/5eg/ D&D Fifth Edition General

Thanks all of you for the input
Looks to be about what I'm looking for, will check it out in further detail.
Oh I know it, just wanted to see if I could get a ballpark estimate, then I could just eyeball something in that range and guess if it'll work or not.
Keeping this in mind, I've noticed things like stun Monks, Fighters, and specced casters can cripple single enemies, while something like a Rogue or Ranger would need to get the jump on the enemy or work the environment to their advantage if they don't have other party members to help out. Planning on shifting those a little above or below "average" to attempt to compensate.

Gutted and eaten by Venomfang

>leaves a mansion in a town
>somehow killed by a dragon 60 miles away
kek

I was thinking the Castle too but not sure if he knows where the castle is.

Last minute idea: Wilderness encounter based on roll so not guaranteed.

Glasstaff, Goblins, Goblin Boss, Bugbear. Maybe hobgoblins? Escorting him towards the castle. Arranged to be a Hard or Deadly encounter.

Sure, that works.
I think he knows where the castle is, but even if the book doesn't say he does you can still put him there.

What I'm worried about is that what if they don't run into him? Should I not make it based on a dice roll?

Trying to be prepared for rngesus to fuck up the game.

So I'm playing a pseudo-vampire (undying warlock) in an upcoming game. Right now I have magic initiate as a feat for some additional warlock spellcasting giving me Friends, Minor Illusion, and Expeditious Retreat. What are some other somewhat vampiric spells on the warlock spell list? I was thinking about taking gaseous form, vampiric touch, and spider climb as soon as I can, along with Sculptor of Flesh for some dire wolf and giant bat transformation. Would it be worth it to pick up Minion of Chaos too, so I could summon a gargoyle now and again?

If you want them to encounter him, just have them run into him on the road whenever they're next between Cragmaw and Phandalin.
Just because random encounters are rolled for doesn't mean you can never put in a planned encounter.
What level are your players going to be when they run in to him?

4 PCs of 4 levels. They just levelled up after clearing the redbrand hideout so I don't really know how they'll fare.

The barbarian is a goddamn monster. +5 str, +2 prof, +1 sword on ATT.

A beast- circle thing druid, an assasin rogue, and a lore bard.

Kobold Fight Club is useful for calculating encounter strength.
A medium encounter would be something like Glasstaff with four goblins and a bugbear.
You can make it harder if you like.

dhmholley.co.uk/encounter-calculator-5th/

I'm using this to calculate but the system is same i think

Quick question to more experienced:

Everyone rolls initiative, fight begins. On his turn the druid turns into a beast that has higher dex. He plays his turn doing whatever.

At the end of his turn should I make him roll another initiative as the beast? Is it too much of an advantage if I let him do this?

Just keep his initiative the same.

So I'm thinking of making my first ranger soon. Atm I'm thinking of making him a human beast master ranger. My main debate I'm having with myself right now is which feat I should go for. I'm thinking either healer or mobile atm, but I've also considered lucky and magic initiate. My fighting style is twf and I plan to have a wolf companion. What I hope to do is sneak with my wolf a lot and ambush enemies as a pair.

just keep him at his rolled initiative. anything else is just a fucking hassle.

What are some good minions for an aboleth to send a horde of at the party?

6 PCs, 11th level. It'll send minions to swarm them after they take out an enthralled remorhaz.

Keep the initiative roll but place him where appropriate for his new modifier to it

I agree with and . Just keep all initiatives the same.

It takes two seconds to adjust it to the new mod.
Lazy shitters.

Bumping for advice.

But what are you gaining from doing it
Especially if they then change back / get changed back / shift into something else
Why bother

Outside of the crab thralls the aboleths have, you could throw bandits or cultists the aboleth has taken control of. Depending on the region this is taking place in kuo toa could also be minions.

Two seconds.
Does simple addition and subtraction hurt you, user? This might not be the game for you.

Thanks y'all. I won't give a re-roll but I'll add the new dex modifier.

It makes more sense imo. No point of turning into something with high Dex if it doesn't affect the initiative.

Get the defensive duelist feat.
Why?
Because opponents will miss you and trigger AOO from your wolf.

It has nothing to do with how hard it would be to adjust imo. It mostly boils down to the fact that initiative more represents your initial responsiveness to the danger and not how agile you are.

>wizard initiative 10
>fighter initiative 9
>wizard polymorhps fighter into cat, making his initiative 11
>fighter loses his turn
bravo game designer-kun

Another quick question:

If a creature has normal speed 30, and burrow/swim/fly speed of 60, can he 30 walk and 60 whatever in the same turn? Or does it choose between 30 walk and 60 other.

If the first, he can go 30+60 as just its movement, am i right?

Just update it next round and do fighter's turn right after the wizard
How is this hard?

it would only affect the initiate after the round ends completely even if he turns before.

You can mix and match your speeds as you move, but they aren't separate totals. So if you walked 20 but only had a swim of 20, you wouldn't be able to use your swim speed that turn.

so you just make arbitrary rules calls whenever you want to
that's nice to know

smartest guy in this chain right now

You use up your speeds at the same time, but you can use excesses. So if you have 30 walk en 60 fly, you can choose whether you fly or walk for the first 30 ft. After that you can fly another 30 ft. But if start by flying 30 ft, you can't walk another 30 ft after that.

>Make a stupid, easily fixed complaint that anyone with common sense would know how to deal with
>A-ARBITRARY RULES! YOU CANT EVER MAKE RULINGS AS A DM! YOU CAN ONLY PLAY THE GAME EXACTLY AS WRITTEN!

Nope.
You subtract any already used movement from the value of the speed you're switching to.
For example Walk 20 / Fly 40
Walk 20 -> Fly 20 yes
Fly 40 yes
Fly 20 -> walk 20 no, IIRC
Your total movement for the turn won't add up to more than 40 no matter what as it's your highest move speed

>implying I said that
you still haven't explained what you gain from changing initiatives as you go, only that you need to create more pointless rulings for situations that wouldn't matter if you hadn't randomly added a rule in the first place
you're adding complexity (and not even anything complex enough to be interesting) for complexity's sake
so yeah that's pretty pointless

That's definitely a good plan, but Idk if I would take that at level 1. I'd probably take it at 4 or 8. I sorta want to keep my fighting style versatile until 3rd when I get my companion.

Anons? Long story short, I got a race brewed up for one of my settings who basically originate out of a "gone horribly right" experiment at mixing together kobolds and snakes. How far up the scale of overpoweredness would you rate this racial write-up?

+2 Con, +1 Cha
Small
25ft base speed
Darkvision
Sunlight Sensitivity
Bite Attack (as per Lizardfolk, but doing Slashing)
Down the Hatch (can eat a Medium or smaller corpse as an action, or as reaction to killing an enemy with your bite attack)
Digestive Boost (spend an action to heal yourself for level + swallowed corpse's CR health - this is a once per corpse thing)
Venom Spittle (cast Poison Spray via Cha as an SLA)

>Called a Volatile
> doesn't explode on death
You had one job.

And yes I know volatile doesn't literally mean explosive but come on.

Because going from an 8 dex retard into a 18 dex speed racer means you'll have your shit together faster than before.
What you gain could be the difference between going after a mob of enemies or before them.

Please try to use common sense to determine what the result of things would be. I don't have to hold your fucking hand and explain everything to you. You're an adult, user.

how on earth are they eating a medium creature if they themselves are small?

I'd put them pretty far down honestly. Sunlight sensitivity is probably the harshest racial downside there is and digestive boost doesn't seem to make up for it. As written they can just eat corpses forever and heal up after every fight so I guess they help your team manage resources but eh.

Don't blame me, blame the developers of the game its based on

Look at it like this:

Everyone rolls initiative, fight begins.
On his turn, he uses guidance, which gives a 1d4 to a skill check such as an initiative roll.
Does his initiative change if he wants it to?

see
initiative is about your initial response to danger, not how quick you are in general, otherwise it's be more like passive perception and be a set value
at the end of the day I don't really care whether you're playing the game normally or adding whatever retarded rules you want I hope you have fun :D

I feel like digestion should take more than an action. Maybe let them gain THP equal to level + CR of the digested corpse after a short or long rest?

No, because the initiative is already rolled. Guidance cannot be used retroactively.

Similarly, 'enhance ability: dex' for advantage on initiative, bardic inspiration etc won't work.

It's not really hard to work out when people realize it's a skill check, not an inherent stat.

>ITT people who don't reroll initiative every round
How does it feel to be so plebian?

>inb4 takes too long
>inb4 features not created with that in mind
>inb4 less tacticuhl

Then get the skilled feat and pick 3 more proficiencies.
Broaden your utility if you want to make a versatile character work.
Otherwise Observant or Alert might work for you.

>rolling initiative for 4 players and every monster every round

Elastic gullets, in a nutshell. They're not big enough to use weapons effectively, but they're stretchy.

Well, if they're willing to give up actions in the middle of the fight, they can heal themselves in-battle without needing the cleric/bard/whoever to zap them. Does that buff up its power level?

I actually had them digesting as a bonus action and with no limit to uses per battle, which is why I figured they'd be overpowered - the Lizardfolk gets temp HP equal to its level once per short rest by hitting with a bite attack, for comparison.

Also, doesn't resting already restore normal hitpoints and so make that obsolete/weaker?

this is fine if you use speed factor but it's retarded if you don't

Thanks for the answers guys. I'll go sleep now, gotta kill my PCs tomorrow.

Use macros faggot

>Inb4 i dont use roll20
>inb4 i play irl
What are you, fuckin gay? You like playing make believe face to face with your faggot irl friends? Ew son, i bet you have aids with them

I think 6 skills will cover everything I wanted covered skill wise, but alert would be pretty nice. And it would benefit my companion too since he goes on my initiative. I think that's what I will go with. Thanks.

I hope this is bait otherwise I feel sorry for you being stuck playing online

Honestly it wouldn't be that hard to keep track of irl. You could have a player keep track of it and have them or the player roll initiative after their turn so the DM can just concentrate on the game.
It's still stupid though

this is where someone comes in with
>trusting your players

The correct answer is to roll for players and monsters as groups and apply speed factors instead.

This is an interesting answer.
Would you use anyone's dexterity mod for either roll or just straight d20?

Dumb hypothetical: If you were to create a pinball wizard build, how would you do it?

I was thinking perhaps something like an Eldritch Knight (Hermit Background) with a mace proficiency.

I'd love to help, but what is a pinball wizard?

A kid who's deaf, dumb, and blind.

youtube.com/watch?v=4AKbUm8GrbM

I've been thinking of adding the option to roll 2d10 rather than 1d20 to the PCs. What do y'all think?

It'd be framed to them as their ego making the decision to respond with id (d20) or super ego (2d10) to a given scenario.
I think giving the players the option between the two could met some of the annoyances of a d20 system, while still giving players agency to attempt hail marys and create the whacky, memorable scenarios everyone loves about d&d.

I've been using dice multiples behind the screen for NPCs for ages to get more balanced encounter results to pretty good effect I think.

Any glaring issues with this idea before I beta test it for a session?

Rate my homebrew Monk ki move
Spend 2 ki: move 5 feet towards a creature and make an unarmed attack. On hit, the creature takes an additional 1d10 damage and must make a STR saving throw or be pushed 10 feet away from you. As part of the requirement to make this attack, you must ask the creature a question pertaining to its well-being before attacking. The question does not need to be answered.

So, nobody really thinks this sounds inherently overpowered? I was worried the combination of "turn your kills into health for yourself" and an SLA cantrip keying off your lesser stat boost would be pretty strong, even if being Small does make you kind of weak in melee combat, particularly with Sunlight Sensitivity.

I will be imposing a daily limit on this

It raises the average die roll by .5 and makes criticals and fumbles (assuming two 10s and two 1s function as crits and fumbles) go from 1/20 to 1/100. It seems pointless and I doubt the players would like their crit chance going down to a fifth of the current chance.

That sounds like a situation that should be brought up to your DM. There is no direct rules on how to gain blindsight like back in 3.5. Being blind and deaf would mean you pretty Much have disadvantage on everything and cant do anything RP wise outside of stumble around. As a DM I'd personally grant blindsight to a player who chooses to be blind and deaf.

Hey, does anyone have that pdf with Modrons? I'd be obliged.

I don't see how this is any more powerful than an Open Palm Monk using Flurry of Blows, unless you're intending this to not take up a bonus action.

It could work quite well if you had a couple of simple tools if done online.

First, a timer. Say, a 5 minute timer for everybody to decide what their action is.
Then, everybody writes what they want to do in a box, probably where everyone can see it and the DM can quickly say 'no, you can't/can do that' sort of a thing. Alternatively, DM doesn't see it until after the time's up so monsters and players all act independently.

I feel it could make for a very interesting game, though it'd probably have to be not too serious and quite lenient as there could be all sorts of problems such as the DM would have to rule quick changes of decision and such. Say, the target of an attack moved out of range, the character could probably have perhaps half a minute to redecide their attack.

It introduces some interesting elements where you can't be sure that a downed player will move after a healer, where people can try to backpedal away to confused enemies and that combat feels more dynamic than structured and turn-based.
Would mean healers would want high dex, though. Goddamn fucking dex.

Isn't this just a worse version of open palm monk using flurry of blows?

Ok hows this:
When you take the attack action on your turn, you may spend 2 ki to move 5 feet towards a creature and make an unarmed strike. On hit, deal 2d12 damage, push the target 5 feet away from you and knock it prone. May not use the second attack from the extra attack feature this turn. 2 per long rest.

As part of the requirement to make this attack, you must ask the creature a question pertaining to its well-being before attacking. The question does not need to be answered.

Requiring a specific fluff is really weird unless you make it a homebrew that's only supposed to apply to a particular character.
Otherwise, it's normally fine to let people have their own catchphrases.

Aside from that...
The fact that it automatically pushes and prones the target on hit is a bit much.
However, it's still very similar to an open palm monk spending 1 ki to do an extra punch (1d4 to 1d10 + 3 to 5 or even more damage and triggering on-hit effects) and using their open palm features to prone and push.

You might as well just play an open palm monk and refluff it if that's what you're aiming for.

Alright last try before i give up on this joke
When you take the attack action on your turn, you may spend 2 ki to move 5 feet towards a creature and make an unarmed strike. On hit, deal (3 of your current martial arts damage die) damage. The target must succeed a str saving throw or be pushed 5 feet away and knocked prone. May not use the second attack from the extra attack feature this turn.

As part of the requirement to make this attack, you must ask the creature a question pertaining to its well-being before attacking. The question does not need to be answered.

this general argues in favor of the opposite when it comes to martials with shields and the stash/stow rule that the writers have said aren't supposed to be followed granularly

>high level abilities and capstones grant 1 point of a short rest resource when you roll initiative with 0
>rolling initiative every round actually makes those abilities good and worth sticking with the class to reach
desu the game feels like it was designed with rolling initiative at the start of every round as the intent

Druids in wildshape can still use Class and Race abilities right, so can a Lizardfolk Druid still use the "Natural Armour" ability to get AC 13+DEX for improved AC in wildshape form with except maybe Giant-Crab having stronger natural armour.

They can still use the "Bite attack" too right?

Yeah I'm aware of the percentile changes. That's why I'd still give the option to players who valued a chance at a 5% crit more than better percentages in the mid range.
My thinking is that it will allow players to feel like their modifiers and proficiencies count for something and lessen the liklihoods of player's missing on median rolls they shouldn't really have issues with. I think it'd help a lot with immersion and a sense of fairness and control for the PCs while still giving them agency to attempt a statistically riskier option.

But you're suggesting a player won't think this way and including the option would be useless, rather than flawed?

How do magic items and spells that scale with caster level interact? E.g. does a Wand of Eldritch Blast crafted by a level 20 warlock shoot more beams than one crafted by a level 1 warlock?

What about spells that change if they're cast with higher level slots?

The caster item is set when the magic item is created. Yes, a wand of eldritch blast could shoot more beams, but that would make it much more rare than a 1 beam item. Typically, unless a magic item says otherwise, it casts spells at their lowest level. E.g. even though a Helm of Brilliance can toss fireballs with a DC18 save, they're still only level 3 fireballs.

I mean, it's okay. If the monk has other level 3 features, it might balance out if it's 2xmartial die extra damage. The extra ki point over open hand monk is to essentially gain open hand monk features temporarily.

But... It doesn't really bring anything new to the table, and it's overly specific. Unlike 4e, it seems 5e goes for the theme where you have more versatility instead. See: Open hand monk has three different on-hit options when they hit with flurry of blows.

I'm definitely on the refluffer's side where you should just go open hand monk and do the mao-style 'genki desu ka daijoubou maji de atashi fago deshou hontou ni yatta kiiiiita' stuff as refluffed open palm monk.

I'm about to run LMoP, and I just got Volo's Guide to monsters. I'm thinking of replacing the boss goblin in the Cragmaw Hideout (the one with more HP) with a nilbog. What other creatures could I swap around in this adventure? Or do you think the nilbog will be too tough of an encounter in this scenario?

So, same user from the other day here, still digging in and trying to grok the progressions of 5e.

Does nothing get more than 2 attacks? If not, How do you keep up damage, relative to HP growth?

How are Saves Calculated (Having a hard time finding it) and what number fo I use if something calls for a save I don't have?

Fighters get 4 attacks, but other martial classes have other methods. Paladins, for example, have Smites, Barbarians get their rage damage bonus, and Rangers have some spells and class features.

Saving throws are determined by your stat. Your class will also give you proficiency in two saves. Having proficiency just means you add your proficiency modifier to your ability modifier for that stat. If you make a Wisdom save and you're not proficienct in wisdom, it's just your flat modifier.

Fighters get up to 4 attacks for one attack action, but that's at level 20. You get 3 attacks at level 11 as a fighter. Aside from that, all classes that get the Extra Attack feature only get 2 attacks. You can get more attacks by setting yourself up to get an opportunity attack as your reaction, or getting an ability to attack once more as a bonus action, such as with Polearm Master, or by wielding two weapons.
The way classes that don't get 3+ standard attacks increase damage is through abilities, like smite or sneak attack.

To add to what the previous two anons said, Monks technically get 3-4 attacks. If you use your attack action (which is 2 attacks after you hit level 5) with monk weapons (why wouldn't you), you can use a bonus action to make an unarmed strike. If you spend 1 ki, you can instead make two unarmed strikes with that bonus action.