/5eg/ D&D Fifth Edition General

>bladelock for damage
When you factor in how often you'll be useless and the damage you're wasting from the healing characters due to being a general liability from running into melee, you're not really doing any more damage.
>tomelock doesn't offer the utility of chainlock
You can literally get a familiar from tomelock as well. It's not as good a familiar, but on top of having access to every single cantrip, having a back-up melee attack (shillelagh + GFB/BB) if you get pressed to the wall, having things such as guidance/resistance I'd say tomelock competes for utility, although it's a different flavour of utility.

Undying Light warlock, tome pack using shillelagh and GFB. Any recommend invocation or feats? should I just max out my CHA first?

Probably going to attack mainly with Eldritch Blast like normal warlock though.

Alright peeps, since people last night were asking for a Poison gish option, I've tried my hand at it. Obviously this is probably bloated and broken as hell and this is just a placeholder while I get opinions and thoughts on possible mechanics.

Venom-Bite Blade
Cantrip Evocation(Sorcerer, Wizard, Warlock)
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 5 feet
Components: V, M(A weapon)
Duration: Instantaneous

As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and the target takes poison damage equal to your spellcasting modifier until the end of your next turn. On the start of the targets next turn, they take damage equal to your spellcasting modifier. If this effect is applied again before the end of your next turn, the target takes an additional 1d4 poison damage and has disadvantage on Strength checks until the end of your next turn.

This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d6 poison damage and the second poison damage is increased to 2d4 . The damage rolls increase by 1d6 and 1d4 at 11th level and 17th level.

Opinions?

Why would a Gish with full caster progression every be useless? You seem like a moron, no offense.

Pretty gud, but just make them poisoned for a turn instead.

Don't underestimate how much better having a sentient, invisible, flying scout that you can see through the eyes of is. If he picks anything up, it becomes invisible too. He can provide the help action on almost every skill check. He can keep watch while you sleep. He can just about cover half of all the rituals you can get, but he can do them instantly and right at level three. Tomelock is a trap. Have fun wasting your money on the few ritual scrolls your going to actually see in your campaign.

Don't take Shillelagh or GFB, its completely outclassed by Eldritch Blast in every single way.

Use it to get more utility cantrips, like Prestidigitation, Minor Illusion, Friends, Mage Hand, etc.

Take the Actor, its a fucking blessing, you don't need anything else.

There are tons of great invocations, but here are some suggestions. Take Agonizing Blast, don't be stupid. Mask of Many Faces and Misty Visions are amazing, once you realize what it means when you combine it with the Actor feat. You always want to take your pact gift feats, so take Book of Ancient Secrets, and choose Find Familiar as one of your spells.

Undying Light kind of sucks, not gonna lie. You need to realize that combat wise you shouldn't be doing anything besides eldritch blasting, as Warlock truly shines outside of combat.

Poisoned as in the DOT spellcasting modifier, or the disadvantage? Because with the way I wrote it, they both end at the end of your next turn. Unless the enemy manages to take multiple turns before your next, it all effectively lasts for one turn/round.

>full caster progression
Worse progression than other full spellcasters, along with not having access to certain spells such as 'wish' later, not being able to upcast beyond level 5, having less level 6/7 spell slots, having only one spell assigned to each...

Then, bladelock is too stathungry as you've locked yourself out of the chance to become SAD. Your spellcasting will be worse than full casters unless you forsake your dex/str.

>gish
Basically a worse gish than bladesinger. Less armour, slower, worse spellcasting, et cetera. Invocations are the only real upside you're giving yourself, and you've dumped two of those on trying to make melee viable. You have to multiclass to even get any semblance of armour, and that delays your spellcasting progression even more.

Warlock is the perfect design for firing line tactics where everybody sits far away and blasts the enemies faster than they approach.
Bladelock is that guy in the firing line who stopped firing their musket and instead charged alone head-on with a bayonet. Yes, you're going to hurt people more, but you're an idiot.

Your DM is unlikely to allow help action on every skill check, as while it may have proficiency with 'deception' the DM will likely not allow the Imp to back up your case that you're not a warlock to give you advantage.
Scouting is almost just as good with a flying snake familiar.
It's mostly the stealth actions they're good for, and the familiar still has to succeed on stealth.

Tomelock isn't a trap dumbass.

You don't need a scroll either. If your party has other casters, you can get the spells from them, or you can learn it from an NPC caster as well.

Tomelock gives you 3 extra cantrips, that fucking ridiculous. Being able to have something like Eldritch Blast, Prestidigitation, Minor Illusion, Friends, plus whatever other cantrips you want, could be Message, Mending, Mage Hand, Thaumaturgy, Druidcraft, Vicious Mockery, etc.

You can still get Find Familiar through your first two rituals. Sure it can't turn invisible, but you can still see through the eyes of your familiar.

The ability to have your familiar attack is fucking pointless, since Eldritch Blast is always better.

Neither are trap options, they're both awesome.

>group agrees to make a wiki for our multi-dm persistent world "campaign"
>mfw I know everyone's going to eventually lose interest and it'll be just me updating shit, DMing, and generally lifting a finger because everyone else is a lazy fucking ass ("they don't have time")
>meanwhile I'm sleeping 6h and studying 8h a day

dude I love doing this I just wish everyone had the same enthusiasm

poisoned as in disadvantage on all ability checks, but it's still an incredibly useful tool when combined with stuff like watery sphere.

May a monk use spears and a short bow?

Something like this then?

Venom-Bite Blade
Cantrip Evocation(Sorcerer, Wizard, Warlock)
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 5 feet
Components: V, M(A weapon)
Duration: Instantaneous

As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and the target takes poison damage equal to your spellcasting modifier until the end of your next turn. On the start of the targets next turn, they take damage equal to your spellcasting modifier. If this effect is applied again before the end of your next turn, the target takes an additional 1d4 poison damage and has disadvantage on Strength checks until the end of the target's turn.

This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d6 poison damage and the second poison damage is increased to 2d4 . The damage rolls increase by 1d6 and 1d4 at 11th level and 17th level.

Warlocks should almost never take spells that rely on their casting stat. They take spells that have no chance of failure. As such, a bladelock can be built with strength first and charisma second. Mountain dwarf and variant human are the best races.

When the other guy is talking about the help action, hrs talking about the in combat action. A normal familiar doing this is going to die. An invisible imp flying 15 feet down to help you hit a dude then fifteen feet up is not.

It's like this is your first day optimizing characters.

>Your DM is unlikely to allow help action on every skill check, as while it may have proficiency with 'deception' the DM will likely not allow the Imp to back up your case that you're not a warlock to give you advantage.
You aren't thinking creatively. You just need to describe a realistic way that it can aid you. Almost every str and dex skill can be buffed with an extra pair of flying hands, and perception, insight, and lore skills can also be buffed by the familiar's extra eyes and knowledge. Sure he may not be able to help you with deception, but that's what the friends cantrip is for.

>Scouting is almost just as good with a flying snake familiar.
They can't turn invisible, so no it's nowhere near as good.

>It's mostly the stealth actions they're good for, and the familiar still has to succeed on stealth.
Not so much if it's invisible or looks like a common raven,

You can try and defend Tome, but it's nowhere near as good as Chain.

Daily reminder that if you have problems with your stats, just wear heavy armor and shield.

Thats not the reason why they don't take spells that rely on their casting stat.

You need a high Charisma not so you can cast spells, because of what charisma does for you. Spells like disguise self and minor illusion don't require high charisma, but being able to use them to the highest potential does.

What's the most ''shit hit the fucking fan'' moment you've had this edition /5eg/?
>i'm playing a barbarian (human if that matters to anyone)
>party finds a huge castle
>we clear it out
>figure we can fix it up
>we just found a shit ton of loot in the basement that was forgotten about
>manage to create a nice place
>we all manage to find wives and husbands in the string of 2 years in game
>we all have kids
>everything is going good
>look back on our adventuring days with laughter, retelling the tale of how our wizard almost got hitched to a gnoll due to a prank by a gnome
>this goes on for another 4 years in game
>one night we all wake up to screaming
>the castle is under attack
>suddenly we are put in stasis
>when we come out of it all our families are dead
>our children lay bloodied in their beds, our wives and husbands throats slit
>we are the only ones alive
>one of our party members commits suicide on the spot
>two people irl are distraught
>DM ends session there
>mfw

Yes, but what's your real question?

>one of our party members commits suicide on the spot

Good. He was weak.

Even if you're a wizard with 8 int?

Yes. You are proficient in all Simple Weapons.

Spears are considered a Monk Weapon, as they are a simple melee weapon without the heavy or two-handed properties.

Shortbows are Ranged Weapons, so they do not receive any benefits from your Features regarding Monk Weapons.

You don't even need to own the book for this; this is all in the SRD.

He said skill checks. He's clearly talking about familiars replacing the 'guidance' use. Guidance gives 1d4, the help action gives advantage on a skill check and is better than 1d4 and doesn't require your action and concentration to do.
However, I'd be surprised if a DM let a familiar help on any skill check except perhaps knowledge checks,.

The thing is, by that point, you're restricting the spells you know quite a bit. A wizard gets way more spells to choose from, and can choose important ones with save-or-die effects, or damaging effects such as fireball.

The real problem with the PAM bladelock thing is it's trying to do several things and it does it worse than all its counterparts: Frontline Fighter (You'll probably already have one of these, so don't get in their way. They'll likely have better defence overall, and do more melee damage) and Caster (Other casters will have better progression, more spells, etc.)

If you don't have a front-line fighter, you're in fact better off with agonizing + repelling blast as you can actively push enemies away from reaching your team, and melee enemies can't attack anyone until they reach your team. If you have a front-liner, hopefully they're a barbarian or some sort of damage sponge. Then, a fighter or paladin will probably do more damage.

A paladin wouldn't do full casting, but they'd do their job of keeping the team safe, and still do damage. Somebody else can do full casting.

>Wizard with 8 int
wew lad

I prefer bladelocks. Partly because I personally don't find magic that fun, and partly because there are some interesting combos one can do if going bladelock, such as darkness+devil's sight+Great Weapon Master or Armour of Agathys+Flame Shield

Eh synergy between party members is never a BAD thing d4 damge is fine if it stays strength, but I'd still shift it to disadvantage on Constitution and a mental stat (maybe Intelligence) ability checks; This lets the damage remain a d6 and doesn't create too many, if any, complete lock down set ups.

>wizard with 8 int
This meme isn't even a week old and yet already I find myself looking forward to its death with great anticipation.

>8 int wizards and 8 cha sorcs
>diamond pickaxe
>druid wild form breeding programs
>you can just refluff any race as other races
>my human lives hundreds of years and has pointy ears
>I could solo 10 000 goblins
Am I forgetting anything?

Why dont you like tomelock? I am going 2 levels into lock for improved EB with my bard but what is wrong with tome?

Yes, flying snakes can't turn invisible. However, they can still do all the same jobs, they can still make stealth checks (that even invisible familiars must make, even if the invisible familiar is much more likely to pass it) and if it fails? Eh, it's just a magical snake, who cares?
>or looks like a common raven
Then get a common raven with 'find familiar'.

I'll agree your DM will probably allow your familiar to help with any mind-based checks it has proficiency in.
Oh, what's that for an imp? Only insight. It has a nice stealth+5, but that, deception+4 and persusasion+4 are unlikely to be allowed for the 'help' action unless it turns itself into a raven and people are willing to believe what a guy with a talking raven says.

>can't even multiclass for armour
Be a dwarf.

You can refluff any class as other classes.

Familiars are broken and highly abusable and they're pretty much saying that's good grounds for never going anything but tome.

When after going into an abandoned mine and getting to the end, we encountered a bone naga in a chamber.

>Barbarian gets put down on the first turn
>Bard goes invisible to hide
>Me the Wizard and our Ranger run outside
>The Fighter gets charmed and essentially mind controlled since GM thought charm was like older editions
>Previous room was something like a grand hall, before the Fighter had been charmed he was keeping it at bay
>I proceed to go full Vietnam and make many holes, ditches, and mounds of dirt to act as sandbags with Mold Earth
>I give the Ranger a shooting platform in the form of dirt
>I proceed to illusion a fake hole before a real one, to try and trick it out and assume all the holes are fake
>Doesn't work as he uses the wrongly-mind controlled Fighter into the real one, causing him to fall down a 30 ft hole
>Ranger gets blown the fuck up, immediately death saving throws
>Just me and the Bard now
>Until I realize I had something the GM gave me as story fluff, and had forgotten about
>A spellbook of my master's, locked down with exploding runes and curses in case someone stole it
>Meant to deter me from getting OP spells, I figured now was the only shot I had
>Light that shit on fire, open it up, tossed it at the Bone Naga, and ducked in my dirt trench
>Fighter was safe from the explosion since he was technically out of range in the hole
>Bone Naga barely alive, the bard comes out of invisibility, and looking at the barely alive Bone Naga
>Yells "FUCK YOUUUUUUUUUU" with a Vicious Mockery
>It crumbled under the insult, crying as it died

What's really impressive is those all happened in the same thread.

>GWM + Sharpshooter heavy crossbow melee fighting
>net melee fighting
>create bonfire for maximum cantrip damage
>I want to be [exact replica of stereotypical rogue] but not a rogue so I'm going to make a homebrew fighter.

Well i don't really know much about dnd. I'm a miniature war-gamer mostly, though I've dabbled in shadow run. I just got invited to a dnd game by a good friend, so i figured i would ask around here since i know nothing. i wanna make a character based off the Algai'd'siswai from wheel of time. I dropped the question in the last thread just before this one got started, and the only response i got was that i should try a monk. I was under the impression dnd monks just used their fists, so i figured i would ask if they even could use the appropriate equipment first. So yeah, thats why i wanna know, i wanna make an Algai'd'siswai and i figured i would ask here to see what you all recommended.

You can teleport with cantrips

The help another rule let's one creature help another if it could take the action itself.

An imp has proficiency in deception, insight, stealth, and perception. At a minimum it could:

>Act as a spotter in stealth, or create distractions, thus helping you
>Watch the person you're lying to and offer advice on how to convince them, thus helping you
>Size up someone talking to you, letting you know if it thinks they are lying, thus helping you
>Give you a bird's eye view of the area, letting you take multiple angles into account on your perception check, thus helping you.

If this "surprises" you, you lack the required imagination to play pretend, and heaven forbid you ever referee a game of pretend.

>Bladelock
Gishes generally are a compromise between caster and martial, but bladelock offers the most martial damage available to a Gish without arguably sacrificing any casting.

I think I missed that one, can you elaborate?

An excellent use of what you have in your inventory. Though it is a shame to loose it like that. hopefully your master won't be too pissed.

Last two threads people were arguing whether or not a 5ft teleport on a cantrip was comparable to other cantrips lorewise, it was interesting to watch

Somebody posted a cantrip idea that involved a very short range cantrip. There was nothing balance wise wrong with it after revisions, but a bunch of people arbitrarily decided that nope, teleportation was too great a violation of physics to be on a cantrip.

They then proceeded to praise summoning fire from across universes on a cantrip.

My master was dead, so it was as if he was watching over me one final time. Sadly the campaign fell apart and my group moved onto other games.

How would you roll a powder keg of justice paladin finally snapping? Talking stats and buffs.
I know the whole post with it, but isn't the flavor along the lines of the paladin just going full attack and ignoring oath and reason to smite the biggest bad?

I feel like that's a lot of damage, although it doesn't scale as well so it might be fine.

I'd also advise against the actual poisoned condition like suggests. Sickening Ray does that as a first level spell

I'm not looking to revive an argument. Relax.

Thanks family

You wanted a summary, I gave you one. I can't help it if the truth makes one side look retarded.

In that case that was a terrible waste. Who knew what useful information was in there. And wasn't that kind of an important memento?

By the point you're asking your DM in every single conversation to ask your Imp for advice to give you advantage on all the charisma checks, you'll probably be annoying people more than anything. But, eh, it's probably not much worse than saying 'I use guidance' before everything.
Though, you could 'just use friends' as said earlier. Not to mention, you could also just have somebody else in the party with proficiency give you advantage on the check and your imp probably won't be very helpful for anybody but you for granting advantage via help (since it can't communicate telepathically with them. You might be able to get around this as a GOO lock though.)
Guidance might not be as good as advantage when your DM lets you make these help checks, but it's much more generally applicable. You can even use it when you know you'll roll initiative soon for higher initiative, or when you expect somebody will make a sudden, un-helpable spot check sometime soon.

The main point there is 'arguably'. The bladelock WILL sacrifice some casting, because if they go pure bladelock then they're just straight-up suicidal unless they're a mountain dwarf, and that leaves you pretty damn MAD, especially if you want decent Wis too.
I find spellcasting to be better than pact magic, especially when your DM is more likely to have less short rests than more short rests than the book intends.

I always thought Warlocks = Invocations, but then again I always built my chars from the concept up.

Get Devil Sight then the spells Darkness+Hunger of Hadar when u have access to it. Loads of dark dickery. GOO pact to round things up so you can telepathically taunt those you're darkly dicking around with.

I found that lizard folk Dec-bladelocks are pretty good.

> Be a Druid
> Take ritual caster feat
> Unseen servant and Tiny hut
> Lead a perfect NEET life, surviving via good berry and create water, ordering my servant for mundane task and never leave my tiny hut

I think I might have to retire him..

Guidance is on average a 2.5 buff to your roll. Advantage from help is a 3ish. And they stack, so why not both?

Imp help clearly wouldn't need to be roleplayed every conversation, and wouldn't get annoying.

>Lead a perfect NEET life
>D&D
Pick one and only one.

Don't forget, wild shape gives you access to animal waifus who aren't as toxic as human women!

T. R9K

The +1 AC from natural armour is nice and the bonus action attack with a bit of extra temporary HP is nice but if you go for dex to raise your AC your damage output will be kind of pitiful and it would've been better if you had a shield, and if you go strength you'd be better of multiclassing for heavy armour.

Dex bladelocks don't really feel like they're filling a niche. At least PAM ones do, but whether your team needs that niche or not would be the question.

I'd still prefer a regular blastlock as ranged fighting is a great benefit tactically, even if it does a bit less damage.

You might be able to do both if you had a cleric or went tomelock and got find familiar as a ritual from it.
Not sure if the regular familiars have a lot of useful proficiencies, though. They're mostly just animals.

>the king's men march into your swamp
Oh no, you're going to have to have an adventure now.

Or Dryad women who enjoy bestiality!

Every day we stray further from god's light.
That's what I initially though, but the light seems to be getting brighter very fast. It kind of looks like Kossuth. I hope he brings gifts.

That actually sounds fun!

I once made a Druid around the concept of being the camp cook, making sure they forage enough food and if not, then goodberry to the rescue. Becomes a bear primarily to catch salmon for the party.

My DM wants to houserule lewd attacks for monsters that wouldn't completely disadvantage them by making them lose their turn.
I suggested making them Legendary Actions but I'm not sure exactly how to write them down so they don't totally ruin the balance. Anyone has done something like that before?

Conjure woodland being give me 2 dryad.

Warlocks can get guidance with magic initiate. Since a chain lock is the definition of SAD, feats will be common. There is no need to sacrifice chain pets for cantrips.

>Being this mad a niche build is viable

>>>/literallyanywhereelse/

Is that an action? Why would I choose a cantrips that basically disengages me as an action when I can simply just, oh, I don't know, disengage?
Waste if a cantrip.

You my nigga, dawg.

You won't get shillelagh, though. Shillelagh is still nice to have for if you've no choice but to make a melee attack. Say, they reflect rays (pretty damn rare, but I've had it happen) or they simply just have you pinned to a wall and you're not busy escaping.

And, really, I'd rather do something else with that feat. First two/three ASIs to get charisma up (Might be a +1/+1 somewhere to boost dex or con if it's uneven, or a +1 and proficiency in con/dex saves) and then get something else. Not sure what, though, but magic initiate doesn't seem too useful. Heck, even a single level of cleric might be better if you want to grab heavy armour, a shield, some cantrips, knowledge of healing spells and whatever level 1 feature you get.

You can pick both shillelagh and guidance from the druid list.

That's wis-based shillelagh.
Not so useful.

The spells you pick from Magic Initiate use the spellcasting ability of the class list you choose the spell from

>How do you guys play Warlock?
>Do you prefer Blaster, Bladelock, or Tomelock with Shillelagh?
Tomelock is best, but my favourite is bladelock because I'm playing one in my current campaign.

Is there a way to do counterspelling or spell-redirection in 5e?

There is the spell counterspell.

No redirection that I can think of.

Well, technically if you fail the WIS save of sanctuary you have to redirect.

>not being able to find "Counterspell"

It was, but my character was neutral evil and though he did wish to keep it, it wasn't worth dying for and letting those secrets into the hands of a bone naga. If it wasn't for that, we would've died, 100%.

Fair enough. It is true that it does that character no good if their dead. I guess now you just get to lament it.

Some monsters have spell reflection/deflection that can redirect beam spells.

I am sure that there can be a magic item that can do that.

We have a Ranger that's basically living an isolated Druid/Hermit life in our campaign, that has grown tired of people wandering onto his land. My con-man Rogue has coerced him into joining the party by telling him he'll use some of the riches they earn to build a giant wall around his property. He's also "raising funds" to to help rebuild the party's Monk's dojo, which had been burned down by his Flame Ganasi apprentice who is now basically an indentured servant of the monk. So far all we've really managed to accomplish is burning down a church.

Bladesingers get both melee cantrips that take an action, and extra attack. So which the fuck are they supposed to use?

Assuming they have a 1d8 weapon, GFB after 5th level does 2d8+DEX+INT to the primary target, while attacking twice does 2d8+2*DEX. Oh, but the extra attack has a second chance to miss. So, why is it even there?

Maybe the decision which to use is situational and requires some strategic thinking on your part?

Lol no, that isn't in 5e. Use green flame blade in 95%of situations.

>Why is it even there?
1. Monsters with fire resistance or fire immunity
2. Only one monster

>2. Only one monster
Nothing stopping you from using GFB then? Primary target will still take the damage.

You'll find that system mastery this edition is picking the most efficient option at character creation and spamming it to the exclusion of other options for twenty levels.

How imbalanced would a "Turn X" feature be if instead of Turning (forcing them to dash away), the creatures were restrained and incapacitated? Would it be better, worse or equivalent?

Once they get the 'deal more damage on every attack' ability, it might be worth it to use extra attack.

Might also matter if they have to run and gun or if not triggering GFB or booming blade's secondary would do less than simply attacking twice. If a target is low on HP, too.

Bladesinger was a pretty meh design but making gishes in 5e is hard anyway.
BB and GFB end to oscillate in how useful they are. Say, some classes much prefer extra attack at level 5 but then EK much prefers GFB/BB at level 7.

Also, the level 2 ability is already more than enough.

because the authors are dumb
because you don't have to take melee cantrips
because they couldn't think of anything cool so they just went the lazy route
because if you have a magic weapon you can make it do thing twice, maybe
because 1/3 martial class
because that's dnd baby

Given same chance of success and same duration, obviously much better.
Just think about it, if they run, they can just regroup and come back. If they're restrained and incapacitated, you just go slaughter them.