/5eg/ D&D Fifth Edition General

Do some battles yourself and see how smooth you run it.

>Rance
It was the best of taste, it was the worst of taste.

Does anyone have the way of the knife asshole edit some guy made? Sun Soul with radiant crossed out and replaced with piercing

How do you handle a mexican standoff type situation?

One of my players was nearly cornered by a bunch of guys with fantasy guns last night. He was trying to talk them down, and they were trying to talk him down. In the end, he decided to run.

Naturally, they decide to shoot if he runs. I ask him to roll initiative. He argued that because he runs first, he takes his turn first, and can get behind a corner before they are allowed to shoot.

I thought that was an incorrect interpretation of the rules, so I forced the initiative roll. He rolled poorly, and got hit 3 times by the guns (whose wielders rolled higher initiative, and then made shots at him), but survived.

Was I correct with my rules interpretation?

...

So if I look at the adventure before I run it I can just print out any pages I'd need from DM's guide and Monster Manual. I will buy a screen though, seems useful enough.

That seems like a great Idea actually.

Thanks for the input. Have an orc.

>Was I correct with my rules interpretation?

Unquestionably. You don't get to win initiative just because you declare your action first, how ridiculous.

If anything they would have gotten an attack of opportunity pre-combat and THEN rolled for initiative.

I always have such a hard time picking a race and class.

I am leaning towards being a firbolg tempest cleric but that seems weird? I really like firbolgs as a race but I dislike wisdom as a stat because wisdom feels kind of dead compared to str or dex.

I am probably going to do the tempest cleric though. Is that a good choice? I also don't want to be useless to my team though.

My second choice was going to be a halfing but I don't really dig the short races.

So many choices but I feel like so few would be decent. I am fearful of newb traps and other stupid shit where if you don't know about it, it could shit all over your character. Kind of like how beast mast ranger is complete shit or beserker barb.

Thanks m8

Absolutely.

At most, I'd say force them to roll at a disadvantage because the guy is basically dodging. And even then, only if the player made a convincing case regarding diving for cover and and made an acrobatics check.

I avoid them at all costs because they're a huge pain in the ass.

perception is a great stat
wis saves are great

Avoid avatar monk and beastmaster

Everything else in the PHB is passable, though some classes are boring.

Race and class should be unrelated. Not only is it silly to pretend that all societies in a setting don't have all types of people i them, but wven if certain professions are held in esteem, adventurers are not supposed to be the norm. There are gnome soldiers, dwarf thieves, elf sailors. Race doesn't give you all that much and its not a competitive game anyway. If you were at my table and picked something suboptimal for the sale of playing a character i can easily adjust things if need be. This isn't a wargame.

Eh, you don't need a class to be a soldier, criminal, or sailor.

I understand its not a wargame but having +2 to the main stat of a class is pretty strong. It just seems usually too strong to pass up. Especially since you can't really flex class stats anymore. Like every class has one primary stat and then maybe a secondary. you also don't get to start with a 16 if you use the point buy system which means race is what stands between a 15 and a 16 main stat at the start.

>wisdom is worse than strength

It has several relevant related skills and a wis save is one of the most common saves in the game. Clearly you must be lacking in wisdom yourself to think str is more important than wisdom in any sort of a broad sense.

Strictly speaking there's a reason Fighter, Thief and Cleric were universal classes (except in like one setting where Elves didn't have clerics at all in 2e).

Sailor isn't a class, neither is Soldier strictly speaking.

Use one of the UA Rangers paths.

anyone else really bothered by gnomes and halflings being adventures and the like?

I feel like their stature is just too small to be anything OTHER than a caster or ranged character. Like what does a halfling fighter even do? Like yeah mechanically you can do it but its just weird to imagine. Same with gnome.

Sir I'm going to have to ask you to curb your autism.

Many have asked that before, many also learned what getting stabbed in the knee femur and scrotum by a rapier by an angry halfling is like.

Forget the crushing blows, imagine getting stabbed in a vital artery and slowly bleeding out, it's not gonna knock you over but it's gonna kill you.

Plus, it's a fantasy game.

I've had games where the players were 12 year olds and we had a blast. Halflings are fine

How exactly do you RP? I find that I can only RP based on what my character can do? For example, if my character has the knock spell then that opens up RP opportunities when you like unlock a door or whatever.

I find it hard to RP when my character has no out of combat utility. I played a fighter last time with my friends and I didn't really enjoy it. It felt like I was only there to fight stuff which makes sense but what else can I do?

I was going to try sorcerer but people tell me that sorc is kind of shit. You are basically a twinned haste bot or twinned hold person bot.

If you don't take twinned spell as your first metamagic, then you are apparently garbage.

Then I thought about warlock but then again, people tell me that in combat you are basically just a eldritch blast bot and if you don't take the invocations that beef up eldritch blast, then you are shit and worthless.

I just want to play a class but not feel pidgeon holed into playing it a certain way. It feels kind of shit to not take twinned spell as a sorcerer. Its just too good compared to the others.

I considered barbarian too but that class feels probably the most pigeon holey of all. I mean as a barbarian, its pretty straight forward in how you can RP. "I smash blah blah blah."

How the hell do people make characters and not end up hating them?

Is there ever an exception to "max your primary stat first"?

anyone else really bothered by humans being adventures and the like?

I feel like their stature is just too small to be anything OTHER than a caster or light snack. Like what does a huuman fighter even do? Like yeah mechanically you can do it but its just weird to imagine. Same with ogre.

user, the halfling barbarian AARGH in our party is our main damage dealer, and we are having great fun, especially now that his strength got temporarily boosted to 25.

It started as a funny meme character, but now he has just become anger incarnate and just a blast to play with.

yeah, there's a lot that is seemingly disadvantageous about halfling, gnome, dwarf, and female martial adventurers due to smaller reach and mass, especially since they are almost always portrayed as using cutesy, low reach weapons like dwarves with their axes and picks

He's not exactly wrong. I wouldn't stop someone from playing it, but it's weird to imagine a 3 foot tall guy having the same physical strength as even a 5 ft guy.

New dm here and one of my players has been abusing this by using his rogue to steal everything that isn't nailed down. Would this be a way to try and curb this or what are some better ways to do it:
>In the town they're in there is a group of LG rogues that are like peacemakers in the background
>I was thinking about saying that one of the members saw my player steal from people
>That night the member came into the player's tavern room and stole the gold that he stole that day

Am I being that dm?

what age range typically has 3' tall humans?

you missed my point about barb. My point was that as barb.. you only are ever "ARRRGGHH!!!" kind of barb. You can't really do much else.

This leads me to my next point that martial characters have less chances for RP too. Mostly because your utility is combat oriented and generally as a martial, you can't afford to put stat points in CHA or WIS or INT(LOL) because you need other stats first.

>Big climactic fight
>Playing a sorcerer
>Enemy has outright immunity to every damage spell I have except disintegration and gets advantage on saving throws

Playing a draconic sorcerer was a mistake.

>"There is nothing of value in this location."

Eventually he will get caught if he does it enough. You could even fudge an NPC's Deception roll to have him get caught sooner rather than later.

Many items are difficult to carry inconspicuously, especially if you're not carrying a huge overloaded backpack around everywhere like a psycho. Whenever the PCs are invited in somewhere, they should either be made to surrender their baggage at the doors or be invited to lay their baggage down somewhere, with a refusal to do so being seen as extremely suspicious.

A lot of goods are distinctive enough to be difficult to fence.

Finally, you could just let it happen. Part of the fun of being a thief is the thievery. Material wealth isn't that big a deal in 5e. If all he's stealing is gold and other mundane goods, he's never going to get overpowered that way.

Allow the Rogue to notice if someone is following him, check his passive perception and roll stealth checks of those following them, then leave a note in the rogue's purse that explains what happened. And further transgressions leads to an empty purse.

This also is a nice plothook if the rogue wants to pick a fight with a dug in Shadow guard.

A good pickpocket isn't only skilled with his fingers, but should know if he is being watched.

At 5 years the average child is 39-48 inches, or 3'3"-4'0".

yup. sorc is complete shit unless you play the UA stone sorc thing. Which is OP as fuck.

Picking a class in DnD is the hardest part because you never know when your class will turn to shit. Level 1 doesn't give you nearly enough intro to your classes because you don't have enough features.

Also, why is multiclassing such shit? It seems like only casters multiclassing into other casters is good.

There's so much more to roleplaying than just mechanics. First, fuck everyone who says you have to play a character a certain way. Second, your personality and class are largely independent.

A barbarian could be a bloodthirsty pitfighter; a reluctant, kindly giant; an honorable servant of the Emperor; a vengeful agent of the revolution; a nice guy with a temper; a tough guy with a soft side etc. etc.

Just because you're not the designated smooth-talker of the group doesn't mean you have no opportunity to RP outside of combat. That's retarded. If you build a well-fleshed out character interacting with the world should be gratifying and engaging regardless of class.

Nah. Rangers are utility kings, even fighters have pretty good skills. Dex is a great skill but even str has its uses.

The DM has said the final few fights have enemies that are entirely fire immune and I am a red dragon draconic sorcerer.

I wanted to just pick something thematic for the game but instead, i'm getting fucking screwed.

>Sorcerer is complete shit
It's still a full caster. That's not nothing. The fact that it's outclassed by the Wizard and Bard doesn't make sorcerers literally nonfunctional.

Take pride that the DM knows this and you have been doing so well that he has to nerf you for the other players to feel like they are doing something.

The paladin is the one with a busted ass weapon.Most of the time I throw down an AoE spell or two, twin spell haste on our frontline, and fly around being a pain in the ass with firebolts after that.

No offense but this is entirely predictable, a HUGE proportion of creatures, especially higher level ones, are resistant at least to fire, all kinds of fiends for example, and fiends and red dragons etc. also will attack PCs at any time with zero plausibility concerns.

It sounds like have no imagination.

While that isn't very constructive, if you can't find any single way to get in character for four different classes, it's not the games fault. Your characters can be more than just a sheet of paper with numbers written on it. Try making a person instead of just another PC.

As for getting bored with the characters you make so often, stop making boring characters?

Opinions on the latest incarnation of the Variant Human V2?

It was originally designed in context of banning getting Feats on 1st level, or alternatively everyone getting feats on 1st level.

I am unsure if Human Adaptability is a strong enough feature to carry this home, really.

>It's still a full caster. That's not nothing.

in the edition with the weakest casters its not nothing but it isn't great

Well, if D&D was realistic, the only suitable adventurers would be male human Fighters, as all other classes are either childish superstition or unsuited for combat and all other races are hideously flawed in comparison to humanity, just as women are worth nothing when compared to men.

yeah the problem is that fire as a damage type has so much shit immune to it that its not even funny. The book doesn't say that though. That is critical info that should be readily available for players.

enemies that are immune to fire are WAY more common than enemies that are immune to all the other types of damage.

Not saying STR and DEX are bad stats. Just saying that str and dex don't offer as much room for RP as INT or WIS or CHA

It also sucks that martial classes have next to no need for INT WIS or CHA and can rarely up those stats to at least try something else flavorful because it does nothing for their class.

Like as a fighter, I would be more concerned with having a high str or dex and decent CON. Where is the room to try int wis or CHA?

need too many stats.

>halflings are dwarfed by 5 year olds

what the FUCK

If you are throwing the haste on a paladin and a barbarian you are still blowing them up, paladin could smite on haste attack doing 20 plus damage and the barbarian can do that as well with rage or weapons, thanks to you the hastes do an extra 40 damage, literally he has to have stuff have advantage and immunity or you are gonna destroy them all.

glamour a best

So, I want to play a Morph from FE7 (pic related), but no race really seems to encompass that kind of fantasy. Any suggestions?

For people who don't know, Morphs are human-like beings created from quintesssence, whose purpose is to go around collecting the quintessence of strong people for crating more morphs for their master.

I guess I could refluff Revenant, but it just doesn't feel right, y'know?

GWM, PAM, SS for fighters I suppose.

but being a haste bot isn't fun. Imagine if he didn't take haste? Twinned haste is like.. THE SORCERER thing to do. Which sucks but thats the truth. Like, I don't even think about using my sorc points for anything other than twinning most of the time.

What other metamagics did you take?

Use that new race from Kaladesh. They sound almost the same.

Yeah, now I throw twinned haste on our melee characters and I can't even use my damaging cantrips because my enemies are immune to all of them.

Having lots of fun with that.

Need some ideas for a backstory.
My old character died and I am rolling up a Paladin 2 / Sorcerer 7 (Storm from SCAG) with all thunder and lightning themed spells and a polearm using Booming Blade as a follower of the Lady Istus the goddess of fate.
We are playing HotDQ if that helps! Everything I come up with right now feels too animé tragic. Need ideas!

Not him, but this kinda makes me think about Rage. Could I play a Barbarian with an Acolyte Background, probably devoted to some god of war, and fluff rage as "becoming super focused on battle" or something? Some kind of meditary state. "Become one with your weapon" or something of the likes.

Nah, don't do that. Gold isn't a big deal in 5e. Him having it doesn't help the party that much.

Do have consequences. Consequences he can react to, not the auto failure kind.

Have the local thieves guild pay them a visit at night and leave a warning that says play by our rules or else. Not nice LG rogues, career criminals that wouldn't mind having someone as talented as the PC paying dues and taking jobs but won't hesitate to slit some throats if the klepto won't play by company rules. Or maybe skip the recruitment pitch and just give them the "stop hedging in on our territory" threat. If the players all decide to go kill the thieves guild, great. You've got an adventure going. Don't make it easy.

Alternatively, remember that NPCs have agency. There's been an outbreak of crime recently, so the guards are stepping up patrols. People are getting suspicious - they'll hide and secure their valuables. Maybe start throwing in traps. If someone has enough resources (like a noble with a court wizard) you might even see some castings of Alarm. People will be less likely to accept excuses.

Make things harder for him. Don't just cheat him though.

>immune to all of them
Your own damn fault for not taking at least 1 non-fire damaging option.

What do you do in combat, tickle people with Mage Hand?

Seconding this.

Do Acid splash, ray of frost, or poison spray do fire damage? Just checking.

Just because I made a draconic sorcer doesn't mean I picked only fire spells.But the enemies are now resistant to most shit and mostly immune to fire.

forgot to quite

Humans would probably shorter if you're using the common "totally not medieval Europe" setting. Still, they'd be about 5 year old height. A lot buffer, since they have fully developed muscles. Despite all that, it's still pretty weird.

Maybe clarify that sooner so you don't come across as the retard who can only deal a single damage type.

hey. i need some advice. i will have a scene in my next session where the characters (mercenaries in this setting) are sent to a bar where some soldiers of the company they are part of got beat up. Now... under unofficial orders from the lieutenant they must go to the said bar and start trouble and demonstrate that you cannot fuck with the mercenary company. I need some ideas to make this more cool. I need complications to challenge them a little (they are lvl 3).

Sort of. Though, afaik, Morphs aren't vampiric in nature like Aetherborn are, nore do they really have strong or overt emotions or the exceptionally short lifespans aetherborn have.

I might just go with aetherborn a change some things around. Thanks Veeky Forums.

Refluff it, and throw the emotions and lifespan bits out the window for something new. You're not 'stealing' the person's essence or anything and adding it to yourself, right? Instead, you're adding it to some metaphorical or possibly-real 'bag' of the stuff.

Newbie GM is here

Hello, guys. I'm going to make my first game ever, previously i only was a player a few times.

Can you advise any good adventures lvl1 for newbies?
is AL good?
I also found Hoard of the Dragon queen, and kinda liked it, but there are lots of responses that it's not well written and you need to fill lots of gaps yourself

Is there a must-play campaign for a bunch of newbies?

Lost Mines of Phandelver is generally regarded as really good. Tales from the Yawning Portal is also coming out soonish, and it contains the sunless Citadel, which is a classic. Not sure how they're gonna handle the reprint though.

Lost Mines of Philadelphia

1) Make the local tough-guy gang be already hanging out at the bar when they get there.
2) Make an obviously powerful neutral NPC be sitting alone in the middle of the bar. He will ignore everyone unless he is bumped into, in which case he will fight whomever disturbed his me-time.
3) The bartender has his children there. Little moral dilemma for your players.
4) A bar fight is already happening when your players arrive. What the hell is going on?

IDK I'm just spitballing over here.

Bar's actually a front for the biggest, baddest gang in town and they are pissed someone's causing trouble.

Just stay away from tragedy then.

Maybe grows up a farm kid. Around 13 he starts manifesting his storm nonsense and it's making life miserable for his parents ("two weeks ago he almost fried poor Betsy while milking her, and this week he blew up the chicken coup with a thunderclap!"). A devotee of an order of Istus happened to passing through and catches wind of this. Being a pretty big believer in "no coincidences" (goddess of fate and all) he offers to take the kid in, help him manage his powers. Parents agree, happy to not have their livestock endangered, and he's shipped off to a paladin order or monastery or whatever. They train him in their ways some, teach him his way around a sword and some prayers, but mostly they instill discipline in him. A few years down the road he's got his powers under control and is inducted into the order proper. He returns to his family, tells them he's got a date with fate, and fucks off to go adventure.

You've got plenty of flexibility on the hard ass to nice guy scale depending on what you want to play, so long as he's disciplined and orderly. You have tons of room for background NPCs if you're the sort, like family members, his mentor and other order members.

My level 8 character I raised from level 1 died because of this pdf.
>Have a solo session with my DM because I died with a cursed ring on me that let a lich hold claim over my soul.
>End up battling him, destroyed him, barely.
I just needed the ring he had on in my dreamworld. I just needed to Dimension Door out - I had saved an expensive warlock spell slot just for that and the ring was 10 ft away.
>Surrounded by crumbling skeletons
>Have enough hp to tolerate two rounds of skeletons raining down their weapons on me
>Dive for the ring and cast Dimension Door.
>I move 5 ft. Ring now within reach.
>I trigger attacks of opportunity from skeletons
>DM rolls with advantage because flanked (DMG optional rule)
>Skeleton crits
>Consult pdf
>One skeleton stuns me for one round
Fuckfuck. I might still have enough hp.
>Another skeleton crits
I go down to 0 hp. It's still okay though. Their lich lord is dead and DM is rolling for crumbling damage for the skeletons each round.
>Consult pdf
>Disadvantage on death saving throws.

My warlock died there. On the plane of his Hag patron defending the generations of first-born girls his family had sacrificed that now shared their home with Muma. Their new mother, my patron. He was not a good man. He left his fighting companions to their death in the sewers when he heard his new-found daughter was in labor. He drowned this grandchild in a barrel of rainwater in the alley behind the hospital bed in order to uphold his family's ancient rites of power. In the session before he died, he finally managed to broker a marriage with the wood elves of the Forest of Stars. 20 years after his wife found out his family's secret and fled with their two daughers he found them, saved them, loved them. He ensured that his family's legacy would be upheld. My warlock died there. And he defended the plane of the many daughters of generations past.
I hope for all your characters that they can retire as bittersweet as Otto von Baumsfeld.

Making a 1st level firbolg cleric to play Curse of Strahd. DM has a really generous rule regarding stat-rolling, so I ended up with 13 14 14 14 14 16 before assigning and applying racial bonuses. I should put 13 in Strength to even everything out, right?

Also, I'm conflicted between Nature or Tempest domain. Tempest looks fun as fuck, but so does Nature's shillelagh shenanigans.

anyone play with the third part stuff?
how balanced is some of it?
im looking at some Kobold press' stuff and am wondering if their magic variants are relatively balanced in real play?

Why couldn't you?

Maybe the bar is a front for a gang's illegal/dubious activity of choice. Could be drugs, smuggling, gambling, whatever the law don't like. If you want to complicate matters maybe the gang has a couple watchman in their pockets. Or maybe use a cult instead of a gang.

Maybe the barman is running a fight club type setup in the basement. Why fight for a reputation when you could fight for a reputation and bet on yourself?

Maybe a local famous retired adventurer type is a regular. He's the one who beat up the mercs and he don't take kindly to trouble makers. It might be bad PR if they do beat the guy up - now they've got find someway to protect their rep without having a serious fight with the guy.

>Wearing hide makes you much more resistant to major injury rolls than wearing heavy armour

Overall though makes champion maybe more interesting if not a luck-based fuckfest.

Still, rather than rolling on these tables I'd much rather keep crits situational rather than a random table of 'more or less damage and in different ways'. So, if an enemy has something in their hands the player really doesn't want there, they might be able to knock it away out of ther hands as part of the crit.

Zealot Barbarian who plays a priest of Kord here. I love my Radiant AoE and being able to come back to life as long as the Cleric's got a 3rd level slot free.

Man.
You know.
That's pretty fucking great.
It was just too simple to make him an edgy blade-man or a tragic case of nihilism with the fate approach.
I think I will use this.

Have you tried using human v2 in a game to see how it plays out? I like what I'm seeing and plan on using it in games I run.

Its definitely helpful, but its ultimately the DM's responsibility to not throw too much at the party that they can't handle. Maybe its just because I'm used to people who are not particularly minmax focused, but I just don't get people who stress about how certain race+class combinations. I'm not going to tpk you because your attack roll is 1 lower than optimum.

My last character to die was trying to enchant a magic weapon with some demonic black magic voodoo bullshit. He fucked up the ritual and summoned a demon that wrecked his face.

He had it coming, frankly.