can get +2 cha and +1 to two others of their choice, I don't see how this would be a problem mechanical balance wise.

And as for the reasoning behind it, it represents the dividing line between the Thought Builder and Shard Slayer philosophies (omitting God Shard philosophy).

I'll keep it as standard as I can, I'll be playing a game on roll20 once I make a character sheet and finish the main body of rulebooks so keeping my sheet standard will make it easier to get help in game.

I'll keep the traits then so I know what I have at my disposal. So for dex I would have +3 in the large box and 17 in the small box?

Is it just me or is the Deep Stalker subclass for the new ranger like really fucking good?

Like, level 3 gives you an additional attack on your first turn in combat? and +10 speed for free? and neutralizes enemy darkvision?

also you gain darkvision for 90 feet? additional spells for free?

Extra attack, wisdow save proficiency, another attack if you miss, and pretty much always giving an enemy disadvantage against you as a reaction?

coupled with all the shit you already get, like advantage on inititative, advantage against enemies who haven't acted (which is huge with the extra attack you get on your first turn as a deepstalker) and all that other shit

Seems really really good man

Would you allow the Jump spell to stack with Boots of Striding and Springing, assuming you can raise your movement high enough?

tempest cleric looking for a dip, open to other suggestions, but thematically for the character im thinking either paladin (most likely ancients) or ranger (hunter, no animal is sticking out as a good pokemon for him)
realistically im going to only be putting in threeish levels, because i dont want to delay cleric all that much. i feel like paladin would be the clear better choice, but if im only going three points, i miss out on alot of things that arnt smite, and im pretty much the only class in the party that can reliably heal, so spells per day are already being doled out to keeping retards alive.
both get extra attack to get my tempest damage off, but a 5 point sacrifice is quite a ways away, even if i would want to go that far down either. endgame would be 17/3, but i guess id be willing to go as far as 14 cleric, 6 anything, if it was good/interesting enough

Since the effects have different names (the boots don't just put you under the effects of the Jump spell): they do stack.

why do you want to multiclass?

anyway, you have to have a 13 in the main stat of a class to mc into it.

Unless you have 14+ charisma I see no reason to MC into pally. Ranger works I guess but I don't see much of a point there either.

If you really wanna dip I'd say go fighter, pretty much anyone benefits from a fighter dip. Rogue is a decent dip too

Meh, an assassin rogue has like play. Deep Stalker is just focused more on gimmicks then damage, how I see it.

interest mostly, im not a fan of the flight, it doesn't fit the character at all, but 17 is also 9th level cleric spells. im hoping for something useful enough to warrant 4-6 levels, but anything that pushes back flight a bit is really my goal.

basically, i want to delay cleric levels, without the choice being largely useless

what level are you?

if you're planning out your character 1-20, just stop. 99% of games don't get past level 10.

playing once a week every week, and going off RAW rules for encounters and exp and etc, getting a character from 1-20 will take you literally over a year.

Look at Critical Role. They've been playing those characters for nearly three years and they're like, level 14 - 15.

>mfw halfling UA Ranger 2 w/ Archery

This is pretty damn fun.

>you will never see 10th level
>you will never see armor that has a higher potential AC than those on the nonmagical light/medium/heavy table in the phb
>you will never have a +1 weapon
>you will never have a reason to spend your gold
>you will never be hailed as a hero, only given a 'thanks' and sent out of the city to the next questing site where people have never heard of you
>your party will never not be a group of random, wacky vagabonds who don't know each other and are only traveling together for number safety
>your GM will never read your backstory or care what it is
>you will never see yours or anyone else's character motivations be resolved within a campaign, if they're even brought up
>you will never fight a dragon or claim a dragon's hoard
it's okay though haha my gm gave our party a reason to drop everything we were doing and go fight the bbeg cultists who are summoning a demon ha and i have my trusty rope of climbing with me haha

ha ha

Get a better DM.

Alternatively talk to your DM about those things.

how's it working out?

I'm gonna play the new ranger here soon, wanna go deepstalker.

I've played under multiple DMs and every single one is like this

You have never played in person with your friends, have you?

If you have, get better friends.

>my players are almost 9th level
>the fighter/cleric-soon-paladin has a shield I homebrewed that gives more AC
>every party member has at least one magic item that fits their character theme, by happenstance or plot (including that shield, which has been turned magical and customized to fit him)
>they've been tight enough on gold that spending it in any amount beyond necessities has been painstaking for them
>they're on a mission from a powerful wizard-king to save the world who recognizes their abilities
>each of them have a personal stake in their mission outside of their own survival
>I've woven all their backstories and the actions of the party into the story as it's gone along
>I plan on giving everyone an in-game resolution to their personal conflicts by the campaign's end, if not then a personalized epilogue
>they're going to be fighting a dragon with a sizable hoard within the next three sessions

Well, the Favored Enemy is great (picked humanoids) so the added damage is juicy. My Halfling has +4 Dex modifier thanks to the racials so it's nice picking shit off esp since my initative rolls have been on the good end. Sadly my constitution is not so good (-1) so I'm being careful as fuck.

I'm tempted to multiclass one level of Rogue just for the Sneak attack.

Though I admit, I'm no theorycrafter but so far, I'm liking what I've chosen so far.

>party just hit level 7, going strong with creative solutions to different kinds of bossfights
>setting has some occasional magic item collectors/dealers in sufficiently large cities, characters are happy with the equipment they've been able to purchase/loot from powerful foes
>characters spend gold on such items, and also on services from NPCs
>players are currently being hailed as heroes in the last couple of towns/cities they've visited after saving another from annihilation
>I'm the GM and each character has a large background quest planned, we're currently following the first clues of one of the player's
>dragons reside in the less civilized north, where the party is heading

Feels good being a DM that my players like

What are your favored cantrips for more creative uses? I'm going to be playing an arcane trickster soon, and while prestidigitation and minor illusion seem obvious alongside the mandatory mage hand, is there any merit to something like mold earth instead?