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Tell us about your retired PCs. Do they still maintain influence? What do they fill their time with? What do the people think of them?

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magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/plane-shift-zendikar-2016-04-27
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Polearm Mastery for the increased chances of Opportunity attacks? Or for the bonus action to do d4?

I feel like EK already has better options for his bonus action.


I have two PC's that retired as war hero's / legendary figures, and the others are all stuck in limbo of games that never finished.

>I feel like EK already has better options for his bonus action.
Second. Misty step, cantrip+weapon attack, and the 18th level spell-as-bonus action are all pretty rad.

I have a bitchy player

>ask for details on timeline for backgrounds
>do you want me to copy and paste my bio for you?
>ignore him
>his antagonist trained for many years and hunted him down
>"no my character left that place 6 months ago"
>OOC bitching, derailing
>have his antagonist arrested by the guards for trying to kill him
>months later irl
>totem barbarian unites his villages
>he asks mid session when is it his turn for his backstory
>tell him it's done
>more bitching

So I don't understand.
Did you not read his bio, then get mad at him when he said you got his backstory wrong? And then you just tied it up in the most uninteresting way possible?

What's the best background for mechanical advantage? I give no fucks for the fluff.

Sounds to me like he tried to bring up the backstory, he just couldn't because the player decided to shut it down as fast as possible instead of playing into it.

>playing for the mechanical aspects and not the roleplay
You must be fun at parties. I've had 2 players do this and then drop when we started getting heavy into the actual roleplaying part after several sessions.

PAM+GWM polearm outdamages GFB+BB usually, though at levels 7-10 GFB+BB has a bit of an advantage.

If you go GFB/BB you usually want to go rapier+shield anyway and try defence.

My PC IS FUCKING DEAD.
She died to a catfish.
Rip, Fists of the Sun. You will be missed.

Meanwhile, my oldest PC is still around in game despite her numerous death experiences. That game has been going very slowly.

How would you stat Gae Bulg? I was thinking a pike that can be thrown like a javelin which acts like an arrow of slaying on every hit. Artifact obviously. Maybe the ability to once per day make an attack that doesn't need to roll and is an auto crit.

Sailor.

Perception and athletics are the best skills, I suppose. Try and grab stealth and persuasion and maybe nature if you can, too

However, metagaming on something trivial like background is often a bad sign where the DM gives no fucks about your characters or you give no fucks about the game. In which case, replace backgrounds with 'choose two skills that aren't X' and 'choose two languages/tools that aren't X.'

Sailor, gotcha.

That depends on what kind of character you're playing, friendo.

>Everybody is sailors: The Campaign

Also being gay makes your character resistant to succubi which are more common than incubi, so make your character gay.

>not being asexual to resist both

You are 100 years too early to metagame.

>not Torch-Bomb Wizards Edition

You done fucked up

>Only me and the DM know the rules
>We create PCs just before the game starts
>Because of this DM makes the campaign without the group in mind
>Group starts together, but no one knows the others
>Just together for the sake of the game
>DM gives 0 reason to why we should adventure, we just to do it for the the action and to make the game keep going
>We always start at level 1, and the game falls apart before we reach level 4

How do I "fix" this?

The idea is to fool them into making gay sailors.

That said, if you're metagaming in a normal campaign, 'gay' is much, much more likely to fly than asexual.

Either make them play a less roleplay focused game such as have the party do dungeoncrawling (They can still put their non-combat skills to use) or DM your own campaign.

>fucking dudes is more likely to fly than not wanting to fuck anyone

Maybe in your queer fantasyland, gaymo,.

Have a session 0 and get the other players to learn the rules. Have them create their own backstories before session 1 so the DM can tie them together.

This assumes the other players are actually interested and want to put in the effort. Otherwise what said

Assexuallism is akin to 'I'm not attracted to anything, therefore I have no flaws relationship-wise, you can't tempt me with anything' whereas gay actually has something.

Calling the character gay is metagaming while providing no evidence that you are metagaming. It's called subtlety.

>gay
>subtle

Pick only one.

Does anyone have that sanity system that worked like exhaustion? Was trying to look through the archive for the thread that it was posted in and I'm having trouble finding it.

>DM your own campaign.
I never DMed before, but I might do this

>This assumes the other players are actually interested
Half the players are, do you think its possible to run with only 3 players?

Better than
>hurr I hate everyone and I have no flaws

>large, 50ft flat steel wall
>player tries to roll to climb with no equipment
>gets a nat 20
>point out some hinges in the wall where they may be able to weaken it
>gets mad i dont let him climb a flat 50ft vertical surface
>"dude, its a nat 20, come on"

why do people think nat 20 = auto success in every way?

Hol up
If you cast booming blade and cantrip doesnt that make it one attack plus another cantrip?
Or you mean it as use action to cast booming blade and bonus action for another boomig blade?

The way I see it it's either your DM or your players being too lazy to put in the work. You can definitely run with only 3 people in a party, but I'd say try running a session 0 first so everyone can decide what they actually want to do. Hopefully the usually less interested players become more invested when they make their own choices.

Because nat 20 memes and normies posting inaccuracies.

Because they've read those hilarious nat 20 stories that always get posted.

Is there a playable vampire race in 5e? Or at least a template you can use at start? I am possibly gonna play in an evil campaign and I kinda wanna play a vampire

No, but do you know which game has vampires as playable class? Dungeons and Dragon 4th Edition™. Play 4e, it's a lot better than 5e!!!

Well that doesn't fucking help when we're gonna be play 5e!!!!!!!

Play an undying warlock that is slowly making his transformation into becoming a true vampire. It's the closest thing. Maybe see if you can play as the vampire race from the zandikar pdf too.

>zandikar pdf

Is this the name of it or something else? So I know what to google.

Yes, it's in the MtG licensed stuff and free.

magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/plane-shift-zendikar-2016-04-27

Cool beans, thanks man

I have a player like this. He insisted on playing a lone murderhobo barbarian, and when I forced him to have some kind of connection to someone, he decided that he was avenging his dead family. Whenever I have an NPC talk to him he tries to shit it down as quickly as possible. His emotional range goes from "mildly annoyed" to "churlish." And it's not like he's in it for the combat, because he's just as bored and thoughtless when it comes to combat. He doesn't seem interested in any part of the campaign and I honestly don't know what the fuck he expects me to do.

No, he left out chunks of his bio, I asked him for it, he was sarcastic. So I filled in the gaps (time between adventure, race of antagonist) he had this in his head, then got mad that I did what I wanted.

Kill him, see if that's what he wanted all along.

Ran my players through map related (story doesn't matter, filler doesn't matter, it's not from a specific book or adventure, don't ask; just pulled the map from google images). Anyways, they're done and about to head back up. They came in from the ocean, and have a ship out that way (cliffside / below). Water is about 200ft below the cliff.

If you were to spring an ambush via some assassins as they came out of the cave and back into the cottage, how would you do it? My first thought is to try and seal them in and knock the cottage into the ocean. Any suggestions?

The old 'don't say no' improvisation rule. It's more fun for everyone if you point out some hinges and let them climb a bit, but make sure they know they're going to need a lot more to climb any highre than the piddley attempt they just made. Who knows, with the first 15ft of wall climbable they might think of a way up such as rocketjumping with thunderstones.

The plot sickens lol.
More riveting information regarding the treacherous tale of the 5e Discord!

Explosives beside the staircase for when they're going up the staircase back into the mill.

Destroying the entire place just to make it harder from them to get out of the cave and onto the surface seems unnecessary, and both that and collapsing the cave entrance loses the element of surprise.

Why it says right here in this tome that no one cares about the Discord, either version or variant of it. New, old, everyone's indifferent about the damn thing. Get back to building classes and let's all move on.

I've killed him already, twice. Turns out death bores him as much as life does.

Storm Paladin abomination again. One last question.
I recently acquired Storm Sphere and was wondering if using the bonus action Lightning Bolt granted to me by Storm Sphere counts a the Cast a Spell action or not?

I'm assuming you mean blowing the staircase up to seal them in the cavern system with the only egress being waterfall?

Interesting....where / how do you see the battle escalating from there?

Pfft, no.
Blow up the staircase as they go up it, so they actually fall off. Otherwise they could easily find a way up to the mill if they're really creative, but the assassins can siege them in the cave and shut down any attempts to get out while they dine on whatever food they can get up there.

The only battle will likely be a war of attrition and ranged attacks or the players trying to find an alternate route out.

It's not casting a new spell, and it's not technically the Lightning Bolt spell. I don't know what you're trying to get away with, but so far the answer is no.

So I got a war forged. What do normal people call them? They are unheard of in this setting. I've had them name him golem, construct, or just peculiar person


I got a story for him, he goes into a cavern that is a collapsed lab/remnants of war forged, when he goes inside the final chamber - proto weapon(a fucked up ultima weapon from ffx) bursts out of the wall, and tries to destroy him. Porto weapon sends out a beacon, which he can hear but doesn't know what it means. activiating ultimate weapon to hunt him, and activating a war forged base that contains omega weapon and his series design - omega goes on to explain that he an inferior mutated abberation of war forged. Base is destroyed and the PC can move forward, with closure about his past.

Best CR 1/4 medium beast for revised ranger companion ?

Panther. Sneak around and surprise the shit outta people.

>8 int OP burns our hopes and dreams

Who made them? I call them 'ansenton' since they're created by 'the Sentinel' deity in my setting. You could have them take name from whatever originally created them.

If they're unheard of, maybe the warforged doesn't even know what to call himself, letting the player have more creativity to define how their character fits in your setting.

I'm looking at taking the Sentinel feat, but it says when I hit him his speed is reduced to 0, does that mean he stops moving when I hit him? And do I always have to use that part of the feat? The character has War Caster, and if so that'll interfere with using Booming Blade right?

Well maybe ask him why the fuck he keeps playing, then.

Good DC for the following?

> Player wants to recognize a spell being cast (1st through 5th)
> Player wants to see if they can recognize or ascertain the nature of a trap (both arcane or mechanical)
> Rogue wants to Dex save to mitigate damage diving into water from 100+ ft up


Also ruling help?

Player has a shield that acts like an immovable rod. Diving into water from high up, but wants to activate shield before hitting water. What do?

>Player wants to recognize a spell being cast (1st through 5th)

Arcana (or religion) 14+spell level

>Player wants to see if they can recognize or ascertain the nature of a trap (both arcane or mechanical)

Investigation 12 for mechanical, 16 for magical.

>Rogue wants to Dex save to mitigate damage diving into water from 100+ ft up

DC 15. Remove 1d6 of damage for every point they beat the DC by (to a reasonable number).

>Player has a shield that acts like an immovable rod. Diving into water from high up, but wants to activate shield before hitting water

Player hits shield at terminal velocity. Takes appropriate falling damage.

What situations that require a dexterity saving throw would Evasion not mitigate damage for?

If you hit them at 10ft, they'll stop at 10ft.
If you hit them at 5ft, they'll stop at 5ft.

As such, tends to work better with reach as it stops them from hitting you after being reduced to 0 speed.

>Int, Arcana DC 8 + (2*spelllevel)

>Int, Investigation DC varying on complexity of trap (5 - very simple, 10 - simpleish, 15 - complex/old designs 20 - very complex, otherworldly or ancient designs)

>Acrobatics DC 10+(1 for every 10ft dropped). Fall damage is reduced to a quarter round up (3d6) even on failure, but is halved again to 1.25d6 (might as well round to 1d6) or none at all if they do particularly well. Of course, it all depends how deep the water is - if the water isn't very deep, it'll likely only half instead of quarter the damage initially.

The shield, if like an immovable rod, will likely deal more damage than if they hit solid ground considering impulse, but is best modelled as dealing damage to them depending on how far they fell before they activated the shield - count the shield as solid ground.

Falling.

>Player hits shield at terminal velocity. Takes appropriate falling damage.

One of my players tried to do something similar, jumped off a cliff and then used move earth to make a platform to land on

I asked "are you sure?"

He said "of course!"

I said "well you splatter against the ledge full speed, take 15d6 bludgeoning"

>not taking this as an opportunity to hint that the PC is a Replicant with electromagnetic fingers

Petrified, paralyzed, stunned and unconscious all might be ruled to not allow evasion to mitigate damage.

Falling sounds more like a skill check than a save.

How do I build an anti-mage warlock? I was thinking about going bladelock, picking up mageslayer, and the silence spell. Thoughts?

Anything that would let you A) Negate spells B) Make the most number of attacks per round (More concentration checks = more dropped spells) C) Close the distance / move around.

Bladelock. Make your Pact Weapon a large ball with two U-shaped indentations. Take Athletics proficiency.

Run up to an enemy, grapple them.
Put your hand over their mouth.
Summon your weapon.
Magical full-mouth gag stuck in their jaw.

That sounds quite cool, make sure to carry gags around just incase you can't silence them, or try to cut out their tongue etc. that is also amazing character art for it, 10/10

Having trouble scaling encounters for a large group, and relying on a lot of environmental effects / tripling HP of monsters to even stand a chance against this group:

7 10th level characters, each with magic items / +1 weapons

>Berzerker
>War Cleric
>Arcane Trickster
>Wild Mage
>Moon Druid
>Undying Light 'Lock
>Eldritch Knight

What monsters would be appropriate for this?

Anything where you're not specifically saving for half damage. So spells and traps where you can save for no damage, like Sacred Flame and Acid Splash, are completely unaffected by evasion. Same thing for Dex saves made to avoid something ither than damage.

>In ages past, Alanterie the Butcher sold her soul for power to her and all of her name, but died childless.
>In present day Alan Terry develops strange magical powers on the day he opens his butcher shop.

What class/es should Alan be?

>Dungeons and Dragons general
>OP posts the cover of Neoclassical Geek Revival
Well.

>Tell us about your retired PCs.
He's a That Wizard I swear I used blood magic no more than 4 times! with mannerisms of Tim Curry and smouldering hot looks of Fabio which he achieved by devouring a Death Slaad. Currently stuck inside a ring of mind shielding.
>Do they still maintain influence?
The players from the campaign that came after that - which I did not attend - found a magic ring, one party member got spooked and left it where it was.
It was not even the right ring.
>What do they fill their time with?
Being the loneliest person in the setting, I guess.
>What do the people think of them?
He's virtually unknown of. One of his party members had written a rather unrealistic biography of the terrific whizzurd, which did not recieve a whole lot of praise from the readers. The book did, however, get out in the outer planes, and apparently somehow influenced the events of the Blood War. I don't even.
Speaking of demons, one of the other players - who played a misguided priest of a demigod red dragon and is probably reading the thread right now - by the end of the campaign actually caused global genocide of east-coast civlization by breaking the barrier and restoring the connection of the setting to your usual Planescape multiverse, flooding the continent with tanarri in the process. Ironically, nowdays he's remembered as a great hero and saint, you can even get domain powers by worshipping him.
It was a fun - if a little questionable - campaign.

A goddamn warlock.

Bladelock is never a good idea. Not only are warlocks not built for melee, but a tomelock with Shillelagh makes for a better bladelock than the bladelock.

Also consider that you're unlikely to face that many spellcasters in the campaign anyway.

Start at lvl 3, PCs are working on a contract with the local royal office (think of if as a mercenary office under the controll of the crown that holds a monopoly - i.e. a standard ''adventurers guild'').

Huh. I guess I learned something today.

Unless he's a monk he should have seen that one coming.

If you're willing to multiclass, fighter 1 for high AC and rogue 1 for athletics expertise will give you some great results

If you grapple a wizard and shove him prone he'll have issues hitting anything, add mage slayer and you can smack him around whenever he casts a spell

Take rogue to 3 and pick thief for a bonus action gag/manacles/hogtie

I also homebrewed a mage slayer ranger if you're interested

Your problem is probably not that you're using the wrong monsters, but that you're using too few monsters and too few fights per day. A party from mid to high level can beat almost anything, but they can't do it six times in a row. Wear them down, even if it means using much weaker monsters than they could handle in ideal conditions. Trick them into spending their resources early (a line of skeleton archers is a lovely waste of a Fireball) and deny them rest until the job is done.

There's also an argument for Sorcerer, as he didn't make the pact, but it affected him inherently.

Think tactical. Give the monsters cover, reinforcements, siege weapons, etc. Employ weapons and spells to immobilize melee players while hidden artillery blasts the shit out of everyone. Flying enemies using hit and run attacks. Mages riding flying enemies.

If you want specifics:

Young red dragon. Lair in volcano (passive fire damage), magma elementals (reskinned stone elementals with extra fire damage) who push them into the lava.

Stone golem. Chained to it are half a dozens large undead. A chimera follows all of them, waiting for an easy meal.

Mindflayers riding manticores.

>play a serious character who jokes around sometimes but for the most part remains focused on the quest and doesn't act like a goofball

>other party members ostracize me for this, telling me im unlikable

>gain new party members when old ones leave

>they act literally the same way despite not being there before and having no reason to dislike me

Why can't I just play a character the way I want to without being treated like shit over it.

Also


>do one "evil" thing in a 'the ends justify the means, the world is literally about to end' situation

>party members literally never let me forget it, even new ones who weren't there when it happened remind me of it like im even more of a monster than the bad guys we're fighting

Learn fucking DC math

Average on a D20 is 10.5, we'll pretend it's 10. So, a DC10 check with +0 has a 50/50 chance of success. A DC10 check with +5 has a 75/25 chance of success. (Side note, 5e is designed so you usually have roughly a 75% chance to hit).

Generally speaking, a good baseline DC is 10 plus the party's current proficiency bonus. A proficient character (10 + skill mod + prof bonus) will therefore have a greater than 50% chance, while a non-proficient character (10 + skill mod) will almost always have less than 50%. Add or subtract 5 to make it tougher or easier, or +/-10 to make it dramatically tougher or easier. Calibrate the difficult to the desired odds of success.

What's your favorite feat?

Least favorite?

What do you do with a player at the table who dislikes active roleplaying?

Can someone post that tactician wizard school thing that was posted some days ago?

I wanted to see if it's bullshit because I heard someone was making one.

Inspiring Leader.

My favorite combination of feats is Observant + Keen Mind. I had both on a Human Mastermind Rogue, and essentially played a stabbier, kill-ier Sherlock Holmes.

I was also able to convince my DM to let me do some cheese like remember any conversation happening in a tavern from a few days ago, and do Investigation checks on my own memory.

>favorite feat
Tavern Brawler
>throw anything (including the corpses of your enemies)
>shield bash and grapple
>use rope-whips, piton-daggers, chair-greatclubs, bedsheet-nets
>get elemental damage on demand with a torch or other similar knicknacks
>make the pimp hand strong

>Least Favorite
Lucky
Auto-take feats should not be a thing

Let him roleplay descriptively. I enjoy affecting voices and acting like different people, but I don't really consider it central to playing the game.

Rough idea for Bladelock change
>You learn Eldritch Strike cantrip
>Is the same as an Agonizing Blast/Repelling Blast, however only has S (a weapon attack) and M (your pact weapon) components
>The range is the range of your weapon
>If your weapon uses ammo Eldritch Strike provides it
>Also gives you a form of Unarmored Defense equal to CHA+DEX?

Assuming the unarmored defense isn't going in since that version is probably OP, would you say that would work to beef up Bladelock?

It'd let you get the full damage of an invocation EB without spending valuable invocation slots, however you don't get any of the utility of the other Pacts

I keep hearing people shit on Bladelocks here, but have never actually played one or had one of my players make one. Is it that bad? Why is it bad? What would you do to address its problems?

Either let him play the way he likes or have some fun with him by constantly having NPCs have business with him and him alone.

It's not bad at all, but it's not "optimal" enough

Honestly the only issue I see with it is that the +cha to damage invocation should be made part of the blade's regular bonuses at level 3

That's literally all there is to it

>favourite feat
Athlete, followed by Mobile, followed by Sentinel
Athlete - Promotes creative combat where you climb things, go prone to avoid ranged attacks, use abilities that make people go prone, et cetera. Would be better if there was more syenrgy like with thunder stones.
Mobile - Again, promotes more dynamic combat, really supplements monk allowing them to offset their squishiness with kiting and running.
Sentinel - Allows melee martials to do their job - stop enemies from fucking over the rest of the party.

>least favourite feat
Lucky.
Fuck lucky.
'Nothing bad should ever happen to my character!'

It's a melee option for a class that doesn't really have the durability for melee, plus it just gives you MAD. And with the addition of the Blade cantrips from the Sword Coast Guide, tomelock can do the same thing with less fuss.