/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General

I was contemplating a alternative to death saving throws for my next short campiagn.

Instead of saves PCs have a pool of HP equal to their regular HP. This secondary pools pool drains after the primary HP pool hits 0. If the second pool hits 0 the PC dies, but are otherwise fine. The secondary HP can only be recovered with expensive magic/potions/rituals and leveling up.

Thoughts?

Okay I will.

I've been working on an undead monk enemy, kinda like a lich if it was a monk instead of a wizard

tell me whatcha think

Mm, either consuming a magic item, or getting hit by magic gives some some sort of buff, either nullifying the damage or reducing it in the process. I'm fine with setting up my own stuff, just wondering if there's any official material to work with.

Just use Vitality you mong

Just finished my first set of dungeon tiles. I'm really excited to use these in game!

Tiamat has an ability called Limited Magic Immunity, where it can make spells lower than level 6 fail against it. You can tone this down to absorbing cantrips and level 1 spells.

Alternatively, make them innately know the spell Counterspell.

What spells should an arcane trickster have other than the obvious disguise self and various illusions?

Thanks, it's a good start!

I wouldn't tone it down. A Rakshasa (CR 13) has this feature as well.

>I can't win D&D in one round anymore like muh 3e!
Poor sweet baby

Looks cool! Hope you have fun, user.

>getting to play irl and with minis

I'm jealous.

Reposting on the new thread: My 10th-level players will probably ask a favor from a Hag coven, and I'm trying to think of what they'd ask in return, stuff that should be disgusting or somehow lead to their downfall and despair later on, but I have no idea what to do. So far all I have is half a gallon of the aasimar paladin's blood and/or the young elven druid's virginity.

We're playing Tyranny of Dragons, btw.

As much as I'd like to do that, I'm trying not to derail the campaign too much, as anything too time consuming would likely lead to the party turning down the offer.

The plan is having the party defend a rite from monsters wanting a nice magic snack, so having a few versions to toss around will be useful either way. Now that I think of it, crag cats have spell turning, I could use that too, those things are only CR1.

Asa paladin, do I lose too much damage going 1h/shield compared to 2h?

I'm thinking of going either crow or vengeance.

If you're grabbing GWM, you lose a lot of damage, yeah, but you'll still be viable with your smites and such.

Check out the Tarrasque, the Flail Snail and the Crag Cat. They all have some form of spell turning.

A better idea might be to give your creature a small radius antimagic field, but that could be really annoying.

It was surprisingly easy. The tiles were made from foam (maybe $50 in materials) and took like three post-work days of work to make. If you're interested look for Black Magic Craft on YouTube.

Mini painting is pretty easy and is a lot of fun. Reaper has really cheap models for tabletop play and nowadays there's a lot of resources for learning how to paint on YouTube.

I'd do that but the secondary HP pool is their max HP instead.

Also if you really do want a cushion it's not a bad idea to use something like a 'death's door' thing when a player hits absolute 0 where any further damage makes them roll for possible injuries/death/unconsciousness and they're also disadvantaged on pretty much everything.

Do you think that the +2 AC is better overall than the damage boost of GWM?

>Hire wizard to graft extra arms to your body
>Get GWM and a shield at the same time

Is two weapon fighting really as bad as everyone says it is?

First I'd ask why are their Con, Int and Cha so low. You'd be hard pressed to find any epic level enemies with a stat below 10. Bear in mind that Cha is not about how they look, but their force of personality and will, besides also their defense against banishment and several other effects (And 5 is -3). And why doesn't it have proficiency in all saves? Monks get that, right?

The skill bonuses make no sense. History is -3+7=(+4) or -3+14=(+11); and Acrobatics is 4+7=(+11) or 4+14=(+18).

Does Mind's Eye use a reaction? Even if it doesn't I'm assuming they can at most do this once per round, yes?

All in all, for a boss, your Incorruptible is a chump. Those 90 HP are not going to hold for long, especially at the level where a party is supposed to fight against it. I doubt it is indeed a CR 21, you'd probably have to buff him quite a bit to get there.

>halfling sorcerer
>it's a halfling with the hyperactivity of a gnome and desire to fuck shit up joking and playfully
>also the face of the party
>just came back to town after defeating bbeg
>after making him drink a concoct made of ale powder and a failed invisibility potion sample, which turned his whole head to fire until it stopped being funny and we put it off, we paraded the guy through town in the most flashy way possible
>We literally raised hell in town after making the three political figures of town face each other, given that BBEG had been dealt with
>stuff happened, and it was decided I'd throw a party for all of the town
>Next morning, my party finds me asleep along a female halfling
>they decide to feed me some magic viagra while i'm asleep

Now I need to decide what will my character do for next game under the effects of an aphrodisiac, given how much he likes to party hard. Any suggestions that won't lead into me becoming That Guy?

Don't think I dislike this situation though; it's the perfect excuse to flaunt a high roll on dick size i did privately with my DM in case something like this happened

t. that guy

Thank god for Pinterest.

>mfw downloading a bunch of battlemaps for roll20

Fuck vitality and the horse you rode in on.

Or suck your DM's dick for an Animated Shield or a Dancing Greatsword.

>high roll on dick size
Wow. What a game huh.

Neat. I myself have a collection of custom modular 5" tiles. Nothing beats old-school dice and minis

Do you have the new Curse of Strahd ones?

>mfw i'm deleting gnomes entirely from my setting and replacing them along with halflings with a nature sprite race

>Any suggestions that won't lead into me becoming That Guy?

sounds like you're already there

Nah, I was focused on generic stuff that I could use for random encounters.

Thats the thing. I'm trying to avoid the whole "don't heal until 0 hp" thing and the death spiral that happens from penalties from low HP.

My group really enjoys hard won victories, but your turn spent saving is boeing. So this keeps them in the fight while providing a real incentive to remain healthy.

But if it's to much, I might consider a death saves at absolute 0. Save or die style.

My DM is just giving exhaustion once you get 0 hp.Dont know if thats hardcore enough for you.

>Normal Humans get +1 to every stat
>Elves of all kinds get a ton of benefits
>Dragonborn, Tieflings, and Half-Orcs also have fewer features
Is it worth giving them a racial feat of their choice for free, or is that ridiculous?

These are some valid points. Thanks guy

Featherfall has saved my as
As has Mend

Normal human is ass, you're over-valuing the 6 +1s. Tieflings and Half-Orcs are fine as they are, but Dragonborn does need a bit of love.

Normal humans are easily the worst race in the game mechanically

I didn't mean to imply that normal human would stay as-is. It really is one of the most boring options. Really, +1 to every stat when other races can avoid death, avoid sleep, reroll critical failures, resist magic effects, or get free cantrips? But, yes, Dragonborn is a bit underpowered.

This is great

I have a set of clear plastic tiles. I like them a lot, but they never evoke that "You're actually there" feeling that dungeon tiles do. It also feels weird to place terrain on them.

I know a lot of people print out birds eye view of terrain and put it under the clear tiles, but I've never gotten it to look right. There's always a scaling problem or it just looks weird.

I replaced them with rat people.

Thanks user!

>rat people"
Call them the "Zurcdets"

I wanted to keep Halflings, but I see no use for gnomes. What's a good substitute? Nezumi work The Kara-Tur Rats, but what other substitutes are there?

I have a custom setting where Ratfolk replace Gnomes, for the most part. I basically did my best to replicate the Pathfinder Ratfolk to be up to snuff with 5e. I think they fit better.

Other cool replacements could be Darklings, some sort of Nymph or some other small Fey creature with toned down magical abilities. Nymph could make a cool race with elemental based sub classes like Genasi.

Help?

The 5" tiles are just that. No grid, just the "floor", I have wooden slats, stone, water, sand, and grassland. The terrain I use is custom made or cast from hirst arts molds. Walls are kept low to allow ease of play.

We don't adhere strictly to the positioning rules. For us, anybody on the same Tile simply counts as being within 5 feet. Feels like a good mix of grid play and theater of the mind.

The virginity one sounds like it could cause problems. I'd avoid it.

Also the half gallon of blood sounds difficult to wrangle in game mechanic perspective. Take a bunch of damage or exhaustion? Ok, I'll just rest for the next couple of days. Or just produce the blood over the course of a few days. I don't like it and I don't think it'll play well.

I think an easy one is "we want a child." Why do they want a child? Who knows. But they want a child. Or even better, they want to replace a child with a changeling child (or a hag child or whatever). To arrange that they could be like "crack open the window of a nearby village elder's house". No other explanation needed, the hags just need the window open so they can feel "allowed in" and steal their child in the night.

My players have gotten into the habit of sending the one or two stealthy team members ahead to scout out as much of every area as possible, and it's gotten to the point where half the time the rest of the party doesn't get to do much of anything while they wait for the scouts to do their thing and report back. How can I keep everyone engaged when they do this or, failing that, encourage them to not send scouts ahead in every single situation?

Ambush the scouts a few times
Have enemies send troops ahead and have them take on the smaller party staying behind

Ambush them with phase spiders while the scouts are away
Then ambush the scouts with phase spiders
Phase spiders everywhere

Hekaton is such a reactionary ruler. All he ever wants is for people to stop doing things.

>halfling with the hyperactivity of a gnome
So, a halfling

>not making your own in RPG Maker

F-fuck that's a good idea

Teach them why it's a bad idea to split the party. At some point the scouts are bound to roll low and be noticed by enemies with high passive Perception or advantage on perception checks (+5 to passive). Or maybe they stumble upon some magical trap or alarm that sets off the whole dungeon after them. Or just, you know, areas you can't stealth through.

Some guy posted a guide on how he did it a while ago. Should show up in the archive if you search rpg maker on tg.

More complex and potentially magical traps. It doesn't matter how stealthy you are if you trip up a pressure plate or get mind fucked by a rune on wall.

What? Nah, half links are chill, if anything he's describing a Kender.

youtube.com/watch?v=b5XWgWWeg7w
IT'S TIME

If healing is good mid-fight, then healing becomes mandatory mid-fight and the game becomes shit for healers, and shit for everyone else because now they need healers. No?
This. Or don't let yourself get ganged up on by all the monsters in the fight.
>Well, he can roll his saving throw each round...
Actually, the player still rolls a d20 and marks the result. That's a little reduced from a normal round, but not that different in kind.

But death saves are basically a death's door or 0 hp is special system. It's a buffer so that a PC doesn't normally go from full function to dead in one "thing," but instead gives the players time to react. I haven't seen anything that does it better for D&D so far. Some moron just bitches about it unproductively instead.
>Suddenly, threats you could easily brush away become life-threatening
If you're low on HP, a few low damage hits is now life-threatening. The point is that as long as you're conscious, you aren't [usually] one attack from death. Unless it's really big and gets you by massive damage.

Look, if you go with a -hp threshold, then it takes a long time for low damage hits to finish off a beaten PC, and big hits already get that effect with death by massive damage. There's no improvement. If you go for death at 0 HP, there's obvious problems. I shouldn't even care though since I don't even agree with your "problems". I suppose you could make a dying track to go from healthy to death in stages, like 0 HP is disadvantage on offense, 1 failure is disadvantage on everything, 2 failures you're also prone/immobilized, and 3 failures you're unconscious and dying on your next turn. Stretch it out or condense it down to taste. Then you're just making 0 HP "Danger" instead of "Beaten" and you're being extra unfair to NPCs that don't get death saves.

The virginity one is mostly just to be disturbing. They are hags after all, but they'd say it in a joking manner.

What I'd do for the blood would be basically what you said. Lose around a quarter of their HP and a Con save against exhaustion. But the idea is not that losing blood would be a hindrance to the party. The idea is "Are you ok with letting these hags have some of your blood?"

Now, your suggestion has got me thinking. Make a seemingly harmless request that has awful consequences. I just need to figure out a way to make it fit with my plot, or tie it to something.

>snuff
*stuff

>If healing is good mid-fight, then healing becomes mandatory mid-fight and the game becomes shit for healers, and shit for everyone else because now they need healers. No?

4e more or less had that solved, with minor-action healing or adding healing onto 'Doing other stuff' so you don't have to spend your turn just healing.

Tell me about your setting.
Tell me about your gods.
Tell me about your races.
Tell me about you party.

>Setting
World has some crazy fucked up magical shit.. People tend to be born with innate magical ability more so than not, especially in certain parts of the world. As such, most people not born with magic rarely, if ever, choose to research it, leading to a diminutive number of wizards in the world.

>Gods
H-Ha ha, what Gods?

>Races
your run of the mill races from the players handbook. Aasiimar are unique and small in number. Only two in the world currently.

>Party
A regular human battlemaster who is quite brutish and not good in social situations, a wizard, an Aasiimar Paladin on a mission, a warlock who is in the process of unwinding the fabrics of reality like a cat with a ball of yarn, and a Sun Monk medabot-like warforged.

A half a century, demons invaded the world and ravaged much of the powerful human and elven empires. Only through the treachery of a balor demon were the people able to stop this invasion. However, much of the world has been reshaped, and the wound of war have not yet healed

>H-Ha ha, what Gods?

do clerics not function or do you have another system in place

>If you're low on HP, a few low damage hits is now life-threatening.
You're at 1 HP. Monster hits you.
Healer just heals you back up again like it was nothing, unless the DM has a monster attack you in which case you just die. It's a black and white 'DM decides to kill you' or 'you're perfectly fine'
Which does give the DM room to decide how they want to play, but still kinda sucks because players aren't always sure how the DM is going to play it and makes player characters oddly glass cannons in comparison to monsters.

You can use other systems instead of death saves instead of just flat death at 0. Some of those systems give you more health but remove that net of death saves, and that makes you pretty much in line with NPCs.

>Setting
Low fantasy. An adventurers' guild regulates all adventurers through bulletin boards. They have hostel-like taverns all throughout the realm.

Thousands of years ago there was an ancient race of sorcerers who enslaved all the other races. /something/ happened that killed most of them. Those who survived became the deities worshipped today.

Everyone has a magical energy in them. Those with an excessive amount can just naturally toss it around (sorcerers) while others have to use tools as catalysts and study it to make use of it (wizards).

>Gods
6 gods in the main pantheon. Countless others. 6 gods are illegal to be worshipped (gods of murder, tyranny, etc). Other than that, there are countless other gods of random shit like sports and painting and education.

>Races
Human folk: humans, halflings
Elf folk: elves, gnomes
Stone folk: dwarves, giants
Wild folk: orcs, goblins, gnolls, trolls

>Party
A human female cleric who worships the neutral goddess of death. Sees death as rest and seems to have no fear of combat or pain. Huge pussy in other regards.

Elf druid who can't stop preaching to everyone about veganism.

Dwarf warlock who gives 0 fucks and just wants to make money. Sold his soul for more time on earth. Loves to fuck with people.

A quiet half-orc fighter who is basically the Chewbacca to the dwarf's han solo. The party thinks he's retarded but he has a high wisdom score and an average intelligence. On his own he's proven to be the most capable but nobody trusts him to do anything and they treat him like a child.

Nah, up to snuff is the right usage.

Or you could not go around picking fights at 1 hp because any two critters, or anything with multiattack, could easily kill you.

>Setting
Orcs controlled most of the continent until a glacial dam burst and a ginormous deluge wiped out most of their settlements along the river they used as a natural barrier against the war-torn human lands. The humans united (through conquest) in the wake of the deluge and push west. They also plundered artifacts and magical secrets from the Dwarves, whose nation was destroyed by the same Deluge. Using these secrets (and with a little help from mercenary-inventor Gnomes from an island that's mysteriously getting closer) they crack steam engine tech way early and even leapfrog blackpowder weapons on the way to developing magically-powered gauss crossbow-guns. The Humans had a Civil War, the Dwarves had a Revolution in their new desert home on the other side of the mountains they were previously living in, and the Orcs mysteriously packed up and left for a few years which gave Humans and Dwarves ample time to swoop in and take most of their land.
Now it's Wild West time.

>Gods
Monotheism, but every race/nation worships differently. Orcs and Halflings (who are Gnomes) are animists/spiritualists. Humans have God and the Devil, but they're both distant, with no messiah figure; Elves follow the same, but they're not as preachy about it. Dwarves also believe in the same God and El Diablo, but they think God is too busy to answer prayers and delegates most work to Saints, so they pray to those instead. Gnomes are Hindu, and everyone assumes their Goodguy and Badguy are just some weird interpretation of God and Devil so they have an excuse to NOT Deus Vult their asses (because the Gnomes are superwizards and would probably magi-nuke their boats before they got close).

>Races
Orcs are Native Americans, Humans run the gamut of European cultures, Dwarves are Mexican, Elves are French-Canadian, Halflings are Mongolian (and an off-shoot of Gnomes), and Gnomes are Indian.

>Party
Elven Rogue who used to be a smuggler but got caught, reeducated, saw the light, and now works as a Boat Cop for their nation's waterways and mercantile interests, while also tracking down the old crew that burned her.
Human Sorcerer and Marshall who casts all of his shit through his gun. He's chasing down the mysterious Tall Man who fucked up his life hardcore.
Human Bard and Preacher who miraculously survived a terrible disease found only in the West when he was young, and now wanders around using his minor celebrity and divinely charmed life to minister to the settlers while hunting down the wild monsters who are also afflicted by the disease.
Human Fighter from out of time. A Knight from the old days, when the humans still had kingdoms and warred. He was petrified and kept as a souvenir by a wizard, then wound up in various royal galleries and eventually museums before someone realized, "Hey, this isn't a nice statue, this is a dude who got stoned," and reversed it. Now he's indebted to an arcaheologist who's sent him West to help out his other students.

I'm hoping one of the other interested guys joins in with a Dwarf or something later.

I took Mage Hand and Minor Illusion. What's the best attack cantrip for a Wizard

If you get lucky with initiative and the healer goes just before you or have really good saves, it will take more than two attacks to down you considering that would only be two failed saves if it's a melee attack. Or if the enemies split up their attacks, or if the DM has made it clear that monsters only attack downed players if you give them a reason (so they have to see you healing first) or if you have anti-crit protection or if the monsters use ranged attacks or if the monsters use AoE attacks or if the monsters use anything that isn't a melee attack. Or if your AC is so high a melee attack still wouldn't have likely hit anyway, or if you just stay at a distance so the enemies couldn't melee attack even if they threw a rock and downed you.

But if your DM makes it clear that monsters will try to outright kill players it becomes sacks full of bullshit given how easy it is for a player to hit 0 in some games, and if you get unlucky with initiative that'll mean the next monster will walk up and finish you off.

I'd honestly rather not make players rely on initiative and healers.

Ray of Frost. You're not going to kill anything, so you may as well kite for days. Also, unlimited chilled drinks.

>setting
i'm working on it, trying to go with a "swords and sandals setting with fantastic elements". Like being more inspired by Mesopotamia and ancient Rome and Egypt/North Africa, and maybe central asia, rather than your run of the mill central/western european medieval fun, but with fantastic magical elements to it. Again, working on it.

>Gods
undecided, first draft had the gods "lost" (secretly they existed, but in such a reduced state they couldn't even leave their 'area' or make contact with followers so everyone believed they were gone). Now I'm wondering of going with multiple pantheons, as in there is a few overgods that rule over a few other pantheons below them, and the overgod at the top of each one basically reside at a !not-mount-olympus sort of deal.

>races
humans, elves of either a muscular jungle or fleet of foot desert variety, both deliciously brown, some sort of small nature sprite race I want to put together to replace halflings/gnomes. Dwarves, though not mountain mining types, kobolds, MAYBE dragonborn, and some sort of actual half-dragon race that looks more humanoid than dragon, then 1-3 more

>party
none i'm still building the world

You didn't use the official design your own monster CR guide did you?
This is in no way CR21 material.

>swords and sandals setting with fantastic elements
Barsoom, my nigga.

There was an unofficial archetype for sorcerer called "Blue Sorcerer or Cobalt Sorcerer" where whenever they failed a death saving throw from a Spell they could use their reaction to learn the spell. This is added to their spell list and they use it as a sorcerer spell if they have the slots for it.

>elves of either a muscular jungle or fleet of foot desert variety, both deliciously brown

Brown is love.

Yeah but nobody wants to play in your fetishbait setting, user.

Different Anons.
But I have had Brown Elf as an option in one of my previous settings, as a replacement for Drow.

If monsters are a commonplace how would that affect a country's military?

I'm wondering mostly if a country would have simply more people in it's army or less but more skilled.

>Enjoy thinking up and theorycrafting new characters.
>Will never get to play 90% of them because DnD activity is fucking DEAD in my area and I can only play through old friends, infrequently.