/5eg/ D&D Fifth Edition General: Late Editon

Hey guys,

we're gonna be doing a 3rd level party with my mates after a few years of hiatus and decided to try 5th edition. The DM knows the system, we other have played 3rd edition for years (including 3.5 and PF).

Books used are the core ones and the Sword Coast guide, since we used to play a lot of FR back in the day.

Now, I want to play someone who can raise a lot of dead people. What is the best class for necromancing in 5e?

Cleric, Necro Wizard or maybe Undying Pact Warlock?

My group only ever made it to a max of 11 in 5e.
We were playing the Dragon Cult set of expacs, and then the game died shortly after we got the flying castle.

Sorry could you explain the what each number represents in

>(6.1+5+5+4.5)*3
>+
>(3+5+5+4.5)*1

And doesn't the treachery paladin add +20 only when it has advantage? I would have assumed after its first attack it loses its invisibility so can only be used once really.

Wizard is pretty much your only choice here. Other classes can raise undead but won't be able to give them buff.

Thanks. I'll try to make sure any homebrew characters are balanced, but that would be best left to the DM, who'd have a better idea of it.
I don't really plan on DMing anytime soon. I might later I suppose, but the one time I did, there was a lot of exposition and not nearly as much gameplay as there should've been. The player (only one) said it was still fairly enjoyable, but more akin to reading a book with minor choose-your-own-adventure elements than anything.
That's good to know. I'll have a look around for other communities maybe, but I think it'll be worth trying to find a good group with Roll20, as I like their board and stuff.
Okay. I wasn't planning on creating anything without a lot more experience under my belt, but it seems like their is a lot of homebrew content online that is reasonably balanced - this is more what I was talking about.
Thanks, this helps. I'll try to follow your advice, it seems solid.

Necromancer Wizard is your only real chpoice.

Undying Light Warlock is like a... HOLY Warlock. The "Undying" part refers to their radiant healing energy, not necromancy.

I think they were just using that as an extreme. Thats what I took from the context of it anyway.

I think they were looking for the highest damage output per round in general.

I for one am interested to see what classes have the highest damage at each milestone (say 3/5/7/11/15)

If the option is available to you(r party), try to convince one of the other players to play an Oathbreaker Paladin. They will buff your unded pretty damn well.

Also necro wizards are literally the best undead raisers because their undead are flat better.

No, there's a pact called Undying. Not Undying Light. It refers to an undead patron, such as Larloch in FR. Gives you some necro stuff.

He is talking about the undying warlock from SCA.

Yeah... stupid Wotc named thing similarly.

> 3
Moon Druid
> 11
Animate Object forge cleric with Spiritual Weapon and decent action attack?

Is there a canon Archfey in FR I can use for my Warlock path or should I just make one up? Evil, preferably.

I'd be very reluctant to bring homebrew to somebody you don't know. Especially if you're proposing a character for a campaign on roll20 or whatever it is. Check if they allow UA content, and you can use UA content there.
The /5eg/ way of approaching things tends to be 'If you can't support your character concept, fluff it'
Say, if you have a fighter, you can refluff them as a samurai instead of making a homebrew samurai archetype. Refluff their greatsword as a katana, refluff their armour as some sort of edo armour. No actual mechanical change.

Homebrew should always be the last thing you turn to, and making homebrew yourself...
You could ask the DM to homebrew something for you.

/5eg/ absolutely despises a certain DnD wiki because it's mostly homebrew.

Try to make characters within the system rather than homebrewing things, otherwise you might as well play a more freeform character creation such as GURPS or Mutants and Masterminds.

If you're friendly with the DM, you can probably think up various homebrews together, though, that they're willing to try out.

As a paladin, how do I make sure I don't overshadow the party's bladelock, and help them have fun (and survive)?

Also, it says that:
>Cantrips
>You know two cantrips of your choice from the warlock spell list. You learn additional warlock cantrips of your choice at higher levels, as shown in the Cantrips Known column of the Warlock table.

So this means I get two cantrips by default and then two other ones on top of that as a first level warlock?

>animate object and spiritual weapon
Thats hardly something that you can do every round.

The question was asking for something that delivers consistent high damage every round.

I'd say the main milestones are 3 (Character is properly defined at this point), 5 (Main major power spike), 11 (Second power spike), 17 (Third power spike, though mostly for casters), 20 (Capstone)

That said 6/7 tends to have a couple of goodies for certain people such as war magic or paladin level 7's feature or...

But, honestly, I think if you want just raw, reliable damage you should make a sorlock firing line with agonizing and repelling blast and blast everything away.

Or some artificer fuckery where they all throw thunderstones to hoard all the enemies into one place, throw a tanglefoot bag to keep them in place then drench them all in alchemist fire. .. That sounds fun, but not as reliable as eldritch blast.

> The /5eg/ way of approaching things tends to be 'If you can't support your character concept, fluff it'

That is how PHB and DMG recommend us to play.

You don't, because the paladin is just so much better than the bladelock.
I'm sorry.

Your only option is to be a shitbag instead.

Remind him that unlike you, he has more tools in his kit other than melee. Eldritch blast and control spell in particular.

I mean without acknowleding how bad bladelock is out loud. What are good spells to support their fun with?

Why wouldn't you be able to do that every round? Level 11 Cleric can cast animate object 3 times. Each casting is long enough to last the whole encounter.

Hide your power level and don't blow your huge damage smiting load unless things are looking bad. Let him feel like he's contributing until someone gets knocked out and you have to swoop in and save the day and undo all of the "letting him feel important" work you were doing.

Good to know. I'll try to stay with the official material then. That seems fine, as it sounds like I could still get the gameplay I want for just about any character using only proper material.

So basically conserve my spell slots until an emergency? Sounds good. Having played full casters before I'm used to hanging with cantrips until I can use a spell for maximum impact.

Fluff wizard as master swordman.

Magic missile is a sonic boom sword strike.

Fireball is you cutting so fast, you ignite flame and create a dust explosion.

Darkness is you being super skillful, enough that you cut through light.

I agree on this, level 5 is just long enough for people to get on each others nerves. Unless everyone in the group is the same type of player, the meme of level 5 campaigns only will prove true

Yeah thats what the original post was saying, that eldritch blast dealt I think 52 damage per round, a fighter did 60, and there was a third that did bulk damage as well.

A bladelock with darkness and both blast invocations can be hilariously fun. Assuming you go fighter 1/Warlock X to have heavy armour and possibly shield.

You can charge through enemy lines (pushing them away with eldritch blast) have darkness cast on yourself to remove LOS to grant disadvantage on enemy attacks and focus down enemy spellcasters.

Or if you want to blow your load immediately, cast darkness and misty step next to their spellcasters.

Yeah that lets you do 65 a turn assuming each of the objects can hit on the same turn. Which is a pretty big if considering its 10 creatures.

Also, about homebrew. I'm having some difficulty finding a reliable source on all official content - I suppose I'll need to purchase the player's handbook for that. I was just wondering if the added races/etc in campaigns like Eberron were considered homebrew or had defined attributes? Sorry if this is a stupid question. I'm mainly asking because, as I think I mentioned, I really like warforged and would love to play as one.

Dat feel when I fluff Lizardfolk as robot.
Natural armor = built-in plate armor
Claw = built-in blade
Bite = energy drain

How large is the internal area of a bag of holding? Can I cast glyph of warding on an object inside to explode if someone puts their hand in there that isn't me without the "item moves more than 10 foot" clause triggering? Would an explosion carry on outside the entrance of he bag?

There's a list of all options for all the official content somewhere if someone'd post it.
I don't have the most up to date version.

If you find something you want to look at, there'll be a pdf of whatever UA or extra book in the mega trove somewhere.

Tell him to make a new character, who is also a Paladin, so you can be Paladin-Bros.

Bladelock sucks, it's literally one of the worse classes in the game along with the vanilla Ranger and 4 Elements Monk. There is no situation in which melee will be a better option for the Warlock than using magic, and if those situations DO arise, any Warlock can learn Booming Blade, which is better than the Bladelock's melee anyway.

Bladelock can do pretty good damage... but at the level where no one actually play.

>/5eg/ absolutely despises a certain DnD wiki because it's mostly homebrew.

I despise the wiki because it is poorly labelled homebrew that makes ignorant but well meaning players attempting to quickly google something specific show up with retarded ass shit and nobody realizes for five sessions.

>What is the highest level campaign you have played yet?

We got to level four once

Anything a Bladelock can do, another Warlock pact can do just as well or better. Even their melee abilities are trivialized by Booming Blade/Greenflame Blade existing, which any pact can learn.

Pretty much.

What are all the different ways to max a weapon? i know I can silver it and enchant it, but is that all?

>enchant it

Not really. Only in as much as you can make magic items, which you can't really do. You can cast spells to grant temporary effects such as with flametongue weapon, I believe.

The only thing you can really do is silvering it, but you might ask your DM if you're allowed to do other things with it.

Great, I'll try to find it. Don't know how much luck I'll have though.

> enchant
not in 5e brah.

A bag of holding does not have "space" in the sense that it's a big room when empty. It extends by putting stuff in there. So, to answer your question: no.

im woefully unprepared for tomorrows session

need ideas for encounters in a generic spooky forest

Is this it? reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/300zz1/links_to_all_available_free_legal_pdfs_for_5e_so/
Or maybe this: complete-reference.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=116

What is an Artificer? An inventor and tinkerer of magical items and effects.

>can't make weapons magical
>can't infuse items with permanent effects
>can't use infusions for anything but manipulation of action economy, at most 8 hours in advance
>can only craft 5 magic items over their entire lives that can be permanently lost or used it
>cannot create any novel item or effect, ten thousand artificers would each invent one of the same half dozen items
>primary class feature is a robot that doesn't scale and isn't modular

We're supposed to enjoy never tinkering or inventing anything, I guess?

I can't even enchant the fighters sword to have fire damage for a day? Because that's the first thing a class like Artificer makes me want to do.

>can't make weapons magical
Magic Weapon.

Tinkering is a downtime activity, not a class feature.

Use the artificer from the Eberron UA my dude, it's more of an enchantment wizard.

speaking of high damage per round, what do you think of

UA Ranger 1 / Barbarian 1 / Oathbreaker 7 / Fighter 11

Which nets you

[2d6 + 5 (str) + 5 (cha) + 2 (humanoids) + 2 (raging) ] x 3 = 61 damage per turn.

You can improve further by going Monster Hunter, so that you can add up to 2d12 to the damage should you need to (such as crits)

Be careful this often invites autists to come and talk about their Bladelocks which were awesome in a vacuum while ignoring all the downsides and the sheer amount of resources you need to kinda do what a bunch of other classes already do better and all while still being surpassed by regular Warlocks

Let's be honest, Artificer only exists for the gunner archetype, because for some reason /k/-autists can't have fun in a fantasy game if they're not shooting bullets at things.

No a 1st level warlock knows 2 cantrips
As a character levels up they gain cantrips as shown in the cantrips known section.
Thats either a willful misreading or autism there.

>>Whhhaa I hate guns #Liberalpussy
>>I have no idea how much better than Alchemist is than the MehSmith

at higher levels = above 1st level

How freely available should Plate be?

My group is going into a major capital city soon, and the fighter wants to spend his money on a suit of full plate.

They've just hit level 5.
Should he be able to easily find a set of plate to buy? Is it too early to be giving him plate?

I was thinking of maybe making the blacksmiths be out of stock due to conflict and tensions elsewhere, but he can find one willing to craft him one (which would take a while). Or should I just give him what he wants?

Give it to him, 5 is fine, you only have to worry before 3 for a fighter.

a major city's best smith would likely have at least 1 suit on hand

If the full plate isn't magical, let him have it. God knows Rogues and other light-armor classes can hit the same AC for like less than a tenth of that cost. You're really worried about the class that's supposed to be tanky being tanky?

Hes 5th fucking level. Magic items are usually popping up with fair regularity by this point in printed material and your worried about a point or two of AC with a mundane piece of gear so much so that your

Now from a realism stand point a suit of Plate is usually custom made for an individual so yeah it IS logical to have to get it crafted preferably during downtime and a little wait probably wont hurt

I think that level is fine for plate, but you can't just find one on a rack, it needs to be made to fit. So in addition to the high gold cost, it would take a week for a fully-equipped smith's shop (employing several labourers full-time) to smith one. Maybe more for a smaller shop. That's after taking his measurements.

Id say does it add to the story to withhold it from him?
Is there a good in story reason no one would have enough metal to make plate armor?
If yes, plothook: open supply lines to the city so the black smiths can work (even though they wpuld most likely be stopping food instead of plate armor).
Or do you just not want the fighter to have good ac?

*Your going to deny him?

Fucking typos

Depends on the setting and military situation really, armourers in a capital would likely have a few suits or at least parts ready and lying around.

The Queen of Air and Darkness, the Prince of Frost, and coven of mother hags can be an Archfey patron

Are they canon in FR though?

glyphs of warding fizz out if moved

Contingency is what you want

Do you think it would be fine to remove the 1/minute limits on alchemist items - swift step, smoke stick and tanglefoot bag?

Thunderstone and healing draught are already preferred for the first two picks generally. It's not too big a buff, since there's not massive benefit to spamming smoke or tanglefoot bag stuff except, say, before a combat, which would be the main problem of keeping track of when each thing expires. Swift step might then be used to gradually pass it around the whole party when running away, but.. Eh.

It wouldn't be a big change, but I like the idea of them all being at-will items.

I see this so much in 5e, DMs who are terrified of giving out plate armor. What gives?

My working theory is that the DMs who do this tend to be former 3.PF players or DMs who are used to massive modifiers and high level equipment being a necessity for of-level encounters, but then they see 5e's number pruning and automatically assume that high AC=invincibility due to the simplification of the system and the fact that generally; PCs and NPCs alike tend to have a lot lower to hit modifiers when compared to 3.PF.

But really, is 2 points of AC going to break your game? At 5th level? When you're going to be fighting creatures that will have +6,7,8 hit mods and probably casting as well? Or is it the concern that he also uses a shield and has defense fighting style? If so why would you punish him for his build when he's likely sacrificed offensive capability? You can have intelligent creatures avoid him and go for the squishies you know. Environmental dangers that armor can't mitigate, encounters that can't really be brute forced or tanked, get creative in your encounter building and stop worrying about AC.

Infusions can be used to cast 'disguise self' on people other than yourself, is one example, and allows you to use a shield yet still cast a spell without shield proficiency.
It's pretty hard to lose magical items, but it's certainly possible. The DM should rightfully replace it or allow you downtime and a bit of money to replace it, since after all you did 'invent' it.

Everything else isn't possible because of the confusion, bulk and broken capabilities. They'd have to make a massive table or guide to creating an item when they don't want to do that for 5e.
Crafting magical items is down to the DM because generally magical items are direct upgrades - like class features - to your character that are rarely lost.
And, honestly, I don't think a 'I'm going to buff you all out of combat then just dick around throwing acid everywhere' character wouldn't be very interesting. 5e is already trying to avoid buffmania using concentration.

>>can't make weapons magical

Sure he can.

>>can't infuse items with permanent effects

Sure he can. He can do that like, 5 times.
>>can't use infusions for anything but manipulation of action economy, at most 8 hours in advance

Get a ring of spell storing, and the shenanigans are unlimited

>>can only craft 5 magic items over their entire lives that can be permanently lost or used it

See rules: Crafting Magical Items

If your DM is never going to allow it, maybe play another class instead of forcing things away from a compromise the rest of the table doesn't want

>>cannot create any novel item or effect, ten thousand artificers would each invent one of the same half dozen items

Sure he can. Alchemy and Gunsmithing is all new shit

Wait, are you complaining about not playing "Homebrewer, the Class"?

>>primary class feature is a robot that doesn't scale and isn't modular

>>He doesn't know once you unlock Fabricate, you can just keep making more

Yes. Very much so.

I used to be reluctant to give out plate, never played anything but 5e.

For me it was video games. I expected a gear progression, when instead you get the beast nonmagical gear in the game basically immediately. That still feels wrong to me even now, but I've accepted it.

well for fighters its pretty much required. Besides as you say its the best non-magical, there is still opportunity for progression into the realms of the enchanted.

Not many people want to jump into their heroic knight fantasy as some peasant with a rough-spun cloth tunic. Hell, I can't even convince my players to start games at level 1 alot of the time, no matter what kind of starting gear they get. (Although this is due mainly to the casters wanting to start out with more than a single spell).

Lore is mutable and less important in D&D than you think, since everything can generally always be made to fit anywhere. Sure, Warforged as they are only exist in ebberon, but that's more related to their history (they were mass produced for a great war that took place in the setting's history) than their mechanics. There isn't anything limiting an intelligent, sentient, living construct in most any setting.

2. Most good DMs should be willing to let you fully learn as you play. The rules for play are deceptively easy, but can be a bit overwhelming if you try to learn them all at once. You should know what your character can do and some basic info from the book, but past that you'll be better off learning on the job.

3. Roll20 is a grab bag of quality. For what it's worth, you can filter for campaigns that have "New Players Welcome" listed.

4. Homebrew is anything not officially released by Wizards of the Coast. A lot of DMs will have their own house rules or homebrewed character options, and there are a few really good quality and well balanced professional third party brews, but a large portion of DMs only really want anything that Wizards has released because they obviously made the game so they have the best idea how to make balanced options within it, and also because it's easily accessible by the DM. For your first game, you should consider playing something out of the core rulebook, as most extra content tends to build on and offer more complexity to the core rulebook material.

5. What said is good advice.

>Not many people want to jump into their heroic knight fantasy as some peasant with a rough-spun cloth tunic. Hell, I can't even convince my players to start games at level 1 alot of the time, no matter what kind of starting gear they get. (Although this is due mainly to the casters wanting to start out with more than a single spell).

That's EXACTLY what I want, but DnD won't allow me to have it...

Well remember TFB is a no save slow and you could easily cover a pretty big area with it if it was at will.Smokesticks can also be about as good as a Tieflings Darkness but usable all day and swift step is too good to not just spam like mad if it was usable every round

Well to be fair, it's not like you're handing out a set of adamantine +3 plate with a complementary +3 shield

It really is a video game thing. Crafting systems are also so widespread that new PCs are often expecting to craft their own Ebony Boots Exceptional quality 4 slotted Shaco or Daedric Helms. Its not really a huge problem but something new guys have to adjust too for the game

Alchemist is way better than Gunner. Sorry, bud. You're probably not even going to get to a point where Gunsmith gets the knockback cone, and at all other points Warlocks, Rangers, or Archery Fighters are going to outdamage you at a distance.

You have to remember you're a single attack class with an Intelligence main or secondary stat. You're always using your bonus action to reload, and even if you get a second attack action through multiclassing or Haste, the major component of your damage isn't the Attack action--it is essentially a form of those melee cantrips where you make an attack as part of another action. Any feature that works with "when you take the Attack action" isn't applicable then.

>triggered so hard he double arrowed
Don't post in anger, it's not good for you. faggot

>keep taking swift for an entire minute
>have speed 210ft
yeah I don't see anything wrong with this

a game breaking mistake that a lot of new players make is to create a character that has no reason to cooperate with the party

It even outs when you stop every few minutes to take a piss because you've been chugging potions non-stop.

Do you enforce character bathroom breaks?

Since some of you track rations and such.

You wouldn't be able to use swift step at casual times except if you know combat's just about to start or you're in combat, for obvious reasons much for the same reason you don't let alchemists throw acid for 16 hours a day, once every 6 seconds. Because that's stupid.
Trying to use it in combat takes up a bonus and an action.

While the smoke is good, usually you only need one use of it. If you need more than one use of it, then something's up, but you still have to use an action again to do that.

TFB works just fine if you get one use of it. You throw it down, you then use the thunderstone to throw enemies into the area. Just throwing more bags will expand the area and maybe that's great if you're in a corridor, but.. Honestly, the main reason to not allow this is because of corridors.

Still, it's probably good that they're once a minute only so the players don't ever resort to spamming and have more on their minds than 'I'll just sit in the corner and instead of fighting just throw smoke everywhere forever'.

I'd still like the healing draught to have some way of being less of a mandatory option.

Obviously it's not stacking. Either there's a 'two of the same name abilities cannot have stacking effects' rule or it's 'The DM says no bullshit'
I'm pretty sure RAI is that you can't use swift step right now to get 70ft speed when you stack two of them which you could actually do.

dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana

There's all the unearthed arcana. Everything else is in the PHB, DMG, SCAG, and a few campaign guides.

Ever since I pointed out that none of the cities we visit have sewer entrances (be they simple grate coverings or larger, human-useable entrances) or outhouses, and no building interior has a bathroom, my group has decided that Forgotten Realms is a fantasy world where humanoid life evolved to perfectly utilize its food and produce no waste. These things don't exist because no one has to poop or piss.

>you don't let alchemists throw acid for 16 hours a day, once every 6 seconds
Maybe YOU don't, but WE completely bypass the dungeon by divining the location of the final room and burning a hole into it from above over the course an hour.

I actually had my Warlock use a cantrips ability to clean things to ensure maximum hygiene for the party. I was a Noble its a thing I cared a lot about ya know

>can't enjoy taking a big gun and blowing shit up
>500 ft anyway in perfect safety
it's comfy, I guess you like alchemist so you enjoy having to be within an enemy's spacebubble