/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General

>rangers
>spells

This is one of the most cancerous parts of D&D. Aragorn (the original ranger) never used spells, except for lay on hands which was a holy power granted by his ancestry. Ranger is a martial class, it dosen't need to cast fucking spells like a second-rate druid

Not an argument.

Why do you keep dropping this copypasta in every thread.

We get it you are a salty as fuck 3eaboo who thinks that everything 3.x should be sacred and attempts to mix AD&D/3.x/4e in one melting pot should be punished.

My players are maybe meeting a physical god (giant ape) next session. Any obvious weaknesses? Don't want him to go down like a chump if they attack him

Yes it is, because you are a goddamn dribbling autist.
There's no one forcing you to play 5e, why the fuck are you here?

OK, there was also Save vs Spell, Paralysis, Petrification/Polymorph, Death, Wand, Staff, and so on.
Nothing wrong with it! Fortitude/Reflex/Will are no better than using flat out stats as saving throws (and tied to a much worse system). In effect it's STILL that, since the VAST majority of saves are Dex, Wis, and Con.

Doing a dungeon for characters who will be Lvl2 when they go in. Help me flesh it out lads. I've got most of the top end sorted.

The main hallway (past the first room) has a trap in it but idk what kind yet [the green tiles]. the chest on the left is a mimic and the light blue is a secret corridor into the EVIL WIZARD's bedroom. The door at the end of the hallway is locked, I was thinking you'd have to go into the rightmost room to get the key, again idk how. The rightmost room is locked but the key is right next to it, i was thinking it might be where the guy stores his used up dead bodies or something. the dark blue on the left is a downwards fast-flowing stream that the players can ride, goonies style, out of the dungeon when they're done.

I prefer pass without trace, but I have both anyway

Kinda reminds me of a DF fort senpai.

You tell me, is he lactose intolerant?

Cheese will always find a way, user.

See, the thing is that I never liked that there *wasn't* a Charisma saving throw. 3e D&D described Charisma as your self of self. At its most basic it was the ability of a creature to tell itself apart from things that were not itself (compare Wisdom, which was the ability of a creature to perceive its surroundings).

Using that, Charisma saves sound to me like they should be used a lot more often - against anything that tries to change your thought processes. Charm and Suggestion for example, or as a Sanity saving throw.

Whereas Wisdom should be reserved for things that try and fuck with your perceptions, like illusions.

>Is 5e doing alright? edition
I'm sure it's selling fine, but it really needs a character option splat that doesn't suck.

idk what that means fampai

Rangers and Paladins have been casters since 1e user.

Not everything should be constrained by what Tolkien wrote. OD&D was originally more inspired by Sword and Sorcery than being a LotR pastiche it's just that LotR and the Hobbit had a big increase in popularity in the early 70s and Gygax incorporated aspects of that into D&D.

If you want to go full grog why not complain that Rangers should get both Wizard and Druid spells instead of being limited to Druid stuff.

dwarf fortress

What are good beasts for a beast conclave ranger for out of the abyss? Giant Weasel and Badger are the only ones on the list with darkvision, but I don't know if there are any others that fit the beast requirements and also have darkvision

I think market research has indicated that doing the endless splatbook treadmill like WotC did with 3.x and Paizo does with PF isn't going to result in enough sales.

I think 5e is built around keeping the core books evergreen and giving some additional support around DM tools (Modules and additional Monsters).

Complete Fighter/Cleric/Rogue/Wizard style books balkanize your sales.

Why isn't this guy walking down the abyss?

>Merals
Hi, Virt.

How do you guys feel about certain items being tied to feats? Think exotic weapon feats, but the item and a few bonuses are tied to the feat itself rather than just the ability to use them.

Example:

Great Shield Proficiency
+1 Strength or Constitution
You can now equip heavier shields. Whenever you equip a shield, you gain a +2 instead of a +1 bonus to your AC.
As a reaction, choose an allied creature within 5 feet of you. That creature gains a +2 AC bonus until the start of your next turn.

While 5e certainly has a lot of options, I feel like in the end it is a bit shallow in terms of play styles. With these types of feats, I think you'd be able to add in feats that offer something else aside from must-haves such as great weapon mastery or polearm mastery(in a sense, these feats are "mastery" feats). Likewise, these types of feats can be used to bring other weapons/playstyles up to par with the bread and butter builds such as polearms and rapier/shield combos.

>It's another another user baits people with pasta and autism thread

Everytime, more of us are noticing it.
Good.

I don't like it.
The feat looks good, but having a shield category locked behind a feat give me Virt-nam flashbacks.

I need some opinions. Has anyone read through or used content from the book? I'm trying to get an opinion on how balanced the Kensei is.

I'm glad they did the UA first and let the powergamers have at it, this way they'll actually release, in theory, decently balanced classes and such in the next book.

Also if I remember correctly the prediction is sometime in the fall we'll be getting more books, atleast one is probably gonna be a module taken from previous editions and another hopefully is new class options.

I never thought I would see someone who actually liked the pre-3e saving throw system.

That's kind of amazing.

When is Fall to a non-American? Start of autumn, so around Sept sometime?

While I agree it isn't very fun locking stuff behind feats, I can't think of any other place to really put something in that fixes or improves a certain play style and still get it to be strong enough to contend with the others.

>Whenever you equip a shield, you gain a +2 instead of a +1 bonus to your AC.
>Shield in 5e gives +2 AC by default

What did he mean by this?

Yes roughly that time, again I could be off but I remember people talking about it in these threads.

He probably doesn't, he's just a troll that people indulged around the same time yesterday and it now is going to be a thing I guess.

It worked perfectly fine, especially for the game it's built for. For shit like evading traps, you wouldn't even use those saves more often than not, or you'd use 'Dragon-breath', it was all arbitrary and up to the GM.
3e saves were concise, but attached to the worst mechanical system for RPGs I've ever used. Ever.
5e saves are fine, each person gets 1 common and 1 uncommon save. Int, Str, and Cha saves don't come up too often at all, but it's nice to have proficiency when they do.

How would people in a medieval setting cure anaphylactic shock? is it possible or were people with serious allergies just fucked?

Welp I'm dumb for not double checking, I don't use shields much myself. Should've been upgraded to +3. Though the bonus for the ally should've remained the same.

"Great Shield Proficiency
+1 Strength or Constitution
You can now equip heavier shields. Whenever you equip a shield, you gain a +3 instead of a +2 bonus to your AC.
As a reaction, choose an allied creature within 5 feet of you. That creature gains a +2 AC bonus until the start of your next turn."

Making it so a regular shield only gives +1 and then with the feat you can get bigger and stronger shields that give +2. That's my guess anyway.

Works=/=Optimized

bump

>When is Fall to a non-American? Start of autumn, so around Sept sometime?

Fall and Autumn are two different names for the same season, so they start and end at the same time.

I know the actual feat isn't as important as the concept you're suggesting, but the reaction to grant +2 AC seems a little weak. Maybe have a passive +1 AC to all allied creatures within 5 feet, and 1/short rest use a reaction to impose disadvantage on an attack against an ally within 5 feet?

The arbitrary divisions for the saves is more wacky than actually bad from a gameplay standpoint.

I still really don't like how the target number you had to hit was just based on class and level.

I don't have much experience with older editions but it seems like at higher levels spells with saves would be unusable.

What are you after exactly?

appropriate encounters, ideas on the things I'm not sure about yet (key and trap), other cool ideas you might have

There's already a fighting style that gives disadvantage, unless you're trying to make it so people like clerics have access to it without MC.

I think the reaction is suitable. Basically the reason why I didn't make it for all allied creatures within 5 feet is logistics.

Let's say someone is raining arrows down on you, you have a rather large and sturdy shield such as pic related. Would you normally be able to protect everyone around you, including yourself? Not exactly, but you can protect yourself and one person behind you/under your shield. As for the short rest idea, that is already covered by the fighting style for Shields, imposing disadvantage on an attack against an ally within 5 feet.

For people who have a huge boner for shields, it wouldn't really be balanced nor fun to take away options for them like that. "If I get this feat, should I get the fighting style too? Nah, feat is good enough" would eliminate the need for the fighting style overall.

For trap with a mad wizard I'd have a trigger that reverses gravity, up into a set of spikes on the ceiling, or a zombie pit. It'd be tricky to not give it away, while still giving them a fair shot at avoiding it with a hint, unless your players already know "check for traps in a wizards lair."

A key could be something along the lines of a phrase that they get clues on when they enter. Another idea would be it's a certain gem or type of item (metal, wood, stone) they have to touch to a spot. With that once again somewhere they'd need a hint, or just hide a key behind an odd tile on the floor.

For encounters it'd really depend on the make up of the party and what gear they have. Zombies or undead wouldn't be terrible, a gibbering mouther would give them a fight, if you really want to fuck with them oozes.

Specialists apply penalties to spells with saves, there's spells that vastly reduce saves, and a lot of high-end spells also apply penalties. They work just fine. By the time everything saves on a 2+, you have enough options to work around it, though it may take a couple rounds. Magic Resistance is far more irritating, as far as that goes!
Target numbers were modified by magic items, occasionally by stats (though you had to have pretty damn high stats for that to apply in 2e, 14+ usually). For instance, a spell or effect you could 'dodge', you apply any dex bonus you'd apply to your AC to the save. Wisdom can give bonuses against mind-effecting spells. That sort of thing.

It has its merits. Mostly I like how they aren't affected by attribute score modifiers and how it balanced magic out. High level fighters and monsters can shrug off powerful spells and effects, even ones cast by powerful spellcasters.
I probably would prefer the single category saving throw Swords & Wizardry does, though.

make it bigger and longer

Just IGNORE the autistic fuck, he's being doing it for threads already...

for what purpose exactly?

I have it, anything you want to know in particular?
As far as the Kensei goes, it doesn't have anything that immediately stands out as a red flag (crazy damage, insane utility). It's not very elegant, and it's kinda wordy overall, but it definitely gets the aesthetic IMO.

It would be cool to run this and have a phalanx. The only bugs here are in the grammar, which is a nonissue becuase RAI is very clear even if RAW are kind of borked, and the fluff doesn't meet the stats.

You're saying this is "Great Shield Proficiency" like it's tied to an item called "Great Shield" and even in the stat-line you even mention that "You can now equip heavier shields" but the bonus applies to ALL shields

I fix

>"Greatshield Proficiency
+1 Strength or Constitution
>You can now equip wield greatshields. Greatshields weigh 12lbs and cost 25gp but equiping it will grant +3 AC instead of the +2 AC a standard shield will grant
>If you have a shield equipped then the end of your turn choose an allied creature within five feet of you. You may grant that creature a +1 AC bonus until the start of your next turn, however by doing so you lose your reaction action for this round.
>If you have a greatshield equipped then increase the AC bonus you can grant to an allied creature to +2

Sound fair?

I personally think any additional feats people come up with are cool. Just do us a favor and if you come up with more toss them all in a PDF so that people can pick and chose the ones they like if they want to add more feats to their game.

An example.
I thought of this.

Heavy shields.

A heavy shield example

>Tower Shield
>30gp, 13 lbs. AC +3
>Heavy Shield, Str 13, -5ft walk speed.
A tower shield is made from wood or metal and is carried in one hand. Wielding a shield increases your Armor Class by 3, but it's weight limits your movement. You can benefit from only one shield at a time.

>Bulwark
>Prerequisite: Shield Master, Str 15

>Combining arm strength and martial training you are no longer slowed by any shield, ignoring any penalty to walking imposed by Heavy Shields, and are able to quickly react to threats to both yourself and allies in order to avoid damage.

>You gain +1 AC from any shield you wear.
.
>As a reaction, choose an allied creature within 5 feet of you. That creature gains a bonus to AC equal to the increase you'd gain from your shield until the start of your next turn. You gain no AC increase from your shield until the start of your next turn.

I completely forgot about the fighting style. Yeah, that is pretty much a copy/paste of it, huh.
Still, my main problem with the feat is that it is a reaction, thus competing with other uses for your reaction, such as the protection fighting style. I'd make it a bonus action if I were to run it.

One of my players is an escaped bride of Strahd, whose motivation is to save her sisters from his clutches - who, unbeknownst to her, have all been turned save for one.

Now I want to present her with her sisters somewhere in the castle, bound and gagged so that she lunges at them, trying to release them - ensuing mayhem etc.. But I am stuck on a convincing/interesting setup. Anyone has any ideas?

Sounds fair, the feat was never really something I was trying to focus on too much, more of a proof of concept. I feel like feats like these can be used to fix failing play styles such as dual wielding or axes.

I do like this a bit more, though I feel like the +1 AC pushes it into iron man territory. At 1st level, taking a VA human you could achieve a total AC of 21 if you go fighter at level 1. A more balanced version would be something like

"Bulwark
Prerequisite: Shield Master, Str 15

Combining arm strength and martial training you are no longer slowed by any shield, ignoring any penalty to walking imposed by Heavy Shields, and are able to quickly react to threats to both yourself and allies in order to avoid damage.

You gain a +2 bonus to dexterity saving throws whenever you are wielding a shield.

As a reaction, choose an allied creature within 5 feet of you. That creature gains a bonus to AC and dexterity saving throws equal to the increase you'd gain from your shield until the start of your next turn."

I'm sure V.Human shouldn't be the measuring stick for balance, but we are just Homebrewing.

Of course, still, they should be considered when homebrewing. Personally I'm not any good at feat creation, I'm more of a archetype kind of guy.

Care to share?

I've done it a few times before, so sure. Some of them may have been changed since I last posted them, I just haven't gotten around to exporting them into pdfs.

anyone had any success with charismatic necromancers or overall lich lords aren't just pure evil and no personality?

Should probably mention these haven't been playtested, so I don't know how strong or weak they are compared to official ones. Likewise, some of them I stopped trying to update or finish because I have to be in a certain mood to try and work on them.

This one is a good example of an unfinished one I was working on. Mesmerizing tactics and Thin the veil need to be fixed/removed/replaced with something else for example.

is it homebrew hour????

please let me die.

Why does mountain dwarf get two +2?

Nice.
Bookworm makes no sense, and some wording is weird.

why indeed, also the triton, v.human and half-elf get +1 to three stats, even a +2 to one for the half-elf.

So a little question for the campaign I DM for.
My 6th level players are on a penal colony as a punishment for a heist-gone-wrong on a remote island with the task of building a colony of settlers.
The enemies on the island are Yuan-Ti serving a god who gets power by giving nightmares to people.
They've gained a lot of attention by the sneaky snakes because of their actions even though they didn't encounter the sneks so far. So the Yuan-Ti set them a trap
and captured them last session. I don't want to do a regular yuan-ti-prison-break session next time but rather enslave them while allowing them to explore the yuan-ti city.
So my questions are:

- We only got spellcasters in the party (Consisting of a Light-Cleric, a Wizard, a Warlock, a Moon-Druid and a Bard so i'm thinking of a way how I can take away their magic so they can't
just attempt to murder everyone as soon as they are free.
- A way to logically explain why they can move around freely. The Snakes see how dangerous they are, that's why they set up a trap for them.

My wording is generally weird, I'm not a very astute writer. I made Bookworm what it was because I liked the fluff of it is all, it is just there for fun.

Some of the ones I made were hits and some were misses. This one for example, Oath of Honor, had an interesting niche it filled but mechanically I made it before I really understood how WotC balances stuff(they're weird as fuck let me tell you).

Looks cools, but I'm iffy on the Lesser Magic Resistance for balancing reasons.

it's overall weaker than the pureblood (not a difficult feat) and overall comparable with the elf subclasses in number of features/feature strength. it only really outclasses the gnome, but again, not hard to achieve and monstrous classes can kind of get by with being a bit more powerful with all the drawbacks it bring being you know, a monster.

the link at the end explains my reasoning but it's pretty give or take.

Trigger warning: I used a video game/anime picture for this one.

I think personally I would just make it so it would be comparable to elves. Such as being immune to mind-altering effects(dazed, mind controlled, memory wiped, illusions, etc). It'd be up to you what it would be specifically immune to.

Post favorite Homebrews! Items/Classes/Races/ect.

If you aren't familiar with the underlying mechanics maybe you shouldn't be trying to make homebrews ehh?

the other alternatives to the mental resistance (sounds better than lesser magic resitance and more in theme i guess) are harder to implement or more prone to balance issues.

either delay innate spellcasting (psionics) like the MM flayers (which get detect thoughts and levitate at will and dominate monster and plane shift/self once per long rest) which could be reasonably adapted into detect thoughts at will, levitate and maybe hold person once per long rest at 3rd or 5th level, with no psionic talent.

OR

tentacle attack with very weak mental blast (psychic damage breath weapon?) and/or extract brain on incapacitated humanoids (way too fucking strong).

OR as some other user suggested

one choice of delayed innate psionics, aka pick 1 awakened discipline with once per short/long rest uses or a tiny pool of psi points. which potentially gives you a lot of options, some pretty strong.

i think telepathy and one talent gives you the minimal innate psionic feel and the mental effect resistance fits as a power boon for a very mentally focused race.

>Spell Theory
Yeah, sure. Actually a good ribbon ability and it's one of the things that should be unique to sorcerer in any case.
However, I'd limit it to sorcerer spells.
Magnum Opus kinda works too though it leaves you with no definitely-always-useful level 1 ability. It feels like it'd be nice if there were benefits for casting with certain damage types, so that a high level isn't casting with force damage ALL the time (Except against vulnerable enemies).
>Amplify
Better magic missiles, fireball.. +1 DC for 3 sorcery points (Which could stack with heightened spell, I'm guessing? But it seems a bit steep a price and you might as well use heightened spell alone. Theurge got +2 DC every short rest without any resources and while most disagree with that being a good thing even +1 DC every short rest would be more powerful than this ability)

The spell area increasing ability is interesting, solely because it could work as a better twinned spell. You have to question how broken this could get when you cast haste on the entire team or cast ... Whatever on the entire team, but considering the rest of the abilities aren't too strong, it's 5 sorcery points, you have limited spell selection from being sorcerer and just being sorcerer, it's probably fine unless this is buffed.
The aria thing is okay, though you should probably have counterspell, so this is really just a once-long-rest alternate counterspell, which is sometimes worse.

And obviously level 18's is good.

>how WotC balances stuff

so..."not at all" then?

It's Lina so it's fine.

>having an elf girl serve him while having a severed elven head prominently on display
this skellington is fucked up

Actually, yeah, to whoever wrote it -
The archetype would make for a rather boring playstyle, as it encourages later on to spam the same superior damage type, your only real gimmick is improved greatly so there's no reason to waste spell slots on anything but it (Instead of twinned spell, you cast it on literally everybody in the party by huddling together) and.. Basically all amplify does is give you 'Current existing metamagics turned up to 11' and also at 14 'counterspell but different'. And 18 is the whole 'why did lore wizard get this ability'
So it's kinda lacking, I feel.

Collars with an anti magic field that only covers the wearer.

>posting homebrews

Come at me, bros.

also no mind flayer has condition immunities but all have magic resistance, not even the elder brain is immune to mind control and stuff, just very resistant against them.

same reason i gave it +1 to int, cha and wis, all flayers have proficiency in mental stats and a pretty balanced set of mental stats (19,17,17 or 21,19,21, etc.) at the cost of physical stats (crappy con and dex, usually good str because tentacles use it), stuff like that.

another fluff option is just some token skills like arcana or perception.

Considering how powerful anti-magic fields are, I'd go for something weaker and less 'Yeah, fuck you, you can't do shit.'
Something more like a shock collar that shocks them whenever they attempt to cast a spell. So they can still try, but they'd have to pass a very hard concentration check while taking damage. And if they try to cast too many times it'd probably get them put somewhere to be whipped.

Yuan-ti are magic resistant anyway, so it's not too serious, probably.

barbarian is using a berserker's axe. They are about to get blackrazor.

Should black razor be able to overpower the berserker's axe curse?

What would be a way to flavor it?

Also if you try to dispell the magic it succeeds but the collar explodes in the process.

>Barbarian is about to get 300 temporary HP: The weapon
>While being resistant to damage
Oh gosh

do yourself a favor a pass it to homebrewery format for our reading pleasure.

I wrote it, all the homebrews I've linked together were all created by me. Unnamed credits to anons in this general who helped me here and there. It gets a bit hard to determine at higher levels what will happen unless I play test it, and generally I haven't had a chance to play test any of them. I usually get into a certain mood for a play style, class, or theme and whip it up as a homebrew, "balance" it and then never look at it again.

Pretty much. WotC "balances" stuff with very, VERY specific wording. Which is why my stuff seems so jarring and the wording is so stiff, because WotC likes to be as RAW as possible, so adding in different phrases can change the homebrew in question.

She is the best, isn't she?

Is there a GOO patron that could work in tandem with a knowledge cleric?

>DM runs Out of the Abyss
>Never pays attention to darkvision or the range of it
I don't even know why this annoys me so much

One has Dawnbringer, the other guy has Devil's Sight.
Why should I?

i feel you so much, we are running OotA as well and everyone often forgets entirely about illumination, most of our group is humans so it's even worse when something happens and we have to go back because "oh shit you couldn't see". i hate it.

I don't even know what a Dawnbringer is