/5eg/ D&D Fifth Edition General: Sheila's knickers edition

Beating people into unconsciousness is not exactly "non-combat or pacifist"

a cleric wizard or bard could easily do it.

Just make all your spells and shit be buffs/debuffs/CC/healing. You honestly wouldn't even be sacrificing much usefulness frankly, though at higher levels you would stop being as helpful

How do I make a Shai-Hulud?

Have them sent out of the besieged city to smuggle a message beyond the siege lines to get help from a nearby order of paladins. The message itself is in a plain envelope, but the paper inside appears to be nothing but a simple love letter. Detect Magic reveals an aura of illusion around the paper -- the real message has been magically obfuscated, it really tells of a hidden entrance into the city that will allow the paladins to bypass the siege lines.

Make it very hard to get all the way through undetected, and once they are found, make it very hard to fight all the way through. Assuming they don't get really lucky or come up with some ingenious plan, have them captured and brought to the leader of the siege for interrogation. He has already guessed at what they were trying to do, but is frustrated by the obviously false letter, and so plays dumb.

The siege leader hopes that he can entice them into joining him so that he can learn what the letter really means and where it was going. However, even if they decline to ally with him, he still treats them nicely and sends them on their way -- saying that he does so because he appreciates their quest for love (DC 12 insight check to know that he's lying), but while secretly having them followed by his scouts (DC 16 perception check to notice the scouts).

[1/2]

If they fail to lose the scouts by the time they reach the order, whether by shaking them off or killing them, then the plan backfires as the sieging army learns where the help is meant to come from and organises an ambush for the paladins. If the players travel with the paladins back to the city, they can help fight off this ambush (challenging, makes use of traps such as pits, nets, etc.). If they don't, most of the paladins die.

If they agree to help the siege leader, he sends them along to accompany the ambushers. If they follow through, the paladins are killed without too much challenge. If they decide to doublecross the ambushers and help the paladins, the fight is mildly challenging as the element of surprise is on their side.

[2/2]

Adapt the details as you will, but I think crossing in and out of a besieged city is cool.

>Truly pacificst/non-combatants that refuse to partake in violence in any way? Nope, why the fuck would that sort of person be running around adventuring with a bunch of magical murderous homeless people
Trapfinder or Cartographer that didn't sign up for this shit.

>Just make all your spells and shit be buffs/debuffs/CC/healing. You honestly wouldn't even be sacrificing much usefulness frankly, though at higher levels you would stop being as helpful
Yeah, but
>why the fuck would that sort of person be running around adventuring with a bunch of magical murderous homeless people
what he said

Pacifist mean YOU don't want to kill.

I have made a quite succesful lore bard who was full on support, only occasionally did "damage" with vicious mockery (and only a specific BBEG who was being a gigantic dick, and he had caught my character and another PC in a dungeon, gloating at us), but other than that, it was purely support.

Worked extremely well, to the point where even the ranger couldn't understand why people think of rangers as weak. It is also pretty satisfying having such a massive impact on every fight without people realizing it.

>Pacifist mean YOU don't want to kill.
Pacifists means you also don't want to help people that go around killing others and assist them in their murders. Once again:
>why the fuck would that sort of person be running around adventuring with a bunch of magical murderous homeless people

Kek.

What are the most powerful creatures statted to date? Official only.

Because you know these people will murder hobo whether you are there or not, and by aiding them you might save a few lives, or straight up prevent bloodshed in a few situations.

Not that difficult to figure out.

>tempest cleric is basically 'I need magic items to make full use of thunderbolt strike / destructive wrath
>even sage advice says 'lol get magic initiate / multiclass / magic items
>if your party gets a wand of lightning for lightning bolts at a low level, say level 5, you can cast 90 gauranteed damage (before saves and such) lightning bolts every day
>if you get nothing, you're stuck using it on thunderwave/later spells that deal lightning/thunder over time or only half of it is thunder or whatever
At least wrath of the storm works with thunderbolt strike.

Truly an awkward sub-class, but not as awkward as wild sorcerer where the DM actually decides whether part of your features trigger or not.

Why the fuck are devils so much smarter than demons?
Most of the demons are retards.

Because chaotic = stupid WAAGH LET'S MURDER EVERYTHING
lawful = smart 'Let's not murder everything, but trick them all into murdering themselves'
Duh.

That makes absolutely no sense, chaotic doesn't mean less intelligent.
Also, which reject of a designer made an ancient gold dragon Int 18, Wis 17 and ancient silver dragon Int 18 and Wis 15. What the fuck is going on there?

>Beating people into unconsciousness is not exactly "non-combat or pacifist"
I could believe you or I could believe Prince Philionel El Di Saillune.
youtube.com/watch?v=FhF30HwUvtM
youtube.com/watch?v=FmdhsPsfrIU
youtube.com/watch?v=pzIhhtzva0I

>by aiding them you might save a few lives
or you could just work in a hospital or to supply food/medicine/shelter to the ppor, and be guaranteed to save heaps of lives

there's no way to mental gymnastics around it

Demons are literally 'FUCK MURDER KILL RIP AND TEAR' with the occasional 'HEY YOU HELP ME MURDER STUFF'

Devils have a whole goddamn social structure and society in the nine hells.

It's just how it is.

Who's more intelligent, a typical barbarian or a typical peasant?
..Actually, that question could go either way.

Disaster makes for strange bedfellows.

Talking about healsluts, what is the best way to make a total healslut who can only heal and buff and be useless in combat?

Thinking about my own question, you'd expect a barbarian to have pretty good wisdom but lower intellect. The peasant relies less on hunting and instinct and more on cultivation and learning from past examples or others, though you could say the same for learning to hunt, but..

Getting away from that analogy and back to demons and devils, devils have more to think about, because they're less about murderhoboing than demons are. Whether that means more charisma, wisdom or intellect or not is the question.

Were devils always better in mental stats in previous editions?

Would a Wild Shape Half-Elf retain Fey Ancestry benefit?

It is not a special sense so it kinda make sense for you to retain it.

Spouting pseudo-intellectual lines isn't an argument. is right - following 3 Randos around is the dumbest way to save lives unless they have a reputation for callous mass murder.

The same reject that realized that giving monsters intelligence scores in the 20s and 30s is completely meaningless, because what the fuck does that even represent?
And even if you can answer that question, there's no way a DM can portray that shit even half-realistically without making them "just as planned"-tier manipulators. Shit, most DMs (and players, for that matter) aren't even qualified to run 18 int monsters.

Bard is probably the best way, if you don't consider vicious mockery to be damage.

Otherwise, you'd have to play a tanky cleric that uses 'dodge' all the time.

Life Cleric.
Heavy Armor + Shield with no weapon.

But chaos/chaotic is not the "hurr durr I'm a retard" alignment, it's a less subtle evil sure but can be inspired nonetheless.

Reducing the creatures embodying it to retards is an asinine decision by literally retarded and inept designers.

IIRC, in 3e demons actually tended to be smarter than devils in the low-mid tiers. I remember this because me and the rest of my edgy teenage friends were all "fuck yeah, chaos thinks for itself instead of following others blindly" and then we'd go shoplift candy from Fred Meyer.

Then what's the point of any monster getting a mental score over 10? Because I can guarantee not any one has a mental score over 10, even geniuses.

People won't be act out master manipulator type roles because the designers and people are retards.

Their holistic scores represent the creature holistically for one, the culmination of a personality and any motivations and aspirations they might have.

20 intellect doesn't mean that they're just-as-planned. That seems more up wisdom's alley.

It mostly just means they can qualify for the arithmetic world finals and calculate really fast, or know everything.

And, heck, they DON'T know everything. They only get a base +5 to int checks, and will still fail a standard DC 10 knowledge check 1/4 or so of the time if they don't have proficiency in the relevant skill. I guess a 20 int without knowledge skills is like someone with great intellectual potential not going to school and working at mcdognals instead.

Yeah, I think demons were usually smarter on the lower ends of the CR spectrum, but devils always had the better overall stats. Guess devils were more liked.

But demons as far as I remember literally want nothing other than to just fuck shit up.

And just 'I want to fuck shit up and want nothing more' sounds like 'I don't desire knowledge, I just want more power so I can fuck even more shit up'

I can understand you can have a chaotic evil that WOULD persure knowledge and only sometimes fucks shit up, but I doubt most demons are like that.

Conan was someone who had decent mental scores all round.

Peasants were likely to have all low stats because that was their lot in life.

Granted, half of people are dumber than a 10. But c'mon, man. Geniuses are literally defined by having high int score.
The problem is that while not everyone is int 18, we know what that looks like, because there are real-world examples of smart people. I literally cannot even imagine what in 25 or 30 is like, and neither can you.

Conversely, the average devil is a mindless drone who follows orders blindly. That doesn't take too much brains either.

Demons used to be alignment exemplars not just extreme murderhobos.

Question about Mystic Arcanum-

>You can cast your arcanum spell once without
expending a spell slot. You must finish a long rest before
you can do so again.

Does this mean-
1 You can only cast an Arcanum once a day
2 You can cast each Arcanum once a day
3 You can cast an Arcanum without using a spell slot once, but then can cast them using slots as normal

I'm assuming it's 2.

That's comparing a hero to a peasant.

Most barbarians are just nomads rather than heroes, really.

Barbarians rely on survival (wisdom) a lot, peasants would rely on nature(intellect) more.

Devils really should be the one with the lower mental scores before they have to obey and are shackled to absolute tyranny, while demons in turn have freedom of choice.

forgot

Yes, each arcanum once per day. 3 wouldn't make much sense because it's impossible to have the feature and also 6th-level spell slots.

Not blindly.
Imps only follow orders because it's how they get up the ranks, but all the while they're probably still thinking things through.

In that sense, however, they are neglecting wisdom in the sense they don't even need to be aware of what they're doing because a higher-up is supposedly being aware for them.

You mean not always chaotic evil?

Yeah I figured that was the case the wording just seemed a bit odd to me so I figured it can't hurt to ask.

>peasants would rely on nature(intellect) more.

Sorry to drag political debate into this, but recent polling has demonstrably enshrined the fact that people are absolutely mentally deficient and are mouthbreathers.

>ollowing 3 Randos around is the dumbest way to save lives unless they have a reputation for callous mass
Pacifist doesn't mean "save lives" you idiot.

Pacifist lives in a city that is raided by bandits. A bunch of strangers stroll in, and promise to hell solve the problem in exchange for gold. They solve it by making the bandit hideout the new "hot springs" of fucking blood, killing every breathing creature in there. Pacifist feels he/she can't just let them continue on a murderous rampage, and follows along, trying to work some morals into them, or just being the voice of reason towards their adversaries, trying to prevent battle from ever occurring in the first place.

This is entirely legit, and trying to work a group of mass murderers into a more peaceful group would save hundreds, if not thousands, of lives in the long run, while staying in the shitty starting town would let the Pacifist save maybe 1 every year. Furthermore, these murder hobos are actually solving problems, like said bandit raids, and once we get into undead and demon enemies, we NEED someone who can fight, because you cannot talk or reason with these beings. Pacifist or not, someone has to take care of it, or a shit ton of lives will be lost because of it.

Besides, even if the original idea was pure Pacifist, your average adventurer will eventually grow to accept the use of exessive force, even if they don't like it. It's easier to maintain a Pacifist life style while living in a secluded village or in a heavily protected monastery.

Yes, and imps (as well as succubi, for that matter) also used to be demons before they made all demons murderous assholes.
And yes, blindly. If you don't obey your exact orders and your superior finds out, you get stuffed in a rock for a couple of centuries.

Intelligence 10 is the average. You literally can't argue against this because that's how stats are defined. That means half of all people are around or above that. Geniuses are definitely in that group.

Agriculture isn't wisdom(survival). It's more to do with knowledge of things such as seasons, when to sow/reap, how to make fertilizer, how to get rid of bugs, that sort of thing.

Farmers stay in one place and follow a routine. They only need knowledge of how to do things, and remember it like a chinese cram school.
Hunters roam and need to track animals with their own intentions and habits, and they have to have awareness rather than flat-out knowledge.

Similarly, a devil follows more of a routine whereas a demon is more of a lone hunter.

Variant human magic initiate, all you need to do. Booming blade nigguh

Pretty awkward subclass though you aren't wrong. Why they dont get lightning bolt the world may never know

I don't even understand what problem you and have.
You don't have to be a master manipulator, you may just know a lot of stuff and have a calculator brain. You don't have to make them all have multidimensional genious plans that would take 10 book novels to illustrate.

I thought by 5e lore the way imps work is that they're promoted.. whatever the weird blobs in hell are, and the weird blobs in hell are the souls of people who've lost their souls to devils and hell.

Succubi are odd, because they can both serve demons and devils, but they don't seem to be explicitly either, they're just fiends.

>Abandoning your friends, family, and livelihood to preach to a bunch of psychopaths
If staying in your shitty one-horse town isn't enough, fine. Leave. But following assholes into haunted crypts and monster-infested wilderness is not the answer.
You can be an adventurer without being a typical D&D character. Go do that. With not-crazy people.

>"everyone is a retard, but me, xdddd"

Let me put it another way, if you're in a dungeon and everyone but those three randos are actively trying to kill you, regardless of your beliefs in violence, you stick with the three randos. Because anything else is going to get you fucking killed.

>all you need to do
What if a non-human wanted to be a tempest cleric? Or what if user wants to pick a race that fits his idea of his character instead of for its stats?

I'm not exactly sure about 5e lore about imps, but I was specifically talking about editions prior to 4e.

No, they were always chaotic evil. That's the point of being an alignment exemplar.

Demons in 2e and in Planescape had these Int scores:
Babau genius (17-18); balor supra-genius (19-20); bar-lgura low to average (5-10); chasme average to very (8-12); glabrezu exceptional (15-16); hezrou average to high (8-14); marilith genius (17-18); molydeus exceptional (15-16); nabassu high (13-14); nalfeshnee godlike (21+); vrock high (12-14);

You can't use thunderbolt strike with booming blade, but you can use destructive wrath, which gives you 4d8 if you maximize it at level 17 if the enemy moves, which is probably worse than destructive wave. Destructive wave it pretty good for it, but it deals half bludgeoning if I recall right.

I'm at least glad they get thunderwave, because at least you can upcast it a bit and then that's decent, though in that sense you could just go light cleric and get fireball.

What the fuck are you doing in that dungeon in the first place? At best, that's an explanation for session 1. A reasonable person would immediately ditch this bunch of mercenaries.

I notice Dominate Person doesn't have the "no ordering to kill themselves" clause. Does that mean you could use it for that or is that just an implied effect since it's there on every other charm?

What are ways for people to figure out if there are mimics around?

>What the fuck are you doing in that dungeon in the first place?
Monsters kidnapped you. Got lost. Came to rescue some hostages and got in over your head.

I can do this all morning.

Devils:
Abishai average (8-10); amnizu exceptional (15-16); barbazu low (5-7); cornugon exceptional (15-16); erinyes high (13-14); gelugon genius (17-18); hamatula very (11-12); osyluth very (11-12); pit fiend genius (17-18).

They were more than evenly match, with the demons boasting overall better Int.

Stab everything.
Send the tastiest looking party member first.

Nice job ignoring the other half of my post. Why aren't you ditching these assholes as soon as you roll into town?

If it's exemplar of its alignment, then they should honestly just be 'let's just kill things for our own gain' because that's what chaotic evil usually is, just being a hedonistic dick that doesn't care much about social structures and cares more about self-improvement.

All they need to know is how to not die and how to attain power. They don't need deep magical item crafting knowledge because they'd probably rather steal it from somewhere if that's easier.
Devils nowadays are expected to be craftier, and they'd be more likely to do something like make a magical item, because they can then do things like put enchantments that make the wearer weak to devils.

But then, why does demon armour exist? Honestly, that feels contradictory.

Honestly the mental stats for monsters just normally feel like an arbitrary measure of 'FEAR ME MORTAL I HAVE A BIG BRAIN'

That's how you get autists.

It's also literally common sense.
The other sciences/professions would be intellect driven.

I'm not saying I'm a genius, far from it in fact, but c'mon dude, you have to admit the general public is a mass of blithering, drooling retards.

>'let's just kill things for our own gain' because that's what chaotic evil usually is
Not remotely. Being chaotic evil means
1. You don't give a shit about other people, and
2. You don't like rules.
The classic example is asshole CEOs, who are not known for their rampages.

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky animals and you know it."

>'let's just kill things for our own gain
It's not just that, but can encompass that to the exception of everything else.
It does require creative expression, moreso than the tyrannical yoke of obedience and following orders.

If anything, lawful evil should be the retard alignment.

I think it's partly just to make them tougher because int is a game statistic that affects spells

Farming isn't common sense, or else farming would have been developed earlier than it was in history.

Farming isn't just 'Throw seeds at dirt, plants grow, eat plants.'
You can do whole fucking degrees at university in farming.

But then again, I guess there aren't degrees in hunting because farming is more important noadays.

Usually people who think they are so special and smart and not a part of the "dumb sheeple majority" are the biggest retards.

Dude, do you even understand the various alignments?

It is too a certain degree, moreso than the other pursuits like chemistry and physics.

Okay?
I'm not expressing that I'm special, just disenfranchised with the majority of people as a whole.

But Chaos is retarded as all hell. That's the point; it's all about being disorderly and unproductive. Truly the most despicable group of alignments.

Guess you're one of the biggest retards ever, eh?

To be fair very few people truly understand alignment as Gary intended.

Think of law and order as the right side of the brain, and chaos as the left side of the brain.

>don't give a shit about other people
If they're in the way or they're not useful, feel freeto kill them.
>don't like rules
That means they're unlikely to make rules themself, and they'll be terrible rulers.

Lawful evils are typically 'tyrannical ruler' types at their highest ranks.
Chaotic evils would only keep lower ranks in line through chains, because their slaves would have little reason to serve them and would rather run away unless they share some sort of special bond.

If they don't use intellect for casting spells, it's useless, because intellect saves almost never happen. Intellect(investigation) against illusions might be a thing, however.

That's not helping anything. If you think lawfuls become lone wolves or chaotics form business corporations or whatever, say so, otherwise I have no idea what you're talking about.

You need some brain to have some organization.
Demons also have an hierarchical organization, but devils have a more complex and twisted one.

I wouldn't say it's more common sense, it's just more directly useful
Like if you haven't sorted out a reliable food source yet then knowing how to calculate the area of a triangle isn't really helping you

Nah, it's really not. You just played with or knew fuckers.

But Devils only advance by conniving and planning. Demons can just beat on nerds to get by.

Wouldn't that be common sense though, brah?
Knowing that cultivating a survival source is more beneficial than calculating what a triangle is?

>But Law is retarded as all hell. That's the point; it's all about being a mindless drone. Truly the most despicable group of alignments.

I'm still waiting, friend. I thought you could do this all morning? :^)

And this is why nerds don't like demons, because demons incessantly bullied them and kept taking their lunch money.

Now we're at the crux of the matter.

>But Law is retarded as all hell. That's the point; it's all about being a mindless drone. Truly the most despicable group of alignments.
Yep.

Think of this tbqh

It's worth noting in real life that intellect-based people (Those who study science, mathematics and the like) tend to follow the law more than the uneducated.

You need a lawful mindset to enjoy making sense of the universe, reading books, generally ending up being quieter than the loud, rowdy people at the bottom of modern hierarchy.

What's it about if not Disorder?

>they need routine because they're usually high functioning autists

Well, if you have such opinion of youself compared to a majority, what can I say.
What, triggered your special smart snowflake sense?

So...Chaos is a waste of space that causes some people to have seizures?

I call bullshit. Smart people break the law all the goddamn time. They just don't do it violently and in public.

And this is the other half.

Disorder isn't inherently destructive. Elves are chaotic because they value free expression and no real social structure.

user-san? user-san? Stop your chaos demon heresy arguement and help me!

please?