/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General

>have everything headed for the printing press
>put out revised content for """""testing""""" even though they can't revise it now
>everyone calls your work boring because you just made battlemaster 2.0
They brought this on themselves.

That's a dangerously powerful item for tier 2 heroes that will only be more dangerous in the future, IMO. I would rather scale down enemies or think of a completely different approach to combat on monsters side, if it is possible to do without being detrimental to already ongoing campaign.

blade word is useless, just take minor illusion, or flame bolt for range

>assume the above mentioned party is dumb as shit, so their builds are really fucking terrible

Then I have to assume that the party will misuse whatever extra attacks you give them. Also, this kind of solution will just make the party feel like you're taking pity on them, rather than being fair. Consider instead setting control goals for combat encounters. For example: If X enemies are grappled, restrained, petrified, etc, at the same time, the remaining enemies attempt to retreat.

Alternatively, add environmental features to make up for damage.

Or finally, and most simply, reduce HP values behind the scenes. Start at 3/4ths HP, and adjust up or down til you get the balance right.

Hasn't failed me yet.

Quick question anons? How broken would it be to give all fighter archetypes superiority dice like the battlemaster? Just asking because other archetypes feel bland as hell compared to BM.

For what it's worth this is an ideal stealth/face group. Have you tried Shadowrun type missions that are in and out with only a little combat?

It isn't broken at all, and IMO is how the fighter was meant to be, before the "if an option is there, I have to take it, even if I don't want to take it, so remove options from everything" crowd complained.

I'm against giving identical items to every character, it makes it feel way less special. If you really want to do something like this, offer each of them a unique magic item, think of Galadriel's gifts to the fellowship in LotR.

Give the bracers to whoever looks like they're trying to be the big hard hitter; The fighter/barbarian or whatever.

Honestly, I'd suggest just keeping everything the way it is, let your players almost die, as long it's dramatic for them, and they're having fun. If you really feel like a change must be made, try doing it on your end first. It's way easier (and more fun for everyone) to fix a problem by adjusting enemy stats than it is to fix it by having to adjust wonky magic items you gave to your party in desperation.

thanks user thats what i thought as well.

Guys, see if you can help me out here:

From time to time I like to do some exercises as a DM, to make the game more interesting.

Right now I'm planning to, next session, convince my players not to kill a group of extremely killable NPCs.

What's the catch?
>my players are extremely prone to violence
>these guys kidnapped a PC's sister
>they are some idiot rich kids (young adults)
>they're in the wilderness in a lawless place
>they're weaker than the party
>I don't want to use metagaming and railroading
>only genuinely interesting and logical narrative elements

>But why though?
I think it's fun to, from time to time, shake things at the table and present different solutions to these players, this gets them used to thinking out of the box, which is a thing that this group in particular usually doesn't do. The last few times I did something similar it was great. I want them to be in a situation where violence would be a very easy and desirable solution, but if they keep calm and wait a bit they can take home even greater rewards.

Are centaurs too much for a level 1 party?

Cool. Also, any feats I should take? Already have War Caster, going battleaxe and shield.

The Monster Hunter was battlemaster 2.0 and it was fucking nice. The Cavalier is based around a dungeon liability and even then it will never be able to do what the Paladin does as an afterthought. I don't get it. I never saw a single person nostalgic for the AD&D Cavalier.

once the shit hits the fan, have them beg and grovel to try and avoid the assblasting they are about to endure.

The kids are the children of a powerful cabal of wizard merchants, who will use everything in their power to hunt down whoever kills them.

Sounds simple. If they opt for violence and kill the fuckers, they just made some enemies with power and wealth among the nobility / merchants. If they don't, and manage to teach a lesson to the rich kids and still bring them back alive, their families are extremely grateful that the situation was dealt with in a discreet and peaceful manner, and will reward the PCs.

Once again the autist fails to grasp there being anything that could bother a person beside their character dying.

I really don't know how to feel about this Eldritch Smite. On one hand, I really like that it's universal and does the same amount of damage as a Paladin's. But on the other hand, I don't particularly like it being once per turn or being limited strictly to Warlock slots.

A housecat is too much for a level 1 party.

any combat at 1st level is basically a coin flip of whether or not the party will get completely destroyed or not, even against weak creatures like dogs, wolves, bugs, etc.

Then how do you handle a level 1 party?

I'm wanting to run a custom class for my first ever game of d&d. You guys care to take a look at the class I plan on using and tell me if it's balanced?
dandwiki.com/wiki/Spellblade_(5e_Class)

It would depend on what you want to do with said centaurs. If they're out to kill the level 1 party, chances are the CR 2 centaurs are going to do such a thing. If you plan on having them being reasoned with, it might be a good idea to layer on that "this guys look pretty gnarly."

>>these guys kidnapped a PC's sister
Unless you pull something horrible and cliche ("Brother I LOVE him"), or a hostage situation that will only delay the inevitable, then they are already dead and your hamfisted morality lesson won't work.

There's a couple of options:

>Don't
Start them at a higher level, level 3 is usually around where most characters can start to actually do anything

>Deal with it
Have you characters fight some weak and/or dumb creatures and hope for the best. Goblins/wolves/etc work well, but will usually knock a character out in 1 or 2 hits, and can lead to a TPK quickly dependent on dice rolls.

>Avoid combat/use milestone levels
Award players enough XP to gain a level or two to start out by completing important roleplaying goals, without necessarily having to have them fight.

So are there penalties for young/old anymore? My Wild Sorc is back to being a teenager, and I know in 3.5E there used to be stat adjustments, but couldn't really find anything.

Just go hexblade bladelock

shield master is cool, bonus action to shove opponent prone and then booming blade them with advantage or hit them a bunch with a sword

Lol, ok cool guy

Not as written, no. In the game I DM for, my wizard player rolled a d100 for his age and rolled an 89 and stuck with it. We all find it super funny that an 89 year old man somehow became a level 1 wizard.

That's a lot of implications!

It's danddwiki, a website with material only slightly less imbalanced than the average UA. This one is more well done than others on that site. There are a lot of technical issues with the class, but I don't see why it couldn't be tweaked to fit a campaign.

>It's danddwiki, a website with material only slightly less imbalanced than the average UA.
Are you fucking high?

It's like those grandpas that go back to highschool for their GED

Its slightly less useless with an ek.
You can give yourself resistance for a turn and get a single attack. Probably only good for tanking a single enemy (its more effective to mow down mobs with all your attacks/gfb+attack

Naturally. I don't think it'll be enough, though.
Along the lines of what I was thinking initially. I was thinking that they could also offer services to the PCs. Like horses, housing, cohorts and spell uses.
>hamfisted morality lesson
If that's what you take from my post.

>dandwiki

No

Please answer the survey. Don't let redditor who can't into math win.

Just give all the other fighter archetypes the Martial Adept feat for free

Thanks for the input. One thing I noticed was how unclear it is on how many spell slots it gets per level. At first I thought it was literally just 4 spells lots of fifth level at higher levels, but that's way too low. Also the arcane versatility thing is weird and I planned on ignoring it anyway. Anything else in particular that you think could be improved?

I think people also tend to forget that Swashbuckler can't do anything against 1v2+

What kinds of reptiles can a lizardfolk druid turn into besides a crocodile at lvl4. Cause i want to make one that only turns into other reptiles cause why would i turn into a shitty soft skin

Also does my natural ac calc work while wildshaped

Don't try to play custom class in your first game.

Also never use dandwiki. They don't have QC and any 13 years old can put up their OP wetdream class on there.

Example: dandwiki.com/wiki/Meme_Master_(5e_Class)

I don't think there's any other reptile in the MM, but you could probably make a small dinosaur or something that isn't too powerful.

Bumping for spell ideas

Also I just realized how great Expeditious Retreat is on a fighter. Great to close in on any kiting sonuvabich.

For shame wotc

Depends on positioning and even then Swashbucklers have the same (admittedly limited) tools that other Rogues have for trying to get sneak attack solo and they still great mobility. However, Inquisitive does get a decent damage bonus that Swashbucklers don't.

Self shilling on dandwiki content isn't appreciate here. At least you /u/unearthedarcana or something.

>thats a lot of implications

Well I am shitposting especially hard today.

I've seen some of the things on there: saiyan, witcher, naruto ninja. I'm aware that there's a lot of trash that needs to be sifted through, I just wanna know if the spellblade class is at least usably balanced, even if I have to fix or add some things.
Not self shilling, I legitimately want to use this class.

I mean you are right, but most people see

> In addition, you don't need advantage on your attack roll to use your Sneak Attack if no creature other than your target is within 5 feet of you.

As "Sneak attack ALL THE TIME", and not realizing that 2 enemies standing next to each other disable Swashbuckler's ability.

> First ever game of d&d
> Fixing custom content

???

BTW, the spell thingy is just a copy paste off warlock. If you didn't even realize that, you are pretty much don't have enough system mastery to tweak or custom stuff.

It's having two creatures standing next to *you*, not to the target. They swapped that from the UA version.

I legitimately laughed reading through that.

>have everything headed for the printing press

It doesn't come out until November. They aren't headed anywhere yet.

DMs: what can I do as a player that will enhance my roleplaying potential for my character but not step on your toes?

I write a lot of shit for my character, because I have a lot of free time on my hands. She used to write little love notes for her patron (she's a warlock for an Archfey lord). I also tend to churn out short stories that further explore her headspace in a way that the character isn't currently able to explore in D&D sessions (she's hiding her craziness from the rest of the party for right now), for the benefit of the DM so he can potentially exploit her mental state later. Right now I'm working on a long-form story that explores her earlier life a bit.

I'm also working on drawing portraits of the other party members.

What are some fun class ideas for a fisherman?

Sup.

You sound like a great player and should feel great. Keep it up and discuss all of it with your DM - but without trying to mash your backstory into his plot/world. If your DM deserves you the slightest - he will weave the best bits of your character into the story himself.

Considering the classes I am not worried about the future. They have their extra attack and wont get more. That's ths issue with their builds. They scale terribly.

Can't really misuse extra attacks.

But I see your point. Nerfing the HP pools might be a better way to go about it, or just making them have different kinds of goals in a fight.

No, mostly because the player generally prefers to fight. Like
>Spirits are being drained away by destructive removal of large parts of a forest (explosives etc)
>Party ambushes them and tries to kill them all
>never even talked to them
They are very much the "murderhobos" we all know and love.
But the idea would be nice, if a tad difficult to pull off in a fantasy setting contra SR.

They are a frustrated about the difficulty, so this is mostly to help remove at least some of that frustration.

But I see yoir point about it being boring to get the same item. I often just feel like I either have to be heavy handed in the items (You get 4 magic items that SPECIFICALLY CAN ONLY BE USED BY 4 SIFFERENT CLASSES THAT HAPPENS TO BE YOURS) or they will try to distribute them differently, often with terrible results.

None of them have magic items so far though, so maybe just giving them a good unique one would be fine. That's just a lot more work than making a single item, wew.

I'd exploit your cute warlock any day desu

I should talk to my group about making a one-shot using the most awful dandwiki shit they can find

There are stuff they must do after printing too. This is why hardcover books are lame.

>but without trying to mash your backstory into his plot/world
The fuck?
No, he should totally try to make it fit within the DMs world. Obviously he shouldn't try to make up insane shit like "and I'm the number 1 best fighting guy ever and everyone knows me." But the worst thing to do would be make up places that don't exist and forcing the DM to add those places to his setting.

...

My DM is pretty cool. I might be biased because he's my SO. I just worry I might be overwhelming him with the stuff I write. It takes him a while to get around to reading a short story, for example--usually a few days after I've written it. (And by short story, I mean two pages in single-spaced Arial 11pt font.) We also do talk about D&D fairly often outside of sessions.

Would I be doing my group a disservice if I went druid of the land and only used ice/water/healing spells for thematic purposes? And also ignored wildshape completely because shapeshifting is dumb.For this particular character.

I'd just tell your DM you enjoy writing these things (he probably knows you do, obviously). And if he ever sees something he doesn't like/disagrees with then you're willing to change it to fit his world.

If I were your DM I'd fucking love you. Even going so far as to giving you ideas and information about the setting and seeing if you'd like to worldbuild parts of it yourself and collaborate setting ideas.

Depending on context even stuff like that can be credible. In a feudalesque setting, "I am the best of my king's knights" can be fitting if the game is starting at mid levels. A level 4 mastermind rogue with Silver Tongue and Actor who rolled for stats and got some insane bullshit for Cha score can probably get away with "I am one of the thieves guild's most trusted spies", given the setting is not very high power

Earth/Fire Genasi that just fucking insists on doing so

Hence why I asked if anything in particular needs fixing.

Talk to your DM about making flavor changes in certain spells so they apply

By 'mash' I meant really just forcing it, leaving DM with no other choice in interpretation, etc. If it all goes voluntarily between two of them - it's all good. Even giving ideas for new weird places is good - at least if it's a homebrew setting in development.

You just keep doing you, and DM will come around to it. My wife came up with a few pieces of her character's backstory that eventually led me to actually define my setting, create an overarching plot in that one campaign and across all of those that I already did and intend to do in the future.

Here's to the players and loved ones who inspire us for greatness in our hobby... Instead of making us miserable and turn our games into new ways of whining about stuff.

Scenario: you have two enemies adjacent to you: Attack one to trigger Fancy Footwork, then shift around the other and attack it for sneak attack.

Scenario: you have three adjacent enemies and you are not in a corner: Disengage as a bonus action then sneak attack one after you shift to where only one is adjacent. Then you run because Rogues get squishy versus mobs.

Scenario: you are cornered or surrounded by three or more adjacent enemies: bonus action to boost Acrobatics or Disengage then tumble over the group as a movement action, then use remaining movement and Action to run the hell away and go into kiting/sniping mode.

The only ones with huge issues are Champion and PDK. All other fighters have their own system of short/long rest special attacks and passives.

Battlemaster gets better burst attacks but zero passives. Filling a jack-of-all trades role compared to Knights, Monster Hunters, Arcane Archers and Cavaliers.

>We also do talk about D&D fairly often outside of sessions.
Must be nice. Most I get out of the first group I'm in is non-stop stereotypes about our characters that no one lives up to, but that might change this upcoming session.

It's not too bad but it's definitely rough around the edges and borrows liberally from warlocks. If you want a cha-based gish and don't like paladins you still have bladelock and stone sorcerer

Why not nature cleric, then? But yes, it could work. Just compromise to use wild shape for exploring and utility stuff.

>a player showing this much interest in story stuff

And people say there are no more heroes.

I've always felt non-moon Druids should get a Variant choice that replaces Shapeshift on a short rest cooldown, even something as simple as "you can regain X spell slots/gain X temp HP"

Doesn't necessarily have to be cha based, the abilities just meshed well with my character's background that I wrote up.

But they do, user!

>Starling at 2nd level, you can regain some of your magical energy by sitting in meditation and communing with nature. During a short rest, you choose expended spell slots to recover. The spell slots can have a combined level that is equal to or less than half your druid level (rounded up), and none of the slots can be 6th level or higher. You can't use this feature again until you finish a long rest

Give me ideas for my pimped out mobile-home carriage.

Wait, misunderstood you. Disregard me.
Additional feature instead of Wildshape would actually be kinda cool.

Same. There should be a wildshapeless variant.
Nature cleric lacks the spells druid has access too, and their short rest is even worse.
Fucking charming plants and animals. Who thought that would be a good idea?

>My wife came up with a few pieces of her character's backstory that eventually led me to actually define my setting, create an overarching plot in that one campaign and across all of those that I already did and intend to do in the future.
GMs don't normally do this?

What. I thought this was common practise. Literally did this the first time I ever played, and done it every time ever since.

Why the fuck would you NOT use the ideas the players have? I don't

Those aren't classes.

Is my con modifier retroactive for my hit points?

So if I have a modifier of 1 at level 3, then it goes up to 2 at level 4, do I gain the hit points I would have for a 2 modifier at levels 1-3?

So how do you deck out a monster's spells without making them too strong, like hags?

Some players don't give GMs anything to work with.

Kensai monk.

In that case, you have the additional choices of a melee cleric or a bladesinger (even though bladesingers in melee is silly from what I've heard of the archetype), hard to say without more information about the character