So Veeky Forums, what's your opinion about Volo's guide to monster?

>goblin player race
>kobold player race

fuuuuuuuuuuUUUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuck yoooooooOOOOOOooooooooouuu

Couldn't give less of a shit about Forgotten Realms, but I have to admit there's great fluff in there for roleplaying types of monsters, and the monster stat blocks and new player races are totally worth it.

Mearls said that this is direction he has wanted to go with the line in general, and I'm okay with that. Hopefully we'll get other books like this for other settings like Dark Sun, Eberron, and Spelljammer.

How about this?

Tiny, weak, but funny for telepathiy shenanigans.

Give me your ideas for adapting the Aasimar to Eberron. Since gods and celestials are usually non-interventionist in the setting, I'm thinking about making the Aasimar the result of a blessing from the Silver Flame. Off the top of my head I cannot think of any other celestial force with a direct influence.

I'm toying with the idea of the 3 sub races of Aasimar in lore being the result of the Silver Flame's blessing on different races. Something like the Protectors are the result of the flame's blessing on humans, the Scourge are the flame's blessing on half elves, and the Fallen are the flame's blessing on half orcs unless someone can convince me that other races would be more fitting.

Neither that guy nor his friend, but I dislike 5e's combat because most builds don't have an abundance of combat options. Or even more than one option, really.
I'm personally playing a rogue. I have no offense worth noting unless I sneak attack something. I can only sneak attack once per turn. I'm too fragile to risk melee at our level.
My turn is literally "I shoot the enemy next to the paladin. I use my bonus action to resume hiding." Every fucking turn. Even if I waded into melee, I'd be rolling the exact fucking same to-hit and damage.

- Blessed by the Silver Flame
- Influenced by the ring of Siberys
- Touch by the celestials of Shavarath or Syrania

- The thirteenth generation of a line that has lived in Sharn for all their lives manifest Syrania-related aasimar characteristics.
- An angel of Shavarath is summoned and bound to a mortal.
- A child conceived on Aerenal while Irian is coterminous is born an aasimar.

Eberron already has Radiant Idols, which are literally fallen angels. If one of those were to "bless" a line of mortals, they would probably come out as Fallen aasimar.

A celestial from Shavarath could produce either Protector or Scourge aasimar.

Seriously, the monster races are great. That cowardy kobold though.

I'm not knowledgable about Eberron, or even Aasimar, but how about a curse? A low level celestial got cursed by his competitor and became Aasimar for example?

Does this have much on succubi/incubi?

I understand your sentiment. Rogue and beast companion ranger really got it hard. Even a motherfucking monk has a better option in combat than rogue.

I like the idea of people in Sharn being influenced by Syrannia and people on Aerenal being influenced by Irian. I was thinking half-orcs for the Fallen because of the Silver Flame-worshipping tribes at the edge of the Demon Wastes.

Dragons pretty much replace celestials in the workings of Eberron. It's exceedingly rare for celestials to come to the material plane. Coautls were the dominant celestials of the material plane but most of them sacrificed themselves in the creation of the Silver Flame. Most of the forces of good are things mortals have to channel as opposed to higher powers that actively work in the world. Dragons generally look at mortals like ants that aren't to be trusted.

What specifically is it about the combat in 5e that turns you off?

No, the monster manual had that, and Volo's Guide is sadly just a MM2 that is trying to cash in on nostalgia.

No. only 3 demons, and a couple of fiends. No devil at all as far as I read.

Aasimar could be used as people touched by couatls then, maybe like a variant of the shulassakar?

Kalok Shash producing Fallen in the Wastes makes sense, and the numbers would still be low because of the high mortality rate of the Demon Wastes in general.

Also, it just occurred to me that you could swap some of the damage types from necrotic/radiant to lightning/thunder/cold and turn the aasimar into House Lyrandar dragonmarked, since you gain a fly speed.

I like the idea of the Aasimar and Tieflings being accidents in Eberron rather than special snowflakes specifically chosen. I was going to allow Shulassakar using the Yuan-Ti stats.

Though I already have conversions of a lot of 3.5 and 4e dragonmark stuff, the idea for the Lyrandar dragonmarked is neat for the Protectors, and similarly the Fallen would work for Aberrant dragonmarked.

Read what you're quoting.

As a rogue player, I know that I wouldn't be much in combat in low level, so I usually just do something that might give advantage to my team. Bandit on horse? shoot the horse because high chance is the horse isn't a trained warhorse. Fight inside a mine? push a rail cart to your enemies. Make use of your skill and wits if you think you can't give much on battle.

Plus, while it is certainly boring, a constant 2d6 damage each turn is not something to underestimate.

Please elaborate further.
If you ever played 4e, you don't get the abundance of choice that 4e offers with its at-will, encounter, daily powers?

I'm in the process of making a Feylock so I'd have loved any material on the Fey :(

>Fight inside a mine? push a rail cart to your enemies. Make use of your skill and wits if you think you can't give much on battle.
That's nothing to do with the actual combat system, though. That's just decent encounter design by your DM.

I think with 5e especially, the DM needs to design encounter with environmental set pieces in mind.

>just do something that might give advantage to my team. Bandit on horse? shoot the horse because high chance is the horse isn't a trained warhorse. Fight inside a mine? push a rail cart to your enemies.
>Make use of your skill and wits if you think you can't give much on battle.
You mean make use of what the GM lets you. Our last three fights have been "Orcs in a wheat field", "Zombies pouring out of a burning field", and "Bogbeast attacking from a river". We had no terrain features we could use, played without maps or minis, and we're second level so I can't do anything fancy.

>Plus, while it is certainly boring, a constant 2d6 damage each turn is not something to underestimate.
I have the best damage/turn in the party, but it's still boring because I only have one choice. The most interesting thing I've done all game was chase down a fleeing enemy and use my same fucking attack as every time else.

I'm a 2nd level rogue. My combat options are "Attack with shortsword" and "Attack with crossbow". I also get to choose where to move (but we play mapless) and get to choose between "Attack with offhand shortsword", "Move further (on the map we don't use)", "Get out of melee I'm never in", and "Hide from things that are too focused on the paladin to care about me" for my bonus action.
4th is barely better. There's a clear optimal order to your encounter powers. Your only real choice is "Use a daily yes/no?" and 4th is absolute garbage out of combat.

What options do you think you should have as a rogue?

All sort of ideas come to mind, but they really boil down to "Sneak Attack is my only combat feature that uses a standard action" and "My bonus action can't do anything interesting".

Don't you have cunning dash? Is that the bonus action you're talking about?

Once you hit 3rd, you get the choice of an archetype which may offer more in terms of what to do.

It would help if you listed off some of the stuff you think you should be able to do. You might be able to do some of the stuff but be unaware of the mechanics allowing you to do so.

I would disagree about your bonus action because Cunning Action is one of the neatest abilities in 5e. Hiding is useful, and both Dash and Disengage are really useful for staying out of trouble while using melee weapons, and that's not even getting into what the various archetypes can do with it.

As it is, level 2 is a training wheels level that the designers explicitly said is only meant for teaching people the basics of 5e.

Cunning Action is nice, but ultimately worthless in improving choice: All three options just let me get into amazing position to do the exact thing I do every round with my standard action.

Archetype isn't going to help. The only one that offers any choice in standard actions is Arcane Trickster, but fuck if I'm throwing away class features for trash casting when we've already got a wizard.

I'd like to be able to use my Sneak Attack to do things other than +1d6 damage. Hit somebody in the foot and hinder their movement. Hit somebody in the arm and fuck up their swing. Things like that. Not trading my attack for a debuff, but trading damage for utility.
I'd like for hiding to provide something that having a buddy doesn't. Right now all it gives me is advantage, but I can pop disengage/move/attack/move to get advantage from flanking, assuming our fucking kobald hasn't already given everybody advantage already.
I'd like for my choice of weapons to be more interesting than "1d6 slashing/bludgeoning/piercing". Right now all my attacks do the same thing.
I'd like for choosing to spend my bonus action on an attack to not be nearly useless. Wow, 1d6 with no bonuses if I hit, big fucking deal. What happened to the "two knives in your spleen" rogue, they were fucking iconic.
I'd like to be able to do stealing in combat. I have expertise in Sleight of Hand and I've used it exactly once.
I'd like to be able to sneak ahead without getting fucked over by the d20. I've run the math, I'm fucked if I try to sneak past a pair of guards, let alone a full encounter.

There is new stuff about the FEy, though.

>As it is, level 2 is a training wheels level that the designers explicitly said is only meant for teaching people the basics of 5e.
What options become available to a higher level rogue? I don't see anything aside from crap spellcasting that uses standard actions.

It's pretty good. Haven't read it all so far, though.

*Fey

Hindering movement, fucking up someones swing, etc. is part of the Battle Master Fighter's kit. The two classes multiclass well together if you know you'll get to a reasonable level. The DMG describes how to disarm, etc.

Can't speak for weapons. Generally you need feats or fighting styles from fighter/paladin/ranger to differentiate weapons a bit. You're too low level but that stuff exists.

You can steal in combat as a Thief rogue iirc. Get to a higher level.

The thing about sneaking resolves itself at level 11 of rogue. Until then when you get caught, you have Cunning Action, meaning you can Disengage + Dash in the same turn. The guards aren't going to catch you unless something stops you from moving or the guards have access to full PC abilities like Cunning Action, Action Surge, Step of the Wind, etc.

>I'd like to be able to use my Sneak Attack to do things other than +1d6 damage. Hit somebody in the foot and hinder their movement. Hit somebody in the arm and fuck up their swing. Things like that. Not trading my attack for a debuff, but trading damage for utility.
Utility is monk's playground now. Dude can make enemy do a DEX, CON, and STR save in 1 turn. Maybe do a multiclass?

>I'd like for hiding to provide something that having a buddy doesn't. Right now all it gives me is advantage, but I can pop disengage/move/attack/move to get advantage from flanking, assuming our fucking kobald hasn't already given everybody advantage already.
But that's what stealth is all this time. To give you an advantage so you can provide a consistent damage every turn.

>I'd like for my choice of weapons to be more interesting than "1d6 slashing/bludgeoning/piercing". Right now all my attacks do the same thing.
The same can be said to other martial class.

>I'd like for choosing to spend my bonus action on an attack to not be nearly useless. Wow, 1d6 with no bonuses if I hit, big fucking deal. What happened to the "two knives in your spleen" rogue, they were fucking iconic.
at level 2, 3d6 is a big damage you know. moreover if you have advantage, so your damage is consistent.

>I'd like to be able to do stealing in combat. I have expertise in Sleight of Hand and I've used it exactly once.
That's thief's expertise. But stealing while the other party is on alert usually gives disadvantages. I haven't play rogue much in 5e so I don't really know how stealing in combat works.

>I'd like to be able to sneak ahead without getting fucked over by the d20. I've run the math, I'm fucked if I try to sneak past a pair of guards, let alone a full encounter.
That's for your DM to decide. If you're level 2, you DM should not give guards with tons of percetion bonus or advantage, for example. Plus, there's other way for you to sneak in safely by distraction by your teammate.

I think in 5e a buddy in combat with an enemy always provides sneak attack to you?

>All reptillians are cold, unfeeling sociopaths

I'd expect that from Yuan-ti, but not every reptile monster has to be cold blooded. Lizardfolks could do better than just dispassionate survival, at the very least.

>Always evil gobbos
I never liked anything being Always Evil unless it's a fiend or sapient undead. Still, who wants non-evil bugbears and goblins anyway?

>Orcs don't HAVE to be evil they're just raised that way
>Record scratch
Wait, hold the fuckin' phone here. Goblins are evil by nature but orcs aren't? Why? I would understand the OTHER way around, but this just seems wrong.

>Everything else
Perfect and awesome. I especially learned a lot about Beholders and how wrong I've been playing them. Mind-flayers being a quasi hive mind is a great thing that I never really knew about them. Giants are pretty great, and that fluff would fit perfectly into my favorite campaign setting, too.

Oh, I forgot about battle master.he's also the utility king.

The point is, don't think of a level 2 rogue as some kind of ninja. You can't safely sneak in, do a big critical hit, dance with your 2 weapons, yet. Also while iconic, dual wield rogue isn't really recommended in here. Most of the time you need an open hand to do your rogue-ish thing. Let ranger or fighter do the dual wield.

I have the feeling that you might expect the rogue class too much. Try other classes and it might actually gives what you really want. Try a dual wield ranger for example.

>So Veeky Forums, what's your opinion about Volo's guide to monster?
It's the best 5e book since the core books.

I think you're a bit too low level to do most of that stuff. You are only level 2. Wait until you get into the higher levels.
What other systems gave you so much to do at 2nd?

What race are you and where did you put your proficiencies?

I know that 3d6 is a lot of damage, but it burns my "don't die to melee" bonus action. Not really that helpful. Also not really much more interesting unless I feel like rerolling.

Correct. Which is actually making things a bit less fun, since I don't have to do anything to have sneak attack online.

>You can't safely sneak in, do a big critical hit, dance with your 2 weapons, yet.
Unless I get extra bonus actions from some unlisted source, I don't ever get to do that. TWF is trash for a rogue, which is infuriating given that the pregen equipment strongly suggests a TWF build.

I think it's a bit of a throwback to multiclass into a kit. PF seems to encourage single-classing and getting everything you want via feats and alternate features, and 4e similarly tried to cram everything possible into single class toolsets.

It might be a bit of an old-fag thing to just assume you'll multiclass if you want to have varied fighting styles.

The reason the pregen equipment has multiple weapons is because you don't always use the same tool for every situation as a rogue. Short sword/rapiers are your typical combat weapons, you pick up something ranged for when it's too dangerous to get close or when you want that style, and you get daggers because they're easily concealed. It's not encouraging two-weapon fighting, it's encouraging multiple paths to sneak attack. Combat-oriented, ranged-combat-oriented, and stealth-non-combat-oriented.

The only encouragement for two-weapon fighting is the chance to still land your sneak attack if you miss with your action.

> "I play 4e and can't imagion acts the rules don't spell out for me."

Mostly systems that weren't D&D.
Human, went for stealth, sleight of hand, and cha skills. Expertise in stealth and sleight of hand.

Did you go variant human and take the feat or nah?

Spice up your roleplay. Sleight of hand isn't just for stealing. Be a gambler and use SoH to cheat, or be a street magician to earn money. With cha skills I assume you also take deception? Honestly with that build, you're lucky you still have a constant 2d6 damage in combat at level 2.

>ITT : Waaaah, why didn't I roll a caster

No feat, this DM doesn't allow them.

I'm great out of combat. Plenty of stuff going on that lets me shine. The issue is combat options.

>No feat, this DM doesn't allow them.
no feat at first level, or no feat at all? If it's the latter, damn that's a shit DM.

No feats at all. Or any other optional rules.

It could be your DM is shit.

Are the feat optional rules that important? The chapter clearly marks them as optional and subject to DM approval, is this another "D&D devs are retards" moment?

>does limiting my already limited option stupid?
I think the reason the devs makes it as an optional rule is for newbies to learn first. After all, most of the time feats are rule breaker. they might get confused with all those new rules they have to learn so the dev's don't want to throw rule breakers as mandatory.

Aside for that, there is absolutely no reason not to use the feat.

Nah, feats in this system are entirely optional.

I like the book but I mostly like it because I can use it as a reference to make up my own lore for my games. I've been trying to utilize lazy dungeon master methods a lot lately.

Bugbear and Hobgoblin look fantastic, Kobold is so stupid it makes my head hurt.

Feats are entirely optinal because the system can run perfectly without them. It actually allows that.

I guess that's what potions, scrolls, items and spells should try to easy up. I agree though, it's very one sided. Then again I find most system that way and try not to let that get to me but D&D suffers more for it as it's very "encounter" centric. I'd love a bit more inspiration from 4e in some places (not the scale of the numbers but in the with of actions for characters and monsters).

>Feats
I try to use them as a reward system. If I know players will want to up their stats more so than get some feats I try to give them some situations that they can learn a feat suiting their character (or even make one up for them or with the characters player).

They add some diversity and character to the characters and I wish (I guess I will be making some) they were even more diverse (like the special things that set your characters appart and made them uniqe in Numenera) and uniqe traits/feats to grant them (from start or down the line as the story develops). Don't quite get why GMs would want to limit players characters on that, not like you as a GM cant just throw whatever you want at them any way.

I found Hobgoblin underwhelming, honestly. The martial weapon proficiency and int are wasted on most martials, and wizards actually benefit most from that stat spread.

What bugging my mind about bugbear is this
>Long-Limbed. When you make a melee attack on your turn, your reach for it is 5 feet greater than normal.
>on your turn
What do they mean by this?

You don't have reach when calculating AoOs.

They mean that you can attack at longer range on your turn but not with opportunity attacks or readied attacks.

That wording makes the racial better with Polearm Master. You can hit with the polearm and not need to move to put the enemy outside your range off your turn for the PAM reaction.

Rest of the monster races; orc and yuan-ti

You do if they use a reaction on your turn that provokes.

While it lacks Dex, it's not bad for a rogue. Use the martial weapon proficiency on longbow/heavy crossbow on an Arcane Trickster.

It will be really good for psionics soon enough.

but what about stuff like Battle Master's commander's Strike?

When someone else uses Commander's Strike on a bugbear, it happens off the bugbear's turn so the bugbear doesn't get the extra reach.

I'm liking the book so far, but Yuan-ti are fucking stupid.

Heres an idea for any Yuan-ti Wizards out there:

>For Arcane Tradition, go Necromancer (or Conjurer, something that gives you minions)
>Grab Stinking Cloud and animate dead at 5th level
>When combat starts, place Stinking Cloud over yourself.
>You and your shitty zombie/skeletons are immune to the con checks
>You're foes are probably not
>Cloud also heavily obscures you
>Melee fighters risk con checks to fight you and mages cannot directly target you.
>Magic resistance gives you advantage on any saving throws for AoE spells
>LaughingSnakes.png

That's pretty brilliant but you'll need a way to target outside your cloud since you can't see through it yourself. Get an evasive, stealthy, and perceptive familiar.

This is what I don't understand. Why? What's the reason of lmiting it to "on your turn" only?

Well, ideally, skeletons and Zombies would probably just leave the cloud to go fight for you while you sip on fine drinkery and talk to your pet snake about the superiority of the Yuan-ti.

Because of the implications it has for opportunity attacks. A bugbear would lock down a huge area with Sentinel since unarmed strikes would cover anything leaving a square 10 ft. from the bugbear and the reach weapon would cover 15 ft.

In all honesty, would you let your player to use a monster character if you're the DM?

Depends on the setting and tone.

I'm running Eberron so I've allowed all the goblinoids and kobolds (with background restrictions), but none of the others in VGM. It came out a bit too late for anyone to play one, but the options are there in case someone wants to change characters or ends up dying.

The balance is my issue. Yuan-ti are the obvious ones, but orcs are strictly worse than half-orcs for example. Purposefully imbalanced options are extremely shitty options in this kind of game. I actually have no clue why they did it.

Frankly no, maybe Kobolds but like 99% of people who want to play Kobolds are fetishists who need to be hung by the neck until death

yaun-ti are laughably broken and don't make sense as just "hi i'm carl the yaun-ti fighter i'm an adventurer!", goblins are a dumb cannonfodder race, and orcs are worse than half-orcs and are also universally hated by... every other sentient race in pretty much every established setting.

bugbears are pest cannon fodder too, and really the only people picking bugbear are doing some gimmicky "build" to exploit long-limbed. Hobgoblins could be interesting PCs as a mercenary or something like that, certain areas of certain settings probably have hobgoblin mercs, but if a player is just picking hobgoblin because they make good wizards then no

other race options in Volo's are totally allowed. Firbolgs and Tritons are two of my favorite races now, though someone needs to explain why a fey-blooded race and a race of beings from an elemental plane that live in the deepest, darkest depths of the ocean don't have fucking DARKVISION but everyone else and their mother does.

If you don't have optional rules then an ally "flanking" isn't providing you advantage. The flanking rule is one of the options offered in the DMG (along with disarm and tumble combat options).

While having an ally in 5ft of your target does enable Sneak Attack, actually getting advantage requires something more. Hiding can be one way to do this, but you need a way to attempt hiding while you'd otherwise be visible (lightfoot halflings, wood elves, etc). Mundane equipment can give you some additional options: Ball Bearings, Caltrops and Oil give you some board control.

As a rogue, Expertise in Athletics can go a long way (even if you don't have a large strength score). Both Shove and Grapple can provide some interesting options. Combining the two allows you to lock down a single target, preventing them from moving and giving everyone in melee advantage on their attacks.

Thieves get use-item at bonus action speed.
I know the rules "officially" say that magic items do not qualify for the use-item action, but I've managed to convince 5 DMs to permit it nevertheless.
Combined with some higher level generosity, items like potions and Dust of Disappearance become fancy maneuvers.

The system functions without feats, but denying them basically rips out an entire dimension to character building.
For example, characters like Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster work a lot better with Magic Initiate to diversify their options and get a keystone spell.
People who want to "tank" like Paladins can protect allies and convince the DM to pick on them more with the Sentinel feat.
Heavy Armor Mastery and healer go a long way to survival at early levels.
Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter grant great rewards to people who want to forgo shields or fight at range.
And trying to dual wield without Dual Wielder is just plain inefficient.
There's plenty of other options, but those come immediately to mind in regards to character building. I have seen each one used to great effect across a dozen games.

>Yuan-Ti Pureblood
>Poison immunity
>Innate Spellcasting
>MAGIC RESISTANCE
Wait, hold the fuck up. How is that even remotely fair?

It isn't, and it isn't supposed to be. For some fucking reason.

>And trying to dual wield without Dual Wielder is just plain inefficient.
That's not the case though, the feat gives +1 damage AC so unless you want to use strength (in which case your build is even worse) the feat isn't necessarily worth it. At least not until you max dex as that gives those things but also to hit, initiative and dex save.

You know what, fuck this.
I should have realized Wizards didn't know what the fuck they were doing then they put out the Ranger '''''fix'''''.
I'm gonna go make a game of BoL with blackjack and hookers.

It fixes most of the problems the PHB ranger has while being a bit front-loaded for testing purposes. Wizards knew exactly what they were doing.

>a bit front-loaded
Understatement much?
One of the abilities (Ambuscade) was a better version of what ONE Rogue archetype gets at 17th fucking level. Plus
>Skirmisher's Stealth
I know I'm overreacting, but WHY

Okay, remove magic resistance. make the innate spellcasting before the third level as once per short rest. there, is he balanced enough?

He's talking about the newest ranger fix, they put out another one.