/5eg/ Fifth Edition General

Homebrewed the Elemental adept feat to be a bit better.

Pick a damage type.
Attacks of that type that you make ignore reistances and treat immunities as resistances.
Once per turn you may re-roll the attack roll for an attack that deals this damage type and use the higher total.
You may take this feat multiple times but must pick a different damage type each time.

It's actually a shame to name it Elemental adept at this point since it could be used for martials as well (slashing / piercing damage and ways to get around magical resistances /immunities for people who took Tavern Brawler).

Would a single Fire Giant Dreadnaught be too strong for a group of 5 level 6 characters?

Running SKT and I want to drive home that Giants are not to be trifled with

Nigga wot? This sounds like a you problem. Combat is fun.

However, if no c00l magix are involved there is a great chance to put the PC's in trouble.

If they were to somehow damage a wall, then it could come trembling down and the dungeon would be flooded. Now those spooky skeletons are spooky underwater skeletons.

I did some research but since I'm still not certain I'll ask one more time.

These are the components for Shillelagh:

V, S, M (mistletoe, a shamrock leaf, and a club or quarterstaff)

Can I just strap some mistletoe and a shamrock leaf to my staff and be done with it? I should be able to do the Somatic component with the same hand that handles the Material component (i.e. the club or staff).

I could probably bluff my way through it anyway with most DM's but I'd rather do it properly.

Not just that, the place would have flooded years ago. I don't see any bilge pumps keeping it dry. Stone walls don't keep water out on their own, and during construction the place would have just had mud walls anyway.

Just call it "Weakness Analasys". You can even add a little fluff to it.

Through your study and previous encounters with creatures you have learned to bypass their resistances and immunities. You are a master of bringing people to their knees, and then push them over and kick them while theyre down.

Is there any dungeon maps for areas like Gauntlgrym or other sorts of dwarven-themes dungeons in any of the published adventures?

Magic, probably. It's how pretty much everything works in D&D.

The real question is why it is still dry even though the wizard who built it clearly isn't around any longer.

Unless it was built on a hill where the surrounding area was later flooded.

I come form 4e inb4 worst edition, so 5e combat seems repetitive and flavorless. Playing a non-caster provides few options beyond basic damage dealing. Team dynamics are few and minor. The rules are simplified so as to avoid needing interesting tactics. I just find myself wanting to skip fighting altogether

What kind of spells would a mechanical construct have, based around the idea that it's a built-in functions, not an actual spell that's being casted.

That's kind of how the dwarves in my setting work. They've been around for millions of years, and over time their perfectly normal cities, that were originally above ground, have had hills build up around them and eventually bury them.

Elemental Adept feat exists

Here is what you do. Pick spell focus instead of component pouch. The spell focus can be used in place of any component that dont have price in their description. The focus is a staff, the staff can treated as quarterstaff when making attacks roll and what not.
Fucking done.

Do they not live in their cities?

>5e combat seems repetitive and flavorless.
That really seems your problem, man. There's tons of different ways to fluff up the combat in 5e, if you're willing to and are a good DM.

Yeah, they constantly repair and reinforce shit, it's why their still around

he's a player

Why would you assume I'm the DM?

How about ''Single minded''.
Through your focus and practice on a particular area you managed to go beyond their normal boundraries.

Yes it does exist.
And have you read what it does.
It deals with resistances and a damage roll of 1 is treated as a 2.

I made my own version cause it deals with immunities (from which fire and poison particulary suffer, i mean fuck it Monks get poison immunity at lvl 9) and the once per turn re-roll for the attack roll is just plain better.

Well, not if you are a Champion or one of the other 'Just hit them' subclasses. They really should have made Battlemaster just the 'Base fighter' stuff.

Then your DM is shit, and you as a player can also fluff up your abilities and just rely on the stale ''I throw a dagger'' or ''I cast fireball'.

man if only stuff could be made to not leak. Man if only the romans had concrete and ways to waterproof building. Oh wait they did. So maybe the dwarfs also had it

I don't know if continous spell material tracking is an often-seen feature you need to particularly worry about; consult your DM if need be.

You could also just, y'know, use a druidic focus.

What kind of spells would a creature have who can't cast actual spells? None. Is this a trick question?

Hence why I said ''if you're willing to''.

Honestly I would have less grievances if maneuvers were available to all martials. They're still a bit underwhelming, but would at least provide more variety than "deal damage at it till it dies"

Making an aqueduct not leak so much water that it becomes pointless is a different thing to building a big dungeon inside an unconfined aquifer. And that dungeon is plainly not made from concrete, even if concrete was somehow watertight (hint: it ain't).

Pls respond

The issue is that Martials need to play 'Mother May I' with the GM rather than there being actual solid rules for it. A lot of newbie GMs are not willing to deal with 'Oh god, I need to homebrew rules for this situation'.

Something like 4e's table for improvised effects would be fantastic to help those new GMs with 'What is a decent amount of damage/reasonable effects'

I might not have been clear in my post. This would be while playing a life Cleric with a shield and a quarterstaff. Shillelagh would be gained trough the magic initiate feat.

Martials should get back their superiority dice for one, and be able to expend it for cool shit or increased damage effects like the awesome modular spells system 5e has.

>and ways to waterproof building.

It's called "a roof". Doesn't help much against ground water or water pressing in from left and right though.

Hey i'm a DM brand spanking new to it and with 4 brand spanking new player, give me a break man.

If the DM isn't saying ''absolutely, good for it, or that sounds cool'' (within reason of course), then they don't know what they're doing.

5e explicitly is the edition with the simplified, streamlined rules so the Rule of Cool can reign.

>building an underground base under a river

Enjoy your constant flooding.

You man what kind of spell-like abilities can you refluff as being mechanical in nature?

Fire and gas-based attacks are always good.

It's magic, don't gotta explain shit.

but then you get to a point where a red dragonborn is somehow hurting a fire dragon with dragon fire breath

So basically it should be "Stubborn"

For some reason you keep attacking the same spot over and over again, like nigguh move on. But somehow you actually manage to hit hard enough and wear down the natural armors of your enemies.

>If the DM isn't saying ''absolutely, good for it, or that sounds cool'' (within reason of course), then they don't know what they're doing.

That was sorta implied by 'Newbie'. 4e gave tools to help said newbies adjudicate what's a reasonable value. 5e could do with something simpler.

To paraphrase a quote about comics: Every RPG is someone's first.

I for one think that all the battlemaster features should be spread out to all the martials.

Key the number of superiorty dice per long rest from either Str+Con or Dex+Con.
You only gain maneouvers from multiclassing into other martials but no extra superiority dies.

Every martial learns 1 maneouver at lvl 3.
Then another every 4 levels after that.

As a tradeoff everyone except battlemaster sticks to a d8 for their superiority die while battlemaster gets a 2d6.

never heard of fighting fire with fire, user?

+ + = -

fight fire with fire.

"I spot an opening and deftly skewer it's right shoulder" or "I cleave my axe deep into it's chest with mad glee" is still just "I make an attack action and roll for damage" If you want all of that to actually have an effect you have to beg your GM and hope he isn't one of the two million that think just dealing damage is sufficient enough to be called fun. I miss when I didn't have to debate the fucking realism of doing something fun, or argue that a ruling is simply too underwhelming. I miss fun being built into the game. I miss having tactical options beyond tripping a guy for advantage. I miss being a big goddamn hero that can pull off flashy shit at the drop of a hat

You don't have to strictly adhere to the rules, only when it enforces story progression.

Introduce different elements into play when combat arises, so it doesn't feel like an hour long grind and bore fest.
Have stuff like terrain and topographical features, built features, traps, etc to spice it up.

The point is to get rid of immunities.

He's burning the dragon for pitiful damage thanks to the immunity being downgraded to a resistance.

Also fighting fire with fire is just a nice concept.

It would also make Green dragon sorcerrers finaly relevant.

entire dams are made of concrete and Romans had access to roman concrete which is hydraulic-setting and good enough mortar.

hey teegee my bard just died and I need a new character.

DM said I can use UA stuff, multiclass, do whatever basically. Anyone have any cool ideas?

>it's SOOO unrealistic how the magic dragon man can spit supernatural fire and hurt the impossibly enormous lizard monster

What level?

Also if he likes utility he could try MCing Shadowmonk with the new Rogue archetype for maximum mobility.

You know everyone says this but that shit is hard. You need to map out things for your players for them to even be aware the world isn't just them and whatever they're trying to kill. You need to plan out encounters in specific places that players might just run by altogether

This is a great start, but missing a key element: higher level maneuvers.

As-is, you're picking from the same crappy list of maneuvers every time, so your choices get LESS exciting as you level up, because obviously you took the maneuvers you like the best first.

How would you introduce better combat mechanics then?

Ah level 4 about to be 5

I know, I've created a setting, or at least something to start with. And i'll try but, I have to get them to actually create characters before I can place them in the world.

Because he's fucking good at spitting fire.
See this is the kind of fixation on "realism" that makes the game unfun. He can do it because it's cool, fuck trying to make sense

How about this?

You bypass damage immunity, treating it as a resistance. You can take poison as your element, and it lets you bypass the immunity to the poisoned condition.

What playstyle does he like?

I suggest Swashbuckler Rogue 4/ Dragon Sorcerrer Gold 1.
It lets him play as a cocky fabolous magic swordsman.

DMing isn't easy by any stretch, you gotta have some preparation but you can also certainly wing it.

Just don't give the excuse that it's hard, cos stop being a lazy shit.

My 4e Monk does that one. Treats fire immunity as resistance 25 and reduces all fire resistance by her level + dex mod.

But then, 4e actually mentioned the concept of Primal Elements. Elements so pure that they hold domininon over creatures that would otherwise not care. A fire elemental can be burned by primal fire not because he's somehow flammable but because he's dealing with the incarnation of the concept of 'Burning' and he can't deny it.

Also because otherwise Desert Wind gets very sad when demons/devils/fire elementals/other high level foes turn up.

I would copy 4e powers and class abilities

>How would you introduce better combat mechanics then?

If only we had a fucking DECADE worth of video games to provide us an example.

But that would mean looking at shit like WoW, and that's apparently the most high heresy when it comes to D&D fans.

Four Horsemen is a cooler boss fight than anything introduced in any D&D module ever.

replace "druidic focus" with "holy symbol" and it still stands.

They don't translate over directly, how would you modify them?

Try out Artificier if it has any draw for you.

Did that question somehow trigger you?

You sound upset.

>building underground under water

y tho

the whole place would be flooded

>inb4 a wizard did it

It's really just the numbers you'd have to change, most status effects, movement effects and reactions would translate easily enough. Might come out seeming a bit overpowered, but that's kind of the point

Wizards should release that in an UA.

>You sound upset.

Yeah, I am upset.

Because this edition had the chance to learn all the lessons from 3e and 4e and ten years of games like EQ and WoW, and instead of doing that they just went with the laziest, safest, blandest shit possible.

Could have--SHOULD have--been the best game. Instead it's just mediocre. It's just acceptable. It's just okay. And that really sucks.

Guys would it be interesting if each sorcerer bloodline had its own unique spelllist? It fits the class much more.

Like give Storm Sorcerer a whole load of weather themed spells and air/water elemental magic. Dragonic Sorcerer gets a bunch of elemental spells based on their damage type, and some spells about enhancing their own body to be more dragon-like, while Wild Magic Sorcerer gets a huge clusterfuck of spells that encompasses the chaotic nature of the class.

Most martial abilities are just (Weapon damage)xNumber and additional effect like move both your target to an adjacent square and yourself to his former square.

Blame the 3.x/PF fuckers fucking shit up again. Wizards also listened to them.

The maneouvers are limited so they DON'T turn into spells2.0

And people can homebrew them.
They just need to take care not to step out too far from 'vanilla' 5e cause it's a decent framework.

I also use my own Spell point system for casters for example.
Basically every class gets a Magic point die the same as the Hit point die.
They expend those to cast leveled spells.

Example:
Wizard has a 1d10 Mp die
Druid has a 1d10 Mp die
Sorcerrer has a 1d12 Mp die
Bard, Warlock, Cleric, Paladin, Ranger, Monk have a 1d8 Mp die.
Most others have a 1d4 Mp die (passive magical tallent all beings have)
Or in the case of 1/3-caster archetypes a 1d6 Mp die.

Spell cost is:
4 points for a lvl 1 spell
12 points for a lvl 2 spell
24 points for a lvl 3 spell
36 points for a lvl 4 spell
Etc.
The spell-level learned list stays the same tho.
Can't give them early acess to that.

You know that's not entirely correct and you're exaggerating just so you can impotently rage.

I'd like for their to be some passive effects you can take with spell points.

Barbarian only gets 1d4 spell points, enough to cast spells, but he can give up his spell points permanently for certain features, something like doubling your size for lift checks, super jumps, etc

That could be a good idea.

I definitely think it should work like that if just to beef up their spell list so that the level 8 wizard doesn't have more spells by existing than the level 20 sorcerer. Only problem is making one for each draconic bloodline since shit like poison and acid don't actually have that many spells without going to 3rd party stuff but it would help fire definitely as no longer having to spend spells known on fireball and burning hands and shit means you can fit even more fun utility in there.

No problem.
He just needs to get the magic initiate feat to cast spells with it.

For monks these Magic points replace Ki since it is basically their magic power anyway.

Barbarians could technically be made to power their rages with the magic points but it would need some balancing with the scaling.
It would actually fit the fluff of a primal magic and also explain why they can't cast spells while raging.
Quite fitting man.

People might screech about it being 4e/videogamey/MMO. They'd have to neglect to mention the source material

Would you get maneuvers/4e style powers right off the bat and inherent to the class, or would you need to spend x to get them?
Would you automatically get access to a maneuvers/4e style power by virtue of being a particular level or particular class?

So I've never played dnd but I have a group of friends that want to play. I would have to be DM. Is there a cookie cutter campaign you guys suggest that's fun?

Decided to play a battlemaster/assassin rogue build for an upcoming campaign. Issue being is that I don't really know how to set it up just yet, mostly ever played casters.

I was thinking of using a martial weapon so I probably have to start out as fighter.. but do I only go 3 levels in fighter and then into rogue?
Or do I go 5 levels for the extra attack and then into rogue eventually?

Thoughts?
Anyone done a similar build?
Or is there a better build built around strong opening nova using Assassin rogue?

Lost Mines of Phlandelver, friend; haven't personally played it but hear it's a good adventure for newbie DMs.

>"I spot an opening and deftly skewer it's right shoulder" or "I cleave my axe deep into it's chest with mad glee" is still just "I make an attack action and roll for damage"

>thinks HP = meat points alert

The attack that reduces the enemy to 0hp is basically the first one to connect

Dams do have internal drainage systems to deal with the inevitable seeping water. They don't have to hold off all water to begin with, just most of it.

LMoP.

It's fun, it's good. Use the premade characters if your players are all new.

Maybe.

Consider it your player's problem and not your own.