/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General

I'm going to Dm a campaign of 2-3 players with minimal experience.

Any resources (besides OP links) that would be useful to starting out?

I want to do a post-apocalyptic world, but besides that, I have no real ideas.

What he will need is back up, so some "helpful" lackeys whatever the dark force doing the corrupting (demons/devils or whatever). to help him, by buffing or just getting inbetween him and the no doubt pissed off party. Whats tipped him to the dark side?

Why do throwing weapons always have to be so awful?

If you're that inexperienced I'd start with Lost Mines or another printed module.

noob

If you're interested in post-apocalyptic fantasy, have you considered figuring out Dark Sun for 5e?

I'd suggest you buy a gridded whiteboard instead. It's a sounder investment imo.

I don't know senpai, but if anyone at my table wanted to play a thrower I'd gladly ignore this ruling.

>playing with a new group
>one player is obsessed with playing an honourable samurai
>one is a luchadour
>one is a transsexual rogue
>the last one is another rogue who told me they wanted to make their character as "edgy as possible"
Was this a mistake

All Metallic Dragons party faggot here. One of my upcoming playtests is going to focus on humanoid stats after using Change Shape. Here's the description as it's written so far:

>A metallic dragon can magically polymorph into a humanoid or beast that has a challenge rating no higher than its own, or back into its true form as a standard action. You revert to your true form if you die. Any equipment you are wearing or carrying is absorbed or borne by the new form (your choice).

>In a new form, you retain your alignment, hit points, Hit Dice, ability to speak, proficiencies, Legendary Resistances (if applicable), and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores, as well as this action. Your statistics and capabilities are otherwise replaced by those of the new form, except any class features or legendary actions of the form.

>At 3rd level, this action can be used once per short rest. At 7th level twice, 11th level three times, and at 16th level four times.

TLDR -> A shape-changed dragon doesn't keep its Str, Con, or Dex.

There might be times where such a party might have to fight or otherwise roll in humanoid form. What I need help with is figuring out whether I should be stating out basic NPC stat blocks like at the end of the MM for each race, giving them all a blanket stat block regardless of race they change into, or simply let them keep their Str/Con/Dex. Any thoughts on the matter? I don't want to pigeonhole my players into taking "optimal humanoid forms" if I can help it, but I also don't want them to be cookie cutter humanoids.

yes

My condolences

Why are the rogues such shit?

Roll a new char and meme the everloving fuck out of them. Nuclear druid, lucky halfling diviner, melee crossbow for sharpshooter+GWM.
Go all out.

No, try and make friends with all of them. What's your character? Is this supposed to be fairly silly? Serious? Or is this their first time?

Absolutely subversive

I know that homebrewing in and of itself is a hot-button issue, and this is a hot-button issue WITHIN homebrewing, but: for flavor and lore reasons in the setting I'm running, I want to create a race that's capable of flight. So I was wondering if I could get some advice on balancing that, and feedback on the mechanics I'm currently sitting with.

The skinny is this: can't take off without sufficient space. You also can't take off if you're weighed down, or if your hands are full or busy. If your hands BECOME full or busy, then you fall. Once you are flying, you need to keep moving or you fall. Gravity gradually pulls you down, and gaining altitude is difficult. Get hit, and you might fall. Fall, and you might take fall damage. I'll have the details in the next post.

Other traits: walking speed is 25. The ability score increases are +2 CHA and +1 DEX (good bards) and the only other innate skill is Drow-level darkvision (120 ft.).

I'm fully prepared to load up my encounters with flying enemies and ranged attackers to compensate for flyers; it's not that hard. I don't want flying to be a get-out-of-combat-free-card, but I also don't want flying to be so dangerous that it's the player never wants to do it. What I'm thinking is that it may be more useful outside of combat than in—vertically oriented dungeons become a complete breeze and large chasms are no obstacle at all...for the player(s) that can fly, so unless they want to split the party they'd still have to think of some other solution. Also, I can create dungeons with low ceilings, ceiling-dwelling creatures, and rising gases to discourage flying over every obstacle. But the potential for flight in D&D is probably limitless so I'm cautious—maybe flying too much in a given day should cause one level of exhaustion?

What do you guys think? I'm looking for feedback on these flight mechanics as well as interesting ways players may use flight. I don't want to totally miss some critical way to exploit it.

The details:
>So long as 1) not wearing medium or heavy armor, 2) not encumbered, and 3) not holding anything in hands, you can cast nonmagical versions of Jump and Feather Fall on yourself at will, and these are also the requirements for flying.
>Flying Speed 40 ft.
>You need 5 ft. of empty space on all sides of you in order to take off and begin flying. If you take off from the ground, you automatically expend 10 ft. of flying movement to rise 10 ft. into the air.
>You fall 5 ft. for every 10 ft. traveled horizontally. If you reach an altitude of 0 ft. while flying, you have landed smoothly and may seamlessly transition into your walking speed.
>Gaining altitude counts as difficult terrain.
>You must expend at least half of your flying speed (20 ft.) on each of your turns in order to stay aloft. Otherwise, you will fall.
>If you perform any action that requires the use of your hands while flying (unsheathing a weapon, casting a somatic spell, catching something in your hands) you will fall.
>If you take damage while flying, you must succeed on a CON saving throw with a DC equal to either 10 or half the damage taken, whichever is higher. If you fail, you fall.
>If you are forced to fall to the ground for any reason (using hands, not using enough movement, taking damage, etc.) you must succeed on a DEX saving throw or take falling damage.
>If you voluntarily choose to fall while flying (to drop onto an enemy, for example) then you have advantage on the DEX saving throw. If the distance of a voluntary drop is less than your walking speed, then you may move the difference upon landing.

Why don't you just look up the expansion races with flying speed you dunce

Why would anyone use polymorph 4 times in a sr?

I initially planned on just reskinning the aarakocra but I wanted to try and simply flight into a single mechanic instead of having "flight" and "glide" be two different things.

In my experience, these kind of groups can be dealt with in 2 ways. You either leave or you play along. Every other choice never ends up well. And people can get good at roleplaying surprisingly quickly if you play along with their characters just a little bit

A good, documented example of this is the guy who went into a BESM game expecting SMT and got a slice of life magical girl game

If you do this, use the 2e book for conversion. The 4e book entirely misses the point of defining. Plus, it's shit anyway, so use the 2e book.

Maybe they want to pass themselves off as different humanoids? Like a paranoia type thing. Or maybe there's just no time for a short rest for whatever reason, and they need to shift between dragon and humanoid form to fight/solve puzzles/diplomance/etc.

Join the madness.

you make it too complicated

>drow-level darkvision
>no drow-level sunlight sensitivity
welp

So I'm looking for a fun fight-man character to make with the racial feats, and I haven't decided on which race I want yet. It's going to be a Barb2/ChampionX character.

Either:
Half-orc for that Orcish Fury +2d12 damage for one crit per rest
or
Half-elf for rolling three dice and trying to crit as often as possible

Leaning towards Half-orc just because I can max strength earlier and the game is unlikely to make it to later levels, but I do like the fluff of having an unorthodox elf barbarian type.

Is a beholder a good BBEG? Has any of you guys done or experienced it? How was it?

Can be if you play up to their lore and try and not give it away till near the end. It's best when they think it's some crazed wizard then it turns out to be some other worldly abomination with a fuck magic eye cone and fuck you in the mouth eye beams.

It's the one thing a couple of my players said they'd hate to fight, sucks to be them.

Beholders are a blast to run, especially when lair actions are involved.

Here's what I would do.

>walking speed is 25.
>ability score increases +2 CHA and +1 DEX
>darkvision (120 ft.).
>flyspeed 40 while not wearing medium or heavy armour
>if you fly less than 20 feet in a round, test acrobatic (dc 8+1 per feet less than 20) or plummet down to the ground
>if you use both hands in the same round, while flying, test acrobatic (dc 18) or plummet down to the ground

Done. These DCs are fairly high (unless you fly exactly 20 feet etc.) but that is to discourage doing these things.

What are the best second level Wizard spells? I already have Hold Person from a scroll but I still need to pick for my level up.

Shield master seems extremely good if have expertise or something in athletics.

Just ran my first Beholder encounter the other day. It was seriously one of the best enemies I've run. A lot of enemies don't hold up to a swarm of PCs, but that Beholder did.

Definitely and since they are smart you can run them to be challenging fights by being an asshole and using tactics.

So if I'm running a Dark Sun game should I just ban any spells that create water?
That sort of seems like it would ruin it.

It's so appealingly simple, but it just sounds too powerful.

The "empty hands" restriction thing may also be a functional necessity, because this race is kind of built kind of like a bat, where their hands and wings are the same thing.

When I mange to playtest this thing I might start with your suggestions, though. If it does prove problematic, then I can always reintroduce rules.

Making an alchemy gun for an Artificer Alchemist instead of an endless bag o' fire flasks.

With this design as a base, how futuristic is too futuristic for a game in probably Greyhawk/Forgotten Realms, as that seems to be the "normal" setting? Should I scrap the futurey alchemy railgun look and go for a magitech flintlock instead?

I have a bad habit of overdesigning shit until it looks far too advanced to be anywhere near "pseudo-renaissance" tech

lol turd

Guys I fucked up.

I invis'd through the werewolf den in CoS with my monk (level 3 invis) and we got to a bunch of treasure. We stole two swords, but I am out of literal spell slots and sorcery points in the process. Our rogue (he came along too) greased the floor and made 5 wolves fall over, then did it again later and another 5 fell over. Now I have 2 more wolves following me but I feel like Im gonna die cuz Im the slowest. I have minor illusion, mage hand, prestidigitation, firebolt and acid splash as a red dragon sorc level 6. Im running through the forest with a 60 metre lead. How do i not die guys, or should I start rolling a new character right now.

Let it work the first few times, gradually lowering the volume.

Look up the Caster guns from Outlaw Star.
Because that is what you made.

I'm gona stop trying to play DnD guys 'm just not cut out for it.
Bye I wont come back.

It's fucking wolves, firebolt them to death

Wow you aren't even cut out for a hobby maintained by disgusting neckbeards?
What kind of subhuman trash are you?

What's the best way to trick a vampire into drinking a cure for vampirism?

It looks like water, and the vampire is nominally on our side.

Yeah that's somewhat what I based the look off, though I've never actually seen the series.

"hey bro this will cure your vamparism"

Any vampire who turns it down is too far gone in evilness to bother saving.

It depends on how much the vampire needs to consume, and how they usually get their blood (fresh from a warm body, from a corpse, from a barrel?)

I cant do voices, i can't write or improvise on the spot and this is not to mention all theproblems i have in regular conversaiton

The second one is certainly not as common as the half orc.

I never do voices personally. Improvising isn't a huge problem if your just a player and not DM. Just write down a few guidelines for how your character should be roleplayed if you're really desperate.

You just gotta believe user.

"This race doesn't have hands, and thus can't use items that require hands."
That's a huge nerf by the way. It's not powerful at all. They probably need specialised armour, too. (and they can't wear medium or heavy armour).

No way you are worse than some of the people I've played with and it was still fun. If it's that bad just join a PbP game, you'll have plenty of time to think. Working on your social skills in general is also a good idea

You should play D&D and rpgs to get better at those sorts of things. What problems do you have in regular conversations?

Autists and shitbags play this game, I sure you'll do fine.

I would also like to point out that there's not a lot of classes these guys could play well. Singing bard. Sorcerer without use of magical items.

As to why it's a nerf; you can't really interact with a lot of things properly. You can't wear a lot of magical items. You are more vulnerable to silences.

Maybe give them a natural claw attack with their feet. Maybe even allow them to disengage as their bonus action if they deal damage in this fashion.

>saving
Nigga first thing I do once he's got no powers and no control over the 20 spawn he's bringing to the battlefield is stab the fucker.

Unclear. I scooped up a flask of water from a fountain a while back, and only recently got it identified. DM just said "cure for vampirism".

Blood-wise, in his lair he has vast barrels, probably of blood, but he's out and about in the midst of a war at the moment, against undead and cultists.

By wolves i mean werewolves and i cant firebolt 12 of them... probably? Maybe I can, but it would be hard

I think the idea he has is that they can't fly with their hands full, not that they can't use their hands.

My apologies, saw "on our team". purge away fellow murderman.

"Nominally" on our side. He's helping us because it's expedient for all parties to be rid of the undead, but even then, only at the cost of giving him all the living prisoners afterwards.

We're not keen on letting him build an army of spawn and giving us a worse problem than we started with, though, so we want to deal with the issue before it is one. Unfortunately, while we can handle him and maybe one spawn, he's bringing twenty and there's no guarantee many of them will fall during the battle. So although I'm planning for a fight, I'm also working out contingencies - one of which is depowering him by trickery.

Ah, okay. I just checked out his picture, and mothman doesn't have any hands.
Then they're probably reasonably balanced, because they have to land to use their hands safely, and they can't do much while flying (they can't rain down crossbow bolts, or use certain spells, nor can they hover (so they might be forced to provoke attack of opportunities).

Also, I'd suggest using the houserule that removes the cap from fall damage.

A problem I could see is that they would fly at 19 feet in the air to prevent taking damage. here you could add a houserule that says; "while flying, a character takes damage if they fall 10 feet or more, instead of 20 feet as normal". To represent momentum.

I'm afraid that the only way to do it is by darts / forcefeeding, then. Unless you can wait until he's back in his lair.

Forcefeeding did come to mind. We do have two grapple/restrain-effective party members (Barbarian and Moon Druid).

Are there any rules on forcefeeding or do I have to rely on my shithead DM to be not a shithead?

What said, they HAVE hands, they just can't fly with them full. This is more the look I'm going for—putting the "moth" back in "mothman," definitely.

Yeah, preventing nigh-unstoppable aerial assaults of spells and arrows was my principal motivation behind hands-free flying. It just seemed too cheesy. Even without an attack, I think it's hardly worthless: maybe it's my own DM style, but in most situations, I'd figure a drop attack on a Medium or smaller enemy could knock it prone. If you're a rogue, you can fly into hiding places. If you're a bard, then definitely, you can sing spells from up high. Opportunity attacks aren't too complex to work into this, either...if a bugbear can hit you five feet on either side of it, it can hit anything five feet above it, too.

The Constitution Saving Throw against falling-after-hit is basically the number one stopgap against reckless use of flight. Even a goblin is smart enough to pick up a rock and throw it at you.

That fall damage house rule might be good too, but within my group of players, I don't think we've ever counted movement outside of factors of 5. Obviously that makes things less precise but it's just much easier to calculate things that way. Honestly the only really tricky part about managing flight is just remembering "oh yeah this player is 30 feet up right now" when their figure is on the same flat plane as everyone else.

Yes i have played with many of those
yet I cause nothing but displeasure in any campaign i touch (of which I am painfuly aware)
D&D is just another thing in life that I want to desperately enjoy but I'm unable to

Are you positive that you aren't just projecting your own self-loathing onto others?

I'm this guy, back after like a billion years. Not a lot of that stuff fits the flavor a whole bunch, since he's not a paladin. He's a wrestler turning heel essentially.

Seduced by demons after he lost most of if not all faith in humanity since every time he's tried to do good, it's blown up in his face.

I miss weekly UA already, the frustration of being two bad ones in a row followed by a missing week has grown on me.

I run a large party so I multiply mobs by 1.5 or add another die to damage to balance it out.

Anything else is done for their fun, I slowed down a collapsing tower in CoS because it would have been a TPK. I tend to not use Power Word: Kill when opponents have it just because it's not very fun for the players.

Sew dissent amongst the werewolves, they're politically fractured as fuck.

What do we think about Gnomish Monks, /5eg/?

What's the best multiclass to pick up Blowguns on an Assassin?

Give them minions. It's the only sensible way.

It doesn't matter if you bump him up 5 levels or give him a cool sword or what. What matters more is that they have minions.

1. It makes more sense that they don't suddenly gain superpowers, but instead gain command of minions.
2. It actually makes them more of a challenge to fight.
3. They don't have to personally show up to fight the party so it wont' be an immediate 'either you die or I die'.

Barbarian 5 or Fighter 5 work.
Barbarian 1 also works.
Just note barbarian has 13 str 13 con requirement.

Most illusions can be seen through if a creature rolls an Investigation check.

But the wording is usually that the creature "can" roll investigation, not that they do once they come into contact with it.

Should they automatically roll for it, or should they have reason to suspect it first?

Any tips for spells for an Eldritch Knight? Im currently thinking of booming blade for a cantrip, and shield + absorb elements as 1st level - what is a nice non-evoc/abjur spell for utility? I've considered expeditious retreat, but that might be too situational

So commoners, how much HP do they have?

If an evil cleric wanted to take murderhobo-ing to the next level, what's stopping them from slipping Divine Word into the speech they were giving to a large crowd?

What about some of the Cleric options? War Cleric gets you an extra attack to try and sneak attack when you miss and Divine Favor for getting the most out of crits.

One idea I had recently is an Assassin 3/ Dragon Sorcerer X. Use expertise and invisibility to sneak up on people with quickened/twinned Greenflame Blade and Booming Blade.

Well, that was easy.

This is one of those things where you as a DM ought to decide "rolls vs. roles."

Let's say you make an illusion of a tree. If you tell the players that they see this tree in a forest, they'd probably have no reason to suspect it and they'd probably not make the roll. If you tell them that they see it at the North Pole, they might suspect something and make the roll. It's finicky but if you're ever in a situation where you WANT your players to try and detect an illusion, provide some subtle clues that may suggest it is one. Let them come to that conclusion on their own.

If you have the roll be made automatically, then if they fail the roll, the PLAYERS would still know it's an illusion and I think it would just result in meta-gaming. You'd either get characters acting extremely doubtful of that tree for no reason, or characters trusting the tree with their life because they think they need to act as stupid as possible to prove that they're not meta-gaming.

The alternative is just having them all roll a d20 without telling them what for. Even just telling them that it's an Investigation check could give it away.

Nothin really
Whats stopping the rogue from poisoning the food of the whole town?

Can depend on setting. Some people don't like commoners having only 4 HP, myself included.
If I had a setting, I'd likely have commoners (Young adult/adult males in their best years) have 3d8 hitdice, like a level 3 but without good stats or abilities.

>If an evil cleric wanted to take murderhobo-ing to the next level, what's stopping them from slipping Divine Word into the speech they were giving to a large crowd?
Well, why does he want to first? Is he the Cleric of a god that likes complete destruction of everything? If so he'd have to be careful not get caught and murdered because he's likely one of the top Priests. If I had someone who knew Divine Word I'd keep them as a bomb for when I needed an area wiped out.

That aside most Evil Gods aren't actually trying to just kill hundreds. They want more worship so that when those people die they go to their realm. Sure you could order Clerics to kill the entire farming town but what do they really gain?

Yeah, 4 just seems abysmally low.
A housepet could instantly kill them in one round.

Of course to make up for it if you have, say, 3d8 peasants, you should have players start at level 3 so you don't end up with the barbarian having as much health as a peasant. But who wouldn't start at 3 anyway?

Doesn't sound like a bad, if cliché, plot device desu

Probably intend to leave a survivor or two as a warning not to challenge them.

Nah, cats don't have multi-attack in this edition.

Until you hit Tranny Rogue I was down. I mean HONORABU can be fun and also have epic moments, lucha is something everyone wants to do once, edgerogue could be fun(ny) if it's not being played seriously and is more a "Froznmithril" level of Coldsteel.

That whole transgender shit is just fucked. Like I get you're RPing but if you have some issues you need to work through go do them away from the chill fun of a roll some dice, kill some monsters, get some treasure game.