/5eg/ D&D Fifth Edition General

If they have full resources they should be fine unless they are retards.

Anyone got some ideas to improve Versatile weapons?

Onehanded, twohanded and all ranged weapons allready get nice support from Dueling, Defensive duelist, GWF, PAM, Sharpshooter and Crossbowmastery.

I did a similar thing. Party got ambushed by 15 undead on their way back to the city. 8 melee guys as a meat shield, 4 cultists with hold person and shit, a cleric and a mage, and an assassin leading them. I spent a day or two thinking if they're going to make it.
The party just ripped the assassin and casters apart before they got a chance to actually do any real damage. The players barely even lost any health. They were level 8.
Should've fudged the rolls to help the enemies.

what's a good backstory for a way of the long death monk

what ive got so far is that he's just a monk that trained on the high seas as a sailor and found that he had the uncanny ability to steal people's souls when he killed them. also his rival blew up the monastery he was from while he was away at sea.

I think my main concern is that one of the goals of the bad guys is retrieve a legendary magical item the party took from them. As such, they would go out of their way to focus the PC that has the item, even if he's the hardest to kill, just so they could grab it as he's dying. I also have some other shenanigans planned, such as pushing the wizard (who's tough to hit, with high AC and shield spell) into a big chest and locking him in there as fast as possible.

Just don't kill downed party members. The players should be survive unless luck is against them. Maybe be nice and mostly attack the tank.

That's where a surprise round comes in handy. Which is also one of the points I'm struggling about. How do I adjudicate fairly if players are surprised or not? They probably will be, because if everything goes according to plan they'll walk in literally blindfolded into the ambush area. I'm still a bit torn, trying to think of ways the party could manage to not be surprised.

The tank is the one with the legendary item, so yeah.

>steal people's souls when he killed them
Something something Davey Jones, something something guide them over the threshold.

There is no surprise round in 5e, surprised characters simply can't act until the start of their second turn. This allows for a third party to enter the fray (say, an owlbear) and prevents either side from missing all their attacks and then calmly acting like nothing happened and waiting for another chance to get a "surprise round"

>Versatile Combatant
>If you hit an enemy with a versatile weapon while wielding it with both hands, you may use your bonus action to attack with the weapon again, dealing damage as if you were wielding the weapon with one hand.
>Additionally, if you kill an enemy with a melee weapon attack, you may immediately move 15 feet as a reaction, but you must end the movement closer to an enemy.

and for a feat

>Adaptable
>If you are wielding a versatile weapon with both hands and have advantage on your attack roll, you may forfeit the advantage in favor of striking powerfully. If the attack successfully hits, it automatically deals damage as if it were a critical hit.

Might be a tad imbalanced one way or the other but it's, like, 5 AM.

Should clarify that the first one is a fighting style while the second one is a feat.

>There is no surprise round in 5e

There is in my games. It doesn't make sense to me to either have everyone on one side get an extra turn or no one. Makes more sense to have the sneaky people get an extra turn in before anyone else.

Should the melee classes get to choose more than one fighting style within the same class?

hahahahhaahahahaha no

Champion can already do that.

>Free Crits

I didn't even read the feat, the fighting style alone is retarded.

Now that I have read the feat you'll be pleased to know that hahaahahahahahah oh my fuck no.

I've always found ti strange that tieflings, the descendants of demons and devils, aren't the race that can pick ability scores.

Thanks people.

Hoping to get a few solid opportunities for role-playing a charismatic hermit, whom everyone is automatically afraid of will burn down their village for shits and giggles.

>If the attack successfully hits, it automatically deals damage as if it were a critical hit.
Holy shit this would be so ridiculously broken on a Paladin that I can't even

No.

Fighting style:

>Versatile mastery.

While wielding a weapon with the versatile trait you gain the folowing benefits:

Twohanded attacks with these weapons gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls.

Onehanded attacks with these weapons gain another 5ft of range.

When a creature moves within 10ft of you without taking the disengage action you may use your reaction to make a onehanded attack with your versatile weapon against them.

I had one player accuse me of targeting them on purpose because I disliked them and that he wasn't having fun and wanted to quit.

I like the player and thought they were having fun.

Now I am bummed and not enthused to run the next game. What do

I like it.

You can team up with my party's wild sorc. 11 year old (now) tiefling boy. He's the most adorable little devilspawn you ever did see.

Talk to him like an adult and figure things out.

If you want to surprise the PCs, then roll stealth for the ambushers against DC set based on each PCs perception, probably disadvantaged if they're bag-over-the-head blinded. Just look up the rules for surprise and use them as fully as possible, so the players won't get butthurt about gm fiat.

What's the best way to build a character around Magic Stone? It seems like the only way to make Slings useful.

My current plan is a Variant Human Ranger for Magic Initiate. I'll talk to my DM and see if he'll let me ignore the rule of only getting 3 per casting for Volley.

Oh, so you haven't actually read the rules. Nice.

body percussion bard, yea or nay

Oh I should have said that we did and I think its ok now, it's just I still feel bummed out about running a the next session

I've read them, I've discussed them. I don't like them.

>"The DM compares the Dexterity (Stealth) checks of anyone hiding with the passive Wisdom (Perception) score of each creature on the opposing side. Any character or monster that doesn't notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter."

Way it works is either:
>Single PC sneaking on side A
>Enemies 1 and 2 on side B don't notice single PC
>Enemies surprised because there was "a threat" they didn't notice
>Side A gets to wail on them without issue

Or:
>All PCs sneaking on side A
>Enemies 1 and 2 on side B notice just one of the PCs
>Enemies not surprised because they noticed at least "a threat"
>No PCs benefit from sneaking

Alternatively, you could do a group stealth check, thus screwing the stealthy character because they're reliant on their group.

No matter how you treat these, someone gets screwed. As opposed to my method, which is:

>Single PC sneaking on side A
>Doesn't get spotted by anyone on side B
>Gets an attack in before anyone else because surprise round
>Sneaky PC benefits from sneaking, non-sneaky PCs don't, enemies don't get unreasonably screwed, everything fair and reasonable

There's no solid reason not to have a surprise round.

So the other day ran my 3rd session as DM, we're playing the starter set since we're all relatively new, for obvious reasons

This was the first session where I could notice some of the players were losing interest. I've been getting better with the technical parts of being dungeon master and being more freeform, but as the areas got harder, so did being the dungeon master.

Basically, I feel as if i'm taking too long trying to keep track of a bunch of enemies hit points and also their place in initiative. I tried the group initiative, and although I like the concept, I don't want too many enemies attacking the party in a row.

Any tips from other DMs? Seeing my group like that kind of got me uninspired, I played less than 10 sessions before having to take over as DM, so I want to make sure I can live up our veteran ex DM despite that. I just want everyone to have a good time.

>their place in initiative
Do you not just have a list written down at the start of each combat with "first this one, then PC 1, then enemy 2, then PC 2"?

As for enemy hit points, don't be afraid to fudge it if you're taking too long. That's true of everything as a DM. The players don't know what you know about the enemies or the environments. They won't know if you rounded their 27 damage up to 30 or down to 25 to keep the combat flow.

I have a list, but we use minis that usually aren't representative of the enemies that are fighting the party. And when there's 4-6 PCs and 10 enemies moving around, it took a lot of effort not to get lost remembering who's who.

I did end up fudging a bit, not wanting to fuck up the flow and all, but it was pretty obvious I was having trouble.

Also, as far as gauging the groups power level, is it wrong to throw a deadly encounter in just to see how they fare? My party has been mopping the floor with everything they see, when it comes down to it, they're pretty smart, but I don't want to seem unfair all the sudden either considering.

>it took a lot of effort not to get lost remembering who's who.
Using minis can be troublesome in that regard. Something I've found helpful is colour-coding them - if you're willing to put a drop of paint or highlighter on your minis, allocating them to "Red" or "Blue" or whatever helps significantly on your list:

Kobold 1 - Red - Initiative: 16 - HP: 10
PC 2 - Initiative: 15
Kobold 2 - Blue - Initiative: 13 - HP: 4

etc.

>is it wrong to throw a deadly encounter in just to see how they fare?
Nah. Difficulty level is a guide, not a hard and fast rule. If they start struggling, fudge heavier. Again, they won't know, and it's helpful for you to know what the extremes of their abilities are.

Did anyone watch Dice Camera Action? Is their game an exercise in frustration?

>1 handed perma-reach weapons
"No!"

How about just have Dueling's bonus apply to them?

These 1d6 weapons now have reach ''such broken, much wow''.

The only ones benefiting from this are Longsword, Spear and Quarterstaff.
I'd only really worry about Quarterstaff because it gets even better with PAM.

>Using minis can be troublesome in that regard.
That was my main problem, color coding is a good idea, but they're actually not my minis (need to invest in my own) our ex-DM is a player in our party and he lets me use his screen, mat, and minis since again, most of us are completely new (or were new at least)

We actually have a LOTR risk set with 4 colored armies and 4 pieces per color. Might be cool to use them since they also kind of fit the theme too. They're also smaller so it'll be easier to fit more of them in a room and still be able to tell what square you're on.

I was thinking doing a complete freeform without a map/battlefield, but I don't know how I feel about it. I was doing the last cave we were in freeformed since it's pretty huge with a lot of backtracking so I didn't want to constantly have to erase and redraw, but I could tell my descriptions were just confusing the players for the most part.

I appreciate the advice, truly. I guess I was pretty afraid to fudge hard when it came to a really hard encounter because, despite what D&D is, it seems to tick a part of my brain that tells me "that's bad, don't do that"

We play once a week which is probably pretty standard, but I feel a need to rush and get as good as possible at being DM that the week in-between sessions really drags.

> handed perma-reach weapons
What are whips? I don't know what you're replying to but that bugged me.

Also am I the only person excited for Whip Kensai?

Soooo I want to try out DMing and I made this dungeon and I'm having issues.

1. It's an abandoned temple type deal, I can't figure out to what. It is to. I want to have a mini library where maybe they can find journals and history of the place but it's no use if I can't come up to what It is to.

2. I have no idea what enemies to put in. It's taken over by a druid conclave that is working with blights, but aside from Blights, Druids, Shamblings Mound Miniboss and Archdruid Boss I have no idea what else to put in.

3. How trap heavy should the place be? I have a couple That I plan to put in as riddles and tests left by the previous occupants as but those are meant to be optional high risk high reward type things. I thought about having the Darkmantle with Roper combo as the deeper it gets it just becomes a cave formation, but I'm not sure if something so deadly would even be fun.

4. How many levels should it have? I was planning 4-5 the last one being the boss' chambers however I don't want it to drag on too much so most floors have no more than 6 rooms.

Thank you for taking your time to read this!

For all your needs, there are Gulthas Trees.

For traps, 2 out of 3 rooms should have something hidden, be it a hidden passage or a trap. Remember to include hidden treasure.

A dungeon with about 20 rooms is usually 3 floors. Extrapolate.

An Archdruid is CR12. If that is the boss the players are either going to breeze through all your normal shitty mobs or get their shit pushed in depending on their level

I'm not a fan of freeform either - it feels like it's too easy to miss out on some of the mechanics because you don't know where you are in relation to anything else.

If you're not committed to the minis (depends what you're into), something I've used in the past (and may again) which I find helpful is using sweets to represent enemies. Something like Skittles are colour-coded, small enough to go on the board, and once you've killed them, you get to eat them, which players usually enjoy.

Just relax and focus on keeping it all fluid. The big secret to D&D is never telling your party an outright "no" (unless it defies the actual rules), and keep the game flowing. If you can tick both those boxes and give a sense of adventure, your actual mechanics matter less and less.

Not him, but how long does it take to plan a decent dungeon? I've got loads of campaign planned out but dungeons you can't wing the design of nearly as easily as the open world.

What the fuck are you talking about.

Group rolls favour stealth experts super hard.

Say you have a group of 4 people:
You have Sir Jingle Bells with scale mail and no dexterity bonus. He will maybe average around 7 on his stealth roll, assuming no proficiency.

Then you have Sir Sorcerer McMoves, who somehow has 16 dex and proficiency. So that probably averages to around 16 on the stealth roll

We also have Miss DailyPeriod von Irontighs, the barbarian with 12 dex and proficiency. She might get an average of 14.

So 7, 16 and 14, which is an average of 12. That's not impressive, and will likely be spotted by most common goes.

Now we throw in Ninja McShadow the Edgelord, who has 20 dex and expertise in stealth. He will average maybe 22, which immediately ups the average to 15, which makes it far more likely that they'll succeed, despite sir jingle bells.

They just make it so much more likely to succeed a group roll - add a few levels, advantage to stealth, and inability to roll below 10, and you are regularly looking at a minimum of 23 stealth checks. This will do wonders at helping his team stay hidden.

Reach is wasted when you need to get close to use your bonus action unarmed attacks.

1. It's a temple that has been repurposed so many times throughout the years that nobody can remember the original purpose anymore and all records conflict.

2. That's fine the way it is. You never NEED to have a super wide variety of enemies

3.Traps are a meme. Only have them for that optional high risk vs reward things. Otherwise don't even bother.

4. That's fine the way you already have it.

That still means that the enemies are getting screwed by the existence of one sneaky character. I don't dig that.

I am making a Kensai Whip wielding Belmont as we speak.

It will be glorious.

>3.Traps are a meme. Only have them for that optional high risk vs reward things. Otherwise don't even bother.

Use them in conjunction with enemies.

A pit trap by itself is a speedbump.

A pit trap in a room full of enemies who are trying to bait/knock you into it is a fun feature.

Read the 4e DMGs for encoutner and trap design tips.

I know flavor is probably what you're going for, but Lance is better in every way for Kensai.

I planned on giving her a buff, with some legendary actions and maybe even some lair actions. Archdruid is just the template.

A week, I'd say.
A 1 dmg needle that applies poison is a great trap, if only to fuck up saves.

...

My point was if you are expecting your players to defeat a CR12 creature (and now you say buffed too) then BLIGHTS (CR 1/8, 1/4, 1/2) and DRUIDS (CR 2) will not be any form of challenge to them

That's not really true. Needle blights can be absolutely devastating, and druids are extremely powerful if you just change their spell list a little.

Well this is my first try, but it depends how deep you want to go. It can be from an encounter with traps or just a couple of puzzles, you can do them relatively quickly. More complicated ones will probably take a week or so until you get the story of the dungeon set up and you balance encounters.

>A 1 dmg needle that applies poison is a great trap, if only to fuck up saves.

Yeah, if there's a time pressure, it's just time lost otherwise, since the players can always recover.

Don't buy into the bounded accuracy meme. If there's a wizard in the group, he'll just fireball everyone into dust. You don't really have the space to spread out in the dungeon, usually.

>Yeah, if there's a time pressure, it's just time lost otherwise, since the players can always recover.

Indeed.
The temple of Ooze in OotA is a good example.

Needle blights can do a decent amount of damage but have very low to hit, AC and HP. Additionally as
The wizard will just fireball or more efficiently Burning Hands.

What is this magical spell which makes druids powerful. I suppose you could just piss off every single one of your players and cheese with Heat Metal but then nobody would come back to play

>forgetting battleaxe, warhammer, trident. And three of the weapons are d8, not d6.

Maybe read the rule book before acting like you know what you're talking about.

What levels should I take in what it I want a grapple based barbarian rogue multiclass?

Starting at level 5, also it's point buy so suggestions there are nice.

I mostly want rage and grapplefucking but the ability to get sneak attacks competently as well.

Lance has the ''speciall'' property so it doesn't work with Kensai.

Shit so it does, my bad. That's a shame though because my Lance Kensai was my favorite character and my DM's making me change to the new one.

The whole wording was when you use the weapon with one hand you get reach.

Not terribly broken cause the d12 weapons with reach allready exist.

So what's your problem?

Just grab a whip and hand-crossbow.

I'm more inclined to believe as I sent 8 needle blights to my group, with no wizard, and they rolled over them.

I think I get what you mean, though aside from adding more numbers (that I dislike, since players are slow as fuck in their turns already) I'm finding it hard to find stronger enemies. The biggest one I've found so far has been the Cavelight Moss that grew trapped inside a flooded chamber that the players can empty out. I thought about Ropers and Darkmantles, but I doubt you would keep that nearby if that place is your home.

In general I know that the CR is quite low for the group but unless I flood them with random enemies I don't see how else I can set this up.

That sounds so cruel that I'm going to use it.

Because there's no d12 weapon with Reach besides the lance, which has special restrictions. The four other reach weapons are d10s (halberd, pike, glaive). They only average 1 damage more over the versatile d8 weapons for that benefit. Having a fighting style allow for reach with one handed weapons basically precludes ever using the two-ganders, since anyone who wants to use reach weapons will take the style.

What level and how many of them

Balance it with something good.
A hidden lever reveals a cache of art objects, but the lever was trapped.

Not the guy you are replying to but... that's sorta the point? You pick a fighting style for the style of weapons you want to use. If you have dueling style, you probably won't use two handed weapons.

I think Volo had scale-able druid NPCs, but not sure.

>halberd, pike, glaive

Those benefit the most out of GWF, PAM etc.

They allready get superior DPR.

The fighting styles typically complement your use of a weapon - more damage with one-handers for Dueling for example. A fighting style that essentially displaces the existing weapons in place of others doesn't really accomplish that.

How does a mace scale when it becomes versatile?
1d6 -> 1d8?

>Pike benefitting from PAM

GWM can affect any weapon wielded in two hands, but your point is taken. I still think that fighting styles should complement existing weapon selections (e.g. make using a glaive better) rather than offer replacements (e.g. use a longsword instead!)

Yeah probably

Maces don't have the versatile property, but if you'd like to rule that they do, d6-d8 is appropriate (like with quarterstaffs and spears).

Duelling add +2 damage. That's strictly better than a higher damage die, unless you have ways to increase your crit chance.

Either 1 or Max. High level wolf barbarian can knock prone as a bonus action with no save as long as they are large or less as long as you hit. You use 1 attack to grapple which hits, so you Bonus action knock prone.

If you go one you have rage which is bread and butter grappling and you get nothing good for your build for quite a few levels.

I'm making a Battlemaster that is NotKenshin. What are some feats or Maneuvers that I should look into (already have Alert and Sentinel)

Cool, thanks bros.

>Every time someone wants to try DMing, they run lost mines
>Group has run lost mines 5 times now
F U N

>Wolf Paws
>+2 magic unarmed weapons
>Hunt: when moving towards a target that you have struck with this weapon within the last 24 hours, you double your movement speed
>Pack Tactics: Attacks made with this weapon grants an additional +2 to hit if an ally is within 5 feet of the enemy.
>Doubles the amount of wild meat gathered on a hunting trip to gather food.

Has it been the same every time?
Have they run anything else?

>Wolf Paws
>+2 magic unarmed weapons
>Hunt: when moving towards a target that you have struck with this weapon within the last 24 hours, you double your movement speed
>Pack Tactics: Attacks made with this weapon grants an additional +2 to hit if an ally is within 5 feet of the enemy.
>Doubles the amount of wild meat gathered on a hunting trip to gather food.

How is this for a monk weapon? I plan on making a weapon befitting of the "raised by wolves" monk.

Yes/no? Anything I could add or change? Most of the party has +2 weapons already.

So level 1 barbarian, then rogue 2+ until something good comes around in barbarian again?

Well normally we have a forever DM running a game and have gone through a few, then every so often someone who never DMed before will want to run a game, then run Lost Mines. I get that it's the starter one, but a lot of the Adventure League stuff is fine for a first time DM

Don't forget Treants (CR9) and Wood Woads (CR5)

If you were able to get a katana to be finesse, defensive duelist would be good in later levels where the bonus matters. +4-+6 matters. And parrying seems like a swordsman' ability.

Trip attack could be good for ending a fight if you think you can scare them off, you and a brutal critical barbarian definitely would look imposing if you both are about to attack with advantage.

Menacing strike can do the same as above just they are actually afraid.

Martial Adept is actually pretty amazing for battlemasters and definitely should be considered. It's an extra maneuver in a fight and helps get them off.

Maneuvering attack is good for helping allies reposition and with party comp of slow moving guys like Paladins and casters it would be good.

What does unarmed weapon mean. It counts as an unarmed attack. Which is 1+Str?