/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General

That would seem like the logical thing to do, right? How can a creature already wrapped around its target miss it, unless you fluff it like 'the targets armor takes the blunt of the attack' or something. But I think I'll take the middle road and just give it advantage on targets already grappled.

Still deciding on spells etc.

I believe if you pick the feat from your class it does that. If not then it wouldn't break anythibg

A bear mauling a guy in heavy armour might not be able to breech its armour, despite having it tackled and grappled on the ground. Having an advantage makes sense more than an automatic hit since the person is struggling.

Some attacks might be confusing mechanically like if the creature can spit acid at a restrained target, but sometimes things are just weird like that. There's massive enemies whose attacks should be AOE's or have the potential to be, but can only hit a single target.

This is me from last thread.

Any suggestions for how to blow my players up?

In that case, sure. But some creatures it just makes sense for an automatic hit, no? (Ooze, Cube, Octopus, Snake, Crab, etc. )

I love having multitudes of various Gods, all of them different, all of them with differing stories of how the world works, etc. Then again, I love deep-lore worlds, anyway.

There's 63 Gods in my current homebrew, and that's just in the area where the party is. There's a few transplants from other areas of the world, but most of those are from the main area over the past several centuries.

In some cases it can make sense, sure. You could still argue other players attacking the creature doing the grappling is throwing its attacks off or other circumstantial things. For an ooze type creature, maybe not. It's really up to you.

Have the chest blow a huge hole in the ship and get them shipwrecked and have to find a way back home. The small island they find themselves on will be the key.

Does anybody have the pdf that lists all character creation options (including UA and Planeshift)?
Asked last thread but got misinterpreted - I have the books and stuff downloaded I just want the list of options for quick reference

These
If you're super bothered you could bring back flat-footed AC

What are your guys favorite race/class combo?
Dragonborne barbarian is my personal favorite.

I've grown to love Halfling Ranger (UA)

Elf Fighter.

Human Fighter (Male)

How is the new UA for rangers? It looks pretty solid to me, but I'm not the best at this sort of thing.

I'm still new to DnD so I haven't found a favorite class yet, but I'm finding that I really like dragonborn as a race, cause lizardfolk are always awesome

How do you determine if an animal is actually a druid? Can you only kill them out of the form or wait for the duration to end?

Any idea for my new campaign?

I will post results this sunday

I'd rule a Nature check will make one realize there's something odd about this bear. Or have Detect Magic detect an aura around the crow watching our camp.

But if your players come across a wolf in the woods, and you give them a nature check, they'll automatically know something is up and treat the situation differently regardless of pass / fail.

There are certain spells that show a shapeshifter's true form. Moonbeam is the one I can recall off hand.

A detect magic will reveal transmutation magic I believe. I've also let spells that target beasts not work like charm animals, but that was a DM call.

No you wouldn't, it's Wolf Lore
Seriously though if you actually think a nature check on a wild animal will "tip off" your players you're probably a crappy DM

well you don't have to actually give them the check yourself. As far as they know it's just an animal unless they're paranoid enough to check themselves, or until they slay the thing and it turns into a full grown man.

If they can sense it by detect magic, wouldn't that sort of ruin wildshape for druids? It would mean a level 20 druid could just have dispel magic cast on them to knock them out of their forms. In the book it says they need to drop to 0 health or be unconscious.

I thought wildshape weren't considered shape changers. There's no spell cards for druid shape changing that solidify it as generic magic that I've been able to find. Stuff I've found said Moonbeam doesn't affect druids, but "other" shape changers like polymorph or something.

Well as a DM, I wouldn't do that. I let the players decide whether they do a check or not. I do give them a bone here and there but to tip off something like potentially spoiling a druid appearance or maybe a trap? That's not my thing.

Cause if they get tipped off about the wolf being a druid, it's because the player got tipped off, not the character and that's lame.

twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/732796508781809664?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

Wild Shape is magical so Detect Magic will detect it but it's Supernatural so it won't succumb to the effect of Dispel Magic.

>supernatural
Is that even a thing this edition?
I thought (Su) and (Ex) and all that shit was gone

Well I've always thought of wild shaping as a willing self polymorph, and if it isn't, what exactly is the Druid doing.

If the Druid isn't shape changing or polymorphin and doing something completely different then it's up to the DM to figure out what it's doing.

A Druid could be summoning a spirit to take the caster's place, and let the Druid control it. That would be conjuration Magic. Or if he was calling on a dead animal to come back and let him assume the form of it it would be Necrotic magic.

Rule it how you want but I say while wild shaping they are shapechangers using a self polymorph spell.

This is a good pick for my question. Where does the damage bonus come from? Like a rapier has 1d8 damage. Where does the +3 come from?

>So, if the caster uses his action the druid would glow if in range, localizing him hiding among other animals. Interesting
That kind of sucks, but it's good to know dispel magic can't knock them out of it and the PHB restrictions of form loss are still true.

That's a big help. Is there any area in the Dungeons Master Guide that explain statuses like super natural? is that something that carried over from old versions, because there's nothing about that in the druid part of the PHB.

>A Druid could be summoning a spirit to take the caster's place, and let the Druid control it.
>Or if he was calling on a dead animal to come back and let him assume the form
to be honest none of that makes any sense

they study an animal and are able to change into it if their CR chart fits, that's all the information they give. nothing about spirits or necrotic is implied. I get it's some sort of polpymorph, but it's a very specific one to their class.

The description of wildshape literally states you "magically assume the shape of a beast" so that second part is clearly bullshit

I think it's an excuse to make it so people can figure out if something is a druid without ruining the meat of a moon druid class by making a level 20 druid dead to a group of low levels with access to dispel magic.

Has a character you liked/loved/really fond of died not because of your agency but because you had to deal with a bad DM?

It's called flavor, the PHB only says you assume the form of an animal, and doesn't explain further. So the DM gets to choose what exactly is happening. Even the studying the animal part isn't mentioned, just seen it.

So if you are trying to break down what exactly is happening during a wild shape the DM has to provide it. They may rule it's not any kind of magic even. It's up to them.

As a GM, is it considered poor form to have someone just sort of... cast Resurrection on a bad guy they killed off-screen? Resurrection and Revivify are spells that are totally at the PC's disposal, but it feels like I'm cheating to say "I know you guys killed the Prince of Thieves last month, but the guy is the Prince of Thieves. He has a lot of money stored away. You just sort of left him where he fell, so his henchmen took him and a bunch of his gold somewhere for resurrection services, because he's the sort of guy who prepares for these sort of things. He's back now."

In universe it makes complete sense, but out of game I feel like I'm cheating.

It's not cheating but the players and the character will probably be sick of him. Remind them that they can't leave a body if there is a threat of resurrection.

Give the pcs some warning, and the opportunity to stop it.

It could be something as simple as a huge resurrection quality diamond was delivered to a broker in the city, and the pcs find out.

I've done it a couple different ways--I have an obvious, "Oh, he's dead, but his body disappears in a flash of demonic laughter..." and let them worry about it until I reintroduce him.

Another way (that I loved, but my players went nuts over) I did it was that the guy was a sort-of undead God that could possess different members of his cultists with a profane ritual. It was fun, because the undead God could also speak through any corpse, so there's nothing like standing in a battlefield and every corpse is speaking to you at the same time with the same words.

Freaked the shit out of my players. If I knew anything about sound manipulation, I'd have recorded my voice and dubbed it over itself several times.

In the current game I DM. I wanted their to be 9 gods. So I just put all of the domians on a number and rolled two domains for each god until I had all domains repersented. Then I made the fluff for the god's based on their domains.

Light and Death, War and Life. Were some of the cooler combos I got.

Yeah, this works. You also might want to mention the consequences of this kinda bullshit elsewhere in the world. There are a few spells that fundamentally change how your gameworld and society work if people have access to them, and Rezz spells are definitely up there. If Resurrection is well-known, people get in the habit of burning the bodies of their enemies, or going on heroic missions to recover a body before it can be incinerated.

I'm brewin' a warlock of the Three witch gods from Grim Dawn
Bladelock goes for Solael's favor (BURN WITH VOID-FIRE), tomelock for Dreeg(Venom, vitriol and crazy visions), chainlock for Bysmiel (social stuff+)

I'd like to read up on those.

Think its my dex bonus, but I'm so out the loop... and orcpub did the calculations :/

Use pantheons of METAL GODS

Dispel Magic ends spells. Wildshape isn't a spell.

War with forces of evil rages on the world.
PCs were posessed by vile spirits, demons wiped their memories [yey amnesia], holy men exorcised demons and now have some really damn talented hands in their dungeon. They will sure use them for something, it'd be a sin to waste such potential...
Savotage demons' summoning circles, assasinate warlocks, make sure evacuation from a hopelessly undefended city goes as planned, go negotiate with hobgoblin warlord and potentially gain a temporary ally, find out where the Emperor went withput telling anyone [Awakening a dragon who is emperor's ancestor?]

I wouldn't really say deciding wildshape is necrotic or harnesses spirits is flavour. That's very specific stuff that could affect the form. Being in necrotic buffer armour could mean holy magic makes things have an advantage on you, as well as it would mean you'd have to kill things or watch then die to get their form. That would only be flavour if someone wanted to play an edgy necromancy druid multi class.

In terms of harnessing the spirits or something odd, there's already the summon fey spirits spell that has them assume a random animal shape up to the DM. If you want the wild shape to be magical fey or random spirit dust, the DM is making the form overly complicated. You're better off saying magic and shit since homebrews just ruin everything.

And the study thing is a bit more implied because you actually have to see the beast. Polymorph doesn't have those restrictions, otherwise having extinct animals like dinosaurs doesn't make sense. It's part of why Wildshape can't just be Polymorph.

Tell me more.

Anyone? I know there's one about it just haven't saved it

Depends how you pull it off and if you do it often, but if the party has access to it or the enemy is powerful enough to have allies that would want to bring him back it makes sense.

It'll create situations where your PCs have to figure out how to dispose of enemy corpses and make sure they can't just keep coming back from the dead. Might need to give them a bag of holding for corpse disposal.

About the Three witch gods? Buy Grim Dawn and walk The Hidden Path yourself, seeker

Bag of Devouring.

sounds fun

if they sacrifice enough bodies to it they could befriend a death god for making sure the dead stay dead

No thanks. I was instead wondering about the homebrew mechanics.

Do something that would get a reaction from a person but not an animal. No nature checks or magic necessary.

I have an idea for a villainous group consisting of 3 bards. What would be the best schools to use for this?

Lore. No real need to go valor ever.

If you do, make sure to put forward notes and hints of "This guy is alive, but you killed him, how strange." and assuming they are knowledgable enough. "Perhaps he has an allied cleric powerful enough to cast ressurection spells? With him being on ward now it would be unwise to go for the prince, sidequest time, go track down who this cleric might be. Bonus points, odds are the cleric has a wealth of diamonds with him."

I'd say Lore, Lore, Valor.

So all 3 of them should be lore? I want to make sure they're a well rounded party so the provide a challenge to the players I put them against. If it helps I plan on having two of them be drow and the third be a high elf.

Rogue Elf.

Pretty standard, but not quite Ranger Elf ya dig? Haha.

I looked it up in the PHB. pg. 196.
It is your dex modifier, yea.

Weaponizing / offensively using a Bag of Holding or Bag of Devouring. How do you rule it?

In this scenario, it's a player holding it and attempting to gag 'n bag a humanoid monster/ npc.

I'll go with the classic half-orc barbarian.
My favourite premise for going on adventure is "Son of orcish chieftain, wants to accumulate enough battle experence, fame and gold to defeat his siblings in war of succession"

Roll percentage, depending on the monster and how many sharp thingies the monster has on it the bag might rupture and break.

The attack bonus of +5 comes from combining the dexterity bonus of +3 with the proficiency bonus of +2.

Play the Valor-Bard as a Halberd wielding polearm master in mithral half-plate. Steal some of the Cleric buffs or Paladin "smite" spells to bolster his martial prowess.

Two Lore-bards can go whatever you want, one can be Druid-Light using summon-animals and some of the good Drood spells.

Having three concentrations to throw around is pretty brutal.

What's the take on the Purple Dragon Knight?

It's the result of WoTC trying to remake the Warlord in 5e, but not going far enough. It's not the best.

It's missing a main, semi-repeatable mechanic to make it stand up to the other fighter archetypes.

I'm DMing a group that has just acquired a decent sized ship....let's say the pic related. Large party of 9th level with decent equipment.

Assuming I know nothing of naval combat, how do I into appropriate encounters?

No Santi.

Is using my starting feat as a variant human on weapon master just so I can't play a more accurate Alucard as an undying chainlock with rapier and sword proficiency a waste of a feat?

Basically it's sub par with its base feature.

Champion gets to crit fish.

Eldritch knight gets to cast spells.

Battlemaster gets to kungfu everything.

Purple Dragon knight gets to heal a small number of characters for a pitiful ammount but have to use their action surge to do so.

Dip a rogue level and get everything as well as free sneack attacks thanks to your familiar.
Pick up the swashbuckler archetype if you go deep enough and you are GOD at melee.

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.

Running a naval game myself ive just chosen to handle combat as a skill challenge, otherwise you get stuck in a repetitive series of movement and cannon fire, also plays in nicely with chases.

So basically successes damage other ships and failures damage your own.

You've asked this before.

Both are fine options. Do you find yourself ever needing to make conventration checks and dual wield? Or do you cast EB and spells more

Well if the same hawk is following the group for days maybe there is something with it

How can I play an alchemist/potion master type character without any homebrew whatsoever?
Is the artificer thats in 5e my answer? Is it any good for that?

How does a forced march work to speed a parties movement speed up for the long term? I can't find a reference how that works.

Is it basically dashing but long term with exhaustion penalties if it's for too long?

I don't know what that means.

Interesting. What kind of encounters / challenges have you come across?

DMing an incursion into the feywild, the group is trying to rescue a halfling from being sacrificed by a tribe of Gnolls to make a Gnoll Fang of Yeenoghu, and has an unsteady relationship with a satyr from the Unseelie Court. Any information I look up involves some underhanded magical realming as breeding with anything is mentioned more times than I'm comfortable with for Unseelie Fey.

Any ideas for what I can focus on? The satyr is already gonna just start hitting on the girl of the group cause it's literally in their background, but some suggestions would be nice.

You're thinking like the uruks in two towers? I wouldn't call that dashing speed. Check PHB page 182 for travel paces- they have fast speed at 4 mph and assume a day of traveling at that pace is 7.5 hours. If they're traveling faster than that or longer, I'd set a DC and ask for con saving throws, and apply exhaustion on a fail.

Anyone in a position of power would be stupid not to have fail safes set up to prevent their untimely demise in a world where resurrection exists. You can just make this Prince of Thieves smart enough to stay out of the PC's way for now.

Sort of. Either players hurriedly getting somewhere, or away from something. Or even an army doing the same. Trying to figure how much ground can be covered by groups in a day if they have motivation to be quick about it.

Average humans cover about 3 to 4 mph for walking speed (according to yahoo answers..). I don't have the PHB on me at the moment, so I'll look that up later.

For a warlock you'd probably be better off multiclassing to get those than spending the feat on it.

Standard travel speeds are
>fast
4mph, -5 to passive perception
>medium
3mph
>slow
2mph, able to use stealth /forage for food

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

thanks!