/5eg/ D&D Fifth Edition General: No more of Sheila's knickers edition

What the fuck does that even mean?

Nothing. My players are all dicks. The most I've done is take the brunt of a hydras attacks as a rogue so it wouldn't go for the others because the fighter wasn't there that week. Everyone just laughed when I went down

It was a debate over the validity of tank fighters and how best to use them as tanks; one side said AC heavy, other said interrupt heavy. Some other things, of course, but minor.

>babby drama is interesting
Not now and not ever.

Reminder - if arguing triggers you, don't argue, because the people who love arguing are gonna enjoy every moment of your irrational butthurt.

I guess I worded this wrong, let me go through it.

It's a Friday night and I'm bored as fuck, so I decided to craft up a one-shot D&D session on the fly. Nothing too shabby, just something to pass the time with. I manage to convince a friend and I kinda don't want to DM a one-party session. So, I figured I'd ask if anybody was interested in joining a game with us over Discord voice chat.

Two shitstorms:
>there should be penalties for sleeping in armor
>enemies shouldn't attack targets in armor

>not kiting the hydra
It has 30 ft move bruh.

Letting other players shine is the best, doubly so with new players. Good work user.

I was wanting to make a Cleric of Hextor.

Any interesting ideas on how to play him?

>there should be penalties for sleeping in armor

Something kind of like this actually led to me leaving my out of the abyss campaign. When we got to the duergar city and its inn I offered to sleep on a bedroll on the floor or something so someone else could take the bed - it wouldn't be that much of a difference from my character sleeping in full plate on the ground while traveling through the Underdark and with a few notable exceptions she was almost comically self-sacrificing.

The DM took exception to that and said that sleeping in full plate wasn't okay, I would take one level of exhaustion if I did that anymore.

We got into an argument and then I joked about random things giving you one level of exhaustion so much that he got pissed off.

In retrospect it wasn't that big of a deal, if I stripped out of some of the heavier components of the armor my AC logically wouldn't go all the way down to 10+dex, and in the event that we needed to get out of there it wouldn't take me the entire ten minutes or however long it takes to put everything back on. It's just that all of our past disagreements and me apparently being a 'problem player' hit the boiling point and he told me that he hated the shit out of me, so I just left the game.

How do you other DMs determine what targets your monsters attack? I try to explain why they get attacked with the fluff like "The kobold is now enraged because of your attempt at hitting it, scraping its armor and it returns your hits". The creatures Int can come into play or if its a monster that is known for combat tactics like an Orc or Bandits for being sneaky and they might go for the backline if they can. What do you guys think? Whats your thought process?

Your DM was a faggot. Just carrying around all that extra weight and expense is hassle enough for heavy armor PCs, and nothing good ever comes of "lol get naked now and remember it'll take you minutes to get dressed again :D :D :D"

Depends entirely on the creatures. Their knowledge, tendencies, histories, mindsets, etc.

*Do whatever they would do*, and keep in mind that *they are not you*.

I like 4e and wish 5e was more like it

>What's the most beautiful thing you ever did for a fellow party member (or one of your players)?

Couple weeks ago. I'm rolling with a four elements monk and we're fighting a bunch of fire-themed enemies under the command of some really nasty fire giants. The party bard goes down, after tanking for several rounds as a polymorphed T-Rex. Poor bard gets healed, but is sitting at single digit HP. I've only got a handful of HP myself, but I figured I had a better shot of surviving than he did. I stand over his downed body (he's doing his best dead impression) and do a little Bruce Lee pose, then I take the dodge action and tell them to come at me!

Just go play 4e, then.

and then a fireball killed both of you?

Preferably in an evil campaign and with the consent of the other players and the DM. Being a cleric of LE can go downhill fast.

Assuming your character is okay, try being absolutely brutal in the law and pushing for as much war and bloodshed you can get while not breaking the law. Think Hammurabi's code and gladly fulfilling it because your god would want to.

It depends on the monsters. Ghouls? They're individualistic and try to get prey for themselves. Wolves? They'll leave if things turn against them unless cornered. Orcs? They'll have some idea of tactics and will probably target those that go against their plans.

For me the monsters with intellect have some goal, whether holding off a point, waiting for reinforcements, red herring the PCs, or trying to live. I try to play with those secondary tactics in my mind. I like to imagine that they're not telepathic so they might not be the most optimal unless they have a shot caller of some sort.

For lower intellect (animals/kobolds/goblins/etc.) They'll usually revert to self preservation and flee if things turn, unless they're cornered or protecting something dear.

4e general is a thing. Go talk to them.

I hate 4e and am glad 5e isn't like it

No, no fireballs. Plenty of Hell Hound fire breaths, mind, but no fireballs. I managed to survive about six or seven attacks from Hell Hounds and Azers. I didn't do much damage that fight, but I did manage to tank more than I've tanked before.

Edition Wars are dumb, let's drop this entire argument please.

you bitching about it is worse
shut up

Okay user, you win.

you bitching about bitching about it is worse
shut up

how will I ever recover

How do I make a good twf build?

...

(You) win, we accept defeat. I will now start a new topic since this old one is done.

>Cast goodberry
>Summon eggplant (because eggplants are berries)
>Hatch eggplant into chickpea
>Raise into cockumbertrice
>Now have army of plants creatures
>Eat one to restore 1 hp and not be hungry for an entire day

...

That's gay and doesn't work
You might be gay

Whats the difference between a forest gnome and rock gnome lore wise

ib4 once lives in a forest and the other in a hill

You need to learn your biology, son. Eggs hatch into chicks and grow up into hens and cocks. So it only makes sense that eggPLANTS grow in this way.

Get two defenders - you can get +6 to AC every round.

When did /pfg/ infect these threads?

you're a gazebo

He's also a Goliath, and we're currently in a Curse of Strahd campaign, if that helps.

I'm not sure of the Laws in Barovia, but I was definitely going to have him follow a "code" of some sort, be it his or his sects, but I haven't quite came up with it.

I was going to play him with very little pity for the weak, both being a Goliath and a Hextorian. I was going to focus more on the War domain for Hextor, him taking every enemy as a personal challenge to himself, to prove himself to Hextor. If he dies, it's Hextor's will. If he lives, it's a new opportunity to prove that he is worthy of Hextor's blessing. I"m not going to go out of my way to have him be evil, but if the orphanage is burning down, he's probably not going to give a shit unless he's told there is a big bad inside or something.

When Volo's Guide to Monsters got scanned and put in the MEGA.

>cleared out Grudd Haug at level 5 by executing some hobgoblin guards with maximum stealth
>then more or less ran screaming straight at Queen Guh while everything crawled out of the woodwork to beat us up
>half the party fell over by the end of it
At least we rescued this fucking halfling.

That sounds like a grand way of playing him. How are you going to build him, though? Fully offensive?

Pretty much. With the Goliath racial, I also took heavy armor master and war caster. He has a 19 Str, so with guided strike that versatile warhammer will hurt. Then the War domain cleric spells help even more, Divine Favor is going to get popped a lot, along with spirit/magic weapon.

I also have him with a few healing spells, but we have a second cleric to focus on healing.

I'm going to be DMing a game for the first time on sunday for a few friends. I'm new to these sorts of games in general so I'll be running the Lost Mine of Phandelver precon. The players have all played many more games than I have, so I went ahead and asked one if he thought they would be bored by such a simple starter adventure. He told me, "Oh don't worry, we'll make it interesting."

When I probed him further, he said that he and one of the other players (4 total) love killing friendly NPCs just to make the game harder for the DM. I know these guys like to be memey contrarian dicks so I believe him wholeheartedly.

My concern is that I'm a complete noob when it comes to this, and I'm pretty sure if I try to railroad them or otherwise get them to play nice with the story they'll get pissed that I'm "restricting their fun," or that they're making some grand sacrifice for my sake.

I wish my first game was with other new players so that we could all learn together, but right now I'm at a loss as what to provide them a good time within the limits of my ability.

I was considering running Storm King's Thunder instead, hoping something a bit meatier might keep their attention away from trying to mess with me.

Sounds unfun unless you're planning on a joke campaign.

Also I've never even played as a player. This will be my first time with D&D.

Don't DM then. It will probably be a bad experience and will push you off TRPGs.
Play first, DM later.

Is making a future battle master with dueling fighting style and shield master feat build any good or is the pole arm battle master just superior?

I already made that commitment, however, I can't just blow them off.

Fuck that. We play these games for fucking fun - tell them you've changed your mind.

They can do something else with their time.

wow, your friends sound absolutely terrible

they're definitely just using you so they get to play. Forcing their completely new, first time player friend to GM? I know players like them, it will be miserable for you.

Tell them to fuck off. You will not have fun in any way. If they're bragging about "making it harder for the GM" then they are complete assclowns and you should not associate with them

Stop being a pussy, you absolutely can

pushover beta bitch. Your shitty friends are using you

Then don't. But don't doubt yourself. If you suck, you suck. What will be, will be.

Don't fret over things you can't control.

...

>is the pole arm battle master just superior?
I don't understand this meme.
A poleweapon master fighter is literally a worse monk that can't even scale off dex

damn man im playing a firbolg cleric of tempus soon which is gonna be almost exactly the same. im gonna multiclass fighter up to 2 for action surge then eventually 5 for dual attack.

I've been friends with these people for years, I can't just tell them to fuck off. Besides, I was the one who offered, I was just unaware how experience they all were.

I'm going to run it and play it by ear. My greatest fears are that A.) the other two players get bored or B.) The two memers start fucking with me directly and I get mad and leave.

I've been with my friends all my life - if I don't want to engage in a *leisure* activity with them because I will gain no leisure from it I tell them "no". It's that simple.

You'll have good AC and fine damage. The free shoves will be nice for conserving your superiority dice.

Polearm gets another attack or two to use maneuvers on, and reach.

Just going through the DMG for the first time. How many encounters of each difficulty is a party supposed to be able to handle in a day?

Whenever they randomly kill a key NPC, reveal it to be a doppelganger, then have the real NPC show up and thank them and continue along. If they kill the 'real' NPC, repeat.

Eventually they'll get the hint to stop fucking around

A party can handle 6-8 medium to hard encounters in a day. More if they're easier and if they get fewer short rests, fewer if they're harder and they can't rest as often.

I think I'll steal this idea, thank you.

Try like 4. 6 to 8 means constant short rests.

Hey guys! Check out episode 3 if you are bored and want to support some 5e content.

Made a ton of improvements over the first two episodes, and looking for suggestions on what we can improve for listeners.

bardsandnobles.com/episode/e3-dead-in-the-water/

So, if you're aiming to have them tuckered out after 3-5, should you be using mostly hard and deadly encounters?

Everyone's going to be out of resources by like 4, even in normal fights.

Did he use it to create a race of lesbian catgirls?

Medium should be fine for that. Avoid single-monster encounters unless there's legendary actions.

8 encounters will push the party to its limits.

Then how are they managing 6-8 fights if they're out of abilities and healing after 4?

Honestly your group doesn't sound fun to play with, I'd just find some combat-oriented one shots without a lot of social encounters.

Yes.

I'm not sure how they came up with that number myself. I guess they're counting champion fighters extra?

Lots of stuff key off of short rests.

>DM houserules that short rests take 8 hours and long rests take a full day

Should I cave his skull in with my bag of metal dice?

Yes. Also tell him he's a shit DM because he can't deal with player abilities. He's doing this pretty much solely to fuck over a "select" number of classes

That is not how real friendship work user. Don't get hold up as abusive relashionship hostage by these so-called "friends".

I'm not sure about multiclassing for me. From what my DM has read Curse of Strahd only runs to level 10, which means multiclassing could gimp me if I fuck up.

Action surge would be nice though. I was also thinking about Barbarian to get some crazy tanky dps going.

no! bad /pfg/! bad!!

Is a STR based ranger a good idea?

Depends. That is close to the optional 'gritty' long rest variant in the DMG, save that long rests in that one take a full week of downtime.

So I would say no, so long as he's adjusting encounters to account for the less frequent short rests. If he tosses 2 encounters at you on the road to the dungeon, lets you sleep the night, and then has 3 or 4 more inside, it's fine.

If he expects you to fight the standard 6-9 encounters each day with no resources, you should use a less conspicuous weapon like a lead pipe. More lethal, less easily pinned on you.

Retarded idea. Go dex, never look back.

it is also within your DM power to buff up NPC. whether it from divine protection or dumb luck (just BS the reason).

Make all NPC a level 18 Archwizard or something and reveal at the end that your campaign happen in a Wizard mind, and all of them are just his imagination.

No, but that's more due to Ranger not being a very good idea.

Seriously though, Ranger is best when focused on Archery or two-weapon fighting, and doesn't get heavy armor. It can work, but it's much better to go dex.

It's okay. Go polearm master.

What about revised ranger?

>long rests in that one take a full week of downtime.
What a way to nerf wizards.

How about a Half-orc ranger? Would that be a good STR based ranger build?

More doable. Best method I could see would be getting 16 strength, 14 dex, and 14 wis and going for medium armor. You'd probably want to use a polearm or a two-hander so you actually get some benefit out of it.

Rangers really don't have much incentive to go for strength.

It's a complex process involving lines of sight, knowledge of their adversaries, what happened recently, what they want to accomplish, and sometimes
>Stop, Harlock, you're under arrest.
>>It's Har-BROOK!
That works too.

I also like 5e and wish 4e was more like it. Different things from each, obviously.

So I was looking at and I'm wondering if anyone ever took the time to update it to 5e. I know 5e isn't as much of a clusterfuck as 3.5 used to be but it'd be neat to have a vaguely compatible condensed ruleset to use.

Dumb monsters ie golems attack whatevers closest

Orcs have a preference for attacking fighters/martials, because killing/death in combat versus of other martials is seen as more glorious in the eyes of gruumsh. Also have them single out elves due to race hatred.

Generic shit like that. Smart bad guys act smart, dumb bad guys act dumb. bandits run away, cultists don't. I like to use racial hatreds, goblins and kobolds are cowardly and flee if it looks bad. basic shit so i just don't find myself doing optimal shit all the time and turning DnD into a wargame..