/5eg/ Fifth Edition General:

I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, mind sharing those reasons? The crit part is a measure, but I thought about doing it on a "soft" crit, like if you exceed AC by a set amount.

You make the enemy dodge/block the blow, but not do so perfectly. For example, a stunning blow to head while wearing a helmet, or moving the head out the way and getting a solid hit on a collarbone.
There should be ways to prevent and instakill from a strike aimed to the head and ways to discourage a player from targeting only that.

Yes. Play Shadow of the Demon Lord

Huh, I didn't think Hoard was THAT bad.
Then again I did play it when I was new to the game so perhaps my view is skewed.

Stop shilling your system.

Decent. Prefer the first half because it's more open to what you can do and where you can go. Second half feels a bit more 'go here, now go here' but that might just have been my DM

I'd have been happy if we got SotDL as 5e. Maybe with a bit less edge.

Because when you cast a spell or expend a manuever, you can inflict a temporary condition on an enemy that will hinder him, for a short while. It weakens the foe, but expends your resources.

Permamently crippling your enemy by saying "I chop off his hand!" and just rolling for attack is plain wrong.

Nice, thank you!

It's very railroaded and gives you very little reason to do what you are doing. Rise of Tiamat does it a bit better with the council of waterdeep and giving you options on what do to, but Hoard is essentially just do this and now this.

So in my last session, the party found out that there is a half orc alchemist who is big into eugenics, and he's been working on a way to manipulate and introduce controlled lycanthropy into the mix. He captured a werewolf and has been draining fluids from him, which have been collected into a vat with other various mixtures

Upon stumbling across him, the alchemist unleashed a few baddies for the party to take down, and then jumped headlong into the vat.

The bard of the party ran to the vat and immediately poured acid into it, and it got a reaction but the vat just kept bubbling. Then on the alchemist's next turn, it turned gold. One of the baddies made his way to the bard and tried to attack but missed. But they know that the mobs definitely hurt due to the smackdown that the monk took on his turn just prior to that. So, my bard has the ingenious plan to avoid the mob: he jumps into the vat. And the session literally had to end there, which I am glad for because I'm not 100% sure on how to go forward from there.

I've got some ideas on how to play this out, but I'm interested in what you guys think?

Actually the best suggestion I've seen in these threads in a while. IRL group swapped a few months back, only playing 5E with an old group of friend's that play online.

The debuffs wouldn't be permanent, should've said that in the first post. A minor one or two round debuff that doesn't make an enemy instagibbed. I was thinking along the lines of -1 AC, or -1 DEX modifier or something that doesn't heavily impede the enemy, but does give it a disadvantage.

While you can make it roll disadvantage, and thats probably the best idea, it doesn't feel "satisfying"? You feel me?

No matter how hard the temptation, you should not reward him for this "cunning plan" in any way. There's ingenuity, and there's stupidity and recklessness.

On a crit, roll 1d6 and apply some penalties that I'm not going to make for you, with location based on roll (Body, L. Arm, R. Arm, L. Leg, R. Leg, Head). Alternative, they may take an aimed blow targetting one of these spots in particular. Their attack has Disadvantage, but if successful, they get the bonus to that slot. And obviously, none of those bonuses are going to be instant death.

Alternatively, buy one of the fifty thousand Crit decks.

Daily reminder that Planescape is dead.

Good riddance.

That's actually pretty smart user. The aimed strike sounds like a good measure, thank you!

So, I'm trying to introduce my friend group to pen and paper games in general, and obviously, the logical first option is D&D. This will also be my first time as DM. I have concerns.

1) That they will murderhobo everything and everyone.
2) That they will be uninterested in the basic world of D&D, that they will require something a little less on the nose in terms of how the world functions. Think, like, Demon's Souls.

The only solution I can come up with only solves problem (1), which is to give them plenty of interesting things to find and do, even if they do murderhobo everything. Interesting dungeon lore, traps, or a fun puzzle.

Soooo.. I don't suppose anyone has any fun ideas/puzzles/encounters/whatever to make breaking my friends' D&D hymen a fun time?

I think what he's getting at is that it's quite overpowered compared to other stuff in the game. Take Vicious Mockery. You have to forgo your entire action in order to possibly pose an disadvantage on the enemy, while a fighter could do the same thing by just hitting him with an attack (and also damage him on top of that.)

It kinda makes debilitating magic or effects useless, since fighters would be much stronger at that. I'd go for what that user suggested and let them decide on a critical if they want to debilitate the enemy or do double damage. Or maybe when a creature gets battered like there's no tomorrow (dealing insane amounts of damage) you could also give him some form of debilitation or disadvantage for flavour.

well, my plan at the moment was to make up a temporary character sheet for him, a temporary werewolf basically. He'll be a raging beast so he wont have access to any of his spells and weapons, and he'll be making a saving throw each turn to determine if he has control over his PC or not.

In addition to that, I'm also going to be making this werewolf severely weakened due to the fact that he threw in acid. He has no kind of acid resistance, so I don't see why he should take no punishment for this.

I'm asking for ideas because I /kind/ of like what I have in mind, but I'm not quite sure how fun it is?

>Low tier - Lost Mines of Phandelver
But everyone recommend it as a first adventure, I'm even preparing to run it

Yeah, it's great for beginners, players and DMs. But for anyone else? Not really.

I'm also new and just did LMoP. I'm guessing it's more experienced people talking about how the module is designed. I don't think you should start at CoS if you've literally never played D&D before (like us, before LMoP).

But then again, I might be wrong. Nevertheless, our party had a lot of fun playing LMoP.

>I don't think you should start at CoS if you've literally never played D&D before
I played a lot, but I never DMed in my life

I'd probably place it Medium. It's nothing amazing, it's just a very good entry point for people to learn the game.

>OotA = CoS > PotA > SKT

>High tier - Storm King's Thunder

Which of these anons is right?

Is your party completely new? LMoP has a lot of 'cliches' that make players and the DM learn how to deal with certain aspects. More experienced players might find it a tad boring, but since you're new to DMing I'd still suggest running it.

And you can always just adjust the module, ofcourse.

Ah, I see. Thanks for clarifying. I think I've got a general feel for what I should now and I think I know what I'm gonna do, based on all you kind Anons' input.

Thank you all for contributing

It's real fun to run, I can tell you that much. RNG can be a bitch to the players, adding to the madness.

If I plan to run a modified Ghostwalk game next where all the players are ghosts, should I start the party dead or give them a few sessions living before throwing them into some gruesome dungeon?

I think the idea of having them all die raiding some tomb that they then return to later as ghosts could be awesome fun, issue is that might feel a bit too railroaded.

Murderhobo only happens in cases where the players are really only in it for the laughs, do not really feel invested in the game, or are just completely bored.

If they are your friend then you surely know their personality type. I think, ultimately, you will be fine so long as you keep things consistent and motivating. If you are REALLY that concerned then maybe you should look at one of the pre-written campaigns rather than try to run something yourself.

However, if you are determined to go ahead and run your own game then always remember to start small, especially for your first time and if it is your players first time. Get a sense of what their character is, what motivates them, and their backstory and write a small campaign around that.

If it is just you and him/her then you will be able to really tailor the story entirely for them.

Oh, it's my three friends.

And if what they want is to just have a laugh and a good time, I'm okay with that. I'm interested to see how into the actual roleplay they get.

I was really just fishing for fun dungeon ideas and whatnot

tuckerskobolds.com/

I always refer people to "Tucker's Kobolds" because it shows that even the most seemingly simplistic and straightforward of dungeon designs and ideas can be really engaging, challenging, and rewarding for players.

Give this a read, it's really fantastic and offers some good insight on how you can take an enemy as weak and simple as the Kobold and turn them into the masters of this insanely fun and wild dungeon ride.

>Tucker's kobolds
Those words trigger the fuck out of me, because I remember how many dumb people tried to use this concept in 3.5, failed miserably and then got really angry at dem optimizers, when it's the system itself that's broken.
Praise the Lord for 5e.

>Curse of Strahd (though it requires a little customizing)
Any examples of good changes to the base game?

Storm King's Thunder is amazing for several reasons;

>Coherent sandbox play within an adventure path
The module suggests you let the players go hog wild in the Savage Frontier in order to build up the consequences of the broken ordning. Not only is this good writing (show don't tell) but it means the adventure is a mini-supplement for Faerun. If you hate Forgotten Realms, it has less appeal but no less utility since you get all those adventure hooks and such.

>Story is well structured
You start off being (sometimes literally) stomped on by giants. By the time you get to the Maelstrom you're more or less their equal. The final showdown is awesome.

>Less wasted content than you might think
The module includes ways to get use out of dungeons and adventure locations your players might've skipped-- this is in contrast to CoS, for example, where you'd need to play through the adventure again if you wanted a different combination of relic location/ally etc.

It's just a concept that's all and something to provide inspiration on a wide variety of GMing experiences. For me, this wasn't necessarily about wanting to copy his idea of "Kobolds" in that it showed me that you can create something really fun and memorable with an enemy that has 4HP, etc.

It just really gives inspiration to always remember to look at things from another perspective when writing a campaign or a dungeon or even a social encounter. You can stick to straightforward tropes or you can dive into the deep end a little bit and have some fun.

not the guy you were originally talking to, but something I've learned recently is that a fast way to figure out how someone will play the game is to find out the kinds of humor they enjoy.

Uncertainty makes people nervous, and one of the most common ways to break nervousness is to go for a laugh. So a new player who is uncertain about what to do and how to play is going to try to make the party laugh. Looking at what makes that player laugh is going to give you a pretty strong indicator on how that person will play the game going forward.

There isn't any 100% way to figure out if your players are going to engage in murderhobo activities but...if they're the type of person who would find that behavior funny, you're probably looking at them going in that direction.

>Any examples of good changes to the base game?
For starters, scaling the threats to your PC's level. Oh no, they now vastly outgun Lady Wachter? Too bad, she's no longer a Priest. She is now Warlock of the Fiend, and her followers are now Priests, Cult Fanatics, Veterans and demons. Izek now doesn't hurl itty-bitty fires, he hurls fireballs, and summons hell hounds.
I also developed friendly NPCs, a lot. When the party itself headed to the Amber Temple, I suddenly declared that by their brave, selfless actions they've inspired barovians to fight back.
I then handed them about twelve character sheets to choose from, and played a little episode when the NPC party slay Baba Lysaga.

Also, when the game ends, Strahd doesn't come back to life. Instead, Barovia chooses a new dark lord amongst the surviving baddies - lots of choices here, Victor Vallakovich and Patrina Velikovna being my favourites.

Now that's a fucking sweet idea, thanks.

Yesterday I received as lot of criticism for my homebrew, basically you autists sided with my DM in this one because you didn't like my backstory so I made some changes.

My problem is that my DM calls the homebrew race that I want to play "grossly unbalanced" and according to him it "doesn't fit the lore of his world", he is acting all uppity like his world is some shakespeare tier novel and not the playground where a group of friends play once a week. Like why can't he just let me play what I want? How much of an autist you have to be to restrict player creativity because of the purity of your setting.

So I took some of your feedback, the race I want to play are called Grays, they are a small tribe from the farm realm, they are gray skinned 4 feet tall with big black eyes, no nose and a small mouth, like ayylmaos.

+2 int + 1 dex
aligment: usually neutral evil but mine is true neutral (I am not a dick)
size: small
movement: 25 feet
proficiencies: investigation, stealth
special abilities: can use int for stealth checks (mental powers), knows friends and minor illusion innately as cantrips, in lvl 2 he gets telepathy and in lvl 5 misty step

languages: common, deep speech

His backstory as you autists complained too much has been changed, he is a planar traveler interested in discovering what is in the material plane, not out of greed or desire to dominate but just out of pure curiousity, he is like a tourist in the material plane who wants to have the travel of his life before returning to the farm realm.

How is this unbalanced? Variant human is much better or even forest gnome.

Crits do not deal double damage.

Here are some improvements that you should consider.

Balance doesn't matter. If your DM wants to take his game world seriously and tells you your race doesn't fit in his game world, then you're being a faggot for trying to push it. Stop being That Guy and either respect the game your DM is putting effort into, or run your own damn game.

No one wants your refluffed aliens that I want to say is either influenced by Jiren or Roger from American Dad, within there game.

So please, just choose an official race and call your self bold with a very flat nose (near indistiguisable from the rest of your face) or risk getting kicked out of the group.

Otherwise this is some good quality bait, so here is your (you).

*bald.

How would you go about making terrain for giant-sized rooms? I've seen a lot online about making dungeon tiles and such, but they're usually 3in squares. If I'm doing one of the giant strongholds from SKT, those rooms are often 100ft squared.

Spells are not created equal. Misty step is an extremely good spell. And that's assuming you meant to say 1/day, which you did not.

That said it's not better than, say Yuan-Ti Pureblood (which is a genuinely retarded official race.)

Still, it doesn't fucking matter. Your DM decides what's in his game world, and if he doesn't want you to make up a bunch of your own stuff that he has to constantly curate, then suck it up or leave the group like the child you are.

>So yeah, my DM is running a swords-and-sorcerery fantasy campaign, but I wana play a space marine. Here's my stat block for them, it's totally balanced, so he needs let me! After it all, it's just a game, rite guise XD

That's what you sound like. Please quit the hobby forever and never have children.

>The final showdown is awesome.

Eh...I mean, it's pretty good, but I didn't like that Iymrith was a dragon. Or even the inclusion of dragons. I wanted it to be all about giants from beginning to end. Likewise Iymrith's ultimate motivation for doing everything is fairly weak, in that she has nothing personal invested in the whole shebang, she just wants to add the Wyrmskull Throne to her horde.

Fortunately, an Empyrean and an Ancient Blue Dragon have exactly the same challenge rating, so it's pretty simple to change Iymrith into an Empyrean, rename her Iymrith Annamdóttir, and change her motivation from the draconic "I want the Wyrmskull Throne in my horde 'cause it's pretty" to the much more invested "I did the legwork in creating the Ordning, but my father - Annam himself - fucked over my own tribe of giants and then booted me from the Heavens when I tried to overthrow him and put my giants on top, so now I'm going to burn the Ordning to the ground."

Make that tribe of giants the ash giants from Forgotten Realms lore - who helped the Netherese build their empire but then got fucked over by the fall of Netheril and became death giants - and Iymrith even gains a proper motivation to hate small folk too.

How do you determine how high up you can chuck things when using stuff like Enlarge?

Regardless of your opinion of him/his setting, whats your opinion on Matt Mercers subclasses in his new book?

>Juggernaut Barb: Kinda cool, though no real reason to not just be battlerager/totem instead for the same fluff.
>Runechild Sorceror: Oh shit nigger what are you doing-tier
>Monk: Just.. weird? like i guess an int based monk, who gathers intel on his foes by punching them? the extra reaction thing is pre cool though
>Blood Cleric: As edgy as it is, I'm considering playing it. Blood puppet is sick, and my groups have never had an actual edgy character.
Weirdly it doesn't get vampiric touch, and its level 1 feature seems really strong for certain spells.
>When you use a spell of 1st level or higher to damage to any creatures that have blood, those creatures suffer additional necrotic damage equal to 2 + the spell’s level.
With something like spirit guardians doing an extra 5 to everyone per turn? Me and my DM worked this out to be once per spell cast, though will see how it goes.
Also, their 8th level ability seems cool though but he fucked up writing it.
>At 8th level, you can sacrifice a portion of your own vitality to recover expended spell slots. As an action, you recover spell slots that have a combined level equal to or less than half of your cleric level (rounded up), and none of the slots can be 6th level or higher. You immediately suffer 1d6 damage per spell slot level recovered. You can’t use this feature again until you finish a long rest. For example, if you’re a 4th-level Cleric, you can recover up to two levels of spell slots. You can recover either a 2nd-level spell slot or two 1st-level spell slots. You then suffer 2d6 damage.
>a 4th level Cleric
>this ability requires 8th level

>During combat, if a player damages a specific part of an enemy's body, how do you handle it?
I stop playing D&D and use GURPS which is a better system.

>just as easy to shoot an enemy 5 feet away as it is at 80 feet

There aren't really any rules. the go-to seems to be that medium-sized creatures can throw things about 20 feet if they're not well suited for throwing (like a javelin or knife), but much longer if they're larger. Exactly how much longer is very difficult to say; the giants have their various boulder throws, but you could argue that those are part size, part enormous strength, and part racial/magical/special ability.

At the end of the day it's gonna have to be some kind of ruling on the DMs part.

Nobody wants to do that much math for that little gain, fuckwit.

That's not a bad idea! I do like the inclusion of dragons though, because dragons are cool. And also it's nice to have a dragon who's motivated by something really simple: destroying humanoids and giants, and getting new swag. I'm in the middle of the giant stronghold with my players and I've found it challenging to convey the backstory about what's going on with the giants. It's kind of a complicated situation and there's a bunch of factions involved, so it's nice that the main villain's motivation can be explained in a single sentence.

One criticism I have for the story is that there are a LOT of situations the characters are put in where they're asked to trust "good guys" right after seeing evidence that they should be avoided. In chapter 1 Nightstone gets fucked up by cloud giants, then the party is asked to come aboard a cloud giant castle. My party was like "fuck that shit, I'm not doing that." And in the eye of the All-Father, the players were explicitly told "do not trust any dragon" and then immediately invited aboard a dragon cult airship. Also I would have had a lot of difficulty working in Harshnag if I hadn't worked ahead and had a player work him into his backstory. "Hey, y'all fought a bunch of frost giants in Bryn Shander and saw that they're raiding all over, here's a frost giant that you're supposed to trust out of the blue."

>look at table that is printed on your character sheet for range penalty
>simple subtraction
>"if it's anything resembling making sense or being realistic, then it's a waste of time because OMG DRAGONS and WURLD MADE OF MAGIC and that's somehow an argument."

Yeah about what I expected from a 5e player.

One every short rest

Don't disclose it. After they die, be like "Oh well, I didn't expect that. I might have put a few too many monsters, low level balance is very fickle. I'm sorry...
...But you know what, guys, you put a lot of effort into those characters backgrounds, I think I have a way of keep them going. So, no need to roll new characters or anything, see you guys next week :^)"

Those are some nice ideas. Thanks, fella.

(You) must be really bored.

>I stop playing D&D and use GURPS

>Anon1: "Okay, I make an attack roll against the guy's hand. I want to try and cut it off so he stops with the spells that are killing us all. Besides, the bounty said we need him alive, not in one piece."
>DM: "Okay, sure, but I think you'll probably have disadvantage on the attack since a hand is so much smaller - "
>Anon2: "NO."
>DM: "...?"
>Anon1: "...?"
>Anon2: "...to resolve this situation...we must use GURPS."
>Anon1: "...what, right now?"
>Anon2: "Yes. We must rebuild our characters in GURPS and use its system to resolve how to cut off a guy's hand."
>DM: "...or I could just say he has disadvantage on the attack roll and needs to deal a minimum amount of damage."
>Anon2: "NO! GURPS IS A BETTER SYSTEM REEEEEEEEE...!"
>Anon1: "He's gonna be at this for awhile, let's make a pizza run."

>my monday basement game from 6 to 9 is comparable to tolkien's world you cannot add anything to it without destroying the masterpiece

lol

This is why everyone is calling you a flaming retard. It doesn't even matter if you're right, you still come off as a self-important asshole about it, and that's a player problem, not a character problem. You are a shit person outside of the game, but That Guys never realize they're That Guy.

Couldn't say it better myself.

Yay or nay?

Nay.

Why are gurpfags always like this

I like them for a gritty campaign, but I'd definitely recommend only handing them out when a creature drops to 0 hit points, not on a critical hit (which the book recommends as one possibility). Crits happen too regularly; you'd end up losing a LOT of characters to maiming.

Even still, depending on your game it might be a bit much. So you might want to additionally add in that a character reduced to 0 hit points can make a Dexterity saving throw to avoid a lingering injury. DC 15 or 1/2 the damage dealt, whichever is higher.

I want to play a melee sorcerer. If I can't I'll just go generic melee cleric, but here's my idea.

DM didn't specify but I think we're starting at 1st level.
So Level 1 V. Human Dragon Sorcerer starting with 16DEX 16CON 15WIS 8INT/STR/CHA

Take Spell Sniper at level 1 with V Human feat and get Whip proficiency through alternate entertainer background, Gladiator. Pick up booming blade and shield as most important spells.
In combat, move in 10ft away, booming blade thanks to spell sniper doubling 5ft range, then move away. If hit 16AC for safety and 10HP.
Since you're away from the enemy they have to move and trigger the 1d8 thunder.

What do you think? Sound fun?

Honestly I feel like this is the flavor of the Sharpshooter feat. You aim for the head, the neck, the heart, etc. to deal massive damage, but since they're smaller targets you take a -5 to hit.

Jealousy. Their "universal system" doesn't even have one percent of English-speaking gamers playing it, based on all available data, whereas D&D and its derivatives control something like 60-80% of the market.

Why do you want to play an ayylmao to begin with?

Your dumb

It's "yea", you illiterate buffoon

SKT>CoS>OotA>PotA>HotDQ/RoT

LMoP would easily be #1 but it's only for low-level play. TYP would be equal to CoS but it's not really meant to be a single adventure. better as a DM resource.

...

Judging by his other posts, he's literally just a shitlord that wants to meme the campaign and doesn't see why anyone would have a problem with his WTF RANDUMB """humor""".

You could not have picked a worse class for a melee build

Is Barb 3/Battlemaster X better than full Battlemaster? Damage resist and reckless attack seem really valuable, especially since I'm using GWM.

>they are a small tribe from the farm realm
>farm realm
Do they grow crops or do they deal more with livestock?

>Ready action to throw a net on enemy after he attacks
>Since he's used his action he can't break out of it
>Everyone wails on him with advantage for an entire round
>When it comes back to your turn, ready to throw another net the instant he breaks out of the one he's in
>Do it all over again

Get Mobile instead of Spell Sniper
Stone Sorcerer gives you shield proficiency
Or take two levels of Paladin for smites

It's one of the best ever, is actually designed to teach the game. and is a really, really great resource for building one-shots, but it cuts off at lvl 5 so it's only good for low-level play, which means it's only going to last you about 20-25% as long as one of the 1-11+ modules.

*Definitely* make it your first and keep it on hand, but understand that it ends when most of the published adventures are just getting out of the starting area.

Honestly I recommend against it. It's better to have multiple maps some fixed distance apart than trying to model the whole room at once, but that kinda precludes terrain.

Yeah I currently run them only when a player hits 0 and they get a DC 15 con save and only if they fail that so they roll on the chart.

>Misty step every short rest
Your DM is correct. You're just trying to sneak overpowered shit past him.

I played a Red Dragon Sorcerer as a melee character. First, switch Wisdom and Charisma. No matter what spells you take, you're always going to be worse than a fighter with equal investment in direct combat. That means your worth to the party is in the other things you can do. That means having a decent spellcasting roll.

Second, your whole strategy falls apart if someone has a ranged attack. You'll want at least a second melee cantrip, and honestly? I would recommend just taking Warcaster. Spellsniper won't really help your gimmick build that much.

His idea is shit but misty step every short rest is not what bothers me the most. It is telepathy.

This means being able to talk to every creature, it is like knowing every language but not being able to read them. In a non murder hobo campaign this is huge.

Nay. They're an attempt to graft a different style of play onto 5e when literally nothing else in the system is set up for it.

There's both an overpowered combat option and an overpowered noncombat option.

Well, if say you're doing the stone giant stronghold, which is a cave system, couldn't you just do a bunch of cave tiles and then rearrange them into different sized rooms/hallways as you come across them? Obviously it's giant sized so it'll be too big to do one of those "here's the whole dungeon" deals.