/5eg/ Fifth (Snek Attack) Edition General:

NAME THIS SNEK

Need to know if this is too much of a dick move.
DMing Lost Mine of Phandelver for my friends (all new players), last session they successfully made it through the Redbrand hideout without much trouble and found the secret way to Glasstaff, they took him alive and left without fighting any of the Bugbears or Redbrands. They left him with Sildar and have spent the past 5 or so days doing the side quests.

I'm very tempted to have them return to the town destroyed and raided by the remaining Redbrands (with them have taken hostages to the mountains) or at least have had them free glasstaff and killed Sildar.
Thoughts?

Also should add, classes are heavily front loaded since WotC did surveys and feel hardly, if any, games go past ~level 10-12. Common dips are cleric from spellcasters for armor proficiency, warlock for Eldritch Blast and some perks depending on who deep a person is willing to dip, fighter for action surge at level two and sorcerer for meta magics.

If you pay attention to the threads or ask you'll be told the really strong multiclassing builds, but remember multiclassing is optional so you can just say no along with feats.

Sally.

I've decided to try homebrewing some more. I'd like to build up a rogueish archetype to emulate the acrobatic feats in the pirates of the Caribbean movies. None of the current archetypes currently fit. The swashbuckler comes close I suppose, but doesn't really reward or enable acrobatic feats.

Gimme an uncommon Race-Class combo lads. Making a character for a one shot a friend is DMing. Let's come up with something silly (not STUPID, and definitely not INEFFECTIVE)

slapped a "crossbow used for bonus attack cannot be the same as one used for the regular attack" addition on it, which should deny building a 3-attack fighter on level 5.

Thanks, will look the revised ranger up.

As for the action economy, I have some thoughts how to deal with it but this needs more work for playtest results.

Major dick move. Would you consider having them return to town to see Sildar and some commoners locked in battle with the remaining Redbrands?

Redbrands attacked people, kidnapped some, asked around for Glassstaff but no-one talked. The town is afraid but trusts the PCs. One night some random townsfolk tells them what happened. Town joins in on an uprising.

Then you can go on full army clash with lots of death.

strongly open to it, the only reason i'm considering it is that they would have been gone for 6 or 7 days by now. Also one of the redbrands was locked in the jail but they were told he would be released in 2 days because the mayor is a coward

What ki d of character arc would be more fitting for a Tiefling Cossack that is a former explorator/conquistator of NotSiberia?

Does anyone have the slime warlock pdf?

>but they were told he would be released in 2 days because the mayor is a coward
He'll be emboldened by the gang's leader being arrested.
>only reason i'm considering it is that they would have been gone for 6 or 7 days by now
Say it's not the first time they've attacked. Some villagers have been killed, some Redbrands hurt as well. A home burned down. Maybe a bugbear left for Cragmaw Castle to request reinforcements (and was denied).

>which should deny building a 3-attack fighter on level 5.

RAW this isnt possible anyways lol

Is anyone claiming it's particularly good?

The way I see it, it gives bladelocks an option to be mono warlock without much MAD.

It's not amazing though. Fighter 1/Fiend Bladelock X is probably more effective. Proficient in Con saves, heavy armor without needing a feat, some self healing, and using a 2-handed weapon means you can do somatic components without War Caster (Hexblade seems more oriented towards sword and shield since you can only use Cha for 1HW).

By the way, how is the Lifedrinker evocation supposed to work if you're already using Cha as your modifier?

Halfling Monk

It's a good compliment to the bladelock. But the best are the invocations included in the same UA.

>slapped a "crossbow used for bonus attack cannot be the same as one used for the regular attack" addition on it, which should deny building a 3-attack fighter on level 5.
It's a perfectly fine thing to do though. Dual-Wielding does the same, PAM does the same GWM does similar but better.

Really it's not that big of a concern balance wise because the trade off is you're using a gay little crossbow people can make penis jokes about.

How come? If I'm reading this right, you dual wield hand crossbows with the Crossbow Expert feat, and you can attack three times on Level 5.
Once with main hand crossbow, then the off-hand crossbow, then use your Extra attack you get at level 5 and ignore the loading property of the crossbow because of the feat.

That doesn't work though. You need a free hand to load your crossbow.

I mean, this just makes that part of the feat do nothing, right?

>which should deny building a 3-attack fighter on level 5.
It's with Hand Crossbows, man. An extra d6 isn't game-breaking at level 5. And a dual-wielding 5th level fighter has 3 attacks anyway.

You don't need to overthink this edition that much, 5e as a system just works out of the box and works well.

>By the way, how is the Lifedrinker evocation supposed to work if you're already using Cha as your modifier?
Double modifier.

Also personally I think the best Hexblade build is probably Quarterstaff PAM. Getting the double Charisma on every strike is pretty good.

Might go with this, I was already considering having the bugbears show up with the prisoners from the hideout instead of the war band (the players are currently at Cragmaw Castle). Thanks for the input

Maybe try reading Sage Advice, friendo. dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/sageadvice_feats

anywhere between 3 and 10. It hardly matters, really, but I'd say about 6 is a fine number.

Give me your house rules that doesn't piss Veeky Forums off. At least try.

>You can grapple as an opportunity attack.

Monks can use Dexterity (Athletics) for Grapples and Shoves.

Armour proficiency gives you essentially +4/+5 AC simply for picking the archetype and then it gives you a free better hex and some of the later features are boss killers like '50% chance boss doesn't hit you when they should'

>There are people that think crossbow expert and PAM are the issue
>Not Sharpshooter and GMW

>You can grapple as an opportunity attack
Can you be my DM?

This is probably fine because you require a hand free to attempt grappling in the first place.

Once you get the at-will Curse + PAM Quarterstaff dealing double Charisma on damage + elemental weapon... Well let's just say it deals pretty fucking great damage.

Try going for a Superiority dice approach where acrobatic maneuvers can give unique effects such as disarm, trip, taunt, precision and evasion.

Evasion. roll 1d8+dex. Add that to your AC until you stop moving. This is not a free action or an action, its an ability so this can be used to give you a boost to AC while running past 5+ enemies.
Extrapolate from here.

You do it with a single HC, with a hand free to reload.

At lv5 it's like this:
-Attack with HC. Reload is part of the action.
-You attacked with a light weapon and are holding a loaded HC. You can bonus attack with it.
-Second attack.

3 attacks with one, not two.

HillDwarf Barbarian. with that HP feat if you're starting above 4th lvl and pump Con. You can call yourself 'Meat Dan the Meatman'.

>Playing an evo wizard specifically so I can aoe into allies
>DM lets sorcerer do to
>They don't even have careful spell
oh, ok

I was thinking of taking this direction. Potentially as an alternate use for sneak attack die. But scaling would be an issue then.

Yer still a wizard 'arry. Let the sorcerer have some fun.

>fight with nothing but handaxes
>gain sharpshooter
>call yourself hambo

The reload rules, of course. I don't want dual-wielding hand crossbows in my game.

Why not?

>I don't want dual-wielding hand crossbows in my game.
That's not possible to do with or without the feat, you have to have a free hand to reload a hand crossbow

Hey guys, I asked last thread but then it died, I just made a V. Human revised ranger deep stalker and he's level 4 now. I took dual wielder as my free feat but I'm wondering if I should up my Dex to 20, up my wisdom to 18 or take another feat like mobile/sharpshooter or something?

Can't you use a single hand crossbow? attack (with extra attack option) + bonus action (crossbow expert).

Have yet to analyze GWM. I've restricted variant human so 2 feats at lv. 4 shouldn't be an issue.

Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of – small fixes like this just look bad, I need to see the big picture by fucking with Excel for a while, which might be happening after all.

Dual wielding ranged (unless thrown) weapons isn't possible by RAW, weirdly: p 195 PHB, TWO-WEAPON FIGHTING – "When you take the Attack action and attack with a light \melee\ weapon that you're holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light \melee\ weapon that you're holding in the other hand. You don't add your ability modifier to the damage of the bonus attack, unless that modifier is negative.
If either weapon has the thrown property, you can throw the weapon, instead of making a melee attack with it."

I'm going to run Curse of Strahd soon, but I have not yet finished reading the entire module. I was skipping around just absorbing some of the CoS lore, when I read the passage about Ezmerelda D'Avenir being moved that Von Richten didn't attack her people. This seems to conflict with the letter where he explains her let the zombies loose on his son's captors. Clearly I am missing something, could someonr give me a quick run down? Did Von Richten modify her memory?

Crossbow uzis in my generic? No, dude.
Pirate style 6-HC bandoliers? Not keen on that, either.

>Am I overthinking? How long did you work with 5e before launching and finishing your first successful campaign using it?

Way overthinking. If you haven't run the game as a DM then don't even use multiclassing or feats and definitely don't try to make your own monsters. Focus on making a coherent plot and it will be interesting even if you only use the human npc statblocks in the back of the monster manual.

>Playing an evo wizard specifically so I can aoe into allies
And it was at that moment you fucked up.
Your opinions are wrong because you have shit taste.

Betty Fright

Ss'hcalla

>Artíficers are half casters
>Beguiling Influence grants Warlocks expertise in Persuasion and Deception if they had proficiency in that prior skill
>The Tome of Shadows invocation grants the Warlock all Warlock Ritual Spells off the bat.
>The Pact of The Blade option allows you to shape your Pact Weapon into an Improvised Weapon with which you are proficient in. As such, if you were to shape into something like an instrument or a paint brush, you are automatically proficient in playing or painting with it.
>Drinking a potion is a bonus action. Feeding it is an action

>"When you take the Attack action and attack with a light \melee\ weapon that you're holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light \melee\ weapon that you're holding in the other hand.

That's silly. Why couldn't I reload a crossbow, then reload another one, then dual wield them and drop one to reload the other one. Or just throw them away after firing.

Luckily our DM rarely plays by RAW.

That would be unfun if I was a player, "you found the secret and nonlethally dealt with the quest in a creative way? Everyone you know dies and I'm punishing you for it." This is where it turns from being more realistic to being less fun

Alright lads I have a problem, as a forever DM one of my players has offered to run a campaign, he has some experience but not a huge amount. Now the issue is after Critical Role's battle royal shit show, and him asking questions about how barbarians work, he has decided they are broken. Unfortunately his GF is playing, not worried about favoritism because he corrects her even in my game, a barbarian as well so his exact statement was:
>I'm just gonna have to throw twice as much at the party now and they will die.

Party is as follows:
>Inexperienced wizard looking at diviner/transmutation/necromancer
>Inexperienced Bard(my younger brother so I can more easily help him build) most likely lore last I heard
>A ranger using one for the touch of class options that the new DM bought and is allowing
>GF who most likely will go frenzy

Now I'm already in the world as a Goliath barbarian, was planning totem, and need the best build 27 point can buy to help keep this shit show to a minimum and try to help others through it.

Multiclassing is on the table along with feats, and already starting off with a glaive to use PAM.

>When you roll a critical hit, your character's theme song plays.

There's 3 Vistani nations and within those nations, a shit load of tribes, and within those tribes, a crap load of families.

The ones who took Erasmus are the Carvara tribe, Ezmerelda is probably a Manusa

Dragonborn warlock. Breath weapon is kind of like a third spell.

Literally why

The question is, does being proficient in using a paintbrush make you a good painter or do you still need proficiency in art to make a mona lisa or does the paintbrush do that themself?

I kind of imagine if the paintbrush does it itself it'd make demonic pictures or as an instrument more dark and meanacing music.

Dragon born Warlock of Tiamat isn't that unheard of

Your generic fantasy probably includes dinobots. Why can't an artificer make a self loading crossbow?

My ex GF

It makes you as proficient with the paint brush as you'd be if you were actually proficient with it. Some demonic influence is there, but the theme is an "Idle Hands are the devil's playthings" type of deal.

I can definitely see that which is why i was just toying with the idea, however I honestly think they would like it, but it is too severe.

Just made sense to me instead of leaving 10 Redbrands and 4 bugbears with their thumbs up their asses after their leader goes missing, but i guess it is too realistic

>Critical Role's battle royal shit show
that meme show had a battle royal? that's hilarious and gives so many people bad ideas.

>he has decided they are broken.
>I'm just gonna have to throw twice as much at the party now and they will die.
Wew lad. Honestly I'd just try and convince him that he's being silly. Classes are not meant to fight each other, so of course they won't be balanced against each other in a battle royale situation. Most importantly you should tell him that each class fills a different role in the party, and the barbarian's role is not "Be impossible to kill", but "Tank by absorbing damage for their allies".

Besides there are much better ways to deal with barbarians than HP damage, primarily control spells that target mental saves. Hold Person being probably the best example.

So proficiency with a paintbrush only makes you good at one aspect of painting (i.e. not colouring outside the lines) but means you still suck at the rest of it (not the right mindset to replicate things you see on a portrait)?

Giant dick move, in my opinion.

Wouldn't make more sense to have a power struggle in the gang where the bugbears try to take over because they're the biggest and the strongest, while the Redbrand guys obviously don't want that? These guys sound like bandits and raiders, not exactly the type to rescue their leader after he's gotten himself captured.

Why wouldn't they devolve to infighting for who is the new top dog?

Don't punish the players for being creative and getting around encounters, if they can pull it off good for them, if they fuck up mid way then they're surrounded and fucked.

>i guess it is too realistic

Bugbears are chaotic evil. It would be realistic for them to start murdering the Redbrands if there isn't a stronger creature, like Glasstaff, who can stop them.

Is there a good 5e character generator? Not that making characters is particularly difficult I just want to hurry the process along.

What the fuck do I use Constitution checks for?

>gee there's like 14 creatures left time to destroy an ENTIRE TOWN

I'll admit I don't know whether that's actually a town or a village or a hamlet though.

Not to mention there's no real reason bandits would completely destroy something they could leech off of instead?

Hangovers.

Mostly saving throws against poison, stuns, concentration, etc.

Yes, it's a very Technique over Talent type of thing.

It works the same way as when you use your pact weapon to shape it into a nunchaku or something.

Save or Die

It was, Travis started playing smart and nearly won it all by killing Percy, Vex then Keyleth, lost to Tarry because he failed his Constitution save to drop to one instead of dying. Even worse is he used a deck of many things mid battle and got two cards that don't matter ruin and the NPC turning one, then a +2 stat, rare or rarer magic item and a lvl 4 fighter.

I can see people now shoehorning in a battle royal in an alternate universe and granting boons for the winner, which Mercer suggested might happen when everyone is there and level 20 at the end of their campaign.

That might work, if I hadn't already planned a somewhat smart barb with Cha as dump.

A long-distance race.

poisons, diseases, tests of endurance

What would you guys do to fix the Diabolist?
Supposed to be a summoner type but other abilities don't synergize aside from the heal of Necromantic Touch. Basically seemed like they smashed some warlock abilities together (telepathy + familiar + ritual spells + temp hp on necrotouch kill)

>inb4 just play warlock, I like some of the summon options- shadows and ghosts etc

Navigating in extreme conditions.

Should add Mercer stated it would carry over to the new campaign.

>lost to Tarry
As a bard player in a group of murderhobos, I actually loved that bit

Why? Creating characters in 5e is a breeze.

Went with the bugbears leaving with the prisoners and the redbrands scattering off to who knows where
It was more so take what they can and leave before the party gets back, they were just leeching before they arrived

>I like some of the really powerful summoning options

Well no shit you do

Orcpub has a random generator and there's tons of pregenerated characters floating around on the internet.

I'm giving up real spellcasting and fighter stuff in exchange for one companion tho, course I'd like powerful summons