/5eg/ D&D 5th Edition General

K

I am true neutral, everyone says I'm evi/chaotic neutral

>picks up on a BBEG trying to sell slaves subtley and foil his plan

>encounter halflings chained up in encampment after we killed the orcs
>wizard is exhausted, says fuck it and leaves them alone

>give my gold ore I found to the barb so he can buy platemail

>always create illusions in combat to shield / help allies

>recently figured out how to summon lesser demons
>party member dies, used his blood to summon demons and live
>create major image funeral and bury him
>I do however pocket the gold

I heard that barbarians aren't as good as they should be. Anyone knows how to fix them/has a link to something homebrew that makes them viable? I plan on playing a hilariously sturdy con 20 barbarian sometime soon.

Fantasy Grounds is a virtual tabletop solution like Roll20. Unlike Roll20 you need to pay for a license or get a subscription to use it at all, and its features aren't even that good.

Skip this one, user.

>I heard that barbarians aren't as good as they should be.
You heard wrong.

Barbarians are fine honestly. Their only real issue is the bear totem overshadows every other option you could take, and Frenzy is total shit.

It is a mystery.

I was thinking of getting it just for map making but I suppose I could find another. That and 2 grand of dlc just so i can use the crap I already have easier.

Multiclass with either druid or fighter

Its map-making use is minimal, as there's not really support for placing individual items down. You just load images already on your system and it places a grid over them.

Psion classes are awful, and the harbinger of the end of a good edition.

that's dnd baby

Psions are great.

What about buying it as a one time thing rather than going the sub route?

bump

Yes, but with tits

>How do YOU play your Ranger?
Only ever played one once, as part of an Evil campaign.

He was the son of a farmer who suffered from severe social anxiety. One day, while gathering firewood in the forrest, his town was attacked and wiped out. There was a fierce war at the time, and it was apparent some rogue enemy platoon had stopped by to restock.

He returned to find his family dead, their livestock stolen, and every object of value pillaged. The entire community was killed and had their goods plundered. Being a week away from anywhere else by foot, and with it being the middle of winter, he took to hunting to survive while he buried everyone and grieved. By Spring traders came to the town, with the war dying down and allowing safe travel again, to find it deserted.

He attacked them in a panic, thinking them to be more raiders, and slew one of their guards with his bow before retreating into the woods. Over the years many attempts were made to apprehend him for this murder and suspicion of his involvement in whatever massacre transpired, but he either evaded them or killed his hunters - and the growth of his reputation from this led to stronger and more stronger ones chasing the ever increasing bounty on his head.

His paranoia, PTSD, and anxiety only worsened - and one day he was finally caught during an episode that left him unprotected. It was in the transport to the city to face trial that he met the rest of the party, before they staged their escape.

What is a good Light/Dark, Sun/Moon concept for an encounter?
Doesn't have to be a fight.

In the end the campaign ran for about nine months, ending with our party around level 16. My Ranger dedicated himself to getting revenge on the nation that slew his family, and to that end assassinated the general of it during peacetalks between them and his own country (without being identified, thankfully) as part of a mission given to the party to disrupt them. This led to a second war, which they lost - much to my Ranger's further delight.

Much later, after the party started to go on the straight and narrow by shifting towards varying types of Neutral, they ended up slaying an Ancient Black Dragon which threatened the country - and winning widespread acclaim as a result. They were pardoned of all previous offences, and offered any reward they would ask for. My archer chose access to the Royal Library, hoping to investigate the troop movements of the enemy around his county during the war to be fully sure the men responsible for his hometown's massacre were dead.

Instead, he found that the royal army had instituted a policy of pillaging during that winter due to a lack of supplies. They chose small, isolated towns near the front of the war and personally slaughtered them before stealing every usable resource they could before attributing it to the enemy once word of the massacre got out - all to support the war effort.

So, when the party reconvened to receive their medals from the king, he grabbed him by the throat and plunged a poisoned dagger in his chest before gutting him with it. He died laughing like a maniac, drenched in royal blood, as the guards cut him down and the rest of the party fought on.

The other players weren't even mad that it let to a TPK, we'd already agreed for that to be our last session since we'd reached a comfortable ending to the story, and they all loved what a huge "oh shit" moment it was.

It was a pretty fun campaign overall.

That still doesn't make it useful as a map-making tool, or as a VTT.

The standard version ($30, or $4/mo) lets you play and run with people that also have the standard version. That means that every play involved needs to have paid $30 or be paying $4/mo. It takes 7 months for this purchase to be better than subbing.

The ultimate version ($150, or $10/mo) lets you run for people that only have the demo version downloaded. It's the way better deal for a sub, taking over a year for the permanent license to be a better deal than the sub, and you can hit the sub levels easy if your players chip in $2/mo each, just half the normal sub price.

Plus you have to learn its unintuitive interface, make your own maps, pay extra for any FG modules you want to use, and so on.

Fantasy Grounds is fucked.

Maybe a puzzle where certain elements are only visible in the darkness, while others require light, so that to get the full picture and solve it you have to note both?

I enjoyed this, thanks for sharing

You're this guy aren't you

A hallway with a long pit running down the length with spikes at the bottom. The room must be plunged into darkness andthe players must "Trust" and try to cross for the bridge to appear.

youtube.com/watch?v=bmkxsQnNujI

greyhawk should be easy, considering it was essentially the default setting for a long time before forgotten realms pushed it aside

Forgotten Realms was a mistake.

Tits but no skin? That is an extremely narrow window of decomposition, user.

That doesn't help much.

I already have a tunnel with a trap at the beginning of the adventure, kinda redundant I feel

yes

That could work. Do you have any specifics? I'm honestly exhausted so I have trouble filling in the blanks at the moment

Got any skeleton player character homebrew?

It's not easy, though. A lot of it makes little or no sense because it just existed in the minds of Gary Gygax and his goofy friends. There are two guides to the setting, Greyhawk Adventures and the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, both very hard to find. And if you manage to track it down, you'll find very little except a couple of dungeons that have long since been adapted to every other setting.

thoughts?

Final line of questioning then, is roll20 worth the money and if so can I lump sum it instead of subscription.

I've used Roll20 for a while now and haven't spent a cent on it.

Allies and loved ones don't really count as other people for the purpose of earning "goodness points." So far you've described a few neutral actions, no good ones, and a couple of extremely evil ones. That says evil to me.

roll20 works fine without spending any money on it at all, though some of the paid features are nice none of them are gamechanging

>invisible critters that are repelled by light- the players must cross a field/dungeon/whatever that is extremely dark with a few light spots- watchtowers, maybe switches to open a gate that have torches lit near them, stations to monitor a dam. The critters will follow and attack the players when they're crossing in the dark (handheld torches won't provide enough light) so they're gonna freak out every time they need to cross again.

>six braziers, burning with flames of different colors (rainbow). The braziers have jars of powder that cause the colorful flames when ignited. A final brazier sits in front of a gem. The goal is to put all the powders in the final brazier to get a white flame, which the gem sees and opens a door. Or, if the players have another source of white light (sunlight spell, I guess) the door would open. Once it's open, go ahead and let them steal the gem, why the hell not.

>the party's shadows are attacked by other shadows, not cast by anything in the room with them. The members take damage when their shadows do, and when they swing and their shadow makes contact with an enemy shadow, it seems to do damage. Ideally, your players will get creative with it and do things like make shadow puppet monsters to scare the enemies away, or get closer to the light source to become larger

>A room with several strange abstract sculptures on pedestals. Looking at them, they don't depict anything specific. But when a bright light is shone on them, their shadow takes on a distinctive form. ie A door, which can be interacted with like a real door and leads to a room, etc. Or a person, which brings into being a person- friendly or not. A creature. A weapon. etc

>a big planetarium. go ahead and describe it if you want, golden armatures and large detailed globes, but don't bother keeping track of paths and all that- just ask for dex checks to get across the room without getting knocked over by the mechanisms. Put a fight in here, could be fun.

Roll20 is free to use, but I do think the dynamic lighting ($5/mo) is worth it. And you can put money into the account and have it be paid for over time if budgeting is a problem.

> Have a special background
> Keyword being "special"
> My character is a crippled veteran, and her speed is 15 feet due to it.
> Mules only cost 8 gp and have speed of 40
> Mules were bred specifically for mining, so they will fit into dungeons unlike, say, horses.
> Since I'm a light cleric, I'll never have to go into melee
> mfw

Who else /devilish/ here?

agreed, i fucking hate FR, but i'm stuck playing in it cause thats what adventure league goes into (DM's won't go into anything else around here).

yeah, that is somewhat true, but to me I always treated greyhawk as a sandbox to create your own map with a few pillars already in place like the pantheon and cosmology

Asked this on another thread, but I'm curious about your gauge

Whats your take on getting around the conjure animals CR limit by summoning a dozen Cranium Rats (CR 0) and letting them swarm (CR 5)?

Have fun having your mule be targeted by everything and/or being scared off by combat

fairly neutral, the only really evil action i can see being an issue is the demon summoning, though you might be able to play it off as a "we needed to or the group would have died."

Would it be broken to let Monks at lvl 2 pick a skill from the four : Stealth, Acrobatics, Athletics or Medicine; and then get proficiency and expertise in it?

Sounds like you've successfully minmaxed a character.

Just checking - mules are known for their great obedience and easygoing manner, right? Like, that's the kind of behavior people associate with mules? So you'll never have any kind of difficulty directing its exact movement every turn even when it's in a very stressful situation?That sounds about right.

>the party gets dumped in a room with no exits, but is full of polished crystals in stands. There is a window with bright moonlight shining through. They want to stack the crystals in the right way in front of the moonlight to make a laser and cut their way through the walls. You can ask for int checks on the crystals to determine the order (say there's six of them, each time somebody asks which one they have roll a d6 and assign that crystal a number) and you can leave other hints if you think they'll need it (scorch marks, bisected remains, whatever)

>a large room contains what is basically an electrical circuit, but it has been interrupted by some key components having been moved out of place. The players must find the components and replace them in complete darkness. If the party has darkvision, call for int checks to see if the components fit. If the party has darkvision AND are good with int, put a blind enemy in the room that is stalking them so they have to make stealth checks. Once they replace the components, the light comes on.

>in a chamber, or building, or cavern, deep underground there is a socket containing a huge crystal. Obvious clues show that something is meant to come out of the socket and go to (rooms, important structures like doors, etc) the crystal acts as a battery and must be charged by sunlight. If they take it to the surface and let it sit for an hour or so, it will have enough charge for everything to function until it is thematically appropriate for things not to. To make this more interesting, the charge will run out quickly if not in the socket, and somebody/something does not want them to place it

Turn specialization into a Feat that gives +1 to the Attribute associated with that one skill.
Monks don't NEED specialization in anything, super-skillfulness is the core of the Rogue class, Monks are dripping with special abilities.

meant for

Anybody have any good maps or representations of things like the Inner and outer Planes or similar stuff they could share. Thanks.

A room with sun/moon motifs and 5x5ft holes in the ceiling.
Once battle is joined, the sun and moon symbols begin to revolve around the room.
>Round 1: Sun and Moon on walls. Entire room dimly lit.
>Round 2:Moon sinks under floor, Sun on ceiling, holes blaze with light. Entire room brightly lit, anything directly under a hole takes fire damage.
>Round 3: Sun and Moon on walls. Entire room dimly lit.
>Round 4: Sun sinks under floor, moon on ceiling. Entire room dark, except for tiles near holes in ceiling. Dim light in 15ft radius around holes, bright light directly under holes. Anything directly under hole takes cold damage.
>Round 5: Repeat from round 1.

Well i was mainly interested in making them semi-competent mundane healers with Medicine proficiency.
Maybe just let them have that free proficiency and no expertise bogus.

If it's a home game and you're the DM, let all the players have an extra skill, it unbalances nothing.
Tossing around free expertise sorta disenfranchises the Rogue rather badly though.

>a cavern with a door that only opens at a very specific time of day (morrowind)

>panels on the floor displaying the phases of the moon. The party needs to place things on the panels that represent the different phases. Party members, objects, whatever- have them discuss their reasoning and you just determine if you like the reason for that object being that phase or not.

>a dungeon that changes layout at night, so there's a day version and a night version. When it's about to switch all the denizens flee, even if it's in the middle of combat. You could just mirror it horizontally, "invert" it so walls are corridors and corridors are walls, something like that

>a beam of light channeled from the surface strikes a prism, which splits it into colored beams. Six doors on the far wall will open when a color is shone on them, but no matter how careful you are you can really only hit one or two at a time. Inside each door can be a key to open a final door, some piece of something they need, a small extension of the dungeon with treasure, a creature, etc

>the party encounters an enormous goblin, scowling and threatening, until they realize it's only projected on a wall and it starts pleading with them to stop looking for him. When they find him and smash his projection device, he'll run away into a maze of mirrors, beams of light that activate traps when broken, more projected images (like a pitfall that isn't there) and all the while the goblin is harassing them by shining a laser pointer in their eyes

Good point.

I kinda want to go on about making each class have 3 skill proficiencies and each class gaining only 1 extra when MCing.
Would balance things out and make Sorcerrers for example a bit more decent.

Most of the time you only gain a skill when multiclassing if you're multiclassing into a skill-monkey kind of class like rogue or bard. How would fiddling with that affect the power level of the sorcerer in any way at all? They're already the one primary caster with good Con saves, which is huge.

The main thing you could do for sorcerers that would make sense is to add more spells to their spell list, or even grant them some sorcerer-only spells.

If all you want is a sandbox to put your own stuff in, you don't need a published campaign setting at all. It's not like the Greyhawk pantheon is particularly good.

...

I'm trying to DM, but I have a problem player.

>Will not shut the fuck up
>always tries to explain the rules, going at length even during combat or mid narrative, even when wrong and will argue extensively
>Whines about railroading
>failing an acrobatic check at 100 feet climbing a building and rolling a 5, I let him live by having his character roll down and hit all sorts of statues and slants on the church, ultimately reducing falling damage I decided.
>whines that I am rigging the game by changing monster stats, either increasing their damage or hp template, or variant abilities I add.
>with +1 to perception checks, 8 wisdom, he is in a dark tunnel, rolls to perception and gets a nat20, I tell him he is confident nothing is there. He then gets sneak attacked by a shadow demon. Dick move I know, but I like to give my players the illusion of control. DC25 sneak check and a 21 to perception fails it.
>most recent:

Goes into a shop. I describe the shop and all the doodads, this includes a 15 gem cloak. He wants the cloak, that's fine. He insists it's magical, leatherworker says it's something he made out of frost wolf pelt and gems, it's normal. Rolls detect magic, it's not. Spend 10 minutes talking about how the fucking cloak is not magical, it's just a fucking cloak with gems on it. "If it's just normal I don't want it".

How do I deal with this guy? He's a know it all, but there are times when he is wrong and will not shut the fuck up.

I don't think there are any ways to help people like that. It might be just easier to kick him out.

There is always the standard DM protocol - talk to him about the problem, then kick him out if he persists. That is what 90% of advice on problem players boils down to.

He sounds like he has three separate problems: metagaming, stalling the game with too much talk, and failing to accept your rulings as DM. Sit him down and go over each one of these three issues one at a time, making sure he understands each one and the consequences if he persists in his behavior.

torture him
Whenever I have a problem play who argues with me or doesn't understand how a DM needs to alter the game I just find their weaknesses and exploit them, making them waste their time or get angry at nothing constantly.
Or you could calmly explain to him that as a DM you need to balance the game for the party at hand and it may not always turn out in his favor.

Ua when?

>rigging the game
Tell him to shut the hell up. RPGs are not a goddamn "us vs him" game like an FPS. The only time it ever approaches that is during the end stages of a dungeon. You cannot rig a fucking game when you're on the same side 90% of the time except to make it more fun for the players as is your damn job.

>Does anyone use animal motifs or themes for there characters?
My party and I are in the process of actually doing this (I can post the party animals in another post if anyone is interested).

I picked a hawk but I haven't decided on the class yet...

Would a ranger like OP's image best fit the hawk or would a rogue or fighter best fit the theme?

Is Storm Giant Quintessence the best monster ever ?

That's a funny way of saying nilbog, user.

I haven't read up on it, what's so special about it, aside from it being a particularly smart giant?

They're just pretty cool. To avoid death, the storm giant turns into a living storm of some kind and rages around a peak, waiting for their god to come back. If you're fighting one, they coalesce into their normal form to do battle with you.

So I have an honest question about DnD tradition in general: mechanically, what's the actual difference between a wizard and a sorcerer? Sure, spell preparation, but that feels like such a small thing to split into two classes over. I feel like paladins and clerics and fighters and barbarians are very distinct despite some overlap, but wizard and sorcerer really confuses me.

felt better than FR. a few good solid gods instead of the dozens in FR along with their demigods and such

5e bonus action = pf swift action, yeah?
any special distinction i need to keep in mind?

Pretty sure when you get an extra action, you get an extra bonus action in most cases. I know the fighter gets a second bonus action when he gets a second action.

Sorcery is naturally occurring. You happened to be born with the blood of dragons/fey/gods that lets you use magic.

Wizardry is learned. You spent the time reading and studying and practicing to master codified spells.

Fluff wise, sure. But from a design standpoint, what makes them distinct?

mechanically it lets you play a mage with way less fiddly tracking.

Wizards are just better in every way design wise. Like, if you design a wizard for a setting, then to design a sorcerer you just take the wizard and make it worse.

he said mechanically, not lore wise. by the time you play your character, they know their magic whether they were both with it or learned it. so aside from how they acquired it, how are they different to play? is one stronger? why?

Wizards see Magic as a Science, mix the right ingredients together, a pinch of sulphur and bat-guano with the right amount of magical potential energy and you'll detonate a large area in a fireball.

Sorcerers see Magic as an art, it is something you feel, you embrace, you are born with it but natural talent needs practice. You cast a fireball because you simply want something to be on fire enough to make it happen.

Do people not know what "mechanically" means?

wizard is generally mechanically better because spellbook > spells known due to being able to prepare a massive variety of spells

the advantage of a sorcerer is less bookkeeping and the versatility to have the spell so long as you know it and have slots, rather than needing to know youll need it in advance and have had to prepare it.

a sorcerer can feather fall all day so long as he has slots . if the wizard realizes he needed it more than once and only prepared it once, hes fucked the second time around.

In 5E, or in general? In 5E the differences are mostly that sorcerers have fewer spells overall and get metamagic compared to Wizards, but can cast spontaneously. Wizards for their part get a shit ton of spells and larger choice of what to choose from, and have to choose just small slice of their spells each day.

Has anyone ever had a reason to use legend lore? I know it dependant on the DM, but even then, I can't think of a reason to justify learning the spell, using the slot and spending the regents

Its also have a ton of fun mechanics to use as a DM. Become part of the storm and emerge 600 ft away, pelet adventurers with wind javelins from land, air and sea or simply call down lighting on their ass. So much mobility and damage.

That's not how prepared spells work in 5e, pal. A wizard can prepare X number of spells, but any prepared spell can be used as many times as he wants long as the Wizard has slots of the correct level remaining.

wizard is better because bigger arsenal, if hes prepared, and not out of juice.
sorcerer is almost as good (smaller arsenal), or better, so long as hes not out of juice.

Wizards Gud.
Sorcers Not-so-gud.

sorry, youre right. my 3e is showing.

there used to be a much bigger difference between them.

In general, across the game's history. It just seems like such a minor tweak on a lore reskin, that's ultimately just wizard with training wheels. Where paladin and cleric are both divine magic, they have very distinct roles, and where fighter and barbarian are both martial, they have very distinct roles, it seems like wizard and sorcerer are just... Recolors.

Really? Which edition, what were the differences?

Sorcerers would be a lot better if they got additional Spells Known based on their origin. Just a couple spells every few levels, to get them on par with bards for spells known.

> Being completely dependent on your mount, both mechanically and in-fiction

> Not taking a dip into cavalier

Gross.

I really want to play a doctor type character, not a full magic healer like bard or cleric but one who specialises in healing potions and such. Would it be worth making a ranger subclass homebrew based on this or my other idea was just ua beast companion ranger with some homebrew crafting rules. Which would you prefer if you were my dm? A whole subclass or a bunch of crafting rules