/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General

FUDGE
EVERYTHING

Newly appearing creatures can scale to whatever power level the situation demands. Is the party complete ass? Go easy on them. Are they doing really well today? Ramp it up.

The DM is there to improv, and not just in the social encounters. Combat and difficulty can also be improved.

5e Strahd is relatively easymode

If you want to give him a longsword +1 then why not. Just avoid anything major

Take cookies to grandmother's house

Help guard some people building a bridge
End up having to fight two extremely strong adventurers hired to stop the construction of the bridge, which threatens the local economic elites' cartel on the populace of this cut-off land.

rats in the tavern basement

5e Strahd is not a warrior. He's an asshole, who takes potshots at the party with fireballs, then phases through the floor to recover his wounds, only to attack again ten minutes later.

Yeah, I can think of few ways to get fucked better than "I'll engage in melee with a party of 4-5 guys, alone, as a Medium-sized creature".

transport a dragon egg

Do you guys actually go on missions?

My party just seems to stumble from one disaster to the next.

Yep Strahd should do all sorts of shitty things like grapple PCs and jump off the battlements

A world-class chef who lives in the middle of nowhere wishes to bring culture to the backwater, but he needs one finishing touch for his fancy restaurant: a massive plate glass window as seen in the finest dining establishments.

The party is hired to escort the massive pane of glass from a glazier in the big city to his restaurant in some podunk town hundreds of miles away. Not only must they contend with the physical hazards of the road and devise ingenious solutions to problems like a destroyed river fording and a freak summer hailstorm, but attacks from hostile creatures--including a tribe of superstitious goblins who believe the party has "captured the sun" (reflected in the glass) and wish to free it. And even when they reach its destination, they must contend with the local drunks, who have destroyed the last few glass panes which have made it to town.

Why are ASIs +2s now instead of +1 like they used to be? Better yet, why do they exist at all? I thought this edition was meant to be a throwback to AD&D. Bounded accuracy and all that shit. Except now your attributes are basically meaningless, they are just a start point for when you pump all your stats to 20 because you have 10 points of ASIs to spend along with having scores that start in the mid-to-high teens. Better yet, the +1s were literally the only reason to preserve the 3-18 stat structure, thus making it completely meaningless due to the popularity of stat arrays and point buys.

I mean I'm sorry but the failure in game design here is just staggering.

>because you have 10 points of ASIs to spend
You have 2-3 ASIs to spend and they compete with feats. Also, there are more classes than just "Fighter" and "Wizard"; they rely on more than just one stat.

It's more than an oversight, it's lazy game design. They just copypasted the vampire statblocks, gave it legendary resistance and called it a day. The spells and legendary actions were already in the MM.

Wasn't he an 18th level spellcaster in previous editions?

You mean vampire Strahd, who apparently took levels in cowardice.
He was written as a soldier and a conquerer in life. He personally waged long and bloody wars to subjugate.

Play M&M with a fantasy skin then broseph

Do Lizardfolk make good Monks? I want to bite literally everything to death

One of his swords is embedded in a wall beneath Ravenloft. Another is being wielded by his animated armour. And why would he even use a sword, he has magical claws that he can grab people with to bite the shit out of them.

Honestly I second this. 3E's "5 Strength equals +5" approach makes things a whole lot better. Well, that and Strength being a worthwhile stat that lets you do more than hit things.

>You have 2-3 ASIs to spend and they compete with feats.

You mean the feats that suck so much that half of them half to give a +1 stat bonus to be attractive?

>Also, there are more classes than just "Fighter" and "Wizard"; they rely on more than just one stat.

If you're actually implying wizard is a MAD class, you're retarded. And a fighter can easily buff Str and Con to 20, he doesn't need dex if he's using heavy armor because heavy armor has always been superior in D&D. So what is the ASI system good for? Monks? Which are shit anyway?

>post Roll20 listing for a simple Forgotten Realms 5e campaign
>post criteria for player application
>get almost nothing but weeaboo tier characters, orphans, and mary sues

where do these people come from?

No wonder why you're so retarded, you can't even read.

Strahd has always been a mid level vampiric magic user, most likely inspired by the "vampire, magic user, 9th to 12th" off the random encounter charts.

5e Strahd is way way WAY more powerful than Original Flavor.

That's.., Strahd, dude. He's purposefully generic. His minions, environment, and adventure format are the crazy variant parts, but Strahd himself is the most archetypal, generic vampire possible.

>Wasn't he an 18th level spellcaster in previous editions?

No.

Monks suck period

A True Neutral Mystic would probably work okay as a stand-in for Monk

The feats have multiple effects and do more things than feats ever did in past editions.

And no, I was implying that Fighters and Wizards are simple, one-stat classes (you really don't need to max Con) and the OTHERS require a bunch of shit, like Bard or Monk.

Which class would fit a diplomat the most? I'm thinking Bard or Mastermind Rogue

That's nothing, take a look at mine.
app.roll20.net/forum/post/4834143/new-player-applications

>Monks? Which are shit anyway?

If you wanted to say "I know nothing about the game and am retarded," you could have just said so.

I'm not exactly sure what your problem is. Even if the stats are just a start point, you're still never going to hit level 18, so you're lucky if you get one attribute to 20.

2e Ravenloft Strahd got a major power upgrade

Still quite a bit weaker than Azalin significantly more potent than 1e module Strahd

>A True Neutral Mystic would probably work okay as a stand-in for Monk

As a stand in for a Wot4E monk, minus the things that aren't using elements, sure.

Oh shit, wrong memes picture.

You are both such precious little babies.

>2e Ravenloft Strahd got a major power upgrade

Fair enough, but he's still a pushover compared to 5e Strahd.

In Ravenloft, in terms of power level, most Darklords aren't even close to the biggest ass kickers in their domain.

it's too late, everyone knows your dark secret now

Nah Immortal Mystics are excellent upgrades on standard beat shit to death with your fists monks

Yes. Bite makes them even stronger in the first tier of play, most things synergize and even the ones that don't (AC) don't hurt.

>where do these people come from?
Roll20. You answered your own question.

Mechanical class and actual character can be as divorced or connected as you choose. Both of those sound fine. Anything that uses Cha would make good use of the good charisma you'll want to do the diplomacy.

Bard is an obvious choice, but I like paladin diplomats too. Sorcerers could use subtle spell metamagic to be more sneaky with charm spells.

Mastermind sounds like a neat choice if you don't want to pick an obvious charisma class.

Barbarian.

The extent of their monkishness is "good unarmored defenses." They have the offensive capabilities of your average cleric at best. They lack the control and anti-magic-resistant-shit factors of a monk.

Food Fight

>tfw your party treats the game like an elder scrolls game and if the DM even hints at something happening off screen they'll drop whatever they're doing and go check it out even though we're on a race against time

>Nah Immortal Mystics are excellent upgrades on standard beat shit to death with your fists monks
They do different things monk is better at damage overall and consistant damage. Immortal mystics can do decent spike damage and are a bitch to drop.

I'm about to run my first campaign as a DM, any tips you can spare?
I'm familiar with 5e and so our my players.

>Bard

At my table, the Beguiling Influence invocation grants Expertise at Persuasion and Deception, if you already have that skill

And how does that work out for the party? This may be a case of the DM encouraging it.

The third campaign I was ever in we never finished any quests. We would get close to finishing the quest then some cataclysmic event occurred or an invasion of devils or barbarians blocked our path from the final leg of the quest. When that happened someone always gave us a new quest to work on and the cycle continued, we'd get close to completing the quest and never actually finish it.

>Hungry for some munchies after a long day
>Go down to the local tavern for an ale and some grub
>Several mercenaries are giving the owner some trouble
>They start a fight with the PCs resulting in major tavern brawl
>Cameo by a powerful female wizard in skimpy clothing

Yeah sounds about normal for campaign kickoffs

don't worry about being good
worry about being fun

you are going to fuck something up
roll with the punches and improvise

if a player has something in their backstory try to use it. have the BBEG's main henchman be the six fingered man that killed his father

I want to homebrew some firearms for my dumb setting. Do you guys have any tips or advice for that sort of thing? I don't have a whole lot of experience with the balance of 5e and I'd rather not throw it off too hard.

- Small groups are efficient, large groups take longer to ply
- Try to be as fair as possible
- Use time to bring each player's character in the spotlight, in combat try to unify everyone

Is Fighter 1 / Light Cleric X, an okay combination?
What I'm looking for is heavy armor, defense fighting style and CON saving throw

Hopefully now you have learned that hard failure is ALWAYS a possibility and will keep it in mind from here on out. An additional upside is that this would be a great opportunity to work on your non-combat encounter building skills.
What exactly was the problem? If it was a rules/strategy issue then you may have to go full tutorial and give them an environment where they can work on that. Their characters may not have enough to work with at their current level so giving them a little boost could help a lot. Of course if you're just blaming them because they rolled poorly then hey, that's another thing you get to work on.

what kind of tech level are we talking here?

Matchlock?
Flintlock?
Lever Action?
Revolver?
automatic?

Anything you don't like about the firearms in the DMG? Using those seems like the easiest solution.

You already get heavy armor from being a Light Cleric, so adding Fighter levels seems excessive unless you want Action Surge (Fighter 2) or something. It's probably simpler picking Resillent(Con) feat if you want the Con saves.

if it's a modern setting, just refluff bow and crossbow to gun.

> Light Cleric
> Heavy armor
You might want to check your fact again brah.

Also
> wasting ASI on a feat, when realistically you will only get two of those before the campaign end

>not buying as many feats as you can
Some of them even give you a stat bonus!

>app.roll20.net/forum/post/4834143/new-player-applications

Shaduko says you're a meme loving fuck, is that true?

Oh, I read that as Life. I didn't expect a Light Cleric wanting to sit in melee.

In any case, you're slowing down your spell progression, so you have to consider if it's really worth it.

>has multiple meme pictures
>so hyped to use them he even posts the wrong one
Of course he's a meme-loving fuck.

> heavy armor mean you want to sit in melee
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA NO

Okay, so it's definitely not worth it then. Why are you asking stupid questions?

> He still assuming
Life advice: stop doing that there is a reason why Assume is spell with ASS U ME.

If you want to flavor a Mystic as a Monk wouldn't you go Soul Knife and make the Soul Knives just be Psychic punches?

Modern-ish sort of tech level. Kind of a mish mash of different eras. Automatics will definitely be a thing though.
Didn't know they had those rules already. Thanks.

kek
I think I might actually do this in the future

Assume comes from the Latin ad- (toward, upwards) and sumere (to take).

Ass comes from a dropping of the r (which happens) from arse, which comes by way of Old English and Proto Germanic.

Completely different roots. They don't meet until all the way back in PIE, but pretty much everything does.

I'm super bitter about the fact that I legit cannot find any method a 5e barbarian is more versatile and useful than a 5e druid. And this is after playing 5e since release now.

Everything just seems like 'try to tank, then the druid turns into a bear'

Want to scout ahead? Wait a minute, the druid turned into an owl. Roll for a medicine check? The druid cast cure wounds and healed everyone up. Two attacks? They turn into a t-rex and just eat everyone and laugh. Even with rage damage reduction going to the barbarian, is there any way at all an optimized 5e barbarian can out do an optimized 5e druid?

Alright so this is a new copypasta?

>Everything just seems like 'try to tank, then the druid turns into a bear'
>I can't build a barbarian that tanks better than a couple of CR 1 monsters

I think I know what the problem is here

Sounds fine. You'll want Fighter 2 at some point, but you may want to wait a while (eg after getting Revivify or so)

This sounds more like you have a problem with druid than you do barbarians. Wait until you get past level 4. I agree that Barbs have low versatility but that doesn't make them mechanically weak

>Taking a funny thing to say this seriously

This English major ain't gonna suck itself.

>Everything just seems like 'try to tank, then the druid turns into a bear'
I understand you're feelings towards it but have you tried playing past level 2?

Why players always draw weapons, they never solve disagreements with their fists

Because fists do 1+Str damage.

Yes but attacking someone with weapons is attempted murder

Generally its in self defence, or the other person is an evil dick, or you're the evil dick so its ok

Why are you answering every application

You can just tell the ones who are actually going to make it via PM

It usually doesn't stop at attempted murder.

Medieval court systems != our modern legal system
Those fuckers probably don't even recognize the difference between assault and battery.

What's the best way to build a Character focused on Slinging people? I was thinking a Halfling Thief but a Haflling Ranger could also be good.

Don't. It'll get old in exactly eight minutes of mentioning it to the group.

A rogue will deal nearly as much damage with a sling as any other weapon, difference of 1 or so. Alternatively, any character could pick up Magic Stone with magic initiate, but you'd rely on Wis or Cha for it.

Halfling Rogue. All you are losing is 1 damage and range

It's giving up like 1-2 average damage in exchange for a weapon I love.

I liked the idea of a Rogue but the lack of Darkvision seemed like it would hurt.

Because the dude isn't saying something like, "all right you fucking pussy, let's throw hands right fucking now!"

>weapon
I legitimately thought you meant throwing people at your enemies. My bad, dude.

I'm gonna be playing a Tabaxi sunsoul monk and since he will be praising the sun and stuff I was considering taking 1 or 2 levels in cleric (light domain), warding flare seems something I would use often and the channel divinity thing seems fitting for my character.
We start at level 5 and dunno if it's worth giving up ki and delaying my extra attack, also what would be spells that would go well with monk? I don't see myself spending my action to cast a spell when I could be throwing three-four sunbolts (gm let me use sunbolts as a bonus action if I attack, so just like MA bonus unnarmed attack)

To be fair, that was a valid thought. The amount of people making weird meme characters like that is disgusting.