/5eg/ D&D Fifth Edition General

>he doesn't know the 4E DMG has the most information on roleplaying, having fun, and engaging various characters
It's not about the rules you simpering twat.

Guys, what do I do when half of my four man group bails to set up their own campaign with no warning or word?

I've got two players who want to keep playing, but there's no way I can keep the current campaign up after shaping it around the entire group. Can I do a two player group? Is there anything I can read up on that's made for that kind of thing? I've never really seen or heard of a group with less than three people working, but I'm in a bind.

Reading all the editions is a good idea, in just saying the 4e dmg definitely has some good advice for 5e DMs.

like how to run 4e

That's not what it's saying at all.

Mobile and Charger feats nigga

I ran a two player one dm group for a year or so.

Rule of thumb is fights should be 2 to 4 enemies, with varied tactics between them. Another good rule of thumb is to balance as of for a regular group, but be lenient with rule of cool to allow your players to reduce the size of enemy forces.

repostan
What would be a decent ki requirement for a Way of the Four elements monk to cast an investiture of X spell?

Seems obvious to me Wot4e should have been given more options alongside EE. What the fuck, wizards?

>rolled two 1s in a row against a weakened hobgoblin

I ain't gonna make it tonight, boys

Turn the other PCs into NPCs. Write them out to go deal with something.

Then balance for two

>Has to read, pretty common sense you can pick up from any rpg.
Yeah. You can leave Veeky Forums. You won't be missed.

>be a halfling because I'm fucking tired of 1s
>roll a 1
>fuck yes ahahaha rerolling
>another 1
>commits sudoku

Yeah mobile would do it for enough speed on a human or faster, charger less so - being about getting your attack ready faster more than moving faster. You move at normal speed, using your action to cover more ground - no?

Just how I'd want to see a lance go down, gotta go fast

But user, that would imply Wizards gave a shit about Wot4E.

Make em big, make em small, make potions that reverse gravity and potions that make people a monster slaying machine like Geralt.

nah nigga mobile AND charger. I will become the pain train.

Yeah, I know they don't give a shit, but still they managed to give monks 2 more archetypes.

Speaking of Way of the Four Elements,
anyone have that homebrew that supposedly "fixes" that archetype?

For any given spell, take the spellpoints cost in the dmg, and multiply by 20 and divide by 32. Then round down.

So a sixth level spell would cost 5 ki points.

>multiply by 20 and divide by 32
Why not just multiply by 5 and divide by 8?
Reduce your fractions user

I wanted to use the numbers from the table so it was more obvious what I was doing.

personally I prefer multiplying by 60 and dividing by 96.

...

It's actually easiest if both numbers are divisible by 10, so we should multiply by 100 and divide by 160. But you can just leave a zero off and multiply by 10 and divide by 16, which is easier still.

Would you run a party of all Revenants?

Does sound pretty nice, so 1d8+5 when used in a charge of 10 feet or more

Outside of that, 1d6 tops - to my view, anyway. Just picturing a bonk on the head from the thin end of a long stick compared to the battleaxe at 1d8, doesn't quite match up

Seems like it could be a fun campaign. You could throw in really mean tricks without worrying because death is always temporary.

Mechanically 1d6 sounds fine to me, but a stick to the head can do more damage than you think. The "mordschlag" (death stroke) in medieval swordsmanship was a strike with the pommel after all.

How would you all fluff these without them becoming too weaboo.

At the same time, though, it would make any challenge laughable at best. If you're immortal, you can basically attack anything long enough to eventually win.

If you're going to do an all revenant group, then go whole hog on it. Make the whole world into revenants, or at least the BBEG. Put them on the same level as the party, because a Revenant party is a party that will eventually win via attrition any other way.

What are some good lesser minions, greater minions, and pets for a cabal of Alhoon?

Revenant campaign should be Ps:T campaign, really. Death is temporary and horrific since you're losing memories and personality. Or at least levels. Also the antagonist should benefit from your deaths somehow.

>If you're immortal, you can basically attack anything long enough to eventually win.

Sure, but there's other consequences to dying. Losing all your gear possibly, or if you die while defending someone mortal they won't make it, or if you die fighting your hated foe then the foe just leaves.

You guys ready for Fey Monk and Anti-Undead Monk?

Fucking stoked for Fey monk. She's the perfect waifu!

do we know this to be true, or is this part of some inside joke i am unaware of?

It's a tired stupid meme

Lots of the UAs have had an anti undead archetype but the fey one im not sure about

It's a joke.
Bard got Fey
Cleric got Fey and anti-undead
Druid got Fey and anti-undead

Monks UA will be

>Wot4E rework
>Martial weapon Monk / kensei

It seems odd to me that Revenants need to eat and sleep.

>Cleric got Fey
???

>Drunken Master

and if we're lucky, a tattoo monk.

>a rework
Never. It'll just be forever "why?"

I'd love to see Wot4E just split into a couple archetypes.

>Drunken Master
I don't think it will happen b/c this a game for all ages, including children

They should just rework all of monk.

>UA Monk is "Delete everything about monk, just use this"

>UA Monk is "Delete everything about the monk, just refluff fighter"

Why? Monks are fine

Anyone willing to review the rules for my homebrew races? I tried to make them interesting and can't help but worry about the balance.

>umóks: amphibians with bite and no legs
>goblin
>hobgoblin
>dark elves
>lilins: half-demons/aliens
>mountain dwarfs

They can do it and just call it magic monk juice or whatever instead of alcohol. Or fermented fruit juice, etc. Besides if they're scared of having alcohol in their game they should have thought about that before they included a class that literally runs on deals with the devil. Or gnolls, or slithering trackers, or devourers, or Illithids, etc.

Monk is fine.

nigga don't ask just post a pdf or a pastebin or a link to homebrewery or whatever and anybody who cares will comment

Tattoo monks are NOT happening

Does /5eg/ have any advice for proper encounter creation beyond the DMG? I know how to 'balance' an encounter, numerically but I usually either make a:

-super bland encounter, where I didn't bring in enough diversity, enemy wise

-overcomplicated encounter which is barely resolved by the time my players are falling asleep

-well balanced encounter that gets fucked because my players bypass it entirely

In short, are there any pointers on encounter tactics/design beyond CR calculations? Any good guides online?

I'll take it into account, thanks.

I'm not sure I can keep them in the world, though. The way they left and the circumstances of it (ditched our group to join up with an old douchebag from high school who spent his time shitting on everyone who wasn't part of the "inner circle" of edgy nerds and weebs) kind of made the other players pissed off. And the story had them all accepted into a secret society kind of deal, and they just started their first mission before the session ended. It would take a bit to get them out like that without a reset or something.

Have lower CR monsters behave smartly. A small group of bandits that carefully plan ahead and smartly ambush the traveling PCs can do more damage than the higher CR orcs who just charge them.

How do they umóks travel on land and what reason would they have to do so?

>goblin
In Volo's
>hobgoblin
Volo's
>dark elves
In the PHB
>lilins
Special snowflake aliens? Really?
>mountain dwarves
Are you serious? Did you read the PHB?

Monk is probably by the most multiclass incompatible. It would be better if that was fixed. You can maybe at best do a level of it for a druid to gain unarmoured defence on forms.

The archetypes feel like they're not as powerful as I'd like. You can at best put in a load of fluff and utility such as various elemental cantrips for four elements monk, for example, but.. Eh. Redesign would allow for more powerful archetypes, obviously. Well, might just be me about the archetype strength, that's more of a subjective thing.

Monks feel like they're overshadowed in a few areas. If you're not using pass without trace, rogues feel like they're just doing a better job come stealth. If you're trying to do damage, a fighter will outdo them. If they're trying to take damage, they have a 1d8 hit die, they don't get uncanny dodge but instead 'deflect missiles' as a reaction, a 'slow fall' ability... I guess there's speed and evasion and bonus action dodge and so forth which can half-ass rogue's level of armour, though proficiency in all saves is.. But, eh, Paladin does saves better. But isn't the fact they have so many bonus actions also a problem?

They have a less diverse range of stun and control effects compared to wizard, so they're competed again there. Their unique trait is simply they can do several stuns over and over.

Oh, and they're too ability dependent. Bad stats on a monk is a death sentence, bad at everything. It makes sense, but it can trap people.

I would like to see Wot4E reworked similar to how barbarian is laid out in terms of skills.

Allow monks to choose an element: air, water, earth, fire

Then give them abilities based on that. Mention that usually elemental monks focus on a single element, but you can swap if you desire. Similar to totem barbs.

Give them a level 10 ability that makes sense for the level and element but isn't ridiculous and have it not cost ki. Or if it does cost ki, have it be reasonable.
Probably something as simple as giving them an investiture spell.

question about bugbearmont from last thread

>Darkvision
>Stealth proficiency
>15 foot reach attacks with a whip (20 with Lunging Attack)
>Work with your DM to allow Pushing Attack to be Pulling Attack instead, since you have a whip
>Surprise Attack is +2d6 on your first hit in a surprise round
>Pulling Attack is +1d8 from superiority die
>Assassin Rogue 3 is +2d6 Sneak Attacks, advantage on attacks against surprised creatures, and auto-crits which doubles all the above die
>You hang out in a dark place, whip an enemy from 15 feet away, drag them to you, and deal 2d4+4d6+2d8+4d6+Dex damage. They're probably dead.
>You repeat the process because no one noticed their friend get yanked into the fucking shadows and garroted by a giant bugbear. Surprise Attack is available again because if you didn't alert enemies the first time around, this is a "new" combat.

wouldn't the whip cracking be too loud to be stealthy?

literally basically the wot4e monk in the playtest except they weren't locked into the element they chose at level 3 (because you're way of the 4 elements, not way of the element)

alcohol isn't okay but making pacts with demons is?
I guess you can argue alcohol poses a more real world threat, depending on your beliefs, however. And you don't want kids LARPing by throwing back shots and dying from alcohol poisoning, I suppose.

Still, what game doesn't have tavern scenes?

Perhaps instead they could still do drunken master but note that the drunken master isn't actually intoxicated. Rather, they are only moving about in an unpredictable manner as though they were to make themselves seem off balance, like a drunkard.

Free bonus action dodge? Would be sweet for an off tank.

First mission goes haywire and those two just "happen" to get murdered in the process?

If your friends that stayed a part of your group don't like those that ditched you, I'm sure they'd smile at the convenience of it all.

>alcohol isn't okay but making pacts with demons is?
demons aren't real, so yes

>not using Forge Cleric to make cold iron shit

You're probably right.

I'll get right to planning that out.

Monk is fine with multiclass as long as you don't care about being unarmored or punching things.

>Fighter->Monk
>well i can wear fullplate so who cares about unarmored AC
>well i can use greatswords so who cares about unarmed damage
>now i'm just a fast-running, long-jumping, always-dodging stunmachine who can leap off cliffs and run up walls

Right. Which is why I said they shouldn't be locked into what they picked. Allow them to switch into other disciplines (or even replace old ones) like you can now.

But I think it should be possible to specialize in one element, and often makes more sense for a lot of character concepts.

Would it be too crazy to allow wot4e monk to straight up become an elemental akin to moon druids? Only perhaps more limited? Or stick to investitures (which honestly sound like they were made for monks).

True to an extent but I played a monk to level 9 in Curse of Strahd and I didn't really feel like I was lacking in any particular area. I took mobility, which gave me a niche as an incredibly flexible glass cannon. Did the fighter out damage me a little? Sure. But 2d8+1d6+15 was more than enough per-turn damage for me.

>Rogues are stealthier

To a point this is true, but shadow monks really outclass rogues in terms of mobile sneaking. If you're just winding down a corridor then sure a rogue will be better. But a permanently invisible stealth character teleports 60ft for free in zones of absolute silence and/or PWaT is a good deal sneakier in many ways than a rogue. Especially if they just dip rogue 1 and now they get all that AND expertise to stealth.

>They have a less diverse range of stun and control effects compared to wizard, so they're competed again there. Their unique trait is simply they can do several stuns over and over.

Kind of true. While wizards have a lot of control options and monks 'just' get stunning strike, SS is one of the best control effects in the game. Notably because almost NOTHING is immune to stuns, not even legendary creatures. Strahd was a tough fight... right up until he burned through his legendary saves and ate a stunning punch to the throat.

You have to really try to make a whip crack. It's not something that would happen if you were wrapping a whip around some dude's neck and yoinking him into your shadowed fuckparlour.

while i agree, if i was in the DM's position and someone just completely wasted my high level enemy from the shadows and is about to do it again, i would say the whip would crack

unless i could convince my DM otherwise?

Linky?

Did you stop reading?
At any rate, they can call it something else. Perhaps a special alchemical concoction they use for training? (But it's literally just booze)

There isn't really any synergy going there, though, other than 'I negate some of the features of monk such as unarmoured defence'.
And, unarmoured defence is actually as good as plate armour + shield if you take the time to put ASIs in the thing.

Almost everything in monk scales with monk level or wants you to pump dex and wis higher.

If I'm wanting to play a goblin knight that uses a Warg as a mount, how would you guys handle that?

My DM and I both want to work on it to make it not OP so we were thinking of dropping the movement to 30-35, making it a medium sized mount instead of large, and otherwise having it function as a regular mount.

Anything else?

>Perhaps a special alchemical concoction they use for training?
R3COH

one of the thing i would love to see is that instead of "pay 50 gold to buy the components" that potions would have actual components and that the components would have street value equal to the previous unspecific "components"
such as a healing potion needing two parts troll blood and one part dragon egg yolk. while dragon egg yolk going for 40g a dose and troll blood going for 5g a dose. this could work as fun and unique "lootfiller" instead of constant heaps of magic items and straight up gold and could make playing a character that does alchemy way more fun
i did something close to this for one of my campaigns, where i basically ripped off a skyrim alchemy mod. the alchemy player (whose character didn't know a lot about alchemy and wanted the system to be trail and error based) would harvest stuff and later try to "isolate the alchemical compounds" in it, if i considered the ingredient to sound like something you would find in a witch-brew (basilisk eyes, glowing fungi from underground ruins, spider-venom, etc) i would roll for it hidden and tell him if he managed to find a compound, "potassium, magnesium etc, etc" chemistry shit (i have no idea about chemistry so i just used sciency words for it) and when he had enough components so could he try to combine them from a long list i made, where it could be duds, failures, poisons or proper potions. the best thing is that once it was discovered how it worked so was it consistently reproducible, i.e. spider venom always made potassium and potassium mixed with magnesium always turned into a potion of x. the alchemy player had lots of fun with his arsenal of potions that turned anything inorganic that it was poured over into steel and his oil of slipperyness. they also opened up a lot of times where the group tried to do a lot of "non-customary solutions to problems and encounters.

Here's the reworked-for-5e version (the original has stuff like spending a ki point that gives you a grapple with auto-hits on your unarmed strikes as long as it persists).

No offense meant, but fuck that minutia shit.

Okay, real talk
I keep seeing people say PWaT or PWAT, but there is no "a-" word in Pass Without Trace.
I'm pretty sure it was just "pass without trace" back in 3X, too.
Is there some other spell that PWT could stand for that we're trying to avoid

What would Apparatus of Kwalish's stats be as a construct?

And that last point seems to be what monk really is. Stunstick. The instant kill ability and the ability to stun a target over and over. However, I suppose that's later levels when you have more ki but less damage rather than lower levels where your damage is still pretty decent.

I think the problem with shadow monk I'm having is more of a subjective thing where the shadow monk we have doesn't understand how to use their spells effectively. But, it's kind of a shame they have to spend their resources to do it in the first place, whereas rogue gets straight-up expertise to stealth if they take it. Then again, ki does come back on a short rest.
I guess it sort of makes sense. If you want stealth, go shadow or be mediocre.
But, the thing is, a druid is probably better again with wildshape and also having pass without trace, but I don't really have a lot of experience with druids and this might come into 'don't casters have so much more utility than martials in 5e?'

I will say though, mobile sounds like a fair bit of fun. Sounds pretty similar to swashbuckler though which means they have a bonus dash every turn, they don't have to use their bonus action to hit things so they have that bonus dash and they don't provoke opportunity attacks from the target they attack like mobile.

It has the same challenge as a warhorse despite being worse in almost every way. If your DM has an issue with you riding a warhorse then he's going to have an issue with you riding anything. Just ride a worg as it's written in the monster manual and be an awesome goddamn goblin knight.

Okay, and assuming you're not a fuckhead who rolls for stats (and a filthy cheater who gets two 18s), how long is it going to take you to get 20 Dex and Wis? Is your game even going to GO that far? no, it's not

You might get some +1 robes or some other monkly shit, but you know what's even more common than protective cloth? Protective armor. And you're not going to find +1 shields or anything for your Monk. And you're not going to benefit from the Defense Fighting Style for a free +1 AC in your non-armor, either.

So you think it should just not be allowed inside dungeons and shit? Even though I'm kind of attached to the idea of it coming everywhere with me, I think I should probably let that go and then I could stop worrying about rebalancing it.

Are there any elemental-themed mage archetypes? I want to be a badass earth mage. Possibly melee-capable. Turning myself to stone, turning people to stone, raise walls, break walls, and shit like that.

Desert druid of the land maybe?

They aren't very good, I don't think. Never been interested in druid tho so idk.

But that just even further questions why you went monk in the first place.

One level in monk gives you nothing but 'you can make a bonus action attack with an unarmed strike (damage scales with level, naturally) if you make attacks with certain weapons' and 'you can go without armour if you want I guess'.
Two levels gives you extra speed if you're not wearing armour (Guess what, you are now.) and flurry of blows (To use alongside martial arts, but aren't you using a greatsword?) patient defence (This is actually pretty good I guess) and a worse version of rogue's cunning action. You just want the ki for stuns later.

Level 3: Deflect missiles. Well, okay, it might come in useful? Monastic traditions are varied, so you might find something sort of useful here, but nothing seems to have any obvious synergy.

Level 4: It's just an ASI, go figure. And slow fall. Eh.

Level 5: You've put all of the above four levels to get to this point where you get extra attack (you'd get that anyway) and more importantly, stunning strike. Yet, if you wanted more stunning strikes, you should probably have put all your levels in monk.

That said, if it's just a one level dip, I suppose you can somewhat justify a level of fighter if you want decent AC and a honestly probably worse attack if you don't have GWM, but you're also losing the benefits of having dexterity instead of strength on that route. Or, you can sacrifice an AC and go dex fighter-ish.

A single level for AC is about it

Bring it into dungeons with you, man. It's a Large creature, so anything that a Medium creature can fit in, it can squeeze into. The only caveat would be if there's something that a Medium creature would have to squeeze into. Just remember, it's a very weak monster. Be prepared for it to die.

Str of 18, Con of 20, Dex of 10, everything else 1.

AC: 20
HP: 200
Speed: 30ft, swim 30ft
Damage immunities: poison, psychic

Multiattack: The apparatus of Kwalish makes two claw attacks

Claw: +8 to hit, reach 5 feet. On a hit, target is grappled (escape DC 15)

A line of simple skeleton archers goes a long way no matter what level your party is.

Environment is half the battle, and it's something that DMs ignore a lot of the time. At the very least add some difficult terrain and some cover. A fight against totally bog-standard monsters can become intense if the lay of the land is against the players. The occasional bottomless pit will please the player who's always trying to make grappling worthwhile. Include breakables, and break them even if nobody intends to break them. Consider the parable of the Ming vase in that primer for old-school roleplaying. If there's a Ming vase on a narrow pedestal in a room where the PCs are battling orcs, that vase is going down unless they treat it ever so gingerly, and sometimes even then. The fact that nobody's directly attackign the vase is immaterial.

Now and then include objectives other than killing all the monsters. Like retrieving that Ming vase.

Make good use of monsters with weird rules that they've never faced before. Every party should fight at least one gelatinous cube, one mimic, one rust monster, and one beholder-kin. Maybe not all at once.

At one point, when they're strong enough to survive it, give them a Helm's Deep. Make them fight your entire bag of orcs. When they die, send more in to replace them. Make the objective just to survive until relief arrives.

Monsters have much fewer immunities, resistances, and vulnerabilities than players tend to think. A lot of times when a player rolls Nature or Arcana to figure out a monster's strengths and weaknesses, often there's not much to say except that its strength is hitting people and its weakness is getting hit. So now and then when they're facing something they don't know about out-of-game and someone rolls really well for monster knowledge, just make something up. Say they're resistant to lightning or allergic to mistletoe or whatever. It'll make the players feel special.

Then it sounds like your shadow monk is just shit and not using the endlessly creative application of spells like silence very well. And again, I think you're over valuing expertise and raw stealth numbers too much. After all, you don't need to make a stealth check if you just teleport 60ft at a time while being completely invisible. Which costs the monk nothing in terms of resources, and gets them places a rogue or druid cannot easily reach. Expertise is also just a 1 level dip away. But yes that's all true of shadow monks who are the super ninja arechetype.

Mobility is somewhat similar to a swashbuckler, but you do get 4 attacks compared to the swashbuckler's one. It may not be the best at any one thing but it's pretty good at a lot of things (especially the higher you go) and just a lot of fun. You feel like a monk, dashing in and out of combat dealing shit tons of damage. And with 50+ ft of movement, very little can out run you. And your bonus action can just go towards more damage (or stunning strikes).

There's nothing stopping you from playing "Dex Fighter" in fullplate with a shield whether or not you have a bunch of Monk levels.