/5eg/ Fifth Edition General: Best adventure edition

Guys, how's this build?

>Level 3
>Variant Human
>Crossbow Mastery
>Rogue-Scout
>heavy crossbow

I know that apparently Arcane Trickster is the way to go, but I don't want it to be a spellcaster.

Is the rogue scout good? From the looks of it, all that mobility sounds pretty sweet.

Yeah, I was just thinking of adapting it to higher levels.

It's shit. You're supposed to be using hand crossbow.

yes you are correct because magical secrets specify "as shown on the bard table" so its your bard levels

>how's this build?
Ok, not too shabby

Remember to abuse cunning action and be operator as fuck

Also
>Shield in the pic
You might want to look for another pic for your char

Rogue doesn't get Heavy Crossbow expertise.

>Heavy Crossbow expertise.
Proficiency.
I am tired.

>Heavy Crossbow expertise

guise he just figured out how to fix martials

>+11 to hit at level 5
jesus christ how horrifying

If you're going for a full Castlevania feel, there's some fun you can go with.

Make the Fishmen/Gill Men into Kuo Toa, bring in the Sunken Temple of Sarnath as a location from Castlevania III. Make it also the lair of the Bone Dragon King, an undead dragon.

Alright, because people keep fucking this up, and no one ever corrects them:

If you're making an unarmed fighting style, totem, or whatever and the class doesn't get magical attacks already, they don't get magical unarmed strikes as a class feature. If they don't scale up their weapon damage as they level normally, they don't get scaling unarmed strike damage either.

Wait, people think that's how it works for non-monks?

Having a min-maxer contract 'you're more powerful but with problems' disease is pretty good

'You're even MORE min-maxed. But you suffer out of combat problems. Serious ones. But you don't care, you're a min-maxer.'

Why?

>Crossbow mastery
>Using a crossbow you're not proficient in over the hand crossbow which is clearly much, much better

>Sure am glad I'm making attacks for 1d10+DEX when I could be making two attacks for 2d6+2DEX with an extra chance of getting a sneak attack if you failed the first time

>untz untz vampire music
>not from Skull and Shark
youtube.com/watch?v=BEkUH2kYfOI

I agree with the unarmed strike scaling, but as for the magical unarmed attacks...
As long as there's a good reason they should have it, they should probably get it. Magical weapons are some sort of gateway required feature for all martials, and non-magical weapon resistance only really serves to bully low level characters and prevent hirelings + skeleton armies + peasant armies from hurting certain creatures and making the players feel more heroic.
You can easily remove non-magical-weapon resistance if you want.

Does anyone else feel like the 7 adventures selected were kind of weak sauce?

Sunless Citadel and Forge are only memorable if you started as a 3eaboo.

Against the Giants is kind of pointless when they've already adapted it via SKT.

Hidden Shrine is fun but it can be hard to shoe horn into a Sword Coast setting.

White plume mountain is okay but honestly it and tomb of horrors are better as one shots.

I can't evem seem to care about the thay adventure either way.

Seems like keep on the borderlands and bone hill and against the reptile cult would've been better picks than some of the ones selected.

Only crossbowman pic I had on hand.

FUCK! I forgot about the proficiency,

Well, I gotta re-think the concept.

I want a dude with heavy crossbows.
Is there a viable build for that?

You can always multiclass 1 level into fighter, that'll give you proficiencies and archery style

Not in Ravenloft it isn't.

>You're now subject to the Dark Powers.
>You have a 25% chance of falling to their whim and becoming an NPC
>Did you do bad stuff? Now you have a 50% chance.
>More bad stuff? 75% chance.

The ultimate cockblock.

The only way heavy crossbows are ever viable are with builds that attack a fuck load of times and/or use bonus actions on other things already. Otherwise, hand crossbow will always be much, much better.

As such, a hunter ranger with horde breaker and volley is probably a good choice. Or a level 20 fighter.

But on a hunter ranger you can probably use a heavy crossbow instead of a handcrossbow at level 5+ and it'll be not much worse than using a hand crossbow (You don't really have to be 100% optimal, after all). Eventually it becomes better when you get stuff to do with your bonus action other than hunter's mark and when you get volley for lots of attacks.

Well the DM giving someone surprise vampirism in AD&D Ravenloft is extreme dickery, since they become an NPC.

who cares about "muh better". He wants to use a fucking heavy crossbow.

He asked "how about this build?" though

Not a bad option, although that would mean I would have to wait one level to get my rogue mobility shenanigans.

Remind me again why hand crossbows are so good? They're just a crossbow with less damage, no? The only feature is that you can fire (sorry, the correct term is I think "loosen"?) two of them (although you can't reload them), and that they look rather silly compared to a badass arbalest.

Normal fighters are good, hunter-rangers are decent (mixing in aoe & anticaster stuff), UA sharpshooter is vomit inducingly OP.

The advantage of a hand crossbow is you can shoot an extra shot with crossbow mastery via bonus actions.

Not immediately, iirc. I think they can kill themselves and be resurrected as a mortal in the first day and it's cool. Expensive, but cool.

Always-available bonus action attack through Crossbow Expert. That's all there is to it, but it's a solid advantage.

The smaller hit die and range don't matter because you'll also be picking Sharpshooter.

Barbarians don't get free counts-as-magic weapons, why should they get free counts-as-magic unarmed strikes? They shouldn't.

>Is there a viable build for that?
Fighter? Yes. Ranger? Yes. Rogue? No.

didn't 5eg used to have a mega for DM's Guild content? Is that still a thing?

>Crossbow Expert
>Thanks to extensive practice with the crossbow, you gain the following benefits:

>• You ignore the loading quality of crossbows with which you are proficient.

>• Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn't impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls.

>• When you use the Attack action and attack with a one-handed weapon, you can use a bonus action to attack with a loaded hand crossbow you are holding.

Sounds like to me that if you have a sword in one hand and a hand crossbow in the other, you get an extra attack with the latter.

But the hand crossbow also needs two hands to be reloaded, so how is this supposed to work? You sheathe or put down your sword in each turn to reload, or you just get one extra hand crossbow attack in the first round and that's it?

Sunless Citadel is rated very highly though.
Also the book doesn't seem that focused on running them as one whole campaign.

If you're getting crossbow mastery, hand crossbow gives you an extra attack for 1d6+DEX+Bonuses
Bonuses can include sharpshooter's +10 or any on-hit +damage effect, really. Also interrupting spells easier and all that. And splitting attacks between opponents, and extra chances of sneak attack.
1d10->1d6 is only about -2.1 damage per attack.

Even a level 11 fighter should be using hand crossbows, especially with sharpshooter (sharpshooter's ability makes the -2.1 damage even less significant considering it lowers your hit chance in the first place)

But, yes, they're completely possibly usable if you've got a spare feat to get the +1.05 damage over using a longbow. And, honestly, taking a heavy crossbow over a longbow is more worth it for flavour when it's suboptimal than taking a heavy crossbow over a hand crossbow when it's suboptimal.

Yes, and that's fine, but if it's a difference between DOUBLE DAMAGE and normal damage, you're kind of an idiot to take the normal damage.

A hand crossbow IS a one-handed weapon, user. Most people just dual wield hand crossbows and have more strapped to their body like ye olde pirates of lore for New York style reloads.

Magic weapons are far more common than items that give you magic unarmed strikes

Martials essentially do. They're expected to get magical weapons sooner or later. It's not free.

One of the disadvantages of unarmed combat is you don't get magical weapons, so ignoring resistance offsets that downside (even though it's still a big downside after the offset)

Hand Crossbows are a one-handed weapon. If you attack with it, you qualify to get a bonus attack with the same. Reloading is part of the action, so (as per both sage advise and the errata) all you need is a hand free.

What should a Binder be able to do?
Would it be Warlock, or be something new?
How many vestiges should it accrue?
And what kind of powers should they give to you?

Store my collection of baseball cards.
Something new.
An official binder from Topps holds 700 cards.
Batting average (min. 300 at-bats), Hits, Home Runs, Runs Batted In

I'd say a Binder would be a warlock Pact. Pact of the Vestige.

More vestiges would be Eldritch Invocations.

Oh yeah, and how does that work? Do the bolts just magically don't fall off of them?

They're not pistols, this seems to me a little bit of abusing the rules.

So what you mean is that you have one hand crossbow in hand, and you can fire it twice because the rules say:

>When you use the Attack action and attack with a one-handed weapon, you can use a bonus action to attack with a loaded hand crossbow you are holding

Because I don't think it works that way. What the rule refers to is that you have a melee weapon in one hand, and a hand crossbow in the other. Maybe two hand crossbows. But in either of these cases, you don't have a free hand to reload them. I don't think the one handed weapon in the rule can be applied to one hand crossbow. Come on now, that's dumb.

The Mystic is essentially a Binder with psychic fluff.

CoS suggests the 5e devteam IS thinking about Binders in some faculty, as tied in with Ravenloft, probably.

The bolts are slotted into highly sexual grooves intended for their holding.

Also, the funny thing is that the official D&D rules are as said. I don't care if you don't think it works that way, the fucking creators of the game already clarified it because thousands of people asked the same question you have.

I think mine is funnier, but yeah.

I definitely wouldn't allow it as a DM, but if yours does and everyone's having fun, who cares?

Still, heavy crossbows are cool, so I want to go with them.

>Do the bolts just magically don't fall off of them?

Do you have any idea how crossbows work?

In any case I actually designed a pair of one-handed magazine fed crossbows explicitly for these arguments.

Take it up with Crawford, faggot.

Friend is asking me if he can Heat Metal an arrowhead and use it on the enemy.

How would you adjudicate it? Would you allow it?

Actually, to respond to my own post,

the longbow - heavy crossbow thing is actually ... The heavy crossbow is often worth getting the feat for over the longbow.

No disadvantage on attacks within 5ft or +1 to hit (if you took the no disadvantage within 5ft but +1 to hit instead of +2 to hit fighting style) is worth taking a feat for.

Because if an enemy is prone or paralyzed or such, you can gain the benefits and advantage by moving within 5ft of them and then firing.
Otherwise, yes, you can normally get out of having to fire within 5ft, but there are times it's nice.

If you would otherwise take the +1 to hit no disadvantage fighting style, getting crossbow mastery solely for using heavy crossbow instead of longbow is basically +1 to hit +1 to damage.

Actually that's the original version, the fixed one simply makes the bit that's broken curved so it avoids your hands.

>Casting Time 1 action

No?

Unless he wants to waste extra actions with Action Surge or some shit to do 2d8 damage.

You guys really went to great lengths to play the demon hunter from Diablo 3, didn't you?

But like I said, as long as everyone's having fun, who cares.

I once played a not-French mage in 7th Sea, who just kept pulling pistols out from extradimensional pockets. All good fun.

Anyway, so apparently I should go for Sharpshooter. Alright.

I mean he's thinking of doing it for an ally's arrows. Sorry forgot to mention.

I'd allow it, but it wouldn't do immediate extra damage (it deals damage on the creature's turn), and the enemy could pull the arrow out of themself as a bonus action (though there may be a chance it stays in as the arrow breaks from their rough handling). And, of course, the arrow could miss.

I'd probably say that after a number of rounds it does a bit less damage because it's just burning the same spot instead of all over their body.

Well RAW and RAI you only need one hand crossbow for it to work.

I just thought making a one-handed mag fed crossbow would be a fun challenge last time I saw this "discussion".

Actually, responding to my own post to correct it, I'd probably say the creature can take an action to pull it out carefully or a bonus action to pull it out and presumably they could use an arrow that's designed to break off inside, thus meaning if they try to do it as a bonus action there's a DC 15 sleight of hand check to not break it as they pull it out.

I'd allow it. A level 2 spell slot for garbage damage is definitely a terrible PC idea. He ain't breaking anything aside from his own usefulness.

He's a vampire. Regardless of his original orientation (which probably included boobs unless he was REALLY into that political power marriage that started this whole shitfest) he's been around too long not to get bored enough to fuck anything with a pulse- actually, that's inaccurate. Anything with 12 charisma.

Initially it was probably as you say, a saber and pistol pirate style. That's the image you get reading the feat, anyway, it's obvious.
The Sage erratas went the other way completely, you need a free hand to reload unless the xbow is magic and semi-automatic (or you load it one handed, shotgun style - needs DM fiat anyway), so you can't go saber-and-pistol (or you can, but only once, can't do it round after round), but if you shoot the xbow it's ok, then you have a free hand to reload it and shoot again.
Fucking bullshit, all to make sure people can't go xbow and shield? but xbow and shield works too, if you have a self-loading xbow... it's a fucking mess of a ruling.

No way. He's specifically got a misery boner for Tatyana and is cursed to repeat his attempts at marrying her reincarnation over and over again by the dark powers. He's cursed to be hetero, forever.

>playing Curse of Strahd
>go to the Amber Temple because we trail Izek there
>eventually we find him charmed immobile by a statue
>we capture him, tie him up and cut off his metal arm so he's weak but we don't kill him
>When he comes to he's bleeding out because of his lost arm
>my druid digs in his knapsack for something to stop the bleeding and finds Ginko Brush, an herb for restoring a lost limb, from random herb gathering from the beginning of the campaign, and feed it to him
>30% chance of success, it works
>befriend Izek
>later on, our rogue rolls a 20 on persuasion to convince Izek to not make a deal with an old god to bring back the dead Burgomaster

That was pretty insane. Has anyone else managed to get him in their party before?

Different guy, but I always thought crossbow expert was for when you had sword and handcrossbow pirate style, turns out the devs laughed at me and told me it was for either double handcrossbow (if you had a way to reload them like for example derro handcrossbows or magic handcrossbows) of for when you had a free hand and a handcrossbow.

Not only RAW but also RAI is how that works, so if you have a problem with "diablo 3", ask the devs who were the ones who created this.

>swing powered crossbows
top meme

>not reloading with your mouth

Peasants.

I don't care about any of that crap.

What'd you do with the arm??

He could have romantic intentions for Tatyana while having a more indiscriminate libido.

She may be his true love, but he's the king, baby. He'll fuck what he wants, when he wants.
Charmed/seduced PCs? Fair game.
Enthralled minions and spawn? Sometimes you gotta carefully save the good ones instead of setting wolves on em, you know.
His own animated armor? It's reliable.
Piddlewick? Once, on a VERY lonely Tuesday.

Can arcane trickster's magical hand load crossbow as bonus action ?

I like designing needlessly complicated weapons.

This one would work entirely mechanically with the crank kept in the pouch on the bottom, the only "magic" part is an automatic crank. In theory it'd function in reality fine, though I don't think it'd have very good velocity.

Speaking of shields. Are tower shields still a thing, as in you can just put them on the ground and use them as cover?

>He's cursed to be hetero, forever.

I know that curse all too well

>Do the bolts just magically don't fall off of them?
There're irl crossbows that keep the bolt braced and no they don't fall.

>bring back the dead Burgomaster
Why would you do that?

It's simple. If you want a gay Strahd, just have Tatyana be reborn as a guy.

Of course, in his quest to marry him, a Baelnorn will use the distraction to take over Ravenloft.

Probably, but then you aren't attacking as a bonus action, there's no gain.
AFAIK there are no Pavises. Maybe the Arcane Archer could use a portable slab of metal, to hide behind and shoot without line of sight, but IIRC he has limited uses of that.

I'm emergency DMing a game with a new player joining in. I have trouble explaining how dual wielding works when combined with extra attacks in 5th. Can anyone do a quick rundown?

...huh, that's actually really clever.

Anyone have any good one-offs with plenty of role-playing opportunities?

It works just like regular extra attack, but you can spend bonus action to attack with your off hand.

Could Mage Hand or Unseen Servant perform a heart massage?

>AFAIK there are no Pavises.
I'm not familiar with the 5e concealment rules, but I guess it should be easy to homebrew them, right?

Basically the same as in 3.5. You need an action to set it on the ground, and there you go, partial cover.

A Bonus Action Attack is not the same thing as the Attack Action.
Extra Attacks work with the Attack Action, but you'll always get only 1 Bonus Action Attack (exceptions: a Monk's Flurry of Blow and the Ranger's Swift Quiver spell let you make 2 Attacks as a single Bonus Action)

Anyone can dual wield. However, your second weapon must be Light, you can only make the "second" attack with your Bonus action, and you do not get to apply any Str bonus to it.

If you are a class that has the Dual Wielding style, you DO get to add your Str bonus to the second attack.

If you have the Dual Wielding feat, the weapon does not have to be Light.

The "Attack" action allows you to make as many normal attacks as per your level permits, but your offhand "dual wielding" attack always uses your bonus action.

Example. You are a level 5 fighter and now you get to make two attacks. You're dual wielding; a long sword and a dagger.

This means now you get :

- Attack once, long sword
- Attack again, long sword
- Bonus action TWF attack; dagger

No, make Strahd a woman.

While I find the idea that you can become bored into faggotry stupid, Strahd is very clearly bisexual and has at least one male consort.

> It's "another dumb motherfucker doesn't know how to crop" episode

But that's forbidden love!
>and that's why the Mists closed on Anastrahdia

I've DMed CoS twice, and I never got the "Strahd is bisexual" meme. Where is it implied? If it's that vampire spawn of his, you don't have to have a sexual relationship with your vampire spawn.