/5eg/ Fifth Edition General:

There is no harm in a bit of improv, and preparing too much can lead to railroading if you aren't careful. It is also wasted effort because there is no point in preparing a bunch of shit if the players won't get the time to interact with even half of it once they've bitten into a quest hook. You'll end up with a setting where most the non-adventurer population is composed of quantum ogres

I fucking knew that was coming

Regardless of what RAW says no one is going to allow that, so don't worry too much

I was looking for pitfalls of the Hexblade patron really. I've never played a Bladelock before, but I've heard that it had more than a few issues with it, and I was concerned if the Hexblade addressed those issues

Be wary of making them as strong as a party member. A hireling should be an assistant to the party, but not an equal

I think he's talking about Volo's Guide to Monsters Aasimar.

Look at him, look at him and laugh

yeah but i feel like they're trying to make me go that way I sort of wanted the whole wielder of unfathomable cosmic power so sorc was my initial reaction. kind of a tranquil fury, I kinda wanted melee too. maybe a paly/sorc? I swear there's a way to get your sorc magic blades. idk if it's a bloodline or what

I am

Be an original Favored Soul and go Forge Domain. Gives you Elemental Weapon, Haste, armour, extra attack, a kinda shitty smite spell and you can also use quickened Booming Blade/Greenflame Blade for more melee hits.

Sorry, it's late, my brain fell apart

What are the 3 most game altering house rules at your table?

It was mostly important places and several 'just in cases' but I don't plan on railroading them anywhere. If they somehow take control of the crashing airship I'll have something planned for that as well.

I'm familiar with wasted effort, and I'm trying to not make the same mistakes as last time. My only hope is that with things being a bit more serious, like actual deaths/big injuries and weapon durability based on number of battles they'll be a bit more invested in things.

The best way mechanically would be a stone sorcerer.

Preparing locations in a town is good because you never know when the players are going to throw you a curveball. "I want to break into that house!" says the chaotic neutral rogue. You'll be glad that you mapped that house.

Planning NPCs is good too, because then you can have something ready to go whenever the players talk to a random passerby.

But there's definitely a danger of getting married to your work. If your players never break into that house or talk to that guy, or go to your dungeon that you painstakingly mapped, don't force them to do so. And make sure you're capable of knowing what to do in that event.

But still, the cool thing about preparing is that even if they don't go to that particular dungeon, so long as they don't know that that's what that particular dungeon is, you can turn that dungeon into a different one and use it later.

Well you can always recycle things and simply place them later on in the adventure.

I have a female half-orc that I need help naming.

She's a crotchety old lady who lives in a dismal swamp with her pet hog. Snappy and trashy but treats those she cares about with motherly kindness. Has a fierce temper and holds grudges. Can make a dozen different delicious meals from a dead opossum.

Really similar in temperament to Mama Boucher from Waterboy, now that I think about it. Probably gonna look like a crusty, half-orc Kathy Bates, too.

Each of our games has had some sort of resurrection restriction, we've tried several, but the point is there. Make death more meaningful.

Not strictly a house rule, but we use flanking. At first, it was because we had 3 players and wanted combat to be more dynamic with 2 martials and a war cleric, but its stuck around past its welcome imo.

We also altered cover slightly. Line based attacks don't let creatures grant half cover unless there is a size difference, and if a creature rolls a 1 against a creature with cover from creatures with a ranged attack, you make an attack roll against the first person in line and can hit them. It's usually detrimental, but it also tends to have ranged characters try and attack into crowds of enemies, which i like.

Madam Sugarsmacks

Momma Sugarjugs

>She's a crotchety old lady who lives in a dismal swamp with her pet hog
Grandma Woolie

Grannie Pearl-Tusk

meghan

I'm gonna play my first time the 21st.

I read the players handbook.

I know what module we are playing but I haven't spoiled anything, Hoard of the Dragon Queen.

I am the only new player and it's a new DM.

I am going early with a couple mostly complete character sheets to finish character with DM..

I'm bringing a bottle of whiskey and a quarter ounce of dabs.

Any character ideas for a first timer, i have my ideas but open to interesting stuff that will be easy for me to play. I want to try to avoid meta gaming which might be hard as I know a ton about fantasy d and d stuff.

I'd recommend getting the DM to run Lost Mine of Phandelver instead. HotDQ is kind of a mess.

How do you guys handle a player heavily diverging from or outright ignoring their classes' description in their roleplay?

I got a new guy that rolled up a ranger and desperately wants to be a 'stealth archer.' Chose a criminal background, and wrote up a backstory where he was a scout in a war before turning to crime at its end. Looking at his character sheet, he just wants to be a thief under the ranger's class.

Refluffing is not only a thing, it should be encouraged in some cases. I would just talk to him about getting some nature fluff in there to explain the magical abilities he gets--but that's not necessarily required.

>Any character ideas for a first timer

If it's your first time, I recommend barbarian. As far as classes go, it's exceptionally straightforward and easy to understand, but you still get to do some cool shit.

If he wants to be a stealthy criminal ranger, let him be a stealthy criminal ranger. If the backstory and background check out, why not?

People can enjoy playing as a ranger for their abilities and mechanics without making their character Legolas.

I am going to home brew oath and pact of dragon what should I worry about?

>I'm bringing a bottle of whiskey and a quarter ounce of dabs.

Unless the whole table is up for this, don't be that fucking guy. I'm currently dealing with a not!Keyleth because the player decides to get drunk, doesn't help he made a tribal kid with a fuck high wisdom score, no charisma but still talks and even worse is he's a natural rambler.

If he's a PHB ranger, all you need to do is let him use Urban for his favored terrain. If it's UA, you don't even need that much, since Humanoid is a valid option.

Explain to him what a thief gets and what a ranger gets. If he really wants to be a ranger after knowing what each does, let him. I think there's an urban ranger archtype floating around in one of the UAs he could pick.

Unless you're good at home brewing then that's what you should worry about.

Nothing worse than a player who can't even play to the stats s/he has on her character sheet

That's the easiest part of roleplaying in D&D and some people just can't do it

the whole table is down for this and it's a six hour session so i don't know what to expect there.

I wouldn't mind if it weren't for the whole gets drunk then even when the rest of party says "hey don't say x" or "you know you shouldn't trust everyone" then he immediately ignores that advice. With a high wisdom I would figure he'd be able to put two and two together and figure out why but I finally had to spell it out for him because he complained.

With charisma I get trying to talk and he wants to eventually be the leader of his tribe but he decides if he trusts someone he's just gonna to tell them what ever they want. As far as they know it hasn't gone bad for them so far, but there was a couple instances where he almost got them in very hot water.

Ok then, I just wanted to make sure because I'm personally dealing with a group where most people are having fun and it being rp heavy. Then there's tribal boy who drinks a bit too much and pretty much is Marisha after a glass of wine too many on CR.

lol, what do i tell him, that someone random person on a message board told me to tell him to run a different module?

He's probably customized it quite a bit, in fact, knowing him, he probably picked it because it fit other ideas he had.

Are there any good dieties a tempest cleric can worship?

Yeah, this is the approach I took. I don't have an issue with it in principle, he just hand-waved how/why he became a ranger and spent a better part of time talking about thievery, worshiped a thief God, etc. Basically, you could switch his class to rogue and it'd be acceptable.

I'm genuinely fine with it, he's just putting piss-poor effort into the backstory+background. I don't think my expectations are too high, I just want to know things like
>How did you become a ranger?
>What is your connection to nature?
>Why did you return to crime upon entering the city?
>Why didn't you leave?
All valid questions, I think.

I'll look into this, thanks guys.

>Where do you think you are?

That's exactly what this site believes, welcome and remember you're here forever.

that's what i was leaning towards. I like playing them in nethack because i suck at that game.

is d and d anything like dwarf fortress adventure mode where grappling can often be the most reliable form of combat?

>I'm genuinely fine with it, he's just putting piss-poor effort into the backstory+background. I don't think my expectations are too high, I just want to know things like

That would be my biggest issue, if you want to play a class but fluff it differently that's fine, but you have to actually put the work into doing that.

Mostly just because chances are you're wasting your time. I find that wordlbuilding is the best way to go. If you know that this is a logging town then it's much easier to improv interestimg things in random house x than if it is just village 213-5 and it's the same as they've seen a million times.

During my last encounter I forgot to even draw up a town I knew the party was going to enter and didn't really have the hook fully fleshed out. Most I had was the main enemy half finished. I drew a map in 2 minutes in front of them in roll20 and we had one of the best nights of the campaign

There's a billion and one other ways to get sneak attack twice a round on rogue reliably anyway, and I just thought it was interesting you could use war magic this way.

Yes. You can plan so much that you become scared to improvize and add ideas on the fly that're more interesting than 'No, you don't find X even if it would've made a great experience because it's on the other side of the world.'

>first 10 minutes of critical role
>Matt Mercer's GF literally kills herself by jumping off a cliff "for funsies" and taking 300+ bludgeoning damage

Jesus I thought you guys were exaggerating about this girl being stupid.

i'll e-mail him. I'll post his response when i get it.

Good aligned, there's Valkur, Aerdrie Faenya, Deep Sashelas, Sheela Peryroyl.
Otherwise there's Akadi and Istishia.

Grappling is crap in 5e

Fall damage maxes out at 20d6, so that'd be like 120 if every single dice was a 6.

Oh shit Valkur is perfect for my character. Is he in the PHB/SCAG?

HotDQ is horribly imbalanced. It is highly likely to kill you all on the first few chapters.

What's so bad about HoTDQ? I haven't played or run it.

What's worse is I think Mercer was actually going to hand wave her hitting the water as doing nothing from the way he talked at the end.

Keep in mind she had:
>Easily hit terminal velocity
>Had been told it was a 1000ft cliff
>Can turn into a fucking dragon
>Instead went with a goldfish

I'm not sure if it's just that she's stupid but also gets a little tipsy and or high before the show an during the break. It's really bad during stressful fights like Thordak or the last part of her whatever for her village.

Worse is everyone treats her like the leader since Scanlen left, and you can see it kills Travis to listen to them not because he's bored but because he is smart and has a plan but sticks to RPing Grog.

>he thinks player should survive terminal velocity falls just because they have enough HP

Ask him why he wants to be a Ranger. Fighter/Rogue combo is a way better stealth archer because of extra attacks and expertise. 3 levels of Assassin will get you all the sneakiness you need. All you need is to give him survival as part of his background to cover his tracking ability and you are set.

That's probably what's supposed to happen then. It's really only a test session for the group and his first DM session.

She didn't though. they used revivify on her to bring her back.

Yep, he's in the SCAG.

I've never even met this guy but lemme take a shot, using the limited backstory you've provided already.

How did you become a ranger?
>Was drafted into a war he didn't believe in and assigned to an archery division. He was good at it, but couldn't stand for it. When shit went south during an ambush on his unit, he took the first chance he saw and deserted. Fleeing into the wilderness, he was forced to fend for himself and live off the land until he could find his way back to society...after all, it's not like he could have gone back to his unit.

What is your connection to nature?
>While in the wilderness, he was forced by necessity to develop keen senses and survival skills. He stalked and hunted game for sustenance, and in living off the land, he came to appreciate it and its bounty. But he was no druid—this wasn't the place for him. He had to get back to his life before the war, and once he heard the war was over, he thought it safe to go home.

Why did you return to crime upon entering the city?
>Turns out that his side won, and also turns out that the captain of the unit he deserted rose up the ranks as a military hero. When he heard that not only the traitor who abandoned his unit was still alive, but trying to return to a life of freedom, he used his political influence to smear his name, ruin his reputation, and condemn him to the gutters like the cowardly trash he was. With no other options, the ranger had to turn to crime—becoming the riffraff that the captain painted him to be after all.

Why didn't you leave?
>What would be the difference? The captain has fingers in every city in the region, thanks to his military fame. It'd be no different. And perhaps the ranger is too destitute to travel. His only companions are the stray animals and swarms of rats that patrol the streets at night.

I figure it maxes out at 20d6 because that would massively overkill any ordinary human, and that a non-ordinary-human could still survive this sort of thing somehow.
So taking more than 20d6 damage is some sort of 'gritty reality' game homebrew.

Grappling is actually pretty okay, but it can be situational. Unless you, say, shield master and no bonus actions which encourages just shoving every turn, I'd use grappling depending on the situation, and some classes are better at it that others. Barbarogue is probably the best grappler.
1. Note that you need a hand free, which can be awkward depending on your weapons. In barbarogues case, if they're using two-weapon-fighting, they can drop a sword and still attack and deal almost all of their damage.
2. Note you have 'grapple' (Enemy's speed becomes 0, takes action or forced movement to end. Also you can drag the enemy.), 'shove' (Enemy is slowed, their attacks become weaker and your close range attacks are more likely to hit on them, but they can end it easily if they're not grappled on their turn), disarm (DMG, removes a weapon from an enemy. Note that unarmed strikes only deal 1 damage instead of 1dX) and.. Improvised actions might sometimes be allowed.

I probably wouldn't recommend a grappler for a first-timer because it gets a bit mechanical unless you get extreme imrpovisation, but it can be great, especially if a DM has interesting encounters that need to you, say, stop an enemy's escape.

Ordinary humans have survived incredible falls before, like those skydivers whose parachutes fail but they miraculously have no injuries when they land.

It's only crap if your DM is crap, plays monsters as 'you walk up and attack it', expects you to walk up and attack monsters as well with +X weapons and they don't allow things you absolutely should be able to do like disarming.

So for the mystic, would the bonus Disciplines for every subclass but soulknife count against the maximum disciplines at higher levels? So if im level 5 and can have 3 disciplines, do i ALSO get the 2 disciplines from the subclass?

> He thinks Goblins are real
> He thinks nobody has survived a fall at terminal velocity

Not him, but I can see it. A high level player is basically a demigod, able to survive being bitten by Elder Dragons or magically disintegrated. I don't think it's that unreasonable to say a high level fighter could walk away from a terminal velocity drop, especially since real world people can survive it

Do you know what page by any chance? Playing AL so I need to make sure it's legal.

>I figure it maxes out at 20d6 because that would massively overkill any ordinary human, and that a non-ordinary-human could still survive this sort of thing somehow.

More likely because they figured that's all they needed since games hardly go past 10, according to WotC numbers.

>So taking more than 20d6 damage is some sort of 'gritty reality' game homebrew.

Yeah no CR is definitely not that

Oh alright, gotcha.

Grappling is crap in 5e unless your DM changes how 5e works

She's a druid and the game runs on numbers

show me one report of anyone hitting water at terminal and surviving.

Hitting water at terminal velocity would turn your organs into mush.

Just look up what happens when people jump off bridges.

I was just saying in general. The guy I was talking to was making it sound like it's ridiculous anyone in Fantasy Land could possibly survive jumping out an airplane

Even better jagged rocks from 1000ft up because she didn't hit water at all.

>Changes how 5e works
>When there are disarm rules in the book
>When it encourages you to allow improvised actions
>When the 'all monsters are brainless W+M1 machines that know nothing aside from fighting to the death' concept is shit and you should feel shit for uspporting it

The only real change of how 5e works is the way of thinking with regards to monsters.
Despite being a game that seems to have so much room for improvisation and without interesting combats combat becomes stale, it seems to still be saying that monsters should be boring and not try to run away when their life is in danger and gather friends or be prone to intimidation and surrender if pinned to the floor and not have any second thoughts about killing their allies if they were used as meatshields.

True I can see your point, along with the fact that Grog could've raged and lived even with all that damage.

What I think the main issue is Keyleth once again did a borderline retarded thing even with information, warning and perfectly acceptable ways out of it.

Of course there is. It's a waste of your time, so you're preparing too much.

Actually grapple isn't weak if you have two or more attacks. Shove then grapple means the target is trapped prone until they beat your grapple. This gives them disadvantage. It works very well if paired with Expertise or Barbarian's rage athletics advantage

Would animals that can glide count as having a fly speed for the purposes of Druid Wildshape?

Nicely done. If he gave that to me, I'd have no issue approving it. Instead I got:

>Rando was once part of a flourishing great Wood Elf Tribe before joining the war. His once plentiful home had been burned to the ground by evil gods. Before the war he was a simple hunter that could split an arrow in half from 100 yards. After the war he was beaten and brusied(sic). He made his way to nearby town where he found it difficult to make a living. He began stealing to survive...

And then it transitions into a jewel heist. He wasn't happy when I asked for re-writes.

The only acceptable thing to do is remove the cap of 20d6. If they drop 2000 feet, they should take 200d6 damage.

Kinda, it'd be a you have a "flying speed" but it's in a downward ark in my opinion.

Yeah, but now you've made a world without wind resistance. It caps out at 20d6 because physics, not because of any balancing

If it has a fly speed in the MM then yes. If it is homebrewed then you're already homebrewing so you decide. I'd say no since they don't control their fleight

Except the current model uses an acceleration of 0, so its fucked anyway, its "supposed" to be escalating, 1d6+1d6per previous 10 feet.

That sounds about right, probably what Mercer used to hit the ~300 damage. If I did the math right and it's 100d6 for 1000ft.

Oh, also, grapple+shove is pretty good as an at-will restrain ability. Enemy can't move, enemy has disadvantage on all attacks, you have advantage on all attacks within 5ft on it and you can drag the enemy whereever, such as into a trap.

This is strong because a barbarogue focusing on strength could end up with a +17 grapple modifier with advantage by level 20, or +10 at level 5 with advantage, against an enemy's athletics or acrobatics. And how many enemies have good athletics/acrobatics?

Page 21. He doesn't get to have a mini entry.

Any chance someone may turn 5etools into an Android or Windows app?