/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General

Does 5th ed actually have rules for wealth by level, magic item loot, and other wealth stuff?

It's hard to plan character development when you don't know when you'll be getting an item that your build revolves around.

Magic items aren't considered into mechanical progression for characters in 5e, outside of martials needing a single magic weapon each by higher levels. There's no guarantee what magic items you'll get in a given campaign (if any), so you shouldn't be building a character around such things.

Gone is the 3.5, PF, and 4e Christmas Tree. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say!

Good bait, though.

I actually just bought the DMG and the PHB. New stuffs coming out? Oh me oh my.

Yeah, playing an eldritch knight/rune scribe with the fire rune would be dope though.

Not bait.

A player was absent from the session last night, and the other characters managed to reach a major milestone without him. The reward for those characters was a powerful magic item, rolled for each character.

Should I allow the absent player to also receive a powerful magic item?

Eh. I do all my magic items with random treasure rolls from the DMG, so if there's some magic items in there, it's purely by chance.

If my players want a specific magic item, I've got some subsystems to try to allow them. If they have the luck and the money. Chances are, they'll be missing one or the other, which means that I get to add in a lot more plot hooks.

I would, I feel like "punishing" a player for missing a session will just make people more likely to be bitter.

That said, it depends on the reason and how often they do it.
"I had to work/had a family thing/wedding" isn't the same as "I wanted to hang out at the pub, sorry it's the 3rd time this month."

Every magic item given to the characters was rolled for. It was just guaranteed to be magic.

Yeah, that's what i was thinking. I can think of a a pretty good in character reason for him to receive a magic item too.

Depends entirely on why said player was missing and how often they miss, really.
I wouldn't penalize a player for an emergency, or a vacation or something. But if they routinely miss sessions, they're going to start dropping behind the party in XP and equipment.

Newish DM here, running my first 5e game. We're about half a dozen sessions in and I feel like I'm running out of ways to make dungeons/encounters interesting.
Any tips?

Halflings are mustelid-men. Lightfoots are weasels, stouthearts are badgers, +30ft swim speed and +1 cha bonus for otters.

Orcpub is really great. Is someone using it and is there a .orcpub file with all the PHB stuff?

I would legit play a stout badger halfling cleric just to play as the picture you put up.

Wilderness, travel, politics, urban.

How distinct do they really need to be? In terms of roles in the world one is naturally stealthy and rural as fuck race, while the other one is a race of naturally magic prankster assholes. I think the bigger problem for me is I have a hard time imagining an all gnome society, but I don't think there needs to be any sort of limit on the amount of short races or whatever
I always thought of halflings more like rabbits

Hey there, anons. Race-building guy back again repeating his inevitable request for criticisms and suggestions as to which race to tackle next.

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
Fey'ri
Rogue Modron
Hamadryad
Satyr
Huldra
Dust Genasi
Rain Genasi
Magma Genasi
Blight Genasi
Smoke Genasi
Tanuki
Mujina
Kawauso
Bakeneko
Itachi
Tengu
Spellscale

Criticisms brought up in the last thread:
* Racial feats are near-universally overpowered; need help toning those down.

* Many races are either bland, underpowered or both - need help boosting them up. Finding more "fluffy" racial traits and switching out the boring "free proficiency" skills is definitely on the list.

As an aside, could really use help figuring out where to go with the Spellscale and Yokai races. The former in particular... I wonder... Maybe go for a subrace mechanic based on Draconic Ancestry, and give 'em damage resistance, spell-like abilities and possibly other features based on canon dragons? Because, honestly, the old Blood Quickening mechanic probably wouldn't work in 5e and was kind of bland back then anyway?

Oh, I just realised... I've been focusing mostly on the crunch, but, maybe I should take a step back and try writing up racial fluff instead? Or should I leave that until I have all of the races statted?

Rabbits can definitely work too.

>Mike Mearls
What do you think

That depends on if Crawford is looking over his shoulder or not.

If not, I doubt it'll be any better than the one in the book.

On the other hand, I've stopped caring about encounter strength, and just put stuff where it makes sense. If the players walk into a CR22 Dragon, that's their problem.

Much like most of the 5E rules we've paid for it doesn't exist under the lazy guise of homebrew it yourself guys.

Reality is it doesn't matter because bounded accuracy but I know I'd really like some guidelines.

I think a friend of mine downloaded a bogus version of Adobe Reader 11. What do you guys use to edit pdfs? Alternatively, does anyone have a legit link for Adobe Reader 11?

Price tags for magic items and wealth by level were left out because they aren't a part of character creation like they would be for 3.5/PF, not because they expect people to homebrew their own wealth by level

Except players don't know if the dragon is a CR22 or a CR14, user.

But how will he convince them to get a new DM with that sort of thinking?

anyone knows how the paladin mounted combat thing works that can explain it to me better?

Our paladin just unlocked that spell, (well, we sort of all did thanks to some ring of spell storing abuse) and english is like, our third language, so the manual isn't helping

I tend to let them make their own choices. If they didn't bother to ask around the region, investigate, scout, whatever, then they find what they find.

Generally, if there's a CR22 dragon flying around, it's something that at least a few people in the region know about.

And spell with a target of self can also effect the horse (or mastiff or whatever) while you're mounted. You also have a mental link when within on mile of each other
Otherwise it's no different from any other mounted combat

>a new downtime system to help high-level characters spend money

Dig a big hole and throw money in it. It's still more productive and useful than anything presented so far.

Is Half-Elf Ranger bad or are they viable?

I want to be a beast conclave ranger, and my GM will let me switch current character class ans stat around.

We're using standard array, so I'm look at...
STR: 8 DEX: 15(+1) CON: 13(+1) WIS: 14 INT 10 CHA:12(+2)

Yeah here you go, page 38 of the DMG.

Half elves are okay at any class since they can pick two ability score points to get, and if you can't do variant humans they might be the only way to get an extra skill of your choice at first level. If you're using the more harsh weight rules I'd probably put that 8 in int or cha instead, but there's really no rocket science here

We don't use Encumbrance rule, so it's cool.

Is it a good idea to dip 2 levels into Bard, or should I go with 3 levels and get some features from a College?

How do you build a berserker that isn't just Guts?

Brainstorming a druid circle that does more fighting, less spell-ing. Mostly need tips for progression-
Druid Circle: Of the Sands
At second level, Wild shape lets you take on certain aspects of animals instead of the whole shape, detailed below. You pick 5 from the list at 2nd level, and 2 additional aspects at levels 5, 8, 11, 14 and 17. When you pick new aspects you can also replace one you've learned with a different one. You can have one aspect in effect at a time. Aspects only affect certain body parts- spellcasting is limited only if the aspect effects one of the necessary components of the spell- head for verbal, hand for somantic.
At sixth level, you can add your wisdom modifier to damage done with melee attacks using your aspects. Your attacks count as magical.
At tenth level, you can apply two aspects to yourself.
At fourteenth level, you can make your aspects apply permanently to your body. You can still switch out aspects using an action.
cont

These aspects are available to you at second level:
BITE: Head. You gain a mouth and teeth capable of giving a strong bite, for 1d10 damage. At 6th level, you can attempt to knock a creature your size or smaller prone when you hit with a bite attack, DC= 8 + your strength modifier + your proficiency bonus. At 14th level, the damage increases to 2d10.
CHAMELEONIC SKIN: Body. Your skin changes subtly to blend into the environment. Creatures have a -5 penalty to spot you while you are hiding. At 6th level, this becomes -10.
CLAW: Hands. Your hands turn into paws with sharp claws, dealing 1d6 damage. At 6th level you can attempt to pounce on a creature your size or smaller if you move at least 20 feet in a straight line towards it. The target must succeed on a strength saving throw (DC=8+str+prof) or be knocked prone. If the target is prone, you can make another claw attack. At 14th level, your claw does 2d6 damage.
CLIMBING LIMBS: Limbs. You gain a climb speed equal to your walking speed. At 6th level this allows you to climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing a check.
COMPRESSIBLE: Body. Your skeleton becomes loose and flexible. You can move through tight spaces without squeezing. At 6th level, you have advantage on acrobatics checks.
GILLS: Head. You gain gills, and can breathe underwater.
INK CLOUD: Hands. You can shoot a 20 foot radius cloud of ink. Underwater, this causes an area to become heavily obscured. On ground, this creates a 10 foot square that acts as the grease spell.
KEEN SIGHT: Head. You have advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.
KEEN SMELL: Head. You have advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on smell.
BIOLUMINESCENCE: Any part. Your body puts off bright light for 10 feet and dim light for another 10 feet.
cont

PREHENSILE TAIL: Body. You gain a tail that can hold or interact with objects, or hold your body and allow you to hang from something while keeping your hands free. You still need to use your hands to pull yourself up to where you are hanging from.
SLIPPERY SKIN: Body. You have advantage on checks to avoid being grappled.
SURE FOOTING: Limbs. You gain sturdy, hooved feet that give you advantage on strength or dexterity checks to avoid being knocked prone.
WEB: Hands or Tail. You can shoot web as a ranged weapon attack. If you hit with a web, the target is restrained and can use its action to attempt to free itself (Strength check, DC 10) or slash its way free (AC 10, 5 hp). At 6th level, you can use your web as if it were a whip.

At sixth level these options become available to you:
AQUATIC BITS: Limbs or Tail. You gain a swim speed equal to your walk speed.
BLOOD FRENZY: Body. You gain savage senses that drive you to blood. You gain advantage on attacks against creatures with less than full HP.
BURROWING HANDS: Hands. Your hands turn broad and shovel-like, giving you a burrowing speed equal to your walk speed.
BOUNDING LIMBS: Limbs. Your legs change to allow you to jump as if under the effects of a jump spell.
HORNS: Head. You grow horns that deal 1d8 damage. If you move at least 20 feet in a straight line towards a creature, you deal an extra 1d8 damage. At 14th level, you deal 2d8 for the horn attack and the additional damage for charging.
HUGE/TINY BODY: Body. Effects of enlarge/reduce spell.
I don't have damage dice balanced yet or anything like that. I also think maybe I should have another tier in here somewhere. Con't.

I'm a 3rd level sorcerer, about to take another level (I have enough exp to hit level 4).

I want more out of combat utility/just general utility. Right now all I do is nuke stuff, which my party loves me for, but I find boring most the time. I also burn out super fast in comparison with everyone else, a fighter/rogue/barbarian. They all get a bunch of shit back on a short rest and I get fucking nothing.

My DM says it's cool for me to multi-class. I'm wondering what I should do.

My sorc is Fey themed, so Feylock would work thematically. It wouldn't give me that much utility until I got the pact boon however, at which point I'd probably take Chain and get me a faerie dragon. The extra spells/ the two back-on-short-rest spells would be nice, and Eldritch Blast would def up my damage, not that damage is a priority. Always-on mage armor would be dope too.

He's also a scholar of sorts, so Lore Bard would work as well. It'd give me some support options and I wouldn't lose out on any spell slots, plus the additional spells known and cantrips would be helpful too.

The party doesn't really have a "Skiller", so going bard would definitely let me help out there. The added support would really help too.

So what do you guys think? Should I MC into one of those right now, or stick Sorc for level 4 so I get my ASI (Which would be put in CHA to bring me to 18)

PARALYZING BITE: Head. You gain a bite attack that deals 1d8 damage and the target must make a constitution saving throw (DC=8+con+prof) on a failed save, the target is paralyzed.
PINCER: Hand. Your hand becomes a large pincer that deals 2d8 bludgeoning damage. On a hit, the target is grappled.
TAIL: Tail. After you make an attack, you can use a bonus action to make an attack with your tail against a target that wasn't the initial target for 3d6 damage, at 14th level this becomes 5d6 damage.
VENEMOUS: Head or Tail. You gain a mouth or tail that can make an attack for 2d6 damage, and impose a constitution saving throw on the target. On a failed save the target takes an addition 4d8 poison damage.

At fourteenth level these options become available to you.
ACID SPRAY: Any body part. You can spray acid in a 15 foot cone dealing 3d6 acid damage.
LONG LEGS: Limbs. Your arms and legs turn into those of a speedy animal, and your run speed doubles.
REGENERATION: Body. You take on the healing effects of an animal. Regain 5 HP per turn.
SHELL: Body. You gain a shell that gives you natural armor of 15+ dex.
SWALLOW: Body and head. You gain the physiology of a creature that swallows prey whole. If you successfully grapple a creature you can swallow it, dealing 3d6 acid damage at the start of the creature's turn for every round it is swallowed.
WINGS: Limbs. Your arms become wings and give you a fly speed equal to your walking speed.

Machiavelli Bard here, I just had a wicked idea

Can I Dimension Door someone into a plate armor, provided the armor is bigger than them?

My haunted amor cohorts have this thing where anyone atempting to wear it or is inside of it, automatically fails a Horrifying Visage attack and takes the full effect

>level 1 party
>clearing a cave of goblins to rescue dude
>see goblin leader holding a hostage
>am a warlock with 20 CHA
>attempt to negotiate
>comes down to a roll
>I am so hyped with my +7 modifier
>nat 1
>fucking hell dice gods
>cast "command" on him to free the hostage
>other goblins slap him out of it
>roll initiative
>whole party rolls low
>I get KO'd at the second round
>hostage is ganked
>party upset that I "played hardball"

20 fucking CHA, Veeky Forums. He's a goddamn master negotiator and he fucks up.

>level 1
>20 CHA

bullshit

I rolled for stats in front of the DM. 3 sixes and a 2, drop the lowest result. Half-Elf template adds +2 to charisma. Bam, 20 CHA out the gate.

Seems kind of like that would require more precision than I assume the dimension door spell is supposed to have. Last I remember anything along the lines of "magically putting on armor quickly" was a ring in 3.5

Is there a creature with the flavor of the Death Knight but lower CR?

Yeah because nobody noticed the fucking ANCIENT dragon in a 1000 plus years

Get dem 3rd level spells asap

Can someone point me to political/intrigue resources for campaigns. I'm completely out of my element trying to make this. I have no idea where to even start.

A Fourth level spell isn't too bad either...

Not that I already don't have the "Put Armor Fast" feature. My armors are animated because I put in a ghost in them, so they just OMNOM me Iron Man style

The party just hasn't seen that coming yet, because they still think role playing is a just instead of roll playing, so I like to keep these tricks up my sleeve for those beautiful "oh shit" moments

Why would you want to

Put a wight in plate and give it 5th level paladin casting

Wealth by level was always to balance a party versus CR, anyone telling you anything else is retarded.

5e doesn't have he same restriction so the DMG just has very broad recommended guidelines for new characters.

Hey, as a fiend-pact warlock I get dark one's blessing, which gives me temp HP after a kill. I'm looking at taking armor of agathys, which gives me 5 temp HP that deals cold damage when I'm hit.

Is this worth it, or is it a waste because I already get temp Hp?

temp hp dont stack, take of that what you will.

Variety, mostly. All of my friends have seen Berserk, I wanted to put a twist on it somehow.

I'm a big fan of fluff informing crunch, so take a step back from the latter for a week and think more about the former.

What is the best way to use Whip?

Does anyone have a pdf of the Planar Bestiary on DM's Guild they can share?

dmsguild.com/product/193100/Planar-Bestiary?hot60=1&src=hottest_filtered&filters=45469

Lv 3 GOOlock with 8/16/14/12/10/16

Should I just bump my CHA or get a feat? I might want to get War Caster for the advantage on CON saves and for casting Shillelagh while dual wielding.

Anyone have stats for a Planetar that is actually fightable? DM ing for a party of 4? Current stats are ridiculous but I cant get the balance right...

If I'm a sorcerer-bard with Twin Spell,

could I twin Cure Wounds? or Healing Word?

If so that's some shit right there

Jesus fuck dude. In the time you've spent on this board begging, you probably could have gotten a shit job, worked one day, and then quit and spent the check on that book. With cash to spare.

i'd rather see expanded mystic

Why do you want them to fight a planetar if they are too weak

>mystic

I'd love an expanded mystic, but functional encounter guidelines are more important for the life of the game.

I want my mystic, but in the meantime, there's a good homebrew version on Reddit. Works, for now.

As long as the spell only targets one creature, it can be twinned.

I love and hate this philosophy.

The good is in that it's sort of how it should be. Everything isn't tailored to the party, the party has to pick and choose their fights and fights happen for a reason, not just 'random encounter, lol' but each enemy has a reason for being and goals.

The bad is if you go high fantasy and put 18 CR liches around every corner without sufficient warning. There should be some really obvious signs a creature is really powerful, and they shouldn't be awfully common at all unless they go hunting such creatures. It's unfair to spring lots of encounters with limited ways of solving at them where other options might just get them outright killed (Only option: RUN).

If you come across CR 20 creatures on a weekly basis, I worry for the inhabitants of your world.

Get up to magical secrets and you can open up a business for a cut rate 2for1 raise dead service

Right there with you. That sort of philosophy really can make leveling up feel like an achievement since it truly means life is that much easier for you, and you really are that much more of a badass.

Other the other hand randomly running into purple worms, liches, krakens, and old dragons really cheapens a world

They're called regional effects :^)

My philosophy as a DM goes two-fold: 80% of the time, random encounters are with either beasts or humanoids. That other 20% of the time, bad things will happen in a random encounter.

The idea being that most of the really nasty creatures will have lairs, because otherwise, someone would have gotten an army together and gone a-wreckin'. That's why creatures have "Lairs", after all.

There are always exceptions, however; there's a part of my world that's called the Ashen Wastes, and is the resulting mutagenic wasteland when someone summons and then someone else slays an avatar of Orcus. Going there is fun. They stay there for a while, and start growing extra arms and such.

By that same token, this is also accurate. In a 1.3 million square mile map, there's only three ancient dragons; there is one specific area that is basically infested with dragons, but everyone knows about them, and they're not that old--yet.

I made an item based on Ice-nine, following the Basilisk Gaze as the template. Thoughts?

This small stone is cool to the touch, and turns water it comes into contact with into ice. As an action you can throw this stone up to 20 feet. If the stone makes contact with water, it stops moving and instant freezes all connected water within a 5 foot sphere. This effect is so strong it even freezes fluids such as saltwater or a muddy slurry, however it does not effect blood or other bodily fluids.
If a creature starts its turn at least waist high in the quickly freezing water, the creature has to make a DC 12 Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, the creature magically begins to freeze. They are restrained and cannot take any actions. They must make a Strength or Dexterity saving throw at the end of its next turn. On a success, the creature got out of the ice and no longer suffers from the conditions. On a failure, the creature is petrified.
Removing the creature from the ice doesn’t not remove the condition, the creature may only freed by the greater restoration spell or other magic.

if you want them too fight a planetar then you could use the stats for something weaker and just describe it as a planetar

Does the being frozen thing kill a creature? Because, if it does, it's super powerful and god-forbid your players ever get a hold of one.

Petrify is a condition and isn't technically killing. Pic related.

>5 foot sphere
Probably better to say 'a sphere of 5 ft radius'

Slight worries about self-petrification if they don't keep it in a waterproof container and enter water, but I'm sure it will be fine.

Maybe keep a creature that's freezing a whole round where they can't use the lower part (move speed 0) but they can still use an action (and thus might be able to save themself if they have the right spells).

I do like it though, and that's saying something. I like niche, funny little items like that that are quite powerful if used in the right way.
I don't really think it's overpowered at all, given any important enemy might have legendary resistance or some counter anyway or deserves to die.

It clearly says that the only way it can really affect somebody is if a target is at least waist-high in a watery substance and they fail a DC 12 check to not freeze. In such a case, it's quite powerful, but the save isn't insanely high and honestly it's quite a specific situation.

That is true, I suppose; being frozen solid tends to be deadly for anyone, though, which is where I was coming from. It's one of those, "I better be clear, otherwise one of my players may fuck me with my own homebrew" situations that I worry over.

Pro-tip: Never run Exalted.

Truthfully the setting is Fantasy Florida, so deep water isn't entirely uncommon. The shorter races are more susceptible to the effect than taller races.

Good call on the correction of the sphere.

Oh, god, Fantasy Florida....I shudder at the thought.

I grew up in South Florida.

I can't really get into the homebrew Mystic. The stuff they added to it doesn't really sound like what WotC is going for.

I think '5 ft' applied to a sphere automatically assumes 5ft radius, but you can neverbetoo sure.

As long as there's plenty of room for it to fuck the player over too (See: Wielding a cockatrice corpse) it's fine to have such a powerful item if you keep the player aware of its danger.

I think having instant freeze on save might be a bit dangerous in a very icy environment.

I'd probably make it so that there's one initial save to prevent being 'restrained' by being trapped in ice, andthen in the rounds afterwards the enemy may suffer from things such as unable to move limbs (trapped in ice), unable to breathe, taking cold damage every turn.. That sort of thing, as if being restrained wasn't enough.

Probably reward creative use of it, but if you want to be really safe you could do the above to tone it down from 'save or die' to 'save or suck'.

Not him, but why?

Alright, I'm having an idiot moment: where are the rules for Small size characters using weapons?

They have disadvantage on attacks made with heavy weapons.

Ten bucks you faggot, stop begging and reward the content creator for creating content you want badly enough to degrade yourself this much.

Page reference...? I'm considering making a gnome barbarian to torture my DM with.

True but then I wouldn't get it for free.

Well you still could, but anything bigger than a longsword wouldn't be as effective. I don't remember the page reference, but I imagine it would be in either the weapon quality part of equipment or the racial traits of gnomes or halflings

Buy a mastiff, give it a military saddle and plate barding, then wield a lance