/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General: Variant Humans Edition

I think that the biggest problem with it is that it's the revised Beastmaster ranger, but better and more versatile. When designing a class in 5e, it should either be more versatile or better, not both. This needs to be its own class, rather than a subclass.

I see. I can definitely change some of the versatility stuff. I want it to be viable compared to other archetypes but still a chunk weaker because it's not a full class. Any ideas on what for it stands out as a separate class? I'm probably gonna drop spellcasting and make it only gain two major modifications, and then two starting minor modifications, and one more at each other level. Are the ability scores too high?

Because it's one of very few options which can actually be adapted to fit almost any class well, so my table isn't full of a bunch of random fantasy races.

Because I like feats.

WotC is currently working on a Druid variant that focuses entirely on shapeshifting. Maybe try making a class that focuses entirely on an animal/monster companion.

>Letting people use feats in 5e
Get with the times old man

I've started DMing to give our usual DM a break. My group is into the game and enjoys playing but they have no interest in story. This is cool with me but I've never played a campaign with no real goal.

Does anyone play like this? Tips? Should I still implement some large overarching goal or just say fuck it since they don't care?

Non-variant human really should have gotten an extra skill or something. As is it's basically just pointlessly bad

Alright, I'll look into doing that. That also gives me potential to add some more combat abilities to the PC as well, instead of everything for the companion. Thank you.

They're not really working on it. Mearls has just said he wish he had focused on it more during development, but people aren't complaining enough about druid to justify a full rework.

So Humans go from being THE WORSE RACE to pick as an adventure to becoming actually competitive.

Well damn, guess I was wrong. Either way, I feel like at some point during 5e's life cycle we'll see a class that focuses on shapeshifting. Mearls and Crawford will probably spend a month or so working on it, release it in a UA along with intiative variants, and then spend 12 months revising it.

Flail snail is best monster.

Why don't you ban Variant Human and just give a feat to every PC?

Because then no one would play a human, and this isn't Pathfinder.

Why not just start the game at a higher level if that's what you want?

I do exactly that, and my players always go for flavor choices over the usual picks that work with their character. Tavern Brawler for a heavy drinking barbarian or Healer for a former medic turned adventurer.

>Banning something because it's good

Do you also ban spells? Do you ban bear totem barbarians? Greatswords are good, do you ban those?
There are a lot of choices in this game that are good. Why not ban all the good choices so your PCs have to play Dwarf wild sorcerors or Dragonborn rangers or Gnome champion fighters.

>missing the point this fucking hard

So why do you ban variant human?

Not him, but I share the same opinion. Normal humans are 'average' in that they are crap for building an adventurer. More than half of the races have dark vision, small races don't have a strength or hit point penalty and the worst that can happen to a non-human is social racism outside of combat. Yeah, it is meta-gamey to choose a race suited to what you want your character to be but that is how games are played; otherwise why have classes and subclasses? Only one type of Fighter knows how to trip an enemy by hacking at his ankle? Rogues know how to use a short sword but not a scimitar?

Feats in 5e can be very powerful and that is how humans can be a valid option to any class. Humans make up a huge population of the world so it makes sense that humans could adapt to many roles.

>if i ban variant human nobody will play human!

Is that even a bad thing?

Back to /pfg/.

I hate Pathfinder with all my heart, I just don't see a problem with having a group of core races with none being human.

Hey reposting from last thread. So I'm a ranged battlemaster with sharpshooter and I was wondering if I should go with Lucky, a Dex bonus or Dual Wielder for 6th level. The reason I'm interested in Dual Wielder is because it'll allow me to throw 3 darts per turn essentially getting an extra chance to get another +10 damage on a target.

And if you allow V.Humans, you still will have non human characters.

At Lv4, what is the difference between a Mountain Dwarf melee Fighter and a V.Human melee Fighter? The Dwarf can take the feat and the human will either take the ASI to match the Dwarf stats or take another feat.

If the human takes the ASI, they will both have the same feat and the same stats. The Dwarf will still have dark vision, poison resistance but the human has a bit more movement and an extra skill. Not really equal in my view.

Anyone have the latest season of Adventurers league adventures? Season 6?

the game is better without variant humans and half-elves.

The only race that should be banned is gnomes.

God I'm so stuck, help me out.
Doing early level content right now and so far I'm going to ask my players to use a fake caravan ride in order to catch some bandits and find their hideout. Problem is I want to spice it all up and have a major villain stalk/engage them so it's not the usual find place raid place win type deal.
Any ideas or stuff I could steal from you folks?

the highest ability modifier you can start with is +3. The dwarf and the human are going to take asi at level 4 and 8 for every class except fighter.

Give me 47 reasons why

GWM and PAM are better than +2 STR, though.

Because all the human PCs are dead. Well, petrified.

The survivors are all crazy deviants. Homebrewed Emperor Penguin-folk, Abyssal Tiefling, a Dragonborn with Charisma over 20 (magic tables gone wrong/right, his Strength is 6.) and a UA Minotaur.

Can't call the variant humans over powered once you hit level 9.

Just limit v. human feat choice to some less broken ones

No PAM or whatever, but they could still grab HAM if they wanted for example. Basically just remove the meme feats. If someone wants to be an optimizer they can spend their actual ASIs on it like everyone else.

...

In the long run yeah, but at low levels accuracy is a bit scarce. If it's a ranged guy with the fighting style to match sharpshooter is pretty much entirely better than a dex boost though

Reposting " Just for the official answer, you cannot TWF with darts. They are not melee weapons. You'd be using daggers.

And my advice is to never take DW before you reach 20 Dex. I can't imagine drawing one more weapon could ever be that important."

For good measure. If you want an extra ranged weapon attack, there's crossbow expert.

I want to remake an old character that I once had. Since the homebrew thing isn't going to be allowed and I'm certain of that, the closest I can think of is a multiclass of Mastermind Rogue and Bladesinger Wizard, in an attempt to make a "slightly fighty supportive tactics wizard".
The old character was a Half-Elf, but someone else is encouraging me to go VHuman to get Spell Sniper instead.

Honestly, I'm on the ropes. Opinions?

>WotC is currently working on a Druid variant that focuses entirely on shapeshifting

FUCKING YES.

FUCKING DAMNIT.

Also unless his heart is completely set of darts or daggers he's also be better off just getting the crossbow feat and getting an extra attack for using a hand crossbow

Because I DM adventure league games, which has its own set rules. They have gotten better with giving DMs more freedoms recently but limiting or expanding players choices in race and class is not one of them.

what's wrong with feats? they're not usually that OP, and they are super fun.

No, even then.

At levels 5-7 you need to be hitting AC16 for ASI to just about edge out over GWM, and even then GWM wins because of the BA attack additional effect.

And for Barbarians is a no contest.

Play a Valor Bard?

>WotC is currently working on a Druid variant that focuses entirely on shapeshifting.
Sauce?

As long as you plan to never fight with anything other than your chosen weapon, of course.

I have one of them, but it's on my computer at home.

Nothing says "slightly fighty supportive tactics wizard" like bladesinger if you ask me, but you might want to clarify exactly what "slightly fighty" means to you.

I've got a level 7 Barbarian in my current game. Level 8 coming up.

Currently have
>18 str
>16 dex
>18 con
>17 ac

Increase str to 20 or go for GWM?

GWM.

Assuming you plan on always using a greatsword or something similar I'd pick GWM otherwise strength

Greataxe, so yeah.

Variant Human is fine. Variant Human Fighter with PAM, Sentinel, Tunnel fighting at lv 4i when it gets autistic.

I completely forgot that they existed. How good are they?
I've never fucking seen a Bard played, and I don't think I could manage someone as suave or good at words as one. The character is likely a kind-hearted person with a keen mind,
but social skills that aren't exactly up to scratch, and possibly a bit naive and eccentric and thought
Basically, not being a total pushover in melee, and while not necessarily a front line (and most likely not anyways), is still capable of holding their own up-close.

Also, another reason I wanna use the particular multiclass, since I discovered it, is the fact that with the Half-Elf racial, Mastermind's 3rd level bonus, and the background I intend to use, i could have a whole 8 languages at level 3, which is where we'll be starting.

Oh, and basically, the idea would be to lay down some controlling/supportive spells, then move in to range to give someone advantage with Help, and then the next round again use the bonus action Help and start poking things in melee.

I'll keep the tab open, then.

Anyone has text-only version of dmg?
It's a pain to read dnd books on eink reader

In some respects you may even want to consider playing a paladin since you could just cast bless or whatever and just help people by fighting near them for the rest of the fight, but really any of the gishes mentioned already would work

I am thinking of creating my own campaign, what are some tips for stuff I should/shouldn't do while creating it?

I don't think Paladin is something I want to try and play, as I already have one. This way seems a little more involved, and entertaining.
I'm also tempted to just make it a straight Mastermind, but I dunno quite yet. I only played the original Wizard for two sessions for the campaign fell apart, and I've never played a Rogue at all.

Download DMG from PDF, don't be That Guy, don't railroad, don't think for one second you can predict every possible outcome your characters will undertake, etc.

All bards are eccentric. Just act like a rock star.

Start with a small town/village and an adventure.

Let the Players determine a lot of the world's history and geography by creating their character's backstory.

Don't over prepare, just figure out what the players want to do or could do, and prep for that.

It's kinda based on an old one I made like I mentioned before and I don't think I can personally emulate that sort of style at all, myself.
Plus, Bards lack the tactics-y style I was looking for.

Don't plan too much, give them choices and don't force them to do a thing. My players were expecting something they decided to help with to be bigger than I had planned, so I had to extend it by about three places. I wish they didn't take so long doing things though.

Lore Bard is the best class in the system.

Valor Bard not so much but it's more fighty (either sword and board or archery) and decent at everything.

Don't worry about roleplaying being good at words. Your character is meant to be smart/cunning, right? Fluff your shit up as making sound arguments, keen insights, and coming up with good plans or whatever.

Already have the books download, and I have done sessions before. For the railroading I was thinking of making something along the lines of a quest-board for when they want to do those king of things.
That was what I was planning on doing where they are in a town trying to solve the mysteries around the town.

I hear this a lot. Why exactly is Lore bard considered the best in the system?

They're a full caster that gets a few chances to add other classes spells to their own spell list, while also just having a decent list of class features.

>3 feats at lvl 4

But how?

tunnel fighting is a fighting style (that should probably never be used)

Ah. Right. My bad.

Seems odd that they'd have these ideas and tactics when they don't have much INT or WIS to back it up though, you know?
I just have this one idea stuck in my head, I suppose.

How about a Mystic? Do an Avatar. Still Int-based, can still use things that are similar to spells, also get a bunch of auras and other support stuff.

If the players end up capturing any of the bandits, have the bandits leader treat with them.
If the pcs are willing then trade the captives for bribes or a favor, only to have it fu l them over with the law after the bandits leader spreads rumors that the pcs are a part of his band.
If they aren't willing, then have him vow to make their lives hell. Have them be unable to journey through that area without being constantly harried by bandits.

Why before 20 dex? Why not at 18? Genuinely curious

I don't think Mystics are allowed in this, otherwise I'd be using a Soul-Knife.

Not quite used to fifth edition yet and played my first real session yesterday. We're a group of magic users in a magic-centric FR campaign but we ended up without an actual wizard. We're levelling up from 1 to 2 and I want to be able to study the weird shit that's going on around us (year 1385, Mystra was just killed and everything's on fire but some magic still works to an extent), but I'm a sorcerer and it looks like the Identify spell is the only practical way to analyze the effects of stuff around us. I'd try an Arcana check but the DM broke it down into specific fields of magic for this campaign and I'm not sure any of them would be particularly relevant. Of course I'll ask him about it soon.

In the meantime, what are my best options to either gain Identify or otherwise analyze magic? Detect Magic is moot since most magic sources are on fire. At the moment I can see either:
- Multiclass into wizard to learn Identify;
- Wait until level 4 to take Ritual Caster with wizard spells.
Either way I still need to find an expensive pearl, which I'm sure is going to be a problem.

It's still semi-official material. If you're not playing League it's worth asking about at least.

Could use some advise.

I've given my players some sidequests to complete, and when they complete them I'm going to award them with some magic items. I already gave out an animated shield to one player, and now another player is about to complete his quest. He's playing a moon druid, but the aspects of his character he seems to focus on are being stealthy, sneaky and cunning. Kind of spyish. I'm not really sure what to give him, so I'd like to hear some suggestions if anyone would like to offer some up.

I'm checking, but I doubt it'll be allowed.
Would my initial plan of Mastermind 4/Bladesinger X be solid? I'm okay with not getting 9th level spells and I doubt I'll get to that point anyways.

Just modify the Cloak of Elvenkind to work only in forest and other vegetation

A knife that can cast invisibility?

Anyone got the Aasimar and Tiefling extra features tables?

Reposting from /pgg/ for opinions because I got no (you)s, despite it being far less relevant to 5e than it was to 3.5
>udan-adan.blogspot.com/2016/04/your-demon-lord-doesnt-need-that-many.html
Summary:
>Remember Lolth, spider-goddess of the drow? When Sutherland and Gygax wrote Queen of the Demonweb Pits in 1980, their assumption was that she would be a tough but not impossible boss-fight for a party of level 10-14 characters. How about Tiamat, mother-goddess of all evil dragons? According to the AD&D 1st edition monster manual, she has AC 0 and 128 HP, although 80 of those are 'in' her various heads: doing 48 damage directly to her body will kill her outright. (You don't even need magical weapons to hit her!) Orcus? 120 hit points. Asmodeus and Demogorgon? 199 and 200 HP respectively. Yes, they're crazily powerful, and, yes, they're quite capable of killing your PCs: but they still clearly exist on the same scale as trolls and giants and dinosaurs and high-level player characters.

>As much as D&D PCs have been boosted over the years, their top-end foes - dragons, demons, demon lords - have been boosted even more. High age-category dragons, for example, have gone from 'a bit tougher than a giant' to gigantic mega-monsters with completely surreal numbers of hit points. In AD&D 1st edition, the maximum number of hit points for a regular goblin was 7, whereas in D&D 3.5 it had risen to 9: but over the same time, the maximum HP for a red dragon of the largest size had risen from 88 to 880, meaning that the toughness of the dragon had increased roughly eight times as fast as that of the goblin

>A demonic sadist with the head of a dove, who eats the eyes of his victims, makes minions made from their flayed corpses, and lives in a house in which every room contains some new tableau of the macabre? That's great! Stick him and his horrible skinless minions and his horrible creepy house in a hex somewhere right away!

>Why aren't Variant Humans banned in your game?

One, because the the benefit provided by a feat is roughly equal to the racial features other races get.

Dwarves get weapon proficiency, poison resistance, darkvision, tools.. Elves get weapon training, darkvision, advantage vs. charms.. etc. Humans get zilch, but the feat compensates.

Two, which builds off the first, is that the feat only *exceeds* the power of other races if you take the most broken ones and stack them up, like Lucky or PAM. None of my players are such munchkins they seek to break the game open like that, but even if they did, again, they do it at the expense of other racial features like Darkvision.

>But wait: he's 'challenge rating' 26, meaning that only a party of level 25+ characters would have a decent chance of beating him

>In the original Conan stories, the hero can't seem to manage a half-hour's walk without tripping over some benighted valley full of crazy demon-worshippers revering a monster-god from before time. These stories almost always end with Conan stabbing the beastie to death and wandering off. That's not because Conan is a super-duper-high-level-mega-ultra-badass fantasy superhero: it's because the demonic god-monsters in his world just aren't all that tough. Early D&D reflected that sensibility, and I think it was the stronger for it, because it makes the resulting monsters - dragons, demons, archdevils, and the rest - so much easier to use in actual play. There is a place in games for enormously, unbeatably powerful monsters, but it's quite a small place, and you're unlikely to need very many of them in any one campaign

Which is better, on average, for spells: rerolling any 1 once, or treating any 1 as a 2?

I mean, on a d20 there's a 90% chance you'll better than a 1 or 2 if you reroll

>Why aren't Variant Humans banned in your game?
Stop playing non-humans.