/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General

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When was the last time your adventures took you into space?

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Which is the better spell, Shield or Mage Armor? I argue Shield because you can cast it as a reaction, it blocks magic missile, and you only have to use it when and if you need it, so you can save a spell slot for something else. I ask because I'm making a Wizard for a new game I'm getting into, and I don't have any protection spells, but I'm thinking of taking one just to be safe. Are either Shield or Mage Armor really necessary?

Why not both?

Both are only necessary if your DM really hates you / you keep putting yourself into situations where you get attacked.

A good wizard shouldn't be attacked in the first place.

Play LMoP and get yourself a Staff of Defense, then you don't have to choose!

I have an item in my game that engulfs the user in a deep purple mist for one minute, while in it they have truesight and the ability to see into space.

What's LMoP?

Lost Mine of Phandelver. Glasstaff has one.

The Staff of Defence is so good for a level 2 item. When we got there the DM obviously expected the Wizard to take it, but he gladly gave it to my Eldritch Knight.

Taking the super tank EK to whole new levels is fun.

Lost Mines of Phandelver, one of the first modules put out for 5e, and definitely the best one at the time. It's actually aged pretty well, and aside from one difficult section at the beginning (the goblin cave is better handled at level 2 than at level 1), makes for a great starting adventure for a group of people new to 5e or tabletop games in general.

>Goliath Mystic with Giant Form active
>6 levels of Totem Barb for Aspect of the Bear
>Bard casts Enhance Ability Strength on you
>Someone casts Enlarge on you
>Become Atlas

THIS IS WITHOUT FLAW

A player in my group of 3 is going to have to step away for a few sessions for unrelated issues, how is playing with two people? I was thinking about doing some TftYP in a separate game with the two other players, but I wonder how I should balance a campaign around just two players. Is it even worth doing? How do small groups do it? I feel like it will be awkward and unfun without at least a minimum number of people to bounce banter off of.

I haven't been able to play with my group at all for about a month now because we're all a bunch of college students and two of our members got flung across the country for summer. Video or voice calling isn't necessarily a problem but what IS a problem is that no one's damn schedules line up at ALL because of work, etc. so I'm just really mad that the group got torn apart by circumstance right as our campaign was reaching a critical point. We might be able to pick it back up after the summer but by then, the momentum will probably be gone and it just won't feel the same.

Is there any remedy to this?

I've never used Roll20 before and am considering hopping on just to get my fix, but ultimately, it's not the D&D I care about, it's the D&D /with my friends/ that I care about, so Roll20 or a new group would only be a partial cure.

Switch to fortnightly games and see if that helps

dude if even fortnightly games worked, we would have at least gotten ONE game in by now. There is not a single time of the week where every member is free at the same time. We came close with Saturday nights but then the friend on the east coast would be staying up absurdly late due to time zones.

There's six of us, for the record, one DM and five players.

I made up a dwarf clan founded by a dwarf who killed an ice giant king with a stone warhammer, but is that even possible?

Well it would be a Frost Giant... and yeah I guess. If the founder was a really powerful Fighter or whatever he could kill a Frost Giant king.

Sure. The dwarves just conveniently stay quiet about the Clan head's human and elven friends who fought with him.

Totally. What the clan doesn't know is that the founder just got a lucky shot in, "The Man Who Killed Batman" style.

Is it weird that I knew this was Treasure Planet just from the image thumbnail? Even though the thumbnail just shows a bluish-purple star patch?

Mechanically sure but if you feel like it feels a bit cheap storywise you could have a secret background bit where the story is embellished significantly, he killed an already weak/old Ice Giant by some dirty trick such as hammering his skull while he was asleep or weakening him with poison.

>elves
Too busy sucking their own dicks to do anything

Some Olaf One-Eye shit right thar

Is 12 STR and Brawny enough to be a dedicated grappler? I'm a Mystic so Brute Force will let me get a +5 to the checks too if needed.
If not I can put my 11 elsewhere and use a 16.
Ideally I'd prefer to focus CON and INT more than STR.

Forgot- also free Advantage on Grapples with Brute Force

AFTER SESSION REPORT

With the blessing of Big Goblin (the local goblin deity), the heroes help arrange a tournament to determine which of the six goblin chiefs is worthy to be the next Boss. The tournament is comprised of 3 events: a battle royale, a singing competition, and a trivia challenge.

The battle royale is set in an ancient keep that has fallen into ruin. The party favors Grax as the next goblin Boss (he desires peace with the humans), so they secretly give him some magical assistance in the battle. The other contenders are killed off one by one, either by combat or by falling into traps, until only Grax remains. He wins the royale, and wins the singing contest and the trivia challenge by default since he's the only one alive.

While in the keep, the party finds another clue to the location of Great Emperor Vaunord's lost treasure. After tournament ends, they resume their search for the treasure. As they travel through the foothills, they encounter a pair of very big, very stupid ogres. The party barely pulls through in the bloody battle than ensues, and the cleric nearly dies again.

>When you play a Mystic and the DM thinks it's broken because "you can do too much"

I'm not sure I can go back to a boring Ranger or Fighter type class now.

>game dies in a horrible way
>in okay terms with the dm
>Not ask him to join the sunday game set in the same universe to avoid putting more pressure on him
>He says "Really sucks. I would invite over to sunday but its pretty full"

What are your disciplines? What is your party made up of?

If you're the same guy from yesterday, I do have new advice.

If you have a huge attachment to this character, and this universe, but you can't get in? Detach from it. Completely. Don't ask "what happened this session?" or "How did the new party treat X NPC or Y NPC?" It'll hurt too much. Just tell the DM that if there's ever an opening, you'd be happy to join back in, but he doesn't need to overload himself because you know how much that would hurt him. If something comes up, and you can get back in, then ask for a summary, but for now, just let it be. Maybe you can use the passion you felt for that setting and put it into making your own setting?

If I was using a large token where does a cone originating from that token start? Any edge of the token? In the center of the token?

...

Depends what type of attack the cone is and where it's emitted from. A breath would start where the mouth is so this is creature dependent. So a dragon could pull it head back in order to change the emission point. spells most come from the hand (which can be depend whether they extend the arm or not.)

I remember reading something on Sage Advice Crawford said.

In the edition a cone can be from ANYWHERE the token's controller wishes. So if you need to aim from the corner of the token to reach around the corner you can, if you need to aim from the middle of your space to avoid hitting an ally you can and so on.

This is represented in fluff of being able to move your head, hands and etc. to the exact area you want to aim from.

What's your favorite Plane?

What's the spookiest and Halloweeniest character build I can go for? I'm currently torn between Warlock and Necromancer

Anyone who says anything other than the Abyss is a bundle of sticks

Is Tidal Wave a decent spell? Seems pretty low on the damage but the area it targets is a nice shape for fucking up enemies and the Prone seems handy.

Feywild

Is the Giant Growth discipline worth it? Seems like a waste when I get 5 temp hp a turn anyways and could instead pick one that has like 6 different "spells" instead of just 2.

Long Death Monk has spooky aura power at level 3, and oathbreaker paladin has a weird dark angel mode at 17. You can also play a fallen aasimar from Volo's so you can go dark angel from that start. But that's more emo than spooky.

Thanks. Ill just put some distance for my own sake then.

To add to this question does the width of the cone depend on the size of the creature or object or is it all the same?

As you have deduced, it is probably better for a Soul Knife or front line Avatar, or even for an Immortal to temporarily use before swapping it out once they get their ablative hitpoints.

Trust me, I understand how it feels. Something similar almost happened to me a few months ago, but I helped out and got the DM to excise the cancer with a fuckton of effort and communication with the group, but it only worked because it was one problem player who drove our DM to almost give up. If there was even one more straw, the game would've died. So you've got to know that distancing yourself will be better in the long run.

Without giving me any >dandwiki, are the races there, minus the joke ones, properly balanced and fun?

What matters is that my dm feels better desu. His life is as shitty as it is. Thanks for the feedback friend

Depends on the race. Some are, some aren't, according to the skill of the people who made them. They're probably all decent starting points regardless, however.

Is UA Changeling really good or really shit?

That's your own damn fault for playing a UA that is overtuned and bloated with options. If you can do everything, every other class is going to feel worse. It's why I don't play Wizards anymore.

It's on a case-by-case basis, some are built like dandwiki (shit), like the genasi variant that gives 10th level moon druid features at 1st level like it's nothing.

Example of a "balanced" one: Common Orc from dandwiki.com/wiki/Orc_(5e_Race) is at least decent, basically a half-orc, but other subraces there have features that were never curated by someone in the community (Sun Adapted)

Broken for social interaction, shitty for combat.

Sorry if I'm retarded but I seem to recall a post from before regarding making money using the performance skill like there was a mechanic for it. Could someone tell me where to find the details on it?

Entertainer background's feature is the nearest it gets, not entirely specific to the Performance skill, though

>9 Sun Soul Monk/ 11 Horizon Walker Ranger
Walk up slowly, teleport, punch, Kamehameha. What more could you need?

UA Downtime maybe?

>What more could you need?
Good class features

...That's impressing.

I fucking love fifth age, its so much fun

I'm playing a clone of R Lee Emery Portraying Gunnery Sergeant Hartman XXl (because there are other clones) and it's a god damn blast

Making an Immortal Mystic. What should I take for my final Discipline? Looking to cover a lot of bases for team support and self durability.

Level 8 btw

>Brute Force
>Adaptive Body
>Mastery of Light and Dark
>Mastery of Air
>Intellect Fortress
>Nomadic Mind*, Iron Hide, Third Eye, or Mystic Recovery

*more for the "find general location" ability, I'll be talking the Focus over with the DM to nerf it- I'll need to find people to "steal" languages/skills/tools to swap in instead of just being able to pick any of them.

Shield is better in emergencies. Mage Armor is constant protection. If you're not taking a lot of damage Shield is the better choice, if you're getting nuisance pinged Mage Armor. Both certainly doesn't suck but it does raise a question of how well you're party is working together.

found the bundle of sticks

Sounds about right, then.

How is Out of the Abyss as an adventure module?

Good if you want more Underdark/cave stuff or are looking for resources for running prison breaks/PCs running with large caravans of NPCs. Story can be a bit lackluster if you don't like the Underdark to begin with and "everyone starts in jail with nothing" doesn't sell well to all groups.

Awakened Undead Necromancer/Bard

So you can Form your own undead mariachi band

How does one become a much?

Want to make a my BBEG a fallen Arthurian knight trying to bring back the once and future king

A Lich*

The entire first half of the module is just wilderness exploration and dungeon crawls. Not to say that there's not a enough social interactions, of course.

There's like 10 NPC companions at the start and the plot doesn't require any of them to live, but most of them have their own little plot.

>Meanwhile, in Port Nyanzaru...

You do a magical ritual involving scrolls and a container of some kind. What you use as a container is up to you. The details are kind of left vague and the DM can insert whatever they want.

You might say it is just a matter of being really good at Necromancy, it might be a specific arcane ritual that any caster could do, it might require human sacrifice.

I'd say build an Eldritch Knight and apply Lich traits and give him some Necromancy spells and minions. The actual mechanics of a Necromancer Eldritch Knight don't really matter for the players.

So if none of them live it's still good?

The original description for the lich ritual involved an 11th level spellcaster who, through his whole career as an adventurer collected poisons and blood from the poisonous creatures they encountered. It also described creating a poison specific to the caster out of it all that includes a unicorn's blood, the heart of a golden dragon, two members of his same race, one half his age and one twice his age, and three infants of any race. On the night of a full moon you have to slay them all, mix together their blood into the poison. Then you cast cone of cold, animate dead, false life, souljar and a couple others both on the potion, and on your soon to be phylactery. After that, you drink the potion and make a system shock roll.

If you beat the DC you rise as a lich. If you fail the roll, you are forever destroyed, and not even deific intervention can bring you back. Because the intense evil of the spells you wrote onto scrolls in your phylactery, and the actions you did to get up to that point actually tore a hole in reality and essentially made the universe say 'as long as this object exists, this lich exists' making you a permanent law of the universe until your phylactery is destroyed.

This of course was a 2nd and 3rd edition rendition of the ritual written in some book, so you can do what you want.

If he's an NPC, however you want. Could be some arcane ritual foretold in long-forgotten prophecies, could be making a pact with fucking Cthulhu or something. Sky's the limit, user.

3rd edition didn't really go into great detail in the monster manual entry which described adding the template, though I really wished it did for all the "good lich" shit I've seen here

I play a homebrew 5e Spelljammer, so...

Hey Veeky Forums, I know this is Veeky Forums and usually not the place for blogposts, but this feels like a friendly enough board that I thought I'd give it a shot anyway.

I always wanted to play D&D, but didn't feel like joining a random group. Recently, one of my best friends realized that it might actually be a ton of fun, and he gave me the Starter Set for my birthday with the Lost Mines of Phandelver module. Myself, I don't really like the prospect of DMing. I really love how the rules work and I can create a nice story, but I'm absolutely abhorrent at being a good narrator. I get shy when a group listens closely to me and I shut down (even my friends). Luckily, my friend was interested in DMing so he took up that role.
So we gathered a group and started doing LMoP. We are all literally new to the entirety of tabletop gaming, so we're making a lot of mistakes, but we're having a blast each session (tonight is going to be session 5).
Now instead of using a Starter Set prewritten character, I created my own. I tried to keep my backstory as close as possible to the prewritten characters (their backstory and goals tie in directly to the LMoP module, and I thought it's going to be too much for our new DM to improvise my entire backstory).

So instead of the starting set wizard, I created a warlock. They share mostly the same traits and their goal in LMoP is roughly the same.

However, I feel like I kinda fucked up my Warlock. I created him with roleplaying in mind, but now I realise he's really weak in the actual game. My DEX and CON are both pretty low (10 and 12 respectively), so my AC is 12 (bought some better armor to boost my AC by 1) and my HP is 21 at level 3. Is this going to be a problem, or is making an optimal character for combat completely uncessary?
I'm clueless on the difficulty of 5e (again, we're completely new at this) and I would be a bit bummed if my character would already die before we finish LMoP.

>tl;dr: Did I fuck up my character?

As long as your CHA's good, you'll be fine. Don't take blade pact since you lack the stats for it, and don't go into melee. Play smart and you'll be fine.

Warlock's gameplay is quite simple, stay behind, use Hex + Eldritch Blast whenever it's reasonable in combat, you keep Hex concentrated even outside combat, so you get 1 hour of uptime before you need to use another slot.
I'd suggest picking Pact of the Tome, it's the classic warlock. Ask your DM for some ritual spell scrolls from loot when it makes sense so you have more utility outside combat.

Isn't that the port where the new D&D adventure book is set in?

>HP is 21 at level 3
You'll be fine. Wizards and most Sorcerers only have 20 at level 3 so as long as you keep away from most enemies you'll be fine.

What are the spells you have?

How do I level 3 Druid.

CHA is 16 at level 3. Going to up that to 20 as first. Also took the invocations that buff my Eldritch Blast with a push and I can add my CHA modifier to the damage. Seemed like I was going to use that as my main damage, so why the fuck not.

>you keep Hex concentrated even outside combat, so you get 1 hour of uptime before you need to use another slot.
This kinds of things we are still disputing over. My DM and me are both new, and I told him I think it's reasonable that I can concentrate on my spell outside of combat, as long as I'm not resting. He disagreed.

Ok thanks for the tip

From the top of my head, I made my story so I have an (unwilling) pact with an Elder God, so;
>Dissonant Whispers
>Hex
>Hellish Rebuke (might switch this one out when I level up, but 3d10 sounded great as a fuck you if somebody attacks me)
>Detect Thoughts (fits my roleplaying)

and a shitload of cantrips, including Eldritch Blast (ofcourse), Shocking Grasp, Shillelagh, Vicious Mockery and Friends.

Oh and to add, I did take pact of the tome, since it also fits my roleplaying best. He was a scholar, but landed on some forbidden knowledge, which unbeknownst to him made him make a pact with an Elder God.
So he's quite the typical study guy. I interpreted his high Charisma as having enough willpower or personality to not crack under the insane knowledge that was bestowed upon him. Not sure if that's how it works, but I didn't really understand why Warlocks use Charisma and not Wisdom as spellcasting. His Intelligence is his second highest score, followed by Wisdom.

It's not really original, but I like it.

It's the main civilized settlement of Chult, it's the main trading center for the continent. If you look close you can see stairs that lead up alleys makeing the circulars buildings the tops of ziggurats (which makes the walkways make more sense)

It's very Dinotopia/Flintstones, people using Dinosaurs for mundane tasks like beasts of burden etc. Its also super diverse, Yuan-Ti and other "Monstrous" races can be found wandering the streets.

That maps not released yet

Pick up Book of Ancient Secrets Invocations and Armor of Agathys spell

Ok thanks for the tip user.

Source?

In general just pick everything that allows you to cast spells for free because you have very little natural spells slots

>He disagreed.

Switch classes ASAP to something stupid simple like Champion Fighter. Your DM is either bad at reading or thinks he knows better than the PHB and either of them will turn a rules interaction heavy class like Warlock into active misery.

That bad? I'll have a talk with him. We're good friends, so I'll explain it to him.

Main problem I have with my group is that most refused to read the PHB for the first few sessions (I'm the only one who got one), and they got annoyed when I tried to explain them the rules (DM is always right you told us, stop trying to correct him constantly with rules). Which I agree they had a fair point, but I was just a bit annoyed many basic rules were completely ignored. Our Cleric couldn't attack because he was concentrating on a spell.

However, it's gotten better. People are getting more invested and interested in the actual rules on things. Finally they all want to read the PHB now and a few are going to buy it. The DM now knows most basic rules in the PHB and is slowly starting to implement a bit more advanced rulings such as difficult terrain/lighting/foliage.

Remember we're only at our fourth session and none of us has ANY experience with tabletop gaming.

To add, what this guy said; >Ask your DM for some ritual spell scrolls from loot when it makes sense so you have more utility outside combat.
Can I copy those rituals in my book of shadows one I get that invocation which lets me use rituals? Or is it impossible to copy spells from scrolls.

What's stopping me from using Alter Self to change my appearance to a skeleton and feign death?

Eldritch Invocation: Book of Ancient Secrets
Prerequisite: Pact of the Tome feature

You can now inscribe magical rituals in your Book of Shadows. Choose two 1st-level spells that have the ritual tag from any class's spell list. The spells appear in the book and don't count against the number of spells you know. With your Book of Shadows in hand, you can cast the chosen spells as rituals. You can't cast the spells except as rituals, unless you've learned them by some other means. You can also cast a warlock spell you know as a ritual if it has the ritual tag.

On your adventures, you can add other ritual spells to your Book of Shadows. When you find such a spell, you can add it to the book if the spell's level is equal to or less than half your warlock level (rounded up) and if you can spare the time to transcribe the spell. For each level of the spell, the transcription process takes 2 hours and costs 50 gp for the rare inks needed to inscribe it.

10 intelligence

Yeah I read that, but can I add scrolls? I read somewhere that scrolls don't count the same as finding a spell in a book, since scrolls are a one-time use thing. Something along the lines of;
>a magic scroll has the magic imbued into it, while a spellbook has details of how to cast the spell

Or is that up to DM's discretion?

The fact that people can roll perception to realize that the skeleton is somehow breathing.

So, if I can act out being dead, then it's no problem? That's what I figured. I just wanted to make sure, given how there's also the Feign Death spell.
Hilarious.

Yeah, If I am your DM, I will demand you roll a deception check vs their passive perception.
If you succeed, then the bluff succeed.

So i'm playing a fighter and next level i get to take an ASI. (Level 4)

Should i beeline straight for Str 20 or can i mix in some feats to make things interesting if i'm looking for combat power?

The great weapon or polearm feats could potentially do more for you in terms of damage output than a simply 20 strength, but obviously that's only if you actually use those sorts of weapons. I would personally try to get at least 18 before bothering with those though