/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General

What are the best side-quests in chapter 2 of SKT?

The warlock has EXCELLENT mechanics if you actually understand it.
No, you can't heal. You can't support. You can't even do AOE or debuffs. Your job in combat is the same as the fighter's or rogue's - dish out pain. High, consistent pain. Cast Hex, throw EB. It's only boring if you compare it to the wizard instead of the fighter.
Out of combat, you're literally king of consistent utility. One invocation gets you perfect disguises, at will, forever. Another gets you levitation, at will, forever. And assuming you picked Tome or Chain, you have additional means of accomplishing things out of combat.
You're not going to drag anybody down, as long as nobody things you're an alternative wizard. You're not. You're an alternative rogue. Embrace it. Love it.
Or play something else. But don't try to make the warlock something it isn't.

Reposting since last thread died shortly after I posted it:

What are some fun iconic magic items for strahd to use to fuck with the PCs, that he stole from the countless other adventurers he's sucked into ravenloft? (And potentially let the PCs steal from him if they're clever enough)

Warlocks are pretty good mechanically. Them being bad is a meme mainly perpetuated by a mix of people who don't understand math and don't understand their kit.

They do have some issues, though:

- If your table doesn't use short rests, they're objectively worse than most classes. They stand next to Monk in this regard. However, even just 1 short rest per day makes them decent, and 2 is their sweet spot.
- They give you a ton of options through invocations but, realistically, you're only going to grab a couple of them for most of your career, as invocations that make you more combat effective take priority. This isn't a flaw as such, but more of their option list being a huge cocktease.
- People see full spell progression and think 'short rest wizard!'. They're not. They are magical martials. Repeat after me: Warlocks are magical martials. Their Eldritch Blast might as well be refluffed as a magic bow. They are not a support class. They don't play like Wizards or Bards. They are not meant to. What they do, is that they open combat casting a high level spell (a disable, save-or-lose, or situational buff) and then spend the rest of the fight applying Direct Damage much like a Fighter or Barbarian or Rogue or Paladin would. This is how they play. This is their role. CHA-focus, invocations, cantrips, pacts and their spell list provide utility.

They can grab a couple support spells (ie Polymorph) but no, they're not support characters. Celestial UA patron can turn them into healers, but you do not want to be a dedicated healer in 5e. Like, at all.

Reposting from last thread.

Please gib feedback on my first ever attempt at homebrewing. I tried to use PHB Dwarves as a rough template to work off of.

Is this too weak? Too strong? Is it a race that you would be interested in playing or does it need a little bit of something to make it stand out?

King of Tavern Brawls.

Battlemaster, Tavern Brawler, Martial Adept and Grappler feats.

It's pretty worthless in a fight but it's fun to start fight rings like the ones in Witcher 2.

Genuine question: why do you keep asking this?

I love "annoyed" adventurers. You could tell they used to be so driven but doing the same shit over and over again pointlessly has worn them out. But they keep doing it, because by the gods, it's the right thing to do and they were born to do it.

Endless Legend?
You might want to work on the wording of Vaulter Combat Training to use terminology consistent with the rest of the game. Other than that, they're basically fine. They definitely have an identity ("I want to play x but with a shield! :DD") that would make them desirable to some players. They're great wizards, but probably not OP (well, not TOO OP); the +2 CON means they're decent at just about anything.

Does he work for free?

About the only thing useful that race has is shields. Needs something more. Mountain dwarfs are good because they get light and medium armor proficiency.
Shield proficiency isn't bad it is almost on par.

Shield proficiency is BETTER than medium armor proficiency. More classes get armor proficiency/mage armor than get shield proficiency.
This race is basically the "haha now I don't have to dip into fighter" race.

That's funny because all the warlock players I had loved the mechanics but rebelled hard against the fluff ("You try to make my pact/patron story-relevant or a source of conflict and I WILL QUIT THIS GAME!").
They were the worst and I honestly never want another Warlock at my table again...

Strange. People who sell their soul for incredible magical power usually have quite a lot of trouble down the road.

Am I a gigantic faggot if my next character idea is a futuristic spaceman sent to the world as a peacekeeper?

I'm planning on refluffing a warlock of the celestial.

I know this probably isn't a new thing to anyone, but I found this really cool resource online if anyone is interested in making custom creature stat-sheets in the style of the Monster Manual.

Pic related. Link: thegeniusinc.com/dd-monster-maker-download/

Lads, I need some ideas to make make the last session of this quest arc take longer.

It's very early on in the campaign and the player characters are helping the city guard with uncovering a sect spreading a madness-inducing drug that is leading the city to ruin. So far, they know what the drug is made out of and that some demonic sect is involved in it. The next course of action would be to ask around the city market, at which point they'd find out that a lot of the merchants are cultists or under demonic possession, defeat them, backtrack things and find the one producing the drug, acting as the boss of this first quest chain and then leaving it open to the players where to head off to next.

Anyone got any suggestions how to fluff out the time between fighting the cultists in the market square and actually confronting the cult leader? Also, any simple incentives to encourage the party to stay together after leaving town and actually adventure together that don't involve the literal end of the world and only them being able to stop it?

The worst thing here isn't that you were sent from the future, it's that you're appointing yourself "most important character in the setting."
Unless there's many of you. In which case the worst thing is being sent from the future.

That's a really good point. How could I justify "future tech" without being a complete shit about it?

I'm not the only one that would trade the 20 subclasses in the upcoming book for a proper artificer/mystic, am I?

>"Hey, DM, is there a way I could justify 'future tech' in this setting without being a complete shit about it?"

That depends entirely on the DM and the vision he has for his setting. You gotta talk to them.

Actually you might be.
The only exception is if they reversed course on the mystic and go back to their earlier concept - a class with actual identity, and a couple of archetypes for other classes that give them 1/3 psionics.

Moderately armoured is only a half-feat if I remember right and if it takes you up to 14 dex then it's a +5 AC.

>The next course of action would be to ask around the city market

It sounds by this that your situations ingame are very linear. Point a-b-c .

I'd advice reading this article on the three clue rule.

>>thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule

As well as the follow up article on node based scenario design

>>thealexandrian.net/wordpress/7949/roleplaying-games/node-based-scenario-design-part-1-the-plotted-approach

With this method you can structure things out far more naturally and allow your players as a result to approach scenarios in multiple different ways. -meaning you won't have to worry about padding out scenarios for no reason. With this approach players can either be thorough or shortcut through a scenario , which is great too as it rewards them for exploring.

>simple incentives

Well, ideally all the players are linked together in some way anyway, you establish this during session zero. So two players might be siblings, one of those siblings, might be childhood friends with another character who might have been trained by another character etc and they might all be part of a mercenary company , kings guard , or merchant guild in some.capacity. this is ideally all up to the players.

You further make players care about things by letting them set their own goals and enact them in-game. When I design I create a world and various NPC's and their goals and let the players do the same and the conflict is when those goals intersect in some way.

Yeah, Endless Legend. I saw a post in this general a few days ago talking about it but I was away from home at the time so I couldn't really chime in (phoneposting is too tedious).

I agonized a bit over the +1 INT. I feel like I should give it to them since they're THE science faction in EL, but you're right in that it does make them a pretty attractive option for casters, which doesn't quite match with their EL identity. I thought maybe I could switch it for +1 STR to help them get heavy armour prerequisites but I feel like that'd make them TOO Fighter-y.

>You might want to work on the wording of Vaulter Combat Training to use terminology consistent with the rest of the game.
I've just looked up the ranged combat section of the PHB, how does something like this sound?
>You do not suffer disadvantage on your attack role when making a ranged attack against an enemy who is within 5ft of you.
Or is that not the part of the feature you were referring to?

Do you have any particular suggestions in mind? I'm struggling to think of anything combat related to give them aside from more proficiencies, but I don't want to take away too much proficiency choice from class selection.

Overall i'm just happy to hear that they're not OP or anything. I figure it's almost always easier to start from the bottom and work upwards than to try to scale down an overpowered concept. Thanks for the feedback guys, I really appreciate it.

Yeah, but these assholes just didn't want to, you know, contribute to the narrative. One couldn't roleplay his way out of a paper bag and the other got tired of his warlock after the bard started outdoing him on Arcana checks ("I was supposed to be the knower of forbidden magic lore!" "Then why did you roll up a CHA-based character and not an INT-based character?")

>The mystic doesn't have identity, but it would if a shitload of subclasses could dabble in psionics

Are you sure you shouldn't be posting here instead?

That's exactly the part I was referring to, and that fix sounds good.
Yeah, I'd be weary of making them too fightery. But you shouldn't worry too much about the Int, because it's only used by wizards (and a couple of archetypes).
Honestly, they're probably fine as-is.

You're a retard. There's already two archetypes in the game that dabble in casting, and WOTC originally suggested the Immortal would be a fighter subclass. That's exactly the sort of shit archetypes are for.

Underrated post

It's okay, we all read your post. You don't have to bump it. It was good. Relax.

>You're a retard. There's already two archetypes in the game that dabble in casting,
Yeah, and they're fucking worthless compared to just taking a dip in wizard and being a fighter or rogue that can actually do things. How many of the non core subclasses are any good and aren't either retardedly strong or super gimmicky useless shit that do a concept a base class can already generally do with multiclassing? One of the best parts of 5E is that it stepped away from the MTG mentality of constantly adding more poorly thought out classes that's plagued D&D since 3.0 and instead

Being able to take a mystic and have it play like a weird really tough fighter is way more interesting than "I'm a fighter but I also get a couple party tricks several levels later after the dedicated class"

Rival party DM from last night. Ended up taking all your guy's advice and wrote a three-page reflection/apology to my players. It included what I wanted the session to be, how I expected they would act, how they actually acted, and what I was trying to teach them about the game. Shared it with them and, to my surprise, they all felt like they were at fault. We talked it over and they're excited for next week and to meet the rival party again.
Thanks /5eg/

> Upboated le kind gentlesir

Unsurprisingly talk to your fucking players actually works when people do it.

Anyone have any tips or examples for playing a lizardfolk?

Being sort of an alien wanderer looks like a lot of fun, and I would really appreciate some tips or examples of playing as or with one to get me on the right track.

Apparatus of Kwalish

Put it at the other side of Barovia and let them try to drive it all the way to the castle, then have Strahd use Heat Metal on it, forcing them to get out, before just crushing it.

man, i really wish the apparatus of kwalish was good.

How come heat metal heats the whole damn thing? Can you heat the entirety of the earth's core with heat metal?

>more classes get medium armor/Mage armor than shield proficiency
No class gets medium armor but not shields. Only mountain dwarves.
I'll give you it's an alluring addition to rogue or BB/GFB lore bard, but no dedicated melee type really needs it and doesn't already get it.

if you had line of effect, sure. of course what's another 2d6 damage on top of what it already does.

Hey guys, never really played before but it looks like I'll be in a group starting up soon. Just wanted thoughts on a character concept. My idea is that a Sorcerer lost his wife and daughter years ago in a magical accident that fucked their souls, rendering them unable to be resurrected, including through wish. He spends his life trying to bring them back, with a statue of each of them in his workshop so he never forgets what they look like. Eventually, he gets old as fuck, and tired and terribly depressed after all that time, and murmurs "I wish Lily was alive". Unintentionally in his distress, he actually casts the wish spell, losing his life due to strain but animating the statue of his daughter, as after all this time when he thought of his daughter, the statue is what came to mind.

The character herself would be a level 1 sorcerer, refluffed warforge I guess because that's the closest to a statue. She wouldn't be able to talk, but would communicate through other means. If asked her name she would present a Lily flower made using prestidigitation, for example.

If you guys think it's too edgy or special snowflake I won't use it, I just thought it'd be kinda cool.

>these assholes just didn't want to
Wow, someone who makes a bargain with a powerful being as a quick avenue to power doesn't want to deal with the consequences? How novel!
Guess what, your patron's knocking whether you like it or not.
Note however, that according to warlock fluff, the patron generally doesn't have the power to take their abilities away. They provided techniques or secrets and the warlock already knows how to use them. But they may refuse to give more knowledge or they may require services if you want to keep gaining levels in warlock.

Sounds tedious, to be honest. It sounds cool but playing a mute character is ass.

> ("You try to make my pact/patron story-relevant or a source of conflict and I WILL QUIT THIS GAME!").
by fluff great old one doesn't even have to know you exist, so the game itself has a built in route for players that don't want to deal with this. its not like paladin

>How come heat metal heats the whole damn thing? Can you heat the entirety of the earth's core with heat metal?
Because Strahd is a cheater. A big one.
And no, you slippery-slope moron, I'm not proposing the Heat Metal effect is infinite, I'm saying boosting it for a narrative effect that fits extremely well with Strahd's game of hopelessness is appropriate for a DM. If your players are saying "that's not fair!" about what Strahd does, then you're playing him right.

I think that's dumb. The patron should be able to take away power (or just send some powerful demons to snuff them) if the warlock gets too far out of line.
>Dammit, Ragnar, that's the last straw! I want your pact and your staff, now!
and your other staff

But user the dmg clearly states that you're meant to provide 5-8 appropriate balanced encounters per level where none of.us can really.die and these Orcs are only meant to have 11 HP and deal d8 not D12 damage. The video game.manual says so so that's how you have to do it.

2 of my players can't come to tonight session.

Quick Veeky Forums give me a 3-persons, 4 hours one-shot

Thanks, I'll sit down and try to come up with a way to let them find out how to reach the conclusion that one of the alchemists they met before is the cult leader.
Just need to come up with a few more steps between confronting the first batch of cultists to ultimately finding the guy. I just feel like I wrote myself into a corner for this quest line, as I can't think of any more alternate scenarios the players could take before reaching the conclusion when their only goal to reach in town is to save it from that cult by stopping the spread of the drug. There's not really much else they should be doing in town right now, as that's an urgent issue that HAS to be resolved ASAP. Any ideas of what additional research and detective work they'd have to do before connecting the cult to an alchemist would be incredibly appreciated, as it's currently planned to find a later with stylized initials that would get them to their target.

As for them having a reason to work together, their character's aren't actually connected to each other personally and just happened to all be put into the same group when enlisting to earn money and help save the city. I'm thinking of introducing an adventurer's guild that they get suggested to as a group by the guard captain after they solved the situation. That way I could probably tell them that, as official members, they're free to go anywhere on the continent and get special privileges as adventurers such as cheaper lodgings and being able to be hired by state institutions for work and do mercenary work as a well-regarded job. Maybe give them some hints or clues what is currently happening in other parts of the world where help could be needed to give them a preview of what awaits them depending on where they're going without putting the entire weight of the world onto them.

Well, sure, but this would be better as an early thing. The players grab hold of it early and think they'll get a fast easy out and then get fucked over to introduce them to the 'it's not going to be that easy'.

See, I don't get this. I'm making a warlock for a new campaign and part of the reason I want to try it is the pact and how it might screw me over down the road

Personally wanted to try a level 20 one-shot for a while now where there is a sudden crypt/labyrinth/dungeon that appeared on the surface after an earthquake that they players then find out is actually a gigantic, buried golem, fighting them from the outside while they're in its body.

Warlocks should have been int casters anyway before they decided to unbalance the int/wis/cha caster balance.
Not to mention, you should be giving warlocks hidden bonuses to relevant information, otherwise you get the fiend pact tiefling who somehow knows nothing about hell or fiends or anything while that one barbarian who happened to roll a 20 knows everything.

I thought that might be the case. I could have her use Minor Illusion to speak, might have some cool roleplay potential.

Also this is what custom level 1 feats are for
'I want a character who knows a lot about forbidden lore'
'Okay that can be part of that starting benefit and you can have a forbidden lore specialist warlock'

bandits stole the mayors horse, but the bandits are demons and the horse is actually a small dragon the mayor is a akeleton/spoiler]

Maybe make your relationship more personal. The PHB asks you to consider if your relationship is "friendly, antagonistic, uneasy, or romantic?"

Maybe a Fey creature made you her lover, and her gifts are generous, but she also gets extremely jealous and demands you travel long distances so you can be with her for a night in a strange location. "Oh user, it would be so romantic if you came to me in the caldera of Mount Explode, it is beautiful right before it erupts. You'll travel the 600 miles to be with me there, right?"

Aren't there backgrounds that tie in nicely to Arcana and stuff like that?

it's like putting unecessary twists everywhere
the players are actually sentient trucks

In that case, you'll want an item that has narrative benefits, not just "do +2 damage". Various staffs might do, but they may tip your players off that you're gonna take it away.

Maybe stage a difficult fight, and have the enemy leader try to get away, but let the players "sequence break" by killing them anyway and getting a powerful magic item.

the bandits are Vin diesel and Paul Walker

>Warlocks should have been int casters anyway before they decided to unbalance the int/wis/cha caster balance.
Warlocks only make sense as CHA casters because someone with lots of INT or WIS wouldn't make a pact with a neublous entity as a shortcut for power

the bandit leader is mysteriously absent from the group and if the party looks into it its revealed that their leader is Tiberius from the hit Dungeons and Dragons stream Critical Role

Thank you.

Point 3 applies almost verbatim to Sorcerers, too. "They are so much worse than Wizards!" say people who try to play them as if they were wizards.

And then goalposts are moved: but what's the point of doing damage if it doesn't compare to martials with GWM/SS?

To which I have to say, considering that no martial options compare to using GWM/SS/PAM... maybe Warlock and Sorcerer damage isn't where the problem lies, here?

I'd argue an INT person absolutely would do that. People usually don't take risks like making a bargain like that because they CAN'T get powerful otherwise, but because they COULD but they're lazy and tempted.

It's like people cheating in college. So many of them would have passed if they just put in the work. Total failures tend to just drop out.

Not even as a joke

who said it was a joke

i disagree.
high INT low WIS = overambitious.
which completely fits the whole "i'll make a deal with an ancient god, i'll surely outsmart him anyway in the end".

But to be honest, as a DM, my players can be either. Allows for more warlock gnomes too, which I find fun.

>People usually don't take risks like making a bargain like that because they CAN'T get powerful otherwise, but because they COULD but they're lazy and tempted.
That's the gist of my warlock's backstory. A little hackneyed? Yeah, but I don't care

It's my group's first time playing, and two of the four of them keep spouting this "just use a generic DnD setting!" over and over, despite the fact I said I have everything built.
Is it really beneficial to play a "generic" or "prebuilt" setting to pop their cherries?
What I have built is already pretty generic but they still don't seem pleased.
Of course, we are playing 5e.

You both read the part where I said a high-INT warlock would work, right? I'm agreeing with you. They could have been wizards but they thought they had a faster avenue that was easier.

I know. I was agreeing with you, silly

The difference is that warlocks are actually way different from wizard, while a sorcerer casts from a worse version of the wizard list with worst mechanics tied to it

Players gonna be wrapping up SKT soon. Was wondering whether I should give them a reason to do one of the high level TftYP dungeons or create my own story from here on out.

What's a good threat/problem/enemy/adventure for an eleventh level party?

Backgrounds have awfully lackluster features.

if you want to give players a good range of customization, you throw them a feat that they're allowed to mess with a lot as long as you bring them all into balance for flavourful effect. 'I want to make a fighter that throws knives and also is a great chef'... You make throwing knives a bit more viable and also some minor cooking ability for minor buffs.
'I want to be a blood mage' and you can make a simple 'cast with HP' system.
'I want to know forbidden knowledge' and you just throw that in as an extra.

It's much better to say 'since you're a dwarf, you know about stone shit' than 'I guess you get a higher roll to potentially know shit' because it gives more meaning to it, I feel, and people shouldn't feel 'oh no the bard is better at all skills than all of us'... But I don't have enough experience to say entirely how it works yet.

>What's your favorite way to play a Fighter?
Just a guy who knows how to hit very hard with a sword/hammer/axe/wathever

I kinda hate how people don't seem to get narrative power unless it's also a +3 sword of supercool or whatever.

This sort of thing really needs to be done more often, it's great to show the players that there is no true preplanned 'sequence' to everything and that things can take an unexpected turn, and then they have to decide how they use that power when it isn't just a flat 'combat is now easier'

Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the sword

>Good? Bad?
Depends on the rest of the group, if it's a muderhobos game: neutral, if it's a group of heroes: good.

If you can work it into conversation, mention that 5e is actually balanced around players not having magic items (except maybe having magic weapons, just not +1 ones), so anything they get is an added boost to their power.
And then start dropping items that give minor or situational boosts to things, like Boots of Striding and Springing (useful? If you're a Dwarf or small race, sure) or Bag of Tricks, or wands if you want to give them a power boost without actually giving them +1.

Honestly some things like wands sound even worse.
A wand of lightning at a low level is a potential +6 level 3 spell slots an adventuring day for the purpose of spamming lightning bolt.

A lot of the DMG items don't really seem great as a DM, but I can understand players liking them for their raw power value.

Are Stormtroopers Lawful Evil?

Unless you're 100% dedicated to the concept and know the other players and DM won't be annoyed by it, I'd still say to drop the muteness. You can be a construct and follow those rules, and even keep the backstory. A statue being Pygmalion'd into existence is just as plausible as it being able to speak after said animation.

lrn2Bruce Campbell

>If you can work it into conversation, mention that 5e is actually balanced around players not having magic items
Which is why artificer can never be properly designed in this game

Almost like an adventurer adrenaline junkie
Always looking to test his mettle against fantastical creatures and looking for a new challenge like that Temple of Skulls over there rather than taking a shortcut through Merry Forest

Yes, like all soldiers.

No, evil implies selfishness. They just follow orders. Seems more LN to me.

Lawful Neutral for the enlisted and lower officers. It's only the big brass in the Empire that actually leans toward evil alignments, most Stormtroopers are just doing what the fuck they're told to do.

Also what the fuck does this have to do with 5e?

Is a Paladin of righteousness a soldier?

Depends
Most are just dudes doing a day job they're not all frying Aunts and Uncles while oppressing civilians
In the Core they'd probably lean Lawful N.

Just gathering alignment examples for a few other players in my group and trying to correct assumptions about said examples. We're playing a 5e Campaign.